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Chris asks me to evaluate two arguments

March 21, 2004

Someone identified as Chris sent me the following email: (email address withheld)


Mr. Reddekopp,

Would you please examine this writing and give me your thoughts on this, thank you.

1.Christians claim god is all powerful.
2. Christians claim god promises regeneration in thought and deed.
3.Regeneration does not occur.
4.Therefore, god is not all powerful.

And this one as well,

1. One learns by experience with empirical data
2. Empirical data can be verified
3. The notion of god is not based on empirical data
4. Therefore, god cannot be verified.

Thanks again,
Chris

My reply:

Hi Chris

I agree that biblical Christianity promises regeneration. For example, Second Corinthians 5:17 tells says,

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

And Ephesians 4:21-24 says:

If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

So, according to the Bible, the Christian is expected to become a renewed person and is told that it will happen. However, we do not see that Christians are necessarily more ethical or moral than non-Christians.

For example, Christians generally consider divorce to be failure or even sin and, if Christians are "new creatures", you'd expect that Christians would experience significantly less divorce than non-Christians. However, according polls conducted by Christian researcher George Barna, Christians are just as likely to divorce as non-Christians. (See this page at Barna.org.)

We also see that atheists, compared to Christians, are under-represented in prison populations. See these two pages, at Infidels.org and AtheistEmpire.com for more information on atheists and morality.

I also agree that the existence of gods cannot be verified due to the absence of empirical support for the various claims about the existence of gods. I have yet to see any good evidence supporting such claims.

I'm going to post your message on the Graveyard of the Gods message board. If you'd like to see what the others have to say about it, you can check here: www.graveyardofthegods.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1634

If you'd like to register and join in the conversation, please feel free to do so.

The conversation will be posted on my site at http://nodeity.com/feedback/chris.html
To respect your privacy, I won't post your email address or any other personal details aside from the first name you provided.

Sincerely,
Brad Reddekopp


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