@Jackson5

What is the most compelling objective reason you have for believing a deity is real?

Since he ignored my question I'll repeat it, and I will also point out, as I have done many times before, how bizarrely inconsistent it is when theists come here and loudly proclaim evidence in post after posts, and yet don't open in their very first post with the most compelling piece of evidence they think they have? It's almost as if at some level they suspect themselves that they're holding an empty bag.

I just don't understand why you guys are all being so tough on J5. After all, the poor guy is just learning his alphabet and can barely count to three....

https://youtu.be/X0Ph9Tc8tUw

@JACKSON5

I was raised by a devout christian family, and although we went to church each Sunday and had bible books liberally sprinkled around the house for us kids to read, I never really learned enough about the bible until many decades later. I am telling you this part of my life story because I believe you are in the situation I once was in, namely devout and full of the desire to do god's bidding. But with more enthusiasm and energy than knowledge.

Person to person, I admire your courage just to come in here, and the fortitude not to turn tail and run at the first sign of resistance.

Please understand that the great majority of atheists in here were former theists, and each one of us had to do a lot of soul-searching, research, and deep thinking to realize "we" (us atheists) did not have enough evidence to believe in this creature. It is not that anyone had a bad experience and is driven by hate, but rather one day you begin to understand that there really isn't a dude dressed in red who delivered presents in one night. But as one begins to learn more and question, some answers that you never pondered at the age of three now become important questions that lay in the path of believing the stories.

And many were on the end of pleas and pressure from family and friends to remain a theist.

So coming in here and basically making a plea is like entering a lion's den full of starving loins, and wearing a raw steak suit. If you desire to pursue this further, I advise you to arm yourself better, to learn the true history of the bible, and to become very familiar with the arguments, fallacies, and debunking.

I am not your enemy, we just have opposing positions. I wish you and your loved ones are doing well in this time of pandemic.

This isn't a new idea of course, indeed many posters here, including me, have made this very argument in as many as words.

The Arguments from Confusion and Biblical Defects (2006) by Theodore M. Drange

"Ted Drange develops two arguments for the nonexistence of the God of evangelical Christianity, an all-powerful and loving being greatly concerned about the fate of human beings and desiring a personal relationship with them. According to his argument from confusion (AC), widespread confusion between Christians over matters of ultimate importance entails that the God of evangelical Christianity probably does not exist. In particular, the rampant diversification of Christian sects on such matters entails that, even if any one of those sects is correct, large numbers of Christians must hold false beliefs about issues of ultimate importance--contrary to what one would predict if the God of evangelical Christianity existed. The argument from biblical defects (ABD) contends that if the God of evangelical Christianity existed, then the Bible would probably be perfectly clear and authoritative and without marks of solely human authorship; but since the Bible does not meet either of these criteria, the God of evangelical Christianity probably does not exist."

Oh look, he's brought Arsewater In Genesis to the table.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

In case you never learned this, Ken Ham is a lying sack of shit. Creationism is bullshit and lies from start to finish, all of which has been repeatedly destroyed by the people who paid attention in class. Oh, and your sad little mythology isn't "unique", it's merely one of dozens of mythologies that humans have invented during the pre-scientific part of the history of our species.

@ Cranky
Sorry mate, but having neither read a book by either Ehrman or Carrier, despite having watched several lectures of both, I could not venture an honest opinion on the relative strengths or weaknesses of their views or theories about Christianity or the Bible. I learn slow too. But I don't think it matters which of the two is more correct or who has the more congenial delivery of his views. I have learned a lot from both just from their videos. What's more important is that their talks and especially their 'disputes' just generate more publicity about the errancy of the Bible and serves to undermine the tenets of various Christian faiths. One man talking is just the public airing of an opinion, while two talking at odds is a controversy which creates much more interest and sometimes money.

On the matter of Jesus being the 'new' Moses, its the body of research the Rev Spong refers to that shows each of the gospels is a mini-Pentateuch following the liturgical progress of the annual worship in the synagogue. So just when the Jews were celebrating the festival of Shauvot, they were reading from Deuteronomy about Moses's giving of the Law on Mt Sinai, while in services, earlier or later that same day, the early Jewish Christians were also reading Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus supposedly set out some basic ground rules for his followers including how to pray in private. The convergence of Moses and Jesus as law givers wasn't just a happy coincidence, nor was it history. It was literary licence contrived to marry the new heresy to the old doctrine.
Just something else Jackson5 can chew on.