Christian Dude
Scholar
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2005
- Messages
- 118
The Truth of Christianity vs. All Other Belief Systems.
Hi Guys. It has been since November when I was with you last. I wish I had more time so I could regularly spend time here with you. I think about you guys all the time and miss the very interesting debates. I pray for you all often and love you guys.
The last time we were talking the subject was “The Truth of Christianity vs. all other religions” or something close to that. I needed to cut it shorter than I would have liked because of all the other demands on my schedule at that time of year. I would like to talk about this subject some more with all of you. I don’t have time to be here every day, and when I get 50 or more direct and specific questions or comments that require a direct and specific reply, it is impossible for me to keep up with all of that in a timely manner. So, if we could come up with a way that one guy, me, could continue a discussion with tens, possibly even hundreds of debaters, I would like to do it. Is there a way that you guys could agree with each other on what specific questions or comments you would like me to address? I am open for ideas. I do know that people will be disappointed with my ability to keep up with the volume of questions and comments if we were to just do it the same as always. If that is OK, then I am game for that to.
If you noticed how I named the title of this thread it is because I believe that we can logically, and rationally reason out the facts of our subject and try and get to the truth of all belief systems whether they be atheistic or spiritual in nature. Now, you have heard me state, in the past, that I can’t prove the truth of Christianity to anyone. I believe that still to be the case in the context of two aspects.
First, as I have said before, I cannot prove 2 +2 = 4 to anyone that refuses to accept the truth of that mathematical equation. There are people who will not change their interpretation of the facts no matter how logical and bullet proof the argument presented to them. Now, many will say I am the guy who is saying 2 + 2 = 5 not 4. I understand that. So here is the fundamental issue in this area of logic and reason. I say that we all have the same facts and evidence. It is how we differ in our interpretation of the facts and evidence that is different. If we can come to an agreement on what the facts and evidence are, we can have a fun and lively debate on how to interpret them.
Second, Christianity contains a supernatural aspect to it. Something supernatural is outside the natural laws of our material space time universe. Therefore it cannot be verified by the natural and physical laws of our universe and thus cannot substantiated by what we would consider as normal facts and evidence. Many people do not accept that the supernatural even exists so they will not consider any supernatural concepts or considerations and flatly reject discussion along these lines. I will not bring supernatural considerations into the topic unless I am specifically asked about them. In this area we will just have to see how this unfolds.
For those who would want to participate in this debate, a large part, if not the bulk, of this debate will be along philosophical lines. We can do our best to back our arguments by facts and logic we can reason out.
For my opening statement I offer that Christianity is not a belief system that requires what can be called “blind faith” to believe its theology, doctrines and historical facts. I state that all the subjects and topics that the Christian Bible, made up of the Old and New Testaments devoid of the apocryphal writings, is the inspired revelation from the Almighty Creator God who exists in three persons being one God. Only the original manuscripts from the original writers are the inerrant inspired revelation of God, but, God has protected His writings for us over the centuries so we have thousands of copies in the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic languages for comparison, and can arrive at a virtually uncorrupted reconstruction of the original documents for interpretation into the world’s languages. The Christian faith, as partially defined above, is the only reasonable logical and rational belief system a person can arrive at once all the facts and evidence relating to and regarding human life on earth has been examined fully. Christianity is the only belief system that offers the correct assessment of human nature and the nature and origin of all things that exist. Christianity is based on facts and evidence, not blind faith in unsubstantiated wives tales.
Faith is based on logic and reason for the most part. For example, when I sit in a chair I have faith the chair will support my weight because I know chairs are constructed of strong materials and designed to last and be durable as well as designed to support the weight of a person. Do I know for sure the chair will support me until I sit in it? No, but it is logical and reasonable to expect it to. The more I know about engineering and materials, the more faith I have in a particular chair that it will support me or not when I examine it. I can examine the chair thoroughly and work out all the engineering calculations to reach a conclusion as to will it, or will it not, support my weight when I sit in it. Once I have done that, I can have tremendous faith that the chair will support me when I sit in it. Then I can sit down with the confidence that I have not placed my faith in the chair in vain. Then once I have sat down, my faith has now become an experiential reality. Let’s extend this illustration a little further.
Suppose I meet a person that designs and build chairs. He tells me to sit down and enjoy one of his comfortable chairs. I go through the process described above and sit down. My experience is a good one; the chair is comfortable and supports me. Now I can place some faith in the man’s ability to design and engineer chairs. Now he tells me he designs other things as well. He shows me something else he has designed and built. I go through the process again and I am not let down. Do you see what I am getting at? In the Bible I can test things, they prove to be true and that my small faith was in something true. The deeper one digs in and tests, the greater the confidence that one’s faith is in something valid. Christianity can be investigated and tested. God is not afraid of people doing that. In fact, we are encouraged to do that in scripture its self. I started out with a little faith in Jesus because I believe I had a logical and rational basis to place my faith in Him. Then my faith in certain aspects of Christianity passed from an untested but logic based faith to an experiential reality. The more I dig in, the deeper I investigate scripture and Christianity, the more my faith is logical reasonable and rational to me. And I also continue to pass from an untested but logical faith in a particular aspect of theology, doctrine or practical life issue into experiential reality. My faith builds and builds not because I blindly believe and unquestionably accept what scripture teaches. My faith builds because I have logically evaluated it and have practically experienced the reality of it based on truth. Now, are there aspects and components of Christianity that I have not practically experienced? Yes, but because I have had practical experience with so much, and it did not require in any way for me to suspend logic and reason, I can place my faith in the things that have not come to pass yet that are described in scripture, knowing with full confidence it one day will also prove to be true and become an experiential reality for me. If this part was a little abstract and esoteric, I apologize. I hope many of you grasped the concept and see truth in it.
Now, after my opening statement, one of the first issues that comes to mind is that many people believe the Christian Bible is filled with contradictions and errors. I will and can address legitimate and specific issues that come up in this area. Here is what I ask. I need a consensus from all of you on what the largest and most important perceived contradictions and errors are. Otherwise this will quickly become just a Bible bashing session with people posting hundreds of their favorite issues in scripture if we cannot find a way to limit, to a small number, what specific perceived contradictions and errors we would discuss. I cannot address the volume of issues that I was flooded with in the past when we tried to discuss these things before. I do believe this is an important issue to discuss because my statement would fall apart about Christianity being based on facts and that scripture is the inspired revelation from God if scripture is filled with contradictions and errors. So I fully expect this issue to immediately arise. Can someone, who might know how, create a poll to arrive at a consensus of what the top 5, maybe 10, specific perceived contradictions and errors we could tackle might be? The two differing geologies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke is not one I will answer again. I have answered it several times here in the past.
OK, I hope this is a good start. I will not be able to post every single day because my posts tend to be huge and take me a long time to research (when getting into specific details) and write, but I make the commitment to post regularly during each week and continue this for at least several months. I do have my notification setup to notify me daily when posts are made to threads I follow or create. I also have instant notification setup for PMs if anyone wishes to reach me that way.
Thanks,
CD
Hi Guys. It has been since November when I was with you last. I wish I had more time so I could regularly spend time here with you. I think about you guys all the time and miss the very interesting debates. I pray for you all often and love you guys.
The last time we were talking the subject was “The Truth of Christianity vs. all other religions” or something close to that. I needed to cut it shorter than I would have liked because of all the other demands on my schedule at that time of year. I would like to talk about this subject some more with all of you. I don’t have time to be here every day, and when I get 50 or more direct and specific questions or comments that require a direct and specific reply, it is impossible for me to keep up with all of that in a timely manner. So, if we could come up with a way that one guy, me, could continue a discussion with tens, possibly even hundreds of debaters, I would like to do it. Is there a way that you guys could agree with each other on what specific questions or comments you would like me to address? I am open for ideas. I do know that people will be disappointed with my ability to keep up with the volume of questions and comments if we were to just do it the same as always. If that is OK, then I am game for that to.
If you noticed how I named the title of this thread it is because I believe that we can logically, and rationally reason out the facts of our subject and try and get to the truth of all belief systems whether they be atheistic or spiritual in nature. Now, you have heard me state, in the past, that I can’t prove the truth of Christianity to anyone. I believe that still to be the case in the context of two aspects.
First, as I have said before, I cannot prove 2 +2 = 4 to anyone that refuses to accept the truth of that mathematical equation. There are people who will not change their interpretation of the facts no matter how logical and bullet proof the argument presented to them. Now, many will say I am the guy who is saying 2 + 2 = 5 not 4. I understand that. So here is the fundamental issue in this area of logic and reason. I say that we all have the same facts and evidence. It is how we differ in our interpretation of the facts and evidence that is different. If we can come to an agreement on what the facts and evidence are, we can have a fun and lively debate on how to interpret them.
Second, Christianity contains a supernatural aspect to it. Something supernatural is outside the natural laws of our material space time universe. Therefore it cannot be verified by the natural and physical laws of our universe and thus cannot substantiated by what we would consider as normal facts and evidence. Many people do not accept that the supernatural even exists so they will not consider any supernatural concepts or considerations and flatly reject discussion along these lines. I will not bring supernatural considerations into the topic unless I am specifically asked about them. In this area we will just have to see how this unfolds.
For those who would want to participate in this debate, a large part, if not the bulk, of this debate will be along philosophical lines. We can do our best to back our arguments by facts and logic we can reason out.
For my opening statement I offer that Christianity is not a belief system that requires what can be called “blind faith” to believe its theology, doctrines and historical facts. I state that all the subjects and topics that the Christian Bible, made up of the Old and New Testaments devoid of the apocryphal writings, is the inspired revelation from the Almighty Creator God who exists in three persons being one God. Only the original manuscripts from the original writers are the inerrant inspired revelation of God, but, God has protected His writings for us over the centuries so we have thousands of copies in the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic languages for comparison, and can arrive at a virtually uncorrupted reconstruction of the original documents for interpretation into the world’s languages. The Christian faith, as partially defined above, is the only reasonable logical and rational belief system a person can arrive at once all the facts and evidence relating to and regarding human life on earth has been examined fully. Christianity is the only belief system that offers the correct assessment of human nature and the nature and origin of all things that exist. Christianity is based on facts and evidence, not blind faith in unsubstantiated wives tales.
Faith is based on logic and reason for the most part. For example, when I sit in a chair I have faith the chair will support my weight because I know chairs are constructed of strong materials and designed to last and be durable as well as designed to support the weight of a person. Do I know for sure the chair will support me until I sit in it? No, but it is logical and reasonable to expect it to. The more I know about engineering and materials, the more faith I have in a particular chair that it will support me or not when I examine it. I can examine the chair thoroughly and work out all the engineering calculations to reach a conclusion as to will it, or will it not, support my weight when I sit in it. Once I have done that, I can have tremendous faith that the chair will support me when I sit in it. Then I can sit down with the confidence that I have not placed my faith in the chair in vain. Then once I have sat down, my faith has now become an experiential reality. Let’s extend this illustration a little further.
Suppose I meet a person that designs and build chairs. He tells me to sit down and enjoy one of his comfortable chairs. I go through the process described above and sit down. My experience is a good one; the chair is comfortable and supports me. Now I can place some faith in the man’s ability to design and engineer chairs. Now he tells me he designs other things as well. He shows me something else he has designed and built. I go through the process again and I am not let down. Do you see what I am getting at? In the Bible I can test things, they prove to be true and that my small faith was in something true. The deeper one digs in and tests, the greater the confidence that one’s faith is in something valid. Christianity can be investigated and tested. God is not afraid of people doing that. In fact, we are encouraged to do that in scripture its self. I started out with a little faith in Jesus because I believe I had a logical and rational basis to place my faith in Him. Then my faith in certain aspects of Christianity passed from an untested but logic based faith to an experiential reality. The more I dig in, the deeper I investigate scripture and Christianity, the more my faith is logical reasonable and rational to me. And I also continue to pass from an untested but logical faith in a particular aspect of theology, doctrine or practical life issue into experiential reality. My faith builds and builds not because I blindly believe and unquestionably accept what scripture teaches. My faith builds because I have logically evaluated it and have practically experienced the reality of it based on truth. Now, are there aspects and components of Christianity that I have not practically experienced? Yes, but because I have had practical experience with so much, and it did not require in any way for me to suspend logic and reason, I can place my faith in the things that have not come to pass yet that are described in scripture, knowing with full confidence it one day will also prove to be true and become an experiential reality for me. If this part was a little abstract and esoteric, I apologize. I hope many of you grasped the concept and see truth in it.
Now, after my opening statement, one of the first issues that comes to mind is that many people believe the Christian Bible is filled with contradictions and errors. I will and can address legitimate and specific issues that come up in this area. Here is what I ask. I need a consensus from all of you on what the largest and most important perceived contradictions and errors are. Otherwise this will quickly become just a Bible bashing session with people posting hundreds of their favorite issues in scripture if we cannot find a way to limit, to a small number, what specific perceived contradictions and errors we would discuss. I cannot address the volume of issues that I was flooded with in the past when we tried to discuss these things before. I do believe this is an important issue to discuss because my statement would fall apart about Christianity being based on facts and that scripture is the inspired revelation from God if scripture is filled with contradictions and errors. So I fully expect this issue to immediately arise. Can someone, who might know how, create a poll to arrive at a consensus of what the top 5, maybe 10, specific perceived contradictions and errors we could tackle might be? The two differing geologies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke is not one I will answer again. I have answered it several times here in the past.
OK, I hope this is a good start. I will not be able to post every single day because my posts tend to be huge and take me a long time to research (when getting into specific details) and write, but I make the commitment to post regularly during each week and continue this for at least several months. I do have my notification setup to notify me daily when posts are made to threads I follow or create. I also have instant notification setup for PMs if anyone wishes to reach me that way.
Thanks,
CD
