I'd like to respond to this comment about the inerrancy of the Scripture from my Eastern Orthodox friend David Bryan, and as always, to ask him please to correct any misconceptions I've incorporated about EOC. I understand whenever you have to cut this off; moving cross-country is no easy task. But I think the problem for your position is deeper than you realise, I really do.
Men wrote the thing, yes, but "men carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Don't you believe that your church is guided by the Holy Spirit? Why can't someone turn the same objection back on your church? I mean, it's made up of MEN.
What's really funny to me is that it's your church that believes in theosis, faithful believers' partaking in the divine nature. These 4 Evangelists were, I'm sure you'd agree, much, much farther along in their being conformed to the image of Christ than you or I will ever be (until we die). Thus they would have been much closer to God, better, deeper partakers of the divine nature than you or I. And yet, here you are
1) correcting them according to your far-removed, 21st-century perspective.
-The irony here is that EO-dox are usually the ones criticising Reformed believers for looking at early writers and the Scr from a far-removed, future perspective.
2) making a powerful distinction between man and God.
-The irony here is that EO-dox are usually the ones who, from a Reformed perspective, shrinks and blurs the distinction between man and God.
All that to say, in this line of reasoning, you are acting like a liberal Protestant. That's not a good thing, but unfortunately it's not the only area in which EO-dox do so.
Maybe it's not as apparent to you for another reason. I've asked both you and Anastasios about the role that evangelism and apologetics play in the life of the semi-serious and serious EO layman, and you've told me that the former is inadequate and the latter is barely existent. Anastasios in particular let me know that he'd never heard of an EO apologist engaging, say, an atheist in public debate. I could be wrong, but I'm not at all sure you have encountered many atheists or skeptics and really talked turkey with them about stuff like this. So let me come at it from another angle.
You're talking to Joe American Skeptic. You tell him you believe that Jesus Christ instituted a church while He was walking the Earth, and entrusted it to His disciples, and His disciples spread the good news of Jesus all around the world and appointed other people to take their places when they died in the churches and to celebrate the sacraments of Christ, like baptism and the Eucharist. So, this church has come down to us through the years with successions of bishops, which is kind of like what you'd call "pastors".
You tell him you believe the Bible, that you believe what the Bible says and also what the church has always believed down through the centuries. You know, b/c the guys who were handed down the tradition of the church from the apostles and then on down through their successors, they all taught the same things.
So he wonders if it is true? For example, what would you say the sign above Christ on the Cross actually said, in its entirety? Each gospel account stated something explicitly regarding what the sign said, when in reality only one of the four was actually right, at best, and the other three (or all four) were (in some cases drastically) in error as to what the sign actually said after all, right? (He hadn't read Seth's comment, which clears up the misunderstanding.)
You'd say you're fine with one gospel saying one inscription and another saying sthg else, because men wrote the thing. Inspiration doesn't necessarily produce airtight, factual data synchronization. There's still far and away enough agreement as to the major events (Nativity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost) that Scripture very strongly stands as a faithful witness to the Advent of Christ and the reality of His Church.
He wonders if inspiration doesn't necessarily produce factual data, how do you know that the Resurrection, for example, actually, factually happened?
You'd answer that you have the faithful witness of the church down thru the centuries. It's a lot of people.
Here's where it gets sticky. He thought that "a lot of people" is what caused the problem in the first place - multiple ppl write these varied accts of what was written above the Cross. But suddenly more people is a good thing?
So, what will you say? That you have a succession of people who heard from the teachings of the apostles themselves, no?
But hadn't the Gospel writers also heard from them? Weren't at least a couple of them eyewitnesses? Why do you rely on early church writers when the earliest ones are untrustworthy?
Or do you trust them for SPIRITUAL truth but not other kinds of truth? How do you make the distinction when the truth in question is not only spiritual in nature, such as
1) the Crucifixion
2) the Resurrection
3) the promised Parousia
4) the new Heaven and the new Earth
5) the theosis of the faithful
etc.
On what basis do you assert that those are indeed faithfully transmitted, while other things, such as the Cross inscription, were not? Is it just b/c you don't understand how the Cross inscription accts could fit together (even though Seth explained how)? Why is it better to ascribe error to a production of the Holy Spirit rather than to admit that you don't understand how it could all work together, but God knows and, while often He does make that knowledge and understanding available to humans, sometimes He just doesn't. You talk about mystery an awful lot in EOC; why do you abandon it in this arena? Where does the Bible itself distinguish between "OK, here's some spiritual truth, so this is really the real truth, for real," and "Here's some other stuff about, you know, the physical surroundings, the historical narrative. This isn't really a big deal. In fact, you could probably skip over it, b/c 21st-century archæologists will be able to totally reconstruct the whole thing WAY better than I'll be able to tell it here. So yeah, just fuggedaboudit (2 Maccabees 15:38-39)"?
The same questions go for early church authors. Only, there were alot more of them! You think the 4 accts are irreconcilable, but 40 different early church authors all saying different things is a better situation? Will you retreat to "oh, well, ____ was just speaking as an individual, private theologian, and the church's reaction to it over time bore out that he was mistaken"? But when all the church fathers hold the Scr in highest regard and ascribe no error to it thru hundreds and hundreds of years and thousands of pages, somehow *you* know better, with your 21st-century wisdom and insight?
Is this where following EO tradition leads someone? Is it really that far out of the vein of EOC tradition to hold to the inerrancy of the Bible?
And of course, we must ask, if it is, how would anyone know for sure? After all, if God-breathed Scripture is errant, what hope have non-theopneustos writings from men who were *not* "carried along by the Holy Spirit"?
(Cross-posted at Beggars All)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
A quick harmonisation of the Gospel birth accounts
A commenter over at another blog has been throwing out "biblical contradictions", so I thought I'd share my recent response to him.
It's rather humorous to hear him say things like:
I didn't devote a ton of time to the harmonisation, but it wasn't really all that hard. Here we see yet another way skeptics like him don't bother trying to get to the bottom of the story; they just see a post in the Skeptic's Antiquated Drivel and assume he's got a silver bullet in his gun. It's a shame, really.
Lk 1:21On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.
So they didn't go on the 40th, they went on the 8th.
39When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.
Back to Naz they go. Doesn't say how long. Doesn't say they never went back to Bethlehem. Doesn't say they never left Naz again their whole life long. Doesn't say whether they left on vacation or back to live there.
Matt 2:1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magia from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the eastb and have come to worship him.”
This is about 2 yrs after Jesus' birth.
7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the easte went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
Looks like they're in Bethlehem at this point, 2 years later.
Did they go back to live there after they'd returned to Naz? Did they decide to move?
The text doesn't say.
Then they flee to Egypt, when Jesus is ~2 yrs old.
Still in Matt 2 - 19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
So then they go back to Nazareth.
Where's the contradiction?
There is no compelling reason to harmonize them, unless one has an interest in doing so.
Spoken like a true skeptic, with the intention to be unfair to the text.
You harmonise EVERYTHING ELSE, but you're not interested in even trying to harmonise the Bible. Your bias is showing.
It's rather humorous to hear him say things like:
If the text is errant, then it gets its authority from matching and providing new insight into a present experience of "god" or life or experience, however you define the ineffable quality of being in the middle of here. And to me it does not "downgrade" the Bible, but rather "upgrades" the rest of life and its resources as means to spiritual truth.
The birth narratives have contradictions...Great stories though - seriously, I think they are beautiful.So, the falser they are, the more beautiful? I think this man needs to rethink some things. But if you read his comments, he clearly treats the Bible differently than any other writing he encounters, so this is just one more way he does so.
I didn't devote a ton of time to the harmonisation, but it wasn't really all that hard. Here we see yet another way skeptics like him don't bother trying to get to the bottom of the story; they just see a post in the Skeptic's Antiquated Drivel and assume he's got a silver bullet in his gun. It's a shame, really.
Lk 1:21On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.
So they didn't go on the 40th, they went on the 8th.
39When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.
Back to Naz they go. Doesn't say how long. Doesn't say they never went back to Bethlehem. Doesn't say they never left Naz again their whole life long. Doesn't say whether they left on vacation or back to live there.
Matt 2:1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magia from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the eastb and have come to worship him.”
This is about 2 yrs after Jesus' birth.
7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the easte went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
Looks like they're in Bethlehem at this point, 2 years later.
Did they go back to live there after they'd returned to Naz? Did they decide to move?
The text doesn't say.
Then they flee to Egypt, when Jesus is ~2 yrs old.
Still in Matt 2 - 19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
So then they go back to Nazareth.
Where's the contradiction?
There is no compelling reason to harmonize them, unless one has an interest in doing so.
Spoken like a true skeptic, with the intention to be unfair to the text.
You harmonise EVERYTHING ELSE, but you're not interested in even trying to harmonise the Bible. Your bias is showing.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
An interview with Phred Felps' daughter
This is pretty impressive.
Shirley Phelps-Roper is some mishmash of self-righteous, Pharisailegalist, hyper-Calvinist, heartless, and evil all rolled into a loudmouth who doesn't know friend from foe.
Otherwise, I'm getting back into blogging slowly since my mission.
Shirley Phelps-Roper is some mishmash of self-righteous, Pharisailegalist, hyper-Calvinist, heartless, and evil all rolled into a loudmouth who doesn't know friend from foe.
Otherwise, I'm getting back into blogging slowly since my mission.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Outta the country
Just stopping by to explain my absence. I've been prepping for my upcoming 2-week mission trip to evangelise francophone Muslims, being a francophone (but not a Muslim) myself.
So I'll be overseas for a time. Talk to you when I get over the jetlag afterwards.
So I'll be overseas for a time. Talk to you when I get over the jetlag afterwards.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Progressing? Regressing? Dunno!
Dr Eric Reitan has graced us with another post in his series: Authority Without Inerrancy?
Oy, where to begin?
Here is the comment I left:
Hello Dr Reitan,
-Rather than viewing the Bible as the very Word of God, the progressive Christian views the Bible as a seminal human testament to divine revelation.-
One hopes he'll deal, then, with the fact that Jesus thought very differently.
-in profound mystical encounters-
Which are anything but objective.
-in providential events-
Which don't communicate much of anything specific, w/o a framework already in place thru which to interpret said event.
-through our relationships with one another-
Which are sometimes good and reflect holiness and are very often evil, disgusting, harmful, and sinful. "Progressives" live in happy-happy-land.
-In many of these cases, the actual writers were probably not striving to express their own experience of divine revelation so much as striving to faithfully put to writing stories that expressed the religious experiences of earlier generations.-
Even when they specifically state that they're writing the very revelation of God? All those "thus saith the Lord"s are "their own experiences" and "stories"?
-this means that approached on a verse-by-verse basis, one cannot confidently say, simply because the passage appears in the Bible, that it truly expresses the will of God or offers us an accurate understanding God’s nature.-
Leaving the "progressive" completely and utterly in the lurch. If God has not spoken clearly, we have nothing, no objective way to tell right from wrong, holiness from sin, Heaven-bound-ness from Hell-bound-ness. In short, it sucks to "progress".
-Witnesses-
This really seems just to beg the question. Numerous fallible witnesses lead sometimes to what we think are correct verdicts and sometimes lead to the OJ Simpson trial. What about INFALLIBLE witnesses, inspired specifically by the final, infallible God?
-The revised belief system, while still imperfect-
You mean "while still imperfect, ***I THINK (without any standard outside of myself to distinguish whether I'm right)***".
-But the process is ongoing and, in philosophical terms, "dialectical." -
So we could still be in our sins, and we'd have no idea. Heaven could be a fantasy.
Progressing towards...whatever...is purpose-less and w/o a goal or destination. You're bowing before the mirror.
-If every claim about God is taken to be a perfectly accurate description of the divine, then the reader will suppose there is no trajectory of development to look for.-
And how do you know that "development" is a good thing? This is apparently your fundamental presupp, and I can't question this more strenuously.
-Instead of seeing earlier biblical images of God as stages in a process of fuller and truer understandings of the divine-
Well, it depends on what you mean. We inerrantists recognise the reality of progressive revelation. But it's up to YOU to point out precisely how our understanding is a mishmash and doesn't work. And we all know how much progressives love actual substantive debate! (Not very much.)
-the process of refining our understanding of God probably didn't end in biblical times. -
We agree there, but you're not just talking about refining our understanding. You're functionally downgrading our primary source of info about God to the same level as the clueless pundits of today. It's foolish.
-in an evolving tradition through which God is still revealing Himself. -
I'd love to see a theory of what it means that God reveal Himself, on your view. It is apparently alot like ME revealing MYSELF. What's special or authoritative about that?
-A source can be authoritative without being inerrant--as is the case with our senses, a point I made in the first post in this series.-
And I invite anyone to see how we interacted in that combox and at my blog on that topic.
This supports my contention that God revealing Himself = me revealing myself. And what special insight do I have on the ultimate nature of reality, about sin, about good and theodicy, about eternity?
-in a way, the progressive Christian's willingness to question the perfect accuracy of the biblical account of Jesus' story reflects the seriousness with which they take the resurrection story.-
That's so rich. We think it's full of holes, and that just means we RESPECT it that much more!
This is exactly like the wife-beater who cooes to his bleeding, semi-conscious wife: "I hit you like that b/c I love you so much!"
-Jesus is someone with whom we can have an experiential relationship now, today. -
And maybe that contention is supported from the errant part of the text. You have proposed no objective way to know that. It would appear you'd say that we can have a relationship with Jesus if we THINK we can. Happy-happy-land, like I said. Wishful thinking, pixie dust, "Think of a wonderful thought, any happy little thought" and you can fly, first star on the right, straight on till morning. How this kind of thinking appeals to anyone who is seriously considering the truth (or not) of whether God has anything to say to us and anything to do with us is completely beyond me.
Give me Romans 8 any day, not this happy-pill crap.
Peace,
Rhology
Oy, where to begin?
Here is the comment I left:
Hello Dr Reitan,
-Rather than viewing the Bible as the very Word of God, the progressive Christian views the Bible as a seminal human testament to divine revelation.-
One hopes he'll deal, then, with the fact that Jesus thought very differently.
-in profound mystical encounters-
Which are anything but objective.
-in providential events-
Which don't communicate much of anything specific, w/o a framework already in place thru which to interpret said event.
-through our relationships with one another-
Which are sometimes good and reflect holiness and are very often evil, disgusting, harmful, and sinful. "Progressives" live in happy-happy-land.
-In many of these cases, the actual writers were probably not striving to express their own experience of divine revelation so much as striving to faithfully put to writing stories that expressed the religious experiences of earlier generations.-
Even when they specifically state that they're writing the very revelation of God? All those "thus saith the Lord"s are "their own experiences" and "stories"?
-this means that approached on a verse-by-verse basis, one cannot confidently say, simply because the passage appears in the Bible, that it truly expresses the will of God or offers us an accurate understanding God’s nature.-
Leaving the "progressive" completely and utterly in the lurch. If God has not spoken clearly, we have nothing, no objective way to tell right from wrong, holiness from sin, Heaven-bound-ness from Hell-bound-ness. In short, it sucks to "progress".
-Witnesses-
This really seems just to beg the question. Numerous fallible witnesses lead sometimes to what we think are correct verdicts and sometimes lead to the OJ Simpson trial. What about INFALLIBLE witnesses, inspired specifically by the final, infallible God?
-The revised belief system, while still imperfect-
You mean "while still imperfect, ***I THINK (without any standard outside of myself to distinguish whether I'm right)***".
-But the process is ongoing and, in philosophical terms, "dialectical." -
So we could still be in our sins, and we'd have no idea. Heaven could be a fantasy.
Progressing towards...whatever...is purpose-less and w/o a goal or destination. You're bowing before the mirror.
-If every claim about God is taken to be a perfectly accurate description of the divine, then the reader will suppose there is no trajectory of development to look for.-
And how do you know that "development" is a good thing? This is apparently your fundamental presupp, and I can't question this more strenuously.
-Instead of seeing earlier biblical images of God as stages in a process of fuller and truer understandings of the divine-
Well, it depends on what you mean. We inerrantists recognise the reality of progressive revelation. But it's up to YOU to point out precisely how our understanding is a mishmash and doesn't work. And we all know how much progressives love actual substantive debate! (Not very much.)
-the process of refining our understanding of God probably didn't end in biblical times. -
We agree there, but you're not just talking about refining our understanding. You're functionally downgrading our primary source of info about God to the same level as the clueless pundits of today. It's foolish.
-in an evolving tradition through which God is still revealing Himself. -
I'd love to see a theory of what it means that God reveal Himself, on your view. It is apparently alot like ME revealing MYSELF. What's special or authoritative about that?
-A source can be authoritative without being inerrant--as is the case with our senses, a point I made in the first post in this series.-
And I invite anyone to see how we interacted in that combox and at my blog on that topic.
This supports my contention that God revealing Himself = me revealing myself. And what special insight do I have on the ultimate nature of reality, about sin, about good and theodicy, about eternity?
-in a way, the progressive Christian's willingness to question the perfect accuracy of the biblical account of Jesus' story reflects the seriousness with which they take the resurrection story.-
That's so rich. We think it's full of holes, and that just means we RESPECT it that much more!
This is exactly like the wife-beater who cooes to his bleeding, semi-conscious wife: "I hit you like that b/c I love you so much!"
-Jesus is someone with whom we can have an experiential relationship now, today. -
And maybe that contention is supported from the errant part of the text. You have proposed no objective way to know that. It would appear you'd say that we can have a relationship with Jesus if we THINK we can. Happy-happy-land, like I said. Wishful thinking, pixie dust, "Think of a wonderful thought, any happy little thought" and you can fly, first star on the right, straight on till morning. How this kind of thinking appeals to anyone who is seriously considering the truth (or not) of whether God has anything to say to us and anything to do with us is completely beyond me.
Give me Romans 8 any day, not this happy-pill crap.
Peace,
Rhology
Monday, June 15, 2009
Coyne flip
I've been reading Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True and have been markedly unimpressed by its arguments.
He says over and over things like, "Creationists have no answer for this", yet I'm able to think of an answer with 2 seconds of reflection most every time. He utilises one BEAR many, many times, and a future BEAR many other times.
He also bases most all of his case on the fossil record. Ouch and ouch. On the cover are 4 images showing a dinosaur gradually morphing into a bird. Double ouch.
I'd like to do a more complete review, but I don't know if I'll have time before I leave for two weeks out of the country, in two weeks.
He says over and over things like, "Creationists have no answer for this", yet I'm able to think of an answer with 2 seconds of reflection most every time. He utilises one BEAR many, many times, and a future BEAR many other times.
He also bases most all of his case on the fossil record. Ouch and ouch. On the cover are 4 images showing a dinosaur gradually morphing into a bird. Double ouch.
I'd like to do a more complete review, but I don't know if I'll have time before I leave for two weeks out of the country, in two weeks.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
More thinking on church and state
An agnostic with whom I'm acquainted in real life asked some good questions in this post of his. I left a comment and thought it was worth sharing (of course, I could easily be mistaken about that).
It has to do with why Christians, in his perspective, so cavalierly cast aside Old Testament laws in the way they think and talk and discourse in the political arena today. It's a good question. See useful background information here.
Howdy,
-ought not carry much weight in the here and now-
That's not the Christian idea, really. They should carry a lot of weight, but at the same time, we are commanded as Christians to obey the law of the land - Romans 13, 1 Peter, etc. Doesn't mean we can't act to influence or change said laws, but we have to obey them in most every case. OT Israel was its own self-contained (covenant) community, but the covenant community of God now is not a nation, but a church dispersed among every nation. So it's not that they don't carry much weight, it's that another cmdmt carries more, and the OT civil laws were never meant to last forever.
That said, I can't think of an example right offhand of an OT civil law which is no longer regarded as immoral, a sin against God. But the penalties are generally different, if they exist at all. An example is adultery, a capital offense in OT Israel but one that may not cost you much more than $100 in court fees in modern America.
-those which are only relevant within an ancient cultural context (e.g. head-coverings for women, circumcision for men, kosher food for everyone). -
Well, you mixed up the head-covering thing, which is in 1 Corinthians (unless I err) with the other things. Circumcision was the sign of membership in the covenant, which in the covenant community of OT Israel meant membership in the society. But it's replaced by baptism in NT times as the sign of membership in the covenant community of God - the church.
And the food had ceremonial symbolism that is wholly fulfilled in Christ - read Hebrews and Mark 7.
-would qualify as one which Christians should support whenever given the chance-
You might be right about that. If you intend to show that Christians can be hypocritical at times, you'll have no argument from me.
-recriminalize apostasy-
I would not support this, b/c I don't think it lends itself to a culture in which the Gospel has the best environment to be spread and for-real accepted in people's hearts. Some separation of state from church is a good idea, though certainly not to the extent it is today.
I honestly confess I don't know what "buggery" is.
Cursing - how the $%+*#&%^% would you enforce that? ;-)
Divination - ditto.
Though these are hardly victimless crimes. The point is not that, but what amount of freedom is allowable, what consequences acceptable, and what cost entails what level of enforcement.
-What is the reasoning which allows you to treat these seemingly absolute moral commands once set in stone by a perfectly moral being as mere matters of personal conscience? -
Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 are not all that specific. That is the reasoning.
As a matter of greater disclosure, this is far from a done deal among Reformed Christians. I say Reformed b/c most American evangelicals/evanjellyfish seem to fall thoughtlessly into the Pat Robertson/Dobson mold. But in the Reformed side of things, you have theonomic postmillennialists (like my friend Vox Veritatis, who leans postmil and who digs theonomy) who would indeed like to see the OT Israelite laws in place in modern society. You have libertarians like Vox Day (who's an open theist heretic, but still). You have people like me, somewhere in the middle, sorta, but who prefer more of a 2 Kingdoms model b/c they think it better fits the biblical data (though I'm not solidly convinced either way). So there's diversity of opinion here, and that is no doubt one of the reasons for your confusion. It confuses me too!
Hope that helps. As always, clarifying questions are welcome.
Peace,
Rhology
It has to do with why Christians, in his perspective, so cavalierly cast aside Old Testament laws in the way they think and talk and discourse in the political arena today. It's a good question. See useful background information here.
Howdy,
-ought not carry much weight in the here and now-
That's not the Christian idea, really. They should carry a lot of weight, but at the same time, we are commanded as Christians to obey the law of the land - Romans 13, 1 Peter, etc. Doesn't mean we can't act to influence or change said laws, but we have to obey them in most every case. OT Israel was its own self-contained (covenant) community, but the covenant community of God now is not a nation, but a church dispersed among every nation. So it's not that they don't carry much weight, it's that another cmdmt carries more, and the OT civil laws were never meant to last forever.
That said, I can't think of an example right offhand of an OT civil law which is no longer regarded as immoral, a sin against God. But the penalties are generally different, if they exist at all. An example is adultery, a capital offense in OT Israel but one that may not cost you much more than $100 in court fees in modern America.
-those which are only relevant within an ancient cultural context (e.g. head-coverings for women, circumcision for men, kosher food for everyone). -
Well, you mixed up the head-covering thing, which is in 1 Corinthians (unless I err) with the other things. Circumcision was the sign of membership in the covenant, which in the covenant community of OT Israel meant membership in the society. But it's replaced by baptism in NT times as the sign of membership in the covenant community of God - the church.
And the food had ceremonial symbolism that is wholly fulfilled in Christ - read Hebrews and Mark 7.
-would qualify as one which Christians should support whenever given the chance-
You might be right about that. If you intend to show that Christians can be hypocritical at times, you'll have no argument from me.
-recriminalize apostasy-
I would not support this, b/c I don't think it lends itself to a culture in which the Gospel has the best environment to be spread and for-real accepted in people's hearts. Some separation of state from church is a good idea, though certainly not to the extent it is today.
I honestly confess I don't know what "buggery" is.
Cursing - how the $%+*#&%^% would you enforce that? ;-)
Divination - ditto.
Though these are hardly victimless crimes. The point is not that, but what amount of freedom is allowable, what consequences acceptable, and what cost entails what level of enforcement.
-What is the reasoning which allows you to treat these seemingly absolute moral commands once set in stone by a perfectly moral being as mere matters of personal conscience? -
Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 are not all that specific. That is the reasoning.
As a matter of greater disclosure, this is far from a done deal among Reformed Christians. I say Reformed b/c most American evangelicals/evanjellyfish seem to fall thoughtlessly into the Pat Robertson/Dobson mold. But in the Reformed side of things, you have theonomic postmillennialists (like my friend Vox Veritatis, who leans postmil and who digs theonomy) who would indeed like to see the OT Israelite laws in place in modern society. You have libertarians like Vox Day (who's an open theist heretic, but still). You have people like me, somewhere in the middle, sorta, but who prefer more of a 2 Kingdoms model b/c they think it better fits the biblical data (though I'm not solidly convinced either way). So there's diversity of opinion here, and that is no doubt one of the reasons for your confusion. It confuses me too!
Hope that helps. As always, clarifying questions are welcome.
Peace,
Rhology
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Atheist Experience's disjointed thinking about abortion propaganda
By now you may have heard of James von Brunn, the racist fanatic and Holocaust denier who snapped and shot up the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC, killing one guard. I'm certain that most atheists around the country and in the UK (if they heard about this in the UK; it hasn't lasted nearly as long in the news cycle as the recent gratifying death of a certain baby-murderer, big surprise) are horrified at how evil and nasty this act was and how evil and nasty this man was . Interestingly, it turns out von Brunn hated something besides Jews. Christianity and the Bible.
Reminds me something the Atheist Experience recently said with respect to the role propaganda played in Tiller the Killer's murder. Ask yourself if you've ever heard some seriously strident, vicious, and hateful propaganda has been directed recently, from high-profile atheists like Hitchens, Harris, and Dick Dawk, at Christianity. No doubt various of my atheist readers, who were quick to call 'hypocrisy', will join me in condemning the Atheist Experience's hypocrisy here.
Everyone has a breaking point. I don’t care who you are. You have one. Seriously, let’s say you sincerely believed your neighbor was mass murdering children in his home. You call the cops, frantic, and explain to them that he’s torturing and killing young children—you’re absolutely sure of it! But the dispatcher just says, “Yeah--that's totally his right. We really don’t come out for things like baby killings." You keep calling back. Surely they didn’t understand you the first fifty times you called? But the response is always the same. And here you are, on the phone, wasting time, while the monster next door is killing more and more innocent children! What do you do?!
If this was actually happening, and you knew it, and nobody was stopping this killer, at what point—if out of nothing more than pure altruism (if there is such a thing?)—would you finally say, "I don't care if I die for this or go to prison for the rest of my life—someone has to do the right thing and stop this monstrous freak!"
Groups like the 4 new atheist Horsemen, who make a point of publicly labeling Christians as child abusers and slaves of a murderous, horrible God. And maybe it’s just me—but if someone actually is going around abusing children and enslaving others to commit deeds I think are bad—I don’t think I would be “shocked” that someone stepped up and killed that person. So, why would atheists express “shock,” if they know this Christians are child abusers? Are they “shocked” that by labeling such a person a “child abuser,” that someone might think he should be stopped by any means necessary? I mean, would it shock you if you believed what they believe? What, exactly, do they think happens when you whip up masses of (often already emotionally driven) people with something like that?
We’re all supposed to play along, I guess, that they never expected anything like this to happen as a result of merely calling someone something so benign and harmless as “a child abuser and genocidal maniac”? Who would have thought people would be all “up in arms,” literally, and excited over something like that? Apparently not the Atheist Experience. But I think most other people could have seen it coming light years away. And I can’t really bring myself to play along that atheists like these would be “shocked.”
I have a saying when someone asks me to believe obvious garbage. I say, “Either you’re stupid—or you think I am.” And like most people, I don’t appreciate it when someone, or in this case some blog, communicates to me like I’m an idiot. It doesn’t upset me, but I find it hard to play along. No, atheists and especially Atheist Experience and Dick Dawk, you’re not shocked. Please stop pretending, and have your victory celebration unapologetically.
I guess that would result in some really crappy P.R. But, still, how refreshing to see some noble honesty for once?
“Mass child abuse." There's the trigger. Pun not intended, but wholly (unholy?) appropriate in this case.
Most people agree with rule of law. If they didn’t we’d have far more chaos than we do. But I don’t think there is anyone who does not understand that at some point, we would all be willing to defy the law in order to do something we consider morally necessary.
Yes, it’s cliche’, but I’m going to use an example from Nazi Germany until a better example comes along—which will, hopefully, be never. But, if I lived in Nazi Germany—I hope I would not turn someone in if I knew they were a hiding Jew. I hope I would, like I hope many of you would, end up breaking the law, and maybe even dying, myself, or potentially killing someone, to protect others from people I view as utterly wrong and dangerous. So, it's no “shock” to me, and probably not to you, either, that if you whip up huge numbers of fundamentalist-thinking people with things like "genocidal God-worshiping child abusers" you're going to get not a few individuals (I'm surprised they don’t get more) who go ape and fly completely off the rails in the worst way.
I don't think the Atheist Experience crosses a line against free speech—such as someone who might say, "Somebody needs to put a bullet in these Christians. Can I interest you in further details?" would be doing; but, when they try to divorce themselves from a natural—and, let’s be honest here, pretty predictable—consequence of their influence—that's where I want to cry "hypocrite." Not “foul.” Not “lock you up for what you said.” But “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid—that did not shock you.” In fact, if it shocked any one of you, you don’t get out enough.
This isn’t a video game about killing Christians. This isn’t a music CD about killing Christians. This is a group of real human beings calling other real human beings “child abusers”, and a group of real human beings calling a real God "genocidal egomaniac" and then saying they can’t believe that simply being consistently and publicly labeled as a “child abuser” would make someone want to kill you. I mean, he was just a child abuser - nothing to get all worked up about and start shooting people.
Really? Can’t imagine how an agenda of working nonstop to convince (many already deluded) people that these Christians are child abusers, could result in someone getting hurt?
Are you stupid, or do you think I am?
What’s sad, though, is that if they were really shocked—then this man killed for some mysterious agenda. “Shocked” means you don’t really think what he was doing was something a person might kill another person over. And that means you don’t believe Christians are mass child abusers, because who wouldn’t expect a mass child abuser might be, himself, killed by someone one day? So, what is going on over at the Atheist Experience, where they aren’t at all responding like they believed they are mass child abusers? What if they had some other, ulterior motive—and these Christians end up as collateral damage for some superficial propaganda blitz? That would really be hosed up, wouldn’t it?
But—other than their inexplicable, “shocked” reaction—why would anyone think the Atheist Experience wouldn't be sincere about their claims that Christians are committing mass child abuse, unhindered within our own borders?
Well, here’s my theory: If these atheists truly believed what they say they are convinced of, then child abuse in Christian homes is probably the largest, mass child abuse ring in history. I’m going to assert that these atheists would all be shooting Christians. And, I would hope that if I really, truly, sincerely believed there were millions of mass child abusers on the loose and nobody was stopping them—that just maybe I would courageously do the same thing—if I really believed it. Of course, if I just wanted to emotionally manipulate a huge bunch of people, and I didn’t really believe or care about what I was saying, then I’d be doing exactly what the Atheist Experience does—taking my time in courts, standing on corners with signs, taking people’s money, telling them who to vote for, and watching them hang on my every recommendation as I play on their fear and hate.
The fact that groups like the Atheist Experience stop short of reaching the, not only logical, but obvious conclusion of what needs to be done if their claims are believed—and human children are being abused in droves—demonstrates to me, or to anyone, a lack of genuine belief in their own propaganda. I think, like most religious views, they "believe" it in some weird way on some odd, superficial level where it hits emotional response (and, I mean, come on, how easy is that?), but doesn’t ever sink down into thought centers, where it would normally ruminate and ferment into a more cohesive and fully formed “idea”—with actual implications and repercussions and consequences. But they obviously don't believe it on that sort of level—on the sort of level where any real, proportional “action” would necessarily follow—as I would expect action to follow if any real, thinking human being believed unhindered mass child abuse was happening unabated?!
Where is the courage of conviction here?
Where is any conviction here?
What the hell do these people honestly believe?
Reminds me something the Atheist Experience recently said with respect to the role propaganda played in Tiller the Killer's murder. Ask yourself if you've ever heard some seriously strident, vicious, and hateful propaganda has been directed recently, from high-profile atheists like Hitchens, Harris, and Dick Dawk, at Christianity. No doubt various of my atheist readers, who were quick to call 'hypocrisy', will join me in condemning the Atheist Experience's hypocrisy here.
Everyone has a breaking point. I don’t care who you are. You have one. Seriously, let’s say you sincerely believed your neighbor was mass murdering children in his home. You call the cops, frantic, and explain to them that he’s torturing and killing young children—you’re absolutely sure of it! But the dispatcher just says, “Yeah--that's totally his right. We really don’t come out for things like baby killings." You keep calling back. Surely they didn’t understand you the first fifty times you called? But the response is always the same. And here you are, on the phone, wasting time, while the monster next door is killing more and more innocent children! What do you do?!
If this was actually happening, and you knew it, and nobody was stopping this killer, at what point—if out of nothing more than pure altruism (if there is such a thing?)—would you finally say, "I don't care if I die for this or go to prison for the rest of my life—someone has to do the right thing and stop this monstrous freak!"
Groups like the 4 new atheist Horsemen, who make a point of publicly labeling Christians as child abusers and slaves of a murderous, horrible God. And maybe it’s just me—but if someone actually is going around abusing children and enslaving others to commit deeds I think are bad—I don’t think I would be “shocked” that someone stepped up and killed that person. So, why would atheists express “shock,” if they know this Christians are child abusers? Are they “shocked” that by labeling such a person a “child abuser,” that someone might think he should be stopped by any means necessary? I mean, would it shock you if you believed what they believe? What, exactly, do they think happens when you whip up masses of (often already emotionally driven) people with something like that?
We’re all supposed to play along, I guess, that they never expected anything like this to happen as a result of merely calling someone something so benign and harmless as “a child abuser and genocidal maniac”? Who would have thought people would be all “up in arms,” literally, and excited over something like that? Apparently not the Atheist Experience. But I think most other people could have seen it coming light years away. And I can’t really bring myself to play along that atheists like these would be “shocked.”
I have a saying when someone asks me to believe obvious garbage. I say, “Either you’re stupid—or you think I am.” And like most people, I don’t appreciate it when someone, or in this case some blog, communicates to me like I’m an idiot. It doesn’t upset me, but I find it hard to play along. No, atheists and especially Atheist Experience and Dick Dawk, you’re not shocked. Please stop pretending, and have your victory celebration unapologetically.
I guess that would result in some really crappy P.R. But, still, how refreshing to see some noble honesty for once?
“Mass child abuse." There's the trigger. Pun not intended, but wholly (unholy?) appropriate in this case.
Most people agree with rule of law. If they didn’t we’d have far more chaos than we do. But I don’t think there is anyone who does not understand that at some point, we would all be willing to defy the law in order to do something we consider morally necessary.
Yes, it’s cliche’, but I’m going to use an example from Nazi Germany until a better example comes along—which will, hopefully, be never. But, if I lived in Nazi Germany—I hope I would not turn someone in if I knew they were a hiding Jew. I hope I would, like I hope many of you would, end up breaking the law, and maybe even dying, myself, or potentially killing someone, to protect others from people I view as utterly wrong and dangerous. So, it's no “shock” to me, and probably not to you, either, that if you whip up huge numbers of fundamentalist-thinking people with things like "genocidal God-worshiping child abusers" you're going to get not a few individuals (I'm surprised they don’t get more) who go ape and fly completely off the rails in the worst way.
I don't think the Atheist Experience crosses a line against free speech—such as someone who might say, "Somebody needs to put a bullet in these Christians. Can I interest you in further details?" would be doing; but, when they try to divorce themselves from a natural—and, let’s be honest here, pretty predictable—consequence of their influence—that's where I want to cry "hypocrite." Not “foul.” Not “lock you up for what you said.” But “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid—that did not shock you.” In fact, if it shocked any one of you, you don’t get out enough.
This isn’t a video game about killing Christians. This isn’t a music CD about killing Christians. This is a group of real human beings calling other real human beings “child abusers”, and a group of real human beings calling a real God "genocidal egomaniac" and then saying they can’t believe that simply being consistently and publicly labeled as a “child abuser” would make someone want to kill you. I mean, he was just a child abuser - nothing to get all worked up about and start shooting people.
Really? Can’t imagine how an agenda of working nonstop to convince (many already deluded) people that these Christians are child abusers, could result in someone getting hurt?
Are you stupid, or do you think I am?
What’s sad, though, is that if they were really shocked—then this man killed for some mysterious agenda. “Shocked” means you don’t really think what he was doing was something a person might kill another person over. And that means you don’t believe Christians are mass child abusers, because who wouldn’t expect a mass child abuser might be, himself, killed by someone one day? So, what is going on over at the Atheist Experience, where they aren’t at all responding like they believed they are mass child abusers? What if they had some other, ulterior motive—and these Christians end up as collateral damage for some superficial propaganda blitz? That would really be hosed up, wouldn’t it?
But—other than their inexplicable, “shocked” reaction—why would anyone think the Atheist Experience wouldn't be sincere about their claims that Christians are committing mass child abuse, unhindered within our own borders?
Well, here’s my theory: If these atheists truly believed what they say they are convinced of, then child abuse in Christian homes is probably the largest, mass child abuse ring in history. I’m going to assert that these atheists would all be shooting Christians. And, I would hope that if I really, truly, sincerely believed there were millions of mass child abusers on the loose and nobody was stopping them—that just maybe I would courageously do the same thing—if I really believed it. Of course, if I just wanted to emotionally manipulate a huge bunch of people, and I didn’t really believe or care about what I was saying, then I’d be doing exactly what the Atheist Experience does—taking my time in courts, standing on corners with signs, taking people’s money, telling them who to vote for, and watching them hang on my every recommendation as I play on their fear and hate.
The fact that groups like the Atheist Experience stop short of reaching the, not only logical, but obvious conclusion of what needs to be done if their claims are believed—and human children are being abused in droves—demonstrates to me, or to anyone, a lack of genuine belief in their own propaganda. I think, like most religious views, they "believe" it in some weird way on some odd, superficial level where it hits emotional response (and, I mean, come on, how easy is that?), but doesn’t ever sink down into thought centers, where it would normally ruminate and ferment into a more cohesive and fully formed “idea”—with actual implications and repercussions and consequences. But they obviously don't believe it on that sort of level—on the sort of level where any real, proportional “action” would necessarily follow—as I would expect action to follow if any real, thinking human being believed unhindered mass child abuse was happening unabated?!
Where is the courage of conviction here?
Where is any conviction here?
What the hell do these people honestly believe?
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Stripes
I've been commenting again at Dr James McGrath's blog and he asked a very good question, and I thought I'd go ahead and share my initial reaction to it here.
Question:
I guess I'd have to say it depends on the level of knowledge one has. One can be a very simple, unsophisticated believer (a farmboy, to use the Reformation-era example) and believe that he has done bad things and that Jesus alone can save him from them, and God saves him. Or one can be a super-prof of theology and be responsible for much, much more. One can be a sorta-well-read layman who struggles against pride, like me, and be responsible for quite a bit as well - what to do with the knowledge I have, how to understand it, and what not to reject when I'm corrected. So I'd say for me, I couldn't in good conscience reject either proposition. But start removing education and intellectual prowess (not that I have a lot to begin with), and somewhere in there (God knows where) it's simply enough to believe murder is wrong, and perhaps even further, our simple farmboy might not have ever even thought about it. But we trust the Holy Spirit to make that good in the life of the believer, from the simplest to the most erudite, and thank God.
Question:
I'm tempted at this point to ask which is essential for a Christian viewpoint: to believe that murder is wrong, or to believe that we can be philosophically certain that murder is wrong?
I guess I'd have to say it depends on the level of knowledge one has. One can be a very simple, unsophisticated believer (a farmboy, to use the Reformation-era example) and believe that he has done bad things and that Jesus alone can save him from them, and God saves him. Or one can be a super-prof of theology and be responsible for much, much more. One can be a sorta-well-read layman who struggles against pride, like me, and be responsible for quite a bit as well - what to do with the knowledge I have, how to understand it, and what not to reject when I'm corrected. So I'd say for me, I couldn't in good conscience reject either proposition. But start removing education and intellectual prowess (not that I have a lot to begin with), and somewhere in there (God knows where) it's simply enough to believe murder is wrong, and perhaps even further, our simple farmboy might not have ever even thought about it. But we trust the Holy Spirit to make that good in the life of the believer, from the simplest to the most erudite, and thank God.
Monday, June 08, 2009
EvilBible.com Project, Part 3 - Synthetic Life
(My previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Vox Veritatis' previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Atheism Is Dead's previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Blue3's post on evilbible.com)
Continuing with the project (and this may be my last post on this topic, at least for a while), EvilBible.com departs from its stated purpose in the article "Synthetic Life".
They say:
Hmm, perhaps it is common, and I guess I don't know what to think about this, actually. I don't know if it's a big deal either way, whether human scientists are able to create synthetic life forms at some point in the future or not. I kind of doubt it will happen, but I've been wrong before, to be sure.
A few observations about this page.
1) How is this article furthering the site's goal of proving that the Bible is evil?
2) It's amusing to watch the author start off with a lofty assertion - that humans have created life - and then proceed almost directly into a couple of serious qualifications:
Yes, it certainly does matter how we "define life". No less an authority than ERV [/tongue-half-in-cheek] recently interacted with a paper on that topic, interestingly. She is in agreement with EB.com here, that viruses are a life form...and yet the paper she's responding to was the one published in Nature magazine; she wasn't. Point is, it's still a controversy, 7 years after the study EB.com cites.
3) EB.com no doubt believes that this experiment is evidence that life does not require a God to create it, and by further implication that life could have possibly evolved from non-life by natural processes. They don't say this explicitly; I'm inferring a bit from every other atheist I've ever encountered.
As far as the former assertion goes, fair enough. Perhaps I'd be willing to grant that, for now, with the previous 2 qualifications firmly in mind.
But if EB.com affirms that naturalistic, unguided evolution is responsible for not only life's arising out of non-living material and for the variety of organisms we see today arising from a common ancestor, they need to consider that this experiment actually provides evidence AGAINST that claim and FOR the idea of an intelligent designer. Think about it - intelligent agents working in a controlled (by intelligent agents) lab that was designed by intelligent agents and constructed by intelligent agents intelligently applied this and that chemical and environmental factor, intelligently learned from previous failures and intelligently tweaked this or that. And the result? An intelligently-designed virus!
I don't suppose the authors of EB.com are some of those atheist-yet-conscientious-objectors to evolution that would agree with the famous Discovery Institute list of objecting scientists, are they?
At any rate, though evidencing an intelligent designer is not identical to evidencing the God of the Bible, it lends support thereto rather than chipping at its foundation. Many thanks to EB.com for this, at least.
(Vox Veritatis' previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Atheism Is Dead's previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Blue3's post on evilbible.com)
Continuing with the project (and this may be my last post on this topic, at least for a while), EvilBible.com departs from its stated purpose in the article "Synthetic Life".
They say:
A common argument used by theists to support their belief in God, (sic) is that life is so complicated that it could have only been made by God. Often this is accompanied with (sic) the assertion that there is a "vital force" that separates inanimate objects from living things, and that God is the source of this "vital force".
Hmm, perhaps it is common, and I guess I don't know what to think about this, actually. I don't know if it's a big deal either way, whether human scientists are able to create synthetic life forms at some point in the future or not. I kind of doubt it will happen, but I've been wrong before, to be sure.
A few observations about this page.
1) How is this article furthering the site's goal of proving that the Bible is evil?
2) It's amusing to watch the author start off with a lofty assertion - that humans have created life - and then proceed almost directly into a couple of serious qualifications:
Some people will probably say that a virus is not a living thing, but that all depends on how you define life. Clearly a simple virus is not as complex as a mammal, but it does have much more properties associated with living things than properties associated with inanimate objects.
Yes, it certainly does matter how we "define life". No less an authority than ERV [/tongue-half-in-cheek] recently interacted with a paper on that topic, interestingly. She is in agreement with EB.com here, that viruses are a life form...and yet the paper she's responding to was the one published in Nature magazine; she wasn't. Point is, it's still a controversy, 7 years after the study EB.com cites.
3) EB.com no doubt believes that this experiment is evidence that life does not require a God to create it, and by further implication that life could have possibly evolved from non-life by natural processes. They don't say this explicitly; I'm inferring a bit from every other atheist I've ever encountered.
As far as the former assertion goes, fair enough. Perhaps I'd be willing to grant that, for now, with the previous 2 qualifications firmly in mind.
But if EB.com affirms that naturalistic, unguided evolution is responsible for not only life's arising out of non-living material and for the variety of organisms we see today arising from a common ancestor, they need to consider that this experiment actually provides evidence AGAINST that claim and FOR the idea of an intelligent designer. Think about it - intelligent agents working in a controlled (by intelligent agents) lab that was designed by intelligent agents and constructed by intelligent agents intelligently applied this and that chemical and environmental factor, intelligently learned from previous failures and intelligently tweaked this or that. And the result? An intelligently-designed virus!
I don't suppose the authors of EB.com are some of those atheist-yet-conscientious-objectors to evolution that would agree with the famous Discovery Institute list of objecting scientists, are they?
At any rate, though evidencing an intelligent designer is not identical to evidencing the God of the Bible, it lends support thereto rather than chipping at its foundation. Many thanks to EB.com for this, at least.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Age-ism
I had a weird dream the other night of a sort of shady 'businessman' who was trying to draw me into his biz by challenging me to write political papers on this and that subject (and oh yeah, sell his junk door-to-door), on a daily schedule. My friend from church was warning me not to go with the guy, but I felt like I should at least write his first paper - on stem cells. So when I woke up, I had an idea for a post. I guess you could say it's inspired by a dream!
I actually just wanted to take this in a direction that I don't often hear explored.
My position, first of all - no embryonic stem cell research is justifiable. At all. Pursue other avenues of stem cells: adult stem cells like from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood stem cells, wherever else you can find them. Why? B/c I believe the only justifiable position is that fertilised human eggs aka embryos are human beings and entitled to full protection of law, human rights, and ethical behavior. If someone were inclined to object, I'd simply ask them a series of questions to ascertain when exactly a young offspring of humans becomes a human being.
Typically the answer takes one of two forms:
1) When the baby is viable outside the womb to live by himself or herself.
-Yet there are quite a few humans I know of who are not viable outside the womb.
The pro-murder person might answer that most of these people WERE viable but have become non-viable.
I ask how that matters in the slightest except in my opponent's arbitrary morality by personal fiat.
-No baby is viable to live outside the womb without help. They require things like shelter, milk, and diaper-changing. To insist that these things are merely givens begs the question.
2) When the baby begins to exhibit brain waves.
Why does this matter? Often they allege it is b/c at that point the baby is capable of experiencing pain.
A great many pro-death people have worldviews that are highly influenced by, if not full-blown, naturalism and empiricism.
I ask: How do you know, how have you observed that brain waves = now the baby can experience pain?
They answer: B/c we see human pain reflected in adult and child brain waves, so we compare them to fetal brain waves.
I ask: How have you observed that brain waves are the sole connection to someone's experiencing pain?
They answer: What else could it be? The cosmic ether? A divine miracle?
I ask: My position on this question is irrelevant. How have you observed it?
They answer: ...
I ask: Exactly. You haven't observed and can't observe whether a one-day-old embryo can experience pain. I don't remember when I was one day old, you don't remember it either, and we can't enter into the psyche of said embryo to find out. So your justification for killing this whatever-it-is is bogus. I suppose you're OK with shooting a machine gun at random while blindfolded too, b/c you probably won't hit something valuable and living.
I also ask: What makes "capable of experiencing pain" the touchstone of humanity? I'd lay down a typical dialogue on those lines, but they never answer.
I also ask: So, it's OK to kill embryos, whose consciousness and capabilities and capacities we don't understand all that well, in the interest of furthering medical research, but you'd cringe at my experimenting on and killing horses/puppies/bunnies/monkeys/chimps/elephants/golden condors for the purposes of furthering medical research? You're on board for killing the offspring of humans, but not the slightly-older offspring of elephants?
That's one of my favorite things (and by "favorite", I mean "most revolting") about the Left and pro-choicers. In general, they support pro-choice AND the general prevention of cruelty to animals. But they have no problem sticking blades into, dismembering with suction devices, and using chemical weapons on very young babies. There's no way they'd do that with animals! But with really young babies, you know, what the hell, why not? I mean, we're not sure what they are, but we DO know their mother is inconvenienced by their presence, so let's go for the gusto (and the jugular [literally])! They're DEFINITELY of less value than rabbits!
You can't observe that the conditions for your own process of moral justification are in fact so, and thus said conditions remain unproved on your own empiricist worldview. You have no justification for your discrimination. You are an age-ist bigot.
Consider an illustration in closing, in response to the common question "But what about the existing lines of embryonic stem cells, frozen and awaiting destruction or some other fate?"
These lines are extracted/enabled by a process I don't understand well, but I do know that it involves the destruction of most of the embryos in the process, much like in vitro fertilisation. Once the human egg is fertilised and develops a bit, she is deep frozen to preserve her for later experimentation. To thaw her and attempt to implant her in a living woman to bring her to term and deliver her is dicey under current technological conditions and carries a low probability of success, even with proper care.
The pro-baby-murder advocate will thus argue that, since these frozen embryos have such a low chance of survival and delivery as a baby, we should go ahead and use them for the existing stem cell research.
Let's say we had a nursing home filled with 100 people between the ages of 70 and 90 yrs, and all of them have the same terminal disease. Without any of the proper care, all of them will die of this disease within a month or so. With proper and directed, specific care, a low % of them will recover from the terminal illness and will probably be able to live years longer, not a month. Shall we conclude that it is permissible to take these terminal patients and deny them the proper and directed care, immobilise them and render them unconscious, and harvest their bodies for organs and bone marrow and brain tissue for the purpose of medical experimentation and the furthering of medical technology and understanding?
What's the difference between this and using these "existing stem cell lines"? 2 things only: the embryos are much smaller, and the embryos have no families or stockbrokers or powers of attorney to speak for them to object to this inhumane treatment by cruel and morally blind age-ist bigots.
I actually just wanted to take this in a direction that I don't often hear explored.
My position, first of all - no embryonic stem cell research is justifiable. At all. Pursue other avenues of stem cells: adult stem cells like from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood stem cells, wherever else you can find them. Why? B/c I believe the only justifiable position is that fertilised human eggs aka embryos are human beings and entitled to full protection of law, human rights, and ethical behavior. If someone were inclined to object, I'd simply ask them a series of questions to ascertain when exactly a young offspring of humans becomes a human being.
Typically the answer takes one of two forms:
1) When the baby is viable outside the womb to live by himself or herself.
-Yet there are quite a few humans I know of who are not viable outside the womb.
The pro-murder person might answer that most of these people WERE viable but have become non-viable.
I ask how that matters in the slightest except in my opponent's arbitrary morality by personal fiat.
-No baby is viable to live outside the womb without help. They require things like shelter, milk, and diaper-changing. To insist that these things are merely givens begs the question.
2) When the baby begins to exhibit brain waves.
Why does this matter? Often they allege it is b/c at that point the baby is capable of experiencing pain.
A great many pro-death people have worldviews that are highly influenced by, if not full-blown, naturalism and empiricism.
I ask: How do you know, how have you observed that brain waves = now the baby can experience pain?
They answer: B/c we see human pain reflected in adult and child brain waves, so we compare them to fetal brain waves.
I ask: How have you observed that brain waves are the sole connection to someone's experiencing pain?
They answer: What else could it be? The cosmic ether? A divine miracle?
I ask: My position on this question is irrelevant. How have you observed it?
They answer: ...
I ask: Exactly. You haven't observed and can't observe whether a one-day-old embryo can experience pain. I don't remember when I was one day old, you don't remember it either, and we can't enter into the psyche of said embryo to find out. So your justification for killing this whatever-it-is is bogus. I suppose you're OK with shooting a machine gun at random while blindfolded too, b/c you probably won't hit something valuable and living.
I also ask: What makes "capable of experiencing pain" the touchstone of humanity? I'd lay down a typical dialogue on those lines, but they never answer.
I also ask: So, it's OK to kill embryos, whose consciousness and capabilities and capacities we don't understand all that well, in the interest of furthering medical research, but you'd cringe at my experimenting on and killing horses/puppies/bunnies/monkeys/chimps/elephants/golden condors for the purposes of furthering medical research? You're on board for killing the offspring of humans, but not the slightly-older offspring of elephants?
That's one of my favorite things (and by "favorite", I mean "most revolting") about the Left and pro-choicers. In general, they support pro-choice AND the general prevention of cruelty to animals. But they have no problem sticking blades into, dismembering with suction devices, and using chemical weapons on very young babies. There's no way they'd do that with animals! But with really young babies, you know, what the hell, why not? I mean, we're not sure what they are, but we DO know their mother is inconvenienced by their presence, so let's go for the gusto (and the jugular [literally])! They're DEFINITELY of less value than rabbits!
You can't observe that the conditions for your own process of moral justification are in fact so, and thus said conditions remain unproved on your own empiricist worldview. You have no justification for your discrimination. You are an age-ist bigot.
Consider an illustration in closing, in response to the common question "But what about the existing lines of embryonic stem cells, frozen and awaiting destruction or some other fate?"
These lines are extracted/enabled by a process I don't understand well, but I do know that it involves the destruction of most of the embryos in the process, much like in vitro fertilisation. Once the human egg is fertilised and develops a bit, she is deep frozen to preserve her for later experimentation. To thaw her and attempt to implant her in a living woman to bring her to term and deliver her is dicey under current technological conditions and carries a low probability of success, even with proper care.
The pro-baby-murder advocate will thus argue that, since these frozen embryos have such a low chance of survival and delivery as a baby, we should go ahead and use them for the existing stem cell research.
Let's say we had a nursing home filled with 100 people between the ages of 70 and 90 yrs, and all of them have the same terminal disease. Without any of the proper care, all of them will die of this disease within a month or so. With proper and directed, specific care, a low % of them will recover from the terminal illness and will probably be able to live years longer, not a month. Shall we conclude that it is permissible to take these terminal patients and deny them the proper and directed care, immobilise them and render them unconscious, and harvest their bodies for organs and bone marrow and brain tissue for the purpose of medical experimentation and the furthering of medical technology and understanding?
What's the difference between this and using these "existing stem cell lines"? 2 things only: the embryos are much smaller, and the embryos have no families or stockbrokers or powers of attorney to speak for them to object to this inhumane treatment by cruel and morally blind age-ist bigots.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
More thoughts on Tiller the killer
Another few thoughts I'm thinking about the abortion of Tiller the abortician. From this article, worshipers at Reformation Lutheran were horrified at the abortion taking place in their own church's foyer. One wonders if they'd be similarly horrified if someone were to eat a chicken dinner in the foyer - the problem is that it took place in the wrong venue, right? I mean, you're *supposed* to eat chicken dinners in the fellowship hall, near the kitchen. Not the foyer! Similarly, you're *supposed* to perform abortions at the abortuary, where it's out of sight from normal everyday well-groomed, well-dressed churchgoing folk. Not in the foyer! So, bring an abortion out of its assigned geographic locality, the people of Reformation Lutheran get all upset. Duly noted. They should probably make that really clear on their website, though I didn't see anything about strict policies of segregation of activity to specific and denoted rooms in the building. Presumably they'll get on that first thing after the funeral.
The article states:
Church members said anti-abortion protesters have shown up outside the church on Sundays regularly.
"They've been out here for quite a few years. We've just become accustomed to it. Just like an everyday thing, you just looked over and see them and say, 'Yup they're back again."'
And this church never did anything about it, did they? How their consciences must be seared by now! To have a career baby-murderer in your congregation, a member in apparently good standing, an usher who is typically accompanied by a frakking bodyguard...You smile at him, "Hey George" while mixing Sweet 'n' Low into your coffee cup Sunday morning, thinking (or not) that a mere 24 hours later he'll be using chemical weapons against the smallest, weakest, and most invisible, marginalised, and voiceless members of our society. You ask what it means when the Bible mentions "their consciences seared with a hot iron"? Exhibit A: Reformation Lutheran of Wichita.
The article continues:
He added: "We had no idea that someone would come into our church and do such a bad thing like that — inside of a church."
Apparently Reformation Lutheran includes as an unwritten part of its paltry belief statement the superstitious view, like on the TV show "Highlander", that a church is 'holy ground' or something by virtue of the building's carrying the word "church" in its title, on the placard somewhere.
Revelation 3:1 To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: "I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. 3 So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you."
This church is a dead church, having a name like it's alive, and lookie here - Jesus has indeed come to them like a thief, in judgment on one of its members. Mercifully, I'd say - this time around He only enacted judgment on the main evildoer, an individual in the midst of the enabling group, rather than on the evildoer AND the enabling group as He's done many times before. No doubt He is giving them time to repent, and I pray that they will. But where did this guy get the idea that violence is any better or worse inside a building that calls itself a church? I might agree with that in MY church, yeah, b/c of the environs and people that, there, give glory to Jesus and take what He says very seriously. Clearly this church does not do that, however, so we have to ask whence comes this sentiment? How does this guy know that violence is wrong? Why should anyone honor his building and gathering with the title "church"?
In a Facebook thread discussing this incident, an acquaintance of mine said this more or less:
It is sickening to imagine that God would allow a man to be shot by a crazed vigilante who could just as easily have decided to direct his hate toward an ethnic minority or gays.
A couple of things:
1) Note the implicit seared conscience, again.
One is BORN as a member of a certain ethnicity.
One CHOOSES to engage in homosexual behavior.
One CHOOSES to murder babies.
It is certainly understandable that some people might find the existence of a serial baby-murderer in their city intolerable to the point that they might pick up arms to take care, themselves, of what the gov't wouldn't. I invite you to get off your high horse and consider the similarity of this action to, say, the firebombing of a legitimately legal KKK headquarters building, a group of brothers ganging up to beat the daylights out of the drug dealer who raped their younger sister, concerned citizens slashing tires in the dead of night outside a known crack house, etc. None of these actions are, strictly speaking, legal, nor are they necessarily ethical. But one can certainly see how the sentiments leading to the actions arose and accord to the perpetrators a measure of sympathy: "I wouldn't've done it like that, but I definitely see where he was coming from."
2) I encourage you to read the book of Habakkuk, among other places such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Judges, the list goes on and on. Habakkuk has long been a favorite of mine, even when I was an atheist, as it contains complaints from a human perspective against God on the subject of theodicy. (When I was an atheist, I only liked the complaints from Habakkuk, not God's answers, but anyway.) It follows this pattern:
Habakkuk: God, evil all around. Won't You act?
God: Be patient, it's coming. In fact, when it comes it's going to be horrifying, way worse than you could have imagined. What's more, I'm going to use the evil, hated, idolatrous Babylonians to enact My judgment on Judah.
Habakkuk: Another brief complaint.
God: Repeat.
Habakkuk: Ah. Let me take this moment to compose a psalm of heartfelt praise.
The pattern follows in this most recent example. It was not right for this gunman to abort this late-term fœtus named George Tiller, any more than it was right for Tiller to abort so many thousands of fœtuses before. Thus, this gunman is an evildoer whom God used to enact judgment on another evildoer. Sound familiar?
Let us pray that God will have mercy on our nation for allowing this travesty and evil of baby-murder to enjoy legal protection as it does today. Perhaps we will escape the fate of Judah, perhaps not. Lord, have mercy.
The article states:
Church members said anti-abortion protesters have shown up outside the church on Sundays regularly.
"They've been out here for quite a few years. We've just become accustomed to it. Just like an everyday thing, you just looked over and see them and say, 'Yup they're back again."'
And this church never did anything about it, did they? How their consciences must be seared by now! To have a career baby-murderer in your congregation, a member in apparently good standing, an usher who is typically accompanied by a frakking bodyguard...You smile at him, "Hey George" while mixing Sweet 'n' Low into your coffee cup Sunday morning, thinking (or not) that a mere 24 hours later he'll be using chemical weapons against the smallest, weakest, and most invisible, marginalised, and voiceless members of our society. You ask what it means when the Bible mentions "their consciences seared with a hot iron"? Exhibit A: Reformation Lutheran of Wichita.
The article continues:
He added: "We had no idea that someone would come into our church and do such a bad thing like that — inside of a church."
Apparently Reformation Lutheran includes as an unwritten part of its paltry belief statement the superstitious view, like on the TV show "Highlander", that a church is 'holy ground' or something by virtue of the building's carrying the word "church" in its title, on the placard somewhere.
Revelation 3:1 To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: "I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. 3 So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you."
This church is a dead church, having a name like it's alive, and lookie here - Jesus has indeed come to them like a thief, in judgment on one of its members. Mercifully, I'd say - this time around He only enacted judgment on the main evildoer, an individual in the midst of the enabling group, rather than on the evildoer AND the enabling group as He's done many times before. No doubt He is giving them time to repent, and I pray that they will. But where did this guy get the idea that violence is any better or worse inside a building that calls itself a church? I might agree with that in MY church, yeah, b/c of the environs and people that, there, give glory to Jesus and take what He says very seriously. Clearly this church does not do that, however, so we have to ask whence comes this sentiment? How does this guy know that violence is wrong? Why should anyone honor his building and gathering with the title "church"?
In a Facebook thread discussing this incident, an acquaintance of mine said this more or less:
It is sickening to imagine that God would allow a man to be shot by a crazed vigilante who could just as easily have decided to direct his hate toward an ethnic minority or gays.
A couple of things:
1) Note the implicit seared conscience, again.
One is BORN as a member of a certain ethnicity.
One CHOOSES to engage in homosexual behavior.
One CHOOSES to murder babies.
It is certainly understandable that some people might find the existence of a serial baby-murderer in their city intolerable to the point that they might pick up arms to take care, themselves, of what the gov't wouldn't. I invite you to get off your high horse and consider the similarity of this action to, say, the firebombing of a legitimately legal KKK headquarters building, a group of brothers ganging up to beat the daylights out of the drug dealer who raped their younger sister, concerned citizens slashing tires in the dead of night outside a known crack house, etc. None of these actions are, strictly speaking, legal, nor are they necessarily ethical. But one can certainly see how the sentiments leading to the actions arose and accord to the perpetrators a measure of sympathy: "I wouldn't've done it like that, but I definitely see where he was coming from."
2) I encourage you to read the book of Habakkuk, among other places such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Judges, the list goes on and on. Habakkuk has long been a favorite of mine, even when I was an atheist, as it contains complaints from a human perspective against God on the subject of theodicy. (When I was an atheist, I only liked the complaints from Habakkuk, not God's answers, but anyway.) It follows this pattern:
Habakkuk: God, evil all around. Won't You act?
God: Be patient, it's coming. In fact, when it comes it's going to be horrifying, way worse than you could have imagined. What's more, I'm going to use the evil, hated, idolatrous Babylonians to enact My judgment on Judah.
Habakkuk: Another brief complaint.
God: Repeat.
Habakkuk: Ah. Let me take this moment to compose a psalm of heartfelt praise.
The pattern follows in this most recent example. It was not right for this gunman to abort this late-term fœtus named George Tiller, any more than it was right for Tiller to abort so many thousands of fœtuses before. Thus, this gunman is an evildoer whom God used to enact judgment on another evildoer. Sound familiar?
Let us pray that God will have mercy on our nation for allowing this travesty and evil of baby-murder to enjoy legal protection as it does today. Perhaps we will escape the fate of Judah, perhaps not. Lord, have mercy.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Here lies an unwanted late-term fœtus, rest in peace (or something)
DATELINE: Wichita, KS
A slightly unusual set of circumstances surrounded one of today's late-term abortions, one of dozens or even hundreds practiced around the nation on a daily basis. Chaos ensued inside a local church, Reformation Lutheran (motto: "Unraveling the Reformation every Sunday so that we can be nicer people"), today when one late-term fœtus aborted another in a slightly less well-controlled environment as that which usually surrounds such terminations, though conditions in this case were certainly comparable in terms of sterility and general professionalism.
"We're all shocked here," said a churchgoer who identified himself as Jimmy. "It was really weird to see this late-term fœtus, who's been a long-time member of our church and who called himself 'Tiller', lying in a pool of blood, since he's usually been the one that reduces, excuse me, progresses other fœtuses towards a non-lifey state. So yeah, it's been an abnormal day, and last week was even worse - we had to kick out of our church a member who we discovered had been kicking his dog from time to time when he was angry. Talk about unacceptable behavior!"
Witnesses reported at least two other significant ways in which this abortion was dissimilar to others performed by Tiller, the aforementioned late-term fœtus, on slightly less-late-term fœtuses in the past. One was described by Mary Smith, who told us, "There was no mention of any shady financial transactions funneled from the federal government, through Planned Parenthood, to the abortician. It seemed like he was working pro bono, which is not unheard of, I understand, especially in poor minority neighborhoods, but it was strange all the same."
Sharimrakar Pamarayitsupatel, another long-time member and teacher of Reformation Lutheran's popular "Sunshine, Veda, and Transcendental Meditation" Sunday School class, mentioned the other: "The late-term fœtus in question seemed to utilise a projectile-emitting implement to perform this procedure, rather than what the other one usually uses, or so I understand, which was a suction implement, a handheld bladed implement, and/or a chemical weapon implement, depending on the situation. So this was a little off the beaten path, shall we say, but it still effectively got the job done, and it certainly seemed to be pretty painless, much less painful than taking a dip in a cocktail of scalding chemical agents, let me tell you."
"It's so weird," said an unnamed passerby whom we interviewed. "They have 'No firearms allowed in building' stickers on their doors and everything, as plain as day."
"Aw, peas!" complained 15-year-old Renée Nauchtupp, when informed of today's abortion. "Now I'm gonna hafta lie about my age and my 24-year-old boyfriend at someone else's cutting parlor. This really sucks, but not as much as it's gonna suck for my baby when I find another one, if you know what I mean."
Police have informed us that they have one significant lead, whom they are pursuing with a warrant for arrest on misdemeanor charges of practicing medical procedures without a license. In the state of Kansas, this can carry a punishment of up to $5000 and 30 days in jail, though most fœtuses convicted of this crime usually end up with approximately 90 hours of community service.
Fœtus Tiller will receive the benefit of a burial in a cemetery most probably, rather than being incinerated in a toxic-waste furnace or deposited in a city waste-disposal dumpster along with yesterday's used coffee cups and McDonald's wrappers. The church congregation is not widely expected to learn much from today's experience.
The Associated Press did not contribute to this story.
This story is dedicated to the memory of George Tiller, whom the Lord mercifully prevented today from murdering any more than the thousands of babies he already has.
A slightly unusual set of circumstances surrounded one of today's late-term abortions, one of dozens or even hundreds practiced around the nation on a daily basis. Chaos ensued inside a local church, Reformation Lutheran (motto: "Unraveling the Reformation every Sunday so that we can be nicer people"), today when one late-term fœtus aborted another in a slightly less well-controlled environment as that which usually surrounds such terminations, though conditions in this case were certainly comparable in terms of sterility and general professionalism.
"We're all shocked here," said a churchgoer who identified himself as Jimmy. "It was really weird to see this late-term fœtus, who's been a long-time member of our church and who called himself 'Tiller', lying in a pool of blood, since he's usually been the one that reduces, excuse me, progresses other fœtuses towards a non-lifey state. So yeah, it's been an abnormal day, and last week was even worse - we had to kick out of our church a member who we discovered had been kicking his dog from time to time when he was angry. Talk about unacceptable behavior!"
Witnesses reported at least two other significant ways in which this abortion was dissimilar to others performed by Tiller, the aforementioned late-term fœtus, on slightly less-late-term fœtuses in the past. One was described by Mary Smith, who told us, "There was no mention of any shady financial transactions funneled from the federal government, through Planned Parenthood, to the abortician. It seemed like he was working pro bono, which is not unheard of, I understand, especially in poor minority neighborhoods, but it was strange all the same."
Sharimrakar Pamarayitsupatel, another long-time member and teacher of Reformation Lutheran's popular "Sunshine, Veda, and Transcendental Meditation" Sunday School class, mentioned the other: "The late-term fœtus in question seemed to utilise a projectile-emitting implement to perform this procedure, rather than what the other one usually uses, or so I understand, which was a suction implement, a handheld bladed implement, and/or a chemical weapon implement, depending on the situation. So this was a little off the beaten path, shall we say, but it still effectively got the job done, and it certainly seemed to be pretty painless, much less painful than taking a dip in a cocktail of scalding chemical agents, let me tell you."
"It's so weird," said an unnamed passerby whom we interviewed. "They have 'No firearms allowed in building' stickers on their doors and everything, as plain as day."
"Aw, peas!" complained 15-year-old Renée Nauchtupp, when informed of today's abortion. "Now I'm gonna hafta lie about my age and my 24-year-old boyfriend at someone else's cutting parlor. This really sucks, but not as much as it's gonna suck for my baby when I find another one, if you know what I mean."
Police have informed us that they have one significant lead, whom they are pursuing with a warrant for arrest on misdemeanor charges of practicing medical procedures without a license. In the state of Kansas, this can carry a punishment of up to $5000 and 30 days in jail, though most fœtuses convicted of this crime usually end up with approximately 90 hours of community service.
Fœtus Tiller will receive the benefit of a burial in a cemetery most probably, rather than being incinerated in a toxic-waste furnace or deposited in a city waste-disposal dumpster along with yesterday's used coffee cups and McDonald's wrappers. The church congregation is not widely expected to learn much from today's experience.
The Associated Press did not contribute to this story.
This story is dedicated to the memory of George Tiller, whom the Lord mercifully prevented today from murdering any more than the thousands of babies he already has.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
How atheists should debate William Lane Craig
It's probably obvious that I enjoy debate. One of the perks of my current job is that it allows me to do my work while listening to sermons, podcasts, music sometimes, webradio shows, and yes, debates, most of the working day while I go about my tasks (mostly silently, except I type loud).
One of the most prolific and famous Christian debaters out there is William Lane Craig. In fact, his debate with Peter Atkins of Oxford was the first theist/atheist debate I ever watched/listened to, and I was enthralled. It probably helped that it was one of the worst blowouts of an atheist debater that I have ever witnessed, but my interest was nonetheless permanently piqued in these kinds of debates.
Anyway, while dorking around the other day and clicking on a few of the sites in my "Antagonists" bookmark folder, I came across this interesting blogpost wherein the Uncredible Hallq (which, I agree, is an outstandingly clever Internet handle and blog name) shares his thoughts on the best strategy for atheists in debate with Dr. Craig. The Hallq is an interesting character, in my estimation more of a freethinker than most Internet atheists and antitheists. I understand he is well-regarded among the Internet atheist community as well. I agree with much of what he says in the article, particularly in the way he characterises the way that Craig's opponents usually employ very ineffective time management in their opening speeches and rebuttals. To me, it appears that they don't typically do so much as listen to even one presentation from Craig before the debate; they just show up and expect to steamroll Craig. And in turn, they themselves get flattened. James White has experienced this over and over again, to name another prolific debater - see his most recent debates with Bart Ehrman and Dan Barker (I wouldn't describe the Ehrman debate as a "flattening", just a victory for White, but it's obvious Ehrman didn't study White at all, is all I mean).
So, after the stimulating analysis of the first 2/3 of the post, I was interested to see what the Hallq would say in the section entitled "FINALLY: WHAT I WOULD SAY IN A DEBATE WITH CRAIG". Given my impressions of him up to this point, I was very surprised at the shallow argumentation he employs here. It's really a seriously bad initial presentation. Let's take it point by point. I can't promise that my responses will resemble all that closely how Craig would respond. For one thing, the man is a professional. For another, he's a classical apologist, and I generally take the presuppositional approach, but we certainly have our common ground as well. So for each of these points, I'll give my own reply and What I Think William Lane Craig Would Say (WITWLCWS). Please note that I usually agree with WITWLCWS, but I often prefer to emphasise different aspects of the case.
--Richard Dawkins is famous for saying, ‘We are all atheists with respect to most of the gods humans have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.’ “This isn’t just a slogan: it’s good advice for how to think about this issue.
My friend Vox Veritatis very ably deals with this argument here. It amazes me that this argument is so prevalent and popular. Consider his response my own.
WITWLCWS: The weight of the evidence, as I've laid out in my opening presentation, supports the Christian God. I have a great deal of material on other competing religions and would be happy to debate their truth any time. Also, you need to present positive evidence for your position.
Notes: After a whole post haranguing us on the importance of taking WLC's initial presentation (which almost never changes) into account, and then the buildup of "Here's how I'd open against WLC", Hallquist's first point is not promising. How does this even get close to responding to WLC's presentation?
--Similarly, if the Christian god existed, we would find lots of evidence for him that we do not find:
1. Genesis says God created the heavens and the earth from a chaotic void a mere several thousand years ago. But our best evidence from geology, paleontology, and astronomy contradicts this. If the heavens were a mere few thousand years old, we wouldn’t be able to see most of the galaxy’s stars because their light wouldn’t have had time to reach Earth.
The best evidence for God's existence is that w/o Him, there is no reason or intelligibility. The "evidence" you refer to from those fields is data that must be interpreted thru a worldview grid, to see how well the data fit. Maybe alot of the data fit your worldview, but my worldview is able to explain them just as well, and quite often a lot better. Your challenge is to find data that DON'T fit in my worldview consistently but do fit in yours, and that would count as evidence for your position against mine. I haven't seen much of that in my time.
If God created the stars ~10K years ago, He could just as easily have created the light beams stretching from the stars to the Earth as well. And yes, He could have easily created the light event of a supernova that's dated to millions of yrs ago (on modern assumptions) that would only be ~10K light years away. Let's be serious here - does Christianity believe in an omnipotent God or not?.
WITWLCWS: My presentation is about whether God exists, not whether the Bible is infallible, and I have offered several very compelling lines of evidence for the existence of God. My arguments are forceful and substantive whether or not the modern iterations of the theory of evolution are true. Fine, the Earth is several billions of years old. Now, how about my arguments? Plus, what Rhology said about the light beams.
Notes: OK, I was kidding about Craig throwing me a bone there, but I think he'd agree with that limited point. Note again how Hallquist's point does not touch Craig's typical opening presentation.
--2. Genesis said rainbows are a sign from God given to Noah. But we know they’re a natural phenomenon.
And they can't be both...why? God uses means to accomplish His ends. He usually works providentially rather than via miraculous intervention.
WITWLCWS: Ditto.
Notes: See above - how does this touch Craig's initial presentation? Hallquist might not be wasting time here with windbag verbosity, but he's wasting the little time he's using, since this argument is virtually irrelevant to Craig's arguments.
--3. Genesis says the world’s many languages are punishment for building the tower of Babel. But we know new languages develop naturally, without divine intervention.
Congratulations, you know NEW languages develop naturally. How precisely does this rule out a miracle in the past?
Also, how do you ground the induction you're using?
WITWLCWS: How, again, does this deal with any of my arguments for God's existence?
Notes: The Bill Craig in my head is right - this is irrelevant to Craig's layout of the case.
--4. The Bible, along with post-Biblical Christian tradition, says God has sent a variety of prophets, apostles, and saints to work miracles on his behalf. But today, whenever we investigate urban legends of miracles or supposed miracle workers like Peter Popoff and Benny Hinn–and real investigations have only become possible recently–the claims turn out to be bogus. The reasonable inference is that all such claims are bogus.
The reader will hopefully pardon me for not finding ignorance about biblical doctrine a very compelling argument against God's existence. There were plenty of eyewitnesses in NT times who had a vested interest in NOT believing what they believed and testified about, b/c they were getting tortured and messily killed, de-synagogued, fired from their jobs, etc for becoming and living as followers of Jesus Christ. And many of them were in a position to know for sure that the teaching about Christ was not true, which is a scenario that few other religious traditions I'm familiar with can claim.
The case against the continuation of what are typically called sign gifts is pretty strong, but even most continuationists don't think that the gifts exercised today are of similar quality and power to those exercised in NT times. Further, ain't too many people around who think that Benny Hinn or TBN are legit. Is that really the best example Hallquist could come up with?
So, let me get this straight. Hallquist would have us investigate people that everyone knows are scam artists and conclude that the real thing doesn't exist anywhere?
WITWLCWS: Quite so. The existence of counterfeit currency doesn't invalidate the existence of real currency. In fact, it bolsters the case for the existence of real currency - why fake it if the real stuff weren't out there?
And a big part of my case for God revolves around the very strong evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Forget Hinn - how about dealing with the evidence for Jesus's resurrection?
--5. The Bible attributes the rise and fall of nations to God’s will. But historians and political scientists have been unable to find much use for that way of explaining historical events.
Note the naturalistic presupposition. You need to argue for naturalism's truth before you bring it in as your overriding interpretive grid like this. See #2 and #3.
WITWLCWS: As a historical discipline, it's true that God's influence might be difficult or even impossible to ascertain in such events as you've cited. You don't get to just assume that history is atheistic, though - you need to make your case. This is an argument from silence.
Also, I'd note that every naturalistic attempt to explain the historical facts surrounding the resurrection of Jesus is fatally flawed, so again, the best evidence strongly favors it. And the obvious inference from the resurrection is that God raised Jesus from the dead.
--6. The Bible affirms that God answers prayer. But attempts to verify this scientifically have failed, and what’s more, most Christians realize deep down this doesn’t work. That’s why they recognize it as a tragedy when religious parents try to use prayer as a replacement for medicine when caring for their children.
God has done plenty to testify about His existence. He's not obligated to perform like a circus monkey when you want Him to. All men know God exists, but they suppress that truth in wickedness b/c they love darkness. And then, in that very suppression, they want to study prayer to see if God will jump thru their hoops? This reduces God to some impersonal Force that can be manipulated thru the right incantations, physical or not. It's paganism, and God isn't a pagan god.
I'd love to see Hallquist's survey data to support the claim that "most Christians realize deep down this doesn't work".
See #4 - this is more ignorance about Christian doctrine. The purpose of prayer is to make ME more like Jesus through communication with Him, not to bend God's will to fit my own. God also uses some prayers as part of the means to accomplishing His will.
'Tisn't Christians who use prayer as a replacement for medicine, or better said, that's not part of the Christian worldview. Word of Faith-ers, may God have mercy on them, whose ideas are strongly influenced by Gnosticism, and Christian Scientists and religious scientists, who are even Gnostic-er, fall into this category. But I thought we were talking about Christianity, not "religion".
Finally, I see no argument as to why we should limit verification to what can be scientifically verified. It's not like Hallquist's own worldview can be scientifically verified. Maybe that's why most naturalists realise deep down that this naturalism thing doesn't work.
WITWLCWS: How does this affect any of my arguments for God's existence?
Further, since we're talking about answered prayer, I prayed when I was in high school that God would save me, and He did! I have had a true experience of Jesus Christ, and absent a good reason to doubt its truth, I am fully justified in believing it. That's an answered prayer right there, and since your argument is inductive, only one example is sufficient to overturn it. Consider it done.
Notes: I'll stop here and address the rest of the post next time. But that's the 1st section of Hallquist's proposed opening statement in a debate against William Lane Craig. Did any of these arguments address Craig's typical opener? No. Were they even very relevant to building a case against Christianity? No. So, my recommendation to the Hallq is: Yes, please, pretty please, do bring this kind of argument to any and all debate you do with a Christian. The Christian debater could share the Gospel, preach a biblical sermon, or read John Piper books aloud during the entire debate and still emerge victorious.
One of the most prolific and famous Christian debaters out there is William Lane Craig. In fact, his debate with Peter Atkins of Oxford was the first theist/atheist debate I ever watched/listened to, and I was enthralled. It probably helped that it was one of the worst blowouts of an atheist debater that I have ever witnessed, but my interest was nonetheless permanently piqued in these kinds of debates.
Anyway, while dorking around the other day and clicking on a few of the sites in my "Antagonists" bookmark folder, I came across this interesting blogpost wherein the Uncredible Hallq (which, I agree, is an outstandingly clever Internet handle and blog name) shares his thoughts on the best strategy for atheists in debate with Dr. Craig. The Hallq is an interesting character, in my estimation more of a freethinker than most Internet atheists and antitheists. I understand he is well-regarded among the Internet atheist community as well. I agree with much of what he says in the article, particularly in the way he characterises the way that Craig's opponents usually employ very ineffective time management in their opening speeches and rebuttals. To me, it appears that they don't typically do so much as listen to even one presentation from Craig before the debate; they just show up and expect to steamroll Craig. And in turn, they themselves get flattened. James White has experienced this over and over again, to name another prolific debater - see his most recent debates with Bart Ehrman and Dan Barker (I wouldn't describe the Ehrman debate as a "flattening", just a victory for White, but it's obvious Ehrman didn't study White at all, is all I mean).
So, after the stimulating analysis of the first 2/3 of the post, I was interested to see what the Hallq would say in the section entitled "FINALLY: WHAT I WOULD SAY IN A DEBATE WITH CRAIG". Given my impressions of him up to this point, I was very surprised at the shallow argumentation he employs here. It's really a seriously bad initial presentation. Let's take it point by point. I can't promise that my responses will resemble all that closely how Craig would respond. For one thing, the man is a professional. For another, he's a classical apologist, and I generally take the presuppositional approach, but we certainly have our common ground as well. So for each of these points, I'll give my own reply and What I Think William Lane Craig Would Say (WITWLCWS). Please note that I usually agree with WITWLCWS, but I often prefer to emphasise different aspects of the case.
--Richard Dawkins is famous for saying, ‘We are all atheists with respect to most of the gods humans have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.’ “This isn’t just a slogan: it’s good advice for how to think about this issue.
My friend Vox Veritatis very ably deals with this argument here. It amazes me that this argument is so prevalent and popular. Consider his response my own.
WITWLCWS: The weight of the evidence, as I've laid out in my opening presentation, supports the Christian God. I have a great deal of material on other competing religions and would be happy to debate their truth any time. Also, you need to present positive evidence for your position.
Notes: After a whole post haranguing us on the importance of taking WLC's initial presentation (which almost never changes) into account, and then the buildup of "Here's how I'd open against WLC", Hallquist's first point is not promising. How does this even get close to responding to WLC's presentation?
--Similarly, if the Christian god existed, we would find lots of evidence for him that we do not find:
1. Genesis says God created the heavens and the earth from a chaotic void a mere several thousand years ago. But our best evidence from geology, paleontology, and astronomy contradicts this. If the heavens were a mere few thousand years old, we wouldn’t be able to see most of the galaxy’s stars because their light wouldn’t have had time to reach Earth.
The best evidence for God's existence is that w/o Him, there is no reason or intelligibility. The "evidence" you refer to from those fields is data that must be interpreted thru a worldview grid, to see how well the data fit. Maybe alot of the data fit your worldview, but my worldview is able to explain them just as well, and quite often a lot better. Your challenge is to find data that DON'T fit in my worldview consistently but do fit in yours, and that would count as evidence for your position against mine. I haven't seen much of that in my time.
If God created the stars ~10K years ago, He could just as easily have created the light beams stretching from the stars to the Earth as well. And yes, He could have easily created the light event of a supernova that's dated to millions of yrs ago (on modern assumptions) that would only be ~10K light years away. Let's be serious here - does Christianity believe in an omnipotent God or not?.
WITWLCWS: My presentation is about whether God exists, not whether the Bible is infallible, and I have offered several very compelling lines of evidence for the existence of God. My arguments are forceful and substantive whether or not the modern iterations of the theory of evolution are true. Fine, the Earth is several billions of years old. Now, how about my arguments? Plus, what Rhology said about the light beams.
Notes: OK, I was kidding about Craig throwing me a bone there, but I think he'd agree with that limited point. Note again how Hallquist's point does not touch Craig's typical opening presentation.
--2. Genesis said rainbows are a sign from God given to Noah. But we know they’re a natural phenomenon.
And they can't be both...why? God uses means to accomplish His ends. He usually works providentially rather than via miraculous intervention.
WITWLCWS: Ditto.
Notes: See above - how does this touch Craig's initial presentation? Hallquist might not be wasting time here with windbag verbosity, but he's wasting the little time he's using, since this argument is virtually irrelevant to Craig's arguments.
--3. Genesis says the world’s many languages are punishment for building the tower of Babel. But we know new languages develop naturally, without divine intervention.
Congratulations, you know NEW languages develop naturally. How precisely does this rule out a miracle in the past?
Also, how do you ground the induction you're using?
WITWLCWS: How, again, does this deal with any of my arguments for God's existence?
Notes: The Bill Craig in my head is right - this is irrelevant to Craig's layout of the case.
--4. The Bible, along with post-Biblical Christian tradition, says God has sent a variety of prophets, apostles, and saints to work miracles on his behalf. But today, whenever we investigate urban legends of miracles or supposed miracle workers like Peter Popoff and Benny Hinn–and real investigations have only become possible recently–the claims turn out to be bogus. The reasonable inference is that all such claims are bogus.
The reader will hopefully pardon me for not finding ignorance about biblical doctrine a very compelling argument against God's existence. There were plenty of eyewitnesses in NT times who had a vested interest in NOT believing what they believed and testified about, b/c they were getting tortured and messily killed, de-synagogued, fired from their jobs, etc for becoming and living as followers of Jesus Christ. And many of them were in a position to know for sure that the teaching about Christ was not true, which is a scenario that few other religious traditions I'm familiar with can claim.
The case against the continuation of what are typically called sign gifts is pretty strong, but even most continuationists don't think that the gifts exercised today are of similar quality and power to those exercised in NT times. Further, ain't too many people around who think that Benny Hinn or TBN are legit. Is that really the best example Hallquist could come up with?
So, let me get this straight. Hallquist would have us investigate people that everyone knows are scam artists and conclude that the real thing doesn't exist anywhere?
WITWLCWS: Quite so. The existence of counterfeit currency doesn't invalidate the existence of real currency. In fact, it bolsters the case for the existence of real currency - why fake it if the real stuff weren't out there?
And a big part of my case for God revolves around the very strong evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Forget Hinn - how about dealing with the evidence for Jesus's resurrection?
--5. The Bible attributes the rise and fall of nations to God’s will. But historians and political scientists have been unable to find much use for that way of explaining historical events.
Note the naturalistic presupposition. You need to argue for naturalism's truth before you bring it in as your overriding interpretive grid like this. See #2 and #3.
WITWLCWS: As a historical discipline, it's true that God's influence might be difficult or even impossible to ascertain in such events as you've cited. You don't get to just assume that history is atheistic, though - you need to make your case. This is an argument from silence.
Also, I'd note that every naturalistic attempt to explain the historical facts surrounding the resurrection of Jesus is fatally flawed, so again, the best evidence strongly favors it. And the obvious inference from the resurrection is that God raised Jesus from the dead.
--6. The Bible affirms that God answers prayer. But attempts to verify this scientifically have failed, and what’s more, most Christians realize deep down this doesn’t work. That’s why they recognize it as a tragedy when religious parents try to use prayer as a replacement for medicine when caring for their children.
God has done plenty to testify about His existence. He's not obligated to perform like a circus monkey when you want Him to. All men know God exists, but they suppress that truth in wickedness b/c they love darkness. And then, in that very suppression, they want to study prayer to see if God will jump thru their hoops? This reduces God to some impersonal Force that can be manipulated thru the right incantations, physical or not. It's paganism, and God isn't a pagan god.
I'd love to see Hallquist's survey data to support the claim that "most Christians realize deep down this doesn't work".
See #4 - this is more ignorance about Christian doctrine. The purpose of prayer is to make ME more like Jesus through communication with Him, not to bend God's will to fit my own. God also uses some prayers as part of the means to accomplishing His will.
'Tisn't Christians who use prayer as a replacement for medicine, or better said, that's not part of the Christian worldview. Word of Faith-ers, may God have mercy on them, whose ideas are strongly influenced by Gnosticism, and Christian Scientists and religious scientists, who are even Gnostic-er, fall into this category. But I thought we were talking about Christianity, not "religion".
Finally, I see no argument as to why we should limit verification to what can be scientifically verified. It's not like Hallquist's own worldview can be scientifically verified. Maybe that's why most naturalists realise deep down that this naturalism thing doesn't work.
WITWLCWS: How does this affect any of my arguments for God's existence?
Further, since we're talking about answered prayer, I prayed when I was in high school that God would save me, and He did! I have had a true experience of Jesus Christ, and absent a good reason to doubt its truth, I am fully justified in believing it. That's an answered prayer right there, and since your argument is inductive, only one example is sufficient to overturn it. Consider it done.
Notes: I'll stop here and address the rest of the post next time. But that's the 1st section of Hallquist's proposed opening statement in a debate against William Lane Craig. Did any of these arguments address Craig's typical opener? No. Were they even very relevant to building a case against Christianity? No. So, my recommendation to the Hallq is: Yes, please, pretty please, do bring this kind of argument to any and all debate you do with a Christian. The Christian debater could share the Gospel, preach a biblical sermon, or read John Piper books aloud during the entire debate and still emerge victorious.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Well, *some* of My words might pass away...
Eric Reitan has begun what should be an interesting series of posts on his theories of how the Bible can be errant and still authoritative. I call horseapples on that, but we'll see how it plays out. This I address to him directly in response to this initial post.
Hi Dr Reitan,
I understand that these last few weeks are finals week and much grading for you, so don't worry about trying to hurry thru this stuff.
I read most of your book last wknd, just FYI.
I appreciate the way you've laid out the dispute here. My initial impression is that you've laid out the case quite accurately. That is essential to the advancement of any debate, so I am thankful to see it as well.
It occurs to me that these 4 are all based on presuppositions and logical inference. I should think that a very strong case must be made on the evidence found in Scripture itself, especially from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Matt 4:4 - But He answered and said, "It is written, ' MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"
Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
Matthew 7:12
"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7:24
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Matthew 13:23
"And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty."
Matthew 24:12
"Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.
Matthew 24:35
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mark 13:31
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Luke 21:33
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mark 7:13
"...thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."
Luke 2:23
(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, " EVERY firstborn MALE THAT OPENS THE WOMB SHALL BE CALLED HOLY TO THE LORD"),
Luke 6:47
" Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like:
Luke 10:26
And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
Luke 16:17
" But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
Luke 24:44
Now He said to them, " These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
John 5:38
"You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.
John 5:47
"But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
John 6:63
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
John 8:31
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, " If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
John 8:51
"Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death."
John 10:35
"If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, " If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
John 17:17
" Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
Notice among other things:
1) Christ holds the Law - yes, the barbaric, evil, intolerant Mosaic Law - in highest regard. It cannot be broken, it is not to be invalidated for the sake of human tradition, it is truth, it will never pass away, etc.
2) Christ came to UPHOLD AND FULFILL that law, not to abolish it.
3) Love and keeping the law are held in inviolable connection. This speaks directly to your hermeneutic, Dr Reitan; you would do well to keep close track of this.
4) Same with holiness and purity, like in Jn 17:17.
5) It is the law OF THE LORD, as in Lk 2. Not the law of Moses only. It is divine in origin.
6) Christ Himself often appeals to the Law to settle disputes and answer questions. He quotes it to Satan; why didn't He just "love" Satan, or write (as it were) His own Scripture by speaking His own authoritative words to Satan to defeat him?
Now, few things you said:
-I have argued that a loving God would want us to pay loving attention to our neighbors, and that a so-called “inerrant book” would likely lead many of us to stop listening to those neighbors whose lived experiences were judged to be at odds with the pronouncements of this book.-
I know we need to flesh this out and my response is one of the 4 arguments you outlined above: you don't know love apart from what God has revealed. Besides that, let me say that the whole "lived experiences were judged to be at odds" is the very problem at hand! Over and over again in the Scr we see the sinfulness of man contrasted with the holiness of God. The lawlessness of man contrasted with the holy law of God. What happened in the Garden of Eden? Did man fall UP or something? God sent OT Israel into captivity in Assyria and Babylon b/c they were failing to follow their consciences, or was it b/c they were neglecting the law of God? Did Christ ever call us to figure out the right thing by appeal to our lived experiences, or was it to the law of God?
This is seriously, seriously wrong, quite properly speaking, a damnable heresy - one that will damn you.
-There are several reasons why I think so: first, because relationships with persons teach us more about love than do books-
Relationships with persons also teach us about hate, vengeance, temptation, lust, greed, envy, murder, rape, and theft.
-To discourage idolatry, God would therefore ensure that terrestrial artifacts that testified to Him could not be mistakenly identified with Him. -
I'll let you know the next time I see anyone bowing down before a Bible and offering incense to it. If we didn't believe it was the inerrant word of the all-powerful God, we would pay as much attention to it as we do the Catcher in the Rye - not much. This is a typical liberal canard, and it's beneath you, sir.
A brief word on your personal experience, if I may, though I obviously know few of the details. I too have traveled, and I've lived in France and Japan for extended periods. I have interacted with many diff people of many diff origins and worldviews. My approach to evaluating a worldview is more holistic than yours, apparently - I take into acct the good AND the bad of the worldview and its history and doctrine. How does an honest study of human history reveal anythg other than a highly flawed, deeply screwed up group? Your surrender of a solid grasp of a biblical worldview (if indeed you ever had one) shows that you never took sin and its effects seriously, and that you are indeed your own highest authority. How else can one eat off the buffet table of another worldview? For when one adds this and that from here, this and that from over there, etc, you create your own mishmash. Indeed that is what liberalism is - a mishmash of things that modernists and postmodernists have hodgepodged together to assemble their own horrible monster.
But let me say this - a trembling, ecstatic baptismal experience won't save you from the wrath of God that your sin has earned you.
Finally,
-I endeavor to live my life in the faith that the universe was fashioned by a personal God of love,-
Which you have believed in thru an apparently blind leap in the dark. Maybe 1 John 4:4, etc, is errant.
-this God redeemed the world by living among us and dying at our hands-
But the crucifixion accts are highly contradictory and indicate a God who would put His own son to death for other people, for crimes He didn't commit. This is divine child abuse, you know. Besides, maybe these accts are errant too.
-I take seriously the radical and astonishing love ethic of Jesus, with its call to help the poor and work for justice.-
Which could well be errant.
That should be sufficient. Anyone can see the self-defeating nature of the half-in, half-out liberal stance. I'd much rather Dr Reitan were a Dick Dawk- (or at least Shermer-) type who would reject the whole thing than for him to remain in his self-imposed dark grey world, where he thinks he is God, until death comes for him and he learns to his eternal chagrin how wrong he was.
Revelation 3:14 The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:
15'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
16'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.'
Hi Dr Reitan,
I understand that these last few weeks are finals week and much grading for you, so don't worry about trying to hurry thru this stuff.
I read most of your book last wknd, just FYI.
I appreciate the way you've laid out the dispute here. My initial impression is that you've laid out the case quite accurately. That is essential to the advancement of any debate, so I am thankful to see it as well.
It occurs to me that these 4 are all based on presuppositions and logical inference. I should think that a very strong case must be made on the evidence found in Scripture itself, especially from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Matt 4:4 - But He answered and said, "It is written, ' MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"
Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
Matthew 7:12
"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7:24
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Matthew 13:23
"And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty."
Matthew 24:12
"Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.
Matthew 24:35
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mark 13:31
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Luke 21:33
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mark 7:13
"...thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."
Luke 2:23
(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, " EVERY firstborn MALE THAT OPENS THE WOMB SHALL BE CALLED HOLY TO THE LORD"),
Luke 6:47
" Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like:
Luke 10:26
And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
Luke 16:17
" But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
Luke 24:44
Now He said to them, " These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
John 5:38
"You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent.
John 5:47
"But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
John 6:63
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
John 8:31
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, " If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
John 8:51
"Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death."
John 10:35
"If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),
John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, " If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
John 17:17
" Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
Notice among other things:
1) Christ holds the Law - yes, the barbaric, evil, intolerant Mosaic Law - in highest regard. It cannot be broken, it is not to be invalidated for the sake of human tradition, it is truth, it will never pass away, etc.
2) Christ came to UPHOLD AND FULFILL that law, not to abolish it.
3) Love and keeping the law are held in inviolable connection. This speaks directly to your hermeneutic, Dr Reitan; you would do well to keep close track of this.
4) Same with holiness and purity, like in Jn 17:17.
5) It is the law OF THE LORD, as in Lk 2. Not the law of Moses only. It is divine in origin.
6) Christ Himself often appeals to the Law to settle disputes and answer questions. He quotes it to Satan; why didn't He just "love" Satan, or write (as it were) His own Scripture by speaking His own authoritative words to Satan to defeat him?
Now, few things you said:
-I have argued that a loving God would want us to pay loving attention to our neighbors, and that a so-called “inerrant book” would likely lead many of us to stop listening to those neighbors whose lived experiences were judged to be at odds with the pronouncements of this book.-
I know we need to flesh this out and my response is one of the 4 arguments you outlined above: you don't know love apart from what God has revealed. Besides that, let me say that the whole "lived experiences were judged to be at odds" is the very problem at hand! Over and over again in the Scr we see the sinfulness of man contrasted with the holiness of God. The lawlessness of man contrasted with the holy law of God. What happened in the Garden of Eden? Did man fall UP or something? God sent OT Israel into captivity in Assyria and Babylon b/c they were failing to follow their consciences, or was it b/c they were neglecting the law of God? Did Christ ever call us to figure out the right thing by appeal to our lived experiences, or was it to the law of God?
This is seriously, seriously wrong, quite properly speaking, a damnable heresy - one that will damn you.
-There are several reasons why I think so: first, because relationships with persons teach us more about love than do books-
Relationships with persons also teach us about hate, vengeance, temptation, lust, greed, envy, murder, rape, and theft.
-To discourage idolatry, God would therefore ensure that terrestrial artifacts that testified to Him could not be mistakenly identified with Him. -
I'll let you know the next time I see anyone bowing down before a Bible and offering incense to it. If we didn't believe it was the inerrant word of the all-powerful God, we would pay as much attention to it as we do the Catcher in the Rye - not much. This is a typical liberal canard, and it's beneath you, sir.
A brief word on your personal experience, if I may, though I obviously know few of the details. I too have traveled, and I've lived in France and Japan for extended periods. I have interacted with many diff people of many diff origins and worldviews. My approach to evaluating a worldview is more holistic than yours, apparently - I take into acct the good AND the bad of the worldview and its history and doctrine. How does an honest study of human history reveal anythg other than a highly flawed, deeply screwed up group? Your surrender of a solid grasp of a biblical worldview (if indeed you ever had one) shows that you never took sin and its effects seriously, and that you are indeed your own highest authority. How else can one eat off the buffet table of another worldview? For when one adds this and that from here, this and that from over there, etc, you create your own mishmash. Indeed that is what liberalism is - a mishmash of things that modernists and postmodernists have hodgepodged together to assemble their own horrible monster.
But let me say this - a trembling, ecstatic baptismal experience won't save you from the wrath of God that your sin has earned you.
Finally,
-I endeavor to live my life in the faith that the universe was fashioned by a personal God of love,-
Which you have believed in thru an apparently blind leap in the dark. Maybe 1 John 4:4, etc, is errant.
-this God redeemed the world by living among us and dying at our hands-
But the crucifixion accts are highly contradictory and indicate a God who would put His own son to death for other people, for crimes He didn't commit. This is divine child abuse, you know. Besides, maybe these accts are errant too.
-I take seriously the radical and astonishing love ethic of Jesus, with its call to help the poor and work for justice.-
Which could well be errant.
That should be sufficient. Anyone can see the self-defeating nature of the half-in, half-out liberal stance. I'd much rather Dr Reitan were a Dick Dawk- (or at least Shermer-) type who would reject the whole thing than for him to remain in his self-imposed dark grey world, where he thinks he is God, until death comes for him and he learns to his eternal chagrin how wrong he was.
Revelation 3:14 The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:
15'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
16'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.'
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Meh, atheism
When we talk about beliefs, worldviews, epistemological positions, etc, we are not only discussing what is. We are human beings, not robots. In most or all of us human beings, there is a sense, an instinct, telling us that we should find the truth and that we should put our trust in it, live in accordance with it, and if necessary occasionally push back against alternatives that we deem to be not true, especially if we deem the consequences of following such an alternative view to be highly detrimental to our living in accordance with what we believe to be true. Such a desire often becomes mangled, lost, forgotten and/or neglected in the course of our lifetimes so that we become more interested in satisfying our lusts and desires, whether they be for power, sex, good feelings, etc, but in general I don't think it starts out like that.
Even if that is not the case for most or all humans, let me say here that it has always been the case for me (and I attribute that to God's grace alone), and I believe such is true of most of my friends, so that makes at least a few. And I believe it is true of many or even most of the interlocutors on this blog, whether atheist, agnostic, liberal, Romanist, whatever - there is something in us that wants to know what is true. And there is an ineffable, existential instinct (for lack of a better term) that drives us, tells us we should stick with it, and even that we should move our lives toward further verification of that truth we hold to. And if we find it to be wrong upon closer examination, we should drop-kick it, perhaps with regret, perhaps without, and change our position to hold to the new discovery.
We have seen time and again on this blog that the atheist worldview has no objective, overarching grounds for any moral position. Sure, atheism has room for a personal code of morality, it allows for a societal morality to evolve, it has room even perhaps for a categorical imperative or something similar. But ask enough "why?"s and we discover not that the emperor has no clothes, but that the chariot is in fact empty. Everyone is their own emperor and therefore there is no emperor at all.
What implications does that have for the aforementioned motivation for our believing this or that worldview? Implied in "I believe in ____" is the statement "And I recommend it to you b/c I believe it to be true", whether or not the person making the statement wants to admit it. It boils down to "I think you also should believe this". On atheism, however, whence comes the power of this should statement? Out of thin air! Out of the chemical processes, brain gas, firings of neurons and axons, of the brain, and everyone's brain fires just a little bit differently. There is no should, there merely IS. So why should I believe in atheism? I neither should nor shouldn't. Why shouldn't I believe in Jesus Christ as the only way, truth, and life, the only way to reach eternal life and bliss? I neither should nor shouldn't. Why should I reject something if it has no evidence in its favor, as atheism says is true of Christianity? I neither should nor shouldn't.
So, since it's all the same one way or the other, I'll go with what you think is a grand illusion. And if atheism is true, the moral value of such a blindfolded position is the exact same as the "enlightened, empirical, rational" position - that of atheism. Think it makes a difference, to a bunch of people who will be dead in less than 100 years, whose identity, children, accomplishments, and "nice" deeds will be forgotten in the ultimate fondue pot of the Earth when the Sun goes into red-giant stage, to say nothing of the heat death of the universe? Think again.
Related links:
There probably are no duties. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life!
Many Atheists are Hypocrites about Morality
Even if that is not the case for most or all humans, let me say here that it has always been the case for me (and I attribute that to God's grace alone), and I believe such is true of most of my friends, so that makes at least a few. And I believe it is true of many or even most of the interlocutors on this blog, whether atheist, agnostic, liberal, Romanist, whatever - there is something in us that wants to know what is true. And there is an ineffable, existential instinct (for lack of a better term) that drives us, tells us we should stick with it, and even that we should move our lives toward further verification of that truth we hold to. And if we find it to be wrong upon closer examination, we should drop-kick it, perhaps with regret, perhaps without, and change our position to hold to the new discovery.
We have seen time and again on this blog that the atheist worldview has no objective, overarching grounds for any moral position. Sure, atheism has room for a personal code of morality, it allows for a societal morality to evolve, it has room even perhaps for a categorical imperative or something similar. But ask enough "why?"s and we discover not that the emperor has no clothes, but that the chariot is in fact empty. Everyone is their own emperor and therefore there is no emperor at all.
What implications does that have for the aforementioned motivation for our believing this or that worldview? Implied in "I believe in ____" is the statement "And I recommend it to you b/c I believe it to be true", whether or not the person making the statement wants to admit it. It boils down to "I think you also should believe this". On atheism, however, whence comes the power of this should statement? Out of thin air! Out of the chemical processes, brain gas, firings of neurons and axons, of the brain, and everyone's brain fires just a little bit differently. There is no should, there merely IS. So why should I believe in atheism? I neither should nor shouldn't. Why shouldn't I believe in Jesus Christ as the only way, truth, and life, the only way to reach eternal life and bliss? I neither should nor shouldn't. Why should I reject something if it has no evidence in its favor, as atheism says is true of Christianity? I neither should nor shouldn't.
So, since it's all the same one way or the other, I'll go with what you think is a grand illusion. And if atheism is true, the moral value of such a blindfolded position is the exact same as the "enlightened, empirical, rational" position - that of atheism. Think it makes a difference, to a bunch of people who will be dead in less than 100 years, whose identity, children, accomplishments, and "nice" deeds will be forgotten in the ultimate fondue pot of the Earth when the Sun goes into red-giant stage, to say nothing of the heat death of the universe? Think again.
Related links:
There probably are no duties. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life!
Many Atheists are Hypocrites about Morality
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Dan Barker mugs the Atheist Experience
First, please review this post from a month ago for the necessary background.
This past week, Dan Barker, famous atheist and apostate, debated James White, famous baby-eating Calvinist and apologist. The debate is now available for cheap from AOMin.org, so let me encourage you to take a listen. I thought it was a pretty good debate, far better than most of Barker's debates, I'll say, and I would say the frequent low quality is often due also to the theist debater on the other side.
Anyway, around minute 5 during the 2nd cross-examination period, Barker began to press White on the question of how God exists. He wisely (or unwittingly) avoided the Gordon Stein pitfall, where he, in debating Greg Bahnsen, pursued this line of questions, paraphrased:
Barker asked White basically: If God is immaterial and, more importantly, outside time, how does He exist? In this Barker neglects the fact that part of the definition of the Christian God is that He is timeless and immaterial, so he is committing an external critique, for one thing. Further, he neglected to mention that his own "side" (ie, many naturalistic scientists) says that that which existed "before" the Big Bang is often said to be outside of the influence of time, since time "had" not "begun" to exist yet.
Anyway, Barker is fond of the FANG, the Freewill Argument for the Non-existence of God, which besides the problems listed in the linked article, also does not interact with the biblical idea that God has foreordained everything in His sovereign plan, and that plan is perfect. What need could there be for Him to decide differently than He has already done? It's not as if Barker believes that humans have freewill either. Maybe he thinks humans don't exist.
Moving on, White was answering basically along these lines and Barker produced the following gem, transcribed exactly as it was spoken on the mp3:
Note that the Atheist Experience's Matt Dillahunty had based all of the defense that he used against Matt Slick's TAG argument on the idea that the laws of logic, which are conceptual, don't require a mind. Whom to believe - Barker or the Atheist Experience? What a quandary!
This past week, Dan Barker, famous atheist and apostate, debated James White, famous baby-eating Calvinist and apologist. The debate is now available for cheap from AOMin.org, so let me encourage you to take a listen. I thought it was a pretty good debate, far better than most of Barker's debates, I'll say, and I would say the frequent low quality is often due also to the theist debater on the other side.
Anyway, around minute 5 during the 2nd cross-examination period, Barker began to press White on the question of how God exists. He wisely (or unwittingly) avoided the Gordon Stein pitfall, where he, in debating Greg Bahnsen, pursued this line of questions, paraphrased:
Stein: Is God material or immaterial?
Bahnsen: Immaterial.
S: Could you define 'immaterial'?
B: Something not extended in space.
S: Could you please give me another example of something that exists and that is immaterial?
B: The laws of logic.
(Audience erupts into laughter. Point, Bahnsen.)
Barker asked White basically: If God is immaterial and, more importantly, outside time, how does He exist? In this Barker neglects the fact that part of the definition of the Christian God is that He is timeless and immaterial, so he is committing an external critique, for one thing. Further, he neglected to mention that his own "side" (ie, many naturalistic scientists) says that that which existed "before" the Big Bang is often said to be outside of the influence of time, since time "had" not "begun" to exist yet.
Anyway, Barker is fond of the FANG, the Freewill Argument for the Non-existence of God, which besides the problems listed in the linked article, also does not interact with the biblical idea that God has foreordained everything in His sovereign plan, and that plan is perfect. What need could there be for Him to decide differently than He has already done? It's not as if Barker believes that humans have freewill either. Maybe he thinks humans don't exist.
Moving on, White was answering basically along these lines and Barker produced the following gem, transcribed exactly as it was spoken on the mp3:
"The point I'm trying to get at is, things happen in our brains. I have a nightmare and there's a monster coming in the window. But there's not really out there a monster coming in the window. It's a function of my brain, my brain's telling me this. So our brains function certain ways and we put certain words on this function, we call it 'mind' or we call it 'thought', but does it really exist outside of our brain? If minds were to cease to exist, then would we even need the word 'logic'? Would we even use the word? Would it even... 'cause it's a concept and you can't have a concept without a mind. Concepts don't exist out there somewhere" (emph. mine).
Note that the Atheist Experience's Matt Dillahunty had based all of the defense that he used against Matt Slick's TAG argument on the idea that the laws of logic, which are conceptual, don't require a mind. Whom to believe - Barker or the Atheist Experience? What a quandary!
Monday, May 04, 2009
The EvilBible.com Project, Part 2 - Top Ten Signs
(My previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Vox Veritatis' previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Atheism Is Dead's previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Blue3's post on evilbible.com)
Next up in exposing the foolishness of evilbible.com is the article "Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian".
True to form, no definition of "fundamentalist" is given. Does EB.com mean the historic definition of fundamentalist, or do they mean "someone who believes the Bible and is therefore worthy of pejorative appellation"? Yeah, my pesos are on the latter, too.
Now that I think about it, the whole problem with this page is that EB.com both is sloppy with its own definitions, to the point that it just doesn't provide any, and does not allow the other side to define itself, instead reserving that right for itself, without permission to do so.
So, let's take these one by one.
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
-Well, first of all, I'm not "outraged" about such things.
-This crashes face-first on the breaker of presuppositional apologetics. That's precisely what we do - we investigate rival truth claims to discover whether they are internally consistent and consistent with reality. Problem is, we never find one that is, except for Christianity.
9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
-Again, I don't "feel insulted". I suppose EB.com is aiming at your typical uneducated, unthinking evanjellyfish who has never even heard of a-whatever-ism.
-Rather, I reject this idea that people evolved from other life forms, first and foremost, b/c God was there (and you weren't) and He said it went down differently.
-It is indeed dehumanising to think that humans are just another animal. On an evolutionary naturalist worldview, why treat humans differently from paramecia? B/c you feel like it and have empathy? Why is that a reason? So what?
-There is a great deal of evidence against common ancestry and very little in favor.
-While it's true that Adam (not "we") was created from dirt, EB.com would place the emphasis on "created from dirt", while the biblical acct emphasises it differently: "created from dirt", namely by the very hand of God, created in God's very image. EB.com, no surprise, leaves out the really important part.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
EB.com apparently is clueless as to the definition of the Trinity. Ali Baba is shadowboxing. What part of "one God" do you not understand?
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
-I note again the emotive terminology.
-Allah, the god of Islam, does not exist. Rather, he is an imaginary person and/or a deceitful system perpetuated by demonic forces that is foisted on deceived people. Imaginary people and deceitful systems do not have the moral authority to justifiably execute such actions as killing people.
-On the other hand, if you're just weighing the options without regard to which god actually exists, I can see EB.com's point here. The God of the Bible directly commanded OT Israel to carry out certain military and genocidal actions against certain other people groups. Similarly, Allah of the Qur'an has directly commanded Muslims unto perpetuity (or further abrogatory revelation, whichever comes first) to carry out certain military and genocidal actions against certain other people groups - infidels.
-I am, however, unaware of the Qur'an's ascribing any redemptive typology to such endeavors, especially since redemption is a specious idea within Islam. On biblical theology, such annihilations (so total that they extend, yes, to trees and livestock) are the judgment for rebellious and unrepentant sin and a signal to all who hear and read of it to repent, b/c it is a type of God's ultimate (and very unpleasant) destruction of all who remain in their sin. Yet, there is always a way out, as Rahab discovered in the Jericho acct, and that is typological as well - a sinner, even an inhabitant of a land doomed for God's judgment, who has faith and repents and is thus joined to God's people, is saved from the wrathful judgment to come.
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
-What specific problem does EB.com have with the idea that God the Holy Spirit entered into His own creation and implanted baby Jesus in Mary's womb? No argument is given.
-More correctly, it should be said that Mary gave birth to The God-Man, not "a man-god."
-Other than that, yeah, EB.com is right. (Twice in a row!) And so what? We have good reason to believe that those events actually happened, and little reason to believe the Hindu/Greek events did. Further, the Hindu/Greek stories emerge from an incoherent and irrational polytheistic system, as opposed to the monotheistic system that is actually the case.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
-There are quite a few good reasons to doubt the currently-accepted modes of discovering the ages of stuff. The typical dating-by-element counterarguments apply; one of my favorites is the oft-repeated acct wherein this or that part of a LIVING animal returns a several-thousand year old date, and another part a different several-thousand year old date.
-Such dating schemes beg the question by arbitrarily assuming how much of the element was already present back then.
-They also beg the question by assuming the uniformity of today's natural processes and retrojecting them back to pre-observed times (times for which we have observation extend, we must understand, ~less than 100 years).
-Deep Time is Deep Time, and without a time machine much more difficult to penetrate than your typical Internet antitheist understands.
-We don't rely on "Bronze Age tribesmen", but rather on the word of the living God, Who just so happened to be present and accounted-for at the time of creation and after.
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
-Does EB.com have evidence against this?
-Same question as always - What is EB.com's moral problem with this?
-And as usual, sin and how horrible it is goes unmentioned. No mention made of God's eternal redemptive plan that involves setting apart a people for His own possession. No mention of the fact that those in Hell are getting precisely what they want and what they deserve - being far away from God, all remnants of His influence (ie, common grace) removed, their own free will totally in charge, free to run amok and claw and scrap at everyone else in Hell.
-I don't consider my religion the most tolerant, no. Unitarianism would probably win that one. Yet what do I care about the modern definitions (and perversions) of "tolerance"?
-It is, however, the most loving, b/c it is the truth. You are a sinner, you need a Savior. No false assurances, no false comfort - the cold, hard truth along with the beautiful, awesome truth that Jesus died to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
Apparently EB.com is not aiming this objection at most anyone who is concerned about truth, but it would be perhaps a valid critique of many charismatic evanjellyfish in the West today. I should think this one belongs at #10 though, if they are in order of strength.
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
-Again we encounter problems of definition. 100% is the success rate for prayers; God answers every single one. And a lot of the time the answer is No, or Wait. What is EB.com's argument for why we should accept their own implicit definition rather than the Christian one?
-And of course, this mistakes the purpose of prayer. Prayer is not the activation of man's will in Heaven, but rather of God's will in man's heart and on Earth. It is my communication with God that makes ME holier and more like Christ.
-Why would we think that an omniscient and good God would answer every prayer with a "Heck yeah" whenever we ask? Didn't Ali Baba see "Bruce Almighty", wherein Bruce/God answers all 4.5 million prayers with a Yes To All? And the chaos that ensues? Yes, it was Hollywood, but on that one they got it exactly right.
-EB.com would perhaps want to define "answered prayer" as a miraculous intervention of God. But aren't miracles by conventional definition rare occurrences? Further, a lot of "failures" are actually "Wait/Not yet"-type answers, misunderstood by the pray-er, who just KNEW that it would all fall apart if he doesn't get deliverance RIGHT NOW b/c he doesn't see the big picture or the big plan like God does.
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
-I would assume EB.com excludes themselves from those atheists and agnostics who know anythg about the Bible, Christianity, and church history, b/c their grasp of it, if their website is any indication, is woeful.
-And let's be frank - by the grace of God, I do know more about at least the Bible and Christianity than virtually all skeptics I've ever encountered, and more about ch hist than most.
-As if a wide and deep grasp of the Bible, Xtianity, and ch hist is necessary to be a Christian. The simplest farmhand can understand the Gospel and his sin and thus be saved, by the grace of God.
-Once again it appears that EB.com is aiming at the typical evanjellyfish. As far as this critique goes, I say "Amen!" Let those who name the name of Christ and know next to nothing about His Word and the history of His dealings in the world be ashamed of themselves.
Finally, let's ask ourselves - do any of these points have anything to do with whether Christianity is true? No, not really. One can spare oneself the horrible emotional trauma and skip this site, to be sure.
(Vox Veritatis' previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Atheism Is Dead's previous posts on evilbible.com)
(Blue3's post on evilbible.com)
Next up in exposing the foolishness of evilbible.com is the article "Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian".
True to form, no definition of "fundamentalist" is given. Does EB.com mean the historic definition of fundamentalist, or do they mean "someone who believes the Bible and is therefore worthy of pejorative appellation"? Yeah, my pesos are on the latter, too.
Now that I think about it, the whole problem with this page is that EB.com both is sloppy with its own definitions, to the point that it just doesn't provide any, and does not allow the other side to define itself, instead reserving that right for itself, without permission to do so.
So, let's take these one by one.
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
-Well, first of all, I'm not "outraged" about such things.
-This crashes face-first on the breaker of presuppositional apologetics. That's precisely what we do - we investigate rival truth claims to discover whether they are internally consistent and consistent with reality. Problem is, we never find one that is, except for Christianity.
9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
-Again, I don't "feel insulted". I suppose EB.com is aiming at your typical uneducated, unthinking evanjellyfish who has never even heard of a-whatever-ism.
-Rather, I reject this idea that people evolved from other life forms, first and foremost, b/c God was there (and you weren't) and He said it went down differently.
-It is indeed dehumanising to think that humans are just another animal. On an evolutionary naturalist worldview, why treat humans differently from paramecia? B/c you feel like it and have empathy? Why is that a reason? So what?
-There is a great deal of evidence against common ancestry and very little in favor.
-While it's true that Adam (not "we") was created from dirt, EB.com would place the emphasis on "created from dirt", while the biblical acct emphasises it differently: "created from dirt", namely by the very hand of God, created in God's very image. EB.com, no surprise, leaves out the really important part.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
EB.com apparently is clueless as to the definition of the Trinity. Ali Baba is shadowboxing. What part of "one God" do you not understand?
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
-I note again the emotive terminology.
-Allah, the god of Islam, does not exist. Rather, he is an imaginary person and/or a deceitful system perpetuated by demonic forces that is foisted on deceived people. Imaginary people and deceitful systems do not have the moral authority to justifiably execute such actions as killing people.
-On the other hand, if you're just weighing the options without regard to which god actually exists, I can see EB.com's point here. The God of the Bible directly commanded OT Israel to carry out certain military and genocidal actions against certain other people groups. Similarly, Allah of the Qur'an has directly commanded Muslims unto perpetuity (or further abrogatory revelation, whichever comes first) to carry out certain military and genocidal actions against certain other people groups - infidels.
-I am, however, unaware of the Qur'an's ascribing any redemptive typology to such endeavors, especially since redemption is a specious idea within Islam. On biblical theology, such annihilations (so total that they extend, yes, to trees and livestock) are the judgment for rebellious and unrepentant sin and a signal to all who hear and read of it to repent, b/c it is a type of God's ultimate (and very unpleasant) destruction of all who remain in their sin. Yet, there is always a way out, as Rahab discovered in the Jericho acct, and that is typological as well - a sinner, even an inhabitant of a land doomed for God's judgment, who has faith and repents and is thus joined to God's people, is saved from the wrathful judgment to come.
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
-What specific problem does EB.com have with the idea that God the Holy Spirit entered into His own creation and implanted baby Jesus in Mary's womb? No argument is given.
-More correctly, it should be said that Mary gave birth to The God-Man, not "a man-god."
-Other than that, yeah, EB.com is right. (Twice in a row!) And so what? We have good reason to believe that those events actually happened, and little reason to believe the Hindu/Greek events did. Further, the Hindu/Greek stories emerge from an incoherent and irrational polytheistic system, as opposed to the monotheistic system that is actually the case.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
-There are quite a few good reasons to doubt the currently-accepted modes of discovering the ages of stuff. The typical dating-by-element counterarguments apply; one of my favorites is the oft-repeated acct wherein this or that part of a LIVING animal returns a several-thousand year old date, and another part a different several-thousand year old date.
-Such dating schemes beg the question by arbitrarily assuming how much of the element was already present back then.
-They also beg the question by assuming the uniformity of today's natural processes and retrojecting them back to pre-observed times (times for which we have observation extend, we must understand, ~less than 100 years).
-Deep Time is Deep Time, and without a time machine much more difficult to penetrate than your typical Internet antitheist understands.
-We don't rely on "Bronze Age tribesmen", but rather on the word of the living God, Who just so happened to be present and accounted-for at the time of creation and after.
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
-Does EB.com have evidence against this?
-Same question as always - What is EB.com's moral problem with this?
-And as usual, sin and how horrible it is goes unmentioned. No mention made of God's eternal redemptive plan that involves setting apart a people for His own possession. No mention of the fact that those in Hell are getting precisely what they want and what they deserve - being far away from God, all remnants of His influence (ie, common grace) removed, their own free will totally in charge, free to run amok and claw and scrap at everyone else in Hell.
-I don't consider my religion the most tolerant, no. Unitarianism would probably win that one. Yet what do I care about the modern definitions (and perversions) of "tolerance"?
-It is, however, the most loving, b/c it is the truth. You are a sinner, you need a Savior. No false assurances, no false comfort - the cold, hard truth along with the beautiful, awesome truth that Jesus died to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
Apparently EB.com is not aiming this objection at most anyone who is concerned about truth, but it would be perhaps a valid critique of many charismatic evanjellyfish in the West today. I should think this one belongs at #10 though, if they are in order of strength.
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
-Again we encounter problems of definition. 100% is the success rate for prayers; God answers every single one. And a lot of the time the answer is No, or Wait. What is EB.com's argument for why we should accept their own implicit definition rather than the Christian one?
-And of course, this mistakes the purpose of prayer. Prayer is not the activation of man's will in Heaven, but rather of God's will in man's heart and on Earth. It is my communication with God that makes ME holier and more like Christ.
-Why would we think that an omniscient and good God would answer every prayer with a "Heck yeah" whenever we ask? Didn't Ali Baba see "Bruce Almighty", wherein Bruce/God answers all 4.5 million prayers with a Yes To All? And the chaos that ensues? Yes, it was Hollywood, but on that one they got it exactly right.
-EB.com would perhaps want to define "answered prayer" as a miraculous intervention of God. But aren't miracles by conventional definition rare occurrences? Further, a lot of "failures" are actually "Wait/Not yet"-type answers, misunderstood by the pray-er, who just KNEW that it would all fall apart if he doesn't get deliverance RIGHT NOW b/c he doesn't see the big picture or the big plan like God does.
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
-I would assume EB.com excludes themselves from those atheists and agnostics who know anythg about the Bible, Christianity, and church history, b/c their grasp of it, if their website is any indication, is woeful.
-And let's be frank - by the grace of God, I do know more about at least the Bible and Christianity than virtually all skeptics I've ever encountered, and more about ch hist than most.
-As if a wide and deep grasp of the Bible, Xtianity, and ch hist is necessary to be a Christian. The simplest farmhand can understand the Gospel and his sin and thus be saved, by the grace of God.
-Once again it appears that EB.com is aiming at the typical evanjellyfish. As far as this critique goes, I say "Amen!" Let those who name the name of Christ and know next to nothing about His Word and the history of His dealings in the world be ashamed of themselves.
Finally, let's ask ourselves - do any of these points have anything to do with whether Christianity is true? No, not really. One can spare oneself the horrible emotional trauma and skip this site, to be sure.
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