Christianity vs FACTS

Here's the Christian-Fundamentalist's spontaneous forum-lecture I'm responding to:
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1. We do know what He regards as best, by His word and the fact that He walked among us, fully God, fully human, lived the perfect life free of sin, died and rose again in accordance with scripture.

2. I agree, we can't rely on our feelings to determine the truth. Mormons say they have prayed about it and feel that the Mormon texts are the truth, as do Muslims, Hindus and Christians. Truth does not stem from what we feel. Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

We are separate from other creatures according to God's word. None other were created in His image. Totally made up stories? The OT is essentially the history of the Jewish people. You think it's all just fairy tales? We know Jesus was real the same way we know Abraham Lincoln was real. Through reliable eyewitness testimony and records. We can today in the 21st century go to the original Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible and translate them directly into English. We don't lose anything in translation.

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever.

In terms of why the Bible is true and other religious texts aren't, there is significantly more documentation for the books of the Bible than there are for other historically recognized authors and literature, including Plato and others. Excavation sites and artifacts also provide evidence that many of the events, people, and places mentioned in the Bible really existed, including the Hittite people and the city of Jericho. The Gospels give multiple points of view and, in many cases, were written within the lifetimes of the people who witnessed the events recorded in the Bible. Writers focused on different aspects, but they had the same message: Jesus taught, healed, performed miracles, died on the cross, and rose from the dead.

Do you sincerely think it's all lies? What is true then in your eyes? How do you know George Washington was real, genesis khan, any historical figure? You have Christianity to thank for creating the environment possible for science to flourish and allow you to form these opinions and theories that we are nothing but meaningless stardust and chemical reactions.

Your 3rd point, actually, it's our fault! We have fallen from God's original purpose for us. It is His fault we have free will yes, but we made the choices that lead us astray from the start, and we continue to do it through our sin. Your 4th point, again, we do have a way to know what He thinks, His word. If Loki created everything, it would automatically make everything he says the truth. You as a creation stand on fallacy if you think that you know better than the being who created the reality in which you live.

...
 you are clearly seeking the truth, and I am sorry you have been misled by this world.
I pray that you come to know the one true God. If you do indeed keep seeking the truth, you will end up looking right at Him. As He is the way, the truth, and the life. You are valuable, you know that love is real. Atheism says the opposite. Your life has meaning and purpose, and I hope that you come to Christ and find it one day. God bless you sister! I am praying for you

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My reply:
[Note:

He addressed this to someone else (a friend of mine).

 She linked the discussion to me; curious about what I'd say. 

It would take too long to address every single thing he says.
I'm certainly willing to.  But, here, I've just chosen a list of crucial points to highlight.

All words in BLUE are clickable links
I will add more academic support for my positions, as time permits; in future edits].
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Here are my thoughts on the matter:

 Leading archeologists,

and
the majority consensus among archeologists
agree that:

* Moses was either mostly fictional
or
(most probably) entirely fictional.

They say the same thing about:

*The Exodus,

*Abraham,

*Adam and Eve,

*Noah,

many other key biblical figures.
and many other key biblical events.

Bibles get a LOT of history wrong.

It also contains as lot of forgeries.

It also contains a lot of so-called "prophecy" that was dishonestly written during
and after
the events they pretended to write about in advance.

They also contain some actual predictions
which turned out to be failed predictions.

They also get most of the science they mentioned:
entirely wrong.

They thought the sun came into existence
several "days" after the earth.
That's wrong; no matter what you think "days" meant.

They thought the sky was a solid metal dome.
They called that the "firmament".
They were wrong about that too.

They thought the moon and sun were respectively independent light sources.
That's wrong.

They thought outer space was a vast ocean of water;
and that holes in the sky would let the rain in.
That's wrong.

They thought the earth's vegetation grew before there was a sun.
That's wrong.

They thought mankind was directly created into existence around the year 4000 BCE.
That's wrong.
Even if you toy around with theoretical numbers, to push the date back another thousands years or so. It would still be fantastically wrong.

They pretended the Hebrew belief system and Yahweh-ism was the first religious belief system.
That's impressively wrong too.

Hinduism is the oldest currently practiced faith-based ideology/religion.
And there were many far older religions which came and went before them.

OT Hebrews were the Canaanites.

They gradually developed a different religious and ethnic identity.

The Hebrews were POLYTHEISTS when they copied and adapted other/older religions' stories to create the Torah with.

They didn't become monotheists until they were conquered by the Babylonians; merely 5 or so centuries before the beginning of Christianity.

When they switched to monotheism, they re-worked their stories,
to be mostly (not even entirely) monotheistic.

Yahweh developed gradually.

He was made from parts of older dead/defunct gods.
He was, in effect, a Frankenstein's Monster-God.

One of the gods they scavenged for lore-parts was called "El".

Going even further back in history, "El" was first name of their entire pantheon of gods.

The name "Yahweh" is only even assumed to have been intended as a name.
It's actually extrapolated from a shorthand sentence; based on the lore of what a god said to "Moses", when that character asked for his name.

That sentence was NOT "I AM", nor "I AM THAT I AM".
That rendering is an apologetic invention.
In truth, scholars admit they don't know what how the source text for that passage should be translated. And that they aren't even sure the story intended to mean that deity was revealing a name.

Christianity was built upon many severe misunderstandings of the Hebrew texts.

Many of the texts which they cite as prophecies about Jesus ... were actually only talking about the entire Jewish people; not about a messiah.

The Christian texts are made from parts of stories and concept from other religious cultures.
Most of it was borrowed and adapted from the Hellenistic Greeks.
That's why there are parallels between Christianity and Stoicism.

The anonymous writers of the so-called "gospels" were most likely elites; drawing from Greek and Roman literary concepts. 

NONE of the Christian texts date back to the time they allege their "Christ" existed.

Only about half of the letters traditionally attributed to Paul
were actually written by him.
But his writings came first, among the Christian texts.

He didn't even begin to write about any of it, until decades after the alleged time of the Christian Christ.

In his writings, he claimed that he had NOT heard anything about the gospel events from any human being. He claimed he got it all directly from visions.

He also insisted that Jesus never performed any earthly miracles; not even in front of witnesses.

The so-called Gospels were written even later. 

They were all written by NON-eyewitnesses; repeating and adding to the rumors.
 
They don't even agree with each other much about the details of what happened ... except for the parts Matthew-book and Luke-book copied verbatim from Mark-book.

Later, came what we call "John".

Each of those books tries to one-up the versions that came before it.
Thus, we end up with John-book telling us about the most grand miracles ... which apologists expect us to assume the other "gospel" writers just forgot to mention, and (again) which Paul was sure never happened. 

Meanwhile, some of the things in the "gospel" stories ...
literally cannot have happened.
 
Quirinius didn't become governor of Syria until several years after Herod died.
But we're told in Christian gospels that Jesus was born while Herod was still king AND while Quirinus was governor of Syria. 
 Those claims can't both be true. 

We're also told that all the local graves had dead saints climb out of the ground. And then they went around testifying about Jesus. 
 If THAT had happened, it would have been a MAJOR historical event; which would have tons of archaeological support. 
 But it didn't. So there isn't. 

Each one of those books was meant to COMPETE with the ones that came before it; as these anonymous writers each tried to out-awesome the others, in their respective bids to become influential fan-fiction writers for that niche.

According to renowned New Testament scholar,  Bart Ehrman, ...

Other than the gospel stories (some of which never got canonized; and NONE of which were written by eye witnesses):

Before objections to this claim get thrown my way, ...
consider:

Tacitus wasn't even BORN until long after 
Jesus is alleged to have died. 
And it's actually not certain that he even mentioned the Christian Jesus or the Christian Christ. 


As for Josephus,
most of what he is cited for by Christians has been exposed as forgeries. 

At most, he found it credible that a real person inspired or started the religion. 
But that point isn't in dispute.  

There simply aren't any known documents or archeological objects in existence 
from even a single eye witness 
for the existence of a non-divine version of Jesus.

Meanwhile,
ZERO non-Christian scholars think there's any evidence at all for a divine God-man. 

But you live and learn in a religious-cultural bubble; where "knowledge" is carefully and diligently filtered, to protect your fragile, patriarchal,
clinically Narcissistic culture
(which doubles as a mafia-type Protection Racket)
from losing the "sheep" it controls and exploits. 

So whenever scholars (or scientists) agrees with a single item,
you people shout "See. We should listen to the qualified experts in their respective fields. They know what they're talking about. This is how we avoid relying on our emotions!".

And yet
every time the qualified experts REFUTE what your cult-ure says (which is: usually),
you all shout "Pay no attention to those worldly people with their fancy titles. They are under the power of the Wicked One.
FAITH is what proves itself!"
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As for the claim "You have Christianity to thank for creating the environment possible for science to flourish and allow you to form these opinions and theories that we are nothing but meaningless stardust and chemical reactions."
 that claim
has been *thoroughly debunked as well. 
(clickable link. Video is called "The Theft Of Our Values. by DarkMatter2525)

See also:
This:
 ("appropriating morality | how 'the Judeo-Christian tradition' takes false credit". by TheraminTrees
and 
This: Western Civilization is Based on Judeo-Christian Values – Debunked. by RationalityRules

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If it wasn't for false-facts,
logical fallacies,
emotional manipulations,
gaslighting,
and constantly contradicting yourselves (and each other),
you lot wouldn't have anything to say at all.

Keep praying.
At least that will help shelter you from growing up and taking responsibility.

https://youtu.be/h_UmuEBmS5k