These articles were published between January 2001 and February 2010. To view recent posts, go to The Main Blog at ExChristian.Net
How do we know that Christians are delusional?
If you are a Christian, you are about to begin a fascinating journey. In the next ten minutes it will become clear to you that your belief in God is delusional.
The goal of this short video is to help you look in a mirror and understand the delusion of Christianity. Once you can see what is going on, the hope is that you will be able to start healing your delusion. With each healing, we make our world a better place.
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145 comments:
I really doubt that these videos make much difference among Christians. Such hateful, heated words are the exact thing that will convince Christians they are being persecuted and that their religion is true.
stuupid
Chris,
What approach, in your pious opinion, would help Christians understand how delusional they are?
Hmm?
Oh, and anony... yours is the ironically funny post of the day.
Being diplomatic might help. Throwing insults is probably the least effective way to convince someone you're right. A majority of Christians will simply become defensive or ignore you. Granted, I'm sure there are some who are open-minded enough to actually listen.
But this series of videos tends to state opinions ("Christianity is repulsive") as gospel truth. It's sensationalism more than anything.
Huh?
Did you actually listen to the entire video?
I thought it was quite effective.
However, there are a lot of different kinds of people out there, Chris, and no single approach will get to or appeal to everyone -- period.
Besides, this site is about encouraging people who are doubting Christianity. I think those who are having problems believing in Christianity would find this video encouraging.
I suggest, Chris, that if you know the best way of presenting this topic, that you do it instead of just sitting on your ass and criticizing people who are actually doing something.
Just an opinion.
Sure, you found it effective in reinforcing your positions as an ex-christian. And like I said, some Christians are looking for something like this. But to be honest, for a vast majority of Christians, arguing with them will not get them to change their minds.
Something I did carry over from christianity though is the idea of being an example of an atheist who treats people well and strives to make a positive difference in this world. That's part of the reason I contacted Habitat for Humanity the other day about volunteering.
And is telling someone, "You're delusional," really encouraging? Sure, it may be a true statement, but I think there are ways to soften the blow a little. But like you said, to each his own. Maybe some people need to be insulted before they'll really examine themselves and their beliefs.
I don't think any of these girls were virgins. Great video Dave. Thanks for sharing that with all of us. It is so ironic that Christians do think their story is so believable, and should be accepted by all despite the irrationality of the whole tall tale, and yes a devout Christian would be the first one to scoff at the obsurdity of the stories of the Mormon or Muslim faiths. As outsiders looking in all we can do is be glad we are no longer within the cirlces of delusion.
Too bad this doesn't get out to the masses.
I've got to agree with Chris.
Dave, you're totally, totally right that this can be encouraging to ex-Christians (though, IMO, for not really great reasons; mockery and debasement is a self-demeaning form of encouragement: that's how bullies find "encouragement" on school playgrounds). But the stated purpose of the video itself (as opposed to the site to which it was posted) is to convince Christians. This is a much harder job when, before even introducing the arguments, you are already using derogatory and insulting language against them. Much better to make your points in as diplomatic a way as possible, the better to get past their initial defenses and get them to actually listen to what you're saying.
I like these videos, they are blunt and to the point, and they raise great questions. I don't hear hateful, heated words. Look to Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Kent Hovind or Ted Haggard when he's chatting about evolution or gay sex for that. These words are simple and straightforward.
My common exchange with any number of my Christian friends...
Me: You're delusional
Them: You're an ass
and then we drink beer.
I find it much more civilised that way.
Of course, nothing changes, but we do drink beer... which is all to the good in ecumenical dealings like that :)
Love
Grandpa
BTW, the 'all scientific studies' assertion is an act of faith. Most often I find when people say 'there is not study to back this' they mean nothing they've got round to reading or nothing in English (being UK based, I'd refine this further to nothing in the UK... I think the same holds true for the US)
It's easy to ignore a study in French since you don't translate it (clinical studies using 'essential oils'... huge volume going back to the 1920s). same with German (General Practice Doctors use lot of stuff the FDA would class as 'radionic' and thus it would be broken up and the person using it would be placed in a Federal Penitentiary) To assert ALL studies is, unless one has spent a life time reading them is just FAITH. It doesn't fit within the world view, thus it's 'impossible'... Trying to prove an absence is one of the hardest things I know...
Love etc
Gramps
Chris and Mike, you're certainly entitled to your opinions, but if I apply what you are saying across the board, then Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are out line.
What I think both of you still have from Christianity is a dogmatic view of how others should think, speak, or act.
Ex-Christians are not united in any way except the lack of belief in Christianity.
This video encourages me. I WAS delusional. I WAS! I know it now. And the comparisons with Mormonism and Islam make it painfully clear just how delusional I was.
Are the words shocking to a Christian? Yeah, they are. So what? Christians weren't converted to Christianity through a quiet rational conversation, and it's doubtful to me that any one will de-convert after a quiet rational conversation. No doubt, something like this video will NOT de-convert anyone either. It will ultimately take a desire on the part of the Christian to actually dig and learn for him- or herself before anything like de-conversion can ever happen. Little videos, scientific books, entire websites, television shows, etc., none of it is going to de-convert a single person that isn't already having doubts. But all of the above things might (MIGHT) get someone to start thinking.
What concerns me whenever I see comments condemning the work of others on these general topics, especially the godhatesamputees people, who by the way, have some great articles to read on their site, is that broad brush statements that seem to be telling me that "there is only one right way to approach a topic" and you need to have possession of this knowledge in order to be an effective ex-Christian (or atheist, or whatever) has echoes of fundamentalism in it. What you think you are saying and what I am hearing are two different things. If what you mean to say is that "I personally prefer a softer approach, it agrees more with my personality" then fine, that's a valid statement, and quite defensible. Everyone has a different preference on nearly everything -- can't argue with that. If, however, you are saying what I think you are saying, that "Only my preferred style of broaching these topics is the correct and effective approach, and all other approaches are less effective, less valuable and can even make things worse," then, I'll have to completely disagree with both of you. But, I guess that's what discussion is all about.
Now, this is a discussion site, so discussion is expected. I don't hold this kind of conversation at work or with the people I associate with in various community activities. That would be fruitless and inappropriate and rude. And I don't really expect anyone on this site to agree with everything, or any one thing that I say. But I do know that over 2,500 former Christians and current Christians log on to this site every day, for any number of reasons, and it's not only because of the topics touched on here, but because they are in all kinds of formats, ranging in quality from sophomoric, silly humor to serious well written articles and everything in between. The increasing attraction of this site alone speaks to the need for all of us to be less absolute in our viewpoints on how ideas MUST be presented.
Anyway, have either of you ever read Thomas Paine? How about Robert Ingersoll? Man, talk about offensive stuff!
Saying someone is delusional is not what I consider an insult.
Saying they're a dickhead, yes that's an insult, for insult's sake.
Saying they're delusional is just a statement describing them (or your opinion of them).
I would consider it an invitation to further engage them in discussion.
Like the christian accepting the 'challenge' and asking, "Ok then, why am I delusional?"
If all the reasons the atheist calls a christian delusional can be successfully rebutted by that christian then hasn't he accomplished something?
No christian should be afraid to enter such debate, after all, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"
Hmmm, now I sound like I'm defending christians, but really I'm just wishing they wouldn't hide behind the 'insult' excuse to avoid the issues.
WM wrote:
"...Little videos, scientific books, entire websites, television shows, etc., none of it is going to de-convert a single person that isn't already having doubts. But all of the above things might (MIGHT) get someone to start thinking..."
Yeah, that one just about stole my thunder. The way I was going to put it was that since it takes all kinds to make a world, even all kinds of Xtians to make a world of Xtians, it takes all kinds of approaches to reach them. Since nothing is ruled out of life, no form of address should be ruled out in dealing with them.
I was once thinking that I'd put together a directory/folder on my disk which contained only the caviar of ways of cutting through a Xtian's delusion. But they would only have been things that would have reached me if I were the one living under that delusion. Some of them would have had no effect at all on some of the people I've met. (Example: Asking "Does god know what he's going to think before he thinks it?" would only get a blank stare from one person I have in my mind's eye right now. It would have no effect at all.)
I wish the video had had a graphic where the 3 bubbles were pictured there, and, for each of the 3 religions under consideration, 2 of the bubbles being in complete agreement that the 3rd one is delusional, and then rotating the focus 120 degrees, so that the next two religious bubbles could be in complete agreement that the successor bubble is the delusional one, etc.
Most Xtians, I'll agree, will look at the video and say, "If you take the problem of adding 4+5, you might get several different answers as to the total, but that doesn't mean that the person who comes up with 9 is wrong. And I'm that guy." But if the video works on even one person, or even combines with something else that a given Xtian hears, to produce the desired effect, it was worth making.
It's a big world, and when everything in it is fair game, no approach can be ruled out of court.
I think this is an excellent video. I see no "hateful heated" words in it at all. It makes a point I have been thinking about a lot in recent months. I just couldn't come up with a way to say it. He sums up the beliefs of the Mormons, Muslims, and Christians. He uses the exact same way to tell each story. Because he is speaking to Christians he asks Christians to open their eyes and see the similarities between their own religion and the religions they consider baloney.
The one item he does not address is the psychological functions of the human psyche that produce these delusions. Also, he does not address the idea that religious people consider atheists to be delusional and that they have very good reason to do so. Otherwise, I consider this to be an excellent, thought-provoking video.
For those who don't know me, I identify as an ex-Christian who thinks the evidence for god is mighty slim to non-existent. I came to this position via the information that a "god-spot" naturally exists in the human brain which, when stimulated, creates a "religious experience." There are still a few phenomema in the human experience of which I am aware that are not accounted for by science. However, science has been able to explain an extremely wide range of previously thought supernatural phenomena. I feel fairly comfortable trusting that the few remaining items will eventually be explainable, too.
Unfortunately, the number of people who stand outside all of the major delusional bubbles is rather small. (I qualify the bubbles as "major" because we've probably all got some "minor" personal delusions.)
I have a question for all those who were at one time an ardent believe in Christianity. (I do not put myself in this camp because I rejected Christianity as a child.) How do you think you would have reacted to such a video when you were in the grips of Christianity? I do not ask this rhetorically. I think you are in a unique position to provide some helpful insights.
Jim,
Were I still in Christianity's grip, I would proabably never see this clip. However, if I did see it, I would have tried to justify how my bubble was the true bubble while all those other ridiculous bubbles didn't apply to my personal experience, or something similar.
However, it would have made me think, just a little. Besides, people expressing themselves openly and honestly has never offended me, even if and when it results in sharp disagreement. While still a fundie I told myself that if my worldview couldn't stand up to a little harsh analysis, then it wasn't worth following.
Of course, that attitude may have been what allowed me to be eventually cured of the delusion.
Hi Jim,
You've got a point there. If I were still a christian, I would have said: You're so wrong in what you're saying. You need to open up to the Holy Spirit. He's the only one that can really reveal the things of God to you. I'm so glad I'm not in the bubble anymore.
By the way, the video is great. Thanks Dave.
Gilbert
Dave said "While still a fundie I told myself that if my worldview couldn't stand up to a little harsh analysis, then it wasn't worth following... Of course, that attitude may have been what allowed me to be eventually cured of the delusion."
Obviously, I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I can't help shouting "BINGO"! The fact that you allowed yourself to be exposed to criticism, and that you felt your beliefs ought to survive such attacks if they were in fact true, were probably your tickets out of cult-think. I suspect those are the only people such videos will affect. If they cannot even acknowledge that there are real live thinking people outside the bubble who hold different views, then their fate is effectively sealed. Or so it seems. Fascinating (and scary) stuff...
Jim,
Here I go again.
Probably I would have added that the difference between Jesus Christ and all the others is, that he's the only one that came back from the dead.
Now I'd say that even that ( would it happen ) does not prove that you're the Son of God. Halleluja.
Gilbert
Hi Gilbert,
So, as a Christian, you would have responded by saying (in effect) "You are all wrong, and this is why you have failed to see the truth of Christianity...", citing the need for an indwelling "sprit" to guide your thinking. Is that a fair statement? Do you recall ever wondering why the Holy Spirit did not bestow the gift of such insights onto everybody? I mean, was there some culpability on the part of the "skeptic" (for lack of a better word)?
Most importantly, how did you eventually overcome this way of thinking? How did you manage to get out of the bubble. Given what you just said, I would think it was tremendously difficult.
@ Dave,
"Chris and Mike, you're certainly entitled to your opinions, but if I apply what you are saying across the board, then Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are out line."
I'm not very familiar with Sam Harris. I'm not a particular fan of Richard Dawkins, though I believe him to be a very intelligent man who makes fairly persuasive arguments. However, the comments I've read from him, offensive as they might be to Christians, do not seem quite as vitriolic as the general style of this video appeared to me. Richard Dawkins still tends to offend more with substance than with style (though he obviously does not make great effort to make his style as inoffensive as possible).
"What I think both of you still have from Christianity is a dogmatic view of how others should think, speak, or act."
This is a confusing statement to me. Aside from the dysphemistic terminology you've used, what precisely is wrong with that? There are obviously universally accepted rules pertaining to acceptable and expected behavior in others: nobody likes to be shouted at, for example, regardless of the actual words being shouted; and (almost) nobody approves of (e.g.) pedophilia.
I'm not drawing comparisons between these behaviors and this video; but the point is that clearly some such "dogmas" are universally upheld. And I do not believe that insisting on civility, whether from Christians or Atheists, is out-of-line, nor remotely inappropriate, nor is it indicative of some narrow-minded or parochial viewpoint.
"I'm not drawing comparisons between these behaviors and this video;"
Uhm, then why cite the examples?
This video is not behaviors, guys. These are words and ideas and they are expressed here in a certain style. All you are talking about is personal preference here. You don't like your food too spicy, or you'll spit it out, and that's fine. Frankly, sometimes I like mine super spicy. So what? Am I right? No. Are you wrong? No.
We just have a difference in opinion on best recipes for our word combinations. Big deal!
Christianity is classic for making people think that certain thoughts about religion and words critical of religion, and facial expressions, and attitudes, and negative feelings toward religion, are in and of themselves wicked. What I am "hearing" from you is that certain styles or presentations of ideas against religion are somehow bad, or wicked, or evil.
I suggest you become more familiar with Harris and Dawkins. Whether you agree with a more agressively frontal approach to these issues or not, many others seem to understand it as non-offensive. Dawkins' and Harris' books are selling like crazy. Like I said before, try reading Paine and Ingersoll. Those guys were really in-your-face writers. If you wince for this video, you'll drop over dead with Paine.
Anyway, on this site, at least, the policy will continue to be: the more variety and styles in the presentation of ideas, the better.
Oh, and I personally love your writing style. However, although your style is quite captivating, I don’t think you’ve cornered the market and discovered the one true, best, superior, or even most effective approach toward communicating these ideas to all people in all places at all times.
Then again, no one has done that.
YO, Gilly!
"Probably I would have added that the difference between Jesus Christ and all the others is, that he's the only one that came back from the dead."
Mithras - got better after being dead (also born of a virgin, 25th December, in a barn)
Odin - Got Better after being hung over the mouth of hell
Osiris - got better enough to make his wife pregnant after being murdered by his son
Krishna - Turns up numerous times after he died at the hand of his brother
Dying/resurrecting man-gods are a staple of Pagan thought. There's really no excuse for THAT sort of stultifying ignorance, despite the number of loud mouthed no-nothings on this side of the fence...
Love and kisses with tongues
Grandpa
managed to post that without smilies
scatter the following
;) :D :P
since It wasn't being THAT insulting :D
GH
Here's an alternate approach Chris and Mike might find more palatable:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/08/cracks-in-wall-part-i-defining.html
It's a series of blogs about what really gets through to hard-core Christians based on the experiences of the blogger. A lot of good stuff there, I found it really fascinating.
To be honest a bit crap considering that mormens could barely be called anything to do with Christainty especailly since it as taken and rewritten ( the 'bible' that the mormens read) anyway Im a christain so i would like you ( by this i mean anyone to email me at djs1990@hotmail.com with your strongesrt reasons about why God is non existant etc, however it may take a while for me to get back to you as I'm only 16, i have a life, and i have to study for exams etcetc so until then
Hi Grandpa,
Just goes to show that nothing is gonna hold back true love, ain't that so.
I'll take your love and have no need of the kisses. Thanks anyway.
Cornflowers & Poppies,
Gilbert
(From "Anonymous":)
To be honest a bit crap considering that mormens could barely be called anything to do with Christainty especailly since it as taken and rewritten..."
You obviously didn't finish watching the movie. The movie clearly did not consider Mormonism to be Christianity.
(From Dave:)
"I'm not drawing comparisons between these behaviors and this video;"
Uhm, then why cite the examples?
Dave, if you have actually read the rest of the sentence you're quoting from, it answers the question quite clearly: to make the point that promoting some behaviors and disapproving others is not in and of itself "dogmatic".
You don't like your food too spicy, or you'll spit it out, and that's fine. Frankly, sometimes I like mine super spicy. So what? Am I right? No. Are you wrong? No.
Then what is our argument? Have Chris or I said anything to contradict this? We simply mention what we dislike about it. We don't claim everyone else has to dislike it, too. We haven't been complaining that you don't dislike it. When you posted a comment that disagreed with our viewpoint, we didn't accuse you of being pious, dogmatic or clinging to remnants of your former faith…
We just have a difference in opinion on best recipes for our word combinations. Big deal!
Um, exactly. Who has said otherwise?
Hm, I meant to address these, too:
Like I said before, try reading Paine and Ingersoll. Those guys were really in-your-face writers. If you wince for this video, you'll drop over dead with Paine.
Heh. Actually, I love Paine. Just ordered The Age of Reason from Amazon. :)
At least to me, I find that, while Paine is certainly offensive to Christian sensibilities, he (as well as Dawkins) tends to offend more with substance than with style alone; in my personal (and admittedly subjective) view, the video's offensiveness lay chiefly in the manner with which it was presented, and not with the actual content of the message.
Oh, and I personally love your writing style. However, although your style is quite captivating, I don’t think you’ve cornered the market and discovered the one true, best, superior, or even most effective approach toward communicating these ideas to all people in all places at all times.
Hell, is there such a thing? :)
Thanks for the compliment: I really appreciate it. I'm a little critical of my style, myself. While I do believe that I have a bit of a knack for presenting things in a style that can be appreciated from the "other side", I worry that my writing style can be excessively wordy, or even come across as pretentious (especially if you compare it to how I speak: I don't really talk the way I write).
The vast amount of my communications tend to be written, and tend to reflect the material I spend my time reading: dense and wordy :/
Jim,
You asked: "Was there some culpability on the part of the skeptic".
Certainly not.
But I was not ready to acknowledge that. I had a need to believe. The christian faith provided certain things that I needed in my life. Doubts were there all the time, but the need to believe overruled them.
And then, after I had invested so much for so long, it wasn't easy to let go of it. Having married a christian wife in the meantime, and having raised three daughters in christian bible-faith.
And then, Jim, you said: "Most importantly, how did you eventually overcome this way of thinking? How did you manage to get out of the bubble. Given what you just said, I would think it was tremendously difficult".
You're right about that. It wasn't easy.
Must get some sleep now. It's soon gonna be daybreak. Greetings to y'all.
Gilbert
Perhaps I've completely misunderstood then, Micah.
And in that, case, I apologize, and I'm out.
Peace.
I just finished "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, and one point he makes is the fact that for the most part religion has had a given unfair shroud agaisnt critisism. The theist is free to lambaste the atheist or the homosexual i.e. Pat Roberson and Jerry Falwell, yet it doesn't work fairly in the other direction.
See here's the thing. I don't think most Christians literally believe in that stuff anymore. I've met very few who actually do believe it, and most of them were either new converts or fundies. Most Christians go to church to fit into society and have a social life. If going to church suddenly made them a social pariah, like claiming you're athiest does nowadays, they wouldn't go to church. It's all about social acceptance.
@ Jim,
Most importantly, how did you eventually overcome this way of thinking? How did you manage to get out of the bubble. Given what you just said, I would think it was tremendously difficult.
Yeah, getting out of the bubble is extremely difficult. Especially if you were raised in it. Those fortunate enough to have converted to it, lack the indoctrination-from-birth aspect that tends to make deconversion very difficult. I've noticed that, among those whose parents raised them in The Faith (Dawkins' "Christian Children"), the vast majority appear to come from families who are abusive, or who are otherwise obvious in the inconsistency between their practices and their preaching.
I'm frankly amazed that I was able to free myself from it: I come from literally the most loving, caring, and nurturing family I know. Their faith really worked, as far as consistency between their beliefs and their actions went, and as far as having a truly happy and productive life goes: we had that*. My Dad, a Calvary Chapel pastor for over a quarter-century, is by far the wisest person I know, in interpersonal relationships, emotional and mental stability, and balanced perspectives (despite a very evangelical, Bible-literalist faith).
To use these things as proof of Christ's veracity is to essentially argue by "confirming the subsequent" (a logical fallacy); but in a day when happy, close-knit and functional families are an extreme rarity, it surely speaks loudly as a testimony. And it certainly makes believing in Jesus pretty damn easy.
While any atheist knows that the burden of proof falls upon the one arguing for an extension to the known facts (thus demanding that belief in God be proved beyond doubt); human nature invariably requires that the burden of proof falls on the one who wishes to change another's current point of view (which results in such as our anonymous 16-year-old's challenge to prove the non-existence of God).
Those for whom the experience of Christianity has been a largely positive experience have a very deep emotional attachment to it. Possibly as strong as the bond between a parent and a child (the concept of a Father God would strengthen this). Couple this with the misperception that God has clearly and unmistakably intervened in and guided your life (due chiefly to strong human biases to remember hits and forget misses, to recognize strong patterns from random noise, and, yes, some brainwashing), and it becomes practically impossible to change your mind.
The only reason I'm not currently a Christian is a combination of sheer luck (of the sort that a superstitious person might term Fate or Providence), an overwhelming and abiding love of knowledge and truth (to a degree that I am willing to accept knowing nothing [my current state], over being certain of what may be false [my previous state]), and an accidental but firm self-grounding in logical argument.
* Sadly, it's less clear to me that the functionality and joy in my family as a unit remains quite so intact; there are signs of stress, weariness, and intellectual inconsistency too long unbroken, and the inevitably-resulting psychological and relational damage being swept under the façade of the supernatural Joy and Strength which the Lord gives to those who ask for it. They nevertheless remain, "the most loving, caring, and nurturing family I know."
I think the video is excellent. In the ecology of persuasion, we need variety. This video, while certainly hard-hitting, is actually not rude. It's just being forthright.
@ Amethyst,
Let's take a look.
79% of Americans believe Jesus was born of a virgin, without a human father¹
Twenty-five percent of Americans believe it is at least somewhat likely that Jesus Christ will return to Earth in 2007¹
For reference, Half of Americans believe a person can get AIDS by having anal intercourse even if neither partner is infected with the AIDS virus (search in that page for the phrase, "neither partner").²
Depressed yet? :)
¹ Polls, not scientific studies.
² Alarmingly, this one is a statistically representative, carefully compiled scientific study; the Kinsey Institute/Roper Organization National Sex Knowledge Test, a survey performed in the fall of 1989.
The producer of this video seems to be over exuberant in his use of the terms 'delusional', 'irrational' and 'superstition,' underscoring the argument with statements like 'scientific studies prove that your religion cannot be true' and worse still, that there is absolutely no empirical evidence for a being named 'god.' This video in no way supports any evidence to the contrary about God, in fact quite the opposite. The rational human being (using the producer's term) who has half a brain (using the producer's tone) can easily establish for his or her own self the reality of this supposedly 'unknown God.' It is my understanding that God reveals Himself to those who diligently seek Him (either athiest or otherwise). I do not believe in fairy tales and would never base my life on one and I take exception to the effort made in this video to build a discreditable case attempting to prove otherwise. Let it be known also that the "bubble" of Christianity is a figment of his over exagerated efforts to debunk Christianity in a demeaning way. There is no "bubble." God wants real people living relevant lives in a real world likewise helping real people in whichever way they can. Fairytales can stay at home on the children's bookstand where they belong. I don't mind making strong statements to the contrary as I'm doing now against an argument, however would never go out of my way to defraud anyone's belief as this producer takes pride in doing. Lastly, the 'god' he cannot prove empirically is in fact The One who put in place all structured scientific order in the first place. God is provable both evidentially AND experientially and for anyone who seeks Him diligently and graciously there is NO doubt he will draw near to that one and change their lives forever. Making statements that sound "scientifically authenticated" and providing comparisons with fairy tales doesn't prove to an intelligent person that God does not exist, it merely proves that that person has been very creative in his vain attempt to disprove and discredit God Himself. Lastly, to blatantly suggest that what I believe is "harming us as a species" considering all the good that Christianity has brought to this earth (hospitals, education, orphanages, shelters for the homeless, aged care, provision of food to the hungry, poor and destitute, and the list is endless...) I would ask that he takes a good long hard look in the mirror and ask himself what harm is he bringing by producing such a video in the first place (and furthermore, what good has he done and what difference is he making to a suffering world?). Thanks for sharing this staggeringly simplistic video, it has certainly helped strengthen my faith and has served to remind me that people will go to extraordinary lengths to deny provable truth if they fervently believe in the power of their own opinion to the exception of others. He may deny God, but thankfully God's nature is so faithful that He can never deny him and to this I am eternally grateful.
I would surmise that the main point of this video depends a great deal on where you reside in life. If you live in the world of reality, this video is compelling. If you reside in the "bubble" of faith, you have the right to be offended. Having had the experience of living in both worlds, I find the video both helpful and educational to a degree. Had I seen this video while I was residing under the "god delusion", I'm sure that I would not have appreciated it one bit. Since I see clearly now, I love it.
Craig wrote:
God is provable both evidentially AND experientially ...
Craig, can you prove God exists?
God is provable both evidentially AND experientially
Which would explain how all the other religions, past and present, have the wrong god but you have the right one. We do appreciate your help in supporting the assertion found in the title of this thread.
Religions and beliefs require faith.
Reality and truth needs no faith.
Okay this is for the webmaster. You cant convience these idiots with something like that. You cant burst a bubble that strong. To successfuly show christians the truth you must show them facts. I would start out by asking them some questions. "How did Noah get all the animal from places like australia" They will probaly say "Well back then the world was one big land mass." and then you say " Not if you believe in the bible." Ask questions like that for starters. Next explain to them that religion was invented to explain nature. i.e rainbows, snakes having no legs, how the universe was formed etc. Lastly let them down easy. Tell them its going to be hard to except that they wont see thier loved ones again. And that they wasted all this time worshiping nothing. At the end they always have one final question. Where did we come from. After you explain evolution and the big bang(or some othe theory) they will ask you "but where did it all begin(like for example: where did the rocks come from that started the big bang come from?) you say " I dont know, thats why people make gods.
I have changed many lives this way and for the better.
p.s if the still believe then dont bother with the crazy person anymore
sertyopklopklop@aim.com
masterroyalsnow@yahoo.com
[I also posted this over at Debunking Christianity where Craig also posted.]
So, then how do you explain the fact that most non-Mormons do in fact think Mormons are delusional, and that most non-Muslims think Muslims are delusional, and that most non-Christians (at least 2/3's of the world's population I might add) do think Christians are delusional? How also do you account for the fact that the largest and most well-funded prayer study to date had only negative results? While you might say that God did not want to be put to the test, at least as far as the science so far is concerned, we have no reason to think that prayer works.
Furthermore, suppose I grant that due to the order in the universe and due to your personal religious experiences, God exists. How then do you know that Christianity alone is true? Unless your personal religious experience contained explicit doctrinal content, I'm not sure how you reach this conclusion. People have profound religious experience in many traditions. Perhaps, as you say, God does reveal Himself to those you desire Him. Then it would follow that God would reveal Himself to Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike. How then do you that your particular version of God is correct?
[Besides, there are other ways to explain the order we see. Natural selection for biological organisms and potentially multiverse selection for ordered universes. The arguments you cite in favor of God which I earlier granted are not slam dunks.]
You are the most silly person on earth. This video is talking about MORMONS! MORON!!!.. Get your facts straight before you attack my Lord and savior!! please oh please get a brain!! you are the only delusional one amongst us!!.. please find the lord and please ACTUALLY READ YOUR BIBLE!!!.. Your opinion is your own thank GOD!. Idiot!!
Hi Alan and Spirula..
I previously stated "God is provable both evidentially AND experientially"
I certainly can prove that God exists and I certainly have experienced His grace and power. However YOU both must undertake to prove His existence otherwise it wouldn't be a personal experience (ie: you'd be living off someone elses experience), however I know just how this is done. It's real simple. Seek Him with your whole heart and He will absolutely honour you by revealing Himself to you. He never breaks His promises and I can tell you categorically that this is His promise and it is impossible for Him to break it. But only YOU can find out, or if you will allow others, they can guide you if you are brave enough to allow them to. I can provide a plethora of evidence and sound scientific argument to counter the dogmatic and over zealous statements made by "Royal Snow?" however that I perceive could be a pointless exercise considering the 'loudness' of his statements. For the record, I hate religion, and I believe God does too. This is all about getting to know God personally and having an incredibly personal relationship with the same One who formed heaven and earth who is the same One who intimately knows every hair on our heads. Incidently, as "Amethyst" seems to suggest, it is NEVER about social acceptance. That would deny all self conviction which in my mind is a pretty weak stance at the best of times. Certainly, it is true, that out of association with others there forms incredibly dynamic relationships, but it is merely a by-product of fellowship.
"Anonymous" please, your last answer was not good buddy, but keep believing, I love ya faith, but tread gracefully man.
Hello Craig?
This thread is about to go south so there isn't much point in striking up this conversation. However, you seem like a reasonable homo sapiens, quite unlike the fundie trash that wanders in here, resembling drunks looking for an alley to piss in.
Craig, look buddy.......this god shit just doesn't work for everybody. OK? It just doesn't. Not everybody likes broccoli. Not everybody likes oral sex. I know that I am am arguing by analogy, but you get my point.
I do not deny that you have experienced something; I do not know what. That is your affair, and you are welcome to it. You borrow xian expressions, such as seeking god with a whole heart. Many of us here, me included, have sought your god with a whole heart, with all the sincerity we had at our command, and the process failed. That is where we found ourselves in a trap. Then we were told that we were not sincere. See, "you can find god if you seek him with a whole heart, and if you fail, that means you did not seek with a whole heart". At that point life became a living hell, as we tried to somehow conjure up the amount of sincerity that would please god. It soon became obvious to me that god did not exist, and that I took the blame for not finding a god who was not there to begin with. Heads god wins; tails I lose.
Craig, I have nothing against you--really, no shit, really--but I wish you would get the hell out of here. Leave people alone and do not try to fuck with their minds.
And I too hate religion, including yours.
And one more thing that I forgot.
I have no interest in your "proofs" of your god's existence. One can argue for the existence of a god or a creator, but there is no proof that this god can be communicated with or that she even cares about us to begin with. As Voltaire had said "god is the eternal geometrician who cannot love you".
I am pleased that you have these pleasant feelings that come from inside your head. I have my own feelings and they work fine for me. I do not live by your subjective experience.
Craig,
Sorry, that shifting the burden of proof crap won't work here. Neither does evading my assertion, sarcastic as it was. You did note the EX in Ex-Christian didn't you? Almost all of us here had the "conversion" experience, and then realized that it really was just a group-think control mechanism, that the "truths" of the bable are just that...bable.
Come back when you have something of substance.
By the way, proofs are based on empirical methods (mathematical and scientific), not fuzzy feelings or conversion experiences or philosophical arguments, which is why no one has ever had "proof" of divine beings.
And you did read Adam's comment about prayer didn't you? Empirically tested, it doesn't work.
I should imagine that I am just talking for the sake of it. I do not suppose Craig cares or even notices what I said.
This shit about the "whole heart" is not logical. None of us is whole-hearted about anything; that would mean perfection. None of us is a whole-hearted xian, or republican, or democrat, or truck driver. If god cared about us--if she was a benevolent god--she would meet us in our imperfections; she would meet us in our less-than-whole hearts. She would meet us at the half-way point, or at 3/4, or wherever we were. And she sure as hell would not hand out blame for our failure.
Hey Craig,
Your babbling sounds like a hypnotic induction. I'm not at all impressed by that kinda stuff.
Talk about categorically. You're so vague: "I certainly have experienced His grace and power... seek Him with your whole heart...I know just how this is done...It's real simple... He will absolutely honour you by revealing Himself to you... I can provide a plethora of evidence..."
But you don't and you can't...
Craig, we've been there and we've seen it already. You're so yesterday.
I wish you better...
Poppies & lots of Cornflowers for you,
Gilbert
Craig
It appears you are saying I would have to assume God exists before I can see the evidence that he exists, which means developing a confirmation bias. Do you have evidence that can be examined without having to make that assumption? If a supreme being is causing physical changes to our world or influencing human behavior then those changes or influences should be observable, whether or not the observer believes in God.
Yet, one more Christian guest said: I certainly can prove that God exists and I certainly have experienced His grace and power.
Hurry, now...and don't dawdle. Submit your objective evidence for the existance OF...::trumpets sound::...."GOD". Yes, yes...there's a Nobel Prize waiting for you, as well as gaggles of interviews in all the science journals. Hell, I know I'm not the only one who can't wait to see what "GOD" looks like.
So please, submit your photos and/or video footage at once, and "if" you don't have that, then a physical description will suffice, for now. You know what I mean...like, is "GOD" 5'9"?...or more like 9'5"? How about skin color?...is "GOD" Caucasian?...or an Pacific Islander? Does "GOD" sound like Darth Vader?....or Tiny Tim?
Yay!..I can hardly wait!
@ Anonymous,
You should watch beyond the first minute or two of the video before claiming to know, better than everyone else on this thread, what the video is about (and then insulting them for their "ignorance"). The first ~3 minutes of the video is about Mormons, yes. The end of the video, and its primary point, is that mainstream Christianity is just as ridiculous as Mormonism and Islam is.
I kind of wish this site would disallow anonymous posters: I love it when idiots write ignorant flame-fests with their names attached to it, so they have a permanent record of their idiocy for anyone who wishes to check them out via Google.
How about it, Dave? :)
Wow, looks like there's a fair degree of heat in here. Seriously, some of your responses are worthy of response but some...man, well what can I say. I take it this blog site is for the civil and the intelligent believer and unbeliever to respond to? I would have thought that everyone has a right of response.
Craig stated: "I certainly can prove that God exists and I certainly have experienced His grace and power. However YOU both must undertake to prove His existence otherwise it wouldn't be a personal experience."
Granted, I didn't get into empiracal evidence or other science based contentions, as this was never my point. The basis of my response was never that, although I did refer to that. The basis behind my response was the obvious, and that is that you will each prove God for yourselves by seeking Him with your whole heart. For those of you who have 'given this a go' then it's real hard for me to comment as I don't know your circumstances but I pray you hang in there and keep seeking Him. One condition though is that you open up your heart to Him, no holds barred. ie: let your barriers down and let go of your anger.
There was one comment that said: "One can argue for the existence of a god or a creator, but there is no proof that this god can be communicated with or that she even cares about us to begin with. As Voltaire had said "god is the eternal geometrician who cannot love you".
God is being communicated with every day by millions of people. The burden of proof is provable and testable over and over again with these ones. The amazing thing is that God desperately WANTS to communicate with each of us, but we have to allow Him to, He will never ever impose His will on anyone. He loves us too much for that. Quoting Voltaire is only one person's opinion vs the millions I made reference to above, who incidentally, amazingly receive real answers to their prayers from a real God who yearns to hear from them.
Spirula said: "Sorry, that shifting the burden of proof crap won't work here. Neither does evading my assertion, sarcastic as it was."
Hey Spirula, so sorry, I had much to write and did not mean to avoid your statement. However seriously, I was never attempting to "shift the burden of proof." I'll deal with some interesting proof if you are willing to read it. In fact I'll post it below (an answer I gave to Adam regarding the bible's authenticity. Firstly though...
Ryan said: "I should imagine that I am just talking for the sake of it. I do not suppose Craig cares or even notices what I said.
"This shit about the "whole heart" is not logical. None of us is whole-hearted about anything; that would mean perfection. If god cared about us--if she was a benevolent god--she would meet us in our imperfections; she would meet us in our less-than-whole hearts. She would meet us at the half-way point, or at 3/4, or wherever we were. And she sure as hell would not hand out blame for our failure."
Craig said: Ryan man, I seriously care about what you said. ie: I took what you said very seriously and mindfully. I want you to know that I would never have gotten to an understanding of God without Him receiving me unconditionally in the state I was in. Perfection doesn't come into it and never will when it comes to mankind. God accepts us fully in whatever state we are in. ie: Come as you are, that what He loves. Leave the rest to Him. By the way Ryan, God never blames us for our failure, that is sooo wrong. Quite the opposite; He gave His only Son as a sacrifice for us that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life. God gave His Son freely that we might have life and live it to the max!
Gilbert, Alan, Spirula and Crew. Blog space is running thin, but my answers are plenty. May I copy here a response to Adam (as I promised Spirula) to the veracity of the bible, the very document that authenticates for all of us the events that are recorded within. ie: yes, the book itself is self testifying and verifiable more than any other book, ever.
Craig's response was:
"Hey there Adam (and Crew),
There is a huge difference between the bible's claim to its authenticity vs the two other religions you mentioned. (with all respect to the other religions). One of the most stunningly compelling reasons is that it is not based on tales passed down through the ages with the obvious danger of creating legends and leading to nil accuracy. On the contrary you need to understand someting that is pivotal to this argument and that is that the bible's records are in fact records of eye witness testimony. This is not conjecture, this is undiluted truth. Look, the reason for my 'strong emphasis' is that IF you are TRULY interested in delving deeper and really setting about to seek out the truth in this most important of matters, then you need to look at what was written, by whom, when it was written, what were the time gaps in the copies, how the copies were written and preserved and by whom, etc. You will discover that the case for the bible's veracity is truly based not on hearsay evidence, not on legend passed down, not on cultural beliefs and certainly not on mythology, but on actual eye witness testimony, the kind that holds the greatest weight in any court of law. When you begin to discover that, as I did after much digging, then it will change your life. You see at that point blind faith is taken out of the equation and truth hits you like a bombshell. As I said, I have no time for fairytales Adam, I'm too methodical and thorough for that. I want the truth and nothing less. Upon searching you will find that the people in the NT (you mentioned this section of the bible) who wrote these things were recording what they saw, not what they heard or what they "believed." That's just one of the stunning differences between the bible and all other ancient records from antiquity. Not only did the authors see these things and record these things in their time but there were many others with them recorded in the bible who also saw and heard with their own eyes and ears. The testimonies therefore are verified by a multiplicity of eye witnesses.
Once again Adam, there is NO book, or series of books, which comes anywhere close to preserving such textual content from ages past with such astounding accuracy and preserved order." Much much more can be written with far greater substantiation behind it and I'm happy to engage in discussion any time. Keep smiling and seek well!
Craig
Craig, just one more response and this thing will disappear. I lose interest in these things pretty quick.
1st, you said you did not like religion, and yet your whole post was about the xian religion. You people--you religious people--always try to disquise the plain fact that you have a religion.
2nd, you are unable to deny that religion has failed many people. Your only (futile) response was to keep seeking. Craig, we do not whip a dead horse. We do not "keep seeking" year after year. If your god was who you insist he is, there would be no need to beat one's head against a wall. You said god was yearning to communicate. Well, I listened for 15 years. What the hell do you think "yearning" means?
Your insistence that the bible is provable--your appeal to eyewitness accounts--is laughable and I won't even go there.
Finally, you reverse yourself in ways that should be obvious to you. I told you that a whole heart was not possible; that whole heartedness implied a perfection. This was after you insisted that god would respond on the CONDITION of whole heartedness. Well, you ground the gears into reverse pretty quick and then said that god would respond just as we are. Your like, "oh no I didn't say that, I didn't say that" Well Craig, how I wish that your god had responded to me just as I was. If that had happened, I would be a xian. It didn't, and I ain't.
What has happened in your postings is what any fundie can be counted on to do: You re-define the xian religion to suit the direction of the argument. The fundie's inability to stick to a straight answer has never ceased to amaze me.
When this thing goes over the edge I will probable check archive, and I expect to hear yet another version of your religion
Craig wrote:
God is being communicated with every day by millions of people. The burden of proof is provable and testable over and over again with these ones
Craig, why is this proof limited to believers? Evidence is evidence, it doesn't care who is looking at it. If I said I have proof the Earth is flat, but only members of the Flat Earth Society will understand it, its not very good proof, is it?
actual eye witness testimony, the kind that holds the greatest weight in any court of law
Wrong. It has been demostrated repeatedly that eyewitness testimony is one of the LEAST reliable evidences in court. What is far more reliable is scientifically based forensics. If you have kept up with the news, you know that numerous convictions of murder and rape have been overturned based on forensic evidence. Many of these convictions had been based on eyewitness testimony, including victim testimony in rape cases. Eyewitness testimony has been historically relied upon because the better forensic techniques had not been developed. Nowdays, no prosecutor wants to take a case based solely on eyewitness accounts.
So the creation, flood and Job's story were all based on eyewitness accounts? Someone was there to witness the converstations and events and write it down? And how come the first record of Jesus was written 40 years after he died? You're attempts to defend the integrity of the Bible over all other religious manuscripts is, quite frankly, lame.
These issues are ones we all wrestled with, some of us for many years. These assertions are, in fact, unsupportable. That is why we are EX-Christians.
And to go further with with Alan's comment, if there are in fact more Islamic believers than Christian, isn't that then "proof" their god is the true god?
spirula, if I know fundies, his answer is going to be "the spirit gave them the ability to observe, remember, and record accurately"
Religious people love to talk about their proof and their evidence, and then when pressured (as you have done with breathtaking ease) they shift to miracles. There is always a card up their sleeve.
ryan,
I hear you. After I corrected Craig on the definition of proof, he went right back to using it wrongly. I get irritated at the use of such words as "proof" for assertions that are neither testable or falsifiable. This distortion of meanings (e.g. theory) has become widespread in our culture, and it is primarily due to religious people, usually intentionally (IOW, deceitfully). So I'll call them on it every time I see it.
Lads, no pressure felt this end.
I must repeat that my discovery of the bible's accuracy was not by accident or incidently as a result of some 'religious' experience. The bible is unique and its accuracy and authenticity stands alone unique to any book. You MAY wish to bag it, you MAY wish to try to even disprove it, however this is not possible as it would be like disproving your own existence or denying that everest doesn't exist. To suggest to me Ryan that the bible is not provable and that you doubt that it was not based on eyewitness accounts tells me that either you didn't read very carefully what I wrote or that your own delusion has clouded your ability to reason and to research with clarity. You must understand also that the bible's uniqueness goes far beyond accurate records of actual eyewitness accounts. What is your understanding of the bible? Do you think that such a book could ever be the suject of one person's vain imagination?? Is that what you seriously believe?? Because if you do I encourage you to 'look again' and ask yourself that question as you read from 66 different books that span nearly 2,000 years, penned by 38 different authors and all maintaining continuity from Genesis through to Revelation. No one could ever have put that together by plan and plotting. So far as accuracy goes and relevance to the actual authors; Luke (ie: who wrote the gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts) was a historian of note and also a renowned physician. His documentation of places and his ability to record throughout his writings various places of note also help to determine accuracy and trustworthyness. Don't just wipe God off as some etherial, nebulous, unattainable myth and please guys don't just blatantly disregard accuracy and proof within this unique Book because it's easier to take the sledging and mocking line. If this justifies your stance then fine, but I suspect you have more determination in you than what I'm reading. I must admit I find it difficult that you are 'locked' into this stubborn stance where the seemingly obvious is denied without further research.
Alan, the burden of proof is absolutely not limited to believers, I never said that, nor meant to imply it. In fact the burden of proof is open to all of us. (Anyone who really wishes to find truth WILL do so.) It is the truth that will set you free, not a faiytale where an unreal, irrelevant bubble is formed around it. As I said, God desires to commune with real people not proponents of some myth.
Spirula: You are right, scientifically based forensics are becoming very accurate with the latest testing methods being applied to bring to light snapshots from the past to prove a case. However in talking to lawyers about this the legal profession do not deny eyewitness accounts over forensic evidence. The reality is that the combination of both is the best way to fastrack a positive outcome for the advocate or the prosecutor. One key difference is this. Forensic evidence is primarily taken to determine a snapshot from dead bodies and inert objects, whilst eye witness testimony is taken from living people to determine the pattern of events occurred which are in question. This is the pattern you can read first hand from the bible. ie: a record taken from living people who saw and who witnessed and who faithfully recorded these events.
Spirula: My reference to the New Testament and some of the records pertaining to Jesus do in fact date far earlier than 40 years. By the way no other work from antiquity comes close to 40 years. Try hundreds of years with work such as Homer's Iliad and the accounts of Alexander the Great, etc, etc. These are regarded as important and accurate works, yet you refute 40 years?? The truth however is that when you consider the early creeds as written by what I would refer to as the early church fathers, then these, with reference to in scripture date to within 2-5 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Incidentally, the apostle Paul's writings began approx 40AD, some 10 years after the crucifixion. Is Homer's Iliad still more accurate? Come on guys, don't let your unbelief get in the way of sound logic.
Regards,
Craig
Craig,
Please use paragraph breaks (insert a space between paragraphs).
Reading long, unending blocks of text is irritating.
Thanks.
Craig said: "The burden of proof is absolutely not limited to believers, I never said that, nor meant to imply it. In fact the burden of proof is open to all of us.
Craig, when someone proclaims that there are flying chariots, talking shrubs, walking snakes, speaking donkeys, that the earth stands still on its axis once in awhile, that a certain deity commands genocide and rape from time to time, that there is a flying un-dead god-man on a stick and that belief in all these things is mandatory or else a future of everlasting horror and torture awaits, well, I think the burden of proof rests squarely on the shoulders of the one making all these fantastic claims.
Don't you?
Or, if I tell you there is a flying spagetti monster that demands your pasta or else you are doomed, would you feel obligated to believe me? Or do you really think you have to spend any energy to prove me wrong?
Craig, you are the one with the weird stories. You are the one with the burden of proof. Until you give some better evidence that Noah shoved millions of creatures into his ark and that all the other myths in the Bible have any resemblence to reality, then common sense dictates a healthy dose of skepticism.
Craig: Wow, looks like there's a fair degree of heat in here. Seriously, some of your responses are worthy of response but some...man, well what can I say.
What can you say?...well, apparently, anything and EVERYthing under the sun to convince us that your biblegod is real, but while of course, conveniently ignoring the part that NONE of said rhetoric falls into the "empirical evidence" category. Endless blathering that amounts to "I believe". Like all theists, there is the defending of one's religious convictions using staw men, circular reasoning, presuppositions, and question begging. Evidence, please.
Craig: God is being communicated with every day by millions of people. The burden of proof is provable and testable over and over again with these ones.
Yes, yes.....Muhammad is being "communicated with" by millions of Muslims; aliens are being "communicated with" by millions of UFOlogists; invisible zombies are being "communicated with" by Sylvia Browne. That's right, disembodied spirits with INTACT working vocal cords, all gathered 'round in Montel's TV studio to talk to their living relatives. How special.
But to make sure my post is really "unworthy of response", again I ask: If there is all this "communication" going on---and loosely assuming that "communication" is two-way---then whAT does "GOD" sound like? It's a direct question, and if you are one of the "millions" of Christians communicating with "GOD", then please record the next "conversation" you have with "Yahweh". I mean, surely the creator of the universe doesn't suffer from stage fright....so please---have your recorders' batteries CHARGED UP! If, on the other hand, "GOD" talks to you "inside your head"?....well, they make drugs for that. = )
The bible is unique and its accuracy and authenticity stands alone unique to any book.
Sheesh! It's not even internally consistent with just the first TWO CHAPTERS.
And to return to eyewitness reliability, you are aware that one study found up to 50% of the participants incorrectly identified the individual committing a crime in a video they had JUST watched? Of course, you completely side-stepped the whole "who was the creation,flood, Job,Abraham etc. eyewitness" that wrote it down.
What was the title of this thread again?
The continuity argument is old, and appears sound at the surface. The books of the bible were chosen because of their similarities. Suppose we have three boxes of beads, red, yellow, and green. I take all the green beads and make a necklace. Would you come along and say "by god, it's a miracle! all the beads match!"
Even then, there is not a real continuity. the jews, from the early stories, were savages. As they progressed they acquired civilization as the conception of their own god changed. There is no match between the bloody war stories of the ot, and its stupid laws, and the gentle words of micah 6:8
Next, even if some discernable pattern could be established, the bible is still bullshit: the angry god throwing people into fire forever. Nonsense. You said you rejected fairy tales. Fine. Tell me you believe in the concept of eternal punishment, and this interchange will have ceased, because I will have been arguing with the Brothers Grimm.
About those manuscripts you are so proud of: that counts against your bible, not for it. In either the ancient or modern world, trash is turned out faster than quality. You can point to all your xian manuscripts because that is the crap they wanted to read. The demand was incredible. It figures.
And of course, there is no compatibility between james and paul.yes, I have read the bible. Have you heard of a literary approach called the New Criticism? It means among other things to read what is on the page, and only what is on the page, without reading in what you have been told it means. Try that with your bible, and your prior misconceptions evaporate.
You have been taught, for years no doubt, what to see when you open your bible. You have been trained by religion, and when you read your bible, religion is what you see.When you stop thinking that the bible is the word of god, it stops being the word of god, and you cease to react as though it is.
I forgot to include the resurrection story. Try to prove it all you wish, it is still bullshit. Why does an all-powerful god need to butcher someone in a roman execution before he can forgive sin? What your kind tries to do is to prove something that is nonsense to begin with.
And you accuse me of illogic?
Craig said "What is your understanding of the bible? Do you think that such a book could ever be the suject of one person's vain imagination??"
The bible was actually created at the council of Nicea in 325 AD. It was put together by, what were at he time, the recognized experts in the belief in christ.
This was a government appointed committee. Let me repeat that - this was a GOVERNMENT APPOINTED COMMITTEE. There task was to consolidate and define what christianity was so that the state could identify and prosecute heretics.
The council failed miserably as there has never been a universally excepted christian doctrine.
Craig also said a whole lot about the gospels being believeable because they were eyewitness testamonies.
What has befuddled me about this point of view is the issue of conflict of interest. The people who wrote the bible, whoever they were, were not unbiased bystanders who had no stake in their writings' influence.
These people were trying to sell their beliefs to anyone who would listen. They had every reason in the world to embellish and fictionalize their accounts.
Craig: "You will discover that the case for the bible's veracity is truly based not on hearsay evidence, not on legend passed down, not on cultural beliefs and certainly not on mythology, but on actual eye witness testimony, the kind that holds the greatest weight in any court of law."
Eye witnesses, huh? Oh, I *so* want to cross-examine the chap who saw the talking snake...
Eye witnesses, huh? Oh, I *so* want to cross-examine the chap who saw the talking snake...
The "chap"? Shame on you...that's our great-great-grandpa you're talking about...aka "Adam".
LOL!
Webmaster said:
This video encourages me. I WAS delusional. I WAS! I know it now. And the comparisons with Mormonism and Islam make it painfully clear just how delusional I was.
Craig states: Your assumptions are erroneous and far-fetched. Your video has 'created' this delusion to suit its own ends. The comparisons to Mormonism and Islam only serve to create deception to the issue at hand. To compare in this way would serve to deny historical record and its accuracy. You are making statements which are not grounded on truth, yet sound convincing to the person who is just willing to listen and not seek the truth. I for one have kept an open mind about all of this and have discovered the truth. I am no longer delusional.
Webmaster said:
"Craig, when someone proclaims that there are flying chariots, talking shrubs, walking snakes, speaking donkeys, that the earth stands still on its axis once in awhile, that a certain deity commands genocide and rape from time to time, that there is a flying un-dead god-man on a stick and that belief in all these things is mandatory or else a future of everlasting horror and torture awaits, well, I think the burden of proof rests squarely on the shoulders of the one making all these fantastic claims.
Don't you?
Or, if I tell you there is a flying spagetti monster that demands your pasta or else you are doomed, would you feel obligated to believe me? Or do you really think you have to spend any energy to prove me wrong?"
Craig states:
Hey that flying spagetti monster sounds kinds mean webby! :) Fancy demanding my pasta!
Seriously though, you've taken time to extract some pretty weird stuff in your examples. Even intelligent people are aware that there are some unexplainable things that occur in our universe.
If God is real then I'd suggest that it is logical that there is more than a little mystery to Him and that a great deal of things are unexplainable to the human mind and wisdom.
If you are to make mention of unexplained things then you must also balance out your premise by also conceding that the universe itself is subject to an ocean of the unexplainable and the untestable. Science simply doesn't have all the answers, however I see no reason to disregard true science in relation to the bible. It is my contention and that of an innumerable number of high profile scientists that both science and the bible are in symbiotic relation to the other. The delicate laws of science and nature didn't just magically appear from the mudpond (or from that magic-wand called a big bang) over eons of years. The intricate laws of science and nature were not created by the Einstiens of the world, far from it, they were discovered by great minds seeking truth and discovering that this universe has an explained order.
To assume that molecules, crucial to life, which are so enormously complex arose by sheer chance and to consider the simplest conceivable cell (the smallest possible self replicating organism which is immeasurably more complex than the most sophisticated designs of human science and engineering) and then to base the existence of these cells on a throw of a dice is in itself to live in a bubble and to live subject to an undiluted lie.
Look, we marvel at the complexity of human engineering such as the space shuttle, yet we attribute the far greater complexity of the cell to what is no less than "a puff of smoke and the wave of a wand," and worse, showing blatant contempt and disregard for the Designer.
The list goes on. The fossil record displaying anything but incremental mutation and natural selection evolution. The explosion of fossils in the deepest sedimentary layers are unexplained by evolution, not to mention the fully formed complex life forms found within.
The majesty and sheer wonder of the universe and the delicate axis our earth sits on, the precise location it is found within the mily way any closer to the sun it would suffer extreme heat and solar radiation and no life would exist. Any farther away and it would suffer the same fate as mars and not support flowing water, one of the basic requirements for the earth's ecosystem to exist. The earth is not just another planet. There are so many factors that NASA and other organisations have discovered about our earth that make it very uniquely suitable for life, unlike any other.
There is so much within life we can't explain, however I'm never going to be so unintelligable so as to sit back and say, "well, that's just the way life is...and then we die." No, there IS a purpose and it behooves each of us to look a little deeper and pursue it. Get to know the creator of heaven and earth and take a good long hard look at the series of books He made available to us (the bible) that reveal to you just who He is and what purpose He has for you.
One fundamental construct that is forgotten here is love. Evolution has no hope of explaining how human love appeared through physical contructs via a primeval swamp. (a bit like that spagetti monster you mentioned! :) Love is from God, and as the bible takes the absolute majority of its text to explain just how much God loves us (as opposed to being hung up on the 'unexplainable'), then I believe love is meant to underpin our whole human experience. However without God then, as I've discovered, the understanding of true love is hampered somewhat.
Science, apart from God, argues that in the universe I am nothing, but to God I am everthing, and you are too. Talk about the unexplainable. To many, love that deep remains just that, unexplainable, however in the bible you will discover a depth of love that only God Himself can offer, and it's open to anybody, with no exclusions, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian and Athiest alike.
Best Regards,
Craig
Craig!
Valerie Tarico explains your brain here. She cared enough to put a mirror in front of you. Please open your eyes for a moment and learn why you can be so smart and delusional at the same time.
http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2007/01/frostys-brain-on-ice.html
Dan (EX cult member)
Craig, I hardly think unanswered scientific questions about the universe are even slightly comparable to the primitive, superstitious, mythic stories found in the Bible.
Contributing writers to the documents that were eventually rounded and up and bound into the volume we call the Bible believed the world was flat, that the earth never moved (the stars and planets moved around the earth), that communication could be had with the dead, that thunder and lightning were the voice and hand of god, that all storms, earthquakes, comets, meteorites, volcanic eruptions, etc., were messages, warnings, judgements from god... The list goes on and on.
Those ancient men were trying to understand nature, but they didn't have the tools to do so, so rather than leave an unanswered question, they made an answer up: GOD DID IT.
And your comment that belief in GOD makes you something and me nothing, is in error. In fact, your belief in GOD makes you nothing, nothing at all. In fact, if you don't put the correctly approved religious ideas in your head, this GOD will roast you in horrific agony for all eternity.
I really can't see how kissing the ass of an entity who sadistically threatens any and all who simply disbelieve in HIM with everlasting torment somehow gives you a good purpose.
The thing about being deluded by a religious cult is that while in the cult, it seems that everyone else is deluded. All cultists feel this way. You Craig, are in a religious cult. A large, popular and long-lived cult, but a cult, none the less.
Sincerely.
Craig wrote,
"You will discover that the case for the bible's veracity is truly based not on hearsay evidence, not on legend passed down, not on cultural beliefs and certainly not on mythology, but on actual eye witness testimony, the kind that holds the greatest weight in any court of law."
By that reasoning then, Joseph Smith had 12 witnesses that swear they saw those Gold Plates, so that being Mormonism is the one True Religion. Thanks Craig, I was a Non-believer, but I am now a Mormon and you're going straight to Hell according to the book of Mormon.
I started with a bit of respect for craig, but in his last post he threw his self-respect to the wind (what was left of it)and sounded like big jim in the sugar creek stories.
WM, have you read the sugar creek gang? I have 10 bucks in my billfold and I would lay it down that you read every goddamned book. So did I.
I appreciated the comments from true story of jesus. We love you jesus. But the story I heard was 11, not 12. Not that I give a rat's ass.
At first, there were 3 men who came up and signed a paper, together, that they had actually seen those stone tablets. Mormon theology calls them the THREE WITNESSES. There is a monument to them somewhere in salt lake city. I understand that in every book of mormon, whether hard or soft cover, the inside page contains a reproduction of their affadavit.
Later (this is what I read, jesus) 8 more collaborators come up and likewise lied their asses off.
So much for the concept of the eye witness. craig, if you are listening, you are the most gullible, naive excuse for a man that ever drew a breath. Witnesses. Proofs. Shit.You have been confronted with a tidal wave of challenges and you have been reduced to a slobbering evangelical. But then, slobbering evangelical is a redundancy.
craig, if you are so infatuated with eye witnesses, maybe you should become a mormon. Unless, oh jesus fucking xrist, you ARE a mormon?
One more comment about the witnesses to the Joseph Smith's gold tablets. The Book of Mormon, on page 2, displays the letters (two different ones, for some reason) that were signed by the witnesses. The witnesses were real people, many of whom gave numerous interviews after the fact. The interviews were published in local papers. There is a substantial amount of information about each of the individuals; they each lived within a well-documented community, they each knew each other and expressed their own thoughts in their own words. Other community members (e.g. reporters) attest to their existence, and to their intact mental state.
Craig, do you dispute anything I just said? Please, do some research of your own and verify it. You needn't take my word on one thing. Now, I have two questions for you:
1) Do you believe that Joseph Smith was once in possession of golden tablets from heaven?
2) Can you produce any substantiating evidence for your beliefs that even approaches what is offered for the Book of Mormon?
And, while I'm at it, I may as well ask you one of my favorite questions:
Can you please list a few specific books you've read that examine any of the claims of Christianity critically? (From what I've read of your posts above, I'm guessing you have not read even one. But, please do correct me if I'm wrong.)
I once was involved in a little dispute with a xian; someone who talked just like craig. I asked him where the tower of babel is. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead.
Uh....I did not get an answer. I did not expect one.
Ryan said:
"I once was involved in a little dispute with a xian; someone who talked just like craig. I asked him where the tower of babel is. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead.
Uh....I did not get an answer. I did not expect one."
Craig states:
Hi Ryan, I don't just drop my respect because I don't agree with people. Please note, my respect for you is still in tact. :)
So far as that friend of yours not being able to answer appropriately about the tower of babel please understand that not everyone has readily available answers. Furthermore, the lack of a response does not suggest there isn't an appropriate one.
The tower of babel was just another of what we (humans) commonly know as ziggurats, or large towers with the express purpose of worship.
This correctly summarizes the religious purpose of the great temple towers (the ziggurats) of ancient Sumer (which many archeologists understand to be Biblical Shinar in modern southern Iraq). Please note, the land of Shinar, as refered to in the bible account is in fact a real place, is historically proven and had real people living therein.
Ziggurats are among the largest religious structures ever built. Some suppose the Biblical narrative is a reaction to the ancient Mesopotamian system of beliefs reflected in these impressive structures, beliefs that ruled the hearts and minds of some of the greatest civilizations of ancient times.
The height of the tower is largely a matter of speculation, but since the tower symbolically can be considered a precursor to man's desire to build tall structures throughout history, its height is a significant aspect of it. The tower commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar in about 560 BC in the form of an eight-level ziggurat is believed by historians to have been about 100 meters (328 feet) in height, however the tower of babel was considerable higher.
It is not mentioned in the Genesis account that God directly destroyed the tower; however, the accounts in the Book of Jubilees, Cornelius Alexander (frag. 10), Abydenus (frags. 5 and 6), Josephus (Antiquities 1.4.3), and the Sibylline Oracles (iii. 117-129) do record its destruction. National Geographic featured a story on ziggurats, with particular reference to the tower of babel and its dimensions. The ruins of the ancient city of Babylon can be found near the city of Hillah, in modern-day Iraq, in the province of Babil, approximately 60 miles south of Baghdad, as can many of what is left of the remains of these ziggurats. Much reference can be found to this tower and others within the Sumerian culture, it just requires some research. Once again, this is not based on mythology or legend, it is based on actual events. To cast doubt on structures, people groups places, events is to deny recorded history and if that is your mindset then I'm just really sorry. Please research before you trust your doubts.
Craig previously stated:
"Science, apart from God, argues that in the universe I am nothing, but to God I am everthing, and you are too".
Webmaster responded:
"And your comment that belief in GOD makes you something and me nothing, is in error. In fact, your belief in GOD makes you nothing, nothing at all."
Craig states:
Wow, how wrong did you interpret that one WM!? What I meant by my comment was that God's opinion of you is everything. You mean everything to Him, and furthermore He will never deny you because He is faithful and knows you personally like no one else can. I get the impression that He loves you deeply, as with everyone on this blog.
jim arvo said:
1) Do you believe that Joseph Smith was once in possession of golden tablets from heaven?
Craig states:
Joseph Smith believes his revelation, however Jim, so did Muhammad. Having witnesses sign a testimony
Joseph Smith believes his revelation, however Jim, so did Muhammad.
Exactly like Muhammad, Smith claims to have had a series of visions from an angel…etc, etc. Just like Muhammad, Smith was alone when this occurred. The issue here is that neither account stands up to the rigors of falsifiability, which is quite the opposite to the biblical account of widespread and continual eye witness testimony along with the stunning preservation of the texts throughout antiquity.
According to Smith, the angel told him to translate and publish the book of plates, but commanded him not to show the plates to anyone until Smith was directed otherwise.
I'm sorry Jim the fact that no one else witnessed anything simply means his testimony doesn't withstand cross examination nor any test of corroboration.
2) Can you produce any substantiating evidence for your beliefs that even approaches what is offered for the Book of Mormon?
Craig states:
Smith said that from 1823 to 1827, he had been in communication with an angel named Moroni, who was guarding a book of Golden Plates and other artifacts in a hill near his home.
In contrast, the Biblical narratives are rich with historical details, many confirmed by archaeology. They cover far more than a thousand years, and reveal a long process of technological and cultural development. Joseph Smith's unique individualised claims cover no such rich heritage, are not substantiated historical records from the ancient past and incredibly are his his own interpretation from 1823 to 1827.
jim arvo said:
2) Can you produce any substantiating evidence for your beliefs that even approaches what is offered for the Book of Mormon?
Craig states:
In my previous responses I've covered much of this, however my response is as I've stated that the bible's authenticity is richly deserving due in one part to both eye witness testimony and textual preservation through the ages.
The events which the gospels describe for the most part took place in the full light of public scrutiny. Jesus’ teaching was followed by large crowds. There were very many witnesses to the events of his life. His death was a public execution.
The manuscript evidence for the Greek scriptures is overwhelming, far greater than for all other ancient texts. Over 20,000 manuscripts attest to them. Whilst there are some minor copying errors, as might be expected from the hand of copyists, these are almost all comparatively minor and the basic integrity of the copying process is richly supported.
jim arvo said:
"And, while I'm at it, I may as well ask you one of my favorite questions":
"Can you please list a few specific books you've read that examine any of the claims of Christianity critically? (From what I've read of your posts above, I'm guessing you have not read even one. But, please do correct me if I'm wrong.)"
Jim, I wouldn't feel adequate answering any questions if I hadn't researched this subject matter extensively and discovered the truth for myself. I only ask that everyone takes the time to put truth to the test and apply cognisant thought to the process.
Jim, yes I have read many. I wouldn't feel adequate answering any questions if I hadn't researched this subject matter extensively and discovered the truth for myself. I only ask that everyone takes the time to put truth to the test and apply respectful thought to the process.
There are many such reference materials, here are but a few dealing with the subject:
“The Historical Jesus” by Gary Habermus; “The Case For Christ” by Lee Strobel (previous atheist); “Betrayed” by Stan Telchin (great read about a Jew who came to believe in Jesus); “Evidence That Demands A Verdict” by Josh McDowell; “The Son Rises: Historical Evidence For The Resurrection of Jesus” by William Lane Craig; “The Case For Faith” by Lee Strobel (also covers many questions that have been asked on this blog). However, the best and most historically valid is the one that stands the true test of time…The Bible record itself.
Cutting through all of this to the core, it is my contention that we each must seek the truth without any pre-conceived 'religious hangups.' I set about to do this and went from an unbeliever to a believer because I simply couldn't deny the overwhelming evidence for Christ's existence today. He IS alive and wants to make Himself known to each of us. If you allow Him, He will reach you and commune with you and reveal His undying love for you.
Craig said: "Wow, how wrong did you interpret that one WM!? What I meant by my comment was that God's opinion of you is everything. You mean everything to Him, and furthermore He will never deny you because He is faithful and knows you personally like no one else can. I get the impression that He loves you deeply, as with everyone on this blog."
Hmmm, well Craig, you must a different God from the Christian God. Tell me about this new God.
Bible God says that he is angry with the wicked every day, and that he will cast all unbelievers into the Lake of Fire to be everlastingly tortured forever and ever.
Seems to me he doesn't think much of me, because I don't think HE even exists? Your god is an egomaniac who demands worship. He loves to be praised, and if He doesn't get that praise and worship, He gets mightily pissed off.
That's Bible God -- all mercy -- all judgment -- all wrath -- all the time.
If your new God, Craig, knows me as you suggest, then I have absolutely nothing to worry about. The God you say you worship would never be so petty as to eternally torture someone for not believing He exists.
I like your God fine, and have no problem with you or anyone else worshiping her. However, if it's Bible-God your advertising, then, no thanks. That dude has presented Himself in His book as a horrific monster.
Fortunately, He doesn't exist anywhere but in the imaginations of His followers.
Oh, and Craig, that's a quaint list of pop-pro-Christian-apologetics.
I wonder. Have you read even a single volume exposing the weaknesses of those apologists? Knowing both sides of any issue tends to provide a more well rounded perspective. I personally have read all the books you mentioned. I found them lacking.
There are a considerable number of books in the book store section of this site. All are better written than anything Strobel has produced. I sincerely recommend you expand your education to include competing perspectives. If your position is the way life really is, then you have nothing to fear from learning. And, you'll be better able to present your points.
Sincerely.
The books Craig lists as his resourses are:
“The Historical Jesus” by Gary Habermus
“The Case For Christ” by Lee Strobel
“Betrayed” by Stan Telchin
“Evidence That Demands A Verdict” by Josh McDowell
“The Son Rises: Historical Evidence For The Resurrection of Jesus” by William Lane Craig
“The Case For Faith” by Lee Strobel
The Bible
I haven't seen this much biasedness in one place since the tobacco company presidents testified before congress.
What supposedly caused Adam and Eve to die a physical death? SIN
Theoretically Adam and Eve would be still living today, if only they had not chose to what? Sin, (man's
imaginative answer as to why we die), then God sent his perfect (sinless) son Jesus, to save us from our sins, yet he died also, but how could he have died a physical death, being perfect and without sin?
Jesus would be walking around with us today, if he were not Full of Sin
Jesus and his followers thought that he would survive the crucifixion, they all got FOOLED..!!!! Why? Because they were all fools..!!
What supposedly caused Adam and Eve to die a physical death? SIN
Theoretically Adam and Eve would be still living today, if only they had not chose to what? Sin, (man's
imaginative answer as to why we die), then God sent his perfect (sinless) son Jesus, to save us from our sins, yet he died also, but how could he have died a physical death, being perfect and without sin?
Jesus would be walking around with us today, if he were not Full of Sin
Jesus and his followers thought that he would survive the crucifixion, they all got FOOLED..!!!! Why? Because they were all fools..!!
Craig, let me try this again. Let's open the Book of Mormon to page 2, and read The Testimony of Three Witnesses together:
"BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record... And we declare, with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon..."
This letter is signed by Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martic Harris. Following this letter is The Testimony of Eight Witnesses, which is a similar affirmation, signed by Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page,Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith. As I stated previously, and which you will no doubt ignore again, many of these people agreed to be interviewed, and those interviews were published in local papers.
So, your assertion that "no one else witnessed anything" could not be more dramatically contradicted by the bare facts in evidence. Your objection has thereby been utterly disposed of.
I asked if you could produce similarly well-attested evidence and, predictably, you completely ignored everything I said about the Mormon case, and instead chose to compare on totally different grounds, using duration, for example, as an indicator of veracity (i.e. the Biblical accounts span a greater length of time, and have thereby amassed more information).
You continue to imply there your story has a large slate of eyewitnesses, but you've yet to name them, or tell us exactly what they saw, or when, or how you know it to be so. Can you produce anything even approaching what the Mormon's can offer: a list a actual names of people who were verifiably real and who offered interviews, and who signed a letter describing what they saw? Can you please address that question directly?
Craig: "The events which the gospels describe for the most part took place in the full light of public scrutiny. Jesus’ teaching was followed by large crowds. There were very many witnesses to the events of his life. His death was a public execution."
Similarly, Superman performed many of his feats in full public view. Thousands of eyewitnesses saw him rescue Lois Lane on more than one occasion. Jimmy Olsen also captured much of on film. But, unfortunately, just like Jesus, all we have is stories about these witnesses.
Craig: "The manuscript evidence for the Greek scriptures is overwhelming, far greater than for all other ancient texts...."
Ah yes, that old red herring. This argument is such a smokescreen I'm baffled by how you can offer it as any kind of evidence. We have much better manuscripts for Superman comic books than we do the books of the Bible. We can recover the original stories with almost 100% confidence. Yet, NONE of this makes the stories true, or lends them one particle of credibility.
Craig: "Jim, yes I have read many [books that examine Christianity critically]. I wouldn't feel adequate answering any questions if I hadn't researched this subject matter extensively and discovered the truth for myself...."
I'm sorry, but you did not answer my question. I asked if you could please list a few of the titles. Given the types of arguments that you deploy, I cannot detect an ounce of skepticism in you, nor even a trace of it from the past. Your arguments all seem to be cut from the same cloth as those of Strobel and McDowell, which are uniformly weak as they continually attack straw men and stay well away from any real criticism. (It's easy to see why they do this.)
So, I'll ask again, can you please list for me a few of the books you've read that are critical of Christianity? And while you're at it, have you read any rebuttals to Strobel's or McDowell's books? There are plenty of them, and they completely dismantle the largely fallacious and ill-supported arguments by your two favorite authors.
Craig!
God has been speaking to me a lot lately, and today he gave me this message to deliver to you: He says (And he gave me a "golden tablet", with this inscribed on it, which according to him will self-destruct at the last key punch of the message.)
"Craig!
You are one of my special people, and I want you to know I love you so much, that I am sending this special message to you, through Dano, to implore you to get out of your religious cult, and reclaim the perfectly good brain that I gave you.
I cannot allow my children to enter heaven, after living their whole lives, believing in nonsense.
If you will take a close look at yourself, and take the necessary steps to rid yourself of the mental chains that bind you, I promise you, that I will speak to you directly like I do all humans who give me the respect, to NOT equate me, or describe me, as the God in the bible.
I am insulted by the pathetic, bumbling, immoral, terrorist,that I am portrayed as, in the bible. I will reveal more to you later when you are your own man"
Dan ("Dan is my man, God")
Yikes, something just occurred to me. Is it possible that Craig offered those works of Habermas, Strobell, McDowell, and W. L. Craig as examples of books that examine Christianity critically? Could that possibly be what he meant? If that's what passes for critical analysis these days then we're doomed as a species. Game over.
craig, you have a way of ignoring my wider, and, of course, more perplexing questions, and concentrating on those that you can answer. Even then, it amounts to half an answer.
craig, for xrist's sake, I know what a ziggurat is. The tower of babel was not a ziggurat. You really need to start reading your bible. The tower of babel was built to reach to heaven. For their presumption and hubris, god buggered their languages and put a stop to their project. If you claim that the bible records can be demonstrated as true by archeology,than where is that tower. craig, god did not get pissed because people were building ziggurats.
The point of the foregoing is that the tower of babel is just a story and hasn't a grain of truth in it--unless you have one of those witnesses you are so fond of.
You missed the point about the 3 witnesses. Smith's 3 friends were liars and bullshitters. So were the guys who wrote the gospels.The point was that just because someone claims to be a witness means nothing. I do not care if it is joe smith, muhammed, or matthew mark luke and john. We are talking about fiction. Are you suggesting that somebody wrote a story about jesus bringing dead people back to life, and you believe it, because the author saw it, or that he knew someone who saw it, or that he knew someone who knew someone who saw it?
I do not think the authors of the gospels were witnesses--I think the authors of the gospels were story-tellers.
And so are you. You are no scholar, in spite of your prentensions. You are seeing proofs where there are none.
Whoa! Poor Craig! You guys were really rough on him, yet he did lean into your sage retorts!
Dave (WM), Ryan, Tigg13, Dano and Jimbo (Arvo), Boomslang and others - you guys crack me up! We simply must get together sometime, I mean, bedsides Hell.
What are you guys doing for the Super Bowel?
Hey! Let's get Craig to ask god who's going to win!
And the score!
And the MVP too!
That would prove who's really deluded.
Heck, let's get matthew, paul and all the rest of these fundytrolls who keep insisting that they know the true god to post their picks.
We can settle this 'who's got the right god' question right here and now!
Any takers?
Are you guys any closer to the truth yet??
ps: Has that Super Bowel been on?
pss: You'd all be welcome for a beer a barbeque and good chat over at my place anytime, but Australia may just be so far away it could seriously scare you guys right out of your comfort zones. :)
Sorry to 'Anonymous' that last post wasn't him.
Are you guys any closer to the truth yet??
ps: Has that Super Bowel been on?
pss: You'd all be welcome for a beer a barbeque and good chat over at my place anytime, but Australia may just be so far away it could seriously scare you guys right out of your comfort zones. :)
Craig, I've been to OZ several times: Sydney & Melbourne mainly. Also watched the penguin parade and saw some wallabies while rogaining. Awesome place. (The locals called me "Jimmy Afternoon"--you will probably be the only one on this thread to get that.)
"That is, our religion is from the Creator. It is a result of our hope and trust in God. It is the natural fruit. False religions have stolen from God and not the other way around. False religions have a common denominator and that is there assault on the term "Justification." They are working toward their salvation. We are working as a result of our salvation.
We have to separate the biblical Jews from religious Jews. One had hope in the Messiah's coming. They acted as a result of this promise. King David loved God because of the promise given to him by faith. The religious Jew (Judaism), as in the case today, denies Jesus and attempts to bring to God their religious efforts.
A religion that is pure in the sight of God is a "discipline" which results and originates, from God. We do these things as a result of being justified. We do these things because God has declared us "not guilty" because of the passive/active obedience of the Messiah being given to us as a gift. His works are what save us. In contrast, the religions of the world who deny justification seek to bring their "religious" efforts to God to "save" them.
Don't let that word religion, be a hindrance. We as believers have a beautiful religion because it is a fruit which comes from God. It starts with him and ends with him. Like I said; the religion we show is a result of what God did. It is an external response. For example, we love because he first loved us right? The false religions out there have a completely different gospel. As a result they bring their filthy rags and present then to God thinking they are working their way to God. We have been made clean by the word. The false religions make themselves clean." (Moshe, carm.org)
Dan Marvin: "That is, our religion is from the Creator."
Unsupported assumption. There is no proof that your god exists; therefore, it is reasonable to assume that your religion -- Like all others -- is man-made.
Thanks for your illustration of the theme "How do we know that Christians are delusional?"
Dan Marvin said...
"We as believers have a beautiful religion because it is a fruit which comes from God"
--
Yeah Dan,
That gawd 'fruit' sure looks a lot like Rotten Tomatoes to most of us here.
Here Dan, try this 'Delicious' Apple out, that some woman here named Eve just handed me.
She says it will let you see the truth with just one bite....Amazing things, these apples.
ATF (who thinks the god-fruit Dan is eating, has *HALF* a worm left in it)
Astreja: "Unsupported assumption. There is no proof that your god exists;"
I had a conversation with a psychiatrist and I pointed out some key points about God so I just wanted to share with anyone that reads this.
Richard: "You are not asking yourself why the Law supposedly exists in the first place. It is not, in Christian teaching, about arbitrary "accountability," for its own sake. It is about repairing a disrupted relationship."
I believe you are missing the point of the Law, friend. Let me explain it fully for anyone to understand.
Romans 3:19 "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."
1 Timothy 1:9-10 "Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;"
Romans 7:7-8 "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead."
The law was made as a mirror for us. In the same way, we don't realize what a bad state we are in until we look into the "mirror" of the Ten Commandments.
Richard: "You are not "glorifying God" because you love him, you are glorifying God because you're scared sh**less not to."
Again yes, that is Biblical while you are a proverbial 'child' learning about God.
Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding."
Hebrews 10:31 "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
The Bible describes hell as unquenchable fire,(Mark 9:43) outer darkness,(Matthew 22:13) a furnace of fire and a place where people wail and gnash their teeth,(Matthew 13:42) and a lake of fire.(Revelation 20:15) where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched,(Mark 9:48) and where people are in agony in flames.(Luke 16:24) Perhaps the most terrifying passage in the Bible describing hell says that men will "drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night." (Revelation 14:10-11)
That should make all of us have fear, like a child fears a spanking if they run out in the street after the parent told them not to.(milk) When the child grows up then the child understand the perfect love and doesn't fear the spankings but honors and respects the parent.(meat).
1 Corinthians 3:2 "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."
Hebrews 5:11-13 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
A proud unrepentant man, such as yourself Richard, needs the milk of hell and damnation and lake of fire talk. After you grow up understanding the Lord and you are 'born again' you don't fear the punishment anymore because it isn't for you, it's for the sinners. Do you fear going to jail for a DUI when you sit at home drinking a glass of water? Of course not that is absurd, but if you were drinking scotch all day and then get behind the wheel then yes be afraid be very afraid. It is wise to face you heavenly Father in fear when you have broken His law. When you Repent ( turn away from sin, turn away from breaking His laws) and Trust and Faith in Jesus that he washed you clean and took your punishment for you, then you are forgiven and no longer need be afraid of Him but you respect and love Him for teaching you and you chose not to live to break His laws out of honor and respect, not fear anymore.
Richard: "Indeed, what you picture is more akin to the "fire insurance" many Christians, including myself when I was one, were taught to be wary of."
That is perfectly fine at first but you, as most, never grow up and STOP sinning like they should. They want to keep fornicating or lying or whatever their sin is at the time and start to resent the "ol man" and thinks he is too hard because He will not let them do as they want. They are spoiled brats. It is Biblical and as you said "teaching you what an pathetic self-absorbed pervert (brat) you are, it offers you undeserved rescue.(out of love)"
No where near what you are alluding to as Stockholm syndrome. Now if you get to heaven after being saved and God STILL PUNISHES you and tortures you by burning you in a lake of fire then I suppose that would happen. Hear on earth though, God is justified to use such tactics to ensure your salvation. Remember Job in the Bible? If he is being tortured in heaven that would be an unjust god but I assure you that just isn't the case.
Richard: "Honesty about motivations is the heart of self understanding, and of freedom." I am motivated by the gratefulness that Jesus saved me from my deserved fate. I also bleed for the lost such as yourself, you are a like a little child playing in a burning house and I just want to grab you from that fire. I love you Richard and others. I love you enough to confront you. It takes far more love to confront to just ignore the situation. Perfect love is a constant confronter. Please, I am begging you Richard to just understand what I have said. Use pascal's wager if you must, get the milk at first so you can enjoy the meat like me, at this point of my 39 years on this earth I am enjoying God's love and it is difficult to explain it to the lost. God is not some tyrant, he loves you enough to save you if you let Him. Don't be like that child that keeps wanting to run out in the middle of the street (sin), It is time to grow up and enjoy the gifts that the Lord wants to give you.(meat)
The difference is experience with God (me) vs non experience (you and atheists).
A mother tells a child not to touch that hot Iron and the kid listens and 'believes' his Mom. As soon as the Mom leaves the room the child touches the Hot Iron and gets burned. He just went from a 'belief' the Iron was hot to an 'experience' that the Iron 'is' hot with 100% assurance. No one can come and tell him otherwise because his experience tells him different. He is 100% certain the Iron is hot and he has the burn to prove it.
Well I have felt the Hot Iron of God's hand on me and cannot be persuaded otherwise because I have an experience that removed ALL doubt, I am 100% certain there is a God and he loves you very much.
For Him +†+,
Dan
In response to the above, I have two comments:
1) Quoting scripture as Truth is to commit the bare assertion fallacy :
1: X claims statement A.
2: X claims that X is not lying.
Conclusion: Therefore, A is true.
2) You are insane, and I wish you the best of luck with that. Get help.
+†+ = Lie.
Dan, you are indeed insane, or woefully naïve, if you think we give one flying fuck about your Bible quotations. We are EX-Christians. The Bible is not accepted as Truth here; quite the contrary.
"Remember Job in the Bible? If he is being tortured in heaven that would be an unjust god but I assure you that just isn't the case."
I... see. So, Dan, you chat up the folks in Heaven on a regular basis? Get the straitjacket, boomSLANG; we've got a live one here!
Dan Marvin said...
"Well I have felt the Hot Iron of God's hand on me and cannot be persuaded otherwise because I have an experience that removed ALL doubt.."
--
Dan,
The child who touches that "hot iron" would have a physical burn on them to SEE and show to anyone who wishes to examine it.
Can you SHOW us the physical burn you got from your god's "hot iron", so we may examine it?
I DOUBT YOU CAN, as that type of god induced burn only exists within your mind and no place else.
Ponder that thought for awhile, Dan
ATF
Mr. Marvin,
As the others have rightly said, quoting scripture is going to get you nowhere here. Doing so is itself a fallacy, as boomSLANG correctly points out. Furthermore, your rank condescension and obvious sanctimonious attitude is repulsive. The mentality you seem to exhibit - that of simplistic obedience - is of the same variety that enables others to torture, maim, or kill those who don't adhere to strict authoritative guidelines.
Having read your posts here and at your blog, you strike me as someone intoxicated by faith, possessing only enough self-awareness to loathe the human condition. Like the biblical character of God, you glibly condemn others as deserving of eternal torment, for the simple reason that they lack belief in an allegedly sublime truth you claim to have personal knowledge of. For you, fear is a desirable tool, a means for coercion that's completely justified. In that sense, sir, you are no different from Osama Bin Laden, attempting to use terror to control and manipulate.
Of course, again having read your blog, I found out you are also a disciple of Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. Such a thing would be completely laughable if it weren't so completely ignorant and lacking any concept of compassion. The way they present themselves, they couldn't reason their way out of a paper bag, and like you advocate using fear to manipulate. The examples are manifold, being proudly displayed on their website. As for their reasoning ability, Comfort has embarassed himself multiple times, two examples of which were his absurd argument concerning a banana, and his (and Cameron's) debate against the Rational Responders, in which he violated his own agreed-upon protocol, invoking the Bible and faith almost immediately when he had originally said such things would be unnecessary.
Unless you plan on descending from those lofty heights upon which you've placed yourself, there can be no meaningful dialogue between us. I suggest that you follow your own advice (on your blog) and do a 180-degree turn. When you do, recognize your own humanity and ours, exercise some moral integrity, and drop the pompous attitude. Otherwise, you can expect to persuade no one here. You can also expect that continued pompous condescension and sanctimony will have reinforced the decision we've made to abandon faith in foolish - and abhorrent - myths.
"Unless you plan on descending from those lofty heights upon which you've placed yourself, there can be no meaningful dialogue between us."
You are mistaken I believe that I am a wicked sinner as all of you are. I just humbled myself to accept the gift that was offered to all of us. As I see it it is all of you who are too proud and are in "lofty heights" to ask for help, like a drug addict that denies his addiction. If you are addicted to sin then Repent and ask Jesus for help with that.
Your presuppositions will not allow you to examine without bias the evidence that I present to you for God's existence.
Your presupposition is that there is no God; therefore, no matter what I might present to you to show His existence, you must interpret it in a manner consistent with your presupposition: namely, that there is no God. If I were to have a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you'd say it was a special effect. If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying they saw Him, you'd say it was mass-hysteria. If I had Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly, or not real prophecies. So, I cannot prove anything to you since your presupposition won't allow it. It is limited.
Your presupposition cannot allow you to rightly determine God's existence from evidence -- providing that there were factual proofs of His existence. Don't you see? If I DID have incontrovertible proof, your presupposition would force you to interpret the facts consistently with your presupposition and you would not be able to see the proof.
I wish you all the best,
Dan
Bob Boldt wrote:
The video just went down as I was downloading it depriving me of the last exciting minutes of the program. A little announcement notice appeared telling me that the video was no longer available. Could it be that the Divine hand of God struck it off the Internet for its infamous blasphemy?
I think I am going back into my bubble. It's so much safer in there.
Yours in Christ,
Bob Boldt
Huh?
I can see the vid.
Bob Boldt wrote:
"I think I am going back into my bubble. It's so much safer in there"
--
To Bubble Boy...err Bob,
The video works fine, so I guess god just didn't want YOU to see the end of it. For the rest of us, I'm guessing it still is working just fine.
ATF (Who thinks the devil hamsters turning the video projector's wheels, only work for ex-xtians perhaps)
Dan Marvin,
Are we to accept your version of a deity without question? Are we to accept faulty evidence and base our lives on it, ignoring it's flaws?
Are we to ignore our own experiences and accept someone elses' without credible evidence?
How gullible do you think we are?
I am one to believe that doubt itself is the catalyst for atheism. Abandon hope; give up hope; lose heart; is the definition of despair, correct?
But to make the point clear lets look at the apostles and what they, not to mention the 250 million people just this year, had or will have to endure and the torture and arrests and be-headings and such. They were put through prosecutions, tribulation, and great turmoils. Yet they kept their Hope and honor and never wavered in their faith.
The Bible talks a great deal of doubt as you know.
Deuteronomy 28:66 "And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:" Matthew 14:31 "And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Luke 12:29 "And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind." Romans 14:23 "And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin."
Doubting your belief system and entire denominations (man made) is healthy I feel. We are after all in Jesus' rest and not much is required of us because all the work had been done already. We must not trust our own lying wickedness and make sure we are not pushing our own agendas over or replacing God's. It is about leaving God entirely and abandoning Him.
To doubt God Himself or that Jesus is not Lord is so damaging that this atheism is a move from light to darkness. This is the point that 2 John the 7th verse it is clear about.
Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
I beg all of you not to depend on, or lose faith because of, anything that mankind had done. We must have faith that God's plan is true and sound and no one will get to heaven without Jesus.
Dan said, "But to make the point clear lets look at the apostles [...] had [...] to endure."
And, what, pray tell, did they endure? Please identify the Bible verses that list what the so-called apostles endured.
Dan said, "Doubt itself is the catalyst for atheism... Doubting your belief system [...] is healthy."
Finally, something we can all agree on.
Dan Marvin: "Abandon hope; give up hope; lose heart; is the definition of despair, correct?"
Not exactly. In My experience, tossing away false hope and staring reality in the face is the path to liberation. The phrase 'lose heart' is the only one that I would equate to 'despair'.
And even despair, terrifying as it is, has a part to play in the human drama.
"The Bible talks a great deal of doubt as you know."
So do a lot of other books. What's your point?
"We must not trust our own lying wickedness..."
So, refrain from falsehood and strive to do good. What's the big deal? It's certainly not rocket science. Shakyamuni figured *that* out 500 years before Christianity.
Ohh, I forgot. Due to the wonders of Original Sin™, being a good person is hypothetically impossible.
"We must have faith that God's plan is true and sound and no one will get to heaven without Jesus."
No. Absolutely not. I've seen the damage done by Christianity... There is nothing good in there that is unique to the religion, and the rest is toxic trash. For something that's been allegedly going strong for nearly 2000 years, your god's alleged "plan" has done far more harm than good. And it's certainly not worthy of the epithet "true and sound".
"We must have faith that God's plan is true and sound and no one will get to heaven without Jesus."
Small question?
What if I don’t want heaven? What if I think the most daunting concept is living forever?
A person can only play so many hands of poker before the redundancy becomes hell.
What if there is no Pepsi or chocolate or oatmeal cake or sex in heaven?
Who can imagine living forever without chocolate let alone sex?
And before you say: “Well, you won’t need to worry ‘bout chocolate or sex in heaven.” I say: “Who the fuck would want that!”
I am content with being one of the many ordinary creatures on an ordinary planet in an ordinary solar system. I am content with having a little bit of chocolate, a little bit of love, and a little bit of sex in my life. Sometimes it’s been one at a time and sometimes it’s been more than one at a time. I will die with a bit of sadness, a touch of whining, but with a contentment that I was lucky to live at all. I am content that at my death that all I will become is worm food just as the 70 billion people who lived before me have.
Dan M.,
You wrongly assume that "other people" were the reason we(or at least I) let go of the god delusion, or "lost faith".
It may be the case for some here but not for me.
I stopped believing in god when he didn't answer my prayers. I needed his help and asked(prayed) for it, but when no help/answer came, it was logical to deduct that this "God" I had called upon for my NEEDS, didn't exist.
Before you get your undies in a bunch, some of the things I prayed for were sanity, strength to endure, stronger faith, closeness to god, ect.. You'd think that if this god existed and is who the bible says he is he'd at least have answered one of these.
I didn't lose hope, I gained hope that I alone could do more to keep my sanity than what god could. I gained hope in myself when I found there to be no hope in trusting god.
If I cannot depend on this god for the "small" things(answered prayer,strength,sanity,my needs), then why should I trust him with the "greater" thigs(eternity,the rest of my life, ect...)
"We must not trust our own lying wickedness and make sure we are not pushing our own agendas over or replacing God's."
So are we to trust YOUR lying wickedness? How about the lying wickedness of those that wrote the scriptures? Were they "perfect" in what they wrote and why they wrote it? How do you know? Is it because "the bible says"? That's called circular reasoning.
"To doubt God Himself or that Jesus is not Lord is so damaging that this atheism is a move from light to darkness."
You assume that god is objectively real without credible evidence for it. All else after can be dicounted as foolishness.
You assume that god is objectively real without credible evidence for it.
There is plenty of evidence. Here is Proof
So are we to trust YOUR lying wickedness? Nope, my heart is just as wicked as anyone else's. Don't even trust your own heart because it is wicked.
How about the lying wickedness of those that wrote the scriptures? The Bible can be trusted. The original Bible is infallible, inspired, and inerrant word of God without fail.God has the power and preserved His message even through human error and different languages. There are some things that we must take in faith. As far as the different translations, there is a sliding scale so I take all of them into account and not trust any 'one' thing that man has done. I stay close to literal and conservative as possible. The translations start from very conservative and literal translations like Young's Literal, Darby then to KJV then on up to the top of the more modern and liberal translations like New Jerusalem Bible (NJB).
I stopped believing in god when he didn't answer my prayers.
Wow, how shallow is that. We can't be like spoiled brats and say to ourselves "well, if I won't get my prayers answered then forget God" Has your Dad ever told you No for something you asked for? Did you stop loving him just because he said not now or no? Are you really that spoiled and shallow? You don't have to answer but think real hard about it.
Let me ask you something, did you get through that crisis that you were going through? Did he deliver you even though you abandoned Him?
God’s word declares that this is God's plan of salvation; 1. Hear the WORD of God. 2. Believe that Jesus is the Messiah. 3. Repent of your ways that are contrary to God’s will. 4. Be Baptized INTO Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 5. Remain faithful to the Covenant you have made with God.
And to help you celebrate Halloween I have another site for you: Death Beth
I do appreciate your thoughts and input. Don't get me wrong I get sad and frustrated when another soul doesn't get convinced of God's Glory such as yourself but I am hopeful that God will change your life in such a way that you will understand His love. From the day that a person breaks God's Law of Sin and Death, God's greatest desire is that they will come to repentance. And we then go along thinking that we're just living life, but the reality is, that our life's experiences are filled with acts of God trying to bring us back into a relationship with Himself. I hope the best for all of you. What more can I say but, take care all.
"The original Bible is infallible, inspired, and inerrant word of God without fail..."
That's the funniest thing I've heard today! To bad you have nothing to back up that statement, other than "I believe, I believe, I believe,...".
Thanks for the laugh though! -Wes.
"You assume that god is objectively real without credible evidence for it."
Dan Marvin: There is plenty of evidence. Here is Proof
Here is some more proof, while you're at it.
stronger now,
After thinking for a moment why you ran from God I remembered something that a good friend once said.
See if this fits your situation:
"Two men are seated in a plane. The first is given a parachute and told to put is on as it would improve his flight. He's a little skeptical at first because he can't see how wearing a parachute in a plane could possibly improve the flight. After a time he decides to experiment and see if the claim is true. As he puts it on he notices the weight of it upon his shoulders and he finds that he has difficulty in sitting upright. However, he consoles himself with the fact that he was told the parachute would improve the flight. So, he decides to give the thing a little time. As he waits he notices that some of the other passengers are laughing at him, because he's wearing a parachute in a plane. He begins to feel somewhat humiliated. As they begin to point and laugh at him and he can stand it no longer, he slinks in his seat, unstraps the parachute, and throws it to the floor. Disillusionment and bitterness fill his heart, because, as far as he was concerned, he was told an outright lie.
The second man is given a parachute, but listen to what he's told. He's told to put it on because at any moment he'd be jumping 25,000 feet out of the plane. He gratefully puts the parachute on; he doesn't notice the weight of it upon his shoulders, nor that he can't sit upright. His mind is consumed with the thought of what would happen to him if he jumped without that parachute.
Let's analyze the motive and the result of each passenger's experience. The first man's motive for putting the parachute on was solely to improve his flight. The result of his experience was that he was humiliated by the passengers; he was disillusioned and somewhat embittered against those who gave him the parachute. As far as he's concerned it'll be a long time before anyone gets one of those things on his back again. The second man put the parachute on solely to escape the jump to come, and because of his knowledge of what would happen to him without it, he has a deep-rooted joy and peace in his heart knowing that he's saved from sure death. This knowledge gives him the ability to withstand the mockery of the other passengers. His attitude towards those who gave him the parachute is one of heart-felt gratitude.
Now listen to what the modern gospel says. It says, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He'll give you love, joy, peace, fulfillment, and lasting happiness." In other words, "Jesus will improve your flight." So the sinner responds, and in an experimental fashion, puts on the Savior to see if the claims are true. And what does he get? The promised temptation, tribulation, and persecution. The other passengers mock him. So what does he do? He takes off the Lord Jesus Christ, he's offended for the word's sake (Mark 4:17), he's disillusioned and somewhat embittered, and quite rightly so. He was promised peace, joy, love, fulfillment, and lasting happiness, and all he got were trials and humiliation. His bitterness is directed toward those who gave him the so-called "good news". His latter end becomes worse than the first: another inoculated and bitter backslider."(Hell's Best Kept Secret)
boomSLANG,
Our religion is from the Creator. It is a result of our hope and trust in God. It is the natural fruit. False religions have stolen from God and not the other way around. False religions have a common denominator and that is there assault on the term "Justification." They are working toward their salvation. We are working as a result of our salvation.
A religion that is pure in the sight of God is a "discipline" which results and originates, from God. We do these things as a result of being justified. We do these things because God has declared us "not guilty" because of the passive/active obedience of the Messiah being given to us as a gift. His works are what save us. In contrast, the religions of the world who deny justification seek to bring their "religious" efforts to God to "save" them.
We as believers have a beautiful religion because it is a fruit which comes from God. It starts with him and ends with him. Like I said; the religion we show is a result of what God did. It is an external response. For example, we love because he first loved us right? The false religions out there have a completely different gospel. As a result they bring their filthy rags and present then to God thinking they are working their way to God. We have been made clean by the word. The false religions make themselves clean. (Moshe)
Dan Marvin: "Our religion is from the Creator."
You still haven't proven that your god even exists. And no, the cartoon from AiG is not "proof". The argumentum ad pretty sunset fallacy has been done to death.
"False religions have stolen from God and not the other way around."
Prove it. Christianity is a relatively late arrival on the religious front.
"For example, we love because he first loved us right?"
No. We love as the result of a natural biochemical reaction in our brains, plus our experiences in nurturing families and societies. No gods are required.
Dan,
Sorry this is a bit late.
You are mistaken I believe that I am a wicked sinner as all of you are. I just humbled myself to accept the gift that was offered to all of us. As I see it it is all of you who are too proud and are in "lofty heights" to ask for help, like a drug addict that denies his addiction.
Your very first sentence seems to betray a fatal flaw in your professed humility. Simultaneously you indict not just yourself, but also the rest of humanity. Well, at least those of us who've bothered to respond to you. This is what's commonly referred to as "false" humility; an expression of self-abasement by which one's own peity is measured in contrast to others. Perhaps more egregiously, it bases itself on the absurdly arrogant assumption that one can absolutely know that an almighty deity exists, who grants mere mortals insights into superlative truth, and takes a personal interest in a pious believer's life.
Ordinary humility is really quite different. It acknowledges our limitations, claiming no superior talent, appearance, or skill, nor possession of absolute knowledge, and debases no one. It's the kind of humility one finds in great leaders. Those who freely confess their mistakes and lack of perfection while not dismissing the knowledge, skills, and abilities they do have, and who expect similar characteristics in others, seeking to build them up rather than tear them down.
Needless to say, I'm experiencing some cognitive difficulties reconciling your words here with the latter model.
As for this alleged gift, for the sake of argument let's assume your God exists and offers his services as savior. I'd first ask you if a "gift" that has provisos is a gift at all, or if it's just economics? Second, if a man walks into a school or business and threatens to kill everyone who does not worship him, is he offering a gift, or is it extortion? Make no mistake, the Bible teaches just this sort of model for God's alleged "gift" to mankind. What are the "provisos" for this gift? That one submits to His authority, and worships him. How does He extort it? By threatening eternal torment if we don't.
Your presuppositions will not allow you to examine without bias the evidence that I present to you for God's existence.
That's a bit premature, don't you think? You've presented no evidence, as far as I can tell. As for my presuppositions, I certainly do have them, as do we all. However, I like to think my presuppositions no longer go further than is warranted. While I have come to assume there is no such thing as the supernatural, this is the result of having been presented with nothing persuasive in terms of logic or evidence. Maybe this is the result of a lack of imagination on my part, but I do think you've forgotten which site you're on. Many (if not most) of us here are former Christians, some of whom believed quite strongly in biblical truth and for a very significant portion of their lives. Indeed, our presuppositions used to be nearly identical to yours. We have since concluded that we were deceived.
If I were to have a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you'd say it was a special effect.
That would be my first assumption, yes. However, if it were to be demonstrated that the video recorded an actual event, I would be forced to reverse my position. For example, if several news organizations were to record the event from different angles and independently of one another, so that several tapes were available, and if presumably reliable equipment (e.g., radar, satellite imagery, etc.) were to be offered in support, I'd have to concede, wouldn't I?
If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying they saw Him, you'd say it was mass-hysteria.
Depends on who was present and whether any support for the phenomenon existed beyond the personal anecdotes of the witnesses. For example, if a highly diverse group of thousands in, say, New York City or other similarly large urban area, independently reported the same phenomenon and support were offered in a manner similar to what I described for video tapes, I'd accept it as highly favoring God's existence in the absence of a natural explanation. We actually have a troll that visits this site fairly frequently who offered just this sort of "proof" for God's existence, though as a Catholic he said that what people saw was the Virgin Mary. But as I said, under the right conditions I'd reverse my position even here.
If I had Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly, or not real prophecies.
As it happens, I have a little experience scrutinizing prophecies. Over at Richard Dawkins' website, a few people (including myself) recently concluded a year-long debate with a very nice, very intelligent, but very deluded English gentleman (a Christadelphian), who insisted that prophecy is what led him to accept the Bible. Of course, we were discussing a particular prophecy in Ezekiel that doesn't pertain to the New Testament, and never really got to those that allegedly do. At any rate, I suspect you're right because as boomSLANG, Astreja, and the others already mentioned, using the Bible to confirm the Bible is a fallacy. The same applies to any other book offered as proof of itself, by the way. If, on the other hand, you were able to provide some corroborative evidence from outside the Bible, perhaps I'd reconsider.
So, I cannot prove anything to you since your presupposition won't allow it.
Well, I don't expect you to "prove" anything. Neither of us can "prove" our opposing positions. What we can do is compare evidence and evaluate our own and each other's claims in the light of that evidence. So, what I expect from you is evidence to support your position. Evidence that isn't based on circular logic, fallacies of irrelevance or interpretation, equivocation, conjecture, or gaps in other positions, to name a few preliminary conditions.
If I DID have incontrovertible proof, your presupposition would force you to interpret the facts consistently with your presupposition and you would not be able to see the proof.
Irrelevant because you don't have incontrovertible proof. No one does. Also, it is highly presumptuous to assume that others are ruled by their presuppositions, or that they are not open to change. Essentially, it seems to me that you're projecting your desire for certitude in your beliefs onto others, though I could be wrong. I wonder, are you willing to concede the possibility that you may be wrong about God? Whose presuppositions are inflexible?
I am one to believe that doubt itself is the catalyst for atheism. Abandon hope; give up hope; lose heart; is the definition of despair, correct?
That's more-or-less the definition of despair, yes. Is despair the logical conclusion of doubt, or even atheism? Not at all. Doubt is as much a catalyst for inquiry, exploration, and discovery as it is a source for discomfort. It affirms our limited nature but prods us to find answers that satisfy our longing for meaning and truth. And that's what you're really hinting at here, isn't it? That atheism denies meaning or purpose?
To begin answering this, I submit that while there is no evidence of a greater purpose for all of mankind, each of us manages to find meaning and purpose on our own. Something that gives us peace of mind or fulfillment in the present while we live, making our lives meaningful at least for us. That is, our activities, inasmuch as they do not infringe upon others', are worthwhile for their own sake. Some of us - such as Dan Marvin - suppose there is a greater purpose that gives meaning to all of existence, but the way it's usually presented it's irrelevant to us while we live. Furthermore, to say that we're part of an almighty plan requires us to accept our role as meaningful. Yet how can we do that if we're all ignorant of what that plan is? And that surely must be the case, because what might be meaningful to such a deity would be inscrutable to humanity. So, we project what is meaningful to us onto our concept of God, if we have one.
I suspect you would argue that our greater purpose is to glorify God, but how is that meaningful? If nothing greater than God can be conceived, then what possible meaning can it have? Does it mean anything to you to glorify something which is already supposed to be more glorious than anything else? Furthermore, what role would we have? Would it be simply to worship His glory? Surely your God is not so petty and insecure that He needs our praise. How would that be meaningful to Him, and if it's not meaningful to Him, how can it possibly have meaning for us? Does He need companions? Is He lonely? Is it our purpose to keep Him company for eternity? Such a thing would be like a mother who clings to her children, fearing to let them go not for their sake, but for hers. But while this emotion is understandable to us, it certainly does not apply to your God. According to your holy book, He is quite willing to not merely let us go but also to vindictively consign us to an eternity of torment, or at least oblivion. Therefore, the model of God as a grieving parent who merely desires His childrens' presence is sorely lacking in consistency with the Bible.
But I've digressed far enough.
But to make the point clear lets look at the apostles and what they, not to mention the 250 million people just this year, had or will have to endure and the torture and arrests and be-headings and such. They were put through prosecutions, tribulation, and great turmoils. Yet they kept their Hope and honor and never wavered in their faith.
Willingness toward martyrdom is no indication for the truth of a belief. To understand this principle, simply ask yourself whether the terrorists, by flying planes into the World Trade Center, affirmed the truth of their beliefs. Should we all become Muslims because Islam happens to have more than its fair share of self-styled martyrs? Of course not, and you know it. If you're going to assert that Christian belief is somehow different (which, I'm confident, would be your reply), you must offer another measure by which to guage validity, because it's plainly apparent that people will often die for erroneous beliefs.
Doubting your belief system and entire denominations (man made) is healthy I feel.
Interesting, though it's difficult to reconcile this statement with your apparent certitude about your own beliefs. And curious, because at the beginning of the post that contains this statement, you disparage doubt as the source of despair. Which is it?
We must not trust our own lying wickedness and make sure we are not pushing our own agendas over or replacing God's.
What agenda does God have, and where did you learn about it? If you're going to offer the Bible as a source, then you have to be able to demonstrate its validity. But more than that, you are going to have to demonstrate God's existence separate from the Bible, because using the Bible to prove God to prove the Bible is circular logic.
Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
I beg all of you not to depend on, or lose faith because of, anything that mankind had done. We must have faith that God's plan is true and sound and no one will get to heaven without Jesus.
You have accused us of having blind faith, yet now propose that we replace it with a different variety of blind faith. This frank admission that evidence holds little meaning for you is, on some level, refreshing, but it is also not persuasive. All of us have beliefs, but the degree to which we think they are true is somewhat dependent on their foundations in evidence. Unless you can offer something other than an emotional appeal like this one, I'm afraid we're done. As it is, I feel I've allowed this to demand more of my time than it should have.
Cheers.
Dan Marvin wrote:
>Nope, my heart is just as wicked as anyone else's. Don't even trust your own heart because it is wicked.
Dan,
It's so obvious to me that your so called 'god' uses many techniques to keep his followers in his grasp, and if you'd open your darn eye's, you might SEE this as well.
Let's take a look at just one of the many means your god uses, to control his followers.
Are there any human situations that mimic how your god treats his followers, that might help open your eyeballs here.....You betcha there are !!
[ Putting on my 'shrink' therapy hat for a bit here now]
Have you ever seen the results of how some wives are mentally abused by their husbands?
Just lately we've seen a few xtian women like this come through our site, with their stories of such.
Such abused women are made to feel worthless, useless, stupid, and many times...WICKED.
They have been convinced by their xtian husbands, that they sin so often and badly, that they no longer see any good in themselves and truly believe they are WICKED individuals.
Some children also suffer the same sort of fate from some parents, resulting in them having little self esteem, and they grow up believing that they to, are WICKED and not deserving of anything good in life etc..
Things can become so bad with these abused humans, that they have a hard time accepting anything good happening to them in their lives, sometimes going as far as to derail anything good in their lives because they don't feel they deserve goodness from life.
If you have been taught to feel you are that WICKED, then it's easy for that person to convince themselves they deserve NOTHING good from life or any fellow human being.
In a nutshell, your god buddy is also abusive to his followers as well.
Many lack self confidence (unless they think god is directly guiding their actions).
Many have low self esteem as well, believing that only their god truly loves them, or even could.
If that isn't bad enough, most god followers are taught they have WICKED hearts, just as you yourself profess here to us.
Isn't this a fine ingredient to put in the formula for keeping your followers in subjugation to a god? You convince them firstly they can be nothing but WICKED and then make them believe the only way to temporarily rid themselves of these awful feelings, is to spend plenty of time reading the bible, and on their knees praying to this imaginary god for forgiveness of their wickedness.
It's only when your god is REMOVED from their lives, that they realize they are not wicked people and their self esteems start to improve, along with the self assurance that they can function in life without some pretend sky-god holding their hand the whole time.
Your sky god is the perfect example of the worst parent a child could have to raise them and he turns intelligent people into mindless sin-filled sheep, all in the name of following your ridiculous pretend sky buddy.
Most of us here only realized we were GOOD people when we got rid of your abusive "spirit in the sky" in our lives.
[Okay, 'shrink' hat back off now]
>The Bible can be trusted. The original Bible is infallible, inspired, and inerrant word of God without fail
I hate to break it to you, but I have yet to know of anyone that has SEEN this original bible you speak about here.
Do you even know how your bible came to be Dan?
Do you know it was HUMAN made and the chapters in it were NOT chosen by your god being, but my a human committee instead?
If this bible book is so important to your god, then why didn't he hand it over to us COMPLETE in book format and without humans deciding what writings would be part of it and what writings would be rejected etc.?
You might want to research where this bible came from but I know you won't read anything that your idiot apologists don't want you to find out about, as you are one perfect SHEEP to your god buddy, aren't you Dan.
[Someone hand me a pair of sheep shears please]
>Wow, how shallow is that. We can't be like spoiled brats and say to ourselves "well, if I won't get my prayers answered then forget God"
First off, your dumb book says your Jesus WILL answer prayers.
What it fails to tell us is, that the answers are always YES, NO, MAYBE and SOME DAY....not much different than praying to my pet-rock.
You act as if these ex-xtains here said ONE prayer to your sky daddy and got no answer, so they pouted and ran from your god.
Most of them spent many YEARS praying HARD over and over and over and got not even one answer from your god, so they sure weren't acting like spoiled brats at all.
In fact, some here were actually minsters......but I suppose you believe they had the wrong religion or something dumb like that, as only Dan-The-Man has found the right god out there, like so many others claim to have done that very same thing, but never can prove it.
Your god Dan, NEVER answers prayers, unless you want to believe the answer given is always a resounding "NOOOOO" to anything we want or need.
You have ZERO proof that your god answers prayers, for if he did answer, it would be OBVIOUS by now to everyone, and not just you god sheep-people.
>Don't get me wrong I get sad and frustrated when another soul doesn't get convinced of God's Glory such as yourself but I am hopeful that God will change your life in such a way that you will understand His love
Keep on doing your hoping Dan, because it's going no where, except to echo in own your skull.
The only "change" your god provides is delusion and massive feeling of GUILT upon it's believers.
Your god NEVER rewards his followers, never heals them, never has raised a single person from the dead (not even his make- believe human son), and never has shown his 'glory' to anyone with a working reasoning brain either.
Oh, but that's the magic of believing in your god, isn't it Dan.
The glory of your god can only be FELT if your mind is numb.
>False religions have stolen from God and not the other way around
Ohhh, is that how it is Dan.
And you know this HOW Dan?
Where is your historical proof that your religion is the one provided by the one and only god being?
What can you offer other than your STORYBOOK of FABLES to us to prove this to us?
Why is it that EVERY religion believes they have the correct truths and all others are false, yet Dan is SURE the religion/sect he found is naturally the only right one there can be.
I guess in some cases, your god does provide a thing called EGO, because you sure have it along with GALL, when you state you are right about your personal choice of a god being, but without any proof at all !
>We have been made clean by the word.
Hey Dan, I was never DIRTY, so no god soap is going to 'clean' any sin dirt from me.
You Dan, are living a huge LIE and don't realize it.
No, you won't take my word for it, because you enjoy your delusion too much, have invested too much time and energy into it's fallacies, and fear what will happen if it ever became apparent to you that your entire god beliefs are nothing but pure human ancient fiction.
The writers of old didn't have sci-fi writers like we have today, but they didn't do bad making up their own 'sci-fi' stories for the gullible to swallow, with a hook-line and sinker, large enough to catch your make-believe Jonah whale.
I really WISH you could listen to your own words here with a mind that wasn't brain-washed with the sponge of your phony sky god.
Folks, it truly amazes me how stubbornly blind a human mind can be, when it comes to avoiding a truth it can't bear to handle.
We can waste our time with this Dan sheep, but from what I've seen, his beliefs are set in poured concrete and nothing from human reason will ever been seen as anything less than "devil words", trying to pull him away from his precious (but very non-existent) god.
ATF (who wonders if Dan's skin is prune-like, from his god washing his hearts wickedness away 24/7)
Dan-the-man,
(For the sake of argument I sometimes use the assumption of a real god to better describe a situation or mindset.)
Shallow? You campare me and what I went thru to a boy asking his daddy for.. for candy or some such?
A better, but still not complete, anaogy would be:
I was a child who's "father" let him play by the edge of a cliff. I was pushed over the edge by my "father" and was barely hanging on by my fingertips, feet dangling.
I started crying out to my "father" to help me up but I didn't hear an answer.
Now I was loseing my grasp and my hand was slipping and still I cried out and couldn't tell if I recieved an answer. I slipped, but just as I did I noticed that there was a small chance if I stuck my arm in a small hole in the cliff face on the way down, my arm could get wedged enough to stop my descent and there were footholds there. I'd break my arm but would save my life and there was a way to climb up from there useing the small footholds.
It wasn't but a three foot drop but it was enough. It hurt when my arm broke but I was alive. I still had the strength in my legs to climb out and I did on my own because I got no help from my "father".
(skip to the christan view of the futuure) Now here is the sad part: My "father" knew that I was dangling and heard my cries for help and either said "no I won't help" or "wait". Now, he sees that I have not waited for him(because I couldn't) and didn't fall to my death(insanity) like the "loving father" wanted me to and becomes angry at me for going against his will. So he douses me with gasoline and sets me on fire, because he "loves" me.
If your trying to say that falling to my death(going insane) isn't what god wanted and that he wanted me to do it on my own and therefore I was given an answer, then please explain how learning that he cannot be trusted is a lesson that he wanted me to learn. If your god knew that by making me do what I had to do to keep my sanity(which was lose faith in him and do what I thought was best) then he knew I would lose faith in him. How is that part of his plan? Hmm?
I was "delivered" from my struggle BECAUSE I abandoned him.
Your tales of the parachuting passengers fails to compare to my experience because I recieved a parachute pack filled with bullshit and realized it was bullshit on my way out the door and grabbed onto the side of the plane to save my own life. It wasn't the other "passengers" opinion that was guiding my behavior, It was the one(god) who gave me the bullshit and told me to jump with it.
Or, are you trying to claim that god WANTED me to go insane and get locked up as part of his plan to show me what a loving father he was? That's just stupid! What kind of father wants his child to go insane? Is insanity one of those "good gifts"?
Shallow?
You call someone who wanted to keep his sanity shallow? If you call someone who rejects that which he has believed his whole life because he wants to not get put into an institution so he can be a steady father and husband, shallow, then you have no idea of what that word means.
Your belittling me and what I went thru is a good indication of how far from reality you have gone. You poor thing.
Dm:"The Bible can be trusted. The original Bible is infallible, inspired, and inerrant word of God without fail."
No, it can't because it says that whatever we ask in jesus' name will be given to us. I found this to be a lie.
Now explain how the lying wicked writers of the bible can be trusted? Oh! We shouldn't trust their lying wickedness except for the things they wrote because they said god said so? So, the lying wicked writers of the bible wrote that god said they could be trusted to write gods words for him. And we should believe god because THEY said so. Those wicked LYING writers wouldn't LIE. Right?
Sounds like you are putting your faith in those wicked lying writers.
Again, because you seem to still not understand, I didn't lose faith because of what others did or didn't do. I lost faith because jesus and the "inerrant" word O' god, makes false claims.
Your "proof" is a cartoon? Nice.
I didn't ask for proof I asked for credible evidence. If you have some it would of course be irrefutable evidence since god is supposed to be on your side. Oops! I forgot, god isn't going to help you do anything. Not even win us "lost souls" back to him.
It's not like he ever helped people win battles or anything. Oops!
I guess I don't know what I'm saying, of course he does! It's in the bible. God has helped people win battles all the time. I mean, if god is with you WHO could be against you?
Oops! Appearently those with IRON chariots cannot be overcome even with gods help.(i'll be happy to give you scriptural references but you should already know them)
Face it pal, you have an imaginary friend you call god based upon someone elses imaginary friend that they called god. You have no credible evidence for it's objective existence. And the only way you seem to think you can convince me that I made a mistake by realizing that this god is imaginary, is by trying to convince me that I'm, somehow, weak for realizing it's foolish to believe in something that:
1) There is NO evidence for and
2) cannot be trusted.
Now, lets stop pretending that this imaginary friend exists and has anything to do with us so we can become reasoned adults without the need for self delusion. Mkay!
Stronger now "I didn't ask for proof I asked for credible evidence."
Astreja: "Prove it. Christianity is a relatively late arrival on the religious front."
I have proof in the progressive book called the Bible. Let me show you why you shouldn't read the Bible like Aesop's fables. Look in Hosea 1:1, see the time line, the Bible talks about specific and exacting historical events with details of surroundings and time frame. People say "You can't believe the Bible it has a bunch of stories" Fantasy stories don't include details like the Bible which should be taken as fact.
The principle point here is that God communicated through prophets and was specific about the details. God inspired the Bible and we know we should take it as truth, not fiction, because it is written as a historical narrative.
Stronger now, your credible evidence has a presupposition which is there is no god so any evidence would be ruled out based on your presupposition but The Bible says in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
You doubt God, OK. The Bible talks a great deal of doubt as you know.
Deuteronomy 28:66 "And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:" Matthew 14:31 "And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Luke 12:29 "And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind." Romans 14:23 "And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin."
AtheistToothFairy: "[ Putting on my 'shrink' therapy hat for a bit here now] Have you ever seen the results of how some wives are mentally abused by their husbands?..."
God doesn't use no where near what you are alluding to, called Stockholm syndrome BTW. I must add though, God is justified to use any tactics he choses to ensure your salvation. Remember Job in the Bible?
AtheistToothFairy: "Most of us here only realized we were GOOD people..." Really? You are good huh? Have you ever broke the 9th commandment and lied? Well then you are a law breaker and deserve punishment.
Here is a quick witness:
God came as a man here on earth to pay for all your sins. By sins I mean breaking the Ten Commandments which are God's law. The law was made as a mirror for us. In the same way, we don't realize what a bad state we are in until we look into the "mirror" of the Ten Commandments.(Romans 7:7) Have you stolen, lied, dishonored your mother and father etc. then you broke his laws, and the penalty is death. Revelation 21:8 says all liars have their part in the lake of fire. But God doesn't want that to happen to you, nor do I.
Jesus died on the cross so that he took the punishment for the sins of this world for your sins and my sins; he was being bruised for our iniquities, the Bible says. He was paying our fines in his life's blood so we can leave the courtroom on the Day of Judgment. He rose from the grave and defeated death. What we have to do is repent, which is turn away from sinning and trust in Jesus, that He died on that Cross for your sins and put your faith in him. Let him lead your life, then you will be forgiven of all your sins and have eternal life. Isn't that great news!
God's word declares that this is God's plan of salvation; 1. Hear the WORD of God. 2. Believe that Jesus is the Messiah. 3. Repent of your ways that are contrary to God's will. 4. Be Baptized INTO Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 5. Remain faithful to the Covenant you have made with God.
Understand this very basic principle of God and His plan of salvation and then you understand that we are pridefully wicked in our hearts and deserve punishment. We think we are good when we break God's laws daily. I am sure a thief considers himself to be good compared to a rapist and that rapist considers himself good compared to someone that murdered a person and that murderer considers himself a good person compared to a serial killer and I am sure that serial killer considers himself good compared to a democrat. But we are all wicked and prideful and we need to humble ourselves to the Creator.
AtheistToothFairy: "Do you know it was HUMAN made and the chapters in it were NOT chosen by your god being, but my a human committee instead?
If this bible book is so important to your god, then why didn't he hand it over to us COMPLETE in book format and without humans deciding what writings would be part of it and what writings would be rejected etc.?"
The word of God was preserved in tact by God and His Spirit of Truth. Look, I have read most all of the gnostic and apocryphal writings also. I must say that I agree that they should not be part of today's Bible because of how they differ a great deal from the true Word of The Bible. To say that you knew more then the entire body of Biblical scholars back then that collected the books into the current Canon and what The Bible is today as to what was authentic or not is delusional also. Do you really believe that you have been lead by the Spirit of truth more so then them? So you really think that God cannot preserve His Word? Your Logic is suspect to say the least.
AtheistToothFairy: "Your god NEVER rewards his followers, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He'll give you love, joy, peace, fulfillment, and lasting happiness." In other words, "Jesus will improve your flight." You sound like Joe Olsteen now. That is NOT why Jesus is here, probably that is why you are so bitter towards Him. He didn't answer all your prayers? Why should he? You, after all, broke your covenant with Him didn't you? He sure foresaw that too.
Remember three things promised to us hear on earth according to The Bible is persecution, temptations, and tribulations. Jesus is hear to save you from the fall not improve your life hear on earth. He will reward His followers (Bride) with eternal life with Him.
Stronger now "I was a child who's "father" let him play by the edge of a cliff. I was pushed over the edge by my "father" and was barely hanging on by my fingertips, feet dangling." You have that analogy completely wrong my friend. It is true you are getting pushed to the edge of the cliff of life by the unrelenting force called TIME. God is reaching His hand out to save you (Jesus) and you're slapping said hand and screaming "where is your help!" That other precious gift of free will with a dash of pride will be the thing that will make you fall, just like satan.
Stronger now, Do you really think that you are the only one on earth going through issues? I don't want to get into a pissing contest but I should have died four times in my life. For a long time I didn't know where my next meal was going to come from or where I was going to sleep that night. Why did God keep me from perishing? At the time I didn't understand but now I get it. When I look into my three children's eyes I understand perfectly.
I do appreciate your thoughts and input. Don't get me wrong I get sad and frustrated when another soul doesn't get convinced of God's Glory such as yourself but I am hopeful that God will change your life in such a way that you will understand His love. From the day that a person breaks God's Law of Sin and Death, God's greatest desire is that they will come to repentance. And we then go along thinking that we're just living life, but the reality is, that our life's experiences are filled with acts of God trying to bring us back into a relationship with Himself. Take care.
Dan,
Most of us here are former "True Christians™." We've heard your little Arminian version of Christianity (once considered a heresy, btw, by the Protestants) many, many times.
Yawn...
I wonder, Dan, have you ever read anything critical of your religion. If so, would you mind sharing the title of the book or books?
Dan, you said, "Jesus died on the cross so that he took the punishment for the sins of this world for your sins and my sins..."
Well, Dan, if that's so, then no one has anything to worry about. All the debt we supposedly owe to your angry deity has been paid! Hallelujah! We don't owe HIM a god damned thing!!! We are free! Whoopie!
Oh, but then, Dan, you said, "What we have to do is repent [...] then you will be forgiven of all your sins..."
So HE didn't pay our debt in full? We have to DO SOMETHING to EARN his forgiveness? Dan if a debt is paid, then we don't need forgiveness. If you forgive a debt, you don't also demand payment. If the debt is paid, you don't have to forgive the debt because it is already paid. Yet here in your religion, the debt is paid, but you still have to DO SOMETHING, then you finally get "forgiven" which makes no sense since the bill is supposedly paid.
Perhaps what you mean is that your god-man potentially paid the bill, but unless people DO SOMETHING (repent) then they don't reap the potential payment. Still, I don't see where forgiveness fits in. If the debt is paid before or after DOING SOMETHING, then it is still paid. No need to forgive a debt that is paid in full, right?
And why would torturing a god-man to death and then reanimating him a few days later satisfy a god's sense of justice? I mean, if we're so wicked that we deserve everlasting horror in a pit of unending misery, why would somebody having a really bad weekend satisfy divine justice? Of course, it doesn't really satisfy divine justice, because if we don't DO SOMETHING (repent and live the rest of our lives in abject subservience) then it's off to the torture chamber for all of us.
I wonder, Dan, how many times does a person have to repent? Do you repent once, once a day, many times a day... What? If you break any of the 10 Commandments on purpose, do you need to repent? I mean, if I go shopping on the Sabbath and buy lunch at McDonalds, do I need to repent? And if I don't repent, what happens? Is it off to hell again? Or since I really, honestly, truly repented many times as a true Christian, now that I have become an apostate, am I saved anyway, or did the supernatural payment cover me for life?
I'm really confused here, Dan. Is this thing free, or does it depend on me do DO SOMETHING. And do I have to keep DOING SOMETHING over and over and over the rest of my life?
Hmm?
Dan the Christian spouted:
I have proof in the progressive book called the Bible. Let me show you why you shouldn't read the Bible like Aesop's fables. Look in Hosea 1:1, see the time line, the Bible talks about specific and exacting historical events with details of surroundings and time frame. People say "You can't believe the Bible it has a bunch of stories" Fantasy stories don't include details like the Bible which should be taken as fact.
The principle point here is that God communicated through prophets and was specific about the details. God inspired the Bible and we know we should take it as truth, not fiction, because it is written as a historical narrative.
I have proof in the progressive book called the Qur'an! Let me show you why you shouldn't read the Qur'an like Aesops fables. Look in the Holy Qur'an, 15:22, and see how it predicts fertilization: "And we send the winds fertilizing." Centuries had past when Biologists discovered the effect of winds in the fertilization of some plants. This is definitely a miracle!!! People say "You can't believe the Qur'an it has a bunch of stories" Fantasy stories don't include details like the Holy Qur'an which should be taken as fact!
The principle point here is that God communicated through Muhammad and was specific about the details. God inspired the Holy Qur'an and we know we should take it as truth, not fiction, because it is written as a historical narrative!
Praise to Allah!
Dan, you cannot use the Bible to prove itself. Not now. Not ever. Get that through your head, for crying out loud.
The presence of a few accurate historical facts does not make the rest of a story true, nor does it prove the existence of a god.
"Fantasy stories don't include details like the Bible which should be taken as fact."
Bzzt! Wrong. Using your methodology, Ghostbusters must be true because it takes place in a real city and references several real people and things that could be verified historically 2,000 years from now.
(checks in Her fridge, shoos Gozer and Zuul away from the potato salad)
boomSLANG: "God inspired the Holy Qur'an and we know we should take it as truth, not fiction, because it is written as a historical narrative!"
Oops you were find until you got to this point, the qur'an is NOT written as a historical narrative please prove this point of yours....gotcha!
Need help understanding? The contents of the Quran differ in substance and arrangement from the Old and New Testaments. Instead of presenting a straight historical narrative, as do the Gospels and the historical books of the Old Testament, the Quran treats, in allusive style, spiritual and practical as well as historical matters.
webmaster: "I wonder, Dan, have you ever read anything critical of your religion. If so, would you mind sharing the title of the book or books?"
Most recent is Dan Barker's book "losing faith in faith" and I watched all the "beyond belief 2006" seminar.
God's word declares that this is God's plan of salvation; 1. Hear the WORD of God. 2. Believe that Jesus is the Messiah. 3. Repent of your ways that are contrary to God's will. 4. Be Baptized INTO Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 5. Remain faithful to the Covenant you have made with God.
webmaster: " why would somebody having a really bad weekend satisfy divine justice?" because the difference is that he was sinless and was bruised for YOUR iniquity. He took your punishment and that isn't enough? Yes God is satisfied for that price or you can pay that price on Judgment Day.In the OT there were shadowy prophecies for the NT. For example baptism:
1 Pet 3:20 "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water."
1 Pet 3:21 "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:"
Another example is the sacrificing of a lamb to cover the sins in the OT to the sacrificing the Lamb of God for forgiveness of sins in the NT.
My favorite is The Ten Commandments are like the ten camels that carried Abraham's servant in search of a bride for his only begotten son, Isaac (Genesis 24:10-20). When the servant arrived at the city, Nahor I believe, he had his ten camels kneel down outside the city before the well at the time the woman go out to draw water. He prayed that the bride to be would be evidenced by the fact that she would have consideration for the camels. When Rebekah saw the camels, she ran to the well to get water for them.
God, the Father, sent His Spirit to search for a bride for His only begotten Son. He has chosen the Ten Commandments to carry this special message.
The Holy Spirit knows that the primary reason the bride draws water from the well of salvation is to satisfy the ten thirsting camels of a holy and just Law. If the Law didn't demand death for sin, we wouldn't need a Savior. The true convert comes to the savior simply to satisfy the demands of a holy Law.
The espoused virgin has respect for the Commandments of God. She loves God's Law because of what it is (an expression of His holy nature) and what it does (show us our need for mercy). She isn't a worker of lawlessness.
I hope this answered your "If you break any of the 10 Commandments on purpose, do you need to repent?" question. I do have something that might help all of you.
What fruit will grow in a True Christians life:
1. Repentance - A 180 degree turn away from sinful behavior and towards Godly behavior.
2. Thankfulness - A thankful heart that is grateful for what God has done... and shows itself in a cheerful disposition.
3. Good Works - A life that becomes others centered (helping the aged, feeding the poor, teaching children, etc.) Not self centered (all free time consumed in personal hobbies and interests)
4. Fruit of the Spirit - An ever-growing capacity of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control in the life of the believer.
5. Fruit of Righteousness - Doing the right thing according to the way God defines it in his word. Not according to the way man defines it in his own mind.
We are here to get fruit bearing Christians not decisions for Christ to fill pews.
If we understand the parable in Mark 4:3-13 then it unlocks the secret to all parables: Foolish virgin=false convert Wise virgin=Genuine conversions. The good fish, the bad fish. The man who built his house on rock and the man who built his house on sand. The one who built his house on sand is the one who hears the word of Jesus but doesn't keep them. False Convert.
6 characteristics of a False Convert:
1. Mark 4:5 - Lack depth of understanding. Immediate results impressive changes occur quickly then false convert will fall away from their faith over time and the results and changes disappear.
2. Luke 8:6 - False convert lack moisture in other words they lack the life-giving and life-sustaining power of God's word. To a false convert the Bible is dry and uninteresting and struggles with daily devotions.
3. Matthew 13:6 - False convert have no roots like a plant that dries up when the heat comes because it's roots aren't deep enough to reach water to sustain it. So is the false convert who's faith dries up where persecution comes his roots of faith don't run deep enough to reach the life sustaining water of God's word and Holy Spirit.
4. Mark 4:16 - False Converts receive the word with gladness. Hears the gospel message with gladness and really seems to latch on to it. He may express, for example, with tear filled eyes of joy. How this is the answer he's been looking for. When any test or trials comes his way, excuses become his trademark he falls away from following Jesus.
5. Matthew 13:20 - Repeats that same point false convert receive the word with joy (at first)
6. Luke 8:13 - Because they do believe for a season this is the one that fools the most people because they do believe, for a short time, the Gospel message. These false converts walk and talk a very good game. They often sincerely believe the Vital truths. That Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death and rose from the earth and that he was fully man and fully God. they believe those things in their mind. When it comes time to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Jesus into test and self sacrifice the false convert displays, slowly but surely, the truth that they never believed in their hearts. Never made that commitment to Christ and eventually becomes distracted by the worries and opportunities of life and lives for himself not Christ. * True and False Conversion
Take care
Astreja "Dan, you cannot use the Bible to prove itself."
You seem hostile and your presupposition of no God will probably not help you. You have heard of Julius Caesar and I am sure you believe that he existed right? Well there were 10 manuscripts of antiquity that explained who he was as we know him today. 10 that is it, in one language, everything we know today about him came from just those 10 manuscripts. Do you know how many manuscripts of antiquity about Jesus? Any guess?
The New Testament we have either in fragments or partials within 25 years, 40 years of events we have 5,300 partials or complete manuscripts in Greek (the original language) and 19,000 other languages. You want a reliable book and you believe Julius Caesar existed? You can believe that Jesus existed and he did exactly what it says in the Bible because you have eye witness accounts.
Dan: "You seem hostile and your presupposition of no God will probably not help you."
Hostile? Yes. I am extremely hostile towards your belief system. If I could destroy Christianity in this very moment I would do so.
But 'probably not help you'? Help Me do what, exactly? Come around to your way of thinking? No, thanks.
"You can believe that Jesus existed and he did exactly what it says in the Bible because you have eye witness accounts."
The Gospels are not eye witness accounts, Dan. None of them were written within 30 years of the alleged events.
And there is no extra-Biblical corroboration of some of the more spectacular events such as the prolonged darkness and the earthquake that supposedly accompanied the crucifixion. These are not trivial omissions. There were thousands of people living in Jerusalem and neighbouring territories at that time, including a large and literate priesthood. Why do these events appear only in the Gospel mythology? Why is there no record of such strange occurrences in the journals of the occupying Roman forces?
Simple. They never happened.
Dan, my friend,
You do realize you are preaching to the choir, right? I mean, do you honestly think saying the plan of salvation (Arminian version) over and over and over to people who once fully believed those myths with all their hearts, minds, and souls could possibly have any effect at all?
You believe these stories because you believe these stories. You have no reason to believe these myths above any other myths except that you believe them. You do realize that a Roman emperor mandated the creation of the New Testament, right? You do realize that Constantine united Christianity so he could more effectively wage war with a united populace, right? You do realize that the Christianity you follow was created by the Romans, don't you?
Dan, I suggest you delve a little deeper than Dan's personal story. I suggest you study a bit of history. You are part of one splinter group of a man made religion that took a bunch of writings from ignorant superstitious savages and mashed it together into a super-duper holy book.
If you want to give some evidence to the overwhelming power of your imaginary friend, then simply pray this website off the Internet. That shouldn't be too much to ask, right?
And you avoided the question about profaning the Sabbath. Why, Dan, if you really believe all this hokey shit, do you go shopping on GOD's Holy Sabbath?
Hmm??
WHY!?
Oh, and Dan, your implied judgment that those who wake up and realize that they are caught in a religious delusion were never "True Christians™" is supported in your book, but there's a good reason for that, Dan.
All those statements were put to paper decades after the little religious cult got started. And even that early in its history, people were walking away from the crazy stuff. Well, whenever a cult is faced with people leaving the cult, what do the cult leaders do? CONDEMN THE PEOPLE WHO LEAVE! That's what they do.
When someone leaves the Jehovah Witnesses, is it because she or he isn't a "True Jehovah Witnesses™?" When someone de-converts from Islam, does that mean he or she wasn't a "True Islamsic™?"
All cults (religions) have curses and threats leveled against apostates. That's nothing special. And I'm sure that you have no problem ignoring the holy scriptural unctions against apostates when those unctions are quoted from every other holy scripture on the planet, except of course, your own.
If you would attempt to read and study your "scripture" without your presupposition that "The Bible is True and if there is any suggestion that it contains any error at all, just refer to the first part of this sentence," then you might be able to see that you are indeed quite delusional.
Gotcha!
Dan,
The bible is not credible evidence. If you cannot understand why, then you are unable or unwilling to reason. Now how about doing yourself a favor and start explaining why you put your faith in the writers of scripture when you "know" they were human and had "lying wicked" hearts.
Dan:"Stronger now, Do you really think that you are the only one on earth going through issues? "
I never said or implied that. You are reading that into my posts because of YOUR presuppositions. You are being arrogant and rude to suggest that I am acting in the ways that you describe. I was trying to explain my experience after you said I was "shallow".
Do you know what an Ad hominem attack is?
Now how about addressing the matter of the lying wicked writers of the bible? Why do you trust what they wrote? Hmmm?
If you trust those lying wicked writers enough to base your refutiation of reason on what they wrote you'll have to explain why you do so in order for anyone else to take what they wrote as credible. They were, after all, lying and wicked.
Gotcha!
Dan-the-man:"Stronger now, your credible evidence has a presupposition which is there is no god so any evidence would be ruled out based on your presupposition..."
Dan, Dan, Dan, you have yet to give us a reason to think that there IS a god at all.
Much like someone who claims that green sheep inhabit the center of uranus and graze on plastic cheesegrass. There is NO reason to believe it, just because someone a long time ago said it. Just as there is no reason to believe in the the gods of the illiad.
So, it isn't so much that I won't believe in a god as much as you, or anyone else, have not given me a good reason to think that one exists. Let alone that it is the one described in the bible.
"Your presuppositions will not allow you to examine without bias the evidence that I present to you for God's existence."
Wrong. We will examined it, but if it is found to be faulty, then don't be surprised if we don't trust the evidence. It is YOUR bias that there is a god that wont allow you to see the faults in your "evidence". Much like you cannot see the problems with believing the writings of wicked liars.
" You have that analogy completely wrong my friend. It is true you are getting pushed to the edge of the cliff of life by the unrelenting force called TIME."
No. YOU have the analogy wrong. Belief in god and the tribulations of life it brings pushed me offthe cliff of SANITY. It is stupid to believe something when there is no reason to believe it.
Now, How about that evidence? Or, is it not strong enough to stand up to logic?
And what about those lying wicked writers?
boomSLANG: "God inspired the Holy Qur'an and we know we should take it as truth, not fiction, because it is written as a historical narrative!"
Dan the Christian responds: Oops you were [fine] until you got to this point, the qur'an is NOT written as a historical narrative please prove this point of yours....gotcha!
Details to historical events can be found in the Hadith of Muhammad.
Dan the Christian attempts the tired ol' "Julius Caesar" apologetic:
The New Testament we have either in fragments or partials within 25 years, 40 years of events we have 5,300 partials or complete manuscripts in Greek (the original language) and 19,000 other languages. You want a reliable book and you believe Julius Caesar existed? You can believe that Jesus existed and he did exactly what it says in the Bible because you have eye witness accounts.
I wonder, can you point me to any literature that even hints that the belief in Julius Caesar is being offered conditionally?... that if you deny Julius Caesar's existence that you will suffer bodily harm? Yes, show some literature that states that Dan Marvin is not perfectly free to reject the existence of Julius Caesar. Thanks.
For extra credit---and while you're at it---find me some literature that states that Julius Caesar defied physical Laws, in any way, shape, or form.
'Need help in understanding?
If we grant you that Jesus existed as a mere mortal man, as did Julius Caesar, so-the-f%ck whAT??? They're both DEAD now.
....gotcha!
Astreja: "Hostile? Yes. I am extremely hostile towards your belief system. If I could destroy Christianity in this very moment I would do so."
How very islam of you, friend. Don't you even see the anger that builds up in you when the name of Jesus Christ is spoken around you? You are of the devil and even satan himself hates that name also, it is understood. Just look what Jesus and the apostles and 250 million just this year went through including but not limited to hung on crosses, beheading, hung on crosses upside down, burned, imprisoned, attacked, flogged on and on. But none of them nor I am scared in the slightest of people like you or the islamic terrorists. Not the slightest.
Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
Webmaster: "And you avoided the question about profaning the Sabbath. Why, Dan, if you really believe all this hokey shit, do you go shopping on GOD's Holy Sabbath?"
First and fourth commandments say the same thing. The NT doesn't mention the fourth Commandment to keep because Jesus is that Commandment. He mentions to keep the other nine but that one was replaced by the New Covenant in Christ.
You are missing out on some very important teachings that is wonderful let me explain a bit. Lets take the Sabbath in Genesis 2:2-3 "And God had finished on the seventh day his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because that on it he rested from all his work which God had created in making it."
He rested, not because he was tired but that the work was complete. Now we have a completion in Jesus and we are in His rest.
Hebrews 4:1 "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it."
Hebrews 4:9-11 "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief."
Jesus IS the Sabbath, the completion, not a Saturday or Sunday. We are complete in Christ, nothing more is required for salvation it ends in Christ. Not a man made building and established hierarchy.
Are you ready to repent now? Not yet? OK maybe this will help. Basic hermeneutics have some steps to understand the Bible:
Step One: Grasp the text in their town. What did the text say to the original audience?
Step Two: Measure the width of the river to cross. What are the differences between the biblical audience and us? (time, culture, language, situation, covenant.)
Step Three: Cross the principlizing bridge. What is the theological principle in this text?
Step Four: Does the New Testament change our understanding of an OT text?
Step Five: Grasp the text in our town. How should the individual Christian apply the theological principles in our lives today?
Things to take in account is The Inductive Method, Authorial Intent, and the most important a Grammatical Historical Method of Interpretation: To determine exactly what the author intended and how the original audience would have understood it.
Just to be clear you are using an eisegesis, and Reader-response method.
From my blog: "I use an Exegesis method of interpretation instead of an eisegesis method. Does this mean that eisegesis thinking is wrong, I would say yes because it is a capricious attitude. It may even be breaking the 2nd Commandment and making a god to suite yourself."
stronger now "Belief in god and the tribulations of life it brings pushed me off the cliff of SANITY." Look buddy I feel for you and I want to help.I mean you no harm and I don't want to lessen your struggle in life. I was so very lost myself once when I was young when so much stuff was going on at home but I have come to feel that I would rather be considered insane by the entire world and be in Jesus' rest then to be considered sane by this world's opinion and never get to heaven. I have been called so many names and all that doesn't matter. You might want to rethink your priorities. Insert Pascal's wager here if you must just get to heaven. Use basic logic to understand His message not copywriter errors.
Look he gave us free will to chose to be with him or not. I just don't know if there even will be free will in heaven. I know we won't want to leave and be tempted to leave. We can appreciate Gods goodness in the presence of evil. Unlike Adam who didn't know evil, Satan who didn't know evil, until they fell. We do! Because of it, we so appreciate his goodness and no matter what temptation that will come our way in heaven, if that could even happen, there would be no way, why? Because we knew how horrible evil was and now we can fully appreciate his goodness.
The presence of sin allows God to demonstrate his righteousness, the presence of sin allows God to demonstrate his love, and how else could he show the character of love that loves enemies and sinners if there were none? God endures this horrible assault on his everlasting
holiness; he endures the horrifying blaspheming, history of fallen beings, he suffers it, the imposition it is on his purity to display his wrath to the fullest extent, to put himself on everlasting display.
Why are we here? What is the theological answer? To give the text book answer, to glorify God and enjoy him ever more. How do you glorify God? Here is how, you sinner, go get saved. Get saved so God can be glorified, that's it; this is the purpose of this entire universe.
God knew we would sin, He knew we would rebel, He knew we would introduce evil, He knew it. So that he can send forth a savior born of
a virgin, to live under the law to save us under the curse of the law so that, we can be a little trophy of his grace, he can always point
to us as a testimony to his goodness. Ephesians 2:7
We wouldn't know how God is righteous as he is, everlastingly, and give him glory for it if it hadn't had of been for unrighteousness, we
wouldn't know he's loving as he is if it hadn't been for sin, we wouldn't know he's holy if it weren't for judgment.
How holy is God? So holy that he must send out of his presence, everlastingly, anyone who is not fit. Why of all this? That he might make known the riches of his glory, that is, he did all of this in order that he might gather into heaven a redeemed humanity who would forever glorify him for all that he is. *paraphrased from Todd Friel and Dr. John Macarthur
Dan the Christian: "We are complete in Christ, nothing more is required for salvation it ends in Christ."[emphasis added]
One paragraph later: Are you ready to repent now?
No, no!...I thought you just said NOTHING more is required? "N-O-T-H-I-N-G"...i.e..NOT A THING. To my understanding of the word "nothing", that would absolve us from the need to do ANYTHING, including "repent".
Now, listen closely to the question: Are our "sins" paid in FULL by "Christ"?.. or not? If so, then fantastic!.. you can be on your merry apologetic way! If our "sins" are not paid in full, and something more is *required?..... the you've just told a bold-faced lie. Lying is a "sin", Dan.
Which is it?
semantics,semantics,semantics
Are our "sins" paid in FULL by "Christ"?.. or not?
The gift of salvation is for the taking but you must humble yourself and prepare for the gift. (Psalm 34:18,Psalm 51:17) Think of it like a parole hearing though that is definitely not biblical. This one IS biblical but my farmers terms are shaky at best, but you must first have the soil prepared before you can plant the seeds. That is what the Law is for, it prepares the hearer to humble himself to understand that he is a sinner and will face God on Judgment day. Then and only then can a person be prepared to receive the gift of the holy Spirit and salvation. (read Matthew 13) God is handing us a gift and we must accept that gift. Remember free will, well if you don't want to do it His way then fine that is your choice. If you want to drink and drive that is your choice but be prepare for the consequences. The price of salvation is paid in full yes but who kept telling you that you don't have to do anything to receive that gift? Just because the modern church says something doesn't make it true get beyond that. Some churches say just believe and accept Jesus into your heart, that is not true and creates false converts. Trust the Bible not modern church doctrine and you will be fine.
boomSLANG previously asks Dan the Christian:
Are our "sins" paid in FULL by "Christ"?.. or not?
Dan the Christian, first, smuggly responds:
semantics,semantics,semantics
Then Dan the Christian elaborates...."The gift of salvation is for the taking but you must humble yourself and prepare for the gift.[emphasis added to show conditional conjunction..i.e.."but"]
AGAIN, Dan's original statement:
We are complete in Christ, nothing more is required for salvation it ends in Christ.[bold added]
No·thing:
1. No thing; not anything: The box contained nothing. I've heard nothing about it.
2. No part; no portion: Nothing remains of the old house but the cellar hole.
3. One of no consequence, significance, or interest: The new nonsmoking policy is nothing to me.
Re·quired:
1. Needed; essential: missing several required parts.
2. Obligatory: required reading.
(ref: American Heritage)
Semantics? YOU are the one weasle-wording meanings and context, not me. It's not my problem if your own words have argued yourself into a corner.
Dan the Christian..AKA, Dan the LIAR. tsk, tsk...we all know what happens to liars, don't we? Ssssssssssss
I see your point, I might of overstepped my words. It is complete in Christ but you have to literally do something to get the gift. something is 'required' of us. Yes you are correct.
Let me rephrase it.
Christ paid the price for your salvation.
I apologize if I misrepresented something not biblical, I am after all fallible.
God’s word declares that this is God's plan of salvation; 1. Hear the WORD of God. 2. Believe that Jesus is the Messiah. 3. Repent of your ways that are contrary to God’s will. 4. Be Baptized INTO Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 5. Remain faithful to the Covenant you have made with God.
Dan,
I haven't seen your credible evidence. And I see your still giving advice from those wicked liars. Hmm.
Are you avoiding because you see that it's silly to trust them wicked lying dead writers?
I don't give a rats ass if you "feel for me" or not.I'm not your buddy. I don't think you have understood anything I was saying. I don't give a crap If YOU think YOU are being labeled by anyone for what YOU believe. I was trying to correct YOUR misconception of why some/I have left the faith. It was YOU who said that we left because of other people and you still insist on this point. You were, and still are, wrong.
If your god does nothing to help those that believe in him, and there is no credible evidence for him, and there is no credible evidence for an afterlife, and there is good reason to suspect that the writers of the bible were liars and wicked, then why should anyone useing their brain believe any of it?
You seem stuck on this idea that if you state something often enough, then it becomes believable.
Also, what is this buisness of "jesus' rest"? Is that where you get to not think for yourself anymore? Is it the unevidenced afterlife?
DM:" You might want to rethink your priorities."
My priorities are to my wife and children. Is there something wrong with taking care of them?
You may want think.
"Trust the Bible..."
Why? Wasn't it written by lying wicked writers?
Your god is a sadistic asshole. I know this from the OT and the burning in hell for all eternity thing.
But those concepts are derived from those liars. Wicked liars, at that! So why do you believe them? You haven't given an answer to that yet.
It seems you cannot or you would have by now. This would be a good indication that you are full of shit.
Give me a well reasoned answer for believing in what wicked liars wrote.
Hint: If you use anything from the bible it won't be a well reasoned answer.
Dan: "How very islam of you, friend."
Um, excuse me? I refuse to pre-emptively harm a hair on the head of any believer or non-believer on this planet. It's the harmful beliefs I want to see destroyed, you self-righteous asshole. My deepest wish is to see the human race liberated from the mind-fuck of a religion that tries to convince people that they were born evil.
And that goes for you too, Dan. I wish you liberation from your frightful little cult, sooner rather than later.
"Don't you even see the anger that builds up in you when the name of Jesus Christ is spoken around you? You are of the devil and even satan himself hates that name also,"
(bursts out laughing) Já, right. It's not this "Jesus" I'm angry at... It's that silly-ass crap that you believe.
But thank you for the compliment. ;-) You say devil, I say deity, let's call the whole thing off...
As for the "fear" thing... Don't worry; I have no intention of doing you an injury.
But I also wish you'd be honest with yourself. If you were truly comfortable in your faith, you'd be somewhere else right now, doing something a lot more productive than snarling at us ex-Christians. You don't see Me trolling the Web looking for ex-Ásatrú and ex-Zen sites, do you?
Again, thanks for playing the "How do we know that Christians are delusional?" game.
Dan,
Thank you for the full response to my question regarding the Sabbath. You inspired me so much, that I started a new topic based on your response.
That topic is posted HERE.
Enjoy.
I am so thankful that through my Lord and Savior, I am not defeated by individuals who are overconfident and lost. You have it backwards. The lost cannot understand, they are blind. You cannot see unless you are saved. I recommend anyone who reads this just to seek the Lord. Let him reveal himself to you personally. Stop listening to other people and seek him for yourself. If you were on an island by yourself with a Bible would you be hopeless since there would be no one there to tell you their opinion?
MMM if I was lost on a dessert island I would indeed be very gratefull that a bible washed up as well. As any survivor worth his salt knows, the first thing to do is to build a decent fire. Once I've got some kindling going, I would stoke it good and proper with every last page of said bible. After that I would scout around and see what Mother Nature has on offer......so Waaaaaa
I try to watch with an open mind but I'm not convinced.
You can add an "Evolutionist bubble of delusion" to the list as well. An evolutionist believes that we are here as the result of random mutations over millions of years, but there is no proof for that. The missing link is still missing (or deliberate frauds) and all the so-called scientific arguments are lacking science.
I don't want to be a Christian if it's not true but I the more I dig the more convinced I become.
Anony, I would like to know where you are doing your "digging".
I think you're another full of crap christian that is lying for jebus.
Can any Christian please explain the logic in this statement:
"I don't believe in the theory of evolution, therefore all the magical mythology in my Bible is true."
Evolution has nothing to do with proving or disproving your mythology. If a flying, un-dead, zombie-on-a-stick, has really taken up permanent residence in your pulmonary organ, then just show us! Attempting to cast doubt on science doesn't add one tiny jot or tittle toward supporting your ridiculous creation story.
Fundonymous...The missing link is still missing (or deliberate frauds) and all the so-called scientific arguments are lacking science.[bold added]
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that "scientific arguments are lacking science"...
Okay then, WHERE is the "science" in the concept that a cosmic, invisible, disembodied mind "thought" the entire Universe into existence, and then proceded to stick two Caucasian human proto-types made out of mud on this micro-dot of a planet called Earth, all, using "telepathy"????? Where is the science in the notion that a giant dome separates the ocean from the "water" in the sky?....I think they call this contraption a "firmament"???
And while we're on the subject of "Genesis"---where is the science in the notion that a snake can speak Hebrew, or any human language for that matter?
'Waiting to be enlightened.
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