My Defense of Christianity.

[Tobie]

I don't think science will ever answer that question. Why does the universe exist?< This question is impossible to answer through science.

It is a loaded question, so invalid anyway. The questioner assumes there is a reason for the universe existing.

Actually, we do have other sources. It's universal among historians(Christians and non-Christians) that Jesus was crucified by the order of Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate, as predicted in the Bible. How do you debunk that?

I've seen no good evidence to suggest that Jesus (or Christus/Chrestus as he would have been known to the Romans) ever existed, let alone was crucified at the cross. The Josephus reference was likely inserted at a later date (By Eusebius, but Minimalist can tell you a lot more about how little evidence there is for the existence of Jesus).

What is some people are honestly telling the truth? Out of millions of cases at least a few of them would be telling the truth. It isn't a small sample, it's a whole lot of people. A whole lot of people saying the same thing.
Some prominent atheists have has NDEs and changed their minds about the afterlife.
As for your last point, many of them end up in the hospital and your point really isn't any hard evidence anyways.
One question,
Do you wish there was an afterlife?

There is no reason to suggest any of them are telling the truth. I'm just going to say they're all bullshit until proven otherwise.

To answer your question, I don't give a shit if there's an afterlife or not. I doubt there is, however.

[cratehorus]

They don't need your jesus any more than I do.

We do believe that Jesus was a prophet, though. It's just that we don't ascribe any of the God-like attributes to Jesus as Christians do.
To us, Jesus was only a messenger of God and Muhammad was the last and final messenger.

yeah, Minimalist show some respect for Rayaan's faith...

[Forsaken]

There are thousands claiming to be abductees. No reason to trust them, until aliens are proven to exist. You would demand a proof from these abductees, right? Or just accept their stories as true?

I will now direct you to this thread where our two resident xtian exterminators, D-P and Min, have sent some "Jesus as a divine historical figure" claimants running for cover.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

There are hundreds of prophecies in the Bible, many of them extremely detailed and hundreds of years later, they came true! How?

Umm,actually, I've never seen any credible evidence to support the claim ANY fulfilled biblical prophecy or any other kind of fortune telling.

Until I see credible evidence to the contrary, I will continue to see the Old Testament as the mythology and superstitions of an insignificant,illiterate Mesopotamian tribe of Bronze age goat herders.The New Testament as the mythology and superstitions of Christianity ,a religion which has little if anything to do with its putative founder. (who may or may not have existed)

So far,you have proved exactly nothing. All I've seen are the same unsupported claims and repetitious drivel we get from most most apologists who arrive here with the same arrogant assumptions and expectations.

[Kayenneh]

Oh, so you're a True Christian™ then, are you? So devout muslims, who have an open relationship with God are suddenly Christians? What about Jews?

Seriously? Are you seriously trying to troll me?

No, I'm a moderator, I'm most definitely not allowed to troll.

I wanted to get two things said:
a) Don't use the No true Scotsman fallacy. Saying that all who say they believe in Christ aren't Christians is absurd. Just because you can't agree with all sects within your cult doesn't give you the ability nor right to decide who's a true follower or not.
b) You said "and open relationship with God", you didn't specify the god. I guess you mean the god of the desert, but there are so many more out there, which people here have already pointed out to you. So, from your statement it can be deducted that an open relationship with any god makes one a christian.

[Welsh cake]

I can't fathom why anyone would care enough to start such a thread.

Its so utterly pointless. A complete waste of time for the theist and atheist alike.

In more interesting news. Methodist churches are being turned into nightclubs and bars:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19341345

[LastPoet]

---

Please Read the Whole Thing Before Posting.

Well, guess what? I’m gonna try to prove to you God’s real and Christianity is really worth following. I don’t want to start a flaming argument or anything like that and would appreciate that you wouldn’t comically dismiss my points. I also want to prove some things which I believe are misunderstood.
The Proof
Okay I am not getting into anything about evolution/age of the earth or anything like that. There’s a pretty big chunk of evidence for those things, and idk what to believe in yet. I just don’t want you guys focusing on those topics while I’m trying to explain my more important points. I think it’s kinda nitpicky and really just removes an aspect of God, not disproving his existence.
#1 The world doesn’t make sense without God.
How did we come to exist? Why did everything that ever existed ever exist? Why are we here? Why wasn’t there nothing? Science points to a beginning of the universe. Science can’t explain why we’re here. But Christianity offers a very straight-forward solution, God created it. Pretty easy to understand right? Now assuming the universe did somehow exist, how did life appear? By chance? Practically impossible. All the complex code and cells and whatever, all point to an intelligent creator. Okay I do realize this type of evidence isn’t really hard and just suggests it should of happened like that but no real hard evidence of it. Still, it’s hard to imagine this all happened by chance.
#2 Near Death Experiences
I know I’m gonna get bashed for this. Oh, it’s just something funny going on in your brain. Oh they’re lying etc etc. Trouble is there are millions of cases, and it’s really not plausible to suggest every single one of them was a lie. At least some of them honestly thought they saw something, you get me? That leaves two possibilities, they really did see part of the afterlife, or that something went wrong with their brain. Now I’m not a brain scientist but the fact that so many atheists and doctors have been convinced of the afterlife through their own NDE or hearing others pretty much convinces me. And sometimes they people who have the NDE report several details that they couldn’t haven’t possibly know. Explain that, how could they know what happened down there if they were unconscious and had no way of knowing? There are so many cases that’s it very hard to refute.
#3 Bible Prophecies
I’m not gonna quote any verses(you can look it up yourself).
There are hundreds of prophecies in the Bible, many of them extremely detailed and hundreds of years later, they came true! How? The chances are astronomical, it’s impossible they guessed it right by chance. How did you explain that these prophecies, written down hundreds of years before they happened, came true? Obviously God knew and God told them. Disprove this.
Done with the evidence.
Is it worth it?
Some people don’t like the idea of following all these rules or praying all day long etc.
Are the rules really that bad? Moral rules like not stealing and killing are pretty common sense. You can still have fun, Christianity allows that. Just remember to take your time with God every day. It can be just 30 minutes every day at night and a few hours on Sunday.
And in the end, if you really are Christian, you know you’re going to Heaven, a better place than Earth, so why worry about your life here?
Some people especially dislike just submitting to God and doing his will. Well frankly he created you, so he didn’t even have to give you Heaven in the first place. But he chose to let us put our faith in him. So you can have a happy life and a happy afterlife. Whatever happens in Heaven, it will make you happy. You cannot know what happens in Heaven, to people who think they do, it’s incomprehensible. Jusut know that God has prepared it and you’ll happy forever.
Misconceptions
#1 Religion =/= Faith in Jesus
Well I’m not exactly trying to state Christianity isn’t a religion. I’m trying to de-emphasize just doing rituals and praying and going to church for the sake of it, because it doesn’t work like that. Many people who call themselves Christians aren’t really Christians. Just because they go to church or because they celebrate Christmas doesn’t mean they’re Christian. Being Christian means have an open relationship with God and accepting him.
#2 Christians are idiotic jerks
Wut? Kinda ties into the above paragraph. People who call themselves Christian might not be, I happen to go to a school that is religiously neutral but most of the students are real Christians and actively attend a youth group outside of school. They are nicest people I have ever known. Our school is surprisingly decent(if you know what I mean). There’s no bullying and people aren’t immature here. The Christians here are nice, they help out other people, always making people laugh, overall good people. We respect atheists too. We don’t look down on them, all though we do encourage them to become a Christian. And I know atheists can be good people, because some of them are, many of them in fact. But in the end that’s not gonna get you to heaven.
#3 Christians discourage sex
They do, before marriage.
Only do it in a committed relationship.
Pretty much cleared up here. Hope you guys don’t yell at me.
One thing, actually counter argue my points. Don’t just take one sentence, refute it, and leave at that. Cause guess what? That didn’t defeat my argument. You’re just trying to play it off. So please actually give sufficient reason when you’re going to argue.

---

You make a poor defense of your religion.

[pocaracas]

Oooooo! I don't know that much about the Kalevala Kayenneh!

Fascinating stuff...... *Kichi goes off into Kalevala land ..... still reading. I do love myths and legends.

I assume you've read the Silmarillion's account of how the world began. Quite a piece of literary art.


as for the OP,

#1 The world doesn’t make sense without God.

As was pointed out before: god of the gaps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

How did we come to exist?

big bang -> universe cools down and forms protons and electrons -> atoms gather and form nebulae -> nebula contracts due to gravity and kick starts the fusion process, igniting a star -> stars gather forming galaxies (the order may not be entirely this).
The fusion process inside stars causes protons to join, forming a number of nuclei of what we call elements adn someone kindly ordered them in a table for us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table
During the lifespan of one such star, the most comon fusion reaction just turns single protons into helium nuclei. But, at the end of that star's lifetime it contracts further and fusion goes on forming other elements, the most common going up in atomic number until iron (check the periodic table). Higher atomic numbers are much less likely, but they do occur. Eventually the fusion reactions overcome the gravitation effect of the mass and the star is said to die.
In time, the materials which this star generated come in contact with some nebula of protons which is still in the process of gathering and forming a new star. Due to centrifugal force, these heavier elements tend to remain on the outskirts of the nebula and, in time, they too clump up forming what we call planets.
On our solar system, there was a planet where water was allowed to exist in the liquid state, the size of this planet was just right to generate a protective layer of gas (the atmosphere) and life eventually came out of some ooze. Amino-acids clumped together to form proteins which then clumped together to form single celled organisms. These clumped together to form multi-celled organisms which then evolved (new word for "clumped together") into different organisms while adapting to different habitats on this planet.
On of these organisms turned out to be us.

I hope that very short version of the history of the universe is sufficient. If not, start reading:
http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Three-Mi...roduct_top
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time...roduct_top
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=orig...CBsQgQMwAA
http://www.amazon.com/On-Origin-Species-...roduct_top

Why did everything that ever existed ever exist?

Why do you need a reason for that?
What if there's no reason? It's just the way it is.

Why are we here?

We evolved here. Had we evolved somewhere else, you'd be asking the same question (but concerning that other place) and be getting the same answer.

Why wasn’t there nothing?

Clearly, there's something. No matter how unlikely it may have been.

Science points to a beginning of the universe. Science can’t explain why we’re here. But Christianity offers a very straight-forward solution, God created it. Pretty easy to understand right?

Not easy to understand at all. Like so many before me asked: if you claim some god created the universe, then where does god come from? who created god? (let's call these god creators supra-gods) Why is there only one god? How many gods can there be? How many supra-gods are there? Who created the supra-gods? (lets call these ultra-gods) How many ultra-gods are there? Who created the ultra-gods? (lets call these mega-gods) Who created the mega-gods?

I think you begin to see how this can just go on forever, no?

Now assuming the universe did somehow exist, how did life appear? By chance? Practically impossible. All the complex code and cells and whatever, all point to an intelligent creator.

I hinted at that earlier and directed you to a nice book about it.
Chance may have had a good deal in the actual origin of life. Going from amino-acids to single-celled organisms must have been something extremely unlikely, requiring just the right conditions. Well, guess what, the planet had millions and millions of years to get there. And once it happened, it's done, no going back, unless the organisms don't survive... Here, on this planet, they survived.
The complex life came much later. The process of evolution is a very very slow one. It works by tinkering with little details of the organisms eventually giving them the advantage to survive. A lot of the tinkering is inconsequential, but some of it (whether it comes from some genetic anomaly or as a direct influence of the external environment) causes noticeable changes. And then, some of these changes are beneficial and some (I'd wager most) are not.
The process is so slow that the organisms can't handle abrupt changes to their environment and mass extinctions occur (you ever heard of the dinosaurs? before them, there was at least one more mass extinction and that put the world life count at less than 10%).

Okay I do realize this type of evidence isn’t really hard and just suggests it should of happened like that but no real hard evidence of it. Still, it’s hard to imagine this all happened by chance.

Completely predetermined chance. Wrap your brain around that one.

#2 Near Death Experiences

Can I bash you too?
"near death" is a bit different from "death". I've never heard of anyone actually dying and coming back to life and tell us how it went (except for the J.C. myth, but I'll put it down as myth because of all the bias in this society).
In near death, the brain is still working. Dreams and the like are still happening. The reoccurring theme of the light at the end of the tunnel might very well be the visual cortex shutting down to conserve energy for more vital parts of the brain. Then everything turns back on [False alarm, brain!] and the person wakes up. Knowing what's going on around them isn't hard. The ears are still working, the brain can then fill in the details and you get a pretty accurate mental picture of what was going on around you, while almost dead.
Isn't this a bit more realistic than "gods and souls"?
Of course, some people then use all their prior knowledge to associate whatever they think they experienced with something they can relate. And the god myth is very well positioned for that.

#3 Bible Prophecies

I once looked into a book called something like "the bible code", or something.
Reading it, you get any number of prophecies. Heck, you could probably even see there the number pi up to the thousandth decimal place.... you just need to use the right code.
In the end, they sound a lot like the prophecies of the lady in Fátima. They're only revealed by the priesthood after they are fulfilled. Mighty suspicious, no?

And, if it was possible to know the future, then the world would be completely predetermined. Isn't that a bit against what you'd expect from a world created by a god?

And in the end, if you really are Christian, you know you’re going to Heaven, a better place than Earth, so why worry about your life here?
Some people especially dislike just submitting to God and doing his will. Well frankly he created you, so he didn’t even have to give you Heaven in the first place. But he chose to let us put our faith in him. So you can have a happy life and a happy afterlife. Whatever happens in Heaven, it will make you happy. You cannot know what happens in Heaven, to people who think they do, it’s incomprehensible. Jusut know that God has prepared it and you’ll happy forever.

And if you're a classical helenic (that's greek) you know you'll go to mount Olympus and join the other gods. If you're scandinavian (as in viking time) you know you'll go to Valhalla.
And if you believe in any other mythology, you know you're going to the special place that the divinity of that mythology created just for you and all that have done right according to him/them.

Who's right?
Who's wrong?
Why would one mythogoly be more correct than another?

Misconceptions
#1 Religion =/= Faith in Jesus

If you have faith, you don't necessarily belong to any religion. But if you believe that J.C. did all what is written in the NT and have faith in him, then you're a Christian. Maybe not a Catholic, not an evangelical, not any other of the countless sects which are part of christianity, but you're still a christian.
Given all these sects, we can argue whether Christianity is a religion.
The Catholic religion is a religion. Christianity encompasses way too many different ways of worshiping the same deity that I don't know if we can call it a proper religion.

#2 Christians are idiotic jerks

Some of them tend to.
Some Hindus tend to be the same.
Some muslims too.
And some atheists.
Well, let's face it, there's a part of human-kind that is composed of idiotic jerks and that part is independent of the religion that each individual follows.

#3 Christians discourage sex

At least the Catholic church does. I don't about the others.
The claim is that sex is a means of reproduction, nothing else.
Marriage is a form of guaranteeing that the child has a father figure... notice my lack of claim that the child is son/daughter of that father
In light of the view that sex must be performed in the context of marriage and procreation, why on earth would you want to use a condom?! Makes no sense. It's a waste of money and decreases your overall pleasure of the act of sex.
They then abolish the use of condoms.
And throw these rules on a population known to have sex outside of matrimony and where STDs are rampant. Am I the only one who sees this attitude as... strange?

Pretty much cleared up here. Hope you guys don’t yell at me.
One thing, actually counter argue my points. Don’t just take one sentence, refute it, and leave at that. Cause guess what? That didn’t defeat my argument. You’re just trying to play it off. So please actually give sufficient reason when you’re going to argue.

I hope I did that. If it was insufficient, lets try round 2!

[greneknight]

Hi CBA222,

I'm a devout Christian and I've been an altar boy for all my life (since I was 5) but I want to be honest - there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE or RATIONAL JUSTIFICATION for ANY religion or God. Zilch for Christianity, zilch for Islam, zilch for God, zilch for Allah and all the other religions. We've got to be honest. I'm not saying because of this, we should all be atheists. Rayaan is a Muslim, you and I are Christians but all of us MUST know that our God, Allah, gods, goddesses, etc have no greater validity to exist than the fairies and pixies and leprechauns. If this offends you, I can't help it because it's the truth and I'm prepared to debate with anyone in a formal debate.

I will now examine what you wrote.

#1 The world doesn’t make sense without God.
How did we come to exist? Why did everything that ever existed ever exist? Why are we here? Why wasn’t there nothing?

I have learnt one thing. Why questions are usually for children. A child asks why is there a tree? And his dad will say a tree is planted so we can have shade. But many of us grow up still asking why questions. Why are we here? There need not be an answer for it. To ask such a question is to presuppose there is a REASON but there need not be. Who says there must be a reason for everything? Only a theist because it's just what he wants. Once he establishes there is a reason, he can go "voila! God is behind all this, don't you see?"

#2 Near Death Experiences
I know I’m gonna get bashed for this. Oh, it’s just something funny going on in your brain. Oh they’re lying etc etc. Trouble is there are millions of cases, and it’s really not plausible to suggest every single one of them was a lie. At least some of them honestly thought they saw something, you get me? That leaves two possibilities, they really did see part of the afterlife, or that something went wrong with their brain. Now I’m not a brain scientist but the fact that so many atheists and doctors have been convinced of the afterlife through their own NDE or hearing others pretty much convinces me. And sometimes they people who have the NDE report several details that they couldn’t haven’t possibly know. Explain that, how could they know what happened down there if they were unconscious and had no way of knowing? There are so many cases that’s it very hard to refute.

This is ludicrous. But if you must know, I'm now in a different country from good old England and I recently read in the newspaper something about the near-death experiences of the people here. Many of the people here are Buddhists or some kind of Chinese version of Buddhism. Their near-death experiences all accord with their belief in Chinese gods and Buddhist bodhisatvas. Funny isn't it, how near-death experiences go according to your culture and religion?

#3 Bible Prophecies
I’m not gonna quote any verses(you can look it up yourself).
There are hundreds of prophecies in the Bible, many of them extremely detailed and hundreds of years later, they came true! How? The chances are astronomical, it’s impossible they guessed it right by chance. How did you explain that these prophecies, written down hundreds of years before they happened, came true? Obviously God knew and God told them. Disprove this.
Done with the evidence.

This is the weakest argument. The Bible is such an unreliable book that you can hardly depend on it for anything. There is not a single prophecy there that has come true. Many times, it's been shown that the books in the Bible were written AFTER an event has taken place but the writer pretends that he's writing it before the event and TRADITION has it that the book predates the events. Only a very young child can believe that sort of thing.

Is it worth it?
Some people don’t like the idea of following all these rules or praying all day long etc.
Are the rules really that bad? Moral rules like not stealing and killing are pretty common sense. You can still have fun, Christianity allows that. Just remember to take your time with God every day. It can be just 30 minutes every day at night and a few hours on Sunday.

Here is where I agree with you. I think it's worth it only because it's my religion and my culture. But if I were like Rayaan, I would be a Muslim because that's his culture and religion.

And in the end, if you really are Christian, you know you’re going to Heaven, a better place than Earth, so why worry about your life here?

I am a devout Christian but I think heaven is bunkum. There's no such thing.

Some people especially dislike just submitting to God and doing his will. Well frankly he created you, so he didn’t even have to give you Heaven in the first place. But he chose to let us put our faith in him. So you can have a happy life and a happy afterlife. Whatever happens in Heaven, it will make you happy. You cannot know what happens in Heaven, to people who think they do, it’s incomprehensible. Jusut know that God has prepared it and you’ll happy forever.

I submit to God all the time as an altar boy. I bow at the right time, genuflect at the right places, kneel when I should, cross myself at the right places, chant the right canticles, etc. But there is no heaven and actually God isn't a being, but I won't touch on that. These are tough areas I won't go into yet. You're probably older than me but I'm very mature and I know things about the faith that you may not be prepared for so for the moment, let's not go into the nature of God as I understand it. But heaven is bunkum and hell is bunkum. They don't exist. Doing the right thing and following the Liturgy are important for me - it's a part of my culture as an English boy who's brought up in the Established Church. But this is just my personal view and I don't impose it on others.

[FallentoReason]

Those weren't his last words

And this refutes my argument how? You need to explain why the Gospels are genuine history and not hand-picked verses from the OT that were re-used. Hint: you can't because Jesus never existed in the first place. No contemporary of his ever mentions his name, Christian or non-Christian alike.

---

But there is no heaven and actually God isn't a being, but I won't touch on that.

I'm intrigued. I want to hear what your thoughts are but I don't want to derail this thread. Would it be too much to ask from you to start a new thread on this?