Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

Best to discuss difficult topics from a certain distance — impersonally. That’s my choice.

[Immanuel Can]

And exactly which "faith" is that? Christian Scientist? Mormon? Catholic? Jehovah's Witness? Pentecostal? Lutheran? Methodist?...

Well, the denomination able to provide me with the most persuasive video of course.

So...none. You never really were anything, and didn't have a "faith" to lose? Or you're so thoroughly ashamed of your past that you can't even bring yourself to speak of it?

[Gary Childress]

Best to discuss difficult topics from a certain distance — impersonally. That’s my choice.

Really? I don't know where you live. I live in this world full of people with ideas. Therefore I have to deal with it and the people who live in it. And it pisses me off when people won't abandon nonsense.

[Gary Childress]

And exactly which "faith" is that? Christian Scientist? Mormon? Catholic? Jehovah's Witness? Pentecostal? Lutheran? Methodist?...

Well, the denomination able to provide me with the most persuasive video of course.

So...none. You never really were anything, and didn't have a "faith" to lose? Or you're so thoroughly ashamed of your past that you can't even bring yourself to speak of it?

Oh, the irony coming from a "Christian". Jesus is probably ready to welcome you among the lepers. Maybe you can admonish them for him?

[iambiguous]

What is the actual evidence that Paul provides in the Bible that the Christian God does in fact exist? And how are there not similar accounts from similar characters in the scriptures of any number of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...as well?

Sure, as with Christ, he may have existed historically. As did Muhammad and Buddha and other religious icons. But how on Earth does that establish the actual existence of a God, the God, my God beyond a "leap of faith"?

Again, let me remind AJ of what is actually at stake here: objective morality here and now, immortality and salvation there and then.

So, re IC, we are supposed to become Christians because the Christian Bible tells us that God does in fact exist? And that the Bible must be true because it is, in fact, the word of God?

Had you read the Gospel accounts you’d be able to answer that question yourself.

Ah, I see. The rigorous IC approach. If it says something in the Christian Bible it must be true because the Christian Bible is the word of God. And it must be the word of God because it says so in the Christian Bible.

Just out of curiosity, can you link me to your own collection of YouTube videos?

Still, what are you suggesting here...that if someone reads "the 13 letters he is said to have written and the Book of Acts; the second part of the Gospel of Luke" this will clearly demonstrate to them that the Christian God does in fact exist?

I find you exceedingly tedious and aside from what I offered to you have no interest in a conversation with you on these topics. What I did write I believe to be sound however.

Note to others:

How sound? What part of anything that he has written on this thread, would you cite as suggesting that the Christian God does in fact exist? Other than theoretically as a philosophical or a spiritual phenomenon.

At the same time I am not one to offer Christian apologetics as if I am a believer trying to convince a non-believer.

Trying to convince me of what...and pertaining to my own focus here regarding God and religion:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious convictions
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious paths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious path

I believe I can say that if it is true that you desire to restore your faith that you are going about it in a way that thoroughly blocks you.

Look, with those like henry and IC and Harry and you, yes, I do tend towards polemics. Either because they keep everything up in the "spiritual clouds" or because they make claims that to me are simply preposterous.

But...

But I will be entirely in earnest in regard to an exchange with someone here who actually believes that they can demonstrate to me that their own religious or spiritual path is the real deal. That it does provide mere mortals with an objective morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then.

Instead, from you, I get this "philosophical/spiritual" defense:

My own *faith* in a transcendental divinity began before I had any comprehension of what Christianity actually was. I discerned that something responded to me because of an inner opening or receptivity.

Personally, and honing in on that “essence”, I understand “it” (that transcendent reality) to come from the Hebrew-Christian source. So in this specific sense I don’t see myself as a pagan, but neither could I say that I am a Christian in any true sense.

If you’ve read anything I write you’d know that I don’t place great stock in ‘the picture’ but rather what lies behind it.

I have a two-volume set The Theology of Saint Paul by Fernand Prat S.J. that your dumb ass has inspired me to study. I am definitely certain that Saint Paul has had an unreally profound influence on this world (but I more or less knew that before) and I sense this is because of the source of his revelation.

How on Earth does this any of this pertain to connecting the dots existentially between your moral and political prejudices, the behaviors you choose and Judgment Day? The whole point of religion!!

Instead, it's you and religion here in a nutshell!!

To wit:

And then I like voyaging by intellectual skyhooks from one upper region to another.

Oh, indeed you do.

[iambiguous]

And exactly which "faith" is that? Christian Scientist? Mormon? Catholic? Jehovah's Witness? Pentecostal? Lutheran? Methodist?...

Well, the denomination able to provide me with the most persuasive video of course.

So...none. You never really were anything, and didn't have a "faith" to lose? Or you're so thoroughly ashamed of your past that you can't even bring yourself to speak of it?

Note to any Christian Scientists, Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Lutherans or Methodists here:

Please provide me with any hard evidence that you have demonstrating that your God does in fact exist. That this can be known [and shown] beyond a leap of faith in the way it can be known [and shown] that the Pope resides in the Vatican.

And, sure, if IC needs to besmirch me and my own years as a devout Protestant Christian, so be it.

But that just allows me to remind him yet again of the bottom line. That...

Anyone who truly did believe they had demonstrable evidence that a God, the God, their God did in fact exist would do everything in their power to spread the news.

[Alexis Jacobi]

How on Earth does this any of this pertain to connecting the dots existentially between your moral and political prejudices, the behaviors you choose and Judgment Day? The whole point of religion!!

Your question is so far from being a good one, or the right one, that I recognize you cannot be reasoned with. You implore someone to come along and transform your conundrum — but you’re invincible!

“I’ll take Ignorantia invicta for a thousand, please”.

(Note: just bringing that up for poignant fun).

[iambiguous]

The Ontological Argument Revisited
Peter Mullen explores the argument that by definition, God exists.

In one form the Ontological Argument for God is basically the argument: 1) God is by definition the perfect being; 2) It is more perfect for a perfect thing to exist than not exist; 3) Therefore God exists.

How can it not be embarrassing to actually use this as your "proof" that God exists? You literally define Him into existence by making certain assumptions about Him that are just part of the definition itself.

I mean, if you wanted to demonstrate instead that the Pope exists in the Vatican, would you start with a definition of the Pope, a definition of exists, a definition of the Vatican? Or would you point to tons and tons of actual hard evidence that he does in fact exist and resides in the Vatican.

Well, at least when he is actually at the Vatican.

On the other hand, suppose you attempted to argue that women should be permitted to become Popes. How far could you go there...by definition or otherwise.

This argument for the existence of God was given the name ‘ontological’ by Immanuel Kant, but it was the invention of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1078, in his book Proslogion (how we miss philosopher-bishops these days!). The word derives from ‘ ontos’, which is the Greek word for ‘being’. Anselm’s own form of the Ontological Argument begins with the words: id quo maius cogitari nequit – “there must be that [thing] the greater than which cannot be conceived.”

In other words, if you want to believe in objective morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side of it, there clearly must be "that thing the greater than which cannot be conceived". That and a Judgment Day said to exist "by definition or otherwise".

Anselm concluded that a being who has all the qualities of greatness and who exists must be greater than the conjectural amalgamation of these qualities but who does not exist; therefore, God exists. Anselm stressed the point in his prayer: “So truly thou dost exist, O Lord. My God, that thou canst not be conceived not to exist.”

Again, what's crucial of course is that he worked this all out entirely in his head. Whereas if someone was doubtful regarding the existence of the Pope, mere mortals could come down out of their heads and, empirically, materially and phenomenologically, make it abundantly clear that he does exist.

Though there are some here who don't seem to get that distinction at all.

[iambiguous]

Oh boy, here we go again...

ME:

What is the actual evidence that Paul provides in the Bible that the Christian God does in fact exist? And how are there not similar accounts from similar characters in the scriptures of any number of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...as well?

Sure, as with Christ, he may have existed historically. As did Muhammad and Buddha and other religious icons. But how on Earth does that establish the actual existence of a God, the God, my God beyond a "leap of faith"?

Again, let me remind AJ of what is actually at stake here: objective morality here and now, immortality and salvation there and then.

So, re IC, we are supposed to become Christians because the Christian Bible tells us that God does in fact exist? And that the Bible must be true because it is, in fact, the word of God?

Had you read the Gospel accounts you’d be able to answer that question yourself.

Ah, I see. The rigorous IC approach. If it says something in the Christian Bible it must be true because the Christian Bible is the word of God. And it must be the word of God because it says so in the Christian Bible.

Just out of curiosity, can you link me to your own collection of YouTube videos?

Still, what are you suggesting here...that if someone reads "the 13 letters he is said to have written and the Book of Acts; the second part of the Gospel of Luke" this will clearly demonstrate to them that the Christian God does in fact exist?

I find you exceedingly tedious and aside from what I offered to you have no interest in a conversation with you on these topics. What I did write I believe to be sound however.

Note to others:

How sound? What part of anything that he has written on this thread, would you cite as suggesting that the Christian God does in fact exist? Other than theoretically as a philosophical or a spiritual phenomenon.

At the same time I am not one to offer Christian apologetics as if I am a believer trying to convince a non-believer.

Trying to convince me of what...and pertaining to my own focus here regarding God and religion:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious convictions
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious paths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious path

I believe I can say that if it is true that you desire to restore your faith that you are going about it in a way that thoroughly blocks you.

Look, with those like henry and IC and Harry and you, yes, I do tend towards polemics. Either because they keep everything up in the "spiritual clouds" or because they make claims that to me are simply preposterous.

But...

But I will be entirely in earnest in regard to an exchange with someone here who actually believes that they can demonstrate to me that their own religious or spiritual path is the real deal. That it does provide mere mortals with an objective morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then.

Instead, from you, I get this "philosophical/spiritual" defense:

My own *faith* in a transcendental divinity began before I had any comprehension of what Christianity actually was. I discerned that something responded to me because of an inner opening or receptivity.

Personally, and honing in on that “essence”, I understand “it” (that transcendent reality) to come from the Hebrew-Christian source. So in this specific sense I don’t see myself as a pagan, but neither could I say that I am a Christian in any true sense.

If you’ve read anything I write you’d know that I don’t place great stock in ‘the picture’ but rather what lies behind it.

I have a two-volume set The Theology of Saint Paul by Fernand Prat S.J. that your dumb ass has inspired me to study. I am definitely certain that Saint Paul has had an unreally profound influence on this world (but I more or less knew that before) and I sense this is because of the source of his revelation.

How on Earth does this any of this pertain to connecting the dots existentially between your moral and political prejudices, the behaviors you choose and Judgment Day? The whole point of religion!!

Instead, it's you and religion here in a nutshell!!

HIM:

How on Earth does this any of this pertain to connecting the dots existentially between your moral and political prejudices, the behaviors you choose and Judgment Day? The whole point of religion!!

Your question is so far from being a good one, or the right one, that I recognize you cannot be reasoned with. You implore someone to come along and transform your conundrum — but you’re invincible!

“I’ll take Ignorantia invicta for a thousand, please”.

(Note: just bringing that up for poignant fun).

Seriously, how can he not be embarrassed when reduced down to posting stumps like this?!!

The great intellectual at a loss for words!!

[Toppsy Kretts]

however, is Christianity Philosophically True?

i believe psalms and proverbs say yes

[Immanuel Can]

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 12, 2023 5:14 pm
What is the actual evidence that Paul provides in the Bible that the Christian God does in fact exist? And how are there not similar accounts from similar characters in the scriptures of any number of these folks...

AJ replied: Had you read the Gospel accounts you’d be able to answer that question yourself.

if IC needs to besmirch me and my own years as a devout Protestant Christian, so be it.

A "Protestant" who clearly doesn't know anything about the gospels, just as AJ points out? And not only that, but a "devout" one, too? So a "devout Protestant" who doesn't know anything, and is so careful to preserve his Atheism that he won't look at a few videos, because they might challenge him?

I'm sorry...I don't believe you. The evidence is just all against that being true. No "besmirching": just obvious facts

[Dubious]

What difference does it make whether god exists as long as one implicitly believes it does? The belief factor is ALL there ever was to compress the unprovable into a fact. Nothing more sustainable than belief was ever available to reify god beyond what is subsumed mentally whether simply imagined or as a psychic necessity. Any request for empirical data on god's existence proves a person completely brainless in understanding the difference between what is possible and what is not.

In Christianity Jesus was the most dispensable figure of all. It wasn't even necessary for him to exist for Christianity to take the course it did. A dominant myth has more power than any personality to create the kind of power structure most organized religions are impelled to become. In a sense, religion has even less use for god than an atheist as it transmutes a myth into an authoritarian scholastic entity supervised by its own hierarchy in which god, in some form, becomes an icon of established power; nothing more and nothing beyond.

[Gary Childress]

What difference does it make whether god exists as long as one implicitly believes it does? The belief factor is ALL there ever was to compress the unprovable into a fact. Nothing more sustainable than belief was ever available to reify god beyond what is subsumed mentally whether simply imagined or as a psychic necessity. Any request for empirical data on god's existence proves a person completely brainless in understanding the difference between what is possible and what is not.

In Christianity Jesus was the most dispensable figure of all. It wasn't even necessary for him to exist for Christianity to take the course it did. A dominant myth has more power than any personality to create the kind of power structure most organized religions are impelled to become. In a sense, religion has even less use for god than an atheist as it transmutes a myth into an authoritarian scholastic entity supervised by its own hierarchy in which god, in some form, becomes an icon of established power; nothing more and nothing beyond.

If only the potential horrors of life were a "myth". ¯\_(*_*)_/¯

[Age]

Well, the denomination able to provide me with the most persuasive video of course.

So...none. You never really were anything, and didn't have a "faith" to lose? Or you're so thoroughly ashamed of your past that you can't even bring yourself to speak of it?

Note to any Christian Scientists, Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Lutherans or Methodists here:

Please provide me with any hard evidence that you have demonstrating that your God does in fact exist. That this can be known [and shown] beyond a leap of faith in the way it can be known [and shown] that the Pope resides in the Vatican.

And, sure, if IC needs to besmirch me and my own years as a devout Protestant Christian, so be it.

But that just allows me to remind him yet again of the bottom line. That...

Anyone who truly did believe they had demonstrable evidence that a God, the God, their God did in fact exist would do everything in their power to spread the news.

For 'us' that Know that God does ACTUALLY EXIST 'we' have NO need to BELIEVE 'we' have have demonstrable evidence that God exists. 'We' actually have the IRREFUTABLE Proof INSTEAD.

'We' also have absolutely NO need 'to spread this news' NEITHER.

The Proof speaks for Itself, and IS 'Self-explanatory:also, that is; for those who are Truly INTERESTED.

[iambiguous]

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 12, 2023 5:14 pm
What is the actual evidence that Paul provides in the Bible that the Christian God does in fact exist? And how are there not similar accounts from similar characters in the scriptures of any number of these folks...

AJ replied: Had you read the Gospel accounts you’d be able to answer that question yourself.

if IC needs to besmirch me and my own years as a devout Protestant Christian, so be it.

A "Protestant" who clearly doesn't know anything about the gospels, just as AJ points out? And not only that, but a "devout" one, too? So a "devout Protestant" who doesn't know anything, and is so careful to preserve his Atheism that he won't look at a few videos, because they might challenge him?

I'm sorry...I don't believe you. The evidence is just all against that being true. No "besmirching": just obvious facts

On the other hand...

Anyone who truly did believe they had demonstrable evidence that a God, the God, their God did in fact exist would do everything in their power to spread the news.

Look, if it is a "condition", then, in all sincerity, I wish you the very best in getting treatment.

But, if it's not, then how do you explain your refusal to link to those here other than me the most potent evidence you have that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven?

Do you truly grasp what is at stake here for their very souls?

Seriously, try to imagine God noting that He has permitted you to grasp demonstrable proof that He does in fact exist and you do absolutely nothing in this venue to save souls!!

At least attempt to explain to me and others how that makes any sense at all. Or do you too work in "mysterious ways"? How do you explain it to yourself?