MarkZ14861391

I messaged you in the hope of convincing you to change your world view, no easy task! I'll try to respond to your tweets in order. I guess I need to know more about your beliefs, are you a creationist? Do you understand some of the basics of science, ie the big bang theory? The reason I brought up other religions is that you must see that had you been born in another country, say India, you would most likely be a hindu, if you were born 10,000 years ago you might be worshipping some type of animalistic deity. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of gods that predate Christianity many of which have extremely similar characteristics. For example Attis of Phrygia: born on December 25th, was a savior who was slain to save mankind, his body as bread was eaten by his worshippers, he was crucified on a tree, and he rose from the dead 3 days later... This is not a coincidence, the story of Jesus Christ is an elaborately detailed fable. A fable that has aspects of which have been reused many many times before he was supposed to have lived. The bible wasn't even written until 70 years after his supposed death. So in terms of humans knowing the Christian god before others and straying away from him, no they didn't.

I am going to assume that you don't take every word of the bible literally, so I don't think we need to argue about whether the Christian god is good or bad. There are many examples of god doing things that we would consider evil and other times things that are good. I was just trying to make the point that god is not always spreading joy amongst his follows and making them feel complete, he could be killing children or destroying all of humanity in a flood. Yes, I understand that most of these seem to be moral lessons, but many people take the bible literally, and often the morals are not even what most people would agree with today. For example the systematic and overt oppression of homosexuals.

I think you can make a pretty easy argument that religions bring alot more pain and conflict into the world than they bring good. I'm not sure what a spiritual gift test is, maybe you can tell me about it. I know Christians give alot charitably, I think that's great, having organized communities of people that want to help people are fantastic.

I'm enjoying talking to you, I hope you feel the same way. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and more about your faith. I also don't want you to feel personally attacked, although in a way that's what I'm doing :/ I guess I want you to know I don't think you are stupid or bad, or that I'm trying to be malicious. Let me know your thoughts!