The son of God can't write. Hahaha. As if the story couldn't get any more stupid.

(November 19, 2016 at 10:57 am)vorlon13 Wrote: For the early decades/centuries of Christianity, there wasn't a bible, manual, users guide or website to go check.  Word of mouth is how it spread, and congregations were on their own in regards as to how they were going to interpret the 5th, 10th or 20th hand version of the Christ story they heard in their specific village.  

This unsystem would guaranty all manner of HIDEOUS and VILE blasphemies and heresies to spread like cancer, and literally no 2 of the early churches would have been hewing to the same actual beliefs, and you're looking at total chaos dogma wise.  And since these early churches were populated with unavoidably illiterate congregations who left precious little of a paper trail, or even a simple count of how many of them there were, the true number of Christian denoms would be significantly larger, but even a guess about the actual number would just that, a wild guess.

 Though your assertion regarding diversity in the Early Christianity and non-existence of the canonical list of scriptures is evidently true, it stays unrelated to the argument I raised above.
It doesn't matter how diverse Early Christianity was, or what subjects they (dis)agreed upon. What matters is that almost every christian-based religion today accepts the Bible as divinely inspired book. That supposedly divinely inspired book tells us explicitly that the Church was established in the 1st century AD, as well as that its existence would prolong until the Second Coming (though this interpretation might not be perfectly true from ecclesiological standpoint of many traditional churches [e.g. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, etc.], it provides a necessary and sufficient basis for our discussion here, and is evident from the text itself). 

Therefore, the argument in a form of syllogism goes as follows:

P1: genuine Christian church exists from the 1st century AD (X) and will last until the Second Coming (Y).
P2: most of the 70,000+ christian-based religions don't exist from the 1st century AD.
C: most of the 70,000+ christian-based religions don't possess at least one conceptually necessary property (X) that genuine Christian church possesses according to the Bible.

Or, regarding the n existing churches in the 1st century AD:

P1: genuine Christian church exists from the 1st century AD (X) and will last until the Second Coming (Y).
P2: most of the n existing churches in the 1st century AD don't exist today.
C: most of the n existing churches in the 1st century don't possess one conceptually necessary property (Y) that genuine Christian church possesses according to the Bible. 


It goes without saying that this is no evidence of any sort, since the first premise is dependent upon one's willingness to accept the Bible as divinely inspired book. This argument works specifically under the assumption that one accepts said claim, either truly or for the purpose of debate. Thus, though my conclusions are by all means logically valid, they are not necessarily true.

I like you It's nice to have another theist who doesn't preach absolute truth in our faces. Great posts!

Obviously I don't agree with the premise, but I respect where you are coming from.

Tnx. I kinda find discussions with fellow theists boring, since great majority of them either possess no serious theological/philosophical background, or are not open to re-thinking their views, or both.

Faith. 

And a bunch of atheists really don't know what faith is.  Most religious as well. Faith is moral certainty. Allow me to clarify with the trusty anecdote (a Gwynnies tale). A guy at work took to calling me a stalker due to my infatuation. Patently untrue. Asked him to desist. His amusement was aroused and he said no. So I had to step up. My boss had to intervene. The label was banned. (That was the short version).

After stepping forward either I was going to feast on his heart or be removed from the realm of such considerations. Win-win.

Faith being belief without evidence is a comfortable tale told among atheists to help them sleep at night and fostered by the religious because modern civilization is not supposed to be the arena of such a bloodthirsty bitch as faith. True story.

(November 14, 2016 at 10:01 pm)Casca Wrote: So what exactly gives one religion the leg to stand on and say "this religion is true, the rest are false", when there is no evidence or fact to back up their claim?

Answered your own question, there. They don't have a leg to stand on regarding any claims they make, otherwise there would only be one religion.

(November 15, 2016 at 1:40 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: If you're an atheist, you also think everyone's religion is wrong and you're the one who's right.

Another way to look at this is that every person is an atheist because we all reject most of the gods and religions that have existed or continue to exist. I apply my standard of belief to all gods, and you make an exception for one. Are we really on equal footing in our beliefs?

I'm an atheist regarding an infinite number of possible theistic religions.

A religious person chooses one, and rejects the rest. So they're an atheist with regard to infinity minus 1 religions, which is...

Religious folks that do not acknowledge that there is only One True Church are heretics and are damned to eternal torment.

Not dragging up Pascal's Wager, but there are only two possibilities. Either God exists, or doesn't. From my viewpoint atheism has a bleak outlook either way.

I feel I do not fit the mold many would like to dismiss Christians as. Lack of education, place of birth, education, indoctrination, etc.

It is easy to discredit someone if they can be labeled negatively. Many draw science like a pistol. It appears to me that science and the Bible compliment each other.

Most religions are easily discredited. Christianity is not. Yes there are some aspects that many do it agree with or endorse, but that doesn't not denote it is false.