The Case for Christianity

[pood]

Especially the wallet.

 

[steve_bank]

Perry Mason and 'The Case For Christianity'

Google Search

 

[James Brown]

You were a really shitty Christian apologist.

True.

 

[pood]

Spirituality
It has often been suggested that science has proven that God does not exist.

Very few scientists would claim this.

The main thrust of this argument is that Science does not presume the existence of God and therefore we don't need the concept of God in order to explain the universe and therefore there's no God.

This is not quite correct. It’s not that science does not “presume” the existence of God, it’s that God, whatever that is exactly, is not found anywhere in the data. Therefore God, as a scientific concept, is superfluous and explanatorily empty. Science employs the tool of methodological naturalism.

Besides, look at the suffering and evil in this world. If God exists, why would He allow evil?

Good question. Got an answer? But that has nothing to do with science.

We have moved far from the world that our ancient forefathers inhabited. Back then, believing in the supernatural was self-evident

No, it was not. Something self-evident cannot be false.

. We need to see our world through their lens if we were to discuss the existence of God.

Why?

The nature that science investigates is not the Nature we experience. Nature, to us, is alive - the plants and animals in it. Although science can tell us how milk, for example, is derived from grass, or bones from calcium, we are not yet able to replicate any of these natural processes. We cannot, for example, make milk from grass nor bones from milk. In repairing our teeth, the dentist does not have a paste that they can apply to the tooth to fill the hole that will dry into enamel.

This is odd, don't you think?

No.

We can uncover the beginning of the universe, discover black holes, even create artificial intelligence but we have not penetrated even the simplest form of life.

Of course we have. We have mapped the genome and penetrated living anatomy down to the molecular and atomic level. We know all about life. It’s complicated chemistry.

It seems to me that science, despite its powerful discoveries and penetrative investigative tools, has only scratched the laws of nature that it set out to do.

Untrue.

The bridge between the nature that science has been able to discover and explain and the Nature we experience is life.

No idea what that means.

We live in a world of living things whilst science has only been able to study the world of the dead.

Completely false. See above. We can edit genes, for heaven’s sake.

The origin of the word "spirit" is spirare, which simply means to breathe. In other words, every thing that is alive is spirit. To rationally discuss this Nature, we cannot turn to science but to psychology, philosophy and religion.

Psychology and philosophy to some degree, certainly. Religion is useless. The study of life lies in the domain of science.

 

[bilby]

Oxford dictionary, please note. Not just any old dictionary, but The Sacred Dictionary.

AKA the "Authorised Version"

 

[bilby]

* I know it's a common tactic because I used to employ it when I was a Christian apologist.

You were a really shitty Christian apologist.
The admission by the mark that they are not omniscient, should be followed IMMEDIATELY by a demand that they accept JC as their lord and savior.
None of that dancing around with the “some creative force” bullshit - ya gotta demand that they open their heart and wallet right then and there!

They could never catch me out like that.

I was on a four day training course this week, and on the last day they did the old "personality profile" thing. I have done most of these over the years, and they have a core of similarity (which may or may not suggest a smaller core of truth), in that they are deeply enamoured with sets of four categories.

The presenter, who I was careful not to annoy too much (she's the new GM for training at TfB, and as my career plan is to become a fully qualified trainer, she may one day have to interview me - so I was not scathingly skeptical. (Mostly)), started talking about the four elements, and then Hippocrates and the four humours.

Asked if anyone had heard of Hippocrates or his model of human health, I did a small brain-dump, as I am prone to do (particularly when I am struggling to be kind about nonsense). After I had talked briefly about the various exsanguination techniques used by medieval physicians, one of my colleagues asked "how do you know all this stuff?", a question which I immediately and unthinkingly fielded with a casual "Oh, I know everything", before completing my (possibly over-detailed) account of Western European prescientific medical practices.

An understanding if which, to be fair, is not a prerequisite nor a core skill to either drive a bus, or to train others in doing so.

 

[pood]

About opening the wallet.

The Catholic church is into tithing. You’re supposed to give ten percent of your income, I think it is, to help the church. Probably it enables them to finance molesting more children.

Anyway, when I was a kid, mom was a devout Catholic, but dad thought the whole thing was a crock. Still, just to make her happy, we all traipsed off to church every Sunday.

One Sunday the priest is giving an earnest little sermon about tithing. It is necessary, he announced, to tithe the church, even if you have difficulty feeding the kids.

While the other parishioners nodded solemnly like slack-jawed bobble-head dolls, dad sprang to his feet and loudly announced, “That’s it. We’re getting out of here.” And out we went.

Dad and I never returned to church. Can’t recall what mom did. Maybe she joined a different parish.

 

[steve_bank]

When I was a kid the RCC church we went to had small numbered envelopesfor kids and large envelopes for adults. You put money in the envelope and put into a basket passed around during a service on Sunday. Who gave what was recorded

The priests had a large house on the property, the nuns who taught school on the property had a smaller house.

Takes a lot of money to maintain. Saint John's church Stamford Ct. On the left up front is the dark confessional where we kids confessed our horrible sins.

 

[southernhybrid]

in my opinion, there is only one case for Christianity and that is that it often provides community for people. If it's a good, liberal or moderate version, it usually also provides charity for those in need. I've met three atheists who also identified as Methodists. I've also known some very skeptical Christians who were members of a Methodist church. They attended and enjoyed their churches. I guess it was for the community. Otherwise, it's all mythology which isn't based on anything but wishful thinking, and perhaps fear of the unknown or the desire to simple answers to life.

I have a feeling there are probably a lot of atheists sitting in the church pews on Sundays for one reason or another. I knew one who attended church to please his wife. I have no idea why my sister remains a Christian when our evangelical upbringing did so much damage to her, but since she only attends the little groups, I think she stays for the community and opportunity to make friends. That's the one case for Christianity as I see it.

Mythology has always attracted a lot of people, regardless of which mythology people find attractive. Just don't try to prove myths to be true because they aren't factual.

 

[Brunswick1954]

Logos
LOL. Thank you all for your learned and thoughtful responses. I obviously cannot answer all of them and I will have to leave you to take what you can from my discourse. In fact, I will not address anyone's arguments directly except insofar as it suits me, lol. Advance apologies.

In John's Gospel in the Bible, he said:
John 1:1 (KJV)
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The "Word" referred to above is  logos. John is talking to the Romans in his Gospel (https://fiveminutebiblestudy.com/index.php/articles/clues-to-the-audience-of-johns-gospel) and explaining that the belief that they had in the rationality of the universe is the Jewish version of their belief in God.

We need to notice something significant in this. Our interpretation of the Biblical God is human, or anthropomorphic. But here, John is saying that God is an overarching principle, something abstract.

What this tells me is that we are narrow in our understanding of this ancient text (the Bible) and of ancient minds. Throughout the Bible, God is referred to in different ways and takes different forms, from visible clouds to a gentle whisper. In fact, the Jews in the Old Testament were not allowed to mention God's name at all. God is the I AM.

What on earth can this mean? I shall try to unpack this in later posts. The ancient mind is not as simple as we presume it to be.

 

[steve_bank]

The bible makes sense if you look at it at it in the context of other mythologies.

Look at the thread on the history of Yahweh. Ancient Hebrews went through an evolution in the god they beveled in.

The OT is not a coherent work representing a consistent mythology. The books of the OT were written by different Jews at different times.

The same is true of the NT.

Christianity you have today is ire the result of Greek and Roman influence.

Christianity as it has been since it became paganized comes down to one thing, a belief in the story of the resurrection in the NT and in turn a personal resurrection and eternal life in a heaven of some kind. Little to do with the Jewish Torah.

The only case for Christianity is a personal belief in the gospel supernatural of someone called Jesus.

 

[Elixir]

Spirituality
It has often been suggested that science has proven that God does not exist.

Who suggested that?
Whoever it was may be safely ignored.
Scientists don’t endeavor to prove negatives. The scientific method doesn’t suggest that god exists or doesn’t exist.
So far there is no repeatedly observable phenomenon that requires a transcendent, motivated entity to explain it. An omniscient, omnipotent Creator God explains everything and nothing. Understanding how things actually work via observation, hypotheses, prediction and experimentation yields results that are both explanatory and predictive. God “theories” (hypotheses) are neither. Nor are they supported by observation except, as you know, in the diminishing gaps between the known and the unknown.
It would be cool to be able to “divine” the nature of a God - good luck with that!

 

[Elixir]

The study of life lies in the domain of science.

… which does not invalidate The Bible as a text on living as a human. It’s a different subject.
I think it’s pretty crappy in that respect too, though. Lotsa bad people, harsh treatments and violent punishments for minor infractions of rules that weren’t even clearly posted …
Times were tough. God was spending time making bears maul kids who made fun of an old bald guy. As an old guy with much less hair than once was the case, I appreciate the God defending my good looks, but still think there might have been a salvageable soul or two among the 42 victims.
God works in mysterious yet despicable ways. And provides exactly ZERO predictability, as an hypothesis.

 

[bilby]

What on earth can this mean?

That the founders of Christianity were careful not to say anything that could be easily proven to be nonsense?

Astrologers and psychic mediums use the same technique - by being vague and woolly, you defend yourself against logic, reason or observation, by enabling yourself to deny any interpretation by your audience that is demonstrably wrong.

If nobody is quite sure what you said, they can't deny that it might be true; If anybody infers something from what you say that is shown to be false, you can deny that they drew the right inferences - even while reinforcing those same implications with the part of your audience who cannot see the errors therein.

All successful long term scams do this; Christianity isn't special or different.

 

[DBT]

Why people believe in a God or gods may be an interesting line of inquiry.

 

[Elixir]

All successful long term scams do this; Christianity isn't special or different.

That’s why I like stuff like the I Ching.
You get to make up your own story, and prove it through revelation. Whoever put that together doesn’t get enough credit.

 

[pood]

What on earth can this mean?

It seems to me that if the Christian god were real, and he wanted all of us to be “saved,” whatever that is supposed to mean, then he would have communicated in such a way that we we would not have to guess at what on earth he meant.

 

[southernhybrid]

What on earth can this mean?

It seems to me that if the Christian god were real, and he wanted all of us to be “saved,” whatever that is supposed to mean, then he would have communicated in such a way that we we would not have to guess at what on earth he meant.

I'm sure you know what "saved" means. Having been raised in the nutty evangelical religion, I know that saved refers to being saved from spending eternity being tortured in an afterlife, commonly known as hell. And, all you have to do to be saved is accept Jesus as your personal savior. He will always forgive you from your sins, not matter how bad they are as long as you believe and ask for forgiveness.

I know that not all Christians take that Biblical BS literally, but that's the crazy BS that the evangelicals believe. I've had several try to save me when I was at the senior center in Georgia. I told them if I could believe there was a god, it certainly wouldn't be one that was so egotistical that all he cared about was believing in him as the one true god and asking to be saved from eternal torture.

Sadly, these are the people who are trying to form a theocracy in the US. Even my more liberal Christian friends are scared of the shit they are trying to do to our country. Sorry. I'm off topic, but I had a few minutes to vent when you mentioned the word "saved" in relationship to Christianity.

 

[Elixir]

What if “saved” really means “reserved for later use”?
Like, you’re not in the front of the line for eternal torture, but being a flawed human, there is some torture due, which will be meted out at a later date when God’s schedule permits, and meanwhile he’s “saving” you for later?

 

[ideologyhunter]

What on earth can this mean?

To me it means that John's gospel is infused with poetry. His Jesus speaks in impossibly long soliloquies, unlike the Jesus in the Synoptics. The most striking thing about Jesus as a teacher in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is his device of the parable. He tells a story and then draws a moral or a theological principle from it. The Jesus in John doesn't apparently know any parables. He instead develops poetic self-descriptions consisting of metaphor. How likely is this? John is the most fictionalized of the gospels; my eyes tell me that this is a literate writer creating his own Messiah portrait and producing long passages of oratory for his main figure -- a practice that was not considered dishonest in antiquity.