10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer

Johnny Sitar wrote:

one thing that may or may not have been touched upon, is that faith seems to be ruled specifically by geography. What does that tell us? that only the christian god speaks to people in the US and Europe? Why is that? Why hasn't he "shown himself" to those in the mid-east? are they all doomed to hell?

I can't remember exactly who said it, but one believer said that we non-believers are taking a gamble with our eternal destiny of our soul by not believing. why is it so unfathomable that you are actually gambling with your soul by not following the buddhist god, or the native american gods, and so on and so forth?

you became a christian because of how you were brought up and/or the most popular god in your geographical location. nothing more. if you were born in the mid-east you would have become or been brought up a muslim; had you been born in china it's highly likely you would have been a buddhist, etc. this is one major factor of why I doubt the teachings of any religion, as they are divided by something man invented himself: borders.

good points, to be sure. the fact of the matter is that the christian faith is growing more rapidly in africa than anywhere else on the planet. or at least as rapidly. so it's not JUST north america and europe.

but your point is still valid. one's geographic location and upbringing does hugely affect what one believes. i acknowledge this. that is a main part of the reason you'll never see me say that gandhi, for example, is gonna burn in hell. there is at least some room for interpretation in the christian faith about what it really means to follow god.

and while you may doubt the validity or ultimate truth of any religion, i doubt you really doubt all of the actual teachings of all religions. even if you think they're all founded on bullshit, don't some of them still have some good things to say? judge not lest ye be judged. didn't you quote that above - or maybe it was someone else. the hindu/buddhist conception of karma, a sort of getting what you give. i bet you think that's a decent idea - i do.

dpmay wrote:

Johnny Sitar wrote:

one thing that may or may not have been touched upon, is that faith seems to be ruled specifically by geography. What does that tell us? that only the christian god speaks to people in the US and Europe? Why is that? Why hasn't he "shown himself" to those in the mid-east? are they all doomed to hell?

I can't remember exactly who said it, but one believer said that we non-believers are taking a gamble with our eternal destiny of our soul by not believing. why is it so unfathomable that you are actually gambling with your soul by not following the buddhist god, or the native american gods, and so on and so forth?

you became a christian because of how you were brought up and/or the most popular god in your geographical location. nothing more. if you were born in the mid-east you would have become or been brought up a muslim; had you been born in china it's highly likely you would have been a buddhist, etc. this is one major factor of why I doubt the teachings of any religion, as they are divided by something man invented himself: borders.

good points, to be sure. the fact of the matter is that the christian faith is growing more rapidly in africa than anywhere else on the planet. or at least as rapidly. so it's not JUST north america and europe.

but your point is still valid. one's geographic location and upbringing does hugely affect what one believes. i acknowledge this. that is a main part of the reason you'll never see me say that gandhi, for example, is gonna burn in hell. there is at least some room for interpretation in the christian faith about what it really means to follow god.

and while you may doubt the validity or ultimate truth of any religion, i doubt you really doubt all of the actual teachings of all religions. even if you think they're all founded on bullshit, don't some of them still have some good things to say? judge not lest ye be judged. didn't you quote that above - or maybe it was someone else. the hindu/buddhist conception of karma, a sort of getting what you give. i bet you think that's a decent idea - i do.

ok, saying "doubt the teachings of any religion" was a poor way to state it. I do believe that the fundamental core values of many religions are the basis for morality, human laws, etc, so of course those are valuable. But I don't think those came from any god, I think those came from man and he wrote them down as the words of their god as a way to control the people; keep the peace, if you will.

Gern Blansten wrote:

dpmay wrote:

so i promise i'm not trying to trick you into admitting anything, or coming around to see it my way, or anything like that. what am i doing? i dunno - i like conversations like this just for the sake of them. maybe it's just mental masturbation, haha, but here we are...

i am just offering my belief that all humans have inherent value (all life, too, really) and that, by my observation, almost everyone lives as if they believe that is true. i personally believe that value comes from the fact that life was created by what i call god. i am curious (not judgementally so) to hear where non-god-believers say this value comes from. or, maybe, to refute that human life does have inherent value.

so i guess pretty much exactly what we're doing...

I believe that we began from primordial soup and evolved to homo sapiens. We are animals just like any other but what sets us apart is our brain.

I have studied astronomy/anthropology/philosophy/religion, etc. in order to determine if my upbringing as a Methodist had any merit....I determined that it did not.

I do not believe in anything supernatural....I have always said that if someone can show me a ghost I will probably completely change my religious beliefs because that would be proof that the supernatural exists.

I don't believe anyone that states they have seen a ghost any more than I believe someone who says they spoke to god or had any communication with god.

all of these are valid points, and defensable. i don't disagree that we are animals. this doesn't mean god cannot exist. i have been on record in this thread as believing that animal life does have value. can animals go to heaven? i don't know, maybe.

belief in the supernatural, yeah, that's what belief in god pretty much is. and i'm ok with that. i believe science, i trust in science, (hell i even think evolution is valid - heresy!) - i just think it has it's limits as a worldview.

Gern Blansten wrote:

My morals are probably higher than most religious people...

that may be true, and i don't say what follows as a personal insult, because i have enjoyed our conversation and respect you, but that sounds pretty arrogant. wasn't that one of your main problems with god-believers?

Gern Blansten wrote:

exactly....it's examples like this that should make any believer stop and think

that did it for me....

Some of my first questions actually related to "why do we go to church"....or..."Why does god require that we go to church".....then I discovered that we were all going to hell because we went to church on sunday rather than saturday and that we should all stone our minister to death because he was working on sunday

questions like that (like all of these) definitely do make me think. and i think it's really too bad that some (or most or all, whatev) churches put so much emphasis on things like when you go to church, or even if you do, that they can seem to lose sight of what being christian really is. to me, it's not about any specific dogma.

Gern Blansten wrote:

but in order to say that Gandhi won't burn in hell you are really abandoning the teachings of the bible.

that is probably another area that made me question Christianity....it has been changed to suit the masses...true christianity means that you are standing on a street corner telling us all that we are going to hell...and you would be right

those people are nuts but at least they follow what they believe to the "T"

OK, fair point. i am going to have to get back to you on this one becasue the specific writing of what some christians believe about this are at my house, and i am at work (which reminds me i need to stop this nonsense and do some work - i am defending my dissertation in less than two weeks!). but i am certain that there is room for various biblical interpretations inside of christianity.

Dpmay, I am directing this to you if you don't mind.

I understand your specific point that god is possible...why does Christianity get the nod over every other religion?

markin ball wrote:

Dpmay, I am directing this to you if you don't mind.

I understand your specific point that god is possible...why does Christianity get the nod over every other religion?

OK, thank you for asking that. i will answer openly and honestly, and if anyone wants to challenge, doubt, mock or laugh, that's fine. i do not claim that any of what follows should be obvious to everyone, is undoubtedly true, or must in any way be accepted. it's just what i personally believe.

i am a christian, and of course i would be foolish and ignorant not to admit that part of that is because i was born where and when i was, and that my parents are christian. but is that really so bad? the dalai lama, addressing westerners who would consider becomming buddhist, suggests that a faith tradition more relevent to one's own cultural traditions would be more meaningful. as such, (and remember, we are not arguing about whether god is real or not -but rather why i choose to follow a christian conception of god) a christian perspective of god works well for me, in the context of my larger cultural and familial milieus.

but that is not all of it. i have a line of reasoning which leads me to a christian conception of god. (and remember, this is just my own personal faith - not a declaration of absolute truth.) i believe a creator god exists. as such, i believe it stands to reason that a relationship between the creator (god) and the creation (me) is something that we would both want. but how am i to, shall we say, achieve this relationship? well, its pretty obvious (to me) that i can't do this on this earth, the way i am now. part of that inability is my own extremely limited ability at understanding, being stuck in this time and space - and another of it is how fucked up the world is, and, frankly, how inadequate i am compared to a creator god. people, myself included, have kind of taken the free will that i believe god gave them (and me) and really made things, well, bad. mostly. so, in order for me to establish a meaningful relationship with the creator god i believe in, i need some kind of connection, a bridge or go-between. and that's pretty much exactly what christians believe jesus is. a connection to achieve a relationship with a creator god that bridges the gap between the highly uncomprehensible nature of god and my own somewhat deficient self. all the christian (i) need do is acknowledge the need for the bridge of jesus.

that's about it. really pretty traditional. to me, pretty much everything else is an academic detail that, while fun to argue about, is not really relevent from a christian point of view.

so, take what you will out of that. it's really just my own personal faith rationale.

(and thanks for asking, again. i think it is good to have to actually write down what you believe and why. at least i think it helped me.)

Gern Blansten wrote:

dpmay wrote:

markin ball wrote:

Dpmay, I am directing this to you if you don't mind.

I understand your specific point that god is possible...why does Christianity get the nod over every other religion?

OK, thank you for asking that. i will answer openly and honestly, and if anyone wants to challenge, doubt, mock or laugh, that's fine. i do not claim that any of what follows should be obvious to everyone, is undoubtedly true, or must in any way be accepted. it's just what i personally believe.

i am a christian, and of course i would be foolish and ignorant not to admit that part of that is because i was born where and when i was, and that my parents are christian. but is that really so bad? the dalai lama, addressing westerners who would consider becomming buddhist, suggests that a faith tradition more relevent to one's own cultural traditions would be more meaningful. as such, (and remember, we are not arguing about whether god is real or not -but rather why i choose to follow a christian conception of god) a christian perspective of god works well for me, in the context of my larger cultural and familial milieus.

but that is not all of it. i have a line of reasoning which leads me to a christian conception of god. (and remember, this is just my own personal faith - not a declaration of absolute truth.) i believe a creator god exists. as such, i believe it stands to reason that a relationship between the creator (god) and the creation (me) is something that we would both want. but how am i to, shall we say, achieve this relationship? well, its pretty obvious (to me) that i can't do this on this earth, the way i am now. part of that inability is my own extremely limited ability at understanding, being stuck in this time and space - and another of it is how fucked up the world is, and, frankly, how inadequate i am compared to a creator god. people, myself included, have kind of taken the free will that i believe god gave them (and me) and really made things, well, bad. mostly. so, in order for me to establish a meaningful relationship with the creator god i believe in, i need some kind of connection, a bridge or go-between. and that's pretty much exactly what christians believe jesus is. a connection to achieve a relationship with a creator god that bridges the gap between the highly uncomprehensible nature of god and my own somewhat deficient self. all the christian (i) need do is acknowledge the need for the bridge of jesus.

that's about it. really pretty traditional. to me, pretty much everything else is an academic detail that, while fun to argue about, is not really relevent from a christian point of view.

so, take what you will out of that. it's really just my own personal faith rationale.

(and thanks for asking, again. i think it is good to have to actually write down what you believe and why. at least i think it helped me.)

But does it bother you that the story of Jesus appears to be adapted from other religions? Have you ever read about Mithra and Vishnu? The similarities are striking. And remember....they used to claim that Caesar was born of a virgin so that was a very prevalent thread at the time.

My journey to non-belief was a chipping away process....chipping away at jesus was probably my last piece

One thing that amazed me was discovery the number of writers that existed at that time....they would keep diaries about their day to day lives...what they ate, what they did in their daily lives, etc....the question would be why weren't these people writing about this Jesus guy who was in the area performing all these miracles?

why did it take decades for the gospels to begin being written? why weren't they madly jotting down all these stories and spreading them around the region?

that was big for me

not that I need further convincing, but wow, I didn't know the stuff you just mentioned. I'm going to have to do some more reading. If this thread has done anything, it's re-ignited my interest in the subject.