Grad student seeking atheist to interview

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Mermaid, I found someone and completed my paper but thank you so much for offering to help me! I really appreciate it.

HappySkeptic, If you don't mind me asking, how has your training led you away from theism the past 10 years (though not initially?) Do you feel there is a disconnect between science and faith?

Rahn127, There were witnesses who saw Jesus resurrected and there are many good reasons to believe their accounts. There are more reasons than just this, but it is rational to be a Christian. Now if Jesus wasn't resurrected, none of us are saved and there was no atonement. Christianity differs from all other religions of the world in that there is a means of salvation by grace through faith, and not by works.

Umm, as it turns out Brooke, there are no contemporary accounts to show Jesus even existed as an historical person. The Gospels were written not less than 50 years after the death of Jesus, by unknown authors. The names ascribed were done so as a scholarly convenience centuries after the the gospels were written.

The Epistles of Saul (those pretty much accepted as genuine)  were written before any of the gospels. They were written by a man who had never met Jesus. Saul  had an hallucination and fell off his horse on the road to Damascus. Rather than god speaking to him, it's far more reasonable to think the poor chap had an epileptic seizure or perhaps suffered from schizophrenia.

Many protestant denominations claim salvation comes through faith alone, that view is contrary to catholic teaching.  Citing St James:

James 2 14-26 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[a]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[b] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.




There are no new ideas in Christianity,in moral teachings, cosmology or theology.