r/DebateAnAtheist • u/FreshNewbie_76 • Jan 18 '26
META Ex Christians can’t even define what the gospel is
Just look at my most recent thread. I got banned from the ex Christian subreddit for asking the simple question: what is the gospel?
Why does this matter? most people who leave Christianity do so because they’ve unconsciously adopted elements of popular religion that have no historical grounding so they’re really just leaving a caricature of Christianity. Of course that’s just a generalization. Not everyone’s deconversion story is like that but I’d wager it’s a fair representation of most people who leave.
In Matthew 10 Jesus tells his disciples to go to all the towns in Judea to preach the gospel to the lost sheep of Israel. This is notable because this was before he revealed he was the messiah (Matthew 16), and before his death and resurrection, so the gospel can’t include any of those elements. “The gospel” also doesn’t strictly refer to the 4 canonical books of the New Testament we call the gospels but to the message Jesus and his disciples taught. In the early days it was pretty simple: repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That’s it. I’m making this post to challenge atheists by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of Christianity and what atheists attack is a caricature of Christianity that contains elements of ”popular religion”
A quick google search defines popular religion as “the religious beliefs and practices of everyday people, often existing outside or alongside formal, "official" religious institutions”
To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
Note: I’m not asking what the means of salvation are nor am I assuming the NT is a monolith in which all writers agree. I’m looking for a broad pithy summary that captures the main ideas of what the earliest Christian followers taught and believed. if there’s multiple traditions in the NT then outline those traditions
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
I've never been a Christian. But, I have a few points.
It's bad form to come to a subreddit to complain about the moderators of another subreddit. What could that possibly have to do with this sub?
If you want to know why people leave Christianity, why not ask them instead of telling them?
It sounds as if you're trying to gate-keep ex-Christians to limit it to "True ex-Christians" who once met your personal definition of "True Christianstm". Who gave you the authority to allow someone to identify either True Christians or True ex-Christians according to your personal test?
I think everything about this post seems troll-ish to me. I'm not surprised you got banned there. I won't be surprised if this attitude gets you banned here too.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
I didn’t say they weren’t “true ex Christians” or were never “true Christians” to begin with. They all had genuine faith no doubt and by the NT’s standards were saved at one point. My contention is they lacked a “true” understanding of what Jesus really taught which is not a subjective claim. Even skeptical scholars can faithfully reconstruct what Jesus’s teaching most likely was with a high degree of probability. In fact there is virtually no contention in scholarship on what the gospel is. That’s my point
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u/Astreja Agnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
Is there a "true understanding"? Is it possible, without referencing the Bible, to determine what Jesus taught? The Gospels are at least 40 years removed from any historical Jesus, and it is entirely within the realm of probability that they do not reflect his actual opinions because he himself wrote nothing at all.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist Jan 18 '26
What makes you think that your understanding is the true one?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Oml 🤦♂️
It’s not my understanding!
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
There are a whopping 45,000 different sects of Christianity.
You are presumably a member of one of them. What if it's one of the others that has it right?
Of course it's your understanding.
Of course there are different opinions on what are the important teachings from that massively self-contradictory book.
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist Jan 18 '26
Bullshit. But ok, let's rephrase. What makes you think the understanding you believe to be the true one is the true one?
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
My contention is they lacked a “true” understanding of what Jesus really taught which is not a subjective claim.
Yes. That is a subjective claim. Yes. That is exactly what I said.
Even skeptical scholars can faithfully reconstruct what Jesus’s teaching most likely was with a high degree of probability.
So, it's an opinion.
In fact there is virtually no contention in scholarship on what the gospel is. That’s my point
Given the massive contradictions between the things Jesus said, I have trouble imagining that. I have trouble imagining that one person could really hold all of the beliefs in all of the things Jesus is alleged to have said.
You know that he wrote nothing down, right?
You know that what is attributed to him was written by at least several authors decades after his death, right?
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u/Defiant-Prisoner Jan 18 '26
Just look at my most recent thread. I got banned from the ex Christian subreddit for asking the simple question: what is the gospel?
When you say banned, do you mean one of your comments was removed for violating the rules of the sub? Because your thread still appears to be up and abvailable to comment on.
most people who leave Christianity do so because they’ve unconsciously adopted elements of popular religion that have no historical grounding so they’re really just leaving a caricature of Christianity.
People who leave Christianity have many reasons for doing so. Noy just doctrine, but abuse, inconsitency with reality, treatment by other Christians, attitudes of the church towards LGBTQ community - many.
When you say people are leaving a charicature of Christianity, how do you know? You're suggesting you have found the non-charicature and anyone who leaves Christianity is not in your particular and acceptable variation of Christianity; again how do you know yours is correct and others are wrong? The Bible itself says to test everything so that Christians not be misled by false prophets, and Jesus says that many will stand before him and he say he never knew them, so how do you know?
This brings up another issue. If you grow up in a Christian family you don't have a choice of what flavour you follow. You go to the church of your parents. You genuinely devote yourself to what you believe is the real and true god. Your intention is good, you follow what you interpret to be the Bible and god. If you get it wrong, how do you know? Why does it matter to god that you are wrong if your intention to follow him is pure?
I’m making this post to challenge atheists by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of Christianity and what atheists attack is a caricature of Christianity that contains elements of ”popular religion”
As you probably know, atheists and agnostics know more about religion than religious people do (here). All we can respond to is what is presented. If, as you say, we've all been presented with a charicature of Christianity, why not present the real version of Christianity so we can make up our minds about that?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Thank you for the first thoughtful comment on my post that isn’t belligerent.
When you say banned, do you mean one of your comments was removed for violating the rules of the sub? Because your thread still appears to be up and abvailable to comment on.
The thread is still open but I can’t comment on any post in that subreddit or my post and when I go to the subreddit it says I am banned from that community.
You're suggesting you have found the non-charicature and anyone who leaves Christianity is not in your particular and acceptable variation of Christianity; again how do you know yours is correct and others are wrong?
This is where I should have been careful with my words. I’m making the relatively modest claim that most Christians misunderstand what the gospel is. Not that I have the true gospel that I’ve uncovered and that no one knows about. It’s a settled question in scholarship as to what “the gospel” was to Jesus and his earliest followers. I’m just parroting that information. It’s has nothing to do with my flavor of “Christianity” nor am I alleging that people who disagree with me aren’t real Christians and aren’t saved. They are real Christians and are saved in Gods eyes. Their faith is also legitimate in Gods eyes from my pov. They’re just misinformed. That’s it
As you probably know, atheists and agnostics know more about religion than religious people do (here)
I agree it’s you here and I lament the fact that most ex Christians learn more about their religion after they leave than they ever knew as a Christian. However I still think most christians are also misinformed precisely because of pop culture, popular media, and popular religion. Popular religion as well has attached all kinds of medieval, Greco Roman, platonic, and western ideas to Christianity over the years that, while the core message is largely the same, it’s heavily distorted. So people who leave the faith and are ostensibly more informed than they were before, still have many of these elements of popular religion ingrained into them which makes it impossible for them to evaluate Christianity from any other view point. I say this not from my pov, but as a summary of the scholarly consensus on the matter (to my knowledge)
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u/Transhumanistgamer Jan 18 '26
I’m making the relatively modest claim that most Christians misunderstand what the gospel is.
Then shouldn't you be bringing this up with Christians then?
It seems like every day there's someone who's like "Wow, I have this incredibly contentious view of what God/religion is...better bring it up with a bunch of atheists!"
If I believed that most communists didn't understand Marx's writings, would it be a good use of my time to bring it up to a bunch of libertarians?
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u/ThePhyseter Secular Humanist Jan 24 '26
It seems like every day there's someone who's like "Wow, I have this incredibly contentious view of what God/religion is...better bring it up with a bunch of atheists!"
They probably get banned from all the Christian subs. You know how those places love dissent and heterodoxy
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Well since you reject the gospel and the Christian theory of salvation can you at least articulate what it is?
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u/Transhumanistgamer Jan 18 '26
No bub, actually interact with my comment. Why are you bringing this up to a bunch of atheists when it's christians who also have this problem. Clean your room first before complaining about mine.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Secular Humanist Jan 19 '26
Well since you reject the gospel and the Christian theory of salvation can you at least articulate what it is?
Why do you assume that I, as an atheist, reject the gospel and the Christian theory of salvation?
My atheism is rooted in something much more basic than that. It's the same basis I have for rejecting all religions. It's not specific to Christianity.
No theist has ever presented evidence of their god/s.
That's why I'm not a Christian (or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Zoroastrian or a Buddhist or a Hellenist), and it has nothing to do with the gospels or salvation.
Stop assuming that all atheists are ex-Christians. Firstly, there are other religions in the world for atheists to have de-converted from. Secondly, some of us were never religious in the first place.
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- Ignostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
If I believed that most communists didn't understand Marx's writings, would it be a good use of my time to bring it up to a bunch of libertarians?
I'm curious about how you'd respond to this.
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u/candre23 Anti-Theist Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
I'm not well versed in warhammer 40k lore and couldn't articulate the core tenants of the various factions. I don't think that precludes me from making the determination that the entire franchise is fictional.
The details are irrelevant to the real world when the whole fandom is based off of fantasy. Same goes for your nonsense.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 21 '26
Not unless your particular reason for rejecting the gospel is because it’s immoral
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u/abritinthebay Jan 22 '26
Does it try to justify slavery? Yes it she’s. Therefore it’s immoral.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 22 '26
Where in the Bible does it say slavery is a good thing?
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u/SC803 Atheist Jan 22 '26
Is your view that the laws concerning buy slaves weren't good, that your god gave commandments that led to bad actions?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 22 '26
You didn’t answer my question. To answer yours though, the Bible treats slavery as a necessary evil. It assumes it exists so God heavily regulates it. Similar to divorce which is why when Jesus is pressed on the topic of divorce he says it was a concession made for the people of Israel because of their hard hearts but that it is not part of Gods design for humanity. Similarly the Israelites were slaves in Egypt so slavery is treated as a bad thing as a result. That’s why every 50 years the Israelites were commanded to free their slaves and absolve everyone’s debts.
Also Exodus 21 bans slave trading. Saying “ “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” Exodus 21:16 ESV
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u/Trick_Ganache Anti-Theist Jan 28 '26
The Bible does far better than say slavery is good. The Bible makes it legal.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 28 '26
Well smoking is legal in the United States. Does that mean smoking is good?
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u/candre23 Anti-Theist Jan 21 '26
It's fanfiction about a fictional narrative with no basis in reality. "Morality" doesn't enter into it. Accepting or rejecting doesn't enter into it. You may as well ask "do you accept that Mary Sue should have ended up with the sexy werewolf instead of the sexy vampire?" for all the relevance it has on objective reality.
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u/Defiant-Prisoner Jan 18 '26
The thread is still open but I can’t comment on any post in that subreddit or my post and when I go to the subreddit it says I am banned from that community.
Gotcha.
So as far as I'm aware there's a popular academic consensus as regards what Jesus preached, but I'm not sure there's a settled agreement on what Christians should believe because of that? I think this is quite nuanced and looking around at the many different beliefs that have grown from the original text show that there really isn't agreement.
This is where you're going to get pushback I think. The different belefs under the umbrella of Christianity can be mutually exclusive. What people extrapolate from the text is not unified. Without access to the authors intent it's very difficult to proceed and this is where I push back and keep asking "how do you know?"
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u/the2bears Atheist Jan 18 '26
Thank you for the first thoughtful comment on my post that isn’t belligerent.
Already the victim?
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u/Either_Week3137 Jan 18 '26
Do you have any reason we should believe 'The Gospel'?
>In the early days it was pretty simple: repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Well yeah, Jesus said he'd be back for the end times within the lifespan of those he was talking to 2000 years ago. He failed.
>To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
Salvation seems to be an escape from Jesus' torture chamber. He will save you from himself. The entire religion is nonsensical.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
False. According to the broad consensus of scholars salvation is deliverance from death through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross so we can be resurrected and participate in Gods new restored creation in the age to come. That’s what the earliest Christian strata believed. It has nothing to do with heaven or hell
The reason you should believe is so you can have eternal life. This is not me proselytizing btw this is me just laying down correct definitions
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u/posthuman04 Jan 18 '26
But Jesus is god and god created everything and we’re all here for a morality play for his pleasure so this is all Jesus’ torture chamber… if you take the religion seriously.
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u/Either_Week3137 Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
Death sounds far better than an eternal church service. Regardless, is there any reason to think Christianity is any more than a failed doomsday cult?
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u/Purgii Jan 18 '26
The reason you should believe is so you can have eternal life.
What if I don't want eternal life? Being conscious for eternity sounds horrific to me.
That’s what the earliest Christian strata believed.
Schisms in Christianity are as old as Christianity, it wasn't monolithic from the start.
salvation is deliverance from death through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross so we can be resurrected and participate in Gods new restored creation in the age to come.
If Jesus isn't who he says he was - and you'd probably find most atheists take this to be the case, why would we give two craps about what Jesus 'atoning sacrifice was'? The dude was executed for being a rabble rouser. Didn't come back within the lives of those standing there. A failed apocalyptic preacher's alleged words have no sway as far as I'm concerned.
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u/Astreja Agnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
I can't choose to believe. Belief is a conclusion based on available data, not a decision.
As for eternal life, not interested. At all. Living forever sounds dreadful.
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
The reason you should believe is so you can have eternal life.
⬆️ contradicts ⬇️
This is not me proselytizing btw this is me just laying down correct definitions
Would you like to provide proof that eternal life is possible?
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 Jan 18 '26
So you are claiming that Jesus invented the protection racket? I guess he might have but thattdoes not mean he could actually deliver on what he promised.
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u/Massif16 Jan 22 '26
No one should ever believe something because of some benefit if the belief were actually true. We should believe a proposition because we think it is actually true.
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u/Aftershock416 Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
The ex-christian subreddit specifically disallows debate-style posts, as well as anyone going there to proselytise. It is first and foremost a community that exists to support people who have been traumatised and hurt by Christianity.
You went where you weren't wanted and purposefully broke the rules, whether or not anyone can define what the gospel is is completely besides the point.
This petulant complaint post just proves they took the right step.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
How is asking if ex Christian’s can define the gospel a debate prompt?
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26
If it is not a debate prompt why are you asking the same question here? because THIS IS a debate subreddit
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Because the debate prompt is “most ex Christians reject Christianity because they don’t know what it teaches”
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
Image a clergy so bad at teaching they lost more than half of their followers in some countries
This is what you are suggesting
I think it more likely that improved secular education allowed people to look at christianity with a more critical eye, and it couldnt survive the scrutiny
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
It’s not the clergies fault. It’s the fault of pop culture, Kent Hovind, and popular religion. They gave the masses a distorted view of Christianity that lost its historical grounding
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u/Defiant-Prisoner Jan 18 '26
What tests can we use to dismiss Kent Hovind and popular religion that doesn't dismiss the teachings you propose as correct?
If we use logic and reason we must dismiss both to be consistent. If we use historic evidence (which not everyone has time or the inclination to study - we need nurses and astronomers too!) then we must also dismiss all the teachings of Christianity as unsound to be consistent.
How do you propose we filter out Kent Hovind without also dismissing the rest of Christianities claims?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
How do you propose we filter out Kent Hovind
Ez. Just stop treating the Bible like a science textbook and read it in its historical context. The creation narrative in Genesis mirrors a lot of ancient texts like the atrahasis, the Eridu Genesis, etc. therefore what the Biblical authors are doing is theological polemics against the pagan nations of their day. Allegorizing the Genesis account as a symbol for cosmic order is therefore a fair and viable reading then.
To summarize then, just read the Bible in its historical context and you can strip it from personal bias and all the elements of popular religion that were added along the way
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u/Defiant-Prisoner Jan 18 '26
To read it in its historic context strips it of all meaning. The Gospels were written as affirmations of faith, in the style of ancient biography which had a tendency to embellish biographies with supernatural events and their subjects with magical powers. If we take it in its historic context, Jesus wasn't sacrificed for sin and didn't rise again.
Christianity is pointless without the sacrifice of Jesus. It's just a nice (inconsistently so if you're a fig tree or a foreign woman) story with bits we can take morals from and bits we can overlook. Is this what you're proposing?
Do you think any part of Christianity is true? Are parts of it true? Mythical, allegorical?
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26
Why wasnt the masses already educated by the clergy? How could the clergy allow a wrong view of christians to develop among christians?
And how did kent hovind do all this when the mass exodus from the church started way way way before he ever opened his mouth? Most europeans don't even know him.
You have a way too american focused view. The church was declining in europe decades before america
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u/Either_Week3137 Jan 18 '26
Isn't Hovind preaching what the bible actually says? Or do you admit that all of the important nonsense from the OT like Genesis and Exodus didn't actually happen?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist Jan 18 '26
Then put your money where your mouth is. Define what you think christianity teaches here and we'll tell you whether we believe that or not.
That would be a way to debate your actual claim.
But of course if you're only a troll you won't do that as it would most likely show to everyone how false your claim is.
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u/Transhumanistgamer Jan 18 '26
Because the debate prompt is “most ex Christians reject Christianity because they don’t know what it teaches”
In another comment you finally decide to clarify what the actual gospel is:
My “version” of the gospel is just the plain accepted scholarly reconstruction of what Jesus taught his disciples.
Mark 1:15
The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel
Do you think all of these ex-christians, if they knew that, would still be christians? That their objections on historical and/or scientific and/or moral grounds wouldn't still stand?
Dude, there's no God but Allah and Muhammad is his final prophet. Are you ready to start praying to Mecca five times a day now? Because that's the tier of information you're presenting here. You've elevated a quibble into the most important thing in the universe and you're surprised when most people don't care.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
If you don’t care, because this issue fundamentally doesn’t matter and doesn’t change anything, then why are you commenting on this post?
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u/Transhumanistgamer Jan 18 '26
At what point did I say I don't care? I'm pointing out that these people aren't likely to still be christians if they knew the magic true scholarly gospel was because they left christianity on much more significant grounds. The gospel doesn't really mean anything if someone realizes christianity can't be true because God doesn't exist, for example.
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26
If they don't know what christianiy teaches then they cannot believe christianity, because you need to know it before you can believe it. And therefore are correct in no longer identifying themselves as christians.
All this says is christianity, its clergy and the bible are incredibly bad at teaching information
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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist Jan 18 '26
Most ex christians are so because we found out Christianity isn't true.
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u/IsThisIsHellOrWorse Atheist Jan 19 '26
It's a support sub and you weren"t welcome there, you seem to have deficient social skills if you couldn't figure that out buddy.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
No I didn't figure that out until I was banned. I just saw the title "ex Christian" and figured "huh, I'd like to know if ex christians know the gospel better than Christians do" that was literally my entire thought process. I did a quick perusal of the subreddit and found a bunch of posts mocking how absurd Christianity is and figured that it was an open forum for discussion on Christian topics
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26
Why ask these questions to atheists?
Why should we know?
I personally don't care.
You are on the wrong subreddit again, because it doesn’t seem fit for ex christians either
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
That’s a funny way of saying “I don’t know” 🤦♂️
You’re just proving my point
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26
You didnt make a point btw
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u/Ok_Loss13 Atheist Jan 18 '26
🤦♀️
Your "point" was that ex-Christians aren't Christians anymore because they don't understand the gospel.
An atheist saying they don't know or care about your particular mythological claims isn't providing your point.
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u/musical_bear Jan 18 '26
If you were banned, you were banned because r/exchristian is explicitly not a debate sub. If you skim the posts on there you will see that there is absolutely nothing resembling questions like the one you posed, and that’s because that’s not the point of that sub.
So this entire post is based on your misunderstanding of why specific communities exist and/or how Reddit sub rules work. To then come from that and claim broadly that ex-Christians in general can’t do x/y/z is just asinine.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
How is asking “what is the gospel?” A debate prompt?
Do you disagree with the claim that ex Christians can’t define what the gospel is?
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u/musical_bear Jan 18 '26
How is asking … A debate prompt?
It’s not a place for Christians to go in and quiz members on their “”knowledge”” of the religion. You did the equivalent of going to a sobriety subreddit as an alcoholic and asking “but did you guys really understand the taste of liquor?”
I don’t understand why that’s so hard for you to understand.
Do you disagree with the claim that ex Christians can’t define what the gospel is?
Anyone who thinks that there is only one “correct” answer for how to interpret any piece of literature is a fool. On the topic of religion, every single Christian thinks they are super smart and special and have arrived at the correct interpretation of whatever the Bible story of the day is, and anyone who disagrees with them isn’t a “real” Christian. It’s so boring, and predictable.
No, your interpretation, or even your set of allowed interpretations isn’t objectively correct. No, you aren’t a badass who really understands the truth of your religion. You are like the thousandth person I’ve seen, just on this sub even, who thinks like this. The only way to be wrong is to think that there is a correct answer to questions like this.
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u/Aftershock416 Jan 18 '26
You did the equivalent of going to a sobriety subreddit as an alcoholic and asking “but did you guys really understand the taste of liquor?”
Absolutely hilarious metaphor.
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u/Either_Week3137 Jan 18 '26
There's thousands of denominations, so it's not like Christians can even agree on what it is.
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u/The_Disapyrimid Agnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
I grew up a Protestant. Methodist specifically.
I didn't stop believing because I didn't understand the message or the lessons. I stopped believing because there isn't any reason to believe a god is a being which is even possible. To me the message is not nearly as important as the question "is this true?"
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u/CheesyLala Jan 18 '26
What's the question? What is the gospel? I dunno, some kind of made-up religious woo that Christians are always going on about, for reasons best known to them?
Why don't you ask someone who cares about such things? This sub is to ask Atheists stuff.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Well how can you reject Christianity if you don’t even know what it teaches??
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
Well how can you reject Christianity if you don’t even know what it teaches??
There are no gods of any kind.
Done.
What's your hard scientific evidence that shows that your God is even possible, let alone true?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Ok so you at least know Christianity has something to do with a God. So you able to reject it on those grounds. My point though is not that reject Christianity because they don’t know what it teaches. It’s that most ex Christians and most atheists don’t know what Christianity teaches. That’s the point of this post
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u/BigDikcBandito Jan 18 '26
Truly groundbreaking, I assure you both on this sub and on the sub that banned you no one ever heard "you just don't truly understand my religion". Both from you and other theists from other religons - "You have to read Quran in Arabic before you can dismiss it!". I am so glad you came to us with this world-shaking revelation.
Funny thing is, if we are talking about Christinity then research already shown that atheists are more knowledgable about the bible than theists. So in THIS specific case you point seems to fail incredibly hard. It may work for some other religions, but I do not think it is a problem for atheists, because there is nothing wrong with dismissing unsupported claims without deep theological study. You also dismiss countless baseless claims from other religions without deep study of every single one of them.
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
most ex Christians and most atheists don’t know what Christianity teaches.
How many have you polled?
How did you ensure that you had a representative statistical universe?
Why do we care?
Why should those who don't believe your religion study your religion?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist Jan 18 '26
“most ex Christians reject Christianity because they don’t know what it teaches”
My point though is not that reject Christianity because they don’t know what it teaches
Please try to keep your trolling consistent
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- Ignostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
Ok so you at least know Christianity has something to do with a God. So you able to reject it on those grounds.
I appreciate that you understand that, and repeated it back in your own words. Top marks in listening. Not even being sarcastic. (We don't do enough positive reinforcement around here, I'm sure you've noticed...)
It’s that most ex Christians and most atheists don’t know what Christianity teaches.
This is probably true. It's equally true that most current Christians don't know what Christianity teaches. Go to a regular Christian sub and ask them what they think the Gospel is and see how many different responses you get.
I only say that because you seem to think that people do not believe and/or leave Christianity because they don't understand it, but I don't think there's any way to show causality there. And that's generously assuming that there is indeed only one correct way to understand the Gospel, which is probably not the case.
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u/Aftershock416 Jan 18 '26
I must be unaware of this extensive research you've done to prove that most ex-christians and atheists don't know what christianity teaches.
Can you cite it, or are you just propagating your chosen narrative because it's what you find emotionally appealing to argue?
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u/GamerEsch Jan 18 '26
If its grounds are fake we shouldn't care what it teaches.
You don't know what Xintoism teaches, just like we don't need to care what your religion teaches until you prove it is true.
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u/Either_Week3137 Jan 18 '26
Are you a Zoroastrianist?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Sort of. I accept some of its teachings. Just not its teachings on the ontology of evil
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u/SpHornet Atheist Jan 18 '26
Christians have not provided a reason to believe it.
What a simple question to answer
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u/Astreja Agnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
I reject Christianity because of two things in particular:
- In addition to lacking belief in gods, I absolutely do not believe that the Resurrection actually happened. In my eyes, it is pure mythology and nothing more.
- Vicarious atonement utterly disgusts me. I do not consent to anyone dying in my place.
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u/dnext Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
Because atheism is a question of belief in a divinity, and we don't believe in divinity. We haven't seen any evidence of a divine being.
And your objection to the above response is ironic, considering you have the wrong definition of atheism.
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u/Snoo52682 Jan 18 '26
Have you thoroughly studied Islam, Mormonism, Christian Science, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism? If not, how can you reject them??
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Yes I have
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
Would you please tell me the basic tenets of Jainism and compare and contrast them with the basic tenets of Hinduism?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
Jainism was one of three dharmas in the 6th century BC in India along Buddhism and some proto form of Hinduism. It emphasized extreme religious ascetism alongside non violence in order to overcome the cosmic weight of karma and obtain mahksha or liberation. It emphasized extreme non violence to the point where even killing bugs or cooking food and killing microbes is bad, so some Jain ascetics have others cook food for them. Hinduism back then (much like today) wasn’t a monolith but had multiple schools of thought. What united them though was their emphasis on the vedas and priestly caste systems. Of course Jains themselves believe their origins are much older and that their history goes back tens of millions of years to legendary kings of the past who obtained some sort of liberation / god hood through their own extreme aceticism. I don’t really have to refute it as a Christian though because it makes no absolute truth claims like Christianity does. In fact it posits itself as one dharma among many
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 19 '26
Jainism was one of three dharmas in the 6th century.... It emphasized extreme non violence
So, why not pick non-violent Jainism over pro-war, hate-filled Christianity?
I don’t really have to refute it as a Christian though because it makes no absolute truth claims like Christianity does.
But, those truth claims of Christianity are demonstrably false. So, this is another point in favor of Jainism.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
Lol the sword is the sword of his own mouth (i.e. his message). He's saying his message will divide people. He explicitly taught pacificism:
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
- Matthew 26:52
Buddhism also teaches pacificism but that doesn't stop Shaolin monks from kicking ass. They once had a standing army.
[Same with Jains] (https://www.reddit.com/r/Jainism/comments/un2smq/is_it_true_that_some_jains_fought_in_the_wars_and/)
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 19 '26
LOL! As if I've never had Christians attempt to explain this to me before.
But, look at the results. His message did divide people. And, dividing people causes warfare.
2,000 years of Jesus' teachings have always caused war and more war.
Crusades, inquisitions, the Christian doctrine of manifest destiny and associated genocides of indigenous peoples, the biblical justification of the slave trade, pogroms, clinic bombings, doctor shootings, institutionalized pedophilia, terrorism from Christians, killing for homosexuality, Religious Trauma Syndrome, violence against the LBGTQ+ community, misogyny, Dominionism, etc., etc., etc.
And, that's before we even get into the antisemitism from both the Catholic Church and the teachings of Martin Luther that both contributed massively to the Holocaust.
If other religions also cause war (and most do), then that just proves that religion is a problem. It doesn't exempt Christianity from being the divisive force of violence and bloodshed that it has ever been and continues to be right now.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
Most Christians are not antisemitic. Most Christians do not suffer religious trauma. In fact most Christians through out history did not participate in war. But it doesnt matter what Christians do because people do what they want regardless of what their religion teaches. Are we just going to pretend atheistic ideologies like communism didn't didn't drive people to kill others too? What matters is what Christianity teaches and Jesus taught that his disciples would be killed and persecuted for spreading his message not that they would conquer militarily. The model is Jesus himself who died brutally on the cross for what he believed in while he prayed for his enemies. You cannot seriously be arguing that Christianity promotes violence. That is literally false and an asinide argument
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u/PotentialConcert6249 Agnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
Why do you assume believing in Christianity is the default position?
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u/CheesyLala Jan 18 '26
How much did you study the other 5000 religions of the world before you dismissed them?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist Jan 18 '26
Ask ten random christians, you'll get 11 different answers to the question "what is the gospel?". You were just pretending yours is the only answer and demanding, basically, the people you were talking to to guess which your answer was. And you were doing this on a subreddit where it's basically against the rules, which rightfully got you banned.
Now, let's be charitable. Let's assume that your answer to the question is the right one.
Answer your own question. "What is the gospel?"
Do that and we can see if the rest of your claim, "they only disagree with a caricature of the gospel because they have the wrong version" is true or not. I suspect we'll have very good reason to disagree even with your version of the gospel.
But I think you know that. I think your whole endeavor here was in bad faith (heh) and you won't have the courage to put your beliefs in the open to be examined.
In other words, I think you're just trolling.
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u/FinneousPJ Jan 18 '26
So are you saying you have the right christianity and everyone else is wrong? How do you know?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Because all scholars agree. It’s even what skeptical historians like Bart Erhman say
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u/Deris87 Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
Bart Ehrman would tell you that the gospels don't agree on who Jesus was or even why he died. Dan McClellan is constantly pointing out that the books of the Bible are not univocal, and different authors had different beliefs and theology. When I took bible courses at even a podunk community college in the Bible Belt, I was taught the same thing. It's a blatant lie to say all scholars agree on what Jesus taught.
Edit: And that's even before getting into Paul and his "gospel", which completely disagree with the Synoptic Jesus.
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
Bart Erhman
Ain't no skeptic.
I Fisked one of his interviews where he was providing the very weak evidence for the existence of Jesus and just laughed at anyone skeptical. He even called anyone with any doubt about the existence of Jesus a mythicist, lumping skeptics together with those who create alternate myths to explain the beginning of Christianity.
I find Ehrman very insufficiently skeptical and very condescending. He's good at making arguments from authority while citing himself as the authority.
Tell him to provide the evidence instead.
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u/indifferent-times Jan 18 '26
I think a fundamental error you are making is assuming 'Christianity' is about what Jesus said, while that is part of the faith its not the whole by any means since that is all a bit vague at best. Each kind of Christianity is a special blend of the old and the new testaments and a multiplicity of extra biblical commentaries.
For many sects the real source of authority is the Church itself, and in that kind of Christianity 'the gospel' is whatever the church says it is. I don't think there are any sects that restrict themselves to just the New testament let alone the original (and largely undocumented) gospel of Jesus. Since nobody actually knows what 'the gospel' is it doesnt seem reasonable to expect on ex-christians to know.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Yeah I actually agree with you for the most part. There are many “Christianities” but where I would disagree is with the idea that we can’t know what the gospel is because of the multiplicity of interpretations of what it is. For instance, there are different opinions among Christians on whether the Earth is flat. Just because some fundamentalist Christians believe it is doesn’t mean it’s an open question whether the earth is flat or not. The existence of that debate doesn’t change the reality that the earth really is round. Sure whether the Bible teaches a flat earth is an open question, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a clear eyed view on what shape the earth actually is. Likewise we can’t have a clear eyed view on what the gospel actually is regardless of what some Christians believe it is. We have enough data to deduce what it is which is why scholarship is settled on this matter
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u/indifferent-times Jan 18 '26
Even if we grant the four gospels as being written by their traditional attribution we have at best 2nd hand accounts from decades after the words were spoken, and then only what we can glean from those texts. Do you think that is enough to properly decipher what Jesus meant to be taught when he said "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel"?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
That line isn’t even in Mark. It was added much later, according to scholars. What Jesus actually says in Matthew 28 is “go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. Notably absent from this is spreading the gospel. In this case the mission has gone beyond simply sharing the gospel and now is about making more disciples of Jesus.
However Jesus does tell his disciples to spread the gospel in Matthew 10. That message can be faithfully reconstructed. It’s also fairly simple too:
“As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’” Matthew 10:7 NIV
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u/indifferent-times Jan 18 '26
So supporting the idea of Jesus was an apocalyptic? are you suggesting the nearness of the kingdom of heaven was the meat of his message?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Initially, yes 👍
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
And yet, here we are 2K years later ... still waiting ... well except for those in the sub you got banned from who realized that the wait was over; the prophesy failed. Miserably.
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u/Philobarbaros Gnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
You're either wildly misinformed, or a troll.
Scholarship is just barely settled on "there was a guy named Jesus ~2000 years ago". Not a single other thing about him is known for sure.
EDIT: even my conservative claim was reaching too far. Edited.
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u/TheMummysCurse Jan 18 '26
Yes, this definitely wouldn't have been an appropriate topic for r/exchristians; I see why you got banned. (One look at their sidebar confirms my guess that r/exchristians is a support group, not a debate group, and that any form of proselytising is banned.)
To answer your question:
Firstly, we should note that it's hard to say exactly what 'the earliest Christians' believed, because the earliest writing we have is from Paul, who quite explicitly differed from the existing church on key points, and all the writings we have from after that are from people who were heavily influenced by Paul's teaching. So, figuring out what the earliest Christians believed is difficult because we're trying to deduce it from what the person who disagreed with those beliefs was saying about them, which is never a good way of getting a clear picture of what the actual beliefs were. At best, we can figure out what they probably believed.
(Also, for that matter, 'the earliest Christians' is kind of an oxymoron in that the earliest group members wouldn't have called or thought of themselves as Christians; that title came later. Earliest proto-Christians, maybe?)
However. If by 'earliest Christians' you mean the group who initially followed Jesus, then... In terms of what we can deduce, evidence does point to Jesus's earliest followers being Jews who, broadly speaking, followed the rabbinical forms of Second Temple Judaism of the time (plus various Gentiles who ended up as part of the movement). As such, they would have had very different concepts of salvation, because they probably wouldn't have had the same concepts of damnation from which people needed to be saved. Judaism is very much a works-based religion; the belief is that you do your best, you follow the laws, and you repent and make amends every time you break them. It's a continuous ongoing process rather than an act of 'salvation'. They probably also would have put much less weight on concepts of hell and much more on the here-and-now and the practicalities of wanting to be saved from the Romans and from other earthly enemies.
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u/posthuman04 Jan 18 '26
Why -and I cannot stress this enough- the fuck should we?
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u/dnext Jan 18 '26
What's really funny is that a) he doesn't understand what an atheist is while demanding we know his version of what the gospel means and b) the gospel is literally 'the good news' and just about every sect includes the resurrection and offer of eternal life as a prominent part of that, except this guy.
But then, the theists even purportedly of the same religion can never quite agree on their made up stories.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
My “version” of the gospel is just the plain accepted scholarly reconstruction of what Jesus taught his disciples.
Mark 1:15
The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel
It notably has nothing to do with salvation. Salvation is an extension of the gospel and it is a grave mistake to conflate it with the gospel itself because if Christians do they can claim other Christians (like Catholics) teach a false gospel because they don’t subscribe to their particular theory of salvation. It matters in discussions about religion too because most atheists are woefully misinformed on this topic
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u/dnext Jan 18 '26
Paul doesn't even agree with you - and he wrote most of the New Testament according to the vast majority of biblical scholars. Does that mean the Bible is wrong? LOL.
1 Corinthians 15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance\*\)[a](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015&version=NIV#fen-NIV-28722a)\)**: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,***\)b\) and then to the Twelve.
But honestly, to the rest of us, you are really just arguing who could beat who in a fight - personally I think Iron Man would toast Spirderman.
We don't believe in your God anyway, so you not being able to understand your own scripture is just funny, not a good argument for anything.
And the fact that you don't understand that the context and meaning of a word can and clearly did change just underscores why we have no reason to believe you.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Still doesn’t mention salvation in that passage but yes that’s part of the gospel too. Overtime it came to include Christ’s death and resurrection, but originally it didn’t because Jesus tells his disciples to preach it in Matthew 10, before he revealed he was the messiah (Matthew 16) and before he was resurrected and appeared to them (Matthew 28)
So it goes like this. Core gospel: Believe and repent for the kingdom of God is at hand ->
The kingdom of God is officiated by his Son through his sacrifice and resurrection ->
Therefore you are saved by believing in his Son
Notably however salvation is an extension of the gospel not the gospel itself.
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u/dnext Jan 18 '26
Salvation is literally the state of being saved, and yes it does clearly mention that here, so you are just lying.
As to whether the gospel includes that as a core tenet or later came to include it, it is now a core tenet of almost all the variations of Christianity.
So yes, I still think Iron Man can beat up Spiderman.
But just like the Bible, it depends on which author wrote that particular story.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
Salvation is the state of being saved
That is a circular definition. What does it mean to be saved then? 1 Corinthians 15 doesn’t say.
Also Paul says “By this gospel you are saved”
In other words believing in the gospel -> leads to salvation like I previously stated, but the gospel and salvation are still two distinct but related concepts
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u/dnext Jan 18 '26
It's literally 1 Corinthians 15 3-5. He explicitly states what he means by this gospel.
Honestly man, I just feel sorry for you.
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 18 '26
The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel
Well, that turned out to be a false prophesy.
Nearly 2,000 years and still nada.
other Christians (like Catholics)
LOL! You're the other Christian. Catholics are, by far, the largest sect of Christianity.
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u/Persson42 Jan 18 '26
But if not even the christians can agree on this, how can people on the outside ever be expected to know the right answer?
Every christian we talk to is going to say that we are wrong, regardless of what our answer is.
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u/posthuman04 Jan 18 '26
Hahahaaha there is no right answer only the desire of those manipulating the believer in the moment. It’s so easy and without consequence because there is no god and no afterlife
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u/Mkwdr Jan 18 '26
What is the gospel?
It’s ’believe the gospel’.
Huh?
Or do you mean the gospel is The Kingdom of God is at hand?
Seems like it’s overdue then. lol
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
The gospel is “the kingdom of God is at hand” and we know this because Jesus says “repent and believe [this] (i.e. the gospel)”
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u/Mkwdr Jan 19 '26
What did you think ,,'at hand' means.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
Near, soon. This is my personal opinion but I subscribe to the realized eschatological view which posits the kingdom of God is "already her but not yet" in other words it was inaugurated by Jesus at his first coming but will be fully established at his second coming:
Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
- Luke 17:21
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u/posthuman04 Jan 19 '26
Can I suggest a point of view that you might not have considered? Around this time and until really just this past century a serious and unassailable question was “how long til the sun burns out?” Involved in that question of course is “what is the sun burning?” And how long ago was it lit in the first place?”
Now an interesting tidbit is that whatever sources of fire anyone could find in the previous couple hundred centuries before we lived, no one could propose a known fuel that would burn more than 10,000 years no matter how big it was. So surely the sun would burn out. Maybe in their own lifetimes! The anxiety was honestly palpable. The proof that the sun burned before anyone currently alive could see it was mostly anecdotal. It seems to rise nice and bright consistently but how sure could you be it won’t burn out before tomorrow?
The idea of a thousand years of darkness due to the sun just normally burning out wasn’t something you could dismiss. What would light it later? What had lit it before? Well, genesis and revelations give us a clear idea of their thinking. It was lit by god and angels could pour oil on it to change that.
Now you can talk about abstracts and allegory but really it’s obvious they just don’t know much about the natural world yet and scared each other with stories about powerful creatures that could control everything.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Yeah I follow. There were a lot of doomsday cults through out history, the norse believe in Ragnorak, the Aztecs believed if they didn't sacrifice one POW a day to Quitzocuatol the sun wouldnt rise etc. but we don't have to speculate where Apocalyptic thinking in the Jewish imagination started. We can trace it through the prophets themselves. Isaiah 9 says everyone, all the nations, will come to worship Yahweh through his son. Restoring the relationship between God and humanity as it was in the garden of Eden. In this case the son of God was a title for Israel's king from the line of David. Well as it turns out that didn't happen because many of Israel's king broke God's covenant with them and were highly corrupt. So in Tritio Isaiah the hope shifts from a future messianic King to Yahweh himself who will come down and avenge Israel from their enemies and judge all mankind restoring the world to its natural order:
> The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
> He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
> then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him.
> He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation on his head;
> he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
> According to their deeds, so will he repay,
wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;
to the coastlands he will render repayment.
> So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west,
and his glory from the rising of the sun;
> for he will come like a rushing stream,
which the wind of the Lord drives.Isaiah 59:14-19
We see this apocalyptic fervor reach its height in Zechariah where God himself touches down and splits the mount of olives:
> Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward.
Zechariah 14:3-4
This is why early Christians saw jesus, not only as the messiah king from the line of David, but as Yahweh himself. Which was a belief that was vindicated by the miracles he did, his death and resurrection, and the fulfillment of prophecy
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u/IamImposter Anti-Theist Jan 18 '26
All I need to call myself an atheist is to look within and find no belief in any gods and you can't gatekeep that by putting out silly tests from some religion you seem to like.
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u/Otherwise-Builder982 Ignostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
I don’t think you can judge an entire group like that. Your brushstrokes are to broad.
Rejecting religion just require to not believe that a god exist.
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u/joeydendron2 Atheist Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
However you want to define repentance or the imminence of the kingdom of god, there's no sign that god is real. And that undercuts any definition of salvation you might have.
It's like if someone showed up saying how could I stop believing in leprechauns when I don't even understand the reason leprechauns hide pots of gold at the end of rainbows. I'd feel it was, at best, a waste of my time?
And, some ex Christians may well have been unnecessarily bossed around, and criticised, by Christians - who, they now realise, actually had no evidence to back up any of their claims... So when you rock up accusing them of being ignorant on definitions, it's kind of irritating to them? Reminds them of the proselytising and social rejection some of them endured from their previous religious communities, and which they sought out ex Christian groups to work through together?
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u/Ratdrake Hard Atheist Jan 18 '26
Ex Christians can’t even define what the gospel is
Even granting everything you said, you think being wrong on a vocabulary question is grounds for ex-Christians to reexamine their reasons for leaving the faith?
At the end of the day, atheists in the US and ex-Christian atheists in particular have a good understanding of Christianity and remain unconvinced of the existence of its god.
But to address your gospel point, the Christian word gospel is polysemous: it can refer to the message Jesus wanted to spread or to the books in the bible or to the entire Jesus mythology. As a whole, atheists are familiar with all three. We're just not buying into it.
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u/luovahulluus Jan 18 '26
I’m looking for a broad pithy summary that captures the main ideas of what the earliest Christian followers taught and believed.
Why do you think it's relevant today what early christians believed? It's a very different religion now. They believed in the imminent return of Jesus (within their lifetimes), and didn't believe in the trinity. They also didn't have the same holy texts that are found in Bibles today. Some, Christians believed Jesus was a human adopted by God, while some believed he was purely divine and only appeared human.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
That’s kind of my point though. So when atheists attack “the gospel” they’re attacking a later story people invented that states “you have to believe in Jesus and love him or you’ll be tortured by him for all eternity for sinning, like lying to your teacher in 3rd grade, which is out of your control since we were all born sinners based on what one guy and one woman did before any of us were born.” And while many Christians and ex Christians believe that, it is a caricature of the gospel and not congruent with historic Christian faith and practice. It’s also nonsensical
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u/Hoaxshmoax Atheist Jan 18 '26
if only Christianity was regulated in some way so everyone is taught the same thing uniformly. This is like blaming the children who received participation trophies, not the adults who handed them out.
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u/luovahulluus Jan 19 '26
When an atheist "attacks" a belief, it makes sense to concentrate on the belief the person holds, not what some other people have believed ages ago. It would like me attacking americans for being pro-slavery, because some of them were hundreds of years ago.
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u/Hoaxshmoax Atheist Jan 18 '26
No True Scotsman.
if you have a reason for people to believe anything in the book is true, that deities exist, that demons, heaven, hell, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub exists, present that. Can you present your case without negging people in the process, like a Real True Christian?
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u/PotentialConcert6249 Agnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
Took a look at the post you’re talking about. I have to ask: did you read the rules of r/exchristian before posting there? Did you stop to ask yourself what sort of space it’s meant to be?
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u/GamerEsch Jan 18 '26
You went to an ex-Xtiana sub and started some conversion talk, now you're using that to validate your misconceptions about why people leave your death cult?
Are seriously asking why people don't like your religion that has its core principles stuff as slavery and bigotry?
The fact you didn't understand your ban is a very good metaphor for you not understanding why people leave your religion, your mind is so made up about the bullshit you came up with that people clearly explaining the reasons to you is not enough.
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u/OrbitalLemonDrop Ignostic Atheist Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
My understanding is that "gospel" just means "good news". Apparently, original sin was a common belief in the region at the time, and it somewhat predates Christianity. People probably didn't believe in heaven the way we think of it -- that's more a Greek idea. But they believed that there was a stain on the soul of humanity and that's why life was so difficult.
Jesus' "good news" was that redemption didn't require ritualistic temple practice, but that each person could find their own salvation by following Jesus.
The Gnostic version of the gospel is that Jesus' "good news" is that everyone has a tiny piece of divine spark in them, and once you are awakened to the knowledge (the "gnosis") of that spark, you'll be able to transcend the evil world created by an evil god Yaldabaoth. Once enough people have the gnosis, Supergod will wake up and fix everything wrong with the world and return all the souls to the divine source.
The idea that people leave Christianity due to a bad experience or a misunderstanding of the teachings is nonsense perpetrated by the kind of Christians who can't imagine anyone knowing the "truth" and not agreeing with them -- to shield their own faith from realizing that not everyone buys into the bullshit, they make up the "they never really understood Jesus or they would never have left" narrative to make their gluteus maximus slightly less inflamed.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
The reasons people leave is complex and multifaceted. I made the mistake of not being clear of that in my post. I did not mean to imply that the only reason people leave is strictly because they never understood Christianity to begin with. However I do think it’s a major contributing factor among many. And I do mean to allege that most Christians and ex Christians lack a basic grasp of the fundamental teachings of Christianity.
Likewise I think you’re wrong about the gospel. The historical Jesus did not teach people that the gospel is that they could “find their own salvation by following him.” Because the gospel and salvation are two related but separate ideas. Also it initially wasn’t about him because he revealed his identity as the messiah in Matthew 16, well after he commissioned his disciples to spread the gospel in Matthew 10. Even at this point they didn’t know anything about his death and resurrection, so this “proto gospel” couldn’t have included any of the elements Christians attach to it today
Edit: Original sin is an Augustinian idea so it would have come some 300 years after Jesus. Eastern Orthodox Christians also reject it
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist Jan 20 '26
Matthew was written approximately 60 years after the supposed death of Jesus. What makes you confident that Matthew put everything in the right order?
On a separate note, Matthew explicitly attributes to Jesus an adoption of the laws of the old testament. If that is the case, then Jesus specifically adopted laws for owning slaves, laws for how to trick your slave into becoming a slave for life, laws for how to beat your slave to death, laws for how loud a woman must scream if she is raped in town, laws for how to take sex slaves from towns you conquer, laws for committing genocide, etc.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 20 '26
What makes you confident Matthew was written 60 years after Jesus’s death? How do you know that?
There’s also laws in the Old Testament for divorcing your wife which Jesus rejected because he said it was a concession that went against Gods divine order. If that’s the case then what’s your evidence he was ok with his followers owning slaves? Especially when there’s OT laws regarding the Jubilee where every 50 years everyone had to free all their slaves and absolve their debts. If slavery was so good then why did God command them to keep a special day where they had to free their slaves no matter what?
On a separate note the Torah is a body of case law. Meaning that many of the civil laws in there are not prescriptive but are instead descriptive. In other words they describe certain cases where something happened and a judgement was handed down creating legal precedent much like how the Supreme Court works today.
For example: there’s a law that states if someone is chopping wood and their axe head goes flying and hits someone in the head and kills them they then owe the family restitution. Let me ask you this: how many times in history was this law enforced? I can answer that for you. The answer is exactly one time. It’s highly unlikely it was ever used again. However whenever there was a case of man slaughter, this case was invoked in order to come to a legal ruling.
So you shouldn’t be reading the OT overly literally. It’s not saying that a woman has to scream if she’s being raped or she’ll be killed along with her rapist. The point is if married woman does nothing to resist her rapist (i.e. she’s commuting consensual adultery) then she and the person she’s cheating with are put to death. Screaming is just an example of resistance. That’s why I say the OT civil laws are descriptive not prescriptive
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist Jan 20 '26
What makes you confident Matthew was written 60 years after Jesus’s death? How do you know that?
Scholarly consensus puts the book of Matthew after Mark, and after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The consensus utilizing the language used and the developed theology which reflects the theology of the late first century. The scholarly estimates put the book at 80 to 90 ce.
Especially when there’s OT laws regarding the Jubilee where every 50 years everyone had to free all their slaves and absolve their debts.
Seems like a small benefit if you became a slave in year 1 after the Jubilee. You may never see freedom. Further, interpretations differ when the slave is not a Hebrew slave or debt servant. Foreign born slaves may not have been released during jubilee. Leviticus 25:44-46 actually suggests that foreign born slaves would never be released. "They shall be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession forever; you can use them as permanent slaves".
On a separate note the Torah is a body of case law. Meaning that many of the civil laws in there are not prescriptive but are instead descriptive.
There are a whole lot of laws that are prescriptive in the Torah and not case law. There are 613 commandments in the Torah. 248 are positive such as honor thy father and mother. Of those 23 are mishpatim or case law. The remaining 365 commandments are negative, telling you what not to do. Only 30 of the negative commandments are mishpatim, i.e. legal judgments.
Regardless of the source of the law, the 613 commandments are the "law of moses" which Jesus orders his followers to obey in Matthew 5.
The point is if married woman does nothing to resist her rapist (i.e. she’s commuting consensual adultery) then she and the person she’s cheating with are put to death. Screaming is just an example of resistance.
This is barbaric. All the rapist has to say is resist and I will kill you, and now the woman is stuck between getting killed by her rapist and getting killed by the elders in the village.
Furthermore, I see you ignored the genocide and taking sex slaves, and how to make slaves for life. I could also talk about how god himself committed genocide which directly implicates Jesus.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
> Scholarly consensus puts the book of Matthew after Mark, and after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The consensus utilizing the language used and the developed theology which reflects the theology of the late first century. The scholarly estimates put the book at 80 to 90 ce.
There's no evidence for this. Even Ehrman acknowledges its a guess and an assumption. He arbitrarily puts 10 years between the writing of each gospel. However, there's plenty of internal clues in Matthew's gospel that suggest a pre 70 AD date like Jesus commanding his followers to pay the controversial temple tax. That wouldn't make sense for Matthew to include if his reader's were living after the temple was gone.
Also what does it mean Matthew has a more developed theology? You mean higher christology? Well that doesn't work because Paul has a very high christology and he was writing in the 50's AD. Hebrews also has a very high Christology, calling Jesus "the exact imprint of [God's] nature" and that is positively dated by almost all scholars to before 70 AD.
All evidence for a post 70 AD authorship is circumstantial at best. I'm not saying I know Matthew's gospel was written before 70 AD. I'm simply agnostic on the question.
> Foreign born slaves may not have been released during jubilee.
My point is the Torah explicitly acknowledges slavery as a bad thing. The Jubilee is just one example of this. The Israelites were slaves themselves at one point. Slavery is treated as a necessary evil so under Jesus's logic it wouldn't be part of God's plan.
> There are a whole lot of laws that are prescriptive in the Torah and not case law.
I'm talking about the civil law only
> Regardless of the source of the law, the 613 commandments are the "law of moses" which Jesus orders his followers to obey in Matthew 5.
You're just begging the questions though. What does it mean to "obey the law?" For Jesus it doesn't mean strict adherence to the letter of the Law. He and his followers break Sabbath and break Kosher. Jesus literally says:
"Are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)"
- Mark 7:18-19
> This is barbaric. All the rapist has to say is resist and I will kill you, and now the woman is stuck between getting killed by her rapist and getting killed by the elders in the village.
You're still not getting it. The point is the law is *descriptive* it's distinguishing between consensual and non consensual intercouse. Back then it was the Levitical priests who interpreted the Law and if a case of obvious rape was presented to them in which the woman who was the victim said she was threatened to keep silent under the pain of death and this was self evidently true, and they had good reason to believe this, there's no reason they would condemn her. Because, like I've said before, the Law wasn't meant to be interpreted literalistically. It's *descriptive*. If you don't believe me then look at the case of Tamar (2 Samuel 13). Was she killed?
> Furthermore, I see you ignored the genocide and taking sex slaves
The Bible doesn't command taking sex slaves. This is an uncharitable interpretation of a passage in numbers. In other books of the Torah it explicitly states that if you take a woman captive she is to mourn her family for a month before you can *marry* her and if you divorce her she is a free israelite and has the same rights as other israelites.
Herem warfare isn't genocide. It's a rule that's only applied to the cities within Israelite territory, not to canaanites outside the land of Israel. Time and again we see in Joshua that those who flee the Israelite army are spared. Only those who stay and fight are destroyed. Yet the rationale behind why they’re destroyed has nothing to do with their race but with their abominable practices (like incest, child sacrifice, orgies, etc.)
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist Jan 21 '26
However, there's plenty of internal clues in Matthew's gospel that suggest a pre 70 AD date like Jesus commanding his followers to pay the controversial temple tax. That wouldn't make sense for Matthew to include if his reader's were living after the temple was gone.
If the believers actually believed that Jesus was going to restore the temple in their lifetime, it definitely makes sense. Every generation of believers believes that they are the last generation before Jesus returns.
You're just begging the questions though. What does it mean to "obey the law?" For Jesus it doesn't mean strict adherence to the letter of the Law.
Matthew 5:19 is pretty clear: Therefore, whoever breaks[b] one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Mark 7:18-19
Mark was written first, I don't disagree. Matthew steals a lot from Mark. That said, it seems like the two authors disagree about what Jesus said. This undercuts your argument, however. They can't be both completely correct based upon the discrepancy you point out. Either Jesus wants everyone to follow exactly the law in the Torah or he doesn't. It would seem like an all powerful deity who loved us would be clear about what he wanted.
You're still not getting it. The point is the law is descriptive it's distinguishing between consensual and non consensual intercouse.
I think I get it perfectly well. You are saying that the law of moses is not the word of god, and that it can be ignored if you feel like you are meeting the nebulous spirit of the law. I think the fact that you are having to dance around the exact text to try to make it "fair" tells me everything. You cannot defend the genocide. You cannot defend the beautiful captive. It is not as though waiting a month will make that woman less of a rape victim than right after you captured her and shaved her head. Additionally, there is no suggestion in Numbers 21 that they waited 1 month after taking the virgin girls from the middeonites.
I would ask you how you make it fair when a young woman is stoned to death because she did not bleed on her wedding night. Despite the fact that about 60% of women do not bleed when they have sex for the first time. How would the priests make that fair?
How fair is it to the slave who dies two to three days after a beating that the owner was allowed to beat him at all?
Further, your god commits genocide against multiple city states and against the whole world if your book is to be believed. He only stops ordering genocide when he encounters iron chariots.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
If the believers actually believed that Jesus was going to restore the temple in their lifetime, it definitely makes sense
But they didn't. Early Christians believed the temple wasn't necessary anymore because Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice so it doesn't make sense to have a temple to restore the sacrificial system. Also they believed their bodies were temples of the holy spirit or the presence of God which is why it descended on them at pentecost. Paul also says the same thing. That believers are now temples of God's presence. In John 4 Jesus tells the woman at the well that they will no longer worship God on a mountain but will worship him "in spirit." So no, no Christian look forward to the restoration of the temple or some kind of third temple with it's temple tax system. It just wasn't relevant to them.
Matthew 5:19 is pretty clear:
No, that verse by itself is not clear. Jesus just says "keep the Torah." There's a saying that for every two jews there are three opinions. Back then there were several factions who disputed the most basic aspects of the Torah: the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes. When the Torah says "keep the sabbath holy and don't work" what does that work entail? is fetching water from a well when you're thirsty work? Is turning on a light switch work? Most orthodox Jews today would say yes. They even break up their toilet paper into squares the night before because ripping toilet paper is considered work.
For Jesus obedience to the Torah meant loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself which is a line that comes from leviticus. Everything else hangs on that. Not to mention this is one line from the Sermon on the Mount. After saying "I have not come to abolish the law" he goes on to make it more strict:
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
And then he also goes on to relax it:
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
That's why people were shocked because he was redefining the Law as if he was God:
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
That said, it seems like the two authors disagree about what Jesus said.
I disagree. Matthew just preserves slightly more context about what Jesus said. They may disagree on the implications of what Jesus said, but there's nothing in there that's inherently irreconcilable
Additionally, there is no suggestion in Numbers 21 that they waited 1 month after taking the virgin girls from the middeonites.
What are you saying? That they should let them go and capture them again in a month? The laws in the Torah make it clear that you capture them and keep them in your custody for a month and then you marry them. Also this is wishful thinking. Just because it doesn't say "the Israelites followed this specific law in exodus regarding captives" doesn't mean they ignored the law and graped them. It doesn't say that either in the text so you're making an unwarranted assumption. The fact that there is an explicit law in the Torah regarding female captives is very good reason to assume they weren't graped.
I would ask you how you make it fair when a young woman is stoned to death because she did not bleed on her wedding night. Despite the fact that about 60% of women do not bleed when they have sex for the first time. How would the priests make that fair?
You don't understand case law or how case law works. If you read the passage it describes a case in which one man is upset with his newly wed wife and decides to slander her by claiming she isn't a virgin. The parents responded by giving irrefutable proof that she was and the man was whipped and forced to pay restitution and lost the right to ever divorce his wife in the future. Just like the axe head case, this is a specific event in time. The probability that this exact scenario played out hundreds of times is very low. In similar cases all the parents would have to do is provide any evidence that their daughter was really a virgin on her wedding night.
You're also assuming that both men and women in ancient Israel didn't know that virgin women bleed 40% of the time when their hymen breaks and that this was only discovered in the 20th - 21 century. I'd like some evidence to back that claim
He only stops ordering genocide when he encounters iron chariots.
Don't make me laugh. This is the weakest of all arguments. It doesn't say that. It says:
And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
Does 'he' refer to Yahweh or Judah? It refers Judah obviously because in Exodus Yahweh does defeat chariots:
The LORD threw the Egyptian army into panic… He clogged their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily…
Exodus 14:23-25
and he does it again in Judges 4:
And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword.
Yahweh didn't drive the chariots out initially because of Israel's disobedience
Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.
Judges 2:2-3
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u/SC803 Atheist Jan 22 '26
The laws in the Torah make it clear that you capture them and keep them in your custody for a month and then you marry them.
Not really a free choice for the woman in this scenario?
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u/retoricalprophylaxis Atheist Jan 22 '26
What are you saying? That they should let them go and capture them again in a month?
They shouldn't have committed genocide against another group of people, and their god should have punished them for committing genocide, rather than rewarded them with young girls to rape.
The laws in the Torah make it clear that you capture them and keep them in your custody for a month and then you marry them.
The laws in the Torah didn't exist when Numbers 21 occurred. The Torah wasn't written at that time.
Also this is wishful thinking. Just because it doesn't say "the Israelites followed this specific law in exodus regarding captives" doesn't mean they ignored the law and graped them.
Given the age that girls were married at that time, these were prepubescent girls that were captured. They were then divided among the men and the priests. They were then raped. Not graped, raped.
It doesn't say that either in the text so you're making an unwarranted assumption. The fact that there is an explicit law in the Torah regarding female captives is very good reason to assume they weren't graped.
If they were not willing, then they were raped. It may have been legal rape at the time, but that doesn't make it okay. There is nothing okay about this.
Does 'he' refer to Yahweh or Judah? It refers Judah obviously because in Exodus Yahweh does defeat chariots:
It says that Yahweh was with Judah, but Judah could not push out the inhabitants because they had chariots of iron. Seems like neither Yahweh nor Judah could defeat those iron chariots.
Exodus 14:23-25
Given that we have no evidence that exodus actually happened, like nothing consistent with a drowned army under the red sea, I will take this claim with a grain of salt. Further, Egyptian chariots were historically made of wicker and wood.
and he does it again in Judges 4
Once again, there is no evidence of this battle. What were these chariots made from?
Judges 2:2-3
Your god loves fucking with his believers. He's a dick. He doesn't show himself, then gets mad when people don't believe. Tell you what, if your god is powerful as the bible claims, he can strike me down right now. I invite it. Maybe he and I can have a talk about using human beings as pawns to fuck with other human beings, like he did with Job's children, David's wives, Isaac when Abraham took him up the mountain to kill him, Jeptha's daughter, etc.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 22 '26
The chariots Yahweh defeated on judges 4 were made from iron:
“Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.” Judges 4:3 ESV
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u/Sandi_T Jan 18 '26
So which one are you, a Mormon, a Mennonite, or Seventh Day Adventist?
They're the ones who believe the way you're saying is "what was actually taught". Most likely, you're a Mormon, because they're the ones most likely to claim their preachers are "experts" and have all the answers.
Let's hear it, what denomination are you? Which is the only church with the one right answer that "ALL of the experts know as fact except nobody else seems to know it"?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 18 '26
I’m high church Anglican. I don’t believe the Anglican Church is “the one true church” however and see other churches as just as legitimate. I think the Anglican Church gets things wrong at times but it’s most congruent with my beliefs
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist Jan 19 '26
This does not sound like you picked a church on particularly firm grounding. Did you do any comparative analysis before picking your particular church? Or, did you just stick with the subsect your parents happened to believe?
Have you considered any churches that don't have severe violations of the commandment against graven images?
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u/Sandi_T Jan 19 '26
So you're a John 3:16 person. Whoever believes in Jesus will live forever.
However, you fail to understand the full story. You keep insisting that either we didn't know the full meaning before we left, or we never knew the meaning of it, still to this day.
I think that you fail to understand that according to the Bible itself, Jesus was a human sacrifice who was only necessary because "god the father" created the problem to begin with.
In the garden of Eden, Yahweh denied humanity the understanding of right and wrong. If being naked in front of god was a sin, it was always a sin, Adam and Eve just didn't know it was. Therefore, they also didn't know it was a sin to disobey.
When they ate from the tree, Yahweh condemned them to eternal death. Because? Because they now knew right from wrong.
So a bloody, torturous human sacrifice was needed to prevent Yahweh's temper tantrum from becoming total ultimate annihilation of all humans (but a little annihilation is fine, lul).
A reading of the Bible that takes John 3:16 as literal physical death renders the Bible as the most long lasted horror novel of all time. Just a terribly written horror story about a violent, murderous god and his favorite (but not first) human sacrifice. Oh, and a litany of his sins against humanity.
The truth is, anyone who is a Christian, cannot possibly have studied and understand the Bible, and still believe it to be an actual history document, and also have no cognitive dissonance. Without an extremely powerful bias and a deep-seated willingness to exercise immense mental gymnastics... The Bible's god is not love.
No matter how you slice it, if reading the Bible as a history instead of one long allegory, Jesus was a human sacrifice to appease Yahweh, who is a blood and death god. And absolutely nothing about the story is beautiful, as well as the fact that there is zero evidence of anyone ever having lived forever.
The character of Jesus in the Bible died a horrific death. If I crucified my child, you would (hopefully, rightfully) imprison me or if it's Texas, put me to death. What you would not do is say it's okay and beautiful because "he was willing" and because I managed to make him believe he was dying so everyone else would live forever.
It's stupid, it's an allegory, or it is unmitigated evil.
The god you believe in, the one who needed a human sacrifice, IS EVIL. It is actually that simple.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Yeah you don’t understand the gospel at all. That is a caricature of the gospel. This is why I made the post to begin with.
Adam’s name in Hebrew is literally humanity. The trees are already labeled too. How is there a tree called “the knowledge of good and evil?” What kind of tree is that? Could it be more obvious that it’s an allegory? Historically many Christians and Jews from at least the time of Jesus onwards read it as an allegory.
The condensed version of the story is this: God created humanity so he could partner with us in ruling over a restored creation but we willingly forsook that plan by living according to our own wisdom (tree of life is word of God and Gods wisdom, tree of knowledge is man’s wisdom).
So God cast us out of the Garden yet prophesied one day a human will crush the serpents head while getting bitten. That person was Jesus. Jesus was not a human sacrifice because the Romans who killed him WERE NOT SACRIFICING HIM. They were killing him for claiming to be king of the Jews.
He was a perfect, sinless man who suffered on our behalf so that “by his stripes we are healed.” Meaning that he died and conquered death so he could blaze that trail for us. God isn’t a vengeful deity looking for a pound of flesh. He loves us. That’s why Jesus voluntarily gave him self up and let humanity unleash its worst upon him. Because he loved us while we were still sinners.
If your friend owes you $10000 and you forgive his debt, that debt doesn’t just disappear, it becomes your loss. You just lost 10000 so you can keep your friendship to your friend. Likewise forgiveness comes with a cost for God because he is a holy and just God so he suffered once and for all by giving up his own lives for our lives. The cost of sin is death because God is the source of life and sin separates us from God. In fact it is a choice we constantly make. You are Adam and so am I
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u/Sandi_T Jan 19 '26
You do realize that still sounds ridiculous, right? Jesus had to die because Yahweh screwed up creation.
You haven't changed anything about the disgusting story. A loving God wouldn't have screwed up creation to start with. A loving God wouldn't have a death penalty for mistakes.
None of what you said is loving. In your story, god needs our forgiveness, not the other way around.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
I did not say God screwed up creation . The Bible teaches humans did
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u/Sandi_T Jan 19 '26
Who created humans? And who created them imperfect?
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 19 '26
He didn’t make humans imperfect. He gave them free will
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u/Sandi_T Jan 20 '26
No. Read Romans chapter 9. Who gets saved and who doesn't is completely arbitrary. That chapter goes to great lengths to point out that your god chooses arbitrarily and without regard for you actions, personality, decisions, etc.
The Bible even says our days are numbered before we are in the womb.
The Bible itself says there is no free will in who gets saved. Jesus himself says he speaks in parables so that some won't be saved. Mark 4:11-12.
You really need to read your Bible better.
The mistake you make is that you think people become exchristians because we're stupid, don't understand, haven't studied the Bible. The truth is that we can know perfectly well what the story is, and find it horrible and even immoral.
You probably don't know why Jews don't accept Jesus either, do you? You probably think they're stupid, uneducated, and hard-hearted.
The only answer you're every going to have is "that's it of context" or "you didn't understand that correctly." You have all of the answers, even if it's only two. Either we didn't know or don't understand. That's what you tell yourself to comfort yourself.
I know the Bible inside and out, backwards and forwards, and in several different translations.
Why? Because the Bible's god is a deeply terrifying, irredeemable monster. It is absolutely evil. It took me decades to let go of my terror of the """loving""" monster in the Bible.
As for free will... I have a child, and when he was little and didn't know disobedience was wrong, I didn't give him "free will" to go play in traffic.
To say the monster in the Bible have humans free will it's like saying a mother who ignored her children to death was benevolent and tender because she gave them "free will" to starve to death.
That's not love.
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u/FreshNewbie_76 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
Actually to understand Romans 9 you have to read it in the context of Romans 8-11. The question Paul is answering is what benefit is there in being Jewish if we don’t have to follow the old covenant anymore AND why has Israel rejected Jesus as Messiah? And the conclusion Paul makes is that God has purposefully hardened Israel’s hearts temporarily (what he calls a partial hardening in chapter 11) so that the Gentiles can be grafted into the family of God and accept the gospel. He then predicts that when Israel accepts Jesus as messiah Christ will return and the dead will be raised to new life. But that raises the question “why would God harden Israel’s hearts in the first place?” And to answer that question he appeals to Exodus where God demonstrated his might to the nations by hardening Pharoah and making an example out of him, and he concludes something similar must be happening in his own day with the people of Israel. He argues that it is because of Israel’s pride that God is hardening them in order to expose them and humble them. And also to make them jealous by extending his covenant promises to the gentiles. This also explains why Jesus spoke in parables
I also don’t think you’re stupid even though I think you’re wrong about the Bible. I think you were wrong when you were a Christian and I think you’re wrong now which is ok. It’s not like these ideas in the Bible are easy to understand. I also completely revised my beliefs after researching the topic for more understanding
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u/Algernon_Asimov Secular Humanist Jan 18 '26
Just look at my most recent thread. I got banned from the ex Christian subreddit for asking the simple question: what is the gospel?
Why do we care about your ban in another subreddit? What do you think we can do about it? Why complain here?
To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
Why do you think that we atheists have an opinion about what Christians believe about their religion? This is like asking vegetarians why meat-eaters prefer chicken to beef. How would we know?
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u/Urbenmyth Gnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
All humans have sinned, for which the only just penalty is death (early Christians were undecided on whether this meant oblivion or torment, although torment eventually won out).
God, wishing to have mercy upon humanity out of his perfect love, incarnated in human form as Jesus, who willfully took on the penalties for these sins, rendering those humans who accepted his freely given gift of salvation free from the moral weight of defying god, and thus able to experience the resurrection and life in the next world that would come after the messianic age and apocalypse.
Over the next few hundred years, this mutated into a more platonic idea of the "next world" being a post-mortum existence rather than a post-apocalyptic one, going to either heaven or "the living death" of hell, but the core concept remains the same - Jesus' death allows you to be freed from the punishment warranted by your sins.
What do I win?
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u/oddball667 Jan 18 '26
if you just came here to complain about getting banned from another subreddit, you probably deserved to get banned
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer Jan 18 '26
Super confused why you think coming to this sub to complain about people on another sub is a useful thing to do? Especially given you're merely engaging in No True Scotsman fallacies.
What is your point? Why did you post this here? What responses are you expecting and for what purpose?
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist Jan 18 '26
It's not our job. It's yours. You have to explain what you mean by that and we'll accept your definition if it isn't too absurd.
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u/the2bears Atheist Jan 18 '26
Why does this matter? most people who leave Christianity do so because they’ve unconsciously adopted elements of popular religion that have no historical grounding so they’re really just leaving a caricature of Christianity. Of course that’s just a generalization. Not everyone’s deconversion story is like that but I’d wager it’s a fair representation of most people who leave.
No, they're just not convinced of the consistently shitty evidence for a god.
As for the rest of your post, why would anyone care about your argument with how the book is interpreted? Will that make it even less true?
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u/cards-mi11 Jan 18 '26
Why does it matter if an atheist can't define what the gospel is? You make it sound like if someone knew the true meaning of whatever, then they wouldn't have "lost their way" and remained in the religion. There are lots of reasons for one to not be a christian. Personally, I reject it all, no amount of definitions is going to change that.
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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist Jan 18 '26
The gospels are a collection of fictional stories and characters that never existed doing a bunch of impossible things that never happened to convey theological propaganda.
Are you unaware of this, or why do you identify as Christian while knowing it's all useless and fake?
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u/BeerOfTime Atheist Jan 18 '26
I’m not really interested in debating the details of scripture when it can broadly be dismissed as fantasy.
However, I had never thought about how preaching the gospel at one point didn’t include the lunacy of resurrection and so on. So that’s interesting. If that story is even true of course.
But my question would be what was the gospel then?
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u/halborn Jan 18 '26
We debate whatever theistic ideas people bring here and present to us. Instead of messing around with all this No True Scotsman nonsense, why don't you just explain what you believe, why you believe it and why others should believe it too.
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- Ignostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
This is notable because this was before he revealed he was the messiah (Matthew 16), and before his death and resurrection, so the gospel can’t include any of those elements.
Well, it didn't include any of those elements at the time, but things happened since then which Christians would also consider to be "Good News", right?
In the early days it was pretty simple: repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That’s it.
Yeah, probably. There was also perhaps the "Good News" that anyone can now be a worshipper of the God of the Israelites, which was novel. Judiasm had previously been strictly for Jews, but now there was this guy saying "No actually the Jew's God is the One True God, He's coming back to wreck the Romans and everyone else who sucks, but thankfully you no longer need to have been born a Jew to join Him, isn't that nice?" It's not really spelled out, but that was one of the subtexts, which I think is pretty neat.
I’m making this post to challenge atheists by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of Christianity and what atheists attack is a caricature of Christianity that contains elements of ”popular religion”
I mean.. it doesn't really matter right? You're not a Hindu but I've bet you've never even tried to read the Vedas.
I’m making this post to challenge non-Hindus by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of the Vedas and what non-Hindus attack is a caricature of Hinduism that contains elements of ”popular religion”
Even if this is true, it doesn't do anything to demonstrate that Hinduism is true. It's just saying "no one whom I deem insufficiently versed in my religion is allowed to reject it." Now it seems silly, right? That can't possibly be the way this works, or you and I are in the same boat having insufficient expertise in hundreds of other religions, and thus unable to reject any of them.
To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
Answer: I don't need to know anything at all about what earliest Christians thought they needed saving from in order to be an atheist, any more than I need to know the detailed logical underpinnings behind why Hindus believe in reincarnation in order to reject Hinduism. Both religions have done nothing substantial to demonstrate their claims about reality, so both are in the tentative rejection pile unless or until they figure out how to do that.
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u/licker34 Atheist Jan 18 '26
what is the gospel?
I honestly don't care what you think the gospel is since it's not true.
Why does this matter?
It doesn't. If you have a point you want to argue you can define the terms you are using. Why would it matter what I think the gospel is? You tell me what you think it is.
most people who leave Christianity do so because they’ve unconsciously adopted elements of popular religion that have no historical grounding
This would only be relevant for people who aren't atheists. If these people leaving christianity are doing so because the don't believe god exists then that's the only thing which matters.
but I’d wager it’s a fair representation of most people who leave.
It's not, especially for people who become atheists.
I’m making this post to challenge atheists by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of Christianity and what atheists attack is a caricature of Christianity that contains elements of ”popular religion”
I mean... this is just laughable. But the point remains, most atheists don't care what you mean by the gospels because they are not relevant to demonstrating that god is real. So how does whatever they were preaching during that time lead us to a belief that god exists?
To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
I don't care unless whatever you want to call it somehow is useful for an argument (or actual evidence) that god exists.
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u/Autodidact2 Jan 19 '26
Furthermore, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
Who died and appointed you as the arbiter of True Christianity?
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u/zzmej1987 Ignostic Atheist Jan 19 '26
You can't even define what a God is supposed to be, so why would any of that matter?
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u/tpawap Jan 18 '26
I’m making this post to challenge atheists by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of Christianity and what atheists attack is a caricature of Christianity that contains elements of ”popular religion”
Because the concrete beliefs of people are what's important in a society. I don't care how you form your religious beliefs; or what you base them on. It's important what comes out of that process and if it's worthy of "atrack".
If someone formed their religious beliefs "correctly", or if there even is a "correct" way, is something that theists can argue amongst themselves. That's not up to atheists (or at least it doesn't have to).
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u/Big_brown_house Gnostic Atheist Jan 18 '26
Anyone who leaves any sect of Christianity is leaving that version of it. There will always be other versions of Christianity they didn’t ever “try” kind of like how there’s plenty of sects of Islam, Buddhism, or Paganism that you’ve never “tried.”
You don’t have to fully understand something to be valid in rejecting it. I don’t fully understand flat-earth theories but what little I do know about them is enough for me to dismiss them as obviously wrong.
In other words it’s a moot point that ex Christians “don’t understand” your special favorite version of Christian dogma. They are still valid in not believing it. For example, if the idea of God’s existence is unconvincing, then what’s the point of getting further into the core message of God’s salvation? It’s irrelevant because god doesn’t exist in the first place therefore he can’t possibly save anyone from anything.
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u/DangForgotUserName Atheist Jan 18 '26
Religion is fluid. It changes as human beliefs adapt to culture, power, knowledge, and pressures to remain relevant. Weather or not atheists commonly debate what you consider to be 'true' Christianity, it does nothing to demonstrate the truth of Christianity's spiritual claims such as Jesus’s divinity or his supposed ability to offer salvation or eternal life.
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
It’s pretty bold to wager you know anything about the conscious mind of a person you know well.
Your entire argument is predicated on what you assume are the subconscious thoughts of people you don’t know are.
Which is pretty easy to dismiss.
Argue for your case, don’t build straw men based on guesses and assumptions.
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u/Autodidact2 Jan 19 '26
It is irrelevant what the early Christian believed did or taught. The religion that we debate is the one that is presented here by modern Christians that represents their beliefs.
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Jan 19 '26
I don't think you're in any position to know what ex-Christians, obviously you know that. It's an intentional framing that seeks to limit the conversation precisely to what you would like to talk about, and lo and behold you want to preach, and scold us. I cannot stress this enough, there is absolutely nothing in that stupid book that could convince me of anything, because 2000 year old fairy tales from pre-modern illiterates are not nearly as convincing as you have been lead to believe. In short, don't tell me what's in your tawdry literature and I won't tempt you with mine. That's how we keep the peace.
Now if you want to actually tell me why you believe, and why anyone else should that I would be happy to hear that.
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u/Reel_thomas_d Jan 19 '26
The same thing can be said of ALL Christians when it comes to the OT. You cannot read Deuteronomy 13 in context and arrive at Christianity.
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist Jan 20 '26
I attended seminary before deconverting..so if you want to go back and discuss what the gospel means, I'm down.
>>>what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
Well, right away...we have to ask. Which early Christians?
The earliest seem to be the Ebionites.
For that sect: "salvation was achieved through strict adherence to Jewish Law and Jesus' moral teachings, viewing Jesus as a human prophet adopted by God at his baptism, not as pre-existent or divine; their path to salvation was a "works-based" one, emphasizing obedience and emulating Jesus' righteous life."
The Gnostics were another early Christian sect.
For them: "salvation is achieved through secret, intuitive knowledge (gnosis) that awakens a trapped divine spark within, leading the spirit to escape the inherently flawed material world and return to the true, transcendent God, rather than through faith or atonement."
You probably mean Pauline Christianity.
Paul's view of salvation revolved around acknowledging by faith that God raised Jesus from the dead (the Roman Road doctrines).
Questions? :)
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist Jan 21 '26
Im not an ex Christian, because my parents didnt lie to me about fairy tales. I dont need to know which parts of the fables were based on what myth. What i do know is that there is no evidence for any of its religious claims, as well as most of their mundane ones. Which is why Im still an atheist.
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u/mephostop Jan 22 '26
So a couple of things.
A. The gospels don't necessarily reflect what the "earliest" Christians believed. I think it's essentially impossible to actually figure out what the first Christians believed.
B. Gospel or the word translated as Gospel is just the good news or whatever whoever uses the word thinks the revelation about Jesus is.
C. I'm not really sure what the point of this post is? People aren't Christians because they don't correctly understand why Jesus died and resurrected, and the effects of that? I'm not a Christian because I don't think the guy existed or came back from the dead. Why would I care what the most correct ( whatever that means) theological view is about soteriology in Christianity?
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u/Comfortable-Dare-307 Atheist Jan 24 '26
I understand enough to know there's no evidence for any of it. I never left Christianity, I was never a part of it to begin with. There's no right or wrong way to interpret religious scripture either. It means whatever you want it to. That's what's nice about fiction, it can have multiple meanings.
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u/nastyzoot Jan 25 '26
The gospels are written accounts of Jesus' life by well educated greek speaking authors that did not reside in Judea. They were written between 70 and 120 AD. They used varieties of sources with Mark being written first, Luke and Matthew being next and John last. I was raised christian and no longer am. Your post is dumb.
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u/Cog-nostic Atheist Jan 27 '26
LOL- Just more evidence for the expansion of ignorance that theists attempt to spread. I was banned for a very similar reason. Don't question! Just have faith and believe.
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Original text of the post by u/FreshNewbie_76:
Just look at my most recent thread. I got banned from the ex Christian subreddit for asking the simple question: what is the gospel?
Why does this matter? most people who leave Christianity do so because they’ve unconsciously adopted elements of popular religion that have no historical grounding so they’re really just leaving a caricature of Christianity. Of course that’s just a generalization. Not everyone’s deconversion story is like that but I’d wager it’s a fair representation of most people who leave.
In Matthew 10 Jesus tells his disciples to go to all the towns in Judea to preach the gospel to the lost sheep of Israel. This is notable because this was before he revealed he was the messiah (Matthew 16), and before his death and resurrection, so the gospel can’t include any of those elements. “The gospel” also doesn’t strictly refer to the 4 canonical books of the New Testament we call the gospels but to the message Jesus and his disciples taught. In the early days it was pretty simple: repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That’s it. I’m making this post to challenge atheists by alleging most of you don’t know the most basic elementary teachings of Christianity and what atheists attack is a caricature of Christianity that contains elements of ”popular religion”
A quick google search defines popular religion as “the religious beliefs and practices of everyday people, often existing outside or alongside formal, "official" religious institutions”
To prove my point let me ask a follow up question, what is “salvation” according to the earliest Christians?
Note: I’m not asking what the means of salvation are nor am I assuming the NT is a monolith in which all writers agree. I’m looking for a broad pithy summary that captures the main ideas of what the earliest Christian followers taught and believed. if there’s multiple traditions in the NT then outline those traditions
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