Again, what are you arguing here? That because I am still an atheist and still entangled in my dilemma that proves that I will never be willing to take into consideration the arguments of others? You just know this?
And here I am entangled in a dilemma that fractures and fragments “me” to the point that I am unable to “take a stand” regarding moral and political commitments. Why? Because even to the extent that I take political leaps to one or another position, I still recognize them for the “existential contraptions” that [from my frame of mind here and now] they are. Also, as I get closer and closer to the dreaded oblivion I have nothing to make that go away. Whereas most religious folks are able to think themselves into believing it’s not really oblivion at all.
On the contrary, it is one or another rendition of salvation itself. Paradise for some.
Again, there are folks who do have the comfort and the consolation of being able to connect those dots between here and now and there and then. They know what the “right thing to do” is. And they know “in their head” that if they do the right thing they are Heaven bound.
And the only reason I created this thread was that, way back when, zinnat had promised me that he would eventually get around to that part himself.
So, sure, I can see why I have absolutely nothing to gain at all in having others reconfigure my bleak and somber frame of mind with an argument that yanks me up out of this grim hole that I’m in.
What then are the minimal requirements that the Christian is required to have in order to convince either Non-Christians or atheists that in fact Jesus Christ died for our sins?
What is not in dispute however is the existence of all those grains of sand.
Notice how you shift from considering questions where reason and judgement could be methodically applied, to questions which are easily settled or almost impossible to settle. IOW, shifting from work and philosophy to the relaxed, safe and comfortable.
Notice how that more or less revolves around the distinction that I am always making between the world of either/or and the world of is/ought. The world of empirical rerality and the world of value judgments and religious convictions. As that relates to our capacity to demonstrate that what we believe about reality in either world is something that all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe in turn.
So, with regard to “reason and judgement” that can be “methodically applied” to Jesus Christ, let the Christians among us demonstrate why and how reasonable men and women should believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins.
And though this may well be “impossible” to settle, I can only keep pointing out that with so much at stake – immortality, salvation, divine justice – it would seem incumbent upon Christians to come up with the most convincing argument of all.
Do you have one?
I think that you now find your dilemma easy and comfortable.
Think again.