I want to state the basics of what Christians and Atheists believe.
Christians believe God came down from heaven and was incarnated in a human birth on earth to bring abundant life to all those who are committed to this belief. Atheists do not believe this is True.
And can you see how this appears to outsiders to be a wacko belief? The idea that a virgin not only gave birth, but gave birth to the creator of the universe, is not something that I would consider anywhere near a sensible idea.
I'd contend that you believe this either because of your parents or just society in general, but most Christians will deny that and instead say that they believe due to the testimony of a document that came decades later in a different language by an author who never actually identifies himself.
Christians believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God and as such is True. Atheists believe the Bible is just like any other book, or worse.
Why does the Bible not make me fall to my knees and weep at the overwhelming beauty? The vast majority of the Bible is so boring that it's more entertaining to read a shampoo bottle. There is some wisdom in the Bible, mixed in with heinous acts, bizarre and untenable laws, praise of a god that kills children, boring genealogy, made up miracles, and some confusion about the scientific process.
Christians think Christianity is True while Atheists posit that Christianity is False.
Christianity being true or false balances purely on the resurrection. As I've said many times, I could prove molecules-to-man evolution and deep time, I could prove that the Old Testament is entirely false and there are no prophecies about anything, I could prove that Jesus performed no miracles at all and that half the stuff he allegedly said was just made up by the author,
BUT if I also, while doing all of this, prove definitively that he rose from the dead, the Christianity is absolutely true. Conversely, you could prove that all of the Old Testament is true, you could prove the universe is 5,000 years old, and that Jesus performed absolutely every miracle attributed to him and then some,
BUT if you inadvertently prove he definitively did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is false.
This is why I've focused on the "Why die for a lie?" argument. I see you're new here and you're really trying, but you have to admit you fell pretty flat on your face there. We both know it's true; I won't gain respect for you if you deny it. I'm not going to somehow be unaware of it if you deny it.
I'm not trying to kick you while you're down, but at the same time you need to compose yourself with dignity. Here's a fact of life you need to know as a Christian: you're going to lose arguments to atheists. Sorry, that's just how it's going to go.
Now, we can start over. As I said, I genuinely don't know if there are heretical Christian documents which were banned from the canon that do in fact pass the criteria I mentioned. I haven't read these. I know there are actually five books of Acts, one of which made it into the Bible, and I don't know anything about the other four. The challenge I made to you is actually a genuinely open question and you decided to just whine and flop around instead of simply agreeing that the conditions are reasonable.
Christians need to defend all of their belief claims about Christianity because if one of their beliefs claims about Christianity is not True, then it shows Christianity is False.
Well, there are tons of contradictions in the Bible. It's what initially pushed me away. I concluded that either God cannot or God will not preserve the Bible, and neither was acceptable to me. Also, I don't understand why God would allow human beings to muck up the Bible, despite doing absolutely everything they can to correctly preserve the Bible, while at the same time there is this Satan fella who is more intelligent and cunning than any human being and yet somehow Satan cannot alter anything about the Bible. So there's some kind of semipermiable hedge of protection about the Bible allowing human beings to put errors into it, but supernatural entities cannot. See how absurd this is getting?
But as I said above, contradictions or not, if Jesus actually did rise from the dead, how could one say Christianity is false?
Atheists don't need to defend any of their belief claims about Christianity because none of their belief claims about Christianity shows anything about the Truthfulness or Falseness of Christianity.
Atheists don't need to defend their claims because they're not making a positive claim, and they are not subject to the burden of proof.
Now, I am generalizing in order to contrast the two, but can you more or less agree to this?
My simple question then, is why do you believe what you do as either a Christian or an Atheist?
Tagging
@cvanwey here since this seems in line with the kind of logic they like to use. let me know if i am being accurate in tagging you here.
I believe what I do because I've seen Christians squirm time and time again, twisting reality into a pretzel to defend their beliefs rather than accept the obvious. I'm the lazy person who merely accepted the obvious.
