120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Ok ..two different discussions. I will take your advice and read a few books.

Speaking of "clueless", you're really going to quote from Expelled? Oh, dear. A film in which Ben Stein demonstrates that he's one of those who doesn't want to understand evolution, and he presents heavily edited interviews which were made under false pretences while lying about the so-called "sacked" academics he presents.

In the heavily-edited Dawkins interview, Dawkins didn't want to pretend he knew something he didn't, but was pressed by Stein for an answer. When Dawkins, not wishing to rule out something he couldn't definitively say was impossible, gave Stein the answer he had been pushing for, Stein jumped on it as a victory: "Ha! Look at this guy; doesn't believe in gods, but he believes in aliens!". Which was not at all what Dawkins said.

Ben Stein is a liar, a creationist shill and a fraud.
http://www.expelledexposed.com/

I was trying to demonstrate there is plausibilty or that there is nothing wrong with the idea of a "creator being" even for Scientists. If Stien is the way that you describe I shan't be reffereing from him in the future for serious discussion. I'm not one for dishonest journalistic agendas which is all about. To be honest I got introduced to the interview by another Christian Steven Anderson who had a video about what some scientists say.


Idiot Scientists -Proffesing themselves to be wise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw-6ToEcirE

Worth a peek! (at least for Christians)

As Keith&Co. already pointed out, the title alone casts doubt on the usefulness of that video. As does the name of the producer. Steven Anderson is well-known to me; I've seen several of his videos, and if that's the kind of person you consider as a reliable source on ... well, just about anything, you're not going to learn much at all. Except maybe who you should hate and how to ignore facts that don't fit in with a literal reading of the bible.

Which raises a pertinent question: do you believe that every word of the bible is true, and should be taken literally?

 

[Learner]

As Keith&Co. already pointed out, the title alone casts doubt on the usefulness of that video. As does the name of the producer. Steven Anderson is well-known to me; I've seen several of his videos, and if that's the kind of person you consider as a reliable source on ... well, just about anything, you're not going to learn much at all. Except maybe who you should hate and how to ignore facts that don't fit in with a literal reading of the bible.

I find him interesting of course with what he himself has researched. He's a good preacher. I'm interested with how he uses the same method of presentation Atheists have used with Christianity for decades. It is the format you understand.

Which raises a pertinent question: do you believe that every word of the bible is true, and should be taken literally?

More or less ..its the understanding them thats the challenge regarding the OT especially for debateable discussion. You have to give Christians on the forum some credit of using our brains / common sense not just believing willy nilly everything we find. We certainly don't agree with the universe because of gravity!(as in the vid)

 

[Learner]

What the writers claim about god and creation is refuted by the very things they say about god and creation when it is clear that their thoughts have evolved a fierce tribal god into a universal creator over a period of time. It is not some independent, objective god that is evolving into something entirely different over a period of centuries, but human thought and belief.

I really don't agee ...

Are you saying that Yahweh the war god of the tribe of Israel given dominion by the El, his sire, actually transformed himself into a universal Creator over the time period described in the OT and the NT, and that is the 'true picture?'

Are you reffering to the Caananites El and the supposedly lesser deity Yahweh? It is not true this is the same God as the one that created Adam and Eve by Christianity. Parts are true as in Elohim but only in the context of false gods. There is confusion of course with gods, and I don't doubt Christians know or believe this as deliberate corrupted gospel as Jesus warned us about.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Didn't know the exact percentage,I believe you.

What? No.
There are surveys. Go look for yourself. Find the data. Those numbers were off the top of my head. Maybe they've changed. It's an election year.

I was apprehensive to include the video in my previous post because of the title. Yes it is a bit direct in the naming but then just to reply to some posts I just realised this is just the norm here anyway as well as anywhere else with debates ..there is no problem.

There is a problem in the write up under the video. He assumes that the entire point of scientific inquiry is to get away from God. To discover a universe that doesn't need gods.
Frankly, gods are beyond science. Scientists just want to know how the world works, independent of whether or not a deity was involved at any point.
And if it's real science, the believers and the nonbelievers are going to come to the same conclusions.

Creationists do not do science because they start with their conclusion, first, then look for evidence to support it.

 

[Learner]

What? No.
There are surveys. Go look for yourself. Find the data. Those numbers were off the top of my head. Maybe they've changed. It's an election year.

Ahh and here we are, another example using inaccurate facts to give as a demonstration. What have we been telling people not to do?

There is a problem in the write up under the video. He assumes that the entire point of scientific inquiry is to get away from God. To discover a universe that doesn't need gods.
Frankly, gods are beyond science. Scientists just want to know how the world works, independent of whether or not a deity was involved at any point.
And if it's real science, the believers and the nonbelievers are going to come to the same conclusions.

He's right although I would say some do and some like those you mention just want to find out how things work..doing real science.

Creationists do not do science because they start with their conclusion, first, then look for evidence to support it.

It has always been quite hard for the religious to argue the case only using scientific language for obvious academic reasons.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

I find him interesting of course with what he himself has researched. He's a good preacher. I'm interested with how he uses the same method of presentation Atheists have used with Christianity for decades. It is the format you understand.

Oh, I'm sure he's a good preacher, as in he's good at preaching. It's whether what he preaches is any good for anybody that I have to question ... and I keep coming up with the answer "no". For one, he flaunts his scientific illiteracy, and calls those who have devoted their lives to science and have forgotten more real science than he'll ever know, "idiots". He bases this on books by people just as scientifically illiterate as he is, but he doesn't have the excuse they do, namely that the science of their day was at a far less advanced level than it is today, and much less widely available to any who wish to learn. People like him have retarded humans' knowledge of the world around us since as long as we are aware.

More or less ..its the understanding them thats the challenge regarding the OT especially for debateable discussion. You have to give Christians on the forum some credit of using our brains / common sense not just believing willy nilly everything we find. We certainly don't agree with the universe because of gravity!(as in the vid)

I don't think all Xians just believe willy-nilly what you find, which is why I asked if you believe in the literal truth of the bible. Unfortunately, though, many Xians do believe only what they read in the bible, even when it goes against the facts of the world around them. It's as if they have more trust in the human writers of that book than in the creation supposedly authored by their god.

I'm not sure what you mean by "We certainly don't agree with the universe because of gravity!"; I'm sure you could have worded that better. All I can say is, the study of gravity and its effects will lead scientists to certain conclusions, many of them possibly counter-intuitive. But then, the fact of the Earth orbiting the Sun, and not vice-versa, is also counter-intuitive from the POV of a species which watches the Sun cross the sky every day. If somebody doesn't agree with the conclusions reached, the thing to do is to propose a different set of conclusions, complete with reasons why they have come to them, and not to say, "well, it's in this ancient book, and I won't listen to anything that disagrees with that".

 

[Learner]

will get back to you on that..I need one of those tapatalk things.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Ahh and here we are, another example using inaccurate facts to give as a demonstration. What have we been telling people not to do?

The difference being that I have seen the survey results, rather than just repeating what someone told me in atheist-school.

It has always been quite hard for the religious to argue the case only using scientific language for obvious academic reasons.

No, it's not.
Scientists who believe AND understand the actual science position can talk all day long with the scientific language.
It's the people flogging an agenda instead of science who try to dress it up with sciencey language and keep getting their peepee slapped when they don't know what they're talking about.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Didn't know the exact percentage,I believe you.

Then you're going about things the wrong way. Don't just believe what somebody tells you. Find out for yourself. Look at as many sources as you can find. People just accepting what they're told is the cause of many of the problems that occur in the world.

 

[abaddon]

The bible is clear enough. God told Adam and Eve not to eat a particular fruit and look what happened.

Yeah, the god didn’t want any more gods around and reacted accordingly. That’s what the Bible says, clear enough.

Usually it's atheists bitching about the meaning of words.

People who can’t use words well can’t think clearly. Fuzzy thinking gets fuzzy results. Which is why some people are theists.

 

[Learner]

The difference being that I have seen the survey results, rather than just repeating what someone told me in atheist-school.

I was just trying to be witty. Besides I consider you a freethinker believe it or not.But I'm not going to take your word for it in future!

No, it's not.
Scientists who believe AND understand the actual science position can talk all day long with the scientific language.
It's the people flogging an agenda instead of science who try to dress it up with sciencey language and keep getting their peepee slapped when they don't know what they're talking about.

Well yes of course today even more so. I have seen some disasterous arguments in the past.



Sent from my BibleTalk

 

[Learner]

Oh, I'm sure he's a good preacher, as in he's good at preaching. It's whether what he preaches is any good for anybody that I have to question ... and I keep coming up with the answer "no". For one, he flaunts his scientific illiteracy, and calls those who have devoted their lives to science and have forgotten more real science than he'll ever know, "idiots". He bases this on books by people just as scientifically illiterate as he is, but he doesn't have the excuse they do, namely that the science of their day was at a far less advanced level than it is today, and much less widely available to any who wish to learn. People like him have retarded humans' knowledge of the world around us since as long as we are aware.

Fair enough point of view.

I don't think all Xians just believe willy-nilly what you find, which is why I asked if you believe in the literal truth of the bible. Unfortunately, though, many Xians do believe only what they read in the bible, even when it goes against the facts of the world around them. It's as if they have more trust in the human writers of that book than in the creation supposedly authored by their god.

I will agree here as a Christian , some may not need to know anything else but what they believe regarding their faith. Now I am talking about those that do the things according to Christ. For example how one treats another or each other. We know some of them as our own uncles, aunts, and so on within the community.

I'm not sure what you mean by "We certainly don't agree with the universe because of gravity!"; I'm sure you could have worded that better. All I can say is, the study of gravity and its effects will lead scientists to certain conclusions, many of them possibly counter-intuitive. But then, the fact of the Earth orbiting the Sun, and not vice-versa, is also counter-intuitive from the POV of a species which watches the Sun cross the sky every day. If somebody doesn't agree with the conclusions reached, the thing to do is to propose a different set of conclusions, complete with reasons why they have come to them, and not to say, "well, it's in this ancient book, and I won't listen to anything that disagrees with that".

Fair enough . The bible doesn't disagree with the motions of the Sun and Moon or the processes of nature. The origin of what started the motion in the first place is obviously where we differ.

 

[Lion IRC]

Usually it's atheists bitching about the meaning of words.

People who can’t use words well can’t think clearly. Fuzzy thinking gets fuzzy results. Which is why some people are theists.

Changing the definition of words (like marriage) is a very post-modern trend.

I get banned from Facebook for using a pseudonym but they would have no problem with a person who wants to self-identify as the imagined gender of their choice. Pseudo-woman. Why can't I choose to identify as Lion IRC ?
So much for freedom of expression.

And, speaking of clear definitions, I notice tons of atheists asking for a definition of God. What's up with that? How can you call simultaneously yourself an atheist and yet not know what it is you don't think exists?

 

[Lion IRC]

Usually it's atheists bitching about the meaning of words.
You can't call atheism a 'religion'
You can't call bats 'birds'. (see skeptics annotated bible)
Jesus can't have two 'fathers' Joseph and Heli (see skeptics annotated bible)

So, just bitching. got it.

That's a nifty word. "Bitching".
But I suspect you are using that word as a convenient way to avoid responding the substance.

 

[Sarpedon]

The substance seems to be: When interpreting the 'inerrant' scripture, an approved theologian can make up novel word definitions, but in everyday life, when we find situations where there are no words to describe them, we are not allowed to make up new word definitions for the purposes of communication. Got it.

As far as substance goes, that is ungood.

 

[none]

People who can’t use words well can’t think clearly. Fuzzy thinking gets fuzzy results. Which is why some people are theists.

Changing the definition of words (like marriage) is a very post-modern trend.

I get banned from Facebook for using a pseudonym but they would have no problem with a person who wants to self-identify as the imagined gender of their choice. Pseudo-woman. Why can't I choose to identify as Lion IRC ?
So much for freedom of expression.

And, speaking of clear definitions, I notice tons of atheists asking for a definition of God. What's up with that? How can you call simultaneously yourself an atheist and yet not know what it is you don't think exists?

You don't have to know something to not believe in it
To me god as a word has no unambiguous definition

 

[bilby]

I find him interesting of course with what he himself has researched. He's a good preacher. I'm interested with how he uses the same method of presentation Atheists have used with Christianity for decades. It is the format you understand.

The method of presentation has nothing to do with whether or not what is presented is true or trustworthy.

In the Pacific Ocean, there are people who lived simple lives for thousands of years, on tiny islands in the vast ocean. Then one day, the US Navy appeared. They built an airstrip, and a control tower, which to the islanders appeared to be a lot of work, for no obvious reason. But then, great flying machines arrived, stuffed full of exotic food, drink, cigarettes and all manner of wonderful cargo, that the strange Americans seemed happy to share.

And then the Americans left; they dismantled the control tower, and the runway quickly went back to jungle, as trees forced their way through the surface. And there was no more cargo.

But the natives were smart. They had watched how the Americans attracted the cargo, and they decided that they could do the same. So they cleared the trees off the runway, and used palm fronds and bamboo to make a big radar dish that sat on top of a tower. They even rigged up their dish so that it could turn around and around.

They got all of the presentation as close as possible to exactly how the Americans had done theirs; and yet, no cargo arrived. They are waiting still.

Now we know that there's a bigger picture. The natives thought that presentation was all they needed; but in fact, presentation is the least important thing. What really matters is the vast (but from the island, invisible) wider world, where the USA and Imperial Japan were at war - a war that the US won in part because of the vast amount of 'cargo' they were able to produce.

Understanding reality is like that. All of science fits together as a cohesive, self supporting whole. The exact same basic and simple principles underlying the whole range of apparently unconnected observations and events. The body of science is like the USA in our story - we can't see how huge it is, nor how it all works, from our little island. But all of it is needed, if you want cargo. Just picking a few bits to copy, and ignoring the bits you don't understand, gets you nothing.

Science isn't believable because of the way it is presented; it is believable because it works. No matter how realistic your palm-frond radar dish is, it never works, because it's not based on a true understanding of the wider picture.

Which raises a pertinent question: do you believe that every word of the bible is true, and should be taken literally?

More or less ..its the understanding them thats the challenge regarding the OT especially for debateable discussion. You have to give Christians on the forum some credit of using our brains / common sense not just believing willy nilly everything we find. We certainly don't agree with the universe because of gravity!(as in the vid)

 

[bilby]

The method of presentation has nothing to do with whether or not what is presented is true or trustworthy.

In the Pacific Ocean, there are people who lived simple lives for thousands of years, on tiny islands in the vast ocean. Then one day, the US Navy appeared. They built an airstrip, and a control tower, which to the islanders appeared to be a lot of work, for no obvious reason. But then, great flying machines arrived, stuffed full of exotic food, drink, cigarettes and all manner of wonderful cargo, that the strange Americans seemed happy to share.

And then the Americans left; they dismantled the control tower, and the runway quickly went back to jungle, as trees forced their way through the surface. And there was no more cargo.

But the natives were smart. They had watched how the Americans attracted the cargo, and they decided that they could do the same. So they cleared the trees off the runway, and used palm fronds and bamboo to make a big radar dish that sat on top of a tower. They even rigged up their dish so that it could turn around and around.

They got all of the presentation as close as possible to exactly how the Americans had done theirs; and yet, no cargo arrived. They are waiting still.

Now we know that there's a bigger picture. The natives thought that presentation was all they needed; but in fact, presentation is the least important thing. What really matters is the vast (but from the island, invisible) wider world, where the USA and Imperial Japan were at war - a war that the US won in part because of the vast amount of 'cargo' they were able to produce.

Understanding reality is like that. All of science fits together as a cohesive, self supporting whole. The exact same basic and simple principles underlying the whole range of apparently unconnected observations and events. The body of science is like the USA in our story - we can't see how huge it is, nor how it all works, from our little island. But all of it is needed, if you want cargo. Just picking a few bits to copy, and ignoring the bits you don't understand, gets you nothing.

Science isn't believable because of the way it is presented; it is believable because it works. No matter how realistic your palm-frond radar dish is, it never works, because it's not based on a true understanding of the wider picture.

Which raises a pertinent question: do you believe that every word of the bible is true, and should be taken literally?

More or less ..its the understanding them thats the challenge regarding the OT especially for debateable discussion. You have to give Christians on the forum some credit of using our brains / common sense not just believing willy nilly everything we find. We certainly don't agree with the universe because of gravity!(as in the vid)

I haven't watched the video (not able to watch video right now); but I will say that we certainly do agree with the things we discover about our universe - including our theories of its origins - in part because of gravity.

We know gravity exists, and how it works. So any ideas about the universe that requires gravity to work in a different way than that have to be wrong. All of science fits together like that - if any idea cannot be fitted in in such a way as to not contradict something we already know, then that idea cannot be included. Unless we can show how what we thought we knew was actually wrong.

The great strength of science is that it stands as a whole. You may not be able to see the USA from your island; but it's not at all crazy to say that the cargo only arrives because of America. All of it is needed, not just the bits that are obvious and easy to see.

 

[Learner]

It has already been done! "New bible" versions in current easy to read language style of many international languages. For children too!

Realising what I posted. I thought to mention that some of the newer versions or adaptations may not be teaching the true gospel. Anything newagey beware!

 

[Learner]

The method of presentation has nothing to do with whether or not what is presented is true or trustworthy.

What I mean't was the presentation had an undertone of mocking ridicule. As one ridicules creationists for example using terms of similar tone ; great skydaddy , santa claus , magic dust fairies and woo. lol


But anyhow ,a good post about the pacific island story and demonstration. I know one like it not too far from your island but in the same zone of the pacitfic I would suspect. These natives thought the Americans were "demi-gods" and built a mock plane expecting their return after they left. But yes it is an explanation I know of and accept. It does sound like having parallels to people of the ancient past.