After Adam. For 5,000 years all societies believed marriage is between a man and a woman, even though they may have differed as to how many wives to have. Now all of a sudden that view is some kind of hate crime? Welcome to the LW Brave New World, 1984 is here. Persecution will only strengthen the church, as has happened in China. Man did fall with Adam, and the result was aberrant sexual behavior, cancer, alcoholism, etc. Satan can't make any new pleasures, he can only take those God has made and twist them. By your standard how would pedophilia (a subset of the gay agenda) be OK between consenting persons? You could argue some minors are more mature than older adults, and who are you do deny love to some due to an arbitrary age line. Why the hate? See how that works? Agreed. And we have just as much right to disagree with those behaviors, if not more so due to Constitutional protections of free exercise of religion.
Jesus talked about hell more than heaven. IF hell exists, it would be the most unloving thing imaginable to warn people about it.
Be patient, at the time of the Revolution there were about 1,000,000 Christians in China, today that figure is over 100,000,000. There are more Christians in China than Communist Party members.
[ How can a human possibly have fellowship with a ;spirit' creator who is unknown, Omni.... everything, and hides himself . God made man in his own image. Rather a bit of guesswork if god is invisible. God is love, 13 Bn years ago God started the universe. as an afterthought he decide to make a planet 9 Bn years later to place a new creation on, Of course, it takes a few billion years before the creation is placed on it. And that was a mistake. The planet is still very unstable and regularly kills his creation by earthquakes, floods and natural disasters. On top of that he placed dangerous animals, all sorts of diseases and Bacteria which affect his creation. Wouldn't you think, in his love, he could have made sure everything was safe. Why take a few million years to reveal himelf? Why did man have to create his own god in the beginning and form his own religions dating back as far as man can remember? Why has todays Christianity evolved from those early beginning, through various forms, into Judaism and then Christianity?. This can be traced back through religions which have assumed many attributes of earlier religions. In the same manner - forward - we have Islam, JW's, Mormonism.. There are no figures for the number of Christians in China. They are all 'guesswork'.. Estimates vary wildly. . Christianity certainly is on the rise in China, Chinese authorities tend to underestimate and outside institutions overestimate.
↑ Quote Paul7 After Adam. Do you mean Adapa - from whom Adam is adapted. Much earlier. Similar to Creation stories, Noah etc.
Adam didn't exist. Satan as an enemy of God is Christian teaching adapted from HaSatan, Gods agent in Judaism. Created to test mens faith in Yahweh. In the same way the Jewish teacher Jesus was supposedly tested in Matthews gospel and in Jewish terms - like the story of Job - past the test, Like the Baptism and much of Jesus teaching and practise this was part of Judaism The inquisitors used the 'free exercise of religion' as well.
I kind of thought you would doubt the invisible. "Image " does not equate "physical". There is far more to life than that. You might just not be ready to embrace that fact. Some day you will.
I don't doubt the 'invisible'. I just don't know. When we die our 'energy' does not die with us. Energy moves to another status. Part of the Universal energy (Buddhism) or a 'spiritual' energy. There are many things science has yet to answer
I was born with a sense of what you describe their. One of the 1st spiritual studies I ever did was "Spiritual Man by Watchman Nee". That was on the road to believing what Jesus said and Who He Is. When you sincerely seek it all is laid out and begins to make sense." Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis" is another one that is especially helpful with the reasoning mind.
Jesus disagreed/disagrees with you. He believed in a literal Adam and Noah. Contrary to the teachings of Jesus, who harmed nobody. Are you equating the Inquisition with belief in traditional marriage?
Of course Jesus believed in a literal Adam and Noah. Since the age of 5 he had been taught to believe. He had learnt the Tanakh through and through. Jewish children were brought up this way. The Jewish preacher, Jesus, didn't know these things because he was 'divine'. He had been brought up to believe. He didn't believe it was true because it was true. Simply because he taught it was true. How many people today still believe 'because the Church says so'.or the Bible says so. There was nothing to dissuade him from these beliefs. In fact, if he had been persuaded otherwise he would have been ostracised by clergy and public alike. The Gospel writers put words in Jesus' mouth that, if he had actually said them, would have turned the people against him. It was the Jewish adherence to their beliefs that made Rome allow them favours that no other conquered nation had. Four times Caesars ruled against their own Roman kings and governors in Palestine when they provoked the Jews and the Jews appealed to Rome. The rulers were made to revoke their orders. What is traditional marriage? I have 5 grandchildren. One who is still 'unattached' at the age of around 30. None of the other 4 are married, but have happy family lives with their partners and children. . I have 7 great grandchildren. None of them are Christians or see the need to make promises to a non-existent god. In fact, to do so would be hypocrisy. Many years ago I was, beside many other things, a church organist. I've seen many marriages, baptisms, christenings. I've heard many promises made by couples, parents and godparents to 'God' to do this and that. None of it really meant anything or were the participants ever seen in church again. Traditions change over the centuries. In Judaism the marriage ceremony was long and included a period when the couple would retire to a bedroom and have intercourse. They would then return and show a bloodied sheet to prove the girl had been a virgin. If it didn't the marriage was off and woe betide the girl. That tradition today would certainly see marriage abandoned. My point was that the Spanish inquisition used the 'free exercise of religion' for their torturous actions.
And yet it is the go-to argument whenever they want to claim atheists have no basis for morality. They go straight for the idea that, without a blissful afterlife or threat of eternal torture, there is no motive to be good.
Hell, Pascal's Wager doesn't even take into account the varieties of Christianity. The argument is as nonsensical as it is intellectually lazy.
Can you justify the statement that that is the go-to argument? I don't think I've heard any Christians make any argument which have to interpreted like that. Plenty of people bring out Pascal's wager (although it's not clear that that's what you're referring to), but I get the feeling that's not because they believe heaven and hell or pleasure and pain are the only metrics of good and bad, but because they are metrics of good and bad that a Christian and an atheist (or for that matter, someone clueless, like a child) might agree on. But by all means, I may be wrong, it could be that Christians have made those arguments with those intentions, I may have misunderstood or even overlooked some relevant argument (I would like you to clarify which argument you're referring to). However, the idea that the concepts of morality arises out of whether it sends you to heaven or hell strikes me as something most Christians (and many others) will easily identify as a strawman of Christianity. My humble guess is that most Christians will see it as a deliberate misrepresentation or a fundamental misunderstanding.
A kooky conspiracy theory with no evidence. Jesus Christ was God incarnate, who was, and is, and is to come. A marriage between a man and a woman, but I think you knew that.
Take God out of the picture and all you have is personal preference. A dead universe doesn't care about moral questions.
I would say your last statement is true of your first statement. The vast majority of Christians agree on the essentials of the faith, as expressed in the creeds for instance. Contrary to atheist imagination, the 1st Baptists don't think the 2nd Baptists are going to hell.
There's plenty of evidence if you study Judaism and the time of Jesus, All evidence of Jesus supposed divinity is from so-called prophecies taken from the OT.out of context, Shema Israel "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD ", Deuteronomy. No Jew would have accepted that Jesus was THE Son of God. That he was A son of God would have been acceptable as all Jews accepted they were sons of God. Hosea 11:1.The Christian trinity is merely a way of including Jesus. No Jew would have accepted Jesus telling Mary that he was to die for their sins. They were responsible for their own sins and responsible for their own repentance. Jesus would have been ostracised by the ordinary people, as well as the hierarchy. If Jesus was divine, why did he believe in things known today to be wrong. Even the Church is acknowledging the new interpretations. The impossibility of a Biblical mountain covering flood, the 7 day creation story, the Exodus from Egypt, the Lucifer error of Isaiah, the error of 'virgin' in the Nativity story. Jesus in Egypt and Nazareth at the same time. Joseph going to Bethlehem when he should have been at home in Nazareth according to Roman Law, And yet people still blindly believe what they were taught. A traditional marriage is a man made concept. https://www.livescience.com/37777-history-of-marriage.html
I've had this argument dozens upon dozens of times, I've seen it on the forums, and it even appears in the text of the NT itself (1 Corinthians 15:32). Along with the whole "a Law requires a Law Giver" argument, it is by far the most common argument I've seen Christians make against the possibility of atheist morality.
You are the one assuming that morals are based on personal preference (God's). I am not making that assumption. Monotheists still have no answer for Euthyphro's Dilemma, as demonstrated here.
Your argument might work on someone less familiar with the varieties of belief within Christianity. You are not dealing with such a person. I grew up Southern Baptists. They had no problem claiming that, for example, Catholics and Episcopalians and Methodists and Mormons and Quakers and Pentecostals, etc. were going to Hell. They were iffy about the Presbyterians.
Can you give me some actual examples? I'm thinking you may have misunderstood arguments that have been made, so you simply reiterating that you've seen it doesn't help me. As for the Corinthians quote, here with context (NIV): It is a bit tricky to interpret it, as Bible quotes often are, but I read it as the author listing and preempting potential objections (as he does a lot in the rest of the chapter). He suggests that someone might say those things, and then calls those questions and statements mislead. Do Christians actually quote this at you, or is the nihilist interpretation simply your conjecture? (the rest of this post can be skipped in the interest of brevity) I had a look at some commentaries, to see if the Christian consensus, if there is such a thing, agrees with me. Verse 32 (source): "(r) These are sayings of the Epicureans." (I.e. this is not the argument the author himself is making (Swenssons comment)) Verse 33 (source): "(33) Be not deceived.—The previous words are spoken with sarcasm." "Verse 33. - Be net deceived. Do not be led astray by such specious maxims." At first, I thought that under the hypothetical that there is no resurrection, the author still calls those thoughts mislead, but in hindsight (and having read the commentary), I think he's dismissing the entire paragraph ("Now if there is no resurrection" onwards) without much actual argument. Either way, I don't think the quote you mentioned is presented as truth, as much as a part of a mislead argument.
Well, it seems all the Christians who answered the question in the OP (DennisTate, it's just me, modernpaladin, perdidochas) answered that morality does matter even without heaven and hell. It is sort of unclear whether Katzenatsu was referring to his own beliefs, and ChemEngineer called the question inane (which I would assume means he agrees with all the other Christians in the thread, but that is an assumption on my part) but I would probably add those to the list as well. Paul7, Robert E. Allen and potentially others added the assumptions to the question, to the point where it's not really comparable. You presented Bible quotes, alluded to arguments, etc. but at the end of the day, your understanding of what Christians believe seems not to match up with what Christians actually believe.
