I've never understood why God wants to kill so much.

This is ad hominem (fallacious and irrational.)

It is interesting that throughout the history of Israel they weren't executing their own population. It may be though that by the first century a few (of the Pharisees) were taking this more "literally".


Doing evil itself is a type of death, and the proper response of the community towards individuals who do evil is to cut them off from the community. The escalation of retaliation toward bad things done to you was limited by Moses to eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Jesus points out that doing additional evil as retaliation was never endorsed by God. We can and should retaliate by doing something for the other person's benefit. Something which powerfully shames them and urges them to reject the evil they did and choose to do good themselves (think about the action of the Bishop Myriel towards Jean Valjean in Les Miserables).

So, yes, God wants to kill all human evil, but exactly how that happens is often up to humans. Also Christians must believe that they themselves deserve death--otherwise they have no need of Christ the Savior.

Also from another Christian:


In general, we humans do not care enough about others, and allow evil to grow.

PS-I just watched El laberinto del fauno. Horror is about the only place we truly popularly address the human predicament.

No, not really. "Ad hominem" means a personal attack ("argument against the man").

And it's a 2,400 year old book written by a bunch of uneducated tribesmen...

If the above is your reason for believing the Bible to be false then you are commiting the fallacy of ad hominem. This thinking of yours is irrational.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

The reason this is important is because this book claims to be the written words of God. If it is true, then there is literally nothing that is worth more time than writing about- whether you believe in it or not. But even if you don't believe in it, there is nothing more important to investigate, if indeed it is legitimate.

I didn't say that the laws claim to be fair or perfect.

Your second sentence contradicts itself, you should think through each of those statements attached to one another.

Moreover, this is a tangent point about civil law, that is not relevant to the subject at hand.

This part is subject to debate. Christians interpret the New Testament differently, and different people have different beliefs on this. As a matter of fact, this has been a debate in the Christian Church for 500 years.

Some say that the "Law" of the Old Testament (do good, don't do bad) is written on every person's heart, and every person instinctively knows right and wrong, along with their conscience. These people would argue that as long as people live good lives, and believe in "God," that they have hope.

Others say that God is the ultimate sovereign over all creation. (This view corresponds with your 'determinist' proposition against the concept of a true "free" will). This camp argues that God chooses who he will give mercy to, and who he will give justice to.

There is no consensus in Christianity on this issue, and there hasn't been for centuries. Christians are simply told to tell people about Jesus, either way.

God displays his love, mercy, and grace in the Old Testament abundantly. When Adam sinned, he didn't give Adam the punishment he deserved. Instead, he substitutionally put it on an animal, and then in an act of grace, used the animal's skin to clothe Adam. The entire Old Testament is riddled with God's constant love, mercy and grace. I am simply talking about the bigger picture, metanarrative of the Old and New Testaments combined. As QuietOC points out-

Love, mercy, and grace is perhaps more common in the Old Testament, and there is plenty of justice in the New Testament.

As a big-picture, the Old Testament was to be a forerunner to the New. On the big picture, the Old displayed the punishment that everyone deserves, to highlight the act of love that he does in Jesus in the New Testament.

I have already written extensively on the Biblical record of creation, earlier in this thread.

As a brief recap-
The record of the creation of the universe is written in complicated Hebrew poetry. There is parallelism, and fascinating sentence structure in the Hebrew. Some sentences do inversion, and others have exactly seven words, for multiple sentences. It can be interpreted in many ways, and it is my opinion that the people who read it as a narrative (i.e., literally) are doing injustice to the Hebrew poetic writing.

The author wasn't writing a scientific documentation of creation- he was depicting God's act of creation in a poem. He was writing a song. He was writing a sonnet. etc. You do not read Shakespeare the way that you read the Wall Street Journal, or the journal "Nature."

However, as QuietOC pointed out, it still has documentable merit to it. At that time, the stars and solar figures were objects of worship and myth. Also, it records a logical progression of things. We can draw insights from it.

But ultimately, it is poetry. Poetry is trying to make a point, but the exact language usage is more metaphorical and picturesque, in the context of poetry.

This proves my point- you have no interest in having this conversation, or digging into these issues.

And to put the nail in the coffin- the site is laid out very, VERY well. The author strictly copy and pasted the original work, then added his own rebuttals throughout in bold text. This gives the fluidity of the original work, and the point-by-point rebuttal necessary, rather than a holistic-conceptual rebuttal. There is no better way to do a rebuttal.

In fact, even your own methodology for "rebutting" my posts here on this very forum follows this identical pattern, which you call "not particularly well laid out" ;-).


There is a thing in scholarship called "prooftexting." Prooftexting is treating the Bible like a book of little nuggets and sentences, and randomly picking and mixing and pulling them out. Even Christians do this.

However, this is not what the Bible is. The Bible is a collection of many types of literature, but ultimately is a narrative. Narratives have context, and context is important. This forum is an example of people who don't understand textual criticism, who try to practice it. People randomly pull texts out of context, which is a "prooftext," in order to make some kind of "proof." But to anyone that is actually familiar with the text and what it says, this is an absolute joke.

But to someone who knows nothing about the text, this same misinformation is perpetuated over and over again. And you think that it makes sense, because you have never studied it, and neither has the person who is feeding you the misinformation.

This is referred to as "eisegesis." This refers to the practice of reading one's own interpretation into the text, rather than what the text itself is saying for itself. The latter is referred to as "exegesis."

According to the Eden account, Eve even explained to the serpent why it was wrong to eat of the tree.

Again, I appreciate your efforts at contributing to the conversation regarding the Bible, but take some notes from erei33. He recognizes that there are some who know what they are talking about, and others who don't. If you have a question about the Bible, you should probably ask someone who knows what it has to say.

Re: Japan-
You did not address any of my points, and you made many extra, unnecessary ones. This is a tangent that is unrelated to the subject.

No, but you could say it is an example of "The New Testament does not teach this." The reason there are so many differences in Christians is eisegesis, and poor exegesis. (Also a point that I have already explained earlier in this thread).

As a side note, the philosopher that coined the "No True Scotsman" argument is renown atheist philosopher Antony Flew. The reason this is noteworthy is because in 2004, Flew changed from atheist to agnostic, and then changed from agnostic to deist. He certainly doesn't believe in the God of the Bible, but he said that based on the evidence, he finds it more likely than unlikely that there is a God in the universe.


I disagree with neither of these statements. But neither of these provides any rebuttal to the points that I made. This, again, is a tangent that is not relevant to the topic.

What you may not realize is that one of his books that he does such a thing is indeed the very book in question, the God Delusion. He explicitly states that he doesn't know much about Biblical scholasticism, because he doesn't "need to," because it's "all wrong anyway."

"[One] assumes that there is a serious subject called Theology, which one must study in depth before one can disbelieve in God."

So, to use his same metaphor, an ignorant moron could say: "One assumes that there is a serious subject called "science," which one must study in depth before one can disbelieve in gravity."

Dawkins is saying, "I can disbelieve in gravity if I want to, because 'science' isn't a serious subject of study." He just uses theology and God as the subjects.

Ignorance cannot be summed up more aptly.

You, here, demonstrate your scholasticism in the subject.
Here, you demonstrate that you have never seriously studied the difference between atheism, agnosticism, and the fundamentals and the capacities of Naturalism as a paradigm.
The people that wrote the New Testament were fishermen, former tax collectors, and former Christian-killers. None of them were in any kind of position of any power. No government or any kind of power galvanized Christianity until Constantine, three hundred years after Jesus was off the scene. This, too, displays your lack of knowledge of the subject.

Moreover, at this stage, you are simply babbling nonsense-
Case in point. Not even non-believing Biblical scholars say this.

Alessandro, please take 25 seconds to review carefully this.

QuietOC said that the Bible is written by no-names.
ParanoidMarvin said that because the Bible is written by no-names, it therefore is wrong.
Ad Hom says that an argument is fallacy if it attacks the characteristics of the person (no-names), rather than the claim (Bible).

And for goodness sakes, don't use Wikipedia for your source of scholasticism, you are making everyone embarrassed for you.

*********************

This entire conversation is based on faith-based atheistic presuppositions, rather than agnostic evaluation of data. Unfortunately, our conversation keeps going off topic and hitting brick walls, based on these same limitations. It is an epistemological issue, and people need to examine their epistemology for even utilizing the data.

In light of this, I can't devote any more time to answering questions, point-by-point. erei33 is the only person showing any non-fundamentalist atheism, and everyone can learn a lot from his methodology.

Here are the two links for rebuttals to those two points-
http://brainisignorant.blogspot.com/2007/0...-to-appear.html
http://brainisignorant.blogspot.com/2006/0...d-wants-to.html

I don't like the approach that the author takes, and I haven't read all the arguments, but at least it's something to start with.

Back to your original question-
That person has taken four prooftexted sentences, pulled them out of context, then pasted them together into a new, four-point-context that they never belonged in.

As if this isn't problematic enough, furthermore these kinds of things assume (1) that some "abra-kadabra" formula will make Jesus 'happen,' and (2) that we are in a position to coerce God into jumping through our hoops.

Jesus is ready and waiting to reveal himself. But one of the ways that he has already revealed himself is through the Old and New Testaments. If we are sincere in our pursuits, we can extremely easily just pick up these historic manuscripts that have been recorded, and find truth. This is a first step, but it doesn't end there.

Jesus also said that he would be ready and waiting to accept anyone who puts their trust in him, and believes he is who he says he is. So there is this experiential element, but it comes only after putting trust in him.

A first step could be to take a week or weekend, and simply read one of the gospels. I would suggest the gospel called "Matthew." They are not long, and even if you don't believe it, you can at least say that you have actually read a gospel. If you don't have a printed copy, you can read it online here-
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?searc...amp;version=51;

Jesus is ready to reveal himself- but we have to commit to giving up pursuing a life of denying him, and trust that Jesus is who he says he is.

But that's just it. What is there to investigate? There is no way to prove that they are indeed the written words of God. Any effort to do so has and will only end in another equally unprovable hypothesis.

And because of that it is automatically false?

No, I said that the bible is wrong (at the very least, genesis) because science has proved it wrong.

You merely helped my argument by saying it was written by uneducated tribesmen - how could they possibly know about the origins of the universe?
Even if it was divine inspiration, they got it wrong.

No, but a hypothesis that has such little observable evidence*, such as the claim that the bible is the word of God, certainly can never come to a resolution, at least in the absence of observable evidence*. All we are left with is endless mental masturbation over what these "words of God" actually mean, like the circle jerk that is this thread.

* Please do not start throwing out currently unexplainable events or items as observable evidence of God or that the Bible is the word of God. It's just another road that goes nowhere.

It is not unreasonable to disbelieve something that can't be unproven.

Writing claiming a divine source need not fail here. I offered a method to prove divine-sourced knowledge back a page or so ago. People have only questioned whether we are able to apply the method, but I think that is like saying the Heisenburg uncertainty principle means we can apply or prove anything about physics. I happen to be a little more optimistic about human ability to discern truth than that. Sure, we end up with a provisional, probablistic belief after our investigation, but such is the required condition of all knowledge to the finite observer and judge.


Again, we can appeal to the observed and explainable as evidence of the divine.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to prove the bible wrong in such a way.

The whole idea of a God allows God's noodly appendage to have manipulated our reality so it only appears like science is right and the bible is wrong. You need to have faith that the bible is still right -- or understand that you are just interpreting the words of God wrong, or ..., ..., ...

Your method of "proof" still gets you nowhere. You base it on the belief that a prediction of an "unpredictable natural event" in religious text increases the probability that the prediction is from a divine source. What have you gained? You simply have another unknown that you're plugging God in for. The proper thing to do is to continue to look for how the prediction was made, until you solve the problem.

Not solving the problem (unexplained prediction) does not equal God, or even a higher probability of God.

Please take a physics or math course in chaos. Many things just are unpredictable--it is strictly impossible to know their outcome except to wait and observe it. And this condition even occurs in rather simple deterministic systems that are fully understood. It requires knowledge beyond (or behind?) the entire space-time causality itself to predict such things.

The accurate prediction of such a thing (again, assuming you can find a non-vague prediction of something so unpredictable in a religious text) does not default to proof of it's divinity, or even a higher probability of it's divinity. It only gives you an unanswered question: how was the prediction made? To answer that with "a divine source" is the same as saying "I don't know". You only claim a divine source because you feel a need to answer the question, and are unable to do so in any other way at that time.

Repeating your ignorance is not proving anything except your ignorance.

Where is my ignorance? Your responses imply that you are interpreting what I type as "there has to be an answer" when I say no such thing. What I'm saying is simply: Absence of an answer does not equal God. There is nothing ignorant about this stance.

Yes, and I deconstructed this argument in my post immediately above. Please read it.
This is ad hominem. "You are an uneducated tribesman, a no-name, how can you possibly know anything?" This is attacking the man (lit. "ad hom"), not the argument.

It's like saying men can't talk about abortion. "How would you, you're a man." Basically, your ideas don't count because of you, characteristically.
Stop and think about what you just said.

"Even if [the writings of the Old and New Testaments] is divine inspiration [from a genuine, real God], they got it wrong."

That is what you just said. You literally just now said that even if it is real, it isn't real.

This is what I am talking about. You guys are not even engaging your gray matter, let alone offering substantial arguments. Do you even realize the babble that just came out of your mouth?

These are not the words of reason. These are the words of religious fundamentalism.

Agnosticism is the enlightened path for the naturalist. Atheism is for practitioners of faith.

-3nigma

I can model something unpredictable on a computer, but to observe the actual outcome of the model all the calculations must be done. Nothing running on the computer can predict the outcome outside of running the actual calculations. Certainly I can run the exact calculations on another computer and "predict" the outcome. However, I am the source for the precise values of the initial conditions and the model in both instances. However any mere space-time observer cannot have precise knowledge of the conditions of space-time--even infinite observers of space-time! So, if we have such predictions they don't come from any observation of space-time, they come from something both beyond and precisely intimate with space-time, and divine is a good word for that.

Thank you for your analogy, but it was unnecessary. I've understood your position, and admittedly, my first inclination was to agree and say "yes, if (big if) you can find such a prediction, it has some grounds for divinity", however, that "big if" is a really big IF:

A prediction of such an event leaves a few possibilities open:

1) The event is actually predictable by a "space-time" observer, and an error in judgment has been made about its non predictability.

2) The prediction was chance.

3) There was no accurate prediction, and interpretation of existing text was influenced to fit the event, postmortem.

4) The prediction was indeed from outside "space-time"


Tell me how you can find such a prediction that fits option 4 without also including at least one of the other 3 as a possibility?

That also leads to the questions: If you do somehow manage to qualify only option 4 (somehow excluding 1, 2 and 3 as even remotely possible), does this "divine prediction" scattered among other text make the other text just as divine? Would religious texts then work the same as pork barrel politics? Who has the power of line item veto? Do they first need to make divine predictions? At what point do enough "divine predictions" bring us to look again at options 1, 2 or 3? How again did you remove options 1, 2 and 3?

It doesn't seem to get us anywhere. We have not proven that the full text volume is the word of god, only that the divine prediction is suspected to be, and the divinity of the prediction is still up in the air (although likely having gained more followers).

Thanks for being so considerate
I used Wikipedia as a quick reference, for the sake of the others. I didn't need it in this case, because I studied Latin for 8 years.



Thus you are calling me, among others, an atheist.

I feel deeply offended, because I do believe in a Supreme Being (Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, Buddhism (Adi-Buddha).

But I find Christianity, based on the Bible, extremely irrational and childish.
Morevorer, I find it a form of Paganism and an insult to the true God.

And finally I find that religious propaganda should be forbidden in this forum. This is a forum devoted to computers and operating systems, so take your propaganda somewhere else.

Indeed, Atheism does require some faith. The question in though, out of the thousands of Gods that have been worshiped in human history, does choosing not to believe in some of them require faith?

Something to consider:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours" - Stephen Roberts

No, as I said in my sentence the first time, I was talking to the atheists. You are not an atheist, and everyone knows this.

Don't be so easily offended, it wasn't even addressed to you =).

This shows a clear lack of understanding of what exactly Paganism is. Not even a non-spiritual atheist would attribute Christianity under the umbrella of the many Paganistic beliefs, unless they were completely ignorant of paganism.

This forum is for computers and operating systems. This subforum is devoted to, quote:

"The place for politics, sports, philosophy, religion, and all the things that probably matter most."

If you don't like it, you have the freedom to choose not to participate in these conversations. Nobody is forcing you to.

-3nigma

On the contrary, this category is here...religion is a huge part of life...even athiests believe in their logic, so the discussion of religion is quite pertinent to all people.

*edit*

beat me to it

Funniest thing I have read in this thread.

All i have learnt from jesus is not to {censored} with romans.

Maybe I should start this way:

-I believe that human logic is fallible
-I believe that Faith is the center of Christianity...
-I believe that what one Christian believes can greatly differ from another Christian's beliefs
-I believe that religion is the most important thing in my life
-I believe that I fail at every corner, but God has never really failed me
Relating to the above^: I believe that God sees "all time" at once, and i can only see what is right in front of me and I can look back...but my view of the future is limited...and assumptive.
-I believe that people are people...no pastor, president, priest, etc... is perfect...is different than any of us...except Jesus- whom I hold to be the Son of God.
-I believe that Salvation is an over used misunderstood term.
-that if I "believe I will be saved" (I John) That means to me that I don't have to worry whether or not "I am saved" but that i will be saved...end of story.
-I believe that the religious aspects of christianity are an expression of my thanks to my God, and are not required for salvation.
-I believe that God has worked in my life through other people, through the revealing of the spirit while reading the Bible (you can read and read it, but unless God allows you to see it...you won't get it)
-tie-ing into the above^: I believe that God Predestined who will and will not be "saved", again God sees all time in my opinion. He coordinated our lives so that we make choices that affect each other, but they are made in our own free will. You can argue that it's not really free-will...I don't care.
-I believe that there is only one sin that can not be forgiven by God: the sin of not believing that Jesus is the Son of God...
-I believe that I would have never even considered choosing to live for anything more than myself, however God called me out and I felt that i wasn't who I wanted to be, and that I could be something more...and eventually through searching I gave up...yet God pursued me: He is the "Great hound of Heaven" he comes closer and closer but doesen't give up the chase and I always heard Him following, eventualy I realize that he is there to protect me and to help me in many, many different ways.
-I believe that With God's help I can walk along His path (i won't always be on it...I am fallible and I do fequently fall off to the side) and work along the process of Sanctification
-I believe that works mean nothing & that motive is everything:
ie: i can curse and say, "that damn cow"...and in context one might say there's nothing wrong with it...words like the "F-word" are different of course. I could be laughing because the cow untied another cow that I'd spent all morning wrustling-up...but out of anger the same word can be very powerful and very offensive. (in the Bible there is a principle of not causing others to stumble...and since most "christians" take offense to "cursing" I refrain most of the time.)
-I believe that life and the Christian Faith are simple...and not complicated, however the implications of the principles set forth in God's Word, the Bible can be very complex becasue we cannpt full yunderstand it all, and if God were to show it all to us at once we couldn't handle it...So we read and re-read and re-read and over time we see things in our lives and how they relate to what the Bible says...and God opens our eyes to those things...
-I believe that God either pursues you and plants "seeds" in your life that make you question the "status quos" in your life...just like the phrase, "are you who you want to be?"...ie: before i decided to believe I would often find myself wondering about life and why and what am i doing here and how am i going to make it through life...then the choices I've made in the past...i remember being faced with questions of morality and often i abstaind from the activity, not becasue I thought it was wrong, but becasue i didn't want to risk being wrong about being wrong. the reason I pondered that to begin with is beacuse the people around me taught me the morals that they were taught...however several of my siblings were raised the same as I was, but they have cast off their morals...and they do not veieve the same as I do...I fear for their souls, but they are in God's hands as he knows their future and what's best for them...and if He has chosen they and I will be together in Paradise (heaven).

This is merely my opinon...don't ask me to back it up.

is that a monster in the dark over there?

This topic seems to be way off-topic..... but that's already been said......

Seems like everytopic in this forum that isn't started by JonTheSavage ends up talking about religion..... is it just me?

First, only determinism is rational, thus #2 is not a real option. Chance is the unknowable, capricious god that space-time doesn't require.

#1 is actually virtually non-existent for all really significant future events. Even if humans do a lot of work to try to ensure their plans succeed, or predict something highly regular, it is rather easy for the rest of space-time to have something else happen instead. Also just accuracy in general should be required. So while accuracy in general does not demand divinity, any inaccuracy should be reason to reject it.

#3 is possible.

I would also say in regards to #4, I do not see the information needing to enter space-time from outside. The information is just in space-time. No appeal to supernaturalism--the Creator of space-time doesn't need it! It could appear to be odd, but there will be perfectly sensible, natural reasons why the information appears.

While this articulation is mine, this method is biblical. Often a less significant but still unpredictable event is given as a sign for a more signficant event. The "virgin" birth of a son to Isaiah in Isaiah 7-8 is given as a sign about a larger prediction of the fall of a couple of nations. Also this story highlights that it is perfectly okay for a real prophet to play a significant role in bringing about what he has prophecied.

I also don't want to limit signs of divinity to just prediction. Though one could reasonably extend the idea to view all real miracles as just unpredictable natural events that both just naturally occur and are in some sense predicted.

I propose it no less a real option than the prediction itself. By definition, if an "unpredictable" event is actually predicted (not fitting option 3 or option 2), it is not unpredictable.


Again, I propose it no less a real option than the prediction itself, though "chance" may not have been the most accurate word to choose.


At least we have one we can agree on, confirming my point. Such a prediction gets us nowhere, as there will be an alternate and equally plausible explanation for the prediction.


Again, for any "sign of divinity" you find, there will be an alternate, equally plausible explanation. We are back to there being no way to "prove" the existence of a God.


This does nothing to help your argument.

.... apparently decided to punish Adam, and Eve, and their children, and their children's children (who could only come from their own siblings.. eww) and on and on into modern time. In essence, the sin of two people is recorded in a book as having punished every single person who has ever walked the earth after them.

Love, mercy, grace.

blahblah mistranslated blah.

Whatever. What I don't get is why you aren't telling young earth creationists all of this. I don't get why LOTS of Christians, who apparently see the creation concept a little differently than people who may be in the same church as them, don't say anything. It's bad enough when you have atheists to deal with.. at least they don't claim to be like you, while saying the earth is under 10,000 years old and fossil records were planted by Satan. If you have a shred of decency and care about how people see your religion, you will HELP these people. They gnaw at you from inside.


So what you're saying is that if you read one word of the Bible at all, you have to read large swaths of it. Little bits, like the little bits it's WRITTEN in, don't work. Gotcha. It's written.. wrong.


I have no questions about ancient storybooks. I only have questions for the people who hold on to these keepsakes like they had some value beyond the paper they are printed on.

"Can't answer.. blow it off!"




That's totally wrong. First off, gravity is an observable thing. We don't have to trust someone else's word, or the word of a book, that if I drop a pencil, it falls to the ground. Religion is not an observable thing. In fact, the only thing carrying religion is words.

As for Dawkins' knowledge of religion, he did attend a church when he was a child, and he does know quite a bit about the religion they attempted to raise him by.


Heck, we learned the Christianity was a control tool in high school. But since nobody seems to have told you...
http://www.roman-empire.net/religion/religion.html

Churches were infecting government even back then.

Your definition of "unpredictable" is beginning to concern me, especially with your implication of Isaiah 7-8 as a possible candidate.

You first have to prove that you found "knowledge of the unpredictable". Accomplishing this is the same as proving that there is a God in the first place. You have gotten nowhere.

So you don't see human conception as unpredictable?

Or are you unhappy with the difficulty in establishing the historicity of the events of Isaiah 7-8?

Very interesting reading. Yet another study which vindicates what I wrote in posts #25 & 28:

See option 3.

Post-theism

Of course we know that bofors strongly believes that 9/11 has nothing to do with religion.
He is by no means alone:

http://www.911sharethetruth.com/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-40...inside-job.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/septe...06insidejob.htm

http://mindprod.com/politics/bush911insidejob.html

http://www.wanttoknow.info/050908insidejob911

And so on...

Right, I'm aware of that. The reason I posted the image was to help illustrate some of the problems caused by religion (extreme fundamentalism at least) in today's society. The image fits nicely with the post theism paragraph.

I've really missed this thread and was hoping that could jump start it

To be perfectly honest I can do without the extreme arrogance of one person in this thread (you can very easily imagine who I am talking about).

My problem with post-theism is that it implies belief in God is what instilled morality. In addition to the countless atrocities committed in the name of god, highlighted by your captioned image, there are other arguments to the contrary.

I will answer the OP - I did try to read all the posts but that was just too big an undertaking

Assuming as you say Jesus did exist - I think he did but was just another of the many leaders back then it was a rather fertile time to come up with religions - and assuing these were his teachings I think some of them are vague some good some I disagree with.

Adultery and anger sounds rather unrealistic to me. I know this woman an ex-colleague who is married and I couldn;t help but wonder if she hadn't been taken already she would have been "perfect" for me. What's wrong with that? It's a fact: I like her but she is unavailable. This "the thought itself is sin" implies that everyone is a sinner. Which I guess is what is intended right? If you can make people feel guilty all the time they will keep coming to you for more unrealistic "remedies".

Golden Rule I want to have person X to do me so I will do him/her Yeah this rule I like.

Charity I agree that charity is often used to drum up publicity but then again these people in turn inspire others to give. I think when Bill Gates and Warren Buffet give away significant amounts they set a standard for other rich folks to follow. So giving publicly isn't without it's good points.

Prayer I am kind of skeptical about this one. Prayers seem to be answered with such randomness.

Tree- fruit analogy good fruit and bad fruit are subjective judgements. Trees are neither good or bad they just exist. They all have their environmental usefulness. The point made is good it's the analogy that's flawed.

Oaths I f***in' disagree. Swearing is good.

"anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish..." That actually sounds arrogant. What about teachings of other religions for example?

All my opinion and I don't go launch into sermons from mountains to spread them.
So no even if they ARE the word of god I don't think all of them apply all the time.

Yikes what a long post I've written.

As an agnostic, I appreciate the civility of this thread. An unlocked and long-standing debate on religion in a hobbyist forum is a very rare thing.

That said, I'm slightly dismayed at the level of strained reasoning on both sides. On the atheists' side, we see frayed nerves, sarcasm and impatience (which I can understand somewhat, given the likelihood of religious harassment and the cultural phenomenon of right-wing fundamentalism); on the Christian side, ad populum and argument by authority (of which atheists, too, are guilty, though, historically, with rather less impact).

If I were to attend a debate that included an atheist, a Christian and an agnostic, I would tend to side with the agnostic due to the *abstract* principle of lack of bias: theoretically, the agnostic has concluded nothing save that s/he needs more evidence before coming to any conclusion. That said, it is quite possible that either the Christian or the atheist would win the debate based on each individual's level of skill, talent, preparation and education. It is not a given that the agnostic would be free of bias, better educated, or more equipped to make a persuasive case. Theologians can prove to be awesome rhetoricians; as a person with a degree from a Jesuit college, I speak from personal experience.

The OP has demonstrated a commendable level of restraint, and a refreshing willingness to apply a Nietzschean bull**** detecter to various warhorse arguments that have been used to justify mistakes made in the name of Christianity by the opportunistic and the myopic.

Even so, certain problems have arisen in the course of this discussion which have been created to some extent by the OP. This is not an indictment, however, as the same issues have occurred during some of the most important religious debates of the past two centuries.

The OP begins by asking us to assume (rhetorically) that Christ was both real and accurately represented in the New Testament. My problems with said assumption include these:

(1) By asking us to accept as true the life of Christ as depicted in the Bible, the OP also asks us to believe, "for conversation's sake," in the truth of the Resurrection. Thus, he not only asks us to discuss Christ's life and teachings, but also, if we take the topic sentence literally, discourages us from entering the discussion unless we are willing to concede (rhetorically) that Christ is God. The tone of the thread aspires to deductive reasoning, but its purpose is undermined by the OP's insistence that we accept what amounts to fine-print Christianity.

(2) Later on, the OP asserts Christ's teachings are "true," but does not specify what kind of truth he means. The term needs to be defined specifically before we can make an assessment of Christ's teachings, let alone, answer a boolean multi-choice question as to whether he was "a lunatic, a liar or correct [i.e., God Himself]." Are his teachings true literally, metaphorically, allegorically, emotionally or all of the above? If, as some insist, Christ's words must all prove literally true, then he is clearly a madman, as he has advocated that people hack off their limbs and put out their own eyes. If his words are metaphorically true, then he is, at worst, colorful but correct.

By the way: Everyone has left off a fourth choice: That Christ might have spoken as a human prophet and/or martyr. It is not fair to routinely dismiss the words of martyrs and visionaries as insane; the words, "I am God" might easily be construed to mean, *God speaks through me*, or, *I am God's vessel*. Christ would not have been the first or last prophet to speak *as* God. (By the way, OP: Your likely devastating argument against this hoary interpretation will be better served if you refrain from dismissing me as de facto "incorrect," "misinformed" or "mistaken" and simply argue against my position armed with the scholarship and deductive reasoning at which you excel. I say this not to discredit you, but to ask you to remove one blunted arrow from your otherwise deadly quiver.)

(3) Certain (but not all) self-described atheists on this thread have allowed religious pressure and religion-justified sociopolitical repression to make them touchy and intolerant. They sometimes seek catharsis in castigation, and would consign to the hell of imbecility the very people they accuse of doing the same to others. This misplaced rage is then turned against the OP, who, in my judgment, has done little to deserve it.

(4) Through the course of the discussion, the OP's otherwise careful arguments place unsettling emphasis on the idea that the Bible is a priori true and correct. This despite his interesting observation that the Bible is more like Rashomon than the contradiction-free work of a single-minded author; that the NT's veracity lies in the variety of its points of view.

Both C.S. Lewis and Cardinal Newman are lively and persuasive advocates of Christianity, and Newman's debates with Thomas Henry Huxley ought to be studied by every high school student. Even so, Newman and Lewis begin with leaps of faith before fashioning their elaborate chains of logic: without the initial leap, all logic is lost. It seems to me that the OP's argument is unsatisfying for the same reason as Newman's: the unprovability of certain initial premises.

Then, too, the quality of the argument goes from thoughtful to ad hominem when certain hated adversaries lumber into view. On those occasions, the OP's measured assessment of flaws in an adversary's reasoning is abandoned, and he makes dismissive statements about writers like Dawkins that remind one of Rush Limbaugh's rants against Obama's supposed evil or hypocrisy: "(eye-roll emoticon) *everyone* knows Dawkins is a fraud," etc. The best way to discredit an adversary is to stay on point, not besmirch their character or general competence like any political hack. "It is rating one's conjectures at a very high price indeed to roast a man alive on the strength of them." -- Montaigne

Just so, Lewis's frothy reaction to those of us (like me) who maintain that, at the very least, Christ was an inspiring human being, is hyperbolic and overly generalized. I can't speak to C.S.L.'s motives in stating it that way (despite having read and enjoyed Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, Allegory of Love, The Screwtape Letters and the Perelandra Trilogy), but perhaps he was annoyed by various insipid faux-religious conversations he'd endured, just as a physicist might bristle at the phrase, "it's all relative."

I think it would have been more honest of Lewis to say this: People who extol the virtues of Christ the man know nothing of the sacrifice of Christ the God. To which I would answer: The statements of nonbelievers are not contemptible merely because they factor out the tenets of your belief system. A relativist's argument does not necessarily evidence any failure to show intelligence or honor moral commitment. After all, they have not had your particular religious experiences or made any commitment to the Christian God, in whom they are reluctant to believe.

(Early on, James Joyce chose not to become a Jesuit priest. He did this not because, as a rather stagy T.S. Eliot claims, "unlike Hardy, he knew what master he was serving [i.e., the devil]," but because he could not accept certain religious ideas and had to be true to his own conscience. One does not have to be Christian to be ethically fastidious.)

C.S. Lewis might have a valid point about the Christ-as-man argument occasionally serving as an excuse for thoughtlessness, but in order not to be guilty of the same fault, he ought to offer a response that is less grandiose and more specific. Mere Christianity is excellent in many places, but in my view, it ought to have been written like Graves's and Hodges's The Reader over Your Shoulder. Lewis ought to have been content to dissect the suppositions of impatient thinkers with every critical tool at his disposal.

BTW: Viewing the historical Christ as a great man rather than God Himself often allows individuals to listen to his teachings with an open mind, and without feeling pressured to agree. That allows many nonbelievers to absorb and consider words they might not have tolerated otherwise. Perhaps Lewis wasn't thinking carefully enough about the stages of conversion when he railed against the skeptic's admiration of Christ the man. I wonder what he thought about Maugham's The Razor's Edge, which included a version of the following passage (which, sadly, I must paraphrase inexactly from memory): "The protagonist is a deeply religious person who happens not to believe in God. This is not a tragedy, because God will seek him out. When that will happen, only God can tell."

In my view, the greatest film ever made about Christ was The Gospel of St. Matthew, by Pier Paolo Pasolini. I say this despite the director's personal history as an atheist and Marxist (great art is nearly always more perfectly developed than the personality of the artist). In the film, Christ's words, which have been repeated and paraphrased elsewhere by hypocrites ad nauseum, and translated and quoted opportunistically by twentieth century mercenaries (I'm referring to recent sectarians who have brought out translations and commentaries tweaked to represent their own spin, just as a guitarist might have his instrument customized for a specific kind of music), were stripped down to reveal their perennial freshness. Christ the historical figure was shown to have been astonishingly inspired (divinely or otherwise) in his confrontations with hypocrisy, inhumanity, avoidance and avarice.

Isn't that part of the message, OP, that you'd like us to take away?

You kind of address this twice. Here, and the Lewis/Newman paragraph.