I would have to thank this site for convincing me that I am really no longer a Christian. I cannot (given the current evidence) believe in Noah's flood, a literal Adam, original sin, or many of the other things found in the bible. Many who know me would say that I had been a very devout Christian up until fairly recently.

The point of this post is this...what logical reason could one have for being-not being a Christian. I would like open discussion on the issue. What made you decide one way or the other? What evidence do you feel supports Christianity and a belief in God?

If you are going to argue one way or another, please use rational arguements.

Chris

what logical reason could one have for being-not being a Christian.

1) There is no good reason to think that christianity (or any religion) is true.

2) There are good reasons for thinking christianity (or any religion) is false.

That's only a sketch obviously. Each component could be the subject of a thousand threads.

In support of #2, I would advance the Argument from Evil, and Free-Will/Omniscience Paradox.

Atheists are nicer anyway.

DanZ

First of all, I believe there are very good reasons to believe in God. The Cosmological Argument, Teleological Argument (Design Argument), and the origin of life all point to a Creator, it seems to me.

Once it is concluded that God exists, it only makes sense to diligently seek out the true religion. Christianity has an immense advantage as it is based on rational factors (i.e. historical events, particularly the resurrection).

In addition, Personal Experiences I have had give me good reason to believe in Jesus Christ.

Now, compared to this combined case, atheism seems to be quite inferior. I claim this because, in my opinion, there are not very many good atheistic arguments. For example, the Argument from Evil, the Argument from Nonbelief, and the Argument from History of Science are all very weak and lend no or little credibility the the atheistic position.

So, I think all of the facts of the universe seem to point to God's existence, and few or none of the facts seem to point away from that conclusion. I've always thought that, if it is true that there is no God, then this atheistic universe has done a good job fooling me.

Sincerely,

Kyle.

Yesterday @ 09:12 PM post located here
juliod:

1) There is no good reason to think that christianity (or any religion) is true.

2) There are good reasons for thinking christianity (or any religion) is false.

That's only a sketch obviously. Each component could be the subject of a thousand threads.

In support of #2, I would advance the Argument from Evil, and Free-Will/Omniscience Paradox.

Atheists are nicer anyway.

Gee... Like that wasn't sickeningly biased and insulting or anything, huh?

Kyle:
First of all, I believe there are very good reasons to believe in God. The Cosmological Argument, Teleological Argument (Design Argument), and the origin of life all point to a Creator, it seems to me.

Hi Kyle

None of these 'arguments' is conclusive in a logically deductive sense. They may be quite persuasive, but that will depend on your 'faith' in the first place. In other words, none of the arguments lead deductively to God, but they may be used to inductively support a prior belief.

Kyle:
Once it is concluded that God exists, it only makes sense to diligently seek out the true religion.

Hmmmm. Once you assume/believe that God 'exists' (an ontological issue), this necessitates an epistemological quest? There is something missing in your argument - something that convinces me that one should "seek out" knowledge of God, having assumed his existence. I don't know of any necessary reason (that is not arbitrary).

Furthermore, your conclusion that Christianity is the "true religion" amongst religions doesn't seem to contemplate the possibility that "true religion" is simply unknown. Or even unknowable. And to pre-empt your suggesting it, I know of no logically deductive argument that would necessitate God making himself known to this particular life-form.

Kyle:
Christianity has an immense advantage as it is based on rational factors (i.e. historical events, particularly the resurrection).

Your definition of "rational factors" as "historical events" is interesting for two reasons.

Firstly, because every religion has purported "historical events" which it includes in its foundation-story or "basis". For example, Buddhism has the story of the Buddha, a prince who renounced wealth for enlightenment - a narrative which includes an historical event. Islam has the writing of the Qur'an as an historical event, which is included in the foundation-story of the final revelation of God to his servant Muhammad. Most known religions have included in their basis an "historical event". Your "immense advantage" of Christianity may be a biased view from the "inside"(?)

Secondly, because it is not the historical event itselfthat is the basis. It is the meaning given to the historical event. In the story of Buddha, the meaning is 'enlightenment'. The basis of Buddhism is not the historical event of the Buddha being enlightened, but the meaning given to his existence as the Enlightened One. Whether the Buddha was or was not enlightened in reality is irrelevant to the "basis" of Buddhism. The basis of Buddhism is rather the meaning given to the Buddha's life.

Likewise, whether or not Jesus rose again in any sense is irrelevant. Paul did not need Jesus to rise from the dead to believe the Christian story. Paul only needed to believe the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not the alleged event of a resurrection that is the basis of Christianity. It is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus which is the basis of Christianity. As long as it is beyond epistemological certainty, what happened as an "historical event" is of no consequence to Christianity, and is outside the "basis" of Christianity. Instead, at the "basis" of Christianity is the meaning Christians gave to the person of Jesus.

Kyle:
In addition, Personal Experiences I have had give me good reason to believe in Jesus Christ.

No personal experiences give good reason to believe in Jesus Christ. A person living in a Buddhist country, ignorant of Jesus Christ, but having with the same experiences as you do, will not believe in Jesus at all.

It is rather your interpretation of your experiences which give you reason to believe in Jesus Christ.

Kyle:
Now, compared to this combined case, atheism seems to be quite inferior. I claim this because, in my opinion, there are not very many good atheistic arguments. For example, the Argument from Evil, the Argument from Nonbelief, and the Argument from History of Science are all very weak and lend no or little credibility the the atheistic position.

No argument about God is conclusive. It is the nature of the beast.

But this does not give theism or atheism any advantage or disadvantage over the other.

Kyle:
So, I think all of the facts of the universe seem to point to God's existence, and few or none of the facts seem to point away from that conclusion.

The Cosmological argument, too, is unconclusive at best.

Kyle:
I've always thought that, if it is true that there is no God, then this atheistic universe has done a good job fooling me.

Universes do not fool people. People fool themselves.

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

Likewise, whether or not Jesus rose again in any sense is irrelevant. Paul did not need Jesus to rise from the dead to believe the Christian story. Paul only needed to believe the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not the alleged event of a resurrection that is the basis of Christianity. It is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus which is the basis of Christianity.

Ughhh, way to redefine Christian belief. What an utter load of doody. Orwell would be so proud.....

Chris:
I would have to thank this site for convincing me that I am really no longer a Christian. I cannot (given the current evidence) believe in Noah's flood, a literal Adam, original sin, or many of the other things found in the bible. Many who know me would say that I had been a very devout Christian up until fairly recently.

Hi Bubba -

I hope you aren't too upset about your recent change of belief. However, given your description of yourself as "a very devout Christian up until fairly recently", I would guess that this is not the case. It can be very upsetting being forced to change your whole paradigm of thought. You can absorb a lot of the problems in your old paradigm for quite a while, can't you? There's always ways of dealing with conflicting information. But at some point there's too many straws for the old camel's back, and the old paradigm cracks. It sounds like that may be where you are.

And guess what? There's ultimately no reason for changing from one paradigm to another. Your search for logical reasons is admirable in motive, but there are no logical reasons at the point of the ground of logic.

Chris:
The point of this post is this...what logical reason could one have for being-not being a Christian. I would like open discussion on the issue. What made you decide one way or the other? What evidence do you feel supports Christianity and a belief in God?

There are, however, a number of reasons to support your change of belief. None to demand it, but many to support it.

Here's a few of mine:

1 Firstly: there are no prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. Every passage claimed to be about Jesus in the New Testament is, on examination, nothing to do with him. Far from there being any remarkable prophecy about Jesus, there is simply bad eisegesis and misinterpretation by New Testament writers.

2 Many hundreds, if not thousands of biblical passages are inconsistent, and riddled with errors. They demonstrate how human, all too human, they are. Vast parts of the Old Testament have been recognised to be compiled from various earlier sources – many of which contradict each other; many of which reveal contrasting theologies, politics and viewpoints. In the New Testament, it is recognised that the gospel writers were not attempting to write histories, and it is wrong to treat the canonical gospels as being historical. Even in the New Testament, different stories about Judas in Matthew and Acts have more holes than a Swiss cheese.

3 The scriptures also demonstrate human weakness - as they are, at times, immoral. Old Testament practices such as the ban, which ordered the systematic killing of every inhabitant of a place – including women, old people and babies – are rightly considered evil today. Claiming that God sanctioned the evil does not make it good. This is so, whether it be slavery, the ban, mistreatment of women, or another immorality. Morality today has clearly improved beyond the low standards of the Jewish Law. Morality has been worked out in every culture, despite the many stories in ancient cultures that their law-codes were handed down by their god.

4 The Jewish religion was tribal from the beginning – available only for Jews. Why was a small tribe favoured from about 1300 BC? What about the population of the world for 100,000s of years before? Even within the Old Testament the answer to this question is clear. The Jewish conception of their god “YHWH” develops from being a tribal god allotted to Israel, then to the Most High God amongst all the other gods, then finally as the Only God. “God” develops within the Bible.

5 The belief in Jesus as a divine person was the result of a particular cultural understanding. The idea of an end-times “Messiah” who will bring salvation is absent from the Old Testament, and only appears in Jewish thought for about 100 years before Jesus’ birth. Likewise, the ideas of the “Son of Man”, the “Son of God” and other titles were developed just in time for Jesus to be given those titles.

6 There is a tension in the gospels between the Historical Jesus who points to God, and the divinized Christ who points to himself. The Jesus written about by the writer of Mark is simply a different figure from the Jesus written about by the writer of John.

7 The central concepts of “eternal life”, “heaven” and “Satan” were developed over the Old Testament period, and especially during the two centuries before Jesus. Satan develops within the Old Testament from being an angel of God sent to men, to being an opponent of God and man. Eternal life is conspicuously absent from the vast majority of Old Testament thought. A good man is rewarded instead with a long life, and a bad man punished with a short life. Judaism develops the idea of “eternal life” quite later on, during the second century BC.

8 The New Testament is built on the assumption that the End of the World was about to happen. Jesus and Paul were sure that the End would occur in their lifetimes, and their message is coloured by this expectation. The first church fully expected that it would be the final church.

9 Each of the stories in the early chapters of Genesis have parallels in the mythologies of surrounding cultures. Sometimes, like in the instance of the Flood Story, the story has been taken directly from an earlier myth (one that has a precedent 1,000 years before Noah was said to have lived). The Jews’ own stories which follow, about the Patriarchs, are simplified explanations of the state of Israel in the tenth century BC. The 12 tribes unified into one State called Israel; the Genesis story tells of a man called “Israel”, with 12 sons – each named after a tribe. Similarly, the surrounding peoples, such as the Moabites, Ammonites, Ishmaelites and Midianites, are each told to be descended from a single man, who was a close relation of “Israel”. And, Abraham (“the father of many nations”) is the father of many nations.

10 The New Testament culture’s belief in demons is prevalent, especially in the Gospels. Jesus’ and the gospel writers’ explanation of diseases, such as epilepsy, being caused by demons may have been believable then. However, their understanding was limited by their lack of material knowledge. The New Testament presents charismatic gifts as being available for all in the church, through the empowering of God’s spirit. However, the absence of any such gifts in the church today casts doubt on the presence of such gifts then (notwithstanding claims in some denominations).

11 The beliefs of the church are not based on the Bible, but on the sections of the Bible that are deemed important. And this decision comes from outside of the Bible. The canon of sacred scriptures was ultimately arbitrary. It changed from century to century, with books like the first century BC work 1 Enoch being considered scripture in the first to second centuries AD by the Christian church (“prophecy”: Jude 14), and books like the anonymous Hebrews and the pseudonymous second century book 2 Peter being added to the canon in the fourth century. Books written falsely under another’s name like 2 Peter, Deuteronomy and Daniel (completed in the second century) stand alongside other books as authorities for correct doctrine.


So, I have no faith in the traditions of men.

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

Too right.

Likewise, whether or not Jesus rose again in any sense is irrelevant. Paul did not need Jesus to rise from the dead to believe the Christian story. Paul only needed to believe the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not the alleged event of a resurrection that is the basis of Christianity. It is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus which is the basis of Christianity. As long as it is beyond epistemological certainty, what happened as an "historical event" is of no consequence to Christianity, and is outside the "basis" of Christianity. Instead, at the "basis" of Christianity is the meaning Christians gave to the person of Jesus.

So what happened on the road to Damascus. Did Paul get knocked off his horse by the belief about Jesus?

Christianity makes the claim to be an historically based religion. You have lifted it into the gnostic stratosphere where nothing is questionable, nothing verifiable, all is believable because that is the meaning I choose to put into it. Even Cargo Cults have a basis in history, however misunderstodd those events were.

4

Dee Dee Warren:
Likewise, whether or not Jesus rose again in any sense is irrelevant. Paul did not need Jesus to rise from the dead to believe the Christian story. Paul only needed to believe the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not the alleged event of a resurrection that is the basis of Christianity. It is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus which is the basis of Christianity.

Dee Dee Warren:
Ughhh, way to redefine Christian belief. What an utter load of doody. Orwell would be so proud.....

Hmmmmm. Not a single reason for this little outburst.

Not that I ever expect anything of substance from you, Dee Dee!

Robyn Banks

Solly:
So what happened on the road to Damascus. Did Paul get knocked off his horse by the belief about Jesus?

There is no need to speculate about what happened on the road to Damascus. That is not the right question. One may as well ask what happened when Muhammad was told by God to write down words, and he wrote out the Qur'an. The question is not what happened, but how Muhammad interpreted those events.

Religious narratives are not a datum but a factum of human existence.

• An analogy from secular literature may give us a clue to our further procedure. The Icelandic Greenland and Eirik sagas are literary productions: they are intended to be such, and conform to the conventions of literature. But because they allude to Norse explorations and settlements on the coast of America, the extent to which they may be incidentally historical is naturally of great interest to many people. Hence they have also been studied as documents in a historical problem. In that context, what is or may be historical is true, and what belongs to myth and literature is false or imaginary.
  
  These sagas tell us that the Norsemen were attacked by natives with catapaults or balliste. Scholars say that the Algonquins, at least, are known to have used ballistae in welfare; so here is something that may be historically true. We read of ‘unipeds’, or people who had only one foot. No scholar will buy the unipeds: they came out of a book, and are therefore literary and false. We are told that two Scottish members of the expedition, a man and a woman, disappeared into the bush and returned, one with a sheaf of grain and the other with a bunch of grapes. Perhaps not inherently incredible, but there is an echo of Numbers 13.23 and, more important, a most suspicious symmetry. Symmetry, in any narrative, always means that historical content is being subordinated to mythical demands of design and form, as in the Book of Judges. Then again, of the three explored lands mentioned, ‘Helluland’ sounds like Baffin Island and ‘Markland’ like the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland; but ‘Vinland’, though identified with any number of places from Nova Scotia to Florida, still sounds more like Hy Brasil or the Garden of Hesperides than anything mundane enough to be marked on a map. However, the kernal of it may be an actual place: such categories in such narratives refuse to be definitely characterized as true or false.
  
  In these sagas we have only the two elements of history and literature, and so are not disturbed by hysterics screaming that we must accept everything including the unipeds, in fact especially the unipeds, or face the wrath of a God who deliberately created the unipeds as a ‘test of faith’ to make things as difficult as possible for intellectually honest people to believe anything he says. But a principle is involved which also applies to the Bible: we cannot get an inch further without new archaeological evidence, and such evidence would carry the authority that we have ceased to assign to the sagas themselves. Similarly, for the historian of the Biblical period, the primary historical authority is not the Bible but what (the written sources having been exhausted long ago) archaeology can still dig up in the way of acceptable evidence.”
  
  - Frye, Northrop The Great Code – The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), pp42-43

Solly:
Christianity makes the claim to be an historically based religion.

Yes! Quite right! Your statement is epistemic. Christianity claims to be historically-based. It's claims about history are at its foundation, not historical events themselves.

Solly:
... nothing is questionable, nothing verifiable, all is believable because that is the meaning I choose to put into it.

Incorrect. I do not accept this. I am a Critical Realist.

Solly:
Even Cargo Cults have a basis in history, however misunderstodd those events were.

Another good example, Solly. Now you are getting it!

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

Today @ 06:26 AM post located here
Robyn Banks:



Hmmmmm. Not a single reason for this little outburst.

Because it is obvious. I would rather argue that the moon is made of cheese than your reduction of Christianity and your pride in doing so. Your errors are glaringly apparent.

Not that I ever expect anything of substance from you, Dee Dee!

Robyn Banks

Nice broad brush there Robyn, I simply choose not to debate you but rather just to shine a glaring light on some of your statements to startle others into realization. You speak well, and you are obviously intelligent, but what you speak is not Christianity, and if I have to be the annoying little gnat that keeps pointing that out, so be it. I will not get into a battle of wit with you for I am sure you are much wittier than I.

So, I have no faith in the traditions of men.

And whatever it is you do have faith in, it might be nice a religion of YOUR own making, but it is not Christianity.

Can someone please make me an Orwell trophy to present to Robyn?

Likewise, whether or not Jesus rose again in any sense is irrelevant. Paul did not need Jesus to rise from the dead to believe the Christian story. Paul only needed to believe the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not the alleged event of a resurrection that is the basis of Christianity. It is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus which is the basis of Christianity. As long as it is beyond epistemological certainty, what happened as an "historical event" is of no consequence to Christianity, and is outside the "basis" of Christianity. Instead, at the "basis" of Christianity is the meaning Christians gave to the person of Jesus.

That simply does not follow. The early christians, including Paul, put all their hope in the literal resurrection of Christ - as a model for their future redemption. Now either they put their trust in a lie or in an actual historical event. And Paul put it in clear ethical terms: if Christ did not rise, then let's eat,drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. No need to live a life of self sacrifice - dust is the end of it all....

Robyn:
Hmmmmm. Not a single reason for this little outburst. ”

Dee Dee Warren:
Because it is obvious.

To you?

Dee Dee Warren:
I would rather argue that the moon is made of cheese than your reduction of Christianity and your pride in doing so. Your errors are glaringly apparent.

'Glaringly apparent'... to you?

Robyn:
“ Not that I ever expect anything of substance from you, Dee Dee!

Dee Dee Warren:
Nice broad brush there Robyn,

Not at all. I truly do not expect substance from you. Your replies to me have lacked substance, and I have come to expect this from you. This is my current expectation of you. This is not "broad brush". This is my expectation based on your current trend.

Dee Dee Warren:
I simply choose not to debate you but rather just to shine a glaring light on some of your statements to startle others into realization.

'Glaring light'... to you?

Dee Dee Warren:
You speak well, and you are obviously intelligent,

Why thank you! I hope you're not damning me with faint praise, though...

Dee Dee Warren:
but what you speak is not Christianity, and if I have to be the annoying little gnat that keeps pointing that out, so be it.

.. oooh! You DID damn with faint praise!!

But I'm not claiming that what I am saying IS Christianity. Rather, it is Supra-Christianity.

Dee Dee Warren:
I will not get into a battle of wit with you for I am sure you are much wittier than I.

To wit: yes.

Robyn:
“ So, I have no faith in the traditions of men.

Dee Dee Warren:
And whatever it is you do have faith in, it might be nice a religion of YOUR own making, but it is not Christianity.

All religion is of one's own making to some extent. And I already know it is not Christianity - a religion largely of other men's making. It is Supra-Christianity.

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

Today @ 11:38 AM post located here
Robyn Banks:
There is no need to speculate about what happened on the road to Damascus. That is not the right question. One may as well ask what happened when Muhammad was told by God to write down words, and he wrote out the Qur'an. The question is not what happened, but how Muhammad interpreted those events.

How convenient. Never let objective facts get in the way of a decided will to not believe. Just don't bother about them. Forget the fact of whether my wife loves me, it is simply the meaning I put upon certain actions she engages in. I believe she loves me, and that is all that matters. What a wonderful deconstructionist you are Robyn; Is there a meaning in the text, or just in ourselves?

Religious narratives are not a datum but a factum of human existence.

Yes! Quite right! Your statement is epistemic. Christianity claims to be historically-based. It's claims about history are at its foundation, not historical events themselves.

What a word twister!! Xty claims to be historic because it has historic events at its foundation, and those events have meaning in themselves, apart from our belief about them.

I am a Critical Realist.

Critical, yes. Realist? I don't think so.

Another good example, Solly. Now you are getting it!

No, you do not get it. But then you never wanted to in the first place. That's cool; ascribe whatever meaning you want to whatever you want. Just don't assume everybody else will see it from your pov, since that is just meanings on your part, and of no value to us, unless you claim to have found the real meaning that ties in with the way things are.

Hope that helps.

As usual, not very.

4

Robyn:
Likewise, whether or not Jesus rose again in any sense is irrelevant. Paul did not need Jesus to rise from the dead to believe the Christian story. Paul only needed to believe the Christian story that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not the alleged event of a resurrection that is the basis of Christianity. It is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus which is the basis of Christianity. As long as it is beyond epistemological certainty, what happened as an "historical event" is of no consequence to Christianity, and is outside the "basis" of Christianity. Instead, at the "basis" of Christianity is the meaning Christians gave to the person of Jesus.

seer:
That simply does not follow.

Oh yes it does! It follows the facts.

seer:
The early christians, including Paul, put all their hope in the literal resurrection of Christ

Quite right. And this hope that Paul spoke of was what I was alluding to:

• "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile"
  - Paul to the Corinthians

However, the 'faith' was not in any fact of Jesus' resurrection. The 'faith' was in the story of resurrection. Faith cannot be in respect of a known fact. Faith can only be in respect of the unknown. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Faith is not in the resurrection. Faith is in the narrative of the resurrection.

seer:
Now either they put their trust in a lie or in an actual historical event.

I don't disagree. But the happening or non-happening of "an actual historical fact" is irrelevant for faith in it.

Robyn Banks

Robyn:
There is no need to speculate about what happened on the road to Damascus. That is not the right question. One may as well ask what happened when Muhammad was told by God to write down words, and he wrote out the Qur'an. The question is not what happened, but how Muhammad interpreted those events.

Solly:
How convenient.

"Convenience" is irrelevant to my point.

Solly:
Never let objective facts get in the way of a decided will to not believe.

"Objective facts" never get in the way of belief or non-belief.

e.g. the fact that Jesus lived does not prove the truth of Christianity.

e.g. the fact that Moses lived does not prove the truth of Christianity.

e.g. if the James ossuary were genuine, it would not prove the truth of Christianity.

Solly:
Just don't bother about them. Forget the fact of whether my wife loves me, it is simply the meaning I put upon certain actions she engages in. I believe she loves me, and that is all that matters. What a wonderful deconstructionist you are Robyn; Is there a meaning in the text, or just in ourselves?

I am not a deconstructionist. Like deconstructionists, you over-read my words, and so misread them.

Robyn:
“ Religious narratives are not a datum but a factum of human existence. ”
“ Yes! Quite right! Your statement is epistemic. Christianity claims to be historically-based. It's claims about history are at its foundation, not historical events themselves. ”

Solly:
What a word twister!!

Nope. You confuse 'being' with 'meaning'.

Solly:
Xty claims to be historic because it has historic events at its foundation,

Nope. Christianity claims to be historic because of the meaning it attributes to certain alleged historic events.

e.g. Historical fact: Cyrus let Jews go back to Israel. Theology/meaning: God chose Cyrus as his messiah to deliver Israel after her time of punishment.

e.g. Historical fact: Jesus died. Theology/meaning: Christ died for your sins.

Solly:
and those events have meaning in themselves, apart from our belief about them.

Nonsense. This is word-worship (confusion of words and things).

Robyn:
“ I am a Critical Realist. ”

Solly:
Critical, yes. Realist? I don't think so.

"Critical Realist" is a single term. Your breaking down of it is ignorant.

Robyn:
“ Another good example, Solly. Now you are getting it! ”

Solly:
No, you do not get it. But then you never wanted to in the first place.

Disbelief in cargo cults is not purely a matter of will. We are rational creatures. The amount of evidence showing the absurdity of cargo cults supports our disbelief.

Solly:
That's cool; ascribe whatever meaning you want to whatever you want.

Strawman. I am not a relativist.

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks