3 reasons for Christians to start questionng their faith

[Ryantology]

You're going to tell me, that rumors got hyped up so amazingly high within the course of 60-70 years, that some guy wrote a book in which the dude claims to be God... and everyone believes it? Wouldn't most of the people be able to ask their friend about the dude? So there is a group that starts making racket about this guy, and no one stops and thinks, "I should probably ask people who were also there"? Such a stretch.

How many people are going to be around 60-70 years later who could possibly have been an eyewitness to any of those events? Furthermore, how could you verify any of the accounts? How could you take a single testimony seriously? It's like how there were 60000 people or so in Three Rivers Stadium when Franco Harris caught the Immaculate reception, yet a million Steelers fans from 40 years ago claim to have been there to see it happen. Or, if you prefer, enough alleged fragments of the True Cross to have made a hundred of them.

[FallentoReason]

With Mark being the first Gospel written, why did "Matthew", a supposed witness, feel the need to use the content in Mark as opposed to his own eyewitness testimony? Why is it written in third person?

Mark was the account already written. He could have simply not wanted to repeat a story already told in another way.

Weak. Witness testimony > hearsay any day, especially when one is going through the trouble of setting up a new religion.

Mark was the historical account and first written. Matthew was trying to convert Jews. Matthew is laced with OT references and genealogies and prophesies fulfilled and whatnot that the Jews at the time loved.

Such as the prophecy that Jesus would be called a Nazarene, which is nowhere to be found in the OT?

http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/tr...t=KJV&sf=5

Mark never mentions himself. John never mentions himself. Matthew doesn't either. This wasn't a letter, it was a book to tell the story.

Excellent. You've set out your work to prove Tradition is correct in asserting authorship like it has.

John is a clear example of rumours being hyped up, which indicates it couldn't have been an eyewitness who wrote it, otherwise we wouldn't see this clear exaggeration in e.g. theology.

Do you believe all the conspiracy websites? Perhaps those websites are a conspiracy themselves...

Funny you mention "conspiracy". There's some Christian friends I know in real life who fervently believe NASA never went to the moon and that 9/11 was an inside job by the US government. I'm not surprised in the least to see that they believe conspiracy theories, because the backwards thinking required to justify those views are the very same that are required to believe in religion.

Anyway, the reason you say John has "hyped up rumors" must be because you really want there to be a flaw, because this is quite the stretch. Lets put this book at 100 A.D. to make this easy. You're going to tell me, that rumors got hyped up so amazingly high within the course of 60-70 years, that some guy wrote a book in which the dude claims to be God... and everyone believes it? Wouldn't most of the people be able to ask their friend about the dude? So there is a group that starts making racket about this guy, and no one stops and thinks, "I should probably ask people who were also there"? Such a stretch.

1 John 4:1-3
1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.

Don't you find it incredible that within this generation, we have a full spectrum of Christians that can't decide what the truth is? I mean, if you think I'm stretching the truth, then how about your early comrades in the 1st century preaching a spiritual Christ? CLEARLY it wasn't so easy as simply asking someone "who was there", because otherwise we wouldn't have (what you might call a conspiracy nut) preaching a spiritual Christ when Jesus was apparently just on earth. The conviction in those Christians' hearts as well as their belief in a spiritual Christ should logically seem like a mutually exclusive thing, yet we had people saying they believed in God and this spiritual messiah.

[Mr_Dew7]

As someone who spent over 25 years practicing the Christian faith, and who has since found greater liberty and personal fulfillment outside of that practice, I would like to encourage all Christians to consider some of the more compelling reasons to question your faith. Here are a few:

#1. Lack of Validity.

Christianity fails to substantiate even the most basic of it’s claims, such as the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. But even more compelling is the fact that the story of Jesus is part of a collection of books filled with scientific impossibilities, contradictions, and bogus history.

Christopher Hitchens once said, “The bible makes magnificent claims, we should require magnificent proof.”

Now, of course, Christians will counter that by saying, “God must leave plenty of room for faith”. There are, however, two fundamental problems with that perspective:

(a) It leaves far too much room for error. If faith is the primary driving force behind a person’s belief, what is to stop them from believing in any number of other religious ideas or practices? Faith without first having good reason is meaningless.

(b) According to the Bible, faith is not the means by which god has inspired his most important followers:

Moses, for example was shown a burning bush, which actually spoke to him and very specifically declared:

"Don't come any closer, take off your sandals because you are in the presence of God. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

Even at that, Moses still had his doubts, so he was given even more undeniable evidence, as well as the power to demonstrate his god ordained purpose to others. (Exodus Chapter 3)

Also, The Apostle Paul, a man initially portrayed in scripture as a persecutor of Christians, was shown a brilliant light, physically knocked to the ground, and was then given very specific instructions from an audible voice. Further more, he was blinded and then given his sight back. (Acts 9:3-9)

And there are literally dozens upon dozens of other examples of characters in the Bible being inspired to serve god as the result of some supernatural event that was clearly a message from god.

#2. Immorality.

Dr. William Lane Craig, a well known Christian apologist, loves, in his defense of theism, to claim that, without god, there is no objective morality. I happen to disagree with that, and I’ll expand here:

If, by “Objective Morality”, it is the Christian position that morality has a permanently fixed set of unalterable standards, then it my position that such a thing does not exist with or without god.

However, if “Objective Morality” is merely meant to point to the pursuit of accomplishing a logical and beneficial objective, then I would argue that the only sensible standard of morality is that of the preservation, success, and further evolution of human kind. Within that frame work, human decency, the betterment and quality of human life, and environmental, political, and social issues have the very best chance of being effectively resolved and productively furthered.

In contrast, Christianity offers no practical solution for the survival and success of man kind, and instead trivializes human life while promoting completely unstubstantiated claims of an eternal spiritual existence beyond the grave.

Luke 17:33
Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

And this same lack of regard for human life and human decency is repeated and illustrated all throughout the Bible.

With that in mind, is it any wonder why Christians throughout history have committed so many terrible atrocities? Once you strip a human being of his regard for human life (especially his own) with promises of eternal and spiritual prosperity, you create a potentially homicidal maniac that will do anything in the name of god.

#3. Heaven’s Hell.

Even If you can look past the counter-productive moral implications, and the lack of any compelling evidence to support the claims of Christianity, you still have to face the terrible reality of what it claims will be the ultimate outcome of it's followers. Observe:

Revalation 5:13
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

Revalation 22:4-5:
No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Matthew 22:30
At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

The eternal life that a Christian is working toward and hoping for, according to scripture, is one of constant praise, worship, and slavery (Rom 6:22) of an extremely boring and self-centered egomaniac that intends to strip his servants of any kind of meaningful free will or independent interest.

I’m not sure which is the more wishful thinking: that the heaven of the bible exists at all, or that it's actually a place worth going to.

Where will you go when you die?

[Silver]

Where will you go when you die?

No where. I will cease to exist.

[Mr_Dew7]

Where will you go when you die?

No where. I will cease to exist.

Great.. sounds... great.

[downbeatplumb]

No where. I will cease to exist.

Great.. sounds... great.

All we have evidence for is that when life ends then that is it. Any other way of thinking is unproven wishful thinking.

[FallentoReason]

No where. I will cease to exist.

Great.. sounds... great.

What? You think that because you desire eternal life it somehow means reality will warp to fit your demand?

Saying that the atheistic world view is grim is just about the worst apologetic line out there. It completely ignores the fact that we have to humble ourselves and see what the evidence reveals about the cosmos. Whether you decide to accept this truth is a different story altogether.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~ Plato

[Mr_Dew7]

Great.. sounds... great.

All we have evidence for is that when life ends then that is it. Any other way of thinking is unproven wishful thinking.

How would the fallible human race go about proving the existence of an afterlife?

---

Great.. sounds... great.

What? You think that because you desire eternal life it somehow means reality will warp to fit your demand?

Saying that the atheistic world view is grim is just about the worst apologetic line out there. It completely ignores the fact that we have to humble ourselves and see what the evidence reveals about the cosmos. Whether you decide to accept this truth is a different story altogether.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~ Plato

I didn't say it was grim. I believe it is wrong, I never said grim. And what evidence can you show that proves without a doubt that there is no God? I don't have proof for you, all I have is faith. Which seems to be a big taboo here. Why is faith such a scary thing?

[KichigaiNeko]

In short Drew, you have no evidence to base your "faith" on. It is not a "taboo subject" here (that is just your emotional paranoia)

Here we tend to subscribe to scientific methodology, whereas you can make a claim and it can be tested by all and sundry to have an identical result. So far you have not provided any methodology, only a baseless claim.... often heard in insane asylums over the millennia

[Mr_Dew7]

In short Drew, you have no evidence to base your "faith" on. It is not a "taboo subject" here (that is just your emotional paranoia)

Here we tend to subscribe to scientific methodology, whereas you can make a claim and it can be tested by all and sundry to have an identical result. So far you have not provided any methodology, only a baseless claim.... often heard in insane asylums over the millennia

According to the Scientific Method, all valid scientific claims such as proofs or theories are universally limited to being based on data that is observable & repeatable in a controlled environment.How then can we subject God, miracles, and heaven to the scientific method? We can not observe God in a repeatable and controlled environment, neither can science deny the possibility of miracles, as it does not fall under the criteria of the scientific method. So there is no way for me to provide you with a scientific methodology for something that science cannot methodize. The scientific method automatically discards anything that is not repeatable, observable, and recordable.