What will it take

[realityrunt]

1 minute ago, PennySerenade said:

Dying and not being in Heaven would convince me Christianity was wrong. Nothing short of dying will convince me. 

Well, that's based on what you believe in. Since you can't objectively prove the existence of such a place until you die, there is no way you can be proven wrong in this life.

 

That's a clever way to insulate yourself from personal introspection, and being open to the facts that do prove this religion wrong.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Dying and not being in heaven won't convince you of anything. You'll be dead.

 

So do you claim to be a gnostic theist? I.e. you know that God exists?

 

Or do you just strong believe God exists and you are not going to be persuaded otherwise?

 

Essentially if some artefact or other was discovered that proved beyond reasonable doubt that Christianity was false you would still believe?

 

What happens if you die and you end up standing before Zeus, or Allah... or El?

If I am dead and no longer existing, I suppose what I believed on Earth would not much matter.

 

I believe that God exists. I am no theologian or apologist, so I don't know exactly what a gnostic theist believes. If I am here any amount of time, it will become quickly apparent to all and sundry that I do not know much.

 

If some artifact were uncovered to prove Christianity wrong (ie the ossiary of Jesus Christ) I would still believe in Christianity.

 

If I die and I stand before Zeus, Allah, or Satan, I would say "Gee, I guess I was wrong."

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, primaryzero said:

Well, that's based on what you believe in. Since you can't objectively prove the existence of such a place until you die, there is no way you can be proven wrong in this life.

 

That's a clever way to insulate yourself from personal introspection, and being open to the facts that do prove this religion wrong.

I suppose so, it is called faith. For instance, say a man is having an affair. There is all sorts of evidence that points to the fact that the man is having an affair. However, the wife has faith in her husband, and so refuses to believe circumstantial evidence until she sees her husband actually in bed with another woman. You could even show her a picture of him having an affair, and she refuses to disbelieve in her husband until her faith is proven wrong. 

 

I guess you could say the wife is insulating herself from introspection, but I'd call it faith. 

 

Blind faith, I guess. 

 

No, I don't believe I can be proven wrong about Christianity in this life. The proof is in the pudding. I love that old saying- it means that the proof is in the eating of the pudding. We don't know if the pudding is actually good or not until we eat it. I think the pudding will be greater than we could ever imagine. Speculating on whether or not the pudding is any good is neither here nor there. 

[realityrunt]

8 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

I suppose so, it is called faith. For instance, say a man is having an affair. There is all sorts of evidence that points to the fact that the man is having an affair. However, the wife has faith in her husband, and so refuses to believe circumstantial evidence until she sees her husband actually in bed with another woman. You could even show her a picture of him having an affair, and she refuses to disbelieve in her husband until her faith is proven wrong. 

 

I guess you could say the wife is insulating herself from introspection, but I'd call it faith. 

 

Blind faith, I guess. 

 

No, I don't believe I can be proven wrong about Christianity in this life. The proof is in the pudding. I love that old saying- it means that the proof is in the eating of the pudding. We don't know if the pudding is actually good or not until we eat it. I think the pudding will be greater than we could ever imagine. Speculating on whether or not the pudding is any good is neither here nor there. 

But if you are presented with certain facts about your religion that show it to have serious issues, wouldn't you want to disprove them?

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

18 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

If I am dead and no longer existing, I suppose what I believed on Earth would not much matter.

 

So true.

 

However let me ask - do you care if what you believe is true? Or do you believe it because it provides something else? Comfort, or hope or something intangible?

 

18 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

I believe that God exists. I am no theologian or apologist, so I don't know exactly what a gnostic theist believes. If I am here any amount of time, it will become quickly apparent to all and sundry that I do not know much.

 

Sorry, I sometimes forget people are not widely aware of such terms.  Gnostic refers to knowledge - the claim that you know something. Many people claim they KNOW God exists, others say they just believe he exists, even if there is no evidence. I myself am an agnostic atheist (The prefix a negates the following word so gnostic -= knows, agnostic = don't know) So I don't know that God doesn't exist, but I don't believe it does.

 

18 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

If some artifact were uncovered to prove Christianity wrong (ie the ossiary of Jesus Christ) I would still believe in Christianity.

 

Ok we are getting down to tin tacks here. You just admitted that something could prove Christianity wrong... yet you would still believe. Why? I could imagine Christianity being proved wrong but you still believing in some God of sorts - many people do, but to be proven wrong yet still believing... we come back to my first question: Don't you care if what you believe is true or not?

 

18 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

 

If I die and I stand before Zeus, Allah, or Satan, I would say "Gee, I guess I was wrong."

 

Ha- that's my response to a Christian that says "What happens if you die and you see God?"

 

Whoops, sorry God, I was wrong... but your quality of evidence is shocking... to the point of non existence! I call foul!

 

PS - wouldn't Satan prove God... just that you didn't quite believe God in the particular manner you were supposed to?  

 

19 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

No, I don't believe I can be proven wrong about Christianity in this life.

 

This is a bit of a non statement. You can't be proven wrong because you refuse from the outset to consider that you could be wrong. I tell you there is a rock and you close your eyes and say you don't see it. I tell you to touch it and you put your hands behind your back and say you can't feel it. Its not a case of proving you wrong, its you refusing to consider that you might be wrong - and that's a big difference. (And we are using the term "proof" in the loosest of meanings here - you'll find we usually only talk about proof in the realms of maths. Everything else is believe based on the preponderance of evidence supporting a claim)

[ag_NO_stic]

16 hours ago, PennySerenade said:

I suppose so, it is called faith. For instance, say a man is having an affair. There is all sorts of evidence that points to the fact that the man is having an affair. However, the wife has faith in her husband, and so refuses to believe circumstantial evidence until she sees her husband actually in bed with another woman. You could even show her a picture of him having an affair, and she refuses to disbelieve in her husband until her faith is proven wrong. 

 

I guess you could say the wife is insulating herself from introspection, but I'd call it faith. 

 

Blind faith, I guess. 

 

No, I don't believe I can be proven wrong about Christianity in this life. The proof is in the pudding. I love that old saying- it means that the proof is in the eating of the pudding. We don't know if the pudding is actually good or not until we eat it. I think the pudding will be greater than we could ever imagine. Speculating on whether or not the pudding is any good is neither here nor there. 

 

What's odd about your analogy is that you have said about as frankly as you possibly can that you will completely ignore the truth. In your analogy, you have said "the husband is having the affair" (the truth) and that the wife is actively taking pains to NOT face the truth and to ignore any such evidence that shows her the truth. What is also interesting about your example is you have flatly inferred yourself as the one who is wrong about what she believes. You have put us, the truth seekers, in the position of being the ones who grasp reality and you, as the person of faith, who is wrong and ignorant in the face of proof. No further questions, your honor, I rest my case. There is no discussing anything with you anymore, how does one argue with that?

[MOHO]

On 11/26/2017 at 4:08 PM, primaryzero said:

I always had niggling doubts, that's because the faith didn't give me enough evidence to put them to rest.

 

Ditto

[bornagainathiest]

19 hours ago, PennySerenade said:

Dying and not being in Heaven would convince me Christianity was wrong. Nothing short of dying will convince me. 

 

How the discovery of Jesus' bones in his tomb?

 

You wouldn't need to die and Christianity would be as dead as Christ.

 

That convince you?

 

 

Oops!  Just noticed that it wouldn't.

It looks like even though you live your life by evidence, you quietly drop that rule when it comes to your faith.  Got it. 

 

 

[realityrunt]

9 minutes ago, bornagainathiest said:

 

How the discovery of Jesus' bones in his tomb?

 

You wouldn't need to die and Christianity would be as dead as Christ.

 

That convince you?

 

 

Oops!  Just noticed that it wouldn't.

It looks like even though you live your life by evidence, you quietly drop that rule when it comes to your faith.  Got it. 

 

 

Yeah, but the Devil put those bones there.

[LogicalFallacy]

2 hours ago, bornagainathiest said:

How the discovery of Jesus' bones in his tomb?

 

You wouldn't need to die and Christianity would be as dead as Christ.

 

That convince you?

 

Oops!  Just noticed that it wouldn't.

It looks like even though you live your life by evidence, you quietly drop that rule when it comes to your faith.  Got it. 

 

@bornagainathiest Per the quote below, Penny has already pre-empted you:

 

       18 minutes ago, PennySerenade said:

If some artifact were uncovered to prove Christianity wrong (ie the ossiary of Jesus Christ) I would still believe in Christianity.

 

Just think of what is being said here: Something is discovered that in Penny's mind disproves Christianity... yet she will still believe.

 

@PennySerenade This is what we call indoctrination:

 

indoctrination

ɪnˌdɒktrɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

noun: indoctrination

the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

"I would never subject children to religious indoctrination"

 

 

     Why? Because of faith. Faith is belief in something without sufficient evidence to support it, and worse, the belief regardless of all evidence to the contrary.

 

     This is what Penny indicated when she said "If some artifact were uncovered to prove Christianity wrong (ie the ossiary of Jesus Christ) I would still believe in Christianity."

 

     This is belief regardless of all evidence to the contrary.

 

     And this is where things get really hard hitting - once at this stage the Christian is essentially delusional.

 

     delusion definition. A false belief held despite strong evidence against it

 

[midniterider]

On 11/28/2017 at 5:57 PM, PennySerenade said:

If some artifact were uncovered to prove Christianity wrong (ie the ossiary of Jesus Christ) I would still believe in Christianity.

 

 

If Christianity works for you, then enjoy.

 

Christianity became a mental illness for me so I stopped it. I feel much better now. Jesus certainly didn't care. At least not enough to say anything. After a decade of belief, I now see that there never was a Jesus. It's rather obvious. Though if you pretend long enough, you forget you are pretending. Jesus is just the voices of Christian people giving you their opinions on church culture and the bible. Jesus is nothing more than indoctrinated people keeping each other indoctrinated.

 

That's my opinion, at least. Take it or leave it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[readyforchange]

On ‎11‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 8:30 PM, PennySerenade said:

Dying and not being in Heaven would convince me Christianity was wrong. Nothing short of dying will convince me. 

 

PennySerenade, similar to what LogicalFallacy asked you earlier about Satan, if you died and found yourself not in heaven but instead in hell, wouldn't that mean that Christianity is right?  You would have died and found out that God/Jesus must have rejected you.