Four questions for Christians

[evenheathen]

The concept itself is logically impossible.

Funny, you can understand it when applied to simple thought experiments. But when it comes to god, it escapes you that your answer right here is why atheists exist.

The application of rational, logical thought is what deconverts believers every day. As a thinking christian, you have to jump through so many cognitive hoops to rationalize the major fallacy that a true belief in YHWH is. With so much evidence pointing to the fact that the creation of the idea of the abrahamic god is just a culmination of so many false beliefs preceding it, it's a wonder that anyone takes this seriously anymore.

Could there be a god, a higher existence, a creative force? Sure....maybe.

But the iron age war god is not a plausible candidate for such a position. Sorry.

[Consilius]

@pineapplebunnybounce
I don't know where you got "only religion has morals" from. The "natural law" I referred to is the moral standard of nature.

Really, I'm done with this part of the discussion.

If someone goes around selling their lives to people, that's their own business, although it would be odd in the 21st century. Do you have a right to tell them that they can't pay their debts by working for households?

Don't change slavery to "working for households". How many times do you want to try this? It's selling themselves to a household, there's a difference between being an employee and being someone's property. And yea, we do have laws that say that people cannot become property. How immoral of us.

God was weaning people from expecting social rights to leading good lives. There is injustice in the world today, and God isn't rallying the marginalized to strike back at their offenders, because some wars are never won. Establishing justice is good in itself, but that shouldn't be the focus of life. Dying with an unheard cry isn't a failure because life is more than your marriage rights or your wealth or your race. It's not about winning the fight for rights either. It's about being the best person you can be.

So your religion's view is that, yes, bad things happen, I'm not going help you change that, neither should you focus on changing that, but just be a good person?

Paul didn't defend slavery neither did he oppose it. His message was that it simply didn't matter if you were free or in bondage, because God is always with you and he cares about you if no one else does. He said that we shouldn't worry about if the government will ever hear our voices or if we are stepped on the wealthy, because there were more important things than standing up for rights.

Didn't matter to him. Because he wasn't a slave. Religious people do seem very impervious to others' suffering.

One passage is enough for you? The Bible is a unified whole, and not a word of it is self-sufficient. The only reason I see that you don't want to accept it that way is because I gave you evidence that conflicted your conclusion. A conclusion you got from five words.

I mean, come on, does anyone think that's fair? Are we going to take Bible snippets and throw them at Christians without even finishing the sentence? I'm not saying it's true, but it just makes the claimant look desperate. Really.

ok fine, it's not just one passage. it's also all those OT laws and crap about women. Which you're going to say doesn't apply anymore, because jesus came and lalala, but they apply to me. and really however much you dance around the issue of women's rights in the bible, i doubt you'll convince me that the bible believes in equality, just like you failed to convince me that god killing children was just. Somethings are just impossible to justify.

Loving someone is about forgiving their mistakes. Not about starting over the second it stops acting exactly how you would have preferred it. Hell is for those who don't want to love God, and so they spend eternity in his absence. I'm sorry, it's not an inferno made for kids who use swear words.

1. noah's ark
2. the NT says if you call someone stupid you'll burn in hell.

You can't sell yourself? So be it. I wasn't encouraging it, anyway. Owning anyone in any way is something we are all uneasy about.
It's not that fighting for the rights of yourself or others is unimportant. It's just that you may not win, and you need to live that way (if you are the person being persecuted). The scrawny kid will probably never grow muscles and throw the bully into the dumpster. So be it. Christians once were persecuted, and they didn't start riots when they were arrested and tortured. They prayed. Winning your fight isn't what gives your life value, although that's what everyone notices. It's the kind of person you were in it.
Paul was persecuted for his entire career as a missionary and died a martyr. He knew what suffering meant. But he didn't care because he knew it didn't matter, and that's what he preached.
Jesus' teachings are relevant to much of the OT, but not all of it. But I did describe why a woman would seem less important in a warlike, nomadic desert people.
I've spent 10 pages on the Tenth Plague. Are you going to open up that can of worms all over again?

I had a feeling someone would bring up the Flood when I said that. Weren't Noah and his family descendants of Adam? The flood is a legend of how God preserved the good in his creation and got rid of the bad. Those who didn't want him were uprooted from the earth he created, and those who wanted him were preserved. Creation was preserved in the Flood.
"21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell." Matthew 5:21-22
Hate is sinful and draws you away from God. Insulting another person is hateful. Hate is sinful. Sin is ungodly. Therefore, you are drawing yourself away from God and closer to a place where God is not (Hell).

---

The concept itself is logically impossible.

Funny, you can understand it when applied to simple thought experiments. But when it comes to god, it escapes you that your answer right here is why atheists exist.

The application of rational, logical thought is what deconverts believers every day. As a thinking christian, you have to jump through so many cognitive hoops to rationalize the major fallacy that a true belief in YHWH is. With so much evidence pointing to the fact that the creation of the idea of the abrahamic god is just a culmination of so many false beliefs preceding it, it's a wonder that anyone takes this seriously anymore.

Could there be a god, a higher existence, a creative force? Sure....maybe.

But the iron age war god is not a plausible candidate for such a position. Sorry.

What did "iron age" and "war" have to do with anything I just said?
A higher existence that brought the universe itself—including all we know to be conceivably possible into existence would have to be omnipotent. You arrive at the same "problem", whether the force you are referring to is Yahweh or Odin or the god of deism.
Let's go into more disproofs for such a force. "Can Yahweh commit sin?" "Can Yahweh forget stuff?" Why should these be cause for a deconversion? In fact, they are encouraging. Let me change my answer. God CAN do all these things. The reason he doesn't and never will is because it is contradictory to his nature, and, as God, his nature will remain constant because he wills to keep it that way. God WILL NOT make a rock he can't lift because he is all-powerful. God WILL NOT cease to exist because he promises to be with his people, and he WILL NOT lie because he is truth. God WILL NOT change, nor is he under the inclination to do so, because he doesn't behave like humans do. That fact in itself will not change, in the same way two plus two will not change to five under any circumstances.

[evenheathen]

God WILL NOT change, nor is he under the inclination to do so, because he doesn't behave like humans do

Have you read the OT? If you took the worst traits of the worst dictators in human history and rolled them into one, that's how the god of the old testament acts. Jealous, vain, petty and cruel. Ancient Jewish culture was brutal, so they worshipped a brutal god.

It wasn't until Paul came along and invented christianity that he became the loving feel good god of the new testament.

Why do Jews reject Christ's divinity? Because the gospel narrative does not line up with the Torah. The very nature of who god is was changed in order for Paul to sell his ideas.

[Consilius]

Paul lived after the death of Christ and the foundation of the church, so if anyone made Christianity up, its not him.
God is described as good, loving and merciful in the Old Testament like he is in the New. You are speaking in absolutes. Because of sin, man had fallen to the brutalities of the OT. God gave the Jews law to regulate and later wean them from their sinful state into a closer relationship with him.
The Jews didn't like Jesus because he failed to meet their expectations as king and liberator against the hated Roman Empire. Their expectations were met shortly after Christ's death in the form of Simon bar Kokhba, a rebel leader against the Romans who established an independent Jewish state and made himself Prince in the Third Jewish Revolt. He died shortly after and was condemned as a liar, giving way to hundreds of other messianic claimants.
Jesus Christ was one of the most out-of-place of the Messiahs. He rarely publicly claimed himself to be God or the messiah or a political figure of any sort. But he was Jewish and behaved Jewish, because he sought to revise the Jewish law and bring it to its completion through himself to fix what Adam had done and restore man's relationship with God.

[evenheathen]

Paul lived after the death of Christ and the foundation of the church, so if anyone made Christianity up, its not him.

Paul made up his own version of what he thought the church should be, and he worked very hard to sell his ideas. His version of christ is very vague when compared to what is in the synoptic gospels. He was often at odds with those who actually knew jesus and he pissed a lot of people off. What the modern church turned into because of his writings should really be called Paulianity.

The Jews didn't like Jesus because he failed to meet their expectations as king and liberator against the hated Roman Empire.

Funny that a lot of Jews hold a view of jesus that is just like the atheistic view. There may have been a man, he may have been crucified for being a rabble rouser and a false prophet, but he was never resurrected and was not the son of god.

If the resurrection happened, then christianity has a case. Unfortunately the only evidence for it happening is in the bible, which is full of demonstrably false tales.

[Consilius]

Paul was a member of the early Christian church just like everybody else. He taught at Antioch and participated in the Jerusalem Council. He actually described himself as inferior to the other apostles in a letter:

"9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed." 1 Corinthians 15:9-11

Both Jews and Christians believe there was an empty tomb. The best argument for the Resurrection not happening is that the disciples stole the body, although they themselves claimed to have lacked a motive for wanting to and the church wasn't founded until over a month after the Crucifixion.
Even preaching the Resurrection of Christ under these circumstances would entail that Christ had publicly claimed to be God, which he rarely did, and that Christ was also going to punish the Jews, as Jewish people would expect from a God, but the early Christians did not rise against the Jews under their newfound faith.
Lying about the Resurrection would have contradicted Christ's doctrines and warranted a Christian revolt. But the disciples lived and prematurely died with no political influence, and they accepted the authority of the government, contrary to popular Jewish belief at the time.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

It's not that fighting for the rights of yourself or others is unimportant. It's just that you may not win, and you need to live that way (if you are the person being persecuted). The scrawny kid will probably never grow muscles and throw the bully into the dumpster. So be it. Christians once were persecuted, and they didn't start riots when they were arrested and tortured. They prayed. Winning your fight isn't what gives your life value, although that's what everyone notices. It's the kind of person you were in it.

So not condemning slavery is part of this pacifist philosophy? Could you explain to me, why god cared so much about what you do in life, and how you live, down to all the details in the OT, if all that shouldn't matter if you're a good person?

Paul was persecuted for his entire career as a missionary and died a martyr. He knew what suffering meant. But he didn't care because he knew it didn't matter, and that's what he preached.

What has this got to do with anything? He didn't care, that doesn't surprise me, he likely thought he was going to heaven, he was a true believer, right?

Jesus' teachings are relevant to much of the OT, but not all of it. But I did describe why a woman would seem less important in a warlike, nomadic desert people.
I've spent 10 pages on the Tenth Plague. Are you going to open up that can of worms all over again?

No, I didn't want to bring anything up. But of course it's clear to me how a nomadic tribe doesn't understand equality. But it's in the bible. Explain to me which part is written by the nomadic tribe, and which part by god?

I had a feeling someone would bring up the Flood when I said that. Weren't Noah and his family descendants of Adam? The flood is a legend of how God preserved the good in his creation and got rid of the bad. Those who didn't want him were uprooted from the earth he created, and those who wanted him were preserved. Creation was preserved in the Flood.

he killed everyone on earth except noah. if we want to pretend this actually happened, it was an act of destruction and not preservation. when you wipe out 99% of something, you're not preserving it, you're destroying it.

"21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell." Matthew 5:21-22
Hate is sinful and draws you away from God. Insulting another person is hateful. Hate is sinful. Sin is ungodly. Therefore, you are drawing yourself away from God and closer to a place where God is not (Hell).

Hate is not a bad thing.

[NoahsFarce]

The concept itself is logically impossible. A perfect being with an ultimately perfect will cannot subject itself to its own will.
What you are suggesting is "I declare that I shall be unable to declare something."
A similar question would be, "Can God make himself disappear?" or "Can God take away his own power?"

Exactly! The concept is illogical because the concept of OMNIPOTENCE is illogical.

As for your perfect being comment, how do you know that? What is your logical premise for the assertion that a "perfect" being with and ultimately "perfect" will cannot subject itself to its own will?

Okay, let me rephrase the question then since you keep on dancing around.

Can God create and equally powerful God?

[evenheathen]

Both Jews and Christians believe there was an empty tomb.

I would beg to differ.

As for the rest of your answer, it is all made with a presupposition that everything in the bible is historical fact. Given the inconsistencies of even the synoptic accounts of christ's life, and the absolute absence of any corroborating contemporary accounts of any of the other miraculous events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection we can conclude that the historicity of such an event is mighty suspect. (i.e. the tearing of the veil in the temple, the dead walking witnessed by many, a solar eclipse lasting as long as the gospels record, etc.)

At least some of these things would have been noticed by somebody and recorded somewhere other than some faith documents without clear authorship written decades after the fact and canonized by councils with clear political motivations.

But you believe what you want, dude.

[Consilius]

It's not that fighting for the rights of yourself or others is unimportant. It's just that you may not win, and you need to live that way (if you are the person being persecuted). The scrawny kid will probably never grow muscles and throw the bully into the dumpster. So be it. Christians once were persecuted, and they didn't start riots when they were arrested and tortured. They prayed. Winning your fight isn't what gives your life value, although that's what everyone notices. It's the kind of person you were in it.

So not condemning slavery is part of this pacifist philosophy? Could you explain to me, why god cared so much about what you do in life, and how you live, down to all the details in the OT, if all that shouldn't matter if you're a good person?

Paul was persecuted for his entire career as a missionary and died a martyr. He knew what suffering meant. But he didn't care because he knew it didn't matter, and that's what he preached.

What has this got to do with anything? He didn't care, that doesn't surprise me, he likely thought he was going to heaven, he was a true believer, right?

Jesus' teachings are relevant to much of the OT, but not all of it. But I did describe why a woman would seem less important in a warlike, nomadic desert people.
I've spent 10 pages on the Tenth Plague. Are you going to open up that can of worms all over again?

No, I didn't want to bring anything up. But of course it's clear to me how a nomadic tribe doesn't understand equality. But it's in the bible. Explain to me which part is written by the nomadic tribe, and which part by god?

I had a feeling someone would bring up the Flood when I said that. Weren't Noah and his family descendants of Adam? The flood is a legend of how God preserved the good in his creation and got rid of the bad. Those who didn't want him were uprooted from the earth he created, and those who wanted him were preserved. Creation was preserved in the Flood.

he killed everyone on earth except noah. if we want to pretend this actually happened, it was an act of destruction and not preservation. when you wipe out 99% of something, you're not preserving it, you're destroying it.

"21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell." Matthew 5:21-22
Hate is sinful and draws you away from God. Insulting another person is hateful. Hate is sinful. Sin is ungodly. Therefore, you are drawing yourself away from God and closer to a place where God is not (Hell).

Hate is not a bad thing.

God's incredibly specific laws of the OT were meant to distinguish the Jews as God's people who preserved God's law in a world that had forgotten it. But these laws were only part of the formula. In the OT, the physical was used to indicate the spiritual, but in the NT, Christ showed the full path to salvation was based on the spiritual.

If Judeo-Christian theism was based off of the promise of heaven, the Bible would be more top-down. There is little, if any, mention of life after death in the OT, let alone promises of glory and joy, contrary to Islam.
Paul did describe his hope in a "prize" in 2 Timothy 4:8, but, he is thankful in suffering for much better reasons than the stereotypical Christian motive.
"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." 2 Corinthians 4:8-10
"That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." Philippians 3:10
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." Colossians 1:24
Suffering brought Paul closer to Christ's suffering, and he was glad in the experience of it because his suffering was inherently good, not because it would soon be over. Or else he would have said a few Masses and killed himself.

God's laws in the Torah were made for the Israelite people to guide them spiritually, so it drew on much of what they already knew with their OT culture. Surviving in the desert was hard work, not to mention the constant fighting, so men played a critical role in supporting families. Women didn't fight wars, and so they generally worked at home, not to mention that men protected them from those who would overpower and exploit them. Men and women were equal, but fit into different caches of society. That's all.

God never destroyed man itself. He destroyed many bad people, but he didn't start over. Humanity continued with ordinary Homo sapiens, just as it had before. Noah himself was a vessel of God preserving the human race.

To wish bad of somebody else is a bad thing. Hate is not inherently evil. God hates.

---

The concept itself is logically impossible. A perfect being with an ultimately perfect will cannot subject itself to its own will.
What you are suggesting is "I declare that I shall be unable to declare something."
A similar question would be, "Can God make himself disappear?" or "Can God take away his own power?"

Exactly! The concept is illogical because the concept of OMNIPOTENCE is illogical.

As for your perfect being comment, how do you know that? What is your logical premise for the assertion that a "perfect" being with and ultimately "perfect" will cannot subject itself to its own will?

Okay, let me rephrase the question then since you keep on dancing around.

Can God create and equally powerful God?

I actually decided that I needed to revise my answer and put it in a previous post:
"God CAN do all these things. The reason he doesn't and never will is because it is contradictory to his nature, and, as God, his nature will remain constant because he wills to keep it that way. God WILL NOT make a rock he can't lift because he is all-powerful. God WILL NOT cease to exist because he promises to be with his people, and he WILL NOT lie because he is truth. God WILL NOT change, nor is he under the inclination to do so, because he [isn't human]. That fact in itself will not change, in the same way two plus two will not change to five under any circumstances."

God has the physical capability to sin. The reason this sounds absurd is because we know the Christian God to NOT sin. That is because his omnibenevolent nature does not change. God refuses to change because of the responsibility he has to humanity not to change because he is their God.
In the same way, God WILL NOT clone himself because the universe is under his control alone, and needs to remain so so that only the events he ordains occur because of the responsibility he has to the created universe.

---

Both Jews and Christians believe there was an empty tomb.

I would beg to differ.

As for the rest of your answer, it is all made with a presupposition that everything in the bible is historical fact. Given the inconsistencies of even the synoptic accounts of christ's life, and the absolute absence of any corroborating contemporary accounts of any of the other miraculous events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection we can conclude that the historicity of such an event is mighty suspect. (i.e. the tearing of the veil in the temple, the dead walking witnessed by many, a solar eclipse lasting as long as the gospels record, etc.)

At least some of these things would have been noticed by somebody and recorded somewhere other than some faith documents without clear authorship written decades after the fact and canonized by councils with clear political motivations.

But you believe what you want, dude.

I didn't take the Bible as fact, but realized that it was authored by Christians. Do you disagree with that?
So if Christians say bad things about themselves in their own book, such events are more credible than events that support Christianity.
The humility of Christ in a Roman society is a negative. The fear and misunderstanding of the apostles to the point that Christ chides them is also a negative. Christ being brutally killed and not taking revenge on the Jews in a culture of revenge is also a negative. Therefore, it is more credible and less likely to be understood as dishonest propaganda.
As for the empty tomb, we are yet to find evidence of Christ's corpse having remained in the ground.