http://geo.ya.com/tagomiru/ chris brown

In my above post I said if Jesus is the liason between God and man I should have said between the Father and man, remember when Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except thru me". If you believe you are doing what you think God wants you to do then do it, but I know who I am, the New Testament Moses and what my job is and that is to tell the whole world that: God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. I also consider my job; Our job that is God and mine's job. By the way God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof, knowing God's Name is just a start. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Jesus did not send the Holy Spirit only to the apostles, in other words the Holy Spirit is still very active today. And when God said I have chosen "you" that is what it says. Before I met God and I do mean the whole Trinity, I basically said nothing about God even though I believed in Him, I have also met satan so I know for a fact that he is real and I tell you he is upset. I have also been to hell and spiritual death so I know both are real but Jesus won the keys to both, He did not win the keys to Heaven, anyway as it says, new heavens and a new earth. I stake my everlasting destiny on the fact that God's Plan is ultimately for everyone to be with Him. As it says and you shall become sons and daughters of God, if Jesus is the liason between God and man maybe what a christian should be is a liason between Jesus and the rest. Jesus said and you shall do even greater things than Me, talk about an awesome statement. You can do what you want but I wouldn't recommend underestimating God. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hello Thomoas,

When you say,

"To Peter Huff: If you want to be thankful to a loser go right ahead, I refuse to be thankful to a loser, God is not a loser."

I don't understand what you are getting at in accusing God of being a loser? The victory is won in Christ Jesus.

You said,

"God has a Plan and has had that Plan since before creation just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean that He doesn't have it."

Now you are putting words in my mouth. I agree 100% that God has a plan. I just disagree that you are rightly interpreting that plan.

When you say,

"As it says, "Remember I have chosen you, you haven't chosen Me" and I have said YES to being chosen.

That is precisely the point, He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. Who are the us??? Who did the choosing???

"For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world..." (Ephesian 1:4)

You said,

"I would like to know why so many people want to tell God what He can and cannot do, who He will and will not save? You seem to have a much higher opinion of yourself than you do of God."

First of all, the Bible is God's revelation to mankind about Himself. It is His Word to a fallen world. In it He tells us who He is, who we are, what He expects of us, why we have not met that expectation and the only remedy. I am not telling God what He can and cannot do, He is telling me.

Second, I would say the same of you. You have a higher opinion of your supposed direct word from God in which He communicated to you, than you do of His revelation to us that contradicts what you say repeatedly. What you are telling me is that God speaking to you directly supersedes His written revelation to us that He says is without error (Prov. 30:5)

You said,

"God did say, "My ways are not your ways and My thoughts are not your thoughts". Does it really upset you that much that God just might be more forgiving than you, more merciful than you and more loving than you?

Not at all. I know that to be the case. And I also know that God cannot lie, and He has disclosed to mankind that He will not save everyone.

"What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For He says to Moses,

'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'

It does not, therefore, depend on man's desires or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: 'I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden." (Romans 9:14-18)

Why don't you read the whole chapter Thomas! While you are at it look up Acts 13:48. Pay attention to the phrase "those who were appointed for eternal life believed." That verse suggests that there are those who are not appointed for eternal life.

You said,

"Did you ever notice that the learned of Jesus's day were the ones that Jesus had the most trouble trying to break thru to their heart because they already knew it all and who was this carpenter's Son to speak to them that way? The self-rightious Jews of Jesus's day were sure it was only for them, the self-rightious Christians of today are sure it is only for them."

Well brother, I recognize my need for a Savior on the very grounds that I am a fallen human being, incapable of meeting God's standard by my own righteousness. It is not those who are well that need a physician. The problem with the Scribes and Sadducees was that they were incapable of recognizing their need of the grace and mercy of God. They were bent on doing it their way, in direct opposition to God's word. Are you sure that you are innocent of that crime?

You said,

"Have you ever thought of praying for God's Will, as in "Thy Will Be Done", rather than in what you think God's Will is?"

Yes, I have, because Jesus told us how to pray, and it is His will that will be done on earth as it is in heaven, not yours or mine.

You said,

"Anyway, Jesus said, "I will send the Holy Spirit to guide you into all Truth", He didn't say He would send a book or a theologian to guide me."

What you fail to recognize Thomas is that the Holy Spirit did teach the disciples/Apostles the truth and what He taught, the disciples/Apostles wrote down for our use today. That is why Peter could say,

"And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it..." (2 Peter 1:19)

What is He referring too? "Above all you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophets own interpretation..." (vs. 20)

Thomas, there are so many places in Scripture that warns us not to let anyone deceive us, and that in the last days there would be many false Christs deceiving and being deceived.

"and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people" (Matthew 24:11; 7:15-23)

One of the reasons that I know you are proclaiming a false Gospel (Galatians 1:6-8) is because what you say does not line up with the very Word of God. You do not have reverence for what He has said. Please, test the spirits to see if they are from God (1 John 4:1)

I hope God will be merciful to you and open the eyes of your understanding.

To Peter Huff: If you want to be thankful to a loser go right ahead, I refuse to be thankful to a loser, God is not a loser. How many people in Egypt believe the Old Testament Moses? How many people believed Jesus when He was down here? God has a Plan and has had that Plan since before creation just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean that He doesn't have it. As it says, "Remember I have chosen you, you haven't chosen Me" and I have said YES to being chosen. I would like to know why so many people want to tell God what He can and cannot do, who He will and will not save? You seem to have a much higher opinion of yourself than you do of God. God did say, "My ways are not your ways and My thoughts are not your thoughts". Does it really upset you that much that God just might be more forgiving than you, more merciful than you and more loving than you? Did you ever notice that the learned of Jesus's day were the ones that Jesus had the most trouble trying to break thru to their heart because they already knew it all and who was this carpenter's Son to speak to them that way? The self-rightious Jews of Jesus's day were sure it was only for them, the self-rightious Christians of today are sure it is only for them. Have you ever thought of praying for God's Will, as in "Thy Will Be Done", rather than in what you think God's Will is? Anyway, Jesus said, "I will send the Holy Spirit to guide you into all Truth", He didn't say He would send a book or a theologian to guide me. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Thomas, here is a book that would help you to understand why God does not save all.

http://www.monergismbooks.com/truthcross.html

Or, in my opinion, one of the fines books written besides the Bible on what Christ has done that we cannot do, that you can find on-line, is "The Everlasting Righteousness" by Horatius Bonar.

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Hello Thomas Baum,

I think that in some ways you are misguided my friend in Christ Jesus. You are still young in your faith, and, although your intentions are noble you do not know the Scriptures. When you say,

"It is God's WILL that all be saved"

Is God not capable of saving all then? After all He is the Almighty and only true God. When He declares (in Jesus His Son) that "He will save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:23) notice first off who is the One doing the action (as is the case in salvation throughout the entire Bible). Notice the imperative "will" and also the distinction "His people" in the verse. So when you say

"we are all brothers and sisters, whether we like it or not"

I disagree with you. The Lord Himself made the distinction.

"Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free [notice who is doing the action again], you will be free indeed....You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires...He who belongs to God hears what God says [I hope you hear that Thomas and that God continues to open your eyes so that you may know Him better]. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God" (John 8: 34-36; 44; 47, 48)

Only those born anew or regenerated are His children, although, as the poet in Acts 17:29 said we are all His offspring, in the sense that God gives us all life and breathe and determines where we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:25, 28)

Remember Ephesians 1:5, 6 says that "In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves."

You see Thomas, at one time we were all dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 3:10-12)and it took that grace and mercy of God to open our eyes to the light. Remember Thomas, "It is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph. 2:8)

Notice Thomas, over and over again that it is God who saves and redeems a people for Himself.

Remember Thomas that "we await eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:24)

Remember Thomas that it is "those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." (Romans 8:14; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Hebrews 127)

Remember Thomas that it does not depend on mans effort but on God's mercy for He says that He "will have mercy on whom [He has] mercy" (Romans 9:14; see also verse 16)

Remember Thomas that whoever God saves are saved completely.

"And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day...No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:39, 44)

Remember Thomas, that "He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them...because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." (Hebrews 7:25; 10:14)

Those who trust in Him will never be put to shame Thomas, but why does not everyone trust in Him? Surely from these verses our God is able to save every man, woman and child. But you have admitted that such is not the case,

"It most definitely matters how we live, I did not say that hell is not real and that spiritual death is not real, quite the contrary"

So salvation, Thomas, is not universal. God saves a specific people to Himself that is countless by our standards (Revelations 5:9-12)but nevertheless, limited.

Remember Thomas when Jesus asked, "'Who then can be saved?' Jesus replied, 'What is impossible with men is possible with God."" (Luke 18:26, 27)

When you say,

"One place that it says that, "It is God's Will that all be saved is in 1 Tim 2, but it is all over the place if we have eyes to see."

Please , let's take the verses one by one starting with 1 Timothy 2

Please notice the verse in its context,

"I urge, thn, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - [here Paul qualifies who the everyone is] for Kings and all those in authority, [and here is his reason] that we may live peaceful lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good [that we should live godly and peaceful lives] and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men [i.e. kings and people of authority, as per the context] to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

Again Revelation is specific on this too.

"You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seal, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." (Revelation 5:9)

So the "all" spoken of in Scripture can be an all of distinction (all kinds of people) rather than an all of quantity, meaning every single one; people from every walk of life, so to speak, from every nation and tribe, both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rich and poor.

In Titus chapter 2 Paul speaks of the grace of God which brings salvation appearing to all men, but does it mean every single man, woman and child on the face of the earth or every kind of person? Well the context before and after speaks of older men (vs 2), older women (vs 3), younger women (vs 4), younger men (vs 6),slaves (vs 9)and rulers and authorities (vs 3:1).

Is Paul speaking to every single younger and older person here? If I said that in my travels I have seen all men, you would know that I am not referring to every single man on the earth, but every nation of men as in kinds.

As for God speaking to you, although it is very possible, if what you say does not line up with His Word then you should not be saying it is from God.

"And we have the word of the prophets made more certain (i.e. Scripture), and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place..." (2 Peter 1:19)

"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11)

Thomas, is your standard the Word of God (John 17:17), or your own subjective opinion?

Thanks for the chat. Take care.

To Peter Huff: That is the point of Jesus's death on the cross, which is part of God's Plan. Jesus took the sin and the sins of the entire human family upon Himself when He willingly died on the cross. It most definitely matters how we live, I did not say that hell is not real and that spiritual death is not real, quite the contrary. Remember when Jesus, on the cross, said, "My God, My God why have Thou forsaken Me?", think about it, some of what is written in the bible was coming true at that precise moment. I saw on another post that it said that satan created hell, satan created nothing at all, if someone goes to hell they will realize that they built it themselves and that they have no one to blame but themselves. Jesus won the keys to hell and death and He will use them in due time. The bible should help lead you to God, when God the Father came into my heart on 28 Jan 2000, I knew that it was all true, but just because it is true does not mean that it has not been distorted by many. When I was told in a dream, that I knew was from God, that only I could say it, I had no idea what it was only I could say, so I dove into bible studies of any and no denominations including Jewish bible studies. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except thru Me", He said to the Father not to God, remember God is a Trinity, that is why I said there could be many ways to Jesus. When I write, "Let Us make man in Our Own Image", what I am saying is that we are all brothers and sisters, whether we like it or not. We are, if we call ourselves christians, suppose to pick up our cross and do whatever we feel God is calling us or choosing us to do, that is what Jesus told us, isn't it? One place that it says that, "It is God's Will that all be saved is in 1 Tim 2, but it is all over the place if we have eyes to see. Thank you for responding and hang in there, we are all in this together. Take care. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Thomas, are you telling me that every single person who ever lived is going to be saved (Hitler and Stalin included)?

If that is the case what was the point in Jesus' death on the cross? If God was going to save everyone of us then why was it necessary for Jesus to die? If God is going to save everyone of us then it doesn't matter how we live, right???

What do you really believe about God's Word. Is it inspired? Is it infallible? What is your authority for saying that,

" if you look at it and think about it there could be plenty of ways to Jesus instead of just the ways that we try to tell God how He can do things"

How do you know your interpretation is the correct one?

How do you read many ways out of "I am the Way"

or,

"no one comes to the Father except thru Me"

How does

"Let US make man in OUR IMAGE",

mean that all of us will be saved? Is that what you think those words mean?

When you say,

"It is God's WILL that all be saved"

Where does it say that in God's Word?

To Peter Huff: Time will tell. When Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except thru Me", if you look at it and think about it there could be plenty of ways to Jesus instead of just the ways that we try to tell God how He can do things, basically this is one of the places where Jesus is letting us know that He is God in the Flesh. Jesus said plenty of things and there are many things written in the bible, a lot of people try to make God so small so that they can get Him to do their will, well it doesn't work that way, God has a Plan and it is for all of His children, ALL, page one, "Let US make man in OUR IMAGE", that means all of us. It is God's WILL that all be saved, maybe we should be praying for God's Will rather than our own. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

To Peter Huff: Time will tell. When Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except thru Me", if you look at it and think about it there could be plenty of ways to Jesus instead of just the ways that we try to tell God how He can do things, basically this is one of the places where Jesus is letting us know that He is God in the Flesh. Jesus said plenty of things and there are many things written in the bible, a lot of people try to make God so small so that they can get Him to do their will, well it doesn't work that way, God has a Plan and it is for all of His children, ALL, page one, "Let US make man in OUR IMAGE", that means all of us. It is God's WILL that all be saved, maybe we should be praying for God's Will rather than our own. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hello again Thomas Baum,

When you say,

"Just trying to do what God chose me for, I am the New Testament Moses, God chose me, I said yes. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum."

How do you know that you are not a false prophet, as the Bible gives a pretty good account of one in Deuteronomy 18:18-22 or Jeremiah 14:14, 15; 29:8, 9.

When the Lord Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." How do you get universal salvation out of that?

Well Godfrey, it is actually the Word of God that calls you a fool.

Psalm 14:1, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" (see also Ps. 38:1-4 or Ps. 10:4 good buddy)

I'm just answering you as the Bible tells me to answer you, as your folly deserves, so that you will not be wise in your own eyes (Proverbs. 26:5)

I'm showing you that although you think the Christian worldview is silly, the folly of your worldview can make no sense of the tough, meaningful questions in life. That's fine if you think your subjective standard has any meaning other than what you assign it to be, but it is another thing to make sense of it.

That's a lot of words to cover up the simple fact that you called me a fool. Whatever the moral status of the act, it is certainly an ad hominem attack, which is well known as faulty argument. It's also an insult, and I'm not going to hang around here for that.

Hi Godfrey,

Finally a couple of days off!

Matthew Henry's commentary explains it well,

"2. He tells them, that given opprobrious language to our brother is tongue-murder, calling him, Raca, and, Thou fool. When this is done with mildness and for a good end, to convince others of their vanity and folly, it is not sinful. Thus James says, O vain man; and Paul, Thou fool; and Christ himself, O fools, and slow of heart. But when it proceeds from anger and malice within, it is the smoke of that fire which is kindled from hell, and falls under the same character. (1.) Raca is a scornful word, and comes from pride, “Thou empty fellow;” it is the language of that which Solomon calls proud wrath (Pro_21:24), which tramples upon our brother - disdains to set him even with the dogs of our flock. This people who knoweth not the law, is cursed, is such language, Joh_7:49. (2.) Thou fool, is a spiteful word, and comes from hatred; looking upon him, not only as mean and not to be honoured, but as vile and not to be loved; “Thou wicked man, thou reprobate.” The former speaks a man without sense, this (in scripture language) speaks a man without grace; the more the reproach touches his spiritual condition, the worse it is; the former is a haughty taunting of our brother, this is a malicious censuring and condemning of him, as abandoned of God. Now this is a breach of the sixth commandment; malicious slanders and censures are poison under the tongue, that kills secretly and slowly; bitter words are as arrows that would suddenly (Psa_64:3), or as a sword in the bones. The good name of our neighbour, which is better than life, is thereby stabbed and murdered; and it is an evidence of such an ill-will to our neighbour as would strike at his life, if it were in our power."

Robertson's Word Pictures says, concerning the verse,

"“Raca” (Raka) and “Thou fool” (Mōre). The first is probably an Aramaic word meaning “Empty,” a frequent word for contempt. The second word is Greek (dull, stupid) and is a fair equivalent of “raca.” It is urged by some that mōre is a Hebrew word, but Field (Otium Norvicense) objects to that idea. “Raca expresses contempt for a man’s head=you stupid! Mōre expresses contempt for his heart and character=you scoundrel” (Bruce).

The text I quoted in Proverbs,

"Pro 26:5 Answer a fool according to his foolishness, that he not be wise in his own eyes."

Matthew Henry comments,

"Pro 26:4-5 -
See here the noble security of the scripture-style, which seems to contradict itself, but really does not. Wise men have need to be directed how to deal with fools; and they have never more need of wisdom than in dealing with such, to know when to keep silence and when to speak, for there may be a time for both. 1. In some cases a wise man will not set his wit to that of a fool so far as to answer him according to his folly “If he boast of himself, do not answer him by boasting of thyself. If he rail and talk passionately, do not thou rail and talk passionately too. If he tell one great lie, do not thou tell another to match it. If he calumniate thy friends, do not thou calumniate his. If he banter, do not answer him in his own language, lest thou be like him, even thou, who knowest better things, who hast more sense, and hast been better taught.” 2. Yet, in other cases, a wise man will use his wisdom for the conviction of a fool, when, by taking notice of what he says, there may be hopes of doing good, or at least preventing further, mischief, either to himself or others. “If thou have reason to think that thy silence will be deemed an evidence of the weakness of thy cause, or of thy own weakness, in such a case answer him, and let it be an answer ad hominem - to the man, beat him at his own weapons, and that will be an answer ad rem - to the point, or as good as one. If he offer any thing that looks like an argument, an answer that, and suit thy answer to his case. If he think, because thou dost not answer him, that what he says is unanswerable, then give him an answer, lest he be wise in his own conceit and boast of a victory.” For (Luk_7:35) Wisdom's children must justify her.

John Gill comments,

"Pro 26:5 - Answer a fool according to his folly,.... The Targum is,

"but speak with a fool in thy wisdom;''

and the Syriac version,

"yea, speak with a fool according to thy wisdom;''

which would at once remove the seeming contradiction in these words to the former, but then they are not a true version; indeed it is right, and must be the sense, that when a fool is answered, as it is sometimes necessary he should, that it be done in wisdom, and so as to expose his folly; he is to be answered and not answered according to different times, places, and circumstances, and manner of answering; he is to be answered when there is any hope of doing him good, or of doing good to others; or of preventing ill impressions being made upon others by what he has said; when the glory of God, the good of the church, and the cause of truth, require it; and when he would otherwise glory and triumph, as if his words or works were unanswerable, as follow;

lest he be wise in his own conceit; which fools are apt to be, and the rather when no answer is given them; imagining it arises from the strength of their arguments, and their nervous way of reasoning, when it is rather from a neglect and contempt of them."

I regard you as made in God's image and therefore deserving of dignity.
For me, I did not answer you out of malice or angry, and I do not think you are stupid. Good chance is that you are a lot smarter than I am - the Lord knows - but your worldview is fatally flawed and lacks wisdom.

All I am doing is showing you that what you believe (your worldview is unsustainable) is foolish, it has the wisdom of the world which is really no wisdom at all.

I would say you are proud of your knowledge, whereas true knowledge starts with God because God's Word rests on God Himself as true. Humility starts with recognizing that you are not in control, but God is.

Mattthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Hi Godfrey,

Surprised to hear from you again. When you said,

"Isn't there something in the Bible about saying "thou fool?" Some reference to the fires of Gehenna, as I recall."

For one thing, you need to get the context right in whom that applies to. Plus there are various uses of the word "fool." I could be referring to lack of moral judgment,understanding or wisdom or calling a person an idiot. Since you do not know where it is I will not comment further. If you want to quote chapter and verse I would be glad to reply further.

The Lord Jesus told a parable of foolish virgins (Matthew 25). The Apostle Paul called the Galatians fools (Galatians 3:1). God uses the term to describe the wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1:18). Therefore, the clue is in the particular passage once you find it. If you still want to make that claim I would be glad to continue with the chat.

A reply to Godfrey's last post,

When I stated,
“I don't have the standard for good, God does, and yes, He is the only absolute and standard for determining good for it is what He is.”

Your reply,

"If you deny the possibility of any standard of good that emanates from the immanent world, then there’s no point trying to offer you one."

My point all along was how do you establish that standard? Unless you have an ultimate objective, absolute standard you cannot make sense of “good.” It just becomes a subjective opinion. You have yet to show me otherwise.

What makes your opinion valid? The way you think is “I do not believe in God and because I do not believe it is true God does not exist.” That is poor thinking that an infinitesimal mind can be so much of an expert to rule out the existence of God. What percentage of all knowledge do you or I know? Let’s be real.

You said,

"There’s nothing more absolute than life or death."

How do you know that? Is that your personal opinion or do you have an absolute to base it on?

I said,

“So where is the consensus on what improves life and what destroys it?”

Your reply,

"I’m not interested in consensus. I’m interested in right and wrong. I don’t get my ideas by watching to see which way other people jump. If you’re interested, you can get much more on the subject of life as the standard of value in Ayn Rand’s _The Virtue of Selfishness._

Again, a non-answer. You don’t follow my argument. How do you establish right and wrong without an absolute standard? Your problem is that you weigh right and wrong by your own standard. Well, Godfrey, what makes your standard truer than my standard? How do you determine truth? Is this your own personal opinion/idea also? Do you just call something true or right because it appeals to your subjective emotional experience?

If you are not interested in consensus and you determine your own standard of right and wrong then you place yourself in God’s place. And when someone disagrees with you who’s then right? Are you always right? How do you know? What silliness.

When I asked,

“How do you determine reality?”

Your reply,

"You observe reality with your senses, and with the tools that extend the senses."

Really, which sense do you think with? Do you think with you sight? How about your smell? What does thinking taste like? What audible sound does thinking make? Can you touch thinking? How do you observe my thought if I do not talk to you?

When I said,

“From which of the senses can you observe logic from? And yet you use it to observe.”

Your reply,

"I’m not clear on what you think “logic” means. I can say that logic is not a model of thinking. The human brain doesn’t work by logic. It works by association. Logic is a formal tool with formal rules that serves the purpose of checking thinking against fundamental observations of reality, to wit, existence, identity, and the excluded middle.

This is a most brilliant statement, "The human brain does not work by logic" as you logically put words together to convey a thought.

What I mean by logic is the process you use to make sense of anything. Without it all these words on this page would be meaningless. The human brain works by using logic in everything we do.

When I said,

“O, by the way you are certainly doing a "good" job in observing origins; life from non-life, non-material from material, intangible from tangible. O, where did you observe any of those?”

You said,

"I don’t think I follow the question. And I keep trying to tell you, I’m not interested in origins."

First, evolution claims we evolved from non-living, non-thinking processes.

Second, You claim you are not interested in origins, but you’re spending a lot of time on a faith based blog arguing about faith. I’m sure your reason for stating you're not interested is because your worldview is incapable of and unable to answer origins, as so many other things.

You say,

“My point is, you demand evidence, but you want to so tightly circumscribe what can be considered evidence that anything I would offer as proof is eliminated from consideration, while your airy assertions are to be considered rock solid. If you’re going to exclude me from the discussion, why have a discussion?”

So far what evidence have you given me? All I see is your personal opinions without any factual evidence to back them up?

When you say,

“I say for the last time, you can’t prove the truth of the Bible by referring to the Bible. That’s circular reasoning. I won’t come back to this point.”

Very convenient!
All reasoning eventually boils down to circular reasoning. Your reasoning keeps coming back to “because I say so.” You contend there is no god because you say so. Why do you say there no God? Because you say there is no evidence for God? Have you seen all the evidence? No, but the evidence you have seen is not convincing to you? Why is the evidence not convincing to you. Because you do not feel there is any evidence for God. And on we go.

The same applies with your reasoning on your standard for right and wrong, good and evil. It is all circular.

I said,

“...the writings of the early church fathers...”

Your reply,

“Who burned every document they disagreed with in the slightest, along with the people who held with those documents when they could capture them.

Again you make a statement without any proof to back it up. Who documented that? If every document was burned that disagreed with them then how did you ever come to find out this information?

You said,

"There is no archeological proof for the existence of any named individual in the Bible, other than a few men of power in the Roman Empire. And even there, the timelines are crossed up. And there is archeological proof that some of the places didn’t exist, including specifically Nazareth, which before the time of the crusades, was nothing but a mausoleum and a garbage dump. This is established. You can look it up. The word “Nazareth” seems to have originally been “nazirite,” which is altogether different."

Again, where is your proof? You throw out these smoke screens and empty claims. The problem of you citing proof or me citing a proof is we can both supply a lot of authors in support of our claim, but how do you ever establish which is right without an objective, absolute standard.

All evidence needs to be interpreted.
When I asked you to check out some of the evidence of Gary Habermas and former atheist Antony Flew in their debate on the Resurrection of Jesus @ www.garyhabermas.com. here is your reply,

“I certainly don’t have time to listen to this whole thing, but from what I saw of it, you would have to be a believer to start with to find Habermas’s argument compelling. He argues straight from the gospels, which, again, is no way to prove the gospels."

Again, this is evidence of your bias because you never give any evidence but you berate mine.

Your bias is something I have been claiming all along and is just further proof that the Bible is true.

You said,

"I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the other scholars you cite argue similarly."

Since it does not fit your worldview you are not even going to consider the argument. That only proves how closed minded you are, while your contending all the time how fair and open minded you are and that I’m the one who is closed minded.

I said,

“The reason scientist make no hypothesis about what went before is because they have no answer. “

Your reply,

If you can’t see the logical weakness of that statement, I think it’s futile to argue."

I do not think you have an argument for your claims. It is easier to brush off with bare assertions.

I presented you with some evidence stating that there were lies in basic elementary and high school textbooks in regards to evolution. Again you could not be bothered to refute any of the arguments if you even listened to them. Instead, here is what you said,

“This is a “creation science” site. Even judges, who aren’t scientists, can see that this isn’t science. The strategy is to throw up so many questions that the sky is clouded with them, and that people who don’t understand the science are confused by them. Questions are easy to pose. Scientific answers are not always easy to understand. If you’re interested in the science, here’s a good place to start: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html”

When I stated,

“That is my point. If all you are and if all I am is a sum total of a bunch of material/physical chemicals reacting in some way, based on evolutionary random selection, how can a physical reaction produce something non-physical such as logic? Since we are two separate beings, what is to stop me fizzing one way and you another? If we are both fizzing differently, then how can we determine anything? Ever seen a rock determine anything?”

Here is your answer,

“I don’t have the answer to the how, but as I say, science is coming closer every day.”

Well, that is the delusion (to coin Richard Dawkins) you live under.

You continue,

“And all this “fizzing” business is just weird. The chemical reactions going on in the body, with the exception of gas in the bowel, do not resemble “fizzing” in any way whatsoever. The chemistry of the body is extremely precise, step-by-step, and highly controlled.”

It is just figurative language to describe what goes on in the brains of evolutionists. Each reacts in a blind, irrational way. If the world came into existence by blind chemical non-rational, non-thinking, non-cognitive processes then how do you get intelligent, cognitive thinking processes out of non-living matter? A stone does not think. A chemical reaction does not think.

When I criticized Steger you said,

“Why are you dragging Stenger in? If I was referring to Stenger, I would have told you. I am capable of independent thought.”

I drag him in because he is one of those people who had a great influence/impact in your life. Do you expect me to believe that he has not greatly influenced the way you think? Let’s be real. Why so touchy?

When I said,

“Why would I want to believe you? You cannot even establish a standard for good or right that makes sense.”

Your reply,

“Flat contradiction doesn’t disprove.”

You espouse a way of looking at the world that does not have the ability to define good and you want me to take you seriously?

When asking about what sign or miracle would you ever believe you said,

“Any miracle, meaning any suspension of the laws of physics, that you can actually, scientifically, demonstrate ever took place. It should be easy.”

Let’s again be realistic. If you ever saw the suspension of a natural or physical law you would find a reason to not believe it. The same was the case during the ministry of Jesus.

I stated,

“You're wrong; in interpreting origins no one was around at point "A" so point "A" has to be interpreted to arrive at points "B" to "Z."

Your response,

"I’M NOT INTERESTED IN ORIGINS! SCIENCE IS NOT INTERESTED IN ORIGINS!"

And yet your “Big Bang” or “Big Dud” was Science looking back at the origin of the universe. Again, you throw up a smoke screen to avoid the question. Your worldview cannot explain origins. It is one of the big puzzlements of an atheistic worldview; the inability to answer a meaningful question.

You said,

One CE? Any year within six years of it? What year was Christ supposedly born?"

So a Gregorian monk got a little mixed up in his division of history. Jewish and Roman calendars start at different times of the year. “The date we call A.D. 1 eventually became so well entrenched that changing the calendars proved impossible.” Jesus and the Gospels by Craig Blomberg, p. 188.

I said,

" There are two censuses mentioned in the New Testament in Luke 2:15 and Acts 5:37. There is also a description published by Gaius Vibius in A.D. 104...”

Your reply,

"I searched the internet for Gaius Vibius. I found two. Neither of them was alive in A.D. 104."

After you chastise me for using dictionary definitions you immediately go to the Internet for your references. Did you think I just made the quotation up?

Here is the quote and the source,

"Because of the approaching census it is necessary for all of those residing for any cause away from there own districts to prepare to return at once to their own governments, in order that they may complete the family administration of the enrollment." The Revel Bible Dictionary, p. 200.

You said,

“I find this highly unlikely. Especially as your author doesn’t seem to exist.”

When I criticized your logic and referred you to a web site to see how your evidence stacks up, you said,

“Habermas doesn’t have anything to do with logic.”

What do you know about logic? You have already ruled it out in your previous statements.

You said,
“And my statement has nothing to do with logic. It’s a simple historical fact. Logic doesn’t enter into it.”

When I said,

“Depending on what you read depends on the dates for the "Big Bang."

Your reply,

"I assure you that 14.3 billion years ago is the currently accepted date."

I love that answer. “I assure you…the currently accepted date.” That is great assurance. How long before it changes again?

You said,

“Incidentally, I’m not happy with the big bang theory myself. It has certain logical problems. “

I don't blame you, and there you go using logic again. I thought that “The human brain doesn’t work by logic. It works by association.”

I said,

“First, you said that "evolution is arrived at after intense observation of the actual world." Yeah, the world we live in today, not what the conditions were like at the time of origin. That is speculation based on data. NO ONE WAS THERE.“

Your reply,

"SPECULATION BASED ON DATA? Now you want to discard data? You want to label all science as speculation?"

Your problem is that you refuse to see that any data needs to be interpreted. It does not come with instructions on it. How good the interpretation is depends on how thorough the research is. You can make any theory say what you want it to say. How can you say that the world we live in today is the key to interpreting the world at the time of the “Big Bang?”

Then you said,

“I think it’s time to close this discussion. If all science is out the window, if no data can be adduced, I have nowhere to stand.”

There again, you try to throw another smoke screen by “all science.” What science have you used? You are trying to your straw man arguments again to appeal to anyone who may read this.

You said,

“And you can’t claim to make any scientific argument. We’re left with nothing but assertion. Discussion is impossible.”

What evidence would you look at? You have not provided any factual evidence to refute my claims in your claims that Jesus Christ never existed or that the Bible is not historical. How scientific is that?

Isn't there something in the Bible about saying "thou fool?" Some reference to the fires of Gehenna, as I recall.

"Answer a fool as his folly desires so that he will not be wise in his own eyes."

Oh, good. Now I'm a fool. This is discussion?

God is real and He is a lot nicer than a lot of people that know His Name seem to think that He is. Talk about taking the Name of God in vain, so many people that call themselves christians really don't know didly-squat about God except for His Name. At least the ones that are condemning so many people when God Incarnate said "Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing", now some of the they sure do not know what they are saying. God is Love, Pure Love, not the spite-filled, revenge-seeking, egomaniac that you would think that He is from reading some of the garbage posted here and on some of the other postings from so called christians. God have Mercy on us all. By the way God wins total victory, satan loses, a tie is utterly unacceptable. Just trying to do what God chose me for, I am the New Testament Moses, God chose me, I said yes. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

God is real and He is a lot nicer than most people think that He is and that goes especially for some of those that know His Name. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Godfrey,

I saw him do this to a Pagan on another thread. He tried to convince him?her? that atheists have no way of 'making sense of the world without borrowing from a Christian worldview'. At least the Pagan responder tried to tell him to let atheists speak for their own points of view and not to make assumptions.

Seems they, like you, have the good sense not to get involved any further. This guy seems to have his hands over his ears going 'lalala.'

Hi Godfrey,

Since you have wasted your time in an "On Faith" blog I would guess that you either are not quite satisfied with Atheism and are looking for something of greater substance, or you like stirring the pot.

Since Atheism is in vogue right now I'm going to respond to some of these comments, just for the record, whether you waste any more time over them or not to show you that what the Bible says is true, "Answer a fool as his folly desires so that he will not be wise in his own eyes." I am working 12 hour shifts until Monday so I will not have the time until then.

By the way, thanks for the chat!

Let me be clear:

I entered this discussion because I thought you were interested in honest discussion. Then you proceed to rule patristics, textual analysis, history, biology, and astrophysics out of court. You systematically reduce the discussion to assertion, then claim your assertions are superior because they come from God. This isn't discussion, and it isn't honest.

You continually demand proof, but deny the possibility of using data. This is contradictory, and SERIOUSLY dishonest.

I've wasted enough time on you, Huff. I won't be wasting any more.

I copied the discussion I haven’t answered yet into Word, and it came to 14 pages. That’s like trying to answer Niagra Falls. But I’ll touch on some of the salient points.

“I don't have the standard for good, God does, and yes, He is the only absolute and standard for determining good for it is what He is.”

If you deny the possibility of any standard of good that emanates from the immanent world, then there’s no point trying to offer you one.

“So Godfrey, how do you make an absolute out of that?”

There’s nothing more absolute than life or death.

“So where is the consensus on what improves life and what destroys it?”

I’m not interested in consensus. I’m interested in right and wrong. I don’t get my ideas by watching to see which way other people jump. If you’re interested, you can get much more on the subject of life as the standard of value in Ayn Rand’s _The Virtue of Selfishness._

“How do you determine reality?”

You observe reality with your senses, and with the tools that extend the senses.

“From which of the senses can you observe logic from? And yet you use it to observe.”

I’m not clear on what you think “logic” means. I can say that logic is not a model of thinking. The human brain doesn’t work by logic. It works by association. Logic is a formal tool with formal rules that serves the purpose of checking thinking against fundamental observations of reality, to wit, existence, identity, and the excluded middle.

“O, by the way you are certainly doing a "good" job in observing origins; life from non-life, non-material from material, intangible from tangible. O, where did you observe any of those?”

I don’t think I follow the question. And I keep trying to tell you, I’m not interested in origins.

“And you, Godfrey, want to throw out the proof and discard the 2000 years of intense study and research of the thousands of men and women who have also learned Greek, Hebrew and Latin and in some cases used it as their mother tongue. Their writings also fill libraries and their research was conducted over the full period of their later life too.

“So what is your point?”

My point is, you demand evidence, but you want to so tightly circumscribe what can be considered evidence that anything I would offer as proof is eliminated from consideration, while your airy assertions are to be considered rock solid. If you’re going to exclude me from the discussion, why have a discussion?

“First and foremost, my proof is the Bible.”

I say for the last time, you can’t prove the truth of the Bible by referring to the Bible. That’s circular reaoning. I won’t come back to this point.

“...the writings of the early church fathers...”

Who burned every document they disagreed with in the slightest, along with the people who held with those documents when they could capture them. If you have the power to exclude the other arguments (which trick you’re trying on me, see above) then your argument doesn’t have much weight.

“Then there are archaeological proofs that confirm that these places mentioned in the Bible actually existed, as did the people.”

There is no archeological proof for the existence of any named individual in the Bible, other than a few men of power in the Roman Empire. And even there, the timelines are crossed up. And there is archeological proof that some of the places didn’t exist, including specifically Nazareth, which before the time of the crusades, was nothing but a mausoleum and a garbage dump. This is established. You can look it up. The word “Nazareth” seems to have originally been “nazirite,” which is altogether different.

“Check out his website for a great refutation of former atheist Antony Flew in their debate on the Resurrection of Jesus @ www.garyhabermas.com. Look under the video section for the free online debate if you want to see how your position stacks up.”

I certainly don’t have time to listen to this whole thing, but from what I saw of it, you would have to be a believer to start with to find Habermas’s argument compelling. He argues straight from the gospels, which, again, is no way to prove the gospels.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the other scholars you cite argue similarly.

“The reason scientist make no hypothesis about what went before is because they have no answer.“

If you can’t see the logical weakness of that statement, I think it’s futile to argue.

“For your information you can actually see some of the lies/contradictions in the textbooks if you go to www.drdino.com and look under videos on evidence that this former science teacher extracted from the textbooks. Can you refute the actual 25 lies he lists?”

This is a “creation science” site. Even judges, who aren’t scientists, can see that this isn’t science. The strategy is to throw up so many questions that the sky is clouded with them, and that people who don’t understand the science are confused by them. Questions are easy to pose. Scientific answers are not always easy to understand. If you’re interested in the science, here’s a good place to start: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

“That is my point. If all you are and if all I am is a sum total of a bunch of material/physical chemicals reacting in some way, based on evolutionary random selection, how can a physical reaction produce something non-physical such as logic? Since we are two separate beings, what is to stop me fizzing one way and you another? If we are both fizzing differently, then how can we determine anything? Ever seen a rock determine anything?”

I don’t have the answer to the how, but as I say, science is coming closer every day. And all this “fizzing” business is just weird. The chemical reactions going on in the body, with the exception of gas in the bowel, do not resemble “fizzing” in any way whatsoever. The chemistry of the body is extremely precise, step-by-step, and highly controlled.

“According to you or at least your friend Steger (sic).”

Why are you dragging Stenger in? If I was referring to Stenger, I would have told you. I am capable of independent thought.

“Why would I want to believe you? You cannot even establish a standard for good or right that makes sense.”

Flat contradiction doesn’t disprove.

“So what sign or miracle would you ever believe Godfrey?”

Any miracle, meaning any suspension of the laws of physics, that you can actually, scientifically, demonstrate ever took place. It should be easy.

“You're wrong; in interpreting origins no one was around at point "A" so point "A" has to be interpreted to arrive at points "B" to "Z."

I’M NOT INTERESTED IN ORIGINS! SCIENCE IS NOT INTERESTED IN ORIGINS!

"Immediately you jump to the conclusion that I do not think science is valid at all. Not at all. The point I make is that when scientists look at origins..."

See immediately preceding.

“...which year was that?”

One CE? Any year within six years of it? What year was Christ supposedly born?

" There are two censuses mentioned in the New Testament in Luke 2:15 and Acts 5:37. There is also a description published by Gaius Vibius in A.D. 104...”

I searched the internet for Gaius Vibius. I found two. Neither of them was alive in A.D. 104.

"Because of the approaching census it is necessary for all of those residing for any cause away from there own districts to prepare to return at once to their own governments, in order that they may complete the family administration of the enrollment."

I find this highly unlikely. Especially as your author doesn’t seem to exist.

“Again, your logic is weak. You need to look at the videos on www.garyhabermas.com to see how well your argument stacks up.”

Habermas doesn’t have anything to do with logic. And my statement has nothing to do with logic. It’s a simple historical fact. Logic doesn’t enter into it.

Depending on what you read depends on the dates for the "Big Bang."

I assure you that 14.3 billion years ago is the currently accepted date. But you don’t look it up in a dictionary, for God’s sake. You look in current science. I’m not about to chase down all your internet references, but when were they posted?

Incidentally, I’m not happy with the big bang theory myself. It has certain logical problems. One example: it asserts that at a certain point in time, time started. This is a manifest contradiction. There are other problems.

“First, you said that "evolution is arrived at after intense observation of the actual world." Yeah, the world we live in today, not what the conditions were like at the time of origin. That is speculation based on data. NO ONE WAS THERE.“

SPECULATION BASED ON DATA? Now you want to discard data? You want to label all science as speculation? I think it’s time to close this discussion. If all science is out the window, if no data can be adduced, I have nowhere to stand. And you can’t claim to make any scientific argument. We’re left with nothing but assertion. Discussion is impossible.

Hi Godfrey,

Are you still checking in or am I wasting my time?

Hello Godfrey,

Actually, I should have said all but John were written before 70 A.D. My mistake, but even John was written before the turn of the century according to well researched scholars like W.F. Albright. It will take me a while to dig up quotes, but it can be done. And what we will be doing is pitting scholar against scholar, so I'm sure that you can pull the scholars to support your position as I can to support mine.

But from the manuscripts themselves can you show me the mention of the fall of Jerusalem taking place in Matthew, Mark or Luke (or any of the other significant historical events that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem, to my knowledge). Please feel free to point out any. Since you are disputing an historical record/materials, the Gospels, point out from those records where you draw your conclusions from. Or maybe you should show me where these Gospels are not considered historical data. Which "scholars" have determined this or the "fact" that Jesus was a mythical figure?

John Warwick Montgomery in History and Christianity, p.26-27, quoted Sir Frederic G. Kenyon writing on the New Testament documents,

"In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest extant manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament."

Then he goes on to compare other ancient manuscripts, such as those of Sophocles or Plato, etc.

Then, on A.T. Robinson Montgomery said,

"Moreover, as A.T. Robinson, the author of the most comprehensive grammar of the New Testament Greek, wrote, "There are some 8,000 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate and at least 1,000 for the other early versions. Add over 4,000 Greek manuscripts and we have 13,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. Besides all this, much of the New Testament can be reproduced from the quotations of the early Christian writers." p28-29

On the internal evidence Montgomery had this to say,

"...historical and literary scholarship continues to follow the dictum that the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself. This means that one must listen to the claims of the document under analysis, and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies...." p.29

On the external evidence, Montgomery had this to say,

"Do other historical materials confirm or deny the internal testimony provided by the documents themselves? Careful comparison of the New Testament documents with inscriptions and other independent early evidence has in the modern period confirmed their primary claims. For example, Sir William Ramsey came to the conclusion after years of painstaking archaeological and geological investigation of Luke's gospel. He rejected the negatively critical attitude to Luke taken by the 19th-century Tübingen school. He wrote, "Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness."

"Moreover, as to the authors and primary historical value of the Gospel accounts, confirmation comes from independent written sources. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis around A.D. 130, writes as follows on the basis of information obtained from the "Elder" (Apostle) John: "The Elder used to say also: Mark, having been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that he [Peter] mentioned, whether sayings or doings of Christ; not, however, in order..."

"Another superlative external testimony of the primacy of the Gospel accounts is provided by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, who writes, "Matthew published his Gospel among the Hebrews [i.e., Jews] in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure [i.e., death, which strong tradition places at the time of the Neronian persecution in 64], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter's preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord...himself produced his Gospel, while he was living at Ephesus in Asia....."

"Specifically, present-day scholars date the important New Testament materials as follows: the Pauline letters, A.D. 51-62; Mark's Gospel, 64-70; the Gospel according to Matthew and Luke, 80-85; Acts, shortly after Luke...John's Gospel, no later than 100. It should be emphasized that the dates here given are in general the latest possible ones for the books in question; the is excellent reason for earlier dating in most cases. For instant, Luke-Acts should probably be dated prior to 64, since Paul almost certainly died in persecution by Nero, yet Acts does not record his death."

"As a sensitive barometer to the current archaeological-based trend towards even earlier dating of these documents, we have the statement of the world's foremost biblical archaeologist, W. F. Albright....: "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and the eighties of the first century A.D. (very probably sometime between about A.D. 50 and 75)." p 31-35

Godfrey, I am running out of time, but this weekend I will document more of why the Gospels are thought to be earlier than 70 A.D. after I re-read some of the materials I have on hand, if you are still interested. I also have a quote on Luke's Census from The Historical Jesus by Gary Habermas, which I will record the page number here so that I can reference it later (page 173).

Let's see your proof.

Briefly, with the time remaining, I would also like you to answer why, in an evolutionary/atheistic world, there would be such a problem as evil, or for that matter good. To what objective standard do you make your appeal for any code of conduct?

With all the horrid and tragic events that will happen in your and my lifetimes that I'm sure neither one of us will recognize as good, what is the purpose in them happening? After all, unless you see Nature like our pagan friends do, as having it's own conscious, does Nature recognize a right and wrong; good and evil? It's just an evolutionary process, of which you are supposedly a part of, and therefore not subject to good or evil. Therefore why do you, a biological process (according to evolution) even make a distinction between good and evil? Survival of the fittest is the process, according to Darwin, that all life follows. Then why should you consider,

"Whatever furthers or improves life (considering both the short and long term) is good. What hinders or destroys life is evil."

Is "good" not just looking out for your own best interests (as in survival of the fittest), or is that what you are doing by trying to improve and prolong life. Looking out for your own best interests? Why, for when you are dead none of this means anything anyway????

Well, my worldview has an answer for all of this, and you keep borrowing from it when you make distinctions between good and evil, and in the process contradicting the core of what evolution is based on, meaninglessness. A rock does not make these distinctions; it does not sit there and contemplate life. Yet supposedly both you and it all came about by a chance "Big Bang" billions of years ago.

The atheist has a lot of explaining to do.

Why would a tsunami be considered bad, since it is just a natural function (supposedly) common to all life and not within our ability to stop? It is just nature doing what nature does, without distinction.

It's three in the morning, so I'm not going to attempt a comprehensive answer now, but I do have to say that your assertion that the gospels were written before 70CE is nothing short of wild-eyed. All the authorities I've read, and I've read a bunch, say that Mark was written after 70CE, and the others after that, with John being well up in the second century, possibly as late as 165CE. This is so well known I'm surprised you would contradict it. Mark couldn't have been written before 70CE because he mentions the fall of the Temple, and that happened in 70.

Hi Godfrey,

I was thinking more about your statements below in answer to mine about the gospels being historical records, in which you said,

"No, they aren’t. They are inconsistent with known history in many ways, including known dates.

Well Godfrey, if that in itself is not one of the most illogical and untrue contentions that you have made to date then I'll be jiggered.

I’ve been to the British Museum of Natural History and seen fragments of texts and manuscripts that prove they are historical records. Secular, as well as biblical historians have agreed to that and to the facts that the gospels were written well within the lifetimes of the Apostles. They were the ones claiming to be eyewitnesses. Where are the historical records to say otherwise from that time period?

So when you say,

“The gospels are a collection of books mostly written to show that one person’s version of the myth was better than another's.”

Myths usually take time to develop and not usually within the span of time that the Gospels were established because others are there to refute such myths. From historical references we know that the Gospels were written before the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

If the resurrection of Jesus was myth, the whole Christian movement could have been squashed by the Roman authorities by producing Jesus' dead body. That would have stopped the apostles and others from proclaiming that someone who was put to death had been raised from the dead. Where is the literature to prove the resurrection never actually happened, during the founding of the early churches and the days and months after Pentecost? In one day 3000 people came to faith (Acts 2:41).

Well Godfrey, when you say,

"This is such a mish-mash of bad logic, misapprehension, misunderstanding, and incoherent flitting from point to point that I don't know if I want to answer it. Let me come back when I'm a little fresher."

Again, it is an easy thing to say. Hopefully you are willing to show me why you make these assertions.

I'm still waiting to see how you can arrive at a standard of "good" that is anything but your subjective opinion. Without an absolute standard it is impossible to make sense of.

You assert,

"My standard of good is life."

You also claim that your subjective standard is absolute. How do you determine from life that a subjective opinion is absolute? Is not a subjective opinion something that is taken from ones own mind and is particular to that particular person? I mean, you use the word "my" so from that I conclude that you are not talking from an objective standpoint, that being that it is not influenced/preceding from/by your own emotions or bias.

"Whatever furthers or improves life (considering both the short and long term) is good. What hinders or destroys life is evil."

Then death is bad. But for me as a Christian I do not accept your definition. I believe that to die as a Christian is to be with God, which is the ultimate good. So already I question your absolute, since I've just listed an exception that comes from my subjective experience. So who is right about "good?" I say you are not, you say you are.

My measure of "good" is not myself or from myself. It is a standard above and outside of myself that makes sense of what "good" is.

Well, I was hoping for more from you, since I took the time and effort to answer each of your assertions, but I totally understand if that is as far as you can take it. If I do not hear from you again, take care and thanks for the chat.

Peter Huff,

This is such a mish-mash of bad logic, misapprehension, misunderstanding, and incoherent flitting from point to point that I don't know if I want to answer it. Let me come back when I'm a little fresher.

Hello Godfrey,

(It’s a long one)

When you say,

"What, you think you have the only absolute in the universe? My standard of good is life.”

I don't have the standard for good, God does, and yes, He is the only absolute and standard for determining good for it is what He is.

"God is not like man that He should lie, nor like the son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19)

Or as the Apostle Paul put it,

"Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness - a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and at His appointed season He brought His word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior." (Titus 1:1-3)

You said,

"Whatever furthers or improves life (considering both the short and long term) is good. What hinders or destroys life is evil. There’s much room for discussion here of course. Keep in mind that this is a brief statement of a deep subject."

So Godfrey, how do you make an absolute out of that? As you yourself have said later in the post,
"When did we ever get a consensus?"

So where is the consensus on what improves life and what destroys it? As you have said, it boils down to discussion on a deep subject that you or I cannot possibly know, in the long run/big picture, of whether our actions are actually helpful or hurtful.

For instance, as a Christian I look upon the preaching of the gospel message as a good thing, whereas you look upon it as a bad thing. So which one of the two of us is doing a good thing? I believe it improves life for eternity whereas you believe it inhibits people and stops them from enjoying a fulfilling lifestyle in this present life.

Adolph Hitler viewed the extermination of Jews and others as a good thing for Germany.

For the Russian or Chinese communist, the advancement of the state is good. Therefore the extermination of millions to do so has been determine in the past to be in the best interests of the State.

Head hunting tribes in the South Pacific viewed the eating of human flesh as good, that is as long as it was not theirs, or a member of their tribal family.

So how do you determine "good" from lifestyle?

Eating a human enemy may be thought of as in the best interest of a tribe, an easy meal, or maybe an only meal if game is scarce.

The other thing about absolutes is since we are subjective beings, in that we see/evaluate things through our own eyes, or the eyes of someone else's standard, when two human standards, both claiming to be absolute are stating opposite beliefs, then it is impossible that they are both right. A cannot equal A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship.

Without God nothing is good or evil because the definition can change tomorrow depending on which society you live in.

Same sex married was a taboo in Canada until very recently. How can it be considered in the best interest of society one year and passé another?

So when you want to declare a new behavior "good" for society all you have to do is redraw the parameter to suit your needs. It is easy if you can get others to make the laws to suit you needs. Just shout louder if you want attention. How do you find absolutes in that?

Godfrey, when I said,

“I think once you can determine that your standard for "good" is sensible we can certainly examine how sensible.”

You said,

"My standard at least proceeds from observable reality."

How do you determine reality? From which of the senses can you observe logic from? And yet you use it to observe.

O, by the way you are certainly doing a "good" job in observing origins; life from non-life, non-material from material, intangible from tangible. O, where did you observe any of those?

When you say,

"Let me see if I understand this. You want to demand proof, but first you want to throw out all scholarship."

No, you are looking at the issue from the angle that supports your predetermine position. No one ever comes to any facts without bias. You are choosing just the historians that emphasis your worldview. There are equally good historians, and I would definitely argue, better historians, that come at the issue from the opposite perspective. Because you weigh the evidence on your subjective atheistic position, you are going to be in favor of historians that support that position. That is the path you have chosen to go down.

You said,

"You want to discard 400 years of intense study and research. You want to throw out hundreds of men and women who learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, and Syriac before they could even begin, and who read every document they could find, who went digging through ancient libraries and found documents that had been lost for a thousand years— you want to throw out the life’s work of all these people, then demand proof."

And you, Godfrey, want to throw out the proof and discard the 2000 years of intense study and research of the thousands of men and women who have also learned Greek, Hebrew and Latin and in some cases used it as their mother tongue. Their writings also fill libraries and their research was conducted over the full period of their later life too.

So what is your point?

When you said,

"Where’s your proof, buddy? Let me remind you that you’re separated from the Bible by 2000 years yourself. Do you read Greek? Do you read Coptic?"

First and foremost, my proof is the Bible. It documents historical narrative.

Second, there is secondary proofs, the writings of the early church fathers, whose writings contain every verse of the New Testament except for, I believe, eleven verses. Then there are the writings of scholars and historians pasted down through the ages. Over two hundred prophesies on the Messiah alone that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Then there are archaeological proofs that confirm that these places mentioned in the Bible actually existed, as did the people. Then there is the unity of the Bible; sixty-six different books by over forty authors, written over 1500 years, all led and inspired by the Spirit, who confirm its message. Then there is the proof that great men of science, such as Sir Isaac Newton were also men of faith who discovered things that confirmed that the world of God is true. Then there is my own subjective experience, in which God, through the Holy Spirit has confirmed in my heart that His word is truth. Then there is the fact that no other worldview, besides the Christian faith, can make sense of the world or have an answer that makes sense of this world.

Third, you say I am separated by 2000 years of history. So are you. What is your point, that we cannot know truth that far back? How far back do you have to go? Only back as far as origins?

When you said,

"As I say, Christianity is a latecomer to the discussion."

The point is that Christianity is a progressive revelation of the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, which was around long before any of the faiths you mentioned having the "Golden Rule."

In the Old Testament contained, in the New Testament explained.

A quick example, from the first book of the Jewish Scriptures, Genesis, the book of beginnings, we see the provision of God for the sinful actions of man already established, by the foretelling of His Son coming in human flesh.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head and you will strike His heel." (Genesis 3:15)

You also have the sacrificial system first mentioned and pointing to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at a further point in history laid down in Genesis, first in the killing of an animal by God to provide clothing to Adam and Eve, and then in the sacrifices of Able and Cain; a well as being history, these sacrifices are symbolic of two types of sacrifice.

When I said,

“There again, why should I believe Karen [Armstrong]? There are lots of other scholars who believe differently from her opinions or her historical work."

You responded,

"Care to cite a few of them? Listen, Armstrong is not the first person to say these things. She’s an amateur historian, and she gets a lot of her thinking from the professionals. Here are three of her sources on this subject: Mircea Eliade, _Patterns in Comparative Religion_ (trans. Rosemary Sheed, London, 1958; Johannes Sloek, _Devotional Language_ (trans. Henrik Mossin, Berlin and New York, 1996; Thomas L. Thompson, _The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past_, London, 1999."

Sorry, never heard of any of them.

You said,

"Who are yours?"

Here are some citations of scholars for you:

F.F. BRUCE, THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS
Are they Reliable?

You can find the book on-line at Monergism.com under "On-line Books"

B.M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament

Gary Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ

Check out his website for a great refutation of former atheist Antony Flew in their debate on the Resurrection of Jesus @ www.garyhabermas.com. Look under the video section for the free online debate if you want to see how your position stacks up.

Other scholars I would consider well researched are James R. White (Alpha and Omega Ministries on the www - check out the lion/buffalo/croc video!); Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists; Frederic Kenyon, Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament or The Bible and Archaeology; Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels; and some of the older scholars like Benjamin B. Warfield, Introduction to Textual Criticism of the New Testament or William Whitaker, Disputations on Holy Scripture.

Concerning logic you said,

"First, science does not hold that matter exploded from nothing. Merely that it exploded. Scientists make no hypothesis about what went before. I don’t think you’re in a position to make one either."

Let me do some work down at the local library for you concerning what the textbooks teach on origins. I would like to get some actual quotes.

The reason scientist make no hypothesis about what went before is because they have no answer.

For your information you can actually see some of the lies/contradictions in the textbooks if you go to www.drdino.com and look under videos on evidence that this former science teacher extracted from the textbooks. Can you refute the actual 25 lies he lists?

As for your other comment about me not being in a position to make a hypothesis, I am because God has revealed origins and only He was before all things so He would know.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

You said,

"Also, Science has gone a long way to demonstrate that thought and abstraction are epiphenomena of the physical brain. This is discussed in Stenger, and I can give you a list of academic articles, if you really want them."

That is my point. If all you are and if all I am is a sum total of a bunch of material/physical chemicals reacting in some way, based on evolutionary random selection, how can a physical reaction produce something non-physical such as logic? Since we are two separate beings, what is to stop me fizzing one way and you another? If we are both fizzing differently, then how can we determine anything? Ever seen a rock determine anything?

Another way to put it is how can a primary phenomenon that is physical in nature produce a secondary phenomenon that is non-physical and abstract?

When I said,

“Also explain to me how the laws of logic appear to be universal. They apply to all men everywhere.”

You replied,

"Where did you get that? Logic is a procedure for checking thought that was, so far as I know, cooked up by Aristotle."

Maybe Aristotle was the first to formalize in writing what logic was (I don't know), but man was reasoning, I contend, from his origin.

Without using logic communication would be impossible. For you to express a thought words have to have meaning and the way the words are put together determines the meaning (i.e. the context). Since all of us (unless we have some large deficiency) communicate and have been doing so since recorded history, logic would apply to all people of all times.

Again, since logic is abstract and non material how do you account for it in a physical universe?

You said,

"It’s merely a tool. Most people don’t use it at all. And it’s not the only tool. The Chinese, for instance, have a five step syllogism, which requires that you give an example from experience before you draw a conclusion. I doubt if the Chinese use theirs any more than we use ours."

Just to draw a conclusion requires the use of logic. Chinese do use logic, just like the rest of us and not just for their sillygisms (sorry, that was silly). And people use logic everyday in most tasks they do. You know that you must stop when the light is red.

You said,

"When did we ever get a consensus?"

My point precisely, without God you cannot get one that is absolutely true and valid for everyone. You cannot impose any standard that is binding to all people without absolutes, and a standard without absolutes cannot be made sense of.

You said,

"Thinking about what you’re doing and deciding to do different hardly constitutes proof of God."

According to you or at least your friend Steger. Why would I want to believe you? You cannot even establish a standard for good or right that makes sense.

You said,

"Stenger offers a whole book of what would constitute proof of the existence of God. Show me an instance where God has set aside the laws of physics. Show me an instance of any realm of the spiritual. Show me, god, anything solid."

First, God is Spirit. Spirit is something that cannot be seen.

Second, what would you believe, as Jesus said in response to the question,

"What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent." So they asked Him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat." (John 6:28-31)

This was just after Jesus had broken a natural law by turning two fish and five small barley loaves into enough food to fill five thousand people.

Or again when he answered the Pharisees after they asked,

" Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asked for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah...." (Matthew 12:38-39)

So what sign or miracle would you ever believe Godfrey? You will explain away any I give you. Your natural worldview does not give credence to miracles. That would require belief in something you have said you do not believe in, the supernatural. Sorry, I have plenty of proofs, but I do not have a proof that you would accept.

When you say,

"Scientists don’t interpret facts. They observe them. They test them. They show that B follows A."

You're wrong; in interpreting origins no one was around at point "A" so point "A" has to be interpreted to arrive at points "B" to "Z."

A fossil does not come stamped "100 million years old."

Same with Charles Lyell's Uniformitarianism; the assumption that origins of species can be traced to a geologic column in which certain fossils are indexed in certain strata and the present condition is the key to past conditions. The older simpler forms should be found in the deeper levels of strata is the reasoning. This is not necessarily the case and can you tell me of somewhere in the world where the geological column exists in all its layers/levels?

You said,

"And what kind of arrogant remark is that, “they can’t get it right?” If they couldn’t get it right, you would never get on an elevator, let alone an airplane. You would still be going to the barber to get your injuries bandaged. You would still be going to the graveyard if you wanted to visit your family. Of course they get it right, and have changed the world in doing so."

Immediately you jump to the conclusion that I do not think science is valid at all. Not at all. The point I make is that when scientists look at origins they misinterpret the data to suit their presuppositions (evolution and the criteria that would be needed for life to evolve) on the age of the earth. This is because they have built so many assumptions into their interpretations of the facts (i.e. a fossil without a date stamped on it) that it is not neutral or unbiased.

There are a lot of good scientists out there. You are lumping all scientist and scientific data together. There are good and bad scientists just like there are good and bad Bible students.

"The gospels themselves are actual historical records."

You reply was,

"No, they aren’t. They are inconsistent with known history in many ways, including known dates. To give the first example that leaps to mind, consider Joseph traveling to Bethlehem for a census. A: there was no census that year."

O, which year was that?

"B: It has always been the nature of census to count you where you are, not travel a long way somewhere else and then be counted."

There are two censuses mentioned in the New Testament in Luke 2:15 and Acts 5:37. There is also a description published by Gaius Vibius in A.D. 104 which reads,

"Because of the approaching census it is necessary for all of those residing for any cause away from there own districts to prepare to return at once to their own governments, in order that they may complete the family administration of the enrollment."

So the accounts of Joseph are reasonable, historically verifiable that similar censuses which called Joseph to return to his home city is likely, and because the Scriptures are the Word of God I can place my trust in them completely rather in the speculation twenty centuries later.

You said,

"The existence of Christ cannot even be established historically. One small example: the Romans kept meticulous records of who they crucified. Those records still exist. There is no Yeshua or Iesou."

Again, your logic is weak. You need to look at the videos on www.garyhabermas.com to see how well your argument stacks up.

You said,

"The gospels are a collection of books mostly written to show that one person’s version of the myth was better than another's."

Please see above.

When I asked,

“How do you explain truth without God? It is just your subjective experience and the way you interpret the facts as opposed to my subjective experience and the way I interpret the facts?”

Your reply,

"Of course not. Truth is objective. Truth is when a statement corresponds with actual reality. Checking this correspondence is what scientists do. It is not what theologians do."

I agree with "truth is objective" and "corresponds with actual reality." For a reply to the rest, see above.

When I said,

“How do you get objective truth from a chance, random, blind, chaotic explosion 13-20 billion years ago?”

Your reply,

"14.3 billion years ago. And how does the beginning of that sentence connect to the end? You get objective truth by examining the world that’s around you here and now."

Depending on what you read depends on the dates for the "Big Bang."

The American Heritage Dictionary:

"big bang theory
n.

A cosmological theory holding that the universe originated approximately 20 billion years ago from the violent explosion of a very small agglomeration of matter of extremely high density and temperature."

The Cambridge Cosmology:

"THE HOT BIG BANG MODEL

About ten billion years ago, the Universe began in a gigantic explosion - the Hot Big Bang! Its subsequent evolution from one hundredth of a second up to the present day can be reliably described by the Big Bang model."

Universeforum:

"No one knows how the first space, time, and matter arose. And scientists are grappling with even deeper questions. If there was nothing to begin with, then where did the laws of nature come from? How did the universe "know" how to proceed? And why do the laws of nature produce a universe that is so hospitable to life? As difficult as these questions are, scientists are attempting to address them with bold new ideas - and new experiments to test those ideas."

LaRocco, Chris and Blair Rothstein,

"About 15 billion years ago a tremendous explosion started the expansion of the universe. This explosion is known as the Big Bang. At the point of this event all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point. What existed prior to this event is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation. This occurrence was not a conventional explosion but rather an event filling all of space with all of the particles of the embryonic universe rushing away from each other. The Big Bang actually consisted of an explosion of space within itself unlike an explosion of a bomb were fragments are thrown outward. The galaxies were not all clumped together, but rather the Big Bang lay the foundations for the universe. "

Wikapedia:

"In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory that the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago."

WordNet:

"The noun big-bang theory has one meaning:

Meaning #1: (cosmology) the theory that the universe originated 20 billion years ago from the cataclysmic explosion of a small mass of matter at extremely high density and temperature."

So just from a quick search on the Net, Godfrey, I come across scientific fact that cannot make up its mind on when the universe actually started - from 10-20 billion years ago. Depending on which model I look at depends on whether I come across a universe that began with a whimper or violent explosion.

Wow! That is really scientific fact!

I said,

“As for your view not being religious, evolution is a religious worldview. It attempts to make sense of why man is here.”

Your reply,

"Double wrong. Evolution is an idea arrived at after intensive observation of the actual world. Read _The Origin of Species_, for God’s sweet sake. And it does not attempt to make sense of why man is here. It attempts to make sense of HOW man is here.

First, you said that "evolution is arrived at after intense observation of the actual world." Yeah, the world we live in today, not what the conditions were like at the time of origin. That is speculation based on data. NO ONE WAS THERE.

Second, evolution is a belief.

Answers.com:

be•lief (bĭ-lēf') pronunciation
n.

1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.
2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.
3. Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

[Middle English bileve, alteration (influenced by bileven, to believe), of Old English gelēafa.]

SYNONYMS belief, credence, credit, faith. These nouns denote mental acceptance of the truth, actuality, or validity of something: a statement unworthy of belief; an idea steadily gaining credence; testimony meriting credit; has no faith in a liar's assertions. See also synonyms at opinion.
ANTONYM disbelief"

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Belief - in philosophy, commitment to something, involving intellectual assent. Philosophers have disagreed as to whether belief is active or passive; René Descartes held that it is a matter of will, while David Hume thought that it was an emotional commitment, and C. S. Peirce considered it a habit of action. Compared to faith and probability, the concept of belief has received little attention from philosophers."

You have faith in Evolutionary Science; I have faith in the God of the Bible, the only true God. Your faith is based on fallible human reasoning; mine is based on the infallible God of the universe, who does not lie.

Thanks for the chat!

To Peter Huff and the rest of the world: When you referred to knowing them by their fruits, well some people's fruits are not known until after they are phsically dead. As far as the length of an earth day, well the earth basically spins in a circle in what we have chosen to call 24 hours and the earth goes on an orbit around the sun in what we call a year with an approximate 23 and a half degree tilt which determines the seasons, God built it that way in His Wisdom, all the laws of nature are what they are because that is the way that God made it. I thank you for the humor about my name but since I am kind of new to this computer stuff, it wasn't until after I sent the post that I noticed the sideways smiley face, you know all of us at times take things that aren't all that important so seriously and the things that are important not serious at all. I take what God has chosen me to do very serious, most if not all messengers were not very well listened too. Like it says all tears shall be wiped dry, and since what God has revealed to you, He does not so to speak unreveal, and since I have experienced hell, then the Kingdom could not be complete unless God wins Total Victory. It also says that ALL knees shall bend and acknowledge Jesus as who He really is, but it does not say exactly how or when that will happen, but that it will happen. Follow your heart but DON'T UNDERESTIMATE GOD. I may add more later but I have to go now. Thank You. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Peter Huff:

Another word of advice: if you’re going to write a long reply, do it in a real text editor. I just lost several hundred words in this stupid little editor because I hit escape. I’ll try again, in MS Word, this time.

“I would say you have a lot of explaining to do, such as how you can make sense of "good" without God. No absolutes equal voluntary conscription. You volunteer because I or my group or band or culture says you do at the point of a blade if necessary.”

What, you think you have the only absolute in the universe? My standard of good is life. Whatever furthers or improves life (considering both the short and long term) is good. What hinders or destroys life is evil. There’s much room for discussion here of course. Keep in mind that this is a brief statement of a deep subject.

“I think once you can determine that your standard for "good" is sensible we can certainly examine how sensible.”

My standard at least proceeds from observable reality.

[Concerning pseudo-Paul:] “Again, that is your assumption, with what proof against the historical records? By a historian twenty centuries removed from the actual witnesses? Or in the case of Textural Criticism, what, eighteen centuries removed?”

Let me see if I understand this. You want to demand proof, but first you want to throw out all scholarship. You want to discard 400 years of intense study and research. You want to throw out hundreds of men and women who learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, and Syriac before they could even begin, and who read every document they could find, who went digging through ancient libraries and found documents that had been lost for a thousand years— you want to throw out the life’s work of all these people, then demand proof. Where’s your proof, buddy? Let me remind you that you’re separated from the Bible by 2000 years yourself. Do you read Greek? Do you read Coptic?

“Well the Jews, of whom Jesus was one when He took on human form, had established this rule long before 500BC...”

As I say, Christianity is a latecomer to the discussion.

“There again, why should I believe Karen [Armstrong]? There are lots of other scholars who believe differently from her opinions or her historical work."

Care to cite a few of them? Listen, Armstrong is not the first person to say these things. She’s an amateur historian, and she gets a lot of her thinking from the professionals. Here are three of her sources on this subject: Mircea Eliade, _Patterns in Comparative Religion_ (trans. Rosemary Sheed, London, 1958; Johannes Sloek, _Devotional Language_ (trans. Henrik Mossin, Berlin and New York, 1996; Thomas L. Thompson, _The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past_, London, 1999.

Who are yours?

“Logic is a concept, not a physical property. So how does the atheist account for them [sic], when everything supposedly came from matter exploding from nothing? Show me one of the laws of logic if they are material.”

First, science does not hold that matter exploded from nothing. Merely that it exploded. Scientists make no hypothesis about what went before. I don’t think you’re in a position to make one either.

Also, Science has gone a long way to demonstrate that thought and abstraction are epiphenomena of the physical brain. This is discussed in Stenger, and I can give you a list of academic articles, if you really want them.

“Also explain to me how the laws of logic appear to be universal. They apply to all men everywhere.”

Where did you get that? Logic is a procedure for checking thought that was, so far as I know, cooked up by Aristotle. It’s merely a tool. Most people don’t use it at all. And it’s not the only tool. The Chinese, for instance, have a five step syllogism, which requires that you give an example from experience before you draw a conclusion. I doubt if the Chinese use theirs any more than we use ours.

“[Some blather about fizzing chemicals, then] So how will we ever get consensus?”

When did we ever get a consensus?

“Lives transformed every day is one of the evidences. God putting a new nature in the heart of the believer so that his values change.”

Thinking about what you’re doing and deciding to do different hardly constitutes proof of God.

“What evidence would you ever believe? As an unbeliever [etc., etc., etc., etc.]”

Stenger offers a whole book of what would constitute proof of the existence of God. Show me an instance where God has set aside the laws of physics. Show me an instance of any realm of the spiritual. Show me, god, anything solid.

“There is no higher standard [than scripture] that I can appeal to. Why would I want to use something lower? You are appealing to your highest standard, the interpretation of facts by Scientists who cannot seem to get it right.”

Scientists don’t interpret facts. They observe them. They test them. They show that B follows A. And what kind of arrogant remark is that, “they can’t get it right?” If they couldn’t get it right, you would never get on an elevator, let alone an airplane. You would still be going to the barber to get your injuries bandaged. You would still be going to the graveyard if you wanted to visit your family. Of course they get it right, and have changed the world in doing so.

"The gospels themselves are actual historical records."

No, they aren’t. They are inconsistent with known history in many ways, including known dates. To give the first example that leaps to mind, consider Joseph traveling to Bethlehem for a census. A: there was no census that year. B: It has always been the nature of census to count you where you are, not travel a long way somewhere else and then be counted. The existence of Christ cannot even be established historically. One small example: the Romans kept meticulous records of who they crucified. Those records still exist. There is no Yeshua or Iesou.

The gospels are a collection of books mostly written to show that one person’s version of the myth was better than another's.

“How do you explain truth without God? It is just your subjective experience and the way you interpret the facts as opposed to my subjective experience and the way I interpret the facts?”

Of course not. Truth is objective. Truth is when a statement corresponds with actual reality. Checking this correspondence is what scientists do. It is not what theologians do.

“How do you get objective truth from a chance, random, blind, chaotic explosion 13-20 billion years ago?”

14.3 billion years ago. And how does the beginning of that sentence connect to the end? You get objective truth by examining the world that’s around you here and now.

“As for your view not being religious, evolution is a religious worldview. It attempts to make sense of why man is here.”

Double wrong. Evolution is an idea arrived at after intensive observation of the actual world. Read _The Origin of Species_, for God’s sweet sake. And it does not attempt to make sense of why man is here. It attempts to make sense of HOW man is here.

“Well, I think we have a few problems on this terrestrial ball, last time I checked the news. It has been pretty hot this summer, and there seems to be a lot of clashes over ideological positions around the world.”

I was referring to science when I said “highly reliable.” And the less attention people pay to science, the more trouble on this terrestrial ball.

"We believe in Marxfruedanddarwin...”

Your little poem is an exercise in sarcasm, and contributes nothing.

Hello Thomas,

If you want someone to believe your witness, what is your credibility? Do you recognize the Bible as the inerrant Word of the living God?

Jimmy Jones and David Korresh, Reverent Sun Luck Moon and Joseph Smith also have/had a message. Jesus said you would recognize them by there fruit.

What are you saying when you said,

"As far as the length of an earth day, God determined that by the way He made things."

You said,

"As far as showing you from scripture, I don't have to show you or anyone else, God will."

Well Thomas, if you are who you claim to be, what Scriptures can you point me to so that God may show me you are authentic?

When you say,

"My name has not gotten bigger with each post by the way, I use my first and last name to post and I use my full name to sign it, most people just call me Tom."

I apologize, I was just using a little humor.

I agree with you on some points, such as,

"Like it says, God so loved the world, humanity, that He became one of us, kind of mind-boggling isn't it,"

When you say,

"Imagine that you died and woke up in heaven and you could not be happier, way beyond anything you could imagine and then you kind of looked down and saw your mother or your father, your sister or your brother, your husband or your wife, your son or your daughter or your best friend in hell, how heavenly would that be"

That is why the message of the Gospel is so important. I hope and pray that my family is there also, but I know regardless of what happens that being in the presence of God will compensate completely if one of my loved ones is not there. My God is bigger than my sorrows, and He has said in His Word, for He cannot lie, that He will wipe away every tear from the eyes of those He loves.

When you say,

"Jesus Himself went to hell, He took the sin and the sins of the world upon Himself, think about it, maybe God did something so mind-boggling that we make it so small, that is so sad"

Thomas, God has revealed in His Word who will be saved, only those who believe in Christ and what He did ((John 3:36). Why do you contradict it? Do you know better than God (heaven forbid)?

"C.H. Spurgeon said: 'We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, 'No, certainly not.' We ask them the next question — Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer 'No.' They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent. They say 'No. Christ has died that any man may be saved if' — and then follow certain conditions of salvation. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as infallibly to secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ's death; we say, 'No, my dear sir it is you that do it.' We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it."

To Peter Huff and the rest of the world: Of course I was not present at the Transfiguration that was the Old Testament Moses. The Old Testament Moses did not say that he would come back as a human, that would be a crock and it would be called reincarnation, he said someone like me, a very unlikely candidate you could say. As far as the length of an earth day, God determined that by the way He made things. When Jesus was walking around down here, was He in the form of an unblemished lamb or was He in the form of a man. It is pretty obvious that He was a person but nevertheless the unblemished lamb of the Jewish rituals pointed to Him. Nothing I say contradicts what God has revealed, the religious of Jesus's day didn't listen to him and as Jesus pointed out to them: most of God's messengers were not listened to and were treated rather shabbily and then look at how we treated the message Himself. You ask why would God send another prophet after the Son, well maybe it is because the bible explicitly mentions it, check out revelations. I am pointing to Jesus as being true man and true God, I am not pointing to me, I am just a messenger, the guilty goat not the unblemished lamb. As far as showing you from scripture, I don't have to show you or anyone else, God will. God is God, I'm not, I am merely a messenger. My name has not gotten bigger with each post by the way, I use my first and last name to post and I use my full name to sign it, most people just call me Tom. Do you know that the Word of God is Love and that Jesus was His earthly name and that Jesus is Love Incarnate. And have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus always was, is and will be the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God Himself and He only became the Son of God when He became the Son of Man and that was when Mary said Yes. God has a Plan and He has had that Plan before He, the Trinity, created anything either spiritual or material and that Plan is referred to as the Mysterious Plan of God in revelation. I refuse to be thankful to a loser, God is not a loser. Like I said very simply: God Wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable. God is a searcher of hearts and minds not of religious affiliations or lack thereof. Be ready, that is what our Brother Jesus said isn't it? Like it says, God so loved the world, humanity, that He became one of us, kind of mind-boggling isn't it, sometimes we get so ho-hum about it, we don't even think about it. I have been to hell but I haven't been to heaven and in a lot of bible studies that I have been to so many people wonder what heaven is like well I didn't have anything to say on that but I came up with something: Imagine that you died and woke up in heaven and you could not be happier, way beyond anything you could imagine and then you kind of looked down and saw your mother or your father, your sister or your brother, your husband or your wife, your son or your daughter or your best friend in hell, how heavenly would that be: THINK ABOUT IT. I may be the only breather on earth that has been to hell, I really don't know, I did not see hell, but I experienced it, Jesus Himself went to hell, He took the sin and the sins of the world upon Himself, think about it, maybe God did something so mind-boggling that we make it so small, that is so sad. Love wins, God wins, no tie. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hello Thomas Paul Moses Baum,

Your name gets longer each post. :)

So how do you back up your claim to be the New Testament Moses? What Scriptures do you use? If you are the same Moses mentioned in the New Testament were you present at the transfiguration of Jesus, mentioned in Matthew 17:3, 4?

Since some of the things you are telling me contradict the Word of God, like universal salvation, the six days being God days, as opposed to what - human days - then why would God ask us to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, and to labor six days a week "for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the seas, and all that is in them"?

If the six days of God's creation are different than the days we are to labor, then how do we determine how long a day should be? Without qualifying a difference between creation days and labor days would it not be logical to assume the two are the same kind? To do otherwise is to read something into the Scriptures rather than taking the Author's context out of them.

And what would the eternal, everlasting God need of days? They were created for man to mark seasons and days and years. That is why God put the two lights, the sun and moon, and the expanse of lights in the sky to separate day from night and season from season for the earth. (Genesis 1:14-18)

But the big question is why would God send another prophet after the Son?

Hebrews 1:1 says that,

"In the past God spoke to our fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe."

In these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.

Since

"The Son is the exact radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by the power of His word."

Why would He choose you to reveal something new when all we need for salvation and eternal life have been revealed in the Son, in His Word and by the Spirit?

Since Jesus is the bearer of a better covenant and a superior covenant to that in the times of Moses (Hebrews 8:6) what is your purpose this time around?

Lastly, why do you want me to take your word over the Word of God?

Show me from Scripture that you can be taken seriously in your claim to be Moses and that salvation is universally given by God.

To Peter Huff and the rest of the world: First off yes God has chosen me for something specific. My real name is Thomas Paul Moses Baum, Thomas Paul Baum is my baptismal name and Moses is my confirmation name, sometimes a sacrament might take a few decades to kick in so to speak. I have been called Moses since before I can remember and I chose that name for my confirmation name over some objection but not a lot. I had no idea that I was the New Testament Moses, as a matter of fact I didn't even know there was suppose to be one. The Old Testament Moses said someone like me will come along, some theologians have said that Jesus was who Moses was talking about, something that I would like to point out is that OT Moses was chosen by God whereas Jesus was not chosen by God but was God who chose to become Jesus. I have met God the Trinity, God the Father came into my heart, God the Holy Spirit came into my body and spoke thru me to me and He also revealed to me that Jesus is present in the catholic Eucharist not by sight or anything. I have also met satan who is not nice at all but can try to come across as mister nice guy. I have also had 2 dreams that I know are from God and in one of those dreams I was told that only I could say it, well I had no idea what it was that only I could say so I dove into bible studies, these bible studies were of any denomination or non-denominational and I even found some Jewish bible studies, but actually I should say that God found these for me, I just made myself available. I am catholic and I cherish my catholic faith and sometimes I am amazed that the catholic faith has survived within the catholic religion. I think of myself as a roaming catholic trying to do what God has chosen me to do. I have also experienced hell, the hell that the bible speaks of and spiritual death and I tell you and the whole world I definitely was not thanking God for that when it was happening but now I do, I guess I had to know that they were both real and much worse than anyone could imagine. Some people seem to think that hell is some kind of monolithic place that God sends people to well that is not true at all, God sends no one to hell, you send yourself and you actually build it yourself. By the was, hell is not seperation from God that is spiritual death, hell is going to God and experiencing the wrongdoing, the unforgiveness and the judgmentalism of your life in the Light of Pure Love and I would recommend to people especially people that call themselves christians to take seriously what Jesus said. The bible speaks a lot about repenting and a lot of people do repent and don't even know they are doing it, it is being truly sorry for doing wrong and then again a lot of people are just trying to con God and all they are doing is conning themselves. Only God knows, I don't, God is a searcher of hearts and minds sometimes maybe we should let God be God, He is so much nicer than most people think He is and sometimes that seems even more so for the people that actually know His name. In case you didn't know it, satan knows the bible better than any human and satan is also very intelligent not only smarter than any person but probably smarter than the whole human race combined. Jesus told His apostles to go I think it was to the upper room and don't even attempt to do anything until the Holy Spirit comes upon you because He knew that they would be helpless until then. Jesus won the keys to hell and death, spiritual death, and He will use them in due time. Don't underestimate God's Mercy, Don't underestimate God's Forgiveness, Don't underestimate the Mysterious Plan of God. God said that He would send the simple to confound the wise, well Here I am. God also said My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts, God really is a God to give thanks for, He sure is not the hate-filled egomaniac that a lot of people that call themselves christians present Him to be. God is not a loser, a tie would be a loss as far as I am concerned. God wins Total Victory, Thank God. The captives shall be released, those in hell and the dead shall rise, those in spiritual death. We are in the book of revelation, I am the eater of the scroll, it wasn't a literal scroll by the way. Night is coming when no man can work, be ready, this will be the night of the sixth day but the dawning of the seventh day will get here too and with that the dawning of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Love since God is Pure Love. Remember when the angels announced Jesus's birth they said two things, This is Good News for ALL People and peace to whom God's favor rests, these are two distinct greetings and both true. The word Gospel means Good News and that Good News is for all people whether you like it or not. The seven days of creation in the bible are quite literal but they are God days and how long each one lasted I don't know and how long the night of the sixth day lasts I don't know either but the seventh day will get here in due time. The only true religion is taking care of widows and orphans which basicallly means everyone. I repeat once again, God is a searcher of hearts and minds not of religious affiliations or lack thereof. I had no idea that I was a messenger of God but when I found out I said yes, God chooses who He chooses, if you have any questions about His choice, ask Him not me. Take Care, Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hi Godfrey,

You said,

"But it does no good to quote from the book until I feel I have reason to believe in the book."

Well, before you determine "it does no good" you have to determine the standard or measure for good. If it is just subjective preference or opinion, why should I accept your definition? I would say you have a lot of explaining to do, such as how you can make sense of "good" without God. No absolutes equal voluntary conscription. You volunteer because I or my group or band or culture says you do at the point of a blade if necessary.

I think once you can determine that your standard for "good" is sensible we can certainly examine how sensible.

You said,

"You could even run into trouble. Your quote from Colossians, for instance, is a likely lie, in that it was written by some unknown person claiming to be Paul (though the case for Colossians being pseudoepigraphic isn't as clear-cut as for the Pastoral Letters and Ephesians)."

Again, that is your assumption, with what proof against the historical records? By a historian twenty centuries removed from the actual witnesses? Or in the case of Textural Criticism, what, eighteen centuries removed?

You said,

"I'm sorry, but the Christian position is a latecomer to the discussion of what's good. The Golden Rule, for instance, was not original with Christ. The Hindu Mahabharata had it in 150 BCE, Isocrates in 375 BCE, and Confucius around 500 BCE (Stenger, _God The Failed Hypothesis_, p. 198)."

Well the Jews, of whom Jesus was one when He took on human form, had established this rule long before 500BC, to the times of Moses and before that, quite possibly, by word of mouth.

"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." (Leviticus 18:18)

Ever consider where Confucius got it from? Again, God would have to establish good for it to have meaning.

"As Karen Armstrong points out, the modern idea of morality originated at about the time that agriculture started producing enough surplus for civilization to become possible, and the old morality to become inadequate. For instance, most of the Ten Commandments appear in the Code of Hammurabi."

There again, why should I believe Karen? There are lots of other scholars who believe differently from her opinions or her historical work.

You said,

"Insulting the wisdom of the world doesn't make it go away."

I was just quoting the Scriptures, in which I agree with. :)

It does not make it go away, but it cannot answer the tough questions. It cannot even explain, how in a material world, we have intangibles such as logic.

Logic is a concept, not a physical property. So how does the atheist account for them, when everything supposedly came from matter exploding from nothing? Show me one of the laws of logic if they are material.

Also explain in a chance universe how any law can be established, because, how can you know that what acts one way today will continue to act the same way tomorrow, just because it has done so in the past? And yet nature seems to be uniform.

Also explain to me how the laws of logic appear to be universal. They apply to all men everywhere; otherwise we would not be able to even communicate. The Christian can explain all this very easily.

As someone illustrated recently, if I am just a biological bag of chemicals fizzing randomly and you are a biological bag of chemicals fizzing randomly, then what are the chances that we, or anyone, are all going to fizz in the same way? So how will we ever get consensus?

You said,

"And where is the evidence that Christ has saved anyone? To paraphrase a very ancient story, they still live, they still suffer, they still die."

Lives transformed every day is one of the evidences. God putting a new nature in the heart of the believer so that his values change.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit set me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1, 2)

When you say,

"Begging the question. What we are trying to establish is that God has revealed... anything."

What evidence would you ever believe? As an unbeliever you and I have different values and God's word makes this plain. You are not doing anything different than I would expect you to do, as God has revealed, for you need a change of heart by the grace of God to believe, even though your worldview cannot be made sense of. You will not abandon your core/foundational presuppositions that hold your web of beliefs together, even though they are unraveling at an amazing speed. 

But I also know that by His grace He can tear down strongholds, for His word penetrates deep (Hebrews 4:12 and accomplishes the purpose that He desires (Isaiah 55:8-11)

You said,

"There's no use referring me to scripture when the truth of scripture is what we're trying to establish."

There is no higher standard that I can appeal to. Why would I want to use something lower? You are appealing to your highest standard, the interpretation of facts by Scientists who cannot seem to get it right.

You said,

"But I do have to conjecture that the canon of scripture being closed might be why Moroni had to hide information under a rock.

Yes, you may, but how historical is your evidence?

You said,

"Also, the story of the eyewitnesses of Christ's ascension is not reliable. It isn't in all the gospels, it's possibly a later interpolation, and there isn't even one tiny scrap of secular history to support it."

Just because an event is not recorded in all the gospels does not make it unreliable. Also the gospel writers were looking at the event from different perspectives. Matthew was relating to the Jews by showing how the events tied in with the Old Testament while John was showing Jesus' godhood.

The gospels themselves are actual historical records.

You said,

"I have a feeling that you mean something different by "belief" than I do. My belief in science is not like a religious belief. It isn't about seeking meaning in life. It isn't about finding a _mythos_ . It more resembles believing that I've had dinner, or believing I know how much money I have in my wallet. I believe science because many intelligent men and women have spent their lives observing reality, creating hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and cross checking one another's results. It isn't about explaining existence. It's about seeing and understanding what's around us."

How do you explain truth without God? It is just your subjective experience and the way you interpret the facts as opposed to my subjective experience and the way I interpret the facts?

How do you get objective truth from a chance, random, blind, chaotic explosion 13-20 billion years ago?

As for your view not being religious, evolution is a religious worldview. It attempts to make sense of why man is here.

You said,

"I hardly call understanding what's around us a mess, and I seek it out because it's highly reliable."

Well, I think we have a few problems on this terrestrial ball, last time I checked the news. It has been pretty hot this summer, and there seems to be a lot of clashes over ideological positions around the world.

As Ravi Zacharias noted in his book, Can Man Live Without God, quoting the journalist Steve Turner, p.42-44,

"We believe in Marxfruedanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,
Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnston.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there is a direct link between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sue to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It is only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth
that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

If chance be the father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

Is is but the sound of man
worshiping his maker."

You said,

"That is a biased opinion, and a half-assed one. I find love, I find the beauty of the world, I find good and morality, I find the amazing story of human history, I find art, music, literature, and (especially) poetry."

But you cannot account for why it is "good" or "beautiful" or "moral" or "amazing." Each one of these qualitative values requires a measure, and if that measure is not objective and absolute it’s mere opinion.

When I said,

"May I suggest to you the reason that you are trying to find out is because that is the way that God has created man to commune with Himself and man is restless until he discovers that intimate relationship with God."

You said,

"Nonsense. I have not the tiniest trace of a hint of an iota of a jot of a desire for a relationship with God."

Acts 17:24-30

Better get to bed since I am working this weekend.

I will check back in Monday, if not before. Look forward to reading your comments.

Hi Victoria,

John Calvin had this to say of your question on Matthew 24:36,

"As to the first objection, that nothing is unknown to God, the answer is easy. For we know that in Christ the two natures were united into one person in such a manner that each retained its own properties; and more especially the Divine nature was in a state of repose, and did not at all exert itself, 4 whenever it was necessary that the human nature should act separately, according to what was peculiar to itself, in discharging the office of Mediator. There would be no impropriety, therefore in saying that Christ, who knew all things, (John 21:17) was ignorant of something in respect of his perception as a man; for otherwise he could not have been liable to grief and anxiety, and could not have been like us, (Hebrews 2:17.) Again, the objection urged by some--that ignorance cannot apply to Christ, because it is the punishment of sin--is beyond measure ridiculous. For, first, it is prodigious folly to assert that the ignorance which is ascribed to angels proceeds from sin; but they discover themselves to be equally foolish on another ground, by not perceiving that Christ clothed himself with our flesh, for the purpose of enduring the punishment due to our sins. And if Christ, as man, did not know the last day, that does not any more derogate from his Divine nature than to have been mortal.

I have no doubt that he refers to the office appointed to him by the Father as in a former instance, when he said that it did not belong to him to place this or that person at his right or left hand, (Matthew 20:23; Mark 5:40.) For (as I explained under that passage 5) he did not absolutely say that this was not in his power, but the meaning was, that he had not been sent by the Father with this commission, so long as he lived among mortals. So now I understand that, so far as he had come down to us to be Mediator, until he had fully discharged his office that information was not given to him which he received after his resurrection; for then he expressly declared that power over all things had been given to him, (Matthew 28:18.)"

End of quote.

You said,

"as a footnote, could you please answer from the biblical perspective?"

That would be a pleasure. From a biblical perspective we know that Jesus Christ is God; it shouts loud and clear from the pages of the New Testament (as well as Old Testament) in verses too many to go into detail here. But as a sampling in John's gospel alone see, 1:1-3; 5:17-18; 8:58; 10:30-33; 12:41; 14:7-11; 20:28-29.

Then you have the gospel writers also calling Jesus God, as well as Man, depending on whether they are talking about His Lordship or His Mediator role of reconciliation between man and God (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Examples include Romans 9:5; 20:28; Colossians 1:15-19; 2:9; 1 Timothy 1:17; Hebrews 1:1-3, 8; 2 Peter 1:1; 1 John 5:20.

Then you have many Scriptures ascribe to God in the Old Testament being ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament.

Then you have attributes described of God alone applying to Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

For instance, John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-19 etc., with Isaiah 44:24 (God being the sole Creator) or the passages where God is to be glorified alone for He does not share His glory (Isaiah 42:8; 48:11), and yet Jesus talks about the glory He had with Him before the world began (John 17:5) or where Isaiah saw the glory of God in Isaiah 6:1 being attributed to Jesus in John 12:41. Believe me; the list goes on and on.

Then you have the human side of Jesus. Voluntarily becoming man in order to fulfill/obey God's commands to man and willingly pay the price that sinful man had incurred before the Holy God, death for disobedience to God's law, Jesus would have to live and act in a human capacity in being our Mediator (as well as pay the price as a man), and in order to do so would have to lay aside His prerogative as Lord God in order to do so. Otherwise He would not be acting in the capacity of a man.

You have passages such as Isaiah 53:1-12 explains this well, as Philippians 2:6-11 (by the way the quote in verse 10-11 is applied to God in the Old Testament now applied to Jesus!) explains "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Vs. 6-8).

Then you have passages in Hebrews that further explain the humbling of immortal God in taking upon Himself human flesh and being subjective to the will of the Father as a human. Reading the whole of the Book of Hebrews would enlighten you to the ministry of Jesus and why it was necessary.

And you also have passages such as 1 Timothy 3:16 that speak of the mystery of godliness in that Jesus appeared in a body or John 1:14.

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

You said,

"theres no place in the new testament that jesus(ata) claims he will come into the full knowledge of god after his physical death."

Well I can think of a couple off the bat, plus many others that, through logic, infer as much.

For instance, 1 Corinthians 15:28 or John 1:14, 18; 17:5.

In Revelation 5:13 & 14 Jesus Christ receives the same worship ascribed to God the Father. From the Old Testament we know that God alone deserves worship and no one else.

If you would like to go further with any of these verses, please let me know which ones and in what reference.

Thanks for the chat!

now im going to go watch the 700 culb and see how its possible that pat robertson can mangae to have ayaan al hirsi on as a guest, an avowed atheist, but ardent muslim hater.

maybe the hatred of the other is stronger than the love of god.

as a footnote, could you please answer from the biblical perspective?

theres no place in the new testament that jesus(ata) claims he will come into the full knowledge of god after his physical death.

hi mr huff, its been interesting.

i have to agree about the subjective way paganism plays out-

since youre speaking about chrisianity, i have a serious question-

if jesus(ata) and god have co-equal knowledge, how can god know something that jesus(ata) doesnt?

just a question rolling around my brain-

please be sure that there is no intention in me of attacking your belief system.

in matthew 24 it says this-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
21 "But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, 22 but the Father alone."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there seems to be a clear distinction made by jesus(ata) himself between the knowledge he posesses as the son, and the knowledge posessed by the father.

if they are one and te same, how can this disconnect exist?

peace

Peter Huff:

"For me it is because God has been gracious to me in opening my eyes, ears, heart and mind to the truth of His Word (1 Corinthians 2:9-16 if you are really interested and not just faking interest), and because of the impossibility of the contrary."

But it does no good to quote from the book until I feel I have reason to believe in the book. You could even run into trouble. Your quote from Colossians, for instance, is a likely lie, in that it was written by some unknown person claiming to be Paul (though the case for Colossians being pseudoepigraphic isn't as clear-cut as for the Pastoral Letters and Ephesians).

"You cannot even come up with a sensible explanation for why mankind can determine "good" without borrowing from the Christian position."

I'm sorry, but the Christian position is a latecomer to the discussion of what's good. The Golden Rule, for instance, was not original with Christ. The Hindu Mahabharata had it in 150 BCE, Isocrates in 375 BCE, and Confucius around 500 BCE (Stenger, _God The Failed Hypothesis_, p. 198).

As Karen Armstrong points out, the modern idea of morality originated at about the time that agriculture started producing enough surplus for civilization to become possible, and the old morality to become inadequate. For instance, most of the Ten Commandments appear in the Code of Hammurabi.

"Did you get that Godfrey? Complete understanding in order to know the mystery of Christ and what He did for believers. Did you get the part about "in whom are hidden ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?"

Someone passing under a false name (see above)
is in no position to make claims of truth.

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased to save those who believe."

Insulting the wisdom of the world doesn't make it go away. And where is the evidence that Christ has saved anyone? To paraphrase a very ancient story, they still live, they still suffer, they still die.

"So Godfrey, why would I want human wisdom when God has revealed His infinite wisdom?"

Begging the question. What we are trying to establish is that God has revealed... anything.

"How do we know that Isaiah spoke to God but Mary Baker Eddy didn't?"

"There are lots of reasons..."

Most of which consist of begging the question. There's no use referring me to scripture when the truth of scripture is what we're trying to establish. But I do have to conjecture that the canon of scripture being closed might be why Moroni had to hide information under a rock. Also, the story of the eyewitnesses of Christ's ascension is not reliable. It isn't in all the gospels, it's possibly a later interpolation, and there isn't even one tiny scrap of secular history to support it.

"Since you are the philosopher, you tell me why you place your belief in something that cannot account for what is out there, why it is out there and the significance of why we should care?"

I have a feeling that you mean something different by "belief" than I do. My belief in science is not like a religious belief. It isn't about seeking meaning in life. It isn't about finding a _mythos_ . It more resembles believing that I've had dinner, or believing I know how much money I have in my wallet. I believe science because many intelligent men and women have spent their lives observing reality, creating hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and cross checking one another's results. It isn't about explaining existence. It's about seeing and understanding what's around us.

"But you seem to be spending a lot of time trying to seek this mess out???"

I hardly call understanding what's around us a mess, and I seek it out because it's highly reliable.

"Why not just eat, drink and be merry if it is not important to you? You won't find any meaning in an atheistic worldview."

That is a biased opinion, and a half-assed one. I find love, I find the beauty of the world, I find good and morality, I find the amazing story of human history, I find art, music, literature, and (especially) poetry.

"May I suggest to you the reason that you are trying to find out is because that is the way that God has created man to commune with Himself and man is restless until he discovers that intimate relationship with God."

Nonsense. I have not the tiniest trace of a hint of an iota of a jot of a desire for a relationship with God.

"Thanks again for that tip. That was definitely easier!"

You're welcome.

Hi Luke,

You said,

"OK, I think I understand this. Jesus was the only being worthy of carrying sin (because he was the only sinless man); therefore he was chosen to carry the burden of mankind's sin from them, making them not necessarily pure, but forgiven for their sins."

I would say you are starting to get the picture. In every book of the Old Testament Jesus Christ is revealed. That is something else I was meaning to tell you, the Bible is made up of 66 different books, written by many different human author’s, but guided by the One Author, with one unifying message and many unifying themes. (Please see Luke 24:27, 44-48)

Right from Genesis 1:26 we see the council of God declaring "Let US make man in Our image, in Our likeness."

Jehovah's Witnesses argue that the "us" in this verse is not talking about the Triune God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but about the angels gathered around during the creation of the earth. This does not wash for a number of reasons, but the point I would like to make here is that the plural expression in Hebrew of "Us" does not refer to angels because God alone is Creator. Angels do not create (see Hebrews 1:5-14 with Isaiah 44:24). Numerous times in the Scriptures we see the Father described as Creator, the Son described as Creator and the Spirit described as Creator.

So the eternal Word, God the Son, who became flesh (John 1:14: Philippians 2:5-11) VOLUNTEERED to become man for the purpose of making us right with God. Hebrews 10:5-18 will make this very clear to you if you read it. Once Adam sinned man was marred because Adam is what is known in religious talk as the "federal head" or our representative.

His rebellious nature has been passed down to each generation since. Man had broken God's good command (What is in the best interest of man is always God's perfect good). As such, God being just as well as holy and purely good had to judge that sin as He said He would. "For when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17b)

Since God is all knowing, He knew that His creature that He had made would choose to disobey Him, so from before the foundation of the world God had already set the plan for man's redemption for sin as well. That was in sending His Son.

He also wanted man to know that breaking His "good" commands had consequences. "The soul who sins is the one who will die." (Ezekiel 18:4).

God, as a covenant God provided an object lesson. God wanted man to know that sinning is very costly. That is why the animal sacrifice system was set for the Israelites in the Old Testament (not human, because humans are different from animals in that we are made in the image and likeness of God).

When an animal was brought for sacrifice the person who had committed a sin had to choose the best animal he had, without defect, as a representative of himself. In this way the person could identify the animal being sacrificed was in his place, making atonement or covering for his sins. In this way he would realize the high price of sin in his life, and since man was made for fellowship with God, what it takes for this to happen.

Hebrews ch. 8, 9 explains this sacrificial system in regards to the priest as well as the animal, both of which Jesus fulfilled in His earthly ministry, as well as why the sacrificial system was inadequate.

Since man has sinned against his holy Maker therefore a man is needed to set the record straight, not an animal. But the man would have to be perfect in meeting God's requirements of purity/righteousness in order that He could satisfy God's justice as well (death) and also be able to restore fellowship with the Holy God. The man would also have to have merit in that His sacrifice would be valued as one of eternal worth in that it would meet the needs of all His people.

That is why the one member of the Trinity, the Son became man. Since God is eternal and cannot change, the sacrifice had infinite worth, but in becoming man Jesus would have to fulfill God's command purely as a man to satisfy God's justice. Therefore Jesus is seen as being 100% man as well as 100% God, One person, and two natures. The one nature veiled from mankind.

You said,

"So Jesus didn't suffer the fate of absolute death, just faced the pain of God's abandonment (which would be far worse than physical death) because he went from absolutely pure to wrought with all of the sins of mankind, past, present, and future. So was it then that God showed compassion and saved Jesus and offered salvation to man for believing in his word? Actually, I had never understood the pain of Christ and the story just seemed like an unnecessary sacrifice to an angry God, but now I see how the story is actually quite beautiful. Please correct me if I am wrong on this."

Yes, the act of obedience and love for His creation are beautiful. There are a couple of resources I would recommend that you can read on the Internet to understand this more fully. I hope you will investigate further @ www.monergism.com.

Check out the free on-line books. I recommend,

The Everlasting Righteousness by Horatius Bonar,

Holiness by J. C. Ryle,

The Reign of Grace by Abraham Booth.

You said,

"So although the concept is that we are all God's children,"

I would make a distinction here; we are all God's offspring, but only those adopted into His family are His children (numerous verses, one is John 1:10-12).

You said,

"Jesus was least deserving of this pain but was the only person pure enough to receive it. That's powerful stuff, and although I can't say for sure that God will ever speak to me, I really do appreciate the stock you place in my salvation."

Yes, He was least deserving of this pain. In saying that you can’t say whether God will speak to you, I believe He already has in that you are able to understand more fully why we need a Savior, and why Jesus is the only One who is able to save. That is half battle. The other half is in seeking God in His mercy and asking Him to be merciful and forgiving to you. In doing so, hopefully He will give you the faith to believe/trust as only He can do.

All the blessings of God are in Christ Jesus the Lord!

Thanks for the chat!

OK, I think I understand this. Jesus was the only being worthy of carrying sin (because he was the only sinless man), therefore he was chosen to carry the burden of mankind's sin from them, making them not necessarily pure, but forgiven for their sins. So Jesus didn't suffer the fate of absolute death, just faced the pain of God's abandonment (which would be far worse than physical death) because he went from absolutely pure to wrought with all of the sins of mankind, past, present, and future. So was it then that God showed compassion and saved Jesus and offered salvation to man for believing in his word? Actually, I had never understood the pain of Christ and the story just seemed like an unneccesary sacrifice to an angry God, but now I see how the story is actually quite beautiful. Please correct me if I am wrong on this. So although the concept is that we are all God's children, Jesus was least deserving of this pain but was the only person pure enough to receive it. That's powerful stuff, and although I can't say for sure that God will ever speak to me, I really do appreciate the stock you place in my salvation.

Hi Luke,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. It means a lot to me. I hope I wasn't being arrogant. I certainly did not feel so when I wrote my responses, just confident in God and His ability to tear down strongholds of false belief. If God uses anything I have said on this forum in any way, the long hours spent in front of the computer is worth it. He is the Sovereign Lord and the only One who can change lives. But His Word is truth and light and wisdom and O so beautiful. For through it we get to see reality as it really is.

There is always the danger of misinterpreting Scripture, therefore the admonition by Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15 applies to all Christians today,

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who correctly handles the word of truth."

That along with many other Scriptures reveals there is a correct way of handling the word of truth. Unfortunately, many Christians do not study God's Word thoroughly enough and don't know what it says. I still have a long way to go, but God has helped me to establish the correct view along the way in many issues. These are issues I have worked on and wrestled with for years in some areas until one day God made it clear to me.

For instance, one of the many issues was my salvation. In my earlier Christian life a "Word of Faith" or "name it and claim it" believer tried to convince me that once save always saved is not necessarily true, that as a believer I could take myself out of God's hands or lose my salvation.

I wrestled with his arguments for well over two years, and then one day in reading the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit revealed to my spirit that it is God alone who saves, and when He saves, He saves completely. It seemed that night that every verse of Scripture I read confirmed this as I leafed through the New Testament. Let me show you what I mean,

1 Corinthians 1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God...

vs. 2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus...

vs. 3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ...

vs. 4 I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus...

vs. 5 In Him you have been enriched in every way...

vs. 8 He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ...

vs. 9 God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

As you can see Luke, from these verses alone, who the One doing the action is and who the one receiving the action is. God is sovereign. Even when I am faithless and break His laws and commands, He keeps me safely in His hands and works in me to change my sinful actions into actions of praise and worship in carrying out His will.

In this way I can have no fear of what man can do to me. Man does not control my destiny, God does. I can also value each person, whether rich or poor, influential or powerless as a unique person who is created in the image of God.

My hope is that He may He also give you grace to hear and see and believe His Word of truth and a trust in the one and only Savior of the world.

Peter, I had a conversation with a Christian friend of mine who put a lot of things into perspective for me. At first I found your absolutism arrogant, but now, I actually admire it. Although I do find fault in it, I appreciate your responses - and I've found I have much less to argue with you about than before. Although I still have trouble believing that a God of love wouldn't spread word of human salvation to everyone in the world, a lot of things are put in perspective. The fact that you don't falter in your beliefs is admirable, and the fact that you can back up your beliefs with biblical scripture certainly has me thinking more and more about the things you have said. Don't get me wrong, you haven't touched my soul...but you have wrestled my brain quite a bit. Thanks for that.

Hi Luke and Rob,

I will have to answer your post tomorrow night or Thursday, God willing.

Hi Russell D,

It's late so I will give you the quick answers.

You said,

"My God, man, you have nailed it on the button! We have no reasoning or morality if God doesn't put it out there for us. Yea.......I realized that was crap way back in elementary school."

No objective measure for good equals no way to determine anything other than subjective opinion, which boils down to how do you arrive at "good" and why should I believe you?

You said,

"The laws and rules in the Bible aren't God's laws. They are laws created by men for men to keep men down."

How do you know that? It is just your subjective opinion supplied to you by someone else who has a subjective opinion in which their bias shows by the way they interpret the evidence. Facts do not speak for themselves, they need interpretation. There is no date stamped on a fossil to when it became one. Without God nothing makes sense.

You said,

"AS for the gay marriage issue, it's not really a moral question. It's two PEOPLE who are in love and want to get married. Heck, most gay couples are together longer than straight couples."

Again you are making a value judgment by stating it is not a moral question. How do you determine this in light of your standard which has no way to measure moral issues? You need an objective standard and measure to make it anything more than subjective opinion. My worldview does that and can make sense of it, but yours cannot.

You said,

"All I am saying is this, information can come from a book, but it's what you do with that information that matters. Do you take the words to heart?"

Most definitely to both statement and question.

You said,

"Or do you question what you are reading and wonder if there is another perspective."

I know there is another perspective, but I know it is also false. Any study of God's Word involves questions as to whether I correctly handle the Word of truth. But there is a correct way of handling it, and I know His Word is the objective standard by which I judge and make sense of all other standards.

You said,

"The Bible isn't truth, and neither is the Koran, Torah, etc.,. Truth is in the world and in the people you meet and spend time with. Talk to all kinds of people, not just the ones sitting in the pews next to you."

One, how do you define truth and also is truth absolutely true? If it is not absolutely true then can it be false??? Please answer me that one.

Two, I do talk to non-believers, more so than to the people sitting in the pews. I was hoping you or someone on these blogs would at least attempt to provide some reasonable justification how you arrive at "good." The argument keeps getting side skirted or all I get is "that is my personal preference."

You said,

"As for following the Bible......yea yea, it sayd gay sex between men is wrong, but nothing about women. Everybody loves girl on girl action, but for most, when two guys get it on, it's just wrong. The Bible also says that I shouldn't be wearing the clothes I wear because I have more than one specific fiber in them. And that I shouldn't cut my hair. Now do you really think I should pay attention to that? Do you follow those rules?"

There again, have you considered the context in which these verses are taken. Please provide me with a reference verse and we can look at the context. Also, it does mention that sex between two women is wrong also by implication in various verses. (Romans 1:26) Any relationship involving sex outside of marriage is wrong. And God defines marriage in the very first book of the Old Testament.

You said,

"Bet you don't. I bet you do wear multi fiber clothes and that you pay 8 or 9 bucks a pop for your haircut. And one more thing. Do you also kill children when they talk back to their parents? Do you condemn a whole town or city to die if they don't believe in the Lord? Yea, I didn't think so.........."

No I don't kill children or pay to get my hair cut. If you give me specific references we can go through these verses.

You said,

"Peter, I can put up with all sorts of people. I like to meet new people and chat with them. I will never stop learning and never stop growing. Maybe that is what you should do."

Because I do not think like you do Russell, why do you think that a) I cannot think for myself, and b) I have stopped learning? I learn all the time. Just because I have a narrow view on many issues, that does not mean it is wrong. You are letting the inclusiveness of society dictate to you your norms and values. Truth is very narrow and exclusive. Sir Winston Churchill once said something to the effect that truth is hidden by a multitude of lies. 2 + 2 = 4 is very exclusive. 1 + 3 = 4 is very exclusive. 3 - 7 = 4 is very exclusive. Only one way to God is very exclusive. I being the only Peter Huff that lives at my residence is very exclusive. George Bush being the current president of the USA is very exclusive.

You said,

"Don't stop learning, don't hold yourself back because a book says so. Repression and regret cause loads of strife. Just ask all your fellow christians who have been arrested for crimes ranging anywhere from child porn to Watergate. Nobody is perfect. Not even Jesus was perfect."

Another red herring, Russell. By pointing to the faults of others it is easy to justify your position because you are comparing yourself to someone else. In any worldview, whether Christianity or atheism I could point to people who have a worse track record than I do and also a better one also. But by faith in Jesus Christ my sins are forgiven by the grace of God, not by anything I could do.

No I am not perfect, but Jesus Christ is whether you believe it or not. The way I look at the world involves trusting in what God has said because through what He has said I make sense of everything else.

So far I have not seen how anyone on these posts with their opposing worldviews can even make sense of "good" without borrowing capital from the Christian worldview.

You said,

"Just because the book says he was, maybe it's wrong. Gotta remember, the books that were chosen for the Bible were put together for a reason. So common sense would tell you that there is some sort of slant in it."

There again Russell, no man is neutral. As Jesus said, we are either for Him or we are against Him. Matthew 6:24; 12:25-30). Now that logic makes sense!

If you think your worldview is neutral then why are you an atheist?

As for how the books of the Bible were put together, that was superintended by God.

Thank you for the conversation! Look forward to hearing from you.

Hello Thomas Baum,

You said,

"I do not look to Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, but as our Lord and Saviour. One place is in Timothy where it says that it is God's Will that all be saved, but actually it is all over the bible."

Well Thomas the Bible does not teach that all will be saved and I'm sure that if you would like to look at some of the verses that you are drawing this conclusion from you will find that you are not reading the context properly. Since you did not give the verse number I will assume you are referring to 1 Timothy 2:4. Let’s take the verse in context,

"I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quite lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men - the testimony given in its proper time."
(1 Timothy 2:1-6)

First, the question is who is the "everyone"? Is the context talking of all men everywhere individually/universally or all kinds of men everywhere by category, such as mentioned immediately after the statement as a qualifier - "for kings and all those in authority."

So to recap, do everyone and all men refer to each and every member of the human race, or to all kinds of men everywhere, such as kings and authorities, etc?

Second, from Paul's use of "all men and everyone" in other passages refers to classes or kinds of men such as Jews and Gentiles, this passage would favor that particular interpretation too in referring to kings and those in authority.

For instance, in Galatians 3:28 it says,

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Now this verse does not mean every single Jew or Greek, free man or slave, male or female person is one in Christ Jesus. It is referring only to those who are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

So here we have a case in which "all" does not mean every single person, but again has a qualifier in meaning all kinds of men.

This idea is expressed well in Revelation Chapter 5:9 in which the distinction is made clear,

"...and with Your blood you purchased men from every tribe and language and people and nation."

That is not every single person on the face of the earth but men from every tribe and language and nation.

Third, the same is true of when you read passages like John 3:16 in speaking of the word "world",

"For God so loved the world...that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

World does not necessarily mean every single man, woman and child. It can also mean the actual physical earth, the current age (i.e. we live in the world of the 21st century), system of values (the Christian does not have the values of this world), distinction between kinds (God chose to reveal Himself to a particular people, the Jews, who made Him known to the world - i.e. the other nations or ethnic groups) or a combination of kinds (i.e. Jews and Gentile), plus I'm sure many other meanings.

So in the context of John 3:16 you have to determine what world is referring to. The word "world" is used a number of times in John 1:10-12, many times referring to a different meaning of the word,

"He was in the world (i.e. in the presents of men or upon the physical earth), and though the world was made by Him (physical earth), the world did not recognize Him (the people of the world). He came to that which was His own (He was born a Jew), but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him (every type of people, not just Jews), to those who believed in His name (specific individuals who trusted in Him), He gave the right to become children of God - " (John 1:10-12)

Therefore, is the word world in John 3:16 referring not just to the Jews but to all kinds of peoples when it uses the word world or is it referring to every single person on the face of the earth?

Fourth, if everyone is saved, then why does the Bible confirm that only those who believe in Jesus Christ have eternal life and have passed from death to life? John 3:18-21 gives the verdict to show that salvation is not universal (as well as hundreds of other passages).

Fifth, Jesus came to save His people from their sins, so He died on the cross for a particular people, not for everyone, only those who believe. (Matthew 1:21; John 6:37, 38, 44)

Sixth, it is God who does the saving and He is able to save completely, so therefore all He saves can never be lost (Hebrews 7:224-27; John 6:39, 40). After all He is the Almighty!

Seventh, it is important to have a right understanding of who Jesus is and also what He did. (Please read John 8:24; Galatians 1:6-8)

You said,

"Just like in Jesus's time, people were more interested in the miracles than in Jesus, and as Jesus said the signs should point to Him whereas people got caught up in the signs, today people can get so caught up in the bible that they completely miss what it is pointing to. Remember God said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways", why do we keep trying to put God in the box of our own design."

I agree with the first part of your statement, but we part company on the second not because you are wrong in getting caught up in other things besides Jesus, but because the Bible is our road map along (with His Spirit) to guide us in the truth.

You said,

"Here is something to think about, Jesus said to judge no one, to forgive everyone basically an infinite number of times"

This time I agree with the second half but not the first. If you read the context of the Sermon on the Mount when He talks about judging, you will find there are certain qualifiers there. Please refer to Matthew 7:1-6 and 15, 16, 20.

Don't judge someone for sin when you are twice as guilt of doing the same thing. That is hypocrisy. Notice Jesus said to FIRST take the plank out of your own eye before you remove the speck in your brother’s eye.

Shortly after this discourse He tells us to watch out for false prophets. Now that requires judgment as does recognizing them by the fruit they produce.

You said,

"I happen to be the New Testament Moses and I have said Yes."

That sounds far fetched to me. Can you explain more on what you mean by the New Testament Moses? Are you a prophet? Has God chosen you specifically for something and why do you call yourself Moses? Is that your real name?

You said,

"God's Plan is all encompassing and that includes all of humanity. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Yes, God's plan includes all of humanity; people from every tribe and tongue and nation, but it does not include every single person in humanity otherwise you have a God who contradicts Himself and that is impossible. (Romans 9:11-24)

Sorry for taking so long in answer to your post.

Peter Huff,

Thanks for your reply. I'm too tired right now to read and comprehend it, but I'll come back to it soon.

I have met God and I have met satan. God is a Trinity and satan is a loser. God wins Total Victory, a tie is totally unacceptable. Just because a lot of people that call themselves christians only seem to be concerned with themselves getting to the "good place" does not mean that that is the Will of God, it could even be kind of selfish don't you think? Think about it maybe that is one of the reasons that God came up with His Plan. We have free will and God chooses who He chooses to be His messengers. I have said yes of my own free will but it was God who chose. Be ready, take care. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hey Peter.

I am was born in Canada as well, living in the states now. But the fact that we are Canadian brothers doesn’t mean I will let you off the hook on our discussions :)

In response to my statement about right and wrong being subjective and dealt with accordingly in the after life (but not through damnation) You said “So that is your subjective opinion. How do you know it is true?”

Yes, based on what I have read that is what I believe. One of the items pull from is the Conversation with God series by Walsch. I am sure you would find that heretical, but that is one source I have pulled from to form my current beliefs. We could spend weeks talking about the difference and it would likely take us months to blog about them.

Similarly I commented about our thoughts creating our experience in the afterlife and the possibility of getting lost in a misinformed construct of the afterlife. Again I get these ideas from sources other than the Bible. I don’t make that possible, but it is what I believe is possible. As far as who am I to decide if this is possible. I am no one. Is it true? I guess I will find out when I die.

To my suicide bomber scenario you responded “Now if he is basing his suicide bombing on an ultimate, absolute Authority, he had better be sure that he's got the right one, because he is only going to have the one chance to blow himself to smithereens”

Unless of course one believes in reincarnation :) Peter I don’t know if you subscribe to the just war theory, but this would be the same principal with a different method of engagement. Someone decides it is ok to sacrifice their life and kill others to protect their idea of ‘what is right’. I see little difference in the approaches other than just war doesn’t implicitly set out to kill innocents, but we know it happens. My main point was does your worldview condemn the bomber, who knows nothing of Christianity to hell, but the soldier in a just war is ok since he believes in Jesus? I would have trouble reconciling that in my mind.

I then spoke about shouldn’t we love the bomber as Jesus states ‘love your enemies’. You said “Again, we are chasing our tail again. Without God how do you determine it is "good" to love our enemies, when you supposedly know full well that life is the survival of the fittest" when you look at it from an evolutionary framework? How do you know it is "good" to love your enemies?”

A Buddhist would love their enemies and they do not believe in a personal God. It is simply what works and what does not if you want to lead people to peace and understanding.

You could present the compassion position to some atheists and they may well embrace that idea. Perhaps their parents taught them this through their belief in God, but the child grows up an atheist. You may argue that it was God that taught the lesson and the atheist just doesn’t realize it. However in the atheist’s mind he does not believe in God, yet shows compassion for the enemy. The atheist has chosen his/her actions. I don’t believe that an evolutionary framework needs to stand totally outside of your framework. Perhaps the ‘fittest’ are the peaceful ones since the violent ones will eventually kill themselves off?

You said does evolutionary framework say are we just bags of matter. That is definitely part for the deal. The mind is also something that evolves and the spirit is something that evolves. We just don’t understand those as well from a scientific perspective. From a clinical perspective we some insights into the mind and we have hardly anything on spirit with the possible exception of the Monroe Institute(perhaps there are others?)

Peter you response to my Eskimo scenario is where we come together and go apart. You say simply by believing in God through Jesus we are saved regardless of our sins. I don’t believe in a God of punishment but of pure love so there is noting to be saved from other than our own ignorance of what we really are. To me being saved is coming to the realization that we are all one with God, right now. Realizing that is what delivers you into a new state of mind/being.

As for Christianity being the only construct to get to *eternal* peace joy, love and happiness we will have to agree to disagree. There is no way to prove or observe who is right here. It is a matter of faith for the individual. As far as peace, joy, love and happiness here on Earth I would strongly disagree that Christianity is required and the only way. These things are a state of mind. You can not work your way to these thing, you can not do them you can only be them. You can not do peace you can only be peaceful, you can not do love you can only be loving? This is what the master knows.

I said "While the removal of absolute authority may sound scary it may be the only way."
You said “Then everyone does what is right in their own eyes, and who determines right in such a case?”

My point, poorly stated, was we are focused on the wrong problem. Islam has their absolute authority as do the Christians, other religions and governments sometimes create their own absolute authority.

This archaic notion of absolute right and wrong is what gets us in trouble particularly since there are so many definitions of right and wrong and because we do what is right in our own eyes. We do what we think is right because there is no proof that the other person’s definition (righteousness and God) is correct. It is a matter of faith which is personal.

That leaves us with what is observable to our senses. My opinion is observation is a creation of God. That is how he has set the universe to work. Now whether you are a theist or an atheist observation works though you may differ on why it works like this and you may differ on what the results mean but observation eventually leads us somewhere new. Observation generates questions and questions are creative and questions are what moves us forward, all be it slowly sometimes or even 2 steps forward, on step back, but eventually we move forward.

Does a belief in a God of judgment or a God of pure love work or not. Again there are no absolutes. In some cases the God of judgment moves some people forward. Perhaps eventually they move on to a different definition of God that now moves them forward.

From an atheist’s perspective the scenario could be does thinking of my self seem to work or does putting others first seem to yield ‘better’ results. I am not suggesting atheists only think of themselves it is simply a realization all people can have and that God does not need to be part of the equation. Conversely a theist could encounter events that seem to contradict his beliefs and they move away from their belief. This could be any belief Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. When we fail to observe something is not working we move to another construct.

I think it is very hard to reconcile differences when things are black and white. When we can at least consider shades of grey we have a better hope for understanding of one another. Without understanding peace becomes a gargantuan effort.

My perspective is absolutes do not seem to work for me so I have tried to move beyond them. When I dealt with absolutes it didn’t seem to construct the world as I would have liked to see it. So in order to be peaceful, loving, compassionate I found that I had to remove absolutes in order to see the big picture and the role I play it, small as it may be. It has served me well in both peace of mind, love for fellow humans, compassion for the circumstances of the ‘enemy’. We’ll see if it moves me forward or takes me back. I still have a long way to go but I think I am making progress.

As usual Peter it is always an interesting dialogue.

Peace.

Peter:

I was stationed in England during my time in the Air Force. I lived in Mildenhall Town and frequently visited London and Cambridge. Leeds was nice too.

AS for the other topics.......we can argue and argue, but what we must both realize is that we can always agree to disagree. You'll see truth one way and I will see it another way. Also, we should both try to continue our respective searches for truth and answers. My answers about life come from life and experience. THat is the best way I know how to learn. Yes, I can read books and expand my knowledge that way, but I'd prefer to live life and have new experiences.

Yes, I find fault in the Bible, as well I do with the other so called "sacred" books of various religions. No religion has got it right. I may be an atheist and may not believe in God, but I do understand that the Bible and other books can show you a decent way to live. It seems to me that over the years that the message has gotten scrambled. Nobody seems to see this.

I have a message, and I hope you can give a good response to it, as well as any others that would like to comment. Here it is:

Live life in order to fulfill your dreams. Never stop learning, never stop searching for the answers you seek. Always be kind, and help the weak. What you do today may one day echo in the words and writings of others. Make your life one of rememberance and never give in to what you feel is wrong. Always stand up for what you believe and try to see both sides of the argument before you come to a decision. Love each other as you would love yourself. And finally, find what makes you happy and do it.

I hope this makes some sense to people.

Peter you said (in response to Rob)..."So that is your subjective opinion. How do you know it is true?".

How do you know the Bible is true? Do you feel it is more likely to be true than anything else? Well, you aren't much better than an evolutionary biologist, who has the world to prove him and you have, well, an old book.

"Again, we are chasing our tail again. Without God how do you determine it is "good" to love our enemies, when you supposedly know full well that life is the survival of the fittest" when you look at it from an evolutionary framework? How do you know it is "good" to love your enemies?"

Again, you are missing the point of the argument. Nature is survival of the fittest, but human beings don't have to be that way. You before made the argument that animals are submissive to man, but it wasn't always this way. Tools and numbers are what got us to the point where we could successfully control animals. Do you think aborigines fought elephants and lions with their bare hands? God didn't make lions and elephants submissive to man - tools did - and they aren't very reliable either. We can live outside of the "survival of the fittest" scheme, not because of the grace of God, but because of the compassion and good will I wish towards others. Do you feel it is appropriate to deny a gay couple housing or work because they are gay? That isn't love, that is apathy, which is far worse than hate. Apathy wasn't in the Bible, though, was it...so I guess you don't feel it, eh? Love or hate...black or white. So if the eskimo never hears about God, then obviously the religion of Christianity wasn't meant for him. So he is condemned to burn in hell because God conveniently forgot about him? Your God is obviously one of convenience (considering he is invisible and exists outside all physical laws), so why not be convenient enough to offer his son for the Eskimos as well as those in the Middle East?

The problem is, Peter, that you are swimming between two arguments to prove your point. We are biological bags of matter. Purpose is man-made. If everyone in the world stopped believing in God, what could he do? He could destroy us all, but what would it solve? So God just made us to have something to toy with in the vast reaches of space? Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean that I think everything is pointless - if I need justification for everything I do I'll be going to the afterlife (that of which I don't believe) with a lot of paperwork to fill out. I believe in the preservation of myself, the people I love especially, and much less, the people I do not know. I want to understand the universe as much as possible through science, and without the get-out-of-jail-free card that religion provides. I think (and hope), I can do it on my own.

I don't believe that logic applies to the Bible because I wholeheartedly believe it isn't true. I don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. I don't believe that he walked on water, performed miracles, or anything of the sort. You assume that the Bible is true so you can apply logic to it. I could say that a Harry Potter book is true, and apply logic to it as well - and quite possibly come to the same conclusion. You say, "God does not lie", and think that is a logical argument? Well, God created man in his image, and man lies, so doesn't God lie too? Again, you use a convenient argument that it is simply a product of the Fall that we lie.

Don't simply blame communist and Nazi regimes for genocides and atrocities - Hitler believed in God and (from what I understand), was quite the Catholic too. People aren't permitted to do what is right in their own eyes when LAW is enacted. What does the Bible say about heroin use and animal cruelty? If you are quoting the Old Testament, is it still applicable since the New Testament was written or has it changed (like the punishment of stoning)?

There isn't an absolute authority because things are rarely black and white. Justice has to be carefully considered before it is brought down on another. How do you feel about people who bomb abortion clinics and shoot abortion doctors? They are committing murder, but they are also saving lives, aren't they? It's a tough argument, no? What would the Bible have you do in EVERY case?

Is it not absurd to use the absolute authority of something you cannot see, touch, smell, or hear to define something absolute? Shouldn't you be able to absolutely know it is there? If God exists, why doesn't everyone know him? That doesn't sound very absolute. Oh yes, the convenient argument that the Fall separated us from him. How convenient, those Eskimos are still cold and Godless...

Hello Russell D,

I think I might have missed one of your posts on June 24, 2007 @ 8:37pm. I will try and reply tomorrow if I get the time. Thank you for considering me worthy of an answer!

Also Godfrey, I mistook your post for that of PaganPlace. Sorry

Hello Thomas Baum,

I appreciate your post and taking the time to reply. I will try reply to your post tomorrow. If I spend any more time here I will be up all night.

Thanks!

Hello Rob, good to hear from you again!

You said,

"I think Pagan’s suggestion that objective authority doesn’t exist is more accurate with what I believe. I don’t mean to say that God does not exist as I believe he/she most certainly does. In terms of authority I don’t believe God has a defined set of right and wrong (in terms of condemnation for eternity) and in actuality right and wrong are subjective and thus the afterlife deals with this accordingly."

So that is your subjective opinion. How do you know it is true?

You said,

"The quick answer being that everyone can get to Heaven even if they do not believe in the Christian worldview. What you initially experience in the afterlife is affected by your thoughts and understanding at the time of death. Is it possible to become lost in an incorrect construct in the afterlife? I guess anything is possible."

Are you making it possible? And who are you to decide?

You said,

"Here’s a couple of scenarios:
A poor boy in the Middle East is taught nothing but Islam. As he grows older his life becomes more hopeless due to poverty and tyrannical rule. Islam is all he has hope in and all he has ever known. He is taught that someone is the enemy, threatening his way of life and Islam itself and that great rewards await him in the afterlife if he dies for his cause. His suicide bombing is seen as good in his mind, he knows nothing else. Based on his worldview, this may have been correct. I do not see a benevolent being condemning this misinformed person for all eternity. These actions certainly does not seem to move us forward as a society and perhaps even move us backward."

Again, if his subjective mind is calling the shoots, then he is making up his own definition of "good." Now if he is basing his suicide bombing on an ultimate, absolute Authority, he had better be sure that he's got the right one, because he is only going to have the one chance to blow himself to smithereens.

You said,

"In this situation do we love our enemy because we know God will deal with him and he will ‘pay’ in the after life (assuming the Christian worldview is correct). Or do we love them because we have compassion for all beings and feel for this person whose life was so hopeless that this was what he saw as the only way out. We need to be thing of the latter."

Again, we are chasing our tail again. Without God how do you determine it is "good" to love our enemies, when you supposedly know full well that life is the survival of the fittest" when you look at it from an evolutionary framework? How do you know it is "good" to love your enemies?

You said,

"The Eskimo living on the tundra knows nothing about Christianity. I have heard that he will go to heaven since he never knew of God/Christ."

Without Christ how will anyone get to heaven? Is he or are you going to answer to God on your own merit and good you have done, when you are having trouble defining what "good" is? Do you expect a just and righteous (i.e. someone who does what is right) Judge to break the law for your wrongs and pronoun you innocent. That is why He sent His Son; to meet His righteous law and standards so that we, who believe, would not have to. His Son also voluntarily offered to do just that for us because of His love for His people (i.e., those who would believe).

To continue your analogy,

"One day a preacher tells him about Christ. Now he faces everlasting damnation if he messes up / does not accept Christ. The eskimo’s response to the preacher… so why did you tell me?

Again, if he believes by God's sovereign grace then God will keep him from falling. You do not understand the promises of God for those who believe.

"...but because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them." (Hebrews 7:24-25)

Hope you got that Rob. And the reason,

"Such a high priest meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of His people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself." (Hebrews 7:26-27)

By the way Rob, did you ever read the book I recommended by Horatius Bonar, "The Everlasting Righteousness" that can be found on the web? If you are interested I will give you the web address?

Rob, you said,

"Peter you said “your train of thinking is precisely what wars are fought over, subjective opinion. Without an objective, unchanging, immovable standard anything goes, right?
You are correct in the big scheme of the universe, eternity etc anything goes. I know this is a way out there concept but it makes the most sense to me. *It is not so much about right and wrong it is about what works and doesn’t work given your purpose.*"

What happens, Rob, when your pragmatic approach goes against the Word of God? So, yes, it is about right and wrong. Either you answer for your injustices and wrongs or Christ answers for them in your stead, takes the punishment for those wrong and supplies you with justification before God as well as receiving His righteousness, because now God see the payment as completed and you in “good” standing.

You said,

"If the purpose is to experience a life of peace, joy, love and happiness here on Earth then what the Bible makes mention of in terms of ‘right and wrong’ is one of the better (best?) constructs to follow."

There again, to experience peace with God there is only one way. Through Jesus Christ and what He did. (Romans 5:1; John 14:27, if you are interested). The same is true of joy and happiness. So it is definitely the best and only way to eternal peace, joy and happiness.

You said,

"If one wants to know/experience God here on Earth then the Christian construct may be one people want to follow. Or follow Buddhism or heck be an atheist but if you follow a construct of love, compassion, non violence, forgiveness you likely stand a better chance of an enjoyable life.

Number one, why should you follow a construct of love? According to the evolutionary framework, are we not biological bags of matter. Does it matter since evolution does not give meaning or purpose to life?

You cannot follow both, they contradict each other. Greg Bahnsen, "Pushing the Antithesis" p.202, explains this beautifully (great book to read),

"The laws of logic are not laws of thought, but presuppositions of (coherent) thinking. The three basic laws...The Law of Identity states that "A is A." This means that if any statement is true, it is true; it cannot be true and not true simultaneously. That is, anything that exists in reality has a particular identity and is not something else. The thing is what it is. A thing can be a cow but not simultaneously a cat....The Law of Contradiction states that "A is not not-A." That is, no statements can be both true and false in the same sense at the same time. A person cannot be both alive and not alive simultaneously and in the same way...The Law of Excluded Middle states that "A is either A or not-A." That is, every statement must be either true or false exclusively, there is no middle ground. Or to put it differently: if a given statement is not true, then its denial must be true. For instance, we may say that something is either a chair or not a chair, it cannot be neither a chair nor not a chair. You are either here or you are not here, you cannot be neither here or nor not here."

Then he goes onto show how we deduce that logic from the Bible and that the laws of logic reflect God’s nature. For one, He does not lie, so He does not contradict Himself.

Since you use logic for everything you do, in making sense of what you read and the environment in which you live, logic has a devastating effect on your worldview Rob.

You see, the Bible says that Jesus is the only way to God the Father, there is no other way to God. Since you are claiming all these other ways are possible ways to God you are not being logical because they all say something totally different. See how all three laws apply here?

Christianity is a religion (maybe you can give me another) in which man is not judged on his merits or "good" works, but on those of Another who stands in his place and provides the believer with a righteousness or good standing that does not come from himself, but from God. That is the only way God’s justice can be satisfied.

You said,

"While the removal of absolute authority may sound scary it may be the only way."

Then everyone does what is right in their own eyes, and who determines right in such a case? That leads to one of a few options; anarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, dictatorship. Option A - Anarchy if no law can be established; Option B or C - tyranny in dictatorship or oligarchy, depending on how many people hold the reign of terror. Good examples are Nazi Germany, Communist Russia or China or North Korea. Look how many people have been killed by these regimes. An estimate of 80-100 million.

You said,

"Everyone has their absolute authority and this is what separates us."

That is the problem; most people on the posts do not recognize an absolute authority, so they cannot make sense of these discussions because they have no measure but themselves.

And the other thing is if everyone has their own absolute authority and each one is contradicting the other, how can it be absolute????

You said,

"When there is absolute authority then whom is there to question? I believe the universe and God for that matter is too complex and our understanding too limited to be confined by absolutes."

There again you are contradicting yourself. If God is Sovereign, and He is, then He determines what is right and true and good and "absolute." That is who He is.

You said,

"Faith alone may not get us there since there are so many versions. Perhaps God has set things up so that it is can be demonstrated as to what works and what does not."

Yes He has set things up by the absurdity, inconsistency, irrationality, and impossibility of the others.

Thanks for listening once again!

Hey Godfrey,

"A simple trick for answering posts: paste the whole post in the "post a comment" box, put quote marks around what you want to answer, delete the rest. If you want to answer several, paste them all."

Thank you very much for that tip. I hadn't thought of that. That will definitely make things easier, less time consuming and simpler!

You said,

"Please, please tell me: how do we know God's word is true?"

For me it is because God has been gracious to me in opening my eyes, ears, heart and mind to the truth of His Word (1 Corinthians 2:9-16 if you are really interested and not just faking interest), and because of the impossibility of the contrary.

You cannot even come up with a sensible explanation for why mankind can determine "good" without borrowing from the Christian position (i.e. An absolute Authority has revealed what "good" is). Nor can you determine truth, the answer for logic in an evolutionary framework of materialism, or be certain of any fact.

"I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding arguments." (Colossians 2:1-4)

Did you get that Godfrey? Complete understanding in order to know the mystery of Christ and what He did for believers. Did you get the part about "in whom are hidden ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?"
Not just some of them.

How about,

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased to save those who believe." (1 Corinthians 1:18-21)

So Godfrey, why would I want human wisdom when God has revealed His infinite wisdom? You can't even answer what "good" is, or why you know it is.

You said,

"How do we know that Isaiah spoke to God but Mary Baker Eddy didn't?"

There are lots of reasons, but one way to know is to compare Scripture with what Ms. Mary Baker Eddy says. Since she bases Scientology on the Scriptures, the Scriptures are how Scientology is judged. You will find she lifts verses out of context and makes them say what she wants them to, instead of getting the meaning from the text that the Author put in. She interprets the Bible metaphorically in places where using a figure of speech is not justified.

You said,

"How do we know Jeremiah was talking truth but Swedenborg wasn't?

I'm not familiar with Swedenborg, but from the simple Answers.com search I did, since he was centuries after Christ, he misinterpreted Scripture to make it say what it does not say, since he rejected any notion that Jesus Christ was divine.

With Isaiah, on the other hand, his message was in unity with the rest of Scripture, and Jesus Christ, being God as well as taking upon Himself human flesh confirmed that Isaiah was part of the Scriptures. Jesus quoted him on a number of occasions.

You said,

"How do we know Christ came down from Heaven, but Moroni didn't?"

Lots of reasons again. One of them is the Canon of Scripture was closed long before Joseph Smith, Jr. had his vision of the Book of Mormon and later found his translation tools under a rock. There are too many discrepancies in the story and too many contradictions from the Gospel accounts and the Bible.

You said,

"How do we know Christ ascended in a bright light but Muhammad didn't ride off on a winged horse?"

Again, lots of reasons. There were many eyewitnesses, and at the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 many were still alive. Again, if you are really interested read "Who Moved the Stone?" by by Frank Morison.

Also, if you are really interested read "The Truth About Islam. The Noble Qur'an's Teaching in Light of the Bible."

You said,

"Evolution doesn't account for reality, and doesn't claim to."

You're right there!

You said,

"And what's the obsession with accounting for reality? Reality is where we begin. Reality is the underlying context for all thought and action. Science doesn't even attempt to account for reality. It merely attempts to observe it and build models of how it operates. Who needs to account for it? That's just weird."

Since you are the philosopher, you tell me why you place your belief in something that cannot account for what is out there, why it is out there and the significance of why we should care? But you seem to be spending a lot of time trying to seek this mess out??? Why not just eat, drink and be merry if it is not important to you? You won't find any meaning in an atheistic worldview.

May I suggest to you the reason that you are trying to find out is because that is the way that God has created man to commune with Himself and man is restless until he discovers that intimate relationship with God.

Thanks again for that tip. That was definitely easier!

Thank you Russell D for those kind words!

Actually I was born (Canadian born abroad) and raised in Africa until I was fourteen then my family migrated to Canada where I now live. My dad was born in Ontario, my mom in Queenstown South Africa and my sister in Blackpool, England and now lives in Crawley, Sussex. My brother-in-law lives in Hassocks, just north of the South Downs. That is one of my favorite areas of England along with Cornwall where my mother’s family originated from.

Where did you live in England and what were you doing over there if you do not mind my asking Russell?

You said,

"The paragraph you pasted about evolution being a mistake, there is some truth to it, but it is not all about mistakes."

If I looked hard enough I could pull off a lot of quotes from evolutionary scientists and from evolutionary text books stating the evolution is a blind, random, chance, process. That makes it very difficult to stay consistent with what we observe today, uniformity in nature. The planetary orbits can be plotted and are consistent. The natural laws are the same, they don't change and no one has seen them change. Gravity still works, and so does the laws of logic. And they apply to every man. How can you explain this in a chance universe? If all we are is material that changes by chance electro-chemical reactions why should anything be consistent?

I can very easily explain the uniformity of nature and the consistency of laws,

"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:17)

"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word." (Hebrews 1:3)

What a God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

You said Russell,

"Good and evil:
Are man made concepts. But they are also subjective. What one person sees as good, the other might see as bad."

The problem with that thinking Russell, that good and evil are man made concepts, is how can they be measured? Which person is going to decide what ultimate "good" is? And since the chances are the next person may not agree to your subjective definition, and a new definition of "good" could be the next flavor of the month how do you pick over so many?

The next question is, in an evolutionary framework how does "good' develop? As I have said many times now, cannibalism was practiced in many civilizations and up until very recently, possibly still in New Guinea.

If the Korowai tribe feels, since it is all based on feelings according to PaganPlace, you are the guest and menu for tonight’s feast, in the "good" of the best interests of the tribe, who are you to say their definition of "good" is "bad." That would just be impolite. It's all subjective isn't it, and you are the subject. Remember, only the fittest survive.

That is the message we supposedly get from all of nature, isn't it? Why should man be any different?

When you say,

"The reason God changes is because man changes. Man created God and the Gods. Ever notice how the Gods and God have human characteristics?"

When man ignores God's revelation God changes in the minds of men. When man misinterpret God's revelation of Himself, God changes in the minds of men, because without a true and accurate knowledge of God mankind forms/molds God in its image. That is why we have so many religions, of which atheism is a godless one.

"He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind." (1 Samuel 15:29; see also Psalm 110:4; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 7:21 & James 1:17, if you are interested)

The problem I find with PaganPlace and with Wiccan and pagans is that their gods/goddesses are illogical and irrational. Each god/goddess changes and each means different things to different people. I will expand on this in my reply to Rob next in discussing the laws of logic.

When you say,

"God didn't create man, Man created God."

Since you stated before,

"I may not be an authority on the subject of evolution or the subject of whether or not there is a God."

I find that very assuring to know that that is your "final answer." :)

Absolutely sure?

O, sorry, which answer is the final one? Man created God or your authority on whether or not there is a God?

"The God who MADE the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.' Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone - an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead." (Acts 17:24-31)

Thanks for the chat! Take care.

Peter Huff:

A simple trick for answering posts: paste the whole post in the "post a comment" box, put quote marks around what you want to answer, delete the rest. If you want to answer several, paste them all.

"Why would I concede your position since God's Word is true?"

Please, please tell me: how do we know God's word is true? How do we know that Isaiah spoke to God but Mary Baker Eddy didn't? How do we know Jeremiah was talking truth but Swedenborg wasn't? How do we know Christ came down from Heaven, but Moroni didn't? How do we know Christ ascended in a bright light but Muhammed didn't ride off on a winged horse?

"You cannot account for reality as it is within an evolutionary framework."

Evolution doesn't account for reality, and doesn't claim to. It only models certain aspects of biology.

And what's the obsession with accounting for reality? Reality is where we begin. Reality is the underlying context for all thought and action. Science doesn't even attempt to account for reality. It merely attempts to observe it and build models of how it operates. Who needs to account for it? That's just weird.

Uh yes… the ever lasting debate of right over wrong.

I just pulled a couple of line items from the dialogue between Peter and Pagan.

You never answered the question of how "good" is established without an objective, absolute authority
Third, if you can, then do, don't just say you can. Again, you have not answered the question of *how good can be established.*
Pagan said “"Hint, 'The objective authority' is the part that doesn't exist."”

I think Pagan’s suggestion that objective authority doesn’t exist is more accurate with what I believe. I don’t mean to say that God does not exist as I believe he/she most certainly does. In terms of authority I don’t believe God has a defined set of right and wrong (in terms of condemnation for eternity) and in actuality right and wrong are subjective and thus the afterlife deals with this accordingly. The quick answer being that everyone can get to Heaven even if they do not believe in the Christian worldview. What you initially experience in the afterlife is affected by your thoughts and understanding at the time of death. Is it possible to become lost in an incorrect construct in the afterlife? I guess anything is possible.

Here’s a couple of scenarios:
A poor boy in the Middle East is taught nothing but Islam. As he grows older his life becomes more hopeless due to poverty and tyrannical rule. Islam is all he has hope in and all he has ever known. He is taught that someone is the enemy, threatening his way of life and Islam itself and that great rewards await him in the afterlife if he dies for his cause. His suicide bombing is seen as good in his mind, he knows nothing else. Based on his worldview, this may have been correct. I do not see a benevolent being condemning this misinformed person for all eternity. These actions certainly does not seem to move us forward as a society and perhaps even move us backward.

In this situation do we love our enemy because we know God will deal with him and he will ‘pay’ in the after life (assuming the Christian worldview is correct ). Or do we love them because we have compassion for all beings and feel for this person whose life was so hopeless that this was what he saw as the only way out. We need to be thing of the latter.

The Eskimo living on the tundra knows nothing about Christianity. I have heard that he will go to heaven since he never knew of God/Christ. One day a preacher tells him about Christ. Now he faces everlasting damnation if he messes up / does not accept Christ. The eskimo’s response to the preacher… so why did you tell me?

When we can not answer these types of questions easily it likely means our worldview is incomplete.

Peter you said “your train of thinking is precisely what wars are fought over, subjective opinion. Without an objective, unchanging, immovable standard anything goes, right? “

You are correct in the big scheme of the universe, eternity etc anything goes. I know this is a way out there concept but it makes the most sense to me. *It is not so much about right and wrong it is about what works and doesn’t work given your purpose.*

If the purpose is to experience a life of peace, joy, love and happiness here on Earth then what the Bible makes mention of in terms of ‘right and wrong’ is one of the better (best?) constructs to follow. If one wants to know/experience God here on Earth then the Christian construct may be one people want to follow. Or follow Buddhism or heck be an atheist but if you follow a construct of love, compassion, non violence, forgiveness you likely stand a better chance of an enjoyable life.

While the removal of absolute authority may sound scary it may be the only way. Everyone has their absolute authority and this is what separates us. When there is absolute authority then whom is there to question? I believe the universe and God for that matter is too complex and our understanding too limited to be confined by absolutes.

Faith alone may not get us there since there are so many versions. Perhaps God has set things up so that it is can be demonstrated as to what works and what does not.

To Peter Huff and the rest of humanity: I do not look to Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, but as our Lord and Saviour. One place is in Timothy where it says that it is God's Will that all be saved, but actually it is all over the bible. I also look to the bible more as one of God's miracles that should lead you to the Word of God, which is Love and Love Incarnate's earthly name was Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Just like in Jesus's time, people were more interested in the miracles than in Jesus, and as Jesus said the signs should point to Him whereas people got caught up in the signs, today people can get so caught up in the bible that they completely miss what it is pointing to. Remember God said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways", why do we keep trying to put God in the box of our own design. Here is something to think about, Jesus said to judge no one, to forgive everyone basically an infinite number of times, do you think that God, and Jesus is God Incarnate not a second-rate prophet that satan the god wanna-be but a loser has tried to claim Him as, has asked us to be better and more forgiving than God Himself. A lot of things in the Old Testament point to something rather than being an end in itself, the unblemished lamb pointed to Jesus who do you think the guilty goat blest by Aaron and sent out into the desert of sin might refer to. I happen to be the New Testament Moses and I have said Yes. God is a Trinity of Pure Love and guess what He has a Plan and that Plan will come to fruition. God's Plan is all encompassing and that includes all of humanity. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Peter Huff:

I like your posts. I don't agree with them, but I like them. Are you in England? I love England. I lived there for four years. Wonderful Country. Good People.

I may not be an authority on the subject of evolution or the subject of whether or not there is a God. But I do try to understand both. THe paragraph you pasted about evolution being a mistake, there is some truth to it, but it is not all about mistakes. Evolution concerns itself with growth and adaptation. Sometimes odd combinations come from it, but overall, it tends to work itself out.

Good and evil:
Are manmade concepts. But they are also subjective. What one person sees as good, the other might see as bad. There is a diverse field in good and evil, and yet you claim it all comes from God, because he is all good and He never changes. Wrong. God has changed from a wrathful and vengful God to nothing more than a bystander who seems to do nothing more than watch. WHy the change if He never changes? Sounds like He's got some issues. Zoloft might clear that up. I have an answer for you, maybe you'll understand it, maybe you won't. The reason God changes is because man changes. Man created God and the Gods. Ever notice how the Gods and God have human characteristics? Yea....that's because man created them. God is limited by the human mind. But as of yet, there are no limits, just barriers, seeing as how a human can only use up to 10% of their brain at any given time conciously. God didn't create man, Man created God.

As for the animal kingdom....yea, man has authority over some animals, but the rest are up for grabs. Ever been around a Hippo? OR and elephant? or a Lion and Tiger?

PaganPlace, you said,

"Peter Huff:

You seem to have ignored most of my points. I will assume that is concession."

Well, for one thing, I do not have the time to answer them all. Plus its hard work scrolling up and try and find a post, scrolling down again, answering it, then doing the same thing over and over again until all the points are finished. As I said it takes a lot of time and by the time I'm finished there are five or ten more posts. I also like to think about what is being said before I formulate a response. Hope you will be patient, since I want to fit some family time in between the exchanges.

If I tend to these later in the night I can generally get more accomplished, because the rate of posting has slowed down.

Why would I concede your position since God's Word is true?

You cannot account for reality as it is within an evolutionary framework. That is probably why as a pagan you bring in mysterious, but "conscious" Mother Nature. What you do is interpret evolutionary science to fit your worldview as you do every other thing. That is to be expected. But it is inconsistent, because you borrow from the atheistic/evolutionary position, which is also inconsistent.

For one thing evolutionary science teaches that the universe came into being by an irrational, random chance process, just read any beginner level biology text book.

PaganPlace, this is for you as well as Russell D. Hopefully I can answer both of you together. It is a few quotes from an article written about one of the leading proponents of evolutionary thought, Stephen Jay Gould, by the WSWS website, who are not pushing a Christian position,

"Gould concluded that the sudden accelerations of evolutionary change that have certainly manifested themselves throughout the earth’s history were the result of events in which CHANCE PLAYED the preponderant role. For Gould, the determinism in nature that is contained within the BLIND PROCESS of natural selection was increasingly deemphasized in his writings, in favor of the PURELY ACCIDENTAL. Gould’s “radical” contingency even excluded any notion of direction, such as evolution from the simple to the complex, for example....Yes, these developments involve ACCIDENTS in the form of mutations, periodic CHANCE ALTERATION in the DNA molecule...De Duve writes: “Mutations are CHANCE EVENTS, which fact it is often claimed, implies a view of evolution as being ruled by chance. While not denying the role of contingency in evolution, I point out that CHANCE OPERATES WITHIN CONSTRAINS—physical, chemical, biological, environmental—that limit its free play.”"

How does chance operate within constrainsts?

In the same article, Ernst Haeckel and his theory of “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” is mentioned as being widely dismissed today because of his fraudulent embryo drawings for one.

This is all part of your great evidence of evolution.

Please see the article @
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jul2002/goul-j01.shtml

So, evolution is a chance, blind, accidental process.

The question is how do you get laws operating that are unchanging and invariable in a constantly changing universe???

For that matter, how is any law established in a random, blind, changing, accidental universe???

Evolutionary science and atheism teaches that life is made up of material and as such, the scientific method deals with empirical data or to put it another way knowledge that is derived through the senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing).

So you discover the law of gravity by throwing objects up into the air and watching them come down.

Now how do you get intangibles out of a material universe? The laws of logic are immaterial in that you cannot see them. If you say they are not universal then the laws of logic cannot be made sense of, for they would differ from person to person and nothing could be understood, for nothing would make sense.

If all we are, as evolutionary science states, is biological and chemical chance mutations how do you account for the uniformity of nature?

How do you account for morals if all we are is electro-chemical reactions taking place, which are determined by our environment, and each one of us is different? How can we ever agree on anything? I will admit we are having a hard time now.

Again and again and again, Christianity makes sense because of the impossibility of the contrary.

In stating,

"Wisdom isn't *granted,* friend. You gotta work for it. Love it, woo it, pursue it. And never, ever, presume you *possess* it, even if it's presented to you in the form of a 'book of authority.'"

What you are doing PagaPlace, is avoiding the question/changing the subject that I asked. Check the post again if you think otherwise. It is a tactic the JW's use when they are in a pickle. They switch to another passage and another context of Scripture.

You never answered the question of how "good" is established without an objective, absolute authority.

When I said,

"Second, without objective authority or any for that matter, as you have stated, you cannot account for "good" or pass judgment, and yet you do."

You countered by,

"Then, clearly I'm either not accounting for good or passing judgment, or you're simply in error and one can."

Precisely, you are not accounting for good, because you need a measure for good. What is it? By the way, you are still passing judgment, although you cannot account for it either. I agree with what you say.

Second, why do you make value judgments if you cannot determine the standard for them?

Again, you have to borrow from my worldview to make sense out of good.

Third, if you can, then do, don't just say you can. Again, you have not answered the question of how good can be established.

Fourth, if you can't establish how you arrive at "good" why talk about it or use it?

When you say,

"Hint, 'The objective authority' is the part that doesn't exist."

Are you absolutely sure???

You said,

"My subjective experience of what other people subjectively express finding true and relevant regardless of ideology, would be a start."

Heavens Gate, here he comes. Jimmy Jones, move over. Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin sign him up.

In answering my comment on the practice of magic in the Old Testament you said,

"Cause their 'authority' is the only thing that made them *think* they were doing the 'objectively right' thing by *pummeling people to death with rocks?*

The question is still, why would that be bad? So far all you have given me is that bad or good is just a subjective experience. On such evolutionary logic I could say that it was not their subjective experience that it was bad.
So who are you to determine for anybody else what is good or bad in an evolutionary world where "only the fit survive?

Your train of thinking is precisely what wars are fought over, subjective opinion. Without an objective, unchanging, immovable standard anything goes, right?

Your "good" is not my good because I look outside of myself to the only unchanging standard.

You suggest in who determines good,

"How about the Constitution of the United States?"

I do not live in the USA and I am not American.

You said,

"How do we know the 'good?'

We wake up and *be human.*

Gods know we have the tools."

Yes, God has given us the tools.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)

"I, the LORD do not change." (Malachi 3:6a)

"God is not like man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should change His mind." (Numbers 23:19a)

Why would I want to believe a worldview like yours, or like Russell's, when you can't even establish what is right or good without borrowing capital from the Christian worldview anyway?

When you say,

"If they were hurting people in a way that made lethal force necessary, well, I could see that. But the fact is, these kinds of atrocities like 'stoning' are motivated by fear and other darker motives, not 'objective truth.'"

You judge hurt by physical actions, but in effect what was happening was they were turning people away from the truth of God and breaking His standards that He set for the Israelites. Much of the time His people did not listen to His warnings, so they gave up the truth for a lie.

Since God is Sovereign He makes the standards, not you. He just gave us dominion over the animals. As you can well see, we rule over them, not the opposite. And man is not and animal.

Well, it is getting late and I am rambling on.

I mean, far be it from me to get in the way of a 'righteous' guy's dysfunctional relationship between one part he can't deal with and another...

I mean, it's only my life or something....

Right?

Damn. They got a *book!* And a problem with their butts!

Gods, *obviously* they should get whatever their damage wants.

Wouldn't want to get in the way with anything like my *life,* or anything, would I?

"As for following the Bible......yea yea, it sayd gay sex between men is wrong, but nothing about women.Everybody loves girl on girl action, but for most, when two guys get it on, it's just wrong"

Don't think I haven't noticed that when I'd really like not to be robbed of all a partner and I have built so I can be put on the street by 'Righteous Christians,' that the justification for such theft always seems to refer to the 'Literal Biblical Truth' of someone condemning *men and butt sex of some sort that it seems has fixated males throughout the ages..*

I mean, those people trying to insist that "God" condemns my potential health plan, quick enough to quote the Bible... Not so quick, it seems, to *notice the boobs when they scream at me about how gross they find the guy-on-guy *buttsex* they can't seem to get their minds off.*

Paganplace:

I picked Godfrey for the pun, influenced by a cool old movie called "My Man Godfrey."

Peter Huff:

You seem to have ignored most of my points. I will assume that is concession.

"And the difference between Mary Baker Eddy or Mohummed or Russel or Smith is that they read something into the text of Scripture that is not there, rather than taking out of the text what the Author is saying."

Mary Baker Eddy and Muhammed and Joseph Smith have written their own scriptures from personal revelation. God spoke to Muhammed and Smith through angels, and to Eddy (if I remember correctly) directly. They were very great prophets. If you believe their books. I'm desparately trying to get you to tell me why your claim to revelation is superior to theirs. Do help us out here. How do I know that Christ came down from heaven if Gabriel and Moroni didn't?

Peter:

My God, man, you have nailed it on the button! We have no reasoning or morality if God doesn't put it out there for us. Yea.......I realized that was crap way back in elementary school.

The laws and rules in the Bible aren't God's laws. They are laws created by men for men to keep men down. AS for the gay marriage issue, it's not really a moral question. It's two PEOPLE who are in love and want to get married. Heck, most gay couples are together longer than straight couples.

All I am saying is this, information can come from a book, but it's what you do with that information that matters. Do you take the words to heart? Or do you question what you are reading and wonder if there is another perspective.
The Bible isn't truth, and neither is the Koran, Torah, etc.,. Truth is in the world and in the people you meet and spend time with. Talk to all kinds of people, not just the ones sitting in the pews next to you.

As for following the Bible......yea yea, it sayd gay sex between men is wrong, but nothing about women.Everybody loves girl on girl action, but for most, when two guys get it on, it's just wrong. The Bible also says that I shouldn't be wearing the clothes I wear because I have more than one specific fiber in them. And that I shouldn't cut my hair. Now do you really think I should pay attention to that? Do you follow those rules? Bet you don't. I bet you do wear multi fiber clothes and that you pay 8 or 9 bucks a pop for your haircut. And one more thing. Do you also kill children when they talk back to their parents? Do you condemn a whole town or city to die if they don't believe in the Lord? Yea, I didn't think so..........

Peter, I can put up with all sorts of people. I like to meet new people and chat with them. I will never stop learning and never stop growing. Maybe that is what you should do. Don't stop learning, don't hold yourself back because a book says so. Repression and regret cause loads of strife. Just ask all your fellow christians who have been arrested for crimes ranging anywhere from child porn to Watergate. Nobody is perfect. Not even Jesus was perfect. Just because the book says he was, maybe it's wrong. Gotta remember, the books that were chosen for the Bible were put together for a reason. So common sense would tell you that there is some sort of slant in it.

Clearly, Luke, the position Peter is arguing for is the one where:

'Not accepting this book presents me as a human with a lack of authority over others that I can't psychologically accept. Therefore, everything this agenda says is absolutely true, and I can spend plenty of time rationalizing it badly so I can claim to be a wise authority while claiming that it's not really me, but rather the Ultimate Universal Alpha Male Monkey who's obsessed with controlling all the sex and territory and even if possible thought he might see while denying the fact that higher primates are diverse and tribal and don't work that way.'

Of course he's afraid of the idea we evolved from a common ancestor to chimps. He's terrified someone's going to notice the obvious resemblance and note how his position is *not* unassailable.

Your problem Peter, is that your interpretation of the Bible is what you deem to be the absolute authority, but there are plenty who read it and don't believe the same thing. God is not an objective measure or standard, because how nice he is determined by if he has allowed his son to be brutalized? It doesn't make sense Peter - it is, how you say...INCONSISTENT. So when does God's "love" run out and we need another one of his son's to clear things up? I believe that nature favors stronger beings, because we have an enormous amount of physical proof of that. Human beings don't have to be that way. I don't know many atheists who think that we should kill children with down syndrome or kids who are otherwise developmentally disabled, but they certainly did it often in the Bible. "Just because you sincerely believe something doesn't make it true." Sounds like someone should take their own advice. I believe Andrea is the one who says "Pot, meet kettle." I know what things are wrong based on the golden rule, amongst other things. I don't fear God's wrath for the decisions I make, nor do I give a damn if he appreciates it or not. The vikings had morality before they were taken over by the Christians under Olaf Tryggvason. Also, look at the decisions your president makes under the guise of Christian faith - I think it is quite apparent that Christians are just as guilty, if not more, of the sins they condemn. Can't really argue that, eh?

" Godfrey:

"Are you truly God free? Sorry for the pun."

"I should think it was obvious that I picked the name for the pun."

Funny, I thought it was just a traditional name based on the God Frey. :)

"I say you can to a certain extent know the difference between right and wrong, because God has built us that way. The situation is that when you ignore God you suppress the truth and your thinking becomes futile."

I think what becomes 'futile' is thinking you need to have the 'only God' and the 'only truth' in order to know what's good, bad, or even your business.

"I mean, come on, if you alone determine right and wrong and I alone determine right and wrong and our two views are opposite (for instance, I think that the gay marriage is wrong, based on the Word of God, not because I, in myself have the wisdom to determine such things."

Wisdom isn't *granted,* friend. You gotta work for it. Love it, woo it, pursue it. And never, ever, presume you *possess* it, even if it's presented to you in the form of a 'book of authority.'

What you seem to be unwilling to give up, is the idea that *you get to decide (or enforce) whether gay marriage is 'right' or 'wrong.'

If in your belief, it would be somehow that harmful to your soul, *don't marry a man.*

If *only* your belief says it's wrong for others to do, well, then, tough titties.

Even by your own standards, homosexuality is as horrible as, *playing football* (touching pigskin) *touching a menstruating woman* or *wearing mixed fibers.*

All 'Abominations' by your 'absolute authority.'

*You* decided that that authority said that gay people having health care, having the right to see dying loved ones of decades in the hospital, to not have their homes and mutual property taken away by homophobic Christian relatives who cry 'Sin!' was somehow the 'right' of it.

You.

" If I was a betting man I would say you believe the opposite). So now we have a stalemate. Who determines right and wrong now. You see, without an objective standard and measure (God) you and I are hopeless to determine which of the two of us are right. "

How about the Constitution of the United States?

Which 'side' represents 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' here?

Gay couples of thirty years having fewer rights to these things than straight people who got married in a Vegas chapel before they sobered up?

Or, *it not harming anyone in any way.* Certainly not any way that's your concern.

"First, I am not anti-science, just anti evolutionary science."

What you preach is an 'anti-science,' literally claiming that your book overrides verifiable science and observation in describing the world, as long as you can *obfuscate* things to claim that unscientific things must therefore be true.

This is not the scientific process, ...it's not even good logic.

"Second, without objective authority or any for that matter, as you have stated, you cannot account for "good" or pass judgment, and yet you do."

Then, clearly I'm either not accounting for good or passing judgement, or you're simply in error and one can.

Hint, 'The objective authority' is the part that doesn't exist.

" What makes your subjective experience the measurement that is true or that is relevant to anyone else? Just because you believe it or because you can get someone else to believe it?"

My subjective experience of what other people subjectively express finding true and relevant regardless of ideology, would be a start.

It's called 'playing well with others.'

"So to use the example that Luke supplied, if someone living under the Mosaic law stoned your friend to death because the Bible forbids the practice of the occult and magic arts (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27), and because they see it as "good" how can you have any objection to them doing so? After all, you have said you do not recognize authority or excuses, so how can you deem that a bad thing if someone else deems it good?"

Cause their 'authority' is the only thing that made them *think* they were doing the 'objectively right' thing by *pummeling people to death with rocks?*

There's no excuses for violence like that based on some abstract notion that someone decided someone was 'practicing occult arts.' If they were hurting people in a way that made lethal force necessary, well, I could see that. But the fact is, these kinds of atrocities like 'stoning' are motivated by fear and other darker motives, not 'objective truth.'

I don't find this to be rocket science. If you think someone's doing bad magic, you get a specialist on it, not quote a book and throw rocks at people you find suspicious until they're bashed to death.

"Third, how do you determine what is sacred without any authority? Do you choose whatever you like?"

Umm, is that all the experience of the sacred *is* to *you?* Choose an 'authority' you "like?" Or maybe try to like the 'authority' someone imposed on you and hope *that* turns out 'sacred?'

No, it just doesn't work that way.

It's an interactive process. Like life. It *is* life. Rulebooks can't *encompass* that.

"I still want to touch on the evolutionary undertones of "good" but it is getting late."

I guess you don't figure that all this evolution you don't believe in might have given us some perfectly good instincts on how awful it is to hurt each other, if we don't let some 'authority' tell us that the 'different' represent a 'mortal threat to the soul?'

Instead of saying that 'All this aggression is just 'evil human nature,'' have you considered that perhaps the experience of our species could help teach us to *manage* aggression rather than blame it on the 'different?'

Maybe even the answer to the problems of the sex-shaped hole authoritatian religions leave in human life and then try to fill with xenophobia, fear of 'eternal death and torture,' and obedience to authoritarian superstition ...could be found in observing the instincts our evolution has grown in us...

Instead of trying to deny them and redirect them toward tyrannical ends and false promises.

'Just one more war. Just one more 'sacrifice.' One more 'injustice' and the 'impure humanity' will be purged and everything'll be peachy, even if we have to oppress or end the world to do it.'

Ever think that these religious authorities might be an *exploitation* of human instincts, not 'salvation' from them?

How do we know the 'good?'

We wake up and *be human.*

Gods know we have the tools.

Hello Russell D,

Finally someone who will tackle the question of how we establish "good." I thought with a worldview as consistent as atheism it would have been attempted a long time ago. O, wait a minute, you "can't tell [me] where we get right and wrong from." So you decide for yourself based on what? Feelings, nothing more than feelings..."

I say you can to a certain extent know the difference between right and wrong, because God has built us that way. The situation is that when you ignore God you suppress the truth and your thinking becomes futile.

I mean, come on, if you alone determine right and wrong and I alone determine right and wrong and our two views are opposite (for instance, I think that the gay marriage is wrong, based on the Word of God, not because I, in myself have the wisdom to determine such things. If I was a betting man I would say you believe the opposite). So now we have a stalemate. Who determines right and wrong now. You see, without an objective standard and measure (God) you and I are hopeless to determine which of the two of us are right.

It all becomes meaningless and boils down to who yields the most force. That is the atheist way, because it stems from the evolutionary principle of "survival of the fittest." That is why Adolph Hitler exterminated six million Jews. He thought he was doing the supposed stronger race a favor by eliminating breading with the supposed weaker ones.

If that is the best answer you can come up with Russell, "I can't tell you where right and wrong come from" then don't you think that your worldview is a little inadequate?

That is why I keep telling you, your way of looking at the world does not answer the tough questions.

I suppose you determine truth the same way, by feeling it?

There are certain nut cases out there who believe they can fly too. They will only ever jump off the Empire State building once though. Just because you sincerely believe something does not necessarily make it true.

Russel, do you really believe that you think for yourself, not influenced, neutral and unbiased by your culture, your family, your peer group and friends, by the media, by what you read and a hundred other factors besides?

And the difference between Mary Baker Eddy or Mohummed or Russel or Smith is that they read something into the text of Scripture that is not there, rather than taking out of the text what the Author is saying.

Luke:
It's always nice to be appreciated.

Peter Huff:

You say quite a bit, and yet you aren't really saying anything at all. It seems you are saying the same thing over and over again. Arguments are made, and counterpoints are given, yet nobody seems to be listening. I understand the reasoning behind your arguments Peter. But those arguments are childish and very close-minded. You can't base morality on the Bible, seeing as how the Bible isn't that old. Morality was around well before all that. And as I recall.......societies were very prosperous before all that ever came up. I can't tell you where we get right and wrong from, but I can say this..why do we need a book to tell us? Can't we decide for ourselves? Can't we feel if something is right or not? Are we that incapable? I doubt we are, yet you seem to think we are. No harm there, just let people believe what they want to believe. People can get along great, but it seems that there is always some kind of problem when religion is brought up. Now why is that? Hmmmm........

P.S. Is it safe to say you will never read Stenger? Of course it is. Might come under his influence.

"Are you truly God free? Sorry for the pun."

I should think it was obvious that I picked the name for the pun.

"Very simple, your core belief changed. You were influenced by someone other than God."

That's rather insulting. Are you saying I can't think for myself? What happened was, I got tired of feeling condemned to Hell, so I looked around a little, and found that all the proofs of God I had ever heard could be easily disproven, whereupon I disposed of God. I felt so much better, I can tell you.

"Peter Huff said, "To everyone on this thread, I believe we have to bow to the truth claim by Peter that Christianity is the one true religion, since he is one of the 12 apostles."

"I said nothing of the sought."

You certainly did. I cut and pasted it.

"Everything else is man made. Just like your religion of atheism."

So tedious. Since you got all your beliefs from someone else, which is religion, you assume everyone else got his beliefs likewise, so any belief must be a religion. This is arrogant and ignorant. Declining to have a religion is manifestly not a religion. To claim otherwise (doubtless with a smug smirk on your clock) is fatuous.

"Why would you worship anyone other than the one true God, especially false prophets such as Mary Baker Eddy or Joseph Smith?"

The question is, how do I know which is the one true God? You claim the authority of revelation, but so do Muhammed, Smith, Eddy, Swedenborg, and many, many others. How do I know which is the true revelation?

"So is that how you became an atheist?"

Buckets of no. I became an atheist 43 years ago. I read Stenger last week.

Well, if that's the case (about the stoning), then the Old Testament shouldn't have anything to do with Christianity and be thrown out. I'll remember to skip it next time I read it. Your Christian faith surely hasn't taken the high ground on morality unless you completely ignore history. Are you saying that before Christianity was INVENTED, people had no morals? Or, you are saying that only these desert-dwelling people had morals? Native Americans, and any other civilization didn't? You are a liar, which I believe is a sin. Also, so Jesus' death, which was better than some and worse than most was the necessary element to the salvation of mankind? Why? For a God that decides to condemn mankind to a life of pain and torment, I would hope that something more than fruit would be the cause - so I guess that would explain why he would be appeased by the torture and murder of his son (strange way of fathering a child, I guess). How can you prove that Mary was a virgin? Doubtful that artificial insemination was available at that time. I don't think worshipping someone who has the maturity level of a 7 year-old constitutes the basis for morality, Peter. Jealous and angry? Ever-loving and compassionate? Sounds inconsistent. Maybe the torture of his son delighted him so much that he felt every human being should share the same fate. Real nice guy, that God.

Hello PaganPlace,

Seems like I have a lot of posts to answer and very little time. If I don't get lost in the ones tomorrow I will try and respond, God willing.

Just a few thoughts now, from what you said,

"As humans, that's where we've always been.

No authorities, no excuses.

Somehow, there's something sacred to all this.

Cause there are more things in 'heaven and Earth' than are dreamed of in your anti-science."

First, I am not anti-science, just anti evolutionary science.

Second, without objective authority or any for that matter, as you have stated, you cannot account for "good" or pass judgment, and yet you do. What makes your subjective experience the measurement that is true or that is relevant to anyone else? Just because you believe it or because you can get someone else to believe it?

So to use the example that Luke supplied, if someone living under the Mosaic law stoned your friend to death because the Bible forbids the practice of the occult and magic arts (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27), and because they see it as "good" how can you have any objection to them doing so? After all, you have said you do not recognize authority or excuses, so how can you deem that a bad thing if someone else deems it good?

Third, how do you determine what is sacred without any authority? Do you choose whatever you like?

I still want to touch on the evolutionary undertones of "good" but it is getting late.

Thanks.

Hi Luke,

When you say,

"So, your argument to that all matter was contained within a pinprick and exploded into being was that there is an invisible man"

I don't believe in the Big Bang or Big Whimper. God said let there be light and it was so.

Luke, you said,

"there is an invisible man (none of which you have ever seen), who doesn't need air to breathe (you've never witnessed)"

Spirit is not something that is corporeal, which means spirit has no properties of matter such as mass or bulk or form or smell. Jesus affirmed this in Luke 24:36-43, which condensed say "spirit does not have flesh and bones. Also John 4:24 says that God is Spirit. So how would you expect me to see something that is not visible? That is why the second commandment forbids man o make images of Him. That would be to distort who God is, and is something that Jesus reminds us of in John 4:23 when He said, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."

A further point to bring out is that you have a spirit and so do I. It is the intangible part of us as described in 1 Corinthians 2:11

"For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him."

To look at me you would not know what I was thinking any more than I would know what you are thinking.

When you say,

"and made us jealous and hateful (in his image)"

Again you misrepresent God. Our willful rebellion against our Maker was what caused jealous and hatred Luke. God making us in His image means that in creation God created man with knowledge of Him as well as of what is good and right. In the Fall man marred that image so that the truth of God was suppressed, just like you are trying to do in ignoring Him who supplies your every breath.

When you say,

"and condemned us to an eternity of suffering (for eating fruit?!),"

You are forgetting that God is holy and just. That means that He will punish wrongful acts. Since the whole human race has been marred by sin He sent His Son into the world to pay the penalty that mankind had inflicted upon itself. Since every person who has ever lived, except for Jesus Christ, is guilty of sin they can either pay the penalty themselves or trust in the Savior as having paid it for them. Whether you believe or not is by the grace of God. Will you hear the message or will you reject it??? (Romans 10:17)

You said,

"unless we believe that he sent his son who needed to be tortured and killed so that the sins of mankind could be cleansed (why the hell was that necessary?)."

Since mankind in Adam and throughout history has been guilt of doing what God has revealed as wrong, do you expect a just Judge to wink at a wrongful act? Jesus willfully laid His life down in the place of the sinner to meet the righteous requirements of God's law in us. That is if we have trusted in Him as our sin bearer. Plus putting Himself in our place and meeting our payment satisfied God's wrath, in that wrongdoing had to be dealt with. So what God says, through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as recorded in John's gospel account is,

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son . This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done by God." (John 3:16-21)

So, if you reject the Son, you will pay the penalty yourself in answering to God.

Luke you said,

"I don't need Christian faith to have morality. I don't need God for morality. On the contrary, Christianity taught me that people I didn't agree with were going to suffer forever (and don't lie and say you aren't delighted at that idea)."

Without the Christian faith and an absolute standard for morality Luke how do you determine what is good? Do you decide?

By the way, I don't delight in the idea of you suffering forever in the "Lake of Fire." Why would I waste my time in verbal combat answering these questions if I did not hope that God would use my posts to change a life, whether it is yours or someone else's? I know that every time I post a response my faith is not only going to be challenged but also ridiculed. People today do not want to hear an exclusive narrow way to God. They want the broad path of inclusivism (Matthew 7:13, 14).

The funny thing is Luke, when I read through post after post, I see the same people replying to the religious experts. They want to share their views as much as I want to share mine. What is the motive? Maybe it is to convert someone to their way of thinking, maybe to exchange ideas or because they want to share something they believe is true?

You said,

"What you see as proof is not measurable - it's easy for you to believe because it's probably been forced into your brain since birth."

Not true, I believe because of the grace of God, not because of any ability of my own. As for proof, God has left many, none of which you would accept, least of all His Word.

The Bible is a history (His Story) of the world from it's beginning until after the times of the coming of His Son to earth. The history contained in the Bible is a confirmation of peoples, places nations, cities, etc. Many of these can be confirmed by secular writers. I've been in the British Museum of Natural History and seen evidences that support the Bible (i.e. The Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles - which supports some of the names mentioned in the Bible). I've seen testimonies to the fact that the Bible is reliable by far more worthy a scholar than you or I, such as Nelson Gleck or Sir William Ramsey. One of his quotes, "The more men try to disprove the Bible, the more they find they cannot."

Sir William Ramsey started out trying to disprove the Bible and landed up becoming a Christian.

Then you have some of the greatest thinkers our world has ever known, who were Christians.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4985/

Most importantly, you have the internal evidences of the Bible itself, as the Word of God, which testifies as an historical document. The unity and themes internally woven throughout the Bible is amazing, especially the imagery, pictures, analogies of Jesus in the Old Testament.

As Paul himself said, if the resurrection of Jesus has not taken place our faith is useless. We have believed in vain. But that is not the case. (1 Corinthians 15:1-24) All these documents that became canon bear witness to the historicity of God, both from the Old and New Testaments.

When you say,

"Your book also changes to fit whatever the flavor of the times is, I doubt that you stone people you don't favor."

Why do you never take a Scripture in its context, but always pull out a verse to make it say what you want it to? Luke, you speak of things you know very little of concerning Scripture.

Stoning was the method used by Israel to punish a capital offense, as a lesson to the Jewish people of the responsibility of maintaining God's law. For Christians we are no longer UNDER the law but under grace. The purpose of Christ's coming was to fulfill the law that we were unable to do. (Romans 6:14)

Well, thanks for the chat!

Hey Thomas Baum,

You need to open your Bible a little more brother. If you recognize the Bible as the Word of God and Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior where do you ever find God saving all people?

As a Calvanist rather than an Armenian I would challenge you to find support for a universal salvation from Scripture.

Russell, I am glad you are here. It's interesting to see his arguments, using the same logic we use against him, but claiming simply that "his is right". This guy is a real piece of work.

This is funny. It seems everytime I go away and come back, there is a nother biblethumper in here getting everyone all steamed up. Outstanding.

Peter Huff........dude, all I have to say is this.

SERIOUSLY?

Anyway.

Enough.

If you can read, that should be enough to chew on a while.

Just consider that the problems of your religion, particularly where it comes to getting along with this wonderful reality we live in....

Are *made* by your religion.

Cut the Gordian knot, or, leave it be.

If you want to see better in people, then, *look* instead of trying to *control them by your standards.*

My people are *good people,* Peter.

Let my people go.

""Same ideas, just someone trading a king-God for themselves as a 'God-king.'"

"That is the old lie propagated by the devil in the Garden of Eden, and made possible by evolutionary science,"

Actually, your response to being refuted as 'Oh, that's just Satan' ...is the old lie propagated by the idea of religious authority.

I'm sure your Saviour guy will be thrilled to see the cruel and anti-rational cargo-cult you've made of his efforts. :)

""You will not surely die, the Serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be just like God, knowing good and evil.""

So... Calling people 'evil' is from the 'Good Guys' ...or the 'Bad Guys?' That never did make sense to me, there.

"When someone elevates himself to the position of god they choose for themselves what is good and what is evil and have no one to answer to, at least, in some cases not until the Judgment."

Of course, you're not the one 'elevating themselves to judgement' or anything.

You're just 'Speaking for 'God,''

Right?

Interesting.

How... 'consistent.'

"PaganPlace, statements like the following show me that what I said was true. You even admit consistency does not exist. So you are being inconsistent."

More for you to read above.

But, hey, if we admit that consistency does not exist, it would hardly be *consistent* to claim 'consistency,' would it?

We're... consistent enough, I should think, especially compared to those driven primarily by a desire to impose a nonexistent 'consistency.' :)

The consistency is in ...acknowledgement we're *alive* and *affect things,* ...and generally, striving to be consistent with reality and our awareness thereof, not trying to cram it into a secondhand version of some other tribe's *book.*
:)

In many ways, there are as many Paganisms as there are Pagans. This is consistent with our view of the experience of the sacred. The only thing it's *inconsistent* with is your own desire for 'control.' However vicarious.

And only 'consistent' inasmuch as you insist that the 'inconsistent' *is* consistent.

PaganPlace,

You said,

"Actually, the Wiccan and Pagan worldviews aren't inconsistent on our own terms."

And I suppose since you make the terms you decide whether they are consistent or not?

From the other blogs I see no evidence that there is agreement on your positions. It seems to me, as an outsider that each person chooses what they want to believe, which "god" or gods they want to worship as a form of self expression. So it is completely subjective. In other words, you play god.

Looking up a brief explanation I get,

" Best Answer - Chosen By Voters

Being that this is a very involved answer you may want to email me (johnnythehomicidalmaniackilledme@yahoo.com) if you are really interested. Paganism is an umbrella term for many different religious paths. Some of the most well know would be Wicca, Shamanism, and Druidism. Pagan religions are nature centered. Pagans often, but do not always, incorporate witchcraft into their beliefs. There are not any formal rules in Paganism so beliefs and practices can and do range drastically between individuals. Most Pagans agree that Paganism is a group of people, not just a name for anyone who is not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Neo-Paganism would be a more accurate term to use however, to distinguish between modern day people and the Ancient Pagans such as the Celts, Romans, Egyptians, etc.

Wicca

The first world religion to originate in England, Wicca represents a new religious expression inspired by pre-Christian ethnic and tribal religions. The word wiccan as a plural for witch was used in Old English; its singular forms were feminine wicce with the masculine form as wicca. Pronounced with hard C's instead of the former "witch-a," the term Wicca was adopted by Gerald Gardner and other English Witches in the 1940s to distinguish their life-affirming and fertility-based Pagan religion from Satanism or individual sorcery.

Although Wiccan writers are prolific, Wicca has no sacred texts as such to guide belief and practice. Most Wiccans view the Divine as dual (male/female) or plural, accept the idea of reincarnation, and see the natural world as a manifestation of divine force rather than as something created by a transcendent god. Attunement of the self to natural cycles through seasonal rituals is Wicca's central public religious practice.

The Occultism and Parapsychology Encyclopedia say,

"Wicca as a religion has no central authority nor organization, although various umbrella groups such as the Covenant of the Goddess in North America and the Pagan Federation in the United Kingdom include many individuals and groups. The primary organization remains the coven, ideally numbering thirteen persons but in actuality often comprised of fewer. Because of Wicca's rapid growth, however, some adherents now seek more formal organizational plans and credentialing of leaders (priests and priestesses), a trend resisted by those Witches who hold individual and small-group practice and experience to be primary. Wiccans often identify with a particular "tradition"—a school of teaching or an initiatory lineage—but the boundaries between traditions are loosely drawn, and new traditions are constantly being created.

Estimates of the number of Wiccans in North America in 2000 ranged from 300,000 to the low millions. Sociological studies of Wicca show its followers as tending to be younger and better-educated than the population overall."

PaganPlace, statements like the following show me that what I said was true. You even admit consistency does not exist. So you are being inconsistent.

"It seems your priority is the idea of competing for some kind of 'control,' through 'belief' over who defines some kind of a unitary written authority, ...you claim you're 'consistent,' but actually, it's really Christians and a few others who are making a *claim* to a consistency THAT JUST DOESN”T EXIST."

The other reason I decided to answer these posts was because I care about truth and hate to see people deceived by false religious beliefs.

Since every religion has different conceptions of what God is or is not, logically (the law of non-contradiction or excluded middles) they cannot all be true. You cannot say that God is personal and not personal, or that there are many ways to God and there is only one way to God, that there is only one true God and that there are many true gods.

In the really world in which we use logic to formulate sentences and ideas to communicate, such thinking does not make sense. When two opposite statements are made, both cannot be true.

If I used that logic with a traffic light, stating that red means stop, yellow means stop and green means stop, I'd be waiting there a long time. Or as my granddaughter has concluded by watching her mother drive, when you see a yellow light you gun it. These conclusions go against the purpose the rules of the road were made for, to keep traffic flowing in both directions and protect lives.

When you say,

"In fact, I'd say that these ideas *lead* to conflict between fanatics and bystanders, because of the *assumption* that 'Believing and knowing the right thing is all important and the final arbiter of morality.'"

I think you are being inconsistent again. If you do not know what is right how can you do right? If there is no objective standard then any standard goes. What do you measure your idea of right against, yourself, your Culture? When your culture and another culture/society have two different standards of right (such as Nazi Germany and England) how do you determine right? That is where the use of force comes in.

There is such a thing as a just war. If another nation attacks your nation, do you not have a right to defend yourself? But for an individual to kill another human being is wrong because we are all created in God’s image and each deserves dignity and respect.

Again, PaganPlace, when you say,

"...the only difference you can really cite about your authority is that it's yours. The book is the word of a God cause the book says it is."

My authority or the standard I recognize does not come from me. I did not make it up. As such it is not my subjective standard. It comes from another.

It requires faith to believe any worldview, but only in the Christian faith can sense be made out of this world. An atheist has faith or else he would not believe what he does. The reason people get so anti against Christianity is because it claims to be the only way. People, since the time of the first man and woman, have wanted to make their own way. Hence, the mess we have today.

I think the thing that makes unbeliever's so irate is that the God of the Bible exposes the futility of their thinking.

Romans 1:18-25 states,

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the CREATION of the world God's invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God...They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen.

Did you get that PaganPlace? You have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and are now worshiping created things rather than the Creator (i.e. The Creator transcends His creation).

You said,

"Well, I think you'll find, at least, that most Pagans don't start with *untenable and fallacious assumptions,* "

Sure you do, you just do not recognize it.

To continue your argument,

"such as the circular argument from authority that a book is "the" "written revelation of the only God" ...because it says it is."

Why would I appeal to a lower form of authority to prove the highest source of authority?

Evolutionary science uses itself to prove the validity of its claims. Is that not circular? It’s science (and bad science) proving science.

You said,

"It clearly doesn't make anyone more 'moral' to simply condemn others as *immoral.* Especially when the belief that 'All morality comes from this book, therefore I'm moral if I kill people who have done no wrong in its name, whereas if they do any good, then it must be cause of something out of my book, or a Satanic deception, or anything else that keeps me from assimilating new information or seeing human beings who don't exist simply to be an object lesson and whipping target for the 'faithful.'"

You still need to answer where morality comes from before we can go further with this conversation. Is it your subjective opinion? How can I know that your opinion is true if it only comes from you? Do you determine the truth or do you just discover it? Is it the opinion of your clan or the society in which you live? Since opinions change over the course of time, what was right twenty years ago in some cases is not right today. Since "right" has changed which "right" is really "right?"

Please somebody give me an answer.

You said,

"We tend to come to an understanding that the universe is *alive* and somehow *conscious* ...and *revealed* through our experience of the natural world, ourselves, and each other."

Wow, that is really definite. It gives me lots of confidence to know that you "tend" to come to these understandings and "somehow" you believe the universe is "alive" and "conscious" through your "experience" of the natural world. Who wants to sign up???

You said,

"We accept, even, that other points of view often have their own validity, and wisdom, but that none can claim to be *authority,* ...especially when the logic is faulty on a given subject."

Is that your authoritative answer? That is great wisdom and very assuring!

You said,

"For instance, your Bible can't be the kind of authority some claim it is, cause it's clearly *wrong* on so many statements about the world.

It contradicts experience, and observation, and so much else, while being in many views supposed to be the *arbiter* of reality and morality while clearly failing to do either very well at all."

Please give me some examples. O, by the way, on whose authority are you making these deductions?

By the way PaganPlace, I believe you are grossly misinformed in your view of Stalin, Hitler and Kim Jong when you say,

"Stalin was a Stalinist. Hitler was first and foremost a Hitlerist, though he actually enforced Christianity and anti-gay and anti-Jewish and anti-Gypsy beliefs from Europe's dark medieval history, ...and, for a current example, Kim Jong Il is a Kim Jong Il-ist. (if you see how he's supposed to be treated, enforced by state power, well, if that isn't monolithic religion, I don't know what is...)"

Hitler was not enforcing Christianity, he was undermining it. What do all three of these people have in common? They are a product of evolutionary thinking. Read the transcripts from the Nuremberg trials for some insight in what Hitler really believed and carried out. Also look into who influenced their thinking.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/98/10.29.98/Nuremberg.html

When you say,

"Same ideas, just someone trading a king-God for themselves as a 'God-king.'"

That is the old lie propagated by the devil in the Garden of Eden, and made possible by evolutionary science,

"You will not surely die, the Serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be just like God, knowing good and evil."

When someone elevates himself to the position of god they choose for themselves what is good and what is evil and have no one to answer to, at least, in some cases not until the Judgment.

And if you can derive from this that this leaves us with 'mere' 'Chop Wood, Carry Water,'

Then great.

As humans, that's where we've always been.

No authorities, no excuses.

Somehow, there's something sacred to all this.

Cause there are more things in 'heaven and Earth' than are dreamed of in your anti-science.

Authority is irrelevant.

Oh, on cosmology, Peter, if that wasn't enough for you to respect others' points of view:

"Once upon a time there was nothing, and all of a sudden, for no reason all the energy in the universe (in which we have no idea where it came from), was contained in a dot no bigger than a period on this page, exploded (or was it a whimper) into being."

Again, you argue against old science as though it were to be an orthodoxy:

Actually our current understanding of mathematics seems to indicate that our universe is a localized phenomenon among an eleven-dimensional multiverse, and one actually *can* explain the 'Big Bang' not so much as a singularity, but as the collision of two great 'membranes,' entirely consistent with a much bigger universe.

"Although we have never seen something come into existence from nothing"

No, but we do have the theoretical knowledge to make a universe. :)

" let alone life come from none life,"

Nonsense. Organic molecules are everywhere. We can replicate the conditions that with time and a big enough sample do in fact result in self-replicating molecules which in turn select for better self-replication.

"through millions and billions of years (time is the secret ingredient)"

It's not precisely a secret. Actually, science is currently figuring out that this sort of thing can happen *far more quickly* than had ever been projected, once the right conditions arise.

" of chemical reactions life slowly evolved from none life (Yes folks, life from none life - something we have not been able to duplicate in a laboratory under designed conditions)"

In the laboratory, it's been clear that with a big enough 'laboratory,' (like, say, Earth,) one *could.*

What fundamentalists try to mystify as 'Ridiculously improbable' in human terms, actually becomes a *statistical certainty* given enough time and matter.

Which 'we' have in fact had.

You may thank the Mother that all that was here, but it still doesn't mean some dude made me out of some dude's rib, and planted lots of dinosaur bones to make sure I was suitably-capable of self-delusion not to roast in a lake of fire for eternity.

So, your argument to that all matter was contained within a pinprick and exploded into being was that there is an invisible man (none of which you have ever seen), who doesn't need air to breathe (you've never witnessed), and exists outside all of the laws of physics (you've never witnessed), willed the Earth into existence and made it with his magic hands (also you've never witnessed), and decided to make the beings on Earth for his own entertainment (sorry excuse for an omnipotent being), and made us jealous and hateful (in his image), and condemned us to an eternity of suffering (for eating fruit?!), unless we believe that he sent his son who needed to be tortured and killed so that the sins of mankind could be cleansed (why the hell was that necessary?). I don't need Christian faith to have morality. I don't need God for morality. On the contrary, Christianity taught me that people I didn't agree with were going to suffer forever (and don't lie and say you aren't delighted at that idea). The Bible cannot be confirmed as the word of God if you have no proof that God exists. What you see as proof is not measurable - it's easy for you to believe because it's probably been forced into your brain since birth. God isn't a particulary good superintendent nowadays, is he? Seems he's just disappeared, eh? Your book also changes to fit whatever the flavor of the times is, I doubt that you stone people you don't favor.

To Luke: God has damned no one, God has condemned no one. Reread the posting that I posted at 10:23 AM and think about what is written there. If God's Plan, His Mysterious Plan as it is referred to, was ultimately only for those that repented then He could have just yelled that out from His Throne to His Footstool. Christianity is much more than that, just because a lot of people that call themselves christians, aren't, and don't have a clue, doesn't mean that God doesn't know what He is doing and that His Plan is not all emcompassing. A lot of so called christians sure do give God a bad name, but we should look to God not other people, if you honestly look, somehow God will let you know something, how I don't know, God is God, I am just a messenger. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Anyway, the Pagan scientist in the house informs me that what I describe is called 'Punctuated Equilibrium.'

Call it a 'fad' if you like. :)

A little more on 'transitional forms,' though, Peter: Christian fundamentalists often argue against what's actually a very *Victorian* idea of evolution, ...as a constant and uniformly-progressive progress rather than somewhere between that and what was called 'catastrophism,' ...namely that something like extinction-level events or other sudden changes might rapidly select for otherwise non-favoring adaptations.

Certainly when it comes to like the Permian extinction and the end of the Cretaceous, and the effects of the Ice Age on human evolution, something like 'catastrophism' is operative, as well as processes of slow improvement.

The problem with religious authoritarians trying to critique evolutionary theory is, their *presumptions* that science involves a 'True Revelation Of Darwin.'

This is nonesense. Darwin, as a scientist, realized he didn't even know what he was getting into, and part of this accounts for a lot of *delay* in even publishing On The Origin Of Species.

In fact, he wasn't even the first guy to figure it out, he was just the first guy who *published* and didn't get *ignored.* :)

Anyway, *he* figured 'transitional forms' might be found in great abundance, ...but, the fact is that mutations become viable quickly, hang around largely-unexpressed, or fail, quickly, until circumstances change, most of the time.

Part of the problem with fundamentalist 'logic' on this is simply an unwillingness to actually accept *just how much time is involved.*

As well as just how quickly milkmaids can become inoculated against smallpox, for instance. :)

Ok, Peter. I hope you'll read the above responses to you, with apologies for the delay. RL and all.

Just on this, though:

"First of all, what proof would you ever accept. Let me guess - none. That is why you do not believe."

This is actually the problem with your 'Proof,' Peter. It doesn't exist. You simply cite your own embracing an unwillingness to accept 'Disproof.'

What you call 'proof' is *not* proof.

Frankly, even if someone could 'prove' 'Intelligent design,' this would *still* 'prove' nothing about your *book.*

I for one would just be, 'Ok, They been doing more deliberate artifice than I thought. Neat. Next?'

On this: "We cannot produce any transitional forms between one kind and another"

Untrue, actually. There are plenty of transitional forms extant. They're just *rarer* because they're *transitional.* Probably there's some 'transitional forms' of bacteria on your kitchen counter halfway to Lysol resistance, even. :)

" to show how these changes took place but we have documented it in textbooks that constantly change the theory to suit the current fade of the intellectual gatekeepers of our societies."

It's not a 'intellectual fads,' Peter.

This is the *process of science.*

Science is not a *rival revealed authority to monotheism,* as I'd think you'd know if you ever *were* an 'atheist.'

It is a *process,* not a 'revelation.'

Much like Pagan religion is, actually.

Mr. Huff,

Indeed, it is a public forum. But do not use my words to represent what you 'think' someone else means. I speak for myself, and that's it.

It is incredibly disrespectful. That was not the purpose of the discussion, nor was it my intention. Having been raised Jewish I wondered what someone who honestly thought the Bible was inerrant felt. To see if it was possible to find similarities in the different views of people, because we all seem to think about these questions. I was curious to know what led them to accept such a notion when the majority of people don't feel that way. I am fascinated by how people come to whatever beliefs they end up with because I see a lot of similarities in the systems. I see now that it was a mistake on my part to engage in such a dialogue with you. But I've learned.

Plus, YOU think it's inconsistent. And that's fine with me. It is consistent and logical and thought out as much as I have the ability to do so. Believe as you like. Others may or may not. It's up to them to decide. If they so choose to. But not by your shoving my words in someone else's face. I will ask you again to stop.

Do not assume that my views speak for anyone other than myself. Since I do not follow a Wiccan path, I cannot speak for them.

Namaste.

Hi Luke,

In answer to your post on June 22 @ 5:09p.m., in which you said,

"You aren't pointing out that the atheist worldview is inconsistent or untrue, Peter, you are just reaffirming that I don't believe in God, which I don't."

The inconsistence lies in the fact that without an absolute, objective, ultimate authority (i.e. God), you cannot make sense of "right" and "good," of truth, of logic, of the uniformity of nature according to the evolutionary worldview, which is constantly changing, or of meaning in life or purpose.

It all become a matter of personal opinion or preference with each man becoming his own measure. As you can see from these religious blogs, man cannot agree on anything.

The difference between your worldview and mine is that I can make sense of all of this. I would challenge you to explain how we arrive at "good" or truth or logic or uniformity in nature from an evolutionary framework???

As for the Bible having thousands of different translations, I am not aware of how many there are, but I know that the translations all come from copies of the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, of which we have over 5000, 24000 part manuscripts and then all the early church fathers and early secular writings that contain Bible verses so God has left us with abundant evidence.

Another point to make is that although language changes from culture to culture, the Bible is not translated from Greek to English to German to French. It is translated from Greek to English, from Greek to French, etc.

There is a science to interpretation called Hermeneutics. There are a variety of ways of ensuring that translations are accurate (but the most significant is that God superintends His Word). He has left a witness to Himself that is found in the copies of the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts. When there is a dispute, these texts are there to refer to.

You said,

"You say that the big bang theory cannot be proven because no one was around to see the universe come into being. Wow, neither was your precious Bible there, gumshoes."

According to your theory, the Big Bang happened between 13-20 billion years ago. When did man appear?

As for the Bible account, man was created on Day Six, in the beginning of God's creation. Therefore Adam and Eve and their children and grandchildren, etc., would have handed down the accounts (superintended by God) until the history was recorded.

Luke, when you say,

"Prove to me, Peter, how your book is the truth, and all other religious and philosophical books are not, and you will find that your beliefs are exponentially more ridiculous than mine, because at least mine I can see, and yours, well...you can imagine."

First of all, what proof would you ever accept. Let me guess - none. That is why you do not believe.

I think your belief goes along the lines of a fairy tale.

Once upon a time there was nothing, and all of a sudden, for no reason all the energy in the universe (in which we have no idea where it came from), was contained in a dot no bigger than a period on this page, exploded (or was it a whimper) into being. Although we have never seen something come into existence from nothing let alone life come from none life, through millions and billions of years (time is the secret ingredient) of chemical reactions life slowly evolved from none life (Yes folks, life from none life - something we have not been able to duplicate in a laboratory under designed conditions) and what came from none life slowly mutated into what we have today, the apex of the evolutionary change to date - intelligent man. Because he has thumbs he was able to do what none before him could do.

We cannot produce any transitional forms between one kind and another to show how these changes took place but we have documented it in textbooks that constantly change the theory to suit the current fade of the intellectual gatekeepers of our societies.

http://drdino.activeforjesus.com/video/seminar4_300k.wmv

And man became one big happy family, able to solve all his problems through science. The End.

I mean, ...doesn't it cause even a *wrinkle* of discomfort for you religious authoritarians that it apparently seems 'Ultimately Right' to be comparing those nice folks down at the UU church with *Stalin?*

What gives?

Oh, and, btw, Bill, I think you'll find these 'secularist killers' weren't 'secularist,' certainly not 'humanist.'

Stalin was a Stalinist. Hitler was first and foremost a Hitlerist, though he actually enforced Christianity and anti-gay and anti-Jewish and anti-Gypsy beliefs from Europe's dark medieval history, ...and, for a current example, Kim Jong Il is a Kim Jong Il-ist. (if you see how he's supposed to be treated, enforced by state power, well, if that isn't monolithic religion, I don't know what is...)

Same ideas, just someone trading a king-God for themselves as a 'God-king.'

This is not 'secular humanism.'

So... Bill, you like us, then, I hope.

Maybe we don't see the world in terms of 'lines' as you do, or worry about how 'fine' they might be.

Still room to dance along the Path, maybe we'd say. :)

What is the opposite of these insane religious killers? Insane nut non-religious secularist killers! History is full of them.
The true religion given from God is a fine line between loving one another unconditionally and standing uncompromisingly for truth!

Maurie,

Surely you can't hold word choice in a 2am rambling against me?

Paganplace,

Well, now, don't you know that all you Pagans look and sound alike to a Christian? ;)

Happy weekend, all!

I mean, Peter, among *your* presumptions would seem to be some idea that people *need* a certain form of certainty and authority about the world, which 'need,' perhaps, a book-religion must *sell* before anyone would want to buy it.

That's usually how the sales pitch goes, anyway.

False promise, to begin with.

Stridency isn't certainty. It's just willful blindness to other possibilities.

It clearly doesn't make anyone more 'moral' to simply condemn others as *immoral.* Especially when the belief that 'All morality comes from this book, therefore I'm moral if I kill people who have done no wrong in its name, whereas if they do any good, then it must be cause of something out of my book, or a Satanic deception, or anything else that keeps me from assimilating new information or seeing human beings who don't exist simply to be an object lesson and whipping target for the 'faithful.'

One problem here is, I'm not 'PriveR.' :)

Actually, the Wiccan and Pagan worldviews aren't inconsistent on our own terms.

You make the false presumption that *our* presumptions are the same as yours. Among them, frankly, are an embracing of different worldviews as potentially-valid.

It seems your priority is the idea of competing for some kind of 'control,' through 'belief' over who defines some kind of a unitary written authority, ...you claim you're 'consistent,' but actually, it's really Christians and a few others who are making a *claim* to a consistency that just doesn't exist.

In fact, I'd say that these ideas *lead* to conflict between fanatics and bystanders, because of the *assumption* that 'Believing and knowing the right thing is all important and the final arbiter of morality.'

Pagans just don't work that way.

Our morality is much more direct.

Hi PriveR,

I was not trying to be disrespectful, just showing how inconsistent the Wiccan or pagan worldview is. If anyone wants to read the context it is a public archive and is open to the public at:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/r_albert_mohler_jr/2007/04/facing_the_reality_of_evil.html

*wandering back in from midsummer holiday.*

Peter: just on this:

""In other words, you're saying your way is the only truth because it says it's different from the other ones, when really, even by your idea that other people's beliefs contradict each other, (not necessarily, actually)

...the only difference you can really cite about your authority is that it's yours. The book is the word of a God cause the book says it is."

"I think you would agree that all worldviews and religious beliefs start with basic starting assumptions or presuppositions. You have to start somewhere in forming a belief, no matter how basic it is. As a Christian I start with the basic belief that the Bible is the written revelation of God to mankind."

Well, I think you'll find, at least, that most Pagans don't start with *untenable and fallacious assumptions,* such as the circular argument from authority that a book is "the" "written revelation of the only God" ...because it says it is.

For there to be good logic in an argument of course one must accept some 'givens,' ...this does not mean that any 'givens' will do, or that those givens become unquestionable.

You'll have to understand that *our* 'presuppositions,' if you will, don't involve *anything* particularly anything *written,* representing an "authority" on how the universe is set up.

We tend to come to an understanding that the universe is *alive* and somehow *conscious* ...and *revealed* through our experience of the natural world, ourselves, and each other.

We accept, even, that other points of view often have their own validity, and wisdom, but that none can claim to be *authority,* ...especially when the logic is faulty on a given subject.

For instance, your Bible can't be the kind of authority some claim it is, cause it's clearly *wrong* on so many statements about the world.

It contradicts experience, and observation, and so much else, while being in many views supposed to be the *arbiter* of reality and morality while clearly failing to do either very well at all.

Set it aside, and the world goes on just fine.

And, frankly, makes a lot more sense: even when you include the weird and miraculous, of which I've seen more than my share, as it happens. :)

" And I can make sense of the world and why the world is in the turmoil it is in. I can also make sense of what is "good" and what is "right" because I believe in an Almighty, Sovereign, Eternal unchanging God who has revealed to me the standard for "good" and "right” and “truth.""

The only problem is, the sense you make of it... doesn't make sense. Even internally.

I don't think it's *making sense* of the world, myself. I think it's *assigning blame and offering a way *out* of the turmoil it manufactures in the first place.*

If God is pure love, I wonder why he would damn me to someplace more awful than I can imagine. That's a pretty tough argument, indeed.

First, there is only one true religion and that is taking care of widows and orphans, which basically means everyone. Yes, there is only One True God and He is a Trinity of One and God is Pure Love, of course most would find that hard to believe considering all the hate-filled garbage that a lot of people that call themselves christians are spewing out. satan is also real and he is not nice at all, a liar, a thief, and a loser, but he can try to come across as mister nice guy. I have met God, the whole Trinity, and I have also met satan. God is a searcher of hearts and minds not of religious affiliations or lack thereof. Jesus is Who He said that He is and that is, "I Am Who Am", knowing God's Name is not your ticket so to speak. God's Plan is for all of His children to be with Him in His Kingdom, as it says it is God's Will that all be saved. I am not an optimist or a pessimist but a realist and if you honestly look out at the world it is quite a mess, but you haven't seen nothing yet, but God wins Total Victory, a tie is unacceptable, the captives will be released, those in hell and the dead shall rise, those in spiritual death. In case anyone is interested the definition of hell is, it is worse than you think because it is worse than you can think and you build it yourself and you don't know you are getting out. For you people that call yourselves christians and spew out such hate-filled garbage about God remember in those days a lot of people will be saying "Lord, Lord" and poor Jesus will have to vomit them out of his mouth, seems to me that they are acknowledging that Jesus is Who He is, think about it. By the way God is not a male or a female or an it but I have to use some kind of pronoun, of course God Incarnate was a man and He asked permission from a Lady to become a human being, thank you Mary for your Yes, and I ask you publicly to keep helping me with my Yes, I don't know that you have been helping me but I believe that you have, if case anyone is wondering, I haven't met Mary yet. For all of you people blowing your own horns about believing in God remember, faith is a gift that no man should boast. Seems to me that the people that do the right thing for the right reason and don't believe in God could be called the "Pure of Heart", they don't seem to have any ulterior motives, think about it. We are all God's children, "Let Us make man in Our Image", man meaning mankind, mankind meaning all of humanity. If God was anying like what a lot of people that call themselves christians seem to think that He is, you would have to be pretty heartless, cruel, unmerciful and cold-blooded to be thankful for something like that. I happen to be the New Testament Moses and my job, so to speak, is to tell the whole world that, God Wins Total Victory, we will all be in the Kingdom of Love or you could call it the Kingdom of God, because God is Pure Love, one day, the seventh day actually, everyone will know. Thank you very much, please be ready. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Mr. Huff,

If I'd known that you were going to use my words to show someone else what "they" think, I'd never have started that dialogue with you at all. I actually only entered that thread to speak to Lepidopteryx and got tangled up in a dialogue that I only continued to try to understand how someone who thinks differently than I sees the world.

Please stop, and allow others to speak for themselves. I spoke only in terms of my own belief system, and have said that I do not speak for anyone else, nor does anyone else, least of all you, speak for me. You have no proof that the Bible is inerrant other than you say so. You have attempted to put other's words into my mouth and say that 'that's what I believe' when in fact I told you myself that my beliefs are not what you think and are my own. Stop doing that to other people with my words. It's condescending at best, rude, and really disrespectful. Allow them to tell you if they choose what/why they believe as they do, then question them based on what they tell you, not based on what I or someone else has said.

You base your extended beliefs on the core belief that the Bible is the word of God. There is your first ASSUMPTION, dude. You say that is the only true word of God, but are you so blind that you don't realize that Muslims think the Koran is the true word of God? That smugness points to the feeling that everyone should just know it is. I say, Bolsheviks. If the Bible is the word of God, why didn't the Native Americans get it until they were slaughtered by Europeans? Wow, there's a major inconsistency. Obviously the Bible was only designed for desert-dwelling Middle Eastern folks. Doesn't sound like the word of God to all mankind to me. I would like to believe that God is not an elitist but I guess God couldn't communicate as easily with Native Americans (smoke is not such a great medium). Evolution is something that can be applied anywhere on our planet. That's pretty significant if you ask me. We can view the remnants of organisms that existed in the past and see the reflection of those organisms today. Existence of the fossils can be conveyed in any language and are much less likely to have been altered than any holy book. Although there are many interpretations of the existence of fossils, the truth is that they are not an account of history, but are an observable PIECE of history. No translations - just the real deal. "Why would you worship anyone other than the one true God?". Well ofcourse "your God" (or the myriad of people who wrote about him), would say he is the one true God, but so does plenty of other Gods and prophets. I don't know of any holy book that says "Well, I might be the true God, but if I'm not, disregard this text and believe in evolution". Please don't bring sacrifice into the picture as well (so many people do this). Tyr sacrificed his hand in the mouth of Fenrir so the Gods could bind Fenrir with a magic ribbon (Gleipnir). You aren't making a point, Peter, so, for the love of God (of which you find so inerrant and consistent), STOP.

millions of christians voting against liberal issues doesn't make them worthy of being lumped in with religeons that want to kill people.

It is irrefutable that the Bible is the true word of God because...um...people wrote it? Your argument is that you don't have an argument, Peter. Were you born a Christian? No, someone told you about it. All of the accusations of falsehood that are so apparent in what we believe or know are apparent in your beliefs too, and you are a fool not to see that. Your smugness and arrogance are offensive, but what can I expect from someone who has no real argument? Checkmate, Petey.

Andrea - As for your (Peter's) loaded evolution question, yes, I do believe more in evolution than creation.

I believe your understanding of science is fairly good. Therefore, when you say you "believe" in evolution more than creation, I think you are using "believe" in a very imprecise way. Beliefs are opinions, whether they are supported by facts or not. I don't think you are using belief in the sense of an opinion. Instead, I think you are using belief in the sense that the evidence is overwhelmingly in support of evolution. Of course, I could be wrong.

I don't "believe" in evolution. My understanding of evolution has nothing to do with belief. Nor do I believe your understanding does either. My understanding of evolution is based on evidence, in that evolutionary theory is predictive and those predictions have been fully supported by empirical evidence. Therefore, evolution has nothing to do with belief. If evidence were to appear to the contrary, then I would can evolutionary theory, however much that might pain me.

If Creationism or Intelligent Design were theories (they are not in that they neither predict nor explain observable patterns), then it is easy to dismiss both. There are multiple independent lines of evidence as to the age of the earth and when certain types of organisms appeared during the earth's history, which completely refute Creationism. In terms of ID, our susceptibility to choking and our appendix, among others, suggest we are not optimally, or Intelligently designed.

That's *condescension*

It is time for me to try this sleep thing again.

Peter,

After reading your responses to Paganplace and to Godfrey, I have to ask, what are your motives for being here on this forum? Certainly they are not to learn. The condescention is rampant, why?

Hi Godfrey,

Are you truly God free? Sorry for the pun. I just could not resist adding fuel to the fire.

I will have to catch up with your post on another occasion otherwise I will be here all night, but I appreciate the questions.

I can't resist answering one statement though,

"I'm a so-called "hard atheist." I did not become an atheist because of doubt, nor because of anti-Christian propaganda. I became an atheist because of Christianity.

At the time I became an atheist, I had never heard of Democritus, Epicurus, Hume, or, God knows, Feuerbach. All I knew of Kant, Marx, and Nietszche were their names.

Atheism is not my core belief. If I have a core belief, it's something along the lines of, "Love is good."

Tell me, Huff, do I fit your theory?."

Very simple, your core belief changed. You were influenced by someone other than God.

Actually, I will take a stab at another one. You said,

"Peter Huff said, "To everyone on this thread, I believe we have to bow to the truth claim by Peter that Christianity is the one true religion, since he is one of the 12 apostles."

I said nothing of the sought. That was the label someone pasted on me, although I agree that Christianity is the one true means of relationship with the one true God, therefore the only true religion. Everything else is man made. Just like your religion of atheism.

Okay, I might as well go the whole way now. You said,

"Then must we not bow before Muhammed, who got the word straight from the angel Gabriel? And must we not bow before Joseph Smith, who communed directly with the angel Moroni? Must we not bow before Swedenborg, who actually went up to heaven? Must we not bow before Mary Baker Eddy, who received dictation directly from God Almighty on High Hisownself?"

Why would you worship anyone other than the one true God, especially false prophets such as Mary Baker Eddy or Joseph Smith?

You said,

"As for the rules of logic, check out _God, the Failed Hypothesis_, by Victor J. Stenger, then bow down to incontrovertible logic."

So is that how you became an atheist?

Thanks for the chat!

Peter,

Yes, you did have me confused, though I thank you for the flattery in thinking I was among the ranks of Lepi and Paganplace, et al. However, I am an agnostic. Like Godfrey above, I left Christianity, well, because of Christianity. For me, the church never answered the difficult questions in my life, instead requesting my silence and complete trust that "God did it" or "because God said so." As my leave from the church is recent, I'm still in the process of forming my "world view," one possibly without a God.

As for your loaded evolution question, yes, I do believe more in evolution than creation. It just makes more sense to me, just as creation makes more sense to you, and that's ok. I'm not here to try to convince you otherwise, just as you will not convince me.

Ethics-and I'm glad you used that word instead of "morality." Ethics can be a completely non-religious idea. And, because of my Christian upbringing, I do take most of my ethics from that-the ones that I agree with.

You asked, "With truth, how do you determine if something is true or false? Do you use yourself, science, another's opinion? In matters of belief in God, or lack of belief, for you, does truth change or is something always true? In other words can something be true for one person and false for another at the same time and in the same way?"

Well, I'd say I use all three to judge whether I believe something to be true. Why shouldn't I get second, third, etc opinions? Truth doesn't change, or it wouldn't be called truth. Someone's idea of truth can change, or, what their concept of truth is.

"Can you know anything as being 100% true or is there always some doubt?"

Be more specific. It is 100% true that my name is Andrea, but it's not 100% true that the God of the Bible exists. Sure it can be 100% true for you, because that's what you believe. But it isn't for me, and many others.

I hope this ramble made sense. It's late and I was having trouble sleeping, so naturally, I made my way back here.

I'm a live-and-let-live kinda gal. Believe what you want to believe, and if it makes you a better person, and enables you to leave this place a little better than you found it, more power to you. Just give me the same respect.

I will try to make it back on here sometime tomorrow to read your response, but if I don't, have a great weekend!

Hello Paganplace,

You said,

"In other words, you're saying your way is the only truth because it says it's different from the other ones, when really, even by your idea that other people's beliefs contradict each other, (not necessarily, actually)

...the only difference you can really cite about your authority is that it's yours. The book is the word of a God cause the book says it is."

I think you would agree that all worldviews and religious beliefs start with basic starting assumptions or presuppositions. You have to start somewhere in forming a belief, no matter how basic it is. As a Christian I start with the basic belief that the Bible is the written revelation of God to mankind. And I can make sense of the world and why the world is in the turmoil it is in. I can also make sense of what is "good" and what is "right" because I believe in an Almighty, Sovereign, Eternal unchanging God who has revealed to me the standard for "good" and "right” and “truth."

When discussing the issue with one of your coven members, PriveR, she could not account for "good" or "right" without being inconsistent.

Some of her answers over the course of our discussion (when she did not avoid the question altogether) were,

"That which helps and encourages the community to thrive is seen as good by the community."

A number of questions are raised over such an answer. How does any individual or group determine what is in the best interests of the community? How do they know since they cannot see into the future and if your definition of "good" is different from my definition who is right? Does majority determine right. If so then how can the majority believe that abortion is right when not to long ago the majority thought it was wrong. Without an absolute standard to define "good" it all comes down to a matter of personal preference and as I said to PriveR, up until very recently in New Guinea and other parts of the world some tribes considerer cannibalism "good" for the community. Adolph Hitler considerer the extermination of six million Jews "good" for the favored race - you guessed it - the Germans of Hitler's era.

To this her reply was,

"That's because we fail to see ourselves as part of a planetary community, but instead break ourselves into smaller sub-communities whose interests sometimes clash. But if everyone would do what is best for the planet, we would all benefit, and those sub-groups would not be an issue. Liek my witch friend says, "Religion boils down to two things. One - you're a part of something bigger than yourself. Two - be nice to each other."

That answer begs the question. The question still remains, how do you determine good without an absolute authority? How do you determine "nice?" As Daniel said using different wording to Frank Collins, do you have to eliminate all the groups that disagree with your standard of good in order to establish what is "best" for the planet?

Notice how she keeps using qualitative terms but cannot make sense of why it "should" or “ought” to be this way other than her subjective viewpoint.

When I continued to press the issue about cannibalism and "good" with the statement,

"It wasn't long ago that a group of head hunters believes that you were good for the community; a good snack that is."

She said,

"Everything that lives eats at the cost of something else's life. Cow eats grass - grass eaten by cow dies. I eat steak - cow whose flesh forms my steak dies. I eat salad - spinach that forms my salad dies. Certain insects and bacteria eat carrion - my body will feed them when I die. Everything that lives eventually becomes food for something else. Some creatures are more mobile and thus more capable of self-defense than others. They can either run away or fight back. It's all part of the interdependent web of existence."

Again, this betrays her worldview. Is she condoning/justifying cannibalism on the grounds that everything that lives eats, so therefore have a feast of your fellow man? Okay, your it.

When I pushed her on her authority for good I found out it was herself. Here is what she said:

"I never claimed that I do not make moral judgments without a source. Mine spring from a different source, that's all. I speak for nobody except myself, nor do I discount the possibility that others may feel differently. I take issue with anyone who uses a book that I do not agree with to find examples of how I am wrong."

Or again,

""I do not understand why my view is considered 'weak'. I never claimed that I do not make moral judgments without a source. Mine spring from a different source, that's all. I speak for nobody except myself, nor do I discount the possibility that others may feel differently."

So, on her grounds she makes the rules on what is "good" and what is "right." That gives me a lot of confidence in her worldview (not).

My source comes from a higher objective standard/authority that is outside me. It comes from Almighty God who can make sense of morals and truth.

If all “good” boils down to is a subjective experience then it cannot be established, because a Unitarian and a hedonist both determine “good” in a different light.

How does she derive meaning and purpose in life, let alone what is "good?"

"The only problem that I see is the reluctance of some folks in every religion to acknowledge the very basics. We're born, we live, and we die. This is all we know. Anything more is speculation. Imagination."

That is all she knows.

When she says,

“Jesus is not the first, in any culture to have 'risen' from the dead. Why would Jesus be the first to say 'love each other', assuming he existed at all?"

How does she know this???

Reality says that Jesus existed. Besides the word of God as testimony more weighty than any humans, you have the testimony of the early church fathers and Jewish as well secular historians. You also have to account for the spread of Christianity and what was preached if Jesus was just a fictional character? For all the scanty evidence she can bring to the table about other people rising from the dead, I could bring equally compelling evidence to the contrary.

God confirmed Jesus was who He said He was by the resurrection. The early church and apostles understood this. (1 Corinthians 15:1-24)

She said,

"Pagans view 'mythology' somewhat differently than others. Someone on another thread called it 'a story that may never have happened but is always true'. I believe that any good mythology contains some truth wrapped up in an essentially fictional narrative."

How does she know this? What is her source, what someone else said?

So you start to see both inability and inconsistence in her worldview. The important questions of life are either avoided or become a
matter of subjective experience or mythology.

I asked her,

"How do you gauge whether your feelings and source is true?

Response: Fair question. For me it's about synchronicity."

I can say the same thing about my Christian experience but that does not necessarily make it a reliable source for determining truth. I'm sure the Heavens Gate Cult thought the same things about there belief before they committed suicide.

I also mentioned to her,

"My belief is based on historical records, archaeological facts, names, places, people and events and by the internal consistency of the Bible. It is not something I pull out of thin air or make wishful thinking of or mythologize. I'm asking you to show me that yours isn't either. If you decide not to do that that is fine. I do not believe your view can stand an internal critique anyway (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)."

Her response,

"The bible is not a historical record. I actually used to think so too. The more I looked for outside evidence, from archaeology or other sciences, the less information I could come up with. There's no real proof that anything in the bible occurred."

Did the manuscripts found dating back to the first century just appear out of thin air? Are all the early church documents just figments of our imagination? Or are they historical records/documents?

Time after time her beliefs go against what is real. Why would I want to believe what she says as true?

The same can be said for what you have stated Paganplace. It is inconsistent, a mystery religion in which everyone has a different view on what they actually worship.

It is past the witching hour so maybe we could continue this discussion during the course of the week. I was reading the 13 Principles of Witchcraft on the Starhawk blog and after seeing the statements on evolution I would like to show you some of your inconsistency there.

Here are the statements,

"2. We recognize that our intelligence gives us the unique responsibility to our environment. We seek to live in harmony with nature, in ecological balance, offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept."

And,

"9. We believe in the affirmation and fulfillment of life in a continuation of evolution and development of consciousness, giving meaning to the universe we know and our personal role within it."

Peter Huff et al.:

A concrete example:

I'm a so-called "hard atheist." I did not become an atheist because of doubt, nor because of anti-Christian propaganda. I became an atheist because of Christianity.

At the time I became an atheist, I had never heard of Democritus, Epicurus, Hume, or, God knows, Feuerbach. All I knew of Kant, Marx, and Nietszche were their names.

Atheism is not my core belief. If I have a core belief, it's something along the lines of, "Love is good."

Tell me, Huff, do I fit your theory?

Peter Huff said, "To everyone on this thread, I believe we have to bow to the truth claim by Peter that Christianity is the one true religion, since he is one of the 12 apostles."

Then must we not bow before Muhammed, who got the word straight from the angel Gabriel? And must we not bow before Joseph Smith, who communed directly with the angel Moroni? Must we not bow before Swedenborg, who actually went up to heaven? Must we not bow before Mary Baker Eddy, who received dictation directly from God Almighty on High Hisownself?

As for the rules of logic, check out _God, the Failed Hypothesis_, by Victor J. Stenger, then bow down to incontrovertible logic.

Peter,

Glad you have a sense of humor.

Maurie

Hi Andrea,

Andrea, I'm sorry I got you confused with Antaeus on the Starhawk blog. May I ask if you too are a pagan?

Andrea you said,

"Do you feel that you fit perfectly the definition of Christian? Do you believe all Christians would fit this definition without exception?"

No I don't. Only Jesus Christ fits that bill. He the only perfect Man. But for those "in Christ" God sees them as meeting His perfect standard. I would be glad to explain that to you if you want me to elaborate.

You also said,

"On what basis to you contend that all other religions are inconsistent, contradicting, and absurd? They think the same thing about Christianity."

They all say things that contradict each other, do not answer the important questions of life or what they say or what is written does not comport with the real world.

For instance a certain school of Buddhism believe that physical life is illusionary. Why bother looking both ways when crossing the street, and yet their adherents still do. Now that is inconsistent.

You said,

"Is that the only reason you believe the Christian position is true? Because the others just don't make sense?"

No, the reason I believe the Christian position is true is because God has given me the grace to believe in Him. The Bible say that "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

If God has not opened your heart to the truth of His message I do not expect you to agree with what I have to say. "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who perish, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)

But it is possible to show you that what you believe does not make sense, because as God has said, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."...Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world." (1 Corinthians 1:19, 20b)

So let' start with ethics. How do you determine what "good" or "bad" "right or "wrong" is? What standard or measure do you use to determine a qualitative standard?

With truth, how do you determine if something is true or false? Do you use yourself, science, another's opinion? In matters of belief in God, or lack of belief, for you, does truth change or is something always true? In other words can something be true for one person and false for another at the same time and in the same way?

Can you know anything as being 100% true or is there always some doubt?

Since I am not sure of your worldview (I thought you were a Wiccan or pagan) what is your opinion on evolutionary science?

Do you believe the laws of logic are universal in that they apply to all people everywhere?

If you will answer those questions (if you can), I will take it from there.

Hello Jacob,

After reading a couple of your posts I must confess you are over my head. You will have to bring the hay down from the loft where the horses can graze on it.

"Saint Peter - First of all, the Christian position is true because of the inconsistence, contradiction and absurdity of the others.

To everyone on this thread, I believe we have to bow to the truth claim by Peter that Christianity is the one true religion, since he is one of the 12 apostles.

Fortunately for him and his beliefs, he was named Peter at birth. Could you imagine the problems he would have making the same claims with the name Moshe?"

Good one Maurie!

Frank Collins - its the commands of the islamic god to kill and their followers doing just that for the last 1400 years.

Frank, Frank, Frank ... sigh,

As Daniel mentioned, we know you hate Muslims and I'm sure you hate Jews for killing Jesus (it's true, I admit it) and the Jains for not killing all those creepy crawly insects and spiders and god knows who and what else.

Yes, Frank, I too have a distaste for much of present-day Islam. However, Christianity still has 600 additional years of bloody mischief and mayhem on their own side. Of course, perhaps we can look forward to a milder form of the Islamic disease in the future, in much the same way that the the world, and Christianity itself, were cured of much of its own excesses by the Age of Reason and The Enlightenment. History has shown that it is possible to temper and tame extremism.

Now I know I'm not supposed to say this, but I'm beginning to be profoundly annoyed with you Frank, though I'm not all the way there yet.

In Pulp Fiction, Jules says, "Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now I'd like that. But that ???? ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', FRANK. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd."

Luke

P.S. I forgot to mention that you are a traitor to your namesake as the author of one of the four gospels.

Regardless, I regularly enjoy your posts.

Luke - You say that evolutionary theory is based upon assumption after assumption, but it is backed up by observable evidence.

True, but you miss the point. I assure you that debating science with religious fundamentalists is an exercise in futility. If you want to continue on that merry-go-round, be might guest. However, don't be surprised if you end up with, at the least, vertigo, and at the most, insanity.

I often hear people say they "believe" in certain things. I even hear scientists profess such "beliefs". For myself, I don't "believe" in anything. Science (and a modern perspective) has nothing to do with belief, it has only to do with "evidence", as you correctly point out above.

Saint Peter - First of all, the Christian position is true because of the inconsistence, contradiction and absurdity of the others.

To everyone on this thread, I believe we have to bow to the truth claim by Peter that Christianity is the one true religion, since he is one of the 12 apostles.

Fortunately for him and his beliefs, he was named Peter at birth. Could you imagine the problems he would have making the same claims with the name Moshe?

Luke,

Gumshoes...you crack me up! Thanks for joining in this discussion, your support is appreciated. I am anxiously awaiting to hear what my world view is according to Peter.

You aren't pointing out that the atheist worldview is inconsistent or untrue, Peter, you are just reaffirming that I don't believe in God, which I don't. Then again, with a worldview as inconsistent as the thousands of interpretations of the Bible, what should I expect. You say that evolutionary theory is based upon assumption after assumption, but it is backed up by observable evidence, rather than a really old book. Isn't any book just as valid as a reflection of civilizations in history? I don't think that the Fall is a good argument as to why man is at odds with man. You say that the big bang theory cannot be proven because no one was around to see the universe come into being. Wow, neither was your precious Bible there, gumshoes. I guess Adam and Eve just handed down through word of mouth how they came into being and their conversations with God ( I guess the bones of ancient man are just made up, or there was an enormously high rate of retardation?). Wow, that sounds like Viking and Greek mythology. Prove to me, Peter, how your book is the truth, and all other religious and philosophical books are not, and you will find that your beliefs are exponentially more ridiculous than mine, because at least mine I can see, and yours, well...you can imagine.

Hi Daniel, Andrea, Paganplace, Jozevz et al,

Well, it appears I have some explaining to do. This blog suddenly because a very busy place for me to dialog in.

Andrea and Paganplace, I am already familiar with your worldview, with the way you look at the world from reading your postings on Starhawk's blog and from discussions with PriveR and Lepi.

Let me first answer Daniel's posting. I will sit down later tonight in response to your postings Andrea, Paganplace and Jozevz et al since time is limited right now if you are still interested.

You said,

"It does not mention that an atheist is a follower of Democritus, or Epicurus, or David Hume, or Immanuael Kant, or Ludwig Feuerbach, or Karl Marx, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or logical positivism; it does not say that an atheist believes in evolution or the big-bang."

No, but for an atheist to be an atheist he would have to have as his core belief that there is no God or decide that he will live life without God otherwise his core belief would be defined some other way.

An atheist does not have to examine origins, but if he does then he has only a few choices. Life was create, life happened by chance or everything is illusion. The third position as well as the first are not easy to maintain without jumping through hoops.

You said,

"In fact, atheism is not really an "ism" at all; it is not a belief system, nor a philosophy, nor a religion."

Sure, it is all of the three. Daniel, how do you get to deconstruct and reconstruct what atheism is? You just quoted Webster's:

"The "Webster's New World Dictionary" defines atheism as "the belief that there is no God or the denial that God exists."

Come on Daniel, how can you say,

"Other than that, atheists should not be considered "the other" as though they are not even human beings. "Love your neighbor" is non-exclusive. Even talking about atheists, as though there is something wrong with them, when there is not, violates the commandment."

How do you deduce that I dislike or treat atheists without love. Because I have pointed out that their worldview is inconsistent or untrue? Is it "wrong" to point out untruth? How do you determine "wrong" or "truth?" They are value systems. What is your authority for calling something wrong? Is is absolute and unchanging?

Ok, I have one last bomb to throw to make this thread go critical, before I logg off for the weekend.

A Christian must love gay people. A Christian must say with sincerity, and without qualification, "I love gay people."

If a Christian qualifies it with the old cliche, love the sinner, hate the sin, then he is making a political statement that would not be relavant to Christian teachings, and showing disdain for gay people at the same time.

Ok, everybody: discuss!

I have never been lobbied by any group to believe in Zeus, and I have not given Zeus much thought. Presumably, you, as almost every man, woman, and child, born into the "Christian" and "Islamic" worlds has been lobbied to believe in God. But you have found that you do not. That is all I meant to say.

Peter

You are basically saying that your beliefs are correct and true because they are your beliefs, and you know your beliefs are true, and the beliefs of others is not true.

This is not only not an argument, but it is a little insulting to others. And also, it is the same argument that many other people have, that they know you are wrong, because they know they are right.

It is a pretty pointless merry-go-round. I am not trying to change your beliefs. You can go ahead and believe as you like, but you are not going to get anywhere with arguments like that. Instead of an endless argument about why you are right and everyone else is wrong, however, you could merely engage in a Christian life, see how that works out.

Daniel writes:

"An atheist is someone who does not believe in God, because his doubt prevents his belief."

Not true. Doubt doesn't enter into the equation. Knowledge does. There's a difference.

Do you not believe in Zeus because you doubt his existence, or does your non-belief in Zeus spring from your knowledge set, and from your absolute (or, near-absolute) knowledge that no such creature exists or ever existed?

Well, that's how this atheist views all of the supernatural gods, ie: in the same way that you view Zeus.

Doubt isn't a factor.

"Religion is more powerful than the atomic bomb. The passion of religion is more terrible than Katrina, more terrible than a tsunami. But if it is used positively, it can change the world".

There is nothing positive about religion. Period. It is a delusion. It is THE delusion. Real-world problems demand reality based solutions, and religion has never been and will never be reality based.

Religion is positive the way Santa Claus is positiive - a useful delusion for the childish, but hardly the hook on which to hang rational decisions.

The only change religion is capable of is negative change. Any history book will tell you that. Hell, any newsb'cast will tell you that.

To believe in a positive power of religion is to morph the delusion into even more dangerous territory.

I am not an atheist, I am a Christian.

An atheist is someone who does not believe in God, because his doubt prevents his belief. All the rest of what you said is not relevant. You are blaming atheists for what Hitler and Stalin did, when they actually promoted a quasi-religious fundamentalism, similar to Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, in its requirement of dogmatic uniformity of belief. Actually, your equation of atheism to Hitler and Stalin is quite insulting; and you should stop it. If you are a Christian, you are REQUIRED to love your neighbors, and not insult them.

Atheism is not a religion; people do not base their atheism on complex ontological structures relating to the existence of the unvierse; they just do not believe in God. If this unbelief in others is a real threat to your belief, then you need to examine just what is going on inside of your head, that your beliefs could be so easily shaken, and don't worry so much about the fact that there are atheists in the world, who, by the way, are just regular people, and are not, crazed insane murderes of millions, like Hitler or Stalin.

What about Christian extremists like Dobson/Haggard/Falwell (RIP)/Robertson, Baker, Swaggart? Do they not share a common theme - " such common theme is the terrible force of hateful, violent propaganda"

Hi Daniel,

You said,

"You have a profound confusion about atheism and atheists. I think you may be a victim of primitive Christian anti-atheist propaganda."

Ever thought that you are the victim of anti-Christian, anti-God propaganda? :)

You said,

"If an atheist does not believe in God, then that is not a core belief."

Sure it is. Everything you look at you look at through the filter of atheism. How does an atheist, for example explain origins? How does he/she explain morality? From the core belief of looking at things without God.

So Daniel, whether it is a person believing there is no God or just a person who looks at life from a position without God, in doing so that person becomes their own highest standard of authority. What you do in effect is elevate yourself to the place that God should be. You become your highest point of authority. As the Bible says, "Everyone one did as he saw fit." That leads to dictatorship either in the form of anarchy, tyranny or oligarchy. The USSR, Germany or Italy during WWII or China under Mao is examples of what such a worldview leads to. (80-100 million people exterminated by such atheistic beliefs in the last century alone. It just goes to show you, without God anything becomes justifiable)

When you say,

"But not everyone "constructs" a world view"

That statement is not true. You only believe it to be so. We all construct the way we look at the world from our most cherished beliefs.

By saying,

"In fact, most atheists, and most people, in general, do not construct a world view"

You are already defending yours, whatever it may be. Just because it has not been given a name yet (or are you an atheist?), does not mean that you do not have a certain way/philosophy of looking at the world. If this chat continues I will try to point out some of your guarded positions that you cling to and continually build on.

And you are interested in expressing a point of view. That point of view was not established in a vacuum. It was established by the influence of many other people and factors and those people and their ideas were taken as basic core values and built upon.

I learned a long time ago that if you want to find out about a persons belief find out who influenced them. Hence, even if it was a father who past on the values that he did not believe in God, you still established you core from that influence. But did you test the belief as to how true it is. And how do you determine truth?

You said,

"Also, atheists do not believe that we all evolved from an explosion or big bang. Atheist means "without God" and therefore an atheist is a person who does not believe in God. If a person is an atheist, it does not say anything about his other beliefs with regards to science or the origins of the universe."

On the contrary, being an atheist speaks volumes for person’s beliefs. Atheism has evolutionary science to justify its worldview. The problem with evolutionary science is that it is built upon one assumption after another, it is constantly changing its time lines and views and its supports are built on thin air.

For instance, read an elementary text book (you know, the kind that is used to indoctrinate kids) and you will get statements to the effect that at a point in time (jumps from 13-20 billion years, depending on which text book you are reading from) the universe came into existence from nothing or from a point no bigger than a period.

Then you have non-living matter producing living beings. Where have we ever been witness to any such thing?

Then you have people like Sir Charles Lyell or Darwin building on Uniformitarianism, a theory that has been largely disproved today and other theories have been adopted, such as punctuated equilibrium.

Then there is the problem of transitional links, there are none as well as no evidence of evolution taking place in the present. The list goes on and on.

To my knowledge there are only three ways of explaining why we are here. Either we were created by God, we came about by some fluke chance or this is all a figment of imagination.

In the third possibility don't worry about looking both ways when you cross the street. That bus coming at you is only a figment of your imagination.

Maybe you can offer another explanation?

You said,

"Also, contrary to your assertions, an atheist does not necessarily believe that a chaotic, random, chance happening produced uniformity in nature."

That is exactly my point, how do you explain the uniformity in nature - how do you know that the sun will rise tomorrow as it did today? How do you know that gravity will react tomorrow the same as it did today? You can't believe that from a random chance chaotic origin as explained by evolutionary science. So what are your explanations for the uniformity of nature?

When you say,

"Atheists do not necessarily believe that all we are is matter banging together"

Then please explain the evolutionary theory that life came from none life? If you and I are the product of chemical reactions combining in certain ways that originally resulted from non-living matter randomly mixing together are you saying that we are more that molecules forming together? Do you believe that our non-material aspects, such as the non-tangibles of thinking and logic are more than chemicals colliding together to produce reactions to stimuli?

After all, why do you deem something to be right? Why do you object to Frank stating what he believes? Is it because you were created in the image of God and know that some things are definitely wrong, or is it just because some chemicals in your body are reacting in a certain manner to cause you to object to what he has to say? Since my chemicals react differently from your chemicals how can you say something is "good" when I say the opposite?

If the latter, (chemicals reacting) then there is no justification for your point of view. As for me, I know that certain things are wrong because that is the way God created me and the consequences of the Fall explain mans hostility to man very nicely. We are in rebellion towards or Maker.

"When you say,

"Atheists do not necessarily believe that all we are is matter banging together"

Please explain how they can believe otherwise?

When you say,

"In fact, evolution is proven, by all the standards of science, but it is not a religion that appeals for belief; it is a scientific accumulation of knowledge, to be observed, if you wish, but if you do not wish to observe it, then, that also is your choice"

You are wrong. Evolution is a religion. Evolution is not proven science. No one was there at the supposed "big bang" or "big dud" when supposedly nothing exploded into something. Evolutionary science takes the facts in the world around us and interprets them to fit their worldview. Ever wonder what the originators of the evolutionary worldview have in common. Try looking up the commonalities between people like Darwin or Huxley or Lyell or what the Enlightenment and its ideology had on their thinking. Science that is proven is science that can be observed and repeated. You can't observe origins or repeat them. You cannot produce macro-evolution; all you can show is adaptation within a species - not the change of species. A cat is still a cat although there are many varieties. Ever seen a cat with wings? They are able to adapt characteristics according to their environment. That is something designed into them by the Creator.

Since this is getting long, one last point.

You said,

"Many Christians also believe in the big bang, and in evolution."

That is from a misinterpretation of the Bible. If you are willing I will be glad to show you from Scripture why such a view goes contrary to God's truth.

Sorry, Peter. This doesn't wash:

"First of all, the Christian position is true because of the inconsistence, contradiction and absurdity of the others. They do not correspond to reality. It is the highest authority I have in answering any non-biblical understanding of the world because it is the Word of God:"

In other words, you're saying your way is the only truth because it says it's different from the other ones, when really, even by your idea that other people's beliefs contradict each other, (not necessarily, actually)

...the only difference you can really cite about your authority is that it's yours. The book is the word of a God cause the book says it is.

That's circular, not that arguments from authority aren't fallacious to begin with.

Especially cause the book contradicts *itself* and history has *shown* that your 'evangelizing it' doesn't bring peace, but rather situations like this.

"Second, I would want to know the authority the person has in making such a claim that there position or religion is true."

Maybe what would *help* is to stop squabbling over 'ultimate authorities' and take responsibility for what *we* do instead of 'blaming the unbelievers.'

The "Webster's New World Dictionary" defines atheism as "the belief that there is no God or the denial that God exists."

It does not mention that an atheist is a follower of Democritus, or Epicurus, or David Hume, or Immanuael Kant, or Ludwig Feuerbach, or Karl Marx, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or logical positivism; it does not say that an atheist believes in evolution or the big-bang. It does not mention any of these things because an atheist can still be an atheist, an not know anything about all these other extraneous things.

In fact, atheism is not really an "ism" at all; it is not a belief system, nor a philosophy, nor a religion. And also, atheism should not be threatening to people who are truely secure in their religious beliefs and convictions. Only people who are shakey in their beliefs feel threatented by atheists.

Other than that, atheists should not be considered "the other" as though they are not even human beings. "Love your neighbor" is non-exclusive. Even talking about atheissts, as though there is something wrong with them, when there is not, violates the commandment.

Peter Huff,

Do you feel that you fit perfectly the definition of Christian? Do you believe all Christians would fit this definition without exeption?

In a previous post, you state:
"First of all, the Christian position is true because of the inconsistence, contradiction and absurdity of the others. They do not correspond to reality. It is the highest authority I have in answering any non-biblical understanding of the world because it is the Word of God."

On what basis to you contend that all other religions are inconsistent, contradicting, and absurd? They think the same thing about Christianity. Is that the only reason you believe the Christian position is true? Because the others just don't make sense?

Yes but!

Most atheists don't know anything about Democritus, or Epicurus, or David Hume, or Immanuael Kant, or Ludwig Feuerbach, or Karl Marx, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or logical positivism; they just don't believe in God. You are laying an awful lot of stuff on them. You are conflating advanced and complex ontological structures with the absence of the a belief in God.

Why would you want to define a person by the things that he is not? Why should I define you as a non-skier or a non-hunter, or someone who does not speak Chinese? What sense is there in that?

When you assume that all atheists are all wrapped in these very complex philosophical and ontological questions, you are really assuming that the mass of humanity is highly intelligent, lettered and well-read, when in reality, alot of just plain folks simply do not believe in God.

Hi Daniel,

Here is the definition from Answers.com

a·the·ism (ā'thē-ĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.

1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.

[French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a–1 + theos, god.]

atheism

Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a positive denial. It is rooted in an array of philosophical systems. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Democritus and Epicurus argued for it in the context of materialism. In the 18th century David Hume and Immanuel Kant, though not atheists, argued against traditional proofs for God's existence, making belief a matter of faith alone. Atheists such as Ludwig Feuerbach held that God was a projection of human ideals and that recognizing this fiction made self-realization possible. Marxism exemplified modern materialism. Beginning with Friedrich Nietzsche, existentialist atheism proclaimed the death of God and the human freedom to determine value and meaning. Logical positivism holds that propositions concerning the existence or nonexistence of God are nonsensical or meaningless.

Peter Huff

You have a profound confusion about atheism and atheists. I think you may be a victim of primitive Christian anti-atheist propaganda.

You said that an athiest has a core belief that there is no God. But that is not necessarily true. Atheism means, "without God." If an atheist does not believe in God, then that is not a core belief. What you do not believe, is not your belief. A person is not defined by all the things that he has no interest in, and does not care about, and does not believe in.

Secondly, you said that an atheist constructs his worldview through the filter that there is no God. But not everyone "constructs" a world view. Just because you have constructed a world view does not mean other people have. In fact, most atheists, and most people, in general, do not construct a world view. You are making this comment from the point of view of someone who is interested in religion and philosophy. Most people are not interested in such things.

Also, atheists do not believe that we all evolved from an explosion or big bang. Atheist means "without God" and therefore an atheist is a person who does not believe in God. If a person is an atheist, it does not say anything about his other beliefs with regards to science or the origins of the universe. Many Christians also believe in the big bang, and in evolution. And many atheists, have no interest in such matters. Just because these are your interests does not mean they are the interests of most other people.

Also, contrary to your assertions, an atheist does not necessarily believe that a chaotic, random, chance happening produced uniformity in nature. That is what you say atheists believe, but that is not what they actually believe. You are inferring their many and varied beliefs, based on anti-atheistic propoganda which you accept without questioning. When in fact, all that you can know about an atheist, is that he does not have a belief in God. And even more, many of the terrible beliefs that you attribute to atheists are also held by millions of modern, mainstream Christians.

Atheisits do not necessarily believe that all we are is matter banging together. That is what you infer. All of your doubts and wonders about how evolution could be true have no bearing on the facts, if, evolution is true or not true. In fact, evolution is proven, by all the standards of science, but it is not a religion that appeals for belief; it is a scientific accumulation of knowlege, to be observed, if you wish, but if you do not wish to observe it, then, that also is your choice.

Maybe you would be interested in reading Plato, Hume, Kant, or Sartre to see how reasonable and very intelligent people come at these questions from many different directions. There is more just your way of looking at things.

How Religious Extremists Change.

By the Correct and Secular Education and strong secular state rules and regulation.
But,six or seven billion people on the earth,it is not so easy to stop all kind of terror,because manipulating the extremists is a methodology.

Poverty,jealousy,brainwashing,wrong education and incompetency of creating civilization are the causes for extremeness.

O.U.R. BOOK, a/k/a "OUR-BOOK"

"One-Universal-Religion-System" in genuine PLURALITY created via The "Worlf Faith Exchange Assembly at the UNITED-NATIONS and via Mandate, or made into a "Religious Correction Body" that will "MERGE" the most basic answeres as to why we are here How Got here etcc.

But they [5 major religions] will only have to meet a certain, international pre agreed upon understanding, as Criteria of that U.N. special body requires to be neutral or religious & Secular friendly and having a unique, simplified but not too simple,

as a set of begin story & end story via correction rules rules & incorporate , therein and thereof, a "Stable Definition Factor" of sorts, that must be ridgiddly followed, in order to GIVE-RISE to, and never FALL, to the "Birth" or "Creation" of this most desperately needed real Holy Cosmic "BOOK-of-OURS",

which will be OURS genuine MANNA {as prophecied in All 5 Major religious book today anyways so) to uphold and make honorable in real Equality for HUMATES on "Space-Ship Momma Poppa Earth & Beyond.

(((((((((((( PEACE-LOVE-ROCK-n-ROLL-n-Rap, Mitt ROMNEY for PREZ, 2008 Ya! )))))))))))))

Hi Daniel,

In reply to you post @ 12:40 I would just like to say that I recognized your sarcasm and I agree that Frank's post does come across as rather harsh.

I also agree with the use of sarcasm to emphasis a point of contention. It brings out the difference in two positions quite nicely.

In such situations where the Christian and non-Christian worldviews are being presented
I use it often to bring out the absurdity in the contrasting viewpoints and to answer the person as their folly deserves.

Some posts, however are beyond reply, like "JOZEVZ On: Gridarion Democracy Will usher-in Global Peace Soon"

Hi Daniel,

I just read your last post @ 11:47. I was in the process of replying to your first so in answer to your comment,

"...except yours. But that is what they all say; all of the "thousands and possibly millions" of worldviews claim to be true, and claim all the others to be untrue.

First of all, the Christian position is true because of the inconsistence, contradiction and absurdity of the others. They do not correspond to reality. It is the highest authority I have in answering any non-biblical understanding of the world because it is the Word of God.

Second, I would want to know the authority the person has in making such a claim that there position or religion is true.

Third, I would point you to the Scriptures that state the truth I contend for and invite you to refute my thinking if you think I misrepresent what is being stated in the Scripture. If I take a passage out of context or read something into it that is not there then you do very well in informing me of my error.

Fourth, I recognize all worldviews start from basic presuppositions, webs of belief in which certain assumptions are made that the person stating them will not compromise. Another way of saying it would be "core" beliefs.

Fifth, without an absolute standard and measure of truth nothing would make sense. There would be no logic and these words would have no meaning.

For instance an atheist has a core belief that there is no God and from that belief he constructs his worldview and analyzes everything through the filter that there is no God. But his belief is inconsistent in that he always borrows capital from the Christian worldview. He states that we have all evolved from an explosion or big bang some 14-20 billion years ago. But he wasn't there at the point of origin, so he is interpreting the facts and data from a slant that there is no God. Everything he views he fits to that presupposition.

And so the inconsistent of his belief shows up in many ways, in his belief in morals, in his constructing meaning and purpose in life, in believing that a chaotic, random, chance happening produced uniformity in nature, the natural laws and the laws of logic, etc.

If all we are is matter banging together then what "right" do you have to tell me that what I do in killing you is wrong because you are competing from my food chain, and according to the theory of evolution, "only the strong survive." What "right" do you have to condemn Adolph Hitler for the murder of six million Jews? He was only doing what he believed was right. What "right" do you have of stopping me of shooting you for your money because I need it to eat today?

Without an absolute authority it all boils down to your preference over my preference and may the strongest or the one who is able to establish the biggest majority win. Justice becomes nothing more than the one who produces the biggest sword, or at least who is best able to use it.

You see, the unbeliever cannot satisfactorily answer these questions. Please feel free to do so.

OK, people evolve into terrorists due to their immersion in a culture of hate. There is hope, nevertheless, because some chose to step away from all that. But what is not explained is how did THAT happen? The culture of hate was still around them.

Ideologues believe that any source of facts contrary to their belief is therefore not credible. They live in their own world insulated from critical thinking. Yet some broke out of their idea prison. Knowing how would help.

Saying that we must build up an alternative culture of tolerance does not help. Just as it is always easier to destory than build, a culture of hate will win out over a culture of tolerance. Look at the posts on this comment for an example. (You can still defeat hate--get the ideologues to fight among themselves, for example--but that requires tactics, not mere attitude.)

In my comments to Frank Collins, I was being rhetorical, sarcastic, and ironic. I was answering him. I, myself, have no specific solutions to the world's problems. I just like to make an occaisional comment here.

Frank Collins in an annoying pest. Even though I am no fan of the Islamic religion, it would not every occur to me, for even one second, to exterminate one billion people as a solution to the problem of militant Islam.

I was just baiting this annoying little squirt, Frank Collins, to see what is reaction would be.

I am sorry if you did not understand, and thought that I was being serious.

Daniel, I agree with much of what you had to say about Franks comments, that they are strong, but since you recognize there is hatred among mankind, what is your proposed solution?

Since I worship the God of the Bible I recognize the call to live in peace with all peoples, to the extent I am able; to love my enemies, even to feed and cloth them (Romans 12:17-21) and to this point I would contend that it would be an injustice, that, when possible to not share with them an accurate understanding of who God is and what He has done for mankind.

Do you propose I ignore sharing truth (and I do not mean by this the uses of physical force - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5)in order to live in harmony with what others feel is true? Do you think that truth should be compromised? By what standard do you determine truth?

My feeling is as long as there is civil dialog there is chance for understanding. It's when civil dialog is compromised that we run the risk of heated disagreements and even physical injury. How often is what is being said really listened too. How often does our own biases kick in and prevent us from seeing the point being made?

Daniel, when you say,

"And so what if you are right in your views of Islam and Moslems?"

you mentioned the word "right." So how do you determine "right." What is your standard?

When you ask,

"How would we do that? (Be specific)."

The only thing possible for an individual to do is to present the truth of the Gospel and hope that the Sovereign God has given that person an ear to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to believe the truth. But without telling them the truth, the greater danger is that they will believe the lie.

To Peter Huff

"So when you have thousands, possibly millions of worldviews each competing with each other and each claiming to be true, they cannot all be true..."

...except yours. But that is what they all say; all of the "thousands and possibly millions" of worldviews claim to be true, and claim all the others to be untrue.

So, as intelligently and as reasonable as you started off, your comments just add to the cacophony.

To Peter Huff

"So when you have thousands, possibly millions of worldviews each competing with each other and each claiming to be true, they cannot all be true..."

...except yours. But that is what they all say; all of the "thousands and possibly millions" of worldviews claim to be true, and claim all the others to be untrue.

So, as intelligently and as reasonable as you started off, your comments just add to the cacophony, and doesn't really help at all.

A couple of points from the article and the responses to it:

It is all very well and good to promote peace among all peoples, and I wholeheartedly agree with this for "blessed are the peacemakers." I also agree that it is good to understand what others believe. The point that I disagree with is that truth and error have anything in common. They are diametrically opposites. So when you have thousands, possibly millions of worldviews each competing with each other and each claiming to be true, they cannot all be true and I would contend only one is, the God of the Judaic/Christian Bible Each worldview states things contrary to the others. God has revealed truth to mankind in three ways, by what has been made, by His spoken and written word and by His Spirit.

Along the same lines, without His revelation, the Bible, I would contend it is impossible to know God personally, because of the many distortions of the truth in world religion. Without an absolute, objective, ultimate standard to measure truth, it just becomes a matter of your personal tastes over mine. The Bible claims to be that source or standard. "Sanctify them by the truth, Your word is truth." (John 17:17; see also 1 Thessalonians 2:13)

I take little stock in The Jewish Talmud. It is just the writings of men. The authority is God's Word, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The Talmud is just an interpretation of the Torah and more fully, the Tanach. In many places it misses the boat
completely in it's interpretation.

The Lord Jesus Christ had lots to say in relation to the traditions of men and to the teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees. (see Matthew Ch. 23)

Dear Frank Collins

Okay! We know you hate Islam and Moslems. We got it.

So? What's your point? Is it your job to teach all of the rest of us how bad Islam is and how bad Moslems are? And, why is it your job? And if it is your job, why are you frittering away your duty to educate others by constantly posting the same things here for the same people to read over and over again? Aren't you wasting your time? Couldn't you spread your word better, elsewhere?

Isn't this more of a weird compulsive obsession you have, rather than an attempt to show people something that you know that they do not know?

And so what if you are right in your views of Islam and Moslems? Then what should we do? Should we try and get rid of them? Should we kill them all? How would we do that? (Be specific).

And after we have gotten rid of all the Moslems in the world, and cleansed the world of their existence, would you expect the remaining non-Moslem people to live, happily ever after, in peace and tranquility?

But what if, after the world has been cleansed of Islam, there continues to be hatred among men, and rivalry, and jealously, and dissension, and murder, and war? What would we do then? Who would we blame then?

Oh, I forogt; we can always fall back on blaming the Jews for everything.

oh, and the gays, too.

(and ps, before you write a diatribe against me, I do not support Islam, at all; I am just wondering, like, why do you keep posting the same long texts over,

and over,

and over,

and over,

and over,

and over,

and over,

and over,

and over again; it's a little tedious, and maybe, did you ever think of seeing a shrink?)

No coincidence, I suppose, that a post about the dangers of hate speech draws in the worst perpetrators of such speech in this forum...

Change is indeed slow...

Jacob.

Mitt Romney are good for one thing and one thing only.

Israel.

If you vote for Romney, your a bloody idiot.

Well, its obvious you are in fact a bloody idiot.

And again there is wisdom from the animal kingdom.

Gators are born to kill. Muslims, maybe yes, maybe no, but with the koran as their operating manual, can we trust any of them??????????

Mitt Romney anything is Possible Ya Ya!


VOTE: ((((((((((((((((((( Peace-Love-Rock-n-Roll-n-Rap, Mitt-ROMNEY For Prez, Fall 2008 ))))))))))))))

Vote: To End Terrorism & Bring World Peace & Healing's for ALL of Space-Ship Earth's Citizen's, Now! Thank You Friend(s).


"ONE-MOTHER, ONE-FATHER, ONE-HAPPY-EARTH is what "WE" are about and not just G-D Amighty"

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"Together Forever With Source-One, Yes!

Thank You friend(s)"

I don't think that religious fanatic, George, is capable of change! Without a spiritual transformation of George & Dick, the wars of arrogant agression will continue, George's insane acts will continue, George's infantile, simplistic, desperate, criminal behaviors will continue to his death bed and the poor man will feel self-righteous in his ignorant superstitions as he grasps at the feeble straws that give his pathetic live meaning. May he rot in the Hell of his own creation.