LISTEN, CHRISTIANS!

[Randy Carson]

That sounds more like an excuse than a sufficient reason. If you were interested in the origins of the universe or some other cutting edge science would you NOT read several physicists simply because their ideas were in conflict? Or would you read them all to try to understand the arguments?

Sorry Randy, but I've played this game before, sufficient to never want to play it again. There's actually a fundamental difference between talking to christians of different denominations as a christian, versus talking to them as an atheist; the way the claims are treated. You can see it here in the board if you look: a christian with doctrinal differences with another christian will rarely disagree with that other christian no matter how severely the differences diverge. Instead, we get this "hey, we all believe in the same Jesus," stuff, and that's roughly the end of it.

Each and every one of those christians will then turn around and act like theirs is the only set of christian beliefs in existence when talking to an atheist. And woe betide you if you ever try to take some of the beliefs from one of those other christian denominations into a discussion with a christian who doesn't share them: "Christians don't believe that!" They say, witheringly. "See? You don't know anything about the beliefs you insult!" If you're an atheist you're not an ally to the cause, there's no common agreement big enough to set aside disagreements over the particulars, and so all those doctrinal differences that were just hey, no big deal when the christians were talking amongst themselves are suddenly evidence that the atheist doesn't know what they're talking about if any of us try to bring them up after having them presented to us as "Things Christians Believe" by someone else in another thread.

It's easy for you to say that I should read up on all the conflicting views, you'll never have that knowledge come to bite you in the ass here if you try to use it. With me, with any atheist, I've got to read up on all that stuff and then find out exactly what parts of the stuff I've read any given christian believes before I begin the discussion, and at that point it's just simpler to let them explain and research the specifics of the relevant claims as we go. What you're asking me to do might be good in theory, but it's next to useless in practice, leaving me with a whole bunch of knowledge that's about as useful as fantasy stories that I have no way of using. I just have to sit there waiting until I find, say, the one catholic who believes the exact same stripe of Catholicism as the author of the book I read so I can bust out some arcane portion of the catechism, or the new testament, that he interprets in exactly the right way, so that he can nod his head in agreement before I begin to disagree. It's just not worth the effort. Religion is just too evasive to try that one.

That said, it isn't like I never read christian writing, or research what I'm talking about either. It's just that doing so in advance of any current discussion is stockpiling knowledge for a use that may never come, and that is otherwise useless. If I'm going to do any reading on these subjects in my spare time, it's going to be for fun; just last night I was listening to an analysis of an apologetics book by Cornelius van Til, and I've done the same for other apologists and religious writings. I'm just not willing to accumulate all this stuff into one big pile and label it "What Christians Believe," because if I did that, the very next christian I talked to would find at least one thing in that pile that "No True Christian Believes!" It's a losers game.

Esquilax-

I've become pretty familiar with the doctrinal differences over the years. I suspect you could too with only a modicum of effort. You could begin with what CS Lewis called "Mere Christianity" (in a book by the same title) and expand from there.

As for the differences, I don't think it is necessary for you to worry yourself over the pre-trib v post-trib views of the rapture right out of the gate. Or whether an infant should or should not be baptized. Or why Catholics include the filioque in the Nicene Creed whereas the Orthodox do not.

Surely there are some bigger basics that might be useful, however.

PS - I've not read van Til, but it's my understanding that he was a presuppositionalist, correct? I know how you feel about that....