Christian Looking For Debate

[SeekerOfTruth]

YOUR god?!!? Hell no, I don't want him showing up here. If the bible has taught us one thing it's that your god is a brutal violent SOB with a real penchant for killing anyone who doesn't conform to the smallest of details.

You bring up a good point, I don't know what to say to this.

No the bible clearly does not teach that. If you don't choose to worship your god, you face eternal torment in a place he admittedly prepared for you. That is not free will by any stretch of the imagination.

How is it not free will? You have a choice in the matter free from God swaying you one way or the other. However, there is a consequence. There are consequences for every action we do whether the consequence is good or bad. I a parent says "clean your room or your grounded." their child still has the free will to decide to do it or not but being grounded is the consequence for choosing not to, just like not being grounded is the consequence for cleaning your room. Having free will has nothing to do with the outcome of the choice you make.

How does KNOWING someone have anything to do with justifying whether or not to FOLLOW said person?!??! One has NOTHING to do with the other. NOTHING!
I know George W. Bush is real, and I choose not to support him. That doesn't make him any more or less legitimate as an American president. What exactly are you talking about?????????

If your god was shown to be real I still wouldn't follow him, as Ive had three occasions to point out tonight. Where does that leave your argument?

Honestly, I don't know where that leaves my argument. I was wrong to say that if He was known that people would follow him. You brought up an excellent point about Bush (especially since I don't support him either)

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

I choose to believe in him because that belief agrees with the way i perceive the world and recognize existence. Sure, I'm one of those Christians that looks at existence and sees God's creation, but I'd never use that as an argument for God's existence because everyone perceives the world differently and in their own unique way.

That's not even a sensical answer.
You just told me that you assume existance is god's creation but that's not an excuse to say that god exists.
The christian doctrine assumes that god is real and jesus died for our sins. You can't have it both ways between agnostic atheism and christianity because Christianity assumes god exists by default.
You cannot be a christian without believing in God and the divinity of Jesus.

Yes, more and more of the bible is disproven everyday, but its only disproven because its assumed to be literal while much of the bible is metaphorical in nature. The story of creation for instance initially wasn't taught as a literal 6 days but rather 6 huge periods of time. It was a metaphor even to the earliest Jews.

It's not that significant portions of the bible is metaphorical - it's outright false. The entire story of genesis is particularly nonsensical between what we know and what the bible states is true.
Any connection between the two would be arbitrary and unnecessary.
The rest of the bible doesn't really fare any better in this sense. How do you consolidate that with your beliefs?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

However, you must follow through with your own logic, you say you need credible evidence to believe God's existence yet you claim you do not accept God's existence as a given without giving credible evidence as to why.

OH dear, the old 'shift-the-burden-of-proof' ploy. I make no claims, so have no burden of proof.That honour belongs to you. I have no obligation to provide anything.


I don't believe in the existence of gods [at all] because of the lack of credible evidence.Ergo, I am unable to accept the existence of god as a given.


How you find atheists is tu quoque and irrelevant. (look it up) It is you who are asking for debate,not I.

Another reason is that most apologists we get here are incapable of rational argument,and have little if any understanding of the common rules of logic,as you have already demonstrated.

[SeekerOfTruth]

This is true. I looked over the entire thing and your right I don't know how to hold a rational argument nor logic. I'm trying to learn. I know what I believe but don't know how to logically defend it. Thank you everyone for the things you've said you've really challenged me. Honestly I've never been in a debate or needed to defend my beliefs in this way before. You all have given me much to think about and learn from so thanks.
Seeing as how I'm only 19 I have plenty of time to learn more. Perhaps one day I'll be able to bring a rational and logical argument here.

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, "I believe" is all the defense you need unless you maintain that this or that specific thing is demonstrably true, or factual, or accurate.

[Cinjin]

Holy shit. I've never had a christian concede a point. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there may be hope for you yet Seeker. You may very well be the first christian who hasn't lied to us about actually "seeking the truth". Time will tell I suppose, but you've raised my hopes.

No the bible clearly does not teach that. If you don't choose to worship your god, you face eternal torment in a place he admittedly prepared for you. That is not free will by any stretch of the imagination.

How is it not free will? You have a choice in the matter free from God swaying you one way or the other. However, there is a consequence. There are consequences for every action we do whether the consequence is good or bad. I a parent says "clean your room or your grounded." their child still has the free will to decide to do it or not but being grounded is the consequence for choosing not to, just like not being grounded is the consequence for cleaning your room. Having free will has nothing to do with the outcome of the choice you make.

Ok let me give you an analogy of why it's not free will ...

Lets say a very wealthy man offered you a beautiful $10 million house free of charge, and he told you that all you have to do to accept this free gift was to be his friend and spend some time with him every week. However, he added, that if you don't accept this gift he would consider it an insult and arrange for you to be burnt with a blow torch every single day for the rest of your life - and there's nothing that the law could do to stop it. He than said, "hey, it's your choice. You can do whatever you want, but if you don't take the mansion and be my friend I am going to make you suffer for the remainder of your life" You see, that's not a choice is it. Neither is a child's "choice" to clean his room. Eventually that kid IS going to clean his room. As a parent you never meant it as a choice - it was a directive with a consequence. Just because you SAY it's free will doesn't mean it actually is. Make sense?

Your god does not offer you free will. It is an illusion, and a piss poor one at that.

Seeker, if you really want to learn about your religion, stop taking lessons from those who sell it and start studying real history. The truth behind Christianity is a twisted quagmire of superstition, deception, propaganda, torture and murder. Several of us use to be christians. I started researching to find out what was wrong with me and prove the "word of god" to be true. Ten years later, I found the evidence of fraud to be overwhelming and I tossed out christianity.

Here's the thing. If you "KNOW" that your god is real and that your religion happens to be "the one true religion" than researching REAL FACTUAL history from sources outside of the church will not be able to destroy your faith right? So do it. Delve in and let the chips fall where they may.

[ElDinero]

I'm actually stunned by this thread. Who's behind this? A Christian comes on, admits there is no reason beyond faith to believe in God, concedes several points and admits they don't know where their argument stands any more.

I need to lie down...

No, Seeker, in earnest, you've done the hard part and admitted that you believe on faith, and that's to be commended. The only question that remains is 'why?'. Do you not want the things you believe to be true? You've kind of already seen the consequences in this thread of not having the facts and evidence to hand. It leads to a lot of 'Errrm....oh yeah' moments. Surely when asked the question 'Why do you believe God/gravity/evolution/the soul exists?' you would want to be able to say 'Well, here's why: [evidence]'?

So yeah, it basically comes down to whether or not you want the things you believe to be true, and whether or not you want to be the kind of person that can back up their opinions, or not. Welcome to the forums, by the way. Nice to have you on board.

[5thHorseman]

'First, I will point out that I believe that there is no way you can 100% know that a God exists or doesn't exist'

Well thank you for the clarification.

---

Btw welcome Seeker.

[Erinome]

This is true. I looked over the entire thing and your right I don't know how to hold a rational argument nor logic. I'm trying to learn. I know what I believe but don't know how to logically defend it. Thank you everyone for the things you've said you've really challenged me. Honestly I've never been in a debate or needed to defend my beliefs in this way before. You all have given me much to think about and learn from so thanks.
Seeing as how I'm only 19 I have plenty of time to learn more. Perhaps one day I'll be able to bring a rational and logical argument here.

You could make a rational argument here now... if you weren't arguing an illogical concept (god). I see that you're capable of smelling bullshit, but incapable of admitting that it stinks. As long as your faith is stronger than your intellect, you and logic will never be more than old friends whoM could've been lovers. Tragic.

There is no way to logically defend beliefs that are not based in reality. You could no more logically defend your belief in a god than I could defend my belief in fairies.


1. no ones ever seen fairies (god) but I have faith in fairies (god).
2. I have felt the presence of fairies (god) myself, and felt overwhelmed by their (his) awesomeness.
3. Books written by primates tell us all about fairies (god) as if they're (he's) real.
4. there is no proof whatsoever that fairies (gods) exist in this, nor any other dimension, but no one can prove fairies (god) don't exist!
5. I was raised to believe in fairies (god).

Fairies do exist, damnet! They do! Now I'm off to twist logic very hard in favor of fairies, and become a fairy apologist.

ciao, AND FAIRIES LOVE YOU!

[Zen Badger]

The thing about "Truth" is that it will have evidence to back it up.

That is why it is true.