Are all atheists this ill-informed about religion?

[abaris]

Help me understand here.  Are you saying that because Christians don't 100% agree on even basic tenets of "core beliefs" then it negates its validity?  I don't want to assume thats what you mean, but I have seen that premise espoused here by others.  

What we usually say - in response to assertive claims of holding the absolute truth - is pointing out the differences. From which it follows that not everyone, if anyone at all, can have it right. Claiming that there are no differences, as OP does, is totally dishonest or totally ignorant.

Just to scratch the surface here and as I was saying a while ago. There are fundamental differences in core believes between Roman Catholics or Evagelicals. Yet they all define themselves as christian. Sometimes to the point of denying the other group the status of being christian.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

[quote pid='1095844' dateline='1445876913']
 I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kobdb37Cwc
[/quote]

OMD! (Oh My Dog!) You got the reference!

Though actually I was referring to the Tori Amos version, not the original by Boomtown Rats. That video doesn't play, btw.

[downbeatplumb]

Tell me why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kobdb37Cwc

OMD! (Oh My Dog!) You got the reference!

Though actually I was referring to the Tori Amos version, not the original by Boomtown Rats. That video doesn't play, btw.




[/quote]

It plays for me.
My god what has Miss Amos done to that song. She should have stuck to being a cornflake girl .

[robvalue]

Millions of christians all claiming to have a personal relationship with Jesus/God and reporting to us contradictory things.

What are we supposed to make of that?

Oh, and they all say they are right and all the other Christians must be wrong.

[Delicate]

I've mentioned elsewhere why the real world practices of individual Christian persons and groups don't necessarily constitute Christian teaching, and often go above and beyond teaching to conform to preferences and customs, ultimately being convenient but unnecessary for Christianity.

You've mentioned that you don't think their practices are core to their faith, but you've yet to justify your dismissal.  And until you do, you won't gain any traction.

I'm just trying to help you, bud -- you're obviously in over your head, and unaccustomed to having to actually support your points.

If you can't engage with this point you can keep doggie-paddling in your own underwhelms.

At that rate you're going, I'm going to be drowning in 'em.

Unless you come up with reason and evidence I couldn't care less.

lol, the only claim I've made is that Christian sects practice those elements of faith which are important to them -- their core considerations.

Do you really need me to spell out my reasoning? You'd need evidence to regard those core practices as, well, core practices?

If so, I've clearly overestimated your intelligence, if not your haughty pretentiousness. Pardon my chuckling. 

Yes, it is condescension.

Some people like to come to church dressed formally. Others like to keep it very informal. This is a Christian practice, resulting from ethnic, social, cultural and customary considerations. In what atheist fanfiction world is this kind of Christian practice considered core doctrine?

Can you draw the logical inferences out from this or do you need me to draw it for you, that practices don't amount to core doctrine?

Don't worry about traction when you've been left in the dust on this discussion. 

Why has no one asked what, exactly, ARE these "core doctrines" I keep seeing hinted about?

Let's have a full list of what is considered "core doctrines", so we can stop seeing you say we don't know what they are?

I keep seeing people listing what I would have considered the core doctrines of the faith, not the practice, when I was a Christian...and yet he keeps saying we don't know what they are.

So, enough of this. List all of the Core Principles that we don't know, and stop using the phrase as a rhetorical shield.

Nobody is using the phrase as a rhetorical shield. That's just your lack of charity, atheist-rage, and predilection against rational discourse that's making you think that.

Simply put, core doctrines are those that salvation hangs on. Some of these are obvious, like the belief that salvation comes through Jesus, that human beings are fallen and in need of salvation, that salvation is attained through grace and not works (though works are good and inevitably arise in a self-actualized Christian, for lack of a better term). Others are entailments of these doctrines, so are less obvious until you draw the inferences out. They are logically entailed by the core doctrines, so are de dicto core, but aren't quite de re core because most Christians (just like the atheists here) don't think very much.

But we've been so fixated on the atheist failure to provide a shred of evidence for their mythology, we haven't touched on the issue of what doctrinal differences are meant to indicate. Let me address that. As typical internet atheists, the crowd here will no doubt have only one inference to make when it comes to Christianity, regardless of the evidence: "Boo Christianity!" I don't think you can be a proper atheist without affirming a mindless commitment to anti-Christian conclusions despite the reason evidence. That's more blind faith than any Christians have to have. But I think a good case can be made for the fact that doctrinal diversity, at least of the kind displayed (hardly any of the core, far more of the peripherals) doesn't count against Christianity period. 

The reason for this is that many other fields of study feature the same pattern, some showing diversity to a far greater degree than Christianity. And yet we take them to be credible, at least in the general sense. Why are atheists so credulous to these fields, which display so much diversity, yet become suddenly up in arms when they learn that a field with far more uniformity happens to be called Christianity? Here are the standard responses that spring to mind: Atheists {are hypocrites|have double standards|are confused|are stupid} etc.

I mean, to be fair, the discussions I've had with atheists here convince me the vast majority are idiots anyway, so nothing new (no offense, just stating how I really feel).

Look up the recent replication crisis in psychology, and the broader replication crises in other scientific fields. "All the contradictory scientific information! What do we do!"

And that's not even mentioning other fields like history where ambiguity results quite naturally from unclear data while the value of the field, and even its capacity to produce factual knowledge, is not doubted.

Are skeptics this stupid with science and history? No? So why are they so stupid with Christianity?

My guess is it's prejudice. There is no rational basis for drawing any conclusions about the reliability of essential Christian beliefs from the broader picture of doctrinal divergence. But atheists have a psychological problem that produces irrational and prejudicial negative attitudes towards God, and people who believe in God.

There's no other way to make a case against Christianity based on doctrinal divergence.

[downbeatplumb]

Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2...ger_effect.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. Dunning and Kruger attributed the bias to the metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately.

[Delicate]

Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2...ger_effect.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. Dunning and Kruger attributed the bias to the metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately.

Yes. A lot of atheists here seem to have it.

[Cato]

Yes. A lot of atheists here seem to have it.

How old are you? 12?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

You know, the only time I ever feel "atheist rage" is when someone keeps telling me that I'm angry because I'm an atheist.

Otherwise, I'm just fine.

I am a former member of your religious club, of a highly-literalist/fundamentalist stripe, and only gave up my faith after much research and reflection. I enjoyed my time in the church; they were wonderful people, and wonderful to me. I have many fond memories, especially of the summer evangelism retreats (camps) and the All-State Baptist Youth Choir trips I got to make as a teenager.

When I got involved with a local atheism group, in my mid-20s, I had such fond memories of our covered-dish suppers (most people say "pot-luck dinners") that I reinstituted the practice for our group explicitly because I thought it was a great way to socialize and to "multiply food" at our events, the way I had done in my church. Those in my church used to joke that covered-dish suppers were "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, every Sunday afternoon!"

I considered the issues of core belief and doctrine, particularly that of literalism (in light of conflicts I had noticed between what was being taught from the pulpit as "Biblical Truth" and what I already knew about the natural world) and the inerrancy of scripture. You may not consider those to be core doctrines, but I assure you the evangelicals do! I have read volumes of works in apologetics and counter-apologetics, in addition to my own degree in biology (minors in chemistry and history), which of course I attained long after doing the initial research on theology. For you to sit here and arrogantly suggest that we are only non-Christian because we either don't understand Christianity or because we are angry at God/Christians/religion-in-general, even while we sit here telling you that you are mistaken, is to declare to us that you will never respect us, and are not worth the time and effort to treat seriously on matters which would be high-intensity in thought-process and research necessary to have an exchange on that level.

So enough hiding behind your rhetoric. List YOUR ideas about what constitutes "core doctrine", and the proofs of Christianity that you think we cannot escape logically, and let's get to it.

We all know it's the reason you're here, and the reason you're insulting our intelligence and integrity. We know bait when we see it. Well, you got it, our full attention.

Present your case or STFU.

[Edwardo Piet]

Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2...ger_effect.

Yes. A lot of atheists here seem to have it.

An absence of belief in a skydaddy has nothing to do with the effect. Arrogance correlates strongly with theists who "know" there is a god though.