What are your reasons for believing whatever you may believe about Christianity?

[Darryl McKoy]

- The way I justify this is: why are fundamental physical values exactly what they are? How come one light second is exactly 299792.458 kilometres? And not 299793 kilometres or 299791 kilometres? What was the reasoning behind such a hard-coded value, and how would this be beneficial to the existence of the universe or reality in general? Who put this value in place and why? This could be an indicator of intelligent design.

What do you not consider to be a 'hard coded value'? What you're saying seems backwards, I would be more inclined to believe it was intelligent design if it was a perfectly rounded number

[Ad Bot]

[SetGaming]

What do you not consider to be a 'hard coded value'? What you're saying seems backwards, I would be more inclined to believe it was intelligent design if it was a perfectly rounded number

I'm not for Christianity, but one of his previous arguments backs this up. The speed of light is being expressed in "human" values, such as kilometers or miles - if there were a God, he might express it in something like "500,000 godly units".

[Rally]

What do you not consider to be a 'hard coded value'? What you're saying seems backwards, I would be more inclined to believe it was intelligent design if it was a perfectly rounded number

What I'm essentially saying is that certain values like the speed of light and pi(?) have no real reason to be exactly what they are. We could easily conceive of a universe where a light-second is a 1/2 or a 1/3 of that value, so why does our universe exist in this specific state? Why are the laws of physics exactly what they are?

A "rounded number" may not have any meaning to an intelligent creator. If he existed, he probably wouldn't use the metric or imperial systems.

EDIT: I guess what I mean by a 'hard coded' value is a fundamental value. Constants, I guess.

[Trogtor]

forget christians. There are two christian guys at our school that preach about how America made the worst decision by legalising gay marriage in all 50 states. I asked why that is a problem and they said "gay marriage is unnatural so it shouldn't be allowed"

Rly

with that attitude you could use some JESUS

[Darryl McKoy]

I'm not for Christianity, but one of his previous arguments backs this up. The speed of light is being expressed in "human" values, such as kilometers or miles - if there were a God, he might express it in something like "500,000 godly units".

Are you being serious? The reason it's in "human values" is because a human measured it..

[Plethora]

I also could write a book about all this, but from personal experience I can say that talking about this sort of stuff on the internet is like trying to punch the wind - pointless.

As far as the moral elements of the Old Testament go, it should be noted that the slavery 'condoned' in it is far from vision of chattel slavery that comes to mind today.  According to the Mosaic Law, slavery was to last for a period of, if memory serves me, seven years, at which point the slave was to be released, and on the jubilee year, all slaves were to be released (with the exception of those who had willingly chosen to remain slaves for life and had their ears pierced with an awl).  Furthermore, these slaves weren't simply rounded up from somewhere (unless they came from outside Israel maybe), they typically sold themselves, usually to pay for debts they had incurred.

Now I won't say that it always worked out that way - the Israelites failed to keep the Law on many counts, but my point in going on that brief tirade is to point out that with a bit of research, a lot of things in the scriptures that don't necessarily make immediate sense to modern sensibilities often do make sense, or at the very least are not as strange as the skeptical would believe, and such research is justified given that this can be a hot button topic.

I personally put stock in Christianity, or at least my corner of it, because I was raised in a household that values both logical thinking and the Bible, and so at some point I was forced to question firstly whether I believed in God, that the Bible to be the inspired word of God, and lastly whether or not the faith I am associated with is in harmony with the Bible; and I did some of the research and weighed the evidence and the shoe fit on all counts.  Unless specifically asked by someone with actual interest, I have better things to do than go through the specifics of all that though as I don't feel like putting a lot of energy and time into a big hole in the ground.

Is it possible that your certitude in your religion is in any way aided by it having surrounded you, particularly from people who you would trust to always tell you the truth?

Nobody can claim otherwise, but I personally feel like it was a side point in my conscious decision making.

[Epicduke]

Some may find my views disrespectful and/or arrogant, but I can't help but share them.

forget religion. No, no. forget the people that participate in religion. They're all stubborn starfishs who believe in nothing but what their parents tell them. Religion is like a prison, you're always going to be buttforgeted because you did something wrong, and for Christians and alike that will never change. Really, if you want to have faith in something, believe in money, or maybe hookers, something that doesn't restrict you and loving promise you a spot in this "holy land".

I'm probably going to revise this later and bring more to it. BEWARE OF EDIT.

eggy

[Blockchip]

I'm going to try to keep this brief, as I could easily write a novel on the subject. The bible does not make logical sense, meaning that the events described within could not have happened. (Noah's ark for example, has no backing what so ever in reality. Further more, it isn't even an original story, as it was a part of the epic of Gilgamesh.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh) Historically, the bible makes even less sense. Again, portions of the bible were simply taken from other scriptures. Including but not limited to the story of Jesus. Here is a quote from Gerald Massey: " I've discovered nearly two hundred instances of immediate correspondence between the mythical Egyptian material and the allegedly historical Christian writings about Jesus. Horus indeed was the archetypal Pagan Christ." Even the existence of Jesus has no substantial support beyond the gospel and a few other religious texts. Now finally, the bible makes the absolute least amount of moral sense. In the Old Testament it says a whole mess of horrible things. Condoning slavery, murder, and stonings is a just a few of them. Even the less horrible stuff is still horribly irrelevant. Did you know that it's against gods will to wear a shirt made out of two different types of fabric? A book written hundreds of years ago often has little to no relevance to our lives today. Now you could say that when Jesus was sacrificed, the Old Testament became null. That's fine, but just know that Jesus condoned slavery, and he also never said anything about being gay. So for the people that don't follow every rule in the Old Testament, as i'm sure most people don't, by your own admission you cannot say that being gay is immoral. I also agree with the posts above describing how destructive a Christian life style can be sometimes. My ex-girlfriends parents were borderline abusive to their children, shaming them for not being religious enough, for having gay friends, for "dishonoring" their parents. Both of their daughters have anorexia and severe confidence problems. But they still preach the "holier than thou" philosophy. It's a cycle in which authority and tradition is accepted over fact and reason.

TL;DR: Christianity doesn't make rational, historical, or moral sense.

BEFORE YOU START POSTING stuff: This is NOT a thread for flame wars or stuffposting.

[Rally]

I don't see how that's flaming or stuffposting, he made a pretty reasonably backed up claim.

[Plethora]

This is meant to be a thread where people give their honest opinions and reasons for believing or disbelieving in Christianity as opposed to Atheism.

I don't think Machaty went too far from this, even if his manner of going about it wan't cordial.

[Maxwell.]

are you dumb

[Trogtor]

he made a pretty reasonably backed up claim.

except it doesn't make any sense at all and takes a lot of things extremely out of context

[IkeTheGeneric]

-"Evolution is not supported by the fossil record."

Yeah, it's backed up by a plethora of other evidence. Fossils help support the theory basically because they act as a window into the past. The term "fossils" aren't necessarily restricted to paleontology, either.

You could claim that our knowledge of fossils beneath the earth, our method of collecting and studying them and the theories regarding them are shaky and unreliable, but it's pretty much the most concrete evidence we have of evolution taking place.

With that said, denying evolution is such a weird thing to do. Evolution, to simply put it, is based off of two factors. Factor #1 being that the strongest survive long enough to make the most offsprings, and #2 being that the best physical and mental mutations allow the strongest to survive even longer. This has happened so many times and we've been able to observe it in so many ways that there's simply no way to deny the theory of evolution unless you have a successful way to disprove it.

-"The intelligent design movement is based entirely on scientific evidence."

The idea of intelligent design fringes mainly on the fact that creation all around us seems too intricate and articulated to be the result of random universe forgetery. I don't necessarily believe there's enough scientific evidence to back up the theory of intelligent design, as far as I know.

-"The LGBT movement is not for marriage equality because they do not accept child enthusiasts marrying young teenage/pre-teenage kids. They have left those people out so far."

the LGBT movement is partly for marriage equality under the umbrella of people affected by the LGBT movement. child enthusiasm is not under the LGBT umbrella and I don't see what it has to do with the movement in any way.

With that said, it's not illegal to be in a loveual relationship with a consenting adult of your own love; the same can't be said for being in a loveual relationship with an underage child.

-"The Crusades are not comparable to Islamic Terrorism because the Crusades are incompatible with Christian doctrine and teaching, while Islamic Terrorism is consistent with Islamic teaching and the example of the prophet Muhammad."

Islamic terrorism and extremism is an incredibly complex and hard to nail thing, especially for people who don't practice the Islamic religion. The Crusades are an entirely different issue and to compare them both to each other is pretty ignorant, so I do agree there.

-"The existence of evil is actually proof of God’s existence. Because evil exists, that means there is a transcendant standard upon which we can judge that something is good or evil. Otherwise, evil is relative and is just an opinion."

If there is an existence of evil, it's more along the lines of the social standard set by men, not by God. Evil IS relative and of opinion. The world isn't simple enough to just classify people as good or evil because there's always ulterior motive and bias. Nobody is just simply "Evil"

Viewing the whole thing as "Us vs. them" (as far as christianity and atheism goes) is a really bad way to look at things. Atheism isn't your enemy, it's just simply a differing belief from yours. If you feel people are attacking you over your religion, this is because those people act on their own behalf, not for their lack of a religion.

[Headcrab Zombie]

I don't have a lot of time cuz in at work

Claim one is easily refuted: with an internet access comes access to all the information available to man. All it takes is a Google search for "evidence for evolution" and the desire to actually learn instead of disregard it

Claim two: disregarding said ton of evidence is not in line with the scientific method


Claim three. The difference is one involves two consenting adults whereas the other involves an individual who is legally unable to consent. Additionally, no one is harmed in same love relations whereas the other involves, again, an individual unable to consent.

Claim four: meh. Not enough time, and its not a subject I often discuss. Plus, others have responded well

Claim five can be explained by evolution: having a sense of morality that tells you to behave in a way that is cooperative with other individuals (good) is much more conducive to the survival of a species than, say, killing everyone. Those that do interfere negatively with others (evil) are removed from society in one way or another because their presence interferes with the survival of the species


I have no problems with religion in itself. The problem is people who can't keep it to themselves. And a lot of people have trouble doing that. And I'm not just talking about people who go on the streets and yell at people. I'm also talking about people just voting in a way that removes rights from other people because their religion doesn't like it.

I dont give a stuff if two gay dudes want to reap the legal benefits of being married.
However why they need a minister and all that jazz to do it legally is beyond me.

You don't need a minister. Your can do it entirely in a courthouse with no family involvement if you want. But previously that wasn't even an option

[IkeTheGeneric]

Here is a great video just to see how evolution has affected us as a species:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY

Good watch, most ted talks are. This one is about how we don't really view reality like we should, more along the lines of how we interpret what we see, and how this has been an evolutionary trait that's served us for a long time.