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Goodbye Jesus

Dead Again: Director Of Theological School De-Converts


James23

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I'm sure you know that Lucifer was a minor Roman god representing Venus as the Morning Star. The Tanakh talks about the fall of Helel, the Hebrew version of Venus. Though this information might not impress Fundies, a little background info might be interresting. Regarding Free Will, Adam and Eve had no Free Will to choose Good or Evil before they ate the Forbidden Fruit. And god forbade Adam to eat the Fruit. So how is it that god wanted Man to have Free Will? Seems like he just wanted to keep his loyal gardener stupid. I guess there are a lot of ways to refute this stupid myth. Check out the Putting the end3 to the War Between Good and Evil thread. I enjoyed the article, but I think the Two Gods to Rule Them All post might be a stronger argument. Have to think on it a bit.

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Hi qadeshet,

 

There are a lot of interesting facts that I could talk about in my articles, but I have to limit myself to the focus of the argument at hand. As I’m sure you’re aware any theological conversation can branch off in an infinite number of directions. I am attacking the multifaceted theological base from one angle at a time. Sure, I’m going to talk about free will on many other occasions during my writing and will investigate it from a variety of perspectives. But in order to make sure that my writing does not waffle all over the place I must approach an argument accepting certain presuppositions from the Christian point of view in order to attack a particular doctrine or belief. An argument that you might find strong, will not impress someone else and vice versa. My aim is to win the war one battle at a time not all at once. I appreciate you taking the time out to read my articles, cheers. 

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How's this thought?

 

"Isn't it amazing that the only thing that an All Powerfull and All Knowing "god" can actually do is to remain so perfectly hidden that we can't even show(know) that it exists?"

 

I find this to be a big problem for all forms of Religion.

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Hi qadeshet, I think you underestimate God. He can also start religious wars, provide reasons for terrorism, rape, child abuse and slavery, so cut him some slack. wink.png But yes, it is surprising that after being so forthright about showing himself in the OT that he’s become extremely shy and reclusive in modern times. It’s almost as if the whole thing was just a made-up fairy story, who knew?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi everyone, just let you know I have posted a new article on Thought Control. The article is about something that I'm sure you've all invested a lot of thought in: the problem of evil. It is the first in a series of articles that I will be doing about this topic. I would love to get some feedback from you. You can find the article here:

 

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/the-evil-god/god-or-evil/

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Thanks James23, I'll sure read it. But I would like to make this observation about the Problem of Evil. We know that an All Powerful and All Knowing "god", if it exists, is responsible for all the Evil and Suffering that exists.

 

"The Buck Stops Here."

 

But Christians always chime in with "Free Will!" Did the character,  played so well by Yul Brenner in Exodus, have Free Will? Yahweh keeps hardening his heart so that he can punish Egypt. If "god" does this, then he cares nothing of Free Will. According to the Bible, there is no Free Will.

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Hey, it's a sheep-shagger! Did you bring your chully-bun? (Sorry. As an Australian, if I don't say it no-one else will :P)

 

Now that the ritual of insults is out of the way (feel free to respond), welcome to the fold, Jason!

 

It's fascinating to me that you were actually a director of a bible college. I myself have a low ranking certificate in Christian ministry and theology, so I'm trying to imagine my teachers leaving... And finding such a situation hard to imagine.

 

Out of curiosity, were you able to gain some transferable skills from that position to put into a new line of work?

 

Your comments about shades of grey also resonate with me very much--that was a phrase I often used to describe what I was seeing in the lead up to my deconversion too.

 

Welcome.

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Hi qadeshet, what is a qadeshet anyway? I agree, I have devoted an article to discussing the details of the relationship between God, Moses and Pharoah. It’s called “Don’t Harrow the Pharaoh.” As I’m sure you’re aware Christians need to be finessed into a position to see this hypocrisy. Although I’m not always good at it, I think that there is something to be said for manoeuvring a person into a position where they can see these truths themselves rather than feeling like somebody else has hit them over the head with a brick constructed of evidence. How we receive the truth is more important for many people than the actual truth itself. As ridiculous as this is it’s just a part of human nature, cornered animals fight they don’t surrender.

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Hello austere, I do not need to stoop down to the level of Australasian insult slinging, everybody knows Kiwis are better! I must admit that the Australian obsession with shagging sheep is slightly disturbing, but I suppose an island entirely populated by criminals is going to have a few problems. Anyway, thanks for the welcome! Yes, my move away from running a theological school was a big one, I love teaching and that was a big loss. I don’t know that there are any skills that directly transfer across to what I’m doing now. I think however that you can always reference something that you learned from a past trade. But the interest in theology doesn’t go away. That is why I have started Thought Control. That is my way of putting my theological education to good use, I can now use it to create arguments against religion that are not as easily identified by someone without that kind of training. Shades of grey was a term that we used a lot, and initially I found it compelling that the Bible had shades of grey, particularly because so many Christians are so black and white about everything. But once I recognised that theology is an “arts” subject and therefore everything is open to interpretation alarm bells started ringing. Effectively everything in Christianity is grey, because you can interpret scripture any way you want, and the doctrines that were established by the early church fathers are subjective interpretations which have become dogma.

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James23, I just read the original post on your blog and loved it! Good insights. Fyi... I will probably end-up listing thoughtcontrol on my blog's blog roll.

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  • Moderator

Hi everyone, just let you know I have posted a new article on Thought Control. The article is about something that I'm sure you've all invested a lot of thought in: the problem of evil. It is the first in a series of articles that I will be doing about this topic. I would love to get some feedback from you. You can find the article here:

 

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/the-evil-god/god-or-evil/

James23, This article is excellent. Your whole blog is awesome. I've saved it to my 'favorites'. You write so clear and so simple (just the way I love written articles) so your audience can completely understand. Thank you so much. I wish your blog could go viral somehow!!

 

(hug)

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Hi VAmountaineer, thanks for your comments. I am happy for you to link to my website. Also, please feel free to follow and comment on any of my articles.

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Hi Margee, thank you so much, it’s always good to get positive feedback about my writing. If you want my blog to go viral I suggest sharing it with as many people as you can. Also don’t forget to follow the blog, that helps an enormous amount for giving this site a better search engine position. If you follow the blog you will also get a notification whenever I post something new. Thanks for the comments and take care.

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Hi everyone, I’ve posted a new article on Thought Control. It is part 2 of the discussion about the nature of God, this time focusing on what we can understand about God from the Bible. Find it here:

 

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/the-evil-god/god-or-evil-part-2/

 

Hope you enjoy.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hello heretics, I have posted the last article in the series on the problem of evil. If you're not familiar with Divine command theory you'll probably find this interesting. It might even be something in there for you if you are familiar with it. I've enjoyed writing a series but am looking forward to moving on to some different material. Make sure you share this with your Christian friends:

 


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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. My wife and I have been suffering through an extremely nasty virus lately. Praise God for that, he creates all things and therefore the viruses must be good. I have posted a new article on ThoughtControl, you can find it here: 

 

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/problems-with-the-bible/vessels-of-wrath/

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Another very good exposé of the bait-and-switch Free Will argument for Christianity. I have read and appreciated several of your blog posts and look forward to reading the others. Your blog has become one of my favorite resources in support of my post-Christian world view. Thanks for doing this!

 

I hope you and your wife are better soon. I won't pray for you.

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Hi ThereAndBackAgain, thanks for the comment. I appreciate the lack of prayers, and would like to take a moment to thank everybody out there who is not praying for me.

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Hi ThereAndBackAgain, thanks for the comment. I appreciate the lack of prayers, and would like to take a moment to thank everybody out there who is not praying for me.

 

I for one am certainly not praying for you. Heathen. 

 

Reading some of your blogs now! :D

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Hi Jason, Check your private messages on here. I am trying to contact you. Cheers, Doug.

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Hi dangitbobby83,

 

Thanks for your non-prayers, I’m pretty sure that I could feel you not praying for me last night. Thanks for reading the blog.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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