More Gay a.k.a. Human Church Leaders: So What?

ONOFRIO: "

It's pointless relating stories about the *good* your church wreaks among its target heathen wretches. Since I am evil, I don't even know what *good* is. And I have no idea about *love* either. How could I?"

No, you know what good is, you just suppress that truth to live life on your own terms. Your conscience bears witness that you do understand (Romans 2:13-15).

ONOFRIO: "The light shone in darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it."

"Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor a human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." (John 1:12-13)

Live by the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and come into the light. (John 3:21) Believe in what He says. He brought a message of hope for those who will trust in Him. Quit trying to find excuses not to believe.

ONOFRIO: "Your TULIP doctrine teaches that faith IN Christ is entirely the gift OF God. A depraved human individual is incapable of generating this faith. So again, you make no sense to evil me."

Yes faith is the gift of God, and faith comes from hearing the message and the message is hear through the word of Christ (see Romans 10:17 and its context)

God also rescues people through the preaching of the word. Those saved by His grace were once in the same position as the unbeliever (Ephesians 2:1-4).

You keep questioning the riches of God's mercy by not trusting in what He says. You want your authority to exceed His. Faith is trusting in who He is and what He says. Those who do not believe Him, put their authority and their reasoning above that of their Creator? In doing so they build on sinking sand, on things that cannot make sense of why we are here, how we can know, what difference it makes and what is after death.

ONOFRIO: "On one hand, God sovereignly dispenses faith in Christ. Yet here is Jesus crediting an individual with effective faith. He doesn't say: "God has given you the faith to be healed." He says YOUR faith has healed YOU."

It is what that faith is placed in, the only One who has the ability to save and raise from the dead, either spiritually or physically or both. That is what healed the woman, her trust that Jesus was able to heal her.

ONOFRIO: "And of course, as a blind, abjectly subjective reprobate, I can't see truth. When I see nonsense, it's because I'm perverse enough to use my puny, depraved brain."

Truth and all the treasures of wisdom are found in Jesus Christ. You can't work this all out without Him. It is foolishness, this whole worldly system and its values.

ONOFRIO: "I know and admit what I am, and in so doing I credit the objective standards of your God. Just as he has appointed you for eternal life, he has appointed me for everlasting contempt and torment. It was his plan from the foundation of the world. He does the same with billions of others. LOVE IN ACTION."

You are well sophisticated in supplying a hearty battle/argument, Onofrio, but in as much as you are versed, although quite wrong about the Bible and the God of Christianity, you do not seem willing to submit your life to Him.

And your children are learning from your ways. Point them to the hope found only in Jesus. Don't let them leave this world without knowing Jesus.

ONOFRIO: "He has justly cursed me, blinded me, and condemned me, and he will punish me with maximum prejudice. Why should I pretend this is not the case? If I do, that's entirely in tune with my depraved nature, and to be expected."

From what I have seen you are the one cursing Him.

Half the battle is recognizing your depravity, the other half is turning to the Lord in repentance and humility. Come to your senses. You know the way, you know the truth, you know the life, but you have not met the Son and trusted in Him. Your faith is in your own reason and in your own power, your own autonomy. Where has it got you? God's ways are higher than your ways.

ONOFRIO: "I am reconciled to my fate, since I can do nothing to prevent it. Why fight a battle already lost? I live out the depravity with which God chooses to damn me."

You can't do anything, but God can. Ask Him for that mercy, let Him speak to you through His word instead of shaking your fist at Him and cursing Him in your misunderstanding of Him.

ONOFRIO: "Looks like case closed. What has light to do with darkness?"

Nothing, but Jesus came to save those who walk in darkness. Those who trust in Him will never be put to shame.

Just think of all those years you have been walking in darkness. Come into the light (John 3:21). Listen to His voice calling in the wilderness. Take your hands from your ears, open your eyes and acknowledge who He is, Lord of all (Romans 10:12-13; 9-11).

Don't rely on the wisdom of this world. It does not make sense.

Hello Onofrio,

ME: "You can't talk about "good" and "evil" until you have an objective, fixed standard for what it is. When are you going to give me that? You won't because you can't."

Exactly. I bite the hand that feeds me, and I steal brazenly from the inheritance of the saints. I am evil. Nothing I do or say makes any sense. It has neither foundation nor purpose. So I am well qualified to recognize nonsense, since it is my native idiom, appointed to me by God, through his instrument Satan."

So you finally admit it though, alas, I feel sarcastically. If that is not the case I apologize and feel for your pain because you are finally being honest with yourself and your world view.

ONOFRIO: "You see, I have lost everything, and I know it, so none of your *objectivity* applies. I go to the abyss."

Again, I feel you are being sarcastic, but again, if I'm wrong, then I can only say to you in all sincerity to ask God for mercy and His grace through His Son in saving your soul.

God is a loving God who resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:7-10)

It takes an act of God to realize that we are poor in spirit. When you are at your lowest and broken is when God is really there for you. Jesus said to those in such a situation, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Take hold of His promise for He does not lie. Trust in Him, as a child trust in their father.

Peter Huff

FINAL

Thee:
"You can't talk about "good" and "evil" until you have an objective, fixed standard for what it is. When are you going to give me that? You won't because you can't."

Exactly. I bite the hand that feeds me, and I steal brazenly from the inheritance of the saints. I am evil. Nothing I do or say makes any sense. It has neither foundation nor purpose. So I am well qualified to recognise nonsense, since it is my native idiom, appointed to me by God, through his instrument Satan.

As one adept at nonsense, I can say you're rolling it out in reams! It's very entertaining, watching you make yourself me. Yet you are beloved of God, so you'll go home to glory.

You see, I have lost everything, and I know it, so none of your *objectivity* applies. I go to the abyss.

I know and admit what I am, and in so doing I credit the objective standards of your God. Just as he has appointed you for eternal life, he has appointed me for everlasting contempt and torment. It was his plan from the foundation of the world. He does the same with billions of others. LOVE IN ACTION.

He has justly cursed me, blinded me, and condemned me, and he will punish me with maximum prejudice. Why should I pretend this is not the case? If I do, that's entirely in tune with my depraved nature, and to be expected.

I am reconciled to my fate, since I can do nothing to prevent it. Why fight a battle already lost? I live out the depravity with which God chooses to damn me.

Looks like case closed. What has light to do with darkness?

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"As He said, "your faith has healed you" (eg. Matthew 9:22) in that that persons faith and belief in the Son as able to do these things were instrumental in their healing."

More fuzzy *facts*...

Your TULIP doctrine teaches that faith IN Christ is entirely the gift OF God. A depraved human individual is incapable of generating this faith. So again, you make no sense to evil me. On one hand, God sovereignly dispenses faith in Christ. Yet here is Jesus crediting an individual with effective faith. He doesn't say: "God has given you the faith to be healed." He says YOUR faith has healed YOU.

God vs God.

And we all know what happens to houses divided against themselves. I know it especially well, since I live in one. You could say, I'm an expert in evil...

And of course, as a blind, abjectly subjective reprobate, I can't see truth. When I see nonsense, it's because I'm perverse enough to use my puny, depraved brain.

It's pointless relating stories about the *good* your church wreaks among its target heathen wretches. Since I am evil, I don't even know what *good* is. And I have no idea about *love* either. How could I?

You may as well be speaking Hindi.

The light shone in darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"So please don't talk to me about the evil God does, for you do not know Him"

Exactly. That is why I can say whatever I like about him. Damned if I do; damned if I don't. I am reprobate, so I'm just acting out of my depraved nature. Your pleas are not comprehended by the darkness.

Thee:
"neither do you see the difference He makes in the lives of those who put their unswerving trust and reliance on Him."

Oh he makes a difference all right! But because I am evil, the differences are nonsensical to me - just vicious, pious priggery. Sending despairing suicidal girls to eternal torment makes no sense to evil me; nor does it make sense to evil me that you seem to find their fate sad, yet you also believe that justice is served. Why not rejoice, since the universe is a better place for their burning? And God ordained their fate from the foundation of the world, so he can hardly be upset about his will being done!

Your coy woolly thinking about the fates of the little children is a case study of strategic fence-sitting and bad faith. According to your doctrine, every human being, from conception, has inherited Adam's sin, and is condemned by default to eternal conscious torment. Why would God admit special exemptions to this clear rule, based on merely human sensibilities?

That you admit a little chink of merely *subjective* human sentiment into your *objective* dogmatic framework demonstrates that you too suppress the Truth of God when it suits you.

Your inconsistency on this point demonstrates your lack of confidence in your God, despite your litanies of doctrinal rectitude. You are unable to approve fully the counsels of your own sovereign Lord. Think about that, next time you're among the benighted, anointing yourself with their misery.

You show yourself as perfidious and hopelessly subjective as me. You are embarassed by your God. Welcome to your actual nature!

We were witness to that today in our church service. For the last ten years, each summer members of Christ's body here have gone up to an Indian reserve and worked with, served and befriended those who need the help that only God can offer, and the meaning and purpose in life that they cannot find amongst themselves or in this world. This is a desperate community with lots of suicide, physical and sexual abuse.

So as His servants, our church members have witnessed to this community of Indians for ten years, by their deeds and actions and friendship. At first it was hard and there was lots of resistance, but it is amazing what God does in the lives of these people when they see the love of Christ and care, compassion and sharing that Christ brings.

Three of the girls of this community committed suicide this year alone. They have no hope outside of Christ. They need the supernatural power of God to change their natural situation. God brought some of these girls to spiritual life this summer and now they have hope.

So please don't talk to me about the evil God does, for you do not know Him, neither do you see the difference He makes in the lives of those who put their unswerving trust and reliance on Him.

Hi Onofrio,

Sin is impossible in heaven or else it would not be heaven. The Son has taken the sins of others upon Himself and died in their place to purge sin in those having faith in Him. As I said before, I believe that Jesus died for a specific people (He didn't just make salvation possible), for not everyone has the faith to believe, but I also believe that judging from His words little children are included as those He purged of sin because of such verses as Matthew 11:25; 18:3; Mark 10:14-16; Luke 18:16. That would mean that they are included in His mercy and Jesus died in their stead too. Whether I am correctly interpreting these verses or not does not discount the fact that God is just and good and will judge each person according to what his merits deserve. For little children I trust in the Lord that He will not only judge rightly but fairly in all He does.

But Jesus came to serve and help and to save the lost, for which I am grateful.

As He said, "your faith has healed you" (eg. Matthew 9:22) in that that persons faith and belief in the Son as able to do these things were instrumental in their healing. Their faith looked from what was impossible in the natural, to the supernatural power of God, believing who He is and what He is able to do.

Abraham believed that when God told him to sacrifice his son that God could bring him back to life again, and Abraham not seeing God's secret will (i.e. that Abraham would not sacrifice his son Isaac) followed His revealed will. It is faith that what God decrees and reveals to us is done with our best interest in mind, since God is good. The evil comes when we, through our own volition disobey that revealed will and act as our own wisdom and authority.

The same is true of the supernatural help we get from God in saving us. Spiritually we are dead to God. He has called us to believe in His Son as the means of bringing us from spiritual death to eternal life.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"On the one hand you slam God for evil and yet agree with His revelation on what "good" is (love and looking out for the best for your neighbor, whoever he may be)"

You are assuming that we agree on what these terms mean. But when you use them, you mean something entirely different from me when I use them. For instance, you think "love" involves eternal default torture for everyone who doesn't think exactly like you. I have a different view, which much, perforce, be wrong. And you also deny categorically that I have any basis for discerning truth. So conversation between you and me is actually impossible. We are, in fact, speaking two different languages that happen to sound alike.

My thoughts are only and always darkness, continually. Yours - being based on an objective standard - are light, and goodness, and truth. So how can you genuinely expect me to agree with you about what "love" means? Or about who my "neighbour" is, and how I should "look out" for them? Everything I do and think is aimless, pointless, and accursed. Yet you continue to lecture me as if I had a clue what you're on about. Clearly I don't, and can't. And clearly, the Holy Spirit has not seen fit to "use" you in this case.

You are actually showing, with every post, the opposite of the objective imperatives you espouse. You continue to relate to me - an abject reprobate - as if there were not a radical disconnect between your terms of reference and mine.

Seems you too are a "walking contradiction".

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"I do not rejoice in anyone suffering for eternity"

Why not? Don't you entirely approve of the way God has arranged things? There will be an awful lot of ordinary folk (i.e. depraved reprobates to you) suffering for eternity, including 3-year-olds, which is exactly as your sovereign Lord planned it. So what's not to like?

To be consistent with the "objective truth" you claim, you should be able to say: *Yes, I rejoice that every reprobate who is condemned to eternal suffering has received their just deserts, INCLUDING THE 3-YEARS-OLDS who know not their right hand from their left. As Adam-kin, they were cursed from birth, so their everlasting conscious torment is fully deserved.*

You can't even own up to your own dogmas, so how do you expect anyone else to embrace them? You preach in bad faith.

Thee:
"These are things you need to answer before you accuse God of being unfair."

Look, my reprobation is clearly established, so any "answer" I may have is null and void. I will simply confirm my depravity by continuing to rail against your God. He and I do not want each other, for he - being sovereign - has decreed it from the foundation of the world. Sealed.

God is God. If God wants me, then I will be God's (the I in TULIP). That is your own dogma. YOU need to answer why you can't rejoice in the eternal torment of 3-year-olds, given that it's the plan of your Lord.

But then, why should I expect a straight answer, since I am damned. The righteous, it seems, are not answerable for their beliefs. They simply issue ultimatums.

"HE is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because HE always lives to intercede for them." (Hebrews 7:25)

"To HIM who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy..." (Jude 24)

"Now, to HIM who IS ABLE to DO immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to HIS POWER that is at work within us, to HIM be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:20)

ONOFRIO: "Hence, you may not be as *Christian* as you think. You withhold your full approbation of the decrees and counsels of God."

I'm trusting, relying on, depending on, submitting to, following the only One who is able to save me, and this by His grace, not my own effort through merit on my part. I have no where else to go or where I want to go.

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68)

What can you offer the world, Onofrio? Your subjective opinion. Yahoo!

First show me why it can be trusted and then show me how it answers the important questions of life like why are we here, how you know it is true, what difference does it make and what happens when we die.

ONOFRIO: "As I am, you may become. Unless of course you can sing a song of praise for the God who righteously damns depraved little ones. To Him be the glory!"

If I am in the hands of God, as I believe, then He will never leave me or forsake me, for His word is true.

ONOFRIO: "Yet you shy away from the frank and joyous endorsement of her fate, which is the good and perfect will of your God. God wills it, so why not affirm and enjoy it. The little reprobate got her just deserts, right?"

God judges fairly whoever He judges, whether that person be in Christ or outside of Christ.

ONOFRIO: "You accuse me of being evasive, yet you, who are supposed to have a direct line to the Truth, can't bring yourself to revel in the full implications of that Truth."

Yes, you are evasive. Before you discount God you need to answer the questions I laid before you. You can't talk about "good" and "evil" until you have an objective, fixed standard for what it is. When are you going to give me that? You won't because you can't. You know the implications of a world view outside of God. It is meaningless and impossible to justify. There is no sense to it when it is deeply examined, except what it borrows from the Christian framework.

You are a walking contradiction. On the one hand you slam God for evil and yet agree with His revelation on what "good" is (love and looking out for the best for your neighbor, whoever he may be), and yet you have no way of explaining it in your world view. It is convenient to borrow from the very world view that you reject when it suits you to do so because your world view can't make sense of life.

ONOFRIO: "If you are less than certain of your position on the 3-year-old's fate, then you are not entirely convinced of your God's goodness and justice, no matter how much you protest otherwise."

No, I am fully convinced of God's goodness, I just do not have explanations for all the slants that come at me from unbelievers. That is an area that I have not fully sort the Lord's direction on.

I have found in other matters, such as salvation, the Word of Faith movement, a young earth creation, some aspects of election, an understanding of the atonement, it took years to come to a biblical position, but when it did happen the Lord confirmed the truth of His word beyond doubt and sometimes, as with the doctrine of eternal security for the true Christian, withing a day. God illuminated to my mind the object and the subject of salvation.

Hi Onofrio,

ONOFRIO: "Your God wants there to be a Hell to which most of his creatures will go. If he didn't will this, it could not exist."

That is just. You expect God to compromise His justice so that He fits your definition of good. That way God becomes a God of love but not a just God. You expect to break His commands and get away Scot-free on your own merit. And you expect Him not to be integral. You vehemently hate Him, judging from your remarks, and arrogantly paint Him as evil, judging from your descriptions of Him.

But "God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or bad." Eccles. 12:14)

He sent His Son for the purpose of saving those who would believe in the Son from His justice by meeting the payment for them and taking the wrath, the anger of their injustice upon Himself. You refuse to believe in the merit of His Son as the only way that man can be saved from condemnation. Unless you repent and believe are you getting anything that you do not deserve? No, not at all. You know He has warned you. You just like to suppress that truth.

ONOFRIO: "You seem to have trouble owning up to this simple implication of your dogma. If you love God, and believe his counsels fully, then you should be able to rejoice in the fact that a non-Christian 3-year-old killed in a car crash deserves endless conscious torment due to her inherited depravity."

I do not rejoice in anyone suffering for eternity, that is why spend so much time trying to pull apart your untruths and challenging you and others to give a coherent and logical defense of your beliefs. I contend that you cannot do that.

But your fate is what your actions deserve. You accuse God of injustice. By His grace and mercy I do not, and I know God is good and judges justly those who are not under Christ. Judging from some New Testament passages I believe there of differing degrees of punishment. But the doctrine of hell is not something I have fully looked into and the Holy Spirit has not led me into discerning the truth in this matter as of yet.

You have no answer for origins of life, how you know what you know, what difference it makes and what your final destiny is. There is no fixed point that you can turn to and say this is the objective truth. These are things you need to answer before you accuse God of being unfair. You treat Him as some myth or old wives tale.

As for little Children, I have already given you my thoughts on this subject and will not go further until I understand the doctrine more fully.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"The only way that may be is if I were never really a Christian to begin with,"

That, of course, is entirely possible...

Your God wants there to be a Hell to which most of his creatures will go. If he didn't will this, it could not exist. You seem to have trouble owning up to this simple implication of your dogma. If you love God, and believe his counsels fully, then you should be able to rejoice in the fact that a non-Christian 3-year-old killed in a car crash deserves endless conscious torment due to her inherited depravity. Yet you shy away from the frank and joyous endorsement of her fate, which is the good and perfect will of your God. God wills it, so why not affirm and enjoy it. The little reprobate got her just deserts, right?

You accuse me of being evasive, yet you, who are supposed to have a direct line to the Truth, can't bring yourself to revel in the full implications of that Truth.

If you are less than certain of your position on the 3-year-old's fate, then you are not entirely convinced of your God's goodness and justice, no matter how much you protest otherwise.

Hence, you may not be as *Christian* as you think. You withhold your full approbation of the decrees and counsels of God.

As I am, you may become. Unless of course you can sing a song of praise for the God who righteously damns depraved little ones. To Him be the glory!

ONOFRIO: "Go on, slam down a few more proof-texts. I've heard 'em all before - water off a duck's back - but don't let that stop you. I know you relish it so much, like you relish the *just* torture of all the *depraved*."

As for you, what is the source and measure of all your "wisdom?" You haven't been able to show anyone how your system of beliefs is able to answer anything. Until you can do that you are not playing fair ball. All you have constantly done is deflect the questions. So unless you care to go deeper, let it be known to anyone reading this that you are just blowing hot air. You haven't made an attempt to show how what you believe is true.

ONOFRIO: "*Blessed assurance* can be so closely counterfeited that it's a wonder the real thing is even identifiable, this side of *glory*. Or else, how could I have been you?"

You are not me. You turned back and did not carry on with the truth. Now you are in a quagmire of disbelief with the only One who can save you as being the very One you rejected. You need to repent and ask for God's mercy, but instead you dig your heels in all the more with your judgments of the God of the Bible, who you do not understand for the god of this world has blinded once again your eyes to the truth.

ONOFRIO: "As you indulge your zest for *being correct* and try to stopper your own fears, remember this: I was once as you are; as I am, you may become."

The only way that may be is if I were never really a Christian to begin with, for those who are His persevere by the grace of God, but I know one thing, there is no where else to turn for meaning, purpose and eternal life than in the pure blessings of of grace and mercy of a pure and holy God.

ONOFRIO: "You'd say "The Lord rebuke you!" and get back to prayer. Your scripture-studded screeds show you a frightened soul, no more. The Holy Spirit is not choosing to speak through you, Peter. You are not prayerful enough."

The apostle Paul gave a great example in the Book of Acts as he reasoned and debated with the Jews and in some cases Gentiles of his day on the trustworthy message. The reason you do not hear is because the way you look at life does not allow you to hear. You are bent on being your own god and placing judgment on the God of the Bible. So be it. One day you will see how futile this turns out to be.

ONOFRIO: "You assume that because I won't discuss them with you that I cherish no *foundations*."

I asked you to show how you can make sense of what you believe. I've contended without the Christian God you can't. The reason why you give no foundation is because you know it won't stand up to the light of God's word.

ONOFRIO: "In fact, you have already announced several times that they are built on sand, so there's no point me going into details, is there."

Easy way out for you Onofrio. This way you can ridicule and make fun of the Christian God and the position stated in the Bible without giving any account of why your world view can make sense. That appears to be the way you like it.

As for building your house in the sand, that is what the Lord Jesus said of those who do not put His words into practice. I'm just repeating them. You are the one making Him out to be a liar. And on such a basis you think you deserve to be spared from His justice?

ONOFRIO: "You know all about it. Since you're predisposed to assume the worst about me, just construe me a Satanist. I disagree with YOU, Peter-God, so I must be."

It is not for me to judge or condemn you. I'm just telling you two things. You can't make sense of truth, or sense of sense, in any world view that does not think God's thoughts after Him and secondly, your going in the wrong direction, the bridge is out and I hope that God will lead you or someone else reading this to repentance.

Hi Onofrio,

ME: "What do you understand about justice Onofrio?"

ONOFRIO: "Default eternal torment is unjust. And that's putting it mildly."

You never answer the questions. Is that because you don't have any answers Onofrio, but your subjective opinion?

ONOFRIO: "You can proof-text till your fingers drop off, and prate about your *objective standard for justice*; you aren't going to scare me into your TULIP heaven, founded on terror and torment."

What do you base all the torment and terror in this world on Onofrio? What kind of measurement do you have to say that terror and torment is wrong? The social norm? Is that your standard?

ONOFRIO: "As I said, your God freely chose to create a cosmos where Hell is necessary for the vast majority of his creatures. Some sovereignty! It is his good pleasure and perfect will to bring myriad beings into existence simply to torture them forever."

You seem to have a one track mind on this issue. You neglect the issue of justice. Does a lawbreaker not deserve justice? You want to live this life on the basis of your rules as fair and just, but you can't explain to me why they "should" be this way, O Grand Puba.

ME: "How does it explain evil and is there any justice to evil?"

ONOFRIO: "The TULIP God to whom you subscribe is evil, Peter. He delights in torturing his puny creatures, a cosmic psychopath. And you are under his spell. You endorse his pernicious regime and call it *just*."

Great answer! As always you can't give any meaningful explanation because your world view doesn't have one. Nice going Buddy! Switch the subject as quickly as possible.

ONOFRIO: "I think, deep down, you suspect your infant-torturing God, otherwise you would not write at such exhaustive and anxious length in response to evil me."

I'm doing what I set out to do and that is expose any system of thought that does not think God's thoughts after Him as futile and senseless. It has zero explanation to it.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"What do you understand about justice Onofrio?"

Default eternal torment is unjust. And that's putting it mildly.

You can proof-text till your fingers drop off, and prate about your *objective standard for justice*; you aren't going to scare me into your TULIP heaven, founded on terror and torment.

As I said, your God freely chose to create a cosmos where Hell is necessary for the vast majority of his creatures. Some sovereignty! It is his good pleasure and perfect will to bring myriad beings into existence simply to torture them forever.

Thee:
"How does it explain evil and is there any justice to evil?"

The TULIP God to whom you subscribe is evil, Peter. He delights in torturing his puny creatures, a cosmic psychopath. And you are under his spell. You endorse his pernicious regime and call it *just*.

I think, deep down, you suspect your infant-torturing God, otherwise you would not write at such exhaustive and anxious length in response to evil me. You'd say "The Lord rebuke you!" and get back to prayer. Your scripture-studded screeds show you a frightened soul, no more. The Holy Spirit is not choosing to speak through you, Peter. You are not prayerful enough.

You assume that because I won't discuss them with you that I cherish no *foundations*. In fact, you have already announced several times that they are built on sand, so there's no point me going into details, is there. You kno all about it. Since you're predisposed to assume the worst about me, just construe me a Satanist. I disagree with YOU, Peter-God, so I must be.

Go on, slam down a few more proof-texts. I've heard 'em all before - water off a duck's back - but don't let that stop you. I know you relish it so much, like you relish the *just* torture of all the *depraved*.

*Blessed assurance* can be so closely counterfeited that it's a wonder the real thing is even identifiable, this side of *glory*. Or else, how could I have been you?

As you indulge your zest for *being correct* and try to stopper your own fears, remember this: I was once as you are; as I am, you may become.

Continuing Onofrio,

ONOFRIO: ""these men of God"
Makes them sound like apostles..."

No, just men who believed in the God of the Bible, and as Henry Morris points out for many of them, a literal or plain reading of Scripture and a young earth, which did Isaac Newton.

ONOFRIO: "Isaac Newton did not believe in the Trinity. He thought that the doctrine of Christ's deity was "idolatry". Newton also denied that Satan and demons were actual beings. You see, he fancied himself an authority on how to interpret the Bible, and wrote voluminously on the matter."

The Bible is the Christian's authoritative guide, not Isaac Newton and if any Christian speaks on matters that do not line up with God's objective and authoritative word then he is not speaking from a biblical position. But Isaac Newton, believing in the biblical God could posit truth about God's creation by rightly thinking God's thoughts after Him, as Newton did in determining that the earth is young in age and also reasoning that God's word can be taken plainly when it is not using figurative or poetic language. The context determines how we interpret it, and although some of it is difficult to rightly discern, the basic message will leave no rational man who hears it with the excuse that he could not understand it, for "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven to men by which they MUST be saved." (Acts 4:12)

ONOFRIO: "According to your belief system, Newton's strident anti-trinitarianism is grounds for damnation, since he refused to accept the *truth* about God. Indeed he *repressed* it fulsomely."

The Bible makes it plain that God is a triune Being. But that does not mean that Sir Isaac Newton could not rightly discern true science by thinking God's thoughts after Him, and he did in many circumstances. God is our standard, not Isaac Newton.

ONOFRIO: "I'd recommend that you go well beyond Henry Morris' tendentious primers, if you care about truth..."

Who do you suggest? Do they have an absolute, objective reference and measure to point to and if so, what?

ONOFRIO: "As for this litany of pre-Darwinian savants; they lived within a Christian cultural consensus, so it's unsurprising that their discoveries were all tangled up with their piety. So what? Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Pythagoras, and other great Hellenic contributors to our *scientias* were all pagans. Shall you be crediting Zeus, Apollo, and the Muses alongside Newton's Arianism?

No, they don't hold a Christian world view. Only when the borrow from it do the correctly discern truth.

Hi Onofrio,

ONOFRIO: "Your God needs and wants eternal Hell as part of his cosmos. His *justice* requires that almost every sentient being he ever created will know unceasing, unspeakable horror."

What do you understand about justice Onofrio? What is your world view based on and how does it explain justice? How does it explain evil and is there any justice to evil? Are you an atheist, agnostic, pagan, or do you hold to some other type of god, such as Allāh? For any of these world views to be consistent they need first to have an objective standard for justice and be able to account for the injustice in this world. Why is there evil Onofrio?

There is described in Revelation "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language" so the number is not meager as you make it out to be (Revelation 7:9).

ONOFRIO: "Included in that set are billions of infants, dead before they even *know their right hand from their left*. If my little daughter were killed tomorrow, she would go to this TULIP fate, simply because she is descended from *Adam*. She is *depraved* by default. And this you call *beauty* and *truth* and keep insisting that it's just."

I do not want to misrepresent the biblical position on infant salvation so I will refrain from making a comment until I understand it better, except to say that a)Jesus died to save a specific people and He saves everyone of those, that is a given, and b) He also seems to suggest that little children are under the covenant of grace (Matthew 11:25-27; 19:14; Mark 9:37; 10:15-16; Luke 10:21; 18:15-17)

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"If you are interested, please see A.W. Pink for a more detailed explanation of your questions the other night on God's condemning people, for that is a huge and complex question that would open up areas that I do not fully understand at this time."

I've encountered A W Pink already, Peter. You keep forgetting, I am steeped in Calvinian/evangelical Christianity. I lived there for years. Nothing you recommend is new to me.

Your God needs and wants eternal Hell as part of his cosmos. His *justice* requires that almost every sentient being he ever created will know unceasing, unspeakable horror. Included in that set are billions of infants, dead before they even *know their right hand from their left*. If my little daughter were killed tomorrow, she would go to this TULIP fate, simply because she is descended from *Adam*. She is *depraved* by default. And this you call *beauty* and *truth* and keep insisting that it's just.

It's loathsome, and no convoluted pious Pinkery can mitigate it.

Peter Huff,

"these men of God"

Makes them sound like apostles...

Isaac Newton did not believe in the Trinity. He thought that the doctrine of Christ's deity was "idolatry". Newton also denied that Satan and demons were actual beings. You see, he fancied himself an authority on how to interpret the Bible, and wrote voluminously on the matter.

According to your belief system, Newton's strident anti-trinitarianism is grounds for damnation, since he refused to accept the *truth* about God. Indeed he *repressed* it fulsomely.

So I'm afraid you and your TULIP God can't claim him. He's one of mine. ;^) another hellbound wretch...

I'd recommend that you go well beyond Henry Morris' tendentious primers, if you care about truth...

As for this litany of pre-Darwinian savants; they lived within a Christian cultural consensus, so it's unsurprising that their discoveries were all tangled up with their piety. So what? Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Pythagoras, and other great Hellenic contributors to our *scientias* were all pagans. Shall you be crediting Zeus, Apollo, and the Muses alongside Newton's Arianism?

Or can you appropriate that too? Ah yes, of course you can. They were just stealing from your God, weren't they.

Hello Daniel,

Part three.
DANIEL: "What could religious absolutes do before Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin?"

Actually Henry M. Morris wrote a little book titled "Men of Science, Men of God" in which he lists the great men of science who also believed in the God of Christianity and listed their contribution to science, of which I synapse some of what he said about them. Men such as Johann Kepler (1571-1630), the founder of physical astronomy; Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who formulated and established the “scientific method; Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662), a mathematician and philosopher, considered the father of the science of hydrostatics and one of the founders of hydrodymics; Robert Boyle, (1627-1691), the father of modern chemistry; John Ray (1627-1705), the father of English natural history; Thomas Burnet (1635-1715), one of the first geologists; Isaac Barrow (1630-1677), professor of mathematics at Cambridge, who taught Isaac Newton; Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who discovered the law of gravity, laws of motion and developed calculus into a comprehensive brand of mathematics; John Woodward (1665-1728), one of the founding fathers of geology; Carolus Linnaeus (1707-17778), a founding father of biological taxonomy; William Herschel (1738-1822), an outstanding astronomer; Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716), a gifted mathematician and philosopher, co-discoverer with Newton of calculus; Jean Deluc (1727-1817), a naturalist and physicist who studied geology and coined the word “geology”; James Parkinson (1755-1824); Michael Faraday (1791-1867), acknowledge to be one of the greatest physicists of all time; Humphrey Davy (1778-1829); George Cuvier (1769-1832), one of the greatest anatomists and paleontologists; David Brewster (1781-1868) founded the science of optical mineralogy; John Dalton (1766-1844), the father of modern atomic theory among other things; Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869); Samuel Morse (1791-1872), inventor of the telegraph; Joseph Henry (1797-1878); Matthew Maury (1806-1873); James Simpson (1811-1870); James Joule (1818-1889) and these men before or during the time of Darwin alone, to name just some.

Noting Darwin; he abandoned the religious beliefs he was raised with and set out in a new perspective, influenced of course by the "Enlightenment" and the trend towards humanism.

DANIEL: "Answer: absolutely nothing. So why should anyone believe of religions past that they have any absolute knowledge? Religions have precisely time and again demonstrated themselves wrong when the topic is the objective world!"

Because so much of what we call science today, and I am not talking about evolutionary science, was founded or vastly improved upon by these men of God, before or during the time of Darwin, when he upset the apple-cart and set science in a new direction of speculation.

DANIEL: "Again: it would be more noble than any religion if men could learn to live together without positing a given absolute--more noble because men would not be just positing an absolute out of what is essentially weakness, an inability to consider an existence without an absolute, an existence without God."

You can live as if God does not exist, but you can't make sense of anything by doing so. How well do you think man has done so far in denying God?

As for us all living together as one, that would only happen if a tyrant or dictator ruled the world and it was his way or the gas chambers.

Christianity calls us to live together in peace and love our neighbor, but that will not be until or unless Jesus again reigns physically on this earth. There is too many diverse opinions out there as to the way things should be.

DANIEL: "And I believe, whether Christians such as yourself like it or not, that man will be able to live without the given absolutes of religions--because the given absolutes of religions themselves were the only absolutes men could think of at the time,--were subjective understandings with respect to the mystery of existence."

How do yo know?

What we are witnessing in America more and more is a subjective relativism, that if left unchecked would lead to anarchy, where every man/woman did as he/she saw fit. You have a political grid-lock in your government, where nobody can agree with anyone else on what is the "best" course of action for America, even on the one issue - Health Reform.

What makes you think that we are all going to live together happily-ever-after when there are so many trying to undermine the US position, where it can be agreed upon, in this world? Watch the Security Council debate issues and see how each country has it's own agenda, its own opinion on any given topic.

DANIEL: "Certainly every physical understanding of religions past (understanding which we now call the realm of biology, physics, astronomy, etc.) was wrong. Religions have constantly demonstrated themselves--and notoriously so--of being utterly unobjective with respect to the very physical world before our very eyes."

Only when we have thought God's thoughts after Him have we made a positive discovery and a true discovery. And most of the men of science before the Darwinian revolution also believed in God. We have built on their findings until the time of Darwin.

DANIEL: "But you say all is relative without a belief in God, a given absolute, that life is impossible."

That is right. You pit your opinion against another and you tie facts together into a system of belief, but not being able to see the full aspects of any fact and not having a full knowledge of how the facts was created and relates you are speculating on someones subjective opinion if you are not trusting in God's revelation. But the point is that there are lots of ways of looking at the facts and there is a lot of disagreement over the facts. Why is the way you look at the facts the right way of looking at them?

DANIEL: "And what if life is not impossible without your given absolute?"

Try and make sense of it without God. Where does it come from? Did life come from non-living matter? Is conscious separate from matter or is all we are biological bags that react differently to the stimulus around us?

As I have said, you have the big "what if" that cannot make sense of anything.

DANIEL: "What if humans make an effort and learn to work together in an existence with no given absolute?"

Given approximately six thousand years of recorded history, man in his relativism and subjective opinion has not been able to mutually exist with the same set of ideals and moral values. Why do you think this will change?

Here we have another great "what if?"

Hello Daniel 12,

Part two.

DANIEL: "But I have news for you. This pure subjectivity of man without God you deplore so much might not be an impossible existence--it might just be more difficult than living with a given absolute."

I have news for you too!

Impossible to make sense of unless you can provide a fixed standard and one that is objective. Why "should" I conform to your subjective opinion if I am stronger or smarter than you are and disagree with what you say?

DANIEL: "And in being more difficult has every right to consider itself more noble than any absolute just given in human history."

"More noble" is again a qualitative value. How do you get or measure "more noble" without an objective reference point of what nobility is, and what the best qualities of nobility are? Do you contrive in your mind, or allow another subjective mind to conjure up the standard you will follow?

Well, what if I disagree with your standard and want to impose my own "most noble" standard?

No, you come up with what nobility is from the Christian position.

DANIEL: "Certainly we see those with a scientific bent creating an "objective view", a considered way (by scientific method) that all can more or less agree with which does not just posit absolutes."

Ridiculous statement. If it doesn't posit absolutes then there is no certainty in it. It is just a chance happening. Laws don't happen by chance and nothing is consistent and uniform in a chance world.

Scientific "bent" has been wrong in the past and will continue to be wrong in the future, as fact becomes better known. I believe evolutionary science will one day be shown for the hoax that it is.

How can a subjective opinion create and objective view unless it thinks correctly from an absolute objective standard, of which science is not?

PP: "What makes you think your *book* makes you immune from these very things? Doesn't seem to have worked yet."

I'm not immune from sin, but the Holy Spirit is my guide as to what is right and God's revelation is my standard, in as much as I understand it correctly. But I can point you to the objective standard in which all things are measured by and which things can be made sense of. Can you do the same for me?

God is perfectly capable of making Himself understood, but with an opposing world view, you will not accept what He says. That would mean giving up your beliefs.

Any interpretation of the Bible is only accurate if it conveys the Author's true meaning. Language is capable of communicating truth, and we do that as we communicate to one another in everyday life. So Scripture is perspicuous when taken in its context and things are not added to it that it does not say.

Hi PaganPlace,

I see you are ready to resume the dialog!

ME: "That is correct, man cannot live a life that is not downright evil by basing his existence on himself as the ultimate reason and measure of all things. Open your eyes and look around you at all the inhumanity and injustice on display around the world this very day."

PP: "With all the inhumanity and injustice on display by, if not actively advocated by, people using themselves interpreting a book how they like while displacing responsibility for what parts they choose, how they translate them, and how they interpret them, to measure all things, including 'good and evil...'"

In some cases, yes. But without God's council, His written revelation to us, man is the measure of all things and all men have varying degrees of measurement. There is no objective standard in such a scenario, so all it boils down to is personal or group might. "It is the way it is because I say it is, and if necessary I'll back it by force." And that is all that your world view can establish, PaganPlace, nothing else. A subjective opinion does not establish what "good" is. It can only derive what good is from an objective source. What is yours?

You have an agenda that you "feel" is the "best" to live by or else you would be advocating a different agenda, like millions of others do. And from what I have seen of your agenda, you borrow from the Christian world view that says it is good to love your enemies and treat those who oppose you with respect and dignity. But in a world without God, why? It doesn't matter. All that matters is if my views are the ones that others live by.

Our position as Christians is that we are living in a world that is determined by God, and any fact is what it is because of God and what He says it is, therefore we can only derive truth and certainty from Him. AS such, we can make sense of truth, morals, uniformity of nature, logic, knowledge, because of Him, but the unbeliever can't. That is the position I have been driving home to those who deny Him. I'm attempting to show them that there is no position that can answer anything meaningfully without borrowing from the Christian position. God's revelation is the standard.

Peterhuff:

"That is correct, man cannot live a life that is not downright evil by basing his existence on himself as the ultimate reason and measure of all things. Open your eyes and look around you at all the inhumanity and injustice on display around the world this very day."

With all the inhumanity and injustice on display by, if not actively advocated by, people using themselves interpreting a book how they like while displacing responsibility for what parts they choose, how they translate them, and how they interpret them, to measure all things, including 'good and evil...'

What makes you think your *book* makes you immune from these very things? Doesn't seem to have worked yet.

Hi Daniel,

Glad you recognize it for what it is, so let's start the battle (Ephesians 6:12; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

DALIEL 12: "The best I can tell from reading your posts is that you are religious because you suffer from a particular problem, and that problem is that without a belief in God you not only feel all is subjective but that man cannot live with his subjectivity only determining his existence."

There is no "feel" about it. Please point to an objective authority/standard outside of God.

That is correct, man cannot live a life that is not downright evil by basing his existence on himself as the ultimate reason and measure of all things. Open your eyes and look around you at all the inhumanity and injustice on display around the world this very day.

Without an ultimate reference and measure that is God whose standard are you going to point to?

DANIEL 12: "You are not religious because of any tenets put forth by Christianity, by an addition of Christianity to your life, you are religious because you cannot fathom man only determining his existence, which is to say man without an ultimate and absolute and given reference point.
In other words, you are religious because you feel the problem of human subjectivity before a mysterious universe cannot be solved unless an absolute is posited, and your prefered absolute is the centering of the Bible in your life. And the success of your notion--the entirety of what I have just stated--depends on humanity not being able to go down through history with its subjective understanding only."

Christianity is a relationship with God through the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is found the treasures of all wisdom and knowledge of what is true.

What do you have to offer me? Your subjective goodness, your understanding, your sensibilities, your authority on what "should" be?

Christianity makes sense because of the impossibility of the contrary. Do you want to make sense of things? I challenge you to try without quickly borrowing and falling back on the Christian perspective.

I will attempt to reply to Parts 2 & 3 tomorrow. It is past bed time.

Hi Onofrio, again.

ONOFRIO: "Thee (shrilly, apres proof texts):
"Do you hear? Or do you still wish to contend with your Maker?"

ONOFRIO: "I'm not contending with my Maker, Peter, I'm contending with you, a man. Unless of course you think Maker and you are one and the same...

Actually you do contend with your Maker, and my Maker is different than I am. I'm just one of His creatures whom He has adopted into His family.

You contend with your Maker when to call His word into question and become the judge and jury on what He has said.

ONOFRIO: "Your dogma leaves you no choice but to deem me hellbound, and make all sorts of insinuations about how wicked I must be. I am a just a unit in your theo-calculus."

Where you end up is not for me to determine. You're driving in the wrong direction and I've come from there. The bridge is out and I'm warning you of the peril of continuing on in that direction.

I tell you the bridge is out, from seeing it for myself, but because the road looks good and well traveled you ignore what I'm saying to you. And posted along the highway in the direction you are going are other warnings that you continue to drive by, ignoring the authority that put them there and the truth conveyed in the message.

ONOFRIO: "I am not constrained to cast you into the pit, or demand that you submit to my superego, a.k.a. *God*. You are simply a man, probably quite a decent one, with whom I profoundly disagree."

And I profoundly disagree with you and I point you to an Author and Authority higher than yourself or me.

ONOFRIO: "I really don't begrudge you heaven, Peter. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Yet you and your God NEED me to be damned. I wish you well."

That is not true. The reason I bring up the presuppositional argument is that the classical or evidential one does not go deep enough in presenting the problem of your world view to you, and that is, that it is built on sinking sand (Matthew 7:24-29, as alluded to before).

ONOFRIO: "So whose side is the Maker really on?"

On the side of justice, goodness and purity.

Hi CCNL,

CCNL: "As to early Christian belief that the coming of Jesus was "predicted" by the prophets: One only has to read Matthew 1:23 and then read in context Isaiah 7:14"

There again, you are dead against the Scriptures and all that they reveal because they speak of your condition, so naturally, a natural man - one who sees everything from a natural rather than a supernatural point of view - will look at all the evidence he can conjure up that supports his position and all the "experts" that he can find that affirms what he WANTS and wills to believe.

And this belief you have, that you are now liberated, is just one more deception as to the bondage you're in, with yourself as the ultimate in reason.

"Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:20-21)

As the writers of the New Testament could say (and I will give you two references, for I don't think more are needed),

"This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things [positive proof that you will not hear what I'm saying unless the Spirit is speaking to your heart] 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 2:13-14)

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God...For God, who said, 'Let light shine in darkness,' made His light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:3, 4, 6)

ONOFRIO: "And on the sharp end (you are dealing with a devil, after all) why should not, say, a Catholic, a Muslim, or a Wiccan with such a testimonial about their god(s) be given any less credence than you?"

Because God does not reveal Himself one way to one group or one person and another way to another, for He does not change and He does not lie or deceive, nor is He illogical although His ways are higher than ours. Another way of saying that is that He is not a God of confusion; man is the one who confuses and makes himself false gods that go against what God has revealed, both naturally by what has been made and through His special divine revelation of who He is and the state of this world - Scripture, the Bible.

A god (or gods) who keeps giving contradictory and therefore false information about himself/themselves is not a god(s) that is worthy of respect or love. It is the God who, in His integrity actually reveals Himself for who He is and the world as it truly is that demands worship and respect and the glory He is due, for He alone created all this vast and awesome and complex universe, with all its diversity and beauty. The fact that it is marred from its original form is due to man's disobedience and sin, and to His judgment on this by the covenants He originally made with Adam.

If you are interested, please see A.W. Pink for a more detailed explanation of your questions the other night on God's condemning people, for that is a huge and complex question that would open up areas that I do not fully understand at this time.

http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Depravity/depravity.htm

Hi Onofrio,

ONOFRIO: "You mention "Meeting in spirit the Lord Jesus" - it sounds elusive and mystical. What did it actually entail in phenomenal terms?"

It didn't entail a physical encounter. I did not physically see or actually touch or audible hear the Lord Jesus Christ.

Initial, spiritually I heard the message, the message of God speaking to my heart, my inner being, my spirit that before was spiritually dead to His leading, that day that the pastor asked those who did not know Him to come down the isle, repent and ask for His mercy in saving.

Granted I did not come into a closer, more intimate relationship with Him until 1987 or 88, from the initial meeting until seven or eight years later, I forget when exactly, but it was around that time, when my wife and I started attending a church in which the Lord of Glory opened Himself up to the truth of His word and slowly started working on my false and distorted view of who He is.

His Spirit convicted me of the truth of His word, slowly over time, to show me who He was as we became better acquainted through His word, by prayer and through the circumstances that God directed in my life. I was also able to reflect on how He had His hand on me through the circumstances of my previous life events and journey to bring me to Him in the first place - the people He used and maybe many who prayed from me.

He showed me that my fellowship with Him is also with the Father, and that He is the only way to the Father, because He is the only Mediator worthy and capable of bridging the gap between man and God. He has shared with me much of the imagery and types in the Old Testament that were pointing to and fulfilled only in Him. He has taught me that only reliance and trust in Him and His finished work will satisfy God's righteous indignation towards sin and that in and of myself I have no righteousness to offer the Most Holy God. It is the merit and perfect righteousness of Jesus that stands in my stead for my faith rests in Him, in what He has done, in who He is. There is no boasting, except in Him!

What NT exegetes have said about Peter Huff's "thumptations":

From Westar:

"As to early Christian belief that the coming of Jesus was "predicted" by the prophets: One only has to read Matthew 1:23 and then read in context Isaiah 7:14 (which Matthew is quoting) to
realize what Matthew thinks Isaiah is saying is not what Isaiah thought he was saying. In other words the NT writers read the HB as though it was comprised of oracles of God that could never go
out of date, and thus had to have some application in their own day.

Hence there had to be a meaning deeper than the surface meaning, so Matthew applied allegory in order to wrest from the text a meaning appropriate to his faith. I hasten to add that the Dead Sea Scrolls community also read the HB in the same way but they did not come to the same conclusions that the early Christians did even though using the same texts. So what confidence can one have that such a method will produce a reliable historical "reading"?

Even the Jesus Seminarians like Professor Crossan accept Matthew 10: 34-39 as being said by the historic Jesus. 74+. Peace or Sword: (1) Gos. Thom. 16; (2) 2Q: Luke 12:51-53 = Matt 10:34-36.
http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/074_Peace_or_Sword

John 8: 31-32 is a single attestation therefore it is not historically reliable i.e. one of the reasons why John's gospel is not considered "synoptic".

Peter Huff,

Thankyou for the precis of your life and testimony. I appreciate that you offer it at such a late hour. Rest you.

This is a different face of Peter Huff; less the dogmatist, more sympathetic.

As far as I can tell from your account, your *meeting* with Jesus has been an incremental, highly personal, spiritual experience. It is your very life-story, so I would not seek to gainsay it, any more than I would seek to gainsay Thomas Baum's encounters with the Trinity and Satan. I realise that confirms me a mere relativist in your eyes.

You mention "Meeting in spirit the Lord Jesus" - it sounds elusive and mystical. What did it actually entail in phenomenal terms?

And on the sharp end (you are dealing with a devil, after all) why should not, say, a Catholic, a Muslim, or a Wiccan with such a testimonial about their god(s) be given any less credence than you?

I recall a dear friend of mine from undergraduate days (20 years ago), a gracious young woman, devoutly Catholic, who had profound mystical experiences that she attributed to Mary. At the time, I held views fairly close to yours, and so I was constrained to be critical of these visions, to see them as illusory, even devilish. Yet their effect on the woman in question, on the whole, seemed very positive. Already of fine character, she became even better - her empathy, sense of humour, her serenity, and motivation were all enhanced. There was a joy in her that made her, well, saintly. And it has lasted.

None of that makes me feel any kindlier toward the RCC. For every Gabriela there is a TTWSYF. My point in relating this anecdote is that genuinely edifying spiritual experiences do not always seem to conform strictly to doctrinal standards, despite our best attempts to confine them there.

I have also known people whose spiritual experiences - in the long run - have made no positive difference to their lives, or have even had a detrimental effect on their character. And a few of these had testimonies not unlike your own, in doctrinal terms.(I'm not suggesting that your experience has come to that result :^) )

And further, I have known people to make rather radical, positive reforms in their own lives without any doctrinal framework at all, rather the stark lessons of experience. You yourself had a brush with death, as have I several times. These things can change our course drastically, sometimes toward a doctrinal commitment, sometimes away from one.

Thee:
"I know, by His grace, that He is working for my good."

Then you are blessed. BARAKA.

Here, it was through discipleship and studying His word that the Spirit of God taught us about who God was. I started talking to God in prayer every day and reading my Bible. I went through years of seeking Him and in the process He rebuked and discipled (and still does) me in areas of my life that were not in line with the truth.

I contended against Jehovah's Witness and Ba'hai, atheist and Word of Faith as God brought me to a deeper understanding of who He is and the truth of His word.

I fought for two years on trying to discern the truth on whether or not a Christian could lose his salvation.

By the Lord's grace He revealed it to me one night as I read verse after verse in which He was the object of the action and we were the subjects of salvation.

"For He SHALL save His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:23)

He has confirmed many truths to me in the same fashion, but none has been greater than meeting in spirit the Lord Jesus Christ and discovering that my life is hid with His, that God has countered me dead and that the Son now lives through me. Jesus has given me new life, abundant life for it is His eternal life in me.

I look back and see His hand on my life in placing these people in my path, in the circumstances that brought me to Him and how He directs my life through His word and by His Spirit and through circumstances all the time. Sometimes this has been painful, all kinds of annoying circumstances while He teaches me a lesson, like at work this last month or the cost of following Jesus.

"and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:38, 39)

Or,

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. Foe whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it" (Matthew 16:24-25)

Or,

"To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to My teaching you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

I know, by His grace, that He is working for my good.

I have to go to bed. Tomorrow comes early.

I took a job in the Northern Transvaal on a small private game reserve bordering on the Kruger National Park. My roommate was a "born again Christian" who befriended me. He even took me to a revival tent meeting in Durban. I told him, "This is not for me." He also included me and an older Christian widow in visiting a local farmer.

Going into town one day for supplies for the game reserve I was driving and had the bosses son with me in the front seat, his friend and an African helper in the back seat. None of us were wearing seat belts. It was hot, I drowsed off and we hit a truck doing road repairs (at probably more that fifty miles an hour).

God spared all our lives. The African suffered partial paralysis in one arm, the bosses son broke his neck and leg, his friend broke his leg and I broke my hip and landed in hospital for one month.

I don't remember anything between the crash and being revived briefly on the way to hospital (about an hour away). It is almost as if I never existed during that time. That is the only time I have experience a blackout in my life.

Not being able to renew my visa I returned to Canada and decided to attend a church. The pastor was preaching on the Lord Jesus Christ and his love for sinners. He asked is anyone did not know Him, to come forward to the front of the church, repent and ask Him to be their Lord and Savior. I felt the pull of God's Spirit on my heart and I came forward.

Life did not change dramatically after this for I was not discipled. I met my wife in 1981, we were married in 1984 and around 1987 or 88 we felt the need to attend church again.

Onofrio, I'll try and answer this post and then I must be off to bed. Sorry Daniel 12. I have not forgotten you, but I don't want to stay up all night.

ONOFRIO: "Yes, yes, I know. Unless I subscribe to the Christian Bible via Van Til, I can make no sense. Only statements consciously founded on absolute Van Tilian certainty can be taken seriously. If I make any sense at all, I can only have stolen it from Christ."

There is a constant belittling of the Christian belief and of the Christian God. All I am attempting to do is show that without Him nothing makes sense and you have not done anything to show otherwise, because you can't. You have avoided providing anything more than a subjective opinion that doesn't make sense. There is no ultimate standard except what you deem it "should" be. The irony of the whole thing is you don't see this. Instead you pull out every stop to avoid the issue of answering these questions.

Why are you right in what you believe? What is your highest standard and highest authority?
How do you know that your measure of good is the true standard for measuring it?
Is qualitative truth objective or subjective?

ONOFRIO: "As I have already asked you, tell us about when you *met* Jesus, Peter...."

As a young child my mother used to kneel at the side of my bed with me and recite a simple prayer. My Granny gave me a Bible with the words inscribed, "Suffer little children to come unto Me."

As a young child growing up in Africa I was constantly sickly with various diseases. By God's grace I survived.

We immigrated to Canada in 1970 and I experienced cultural shock and the desperate need for friendship caused me to fall in with a crowd who did drugs.

My Father died in 1979. I returned to Africa and I kept running across Christians.

My uncle used to give me nuggets of wisdom such as "As you sow, so you reap" as we climbed the mountains around Cape Town and cleared away a plant that was introduced to the area and was killing of the rest of the vegetation.

O Nongod, who knows who knows not...

Here is a Maker who needs an eternal Hell.

And here is a Maker who doesn't...

Which is the better Maker?

Peter Huff,

Thee (shrilly, apres proof texts):
"Do you hear? Or do you still wish to contend with your Maker?"

I'm not contending with my Maker, Peter, I'm contending with you, a man. Unless of course you think Maker and you are one and the same...

So get this, Maker Huff. You still haven't explained why it's good and holy for your God/yourself to torture dead infants forever.

Nor have you given a brief description of the time you met Jesus, despite my reasonable requests. Abashed about your credentials? Or just falling between the cracks in your rhetoric?

If I have *skirted*, you have threefold.

Your dogma leaves you no choice but to deem me hellbound, and make all sorts of insinuations about how wicked I must be. I am a just a unit in your theo-calculus.

One advantage, this side of Hell, of being as damnably uncertain as I am, is that I don't have to consign YOU anywhwere in eternity. I am not constrained to cast you into the pit, or demand that you submit to my superego, a.k.a. *God*. You are simply a man, probably quite a decent one, with whom I profoundly disagree.

I really don't begrudge you heaven, Peter. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Yet you and your God NEED me to be damned. I wish you well.

So whose side is the Maker really on?

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"The problem with you is you do not see His purity and holiness; that One of such infinite goodness and love cannot tolerate injustice and evil."

How is a three-year-old infant, dead of hunger, deserving of eternal torment? How is that sentence *pure* and *holy*?

You are willing to countenance such horror merely to preserve the consistency of your blessed certainty.

I find that disgusting. If it makes me of the devil's party to think so, so be it.

ME: "...but only might bullying others to accept its position."

ONOFRIO: "The God you have described comes across as the very paragon of Might makes Right. His provision of eternal hell for those whom he does not introduce to Jesus = the ultimate act of bullying."

You figure you have the right to be in His kingdom, and yet you want to be king?

There is a difference between man's might and goodness and Gods. First, God makes the rules for He created and owns all things and they are right for that is His nature. You, in your limited wisdom and insensibility are trying to impose your might on Him by dictating what should be and by making judgments on His character and essence in your limited understanding.

You have been pointed to the Savior, yet you dig your heels in all the more in disowning and denying Him and who He is (Matthew 10:32; John 8:24) You want to meet Him on your terms and you want Him to conform to your image of what He "should" be.

"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' And let him who HEARS say, 'Come!' Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of eternal life." (Revelation 22:17)

Do you hear? Or do you still wish to contend with your Maker?

So He sent His Son as the loving act of redeeming the world. The problem is that since the Fall man's disposition is constantly towards evil. How could it not be when every man "wants to rule the world", wants to be autonomous and decide for himself what the standard of good will be.

Can you imagine what heaven would be like is everyman did as he saw fit in his own eyes? Look at the world around you.

You still need to account for "evil."

Has God not given you warning? You continually ignore it and thumb your nose at the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the way to God but deny and reject Him who came not to judge the world but to give eternal life (Matthew 22:1-14; John 3:17-19). So unless God has mercy on you and gives you a new heart, for you will not change for your nature is set (your way of looking at life will not let you), you get what you deserve, justice.

In creating the first man God gave him a choice of intimate fellowship and getting to know God relationally in a perfect world or for man to decide for himself without the guidance of God to know the difference between good and evil by eating of the tree of knowledge and disobeying what God command/said to do. This was the only limit that God set on the man. God warned there would be consequences for eating the fruit for then man would be evaluating everything from his/her own mind, reasoning for himself without the total picture what good was. That was the start of relativism where everyone makes their own truth.

From the point of eating the fruit onwards man was marred and God acted out His judgment for wrongful action (sin) as He said He would. Death entered the world as well as the curse of pain in childbirth for the woman and the curse on the ground for the man (the law of entropy).

ONOFRIO: "The *sense* your bookbound Calvinian-Van Tilian-theonomic God makes is a cosmic atrocity."

You have broken His laws. Are you going to deny Him justice or deny Him mercy if He so chooses?

The fact of the matter is you have condemned yourself in doing what is wrong. You will not humble yourself and ask for mercy, and seek God with your whole being, but continually rebel and show your hatred towards Him with your judgment and proclamations that slander His good character. This is what every man does, by his own volition, and he expects goodness without justice to be his measure.

Hi Onofrio,

I see there is a lot to respond to and little time tonight. The problem with conversing with more than one person at a time is sometimes you get swamped.

ME: "So, as I keep saying, the God of Christianity is necessary to make sense of anything because without a final, absolute, universal, objective reference and measure, a fixed standard, there is no reference and measure and truth and certainty and goodness.."

ONOFRIO: "This is a God for whom it is Beautiful and Good to bring billions of human beings into existence, then arrange for 98% to spend eternity in torment, just to make the other 2% (if that) appreciate his costly *grace* a whole lot. When you apply the terms "truth and certainty and goodness" to this situation, you are using an appalling doublespeak."

I can see you will not (more to the point, can not) give me an answer to the questions I ask. You keep diverting the subject.

You seek to judge God for acting justly in punishing sin, to shake you fist at Him and constantly reject His kindness to you in giving you life and breathe and food and all the things you take for granted every day. You will not bow down to the fact that He is wiser and greater than you, so unless He has mercy on you, you will be judged according to what YOUR actions deserve. You will never humbly submit to Him because you think your goodness is the measure of what goodness is, a goodness that is without justice, without authority, without full knowledge.

Does not the Creator have the right to decide what happens to His creation and creatures? Is He not the One on whom goodness is the measure and knows how to administer it?

Can you imagine what is would be like if He did not punish and separate those who do evil? He would compromise not only His justice and goodness in allowing evil but also His character, which is impossible for a pure and holy Being to do.

The problem with you is you do not see His purity and holiness; that One of such infinite goodness and love cannot tolerate injustice and evil.

The moderate writes:

Farnaz:

"I suppose one could do worse than find solace in goat fellowship, given the stresses attendant on twenty-first-century human. Perhaps, OnFaith will tackle the question."

So you pet goat loves you after all?

(Quick quiz for the astute among the poets: To what satyrical lyric verse do the pet goat jokes allude?)
------------------------
No, I fear my pet goat has fled for parts unknown. There is something in a goat that prefers a rural setting. Should you see her, please let us know.

There are a number of magnificent goat poems, one of them by the great Italian poet Umberto Saba, but there is no humor in it. Perhaps, I shall post it at some point.

Goats, I fear, have been getting a bad rap. Bacchus is, no doubt, appalled, and we shall be hearing from Him shortly.

Who is this fellow/gal called "Muckenfuss"??

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"So, as I keep saying, the God of Christianity is necessary to make sense of anything because without a final, absolute, universal, objective reference and measure, a fixed standard, there is no reference and measure and truth and certainty and goodness.."

This is a God for whom it is Beautiful and Good to bring billions of human beings into existence, then arrange for 98% to spend eternity in torment, just to make the other 2% (if that) appreciate his costly *grace* a whole lot. When you apply the terms "truth and certainty and goodness" to this situation, you are using an appalling doublespeak.

The *sense* your bookbound Calvinian-Van Tilian-theonomic God makes is a cosmic atrocity.

Thee:
"...but only might bullying others to accept its position."

The God you have described comes across as the very paragon of Might makes Right. His provision of eternal hell for those whom he does not introduce to Jesus = the ultimate act of bullying.

Farnaz:

"I suppose one could do worse than find solace in goat fellowship, given the stresses attendant on twenty-first-century human. Perhaps, OnFaith will tackle the question."

So you pet goat loves you after all?

(Quick quiz for the astute among the poets: To what satyrical lyric verse do the pet goat jokes allude?)

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"I appreciate your posts. I feel you have skirted the main issue directly, but indirectly your answers show exactly what I have been saying all along, that is, without the Christian world view there is nothing ultimately you can point to that can be made sense of."

Yes, yes, I know. Unless I subscribe to the Christian Bible via Van Til, I can make no sense. Only statements consciously founded on absolute Van Tilian certainty can be taken seriously. If I make any sense at all, I can only have stolen it from Christ.

As I have already asked you, tell us about when you *met* Jesus, Peter. You asked me whether I've *met* him, and clearly I can't have. So please disclose (concisely) the circumstances of your own encounter.

I wonder if you will be able to describe this meeting without recourse to a string of Scripture quotes. I anticipate that all I will get from you (if anything) is just such a set of proof texts.

Daniel 12,

It's evident that Peter Huff subscribes to *theonomy* - rule by (Christian) God's law - which is founded on the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til and has been articulated most notably by Greg Bahnsen, Gary North, and R J Rushdoony.

Look 'em up on Wiki, and get a taste for what you're dealing with here. Scary stuff.

If these guys had their way (and they have been a big influence on the Christian Right in the US) what I have posted here on this thread would be a capital crime, punishable by stoning.

All-American mullahs-on-the-make. Calvinist Taliban.

As you can see from his posts, Peter Huff has contempt for any statement that does not derive from the reductionist steel-trap of Cornelius Van Til's apologetics.

You are dealing with an autodogmaton, a Calvinist version of the Opus Deist and flagellant TTWSYFAMDGGJMJ2.

Daniel12 wrote:

"Or are you willing to compromise democracy in elevating your beliefs? "

It is precisely this odious threat that makes it imperative for people such as Peter Huff to be denied public/governmental office.

To Peter Huff. The post below is #1 of a three part post. I forgot to write "Part one".

To Peter Huff from Daniel.

The best I can tell from reading your posts is that you are religious because you suffer from a particular problem, and that problem is that without a belief in God you not only feel all is subjective but that man cannot live with his subjectivity only determining his existence.

You are not religious because of any tenets put forth by Christianity, by an addition of Christianity to your life, you are religious because you cannot fathom man only determining his existence, which is to say man without an ultimate and absolute and given reference point.

In other words, you are religious because you feel the problem of human subjectivity before a mysterious universe cannot be solved unless an absolute is posited, and your prefered absolute is the centering of the Bible in your life. And the success of your notion--the entirety of what I have just stated--depends on humanity not being able to go down through history with its subjective understanding only.

Part two.

But I have news for you. This pure subjectivity of man without God you deplore so much might not be an impossible existence--it might just be more difficult than living with a given absolute. And in being more difficult has every right to consider itself more noble than any absolute just given in human history. Certainly we see those with a scientific bent creating an "objective view", a considered way (by scientific method) that all can more or less agree with which does not just posit absolutes.

But you say all is relative without a belief in God, a given absolute, that life is impossible. And what if life is not impossible without your given absolute? What if humans make an effort and learn to work together in an existence with no given absolute? Again: it would be more noble than any religion if men could learn to live together without positing a given absolute--more noble because men would not be just positing an absolute out of what is essentially weakness, an inability to consider an existence without an absolute, an existence without God.

And I believe, whether Christians such as yourself like it or not, that man will be able to live without the given absolutes of religions--because the given absolutes of religions themselves were the only absolutes men could think of at the time,--were subjective understandings with respect to the mystery of existence. Certainly every physical understanding of religions past (understanding which we now call the realm of biology, physics, astronomy, etc.) was wrong. Religions have constantly demonstrated themselves--and notoriously so--of being utterly unobjective with respect to the very physical world before our very eyes.

Part three.

What could religious absolutes do before Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin? Answer: absolutely nothing. So why should anyone believe of religions past that they have any absolute knowledge? Religions have precisely time and again demonstrated themselves wrong when the topic is the objective world!

I personally believe science will march on, that new frameworks for existence will be created that do not just posit absolutes out of a need for belief. The absolutes of science will be based on evidence,--and these absolutes will be provisional, liable to criticism and replacement. Furthermore in the face of religions saying man cannot live in a relative world without God let alone devise a morality I believe that man will do just that. The entirety of world religions these days hinges on precisely whether man can take that final step of giving up the religious absolute. Certainly as we have seen science has all but replaced the religious, "objective" view. All that remains is that final step. And you dearly know that Peter Huff. Your entire argument is based with the knowledge of that on your mind.

You say man cannot live in a relative world without God. But thousands of men and women are doing just that--and even being creative in morality. So far as I can tell Peter Huff, your entire argument is the manifestation of religion in its dying days, proposing the final arguments that it can muster in the face of having had so many of its assertions demolished, all those assertions that science has demonstrated to be not only clear error but silly. But continue in your beliefs. Just do not tell the rest of us what we can and cannot do. We do live in a democracy you know. If people want to they have every right to try to live in the relative existence you deplore so much. Or are you willing to compromise democracy in elevating your beliefs?

If so, be prepared to have a battle royal on your hands.

Who is this fellow/gal called "Muckenfuss"??

Peter Huff wrote:

"But probability and possibility go hand in hand. "

According to whom? You make vast pronouncements without offering even a shred of empirical evidence to support them. You have no credibility. Christianity is just another false religion, with all its parts stolen from other religions, and which makes to logical or rational sense. You can prove nothing you write. You are just a mighty rushing wind.

Hi Daniel 12,

DANIEL: "A pity. All of human science, evidence from history, demonstrates that man rose from quite primitive status to now, a being that can contemplate the universe, and with evidence of indefinite human improvement."

Man had to start somewhere, but the starting point is where you and I disagree.
You build on a starting point that does not include the Christian God; I build on the Christian God as my final reference. I can make sense of the what, why, and what difference believing makes, you cannot.

DANIEL 12: "But the religious insist on reducing all evidence of possible design to their paltry books, that God is behind it and this means this and that means that."

So what is your highest standard, your ultimate reference point and do your beliefs change?

DANIEL 12: "And in opposition to all the religious--because the religious are so dogmatic--we have quite intelligent minds saying there is no evidence of any intelligent design....This stupid battle between the religious and non-religious--I suppose I should say atheists--blinds us to the fact that here we are, intelligent, and that we should simply continue to think, refine our thought processes."

I agree with you, religion is man's attempt to create God in man's image instead of worshiping Him for whom He is, as revealed in the Bible. But are you not being the very thing you are accusing others of - dogmatic?

DANIEL 12: "If everyone would just do that atheists would not worry if a person wants to emphasize possible meaning behind the universe."

In order for there to be meaning, not just preference or possibility, there needs to be an objective standard and final reference point outside of subjective opinion. Can you point to that reference or make sense of why your ideas of what "should be", should be? In your relativism you are trying to make your standard fit on others. Why "should" I believe you? On what grounds?

Possibility is another name for a belief clocked in uncertainty. You can't rise above it for chance is what possibility is - anything can happen. Based on "your" experience you rule out certain things based on probability. But probability and possibility go hand in hand. Whereas God in His council and wisdom plans and governs what will be, therefore we can know for certain only from the Christian world view.

There again, in order to make sense of this you need an absolute, objective measure for values - God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the ontological Trinity, the One true God. He is necessary.

Hi Onofrio,

I appreciate your posts. I feel you have skirted the main issue directly, but indirectly your answers show exactly what I have been saying all along, that is, without the Christian world view there is nothing ultimately you can point to that can be made sense of.

You don't have any certain knowledge on what is true but you act like you do. In that sense you borrow from the Christian world view that can make sense of these things.

I challenged you in the field of ethics and qualitative values to provide anything other than subjective opinion and preference as your final authority and reference point. You have not. Therefore I continue to ask what makes your subjective opinion of any value or of any significance in determining what "ought" or "should" be? Yet you are quick to critique what I believe as untrue.

An objective standard is necessary in order to make sense of evil and wrong because anything else is just one person, one group, one society, pitting its might against another and the victor being the one with the most might, the most influence, but don't call what they do "good" or "right", just preference.

I challenged you in the area of truth and knowledge as to how you can be certain of anything you know and again you have not been able to give anything other than subjective speculation of why what you believe is true. Again, if there is no objective standard that you can point to then how do you know that what you believe in valid? There is no certainty in your belief. The best you can do is go by your preference but cannot make sense of why it is what you claim it to be.

I asked you where logic and uniformity of nature comes from in a world that without God would have come about by chance because there would be no mind directing and ordering and conforming the universe to the design and order and complexity that we see. All there would be is possibility in all its randomness, with no laws or fixtures to govern.

Without God IS it evolutionary science you look to in all its changeableness and uncertainty to answer why we are here, how you know and what difference it makes? We both know the record of evolutionary science in its quest to discover truth. You have so many competing claims out there so how do you arrive at what is true? You don't because the scale, the measure, the reference keeps changing.

So, as I keep saying, the God of Christianity is necessary to make sense of anything because without a final, absolute, universal, objective reference and measure, a fixed standard, there is no reference and measure and truth and certainty and goodness, but only might bullying others to accept its position.

At the moment I am not able to respond to your posts, but will sit down tonight, the Lord willing, and try and answer some of your more interesting questions, statements and allegations.

A pity. All of human science, evidence from history, demonstrates that man rose from quite primitive status to now, a being that can contemplate the universe, and with evidence of indefinite human improvement. But the religious insist on reducing all evidence of possible design to their paltry books, that God is behind it and this means this and that means that. And in opposition to all the religious--because the religious are so dogmatic--we have quite intelligent minds saying there is no evidence of any intelligent design--nor evidence of any path before humanity by which humans can become even more...human. This stupid battle between the religious and non-religious--I suppose I should say atheists--blinds us to the fact that here we are, intelligent, and that we should simply continue to think, refine our thought processes. If everyone would just do that atheists would not worry if a person wants to emphasize possible meaning behind the universe. And those emphasizing possible meaning--some sort of intelligent designer--will be able to sit at the table with the atheists without insisting we all pray and pounding the table going "God, God, God!" But I am saying nothing new. Just that people should become more philosophical.

Hi Farnaz,

Thee:
"To date, no one has proven that Satyrs did not exist nor that they are not now among us. I daresay they did and are. Else who would now wait on Bacchus?"

Zesta!

Could do with some satyric diversion.

Apparently, according to Peter Huff, I am "like the Jews".

My heart is strangely warmed...

Not to belabor the issue of goats and humans, I wish merely to mention that Dyonisus was attended by Satyrs, creatures with human, horse-and-goat-like features.

To date, no one has proven that Satyrs did not exist nor that they are not now among us. I daresay they did and are. Else who would now wait on Bacchus?

Hmmm, one is out of town for a few days and finds after his return the same problems with probability waves like Muckenfuss. Considering the involvement with one's consciousness, one should be wary of communicating with said shadows of the night.

I will accept derision for the following:

Me @ August 9, 2009 9:13 PM:

"a colloquy of male churchmen"

Make that "churchmen".

Me @ August 10, 2009 12:21 AM:

"defualt bearers of Adam's original sin"

Make that "default".

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'" (Matthew 19:14)

What? A loophole in TULIP?

The implication of TULIP, O Calvinist, is that "the little children" - as defualt bearers of Adam's original sin - are hellbound if they have no saving faith in Christ.

That would apply to most of the infant mortality that has ever occurred on earth - myriad "little children" who suffer eternal pains for their inherited depravity.

How many infants die *without Christ* every day in the Third World? And all of them are headed for the eternal conscious torment your *just* TULIP God has appointed for Adam's kin.

What price certainty?

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"How certain are you of anything you believe?"

Clearly, not as certain as you, Peter. Certainty trumps uncertainty, eh?

We should all be afraid, very afraid, of uncertainty, yes?

Peter Huff is dead certain, so tentative Onofrio must be - ultimately - just dead. And it's all in that magic book, the dictums of which will strew Hell with such predestined ingrates as Onofrio. Oh SO justly too.

Let me just distil your thoughts for you, Peter, so everyone can be clear about where you're coming from:

Biblical presuppositional diagnostics prove that Onofrio's uncertainty can only be a desperate attempt to cloak the seething pit of his sins that he's trying to justify/cover-up/deny because he wants to keep enjoying them, in defiance of the one and only true God. He is simply avoiding the fact that he is a depraved sin-slave, justly consigned to the eternal torment his deeds deserve, unless he stops suppressing the truth and accepts-Jesus-as-his-Lord-and-Saviour.

Feel free to cut-and-paste this in response to my posts. It will save you a lot of time.

Peter Huff,

As for deciding what writings are to be included in the Christian *Word of God*, human councils did that. The mind of God = a colloquy of male churchmen, it would seem.

There has never been any recorded directive from the Christian God naming which books should constitute the canon of Scripture. Therefore, what is in the canon is there by the very same process which you deride in me - human deliberation. And there was a good deal of it, back in the day. Shepherd of Hermas grudgingly out; Revelation grudgingly in.

It may be that those canon-defining deliberations were divinely guided, as claimed by the RCC, the Orthodox, et alii. But that's something that can only be decided by an attitude of "Taste and see" faith. Such faith is the work of God (must be, if one is a Calvinist). But that does not make it a proven fact to those not privy to the experience, nor cognisant of the God in question.

Nor should it need to be. That you try to make it so demeans it.

Peter Huff,

Thee at me:
"There you go spouting your higher criticism again, deciding for yourself as the final arbitrator what is and what is not the word of God, what should and what should not be inserted in the New Testament, and placing yourself as judge and jury. Again, and again, and again; what makes you the expert, the all seeing reference of what is true?"

I do not claim any expertise in these matters, so it's unfair to pin that on me. One does not have to be an all-seeing expert to ask questions, to object conscientiously. Nor is my arbitration "final". My jury is out, Peter. In many ways, I'm actually SUSPENDING judgement, something which your Either/Or absolutism cannot accept.

With regard to the complete package of *Scripture*; apparently, I am not allowed actually to engage with it, to question it robustly; I must submit to its authority, on no grounds other than "You'd better, you oughta, or else." This great bulwark of truth, for all its fortress-like front, won't let itself be touched by my puny subjectivism. It just shouts me down from a distance, and demands that I submit. Might that be because it will start to crumble, or even disappear - the magic enchantment broken - if I handle it too boldly?

You make the canon a forbidding, lofty tyrant, with the evanescence of a bubble.

Did not the stranger at Jabbok allow Jacob to WRESTLE with him?

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"I see you have been busy throughout the night. %)"

It was not night where I live, in the Austral Fundament. It's now Monday 10am here - a beautiful winter's day.

Thee re J:
"Have you met Him; do you follow Him?"

As anything that I have experienced on this score must be WRONG, it's redundant to go into details. But as you are RIGHT, and I am benighted, why don't you describe the time you *met* Jesus, Peter Huff. Did he exhibit his nail-holes?

PeterHuff wrote:

"There you go spouting your higher criticism again, deciding for yourself as the final arbitrator what is and what is not the word of God, what should and what should not be inserted in the New Testament, and placing yourself as judge and jury."

HAHAHHHAHA You are the most self-centered little prig who has ever claimed to be a christer. There is no god, you cannot prove the existence of god, and your "holy" bible is nothing but a stack of paper written 50-75 years after the fact. You imagine yourself to be judge and jury...so why shouldn't Onofrio adopt the same attitude as you. The truth is that you have no idea what the truth is. Prove ONE WORD of what you say. Empirical proof, not merely reiterating the bible as "proof" of itself. It is nothing. Christianity is nothing but magical thinking on the part of people who are afraid of the dark and fear not existing. Smoke, mirrors, and nothing more.

ME: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we MUST be saved." (Acts 4:12)"

ONOFRIO: "A mere assertion, in English, of a Greek rendition of a speech that may not even have taken place (invented ideal speeches are common in ancient Greek and Latin historiography), or if it did, may not have been reported fully and frankly by *Luke*, nor translated accurately from the Aramaic in which it was probably delivered; assuming, of course, that transmission of the speech was reliable in the first place."

There you go spouting your higher criticism again, deciding for yourself as the final arbitrator what is and what is not the word of God, what should and what should not be inserted in the New Testament, and placing yourself as judge and jury. Again, and again, and again; what makes you the expert, the all seeing reference of what is true? Why is your "proof" that which decides what is real, what actually happened? For every expert that affirms one set of beliefs there is an expert that affirms another. But what is their testimony based on, a relative, changing standard, that shifts like the sand, or an a solid Rock that never changes, and a foundation that is secure? (Psalm 18:2; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11)

ONOFRIO: "I'm not saying it's not worth considering. I am saying it doesn't live up to your claims of knock-em-down factuality."

Sure it does, and you have yet to show me how yours does. God is true. How certain are you of anything you believe? Could that belief change tomorrow as new evidence becomes available?

ME: "or repent and humble yourself of your stubborn and sinful ways and let Him guide you into the truth."

ONOFRIO: "You're stumbling over your TULIPs there, Peter. If I am resisting your sovereign God, it is because he has hardened my heart, like Pharaoh's. There's no *letting* Him do anything. I am this way because it suits his purposes. Just another vessel of wrath, me. And particularly so, since I have turned from the truth to my own destruction. You know, cauterised heart and all that. No hope. :^)

I don't think I am stumbling over the TULIP's, Onofrio. The call of the gospel to repent is for all who will believe. I do not know if that includes you. That is not for me to decide, but it is for God in His grace and mercy to decide. I tell others the Good News of Jesus Christ and I don't candy coat the bad news of the situation those without Christ find themselves in.

If you do not repent, God is still just for you are getting what your actions deserve, justice. The merit of your works will either be judged on the basis of your law breaking or the merit of the One who paid the debt in our place (Matthew 20:28; Hebrews 9:15). You need t seek His kingdom and His righteousness with all your heart (Matthew 6:33), for those who come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, believing, relying, trusting upon Him and His merit are not disappointed (Romans 9:33). The problem is the same of that of the first man and woman, they question the truthfulness of what God has really said. They put themselves as judges over the word of God instead of what it really is, the judge over them.

ONOFRIO: "Can't blame me for trying. It's a howling abyss after this pinprick life. May as well make the most of my convictions, and rage well, while there's breath in my body."

That is just the point, you trying. Justification does not come on the merits of what you do, for you are not perfect. Justification comes on the merit of Jesus Christ, and no other (Romans 8:1; John 3:17-20 esp.)

ONOFRIO: "Yet for all his sovereignty, he still finds it necessary to create and endlessly incinerate all those unsaved infants. For all his sovereignty...

"Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'" (Matthew 19:14)

Hi Onofrio,

I see you have been busy throughout the night. %)

ME: "There again, God has promised to preserve His Word and the message is still understood, whether in KJV English or modern English."

Circular. Depends on prior commitment to the unproven assertion that a certain body of literature is in fact, exhaustively and incontrovertibly and exclusively *God's Word*. God promises this in the Bible; the Bible's veracity in this regard is TO BE PROVEN. Again, you beg the question.

It is proven on the inconsistency (notice the spelling - happy?) of the contrary. Without God you still have to make sense of anything without borrowing from His standard; something you have yet to do.

Second point, everything depends on prior commitments. You can't formulate anything without building on something else. Don't muddy the issue.

ME: "And many today side with the liberal camp of higher criticism, twenty centuries removed, that has its own agenda as the higher authority."

ONOFRIO: "Insinuates I subscribe to some *camp*, simply because you do. That's projection."

Again, we all subscribe to some camp, we all build on some foundation Matthew 7:24-29), and you are building on the ideas of the liberal higher criticism group because you use arguments that came from that position.

ONOFRIO: "My questions and my conclusions are my own."

All ideas are influenced by other ideas. Your thinking has not happened in a vacuum. There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10), but under the Son all things are new.

ONOFRIO: "It may surprise you to know that they arose from my own honest encounter with Scripture, not someone else's *agenda*."

Jesus said to the Jews of His time and the same can be applied for those who have not met the Savior, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life." (John 5:39-40)

Studying the Scriptures does not save you. It is meeting and following the Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ that saves. Have you met Him; do you follow Him? No, you deny the One who holds all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Himself (Colossians 2:3).

You are an old wine skin that is incapable of holding new wine (Matthew 9:16-17; 2 Corinthians 5:17) for you do not have the deposit and seal of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14), for the Spirit only dwells in a clean vessel (1 Corinthians 3:16; Romans 8:5-9, esp. vs 9), and Christ has washed those who believe and made us clean (1 Corinthians 6:11; Titus 3:5). You are presently like the Jews of Jesus' day who see Him from afar but refuse to come to Him to have life (John 1:5, 10-13)

Farnaz wrote:

"If you scroll down, you will find yourself chatting with the Moderate on romancing the goat"

Yes, of course. Thanks for the reminder. That explains your reference.

Muckenfuss,

Re: Whence goats

If you scroll down, you will find yourself chatting with the Moderate on romancing the goat.

Of these kind creatures, I have but small knowledge. However, I've learned that they are curious and intelligent, have long dwelled in mythic mind, pulling Thor's chariot, romping through Yule celebrations, strolling in ancient Chinese lore.

I suppose one could do worse than find solace in goat fellowship, given the stresses attendant on twenty-first-century human. Perhaps, OnFaith will tackle the question.

Onofrio wrote:

"You have no sense of irony.
Pay attention, Peter."

Is it just I, or do you think "Peter Huff's" writing style is more than vaguely similar to another fanatic who was very recently posting here?

Poor Peter! For all his magical thinking, there just simply is no god.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"The consistence of God's word and its authority is witness to what it really is, the word of God."

You're biting your tail again, "like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel..." Might change if you forsake "consistence" for consistency ;^)

Thee:
"Since you are blind to that fact and cannot hear what it is saying and refuse to come to Him to have life, you will have to wait and see,"

Ah, the threat of hellfire. I was wondering when that would be deployed. You should try arguing without the big stick. Might make an honest man of you.

Thee:
"or repent and humble yourself of your stubborn and sinful ways and let Him guide you into the truth."

You're stumbling over your TULIPs there, Peter. If I am resisting your sovereign God, it is because he has hardened my heart, like Pharaoh's. There's no *letting* Him do anything. I am this way because it suits his purposes. Just another vessel of wrath, me. And particularly so, since I have turned from the truth to my own destruction. You know, cauterised heart and all that. No hope. :^)

Can't blame me for trying. It's a howling abyss after this pinprick life. May as well make the most of my convictions, and rage well, while there's breath in my body.

Thee:
"Both God and you cannot both be autonomous."

Correct. Only one *both* necessary.

Thee:
"God is sovereign."
The last shout of the suicide bomber.

Yet for all his sovereignty, he still finds it necessary to create and endlessly incinerate all those unsaved infants. For all his sovereignty...

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we MUST be saved." (Acts 4:12)

A mere assertion, in English, of a Greek rendition of a speech that may not even have taken place (invented ideal speeches are common in ancient Greek and Latin historiography), or if it did, may not have been reported fully and frankly by *Luke*, nor translated accurately from the Aramaic in which it was probably delivered; assuming, of course, that transmission of the speech was reliable in the first place.

I'm not saying it's not worth considering. I am saying it doesn't live up to your claims of knock-em-down factuality.

Peter Huff,

"You don't claim any objectivity, let alone superior, Onofrio. Here is what you said:
"It is true, I think, that subjective is subjective. Objectively speaking, I think subjective cannot be objective. Moreover, subjectively, I think objective is objective, subjective subjective. I stand by the objective truth of the foregoing." "

Scroll down. I think you'll find that the author of these words is Farnaz.

You have no sense of irony.

Pay attention, Peter.

WALTER: "there are many other ideas about god. i mean, many cultures propose fallible gods who argue with each other. sometimes gods make mistakes. why did god build our eyes how he "did" (stupidly, with the rods/cones on the wrong side of the retina)?"

You are right, there are many different and contrary ideas about God. Without His revelation to us all there would be is speculation. God does not make mistakes. Evil and entropy happened after the Fall, not before. BTW, how do you explain evil?

WALTER: "so, if you want an all-everything perfect god, then it is more logical to say "our eyes evolved that way" than to say "god messed up there."

Like I said, it happened after the Fall and is a consequence of the Fall of man, the original sin, not God making a mistake.

WALTER: "also, if he's so omniscient/omnipresent, why is he giving different messages to different people. he told some people he wrote the koran."

He doesn't. People make up religious beliefs when they suppress the truth of God (Romans 1:18; John 4:24). The god of the Koran is not the same God of the Bible. Mohammad was influenced by a number of different religious beliefs, including those of the pagan goddess of the crescent moon and aberrant Christian teachings.

WALTER: "he should be more clear - that's an imperfection."

He is clear. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we MUST be saved." (Acts 4:12)

That is clear. Man does not like his supposed autonomy imposed upon, so this tenant becomes unacceptable and he dictates to the Almighty, sovereign Lord how things will be. But God is true to His Word.

Hi Walter-in-fallschurch,

I did not see you hiding between the other posts.

ME: "...either that the Bible is the revelation of God or it is not. Only by the first presupposition can anything be made sense of because "Right" needs an objective, absolute reference point to be made sense of."

huh? the proposition that the bible was revealed by god is not proven, or even supported by, the idea that "right" needs an objective reference point."

Okay, which reference point will you take as "right?" Why does that reference point become right? Can you answer these two questions first?

WALTER: "the notion that "right needs an objective viewpoint" is actually just your subjective opinion."

Based on the only way that "right" can be made sense of, the Word of God. Without an ultimate, objective, omniscient reference, that is God, how is right measured? Who gets to choose what it is and why is their subjective sense "right?"

WALTER: "the proposition that the bible was NOT revealed is much more likely, based on objective facts."

No it is not. Again what is your highest authority in making such a claim as "objective facts"? Were you there 2000 years ago or when the universe began?

No, you presuppose based on certain foundational premises that cannot be proved. So why are you "right?"

Again, I could point out to you some of the consistences and the unity that comes from the Bible, but your presuppositional foundation would look at the evidence through colored eyeglasses. There is no neutrality in any position taken, but only one can make sense of your question.

ME: "it is logical that only an omniscient, all-comprehensive Being would be able to disclose how things really are"

WALTER: "again, huh? how is that logical? that's just the kind of god you've conceived."

Logic does not come from chance, but from mind. Again the proof is in the consistence of the Christian world view and what the God of the Bible has revealed about the way things are and how they got this way.

ONOFRIO: "To reiterate: belief in the Christian Bible as the exclusive, definitive *Word of God* is just as subjectively-based as not believing it. Duelling subjectivities is the best it gets, Peter. I do not claim superior objectivity for myself, just that your belief that you can establish your own objectivity simply by quoting Scripture is demonstrably illusory.

You don't claim any objectivity, let alone superior, Onofrio. Here is what you said:

"It is true, I think, that subjective is subjective. Objectively speaking, I think subjective cannot be objective. Moreover, subjectively, I think objective is objective, subjective subjective. I stand by the objective truth of the foregoing.

By your own words, subjectivity is subjective, so where is your OBJECTIVE STANDARD to make such a claim. You are claiming to speak objectively, since you are "objectively speaking", so therefore you must know all things, qualitatively speaking? Is that correct, or how else do you make the determination that is true, that somethings are objective? Oh yeah, you borrow from the Christian position that can make meaning out of such questions!

Hi Onofrio,

ME: "So either you have a world that was created by God who controls all things or you have a world that is a derivative of chance." Can you think of a third option, Onofrio?"

ONOFRIO: "That's a false dichotomy. Neither statement can be proven objectively."

Nothing can be proven at all without God. It is just one speculative opinion pitted against another. The necessity of God is needed to make sense of anything. That is proof in itself. Anything else is mere opinion. Why is your opinion meaningful?

ONOFRIO: "This either/or is reminiscent of the "lord. liar, or lunatic" ultimatum issued by C S Lewis. Bullying rhetoric."

The illustration he used was to show the non-believer the audacity of claiming any old thing. He couldn't be good or God if He was either a liar or self-deranged and what many an atheist or agnostic or pagan or religionist believed about Jesus was that He taught some good stuff but He wasn't God. C.S. Lewis was showing that that assumption would be silly.

ONOFRIO: "Even if there is a "God who controls all things", it does not NECESSARILY follow that that God = the various shades of deity contained in the Christian anthology called *the Bible*."

Yes it does. Religion is contradictory. All religions make these claims. Only the Christian claims are consistent with what is real, how things are.

ME: "Can you think of a third option, Onofrio?"

ONOFRIO: "I can think of several."

Wow, I didn't know you had so many! This is overwhelming. Do you have any more?

ONOFRIO: "The flaw in your argumentation does not lie in the Van Tilian charge that your non-Christian adversaries are all subjectively-based in their presuppositions. The flaw lies in your assumption that commitment to the Bible is, ultimately, any less subjectively-based."

Only from an objective, ultimate, absolute, universal, omniscient source or reference can there ever be objectivity, and only from that source can it be known. For anything to be known as it really is God would have to disclose what it really is like, for He alone sees every aspect of every fact.

ONOFRIO: "Strawman. I do not say that translation cannot transmit meaning with some degree of accuracy. But your assertions about Scripture require a far higher level of accuracy than that. The GIST is not enough, if we're talking ACTUAL EXACT INFALLIBLE WORDS OF GOD. You set the bar that high by your high claims."

Because what is said disagrees with your world view you call it a strawman. What I said was that the original Greek manuscripts contain the infallible word of God and from all the copies we have we can know the word of God accurately because God has preserved His word.

The problem of those who tear the Bible to shreds is that they do this because they have a hidden agenda, to justify what they do in their own minds. Once you claim that this or that verse is not accurate, which ones do you decide are? Every man decides and nothing makes sense.

I believe God, you don't, and that is only because of His mercy and grace that He has shown me through His word and by His Spirit.

You either take God at His word or you look to another authority. The problem is there is no higher authority or any sensible way of looking at anything without God. Jesus said He is the way, the truth and the life. So if you appeal to anything else you appeal to a lower authority that is false.

Remember, you and I are twenty centuries removed from what happened. The consistence of God's word and its authority is witness to what it really is, the word of God. Since you are blind to that fact and cannot hear what it is saying and refuse to come to Him to have life, you will have to wait and see, or repent and humble yourself of your stubborn and sinful ways and let Him guide you into the truth. Both God and you cannot both be autonomous. God is sovereign.

Why would I want to believe what you say? You have no answers to the deep questions of life, the questions of meaning and purpose and joy and satisfaction and ultimate love.

The unbeliever justs want to push their own agenda as they stand in opposition to God.

Peter Huff

And so he rolls out the Van Til.

Yes, I'm familiar with this Either/Or presuppositionalism, Peter.

Thee:
"So either you have a world that was created by God who controls all things or you have a world that is a derivative of chance." Can you think of a third option, Onofrio?"

That's a false dichotomy. Neither statement can be proven objectively. This either/or is reminiscent of the "lord. liar, or lunatic" ultimatum issued by C S Lewis. Bullying rhetoric.
Even if there is a "God who controls all things", it does not NECESSARILY follow that that God = the various shades of deity contained in the Christian anthology called *the Bible*.

"Can you think of a third option, Onofrio?"

I can think of several.

The flaw in your argumentation does not lie in the Van Tilian charge that your non-Christian adversaries are all subjectively-based in their presuppositions. The flaw lies in your assumption that commitment to the Bible is, ultimately, any less subjectively-based.

To reiterate: belief in the Christian Bible as the exclusive, definitive *Word of God* is just as subjectively-based as not believing it. Duelling subjectivities is the best it gets, Peter. I do not claim superior objectivity for myself, just that your belief that you can establish your own objectivity simply by quoting Scripture is demonstrably illusory.

"Thus the ocean of facts has no bottom and no shore." Van Til

Gotta go. I have restive children to occupy. The last word is all yours...

Hi Onofrio,

ONOFRIO: "Quoting *Scripture* to establish that it actually transmits God's speech is hopelessly CIRCULAR argumentation. It's only *proof* if one has a prior commitment to the factual veracity of Scripture. And that's the very thing under question."

I have news for you Onofrio. All argumentation pushed to its utter limits is circular. Naturalism uses science to prove science. We use logic to prove logic, or at least we attempt to. It begs the question also.

ONOFRIO: "You are constantly question-begging. Your argument amounts to *the Bible says it's so, so it must be so.* That is not objective; it's mere assertion."

First of all, you have to establish what objectivity is. Where does it come from Onofrio? You have already admitted in the previous post that you don't have any, so how can you even establish what it is or where to find it? You keep talking in contradictions. You keep asserting things that you have no proof for.

You assert the opposite of what I assert. The highest authority on earth that I can appeal to is the Word of God. If I used another authority I would no longer be appealing to the highest authority.

You, on the other hand, assert the authority of some expert that asserts the authority of some other expert, and so it goes, one subjective opinion built on and replaced by another as a contradiction by the experts leads to another opinion.

So logically one of us is wrong, or both of us are wrong, but both of us cannot be right.

I appeal to THE ONE who can make sense of all of this. Who do you appeal to?

ONOFRIO: "As I said - wishful thinking in big boots."

Actually, yours is the wishful thinking. Without God, you're it. You make the rules that you like. Nobody has to dictate to you and there is no ultimate judgment!!! You're not ultimately accountable, you are the final say. There is no punishment for being a bad boy. Nothing ultimately matters. So why do you live like it does?

Peter Huff,

Thee of J:
"Since He quotes from the Septuagint it would be reasonable to surmise that He understood Greek, as well as Hebrew and Aramaic."

Circular. The Koine gospels have him quoting a source that Koine speakers with which Koine speakers would have more affinity. That does not prove Jesus knew Tanakh via Septuagint; it only proves that you have a prior, unproven assumption that this is the case. SURMISE is not PROOF.

Thee re translations:
"And the differences are not substantial, for Jesus, the Son of God (God manifest in the flesh), would know if a translation were valid or not."

Circular. Depends on your prior belief based on documents under question. All this shows is that you have committed subjectively to unproven assertions.

Thee:
"Your making a logical fallacy in thinking that translation from one language to another, when such is the case, cannot convey the meaning of the context accurately."

Strawman. I do not say that translation cannot transmit meaning with some degree of accuracy. But your assertions about Scripture require a far higher level of accuracy than that. The GIST is not enough, if we're talking ACTUAL EXACT INFALLIBLE WORDS OF GOD. You set the bar that high by your high claims.

Thee:
"There again, God has promised to preserve His Word and the message is still understood, whether in KJV English or modern English."

Circular. Depends on prior commitment to the unproven assertion that a certain body of literature is in fact, exhaustively and incontrovertibly and exclusively *God's Word*. God promises this in the Bible; the Bible's veracity in this regard is TO BE PROVEN. Again, you beg the question.

Thee:
"And many today side with the liberal camp of higher criticism, twenty centuries removed, that has its own agenda as the higher authority."

Insinuates I subscribe to some *camp*, simply because you do. That's projection. My questions and my conclusions are my own. It may surprise you to know that they arose from my own honest encounter with Scripture, not someone else's *agenda*.

ONOFRIO: "Your *objectivity* can neither entertain nor address such basic questions. And that's just the iceberg tip of them. I've said nothing about canon-formation. There's the real rub."

Sure it can. You can't establish objectivity apart from God, and by God I mean the Christian God.

You talk as one who is under the allusion of authority apart from God, but as Van Til said in Christian Apologetics, p.162,
163,

"They know that they cannot cover the whole area of reality with their knowledge. They are therefore willing to admit that there may be others who have information that they themselves do not have. In everyday life this sort of thing is illustrated in the idea of the expert....So everywhere and in all respects the lesser minds are bound to submit to the authority of the greater minds.
In putting the matter this way the nature of the authority that can be allowed by the natural man [one who looks at everything from a natural instead of supernatural perspective] is already indicated....
Let us note then some of the forms of authority that are quite acceptable to the natural man because, to his mind, they do not violate the principle of autonomy.
First there is the need for authority that grows out of the existence of the endless multiplicity of factual material. Time rolls its ceaseless course. And the stream is really endless on the non-Christian basis. For those who do not believe that all that happens in time happens because of the plan of God, the activity of time is like to that, or rather is identical with that, of chance. Thus the ocean of facts has no bottom and no shore."

So either you have a world that was created by God who controls all things or you have a world that is a derivative of chance. Can you think of a third option, Onofrio?

The problems associated with a world derived from chance are enormous. How do you even get logic from chance happenstance? Everything that one could assert about any natural object would involve contradiction and uncertainty, for you would never know if the way any object performed in any observed experiment would be consistent and therefore happen again in the same way.

The same thing can be said about the uniformity of nature and natural laws. They don't happen by chance, they happen by design and ordered information. Chance is not capable of ordering information, only a mind is, because chance does not have meaning or purpose, just happenstance. Chance does not control anything.

So if you choose to believe such drivel that is your prerogative. It comes from a world view that has zero explicability unless it borrows from the Christian framework.

Peter Huff

Quoting *Scripture* to establish that it actually transmits God's speech is hopelessly CIRCULAR argumentation. It's only *proof* if one has a prior commitment to the factual veracity of Scripture. And that's the very thing under question.

You are constantly question-begging. Your argument amounts to *the Bible says it's so, so it must be so.* That is not objective; it's mere assertion.

As I said - wishful thinking in big boots.

ONOFRIO: "Did Jesus know Tanakh in Aramaic, or Hebrew, or Greek, or a bit of them all? The NT presents Tanakh via the Greek Septuagint - also a translation - and favours Septuagint readings over Hebrew ones. The differences are not insubstantial. God tinkering with his own original Hebrew word? Who knows? You?"

Since He quotes from the Septuagint it would be reasonable to surmise that He understood Greek, as well as Hebrew and Aramaic. And the differences are not substantial, for Jesus, the Son of God (God manifest in the flesh), would know if a translation were valid or not.

The point that Jesus did quote from the Greek Septuagint validates that the Septuagint was a valid translation from the Hebrew Scriptures since He spoke what He heard from the Father (John 8:25-30, 38,42-47; John 6:38 and esp. John 5:36-40).

ONOFRIO: "In what script and tongue were Moses' tablets inscribed? Proto-Sinaitic? Canaanite? Or perhaps heiratic Egyptian, in which Moses presumably was well-trained, being harim-reared. So the Hebrew of the very *Books of Moses* may also, here and there, involve translation, or, at least, transliteration. Or not. Who knows? You?"

Your point is mute. Your making a logical fallacy in thinking that translation from one language to another, when such is the case, cannot convey the meaning of the context accurately. It is done all the time. On top of this we have the Holy Spirit guiding and teaching the men God used.

ONOFRIO: "As for your English Bible; which of the many versions do you find most closely approximates the definitive Word? KJV, RSV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, NIRV, TNIV, CEV, NLT, HCSB, ASV, NCV, Young's, Darby's...So many shades of meaning needed for that straight-up incontrovertible, transparently factual, objectively discernable, watertight *Word*. Wouldn't be any subjective judgement involved there?"

There again, God has promised to preserve His Word and the message is still understood, whether in KJV English or modern English. When there is a discrepancy we have over 5000 Greek manuscripts and over 20,000 fragments plus the writings of the early church father to refer to which gives an accurate knowledge of what the original Greek manuscripts said.

You understand the gospel message, that without Christ you are dead in your transgressions and sins. You just suppress that truth so that your authority (or lack of) is ultimate to you.

And many today side with the liberal camp of higher criticism, twenty centuries removed, that has its own agenda as the higher authority.

Onofrio, I see you have been busy. :-)

ME: "It is translated from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic languages into different languages, not from Greek to Latin to French to English.....The original languages is the source that other translations come from."

ONOFRIO: "Did Jesus issue the Beatitudes in Koine? Did he not speak Aramaic - *Eloi, eloi* et alii ... So the Koine Gospels are already a translation. Or not. Who knows? You?"

The gospels were written after the death and resurrection of Jesus, so they would have been in Koine Greek, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Greek was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean of that period. When Jesus was speaking in Aramaic or Hebrew, some of His saying would have been passed on in those languages and inserted into the Greek texts.

"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they WERE HANDED DOWN TO US by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the CERTAINTY of the things you have been taught." (Luke 1:1-4)

"In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do AND TO TEACH until He was taken up to heaven, after GIVING INSTRUCTIONS THRoUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT TO THE APOSTLES He had chosen." (Acts 1:1-2)

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared, we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son. We WRITE this to make our joy complete." (1 John 1:1-4)

"Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and TAKE IT TO HEART WHAT IS WRITTEN in it, because the time is near. John, to the seven churches in the province of ASIA:" (Revelation 13-4a)

So these apostles and early Christian disciples of the apostles are traveling or imprisoned in areas of the Mediterranean that are mainly Greek speaking and they are writing in the Greek language in proclaiming the Gospel. The Greek language is the original language that the Gospel message is proclaimed in. They are the earliest records and the original Greek manuscripts were the inspired word of God to man.

The Book of Acts relays how the gospel message spread from Jerusalem and Judea to the very edges of the known world at that time, largely the Roman empire.

peterhuff,

you said,
"...either that the Bible is the revelation of God or it is not. Only by the first presupposition can anything be made sense of because "Right" needs an objective, absolute reference point to be made sense of."

huh? the proposition that the bible was revealed by god is not proven, or even supported by, the idea that "right" needs an objective reference point. the notion that "right needs an objective viewpoint" is actually just your subjective opinion. the proposition that the bible was NOT revealed is much more likely, based on objective facts.

you also said,
"it is logical that only an omniscient, all-comprehensive Being would be able to disclose how things really are"

again, huh? how is that logical? that's just the kind of god you've conceived. there are many other ideas about god. i mean, many cultures propose fallible gods who argue with each other. sometimes gods make mistakes. why did god build our eyes how he "did" (stupidly, with the rods/cones on the wrong side of the retina)?

so, if you want an all-everything perfect god, then it is more logical to say "our eyes evolved that way" than to say "god messed up there."

also, if he's so omniscient/omnipresent, why is he giving different messages to different people. he told some people he wrote the koran. he told others other things. what's up with that? are we having trouble understanding him? if so, he should be more clear - that's an imperfection.

Farnaz wrote:

"I don't know much about goats."

Ummmmm...oooookay. I don't know much about neutrinos either. Help me out here...how did we get to goats? I ate roasted goat in Saudi Arabia several times. Its really very good. Does that help?

Farnaz wrote:

"it is best to let CCNL1 ride his improbability wave into the Sunset"

Oh, I don't know. Its kind of amusing to watch him wandering around, five minutes late for every conversation, pressing his nose against my study window, wishing he could come in and shaking his little fist in frustration...and compensating for his inability to form original thoughts by quoting endlessly from the thinking and works of other people. No doubt the holidays are a particularly difficult and lonely time for him. And I long ago learned to tolerate criticism from my inferiors. I wish we could do something for him, though. He seems so inadequate.

Peter Huff,

Thee re Bible:
"It is translated from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic languages into different languages, not from Greek to Latin to French to English to Zulu to Bemba. The original languages is the source that other translations come from."

Did Jesus issue the Beatitudes in Koine? Did he not speak Aramaic - *Eloi, eloi* et alii ... So the Koine Gospels are already a translation. Or not. Who knows? You?

Did Jesus know Tanakh in Aramaic, or Hebrew, or Greek, or a bit of them all? The NT presents Tanakh via the Greek Septuagint - also a translation - and favours Septuagint readings over Hebrew ones. The differences are not insubstantial. God tinkering with his own original Hebrew word? Who knows? You?

In what script and tongue were Moses' tablets inscribed? Proto-Sinaitic? Canaanite? Or perhaps heiratic Egyptian, in which Moses presumably was well-trained, being harim-reared. So the Hebrew of the very *Books of Moses* may also, here and there, involve translation, or, at least, transliteration. Or not. Who knows? You?

As for your English Bible; which of the many versions do you find most closely approximates the definitive Word? KJV, RSV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, NIRV, TNIV, CEV, NLT, HCSB, ASV, NCV, Young's, Darby's...So many shades of meaning needed for that straight-up incontrovertible, transparently factual, objectively discernable, watertight *Word*. Wouldn't be any subjective judgement involved there?

Your *objectivity* can neither entertain nor address such basic questions. And that's just the iceberg tip of them. I've said nothing about canon-formation. There's the real rub.

Your *objectivity* = wishful thinking in big boots.

The shard unFreud?

Junglich yarnings.

Farnaz,

"Meine ShadowFreunde is showing. :)"

Hello darkness my old friend.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"Sorry Onofrio, I only have time to answer one of your posts at the moment. I'll try and respond later to the rest."

Don't trouble, Peter. I already know what you will write. I've read the script.

Peter Huff,

"You have no objective standard for certainty on anything except what you borrow from the God of the Bible."

Correction: Gods.

And they have been known to borrow too, from Baal, from Amun, from Dionysos, from Asklepios ... We're all borrowers, Peter Huff. Even you.

Many are thieves too; and many have gained their god by robbery with violence.

Your *objective* standard - crinkly pages of a magic book - a patchwork of mystery sect, old imperium, and someone else's wisdom. Objectively speaking.

Onofrio,

It is true, I think, that subjective is subjective. Objectively speaking, I think subjective cannot be objective. Moreover, subjectively, I think objective is objective, subjective subjective. I stand by the objective truth of the foregoing.

Meine ShadowFreunde is showing. :)

Muckenfuss,

I don't know much about goats.

Sorry Onofrio, I only have time to answer one of your posts at the moment. I'll try and respond later to the rest.

ONOFRIO: "Now Peter Huff and Co., at some distant fifth-or-sixth hand, through several changes of language, and empire, and continent, have also decided that this pedigree of Right is, in fact, actually watertight! And this is OBJECTIVITY. Mark well, all ye subjective slugs, mark well..."

It is translated from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic languages into different languages, not from Greek to Latin to French to English to Zulu to Bemba. The original languages is the source that other translations come from.

As for the objectivity, you build your world view on one of two presuppositions; either that the Bible is the revelation of God or it is not. Only by the first presupposition can anything be made sense of because "Right" needs an objective, absolute reference point to be made sense of.

Since man cannot know all things, or even as they relate to a system of "facts" or the complete unity of a truth, it is logical that only an omniscient, all-comprehensive Being would be able to disclose how things really are. A fact is what it is because God made it so, and He knows it perfectly. Without Him all you have is subjective dribble and man's mighty opinion, which differs from man to man and which not all of us bow to.

God is the necessary Being to make sense of anything, and by God I mean the Christian God who is revealed in a living relationship with the Son and Spirit through the word.

ONOFRIO: "And the historic persuasion that *millions can't be wrong* helps the illusion along..."

There again, in your denial and rejection of God you have nothing to look to but the wisdom of this world, the opinion of fallible man, which is foolishness, because it can't make ultimate sense of anything.

You have no objective standard for certainty on anything except what you borrow from the God of the Bible. And when you do borrow from the Bible, it shows a brief betrayal of your own world view because you live inconsistently, borrowing from a system of thought outside your world view; denying and yet verifying the word of God at the same time. Talk about confusion.

Since Paul was not wrong about Jews, women or the second coming...simply add CCNL1 to the growing list of errors.

Posted by: US-conscience | August 7, 2009 3:23 AM
------------------------------
Paul who? Has there been a second coming? If you mean Paul the Heathen Greek of "NT" fame, he was wrong about "the Jews," wrong about "women," etc.

Now, Paul, the Greek, didn't mention CCNL1, but who could have foreseen him? From what I hear, the Christians/Catholics, cultural and observant, have disavowed all knowledge of the shrike, CCNL1.

Muckenfuss, Old Pal,

As you have oft advised, it is best to let CCNL1 ride his improbability wave into the Sunset, ideally, one might add, whilst perusing the latest issue of "Buns." It comforts him so.

Farnaz

Well said, Susan! This debate reminds me of something Jonathan Swift said:

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

However, I'm proud to say I am a member of a Unitarian Universalist church. The UU denomination is not only welcoming to GLBTs but we also strongly believe sexual orientation is not a legitimate factor for determining who is worthy of being an ordained church leader. This, of course, allows us to concentrate more fully on the bigger problems that you have written about.

Muckenfuss, Muckenfuss, Muckenfuss,

You have been caught again and all the webpages in the world will not free you from your crimes against the blog world!!!

This is for you, CCNL1. Maybe it will help.

http://men.webmd.com/guide/prescriptions-sexual-frustration

And again "Muckenfuss" blesses us with his/her "wisdom" from the land of probability waves. Anyone else out there with a visa from said land???

For "overnance", read "governance".

The thing about christers is that they really have nothing to offer but a set of postulates, and then a lot of verbiage and sermons about what they deduce from those postulates. Some of christ's work remains useful within philosophy (like a C* algebra is useful in mathematical physics),
while paul's work is useful only to those who wish to usher in a society of rabid wolverines. My only real point of contact with the christers is to be vigilant that they play no meaningful part in overnance, similar to the way John Birchers, white supremacists and corporate fascists are on my ideological radar.

Marriage is, of course, another of "god's" failures: 50% of first marriages, 67% of second marriages, and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. Regardless of what the christer cult and their schizophrenic three-headed god would have one believe, marriage is clearly unnatural. Why gay people want to emulate this disastrous heterosexual farce is beyond me. But if they want to, let them. Marriage is a civil right and should extend to everyone, without discrimination. Gays have as much right to be miserable as straights do.

Since Paul was not wrong about Jews, women or the second coming...simply add CCNL1 to the growing list of errors.

It is obvious Paul did not speak as a "rep from god" since he was wrong about women, Jews and the second coming. Simply add Romans 1:18 to the list of errors.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"On the essentials there is much agreement by those who take the word of God for what it really is, the word of God. Our faith rests on the truth of God's word, the Bible."

Ah, that magic book again: an anthology some ancient foreign somebodies decided was Right when it claimed that other, prior, ancient foreign somebodies were Right when they claimed they or someone else spoke for the one and only God. Right.

Now Peter Huff and Co., at some distant fifth-or-sixth hand, through several changes of language, and empire, and continent, have also decided that this pedigree of Right is, in fact, actually watertight! And this is OBJECTIVITY. Mark well, all ye subjective slugs, mark well...

And the historic persuasion that *millions can't be wrong* helps the illusion along...

What are you all waiting for. Just open the magic book and fall in.

Peter Huff,

Thee (sputtering):
"Why "should" anyone believe what you say?"

A question that is universally applicable, even to you, O "supposed biological bag of matter".

Thee:
"Your subjective opinion is just that, subjective."

Subjective = subjective. Such brilliance!

Thee:
"As a Christian I have that final reference that I can point you to since there is "subjectivity", not objectivity on your part. As for me, when I correctly interpret the Scriptures I speak in the objective sense, for God speaks through them, and He is fully capable of making Himself understood (Romans 1:18)."

Otherwise said:

*Nyah, nyah, I've got the Bible. Go to hell subjective sucker!*

Ah, that magic book...

Your schadenfreude is showing, Herr Huff.

Peter Huff,

Thee:
"Is it not arrogant them to claim to speak of the entirety of humanity in saying that the Christian God is just superstitious when you suppress His truth in your denial of Him who is the only way that truth can be understood to have any final, ultimate, objective authority and be made sense of?"

Say what?

Hey, try full stops!

Else it's just BabbleOn...

FS: "It's completely self-contradictory to the point of an absurd comedy. Who died and left you to speak for God anyway? Your subjective interpretation is by no means definitive nor sacred. It's just your personal opinion. Nothing more."

As Christian's in the first century were instructed to by the Lord Jesus Christ, "Go out and make disciples of all nations....teaching THEM to obey everything I have commanded you, that same authority (Matthew 28:18) has been past down to each successive generation, by the word of God. And God's commands are objective and therefore true.

FS: "Sheesh. The arrogance it takes to even believe in such superstitions is alarming in itself but for a human to claim to speak for any god is just breathtaking."

Ever thought that you have that statement backwards?

The arrogance would be to make any subjective opinion a claim of truth unless it a) thought God's thoughts after Him, or b) said as His word reveals and as correctly interpreted.

From our conversations I gather you don't have an ultimate, objective, final reference/standard/measure that you can point to. Is it not arrogant them to claim to speak of the entirety of humanity in saying that the Christian God is just superstitious when you suppress His truth in your denial of Him who is the only way that truth can be understood to have any final, ultimate, objective authority and be made sense of?

You make statements of supposed meaning, all the while rejecting the one true standard that makes logic or truth meaningful or possible.

A supposed biological bag of matter, the human being, in which chemicals react to stimuli does not make logic or meaning possible, for in any chance reaction what one reaction does to another is of no meaning. It just happens.

I think it is arrogant to claim to speak truthfully without an objective and final reference point. Why "should" anyone believe what you say? Your subjective opinion is just that, subjective. As a Christian I have that final reference that I can point you to since there is "subjectivity", not objectivity on your part. As for me, when I correctly interpret the Scriptures I speak in the objective sense, for God speaks through them, and He is fully capable of making Himself understood (Romans 1:18).

Hi Freestinker,

In reply to your comments,

FS: "Clearly? The Bible doesn't teach anything clearly."

Please see,

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/c_welton_gaddy/2009/07/a_call_to_quiet_conversations_and_public_debates.html

Posted by: peterhuff | August 6, 2009 9:47 PM

FS: "Every rule has a contradiction. Every moral has an exception."

No, that is where you are wrong. Every rule of God does not have a contradiction. Sometimes what the rule means is expanded upon by the Lord Jesus Christ, like the command, "Do not murder" is expanded upon and defined to a greater extent to include anger against a brother (see Matthew 5:21-28).

But the commandment not to murder in the Ten Commandments is still clear, that no individual has the "right" to murder another individual.

FS: "Christians can't even agree on the most basic tenets themselves."

Another broad generalization. It depends on the Christians and as to whether they rightly handle the word of truth. Millions of Christians agree that Jesus Christ is the only way to God the Father and eternal life. On the essentials there is much agreement by those who take the word of God for what it really is, the word of God. Our faith rests on the truth of God's word, the Bible. Jesus Christ has conquered death by rising from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father, as His enemies are made His footstool. His kingdom is expanding all the while history marches on. There is a Judgment Day when men's sins will be judged either on their own merit of on the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is recognized by mature believers as God as well as becoming fully man in order to met the standard that we could not met, God's perfect standard. The Bible is the inerrant, inspired word of God. These are all things that millions of Christians have and do agree on.

Hi Lepidopteryx,

LEPI: "don't think it's that people don't care about the poor, or the sick, so much as that no one is trying to enact legislation to deny basic civil rights to the poor or sick."

Well said!

And the reason why people are fighting the enactment of this legislation is that the objective standard, the final reference point in the matter, God, has said what marriage is to be, between a man and a woman.

"Muckenfuss" ??? appears to visit web comic sites but fails to see that he/she is the king/queen of ?????'s on these threads.

"It all depends if you want to remain faithful to what the Bible clearly teaches."

-------------

US-Conscience,

Clearly? The Bible doesn't teach anything clearly. Every rule has a contradiction. Every moral has an exception. Christians can't even agree on the most basic tenets themselves.

It's completely self-contradictory to the point of an absurd comedy. Who died and left you to speak for God anyway? Your subjective interpretation is by no means definitive nor sacred. It's just your personal opinion. Nothing more.

Sheesh. The arrogance it takes to even believe in such superstitions is alarming in itself but for a human to claim to speak for any god is just breathtaking.

When you speak to God, it's called prayer but when God speaks to you, it's nothing short of insanity.

http://xkcd.com/613/

It all depends if you want to remain faithful to what the Bible clearly teaches.

If...your concerned about Gods Glory then you must be act in fidelity to Gods word, which clearly puts strict moral guidelines for clergy and clearly labels same sex attraction as an abonination to the Lord and a sin. Of course Christianity is all about redemption, regeneration and a life turned around, so if the person WAS in the practice of un-natural sex, but is now repentant of that and currently practicing a life dedicated to holiness, then no problem.

If on the other hand the person is currently practicing an action that Gods word clearly condemns, then it a no brainer. No clergy for them.

But, like so many denominations and churches today, if you are all about redefining biblical terms and do not hold Gods word as sacred, and basically dont believe in orthodox Christian theology....Then go to town, no one will condemn you .... until of course judgment day. :)

Considering the historical and theological flaws and errors in the foundations of all religions, there should be no clergy, straight or gay. Next question!!!

Hmmm, "Muckenfuss" has returned from the land of probability waves? Can his/her friends be far behind? Maybe some are gay clergy??

"It should be a concern of yours...a goat is not a concenting mammal. Fortunately there are laws to protect it."

Situational, really. Were you offer your pet goat the chance to have some fun with you, and if the goat were interested, that would be consensual, now wouldn't it? And it would be no concern of mine.

"I have noticed how any question about sexuality (gay marriage, gay clergy, female submission, birth control, abortion et all) gets tons of posts, interest and discusssion, yet when anyone asks questions of import such as how are we going to care for our sick, poor or helpless people, the silence is deafening."

Exactly. Have you noticed how many of the topics the editors here pick are cheesy trolls to get the audience jacked up? All the while, they give the big questions a clean miss.

Susan Jacoby asks:

"Or are only Brits, gay or straight, eligible?"

In theory, any diocesean bishop, of any denomination within the Anglican Communion, could be elected Archbishop, just as Desmond Tutu was elected Archbishop in South Africa. Whether that is a practical likelihood is definitely open to question.

GIMPI:
Bravo, Susan. I have noticed how any question about sexuality (gay marriage, gay clergy, female submission, birth control, abortion et all) gets tons of posts, interest and discusssion, yet when anyone asks questions of import such as how are we going to care for our sick, poor or helpless people, the silence is deafening.
**************************************************************************************I don't think it's that people don't care about the poor, or the sick, so much as that no one is trying to enact legislation to deny basic civil rights to the poor or sick.

Sorry, Episcopal church, not Episcopalian.

Well, I donate my money to an Episcopalian church and I am very pleased about this turn of events. Yes, I am a pew-sitting atheist. But evidently a good enough person to have been asked to run for vestry. I declined, I respect THEIR belief system enough to know that my participation would be rude. Time we all moved away from the old "all humans are created equal, but some are more equal than others" (with apologies to Orwell).

"Has anyone noticed the growing number of homeless sleeping on the streets on these summer nights? "

Now, THIS is something that most of us can and should be upset about, and try to address. Regardless of labels.

"Has anyone noticed the growing number of homeless sleeping on the streets on these summer nights? Why don't religious institutions just get over obsessing about how ministers of the gospel derive their sexual satisfaction?"
...in Susan's comentary

Bravo, Susan. I have noticed how any question about sexuality (gay marriage, gay clergy, female submission, birth control, abortion et all) gets tons of posts, interest and discusssion, yet when anyone asks questions of import such as how are we going to care for our sick, poor or helpless people, the silence is deafening.

What do people, both of faith and not, realy care about? It appears it isn't that "...as you have done to the least among you, you have done to me," stuff. The "what you do when you get naked," stuff sure gets more attention. Sad. Come on, people. We can do better.

Being gay is not a biological drive. Nor is it an ideology.

Being gay is not a life style.

Being gay is not immoral and it is not a sin.

Being gay is not a defiance against anything, certainly not againsst God, and not against any religion, nor any church.

As sexual orientation, being gay is simply an aspect of personality and identity.

TheModerate wrote:

"What you do with your pet goat behind closed doors is no concern of mine."

It should be a concern of yours...a goat is not a concenting mammal. Fortunately there are laws to protect it.

What consenting mammals do in private has no place in the public square. So why dwell endlessly upon your neighbor's sexual proclivities? What you do with your pet goat behind closed doors is no concern of mine.

Susan writes:

"They want Anne Hutchinson, who was exiled from the 17th century theocracy of Puritan Massachusetts for daring to question the theocrats' negative views about women, thrown out of the curriculum and Billy Graham tossed in."

Even though I'm repelled by these fundamentalist Christian mullahs, terrified at the thought of their turning this great nation into a theocracy, I think their wish to substitute Billy Graham for Ann Hutchinson is hilarious. This is the stuff that commedy is made of.

That said, regarding Hutchinson, it's imporatant we remember that although John Winthrop, Gov. of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the time of Hutchinson's trial did demonize her in his second-hand reports of her pregancy (Wintrhop's journal is on the web), she was enormously popular within the Puritan community, her Christian learning beyond all doubt, and great pains were taken to bring her back into the fold. Winthrop was among those who would have preferred she simply mend her ways.

Her doctrine of "free grace," her reports on experiences with divine elements threatened the social order, alarmed conservative folk, and there simply was no way they could get her to speak as they wished.

Below is a link to an informative essay on Hutchinson. If interested in learning more, google Antinomian Controversy.

http://smu.edu/ecenter/discourse/Schieb.htm

Sexual orientation happens.

When you focus on another person, that person becomes impressed upon your mind. This impression forms images and feelings about that person. People of one sex impress sexual feelings upon the mind. People of the other sex do not. This is sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation happens. It is an impression on the mind as much as the impression of a Spring morning or the impression of a band playing. It is the flow of sensory impressions as the flow of water on the skin. Sexual orientation is an impression on the mind, as the smell of coffee, or the taste of brownies, or the purr of a soft kitten.

How these impressions form images in our minds is an autonomic process beyond conscious control, but is a part of the mental apparatus which exists inside each one of us. When your impressions of sexual feeling come from someone of the opposite sex, you are said to be heterosexual. But when these impressions come from someone of the same sex, then you are said to be homosexual.

Therefore, it does not matter whether sexual orientation is genetic or acquired, but only that it is an unconscious mental process. It does not matter whether you have been promiscuous or a virgin or what sex acts you may have already experienced, only the impression of another human being on your mind matters. It doesn’t matter how much testosterone or estrogen may flow through your body, nor whether your physical mannerisms are more feminine or masculine in character, only the impression of another person on the mind matters.

For, sexual orientation happens, as vision happens, as hearing happens. Sexual orientation happens, as the beating of the heart happens, as the breath of the lungs happens, as consciousness happens.

When Christians think of gay people, all they think about is the logistics of sex and sexual positions, making assumptions about individuals, which they could have no way of knowing, but can only imagine and suppose, and from this, they make all their judgments. This is a little simple minded, and is the reason why people who give it more consideration find Christianity to be so off-putting.

Being gay has nothing to do with sexual activity or sex positions, between men, or between women; it is a whole collection of traits, including the quality of sexual attraction of men for men, and women for women. Being gay is a whole collection of traits, which are integrated into the personality, so that it is a major defining quality of the personality. Therefore, a gay orientation cannot be "eradicated" without drastically altering, changing, and damaging the personality. The Christian crusade to change gay people into straight people is therefore a mortal threat to gay people, who wish to maintain the only personalities and identities that they have ever known.

Politically conservative religious people dismiss a whole group of people with a sweeping, reflexive, unthinking rejection based on their misguided ideas and considerations. When they hear of a gay person, they imagine the kind of sex they are having; but in fact you do not know what kind of sex they may engage in; it is a projected assumption that "dirty” and unbusy minds conjure up about other people. To know just what particular sexual activities, practices, and positions a person engages in, gay or otherwise, is impossible, unless you see them engaging in sex, or you ask them and they tell you; or they may tell you to mind your own business, or worse, punch you in the nose. If you would not ask your own relatives and neighbors about the physical details of their sex lives, why then would you ask, or even wonder about a gay person's sex life? In all cases, it would be equally none of your business. Even to suggest that you do not approve, and to suggest that they pretend to be "normal" is not your business.

Gay people are a part of life and always have been. They are everywhere, in all countries, in all cities, in every state, and even in little towns and villages. When you walk through a mall, eat in a restaurant, fly in a plane, even in your Bible study group, and sitting in church, there are gay people around you. They are just as good, kind, and respectable as anyone else, no better or worse, no different, in fact, than anyone else. So, again, it is a little rude to discuss them, in their own presence, as though they are strange reptilian things with scales and horns.

They are just people.

This is so peculiar this "opening up" conversation about gay clergy. On one hand we have centuries upon centuries of religious admonition against sexual impulses and on the other we now have evident celebrations of gayness by clergy. It seems rather than this recognition of gayness being just one more type of sexual impulse to by warned against, it is the last of the sexual impulses to be celebrated against centuries upon centuries of religious admonition against sex. This last step being recognized and accepted by clergy will not be the success of religion against this impulse but the reduction of clergy even more until one day obviously the word "clergy" will be meaningless...The more clergy are reduced to the common level, do not live a life higher than the rest of us (in religious terms of course) the more religion becomes nothing special--until one day no religion is practiced at all.