Why It's Hard To Debate With Christians.

[♦ ficino ♦]

"The atheists can win the game if they can make this field goal. The snap, the kick... the ball is sailing straight for the goalposts... no, wait, what's going on? The christians have uprooted the goal posts! They're moving them to the right!! The ball... (thwack)... the football just hit the upright as the Christians were dragging the goalposts. The ball has bounced off into the end zone. No field goal. Game over. Christians win!!!"

[♦ ficino ♦]

His argument was essentially that I could not possibly be an ex-christian because there is an inherent contradiction in apostacy. His argument was that he assumed that "trust" is a forever or nothing concept and because I doubted the Bible, I never had genuine trust to begin with and therefore did not know the real God or Jesus. He said I had a stunted faith which was more like infatuation than genuine faith. He said I was logically inconsistent irrespective of whether a God exists or not!

 

 

 

So when God told the Hebrews to put away their Canaanite wives, in fact afterwards they were still married, because trust is forever.

 

I think this guy's rhetorical strategy involves at least two different moves. One is to make your character the focus, thus deflecting attention from the issue (which is the falsity of the bible etc.). The second is to make up a definition of "trust" and deduce consequences from that, again deflecting attention from the issue. These are pretty typical in what I've seen of Christian apologetics, i.e. ad hominem attacks plus playing around with semantics, special and restricted definitions, etc..

[Ouroboros]

His argument was essentially that I could not possibly be an ex-christian because there is an inherent contradiction in apostacy. His argument was that he assumed that "trust" is a forever or nothing concept and because I doubted the Bible, I never had genuine trust to begin with and therefore did not know the real God or Jesus. He said I had a stunted faith which was more like infatuation than genuine faith. He said I was logically inconsistent irrespective of whether a God exists or not!

 

I thought perhaps at first that I was missing something, but after careful examination clearly I wasn't. It was essentially bullshit and a disingenuous tactic from someone who was more keen on winning an argument with sophistry than being interested in a genuine pursuit of truth.

The problem with "once faith, always faith" argument like that is that we only need to look at real cases where people have lost faith in other areas. There are many husbands and wives who had faith in their spouse until one day they discovered they had been cheated on. They lose faith pretty fast at that moment, and many of them will not easily be persuaded into a "faith" relationship thereafter. There are people who have faith in their favorite car brand. Over a couple of years, the car they have breaks down constantly, until one day, they realize his or her faith was unfounded. What this lawyer suggests is that if you have faith in something, you will always have faith in it, even after you've realized it was misplaced faith.

[jackbauer]

His argument was essentially that I could not possibly be an ex-christian because there is an inherent contradiction in apostacy. His argument was that he assumed that "trust" is a forever or nothing concept and because I doubted the Bible, I never had genuine trust to begin with and therefore did not know the real God or Jesus. He said I had a stunted faith which was more like infatuation than genuine faith. He said I was logically inconsistent irrespective of whether a God exists or not!

 

 

 

So when God told the Hebrews to put away their Canaanite wives, in fact afterwards they were still married, because trust is forever.

 

I think this guy's rhetorical strategy involves at least two different moves. One is to make your character the focus, thus deflecting attention from the issue (which is the falsity of the bible etc.). The second is to make up a definition of "trust" and deduce consequences from that, again deflecting attention from the issue. These are pretty typical in what I've seen of Christian apologetics, i.e. ad hominem attacks plus playing around with semantics, special and restricted definitions, etc..

 

Yeah, that's very typical of apologetics. They're always trying to attack you somehow. Thinking back on Ray Comfort and his 10 commandments test. His tactic is to shift the focus on you and your "sins" and not the ridiculousness of the theology. If you crticize the theology, he'll shift the focus on you, as if you're a criminal trying to justify yourself to a cop. Suddenly, you're the one making excuses before some judge. All fundies do this. If someone says that gay people are of the devil, they can take people's negative reaction as proof that they simply won't accept that awful truth. Use scripture and bingo, you've just become an insufferable jackass who feels completely justified.

 

A little more on number 3. I've also seen debates on this very site where someone said they would rather go to hell than worship God. Of course, they were only saying that rhetorically, as if those were the only 2 options, but since the Christian beliefs this is true, he'll take that as a confession that we chose hell. They can spam you with several more rhetorical questions on free will and choice, distracting from the issue at hand. Then if you call them out, they can just say that's how the debate goes.

 

It's very similar to the chewbecca defense, only it's the "ignorance defense".

[Guest Xtech]

And indeed he would rather die as a martyr than denouncing his faith.

 

Another example of why it's hard to debate with Christians: the whole martyr thing.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

It's very similar to the chewbecca defense, only it's the "ignorance defense".

 

Never heard of the chewbecca defense. What is it? I'm guessing it's not when you let out an inarticulate wookie roar.

[jackbauer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense

 

It's basically spamming your opponent with nonsensical arguements.

[Peace]

I couldn't help but think of this

 

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.' -Matthew 18:2

 

Leaving xtianity felt like the only choice to me because I felt I would have to continue to limit my personal growth to continue to buy into that belief system.

[centauri]

I wrote about this on the following thread.

 

http://www.ex-christ...ist-apparently/

 

I had debated with a Christain scholar on Theologyonline.com.

 

If anyone's interested, here's that thread again:

 

http://www.theologyo...ead.php?t=81673

 

The guy was called Town Heretic - he said he was a lawyer.

 

His argument was essentially that I could not possibly be an ex-christian because there is an inherent contradiction in apostacy. His argument was that he assumed that "trust" is a forever or nothing concept and because I doubted the Bible, I never had genuine trust to begin with and therefore did not know the real God or Jesus. He said I had a stunted faith which was more like infatuation than genuine faith. He said I was logically inconsistent irrespective of whether a God exists or not!

 

I thought perhaps at first that I was missing something, but after careful examination clearly I wasn't. It was essentially bullshit and a disingenuous tactic from someone who was more keen on winning an argument with sophistry than being interested in a genuine pursuit of truth.

This fellow should also apply his logic to Jesus.

Jesus didn't have genuine trust in God because he cried out "Why have you forsaken me!".

Therefore, Jesus had a stunted faith and wasn't a real Christian.

[pratt]

he will pobably say jesus remembered psalms 22 so to fulfil some fucked up prohesy,,,,,

[Guest Xtech]

Therefore, Jesus had a stunted faith and wasn't a real Christian.

 

LOL However he was a Jew

[mcdaddy]

However, he was a mythical character in a pseudo-Jewish fairy tale.

[Chikirin]

I haven't tried arguing with any Christians yet, but I think I have an idea of how difficult it is, having argued with Christians of different denominations or political leanings when I used to be a Christian. Especially when they'd whip out the insinuations that I must be somehow deficient for not agreeing with them. I'd get called a 'bible-dolater' or 'mean spirited' by the liberal christians, and 'lukewarm' or 'uncommitted' by the conservative ones.

[Kurari]

So I tend to subscribe this view that a true born again Christian will never, ever denounce his faith and would eventually finish his life as a believer. And indeed he would rather die as a martyr than denouncing his faith.

 

That's exactly what I believed when I was a Christian. Yet eventually I came to my senses when I realized it's all a sham. Christianity is mythology, and being "born again" is all in your head.

 

Sounds a lot like what I went through too.

[Spectrox]

Centauri wrote: This fellow should also apply his logic to Jesus.

Jesus didn't have genuine trust in God because he cried out "Why have you forsaken me!".

Therefore, Jesus had a stunted faith and wasn't a real Christian.

 

 

Nice one! He He!

[Spectrox]

His argument was essentially that I could not possibly be an ex-christian because there is an inherent contradiction in apostacy. His argument was that he assumed that "trust" is a forever or nothing concept and because I doubted the Bible, I never had genuine trust to begin with and therefore did not know the real God or Jesus. He said I had a stunted faith which was more like infatuation than genuine faith. He said I was logically inconsistent irrespective of whether a God exists or not!

 

 

 

So when God told the Hebrews to put away their Canaanite wives, in fact afterwards they were still married, because trust is forever.

 

I think this guy's rhetorical strategy involves at least two different moves. One is to make your character the focus, thus deflecting attention from the issue (which is the falsity of the bible etc.). The second is to make up a definition of "trust" and deduce consequences from that, again deflecting attention from the issue. These are pretty typical in what I've seen of Christian apologetics, i.e. ad hominem attacks plus playing around with semantics, special and restricted definitions, etc..

 

Thanks for this insight Ficino. You've summed it up beautifully!

[JayL]

This fellow should also apply his logic to Jesus.

Jesus didn't have genuine trust in God because he cried out "Why have you forsaken me!".

Therefore, Jesus had a stunted faith and wasn't a real Christian.

 

 

Yes, he did cry out to God, ' My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?? ' He said it because that was his condition on the cross at the time. He really was forsaken by God. But he did not lose his trust in God. Far from it. After that anguished cry, he stated, 'Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.'.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

Yes, he did cry out to God, ' My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?? ' He said it because that was his condition on the cross at the time. He really was forsaken by God. But he did not lose his trust in God. Far from it. After that anguished cry, he stated, 'Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.'.

 

Even here you get into trouble. I'm sure you're aware that there are three different "last words of Jesus" depending on whether you're reading Matthew, Luke or John. This Christian website summarizes them:

 

http://www.lookinguntojesus.net/ata20010930.htm

 

Even if we allow that Jesus' last cry, recorded by Matthew with no words quoted, was identical to the last statement recorded by either Luke or John, those gospels still record different last statements. The one you quote is from Luke; John gives "it is finished" as Jesus' last statement. Apologists like the guy on the website I linked have to take recourse in the usual spin - in this case, that maybe one of these statements was muttered by Jesus so that only one evangelist heard it, or that maybe he said both and each evangelist only bothered to write down one of them -- conveniently, a different one each -- and that no evangelist specifically says "this is Jesus' last statement" - they only quote him and follow immediately with the report that he yielded up the ghost.

 

Doesn't this all prove its inadequacy as explanation by how cumbersome it is, how many gratuitous assumptions it requires, etc etc? Then add all the other places in the Bible where there are this sort of contradiction, which require lots of spin to explain away.

 

Citsonga has offered a similar pattern of problem with prophecy.

 

But Jay, you know that God is real because you've experienced Him, so you are willing to give the Bible the benefit of the doubt in all these very many places. Correct? I am guessing that you do the same with answered vs. unanswered prayer. All the "unanswered" prayers prayed by you and people you know can be explained away, but in the end, are you left with a god who is even as just and compassionate and eager to help in concrete, real-life situations as you yourself and your friends are?

 

Most of us on here did that for a long time before we finally realized that the weight of supposition, special pleading, explaining away, just did not support belief in inerrancy.

 

It's cool if you see reason to believe anyway, but it's not cool when someone says "A is not true because it entails a contradiction," and your answer is merely to repeat but in other words what amounts to "A is true." It's also not cool when your reply is nothing more than "Oh, that's really interesting."

 

We're waiting for your scientific proof of God's existence, your response to Citsonga's list, your criteria for identifying a true Christian...

[centauri]

This fellow should also apply his logic to Jesus.

Jesus didn't have genuine trust in God because he cried out "Why have you forsaken me!".

Therefore, Jesus had a stunted faith and wasn't a real Christian.

 

Yes, he did cry out to God, ' My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?? ' He said it because that was his condition on the cross at the time. He really was forsaken by God. But he did not lose his trust in God. Far from it. After that anguished cry, he stated, 'Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.'.

Congratulations, you've just demolished the myth that Jesus was God.

Also, you've tried to paint the picture of Jesus having superb trust in God when he clearly wavered in the garden, asking to be excused from his task and lost his trust again on the cross.

In other words, he was prone to flip-flopping.

[Overcame Faith]

It is difficult for an exChristian to debate a Christian for the reasons stated in this thread and other reasons, too. But it is worth remembering that these very same difficulties arise between different Christian groups. Someone like JayL has his views on what a real Christian is but we all know that every word he said about being born again is disputed by any number of other Christians. For example, here is a website I found which illustrates how Christians cannot even agree among themselves (as if I had to offer any proof of this):

 

This is from an article called Lutheran Lies. Here is a snipet and the link:

 

Sadly, the Lutheran religion is full of lying deceits of the Devil. Just as the cult of Roman Catholicism, the Lutheran religion is based largely upon manmade TRADITIONS and NOT upon the Word of God. The Word of God is the ONLY Authority upon which we should base our beliefs and faith.

 

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Lutherans/lutheran_lies.htm

 

 

So JayL and every other Christian may think they have discerned the one and only truth and make it difficult for us to debate them because of their particular take on it all, but the underlying fact that Christians cannot even agree among themselves is the greatest evidence in existence that there is something terribly wrong with the Christian religion. And every Christian who comes here to give us their take is more evidence in our favor.

[JayL]

 

We're waiting for your scientific proof of God's existence, your response to Citsonga's list, your criteria for identifying a true Christian...

 

 

The criteria for a true Christian has already been answered in another board:

 

 

Romans 10:9 (NIV)

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

 

So there are 2 conditions. 1. "Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ has resurrected." This is not just mental assent but this should be the deepest conviction within your heart based on Biblical facts and personal revelations. That conviction leads you to the second condition.

2. "Declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord'." That is, confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is God the Son and He is above you. He fully deserves your obedience and loyalty.

 

 

If you meet these 2 conditions, you are a Christian. Otherwise, you are just a seeker or a church goer.

 

 

And I tried to address the question of prophesy but that is a big subject. As far as the scientific proof of God's existence, I would not show it on internet. You'd have to be a personal friend.

[Guest Valk0010]

This fellow should also apply his logic to Jesus.

Jesus didn't have genuine trust in God because he cried out "Why have you forsaken me!".

Therefore, Jesus had a stunted faith and wasn't a real Christian.

 

Yes, he did cry out to God, ' My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?? ' He said it because that was his condition on the cross at the time. He really was forsaken by God. But he did not lose his trust in God. Far from it. After that anguished cry, he stated, 'Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.'.

Congratulations, you've just demolished the myth that Jesus was God.

Also, you've tried to paint the picture of Jesus having superb trust in God when he clearly wavered in the garden, asking to be excused from his task and lost his trust again on the cross.

In other words, he was prone to flip-flopping.

Yeah if god really forsaken jesus at that point, god is a schizophrenic, or a person with multiple personality disorder.

[★ Citsonga ★]

We're waiting for your scientific proof of God's existence, your response to Citsonga's list, your criteria for identifying a true Christian...

 

 

The criteria for a true Christian has already been answered in another board:

 

 

Romans 10:9 (NIV)

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

 

So there are 2 conditions. 1. "Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ has resurrected." This is not just mental assent but this should be the deepest conviction within your heart based on Biblical facts and personal revelations. That conviction leads you to the second condition.

2. "Declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord'." That is, confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is God the Son and He is above you. He fully deserves your obedience and loyalty.

 

 

If you meet these 2 conditions, you are a Christian. Otherwise, you are just a seeker or a church goer.

 

By this, then, you cannot say that I was not a Christian, since that was me to a T.

 

And I tried to address the question of prophesy but that is a big subject.

 

In other words, you have no answer to the glaring problems throughout the whole subject.

 

As far as the scientific proof of God's existence, I would not show it on internet. You'd have to be a personal friend.

 

So, only your personal friends are worthy of genuine evidence? The very thing that could prove to us that we're wrong, you refuse to share? Sounds rather suspicious, I must say.

[centauri]

We're waiting for your scientific proof of God's existence, your response to Citsonga's list, your criteria for identifying a true Christian...

 

The criteria for a true Christian has already been answered in another board:

 

Romans 10:9 (NIV)

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

So there are 2 conditions. 1. "Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ has resurrected." This is not just mental assent but this should be the deepest conviction within your heart based on Biblical facts and personal revelations. That conviction leads you to the second condition.

2. "Declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord'." That is, confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is God the Son and He is above you. He fully deserves your obedience and loyalty.

 

If you meet these 2 conditions, you are a Christian. Otherwise, you are just a seeker or a church goer.

It's not quite that easy Jay.

According to your definition of a true Christian, which is based solely on the theological musings of Paul, you've dismissed the additional conditions of repenting and being baptized which were put forth by Peter in Acts 2:38.

You've also dismissed the teaching of Jesus in Matt 25:41-46, where he stated that acts of charity were required in order to ensure salvation.

 

You also wrote "confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is God the Son".

Paul wrote in Rom 1:3 that Jesus was descended from David "according to the flesh".

That doesn't imply a virgin birth (which Paul doesn't seem to even be aware of), nor does it make Jesus God.

Paul indicates that Jesus has a God.

 

2 Cor 11:31

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.

 

David was called a son of God as well as Solomon.

That didn't make them God.

Nor is Jesus God, and he claimed to have a God in numerous passages.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Hello Jay, Citsonga and Centauri have already said what I would have said in response to your two criteria for a true Christian. I'll add that your criteria fit me, too - I believed with my whole heart, as far as I can say anything about "whole hearts" (see below), that Jesus was God, rose from the dead, was my personal savior and Lord. You left out many other criteria, as C. pointed out. You also slipped in later Christian doctrinal criteria, as Centauri pointed out, for "son of God" is a term that claims far less than the term you used, "God the Son." Paul does not say that belief in the divinity of Christ is a condition for salvation, but you added that. It's fine if you're going to go with historic Christian creeds as tests of orthodoxy, and therefore, of who can be saved, but then you need to go the whole hog and consider whether you are orthodox, and by what historical standard.

 

Your criteria invoke the notion of "with your whole heart." I think you forgot that our earlier discussion began when you declared that certain individuals were never true christians, did it not? It was not about God's judgment about some person. So Paul's verse doesn't answer the question, because Paul does not provide criteria by which one believer can tell whether another one is a genuine believer. He gives some conditions for being saved, thus talking about the different question, "what will God look at when He judges someone?" The "whole heart" criterion cannot be applied in advance in any discussion among humans about whether someone is or was a true Christian, since not even you can tell whether someone (incl. yourself) believes with his/her whole heart. So it serves as what I call a "floating variable." You can assign any value to it that you want, and the result is that your claims are not falsifiable.

 

I'll also just note that it does not follow from Paul's statement that if someone does not confess and believe those things in the relevant way, that person cannot be saved. To say that this consequence does follow is to commit the fallacy of denying the antecedent. Paul's statement leaves it open for God to apply other criteria.