Christianity is Dumb

Contrary to your assertion, Pro, I have questioned my beliefs as staunchly as I question yours. That is why I hold them. If I was afraid that critical examination of my beliefs would cause them to vanish in a puff of logic, I wouldn't have accepted your challenge. My rebuttals are as follows:Whence Came God?Pro states: "This assumption that there must be a clear beginning to something as complex as the universe is fallacious." Actually, it's scientific. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem states that the universe must have a beginning in the finite past. While it's true that there are additional theories that attempt to do away with a beginning for the universe, they have yet to progress father than hypotheticals. As it stands, the Big Bang is currently the best theory for the origin of the universe, and has been for a while now.Pro has also stated that what goes for God could just as easily go for the Big Bang singularity, and vice versa. This is a false equivalency. I stated that everything that exists in nature must have an origin, and I have not contradicted myself. What Pro appears to have misunderstood is that God, unlike the Big Bang singularity, is not part of nature. God is, by definition, and according to every religion, supernatural and is therefore not bound by the laws that bind natural things. This is not a game of semantics, either: whatever force causes space, time, and matter to exist, must, by necessity, be outside of space, time, and matter—characteristics attributed to God, and not the singularity, which itself was made of spacetime and matter.The Assumption That God is PossibleThis was a preface, not an argument. I employed this preface in hopes of avoiding a debate in which my opponent uses the nonexistence of God as a premise for their conclusions, therefore allowing them to ignore any evidence I present. However, as I will explain my next rebuttal, it appears I did not avoid this after all.The Bible Is Still Fairy TalesFirst of all, Pro states: "Remember, the main goal of the bible was to provide explanations of our reality and our purpose here." The bible at large does not have a “main goal.” It is a compilation of history, prophecy, law, poetry, and letters composed over the course of 1500 years by over 40 different authors. It contains everything from genealogies to covenant law to vassal treaties. It has common themes, but it does not have a “main goal.”Secondly, Pro states that “the fact that there is valid history in the Bible, does not in any way validate some the outrageous claims made in the novel.” If parts of the bible's historical accounts have been confirmed to be true and accurate, we must assume that the rest of them are also true and accurate unless our examinations provide evidence to the contrary. Pro seems to believe that we already have evidence to the contrary because it makes “outrageous claims.” As Pro has not provided examples of what they consider to be an outrageous claim, I can only assume they mean the miraculous. I have already addressed this objection in my previous argument, but I will rephrase it in planer terms: Every single miracle in the bible is attributed to the power of God. The only way for these miracles to be impossible or even unlikely is if there is no God. If there is no God, the bible is already false. If the bible is false, why are we having a conversation about whether its miracles are true? Therefore rejecting the the bible solely because it contains miracles requires the nonexistence of God to be a factor. The nonexistence of God has not been proven or agreed upon in this debate, so Pro's argument is moot. This is the equivalent of someone stating (to continue with the example) that King Arthur was not real, and upon being shown a mention of King Arthur's existence in an otherwise reliable document, declaring that it must be a lie, misunderstanding, or hoax because King Arthur wasn't real. In short, invalidating your opponent's defense by your premises, rather than your conclusions. Miracles = Natural PhenomenonPro states: “the fairy [tales] come in to play when the people of the time were faced with an unexplainable natural phenomenon. This lead them to create [their] own explanations based on what made sense to them.” As I explained in my first argument, this does not apply very well to the bible, because the Christian God is not used to explain away everyday natural phenomena the way that other gods are.If Pro means to say that the specific, isolated events that the bible attributes to God must have just been natural phenomena as well, that is another matter, but it still doesn't hold water. It's one thing to explain an uncommon event like an eclipse by saying "the sun went dark in the daytime, so the sun goddess must be hiding in a cave.” It's something else entirely to posit that when Exodus describes the Red Sea splitting in half and tens of thousands of people walking across to the other side on the dry seabed that it's just “a natural phenomenon” that the pre-scientific Hebrews couldn't explain. This either happened or it didn't. It cannot rationally be dismissed as “a huge misunderstanding that must have a natural cause somewhere” without straying into the territory of special pleading or incredulity. If you cannot give a satisfactory explanation using natural terms, then you are left with two options: either the miraculous claims are false, or they are miracles (see above for my rebuttal of "miracles don't real").Number of Adherents =/= CredibilityPro cites Nazi Germany and American slavery as refutation. This is another false equivalency.It's one thing to believe something is moral. It's something else entirely to believe something is true. The Nazi belief that the Jews deserved to be exterminated is a moral claim, and not a truth claim (as in, its truth or falsehood is irrelevant). The Christian belief that Yahweh exists is a truth claim, and not a moral claim (as in, its morality is irrelevant). Truth claims can be proven or disproven. Moral claims are not that simple. My argument was not that any claim should be considered reasonable if enough people believe it; only claims of truth. I admit I should have been more specific on this point.I would also point out that when the ideologies of a nascent Christianity faced persecution from the majority, they got progressively stronger until they became the majority, whereas when the ideologies of Nazism and American slavery faced persecution from the majority, they were dismantled and remain so (radical fringe groups notwithstanding).King Arthur > GodThis argument has numerous problems, so I will address them one at a time.1. "Folklore is not a reliable source of history, just as the Bible is not a reliable source of truth.” We have already established that the bible contains reliable truth, and as Pro has not presented any other claim against the bible's validity that is not contingent on God's nonexistence, I do not believe that there is sufficient reason to dismiss the bible as unreliable.2. "Major historical figures, such as King Arthur, are observable, and therefore more credible, while paranormal phenomenon like the existence of god and the resurrection of Jesus simply are not."King Arthur was exactly as observable to the people of his time as the resurrected Christ, nail wounds and all, was to his—the bible does not imply otherwise (see John 20:24-29). The existence of God in general may not be, but most of the implications of his existence (like the miracles mentioned in the bible), would have been perfectly observable to the people witnessing them. As it stands, all we have as evidence for either case is the word of ancient peoples who wrote down what they experienced, and we need to take that for what it's worth. No more, no less.3. "many books and stories can be found, containing consistent information documenting King Arthur's reign... coming to the conclusion that an influential King existed based on countless documents, is far more reasonable than assuming something paranormal exists based on the claims made in a single book.” I completely agree. However, the bible is not a “single book.” As I stated above, it is a compilation of history, prophecy, law, poetry, and letters composed over 1500 years by over 40 different authors. Those 40 authors included kings, servants, farmers, criminals, priests, doctors, and soldiers, and they hailed from three different continents. The New Testament alone has 9 authors who were all writing within 100 years of the events they describe [1]. This isn't even touching on the secular records we have that confirm New Testament events. The fact that it has been conveniently condensed into a single volume and language does not mean the bible is a single source, or that is it somehow less diverse and compelling than comparable documents (for instance, anything we have on Arthur). Pro states "When you have multiple documents from all across a country documenting a story, consistent with one another, the puzzle begins to take form." The New Testament (and the bible as whole, for that matter) is exactly that, if not more so, and yet Pro still rejects it as a standard for truth.Additionally, if it is unreasonable to believe in the paranormal based on the claims of a single book, what about believing in the paranormal based on the claims of hundreds of books, thousands of documents, and billions of people over the course of human history? Belief in the paranormal is not unique to Christianity, or even to the religious. Disbelief in the paranormal, however, is downright unheard of by comparison.So I ask this: if there are no obstacles to the possibility of God, and if countless reasonable, intelligent people can be Christians without contradiction, and if there are historically reliable sources affirming its beliefs, how is Christianity an unreasonable thing to believe in?Source: [1] http://www.freebeginning.com...