Christians are very uncomfortable when a non-christian points out that Christians don’t agree on much at all. C.S. Lewis was so afraid of the problem, he advocated to lie to any potential Christian when it came to the many many internecine contradictions between Christians (preface, “Mere Christianity). That’s a bit of a problem when the bible has this god really hating lies and liars, with exceptions given even if the believer thinks they are lying *for* this god (Romans 3).
We also have another Christian making the same protests, that the disagreements between Christians on the most basic claims of their religion really don’t show that their religion is nonsense. His arguments fail.
“Disagreements among Christians is NOT evidence for the falsity of Christianity. Scientists disagree on all sorts of things. Just take a look at the numerous theories about the origin of the universe. People will always interpret evidence differently.”
There are not “numerous” theories about the origin of the universe. We have the BBT, which is confirmed by prediction and observation. How it exactly happened is up for debate, but not for much. Theists have as many different ideas about the creation of the universe as there are their gods. Not one can show that their gods exist, much less are the creator or how this creation was done. Young earth creationism, anyone? Old earth? Theistic evolution?
Bedard also has the problem that each theist claims a divine and absolute truth being given from a perfect, omnipotent, benevolent being. Why and how could it not get its message across? This god is limited by its creations if it somehow *can’t* make itself understood. How curious. If it won’t make itself understood, then it wants the death and misery that these misunderstandings cause.
Not very flattering for this god in any case.
“I understand when a person is confident in their convictions but that doesn’t give them the right to publicly attack the other person or be disrespectful.
No one should do this but Christians should especially avoid this behaviour. It turns off non-Christians. It injures the body of Christ. It disappoints God.”
Bedard decides he can speak for his god here. And every single theist pretends that their god agrees with them. Bedard is disappointed so his god is too. Bedard doesn’t like the dirty laundry of Christianity exposed, so this god doesn’t either. This god could clear things up with a word, but strangely doesn’t.
Bedard is also mistaken in his insistence that no one has the right to publicly show someone wrong. If this were the case, then no one should dare question wannabee Nazis, white supremacists, etc. Happily, this attempt to claim that showing someone wrong is “disrepectful” is simply nonsense.
If someone is so desperate to depend on lies to try to avoid challenges, then their claims are suspect immediately.
“It is okay for us to have differences of opinion. I would even say that it is healthy. What is not good is when we get nasty.”
Really, good to have differences of opinion is good when it comes to the supposedly divine truth that will determine if you are “saved” or not? That’s rather silly. It’s even sillier since Christians have been far more than “nasty” to each other over these differences. Christians have killed many of each other over these differences. No god to be seen to stop that.
Happily, now most countries have secular laws to keep these nitwits from continuing their murderous ways.
Club Schadenfreude 
Yes.
The fun really begins when we bring on the Abrahamic top three.
The Catholic (a large Christian body) Catechism blames other Christin denominations for the rise of atheism. They also disagree with Mormon theology to the extent that they don’t recognize Mormon baptism, while they do for most other protestant denominations.
If there is a God, she must be completely crushed. 🙂
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From the title I was sure this was going to be about me 😀
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On the BB, an update:
“Surprise: the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore”
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/big-bang-beginning-universe/
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yep, saw that new idea and I find it fascinating and making a lot of sense.
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I want to punch Christians that equivocate scientific curiosity and due diligence in gathering all the facts and knowing all the details with a bunch of wild-ass guesses. They aren’t being honest.
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Hello,
Thank you for sharing your experience because it answered questions I had about your journey as I read some of your post.
I would like to have a discussion if it’s possible that we will have a fruitful conversation in the sense of listening to understand what we hear. We do not really have to touch the topic of whether God exist. I am more interested in reasoning through some of the statements you made about the Christian practice of faith.
I use the terms “practice of faith” because as it is written in the manual for Christian faith, each adherent is being trained in how to practice the faith as oppose to being automatically being versed and equipped to live it out perfectly or teach others to do so.
This statement is supported by the many exhortations and warnings that there should not be many teachers of the Christian faith(James 3:1). In 1 Timothy verses 3-8 there is the explanation that many who desire to teach are not equipped to know what is proper curriculum for instructions.
Considering that insight, in addition to the communication to Bible readers about false teachers, I can understand why your claims about variation in beliefs and doctrine are very possible. I would be hard pressed to read Scripture and draw a different conclusion than the one you drew about variations.
It is in light of these variations, deviations, and a learning curve that the instruction to strive for unity in the faith is given.
There is a declaration about diversity in ministry (1 Corinthians 12:4-7) when it comes to the “how” of the message being conveyed but the “what” is succinct:
“There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope at your calling — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
Ephesians 4:4-6
this is prefaced with:
“Therefore I, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, accepting one another in love, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit with the peace that binds us.”
Ephesians 4:1-3
With that being said I hope I have sufficiently acknowledged your statements about difference in beliefs and practices within the Christian faith while simultaneously communicating the Biblical explanation of why this is the case.
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Leslie, I’ll respond further. Right now I already see that you, like all theists, including that many many sects of Christians, are sure that you, and only you, have the “proper curriculum”. And not a one of you can show your claims to be the truth.
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For clarification purposes, I just want to express that the conclusion you drew is contrary to my intent.
The intent of what I expressed is to note that even Scripture holds the position that believers do not all hold the same interpretation and practice concerning what is written. Therefore it was necessary to write instructions and exhortations concerning what ought to be in light of what oftentimes is not.
Simply put the only proper curriculum is what is conveyed that we all (as in believers) must conform to. It is written with clear indication that this will not always be the case. This is why instructions are given to align all of our (as in believers) improper practices and interpretations with the message that has been communicated.
I only write to clarify because I would rather your responses be to something I did say as oppose to something I did not. I believe that is the way dialogue and reasoning works most effectively.
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The authors of the various books of the bible have fits if someone teaches something differnt from them. And funny how they couldn’t show their version any more true than the next.
There is no agreement among Christians as to what a Christian must conform to. This always leads to the Christian insisting that anyone but them, and those who agree wtih them, aren’t *really* Christians. You all point fingers and whine “improper practices! improper interpretations!”.
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I can’t say that I agree with statements like “there is no agreement among Christians about what a Christian must conform to”. It is a little too dogmatic for my line of reasoning but we are entitled to disagree.
I still maintain my perspective that the Bible addresses the variations and gives instruction in light of the differences.
In that basis I just don’t see why your arguments qualify your disbelief, though you are entitled to maintain your line of reasoning as I have maintained mine.
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Leslee, I couldn’t care less what you think about my statements if you can’t show them wrong. I know that Christians are all over the place when it comes to what morality they think their god wants. Taht’s why there are hundreds of different sects and why I get to walk past a dozen churches on my way to work. All quite sure that those “others” are wrong. Dogmatic or not, that’s reality.
Your perspective requires ignoring your bible. That’s fine, all Christians do that when convenient.
The fact that Christians have no “truth” shows that their claims about their religion and god are false. Thus no reason to believe in the various versions of god they’ve all made up. At best you may argue that there is some “force”, but it isn’t what you claim to worship. And no, you aren’t entitled to spread nonsense without being confronted. Christian false claims about some god agreeing with their petty hates and desires harm real people.
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We do not really have to touch the topic of whether God exist. I am more interested in reasoning through some of the statements you made about the Christian practice of faith.
How can you talk about the ‘practices of faith’ if you don’t first establish beyond all doubt the foundation of those practices?
Establish a god exists first, then you can handle the table setting.
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John,
Did you glean from my last statement that I am including you in my reference to discussing Christianity without acknowledgement of God. Is that not in fact what you are doing considering the fact that you do not acknowledge or believe in God but you are discussing the Christian faith?
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“Did you glean from my last statement that I am including you in my reference to discussing Christianity without acknowledgement of God. Is that not in fact what you are doing considering the fact that you do not acknowledge or believe in God but you are discussing the Christian faith?”
Leslee, write that as you would speak it. As it stands it makes little sense. What it appears to be trying to do is a common Christian tactic, claiming that no one can talk about their god without *really* believing in it. Alas, that doesn’t work since we are working from what Christians claim about this god and their religion.
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Nah, I was just saying that you and John are both discussing Christianity, it’s concepts, and practices without claiming to believe in God, so why can’t I?
If you don’t have to use faith in the God of the Bible as the basis for your discussion then why should have to use faith in the God of the Bible for the basis of my discussion?
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You believe in this god, dear. You are stuck with a bible full of nonsense that you cherry pick like all Christians, making your god up in your image.
John and I get to look at what you claim as your “manual” and point out how it and you fail when compared with reality.
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I did ‘glean’ that, but I’m not terribly interested in talking about where your day-to-day madness ends and another Christian’s day-to-day madness begins. As Club is more than capable of pointing out, the bible is a total clusterfuck of contradictions, nonsense ‘history’, scientific absurdities, and inexcusable immorality. Hell, even the majority of Jewish rabbis today admit the Pentateuch (upon which your religion rests) is a work of geopolitical fiction commissioned to justify a northern land grab after the fall of Mamlekhet Yisra’el (Kingdom of Israel) in 722 BCE. Telling that Jesus didn’t seem to know this, huh?
My interest is cosmology.
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Ok. I hear that you are not interested in continuing a conversation and I can see that your not interested in responding to my statements, but instead prefer to throw out random points that assume I believe things I do not.
We would have to start with what I actually believe in order for our dialogue to be productive.
At the end of the day you are entitled to your thoughts and beliefs and I am entitled to mine. Therefore it should always be possible to discuss what we deem reasonable without insults and disrespect. It was good speaking with you John.
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Well, I called that with the immediate whines about “disrespect”. Leslee, this is nothing new. You have to lie and claim I, or John are not interested in continuing a conversation since you’ve found that you cannot rebut our points. You appear to be a common type of Christian, all sure that the atheist will believe *your* version, hoping for that feather in your cap. When we don’t, you get upset.
If I’m wrong about what you believe, then tell me what you *do* believe. I suspect you won’t since I’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head and you don’t like that.
You are not entitled to spread harmful lies.
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Leslee,
A fruitful conversation is one where information is given and taken. You seem to be starting off with the assumption that I must accept anything you have to say without countering it. I can listen to you and then show how your claims fail. Most Christians think that I must listen to them and then if I dare show them wrong, claim that I’m not “really” listening to them, that I’m not being polite/respectful, etc when they find they can’t support their claims.
We do have to touch on the topic if your god exists since Christians can’t agree on the most basic aspects of their god. You folks can’t agree on what morals it wants, how it “saves”, what heaven and hell are, etc. So, you first need to show that your version is the right one and to do that you need to show your god exists and agrees with you.
as it stands, and I’ve noted this earlier, you are simply one more Christian who wants me to believe that her version is the only “proper” aka “right” one. You have no evidence of this just like all of those Christians you are sure are wrong. Not one of you can do what is promised to believers in JC, so it appears you are all frauds. Not one “true teacher” or real Christian among you.
There is no “manual for Christian faith”. You, along with every other Christian you disagree with, claim that the bible is your “manual, and funny how you all get different instructions from the same set of books.
You are quite right, each Christian is taught a different method and is quite sure everyone but them is wrong. This goes against the common Christian claim that somehow this god’s “law” is written on everyone’s hearts.
You also try the common “But we aren’t perfect so how you can you blame us”. You indeed aren’t perfect and your god doesn’t do a damn thing about that, to make itself clear. What we have is exactly what one would expect if Christians just make up their nonsense themselves, no god as the source of their supposed “truth”.
Yep, the bible’s many authors knew that there were lots and lots of versions, and even poor ol’ Paul harangued about those who would teach something other than him, cursing them (8 But even if we or an angel[b] from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed! – Galatians 1). Like any cult leader, Paul wanted to be the only one. James 3 is always a fun one, especially since Jesus himself supposedly said that no one should have any teacher but him: “8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.[b] 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.” Matthew 23
it’s always interesting to see just how much Christians ignore their christ when convenient.
There is no unity in Christianity, just a bunch of crabs in a bucket, all trying to assert their nonsense is the only “true” one. None of you have any evidence your “what” is the truth And your “how”, oh my.
There is nothing succinct about Chrsitianity. None of you can agree on the one body or one spirit, or how to be baptized, or what this god is or what it wants. Not one Christian can do any of these things “4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” 1 Corinthians 12.
You have indeed acknowledged my statements that Christianity is contradictory claims by many many Christians. Your attempt at apologetics is nothing new. Just one more Christian trying to show she’s the “real” one and to excuse her god’s failure to make itself understood.
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Hmmm if I were to travel down the same path of reasoning as you I would make such statements as,
Everyone who does not believe in my God can’t agree on what they don’t believe about Him so therefore they can’t prove anything and therefore my God does exist.
I do not think that is reasonable so I try to stay away from those kind of ideas and deal more on the basis of responding to your statements with my reasoning in light of what you, not other people are claiming. That is my choice though.
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And again with typical Christian apologetics that fail. It is nothing new to see a Chrsitain try to claim that if atheists disagree, then their god has to exist. Unfortunately, atheists do agree that your god, and other gods don’t exist, so where is that disagreement, Leslee? Alas, I can show your god as described by the bible not to exist, with evidence of absence and absence of evidence e.g. there is no evidence for any of the events this god supposedly caused and plenty of evidence of entirely different things happening.
So, yep, it isn’t reasonable at all.
Now, it is a current Chrsitain thing to make their god more and more vague so no one can show it doesn’t exist. Nice, but it does gut your religion.
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Galatians 1:6-9 is talking about someone preaching a “different” Gospel, a message that is opposite of the message that Jesus is Messiah.
The Scriptures I shared are written to people who have a shared belief in the truth that Jesus is Messiah, yet different practices and methods for living out obedience to His teaching and ministering the gifts that He has given. Thus the exhortation is to be of the same mind and agree with one another. When you are not in agreement remember that there is one Lord, one faith, one Spirit, one baptism etc. This is the passage that exhorts believers, like the ones you mentioned in your church experience, that these things ought not be so.
This is why my first reply is written the way it is. When I read through your experience, one thing I picked out is that you had an expectation for how people who profess to believe in the same God and Savior should behave. That expectation was actually in line with the teaching of the epistles. You settled in your heart that if this is the way these people do things then I do not want to have anything to do with this.
I know you mentioned reading through the entire Bible and finding that this was a faith you could not agree with.
The thing I do not understand is why there is so much effort and energy being spent on something you consider imaginary. You have chosen to believe that the things in the Scripture are not credible. In light of that choice have you accepted that some people will still continue to believe that they are credible?
In a sense it’s like you are now wanting everyone to accept your stance on the Scriptures as not being true. When someone does not agree with you, you write replies that seem to carry an angry and frustrated tone while dismissing their thoughts and conclusions as useless and judging them as ignorant and even claiming that all believers are nazi-like.
The fact that you have a blog dedicated to speaking against the Christian faith in such a way that you desire others to accept that your opinion about our faith is the right one, says that you meet the criteria for the claims you make.
If Christianity is so evidently foolish in your opinion, why are you spending this kind of time on the topic.
You are free to move on in the sense that you can take your stance that the whole thing is nonsense and be free from the disappointment you experienced because of what you witnessed in those professing this as their religion.
If you feel that it is your duty to warn or inform people that your view of the message of Christianity and your belief about Scriptures is correct, then you would be no different than the rest of us.
You say it is false, we say it is true. Isn’t your desire for each to be free to proclaim and live according to what they deem right? If so, are you including people who live according to and deem the Scriptures to be right? Or is it that we aren’t included in the people who have rights and freedom to live as we see deem right?
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a message that is opposite of the message that Jesus is Messiah.
Perhaps that message is the true one since the whole “story” started with the Hebrew people and they have discounted the idea that Jesus is the anticipated Messiah. The fact that Paul came along and “reworked” the scriptures as HE interpreted them is hardly evidence that they are wrong.
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indeed. it is a problem for theists since none of them can show that their version is the truth and that the others aren’t.
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This is what those verses from Galatians say: “6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel[b] from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!”
Now, Leslee, you claimed this “Galatians 1:6-9 is talking about someone preaching a “different” Gospel, a message that is opposite of the message that Jesus is Messiah” That makes no sense at all, unsurprisingly, with what is actually written there. Paul claims that others “pervert the gospel of Christ”, not that they teach an entirely different gospel that says that there Jesus isn’t the christ. Perverting is altering meaning within a story, not giving a completely contradictory story that JC isn’t the messiah.
Christians all can claim that they believe that JC was/is the messiah, and that would be the sole point of agreement, since you all do not agree on what good and evil are, what your god considers sin, how one is saved, what heaven and hell are, etc etc. There isn’t “different methods and practices”, there are entirely different ideas on the very moral basis of your nonsense.
Christians can’t agree on how to “live out obedience to His teaching” since you can’t agree on what that teaching consists of. None of y ou are of the “same mind” at all. There is not one faith, lord, spirit and especially not one baptism. That you try to lie so incompetently is typical for a Christian who wants to pretend that only her version is the right one.
Yep, all of the vastly different claims of “truth” shouldn’t be if your religion was true and your god was as the bible claims. So you have a big problem. The bible is lying or you are. Which will you choose?
Since the bible makes claims that there is one truth, then yep, I do expect Christians to agree, and they don’t. I expect a supposed benevolent god to make itself clear. It doesn’t. So your epistles make the same excuses you do, a poor attempt to blame humans when it is your god that fails and is evidently imaginary.
Now, we have you, Leslee, making yet one more tired old bit of nonsense, that you just don’t comprehend why someone would take the time to point out your lies, framed as “The thing I do not understand is why there is so much effort and energy being spent on something you consider imaginary.” I do it because your lies hurt people. I hate liars who think they can remove the ability of people to make informed decisions out of their need to pretend how special they are. I am doing my personal best to show that it is harmful to believe that myths and lies are credible.
Nope, it is not in a “sense” or at all that I want people to agree with baseless claims of my own. My points are quite true that Christian claims are false, so your accusation fails. The thoughts and conclusions of the willfully ignorant and intentionally harmful are indeed useless and worse, harmful. You are indeed ignorant if you believe in something that has nothing to support it, just like any other theist, including those you disagree with.
It’s always fun to see a Christian try to pretend that she’s ever so persecuted and when she tries to claim I fit the criteria of how Christians try to force their lies on others, she can’t show one instance of this. Just more vague and false accusations, no more than “nuh-uh, you are.”
Then we get the attempt to convince me to “move on”, which is typical since Leslee has no actual ability to rebut my points, she simply wants me to stop showing her wrong. Alas for you, Leslee, I am quite different in you and other theists since I am not warning others about an imaginary god that somehow magically agrees with me. There is no hell you are saving anyone from.
Yep, Christians say what they believe is true, and they can’t even convince each other of that supposed “truth”. Nope, I don’t have a desire for everyone to live according to baseless harmful nonsense just because they want to pretend it is true. If Christians, and other theists, actually did want to people to live like that, you wouldn’t all be trying to force your particular version of your nonsense on others, trying to force it into law, harming and killing others if they don’t agree, etc. Nope, liars and bigots don’t have the rights that other humans have.
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That verse to me has always screamed “the con man doing the con.”
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exactly. it’s just one wannabee cult leader shrieking at the others.
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John,
In this case I believe it is very possible to discuss concepts and components of Christianity without acknowledging the existence the of God because that in fact is the basis for this forum if I understand it correctly.
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Well, that’s like discussing the drinks menu for the wedding of Betty Boop and Yosmite Sam… But go ahead, pretend it’s real. Knock yourself out.
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Leslee, this isn’t a forum. It’s a comments section on the blog of me, an atheist and former christian. You also seem to have little idea what the basis for this blog and its comments is. “In this case I believe it is very possible to discuss concepts and components of Christianity without acknowledging the existence the of God because that in fact is the basis for this forum if I understand it correctly.”
You cannot separate your god and your religion.
I agree with John. You need to establish that your religion is based on something other than myth. As it stands, all you have is baseless opinion and you can’t even convince other christians your version is the right one.
I do also have to wonder why you try so hard to write stiltedly. Do you think it makes you seem more believable? Using big words for no reason isn’t impressing anyone.
That’s what happens when you have no foundation for your religion at all. It becomes a pile of contradictory opinions based on nothing.
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People like Leslee disgust me. They show up uninvited and assume that they have some sort of inalienable right to vomit their views all over someone else’s blog.
And then they wail to the high heavens about persecution when they’re called out on their boundary violations.
Go nurse your martyrbation wounds somewhere else, Leslee. >:-(
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ooh, i’ll have to borrow that “martyrbation”. 🙂
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Not my invention – I think I first saw “martyrbation” on Captain Cassidy’s Roll To Disbelieve, though.
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ah, okay.
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