How to convert Christians to atheists in 30 seconds (ironically, using bible)

[Ignorant]

If there is agreement on details here and there --but no unified understanding of the person being worshiped-- that can also be a case of people blindly flinging darts at a wall.  You may get clusters of darts here and there, but that just means that people looking in the same direction will naturally come up with a few similar ideas. [1] We're talking about a being who appeared to people in more than one form and performed works of pure magic so that they had no other choice than to know he was real and that he was more than just another person.  Then he is gone and humanity can't figure out who he is anymore. [2]

Does that really seem to be the case?  I've known a lot of religious people in my life, and I can't recall many of them who did not consider truth and goodness to be important.  Most people strike me as being sincere in their religious belief and in their desire to be considered a good person. [3] If few of them are finding the gate that leads to life, it's not out of a lack of desire.  The instructions are not very useful. [4]

I'm fine with these explanations, but they seem to go beyond what the Bible explains. [5] Are there ways to know for certain that god wishes for us to come to our fullness, [6] as opposed to expecting only a few of us to find the path to life? [7] The latter would square with the old testament god who separated out a small tribe and used it to visit judgment on other tribes, only showing mercy to one tribe that offered itself up as servants.  Could this not be an example of what God has in mind for the future, where he sets aside a very small group and accepts them as his nation, then leaves the rest to suffering and destruction? [8]

1) Right. So like I said, a possibility is that everyone has it completely wrong.

2) Why can't they figure this out?

3) I wasn't referring to religious people, I was referring to the whole of humanity.

4) It isn't about the instructions. It's about a particular kind of relationship with a person. In ways similar to every other relationship, mistakes are made and forgiven, you drift away and become close again. The difference is that even while we may feel distant or that the relationship is over, this person is always with you. Jesus is truly the Emmanuel (god with us). He revealed that reality to us. God is just simply close to us out of love and mercy, even while we diminish ourselves through sin. You can't deny that is reality. You can fail to be convinced by it. But it's real, and God is with you your whole life. Living according to that reality, living according to the relationship with God in Christ IS the narrow gate.

5) What I have explained is my own poor presentation of what I've read in the Bible, in Christian history, and in my current relationship with God and his community (the Church). Everything I have been trying to explain comes from the Bible, at least I hope it does.

6) Yes. If god made you human, then he made you with a fundamental desire to be the best version of humanity that your personality can become. Because you want to be good (even if you have a poor understanding of actual goodness) and fulfilled, that is how you know god wants that too. You don't need the Bible for that fundamentally human answer. All you need is your humanity. God made you what-you-are. What-you-are includes the desire to be the best version of what-you-are, as well as the agency to bring that about by your freedom. If god made what-you-are with that desire and that freedom, then that means that he desires that you come to that fullness through the freedom he has given.

7) God's universal will for every human's happiness is seen in what-we-are (i.e. our nature). From the start, we were not successful at bringing about our own fullness freely. He did not abandon us to that failure. The narrow gate IS Jesus, and he gave himself to us freely. You don't have to "find" the narrow gate. The narrow gate will find you.

8) I don't think so. I think the Old Testament stuff is more complex than first glance. The Old Testament is a gradual restoration as preparation for Jesus. After Jesus, God's mercy just overflows. Consider this "vision" of heaven from Revelation (after the famous 144,000 verse):

"After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb." - Romans 7:9-10

Again, you don't have to worry about finding the "right" truth or the narrow gate. Jesus is the truth which finds you.

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." -Luke 15:1-7