All Comments (76)

Luke, I never denied that atheists have values, just that you have no way to account for them. What is "good?" What is your standard for measuring good? Can you answer those questions?

You say you use logic but where does logic come from in an atheistic universe Luke? If everything "evolved" from matter how come logic is not material? How come it is intangible and I cannot see it, feel it, touch it? What sound does logic make? What does it taste like?

And is it logical to believe that something exploded out of nothing 20 billion years ago? How in a chance, random, chaotic explosion can intelligence happen? Nothing from nothing still leaves nothing. Is it logical to believe that life came from non-life. Do stones think? Ever seen one spring to life. Sorry, I forgot, time is the magic formula. Have you ever seen life evolve from non-life? For that matter, have you ever seen a cow evolve into a goat or a monkey into a human? Where are the supposed transitional links in the fossil record.

Oh, by the way, the Biblical Flood is far more reasonable in the explanation of fossils. Fossils form by catastrophic events. An animal dropping dead in a plain slowly disintegrates without leaving a fossil.

You said "I'm just not foolish enough to let FEAR be my guiding light, thank you."

But in the Book of Proverbs "To fear the LORD is to hate evil" the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" "the fear of the LORD adds length to life" "The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death."

So why does it make sense to believe an atheistic worldview? Where do morals come from? You have no answers to how life comes from non-life, no hope for a future, no ultimate purpose for the present, and no ultimate meaning for life. It is all arbitrary. From such a bleak view of reality it is understandable how a gunman can kill 34 people in a technical institute, or walk through a high school on a shooting rampage, such as Columbine. When you have been indoctrinated in to believing that man is nothing more than a glorified animal why criticize him for acting like one. Does a vulture think it immoral to cannibalize another vulture for food?
Then why criticize Jeffery Dahmer? Is he not just an animal?

Without God which morals you believe are just a matter of preference. If I murder someone where no one else sees the act I have no one to answer to. Why then do these gunmen turn the guns on themselves after their rampage? Why do people confess to crimes that no one else has witnessed? Because they have been created in the image of God and they know that all human life is sacred and they feel guilty for what they have done. Do you see an animal feeling guilty after killing one of its own?

Betty and Henry, were did you get your facts?

If you want to find out about someone find out who were their greatest influences. Find out what is true of the founders of Communism, Marxism, Fascism, Nazism. Go to the library and open an encyclopedia and read up on men such as Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, Wallace, Freud, Jung, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Ernst Haeckel, Aldous Huxley, Jullian Huxley, Thomas Huxley, Nietzsche, Mao Tse-tung and the countless score of other evolutionary thinkers and their dire opposition to God. The problem with "gatekeepers" - those intellectuals that filter down their ideas to the masses - is that they do tremendous damage to the way others view the world when their ideas go counter to truth.

Henry, you said, "The problem with Fascism and Communism was NOT that they were Godless
but that they were Dogmas fostered by True
Believers."

Betty, your stats:
"

A Scorecard

Deaths caused in Wars/Genocides Started by

Communism/Fascism: 100,000,000
Religious Wars: 200,000,000
Secular Humanists: 0

over the past 400 years"

Where did you get you information on the religious wars? By the way, include secular humanists in the column with communism and fascism as per the follow-up below.

Here are quotes from John and Henry Morris in their book SOCIETY AND CREATION:

Fascism or Marxism, right wing or left -- all these are only ideological roads that lead to Aldous Huxley's brave new world, while the foundation for each of these roads is Darwin's theory of evolution (Carmichael 1954, 373).[19] Fascism is aligned with biological determinism and tends to emphasize the unequal struggle by which only those inherently fittest shall rule. Marxism stresses social progress by stages of revolution, while at the same time it paradoxically emphasizes peace and equality (UNESCO 1972).[20]

There should be no illusions; Hitler borrowed freely from Marx. The result is that both Fascism and Marxism finish at the same destiny -- totalitarian rule by the elite.[21]...

The second is naturalistic or anthropocentric (man-centered) humanism nourished by the evolutionary thoughts of the nineteenth century and given its biggest impetus by Darwin. It is this second kind of humanism that constitutes secular humanism and is the predominant worldview today. It views mankind as an integral part of nature and thus denies the human soul; it limits values to what has value for humankind, and thus ethics and morals become situational; and it denies the existence of God or relegates him to a non-functional role. In short, secular humanism follows the famous dictum of Protagoras that man is the measure of all things and must create his own life. Natural man thereby replaces the supernatural God and becomes the master of his destiny (Holmes 1983, 16)...

The French Revolution had injected its poisons of atheism and immoralism into Europe’s bloodstream, and the German rationalistic philosophers had laid the groundwork for the destruction of biblical theology in the schools and churches. Socialism and Communism were on the upswing throughout Europe; Marx and Nietzsche were propagating their deadly theories and were acquiring many disciples…. All these people and movements were evolutionists of one breed or another...

This right-wing type of Darwinism also led to racism and imperialism, and even to Fascism and Hitlerism, whereas a left-wing approach to evolutionary thought became basic in Marxist-Leninism and Communism. Both systems are anti-creationist, anti-biblical, and anti-Christian, and even when they fight with each other, they remain united in opposition to creationism and biblical fundamentalism...

The familiar Darwinian bywords “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest” were not actually coined by Darwin, but by two of his immediate predecessors, Thomas Malthus and Herbert Spencer, respectively. Each of these men had a profound influence on Darwin’s thinking, and he appropriated these slogans to his own use in trying to explain and promote his ideas of “natural selection” in the animal kingdom.
They were also ideally suited mottoes for exploitation by the industrialists and militarists of the 19th century in their own agendas...

Marxist theory not only was based on atheism, but also urged the complete destruction of religion, especially Christianity. Religion was “the opiate of the people,” so they said, while desecrating churches and slaughtering or enslaving Christians who would not renounce their faith and, in effect, worship the state. Lenin expressed his anti-theism thus:

Every religious idea of a god, even flirting with the idea of god, is unutterable vileness of the most dangerous kind, “contagion” of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence, and physical contagions are far less dangerous than the subtle spiritual idea of a god.4-49

This premise, of course, not only denigrated religion, but also meant that individual men and women, being merely animals, were quite expendable if their elimination would serve the interests of “the people” as a whole (or, more realistically, the intellectual elite who had attained rule over the people as a whole).
The problem is that, by denying the possibility of a relationship between God and man, atheism also denies the possibility of a just relationship between men. . . .

Human life is sacred only if there is a God to sanctify it. Otherwise man is just another collection of atoms and can be treated as such. . . .

The spiritual disorder within man’s soul of which Saint James wrote has become, in the modern age, institutionalized. In other words, the moral disorder of the individual soul has become the principle of a general public disorder, first as it was articulated in the teachings of Nietzsche and Marx, and then incarnated in the Nazi regime and in the various Marxist-Leninist states today.4-50

The writings of Karl Marx have spawned a variety of liberal panaceas in the world, including various socialist schemes as well as doctrinaire communism. Even today, with Communism as practiced in Russia and eastern Europe somewhat defeated and dispersed, the teachings of Marx continue to thrive in China, Vietnam, and many other places, including many universities in western Europe, South America, and even the United States. And all are grounded in evolutionism!

All manner of liberal thinkers have appropriated Darwin to find at last a scientific foundation for the liberal belief in progress, democratic equalitarian socialism, and an altruistic ethic of human solidarity. Marx himself viewed Darwin’s work as confirmation by the natural sciences of his own views, and even Mao Tse-tung regarded Darwin as presented by the German Darwinists, as the foundation of Chinese scientific ocialism.4-51

Karl Marx, of course, was a committed evolutionist before Darwin published The Origin of Species, but he was such because of his atheistic faith (born a Jew, he had once made a Christian confession, presumably for economic reasons, but later renounced all organized religions in favor of atheism) and his commitment to change in human history and economic systems, but he had no real scientific basis for this secular faith until Darwin came along. As is well known, Marx even wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, but Darwin refused.
In spite of Marxist commitment to evolution, however, both Marx himself and later communists were always uncomfortable with the uniformitarian aspects of Darwinism. They honored Darwin because of the scientific respectability that he had given to naturalism and atheism, but they needed a more immediate mechanism for evolutionary change than the ideas of long-drawn-out progress which commended themselves to Western Europe and America, the nations of which were experiencing unprecedented growth and development.

JWS post on the 16th suggested that the Bible has many contradictions. I would be interested to hear what he considers a contradiction.

One thing God's Word has taught me is that there is no such thing as neutrality (Jesus said that we would either be for him or against Him -Matthew 12:30 -; no middle ground). Romans 1:18 states that men suppress the truth by there wickedness; that those who live according to the sinful nature (Rom. 8:5) have their minds set against God (Rom. 8:7) and that they cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). In fact those who do not have the Spirit of God dwelling in them do not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14)

JWS you said "It seems ironic to argue about the inerrency of the Bible and then diss someone else's non-biblical source. "

It all depends on what you consider the highest source that can be appealed to. Is it your fellow man, yourself, science or God? Your fellow man or science is not infallible, only God has that distinction. Surely you do not think yourself infallible? I have made countless mistakes but I am able to come to the One who is infinite in wisdom, understanding and knowledge for guidance. Where do you get yours from?
What assurance do I have that your opinion is valid?

The Book of Proverbs (Ch. 2-3) warns against rejecting the wisdom of God, "Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: 'How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in will turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you - ...Then you will turn to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm...For the LORD gives wisdom and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding...for He guards the course of the just and protects the way of His faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair - every good path."

Good advice for you JWS, not because it comes from me but because it comes from God.

You said, "There are many sources for those translations and they do differ (look up 'textual criticism'), which of those is correct?"

It depends on your source as to its truthfulness; none are neutral, they all bring their own presuppositions to the table. If you start somewhere other than God then your conclusions are going to somewhere other than God, but what standard other than God are you going to appeal to as certain?
Without God I challenge you to make sense of anything.

Here is a start for you that may shake your understanding - Opening Scripture - A Hermeneutical Manual Introducing the Exegetical Study of the New Testament - by Patrick Fairbairn.
Here is another - Systematic Theology - Wayne Grudem.

Hello all,

Please accept my and my countrymen's condolences for the events at Virginia Tech. It is really terrible and no one deserves to lose their life or to get maimed or injured in that way.

Please know our prayers and thoughts are with you!

Luke,

Yes, that pretty much sums it up!

You spell this particular brand of nonsense, however, with the letters T-R-U-T-H...

But, it seems as if you're getting there.

Jihadist - your grandmother might not have known she was in menopause, but I bet she noticed that she and other older women couldn't have children anymore.

Perceptions of time in thoses days is not the only problem with the Exodus story, archeology doesn't back it up either.

Here’s the Amazon description of archeology scholars Finkelstein and Silberman’s “The Bible Unearthed” http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684869128/ref=olp_product_details/002-1878591-2519231?ie=UTF8&seller=

“The Bible Unearthed is a balanced, thoughtful, bold reconsideration of the historical period that produced the Hebrew Bible. The headline news in this book is easy to pick out: there is no evidence for the existence of Abraham, or any of the Patriarchs; ditto for Moses and the Exodus; and the same goes for the whole period of Judges and the united monarchy of David and Solomon.”

And here’s a link to an article about how this information have been included since 2002 in the “Tree of Life” books found in all Conservative Jewish temples: http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

I forgot Phantom, your God is the only true God and what everyone else believes is a farce. I'm the ignorant one. Praise be whatever nonsense you believe.

Umm, let me see. Moses has no compass or GPS to guide him in the desert. And travelling around in the desert with a large number of people is quite a challenge without 4 wheel drives and air-conditioned buses with animals in tow. And them folks in those days have to camp around water holes. Who'd want to move if they can't be certain of another water hole or well? 40 years of wandering.

As for the age of Adam, well, them folks then don't use AD or BC of CE and who know what calender they use or don't use. Lunar, solar or by seasons? And they don't have birth certificates too.

And by the way, only Americans obsessed about female menopause. My mother and grandmothers never knew that had one. They only thought their husbands and children were making them irritable and ceasing having their menses is something natural and a relief for them.

All in all, so easy to judge people of days yore by our current standards of cable TV, internet and Big Macs and Cokes. In spite of it all, what they of yore said and wrote on religion is still compelling and believable eh? What does that say about writers and thinkers who are rational and logical in their beliefs? If only they can write as beautifully, poetically and elliptically to leave much much room for interpretation and re-interpretation :)

""After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters..."

Wow - those Bible folks sure did live long, compared to the rest of us!

I wonder if he was procreating all that time, or if things slowed down in that department after the first few hundred years. Also, does the bible say anything about Eve? I wonder when menopause came on in those days.

Betty and Henry James

How can you be too sure Secular Humanists will not undertake wars and genocides once they are are in the majority in any country? Say, waging "just" or "justified" wars against religious fundamentalists in control of another country, say, to stem off the tide of or to put an end to "delusional" beliefs that rationalize wars in the name of God?

After all, secular humanism unalterably opposed to both dogmatic Theism and Dogmatic Communism/fascism sounds like a dogma to me. And some western writers do label some Muslim fanatics as "Islamofascists". This labeling would be enough to get secular humanists going against such Muslims as the word fascists is appended.

There will always be conflicts and wars for what we believe in and refused to accomodate and compromise, the word "compromise" now being substituted with the politically undesirable "appeasement" to reflect weakness in not holding fast to one's principles and beliefs.

In reply to your last post to me Russell, here are a few comments from your statement:

"As for my source? Life is my source. Life-which entails reading, watching, learning, and experiencing all that I can-has given me what I have today, and will give me more in the future."

By denying God Russell, your source is you. You are your own highest authority, your own god, only wise. Your opinion is one of a myriad of opinions that believes it is right. Since there are so so many out there claiming that they are right totally contrary to yours how do you establish yours as right? Does belief make opinion right? Does feeling? Does fact and if so, is not fact also subject to interpretation?

When a scientist states that the earth is 4.3 billion years old, is he not just interpreting the data from certain base assumptions, since he was not there 4.3 billion years ago?

Does an atheistic evolutionist not use logic, all the while denying the God who gave him the ability to reason? Considering that he believes that life came about by random chance mutations of biological matter that exploded out of nothing 20 billion years ago, how does he arrive at non-tangibles such as logic? Logic is not something physical that can be held or touched or seen by the senses? How does something non-physical come from a physical universe? How can a random chance mutation be logical? How can life come from non-life?

How can right be decided without an absolute standard. It becomes meaningless. So, big deal that I believe something is right if the standard I use to measure right is not ultimate and absolute. So what is your standard Russell? Please answer that one.

Usually silence is the answer to that question or the appeal goes to majority opinion as to determining "right." When majority opinion changes something that used to be wrong becomes right(Examples include abortion, gay-marriage, sex before marriage, etc). Why does majority make it right now when before it was wrong? Or does might make it right? Supposing you are a Jew in 1945 Germany and are next in line for the gas chambers. Does the majority or the mighty now make your imminent execution right? In your opinion – certainly not. You are the minority or the weaker and are on the other end of the equation. Well if Hitler had succeeded in conquering the world by might this scenario may have been the case, that might does make right and in eliminating opposition the majority making it right also.

Just one other point to clear up. You said, "Some of the stories are so outrageous that they are hard to believe. Our planet being populated by a man and woman who only had sons?"

Try reading your Bible a little more closely Russell. Genesis 5:4 - "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters..."

Thanks for the exchange!

A Scorecard

DEaths caused in Wars/Genocides Started by

Communism/Fascism: 100,000,000
Religious Wars: 200,000,000
Secular Humanists: 0

over the past 400 years

Re 20th Century Genocides

The problem with Fascism and Communism was
NOT that they were Godless
but that they were Dogmas fostered by True Believers.

Communism and Fascism are NOT the only alternative to Dogmatic Theism.

Secular Humanism for instance is unalterably opposed to BOTH dogmatic Theism and Dogmatic Communism/fascism

and Seculary Humanist philosophies and Ideas have NEVER helped start a War or a Genocide.

20th Century Genocides

Earlier posts here have made reference to genocides by totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. By some counts, these would amount to 169,000,000 deaths. I have recently listened to a series of 24 lectures by Vejas Gabriel Luilevicius, Ph.D., titled “Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century.” These lectures are available through The Teaching Company. Persons interested in learning more on this topic might want to consider the following resource:

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=8313&pc=Search

Mark, Mr. Spong is not a fundie, he is Episcopalian, which is very liberal, and he doesn't even tow their line !
By the way, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and a few other groups do practice Christianity the the same as they did the 1st several centuries! It was a very liturgical way of worship.
Also, "Xians" was a way of writing "Christians" in the early Church, so you're not as insulting as you may think, if that is what you're trying.

Russel D,

Mr. Mark's arguments are not good, they're quite useless actually!

Atheists, Agnostics, Wiccans have all tried to tell me what stands in the Bible and how it needs to be interpreted or how it is debunked! COME ON!!! I'm not tooting my own horn here, but I know substantially more about what's contained in the Word than you do. That's just fact! It's my life and my living. I know all the arguments for and against it, and that all the arguments against the Bible are debunked! That's just fact!

I have made an in-depth study about other religions and can tell you what is contained or believed in most of them. And, I find not one iota of truth. Yes, some of the beliefs masquerade as truth, but none is.

I ask this of you: I don't try to tell you about your own set of beliefs (or lack of them) other than that you're misguided and ignorant; please don't try to tell me what is contained in Christianity and how to interpret it! Give me your arguments as you feel they describe the truth, and that's it! Call me an ignorant fool if you so wish, but, don't try to tell me what's contained in my faith. Simple professional courtesy...?

Just because you've read the Bible or portions of it does not mean you know it, know what's contained in it or know that it's not true. I can read the Harvard Business review and know it word for word. Do I understand it? Some of it, not all of it.

Luke,

You've made my point about the arguments on these forums I try to avoid. I present you with a well based argument and I'M the ignorant one??!! Go figure...

The problem with arguing with non-believers is that we have very different reference points, or put another way, one of the two sides must attempt to make its points out of context. This is especially true in a forum such as this. But, having said that, the entertainment value of this forum is awesome! Keep it up, athiests. I've enjoyed your attempts!

Well put Mr. Mark

For those Xians who charge Bishop Spong with being apostate as he doesn't toe the 21st century fundy Xian line: have you ever stopped to consider that you yourself do not practice Xianity the way it was practiced by the early church, ie: from the late 1st to the 4th century? Doesn't that make your faith and its dogma just as "misguided" as the good Bishop's?

If Jesus Christ saved the world, he did a very poor job - and you can blame man all you want but if you believe that God can do anything and simply chooses to let the world continue on it's same course, I wouldn't waste a second praising him. Also I am not saying that your Gods are the same (although I most certainly believe that to be true, but since you are too ignorant to believe that, I will let it be), I am saying that the faith that you feel (the one that causes you to abandon logic and believe wholeheartedly in a really old book) is the same exact feeling that Jews and Muslims get. Ofcourse you will argue that because it wouldn't make sense that only your religion is right unless you could accuse other religions of being liars, etc. I hope I've made my point.

Ok,

I'm going to tone down how I say things so that what I say is illuminated more.

Luke,

Your statement of Chrisitianity, Islam and Judaism all serving the same God is totally unfounded and based on plain ignorance. I'm not sure how to say that without offending, but so be it.

Jehovah (Yahweh) and Allah are NOT one in the same thing. Islam can trace it's origins back to the 2nd-4th century where the moon god was renamed Allah and so a religion was born. Why is there a sickle moon on top of the dome of every mosque you come across? Yes, Islam, Judaism and Christianity are referred to as Abrahamic religions because they in some way descend from Abraham, but let me explain. Abraham fathered Isaac (with Sarah/Sarai his wife) and Ishmael (with Hagar, Sarah's handmaid) and as we know, Sarah convinced Abraham to chase Hagar and Ishamel away and in so doing rejecting them. That is the only link that Islam has to Abraham in that Ishmael is regarded as the spiritual father of Islam.

The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob IS the same God that the Jews serve, but, they rejected Jesus Christ because He was not the political saviour they were awaiting but a spiritual saviour. Therefore, we as Christians have a responsibility towards the Jews and need to bless them as much as we can, because, like it or not, they are God's chosen race, the olive tree (to use a Biblical analogy) where the Church is the wild olive branch grafted into the olive tree. That Chrsitianity has a Jewish origin cannot be denied, ever! Christ was Aramaic (a Jew) and that's a fact!

You are correct to an extent comparing Christianity to Judaism, but, even the Jews will not inherit eternal life if they do not accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour, as will no one else either. Jesus Christ is the difference. It is the same rule to all. It's not me saying so, it's the Bible according to which I base my life and adhere. The difference between Christianity and all other religions is Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world.

Peter Huff, It seems ironic to argue about the inerrency of the Bible and then diss someone else's non-biblical source. The bible contradicts itself -- which part is right? There are many translations of the Bible. Which one is accurate?, There are many sources for those translations and they do differ (look up 'textual criticism'), which of those is correct?

Some argue that the 'original' word is authentic -- alas we do not have the original. Of course the problem even with saying the original source is inerrent is that you are also claiming that language is perfect. Language is too easy to misinterpret to be considered 'inerrant'.

While Rev. Spong may be iconoclastic, it is also 'the pot calling the kettle black' for you to call him the anti-Christ.

Peter Huff:

There are numerous sources that give much better information than wikipedia. It is a good site, but it is a site updated by opinion more than actual fact. I suggest going to some of the higher domain websites. Tyr any with org. or edu. as the last line. Maybe those might help.

As for my source? Life is my source. Life-which entails reading, watching, learning, and experiencing all that I can-has given me what I have today, and will give me more in the future.

I like to read all sorts of books and watch all sorts of programs, and I watch people. You can learn more from studying people than any book sometimes. I have read the Bible. It was the only book in basic training, so I would read it at night,or whenever I had free time. It struck me as needing a major overhaul. Some of the stories are so outrageous that they are hard to believe. Our planet being populated by a man and woman who only had sons? A senior citizen being able to build a huge ark and round up all those animals? A woman getting knocked up without having sex? ( I'll admit, it can happen, although it is extremely difficult). A group of people walking in a big circle in the desert for forty years when the trip would have only taken a couple of weeks at most?

It just seems that there is more to life than a book that is so full of wholes you can stick your finger through it.

Go outside and sit. Sit and watch. Sit and feel. You can learn alot by doing that.

I think the amazing thing about fundamentalists is how narrow-minded they are. Posts by people like Phantom show how they can't understand that the faith they have in The Bible is THE SAME EXACT faith that Muslims and Jews have. It's utter nonsense that you can't see that, and that is one of a myriad of reasons why I am an atheist. God has terrible representatives if he actually exists (which he surely does not), so why should I believe any of you? You feel so strongly that God exists that you call it truth. I feel so strongly that he doesn't that I call it truth. If you can't explain him, prove that he is there, or represent him as a decent human being, then why should I? When I die, I will just change form like everything else in the universe (which is PROVEN, mind you.)

Peter Huff: The US democracy is a secular government, too, specifically set up that way by its founders. I think that the difference among the governments is not the attitude toward God, but the attitude towards humans. The US democracy is based on freedom and opportunity for its citizens, while communism and fascism are based on domination and subjugation of its citizens.

Anon: I suggest, not assume that Cassie’s testimony is contrived. I suggest this not based on her statements about Christ, but her negative comment about Wicca and her formulaic description of how she found Christ.

Also, atheism doesn’t borrow any moral behavior from Christianity or any other religion. These behaviors existed long before Christianity or Judaism, and are even present in monkeys.

Thanks to others commenting here before me for covering other points that Anon and Peter Huff mentioned.

Jihn Shelby Spong,

I pity anyone who was in your congregation! To have to listen to drivel such as yours should be total torture, and, I frankly hope they used their common sense and left your church.

There is only one way to God; Jesus Christ said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one gets to the Father except through me..."

That's just the way it is. I didn't read all the postings on this forum, but I'm sure you're all high fiving one another saying "finally, someone has seen the light." The only light you're seeing is the "angel of light" and we all know who he is/was...

May God have mercy on your souls!

By the way, at least as an atheist, I don't seperate myself from atheism and claim another religion every time my previous religion commits an atrocity. Why do you think there are so many different "flavors" of Christian? It's because every time a group starts murdering people, they have to erase their history by making another group that will convince the lie that God is full of love, not of vengeance.

Just because a person is an atheist doesn't mean we don't have values - our just aren't rooted in making invisible men happy with us. We don't pretend we love someone we've never met to avoid an imaginary place where people burn forever. We use logic to solve issues, unlike you who wage war with God's name stamped on the blades of your swords. Moral bankruptcy comes from your kind believing you won't face the consequences of your actions because God will forgive you no matter what you do. My values reflect that I genuinely want man to develop, EVOLVE, and prosper. I'm just not foolish enough to let FEAR be my guiding light, thank you.

While the relative view in your purpose here is very well written it is also very incorrect. I would like to know how all religions are true when their pathways to heaven are so far apart. And I am sorry but the purpose of Christianity is not to enhance human life, it is to glorify God.
It would be a perfect world if everyone were right, and I hope you agree that our world is far from perfect.
There is one way to heaven, one path, one God. While we as humans try to understand and explain this we forget that it is futile.
If we can explain God in human terms, wouldn't that make God human? And then if God is human what exactly are we worshipping?
We can't understand God, but we can know him.

Josevz my new friend,

"Religion is the opium of the people", as you very well know, is by Mr. Karl Marx. The last time I checked, communism collapsed in Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries. Only China, Cuba and Vietnam are practicing communism. Sort of in China and Vietnam who are definitely open to capitalism.

Yes, one can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time according to Abe Lincoln. The only thing surviving from Marx for most of the world is that phrase - religion is the opium of the people.

I do wonder why some of the people like to quote that phrase by Marx all of the time here in On Faith threads in stating their case against religion and belief in God, especially those living in the non-communist free world.

Marx is dead. His ideology is bankrupt. Those that subscribe to communism as state policies are failed states. They only leveled poverty for all -spiritual and material poverty.

Canyon Shearer my good ole friend,

I missed you!

You said: "John MacArthur put it best when he recounted the story of converting a Muslim to Christianity on an airplane. The Muslim said, "I can only hope that God will be merciful and forgive my sins." John MacArthur said, "Well, I know Him personally, and He won't." The Muslim, taken aback, said, "If you know God, why are you sitting in coach?"

Great story. I traveled on planes all the time and no one seek to convert me to Christianity. They only talk of their jobs, families and places they've been. But then, I've never traveled coach or economy class and spared that on-flight saving of my soul and salvation.

And what has travelling in coach or economy class got to do with God and knowing God personally? That Muslim on the plane must be thinking John MacArthur blaspheme in stating he knows God personally. Have met God has he? It boggles the mind, unless Mr. MacArthur is talking methaphorically.

Hi Russell D. I just happened to take from the most easily accessible source I had at hand. The problem with any human source is just that, it relies on human wisdom that is fallible. What would you consider a reliable source? For every source I list "I'm sure that you are going to disagree with it because it does not meet the lens that you filter life through.

What is yours?

"E-Favorite" I just read your previous comment and would like you to answer a question based on your critic of Cassie. Here is what you said:

"Cassie, if this is your real testimony, I suggest in the future you leave out negative reference to another religion. I think it detracts from your message of love and acceptance. If this is not real testimony, remember that lying is immoral for people of all religions and of no religion."

First of all you presume that it is not real testimony, that Cassie is lying because of her exclusive claims that Jesus is the only Savior and way to know God. That is not just her claim, it is the Word of God and testimony of countless Christians. (By the way, truth is exclusive and narrow by definition)

Second, it would only distract from the message of love if it was a lie. Being the truth it is something that needs to be taken seriously.

Third, the funny thing about atheism is it borrows from the Christian view when it makes moral/value judgments, for instance about lying. Why it does so is beyond me.

The dilemma for the atheist is to answer the question why lying is immoral, or for that matter, murdering a human-being. Why is murder wrong? Since the atheist believes we "evolved" from a lower form of life, that life is the survival of the fittest, that we are just a biological bag of genetic material that interacts in different/random ways, why is it wrong to murder? Does a shark stop to consider it wrong to eat another shark? Do you consider it wrong to eat a steak? Was it not an animal just as you are? Then why do you consider it wrong to kill another human being and not an animal? Teach a man from childhood that he is nothing more than an evolved animal but don't criticize him when he acts like one and goes on a shooting spree. Why even defend an atheistic point of view? To do so is to make a value judgment. You consider it true. But any value judgment needs a standard and if it is not absolute, it is arbitrary.

Peter Huff:

Wikipedia is not really the best source for your information. If I were you I'd go back and actually read a history book or two.

And don't forget all the wars that were and still are being fought in the name of God.

"E-Favorite" Fascism and Communism are two ideologies that are largely atheistic in nature. They look to man, not to God. The founder and the leaders of many of these systems/regimes rejected God for the wisdom of man; they see evolution and the material universe as the answer to origins.

Religion in the Soviet Union
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Soviet Union was an officially secular state.[citation needed] According to various Soviet and Western sources, however, over one-third of the country's people professed religious belief....
The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied greatly. Two-thirds of the Soviet population, however, had no religious beliefs. About half the people, including members of the ruling Communist Party and high-level government officials, professed atheism. For the majority of Soviet citizens, therefore, religion seemed irrelevant.

Peter Huff - the murderous regimes of the 20th century were not atheistic, they were fascist and communist

One further clarification James, although I see the faith God has given me as "increas(ing my) loving kindness and service to (my) fellow man" I also see it as exclusive in Christ Jesus the Lord, just by the irrationality of the other. I would also remind you that atheistic regimes have killed/murdered more people in the last century than all the religious wars before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

Hi James,
In answer to your question,
"Which of my two sides
right above your post
are you on?"
Both, I do not see it as a dichotomy at all in the sense that Webster’s uses the word "division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action."
Because I love the Lord Jesus Christ I take action in citing the truth of His word (His Word that is exclusive, but loving), in the hope that the Holy Spirit will bring conviction and repentance to those who are trying to bring the truth into disrepute or to those willing to believe the distortion.

Hopefully I speak the truth in love. Remember, 2 Timothy 3:16 speaks of Scripture as God breathed and being useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. As such I am rebuking and correcting John Shelby Spong, by appealing to the very Word of God, something which he thinks is just embellished human tradition handed down to man, hoping the Spirit brings to John Shelby Spong the conviction that he is distorting the faith.

The problem is that saying the Bible is filled with error does not make it so (John 17:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13;Psalm 119:160). “Let God be true and every man a liar” – Romans 3:4. John Shelby Spong’s highest authority is himself and the speculations of men (1 Corinthians 1:20-21). I see the Bible as the very Word of God and my highest authority. With man comes error but with God comes truth because He is the standard and truth of all things. When people start lapping up John’s words of “wisdom” my question is how you can be sure he is right, because it sounds or feels “good.” Good as a qualitative, ethical value must have an ultimate, absolute standard/measure or it becomes meaningless; just one opinion pitted against another. Hitler’s standard of good is different than mine. What is the standard you go by James? Is it the highest standard you can appeal too? Looking forward to your answer.

Bishop Spong, you said that "There is no single pathway into the Holy."

Yes, there is, and that Way is Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes unto the Father but through Me." I understand that you do not believe this, but the Bible, God's Word, teaches it very clearly, and repeatedly. Jesus Christ came to earth to be your sin-bearer and mine. He is my Savior, and He wants to be yours as well.

Spong mistakes himself for God, as did Nero, and Tiberius before him. Can't he even make a new mistake?

E Favorite,
I believe you are right. I have heard other x- Wiccans...or supposedly X, if you talk to them for 5 minutes and ask them some rather simple questions about Wicca...you get some Hollywood answers or the talking points of one of the internet ministeries. Or they had read a book and played at being a Witch for three months...shock and rebellion, whoopie Witches...or pla-gan fashion Witches..

Cassie,
If you were Wiccan you would know that Jesus was not the only sacrificed God, only the latest.

I am not saying that Wiccans can not leave and become Christian...I just don't know any. But I do know x Christians...

I think there are many paths to Godhood...we each have our own way to walk that path. None is wrong because it is not the path you walk, but how you walk it. All this argument about whose god is the right one...who has the false god. I do not believe any god is false as long as the teaching helps all of us to live in a more balanced, love filled world. There is no false god, all faces of god is an aspect of the same Creator.

No one owns god.

Frank Collins

There are appropriate rooms, which are now inside the house but used to be out,

where you can politely bring the odors of your sentiments,

but this public room is not one of them.

now i know why you are a former bishop. you have a dogs view of religion, any butt hole that smells will do for you.

At one time all people believed that the earth was flat. The people that realised it was not were treated with contempt and worse. At the present time in history any one who says that the earth is flat will be laughed at.
In the future when ''the oneness of the universe and the eternity of life'' becomes an obvious fact, people who believe in a god will be laughed at.

PEter Huff

Which of my two sides
right above your post
are you on?

Looks to me like the first.

The thing that disturbs me most about John Shelby Spong is that he is an anti-Christ. He promotes a different gospel other than the one that was once and for all delivered to the saints. He denies the inerrancy and special revelation of the Bible as being God breathed in favor of his own subjective interpretation. Where the Gospel of John says there is only one way to God (John 14:6) or salvation is found in no one else (Acts 4:12) John Shelby Spong in his human wisdom calls the Word of God a liar.
He is as dogmatic and intolerant as he accuses others of being, promoting his own personal agenda (I have listened to him speak on numerous occasions on T.V.); it is just sheltered by his wording. For instance, to quote the article "There is no single pathway into the Holy" (dogmatic) or "The God so many people seem to worship is simply too small and too provincial to be God for our time and for our world" (dogmatic) is not something that he could say is absolutely true. It is just his opinion as he stated and for him to say otherwise would cause me challenge his authority for saying so. Yet he wants you to believe him.
He uses logic to form his sentences but denies it in the next breathe by his antithesis to the law of non-contradiction revealed by his beliefs. You have to have an absolute, ultimate, sovereign standard for truth, and that is the God of the Bible, as He has revealed Himself in the Bible, otherwise truth becomes mere opinion. Beliefs that are contradictory in nature, in that they say opposite things, although having truth statements in them, cannot be true and at the same time logical. Truth cannot be both true and false. Those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
As for the wisdom of "BEGONE" - "Cassie, the purpose of Christianity is to enrich the church. That's the same purpose of all religions. Those who start and operate religions do it for their living, livelihood" begs the question why should I believe what he has to say. It is just his subjective opinion. The Christian stands on the authority of the Word of God as being the highest authority that is revealed to man. It explains reality as it truly is, man in rebellion against his Maker; not wanting to give glory where glory is due. It also gives man hope for a future that John Shelby Spong is rejecting by preaching a false gospel. Starting from anywhere else other than the Bible just causes an infinite regression into absurdity.

There is a simple dichotomy that I think illustrates the truly spiritual and morally elevated manner one can approach religion

You can be religious so God will help You conquer death and attain Eternal Salvation/evade eternal damnation

or

You can be religious to increase your loving kindness and service to your fellow man.

The second has No Room for Exclusivist, I'm right/you're wrong belief systems.

The first has caused many of the Wars and injustices in the world.

Thank you to all the acolytes of the small and provincial for letting us know you are still out there and still certain of your own correctness. Of course that correctness presupposes that everyone else, including less closed-minded Christians, is wrong and is destined for eternal punishment in retribution for-- well, for what?--for disagreeing with you.
This is the dogma of your exclusionist concept of divine mercy.

Let's be honest...just once! The Abrahamic religion of Judism, Christianity, and Islam are more similar than different; they exist primarily to exploit mankind's greatest fear...DEATH. They all promise some gift after this life, if only one give up the real life to the benefit of the religion or rather its priests. They all do great evil, over and over again, subverting the innate human attributes of compassion and love into perverted lusts for power and greed. Religion and tribal identity have been the tools to forge inhuman actions of slaughter. Ignorance has been the tool to submission. Power the reward for submission.

The evil of the Abrahamic GODS is they think they are GOD; when they are the mere constructs of the fear of man.

Cassie, the purpose of Christianity is to enrich the church. That's the same purpose of all religions. Those who start and operate religions do it for their living, livelyhood.

All issues are economic especially faith in Bible, Qu'ran, Book of Mormon, and all other sacred scriptures. No one does what Jesus said, "sell your earthly posessions and give to the poor." Instead it's ring every cent possible out of the poor. Threaten them with hell and they'll give all they got to avoid it.

Got faith? In what?

Cassie, you say, "No other religion's god has loved me so much as to come down to the earth and choose death for everything that I've ever done wrong."

I say you and others should consider not taking this too personally. If he died, it wasn't just for you, it was for the multi-millions of people who have lived in the last 2,000 years. One death to save millions of lives is not so much. Plus, he was