I've been compiling a mental list of all the questions I've been asked about Christianity by some of my Atheist friends, so I decided I'd write them all down/type them all out. So this post is going to be different from my others because I will be doing this in Q&A format. I hope this clears up some of the questions anyone might have. And if you would like to add anything, please feel free to comment. I want this to be as complete as possible.
A = Atheist
C = Christian
C: Do you believe in sin?
A: I believe in crimes.
C: But not sin?
A: No.
C: Then you believe all people are perfect?
A: Of course not!
C: Then you believe sin exists.
A: I just said I don't believe in sin.
C: You can't have perfect sinful people.
A: Okay, fine. So let's say sin does exist. I still don't believe in an original sin.
C: Then where did sin come from?
A: It just always existed.
C: Then that would make sin perfect because God said everything was good when He made it, which means that, again, you're saying everyone is perfect.
A: Well, Adam and Eve definitely didn't commit the first sin because a snake told them to eat a piece of fruit.
C: Then who did commit the first sin?
A: Nobody. I already told you, sin has always existed.
C: So sin is perfect? It would be okay for me knock you out and steal your wallet?
A: No way!
C: Then there must have been an original sin. In order for the whole human race to be affected by sin, one person had to have committed the first sin to pass it down through the generations. And that person, or those two people, had to be the only people in existence at that time. Otherwise, there would be a group of people who weren't affected by sin. So if it wasn't Adam and Eve, who was it?
A: ...
A: The Bible says the earth is approximately 6000 years old. This has been proven wrong.
C: How?
A: Through science.
C: Okay...?
A: Human fossils have been discovered that date back millions of years.
C: Prove it.
A: Prove what?
C: That the fossils really are millions of years old.
A: Scientists already have. They used radiocarbon dating to estimate the half-life to show. (I really don't know the rest of what they did but) the point is, it's been proven.
C: How do you know radiocarbon dating isn't fallible? Key word: estimate. Has anyone ever lived a million years? I'm sure they would be able to say whether or not radio carbon dating is accurate. Unfortunately, no one has ever lived that long, not even Methuselah in the Bible, who lived 969 years. Who says the half-life of elements can't change over long periods of time? Besides, if the earth is billions of years old, like scientists say, how is it that our solar system has survived relatively unchanged for that long? If you look at the life of stars, our sun could not have survived for as long as you and your "proof" claim.
A: ...
A: The events in the story of Noah's ark are impossible.
C: What makes you say that?
A: The ark couldn't have fit two of every animal in the world and still been able to float.
C: Who says every animal in the world was on the ark? The Bible says there were two of all the creatures of the earth and birds of the air "according to their kind." That could easily mean that Noah had two owls, two dogs, two bears, two snakes, two elephants. It doesn't have to mean that he had two horned owls, two snowy owls, two German shepherds, two black labs, two golden retrievers, two anacondas, two boa constrictors, and two fully grown African elephants. It's more likely that Noah took two of every animal according to its kind, meaning that, if he had a choice between a beagle and a wolf, it didn't matter which one he took. And for the larger animals like elephants and giraffes, he probably took younger, smaller animals. After all, Noah and his family could raise a young elephant, but what good would an old elephant do them if it died while they were still on the ark?
A: ...
A: Why do you waste your time preaching to people? It's not like being Christian is going to make your life any better.
C: I don't think it's a waste of time. I'm spreading the good news of hope, the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, who was fully Man and fully God, who came down to earth to die (and be resurrected) for our sins so that we could have eternal life. Without Jesus, we are all separated from God. But through faith in Christ, we can be reunited with Him forever. I think that's definitely worth sharing. And you're right: being a Christian doesn't make life any easier. In fact, it gets harder because you begin to see the sin in your life, and you know you should turn away from sin. Battling temptation is a struggle. But it's the most worthwhile struggle anyone could ever go through.
A: Why would you want to make your life harder? Are you some kind of masochist?
C: James, the brother of Jesus, wrote in the Bible that we should rejoice in our sufferings (James 1:2-4). And even Paul, former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, was glad when he was put in jail for the sake of the gospel. When we maintain our positive outlook on life despite our trials, it makes people wonder what we have that makes us so ridiculously joyful all the time. God loves everyone, and He wants everyone to be free of sin so that we can all live with Him in heaven. Obviously, that won't be the case for everyone. But we evangelize so that as many as possible can reach the goal of heaven.
A: Can't you just get to heaven by being a good person?
C: The Bible says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Sin separates us from God, and we have all sinned. Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). We cannot be with God except through Jesus Himself. Not even being a good person can earn you a place in heaven. John 15:4 and Romans 7:18 say that nothing good can come from us apart from Christ. And Isaiah 64:6 says that even "our righteous acts are like filthy rags." So no, you can't get to heaven by being a good person because no person is good without Christ. Jesus is the only Way.
A: Prove God exists.
C: Prove He doesn't.
A: ...
A: How do you know God exists?
C: The Bible says so. And there's a kind of hole inside me that needs to be filled. It's inside all of us. Nature itself is too amazing to not have been made by an all-powerful Creator. When you look at the biology and chemistry and physics of things, the way everything works out is too perfect for it to have happened just by chance. It had to be organized by Someone. For example, look at laminin, the protein that holds cells together. It can't be coincidence that it's shaped like a cross, the tool that killed our Savior, whose sacrifice holds all things together (Colossians 1:17).
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Well, that's all I have for now. So until next time, God bless!
Michael
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"I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing." ~ 1 Timothy 2:8
"I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to live is Christ and to die is gain." ~ Philippians 1:20-21
C: Prove He doesn't.
ReplyDeleteIt's your job to prove to us that he exists, frankly we don't care whether you believe, or don't believe what we do.
This is the typical Christian response but you will have to come up with something better if you actually want to convince someone that God exists. Right now you are just ending this point of the conversation because you do not have a strong argument to support your case. So you exploit the fact that there is no proof or way to disprove that god exists, to end an argument you can't win.
Sorry, but did you even read the rest of my post? Specifically the question/answer right after the one you're referring to?
ReplyDeleteBesides, I could throw that argument right back at you. Even if there was no evidence, a lack of evidence wouldn't prove non-existence. A lack of evidence just means that no evidence has shown up YET. But there is evidence, and plenty of it.
I could list a few things, but I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you want to hear/read it.
On second thought, you probably won't see that I responded to your comment because Blogger isn't all that great with notifications, so I'll go ahead and give a few pieces of evidence.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate evidence is the Bible. If the Bible is fallible, then God doesn't exist because there could be a lie in a fallible Bible. But if the Bible is infallible, then God must exist because an infallible book cannot talk about the existence of a Being without it being true. If it were a lie, that would make the Bible fallible.
People claim that the Bible contradicts itself in places. But it doesn't. The Bible was translated into English from its original languages of Hebrew and Greek. As we all know from our experience in foreign language classes, some words don't match up exactly with words in other languages. Sometimes there might be a word in one language that has no accurate counterpart in another language, so a different word has to be substituted for it. That's why there are so many different versions of the Bible: people have been trying to determine the best way to word the Bible to match it up to the original meaning as accurately as possible. So some "contradictions" could be because of translation misinterpretations. For example, Jesus says in Luke 14:26 that we must hate our families in order to be His disciples. But it really doesn't mean literal hatred. The Greek word for "hate" here means "disfavor," which means that we have to prefer to follow Christ over our families whenever their paths/values diverge.
Read my last question/answer, where it mentions laminin.
Also consider that Mount Everest is just tall enough to attract daring mountain climbers, but just low enough in the atmosphere that simple lightweight oxygen systems can allow climbers to breathe in the thin atmosphere. It's also freezing cold up there, but not so cold that it's impossible to reach the top without freezing to death.
Now consider our solar system. The earth is just far enough away from the sun that we are able to survive the heat (for the most part, anyway), but it's just close enough that we remain in the sun's orbit. And come to think of it, it's just far enough away that the orbit doesn't continually get smaller until we crash into the sun. Jupiter is far enough away from the earth that we aren't caught in its gravitational pull and dragged into it (or into the asteroid belt in between), but it's not so far away that it falls out of its orbit of the sun.
And what about the atmosphere of all those other planets? What are the chances that our planet, and our planet alone in this solar system, would have the correct atmosphere to support life? No other planet in our solar system has the right mixture of oxygen, hydrogen, and other gases necessary for survival.
And speaking of that, why should the earth's air work in our lungs? Why aren't our lungs made in a way that would allow us to breathe on Venus?
Moving on, how do you explain sea shells/aquatic fossils on the tops of mountains? I say the flood, from the story of Noah's ark, left them there.
And one of my favorite arguments: the law of entropy. The law of entropy states that there is a tendency for order to move toward chaos. I heard the Big Bang theory described in an interesting way a few days ago: a couple of molecules bumped into each other and—BANG!—order from chaos.
Next time you get an opportunity to watch the sun set, pay attention to the way the colors change, the way the clouds reflect the sun's light, the way the clouds move around and change shapes to make different pictures in the sky. I really can't say that I believe a random assortment of molecules just decided to move around in a way that would cause such an art display. Nature's light show must be God's light show, controlled by the hand of the Creator of the universe Himself.
And one last thing, a few questions for you: Are you alive? Are you breathing? Do you breath when you sleep? How do you know? Can you suffocate yourself in your sleep without any external influences (such as carbon monoxide, a blanket tightly wrapped around your face, a tangled necklace, etc.)? Why not? Were you born at some point in time? Did you survive? How?
ReplyDeleteAll of these questions can be compressed into one short, simple question: How did you come to be here today? The answer is this: a miracle. You are here by a miracle of God. You can go on and on explaining how our body systems allow us to live, how your parents raised you, how you involuntary functions that continue working even when you're asleep. But the truth is that all of these answers point back to God. There's no reason the 208 (something like that) bones in our bodies should all be connected somehow. There's no reason our muscles should have developed to enable us to walk, talk, type, or anything. There's no reason our parents should have raised us. There's no reason their parents should have raised them. No reason except love. And God is love. So by substitution, there is no reason we should be alive except that God exists.
Actually, I was wrong. That wasn't the last thing.
ReplyDeleteScientists tested various rocks (I think they were volcanic rocks) and calculated how fast they released stored-up hydrogen into the atmosphere. It was found that the rocks gave off hydrogen so quickly that there is no way they could have been around for as long as many scientists claim the earth has been around.
Also, in places like the Grand Canyon, where rivers carved away at rock, digging deep into the ground, layers formed on the rock walls. The layers can be used to determine the time it has taken for the river to dig down to where it is now. The Grand Canyon does not have enough layers to be millions of years old, let alone billions.
"And one last thing, a few questions for you:..."
ReplyDeleteEvolution.
"Scientists tested various rocks..."
Prove to me that as time progresses the release of hydrogen doesn't speed up in rocks? You can't use the same argument to attempt to muddy the accuracy of carbon-dating and then use the exact same argument now because it supports your cause.
This argument is horribly developed anyway. Saying that a rock wasn't around at the beginning of the earth, or that a canyon can't be as old as the earth is similar to saying that the oldest person alive wasn't around when we claim humans started existing, therfore humans must not have existed prior to this oldest person.
And needless to say a canyon being formed can be explained using the same logic as above, the Earth changes. Constantly.
"Moving on, how do you explain sea shells/aquatic fossils on the tops of mountains? I say the flood, from the story of Noah's ark, left them there."
ReplyDeleteWhile a flood is easily a plausible explanition, you are connecting to things that have no real relations. Finding sea shells/aquatic fossils on tops of mountains in no way proves that there was an ark with Noah and his animals floating atop this flood. Perhaps if you found an old ark on top of a mountain your this story would have more merit.
Getting to the question, I would explain it to you like this. The world changes, frequently, human history is just a blip on the life of this planet. Have you experienced an earthquake? That is the Earth changing. A volcanic erruption. two tectonic plates colliding to create a mountain range. The Himalayas were created this way. (Everest hasn't always been the perfect height as you claim) So perhaps at one point the mountains these aquatic fossils were found on were under water, before they were ever mountains.
Your definitions of explosions and entropy are incredibly flawed. An entire universe is much more chaotic than several molecules.
Once again you use opinions. How do you know that others don't find those streaks of colors in the sky gorss, that ugly throw-up orange color? How do you know that we haven't deemed this nature "beautiful" over the millenia because we see it so frequently that it would ruin everyone's day if we viewed it as disgusting. Perhaps in a few more centuries cities with all their pollution will be looked on with awe.
Why can fish breathe in water? Why can we breather air? Why can birds fly and we can't? Evolution. It explains everything you are throwing into your idea that makes the odds of everything just "working out" seem unreasonable. The pope himself has said that "evolution is more than just a theory." Read http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/essays/courtenay1.htm and perhaps you will understand evolution better.
ReplyDelete(read my comments in reverse order, they kept getting deleted)
ReplyDeleteI don't think you understand just how vast our universe is. I'll put it into perspective for you. The odds of winning the lottery are 1 in about 135 Million. Lets say that every single star in the observable universe had only 1 planet orbiting it. Lets then pretend like every one of these planets bought a single lottery ticket. If these were the case, you would have a little over 517 Trillion planets with a winning lottery tickets. What are the odds that one of these 70 billion trillion planets was able to foster microorganisms that could eventualy evolve into more advanced organisms? I would say the odds are pretty good considering evidence has been found that other planets in our solar system (just 8 of the 7x10^22 planets in the observable universe) could be supporting microbes.
ReplyDeleteThe odds of the planet turning out exactly as you described are pretty high.
It's easy to see you're still not providing proof since for almost every argument I can turn it 180 degrees and have it support my argument. How can you be sure that because of a translation error the original meaning of part of the bible was not altered to become a truth rather than the original and fallible lie? The virgin birth of Jesus for example, Hebrew has a specific word, betulah, for a virgin, and a more general word, `almah, for a young woman. Since `almah is the word used in the Hebrew text of Isaiah, how can you be certain that Matthew did not alter the meaning of this to cover up mary being unfaithful? Mary was not even living with Joseph when she was found to be pregnant.
ReplyDelete"...evidence has been found that other planets in our solar system... could be supporting microbes." They COULD be. But are they?
ReplyDeleteEvolution, evolution. Don't you think evolution would have been figured it earlier if it were really where we came from.
I'm about to go psychologist on you; I can't help myself: So you're saying you came from a monkey? How does that make you feel?
I have no problem with the idea that evolution allows animals to adapt to their environments. I have no problem with the idea that a dog may have come from a wolf, or that a tomcat may have come from a lion. But I draw the line when the claim comes up that one animal, let's say a horse, can develop into a completely different animal, like a bat. I draw the line when the claim comes up that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor (other than God, our Creator). Seriously, why would a horse need to fly if it's already adapted to its environment enough that it can survive without too much effort? In the article you posted, the author writes, "The first step in demonstrating the truth of evolution is to make the claim that all living creatures must have a living parent." If that's true, then who/what was the parent of the first organism? And don't say it was a single, simple cell, because why would there be just one random cell in the middle of the nothingness of the universe that just happens to start splitting and spawning animals? By your argument about the planets and the odds of life existing anywhere other than earth, I can also say that there should have been single, simple cells all over the world and throughout the universe that should have spawned animals. But the only way for there to be multiple cells, according to the above article, is for all of them to have come from a single cell. So where did that cell come from?
The article claims to have an "air-tight" argument for the "truth of evolution." But it is not, and never will be air-tight until the question of the origin of the first cell can be answered. I admit that the article is well thought out, but it is far from proving 100% that evolution is truth.
ReplyDelete"Prove to me that as time progresses the release of hydrogen doesn't speed up in rocks? You can't use the same argument to attempt to muddy the accuracy of carbon-dating and then use the exact same argument now because it supports your cause."
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Are you saying radiocarbon-dating is infallible? Are you saying scientists are perfect? I don't think so. And if you are, then I have to disagree. Everyone and everything is capable of making errors. That's why scientists do multiple trials of an experiment: to ensure accuracy of results. But the problem with radiocarbon-dating is that nobody has been alive long enough to testify that it is accurate. We only know its accuracy to a certain point. Beyond that point, all you can do is trust that carbon's rate of decay remains perfectly constant. Science relies just as much on faith as Christianity does, if not more. There's evidence everywhere that God exists, whether you realize it or not.
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I'd appreciate it if you would not rant about how my arguments are "horribly developed." I've put plenty of thought into this subject, as I'm sure you have. I didn't blow off your arguments as stupid, so I expect the same in return.
The origin of the first cell has been solved for nearly half a century,
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
shows exactly how organic material can originate from inorganic reactions
How I feel about where I come from whether it be a monkey or a single sell is of no consequence, how would you feel if your father were a murderer, could you do anything about it though? No. Would it ever change? No.
"Everyone and everything is capable of making errors."
Does this include those that wrote the Bible?
Regarding half lives. Scientists have witnessed the half-lives of elements with very rapid half-lives decay at a near constant rate over a number of half-lives that is much greater in number than how many decays the carbon in extremely old fossils have gone through.
There has been evidence to show that Half-lives "seem" to alter (by about 2-3%) depending on sun activity, but other cases where sun activity should have cause Half-lives to change they remained constant. Even if there is a slight error in these half-lives, even if there were a huge drop off after a certain period of time, the length of time that would still be measured even after accounting for these (fictional) errors would be long enough to disprove Christianity's thoughts on how old the Earth is.
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I'm sorry that you spent time thinking about that argument, but when an argument makes no logical sense I will call it out and give my reasons why, as I did.
Of course. The all-knowing Wikipedia never fails. Why didn't I think of that?
ReplyDeleteIf organic materials came from the elements present on the earth, where did those elements come from? And where did the earth come from? And why didn't those organic materials form and develop into living beings on other planets with the same elements present?
Okay, so elements with shorter half-lives than carbon have been tested. Prove that carbon's percent error isn't larger than the elements that have been tested. You can't because nobody has been around long enough to test it over a period of millions of years.
And besides, a 2-3% error over an extended period of time can make a big difference.
And yes, of course the authors of the Bible made mistakes. But the Bible is inspired by God, God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). This means that, although humans held the pen that wrote the Bible, God guided them to write what they wrote, ensuring that the Bible said exactly what it was meant to say.
And speaking of the Bible, think about this: The Bible was written by 40+ people, each from a different background (some fishermen, some tax collectors, a former Pharisee, some kings, some prophets, some ordinary men who were recognized as prophets because of their writing, the brother of Jesus himself, etc.), over a period of more than 1400 years. You'd think there would be a lot of errors in the Bible when written by so many different people over such a long period of time. But if you examine the Bible closely, going back to the original Hebrew and Greek translations, we find that there are no contradictions in the Bible. Sure, there may be some cases that seem like contradictions, but the Bible can be obscure in places, and it takes concentration and the right interpretation to see that what may look like a contradiction is no contradiction at all. If 40+ people 1400+ years apart can agree on everything in the Bible, and if 5000+ word-for-word copies of the Bible can be put out 50-225 years after the events recorded in the Bible, it seems pretty clear that something big must have happened that a lot of people agreed on. (To put this into perspective, the original manuscript of Homer's The Iliad wasn't found until several hundred years after it was written. It could have easily faded to the point that there would have been countless errors in the copies made by different people, yet it was copied 643 times in 400 years and is now trusted as one of the most accurately copied documents in history. But The Iliad pales in comparison next to the Bible's accuracy.) Even historians use the Bible as a reliable document when researching events during Biblical times. If historians trust the Bible's accuracy, even though it was recorded by over 40 different people more than a thousand years apart, there must be something extra behind the Bible keeping it historically and literally accurate, because there's no way normal people could have done that.
Even secular historians have written about Jesus, some living not even fifty years after Jesus' death and resurrection. So that proves that Jesus was real. And if Jesus was real, there are only three possibilities as to His identity: Lord, liar, or lunatic. If He was a lunatic, we wouldn't have any of His teachings from the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible today because nobody that isn't in their right mind could have taught the things Jesus taught. If He was a liar, He would have been a lunatic as well because He died for something He knew wasn't true. And nobody would do that. And even His disciples were willing to die for that lie. So the only possibility as to Jesus' identity is that He was (and is) Lord, the God of the universe.
So there's your proof of God's existence.
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Thanks for your disrespectful, but interesting, comments. Have a nice day.
"Of course. The all-knowing BIBLE never fails. Why didn't I think of that?"
ReplyDeleteTry being less hypocritical and quit discrediting something just because you don't like what it says, I dare you to find an error in the article I linked you.
Okay fine I'll play your game, lets assume that radiocarbon dating is incredibly inaccurate. Lets assume it's margin of error is 99.99% (or is that still not enough error?). The estimates of the age of the earth, accounting for this fictional error would still be 454000 years old. Or do we need to keep making it more inaccurate just until it satisfies your point of view?
So were the books left out of the bible inspired by God? Or do we just get to pick and choose what the "truth" is?
You still haven't responded to my question about Jesus' virgin birth, which I'm fairly sure is a rather important facet in Christianity.
"Try being less hypocritical and quit discrediting something just because you don't like what it says."
ReplyDeleteRight back at you.
The books left out of the Bible were found to have contradictions in them. Some spoke of gaining salvation through works, while others mentioned worship of saints and angels, which do not match up with the rest of the Bible. The books of the Bible were carefully examined to find any minor details that could have meanings that are contradictory to the remainder of the Bible, and those books were removed. That's part of the reason the Catholic Apocrypha were removed from the modern Christian Bible: some things just didn't match up.
"The commonly held view that "virgin" is Christian, whereas "young woman" is Jewish is not quite true. The fact is that the Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation made in pre-Christian Alexandria, takes almah to mean "virgin" here. Accordingly, the New Testament follows Jewish interpretation in Isaiah 7:14. Therefore, the New Testament rendering of almah as "virgin" for Isaiah 7:14 rests on the older Jewish interpretation, which in turn is now borne out for precisely this annunciation formula by a text that is not only pre-Isaianic but is pre-Mosaic in the form that we now have it on a clay tablet" (http://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/9_1/almah). In simpler terms, the Jewish interpretation of 'almah' was 'virgin,' and, being of Jewish descent, Matthew used the word commonly associated with the Messianic prophecies and understood by Jews to mean 'virgin.'
Happy?
And I already found an error in the article, as I mentioned in my previous comment: Where did the materials necessary to form organic compounds come from? There are even scientific laws that state that matter can't be formed out of nothing, order trends toward chaos, etc. So where did the original particles come from?
So going back to your question about the canonization of the Bible, yes, that means that the books left out of the Bible were not inspired by God. The decision of which books to include in the Bible was made under God's influence.
ReplyDeleteRead my last blog post, and think about this: I'd rather be Christian and wrong than be Atheist and right. Because either way, if the Atheist is right, neither the Christian nor the Atheist will be around to care. But if the Christian is right, the Atheist won't be very happy.
Sorry for being rude in some of my previous posts. It was uncalled for. BUT I still stand by what I said. I don't apologize for what I said, just how I said it.
ReplyDelete