1. "think the ultimate natural state of everything is a sentient life form " Are you asking me if rocks have emotions?  "if everything has always been instead"  O.K, I'm not sure where you getting this from.  You are saying that the earth always was?  And there is no timeline of events?  Please support text so I can see where your view of Christianity is coming from here. 

2. "How did you personally eliminate the possibility that there is no true religion" I didn't.

3. I am still not 100% sure what you are judging on.  So I'll just pick necessity.  Please further explain what you mean by "conflict with important matters" and how Christianity fails here. 

4."Um…even sin" Well we know very little about him from the gospels.  We know that only he is good and all things are possible for him.  So we can't rule out that he doesn't have claim to sin and I take back that he has claim to everything.  I jumped the gun on that one.  But where did you get the idea that he has claim to other religons?

5."benevolent deity would not do just that"  I dont know.  How is that an argument against Christianity?

6. "How do you get to “the Bible is inerrant"  I never said the Bible was inerrant

7.  "finding the truth by disregarding them" Your at least on your way.  Yes.  You cannot find truth by lieing to yourself.

8. "tell if God never did anything"  Ya, if he told you or had the holy spirit tell you.  Other than that, the consistant answering of unlikely prayers or the answering of an impossible one.

9."Caesar was really a god because of the traditions about him"  Please link me to a website where he is proclaimed God so I can see where your coming from.  As far as I know, there isn't any ancient scripture supporting him as God or supporting him doing supernatural works.  If I remember correctly from history class, he heard he was son of God from his mom when he was young, and from an oracle when he was older. 

10. "you have no way of knowing if anything about your religion is really true."  Please explain this statement.  Give me an example of something that you know is true so I can see where you are coming from.

Wargo,

Thanks for responding:

"1. "think the ultimate natural state of everything is a sentient life form " Are you asking me if rocks have emotions?  "if everything has always been instead"  O.K, I'm not sure where you getting this from.  You are saying that the earth always was?  And there is no timeline of events?  Please support text so I can see where your view of Christianity is coming from here. "

No, I’m asking if you why you think the ultimate state of affairs is more likely a sentient life form than not in light of other more simple options.  Have you not heard of the “necessary being?”  Have you never described your conception of God in any philosophical way?  You know, God has to be, but everything else is arbitrary? 

I’m not saying the earth always was.  Every moment of earth always was in reference to “eternity.”  The timeline itself is a permanent static object that always was from deduction.  This is my view of time and space in reference to a multiverse or an “allverse” as I like to call it.  But as far as Christianity goes…why is eternity a sentient lifeform and not just a thing basically?  Why a complex mind?  How does that ring true to you in other than psychologically comforting ways?

"2. "How did you personally eliminate the possibility that there is no true religion" I didn't."

So you are content to not know that there even is a true religion before you buy into one?  And we are to trust your judgment in matters?

"3. I am still not 100% sure what you are judging on.  So I'll just pick necessity.  Please further explain what you mean by "conflict with important matters" and how Christianity fails here. "

I’m judging on the shape of the presentation of self.  All important factors that could easily be accessible to reality checks are conveniently behind closed doors.  What we do see as an active role in the world piggy-backs off of normal phenomena such as emotional responses, the success of religious movements, holy books, congregations of loving people, etc.  There are other explanations for where your religion came from…and so to my knowledge there is no necessity to explain anything about the world from that viewpoint.  We could open the Bible to page one and start counting off all the red flags for scammage.  To top all this off, our eternities are at stake and our entire earthly lives are demanded.  The mold this fits could easily conceal a big non-truth.  Sometimes such a fit is temporary and the party asking much very quickly moves to make sure you know they are not hiding anything from you.  However if this is the case for an inordinately long period of time (like thousands of years)…the case is to be closed as it is a clear breach of something we know well…appropriate interpersonal standards.  I assume perhaps you would feel this way about another religion such as Islam or Mormonism?  So the natural question is how does your metaphysical scam step out of the mold of a lie in an objective way we can all see that other scams do not?

"4."Um…even sin" Well we know very little about him from the gospels.  We know that only he is good and all things are possible for him.  So we can't rule out that he doesn't have claim to sin and I take back that he has claim to everything.  I jumped the gun on that one.  But where did you get the idea that he has claim to other religons?"

Often times to salvage the diversity of metaphysical beliefs it is said that God inspires the truth in other religions as well.  But this puts God as either negligent of other people besides his chosen people (by having nothing to do with it) or being the author of confusion (as though it doesn’t compound the world’s problems).  There’s simply no reason to claim that God couldn’t have kept and maintained many “flocks of sheep” all over the world.  We could all be his chosen people from the beginning to the end of time.  If the truth could be kept sacred for the Jews…why in the world could it get so corrupt for everyone else?  Unless of course this is just an ad hoc explanation to account for the fact that it is not difficult to believe that everyone can make their own stuff up and there’s no reason to not think the Jews didn’t do the same as though in a non-theistic world there’d be no spectrum of successful religions.  Any thoughts to the contrary on why that’s not a better straight forward explanation?

"5."benevolent deity would not do just that"  I dont know.  How is that an argument against Christianity?"

It shows your deity to be negligent and the more likely case to be that ancient people were trying to accommodate a not so good world into a theistically ideal one.  Judaism’s creation and the fall was one version they came up with and refutes itself with what it promises in the future.  Maybe you don’t find that contradictory in important ways but many other people do. 

"6. "How do you get to “the Bible is inerrant"  I never said the Bible was inerrant"

So you depart from orthodox belief on this doctrine with what justification?

"7.  "finding the truth by disregarding them" Your at least on your way.  Yes.  You cannot find truth by lieing to yourself."

That’s not a very informative answer on which group of believers I should disrespect in order to come to the truth?  Perhaps you disregard religious experiential truth?  Which is fine by me, but I would ask you…why do you think so many people from so many different religions attain such divinely granted certainty in their contradictory convictions?  And they’ll tell you plainly it’s the only scamtastic way to believe.

"8. "tell if God never did anything"  Ya, if he told you or had the holy spirit tell you.  Other than that, the consistant answering of unlikely prayers or the answering of an impossible one. "

Are you asserting that such a thing has happened to you?  If so, feel free to divulge.  And are you asserting God can do impossible things?  I’m assuming you mean impossible things for a human to do?  Do you think that if God let an entire nation go without providence for 100 years there would be no one that would have unlikely prayers answered?  Perhaps they are the ones that stay Christians while the other chance prayers weren’t answered?  Have you double and triple checked like Gideon?

"9."Caesar was really a god because of the traditions about him"  Please link me to a website where he is proclaimed God so I can see where your coming from.  As far as I know, there isn't any ancient scripture supporting him as God or supporting him doing supernatural works.  If I remember correctly from history class, he heard he was son of God from his mom when he was young, and from an oracle when he was older. "

Weren’t all Roman emperors proclaimed gods to be worshipped?  I thought that was common knowledge?  Here’s a link for whatever reason you doubt me:  “Caesar was declared a god of the Roman state.”  The point remains, if any bit of history mentions something ridiculous, you pretty much have to believe it unless it’s directly busted somehow.  Have fun with trying to conjure up some double standard.

"10. "you have no way of knowing if anything about your religion is really true."  Please explain this statement.  Give me an example of something that you know is true so I can see where you are coming from."

I have a car.  There is no objectivity test that claim cannot pass.  I’m pretty certain.  No one is going to doubt me.  On the other hand:  God exists…angels or demons?  Heaven or hell?  Sheol?  The soul?  An afterlife?  Magically external morality?  Jesus as God and any of his miracles?  Anything important about your belief system at all?  Any one of these line items could easily be open for world review and not one of them is.  All there is are lousy excuses.  This isn’t really meant to be that complex of a question.  I just don’t think “maybe’s,” “could be’s,” and “for all I know’s” really cut it for a serious relationship with this religion or any other.  You are basically lying if you repeat any doctrines with any amount of conviction and are left to goad yourself into believing further than is warranted…which people obviously do on a regular basis.  And I think it can be very abusive to an individual and communities and world situations with such unaccountable beliefs that demand so much on nothing.  If you can’t easily and straight forwardly support your knowledge base of entirely important interpersonal things…why in the world do you think you aren’t a meta-scammer?  (That’s someone that takes a metaphysical scam seriously, btw) And I contend it’s immoral if the consequences go beyond your mind.   

1.”Why not a bunny rabbit?”  We don’t have evidence it’s a bunny rabbit.  We just have evidence that it’s God by the testimony of Christ. 
2. “is one before you are “fully baked” into that belief system”  I disagree, you should keep an open mind and except that maybe all of them should be rejected.  You start by examining the evidence then go from there.
3. “the .0000000001% chance that anything you believe is true could be mistaken”  Please explain this statement.  If you live in a world like the matrix, you would have all the exact information for a car that you would have now.  There is no greater possibility for the truth to be the car than the possibility that there isn’t since the evidence supports either conclusion equally.  If say, you believe in Caesar, please post why.
4. “contrary is a better explanation” We have evidence for the existence of Christ and his miracles through the gospels.  The books don’t talk about a miracle worker that existed ten thousand years before they were written.  They talk about him existed 50 years prior.  How do you explain their existence?
5. “believe it is a better explanation”  Any knowledge of God or his plans for us after death come from Christ (If we are Christian).  Therefore if we don’t like his plan “life is so utterly wasteful and pointless on that plan” that is not an argument against Christianity.  (If we don’t like God’s plan then there is no God) is an invalid argument.  Since the belief is based on Christ, the only way to attack the validity of God’s plan would be to attack the validity of the one who taught it. 
6. “define Christianity so narrowly”  (Christian: Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus, Dictionary.com)  I’m don’t think I define it so narrowly, I am using the actual definition. 
“Why a heaven or hell?  Why anything other than”  Because we have evidence of it through the gospels. 
7. “when people take personal offense to you”  Being disrespectful is either proactive – when you go out of your way to offend somebody, or passive when through laziness you ignore any manners or standard of conduct that makes others feel offended.  Stating your personal opinion in a non-offensive way is considered perfectly acceptable.  However, I can definitely see how people feel disrespected by you based on the way you seem to approach religious topics “you’re cool with taking your regional religion for granted is cool, but having really good feelings about it that confirm its authenticity is bunk, huh?”  A bit less sarcasm would be appriciated.
8.  “unbelieving world a reality check?”  Only if God is indeed answering those prayers.
9. “ran the Roman Empire”  Nope, many people have led empires and have had great armies. “Caesar being divine.  Why not both”  Running an empire is more common than instantly healing people of leprosy by simply touching them.
10.  “both an agnostic and a Christian”  I would have to hear their viewpoint before I could an opinion.  If they say they don’t know there is a God like we don’t know if you have a car, then it is safe to say they could be both.  Christianity isn’t based on knowing anything, it is the belief of Christ.

Wargo,

“1.”Why not a bunny rabbit?”  We don’t have evidence it’s a bunny rabbit.  We just have evidence that it’s God by the testimony of Christ.” 

Are asserting no one knew there was a God until Jesus’ testimony 2,000 years ago?  Are you asserting there is no philosophical proof of God’s existence otherwise?  No natural theology? 

“2. “is one before you are “fully baked” into that belief system”  I disagree, you should keep an open mind and except that maybe all of them should be rejected.  You start by examining the evidence then go from there.”

How is it that you can turn my statement around and portray it like I’m not the one asking for evidence so I can “eliminate the possibilities” as I said and “go from there” as you said?  “Fully baked” is just an exaggeration.  If the evidence is so obvious to you, then it should be no trouble to spell it out for me and everyone else.

“3. “the .0000000001% chance that anything you believe is true could be mistaken”  Please explain this statement.  If you live in a world like the matrix, you would have all the exact information for a car that you would have now.  There is no greater possibility for the truth to be the car than the possibility that there isn’t since the evidence supports either conclusion equally.  If say, you believe in Caesar, please post why.”

We live in a constant state of uncertainty, though we do find things to be more certain than others…what’s the big deal?  But the evidence is such that “I have a car” is a true statement even if it can be relegated to “within the confrontations of the matrix” and thus is still more than true enough and more than necessary enough as I’ve explained before.  Christianity on the other hand…within or without the matrix is not anywhere near that.  And if you think otherwise…then certainly you can go into a little detail about how I can know that too.  How many rounds has this been?

“4. “contrary is a better explanation” We have evidence for the existence of Christ and his miracles through the gospels.  The books don’t talk about a miracle worker that existed ten thousand years before they were written.  They talk about him existed 50 years prior.  How do you explain their existence?”

All of the sudden you are asking the questions.  If you’d like to ask an atheist 10 questions about why they’re not a Christian…be my guest…someplace else.

However, the short answer is:  Bogus beliefs and fanatical stories get passed objective review all the time because of how badly credulous people want to believe them.  Sometimes even in the direct presence of contrary witnesses.  Historically to our world, it really doesn’t matter.  Do you think the mentioning of Caesar being a god was ten thousand years later?  Or did people believe that right in front of him as they worshipped despite the lack of overt evidence?  Why is it wise to believe anything of the sort in history just because something mentions it and gets away without be directly busted?  That opens up a wide arena of things that you likely don’t actually accept.  Is there an indisputable case for the supernatural in our day and age to make that credible?  I don’t think so…  I hate giving people links to things not me…but for further reading, check out Richard Carrier’s “Why I don’t buy the Resurrection Story” and “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: a look into the world of the gospels” for in depth historical discussions on issues most relevant to our discussion here.  There's also interesting links on the site about the gospel of Luke (and how he botches borrowing material from Josephus), the gospel of Mark (and its dubious origin in fiction), and the sleight of hand formation of the New Testament Canon. 

Back to the question:  It seems your argument is that you believe your religion is authentic, therefore there must be some reason you don’t care about to explain why it’s okay for other religions to be so deviant?  Locally that’s no where near a better explanation.  Obviously I presumed you thought your religion was correct….but any sensibility as to why God doesn’t inform everyone on equal terms is what was being asked for.  Those are obviously sub-par salvation management skills to an uninitiated observer that's looking to see if your beliefs are bogus or not. 

“5. “believe it is a better explanation”  Any knowledge of God or his plans for us after death come from Christ (If we are Christian).  Therefore if we don’t like his plan “life is so utterly wasteful and pointless on that plan” that is not an argument against Christianity.  (If we don’t like God’s plan then there is no God) is an invalid argument.  Since the belief is based on Christ, the only way to attack the validity of God’s plan would be to attack the validity of the one who taught it.” 

It’s not about not liking it…it’s about making a good personal judgment call about the supposed actions of a good deity that don’t make sense before I decide to waste all of my emotional dollars living the rest of my life in that questionable belief system.  Otherwise for all I know, instead of giving it every benefit of the doubt, somebody just made up a bad idea for other reasons.  I can make up excuses all day for every deity throughout history with enough imagination.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to take it seriously.  But it seems your answer to this question is… “I don’t know.”  And that’s fine.  Poor judgment, in my opinion, but at least it’s nearly a direct answer.

“6. “define Christianity so narrowly”  (Christian: Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus, Dictionary.com)  I’m don’t think I define it so narrowly, I am using the actual definition. 
“Why a heaven or hell?  Why anything other than”  Because we have evidence of it through the gospels. “

So have you sold all your stuff?  Half of it?  Fasted for endless days?  Taken Nazarite vows?  Shunned all the evil of the world?  Preached the kingdom of God from door to door?  Performed greater feats that Jesus himself?  

But to my actual question…you don’t consider the Bible inerrant?  What do you say to people who do?  Perhaps it is not an authority on heaven or hell as well?  Maybe not even Jesus’ divinity?  Perhaps it is just good enough to teach you how to live well?  How would you know?

“7. “when people take personal offense to you”  Being disrespectful is either proactive – when you go out of your way to offend somebody, or passive when through laziness you ignore any manners or standard of conduct that makes others feel offended.  Stating your personal opinion in a non-offensive way is considered perfectly acceptable.  However, I can definitely see how people feel disrespected by you based on the way you seem to approach religious topics “you’re cool with taking your regional religion for granted is cool, but having really good feelings about it that confirm its authenticity is bunk, huh?”  A bit less sarcasm would be appriciated.”

There are many forums where rejecting the convictions of religious fideistic feelings is taken as disrespectful even if you have good reasons for doing so.  People who believe it is the obvious direct intervention of God do not accept that other people are “allowed not to believe that is the case.”  This is an outside observation that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with my personal debating activities.  It’s regularly included in debates over theism as though we should just be in awe at the power of God and not the power of desperation, depravity, wishful thinking, and credulity.  Pretending like there was no meaning to my sarcastic statement and that it can be dismissed because of its trappings is not going to help my opinion of you or your beliefs.  Should you not turn the other cheek and answer my question anyhow ever so patiently with a legitimate answer…as though a bit of sarcasm can’t communicate a point?  A simple reality check or three will end my sarcastic rejection of the Christian belief system.  Let’s share some blame here, if there is any at all on my part.

“8.  “unbelieving world a reality check?”  Only if God is indeed answering those prayers.”

Are you saying it’s too hard to find real believers these days?  Is God yet again withholding evidence?  If there is so much evidence from the Gospels, why does it matter if there is more?  Are you not going to let me in on the long series of unlikely answered prayers that you know about?   Do you actually feel you are answering any of my questions sufficiently?

“9. “ran the Roman Empire”  Nope, many people have led empires and have had great armies. “Caesar being divine.  Why not both”  Running an empire is more common than instantly healing people of leprosy by simply touching them.”

Certainly the Roman Empire is one of the most grand of all of history?  I’m sure that’s what they thought even then.  How could they possibly have conquered so much of the known world if they weren’t gods?  Why are you not extending every apologetic luxury to Caesar?  Am I to just believe that Jesus healed people of leprosy because a piece of religious propaganda says so half a century later?  Just because?  At least Caesar got a lot further with his kingdom before he was murdered.

“10.  “both an agnostic and a Christian”  I would have to hear their viewpoint before I could an opinion.  If they say they don’t know there is a God like we don’t know if you have a car, then it is safe to say they could be both.  Christianity isn’t based on knowing anything, it is the belief of Christ.”

Don’t I have to know about the gospels to believe in Christ?  And how does that not dovetail into needing to know all these other things to attain the certainty one needs to be a non-agnostic Christian in an unbelieving world?  Who's fault is it that God demands so much of us from the ambiguity of history?  Mine?  God's?  Or the people that were just satisfying their needs at the time?

ARU