Replies

This will be my final response on this thread. Thanks to all for your lively conversation. Thank you for your reasoned response. First, you wrote, "You gave a good reason to hate Islam, but not religion in general. " I don't "hate" religion. I just find it absurd.

...is not, in the least, a reflection upon Christianity.

True enough. My parents are lovely, kind, giving Christians. I was raised with all the right values and am raising my sons with the same. There are well over a billion people who live "good Christian lives." But the One True Scotsman fallacy applies here, as every time someone "misinterprets" the bible, they are called "not really Christian." FTR, there are many atheists and non Christians who live perfectly good and charitable lives. Being a good person is not predicated on being Christian. (And of course there are many non-believers who are horrible people.

There is nothing in the Bible that commands people to go out and kill non-believers, or any other innocent person.

History disagrees with this. As you know, the OT surely disagrees with this, many times over. Now, most American Christians conveniently toss aside the multiple genocides of the OT for a variety of reasons - which is fine. Except they don't toss aside Genesis and they hold that the book is written by the hand of an infallible god. I can't reconcile that.

But let's pretend I can. And I stick to the NT and especially the Gospels. Matthew 5:17 tells me, quite clearly, that Jesus absolutely agrees with the OT text. ""Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." Sure, that can be interpreted different ways, but the most logical way is, "All that terrible OT stuff? I love it."

Furthermore, many Christians seem to enjoy the thought of non-believers burning in hell for all eternity. That's just weird.

By the way, I'd like to thank the FOUR FReepers who private messaged me about all this, noting that they agree with me. There are many more. I must work today and I fully recognize nothing I say will sway anyone here - and that is not my intent. Have a good one.

Almost every single thing you have written here about Christianity and the Bible is a lie.

Most people, including myself, don’t have the time to respond to each and every lie you’ve presented on this thread.

Once someone addresses one whole class of your lies in general, like the Old Testament displaying a God that is other than just, you simply respond with more lies that completely ignore everything the person responded with. When you’re given the answers, you IGNORE them and press on with more lies. This is an age-old process called rejecting God. You’re not trying to debate anything, you’re simply rejecting God and you’ll babble all day spouting the same meaningless nonsense over and over.

So the harder we Christians work at refuting you, the more work you pile on us to refute you some more.

In cases like this, we Christians are doing what’s called arguing with an idiot, a process that wastes time. Once we’ve witnessed to you and quoted from Scripture generously and it becomes clear that you are playing a game, it’s time for a different tack.

Some people are honestly questioning the Bible and can benefit from having believers testify of their faith to them. Frequently on FR this appears and Christians offer testimony and Scripture.

What you’re really trying to do is fill out FR’s online content with anti-Christian material. I hope the moderators take this into account. While honest debate is good, FR does try to keep out anti-Christian spam.

A Christian’s responses to you are then attempts to refute lies, which you refuse to let sit and you continue to respond to add more anti-Christian content to FR. My responses are simply made so as the public reads the content of FR they can see lies against God refuted.

Not only is our faith not shaken, but even though we don’t have time to respond to the sheer volume of your babblings with fully researched answers, we know we do not need to waste much time refuting the nonsense you write since people who are reading this and seek the truth will find it.

The way to the truth you present is it to flat out reject the Bible and not study it honestly. The way to the truth is, of course, to study the Bible honestly, since only then would one know the message and teachings of the Bible that one was considering belief or unbelief in. If one were to want to discuss and debate a book on aerodynamics one would certainly have to read and understand it first. Most people get the idea of that. But folks who spew rejection of the Bible with no response to Scripture being witnessed to them have already made up their mind and are not seeking God but have their own purposes. Actually, God has brought out a stubborness in them to accomplish his purposes, but they won’t believe it.

But the One True Scotsman fallacy applies here, as every time someone "misinterprets" the bible, they are called "not really Christian."

First, I never said anything about people misinterpreting the Bible. You missed my point, which was that some Christians do things that are in direct contradiction to the Bible. When they do, it is not an indictment of the belief system, because the belief system told them to do the opposite and they ignored it. I don't know how to make it more clear than that.

In a way, you are engaging in the flip side of the One True Scotsman fallacy, in that you see someone, who is a self-professed Christian, do something bad and you not only assume all Christians are that way, but you assign blame for that behavior to the belief system itself, despite the fact that the belief system told that person to do the opposite.

Furthermore, many Christians seem to enjoy the thought of non-believers burning in hell for all eternity. That's just weird.

This is an example of the exact type of thinking I referenced above. Christians are not told anywhere in the Bible to enjoy someone going to hell. In fact, they are supposed to love their neighbor and try to SAVE THEM from hell. Enjoying someone else's misfortune is a human failing, not a failure of the Christian belief system. You do not seem to be able to separate the two, and that is a big part of your lack of understanding of Christianity.

I can tell you right now, from what I've seen you write, that you do not have any substantive understanding of Christianity. You have created some strawmen and are using them to justify your distaste for the religion. There may be legitimate reasons for someone to have doubts about Christianity, but nothing you've stated here qualifies.