It’s Stupid to Think Christianity is as Stupid as Some Skeptics Suppose

So here’s my appeal to internet atheists and skeptics: Try not to embarrass yourself this way. Please. For your own sake.

Find contradictions in the Bible all you want, but assume Christians have seen the problems and have a good answer for them. Because we have and we do — and you’d know that, if you knew your history. You still want to try to knock down Christianity after that? Go after our real beliefs. Ask us about something worth asking about. Then we’ll be glad to talk.

And here’s my appeal to fellow believers: Don’t play the game by their rules. Challenge them with the question we should never let them escape: “Do you really think this generation is the first one to pose that kind of question? Do you know so little intellectual history? Is your view of Christians that ignorant — or that inhuman? Go do some basic homework, before you blindly accuse us of not doing ours.” https://stream.org/christianity-stupid-skeptics-suppose/ This is a great article. It rightly shows the intellectual shallowness and weak mindedness of the anti Christian critic. It reveals the weakness of their atheistic arguments.

 

The god haters and deniers over the last two millennia have nothing to stand upon.

 

Do Christianity a favor.

Stop defending it.

Go defend something else.

If you want to help Christianity...don't help.

****.

Any of the above.

ALL of the above.

 

Sorry but I decline to accept your “advice”. Defend I will...

 

Christianity is an anvil that has broken many a hammer over the last 2,000 years.

 

I'm sure what you term "the Christianity haters"...thank you for that.

You do more for them than they do.

 

Do you know what the real Ten Commandments are?

 

Perhaps you should deal with the content and subject of the seeded article instead of making it about any individual member here.

 

In Post #1 you said =

.

You included yourself as a knowledgable person in your statement.

So, do you personally know what the real Ten Commandments are? Maybe you know what the Twelve Curses are? Do you know how they are similar?

 

Assume?

What if the ASSumption is all other religions have it correct?
Afterall, Judaism is the 1st religion based on the real part of the bible.

History? What year did Noah's flood happen? Was it world wide?

 

I've frankly never seen the example from the link being discussed.

I'd say we're weirdly playing the game on the religious rules. The appropriate course of action towards (for instance) the Bible is not to find a flaw in the Bible, it's to question why we're even considering the notion that the Bible has some traction above that of other books/beliefs in the first place. Good epistemology is not done by believing anything that doesn't have a good argument against it (if it did, we'd have to believe in Russel's teapot) but for things like the Bible to present their/its case for being believed, and to the best of my knowledge, that hasn't been persuasive.

Of course I'm not the first person to have asked this or other questions, and I don't believe I imply that I am. It seems to me, this and other questions have been answered but unsatisfactorily. The problem of evil has been posed for as long as there has been Christianity, yet even today, there are well-informed people who leave Christianity for that reason (while others stay). This clearly means that the fact that a question has been asked, mulled over and "resolved" before does not mean that it can't be a persuasive argument and a serious theological problem again.

But yes, I think the argument as made is an important one. We should just be aware that at this point, it applies just as easily to Christianity as it does to Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Satanism, as well as a slew of non-religious points of view. We need to be aware of exactly what others' arguments are, so as not to talk past the point. For instance, I am not aware of any atheists pretending that they're the first person to pose any of these particular questions, and making that the center point of an argument aimed at atheism as a whole seems either disingenuous or misinformed.

 

More to the point, the intellectual history of Christianity is absolutely filled with debate, dispute and rational questioning over the meaning of Scripture and of life in the world. Thousands of Christians have hotly debated every question a skeptic might ask. No one is going to floor us today with some new “gotcha.” Believers have already spent centuries trying it on each other!

No one who genuinely knows history could think Christians have failed to think through these “challenges.” No one could think it was that simple. https://stream.org/christianity-stupid-skeptics-suppose/

 

Christians make lots of blind guesses about the true nature of the REALITY of existence...and then proclaim those blind guesses to be the absolute truth.

Nothing wrong with making blind guesses.

Pretending they are the truth rather than blind guesses...

...is a gas, though.

 

Part of the reason I left Christianity was the lack of good answers to several serious problems. You are proposing that Christians respond to serious questions by refusing to answer them and throwing a straw man in the way instead. Any religion could adopt this same "tactic."

 

"They thought about it before" =/= "They have an answer." That's the nail in this particular coffin.

 

But, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

So what's to be done?

Isaiah 2:22 - "Sever yourselves from such a man, whose breath is in his nostrils"

Do you understand? About 99.999% of believers, preachers, and priests don't. It is Greek to them. It is foolishness to them.

 

Knock down Christianity? Which particular version are you referring to? I trust you’re not so deluded as to believe there’s only one ‘true’ version.
Christians have seen the problems and have a good answer for them? No only that, various branches of the Church have even invented a pseudo-academic title for that game, it’s called biblical apologetics. I suspect I’ve suggested her previously you explore modern biblical studies. You many through such an effort actually come closer to knowing who and what Christ actually was.
https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/biblical-studies
If you do go down that path keep in mind 2nd Thessalonians 2:11

 

Christians realize that we know less than 1/10th of 1 percent of what God is actually like or what He is doing.

The Bible, our reference, is very vague about most things.

Through our personal relationship with Him though we know, KNOW, that the answers will be forthcoming once we move into His realm and that is where we find our peace.

Do I know what exact year the flood was or if it even was a flood?

Nope.

And I don't care because it is irrelevant to my relationship with God.

I will know one day and will ponder it and go, "ohhhhhhhh that's what it was" and then move on.

Skeptics and haters try to tie us up on silly details that nobody knows but, as the OP suggests, you are missing the real point of our faith which is our relationship with God.

 

The usual Christian abuse of the meaning of ‘Know’ . There is therefore simply no point in discussing this with you. We'll just have to wait until we’re all filled with the Holy Spirit.

 

Yes the same questions get asked again and again and never answered. What does that prove? That the Christians have no answers.

 

So you admit to knowing nothing and yet criticize skeptics for pointing that out!

 

You assume that Christians have good answers to every possible problem and contradiction in the bible without presenting a shred of evidence.

Sure. Do you have any evidence for your supernatural claims?

 

There’s a side issue here. Many of those we label as deluded in their beliefs have gone through profound ‘religious experiences'. Our species susceptibility to these events/states is not to be underestimated. They can be so profoundly moving those who experience them sincerely believe they’ve lived a reality others have not been ‘blessed with’. There’s vast amounts of research devoted to these Road to Damascus experiences .
Google ‘The neuropsychology of religious experience’. None of this however validates the claims of true believers to be in touch with a reality others are unaware of. As to the claims the contradictions within scripture have been debated by christians for centuries it’s rather odd if they have managed to understand their holy book is riddled with illogical myths they manage so often to be absolutely certain they and they alone understand God’s Word and commands that they’ve been willing to persecute, torture and murder non-believers over much of history. Or as (I think it was Bernard Shaw who warned us)" Be wary of the man who imagines God is on his side” We need however to avoid assuming Christianity, in it’s many forms, is alone in imposing it’s tyrannous interpretations of scripture. True believers come in many forms from Stalinists to Muslims.

 

No, I criticize them for thinking they know everything.

Do skeptics admit that God may be a possibility?

Nope, because they know He isn't real.

That is the difference between us.

 

Unfortunately people like yourself will never get to experience that.