Any Christians out there?

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Lars-E


Not my imagination...I was thinking of Rom 1:21-32, especially the bold parts:

You believe that nonsense. I don't. I cannot reject or hate something that I am reasonbly certain does not exist. You keep making the same mistake. I haven't rejected your god. I am simply reasonably certain that there is no such thing.

It seems like your attitude towards christianity is colored by your childhood experiences? That's alll I am trying to indicate. Nothing more.

And I have been telling you that you are wrong on this. You apparently have some strange ideas about Catholicism. You might want to notice sometime that the Reformation happened long before either of us were born.

My attitude towards christianity is also not what you seem to think it is. I simply am aware that is just another religion with a god that doesn't actually exist in any more likelyhood than the the other religion's gods. This apparently is hard for some christians to grasp as they are really believe that their god is somehow self-evident when it definitly is neither self-evident nor even likely to exist at all.

Anyways my definition of a fundamentalist is a person who believes in certain fundaments. A christian believes in certain fundaments or dogmas if you will. Most ppl have an outlook of life which includes certain fundaments. If you're a jellyfish, then I guess not.

Well for some reason that I can't figure Cybershy has chosen to take it as an insult. He also has mixed up the adjective orthodox with the Orthodox Christians. One is a name and the other is a adjective. English is a complex language where many words have multiple meanings that are highly dependent on context. Its easy to not notice that the meaning of the word in one context is different than it is another. Fortunatly most English words aren't that context dependent. Even 'orthodox' is not normaly taken the way Cybershy did for the simple reason that the Orthodox churches aren't prevalent in English speaking countries.

[ckweb]

Originally posted by Ethelred
You believe that nonsense. I don't. I cannot reject or hate something that I am reasonbly certain does not exist. You keep making the same mistake. I haven't rejected your god. I am simply reasonably certain that there is no such thing.

So that is why you insult him and others by calling a passage of Scripture nonsense?

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Yet another poster attacking for their own misunderstanding. In this case Cybershy seem to laboring under the impression that "Fundamenalist" is an insult and he has taken to task for his own mistaken idea.





I didn't say I was sure and that can be seen even in what you quoted. I said I was pretty sure. It scientificly impossible for it to have happened through natural law. You seem to have missed my saying there was no way to check it.



There is no evidence for any such entity. If one exists it has gone out of its way to hide the evidence.



Only if you ALSO assume the force made the Earth so it looks exactly like the Fundamentalists are wrong. If the god was deceptive with the world why not the Bible instead? I see no way to decide which once you assume the world was created by something so devious. That is why Fundamentlists usually try to obfuscate the evidence instead of claiming that Jehovah created the world to look like the Bible is wrong.



Its unrealistic because there is zero evidence in the world around us to support the idea.



No. Our debate is over the lack of evidence for the world you think we live in. Evolution is a real thing. The evidence is overwhelming. For the world to look the way it does and the Bible to be correct requires a god that is so deceptive that there is still no reason to believe the Bible.



You have that wrong too. While some Fundamentalist do that not all do. A Christian Fudamenalist is simply someone that believes the Bible is literaly true. Ckweb claimed that was mostly a US idea. I think he may have gotten over that by now considering how many Europeans he has disagreed with on the Bible. Some fundamentalists are not Young Earth Creationists but most are. Either way if you believe in Adam and Eve and the Flood and the Tower of Babel you are pretty much a Fundamentalist.



Its a word Cybershy. Its a way to refer to people without a massive circumlocution like 'the people that think the Bible is literly true wether they are pushy about it or not'. I think typing that out once should be enough. If you think the Bible is literaly true then you are by definition a Fundamentalist. If you don't then you arene't and I am not refering when I talk about Fundamentalists.



I can't be a fundamentalist. I don't believe the Bible is literly true. I know that there has never been a world wide flood for instance. You seem to have a problem with the word. Perhaps you simply didn't understand its meaning.



Pushing is to some christians not a good thing. But the Bible does say to spread the word doesn't it? Some people put their emphasis in different parts of the Bible. Not surprising since on this issue you can find quotes in the Bible going either way. Yes its another thing the Bible contradicts itself on.



Where did I do that except in the case where Troll insulted me first?


Fundamenatlist is not an insult. If you have a problem with the word that is YOUR PERSONAL problem rather than an insult from me.



You need to look the word up Cybershy. If you find the word insulting that is your problem. Few Fundamentalists would agree with you.

Now 'Fundy' is derogative to some degree and I never call anyone that. Its a lot easier to type though.

When did I "insult" you? It was not meant as an insult whatever you are referring to, so please inform me so I may quantify what you are referring to

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Troll
When did I "insult" you? It was not meant as an insult whatever you are referring to, so please inform me so I may quantify what you are referring to

I for one find it extremely insulting to have somebody tell me that I'm going to burn in eternal hellfire (or whatever have you) solely because I have different opinions regarding the existence or nonexistence of god(s).

[ckweb]

Originally posted by loinburger
I for one find it extremely insulting to have somebody tell me that I'm going to burn in eternal hellfire (or whatever have you) solely because I have different opinions regarding the existence or nonexistence god(s).

That may be so. But does that give Ethelred sufficient justification to retaliate by calling the passage in Romans nonsense?

Have I ever condemned or judge you loinburger?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by ckweb
That may be so. But does that give Ethelred sufficient justification to retaliate by calling the passage in Romans nonsense?

Nope.

Have I ever condemned or judge you loinburger?

Nope.

[loinburger]

The trouble, I think, is that spiritual writings (the Bible, the Koran, the Reg Veda, whatever) need to be analyzed to sift out the legitimate revelations from the questionable or the illegitimate revelations, but this analysis can only be effectively performed by those who acknowledge the existence of the spiritual and/or see the relevance of the spiritual. I couldn't effectively analyze somebody's revelations--I wouldn't know a legitimate revelation from an illegitimate one, and don't see how anybody else can tell the difference either. It's equivalent, in my mind, to differentiating between legitimate and illegitimate conceptions of the afterlife--obviously some conceptions are more correct than others, but I can't see any possible way to determine which are legitimate and which are illegitimate.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by loinburger


I for one find it extremely insulting to have somebody tell me that I'm going to burn in eternal hellfire (or whatever have you) solely because I have different opinions regarding the existence or nonexistence of god(s).

Ok, better to be insulted now and have a chance to repent or wait until judgement day and find out YOU are in the smoking section of eternity.

As for personally insulting you, I did not personally attack merely stated facts as to what is ahead for anyone whom doesnot profess Christ as Lord and Savior.

Ok, want a nice warm and fuzzy compliment.. .. Ok..I do like your Phil Silvers Avatar

Seriously, I was not flaming or personally attacking you or Ethelred. I am sorry if you were offended. Not my intention, but was in fact attempting to share what is ahead.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Troll
Seriously, I was not flaming or personally attacking you or Ethelred. I am sorry if you were offended. Not my intention, but was in fact attempting to share what is ahead.

I realize that, which is why I didn't call you on it until you asked "when did I ever insult [Ethelred]." The insult may not have been directed at any specific person (rather it was directed at everybody who doesn't share your same opinion as to the existence or nonexistence of god(s), which is quite a broad category), but it was quite insulting nevertheless. Most people don't appreciate being told that they're wicked, particularly when they've done nothing wicked.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by ckweb
Ethelred. I read your response to my last post. I think you simply respond to my posts and forget what my posts were responding to. And, then you lay all sorts of slight ad hominen attacks on me . . .

I try to keep the previous post in mind. Perhaps you are oversensitive. Kind of like me.

Did that count as a slight ad hominym attack?

Another tactic you use is if I ask a question several times in my response, you'll answer it the first time and then when you get to the question again, you'll accuse me of being dense for not getting your answer. For pete's sake, you only answered the question in that post!

Actually we went over it before in previous threads. Since you didn't remember I chose intentionaly to repeat it three times. I did actualy notice that I did that.

I think maybe now you have the message that:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Just wanted to remind you.

I also find you evade and deflect the issue alot. I find it amazingly difficult to continue the conversation we start because you seem to slightly modify its direction.

Most likely because you have different interests than I do. I am not evading when it is simply something I don't care about.

I don't care about the historicity of parts of the Bible for instance simply because I don't think the religion has a basis in reality so the history has little consequence to me. It does to you because you base your life on that religion.

My last question did no such thing. You simply chose to think it does so you didn't have to answer the first two questions.

You last question did exactly that. You don't understand the idea that Jehovah is supposed to have controlled the content of the Bible even in translated forms. Its a basic Fundamentalist idea and without that idea the Bible remains the mere writings of men and therefor open to question and in need of corroboration. I think that also anwers your other questions which wouldn't have arisen if you had understood the concept behing a divinely directed Bible.

I am not misunderstanding anything. I have challenged this argument. Why is there nothing special in the writings of mere men? Why can't men write imperfectly about a perfect god? Please answer.

Nope you ARE still misunderstanding. Without some evidence that the writing have a special knowledge of Jehovah its looks just the same as other religious writings. You ARE still misconstuing the word 'special'. Special as in a special relationship with a real god. Since the things in the Bible that would qualify as 'special' in that the knowledge or the events would have to come from a god don't actualy match reality there is no evidence of that special relationship.

There simply is nothing special in imperfect writing. The is plenty of that elsewhere. What makes the Bible a real book on god if much of the special knowledge about that god shows a world that we don't actualy live in?

This is what I mean . . . You simply refuse to believe that it is so.

Actually I showed that it isn't so. With the Flood.

I have clearly demonstrated that the Flood is a composite text and that its stylistic choices indicate that it was a mythic story.

Of course it is myth. But the people that wrote it didn't think so and neither did other authors of the Bible. All you showed was the story is a story. Look at how many people think that it isn't just on this thread alone. They think it was real. So did the person that wrote it down and the people that assembled it into the Bible we have today.

And, as I mentioned way back then, it is irrelevant whether some later biblical writers thought it was real or not. Undoubtedly, Babylonians thought the Gilgamesh Epic was real but that does not imply that the author thought it was real.

The Gilgamesh Epic may have had a single creator but is more likely that it was a tale told by many and modified by many before it was written down. Same for the Biblical Flood. It gained the aspects of an oral myth simply because it was one. That does not mean that the persons that wrote it down and the persons that chose to put it in the Bible didn't think it real by that time.

That the writers of other parts of the Bible thought the Flood real shows how the original people that put it into Jewish religious writings could also have easily thought it real.

I did no such thing. I only asked why the historicity of the Flood made such a difference to you.

I bet you can't find something of your that would support that statement. You made a statement about how I would respond finding out the Flood was real that directly contradicted what I had allready said I would do. You did NOT ask a question. You made a statement. A statement about me that contradicted what I said about myself in that very instance.

NOW you have asked the question. And I answered it allready. Several times. In this post even.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The Flood story is an extraordinary claim. Proof of it would lend more credence to other extraordinary claims in the Bible that cannot be tested unlike the Flood.

Did you miss the question marks????

There wern't any in your contradiction of what I had allready said. The question mark was applied to:

Y'know, if there was a real, universal Flood, it wouldn't prove the existence of God to you so why do you even bother?!

"why would you even bother?" was the question. The statement was that it would not prove anything to me, which was the contradiction.

See I did take your previous statements into account. It is you that didn't.

No I am not. I am using ordinary evidence to support ordinary events. Once doing so, all I have suggested is that, if the Bible is reliable to recounting ordinary events, why not give it the benefit of the doubt on its extraordinary claims? No where did I write that ordinary evidence supports the extraordinary claims; or the mundane justifies the impossible.

That IS using ordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims. You are asking for a benefit of the doubt, that can only be justified by extraordinary evidence, based on purely ordinary evidence. On top of which we allready know that some of the extraordinary claims are just plain wrong.

My point, which seems to elude you, is that there is no impossible event that fails your check. There are only Fundamentalist claims that fail your check.

The Flood is a real event in the context of the Bible. It is not just a fundamentalist claim as in EVERY case the Flood is mentioned in the Bible it is treated as real event. The Tower of Bable story makes no sense at all if there was no flood. The listing of decendents of Noah makes no sense if Noah was not supposed to have existed. It is ONLY your claim that the extraordinary event of the Flood is somehow not an extraordinary event that is in need of proof.

I am not pulling a fallacy and I am not acting as if the possibility proves the reality. All I have suggested is that available evidence does not disprove it; in other words, the sequence of events the Bible presents is not excluded by extra-biblical sources.

It isn't supported either so there is no reason to believe it real in all aspects. If there was support that would be different.

I have in no way suggested that it means anything more than that. You are simply accusing me of such so you can avoid argue on the core issue, just like you will probably respond to this last sentence rather than the explanation I have given.

Mentioning it the way you did was meaningless in that case. The question to me anyway is proof FOR the event. Not a lack of disproof. Its hard to prove a negative unless the postive would have required traces as is the case for the Flood.

By implication.

Incorrect word. The correct word is 'inference'. I didn't imply that. You inferred it. Since I didn't intend to imply such a thing its only in your head and not in anything I did. People infer things all time that aren't really there.

But, if the course of history is the religious matter . . .

It remains irrelevant unless the religion is a true and correct one. Which requires evidence to support the relgious claims not the historical ones. For instance Joshua may have fit the battle of Jericho and the walls may even have come tumblin' down without a god being invovled. I am asking for evidence of the that god being involved. I am not seeing any. I am only seeing CLAIMS that it was involved.

Your opinion. Prove that it is so.

You have forgotten who is claiming things. I am asking for proof. You are making claims without proof. I don't need to prove anything in this instance. I do so when I am talking about evoloution.

Why can't fallible men write a book of special valuel about their real relationship with a real god?

They could IF the god was real. Where is the evidence for the god? Its an extraodinary claim. It still requires extraordinary evidence not just some ancient fallible man's say so.

No. You are reading them as they appear in English, as Fundamentalist argue that they should be read, and completely divorced from their historical context.

That is because it is up to Jehovah to make sure things written about him are not so obviously wrong, at least when those things are all we have to go on. That Jehovah hasn't taken care of the problem is yet another sign the he is just a myth without the powers claimed for him.

I never did so. But, by saying I did, it makes a nice throw in on a particularly weak point on your part . . .

Except that you do so. Frequently. Asking me to give a benefit of the doubt for extraordinary claims based on purely ordinary things is something you do very often. In this latest post even.

No I am not. I am using ordinary evidence to support ordinary events. Once doing so, all I have suggested is that, if the Bible is reliable to recounting ordinary events, why not give it the benefit of the doubt on its extraordinary claims?

That IS asking for what you just claimed you didn't.

You are using modern ideas to claim that the ancients thought as you do.

No. I am reading literature contemporary to the writing of Genesis.

There is no such literature. Genesis is pretty obviously from a oral tales. As in pre-literate. So there are no comtemporary writings. Only contemporary oral tales that mostly were never written down.

Could you show me where you have taken into consideration such relevant issues to the meaning of the text?

I don't see them as relevant. Its up to Jehovah to make sure the writings about him relevant to modern times. He is after all supposed to be all-powerful. Surely such an entitiy could manage that.

Ad hominen attacks do not make your point. It is also disingenuous to suggest I am not getting your point when you only gave your answer to this question earlier in this post.

Except that I did give the answer in previous posts and I mentioned that as well.

BTW, you have not proved that all the biblical authors believed the Flood was real. You have failed to show that the author of the Flood Story himself thought it was real and you have not shown that all the others require a real event. Simply because they mention it, does not mean they thought it was real.

I don't have to prove that all the authors thougt it real. Only those that refered to it. Which I did for all but Genesis in my previous posts and now I covered Genesis as well since there is no reason for the listing of Noah's ancestors if the author had not thought it real.


The other authors either:

Don't mention it and therefor we can't know what they thought so they are irrelevant to the issue.

Merely mention it which again doesn't tell us anything and therefor are irrelevant to the issue

Mention in such a way that is very clear that they thought it a real event.

There are no cases where it is clear that the author thought it just a story. Not even in Genesis since a listing of decendents is not needed for fictional people.

[Lincoln]

The dilemma in this sort of debate is that if the scripture that Lars posted is true as well as other passages that confirm basically the same thing then resolving these isssues is impossible. Why:

Well because according to those passages God himself sends "strong delusion" to those who mock him and ridicule his being. Jesus said at one point to "let the blind lead the blind". He told his followers to "leave them alone." You cannot open the eyes of someone who God has blinded. The excersize is futile because "the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit".

Only a TRUE seeker of truth has any hope of really finding God if he is as described in the Bible. The rest are barking up the wrong tree. As you ridicule God he laughs at you. "God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble."

A true agnostic can be among the most honest of individuals but one who spends his life ridiculing God is not an honest person. He is as some have already said; A God hater. An honest agnostic is open to either view and finds no need to ridicule those who have opinions about God that are different than his own.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by loinburger


I realize that, which is why I didn't call you on it until you asked "when did I ever insult [Ethelred]." The insult may not have been directed at any specific person (rather it was directed at everybody who doesn't share your same opinion as to the existence or nonexistence of god(s), which is quite a broad category), but it was quite insulting nevertheless. Most people don't appreciate being told that they're wicked, particularly when they've done nothing wicked.

WE all are sinners Loinburger. Me,you,Ethelred,Ming all human beings are sinful.
JESUS CHRIST paid the price for our sinfulness Loinburger. I am just as sinful (and sometimes feel much less deserving than my obedience unto my Lord would dictate) I am redeemed through His Blood, not anything I have done, save profession of faith in Him whom paid the Price at Calvary, Golgotha, The Hill of The Skull.

I apologize if anyone was Personally offended by any misunderstood comments.
I do not however apologize if what offened anyone was me stating the facts, Seperation of Christ on Earth equals eternal seperation from God the Father in Eternity.

Troll

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by ckweb


So that is why you insult him and others by calling a passage of Scripture nonsense?

I did not such thing. If HE or you makes an insult out my saying that something about the Bible that I can see no reason to believe is anything but nonsense that is entirely his doing and not mine.

I did NOT attack him. I said a passage in the Bible was nonsense. It seems to me that you are attempting to get me stop saying what I think about an ancient book by pretending that it is somehow a personal insult to do so.

You question is on the order of 'why did you stop beating your wife' I didn't insult him and you are asking why I did.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Troll


When did I "insult" you? It was not meant as an insult whatever you are referring to, so please inform me so I may quantify what you are referring to

Loinburger has covered this quite well allready.

Consider this a 'ME TOO' post.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Troll
I do not however apologize if what offened anyone was me stating the facts, Seperation of Christ on Earth equals eternal seperation from God the Father in Eternity.

Then we're at an impasse--you feel that you are justified in insulting me, and I disagree. You call my supposed wickedness a fact, I call it an unjustified opinion. If you see any possible way to resolve this communication breakdown then I'm all ears, but I certainly don't see one--it appears to me that you've arbitrarily resolved that your opinions are valid while mine are invalid, which makes it impossible for me to sway you otherwise. I'm content just so long as you understand that you're being insulting.