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Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

Rusty Tyler said:
Is that what you have done with evolution?
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Why is every single post you make on these topics, disingenuous, dismissive, disrespectful, distracting, or all of the above?

It's obvious that you understand English well enough to know you're being asked serious questions that deserve serious answers. It's also obvious that you're not actually interested in having a serious conversation.

What does your Christian teaching teach you about lying? About being rude? About wasting your God-given gifts on shameful pursuits?

Honestly the only way your presence here makes sense is if you've been sent by the devil to make Christians look like malevolent clowns and mental defectives.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish here, besides convince as many people as possible to hate the Bible and everyone who promotes it?
 
Rusty Tyler said:
The 70% is leftover after the 30% Christians.
A person doesn't have to be recognized as a Christian to accept the Bible.
It's probably 50% or better.
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52% of New Zealanders are non-religious. Only 32% identify as Christian. We accept that the Bible is a 2,000 year collection of stories from Israel and a Roman religious cult that began there. That doesn't make us 'Christians'.

You are wrong about 50% or better. Worldwide the proportions are:- Christian 29%, Islam 26%, unaffiliated 24%, Hindu 15%, Buddhism 4%, other religions 2%. In order to be over 50% accepting the Christian Bible as 'true' it would have to include at least 21% 'unaffiliated', leaving only 3% actual non-believers. This is (pun intended) unbelievable.

Of course the number who purport to be 'People of the Book' has no bearing on the validity of what is written in it. But what if it did? Then Christianity would lose because over twice as many people don't believe it.
 
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theprestige said:
Yes, exactly. Miracles can't be predicted or tested. Which is why we doubt the veracity of miraculous claims.
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A miracle is "an event that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or preternatural cause." It's not the lack of predictability or testability that invalidates it, but the purported source. It's only a miracle if God did it - which means the claim is bogus by definition.
 
miracles are proceeded by prayers - they are very much anticipated.
When considering Sainthood, it matters very much that a particular dead person was asked to intercede in a matter through prayer, and a miracle happened as a result.
 
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I think miracles shouldn't be zero-sum, but I'm no theologian.
Jesus wasn't feeding people by taking away the food from others.
 
JayUtah said:
I'm also inclined to understand the nature of religious storytelling throughout history. Modern Christianity has solidified on the notion of an inerrant, complete canon. I honestly don't think that's the tradition the various early Christian writings arose from. I don't think the early authors or the early believers really cared so much whether the feats attributed to Jesus were real or not. I don't think they saw anything wrong with embellishing the stories told about Jesus. Where the various councils drew the line is when the alleged feats of Jesus (as recounted in the rejected books) were embellished to create a connection with other faith traditions—Jesus the Magician, etc.
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And going by other texts of similar age, what we today perceive as amazing and miraculous events were actually quite mundane events back then. Jesus didn't do anything that was singularly amazing, even the one that is meant to cinche it for his divinity according to Christians i.e. his resurrection wasn't something unique to him, we have accounts of many such claims of resurrection.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I think miracles shouldn't be zero-sum, but I'm no theologian.
Jesus wasn't feeding people by taking away the food from others.
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I heard he had an influencer deal with Deliveroo, and certainly there is some evidence for this given the way Deliveroo's riders ride, it's a miracle any of them survive a day.
 
acbytesla said:
But it's not like kids aren't exposed to ridiculous fictional stories very early on. The difference is your daycare or preschool teacher doesn't insist that the stories they read during story time are real and you MUST believe them. Only the Sunday School teachers did that.
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I remember a maybe third grade class where we discussed mythology and the teacher singled out Hercules as being different from the other mythological figures because it was basically the same as Samson which is true because it's in the bible.
 
theprestige said:
Honestly the only way your presence here makes sense is if you've been sent by the devil to make Christians look like malevolent clowns and mental defectives.
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Makes sense to me.

Although I have to admit that someone can do the devil's work without being sent by the devil. Furthermore, someone can do the devil's work even if there is no devil.

Our English word "Satan" transliterates a Hebrew word meaning "adversary" or "accuser". The Hebrew portion of what we often refer to as the Bible occasionally describes Satan as an employee, or even a good buddy of, or possibly even a son of, a certain individual who goes by the name of Yahweh. Most amusingly, I think, in the book of Job, which starts with those two individuals amusing themselves by making a bet on what the title character will do when they kill off Job's family, servants, and livestock.

We should consider the possibility that the instigator of this thread has been sent, by those who tormented Job, to torment us as well.
 
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