Your argument against "many paths to God"

[cloudyday2]

"reasons" , perhaps, that you are seeking is a denial of the truth that you or they do not want to accept.

The only "reason" needed is faith in Jesus - believing Him.
...

O.k. I hear what you are saying.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Those are usually wrong, btw. For other threads if any.

Again, for other thread, if possible.

This has nothing necessarily to do with seeking the truth.

It is often found (in many )more like imitating others to gain some desired or imagined benefits (a lot of people want friends or other 'benefits' and find them more often by pretending to be a true Christian than any other way they know)...

I wasn't pretending to be a Christian.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I wasn't pretending to be a Christian.

In God's Word,
it is written,
that a multitude or multitude of "Christians" died believing they were Christian,
and Jesus tells them "be gone....."

so who knows ?

see, it does not matter if you think you were a Christian of not, or if you think you are a Christian,

what matters is what God says.

Even if you were sincere - if so, He will reveal what was wrong, where and when and why you sought something instead of the truth, or did not surrender to Jesus, or were not immersed in His Name, or were not born again....

God knows all this perfectly....

and He still and always says this is truth: if anyone seeks the truth, and keeps seeking the truth, they will find the truth, and the truth will set them free...

and God is not a man that He could lie....

also, Jesus says very simply: I will not reject anyone who (actually, truthfully, with the heart of a little child in faith) comes to Me - no, I will not, I will never, I will not abandon them ever nor forsake them nor leave them alone.... forever.... (but they can leave Him if they want to before they die - HE never takes away their free will to do so) ....

< shrugs > maybe you did....

 

[cloudyday2]

I wasn't pretending to be a Christian.

BTW, to change your label from "Seeker" to something else, you just start a thread requesting the change in the "Questions about CF" sub-forum in the Member's Center. Apparently it isn't something you can change on your own.

EDIT: I used to label myself an "Atheist", but I changed it to "Agnostic" because there are a lot of members who feel that "Atheist" means you claim to know with certainty that there are no gods. It just seemed easier to call myself an "Agnostic".

 

[ToddNotTodd]

BTW, to change your label from "Seeker" to something else, you just start a thread requesting the change in the "Questions about CF" sub-forum in the Member's Center. Apparently it isn't something you can change on your own.

Good to know.

Hey everyone, my label will forever be set to "seeker", but just remember that I'm an atheist...

 

[ToddNotTodd]

In God's Word,
it is written,
that a multitude or multitude of "Christians" died believing they were Christian,
and Jesus tells them "be gone....."

so who knows ?

see, it does not matter if you think you were a Christian of not, or if you think you are a Christian,

what matters is what God says.

Even if you were sincere - if so, He will reveal what was wrong, where and when and why you sought something instead of the truth, or did not surrender to Jesus, or were not immersed in His Name, or were not born again....

God knows all this perfectly....

and He still and always says this is truth: if anyone seeks the truth, and keeps seeking the truth, they will find the truth, and the truth will set them free...

and God is not a man that He could lie....

also, Jesus says very simply: I will not reject anyone who (actually, truthfully, with the heart of a little child in faith) comes to Me - no, I will not, I will never, I will not abandon them ever nor forsake them nor leave them alone.... forever.... (but they can leave Him if they want to before they die - HE never takes away their free will to do so) ....

< shrugs > maybe you did....

Soooo...

What's my reason for being a Christian again?

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Soooo...

What's my reason for being a Christian again?

Only if you want to live. < shrugs >

That's up to you ! (to choose who to serve: God or whatever you served until today)

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Only if you want to live. < shrugs >

That's up to you ! (to choose who to serve: God or whatever you served until today)

If you're talking about life after death, what reason do I have to believe in such a thing?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The historical existence of Christ and the confirmation of His crucifixion by Roman historian Tacitus. After that, acceptance of the biblical manuscripts as historical sources on secular grounds. Finally, acceptance of the testimony of the disciples to the witness of Jesus' resurrection, and the willingness of most of them to be martyred for the truth.

Everything you said is a little fuzzy, except the last thing you said is clearly and absolutely false.

There is not a single eyewitness of the resurrection who is known to have been forced to choose between recanting and death.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

That last point seems like it might be useful to some degree.

Nope. Like I said,

"There is not a single eyewitness of the resurrection who is known to have been forced to choose between recanting and death."

 

[cloudyday2]

There is not a single eyewitness of the resurrection who is known to have been forced to choose between recanting and death.

I would call an eye witness to the resurrection somebody who saw Jesus in his resurrection body in the 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension. Even the women who arrived at the tomb did not actually witness the resurrection itself.

James the brother of Jesus was stoned for his leadership of the early Christians. Whether James saw Jesus in his resurrected form is not as important as the fact that James must have known that he was taking a serious risk to lead the early Christians but he did it anyway. Did James believe in Christianity or did he have some other reason?

EDIT: Anybody who followed Jesus took a serious risk of being crucified for sedition. They were obviously very committed to a cause, but what was that cause? I suspect that the early Christians believed something very different from modern Christians, so their commitment to that original belief does not support the modern belief.

 

[HereIStand]

Everything you said is a little fuzzy, except the last thing you said is clearly and absolutely false.

There is not a single eyewitness of the resurrection who is known to have been forced to choose between recanting and death.

Unsure what fuzzy means in this context.

Tradition has it that all of the disciples (expect for John) endured a violent death. There's no record of any of them attempting to change his story at the last minute.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

If you're talking about life after death, what reason do I have to believe in such a thing?

People choose who to serve here on earth,
not after they die - then it is too late.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Unsure what fuzzy means in this context.

I'd have to pick apart the other things you said in great depth to demonstrate falsehood. The "Why die for a lie?" argument, on the other hand, is completely false.

Tradition has it that all of the disciples (expect for John) endured a violent death.

By "tradition" you mean Christian documents that were rejected from the Canon. If you come at me with something that you don't even take seriously, what do you reckon I'll make of it?

There's no record of any of them attempting to change his story at the last minute.

Great, but that's not enough to prove anything. You need to show that they were given the chance to recant and go free, and that they refused.

 

[HereIStand]

I'd have to pick apart the other things you said in great depth to demonstrate falsehood. The "Why die for a lie?" argument, on the other hand, is completely false.



By "tradition" you mean Christian documents that were rejected from the Canon. If you come at me with something that you don't even take seriously, what do you reckon I'll make of it?



Great, but that's not enough to prove anything. You need to show that they were given the chance to recant and go free, and that they refused.

Asserting that an argument is false doesn't make it so. To paraphrase Pascal, if you go on arguing like this you might convert someone, to Christianity that is.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Asserting that an argument is false doesn't make it so. To paraphrase Pascal, if you go on arguing like this you might convert someone, to Christianity that is.

You know what... I screwed up my delivery here. Big time.

Arguments are valid or invalid, sound or unsound. They are not true or false. The "Why die for a lie?" argument is invalid, and I have demonstrated this. But the argument is not false - only because it would be incoherent to say any argument is false.

Now, I'll concede this: the statement, "The disciples were offered the opportunity to recant and go free, but refused" cannot be shown to be false. However, it can't be shown as true, either, and therefore any argument leaning on it as a premise is automatically invalid.

I hope you understand my reasoning and agree. Provided you do, we can then move on to "focus" the "fuzzy" things you said.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I would call an eye witness to the resurrection somebody who saw Jesus in his resurrection body in the 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension.

Right. So you agree, for instance, that Stephen the martyr and Paul were not eyewitnesses to the resurrection, despite having had a vision of Christ?

Even the women who arrived at the tomb did not actually witness the resurrection itself.

I assume we're going with the narrative presented in the gospels and epistles. In that case, I can't conclude this statement about the women, since the women could have been among the unnamed 500 "witnesses."

James the brother of Jesus was stoned for his leadership of the early Christians. Whether James saw Jesus in his resurrected form is not as important as the fact that James must have known that he was taking a serious risk to lead the early Christians but he did it anyway.

This couldn't be more wrong. The 9/11 hijackers knew that they were paying the ultimate price for their faith. However, they were not in a position to know for a fact that their beliefs were false. The disciples of Christ, as the argument goes, were in a position to know for a fact that Jesus either did or didn't rise from the dead. If he didn't, and they were making it up, why would they willfully die for their lie?

So seeing the resurrected Jesus is the entire crux of the argument, and you absolutely cannot say it is unimportant.

The only problem is that apologists absolutely fail at establishing the most important fact in the whole argument: that the disciples refused to recant their faith. Even the idea that the disciples were martyred is itself in doubt (aside from the cases of James and Peter), since the apologist's only sources for this are documents that he does not even regard as authoritative (scripture that was denied canonization, such as the Gospel of Andrew).

On top of this, no document in existence, regardless of its trustworthiness, establishes that the disciples were given the opportunity to recant and go free. This scenario appears to have occurred with Polycarp, but Polycarp was not an eyewitness to the resurrection.

The criteria for the "Why die for a lie?" argument simply have not been met.

Did James believe in Christianity or did he have some other reason?

James was obviously a Christian. I don't understand what you are asking me.

EDIT: Anybody who followed Jesus took a serious risk of being crucified for sedition.

Right... so... the best the apologist can do, as far as the "Why die for a lie?" argument is concerned, would go something like this:

1.) Suppose the disciples invented the resurrection
2.) After some time, the disciples saw that they were being targeted for martyrdom
3.) After several of them had been martyred, the rest would immediately stop preaching the gospel (since they know it is a lie)
4.) None of the disciples stopped preaching the gospel
5.) It is unreasonable to suppose 1.)

Of course, this does not stand up to scrutiny at all. If a Christian wants to take up this argument and defend it (either as-is or modified), then they can let me know and I'll be happy to expose the flaws.

They were obviously very committed to a cause, but what was that cause? I suspect that the early Christians believed something very different from modern Christians, so their commitment to that original belief does not support the modern belief.

Again, I'm not sure what your point is here.

 

[Dave RP]

Unsure what fuzzy means in this context.

Tradition has it that all of the disciples (expect for John) endured a violent death. There's no record of any of them attempting to change his story at the last minute.

But were all the violent deaths due to their belief in Jesus as saviour? My understanding is that they were not, so they cannot be called martyrs?

 

[Dave RP]

How would you persuade somebody who seeks God that Christianity is either the best way or the only way (without simply quoting from Christian sources that the other person doesn't yet accept)?

I've discussed this with my Christian partner, she says it's so because the bible says so, and that's it. I always say that to me, as a non believer, IF i'm wrong and there is a god it will be the same god for all humanity. I cannot envisage that an all powerful god who can simply "think" the entire universe into existence would be so cruel as to deny eternal life to 70%+ of HIS creation just on the basis of what they were taught as children, or the location they were born. Personally I don't believe that if this god exists he will require puny humans to worship him in the correct manner or be thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. It would be remarkable that eternal life is dependant upon just happening to know about and then believe in this person from an obscure corner of the planet, given the nature and incredible power of this creator god. That for me is the essence of "many paths to god". If there were one god with one path to him, he would have made it a lot more obvious and a lot easier to find.

 

[Freodin]

Well if we exclude Christian scriptures i would say to the person in question::

If we believe there is only One God, then logically it can be argued that that God would have a Will for all mankind... A set standard will for all mankind...

I would like to see a logical argument for that. Especially one that cannot be used to argue that this "One God" does not have a "Will" for mankind... or anything.

Therefore if that God decided to give His will to mankind He would not give 100 different contradictory messages to 100 different groups of people that conflict with each other is serious ways...

Of course you then would have to go into the much more difficult task to find out if such a message was indeed received and followed by anyone.

Therefore the Christian claim that there is only one way to an eternal relationship with God is a reasonable and reasoned belief...

Without making the argument - only saying that it can be made - this isn't reasonable or reasoned.