CX

Wow. That was easy. Normally it takes several years to deconvert someone. Instead of "Praise the Lord" you are now free to say, "Praise the IPU!"

Radcliffe Emerson

Diana, that was a great answer. I wish I could be so eloquent.

Not_Registered

Before ya'll relpy to my sarcastic reply by saying something like "see, that what a Christian would say" or something to that effect, realize that it was a sarcastic reply. Sarcasm isn't illegal, even for Christians.

I understand and respect the points and comments made. I have learned much from people in this forum from this thread and others. I know many Christians do shield themselves from "faith-testing" topics through faith alone and wont go near the real facts and evidence surrounding important issues that would challenge their belief, but there are also many Christians who do stand up to skeptical issues. I only ask that agnostics, atheists, and the like would actually listen and hear some of my points istead of attacking them all instantly. I mean I've mispoken in previous threads and appologized, even multiple times for it, and still some people wouldnt leave the issue alone. So, instead of talking about the topic of the thread my mispoken words became the center focus. That's ridiculous that someone would be that anxious and eager for a "believer" to "slip up" that they would latch on to only that one thing and not even hear anything else I had to say. Close to 100% of what I've said in this forum has been copmletely attacked. I know I'm not a genius, but my opinions can't be that erroneous that everything I say is utterly 100% wrong. At the risk of writing another One Giant Paragraph, I also say that I lied about respecting your points....I'm right and your wrong. For those slightly angered and/or confused by the previous line: see paragraph #1.

Not_Registered

off topic comment deleted

Toto

Not_Registered: Feel free to start afresh. Start a new topic with well chosen words that you think you can defend.

But please keep the personal comments out.

Thanks

Not_Registered

Aight <--- well chosen word.

Jayhawker Soule

Of course it is. By what criteria do you label "a lot of religions/beliefs ... completely foolish" while claiming that talking snakes, cherubim, Nephelim, virgin births, suicidal pigs, cursed fig trees, and resurrections replete with zombies strolling the streets of Jerusalem are somehow other than "completely foolish"?

Xezlec

Not_Registered,

I think a lot of people have listened to your points, and I think a lot of people have replied, and if some people seem dismissive it's only because we've been asked these same things, and heard these same points, so many times that we tire of the subject.

Personally, I've noticed that most atheists who are very well-versed in religion are atheists because they are well-versed in religion, not well-versed in religion because they are atheists. That is, as Christians they start doing research on their faith and others, and sooner or later they start to see things in perspective, which eventually leads to disbelief.

Of course that's not always true. Sometimes atheists (who, as a rule, get pestered every day about their beliefs) get tired of being told they don't know what they are talking about, or being given "proofs" that God exists or that the Bible is infallible or something, and (being the rational-minded people that many of us are) our solution is to go read up on the subject that was brought up in the argument, and thus know how to reply the next time.

Another way to put it is, if you are a zebra in a herd of elephants, you learn to speak elephant pretty quick! Many foreign immigrants to the US speak better English than most Americans! Same concept.

And one more reason: when you are a member of a small minority group that is hated and outcast by others, you tend to stick together with other members of that group. Since the biggest thing atheists have in common is atheism, it's only natural that we tend to discuss the errors in various religions as a way of making conversation sometimes.

And BTW, I do find Christian myth interesting, in the same way I find Greek, Roman, Hindu, and Shinto myths interesting.

Personally, I feel that the Bible stories of Jesus are based on a real person, because the NT stories seem to have been written by different people with different personalities, and they seem to refer to Jesus as saying and doing (roughly) the same things. What's more, they speak about him in a very "cult initiate" tone, and Jesus himself really does sound like a realistic lunatic, similar to many cult leaders you see today (even non-Christian-based ones).

It is not at all hard for me to believe that these are the writings of cult members about their executed leader. It would seem highly likely, though, that they exaggerated quite a bit (heck, I would be surprised if they didn't. this was a cult after all), so I'm not surprised Jesus wasn't mentioned in Josephus. He was probably a nobody who was executed for some trivial thing along with a bunch of other nodobies. I doubt he was what anyone at the time (other than his disciples) would call a "rebel leader".

What's more, each of the accounts of Jesus' birth seems to have been contrived for a different purpose (I've read a great explanation of why each story was written as it was, in order to fulfill certain prophecies, but each took a different approach to do so). I doubt either author knew anything about Jesus' past, but they were "inspired by God" about it (meaning they made it up) and they didn't collaborate much with each other.

After all, it does seem true that most of the things they agree upon are the things they would have been around to see, doesn't it? That seems revealing to me. The rest, I think, was "inspired".

*EDIT*
I forgot to mention, yes, people do get very picky about words and phrases here. That's the nature of a philosophical debate forum. I know, I know, it is annoying, but sometimes there is a good reason for it (and sometimes there isn't, but that's the way it goes).