semiopen

Judaism was not considered fully formed until the "return" from the exile. There are decent chances that a good percentage of the returnees weren't originally inhabitants of Judah.

Middle academic ground is that the Pentateuch was mostly complete before the exile. "Maximalist"s think it was written far earlier, maybe even by Moses (but here Kitchen is the only academic I know of who would suggest this). "Minimalists" think it was written after the exile and perhaps even by the Hasmoneans.

I suspect that Minimalist gets his screen name from this term.

Everyone is in agreement that the return from the exile is critical.

Kritikos

Thanks for trying, Semiopen, but that doesn't answer my question. It's not a sophisticated question: I just don't understand what Minimalist meant by the phrase "After the Persians sent back someone to call themselves 'Jews'." It doesn't make any sense to me.

semiopen

One more try.

The term, Jew, wasn't used for the religion until after the return from the exile.

hylidae

Welcome, mbp1. Your story is very similar to my own and I'm beginning to see that it's a lot like the stories of quite a few people here. >< Giving up lifelong faith can be a very painful process. I know it was for me.

WilliamFearless

Yeah, it sucks ass. I left the church in Fall 2004, and turned my back on Theism altogether early 2005.

It wasn't until about last year that I finally got over how much the church fucked my head up. This place was a huge help.

hylidae

I think the last question I tackled was inerrancy. Even when I was questioning everything else hard, I couldn't bring myself to confront that one until last. I wish I had started with it, but I don't think I could have.

arnoldo

The fact that the universe is approximately 15 billion years old could also be seen as "evidence" for Christianity since it implies the universe is contingent, not eternal or necessary (evidence is in quotation marks to illustrate that the word argument would be more appropriate). Actual evidence against Christianity would be proof that the gospels were a second century forgery, finding the remains of Jesus , confirmation that the Eusebian Fiction Postulate or Hindu Prank Postulate is true, etc,etc.

Deus Ex

The age of the universe is evidence against the bible being literally true, since you can count the begats and only come up with a few thousand years - usually listed as six to ten thousand.

mpb1

Yeah, I hear ya' Arnoldo. 'Arguments' would definitely be a more appropriate word here. But I've always been a black and white kind of person :) So, after years of believing and preaching the lie, I like to think of it as if Christianity were on trial.

The ONLY evidence for proving the 'case' for Christianity is the BIBLE. That's it. One book. Nothing more.

And when that book states through historical genealogies that the world as we know it was created less than 10,000 years ago, I believe SCIENCE provides us with the evidence that proves Christianity is NOT based in fact, and is rather a fraud, perpetuated from one generation to the next over the last 2,000 years.

So I use the word evidence because I believe that IF Christianity was on trial, everything I've listed could be used against it to PROVE that Christianity is a man-made religion, and that the Bible on which it is based is nothing more than a collection of human writings, not the God-inspired 'guidebook for life' that Christianity teaches it is.

I know this list is far from complete. I figured with all the discussions that go on here, that I'd have plenty of help to expand the list... I'll be posting it on EvidenceAgainstChristianity.com in the near future.

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IBelieveInHymn

I don't see any "evidence" that is against Christianity.

For instance, the age of the universe? Because God revealed his wrath on people? God's law on treating women like cattle? The bible teaches us that God condemns unbelievers to Hell? The bible's claims about Jesus' supernatural events are actually stories that predate Christianity?

How are these arguments "AGAINST" Christianity?

If you study this thread, you will see maybe 3 or 4 arguments out of 19 were raised, but surely can be answered.

There is nothing in this thread that raised my eyebrow.

This thread just sounds like an atheist ranting and raving.