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Goodbye Jesus

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Jon

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Unfortunately, this particular christian was little more than a snack.  Who wants tacos?

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32 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Unfortunately, this particular christian was little more than a snack.  Who wants tacos?

 

Please and thank you.

 

Maybe we need to advertise for Christians:

 

Attention True Christians (TM (R) (C) We here at Ex-C are looking for some good solid debates between our members and True Christians (TM (R) (C. If you have the following attributes please join us and jump into the Lions Den or Arena:

 

- True Christian (TM (R) (C)

- Unwavering faith

- Knowledge of topics

- Can argue without assuming a bible quote ends debate

- Realize we are Ex Christians - bullshitting won't work with us - we were all once True Christians (TM (R) (C)

- Has impressive staying power

- Can answer questions put in a timely manner

- Will not avoid difficult questions

 

If this sounds like you please join us for some robust discussion.

 

(Disclaimer: The Lions Den and Arena are dangerous. By joining us in debate you agree that the following may happen: 

- True Christian (TM (R) (C) (That's you) gets shredded

- You start doubting your beliefs

- You have no answer

- You lose your faith

- You shit yourself and run away

- You resort to all manner of Logical Fallacies

- You realize Christianity is a load of bullshit 

 

End Disclaimer)

 

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I think Jon is done. Clearly he found himself in over his head.

Again, this makes me miss 1AAT1. Despite the simplicity and indecipherability, he was a fairly good sport.

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Well I've finished my pop corn, had a sleep, look at the stage - L.B is still the only one up on stage wandering around wondering where his keen opponent got to.

 

Maybe its time we quote Elijah mocking the absence of the god Baal?

 

1 Kings 18:27 "And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”

 

Jon, where have you gone? Has your god failed to give you understanding to debate?

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Another hit and run Christian bites the dust. Cue Queen please.

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Really too bad... I have all sorts of unresolved anger and sadness from being abandoned by the only people in my life with whom I spent any time for years - those who were supposed to be my "brothers and sisters".

 

I would have LOVED to dismantle whatever lame bullshit Jon would have come up with, third-hand at best, off some "apologetics" website.

 

My wife has been on lately about how she'd go to almost any church with me if I decided I wanted to "try again" - as long as they teach about the "one true god" - she really believes that the bible is the infallible word of the one deity who actually exists.

 

Of course, she has tried to defend her version of "faith"; she tries by saying that ideas like God creating people with sinful, corrupt natures and then damning them to Hell is just "bad theology".

 

I'm supposed to believe that what I really want is to love God, but I can't, and so I'm supposed to just collapse into His embrace and accept His gift of LOVE for me - because He made me imperfect and then killed Himself to save me from Himself after He made me the way I am.

 

Yeah, Jon would have been in for the ass-whipping of a lifetime.

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Yeah, Jon would have been in for the ass-whipping of a lifetime.

I think he realized he'd already had it. 

 

It's been a long time since we had a real debate. Let us pray for another, more well equipped Christian to come along.

 

Amen.

 

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Amen and Selah.

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Jon, if you're still there, I'm very interested in discussing your ideas. I can relate to your approach and your current frustrations. You have courage in asking the questions, but your failure to follow through with the discussions is frustrating to those of us who genuinely want to help you understand our particular point of view, rather than attack your intelligence.

 

as for Nachmanides, take a look at this for starters.

http://apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds2/med50/med1037.html

It's not perfect, but it comes from a position closer to your own than most of us here, and should at least cast some doubts on the veracity of whatever it is you seem keen to discuss.

 

Nachmanides was interestingly more noted for his apparent disputation with Pablo Christiani, who wanted to force Spanish Jews to convert to Christianity in the 13th century. By my understanding, the debate centred around the question of whether Jesus was mortal or divine. After four days, Christiani stopped the debate rather than admit defeat because of his fear of the political influence of the Dominicans at the time. He effectively bought Nachmanides off, but when the Dominicans publicly claimed victory Nachmanides published transcripts of the debate, which apparently clearly showed that Christiani had lost ground, and Nachmanides was subsequently run out of Spain. But that's all in sdelsolray's link above.

 

Nachmanides comes across as a 'fundamental' Jewish scholar, who tended to use scripture alone to prove the truth of scripture. But that was a common practice in medieval times, before we understood that it is our sensory experiences of life that confirm for us what is real and what isn't. One would hope most of us have grown out of this ignorance by now, but it seems that fundamental Christianity is still finding it effective on a percentage of the population, especially in U.S. for some reason.

 

Jon, try to examine your own actual life experiences (not what others have told you) as well as humanity's current store of empirical knowledge for evidence of what the scripture is really saying underneath all the obvious limitations in their knowledge, awareness and understanding. Recognise that the authors didn't have the benefit of our current level of cumulative experience at life to draw from. Even the bible (in particular Genesis and Exodus) will tell you that developing awareness, knowledge and understanding through a cumulation of life experiences is precisely why we are here instead of living it up in the garden of Eden.

 

I hope your silence means that you are processing at least some of what is going on without your input. But like Nachminedes, in the absence of any other evidence, we have to assume that your not participating further in the debate tantamounts to a fearful admission that we might have some valid points. I get it. I've been there, and it made me angry and frustrated, and reluctant to continue participating in the discussion, because I felt like everyone was trying to prove they were smarter than me.

 

It took me a couple of years to progress through acknowledging my deepest fears (not just the ones that I admitted to on the surface) to finally ponder the questions: What if the bible isn't as factual as they claim? What if Jesus isn't God? What if he isn't even real? What if he didn't rise from the dead? What if God isn't an actual being? Would that alter the reality of my own experience (including my experience of reading the bible), or only my perception of it? 

I still believe there is so much that most of humanity hasn't fully grasped from the bible that can be taught more effectively when it's presented as a subjective text. Not the least of which is that some people just don't have the cognitive development to move beyond the concept of God as an all-powerful, all-knowing man in the sky who must be obeyed out of fear. I can see that you have more intellectual capacity than that at least.

Use it.

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@possibility

 

No offense, my dear, but:

 

1) He was (is) a troll who was here to throw out typical bullshit "apologetic" arguments - and he couldn't handle the heat when every single one of them got slapped down.

 

2) He started multiple threads that had ZERO in common other than to prove that he wasn't serious about learning anything. His random, manic style demonstrated that he was feeble-minded at best, possibly a youngster and definitely not capable of asking multiple questions that all frame a particular issue - that is, of course, assuming that my first point is wrong, which I am pretty-well convinced it's not.

See, he could have started lots of threads in different categories in order to gain the intellectual and factual material necessary to start framing an understanding of his belief or struggles with same. I myself have had to pore over concepts within the realms of theology, psychology, philosophy, even bio-chemistry - each source I went to had its own direction and its own goal, but I used all that aggregate information to begin to understand what was possible and what wasn't/isn't believable. @Jon had no such agenda - he was simply throwing random shit to the walls of our forum and 'praying' to his 'god' that some of it would stick.

 

and, lastly, but not least by any means -

3) I've been waiting for over two weeks now for him to reply to the debate thread that was started because HE said he wanted to have a structured debate, so - kindly - take a number.

 

 

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Jon's back - and posting more drivel. 

 

I went all L.B on him... hmmm L.B you have influenced me to the darkside haha

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Last call. If anybody wants to stand in for Jon the Troll as a devil's advocate and argue for the existence of the Bible god, have at it. I'm sure some of you remember how and might like to practice debating. :Duivel7:

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I'd do it but my grammar and spelling skills are too impeccable.

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Hmm..... that's very inviting. Give me a few days. I would like to give it a go. Maybe show young Jon a better way to argue for the existence of his God. I'm sure I could come up with more than four sentences for sure lol.

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Holy shit, I'll do it, if no one else wants to. 

 

Meanwhile, i urge that the sorry Jon's ass be banned.

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On 4/29/2017 at 6:13 AM, florduh said:

Last call. If anybody wants to stand in for Jon the Troll as a devil's advocate and argue for the existence of the Bible god, have at it. I'm sure some of you remember how and might like to practice debating. :Duivel7:

 

LoL. That's pretty bad when you have to enlist Ex-christians to fight the good(?) fight for Jesus. :)

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On 2017-03-25 at 9:28 PM, Jon said:

No,he may not show up,but he has loads of faithful foot soldiers!!!

 

Which is something that we here at ex-C are painfully aware of.

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Ok everyone, are there people who actually would want to enter a mock debate about the existence of bible God? DarkBishop, are you going to take up bible God's defense? If not, well, despite many misgivings - how many hours might it waste? - I would give it a go. But I'm not sure how we'll structure the thing so that we can minimize the likelihood of collectively driving each other crazy.

 

I'm interested in particular in the Catholic approach, because it seems to me to be the hardest to refute by argument, though the reality at many a Catholic parish is a considerable turnoff. 

 

Thoughts?

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3 minutes ago, ficino said:

I'm interested in particular in the Catholic approach, because it seems to me to be the hardest to refute by argument, though the reality at many a Catholic parish is a considerable turnoff. 

 

Thoughts?

Really? I hadn't considered this before. I've been taught my whole life that the Catholic Church is antichrist and aren't even bible based. Therefore I haven't even bothered to try and refute them.

 

(Obviously I'm coming from a Protestant base here)

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I think all of Protestantism can be dismissed at the outset because it relies on the principle of Sola Scriptura. That only the scriptures are the rule of faith for doctrine and practice.

 

But that doctrine does not satisfy its own requirements. It is enunciated nowhere in the NT or OT. And the NT makes clear that the Church preceded the completed canon of Scripture and that there is tradition from the apostles. It is the Church that gives the world the Bible. And the Bible is but the chief part of Tradition, which the Church passes on from the first witnesses to all of us today.

 

So, away with Luther's and Calvin's private judgments.

 

As to the question, is there a God ... from what I've seen, the strongest argument is the Thomistic cosmological argument, itself articulated in several ways. Is the god of classical theistic cosmological arguments the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

 

The faithful who follow the footsteps of the Fisherman have seen that, yes. Miracles and prophecies attest to the claims of the church of St. Peter. Reason can lead you to it; faith is required for you to lay hold of all the truths it transmits from God.

 

So, atheist that I am, I'll thrown out the Catholic case, if anyone is up to debating. But I'm probably going to drive myself and the rest of us crazy.

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I have been working on my proposal since I got to work tonight. I just posted it. Took me almost 6 hours. I went at it from an angle accepting scientific information along with the biblical account. This is pretty much what I believed until I completely de-converted. I had a big hang up about my 9th year into it, on the biblical time frame of creation and this is how I dealt with it. I would like to see another argument at a different angle if LB is up to it after we finish this one tho.

 

DB

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This is my first formal debate so my references aren't in accordance with the rules I don't think....... but it's there at least. More than Jon did. I tried to stick mainly to using scripture and basic science.

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I take it we are allowed to post about the debate in this forum correct? I am also assuming we can take quotes and discuss them? If not then I'm about to break a rule (which will only happen once) :)

 

Darkbishop said: "First of all I want to point out that members here have said ignorantly many times that they thought the world was flat in biblical times. Yet here we have a scripture that says God sits upon the circle of the earth. God knew that the world wasn’t flat. Therefore he included this knowledge in his inspired word."

 

I am surprised DB went for this line of reasoning. What has happened is modern scientific knowledge has been misappropriate applied to ancient writings. When one researches this particular passage the reading is actually referring to an actual flat circle.

 

If you stand on a mountain and look around you it looks at the point of the horizon as if the earth is a circle. Thus God sits upon the circle of the earth. We KNOW today that the earth is a sphere - back then they didn't.

 

It's kind of how the portion about Lucifer in Isiah is misinterpreted to mean God and Satan, not as a commentary of the Babylonian prince. The bible is far more commentary in analogy than we realize.

 

For an in depth study of this issue here is a Christian article on it http://www.crivoice.org/circle.html (Yes this Christian article is one of the best I have found arguing against the claim put forth by DB)

 

(PS DB I know you are devils advocating - which means I am God advocating :D )

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I wish I had more likes.... I ran out sometime last night lol or I would have liked your comment Logical. I can't comment to much in this forum right now. Don't want to give away any counter arguement I may come up with to LB ?

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Cool. I look forward to watching a debate between equals. 

 

This thread can serve as the peanut gallery for everyone else.

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