The Four Failures of Christianity

I would say any Christian who responds to this needs his faith examined.

Nihilist Virus said:

Now here are the four failures

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I don’t think we’ll get anywhere with the 1st ‘failure.’
Talking about the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th is more my cup of tea.
It will be interesting if you get any takers. I’ll jump in later.

Nihilist Virus said:

The Failure of the Christ
Chris was supposed to uphold the law mentioned above, but in fact failed. Deuteronomy 23:2 says that no one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the Lord, which I understand to refer to the temple (or, when the passage was written, the tabernacle). Now, Joseph was not married to Mary, and even if he was, he was not the father of Jesus. So Jesus was clearly of illegitimate birth, and since he was obligated to fulfill the entire law, he was not allowed to enter the temple. However, he did just that when he vandalized the money changing tables and whipped the people there.

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Given the nature of our previous interactions I'm not particularly interested in addressing all your points, but I though I would address this one. I often find it helpful, when dealing with passages from Torah, to look at how Jewish scholars and sages have looked at them, there's usually a helpful insight there that I might otherwise miss out on. So, with that in mind, this:

Rabbinic teaching rather often points out that the mamzer of Deuteronomy 23:2 refers not to merely an illegitimate child, nor to such a person entering the Temple, but rather to a child born of unlawful mixed parentage, and shall not be counted among the assembly, that is, the nation.

If taken the way it is presented here, it would, in conjunction with verse 3, render David--and indeed the entire Davidic lineage--illegitimate and unable to enter the Temple. This isn't the case however.

More-so, some sages such as Rabbi Yehudah ben Bilam (source) argued that "Mamzer" was, in fact, a name of a nation; this is in conjunction with its usage in the text of Zechariah 9:6. Not a position accepted universally, though it is the position taken by the Karaite sect of Judaism (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamzer#Karaite_Judaism)

-CryptoLutheran

We have failed every time a soul departs this earth into an eternity of hell and darkness..

rockytopva said:

We have failed every time a soul departs this earth into an eternity of hell and darkness..

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Did Jesus fail?

AV1611VET said:

Did Jesus fail?

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No... but there have been many of unprofitable servants who have!

24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. - Matthew 25

rockytopva said:

No... but there have been many of unprofitable servants who have!

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Unfortunately, that includes me as well!

AV1611VET said:

Unfortunately, that includes me as well!

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Humility is a good thing!

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. - Luke 17:10

rockytopva said:

Humility is a good thing!

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. - Luke 17:10

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Thank you, bro!

God bless and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Yes... Merry Christmas!

Nihilist Virus said:

Discussion between atheists and religious people is often times fruitless because the religious person believes in their position a priori, with no evidence or argument required, and thus there is nothing that the atheist can say to make the religious person reconsider their worldview. So essentially the atheist exposes their beliefs (or lack thereof) to logical scrutiny, while the other side does not. I am genuinely seeking the truth, and I will not have a theological debate with someone who is not doing the same.

Therefore, before I bother responding to you, you must acknowledge that you do not believe in your religion a priori; that is, you must make it clear that your beliefs are held up, ultimately, by secular facts.

Now here are the four failures:

The Failure of the First Cause
It is accepted that there was a t=0 event (either the creation event or the Big Bang).

Causality is the process by which a given system goes from one state to another over a duration of time. (A system is a region of space-time, and a state is an arrangement of particles, energy, and fields within that system.) In a reality where time does not exist, there cannot exist any form of causality. Therefore, it is logically absurd to suggest that there needed to be a cause for the t=0 event, or even that there could have been one.

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On this point, I myself agree with the Tau Zero perspective, however, from a philosopjical perspective, it does not provide an answer to the question "Why?" Creation need not be viewed as a temporal causal relationship; I think to regard it as such would be demeaninf and contrary to the idea of an eternal God. Rather, I would propose the ideal way, in accordance with Orthodox theology, which regards creation as a continual act, to understand creation, is as the instantiation of all of reality, of all of spacetime, concurrently.

So if we agree with Hawking, and I see no reason not to, that spacetime could be conceptualized as a sphere with two poles, one representing the Big Bang, the other the Big Crunch, separated according to the imaginary time dimension, with the difference between the two poles being a state of maximum order in the former and maximum disorder at the latter, we could say that rather than God having "caused" the Big Bang, which reduces Him to a demiurge, it would be fairer to say that the existence of spacetime as a whole is the will of God who exists outside of it; creation becomes extra temporal and this accords with the eternal impasability and transcendance of the divine nature.

Now of course, there are various alternate cosmologies, for example, a cosmology that rejects the idea of a Big Crunch in favour of an interminable period of entropy, whicnis a model I actually prefer on aesthetic grounds. In any case, I believe that we do not need to rely on an essentially Platonic demiurgic model of God having directly caused the Big Bang; furthermore such a model seems rather too dependent on determinism, a determinism which is unscientific.

The Failure of Scripture
Many contest that the original autographs were inerrant. I will grant that baseless assertion for the time being, but it is irrefutable that the current copies contain errors. Therefore, if errors propagated in the Bible purely by the blunders of humans who were trying their hardest to preserve the text, then it is unreasonable to suggest that Satan, who is so often praised for being clever, could not have at least corrupted the Bible as much as the scribes did.

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We have been over this before. There are, from an Orthodox perspective, no doctrinally relevant errors in the text. What is more, the doctrine of Satan precludes him from being able to lead us astray in that manner; the devil is bound by divine action (an idea you called a "pointless game," but which does put paid your theological idea that scripture must have been subverted by the devil, if the devil existed). You would have a rather good point if you were debating Zoroastrians or Manichaeans, however; a major objection to dualism is the extent to which an unbounded and unoriginate evil power could corrupt the teachings of his benificent counterpart.

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We are apparently held accountable for our transgressions against this system of morality, and require Christ because we come short. This is utter nonsense and is fully beyond repair.

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Ah, and here we have a facetious attack on penal substitutionary atonement of the most radical Westernized sort, which completely ignores Eastern theological perspectives, and indeed St. John Cassian. Even St. Augustine I expect would roll his eyes at that.

The Failure of the Christ
Chris was supposed to uphold the law mentioned above, but in fact failed. Deuteronomy 23:2 says that no one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the Lord, which I understand to refer to the temple (or, when the passage was written, the tabernacle). Now, Joseph was not married to Mary, and even if he was, he was not the father of Jesus. So Jesus was clearly of illegitimate birth, and since he was obligated to fulfill the entire law, he was not allowed to enter the temple. However, he did just that when he vandalized the money changing tables and whipped the people there.

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Now this is a very amusing argument, one of the more improbable polemics I've seen from an atheist; compared to the cosmological splendour of your first objection, this comes across as almost a satirical quibble.

However, we can say that our Lord was of legitimate birth, by virtue of having been conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit, not by sexual intercourse; what is more, Joseph and Mary were in fact wed.

Furthermore, responsibility for interpreting the Law with regards to admittance fell on the priests. Luke 2:29-32 shows how enthusiastically Simeon received our Lord in His infancy, so this rather negates your argument. In fact, Luke 2:29-32 is the canticle Nunc Dimitis, a traditional part of the office of Compline in the West, and various services in the East; we sing it for a reason.

Your main problem, if I may be very direct, is that you apparently have only a vague knowledge of Christianity; you are thus attacking a strawman caricature of it, and you have a systematic, even moral objection, it would seem, to acquiring more knowledge of it (if I read our previous interactions correctly). Frankly, there are many atheists, even on this forum, who have more knowledge of the faith, and who have offered more interesting and potentially persuasive polemics.

If you wish to argue with us more persuasively, you should really broaden your knowledge of the Christian faith, particularly the Eastern churches. For various reasons, not the least of which is that several legitimate criticisms one might hurl at western Christianity are entirely inapplicable to Eastern Christianity. Actually, atheists in the Soviet regime managed to lose to a fairly spectacular degree a long running argument with the Russian Orthodox.

Nihilist Virus said:

Now, Joseph was not married to Mary, and even if he was, he was not the father of Jesus.

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Sure he was!

John 1:45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

John 6:42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?