From a biblical perspective, everything.
Life is sacred from the very beginning “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). Taking that life isn’t just a “choice,” it’s destroying what God Himself has made. Proverbs 6:17 even lists “hands that shed innocent blood” among the things the Lord hates.
Do you enjoy crustaceans and pork?
That’s the opinion of the author of that psalm. Nothing else.
Jesus made it clear in Mark 7:19 that all foods are clean.
More like whoever mark was 100 years later made that clear as they expanded their cult into Greece.
That’s not just “the opinion of the author.” The psalms, like the rest of Scripture, are held by believers as God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). When David says God knit him together in the womb, he’s pointing to a truth that runs throughout the Bible: life is sacred, and God is its author.
In philosophy you can make logical arguments that support your ideas. Plato argued abstract concepts all the time.
It’s a simple argument.
If time exists only as the universe exists, anything that exists outside of it would be timeless.
X exists before the universe. Therefore it is timeless.
Ergo to us, X is eternal.
You probably don’t know, or don’t want to know, but Christianity through the millenniums has been a leading cause of death, so not so sacred then…
The Gospel of Mark is generally dated by scholars to within a generation of Jesus’ life. So no, not 100 years later.
Nothing to argue about, then.
Still not contemporary. And thought to be written in Rome. Likely not even a firsthand account.
There are some that think all 4 gospels were written much later than is claimed. They weren’t even originally attributed to 4 authors.
I get what you mean, it’s tricky because we’re using time-words like “before” to describe something that, by definition, would be outside of time.
That’s why I was using “eternal” in the sense of timeless, not “lasting forever within time.” If time began with the universe, then anything that exists outside of that framework wouldn’t have a start or an end. it would simply be.
Whether we call that “eternal” or “timeless” is probably just semantics, but the main idea is the same: existence outside of time doesn’t run on the clock the way our universe does.
It’s interesting because Moses asked god who he was and the answer was “I am” which is interpreted as pure existence, timeless, not bound by beginnings or ends.
Well there is a lot. We are making the presumption that time existed only as the universe existed.
This is the consensus theory but we don’t know for sure.
Even the more skeptical scholars usually date Mark to around 65-70 AD, which puts it within living memory of eyewitnesses.
And yet, wherever Christianity took root, you also find the rise of some of the most stable, prosperous, and free nations in history. The principles of human dignity, equality, and justice that shaped the modern world are rooted in the very faith you’re dismissing.
Only because Europeans went through the age of age enlitenment etc etc and were the last great empire builders. Christianity played no role, just chance that Europeans happened to be Christians at the time. If they were Buddhists people would now be claiming the same about Buddhism.
If Christianity had “nothing to do with it,” then why do we see Buddhist nations like Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and even parts of Southeast Asia being profoundly shaped by Christian influence when they modernized? It wasn’t Buddhism that brought hospitals, universities, human rights, or democratic government… It was Christian-inspired nations that exported those ideas.
Look at what Christianity challenged in Buddhist cultures: the rigid caste systems, the devaluation of human life, the lack of protections for widows, or the idea that suffering was simply your karma to endure. The Christian vision of human dignity and compassion corrected those injustices and pushed societies toward reforms that Buddhism by itself never produced.
Interestingly, most of the leaders of Taiwan and the father of the ROC, Dr. Sun and his wife were Christians.
- Chiang Kai-shek – Christian (Methodist)
- Yen Chia-kan – Christian (Presbyterian)
- Chiang Ching-kuo – Christian (Methodist, baptized)
- Lee Teng-hui – Christian (Presbyterian)
- Chen Shui-bian – Not Christian
- Ma Ying-jeou – Christian (Catholic)
- Tsai Ing-wen – Not Christian (no open affiliation)
- Lai Ching-te – Christian (Catholic)
Cultural imperialism, americans and british
You can call it “cultural imperialism” all day, but the reality is it produced freer nations, schools, hospitals, and human rights.
I get that you don’t like the outcome though. I’m sorry the world is now a much better place because of Christianity.