This is for the atheists with special thanks to Vitus for starting this.
If Christianity where proven true would you become a Christian?
This has been asked before and my answer is the same, no. I refuse to follow a person with characteristics of the christian god. I would admit that he was god, but would refuse to “Follow” him on the basis that he’s spent the last several thousand years “playing games” with people. That is not a characteristic worthy of my “Praise”.
~Matt
This is for the atheists with special thanks to Vitus for starting this.
If Christianity where proven true would you become a Christian?
So, what does it mean to be a Christian?
If being a Christian means “believing X” and “X is proven true” means that everyone believed it, then the answer is yes.
Now, that doesn’t mean you would have to worship the diety, just believe the deity to be such.
These questions are ridiculous. They are basically tautologies that are phrased with a slight bit of ambiguity to trick the answerer into providing an illogical answer. And people are surprised!
In school they give you six pages of history to read and then spit back the same info in the form of a question. Does everyone get an A+?
This has been asked before and my answer is the same, no. I refuse to follow a person with characteristics of the christian god. I would admit that he was god, but would refuse to “Follow” him on the basis that he’s spent the last several thousand years “playing games” with people. That is not a characteristic worthy of my “Praise”.
~Matt
Then God is justified in building a special place that is away from His presence. Your comments justify His need for a Hell. If God loves you, which He does, He will not subject you to live in His presence for all of eternity. Not to mention, as God, He can judge you to live in eternal punishment by not following Him.
But the crux of your argument is also false, as revealed in the Bible. You think He’s playing games when He’s the one who provided you with an existence in the first place! You think He’s playing around but He’s actually providing for you out of Love. Also, you think He’s not worthy of “Praise” because you really can’t fathom how awesome He truly is. He made you with Free Will (the limited, human type) and He made this awesome Universe. You have to at least have some pretty high respect for that in this scenario. Not to mention, God in the flesh, as evidenced by Jesus, shows Him to be the most intelligent, yet gentle God/man we’ve ever encountered.
So no, I wouldn’t believe on the God you’ve depicted either because you’ve constructed a false impression of Him that goes against what is actually revealed in the Bible.
So the whole story of Job wasn’t god dicking around with a guy’s life to prove a point to the devil?
I’m with MJuric.
"These questions are ridiculous. They are basically tautologies that are phrased with a slight bit of ambiguity to trick the answerer into providing an illogical answer. And people are surprised! "
Exactly. The questions aren’t nearly as clever as the questioners believe. They boil down to, “If you knew X to be true, would you believe X to be true?”
So the whole story of Job wasn’t god dicking around with a guy’s life to prove a point to the devil?
I’m with MJuric.
The difference is that God, when He allowed Job’s children to be killed in the calamity, took all of the kids to Heaven to be with Him. Not to mention, when God takes a life, He has the power to restore it. When you look at God in human terms, you’ll always lose the sense of what God is really about. The story of Job is a hard one to read but we must remember the final outcome. You guys are forgetting that and losing the big picture.
Exactly. The questions aren’t nearly as clever as the questioners believe. They boil down to, “If you knew X to be true, would you believe X to be true?”
I agree. I went to lunch and thought about vitus’ question. I do not believe in god or God. If it was proven he existed I would acknowlege his existance. I still wouldn’t change whether or not I worship him. It has nothing to do with Christianity per se, it is about whether or not your relationship with X would change.
I spun the question around a bit and asked myself if evolution was proven to be false, would I believe it to be false? The answer is yes. But, that alone doesn’t prove the existance of a higher being so changing my opinion on that isn’t going to mean I am a creationist. It just means we know what didn’t happen.
If it was proven God did NOT exist, I would say “told ya so!”
This is for the atheists with special thanks to Vitus for starting this.
If Christianity where proven true would you become a Christian?
Trick question, right?
If Christianity were proven true through empirical means, one wouldn’t need to become a Christian - if one’s worldview was based on available evidence then by definition a ‘proven’ set of beliefs would be included as soon as it were proven.
This is for the atheists with special thanks to Vitus for starting this.
If Christianity where proven true would you become a Christian?
Trick question, right?
If Christianity were proven true through empirical means, one wouldn’t need to become a Christian - if one’s worldview was based on available evidence then by definition a ‘proven’ set of beliefs would be included as soon as it were proven.
Not technically. The disciples all believed because they had empirical evidence. They saw and felt the risen Jesus. No faith required yet they still believed.
2 problems with this:
1 - the obvious - there’s a lot of mud in the waters when we’re talking about the disciples and whether they actually existed at the same time as the supposed historical Jesus - there is very little evidence to say for sure that things happened as written in the current-day Bible.
2 - even if we accept for argument’s sake that the events in the Bible are historically accurate, ‘faith’ in that case would be redundant - there would be no reason to ‘believe’ beyond believing their own eyes. It’s pretty easy to believe water is wet when I’ve got a glass of it right here and I can stick my finger in it.
One of the tings I always thought was amusing, troubling, whatever, was this line of thought.
Person1: I don’t believe in God.
Person2: Well, you should (or need to).
I don’t get this. I’m not talking about “you need to believe in God to go to heaven.” I talking about “the evidence.” So, if Person2 has already heard all of the evidence, and he still doesn’t believe . . . well, how can he? I mean, Person2 can SAY he belives, he can get Baptized to make his wife’s family happy, he can learn all of the Bible stories and tell his kids. So he can ACT like he belives, but if he doesn’t believe, he doesn’t believe.
2 problems with this:
1 - the obvious - there’s a lot of mud in the waters when we’re talking about the disciples and whether they actually existed at the same time as the supposed historical Jesus - there is very little evidence to say for sure that things happened as written in the current-day Bible.
2 - even if we accept for argument’s sake that the events in the Bible are historically accurate, ‘faith’ in that case would be redundant - there would be no reason to ‘believe’ beyond believing their own eyes. It’s pretty easy to believe water is wet when I’ve got a glass of it right here and I can stick my finger in it.
Well, anyone on the scene within just a few weeks or a few years could talk with the Marys, the disciples, and several other prominent figures mentioned in this time. Christianity enjoys explosive growth only 50 days after Resurrection then goes on to rapidly accrue followers. It accrues followers from Judaism in Jerusalem, which is nothing short of amazing given the monotheistic culture. So, we can assume by the evidence of history that Christianity had a sound basis very early on. Paul converts within 1-3 years of Resurrection and he could’ve sussed out the particulars, being a prominent Pharisee who was taught in Jerusalem by Gamaliel. He would’ve known the prominent Pharisees, some of whom converted to following Jesus. Luke, a Greek doctor, follows Paul on missionary journeys and he could’ve interviews folks, too.
So no, the waters are not very muddy. If anything, the writings of the NT purport to the reality of the growth of Christianity. Only a physical resurrection of Jesus accounts for all of the data we have.
Sounds like somebody needs to skip church Sunday morning and curl up on the couch for an Ancient Aliens marathon… I’d loan you my Netflix login but I’ll be using it to watch Bill Maher’s Religilous for the 66th time. (which I recommend you watch in lieu of attending your usual Wednesday night service this week).
I never said anything I wrote was clever. You seeing me smiling with glee at my question and thinking I am so smart is a creation of your own mind. I also understand as I reread it that is was poorly worded or not explained well.
Let’s look at what it made me think. If I could be offered enough proof that the general beliefs of Christianity where true would it make me a true Christian? If the story is true then I would do everything out of pure fear. All macho talk aside I wouldn’t want to go to hell so I would believe that god was real and he turned himself into a man then killed himself for my sins. I would go to church and pray and truly believe but it would be out of fear. I would not feel no love from god because he is offering none and I would offer no love because I can’t love at gun point. It would be terrible situation.
Now the idea of heaven is only slightly better then hell because the idea of an eternity with a being of such ego and power does not sound enjoyable to me. It would an eternity of me always paranoid of the big man changing his mind and later judging me not worthy and sending me to forever ass fucked by a flaming pitchfork.
Wow.
The best part of being agnostic? We’re left out of the Lavender Room discussions!
Not really. I find y’all more ridiculous then anyone else.
2 problems with this:
1 - the obvious - there’s a lot of mud in the waters when we’re talking about the disciples and whether they actually existed at the same time as the supposed historical Jesus - there is very little evidence to say for sure that things happened as written in the current-day Bible.
2 - even if we accept for argument’s sake that the events in the Bible are historically accurate, ‘faith’ in that case would be redundant - there would be no reason to ‘believe’ beyond believing their own eyes. It’s pretty easy to believe water is wet when I’ve got a glass of it right here and I can stick my finger in it.
Well, anyone on the scene within just a few weeks or a few years could talk with the Marys, the disciples, and several other prominent figures mentioned in this time. Christianity enjoys explosive growth only 50 days after Resurrection then goes on to rapidly accrue followers. It accrues followers from Judaism in Jerusalem, which is nothing short of amazing given the monotheistic culture. So, we can assume by the evidence of history that Christianity had a sound basis very early on. Paul converts within 1-3 years of Resurrection and he could’ve sussed out the particulars, being a prominent Pharisee who was taught in Jerusalem by Gamaliel. He would’ve known the prominent Pharisees, some of whom converted to following Jesus. Luke, a Greek doctor, follows Paul on missionary journeys and he could’ve interviews folks, too.
So no, the waters are not very muddy. If anything, the writings of the NT purport to the reality of the growth of Christianity. Only a physical resurrection of Jesus accounts for all of the data we have.
Sorry, no. I’m not going to get into this with you a 2nd time, needless to say you should look up the term ‘circular evidence’. You can’t use the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. You just can’t.
So the whole story of Job wasn’t god dicking around with a guy’s life to prove a point to the devil?
I’m with MJuric.
The difference is that God, when He allowed Job’s children to be killed in the calamity, took all of the kids to Heaven to be with Him. Not to mention, when God takes a life, He has the power to restore it. When you look at God in human terms, you’ll always lose the sense of what God is really about. The story of Job is a hard one to read but we must remember the final outcome. You guys are forgetting that and losing the big picture.
You sound like the abused wife saying “But he’s a wonderful husband when he’s sober.”