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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133586112014-10-28T13:14:02.299-05:00RhoblogyWhoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:11)Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-46903958234724236952014-10-22T10:46:00.000-05:002014-10-22T10:54:17.493-05:00Long back and forth with a SatanistSomeone claiming to be a Satanist wrote in to the Abolish Human Abortion contact page. I reproduce our conversation here for your edification:

His first email:
I beg a pardon, but I couldn't help but notice what seems to me to be a slight hypocrisy in the reasoning that backs the opinions stated on this site. As a Christian organization (or at least a predominantly Christian organization) your holy book of choice is obviously the Bible---a collection of texts that boast astonishingly little concern for the welfare of children, even for a series of writings jotted down in the Bronze Age. The book of Proverbs, for example, recommends beating one's offspring with rods (staves) in response to defiance (Proverbs 19:18, Proverbs 22:15, Proverbs 23:13-14) and tells parents not to allow themselves to feel pity for their child's crying. This book supposedly being written by king Solomon---the wisest person ever to live and a godly man, by the Bible's account. King David, Solomon's father, and someone Yahweh describes as "...a man after mine own heart..." sung songs by harp about his hope that soldiers would someday invade the enemy country of Babylon and that the citizens of that place would be made to witness their children---presumably innocent, just like the unborn---crushed to death against stones by the invaders (Psalms 137:9). His predecessor Saul performed a complete genocide of the Amalekites, slaughtering men, women, children, and "sucklings" all on Yahweh's explicit command. (He even forbids Israel from sparing any of the Amalekites' pets or livestock.---1 Samuel 15:3)

A few other examples of Yahweh's blatant indifference for and cruelty towards innocent children, infants, and, yes, even unborn fetuses can be found in verses like Numbers 31:9-18 where he endorses both child rape AND child murder, 2 Samuel 12:14-19 where Yahweh tortures a newborn baby for a week before executing it for its father's sin---something he himself supposedly forbade in Ezekiel 18:20 and the typical pro-life response for why abortion after rape is wrong---, 2 Kings 2:23-24 where he condemns a group of forty kids to death-by-bear for making jokes about baldness, and Hosea 13:16 where he condemns not just one or two or fifty, but an entire nation of children, both born AND preborn to death just because their parents won't worship him. Is this really the best spokesperson on childcare that you could conjure to head your belief system? And how do you reconcile your god's treatment of children in your sacred writings with your personal opinion that unborn children are innocent, precious, and worthy of personhood and legal respect just like the rest of us? How can abortion possibly be morally abhorrent to a deity who commands and condones such violence towards the young of our species? As a self-lauding, post-abortive, liberalite Satanist with great pride in the beneficially selfish nature of humanity, I can't begin to understand how a consistent argument for "pro-life" could be made using such a barbaric book as its foundation. I'm in a bit of jam. Please assist me in understanding your reasoning and seeing this controversial issue as you do.

My first reply:

Hello there,

Thanks for writing in with your concerns.
I'll be happy to answer your questions. I pray you will read them with an open heart and mind and without bias.

Proverbs recommends corporal punishment, yes. Staves/rods were not huge logs; we're talking about flexible switches so as to sting. Children need discipline b/c they are born sinful and need to be taught truth in a way they can remember. Corporal punishment is sometimes necessary.

Actually, Ps 137 was probably not of David. Probably it was written by someone who had seen Babylon invade his country and rip pregnant women open, rape, pillage, kill, burn, and deport everyone. It is a song of mourning. The Babylonians had earned God's wrath for their sins of violent arrogance and military expansionism. See more about that in the book of Habakkuk. What you need to take away from this is that sin is really really bad, and he who sins deserves to die. So I pray you will ask yourself: have I sinned? And what do I deserve faced with a holy God whose laws I have broken?

Yes, God commanded the Israelites to wipe out the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15. The Amalekites were a grossly idolatrous people whom God had judged. Every single person in the world is deserving of death, and God mercifully allows us to continue to draw breath, but He is not obligated to allow us these mercies. He decided that it was a good time to pour out some of His wrath on the Amalekites at that time. They are His creations. He decides what happens to His creations, not you or I.

You have misread Numbers 31. God did not command rape. Where do you see any evidence of rape?

Where is the evidence that God tortured the baby in question in 2 Samuel 12? Is it your claim that any illness is "torture from God"?

In 2 Kings 2, it wasn't forty kids. It was 42 ADOLESCENTS. Elisha and Elijah, well-known in Israel, had just gone up the mountain, Elijah was taken away, and Elisha came back alone. They assumed Elijah had died on the mountain and wanted Elisha to "go on up" as well. After Elisha cursed them, 42 were killed. How many total were there? No telling, but at least 42. That's a mob, a gang of youth punks who should have been with their families or working, but instead here they were threatening a prophet's life. And again, they are His creations. He decides what happens to His creations, not you or I.

In Hosea 13, yes, it's one expression of God's wrath poured out on sinners, on nations for the sins of the nation. This is God's prerogative.

You ask about children's innocence. Let me make a distinction. Children are innocent of any crime deserving death at human hands. They are actually guilty of the sin of Adam, from God's perspective. He is justified in putting any sinner to death at any time, but humans are not justified in doing that. God has laid out certain cases in which we are justified in taking human life, and abortion is not one of those times. Parents are not allowed to murder their tiny children.

You seem to have some sort of moral problem with God doing these things. I'd like to ask you who made you Pope of Morality, so that you get to shove your morality down God's throat? You say you're a Satanist, which is a ludicrous and laughable worldview. But go ahead - dazzle me with your moral theory. First tell me this: Is raping and torturing little girls to death for fun objectively morally wrong?
If so, how do you know that?

His second email:
Thank you, Alan, for taking time to reply to my message. I'm afraid
there still exists a bit of friction between our positions.
Firstly---I might be incorrect---but I thought I sensed a bit of
agitation at the end of your reply, with your inquiry into my lofty
status as the reigning "Pope of Morality". :) You seem to think I've
no right to judge Yahweh for any of his actions taken against or on
the behalf of mankind. But wouldn't you say that that's a tad unfair?
After all, you seem to believe you hold that privelege seeing as how
you've taken it upon yourself to judge Yahweh as well. The difference
being that you've judged Yahweh to be good, to be all-powerful, to be
the absolute moral monarch of our little world and I have judged him
to be repulsive and power-mad. I don't shove my morality in any
orifice of any person because I believe that we each are the highest
moral authority of our own lives. We dictate our own morals; we
control---to an extent---our own fates.
You asked if I considered it immoral to tortue little girls for fun to
the point of death. My answer on a personal level would be yes, it is.
Why? Because my own conscience dictates to me that it is so. I believe
that we are each of us the highest moral authority over our own
lives---the compassion and disgust and feelings of righteous fury
generated by my carnal, physical brain that I experience when hearing
such tales (sadly, these sorts of things do really happen) bind me
like chains---or, you could say, a covenant. In a sense, I am my own
God because I am the one who dictates to myself what is acceptable and
decent and what is absolutely not---like harming children. However, my
word and ethical opinion is binding on no one else. I have control
only over my own behavior. That limited influence of control that I
boast is absolute but it IS limited. Terribly so. Oh, if I could rid
the world of all the nasty pedophiles, rapists, wife-beaters, Ted
Bundys, and Naomi Campbells---but I can't . Ultimately, people are
going to do what they want. So to answer your question, no, I don't
believe that there is an objective moral standard that is binding on
everyone.
Satanism is a ludicrous and laughable worldview to hold in your
opinion. Why? Is it because we advocate for healthy pride, independent
reasoning, and the pursuit of knowledge in favor of shameless
kow-towing to a controversial authority figure? Why is blind faith and
empty trust favorable to actual thought and mental exercise? If there
was a deity capable of crafting the human mind, specifically our two
minds, wouldn't he want us to use them for something other than
memorizing hymns and the history of the Jews? Why make us with such a
great intelligence just to punish us, being flawed and imperfect, for
using it wrongly?
Your reasoning about the cruelty to human children in the Bible
basically amounted to "God is big, we are little, God is strong, we
are weak, God is old, we are young, God is smart, we are dumb, and
these things give him the authority to reward or abuse us as he sees
fit." Really, Alan? Being older, stronger, smarter, and bigger than
someone gives you the right to treat them as you please? Correct me if
I'm wrong, but doesn't an expectant woman surpass her fetus on all
these grounds as well? Shouldn't she have this same authority if the
basis for objective morals as you seemed to define it is power ("Might
makes right")? And why exactly are we responsible for Adam? Who
elected him as our representative? Again, Ezekiel 18:20. Why does
Yahweh get to break his own rules, hold himself to a lower standard
than he holds human beings, and engage in disproportionate acts of
petty vengeance in response to human error? (I guess he's one of those
"Do as I say, not as I do." fathers.)
The verse in 2 Kings does in fact refer to children, the Hebrew words
are "yeledim katan", "Little children". Even if they were adolescents,
though, were they guilty of anything more than name-calling and
hurting someone's feelings at this point in the story? Do you really
believe they deserved to be torn to pieces by animals as a preemptive
strike against something they might have done in the future? And how
does "Piss off, Baldy!" translate as a death threat?
As for the verse in Psalms, I don't claim to know for certain those
are David's words (Most pro-life Christians I speak with assert that
they are). In fact, I'm not certain that I buy the claim he ever
existed at all. The majority of the Bible was written by anonymous
authors. Who wrote it isn't terribly important to me; the king David
character did plenty of other abominable things that we could banter
about. The issue is that here is a set of lyrics praying for the death
of a country worth of children in a book flattering itself as
"perfect".
I noticed how you evidently don't see a problem with the helpless
little boys being butchered alongside their mothers by a mob of armed
men in Numbers 31, but ignoring that, yes, I'm afraid that chapter
does appear to be heavily pedophilic---why would the soldiers be
concerned with whether or not these girls were virgins unless they had
some sort of sick plan for them? As I'm sure you're aware, there was a
strong preference for virginal wives among the Israelites. There also
aren't any laws against child marriage in the Torah, and
extra-Biblical texts like the Talmud and the Koran seem to support the
idea that such "unions" were commonplace among the Jewish people at
that time. Also, try to picture what the soldiers would have done to
these girls---possibly atop the warm bodies of their mothers and
brothers---to determine whether they were virgins or not. That in and
of itself, I believe, would be enough to count as child molestation.
The bastard of David and Bathsheba was born healthy and whole---it was
deliberately stricken with an illness by Yahweh as a direct
consequence to David's sin, 2 Samuel 12:15. No, I don't think every
sickness in the Bible is Yahweh's fault, but this was one case where
he IS the direct cause. That's explicitly stated in the passage. He
then, after afflicting this helpless baby for something it had nothing
to do with, allowed it to persist in fever and pain for a full week
before finally showing mercy by allowing it to expire.
You want to know why I look down my nose at your god and your sacred
book? It's because I know that my own moral compass, limited as it is,
is superior to both of them. I am better than a god who carelessly
creates and tosses aside intelligent creatures using them as a means
to his own ends; simply for the purpose of massaging his swollen ego
and praising his name. I am better than a book that recommends
marrying off my raped daughter to her attacker, or switching my
children, or lending my support to genocide because my all-knowing,
all-loving, omnipotent god cannot come up with a better solution than
to send a band of murderous thugs to destroy families of people who
don't like him. And so, by the way, are you, Alan.

My second reply:
Yes, it's pretty clear friction remains between our two positions.
Yes, I do think you have no right to judge God. And so do you - you said in this email that you dictate your own morals just like, presumably, God does. So what's the problem here? You don't like what God did. So what? God doesn't like what you do.
You think that there is no objective standard of morality. OK then. What are you complaining about? You shouldn't have said that God is wrong to do these things. You should have said "I don't like them". And then my answer to you is: Repent of your sin and rebellion against your Creator. Repent of making up nonsensical self-sourced morality claims. Turn to Jesus and be rescued from your sin, from Hell, and from your intellectual foolishness.
Let me phrase it this way. Suppose Joe thinks that it is morally obligatory for him to torture little girls to death for fun. You think it is morally reprehensible. Let's say y'all two meet for and are discussing the morality of torturing little girls to death for fun. He expresses his view and you express yours. How can anyone know who is right? *Is* there a right answer? Or is it just one opinion versus another opinion?
I haven't judged God, no. I have RECOGNISED and ACKNOWLEDGED what God has revealed about Himself. Big difference.
You say you are your own god. No, that is most certainly not the case. You are no one's god. You are a creature, in rebellion against your Creator. Repent of your rebellion and be saved, for the wrath of your Creator will not tarry forever. There will come a day when you will stand before Him to give an account and a reckoning. Be reconciled to Him today through Jesus Christ, who died in the place of sinners and rose again from the dead to give eternal life. Be saved from God's judgment.
Satanism is laughable because it is stupid. You don't value actual thought. Your faith is blind. I'd be more than happy to prove it. Start by answering the challenges about morality I stated above. Continue proving that Satanism is true by answering this: Tell me one thing you know for certain and how you know it.
God made us with intelligence b/c we are in His image and He wanted to. But we sinned. He provided the answer in the cross of Jesus. Stop whining about the predicament and start praising God for the solution that He voluntarily provided.
It's not that being bigGER or oldER is why God has authority. It's that He IS THE authority. He is the Creator. He is the fountainhead of all morality, ethics, reason, and intelligibility. Humans are equally valuable, intrinsically and objectively. God is above us. He gets to do with us what He will. That's the final answer.
So no, a mother does not get to murder her child.
We are also responsible for Adam's sin b/c God said so. Stop whining about the predicament and start praising God for the solution that He voluntarily provided. And the next time I take a Satanist's view of the Bible seriously will be the first time. You don't have any idea what Ezekiel 18 is about, so the thought of answering you on the topic is sort of funny to me.
Little children don't congregate in gangs and threaten prophets' lives. They were youths. The word in question is not specific to five year olds. Oh, and who are you to shove your morals down God's throat, again? What evidence do you have that God was wrong to send those bears? Bring forth your argument.
You're quite mistaken that the majority of the Bible was written anonymously. That's just nonsense. At least try to deal honestly in these questions.
Of course David did abominable things. (Although here again we see that you are willing to shove your morals down others' throats. You are a hypocrite.) He was a sinner. He was redeemed by God b/c of the cross, not b/c David was perfect. So follow David's example of repentance and be saved from your own sin. And again, what's the problem exactly with a prayer for vengeance? Are you imposing your morality on the psalter? On what basis do you do so?
No, I don't see a problem with God commanding sinners to be judged. You again impose your morality on God. I don't do that. I accept what He says b/c He is the authority, He is the source of all good. It doesn't matter if you agree. What matters is your ARGUMENT, not your opining on moral-sounding topics, or your griping. Show me you have authority to judge God wrong. Demonstrate it.
The soldiers should be concerned with their virginity b/c God said so. And then it was so those younger women could be taken as wives. Thus they could be joined into the covenant people of God. They were to be married. Nowhere in the text is rape mentioned. You're just imposing it on the text, but that's not the way to read with intellectual honesty.
You assume that the soldiers are the ones determining who the virgins are, rather than Israelite women. You also inject some emotional heat into the conversation with your "possibly atop the warm bodies of their mothers and brothers" comment. Aren't human beings just collections of atoms banging around, bags of protoplasm? What makes you think that humans have intrinsic dignity or value or worth? Based on what? Your mere opinion? God doesn't agree with you. Now what? Which of you is correct and how can we know?
David and Bathsheba's son was a he, not an "it". See how you're the one dehumanizing this human, even while complaining that God has somehow dehumanized? Hypocrisy. You don't know that he was born all that healthy. And yes, he was stricken with an illness as a result of David's sin. That was never in question. You're moving the goalposts, b/c earlier you said "torture". You need to either defend that assertion or explicitly notify me that now you're asking a different question than before. Fair enough?
You say you know your moral compass is superior. How do you know? Be specific. Give your argument.
You say you know you could come up with a better solution than to destroy families of people who don't like Him. OK, fine - do it. Once you come up with a better solution, prove it is better. Once you prove it, demonstrate that the moral standard by which you measure these issues is the right one, and show your work - tell how you know it.

His third email:
Oh, poor little self-deprecating, double-standard Alan. Do you know
what a "circular argument" is? How about an "argument from authority
fallacy"? I apologize if my use of the word "judge" was offensive to
you, but that is in fact what you are doing when you formulate
opinions about your god. Your claim that god is the supreme authority,
the font from which all morals and decency flow, and your contrasting
opinion that humans are broken and sinful and in need of salvation and
mercy from on high demonstrates that you are in fact giving a moral
opinion---passing judgement---on your god, his creation, and his
workings. And, you are using your own morality, not the Bible, not
Yeshua, to do so. You can't use the Bible to make personal judgments
about the Bible. You are using something else---your own moral
compass---to make the determination that people are fundamentally bad
and that god is fundamentally good. Your case of "Yahweh is right
because the Bible says he is, and the Bible is correct because Yahweh
dictated it, and we know that Yahweh dictated it because the Bible
says so" is insane. I would be willing to bet a large sum of money I
don't have that you do not use such faulty logic in any other area of
your life to make determinations about what is good and real and
beneficial. For some reason, though, you seem to think that this
broken chain of internally inconsistent reasoning is good enough to be
utilized to answer the most important question we could possibly ask:
Is there or is there not a god at the center of the universe?---and,
if so, what are the wishes and what is the nature of this god?
If we take it on faith that there does exist such an entity simply
because we are afraid of death and our fellow man or because it just
looks prettier or feels nicer to think that every hardship and every
period of pain we experience was all for some higher purpose in the
end and that death is not something to dread, then we are simply
playing make-believe in order to self-soothe because we have no better
coping mechanisms to deal with reality and soldering shut our brains
to actual research and investigation into the nature of the world
which we inhabit. We are also treading a very dangerous path. If
Christians get a free pass on the claims about the life story of the
risen savior---which does not, by the way, have extra-Biblical sources
supporting any of the miraculous events---then we must, if we care
about being consistent, give all other claims from all other religions
a pass as well. This is a big problem, because then we would have to
believe, or at least accept, everything and anything claimed to be
true by a holy book and we would have to accept contradictory,
mutually exclusive things.
Your claim "Satanism is laughable because it's stupid." was little too
simplistic and one-dimensional to really work with, but to address the
question you posed of "Tell me one thing you know for certain and how
you know it.", that's an inquiry that's likely to result in a
non-answer. You can only do so much delving into the realm of
existentialism before you inevitably smack into the brick wall of hard
solipsism. Whether we can ever truly "know" anything is up for debate,
because I cannot prove for certain that reality as I perceive it is
even real. I could simply be a brain in a vat with wires running
through it, or some lab animal with a brain implant, or some fictional
character in a book or videogame whose every move is dictated by the
author of my story. Everything that I experience could simply be some
sort of illusion and I'm just someone else's puppet doing whatever
they make me. When someone tells me that they "know" something, all
that means to me is this person really, really, believes this.
However, neither the strength of a person's belief, nor the number of
people who share that same belief, nor the nature of those people, nor
the age of the belief itself has any bearing at all on whether or not
it's actually true. Plenty of brilliant, hard-nosed people over the
course of many centuries believed in the miasma theory of
disease---the idea that foul odors were responsible for spreading
illness. Today we know that that theory was bunk, but that doesn't
mean the people who bought into it were stupid---just misinformed.
However, they were wrong. "Knowing" something does not make it true.
Within reality as I perceive it there are some things that I believe I
can claim to know for certain. Example: If I try to breathe underwater
I am going to drown. I feel very, very comfortable with stating that I
"know" this because I have had a past experience with this. I can
remember being a small child and jumping into a pool and taking a
breath too soon before surfacing. I know for a fact, based on personal
experience, that I cannot respirate water. I also know of many, many
other cases in which other humans and a host of non-human animals have
experienced similar things, some of them losing their lives. Trying to
breathe underwater would kill me. This isn't a faith-based idea---it
has a plethora of demonstrable evidence supporting it.
With regard to your question about me and Joe's contrasting opinions
about whether sexual murder of children was appropriate, the way I
would make the determination would be to look at the ratio of harm
contrasted with the tangible benefits. Pro: Joe gets to get his rocks
off and have a good time. Con: A family has lost a child to an act of
selfish, perverted violence, society has lost a valuable resource, and
a community has lost a cherished member. Which position is
demonstrably harmful to the community at large and which is not? In
order to agree with Joe's position I would need to be convinced with
actual evidence, not faith, not opinion, that a society which turns a
blind eye to the mistreatment of its offspring would on the whole be
healthier and happier than a society that endeavored to protect its
young ones. As a social species, we have a vested interest in the
rearing of our children and the continuation of our kind. Children are
a precious and vital resource, therefore we ought to do our best to
safeguard them.
Morality isn't simply a matter of opinion---we have quite a bit to
work with when it comes to formulating secular moral stances on
things. We have learned, through lifetimes of painful trial and error
over the course of several millenia what sorts of things generally
boost a society upwards and which things drag it down. Nothing about
this is arbitrary. It's not as though we simply flipped a coin one day
and decided "Yep! We're gonna give women the vote and free all the
black people!" Slavery is immensely beneficially to the people who own
slaves. This is why society for the longest time advocated for
slavery---that's why your Bible lobbies for slavery---because people
of times past realized "Wow, we sure have a lot more free time now
that we started capturing all these slaves!" However, you need go no
further to see where the problem lies than to speak with a slave, who
can show you that they don't actually benefit from this. As a social
animal, just like dogs, deer, and other primates, you have the
capacity for empathy and compassion and an intrinsic concept of
"fairness". We don't typically like seeing others mistreated unjustly,
and slavery is something that can only be seen by any civilized nation
as unjust. The discomfort your own conscience imposes upon you should
be reason enough to acknowledge the "unfairness" of such an
institution. (On a strictly practical note, however, you're also, by
allowing this practice, running the risk of your slaves revolting and
attacking you and those you hold dear in recompense for how you've
treated them. This doesn't really work out well for anybody, and so we
no longer permit this sort of thing in our modern culture. We know
better now.)
As for your claim that the Bible's authors are not chiefly unknown,
I'd ask that you scroll through
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<wbr></wbr>Authorship_of_the_Bible for more info on
your book's origins. Or, if you have a modern Bible with more than
just the red-letter stuff, most copies will contain some discussion on
this issue. I have a copy of the NIV (Nelson publishing) that reads on
the introductory page prior to the beginning of the first gospel:
"While the author of Matthew is anonymous, the early church fathers
were unanimous in holding that Matthew the named apostle was its
author. However, the results of modern critical studies, in particular
those that cite Matthew's alleged dependence on Mark for a substantial
part of his gospel have caused some Biblical scholars to abandon the
idea of Matthew's authorship. Why, they ask, would Matthew, an
eyewitness to the events of the Lord's life rely so heavily on Mark's
account? The best answer seems to be that he agreed with it and wanted
to show that the apostolic testimony of Christ was not
divided."---Now, I happen to disagree with what they think the "best
answer" is, but I support their honesty in including a footnote in
their publication addressing the truth of the matter: that we don't
actually know where the bulk of the Bible came from.
As for the verse in Numbers, how is being violated by a woman better
than being violated by a man? Female pedophiles exist too. And in any
case, how am I imposing on the text? Do you honestly believe that
these young girls after witnessing every one of their uncles, fathers,
grandfathers, and older brothers murdered by enemy soldiers, watching
their neighborhood burn to the ground, being carted away from their
homeland by this same gaggle of thugs, having their mothers and
younger brothers murdered as an afterthought, and then being
forcefully examined by these barbaric people (Whether by males or
females)---do you really think they would have willingly converted to
the religion of these people; married and procreated with the
Israelite men after all this? Somehow I doubt that. (And "The soldiers
should be concerned with the girls' virginity because god said so"?
Seriously, dude? You don't happen to be a lawyer employed by the
Catholic Church, do you?)
Babies, as far as we can tell, have a far lower threshold for pain and
discomfort than do grown adults. Their flesh is softer; thinner, their
immune systems are practically non-existent, and they do a very poor
job of regulating their body temperature. A bad cold to you or I could
be lethal to a newborn. An illness that me or you would consider
inconvenient or uncomfortable probably could be tantamount to torture
to a baby newly born. Rather than a mere irritation, it could be a
real life-and-death struggle. Considering that this type of struggle
was deliberately, willingly imposed upon the infant in 2 Samuel by a
god who had the power to simply whisk the baby up into heaven and thus
deprive its father of a relationship with it rather than killing it, I
think that it is enough to count as torture.
The problem in a prayer for vengeance lies in the gospels' command
that one should turn the other cheek and that we should pray for those
who abuse and persecute us, love those who hate us, and refrain from
cursing or swearing rash oaths or "living by the sword". If it is
marked as a sin, as "murder in the heart" for us to wish and pray for
revenge then, if your god truly is unchanging and perfect as he has
claimed, this should have always been the standard. If your god at any
point in history put his stamp of approval or disapproval on something
and declared it evil or good, then that should be the case forever.
The same principle applies to slavery, sacrificing animals, executing
homosexuals, etc. If it was acceptable and pleasing to Yahweh to hear
David sing songs of bloody victory, like he's credited with doing in
verses like 2 Samuel 22:38-43, then how could Yeshua, supposedly also
Yahweh in the flesh, have promoted a different standard?
I also thought it was interesting how you phrased the question: "What
makes you think that humans have intrinsic dignity or value or worth?/
Your mere opinion? God doesn't agree with you."
So... your deity doesn't value human beings? I agree, based on what
I've read of him. Still, it seems a bit odd to kill yourself over
something you don't value, doesn't it? Misanthropes exist. It's not
morally wrong for someone to disagree with me, and I would never
support stripping someone's freedom of speech and/or putting them away
just for having a starkly different opinion. The question of whether
or not you value something, whether something is worthwhile and
appealing to you is a matter of personal preference---it is not a
moral issue. Just because someone does not hold humanity in high
esteem doesn't mean that they are necessarily harmful to others or
impossible to live with.
The idea that there is no practical benefit to behaving respectfully
and decently is hogwash. I'd rather not be killed, I'd rather not have
my things stolen, I'd rather not be called nasty names, and so, I
likewise refrain from killing, robbing, or insulting others because by
doing so I am increasing the likelihood that such things will be done
to me. "Treat others as you would prefer to be treated."---the golden
rule, is a core tenant of Satanism. It is in my own best
interest---even though I can't confirm for certain that the reality I
live in actually exists and that there really are other minds outside
of my own---to behave as though there are, because to do otherwise is
to contribute to my own degradation. There are seven billion other
people on this planet who I am accountable to, who can come after me
and do good or less-than-good things to me dependent, largely, on how
I have treated them in the past. If I elect to act like a violent,
selfish, asshole who's nothing but a drain on my society then I
deserve to be treated like one. If I am generally dishonest, I've no
right to whine when someone takes advantage of me. If I am prone to
thievery, I have no right to complain if something I own is taken from
me. Satanism has much more to offer in the way justice than
Christianity because Satanistic justice is ACTUAL justice, with people
sowing what they reap and getting what they actually deserve. You
aren't "bad" just for being born. You're actually judged on how you
conduct yourself rather than something as asinine as merely entering
the world human.
Unlike you and other subscribers to your faith, I don't have the
luxury of using someone else as a scapegoat for the wrong I've done or
the harm that I have caused. I am responsible for myself---no one else
is, or should be, made to suffer for my stumblings.
I have the authority to judge Yahweh for the same reason I have the
authority to pass judgment on Allah, Odin, Zeus, Neptu, Santa, and
Glooscap: I am real, and they, as far as anyone can tell, are not. I
am someone who cares very much about what it is real and what isn't. I
try my very hardest to have as naturalistic a worldview as possible;
to have as few false beliefs and as many justified positions as
possible because people who hold false beliefs generally make really
bad decisions for themselves and others. Andrea Yates drowned her
children because of her belief that they were "growing up wrong" and
destined for the ovens of Hell in the future due to her own perceived
shortcomings in terms of her parenting. The Arabs and Jews have been
at eachother's throats for centuries over an insignificant sliver of a
country called "Israel" because the Koran says it belongs to the
Muslims whilst the Torah proclaims the Jewish people to be its
rightful owners. The jihadists behind 9/11 committed suicide taking
hundreds with them out of a belief that by doing so they were pleasing
Allah and securing a place for themselves in paradise.
Faith-based positions almost always lead to destruction and prejudice
and war and divisions in human populations. This isn't just an opinion
of mine, it's an observable and very, very real phenomenon.
Yahweh "...provided the answer in the cross of Jesus.", did he? Why
did Jesus have to die in the first place? Why is blood and pain
necessary for our atonement? How could Yahweh possibly be angry with
Adam and Eve for their disobedience if they had no understanding of
good or evil, as the book suggests? What is the point of punishing
someone---let alone each and every one of their descendants---for a
crime that they had no possible way of comprehending as "bad" in the
first place? You and your holy book claim that god wants to forgive
all of humanity and save us from from ourselves. Why then, instead of
being merciful and caring---as a loving father would---and simply
DOING THAT, is Yahweh demanding bloody sacrifices and leaps of blind
faith in order to make amends?
Why is the answer to our problems to sacrifice himself in an act of
ritual suicide to himself, to act as a loophole for a set of rules and
conditions that he wrote himself, and that he can't, despite being the
omnipotent arbiter, circumvent? Does that not strike you as completely
apeshit?
I can demonstrate that I am better than your god because I would be
able to cope with my children stating they didn't love me in a better
way than constructing a torture chamber in my basement and threatening
to keep them prisoner there for the rest of their lives if they didn't
apologize. I am better than your god because I would not knowingly
construct a universe in which I would come off to my creations as an
insecure, ego-maniacal, war-mongering bully whose lasting tie with
humanity is a book that is a black comedy of my errors and anger. I am
better than your god because if I was in a position where I was able
to save a person I love from rape, murder, false imprisonment,
assault, exploitation, fraud, adultery, arson, dismemberment,
poisoning, or drowning I WOULD.
Humans have value in my eyes because loving humanity is loving myself
and it's conducive to my own survival---which is something I have a
mighty interest in. There are people in my life I love. If I were to
lose one of them---as I have others in the past---it would affect me
in a very negative way. I know the pain of parting ways with someone
you care about. That experience allows me to sympathize with others
who have experienced or are experiencing similar things. As a social
species we are supposed to care for one another, to value eachother,
and to strive always to work together and try to better our lives. We
depend immensely on eachother. There is awesome power in numbers, and
we recognized this long ago. Another human being is a fellow member of
the most savage and most successful species of animal ever to exist on
this planet. They are a peer, and a comrade in the struggle for life.
Why wouldn't I value them? They share the same proud, albeit colorful,
lineage as I do. We're cut from the same cloth; I can't disparage
mankind without also slandering myself.
As for the Amalekites...are you for real? Come up with a better
solution than butchering every single one of them including the
helpless children and infants? Uh...how about doing anything besides
that? Find a better solution? How about give me a real challenge and
dare me to produce a worse solution?
Why not just violate their free will like Yahweh supposedly did to
Pharaoh by "hardening" his heart (Exodus 9:12) and convince them
internally to accept Judaism and willingly join themselves to Israel?
Why not never create the nation of Amalek in the first place? Why not
set up a border-patrol of angels with swords of holy fire like Yahweh
supposedly did at the entrance to Eden segregating the two quarreling
nations? Why not appear to them in a cloud of smoke with a voice like
thunder as he did to the people on Sinai who swore their fealty to
him? Why not send a Moses or Jonah into their midst to preach to them
and work miracles before their very eyes?
So many other solutions, all of which would have been better for the
people in question who would have been spared both the edge of the
sword and the fires of Hell, and better for Yahweh as well---if his
claim about wanting reconciliation with man is true---because he would
have saved that many more souls; drawn that many more people in to the
true faith. We can tell this is true because of the demonstrable
benefit to both parties: The people don't get butchered or burned, and
Yahweh is spared the heartache of choosing to toss a big handful of
his precious earthly children into a dimension of permanent torment.
Everybody wins!
In closing, I'd be interested to know how you came up with the idea
that Satanism is a faith-based position. You said you'd be more than
happy to prove it, and I would like to hear what your proofs are.
Looking forward to hearing this.
P.S.:Why exactly did you seem to disregard my opinions on the Bible
out of hand? "The next time I take a Satanist's view of the Bible
seriously will the first time"? "You don't have any idea what Ezekiel
18 is about"? Alan, just so you know, I have actually taken the time
to study this little book. I was raised in a home ruled by
fundamentalist, Kent Hovind-loving Christians and attended a private,
fundamentalist, creationist school for my first seven years of
education. I was baptized at age twelve. I was raised in the Bible,
raised in Jesus, and firmly believed until the age of nineteen that I
was going to die a believer. I am not someone with no familiarity with
the Bible who just enjoys looking up excerpts online and making fun of
it.
I was extremely attached to my book and big-brother Yeshua Maschiach
(as my Jewish grandmother called him). I gave them both up because I
eventually realized that they could not be what they claimed to: the
Son of god, or his transcribed word. Why is it precisely that you
assume I am incapable of understanding what the author(s) of Ezekiel
were talking about? What is it you think I've missed that you have
successfully discerned? Please, assist me in filling this gap in my
knowledge.

My third reply:
Responding to all of this mishmash would be a waste of my time, for you have not advanced the conversation past a point where I have been with other blasphemers a hundred times before. Nothing new here.

I'll pause to note a few things.

1) LOL you cited Wikipedia. I can't even.

2) If you think you know the Bible so well, then you should know my answer to Ezekiel 18. How about you take a stab at it, Mr. Well-Educated Former Fundy?

3) Citing "harm" and "benefits" begs the very question at hand. How do you know what is harmful or beneficial, without an objective standard of good and evil? You have a long way to go before you can answer the challenge.
And a long way before you can substantiate your claim that you're better than God or could think of a better solution for the Amalekite solution than God did. You don't even know what "better" is.

4) About knowledge, you said this:

"Tell me one thing you know for certain and howyou know it.", that's an inquiry that's likely to result in a non-answer. You can only do so much delving into the realm of existentialism before you inevitably smack into the brick wall of hard solipsism. Whether we can ever truly "know" anything is up for debate, because I cannot prove for certain that reality as I perceive it is even real. I could simply be a brain in a vat with wires running
through it, or some lab animal with a brain implant, or some fictional character in a book or videogame whose every move is dictated by the author of my story. Everything that I experience could simply be some sort of illusion and I'm just someone else's puppet doing whatever they make me.
Yet you continue to make knowledge claims. But you don't know whether those claims are actually true. They could be illusion. You could be in the Matrix. You don't have an answer to solipsism. I do have an answer, a real one that is not a non-answer. So already we can conclude that your worldview is worthless and mine has answered this challenge whereas the challenge wrecked your worldview.
You're not even courageous enough to embrace the consistency of your worldview. You say on the one hand "I could know nothing" but you don't live or talk that way. You live on blind faith and fantasy.

My proof that your position is entirely based on blind faith is that you won't be able to answer #3 and #4 above.

His fourth email:
Facepalm, sigh....
Alan, despite what you profess, you DON'T have an answer for hard
solipsism. No one does. As of yet anyway, and I think it's extremely
unlikely that anyone ever will. Yes, I could be living in someone
else's fantasy. Personally, I think you already are.Your "answer" is a
six thousand year---give or take---Bronze Age book of fairy tales that
mentions unicorns, sea monsters, flying serpents, and satyrs. Being
honest and reasonable and saying "I don't know." is better than
proclaiming that you have the answer when you don't and refusing to
consider any other possibilities. However, even if this is all just
make-believe that still doesn't mean I get to do whatever I please.
Touching my finger to the flame of a candle will hurt me. The fact
that the candle might not exist isn't going to detract one ounce from
the pain I will feel. This reality, fake or not, has consequences. So,
even if this is all illusory, it is still in my own best interest to
obey the laws of this universe AS I PERCEIVE THEM, which is what I was
trying to explain to you before. TO THE EXTENT that I can interact
with and study and observe this world that I inhabit, there are some
things that I think I can claim to "know", as I explained before.
Why is the information on Wikipedia disregarded out of hand when it
cites all of its source material that you could research and verify
independently on your own? Afraid of critical study? Or is your
immortal soul really just not worth the time and study you would have
to put into discovering whether or not it actually even exists?
And are you really so thick that you can't see that a civilization of
happy, cooperative, BREATHING people is better than smoldering
wreckage and a corpse pile that would put Auschwitz to shame? If you
are, you lack common humanity and decency, not god.
Here's the super thing, Alan: YOU'RE A PART OF EVERYONE ELSE. You HAVE
to share this planet with seven billion others who you are accountable
to, whether you like it or not. You don't have the luxury of
lone-sharking your way through the world without regard for anyone
else. Your actions have an effect on those around you, and their's
have an effect on you. It is in your own best interest to assist your
fellow man instead of trying to bastardize and bring him down, because
if you do, you are running the serious risk of increasing your OWN
suffering---and I'm going to go out a limb and assume you don't like
to suffer. Now, if you're simply too dense or too misanthropic an
individual that you honestly believe that we necessarily needed a
stone tablet carved from the hand of a deity to teach us not kill
eachother; that we never would have figured that out on our own, you
need to seriously reevaluate your worldview and your opinion of the
capabilities of mankind. BETTER=LESS SUFFERING. Why? The tangible
benefits are enormous, to myself, you, and everyone else. (There are,
by the way, religions much older than Judaism who had similar "Thou
shalt not kill" laws. Look up the "Code of Hammurabi".)
I know what "bad" is because I know what pain is and I know what
humiliation is, and I DON'T LIKE THEM, just like almost every other
human on the planet. I can sympathize with suffering because I have
experience with it and because I am social animal. ALL social animals
have the capacity (granted, to varying extents) to recognize and
respond to the suffering of other creatures. We're wired very
differently from asocial animals who don't share this ability
(reptiles, fish, etc.) Our emotions are built in, hard-coded at the
gene-level, and they are quite beneficial to our survival which is the
ultimate goal. We know our emotions can be trusted to help us live
cooperatively and keep us safe because they have been doing that for
thousands of years. They are a trustworthy survival mechanism.
You haven't answered my indirect question of "On what basis did you
determine that god was good and we are bad?". Probably because you
don't have one, likely because you haven't bothered to think about it
all that seriously. Your only explanation for your faith in magic and
your belief in the existence of the big bearded-guy-in-the-sky seems
to be that you just picked the Bible first, so, that's what you're
going with. If you would have stumbled upon another holy book before
reaching the Bible, you probably would have just gone with whatever
hoodoo it proclaimed, wouldn't you?
That's the problem. When you lower your standards of evidence and toss
your thinking cap onto the floor in favor of appeals to emotions or
aesthetics no progress can be made, nothing new is learned. You do NOT
care whether your beliefs are true. You just want to believe what you
believe because you want to believe it. That is not a pathway to
truth, and that's definitely not the attitude of someone who earnestly
cares about themselves, or their fellow man.
You have no morality, Alan. You live a completely A-moral lifestyle;
what you do have is subjugation to authority. You don't care about
right and wrong, the natural world, the unborn, or your own personal
pleasure or suffering. You're just a dog refraining from scratching
the couch because you're afraid of being swat with a newspaper. You
don't have morals; you are essentially arguing for "divine command"
which is not only stupid, but is one of, if not THE, most dangerous
philosophical concept(s) I've ever heard of.
As for the chapter in Ezekiel, it's basically just Yahweh complaining
about how the Israelites were judicially practicing communal familial
responsibility as opposed to personal responsibility, the fathers
"eating sour grapes" and the children's teeth being set on edge
because of this. (Though it's odd that Yahweh was displeased by this;
he doesn't seem to see an issue with this sort of thing elsewhere in
the Bible.) Possibly also glancing on child sacrifice to atone for the
crimes of the parents which was something we know was done by other
Semitic cults of the day. So do I get a gold star?
Since you aren't willing to look anywhere outside of your Bible for
evidence of issues with your Bible, why not take a gander at the
internal problems it has? For example, all of the contradictions and
inconsistencies between the Old testament and the New?
The book of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus. Why? Because
it was stated in the Torah that the Mashiach, Messiah, would be born
into the tribe of Judah, from the seed of David, through his son
Solomon. So, this genealogy is this gospel's anonymous author's
attempt to meet these bloodline requirements. Unfortunately, the
genealogy starts off on the wrong foot. Matthew 1:11 places Jechonias
(Aramaic-Greek version of the Hebrew name "Jehoiakim") the son of the
king Josias (Josiah), grandson of king Amon in Jesus' lineage, which
automatically disqualifies him from being the Mashiach. Don't believe
me?
Read the story for yourself in Jeremiah 22. See? Big problem. Jesus
can't be the foretold Mashiach because he is a descendant of
Jechonias, a Judean ruler whose bloodline was cursed by god and
removed forever from the throne of Judah because of his backsliding.
If the genealogy aforementioned in the gospel of Matthew is Jesus'
"earthly father", Joseph's genealogy, then whose genealogy is
mentioned in the book of Luke (Luke 3:23-38)? Both claim to be
Joseph's, however, they are not identical. In fact, they're not even
close to identical. Many Christian apologists today claim that,
although both genealogies explicitly state that they are Joseph's, the
one mentioned in Luke actually belongs to Mary, Jesus' mother. No clue
where they came up with that; you will not find it anywhere in the New
Testament.
But, I think I understand why Christianity has such a nonchalant
attitude towards Joseph's genealogy: They claim that Jesus was born of
a virgin. Therefore, Joseph's genealogy doesn't technically count
because he's not the baby-daddy (which kinda makes you wonder why it's
listed in the first place). However, this creates another problem. In
Judaism, tribal lineage travels through the father, and, since Jesus
had no natural father, as Christianity claims, he could not have
belonged to the tribe of Judah, and, therefore, cannot be the
Mashiach. When confronted with this fact, many Christians will claim
that his mother, Mary, was from the tribe of Judah and that he
inherited her tribal identity by default, thus validating his
eligability. However, this is not the system that god laid down in the
Torah. As I said before, tribal lineage travels only through the
father.
Mary is said to be the cousin of a woman named Elisabeth who is, Luke
1:5 states, a descendant of Aaron, who hailed from the tribe of Levi.
Therefore, Mary herself is also, most likely, a descendent of Aaron,
not David, belonging to the tribe of Levi, not Judah. Assuming that
Jesus did inherit his tribal identity from his mother, he would
probably be a Levite.
Even if what Christianity claims is true and Jesus inherited his
tribal identity from his mother, and she was in fact a Judean, he
still does not meet the Messianic qualifications. Remember, the
Mashiach will be born into the tribe of Judah, from the seed of David,
through his son Solomon. The Luke genealogy traces back to one of
David's other sons: Nathan. Oops.
Matthew 1:23 states:"All this was to fulfill what was written by the
prophet, Therefore the LORD Himself will give you a sign: The virgin
will be with child, and give birth to a son, and will call him
Immanuel."
This is a reference to the supposed prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. So,
Jesus' mother, Mary, fulfilled this prophecy by being the world's
first pregnant virgin, right? Wrong. This is not the claim of Isaiah
7:14. For some odd reason, the author of Matthew doesn't seem to be
familiar with Hebrew; the word that he translates as "virgin" does not
mean "a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse". The word
in question is almah, a general term for a young woman of childbearing
age. This term is applicable to any young woman of childbearing age
regardless of whether or not she is a virgin and has born children in
the past.
(Bethulah is the Hebrew word for virgin.) This virgin-birth claim is
very similar to the other regional religions of the day, many of which
also claimed that their gods and heroes were born of virgins.
Acts 7:14 states, "After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and
his whole family. The total number of people was 75 to Egypt." Wait,
what? How many people went down to Egypt? Seventy-five? That's a bit
different from the account in Genesis 46:26-27 which claims that there
were no more than seventy individuals in Jacob's family who traveled
from Canaan to Egypt. This claim is upheld in Exodus 1:5, and
Deuteronomy 10:22.
Acts 7:15-16 says:"Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our
fathers died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem (spelled
"Sychem" in the KJV) and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought
from the sons of Hamor (spelled "Emmor" in the KJV) at Shechem for a
certain sum of money." OK, any Jewish child over the age of five would
be able to answer this question: Where is Abraham buried? Is he buried
in Shechem? Old father Abraham's buried in HEBRON. (Genesis 23) And
who did he buy his tomb from? Was it Hamor, like the New Testament
states? Or was it Ephron, like the Torah states?
Matthew 27:5-10 states:"So Judas threw the money into the temple and
left. Then he went away and hanged himself. The chief priests picked
up the coins and said, "It is unlawful to put this into the treasury
since it is blood money." So they decided to use the money to buy the
potter's field as a burial place for foriegners. That is why it has
been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by
Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: "They took the thirty silver
coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used
them to buy the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me." Can you
locate the verse in Jeremiah that this passage is supposedly quoting?
No, no one can, because Jeremiah never said those words. I
whole-heartedly encourage you to read the book for yourself if you
doubt me. The closest thing to this false prophecy I've found in the
Torah, at least where a potter and thirty pieces of silver are
mentioned, is in the book of Zechariah, chapter 11, verses 12-13:"I
told them, "If you think it best, give me my pay, but if not, keep
it." So they paid me thirty pieces of silver and the LORD said to me,
"Throw it to the potter, the handsome price at which they priced me."
So I took the pieces of silver and threw them at the house of the LORD
to the potter."
Pretty different from what's written in the New Testament. Obviously,
this verse is not a piece of prophecy.
The Christian religion is rife with customs, stories and imagery
stolen from pagan mythology. For example, did you know that the "Last
Supper" story was originally not in the New Testament at all? It was
added at a much later date, adapted from the original story which was
featured in Mithraism, a pagan religion that existed long before
Christianity, and was Christianity's chief competitor up until the
time of Constantine. In fact, an awful lot of things in the New
Testament and the Christian tradition were adapted from Mithraism. In
Mithraism, the central figure is the powerful mystic Mithras,
who---according to the legend---died for the sins of mankind, and was
resurrected back to life three days later.
Loyal believers in Mithras would recieve eternal life as their
eventual reward. Part of the Communion liturgy for Mithraism included
chanting the phrase: "He who would not drink my blood and eat of my
body so that he would be made one with me, and I with him, the same
shall never know salvation." Also worth noting, Mithras was not
thought to be just an average human mystic, but the half-man,
half-divine offspring of an earthly woman and a god. He supposedly had
powers of healing; the ability to walk on water and his birthday was
December 25 in the Gregorian calendar. Sound familiar?
Luke 24:51 states that Jesus' ascension took place in Bethany on the
same day as his resurrection, and that only the disciples were
present. But, according to Acts 1:3,9-12, Jesus' ascension took place
at the Mount of Olives forty days after his resurrection and was
witnessed by many people prior.
The writer of Matthew confused two characters of Jewish scripture.
Matthew 23:35 states:"That upon you may come all the righteous blood
shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Able to the blood of
Zacharias, the son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and
the altar." The incident that Jesus is INCORRECTLY referring to is
recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21:"And the spirit of God came upon
Zechariah, the son of JEHOIADA, the priest which stood above the
people and said unto them, "Thus saith the LORD: 'Why transgress ye
the commandments of the LORD; that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have
forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you.' " And they conspired
against him and stoned him with stones at the command of the king and
the court of the house of the LORD."
You see? The Torah records that Zechariah the PRIEST was the son of
Jehoiada, not Barachiah. Barachiah was the father of the PROPHET
Zechariah, as it states in Zechariah 1:1:"In the eighth month, in the
second year of Darius came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the
son of Barachiah."
Hebrews 6:20 states:"Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even
Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek."
This verse is supposedly a fulfillment of Old Testament verses Genesis
14:18 and Psalms 110:4. However, Jesus himself never mentioned
Melchizedek at all anywhere in the gospels. Why? Well, probably
because these verses aren't prophetic. Also, many Christians don't
really understand who Melchizedek was, as there is no reliable record
of him in their Bible. As far as I know, only in the book of Hebrews
is Melchizedek mentioned in the New Testament. However, he is spoken
of in various Jewish texts: Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 32b; Genesis
Rabbah 46:7; Genesis Rabbah 56:10; Leviticus Rabbah 25:6; Numbers
Rabbah 4:8.
These texts portray a far more realistic figure from Jewish history.
They claim that he was a mortal man, possibly Abraham's servant
Eliezar. He is simply described as a man who had a very strong faith,
was very loyal to god and was blessed with a metaphorical priesthood.
He is never depicted as an angel or heavenly, immortal being the way
that he is the Christian Bible (Hebrews 7:3).
Was John the Baptist really the resurrected prophet Elijah whom God
promised would appear and herald the Mashiach? Matthew says "Yes."
(Matthew 11:12-14); John says "No." (John 1:19-21).
Where did Jesus first meet the brothers Andrew and Simon Peter? By the
sea of Galilee, claims Matthew (Matthew 4:18-22); by the river Jordan,
says John (John 1:42). These two bodies of water are about fifteen or
so miles from eachother; which, in a time without automoblies, air
conditioning, or trains, would have been about a two day trip for most
people, counting water breaks. Do you really think that the people
would have forgotten the location so easily?

My fourth reply:
Yes, I do have an answer. God is my fundamental presupposition, the only way I have any access to reality and knowledge. And He has said that solipsism is not true. Who told you it's not true? Nobody, right? So you don't have an answer. So you don't know whether you're in the Matrix or not. We're done with this question.

I don't care what knowledge claims you make. You can't prove them. So you don't know them. You think you know them, but that's not the same as knowing them.

You speak of perception, but you don't know if you are actually perceiving anything, and you don't know whether your perceptions are accurate. Until you can prove it, your worldview is dead in the water.

You don't know that you are interacting with the outside world. You merely think it.

You talk of internal contradictions in the Bible, but you don't even know whether contradictions are logical fallacies. You think it, but how do you KNOW? How do you know that you're even actually reading a real book when you read the Bible?

Why does "better=less suffering"? Prove it. Until you do, that's merely your opinion. Who told you? What makes your view superior to the opposite?
Who cares if you don't like it? There are people out there who do like inflicting pain, and still others who DO like suffering pain. Why prefer your view over theirs?
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/<wbr></wbr>2007/12/scenario.html

His fifth email:
OH MY GOD, ALAN....! This is so painful...
Would you like to suffer more or less? If the answer is
"less"---congratulations! You have arrived at secular moral
foundations 101. You and I, and everyone else, are similar creatures
with similar brain structures, similar needs, similar modes of
communication, similar desires, similar goals (Typically to increase
pleasure and limit suffering), who process information similarly. In
much the same way that you would like to suffer less, I would also
like to suffer less. And you and I---as spoiled brats of the
twenty-first century---happen to have been born into a time and a
place where we can GUARANTEE simply by working together and not
acting like dicks that we all suffer less. IT IS IN YOUR OWN BEST
INTEREST to assist your fellows and behave yourself, because by doing
so you are both increasing your own pleasure and limiting your own
suffering.
For most of us, civility comes naturally. We enjoy seeing positive
things come to other humans, especially if we are the cause of this
good fortune. It makes us feel proud and fuzzy inside. That's a
biological prompt that makes it easier for us to work together. A
chore doesn't seem like one if it is enjoyable.
As I've said entirely too many times at this point, we are a social
species. We do very poorly on our own out in the big, bad world all by
our lonesome. There is power in numbers. We've known this for almost
the entirety of our history. Having a group of friends, a pack, to
back you up in a fight is better than trying to take on the perils of
the wild on your own. Your chance of victory is higher; your chances
of dying or being grievously injured are lower. Having other similar
creatures to assist you in gathering food, finding water, or
constructing shelters is also a great benefit. Your odds of surviving
against the ravages of Mother Nature are much better when you have
help and someone watching your back. This sort of arrangement is
communally beneficial to all parties because by choosing to work
together and get along; share resources, and rush to one another's
defense, they are all, each independent member of the group,
bolstering their own chances for survival, pleasure, and safety.
This is how we rose to the top of the food chain and outlived so many
other species who were bigger, stronger, and faster than we.
COOPERATION. Nothing of the modern world, none of the benefits we
enjoy, the advances we make use of could ever have been possible if we
insisted on bickering and thinking only of our own individual
survival. It was another human being who constructed the laptop that I
am typing on right now. It was a another human being that designed and
crafted the shoes that protect my feet, the house I live in, and the
vehicle I drive. Other humans grow and process the food that I eat,
pump and clean the water that I drink, manufacture the medications I
take to cure sickness and ease my discomfort.
Also, beyond just physical survival, human beings don't tend to do
very well psychologically/emotionally on their own either. We can see
the evidence of this in studies into the long-term effects of
prisoners kept in solitary confinement for extended periods. The
side-effects are blatant and range from the relatively mild like
increased social awkwardness all the way through to full blown
psychosis. We NEED one another, in more ways than one. It simply
doesn't work to say "I want to suffer less, but I don't care about
anyone else! Screw you people!" There's much more involved in this
than simply wanting to please yourself or look for a way to cheat god.
Did you actually bother to really read through the contradictions and
inconsistencies that I brought up, or are you just going to do the
typical apologetic thing and completely ignore them? PLEASE, take your
own life a little more seriously. If you really believe that your book
is perfect, your Jesus is perfect, your god is perfect and that they
can't possibly be wrong what have you to fear by investigating this a
little further? Same goes for researching where your book actually
came from. (As a side note, the internal problems with Bible had
nothing to do with logical fallacies, just factual errors. My point of
bringing up logical fallacies was to demonstrate the ridiculous
position your taking. Your presupposition is the problem, not
necessarily the book.)
Yes, S&M couples are a reality. I happen to know a few people with
those fetishes. However, I have yet to meet a person who enjoyed truly
barbaric levels of pain---either self- or externally-inflicted. Most
masochists only enjoy suffering within a consentual context. They
don't just enjoy pain in general---it's a fantasy for them. Same thing
with sadists---most don't just walk down the street and slap random
strangers. Yes, there are those exceptions. (Dahmer, Bundy,
Manson,etc.) When you happen across these sorts of individuals there
is something chemically/ physiologically wrong with them. (Dahmer had
borderline personality disorder, Bundy was a psychopath, Manson has
been diagnosed with severe depression, delusions of grandeur, and
schizotypical personality disorder.)
As I mentioned, the norm is for humans to be drawn in a positive way
to other humans. When we see the opposite of this it signifies a
problem. Just like pain is a signal that something has gone wrong with
the internal processes of our fleshly bodies, asocial or anti-social
behavior in humans is a sign that something is not right; not
functioning as it should. We have the right, by virtue of protecting
the peaceful majority, to seize and detain those who cannot function
in society.
As for your challenge concerning the fanatic "Tkalim":
Frankly, I feel as though I am living out that possible moral-conflict
situation right now, trying to explain to someone why it's a bad thing
to skewer a baby on a sword because his/her parents were nasty, evil
idolaters who happened to pissed off this person's god. I would ask
you, Alan, to explain to me what is it exactly that makes your god
claims any less destructive, stupid, perverted, or indefensible than
dear Tkalim's, because frankly, I think that they stand on equal
footing, as does every single other god claim from every single other
religion. No, I can't prove for absolute certain that there is no god
anywhere in the universe, but the default position is to DISbelieve
until a claim has met its burden of proof. Likewise, you also can't
prove that there IS a god anywhere in the universe. Neither, by the
way, can your peers---all the other theologians of the world.
You're essentially wanting someone to prove to you that god doesn't
exist, but what if there are more options? What if it turns out that
there IS a god---he's just not YOUR god? What if we die and re-awake
at the throne of Allah? Seems you would be in the same boat as me,
Alan---bound for a hell. At least I could face Allah simply as a
non-believer and not a glaring idolater. Can you give me a good reason
to assume that the Christian Bible---which is full of errors, as I've
already demonstrated---is to be favored over some other holy text like
the Koran besides just "I have chosen to put complete trust and blind
faith in the Bible because it appeals to my sense of aesthetics"?

My fifth reply:
Who cares what you want? How do you get from "I want this" to "this is morally right"? Be specific. Provide your argument.

"Best" in "best interest" begs the question again. Prove you know what is best.

\\ I can't prove for absolute certain that there is no god
anywhere in the universe, but the default position is to DISbelieve until a claim has met its burden of proof. Likewise, you also can't prove that there IS a god anywhere in the universe\\

That's false. You know God exists, but you suppress the truth in wickedness. There is tons of evidence.

\\You're essentially wanting someone to prove to you that god doesn't exist\\

That's false too. I'm wanting you to show me your worldview is not absurd. Feel free to start anytime.

The Qur'anic faith is absurd, like yours, but less absurd. But still absurd. No reason to take an idolatrous faith that is absurd seriously.

Also, feel free to address the other challenges to your epistemology. You keep making knowledge claims, but I don't see any way your worldview grounds them.

His sixth email:
I wouldn't happen to sending these e-mails to Ray Comfort, would I?
Because this sort of complete ass-hattery that you are engaging in
bears a striking resemblance to his "Way of the Master" series. Unless
there is an invalid or some ten-year-old kid on the receiving end of
these e-mails, stop pretending like you don't have common sense or are
incapable of understanding what I am saying. No, Alan, I'm fairly
certain you do NOT start with presuppositions about most things in
your life. If someone you loved was murdered and the police told you
that a six-year-old was the culprit, I'm guessing---unless you are a
complete buffoon---that you would question them about that claim. You
would be skeptical. You would want evidence that this small child was
actually capable and actually guilty of killing this person you loved.
You would NOT take it on faith just because some authority figure said
it was so.
You keep asserting that there is a god but you haven't provided one
shred of evidence to prove that other than: "If you just read the
Bible and only the Bible and ignore all of its problems and mistakes
and pay no mind to anything else like science or history or every
other @#$%ing religion that makes exactly the same claims, then you
have no choice but to embrace it and believe!"---which is the EXACT
SAME sort of challenge that you would hear if you talked with a
Muslim, a Jew, or a Wiccan.. YOUR BOOK IS NOT SPECIAL. IT DOES NOT
STAND OUT. STOP HARPING ABOUT MY "WORLDVIEW" AND ADDRESS THE PROBLEMS
WITH YOUR "SACRED" TEXT THAT I HAVE POINTED OUT TO YOU. Your claim of
"everybody intuitively knows there is a god"---specifically, the
Protestant Christian god, is something that you actually have to prove
and not merely assert. A person of ANY other faith could make the same
EXACT claim. That's the part you just don't seem to be getting here.
The idea that god(s) exist is not a fact, it's not a theory, it just
barely qualifies as a hypothesis. You need better proof than just "my
ancient book of fantasy and errors says so". That's not good enough
evidence for me; it shouldn't be good enough for anybody. Someone else
could make the claim that the Egyptian pantheon were the true gods and
that we all know it deep down, we just suppress it out of a desire for
false worship of the evil hand-puppet god of the Jews, and that there
is undeniable proof of this buried along the banks of the Nile that we
just haven't found yet. That's not good enough proof for you, is it,
Alan? Me neither.
You are wanting me and the rest of the world to base our entire
existences around a collection of fragmented texts from various
authors with no originals that we know for a fact conflict with
science, conflict with known history, and conflict with eachother. You
haven't answered any of the questions I've asked or addressed any of
the issues with your holy book. I've yet to hear any explanation for
the existence of flying serpents or satyrs, or an explanation for
Biblical inconsistencies and mistakes like why Jesus apparently was
unaware of the prophet Elijah's ascension into heaven as is evidenced
in John 3:13. Your Bible doesn't make any sense on its own. I don't
need to bring in my worldview, my personal ethical code, or even
something as scary as modern science to debunk the Christian Bible. It
is its own worst enemy.
Rather than continuing to beat around the bush with your embarrassing
misunderstanding of hard solipsism and the implications that it has on
the natural world, why don't you try to actually contribute something
to the conversation. Address the issues on the table, stop looking for
fallacy where there is none, and stop setting up double standards for
how you determine what's real and what is not.

My sixth reply:
Yawn. I don't suppose you actually thought I'd care about your shallow swipe at good brother Ray Comfort?

I don't start with presupps in most areas of life b/c I already have grounds for reason and intelligibility. Your worldview doesn't have those grounds, but you assume you know things b/c you are actually stealing from my worldview. Your worldview can't ground reason and intelligibility, mine can, and you steal the grounds and then assume that you have some reason to call into question your Creator. This is why your position is foolish.

You tried to characterise my position about proof of God's existence, and failed. Rather, the proof is the impossibility of the contrary. Start proving me wrong by providing grounds for reason and intelligibility on your worldview.

Of course the Bible is special. It's the revelation of God Almighty. I don't ignore the "problems". I've examined hundreds of them and found they're not problems. But you have to think rightly. Otherwise you'll just make mistakes, which you're doing. You think you've disproven the Bible, but you don't even know that you're reading a real Bible. You don't even know that you're not in the Matrix.

Speaking of contributing to the conversation:
-show me your grounds for reason and intelligibility, on your worldview
-show me your grounds for making moral decisions and knowing what is right
-prove to me that any of this matters. Is it objectively morally right to pursue truth, and once discovered, to believe it? If so, prove it.

His seventh email:
I thought the "Matrix" question line was closed? No? Then allow to me
to attempt to explain this just one more time in the hope that somehow
that lazy neuron will actually do its job and transmit signals through
your brain. I cannot possibly demonstrate with tangible
evidence---evidence that would actually hold up in a court of
law---that I am not a fictional character or some poor sap wired into
a computer program. Neither can you---for all you know your belief and
convictions about your god and book could simply be dictated by
someone else's words, your author's words, who is speaking through you
right now to their audience whose eyes are right this moment surfing
across the page, reading your very thoughts. It HURT Harry Potter when
Voldemort gave him his iconic scar. It TERRIFIED little Red Riding
Hood to arrive at her ailing grandmother's cottage only to discover a
cross-dressing, man-sized, anthropormorphic wolf in her bedclothes.
Hansel and Gretel REJOICED when the evil cannibal witch was locked in
the oven. Even in the realm of fantasy, physical suffering and the
spectrum of emotions still exist.
Even If I AM a character in a work of fiction there are still rules to
this fictional universe---legal, physical, and moral---that I must
adhere to. Their not "really" existing for those on the outside,
perhaps skimming through the pages of my story right now, does not
mean that they do not apply to ME. Within this universe there are set
limits to what I can do. I cannot leap from a skyscraper and live. I
cannot breathe underwater. I cannot stick my hand over an open flame
without harming myself. My not existing in some other dimension, some
other "world"---metaphorically speaking---does not change this. The
universe as I perceive it not being real does not change this. I could
myself write a story around a civilization of people born with the
ability to hear a whispered word from a mile away and leathery
bat-like wings that enable them to glide from great heights so that
they have no fear of falling. Do the same physical, logical, moral
laws apply to these creatures of my own making as me? No.
I DO have a fear of falling from great heights. I do not have wings.
If I fell I would die. If someone pushed me off of such a structure
they would be guilty of murder. The winged people would have a
different standard on this because if someone pushed them off of such
a building, they could simply glide harmlessly down to ground. The
rules are not the same for the both of us because one of these
creatures could survive a drop off of skyscraper whereas I would not.
Just because they are not real, they do not exist on our plain, does
not mean that they are incapable of observing the world around them,
writing laws, having families and friends, suffering, rejoicing, etc.
Within that little world that I have created for them---that might
have very different rules than my own---they ARE real and their
experiences are real. And it would be in their own best interest to
live peacefully with one another rather than harming eachother; their
little lives would go much smoother if they did so. Morality could
exist in that world. Emotions could exist in that world. Religion,
politics, science, history, mathematics could all have a place in that
world. How would not being "real" remove the limitations of the
universe in which those fictional people dwell? All of these things
would still exist. They might not be exactly the same, but they would
be present in some form.
As for your claim that I am somehow stealing from your worldview and
using it for my own nefarious purposes please tell me what the hell
you're talking about, because if I have given you the impression that
I am in any way making use of Christianity to form moral opinions on
things, I definitely want to purge that right off the top.
Evolutionary biology CAN account for the origins of reason and
"intelligibility" (I'm assuming by that you meant "communication"). If
you have some confusion on that topic, I'd be happy to elaborate
although I feel that we already have gone over this a thousand times
at this point.
I not only "think" I've disproven the Bible---I personally feel
comfortable enough to claim that I "know" this. (After all, the Bible
could just be another work of fiction inside a larger work of fiction
if this is just the Matrix, couldn't it?)"Of course the Bible is
special." is all the evidence I need to know for certain that you
don't actually take any of this seriously. You don't care about
whether it's true---you just like it for some unspecified reason.
You have an untenable position of "I am right, I've always been right,
I will always be right in the future and anyone who disagrees with me
is a fool." which is the typical sort of attitude I tend to see from
people who turn a blind eye to reality and big, scary things like
facts and prefer to simply run into the arms of a beautiful lie
instead of an ugly truth.
You were NOT born with an intrinsic knowledge of the Abrahamic god. At
some point in your life, whether as a small child who had this thrown
in your face or an adult or near-adult who started investigating it
for yourself, you first heard the name "Jesus". You first picked up a
Bible and cracked it open for a read. At some point, you were
introduced to this ideology. You happened to have been born into a
country where Christianity is the nominal religion. Had you been
raised elsewhere---say, Pakistan or Israel---you probably would have
drifted towards another faith. We see this sort of thing every day.
Oh, dear me, YES it is important to pursue truth! I don't really
understand what you mean by "Is it objectively morally right to pursue
truth, and once discovered, to believe it?" , but I have to say that
that is an amazing and very revealing question. The fact that you had
to ask if it was a moral evil to seek truth means that on some level
you believe it is. The idea of launching such an investigation makes
you uncomfortable, doesn't it? You are truly AFRAID to question your
holy book, aren't you? Not just reluctant and stubborn, but actually,
really frightened.
That's sad, Alan. Not "sad" as in pathetic---genuinely sad. You are a
grown man (presumably) frightened of a collection of ancient Semitic
mythology. You are so worried about offending this malevolent magical
father-figure that you would never dare seek out the truth of the
world you live in for fear of offending him. So submissive and
apprehensive of ending up in Tartarus, that even if you somehow did
find the courage to actually seek out truth---if you discovered that
reality did not mesh with your god, your book, and your
presuppositions, you would reject; refuse to believe what was actually
proven to be real around you in favor of this fantasy just out of fear
of this intangible monster from the Iron Age.
As for WHY truth is actually important, if there is no god---and
despite thousands of years of investigation and all of our modern
advances in the sciences we have yet to prove that there is---then
this world, this life, is likely the only one that we get. (Note that
there are some atheists who believe in afterlives; I am not one of
them.) Therefore, because this is the only life, the only state of
awareness, of meaningful existence that any of us will ever have, we
have to make the most of it. And we can do that best by pursuing truth
and working together. Look how much we advanced, how much the typical
individual's quality of life has soared just in the last century
thanks to advances in medicine, hygiene, construction, and education.
We can make this life---the one and only we know for certain that
we're getting---a virtual paradise by simply WORKING TOGETHER and
plying our intelligence and energy into continuing to elevate our
level of knowledge and improving our culture.
Lastly, please tell me what "thinking rightly" in terms of reading the
Bible and addressing its errors entails and how I might go about doing
that. What mistakes have I made? Does the Bible not say the things
that I said it did? I gave you chapter and verse. Are you claiming
that I've simply misquoted the text? I can transcribe the material
directly next time so as to clear this issue, if that's what you would
like. The fact that the Bible has ANY errors at all---and it does---in
and of itself should be enough to decry it as man-made and not
divinely inspired. And you still haven't addressed those few examples
that I gave you; at this point I'm assuming you're just not going to.
You were much more talkative at the beginning when it came to
discussing actual Scripture. Is something wrong?

Oh, and did you really mean it when you called Ray Comfort a "good
brother"? The man is a con artist who makes two million dollars a year
off of the willful ignorance of people who are intelligent enough and
live in a sufficiently advanced country to know better. After "falling
in love" with Jesus in the early seventies he left his home country of
New Zealand---a predominantly secular nation whose religious
population is a splinter minority and in desperate need of a capable
shepherd for its dwindling flock---to come to America---the most
religious developed nation in the world with 85% of its citizens
proclaiming some faith---where he knew he would have a wider fanbase
and greater monetary success hocking his snake oil by catering to the
whims of a people enthralled by anyone with a smooth charm who tells
them what they want to hear and pads what they already believe. "The
banana is the atheist nightmare"? For real? At least Hovind and
McDowell actually tried

My seventh reply:

Why would the Matrix line of questioning be closed? You haven't answered it with any degree of coherence or consistency yet.

You said:
\\ I cannot possibly demonstrate with tangible evidence---evidence that would actually hold up in a court of law---that I am not a fictional character or some poor sap wired into a computer program\\

So you don't know that you're not, do you?
So... why do you continue to make knowledge claims? Why do you continue to act like you're not in the Matrix? You assume you're not - isn't that the same blind faith that you accuse me of having toward Jesus' existence?
What you're missing here is that if you literally can't know ANYTHING, then you can't know whether the question of whether you're in the Matrix has any meaning. You don't know whether ANYTHING has ANY meaning AT ALL.
Thus your worldview is entirely, 100% absurd. This is why I laugh at it. It is ludicrous. Your worldview is absurd. You like to mock my worldview and use hyperbole like "it's absurd" b/c you think that rocks evolved into giraffes and the Bible says that giraffes were created by God, but that's not absurd in the slightest. It just disagrees with what you think you've concluded based on what you think you've observed (while using logical fallacies, by the way).
But your worldview is actually absurd. But you don't understand that, so you ask this:

\\Neither can you---for all you know your belief and convictions about your god and book could simply be dictated by someone else's words\\

No, that's entirely false. My worldview starts with Jesus. It doesn't end with Jesus as a result of some string of reasoning and evidences. Jesus is the necessary precondition for reasoning and intelligibility. Only because Jesus is Lord can we even ask the question "Are we in the Matrix?" Only b/c Jesus is Lord do the words "Are", "we", "in", "the", and "Matrix" carry any meaning of any kind. To ask the question is to answer it.

My worldview is immune to the problem that not only cripples yours but actually immolates it.
Which is why all your other knowledge claims and your nonsensical, totally biased readings of the Bible are not worth responding to. If your worldview is true, then it doesn't matter whether your worldview is true, and that's b/c nothing matters. Further, it doesn't matter that nothing matters. Not even the fact that nothing matters matters, if your worldview is true.

Your problem is that you haven't actually thought thru your own worldview with any consistency or intellectual honesty. Do so. I dare you.

Further, you still continue to assume you have a basis on which to make value judgments, like this:
\\We can make this life---the one and only we know for certain that we're getting---a virtual paradise\\

You don't have any idea what is good, better, or best. How can you be trusted to point the way to paradise? Prove you know what good is, first, and do so without begging the question as you have been doing.

His eighth email:

This exchange is now physically hurting me.

Alan, I have officially reached my breaking point with your playing "Solipsism-stuck sock-puppet of Sye Ten", dismissing my questions, coming at me with ad hominem quips, attacking fact and logic with fallacy and presupposition, contradicting science, history, and yourself, and making appeals to "divine command". I swear to your god, as soon as I finish typing, I'm going to get off my computer, pick up my phone, contact my local abortion provider, and I'm going to anonymously donate two-thousand dollars out of my own pocket to five random lucky young ladies who have appointments at the clinic and personally pay for the extermination of at least five innocent-before-man, beloved-of-god fetuses just to spite you. When we first began this back and forth, you asked me to read your response with an open mind, free of bias. I did. You, however, replied to my words with nothing BUT close-minded bias. "Satanism is a ludicrous and laughable worldview." "The next time I take a Satanist's view of the Bible seriously will be the first time." "You don't even know what Ezekiel 18 is about." "Take a stab at it, Mr. Well-Educated Former Fundy." "Satanism is laughable because it's stupid."

Earlier you said "We're done with this question." in reference to me knowing for a fact whether or not I was living in an illusion---that would be the reason why I assumed that we were finished with that topic, just for the record. I now see that even bothering to touch on solipsism in a conversation with you was a gross error on my part because you have taken that branch of philosophy and ran with it farther than I would have thought possible. Your entire case for god, as far as I can tell, seems to be completely grounded in presuppositional apologetics. You would rather believe in magic than have to face the idea of living in a world with no objective morality nor any higher meaning to life above survival and reproduction. Whether you're an idiot who's underthinking this or an intelligent person who's overthinking this, I can't tell. At this point I'm having a hard time caring either way.

"With the simpler creatures (non-human animals), good and bad are things simply understood. The good stands for all things that bring easement and satisfaction and surcease from pain. Therefore, the good is liked. The bad stands for all things that are fraught with discomfort, menace, and hurt, and is hated accordingly."---Jack London.

Why do you assume that there must be some intrinsic purpose to life? Why does human thought and language; culture and law necessarily demand the existence of a deity? What if there really isn't anything more to our species and this planet than what we can readily observe on the surface? I feel as though you're stacking additional layers, inventing extraneous nuances to graft onto this issue.

We have no reason whatever to speculate that there is any sort of other dimension of reality, some divine creator, or some binding objective code of ethics that applies to everyone, everywhere, regardless of any other circumstances in this realm. Do we know for sure that these things aren't true? No. But we have to go where our perceptions and the evidence lead us. Just like a jury passing judgment on a suspected criminal, there is always a chance---no matter how open-and-shut a case seems---that they might make a mistake and find an innocent person "guilty" under the law. It happens. But the only thing you can correct faulty evidence or science with is more evidence and science.

I've entertained for quite awhile now your challenge of whether or not I exist and whether or not the world exists. Why don't you tell me why civilization as we know it would abruptly stop and fall apart, why would the inquisitive nature of humanity be impossible; why would complete ignorance of the world we live in mean that nothing mattered if it turned out that there was no god. Why is god necessary for the development of the carnal, material human brain? What reason do you have to doubt evolutionary science and believe that the world around us would never have come to be without divine intervention?

The origins of language are rather well understood and there isn't any kind of mystery or serious confusion among the scientific community as to what functions our ability to speak serve or where it comes from. Human speech is just another form of communication. Virtually all organisms on the earth have ways of communicating among animals of the same species. WE defined what "are", "we", "in", "the", and "Matrix" mean. We as a species wrote the definitions for those terms. Words are simply strings of sound which we ascribe meaning to. They don't have any intrinsic meaning in and of themselves, that's why, if you hear someone speaking a foreign language you can't understand them; grasp the meaning of the sounds that they are making because they are not sounds or labels that you are familiar with. This doesn't build a case for your god.

Also, giraffes evolved from rocks? How accurate and up to date is your understanding of evolution? Research "Abiogenesis".

And once again, you accuse me of reading the Bible with bias, even though, as I already explained to you, I genuinely loved this book, once upon a time. Would even have been willing to die to defend it. I was not someone who was insincere in my profession of faith who was looking for some way to wriggle out of my religious responsibilities. I began investigating the origins of the Bible, what the book demanded of believers, how it synced with history and science, and what its power was over us because I wanted to beef up my case-for-Christ in order to better answer and counsel those considering coming to Jesus. I did not start out my mission to uncover the truth of scripture with any sort of secret desire to debunk god so that I would be free to do whatever I wanted if I could convince myself that he didn't exist. I fasted and prayed my scrawny 17-year-old ass off and begged god every night of this two-year study for guidance and answers and peace.

I didn't receive them. What I did find, however, was that my education up to that point had been about two-hundred years behind the times, and that I was in fact wasting what precious little time I had to be alive on legends and folk traditions of ancient Semitic peoples. My beliefs, as intense and heartfelt as they were, were not justified. I not only couldn't produce a consistent, logical case for why anyone else should believe the Bible; I couldn't even produce a case for why "I" should believe it anymore. I was every bit as much a devoted Christian in my heyday as you are currently, Alan, if not more---I was a bit of a fanatic, to be perfectly honest. Your dismissive attitude is getting old. Quit assuming that when I started reading the Bible as the four-year-old child of fundamental parents I did so with some kind of secret agenda.

My eighth reply:

If you choose to donate to a high priest of child sacrifice, it's your soul on the line, not mine. Know that God will not hold you guiltless for the blood of those children. You will share in the guilt for their murder.

You haven't answered my other challenges, yet you continue to claim the high ground in the debate. This is evidence of spiritual blindness on your part, which blindness has persisted since you were born. You were never a Christian. Allow me to explain.

A Christian is someone whose heart has been transformed by the Lord Jesus and who is protected by His power, who serves Jesus, and for whom Jesus is the highest authority.

If Jesus was not your highest authority, you were a false convert, so it's no surprise the darkness in your heart has started to surge forth with all this venom against Jesus.
If you want to say that Jesus *was* your highest authority, how is it that you somehow realised that your education was lacking? Doesn't that mean that someone else was your highest authority?

His ninth email:
Explain to me, pretty, pretty please, what "...which blindness has
persisted since you were born." Are you a Calvinist? Are these the
words of an individual who supports the idea of
"predestination"---that some of us are just without hope from the very
start, doomed before we take our first breaths to live a life
segregated from god and then to languish in Hell forever? How
precisely was it possible for me, in your opinion, to be a mute,
mindless baby; a small toddling child sitting on a pew holding a Bible
in my lap with no knowledge of any other religion, any other god, or
any other holy book, and yet have some sort of inner hatred for god
and wishes of apostasy?

How could I be a "false convert" when I was never a member of any
other religion and wasn't given the choice of any other faith, having
my head filled with euhemerized stories of my Jewish ancestors and my
savior Yeshua from my earliest years?

As for how I realized that my education was lacking, as I stated
before, I was trying to beef up my case-for-Christ and because I
believed that Jesus was perfect, the Bible was perfect, Yahweh was
perfect, and that it wasn't possible for the Bible to contradict
itself, science, or history; I began freely delving into these
realms---beginning my investigation with every confidence that the
Bible and JC would come out on top, just like always. However, I was
crushingly disappointed. My understanding of evolution at the time,
for example, was similar to yours: having in my head very antiquated
and crude caricatures of what evolutionary development actually
entailed. (Giraffes sprung from rocks.) Also the internal problems
with the Bible certainly did not help a damn thing; I think they were
more compelling to me at the time than any outside influence from
modern scientists or historians.

In closing, I would just like to inform you that abortion prices have
apparently increased recently in my area. My donation, unfortunately,
only covered the cost of three women.

My ninth reply:

Yes, I am a monergist, so Calvinist in soteriology and doctrine of election and such.

You have hatred for God b/c and in your sin. Compatibilism is true, not fatalism. So God has elected and decreed, and you have also freely chosen. So choose to repent. Turn to Him in repentance.

If you don't like the term "false convert", false believer will do.

You were swayed by what you "learned" in your searches because Jesus was not your final authority. That's my point. If Jesus had been your final authority, you would have filtered everything through the lens of Jesus, rather than putting Jesus in the dock to judge. You were the final authority, not Jesus. You were not a Christian. You were a Christianoid hedonist/pagan.

What you need to realise is that all your much-ballyhooed evidence and studies and research are worth literally zero if Jesus is not Lord. I have already shown how your worldview is absurd, and all your beautiful scientific skyscrapers that you think you built have their foundations in midair. Science is impossible if atheism is true. You don't even know whether you have ever, not even one single time, examined a piece of rock or an organism. You don't know whether the outside world exists b/c you don't know whether your senses and reasoning are valid. You need Jesus to ground reasoning and intelligibility.

\\My donation, unfortunately, only covered the cost of three women.\\

Shrug. I'm sure it made you feel better to type that, but it's actually a really stupid thing to say. Instead of wasting time doing stuff like that, how about you disprove hard solipsism, or demonstrate how you have any standing on which to make moral judgments? Oh, wait, you have no chance of doing that.

Repent. Jesus will still accept and forgive you, but only He knows how long you have to live. When you stand before Him, you will have no excuse. He wants to save your soul and your intellect.

His tenth email:
This "debate" is finished. I can honestly take no more. I initially
contacted AHA in hopes of finding some small grain of humanism or
decency or genuine love of truth at the shrunken black heart of this
organization. I have been disappointed. I wanted to know whether you
people truly meant what you print and plaster across signs and
shirts---that you love the unborn simply because of their common
humanity, and that you genuinely care for their plight out of a
selfless desire to safeguard the sanctity of human life. You do not.
If we swap out the would-be mother as the arbiter of the abortion
decision and replace her with Yahweh, suddenly, your compassion, your
devotion to safeguarding life, and your love of mankind melts away.
You don't love the mottled fetus decaying in a dumpster behind
PlannedParenthood any more than I do---you're just doing whatever the
big guy says because you're afraid if you get on his bad side, he's
going to fuck you up. This is evident by your nonchalant shrug upon
hearing the news that three precious little buckets of "innocent
blood" are going to be tipped over today. They're nothing but numbers
to you.
You don't care, no more than the rest of the world. If your god were
to speak out of the firmament right now and declare to the whole world
that abortion is a holy sacrament, you would start swinging neon
arrows toward the driveways of clinics like a kid working at the
carwash trying to bring more people in rather than harassing women and
trying to drive them away. It's not compassion, reason, pity,
indignation, or love that propels AHA---it's simply fear and fealty.
That's what I'm left to believe.
Sad. For some stupid reason, I'd hoped for more.
Yes, as a matter of fact, it did feel pretty damn good to act
charitably and assist those young women in need. I very well might do
so again in the future. Had I put my name down, I'm sure they would
thank me as well.
To be perfectly frank with you, when we first began this conversation
I was almost straddling the fence as to where I stood on the issue of
abortion. Assuming that you're a typical specimen of the pro-life
movement, I haven't any more doubt that I stand in the ranks of
pro-choice. Nor do I have any regrets over abandoning my Christian
faith in favor of Satanism---trading a role of base servitude for the
right to rule.
There are however, still some words of merit to be found within the
pages of your cult's holy book. Like Proverbs 26:4, for example:
"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto
him." Good advise I should have taken.
Ave Satanas

My tenth reply:
Black heart? Look who's talking - the one who denies your Maker and espouses a worldview that has no way to identify what is good or bad, that espouses humanism and yet has no way to know whether humanism or anti-humanism is better, or even good.

Yes, we love the unborn b/c they are human, b/c God has not only commanded us to, but given us the ability and grace to love our neighbors as ourselves.

You said:
\\If we swap out the would-be mother as the arbiter of the abortion
decision and replace her with Yahweh, suddenly, your compassion, yourdevotion to safeguarding life, and your love of mankind melts away.\\

I have no idea what this means. Yahweh sent His Son to save sinners who hated Him. The comparison is impossible. God is far more loving than any of us could ever hope to be. What you don't like is that He is not only loving but also just and holy. You want Him to be like you want Him to be. You don't want Him as He is. That's b/c deep down you want to be God rather than serve God.

\\You don't love the mottled fetus decaying in a dumpster behind
PlannedParenthood any more than I do---you're just doing whatever the
big guy says because you're afraid if you get on his bad side, he'sgoing to fuck you up\\

Nonsense. I love Him b/c He saved me and has blessed me with all the good things I have and have experienced. I *fear* Him with reverent fear b/c He is able to cast me into Hell. Thankfully, He won't b/c He has set His love on me through His Son.
What you're missing in *this* part of your rant is that when we do bad things, they are not merely things that displease God. They are actually bad and wrong. You don't want consequences for your evil actions, but neither you nor I get to decide that. God does.

\\ This is evident by your nonchalant shrug upon
hearing the news that three precious little buckets of "innocent
blood" are going to be tipped over today. They're nothing but numbersto you.\\

It's hilarious that you, who donated to end their lives and whose worldview does not allow you to make any statement on the value of humanity, will lecture me on the value of human life. What a joke.

\\Yes, as a matter of fact, it did feel pretty damn good to act
charitably and assist those young women in need.\\

Sin gives pleasures for a short season, but it's temporary. You acted foolishly. Those women need help and you gave them death. If you don't repent, you will be punished for this act of wickedness.

\\To be perfectly frank with you, when we first began this conversation
I was almost straddling the fence as to where I stood on the issue ofabortion\\

I believe that about as much as I believe that you were once a Christian.

\\Assuming that you're a typical specimen of the pro-life
movement\\

I'm not pro-life at all. I am an abolitionist.

\\trading a role of base servitude for the right to rule.\\

LOL - you don't even know whether the external world exists or whether your senses and reasoning are valid, and you boast about a right to rule?

His eleventh reply:
See here.Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-38939707997125371492014-10-21T07:35:00.002-05:002014-10-21T07:35:54.303-05:00Pulpit & Pen blog - User-Friendly Churcheshttp://pulpitandpen.org/2014/10/20/user-friendly-churches/Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-76141476014702561102014-10-08T11:39:00.002-05:002014-10-08T11:39:56.825-05:00On Holding on Viola, Part 2Continuing with Holding's review from last time...

This is just more of the same errors Viola makes throughout: Blaming the "institutions" instead of the people

People institute and maintain institutions.

ailing to credential this alleged "functioning headship" of Christ (Mormons and others say they have it too)

What is Holding's obsession with these comparisons to Mormonism? Of course they CLAIM those things. But those claims are empty. This is like doubting real US dollars exist because counterfeiters have gotten very good at their craft.

For Viola to describe himself and others as "daring" just because, e.g., they got bored with church and left,is offensive.

1) I don't recall any self-ascribing of martyrdom on Viola's part. So Holding is being unnecessarily shrill.
2) If it's not daring to follow one's convictions in the face of a great deal of traditions and peer pressure to the contrary, what word would Holding prefer? I'm not saying it's the best thing anyone could ever do, but why isn't it daring?
3) What is really offensive is Holding's strawman - "they got bored with church".
"With church and left" - but Viola specifically tells certain readers NOT to leave their institutional churches, and for the rest he recommends... church! He's not calling people to walk away from church, least of all b/c they're "bored". He is calling them to embrace a more biblical form of church.

House church for Viola's purpose is idividuals trying to satisfy THEMSELVES.

1) Not house church. Organic church.
2) What is Holding's evidence for this assertion? Shouldn't he have proof of this sinful attitude before making the accusation?

(Org)anic unity can be achieved anywhere by people willing to give up themselves as a priority. A house church may seem to succeed in this regard (as may a Sunday School class or church sub-group) because you're gathering together a group of people who disagree on the same issues; and so the illusion of being an "organic entity" can be perpetrated.

Viola makes this exact point in his book. Did Holding read it carefully enough to note it?

I sense a persecution complex when Barna says people cry out "heretic" when suggestions are made to change practices

Ironically, Holding contributes to the justification of a persecution complex with this accusation, which is based on nothing more or less than his "sense".
Also ironically, Holding has already several times poked fun in this review at what he thinks is Viola's centering on his emotions and sensations, whereas here he does the same thing. Maybe I could insert a comparison to Mormons to make it fair and square.

CHAPTER 1

Viola needs to get over himself. His revelations do not warrant this sort of promotional commentary.

I agree that it was pretty melodramatic to say what Viola said, but at the same time, as noted before, Holding has apparently never been subjected to sinful treatment on the part of his church and pushed out the door for sinful reasons. Again, I'm glad to hear it, but he shouldn't minimise others' experiences.

So what stops them from "going through the motions" when they go to the house church Viola recommends instead?

Nothing, except that Viola isn't repping "house churches". Again, Holding read the book poorly.

CHAPTER 2

Viola makes much over how people have used "church" to describe a building rather than the people in it. Yes, this is a common error

Yes, it is, but it's not a random error. It happens for a reason. People think that way for a reason and rarely stop for introspection and examination as to why they usually think of the church as a building.

He also makes much over people regarding a church building as a "sacred space." I understand how ritual purity works (http://www.tektonics.org/af/cleanman.html). How modern Americans regard church is nowhere near this.

It may not rise to the same quantity or intensity, but it is definitely the same class, the same category, of thinking about the church building.

In this the real problem is again individualism gone wild, which supports a view that allows compartmentalization of belief from action.

Finally Holding identifies, at least in part, what he means by "individualism" as he uses it in this review.
Compartmentalisation of belief from action - Viola would agree that this is a bad thing. In fact, that's what his book is assailing. So what is Holding's objection?

Viola says he's not promoting for house churches, but right here he starts doing so. He quotes and notes favorably points that the early church met in homes, IN CONTRAST TO meeting in a special building.

The second sentence does not substantiate the accusation found in the first.

He may say, "But I didn't say that you should go to a house church." He doesn't have to. The juxtaposition of "meeting in a house" favorably verses the negative connotation he assigns to meeting in a special building says all that is necessary.

OOORRRR Viola is repping something entirely different that Holding didn't catch.
That is in fact the reality.

he repeatedly criticizes the concept of a "sacred building." Well, if we don't have that, where do we meet?

We meet in a house, or in some other structure, or not.
The point is that it doesn't matter a whole lot where we meet, but modern American institutional church structure is pretty building-dependent.

He's arguing for house church. If he wasn't, we'd have other options discussed too, such as outdoors or in a rented movie theater.

Perhaps Holding should complain to the earliest Christians, who met almost exclusively in homes except for the occasional outlier such as renting Tyrannus' assembly hall for a time.

nothing stops people from turning their house into "sacred space" for short periods, or even an outdoor spot.

Of course not, but that misses the point.

He says also that the early church did not have a "special priestly caste that was set apart to serve God." This is a red herring

I suspect Holding's eyes are simply naively blinded to the special priestly caste that exists in the modern American institutional church. It's all over the place. But Holding has probably, like so many others, been conditioned to accept what he has seen for so long.

the reality is that we need specially trained individuals to handle specific functions in a fellowship

1) As long as we are careful to define "specially trained" biblically.
2) Yes, FUNCTIONS, not OFFICES.

There's also the question of whether Christians woukld be permitted (as a deviant group) to build a spoecial building.

That may be, although it's somewhat speculative.
But doesn't it still require an argument to make us think that it's better to go ahead and NOT do what the earliest church did in those cases?

If (Constantine) really did have his tomb set among monuments to the Apsotles, he did so not because he was an "egomaniac" but because he saw it as his responsibility to the corporate whole to be so recognized.

If he really did (I'm not saying one way or th'other), I don't see any way in which Holding's justification makes sense. It's your responsibility to the church to set yourself apart from them and act like a big shot, even in death? Huh? What does that mean?

he objects that Constantine did not close pagan temples or destroy them. This would not have been a live option: Christians were badly outnumbered; to have simply closed or destroyed pagan temples would have been an invitation to have Christians slaughtered wholesale.

But officially favoring Christianity was just fine, even though the Christians were badly outnumbered?
And who says that professing Christians were badly outnumbered AFTER he officially favored Christianity? Couldn't he have started closing pagan facilities then?

There was no concept of "intimacy" and no "open" participation; strict social controls governed participation.

1) Holding has still not proven this; he has merely asserted it.
2) That doesn't seem to be the case even in Paul's recommendations in 1 Corinthians.
3) What is Holding's alternative to fulfill all the "one another"s in the NT? Sunday School?

Do you think there might have been a sense of "mystery, transcendance, and awe" at Mt. Sinai, for example?

Does Holding mean where the Law was given?
Yes, I do think there was that, very much so.
Hebrews 12:18For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, 19and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. 20For they could not bear the command, "IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED." 21And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, "I AM FULL OF FEAR and trembling." 22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, 23to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

No doubt there is SOME connection that can be made to heaven, but it hardly need be that "we're reaching for God".

Notice that Holding merely waves his hand at Viola's proposal about the steeple reaching to the sky and what it implies, rather than interacting with it or giving us some reason to think Viola is mistaken.
Nobody is proposing that the architecture controls thoughts. The point is that it REFLECTS and INFLUENCES thoughts, and we ought to seek to glorify Jesus in ALL our lives, every single aspect. What does the steeple communicate? Why aren't we asking ourselves that question before we construct one?

Yes, too much is often spent on facilities, for unnecessary stuff; but facilities are often required for ministry.

But often that "ministry" of which Holding speaks is counterproductive and even sinful, focused on keeping the people of God hidden behind the walls of the building, thus effectively robbing them of their time to be salt and light in the culture, all the while comforting them and telling them that it's OK, it's God's will for them to spend tons of time in "God's house".

A house church can't run a food bank out of a house, for example...You also can't run something like a pregnancy crsis center from a home.

You also don't need a $million building to run one.
I could only wish that more churches would run CPCs out of their buildings. Most CPCs have their own building.

In an answer to an objection to how the NT church used facilities, mention of Paul's use of the lecture hall of Tyrannus seems notably absent.

It is mentioned elsewhere in the book.

Why is he explaining this if he isn't offering house churches as THE solution?

Viola explained this already in the book.
1) He thinks they are the best, not the only, solution.
2) House churches can be structured just like institutional churches, and thus not be organic. Organic and house are not equivalent.

Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-14664208984934739112014-10-07T16:10:00.001-05:002014-10-08T15:05:09.620-05:00On Holding on Viola, Part 1My attention was recently directed to JP Holding's review of Viola & Barna's Pagan Christianity, a book that I read recently and which edified me significantly.

I'd like to write a full review of it. I don't have time to go through the monstrous article in its entirety at the moment, but I would like to offer the following review of the introduction, leading up to the subtitle Preface in the review article.

He portrays himself as an advocate of "natural and spontaneous expression" that allegedly comes from "the divine life that indwelt the early Christians" [xix]. Really? Mormons call that a "burning in the bosom," and it is epistemically a disaster area.

I honestly do think this statement misunderstands Viola.
Mormons cite "burning in the bosom" for proof that the Book of Mormon is true. I see no comparative claim in the book.

"Natural and spontaneous expression" looks far too much like a rationalization to turn a church meeting into a widespread counseling and storytelling session

I don't think this is fair. Yes, Viola is a bit charismatic for my tastes, maybe a bit goofy, but nothing he says in the book **necessarily** leads to this characterisation.

in which it is only imagined that Jesus is the "functional head"

But why is it "only imagined"? No, the Bible doesn't lay out a specific set of do-this and don't-do-thats... that's how Jesus is indeed the functional head, for everyone plays a part in fulfilling NT commands and love.

because everyone leaves feeling better about themselves and life

I really don't think this is fair either.

Claiming to have "divine life" in you, and to be expressing it when you reel off some poem or testimony, is one thing; actually doing that for real is another.

That is true, but I don't see how it is particularly relevant.

Where Viola goes constantly wrong is in that he unwittingly panders to selfish individualism

I entirely disagree, but let's see why he says that.

It is because he does not understand the collectivist psychology of the ancient world

Seems to me that he takes it into account quite well, because he is the one proposing the church structure that is every-member-functioning, rather than everyone sitting and facing forward while one guy runs the show.

he fails to grasp that "natural and spontaneous expression" in our own social setting will end up doing more harm than good

It *can*, sure, but it doesn't *have to*. Does JP Holding grasp that the institutional church structure with which we are so familiar in our own social setting will ends up doing a lot of harm as well?
Church structure and the behavior of the church members are two separate questions. If people are sinning against each other right and left without repentance and sanctification, no church can survive, however it be structured. The question is: Which structure is better and more biblical?

That insulated little house church

I think this may be some evidence that Holding didn't read too carefully. Viola specifically disclaims that he is advocating house church. Rather, he is affirming *organic* church. There is a significant difference between the two.

The early church was collectivist; expression was NOT "natural" or "spontaneous" but was closely controlled by innate social structures having to do with the prevalent code of honor

Are these innate social structures expressed in the commands in the New Testament? If they are, we have but to follow those commands and we're in good shape, and this objection fails.
If they are not, is Holding foisting extrabiblical traditions on Christians? On what basis and authority does he do so?

Blaming things like an order of service for "not lead[ing] to the spiritual growth God intended" is just a rationalization that abrogates the concept of responsibility.

I don't read him as BLAMING the order of service. I see Viola calling out the counterproductive unhelpfulness of the order of service, and its extrabiblical origin.

If they're properly equipped, then they'll do just fine using an order of worship, too.

1) Not necessarily. Being properly equipped isn't a threshold one reaches, after which one can rest on one's laurels and sit back and relax. We are to continue striving toward holiness and obedience.
2) If Viola's arguments are correct, holding to a false teaching in and of itself diminishes one's proper equipping.

The point is that Viola wants us all to return to house churches

This is flatly false, and Viola explicitly reject this claim in the book. I'm afraid Holding did not read carefully enough.

Painting house churchers as "daring souls" [xviii], and depicting Viola's exposition as a "terrifying journey" filled with "frightening questions" [5-6] is just arrogant, hyperbolic contrivance.

1) Not house churches. Organic churches.
2) Holding has apparently not experienced such a thing, but Viola has, and I myself have seen it. Just b/c Holding has never been confronted with these related difficulties doesn't give him the right or basis to pooh-pooh others' experiences.

Claims like, "The pulpit elevates the clergy to a position of prominence....separating and placing [the preacher] high above God's people," and arguing that a pew is a "symbol of lethargy and passivity" that has "made corporate worship into a spectator sport" [34] is simply rationalization for one's own lack of responsiobility

But why? As far as I can see, Holding doesn't inform us. It's a naked assertion.

Maybe there can be some "face to face interaction" in Sunday School?

1) So, you have to create another event to cover up the weaknesses for the "worship service".
2) A huge percentage of Sunday Schools are also structured in rows with one guy teaching up front.
3) Sunday School is, like the order of service and the other things Viola identifies in the book, an extrabiblical tradition.

It's easier to pin blame on some object or practice than to point the finger at ourselves for not resolving to meet with one another once the service is over.

Why the hostility? Is there a good reason here to whack Viola's position? Holding seems to be making excuses here.

The don't-blame-me rhetoric here is so bad that Viola reads psychological messages into the use of stairs and a narthex

So those architectural features are total coincidences?

claims that chapter and verse divisions make Paul's letters "lose their personal touch" so that "they take on the texture of a manual."

Is that not a danger that one must studiously avoid?

(Strange how it hasn't done that to the works of Josephus or Tacitus, for example.)

1) Relatively few people have read either of those men's works.
2) How does Holding know it hasn't done that?
3) Is Josephus' writing similar in genre to that of the Pauline epistles?

My biggest issue with Viola comes when he dismisses conceptions of professional clergy

I have to say that I saw this coming a mile away.

So what's wrong with a trained clergy?

Nothing is wrong with training. There is something wrong with positing an anti-New-Testament class of people called the "clergy class".

Viola's dismissal of Bible colleges and seminaries as "human innovations," in favor of "hands-on" training and "apprenticeship, rather than of intellectual learning" merely creates an artificial, pedantic dichotomy; his indication that training in the early church was "aimed primarily at the spirit, rather than at the frontal lobe" [200] is merely a contrivance.

So Holding thinks that knowledge and wisdom are the same, and that we can learn how to interact in a godly way with people by only reading books.

If Viola thinks "spiritual revelation" is a path to knowing God, the Mormons have a few words for him.

Holding again overstates his case.
Spiritual revelation IS a path to knowing God (1 Cor 2:10-16).

Actually, this says it all: "The intellect is not the gateway for knowing the Lord deeply."

What's wrong with that, again?

It's that anachronistic idea of "God is my buddy" again

But what is Holding's argument for this assertion? Why the uncharitable interpretation? Is it not true that Viola is expressing the fact that we are spiritually united with Christ?

It should also disturb Viola deeply that his "signs of a healthy organic church" [241] can just as well describe a Mormon stake.

More unfairness. One could easily say the same thing about the institutional church.
One could also easily equate "signs of health" of institutional churches and secular for-profit businesses.
Holding ought to know well that Mormons have conscientiously tried to copy many, many parts of the Christian religion to augment their perceived legitimacy. I'm not interested in what the counterfeits look like; I want the real thing.

The sad fact is that we need a trained clergy these days

Did Holding stop to think that perhaps one of the reasons is that the institutional church structure has prevailed for these many centuries?

"[M]utual subjection to one another under the headship of Christ" won't combat heresy or cultism if no one in the house church knows the difference between the Arian heresy and Sabellianism

Does Holding think that Viola is against book larnin'? Then why does Viola write books?

it is a part of the Body of Christ doing what it does best, and claims of "division" and of clergy making other Christians "second-class" are little more than the put-upon giving expression to an inferiority complex and a cult of the individual.

I'm glad Holding hasn't seen this in his life, but I have seen it plenty to know that Viola is right on here. Holding is merely ignorant of how it does elsewhere. I'm glad for him; ignorance is bliss.

I would be VERY "bored" in one of Viola's "spontaneous" meetings, by the way.

Perhaps Holding ought to attend one before he makes that call?

Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-11869058686589583272014-09-30T14:29:00.002-05:002014-09-30T14:29:57.533-05:00Interested in discussing vaccinesI come from a family that is pro-vaccine as far as I can tell, and I have participated in vaccines in the past to a pretty thorough extent. I find myself strongly questioning the wisdom and propriety of vaccines in the modern West, but I would like to sharpen my understanding by talking to someone or more than one person who is pro-vaccine. I consider myself at this point just to the right of neutral on the question, just a shade more anti-vaccine than pro-.

A few questions I'm asking follow. Please pardon my ignorance. I learn best when talking to people, so I'd appreciate a modicum of respect in answering, though of course there is no requirement:

1) Why is it that reports continually emerge that vaccines contain ingredients that are poisonous, such as formaldehyde, mercury, aluminum, and the like?

2) Is there a good reason for parents of vaccinated children to be concerned if unvaccinated children attend the same government school as their vaccinated children? If so, why?

3) How is it justifiable to inject children with the body parts of other children who were murdered?

4) Why wouldn't the slow response of the medical community to things like the Gardasil debacle give a parent pause?

5) Why is it important to inoculate against minor maladies like measles?Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-12752945067223129962014-09-26T05:26:00.000-05:002014-09-26T05:26:00.254-05:00The Trinity as three-leaf cloverRecently a friend posted a video of street evangelism in which she was sharing the Gospel with a Muslim. This Muslim young man didn't know much about the Bible and in the course of the convo asked "What is the Holy Spirit?"

My friend used the words "it is..." in her response and went on to try to explain the Trinity as three-leaf clover. Here's the comment I left under her video:
------
Thanks for the video! Just a few thoughts:

1) Don't refer to the Holy Spirit as "it". He is a person.
2) You used the three leaf clover analogy for the Trinity. I would recommend against using such an analogy.
Here is a small tongue-in-cheek reason not to use that analogy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw

It's sarcastic humor. But it illustrates the underlying reason not to use that kind of analogy - the Holy Spirit is fully God, just as the Father and the Son are. They are distinct and yet co-equal, all sharing the essence of divinity equally and fully. The clover analogy does not express the godhead well enough. Of course any analogy fails, but where they fail in a really fundamental way, we should abandon them.

I much prefer to explain the Trinity to a Muslim like this - "The Bible is God's Word. The Qur'an affirms that it is. The Bible teaches that there is one God and only one. It also teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and that they are all distinct and yet there is only one God. This is a great mystery. We accept what the Bible teaches b/c it's what God told us." and kind of go from there, showing them in the Bible why we think that is true, if they ask.

A better analogy if you must use one is this: Imagine three balloons of equal size and shape. Each balloon is filled with the same air. Not the same AMOUNT of air. Literally the same air.
How is that possible? It's not, not in this physical universe. That's part of the point. The Trinity doesn't map all that well onto our physical, material experiences.

(HT: SyeTenB for the balloon analogy)Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-18677745665496904572014-09-25T13:05:00.002-05:002014-09-25T13:05:17.171-05:00Pulpit & Pen blog - Don't Make Vowshttp://pulpitandpen.org/2014/09/25/dont-make-vows/Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-15520588334748109462014-09-25T08:14:00.003-05:002014-09-25T08:14:35.000-05:00The convoluted Resurrection accountsGary said:
This story is more convoluted that a Mexican tele-novela!

I agree it's not the most straightforward account I've ever seen.
1) Truth is often stranger than fiction.
2) It's hard to empathise since I've never given up everything to follow a guy around for 3+ years, watched Him silence the most learned people of His day with a word, cast out demons and heal people by the hundreds, teach me with crazy authority I've never heard, predict His own death, then get tortured, die in the most humiliating way possible, get buried, and then start to understand that He may well have risen from the dead. I have no idea how I'd react, how logically, how many times I'd go back to the tomb to check again, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-38029470786665122932014-09-23T11:21:00.001-05:002014-09-23T11:25:49.220-05:00The Oklahoma City Satanic Black MassSo this past Sunday in downtown OKC a group of Satanists rented a small event hall in the Civic Center to do a Black Mass. They had even somehow purloined a consecrated Eucharistic host but the threat of legal action made 'em give it back. Both of which events are really funny to me.

As I had expected, out in front of the Civic Center in the plaza, it was a chaotic, noisy madhouse. Pelagian street preachers (the "Pervert Patrol" from Tulsa) with their bullhorns preaching a bunch of not particularly persuasive hate-filled screeds, Black Israelites bellowing at the top of their lungs, hundreds of Roman Catholics praying responsive prayers (mostly to Mary) (who else, right?) with their own amps and holding idols and large pictures of Mary, mainline Protestant groups singing milquetoast "worship" songs, some other Roman Catholics playing bagpipes, people blowing shofars...

Notice how the "My" is capitalised. This is supposedly Mary speaking, and she gets the divinised reference to a nomina sacra, as it were. And where is Jesus in the photo? Nowhere. Tell me this isn't idolatry so that I may have a good laugh.

Anyway, as I expected, virtually nobody actually attending the Black Mass hung around outside and talked to anyone. Like last time, all the paying attendees slunk in the side to enter and skulked out the side to exit.

Really, in a vacuum this event was not a big deal. According to press who observed the Black Mass on the inside, about 40 people attended. Seriously, who cares? The only reason this attracted so much media attention is because the Satanists played the Media Whore game and the local Roman Catholic archdiocese played their willing dance partner. Thus the Roman Catholics' efforts entirely backfired in my opinion. They were mad about this event.

But, happily, it attracted such a large crowd that some servants of the Lord Jesus were able to take advantage to outreach to them.

I prepared a tract centering around the Roman Mass. I was thinking I'd probably do some street preaching too.

When we arrived, though, it was chaotic. The noise and clamor was astonishing. And then just as the Roman prayers were reaching their climax, a rainbow appeared in the sky. Not particularly surprising, since the sun was at a convenient angle for such and it had rained on us a little when we were a mile from the Civic Center. But many of the RCs took it for a sign from heaven. Probably the most interesting moment of the evening was when, right after I had turned to find what everyone was staring at and then spotted the rainbow, this lady materialised at my side and gushed about how we're winning and God is on our side and we have nothing to fear and isn't it awesome? I had no idea what to say and so just kinda smiled and nodded like a doofus. I belatedly offered her a tract and she smiled and shook her head as she walked away and I was just standing there like what just happened? What a weird environment!

The attitude of many of the RCs was best summed up in: "why are you talking to us when the real enemy is inside?" At which point I tried to remind them that they're the ones who are members of the religion that anathematised the gospel and perverts the Lord's Table.

My friend gave out a lot of the aforementioned tracts about the Mass; I had less success with that. I had some good conversations. I rebuked the Pelagian street preachers, who then rebuked me for wasting time rebuking them when there were hundreds of lost people just over yonder. I told one of them (this guy) I can do both and this is worthwhile, and he rudely told me to get on with it, like a schoolboy double-dog-daring me to preach, to show him how it's done.
There's only so much childishness a man can take before you just don't know what to say anymore. It's like it's hard to talk intelligently, like the dumb creeps into your own brain by osmosis.
But I figured I'd rather not waste the opportunity or let my 'yes' be 'no', so I fired up my brand new amp and preached about the Mass for a while at that point. The Pelagian guy had a camera on me pretty much the whole time as if to intimidate me or prove a point. The preach went well, and when I was done he came over, almost apologetic, and said "hey that was good stuff, solid preaching."
I wasn't sure I wanted his affirmation, but I smiled and said thanks before turning to talk to some Romanists who wanted to comment.

Aaaaaannnndddd also my camera malfunctioned and didn't record any audio. Disappointing, as there were numerous interesting incidents.

But at least I praise God that the Gospel went out to many. I am left dumbfounded at how few Christians were there to witness of the Gospel, in a place where hundreds of people are gathered in a place in order to publicly discuss a spiritual matter. Where are you, church of God?

Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-53373071791064993182014-09-19T11:27:00.000-05:002014-09-19T11:28:01.704-05:00More self-defeating hypocrisy from Babies Are Murdered Here and Marcus PittmanEarlier this week a significant hubbub resulted from a confrontation between abolitionist Chris Rush from Minnesota and pro-life big-shot celebrity heroine Abby Johnson. Rush apparently attended an Abby J event with the intent of speaking to her about something related to abolition. He carried a GoPro in his hand to record part of it. When Abby J noticed the camera she tried to grab it and then, as he pulled away, told her some half-dozen friends standing around to grab it. Thus she did nothing less than inciting mob violence against an individual, attempting robbery of his property.

Since then she has lied about Rush and refused to claim any guilt for instigating a violent encounter.

Anyway, to substantiate his account of the incident, Rush put out the unedited video of the encounter. He lost his cool and self-control and did not regain it in what I would call a timely manner, and a few times used profanity a few minutes after the attempted robbery.

Enter Marcus Pittman and BAMH, always ready to try to kick dirt on all things abolitionist. Nobody asked Marcus, but he opined of his own free will on the incident:

Marcus also showed up on the Abolish Human Abortion Facebook page, claiming the unedited video is edited. I deleted his comments there. On the BAMH thread, he complained about the deletion. I'll let my own comments stand:

The thread continued and was up for at least a few more hours, but as the next day, it had been deleted. Why delete threads like that if you are proud of what you said? Why not let the record stand and let the reader judge? Unless you realise you said wrong things and can't bring yourself to repent of them...

This is how this works:

In Chris Rush's own words:
To be clear 1. I did sin by using profanity for that I repent. 2. I got too emotional at certain points I do not think I was perfect.

I agree with Chris. When one has sinned, one should repent of it. That starts with apology. It is the Christian thing to do.
Why is it, then, that Abby Johnson (Roman Catholic) and Marcus Pittman (Presbyterian) won't do what Chris did?

Interestingly, just as Abby J continues to pile on her condemnation with further lies and refusals to repent and apologise, so does Pittman. Only a couple of hours later, BAMH posted this:

Notice my comments there. What in the world does Pittman think he is talking about? The kind of stuff that makes it on YouTube? Quiet talks? Why does he keep hyping his documentary Babies Are Murdered Here, again?
Notice also the shift in thinking.

September 14, BAMH said:

Take a stand with Babies Are Murdered Here signs.
Aren't those in effect pieces of glossy cardstock?
And while some BAMH hangers-on, street preacher guild fanboys sometimes accuse AHA of being a for-profit T-shirt and merch company, why isn't BAMH thus open to the same (false) accusation?

Speaking of which...
September 3, BAMH said:

So the guys that brought you Babies Are Murdered Here made a commercial for a bookstore Check it out.
Is that kind of like when Abolish Human Abortion puts out ads for www.ahagear.com? Why is it OK for them but not for abolitionists?

If abortion is going to be ended by what Pittman said, why commend local Christians for preaching the Gospel at the death mills like here and here, for example? The main thing I notice that's different between these and many abolitionists is that abolitionists' signs are better.

June 27, Jon Speed encourages abortion mill ministry:

The Supreme Court has ruled in our favor. If you refuse to go to the clinics to preach the gospel and stand for life it has nothing to do with legality. You are not a "lawsuit waiting to happen", as one church that used to support us claimed over a year ago when they decided to cut our financial support as missionaries. Stop believing your fears and the wannabe lawyers in your church and go out and preach the gospel.

June 20, BAMH reminds you that their pieces of glossy cardstock and suchlike are still for sale:

Order the official BAMH signs, gospel tracts, drop cards, and bumper stickers

June 8, Jon Speed is interviewed on the radio. I don't remember that being on the list of things that will abolish abortion.

May 14, BAMH commends a public protest at a hospital!

This is what it looks like when a local church takes a stand for life against a Catholic hospital in Texas that gives admitting privileges to a local abortionist. #BAMH
 http://www.kristv.com/news/religious-beliefs-at-center-of-hospital-protest/

May 9, BAMH confuses me again:

Oh that the Lord would thrust forth laborers into His harvest. The answer to shaking the apathetic into action is not the production of a movie or elaborate protests. Jesus said to pray (Matthew 9:38). Perhaps if we prayed more than we produced or protested, the Lord would be pleased to mobilize more local churches.

Well, I think I take it back. I have no idea what message BAMH is trying to express, especially in light of the many other things they said to hype the movie leading up to its release. Was all of that just clever marketing? Is consistency a concern here?

When you do something wrong, repent of it. Apologise and seek the strength of the Lord to no longer walk in that error and sin. Repentance and willingness to humble oneself before an offended neighbor is a mark of a regenerate heart.
Abby Johnson, Roman Catholic, has sinned against Chris Rush and despite many calls to repentance, has instead chosen to lie and lie some more about what happened that evening.
Marcus Pittman, professing Reformed follower of Jesus, has sinned against hundreds of abolitionists and against Chris Rush in particular, as well as the leadership of Rush's church, implying that Rush needs to join a church so he can get counsel from older godly men. I myself told Pittman that Rush is already a member of a church. Pittman deleted my comment and indeed the entire thread.

If one thinks one has done nothing wrong, does one delete threads that one thought important enough to post in the first place? Or is that the action of a coward who wants to throw fiery darts but doesn't want to defend his reasoning for throwing them? Hoping to escape accountability for what he said and what people saw, for the hearts affected and poisoned against the victims of the unrighteous judgment?

Marcus Pittman, repent. We abolitionists, who love and want to honor Jesus above all else, will still forgive and welcome you. Turn to Jesus and walk the path of life, receiving life from Jesus and giving life to others rather than draining it through the sowing of dissension and division.Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-47130519065774437192014-09-18T12:17:00.002-05:002014-09-18T12:17:35.306-05:00A Grab-Bag of Roman Catholic MistakesRoman Catholic: Hmm, guess I won't be joining. By the way y'all, there would be no bible without Catholics. Who do you think put the table of contents in there? Look it up folks!

Me: there would be no bible without Catholics.

All this time I thought God wrote the Bible.

 Who do you think put the table of contents in there?

1) The people of God. Not Rome and not Roman Catholics.
2) Rome doesn't have a closed Old Testament Canon. See the book of 2 Esdras - the Council of Trent passed over that book in silence.
3) Rome doesn't have a canon of infallible teachings.

Rome is actually in a much worse position than Sola Scripturists on that question. MUCH worse.

RC:
The bible is a collection of books inspired by God and written by men. Catholics also hold the bible to be the inerrant word of God and the canon of the bible was established at the Council of Nicea in the 4th century. The OT consisted of the canon established by the Jews and would have been known by the Apostles. The NT canon needed to be established because there were many "gospels" at the time and some had to be excluded, such as the Gospel of Thomas, Peter, and numerous others. The Church Fathers met in a council to codify the canon of scripture until Martin Luther thought he knew better almost a thousand years later.

Me: Catholics also hold the bible to be the inerrant word of God

The RCC thinks that evolution is true. Thus your statement is false.

the canon of the bible was established at the Council of Nicea in the 4th century

That is untrue. Nicea did not deal with the canon at all. Show your evidence.

The OT consisted of the canon established by the Jews and would have been known by the Apostles

RCC claims to have apostolic succession. So is 2 Esdras canonical or not? Just answer the question.

The NT canon needed to be established because there were many "gospels" at the time and some had to be excluded, such as the Gospel of Thomas, Peter, and numerous others.

You're mistaken again. Those other "gospels" were written much later than the canonical Gospels.

The Church Fathers met in a council to codify the canon of scripture

No, they didn't. This is fiction.

 until Martin Luther thought he knew better almost a thousand years later.

Pope Gregory the Great, Athanasius, and Cardinal Cajetan all held to DIFFERENT canons of the Old Testament than that which Rome affirmed at the Council of Trent.Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-47489512144501562442014-09-15T15:31:00.000-05:002014-09-15T15:31:04.482-05:00Hosting a DebateFriend of the blog Truth Unites...and Divides has asked me to host a debate between him and another individual. I have to go away from blog for a day or two but I can give a better name to this post when I get back if the two individuals would like to carry on debating in this combox.

No links to pr0n is pretty much all I ask. Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-61782195271938978282014-09-15T15:02:00.000-05:002014-09-15T15:02:11.726-05:00Pericope Harmonisation in the Qur'anRecently I was sharing the Gospel outside a local mosque, and one of the men who talked with me mentioned that since the New Testament tells the same story a few different ways in different books, the New Testament can't be from God. In essence he was making a clumsy and unsophisticated appeal to what some call "the Synoptic problem". It isn't really a problem at all but the meme is perpetuated by the many ignorant heathens in the West who have Internet access, as well as by pretty much any Muslim with the least desire to talk to a Christian about such matters. Yet even such a luminary as Bart Ehrman once told me in private email that he considered it an insuperable task to harmonise the four accounts of Jesus' Resurrection. When I told him I was way ahead of him, he didn't reply.

Anyway, I told my Muslim friend that the Qur'an does the exact same thing and though I didn't remember the exact references, I remembered that the pericope where Allah tells Satan (Iblis) to prostrate before Adam and Satan refuses was "guilty" of the same thing that my friend was saying proves the human origin of the New Testament. He didn't believe me and I couldn't prove it at the moment, but I went back and doublechecked, and this is what I found.

Also of interest to anyone who is familiar with the biblical account of creation is the way the Qur'anic author seems to try to follow the pattern of the fall laid out in Genesis, but messes up in numerous details. Nowhere in Genesis does Satan say anything about the nakedness of the first couple. Obviously nowhere is there any angelic interaction, much less does Adam name the angels or become the object of a worshipful posture.

Acts 10:25-26 - When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter raised him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am just a man."
Revelation 19:10 - Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."
Revelation 22:8-9 - I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, "Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God."

If two or more authors or witnesses recount what they saw in ways that complement but do not contradict each other, why not consider that they are merely adding to the story from their own perspective? This Muslim argument against the divine origin of the New Testament fails, for it disproves the divine origin of the Qur'an as well.

Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-26361974305032118132014-09-13T21:50:00.000-05:002014-09-13T21:50:08.555-05:00Since I apparently can't say this...I'll just point out someone else who is saying what needs to be said about the exploitation of Braxton Caner's suicide by Ergun Caner and various others of his enablers.

I mean, this post was fine but didn't go nearly far enough in my humble opinion.Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-40661177106267299982014-09-11T12:42:00.002-05:002014-09-11T12:42:34.160-05:00Preaching About Depo-Provera at the Gates of HellRhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-63249973725487477822014-09-11T07:45:00.002-05:002014-09-11T07:45:15.303-05:00September 11 - A Good Day to RepentMore human beings will die today from abortion in the USA than died on Sept 11.

Chances are, you're not doing anything about that.

Moreover, while virtually nobody will ever have the opportunity to help stop a terrorist attack, virtually everyone has the opportunity on a daily basis to help stop the systematic butchery of children. Yet the abortionists continue their daily work and almost nobody stands in their way.

Repent, America.Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-2247991943748436732014-09-09T16:01:00.000-05:002014-09-09T16:01:00.517-05:00Leaven of the Pharisees - "authority" "sending you out"A faithful abolitionist and his family sacrificed of his time and energy to warn and preach the truth and the Gospel to attendees of a recent event in his area put on by a Word of Faith heretic.

He then posted some pictures and stories about his experience on Facebook. The following conversation ensued.

Pharisee Disciple: Hmmmm. Still trying to discern the motive here. Are y'all sent out there by a local pastor or any church government or authority?
September 7 at 9:23am

The Abolitionist In Question: The motive is love for God's Church. There are probably some sheep that are going in there that have ears to hear. We are there for them.
As far as being sent: we have King Jesus and all of His commands as authority enough as our dispatch orders.
#ChurchRepent
September 7 at 9:51am

A Former Abolitionist Who Has Ingested the Leaven of the Pharisees: His commands are to love one another assuming we are part of a governing body that He established.
Yesterday at 1:26am

Me: All believers are sent out by the authority of Jesus Christ. No other authority or sending is necessary.
A better question is: Why weren't other Christians and churches out there doing the same?
23 hours ago

Me: Where does the NT say anything about a GOVERNING body?
23 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: If you are doubting the structure that paul lays out how the churches should put forth its congregation then you are ignoring passages of scripture for your own personal desires and you must repent of your apathy of not being in a church whom has such authority to send such out for ministry. Jesus didnt call us to be individual cults running where ever our hearts believe is important. Jesus specifically wanted us to love one another and serve one another as the end of Matthew.
23 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: I am i the comfortable of the sufficiency of God's creative design of His church who is those people who are sent from. We will answer to Him why we have rebelled against His word and His people.
9 hours ago

Me: AFAWHItLotP,

I do not doubt what the Apostle Paul laid out in the NT. What I doubt is that you are properly representing what the NT teaches regarding ecclesiology.

I would like you, please, to answer my questions instead of speculating about my motives.

Also, another question:
Where does the NT speak of a local church having authority? You said they have authority. Where does the NT teach that?

Where does the NT teach something like "you can't do ministry until you have been sent out by a local church"? What does "sent out" mean biblically? Why does the Great Commission say nothing about a local church sending out a person?
7 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: Answer: The New Testament repeatedly emphasizes the importance of local assemblies. In fact, it was the pattern of Paul's ministry to establish local congregations in the cities where he preached the gospel. Hebrews 10:24-25 commands every believer to be a part of such a local body and reveals why this is necessary.

And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near (Hebrews 10:24-25).

It is only in the local body to which one is committed that there can be the level of intimacy that is required for carefully stimulating fellow-believers "to love and good deeds." And it is only in this setting that we can encourage one another.

The New Testament also teaches that every believer is to be under the protection and nurture of the leadership of the local church. These godly men can shepherd the believer by encouraging, admonishing, and teaching. Hebrews 13:7 and 17 help us to understand that God has graciously granted accountability to us through godly leadership.

Furthermore, when Paul gave Timothy special instructions about the public meetings, he said, "Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching" (1 Timothy 4:13). Part of the emphasis in public worship includes these three things: hearing the Word, being called to obedience and action through exhortation, and teaching. It is only in the context of the local assembly that these things can most effectively take place.

Acts 2:42 shows us what the early church did when they met together: "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Christians came together:

to learn God's Word and the implications of it in their lives.
to join to carry out acts of love and service to one another.
to commemorate the Lord's death and resurrection through the breaking of bread; and they prayed.
Of course, we can do these things individually; but God has called us into His body, the church, which is the local representation of that worldwide body. We should gladly minister and be ministered to among God's people.
Active local church membership is imperative to living a life without compromise. It is only through the ministry of the local church that a believer can receive the kind of teaching, accountability, and encouragement that is necessary for him to stand firm in his convictions. God has ordained that the church provide the kind of environment where an uncompromising life can thrive.

The members of the invisible Church are the actual body of believers. They are the ones who are truly regenerate and have trusted, by faith, in the true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The true Christian is indwelt by the Lord Jesus (John 14:23) through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Christian church is figuratively said to be the body of Christ.

Rom. 12:5, "So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."
Eph. 4:12, "For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ."

The word "church" comes from the Greek "ekklesia" which means "gathering" or "assembly." Therefore, the church is the gathering of the believers who come together to participate in fellowship with one another as they worship God and hear from His Word, the Bible. The church as a whole has been equipped with people possessing different spiritual gifts (Rom. 12:5-8). The purpose of the gifts is "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." (Eph. 4:12-13).

The Christian church was founded by Jesus, and He is its Head and Savior (Col. 1:18; Eph. 5:23). Being in the church, the Christian is subject to the Lordship of Jesus (Eph. 5:24) through the administration of the Word of God.

The Bible does not provide a detailed method of Church government. But, it does state that there are to be elders who govern in the church. These elders are appointed by the laying on of hands (1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6). They are to be able to teach sound doctrine and refute error (Titus 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:2).

The purpose of the church is to both glorify God and to inform the world about the work of Christ as Redeemer.
7 hours ago

The Abolitionist In Question: We are part of a local body that practices these things, and believes these things. Where have we given you the impression that that is not true? The question remains, where does it say in the NT, or even demonstrate, that we have to be "sent" by those in "authority" from a local body, to obey the commands and clear teaching of Christ?
6 hours ago · Unlike ·

Me: Of course local assemblies are important. Nobody is doubting that here. But that doesn't answer my questions, AFAWHItLotP.

Yes, I agree with your third paragraph. Nobody has questioned that here.

\\The New Testament also teaches that every believer is to be under the protection and nurture of the leadership of the local church\\

Yes, all other things being equal, that is true.
There are numerous examples of churches in the NT in which that was not true, but we don't have to discuss that for now. Also, be careful that in whatever zeal you have for the "authority" of elders that you don't diminish the fact that all believers in a local body are to be teaching each other (Col 3) and submitting to one another (Eph 5:21), and that all are to aspire to be able to be teachers (Heb 5). In my experience, those who throw around verbiage like you are throwing around want biblical cover for a church structure where a few men lead everything and then everyone else sits back and lets them provide religious services while the majority consumes those services in exchange for a fee (ie, the tithe). I pray that is not the case with you, for it is actually unbiblical.

\\Furthermore, when Paul gave Timothy special instructions about the public meetings, he said, "Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching"\\

That's fine and I agree. It doesn't answer my questions, though.

\\Acts 2:42 shows us what the early church did when they met together\\

Yes, and that looks a lot more like organic church rather than modern American institutional churches.
Also, the apostles are all dead. How do we devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching? Reading the Scripture. But how does that have anything to do with the questions I asked you?

\\Active local church membership is imperative to living a life without compromise.\

I agree, unless of course there aren't any faithful local churches around the believer in question.

\\It is only through the ministry of the local church that a believer can receive the kind of teaching, accountability, and encouragement that is necessary for him to stand firm in his convictions. \\

This denies the possibility of a large amount of apostasy in a given area and the ability of the Lord to provide for a believer in the midst of darkness all around him in a contingency case.
I understand that you're trying to say that the local church is important, and I agree with you on that. Just be careful about the way you say it, for in this sentence you have exceeded what is written.

Anyway, I pray you will look over your last comment again in light of the questions I'm actually asking, and I'd like you to answer those questions. I'm not saying local church membership is unimportant. Please read what I actually asked, and answer those questions. Thank you in advance.
6 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: We arrive at it systematically what scripture has given us. Jesus even sent out the disciples in pairs of two and He is represented as the Head of the Church. Im not going to argue with you already. Your question has been answered throughly. A mere unacceptable of my answer does not negate my answer. Even though you have accused me of exceeding what is written id like for you to actually read what has been written and check yourself to be approved. I believe that if you are not supported or built up by a local church then it is very possible you are rogue and in need of repentance.

My church does not support me financially when i go to the killincs nor let me agitate the congregation that i attend but they do pray for me and allow me to do such with the knowledge that i know the Gospel and love people.
4 hours ago

Me: \\ Jesus even sent out the disciples in pairs of two \\

Nobody is arguing Christians should go it alone.

\\ He is represented as the Head of the Church\\

Yes, Jesus is the Head of the Church. Not anyone else.

\\I believe that if you are not supported or built up by a local church\\

Whether Christians ought, all other things being equal, to be supported and built up by a local church has never been in question. I honestly think that it is you who are not reading carefully.

\\My church does not support me financially when i go to the killincs nor let me agitate the congregation that i attend but they do pray for me\\

Your church is at peace with child sacrifice.
So is the Baptist church of which I am a member.

It doesn't sound like they have "sent you out", actually, AFAWHItLotP. Are you sure you're being consistent?
4 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: That is all genetic and condescending. Im calling you out of your refusal to obey proper Church government and all your doing is getting emotional about it. My church or any church is not at peace with child sacrifice, least you pay taxes offered to child sacrifice? You are to love one another and serve one another, feed the homeless and take in the orphan, loving your neighbor is among them but isnt the only thing commanded to us to pursue. If you are at a church that is at peace with child sacrifice perhaps theres other places of service you can attend locally. If that be a problem
3 hours ago · Edited

AFAWHItLotP:: "Sent out", prayed for, ministered, taught throughly scripture, built up in godliness
3 hours ago

Me: I honestly do not believe I am getting emotional. What makes you think that I am? I think I am asking honest questions and challenging your original assertions about "authority" and being "sent out" and such.

What makes you think I disobey proper church gov't? What have I said that makes you think so? Have I given the impression that I am not a member of a local church? If I have, I apologise; I am a member.

\\My church or any church is not at peace with child sacrifice\\

I'm sorry, but if you're one of the only ones or the only one who does anything like sidewalk counseling, and if the leadership is telling you that you can't agitate your own congregation, then your church most certainly is at peace with child sacrifice.
What would make anyone think your church is not at peace with it? One single member?

\\If you are at a church that is at peace with child sacrifice perhaps theres other places of service you can attend locally\\

1) Physician, heal thyself.
2) I actually don't think that leaving the church is the best course of action, and I have my reasons, but I do sincerely appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

\\"Sent out", prayed for, ministered, taught throughly scripture, built up in godliness\\

How do the latter four items relate to being "sent out"? And why haven't you quoted any Scripture to define the term?
3 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: I have quote much scripture already. Again a unwillingness to accept my answer is not a negation of my answer.

"All believers are sent out by the authority of Jesus Christ. No other authority or sending is necessary.
A better question is: Why weren't other Christians and churches out there doing the same?"

Is this not your first of many questions i have already responded to?
2 hours ago

Me: I don't see how you have answered that question, no.
You started off asking about the authority and the sending out. I said Jesus has all authority and He sent us out.
You have said some irrelevant things after that. Perhaps it was to justify cutting off abolitionist brethren as you have done? You ought not to act or speak this way.
2 hours ago

AFAWHItLotP:: First of all Jesus sent out His disciples. Second you are cutting off brethren by speaking against churches in your comments. And what i gave you was all relevant how we drive our motive of ministry how scripture portrays not our personal "us against the world" feeling.
2 hours ago

Me: Yes, Jesus sent out His disciples.

What? "Speaking against"? No no no, not at all. Pointing out sin is not speaking against. It is a good thing. All the prophets did it. Moses did it. Jesus did it. Paul, Peter, John, Jude... all those guys did it. That is really a bad way to look at it, and a totally unbiblical way to look at it.

I guess when you tell someone at the killinic that they are sinning when they murder their child, that's "speaking against" them? Come on.

And I am not cutting off brethren, not at all. I ask you to read my comments fairly, AFAWHItLotP. You are not being fair. Nowhere did I say "and therefore I will have nothing to do with these people."

In point of fact, have you not separated yourself from abolitionists yourself, and is it not true that you are refusing to reconcile with them? Are you not being hypocritical?
about an hour ago 2

AFAWHItLotP:: Its fine to point out sin, never said you couldnt. Its the language in which you generalize "church" being in sin is a problem. Wish not that i call you out of your apathy of giving to the poor or loving your wife, because i should not assume you dont care about those in need. Do you see my point?

Im not union with abolitionist, im in union with fellow godly men and women who are in churches not of my own. Our unique diverse background gives us a greater reason to love one another and trust that the Gospel is being presented... Not just a method of how the Gospel is dispersed.

So Call me a hypocritical for wanting the proper biblical structure to have a foundation to speak the Gospel. Ive seen rogues downtown, they are either heretics or extremely off course with real biblical doctrine. - its not just me and my bible under a tree. There is family to serve and love
about an hour ago

Me: \\ Wish not that i call you out of your apathy of giving to the poor or loving your wife\\

You can and let the facts speak.
But I'm not apathetic about those things. Further, feeding the poor is not even close to as important as loving your preborn neighbor who is being murdered.

\\Do you see my point?\\

I have seen it for over a year and my response has been the same for over a year. But nobody has taken the argument any further. Nobody has responded to my arguments.

\\Im not union with abolitionist\\

You were, in some ways. Now you're not. This is unrighteous of you.

\\Our unique diverse background gives us a greater reason to love one another and trust that the Gospel is being presented\\

So repent of your cutting them off and show more love to them than you have been in recent days.

\\So Call me a hypocritical for wanting the proper biblical structure to have a foundation to speak the Gospel\\

You misunderstand. And it's not that I am calling you a hypocrite. YOU ARE a hypocrite as of now, for cutting off brethren.
Also, you don't want a proper biblical structure. You are advocating for extrabiblical rules and you are imposing them on others, like the other abolitionist here. If you disagree, PROVE your assertions about authority and sending from the Bible. Don't assume them, and don't cite irrelevant texts or texts that are out of context. Do the hard work. If you're right, and if you've been taught properly by the men you think are in authority over you, then it should be a simple task to accurately handle the Word of God.

If you can't, you ought to repent of your wrongheaded ideas and reexamine the NT.

\\ Ive seen rogues downtown, they are either heretics or extremely off course with real biblical doctrine\\

Sure, so have I. What has that to do with anything?

\\its not just me and my bible under a tree. \\

But who are you talking to? Don't talk to those guys; they're not here. Talk to ME.
about an hour ago

Me: It is also bad to believe false things about the Bible. Now, imagine a church in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, who is quite alarmed by the powerful rise in crazed anti-Jewish sentiment, turning Jews into third-class citizens, dehumanising them. Should that church intervene in the incipient Holocaust against these people? Or, should they concentrate all their time and resources on making sure that everyone in Berlin knows that the only correct Bible version is the Kaiser Johann Version?Rhologyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-18756487181645451242014-08-23T11:45:00.002-05:002014-08-23T11:45:41.329-05:00Pulpit and Pen blog - Calls to Repentance Are Not Attackshttp://pulpitandpen.org/2014/08/23/calls-to-repentance-are-not-attacks/Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-74156317357693052632014-08-14T08:00:00.002-05:002014-08-14T08:00:16.500-05:00Repent of calling to repentance!If you despise calls to repentance, that's because repentance is that which you most need.Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-76964299105391897282014-07-30T14:05:00.000-05:002014-07-30T14:05:00.077-05:00When Unitarian Universalists "Debate"AJ: Yo Matt, before you and your AHAer friends go condemning everyone else view on God, you ought to REALLY examine your own.
16 hrs

Me: We examine it all the time, and pro-abortion people are only too happy to help. We condemn falsehoods and deception, and we hope that your souls will be saved. Repent of your sin and idolatry. Place your faith in Jesus Christ, Him alone, to save you from your sin. Holding to the nonsense of UUism is not worth your soul.
16 hrs

AJ: No doubt you. Examine it a little bit more in depth Rhology. As I look back on my years as a Christian, I find it very refreshing that I am no longer tied to a belief system I did not invent or join because of upbringing.
16 hrs

Me: I didn't join it b/c of upbringing. I joined it b/c Jesus transformed me, brought me to repentance, forgave my sin, and told me to follow Him.
Why don't you follow Jesus?
8 hrs

Angel: Rhology, if Jesus told you to jump off a cliff would you?
7 hrs

Me: Sure. But that of course brings up a couple of questions, specifically how I would know it was Jesus talking.
Since the devil tempted Jesus to do that very thing and Jesus told him that one should not put the Lord to the test, there is every reason to think you have proposed an impossible and therefore empty hypothetical.
How about this, though? If He told me to love UUs so much that I would not pass up an opportunity to be seen as a fool and a crazy person in the eyes of my own culture if I may offer them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I would obey.
3 hrs

AJ: Simple, Jesus isn't for me. I came from a denomination where Jesus was all it.
When I was still a Christian,
other Christians would usually expect me to show
how a certain belief was based in the Bible. Not a problem usually, I know the Bible backwards and forwards. Now I have developed my own spirituality. I prefer spiritual progress, not digression and stagnation.
3 hrs

Angel: Rhology, You claim Jesus told you to follow him, your own words, how do you know it is not the devil? You claim my sentence is an empty hypothetical, and since yours is just the same then yours must be an empty hypothetical, in which case Jesus did not tell you to follow him but you claim he did ... Kind of crazy of you make all that up no?
3 hrs · Edited

Me: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Him. What flaw do you find in Jesus that you don't follow Him?

\\You claim Jesus told you to follow him, your own words, how do you know it is not the devil? \\

Because the devil wouldn't tell me to serve his mortal enemy.

Angel, could you be wrong about everything you claim to know?
3 hrs

Angel: Rhology, could you be wrong about the devil telling you to follow a made up two dimensional Jesus that does not allow you to grow spiritually?
3 hrs

Angel: Rhology, you are underestimating the devil
3 hrs

AJ: You enjoy looking bavkwards, instead of moving forwards.
3 hrs

Me: Angel, no I cannot be wrong about that. Because Jesus has said it with certainty.
How am I underestimating him? The Bible tells me what he can and can't do. You're just imagining things.
3 hrs

AJ: Most religious affirm one sacred text and other religions was founded by a single person. I prefer neither, as the basic 'truths' of that religion are found in looking back only. Death to spirituity, is found there.
3 hrs

Me: AJ:, how do you know what forward is?
3 hrs

Me: My religion was revealed by God.
3 hrs

AJ: As says the God of the Bible. Of course.
3 hrs

Angel: AJ:, I am getting out of here. It seems Rhology is one of those false prophets who know everything, so not worth my time and words, he even claims to know G**, that is blasphemous at best.
3 hrs

AJ: We welcome new thinking, Rhology. instead of testing any new insights against an established tradition of 'truth'.
3 hrs

AJ: Fundamentalist Christians believe they know everything, Angel. Biblically speaking.
3 hrs

AJ: Forward is whatever does not hold us down or back spiritually or held down rationally. We are free to change to any religion, without changing churches.
I know why you probably prefer to look to One.
3 hrs

Me: \\Fundamentalist Christians believe they know everything, Angel. Biblically speaking.\\

False.

\\Forward is whatever does not hold us down or back spiritually or held down rationally.\\

how do you know what is forward and backward?

\\I know why you probably prefer to look to One.\\

If it rhymes with "He saved me from my sin and wretchedness", then yes, you might indeed know why.
3 hrs

AJ: "False"
You missed "Biblically speaking"
My way, or the highway.
Faith alone, in Christ alone.
Jesus saves! Repent and believe!
You might disagree on small details, but over all you do think you know everything Biblically.

We use our own rationale, Rhology. Or did you not know that?
3 hrs

AJ: It is just as when you are ill and you are taking medicine. Won't you be able to feel whether you are getting healthy or not? If you do not feel it, the progression forward, instead of digression, the question arises of whether you are getting well or not, moving forward. You alone can attest to it yourself (as you only need to affirm it to you alone) if you are making progress in any particular area.

Not held down by one belief.
2 hrs

Me: Have your feelings ever deceived you?
2 hrs

AJ: Of course. All have.
I Ieave the results of my beliefs to the existence of my comfort.

Explain to me, how you are comfortable in Fundamentalism.
2 hrs

Me: So if your feelings have deceived you, how do you know you correctly interpreted them when you thought they were telling you you were heading forward?
2 hrs

AJ: Again I Ieave the results of my beliefs to the existence of my comfort.
Like anyone else, feelings can be wrong. At any time they could be interpreted incorrectly.

There is no fixed road. Everyone is on a different path.
2 hrs

Me: How do you know there is no fixed road? That sounds like a fixed statement.
2 hrs

AJ: Everyone believes what they want Rhology.

There is a big difference between a fixed statement and walking a preferred path of life.
2 hrs

Me: \\There is a big difference between a fixed statement and walking a preferred path of life.\\

How do you know this?
2 hrs

Me: Let me ask it this way. Suppose Joe thinks that he is morally obligated to rape and kill five 10 year old girls today, would he be mistaken?
2 hrs

AJ: He would be unmistakably evil.
2 hrs

Me: But he thinks he is doing the right thing. You think he's doing the wrong thing.
How can I, as a third party observer, know which of you is correct?
2 hrs

AJ: I believe God gives us certain morals that are engrained in us. That never leaves. We know right from wrong. He is going against his good conscience.

Whether we follow those already given morals or not, is another thing.

He's chosen his own wicked path.
1 hr

Me: You believe this? Is it true, or is that just what you believe?

How do you know that Joe isn't fully convinced that Joe's god commands him to rape those girls? How do you know his conscience bothers him? And so what? What does "his conscience bothers him" have to do with moral goodness?

Could you please answer my question about the third party observer?
1 hr

AJ: Why don't we just talk about Hitler or any other mass murderer?
A third party observer might agree or disagree with the man. You can't really know unless you hold to some absolute moral code. Doesn't mean the third party observer is right either. Morals can only come from God. I do not believe in a wicked God, there's too much good in the world.

Most have a sensitive conscience to murder. Unless they deaden it.
1 hr

Me: So a third party observer can't know that raping and killing girls is wrong? Do I understand you correctly?
1 hr

AJ: It they believe morals are subjective, they can't.
1 hr

Me: OK, thank you.
Is it morally obligatory to pursue true beliefs, and once discovered, to believe them?
1 hr

AJ: If we wish to be viewed as different then animals. Yes.
If you wish to not be duped by a lie. Yes.
I would call it a moral obligation.
1 hr

Me: OK so it is a moral obligation.
How can we know the moral truth about anything, since you seem to be telling me that it is not possible to KNOW FOR SURE that even something like raping little girls is objectively wrong?
1 hr

AJ: We are all on a spiritual journey and I in my walk have not arrived at that absolute truth yet. Every path is individual and personal. The way I think about things could change at anytime.
1 hr

Me: How do you know you haven't arrived at that absolute truth yet? Is that true?
1 hr

AJ: It's true Rhology, and it can change at anytime.

Let me ask you something, as a Christian, you think I once believed Christianity was the absolute truth?

Things change.
1 hr

Me: I didn't ask for you to give me your blind faith confession. I asked you HOW YOU KNOW you haven't arrived.

I don't know what you once believed. I do know you were never a Christian.
1 hr

AJ: Put that way, I have no idea I have not reached the top of all I may know. So I will keep pressing forward and learning. Seeing if my mind can be changed and transformed.
1 hr

Me: But you don't know whether you're pressing forward, or heading backward, do you?
1 hr

AJ: Try the Puritan confession.

In my mind I'm moving forward.
1 hr

Me: But do you know for sure that the Puritan confession is 100% correct?

In your mind? Have you ever thought "In my mind I am moving forward" at a given moment, but later realised you were mistaken?
If so, how do you know you're not mistaken now?
1 hr

AJ: I disagree with the Puritan Confession. It is my former thought process and beliefs.

I could be wrong at any given time. That wouldn't be a shock to me. I currently prefer comfort, over conformity to a system.
1 hr

Me: If you could be wrong at any given time, and you don't think that Jesus is the only way to the Father and to have forgiveness of sin, shouldn't you repent of your self-centered approach to seeking truth?
You have two options:
1) Repent and follow Jesus Christ.
2) Persist in your worldview, which is literally absurd. And which will lead you straight to Hell after a life of meaninglessness.
48 mins

AJ: I'm done repenting and the gospel as a whole means nothing to me. I would have claimed to follow Jesus Christ as Lord. I changed my mind about him and Christianity and general. The old ways, are not always the best for everyone.
43 mins

Me: You have already admitted that you don't know what is best, because you don't know what is better, or even good.

If you were to follow Jesus, you would have answers to these questions. Consistent answers. Answers that are rational, and that don't lead you to saying that you can't say whether raping little girls is objectively morally wrong.

Think about it.
38 mins

AJ: No, what I said is God gives morals. Not everyone follows those morals. We have our own religious belief and paths ALL THE TIME. Peoples perspective changes, what they think they once knew as truth, can change. Such as I.
I just dont stick to one book anymore.
24 mins · Edited

Me: Sure you do. When you think about what you want and your autonomous desires, you are opening your sacred book. You are an idolater.

You have already admitted that you don't know what is best, because you don't know what is better, or even good.
23 mins

AJ: I follow many sources. According to Christianity indeed I am an "idolater", but then we are a lot of things according to that religion of which I refuse to abide by.
I like my standard. Why do you keep holding to something so old and dead?
Christianity is moving out.
11 mins

Me: You refuse, but you don't actually have a good reason for doing so other than that you feel like it.
You are an idolater because you are doing whatever you want rather than to do what Jesus commands you to do.
8 mins

AJ: Hopefully you will become enlightened, to more then just John 14:6
Have a good day Rhology.
3 minsRhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-39651335976089200022014-07-28T09:06:00.002-05:002014-07-28T09:06:29.286-05:00Some Bad Advice From Tony Mianohttp://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/07/some-bad-advice-from-tony-miano.htmlRhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-50434701952521786352014-07-21T08:16:00.002-05:002014-07-21T08:16:41.325-05:00Another faithless liberalI don't care how many times liberals tell me that they love Jesus and all that. Ask them enough questions and you find that they actually love themselves quite a bit more. Check out this comment conversation that developed on a video of mine:

ors712
3 weeks ago

Character assassination against Old and New Testament scholars who come to conclusions other than what is deemed acceptable by fundamentalist Christian apologists hardly qualifies as a meaningful critique of their research or positions.

Rhology
3 weeks ago

Huh?

ors712
3 weeks ago

+Rhology White mentions at 1:32 that much of the scholarship pertaining to the Bible in mainline Universities are anti Christian. Although White may interpret it that way, there are many Christian scholars of both Old and New Testament teaching in seminaries who have views that are very similar if not identical to the "anti-Christian liberals" whom White is referring to. Is this because these Christian scholars are looking for ways to deceive people? Hardly. White says that Old Testament studies has never recovered from the critical analysis from the German scholars of the 19th century (3:35-3:41), as if to say that the approach to the Old Testament has been damaged in some way. On the contrary, it is because the literary and documentary evidence of multiple scribal hands, redactions, anachronisms, and diverse theological outlook is so massive that scholars can no longer hold to the simple conclusions that were once held in regard to Biblical authorship and inerrancy such as "Moses wrote every word from Genesis 1 to Deuteronomy 34, because that's what our tradition tells us". To White, this is poison (8:24) and he wants to interpret the situation in pure black and white terms by insisting that anyone who doesn't agree with how he thinks scholarship should be done are perishing and are doomed to hell. In my opinion, that is hardly a basis for substantiating the claims he is making.

Rhology
2 weeks ago

+ors712 \\Is this because these Christian scholars are looking for ways to deceive people?\\

How do you know that?

\\as if to say that the approach to the Old Testament has been damaged in some way\\

You don't think widespread liberalism has damaged real study of the Bible?

\\it is because the literary and documentary evidence of multiple scribal hands, redactions, anachronisms, and diverse theological outlook is so massive that scholars can no longer hold to the simple conclusions that were once held in regard to Biblical authorship and inerrancy such as "Moses wrote every word from Genesis 1 to Deuteronomy 34, because that's what our tradition tells us".\\

Ah, thanks for showing your hand.
As if these liberal "conclusions" aren't themselves based on naturalistic presuppositions. White interacts with that sort of idea all the time, as have many others. Liberalism is a position based in human imagination. It has no rational merit.

\\he wants to interpret the situation in pure black and white terms by insisting that anyone who doesn't agree with how he thinks scholarship should be done are perishing and are doomed to hell.\\

This is not a fair analysis of what White said or thinks.

ors712
2 weeks ago

+Rhology First, I never said that Christian scholars who are persuaded by the documentary theories of the Pentateuch are trying to deceive people. Rather, they agree with the theory because it accounts for much of the evidence that we see in a satisfactory way. Second, in regards to liberalism, you would have to define more clearly what you mean by "liberal" because it means different things for different people.

Is someone a liberal because they happen to notice that Matthew's ending of the story of Jesus walking on the water results in the disciples worshiping him and claiming that he is the Son of God (Matt 14:33), as opposed to Marks account, while depicting the same event, portrays the disciples not as worshiping him or confessing his divine sonship, but rather that their hearts were hardened because they did not understand about the loaves (6:51-52)? Which account is historically accurate? They both have contradictory endings. These aren't things that "liberal scholars" made up. Are the discrepancies between these two accounts the result of an anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions?

I know White has interacted with and expressed his extreme frustration with scholars who don't agree with him. However, the mere fact that White has attempted to interact with these scholarly viewpoints doesn't automatically mean that White's arguments are convincing. They might be convincing for White in his own mind, but that does not reflect the many scholars (conservative included) who would disagree with White's presuppositions about the nature of how to approach the text. This has little if anything to do with what you conceive "liberalism" to be. It has more to do with how one explains the diverse traditions preserved in different writings and how the writers adjusted and changed the material in order to promote the vision they wanted. And to merely cast aside the views of the majority of scholars engaging in both Old and New Testament studies today simply because White thinks that they are not exercising their scholarship "under the Lordship of Christ" is a cheap dodge.

Does White also think that since the Biblical writers thought that the sky above was a solid dome (Genesis 1:6-8; Job 37:18; Proverbs 8:28; Psalm 148:4) then modern astronomy, despite all of the evidence it has given us, is automatically wrong because it is not exercising its astronomy under the Lordship of Christ? If White doesn't believe that the sky is a solid dome then he is already disagreeing with the Biblical writers and could be branded a "liberal".

My comments are not a personal attack against you or your faith or James White's faith. I am a Christian myself and have had to think about these things long and hard. What I am disagreeing with here is the way in which White declares his presuppositions regarding the nature of scholarship and biblical inspiration as if it were an absolute objective viewpoint without any biased approach whatsoever.

Rho Logy
2 weeks ago

+ors712 \\Which account is historically accurate?\\

Both.
It is possible to say multiple things one right after the other.

\\They both have contradictory endings\\

You'd need an argument to that effect.

\\I know White has interacted with and expressed his extreme frustration with scholars who don't agree with him.\\

Unfair representation.

\\However, the mere fact that White has attempted to interact with these scholarly viewpoints doesn't automatically mean that White's arguments are convincing.\\

True. It means that the ball is in the libs' court.

\\ how the writers adjusted and changed the material in order to promote the vision they wanted\\

Assumption. You need to PROVE that.

\\Does White also think that since the Biblical writers thought that the sky above was a solid dome (Genesis 1:6-8; Job 37:18; Proverbs 8:28; Psalm 148:4) then modern astronomy, despite all of the evidence it has given us, is automatically wrong because it is not exercising its astronomy under the Lordship of Christ? \\

I don't see any reason to think that the texts are expressing that the sky is literally a solid dome.
Not persuasive. What's your argument?

\\ I am a Christian myself\\

When you think the Scriptures contain errors, saying "I am a Christian" is a pretty empty claim. How do you even know what it means to be a Christian? How do you know anything about Jesus?

\\have had to think about these things long and hard.\\

Keep thinking. So far you're preferring worldly wisdom to the godly kind.

ors712
2 weeks ago

+Rho Logy "both are historically accurate. Its possible to say one thing right after another"
 If its possible to say one thing right after another, then why did neither Matthew nor Mark do so? Your response isn't grounded in anything which can be proved because neither Matthew nor Mark say what you claim they are saying. You are mashing both accounts together and then claiming: "See, both happened". That solution is just an unpersuasive to any critical scholar as my solution of them having contradictory endings is to you.

If you are interested in what the current scholarly consensus is regarding the relationship between the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), and how both Matthew and Luke used Mark's Gospel as a source for writing their own and changed and altered the details, see R.H. Stein, "The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction", Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1987. Stein is not a radical liberal scholar. He is more conservative in his views, yet the state of the evidence is so overwhelming that even he can't deny the dependency of Matt and Luke upon Mark.

Nothing of what I said concerning Dr. Whites frustration with scholars who disagree with him is unfair or a misrepresentation of him. Just watch his episodes of the "Dividing Line" radio program where the only argument he gives against those scholars is: "Well, they're not exercising their scholarship under the Lordship of Christ".

"The ball is in the liberal's court"

No, the ball is in everyone's court who has enough intellectual integrity to not fight against what should be obvious to them. Ancient Jews, Rabbis and the Targum writers all knew there were contradictions in the Biblical texts and sought to smooth over them with radical reinterprative techniques to gloss over any difficulties that may arise. Since the majority of people in the ancient world were illiterate, no one could challenge them!

As for the sky being a solid dome, Take Job 37:18: "Can you like him spread out the skies, HARD AS A MOLTEN MIRROR?" The author is under the impression that the sky is a solid mass. The sky has to be a solid mass in order to PREVENT THE WATER ABOVE IT FROM FALLING TO THE EARTH, Genesis 1:7 says that the the dome SEPARATES the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. Psalm 148:4 says the same thing; "Praise him you highest heavens, AND YOU WATERS ABOVE THE HEAVENS". This understanding of the world was the same amongst every ancient near eastern desert tribal society of the Bronze age including Babylon, Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc etc. For documentation, see J.H. Walton, "Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament", Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006, pg 168-169. For further sources, see P. Enns, "Inspiration and Incarnation" Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005, pg 54. See also, B.W. Anderson, "Understanding the Old Testament", New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007, pg 414.

I know about Jesus because of the miraculous transforming power that his sacraficial death and resurrection has had upon my life. I didn't reason my way to Jesus, I believe in him because in my heart I know he is my savior and that apart from his grace I am nothing. Errors in the biblical texts mean nothing to me. technical knowledge has little to do with salvation. salvation is by grace through faith. However, I do feel that White's form of Biblical inerrancy doesn't deal adequately with the current state of the evidence.

Like i said before , none of my comments are directed against you personally. My comments are only here to express a different perspective than what Dr. White has presented in this video. If you would like to continue this conversation then we can. If not, then we can stop it here

Rhology
1 week ago

+ors712 Of course nothing personal.

\\ If its possible to say one thing right after another, then why did neither Matthew nor Mark do so?\\

I'd ask them, not me.

\\ Your response isn't grounded in anything which can be proved \\

And neither can your allegation be proved, because either is possible.

\\You are mashing both accounts together and then claiming: "See, both happened". That solution is just an unpersuasive to any critical scholar \\

You mean, to any scholar who is selectively critical of the Bible but does "both happened" with other ancient texts.

\\If you are interested in what the current scholarly consensus \\

I'm not, actually, but thanks anyway. the changing tides of "modern scholarship" bore me, b/c they never deal with the heart of the issue - their faulty presuppositions.

\\yet the state of the evidence is so overwhelming that even he can't deny the dependency of Matt and Luke upon Mark.\\

He's wrong. Matt and Mark both rely on Luke. Prove me wrong.
I mean, that kind of stuff is just foolish. I'd even say a waste of time.

\\ Ancient Jews, Rabbis and the Targum writers all knew there were contradictions in the Biblical texts and sought to smooth over them with radical reinterprative techniques \\

OK, thanks for putting all your cards on the table.
I'd like to know now, since the Bible is contradictory and yet claims to be God's Word, how you can know which parts are from God and which aren't?

\\I know about Jesus because of the miraculous transforming power that his sacraficial death and resurrection has had upon my life.\\

Plenty of ppl have experienced life change at the hands of all kinds of things. Islam, Transcendental Meditation, Mormonism.
how do you know Jesus rose from the dead, anyway?

\\Errors in the biblical texts mean nothing to me.\\

That's because your reasoning is too shallow. Answer my questions and let's go deeper.

\\salvation is by grace through faith\\

how do you know?

ors712
1 week ago

+Rhology "i'd ask them, not me" Your response assumes that both Matthew and Mark agree that both things were said/done, but for some unknown reason, neither of them decided to include both. I'm sorry, that is just not convincing. Nothing in the text indicates that both were done, and your "I bet both did" approach doesn't attempt to explain the evidence we have.

"either is possible". True, its POSSIBlE. However, just because something is possible doesn't mean that it is probable. For example, did Jesus get annointed by the woman 6 days before Passover (John 12:1-8)? or did he get annointed by the woman 2 days before the Passover (Mark 14:1-9)? Is it really reasonable to think that Jesus got annointed twice within Passover week by the same woman, or that he got annointed twice by two different woman, despite the same conversation occurring in both accounts? Oh sure, its POSSIBLE, but the real question is "Is it probable"? The reasonable thing to infer is that the author of the Fourth and Second Gospels both had access to a tradition of an annointing of Jesus by a woman, yet they decided to put the event in two different places in their accounts thus creating a contradiction about when the annointing happened.

"scholars who say "both happened" with other ancient texts" Can you give me an example so I can research it for myself?

I'm sorry to hear that you are not interested in reading scholars to find out if their findings have any merit. That reveals to me that you are not really interested in learning, but are rather hiding behind the notion that scholars have "false presuppositions". Sir, everyone has presuppositions. One should not shy away from information because it makes them uncomfortable. Actually James White himself encourages Christians to read critical scholars in order to become familiar with their arguments.

"Thanks for putting your cards on the table" You make it sound as if i have been playing hide and seek this whole time. I have nothing to hide nor do I shy away from talking about what I have read.

Knowing that the Bible is God's word has to do with the transforming effect that it has on ones life. It is all from God. The real question is if you are willing to allow the word of God to also be a human word, which bears the mark of human experience and human situations which have all of the cultural and intellectual limitations that any other human being in the world has.

"How do you know Jesus rose from the dead anyway?" I don't pretend to "know" such things or to be able to "prove" them. How could I or anyone else? However, I trust that God did it and my faith rests on trust, not proof.

"My reasoning is too shallow" I'm sorry you feel that way, given that all of your responses to my points indicate that errors in the Bible would be very troubling and uncomfortable for you if you were to find out that they exist.

Now that I have answered your questions, I am still willing to continue talking if you would care to join me. By the way, did you ever look up those books which talk about the sky being a solid dome?

Rhology
1 week ago

+ors712
Yes, I presume inerrancy, because the alternative is literal absurdity. Unless and until you can give me a reason to think Matthew and Mark are actually disagreeing better than "I'm sorry, that is just not convincing", you don't have a leg to stand on.

\\ Nothing in the text indicates that both were done\\

But something in BOTH texts indicates that both were done. Namely, that one mentions the one and the other, the other.

\\True, its POSSIBlE\\

Then your argument is moot.

\\For example, did Jesus get annointed by the woman 6 days before Passover (John 12:1-8)? or did he get annointed by the woman 2 days before the Passover (Mark 14:1-9)? \\

Both. Or perhaps there is some sort of textual variation with the number of days or something.
Do you think that Jesus only had a dramatic effect on the life of one single woman? Or maybe He had a great effect on several women.

\\Oh sure, its POSSIBLE, but the real question is "Is it probable"?\\

A better question is: If the Scripture has errors, how in the world do I know anything at all about God?

\\hiding behind the notion that scholars have "false presuppositions".\\

It's not hiding. I have limited time, and unless I have some assurance that Scholar X is not simple-mindedly holding to false presupps, I don't have any reason to delve further.

\\Knowing that the Bible is God's word has to do with the transforming effect that it has on ones life\\

Glenn Beck's life was transformed by Mormonism.

\\It is all from God.\\

So God makes errors.
We don't worship the same God, you and I.

\\The real question is if you are willing to allow the word of God to also be a human word\\

Unlike you, I don't assume that that which also has a human source has to have error. What do you think will be Heaven?

\\ I don't pretend to "know" such things or to be able to "prove" them. How could I or anyone else?\\

Well, you could start with good presuppositions, that God's Word is true. Then you'd know for sure.
As it stands, it would appear you're a fideist.
You're more sure that there are errors in the Bible than that Jesus rose from the dead.

Tell me, please, one thing you know for certain and how you know it.

\\did you ever look up those books which talk about the sky being a solid dome?\\

Sorry, I honestly don't have time to mess with stuff like that.

ors712
1 week ago

+Rhology "Until you can give me a reason to think that Matthew and Mark are actually disagreeing, you don't have a leg to stand on" Let me give you a few other examples to illustrate the point that Matthew freely changed Mark's account. How many demoniacs came out of the tomb to see Jesus, one (Mark 5:1-10)? or two (Matt 8:28-33)? How many blind people did Jesus cure when leaving Jericho, one (Mark 10:46-52)? or two (Matt 20:29-34)? When Jesus curses the fig tree, did it wither the next day (Mark 11:12-21)? or immediately (Matt 21:18-20)? Did Jesus curse the fig tree BEFORE the temple cleansing (Mark 11:12-19)? or AFTER (Matt 21:12-22)?

"But something in BOTH texts indicates that BOTH were done, namely that one mentions the one, and the other mentions the other" Really? Then I suppose that Jesus must have been present in two different places at the same time since Mark 15:25 says that Jesus got crucified at 9:00 am and John 19:14-16 says that at noon on the same day Jesus was still in Pilate's headquarters? By your logic that means that Jesus was both on the cross and talking to Pilate in his headquarters at the same time. Do you believe this?

"A better question is: If the scripture has errors, how in the world do I know anything about God?" Knowing God has little if anything to do with technical knowledge. Rather, knowing God is by the transforming effect of the Holy Spirit's power in one's life.

"Unless I have some assurance that scholar X is not simple-mindedly holding to false presupps, I don't have any reason to delve further." Scholars who devote their entire lives to studying the Biblical languages, archaeology, and history of a particular movement cannot in any way afford to be simple minded. a PHD candidate cannot afford to be simple minded in the arena of academic integrity where he is constantly being critiqued and peer reviewed by other scholars. They must weigh the evidence and explain its phenomena in ways that are not bound by a predetermined resolve that there can be no errors or differences of thought amongst the evidence.

Rhology
6 days ago

+ors712 Let me tell you what you're doing here, first of all. You're putting your own human reason over God's Word. You think you've found errors. You think you know better than God. Or, you think that only parts of the Bible are actually God's Word. Well, in that case, as the old guard conservatives during the SBC resurgence used to say, it's inspired in spots, and you have to be inspired to spot the spots. 30 years and y'all liberals are still not any closer to answering that problem, that your position puts you in the place of authority over the Word of God, rather than submitting yourself to its authority.

What would be really honest is if you would go ahead and admit that you are an adherent to a different religion, like Machen said. I mean, it's preferable you repent and follow Jesus for real, but failing that, at least speak truth as you walk the path to death and Hell.

Your objections read like you've never even heard of basic Bible "contradiction" resolution materials like Geisler's "When Critics Ask".

But just to make it more fun, I'll see if I can answer you without recourse to some other material.

Two demoniacs came out and Jesus healed two blind men. Where there's two, there's always one.

The fig tree withered immediately and the disciples commented on it the next day also. You've misread the texts there, which is no surprise.

It's well known that Matthew doesn't present his narrative in a strict chronological order.

As far as Mark 15:25, it doesn't say 9am. That's your interpretation. It says "It was the third hour when they crucified Him."
John 19 says: Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!"

You said this:
\\Knowing God has little if anything to do with technical knowledge. \\

That sounds like a piece of technical knowledge right there.
How do you know it?
And once you answer that, please let me know whether your answer is technical knowledge.

Jesus said that He is the TRUTH. God places a high value on truth in the Scripture. This stuff matters. Do you want to be happy in an illusion, or do you want to believe what is true?

\\knowing God is by the transforming effect of the Holy Spirit's power in one's life. \\

That sounds like a piece of technical knowledge right there.
How do you know it?
And again, remember how I mentioned Glenn Beck?

\\Scholars who devote their entire lives to studying the Biblical languages, archaeology, and history of a particular movement cannot in any way afford to be simple minded.\\

Yeah, or else he might be rejected and hated by the world, like Jesus said.
Think this through, man. Come on.

\\They must weigh the evidence and explain its phenomena in ways that are not bound by a predetermined resolve that there can be no errors or differences of thought amongst the evidence.\\

You're being intellectually unfair here, implying that only the inerrantist has presuppositions. Rather, BOTH sides have presupps. The question is: Which presupps are better?

Rhology
6 days ago

+ors712 Also, I have a personal Internet rule. I allow lost people like yourself 5 chances to provide a Bible "contradiction" that I can't answer. 5 chances and no more. You've used up your allotment, so kindly don't distract the convo with any more of those. You have much more basic challenges to address anyway.

Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-4069177933071085402014-07-09T15:07:00.000-05:002014-07-09T15:07:19.669-05:00Open Theism followupTeh Interw3bz are abuzz today about the debate between James White and Bob Enyart, which resulted in a massive success for White if the two cross-ex periods that are now available are any indication.

An open theist talked to me about it:

Christopher Minor Rhol, what were James White's responses to Bob's four main arguments in his opening statement? They were:

If God is free, the future is open.
The Incarnation proves God is not outside of time and not immutable.
The five biblical attributes of God are different than the five philosophical attributes of God.
Time cannot be created because time is a prerequisite to bring something from non-existence to existence.

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Christopher Minor Rhol, I predict that James White did not answer these and that you cannot either. But I'm all ears.

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Rhol Ogy I haven't listened to the whole debate, just the two cross-ex periods.

My answers are:
God is free and His decree is perfect, both.
God the Son ENTERED INTO time and yet He remains immutable. How? Kenosis. It's quite mysterious. Yet it's true.
I don't know what the 5 attributes are you're referring to.
As for this:
\\Time cannot be created because time is a prerequisite to bring something from non-existence to existence.\\

1) You don't know that from the Bible. So it's pagan philosophy, which makes me LOL.
2) The Bible says that God is timeless.
3) The Bible says God created everything. Time is part of everything.

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Rhol Ogy Could Jesus choose to cease to exist?

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Christopher Minor Rhol, it looks like your post got cut off. The answers are missing.

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Rhol Ogy refresh; I edited

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Christopher Minor //God is free and His decree is perfect, both.//

Was God free to decree, meaning He had the ability not to? Was God free to decree differently? And once God decreed, is He free to change His decree?

//God the Son ENTERED INTO time and yet He remains immutable.//

God the Son had one nature in eternity past and now has two natures. How is that not a change? And do you see the sequence experienced by God the Son? He was God the Son with one nature first, and God the Son with two natures second. That is a before and after, which means God is not outside of time.

//I don't know what the 5 attributes are you're referring to.//

5 Biblical attributes: Living, Personal, Relational, Good and Loving
5 Philosophical attributes: Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Immutability, Impassibility

Christ was all 5 of the biblical attributes in the emptied incarnate state, but none of the 5 philosophical attributes, yet remained God. This proves the 5 biblical attributes are essential to God and the 5 philosophical attributes are not, because Christ remained God without them.

//1) You don't know that from the Bible. So it's pagan philosophy, which makes me LOL.//

God being outside of time came from pagan philosophy, not the Bible.

//2) The Bible says that God is timeless.//

No it doesn't.

//3) The Bible says God created everything. Time is part of everything.//

Time is not part of everything, like truth and morality are not part of everything. Time, truth and morality all exist, yet none were created by God. They flow from His nature. We experience linear duration because God does.

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Rhol Ogy Was God free to decree, meaning He had the ability not to? --- Yes. Since God doesn't have a decree, could His will to bring about the final Eschaton the way He wants be thwarted?

Was God free to decree differently? --- Not sure. His decree is perfect, so you're asking whether He is free to decree imperfection. Does your god even know what perfection is? If so, how? Does that idea ever change?

once God decreed, is He free to change His decree? --- His decree has never not existed, and it has always been perfect. Can your god be sure that anything he says will certainly come to pass?

God the Son had one nature in eternity past and now has two natures. How is that not a change? --- Because Hebrews 13:8.

That is a before and after, which means God is not outside of time. --- He entered into time for a reason and a purpose b/c He is omnipotent.
Since your god is inside time, doesn't that mean that there are things that have always existed alongside him? That he didn't create? Which means your god is not a necessary being?

Christ was all 5 of the biblical attributes in the emptied incarnate state, but none of the 5 philosophical attributes, yet remained God. --- Like pretty much all open theists I've talked to, you never take the kenosis into account.

God being outside of time came from pagan philosophy, not the Bible. --- Except for all the times God says that He created everything. So it's what I said, not what you said.

Time is not part of everything, like truth and morality are not part of everything. --- LOL. I'm not part of everything either. I am sui generis!

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Christopher Minor //Was God free to decree, meaning He had the ability not to? --- Yes.//

This means that the future was open and not settled. Which also means God did not have exhaustive foreknowledge until He decreed. Which means the God of Calvinism learns. He increased in knowledge once He decided what to decree.

//Was God free to decree differently? --- Not sure.//

If God could not have decreed differently, then He is not free. But I believe God has libertarian free will. And that means He has the ability to choose. Let's make this simple for you. Could God have created the universe differently, with just one more grain of sand than He did? And how would one more grain of sand make the universe "imperfect"?

//once God decreed, is He free to change His decree?//

Yes or No?

//God the Son had one nature in eternity past and now has two natures. How is that not a change? --- Because Hebrews 13:8.//

That's not an answer. Does Hebrews 13:8 mean that Jesus did not grow in wisdom and stature?

//That is a before and after, which means God is not outside of time. --- He entered into time for a reason and a purpose b/c He is omnipotent.//

I didn't ask about God entering into time. How do you account for the sequence experienced by God going from one nature in eternity past to two natures in eternity future? When you meet Him, He will have two natures. When Enoch met Him, He only had one.

//Like pretty much all open theists I've talked to, you never take the kenosis into account.//

This is not an answer. Christ remained God, yet was not omniscient. This means that omniscience is not an essential attribute of God.

//God being outside of time came from pagan philosophy, not the Bible. --- Except for all the times God says that He created everything.//

Did God create truth and morality? Yes or no?

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Rhol Ogy No no no... Your turn to answer my questions. Then we can proceed with yours.

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Christopher Minor We're not finished with my original questions. Once we hash those out, I'm all yours. You can ask me whatever you want and I'll answer everything with a direct Yes or No.

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Rhol Ogy \\We're not finished with my original questions.\\

And we haven't even started with my own original questions.

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Rhol Ogy \\You can ask me whatever you want and I'll answer everything with a direct Yes or No.\\

Go ahead and start now. thanks!

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Christopher Minor Rhol, it's clear you can't answer my questions. I'm content with that.

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Rhol Ogy Shrug. I gave a lot more answers than you did.

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Christopher Minor I'm prepared to answer many more from you. I predicted (originally) that you could not answer Bob's four main arguments. I want to finish that challenge before moving on to something else. It makes it easier to follow.

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Rhol Ogy I'm prepared to answer many more from you as well including the follow-ups you sent rather than answering my own questions.

At this point, one of us has ponied up some dough. The other is ruffling his fur, trying to look big.,

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Christopher Minor Well, you have an opportunity to prove my prediction wrong. I'll be waiting. Feel free to post on my wall anytime. Thanks.

Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-81156448583924037692014-06-23T13:30:00.000-05:002014-06-23T13:30:00.813-05:00Pulpit and Pen blog - For Out of Much Affliction and Anguish of Heart I Wrote to Youhttp://pulpitandpen.org/2014/06/20/for-out-of-much-affliction-and-anguish-of-heart-i-wrote-to-you/Rhologyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-13358611.post-49041310840208236492014-06-15T17:34:00.001-05:002014-06-15T17:34:57.345-05:00Intellectual Dishonesty Is TiresomeIt may look like I'm being really mean and nasty to this Will Duffy, but you have to understand that our relationship started off decently well. He (wrongly) calls himself an abolitionist and all that, likes talking theology, etc. OK, cool. But he is a open theist. So we debated that here and there, but what I've noticed from him and others in his little FB clique is that they do not care enough to learn. This is like the tenth time we've been around this same discussion. It is a waste of time to actually answer his questions again so I started asking him to demonstrate that he actually cares enough to engage with some measure of intellectual honesty. Sadly, it would appear that he does not care enough to do that.

Note that while I am trying to get away from the moniker "Calvinist", it will take some time to root out of my every day vocabulary. When you see me say "Calvinist", just substitute "regenerational monergist".

Will Duffy The Calvinist doctrine of grace is not love at all. It's more like the equivalent of rape.
June 12 at 1:06pm · Like

Rhol Ogy Count on Will Duffy to say stupid things and lies. Like clockwork.
June 12 at 1:07pm · Like · 2

Will Duffy That's not very substantive Rhol. Rape is when a man forces himself on a woman and does not allow her to resist. The Calvinist doctrine of grace is quite similar. God forces Himself on you (arbitrarily I might add) and does not allow you to resist His grace.

Not sure why you think I was lying and not sure why you think what I said was stood, but you're free (at least in my view of God) to refute the argument at hand.
June 12 at 2:11pm · Like

Rhol Ogy God doesn't not allow the person to resist.
And rape is sin. It is wicked. When God saves a person, it is the best thing that could happen to them. He sets them free. You should know better, because you seem smart, but your intellect is clouded by sin, so you end up saying foolish things quite often.
June 12 at 2:12pm · Like

Rhol Ogy As for substantive, hows about you refute my article about open theism sometime, Will? You haven't even tried. So I LOL at your accusation. Pathetic.
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-god-of-open-theism-cant-know.htmlJune 12 at 2:13pm · Like · 1

Will Duffy //God doesn't not allow the person to resist.//

Really? What is "irresistible grace" then? Once God regenerates a person, can they choose to reject His grace? Yes or No?
June 12 at 2:16pm · Like · 1

Rhol Ogy You speak so confidently like you know Calvinism well; go ahead and answer for me and we'll see how well you do.
June 12 at 2:28pm · Like

Will Duffy That's just a game. I'm not interested in that.
June 12 at 2:29pm · Like

Rhol Ogy I know. You have your pet things, and when someone challenges you for real, this is how you act. Later.
June 12 at 2:34pm · Like

Will Duffy //And rape is sin. It is wicked.//

And this is my opinion of Calvinism. So you can see why I chose the analogy I did.
June 12 at 2:39pm · Like

Rhol Ogy How dare God save people from death who hate Him.
June 12 at 2:40pm · Like · 1

Rhol Ogy I guess Will thinks that sex is equivalent to love. That's just messed up.
June 12 at 2:56pm · Like

Clayton Strang Simply because something God does may look arbitrary to man does not make it so. None of us see God as God sees Himself, and His ways are not our ways.
June 12 at 3:05pm · Edited · Unlike · 3

Will Duffy Clayton, God's grace is arbitrary by Calvinism's own definitions. Calvinism states that God chooses to regenerate men for no reason whatsoever. That's the definition of arbitrary. If you do not think God chooses person A over person B purely arbitrarily, please tell me what person A did differently from person B to have God pick him.
June 12 at 3:10pm · Like

John M Brindley Come on Will Duffy. Ephesians 1 explains in no uncertain terms why it's not arbitrary.
June 12 at 3:14pm · Edited · Like

Will Duffy John, why does God choose person A over person B?
June 12 at 3:16pm · Like

Rhol Ogy \\God's grace is arbitrary by Calvinism's own definitions. \\

False false false. Not by its own definitions. Try again.

See, guys? This is what I mean. The man acts like he knows what he's talking about, but he never brings the goods.
June 12 at 3:18pm · Like · 4

Rhol Ogy \\Calvinism states that God chooses to regenerate men for no reason whatsoever. \\

False false false. Not for no reason whatsoever. You just don't even know anything. You are a complete ignoramus. Stop talking, Will Duffy. You are making yourself look like a fool. Again.
June 12 at 3:19pm · Like · 4

Rhol Ogy \\ If you do not think God chooses person A over person B purely arbitrarily, please tell me what person A did differently from person B to have God pick him.\\

Red herring. It has nothing to do with persons A and B. If you weren't so ignorant, you'd know that and you wouldn't have asked such a lame question.
June 12 at 3:19pm · Like · 2

John M Brindley Romans 9 will provide your answer.
June 12 at 3:20pm · Like

Rhol Ogy Hint: Romans 9 does not say "for no reason". Not anywhere. Not even in the Greek.
June 12 at 3:20pm · Like · 4

Will Duffy Rhol, I'm not exempt from being a fool, being wrong or even being an ignormaus. But one would need to demonstrate that before it's accepted. I'm still waiting for you to show that God's grace can be resisted after regeneration. If it cannot, then my rape analogy was not too far off. If I'm wrong, then show me. I have no problem admitting I'm wrong.
June 12 at 3:25pm · Edited · Like

Will Duffy John, I want to pledge to never tell you or anyone else that an entire chapter in the Bible contains the answer to their question. I will give them the answer or show it to them in the chapter. Do you appreciate that?

With that said (and since the consensus is that I'm a moron), what does Romans 9 say is the criteria by which God chooses person A over person B?
June 12 at 3:27pm · Edited · Like

John M Brindley Paul anticipates the objections raised against God's justice. I think it's around v. 18 or 19 and following.
A finite person perceiving God's decree in election to be arbitrary is kind of silly. He works all things together by the council of his will. To think that anything God does is arbitrary is wrong headed in my opinion.
He is God and we aren't.
June 12 at 3:38pm · Like

Rhol Ogy \\ If it cannot, then my rape analogy was not too far off. \\

You are so lost on this question that you don't even know the issues to be discussed. I'm pleading with you to stop talking.
June 12 at 3:38pm · Edited · Like · 1

Will Duffy John, I understand that you do not think God is arbitrary. But you still have not given me the criteria God uses to choose person A over person B. If there is no criteria, then it's arbitrary, by definition.
June 12 at 3:40pm · Like

Rhol Ogy OOORRRRRR God has criteria, and He hasn't revealed them. Much like what was said above.
#readingcomprehensionishelpful
June 12 at 3:41pm · Like · 1

Will Duffy Rhol, I'm still waiting for you to show that God's grace can be resisted after regeneration.

//OOORRRRRR God has criteria, and He hasn't revealed them. Much like what was said above.//

So you just think He's not arbitrary then? Notice how you've changed your tune. You started out extremely confident that God is not arbitrary and now you're backing off. Now your position is that you think He has criteria, but you can't know for sure.

Since we're only guessing now, can you give just one hypothetical example of what criteria God might use to choose person A over person B?
June 12 at 3:46pm · Like · 1

John M Brindley //But you still have not given me the criteria God uses to choose person A over person B. If there is no criteria, then it's arbitrary, by definition.//

If God has certain criteria yet chooses to withhold it/them from his creation, it doesn't follow that they are arbitrary simply because the creature can't provide the details.
We are talking about the purposes of God not uncle Billy Joe Jim Bob.
I hold my position on soteriology based on what scripture says.
You are an open theist, right?
June 12 at 4:35pm · Like · 1

Will Duffy John, I'm confused. You were so certain that God was not arbitrary and you even said Romans 9 has the answer to what God's criteria is. But now you're saying we don't know. How can you say God is not arbitrary if you do not know? In fairness, can you at least give a hypothetical example of some criteria God would use to choose person A over person B?
June 12 at 4:42pm · Like

John M Brindley I don't think your confused, I think you just want to argue.

Here is what Paul writes:
"he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ
as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."

If uniting all things in Christ for his own glory isn't enough for you to rest in the mystery of election, I can't help you.
June 12 at 4:50pm · Like · 1

Rhol Ogy \\So you just think He's not arbitrary then? Notice how you've changed your tune. You started out extremely confident that God is not arbitrary and now you're backing off. \\

Huh? You're still saying nonsense.

\\can you give just one hypothetical example of what criteria God might use to choose person A over person B?\\

His glory.

\\You were so certain that God was not arbitrary and you even said Romans 9 has the answer to what God's criteria is. But now you're saying we don't know. \\

Have you ever read Romans 9? Sheesh.
June 12 at 5:11pm · Like

Will Duffy Rhol, how does "His glory" help Him to decide to regenerate person A over person B? Are you saying God cannot be glorified in regenerating person B?
June 12 at 5:28pm · Like

Will Duffy John, I'm just asking simple questions that Calvinists have never answered for me. Why does God look down on person A and decide to generate him, as opposed to person B? If we don't know, then we cannot say with confidence that God is not arbitrary. We can assume He is not arbitrary (which is what you're doing), but we have no logical or reasonable foundation upon which to make such a claim.
June 12 at 5:32pm · Like · 2

John M Brindley The scriptures don't lead anyone to believe that God is arbitrary in any of his decisions. The reformed position on election doesn't claim that he is arbitrary. There is no burden of proof to provide.
Did you say you were an open theist or not?
June 12 at 6:03pm · Edited · Like · 1

Will Duffy John, I agree that the scriptures do not lead anyone to believe God is arbitrary. But unfortunately Calvinist doctrine leads any rational thinker to believe that God is indeed arbitrary. When they say that there is absolutely no criteria for whether or...See More
June 12 at 6:39pm · Like

Rhol Ogy \\how does "His glory" help Him to decide to regenerate person A over person B?\\

No idea. I just know it does. Because the Bible says so.

\\Are you saying God cannot be glorified in regenerating person B?\\

No.
June 13 at 7:12am · Edited · Like

Rhol Ogy \\But unfortunately Calvinist doctrine leads any rational thinker to believe that God is indeed arbitrary. \\

How would you know? You have demonstrated time and again your vast ignorance on this topic. You're no one to judge.

\\When they say that there is absolutely no criteria for whether or not God chooses someone\\

Nobody says that. Calvinists say the exact opposite.
Ah, the dangers of debating with a fool.

John M Brindley, Duffy is most definitely an open theist, and that's not even the worst heresy to which he subscribes.
June 13 at 7:14am · Like

James Lewis Rhol Ogy, could you elaborate on your statement, "God doesn't not allow the person to resist"? Do you agree with the doctrine of irresistible grace?
June 13 at 11:40pm · Like · 1

Matthew Charles Martellus James Lewis I can't speak directly for Rhol Ogy, but as someone who holds to a version of that doctrine, I would say that God does allow people to resist Him, per Acts 7:51, as an example. But that verse doesn't seem to have regeneration in view (as opposed to refusing to heed God's internal conviction of sin). My understanding of God's grace in regeneration is that it is something that could not be resisted, even if people are opposed to it occurring, because regeneration is a renewal of the heart, the creation of something new (per 2 Cor. 5:17). And God's act of creation cannot be said to be resisted in any meaningful sense of the word. And thus, as it is not a process that can be resisted in any meaningful capacity, it is irresistible. This doesn't mean that men can't (and don't) resist God in the conversion process, as conviction of sin and the call to repent is something that very much can be resisted.
Yesterday at 12:56am · Edited · Like

Matthew Charles Martellus And regarding "irresistible grace," I don't see how anyone in their right mind, who actually understands the ideas in question, could compare God's transformation of a wicked, rebellious, God-hating sinner into a righteous, obedient, God-loving son to the wicked, heinous, act of rape. It is simply ludicrous to liken God's gracious sovereign act of giving someone a new heart so that they love Him and desire to be holy (and thereby freely repent of their sins) to the act of one person sexually assaulting another.
Yesterday at 2:56am · Like · 2

Will Duffy //You have demonstrated time and again your vast ignorance on this topic.//

I'll let the readers decide. If I formatted this discussion nicely, would you post it on your blog?
Yesterday at 9:32am · Like · 1

Will Duffy //My understanding of God's grace in regeneration is that it is something that could not be resisted, even if people are opposed to it occurring,//

Exactly. This is why the rape analogy is fitting. All analogies fail, of course, but rape is something that cannot be resisted, even if the woman is opposed to it occurring.

Love, by its very nature, must be freely given. This point alone refutes Calvinism. Just as a man cannot make a woman love him, God cannot make someone love Him. True love must be freely given. If it is not freely given, then it is no longer love.
Yesterday at 9:36am · Like

Rhol Ogy Yes, I would put it up on my blog, Will Duffy. Gladly.
Yesterday at 1:10pm · Like · 1

Rhol Ogy \\rape is something that cannot be resisted,\\

That's not the part Calvinists object to. When are you going to actually learn something from these interactions?

\\Love, by its very nature, must be freely given. \\

It IS freely given. Once the eyes of the sinful man are opened, he is now free to do the right thing and to love Jesus.

\\Just as a man cannot make a woman love him, God cannot make someone love Him.\\

He doesn't. He regenerates people and then they freely choose to love Him.
#forthetwentiethtime

Also, I can't help but notice that you keep making these naked assertions about what love is, and even though you have no idea what you're talking about vis a vis monergism, you apparently expect people to accept what you assert without argument or biblical citation.
Yesterday at 1:12pm · Like · 4

Will Duffy //Yes, I would put it up on my blog, Will Duffy. Gladly.//

Awesome, thanks. I'm going to make a prediction though, that once I get it to you, you won't put it up. Time will tell.

//When are you going to actually learn something from these interactions?//

When you finally demonstrate your claim that God's grace can be resisted after regeneration.

//It IS freely given.//

You missed my point. God cannot make someone love Him. It's impossible. God cannot even predestine someone to love Him. If He did, then it's not true love, because true love must be freely given.

//Once the eyes of the sinful man are opened, he is now free to do the right thing and to love Jesus.//

Actually he is not free, he must. Unless you think that a regenerate man can reject and hate God. But that's not true according to Calvinism. It looks like you're stuck.

//He doesn't. He regenerates people and then they freely choose to love Him.//

Having the ability to freely choose to love Him by necessity involves the ability to reject Him. But you don't believe this. Can a regenerate man choose not to love God, not to have faith and to go to hell?
#forthetwentiethtime
Yesterday at 2:03pm · Like · 1

Rhol Ogy \\I'm going to make a prediction though, that once I get it to you, you won't put it up. \\

LOL

\\When you finally demonstrate your claim that God's grace can be resisted after regeneration.\\

You need to explain what that means first.

\\God cannot make someone love Him. It's impossible.\\

1) That's just your assertion.
2) That's not the Calvinist claim. You'd know that if you understood the issues, but you don't so you don't.

\\If He did, then it's not true love, because true love must be freely given.\\

Chapter and verse, please.

\\Actually he is not free, he must.\\

That's not what Calvinists claim. So this is a straw man.

\\Unless you think that a regenerate man can reject and hate God.\\

He WON'T because he has been set free. You know, "having been set free from sin, we have become slaves of righteousness"?

\\It looks like you're stuck.\\

It looks like it to you because you don't understand Calvinism.

\\Having the ability to freely choose to love Him by necessity involves the ability to reject Him.\\

Chapter and verse, please.

\\Can a regenerate man choose not to love God, not to have faith and to go to hell? \\

I don't know. I just know a regenerate man WON'T.
11 mins Rhologyhttp://email@example.com