Just to correct some of the myriad of incorrect things I've read:
The council of Nicaea (yes... that is the correct spelling Goddo) ended in a mojority position that Jesus was divine. But even if it didn't that would do nothing to disprove Christianity, the majority position doesn't correlate with truth.
Thanks spell check. I don't have the best spelling. Yes, it ended as a majority position, but how many there were thinking otherwise? How long did it take to come to that conclusion? Why the need to incorporate Roman and pagan symbols and ideas and dates? If it was so evidently true, why the need for the meeting? Rewrite the story much?
Quoting Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx or Friedrich Nietzsche doesn't prove anything either. In fact if you look at the way these guys ended up I don't think their belief systems are ones you should take too much out of. Particularly Russell who talked about how his world view lead to "grim, unyielding despair" or how Nietzsche spent the last years of his life in the loony bin.
I didn't quote Marx.
So your argument is that because Nietzsche and was a nihalist and he had mental health issues his point doesn't count? Plenty of intelligent people who have contributed to society have ended up that way. Doesn't make their discoveries or ideas any less significant.
Can you present a logical case against Russell's teapot argument? Can you see the massive flaws in the logic of belief in a deity it presents? that is what is called "the leap of faith" to accept something that is very unlikely to be fact. For me personally, I sit on the fence as an agnostic, but generally think
if there is a god, none of the 5 traditions are necissarily right. The Greeks might have been right. The Flying Spaghetti Monster might have been right. Don't know, no way of knowing. It just seems to me like religion preys on those insecure in their existance. Most people never think this deeply about things either.
Christianity as something that helps you personally is useless. It is either true or it isn't. If it isn't, it's a waste of time. If it is, then it's the most important thing you can ever find out about. Relativising it as something that is good for some and not for others is not what God is about.
I thought God was about belief in a deity that created the universe. As an agnostic, I like the budhist take on it most of all, that it is a form of beutiful idea. Fits nicely within the grand unifying theory idea Einstein suggested (and others have been working on for 80 years).
The Bible has not been disproven. On a wooden, overly literal reading of Genesis then the Earth is probably 6000 years old. But the Genesis account does not actually specify times. And there is no guarantee from the passage that the earth was created in 6 literal days, it could be a poetic device.
We come back to the point of which bits should be literally interpreted and which are figurative? The church has changed its opinion on this more than a model changes clothes.
Will you conceed that the old testiment started as a way to explain the unexplainable, to recorded traditions, customs and codify laws backed up by fear of an omipotent force?
Don't covet thy neighbour makes sense in a small community in peril. It creates social disorder. I understand the no hoofed animal thing. They go off really quickly in the desert. Hajibs make sense to me too, having been to the middle east, sensible clothing. I understand how these customs are important to a people, and they like to attach them religous significance to protect them. This was why the Church was so unhappy about "soldier worship" following the great war (esp Manix in Australia). They saw it as a threat.
At any rate nobody was actually there 6,000 years ago to test it out. The science points away from it but prevailing scientific theories are often shown to be false or incomplete centuries after they enjoy dominance. There is no guarantee that the world is 4.5 billion years old, that the universe is 13.8 billion years old or that we evolved from a primordial soup. It's just the best guess science has achieved to date ( I have an honours degree in science just by the way).
So you are a creationist? Or do you believe that god tampers with the science, or that the science is wrong? Best guess science is better than here say and conjecture from over 2000 years ago from people likely to have been homeless schitzophrenics (see I can discredit people because of mental illness too).
It may well be that our entire perception of reality is called into question as Descartes pointed out... "cogito ergo sum". If you want to go down that road of saying "maybe this is wrong maybe that is wrong" the same logic applies to Christianity. And we come back to the point were we can't know one way or the other. Agnostic.
If you want to figure out whether Christianity is the real deal or not, read the Bible, and start with the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Read into why they're thought to be historically reliable books and canvas a vast range of views when doing so. And most importantly, figure out for yourself if who Jesus is and whether he is God or not.
I have read the bible. But I have also read many other books, including the Torah and read up about biblical history in several analytical books to put it in context, and I think it is hocus pokus. Jesus was a historic person, but there are too many holes in the story, and conflict between the 4 testiments, writen between 30 and 120 years after his death. But people should read as much as they can before they make their mind up.
