Romulus, Mithras And Jesus

[Lachish]

By that same logic a criminal who recants his crime was never really a criminal. So much for forgiveness of sins.

That's like saying someone who has had sex before converting is now a virgin because they are born-again.

[stromboli]

That's like saying someone who has had sex before converting is now a virgin because they are born-again.

Thank you for proving my point.

[Lachish]

Thank you for proving my point.

The point being? Criminality and sex actually require action. What action is there in faith?

[stromboli]

The Christian viewpoint is that someone who ends up not being a Christian was never actually a Christian in the beginning, just simply stating they were a Christian. It's really so easy to say you're a Christian but it have really no meaning. Just look at the Catholics in France, a Christian study showed that half of them didn't even believe in God....France is one of the nations where missionaries go to fail (at least according to what the missionaries themselves have said).

So if someone who declares themselves a non- believer becomes a believer and is trumpeted as such, they are true believers. But Bart Ehrman, a historian and ordained minister declares finally they have serious doubts about the religion and at the end considers themselves a doubting agnostic, where do you draw the line of faith? How more demonstrable can you be than a minister preaching to a congregation?

If your viewpoint is that a doubter can become a believer, where is the logic that says it is therefore wrong to learn not to believe? Your religion teaches that nonbelievers can become believers, but if a believer becomes a nonbeliever, they didn't believe in the first place? And you don't think that is illogical?

The statement you made is very like one that Mormons use, when meeting an exMormon. They say that "well, they were disgruntled or disagreed with something the church taught so they left". The fact that I proved Mormonism to be false is not the issue, it is literally ignored. Your statement is nothing but an excuse to write off nonbelievers or people who learned otherwise and became atheists. It is simply writing off the person involved so you don't have to deal with it intellectually. It is neither logical nor honest.

[Minimalist]

Ehrman of course studied this shit in depth for decades.  He did not suddenly have a brain cramp one day and say "there's jesus....oh, no it isn't."