I haven’t had the time to go through all of this yet, but seeing as we’re back to having discussions about God and religion I figured it was time once more to start a thread devoted to the topic.

Christian take your argument there, please. You may also want to take the advice of both DOF and Elwed and look around a bit more before engaging us further.

LuckyJohn -

I think I’m with you on the apathy route from now on.  I knew arguing with Xians is pointless, I just thought maybe I could talk a little sense into this one since he/she reminded me a little bit of myself when I was brainwashed.  Thinking about it though, I know that I wouldn’t have ever listened to reason, I had to come to the realization that it was all a bunch of shit on my own, so I’m not gonna even bother anymore.  Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

Elwed:

Ah, okay.  I see clearly now the rain has gone.  I was getting more at why can’t attribution be made to the supernatural if one assumes that supernatural works through largely natural causes?  If such is the case, then there is no need to rule out the natural as it is how the supernatural will work at times.  That most assuredly could be the case in the theoretical.

I have mentioned before, and bears repeating here, that believing that life spontaenously generated from non-life is an article of faith non-theists.

why can’t attribution be made to the supernatural if one assumes that supernatural works through largely natural causes?

If the supernatural affects the natural, it’s not supernatural anymore, is it? It’s just something natural that we don’t have a good handle on.

I have mentioned before, and bears repeating here, that believing that life spontaenously generated from non-life is an article of faith non-theists.

You have probably mentioned it before, but more repetitions don’t make the claim more true.

It’s just something natural that we don’t have a good handle on.

And here is the place in space where there is room for reasonable disagreement.

but more repetitions don’t make the claim more true.

Nor does it make it less true.

This will be my last post. Several posts have indicated that this type of discussion is not welcome in this specific blog. I can respect all of you enough to allow you to have your own space dedicated to whatever topic you desire to discuss. I thank you for the invitation to continue this discussion elsewhere on your site but I must decline. It seems a blog discussion gets pulled in too many directions to be considered significantly fruitful. I am sure you understand. I am only one person and cannot keep up with the sheer volume of posts that several of you working together can produce. I wish I had the time to write detailed responses to each of your posts. Please then; do no think I am running away from a debate. It would be my joy to continue if it were physically possible. Why should I as a Christian, who claims to know the truth, shy away from any discussion of the truth? So if one of you would be greatly interested in continuing a leisurely, polite, and friendly discussion I would welcome it. Please email me. I welcome your thoughtful concerns about God or Christianity. Thank you to all of you for reading my posts.

Here are my last remarks according to the chronological order:

To Consigliere, thank you for your post.

The problem with Ingersol’s claim is that no one holding these views can be considered an “intelligent” or “honest” theologian.

On this point you couldn’t be more wrong.

This does not seem to be a sufficient argument. There are no reasons provided to support this claim that I “couldn’t be more wrong.” My original post does explain why Christian theologians who deny Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch are in my opinion irresponsible and therefore should not be cited as authoritatively “intelligent” and “honest” theologians.

“See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

even if you are a literalist, the statement says nothing about what Moses wrote; it is also missing any mention of who wrote the Pentateuch.

My argument here is not that the verse says “Moses wrote the Pentateuch” but that Jesus evidently believed Moses wrote the Pentateuch. While not convincing to those who deny the inspiration of Scripture, it should be convincing to those Orthodox Christians who claim to be under the authority of Christ. Christ believed Moses wrote the Pentateuch and anyone accepting the name “Christian” should value Christ’s thoughts. Therefore, there is something wrong when a “Christian” denies Mosaic authorship. Such a person does not represent Orthodox Christianity and should not be cited as an authoritative source as Robert Ingersol has done. My whole post is still available for you to read.

To JulianP, thank you for your post.

So Jesus thought that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. So what? He also thought that the stars were little points of light in that big dome called “the sky” and that epilepsy was caused by the debbil. The man was clearly an ignoramus.

I have three concerns with your statement. First, your two examples of Jesus’ thought that show him to be an “ignoramus” may not be substantiated. Where do you find either one recorded? Second, Jesus never spoke about epilepsy. To say Jesus is an “ignoramus” because of something you assume he thought is inconclusive. We do not have Jesus thoughts on epilepsy. No Orthodox Christian I know would be interested in defending the statement you propose as Jesus’ own thoughts. It seems to me to be a “straw man” argument. Third, the Bible is written from a human perspective and therefore makes observations from a human perspective. The Bible is fully truthful in all that it asserts. Just because the Bible makes observations about the natural world from a human perspective does not make it any less truthful. If scientific precision were the goal then every written book in the world would fail such a standard. For example, my desk is 24 inches deep. This is a truthful statement. But technically it could be 24 inches and one one hundredth of an inch deep. But if you wished to be even more precise you could measure my desk down to the nearest one one thousands of an inch. The point is, you can always appeal that a truthful statement is incorrect because it is not technically precise. This would of course lead to the disintegration of communication in general. The measure of Jesus’ truthfulness is therefore not in the scientific precision he used but in the intended meaning. He did not intend to speak about stars as large bodies of burning gas a precise number of light-years away from earth. For that matter, I cannot recall Jesus even speaking about the stars as “little points of light in that big dome called ‘the sky’.” How do you know this is what Jesus thought?

To TAFKA Buzz, LuckyJohn19, and elwedriddsche, thank you for your posts.

However, you argue everything from “The Bible Said” (as I suspected you would, and I too would have), so there really is no point in continuing.

Once someone starts quoting bible at me as some sort of universally valid and accepted authority I switch off.
It’d mean more to me if it was written in Greek; at least then I’d be fascinated by the shape of the letters.
It has as much veracity as if I started quoting Bhagavad-Gita at him; it’d finish up a dick measuring competition as most of these discussions eventually reduce to.

The non-theists on this site consider all religions as myths and therefore the gods of all religions as man-made. Any argument pertaining to scripture speaks to nothing but the internal consistency of one religion or other and even in the best case such is not a compelling argument for the veracity of religion.

I am not so naive to believe everyone will automatically recognize the authority of the Bible. This is an unfair characterization. I have only appealed to the Bible as an authority when the content of the Bible’s own teachings were in question, when someone claimed to have been a Christian but did not fit the Bible’s own description of a Christian, or when theologians claim to be a Christian without taking the Bible’s authority seriously. I have not tried to argue for the existence of God on the simple basis of “thus says the Bible.” I know no one on this site recognizes the universal authority of the Bible. That is why I have not appealed to it. But I think it would be fair to appeal to you that the Bible does make universal claims and that looking at the historical evidence may validate the authenticity of the Bible.

The question of what a true Christian was also asked:

However, I am interested in hearing what you really think equates to a True Christian, and if you can identify such a person in any way.

Yes, I can identify for you what the Bible describes as a true Christian. The Bible teaches in Ephesians 2:1-10 that as a result of sin everyone is “dead” in their “trespasses and sins.” The idea is that everyone is spiritually dead and unable to respond to God or choose him. But verse 4 and 5 explain that “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…” This act of God quickening someone from their spiritual death is called “regeneration” and being “born again.” God does this “by grace” and not because of anything we have done. Regeneration is not anything that any Christian ever deserved. That is what it means to be “by grace.” Therefore, a Christian can be defined as someone who was unable to respond to God on their own because they were spiritually dead but they were “born again” (John chapter 3) by the power of the Holy Spirit so that they could respond to God and choose him. When someone is born again they have their eyes opened as if for the first time and they comprehend the glory and beauty of God. They then freely choose to be obedient to God because they see his all surpassing value in comparison to everything else, even life itself. God no longer views the new Christian as a treasonous enemy because Jesus Christ willingly took that person’s sin on himself and endured God’s wrath. The penalty has been paid. A Christian is a person snatched from eternal spiritual death by the grace of God alone. You might be able to see how many people misunderstand themselves to be “born again.” Usually an unbeliever who claims to have been born again thinks they were born again because they prayed a prayer, read their Bible, or went to church. These things do not make you a Christian. Only your own decision to trust in Christ following God’s work of regeneration can make you a Christian. It should not be surprising that people respond to a salvation prayer without first being born again. Who would not want their sins forgiven, an immediate community, and an all powerful God working all things out for their benefit? But Galatians 5:22-23 says you can recognize a true Christian by the “fruit of the Spirit” which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness” and “faithfulness.” I hope this answers your question.

To distant claws, thank you for your post. It was very good and I appreciate your thoughts very much. Please allow me to offer a few comments from a Christian worldview.

you consider degree of certainty, which in my view also needs to be applied to a religous theory rather than simple faith

I agree with you. Regrettably, there is a great misunderstanding in the American church concerning the nature of Biblical faith. Many Christians have separated faith from reason as “that thing I know in my heart.” This is not the Biblical or historical picture of Christian faith. Biblically faith is based on reason and historically Christians have played a prominent role by contributing scientific and philosophical ideas. J. P Moreland sums up the current situation well in his book “Love Your God with All Your Mind”:

First, while few would actually put it in these terms, faith is now understood as a blind act of the will, a decision to believe something that is either independent of reason or that is a simple choice to believe while ignoring the paltry lack of evidence for what is believed. By contrast with this modern misunderstanding, biblically, faith is a power or skill to act in accordance with the nature of the kingdom of God, a trust in what we have reason to believe is true. Understood in this way, we see that faith is built on reason. We should have good reasons for thinking that Christianity is true before we dedicate ourselves completely to it. We should have solid evidence that our understanding of a biblical passage is correct before we go on to apply it. And so on.

You also said:

I dislike the categorization of beliefs because it never fits quite right.

If I understand you correctly I agree with you. But I still embrace terms, titles, and names because they provide a handle with which I can discuss concepts. Without these, communication would become unnecessarily cumbersome. I believe it would eventually break down. As for the atheist vs. agnostic labels, I try to show someone they cannot be 100% sure there is no God and that agnostic is a better term philosophically. I do this because it makes no sense for me to provide evidence for God’s existence if someone has presupposed that he cannot exist. No body of evidence would ever be conclusive to such a person.

If god were all good, all powerful, and all intelligent, then if he did create people and the world they would be 100% innately perfect from the start, anything less means one of these conditions isn’t being filled.

You are correct. I use the term “good” instead of “perfect.” If humans were created perfect they would be God. God would be creating gods. So in this sense humans share a level of perfection but I think the distinction should be made between perfect and good. Humans were created good. For them to be created any other way would deny God’s goodness, power, or intelligence. You are absolutely correct in your understanding. So you raise the question of evil and you say:

My thoughts are that maybe the potential for evil is the prerogative of independance and a sign that ‘god’ does not hold absolute power if he is unable to 100% control all other spirits

The view that you just laid out is basically the tenets of “Open Theism.” Open Theism is a false Christian teaching that resolves the problem of evil by concluding that God does not control all things. This is not what the Bible teaches and not what a Christian should believe.

You referenced the “perogative of independence.” I believe you are talking about free will here. Do you think that is a fair assesment? If it is, the version of free will you are refering to is called libertarian free will and it states that true freedom only exists if you are just as free to choose one thing as you are to choose the other. But logically this type of free will does not work. If I am just as free to choose either thing then any decision I make has to be based on nothing at all. For any reason which would cause me to choose one thing over another would mean I am not as free to choose its opposite and thereby denies my own free will. Just an intersting thought, but even God does not have libertarian free will.

The solution is simple, we do not have libertarian freedom but instead a freedom of inclination. We freely choose that which we desire the most. A God who controls all things is compatible with this version of free will. We are free because we choose what we most want and God controls all things because he can incline our hearts to choose good or he can allow our hearts to choose evil. His means of controlling both good and evil are different in the manner in which he asserts his control but the effect is still the same: man freely chooses what the most desires and God is morally respondsible for the good but not the evil. Therefore, God created a good humanity and still controls everything. There is nothing outside of his control.

I would lay out the Biblical framework for this position but it would take an eternity. If you are interested you can find a good explanation of it and its implications in chapter 16 of “Systematic Theology” by Wayne Grudem.

I consider anything that affects you beyond your control to be society (including wild animals and the weather), society holds it’s own views and is a factor in your decisions. Nothing makes something necessarily right or wrong in your own personal morality but your ability to influence society is limited so long as you’re not an all-powerful god yourself

I would like to hear you flesh this thought out for me.

I think I should make one more comment on Scripture. I know no one on this website will recognize the universal truth of the Bible. But, if it is true that no one can really assert 100% knowledge that there is no God, so too can no one assert 100% knowledge that there is a God apart from the Bible’s teaching. To claim there is or is not a God would require 100% certainty of all knowledge in the universe. Or it would require divine revelation from someone who does posses all knowledge. This someone would have to be God.

The problem with denying we can know anything is that we do not live that way. It is not consistent with our daily experience. I walk to my mail box everyday assuming it is still there. I do not get up in the morning an immediately question whether or not my mailbox actually exists. This would be crazy. So, I think a good test for the absolute claims of the Bible might be: does this book which claims to be of divine revelation match our daily experience? Is it consistent with a liveable worldview? Does it fit with our daily human experience in such a way that only divine revelation or the possession of all knowledge can give us? If it does, it would encourage us to view it as authoritative divine revelation from a being who possesses all knowledge.

Is god accomadated by an infinite number of ‘imaginary’ dimensions?

I’m not sure what you mean here.

You could make an incomplete and potentially incorrect one, which is the best humans an do without the full knowledge of all people and their motives, and completely watertight morality and having all morality in the right proportions

I think you are correct philosophically. We cannot know anything in ourselves. But this is inconsistent with our daily lives and unlivable.

Generally speaking also I would like you to question why things should necessarily be the christian way after death, for all I know (not having had an NDE) it could be the flying spaghetti monster, indeed ther could be something completely different behind the scenes of NDE’s, that may be deliberately misleading people on possibly more than one side of life - even when you die you won’t know if there is something behind the scenes

That is a question that could fill ten volumes. Please let me try to give a short example of why I believe it is the “Christian way” after death. Take for example, Islam and mormonism. How do I know I’m not about to meet Allah or be sent to my own planet where I will become a god and repopulate another solar system? I know it from this basic evidence. Both Islam and Mormonism claim to be the perfection of Christianity. They both believe Christianity was perverted from its original teachings. Here is the problem, Mohammed claims that the Koran agrees with the teachings of previous Scriptures; the Jewish and Christian scriptures. As we all know the Jewish and Christian scriptures do not agree with the Koran.  If I can show that the Jesish and Christian scripture have not been altered then I can show that Islam is indeed unnecessary as the perfection of the other two monotheistic religions. I will not present all the material here because you can find it on your own but here is a summary. There are 5,000 good manuscripts of the New Testament alone with upwards of 10,000 different sections of manuscripts of the New Testament in existence. The earliest copy of an original manuscripts we have is dated to less than 100 years after the original manuscript would have existed. Take for example one specific manuscript the “Ryland Fragment” also known as P52 because it was written on papyrus. This fragment of the 18th chapter of the Gospel of John is dated to around 135 AD, about one hundred years after Christ’s death. We can safely assume that the dates the Gospel of John, I believe the last Gospel written, to around the 80’s or 90’s AD because of factors such as the time it would take for the Gospel of John to be spread over such a large geographic area. If this is true the original Gospel would have been written within the lifetime of the disciples and eyewittnesses to the events. This would tend to show us the stories contained in the Gospels are accurate decpitions of what happened and are accurately transmitted through the faithful reproduction of manuscripts until the time of Mohammed. Historically, the teaching of the Bible did not change. This should make us question the very foundation of Islam. According to Mohammed, Islam only exists to correct the perversions of the Christian faith. Let me gibe you come additional evidence. The earliest copies we have of the New Testament were copied within a hundred years of the originals. Homer’s Iliad only has 643 copies with the earliest one being 500 years after the original. Aristotle has 49 copies of his works with the earliest one being 1,400 years after his originals were written. If you doubt the accurate transmission of the Bible then, applying the same standards to other historical works you must call into question all of Greek and Roman history. This is an assertion that few people would be brave enough to advance.

Let me give you an even shorter reason why I deny Mormonism. Mormons believe a lost tribe from Israel settled in the Americas where Jesus appear to them. Not a single, valley, mountain range, settlement, or people group from the Book of Mormon can be validated. There is zero historical evidence.

These are only a few examples of why I believe the Christian testimony about what happens after death to be true. If you couple this with argument for the existence of God it can be very persuasive. I am sure you are all familiar with the classical argument for God: the axiological, cosmological (in all of its different forms), teleological, and ontological arguments.

To TAFKA Buzz, thank you for your post.

You have said:

I knew arguing with Xians is pointless, I just thought maybe I could talk a little sense into this one since he/she reminded me a little bit of myself when I was brainwashed.  Thinking about it though, I know that I wouldn’t have ever listened to reason,

I have always welcomed your reason and reasonable arguments.

Finally to all: Others have posted several references for me to look at and I appreciate it. I think it would only be fair for me to direct you to several resources myself. If you are interested, I think you would enjoy the ministry of RZIM. Ravi Zacharias is a man who grew up in India and converted to Christianity. He has two free and very interesting podcasts which you can find at his site, http://www.rzim.org. Every Friday he answers questions from unbelievers in university settings.

Thank you for your time. I wish I could have responded to each individual post but that would be impossible. Thank you again for allowing me to interact with you. This was my last post.

Mmm. He sounded like a ‘good Christian’ and he was pleasant and his command of English and his grammar was rather excellent.
I like it too that he gave up gracefully whilst still holding on to his self-respect.

I am only one person and cannot keep up with the sheer volume of posts that several of you working together can produce.

I wonder what he expected. 
Tickle my tummy master. 

Christian, you’ve landed in the middle of a reason of atheists and challenged all comers.  Small wonder it piles up.

Proselytizing is tough work with very little reward and less appreciation.  But plain old discussion about stuff can be quite enjoyable. You’re more than welcome to hang out here and participate in discussions, we’re fine with that.  You won’t be the only Christian here either.  Just so you know what you’re getting into.

I was tried a book by Ravi Zacharias. It just rambles on and on about Nietzche and never begins to make a point. He’s even less coherent than Hovind. Really.

a reason of atheists

Is that a collective noun?

Personally I think Christian was a very tame and well mannered version of a True Believer™ .  Much better than the last few that have shown up.  It’s too bad this discussion cannot continue on the other thread…

Christian writes…

Please then; do no think I am running away from a debate.

Ah, but that’s exactly what you are doing. Your comment was little more than a “Na na na! I’m right and you’re wrong, so there.”

Have fun with your imaginary sky fairy.

Is that a collective noun?

In a joking sort of way, yes.  Sort of needling the TrueBelievers™