Replies

That is correct. What's your point, that you don't like this consequence?

Well, at least you are consistent here, which is more than most atheists. I'm sorry but I must be frank here - your viewpoint is absolutely abhorrent and tragically wrong, and if applied writ large to society will lead it into total and complete destruction. Massacring innocent Jews is a crime against God and man.

Since you cannot judge right from wrong, why are you on this website? Why do you care? The fact of the matter is, you do not live consistently by your own assumptions. Despite your inability to condemn the Holocaust, you make absolute judgments of right and wrong all the time. You do this because God has given you a conscience, and you know that there is an absolute Authority.

Nonetheless, I can provide websites that back up my claims.

I'm sure you can. That does not change the historic position of the church, which has been that the Bible is what it says it is. Your claim that "no reputable Bible scholars" believe that the Bible was actually authored by those who claimed to author it is laughable.

What does that have to do with the truth of their existence? Gods only exist if their nature matches what you want them to be?

No, it just makes it much more likely that they are man-created.

To paraphrase a sermon I heard the other day, Christianity is not a religion that man would have invented, even if they could.

Christianity is a religion that is not centered around the works of man, but demands that mankind believe and place their faith in the finished work of someone else; it does not demand rules and rituals and good works, it demands simple faith. It does not rely on human beings ability to "make something of themselves", it asks that human beings acknowledge that they are sinners and will always be; it does not ask man to "pull himself up by his bootstraps", it tells him that he cannot.

In other words, mankind does not come off looking very good in the Bible. Christianity says that there is nothing that man can do about it - he must look to Christ, who has obtained forgiveness of sins already, and is ready to change someone from the inside out. The less I am of me, the more I can be of Christ. I cannot imagine a less "humanistic" creedo. No, the Bible is not a creation of man.

At some point I sincerely hope that you answer my question about 1 John 1:1-2.

'm sorry but I must be frank here - your viewpoint is absolutely abhorrent and tragically wrong, and if applied writ large to society will lead it into total and complete destruction.

Wrong is an assertion that you've yet to demonstrate as true. The rest is argument from the consequences, a logical fallacy. That you don't like the consequences of my worldview does not make my worldview false. Further, I assert that because I believe my worldview to be true and because society has not yet collapsed, you are wrong regarding that as well.

Massacring innocent Jews is a crime against God and man.

You again assert a god that you've not demonstrated exists. How is it an "crime against man"? Be specific.

Since you cannot judge right from wrong, why are you on this website?

Since you can't argue without tossing up bogus strawmen, why are you replying to me?

The fact of the matter is, you do not live consistently by your own assumptions.

I'd call my lack of belief in universal moral absoultes a lack of an assumption. You're the one assuming that there is such a thing. I just have yet to be convinced. I also don't see how I'm living inconsistently.

Despite your inability to condemn the Holocaust,

I do condemn the holocaust, I just recognize that I have no universal standard from which to make a condemnation, thus my condemnation must be from subjective standards.

Despite your inability to condemn the Holocaust, you make absolute judgments of right and wrong all the time. You do this because God has given you a conscience, and you know that there is an absolute Authority.

I see that you've run out of arguments for your position, so you're just insisting that you're right and saying "Is so!" without providing any supporting evidence.

You've yet to demonstrate that this "God" exists, so any arguments that you make that depend on the existence of this "God" are meaningless. No, I don't "know" that there is an absoulte Authority, and it is unbelievably arrogant of you to assert that you know how I think.

That does not change the historic position of the church, which has been that the Bible is what it says it is.

Do you really want to appeal to the "historic" position of the Church, which also promoted a geocentric universe for some time?

No, it just makes it much more likely that they are man-created.

From my position, the probability that any god is "man-created" is very, very close to 1 regardless of the nature of the god in question.

To paraphrase a sermon I heard the other day, Christianity is not a religion that man would have invented, even if they could.

Why not? The concept of a god taking human form and suffering as a substitute for human transgressions isn't exactly unique to Christianity.

[argument from "Christianity is unique!"]

I can point to several other religions off of the top of my head that are also "unique" in their own right -- not concentrating on the works of man, don't demand rituals. That Christianity has elements not shared by other religions does not make it more likely to be true.

At some point I sincerely hope that you answer my question about 1 John 1:1-2.

What about your question? You asked if John was lying, insane or telling the truth. You left out "misquoted" (unless you think that John was the actual author of that particular work) or simply mistaken. As such, your question is meaningless. If you want to expand it, my answer is that I don't know. I never met John, I never experienced what John experienced and I don't have any way to really find out. As such, I couldn't tell you if he was lying, telling the truth, insane, misquoted or misinterpreted.