Apologetix

I have no desire to present "facts" or to expound upon the historical accuracies of the Bible in a feeble attempt to "prove" to you why I believe in Christ. While I think such debates are healthy, I believe that they bear absolutely no fruit when in contact with hardened athiest (at least in my expirience). So instead, I just want to show you the personal reasons as to why I am a Christian.


For me it is the knowledge that there is an all knowing, all powerful God out there. It's not the thought that yes He does judge us, or that He will punish us for our wrongs, but the thought that compells me more than anything to believe in Him is the fact that out of all the religions, Christianity is the only one in which the God dies for the people. I find it amazing that Jesus, who was God, was willing to die for His own creation. To me there is no greater love. I cannot find any reason other than to follow Him for that.

And that is just a short snipit of why I believe what I believe. I do look forward to the responces.

Biff the unclean

Hi Apologetix. Sorry to contradict you on your first post…but. You don't really have the knowledge that there is an all knowing, all powerful God out there, do you? Had you any actual knowledge you would be able to present actual proofs. I'm taking it that your reluctance to present any facts means that you are lacking in them.

You are telling us that you believe God is out there. That you want God to be out there and that you have an emotional investment in God being out there too. But when you say " I cannot find any reason other than to follow Him for that" I feel compelled to point out that you haven't actually told us any reasons. We have heard your speculations only, not a single reason.

philechat

Actually, the Prometheus Myth in Ancient Greece also included a God who was willing to sacrifice himself for mortals, though by his immortal nature he was unable to die. See Aescylus' "Prometheus Bound", for example, about a God who takes on all the punishments from Zeus (as of being tied down, and growing a new liver every day for the eagles to feast on) because of the love he has for his own creation.

In a Buddha legend, the Buddha also took off his clothes to let the eagles had his body. According to the Buddha, he loved the other lives too much that he could only sacrifice himself to end the everlasting cycle of one creature dining on another.

xeren

How hard is it for an omnipotent God, who supposedly created the entire universe by sheer force of will, to create a son and have him die? My answer would be: not very.

DarkBronzePlant

Hi Apologetix,

Welcome to the boards. So what you're saying is that Christianity presents a good story, so you follow it? I'll agree, Christianity is a fascinating tale, one with some great themes of unconditional love and sacrifice (as well as some, other, themes, but that's a different thread.)

But the fact that these stories aren't true doesn't phase you? I mean, it's one thing to admire stories for their message, but to therefore believe that they are true, and base your whole life on their truthfulness, because you like them so much?

Philosoft

Couple of things...

~ What's a "hardened atheist"?

~ Why do you find it so compelling that an eternal being would set up what amounts to a grand charade to convince us that some part of him died? Keeping in mind the common concept of God, such an act - ostensibly to demonstrate that he can actually suffer like humans do - is downright offensive. God can't suffer physically like humans do. Besides, he's the one who make up the convoluted system in the first place that required a blood sacrifice to somehow usurp the sins of others. God sending himself to "die" for our sins amounts to a needlessly complex way of forgiving.

Jamie_L

Apologetix,

First, like the name. It sounds like a religious artifical intelligence - maybe a robot that travels with interplanetary missionaries to help protect them and store their many important arguements and revelations.

But I digress.

Your post starts by saying you want to explain why you believe, yet essentially it only explains what you believe. Your first reason is: you have knowledge that there is a God. But how?

Then, you go on to say you follow God because he died for his people, yet again, this assumes a pre-existing belief that God is real. You compare this story to other religions, almost as if you assume all are real, then picked the one that seemed to be the nicest God, choosing not to follow (but perhaps still believing in) the other Gods.

If all the things that some people say about God were true, I might want to follow him to. However, my desire to follow would not change the fact that I don't actually believe he exists. I might like to follow the elven god of music, but that doesn't make me believe he or his elves are anything but fiction.

Jamie

Apologetix

Define facts. Do you mean facts as in scientific? Or facts as in burden of proof? If scientific then absolutely nothing, including Athiesm, could be proven. If Burden of Proof, then define burden of proof and exactly what quantity and qulaity of proof would needed to be applied. That too is an interpretive means of proving or disproving God. The reason I presented no "facts" is because the term facts can be interpreted many different ways. Even the facts themselves can be interpreted. Any good Athiest should know that when debating on philosophical issues, facts are honestly irrelavent.

This is a misunderstanding of the Christian faith. The misunderstanding has occured in that you believe God created Jesus. While this may be true for the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons, for those who follow Biblical Christianity it is believed that Jesus Himself was actually God. Therefore it is believed that God died for His creation.

Again, I think it takes quite a case to prove that they aren't true. To my knowledge I haven't been able to find any significant errors in both the theology and historical accuracy of the Bible. Of course the theology cannot be "proven" wrong or right because it is founded upon a level in which proof has no meaning. However the history is very viable in that if the history is wrong, then the theology really cannot carry much weight. But like I said, I do not know of any contradictions to the Bible's history. The main ones that I know if that it cannot be absolutely proven that David was the Kings and such events like that. But I cannot say I have found evidence that contradicts the Bible.

Apologetix

This is merely "bait" in an attempt to try and get me debate about the "facts" of Christianity. Yet what many Athiest, and Christians, refuse to realize is that in Philosophy there really is no such thing as facts.

Gooch's dad

Apologetix,

So how do you test truth claims in philosophy? Zeno's Paradox seemed to prohibit motion from point A to point B, and for 2000 years there was no rigorous way to show this was wrong. It took calculus in the early 20th century to show how it really isn't a paradox.

You are making a claim about something existing in the universe (this 'god'). This entity supposedly interacts with the physical universe. That is an epistemological claim. As such, the burden of proof IS on you to provide solid evidence for the existence of this entity, as well as a coherent definition of what a 'god' is. What is a 'god' made out of? If your answer is 'spirit' then tell me what spirit is made out of.

What are the repeatable and measurable properties of a 'god'? If you claim some particular property of this 'god', are you sure that this property isn't well explained by naturalistic causes?

Cheers,

-Kelly