Better reasons to quit Christianity

[FallentoReason]

Yes, but if the newcomer is asking, rather than telling, would the same be true? If I ask you why someone believes there is no God, is it up to me to answer my own question?

I guess that's a good point, which reflects reality better. I guess from the word 'go' I would start wondering how many different versions of god I need to disprove before 'GOD' is disproved altogether. We can talk about why omnipotence, omni-benevolence and omniscience don't work together but then you can just bring up the next variation to that ad infinitum. This world is concerned with the things that exist and not non-existent things. So I would think that it's logical for you to show me why god is a possibility as opposed to me showing the endless list of possible gods to be non-existent.

I just wrote a thread about this actually: http://atheistforums.org/thread-14314.html

Strawman. I was vaguely talking about burden of proof.

I agree with your statement though. Unlucky for you though, you are telling me what truth has apparently always existed, which means this is the part where you bring forth the proof of your claim. May I see it?

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That's a fair point.

Thanks.

There's more to it than just third person with the Gospels though. Matthew seems to have used Mark ...

If Jesus' disciple Matthew penned his gospel after Mark, why is this evidence he did not write the gospel?

Because that gives rise to the possibility that he used Mark as the basis for his work, which it seems like he did. The Synoptics are best understood with a Markan priority type approach. That helps to explain why Mark is so short compared to the other two, why it misses out on important things like a birth narrative and witness accounts of a resurrected Christ, and why Matthew + Luke are more incredible sounding (because Mark toning down the miracles wouldn't really make much sense.. at least to me).

From what I understand, John was the youngest disciple who outlived the others. He spent his last days exiled on an island and had many visitors and even his own disciples. If I were a Christian at the time who visited John in exile, I'd ask him to tell me something Jesus said, or did that I did not already know from the previous gospels. It makes sense to me that John, near the end of his life, would write a gospel with people like these in mind.

Being younger than others that lived through the same events as you does not equate to gathering better sounding evidence for something. I'm not too sure what logic that is....

John and Matthew supposedly saw the same things but somehow John came out with a Gospel that exceeds the Synoptics in lots of ways. Age has nothing to do with this.