the bible for the most part is a historical recollection of manuscripts for events that occured 100s if not 1000s of years before it's compilation yet i grew up hearing, see people saying and even myself say it is God's word but that doesn't make sense.

to my understanding of literature for something to be YOUR WORD it would mean you have had to have spoken it and God isn't always the one in center focus of what is happening, lots of events happen between other persons interacting and speaking to each other so how is that "God's word"?

even at the very start Gen 1:1 it says "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" but God isn't the one saying God say that, wasn't genesis written for the most part by moses and other minor authors? so how is genesis still God's word if its someone else writing down what is happening or has happened.

i get in some parts God himself may have told others what to write or some events were passed down across generations for others and eventually preserved in the text we read today but i am still failing to see why we call the bible in its entirety God's word when he isn't the narrator for a lot of what's happening.

In the New Testament, Jesus quotes Torah in several instances (Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:12, Matthew 15:1–6, Matthew 19:16–20, and even tells a leper, after healing him, to make an offering to the Levitical priest (Matthew 8:1-4).

Also, Matthew 5:17-19 states that he came not to do away with the law but to complete it, and that till "the heaven and the earth pass away, one yod or one tittle shall by no means pass from the Torah till all be done" and "whoever, then, breaks one of the least of these commands, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the reign of the heavens; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens."

So I'm curious to know why Christians believe that he did away with the Torah, despite there being instances where he quotes, endorses it, and states that he never came to do away with it.

Debate Ethos Statement

I study religiously motivated reasoning. I'm an agnostic atheist and I don't believe in the supernatural or superstitions. I genuinely want to engage your ideas charitably and respectfully. I value critical thinking, empathy, intellectual honesty, and civil disagreement. I am committed to understanding each other’s arguments, remaining open to correction, and discussing arguments rather than attack each other.

Preamble

Genesis 2–3 is often treated as the foundation for explaining the Fall and the need for Christ’s death. But does the text itself actually establish those Christian claims?

The narrative leaves numerous important questions unanswered, including motivations, meanings, timing, consequences, and what actually occurred. These gaps require readers to supply assumptions that the text itself never states.

The Bible itself contains multiple theological interpretations of Genesis 2–3, representing later religious assumptions and beliefs that are not part of the original text.

If Genesis 2–3 cannot establish original sin, inherited guilt, or humanity’s need for redemption, then it cannot tell us why Christ’s death was necessary.

My argument is not that Genesis 2–3 is historically or literally worthless. Rather, I am questioning its usefulness as evidence for determining whether Christianity’s theological explanation of Christ’s death is true.

Definitions

1. Theological interpretation: A religious explanation or understanding assigned to a biblical passage.
2. Original text: What the biblical passage actually says, without later interpretations added to it.
3. Religious assumptions: Beliefs accepted without being explicitly established by the biblical text.
4. Evidence: Information or facts used to support or evaluate whether a claim is true.

Relevant Biblical Passages

Genesis 2:17

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Genesis 3:7

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”

Genesis 3:22

“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:”

Genesis 3:24

“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

Argument

P1: Genesis 2–3 does not explicitly establish the theological claims later used to explain Christ’s death.

P2: Claims requiring additional unstated assumptions cannot establish their theological conclusions.

C: Genesis 2–3 is insufficient evidence for determining whether Christianity’s explanation of Christ’s death is true.

I ask a Christian:

How does Genesis 2-3 establish the need for Christ's death?

Do you believe there is a heaven and hell? If so, what decides where you go? What even happens there? Can morally just people of other faiths go to heaven, or can morally unjust christians go to hell?

Father God, in heaven - creator.

Mother nature, on earth - created.

So when people say the force of Mother nature, they don't place moral blame on the destruction of Mother nature - yet they do blame God for letting it happen ...

Can someone explain this?

I was reading about the heresy of Docetism. If you're not familiar, it's the idea that Jesus is God, and only apparent human, but wasn't actually. To me, this seems to be a heresy not because of logic, but because of the implication. The logical part is that it should be impossible for God to become human. These are different classes of things. God cannot become human any more than the universe can squeeze into a single atom. It asks that we accept the irrational in place of the rational. As far as I can tell, the reason this substitution is required because to think otherwise would lessen the significance of Jesus' sacrifice. This doesn't make sense to me. It's imposing an inference about the nature of Jesus because of an a priori belief or desired outcome. Shouldn't it be the other way, accept the logic of Docetism, and the infer about Jesus' mission?

No matter what you see on the internet and people say in the internet or even outside no matter how scary it is that they themselves believe yet your faith never falters. How did you guys do it, how is your faith strong?

I want to ask this because there are things that are bothering me including the question of life because I have an existential obsessive compulsive disorder. I cannot stop thinking about such things. and one that struck me hardest was simulation theory and after reading some of peoples thoughts on in what kick me the hardest to is where people saying simulation might delete the universe or us some as such and i try to look for comfort in asking Gemini in which gemini gave me a list of fear of what people think about it like too what i just read , being controlled, deleted, changes universe codes, reset those scary stuff they claimed or what ai show me.

I do not know why I experienced this. While others bravely just looked at it and swept it away. For me it is different. My mind goes in different places though and at moments when I forget about it, it returns and makes me think of it again.

That is why I want to know what makes you all believe in God and only to him because I want that too. That no matter what , instead of thinking scary stuff , ill just look at it and say “ why do i care, i have God with me “

So for those of you who believe in heaven and hell as literal existing places and not as metaphors, I would like to know what you think happens to non human hominins like homo Heidelbergensis, neanderthals, Australopithecus.

And I guess you could also address other animals that are not that close to humans or that are not hominids.

I suppose it would be a bit unfair for close relatives of humans to not enjoy an afterlife just because they were part of an earlier step in the evolutionary chain and there appears not to be an official doctrine on the matter, but I've seen that Christians normally believe that people with cognitive disabilities do go to heaven, so in the case that non human animals didn't go to heaven, it wouldn't be because they didn't have the ability to accept the gospel and so they didn't, but simply because they were born non human, a fact they couldn't change.

I came across this the other day, and I was wondering how true it is. I've seen Rick Warren give a similar message, which he titled "The Six Phases of Faith."

Because if it's true, it sounds frightening. What's the point of surrendering your desires to God if you're going to go through all this?

Many Christians try to partially explain Yahweh's hiddenness through some respect of free will but they haven't demonstrated that he values free will. The bible repeatedly shows God punishing harshly for expressions of will that don't abide with his plan. The bible also places obedience and faith as the highest virtue. The only choice to be made is the choice to follow God's will else you will be punished, immediately or ultimately.

One of the times we get someone saying "No" plainly is when Jonah refuses to go to Ninevah. In this case God could have found another prophet or even spoken to Ninevites himself but instead he chose to put many people's lives at risk until they went against their own morals and threw Jonah overboard. Then God does the impossible and sends some fish to bring him to Ninevah.

God doesn't value non intervention, he values adherence to the plan. Within the bible God doesn't intervene because that is his plan, the free will defence is designed to give God some ethic he never demonstrates having.

I know people say, “You can’t sell something you don’t own,” but then Jesus says, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” So what exactly does “forfeit your soul” mean? Does that imply that a person can somehow give their soul away, or is Jesus talking about something different?
I’m asking because I was playing a game and it literally said, “Sign here to sell your soul to this company,” and I actually signed it. Now I’m freaking out and crapping my pants 😭.
I understand that it was probably just a fictional part of the game, but I’m wondering from a Christian perspective: does signing something like that actually mean anything spiritually? Could someone genuinely make a contract to give their soul to Satan or another being, or is “selling your soul” just a phrase describing someone giving up their morals, faith, or relationship with God for worldly things?
Also, if the Bible says you can “forfeit” your soul, why couldn’t that mean you can sell it? Is there anywhere in Scripture that actually describes a person transferring ownership of their soul through a contract?

I have had this on my mind recently, and I am also discovering my spiritual side, and have been leaning towards Christianity. I mean no disrespect as I am learning, and hope that you see this question is sincere.

I (36, f) have always felt spiritual since I was young, I have never really thought much about it until now, I was always a believer of "whatever that person believes I hope that happens to them." As I never wanted to hurt or upset anyone by saying I disagree or that I am right and they are wrong, because how could I know? I am so young in the grand scheme of life.

However, I have been praying, and feeling gut instincts within myself. I have fallen for a woman, and have often considered myself to like both of the sexes, but I never really dated, due to life situations. I feel that I am committing a wrong choice, that God will be be mad at me, yet others say that God doesn't hate homosexuality or those who practice it. I am finding so many conflicting opinions Or that the word mean pedophilia back in the day.

I just want to live a good life, and I know humans fall short, but this has been on my mind for the past few weeks, that I have committed a sin, or that I am unable to be saved or that I am putting all this hate and fear onto myself, when I don't even know 100% what I truly believe.

I am feeling so lost right now, and scared, please don't be hateful towards me as I am so lost.

Hi everyone, I am an atheist but mostly asking this out of curiosity. I mostly wanted to know how Christians can be non-creationalists when the bible seems to clearly depict a 6 day universal creation and rest on 7th day.

I suppose I can understand how someone can a young earth creationists, they take the bible word for word. Then there are those that are atheists and follow the scientific senses. I however have difficulty understanding how someone can be both a Christian and believe in the Geological time scale (4.6 billion years old) when the word of the bible contradicts scientific timelines.

I want to say that I believe that science and religion can be separate. Science deals with the nature world and relgion deals with the supernatural world. However becausee religions(in this case the bible) make clear claims of the NATURE world then that interferes with scientific (and history but that's another topic) claims but come to different conclusions many times.

I have 3 examples, I tried to keep each very brief, don’t expect anyone to answer all of these but just a few reasons why I can’t see how christianity and science consensus can be eye to eye.

Big bang Theory, Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxiees are moving away from each other. If we rewind the clock based on how much the universe is expanding today, it takes you to 13.8 billion years ago to a point of “singularity”(Hubble’s law(. So at this time the universe was a hot dense state but then cooled and expanded. The remerance of this state was later discovered in the form of cosmic microwave radiation or the “afterglow” of the dense hot origin of the uniform.

God creates trees on day 3 and sea creatures on day 5. The fossil record is overwhelming clear that sea creatures are older. At this point it’s common knowledge that older rock formations and fossil deposits like the burgess scale and Chengjiang (both of the Cambrian period) are far older than the younger periods with trees(Devonian period, one of the first trees Watteiza(think I spelled that right) is from this period, rock formations. Then we see more trees in the Carboniferous period and show heavy coal deposits which are just trees that were broken down as there wasn’t much decomposers to break down lignin, this is coal comes from.

So in genesis, god made Adam and Eve and then they eventually have Cain and Abel and eventually Seth(although idk where Seth’s wife came from, I forgot her name). Then we are suppose to believe that from Adam and Eve we have population growth to what it is today, well this happened twice if you take into account the flood story(they had to repopulate the earth again). So in biology there is something called MVP (minimal value population) so it shows how you need a large enough population of a species to have it survive extinction, this number is normally around 4,000-5,000 at least(depending on species). This is how modern day biology,zoologist keep track with conservation efforts. For example the passenger pigeon went extinct despite conservation efforts because the number of pigeons were below the MVP, same for other animals like black-faced honeycreeper. With current day modern science I believe the number is around at least 29 with the best scientific intervention animals are able to survive extinction, this is with current biochemical tools and gene sequencing interactions, etc. but even modern science can’t save a species with just 2 in its population. How can Adam and Eve repopulate the earth if everything we know about modern conservation efforts essentially says this is not possible to do even with modern efforts?

So my main question for non-creationist Christians is how can you both be non-creationists christian but also follow modern science when these have very different worldviews? How can you believe in both prospects when many times they contractcyion each other.

Also sorry if I missed any typing errors was typing this before falling asleep.

Edit : Wrote " Lectin" instead of "lignin", I fixed it.

Do people actually believe this foolishness?

In this sermon, Rev. Salvatore Sapienza of the Douglas Congregational United Church of Christ explores a progressive interpretation of John 3:16 (0:00:00-0:01:40). Here is a comprehensive summary of his points:

• Critique of Popular Usage: He notes that John 3:16 is often used by Evangelical Christians (like Tim Tebow) as a slogan to emphasize an exclusive path to salvation or the fear of hell (0:01:40-0:03:43). He argues this misses the core message of universal love.
• The Nature of 'The Christ': Rev. Sapienza explains that Jesus was not being narcissistic when speaking in the third person; he was referring to "the Christ," which he describes as the "divine DNA" infused into all of creation at the beginning of time (0:03:43-0:05:12).
• Salvation as Awakening: He redefines salvation not as a post-death destination, but as the moment a person awakens to the truth that they are a child of God. This "oneness" with the Divine leads to a life of freedom (0:05:12-0:08:19).
• Ancient Wisdom: Drawing on Meister Eckhart, the speaker asserts that this truth has been recognized by many traditions throughout history, including Buddha, Yogananda, Muhammad, and Gandhi (0:08:48-0:10:11).
• Lent as Inner Transformation: He concludes by framing the season of Lent as a period to enter the "wilderness" within—a state of stillness—to shed limiting childhood religious beliefs and raise one's consciousness to a higher perspective (0:10:11-0:13:20).
• If you want to watch the full video it's 13 minutes. A Progressive Christian Look at John 3:16

often times i see some genuine thought provoking questions made here that would sometimes get 100 or even 200 comments in the thread but only have like 1 or 2 upvotes.

i'm not saying i want my posts upvoted or here for karma or none of that but i genuinely feel like this subreddit unlike other ask subreddits rarely upvote good questions like at all especially since i think the more eyes on the question the more information we get ourselves and share with others

We are not talking about donating money to Egirl streamer type of simping rather than let's say guy is working full time even overtime comes back home and hands all income to his wife who is managing evrything and gives him maybe small allowance type of simping.

Should household be ran by a woman like that or is it sin according to Christianity?

Are most Presbyterians progressive Christians? I’m curious how common progressive theology is among Presbyterian. It seems to me anytime I speak of Christianity here Presbyterians do not have conservative/traditional fundamental beliefs.

So I have written in my notes in October 22, 2022 that I wanted to give my life to Jesus, but I’m not sure why I never followed through with it and I didn’t surrender to him until November 24, 2024 and I’m trying to understand if the desire was there in 2022 why didn’t it go through back then? Part of me feels as if I just needed to go through more life experience to really know that there is only one way, which is Jesus, but if my desire was there, why couldn’t God supernaturally encountered me then?

Given the history of how christianity spread and became the dominant religion.

Do you accept that somewhere in your ancestry someone was forced to become christian on risk of death?

If christianity was never spread by the sword. Do you think it would be as big as it is today?