From atheism to Christianity? How so?

[agapelove]

I'm rapidly losing respect for you. You claim that everything Jesus taught was unique or OT inspired, in response you're given examples of things that predate the Old Testament or existed contemporaneously with it in areas of the world that had never heard of it, and your answer is to reiterate your initial claim, and display how little you looked into our claims before you decided they didn't matter; the Code of Hammurabi was a legal code (systemic) enacted by a king for the entire nation. You're just wrong here, and asserting your initial claim again isn't going to make you any more correct.

In this case I am simply asking you to show me the golden rule in the Code of Hammurabi..I don't see it in there, could you point it out to me? Let's get down to the point which is that you say the teachings of Jesus appear elsewhere. We can debate the significance of that once the point is established.

I literally said, in the part you quoted, that I don't think the Jesus story borrowed specifically from other sources; I'm saying that certain narrative elements of the Jesus story have parallels elsewhere, which to me, is an indication that the story was written by humans, rather than being something that actually happened. Have you heard of the monomyth? It's like that: there's a basic template that many classical narratives follow, and when it comes to gods, we can find even more similarities: the concept of a god dying and then rising later isn't an uncommon one, for example. Nor is the use of wine as symbolism, among many other things. To claim that Christ represents some unique and wonderful account is to merely ignore the many, many ways in which it is not.

Well, let's look at some specific examples; you say the account of Christ is very similiar to other accounts in many, many ways..so let's compare it to the account you feel is most similiar and examine the validity of the point.

This seems to me to be one of those "no, but yes," answers. I asked you whether god denied selfless prayers for the safety of someone recovering from heart surgery in order to conceal his presence from scientific study, and you answered yes.

That isn't what I was trying to say. My theory is, God would have answered the prayers in the same way, with or without the study. He possibly could have just arranged to have the right people in the study to meet the statistical average. Not that he answered the prayers to create the effect, but he simply arranged for the right people to be in the study for the effect to appear.

I can't begin to count the ways in which this is dishonest, but I'll start with the most obvious: according to you, if I pray and nothing happens, that's still not evidence that prayers are ineffective. And if lots of people do it and it doesn't work, it's also not evidence that prayer is ineffective. So what's the failure state, here? How can you possibly, honestly say that if you pray you'll find god if you're willing to excuse every instance of that not happening? This is just confirmation bias run amok: you'll circle every hit, while ignoring every miss, and yet somehow I'm supposed to think you and this prayer action has any credibility at all?

If you're testing for the God of the bible, He promises you won't find Him that way, because He only allows people to approach Him in faith. So a study like this can never prove or disprove His existence. That's all I am saying and I am not saying it proves anything about the validity of prayer. I am only saying that if you want to know if the God of the bible exists you have to approach Him in faith and a study like this will not help you find Him.

But earlier you said that "God already knew what would happen before He created anything, so He prepared a Savior beforehand" and "God knew we would fall." If god knew that humanity would fall with absolute certainty, then there are two possible explanations: one, he is as much a pawn of fate as anyone else or two, he deliberately set those events in motion. I don't think it can be the former, or there exists a force even more powerful than god, which compels him to act. Thus it must be the latter, in which case our failure was part of god's design and not the result of choices that were freely made.

God knew when He created creatures that had a free will to accept or reject Him, that they would fall. His design was to allow us to choose freely and He honored their choice and ordained a Savior to redeem them.

Regarding the "evidence". Might I remind you that you're talking about a book that has not been vouched for by archaeology. That is as good as fiction or legendary tales, where maybe the person existed but other deeds were added to them. So those doesn't qualify as evidence, if you have any other evidence, please present them or link them. Otherwise this is completely circular. I believe god is real because the bible is real > The bible is real because god is real > I believe god is real because the bible is real .... etc.

The bible has been extensively verified by archaeology; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology

Jesus Christ is a real person and so therefore His existence is a matter of historical record. The bible gives eye witnesses accounts of what Jesus said and did. Have you ever studied the evidence for the resurrection? If you are interested this book gives a detailed account of what the evidence is:

http://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Testamen...0889466165

As for your supernatural rebirth, that's just your own personal experience which we cannot decide whether is satanic or not. So it doesn't make sense to say personal experiences may be satanic, but I know mine aren't because of personal experiences.

It is simply evidence of the validity of what Jesus said, but my claim hinges on whether Jesus was resurrected or not.

Again about circular logic when using the bible both as evidence and as the claim. Do you notice that every time you try to justify or explain your beliefs, you end up making more claims about what you believe in?

The bible gives evidence, and there is evidence from other sources. Whether the bible is the only source we have on the life of Jesus or not does not discredit the idea at all. The eye witness accounts themselves must be examined to see whether they are valid or not. Historians validate eye witness accounts in a much different manner than most skeptics seem to assume they do, and most of our historical records are based on eye witness accounts.

Well if you have anything else to show for the resurrection besides biblical claims then feel free. At the meantime, keep in mind that plenty of other mythologies involve resurrection. So if all it takes a for a mythology to claim resurrection for you to believe it happened .... welll ...

The bible is the main source of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus; if you are going to reject it out of hand you have to explain why it isn't a valid source of eye witness testimony, and you haven't established that. You have made the claim it simply talks about legends when it actually talks about people who are known to have existed and places which have been verified by archaeology and historical records.

Strawman? I did not say my rationality confirms my rationality, I said reality confirms it.

My perception of reality is confirmed by the response of reality in response to my action.

Sorry, not trying to strawman you here; I am trying to see how you can validate your reasoning without using your reasoning to do it. From what you've said, you are still using your perception. You perceive that the response of reality to your action confirms your perception of reality. My question is, how do you know it is a valid perception?

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Happy New Year everyone!