I'm a Christian (Biblical Unitarian) and my girlfriend is agnostic.
I've never been the best evangelist. We've had good, long talks about God and faith and all that. She'd love to have the faith I have, but she's a hard sell and the crux of her skepticism makes for an interesting discussion topic:
Aside from the notion of eternal life, what does Christianity offer someone who is content with the life they're currently living?
>>1006438
Nothing.
Eternal life, for starters.
>>1006438
Muslim here: it's not about benefits like that. Either she believes that God is the truth, and everything it comes with, or she doesn't. Start there: does she believe in God, simple yes or no.
>>1006557
This
>>1006556
Aside from eternal life. It's cleary stated in the question.
>>1006438
Mark 1:24
What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!
------------
In this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God
------------
Explain
Antichrist confirmed
>>1006737
I don't get it.
>>1006814
It's just to avoid the obvious conclusion of the jesus episode that is, the whole thing is just a plot by god acting through satan in order to test the faith of jews.
Most people who have a normal IQ and haven't been brainwashed since childhood prove to be harder to convert
Any non-Christian familiar with the basic tenants of Christianity that reads through the book of Job is going to be nigh impossible to sell on the whole thing.
>>1006438
For a person who is entirely content as they are; sinning blithely without regret, there is nothing that Christianity can offer. For this reason God will take your happiness from you. So that you shall seek him.
>Mark 4:15
>Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
You can't really ever convert a person through evidence. Short of a video recording of jesus rising from the grave there will always be room for doubt when miracles are involved. If we can't even be completely sure that the world around us exists what chance does jesus have?
You have to come over through faith and that's ultimately going to be up to the individual in question. Something's going to have to convince them that they'd rather be with christ than certainty.
t. atheist
>>1007389
This seems like it's skirting around the main point of there not being any real evidence, in particular for the divinity.
And by many definitions there basically can't be.
Maybe if you're raising the point of the historical Jesus you can claim that there is somewhat shaky ground for him to exist on.
>>1006438
I've got bad news for you. Your girlfriend is an atheist, whether either of you want to use the word or not.
>>1006438
>Aside from the notion of eternal life,
Personally I think this is the most vile thing about Christianity and many other religions. Holding an imaginary afterlife as a carrot on a stick is incredibly damaging.
You only get one life, and this is it. Please, please, please don't waste it waiting for heaven. That life is limited and finite is what makes it so special. Respect every moment you are here and aware, it's all going to be over before you know it.
Other that, in order for you and your girlfriend to have a good relationship you will both need to respect each other's beliefs and different outlooks.
>>1006438
>Aside from the notion of eternal life, what does Christianity offer someone who is content with the life they're currently living?
Endless cuckoldery, so I guess that's a win for her
>>1006829
Not necessarily. I think agnosticism gets a bad rap as something people turn to when they just don't care or are ambivalent.
I see it as the acknowledgment that the human capacity for understanding is limited. The same way an any cannot comprehend even the basics of complex algebra, there are some things that are simply beyond what humans can understand.
Which isn't to say that we should stop our quest for learning and knowledge. But do so knowing that we only really understand a glimmer of what is really going on.
Agnostic here. I'm not Agnostic out of lack of caring. I'm Agnostic out of lack of understanding.
My thought process is something like this: Things exist, but why? Some force beyond the realm of our understanding caused our universe as we know it. This is more or less incontrovertible. Science can't explain the existence of matter and energy, it can only address it as we observe it. Religion can only provide answers without evidence, leaving it to you to take those answers on faith.
Without faith in any particular religion and without answers from science, I'm hanging in limbo. I'm not waiting for anything to be proven because for the existence of the human race no one has managed so far, so all I can do is keep an open mind and a clear conscience.
A common theme at the core of any religion, past all the politics and the agendas of the various religious organizations, is that people should treat each other well. The reasoning and methodology of this can be disputed, and some of the basic tenants need to be viewed through the lens of the culture at the time they were authored. I'm just hoping if I am faced with a judgement of sorts after death, I won't be too heavily penalized for doing right within the scope of my understanding.
Have her read Kierkegaard.
>>1006438
Why would you want to change her mind?
Why can't you just accept that people are different and stop proselytizing?
Speaking as someone who was with a Catholic woman for a while, shit gets fucking annoying, seriously.
>Aside from the notion of eternal life, what does Christianity offer someone who is content with the life they're currently living?
Meaning and purpose.
>>1008430
It seems someone who is content with her life has some measure of meaning and purpose, what meaning and purpose can religion offer?
>>1008381
I see it in this way, what has the best chance of explaining the origin of the universe (if it is indeed possible in the first place).
Science has made enormous progress in our understanding of the universe and I see it as being the only way we can arrive at such truths.
Religion while being beneficial for a number of other reasons, has not and I think cannot offer any sufficiently acceptable answers.
Seeing the history of religious ideas form and evolve throughout history has only strengthened this idea for me. It may be useful to give a person a sense of worth and purpose but as far as the big questions are concerned, I've found it woefully inadequate.
>>1008457
Don't ask me m8 I guess I'm agnostic as well, it just happens that I've considered that the life I live and how I live it is objectively meaningless unless there *is* something higher.
>>1006438
It offers the wisdom of not pairing yourself up with an unbeliever, for one.
>>1006438
Not being subject to persecution and exclusion, historically.
>>1006737
You're applying a test for the spirits after the resurrection to spirits before the resurrection. Also, Legion did not say Jesus came down from heaven in the flesh, they just know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.
>>1007294
Exactly the opposite of this.
>>1008508
You think that the book of Job is going to sell someone on Christianity?
>>1008457
>he's an aesthete
>he thinks his life has meaning
>he's in despair without realizing it
smugkierkegaard.jpg
>>1008430
>Meaning and purpose.
But you don't need Christianity to have meaning or purpose...
>>1008583
Absolutely. It's a beautiful book. Take everything in it as true, and become wise.
>>1008802
Godless people have the meaning and purpose of animals.
>>1008505
>You're applying a test for the spirits after the resurrection to spirits before the resurrection
why the hell would it matter if the test was used before or after the resurrection? there is no passage to support that spirits would acknowledge Jesus came in the flesh pre-resurrection but not post. it boils down to being another internal inconsistency in the bible, which of course you tried to make this loophole to avoid
>>1008838
God lets Satan torture a man to prove a point about the singular hand-picked believer.
>>1006438
>Unitarian
>Christian
Pick one
>>1008845
It's not inconsistent at all. Before Jesus came down to earth, nobody had an opinion on the nature of Jesus coming down to earth.
When Jesus rose from the dead, and sent the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to His disciples, satan sent the spirit of antichrist to his.
Just because Legion knows Who Jesus is does not invalidate the test of the spirit; whatever spirit cannot admit that Jesus came down from heaven in the flesh is the spirit of antichrist.
>>1008864
I'm sorry you missed the entire point of the book. Maybe reread it without a banana in your ass.
>>1008911
The point is irrelevant. The actions that your God takes are beyond justification.
>>1008906
>Just because Legion knows Who Jesus is does not invalidate the test of the spirit;
so Jesus is standing there, in the flesh, human body. the spirit acknowledges that he's from God. how exactly is this not acknowledging that Jesus came in the flesh?
Christianity forms the basis for the moral ideals of modern western society, many societies are comparatively worse off partly because they don't share those ideals.
It's probably best to have a selective approach with your personal beliefs without caring about what people demanding stricter adherence may think. The same goes for any other faith.
>>1008843
Well that's nice and condescending. I worked in a church for almost 15 years and saw plenty of deeply religious people with no sense of purpose and hearts full of hatred and vitriol. There were good people as well of course, but attitudes like yours are one of the key reasons I eventually distanced myself from them entirely.
You can indeed live a meaningful life full of purpose without the belief in a god.
You'd have better luck converting her to the reality of everything being Shiva. The is little denial for us as individuals being the universe experiencing ourselves subjectively as the heiros gamos, the cosmic dance that is holy fucking.
Not that I deny the death and resurrection of the sun god as I have seasonal affective disorder. I just sounds lame as an argument when you tell it how it is. I get sad when the sun dies and before he comes back into power and want to kill myself.
>>1009010
The sun doesn't die or come back to life. That's the uneven angle of our planet around our star. Personifying natural processes like seasons will only lead to a life of more confusion and depression.
In winter months spend more time in the sun and eat as many fresh vegetables as you can. That will help your seasonal disorder more than anything.
>>1006438
>Unitarian
>Christian
>Dating an atheist
>Christian
>>1007777
Check em my man
>>1009036
There are no fresh vegetables. What would help is the sun not abandoning me in the winter and the earth not trying to kill me with pollen and mold in the spring and all. Your gods are assholes.
>>1008945
Seriously, read it again. Don't read it like a news report, that's not how wisdom literature was read.
>>1009080
How do Christians deal with the fact that they all think their specific sect has the Truth and all the others are wrong? How do you pick which one to go with? What your parents followed? Or do you decide another way?
>>1009181
It's what their parents followed unless some dude have them the spiritual d or some chick put out. Also that is mostly an evangelical Protestant thing. Catholics that aren't too spooky spiccy are too jaded to care..
>>1009161
Where do you live where there are no fresh vegetables in winter? Even cold storage foods like brussels sprouts, carrots and kale will be a massive help.
Also if you live way north or way south where you get very few hours of light in the winter make sure you get out in it. The sun hasn't abandoned you. You're on a planet.
The pollen and mold I can't help you with though.
>>1008430
>Meaning and purpose.
Why do you (and many others) feel such a need for those? Serious question.
>>1009370
Life comes with a lot of hardship and suffering. No matter what, you can't avoid it. Having a sense of purpose and meaning to what you do makes the hardships easier to handle and puts them in perspective.
You don't need religion or even spirituality to have either of those though.
>>1009181
Simple.
Sect A believes 1,2, 3, and 4
Sect B believes 1, 2, 4, and 5
Go back in history and the mutual ancestors believe 1, 2, 3, and 4, showing that dismissal of 3 and the concept of 5 came much, MUCH later with no presence in the early days.
Your best bet for authenticity is the one with the older beliefs, Sect A. Especially when Sect B screams about 6 which anime familiar with history, archeology and how religions develop will call it retarded.
>>1009432
Then Zoroastrianism was the answer all along, since it's the most ancient and authentic form of pre-Abrahamic socio-religious practice there is!
Hail Ahura Mazda!
>>1009484
What if Jesus was alluding to Ahura Mazda instead of YHWH the entire gospel?
>>1009484
But a lot of Zoroastrianism is based on even earlier Babylonian beliefs. Shouldn't we go back further?
>>1008945
They are beyond justification indeed. That you think God needs to justify Himself to you, or to Job, means that you did not understand Job, at all.
Not one bit.
It's EXACTLY the lesson of Job that you missed.
>>1009484
Nice job missing the point.
It's not about broad authenticity, but authenticity witching a defined group, namely Christians. No Christians care about authenticity to Judaism because that's like the Confederates and Union arguing over who are truly American and then you saying they're all actually Roman because Rome conquered the British Isles at one point.
Christian arguments over truth among Christianity is based on "who's most like the Early Christians?" Not "who's most liek the earliest recorded religions?"
>>1009500
That's some real fuckin' heresy right there my man. Agents of the Holy See are en route. You will be provided one (1) Bible during the internment.
>>1008969
Came down from heaven in the flesh. As in, was in heaven for eternity past, than a few thousand years ago, manifested in the flesh as the Son of Man, and the Son of God.
The first antichrists, the gnostics, denied that God could be housed in flesh. Hence John's admonition that they are not of us.
If you ever see an angel, ask it whether or not Jesus came down from heaven in the flesh. Without the Holy Spirit's allowance, a demon cannot say yes.
>>1008410
Came here to say that. While you're at it, OP, if you see Christianity as "having things to offer" and chief among these isn't one of the richest intellectual traditions in human history, you should read him to understand your faith better, too.
>>1008997
"Deeply religious" people also have no meaning in their life, and no understanding of God.
>>1009181
Jesus said "I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life; no man comes to the Father but by Me."
That's how.
>>1009181
>Read earliest Christians
>They agree with my beliefs
>H-How can you possibly reconcile the fact that group that clearly arose later on are wrong and you're right
>>1009484
Daily reminder that you are a fool who cannot be taught wisdom.
>>1009560
First called Christians derisively at Antioch. Just like we're derisively called christcucks here.
Some things never change.
>>1009567
>tfw christcuck will be our actual moniker in the coming centuries
>>1009730
>tfw islam is coming
>>1009561
Why do fundamentalists always resort so quickly to personal attack?
>>1007874
>That life is limited and finite is what makes it so special.
Not a propagandist for the other side, but i've never understood why isn't it actually discardable and useless then, in the grand scheme of things.
>>1009916
>implying it can't be both
The union of duality is one of the oldest themes of religion.
>>1006438
your girlfriend is gonna burn in agony for all eternaty and there is nothing you can do to prevent that
