A Christian challenge

[Montalban]

True, very true, but it still doesn’t say that your right now does it?

And yet you think you are. Why do you not address this paradox?

You’re certain no one can be certain.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

One word…fanaticism…It’s in almost every relgion

muslim extremist (the suicide bombings)
japanese who fallowed bushido (killed themselves for there failure)

its all fanaticism.

Using your argument, we can make the following conclusions:

Fanatics believe so strongly in what they claim that they’ll die for it. Muslims die for their Prophet because someone taught them it was the truth. Despite the strength of their beliefs, that someone could have lied. The Apostles, on the other hand, died for their belief that they saw Jesus Christ die and then return to life. Therefore, they believed their own claim to be the truth. Can you explain why all of them, and so many others, would believe so strongly that they saw our Risen Lord Jesus Christ that they’d die for it?

 

[Catholig]

Lack of bones, It can be explained in any number of theroies i.e. (grave robbers, fanatics who wanted the bones, ect.) still doesn’t prove physically that he rose from the dead.

Can it? Because I thought that the cave which he was buried in was guarded? I know - the only source I have is the bible. But I really can’t imagine, why the Jews, or Romans would want to allow anyone to steal his bones, when it would only give credence to the religion, which they wanted to get rid off. I think that’s called deductive logic. As for grave robbers, well I don’t think they’d get passed the guards, nor do I see a reason for them to steal the bones.

Catholig

 

[Montalban]

Okay, I have this must trust in my relgion that I’ll put it on the line…Prove to me beyond any and I mean any shadow of a doubt that mines are false and yours arn’t. without using one word of christianity.

Then I will join in your relgion.

I just proved your’s is not correct. I don’t get credit for that.

You can’t ‘trust’ that no one is right, because then you wouldn’t be either.

 

[reborn_pagan]

And yet you think you are. Why do you not address this paradox?

You’re certain no one can be certain.

Darn you got me there, I just relized that.

If you know me, I HATE when people say there better or they act better because of a beilfe when it is as completly uncredible than the other’s

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

Okay, I have this must trust in my relgion that I’ll put it on the line…Prove to me beyond any and I mean any shadow of a doubt that mines are false and yours arn’t. without using one word of christianity.

Then I will join in your relgion.

That makes no sense.

 

[reborn_pagan]

Can it? Because I thought that the cave which he was buried in was guarded? I know - the only source I have is the bible. But I really can’t imagine, why the Jews, or Romans would want to allow anyone to steal his bones, when it would only give credence to the religion, which they wanted to get rid off. I think that’s called deductive logic. As for grave robbers, well I don’t think they’d get passed the guards, nor do I see a reason for them to steal the bones.

Catholig

I said THEORY not proof but just theorietically, who knows why people do what they do.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

Darn you got me there, I just relized that.

If you know me, I HATE when people say there better or they act better because of a beilfe when it is as completly uncredible than the other’s

We have eyewitnesses that died because they believed in what they saw. No other religion can claim that and it makes Christianity very credible.

 

[reborn_pagan]

I just proved your’s is not correct. I don’t get credit for that.

You can’t ‘trust’ that no one is right, because then you wouldn’t be either.

Okay I’ve been up for around 41 hours and its 3:39 AM here, dumb that down for me please

 

[Catholig]

Okay, I have this must trust in my relgion that I’ll put it on the line…Prove to me beyond any and I mean any shadow of a doubt that mines are false and yours arn’t. without using one word of christianity.

Then I will join in your relgion.

I thought I did. I showed you the founders of your religion. And you can’t show me anything in return. You haven’t cited any sources, or proved the age of your religion. You haven’t demonstrated any connection between your religion and the early pagans.

Catholig

 

[Montalban]

Darn you got me there, I just realized that.

If you know me, I HATE when people say there better or they act better because of a belief when it is as completely uncredible than the other’s

Assuming these comments are about my belief I’ve just shown you that your belief is illogical. I’m sorry that you read this to mean that I’m saying I’m better than you. Certainly my belief system is more credible by the very fact that it doesn’t make the illogical/paradoxical claims yours does.

Here’s a non-biblical reasoning…

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know if it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.
Lewis, C. S., (2002), “The Complete C S Lewis”, (Harper; San Francisco), p30.

If we had the time and space, Lewis would be used more as he shows how Christianity is ‘logical’.

 

[Montalban]

Okay I’ve been up for around 41 hours and its 3:39 AM here, dumb that down for me please

I thought I did.

You say that we Christians can’t know the truth of our faith. This itself is a statement of YOUR faith. Yet you seem to be certain about your faith by making such a statement. It’s an absoulte statement.

And yet you also say you can’t be certain.

You’re therefore saying “I’m absolutely certain that nobody can be absolutely certain”

You’re arguing from a paradox.

 

[reborn_pagan]

I thought I did. I showed you the founders of your religion. And you can’t show me anything in return. You haven’t cited any sources, or proved the age of your religion. You haven’t demonstrated any connection between your religion and the early pagans.

Catholig

I thought I posted that I worship the same Gods as the ancient pagans did, which archieologist have found shrines,springs,wells ect. for those gods that date back to the begining of Hadrin’s wall.

that good enough to make my belief abit more credible?

 

[Montalban]

I said THEORY not proof but just theorietically, who knows why people do what they do.

Then you don’t even know why you do what you’re doing! Sheesh, you’re getting into a deeper hole now.

Are you now saying some outside force compels you to be pagan?

 

[Montalban]

I thought I posted that I worship the same Gods as the ancient pagans did, which archieologist have found shrines,springs,wells ect. for those gods that date back to the begining of Hadrin’s wall.

that good enough to make my belief abit more credible?

How do we know that they’re the SAME gods?

 

[Montalban]

If you don’t know what’s causing you to be pagan, here’s some food for thought…

As British biologist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1927, “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/GilderEvolution.php
also at
[Evolution and Me | Discovery Institute(name removed by moderator)age](http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vi...am=DI Main Page - Article&callingPage=discoMa(name removed by moderator)age)

So there must be some non-material force at work. We also know that it can’t be your gods, because you’re uncertain that they exist or anyone else’s - we’ve gone throuhg the illogical nature of that belief.

 

[reborn_pagan]

Then you don’t even know why you do what you’re doing! Sheesh, you’re getting into a deeper hole now.

Are you now saying some outside force compels you to be pagan?

Can you hand me a bigger shovel then?

I was just stating that I don’t know why jews or romans would steal bones, the same reason why nobody honestly knows why others kill for 5 dollars in another person’s pocket

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

How do we know that they’re the SAME gods?

I’m wondering the very same thing. Just because neopagans take the name and images of ancient gods, doesn’t mean they’re worshipping the same deities as the ancients. How much reliable information do they have on these gods? Or have they simply invented new gods and given them the names of the ancient ones?

 

[Montalban]

You questioned the acconts regarding Jesus. I agree that in some respects we work off trust.

But we have reason to trust. Here’s what can be said about miracles…
"When we read in Bouchet about miracles associated with the relics of Saint Hilary we can shrug it off: His right to be believed is not great enough to take away our freedom to challenge him. But to go on from there and condemn all similar accounts seems to me to be impudent in the extreme. Such a great saint as Augustine swears that he saw: a blind child restored to sight by the relics of Saint Gervaise and Saint Protasius at Milan; a woman in Carthage cured of a cancer by the sign of the cross made by a woman who had just been baptised; his close friend Hesperius driving off devils (who were infesting his house) by using a little soil taken from the sepulchre of our Lord, and that same soil, borne into the Church, suddenly curing a paralytic; a woman who, having touched the reliquary of Saint Stephen with a posy of flowers during a procession, rubbed her eyes with them afterwards and recovered her sight which she had recently lost… What are we to accuse him of - hum and the two holy bishops, Aurelius and Maximinus, whom he calls on as witnesses? Is it of ignorance, simple-mindedness, credulity, deliberate deception or imposture? … 'Qui, ut rationem mullan afferent, ipsa auhtoritate me frangerent (Why, even if they gave no reasons, they would convince me by their very authority)
Michel de Montaigne in “That it is madness to judge the true and the false from our own capacities” in
Michel de Montaigne (1993), “The Essays: A Selection”, Penguin Classics

 

[kellie]

Okay, I have this must trust in my relgion that I’ll put it on the line…Prove to me beyond any and I mean any shadow of a doubt that mines are false and yours arn’t. without using one word of christianity.

Then I will join in your relgion.

cody, in all sincere honesty, your posts aren’t making any sense.

You want us to show Christianity is true without using the word Christianity ??

You use the words “you have trust in your faith” but we aren’t allowed to say the same of ours ??

Show me proof of your gods, then I will have a working example to use to show you proof of mine.