John Piper. What The Fuck.

[gingernut]

As an ex Christian who went from "regular Christian" to "Calvinist" (like from original to extra crispy from a hell point of view) all I can say is that while Piper's views are horrifying to me now they are what the Bible teaches. In a lot of ways, my foray into Calvinism is what caused my de-conversion. I latched onto Calvinism because they were the ones following the Bible literally. A lot of them I knew still thought we should be stoning gays and rebellious children who didn't obey their parents. They were not afraid to say that God was exactly who the Bible said he was. They were not afraid to say that the Bible teaches that women are to be submissive, silent, and that we are inferior...put on earth to please men. They were not afraid to say that God causes great suffering to his people "for his glory", thereby explaining how sad things happen to people. I was looking for literalism and I got it. But then my reason began to question such a God. I realized that a God that would purposely allow or decree suffering such as cancer on a little child "for his glory" is a monster. I would never do such a thing...that made me a better person than God...a better parent than God. The scales fell off my eyes and I was set free from Christianity, the Bible, etc. It took me just a year or two and I saw the light of freedom. So I am kind of grateful for the Calvinists who are out there spewing this stuff. They take the sugar coating off the Bible and it's horrors are out for us to see. Then reason can take hold. Don't get me wrong though. Just listening to a few minutes gives me a stomach ache now.

[gall]

 

Butter his buns all you want.

He's a whack job.

His mind has been warped beyond repair.

He's as much of a threat as any other Fundy branch. His highly educated preaching/gospel is of the type that convinces shitloads of people to offer their own lives for holy wars. And to listen to anybody that proclaims, "God says....".

 

A few thoughts here.

 

First, let's be careful throwing around words like "whack job," "nuts," etc.  To the best of my knowledge, John Piper is not clinically insane, nor does he lack the ability to form rational thoughts.  He's wrong, and what he teaches is harmful and evil.  But that's not the same as being crazy.  I'm making a big deal out of this because when dealing with Calvinists, it's important for your argument to be utterly unimpeachable.  As Ralet correctly observed, the hallmark of Calvinism is that it is logical.  These guys love logic and debate.  You walk up to a Calvinist and call him clinically insane, and within five minutes he'll have you halfway convinced that the holocaust is your fault and you deserve hell for it.  That's the problem with Calvinism.  Calvinists make a few initial assumptions (historicity of Jesus, infallibility of the Bible, etc.) and then everything else they believe flows quite naturally from them.  At that point all you can do is say you don't believe in the Bible, and the discussion is over.  The only effective strategy here is to undermine their foundation, to prove that the way they live isn't consistent with their beliefs.

 

Now, as to my comment that what you see in the video isn't "the enemy," let me clarify.  I do think Calvinists are our enemy, perhaps the greatest if we're speaking about intellectual adversaries.  What I mean is that when Piper talks about how God is justified in committing genocide, I mean that this explanation isn't some grand defense of Christianity against its strongest criticism.  Like Piper says, the argument is easy.  Let's adopt the Calvinists' assumptions for a minute.  If there is a God who made you, me, and the universe, then by definition anything he does is right.  "Might makes right" is one defense for this claim, but it goes deeper than that.  In some sense it's wrong to even talk about God's actions as being within the realm of judgment.  When a Calvinist says that "God is good," he's not saying that God meets some higher standard of goodness.  The Calvinist means that God defines good and evil.  This is all summed up in the old Greek question (from Plato, I think): are the gods good because they command certain principles, or are those principles good because the gods command them?  The Calvinist would of course take the latter view.

 

And here's the really insidious trap.  You can go up to a Calvinist and tell him he's a horrible person for defending genocides.  The first thing he'll ask you is how you know that he's a horrible person.  That is, from whence do you derive the moral principles by which you condemn him?  If you believe in another religion then you've got a reasonable answer.  But if you choose any answer that doesn't begin with a supernatural lawgiver, the Calvinist will tell you that you have no firm basis for your morality and that you should just shut up and go to hell.

 

I've thought about this a lot.  The most reasonable answer I have to Calvinism is that human conscience can be taken to be from God (even the Bible says this).  If our conscience tells us that the teachings of the Bible are evil, then it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist.  It just means that the Bible doesn't speak for him.  A Calvinist would say that my conscience is fallen and can't be trusted.  To that I'd respond that this is an untestable claim.

 

One final note on this.  Unlike most evangelicals, who glorify violence, Piper would never tell anyone to give their lives in an aggressive holy war.  He does preach martyrdom.  But he doesn't believe anyone should ever kill for Jesus.  And he's the only evangelical I know of who doesn't worship the Second Amendment; he doesn't own guns as far as I know.  One of the times I went to his church, he said that Christians should never be arrogant or use violence in Jesus' name.  I'm as much a hater of Jesus as you, but it doesn't do anyone any good to misrepresent Piper's views.  I'm not saying you're doing this on purpose.  It's just that I know a great deal about Piper because I've spent a long time reading his writings.

 

I always thought the Calvinists were the most logical thinking of the Christians. They don't shrink from the terrible implications of their doctrine. I sort of admire them for that, even though their logic ultimately fails. They sure make more sense than the "God is love" liberals who selectively read scripture to eliminate any notion that God is less than cuddly.

 

Doesn't the Bible also say God's judgments are true and righteous? How is this squared with original sin? How is it that humans are born sinners due to remote ancestors disobeying God? Needless to say, I question the whole scenario. Eventually I just threw it all out because it doesn't make sense.

 

But I think this guy is just repeating what is said in the Bible. Yep, its a bunch of crap.

 

I wonder how can a person actually believe this stuff and be happy?

 

Well I can tell you how I was happy believing it (at least for a time).  There's a certain comfort in the certainty of Calvinism.  All the answers are figured out for you.  When you open the Bible and turn to a genocide page, you don't freak out that the foundational text of your faith contradicts the belief that God is love.  When something bad happens, you don't blame God for it.  You wake up every day able to thank God no matter what he does to bless or curse you.  It's happiness based on the lie of Jesus, but I do understand why it appeals to people.

 

 

Ok but if a person, John Piper, whoever, believes that it is ok/good/acceptable for God to slaughter other people's families, then they will have to accept it as being "right" if God decides to slaughter their own family.  Does John Piper think god is being good if god decides to kill John Piper's family?

 

I guarantee you that if someone walked into Piper's house and murdered his family before his eyes, Piper would weep and grieve for his family, but know that God ordained their deaths and praise God for being just and right in all of his ways.

 

Piper's most famous book, "Don't Waste Your Life," is about why you should use your life to glorify God by enjoying him.  A few years ago Piper was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  His first response?  He wrote an article called "Don't Waste Your Cancer," on how you can use your terminal illnesses to give glory to God.  Eventually his doctors were able to operate on him and remove the tumor entirely, but Piper didn't lose faith the minute his life became less than ideal.  Say what you will about Piper, but he's not in this for the money or glory.

 

Keep in mind guys, my comments about Piper aren't because I think he's doing great things.  I think he's wasting his effort on a lie, and I am upset every time he converts another soul to Christianity.  I'm only saying this so that you don't underestimate Piper as another TBN televangelist looking to make a quick buck off of loyal Christians.

 

 

I doubt anyone here is estimating him at anything other than a liar and a scam.

 

Personally I don't see people like him as my "enemy" as so many people on that side would see most of us as. I see him and all of them as human, my brothers and sisters in gene pool not some fantasy born out of fear. I don't want to see any of them go down this path and they are not my enemies, they are the enemies of reason and reason can deal with them directly.

 

And he may actually be the real deal but don't for a second think money is not invovled. Money buys power.

[Bhim]

I doubt anyone here is estimating him at anything other than a liar and a scam.

 

Personally I don't see people like him as my "enemy" as so many people on that side would see most of us as. I see him and all of them as human, my brothers and sisters in gene pool not some fantasy born out of fear. I don't want to see any of them go down this path and they are not my enemies, they are the enemies of reason and reason can deal with them directly.

 

And he may actually be the real deal but don't for a second think money is not invovled. Money buys power.

 

 

Money may be involved insofar as Piper and his ministry use it to disseminate his teachings to his many followers, sell his books, etc.  But as far as I know he's not personally profiting from any of it.  I've seen his house.  It's pretty small, and is in a pretty shady area of Minneapolis.  If you have any evidence that he uses money for personal gain, I'd certainly like to see it.  But - and please don't take this the wrong way - is your claim that Piper is a scam artist anything more than idle speculation?

 

Not all Christians are crooks; I'm not even sure most of them are.  The crooks I've encountered are easy to spot.  Many Christians are true believers.  And these men, like Piper, are the truly dangerous ones because they convince people to love Jesus and give their time, efforts, and very minds to his work of destroying cultures and converting people to Christianity.  If Christians were all crooks they'd have the same reputation as a pyramid scheme.  One reason people take Christianity seriously in large numbers is because many of these guys actually believe what they're saying.

[LoneTarus]

this is pretty much how I was taught. anything that god does is good by definition simply because he is god and the ultimate authority. it's no different than following a dictator and claiming you were only following orders and so not at fault. that's the kind of logic most churches I attended followed. God can be as evil and uncaring as he wants and you can't call him on it or ever claim it's not Good and Just because God did it and that makes it OK. 

 

Same sort of logic followed for "men of god" in leadership positions. if they were hearing from god then you don't dare question them because that's touching god's anonited and you are in danger of throwing yourself into hell and putting judgement on your head. 

[rach]

I heard just recently a Christian say that if god were a sadist it would be ok, because "who are we to judge his infinite wisdom?".  there has got to be a point where we trust ourselves to know a thing is evil, and that thing is evil no matter if you, me, cthulu or jehova does it. 

[Lilith666]

I heard just recently a Christian say that if god were a sadist it would be ok, because "who are we to judge his infinite wisdom?". there has got to be a point where we trust ourselves to know a thing is evil, and that thing is evil no matter if you, me, cthulu or jehova does it.

Pretty much what you and LoneTarus said. Xians don't trust themselves; they trust god. It's the same kind of follow-the-leader thinking that allowed the Holocaust and Stalin's massacre to happen, but they don't see it because "Gawd is good, all the time, and all the time, Gawd is good."

[Lilith666]

Oops. Re-posted.

[gall]

 

I doubt anyone here is estimating him at anything other than a liar and a scam.

 

Personally I don't see people like him as my "enemy" as so many people on that side would see most of us as. I see him and all of them as human, my brothers and sisters in gene pool not some fantasy born out of fear. I don't want to see any of them go down this path and they are not my enemies, they are the enemies of reason and reason can deal with them directly.

 

And he may actually be the real deal but don't for a second think money is not invovled. Money buys power.

 

 

Money may be involved insofar as Piper and his ministry use it to disseminate his teachings to his many followers, sell his books, etc.  But as far as I know he's not personally profiting from any of it.  I've seen his house.  It's pretty small, and is in a pretty shady area of Minneapolis.  If you have any evidence that he uses money for personal gain, I'd certainly like to see it.  But - and please don't take this the wrong way - is your claim that Piper is a scam artist anything more than idle speculation?

 

Not all Christians are crooks; I'm not even sure most of them are.  The crooks I've encountered are easy to spot.  Many Christians are true believers.  And these men, like Piper, are the truly dangerous ones because they convince people to love Jesus and give their time, efforts, and very minds to his work of destroying cultures and converting people to Christianity.  If Christians were all crooks they'd have the same reputation as a pyramid scheme.  One reason people take Christianity seriously in large numbers is because many of these guys actually believe what they're saying.

 

 

If he is gaining emotional power over people and influencing them to make decisions based on what he is saying (regardless of if he says he is spreading the good word) then he is profiting from it.

 

Power is worth much more than anything else. Belief is irrelevant. He might not be a thief but another person might think that. It all depends on if out mental freedom has value. Even if those people gave it to him willingly.

 

I never called christians crooks and if one is a crook that would sort of be like saying they are not actually a christian. I might not want religion but I do know that most christians that are the real deal are not thieves or liars they are just confusd and mislead.

 

Yes I think he is a scam artist in that what he is saying I don't believe but that is not scamming in the way you are thinking unless he really doesn't believe and he does it just to gain power. Short of that he is probably not a bad person just mislead. I would think that in some peoples minds that misleading others even with the best intentions is still well its still a shady thing to do in my mind. Just my opinion and not necessarily about that guy.

 

I stand by what I said. Even if he is not using it for personal gain using it to influence people in things I don't believe in is not going to be looked favoribly by me. I don't go out and preach atheism to people spouting damnation they will have if they don't listen to me. I simply say I don't believe what you are saying please prove it before we move forward.

 

This is just a personal feeling from me about the church or preaching in general. Even for free telling people lies, even lies you believe in still doesn't make it good or desirable. At least for me. I would rather seek truth than cover that journey with fantasy no matter how sweet that fantasy might be.