/atheism/ - Atheism

>>9016

>2Peter 3:16

You should quote the passage to save me time looking up stuff that is irrelevant. I don't see how this indicates what his scriptures are, or why the book of enoch WHICH JESUS QUOTED, and which the new testament frequently mirrored, was omitted.

Your citation reads:

" 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

Doesn't at all say which scriptures are holy and which aren't. You missed the point by a mile. I'll leave the refuting of the other myriad dumb fallacies in your reply (i.e. "if Christians died for something it must be true) for another time.

>>9032

"He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters."

Is the writing style how we are to judge whether a work is inspired? So if Joeseph Smith writes in a similar style, even copying King James Version grammar is it God speaking through him? Because he did that.

>"His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

This literally means nothing. It's just a warning against other scriptures, whatever those may be. It doesn't define what is and isn't canon. Are you suggesting we should cut out all parts of the bible except the letters Paul wrote? You're still missing the professor's point by a mile.

You still haven't explained to me how this sentence excludes Buddhist scriptures or The Book of Mormon. It looks to me like you just opened the bible and cited the closest quote you could find because there is nothing that clarifies what is to be excluded.

You're a Christian trying to refute an email from an ex-Christian professor with a PHD in philosophy and a masters in religious studies, so you should take his quote and interpretation seriously enough to do the research on your canon. Does the bible say the book of Enoch which Jesus quoted, or the book of thomas, book of judas, the Quran, or the annals of Confucious aren't divinely inspired works and do not belong in a bible for any reason?

>>9041

>>9004

>without going on to explain what this means or, crucially, identify what books are scripture

>>9045

>

First scholars believe many of the books you cited contain forgeries. If I recall one of the chapters in Jude was inserted by a later Christian author with a mysogynist agenda.

>obviously the early church believed they qere authentic since they copied them (and the rest of the bible.)

The early church had no consensus about what was scripture. They were a bunch of arguing sects, and one sect, the proto-orthldox eventually won and compiled it's own bible, choosing what to include and exclude on the basis of their own theological position which stood apart in its belief in a Trinity.

Theological alterations are believed to have occurred in the Latin versions of the bible, when compared to the dead sea scrolls to support their position. There is a reason the Catholic church banned possession of bibles in the 12th century by the laity - they didn't want people to read them, and be able to contradict the divergent teachings of the clerics. I would also be skeptical about putting much faith in the "moral" integrity of the church at any point in its history.

>(lots of people believed in christ so…)

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Point_refuted_a_thousand_times

Or look up appeal to the majority.

>500 witnesses of Jesus's resurrection

We have no proof of this. Paul just hears of that number decades later, and claims that number is true. He does not fact check and does not meet any of those witnesses.

None of the authors of the 4 gospels met the resurrected Jesus. Just bcause they claim their name is the same as one of the 12 disciples does not mean they are the original author.

Paul alone of the biblical authors who claim to have met Jesus is believed to actually be the man he says he is, so lets investigate his claim. Paul fell off a horse/faints and has a vision of white light which he counts as meeting Jesus. He did not meet Jesus in the flesh, in a bodilly form as the others did. But he attaches the same truth value to personal his experiences as he does to the 500 witnesses, which is just hearsay. Moreover if they existed we have no idea what exactly they saw: Jesus in the bodilly flesh as the 12 disciples claim to have met him, or a phantasmic vision of light, etc.

>(if someone believes in someing so fiercely they would die for their beliefs it's probably true.)

How about the muslims who blow themselves up expecting to get into heaven? Heavens gate? The Jonestown (massacre) cult? Alexander the Great thought he was the son of Zeus? People can be deluded into killing themselves for all sorts of stupid reasons, without actually seeing any truth.

>early christians were heavily persecuted

Not nearly to the extent the church says. They greatly exaggterated that myth once they became the default religion, and spun fantastic stories about Christians fed to lions in Rome for centuries. Most cults have a persecution complex, and Christianity began as a cult. If anything feeling persecuted makes Christianity less special among the religions, rather than being proof of its truth value.

>>9041

>God's word.

Also the citation you used merely indicates Paul is writing with the wisdom that God gave him. That is not the same as God writing the word, or telling Paul exactly how to write a message that he wants conveyed. The quote simply suggests Paul's word was inspired by God/an encounter with the creator.

>>9049

If you're gonna stick your fingers in your ears and chant lalala I can't hear you, you must be as pathetic as statuefag.

>>9045

>the early church thought the writings of Peter were authentic

Authentic as in holy? They had no interest in it being true, so it must worth something.

>over 500 people who claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus

muh citation

>either they were really confident that Jesus had risen

People are very confident really confident about many things, but what does it have to do with what is and isn't scripture?

>>9049

>willing to admit

I just did that because I don't think it matters.

Since you're here, I've been meaning to ask: why do religiousfags consider it important whether their gods did whatever they claim. You can pretty much pick whatever your book says God did and it's either unambiguously bad or it implies something worse.

>>9052

> if God is the Eternal One, the sole Creator of everything that exists - then it stands to reason that He is the sole arbiter of 'good and bad', doesn't it;

No, it doesn't. Creating the universe isn't the same as creating standards of morality.

OK, listen up, chaps!

I think we can say with a decent amount of certainty now, that continuing to encourage the stray shitposter won't do anyone any good.

I would therefore like to suggest that we hereafter ignore him, causing him to grow bored and find somewhere else to shitpost.

That idea good with everyone? Let's give it a go, eh?

>>9055

Nah.

>>9053

>>if God is the Eternal One, the sole Creator of everything that exists - then it stands to reason that He is the sole arbiter of 'good and bad', doesn't it;

>No, it doesn't. Creating the universe isn't the same as creating standards of morality.

>strawman

Creating literally everything is the same as creating the standards of morality, unless you assume they existed with God and out of God.

>>9057

>>9061

Fair enough, if God is the sole creator of everything that exists and moral standards exist, God created moral standards. However I assumed that "everything that exists" referred only to things like space, time, matter, etc. and not abstractions like "moral" and "immoral" that don't physically exist but only exist insofar as they are conceived. Because that would mean that God directly creates all of our thoughts and ideas, which I don't think is a very common belief.

>>9063

I still think it's a line of thought worth pursuing. Even if we assume the god of the bible exists why is he the ultimate moral standard? What reason do we have to assume that his standards of morality are better than ours? Because he's powerful? This seems to just be an argument from authority.

>>9055

This is dumb. We're just going to create an echo chamber if we block out all contrasting thought. In the case of blatant shitposters like statuefag I would agree. But christfag seems like a reasonable guy who just wants to discuss.

>>9078

This, but saging doesn't help your argument.

>>9081

I didn't use it as a downvote. It's a force of habit to sage if I doublepost. Doesn't matter on a slow board like this but hey, habit.

>>9004

> I think protestants are easier to pin down and logically destroy, because they put their faith in the bible. Catholics/the Orthodox/Mormons are harder because they put their faith in tradition and the church.

This is not true worldwide. I live in a highly Catholic region, and it should suffice to say that Catholic Christianity is more popular in developing and uneducated countries.

>>9209

Just pointing out that it's not a very good source.

Not saying your argument is wrong, but find a better source.

>>9209

>He defends SJWiki

>>9214

>>9210

You are right about certain articles though. Whoever wrote the 8chan article is trying to mar the site by associating it with CP, and by claiming the word loli is a "dog whistle." Whenever I hear fear-mongering about loli as an evil euphemism for CP, I can't help but think the writer hasn't done their research on the subject, or doesn't care about making an honest presentation.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/8chan

>>9227

I expect nothing less from SJWs.