The Cross And The Resurrection

[centauri]

Tell your audience that their conception of God is totally wrong and then sell them the lie that you alone know the real truth.

That's certainly the resounding theme used by Christian operatives here.

It has precious little to do with truth and everything to with ego reinforcement.

[JayL]

The bottom line is that IF hell is real, the Loving God would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-S. So perhaps it is not a good idea to shake fists at God when He could be actually right.... But my main point is that warning about hell is not inconsistent with Christian message of Loving God.

You shake your fist at the Hebrew God all the time.

You toss aside his message (aka Old Testament) as one tosses aside an old shoe.

I don't see you expressing any concern over it.

 

What I am saying is that the Old Testament is a lot harder to understand. People can't even get the New Testament right. What is the chance they can understand the Old?

[centauri]

That is one reason why people should start at the New Testament. It is a lot easier to understand what is happening. Moreover the OT understanding of God is not as complete as the NT revelation of God.

Ah yes, the old progressive revelation argument.

God gets revised and edited by Christianity.

Forget about all that "old" stuff and buy the new and improved product.

Of course, it involves a monumental denial of what the Bible God declared in his first set of ramblings and it obliterates the popular Christian claim about the entire Bible being perfectly harmonious and self proving.

In order to set forth this Christian apologetic, you end up destroying another Christian apologetic.

 

I have never said that the entire Bible is perfectly harmonious.

I'm quite aware of that Jay.

Plenty of other Christians do make that claim, which is why I called it "the" popular Christian claim, not "your" claim.

 

 

The Bible is not an easy book to understand. And I have also been arguing against the statements that a lot of people here seem to like - that God is omnipotent or omnipresent. What do they mean anyway? That God is present in duck's arse? That God can lie? These are stupid, stupid statements not supported by the Bible. Yet people go around with these idiotic notions!

Kind of like the notions about "free will", "free gift", et al.

[centauri]

The bottom line is that IF hell is real, the Loving God would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-S. So perhaps it is not a good idea to shake fists at God when He could be actually right.... But my main point is that warning about hell is not inconsistent with Christian message of Loving God.

You shake your fist at the Hebrew God all the time.

You toss aside his message (aka Old Testament) as one tosses aside an old shoe.

I don't see you expressing any concern over it.

 

What I am saying is that the Old Testament is a lot harder to understand. People can't even get the New Testament right. What is the chance they can understand the Old?

Are you saying that you do or do not understand the Old Testament?

If you answer "yes", then please provide support for such an assertion.

In other words, show that your understanding is correct and that of Jew is not.

[Realist]

That God is present in duck's arse?

 

... the only duck's arse in all this is where you have your head firmly stuck!

[JayL]

 

Are you saying that you do or do not understand the Old Testament?

If you answer "yes", then please provide support for such an assertion.

In other words, show that your understanding is correct and that of Jew is not.

 

 

I only understand parts of the OT. I understand far greater portion of the NT. You seem to be under a false notion that all Jews agree about the OT interpretation. ALL early Christians were Jews. Christianity was a Messianic Jewish movement that allowed in gentile believers.

[centauri]

Are you saying that you do or do not understand the Old Testament?

If you answer "yes", then please provide support for such an assertion.

In other words, show that your understanding is correct and that of Jew is not.

 

I only understand parts of the OT. I understand far greater portion of the NT. You seem to be under a false notion that all Jews agree about the OT interpretation. ALL early Christians were Jews. Christianity was a Messianic Jewish movement that allowed in gentile believers.

Obviously, I was referring to orthodox Jewish belief.

But if as you say, you only understand part of the OT, then what makes you think it's sound advice to be telling people to ignore it in favor of another set of writings that are not in harmony with it?

Why is the Old Testament to be discarded if it is supposed to be from God and was set down long before the New Testament was?

In other words, how do you know that the revisionist theology of the New Testament is what the Hebrew God approves of?

Considering that key New Testament doctrine undermines God's original word, you're just making the Hebrew God angrier and angrier by turning people away from the Old Testament.

[mymistake]

Tell your audience that their conception of God is totally wrong and then sell them the lie that you alone know the real truth.

That's certainly the resounding theme used by Christian operatives here.

It has precious little to do with truth and everything to with ego reinforcement.

 

Ego reinforcement is all Christianity is.

 

Who is the greatest God ever? MY GOD!!!

 

Who works for the greatest being in the universe? I DO!!!

 

Who dose the God of the universe want to listen to? ME!!! (We talk all the time. God doesn't always agree with me but he is always eager to take the time to listen to all of my ideas.)

 

Who has the message that can save everyone if they will only listen? I DO!!!

 

Who can hear the voice of the living God in their mind? I CAN!!!

 

It's all ego. You see part of your own imagination as greater than everything else in the universe. Then *presto chango* you are not insignificant anymore.

[mymistake]

What I am saying is that the Old Testament is a lot harder to understand. People can't even get the New Testament right. What is the chance they can understand the Old?

Are you saying that you do or do not understand the Old Testament? If you answer "yes", then please provide support for such an assertion. In other words, show that your understanding is correct and that of Jew is not.

 

Of course JayL doesn't understand the Bible. He doesn't understand the New Testament. But he understands the Old Testament even less. That is why he keeps calling the OT hard to understand. In fact the Bible is easy to understand. Christians only have a hard time trying to understand the Bible because they handicap themselves. They need the Bible to be the word of God so they make several false assumptions and head in the wrong direction.

[♦ ficino ♦]

What I am saying is that the Old Testament is a lot harder to understand. People can't even get the New Testament right. What is the chance they can understand the Old?

Are you saying that you do or do not understand the Old Testament? If you answer "yes", then please provide support for such an assertion. In other words, show that your understanding is correct and that of Jew is not.

 

Of course JayL doesn't understand the Bible. He doesn't understand the New Testament. But he understands the Old Testament even less. That is why he keeps calling the OT hard to understand. In fact the Bible is easy to understand. Christians only have a hard time trying to understand the Bible because they handicap themselves. They need the Bible to be the word of God so they make several false assumptions and head in the wrong direction.

 

Good point. I think a good deal of the "hard to understand" aspect of the Bible is not that it's hard to understand what it's asserting. Rather, it's hard to make all the contradictory assertions in it agree with each other and with common sense and human experience.

[bornagainathiest]

I thought my argument was fairly logical.

 

Ah I see. But people do not want to hear reasonable arguments!

 

Oh, ok then! This is all about reasonable argumentation. Silly me!

 

So which form of reasoning does your argument use Jay? Please enlighten us.

 

Here are the ground rules for logical argumentation... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument

 

Did your argument use Deductive logic or was it an Inductive argument?

 

Do tell! (BIG, BIG grin.)

 

BAA.

[centauri]

...It's all ego. You see part of your own imagination as greater than everything else in the universe. Then *presto chango* you are not insignificant anymore.

That's also what I've noticed from observing believers.

They create two objects, themselves and the object of their worship.

When they praise their "God", they're really praising their own ideas about the object of their worship.

In effect, they're praising themselves through the use of a surrogate ego called "God".

[Astreja]

Now there is some possibility the hell exists. It may be a small possibility but we cannot be certain that it is zero. And suppose God knows this - that hell actually exists. Now would it be an act of love to keep you in the dark and not warn you about it ??

 

Your hypothetical god has done exactly that by making its message too ludicrous to be believed by sane, emotionally balanced people with high moral standards, and then entrusting that message to people like you, Jay, as if that would make it one iota more credible.

 

Your god, if it exists, bears 100% responsibility for any suffering that results from its "Divine Plan." And there is no way for your god to escape that responsibility without also giving away its power. This is basic stuff, Jay, Management 101: The one with the power automatically has the responsibility.

 

The bottom line is that IF hell is real, the Loving God would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-S.

 

At this point, Springy G sighs heavily, rolls Her eyes, and goes down to the basement of

Astrejurhof

. She pulls a somewhat rusted pickaxe from behind Her workbench, pops open a bottle of the spring mead, and enchants the pickaxe with runes suitable to a nidhing pole...

 

*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*

 

*BOOT*

 

She smiles quietly to Herself as a splintered, hole-ridden lifeboat named J-E-S-U-S glides out into the middle of the lake and sinks from view.

 

Jay, it is My personal wish for you that you lose your faith and never regain it. Perhaps then you'll gain the intellectual and moral insight to understand why we are Ex-Christians, and why we don't want to be like you.

 

And with that, I bow out of this thread.

[ShackledNoMore]

The bottom line is that IF hell is real, the Loving God would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-S. So perhaps it is not a good idea to shake fists at God when He could be actually right.... But my main point is that warning about hell is not inconsistent with Christian message of Loving God.

 

Yet this reasoning applies equally:

 

The bottom line is that IF muslim hell is real, the Loving GodAllah would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-SI-S-L-A-M. So perhaps it is not a good idea to shake fists at GodAllah when He could be actually right.... But my main point is that warning about hell is not inconsistent with Christianmuslim message of Loving GodAllah.

 

Since muslim and christian salvation are mutually exclusive, you need to tell me whether I should reconvert to christianity or convert to islam. Logically, I am afraid of both christian and muslim hells and want to avoid them IF either exists. Following mohammed will guarantee me a place in christian hell IF it exists. Following jesus will guarantee me a place in muslim hell IF it exists. What should I do?

[ShackledNoMore]

• And finally, I do not believe that killing Jesus absolves anyone of anything. Death is just death, and there's nothing magical about it. Furthermore, the idea of agreeing to let someone die in My place disgusts Me. Nothing good can come of it.
  

There are just some things, Jay, to which one must say 'no,' For Me, Christianity is near the very top of that list.

 

Suppose a railroad worker sacrificed his own life to save a train full of commuters and essentially 'died for those people'. You were one of those passengers. And you are totally disgusted that the 'hero' sacrificed his own life to save yours. You made sure to visit his grave to spit on his coffin. The whole event filled you with contempt for such ethic.

 

Jesus Christ died not only for your sins but for sins of entire world. And a very good thing followed his death - his resurrection.

 

Another problem I see is that you have to depend on your intellectual ability to assess on things that you have very little experience of.

 

The difference is that unlike the man-god jesus, the railroad worker would have actually existed and actually sacrificed his life to save me and the other passengers. I would be grateful and hail him as a hero. On the other hand, if you told me that on my last train ride, and invisible man died to save all the passengers by intervening in a manner that nobody could detect, I would be irritated at you for lying to me.

[ShackledNoMore]

I had this exchange with Astreja:

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

Astreja, on 20 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

 

 

JayL, on 20 January 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

 

1. God is benevolent love.

Negated by the concept of eternal punishment.

 

No it does not !! How do you expect a benevolently loving person to deal with evil?? Suppose you are a extremely benevolent person. And I am a serial killer/ rapist who derive pleasure from torturing and killing you. And we both have eternal life. How would deal with me??

 

The only solution is eternal lock up cell. That is what hell is. Does the existence of the eternal lock up cell mean you are not a benevolently loving person??

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

 

 

Suppose I am an extremely benovelent person. And suppose I tell my son a crazy story and he doesn't believe me? (This is the same criteria that the christian god purportedly uses to send people to hell, no rape or murder required.) So I send my son to his room. Forever. And I set my son's room on fire so that he will suffer while in lockup. Forever. Does the existence of blazing room mean that I am not a benevolently loving person?

 

(Hint: yes it does.)

[ShackledNoMore]

I have also been arguing against the statements that a lot of people here seem to like - that God is omnipotent or omnipresent. What do they mean anyway? That God is present in duck's arse? That God can lie? These are stupid, stupid statements not supported by the Bible. Yet people go around with these idiotic notions!

 

On the christian god being omnipresent:

 

Psalm 139:7–12: Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

 

Jeremiah 23:23-24: Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

 

(Sounds like he is in a duck's arse)

 

On the christian god being omniscient:

 

Jeremiah 23:17: Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

 

Luke 1:37: For with God nothing shall be impossible.

 

Revelation 19:6: And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

 

As you see, these notions are indeed supported by the bible and they also happen to be what the majority of christians believe. Of course, in all fairness, I could also find verses to support your claim, like when god was thwarted by iron chariots, but that's the Book of Myths for you.

[sdelsolray]

1 John 4 is not the entirety of Scripture which describes or reports the behavior of the "God of the Bible". By ignoring other descriptions and behavior of the "God of the Bible" you are ignoring other Scripture. Poster ShackledNoMore does take other Scripture into account. I suspect that an outside observer, using unbiased rational thinking, would conclude that the "God of the Bible" is complicated, inconsistent and curious, among other things. Richard Dawkins wrote a good description of the "God of the Bible". While his description only applies to the God decripted in the Old Testament, it should equally apply to the God decrypted in the New Testament based on the premise that they are the same entity.

 

Dawkins wrote:

 

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infancidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously manevolent bully."

 

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Chapter 2.

 

 

I think he is saying that because he was brought up in a Christian culture. I don't see too many muslims complaining...

 

Think what you want. Changing the subject to speculation about Dawkins' religious upbringing and Muslims is a cute trick, but quite irrelevant.

 

Richard Dawkins developed that opinion from simply reading the Old Testament. Virtually any rational and unbiased adult would reach a similar conclusion, although perhaps not one with as much literary color. Personally, I would simply say something like, "The particular god is a little shit."

 

Regardless, you ignore parts of the Bible which describe or report the behavior of the "God of the Bible".

 

Why do you do that?

[JayL]

 

Since muslim and christian salvation are mutually exclusive, you need to tell me whether I should reconvert to christianity or convert to islam. Logically, I am afraid of both christian and muslim hells and want to avoid them IF either exists. Following mohammed will guarantee me a place in christian hell IF it exists. Following jesus will guarantee me a place in muslim hell IF it exists. What should I do?

 

 

If you study the official biography of Mohammed, you will find that he was a polygamist, child molester, bandit, rapist, murderer, thief, and slave trader. I cannot think of a capital crime he has not committed.

 

I am pretty sure that Mohammed is in hell.

[JayL]

 

Richard Dawkins developed that opinion from simply reading the Old Testament. Virtually any rational adult would reach a similar conclusion, although perhaps not one with as much color. Personally, I would simply say something like, "The particular imaginary sky fairy is a little shit."

 

Regardless, you ignore parts of the Bible which describe or report the behavior of the "God of the Bible".

 

Why do you do that?

 

 

The OT is harder to understand than the NT. Yet I find most of content to be reasonable. If you are a rational person who thinks otherwise, we can discuss it.

[JayL]

 

Jeremiah 23:23-24: Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

 

(Sounds like he is in a duck's arse)

 

 

 

Aha! Think of the context!! No man can hide himself inside a duck's arse. Ergo, God is not present in duck's arse! Another theological question resolved!

 

 

Uh, seriously, I think it is wrong to translate these verses into 'doctrines of omnipotence and omnipresence'. My view is that we need to work within the Bible ( like my above analysis of duck! ). Building up philosophical categories can confuse people - like some people here!

[JayL]

I had this exchange with Astreja:

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

Astreja, on 20 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

 

 

JayL, on 20 January 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

 

1. God is benevolent love.

Negated by the concept of eternal punishment.

 

No it does not !! How do you expect a benevolently loving person to deal with evil?? Suppose you are a extremely benevolent person. And I am a serial killer/ rapist who derive pleasure from torturing and killing you. And we both have eternal life. How would deal with me??

 

The only solution is eternal lock up cell. That is what hell is. Does the existence of the eternal lock up cell mean you are not a benevolently loving person??

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

 

 

Suppose I am an extremely benovelent person. And suppose I tell my son a crazy story and he doesn't believe me? (This is the same criteria that the christian god purportedly uses to send people to hell, no rape or murder required.) So I send my son to his room. Forever. And I set my son's room on fire so that he will suffer while in lockup. Forever. Does the existence of blazing room mean that I am not a benevolently loving person?

 

(Hint: yes it does.)

 

 

That is neither here nor there. The situation is like this. The benevolent person phones his son long distance that an enemy terrorist has booby trapped his house and it is about to blow up in 3 hours. But the son does not believe it. He thinks his father is crazy. Well after 3 hours, the house blows up. The son is gone forever. Was the father a benevolent person?

[sdelsolray]

Richard Dawkins developed that opinion from simply reading the Old Testament. Virtually any rational adult would reach a similar conclusion, although perhaps not one with as much color. Personally, I would simply say something like, "The particular imaginary sky fairy is a little shit."

 

Regardless, you ignore parts of the Bible which describe or report the behavior of the "God of the Bible".

 

Why do you do that?

 

 

The OT is harder to understand than the NT. Yet I find most of content to be reasonable. If you are a rational person who thinks otherwise, we can discuss it.

 

One thing at a time, please.

 

So, you ignore parts of the Bible which describe or report the behavior of the "God of the Bible" because the OT is harder to understand than the NT?

[JayL]

• And finally, I do not believe that killing Jesus absolves anyone of anything. Death is just death, and there's nothing magical about it. Furthermore, the idea of agreeing to let someone die in My place disgusts Me. Nothing good can come of it.
  

There are just some things, Jay, to which one must say 'no,' For Me, Christianity is near the very top of that list.

 

Suppose a railroad worker sacrificed his own life to save a train full of commuters and essentially 'died for those people'. You were one of those passengers. And you are totally disgusted that the 'hero' sacrificed his own life to save yours. You made sure to visit his grave to spit on his coffin. The whole event filled you with contempt for such ethic.

 

Jesus Christ died not only for your sins but for sins of entire world. And a very good thing followed his death - his resurrection.

 

Another problem I see is that you have to depend on your intellectual ability to assess on things that you have very little experience of.

 

The difference is that unlike the man-god jesus, the railroad worker would have actually existed and actually sacrificed his life to save me and the other passengers. I would be grateful and hail him as a hero. On the other hand, if you told me that on my last train ride, and invisible man died to save all the passengers by intervening in a manner that nobody could detect, I would be irritated at you for lying to me.

 

I was responding to this philosophical view: " Furthermore, the idea of agreeing to let someone die in My place disgusts Me. Nothing good can come of it."

[♦ ficino ♦]

Jeremiah 23:23-24: Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

 

(Sounds like he is in a duck's arse)

 

 

 

Aha! Think of the context!! No man can hide himself inside a duck's arse. Ergo, God is not present in duck's arse! Another theological question resolved!

 

 

Uh, seriously, I think it is wrong to translate these verses into 'doctrines of omnipotence and omnipresence'. My view is that we need to work within the Bible ( like my above analysis of duck! ). Building up philosophical categories can confuse people - like some people here!

 

JayL, if you are denying God's omniscience and omnipotence, you are simply a heretic according to any Christian denomination I have heard of. You also have no basis to put all your faith in a god if you hold that there are things that your god does not know or cannot do. But perhaps you only mean that God does not know, and cannot do, that which entails a contradiction - e.g. he doesn't know how to create a square triangle and can't create one. Such an example doesn't tell us anything about God. It only tells us that the person is literally speaking nonsense who voices such demands. But if you're trying to solve the Problem of Evil by denying that God knows all truths over all time frames, or by denying that God can do all things (materially false ideas like "make something so heavy He can't pick it up" don't count as "things"), no one will take you seriously as a spokesman for Christianity.

 

If you would like to develop an argument for denial of God's omniscience and/or omnipotence (and/or his omnibenevolence), that would be interesting and probably best done on a new thread.