BibleForums Christian Message Board
Other Categories => Controversial Issues => Non Christian Perspective => Topic started by: DavidGYoung on September 10, 2023, 12:16:47 PM
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Would any Christian here assert that their version of Christianity is in agreement with the following ten statements?
1) Intercessory prayer does not work.
2) All phenomena described as 'signs and wonders' can be explained without any need for the supernatural.
3) There is no such thing as 'the pure message of the Bible alone'.
4) There is no evidence for life after death.
5) Evolution is true, is supported by evidence and currently has no scientific rival.
6) There is no such thing as a moral act which can only be performed by someone with a religious faith.
7) Answering a different question from the one someone has asked is not the same as answering the question they have asked.
8 ) Being older than someone is not a factor in determining whether a statement is true and neither is the number of people who believe in the statement.
9) The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'.
10) Combining several arguments that do not work does not create one argument that works.
I have definitely met Christians who agree with up to nine of these, but I am not sure I have met one who agrees with all ten.
If you agree with all ten, is your version of Christianity one which you would attempt to persuade an interested sceptic to find convincing?
Edited to remove that pointless yellow face that the number 8 turned into.
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Do you have a point?
We are not called to convince the skeptic
We are called to speak truth.
The Holy Spirit all
What the skeptic does with truth and the Holy Spirit is none of my business
You seem to have a purported solution in search of a problem
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I'm steering clear of straw men or tarring people with the same brush.
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Would any Christian here assert that their version of Christianity is in agreement with the following ten statements?
1) Intercessory prayer does not work.
2) All phenomena described as 'signs and wonders' can be explained without any need for the supernatural.
3) There is no such thing as 'the pure message of the Bible alone'.
4) There is no evidence for life after death.
5) Evolution is true, is supported by evidence and currently has no scientific rival.
6) There is no such thing as a moral act which can only be performed by someone with a religious faith.
7) Answering a different question from the one someone has asked is not the same as answering the question they have asked.
8 ) Being older than someone is not a factor in determining whether a statement is true and neither is the number of people who believe in the statement.
9) The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'.
10) Combining several arguments that do not work does not create one argument that works.
I have definitely met Christians who agree with up to nine of these, but I am not sure I have met one who agrees with all ten.
If you agree with all ten, is your version of Christianity one which you would attempt to persuade an interested sceptic to find convincing?
Edited to remove that pointless yellow face that the number 8 turned into.
What kind of sceptic, and why the repeated interest in persuasion?
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I'm steering clear of straw men or tarring people with the same brush.
Let's arbitrarily separate the Christians between those who find the idea that God is an alien being external to our very reality offensive and those who don't.
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Would any Christian here assert that their version of Christianity is in agreement with the following ten statements?
1) Intercessory prayer does not work.
If you agree with all ten, is your version of Christianity one which you would attempt to persuade an interested sceptic to find convincing?
The reality is there will be skeptics on both ends of your first point.
For those who have prayed in the position of intersession, they will be skeptical that such prayer does not work.
For those who don't pray in the position of intersession, they will be skeptical that such prayer does work.
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There are various groups of Christians when it comes to their attitudes towards sceptics.
One group makes no attempt to persuade anyone to become Christians.
Another uses appeals for occult knowledge, e.g. the Charismatic movement.
Another attempts to present a rational argument for at least part of Christianity's truth claims.
It is this last one which I am interested in. Some within this group present farcically ridiculous arguments. Having said that, they are not representative of all Christians. For example, the fact that some Christians present the nonsense of creationism does not mean that it is necessary to be a creationist in order to be a Christian, only that you need to be one in order to be their type of Christian.
I'm wondering if any Christians, of the type who seek converts, have a version of the faith in which none of the ten statements is at odds with their beliefs in any way.
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Lots of presuppositions in your thoughts.
The fact that you call creationism "nonsense" just alienated you from a vast slice of believers in Jesus. And your attempt to link "occult knowledge" to the Charismatic movement is equally offensive.
You seem to fundamentally lack understanding of what Christian witness is.
Christians are called to proclaim the truth of Jesus. Christianity is not a debate club, or a sales force, even if some in the faith have that same misunderstanding. Christians are called to simply proclaim the truth of who Jesus is, and to be eyewitnesses of the way in which faith has changed their lives. Nothing more. The onus is then on the listener to respond either in faith or in rejection of the work of the Holy Spirit.
So, to put it not so subtly, no one cares about your strawmen.
question: Are you a follower of Jesus?
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You say that Christianity is not a debate club. Your version of it may not be. I am asking about the versions that are.
I'm interested to know how big you think 'vast' is, by the way.
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I'm steering clear of straw men or tarring people with the same brush.
Rev 3:20 - Behold, I [Jesus] stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
When you have opened the door and experienced the above promise, you don't believe any longer, you know. And the 10 questions you raised are irrelevant.
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You say that Christianity is not a debate club. Your version of it may not be. I am asking about the versions that are.
Why are you asking people here to justify versions of Christianity that they do not ascribe to? This whole discussion is bizarre.
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I don't know if you have noticed this, but the very first sentence of the very first post of this thread is in the form of a polar question.
That should answer yours.
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I don't know if you have noticed this, but the very first sentence of the very first post of this thread is in the form of a polar question.
That should answer yours.
Again, to what end? If someone who subscribes to all 10 points and would be the sort of person to try to persuade another, what would be the point being made here?
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A person who is interested in answering the question is free to answer the question.
A person who is not interested in answering the question is free to ignore it.
This silly Christian game of perpetually asking why the question is being asked is something I have no interest in, however.
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Oh cool. Well, if "so where is this going?" doesn't interest you, and the thread doesn't interest me, I guess we can wrap this up.