All the problems with Christianity

[Minimalist]

Except that the Gospels were likely all written within 100 years of Jesus's birth (70 years of His death), which is very little time for stories like that to be corrupted by people who wanted to give the OT false credibility.

Within 10 years of George Washington's death stories grew up of him throwing silver dollars across the Potomac and never telling lies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parson_Weems

These stories were horseshit but they did find their way into American folklore. Please do not pretend to understand history if you don't.

[Anomalocaris]

It seems to be a new Christain tack to claim that so long as a lie is bigger than any other lie known (to the unlearned) to have been believed, then it must not be a lie.

[Cinjin]

It seems to be a new Christain tack to claim that so long as a lie is bigger than any other lie known (to the unlearned) to have been believed, then it must not be a lie.

That's actually how I know Santa Clause is real.

[ronedee]

Looking at it backwards (from my explanation above) would leave us with the view that faith is blind by definition. The child in my example would believe that his father was bringing home the toy even though there was no evidence to believe such, or even evidence to the contrary (such as the father's adamant insistence that he would not purchase it). In that example, his faith would seem misplaced.

If god revealed himself to a person in a direct manner, then the faith isn't blind. That person may have trouble convincing others that his personal revelation is genuine; mental institutions no doubt have hosted their share of Napoleons over the ages. Others have had no trouble convincing people that they heard voices, but I suspect that few people believe that David Berkowitz was heeding a divine call when he acted on his personal revelation.

As for what god might want from us, I suppose that if he was to provide a personal revelation, it would be useful to include that information along with the bright lights and dancing angels.

I wanted to address this separately because it brought to mind a question that is probably more philosophical than anything else. That is to say, I don't know if there is a wrong or right answer, or what it might mean.

What can I "do for him"? What happens to god if I do not demonstrate a need for him? If I do not obey him? Or respect, trust, or love him? Is he harmed in any real sense? Or is it more the sense of sadness like we would feel if someone bumped the tower we were building from playing cards just before we added the finishing touches?

Well... you seem to portray the child as some kind of victim.

In what sense is the child a victim (in your view)? Because he has "some" faith in his dad, but "not enough" to believe he'll bring home a T-Rex? If my earthly dad told me he was bringing home a T-Rex... I would've been widening the door!

If God revealed Himself to you, do you believe you would have a choice to move in any other direction after that moment in time?

If God's kingdom revealed, is the ultimate destination in life... what point is there going anywhere else? What would be the point of life "after" such revelation? And if it were just a "brush" with Him in a chance encounter, what purpose would it serve? Case in point....

I have 2 friends, and coworkers that were very nearly killed in the line of duty. One says it was "God" that saved him, and actually witnessed God, on what was to be his death bed. The other believes it was "luck".

Who was right in those 2 situations?

They are both happy to be alive. Both returned to duty. They seem to have very similar lifestyles and daily struggles. Neither person seemed to change, other than they are extremely happy to be alive!

Here's my point: Wouldn't God need to reveal Himself to all of us? And.... at the same exact time in order for all to believe He exists? Or do you think your ONE encounter with God will satisfy all your atheist friends? And, me to some measure?

What good would God revealing Himself to YOU...Do for Me? Or anyone for that matter?

Which brings us back to my first general question, and observation... Where would we ALL be if God indeed revealed Himself to us?

Keep in mind the sheer Power, and Glory that God revealed represents! Not man's lame versions! The true essence of what someone is like that created the Universe! This is panty soiling stuff!

Or, do you think that someone of this unspeakable magnitude would hop a bus to your house for a quick nod of assurance? Because its you?

No. We are "given" life. He will return one day, and we will have to account for what we did with that gift!

And until then? Widen the door my friend!

[Bad Wolf]

I think I would close the door. We have of yet been unable to clone a T-rex so they don't exist, much like your god. Except the t-rex has the merit of existing once upon a time so I would in fact think it more likely that my father would bring a t-rex home then god coming to visit.

[ronedee]

Is the gift being vulnerable to believing absurd things on the basis of insufficient evidence?

"Life" isn't a gift?

Do you think of your 4 year old as a gift? Or just someone you're raising?

I think you need to finish that thought. Lines like this are followed with a disclaimer (Need him, obey him, trust him, love him...or else..)

This is what makes God seem like a petty egotistic maniac...

I am the father of a 4 year old boy. Is a 4 year old unempowered? I want him to grow into a kind intelligent man. I would of course like him to love me, and respect me, but I also realize that it's not a given. I need to work to improve as a man myself so that I can be a role model deserving of his respect, love, and gratitude.

I love him, so I give him guidance in the best way I can.

Ultimately, it will be his decision to do what I say, or follow a different path.

In the end, I'm not standing preparing to press a button that will subject him to eternal torture if he doesn't follow the exact path that want for him.

Why?

Did God reveal His raunchy nature to you personally?

What first hand knowledge (from God) and evidence do you have to support your claims? You are talking for Him correct?

Or is it man's version of God you are talking about?

---

I think I would close the door. We have of yet been unable to clone a T-rex so they don't exist, much like your god. Except the t-rex has the merit of existing once upon a time so I would in fact think it more likely that my father would bring a t-rex home then god coming to visit.

Well... if God did in some fasion exist (in your critical minds-eye of what He should be) would He bother with someone like you? Honestly?

Or, would He just sit back and laugh?

I mean really now.... If God knows all, is all. Why would He reveal Himself to someone who would close a door in His face?

Why not instead, reveal Himself to those who are faithful and loving of the "gift of life" that He gave us?

Some things are self-evident. Its whether we acknowledge them as evidence or not.

Do you need to actually see something to know it exists? Or, can you just know it? Is that possible?

My daughter bought her first car... a 10 year old vw. She did it all on her own! I didn't offer to help her buy it, other than to look at it or loan her some money. It didn't have any hubcaps on the 2 front wheels. So, after a few months, I got them for her and put them on one morning w/o telling her...

When I came home she ran up and hugged me! She said "thanks for the hubcaps dad, i love you!" I said, "what hubcaps?" With a surprised look on my face! She said..."I know it was you, thanks!"

That's Faith. And that's how I feel about my Heavenly Father! I don't need to "see Him" put good things in my life! I know it's all from Him.

[Esquilax]

Oh man, you leave the thread for 1 night to go to sleep and you come back to all this! Well, let's do it...

We're a talkative bunch.

Now, before I get started, just know that there's really no way to say what I need to say that isn't really blunt, but at the same time I don't want to come across as mean, because I don't want a potentially productive conversation to devolve into a shouting match, nor do I want to close off any chance of discourse because my tone was too aggressive. Therefore, when I say that your evidence for god is really, really bad, please try to take that in the spirit of constructive criticism, rather than outright flaming.

Now if we have to take a minute for that understanding to come to us, as is the case with large numbers, then our understanding cannot come from us, otherwise we would have had it to begin with.

That doesn't really follow. Have you never had an idea before? The mind isn't an instantaneous wonder-organ, it's a cobbled-together biocomputer built up through evolution. It takes time to work things out, just as it would with any other computational device. You might have had a point if we didn't have to do anything and then magically, understanding came to us, but that's not how it works. When you add numbers, you're mentally working through the process, aren't you? Slotting them in where they need to go, thinking it through... the result, and the reason why that is the result, is something you had to come to on your own. What part of that process makes you think that you were just supernaturally gifted this insight?

Besides, even if we had no idea how the brain does that- we do, in some respects, and you can check out science to see how that works- leaping to the conclusion that this stuff must be the product of an external, supernatural source would still be unjustified. It's an argument from ignorance: "I don't understand how this works, and therefore my bible's answer must be true."

It must come from someone who not only shares that understanding but has control of our minds and our understanding. Call that person what you will. I call Him God.

If you had never read the bible or heard of any religion whatsoever, do you think that's the conclusion you would have come to? You're really making some huge leaps of logic, here.

-Evidence for the Bible's veracity
There are a few reasons to believe that the Bible is true, but the best argument is probably fulfilled prophecy. Some of these can be explained away as hoaxes, e.g. prophecies that came true in the same book lend little credibility to the Bible. Also, some OT prophecies could have been read by NT authors and they could have said they were fulfilled when they really weren't. Except that the Gospels were likely all written within 100 years of Jesus's birth (70 years of His death), which is very little time for stories like that to be corrupted by people who wanted to give the OT false credibility.

There's a ton of problems with this prophecy game, the first of which being that a lot of these fulfilled prophecies owe their existence to spin, aided in no small part by the amazingly vague language employed by the old testament authors. These things are entirely self fulfilling; we're given a hazy, general statement about something happening in the future, which is then attached to any given event and spun to be confirmation of the prophecy by people who already want these things to be true. Looking at it from a non biased perspective, the links are nowhere near as ironclad as you christians want them to be.

Besides, for a prophecy to actually mean something, it needs to be specific, it needs to have a timeframe, and be fulfillable by a single event. Otherwise, it's just throwing names at a dartboard. When the bible does use specifics, the prophecy ends up failing; just look at Tyre. It's still around, it never fell to the hands of the person the bible said it would... it's a completely failed prophecy from every angle, but you're not presenting it as evidence that the bible is false, though.

[Bad Wolf]

Well... if God did in some fasion exist (in your critical minds-eye of what He should be) would He bother with someone like you? Honestly?

I don't know, makes me wonder why an all powerful, all knowing, universe creator would bother with a few billion large brained apes scampering around on a blue and green speck.

Do you need to actually see something to know it exists? Or, can you just know it? Is that possible?

No, you don't need to see something to know it exists, you need evidence

My daughter bought her first car... a 10 year old vw. She did it all on her own! I didn't offer to help her buy it, other than to look at it or loan her some money. It didn't have any hubcaps on the 2 front wheels. So, after a few months, I got them for her and put them on one morning w/o telling her...

When I came home she ran up and hugged me! She said "thanks for the hubcaps dad, i love you!" I said, "what hubcaps?" With a surprised look on my face! She said..."I know it was you, thanks!"

That's Faith. And that's how I feel about my Heavenly Father! I don't need to "see Him" put good things in my life! I know it's all from Him.

No, that is not faith. That is an example of reasonable belief. She knew that you knew she had bought a car. She knew that you knew that it didn't have hubcaps. She knew that she didn't buy and put the hubcaps on her car. She knew that it is extraordinarily unlikely that someone put them there by mistake. And considering you already loaned her money to buy the car, it is not unreasonable to assume that you would spend further money on it because you love your daughter.
And unless you are an incredibly good lier, your 'surprised face' combined with your confused 'what hubcaps?' exclamation implied that you were in fact lying and knew exactly what she was talking about.

Faith is gullibility. Faith is the excuse people give for believing in something despite lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary.

[Avodaiah]

you know how to add because someone taught you to do that, probably your parents or your kindergarten school teacher. If you weren't taught, you wouldn't know how to add beyond what can be demonstrably done.

God does not follow from knowing how to add.

From the simple fact that we know how to add, no, God does not follow from that. However, in the 2nd part of my argument I explained how the ability to add cannot come from us. If it did, we would be able to add instantaneously because we would always have this ability. The way it is now, we have to think and process problems with larger numbers, essentially waiting for this ability to come to us so we can know the solution. That means the ability to add doesn't come from us, so who does it come from? Someone who is in charge of our minds and our understanding, and who knows how to add.

How do you know it is a he? Or that it even has a gender as why would understand it?
Also which god? Is it allah? or Zororaoster? Or maybe mithra?

Agreed. This argument is not for Christianity. That's what my 2nd one is for.

You understand that not all prophecies are genuine. What percentage of prophecies in the Bible have to be true for you to know that it's the word of God. What about other books that contain prophecies that have come true?

Of course. Prophecy is one of the measures by which a book can be shown to come from God. That means if even one prophecy is conclusively proven false (i.e. promising something would not happen and then it did), the credibility of the whole book is reduced. If you take an honest look at prophecy, you will find that the Bible is among the mostreliable writings in that respect.
This is not to say that all the prophecies have been fulfilled, however. Some are fulfilled in ways people did not expect, and some have yet to be fulfilled.

But to covet something belonging to someone else isn't to resent or to hate them, it is to want what they have. 'Covet' means 'a desire to possess'. The commandment is an impossible one to follow, since covetousness is a feeling, not an act. Every person - every single one - has look at another's possession and thought, 'Gosh, I wish that was mine'. This commandment doesn't prohibit an action, but a thought.

If you look at someone else's possession with covetousness, that doesn't mean you think it would be nice to have and you'd like to have one too; it means you want that one, instead of them. Whether it is by stealing it, manipulating them into giving it to you, or some other way, you want it to be yours instead of theirs.

But Matthew 6, in context, is exhorting people to be more concerned about Heavenly rewards than with earthly necessities. It says to take NO thought for tomorrow - don't worry if your child is sick, or if the rent won't get paid or if your car won't start. We wouldn't be human if we didn't have such concerns. This has nothing to do with embracing 'every little fear', but is a mark of foresight and prudence on the part of responsible people. This instruction is - again - an impossible one for normal people to take to heart.

You're right about a couple things; for one, we should be more concerned about Heavenly things than earthly ones. But it does not exhort people not to plan for the future. The NASB says, "do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on." (6:25) True, it gives examples of birds and flowers that God provides for, and Jesus uses those examples to show that God can provide for His creation, but He does not say that foresight and prudence are wrong.

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

This is absolutely right. In every way, God is more important than any other person. But it does not say that we should not love our family, in fact, we should love them because of oyur love for God. God created them with a purpose, and the fact that they're living on Earth shows that they have a chance to begin or continue to fulfill that purpose.

Within 10 years of George Washington's death stories grew up of him throwing silver dollars across the Potomac and never telling lies.
...
These stories were horseshit but they did find their way into American folklore. Please do not pretend to understand history if you don't.

So you're saying that no historical writing is truly reliable? Well, to an extent you're right. Unless we were there, anything we know about Jesus's life and ministry are 2nd and 3rd-hand news.
That said, there is at least one good reason to believe that what the Gospels said really happened.

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

What this part is saying is that anyone who didn't believe Paul could ask one of literally hundreds of people who saw Jesus's ministry (or at least the latter part of it) for themselves, and this lends credibility to the Gospels as well. Many people, including the authors themselves, were still alive when the letters were written, including the writers themselves.

[Minimalist]

So you're saying that no historical writing is truly reliable?

Correct. In some cases we can figure out the motivations of the authors' to exaggerate, as when Caesar and Herodotus vastly overstated the numbers of enemies they defeated. The same holds true in your precious bible when at least 185,000 Assyrians were supposedly sent to knock off a late 8th century BC shithole like "Jerusalem."