All the problems with Christianity

[The Reality Salesman01]

But this really says nothing about how true, or even how likely, Christianity is.

Saying Christianity is false because it makes us feel free and hopeful is like saying atheism must be false because it makes us feel worthless and hopeless, or that you should be a Christian so you don't have to be afraid of Hell (again, Ray Comfort, I'm looking at you.)

Ok, first thing is first...I never said anything was false. Ever. Go ahead and retrace the entire thread.


Now, I asked Rondee questions, and drew rational inferences from them. Just as you had a lot of words about why you believe in God, none of them had any substance to support that your belief existed as a product of anything more that wishful thinking. Neither you, nor Rondee established God beyond a subjective personal experience. You said that your belief in God "doesn't always" make you feel good. No doubt. But it does sometimes, people don't maintain subjective truths because they hate them. That would be quite absurd. As of right now, your claims of God are not substantiated either. What I said to Rondee was a perfectly accurate depiction of his position on God, and it was his lack of objective support which rendered his position to the quote you addressed.

It doesn't matter what I think, it's what you think.

How do you know your beliefs are true?

You either have a personal relationship with the creator of the cosmos, or you do not.

This God you claim to know either exists, or it doesn't. It's not a matter of opinion here.

Can you support this objective claim with anything solid, or do all of your reasons come from your own personal subjective experience of what God feels like to you?

If all you have is personal subjective experience to support your objective claim, the conclusions necessarily follow:

You are saying you know something that you cannot know. You continue saying that you do because it's easier for you to do than to face the uncomforting fact that you've been deluding yourself into a false hope. However uncomforting your faith may be at times, it's far more comforting than admitting to yourself that you have been deluding yourself into thinking you know something that you obviously do not, and the house of cards that has always been your belief in God would begin to crumble to the ground.

Of course, I can't speak for you...

I remember when my house of cards fell. It was a very defeating feeling filled with artificial guilt. Looking back, I wouldn't have it any other way.


At any rate, the questions are yours to answer...

[Bad Writer]

Theists, realize that it's all well and good if you come here and tell us that you believe in a deity. Fine. Whatever. That's your prerogative. It's when you instead tell us that you KNOW a god exists that we're going to call bullshit on that claim and ask for definitive proof.

[Zazzy]

This seems to be begging the question a little once we take a look at what exactly is so absurd. I assume you're mainly referring to the miracles that God/Jesus did in the Bible.
But the fact that they can't happen in the world, at least without God, is exactly the point: They imply that God must have had a hand in them. To say that their absurdness proves that the Bible is unreliable implies that the God of the Bible is not real, which is what you're trying to prove.

I'm not trying to prove anything to you, and I don't need to. Theists love to assume that atheists are making concrete claims that a god does not exist. I have not done that, so please make this strawman go away.

What I said was that the stories are ridiculous and unconvincing, and that they're part of a bewildering array of equally ridiculous stories and claims from many different flavors of religion. They can't all be true since they make competing claims, and even you Christians can't agree on the meanings of the stories in your holy book. I'm going to keep living my life without worrying about it, until religionists intrude into the political sphere and start fucking with me, as they are wont to do in Texas.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I believe God exists. He exists in your head. I don't doubt that you are convinced that it is real, because to you, it is. Nobody is trying to take that away. Just don't pretend like it's anything beyond your own subjective experience.

[Jacob(smooth)]

This seems to be begging the question a little once we take a look at what exactly is so absurd. I assume you're mainly referring to the miracles that God/Jesus did in the Bible.
But the fact that they can't happen in the world, at least without God, is exactly the point: They imply that God must have had a hand in them. To say that their absurdness proves that the Bible is unreliable implies that the God of the Bible is not real, which is what you're trying to prove.

I'm not trying to prove anything to you, and I don't need to. Theists love to assume that atheists are making concrete claims that a god does not exist. I have not done that, so please make this strawman go away.

What I said was that the stories are ridiculous and unconvincing, and that they're part of a bewildering array of equally ridiculous stories and claims from many different flavors of religion. They can't all be true since they make competing claims, and even you Christians can't agree on the meanings of the stories in your holy book. I'm going to keep living my life without worrying about it, until religionists intrude into the political sphere and start fucking with me, as they are wont to do in Texas.

Religion is the worst thing to happen to politics (especially in america) in... Well ever actually!

Politics is also the worst thing to happen to religion, for somewhat different reasons.

Politicians think they can "use" religion for political capital. Of course they can! But what they don't realise is the price they will have to pay for that. I think the new breed of politician, people like Palin and Ted Cruz, are a far greater threat to their own party than to the opposition!

American politics are fucking terrifying right now!

[Avodaiah]

Why don't you just say, “I don’t know if God exists, but I believe in Him because it makes me feel good.” Wouldn’t that me a more honest approach?

OK, I reread the post, sorry for misquoting you. It seems you were saying you think that's our reason for being Christians, not that it was the only possible reason. (Correct me if I'm wrong again.)
Incidentally, this brings us back to problem 4:

4) SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE!
First let me clear up something from earlier:

For something to be a prophecy, it must be very specific and only fulfillable by one, and only one event.

None of the so called prophecies fit this description.

I found some. They might not all be on 100 Fulfilled Prophecies, but I'm using Please Convince Me now, which I would also highly recommend.
-Prophecies about Other Countries

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:

Babylon's defenses were enormous, at least by ancient standards. Even their walls were more than 70ft thick and 300 feet high. But they had an opening for the Euphrates river to flow through. They diverted it and were able to go through the opening in the wall.

“And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts.

This prophecy basically said that Babylon would become swampland. In the 1800s, when archaeologists tried to dig up Babylon, there were some parts they could not dig up because the water table had risen and submerged it.

36 “Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence’: 37 Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety.

By 538 BC, the Jews were released from what used to be Babylon, and many of them went back to Israel.

There fire will consume you,
The sword will cut you down;
It will consume you as the locust does.

This prophecy was directed at Nineveh. Archaeologists have found ash covering the ruins of Nineveh, showing that it was indeed destroyed by fire.
-Evidence of Jesus's existence
The fact that Matthew, Mark, and Luke knew Old Testament writings and prophecy does make them less reliable. However, John was not learned in these, and his book depicts many of the same details of Jesus's ministry. Apart from the Bible, there are a number of other sources that talk about Jesus. Three of them are outlined here.
Other source:
http://pleaseconvinceme.com/2012/the-old...-prophecy/
There's more to be said as far as evidence for the Bible, but I have to get going. Hopefully I'll be on later though.

[The Reality Salesman01]

No..no..no. I don't know why you're a Christian, and I don't care. I'm talking about the existence of God. Until you establish some kind of objective substance for him, he's purely subjective, and totally in your head. You want to believe, and so you think that The Bible makes it more believer. You're blinded by confirmation bias. The fact that you bring up prophecy makes this clear. I'll save you the time and tell you up front, nobody on this site will find it at all convincing.


Don't conflate evidence for Jesus' existence with proof of the God he went on about. To avoid an utterly inane rant, I'll grant you Jesus' existence. This is now between you and me. Throw your Bible out the window, and don't bring it up again. If you do, you have lost my attention. Deal?



Let me keep this real simple.

Can you prove that you have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe?

[MindForgedManacle]

To talk about Biblical prophecy as some uniquely special, indisputable and factual thing is to pretend that people are so stupid that they can't look back at apparent prophecies and try to make them fit with any number of events, or that they cannot construct very vague, general claims of the future. Nostradamus anyone? Psychics? Come on now. We already some of the Gospels do this. I forget which one exactly (I think it's Matthew), but one of the Gospels does this to extraordinary lengths that's it's absurd and poorly done.

[Avodaiah]

This is now between you and me. Throw your Bible out the window, and don't bring it up again. If you do, you have lost my attention. Deal?



Let me keep this real simple.

Can you prove that you have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe?

What you're asking me to do is impossible, regardless of God's existence, Jesus's existence, the Bible's reliability, Christianity's veracity, or anything else.
You're not just asking me to prove God's existence, you're asking me to prove that I have a personal relationship with Him. In order to do this, I would have to produce some form of communication with Him, because what is a relationship without communication? But the way God communicates with people is in their hearts and minds, which cannot be detected by other people.
Even if I was to prove this personal relationship I have, I would also have to prove that this person I have a relationship with is God. How can I do that without even mentioning a source that tells who created the universe and who he has a relationship with?
But let me point out something about that challenge you gave me: You did not refute any of my arguments. You said I wanted to believe, you said I was blinded by confirmation bias, you said my arguments were unconvincing, but you did not refute even one of them. So why do you expect me to throw my Bible out the window?
Regardless, I think I'll have to bow out of this one. Sorry.

To talk about Biblical prophecy as some uniquely special, indisputable and factual thing is to pretend that people are so stupid that they can't look back at apparent prophecies and try to make them fit with any number of events, or that they cannot construct very vague, general claims of the future. Nostradamus anyone? Psychics? Come on now. We already some of the Gospels do this. I forget which one exactly (I think it's Matthew), but one of the Gospels does this to extraordinary lengths that's it's absurd and poorly done.

Yes, of course many weak prophecies are held up with crutches like these. But it is a fallacy (hasty generalization, to be specific) to say that all prophecies must be like this just because some are.
Take a look at the prophecies in the middle of Page 12. Many of them said exactly what event would happen, leaving no room for interpretation (e.g. mentioning Cyrus as the conqueror of Babylon).

[The Reality Salesman01]

What you're asking me to do is impossible, regardless of God's existence, Jesus's existence, the Bible's reliability, Christianity's veracity, or anything else.
You're not just asking me to prove God's existence, you're asking me to prove that I have a personal relationship with Him. In order to do this, I would have to produce some form of communication with Him, because what is a relationship without communication? But the way God communicates with people is in their hearts and minds, which cannot be detected by other people.
Even if I was to prove this personal relationship I have, I would also have to prove that this person I have a relationship with is God. How can I do that without even mentioning a source that tells who created the universe and who he has a relationship with?
But let me point out something about that challenge you gave me: You did not refute any of my arguments. You said I wanted to believe, you said I was blinded by confirmation bias, you said my arguments were unconvincing, but you did not refute even one of them.

So why do you expect me to throw my Bible out the window?
Regardless, I think I'll have to bow out of this one. Sorry.

Because people that have not been indoctrinated by your bible don't recognize it's authority.

To address the first half, you've just described a relationship with an imaginary friend. Then you illustrated that only a book validates it. This doesn't strike you as odd?

Isn't it odd that the only reason you associate this "relationship" with God is because a book tells you to?

Are you saying there's not the slightest bit of a chance that you haven't wrongfully placed the source of your feelings? Even when you recognize that the only way to prove otherwise is to refer one to a book that says you haven't?

Nothing about this shoots up any warning signs that you may be mistaken?

I find that odd.