Religon

Whew! Closing arguments! I hope you'll forgive my aggressive approach to closing arguments, it's just how I roll. If I sound mad, I don't mean to! "Honestly there is so much ignorance in your statements that it is clear you are unable to see any of my points." It's a little late in the game for this. But normally, I would entreat you to enlighten me of the information I am ignorant of! However, since this claim was not supported with references to anything I actually said that would indicate ignorance, I do not believe it is justifiable. "The reason why I am no longer a christian is because I took a step back, and questioned religon." Others, too, have questioned religion and arrived at a very different answer. The important thing is whose answer is correct! "Religon by very definition is ignorance to all other forms of theories to how the world came to be." The Merriam Webster definition (simplified) is, ":the belief in a god or in a group of gods :an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods :an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group" Nowhere in the definition is there anything about ignorance of other religions, so this statement does not appear to be substantiated. "If Jesus truly was the answer don't you think that people would either stay, or flock towards christianity if they had complete freedom to choose? But they don't." The question here is, if people had the choice to believe something that is true, wouldn't they believe it? No. They may have been socialized to believe differently, they may not have researched enough to know that it is true, they may not actually care whether it is true...there are MANY prevalent reasons why one believes falsehood. In American history, there was a time when people had about the same freedom as they do today, yet a large portion of the population believed the "right" to own slaves was a civil right, while another large portion believed owning slaves was not a civil right. Just because something is true, does not mean many people will choose to believe it or will know it's true. "die hard christians (like You) have to defend so rigorously a book (that clearly has so many flaws) with ignorance, and unwillingness to see the flaws in the bible as your only defense". This only appears to be true from the perspective of one that believes that such blatant flaws exist, so obviously I don't think this is a true statement. "You literally just dismissed all of the islamic predictions as false." Actually I did not. I demonstrated (or meant to) that man could have easily come up with those predictions, unlike many Biblical verses such as the three verses I provided that weren't really contested. My oppoenet raddled off a bunch of last minute arguments, so here's some brief answers, "What about the problem of evil?" And what is the problem? "what about how there is little record of Jesus ever even existing?" We have a MINIUMUM of five independent records of this, whereas to my knowledge many historical events are recorded by 1-2 sources. (Tacitus, conquest of Britannia, for one.) "What about how there is no way to prove even if God exists?" This has to be a longer discussion. But basically, if matter were eternal and linear progressing (which it is), then our past would be infinite and we would be at the end of eternity. It is impossible to be at the end of eternity, so mater cannot be eternal. At a very basic level, this demonstrates a creator of some kind. Secondly, with our advanced cognitive complexity, and through thousands of years of intentionality, humans have been able to produce machines even vaguely as advanced in the ones found in nature only in the past few years. As such, the machines found in nature likely came from something of greater cognitive complexity. Thirdly, building on Descartes' work, if humans can know truth, the source of truth must be both external, conscious, and able to interact. Fourthly, the future was correctly predicted, including details that were unlikely to have been known by man, by a source that claimed to be "God". This really is a longer conversation, but this isn't a "problem" with the Bible. "What about how religon varies by region?" Scientific and social theories very by region, that does not mean they are all wrong. "What about how there are a multitude of inconsistencies in the bible?" This requires examples. I am unaware of any. "What about the fact that the christian god kills and lies?" Killing is not necessarily wrong, and I'm not sure what is being referenced to claim God lies. "What about how the Bible says to kill homosexuals?" Again, I would like the verse on that. It is unclear what the objection is to this, (if it did say it, which I am a little skeptical of) but I assume it is that many people would feel morally opposed to it, in which case it is treating the subjective morals of some people as an objective indicator of right and wrong, which is an unsound argument. We must also remember that in the Bible, homosexuality almost always refers to men who lay with men, not people who just prefer other men. The Bible takes the clear position that it isn't wrong to be tempted, and I don't think it would consider such people homosexuals. (I encourage the reader to look at the Hebrew for those verses, it makes more sense.) "What about the fact that JESUS HIMSELF believed in the literal interpretation of the bible?" Which verse is that? More literal than some people, certainly! And why is that wrong? "What about how the bible indirectly says that the earth is only 6000 years old?" What verse is that? I have not come across any verse that indirectly gives the age of the earth, though one might be able to calculate the age of life on earth. And again, if it did say that, why is it wrong? "What about the fact that the bible says the earth was created as it looks today?" What verse is that, and why is this wrong? It does seem to say that all the animals were created in a week, but that doesn't necessarily mean they looked the same. This requires more elaboration. In conclussion, a few things. My opponent's original position was that, " "I believe that there is no logical argument that you can make to justify truly believing in any specific religion." But latter said, "Maybe I should rephrase, perhaps there is a "logical" argument, but again they can be substituted with other religious figures. By definition, yes they are "logical" because the premises support the conclusion, but the premises are simply false." In regard to the three verses I provided, my opponent agreed, " Sure you may be able to show that the Bible has predicted three things.." These three things (Alexander's bridge, Jewish people come from the land of the North to remake Israel, King named Cyrus rebuilds Jerusalem) could not have been known to man. My claim that these details could not have been known to man went unchallenged. If we agree that the predictions are correct, and it was not challenged that these things could not have been known to man, isn't it most logical that the prophecies came from the source that they were recorded as coming from, God? My analysis of the Islamic prophecies were not challenged or argued against. Finally, my analysis of the prophecies that were initially used to argue the Bible of flaws were not challenged or argued against. Thanks! It was fun debating this with you!