re: For those wanting to live in a post-Christian America, how are you enjoying it

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These countries are the happiest in the world. They're also some of the least religious countries in the world as well.

They seem to be doing just fine without using a 2000 year old book as their moral compass.

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They seem to be doing just fine being the most homogenous populations regarding demographics in the world.

They are also the whitest populations in the world.

But we are going to refer to this wavering propagandists list as some sort of nebulous 'happiness' index?

"Happiness index"? Did Goebbels start this measure? Were 1939 Germans also 'happy'?

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Maybe being murderous is a virtue.

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If someone was about to pull the cord on a bomb vest which would kill many people, shooting him dead before he committed the act would be heroic.
All the actions of God, which might seem heinous to us, are done with 100% foreknowledge

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I do believe society would be much different if a large portion of people read the scriptures.

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Truth

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The fact there are many many many Catholics who live thinking they can get to heaven if they are “good enough” is a testament to that

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How does anyone really know that this isn't true? A book that has been altered thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times?

I'm not a Catholic, I'm just asking. How can anyone claim to really "know" what definitely does or does not get you into heaven?

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Not speaking as a Roman Catholic, but Rome has taught for a long time that faith alone in Christ alone is not sufficient to save. We must add on to Christ's merit with our own to be saved. I disagree with this entirely, as I believe it is unbiblical and robs the gospel ("good news") of its goodness.

Christians can "know" (have confidence) in how one is saved by going to the word of God, itself.

Can you point to the change history of the Bible that you claim has been "altered thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times"? If you know this is to be true, you should be able to show your work.

The Bible hasn't been "altered" as you claim. We have thousands of manuscript copies that all point to one conclusion: Christians can have confidence that we have "the Bible" in its entirety.

Those differences in the early manuscripts are almost entirely inconsequential, being mostly typos, letters in a word moved around (but we still know what the word is), or minor additions for clarity. Even the few examples of large chunks of the Bible that are different between manuscript traditions (like the longer ending of Mark or the woman caught in adultery) add or remove nothing from the doctrines derived from scripture. Because we have so many manuscripts, we can see what "changes" have been made, unlike in Islam, where at one time, a decree was made to destroy all manuscripts or versions of the Q'uran that differed from the one that was chosen by the religious leaders.

You really don't have a leg to stand on here, as even the most critical skeptics have abandoned attacking the Bible in the way that you have.

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If you know for sure, it wouldn't be called faith would it?

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Faith is confidence and trust. It isn't a blind leap, an accepted mere possibility, or guess.

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Humanism is the only rationality that is defensible.

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Can you defend your "Faith"??

(I'll wait)

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conveniently born agains lecturing people is a solid strategy to bring people back to the faith

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Can you clarify?

Thanks.

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The example you gave of Easter, in Christianity, has nothing to do with eggs and bunnies. In the Bible (where Christianity derives its authoritative teachings), there isn't even a mention of "Easter". Easter, in Christianity, is focused on the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What others have done to add on to the remembrance of that event afterwards in history is up for criticism, but the event, itself, is not stolen from paganism.

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We should almost call Easter, Passover instead. I don't remember why there is the name change but Easter and Passover are closely connected.

One other note, the Catholic Church at-least and maybe other Christian denominations as well, don’t celebrate Easter one day, we celebrate it for 8 days than have an Easter season for 50 days. This again is similar to Passover which is celebrated for 8 days. Friday evening through Saturday Evening. Catholics celebrate Easter Saturday night, to Sunday Night (the octave of Easter)

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Christians can "know" (have confidence) in how one is saved by going to the word of God, itself.

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Thats a self fulfilling prophecy, right? You're saying you "know" because the thing thats trying to convince you says its true.

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Faith is confidence and trust. It isn't a blind leap, an accepted mere possibility, or guess.

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But its not absolute knowledge. I have confidence and trust that the Dodgers will win the NL West. I don't know for sure that they will win the NL West.

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You really don't have a leg to stand on here, as even the most critical skeptics have abandoned attacking the Bible in the way that you have.

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I'm not criticizing the Bible. Ask any translator, every time you translate something there are bits that get lost. "bits" and "Small differences" like you said can change the entire context of a verse.

Who chose which books to leave in and which to omit? There are other manuscripts they found that aren't in "the" Bible.

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Faith is strong belief, confidence, or trust in something. Not knowledge.

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When you step behind the wheel of your car, is it "faith" that your car doesn't swerve into oncoming traffic? Is it faith that the jet your flying in at 30,000 ft doesn't crash? OR, is it "knowledge"? (Is "The Law of Physics" faith or knowledge? Or is it, "confidence"?)

Faith to its nth degree IS Knowledge.

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That [Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV] says absolutely nothing about faith in God meaning you know for a fact how you get into heaven, or even if he exists.

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Scripture and the Gospel reiterates "The Grace of God as saving man through his Faith" (as well as covering those separate issues.)

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"Christianity's morals" predate every other moral system, because they come from God, Himself, who existed eternally, before He made any other peoples.

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Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus. Just because a book states that a God has always been omnipresent doesn't make it true. And it's circular. The proof of God is in a book, yet God wrote the book.

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No, Christianity is not a mish mash of paganistic beliefs. If you actually put some time into studying this, you wouldn't have said as much.

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In the interest of brevity I'll just cite a couple of additional instances...

The parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh (epic poem from Mesopotamia) and the book of Genesis. Gilgamesh dates to the 18th century BC. It covers creation of man from dust, the woman who tempts him, paradise and nakedness, even the snake.

The Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood story identically, point by point. In the epic, the god Ea warns Utnapishtim of a great flood and told Utnapishtim to build a boat in order to save all the living things. Just like Noah, he builds the boat, puts all the living things and his family on it, experiences a storm, and after it was all over, he offers a sacrifice to God. Flood stories have been found in many texts which predate the Bible.

As do stories of resurrection. The gods Adonis, Tammuz, Osiris and Dionysus died and were then resurrected.

Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, which God forbade her to do, and this act released evil into the world. Identical to the myth of Pandora’s Box. Pandora was the first woman (like Eve) created by the Greek gods.

To deny that The Bible is a collection of fables plagiarized from older civilizations and belief systems is Christian apologetics at it's finest.

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If you refuse to "identify" with Christianity because of historical sins, that's a problem with you, not the Faith.

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I'll clarify my original statement. I expressed bewilderment at how anyone could identify with Christianity due to historical sins. I personally don't identify with Cristianity's God, or any other god, because of evidentiary failure.

If I ask people if they believe in Zeus or Poseidon, the answer is usually a resounding NO. I can argue that at core they're also atheists to some extent. I just take it to the logical conclusion and include the final monotheistic God in that mix.

Faith = strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.