And believe me or not, but getting raised as a believer DOES brainwash you. From the nipplesuck age till puberty parents, churches and other people around you keep hammering that there is a God, that he created world, bible and whatever, while its something that doesnt have to be true at all.
And it is really hard to start realising that all that stuff that parents have been telling you doesnt have to be true!
And sorry, but your arguments about living your way dont make sense at all. Christians live their way by making choises just as non religious people do, theres no difference.
It might be true it might be false. When we see it in action in our life we see its positive effects on our life. If we think it is false, then this thinking has no positive effect on our life. It is neutral, it is worshiping your own logic. Which is fine, that is your God. I am not here to change peoples thinking, but I am here to say that when you say Christianity is without basis and is foolish, you are only presenting your marginalized opinion. There is some fear that a belief in a God will strip you of who you are.
No, I don't. A belief in a Supernatural Being for whom no objective evidence exists is not something I consider irrational in and of itself. I can see where some people might come to that conclusion, but it is not a position I have ever taken.....
Thankyou for making your stance more obvious. In previous posts you didn't reflect this stance for me.
What I observe is that SOME people who have that belief ALSO exhibit superstitious and ignorant behaviors in the rest of their lives.
Who are we to judge what other people do? Why are we so interested in what other people do? Do we have to prove to them something, to correct them so they see things in our logic? Or do we observe how people live, consider why we ourselves wouldn't do it, and even perhaps secretively laugh behind their back to ourselves and others about it?
Some people who believe in any god, and more narrowly some who are Christian, are perfectly rational with their other patterns; some are not. Unfortunately the ones who are not tend to be quite vocal and give Christians in general a bad name.
Your first sentence is something you find in everything in life. There are some this, some that, what are you trying to say? It is also a rash generalization that those that are vocal tend to give Christianity a bad name, perhaps in your eyes, but what would be a vocal Christian who gives their faith a good name? That might be an interesting answer to hear from you and perhaps even why I break your model of a Christian giving their faith a good name.
....the fundagelic end (where LIW and pianistimo reside) generally consider anyone not in their camp to be not Christian at all, and in fact probably agents of Satan and his demons.
Some people in this world have great glee in tagging, generalizing and categorizing people into little groups. Character assassination always tastes great in your mouth, but it is so bitter within your stomach. If your logic holds true, then I think 1/2 of my family are Satan worshipers, since 1/2 of my family are Chinese mostly worshiping otherwise than Christianity. Please! A quote I hear from Jerry Springer Show all the time is "YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!!" lol
I think the fundagelic end has trained themselves not to notice things. Here are some examples. Much is made of apparent contradictions in the Bible by both skeptics and TrueBelieverInerrantists. Skeptics think there are errors and even forgeries, TBIs believe these are all completely explainable. The people who do the explaining are called "apologists." The interesting thing though is not whether there is a possible explanation, but that some believers have trained themselves to not notice any possible problem. The apologists look for explanation in response, and only in response to skeptic attack; there is no recognition that some things are pretty far fetched.
Noah's Ark and a Global Flood is a classic case. There is no part of that story that is not far fetched and fabulous. How does it happen that this never occurred to you, LIW?
If you understand the historical context of what is written you will not be fooled in thinking that the flood was the entire world. Just think, when did the world realize that it was round? So what they defined as the great flood was indeed of their world, but that is because they only knew the bounds in which they lived within. It is not confusing at all.
If you measure the amount of writing there is on the great flood to the entire bible you will see it constitutes a very small part of it. Even if you take all the miracles in the bible and delete them (except for the resurection), the teachings of the bible remain. I do not think of the great flood to support my faith in Christ and God, nor do I think about any of the other disasters or even miracles (bar the Resurrection) performed. Whoever draws inspiration to connect to God through these are certainly unorthodox.
When people ask for proof of the resurrection there is of course no hard evidence to point to this fact. However the circumstantial evidence is quite strong, and to this day people are convicted by our judicial systems on such evidence.
A casual glance around will show any intelligent person the Earth is older than 6,000 years. You don't have to be a scientist or mathematician, just look at some mountain ranges, a globe, a star 15 billion light years away, etc. Why doesn't that occur to you?
It is your assumption that you believe I think the earth is only 6,000 years old. If you can find one quote on pianostreet or anywhere else where I have said this, I will be completely amazed and baffled. The time that passes in Genesis is unknown. God said he created the world in 7 days, but the unit "days" is very ambiguous. It could be any amount of time. If you consider the order in which things where created however it follows in line which how the earth was formed, that is, earth probably was a water world to start with, then the lands where formed etc.
The other examples of contradictions you have presented must be read in context to one another. Even though they might be different they still echo the same message. Nothing has changed, there is not two opposing ideas throughout the entire passage. People cannot read small lines and scrutinize it, you must read entire passages. I could even add the differences in how Judas died after he betrayed Christ, but both stories show his downfall, the exact detail is unimportant, if people want to go into the exact details you can see how one story differs because it aims to highlights what falls in line with OT scripture. Perhaps it didn't actually happen but they are reflecting the dammed man giving the money he stole to a temple which was then given for the burial of other people. This has a spiritual teaching, that repentance to God leaves us with no regret, but repentance to the human world leaves us with regret and despair, which is why after giving the money back Judas commits suicide anyway and in the other story he uses the money to buy land where he also ends up dying terribly. Either way it highlights hardly a repentant person. Worshiping the world will not make you repentant for the wrong you have done in this world, that is the message taught through both of the stories.
But this gets confusing and is unimportant even for the Christian. Like I said before it is blasphemous to say that any follower of Christ is a better follower by the amount of research they have done. Not everyone in this world has the physical or mental capability to do so.
If contradictions occur they still have yet to misconstrue ANY doctrine of Christianity. They are very small details which do not have impact on the final statement.
Topic: if god exists, hes kinda *not very nice*