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

[XR-7]

And every attempt at finding the date of the second coming or judgement day has come and passed without event.

Matthew 24 goes into detail that nobody knows or can find out when the second coming will occur. In fact I'm pretty sure it says that not even Jesus knows.

[Ad Bot]

[pch]

I don't attend church or read the bible or do anything even remotely religious, but I just hope there's something after death

[SBG]

I wasn't aware that theist was a word until now.

Thanks poll!

[McJob]

You are literally everything I see wrong in Christianity.

If you really believe "Christians should be reading the Bible for themselves, not counting on preachers and the like to inform them of what they should believe", then maybe you shouldn't loving be making such stupid accusations and assumptions about what I believe and who I am.

I prefer radical atheists to batstuff insane Christians, and you're one of the worst types of cases.

[blood.fm]

i love my kind

[Headcrab Zombie]

On the point of Pascal's wager, it isn't the reason I believe, but it's merely a perk that comes along with believing

Pascal's wager is also heavily flawed because of the simple fact it forgets there is more than one religion that threatens eternal damnation if you don't follow it or if you follow another god as well. There's simply no way to win the wager

There's a lot of arguments out there that forget the fact that there's more than one religion, making claims that claim the existence of a god, but making no attempt to prove that that god is their god. Such arguments seems more intended to re-convince a questioning theist stating the argument than to attempt to convince someone else.

[Foxscotch]

why do people care what other people believe
I mean religious people at least kind of have a reason. some of them. they just don't want to see other people getting punished eternally
but there's no reason whatsoever for someone who believes in nothing to concern themselves with other people's beliefs. you're not gonna go to Physics Hell or something if you believe in a god and it turns out there's nothing there. you have no excuse

[Blockchip]

democracy is pretty outdated as well

shouldn't we be living under a more modern system like fascism or communism?

Is 1840 modern now?

[Zloff]

Literally every response to criticism towards god boils down to "God knows what's best and I don't know what his reasons are but I trust him." There are long-winded ways of saying that, like you have, and there are short ways of saying that. The problem that so many people have with this is that the christian faith has literally gotten themselves into a position that both cannot be falsified and cannot be proven at the same time. People ask "Why do you trust god?" and you say "Because he's trustworthy." people say "Why is god trustworthy?" The answer is "Because he's all knowing." If people ask "How do you know he's all knowing?" you say something along the lines of either "The bible says so" or "Because he's a god." Eventually the entire thing just comes full circle and you get right back to the start, with absolutely nothing being proven along the way. From a completely unbiased, logical point of view, that's heavily flawed.

Also, no, the bible has not predicted natural disasters, it has made vague sweeping statements that can be interpreted that way but whether or not it was originally intended to be that way is completely ambiguous. And every attempt at finding the date of the second coming or judgement day has come and passed without event.

I understand the points you try to make with the hypothetical questions/answers, but I don't agree entirely. As far as the interpretation goes, that's the one thing that I struggled with the most. The Bible was written with the intent to not directly foretell anything, as God does not want people to think "oh the Bible was indefinitely right, I better convert", but with such ambiguity it makes you wonder if the real reason is because the men who wrote it wanted to make 'predictions' without being entirely incorrect. And that there is where you're right with the full circle; in the end it comes down to complete faith, and with clear reason logic doesn't care much for faith

I might also add that, and no offense plant, this is also the reason why I've never been too fond of what people like you brother do. I myself felt like it'd be next to pointless to try arguing/explaining, but I hope what was said may have helped someone.

btw second resurrection =/= second coming or judgment day, it's like 1k years after

Matthew 24 goes into detail that nobody knows or can find out when the second coming will occur. In fact I'm pretty sure it says that not even Jesus knows.

this is correct

[Headcrab Zombie]

why do people care what other people believe
I mean religious people at least kind of have a reason. some of them. they just don't want to see other people getting punished eternally
but there's no reason whatsoever for someone who believes in nothing to concern themselves with other people's beliefs. you're not gonna go to Physics Hell or something if you believe in a god and it turns out there's nothing there. you have no excuse

People are telling OP their thoughts because he asked them to because he's questioning his own

[Wesley Williams]

So you're saying that the entity that created the world, universe and everything can't multi-task?

We're talking about drawing the line. Should God save people if more than 500 people will die? One person will die? Someone will stub their toe? I believe God is pretty hands off as far as nature goes, allowing things to take their natural course.

Lol how is this an explanation? Someone getting hit by a car shouldn't be treated differently. God could have easily made a world with free will without any suffering. I've thought about it long and hard myself, but again, it just comes back to this: any God that would allow this degree of suffering to exist in the scale that it does can either do nothing to stop it, or doesn't care to. So he is therefore either impotent or evil. 

Let's say God makes a world with free will. Someone decides to kill someone else. It's free will. You can't have free will without evil and suffering.
Now if you're going to say he should have made it impossible to kill others, I'm really not sure how that would work. Could you have a functioning world where such evil things are impossible?

I'm not religious, to say the least, but I'm pretty sure the Bible is clear about this debate.

John 3:36
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them."

None of the passages in the link you sent seem to definitively amend that.

Biblical inerrancy or fancy extended metaphors. Choose one.

So you're saying people without the opportunity to learn about Christ are rejecting Christ?

You are literally everything I see wrong in Christianity.

If you really believe "Christians should be reading the Bible for themselves, not counting on preachers and the like to inform them of what they should believe", then maybe you shouldn't loving be making such stupid accusations and assumptions about what I believe and who I am.

I prefer radical atheists to batstuff insane Christians, and you're one of the worst types of cases.

I apologize if I offended you by anything I said.

That goes for everyone, I'm aware I could very well be wrong and am trying to present my own opinions on the matter in the hope of delving deeper into the truth.

[Darryl McKoy]

We're talking about drawing the line. Should God save people if more than 500 people will die? One person will die? Someone will stub their toe? I believe God is pretty hands off as far as nature goes, allowing things to take their natural course.

Yes, yes and yes?

I believe if god exists he's a stuffcunt for not intervening.

[Element]

well hey i didnt see this thread until now

im an atheist purely because i trust science more than i trust religion because i just dont really see the evidence in religious accounts, the bible, whatever

i understand and respect religion as from my point of view it's a source of hope when things are in the stuffter, or a place to find a moral code (other than the law) to follow, but it just doesn't work for me

i dont know if this has come up yet but saying any religious account or holy book is the word of god is like writing 'cake' on a piece of paper, and saying that piece of paper is cake because it says so, it's somewhat the same in holy books, as they say the holy book is the word of god (not too sure if this applies to christianity, but yeah) because the holy book says so not trying to spur an argument, this is something ive always said as a reason why i dont believe in a holy book

[SWAT One]

i still fail to see how an all powerful being cant just stop the devil from being an starfish. If he can't then he's not all powerful. The logical inconsistencies formed when people try to justify suffering in the world are pretty silly.

That's a human limitation.  Machiavellian, almost.  If you were to have some sort of alien race, one would be wise to think that the aliens would have different thought processes from humans, and therefore would have different definitions of logic, reason, victory, and loss.  Continuing on that logic, wouldn't it be logical to assert that beings on another plane of existence would have different definitions or understandings of the words.  In the bible, spiritual forces are considered victorious when one acknowledges its power over them.  For example, Adam and Eve fell because they acknowledged the devil's words that the fruit would be able to make them "like god".  This placed the Earth and the human race under the partial dominion of the Devil.  Later, when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness by the Devil, showing Jesus the great wealth and possessions of the world, he said "All of this I will give you if you bow down to me and worship me."  It suggests that there's a sort of sense in victory by acknowledging influence.  It does say in the book of Revelations that the Devil will be chained for 1,000 years, in which time, he will have no power over the world, and righteousness will blossom, so in a sense, what you said is something that has been promised for a time in the future.

[Wesley Williams]

Yes, yes and yes?

I believe if god exists he's a stuffcunt for not intervening.

God doesn't have to save anyone and he would still be just. We exist thanks to Him, and thus should live our lives for His glory. It is by His grace that we are even able to be saved.

Just consider that without God we wouldn't exist. Why should we deserve anything, much less being saved from anything bad happening in our everyday lives?