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]

[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]

[Welsh cake]

[LastPoet]

[pocaracas]

[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.

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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?