Ok peeps, I'm here
Father is a nominal Christian but mother has always been a practicing Christian. I was raised an Anglican by her, we attended Church regularly.
As far as I can remember I read the New Testament, or at least most of it, when I was about 13 - and to date in my life I have only cried when reading something when I read about Christ.
But when I was 17 I stopped believing in the faith of my forefathers and became a militant atheist - the reasons were manifold and I don't want to write an essay on that.
I am 22 now and have since gotten over the Dawkinsian atheism, too.
Sometimes I wish could return to the Christian faith - alas, the things I've come to learn about the world has rendered the chances of my psychologically believing in any dogmatic religion an impossibility.
Now I respect Christianity in the way Kierkegaard did - I care less about its abstract meaning than its way of living - and I have come to realize that it was a way of life that did far, far more for my people than any other ideology ever has.
Christianity is dying if not already dead, the Dawkinsin worldview has become ascendant but our world has decayed into a decadence that no amount of respect for science can convince me to respect.
I will be raising my children in the Christian faith.
I won't be answering everything because you said personal things I couldn't even think to give an answer, and because you stated yourself that you don't want to talk about certain things (the reasons that brought you to New Atheism, for example). I'm not here to try to convert you either, as I don't think I would be able to, even if I can't deny I wouldn't like to, as my faith is sincere.
But I couldn't resist to the temptation to debate a prepared man like you, and since I found that you disagree with me here, I jumped in.
Now, I said I wouldn't be able to convert you, but I'm confident I can still show how Christianity is not outdated, and neither is in conflict with science or ethics.
However, I will need some inputs from your part in order to debate on a solid topic about this, in order not to get dispersive.
The thing I can make sure to actively deny here is the claim Christianity is dying, or already dead. Whether it referred to an ethic point or a social point, it's not true.
About ethics, I believe Christian morals are not dead at all. Yes, you can claim Christianity is a lie, but yet you respect its moral code. Let me explain it with an example: children. You would be horrified in hurting or killing a child, and in our society, this is arguably considered as the worst of the crimes. Before Christianity, children were generally considered as sub-humans, and quietly abandoned if not desired. In the ancient Rome, Christian families were often recognized because nobody found children in their trash.
About numbers, this is pure disinformation. The number of the Christians is still the same of 100 years ago (about 2 billions). While Christians in Europe are decreasing, they are increasing their number in Southern America, Asia, Russia and even Arabia.
Yes, you may object that the number of the world population 100 years ago was smaller, but still the number of Christians is pretty high to be considered a dying phenomenon.
Lastly, a question: do you believe you can successfully raise your children with a thing you're not convinced about?
I can't with you two
between the comment about the "ghetto" girls and Stephen, I'm convinced no discussion is ever going to break through.
However, I will respond to Deadlift:
I'm deadlift, not Deadlift. if you want to call me with a name you can put a capital letter before, call me Giulio. Nice to meet you.
Strange, because the topic about Stephen is the same thing I myself said.
1) You said Paul was not a murderer. You then posted the story about Stephen which explicitly makes Paul a murderer. I need not go any further.
Uhm, no let's go a bit further, instead. Firstly, this wasn't a murder, since "murder" means the homicide of a person or multiple persons
without a reason.
Now, Paul approved the homicide of Stephen, but they killed him because he was a Christian. There still is a cause for that. Of course I'm not justifying anything, but you will agree with me that there still was a cause for that.
Secondly, the thing is very simple for now: I do believe in the conversion of Paul, you do not. Though I can't objectively prove you he really met the Lord while going to Damascus, don't you think such a person would have been perfect for he role of a "new apostle"? I mean, he was a horrible person, a Pharisee who enjoyed his richness watching others starving. Now, you know Jesus didn't cared too much about righteous and pious people, but he always preferred to call the worst sinners to go with Him.
Let's think about it a little. Wouldn't Saul be a perfect candidate to such a role?
2) My argument about why he wanted to leave the money behind was not to simple "deceive" people. You simplified it to extreme metrics.
Paul saw an opportunity to to screw over the Christians he had persecuted and hated with all his heart.
While I can't deny Saul hated Christian quite a lot, I still believe a rich man wouldn't abandon everything for a revenge against a shadow.
Also, there is a reason why an historian called Paul "the Clark Kent of the apostles".
Paul was, actually, the first apologist, and the first who really cared about the conversion of every people. Meaning he considered every human being as equal, and this wasn't actually a little detail, especially for those times.
I'm spending two words in defence of it: do you remember the so-called Incident of Antioch? When Peter refused to eat with the Gentile Christians, Paul publicly accused him. Now, it maybe means nothing to you, but let's image what Peter would have done in Rome, if he was so disgusted by that kind of people. Very few, isn't it?
Therefore, we can conclude Paul taught him a lesson (one of the lessons Peter received, at least) and became an advocate for the equality of every kind of people. We also can deduce it from the fact he actually wrote letters to a large number of Churches, in several different places.
Matthew 24:4-5New International Version (NIV)
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.
No, Paul never claimed to be the Messiah. Again, this is not a detail. We have many prophets, many apostles, many saints, but we have only one Messiah. Paul knew it very well.
The above refers to Paul.
On the commandments and eternal life:
Paul says:
Rom.7
[9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;
[10] the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me.
Jesus says:
Matt.19
[17] And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.
Blatant contradiction here ^^^^^^^^^^
I have several objections to you here.
1) You should not decontextualize, as picking brief paragraphs of the Bible without giving an accurate explanation is no big deal if you don't want to pick the whole point that the author was making. Those phrases are linked to something and refer to something, they weren't written to be exhaustive alone.
2) Reading the Bible literally without checking the interpretation is misleading and can't be bringing anything but confusion. If you do, you're disdaining entire disciplines like exegesis and hermeneutics. I'm giving the simplest of the examples for what I'm saying: in the Bible, people often refer to God with the name of "Elohim". Now, this name is plural. It happened that a bunch of inexpert translators started with the conspiracy theories that Christianity is a fake monotheism and so on. Well, it took nothing to prove them wrong, reminding that Jews used to give the plural to the names they had great respect for. And obviously, God was one of these.
3) Let's spend two words about the comparison of the texts, now.
One of the major point of Christianity is that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. Therefore, it goes pretty quickly that His words are superior than the ones of everyone of the other prophets, and by far.
Jesus was pretty clear about the law of Moses, actually. He said that Moses set several rules for the hard heart of the people of his times, corrected other essential laws, like the one of the absolute rest of the Saturday.
He never said commandments were false, but he ultimately set up two, let's say, super-commandments.
This was a shock for every Hebrew, indeed.
But now, do we have to think Paul thought the commandments of Moses weren't worth anything? Not at all, in the Letter to the Romans you posted, he said it happened to him that Mosaic law felt like "deceiving" him. He was talking about his past, and how Mosaic law made him do things contrary to the Will of Jesus (and, therefore, to the Will of God) because directed against Jesus, who, as we, said, is superior to the Mosaic law.
So, should we take this as a contradiction? Not at all, it actually was one of the biggest proofs Paul gave for the superiority of Christ to Moses.
