...I am now atheist.

[MasterofPun]

InFrom the start there where only 1 main belief. Now it has been was divided into 4 big groups, coptic church, cathoholic church, protestant church and ortodox church. Furthermore those got thousands of sub groups, so the religion really has changed.the Bible stays more or less the same, how it is interpenetrated is up to the human beings and they change all the time.

 There are not 2 single people in the the existence of man kind who has had the exact same view on life and living.

People also change their relation to a religion during their lifetime. If christianity was the one and true religion, how on earthwould anyone be able to know which way that is the right one when everyone has their own way and views?
So no I wouldn't say christianity as a community is consequent. The people believing in christianity is not consequent either, not even in the same lifetime.

Thousands of sub groups? Hundreds without a doubt, but thousands? Just a detail.

Depends on what you count as the start of Christianity. The 12 disciples - yes, only one. But within the first few decades, all manner of heresies had broken out. Heresies are not Christianity, for starters. The Bible does not stay "more or less the same" - it stays the exact same. We translate it - but that does not change the official Greek body. Good catch - people and their interpretations change all the time. Not a problem.

Can you tell me that there are not two people in the existence of mankind that had the exact in history? That seems like a simply massive hasty generalization that you cannot back up and disagrees with reason. I don't think you wanted to come off as illogical, but that's what that generalization is.

Christianity is a set of beliefs - you can have beliefs outside of that set and still know the truth (be a Christian). I know many people that have the set of beliefs and therefore are born again Christians saved by God's grace, but they do not like the same foods as me. Does that mean that one of us isn't a real Christian? No. That is entirely irrelevant - the set of beliefs is shared and saving.

Consequent? Can you define that term?

[OldTrees]

InFrom the start there where only 1 main belief. Now it has been was divided into 4 big groups, coptic church, cathoholic church, protestant church and ortodox church. Furthermore those got thousands of sub groups, so the religion really has changed.the Bible stays more or less the same, how it is interpenetrated is up to the human beings and they change all the time.

 There are not 2 single people in the the existence of man kind who has had the exact same view on life and living.

People also change their relation to a religion during their lifetime. If christianity was the one and true religion, how on earthwould anyone be able to know which way that is the right one when everyone has their own way and views?
So no I wouldn't say christianity as a community is consequent. The people believing in christianity is not consequent either, not even in the same lifetime.

Thousands of sub groups? Hundreds without a doubt, but thousands? Just a detail.

Depends on what you count as the start of Christianity. The 12 disciples - yes, only one. But within the first few decades, all manner of heresies had broken out. Heresies are not Christianity, for starters. The Bible does not stay "more or less the same" - it stays the exact same. We translate it - but that does not change the official Greek body. Good catch - people and their interpretations change all the time. Not a problem.

Can you tell me that there are not two people in the existence of mankind that had the exact in history? That seems like a simply massive hasty generalization that you cannot back up and disagrees with reason. I don't think you wanted to come off as illogical, but that's what that generalization is.

Christianity is a set of beliefs - you can have beliefs outside of that set and still know the truth (be a Christian). I know many people that have the set of beliefs and therefore are born again Christians saved by God's grace, but they do not like the same foods as me. Does that mean that one of us isn't a real Christian? No. That is entirely irrelevant - the set of beliefs is shared and saving.

Consequent? Can you define that term?

I don't think the word "official" in "We translate it - but that does not change the official Greek body." literally communicates your intended meaning. However I get what you mean by differentiating the source material from all the imperfect copies, translations, and edits.

Your second part was replying to a claim that no 2 people share the exact same view on life and living. You do yourself a disservice in your rephrasing of that as exact same history. Obviously trivial differences like the physical law prohibiting 2 objects inhabiting the same position is spacetime do not defend statement you were critiquing despite them addressing your rephrasing of the same statement.

I think Blacksmith meant "constant" rather than "consequent"(faulty autocorrect?).


My own thoughts:
While ideas in and of themselves do not change over time, what beliefs someone/some culture/some religion might hold usually do shift over time to other related ideas. For example: that previous sentence did not change, but how I wanted to word a sentence did change while I was writing that sentence such that it ended up being a slightly different sentence than I initially thought I was going to write.

So I can understand how most ideas would fail the test "Beliefs in that idea must be constant rather than shifting around to other related beliefs". Likewise I can see how the ideas remain unchanged even as beliefs shift between them.

[MasterofPun]

The word "history" was leftover from a sentence I deleted. That wasn't what I meant to say. Thanks for pointing that out.
What I meant to say was that unless you survey (and every respondent responds honestly to the best of their ability) every person in history and the present (which is beyond impossible), you cannot prove you assertion that no people have the exact same beliefs. One could not poll even 10% of those in history... or even 1%, so I don't see how such an assertion is useful as it cannot be proved or disproved, it merely has no validity.

The ideas from the Bible are true. It is up to humans (with divine assistance) to read and interpret it. We can fail, but it is not in God's character to give humanity truth and then not tell them what to do with it or how to interpret it.

Are there any remaining questions?

[Espithel]

Why is the bible the only source of god's message?

Surely god knew that we would eventually turn to skepticism and doubt as time passed, yes? Why does he still use a cryptic book to deliver his message? He must be aware that that is simply ineffectual, or at least currently ineffectual.

Why can't god give us a clear, indubitable sign of his existence? That would restore faith, and god should know this.

My fundamental point is god has a number of critical flaws in how heaven, hell, his message, human beings, and other aspects of his creations are designed, to which I'll elaborate to if I ever get time. The above is just one example.

As god is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, these errors should not exist. Just some quickly strewn together cents.

(Also insert euthyro's dilemma here, I guess.)

[MasterofPun]

I am glad that you realize that God thinks of us. He does and He loves us. You are thinking on the right track. God's Word, the Bible, is not as cryptic as you may think. However, God does choose to reveal its full meaning when you are saved. I bet that sounds like a classic cult idea, right? Only makes sense to members? Well, it is still true, cliche or not.
But really now, thinking about the nature of people, is there any book or writing that cannot be misinterpreted? Surely someone somewhere disagrees with practically everything that seems incredibly obvious, so I don't think it is reasonable to get all the world to agree on one thing merely because of hilarious denials from those who refuse to recognize the truth.

Another great question: why can't God give us a clear, indubitable sign of His existence? Much the same answer as the last - no sign would people all agree as a sign from Him. A common example I have heard is "why doesn't God write out in the sky 'I exist' so we don't have to wonder?" Well merely because that would be explained away as either a fraud or random chance. People would not believe such a clear sign. Does that clear this up?

I agree that errors in God cannot exist. I drew a simply terrible diagram that I think might make this clear to all parties. Please forgive the horrible MS Paint - I am not an artist.

http://imgur.com/a/GtLrn

Use the hyperlink encase the picture fails.

This poorly drawn image represents the nature of our debate right here. I hope that this debate is productive and continues on a fair basis - I just wondered what you would think of my diagram.

The blue box is human reason. It is a box - it is contained and has its limits. Everything that reason cannot/does not yet know is faith. Faith is a guess - you don't know for sure off of reason. But human reason is flawed from the Fall of Man - we make mistakes often and learn something we thought was true is not true. Also, sometimes human reasons learns more and makes progress into the realm of faith (and expands the blue box).

The Bible really changes things up. The Bible is a unit - you must accept ALL of it or deny ALL of it (as it claims that ALL of it is God inspired and true). Much of what is speaks about cannot be reasoned out by human reason - and thus dwells in faith. Many, many parts of human reason overlap with the Bible (the shared blue space within the Bible rectangle). But some parts do not share - the Bible and human reason disagree (for example, genetic diversity in humans. Unless something that we have not observed occurred (still possible), the Biblical Creation account cannot occur.) In these areas we have a choice - completely forget the Bible and accept human reason as true in this area, or accept the entire Bible and just recognize that human reason is either wrong in this area or lacks information. With time, human reason changes (the blue rectangle expands and shrinks) but the Bible is always the same. The conflicts and agreements change - but that's the only thing that swaps regarding the Bible.

Is that illustration useless or useful?

[ValerianFlame]

Personally, I'm in between atheism and Christianity. I feel that Christianity has some errors, but what defines any religion is its goal, its foundation, and everything in between. I still believe a creator exists, but even the story given by God looks like it has some wrongs. Maybe that's just God keeping truths away and surprising us in heaven. And the extremist you posted in the first video, he isn't Christian. If he is; was; a Christian, he would not show anger, violence, or rage towards his equals. God has taught us to be loving to everyone, and it will come back tenfold.

And Atheism is possible, I must say. I've said that Christianity and Evolution are in fact possible in the same world. Say God gave birth to our universe. Then, say God let the scientific process happen as it did, Our Sun, Earth, and eventually life. I believe that Adam and Eve could just be a long time after the birth of our universe, perhaps somewhere in just a field named: The Garden of Eden. I believe the Exodus happened, and most events in the Bible. I feel that maybe Christianity needs altering, but it is possible, just that maybe God wants to hide facts from us, and let us believe, he wants us to figure it out for our own, and there is no wrong answer to him, for as it is said, he will always forgive.

[MasterofPun]

Could you point out some errors in the Bible? I've heard lots of people reference these "errors" - but never seen one that I couldn't handle. And yes - I have gone to the internet and responded to rationalwiki articles. If you could find an error with the Bible I've never heard before, I'd be interested to hear it. Now, I should mention that it will not change my beliefs even if I can't explain it, but I may be able to help calm your fears of the Bible being untrue.
The Bible says that ALL of it is true. From Genesis's Creation account to the prophecies to come in revelation must be true for God to be who He says He is.

I recommend you read the first account of Creation in Genesis, ValerianFlame. It says that God created the universe in 7 days. The word "day" means evening and morning. So God could not have set up the world and then let evolutionary processes occur if Genesis is true (which other sections say it is - so it cannot be excluded).

Does God want to hide facts from us? That's a new one to me. I've never heard of that before. Thanks for bringing this up, ValerianFlame. I think it ties in with your next statement.
"There is no wrong answer to Him" - ValerianFlame
Theoretical construct time: If a right answer exists, then unless the set of all answers are correct, there must be wrong answers. Are the set of all answers correct? Does God command us to live our lives in every way ever b/c they all lead to Him? No - God does not tell us to do that. We ought to do what God tells us to do without questioning if there is more information - b/c we have no reason to believe that there is more information out there (maybe you could clarify what information you are referring to?)

God will always forgive those who genuinely ask for forgiveness. If you do not trust in Jesus' saving act of self-sacrifice, then your sins cannot be put on Him. Instead, you will take the punishment for your own sins and be separated from the loving nature of God forever. That's the choice that faces all of us: Repent and Believe, or refuse and face eternity without any good thing.

[Fippe94]

I feel like you are contradicting yourself a bit there, or I'm simply not sure what you are meaning, You said before that the "blue box" of human reason expands as we learn more things, expands into faith even. But now you say "we have no reason to believe that there is more information out there". I'm not really sure what you mean with this sentence. Surely you can't mean that we already know all that is possible to know (about god/religion)? And if you do mean that, then how could the blue box possibly expand?

[MasterofPun]

Good clarification. I didn't explain that well at all. 

We guess from a pattern that human reasoning (the blue box) is going to expand because that is what it has done in the past. We just don't know where it can expand and where it cannot. Maybe it can expand everywhere!

Anything else I failed to explain or that doesn't make sense?

[Fippe94]

Then what about:
"We ought to do what God tells us to do without questioning if there is more information - b/c we have no reason to believe that there is more information out there "

There is clearly more information out there; You just said it yourself (Or at least that it is very likely to be).

[MasterofPun]

We ought to do what God says merely because He is God. God and all His qualities, from omniscience to goodness to majesty to grace to forgiveness to love, make Him deserved to be served by us. It would be wrong to not serve God.
I really am failing at the whole "communication" thing, and I said that my example was pretty bad. We just don't know where the information will show up: agreeing with or contrasting with the Bible. That statement was supposed to in the context "in relation to the Bible rectangle". I cut that part out of the sentence for some reason - _{I am really uncertain why I thought that was a good idea!}

Anything more? I've learned a few things to change about the example already, but anything more? Analogy related or otherwise?

[ElementalDearWatson]

Human reasoning is a TARDIS?