Atheism vs. Christianity (Pro - Atheist, Con - Christian)

In this final round, I obviously need to address some large questions of Christian theology, on which, admittedly, Christians do not themselves entirely agree. Although I feel able to explain divergent Christian views, space demands that I focus on those views of which I personally am partisan and which are most relevant to my opponent"s claims. My opponent, "Pro-" characterized my claim of God offering people "free will" as "dramatically wild." If this is true, more than half of the world"s Christians are pretty wild people. On the contrary, theologically, free-will is the majority claim in the Christian world; my opponent appears to be drawing conclusions based on a couple of propositions to which the majority of Christians do not adhere, and even those that would agree in part with his conclusions would not agree with his overall argument. The concept of "election" by God is a concept primarily of Calvinist/Reformed churches; globally that is a somewhat small percentage of the world"s Christians, though a very influential group. Calvinists essentially believe that both the sovereignty of God and the complete fallen nature of man mean that God must choose us, because we are too wicked to freely choose him and because everything that happens must be a part of God"s divine plan. Calvinist-inspired churches are influential, and have actually been increasing somewhat in influence, particularly among the young, since the 1990s (see this long but thoughtful article from 2006 at http://www.christianitytoday.com...). A rival camp, from which my own tradition comes, are the Arminians - who believe in man"s ability to choose freely and God"s willingness to give us the choice, even though He does not have to. In point of fact there is, as noted below, scriptural support for both positions, depending on how certain verses are interpreted - and the debate over the interpretation of things like "elect" and "called" has been going on for about 2000 years. A somewhat middle position between the two also exists, and was probably best explained by C.S. Lewis: God is eternal and transcends time, so for God past, present, and future are basically simultaneous; for Lewis, like the vast majority of Christians, in fact, it makes no sense to divide ourselves over single verses here and there which are open to interpretation and about which we cannot be absolutely certain, and miss the larger and more important points on which we all agree (see below). As far as interpretation of scripture goes, my opponent contends that the Bible must be taken literally, and that Christians would have to say so. First, I disagree, and contend that the Bible is quite clearly more complex than that, and, second, even if I and other Christians would agree to that proposition we"d still ultimately disagree on "literal" meaning since people interpret words differently. For example, in relation to the first proposition above, one might look at Ephesians 1:11: "Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan." (NLT). Some Christians see in this proof of God"s foreordination of events and election of individuals; others see it as reflecting God"s ultimate plan for the universe and the salvation of mankind in general dependent on individual choice. A summary of just some of the possible interpretations of the passage can be found at http://biblehub.com.... Probably we will never know in this life which interpretation is correct - but even Christians who disagree about the meaning of the passage can and do agree on broader principles about God and salvation. Such contentious details aside, however, Christians simply do not interpret the Bible literally. Metaphor and imagery are used throughout scripture. For example, seeing Jesus, Jesus"s cousin John (the Baptist) called him "the Lamb of God." (John 1:36 NLT). Jesus clearly was not a sheep. In Matthew 5:13 Jesus tells his followers that they are "the salt of the earth." But the people were not salt. In one of the racier books of scripture, the narrator (presumed to be Solomon) tells the object of his love that "your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices" (Song of Solomon 4:13). If that is taken literally, I have no idea how the young woman could walk. Jesus tells his followers that they must be "born again" in John (3:3); he did not mean that literally. He also said in Matthew (5:30) "if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell" (NLT). He was speaking of the importance of turning one"s back on sin and resisting temptation - not actual self-maiming. Proverbs and Psalms are both full of imagery as well, and so is Revelation. To suggest that every verse of scripture was ever meant to be taken completely literally just doesn"t make sense, and even among the most fundamentalist and literal of Christians there would be no support for such an absolutist position. Christians have always understood the "blood" and "wine" to be metaphor, though sharp disagreements exist about whether or not the ceremony/sacrament of communion alters the physical properties of the elements in any way. I have no idea why Timothy 2:15 ("Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.") is cited by my opponent as a command to take scripture literally; the verse does not say anything like that. The key point in response to both of these arguments put forward is that there are certain core things on which Christians agree, and there are other areas on which there is disagreement. In a generalized debate I need to focus on those things that are most essential in Christian faith and also recognize that the divisions over specific points of theology are far less important than the key facets including (but not limited to): there is a holy, loving, and just God who created the world and man, who took on a mortal and human form in order to pay the penalty for people"s sins, and who will ultimately triumph over evil. As to the other points raised in reference to my responses to direct questions: The challenger says the Bible supports slavery, abuse, and racism. I disagree that it does so in the modern world. As noted in my first post, the Bible is, in some books and always on some level, a work of history as well as one with an eternal message. It was written with specific immediate purposes, as well as a larger purpose for all time. Slavery, patriarchy, and clannish tribalism were realities of the ancient world. They are not, or should not be today, and Christians have not argued that they should be for almost 150 years. The Old Testament has lots of references to slaves - they were a part of everyday society and slavery was also a part of the story of the Israelites. The books of the Law (including Deuteronomy and Leviticus) contain specific rules regarding slaves - rules for the ancient Israelites under the first covenant; Christians do not live or operate under those rules, which are addressed specifically to a place and time, although most Christians agree that moral principles of the Old Testament, as opposed to specific rules, apply across history. The New Testament was also written in an age when slavery was normal (and in all of these cases, it should be remembered, slavery was not racial or ethnic in character - that was a creation of the European colonial world of the 1600s-1700s). Writings about slavery in the New Testament are very different in character. Paul instructs slaves to "obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord" (Col 3:22, NLT); slaves are to show obedience and good service as a way of demonstrating good faith and a good example. Masters are addressed in Col 4:1 (NLT): "Masters, be just and fair to your slaves. Remember that you also have a Master"in heaven." In both cases, good service, kindness, and submission to the authority of God are the point. Again, my opponent seems too wedded to a highly and unrealistically literal and narrow view of the Bible, based either on his own beliefs or perceptions of what Christianity seems to be or on stereotypes and fragments of text ripped from all context. Personally I used to view the Bible a little bit of the same way, but the more I read of it, and the more I learned about it, the more sense it made and the more I came to see the many layers of what God"s word was saying and doing at various times in history. There is nothing in the Bible that would support slavery today. On prayer - clearly we still simply disagree, both in terms of what it (prayer) is and what it means, and probably whether or not the supposed examples of "answers" and "non-answers" are really what they are purported to be. "Pro-" expects that prayer should be understood as an immediate transaction of asking and getting, and that failure to get what is asked for or to see material improvement in condition indicates a lack of response, or cynical and malicious whimsy on the part of God. My position, already articulated, is that that does not describe what Christians understand of prayer. I don"t think I can add much to what I already explained, without launching into an extremely expansive theological discourse on that topic too. I would suggest reading C.S. Lewis"s Mere Christianity or works by Philip Yancey (Where is God When it Hurts, Disappointment with God), among others, for a much more full examination of prayer from a Christian point of view than I can summarize here. I'm out of space, so I must close!