Talk Elections

What is your opinion on Christianity?

I think Christianity is full of ideas and tenets that are hostile towards human nature. For example, it says that being jealous, even slightly, is wrong. Being gay or bisexual is also considered wrong.

Too early to tell.

gr8 banter, m8

Above all, it is true. 

So if all of your human natures were jumping off of a bridge, would you do it, too?

Of course it's hostile to human nature, it teaches that humans are naturally evil, and it's easy to believe that. (At least some forms do.)

Also, being gay is alright in a few forms. It's the Jewish parts of the Bible that condemn homosexuality for the most part, and many believe that they don't appy anymore.

This is a genuinely dangerous untruth.

Exactly what is false about that? What's the virtue of envy exactly?

     Very positive, largely for the same reason Rfayette gave.

[Citation Needed]

Let's turn that around for a second. Given humanity's penchant for selfishness, violence, and sexual misconduct, why shouldn't a decent ethical standard be opposed to human nature in some fashion?

This OP...

There are eight passages in the Old Testament (three in I Kings, two in Leviticus, and one each in Genesis, Deuteronomy, and II Kings) that could be construed as overtly anti-gay, and four in the New Testament (one each in Romans, I Corinthians, I Timothy, and Jude). The Old Testament is three times the length of the New Testament. The idea that it's "the Jewish parts" that "don't apply any more" that are focused on this issue is a misleading statistic at best and a straightforward (and tacitly antisemitic) lie at worst.

The Deuteronomistic Historian appears to have some reason for focusing on this topic, and Paul appears to have some reason for focusing on this topic. One of those writers is a writer of the Old Testament and one is a writer of the New Testament. Any analysis of which parts of the Bible discuss this issue and why has to start with that rather than with some lazy nonsense writing off the issue of Biblical homophobia as some sort of specifically Jewish or specifically Old Testament hobbyhorse.

That is another issue I have with the Bible. The Jewish people, as the Israelites, are constantly depicted as HPs in the Bible.

Did you seriously just [Citation Needed] Nathan about the Bible? Bold of you.

It's only what we Mormons call The Pride Cycle, which is very much ingrained into humanity, no matter the society.

()

     Very much agreed. Anyone who pays attention sees the same trends repeating themselves in all societies to this day. If one thinks that the Israelites repeatedly straying are meant to be understood as some exception worthy of disdain and not a cautionary rule for us all to be wary of, then the point has been missed.

It is hostile to human nature and that is why it is true.

It was good in its early context, but has gone past its expiration date since the conversion of Constantine.

Good, but I prefer getting even more specific: Roman Catholicism.

Best thing since Bo rounds at bojangles

The same as my opinion of all cults: An abusive indoctrination system that has wasted innumerable human lives with its insular delusions and anti-individualism. There were thousands of obscure desert cults in the ancient world, and the fact that this one happened to survive is the only reason why today we treat it any differently from Zeus or the moon goddess Nanna. It is a self-sustaining brainwashing organization that survives by emotionally abusing young people, making them feel as though they only have value as part of a greater community, and transforming them into unthinking, unquestioning followers of doctrine and scripture. The moment that we as a species banish it from our moral philosophy, our lives will be incomparably improved.

I can't tell if you're trying to be facetious.

Eh, depends on what your angle is.


You can't? Really?

I see the word cult and you lost me. You know what cults are? Cluts are based on people, they associate with each other and shut off everyone else, they are unified under one real leadership, they don't let people leave, they blackmail people, they controll every aspact of the members lives.

You're talking about an international, leaderless, personal, dissolved, open religion. In fact there are thousands of types. A cult has one leader, and no single person is a leader of all Christendom. (That's a good thing, by the way.) While a few of those types do fit the description, most of them don't.

Cults and religions are different. Too many people think they are the same.

If anything, we see  evidence  (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm) that children are born religious and that it is non-religion that requires a self-sustaining system to maintain.  Furthermore, it is unclear that a non-religious society would have incomparably better morality.  Why was slavery uncontroversial in ancient Greece but was abolished due to the efforts of a society - be it in the USA or England - strongly influenced by Christianity? 

In terms of the teachings of Jesus, rather than historical Christianity, favorable on the whole. On a practical level I am probably as guilty of cherry-picking Scripture verses as anyone. But on the whole, as a Christian, I seek to (1) forgive others, and promote an atmosphere of forgiveness, to the extent reasonably possible and (2) to stand up for the underdog and those being unfairly attacked or excluded, like the leper at the pool (John 5:1-15).

While several parables and teachings are somewhat problematic (the parable of the ten minas, let the dead bury their own dead, you must hate your mother and father and even your own life, etc.-- and it must be noted that the authenticity of these passages is far less in dispute than "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", often cited as a favorite "liberal" teaching of Jesus); I'd like to focus on one that has been praised by some in the Feminist left lately: Matthew 5:27-28, "but I tell you, he who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. If your right eye or hand [sic] causes you to sin, cut it off" (my paraphrase) These feminists point out that Jesus did not ask women to dress more modestly (though St. Paul certainly did!); he asked men to keep their "sinful" desires in check. As a member of a fundamentalist sect, as a young male in men's study groups, we were constantly reminded of the evils of lust, and I felt compelled to confess every little sin in this regard to my "discipleship partner", even if I caught myself almost immediately. This passage, which to me condemned innocent pleasure (as the song "Standing on the Corner" says, "you can't go to jail for what you're thinking") caused me a great deal of psychic pain.

The ironic truth is that, on the whole, I think most contemporary Evangelicals would feel a greater kinship with this statement than they would in the pews of most mainline Protestant (NCCCUSA-affiliated) churches.

Holy s**t you have got to be kidding right now. American slavery was a thousand times more brutal than slavery in the ancient world and it was developed by Christian societies in western Europe. If you want to give those cultures credit for then abolishing the thing they created, then at most that's a net zero for any claims to Christianity's superior morality. And babies are also born thinking that it's okay to run around naked in public and that Santa brings them presents on Christmas Eve. If we can outgrow one delusion, we can outgrow the others as well.

I hope you're not implying that ancient Greece was a non-religious society. It was non-Christian, but that's obviously not the same thing.

Sloppy wording, my bad.  My point of ancient Greece was that the moral conclusions we have come to weren’t inherently obvious without an anchor of divine revelation, and there are reasons to believe that Christianity had a large influence on the abolition of slavery and formed the basis of the idea of human rights.  You had less religious groups like the Epicureans that took little interest in the divine, but they still saw no moral problem with slavery.

Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion is inherent in the constitution.  It's not Heaven or hell anymore, its nirvana v enlightenment.  Also, West is adopting. reincarnation as opposed to judgement day. Jehovah Witness have eliminated eternal torment out of its philosophy and Buddhism and Hinduism as well. No one has to know your choice of religion, but whether you are secular or tolerant or status quo or traditional, religious humanitarian, like our political thoughts

Buddhism has a Hell, too. It's not unique to Christianity. I'm guessing traditional Buddhists in isolated areas in the East akin to hard-to-reach Appalachia in the US, experience fear and trembling as a result of this teaching.

One eventually reincarnates out of Buddhist hell, though, so it's correct to say that eternal torment is absent from Buddhist theology.

Technically speaking this is not true of all Christians, as at least the Catholic Church has a very clear "leader" (the pope). From what I can tell Orthoxox churches also habe relatively clear leaders.

Really that only applies to protestantism.

Well, it's understandable for you to both look at that differently ... a majority of Christians in your country are Catholics, and a majority in our country are Protestants.

Getting back to Dule's original argument. He's playing fast and loose with his definitions here. It doesn't really matter whether there's one guy at the top or not. Lumping Christianity into the pejorative "cult" and all that implies, or the Pope with David Koresh is ridiculous to say the least. There are all kinds of meaningful differences.

One may as well call Dule a communist because they both reject the divine right of kings.

The whole premise of Christian thought is that Judgement day was going to arrive, since 1800, the Pope have been promising that, but it hasnt come. That's why most people are starting to believe in reincarnation than Judgement Day,  because that hope if Jesus returning is still a prophecy

In all seriousness, Christianity as a system has willfully and with intent suppressed and invalidated (even eradicated) LGBT persons throughout it's history. And I know you're all going to roll your eyes at that and think 'oh there he goes again' and might even be offended because you personally don't hold to that belief but it's still an important point. So it starts at a deficit for me personally.

Yeah, Christianity is mostly ok except for its completely f---ed up attitude towards sex IMO. Oh that and the exclusivism and aggressive missionary attitude towards other beliefs.

Christianity is man made, it's up to you to manifest the power of GOD, as the Universe to eradicate the negative causes and put in place positive causes; consequently, as the afterlife, is enlightenment, nirvana, or Heaven,  you try to achieve. Or as Buddhists put it, come back, as a rich reincarnated individual.

I'm Jewish, so Christianity almost seems like cultural appropriation to me: this thoroughly Hellenic religion claiming the Jewish scriptures as its own in order to provide itself with a sense of history & legitimacy. Yeah, sure, Christianity may have started with a man who was executed for claiming to be the Jewish messiah, but it went off the rails very quickly after that. Thanks to Paul, the self-proclaimed Apostle who never met Jesus, we've ended up with this bizarre amalgamation of Hellenic mystery cults, Greek philosophies like Neoplatonism, & Paul's personal theology which were loosely grafted unto the Jewish scriptures & the life of a failed messianic candidate.

Not that I disagree so much, but it should be kept in mind that Second Temple Judaism was very diverse culturally and theologically, and that most Jews of the period were influenced by Hellenistic thought (e.g. Philo, Josephus...). Paul certainly thought of himself as a devout Jew whose mission in converting the Gentiles was to reconcile them to Israel and thereby redeem his people in light of an impending apocalypse.  The real split came a generation or two later.

Depends on what you mean by the term.

I know. Plus, it even says that masturbation is a sin even if you don’t waste sperm.

Mostly negative from a broader evaluation of its theology and history. I find its core principle absurdly convoluted, its moral prescriptions perverse, and its ontology abusively manipulative. As is the staple of the Abrahamic traditions, its outlook on other beliefs sets is chauvinistic and intolerant. Its internal logic is simultaneously rigid, yet also fragile, generally aided by hefty indoctrination as the glue that binds when faced by rational interrogation. Many of the distinctive values that modern Westerners hold most dearly aren't really based in traditional Christian thought, but rather by a philosophical set of ideas that explicitly broke away from the norms within Christiandom for over a thousand years.

Many of its practitioners are fine, though.

Televangelists have taken over, like Joel Osteen, so the reliance on organized religion is less degree. As I stated before, during Winter season, and during bad weather, people stay home. But, in baseball season, people go back to Church to socialize

Except the definition of "cult" does not demand that the group is led by one charismatic figure. You're equating a "cult" with a "cult of personality," which is a distinct subgroup of cults. Regardless though, all of this is moot because early Christianity (the apostles and other followers) absolutely fits the definition of a cult of personality-- a relatively small group of worshipers, one charismatic leader, religious veneration of that figure, and ostracization by the rest of society due to their different customs and beliefs. A religion is a larger form of a cult, and the only reason we accept Christianity as anything different is because we've become accustomed to its wacko practices.

Whether or not you want to see this a pejorative is not my concern. But all religions were cults at one point, and the only thing differentiating the two is how deep they've sunk their claws into society.

What John is suggesting is a pretty common sociology/religious studies view of how religions form. As he says, whether it's inherently a bad thing or not is obviously going to depend on the religious preconceptions of the person assessing the concept, but suggesting that it's the case isn't necessarily a euphoric edgelord thing.

It's too soon to tell.

Is around 1970 years of existence Not enough time for you?

More specifically: I have a much higher opinion of Jesus of Nazareth
than I do of the thousands-year old human institution(s) of Christianity, in all of their manifestations.

But then again, as a Christian, I would and should say that. :)

Not a great fan of organized religions, but Christianity seems to be one of the best ones out there (or the least evil depending on your point of view).

Sure that's not necessarily wrong. The edgelordy part is jumping between the academic definition of cult and the popular pejorative one.

Yeah, no argument there.

Outdated, bigoted, and a threat to humanity

Church is a place to socialize and for a place for worship. That's why they have multiethnic churches and monolithic churches. Joel Osteen is a televangelist that's not partisan and for people that dont go the church often, they can look at him

I've never understood the 'edgelord' meme about atheists, probably because I don't actually know any religious people IRL. If I'd wanted to be edgy in secular California, I would've become an Evangelical.

That's rather remarkable consider you go to a town with almost as many churches per block as a typical Olde Southerne Town. The only differences is that those churches can vary from Catholic to Jewish Temples/Synagogues, from Buddhist Temples to Quaker Meetinghouses, to say nothing of the Temple Hill area over in Oakland.

There are certainly religious people in the Bay Area, but I wouldn't say that I *know* any religious people; I'm just vaguely aware of their existence. My dad went to Catholic school and that turned him into an atheist at a young age. My mom was raised religious but was already an atheist by the time I was born. None of my friends are religious, and none of their parents are religious either. The only religious person in my extended family is a Christian Scientist whose abhorrent beliefs and evangelical attitude have alienated her from everyone else. My godfather, my cousins, even my grandparents-- all atheists. My girlfriend is an atheist. My teachers (as far as I know) have all been atheists. I had one friend in high school (briefly) who was a true-believing protestant, but he also believed in Alex Jones conspiracy theories and thought the Earth was flat, so I stopped spending time with him. My hippie aunt might believe in Buddhism or some crap like that, but I don't take her seriously at all due to her views on zodiac signs.

So while there are definitely religious people around me (hell, one of them handed me a pamphlet today on the street), I wouldn't say I know any religious people personally. And the "spiritual" or "religious" people with whom I've interacted on a regular basis have invariably also been borderline psychotic, mentally unstable conspiracy theorists. Hence why I don't see atheism as "edgy" in any way whatsoever. The more I hear people talk about religion, the more I come to understand that atheism is actually the default mindset of humanity. And regardless of how many religious institutions you can name in California, it's definitely the default mindset here as well.

Am I a joke to you?!

Scott Alexander made an interesting point about this. He noted that he didn't know a single Young Earth Creationist, but given how YECism polled in his state, the odds of him not knowing a single creationist by random chance was something like one in a trillion. He concluded that he had created an extremely strong social bubble entirely by accident.

Dule appears to have done something similar.

Throughout history, some good things and some bad things happened in the name Christianity. Some denominations and churches are better than others. And some Christians are good people, while others are not.

Compared to the relative fluidity, flexibility, and ambiguity of many of the "philosophizing" Asian religions I believe I find the concept of monotheism a bit silly in general. Comes across as hubris to claim certain knowledge of the existence and precise nature of God.

Then again, I did attend some church servives out of curiosity and found the general atmosphere and sense of community very pleasing, so it has that going for it.

You have very obviously never been to Marin County if you think it takes a "strong social bubble" to avoid Young Earth Creationists here. A healthy majority of the county identifies with 'no religion,' and those who do are generally non-practicing. However, I should note that it's entirely reasonable to avoid YECs socially, and that even if I had the option of interacting with them, I would choose not to.

Whoosh

You said "given how well it polled in his state." Creationism-- and religion in general-- polls horribly where I live. They're two very different samples.

Jesus: A+, kicks fascist ass, beat principal in student election and was actually inaugurated, son of God

Christianity: B-, likes to trip itself with its own foot before inserting it in mouth, good-natured but dysfunctional family

Pharisees: F for "fake news"

Christianity is false.

Of course, it depends on your definition of "Christianity". There is no one agreed upon definition.

However, with all due respect to his version of Christianity, I don't agree with Franklin Graham's:

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/10/17/franklin-graham-atheist-ron-reagan-better-be-afraid-of-burning-in-hell/

After all, we have enough hellfire in the here and now.

Christianity is the one true religion in my mind.
Christians, on the other hand, vary and can sometimes be completely idiotic jerks.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

Best Religion!

A 2,000-year-old fairy tale that should not be believed anymore.

Its explainable thru the astral plane. The Death angel is God himself and your consciousness leaves your body after death. The body is nothing but a plot when you die.

The closest thing to the astral plane are aliens, whom are other life forms on other planets which are reachable with a star ship enterprise spacecraft which humans may need in the future. But, the closet thing to extra terrestrial life is astral plane, whether or not there is reincarnation is debatable and wont be known til we die.

Both sides have a point.

What are you basing this opinion on? Is there any evidence?

There is plenty of evidence - for starters, look into the resurrection.

So... no evidence...

There is no direct physical evidence for the resurrection, but the same can be said of the vast majority of historical persons and events of the ancient world. The amount of historical evidence for the resurrection is actually quite high, with far more contemporaneous, preserved primary and secondary sources than for any other similar ancient event.

The vast majority of historical and textual scholars of the New Testament, Christian or otherwise, agree on the following points:

1) Jesus lived in Judea at the beginning of the first century, died at the hands of the Romans, and was buried in a tomb.
2) The tomb was subsequently found empty.
3) Many people claimed to have seen Jesus alive after this.
4) An account of the above three facts was consistently established no later than AD 50 when written in the Pauline epistles, almost certainly taken from an earlier oral tradition he heard when serving the Roman Empire to combat the nascent Christian sect. Paul personally met many people who claimed Jesus appeared to them post-death.
5) Despite losing their leader, becoming fugitives and outcasts, and having personally denied Jesus, the twelve disciples (and Paul) would evangelize from India to the furthest reaches to the Roman Empire in their lifetimes, and, to a man, choose martyrdom over recanting their claim of seeing a resurrected Jesus.

You can conceive of a few ways to explain some of these points, and perhaps all of them, without acknowledging the historicity of the resurrection, but doing so requires fairly contorted theorizing. For example, perhaps Jesus's body was stolen and an impostor appeared in his stead-- an impostor who was able to convince the disciples (who had spent years with Jesus) that he was who he claimed to be, who could show the scars of the crucifixion, and who would choose to do so knowing full well it would make him a massive enemy of the state for little reward.

Or perhaps Jesus faked his death and, despite massive blood loss and gaping wounds and zero medical care, rolled away (perhaps with help) a massive stone to escape some days later before recovering and appearing to the disciples and eventually abandoning everyone he knew and dying without any known burial location (why would the disciples carry on to their deaths claiming otherwise if they knew he simply lived on?).

Or perhaps it was some mass delusion or hallucination, occurring to over 500 people on numerous occasions, some of whom such as James were diehard skeptics. Or some mass lie was crafted, wherein hundreds of people chose to commit themselves to a non-provable, non-beneficial condition which made them enemies of the state and for which none ever recanted, even at execution. Or perhaps Paul made it all up much later, convinced hundreds to give up everything they had to spread a lie, forged the Gospels which all use differing writing styles and date to different decades, and did so all to lose his comfy position as a high-ranking Roman citizen, become ostracized, imprisoned, and executed, all without ever recanting.

Consider the denouement of Jesus's passion: the disciples see their leader killed, flee from Jerusalem having denied knowing Jesus, and hide as wanted criminals. Their Messiah was supposed to conquer Israel's enemies and rule as David did, not die as the lowest criminal. His death, according to Jewish law, showing the disciples that the Pharisees were correct and that Jesus had been a heretic all along, a man cursed by God. By Jewish belief, the only possible resurrection was that which would occur at the end of time; there was no pining for a resurrecting Messiah. They gave up everything they ever had for nothing.

Suppose they locked themselves in the upper room and decided to concoct a story that Jesus had risen. What would they gain? Who would believe them, fugitive heretics, and do so without might or evidence, especially when the Jewish people did not believe God acted in such a way as they would claim? It would've been a catastrophic plan.

Why not quietly slink back to their hometowns and hope to pick up where they left off? Or take on new identities and start over?

But instead, something happened. Something which convinced them to proclaim something no one wanted to hear, about a man no one wanted to know anymore, with great fervor, and at great personal danger to themselves. This something convinced the skeptics around them. Somehow it worked. It worked so well that it conquered the Roman Empire. It became the largest religion in the world, enduring for millennia with the same, unchanging message.

Is that evidence of the resurrection? I don't know. But the most parsimonious answer I've seen so far to the above evidence is that it happened.

I agree with Dr. RI and appreciate that he took the time to make such a detailed post on this matter. 

I would like to add one thing:  the strength of the above evidence is dependent upon how intrinsically probable or improbable you believe miracles are.  Some people, like David Hume, basically take the position that any natural explanation, no matter how far-fetched, is more likely than a miracle.  However, if there are independent reasons to believe there is an omnipotent God that by definition can perform miracles, then the evidence for the resurrection is much more powerful. 

While there are many arguments for the existence of God, I think Aquinas's first 3 ways are the most compelling.  These are considered cosmological arguments and argue that an unconditioned, non-contingent reality with the divine attributes is necessary to ground the continuing existence of our universe as well as the change and cause/effect that takes place within it.  I would encourage people to research more into it -  this  (http://"http://rocketphilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/07/aquinas-first-way.html") is a good *introduction* to these kinds of arguments. 

     Though if one is going to accept the Humean prior that miracles are impossible and therefore there are no miracles, it makes no sense to ask for evidence of Christianity. The decision then has already been made to reject the evidence and conclude Christianity is false, regardless of what is said in defense of the faith. Indeed, many atheist thinkers have stopped demanding evidence and admitted that they cannot be persuaded to believe in God. Just look at Shermer's Last Law as an example, wherein he assumes an epistemology that, if applied consistently, leads us to solipsism.

If the first formal account is 50AD, then it's not contemporaneous. There are a whole manner of reasons to doubt the narrative, but for a thought exercise let's grant some authority to what people said they saw, we still have no reason to favour a supernatural explanation over a natural explanation. Particularly from a people, generally conditioned to see supernatural explanations for all manner of things. Even the 'advanced' Romans. So you are making a concession for this one event and other events surrounding your belief system. You can accept the narrative as you describe it, but the hypothesis is based on belief alone.

Alluding to Hume here. There are no cases where previously assumed and accepted (for want of an explanation to the contrary) supernatural explanations have won out over naturalistic explanations.

If we do not currently have a plausible naturalistic explanation for the resurrection narrative, if that narrative is accepted as a 'truth' it is still more likely that there will be a plausible naturalistic explanation for the narrative in the future, rather than the resurrection hypothesis is true.

But let's assume that there is no naturalistic explanation of the resurrection narrative. We accept it in it's entirety, from tombs to the dead rising from the grave to meet their relatives as nothing more than an accurate historical account of what happened. Consequently, the only possible form of explanation will be supernatural in nature. But that alone wouldn't elevate the resurrection hypothesis as the most plausible explanation.

Paul’s claim, and from that that the assumption from apologetics that 500 people cannot hallucinate the same thing at the same at the same time is itself a naturalistic inference based on our understanding of the physical and naturalistic causation behind hallucination (again, something of no concern or consequence to those conditioned to view hallucinations as supernatural.) But such explanations are not needed if you accept the event as supernatural. We could therefore easily assume that there was a supernatural mass hallucination as opposed to a supernaturally induced physical resurrection.

What's the reason, other than faith, to believe one supernatural explanation over the other?

It's alright.

I’m a catholic so support 👍

That the supernatural and aliens and the astral plane and religion arent that different. The supernatural are terrestrial figures in our universe that have God like powers and responsible for growth of human species. That's why we need a star Trek space ship to reach them in other universes.  That's why reincarnation is such valued in today's philosophy, due to the supernatural can bring us back to life instead of a utopia society and resurrection of Christ.

Ancient Aliens that we see in our sleep will one day give us another life🤩🤩🤩

Not really a fan of religions that say "Here is the one and only true prophet, if you do not embrace him unquestioningly in this one, singular chance you are given at life, you are doomed for all of eternity", so that's basically all Abrahamic religions.

As stated before, religion is based on philosophy blue and red divide runs political as well as religious. It's always been that way. Since 2000, since the Pope prophesied Christ return and it hasnt come, reincarnation is becoming a worldwide belief and resurrection is the aftermath of the asteroid hitting the Earth and destroying it.

It really hasn't.

I agree.

By this logic, our sources on Alexander the Great, on Julius Caesar, on the Greco-Persian Wars are not contemporaneous and not acceptable. The overwhelming consensus among New Testament scholars is that the Gospels constitute reliable accounts about Jesus, comparable in reliability and dating to our sources on Alexander the Great.

Labeling something as a “fairy tale” doesn’t automatically mean it’s untrue. Folklore often has its origins in reality - or more accurately what people at the time interpreted as reality. Of course, over time it often becomes a game of telephone and things get changed or left out, but it’s not like all fairy tales were just poofed into existence by a magic wand.

Very low, considering that most denominations believe that me and most of my family will burn in Hell for all eternity.

Good analogy. Taking the Bible as literal truth is basically the same as believing all of the myths surrounding Alexander, like that his mother had prescient dreams of him conquering the world, or that Artemis herself attended his birth.

I don't terribly often interact with serious Christians ("serious" here being defined as being at at least my level of religiosity), at least not in contexts where it's socially acceptable to discuss religion, but I always really enjoy it when I do, and I value the relationships I have with those people. In a sense this is true of religious people of any other religion, but when I talk to observant Jews about religion the conversation is centered on the concrete; Christians are more interested in the unseen.

There are millions and millions of wonderful Christians (from all denominations, faith traditions) in this country who are making positive change in everyday life.

There are some though in leadership roles that really have no right to be where they are and preaching some things (such as the tired, old, anti-gay rhetoric) that really make it hard for people who want to learn more about Jesus' life and teachings.

As we all know, second-hand information from 2,000 years ago is always accurate, bigly.

Taking the New Testament as being truthful is basically the same as believing in the accuracy of, say, Plutarch’s biographies, which are some of our most accurate pre-modern sources. Your unfamiliarity with Greco-Roman biographies and their unique accuracy when compared to much later sources is not your own fault - even highly educated atheists are notoriously bad at history.

“So it’s not contemporaneous” … By the standards of the ancient world, in which our first information on people first emerges a century after they die usually, it’s really close. You aren’t really countering any of the historical points, most notably the early tradition of female witnesses.

”Hume’s Abject Failure” is a must before discussing miracles. In short, yes - if you are prepared to accept that natural explanations must be the case because there is no possibility of them not being the case, then one must also accept that at a certain point in human history, it was unreasonable to believe in the existence of ice if one person reported it because it contradicted all of human experience.

Supernatural happenings, when accepted, usually have a theological reason. In absence of an argument for a demiurge - William Lane Craig & Alvin Plantinga notwithstanding - what theological reason is there for this hallucination?

Sure, the ancient Christian texts are on the same level of reliability as historical chronicles, whereas ancient Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist documents are just fairy tales. Your logic remains as airtight as ever.

Your unfamiliarity with historical scholarship on the New Testament is as baseless as the charge that I reject any historicity to the foundational texts of Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. You haven’t really presented any evidence explaining why you think the vast majority of New Testament scholars are wrong to compare the Gospels to our best sources in ancient history, but rather nothing more than a gaping jaw, a raised eyebrow, and a smug smirk.

Born, baptized, and confirmed though don't believe in any of the rituals/scripture. Christ himself seems like a pretty cool guy. Can't disagree with the message of compassion, forgiveness, humility, and justice espoused in the Gospels. His various fan clubs are a different story.


All in all, far from my least favorite Abrahamic religion.

I figured it was safe to assume that, as a Christian, you consider the Bible to be representative of actual history in a way that other religious texts are not. Am I wrong?

I am quite prepared to accept textual-historical criticism and ecumenical relationships. I do grant that, largely due to their environment and nature, the Gospels provide better accounts of Jesus than what we have of Buddha or Zoroaster. This is not an unusual view among classicists.

That being said, I’ve never heard any serious Christian claim that we ought to rule out miracles done by non-Christians a priori. Such a Christian would engage in special pleading as much as anyone who rules out miracles regardless of the amount of testimony.