[en]10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer

[Elvain]

I take the Bible literally. As far as I'm concerned, The Bible's veracity is non-negotiable, and questioning it, is well. . .not good.
but even the Talmudic tradition says that the Tanakh (Old Testament) should not be taken literally. Even the jewish tradition says that many of things written there were just for (con-)temporary aplication and should not be understood literally and applied in other eras because the knowledge of the writers was limited by the period they lived in and possibilities of contemporary cognition which was later (after it was written) improved and deepened.

I really doubt you are a jew when you don't accept Talmud.. it's almost like being Christian and not accepting "prophecy" of the Gospel

[Richard]

Never mind. You don't believe. So it's beyond your comprehension.

I take the Bible literally. As far as I'm concerned, The Bible's veracity is non-negotiable, and questioning it, is well. . .not good.

Exactly what every narrowminded believer always do after he sees that his point has been proven wrong. You can't prove your point, thus in an effort to stop the discussion and not be proven wrong you say that because we don't "believe" in what you do, we can't see it.

Taking the bible literally? Then you are going against your own believes and guidelines set for in the bible.
You are a very well educated person, of that i'm certain, but why don't you incorporate that knowledge into your life? Haven't you seen what taking the bible (or any other religious text for that matter) too literal has done to humanity and still does today?
The inquisitions, the crusades, the many religious wars, and even terrorism(not just modern islamic fanatics) were and are caused by such narrow mindness.

[Elvain]

I believe PROC is having great fun with all those things we write here..

if not, how could one say:
The XXX's veracity is non-negotiable, and questioning it, is well. . .not good.
if you put Bible instead XXX it's PROC's statement, something that not even very conservative church authorities could agree as well as respected rabins (those respected among all but fanatic jewish radicals)
Every philosophical thuoght in the "West" after Christ was based on questioning the Bible - the good as well as the bad.

If you put Koran instead, it's Osama bin Laden and his fanatics, or Wahhabists or many other islamist fundamantalists

Let me paraphrase one muslim philosopher (Ibn Rushd - known also as Averroes):
saying that philosophy is bad because it led some people who were not good at it away from the God is like saying that water is bad.
All of us desire to et aswers to our questions just like we desire to drink water. Many people who couldn't swim have drowned, does it mean that water kills? No, without it, there would be no life.
The same it is wih philosophy (questioning authorities). Many people failed in seeking answers to their questions, but those who didn't fail brought us many good. It is not philosophy what leads us away from truth, it is part of our nature and our bad skils
----------------------
I hope you have fun PROC that I took your words seriously :biggrin:

[People's Republic of China]

Talmud is Rabbinical writings and philosphy, not Divine writings. It doesn't make someone a Jew.

Exactly what every narrowminded believer always do after he sees that his point has been proven wrong. You can't prove your point, thus in an effort to stop the discussion and not be proven wrong you say that because we don't "believe" in what you do, we can't see it.




No, I can't prove my point. I know what I believe. I 'm not educated enough on this topic to argue effectivly. It's like asking the average man, why do planes fly. They know they do, but they can't explain it. The only religious arguements I deal with, is is there a God. I'm a political fighter, not an arguer of religion. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one way, and all others are heresy/infidel/pagan. Call me narrow minded and fanactical, I care not. Do I care that I'm losing the argument? Yes, I'm losing patience. No one likes losing. I debate in person all the time, and winning is easy for me. But, for some reason, I can never do well on internet. Maybe that's because I can only type 37 words a minute. And I have little patience for typing. But that's another story. Will you treat these as excuses, probably. Do I care. No. I get on these forums right before I go to bed, usually. So I'm very tired, irritable, and stressed. (you try dealing with a customer that knows it all and patronizes the staff on how stupid we are, and why we can;t fix his bloody PC) Sorry, I had a hellish day.:angry:

Talk to me on politics, not religion. There I can reliably rip you to shreds. In person. I don't have to patience to type on forums.

[Doux]

I thought being Jew was only determined by one's Jewish mother?

No, I can't prove my point. I know what I believe. I 'm not educated enough on this topic to argue effectivly. It's like asking the average man, why do planes fly. They know they do, but they can't explain it. The only religious arguements I deal with, is is there a God. I'm a political fighter, not an arguer of religion. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one way, and all others are heresy/infidel/pagan. Call me narrow minded and fanactical, I care not.But don't you start to wonder then? I cannot imagine myself sticking to believing one, only thing. Of course, belief is not to be taken lightly - you don't just hop from scientology to bhuddism to the flying spaghetti monster in one week, because some things said by non-believers seem to make sense. But it should make one wonder; they do make me wonder to what extent science can provide the ethics of human life, for instance. It is this potential of wondering that also makes humans different from animals and we should rightly use this potential. I miss it in your posts and could very well be mistaken, but from statements of the unquestionable veracity of something, concluded this.

But, for some reason, I can never do well on internet
[...]
Talk to me on politics, not religion. There I can reliably rip you to shreds. In person. I don't have to patience to type on forums.Discussions or debates on the internet differ in an important aspect from live debates: every single word can be read over and thought over for a longer time period. Live debating usually involves verbal power and assertivity. To be a good debater is a quality; honestly, not mine, I'm easily overthrown in such one-to-one or group-to-group discussions.
In that sense I'm glad where talking on a forum, not instantaneously :wink:

[Traveller]

One thing I think many of you are missing is that faith and knowledge are two completely different things (although not necessary oposite). If you know, you can't believe. Faith is not based on knowledge - faith is trusting and hoping to find something in the dark without the knowledge. Thus, if you're more prone to faith, you're a Believer. If you're more prone to personal knowledge, you're an Agnostic. Mind you, Atheism could be viewed as faith, masked with knowledge, since the disbelief in a god is a belief itself, since a god is logically beyond the human's capabilities of understanding and/or measuring and thus cannot be proven neither to exist or not to exist - you can just believe in one of the two and pretend to "know" why. So, you really can't "beat" belief through knowledge - if you try, you can only "beat" the knowledge part of a Believer, but not the faith part. Thus, trying to oppose Christian theses through logic or other kind of "knowledge" can not directly do anything to the faith, since faith can be defeated not by logic, but by doubt. And doubt is created very rarely, since it's a natural initial part of us and can thus be only increased or decreased. Hence, logical arguments can only attack the knowledge part of a Believer and thus rise his doubt and decrease his faith. But then, of course, that would mean that this person is not a "full" Believer and has a strong enough knowledge part, which is susceptible to doubt-attacks. I.e. if one is a true, devout Believer, he puts his trust and faith blindly, despite of all such kinds of doubt-attacks. And the less faith he puts it, the more he relies on his own knowledge and is thus more prone to attacks. By this, however, I'm not saying that one side is better than the other, since the personal knowledge usually also contains faith - you just accept to believe that 2+2=4 not because you really know it, but because that's what's the choice to believe in. So, the difference is mainly where you put your trust and faith in - in some kind of a "religious god", some kind of a "knowledge god" or something else... :wink:

[Richard]

I accept that 2+2=4 because it can be physically proven, not because first grade teacher and some book said so. It makes sence and is reasonable, if I had 2 oranges and then someone gave me 2 more I can see that now I have 4, not 3 or 10 or 27.
However, if now I take a kid and all his life I tell him 2+2=6 because that's what my book says and everythign else is wrong, he will believe in that blindly, not because he used reason or he experimented why it does, but just because all his life I(the person he has put all his trust on) have planted that seed that my book is perfect and everyone else's is not. In this case then you can say knowledge is faith. But if this kid then starts asking questions and looks for answers he will conclude that 2+2 doesn't=6 but it equals 4.

So no, knowledge has no such thing as faith. Scientific fact comes from experimenting, observing the results and reasoning. Faith is just blind believe, you either believe that the apple tree is the god of life because it gives you something to eat, or you start questioning and experimenting to see why exactly the tree has food "for you" every certain amount of time.


And pcr, well I'm not that better than you at typing, about 40 wpm. :/
And discusions of 2 people in front of each other is completly different from 2 over the internet in a forum. I'm much better arguing person to person because I can come up with answers to the other person's argument fearly fast. All this time I thouht you were well educated about religion :/. So how can you support something that you don't even know well?
And politics isn't that far appart from religion, both are ways to control the masses.

[People's Republic of China]

I am well educateed on religion, jus on different areas. The existance of God is a matter of faith, yes. That's the whole point. BUt my religious discussions are usually confined to interpretation dicussions with others who take the Bible as fact. So naturally, I'm a little rusty on fighting about is it real. I debate on meaning not its veracity. The latter most of my cronies, either take for granted or (the unbeliever ones) enjoy bickering on intent. My specialty is Revelation.

Someything I have to admit. I used to be an Agnostic. Though I was raised in the Anglican/Baptist community, I grew cynical and left them (to shorten a story), now I came back to belief and my Jewish roots. Which is why I'm so zealous in defending God's Word. I have seen His hand in my life. I went through great mental and physical pain, but thanks to Him I came through. So as a reformed atheist, I'm playing catchup on those many years of neglect. (Ignore my profile's stated age of 57, I'm actually 19). From my toddling days to my late teens, I rarely looked at a Bible or thought about it. Why I turned around is personal. Admitably I ditched the Protestant banner, and took up the Jewish one of my blood and I felt from my studies that the Law is still applicable. But still.


Politics is similar, but the difference is, I'm a political theorist. I can quote Marx, Mussolini, Hamilton, and Rosseau. I made a life out of political crusading. I've even started my own ideology (Austerism). And I have a following of sorts. Now as any good debator in a new field, I'm taking notes on your arguements, so I can reverse engineer at a later date, once I've studied a bit more. (Right now, I'm trying to master the minor prophets, while balancing a term paper)

[Doux]

One thing I think many of you are missing is that faith and knowledge are two completely different things (although not necessary oposite). If you know, you can't believe. Faith is not based on knowledge - faith is trusting and hoping to find something in the dark without the knowledge.In mathematics, all theorems are derived and build upon certain things which have to be taken as true, axioms (postulates). You cannot prove that 1+1=2 in mathematics, but you have to take that as being true. What's the difference between faith in an axiom's truth or faith in a statement about the existence of god? Still, in your faith, you 'know' Pythagoras, a²+b²=c², in a triangle.
Physics: take special relativity. Einstein formulated two postulates on which the whole theory is built. You can't prove that the speed of light is constant, but experiments confirmed it to today. Where does faith end and knowledge start? I really think that they basically are the same. You have to put your faith in the emperical derivation of laws and theories.

Still, the approach of science, to discard wrong theories and improve or replace them by better ones, is in my feeling a faith which has more chance to approach a true understanding of the world than, for instance, blind belief in the literal Koran text written several centuries ago has. I don't question the (non-)existence of god, but do question a 5000 years theory of the earth's existence concluded from like book and that's what I like to discuss about.

[People's Republic of China]

One thing I think many of you are missing is that faith and knowledge are two completely different things (although not necessary oposite). If you know, you can't believe. Faith is not based on knowledge - faith is trusting and hoping to find something in the dark without the knowledge. Thus, if you're more prone to faith, you're a Believer. If you're more prone to personal knowledge, you're an Agnostic. Mind you, Atheism could be viewed as faith, masked with knowledge, since the disbelief in a god is a belief itself, since a god is logically beyond the human's capabilities of understanding and/or measuring and thus cannot be proven neither to exist or not to exist - you can just believe in one of the two and pretend to "know" why. So, you really can't "beat" belief through knowledge - if you try, you can only "beat" the knowledge part of a Believer, but not the faith part. Thus, trying to oppose Christian theses through logic or other kind of "knowledge" can not directly do anything to the faith, since faith can be defeated not by logic, but by doubt. And doubt is created very rarely, since it's a natural initial part of us and can thus be only increased or decreased. Hence, logical arguments can only attack the knowledge part of a Believer and thus rise his doubt and decrease his faith. But then, of course, that would mean that this person is not a "full" Believer and has a strong enough knowledge part, which is susceptible to doubt-attacks. I.e. if one is a true, devout Believer, he puts his trust and faith blindly, despite of all such kinds of doubt-attacks. And the less faith he puts it, the more he relies on his own knowledge and is thus more prone to attacks. By this, however, I'm not saying that one side is better than the other, since the personal knowledge usually also contains faith - you just accept to believe that 2+2=4 not because you really know it, but because that's what's the choice to believe in. So, the difference is mainly where you put your trust and faith in - in some kind of a "religious god", some kind of a "knowledge god" or something else... :wink:


Well put. 'tis truth. Even the Bible says (paraphrase) that faith is the crux, and not to lean on one's own understanding.

[Traveller]

Where does faith end and knowledge start? I really think that they basically are the same. You have to put your faith in the emperical derivation of laws and theories.
Exactly! Like most things on this world, faith and "knowledge" don't have a clear border and are gradually turning from one to the other, while at the same time standing on the same basis.

Richard, if you put 2 oranges next to 2 other oranges, you put trust and faith in your senses that you see/touch four oranges and not five or three. But you still have to put faith in it, at least a little bit. Basically, the way I see it, if you really aren't putting any faith (i.e. you have no faith (0%) and absolute knowledge (100%)), then you're supposedly what a God should be - beyond all limits of the Universe and thus being able to be absolutely sure for anything inside it. I.e. if you're claiming to be right in being 100% sure in the knowledge of something in this world, you're practically claiming to be something more than a normal human. Thus, of course, one could say that indeed putting faith and trust is in the human nature and having knowledge is a higher level, closer to what we could call "a god" (although not exactly being one) and therefore moving from simple faith to knowledge is an evolution and a step forward and higher. Then again, as all philosophical aspects, this could be argued too...



P.S. A bit back to the topic:
If we use the following basic scheme, we could say that the Believers are closer to the Faith part of the scheme and can put their trust blindly, solely on pure faith, while the Non-believers are further away from the Faith end of the scheme and put their faith (almost) only on things they can see/grasp/understand. Of course, as this is a very wide generalisation, it can be used with a higher level of "truth" only in generalisations and not in personal cases, since every separate human throughout different stages of his life has different ratios of Faith/Knowledge and can thus be on much different positions of this scheme (and changing with time).
Pure Faith --> |----------------Believers--------------------------Non-Believers-------------------------------| <--Pure Knowledge

P.P.S. In other words and to try to explain the points of view: I, as an Agnostic, put my faith in my (unsufficient human) knowledge that one's own knowledge, derived through various ways, stands on a higher level of "the right path" of human and personal progress. On the other hand, Believers put their trust exactly in their belief that one's own uncompromised and clear faith (be it in Christ, Jehova, Allah or any other religious deity (I exclude Buddhism, since it seems to be more like a philosophy and thus a bit closer to the Knowledge part than the "normal" religions)) is on "the right way" to human and personal salvation. Since I can't claim to have the superior Knowledge, I can't say that this or that is really better, but can only put my faith in what I believe (or feel) seems to be better...

[Mircoslavux]

I have just thought where I put my 1000.th post and I think, here is the right place and time...

I watched all three videos and I have to say the reasoning of that one side is very dry logical and materialistic...and the life of man is not only dry logic and we are not living only from the things, which we can touch and take. We are not only a mass of accumulating atoms and molecules.
We are human beings, each one with his - her special role on this small piece of life swimming in the all. We all have a soul. And it doesn't matter, whether you believe or not.

The God is here, everywhere. (and I'm intelligent and rational :scratch: :go: or at least I hope, I'm).
And only one God exists. It doesn't matter which name we have given him.
The God is ideal and man in his short history, tried to decode him, tried to understand him. Therefore we created a picture of God, a very deformed picture of him. Man is corrupted; desires of wealth and power warped the God's messages given us.

What I want to say with my cross thoughts?
The God is not depending on us, but we are depending on him. We are depending on Love and as was many times said the God is the Love, never-ending, everlasting, endless and deepest Love.

The Loving God is each time ready to accept us as we are if we open our hearths and let him chance to go in.


:wink:

[People's Republic of China]

Wholeheartedly agree, off topic. 1000 posts, wow!

[Elvain]

To love each other do we need some God or some other power to tell us we should love each other?

If you need it, have it. I don't nend such power. I'm not dependent on no God.

It is your right to believe there is some supernatural power that helps people to love eachother. I don't believe, because people don't love each other. It is up on every single one of humans (no matter if we have soul or not or how we call our inunderstandable and inexplainable desires and needs) if he decides to love people or not.

Many people think it is weakness to believe in supernatural power that gives us that ability, many people think it is ignorance not to believe in such power. None of them is right. I think it requires special abilities to believe as well as it requires some special skills to stand the life without believing in such power

You think there is God who gave us free will, I believe the free will is part of our nature and we can never explore how our nature was given to us or evolved. I think that all gods (including this jewish-christian-muslim only Elohim/The God/al-Illah) throughout human history were created in human minds to explain those things and to legitimize social orders.

You don't need to follow no book literally, don't need to follow any of gods to live good life with love to other people. What more do I need to be good? Do I need to believe in some salvation or Last judgement where all my acts will be judged and I will be giveen some right to go to some heaven? why? Why should I get something? To motivate me? Do you think I am so bad I need to have some promisses of heavenly future to sacrifice something and act in love to other people?
If someone behaves well just from selfish reasons to get to heaven he believes in, is he really good or rather selfish but blinded person? Isn't it more to act with love without any claims to get anything? I don't want your salvation! If I have to chose between being good and get to some hell or believe in some god and get to some heaven no matter how I behave, I pick hell. I don't want to be in the same heaven where Hitler and other human creatures like most of popes and most of "good believers" are. I just know that nothinhg is for sure in my life and that is the main reason why I should be good. We are all sinners, not because we are from Adam and Eve but because sin is part of our nature and we can never be safe from it and this we shuold try to be as good and loving as possible. Not to get anything but to defeat the bad in us. If you find it not enough, go to your everlasting after-life in heaven or whatever is so important for you.

I just ask questions and no god was ever able to answer them properly. Am I so bad I don't deserve to get the answers? Or did I fiind the path without them? How would they let me go the right path without knowing them, I could be their prophet... and súread their messages of love, couldn't I?

[Mircoslavux]

hard speech Elvain,...:eek: Nevertheless, I'm respecting your opinion. But I'm not sure, whether you got, what I want to say with my few words.

I do not press anybody to faith in God. I hope you understand this.
Each of us will find "something", in which he - she will trust. It need only a time. And I'm sure nobody is 100% ateist. I hope you get, what is hidden behind my words.

Everybody of us will see, the reality, when we die. I know that many so called ateists are better than many so called faithfull - church people.

Do you really believe, that when you die, it just everything finished - done. And there is no way further?
Do you really believe, that we are only body and brain with some feelings directed electronically and bio-chemically?

I do not.

I'm researcher in biology, so I have pretty good background in Natural Sciences, and with my further studies, I'm still more and more impressed with this beatifull word, which was done. And nothing is here without deep reason.

Everybody of us desire to be loved. Not to be alone, but to share his/her happiness, love, but troubles too.

Do you not believe in Love? Imagine love could be your god! Is it possible for you?

howgh:go:

[Elvain]

I do not press anybody to faith in God. I hope you understand this.
Each of us will find "something", in which he - she will trust. It need only a time. And I'm sure nobody is 100% ateist. I hope you get, what is hidden behind my words.I know what you mean. I don not consider myself as ateist, I just can't believe in god

Everybody of us will see, the reality, when we die.I think this is the biggest mistake of christianity. We see the reality every day of our life. Thinking that it's not real is the worst thing we can do. But I know you didn't mean it this way, so it's ok

Do you really believe, that when you die, it just everything finished - done. And there is no way further?
Do you really believe, that we are only body and brain with some feelings directed electronically and bio-chemically?no, I don't. But what should I believe? Is it really that important to believe in after-life?

I know just one thing: Untill I live my human cognition disallows me to see what is there, if there is something. It makes me weaker not to believe in something, in many cases, but on the other hand, I will not sufer no disilusion once I die.

I'm researcher in biology, so I have pretty good background in Natural Sciences, and with my further studies, I'm still more and more impressed with this beatifull word, which was done. And nothing is here without deep reason.The world really is beautiful. But I personaly have done many things which were beautiful withuot plannig it, without reaonsing it. Does everything have to be created to exist?
I don't care how the things emerged here, I don't find it as important as to find out what they are and how beautiful they are, how they work.

Their reason is just in our minds, they might have some other we could never see. How can we find their reason?

Everybody of us desire to be loved. Not to be alone, but to share his/her happiness, love, but troubles too.yes and it is IMO one of reasons why people create orders of life. And they create religions to legitimize those rules. That's just my opinion. Isn't it so beautiful that human imagination helps us so much?
But why should we fight for those "truths" which were made up by someone?

Do you not believe in Love? Imagine love could be your god! Is it possible for you?Why should I call it my god? I believe in it, I believe in free human will and - you can agree or not - I think it is much more than to believe in something supernatural. Because those gods enable us to advocate our sins that they are part of godly plans. But what if they are simply our failiures? If I face my failiure without advocating it by something that was made up, it can make me stronger. Or weaker - what isn't failiure but just human nature.

This way of life is not for everybody, such as religious way of life is not for people like me.

I think I have grown up fromconvincing others that God doesn't exist. Maybe such words are even more heretic than denying his existence, but: I don't care wether god exists or not. Such question is not importnat for my life. And I'm looking forward to going to hell for these words if he exists.

[Traveller]

I don not consider myself as ateist, I just can't believe in god.
It's called Agnosticism - somebody who is naturally more inclined to "know" than to "believe" and since he can't really "know" the "divine matters", he "doesn't know" (thus being a-gnostic), but also can't "believe", therefore leaving the "divine matters" out of the question (or under the question - depends of the person). Welcome to the club! :wink:
However, I'd ask you to cool your temper a bit, because your post before the last one seemed quite... "warmongering anti-theistic" even to a non-believer like me. It seemed like what the others (and most probably you too) don't like in most believers - trying to force one's own mind and decision upon the others.

[Elvain]

well. I think agbostic is someone who doesn't believe there is any truth. it's not what I am. I believe there is truth and in some cases we can find it, but not in that "divine" questions like how and why was the world created, what will happen after our death etc.