Just out of curiousity...

[Joshua-777]

I wrote this in anothe topic, But instead of going back and spending hours, I thought I would post this first had, about the scattering and regathering of the Jews.

Israel

[Matthitjah]

Grace to you,

My Authority here comes from Serving God. You can't read up on that it takes Submission and Obedience.

Secondly,

There is no censorship here, this is a privately funded Christian Ministry. We control the content as we see fit. Please read our terms of service.

The Lord Bless your seeking my dear friend YI.

Peace,

Dave

[apothanein kerdos]

It's a bit late in this debate that you show up with valid contentions to my arguments. The trend so far has been to avoid logic and reason and appeal strictly to the assumption that my claims are false without reason to dispute them. Try to be understanding if I become short of explaining should you appeal to a claim similar to "it is so because it is so." There have been far to many of such arguments here

Oh, don't worry, I'm still going to say your claims are false - but I'm going to give multiple reasons as to why they are false.

My argument comes down to this: The christian god cannot be real because the christian god requires faith. Faith, in terms of morality, is meaningless and morally comparable to gambling. Faith is also thus a superstitious act, not an act of moral good.

You need to unpack this statement because it appears as if though you're taking a Kierkegaardian view of faith (that it is free of reasoning). If you are saying that faith is absent of reason, and if this claim were true, then you would have a very valid point. Faith, at that point, would be subjective. However, the Bible tells us to use reasoning in our faith, to be rational about it. The very definition of faith, from a Biblical point of view, is "trust in what you know" rather than "trust in what you hope to be true."

Since this is the case, and it requires an epistemological foundation on the rationality of what we believe, it can subsequently be used for morality, truth evaluation, etc.

Your point that so many religions have been 'hijacked' is evidence to this claim. It is clear that not all faiths can be valid. So why would a God, a real and moral God require faith as a means to define one's goodness? It would be unethical for any God to expect faith without some form of absolute proof of the facts thaat the god expects it's creation to believe.

The problem is there are absolute facts of God's existence - what you are asking for is for Him to basically appear, dance around you, grab your hand, and jump up and down.

It reminds me of an episode of the Chapel show where Dave Chapel is being interviewed for jury duty in the R. Kelly trial. Without going into detail, he basically says that if the prosecution could supply a video tape of his friends and his mother being at the scene of the crime, commenting and witnessing what R. Kelly was doing, then he might believe that R. Kelly is guilty.

The fact is, such requirements are absurd (which is why it was funny in this skit). Instead, we look to the best evidence that we have and make deductions from that. Obviously, this is why I'm a big supporter of cosmological arguments, anthropological arguments, and teleological arguments because I believe there is enough evidence in nature, the universe, and man's experience to prove that the Judeo-Christian God exists. In fact, I believe that when one examines all the evidence, He is the most logical choice. Of course, He is more than that, more than a philosophical choice one must make.

Every hijacker of religious philosophy appeals to faith as a means of controling a populus, yet you claim that you are different, that your morals are worth trusting or that you feel that your religion is correct. So to the stranger or skeptic of your religion, what then is your appeal? Do you claim to prove your metaphysical views? Do you claim that everyone will at some point in their lives feel that you are correct and will need to believe based on that feeling? I ask you not only what makes your God a moral faith expecter but how it could ever be morally possible. Every man has an honest right and responcibility to question things skeptically. The reality of life outside of your cave proves this.

Your idea of God, just like the other hijackers of history, only gives free will to have it be given back without meaning or reason or justification. Your faith only justifys itself to those who already believe in it, which makes speculation or consideration or questioning it meaningless.

These are all loaded statements, and shows how you've been embittered by the faith. Christianity MUST rely on logic and reasoning as a partial explanation for the faith - if it doesn't, then it fails. You are correct, the reason Christianity has ended up hijacked by many is because people lacked thinking and relied too much on a "blind faith." 1 Peter tells us to use reasoning and logic in defending our faith. The thing is, when one does this on an acceptable level, it becomes nearly impossible to hijack the faith (unless one uses illogical methods to justify a "logical" statement).

As for its appeal - if it only appeals to those already inside the faith, why are people converted to it on a daily basis? To say that one philosophical stance is only acceptable to those already within it is an absurd comment. It says that we cannot change our epistemological view of the world - it goes against the human experience.

The problem with belief is that it is only a belief, nothing more. Without proof there is no morality in choosing one way or the other.

As an atheist, what is your validation of morality? You keep going on this "morality" bend...when you literally have no intellectual justification for morality as a non-theist.

How many years were there between when the bible was in latin to when the poor men of Lyons translated it? How many generations went on believing without knowing what they believed? What was the moral significance of their faith as it caused people to commit murder for God?

You're ignoring that the common man spoke in Greek and Latin, even after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It isn't until about 600-700AD that Germanic tribes begin having influences on the local languages. Even then, we still see copies of the Bible translated into every language, even when it was illegal, up through the Poor Men of Lyons (Waldensians). There is even evidence that in some parts of France and Germany, people would attend the Catholic Mass, but then later go into the woods and read the scriptures for themselves, in their own language. This is a historical fact that is often overlooked in these debates.

[followerofjesus]

Thanks A.k. & Joe. I am likeminded w/ you & received what you said w/ delight.

[MorningGlory]

my god

look at his tattoos and those earrings

he could never get

a good job

go home and beat your kids

so they don't turn out as bad as me

cause i found

what i needed

and i don't need you to tell me how you feel

and if i fall

you are not the one that has to cope and deal

all my problems are for me

i don't need your eyes to see

i will be what i will be

-Smile Empty Soul, All My Problems

You really don't know where the history of what you represent comes from do you? You really don't realize how the only claim of good that chriatianity can claim throughout the ages is fulfilling itself. You really don't look back at the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Puritan laws, the KKK fad, the hundrends of years of science that were held back because people were killed for printing things that were not consistant with the bible, or even the fact that it was used as a tool to justify classification when the church refused to allow it to be translated from latin and only those who could read latin could tell others what to believe in. Two thousand years of people suffering from this confusion is just a big gap in history to you? You overlook these things and go to church thinking that it's always been as happy and wonderful as your mood allows you to feel now. You deny and reject proof of it's falsehood and still stand by the need for belief. Well then, I'm not going to stop you unless you get out of hand, like those past trends of evil did. Believe what you want to believe. It just wont make you more correct for doing so. What's more, there is a human revolution underway. I advise that you start teaching your children to be realists before the church collapses at that hands of people like myself who seeth from its false misleadings and real insincerity and real unwillingness to understand why children ask honest questions. Your belief will eventually die with the end of your generation, because honest and successful people are continuing to be less fooled by your dramatic fallacious acts. You are like every major problem the human race has ever had to face, you're only scared of what you don't know, so you choose to not admit that you don't know it.

After reading the above exchange I have to shake my head in disbelief. What do the actions of misguided Christians (and I admit, there were many) have to do with us, those who believe in 2007? Is Christianity less valid because the some of it's followers were, admittedly, evil? Are the 'honest and successful' people you refer to people like.....hmm....Tom Cruise, Susan Sarandon, maybe Ted Turner? Get a clue; they are not successful in the eyes of the Lord. Belief in the one true God will not die, my friend, but you will. And I pray you don't shuffle off this earth with your current belief in nothing but yourself. Your proof of the nonexistence of God is, by it's very nature, nonexistent. Being an atheist is one thing' being an arrogant, self important atheist is over the top.

[Guest]

I'm agnostic, not an atheist. The relevance that those clearly bad people should have to you is the idea that you wil not repeat thir evil nor encourage others to do so. You should take their reality as a warning to you that something must deterine the difference between their faith and yours.

Oh you are so right~!

Historically Humans without the fear of The Lord used the earthly powers of their day to commit horrors upon their fellow man~! Especially against Jews, Christians, women and children.

Currently Humans without the fear of The Lord, where they can, still use the earthly powers of today to commit horrors upon their fellow man~! Especially against Jews, Christians, woman and children.

Although you appear to have some small insight into the sins of others, you do not yet seem to have the same insight into yourself! Without Jesus, all mankind including myself, no matter when they lived or will live and no matter what label they use, are wicked and corrupted to their very core by sin and will repeat evil!

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

"But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death." (Proverbs 8:36)

The relevance those clearly bad people should have to you is that, without Jesus, you are not able to stop yourself from repeating their evil nor will you want to stop others from repeating evil.

The false judgments you voice here against the historical martyred Church by the atheist and agnostic of their day is an example of the ancient evil you are warning me away from.

"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

I so totally agree with your warning!

My Lord and Savior gives the same warning.

Although the warning is about lack of love because faith in Jesus is a gift from God and His gifts are Always good!

True love is a gift from God!

Big Time warning to me about Love!

Totally lost on you until you have Jesus!

(1 Corinthians 13)

[1] Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

[2] And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

[3] And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

[4] Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Without The Lord Jesus Christ. you can no more stop yourself from believing these lies you post about the martyred Christians of history then you can walk to the Moon barefoot!

Without Jesus, you can no more change your rage and your hatred against Jesus and against his followers into love then you can change The Sun into a necklace bobble.

Self righteous is a sin of pride and it is ugly to God!

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27)

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

You should take the wicked, sinful lives of past hypocrites as a warning to you that something must determine the difference between their Godless hateful death-loving hearts and your heart. The only chance you have is a new birth!

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:16-18)

Praying for you Bro!

Love, Joe

[Guest]

What would be acceptable evidence of God to the atheist/agnostics posting here? I'm curious as to what you would find an acceptable 'proof beyond

a reasonable doubt' as to God's existence?

Thank you Dave, for your honest heart-felt comments to my post for youngidealist.

No need to wait another twenty pages before you respond to the original question of this topic.

I will look forward to reading your reply Dave.

"The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." (Numbers 6:26)

Love, Joe

[Guest The Chief]

Reported

[Guest]

Ok, I had a little thought. How about this one:

I will believe in God when one person who hear his words comes back with some new information that was previously unknown to the human race. Plenty of people claim to have been spoken to by God, so this shouldn't be difficult.

How about that?

[apothanein kerdos]

What's you're final appeal going to be based on? Pride, Ego, Fear, Logic, Reason? Is the bible true to you because it speaks truth or because whatever the bible says to you must be true? Are you in any way ready to accept it if you are incorrect?

Ultimately, my belief in the Bible comes down to many things. However, one of the major portions of the groundwork was laid by logic and reasoning - both to be determined not just by mathematical propositions and historical evidence (or under naturalistic terms), but also philosophically accurate (i.e. it functions properly in the modern world, explains the condition of man adequately, etc.).

Also, I'm always ready to accept it. The only reason I am able to defend my faith is because it has been challenged so many times. I have sought to prove it wrong, and have never been able to.

Cool, now we have some definitions here. Ok, so faith by your opinion must have reason or else it is meaningless then, correct? Try to bear in mind that I am disproving your religion not because it has people with faith and little reason believing in it, but rather because the christian god requires this faith before he would judge you based on your moral standing. So the christian God finds faith without proof to be a moral value as well as the highest moral value. If faith wthout proof turns out to be amoral then the christian god would be expecting an unreasonable amoral virtue to define morality by his terms. Expecting others to believe in something as unreasonable as that is in actuality an immoral virtue for any god to have. Even if such were a real God, such a God deserves nothing of faith for he somehow managed to create beings more morally virtuous than himself.

If your theory, that faith s amoral, is correct, then you would have a point. However, I will get to this as you later try to prove this theory.

What's more, by your own logic, if chosing not to believe in something without reason is a valid point to have and one could reasonably reject christianity if such were the case in christian faith, then it should also be determined that if it is reasonable for an individual to not believe, based on all knowledge that is available to us, then the requirement of faith from the christian god would be unreasonable and an equally valid point to reject christianity based on.

Right, but again, this is a loaded hypothetical that assumes truth. In other words, you're saying that a person can reasonably reject God. I am saying that any rejection of Christianity is quite unreasonable and illogical, and though it has the illusion of reason behind the decision, ultimately it defies logic. Setting up hypotheticals doesn't do much to disprove anything unless these hypotheticals could be shown to actually occur and exist.

So to put it more simply If the christian god is real and he requires faith as a moral virtue then

1) faith cannot be an amoral or immoral virtue

2) To have this faith must have reason or else it is meaningless

3) As faith with reason is required, it must be shown that it is also unreasonable not to

To the first one, I would say that faith is moral, and would also agree with the next two. To the third one, the purpose of Christian apologetics is to show Christianity to be reasonable. Ultimately, especially when dealing with the metaphysics of the issue, if Christianity is reasonable, then atheism would be unreasonable, or a pantheistic religion would be unreasonable.

This is not to say that atheists, or non-Christians overall, are stupid and ignorant. It is also not to deny that there is some extremely good argumentation for all non-Christian beliefs. I am simply saying that when we weigh the evidence, Christianity (to an objective viewer) should come out as the most plausible choice.

What I'm asking your God to do is very simple. I'm asking him to be moral. When it comes to the question of whether or not an effect without cause that put time and existence into motion has a cognitive nature, I abstain from placing my certainty on any one possibility. I do believe in Justice and morality so I would like to hope that some justice for all severe immoralities exists, but the nature of this existence shows that such is not something to rely on. It is clearly your responcibility as well as mine to enforce basic moral necessities, or else such values become extinct. Don't steal, don't cheat, don't bully etc. Higher moral thinking ends up not being quite so necessary to enforce. It can only tempt people with it's benefits when they understand them. This cognitive cause for existance as we know it can also metaphysically be an infinate number of forms. I don't even throw out the idea that we could well be the universe itself comming unto it's own cognition.

I would say, look to both Plato and Aristotle. Plato had his Demiurge, the "form of all forms" if you will, and Aristotle had his unmoved mover. In Plato's case, you have all other forms flowing from this one ultimate form, in other words, all things begin and flow from one source. Aristotle is even more accurate (in my opinion) of an unmoved mover, or an uncaused effect. Now, neither of these ever took it to the next level of showing how these concepts of God created morality, but I would venture to guess that had they took it further, they would conclude that morality rests upon their forms of God than upon mankind.

The reason is that your logic is flawed when compared to empirical study. Humankind, no matter how bad it gets, or regressed, will still always hold to some moral code, that is almost similar among all cultures. Even the Aztecs, as bloody and violent as they were, held a moral code on murder. You say that it is up to man to hold this moral code together, or else it becomes extinct. This is based on viewing morals that are unique to a culture, instead of the universal moral codes we see. Rarely do we ever see a universal moral code (universal to be understood as almost all cultures have followed it, not as absolute) slip into extinction. Though this will be a major contention in our debate (and rightfully so), I would argue that it is impossible for man to completely reject universal morality for any duration of time. If he does (as a culture) reject a certain portion - say theft for example - at some point he will come back to rejecting theft, even if it were beneficial for him. I base this on looking throughout history and that even though certain cultures have attempted to shed their morality, they eventually came back to it.

The Romans, for instance, early in their history were very sexually promiscuous. Pedophilia, homosexuality, etc were all allowed as worship of a deity or even for personal pleasure - assuming you had the right cultural status. Yet, toward the second to third century, we see such acts being shunned upon in public. The Romans, in a few centuries, had gone from viewing certain sexual acts as acceptable, to persecuting those who committed them and it was known. They even accused early Christians of having sexual orgies and used this condemnation as partial justification for persecution.

Regardless, the point I am trying to make is that because cultures have no choice in coming back, there is something higher, a higher morality if you will, that draws human kind back to this moral stance. Though morality does not save us (because the ultimate immoral act is rejection of God), it does preserve us.

Believing that something made us is an inevitability, but what and the matter of it being a cognitive being is incredibly irrelevant. If I were a pilot in WW2, I'd still kiss and thank the plane I survived a dogfight in. I just wouldn't require myself to worship it.

Explain your premise for how something rational (man) could be created by something non-rational. The reason I ask is because I've never run across an agnostic that accepts the idea that we have been created, or could have been created, that did not think of the creating power as being non-rational. Of course, I could be misrepresenting and misunderstanding what you're saying, in which case please let me know - but then also explain what you meant.

If a cognitive cause to everything wants me to believe metaphysical details about itself, then he needs to be moral in doing so. If christ expects the same of himself, then he needs to be moral in doing so as well. So then, show me how it is unreasonable for anybody to be skeptical or to simply not believe in christianity.

Because at the point you assume that is a rational Being that created everything, you subsequently lose the right to judge it by its own moral standards. This stands for any religious or philosophical view of the world. If the Being created everything, this would include morality - it is therefore impossible to judge the creator of morality (who has a perfect epistemological understanding of morality, being the author of it) as a participator in the morality that we did not create (we have an imperfect epistemological understanding of morality, being the receiver of it). This is not to say that the created being is free to act as he pleases - he could self-limit himself to his morality. However, it still wouldn't make sense to judge him by his own morality because we wouldn't understand the inner workings, or understand it completely.

That being said, and maybe you've addressed it elsewhere and I haven't seen it, what is your argument for the Christian God to be amoral/immoral and non-cognitive?

You of course refur to biblical prophecies then. One point that should be clear is that there is a reasonable option for anyone to choose not to believe in anything one way or the other (to abstain from belief). Therefore, making the most logical choice still isn't a reasonable thing to require of anyone if it is reasonable for them to say "but I don't think anyone is necessarily right, I think the real answer could still be out there yet to be discovered"

Now mate, let's not go making straw men . Where did I refer to Biblical prophecies? It is my firm belief that, though they are rational, using them as evidence or as proof is absurd when facing a non-theist, or a limited theist (Deist, agnostic, etc). I am referring to cosmological (evidence from the universe), teleological (evidence from creation/biology), and anthropological (evidence from the human experience) - not to prophecy. There are really four main branches of apologetics, and I won't bore you with the details of each one (because it is boring). Though I could be labeled an integrative apologist (someone that uses all four at some point), the main thrust of my arguments is a classical approach - thus I deal more along the lines with presuppositions than I do with using the "Thus sayeth the Lord" argumentation (which prophecy falls under). I only say this so that we don't get side tracked into debating prophecy and the accuracy thereof.

As for your argument, you assume that all rejection of a truth value is reasonable. This is not always so. Though it is reasonable that we have a choice, this does not always mean the conclusion brought about by this choice is reasonable, and thus people must be held accountable for their choice. In other words, though I have the reasonable right to reject a deity, this does not mean the rejection is reasonable simply because the right is reasonable.

What do you think about people who are not astronomers or archeologists? Is it a requirement of reason in your faith to have these specialties before faith has meaning? The majority of people are incapable of learning such things, if for no other reason, they don't have the time to waste looking for God because they are looking for survival first. There's also the fact that you can't expect everyone to even read the bible out of reason unless you yourself can say that you have read and studied all books, all possibilities, and all other religions equally. Is being an expert in all of these things to be the expected priority of everyone's life according to your God?

This is taking my argument to the extreme. I am merely saying that all true cases of faith begin with a reasonable act, though it is not sola ratio. In other words, assume that an 18 year old accepts Christ - though this 18 year old has most likely not studied the history in any comprehensive fashion, or the ideological views behind this belief, there is something that caused her to believe that Jesus was real. There was some rational argument, somewhere along the way, that forced her to believe that Jesus really did do what the Bible claims, and this led to her belief.

I am not saying that we have to be experts on everything because, once again, as humans we have a flawed epistemology on whatever we do. Now, Christians with true faith, should look to all the evidence in order to enhance this faith. The more I study history and philosophy, the stronger my faith becomes. I look forward to my work in philosophy because it merely solidifies my belief in Christ. This is not to say that old Aunt May in Backwoods, Arkansas should go get her Ph.D in philosophy in order to have a true experience in faith. That is simply unreasonable because it requires certain people to do things that their minds may not be equipped to do. She should, however, at least have a cursory knowledge of what is reasonable about the faith and how to defend it.

Regardless, if I am understanding you correctly, you are asserting that in order to be reasonable in one's acceptance of the Bible, we have to have read every book and all possibilities concerning this issue? Why such an arbitrary standard? I fail to see how this would be a grounds for a reasonable stance on the issue, so please unpack this statement.

Also, what do you mean by suggesting that the Judeo-Christian god is more than a philosophical choice?

Most philosophies simly give you a way of looking at the world and subsequently acting through this view - though you are not obliged to follow the view in all instances. Christianity gives us a way of looking at the world (where we came from, who we are, and where we are going, the basic three problems that all philosophies attempt to answer) but then we are obliged to follow this way of thinking (though we can deviate from it). Likewise, it calls upon a relationship with the Lord, thus there are some existential elements of Christian faith, though I would not take it to the level of Kierkegaard. Though this is by no means an in depth view of what I am believe, I hope it is a good summary.

A good apologist/theologian/philosopher that really impacted me on this point was Francis Schaeffer. His most influential work (though I have read almost all of his works) is his Trilogy. The reason is that it covers everything that is a basic world view of Christianity, including why it is a philosophy that is more than a philosophy. The link is to amazon where you can purchase this work if you are interested. I'm assuming you already have a knowledge of post-modern philosophers as well as modern philosophers, which is where the main thrust of his argumentation goes (against them). One interesting point, since I'm on this tangent, he is one of the firs philosophers in America to actually deal with Foucault and show the impact his views would have on society. Just an interesting side note.

point out one loaded stament I have made here. Tell me why it's all loaded. I've made some claims that you claim are false in other comments here, but they are clear and unambiguous from my perspective. If you are trying to pick up on the ambiguity of the term 'skeptic' then I'm afraid it's your own ambiguity that is being applied. When I say 'skeptic' I always mean someone who does not agree with you unless you have more convincing information. A skeptic is not someone who refuses to believe, it's someone who finds what you are saying to be unlikely by their own honest reasoning.

This was an error on my part - I claimed you made loaded statements by using a loaded statement. Oops.

You asked me to prove that He was a moral faith creator but then how to explain this is even morally possible. I have no idea what your criteria is for rejecting this idea, thus I do not know how to present it to you in light of your objections. You also stated that my faith only justifies itself to those that already believe it - what is your evidence for this? This is why I came back and explained that you are essentially saying we cannot change our epistemological stance, though we have seen this occur. Your statement, if taken prima facie, would also run contrary to the fact that atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, etc all come to Christianity on a daily basis. This is not to say Christianity is absolute proof because people come to it, merely to say that it can be justified to those outside of its world view.

How MUST you rely only partially on logic? Where do you draw the line?

What I was saying is that we cannot come to faith sola ratio. I am not a believer in German Rationalism, or even Bartian theology. We look to the rational components of Christianity, that which can make sense in the physical world, that which does man sense philosophically, and when we come across a paradox we then accept it by faith. All philosophies must take this leap of faith at some point, whether it be materialist, limited theist, deistic, etc. For me, the supposedly irrational components of Christianity are the Incarnation, the Trinity, and things of this nature - most of the mysteries where a leap would be required deal mostly with the ontology of God. Where as a German rationalist would say we should not believe these things because they cannot be rationally explained, I would argue that because 95% has been rationally explained (and that is an arbitrary number used as an example, not to be taken literally), then the 5% which appears irrational should be accepted on the fact that the rest of the belief holds true. Just because we cannot understand something does not mean it fails to be true. Likewise, certain arguments can be made for such mysteries, but they are all basic at their level and ultiamtely must be accepted by a "leap."

To steal from Francis Schaeffer, imagine you are climbing a mountain. I'm not sure if you have ever been (I personally have not) but one thing that can occur is storms can come out of no where. When I have been skiing before, I have seen this occur. Now assume that you are climbing up a steep face of a mountain and a storm comes in and you are blinded by the dense fog. If you stay there overnight, you will die from freezing because you are exposed to the elements. Being on a steep cliff, you cannot simply unpack your things and go, you would fall to your death. A leap of faith, as proposed by disciples of Kierkegaard (though I would argue not by Kierkegaard himself) would be that you know there is a cave in your vicinity, to crawl to where you need to and drop down to it. This, of course, is illogical.

Imagine, however, that you hear a voice telling you where to go. You ask this voice how long he has lived on the mountain. He tells you all of his life. You ask this voice his name. He tells you his name, and the last name is common among those in mountain communities. He tells you that he has climbed this route many times. He then tells you to move over 12 feet to your left, and to drop down and you'll see the cave after a 5 foot drop. You now have a rational and reasonable basis, but you still must make a leap based upon this reason.

This is what I mean by Christianity. There are certain mysteries that simply cannot be explain but should be trusted because we have X and Y as evidence - just because Z is a mystery does not mean we should exclude and abandon X and Y. Does this analogy and explanation make sense?

are you implying that no one would be converted if it were a philosophy that only applies if you believe in it? There are many motivations for conversion, including fear, that peole allow themselves to believe in something for.

Correct, I am saying that if no one converted to it, if it only made sense to those already inside its realm of belief, then it would have no converts (at least converts that would stay). You assume that all converts must have come to Christianity out of fear, and though some do, it is too broad a statement to say that all do. C.S. Lewis came because he saw the arguments as reasonable, and not because he was afraid. There are many in the academic world that are orthodox Christians, many of whom came to Christ after being educated and doing so based upon the evidence, not upon fear.

Earlier I made a parallel version of a belief that expects faith like Christianity does. It was a belief that we are all encased within a jelly doughnut that nobody can see, but unless you believe that the jelly doughnut is there you wont be able to eat your way outward, to the crust of salvation. This is a belief that expects belief of the unseen. My earlier point was that even if the jelly doughnut was there, there's still no moral gain or loss for choosing to believe or not to believe in it. Still yet, people would believe in the jelly doughnut if I set up a great story around it. People believe in things because they have noting bette to believe in and they want the answers to be simply given to them. This is the fallacy of both belief and devine faith requirement.

Aside from this being an improper analogy, you are using the wrong judgment mechanism. You are stating that sight should be belief, i.e. we should look at theism through a naturalistic view. By doing so, we make naturalism trump theism, in which case theism becomes worthless. Instead, the two are competing ideologies and thus cannot be used to provide a view upon the other. In other words, I cannot say theism is false because it cannot be explained in a naturalistic way. You are saying that because we cannot see God, any requirement of faith He would make would be arbitrary - but this is using a competing philosophy to evaluate theism. You have to unpack it and prove why your method should be accepted. As I have stated above, there are required leaps of faith within Christianity, but all leaps occur from a rational basis. Why would God do this? The reason isn't simple, but I believe it is the best explanation. You are essentially asking for God to reveal Himself to us, even though we exist on different metaphysical plains of existence. Though He could if He wanted to, this would subsequently cause a further paradox in, "How could God, who exists on a different metaphysical realm, allow those below Him to understand Him comprehensively?"

The fact is, there are mysteries in a relationship, which is the primary purpose of God. In a marriage, though there are rational components, and one must look at love as partially rational if love is to work within a marriage, there is still an element of mystery. This is my theory as to why God would not allow us comprehensive knowledge of Himself (and, as I stated, it would merely provide for another paradox).

If a fly gets hit by a car, but the fly didn't see the car comming, is the fly somehow immoral for it? Ok, what if it had a clue that it was comming but the fly didn't quite know what it was or got hypnotized by the shock of what it predicted would be next? The only point to morally question was if the fly had some responcibility to get away from being hit by something that it didn't see clearly. Being killed is not evil, failing to avoid being killed is not evil (unless death were wanted and even then the idea of suicide being inherantly evil is still up for debate), only killing is evil, which by this metaphor is what you claim God will do to nonbelievers.

If one has knowledge of an impending death, if there is enough evidence that it will occur, then he is to be held responsible when it does occur. If I get a mysterious note saying that I will be killed at 3pm this afternoon, in a parking lot while trying to get into my car, and the note then goes on into detail about certain accounts in my life that aren't well known, I would still be held responsible for my own death (maybe not judicially, but logically). Likewise, you are looking at this in the wrong manner.

The reason people are condemned to hell by God is not simply because they lack belief in Him and His Son. The reason they are condemned is because they are ultimately immoral (by performing an immoral action) and have not sought out the one solution. You need to look to how salvation operates before trying to critique it.

I am not an atheist, but as an agnostic who does not fear any god, I justify morals based on social purpose. If there were no God, and there were no other people and somehow you knew this to be a fact, then nothing you can do could ever be deemed immoral, unless other beings enter the picture. You could hurt yourself, you could call out profanities, you could love yourself and spend the rest of your life as a complete hedonist becuase there are no other beings to which an immoral act could be effected. This is because morality only applies to social interactions between contious beings. I validate morality on the fact that so long as I promote the best for everyone as a whole I have the greatest likelyhood of getting the most for myself out of life for it. It's called ethical egoism. John Nash also proved this concept mathematically in his research on his noncooperative game theory. Honestly, it should never have taken a mathematician to point this out, it's ultimately how every ecosystem finds balance and survives as an ecosystem anyway.

Methodologically you're still an "atheist." All that means is that you still look at the world from a naturalistic point of view and evaluate it as such, thus your arguments are still going to fall into atheistic camps.

Regardless, your criteria for belief is skewed. You say that morality only matters with sociological interaction. If we assume a Theistic mindset in Christianity, however, morality matters because it is an offense to God. Even if we remove this from the picture, and evaluate your belief through your own standards, it still comes up short.

The reason is that it allows for moral subjectivity among society. If societal interaction causes our morals to have an impact, then it means there really is no absolute basis in morality. This assumes that society actually exists and is not a simulacrum. If we take the autonomous philosophers, they would tell you that society is only formed out of a contract, and thus you cannot base your morality upon something which is arbitrary and ultimately evil in itself. An extreme post-modern would look at your definition and criticize it because you are basing it upon something that ultimately does not exist. Baudrillard, for instance, would argue that you are basing your morality on a simulacrum that was formed as a manner to control people. Though you could defend yourself against it, it would lose all logic and true impact because you lack an absolute beginning.

What you are saying here is worth the research on my part to see how correct you might be.

I'd suggest getting The Reformers and Their Stepchildren by Leonard Verduin. He goes into great detail and explains how many Christians rebelled against the sacral system that was put into place.

Still, a line must be drawn for any common people to ultimately know that the bible is proven in order for it to be significant that they believe, as well, the ability to determine clearly what battles are right or wrong to fight must be made so that crazy people who are just looking for a sence of belonging or food and shelter don't get caught up in hijackings. Where do you draw the line on what to believe and how do you expect that every person out there is capable of making a logical proof from the information you have. People aren't just intellectually lazy out there, the majority is actualy just extremely retarded and desperate. What is the moral significance of their faith?

I'm not sure I understand completely what you're asking. If you could clarify that would be wonderful.

Also, in the next debate (as you've already seen, the quote feature fails to work after a few quotes), you can just bold my replies and then maybe put yours in a different color. It certainly adds time and pain to creating and editing the post, but it would help with clarity.

I am enjoying this debate, it is nice to run into someone that is willing to take this issue into a deeper level.