The Truth of Christianity vs. All Other Belief Systems

[yy2bggggs]

Do you have a Bible?

Yes.

And if so have you ever read it??

Depends on what you mean. I haven't read it cover to cover. I've read the entire NT, and multiple books in the OT. I've had "bible drill"--as a church activity--in my teens, and have taken college classes on the old and new testament at a Christian college.

But if the bible isn't reliable in the first place, why should I bother?

 

[six7s]

But if the bible isn't reliable in the first place, why should I bother?

Well... its a rollicking good read, old bean... but not suitable for minors

www.independent.co.uk What they don't teach at Sunday school: the joy of Old Testament sex

A new study is set to cause a storm by focusing on the Bible's treatment of sexual matters. Andy McSmith looks into the row – and revisits some of the good book's steamier episodes

In the late stages of the Second World War, Evelyn Waugh was trapped in Europe in the company of Randolph Churchill, the boorish son of the wartime prime minister. "In the hope of keeping him quiet," he wrote to Nancy Mitford, "Freddie and I bet him £20 that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud... or merely slapping his side & chortling 'God, isn't God a ****!'."

What the younger Churchill was discovering, rather late in life, is that there are some very dark passages in the Old Testament, stories of lust and cruelty that have no obvious moral. Incest, bigamy, rape, mutilation, deceit, loyalty and love can all be found in the Good Book.

See also: Google Books - p31 The God Delusion By Richard Dawkins

ETA: Bets now being taken for the length of time it takes a deluded 'soul' to cherry-pick the word 'loyalty' in a futile attempt to defend the Bile

 

[slingblade]

Actually, having read the bible cover to cover several times, I can say it was absolutely a prime motivator in reconsidering my stance on religion and god(s). I can also say it pretty much always had been, as it never did really make good sense to me, even when I believed it.

 

[fromdownunder]

I wouldn't put it that way. It's more like the parable Jesus told us in Matthew 22 as many are invited but few are chosen. Jesus is the one who choses, not us.

So, since Jesus makes all the decisions, your idea that you are doing God's work in attempting to bring people to him is utterly pointless, because it is Jesus' call from the beginning, and nothing to do with your so-called preaching.

Thanks for admitting that you are wasting your (and everybody elses) time.

Norm

 

[tsig]

I wouldn't put it that way. It's more like the parable Jesus told us in Matthew 22 as many are invited but few are chosen. Jesus is the one who choses, not us.

What happened to free will?

 

[tsig]

Yes and you have just had God revealed to you. How do you choose? Let's say for the next five minutes, the normal rule is suspended, and you will have a period of grace where you can choose. If you choose not to choose, you have missed the window, and you go back to having no freedom of choice.
How is it going?
Now you have four and a half minutes.
. . . . . . .
Did that help, or change anything?
Why should you complain if God chooses you or not?
Would it be out of concern for someone else, a hypothetical person who you think it would be nice to think they might have some sort of say-so. Why care about them when God probably chose them anyway and did not bother consulting you about it.

Your god seems like an executioner.

 

[Fiona]

Do you have a Bible? And if so have you ever read it??

Case in point: do you not see that this is a non-sequitur of epic proportions?

 

[slingblade]

Yes and you have just had God revealed to you. How do you choose? Let's say for the next five minutes, the normal rule is suspended, and you will have a period of grace where you can choose. If you choose not to choose, you have missed the window, and you go back to having no freedom of choice.
How is it going?
Now you have four and a half minutes.
. . . . . . .
Did that help, or change anything?
Why should you complain if God chooses you or not?
Would it be out of concern for someone else, a hypothetical person who you think it would be nice to think they might have some sort of say-so. Why care about them when God probably chose them anyway and did not bother consulting you about it.

None of this makes any sense.

I'm an atheist because I have no reason to believe any god or gods exist. If I had some extraordinary reason (because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) to think God "revealed himself to me" (which frankly makes God sound like a wrinkly, unshaven old man who's naked under his raincoat), then I wouldn't have to choose to believe. I would know.

But god is apparently very coy, and requires you to ignore that lovely, thinking, cogent brain he created for you, and accept him without any evidence at all. And if you don't do the opposite of what your supposedly god-given reason tells you is the correct thing to do, god torments you for all eternity.

Before you bring up the similar choice parents offer their children ("Clean your room, or you'll get a spanking" and so forth), let me tell you the secret to that which every parent knows:

It isn't a choice. It isn't meant to be a choice; we aren't offering children a choice when we say this. We are telling them: do exactly what I say or there will be consequences you won't like at all.

What the christian god offers is no choice at all. He doesn't mean for it to be a choice. He expects you to believe in him or there will be consequences you won't like at all.

Tell you what. Why don't you just keep him if you think he's so great? I don't want him, even if he is real.

 

[eGadfly]

First, as I have said before, I cannot prove 2 +2 = 4 to anyone that refuses to accept the truth of that mathematical equation.

Isn't it more like saying, " 2+2=5 in my new awesome math .. now try and prove my equation wrong using my new math only "?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Before you bring up the similar choice parents offer their children ("Clean your room, or you'll get a spanking" and so forth), let me tell you the secret to that which every parent knows:

It isn't a choice. It isn't meant to be a choice; we aren't offering children a choice when we say this. We are telling them: do exactly what I say or there will be consequences you won't like at all.

What the Christian god offers is no choice at all. He doesn't mean for it to be a choice. He expects you to believe in him or there will be consequences you won't like at all.

Tell you what. Why don't you just keep him if you think he's so great? I don't want him, even if he is real.

Which means the analogy of the parent using corporal punishment just doesn't hold water. If a parent spanks his kid, she does it to teach the kid to obey in the future. Burning someone in Hell has no such benefit - you don't burn for five minutes then come back to life, you burn for all eternity. So a more valid analogy would be a parent telling his little kid that if he doesn't clean his room, he'll be disowned and sent to an orphanage, as a warning to his siblings.

Of course, a far more valid analogy would be a dictator sending dissidents to prison camps or having them shot. Sophie Scholl could've lived a quiet life and become a successful student, but no, she chose to be beheaded by disobeying Hitler's NSDAP. Not that Yahweh restricts death penalty to serious offences - He seems to think that stoning or mauling by bears for even the slightest wrong, such as laughing at a prophet or picking up twigs on the Sabbath, would be a good way to stay upright.

 

[joobz]

I wouldn't put it that way. It's more like the parable Jesus told us in Matthew 22 as many are invited but few are chosen. Jesus is the one who choses, not us.

You wouldn't put it that way, but you just did.

Jesus invites everyone to his sweet 16, but only chooses a portion of those to actually enter his party. So, I guess your Jesus is more like a cross between Studio 54 and an obnoxious spoiled, self indulgent spoiled rich girl.

 

[Tricky]

Okay showing others the light is what's important here, but how do you suppose I do that on a forum like jref?

Does God know what you're up to here Kathy? I think maybe you'd better call the home office, because I don't think your boss would approve of you making him look so bad. He might begin to wonder why your sales numbers are into the negatives.

 

[Mr Clingford]

Does God know what you're up to here Kathy? I think maybe you'd better call the home office, because I don't think your boss would approve of you making him look so bad. He might begin to wonder why your sales numbers are into the negatives.

You're a naughty man.

Perhaps it's a sort of franchise set-up?


(Hi Tricky!)

 

[Ethnikos]

Your god seems like an executioner.

Yes, and here is the witness against you:

Oh that I hope and pray God would open all of your hearts and eyes the way he has opened mine but it's not my gift to give, it's Gods gift for you if you'll ask and receive him. The true miracle in this life is his wonderful gift of salvation!

She meant it as a witness for you, for your defense, and since you reject it, it is used against you by the prosecution.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Yes, and here is the witness against you:

Objection! Calls for speculation.

 

[Ethnikos]

None of this makes any sense.
But god is apparently very coy, and requires you to ignore that lovely, thinking, cogent brain he created for you, and accept him without any evidence at all. And if you don't do the opposite of what your supposedly god-given reason tells you is the correct thing to do, god torments you for all eternity.

God provides the evidence and it is called faith. God has another gift, that even if you do not accept the first one, He has provided an easy way out, through His Son having taken your punishment on himself, to be able to go into oblivion painlessly.

 

[joobz]

Yes, and here is the witness against you:
She meant it as a witness for you, for your defense, and since you reject it, it is used against you by the prosecution.

the concept of God's Salvation is less like a jury system and more like a protection racket.

 

[six7s]

Oh that I hope and pray God would open all of your hearts and eyes the way he has opened mine but it's not my gift to give, it's Gods gift for you if you'll ask and receive him. The true miracle in this life is his wonderful gift of salvation!

She meant it as a witness for you, for your defense, and since you reject it, it is used against you by the prosecution.

Alas, it seems to have miraculously escaped your attention that the case was thrown out of court due to a complete and utter lack of evidence

 

[joobz]

God provides the evidence and it is called faith.

No faith is faith.
evidence is evidence.

Faith is belief in the absense of evidence.
Redefining one to mean the other is at best intellectual masterbation and at worst deceitful semantic nonsense.

 

[RoboTimbo]

God provides the evidence and it is called faith.

This is a new definition of evidence of which I was previously unaware.