There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[ElishaElijah]

Oh dear, more evidence the point is escaping you, one more time then, the fact there are 45000 Christian sects globally suggests your method is no more reliable than theirs when you cite the bible and subjective beliefs and anecdotal claims, as of they do.

It’s an Anecdotal claim to suggest say the Bible is the source and in it is the criteria used to judge whether a Church is legit or not?
I think you’re confused, what criteria are you going to use?
Is this a Ford Truck? Looks like a Chevy but has a Ford emblem. How you going to tell? With a historical document or the Ford parts manual and breakdown?

 

[ElishaElijah]

Nothing, it has to do with you falsely conflating the subjective beliefs of biblical scholars with historical fact.

They gave their proof and reasoning you didn’t like it, you like your views and scholars. The 2 views are opposed to each other. Hope you’re convinced and thoroughly sold out to you views. I am on mine.

 

[samtonga43]

That's not true.



Why I think there was a true church? The fact is you keep making assertions to absolute knowledge, while being unable to demonstrate anything beyond subjective assertions, and biblical quotes, as billions of other theists, in the approximately 45000 different denominations of Christianity, and of course the innumerable other deities humans have imagined are real.

"There are more than 45,000 denominations globally."

The fact you can't address this with anything but repetition, can only suggest you either have no answer, or bizarrely don't grasp what it implies for your claims and assertions to knowledge.



Rather ironic really, given this "understanding" you claim to have, is the same as the 45000 different Christian sects, so again you seem to be missing the point here entirely. I don't believe the bible's origins are anything but human of course, so it would be silly to expect me to understand it as if it was. That's for you to demonstrate not me, and you have failed to do so.



The same source the other 45000 sects use, dear oh dear, as I say you are just endlessly repeating the same claim, that doesn't address this point.

You seem to be equating a sect with a denomination, Sheldon. Do you see no difference between the two?

 

[ppp]

You seem to be equating a sect with a denomination, Sheldon. Do you see no difference between the two?

Denomination doesn't seem to be functionally different from a sect. It's just the word that Christians apply to their sects.

 

[Sheldon]

So there is a big difference between “denomination” and “sect” isn’t there?

Not really, and you're still missing the point, is this equivocation deliberate?

 

[Sheldon]

You seem to be equating a sect with a denomination, Sheldon. Do you see no difference between the two?

No, there are both within the 45000, and the umbrella term Christianity. Though a sect would typically hold beliefs that are considered heretical, but a denomination would be an recognised, autonomous branch of Christianity. The difference is not salient to the point.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Not really, and you're still missing the point, is this equivocation deliberate?

Well yeah, you brought it up without understanding to try to make a point and some time later you still don’t know the error you made. Probably just give it up. You say there are many sects but in reality there is just 1 Church with many members , 1 Body with Jesus Christ as the Head of the Body, 1 Bride that will be at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. I’m there!

 

[Sheldon]

Denomination doesn't seem to be functionally different from a sect. It's just the word that Christians apply to their sects.

The difference is a subjective one, regarding heresy, which again rather underlines the original point, and refuting claims the bible and faith are infallible guides to the truth of a deity's existence.

 

[Sheldon]

Well yeah, you brought it up without understanding to try to make a point and some time later you still don’t know the error you made. Probably just give it up. You say there are many sects but in reality there is just 1 Church with many members , 1 Body with Jesus Christ as the Head of the Body, 1 Bride that will be at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

More false equivocation, deliberate? Are you saying not one of the 45000 different sects regards any of the beliefs of the others as heretical?

 

[ElishaElijah]

More false equivocation, deliberate? Are you saying not one of the 45000 different sects regards any of the beliefs of the others as heretical?

Do you even know what principles or tenets the 45K different sects you’re talking about adhere to? I don’t so how can you say unless you know that information. Even if you know that information you wouldn’t know if they would be considered the true Church or not because you don’t even know the Bible criteria about that.

 

[Sheldon]

Do you even know what principles or tenets the 45K different sects you’re talking about adhere to? I don’t so how can you say unless you know that information. Even if you know that information you wouldn’t know if they would be considered the true Church or not because you don’t even know the Bible criteria about that.

Whoooooosh!!!!

Sheldon said: ↑
More false equivocation, deliberate? Are you saying not one of the 45000 different sects regards any of the beliefs of the others as heretical?

So is that a yes or a no?

 

[ppp]

Do you even know what principles or tenets the 45K different sects you’re talking about adhere to? I don’t so how can you say unless you know that information.

That's silly. Do I have to know the governments of all the countries on the world to know that there are 195 of them?

Even if you know that information you wouldn’t know if they would be considered the true Church or not because you don’t even know the Bible criteria about that.

In that sentence the word "true" has no meaning other than that which agrees with your opinion.

 

[ElishaElijah]

That's silly. Do I have to know the governments of all the countries on the world to know that there are 195 of them?

If I was talking about them I would have some knowledge about them otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about them as @Sheldon has been for a while now about sects of churches and still has no clue, would you like me to teach you?

 

[ElishaElijah]

In that sentence the word "true" has no meaning other than that which agrees with your opinion.

All right, I will just leave it at you have no idea what the Bible says but talk about it anyway. Pick up a copy and start reading is my recommendation.

 

[ppp]

If I was talking abo

I didn't ask you about you. I asked, Do I have to know the governments of all the countries on the world to know that there are 195 of them?

This is a simple yes or no question.

 

[ppp]

All right, I will just leave it at you have no idea what the Bible says but talk about it anyway.

Your words are hollow.

 

[joelr]

I'm interested in your belief, joelr, that ancient claims look exactly like borrowed myths. Are you sure you want to use the word 'exactly'?

If you do, can we perhaps take as an example the myth of Mithras, and you can show in what way it is exactly like the ancient claims?
Thank you.

Why Mithras? He wasn't a dying/rising savior demigod? I know there are online apologetics explaining how Mithras isn't like Jesus but that's because he isn't?
I'll quote Dr Carrier:

"Other savior gods within this context experienced “passions” that did not involve a death. For instance, Mithras underwent some great suffering and struggle (we don’t have many details), through which he acquired his power over death that he then shares with initiates in his cult, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a death. Mentions of resurrection as a teaching in Mithraism appear to have been about the future fate of his followers (in accordance with the Persian Zoroastrian notion of a general resurrection later borrowed by the Jews). So all those internet memes listing Mithras as a dying-and-rising god? Not true. So do please stop repeating that claim. "


When I say "exact" I mean close enough that there is no doubt religious syncretism is happening. Obviously names are not the same and the theology in each religion will change somewhat. Judaism had an obsession with sin that may not be as important in other religions.
But a list of savior god similarities given by Carrier are:


The general features most often shared by all these cults are (when we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):

• They are personal salvation cults (often evolved from prior agricultural cults).
• They guarantee the individual a good place in the afterlife (a concern not present in most prior forms of religion).
• They are cults you join membership with (as opposed to just being open communal religions).
• They enact a fictive kin group (members are now all brothers and sisters).
• They are joined through baptism (the use of water-contact rituals to effect an initiation).
• They are maintained through communion (regular sacred meals enacting the presence of the god).
• They involved secret teachings reserved only to members (and some only to members of certain rank).
• They used a common vocabulary to identify all these concepts and their role.
• They are syncretistic (they modify this common package of ideas with concepts distinctive of the adopting culture).
• They are mono- or henotheistic (they preach a supreme god by whom and to whom all other divinities are created and subordinate).
• They are individualistic (they relate primarily to salvation of the individual, not the community).
• And they are cosmopolitan (they intentionally cross social borders of race, culture, nation, wealth, or even gender).

You might start to notice we’ve almost completely described Christianity already. It gets better. These cults all had a common central savior deity, who shared most or all these features (when, once again, we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):

• They are all “savior gods” (literally so-named and so-called).
• They are usually the “son” of a supreme God (or occasionally “daughter”).
• They all undergo a “passion” (a “suffering” or “struggle,” literally the same word in Greek, patheôn).
• That passion is often, but not always, a death (followed by a resurrection and triumph).
• By which “passion” (of whatever kind) they obtain victory over death.
• Which victory they then share with their followers (typically through baptism and communion).
• They also all have stories about them set in human history on earth.
• Yet so far as we can tell, none of them ever actually existed.

Every dying-and-rising god is different. Every death is different. Every resurrection is different. All irrelevant. The commonality is that there is a death and a resurrection. Everything else is a mixture of syncretized ideas from the borrowing and borrowed cultures, to produce a new and unique god and myth.

 

[joelr]

I really don’t take any of your arguments seriously, it’s like talking to demons.

You are more and more unable to respond with any points or clarity.
First it's actually demonstrably true that most of the reviews of Carriers work from apologists don't argue against the points in the book. I can give actual examples if I look them up. For example an apologist wrote a book against the idea that Jesus was like other dying/rising demigods (even though all early apologists literally said Jesus was so much like the Greek demigods because Satan went back in time and changed history to fool people, see below). Carrier has 35 points where the myths are the same. This apologetics author argued against a few Carrier didn't even say and one that was completely useless. Inanna was hung on a tree and came back to life in 3 days. Jesus was hung on a cross (because this was during the Roman times and that is what they did) so he argued it wasn't the same. Except he ignored the majority of the points, a death, a resurrection, 3 days, gets followers into an afterlife, a passion, .....
There are reviews from fundamentalists that do not understand any of Carriers points and are arguing against older crank versions of mythicism.
So this is literally true.
No historian has debunked his work. Ehrman disagrees and thinks the myths were based on a real human Rabbi but won't debate Carrier.

If you have been taught that anyone who doesn't share your beliefs are "demons" then there you go. I don't care how serious you personally take any argument. I just want rational thinkers to see how illogical believers can be. To that end you are really helping out.



The Relationship between Hellenistic Mystery Religions and Early Christianity:

A Case Study using Baptism and Eucharist



Jennifer Uzzell

February 2009

"
it is clear that substantial ideological and ritual similarities (baptism, eucharist, saviors) did exist. In fact they were sufficiently obvious to the early Christian apologists that they felt obliged to offer some explanation for them, particularly since, to their embarrassment, it was clear that the Mystery rituals predated their own. The most common explanation, offered by many Christian apologists including Firmicus Maternus, Tertullian and Justin Martyr, was that demons had deliberately prefigured Christian sacraments in order to lead people astray. This explanation has sufficed for Christians over countless centuries, and indeed scholastic bias towards the assumed uniqueness, primacy and superiority of Christianity is one of the major methodological pitfalls encountered by those engaged in the comparative study of Christianity and the Mysteries. Many Christian scholars have been so certain that Christianity alone, of all the world’s religions, is an original and unique revelation that at times it seems that they might almost prefer the “demonic intervention” explanation to the unthinkable possibility that Christianity was influenced by its philosophical and theological environs. This paper, however, will seek to explore and quantify the similarities and differences and to offer a more prosaic explanation for them as far as it is possible to do so at such a remove and in the light of the methodological difficulties discussed above. As it is impossible within the confines of this paper to cover the full range of available evidence I will concentrate on the Christian initiation rites of baptism and Eucharist and on their possible parallels within the Mysteries. This approach gives access to a wide range of evidence and allows us to "

 

[joelr]

I also didn’t say this, what I said was when someone says there are 45,000 sects of Christianity, yet don’t know the criteria that determines what a Christian Church is then you have a problem. That criteria is only found in the Bible.

Your having this conversation with someone else. You DID say only believers can be Biblical scholars. Which is absurd.

You also don’t seem to know what the Scriptures say or teach and only use other people’s research without checking into these things on your own.

Totally wrong. I've used scripture several times already so this point is moot.

You can use Carrier and Ehrman if you like and I will use my sources to refute those as well as my own study of the Scriptures, my relationship with God as confirmation of the Word of God.

You haven't refuted anything. Not one single thing. An amateur pastor writing internet articles doesn't debunk actual PhD historians. Even with taht you have no debunked anything? You provided a list of theologians? There are also long lists of historians who do not believe the Bible. There are long lists of Islamic theologians who do not believe the Bible.

Your personal experience claims have actually been debunked over and over. Muslims have the same experiences, emotional communication and relationship with Allah and Hindu have the same with Lord Krishna. He hears them and speaks with then daily, protects them from sin and comforts them.
Demonstrating all these feelings are in your hear only.
Answered prayer? Yes things work out for all people. Religious people use confirmation bias. If a prayer is "answered" it's a hit. If not God has a better plan. If you die, "it was your time". Yeah, Muslims also do that.

If you want to claim personal experience as evidence then have God give you a 14 digit number and tell me what it is. I know the apologetics - "God doesn't allow tests, blah blah...:" ok so personal experience isn't evidence.

I'm using all of the scholars I can find who are experts on this. Not just Carrier and Ehrman. Each historian has a specialty area.

I can tell you don’t know the Scriptures or history when you don’t know where certain verses are in the Bible or who wrote what.

I am up on the latest historicity scholarship, you have been unaware of 100% of it. I am familiar with the Bible. This statement is completely random, gives no evidence and sounds like a made up attack? While at the same time you are clearly unaware of any of the historical aspects of Judaism or Christianity outside of the apologetics and altered history these cults tell people.

Also, even Ehrman doesn’t say that Jesus never existed. Does Carrier’s peer reviews say that Jesus Christ never existed like you’re saying?

Bart Ehrman is in favor of historicity. Carrier is a mythicist. Both have peer-reviewed work. First "historicity" means there was an actual man who the mythical narratives were based on. Mythicism means there wasn't even a person. That distinction doesn't matter here. That is history-nerd stuff for people who want to go deep.
The point here is that neither supports the supernatural stories of God and demigods, angels or anything supernatural. Those are all myths taken from previous cultures. Every nation did that back then. When Israel first started (they came from the Canaanite society) they made up Yahweh but had him married to Ashera the Goddess from Canaanite religion. Eventually they dropped the Goddess.

The Bible is as full of myths as any Tolkien book:
Christian mythology - Wikipedia

Peer viewed in the halls of Satan is what it sounds like especially when I gave you almost 100 scholars who disagree with both of them.

I don't know what "peer viewed" means?
Why do you keep repeating points that are completely invalid? This has already been brought up and is. really strange?
Yes there may be 100 theologians.
BUT THERE ARE ALSO 100 HISTORIANS WHO DO NOT BELIEVE THOSE MYTHS?!?!?!
THERE ARE ALSO 100 ISLAMIC SCHOLARS WHO DISAGREE? Just because there are 100 scholars does that make the Quran true????????


How many times do you need be asked this question????? Look Islamic scholars, does that mean Muslims have the true updates to Christianity???
Wow look Islamic scholars, hundreds of them all over the world! They study the Quran and Allahs words. Does that make it all true????????????
List of contemporary Islamic scholars - Wikipedia

• United States[edit]
  • Aminah McCloud (born 1958)
  • Laleh Bakhtiar (1938-2020)
  • Caner Dagli
  • Maria Massi Dakake (born 1968)
  • Amina Wadud (born 1952)
  • Amir Hussain Los Angeles, CA
  • Asifa Quraishi
  • Asma Barlas (born 1950)
  • Riffat Hassan (born 1953)
  • Azizah Y. Al-Hibri (born 1943) Virginia
  • Dalia Mogahed
  • Fazlur Rahman (1919–1988) Illinois
  • Fetullah Gulen (born 1941) Pennsylvania
  • Hamza Yusuf (born 1958) Berkeley, CA[5]
  • Hamid Algar (born 1940) Berkeley, CA
  • Hassan Hathout (1924–2009) Pasadena. CA
  • Jonathan A.C. Brown (born 1977) Washington DC
  • Kecia Ali (born 1972) Massachusetts
  • Khaled Abou El Fadl (born 1963) California
  • Khalid Yahya Blankinship (born 1949) Philadelphia, PA
  • Louay Safi (born 1955)
  • Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh (born 1945) Virginia
  • Mohammad Hassan Khalil Michigan
  • Muqtedar Khan (born 1966) Delaware
  • Muzammil H. Siddiqi (born 1943)
  • Omar Khalidi (1953–2010)
  • Omar Suleiman Texas
  • Omid Safi North Carolina
  • Ovamir Anjum Ohio
  • Seyyed Hossein Nasr (born 1933)
  • Sherman Jackson California
  • Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (born 1948) Chicago
  • Wael Hallaq (born 1955) New York
  • Warith Deen Mohammed (1933–2008) Illinois
  • Yasir Qadhi (born 1975) Texas
  • Yasir Nadeem al Wajidi (born 1982) Chicago
  • Zaid Shakir (born 1956) California

Look converts to Islam!!!!!! They were all convinced Allah is true and speaking updates to Christianity
!

• Joel Hayward
• Khalid Yasin
• Siraj Wahaj
• Roger Garaudy
• Hamza Yusuf
• Hussein Ye
• Ivan Aguéli
• Sherman Jackson
• Marmaduke Pickthall
• Khalid Blankinship
• Joseph E. B. Lumbard
• Michael Wolfe
• Nuh Keller
• Frithjof Schuon
• Timothy Winter
• Bilal Philips
• Zaid Shakir
• Muhammad Asad
• Martin Lings
• Ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī al-Samawʾal
• Abdalqadir as-Sufi
• Malcolm X
• Warith Deen Mohammed
• Suhaib Webb
• Umar Vadillo
• Yusuf Estes

Or I could list thousands of scientists who are non-secular?

 

[joelr]

You aren’t a demon but according to the Bible you are being influenced by demons or the prince and power of the air. I would expel them in the name of Jesus Christ.
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2:1-3‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Oh are you JW? They teach things like that. Everyone who disagrees is influenced by a demon.
Again, In the OT Satan is an agent of Yahweh. He is sent by Yahweh to deliver a plague. He asks to torture Job.
Yahweh sends Satan to torment Saul. Satan serves as a prosecutor in the trial of Zechariah. They are not at war? Satan works fro Yahweh.
Then during the Persian invasion the Hebrews saw the Persian devil who was at eternal war with their God and a final battle was going to happen on Earth where he would be defeated and all members would resurrect in new bodies and live in paradise.

All of that was borrowed by Hebrews.

During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[26][8][27] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,

The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period,[30] particularly in the apocalypses.[3


All this stuff about Satan leading people astray didn't really happen until the Middle Ages -

"
During the Early Modern Period, Christians gradually began to regard Satan as increasingly powerful[145] and the fear of Satan's power became a dominant aspect of the worldview of Christians across Europe.[136][138] During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther taught that, rather than trying to argue with Satan, Christians should avoid temptation altogether by seeking out pleasant company;[148] Luther especially recommended music as a safeguard against temptation, since the Devil "cannot endure gaiety."[148] John Calvin repeated a maxim from Saint Augustine that "Man is like a horse, with either God or the devil as rider."[149]

In the late fifteenth century, a series of witchcraft panics erupted in France and Germany.[146][147] The German Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger argued in their book Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1487, that all maleficia ("sorcery") was rooted in the work of Satan.[150] In the mid-sixteenth century, the panic spread to England and Switzerland.[146] Both Protestants and Catholics alike firmly believed in witchcraft as a real phenomenon and supported its prosecution.[151][152] In the late 1500s, the Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer argued in his treatise De praestigiis daemonum that witchcraft did not exist,[153] but that Satan promoted belief in it to lead Christians astray.[153] The panic over witchcraft intensified in the 1620s and continued until the end of the 1600s.[146] Brian Levack estimates that around 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft during the entire span of the witchcraft hysteria.[146]"
The early English settlers of North America, especially the Puritans of New England, believed that Satan "visibly and palpably" reigned in the New World.[154] John Winthrop claimed that the Devil made rebellious Puritan women give birth to stillborn monsters with claws, sharp horns, and "on each foot three claws, like a young fowl."[155] Cotton Mather wrote that devils swarmed around Puritan settlements "like the frogs of Egypt".[156] The Puritans believed that the Native Americans were worshippers of Satan[157] and described them as "children of the Devil".[154] Some settlers claimed to have seen Satan himself appear in the flesh at native ceremonies.[156] During the First Great Awakening, the "new light" preachers portrayed their "old light" critics as ministers of Satan.[158] By the time of the Second Great Awakening, Satan's primary role in American evangelicalism was as the opponent of the evangelical movement itself, who spent most of his time trying to hinder the ministries of evangelical preachers,[159] a role he has largely retained among present-day American fundamentalists.[160]

By the early 1600s, skeptics in Europe, including the English author Reginald Scot and the Anglican bishop John Bancroft, had begun to criticize the belief that demons still had the power to possess people.[161] This skepticism was bolstered by the belief that miracles only occurred during the Apostolic Age, which had long since ended.[162] Later, Enlightenment thinkers, such as David Hume, Denis Diderot, and Voltaire, attacked the notion of Satan's existence altogether.[163] Voltaire labelled John Milton's Paradise Lost a "disgusting fantasy"[163] and declared that belief in Hell and Satan were among the many lies propagated by the Catholic Church to keep humanity enslaved.[163] By the eighteenth century, trials for witchcraft had ceased in most western countries, with the notable exceptions of Poland and Hungary, where they continued.[164] Belief in the power of Satan, however, remained strong among traditional Christians.[164]