Peanut Gallery: Can Christianity Be Rationally Defended?

Animavore · **#21** by **Animavore** » Aug 14, 2013 8:54 am

By showing the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus we can close the gap onto Christianity.

I fear an "oh dear" here.

Rumraket · **#22** by **Rumraket** » Aug 14, 2013 9:23 am

I'll be looking forward to the defense of the concept of inherited sin. How does that even work?

Rumraket · **#23** by **Rumraket** » Aug 14, 2013 9:24 am

Ihavenofingerprints wrote:I doubt Will actually believes the entirety of what he is arguing for here. None the less, it should be interesting.

AFAIK Will's an atheist. To my knowledge this is more a kind of "for fun" debate?

Matt_B · **#24** by **Matt_B** » Aug 14, 2013 9:29 am

It's a nice idea for a debate topic, but I think we've got a mismatch on our hands here, going by Will's opening car crash.

If anything, I'd think that Byron could probably mount a better rational defence of Christianity than Will, as he'd choose his battlegrounds more carefully. Many modern Christians don't believe that there's proof of the existence of God, the resurrection as a historical event, miracles, etc. but merely that the garbled messages of the Bible have something important to tell us. At the end of the day, that's probably going to hit some irrational buffers too, but the theology of John Shelby Spong seems a lot more defensible than that of William Lane Craig for sure.

OlivierK · **#25** by **OlivierK** » Aug 14, 2013 9:49 am

I agree. Atheist Christianity is an interesting beast. I know an atheist Catholic priest, and talking religion with him is fascinating. For him everything is allegorical. Haven't seen him in years - I should look him up next time I'm in his city.

surreptitious57 · **#26** by **surreptitious57** » Aug 14, 2013 10:24 am

hackenslash wrote:
I strongly advise the participants not to even read this thread for the duration of the debate
It gets distracting and can cause confusion as one of my opponents found out when he started
injecting the objections to his points made by others in a peanut gallery thread for our debate

Can go either way : Others can provide a perspective or view that maybe one had not considered
before : Though if one is entering a formal debate logic dictates that one should already have all
arguments prepared : But no harm in looking long as it is just out of curiosity and not desperation

lobawad · **#27** by **lobawad** » Aug 14, 2013 10:26 am

It is very easy to defend the Christian faith as rational.

trubble76 · **#28** by **trubble76** » Aug 14, 2013 10:55 am

Two intelligent posters who's posts I regularly enjoy reading.

Best of luck to you both.
Okay, I'm not sure where luck would feature but it seemed polite.
I think I'm just going to shut up now.
:popcorn:

Zwaarddijk · **#29** by **Zwaarddijk** » Aug 14, 2013 1:27 pm

Hm, I think Will is doing a rather mistaken interpretation of the meaning of faith in the biblical texts where it's used; mainly it seems to mean 'steadfastness' - as in 'be reliable, faithful', rather than anything about reassurance from god.

OTOH, this is a common reading among protestants - the entire reformation kind of hinges on this conflation.

Ironclad · **#30** by **Ironclad** » Aug 14, 2013 1:41 pm

OlivierK wrote:I agree. Atheist Christianity is an interesting beast. I know an atheist Catholic priest, and talking religion with him is fascinating. For him everything is allegorical. Haven't seen him in years - I should look him up next time I'm in his city.

Surely you mean, agnostic priest? :think:

OlivierK · **#31** by **OlivierK** » Aug 14, 2013 2:18 pm

No, I don't, I mean atheist. He thinks the Church is an entirely human institution, and all talk of God is merely poetic allegory for generalisations about the human condition.

It's not unique to him, I assure you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

This is where I would start if I were to mount a rational defence of Christianity, although I could see that ending up in a lot of agreement with the person arguing the negative, and imagine I'd take flak (rightly) for not arguing from the the viewpoint of what the vast majority of Christians believe Christianity to be.

Shrunk · **#32** by **Shrunk** » Aug 14, 2013 2:41 pm

hackenslash wrote:If it can be called blood. I look forward to the quantum wibble later.

BTW, I strongly advise the participants not to even read this thread for the duration of the debate. It gets distracting and can cause confusion, as one of my opponents found out when he started injecting the objections to his points made by others in a peanut gallery thread for our debate. It's hard not to look, but it's for the best.

I think it might even be worth formalizing that as one of the rules for the debate, especially since the majority of members here will typically support one of the positions of the debate, and therefore be able to provide advice and hints even if unintentionally.

Mick · **#33** by **Mick** » Aug 14, 2013 5:17 pm

The Christian's aim are far too large here. Just the historicity of the resurrection alone can be massive undertaking, never mind the reliability of the Bible, quantum mechanics, miracles and all the rest. He's going to be building a house without secure foundations.

Bribase · **#34** by **Bribase** » Aug 14, 2013 6:21 pm

Very interesting to hear Will, a former believer arguing in the affirmative. This ought to be good.

One thing I was wondering was about Will's listing of the key components of the Christian faith. Why isn't Jesus' imminent return included in these key components? Perhaps not the signs but at least the belief in the day of judgement?

Thomas Eshuis · **#35** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Aug 14, 2013 6:22 pm

Bribase wrote:Very interesting to hear Will, a former believer arguing in the affirmative. This ought to be good.

One thing I was wondering was about Will's listing of the key components of the Christian faith. Why isn't Jesus' imminent return included in these key components? Perhaps not the signs but at least the belief in the day of judgement?

Wouldn't the latter fall under

By discussing the concept of salvation we can understand the drive behind the Church.

?

hackenslash · **#36** by **hackenslash** » Aug 14, 2013 9:02 pm

Mick wrote: never mind the reliability of the Bible

That argument only takes two words; it isn't.

stijndeloose · **#37** by **stijndeloose** » Aug 14, 2013 9:35 pm

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Off we go again. Nothing new. Plenty old.

You don't have to read it.

HomerJay · **#38** by **HomerJay** » Aug 14, 2013 11:36 pm

Zwaarddijk wrote:Hm, I think Will is doing a rather mistaken interpretation of the meaning of faith in the biblical texts where it's used; mainly it seems to mean 'steadfastness' - as in 'be reliable, faithful', rather than anything about reassurance from god.

OTOH, this is a common reading among protestants - the entire reformation kind of hinges on this conflation.

I think it's worse than that.

Modern Christians have moved on from the concept of Faith, to the concept of faith. This mainly is to allow them to say atheists have 'faith' in science because they're now trying to say faith has a very generic meaning to do with belief rather than a very specific concept in Christianity (hence the capitalisation Faith).

Of course what this actually does is to weaken the Christian conception of Faith, so that younger ones don't really understand what it means.

CookieJon · **#39** by **CookieJon** » Aug 15, 2013 12:25 am

Wilhud wrote:By showing the possibility of miracles and understanding what a miracle is we can understand that the "god" is capable of intervening.

By showing the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus we can close the gap onto Christianity.

By showing the reliability of the Bible we can be reassured about the contents of the book.

By discussing the concept of salvation we can understand the drive behind the Church.

Surely these are all arguments one opposing the proposition would use?

Matt8819 · **#40** by **Matt8819** » Aug 15, 2013 3:23 am

Byron has entered the debate, folks.

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