Christianity Concluded

I'm very impressed with the way my opponent tries to use ever more ridiculous structure to confuse people. Barely any of his quotes of me are matched up to the correct argument, so I rather suspect he's confused too. Let's keep this simple. This debate should be decided on three questions, which I have extrapolated logically from round one. 1. Did Jesus fulfill the Jewish prophecies? 2. Is Christianity original? 3. Is belief in Christianity legitimate? Under the first question, my opponent slowly began to point out some prophecies he thought might not have been fulfilled in Jesus. I answered them all. My opponent failed to respond to any of my answers. I gave clear examples of prophecies Jesus did fulfill, and after some initial rebuttal, my opponent dropped this part of his case also. By this round, my opponent has only two arguments of the more than a dozen he has begun in this debate left to salvage. The first is Isa. 2:1-3 and Psalm 69 disproving me. That's a downright lie and I've proved it already. I'm rather upset that my opponent has paid so little attention to my rebuttals and will thus not grace him with a response for a second time. The other argument is a brand new one, saved for the final round. My opponent claims Zechariah 13:3 disproves me. That refers to when the Lord opens up the fountain of Jerusalem. Not when the messiah comes. This is telling because this passage is FAMOUS for not being about the messiah's coming (http://www.iclnet.org...). So really my opponent has nothing left at the end of this debate, and given that my opponent did not engage with my rebuttals which answered his points, I'd say I won them. Therefore this point falls to me. Under my second question, my opponent has presented a somewhat more comprehensive claim. I have in fact discredited almost all of them, meaning I've only had to list differences once. Again this is a downright lie of my opponent, does he not remember how I destroyed his false Krishna myth for instance? It is as though my opponent is claiming a Boeing 747 is a copy of the Wright Flier, because they have the same general shape and both fly. In fact, my opponent has only been able to list ONE SINGLE true similarity. To compensate for this I have shown that there are more differences than similarities, a point my opponent now seems to agree on. I think somebody got out-listed! (; This is, however, complicated by a previously mentioned but only now substantiated claim of my opponent that the scriptures were doctored by Romans. He then links to sources that confirm my earlier assertion that in fact, the Romans wanted to have nothing to do with the Christians and killed them. This is hardly a good way of convincing a religion to change their holy text. The slowness in codification of the NT is more due to the fact the later books had only been written a decade or so beforehand, which is an un-surprising time scale. My opponent also claims (and this is a bit of a red herring, but anyway) that Hinduism was the first monotheistic religion. He then cites a source that says Hinduism admits the existence of many divine beings. If it were monotheistic it would be Sikhism, not Hinduism. So my opponent cannot have read his own source and be telling the truth! Other supposed similarities brought up in the last round include Greek religion having "saviors" (being called "the savior" and actually saving someone are very different things), Moses being an Egyptian citizen (you don't mean oppressed slave, do you?), and temple walls. I so happen to be on very good terms with the University of Auckland's Egyptology department, my best friend has an MA in Egyptology. He has translated thousands of temple walls. He, and all the Egyptology staff I have ever spoken to about Egyptian myth, confirm that the story of Horus and Osiris is just as I have relayed it. It is one of the earliest Egyptian myths and had little legendary development. Any video can purport to be a documentary - read the originals yourself! Check up on these supposed facts! You can't even name the temple, yet alone the wall! Why should anyone thus believe you!? While it is true that the Book of the Dead is not a complete Bible as such, it is the spell-book which contains this particular myth. So despite a very vain last-ditch attempt to salvage his case, my opponent has brought forward no good reason to believe Christianity is not original. Thus, logically and rationally, Christianity must be original. Under my third question, a belief is legitimate if there is some reason to believe in it. My opponent said in the last round that God is a possibility. Great! He concedes this question. Given that's the only analysis he offers, this is the only analysis I will offer too. Why did I accept this debate? Because I am not closed-minded enough to refuse to accept the possibility that the Christians might be right. Therefore one must not pass one's subjective value-judgment on others conclusions (remember, I justified this: two subjective views don't make an objective one). It's also because Christianity is an original (in my Nietzschean tradition, I would say more dangerous) religion. I think far too many videos and books focus on the similarities, listing perhaps half a dozen, without listing the millions of differences. While I have not had the oppertunity to list many of these in this debate, I encourage voters to do their own research and come to rational conclusions to check that what I say is true. Finally I'm doing it because I think the bible is a coherently enough written story-book to actually have the messiah fulfil the prophecies it mentions. My opponent has not been able to come back to any of my beliefs, as my analysis above shows. Thanks to my opponent, it was an enjoyable debate, and please vote pro! Amen. P.S. Amen doesn't mean "I'm a Christian apologist," it means "May it be so." It's a traditional Hebrew way to close something spoken in truth, such as a debate, meeting or prayer. Please don't call me a Christian apologist ever again. I'd rather be an apologetic for any other religion. This debate had nothing to do with apologetics.