RE: Why the religious will never admit you won the argument (and why they don't care)
June 18, 2016 at 1:47 pm
(This post was last modified: June 18, 2016 at 3:32 pm by Veritas_Vincit.)
(June 18, 2016 at 9:03 am)SteveII Wrote:
1. The contradiction of the gospels are minor and expected. If there were no contradictions that would be evidence against them being true. Most scholars (including non-Christian) believe that Jesus existed, was baptized, and was crucified. The biggest piece of evidence that atheist constantly ignore is the fact there was a thriving church all across the Roman Empire within 20 years of Jesus who understood the claims of Jesus to be true--before the NT was even written. But that really doesn't matter because you said "obviously untrue". There could have been any other historical event with NO written evidence and you would have not used the phrase "obviously untrue". What did you mean?
I would agree there is a good chance that at least one Jesus character existed, actually there are accounts of many very similar legendary preachers and saviours around at the time. But does that mean what he said was true? No. Does it mean he was the son of a God? No - and first you'd have to demonstrate that there is a God. Mormonism and Scientology spread like wildfire, does that make them true? No, they are both crazy cults.
2. Why isn't the NT evidence that God exists? If you believe the facts of the NT, it is more than reasonable to conclude God exists.
OK, technically you can call it 'evidence' but it is bad evidence, hopelessly bad. All we have in the Bible is supposed eye-witness testimony, from accounts that don't match up, which are copies of copies of translations of copies with no originals, relating to events taking place 2000 years ago - from a time and culture with a world view so narrow that you'll struggle to find a person alive today who is as ignorant as the most educated person then. You can get eye-witnesses alive today who will tell you about their UFO abductions, you can have multiple witnesses with stories that match up. It doesn't mean there are aliens visiting the planet! It doesn't prove a thing.
3. I've been wanting to discuss the ontological argument. Start another thread if you like. Use Plantinga or WLC's formulation since they are the more modern. Debunk away.
Game on ;-)
4. You seem to be hedging. Nothing in Christianity hangs on a literal interpretation of Gen 1.
Not hedging, it's just that there are many variations of Christianity, and for many people it does - the question would be, what do you believe about it?
5. You seem to think that your generation has some new information that was not previously available and your hope is since this message is true it will make headway against the "dark ages of civilization". There is nothing new and contrary to your hope, atheism is not sweeping the globe.
Standing upright is a difficult evolutionary shift. You think Hitchens and Dawkins could have come out at said what they said 100 years ago? We're making progress, it will take generations but a humanity that is free from superstition and magical thinking is a cause worth working for.
6. Your problems are with people. The NT is the basis for Christianity (which is the only religion I will defend). Anything not in there was added by men. And regarding those teachings, they might very well bring conflict of opinion (abortion, gay marriage, etc.) but they don't, in themselves, bring suffering. If suffering results, it is because of men's actions and/or a failure to apply the other teachings of the NT properly.On the other hand, the good Christianity has done in the last two millennium is incalculable.
I completely disagree. This is what I've recently learned is the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy. You can't tell me that those thing had nothing to do with Christianity, because who are you to say that they aren't 'real Christians'? They would disagree with you. The Bible instructs all of those things that I listed, it is the literal word of God. Are you saying you know better than your God? They aren't doing this in the name of religion, they are doing it as a doctrinal teaching mandated by the holy scriptures of the religion.
The God in your Bible explicitly instructs human beings to commit genocide, to commit murder, that they can enslave other people and own them as property [Leviticus 25:44-46, Exodus 21:2-6 & 20-21] that they should kill gay men [Leviticus 20:13], witches, wizards, adulterers [Leviticus 20:10], unbelievers [2 Chronicles 15:12-13. The same God wipes out most of the world's population [Noah's flood]. This is EVIL.