r/DebateAChristian • • 14h ago

Salvation based on word of mouth

5 Upvotes

There are many ways to tackle my biggest hurdle with Christianity: why is it reliant on word of mouth.

One example I have is hyper specific: what happened to all the people, who did not and could not have heard of Jesus’ death and resurrection before it was evangelized?

For example: people in Africa, the Americas, etc. they clearly didn’t have the same concept of the Judeo god. I assume they were already banned to hell.

But AFTER the resurrection, they certainly didn’t have the ability to learn of it before it would reach them (impossible by word of mouth) and before they would get a chance to read the transcriptions later turned into text (impossible logistically for hundreds of years).

Simply put: if I were in Africa and somehow knew of the Judeo god, when Christ died and was resurrected, I would literally not know until someone told me or I got a copy of the transcripts of what had happened. Does that mean they all were destined to hell?

I know the current biblical standard is Romans which talks about all men knowing, but how is that a logistically possible?

Why would salvation be based on word of mouth accounts and doesn’t that certainly imply there are those who could
NOT have heard the word of god, especially after Jesus’ death and resurrection, but before it was even possible to share?

Wouldn’t that mean someone who died hours or days after Christ be banned to hell because they couldn’t have heard the news?

Now in current time, it’s hard to understand how your salvation is completely dependent on human evangelism. In some regions it’s logically impossible: what happens to them?


r/DebateAChristian • • 14h ago

The conviction that scripture cannot be wrong is not evidence that your understanding of scripture must be right.

16 Upvotes

Even within a worldview that holds to biblical inerrancy, there's an important distinction between the belief that scripture is without error and the belief that one's interpretation of scripture is without error.

Biblical inerrancy doesn't make the person interpreting the Bible infallible. It simply means that, when an interpretation is mistaken, the error lies with the interpreter rather than the text.


r/DebateAChristian • • 22h ago

Why Are People So Uncomfortable With "I don't know"

21 Upvotes

From my point of view, the majority of religious claims arise due to the lack of the claimant's ability to accept "I don't know" as an answer.

What happens when we die? - We don't know. There's a lot of speculation and first hand accounts from people that were close to death, but no one has ever gotten a first hand account from an individual who is actually dead, nor does that seem to even be possible. Why is not knowing what happens after death (beyond the well documented physical and chemical processes that decompose the body) so abhorrent?

How did existence come to be? - We don't know. Our best explanation outlines the big bang, the expansion of the universe, and the formation of stars and planets, but going back beyond a certain point we don't know. Why is not knowing such a problem?

What would happen if we did know everything? Curiosity would die, the desire to explore and understand and experiment would be irrelevant. That sounds like a miserable and boring existence to me. I am thrilled that there's things we don't know, it gives me hope.