If you didn't want to believe in Christianity...

[Justin108]

If you didn't want to believe in Christianity, would you stop believing? Suppose you didn't like Christianity at all. Suppose you didn't like the idea of Jesus dying for your sins, an afterlife, etc. would your belief in Christianity stop?

If not, what is it about Christianity that makes any alternative so absolutely unbelievable?

[MadeNew]

I actually wanted to break this down to answer your questions, because you have some good questions in the post.

[Replying to post 105 by MadeNew]

Others disbelieving, different interpretations, circular logic, etc...

These things you are talking about are irrelevant to the objectivity of Christianity, or unspecified.

Ok, what is relevant to Christianity being true ?

If the scripture is true and Jesus Christ is the Messiah. If he came and died for our sin, and was resurrected, then Christianity would be true.

Others who disbelieve? The question is why do they disbelieve, what are their beliefs? And are they true?

Good question.
How are we to know?

How do we know if some belief is true? Well if the evidence support it being true would be a good place to start.

If everyone believed in Christianity then Christianity would be objectively false, because it tells us many people won't believe it.

I'm not sure that I follow.. maybe it was a typo.
Could you clarify?

Yes, you were saying stuff like "Do you believe that everyone, including outsiders, believes that Christianity has proven itself to be true?", and it is clear that not everyone believes in Christianity. There was no typo in my response, Christianity tells us that many people will not believe in Christianity. So, on that fact, if everyone believed in Christianity then Christianity would be objectively false, because it tells us that not everyone will believe it... But that isn't the case, many people don't believe it and thus Christianity is shown to be true.

Different interpretations? What are those different interpretations and are they Biblical? I gave you reason that "indoctrination" from birth, isn't Biblical.

How do you establish that your reason is the truth?

Well this debate isn't about my reasoning, it is about Christianity. If Christ is the Son of God, then Christianity is true, and my acknowledgment of that would be justified.

Curricular logic? My "logic" tells us nothing about whether Christianity is objectively true.

Ah.
Sorry, I was under the impression that you thought Christianity was true.

I do believe Christianity is true, but the point i was making is that when you claim that my argument is circular, what does that tell us about whether or not Christianity is true?

My logic, no matter what i reason up with my own head, is completely independent of whether or not Christ is the Son of God. So by attacking my personal logic (saying it is circular) doesn't answer anything. It is just diverting debate.

It is irrelevant to whether or not Christianity is true.

I have to admit that I'm a little bit confused now.
Can you clarify?

Are you saying that Christianity is true or not?

Well if you want to attack my personal understanding of Christianity, i would rather not make that claim so we don't get sidetracked on my own understanding of things.

If the scripture is true, then Christianity is true. If Christ was raised from the dead, then Christianity is objectively true.

My own opinion about it has no baring on whether or not it is true. So the question is, is the scripture true?

If you wish to discredit Christianity, show that by the objectivity of Christianity, not by how anyone might interpret it.

Aren't you interpreting it?

And please forgive me for giving you the wrong impression. I am NOT trying to discredit Christianity.

I am merely trying to follow your reasoning.
A bit of clarification would help.

My reasoning has nothing to do with the objectivity with Christianity being true. Ya i believe Christianity is true, i believe it is absolutely true, like an absolute sense, but if the question is if my reasoning is valid, that is irrelevant to Christianity being true.

[MadeNew]

[Replying to post 110 by Blastcat]

I never made the claim of Christianity. I did not make Christianity up, I had nothing to do with Christ raising from the dead, i didn't write any of the scripture. You are telling me that i made a claim, i never did, the Bible made the claim and i acknowledge its claim. The Bible is what convinced me it was true, and that is our debate, it is whether or not the Bible is true, and not about whatever i claim to be true...

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 111 by MadeNew]

[center]
Giving reasons is expected in debates.[/center]

If the scripture is true and Jesus Christ is the Messiah. If he came and died for our sin, and was resurrected, then Christianity would be true.

Ok, fair enough. You say IF that happened.

1 Corinthians 15:14

New International Version
And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

How do we know IF the resurrection really happened or not?
It seems to me that is lost to history.

We don't have a time machine to go check.
Do you believe that Jesus resurrected and why?

How do we know if some belief is true? Well if the evidence support it being true would be a good place to start.

Ok, Good.
I would demand evidence as well, I think that's an excellent place to start.
We can't just believe a claim because someone makes it, after all.

What evidence do you have to support your God beliefs?

Yes, you were saying stuff like "Do you believe that everyone, including outsiders, believes that Christianity has proven itself to be true?", and it is clear that not everyone believes in Christianity.

Good.
Then not everybody would look at the same evidence as you do and arrive to the same conclusions. Why do you think that would be?

There was no typo in my response, Christianity tells us that many people will not believe in Christianity. So, on that fact, if everyone believed in Christianity then Christianity would be objectively false, because it tells us that not everyone will believe it... But that isn't the case, many people don't believe it and thus Christianity is shown to be true.

Ok, right.
Actually, I kinda made the typo.
When I was correcting my post, something went wrong, and it left it in by error.

I got what you meant, actually.

You are saying that since the Bible predicts that not everyone will believe in "Christianity", and that not everyone DOES.. the Bible is predicting and the prediction came true. If that is what you mean, I have a question about that.

There are thousands of denominations of Christianity, all of them disagreeing about something or other about scripture, some of them trivial differences, and some of them rather important differences. How do you account for that?

Not all people might be Christians like the Bible said, but not all Christians believe the same things. There are many different interpretations of what the Bible says. Even atheist interpretations..

So how did you arrive at the conclusion that yours was the correct one?

Well this debate isn't about my reasoning, it is about Christianity. If Christ is the Son of God, then Christianity is true, and my acknowledgment of that would be justified.

In this forum, when challenged, reason should be provided for our claims. Evidence is what is asked for. But if someone doesn't really make sense, we should be able to challenge the person on that, too.

I am asking you about your reasoning concerning Christianity and your beliefs. Are your beliefs true or not is what I care about.

So, your reasoning really matters. Debates are ALWAYS and ONLY about evidence and reasoning.

Don't you care if your beliefs are true? I am willing to bet that you do.
I am asking for you to explain how you know that they ARE true.

And if that doesn't make sense to me, I will explain why and ask you for more clarification. I would like us to get to the bottom of this.

I do believe Christianity is true, but the point i was making is that when you claim that my argument is circular, what does that tell us about whether or not Christianity is true?

Ok. I really needed you to clarify that.
Thanks.

If you are indeed making a circular argument, you aren't making sense. So, the conclusion formed that way can't be taken as conclusive. If we are trying to explain something or convince someone.. we should at the very least try to make sense to them. Otherwise, it's babbling.

Your reasoning might be unsound.. the reasons why you believe might not be logically valid. You just MIGHT be making an error. How would you know if you don't try to reason it out?

My logic, no matter what i reason up with my own head, is completely independent of whether or not Christ is the Son of God.

So, are you saying that you will not offer ANY reason?
You just believe BECAUSE? .. without any reason behind that belief AT ALL?

You can't think well, so you won't even TRY ?

Why believe something if you doubt your own ability to reason things out? How would you ever find out if the belief is WRONG if you don't reason it out?

I know you aren't perfect, and that's fine.
Nobody is perfect.

I am asking for you to reason this out.
Why do you think that your beliefs are true?

You MUST have some reason.

So by attacking my personal logic (saying it is circular) doesn't answer anything. It is just diverting debate.

Attacking your personal logic

That's all you GOT in a debate is your "personal logic".
I am not trying to attack you, I am asking you questions about it.

Do you think that using circular logic is a good idea?
It should be a simple enough question .

If you don't care at all about how sound your reasoning is.. you won't do well in debates. Debates rely on our very best thinking .. our reasoning, and then good solid facts. Little else is important, really.

If you don't reason well.. you're cooked.
If what you present as facts don't pan out, you will fail.

That's about it.

Your facts and your reasoning is all you got in here.
Abandon either at your own risk.

Well if you want to attack my personal understanding of Christianity, i would rather not make that claim so we don't get sidetracked on my own understanding of things.

I fail to see how that question ( repeated question .. that you've answered now ) is an ATTACK. I wanted you to clarify a point because I was confused. How is that an attack?

When I don't understand something, I ask the person to clear it up.
Not an attack by a long shot.

If the scripture is true, then Christianity is true. If Christ was raised from the dead, then Christianity is objectively true.

My own opinion about it has no baring on whether or not it is true. So the question is, is the scripture true?

Exactly.
How do we find out?

Do you have a time machine?

My reasoning has nothing to do with the objectivity with Christianity being true.

I don't understand that at all.
If you make a claim, you simply must defend it.. kindof a "thing" in debates, you see.
Refusing to offer support for your claim fails you the whole debate.

Did you JUST come in here to lose any and all debates?
Can I ask why you come into a debate forum .. if not to care about giving reasons for anything?

Ya i believe Christianity is true, i believe it is absolutely true, like an absolute sense, but if the question is if my reasoning is valid, that is irrelevant to Christianity being true.

When we make a claim in the forum, we are well advised to follow the rules and provide evidence when asked. I am asking.

What is the evidence that you provide to back up your claim that Christianity is as you say "absolutely true?

Provide the evidence.

But you didn't give us ANY reason to believe that your claims are true. So far, we all have to REJECT your claims as unsupported.

Your reasoning MATTERS.

Think about it.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 111 by MadeNew]

Well this debate isn't about my reasoning, it is about Christianity. If Christ is the Son of God, then Christianity is true, and my acknowledgment of that would be justified.

[center]Are you telling all of us reading this that your DEBATE doesn't involve reasoning?[/center]

[MadeNew]

[Replying to post 114 by Blastcat]

The entire point is to get out of this personal belief debate, and get into what Christianity is. Remove my opinion from it, i never made the claim of Christianity, i didn't write any of the books, i didn't raise Jesus Christ, i didn't create the Faith. My opinion is irrelevant... The entire point is to get past these irrelevant debates and get into the subject of Christianity. Of if it is true or not.

Do we need a time machine for Christianity to be true? If i never existed, and never met you, my opinion would make no difference, is Christianity true? Don't ask me what i think about it, instead acknowledge what it is, not how i perceive it.

[OnceConvinced]

Ok im not interested in debating something that i am just going to have to take your word for it. I don't know you, i don't know your past,

So that seems to be all the more reason not to judge someone as not having been a true Christian, wouldn't you say?

i believe in the scripture. Even the parable of the sower tells us of the people of seed on the rocky ground, hearing the word with joy but then falling away because of the world. Do i believe they are "true Christians"?

I definitely do not fall into that category. I was not someone who fell away just because the going got tough. I prevailed through many trials and tribulations for many years. I was the seed that germinated and brought forth fruit for many years.

It seems to me that after a while I found that no water was being added, no fertilizer, no pruning, nothing, so I started to die.

I don't fit into any of the categories in that parable. None whatsoever.

Maybe God will be that judge, but by rejecting Christ that shows evidence of embedding the spirit of the antiChrist, just like the epistles of John says.. And i don't believe this was only for a specific people, this can be applied to anyone, just like all the scripture.

I never rejected Jesus. Not at all. In fact if he were to come to me and reveal that he is real I would welcome him with open arms. No rejection here. He would be most welcome. I would be happy to be a believer again.

For me it was just a terrible and inescapable conclusion that the claims the bible made about him did not appear to be true. It was hopeless trying to continue with something I no longer believed. For me it was like a belief in Santa Claus. As I learnt certain truths I began to realise that Santa just didn't exist. It was never a matter of me rejecting Santa Claus. For me to reject something would mean that I still believed it, but had just chosen to reject it. It would be a deliberately rebellious act. I never chose to rebel. I never deliberately rejected Jesus. I simply lost my faith in him. But he could easily change that by revealing himself to me.

And ya, maybe you were a perfect Christian... Im not aloud to even debate against that, so i won't...

You are allowed to debate aspects of that. It's just that you were pretty much calling me a liar, which is why the post was reported and a warning was given. I did not report it by the way.

Im a sinner, i have never been a perfect Christian, and i will probably never be one... "Just As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one""

Thank God for the grace of Christ! .

Well if I went for 30-40 years under a false belief that I was a true Christian when really I wasn't... and God made no effort to correct me, then so much for the grace of God.

Why do you think God would allow me to go for so long believing I was saved when really I wasn't?

Do you really think that a boy of 7 years old who believed everything his parents told him and everything his Sunday School teachers told him... who really wanted to please God, would have been insincere when he repented and was born again? What could possibly have gone wrong do you think?

Yes, you can discuss these issues. It is not against the rules. In fact I invite you to. How does your beliefs co-exist with promises that if I come to God as a child and I repent that he is righteous and just to forgive?

What hope does any human have, coming to God sincerely if they can end up in a position like me? An ex-Christian. An atheist? Supposedly never a true Christian to begin with? How can anyone trust God? How can anyone trust the bible?

Not everyone believes that, but i sure do

I believed it for 30-40 years without question. Let's see if you can do the same. Let's see if your seed can survive in the rocky harsh conditions for as many years as that.

[OnceConvinced]

22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist(1 John 2:22)

Ya, I guess thats pretty specific, about a certain group of people, "whoever" really narrows it down...

The key thing is WHOEVER denies Christ. I never did that at all while I was a Christian. I still haven't. But the important fact is I didn't as a Christian so I was not an anti-Christi.

This passage nowhere says that just because you are no longer a Christian you were a false one to begin with. It just says that if you do end up denying Christ THEN you will be an classed as anti-christ.

Let’s analyse this in context rather than just plucking verses out to suit your beliefs…

Starting from v18

V18-19
John warns of anti-christs and refers to specific ones in the church this letter is written to. They were not really with them. They were there to mislead them. They were ALREADY anti-Christs. V26 confirms that for us.

V20-23 he speaks to the church. The people he is writing to. He is clearly referring to them as fellow believers. As true Christians. He then goes on to explain what an anti-Christ is. That is someone who rejects Jesus.

V24. Look very carefully at what its saying. "See that what you have heard from the beginning REMAINS in you". Thus right off the cuff he's implying that you are saved. You are in TRUTH. It's telling you to make sure you STAY that way! Which means it might be possible that you DON'T stay that way. He most definitely does not refer to any of them as anti-Christs or false Christians.

He even goes on to say "IF it does..." So that implies that it MAY NOT! Which lines up with Paul’s teachings. ie, You can fall from grace. Even he can.

V26 is a summary. He's summing up and referring to people who have led them astray. He is referring to specific people that were trying to lead his people astray. THEY were the anti-Christs. He was not referring to the people he was writing the letter too but another group who were never really part of them. The letter was addressed only to his fellow believers, but ones John knew could possibly end up becoming anti-Christs if they weren't vigilent.

v 28 "and now children CONTINUE in him..." So what does that imply? It implies that you can be in a situation where you DON'T continue in him. Once again this is not saying that you would be a false Christian. Once again it goes along with what Paul says how it's possible to fall from grace.

What is obvious by John’s teachings here is that you only become an anti-Christ AFTER you deny Christ. Not before.

For over 30 years I believed in Jesus. I served Jesus. I worshipped the father and the son. So I was in truth wasn't I? I wasn't denying anything. So thus I was a true Christian. It was later when I ceased to believe that I ceased doing those things. So it's only now that you can possibly call me an anti-Christ. However you could not call me that at the time I was a committed Christian. So even if you want to say that scripture relates to everyone not just the people John was writing to, I was most definitely a true Christian based on that criteria. It's only NOW that I'm not. So this is not saying that I wasn't a true Christian to begin with.

So what you have here, even if it applies to all apostates even today is a statement that if you leave the faith then you are an anti-Christ. No where is he saying that because you left the faith you were not a true Christian to being with. You are reading in something to his words that just aren't there. Those anti-Christs he referred to were never part of them because they were never genuine. They were anti-Christs BEFORE they entered the church. They were only there to lead the people astray.

The whole thing is about don't deny the son, that's all, which is something I haven't done.

[OnceConvinced]

Ya i believe in Christianity, because Christianity has proven itself to be true. Not only to my personal life, but to the world around me. It doesn't make any sense to me to say hat Christianity doesn't work, because to me it works the exact way it claimed it would.

I claimed the same thing for over 30 years. I wonder how long you will say it for?

I guess some things work for some people. They don't work for others. Kind of like dieting, medications etc.

I mean if someone claims to be a Christian from birth, indoctrinated in, that isn't even Biblical right off the bat. That isn't how Christianity works.

See? This is how I know you didn't read my story properly. If you had read my story properly you will know that at the age of 7 I made my own decision for Christ. Genuine. Sincere. Truly believing. At the age of 16 I rededicated my life to Christ due to my own keen desire to serve Christ. I was baptised... because I wanted to be and entered ministries as a leader at kid's camps.

Are you still going to claim you read my story?

Christianity talks of being "Born again" which implies no one is a Christian from birth, and i find that true. So right off the bat, these kinds of claims aren't adding up.

Agreed. One has to make their own decision for Christ, which I did. A very genuine and sincere one.

So Christianity has proven itself to me to be true, and proven itself to work exactly like it tells us it would work.

Yep, I said that for over 30 years. How many years have you been saying it?

So claiming it doesn't work, or it works completely differently, i find hard to believe.

Yeah, I used to find it hard to believe myself as a Christian. Until I realised it didn't actually work. Some times it takes many years before you realise it because some things take many years before they are achieved... or some things you hold out for but they never actually happen.

Let's see how you go in about 10 years from now. Let's see if it's still working for you.

How long has it been working for you now MadeNew? 2? 3 years?

[MadeNew]

I mean if someone claims to be a Christian from birth, indoctrinated in, that isn't even Biblical right off the bat. That isn't how Christianity works.

See? This is how I know you didn't read my story properly. If you had read my story properly you will know that at the age of 7 I made my own decision for Christ. Genuine. Sincere. Truly believing. At the age of 16 I rededicated my life to Christ due to my own keen desire to serve Christ. I was baptised... because I wanted to be and entered ministries as a leader at kid's camps.

Are you still going to claim you read my story?

And here is a quote directly from your story that i read...

"I guess you could say I was well and truly indoctrinated from an early age. I grew up accepting without a doubt what was taught to me by my parents and Sunday school teachers. There were no other options given. I took everything at face value and didn’t question."~Once Convinced

Im am not interested in debating this any longer with you, just like i am not interested in debating 1 John 2 with you. If anything you are pitching something that doesn't make a lt of sense, and then you say something and then you claim something else, so i guess its all just a grey area, whatever fits the debate at any given time is fine with you i guess. We could probably debate the semantics of anything with this kind of debating, with no clear explanation of anything.

I am not interested in debating semantics of a bunch of grey words from your story, or grey semantics in your reasoning. I am not interested in debating whether you were a true christian, i don't know you and i would rather not take it just because you said so. I have every reason to believe Christianity is true, i have no reason to believe what you are saying to me, and you aren't getting any closer to convincing me of anything 'just because you claim it is true'....


I want to know specifically what caused you to not believe.

You say "For me it was just a terrible and inescapable conclusion that the claims the bible made about him did not appear to be true."

Apparently you really believe in Christianity, but then you just realized it wasn't true. What specifically caused you to believe it was not true? What claims about Jesus did the Bible make that did not appear to be true to you? And what evidence do you have that? Or what convinced you of that specifically?

[Monta]

[Replying to post 116 by OnceConvinced]


"I never rejected Jesus. Not at all. In fact if he were to come to me and reveal that he is real I would welcome him with open arms. No rejection here. He would be most welcome. I would be happy to be a believer again. "

You stick with that