Calvinism, Predestination, The Elect

[midniterider]

Christianity does not have to be refuted. Just ignored. 

 

edit. Ex-Christian is just a label for people who no longer believe Christian baloney of any flavor. 

[LuthAMF]

7 minutes ago, midniterider said:

Christianity does not have to be refuted. Just ignored. 

 

edit. Ex-Christian is just a label for people who no longer believe Christian baloney of any flavor. 

How convenient for you.

Maybe they never knew what or why they "believed" in the first place.

[LuthAMF]

10 minutes ago, midniterider said:

Christianity does not have to be refuted. Just ignored. 

 

edit. Ex-Christian is just a label for people who no longer believe Christian baloney of any flavor. 

And your chosen method for "ignoring" it is to assiciate yourself with a site that uses the name. Hmmmm.

[midniterider]

6 minutes ago, LuthAMF said:

How convenient for you.

Maybe they never knew what or why they "believed" in the first place.

 

Christianity ain't rocket science. You are clueless. 

[midniterider]

2 minutes ago, LuthAMF said:

And your chosen method for "ignoring" it is to assiciate yourself with a site that uses the name. Hmmmm.

 

What's your reason to visit an Ex-Christian site, Mr Christian? I think you want to be one of us. 

 

Get a clue. 

[mwc]

1 hour ago, LuthAMF said:

The question remains, does the bible actually prove itself or does it not? This is not circular and requires an answer. Also, IF it does, HOW does it do so? These are questions you either will not or cannot answer.

     These are good questions.  Why don't you go ahead and help me with them?

 

          mwc

 

[disillusioned]

4 hours ago, LuthAMF said:

I can't help what you write.

"The answer to the question "how do you know the Bible to be true" is "to know the Bible to be true, you must presuppose God" 

Not true. i just told Joshpantera in our debate, "A person does not open scripture, read of God whom he does not know and of whom he has no real comprehension and presuppose Him to be real."

You don't know what that means? Telling. And you're the supposed logic experts here.

 

The value of that statement? What is "doing everything correctly"?

 

Which is a legitimate possibility. But oh...can't be flawed when it doesn't exist. OFF THE HOOK! How convenient that "presupposition".

 

Nope. Correctness of reasoning assumes a standard. Your standard is arbitrary.

 

Nope. There are reasons to believe it. Are reasons a foreign concept to you? Of course! When there is a presupposed bias involved.

 

If one proves the other. Do they? But where have you found these "statements"?

 

Who has told you this? If God exists, He exists. PERIOD. But then WHY the bible? Because God has further revealed Himself to us in scripture in a manner we would not otherwise rightly acknowledge Him and He has spoken in scripture. 

 

Off the rails again. Your little syllogism has collapsed. Is the testimony true? Where does it give us inaccurate  testimony of God? How do you know? What other source do you possess that reveals God in a different and better way? To cite another "religious text" only makes you a believer in a "god"; any god. Who cares?

 

Not. True.

And still you assert this as though it is without reason to do so. Which is primary? The Revealer or that which reveals? If the Revealer uses means to reveal, on what basis do you say He did not do so?

 

This is piecemeal,  and difficult to respond to properly, because I still don't know what exactly it is that you assert. I'm still waiting for you to tell me. My refutation evidently doesn't counter your point of view.  That's hardly surprising; you haven't presented your point of view. You may do so any time you like. 

 

One thing I will say is that you allude a great deal to revelation here, which is basically just Christianese for "I know something you don't (read: can't) know, do dah, do dah". I've read the Bible in its entirety several times. I've studied it quite a bit. I've memorized parts of it. I've received no revelation. This despite the fact that I believed in God at the time. So the answer to your question about whether the revealer or that which is revealed is primary is simply "neither", in my experience. All testimony given in the Bible of God is innaccurate. This is not a presupposition; it's a statement from experience.

 

Perhaps your experiences are different from mine. That's ok. No doubt your assumptions are different from mine. That's also ok. But you haven't refuted the argument I gave. You've basically just asserted that I missed the point. Fine. What is the point? State it clearly and unambiguously, or piss off.

[LuthAMF]

5 hours ago, midniterider said:

Christianity ain't rocket science.

Well you got that right!

 

5 hours ago, midniterider said:

You are clueless.

That too may very well be. Concerning what? We're all clueless about something until informed.

[LuthAMF]

5 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

What's your reason to visit an Ex-Christian site, Mr Christian? I think you want to be one of us. 

 

Get a clue. 

Do you want the full story or  "Tweet"?

Or do you even really care?

[LuthAMF]

5 hours ago, mwc said:

     These are good questions.  Why don't you go ahead and help me with them?

 

          mwc

 

That's in the debate.

[mwc]

10 minutes ago, LuthAMF said:

That's in the debate.

     You'll have to elaborate.

 

          mwc

 

[LuthAMF]

1 hour ago, disillusioned said:

This is piecemeal,  and difficult to respond to properly

Piecemeal. 

I took apart your own syllogistic attempt to explain something.

I asked reasonable questions in direct response to you statements.

1 hour ago, disillusioned said:

One thing I will say is that you allude a great deal to revelation here, which is basically just Christianese for "I know something you don't (read: can't) know, do dah, do dah". I've read the Bible in its entirety several times. I've studied it quite a bit. I've memorized parts of it. I've received no revelation. This despite the fact that I believed in God at the time.

"Christianese". Which is a pejorative from atheist-speak.

"I know something you dont..."

There is only one revelation We both read the same revelation. 

 

[LuthAMF]

11 minutes ago, mwc said:

     You'll have to elaborate.

 

          mwc

 

I do. In the debate.

[mwc]

26 minutes ago, LuthAMF said:

I do. In the debate.

     Okay.  I'm not sure what's going on exactly.  From where I stand you took objection with what I was saying, and since I didn't want to misrepresent your views, I offered to let you go back, correcting my mistakes (which may well be the entirety of everything I said on the subject), and take over from there.  So go ahead and fill me in.

 

          mwc

 

[disillusioned]

1 hour ago, LuthAMF said:

Piecemeal. 

I took apart your own syllogistic attempt to explain something.

I asked reasonable questions in direct response to you statements.

 

No, you didn't criticize what I said so much as assert that I was not attacking the correct point of view. This is different from attacking the argument itself. Moreover, if I wasn't attacking your point of view, it's only because you haven't actually shared it explicitly. 

 

Quote

"Christianese". Which is a pejorative from atheist-speak.

"I know something you dont..."

There is only one revelation We both read the same revelation. 

 

Strangely, nothing special was revealed to me. Guess I'm not one of the elect.

 

Carry on.

[LuthAMF]

21 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

Strangely, nothing special was revealed to me. Guess I'm not one of the elect.

But yet at the time you say 

 

3 hours ago, disillusioned said:

This despite the fact that I believed in God at the time.

"Believed" based upon WHAT exactly? If nothing was revealed,  how can you say you believed in God? You "believed" something but it was not the revealed God because nothing was revealed. Bad Kung pao chicken? 

 

As for being "elect", well that's just more confusion being expressed.

[florduh]

I must say that I have never seen a worse apologist than LuthAMF. It's so bad it's not even entertaining anymore.

[midniterider]

1 hour ago, LuthAMF said:

But yet at the time you say 

 

"Believed" based upon WHAT exactly? If nothing was revealed,  how can you say you believed in God? You "believed" something but it was not the revealed God because nothing was revealed. Bad Kung pao chicken? 

 

As for being "elect", well that's just more confusion being expressed.

 

So, someone prayed to Jesus Christ and nothing was revealed. I guess there must be more than one Jesus Christ then. A bunch of phonies and then Real Jesus. So someone sends up a prayer to Jesus Christ and I guess Fake Jesus somehow prevents Real Jesus from hearing that prayer? Fake Jesus must be more powerful than Real Jesus in that case. 

 

Another possibility is someone's prayer to Jesus Christ is heard by all the phonies as well as Real Jesus. And Real Jesus just decides to ignore that praying person. 

 

Or there's only one Jesus Christ and he just ignores that praying person.

 

Or maybe there's no Jesus Christ that can reveal anything so Luth and every other Christian are just full of baloney.

[midniterider]

43 minutes ago, florduh said:

I must say that I have never seen a worse apologist than LuthAMF. It's so bad it's not even entertaining anymore.

 

I liked Ironhorse. He was sincere. 

[mwc]

     Whoopsie.  I forgot all the predestination stuff (my bad since it wasn't my thing but it was a part of this thread...quite a gloss but I did ask for corrections and it seems like this might be something to fix and may well not be quite right).  Even though everything comes from god it's still entirely up to god who gets the "special revelation" (so to speak).  So everyone can follow all the steps and still not get "it."

 

     What if we get that loving feeling while reading some other document?  Should we follow it instead?  And, of course, this presupposes that a god exists but if we don't do that then what do we do?  Do we read the bible and hope that we just get that special revelation?

 

     I know the answers are that god will make sure that those who are supposed to believe will believe however that's supposed to happen so there's no point in even entertaining my other questions but that's not very fun.

 

           mwc

 

[disillusioned]

2 hours ago, florduh said:

I must say that I have never seen a worse apologist than LuthAMF. It's so bad it's not even entertaining anymore.

 

In his defense, he keeps saying I'm confused and the conversation is beginning to make me confused.

 

Wait. Is this like how the bible proves the bible? Did I just have a revelation?

[TheRedneckProfessor]

3 hours ago, florduh said:

I must say that I have never seen a worse apologist than LuthAMF. It's so bad it's not even entertaining anymore.

The devil also believes, and trembles.  James 2:19

[midniterider]

God gave us all brains so that we would not be able to understand his bible.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

7 minutes ago, midniterider said:

God gave us all brains so that we would not be able to understand his bible.

I'm beginning to think Luth-ifer doesn't understand the bible either.  He blamed me for his inability to explain what the bible is; and, rather than explain why the bible is, he just copied and pasted his church liturgy on the subject.  

 

This clown is simply not capable of thinking for himself.  No wonder he's a christian. 

[LogicalFallacy]

5 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

I liked Ironhorse. He was sincere. 

 

Yes. I had some wonderful conversations with Ironhorse. He actually did his best to answer and never went down the road of reprobate minds or you believe you just won't admit it, or it's a self evident truth (PA)