After breaking 1000 comments on the previous thread, I felt it was a good time to start another.
As a reminder, here are some of the most recent outstanding questions for Kathy:
From Laurie:
You said you answered my questions, and wish more questions were asked. Here are some questions that were not addressed.
Matt 23:8 read first
Philemon 1:10
1 Corinthians 4:14-17
1 Corinthians 12:27
2 Timothy 1:11
1 Timothy 2:7
Ephesians 4:11,12Why is it that messiah says not to be called rabbi or father, but Paul it’s not obedient to this command?
Matt 10:7,8
1 Timothy 5:17,18
1 Corinthians 9:11,12Messiah says here that he had given freely, go and freely give. Again, Paul is disobedient.
Matt 18:15
Galatians 2:11-14
Messiah said that if you have a problem with your brother, you should deal with it privately. Here Paul lashes out at Peter “before them all”.
Matt 9:10-12
2 Thessalonians 3:6,7
Yahusha said in the passage above that he came to call the sinner to repentance, not the righteous. Why would Paul want to separate from those that actually need him?
From William:
the “evidences” you listed arent real evidences. And since you refuse to look at things that are counter to your current beliefs, how can you honestly speak to me about evidences?
here’s all I’ve seen you provide:
1) martyrs, even though every religion and many non-religions have them.
2) our very existence – which no one knows how that started, but even if you must land on god(s), you must go back to that book of claims to get to jesus.
3) there were miracles, but as it turns out, those dont happen today, and end up being more claims by the same men who claim they speak for god.
4) the fulfilled prophecies we’ve discussed weren’t really prophecies at all, or had to be viewed so figuratively that it’s difficult to show anything precise about them other than location (maybe) in order to claim they’re actually fulfilled.
5) 40 authors taking 1500 years to write the bible. But there’s nothing miraculous about men writing books, editing books, and being inspired to write a book or letter after reading an older book.
In addition to these, I’d like to ask something of both Kathy and Laurie (Matt or Hayden or portal001 (Ryan) can chime in as well):
The Bible defines God as being all-loving, all-merciful, fair, just, etc. It can also be read as promising an eternity in Hell for those who don’t serve him correctly. As a believer, how do you square those two statements?
Finding Truth 
@Nate
Oh yeah that I know, but I’m just wondering within the Christian perspective how do they reconcile it?
I mean if we want to be pedantic we can also throw in Hebrews – a book that early church used to think was written by Paul and hence placed alongside other books in NT. But given that even the mainstream churches (I came from Pentacostal and then moved to a Methodist church) teach that the author of Hebrews is unknown, doesn’t the criteria that all NT books have to be written by an apostle false?
However, I don’t think we should branch off and discuss that. What I am more interested in is scripture talking about scripture. Even if we assume that all scripture is true and written by their supposed authors (even God for that matter), how do Christians resolve this conflict? Or do they simply chuck it under “mystery of God” and then go to bed soundly?
If the latter is true than perhaps we would know their level of intellectual honesty.
Not sure if Unkele reads this haha, would love to hear from him or anaivethinker.
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Ok, I may have been feeling lucid, doesn’t mean I was necessarily going to type coherently, hope some of that made sense though 🙂
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Nate,
“Kathy, if I don’t believe God is real, then I’m not really “leading people away from him.”
This is more of your extremely flawed reasoning Nate.. what you believe has NO bearing on what the truth is. But that is exactly what your statement insists. You very well could be leading people away from God and their place in Heaven. You have no proof otherwise, and not even any compelling evidence. You ignored all of this in my comment. I hope you address this.
“Existence is just existence. I could say that existence is evidence of Zeus, but what does that prove? Making up an answer gets no one closer to whether or not the answer has any real value.”
Sure, and in a jury trial, the accused could say the same thing.. it could have been a man who calls himself Zeus just as well as me who killed that person.
You can’t seem to embrace the reality of the world of evidence.. and that’s because you aren’t applying objectivity.. because you don’t want to.
“It’s just like the broken window example. If we spotted a broken window and you said, “look, there must have been a robbery!” And I said “huh, I wonder what broke that window?” You aren’t suddenly right just because I didn’t offer a guess.”
And that’s not what I’m claiming.. I’m not saying I’m right because you don’t have a better idea.. I’m saying what I believe is the most likely answer based on all the evidence including the lack of alternate theories.
“But this is a merry-go-round we’ve ridden a number of times now. Even if I conceded your point on existence as evidence for God, you still have to show which god it is.”
Um.. I did? I’m claiming it’s Christianity based on the compelling evidence.. that you’ve failed to answer with a religion that you believe has more compelling evidence.. or an acknowledgement that Christianity IS the faith with the most compelling evidence..???
So, if you did concede that existence is compelling evidence for a Creator, I’ve explained repeatedly what the next step would be.. looking for the religion that has the most compelling evidence… hence my question that you STILL refuse to answer.. if it’s not Christianity that has the most evidence, compelling or not to support it’s claimed truth then what religion is it??? Your failure to answer, YET AGAIN, is just MORE proof of your lack of objectivity Nate.
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Kathy, you never post the evidence! The quote from William at the very beginning of this post is the same quote I had at the beginning of the last one, and it comes from a comment he made in the 3rd “Kathy” post. You’ve never addressed it or provided anything else as “evidence.”
Let’s use your courtroom example. If you were running the defense and kept talking about all your great evidence but never actually presented it, what verdict would you get?
Pick one of your amazing pieces of evidence, and let’s talk about it!
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“You very well could be leading people away from God and their place in Heaven. You have no proof otherwise, and not even any compelling evidence.” – I’d like to see your proof that he is.
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What have I been talking about in all of these “Kathy” posts if it’s not the evidence??
I HAVE given you the evidence… many times.
Christian martyrdom.. that’s a LONG list of “broken windows”..
Fulfilled prophecies
Biblical accuracy in regards to historical people, places and
events.
Bible consistency with many different authors over 1500
years.
No proof of “lying” in the Bible.
Just because you disagree/ argue these things that doesn’t mean it’s not valid,
compelling evidence. As I’ve stated before, the mathematical odds
make all of these examples extremely compelling. And you have NO argument
against that.. math is based on logic.
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And also Nate.. if you can debate the evidence of Christianity.. then there is no excuse for you to not give an answer to my question.. if Christianity is not the religion with the most evidence, then which one is it??
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“You very well could be leading people away from God and their place in Heaven. ”
If Nate is leading people astray why doesn’t almighty God intervene to prevent that from happening?
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“As I’ve stated before, the mathematical odds make all of these examples extremely compelling. ”
What exactly are these mathematical odds and how did you derive them?
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@The “BIRD”
” The original was written in July 2014 by Dr. Armand D’Angour, associate professor of classics at the University of Oxford.
Now ya know –”
No I don’t. I need to know why he says this. But I did leave the question with Kuba to cut down on your reading time. Well, also because the less you talk to her the less chance there is that you’ll tick her off. So in a way I’m looking out for you. 🙂
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@Nan, I do what i can baby. Although I was really hoping the rest of these heathens would give you some business.
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@Powell
“What do you guys think? Would love to hear your comments and also would be nice to see how Kathy reconcile with this issue.”
From a logic stand point your friend makes no sense. He’s trying to convince you but you must believe before you can be convinced?
Also, “(I came from Pentecostal and then moved to a Methodist church)” How the heck did you do that?! Those two aint close!
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@portal
“Feeling kind of lucid at the moment. ” Wait. Is lucidity something you have a problem with?
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The bottom line is simply that every Christian, and especially a fundamentalist such as Kathy, bases their worldview upon presupposition: namely, because of indoctrination they posit a god, ‘God’ first and foremost and then simply manipulate every piece of what they consider evidence to fit.
If discrepancies arise they simply put this down to human error.
If issues are raised concerning biblical contradictions or anomalies they claim is made that the original text was inherent.
If a scholar demonstrates the fallacious nature of a particular text – the Virgin Birth, for example – then the scholar is usually biased to some degree.
Archaeology often fares worse.
In fact, If anything ventured by anyone who is not only not a Christian but also not part of a particular ‘brand’ of Christianity then any counter-claim will be summarily dismissed out of hand
In the thousands of comments on these threads not a single inch of headway has been made.
Not one.
Sadly, there is ample evidence that a Christian such as Kathy would, in all likelihood, have the biblical character, Jesus of Nazareth crucified once again as he would undoubtedly not ‘fit’ the mental image of the saviour she has been brainwashed to believe in.
Personally, I would like to see the parameters of a mammoth discussion such as this redefined.
Narrow down the questions to maybe, one per post. Stay on topic, . Remove all ambiguity in the phrasing of the question. Keep it concise and simple, and try to ensure that Kathy answers it honestly as she can.
Even the OJ Simpson trial was shorter than this!
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Hayden,
yes, if only lucidity would come back to me.
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It really should cause people to think really hard about God’s existence since the “argument” against Him is always based on science.. yet, that VERY science argues AGAINST the logic of our existence.
Kathy,
You’ve made this statement several times now. Do you have a source for that? Do you have evidence of this claim?
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“I HAVE given you the evidence… many times.
1.)Christian martyrdom.. that’s a LONG list of “broken windows”..
Proves NOTHING Many people have died for causes
2.)Fulfilled prophecies
Nostradamus and Edgar Caycie have been as ,if not more accurate
3.)Biblical accuracy in regards to historical people, places and
events.
Many ancient writings contain historical people, places and events
4.)Bible consistency with many different authors over 1500
years.
If anything would cast doubt over its consistency
5.)No proof of “lying” in the Bible.”
Lots of proof of inconsistencies
Kathy, show us peer reviewed articles written by scholars which confirms ALL 5 Claims above as EVIDENCE of your Christian God. This shouldn’t be hard for you to do. If you can’t, then this post should be over and let’s all move on.
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Kathy, you aren’t laying out evidence, you’re just making sweeping generalizations.
So let’s look at something specific.
In Daniel chapter 5, the writer says that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar are father and son 7 times. Yet we know from sources of their time that Belshazzar was actually the son of King Nabonidus, who wasn’t related to Nebuchadnezzar in any way.
Daniel also says that Babylon fell to Darius the Mede, and he later passed the kingdom to Cyrus the Persian. But we know that Cyrus was already ruling Persia when they came against Babylon, and it was he who took the kingdom. Furthermore, the writer of Daniel says Darius the Mede was the son of Ahaseurus. But we have no record of Darius the Mede. And while this normally wouldn’t mean much, we actually have a number of contemporary documents and sources from that time, and from these we’ve come to know a number of different officials in Cyrus’s court. None are named Darius. To make this worse, there really was a King Darius, but he was Persian, he lived after Cyrus, and instead of being the son of someone named Ahaseurus, his own son had that name.
There are other historical inaccuracies as well, and taken all together, they show that the Book of Daniel was not written by someone of the same name who lived in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. Instead, it was someone living about 400 years later who had a misunderstanding of a few historical details. Just as most Americans today couldn’t put all 44 Presidents in order, the author of Daniel didn’t have a perfect understanding of the last 400 years of history.
Some of the same mistakes he makes were also made by the Book of Baruch, which was also written during the second century BCE. As further evidence of Daniel’s illegitimacy, he’s not mentioned by any sources (even those listing out books of the Bible) until the middle of the 2nd century BCE. And the oldest manuscript evidence we have for it comes from around 100 BCE (and it contains additional material you won’t find in Bibles today).
You can start your research here if you’d like to find out more about why your earlier statement is inaccurate, or at best incomplete.
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Ark, I think your comment was spot-on. This part especially resonated with me:
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Ark, I think your comment was spot-on. This part especially resonated with me:
Sadly, there is ample evidence that a Christian such as Kathy would, in all likelihood, have the biblical character, Jesus of Nazareth crucified once again as he would undoubtedly not ‘fit’ the mental image of the saviour she has been brainwashed to believe in.
This was a point the Pastor of my previous church made frequently – that if Jesus were to live now many “Christians” would not recognize him.
Some of those would likely be the more politicized Christians, I think.
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I think so too. They have much more in common with the Bible’s portrayal of the Pharisees — fighting against anything that doesn’t hold to the party line.
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Kathy,
You said,
“So, you’re arguing that a broken window could not be evidence that a burglary had taken place?
You’re disagreeing with a leading dictionary website?
And did you read the 2nd sentence of the definition?
Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.
This is a concept no atheist seems to grasp.. the idea of weighing evidence. None of you
would be qualified to serve on a jury.”
This is one of your problems. Like the example above, you’re implying that a broken window is evidence of a burglary. Arch was right, it was only evidence of a broken window.
To properly weigh the evidence, you have to look at all the evidence there is, not jump to a conclusion with a piece of the evidence. With a broken window, why do you leap to burglary? Why not a baseball? Was there an earthquake or tornado? Was there a fight between spouses and one of the threw a pot or a pan?
Simply seeing a broken window doesn’t answer how it was broken, neither does existence answer how or why – and certainly doesn’t mean “bible god did it” by default.
And as far as your compelling evidence for the bible, the last two threads have listed a 5 point summation of your evidences to date – yet you continually ignore to acknowledge them or add to them…
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“what you believe has NO bearing on what the truth is.” – Kathy
Precisely! This, incidentally, is also why a martyr’s death is only evidence for their devotion and not in the validity or truthfulness of their cause.
I feel like we’ve made progress.
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“Sure, and in a jury trial, the accused could say the same thing.. it could have been a man who calls himself Zeus just as well as me who killed that person.
You can’t seem to embrace the reality of the world of evidence.. and that’s because you aren’t applying objectivity.. because you don’t want to.” – Kathy
Again, other than the listed 5 at the beginning of the past two threads, what evidence is there?
“And that’s not what I’m claiming.. I’m not saying I’m right because you don’t have a better idea.. I’m saying what I believe is the most likely answer based on all the evidence including the lack of alternate theories.” – Kathy
What evidence? Please, please share.
“So, if you did concede that existence is compelling evidence for a Creator, I’ve explained repeatedly what the next step would be.. looking for the religion that has the most compelling evidence… hence my question that you STILL refuse to answer.. if it’s not Christianity that has the most evidence, compelling or not to support it’s claimed truth then what religion is it??? Your failure to answer, YET AGAIN, is just MORE proof of your lack of objectivity Nate.” – Kathy
Why don’t you just show how it has more compelling evidence? To us, no religion appears “more true” than another – as they all seem false. It’s like asking which blade of grass most resembles a wedding cake – they don’t, none of them do…
And this question is coming from a person who has spotty knowledge of her own religious text (you), so I highly doubt that you know anything of any real substance from other religions to even make an honest or educated comparison.
And let me also add, again, that at one point you said that you were not asking which had the most credentials in being true in their claims of divine origin. In what other way did you mean “true” if not in their claims of being divine? Or did you just misspeak?
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Ruth and Nate,
If your both implying that Kathy is a Pharisee, then I think that’s rough. Like I’ve mentioned before, I sometimes feel Kathy gets ganged up on.
A while back Nate you wrote (and I’m paraphrasing) that Kathy was “doing damage” to Christianity,
for a believer, that’s quite a strong thing to say,
Especially considering that Kathy would consider faith to be the most important aspect in her life. To suggest she is a Pharisee or destructive to her faith is no small accusation to make. That’s just how I read the comment
I don’t think Kathy is behaving like a Pharisee, I personally think she feels the evidence supports her beliefs, and that her faith is very real to her even if others disagree with her position.
She should be taken at her word, unless she specifies otherwise. She comes across to me as someone who has a real conviction and strong views on American values,
but as I understand it, many Pharisees refused to acknowledge that Jesus was who He said He was, and instead relied on the Law.
Kathy does not hold this position, as far as I can see from her comments.
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“Just because you disagree/ argue these things that doesn’t mean it’s not valid,
compelling evidence. As I’ve stated before, the mathematical odds
make all of these examples extremely compelling. And you have NO argument
against that.. math is based on logic.” – kathy
Lol, yes, math is logic based… care to show the mathematical odds that are in favor of the bible’s claims… like, what are the odds that a virgin will have a baby or that a dead man will come back to life?
or show how our existence must mean that we had a creator, but that the existence of a creator doesn’t need a creator?
surely, someone of your logical and mathematical prowess could easily demonstrate this in support of your claims.
since i value my life, i wont hold my breath.
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@Kathy,
William is right, if you are going to claim that the mathematics proves that the odds are low, you have to show the math for that. People can make mathematical probability claims about absolutely anything, but just saying it doesn’t prove a thing. The math showing the probability to be low must be shown to prove it.
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“As a parent, a squad leader in the Army and in general adult, I understand rules, rewards and punishments. I can be in a position of authority, but merciful and yet still have standards I have to enforce. To the point, I just had to assist with paperwork kicking one of my squad members out of the Army for good. This soldier had been given many many chances by myself and others in higher positions for his transgressions, however he had finally crossed a line to where there was nothing I or anyone else could do for him.” – matt
I was going to ask this,
I hear you and I agree. Do you think it would be just to torture that soldier forever? Do you think it would be just to not only kick him out of the army but to also keep him from ever working anywhere again?
But I see nate had already asked something similar.
If god wrote his word and wanted to tell us that he was loving, just and merciful – why do you think he’d do that? is it because we know what those terms mean, or is it because he likes defining himself in a way that is mysterious to us and beyond our understanding?
If it is so that we can get comfort and security out of that description, then I say those words were used because we know what they mean. So when we see god portrayed in a way that is contrary to those definitions, why should we say, “well maybe we don’t really know what those mean? God is just, and this action does seem just, so perhaps I don’t know what ‘just’ means?”
Maybe instead of us not knowing, it’s a case of that action not really being done by a just god.
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