Reddit reviews The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity
We found 7 Reddit comments about The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Lee Strobeltheologyreligion
All I got was this. At least they're okay with me "asking questions" though.
Yes, kind of, etc yes. I don't really care to go into depth on this as I would be stealing the AMA.
When I say kind of on Hell, I mean its not the fire and brimstone that is so popular in the pop culture understanding. Hell is the ultimate separation from God and everything that he is. The place where he is not, therefore anything of him is void in that area. Love, compassion, joy etc. Hell is one of 2 choices then in this matter. You can choose God, and everything that he is, or you can choose not to be with God. It is not a place of torture and destruction, but it is a place that is devoid of him(God) and everything that he is.
When you look at it this way you see him as a God who is truly giving free choice in the matter. You chose not to be with God, he isn't going to punish you for that, he will just put you where your choice led you.
I'm really bad at putting my thoughts down on paper, and I almost didn't post to this comment because of that.
Now this book has a good explanation of what I believe hell to be. There are some parts of it that I don't agree with, or am not sure of, but the basic Ideas of most of the book are excellent. This book clears up alot of misconceptions about Gods character too.
In the end, it is about making your faith your own, exploring what it means to be a christian, praying and genuinely seeking the meaning of the bible.
Now can I be wrong? Yes,but my core foundation still stands. God is the creator of the universe, his son(him/trinity yadda yadda) made the perfect sacrifice for our sin, and he offers me life through him. From there exegetical studies of the culture and scripture must be made while taking into account proven facts of our universe.
Hope that's enough of a post for you. I would be willing to talk through PMs or IMs. I do not claim to be an expert on Christianity, and I know I don't have it all figured out, but that is part of the journey.
My apologies, I assumed you may have been familiar with Rene Decartes.
I'll explain it this way: How do you know something? How do you know something as simple as your keyboard is in front of you?
You can see it and you can feel it, right?
But that doesn't actually prove the keyboard really exists. That just proves your eyes see a keyboard and your hands feel a keyboard.
And really, you can't even 100% sure of that. You know from experience that your senses aren't 100% trustworthy. They can be confused by psychological tricks or medical conditions can cause senses to report things that aren't really there. As mentioned before, optical illusions, phantom pain, schizophrenia, magic tricks, desert mirages, LSD, mushrooms, etc are all known cases where your eye sight, hearing, or sense of touch report things that aren't there.
So really, all you can say for 100% certainity is that you think your senses are reporting there's a keyboard in front of you.
While four hundred years too early, Decartes would have used The Matrix as a great example. Relying solely on your senses, there is no difference between your reality now and if you were hooked up to The Matrix. Everything you saw, heard, or touched would prove that the Matrix was reality- yet it wasn't.
Likewise, while it is incredibly unlikely and not at all practical, there is still a tiny tiny chance that you just may be inside a giant virtual reality world.
> When asked for evidence,
When asked for evidence I listed several resources for you. I'll explicitly bullet them for you this time :-)
> That's because there is no actual evidence for God, which brings me back to it not being a knowable thing.
In the sense you're using "knowing" and "evidence", I would say there is plenty.
I'm sure I'll get downmodded for this but,
Perhaps you might take another look at faith?
I definitely do not support faking belief, but at least looking into it will show her you care deeply enough about her to reexamine your decision. Also, show her that passage in 1 Corinthians that Such_is_Mango mentioned. (But I wouldn't recommend being confrontational).
(If you want to at least try this, The Case for Christ or The Case for Faith are excellent books. They approach the issue scientifically and historically and use mainly non-Biblical sources and list tons of references. They also focus more on the original Jesus, where love trumps all, rather than all the ritualism and occasional animosity that has been built up . . .)
*Edit: formatting and links
One, I've on Redditt for a week now. It's good to finally see some people who don't bash God.
Two. You should read a book called "The Case for Faith".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0310234697
Also wrote "The Case For Christ" and "The Case for a Creator"
Very powerful books. Set out to disprove God, found nothing but proof.
We are called to have the minds of a serpent. God doesn't want a blind following. We are to come to Him with a child like faith, but after that, we are to sharpen our minds and to know what we believe and why we believe it. Reading the Bible is necessary. You can't just kind of know some of the Biblical stories. Read them yourself. Read what's before and what comes after them.
So many times people lift little tidbits from the bible to prove their point about how ridiculous it is.
Too many choose to believe that some of the Bible is true but other parts aren't. It's either all or nothing.
I'll tell you, there is more science that lines up with the Bible than not.
Ok ... evidence from my side ...
> we have so many copies of the New Testament that there is no doubt about what they say on any Christian doctrine. We have so many copies, not to mention all the quotes and paraphrases from the church fathers, that we know all the meaning of the Bible. However, many copies have textual copyist errors, and we are about 97% certain of each word of the New Testament. On one hand, this is a very high percentage. On the other hand, it could be higher. Perhaps a lesson to learn is that God was extremely concerned with preserving 100% of the meaning of the New Testament, but not as concerned with the individual words.
-- http://inerrancy.org/ntmss.htm
Other places to read:
Edit: formatting
Edit 2: add a book
Be warned that the Bible is a long, convoluted string of garble that most people pick and choose from. It is tough to sit down and read it from start to finish because of the many contradictions and possible interpretations. I think on r/christianity they advise the King James (?) version. But they all deliver the same message.
The trap you should worry about falling into is circular logic. I believe God because the Bible says so. I believe the Bible because God says so.
You are probably best viewing the existence of God from a higher level, and delve deeper if you are convinced that a God must exist. Have a look also at a book such as a case for fath which provides an argument for the christian God.
From the atheist perspective, I think the God delusion is a great starting point. It covers evolution, natural selection, the propagation of religion, morality etc. The only emptiness I found after reading that book was in regards to the cosmological arguments. How did the Universe start? Have a look at this link for the best answer I have seen.
Ground yourself from both perspectives so you can interpret and understand what you are reading. I advise reading the atheist arguments first as the onus on proving God is on those making the claim. So, you are best to be well grounded in reality before confronting religious texts so you can better separate the bullshit from the rest.