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Originally posted by sonhouse
You are programmed from day one to resist any effort to talk you out of believing in your god.
I've been talking to you fellas for years.
What you don't realize is the God and Jesus Christ are indeed believable.
I don't know. I think it probably depends upon a person humbling himself. Some minds are just too proud.
As I read through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John I said to my self "THIS MAN ... is BELIEVABLE."
Now if it just - "Once there was a man from Nazareth. And he walked on the water. And he raised the dead and did a lot of unusual things" then I probably would be much more cynical.
But the power of His words, the power of His righteousness, the power of His goodness, and the splendor of His character make Him believable .
The harder the opposition pushes the harder you push back defending your position.
This is a direct result of your religious brainwashing and it's too bad you can't view it as such.
I like, as the Apostle Peter encouraged Christians, to give a reason for the hope that is within me.
I acknowledge difficult issues.
I admit when a question is too hard for me.
But I can give a rational and logical reason why Jesus Christ and God are believable.
Originally posted by sonshipAnd yet him stating it repeatedly somehow indicates to you that you are on the right track to reality?
My post has nothing to do with getting him to admit atheism. I know he's an atheist.
I don't mind examinations.
Well please get one. You need one.
If you had good sense you also would have that concern.
I have very good sense, but do not have that concern. Why do you think I should?
But the atheist arguments are continued parallels to the denials of many God opposers in the Bible, are so reminiscient here, the arguments of many atheists confirm it is the same God we are dealing with today.
So if it turned out that the same arguments were used with regards to Zeus, then he too is the same god?
I don't think you've thought this through. Especially considering how many times the spaghetti monster is brought up as an analogy. (same argument target).
You think, you're coming up with "new" stuff.
No. I don't need to. The old stuff works just fine. Its just a pity you have your hands over your ears and refuse to hear it.
I bet you still think that the renaming of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet is a good example of science being proven wrong. You are just that stubborn.
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Originally posted by twhiteheadWe are on the right track to reality. And you're on the wrong track leading to more and more unreality.
And as to your crack about pluto?
Tell us all about the probability of a dice sitting on six being one as a good argument against fine tuning.
The old stuff works just fine.
Sure wasn't good enough to keep Jesus in the tomb.
02 Mar 15
Originally posted by sonshipLike I said, your religious programming when you were young has clouded your mind, ripped your ability for critical thinking, so much so you can't even IMAGINE yourself questioning ANYTHING in your religion and the bible which you know puts women on a lower plane than men and men have taken advantage of those texts to treat women like cattle for the last 2000 years.You are programmed from day one to resist any effort to talk you out of believing in your god.
I've been talking to you fellas for years.
What you don't realize is the God and Jesus Christ are indeed [b]believable.
I don't know. I think it probably depends upon a person humbling himself. Some minds are just too proud.
As ...[text shortened]... for me.
But I can give a rational and logical reason why Jesus Christ and God are believable.[/b]
Of course I realize it is far worse for Islam but that does not excuse the reprehensible way women were treated by christians early on. Women slaves allowed to be raped. It is abhorrent in the extreme the way women are depicted in the bible. But your god LOVES you. Paraphrase from George Carlin.
02 Mar 15
Originally posted by sonshipNot if you foolishly think your path is confirmed by Googlefudge confirming his atheism. You are clearly on the track to lala land.
We are on the right track to reality. And you're on the wrong track leading to more and more unreality.
And as to your crack about pluto?
It wasn't a crack at all. I am dead serious. It has been explained to you in the past, yet you brought it up recently in a thread. I explained it again and instead of admitting your error you tried to brush it off and left. Hence my conclusion that you will probably bring it up some time in the future being non-the wiser (or just an unashamed liar).
Tell us all about the probability of a dice sitting on six being one as a good argument against fine tuning.
Please explain that again, I think you must have a typo.
Sure wasn't good enough to keep Jesus in the tomb.
Yup, the old stuff will work just fine against that ridiculous argument. (or was it intended as a joke, I can't tell).
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Originally posted by twhitehead
Not if you foolishly think your path is confirmed by Googlefudge confirming his atheism. You are clearly on the track to lala land.
It not a major reason for my faith.
Its just some uncanny confirmation along the way.
Perhaps you'd feel much more at home in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev or Brezhnev where if you weren't an atheist you could be sent to Siberia for mental illness.
It has been explained to you in the past, yet you brought it up recently in a thread.
Again, this is not a major issue.
The issue at hand, I think, is that some atheists don't believe God exists because of a law here or there in the Old Testament that they think they could have done a better job at making.
I'm not sure if the sentiments is "I don't believe God exists" or "I don't like a particular law God gave Israel."
I can readily grasp that a certain law seems to carry a harsh penalty.
I have given my reasons for why a number of contributing factors are inform my opinion about those laws.
But as far as Atheism goes, no law of the Old Testament has any effect on me thinking because of it, there must not be a God. And I count it presumptuous of some people to assume that if God did hand to a theocratic nation some laws, there would be none that they didn't like.
No law concerning slavery leads me to think - "Therefore there must not be God."
I explained it again and instead of admitting your error you tried to brush it off and left.
It is funny how all your best points which you think demonstrate scoring in a debate are always somehow "back then."
How many times you have done this --- "Don't you remember? You were proved wrong and you refused to admit it" move?
I don't recall all these "Don't you remember how terribly badly you lost that argument and never confessed to doing so?" Anyway, it must look good to you in a discussion.
I recall no terribly devastating point you have made in eight years which demands a confession from me. And regardless of how you try to set up a little Catholic Confessional booth here, I don't remember you EVER making some total knockdown argument for your atheism.
Hence my conclusion that you will probably bring it up some time in the future being non-the wiser (or just an unashamed liar).
Your typical "Don't you remember how I corrected you on this and that? Remember? Don't you remember? And then you didn't admit that I corrected you ??"
I may remember some minor adjustment here or there from any number of contrarians here. Maybe you had some valid point about science changing and still being good science.
me:
Tell us all about the probability of a dice sitting on six being one as a good argument against fine tuning.
I think you must have a typo.
Now you appear to me as the liar.
Yup, the old stuff will work just fine against that ridiculous argument. (or was it intended as a joke, I can't tell).
Nope. The arguments don't work too well. Atheism isn't reliable.
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Originally posted by sonhouse
Like I said, your religious programming when you were young has clouded your mind, ripped your ability for critical thinking, so much so you can't even IMAGINE yourself questioning ANYTHING in your religion and the bible which you know puts women on a lower plane than men and men have taken advantage of those texts to treat women like cattle for the last 2000 years.
I QUESTION a lot of things in the Bible and with my faith.
None of my questions lead to atheism.
The historical fact of the matter is that one reasons the Christian faith grew so dramatically was that WOMEN perceived that it was far better for them. If what you said was true then the Christian church would not have spread so fast and so far and wide in the first three centuries.
Of course I realize it is far worse for Islam but that does not excuse the reprehensible way women were treated by christians early on. Women slaves allowed to be raped. It is abhorrent in the extreme the way women are depicted in the bible. But your god LOVES you. Paraphrase from George Carlin.
Please refer me to the Law saying (in essence) "It is PERMISSIBLE, in THIS instance, to RAPE the woman."
Show me the passage showing God's approval of rape.
I expect your next post to me to indicate specifically where you read a divine command or even divine approval of RAPE.
And do not come back with a passage merely about what should be done in an instance if rape occurs.
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sonhouse:
You are programmed from day one to resist any effort to talk you out of believing in your god.
Regeneration is really hard to argue against.
When the Lord Jesus as the life giving Spirit is dispensed into your human spirit, that is REALLY hard to be taken away.
You see, you just count this as some weird sounding words. You gloss over them. Maybe you don't give them a second thought. Maybe it just sounds like NOISE.
But for over two thousand years many of us have not considered it noise or gobbledegook but a clear explanation as to what has happened to us -
"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." (1 Cor. 6:17)
Do you know what that means?
Do you have ANY idea what the Apostle Paul means by - "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" ?
What we have found out that he means is the a part of my being is now God. A part of my being is Jesus Christ.
Unusual? Yes.
Miraculous or even astounding ?
Yes indeed, but true.
I have been JOINED to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit and MY human spirit have become mingled to be "one spirit". And you can have the same experience.
And you are right. That is really hard to have some argument take that ongoing and enduring experience away.
Don't say I have no questions. I have questions.
I have some good ones.
I don't have any that cause me to doubt that in my innermost being I have been JOINED to the Lord Jesus Christ and am "one spirit" with Christ.
Did you get that verse on God's approval or command to RAPE yet ?
Remember, I don't want a remedial passage saying "IF RAPE occurs, this is how you proceed."
You teach "God wants RAPE to be performed in the OT".
Prove it.
03 Mar 15
Originally posted by sonshipIt doesn't matter how big a reason it is. If it is any reason at all, you need your head examined.
It not a major reason for my faith.
Its just some uncanny confirmation along the way.
Perhaps you'd feel much more at home in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev or Brezhnev where if you weren't an atheist you could be sent to Siberia for mental illness.
I don't really know what you are saying here. That you think I have a mental illness? That you think I want you punished for your mental illness? Please explain what you are trying to say (and why).
Again, this is not a major issue.
Maybe not. But are you going to admit that you got it wrong, and agree not to trot it out again in future, or are you still convinced that you were right (and have your hands firmly over your ears)?
Come on, its not that hard to admit when you are wrong is it?
The issue at hand, I think, is that some atheists don't believe God exists because of a law here or there in the Old Testament that they think they could have done a better job at making.
Do they? Where are these atheists? I have never met one or communicated with one to my knowledge. When did this become a more important issue than Pluto?
I'm not sure if the sentiments is "I don't believe God exists" or "I don't like a particular law God gave Israel."
Well then you probably haven't been following the conversation. Yet in your confusion you found it confirming your faith?
But as far as Atheism goes, no law of the Old Testament has any effect on me thinking because of it, there must not be a God.
Same here.
And I count it presumptuous of some people to assume that if God did hand to a theocratic nation some laws, there would be none that they didn't like.
Me to. But that is not what is under discussion here.
The issues here are:
1. Are there immoral laws?
2. Do Christians follow the OT laws or not, and if not, why not?
3. Do Christians deny such laws exist?
4. Is there support for slavery, or at a minimum a lack of laws against slavery?
No law concerning slavery leads me to think - "Therefore there must not be God."
Same here. I even find it odd that you brought it up, suggesting that maybe it did cross your mind.
I would hope that it might lead to you question whether God is the author of the laws in the OT, and if so, what sort of a God he is.
It is funny how all your best points which you think demonstrate scoring in a debate are always somehow "back then."
How many times you have done this --- "Don't you remember? You were proved wrong and you refused to admit it" move?
I don't recall all these "Don't you remember how terribly badly you lost that argument and never confessed to doing so?" Anyway, it must look good to you in a discussion.
I recall no terribly devastating point you have made in eight years which demands a confession from me. And regardless of how you try to set up a little Catholic Confessional booth here, I don't remember you EVER making some total knockdown argument for your atheism.
Just can't admit when you get something wrong can you.
Have you seriously completely forgotten what you said about Pluto? You didn't feign ignorance a few posts ago in this thread. That's hardly 'back then'. Now suddenly you have forgotten and are all innocent. A downright liar is what you are. You do recall the Pluto discussion and you won't admit you got it wrong.
Now you appear to me as the liar.
Please explain.
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03 Mar 15
Originally posted by sonshipWell, aside from the fact that you cannot point to any clear unambiguous admonition
Interesting that one entire New Testament book was set aside to enlighten the Christian church on this matter of slavery during the New Testament age.
that you should not and cannot own people as slaves anywhere in the bible...
That still doesn't change the fact that the OT was supposedly still written or inspired
by THE SAME GOD...
So are you claiming that the god in the OT is less moral than in the NT?
Or that what is or is not moral CHANGED between the OT and the NT?
Or do you have no idea what you are claiming and are just grasping at straws?
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Originally posted by googlefudge
Well, aside from the fact that you cannot point to any clear unambiguous admonition that you should not and cannot own people as slaves anywhere in the bible...
Servants are owned then and now.
Slaves as under the authority of masters were owned then as they are now in an acceptable way. It is only that in the modern Western world the connotation of the word "slave" is I think entirely negative.
So what is important is the TREATMENT of servants / slaves ordained by God in the Bible.
That still doesn't change the fact that the OT was supposedly still written or inspired by THE SAME GOD...
I for one, never argued that the NT and the OT were inspired by different Gods.
I think this entire line of reasoning is employed by some atheists to assure themselves that they are morally superior to the God Christians believe in. I don't think God needs to come to any of us for justification. I think we need to come to God for justification.
But I am not too surprised that here or there are a Mosaic law which I think I don't like. But I don't trust myself in this. Rather than try to rise above God I have found it much more effective to allow God to take His rightful place above me.
"God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble."
So are you claiming that the god in the OT is less moral than in the NT?
Or that what is or is not moral CHANGED between the OT and the NT?
No, I am not claiming God changed in His attitude towards our sins.
But obviously there was an Old Covenant and a New Covenant.
The Old Covenant is also called "the ministry of condemnation". It was given chiefly to expose us. Self righteous man thinks he can please God in his fallen corrupted nature.
When God gave the law on Mt. Sinai the people said "All the the Lord has commanded we will do." (Exodus 19:8)
English Standard Version
All the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD.
In spite of a bright light here and there, the story of the Old Testament is that all that the Lord has spoken they DID NOT do and COULD NOT do.
So all stand condemned by "the ministry of condemnation".
Jesus Christ came to be everything we cannot be.
Jesus Christ came to do everything that we could not do.
And He came to be everything for us and everything we need.
There is only one human being who has ever been everything that God has wanted and has completely done the will of God. There is only one man in history that fully pleased God to the uttermost in everything. That Person is Jesus Christ.
The New Covenant is that helpless sinners, hopeless sinners, not self reform, not self improve, not give it another try, but come into Jesus Christ. This is to utterly identify with Christ and be in Him and He in us.
Not only was fornication thought worthy of death. A lot more was thought worthy of death.
Paul reviews the decline of fallen man under the sin nature -
Being filled with all unrighteousness,
wickedness,
covetousness,
malice;
full of envy,
murder,
strife,
deceit,
malignity;
whisperers,
slanderers,
hateful to God,
insolent,
arrogant,
boasters,
inventors of evil things,
disobedient to parents,
senseless,
faithless,
affectionless,
merciless;
Who, though fully know the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but also have fellow delight in those who practice them. (Romans 1:29)
What you have just read says that those who do such things in God's eyes as a continuous lifestyle perhaps, "are worthy of death". It is not just the unmarried man or woman fornicating who is in danger of death. But those living this way above, and/or approving of those who live this way, by the righteous judgment of God "are worthy of death".
Christ DIED for us that God's eternal judgment might be born by Him rather than by us. This is the new testament gospel of His love and grace toward guilty sinners.
it is important to realize that in His divine hatred for sin, God has not changed at all. The revelation of God has progressed and unfolded over a long period of time.
"The law was given through Moses.; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17)
Elsewhere Paul writes that the law was a school master leading us to grace. That is the law being like a child conductor, a guide, leading the fallen sinner to grace - Christ coming to be everything that God requires and that we need.
Or do you have no idea what you are claiming and are just grasping at straws?
No, I am not grasping at straws. What I am doing is laying hold of the life which is really life.
Now I will tell you what is grasping for straws. Or more appropriately what is making a covering out of rotting fig leaves. That is the thought that you will be able to justify yourself when the light of God shines into the entire record of your living.
Your reasons for justifying yourself and slandering and blaming God will not amount to a hill of beans. Your arguments of athiesm will do nothing for the infallible record God has of your living.
Now I suggest that you prepare yourself to say something like this -
"Lord God, I stand before you CLOTHED in the blood of Jesus Christ Your Son. This my ONLY justification. This the ONLY merit upon which I can stand before you O God."
We do not understand the holiness, the glory, the righteousness of a PERFECT God. The Bible tries to convey to us the glory, the holiness, the righteousness of a PERFECT Creator.
My only merit upon which I stand is Jesus Christ my Redeemer.
I think YOU should do the same thing. Trust in the Son of God.
Are you counting on Atheism my friend ?
Are you counting on God not existing ?
Let me tell you. If this Bible is right, then if you and I have to answer to this God for our rejecting Him and choosing our sins instead, we'll never make it to be saved.
English Standard Version
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
03 Mar 15
Originally posted by googlefudgeHow could you even put a creator under the definition of morality that's only a human standard definition. If someone creates life they have the right to destroy it am I right that's how the abortions people think?
Well, aside from the fact that you cannot point to any clear unambiguous admonition
that you should not and cannot own people as slaves anywhere in the bible...
That still doesn't change the fact that the OT was supposedly still written or inspired
by THE SAME GOD...
So are you claiming that the god in the OT is less moral than in the NT?
Or t ...[text shortened]... OT and the NT?
Or do you have no idea what you are claiming and are just grasping at straws?
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04 Mar 15
Originally posted by RBHILLNo you are wrong, on all counts.
How could you even put a creator under the definition of morality that's only a human standard definition. If someone creates life they have the right to destroy it am I right that's how the abortions people think?
Morality is about creating rules and systems of behaviour and conduct that
create societies that maximise the wellbeing of the people in those societies.
It's about how sentient beings treat other sentient beings, and other creatures
and their shared environment generally.
Given that it becomes obvious that we can judge the actions of ANY being towards
us, not because we understand them, but because we understand us.
As an example, we can talk about what constitutes moral treatment of animals,
[house cats say] by looking at [to the best of our ability to tell] what improves
their wellbeing and what doesn't. And what works for cats may very well not be
what works for humans, because cats and humans are very different.
If you like you can envision us as gods pets, something god created to alleviate
the boredom. And just like we can tell by studying cats what makes for a good life
for them, god can study us [or just know everything about us to start off with]
and tell what would maximise our wellbeing and what would reduce it.
But what it all hinges on is OUR nature, not gods. what makes for good human
morals is contingent on what improves OUR wellbeing, and we can objectively
measure that.
The 'moral' rules and laws laid down in the bible clearly and demonstrably do not
do as good a job of maximising our wellbeing as our current [flawed] moral rules
and laws. They are thus inferior to our current rules and laws, and dramatically so.
IF they were the product of a moral being of [infinitely] greater capabilities than
us that would not be possible.
They therefore are not, and cannot be, the product of a morally superior being.