christian counter-arguments?

[EndUnknown]

anyone have any reasonable counter arguments to the Christian claim?

[putis]

The christian claim being?

[EndUnknown]

1.God created the heavens and earth
2.we sinned
3.Jesus is Gods son
4.Jesus did miracles
5.He died for us
6. we are redeemed in Christ

in a nutshell

[dead jim]

Originally Posted by rock4christ

1.God created the heavens and earth
2.we sinned
3.Jesus is Gods son
4.Jesus did miracles
5.He died for us
6. we are redeemed in Christ

in a nutshell

well, until you explain how it is that you ground the claim, it is perfectly reasonable to respond "nuh-uh." i can claim anything i want. what reason do you have for making such a claim in the first place? until you can (reasonably) respond to that, there is no reason for anyone to take the time to bother with a detailed response. why should i believe these claims? provide that, and then people can respond. until then no response is necessary beyond a simple "you're wrong."

*note that i'm not claiming you're wrong. i'm trying to facilitate a genuine discussion.

[Zuneologist]

this could be an interesting discussion.

and please no one use wikipedia as a source.

[EndUnknown]

the purpose of the thread was more for hearing what the popular anti god thesis's are,(what does Richard Dawkins or others say?) but my reasons for beleiving are this(going pt by pt)
1.random chance seems far to unlikely, and where did the supposed ball of dust come from( I really am interested in knowing that one)
2.humans are lustful and greedy liars, of varying degrees
3.Jesus the teacher existed(there are secular documents from Josephus stating this) and was able to convince his disciples well enough to die for him(secular documents about their deaths)
4.Miracles would have been needed to make a case for being God. The bible says it happened(reason for believing the bible is the fact that, with the books in it having been written 10-50 yrs after Christ, some one would have made a compelling "thats not true" case)
5. If he just ran and hid then the argument would have been raised, like the "they stole the body" argument was(if needed i can go into why thats unlikely).
6.If the rest is true, especially 3, then this is too(I know lame reason but i cant think of anything right now)

[putis]

Originally Posted by Zuneologist

this could be an interesting discussion.

and please no one use wikipedia as a source.

Wikipedia isn't a bad source.

It shouldn't be someone's only source, but then again, no one should ever use just one source.

[dead jim]

Originally Posted by rock4christ

the purpose of the thread was more for hearing what the popular anti god thesis's are,(what does Richard Dawkins or others say?) but my reasons for beleiving are this(going pt by pt)
1.random chance seems far to unlikely, and where did the supposed ball of dust come from( I really am interested in knowing that one)
2.humans are lustful and greedy liars, of varying degrees
3.Jesus the teacher existed(there are secular documents from Josephus stating this) and was able to convince his disciples well enough to die for him(secular documents about their deaths)
4.Miracles would have been needed to make a case for being God. The bible says it happened(reason for believing the bible is the fact that, with the books in it having been written 10-50 yrs after Christ, some one would have made a compelling "thats not true" case)
5. If he just ran and hid then the argument would have been raised, like the "they stole the body" argument was(if needed i can go into why thats unlikely).
6.If the rest is true, especially 3, then this is too(I know lame reason but i cant think of anything right now)

1) no one knowledgeable makes the claim that everything is random. the universe is a decidedly non-random place. i'm unclear on the "supposed ball of dust" to which you're referring, but positing an Unknowable (like a god or magic) because there is an unknown (like the origin of the universe) never solves the problem, and it misses the point of explanation. "magic" in any form is never an adequate explanation.

2) so what? what animal isn't? why does that matter? i could strip away the pejorative language and say we're "resourceful and imaginative with an eye towards our continued survival."

3)as i said in the post on supposed tomb of jesus, lots of liberal theologians and secular historians believe that the various non-miraculous acts attributed to jesus christ were really performed by a number of "messiahs" running around at the time. which one counts as the real jesus? and what if some guy named jesus, son of joseph and mary who claimed to be the messiah did exist? how is that proof of God? people lie and say crazy things all the time.

4)lots of people have claimed that tons of things in the bible aren't true. more than that, relying on miracles that we can't witness begs the question. that is, the only reason i would believe that such miracles actually occurred is if i already believed the bible was the word of God, implying that i already believed in God. the reasoning is circular. it requires that you believe in God in order to demonstrate that God exists.

5)i don't know what happened. records from today are spotty, so records from a couple thousand years ago are likely to be spotty as well, and more so. and people have claimed that jesus lived on. as i understand it, that's exactly what the people in the "tomb of jesus" documentary claim. that claim not being in the bible is no proof against it at all.


you are never going to want to rely on historical evidence for your faith. that means your faith is subject to change any time new evidence is discovered. history is not Truth.

[EndUnknown]

the ball of dust i'm referring to is the big bang theory

[dead jim]

i guess i've never heard of the very early universe, the period directly preceding the planck epoch, referred to as a "ball of dust." that would be a gross mischaracterization.
however, it's irrelevant what the initial state of the universe actually was. we can say we have no idea, and it still doesn't warrant supposing that it must be magic.

[EndUnknown]

Originally Posted by dead jim

i guess i've never heard of the very early universe, the period directly preceding the planck epoch, referred to as a "ball of dust." that would be a gross mischaracterization.
however, it's irrelevant what the initial state of the universe actually was. we can say we have no idea, and it still doesn't warrant supposing that it must be magic.

my thought is that the big bang theory says that a tiny hot particle ball thing exploded. but where did it come from? was it infinitely there or did it pop out of nowhere or what?

[dead jim]

Originally Posted by rock4christ

my thought is that the big bang theory says that a tiny hot particle ball thing exploded. but where did it come from? was it infinitely there or did it pop out of nowhere or what?

there are several different ideas, and there are problems with each of them. the short answer is that we're not certain. but our not knowing the origin of the universe, even if we couldn't ever know it for some reason, wouldn't, by itself, open the door for any supernatural answer to the question. to provide a supernatural is just to say that it's magic. you might as well say leprechauns are responsible for the origin of the universe. it's just as much of an answer, which is to say it isn't much of one at all.

you need to have some independent reason for believing in some god's existence. again, positing an Unknowable for an unknown misses the point of providing an explanation. the explanation is supposed to make something that was previously not understood understandable. how does positing a supernatural solution do that?
let's say i asked "what was responsible for the origin of the universe?" and you responded, "God." then i asked, "what's responsible for God?" and you said, "nothing. He doesn't need an origin. He goes on forever." in what way do i have any better answer than when i started? if i accept that something doesn't need an origin, then i don't need to ask what the origin of the universe is. if i think that everything needs an origin, then i don't understand what you mean by saying that God has no origin. get me?
the point is just that without some other reason for believing that God exists, i can't get there this way.

[Zuneologist]

Originally Posted by putis616

Wikipedia isn't a bad source.

It shouldn't be someone's only source, but then again, no one should ever use just one source.

actually it is. no institution considers wikipedia as a legible source.
now im not saying everything in it is wrong or incorrect..but nothing in it can be taken lightly.

[wizardmt70]

Originally Posted by dead jim

you are never going to want to rely on historical evidence for your faith. that means your faith is subject to change any time new evidence is discovered. history is not Truth.

Originally Posted by dead jim

the point is just that without some other reason for believing that God exists, i can't get there this way.

good points.

Hebrews 11:1-3 (NIV)

1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for.
3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

[putis]

Originally Posted by Zuneologist

actually it is. no institution considers wikipedia as a legible source.
now im not saying everything in it is wrong or incorrect..but nothing in it can be taken lightly.

How an institution views something doesn't have any impact on its nature.

[David]

Originally Posted by rock4christ

my thought is that the big bang theory says that a tiny hot particle ball thing exploded. but where did it come from? was it infinitely there or did it pop out of nowhere or what?

if you can't accept the idea that the universe was created by the big bang, then how can you accept that everything was created by god.

Where did God come from?

[EndUnknown]

God is infinite, but the universe isn't, according to science. btw:
1.do you know any theories for where the dense ball of dust came from?
2.any other theories for the beginning?