The arguments at defense of Christian theology:

>christian theology

>when I point to the significant inconsistencies between the Old and New Testaments, I never get any sensible explenations.
That's why you go full Marcionite or jew.

Actually, like I said already, you can simplify any field and anything with a simple sentence. And no, you're not missing absolutely anything if those things were slowly upping each other.

I had a Marcionist phase until I read more Bible and realised that in the Gospels Jesus himself references the Old Testament several times.
Also all the relevant Churches consider it a heresy that used to be punishable by death.

>Christianity is beneficial to the society, so why would anyone even want to argument against it?
Because it is false. Also, your idea of social benefit is ideological, and practical effects of christianity and atheism are most likely too complex to be reduced to a simplistic good-bad dichotomy.
The rest of the arguments are acceptable, sort of, but I fucking hate this one. It is pure utilitarianism and materialism, something that religion is supposed to be against.

Just because Jesus references the old testamenr doesn't mean it can't be obsolete with his death. Also who cares about corrupt churches?

>reductio ad absurdum
Of course you can't simplify all knowledge within a single sentence, but is it too much to ask for to do it in a single book?

>inb4 Summa Theologiae
Only a very short part at the beginning is actually concerned with proving God's existence. The proofs themselves are pretty weak, in the sense that they only work for God defined in a narrow and abstract sense (the rules of the universe and its beginning).

>Just because Jesus references the old testamenr doesn't mean it can't be obsolete with his death.
It kind of does.

Fuck off Judaizer. I pray you'll burn in Hell along with the other Petrine heretics.

>"pearls before swine" argument
Do you argue with rocks? Materialists can be ignored based on their beliefs. Unless, of course, they take it seriously enough to assume everything to be due to matter, including interpretations, opinions, fiction etc.
Falsehood, however, would cease to exist, as it would be merely 'the sameness' as every other perception; the outcome of the same matter in a different relative structure.

>argument at faith
>Christianity is primarily about faith, so I don't have to give you any arguments.
There is a categorical difference between humans and animals, animals and lifeless matter - not at all unlike the separation between the elect and the reject. You seem to take "arguments" as some holy thing, which can not nor should be mistreated, ignored or made fun of. Why? What gives it this hierarchical status as 'taboo' or 'necessary'? It is merely another thing in existence, how do you rank it? Why should we care about your ranking and preferences?
It follows that it should be in our system of perception that those things are prioritized- to whatever extent we perceive it. So it follows that you are merely trying to undermine our position, without having your own. It's a blind attack from the void, instigating us to do something regarding our own perception for an anonymous poster's convenience.
I rank that pretty low. Especially since he offers no alternative structures nor perceptions, no axioms, no vision.

blog.biblia.com/2014/04/which-old-testament-book-did-jesus-quote-most/

I wish we could just disregard the Jewish Testament, but unfortunately we can't.
The irreconcilable inconsitencies between the Old and the New Testaments is what prevents me from being a Christian.

the solution is quite simple: ackowledge that the Gospel of John is the only authentic gospel, that Mark was written as a Petrine response to it, that Luke is a hagiography based on hearsay, Mark, and redacted John (like the annointing of Jesus event, which is a fusion of the fake account in Mark and the true account in John, where his feet are annointed by Mary), and Matthew is a theologically evolved Petrine apocryphon based on Mark and Luke (with domesticated/redacted elements from John).

Most of those references are from the synoptics, and they're edited in by the authors of those gospels.

P.S. Peter never witnessed Jesus after his resurrection. John 21 was originally the last chapter of Mark. It is entirely made up. The Church later redacted it at the end of John.

There, I fixed Christianity.

>Materialists can be ignored based on their beliefs
Refutation of strict materialism =/= proof of personal God =/= proof of the divinity of Jesus

>You seem to take "arguments" as some holy thing, which can not nor should be mistreated, ignored or made fun of. Why?
I don't. I just assume that serious philosophical/theological propositions should be based on arguments.
Of course you can reduce all problems to the matter of "my feelings VS your feelings", but then you reject the concept of objective truth.

>Refutation of strict materialism =/= proof of personal God =/= proof of the divinity of Jesus
It doesn't need to be. I don't argue with rocks.

>"arguments against Christianity are wrong because materialism is false"
>I'm not a materialist, and refutation of materialism isn't proof for the divinity of Jesus
>"I... I don't argue with materialists!"

This post gave me hope, thanks

>I just assume that serious philosophical/theological propositions should be based on arguments.
Philosophy goes to Veeky Forums :^)
>Of course you can reduce all problems to the matter of "my feelings VS your feelings",
I can't. I can reduce simple issues and simpletons to their own claims of themselves.
>but then you reject the concept of objective truth.
Objective truth is that you can't access anything that isn't part of it. You are merely an environmental factor, as are your arguments. They offer no prioritization for how things should be, but are keen on changing things. This is a paradox of reason, assuming they speak the truth of their intentions. To assume that they lie and are evil, that seems reasonable, no?
You want us to stop moving whilst you keep on running.

Why do anything without priorities / hierarchy? All actions and their lack are equal. Including arguing and not.

I wasn't proving the divinity of Christ.
>I'm not a materialist
Then what are you? Show yourself! Mere statements don't compete with one another without the perception giving them meaning.

>they're edited in by the authors of those gospels.
Compare for example the Isaiah quotation at the beginning of Mark with John's recounting. In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist merely uses it as a witticism or a reference (the same way someone would quote or paraphrase a certain author to make a point today, not necessarily in agreement with the quoted excerpt; see for example the widespread use of quips from Shakespeare), as a way of proving his "credentials" (that he is knowledgable about the Jewish faith, not just some loon; preachers do something similar all the time, quoting random verses when talking with someone, not always relevant to the discussion) to his pharisee interlocutors, while in Mark this mutated into a prophetic message about Jesus, conflated with an excerpt from Malachi. If you actually read that referenced passage from Isaiah, you'll notice that in context is has absolutely nothing to do with any Messianic message of any sort, Isaiah talking about events that were imminent to his time (which is why Mark's author had to append a quote from Malachi to make it work).

The practice then became more and more prominent, until Matthew which is interspersed with references and allusions to Jewish Scriptures all over, added in by the author.

>when I point to the significant inconsistencies between the Old and New Testaments, I never get any sensible explenations

I cringed. Fuck off back to Redit.

>Then what are you? Show yourself!
I don't have, and belive that no human alive has, knowledge on whether spirit is a material or immaterial phenomenon. This discussion is not relevant in the context of proving/disproving a personal God or the divinity of Christ.

>Why do anything without priorities / hierarchy? All actions and their lack are equal. Including arguing and not.
If we reject all value statements, and assume that argumentation and lack thereof are equal, then we come to the conclusion that faith and lack thereof are also equal.

We really need a board for discussion of Christianity

>I don't have, and belive that no human alive has, knowledge on whether spirit is a material or immaterial phenomenon.
Yet you have knowledge that only knowledge is to be taken seriously?
> This discussion is not relevant in the context of proving/disproving a personal God or the divinity of Christ.
That's not at all what I'm doing. I'm questioning the reason I should take any of your text input seriously. So far you haven't been able to bring about any reason to do so.

>If we reject all value statements
God is 'the' value statement.
>and assume that argumentation and lack thereof are equal, then we come to the conclusion that faith and lack thereof are also equal.
Then why not believe?

We really need Christianity

youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k

Just gonna leave this here. Enjoy, Christfags

As a Christian, pretty funny, but surely you must understand the irony of your post.

Now this, this is to be expected of you ape-men.

No irony intended. It's a funny video, but nothing turned me into an atheist more quickly than looking at the Catholic church and its history.

As well as there being no logical argument or basis for superstitious beliefs, although that apparently does not matter because >muh faith

>It's a funny video, but nothing turned me into an atheist more quickly than looking at the Catholic church and its history.
Take a look at atheist history, then. Will it make you a theist?

Assuming that
>argumentation and lack thereof are equal
>proof and lack thereof are equal
>faith and lack thereof are equal
We come to the conclusion that there is neither objective truth nor falsehood. Christian theology is just as good as Muslim or Pagan, or no theology at all. There is no lie and no truth, a rigorous scientific analysis is as good as pure conjecture.
While a self-consistent view, it's one I can't agree with, and I bet that most people do, even if just by pure intuition.

Meh, not lit related, but wanted to share something beautiful with you guys since people have started dropping unrelated Louie CK bits.

Hope you enjoy youtube.com/watch?v=IX1zicNRLmY

Well, then, assume that. I will keep assuming something else, though.

>Veeky Forums used to have great discussions on Christianity with well-versed and knowledgeable believers/apologists and atheists alike
>now it's a literal fedora engaging in pointless polemics collecting "le rayddit" replies from poltardian "tradishoonalists" who namedrop theologists they haven't actually read

'Atheism' isn't very well defined. A Catholic probably won't worship Dionysus; are they an atheist? What about the great big flying octopus gods - with regard to them, everyone I've met is an atheist.

>back in my day
I'm going to stop you right there old man.

>it's one I can't agree with
Why not? Once I hear this, we may start talking about theology - if your stance and axioms make sense.

Like I said before, there are Christian readings of the scriptures that do away with superstitions to the point where they are agnostic about God's nature. But do as you wish, contain Christianity into the orthodox strawman that you've built for it just to justify your a posteriori intuitions. I'm not trying to convince you of anything user, but don't claim to understand Christianity if you're not willing to study it properly.

It was an argument against such assumption, you dummy.

If you're the same person all along, you keep wavering between opposing positions only to contradict me. What's the point in that?

>'Atheism' isn't very well defined. A Catholic probably won't worship Dionysus; are they an atheist?
I've heard the opposite about Christians, that they probably do worship Dionysus. :^)
>What about the great big flying octopus gods - with regard to them, everyone I've met is an atheist.
But I've noted that the adherents of the flying spaghetti monster do make stale pasta. Heck, their entire world view looks like it!

I noted the emphasis on worship, rather than "belief of the existence of". You're mixing the meaning.

>It was an argument against such assumption, you dummy.
No it wasn't. You merely stated your incapability to assume that!

>You keep wavering between opposing positions only to contradict me.
I don't need to make any statements regarding my own beliefs, I can just attack yours. :^)

Because I know that some things are true and some are not.
If just one thing can be proven true (like the fact that I'm writing this post, or that I'm alive), it follows that truth and falsehood objectively exist, and from that follows that there is a distinguishing quality between truth and falsehood, and that quality is proof.
Argumentation is defined as presenting proof for a statement.
A statement that can't be proven (by experiment, measurement, thought experiment or deduction) can be assumed false.

>Because I know that some things are true and some are not.
What things are not true?

>A statement that can't be proven (by experiment, measurement, thought experiment or deduction) can be assumed false.
>Because I know
How do these work together, I wonder?

I know that I exist.
How? Because "I know that I don't exist" is a contradiction. I've just proven my existence.
Thus, the statement "I don't exist" is false.
Thus, there is objective truth and falsehood.
Thus, there must be something to separate true form false.
This something is proof.

>Thus, there must be something to separate true form false.
>This something is proof.
That's a leap of faith and you know it.

>I know that I exist.
>How? Because "I know that I don't exist" is a contradiction.
Why do things need to make sense (aka. not be contradictions)? You need to presuppose Logos.

>"the distinguishing quality between truth and falsehood is proof"
>That's a leap of faith
What else could it be then?

>Why do things need to make sense (aka. not be contradictions)? You need to presuppose Logos.
I did so implcitly

>"the distinguishing quality between truth and falsehood is proof"
Prove this.

You don't prove definitions.

Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

an equal sign works in both directions, so in this way you also define
>"truth" is Jesus Christ
>"life" is Jesus Christ
Which is not consistent with the current and accepted definitions of "truth" and "life". A term can't have two definitions.
If you wanted to redefine "truth" and "life", you would have to change all the definitions and proofs that already use those terms.

>Which is not consistent with the current and accepted definitions of "truth" and "life"
What do you mean? That truth is not mere data, and life is not mere particles?

>an equal sign works in both directions
Mathematics is an invention of human mind, not a statement about reality. A sign is a symbol of something.
>current and accepted definitions
So there is disagreement. So what? How does 'current year' make anything different, and if it does, what makes it relevant?

To conduct a proof you need
1. an axiom (or a statement that has been proven previously)
2. definitions
3. rules of inference
If by "current year" you mean definitions, they make ALL the difference. You can't conduct a proof without definitions.

It's funny that the two most basic definitions are circular:
>a statement is defined as true if (and only if) it can be proven
>proof is defined as the arguments for the truthfulness of a statement
But as you go deeper in the chain of definitions (one thing defines the second, second defines the third etc.) you have to come to this circularity eventually, it's the problem of basic concept.

>The plural of 'volumen' is 'volumina'.
youtube.com/watch?v=zbWux4Rk-aI

>I know that I exist.
I woke up on day and realized I didn't exist, it was quite a shock

> is a contradiction
don't get too tangled up by this word, God could as easily contradict himself into existence as out of it

>the solution is quite simple: ackowledge that the Gospel of John is the only authentic gospel, that Mark was written as a Petrine response to it, that Luke is a hagiography based on hearsay, Mark, and redacted John (like the annointing of Jesus event, which is a fusion of the fake account in Mark and the true account in John, where his feet are annointed by Mary), and Matthew is a theologically evolved Petrine apocryphon based on Mark and Luke (with domesticated/redacted elements from John).

Wait, what? Explain this. Why is John considered more authentic than Mark? I thought Mark was the first Gospel to be written