(March 22, 2013 at 1:38 am)Lion IRC Wrote: I dont rely on the teleological or cosmological or ontological arguments.
I dont base my relationship with God on debates between Bart Ehrman and William Lane Craig or the carbon dating of dead sea scrolls.

The God of the Bible is manifest to Christians as a personal reality whether atheists believe or not.

Obviously it's a "personal reality" because you fervently believe that. Whether this personal reality is genuine or you fooling yourself is the question.

Quote:Christians have personal direct evidence that is corroborated by millions of others. And they are ''anchored'' to it (as Christian author Max Lucado would say) in three ways..

Anchor point #1 – My life is not futile... there IS something which you can grip when facing the surging tides of futility and relativism. Someone is in control and you have a purpose. Atheists have only themselves and the mirror they look into when seeking a ''purpose''.

Sounds like someone is afraid of not having purpose in life. The truth can be blunt and bitter sometimes, but that's too bad. Your wishful thinking about wanting purpose doesn't prove that Jesus rose from the dead. All it does is that it hints at your motives for being a Christian: you need the reassurance that death isn't the end.

Quote:Anchor point #2 – My failures are not fatal. There is always hope. Yes, we all sin - do stuff which we morally regret - but sin is not a terminal illness anymore than atheism is a life-sentence. It’s not that He loves what the sinners did, but He loves who you are. You are His. The one who has the right to condemn you provided the way to acquit you. You make mistakes. God doesn’t. And he made you.

White noise. You need to PROVE that your theology is even relevant to reality. You can start by showing credible evidence that the Jesus of the Bible is real.

Quote:Anchor point #3 – Your death is not final. You can anchor to the same stone that was rolled in front of Jesus' tomb. It’s large. It’s round. And it’s heavy. It blocked the door of a grave. It wasn’t big enough, though. The tomb that it sealed was the tomb of a transient. He only went in to prove he could come out. And on the way out He took the stone with him and turned it into an anchor point.

White noise. PROVE all these assumptions of yours. That's the whole point of the thread! All you're doing is rambling on about your religion's theology.

Quote:The God of the Bible is manifest to Christians as a personal reality whether atheists believe or not.

There are plenty of fucking nuts who think they are Napoleon Bonaparte, too. I've always thought you were that type.

(March 21, 2013 at 11:32 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I would like for once to see an actual argument that would attempt to prove specifically Christianity and not just basic theism.

As for the historicity of Jesus, Durant said it best:

"The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies -- for example, Hammurabi, David, Socrates -- would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed -- the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man."

In a word, you can't make this stuff up. Inventors would have hidden probably a quarter of the NT.

As for proving the existence of the Christian God, you would have to have an experience like I did, and he would have to know you were ready to give up illicit sex and pot. Otherwise, why would a rational God bother?

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I have asked unbelievers on many occasions to consider this hypothetical:

Suppose Jesus returned and healed 95% of all the terminally ill people in the world. Would you follow him and wholeheartedly try to obey his commandments, i.e. the Sermon on the Mount?

Guess what 95% of them said.

So you see "proof" is of no use at all.

(March 22, 2013 at 2:06 am)radorth Wrote: I have asked unbelievers on many occasions to consider this hypothetical:

Suppose Jesus returned and healed 95% of all the terminally ill people in the world. Would you follow him and wholeheartedly try to obey his commandments, i.e. the Sermon on the Mount?

Guess what 95% of them said.

So you see "proof" is of no use at all.

And you think that's a good cross-section of all of atheism, do you?

Beyond that, what you'll find is that atheists generally won't just stop at "this thing happened that I can't explain that seems like it might be divine, therefore all of christianity is necessarily true." We'd ask questions, investigate further. Believing in things that seem divine at first glance is how cults get started, dude.

Besides, even assuming that there's no other possible explanation, that doesn't immediately credit god and jesus as being worthy of worship either. I'd still have questions, mostly to do with the historicity of biblical accounts. And if it were all true, there's no way I would worship those guys.

In essence, your hypothetical is malformed. Instead of asking "would you follow Jesus if he were absolutely real?" you should be asking "would you believe he was real if you had evidence of such?" Because atheism is only a position about the existence of god, not the refusal to worship him. His existence doesn't automatically make him worthy of worship.

All you've really found out is that atheists won't bow to divine command just because it exists, like you guys with your supposed objective moral standard will. You've found honesty, not hypocrisy.

Horseshit....Bart Ehrman says it best.

(March 22, 2013 at 12:48 am)Lion IRC Wrote: [quote='teaearlgreyhot' pid='418657' dateline='1363923122']
This is a very heartening post for Christians to read. It gives great optimism because the first hurdle of universal atheism versus generic theism has been passed and the matter now becomes....

I think this assumption on your part demonstrates just how desperate the thiestic view is.

If there is one thing that is almost universally accepted at this point, it is that there is no active god in this world. And, by "accepted", I do not mean admitted or professed. By "accepted", I simply mean that the vast majority of people conduct themselves as if god will have no intervention in their lives whatsoever.

Priests molest young boys, pastors fake miracles, religious people cheat and divorce at staggerring rates, churches rip off their own congregants, etc., etc., etc.

If actions truly are more telling than words, then it's obvious that most people do not truly believe in an active god. It's just that a small minority actually have the guts to admit they don't and, therefore, do away with the pretentious religious persona.

Quote:OK. Suppose I grant the logically plausible/possible existence of some form of divinity, convince me that biblical monotheism is the correct (true) recognition of such and Christianity in particular.

A loving all-powerful monotheistic, capital "G" God is the easiest, most logical, most demonstrably true, most widely-perceived theistic manifestation to justify from a theological standpoint (IMHO)

In other words, of all the obviously fictitious mythological creatures, the Easter Bunny is the one we can make the most compelling argument for.

(March 22, 2013 at 12:56 am)Lion IRC Wrote: You dont need a cosmological argument or a teleological argument to show that a gracious God so loves the World that He sent His only Son who gave Himself to bring us the Good News
that The Kingdom of God is closer than you think.

You need something, cuz you ain't got shit.

Quote:And that people who are sad, broken, afflicted, ashamed, depressed, confused by the sins of this world (greed, hatred, violence, injustice) can find salvation, forgiveness and hope if they want.

I tried. All that happened was I lost years I can't get back.

Quote:And His death and Resurrection shows us that God DOES love us and that death is not the end.

His resurrection means that the death was just show and theater and means absolutely nothing.

(March 22, 2013 at 12:56 am)Lion IRC Wrote: You dont need a cosmological argument or a teleological argument to show that a gracious God so loves the World that He sent His only Son who gave Himself to bring us the Good News
that The Kingdom of God is closer than you think.

And that people who are sad, broken, afflicted, ashamed, depressed, confused by the sins of this world (greed, hatred, violence, injustice) can find salvation, forgiveness and hope if they want.

And His death and Resurrection shows us that God DOES love us and that death is not the end.

I find it sad that intelligent people (I count as you as one) actually get caught on the wrong side of this pre-supposition about god sacrificing his only son (or himself).

You are prepared to argue that there are elements of science and reality that point to intelligent design. No, that's an understatement. You are prepared to argue for extremely intelligent design.

And yet, at the same time, you buy into the idea that this god of such extreme intelligence, would create the human species only for the very purpose of suffering a terrible, torturous, and humiliating death for the sake of human redemption.

If you can step outside your background, affiliation and bias for just one second, and consider this from an objective standpoint, what you will find is nothing more than a major stroking of the human ego.

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(March 22, 2013 at 2:06 am)radorth Wrote:

(March 21, 2013 at 11:32 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I would like for once to see an actual argument that would attempt to prove specifically Christianity and not just basic theism.

As for the historicity of Jesus, Durant said it best:

"The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies -- for example, Hammurabi, David, Socrates -- would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed -- the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man."

In a word, you can't make this stuff up. Inventors would have hidden probably a quarter of the NT.

In a word, you can make this stuff up. In fact, many cultures and civilizations did make this stuff up long before Jesus allegedly existed. The stories you see in the bible are merely plagiarisms of previous tales of other mythological characters and gods.

Here's a link:

Building Jesus through other gods

(March 22, 2013 at 2:06 am)radorth Wrote: Suppose Jesus returned and healed 95% of all the terminally ill people in the world. Would you follow him and wholeheartedly try to obey his commandments, i.e. the Sermon on the Mount?

Guess what 95% of them said.

"I'm healed!" ????

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(March 21, 2013 at 11:32 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I would like for once to see an actual argument that would attempt to prove specifically Christianity and not just basic theism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

(March 21, 2013 at 11:32 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I would like for once to see an actual argument that would attempt to prove specifically Christianity and not just basic theism.

Here's one for you, the percentage of atheist to Christians on this forum are probably 20 to 1, and all you guys are working so hard to stop any of us from proving the existence of Christianity as we define it. If it were not true you guys could take a long vacation and not worry. 2000 years have gone by and people are still working hard at stopping us from spreading the truth, you all have the biggest fail in history, we will march on till the end of time.