arnoldo

The best evidence is christians.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: How do you account for the fact that every year the percentage of women who become Christians is a good deal higher than the percentage of men who become Christians? A loving God would not have any interest in a person's sex. It would be quite strange that a loving God would be that predictable, and would show favoritism towards women.

How do you account for the facts that every year a much lower percentage of elderly skeptics become Christians than the percentage of younger skeptics who become Christians, and that every year the percentage of elderly Christians who give up Christianity is much lower than percentage of younger Christians who give up Christianity? A loving God would not have any interest in a person's age. It would be quite strange that a loving God would be that predictable, and would discriminate against elderly skeptics, and would show favoritism towards younger skeptics, but if the God of the Bible does not exist, the preceding evidence is easily explained by the fact that is is well-known that elderly people are much less likely to change their worldviews than younger people are.

How do you account for the fact that as far as we know, the Gospel message has been spread entirely by humans? If the God of the Bible exists, he only wants people to hear the Gospel message if another person tells them about it, but he was perfectly content to communicate directly with Adam, Noah, and Abraham. In your opinion, is the Gospel message any less important and any less necessary than what God told Adam, Noah, and Abraham? If the God of the Bible does not exist, then that easily explains why, as far as we know, that no one has ever heard the Gospel message unless another person told them about it.

We have a similar situation regarding the distribution of food. How do you account for the fact that, as far as we know, food is distributed entirely by humans? If the God of the Bible exists, he only wants people to have enough food to eat if another person gives them enough food to eat. That is quite strange, but if the God of the Bible does not exist, that easily explains why, as far as we know, food is distributed entirely by humans.

If the God of the Bible exists, it is quite strange that he did not tell Old Testament Jews to go all over the world and tell people about his specific existence, and then changed his mind after Jesus rose from the dead and wanted Christians to go all over the world and tell people about his specific existence, but if the Jews appointed themselves to be God's chosen people, that easily explains this situation.

What you have proposed is that God has chosen to frequently mimic the ways that things would be if he does not exist even though John 3:2 says "The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him," and even though the disciples went about confirming "the message of his grace" (NIV) by performing signs and wonders AFTER the Holy Spirit came to the church. If anyone needs confirmations, it is unbelievers, not believers. If the God of the Bible exists, he has chosen to undermine his attempts to try to convince people to believe that he exists by frequently mimicking the ways that things would be if he did not exist, and in the process showing favoritism towards women and younger skeptics.

arnoldo

And The State of Israel is a bona-fide self fulfilled prophecy,right?

Johnny Skeptic

Obviously not since if many non-Jewish historians had recorded news about the Ten Plagues, and God had preserved copies of their writings, in the opinions of non-Christians, who are the very people who you are trying to influence, that would have been the best evidence that the Ten Plagues occurred since they do not trust the Bible. In other words, the very best evidence for non-Christians is evidence from many sources who have difference agenda. The same argument applies to claims in other religious books. Sources who have perceived vested interests in the eventual outcomes of their claims should not be trusted without corroboration from parties who do not have the same perceived vested interests in the outcomes of the claims.

In fact, Christians are the best evidence that the Bible is false. Christians have fought many wars among themselves. The largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion was conquered by Christian nations by means of persecution, murder, and theft of property. Like many other Christians you said that the purpose of colonization was to spread the Gospel message. That is most certainly false because if all that Columbus had found was a land with few natural resources, and lots of disease among native American Indians, he would never have returned to those areas, at least not for a long time. It is most embarrassing for you that the Christian colonizers frequently fought wars among themselves over land and natural resources, most certainly not to see who got to spread the Gospel message to indigenous peoples.

Consider the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands#History

Those disputes were most certainly not over who got the opportunity to spread the Gospel message.

Consider the following:

http://www.sodomylaws.org/lawrence/lawrence.htm

The dissenting justices were predictably Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. Scalia and Thomas are conservative Christians. Rehnquist was a conservative Christian. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned anti-sodomy laws in Texas and twelve other states. Eleven of the states are Southern Bible Belt States, which is not surprising. The other two states are Utah and Idaho, both of which have high percentage of conservative Christians.

Such an atrocity could only have happened in a state that had a high percentage of conservative Christians.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered busing, the predominantly conservative Christian state of Virginia closed down the public school system so that white children would not have to go to school with back children.

When creationism used to unfairly enjoy exclusivity in public schools, most Christians opposed a balanced approach where creationism and evolution would have been taught. If today's Christians had been voters back then, most of them would have opposed a balanced approach too, although now, since they know that they cannot be bullies anyone, they would be quite pleased with a balanced approach. In addition, if today's Christians had lived in a Southern state during the 1840's, and had been raised by parents who owned slaves, most of them would have approved of slavery.

According to a study by the Barna Research Group, which is an evangelical Christian group, Baptists have a higher divorce rate than atheists do.

In Denmark, heterosexuals have a higher divorce rate than homosexuals do.

Consider the following:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NG1H59R5Q1.DTL

Christians have made many valuable contributions to society, but even if they have made more valuable contributions to society than other groups of people, that does not excuse how God acts. The integrity of the Bible rests lock, stock, and barrel upon God's character, not upon the character of Christians.

If Christianity is a false religion, the contributions that Christians have made are reasonably explainable by secular factors. By the time that Christianity was founded, significant advances in human morality had already been achieved centuries earlier. Consider the following from the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004:

Buddha gave the world a version of the Golden Rule centuries before Christ.

Dr. Robert Price once told me that in the first century, which was a time when most Christians endorsed slavery, some Sophists and Stoics opposed it.

Even if Christianity had not been founded, that would only have slowed advances in human morality, not stopped them. The New Testament writers no doubt drew from and improved upon preexisting non-Jewish advances in human morality. If all that there had been in the world was Judaism, that would not have provided the New Testament writers with the preexisting advances in human morality that they needed to use as a basis for their "new and improved" version of the religion that they pirated.

It is quite important to note that you cannot judge a group by its size. Some of the most kind, loving, gentle, and forgiving groups of people in human history have been very small, sometimes less than 100 people, and did not have sufficient money and military power to promote their agenda all over the world. I was raised as a Christian Scientist. I became a fundament Christian when I was about 20 years old. I was a fundamentalist Christian for over 30 year. Christian Scientists are very moral people. I never heard a Christian Scientist use profanity. In addition, I never saw a Christian Scientist smoke a cigarette.

While many fundamentalist Christian pastors get paid lots of money, Jehovah's Witnesses pastors do not receive any money.

If God actually considered Christianity to be all that valuable, he would have told everyone in the world about the Gospel message immediately after Jesus rose from the dead. Better yet, he would have had, for example, 1,000 only begotten Sons of God in locations all over the world during the first century. If that had happened, the Christian church would be much larger than it is today. False religions by necessity have to start in a single location. A true religion could, and would start simultaneously in many parts of the world. A God would know that that would be much more convincing than just one only begotten Son of God in one location, and that only one only begotten Son of God in one location would unnecessarily encourgage dissent instead of discouraging dissent.

Does God consider the spread of the Gospel message to be more important than the spread of a cure for cancer? Apparently not.

Johnny Skeptic

If a Hindu prophecy said that a temple would be rebuilt in New Dehli, and a temple was rebuilt in New Dehli, would you believe that that was evidence that Hinduism is true?

If the God of the Bible does not exist, it is reasonable to conclude that the Partition of Palestine would have happened anyway. Whether or not a prophecy is true or not does not make any difference. All that makes a difference is whether or not people who have enough military power BELIEVE that it is true.

Of the 33 governments that voted in favor of the partition, 32 are predominantly Christian. The only non-Christian government that voted for the partition was Russia. At that time, Russia was joyfully getting lots of aid from the U.S. for rebuilding purposes, and was certainly not interested in contesting the wishes of the U.S. and 31 other countries. Of the 13 governments that voted against the partition, 12 are non-Christian, and one, the Greek government, is nominally Christian.

The vote was almost completely predominantly Christian governments against predominantly non-Christian governments. All that it took for the vote to be the way that it was was the BELIEF that the Bible is true. Logically, a man can be just as motivated by a false belief as he can by a true belief. Muslim terrorists are proof enough of that, and so were Japanese Kamikaze pilots.

Now here is the bottom line: If the Partition of Palestine was not a self-fulfilled prophecy, if Jewish history and Palestinian history had been reversed, and Hitler and other parties had persecuted Palestinians instead of Jews, the U.N. would have awarded control of Jerusalem to Palestinians, and would have awarded Palestinians a grossly disproportionate amount of land like the Jews got. Under that scenario, as you know, that would not have happened.

That proves that the Partition of Palestine was a fallacious self-fulfilled prophecy.

Consider the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_fulfilling_prophecy

Have you got it now? "The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning." The same argument would apply to the fulfillment of any prophecy in any religious book that provided motivation for followers of the religion to make it come true.

If Abraham was mistaken in his belief that God made a land promise to him and his descendants, as long as he and his desendants, and later Christians, believed that God had made a land promise, that was the only motivation that was necessary to account for the Partition of Palestine. If Christians and Jews did not believe that God made a land promise to Abraham, Palestine might still have been partitioned, but most certainly not the way that it was partitioned.

Sheshonq

You have an entire thread already existing on this topic, where you failed to present any evidence for the state of Israel being a fulfillment of prophecy.

In *spite* of being given an easy three-step process on how to go about doing that.

Are you planning on addressing your failure in that thread?

Bringing the topic up here in this thread will only get you another warning to stay on topic.

Johnny Skeptic

That is correct. The link is http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=234921. Arnoldo did not make one single post in that thread, and quite conveniently I might add.

Sheshonq

That argument works against your position.

Johnny Skeptic

Yes, as I also showed in my post #223. In a few minutes I will start a new thread at the GRD Forum using my post #223 from this forum.

Edit: I just started a new thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthr...76#post5117876 at the GRD Forum. The title is 'A fundie says that Christian conduct validates the Bible.' I used my post #223 from this thread as my opening post. If Arnoldo makes posts in that thread, he will not get anywhere.

sugarhitman

Even if when they see it happening they still will not believe. I believe all this rejection comes from fact that if these things are true. Then what Jesus said about heaven and worse Hell is also true....this is what they fear so all must be rejected.