A Challenge To All Christians.

This is a challenge to all christians to debate myself and others on the bible and the existence of your god.
I ask that everyone posting makes contributing posts to this thread and behaves with respect for each others opinions.

Here is my opening statement:

The Atheist Proposition is as follows:

"It may not be said that there is no god, it may be said that there is no reason to think there is a god."

Francis Collins (devout christian and head of the human genome project) suggests that there have been humans on earth for AT LEAST 100,000 years. Richard Dawkins thinks it has been 200,000.. So, let's go with 100,000. If you are a Christian, knowing that man has been here for 100,000 years, here is what you have to believe:
For 96,000 years humans have been born, expectation of life is about 25 years, many of these people die as infants and giving birth, microorganism disease is rampant; volcanoes and earthquakes and other natural disasters are also devastating at this time. Between these humans fight begin over land, women, tribalism, and food. So, for 96,000 years god and his angels watch with indifference as all this occurs. Then, around 4,000 years ago, he decides to intervene in barbaric middle east where people are not intelligent and illiterate. And what better way of intervening that by human sacrifice, plagues, mass murder, genocide, and all the other HORRIFIC stories of the old testament.
I have much more to say, and the argument only begins here, but i am going to stop here for now to give someone else the opportunity to get in on the argument..

You can be a good person but you will still be punished if you do not "believe." I have been led to assume, by pastors, that you can be a very very bad person but later if you truly feel sorry for what you have done and truly beg for forgiveness and repent you can be washed of your sins. But if you do not "believe" you will be punished, no matter if you have been one of the best persons this world has ever seen, offering charity in many ways and always putting others before yourself and never doing ill will towards another. I don't get it...

I just want to know why something like this should be acceptable and why someone would want to believe that it should be acceptable. What is wrong with being a good person? What is wrong with questioning the way of things? Curiosity is human nature, why is it so wrong?

Your topic is based on an assumption that all Christians believe the earth is 10k or less years old, and are all YEC's (Young Earth Creationists)

I and other Christians are not all YECS, some are what's called OEC's (Old Earth Creationists, who believe the earth is exactly how old science tells us, 4.54 billion years, but believe God created a singular Adam and Eve, and all men descended from them), then there's a another stance, which is the one that I prefer to take - it is that of Theistic Evolution. We believe God created everything, and that He guided the process of evolution, we believe there are no contradicitons between modern scientific models, biology, evolutionary biology, etc, and the Biblical story.

Genesis was written in a highly allegorical tone, Jesus Christ Himself mostly spoke with parables, laced with metaphors and allegories,

The Hebrew word for Adam in the Bible means mankind, it does not necessarly refer to a specific man, and Eve just means woman, or womankind.

I have two links for you to check out:

BioLogos

Theistic Evolutionist Interpretation of Genesis

Another theistic evolutionist take on Genesis

I could go more in depth on this, and answer further questions you have, I may have to go soon, the wife is getting irritated, lol!

God bless you, and thanks for having an open and understanding heart and mind

Sir you seem to be attempting to use reason to combat unreasonable beliefs, if you could reason with religious people there would be no religious people. Most people who turn to religion or atheism tend to be out of either lack of education or frustration of religion or lack of it, we all know it does not make sense and you could try to state as many facts as you can but i think it will be of no use, people will always find a way to rationalize and go around knowledge and facts. Life is all about balance in my opinion, Christianity is an extreme even if people don't take it to it but the core belief rarely leaves room for discussion and so does atheism.

reply to post by doomedtoday


There's nothing wrong with questioning things,

In fact, God wants you to, He wants you to be intelligent, wise, quick to wield his Mighty sword of wisdom,

You are still Gods child, you are still forgiven, you are not going to hell, and you will goto Paradise if you've belonged to Christ, because once you are His, you are forever in Him,

The problem with growing lukewarm and separating from Christ, is that you may sin without thinking about it much, infact you probably will sin, much more, and this in turn, will create turmoil in your life. God wants you to have a good life, and not sow bad seeds that will reap you a negative harvest, the law of sowing and reaping (karma) is real, this is why God hates to see His children sin, look at all the suffering we bring upon ourselves,

Don't run from God because of a few bad apples, come back to Him,

Amen

reply to post by Iason321


That's not what he's talking about. I'm bored on a Friday night and I just happened upon this thread. He's asking you to assume that humans have been around for 100,000 years. After that, he's asking why it took so long for the God being to begin to interfere on a large scale, and why it was mainly in the middle eastern area. Re-read, please.

reply to post by CesarO


I did not turn to God out of lack of education, or because I was not about my wits,

I had a genuine spiritual encounter(s)

I hold a degree in Airway Science from the United States Air Force, and I am (was) an FAA certified Terminal Radar Approach Control (Air Traffic Controller),

I do know how to take an objective, unbiased approach, and I have approached Christianity in such a way, and through thorough research and many, many hours of studying, and praying for understanding, etc, I can only confirm my beliefs, and proove the Bibles authenticity and Supernatural authorship.

reply to post by TheOneElectric


That's a flawed theological approach, nothing more or less,

God has clearly been involved since the beginning, throughout time, and still to this day, and tomorrow and to the end, everlasting to everlasting,

The Bible is witness to this, as are you and I,

Amen.

reply to post by Iason321


Yes, but many believe that a man having sex with another man is bad, or a woman with another woman is bad, or four people having sex with each other is bad, or six men having sex with one woman or man is bad, why are these things so bad, I mean really, why? What if I enjoy having oral and anal sex with a woman, why is this bad? If everybody partaking is such events are doing so willingly why is it so bad? You're not hurting anybody.

reply to post by Iason321

We believe God created everything, and that He guided the process of evolution, we believe there are no contradicitons between modern scientific models, biology, evolutionary biology, etc, and the Biblical story.

So you believe that for 96,000 years your god sat and watched with indifference as all these terrible things happened and then his way of intervening was genocide, plagues, and human sacrifice?

You believe your god plays a hand in evolution? well, if this is true then it could hardly be considered intelligent design..

Here is a quote from the book "God Is Not Great" By Christopher Hitchens..

Evolution posits that modern organisms should show a variety of structures from simple to complex, reflecting an evolutionary history rather than an instantaneous creation. The human eye, is the result of a long and complex pathway that goes back hundreds of millions of years.a simple eyespot with a handful of light-sensitive cells that provided information to the organism about an important source of the light; it developed into a recessed eyespot, where a small surface indentation filled with light-sensitive cells provided data on the direction of light; then into a deep recession eyespot, where additional cells at greater depth provide more accurate information about the environment. then into a pinhole camera eye that is able to focus an image on the back of a deeply-recessed layer of light sensitive cells; then into a pinhole lens eye that is able to focus the image; then into a complex eye found in such modern mammals as humans.

The anatomy of the human eye, shows anything but "intelligence" in its design. It is built upside down and backwards, requiring photons of light to travel through the cornea, lens, aquaeous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells before they reach the light sensitive rods and cones that transduce the light signal into neural impulses—which are then sent to the visual cortex at the back of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns. For optimal vision, why would an intelligent designer have built an eye upside down and backwards ?

reply to post by TheCelestialHuman

Thank you. Star and Flag for you. Finally a real debate on things that are often talked about in these forums. I will bow out for now, you all know my stance on religion. I'll be back tomorrow.

reply to post by Iason321

In fact, God wants you to, He wants you to be intelligent, wise, quick to wield his Mighty sword of wisdom,

If god wanted us to be intelligent, then why in genesis does he forbid Adam and Eve to eat fruit from a tree that will give them KNOWLEDGE..

reply to post by doomedtoday


Sexual immorality is bad, but we are all guilty of it.

It has to do with chastity, one of the seven virtures (the opposite of the seven deadly sins), and also with the ill effects that sexual immorality causes (premature and unhealthy births, cheating wives and husbands, adultery and broken hearts, unwanted children, abortions, STDS, AIDS, mockery from people for "perverted" sexuality, judgement, shame, guilt, etc)

God wants the best for us, and if were addicted to sex or porn or constantly being overtly sexually immoral, we are not glorifying Him, and we are going to cause turmoil in our lives (by sowing sinful seeds, we will reap a bad harvest - if you get crazy drunk at a gay bar and catch AIDS, you have noone to blame but yourself, not God)

The wages of sin is death, and everybody will pay, one way or another.

EDIT: I've helped comfort homosexual Christians in there faith and helped them understand all humans are sexually immoral and deserving of Gods judgement, not just homosexuals, and to learn to live with themselves and seek God and Love...

reply to post by TheOneElectric


God took so long to intervene because time there is not a factor. Jah probably stirred the pot when Goddess saw that the apes had put their mushrooms to good use - pizza and all of course - and stepped in to nudge the creative stage from stonecentric to knowledge of plants.

I don't know exactly what god is, but if I had to put forth my best guess it would be: god is intelligent energy that is the machinery of the universe, it is neither male or female, and god is not an entity as we know it and as the christian's imagine "him", which is often pictured as an individual entity sitting on a throne in heaven surrounded by angels.

Christianity is utterly false and unfortunately extremely negative and fear based. Christians are perhaps some of the most intellectually exploited groups of people in the world, not only do they embrace the most absurd and fantastic concepts of reality and existence, but they'll believe anything else in the same manner.

reply to post by TheCelestialHuman


The hebrew term used for "knowledge" is Da'ath, which can also be translated, Ignorance,

You may want to ask, why did God allow us to become ignorant? Why did he let us close our eyes to Him?

I do not know, for I do not know His ways or His thoughts, it was part of His plan and done for His glory.....

reply to post by Iason321


Flawed and cyclical reasoning on your part.

Bible is the word of God > How do we know it is the word of God? > The Gospel tells us so > How do we know that the Gospel is true? > Because the Gospel is infallible > Why? > Because the Bible is the word of God

To be honest, it's basic and childish logic at best. The fact of the matter is, there is nothing "logical" involved when talking about some Super being that we don't even have the proper technology to perceive. It's a moot point. You either do or don't believe. No one is right, and no one is wrong. To be honest with you, the best a person has to go by is experience. And to be honest with you, having "sat with God" I know better than to buy into any dogmatic nonsense.

Point is, it doesn't matter if you do or don't. What matters is how you treat people. No childish, silly, and incomplete archaic logic will ever change that sir/madam.

ok im a christian but.....i believe in the basics much like my ansestors did. the sun god (we see the sun) the air and water the moon.......i cannot logically understand how to follow a book ALTHOUGH.........for 11 years of my life i was forced to a christian school and church with my mother. we have not spoken since. i never felt in my heart that it was right to worship a book that states there will be many false prophets........that this book is the truth....it is holy.......these are my words........ no other gods before me......... BUT GOD LOVES EVERYBODY. just not the ones whom doubt him. i wont follow a book thats been rewritten and frankensteined from the original book. and if god didnt want us to actual enjoy the act of sex then WHY ON EARTH DID HE DECIDE TO MAKE IT FEEL GOOD.

I did not mean to imply that you were not smart but education goes beyond what you describe, is not what you learn in school or what career you choose to follow. What i meant to convey was that many people are indoctrinated without knowledge of other options and simply blindly follow what they have been taught, and religion IS taught. I don't know you so i cant say anything to the second part of your response but remember that your belief is in your brain and is triggered by chemical reactions when there is an unbalance you can believe things that would normally seem impossible so remember that "Proof" is relative and just because you believe something it does not necessarily make it true.

Oxford Syled Debate tells world better off without religion. Good style for this theme.

www.npr.org...