Yeah, well, that didn’t work out for me, and I at least have had the good fortune to have heard about this whole scheme.
So I suppose if it’s true, I’ll end up in hell. Fortunately, I don’t believe in it.
Just as an experiment, try thinking from a different set of assumptions. The Christian system is only compelling once you accept its basic beliefs as true. But if you try thinking without them, try thinking with a different set of assumptions, you see that from the outside, Christianity is logically inconclusive as far as proving the truth of anything.
Or, as another experiment, try coming up with an argument that does not rely on your assumptions. Show me, without relying on faith, that faith is necessary.
“God has stopped by this board many times through those proclaiming his word.” - that’s lame and you know it. All I’m asking is that an omnipotent being occasionally do something himself, or that claim of omnipotence starts sounding pretty shallow. And the more impressive miracles in the Bible don’t count either.
I don’t give a rat’s tuckus what a bunch of people 1,930 years ago wrote about Jesus, or what some desert tribe wrote about their patron deity 3,000 years ago. That proves nothing more than any other ancient text.
Independent. Verifiable. That’s the sort of proof you need to come up with. I expect it will arrive about the same time a 12-foot tall old guy with a big white beard shows up on my porch and introduces himself as the almighty.
Browsing through quotes for another thread, I came across this:
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.
-Lazarus Long