Is Everyone Going To Heaven?
If you believe Carlton Pearson the answer to that question is an emphatic yes….Oh, and that potentially includes Satan as well.
No stranger to controversy, Bishop Pearson was once a rising star in evangelical circles until he embraced his doctrine of inclusion, similar to Universalism. He was denounced as a heretic by African-American Pentecostals and he eventually lost his once thriving church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But Bishop Pearson is back. A couple of years ago he was accepted as a minister by the United Church of Christ and now is an interim minister at a Chicago-based temple affiliated with the “New Thought” movement.
Today on Truthtalk Live we take you back to a debate Stu Epperson, Jr. had with the controversial religious leader . You’ll want to call in…but don’t. This is a pre-recorded program. Feel free, however, to leave us your comments here.
114 Comments on “Is Everyone Going To Heaven?”
Rev 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Eternal destruction awaits the devil.
Welcome back Donny, it is good to hear from you once again. I was wondering if we would, after your last post within the thread that involved the topic of birthdays["Why Do We Celebrate Birthdays?"].
Another perfect example of why Christians need a Magisterium. Eventually the “born again” Christians will probably convert to Catholicism by default. The reformers would roll over in their graves if they could see the fruits of their labor.
How does he explain Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”. It does not say “for you have been saved”.
Also in Numbers 21:8 “And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live”. Unless the ones who were bitten looked on the serpent, there was no escaping death. Even so Christ has been lifted up. he has paid for the sins of the world. But unless we look up (accept) the finished work, there is no salvation. If there is no confession (which comes from a true repentance), there is no salvation.
No magisterium needed when you have the truth stated so plainly in scripture. God’s own word the holy bible is the ultimate authority.
John 12:20 “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with [their] eyes, nor understand with [their] heart, and be converted, and I should heal them”. The devil has blinded the eyes of many. Continue to pray for this “BISHOP”. There is still hope for him.
Many a false prophet has risen up to preach and lead astray the flock. But Woe unto them.
Bretheren it is time to be on our knees and lift our voices high to the Lord. These kind of teachings are only going to increase.
Donny it is obvious that scripture is indeed not so “Plainly” stated. It would be nice to think that one could read the scripture and that the Holy Spirit would be sufficient in bringing about a uniformed and cohesive interpretation. What is obvious is that many sincere, pious and God fearing people pray and read the scripture and yet disagree on the meaning of many passages. This is evidenced by the many little “churches” popping up in strip malls and elementary schools struggling to pay the rent because they each think that they know the true meaning of the Bible.
I have seventeen different versions of the “ultimate authority”, Donny.
Hummm, little churches popping up? You mean like in the New Testament? Oh my, someone is not listening to the big church anymore . . . I wonder why!
Yes scripture is plainly stated and can be interpreted with the Holy Spirit. Many chose to look for something more, because it can’t be that simple. This guy is a loon, everyone is not going to heaven how could anyone who reads the Bible even think such a thought.
No one is going to heaven. No such place exists. There is no afterlife. This is the 21rst century.
What people really don’t like about Pearson is he takes away their self righteous belief that they are deserving of eternal salvation but anyone they disagree with is going to Hell. Its a blow to their self esteem. Pearson may be wrong, but kudos to him for starting the conversation in which we, as believers, reexamine our preconceived (and often Biblically questionable) notions of just who is and who isn’t going to heaven.
Wow, Gurgus! Your logic is amazing! Nice use of the bald assertion. Heaven is not real because it is now the 21st century. I get it.
And really, how different is it from what Billy Graham said to Rev Shuller in 2008 (although many now accuse poor Dr. Graham of senility, which is typical. Love scares people, but it challenges their comfortable sense of alienation and superiority from the ‘huddled masses’)
Billy Graham: “Well, Christianity and being a true believer, you know, I think there’s the body of Christ which comes from all the Christian groups around the world, or outside the Christian groups. I think that everybody that loves Christ or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the body of Christ. And I don’t think that we’re going to see a great sweeping revival that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don’t have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they’re saved and they’re going to be with us in heaven.”
Schuller: “What I hear you saying is that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart and soul and life even if they’ve been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you’re saying?”
Graham: “Yes it is because I believe that. I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, have never heard of Jesus but they’ve believed in their hearts that there is a God and they tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.”
Schuller: “This is fantastic. I’m so thrilled to hear you say that. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.”
What a touching story, Kash.
That would include me!!!!!
You just might get that hug yet, Maz[smile].
Kash: How misleading to give someone hope outside of Christ. I would say that is the “other gospel” that Paul talked about that is damning! To say that someone can come to the Father through Buddah, Mohammed or anyone other than Chist is to call Christ himself a liar or at best an egotistical maniac. Who cares what Billy Graham said, look at what Christ said. John: I hope that Maz does get that hug one day but it will only happen if you trust in the work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection from the dead.
I am not giving them hope outside of Christ. It is still Christ that does the saving. I am just saying its not up to me to judge who is “in” and who is “out.” Its called humility.
And I continue to preach (to John and whomever else will listen) that Christ is the only way. I just happen to think that God is merciful enough that those who don’t hear the message of Christ (except in terms of American bombs) may not necessarily be damned to Hell. I don’t know how to explain it, I know I am on shaky ground Biblically speaking, except that to damn someone to Hell if they never heard the gospel or grew up somewhere where the gospel was presented in a negative light (good Muslim family, for instance) seems inconsistent with the character of Christ. And I do think the Bible is clear that the only unforgiveable sin is to know Christ intimately ie experience the Holy Spirit yet to reject him willfully anyway (Matthew 12:31-32). But this is beside the point for most Americans – we can hardly claim to be ignorant of the gospel except out of our own lack of willingness to actually read the Bible. And many who claim to know the spirit don’t behave as if they do, anyway. So again, I say we need to be humble. I think we would win more souls to Christ that way. Fear is only a short term motivator, love is a much longer term one.
JD42
I didn’t say heaven wasn’t real. I don’t believe it is but that’s another conversation. I said there was no such place as heaven. People or their souls don’t go anywhere special when they die. In Ephesians 2:6 it says that believers are already seated in heavenly places. I don’t believe that either but that’s what the Bible says. I don’t think eternal life translates to personal immortality either in the Bible. In other words I think believers have adopted beliefs the authors of the Bible never intended them to. A belief in heaven as a literal place is one of those false beliefs, probably the most notable of many.
Scott: To say that someone can come to the Father through Buddah, Mohammed or anyone other than Chist is to call Christ himself a liar or at best an egotistical maniac.
That’s not what Billy said here. He said that people can come to know God without reading or hearing about the Bible specifically. Whether this is a flat-out miracle or some ripple effect from Jesus’ miraculous presence in the world is unknown, but it is feasible. — God’s love was what Jesus showcased. And that is often communicated in primitive forms – even without a spoken words, and it may well reach much further than Bibles or missionaries ever did, do, or will.
What I do believe, however, whether Billy does or not, is that these people, who seem somehow connected to Jesus, would have no problem accepting Jesus Christ (as we do) if given fair chance. For example, if John, the ‘local’ pagan, were somehow part of the Body of Christ, then he would accept Jesus upon understanding who Jesus really is.
I doubt that John is a part of the Body. He seems reliant on and proud of sexual immorality, seeking such sin to sustain himself instead of seeking God for sustenance. I imagine Jesus would require that he stop drinking from that septic pool (and other such), and point to the everlasting and living waters God’s grace provides.
Kash herself is rather loose when it comes to sexual matters (accepting homosexuality, masturbation, and who knows what else personally – those things that don’t apply to her (homosexuality, etc) are surely just accepted by association with her true problematic ’sweet-tooth’). She sickeningly writes these matters off as natural, ‘evolutionary’, and even good. I believe it’s a myth that people have to be homosexual (or to have to masturbate). I know that these problems can be difficult to correct, but they are correctable I’m sure. Two facts pop into my mind nowadays when I hear about these sorts of things, illustrating the possibilities:
1. A dog can be trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.
2. In the news a man was caught having sex with a dead deer in the woods.
Gurgus
“I didn’t say heaven wasn’t real. … I said there was no such place as heaven.”
So what’s the practical difference between those two statements?
Gurgus
“People or their souls don’t go anywhere special when they die.”
That is a statement of faith that you cannot prove.
Gurgus
“In Ephesians 2:6 it says that believers are already seated in heavenly places. I don’t believe that either but that’s what the Bible says.”
You left out something very important – the words “in Christ.” Read it again in context. This has reference to out “union” with Christ. Since the believer is “in Christ” and Christ is seated in heaven, the believer is seated with Him in heaven (not literally but positionally). Check out a good commentary if you are truly interested what this verse is teaching.
You go on to state other things that you “believe.” These are simply statements of faith on your part, which do not rest upon any evidence. You can “believe” that the Bible is wrong if you desire, but that won’t change the fact that you will stand before God someday and give an account of your life. At that time you will confess Jesus Christ as Lord (Phil. 2:10, 11). Why not turn to Christ now before it is too late for you to be saved? You will spend eternity somewhere (Matt. 25:46). In other words, the Bible clearly teaches that you will have a conscious existence after physical death. And there is only one place to find refuge from the righteous wrath of God against sin – Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Flee from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:9, 10)!
John 3:16-18 16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
B.Baggins post 20,
“He seems reliant on and proud of sexual immorality, seeking such sin to sustain himself instead of seeking God for sustenance.”
WHAT…exactly are you talking about, Baggins? And please give us the no doubt amusing explanation of how acceptance of something like masturbation, or another persons sexuality is related to the news you discovered of that man having sex with a dead deer in the woods[grin].
By the way, I need you all to give me a group opinion on something, if you’d be so kind. I heard a “christian” hatemonger making very rude remarks to a woman because she had a Hebrew-sounding name, and when I confronted said bigoted anti-Semite by asking if they stupidly forgot that the most Godly people within the Bible[Noah, Moses, David, Adam and Eve, Mary, Abraham, JESUS....]were all Jews, they ran off a little list of Bible verse to “prove” that in the New Testament “God does nothing but condemn the Jews as evil!” Now I know that this person is completely full of crap, but after looking up the Bible verses to see if they were being used out of context I had a hard time trying to decide how to prove it, not being very much of a biblical scholar. I was wondering if any of you know of any biblical ammunition, hopefully from the New Testament, that debunks these verses used by bigots to help condemn Jews. They are….
1 Thessalonias 2:14-15
Acts 9:22-23, Acts 10:39, Acts 12 1-3, Acts 13:45,13:50, Acts 14;2, Acts 17:5, Acts21:27, Acts26:21
John 5:16-18, John 7:1, John 7:13, John 19:14-15
Titus 1:10-11
“She sickeningly writes these matters off as natural, ‘evolutionary’, and even good.” Sex is neither good nor bad. Its a physical reality. If it were bad, God would have had us all reproduce asexually. But you have written honestly before of your particular issues with sex, so I understand why you feel the way you do about it. “I believe it’s a myth that people have to be homosexual (or to have to masturbate).” Fine. But nature indicates they are very real desires that occur in many species, not just humans. Where humans decide to draw the line of “natural” versus “unnatural” has more to do with cultural norms than biological ones.
Now, back to Pearson and his view of who is going to heaven (sexual orientation or whether they have even masturbated aside). Another admired theologian who seemed to lean Pearson’s way is CS Lewis. From The Last Battle (Narnia series), where Aslan represents Christ and Tash represents the God of a religion similar in many ways to Islam: Aslan says: “If any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn. . . . Unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
You are correct I cannot prove there is no such place as heaven or an afterlife. I can’t prove leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy, Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster don’t exist either. However, aren’t we both reasonably certain of the nonexistence of these things based on all the available data? Where’s the evidence that heaven exists? In a bunch of plagiarized ancient boring stories and bad poetry? In the fact that many people have believed in it? That life seems pointless without some kind of reward in an afterlife and punishment for those who deserve it?
What I believe about anything is not based on faith but evidence. The things I said I don’t believe I don’t believe based on a lack of evidence for them. I don’t “believe” the Bible is wrong because I desire to. I don’t believe the Bible for the same reason I don’t believe anything else I’ve never seen proved or any evidence for. You use Matthew’s Gospel to give weight to the warning that if I don’t adopt your particular religion I’ll face eternal punishment for it. I just told you I don’t believe the Bible. Yet you still tell me, “the Bible clearly teaches that you will have a conscious existence after physical death.” Any statement capable of being recycled by another religion never qualifies as evidence. If I change the word “Bible” to “Koran” I can produce an equally irrational assertion about Islam. Quoting passages from the Bible proves nothing to someone who doesn’t believe the Bible. What it does is proves that the person doing the quoting doesn’t have anything better to offer.
Matthew is as good as place as any to demonstrate why I don’t believe the Bible. Matthew makes the absurd claim that Herod had all the children in an around Bethlehem killed who were two years old or under. Don’t you think a tragedy of this magnitude would have been reported by a few historians or someone else who could write? It certainly would have been had it actually occurred. The story also involves an angel. I don’t believe in angels for the same reason I don’t believe in leprechauns. Matthew goes on to tell about all kinds of fantastic events not one of which mentioned by any secular writers of the day. Probably the most ridiculous story in this gospel is the one about dead people coming back to life and appearing to many other people in the city of Jerusalem. Would you like to tell me why I should believe this story? Because it’s in the Bible?
Why would you reprint John 3:16-18? What percentage of adult people in the Western part of civilization are unfamiliar with this passage do you think? A lot fewer people are familiar with the ridiculous story in Matt 27:52-32 that I just mentioned or some of the other ridiculous claims the Bible makes. Unfortunately most believers are frightened by the threat in John 3:18 so badly they cannot think critically about all the other unbelievable claims the Bible makes. That’s the problem with letting other people give you superstitions about the Bible before you’ve actually read it for yourself. I’ve read the Bible and know the text well. The last thing that text or any believer is going to do is frighten me into believing any of it.
Post 23 – Kash: Sex is neither good nor bad. Its a physical reality. If it were bad, God would have had us all reproduce asexually.
Sex is good in the right context, and bad in the wrong context from what I understand. Rape and murder are physical realities too. I’m not sure why you say “If it were bad…”, as I suggested nothing of the sort.
Kash: But you have written honestly before of your particular issues with sex, so I understand why you feel the way you do about it.
I don’t have issues with sex any more than the Bible does. You haven’t indicated why you purposefully misunderstand me now (it seems) or why you welcome sexual immorality.
Kash: Fine. But nature indicates they are very real desires that occur in many species, not just humans. Where humans decide to draw the line of “natural” versus “unnatural” has more to do with cultural norms than biological ones.
Desirable doesn’t mean moral – sin is desirable to people. Natural doesn’t mean moral either – e.g. unless you think someone killing your children as part of forcing you to have sex is moral. That happens in nature. So why again are you accepting of sexual immorality?
John: And please give us the no doubt amusing explanation of how acceptance of something like masturbation, or another persons sexuality is related to the news you discovered of that man having sex with a dead deer in the woods[grin].
They are all examples of sexual immorality.
Gurgus: That’s the problem with letting other people give you superstitions about the Bible before you’ve actually read it for yourself. I’ve read the Bible and know the text well. The last thing that text or any believer is going to do is frighten me into believing any of it.
One of the quirkiest things about atheists is that they care so much about God’s non-existence. I have never seen people so dedicated to a cause. “Gurgus” has been incredibly attracted to this site for some time now – but he doesn’t admit to being an atheist (usually). The cycle is him posting here for a while, then him getting banned and then him coming back a few weeks later, over and over and over. His posts are always attacks on Christians and Christian viewpoints.
Gurgus: What I believe about anything is not based on faith but evidence.
Doesn’t any interpretation of evidence (as truth) require faith? A Christian weighs the evidence and chooses to make a leap of faith. You have merely leaped to another conclusion or you have not and settle for uncertainty and mystery. You are faithfully set against the Christian belief – against the belief that the Bible points to something true. Why? Gurgus must feel let down – embittered, and here he seeks revenge by mocking believers.
Gurgus: I don’t “believe” the Bible is wrong because I desire to. I don’t believe the Bible for the same reason I don’t believe anything else I’ve never seen proved or any evidence for.
That must be why you won’t leave this site alone.
Baggins: You wrote: “She sickeningly writes these matters off as natural, ‘evolutionary’, and even good.” I was just pointing out that sex IS natural. Things that are considered immoral are not necessarily (or even usually) unnatural. So of course I consider sex, masturbation, and homosexuality to be NATURAL. That has no bearing on whether or not they are MORAL.
“I don’t have issues with sex any more than the Bible does.” That is a very honest statement. The Bible has lots of issues with sex…lots of immoral sex. Here’s a fun game: you name a patriarch, and I’ll tell you what immoral sexual act he engaged in. The Bible is actually incredibly ambiguous when it comes to sexual sins and their punishment in practice, if not in theory. But here is an easy way to tell if sex is moral or immoral: is one person using it as a means of exerting power over another? That is always condemned and punished in the Bible.
Saying something like, “sex within the confines of marriage is the only moral sex” doesnt go far enough. What if a man forces himself on his wife, or engages in humiliating or violent intercourse against his wife’s desires? Is that moral?
I am not putting forth any sort of judgment here on what I consider moral sex. I am just pointing out the inconsistencies in what is traditionally considered Biblically sanctioned sex.
And since this is on a thread about “who goes to heaven” I am curious, Baggins, why you felt the need to bring sex into the discussion. Do you think sexual immorality keeps people out of heaven? If so, there are alot of people in the Bible that wont be in heaven.
John (post 22), you need to remember at the time the New Testament was written, “the Jews” represented an authority that was persecuting the church. (It also turns out that most of the church at the time was Jewish.) Referring to “the Jews” as an oppressive authority is different from claiming that someone is evil simply by dint of the fact that they happen to be Jewish.
The waters are muddied a little bit because the people in question have both a nation and a religion that are tightly intertwined with one another. One must not think, though, that condemnation of the religious authorities constitutes condemnation of every individual in the nation. In other words, it’s guilty of the same kind of bad thinking as every other kind of racism on the planet, i.e., “What is true of these particular individuals must be true of every individual in this group.” It’s not even the case that what typified some of the nasty leadership encountered by the early church typifies the entire leadership, then or now(*)!
Finally, one must remember that people are generally hostile when their beliefs are confronted. One can’t call the Jews out on the carpet for being unique in this regard. I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we could say, “The Christians were upset by my words, and sought to silence me by force.”
1 Thessalonias 2:14-15
This is clearly speaking of the Jewish authorities, since it calls out the Jews who cause suffering; surely this wasn’t the entire Hebrew nation! It’s worth noting for many of these that the author, Paul, was also a Jew; he even referred to himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews” in Philippians 3:5 (in other words, “one of the best Hebrews you’re likely to find”).
Acts 9:22-23
Even though the context in this passage makes it less clear, I’d argue that the same reasoning applies. Even if it was the common Jews who cooked up a conspiracy in this or some of these cases, how does that even imply that accusing a random Jew of being evil is valid?
Acts 10:39, Acts 12 1-3, Acts 13:45,13:50, Acts 14;2, Acts 17:5, Acts21:27, Acts26:21
John 5:16-18, John 7:1, John 7:13, John 19:14-15
I think the same reasoning applies in these cases.
Titus 1:10-11
While the Jews are not mentioned here by name, “the circumcision group” represents a popular teaching among the so-called Judaizers, who were eager to insist on keeping the entirety of the Mosaic Law as part of Christianity. Paul has equal words of caution and condemnation for other kinds of bad teaching, e.g., 1 Timothy 1:3-4, 4:1-5. “The Jews” are not specifically being condemned here; certain elements of the teachings of certain groups are.
Contrast the stance of this hatemonger with Paul’s teaching in Galatians 3:28 (NASB):
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
… or Colossians 3:11 (NASB):
a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
Does “there’s no difference between us” sound like the teaching of someone who meant to do “nothing but condemn the Jews as evil!”?
(*) Consider the account of Gamaliel, who opposed persecution of the apostles on the grounds that, essentially, “the truth will out” in Acts 5:27-42. Even more tellingly, his words convinced them not to execute the apostles; is this account of relative leniency consistent with doing “nothing but condemning the Jews as evil!”?
Baggins,
So you think atheists are more dedicated to a cause than Christians are to their cause. Interesting that you would admit such a thing. The trouble with that is that atheists don’t have a cause. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any gods and the supernatural clap- trap spewed by believers. I’m proud to be an atheist and a free thinker and have never denied this. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard or read some believer say atheists must be let down or embittered people. Let down or embittered by what exactly? Atheists seek revenge for what exactly? The average atheist, and I know him well, is a happy well-adjusted intelligent person who doesn’t give a hoot about religion.
You claim Christians weigh evidence and then take a leap of faith. What evidence is there that supports your religious beliefs? The truth is that believers ignore evidence and make false claims about it often claiming particular evidence doesn’t even exist. The leap of faith believers take is the result of fear of the unknown and religious brainwashing. It isn’t based on any evidence.
It does not require faith to accept scientific discoveries and theories. It just requires reasoning and an ability to think without relying on the supernatural. If you had that ability you’d be an atheist too.
MattF, thanks for responding to John’s post. Let me add a few thoughts:
It is simply not true that in the New Testament “God does nothing but condemn the Jews as evil!”
Romans 1:16 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
Romans 10:11-13 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”
And read the entire chapter of Romans 11 – the elect people is made up of both Jew and Gentile.
Sure, the Jews are held accountable for their rejection of their Messiah, Jesus Christ, but they are not under wholesale condemnation as a result. Saul/Paul was out to destroy the church and the Lord revealed Himself to him and saved him (see Acts 9) and used him to write an great deal of the N.T.
Also consider the apostolic example in the N.T. In acts you don’t see the apostles running around condemning people for being Jewish. In fact, it was Paul’s custom to enter the synagogue and reason with the Jews, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah and calling them to faith (Acts 17:2-4).
True Christianity does not promote racism!
Gurgus,
You prove my point with your posts – posts full of arguments from silence and ad hominem attacks. You admit that cannot prove that heaven does not exist, which was all I was saying in the first place. So, if you cannot prove that heaven does not exist, you take it by faith that it doesn’t. If you, from your own worldview, were trying to be honest, the best you could say is that you do not know whether on not heaven exists. But you choose a different course – unbelief. That is a choice that is not based on evidence but faith, whether you admit it or not. May the Lord have mercy on your soul. You will stand before him some day. I pray that you, like Saul who was trying to destroy the church, will be humbled and saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. I truly wish you well and do not desire to enter into a fruitless argument with you. So let’s leave it right here.
kash: Here’s a fun game: you name a patriarch, and I’ll tell you what immoral sexual act he engaged in.
I’ve already read the Bible.
kash: The Bible is actually incredibly ambiguous when it comes to sexual sins and their punishment in practice, if not in theory. But here is an easy way to tell if sex is moral or immoral: is one person using it as a means of exerting power over another? That is always condemned and punished in the Bible.
I don’t think it’s ambiguous. The unified couple – Adam and Eve – is the model for sexual relations. Rape, incest, bestiality, homosexuality, adultery and other such things are categorized as sexual immorality – sin. Sin is always punishable by death – unless it is nullified by Jesus. Jesus forgives mistakes, not on-going, conscious ways of life that stand in opposition to him.
If an animal seems to like sex with a man or a woman – like an animal might show appreciation for petting – that doesn’t make it alright, does it? According to your fabricated definition a dead deer or an appreciative beast or a close family member or a member of the same sex could be an excellent sex partner.
kash: Saying something like, “sex within the confines of marriage is the only moral sex” doesnt go far enough. What if a man forces himself on his wife, or engages in humiliating or violent intercourse against his wife’s desires? Is that moral?
Does the Bible indicate that abusing your wife is moral? No. It indicates that a husband should be true and loving to his wife.
kash: I am not putting forth any sort of judgment here on what I consider moral sex.
You’ve already said in the past that you consider homosexual unions to be not sinful (in general and in and of themselves). Your latest pronouncement affirms that – that sexual immorality is solely based on one person using power over another.
kash: And since this is on a thread about “who goes to heaven” I am curious, Baggins, why you felt the need to bring sex into the discussion. Do you think sexual immorality keeps people out of heaven? If so, there are alot of people in the Bible that wont be in heaven.
If sexual immorality is sin, then it keeps people out of heaven – unless those people are forgiven by Jesus.
Do you think that sexual immorality is not sin? Thus allowing “alot of people in the Bible” to go to heaven, or something…
kash: I am just pointing out the inconsistencies in what is traditionally considered Biblically sanctioned sex.
What inconsistencies have you pointed out? I have only seen inconsistencies between your worldview and the Biblical one.
Gurgus: What evidence is there that supports your religious beliefs?
In the end my religious beliefs are a matter of faith. I take support it from a thousand things, but none of it will be proof for you.
Gurgus: It does not require faith to accept scientific discoveries and theories. It just requires reasoning and an ability to think without relying on the supernatural. If you had that ability you’d be an atheist too.
It requires faith to decide how to live, one way or another, in light of the mystery of the universe. The unfaithful position is the uncertain one – and the best way to live an ambiguous, meaningless life I think.
Scientific discoveries and theories don’t indicate how one should live either. You see, a scientist can be a murderer AND an excellent scientist.
B.Baggins post 26,
You’re such a Victorian sometimes[grin].
“They are all examples of sexual immorality.”
But only according to you Baggins, or perhaps I should say, people with your views. I think that you are mixing biology with personal theological faith, and there’s nothing wrong with this on a personal level if that’s what individuals decide to do. But this is doomed to fail as a convincing argument when one tries to go against nature or other peoples different personal beliefs. “Sexual morality” is just one of those things that varies from one society/culture and time in history to another.
After reading your answer first thing this morning at work, I did a little survey with my co-workers and any homosexual friends I had and could call up. The over all result is this:
1. Nobody I spoke with[after being confused at the motivation of my questions]thinks that masturbation is abnormal, and this opinion is also held by those that actually think homosexuality it’s self as they understand it is abnormal.
2.Nobody really seemed to care about homosexuality either. Even though some thought homosexuality was somewhat abnormal, the only thing about it that they had any problem with was the idea of a homosexual man persistently hitting on them, which seems to be a common dark fantasy among men.
And, 3.Absolutely NOBODY, strait or gay, thought that homosexuality or masturbation was comparable in abnormality to having sex with a dead deer in the woods.
Baggins, it’s perfectly normal for a healthy young man or woman to masturbate while thinking of a beautiful member of the opposite sex, and aside from being of the same gender, homosexual love between consenting adults seems every bit as real and meaningful[and weird and complicated]as heterosexual love….but it takes an extra-special type of deviant weirdness to compel a man to first get attracted to, and then have sex with a DEAD DEER[smile]. Can you imagine? I mean, what the heck was that man thinking? I love to know all the juicy details.
What about the first question I asked within my post 22?
After all, it’s not as if I’m Austin Powers[grin].
Kash post 28,
He brought it up because he was thinking of meeeeee[Sigh]. I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered[smile].
MattF. and JD42, thank you for the help with my question within post 22. I appreciate your wisdom on this matter.
JD42
Don’t you think it’s a bit condescending to tell an atheist that you’re going to pray for him? What’s the point? Do you also pray for people who are sick or having personal problems? Either way you appear to be expressing a kind of superiority over me and other unbelievers. It makes me think you were never interested in a serious conversation in the first place.
Baggins I’ll briefly respond to your points:
Faith just gives people a false sense of certainty. You may be certain of your beliefs but that doesn’t make them true. It doesn’t take faith to decide how to live. The ability to make intelligent choices doesn’t come from faith but rather critical thinking. The best way to live a meaningless life is to have someone else tell you what the meaning of your own life needs to be and then abide by what they say. Scientific discoveries and theories don’t even pretend to tell us how to live. But that doesn’t stop evangelicals from calling them religions anyway.
Gurgus, I think that you may have misunderstood and judged too quickly JD42’s intentions when he expressed that he would pray for you. Why would he have said something like “I truly wish you well,…” at the end of his post if he was entertaining thoughts of superiority? As a non-Christian I have had many many people tell me such things over the years, and true, it’s easier to gauge the intentions of a person who’s saying such things when your able to look them in the face as opposed to reading words on a computer screen, but in these troubled times if someone offers blessings or to pray for you, what does it hurt to politely accept it in good graces? As an Atheist, it can only bother you as much as you personally choose to let it anyway, so why even bother mentioning it?
“What inconsistencies have you pointed out?” The mainstream definition of Biblical marriage is one man, one woman, no incest. Yet that is not what is practiced by most of the “main characters” of the Bible. That’s all.
Trust me folks, don’t engage Gurgus by referring to Biblical authority. He doesn’t accept Biblical authority, I suspect he doesn’t believe any such person as Jesus or Paul ever existed, never mind whether Jesus was divine or Paul inspired by God. He is the resurrection of Dudley/Boris, proving that dead ideas can be resurrected on this blod ad infinitum.
Gurgus,
Sorry if anything I said communicated that I thought I was superior to or better than you. I certainly do not think that at all. As for prayer, I do pray for the sick or those having problems, especially if they let it be known and ask for prayer. I hope it’s not condescending, but I have already prayed for your salvation, and I will continue to do so as the Lord brings you to mind. I pray that you will find the salvation, abundant life, deep peace, fulfillment, joy … that it ours in Christ, and thereby escape the wrath to come.
JD42
Let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. Suppose I were to say to you that I wish you would find the satisfaction, abundant life, deep peace, fulfillment, joy … that it ours in atheism, and thereby stop wasting your life on a delusion. Would I seem a bit arrogant to you? Perhaps even a little offensive? It would be impolite and I’m sorry I even had to use that as an example. I just want to be clear. Now as far as the concept of heaven and an afterlife the Bible speaks of both a physical life and death and a spiritual life and death. Is it not possible that a belief in a literal heaven stems from confusing the two?
John and JD42
I don’t get the connection between being concerned for someone and feeling superior to them in some way. JD42’s sense of superiority doesn’t make him hate or fear me the way a sense of racial superiority does some people for one example. It isn’t borne out of conceit. I doubt he thinks he’s any better than I am, only better off. It’s more the way we feel when we see someone less fortunate than we are. In this case I’m sort of like an able bodied homeless guy who could very well get his life together but won’t or someone with a substance abuse problem.
Kash,
Non-Christians don’t accept biblical authority. That’s a lot of people. The Bible has no authority outside of the religion whose leaders decided by vote that this particular collection of literature would have some authority for their religion. Christians arrogantly think this authority extends outside of their religion for some reason. Here’s a question for you. What percentage of Christians do you think actually do accept biblical authority? For Catholics the Church is the ultimate authority, speaking for God supposedly and therefore interpreting God’s Word. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have the Watchtower Society. A lot of people who go to church on Sunday don’t know enough about what the Bible says to give it any authority. Some Christians only give the Bible authority when it doesn’t interfere with their personal vices. To me this seems like the majority of them. The Bible has some pretty strange commands in it too. I don’t think polyester clothes are biblical for example. How do you decide when to ignore the Bible’s authority on things like that?
You misunderstand me. I don’t judge you for not accepting Biblical authority – why would anyone who isn’t a Christian or Jew accept Biblical authority? I am pointing out to those on this site trying to convert you that it is a waste of time to quote the Bible to you in an attempt to convince you of something. First they would have to convince you that the Bible was worth quoting.
As far as what “Biblical authority” means, I totally agree that it is as ambiguous as “Christian worldview” and means differenct things to different people, which in itself makes referring to it in the general term an inadequate means of convincing anyone of anything. Which is why I think it is WHO JESUS WAS/IS and WHAT JESUS REPRESENTS that is the only way to begin trying to convince anyone of anything in regards to Christianity. Sadly, many Christian seem totally ignorant of anything beyond a Sunday School type understanding of Jesus, that goes something like this: THere is a God in heaven who loves me, Jesus is His son and died for my sins, God speaks to us through the Bible, I must believe what my preacher/elders/cult leader tells me what is in the Bible or I will go to Hell when I die. A sadly inadequate faith, in my opinion, unable to stand up to even the most mildest of challenges.
Kash,
What’s funny about Christians who try to convert atheists is they seem to think atheists have never read the Bible and don’t know what it says. Many atheists are former Christians and became atheists after reading the Bible carefully. The Sunday school type believer you mentioned isn’t an evangelist so their faith almost never has to stand up to even the most mild of challenges. Those who try to convert other people, evangelists, do have arguments for many challenges. The problem is the arguments they have are canned and rehearsed arguments, likely gleaned from the Internet, a book or their pastor. Most evangelists don’t understand many of the arguments well enough to adequately defend them all. Some of them are very complicated. It’s easy for even the most experienced evangelists to get in over their heads especially if the person they are trying to convert knows something about the Bible.
It certainly makes more sense to just talk about Jesus to someone than it does to quote passages from the Bible, threaten them with eternal damnation, talk about the complexity of DNA or tell someone scientists have been involved in a 150 year long conspiracy to promote a false theory and purposely destroy Christianity. I’ve been on the receiving end of so many conversion attempts. So if the roles were reversed I know what I would say and I especially know what I would NOT talk about. Obviously. You have to understand the mind you are trying to change. But in order to do that you have to realize that when you fully understand it that mind may change yours. In most cases the religious mind isn’t willing to take that chance.
Gurgus
“Now as far as the concept of heaven and an afterlife the Bible speaks of both a physical life and death and a spiritual life and death. Is it not possible that a belief in a literal heaven stems from confusing the two?”
No. You may not believe what the Bible says regarding heaven, but it is very clear that the Bible teaches both a literal heaven. Consider the following passages – only a few of the many passages on the topic:
Matthew 6:19-20 19 ” Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 “but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
Matthew 10:28-32 28 “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 “Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 ” Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
Luke 15:7 7 “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
2 Corinthians 12:2-4 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago — whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows — such a one was caught up to the third heaven. 3 And I know such a man — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows — 4 how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Philippians 3:20 0 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
2 Thessalonians 1:3-10 3 We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, 4 so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, 5 which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; 6 since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, 7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 10 when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
Revelation 21:10 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
This is just a sampling of verses from the Bible that speak of a real heaven. You also have to be careful when dealing with this subject because not all of the verses that use the word “heaven” are speaking of the abode of God. Sometimes it simply refers to the sky or to space and the stars. But if you take into account everything the Bible says, you have to come away saying that it teaches a literal heaven, the abode of God. Whether or not you believe its testimony is another matter entirely.
I might also mention that the bible teaches that we will spend eternity in a new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells, not floating on some cloud or existing in an ethereal state. We will have real bodies and live on a real earth in the presence of the Lord of heaven and earth (see Is. 65:17; 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Rev. 21:1), all because of the redemption we have in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gurgus,
“Suppose I were to say to you that I wish you would find the satisfaction, abundant life, deep peace, fulfillment, joy … that it ours in atheism, and thereby stop wasting your life on a delusion. Would I seem a bit arrogant to you? Perhaps even a little offensive?”
Let’s be real here. I expect you to defend your worldview. I expect you to try and convince me that you are right and I am wrong, something you do all the time on this website. I am personally not offended that you do so. As far the arrogance goes, that is a double-edged sword. Surely you wouldn’t contend that you are not arrogant in any of your posts.
“No one is going to heaven. No such place exists. There is no afterlife. This is the 21rst century.”
And obviously I can come off that way as well, though I certainly don’t wish to do so. But I must admit that I do enjoy sticking the knife in the opponents ribs from time to time
(just being real). I will work on having a better tone.
Bottom line: It is not inherently arrogant to defend one’s position and point out weaknesses in other’s arguments.
JD42
You have provided only a few somewhat vague allusions that are capable of several interpretations. For the sake of moving the argument forward I’ll accept your interpretation that heaven is supposedly a literal place and the abode of God. I won’t bother to ask where this literal place is. 1Timothy 6:16 says: “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.” In none of these passages is there any hint that heaven is the reward of the saved. Timothy says only God is immortal. A few verses earlier the term eternal life is used so obviously eternal life and immortality mean two different things.
At funerals clergymen usually reassure the friends and relatives of the diseased that their loved ones are already in heaven, no matter how they may have lived I might add. Many Christians have held this belief for 2000 years. So I would guess you’re saying that people won’t be resurrected to an afterlife until Jesus returns and inaugurates a new heaven and a new earth. Correct? So do you believe dead people are just dead right now or what exactly? You say people will be judged some day. Is this immediately upon death or at this universal resurrection?
Of course I don’t believe the Bible and I gave you some very good examples in Matthew’s Gospels why I don’t. If there were any weaknesses in my arguments there I assume you would have pointed them out. Also I trust science over ancient religious fables. I won’t go into the scientific reasons why I don’t believe in an afterlife or the Bible. You must know what they are. Most Christians can reconcile their acceptance of evolutionary theory with a belief in an afterlife. I can’t. It’s amazing what people will believe because they want to or are afraid not to.
Bummer you won’t go into your scientific reasons for not believing in an afterlife, Gurgus. I would have found that interesting.
As for the last sentence within your post 45, for some people, life it’s self is Hell, and the only thing that helps them to cope with the agonies, unfairness, and hardships of life is the sweet dream of something better to look forward to after death.
Remember that Ghost I mentioned within another thread at Halloween? It only takes an experience with a being like that, some feat of magick, a dream that comes true, or some miracle to help fuel the beliefs that there is something greater beyond reality as we like to think we know it.
Gurgus,
I’m glad you accept the fact that the Bible teaches a literal heaven. Any unbiased reading of all the relevant passages would lead to that conclusion.
“At funerals clergymen usually reassure the friends and relatives of the diseased that their loved ones are already in heaven, no matter how they may have lived I might add.”
Yes, sadly many do and they should not do so. The Bible is very clear that no one who practices sin is in relationship with Christ (see 1 John 3:4-10).
As for the intermediate state between death and resurrection, the Bible teaches a conscious existence of the soul after death (see 2 Cor. 5:6-10; Phil 1:21-24). The judgment will take place after Christ’s return (see Rev. 20).
Hebrews 9:27-28 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
As for you biased “arguments” regarding Mathew, I briefly addressed them in post 32 – “arguments from silence and ad hominem attacks.” You know that an argument from silence proves nothing. It does however reveal your bias. Your commitment to materialism rules out the possibility for the miraculous, so when you encounter a reported miracle you mock it and think you have proved that it could not have happened. This is only convincing to your own mind and to those who share your anti-Bible, anti-miraculous presuppositions.
“Also I trust science over ancient religious fables.”
I take your word for this, but you must know that when you are dealing with the New Testament documents you are dealing with questions of history and not the scientific method. You can’t even prove what you did a week ago using the scientific method.
Anyway, I know that nothing I can say or do will convince you. So let’s end it right here. Your views regarding Christ and the Scriptures will not change until your heart is changed by the Spirit, through the Word of God. But, I can assure you that you will stand before the Lord one day. The only way to be ready for that encounter is to repent and trust Christ for your salvation. I pray that, instead of giving a knee-jerk reaction to this post, you will consider these Scriptures:
Romans 1:18-25 8 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 1 Corinthians 15:1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
Romans 10:9-13 if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”
Acts 17:30-31 30 “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 “because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
Acts 16:31 “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
John,
Modern science clearly demonstrates the dependence of consciousness on the brain, thereby verifying that the mind must die with the body. I know that in many cases the only thing that helps people to cope with the agonies, unfairness, and hardships of life is the sweet dream of something better to look forward to after death. This is why the conclusions of science are emotionally difficult to accept for some people. But many humans have no problem accepting annihilation upon death.
Claims made without offering proof do not need to be disproved. People who claim they are going to live on after they die would expect to be mocked if they claimed to be able to travel time. Yet both claims are equally absurd and lacking in evidence to support them.
If you think there is a really a ghost at Grandma’s you could take The One Million Dollar Challenge. The organization making the challenge is offering the reward for proof of ghosts or any other kind of life after death. The ghost hunters that hunt for ghosts on television often record what sounds to them anyway, like human voices. Is that how you determined that your ghost is female?
No, the ghost was/is silent. Always has been to my knowledge. We think it’s female because it looked female, and because we have her head[smile].
This has always been a weird place with weird people and goings ons.
The New Testament does not contain any historical documents. Calling mythology documents is just another way apologists confuse believers.
Pure assertion again!
If anyone is interested, you can read F.F. Bruce’s “THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS, Are they Reliable?” at http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocont.htm. In order to be up to date you should also consult “JESUS AND THE EYEWITNESSES, , The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony,” by Richard Bauckham.
Here is my bald assertion – The New Testament documents are the most reliable ancient historical documents we have by far. It’s not even close.
Here is a quote from F.F. Bruce, quoting Sir Frederick Kenyon:
“To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient MSS was second to none:
‘The interval then between the data of original. composition and the earliest extant evidence become so small to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scripture have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.’ ”
Non-believer Sir William Ramsey concluded that Luke was “first-rate historian.”
Now, to be honest, establishing the historical reliability of the N.T. documents and proving that they are inspired by God are two different things. Just because they are historically reliable, that doesn’t necessarily prove their inspiration. The latter must be taken by faith and is a work of the Spirit in the heart.
Gurgus, after a thousand years or so of time just about anything that could be called a “historical document” has the possible fate of becoming “mythology”.
How will the tales of conquest of the Spanish Conquistadors in North/South/Central America read and look to the people who are living two thousand years from now? What will they think about when they hear about The Fountain Of Youth and El Dorado?
Will not someone of the age be inclined to dismiss the stories as mere mythology from a primitive savage race?
Wow, what an amazing read that was . . . .
1. Adam, Eve, Noah and Abraham were not Jewish. Read your Bible.
2. If atheism means not believing in God then why do atheists spend so much time on a Christian website?
I have never seen people so passionate about ‘nothing’ get so wound up about something they do not believe exists. There must be something to that and why you would be in a discussion on whether or not everyone goes to heaven, a place you do not believe exists. Absolutely bizarre.
By the way, God does not beleive in atheists . . .
If Adam, Eve, Noah, and Abraham were not Jewish then why were they worshiping what was at the time, a Judaic/Hebrew Deity?
Judiasm came later, like I said, read your Bible.
As I am sure that you are not implying that Christianity predated Judaism, making said characters Christians instead of Jews, I was wondering if perhaps you had a recommendation of which specific version of the Bible I should be studying that reveals what they actually were.
Do you think that they were Sumerian Pagans?
Technically, the Hebrews were not Jews until after the existence of the tribe, and then the country, of Judah. Abraham is the first Hebrew.
Bingo.
Technically, huh[smile].
Then what would they have been referred to as before that? Just…”Those people who didn’t come from the land of Nod”?
“Edenites”?
As far as Noah and the flood, most scholars believe it is borrowed from the Mesopotamian flood tradition, mostly the Gilgamesh Epic. A fragment of the epic has been found in Megiddo, a city in northern Israel not far from Haifa, that dates to 1400 BC. Flooding is typical in Mesopotamia, but not in Canaan (where Abraham migrates to and later the Hebrews conquer when returning from Egypt). So Noah comes from the ancient Mesopotamian culture.
Adam and Eve, of course, stand for the “mother and father of all humans” and thus by definition can not be any particular ethnicity.
[Grin]
John,
In literature and other story telling style is everything. History writers and fiction writers are easy to tell apart. People who claim the Bible is historical point to historical places and people and say that proves the stories in the Bible are true. So let’s go into the future like you said. They find some copies of the television show Married With Children in the future. The story is set in Chicago. On the show celebrities such as ex-baseball star Dave Winfield, rock band Anthrax, pro wrestler King Kong Bundy and other people appeared playing themselves. The religious leaders of Al Bundyism point to the fact that Chicago was a real city and Dave Winfield, Anthrax and King Kong Bundy were actual historical people. Therefore we should all believe the Married With Children television episodes were actually reality shows and not fictional comedy.
I already pointed out why the New Testament could not possibly be historical using Matthew’s Gospel as an example, since that was the book JD42 was using to make his key point. Herod supposedly massacred every infant in his kingdom under the age of two according to Matt 2:16. This event could not have occurred and gone unreported by every historian of the day. It’s one of several fictional events the writer of this gospel fabricated as parallels to some of the stories in Exodus. Later in Matt 4:23 we read that Jesus’ fame spread throughout Syria because he healed many people. Not enough fame or healings for anyone in Syria to notice and write anything about it apparently. Later great crowds follow Jesus and reports of his deeds and fame spread through districts. Do we have any of these reports today? Jesus feeds 5000 people and heals every disease and infirmity as he travels through various cities. No one wrote anything about this. Dead people come back to life and manage to unbury themselves and appear to many other people in Jerusalem. Neither the dead people nor anyone they supposedly appeared to bothered to mention this miraculous event. Not even the other three gospel writers.
So-called scholars who claim eyewitnesses wrote the gospels are a small minority of the Bible scholars in the world today. There’s not a shred of evidence to support such an assertion. These scholars claim because we have a lot of copies of something that somehow makes the reliable. We have nothing even close to an original copy of anything in the Bible. The Church mass-produced copies of the New Testament and almost all of these 5000 copies of the New Testament these scholars cite were made after the fourth century. But that doesn’t matter. The problem is that the Church and its members don’t know what they are reading.
Appeals to authority are meaningless in debates. I could provide a long list of scholars who agree with my point of view. What would that prove? The reason JD42 gives for believing these stories is an appeal to fear. If we don’t believe these stories bad things will happen. Fear is no basis on which to accept an argument.
“If Adam, Eve, Noah, and Abraham were not Jewish then why were they worshiping what was at the time, a Judaic/Hebrew Deity?” Adam and Eve didn’t really “worship” God, they walked with Him. Same thing with Noah. Worship really seems to begin with Abraham, and even then Yahweh is often regarded as the “God of the Hebrews” rather than the only God. Judaism struggles with polytheism right up to the Babylonian exile, and it isn’t really until second temple Judaism that monotheism (Yahweh is the ONLY God, not just the most powerful) really seems to sink in.
Post 34 – John: I think that you are mixing biology with personal theological faith, and there’s nothing wrong with this on a personal level if that’s what individuals decide to do. But this is doomed to fail as a convincing argument when one tries to go against nature or other peoples different personal beliefs.
I don’t know why you mention biology – this is Bible based. “…one tries to go against nature” – that’s like trying not to sin or something. Re: People with other ideas: They may understand when their way fails, or they may simply press on with the same failed approaches – unable/unwilling to improve.
John: “Sexual morality” is just one of those things that varies from one society/culture and time in history to another.
You think it doesn’t matter very much? That’s too bad. Practical experience confirms what the Bible taught me. I know a few participants of adultery, perversion, etc – their minds are far from where they should be. It taints their lives, hindering them all around.
As far as your survey goes – of course. Not many people take what Jesus said seriously – he expressly condemned the lust that you mentioned as a key ingredient for masturbation. Kash sees a multitude of people doing it, so she thinks it must be alright – and doesn’t bother thinking (herd mentality).
Post 35 – Gurgus: Baggins I’ll briefly respond to your points:
Faith just gives people a false sense of certainty.
Wrong. It only gives people a false sense of certainty if they think they don’t need faith when it comes to God. The faithful person knows that their beliefs are not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt (faith wouldn’t be required in that case). They adhere to them as if they do, yes, if their faithful. And hopefully they understand the foundations of their faith – and do not take it on, for example, to be part of a herd. It should be arrived at through critical thought – and the heart, probably.
Faith gives people a reason to live and a purpose. It’s like setting a goal. You are limited to setting goals in regards to worldly things, from your position. You would like to become famous as a great critic of the faith – ha-ha.
Gurgus: You may be certain of your beliefs but that doesn’t make them true.
Yep, I don’t make them true by believing them, but my faith does produce real world results. The positive results in turn strengthen my faith.
Gurgus: It doesn’t take faith to decide how to live. The ability to make intelligent choices doesn’t come from faith but rather critical thinking.
You don’t have the time, the ability, or the patience to critically think through everything you need to and reach clear answers. That is a grandiose claim and a common delusion among atheists. It would be interesting to come in and give you a critical viewpoint of every decision you make. To help – since you love it.
What you do is a little critical thinking, then you make a leap of faith – you take a gamble on what seems to be the right answer. Life may prove that you chose well or not, or it may remain unclear unless you see/hear from other people or other, relevant experiences.
Gurgus: The best way to live a meaningless life is to have someone else tell you what the meaning of your own life needs to be and then abide by what they say.
The meaning of my life is between me and God. The best intermediary to God for me is my pastor – sike.
Gurgus: Scientific discoveries and theories don’t even pretend to tell us how to live. But that doesn’t stop evangelicals from calling them religions anyway.
People create their own ‘religions’ relating to – but not necessitated by – scientific discoveries, theories, and all sorts of things. E.g. You yourself said you couldn’t believe in an afterlife because of evolution. (non-sequitur – it does not follow.)
Gurgus, “Herod supposedly massacred every infant in his kingdom under the age of two according to Matt 2:16. This event could not have occurred and gone unreported by every historian of the day.”
Notice again that this is an argument from silence, as is the rest of the paragraph. Only a fraction of what was actually written in antiquity survived until now. And there could be just that sort of corroborating evidence waiting to be uncovered. (But that is conjecture on my part.) That makes just as much sense as Gurgus’s assertions. Consider what Paul Maier says about the Hittites – long claimed not to have existed due to lack of extra-biblical historical support:
“Genesis 23 reports that Abraham buried Sarah in the Cave of Machpelah, which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite. Second Samuel 11 tells of David’s adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. A century ago the Hittites were unknown outside of the Old Testament, and critics claimed that they were a figment of biblical imagination. In 1906, however, archaeologists digging east of Ankara, Turkey, discovered the ruins of Hattusas, the ancient Hittite capital at what is today called Boghazkoy, as well as its vast collection of Hittite historical records, which showed an empire flourishing in the mid?second millennium BC. This critical challenge, among many others, was immediately proved worthless — a pattern that would often be repeated in the decades to come.”
As I have said before, arguments from silence prove nothing, and Gurgus’s argument regarding Herod’s slaughter is just that. And the argument is not nearly as impressive as he would like you to think. First of all, the text doesn’t say that Herod had “every infant in his kingdom under the age if two” killed. This is a huge over exaggeration. It literally says he “slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs” (NAS). This was not a large town in Israel. Notice what CARM says on this matter:
“Bethlehem … was an insignificant and very small town located about five miles south of Jerusalem at around 2500 feet elevation. It probably had a population of no more than 500 – 600 people. Micah 5:2 it says, “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” Notice that Micah (written around 500 B.C.) prophesies that from Bethlehem, a small town, Jesus will be born. If there were as many as 600 people in Bethlehem, how many children would have been under the age of two? Ten, twenty, thirty? Whatever the number, it would not have been hundreds. It would have been relatively few. Add to this the fact that Herod was known for committing horrendous crimes against people and you could see why this event in an insignificant village in the Jewish area, would be ignored.”
Gurgus, since you didn’t address me but addressed John with your remarks I assume that you want to discontinue our discussion. I feel that way as well. And besides, we are way off the original topic of the thread. I look forward to future discussions with you on other topics. It has been fun.
b baggins,
I have no doubt your faith produces real world results. I read your posts addressed to Kash. Your faith helps support your backward political views for one thing. You don’t know what I have the time, ability or patience to do and you are certainly in no position to make claims about atheists sharing any kind of a common delusion. You may not be able to think through every decision you make but that doesn’t mean other people can’t. Your statements about making choices reflect a profound fear of failure. I’m not afraid to make mistakes because I learn from them. You are correct people create their own religions and they also create their own ideas about God. The meaning of your life is only between you and what you imagine about God. Like you said: “The faithful person knows that their beliefs are not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.” What I don’t have the time, ability or patience for is trying to imagine something that probably isn’t there in the first place. Good luck with that. I’m glad it’s working out for you. It doesn’t and hasn’t for so many others.
Baggins: “Kash sees a multitude of people doing it, so she thinks it must be alright – and doesn’t bother thinking (herd mentality).” You continue to misrepresent what I said. I never addressed the morality of the issue, I simply continue to assert that you can not say its “unnatural.”
To get back on the topic of this thread, check out this short video by D.A. Carson (only 3 minutes long):
http://against-heresies.blogspot.com/2009/11/don-carson-how-can-god-be-loving-and.html
Gurgus post 63,
Come on Gurgus, the laugh track alone would be enough to keep people from mistaking episodes of “Married….With Children” as anything other that satire[smile]. I chose the story of the Spanish conquistadors very carefully to help make my point, due to the fact that it is filled with historical names, events, and places, and yet also contains elements of fantasy…just like the Bible.
Baggans post 64,
As I said, you’re such a Victorian[grin].
You know, not everything that is perfectly normal can just be condemned as “herd mentality” and avoided. A lifestyle of celibacy is a sexual perversion in itself, you know[smile, wink, wink].
Good video, JD42.
Simply stated the argument from silence says that if you can demonstrate that there is both (a) insufficient evidence to believe x and (b) sufficient evidence to disbelieve x, then it is reasonable to disbelieve x. When used by itself as a logical proof the argument from silence is classed as a logical fallacy. However an argument from silence can be a valid and convincing argument if it meets two criteria. The writer or in this case every writer would have known about the event and second these writers would certainly have made mention of the event. Thus the argument from silence is a form of abductive reasoning, which is used in philosophy. It is also used in computing and in belief revision, the process of adapting beliefs in view of new information. This explains why some people have such a phobia about abductive and inductive reasoning.
Historian Richard Carrier suggests two additional criteria to strengthen an argument from silence: 1) Whether or not it is common for men to create similar myths. 2) The claim is of an extraordinary nature, it violates what we already know of nature. When these two conditions are fulfilled, the argument from silence proves its point with moral certainty. The stories I cited in Matthew’s Gospel meet these criteria. The suggestion that there might be some corroborating evidence waiting to be uncovered is ludicrous. Second century Christians were known for fabricating evidence so any real evidence certainly would have been preserved, handled with care and trumpeted loudly.
JD42 suggests that we should approach all the New Testament texts with complete trust unless we have a specific reason to doubt what they say. No real historian is so naïve. I’ve given the reasons I do not think the New Testament contains any historical documents and defended the reasoning behind my arguments. “You better believe what I do or else,” is never a good reason to accept anything. And that is the only reason to believe the New Testament is historical I’ve been presented with here.
Genesis 10 links the Hittites to an eponymous ancestor Heth, a descendant of Ham through his son Canaan. So there the Hittites are counted among the Canaanites. The Hittites are usually depicted as a people living among the Israelites. In 2 Kings 7:6 though, the Hittites are a people with their own kingdoms located outside Canaan, and sufficiently powerful to defeat the Syrian army. Entire populations such as the Midianites and Amorites are completely annihilated only to appear a short time later in the Bible so plentiful they were like locusts on the land. So it’s no surprise the text of the Bible has the Hittites coming from two different geographical areas. There is no historical connection between biblical Hittites with either the Hattusa-based empire or the Neo-Hittite kingdoms.
We could keep this up forever, but I think I will let you have the last word with that biased cut and paste special. I think we have both said enough for everyone to see where we are coming from. Take care.
Kash: You continue to misrepresent what I said. I never addressed the morality of the issue, I simply continue to assert that you can not say its “unnatural.”
I thought you addressed the morality of the issue in the past, but perhaps I’m mistaken. I guess I’ll have to put a big question mark in your TTL chart. Kash – self proclaimed Christian – fuzzy when it comes to sexual morality.
John: A lifestyle of celibacy is a sexual perversion in itself, you know
I’m not advocating that in particular – but sexual morality. This doesn’t mean no sex.
Post 68 – Gurgus: I have no doubt your faith produces real world results. I read your posts addressed to Kash.
Would you agree that faith can be useful then?
Gurgus: Your faith helps support your backward political views for one thing.
What political views have I advanced that you’ve seen?
Gurgus: You don’t know what I have the time, ability or patience to do and you are certainly in no position to make claims about atheists sharing any kind of a common delusion.
If you have the time to critically think through everything, then you don’t have time to live. I know you lack the ability because here you are addicted to this website. The common delusion among atheists is defined by their belief and the attitude of those within the social movement.
Gurgus: You may not be able to think through every decision you make but that doesn’t mean other people can’t.
The fact that other people can’t [completely] think through every decision is all I need to know.
Gurgus: Your statements about making choices reflect a profound fear of failure.
I desire to make the correct choices and avoid incorrect ones. I don’t know the special fear you have accused me of…?
Gurgus: I’m not afraid to make mistakes because I learn from them.
I avoid mistakes as best I can – part of that is learning from them. I don’t avoid living though, so making mistakes comes naturally.
Gurgus: You are correct people create their own religions and they also create their own ideas about God. The meaning of your life is only between you and what you imagine about God. Like you said: “The faithful person knows that their beliefs are not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
I seek God – the one with the time, ability and patience to set things right – and the role He wishes me to fulfill.
Gurgus: What I don’t have the time, ability or patience for is trying to imagine something that probably isn’t there in the first place.
Any probability you invoke in your favor (against God) is a work of your imagination. The mystery of the universe demands an explanation. You have your imaginary explanation and I have the Bible.
Baggins
I’ll try to answer all your questions and respond to some of your statements. I have good answers for any question a theist might ask.
Religious faith flew those planes into those buildings on 9-11. There is a big difference between religious faith and other kinds of faith. I don’t have any beliefs that I’m not willing to change. You have a whole bunch of them. That’s the difference between faith and religious faith and it’s huge. I don’t think religious faith is useful on a personal level or I’d be a person of faith. Religious faith has certainly been useful for political leaders though. It has been a useful way to control the masses. We have political leaders who are abusing your faith to control people right now.
Your views on sex are a good clue as to what your political views are. As far as your political views do you support a woman’s right to choose and gay marriage? Do you support separation of church and state? Are your children home schooled?
The claim that people don’t have time to think through their decisions can only come from a person who has never played competitive sports. Baseball players have less than a second to decide if they are going to swing at a pitch or not. This and other websites give me something to do during the commercial breaks of sporting events and ESPN. If I’m addicted to anything it’s probably professional sports, not any websites. There really is no such thing as an atheist social movement although people like Richard Dawkins and a few others appear to be trying to start one. I think you are confusing atheism with secular humanism.
No one has to completely think through every decision they make. We all make judgment calls based on incomplete information. So what? The more important the decision is the more information we gather before we make a decision. If we are going to get married we do a lot more thinking than we do when we decide what’s for lunch today. Before we adopt religious beliefs we should think about those very carefully too. But most people don’t. They give that decision about the same consideration they do about what they’re having for lunch. Then they wind up on blogs making statements that make it obvious they haven’t thought through what they are trying to believe but rather just accepted the beliefs of other people.
You might not avoid living but you’ve adopted a bunch of life-avoidance superstitions. A belief in an afterlife is one of those for example. A good way to waste your life is to think a better one awaits you.
You said: “I seek God – the one with the time, ability and patience to set things right – and the role He wishes me to fulfill.” There are people everywhere and on this blog who are actively seeking God. I don’t think you’re one of them though. I think you believe you’ve already found him. You may be seeking God but all you have found so far is the words of men telling you their own ideas and stories about God. You might want to broaden your search. I have and I haven’t found anything yet.
You said: “Any probability you invoke in your favor (against God) is a work of your imagination. The mystery of the universe demands an explanation. You have your imaginary explanation and I have the Bible.” If you thought through your arguments for just a minute you would realize most of them can easily be used against you. Consider this: Any probability you invoke in your favor (for God) is a work of YOUR imagination. Why does the universe demand an explanation? Is it because everything demands an explanation? If so, then what is the explanation for God? There are scientific explanations for things that are supported by evidence. You are the one with the imaginary explanations. We know this because many specific religious explanations have been refuted scientifically.
Gurgus post 75,
Gurgus, how is a belief in an afterlife a “life-avoidance superstition”? Were you just thinking of a special type of person here or any and everyone who believes in an afterlife?
“A good way to waste your life is to think a better one awaits you.”
Are you thinking of the stereotypical monk or nun who spends their life in quiet humble spiritual contemplation within the walls of a temple/monastery, or something broader?
I would like an elaboration to help us better understand your message, if you would be so kind.
John,
I wasn’t thinking of any particular person or group. But could we get otherwise sane people to fly planes into buildings or to become suicide bombers if they didn’t believe they would be rewarded in an afterlife for their deeds? Religious beliefs like these are insulated against anything that could stop them from spinning out of control because of their extreme denial of reality.
Gurgus post 77,
You WEREN’T thinking of any particular person or group? Well, just remember to take into consideration all of the magnificent things that have been accomplished by men and women who DID believe in the concept of an afterlife. When you called such a belief a “life avoidance superstition” and that maintaining such a belief was a good way to waste your life, I, just to stick with Christianity, think of pioneering men like the John Chapman, Franciscan priests Father Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante, exploring naturalists like William Bartram and John Muir, artists like Michelangelo, do-gooders like Mother Teresa,….I could go on forever.
I have a hard time thinking of the founders and workers of religious-based missions and shelters who help millions of hungry and homeless people with their acts of charity as any example of people who are wasting their lives with the belief of a better afterlife.
That’s why I was wondering if you had something/someone more specific in mind.
“But could we get otherwise sane people to fly planes into buildings or to become suicide bombers if they didn’t believe they would be rewarded in an afterlife for their deeds?”
I think perhaps so. The human mind is a very weird and complicated thing. Do you think that the Japanese kamikaze plane pilots that flew into ships during World War Two did what they did due to a belief in a Heavenly reward? Or the Soldiers who committed the act of Seppuku? I have my doubts. I think that people are capable of anything, and need no real, “sane” reasons for doing the things that they decide or are told to do.
Post 75 – Gurgus: Religious faith flew those planes into those buildings on 9-11.
This is an example of incorrect religious faith.
Gurgus: There is a big difference between religious faith and other kinds of faith. I don’t have any beliefs that I’m not willing to change.
People’s religious faith changes. So, you have indicated no difference. I’d consider it a good thing for someone to rigidly believe that murder is wrong. The fact that this belief could change with you indicates just how morally useless/bankrupt your worldview is.
Gurgus: I don’t think religious faith is useful on a personal level or I’d be a person of faith.
Then you are mistaken and should change.
Gurgus: Religious faith has certainly been useful for political leaders though. It has been a useful way to control the masses. We have political leaders who are abusing your faith to control people right now.
Political leaders will use anything they can to control people.
Gurgus: Your views on sex are a good clue as to what your political views are. As far as your political views do you support a woman’s right to choose and gay marriage?
A woman has a right to choose not to get pregnant, unless there was a rape – and there are strategies to avoid/prevent that. But a woman never has the right to murder – the life she carries is God’s. When a pregnant woman is killed the murderer is charged with two murders, I’ve read – is that a just law? Do you think that the father should be able to unilaterally kill the baby too? He may not wish to be responsible for it.
If you allow gay marriage then you have to allow all manner of unions. Then it makes no sense to give special benefits to married people. Besides I think gay marriage is ridiculous and homosexuality wrong.
Gurgus: Do you support separation of church and state? Are your children home schooled?
I don’t expect the state to officially enforce church, but I don’t think its a problem if the state reflects the population’s religious views, political views, and so on.
I don’t have children yet, but I would take their education personally. I wouldn’t leave it to the government like a deadbeat.
Gurgus: The claim that people don’t have time to think through their decisions can only come from a person who has never played competitive sports. Baseball players have less than a second to decide if they are going to swing at a pitch or not.
Baseball players make the wrong decision about swinging most of the time. Well, this isn’t even an example of moral decision making (where religious faith makes a difference).
Gurgus: This and other websites give me something to do during the commercial breaks of sporting events and ESPN. If I’m addicted to anything it’s probably professional sports, not any websites.
Wow, nice. My bad, you’re addicted to the wasting of time. I should try to avoid being addicted to something like that in light of my faith. I play sports a few times a week usually.
Gurgus: There really is no such thing as an atheist social movement although people like Richard Dawkins and a few others appear to be trying to start one. I think you are confusing atheism with secular humanism.
Atheists gather and talk to each other about their beliefs – and about how to attack the faithful. From what I’ve seen they love to destroy people’s faith and build the movement. Atheists want other people to be like them (again, from what I’ve seen). So if there isn’t a social movement, they want one.
Gurgus: No one has to completely think through every decision they make. We all make judgment calls based on incomplete information. So what?
People are wrong. People get hurt and stuff. Sound like a problem to you?
Gurgus: The more important the decision is the more information we gather before we make a decision.
Sometimes their isn’t time or an adequate resource, or people don’t have the ability to process what is needed, etc.
Gurgus: If we are going to get married we do a lot more thinking than we do when we decide what’s for lunch today.
Yes, couples vow to spend their lives together and then get divorced days, weeks, months, or years later. Their decision was obviously a failure.
Gurgus: Before we adopt religious beliefs we should think about those very carefully too.
I agree completely.
Gurgus: But most people don’t. They give that decision about the same consideration they do about what they’re having for lunch. Then they wind up on blogs making statements that make it obvious they haven’t thought through what they are trying to believe but rather just accepted the beliefs of other people.
Sure.
Gurgus: You might not avoid living but you’ve adopted a bunch of life-avoidance superstitions. A belief in an afterlife is one of those for example. A good way to waste your life is to think a better one awaits you.
Incorrect. I believe that the way I live has an effect on this one and the next one.
Gurgus: There are people everywhere and on this blog who are actively seeking God. I don’t think you’re one of them though. I think you believe you’ve already found him.
I believe I have found God, but that doesn’t mean I don’t seek. I have strayed – lost sight of God – and sought Him again.
Gurgus: You may be seeking God but all you have found so far is the words of men telling you their own ideas and stories about God. You might want to broaden your search. I have and I haven’t found anything yet.
I don’t believe your eyes are open.
Gurgus: If you thought through your arguments for just a minute you would realize most of them can easily be used against you.
I don’t claim to be without faith.
Gurgus: Consider this: Any probability you invoke in your favor (for God) is a work of YOUR imagination.
I don’t bother doing that like you do.
Gurgus: Why does the universe demand an explanation? Is it because everything demands an explanation? If so, then what is the explanation for God? There are scientific explanations for things that are supported by evidence.
There is evidence of the universe, and humans are curious. We have no way of proving that God exists that I know. The evidence can be either for or against Him as far as people can tell. Science offers no particular consolation when it comes to the mystery of the universe. I was open to a creator God and rules of right conduct. I needed help in life because I saw no point in living without an ultimate meaning, like the one God provides. God has gotten me through things people would rather run from…distracting themselves with sports television, sex, alcohol, eating or something else. I accept the trials of life as God-ordained, and I learn from them as best I can. Anyway, the God of the Bible makes more sense to me than anything else I have seen (all the major religions).
Gurgus: You are the one with the imaginary explanations. We know this because many specific religious explanations have been refuted scientifically.
You invoke (imaginary) statistics to boost your own viewpoint, while I accept that my view is taken on faith. You are deluded, while I am realistic and honest.
What is an incorrect faith exactly? How can we test faith to make sure it’s correct? We can’t. On what basis do you claim that my view that murder is wrong could possibly change? On the fact that you have taken my use of the word “beliefs” out of context and purposely distorted what I meant by it so you could make a straw man argument perhaps? Murder has been a punishable crime in every society ever studied. Even murderers know what they are doing is wrong simply because it is illegal if for no other reason. My worldview is vastly superior and more realistic than anyone’s worldview that is based on ancient religious fables and dogma. Christians have often committed horrendous crimes and atrocities because they thought God wanted them to. A person could get the idea that this clearly indicates just how morally useless/bankrupt your worldview really is. Suppose God told you to murder someone. Would you do it? See what I mean? You have fundamentalists have no good arguments against atheism or secular humanism so you invent ridiculous straw man arguments like you just did. If my worldview is so morally bankrupt how come the prisons aren’t full of atheists? In fact the percentage of atheists in the prison system is much smaller than in the general population while the percentage of Christians is slightly higher. Kind of shoots down your whole argument doesn’t it?
You said political leaders will use anything they can to control people. And religious leaders haven’t and don’t?
A woman has a right to choose not to get pregnant and people have the right to have sex without having children or being ready to have children too. Having sex and getting pregnant does not mean you are ready, willing, or able to become a parent. Children are born every day to people unable and even unwilling to take care of them. A woman does not have the right to murder but abortion is not murder. A fetus is not a human being but human tissue, a potential human being just like an acorn is a potential tree. Your views on abortion come from you not being able to understand these issues.
We already have laws against certain kinds of marriages. Bigamy, polygamy, incest are illegal for example. Making gay marriage legal will not have any effect on the laws we already have in place. You think gay marriage is ridiculous because you don’t understand homosexuality or homosexuals. Homosexuality exists in many species throughout nature. It is just part of nature. Studies of the brain show conclusively that there are differences in the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals. So because of your ignorance of widely known facts you are willing to deny people their rights. Or is it just a denial of these facts? Either way that’s what I expected.
You don’t think it’s a problem if the state reflects the population’s religious views? Suppose about ten years from now the majority of our population is Muslim? Will you then think that it’s not a problem when the state reflects the population’s religious views? I think your views on separation of church and state would change drastically.
There are some atheist organizations but hardly anyone joins them. Where exactly do atheists gather and talk about their beliefs? It’s funny how atheists have been persecuted by the faithful ever since religion was invented and yet you say atheists are attacking people. No, atheists are still defending liberty and intellectual honesty just like they’ve always been doing. That just seems like an attack to conservatives who believe we have a little too much of those things.
You said: “People are wrong. People get hurt and stuff. Sound like a problem to you?” No, it sounds like life to me. What doesn’t kill you usually makes you stronger.
You said: “Sometimes their isn’t time or an adequate resource, or people don’t have the ability to process what is needed, etc.” I don’t know what the point of this silly argument is. Okay what do you suggest? What do YOU do when you don’t have time to think through a problem? Do you consider what you believe God wants you to do? If so you’ve still taken the time to make a decision. Yes people get divorced and evangelicals get divorced at a considerably higher rate than the national average by the way. People make bad decisions. So what? If you check the resume of just about any of the most successful people in the world you will see a list of failures on it. Many millionaires had businesses that went bankrupt or jobs they were failures at in the past.
What imaginary statistics have I invoked? This is another one of your imaginary straw man arguments. You needed help in life because you saw no point in living without an ultimate meaning so you decided to adopt a set of religious beliefs. When I need help I figure out what to do about it. You admit you don’t have any proof God exists or evidence for what you believe. Then you tell me I’m deluded while you’re realistic and honest. What am I deluded about? You admit there’s no proof for God so why should I believe there is one? You told me I am mistaken and I should change. Based on what evidence? On the fact that you needed some kind of ultimate meaning and a set of religious rules to live by? I don’t need those things. I’ll decide what meaning to give my life and how I’m going to live it. Thanks anyway.
Post 80 – Gurgus: What is an incorrect faith exactly? How can we test faith to make sure it’s correct? We can’t.
You already conceded that faith produces real world results. Jesus said people can be known by their fruits. Why lie?
Gurgus: On what basis do you claim that my view that murder is wrong could possibly change? On the fact that you have taken my use of the word “beliefs” out of context and purposely distorted what I meant by it so you could make a straw man argument perhaps?
You said all of your beliefs can be changed. This includes your belief in regards to murder.
Gurgus: Murder has been a punishable crime in every society ever studied.
Murder isn’t wrong because it has been popularly deemed wrong. If it is for you, then you may indeed change your belief to murder – affirmative; the Nazis did it for the Jews.
Gurgus: Suppose God told you to murder someone.
God doesn’t command us to violate His commandments.
Gurgus: In fact the percentage of atheists in the prison system is much smaller than in the general population while the percentage of Christians is slightly higher. Kind of shoots down your whole argument doesn’t it?
No, it doesn’t. Those statistics are inconclusive. Not all criminals are even “in the prison system”. Perhaps the Christians are simply more likely to turn themselves in and face the time for their mistake. Or perhaps criminals convert after entering prison – who knows. The fact that you try to use this sort of thing in your favor is a testament to your delusion.
Gurgus: You said political leaders will use anything they can to control people. And religious leaders haven’t and don’t?
I didn’t claim that there aren’t wolves in sheep’s clothing. The point (you made) to which I responded has been nullified – and this diversion is unnecessary.
Gurgus: A woman has a right to choose not to get pregnant and people have the right to have sex without having children or being ready to have children too.
People must cheat the system to enforce this “right”. I don’t know where you think this right comes from… You have a right to something just because you like it or what?
Gurgus: A woman does not have the right to murder but abortion is not murder. A fetus is not a human being but human tissue, a potential human being just like an acorn is a potential tree.
Abortion is murder. That’s a poor analogy too. An acorn can be dormant, but a human baby is alive and growing. A woman has no right to prevent that baby from progressing to independent life. No, she has a duty to usher that baby into the world as the innocent and beautiful life that it is. Your views on abortion reflect how ugly you really are.
Gurgus: Making gay marriage legal will not have any effect on the laws we already have in place.
If gay marriage can be made legal, why not the other types of marriages?
Gurgus: Studies of the brain show conclusively that there are differences in the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals.
Studies of the brain would likely show that there are differences in the brains of murderers and non-murderers too. Or incestuous people and regular folk. I fail to see how this indicates that gay marriage should be legalized. This is another delusion of yours.
Also, brains can change and in many cases they should.
Gurgus: You don’t think it’s a problem if the state reflects the population’s religious views? Suppose about ten years from now the majority of our population is Muslim?
No. If I lived in a Muslim nation then I would expect it to be Muslim. Missionaries go into Muslim nations already and share the gospel. Perhaps in ten years I will be a missionary, or if that’s not what I should do then maybe I’ll change nations.
I don’t understand how you think a state can (much less should) avoid reflecting the population’s religious views. The state is a creation and tool of the population in the end.
Gurgus: Where exactly do atheists gather and talk about their beliefs?
Mainly online and in-person.
Gurgus: No, it sounds like life to me. What doesn’t kill you usually makes you stronger.
People do get killed and people get treated unfairly. Of course you don’t have a problem with that.
Gurgus: What do YOU do when you don’t have time to think through a problem? Do you consider what you believe God wants you to do?
I take a risk in the direction I believe God wills. It takes little thought in the moment if you have prepared by living a reverent lifestyle.
Gurgus: I don’t know what the point of this silly argument is. … People make bad decisions. So what?
A wise person would strive to avoid bad decisions, rather than become resigned to them (“so what?). The point was that you can’t always expect to critically think something through to a good answer. You often end up having to take a risk – a leap of faith – in what your preliminary thoughts indicated to be the right direction – with the hope of success.
You tried to deny faith altogether, and said you could rely on pure critical thought to take you exactly where you want to go. I say that is unrealistic, and that risks and leaps of faith are necessary. Now you’re saying “so what? people make mistakes” – well, yes, I already knew that. But by doing so you proved my point that relying on pure critical thought is inadequate and unrealistic. It’s just the usual atheistic tactic of using delusional grandiose claims (of mental ability, talent, honesty, etc) to justify their belief system.
Gurgus: What imaginary statistics have I invoked?
You said God probably doesn’t exist, right?
Gurgus: When I need help I figure out what to do about it.
Me too. That’s why I’m thriving. God is pushing me right along.
Gurgus: You admit you don’t have any proof God exists or evidence for what you believe. Then you tell me I’m deluded while you’re realistic and honest.
I claimed to be faithful of God’s existence (honest). You claimed that God probably doesn’t exist (deluded).
Gurgus: You admit there’s no proof for God so why should I believe there is one?
Trust in God is a matter of the heart. If you don’t care if God exists or not then you admit to not caring about people suffering in the world (“what doesn’t kill you usually makes you stronger”). A real God is the only real hope for the suffering.
Gurgus: You told me I am mistaken and I should change. Based on what evidence?
The evidence is your failure – your near endlessly long string of failures.
If you do not feel the need to repent of your sins, then I cannot implant that feeling within you – however much the world would benefit – and despite the fact that you should. That is your domain, as it should be.
Gurgus: I’ll decide what meaning to give my life and how I’m going to live it.
Go right ahead. I hope you know you have a 100% chance of failure though.
Baggins,
I said faith produces real world results but I also said they were not always positive results and I mentioned some that aren’t. You have conveniently ignored that. Why not be honest? When I said all of my beliefs could be changed you know very well I was talking about specific beliefs that my worldview includes. However if you want to split hairs and erect straw man arguments I can play that game. The definition of murder is to kill with intent. The Death Penalty is an example of killing a human being with intent. I support the death penalty for certain crimes but I could change my mind about that, it’s true. Do you support the Death Penalty? Why? If murder isn’t wrong because humans have deemed it wrong then why is it wrong? But before you get in a philosophical discussion that is way over your head define the word “wrong.” See what I mean?
You said: “God doesn’t command us to violate His commandments.” Oh really? Then why is Jesus reported to have said: “But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and slaughter them in my presence” (Luke 19:17). In the Old Testament God repeatedly gives orders that entire populations be annihilated including women and children and prisoners of war. Even in wartime that is considered murder. How do you know God will not make these sorts of demands on believers again? Again, what would you do if He did? I’ve already shown that in some instances God does indeed command people to violate His commandments. So answer the question please. Kind of makes one wonder why God even gave these commandments anyway. Human societies had made murder illegal long before the Ten Commandments came along.
The conclusions one would have to make from the statistics I presented are obvious. Atheists are not lacking in morals and ethics as you have falsely implied. Perhaps the Christians are simply more likely to turn themselves in and face the time for their mistake? That’s a real stretch of a wild imagination and a desperate debater out of ammunition. Do you expect anyone to buy that excuse? The fact that someone uses statistics and facts is a testament to critical thinking and a scientific mind, not to delusion. You’re the one who believes in all sorts of supernatural hocus-pocus. I’m fine with that but don’t call other people delusional until you show why others shouldn’t think you are delusional.
In any debate responses aren’t nullified unless someone offers nullification. That’s how it works. Claiming something has been nullified when it hasn’t is what is an unnecessary diversion. So is avoiding my questions.
Why is a woman having the right to choose not to get pregnant and people having the right to have sex without having children or being ready to have children “cheating the system” exactly? What “system” are you talking about? You don’t know where I think this right comes from? It’s the law, that’s where it comes from. I don’t have the right to do something because I like it. But I don’t like doing things society doesn’t approve of anyway.
Abortion is not murder no matter how many times you make that claim. Abortion is legal which means it is not murder. A woman does indeed have the right in this country to prevent that fetus (not baby) from progressing to independent life. You don’t have the right to tell women they must usher an unwanted child into the world. One could easily come to the conclusion that your views on forced parenthood and women’s rights reflect how ugly you are.
You asked: “If gay marriage can be made legal, why not the other types of marriages?” The kinds of marriages I already mentioned that are illegal are unacceptable to society because they are considered to be harmful relationships. Society’s views are not going to change on this because of that fact. The laws are made to protect people. Gay people are not harming themselves or anyone else by having their relationship recognized by the state.
Studies of the brain do not show that there are differences in the brains of murderers and non-murderers or incestuous people and regular folk. These studies have been done too so another one of your desperate arguments fails miserably. You should probably know what you are talking about before you make absurd statements that let everyone else know you do not. Brains can change and in many cases they should? Some aspects, defects and injuries of the brain are permanent.
If you lived in a Muslim nation then you would expect it to be Muslim? What is wrong with a pluralistic society that embraces no particular religion? A state can indeed avoid reflecting the population’s religious views at least to a great degree. The United States is a good example much to your chagrin.
Just because I said some mistakes aren’t that serious and implied some can even be beneficial in the long run does not mean I don’t have a problem with people getting killed and treated unfairly. That is the old slippery slope argument. The inferences you draw from what I say are not only untrue some of them are bizarre. They definitely reflect the fact that you have no good arguments or responses to anything I post.
Here is another argument that you made that could be made by anyone: “I take a risk in the direction I believe God wills. It takes little thought in the moment if you have prepared by living a reverent lifestyle.” I take a risk in the direction I believe is best. It takes little thought in the moment if you have prepared by living a lifestyle based on critical thinking. Or replace I take a risk in the direction I believe God wills, with what Allah wills, or what Buddha said or my pastor wants. Sure people have to take risks but this in no way means one has to take a leap of faith. It makes much more sense to make an educated guess than a leap of faith.
I love this: “It’s just the usual atheistic tactic of using delusional grandiose claims (of mental ability, talent, honesty, etc) to justify their belief system.” First of all atheism isn’t a belief system. It is a lack of belief in any Gods. You speak of grandiose claims. I have news for you, mental ability, talent and honesty are things that can be measured objectively. You believe in a lot of things that are only supported by some really grandiose claims and nothing else and you make a lot of absurd claims yourself. Holding these beliefs of yours and calling others delusional because they don’t would be okay if you could show that you aren’t the delusional one. You aren’t doing that.
You said, “I claimed to be faithful of God’s existence (honest). You claimed that God probably doesn’t exist (deluded).” You have it backwards. I claimed that God probably doesn’t exist (honest). You claimed to be faithful to God’s existence (deluded). The weakness of your arguments is incredible. Why bother if that’s all you have to say?
How does not caring if God exists translate into admitting to not caring about people suffering in the world? It doesn’t. You just make things up because you have no answers for atheists or atheism. That doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t any it just means you don’t have any. I’m very concerned with human suffering. There is way too much suffering in the world that apparently your God cares little about. You say a real God is the only real hope for suffering. Then why doesn’t God do something to ease some of the human suffering in the world?
The things you say: “The evidence is your failure – your near endlessly long string of failures.” How is YOUR lack of evidence my failure exactly? You are right. I don’t feel the need to repent of any sins to a deity I don’t believe exists. Why should I? If you’re not nice Santa won’t bring you any presents. Your threat that I have a 100% chance of failure only reflects your own failure to convince me of anything you want to, your failure to defend any of your outrageous claims and your failure to adequately respond to anything I’ve posted. People aren’t lying or ugly nor are they doomed to failure because they don’t share your views. Your hateful, immature responses really make me sick. I’d rather not continue this conversation and I won’t unless you can remain civil. Your inability to successfully challenge my arguments and defend your own is highlighted when instead of attempting to criticize a worldview you do not comprehend and ideas you cannot understand you attack the character of someone you do not know.
Post 82 – Gurgus: I said faith produces real world results but I also said they were not always positive results and I mentioned some that aren’t. You have conveniently ignored that. Why not be honest?
Faith that produces completely positive results indicates true religion. How have you missed that one?
Gurgus: When I said all of my beliefs could be changed you know very well I was talking about specific beliefs that my worldview includes.
Wrong. When you say all I should not imagine there are particular constraints. I read your writing for what it is – if you have a problem, then you need to re-write – focusing on accuracy rather than false impressions.
Gurgus: However if you want to split hairs and erect straw man arguments I can play that game.
That is not a game I’m willing to play with you. Play on your own if you like.
Gurgus: The definition of murder is to kill with intent.
That is inaccurate/incomplete.
Gurgus: The Death Penalty is an example of killing a human being with intent.
Yes, but this doesn’t fall under “murder”. The death penalty is justified.
Gurgus: Do you support the Death Penalty? Why?
Yes. Because I support justice.
Gurgus: If murder isn’t wrong because humans have deemed it wrong then why is it wrong?
That’s God’s law.
Gurgus: You said: “God doesn’t command us to violate His commandments.” Oh really? Then why is Jesus reported to have said: (Luke 19:17).”
That’s not Luke 19:17, so cite it correctly at least. Note the context before you bring scripture up as well, so we don’t have to waste any time. But anyway it would make sense that only evil-doers would reject Jesus’ sovereignty – and evil-doers do get the death penalty, you said so yourself.
Gurgus: In the Old Testament God repeatedly gives orders that entire populations be annihilated including women and children and prisoners of war.
God gives justified commands – like the death penalty – that do not violate His other commands.
Gurgus: Even in wartime that is considered murder.
Justified killing is never considered murder.
Gurgus: How do you know God will not make these sorts of demands on believers again?
God has always made justified demands of believers and He always will.
Gurgus: Again, what would you do if He did?
I am a servant of God, I hope to do God’s will as best I can.
Gurgus: I’ve already shown that in some instances God does indeed command people to violate His commandments.
You haven’t shown anything, as I have just shown.
Gurgus: The conclusions one would have to make from the statistics I presented are obvious.
Only for a rambunctious nitwit who doesn’t know how to interpret statistics. Do I need to send you to the site on bread statistics again?
Gurgus: Atheists are not lacking in morals and ethics as you have falsely implied.
Yes they are lacking. They work to benefit themselves. Appearing good or doing evil when it benefits them.
Gurgus: The fact that someone uses statistics and facts is a testament to critical thinking and a scientific mind, not to delusion.
You misuse statistics. You are not scientific or a critical thinker in that regard – you are delusional.
Gurgus: I’m fine with that but don’t call other people delusional until you show why others shouldn’t think you are delusional.
Just learn how to use statistics and you won’t get called out on it.
Gurgus: Claiming something has been nullified when it hasn’t is what is an unnecessary diversion. So is avoiding my questions.
I’m glad to see you have stopped arguing the point that I nullified.
Gurgus: Why is a woman having the right to choose not to get pregnant and people having the right to have sex without having children or being ready to have children “cheating the system” exactly?
I support a womans right to choose not to get pregnant. She simply has to avoid sex. People in general don’t have the right to have sex free from reproducing. Sex is for reproducing, so to have sex and not reproduce likely involves cheating the system (some people are infertile). It requires technology to achieve.
Gurgus: What “system” are you talking about?
Umm, nature. In nature sex leads to conception.
Gurgus: You don’t know where I think this right comes from?
No, of course not.
Gurgus: It’s the law, that’s where it comes from.
Man’s law. You could fabricate it, if you were in a position of power and were influential.
Gurgus: I don’t have the right to do something because I like it.
I know, but then again – you said you do.
Gurgus: But I don’t like doing things society doesn’t approve of anyway.
So now you’re a sheep?
Gurgus: Abortion is not murder no matter how many times you make that claim.
Abortion is not a good or a neutral thing, its a bad thing. It should be strongly avoided. Only the best justifications should make it sufferable.
Gurgus: Abortion is legal which means it is not murder.
That’s not what legal means. The Nazis considered it legal to murder Jews.
Gurgus: A woman does indeed have the right in this country to prevent that fetus (not baby) from progressing to independent life.
You’re saying a woman has the right to be evil.
Gurgus: You don’t have the right to tell women they must usher an unwanted child into the world.
Freedom of speech, right? I can tell them they should birth their babies. I think women should love their babies, I’ll say that too.
Gurgus: One could easily come to the conclusion that your views on forced parenthood and women’s rights reflect how ugly you are.
Right. Women, love your babies. Welp, now I’m ugly.
Gurgus: The kinds of marriages I already mentioned that are illegal are unacceptable to society because they are considered to be harmful relationships.
Homosexual marriage was illegal for that same reason, so you have provided no reason that the other unions won’t be seen in the same light.
Gurgus: Society’s views are not going to change on this because of that fact.
Society’s views changed about homosexual marriages and it can change about the other ones too.
Gurgus: The laws are made to protect people. Gay people are not harming themselves or anyone else by having their relationship recognized by the state.
So these other types of unions should be equally allowed then.
Gurgus: Studies of the brain do not show that there are differences in the brains of murderers and non-murderers or incestuous people and regular folk.
Reveal your sources first.
Gurgus: These studies have been done too so another one of your desperate arguments fails miserably.
Your point has not been shown, reveal your sources before jumping to any rash conclusions.
Gurgus: You should probably know what you are talking about before you make absurd statements that let everyone else know you do not.
I discuss with the intent of learning, so your advice is unhelpful. You still haven’t cited your sources and shown that you are knowledgable rather than ignorant. At least now we all know your top priority is self-preservation.
Gurgus: Brains can change and in many cases they should? Some aspects, defects and injuries of the brain are permanent.
Which ones? Cite your sources.
Gurgus: What is wrong with a pluralistic society that embraces no particular religion?
Time will tell. I think Mike would say that society will collapse – of course so will one that embraces untrue religion.
Gurgus: A state can indeed avoid reflecting the population’s religious views at least to a great degree. The United States is a good example much to your chagrin.
In God We Trust, “one nation under God”, etc.
Gurgus: I take a risk in the direction I believe is best.
That is a matter of faith – your belief of what is best.
Gurgus: It takes little thought in the moment if you have prepared by living a lifestyle based on critical thinking.
That is not true, because reliable/true critical thought requires a great deal of time (more time than anyone has) – and much thought in the moment (more information than anyone has).
Gurgus: Or replace I take a risk in the direction I believe God wills, with what Allah wills, or what Buddha said or my pastor wants.
Faith, faith, faith…
Gurgus: Sure people have to take risks but this in no way means one has to take a leap of faith. It makes much more sense to make an educated guess than a leap of faith.
My leap of faith is an educated guess. I don’t know what distinction you think you are making here.
Gurgus: First of all atheism isn’t a belief system. It is a lack of belief in any Gods.
Do you or don’t you believe in God? Don’t dance around coward.
Gurgus: I have news for you, mental ability, talent and honesty are things that can be measured objectively.
The fruits of someone’s belief system can too be weighed.
Gurgus: You believe in a lot of things that are only supported by some really grandiose claims and nothing else and you make a lot of absurd claims yourself.
I believe in God. My faith produces real world results – fruits that can be weighed and sold at market.
Gurgus: Holding these beliefs of yours and calling others delusional because they don’t would be okay if you could show that you aren’t the delusional one. You aren’t doing that.
I don’t have to show that I’m not the delusional one (innocent until proven guilty). The fruits of your faith are rotten and would be rejected by the sane.
Gurgus: You have it backwards. I claimed that God probably doesn’t exist (honest).
Wrong. Back up your claim for once. Your creating a probability from thin air because you are deluded and a liar.
Gurgus: You claimed to be faithful to God’s existence (deluded).
That’s right. I am faithful of God’s existence – I’m not mistaken or deluded in that claim.
Gurgus: The weakness of your arguments is incredible. Why bother if that’s all you have to say?
You swapped some words around and now you’re patting yourself on the back – that’s just another example of your delusion.
Gurgus: I’m very concerned with human suffering.
Only your own human suffering.
Gurgus: There is way too much suffering in the world that apparently your God cares little about.
What do you know about God?
Gurgus: You say a real God is the only real hope for suffering. Then why doesn’t God do something to ease some of the human suffering in the world?
It’s called heaven. Goo-goo-gah-gah…am I speaking your language yet?
Gurgus: How is YOUR lack of evidence my failure exactly?
Your failures are your evidence. I have no lack of evidence because I have plenty of failures.
Gurgus: You are right.
Yea, I know.
Gurgus: I don’t feel the need to repent of any sins to a deity I don’t believe exists. Why should I?
I already spelled that out.
Gurgus: If you’re not nice Santa won’t bring you any presents.
I have never gotten presents from Santa, but I have gotten piles and piles of presents from people who know me.
Gurgus: Your threat that I have a 100% chance of failure only reflects your own failure to convince me of anything you want to, your failure to defend any of your outrageous claims and your failure to adequately respond to anything I’ve posted.
It isn’t a threat, it’s a simple fact. I’m not trying to force you to believe me. I’m just presenting my side of the story.
Gurgus: People aren’t lying or ugly nor are they doomed to failure because they don’t share your views.
You are a liar because you lie. You are ugly because you are evil. You are doomed to failure because you believe in yourself before God.
Gurgus: Your hateful, immature responses really make me sick.
It’s called tough love, not hate. I want the best for you.
Gurgus: I’d rather not continue this conversation and I won’t unless you can remain civil.
You are welcome to stop at any time, but I have a duty to continue fulfilling my role.
Gurgus: Your inability to successfully challenge my arguments and defend your own is highlighted when instead of attempting to criticize a worldview you do not comprehend and ideas you cannot understand you attack the character of someone you do not know.
Your worldview is indicative of your character. The fact that you lie and misrepresent is indicative of your character. I think your arguments are toast, so I’ll be expecting a big response. If you think your arguments are unphased, then you need not respond at all.
B Baggins, I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on your belief that “justifiable killing” of human beings is not the same thing as murder.
I want your thoughts on what the differences between the two are.
Did Cyrus go to heaven? He was, after all, an “anointed one” of God – the same word that we now translate as Messiah (see Isaiah 45:1). He was arguably the most praised king in the Bible. He was neither a Jew nor a Christian. Yet he did the will of God more completely than many in others in the Bible.
Baggins,
If the Death Penalty doesn’t fall under murder because it is justified then neither does abortion because the law justifies that too. Murder is wrong because we humans have deemed it wrong. The law of a God of a particular religion has no authority over human societies. None whatsoever.
I cited Luke 19:27 from memory without checking to make sure I got the chapter and verse correct. Big deal. I clearly showed that you were incorrect by citing a verse you obviously didn’t know was even in the Bible when you stated that God would never tell anyone to break his commandments. Your response couldn’t have been better: “But anyway it would make sense that only evil-doers would reject Jesus’ sovereignty – and evil-doers do get the death penalty, you said so yourself.” In your religiously biased view anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus, doubts he even existed or never even heard of him is automatically an evildoer and deserves the death penalty. Then you qualify this hateful statement by claiming that I said so myself. I said I support the death penalty for certain crimes which to get specific would be for murder and then only under certain circumstances. Unlike you, I don’t support it for not being a member of a particular religion. You were born too late. You would have loved to live a few hundred years ago when Christians just like you hunted down unbelievers and threatened, intimidated, arrested, tortured, imprisoned and murdered them simply for the supposed crime of honest disbelief. People with your exact same views burned witches. People like you would make the study of nature a capital crime even today if you could get away with it.
I’m glad you finally admitted that if you believed that God wanted you to kill defenseless women and children you would do it. I really didn’t think you would be honest enough to admit it. Then you even admitted that you thought that killing women, children and prisoners of war is justified if it is done under the banner of your particular religion. You gotta love those positive results from religious faith.
After I proved that atheists do not lack good morals and ethics just because they are atheists you respond with this statement: “Yes they are lacking. They work to benefit themselves. Appearing good or doing evil when it benefits them.” Once again you have described religionists, not atheists. How many more religious leaders, televangelists or Christian congressmen do we have to expose as criminals and cheats always appearing good or doing evil when it benefits them? Sorry but once again you walked right into that one. This is so easy even for a rambunctious nitwit like me.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a more straightforward piece of narrow-minded bigotry, envy, jealousy, shame, frustration, sexual repression and ignorance than this: “I support a womans right to choose not to get pregnant. She simply has to avoid sex. People in general don’t have the right to have sex free from reproducing. Sex is for reproducing, so to have sex and not reproduce likely involves cheating the system (some people are infertile). It requires technology to achieve.” Your views are those of the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages. I’d say that’s where they belong but they didn’t even belong there. I’m married and I don’t want any more children. According to you I don’t have the right to have sex. I can’t believe people as backward as you still exist. Where did you get this aversion to the female form and what is it that repulses you about intimacy exactly?
You said: “Man’s law. You could fabricate it, if you were in a position of power and were influential.” You mean like how men fabricated the ancient Hebrew laws and claimed they were from God because they were in a position of power when they actually copied most of them from the Babylonians? The only laws we have on this earth are man’s laws. Man’s law is all the law we’ve ever had and it’s the only law we will ever have unless aliens invade earth and subjugate us to their law.
Here you really corner yourself: “ Abortion is not a good or a neutral thing, its a bad thing. It should be strongly avoided. Only the best justifications should make it sufferable.” But you insist abortion is murder. So this is a case in which a fetus that you insist is an innocent person can be justifiably murdered. It might be a whole lot easier for you anti-choice people to back off your claim that abortion is murder than corner yourself and have to justify the murder of an “innocent child” as you put it.
Women are not evil because they get a legal medical procedure. Evil is trying to force parenthood on people who don’t want to be parents or are not ready to. A child has a right to be wanted by their parents.
This illustrates the problem in debating fundamentalist Christians. You said: “Society’s views changed about homosexual marriages and it can change about the other ones too.” No deal buddy. I just raised a clear refutation to that claim and showed why this would not happen. It is one thing to disagree but another to go on yammering about the same point without first responding to my objection after being clearly refuted. I’m used to it though. It’s standard ploy used by people who try to defend the indefensible and have no arguments. And you have none. Your attacks on my character are proof of that. People don’t attack people personally when they are winning or making points in a debate but only when they are losing and have no arguments.
I don’t need to reveal any sources to prove what I said is true. You know it is because you already checked the Internet yourself hoping to catch me in a lie. Your leap is an uneducated guess, NOT an educated one at all.
What is this supposed to mean? You said: “Do you or don’t you believe in God? Don’t dance around coward.” I’m an atheist. I do not believe there is a God. I don’t believe in any other of your religion’s invisible entities or places either. I don’t believe in angels, devils, demons, seraphs, Satan, heaven, hell – none of it. And I’m not the coward. I’m well aware that people think I’ll go to hell for not being able to buy into their religion. I’m not the least bit afraid. Why not? Because I’m not a coward. Anyone who lets someone else convince them to adopt a set of religious beliefs to avoid going to hell is truly a coward. Know anyone like that? Check the mirror. Other religions than Christianity and Islam always give people better reasons to convert than that. Once again another of your arguments comes back to bite you.
I’m not suffering so I’m not concerned with my own suffering at the present. I donate time, work and money to one particular humanitarian organization and have given to charities all my life.. I don’t need to imagine a God wants me to do this. I do it of my own volition which makes what I do acts of human kindness and makes what ever good works you do simply acts of obedience. That clearly illustrates the superiority of my moral and ethical standards over yours. I do good because I want to and you only do good because you think you have to. Would you do any good works if you thought there was no God? Of course you wouldn’t. Be honest.
These are the words of someone who has no answers: “You are a liar because you lie. You are ugly because you are evil. You are doomed to failure because you believe in yourself before God.”
You attacked my character and accused me of lying and misrepresenting. I’ve done neither. If you are going to make those accusations back them up. What lies did I tell and what did I misrepresent? Don’t post another comment until you address this issue. I don’t appreciate that at all. It’s called defamation of character and it happens to be illegal according to both man’s and your God’s law.
You have been convinced by other people that believing in the invisible and unknowable is more important than understanding the perceivable, that personal faith is more important than critical thinking, that not asking questions is a liberating act of love and trust, that believing things with no evidence is not only okay but a positive virtue and that not believing these things is evil, that un-falsifiable hypotheses are proof of your beliefs and that what your God supposedly says about the world in a collection of untrue stories is more real than what’s in the world itself. When people are taught that believing things without proof or evidence makes you a good person, they become far more vulnerable to fraud, manipulation, and deception. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered anyone who has been more manipulated or deceived by other human beings than you have. I’d feel sorry for you but your nastiness prevents me from doing so.
Gurgus: In your religiously biased view anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus, doubts he even existed or never even heard of him is automatically an evildoer and deserves the death penalty
That is a false statement. I’m not eager to kill people or that people be killed. The people who deserve death are the ones who are dedicated to murder/death/kill – e.g. people who love sin.
Gurgus: People with your exact same views burned witches. People like you would make the study of nature a capital crime even today if you could get away with it.
That is a false statement. I leave justice in the hands of God when I’m faced with trouble/unfairness. I do act to counter evil against other people (esp. innocent people). I wouldn’t attack you just because you have different beliefs than I. I would only attack you with a just cause – like if you were being evil to someone.
Gurgus: I’m glad you finally admitted that if you believed that God wanted you to kill defenseless women and children you would do it.
I don’t know all of the circumstances involved with these types of events. I take it that the population to be combated was evil. The women, if left, would raise their children to be evil. The children, if left, would be helpless orphans in a wilderness without parents and would have been faced with torturous/lethal conditions. Societies back then were probably living a little more on the edge – they couldn’t so easily adopt an evil population’s children to raise. And I don’t know, if they even did that the children still may grow up tainted and live horrible lives. I not only believe that what God ordered COULD be the best thing possible, it believe it was.
Gurgus: How many more religious leaders, televangelists or Christian congressmen do we have to expose as criminals and cheats always appearing good or doing evil when it benefits them? Sorry but once again you walked right into that one.
I don’t learn from those kinds of people, because I seek God. I know that there are corrupt people and fakes within “the faith”.
Gurgus: This is so easy even for a rambunctious nitwit like me.
Hey, take it easy on yourself pal (seriously).
Gurgus: I’m married and I don’t want any more children. According to you I don’t have the right to have sex. I can’t believe people as backward as you still exist. Where did you get this aversion to the female form and what is it that repulses you about intimacy exactly?
Why don’t you want more children? I love the female form, I love intimacy, and I love children. I don’t understand why you’d force/pressure/encourage your wife to have an abortion, if it came to that, so you can have sex without the consequences. I think that’s sick.
Gurgus: You mean like how men fabricated the ancient Hebrew laws and claimed they were from God because they were in a position of power when they actually copied most of them from the Babylonians?
No. I don’t mean that at all and you know it.
Gurgus: Women are not evil because they get a legal medical procedure.
Does that mean the Nazis aren’t evil too?
Gurgus: Evil is trying to force parenthood on people who don’t want to be parents or are not ready to.
People are sick. I can’t believe an upstanding guy like you would support this. You’ll kill a baby to make your life more convenient.
Gurgus: A child has a right to be wanted by their parents.
If some child isn’t wanted he doesn’t have the right to live? Your sick along with those horrible baby-killers.
Gurgus: But you insist abortion is murder. So this is a case in which a fetus that you insist is an innocent person can be justifiably murdered. It might be a whole lot easier for you anti-choice people to back off your claim that abortion is murder than corner yourself and have to justify the murder of an “innocent child” as you put it.
Who cares about fiddling around with technicalities at this point. If the baby will kill the mother, then maybe I’d consider abortion a possibility – e.g. if I was the doctor, maybe I’d try to save the mother’s life if I had the chance. I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts on that point. But some mothers are willing to die so their babies can live. Anyway, the vast majority of abortions are done for the sickest, most idiotic reasons. People are vile and self-centered. I don’t know why you want to be a part of that.
Gurgus – Re: other types of unions: No deal buddy. I just raised a clear refutation to that claim and showed why this would not happen.
You said some people think those other unions are harmful. People thought the same about homosexual unions. What’s the difference? I don’t see your clear refutation.
Gurgus: You know it is because you already checked the Internet yourself hoping to catch me in a lie.
Ha-ha – good one.
Gurgus: Your leap is an uneducated guess, NOT an educated one at all.
What? C’mon, cut me some slack bro. My leap of faith is producing good results. You should educate yourself on that.
Gurgus: I’m an atheist. I do not believe there is a God. I don’t believe in any other of your religion’s invisible entities or places either. I don’t believe in angels, devils, demons, seraphs, Satan, heaven, hell – none of it. And I’m not the coward.
If you aren’t the coward then stop bringing up that your simply lack a belief in ___.
Gurgus: I’m well aware that people think I’ll go to hell for not being able to buy into their religion. I’m not the least bit afraid. Why not? Because I’m not a coward.
Good for you. I don’t fear hell, I just love God.
Gurgus: Anyone who lets someone else convince them to adopt a set of religious beliefs to avoid going to hell is truly a coward. Know anyone like that? Check the mirror.
Ha-ha. No, I don’t know anyone like that Gurgus – and I did check the mirror, it was only me. I didn’t start down the road of faith on account of any fear of hell. I did it because I wanted to do the best I can with my life. God has honed me quite a bit, and it has been painful (not as in self-whipping) – but I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
Gurgus: Other religions than Christianity and Islam always give people better reasons to convert than that. Once again another of your arguments comes back to bite you.
I wouldn’t go that far.
Gurgus: I’m not suffering so I’m not concerned with my own suffering at the present. I donate time, work and money to one particular humanitarian organization and have given to charities all my life..
Good, good. I hope you keep it up. I hope you push your charitable limits even. Quite wasting your time with that pro-sports addiction of yours for one thing.
Gurgus: I don’t need to imagine a God wants me to do this. I do it of my own volition which makes what I do acts of human kindness and makes what ever good works you do simply acts of obedience.
My good actions are examples of my obedience to God, yes. If it wasn’t for God I wouldn’t even be here talking to you. I don’t believe for a second that you are just good.
Gurgus: That clearly illustrates the superiority of my moral and ethical standards over yours. I do good because I want to and you only do good because you think you have to.
How could that be? I’m a servant to God by choice. God doesn’t force me to do good works for Him.
Gurgus: Would you do any good works if you thought there was no God? Of course you wouldn’t. Be honest.
Hell no, I would just let myself die.
Gurgus: You attacked my character and accused me of lying and misrepresenting. I’ve done neither.
You did both – again. Misrepresenting yourself, lying about yourself…
Gurgus: If you are going to make those accusations back them up.
You said God probably doesn’t exist. You misused jail statistics to boost your viewpoint. Need I go on? I could for days and you know it – just tell me more about your beliefs and your life.
Gurgus: What lies did I tell and what did I misrepresent?
Been there done that.
Gurgus: Don’t post another comment until you address this issue.
Fat chance. It just so happens this comment addresses the issue you are so interested in…
Gurgus: I don’t appreciate that at all. It’s called defamation of character and it happens to be illegal according to both man’s and your God’s law.
I don’t appreciate you lying and misrepresenting. You are breaking God’s law, and I may as well call you out on it. It may do you some good to realize who the real you is. Take off that pretty mask. Or go look at your portrait Dorian.
Gurgus: You have been convinced by other people that believing in the invisible and unknowable is more important than understanding the perceivable, that personal faith is more important than critical thinking, that not asking questions is a liberating act of love and trust, that believing things with no evidence is not only okay but a positive virtue and that not believing these things is evil, that un-falsifiable hypotheses are proof of your beliefs and that what your God supposedly says about the world in a collection of untrue stories is more real than what’s in the world itself.
And who have you been convinced by – the evidence? You don’t have a lick of data in that head of yours, just a bad attitude. I like critical thinking and all – it led me to faith in God. I ask questions. Sometimes I even doubt people – especially if they have a poor history. I don’t believe in anything without evidence. I see the path that Jesus laid out for us. It is brilliant. I understand enough to see that it is beautiful. I sought that straight and narrow myself and real world results have resulted. These enforce my faith. The fact that you reject this while knowing full well that you’re wrong is what is evil. You have other priorities in life man, and that’s your fault. And finally, I live in the real world. My faith works here.
Gurgus: When people are taught that believing things without proof or evidence makes you a good person, they become far more vulnerable to fraud, manipulation, and deception. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered anyone who has been more manipulated or deceived by other human beings than you have. I’d feel sorry for you but your nastiness prevents me from doing so.
This is an educated guess – not a blind leap of faith. I have not been deceived – I can see the fruits of my faith and weigh them against the Scripture.
Perhaps you’re getting better old fella. At least your posts don’t seem as hateful as they used to be. You’re my friend now, am I right?
John: B Baggins, I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on your belief that “justifiable killing” of human beings is not the same thing as murder.
I want your thoughts on what the differences between the two are.
Killing is only ever considered permissible if is to stop evil, I guess.
Murderers kill for stupid reasons – rage, revenge, etc. – and should be stopped.
Kash: Did Cyrus go to heaven? He was, after all, an “anointed one” of God – the same word that we now translate as Messiah (see Isaiah 45:1). He was arguably the most praised king in the Bible. He was neither a Jew nor a Christian. Yet he did the will of God more completely than many in others in the Bible.
I wonder how Cyrus would react to the idea of God.
Thank you for your thoughts B. Baggins.
Baggins,
You said that societies back at the time Bible speaks of people were probably living a little more on the edge – they couldn’t so easily adopt an evil population’s children to raise. Apparently the Hebrews under orders from Moses who supposedly got his orders from God found a way to adopt all the teenage virgin girls for obvious reasons while slaughtering all their relatives in front of them. Somehow though the people who were massacred except for the young girls are the “evil population.” Have you ever bothered to read the Old Testament past the first few chapters of Genesis?
You claim not to learn from corrupt people and fakes within the “faith.” How do you know for sure the people you learn from aren’t corrupt or fake? Please don’t tell me you “test everything in the light of scripture.” All the false teachers use the Bible to support their teachings or no one would listen to them. That’s why I trust science over faith. Science has to be fair, honest, above board and always ready to admit and correct its errors and revise its theories. If scientists are caught faking research or laboratory results to support a doubtful or false hypothesis they know their careers are over. Not so with religious spokespeople who are caught in various compromising situations or lies.
You love the female form, intimacy and children. Do you have any of those things at the present?
The problem with religionists such as your self is that you judge people before you know them and situations before you understand them. Why I don’t want more children is beside the point. What makes you assume I’d force my wife to get an abortion or even try to? My wife doesn’t want any more children either and if she were to get pregnant she would get an abortion no matter what I wanted her to do. The only person being forced or pressured would be me to pay for it.
There is no comparison between a woman getting a legal medical procedure and the Nazis. The Nazis killed to spread their ideology. Women have been having abortions since human beings have existed. People who have and perform abortions are not baby killers. Abortions are legal procedures, terminating a pregnancy is not murder and fetuses are not babies. Unless you can purposely misrepresent your case by calling things what they are not, you really have no case.
As far as I’m concerned the vast majority of people who oppose legal abortions do so for the sickest most idiotic reasons. The biggest reason is religious faith based anti-feminism coming from a very patriarchal religion. Most people who oppose a woman’s right to control her own body like you have a shallow understanding of the issues. Interestingly these people who claim to oppose abortions get abortions themselves and at the same rate everyone else does.
It doesn’t matter what some people thought or think about legalized homosexual unions. They are not harmful to the people involved but only to sensibilities and fears of narrow minded, uneducated bigots.
Saying God probably doesn’t exist and using statistics to prove a point is not lying or misrepresenting anything especially since you have offered absolutely nothing to refute either of those things. Prove God probably exists and supply some statistics that support your claim that I misused statistics. You’re not going to even come close to doing either thing. So yes you need to go on and go on for days because you are already being willfully deceitful and misrepresenting. Please continue because you are knowingly breaking God’s law.
You said: “You don’t have a lick of data in that head of yours, just a bad attitude.” All that statement does is reflects your bad attitude. You don’t know what I know or don’t know. Your mind has to be really warped by religious nonsense if you think people reject your faith knowing full well they’re wrong. Do you think people believe in hell and then actually risk getting sent there? Because if you do you aren’t thinking at all you are letting other equally unthinking people do your thinking for you. You cannot even conceive of why 5 billion people on this earth don’t believe in your God and 2 billion don’t believe in any God at all. To you they’re all just evil. Not even bothering to find out why so many people don’t believe what you do and then just criminalizing them all because they don’t is just about as evil as a person can get. And YOU talk about someone not having a lick of data in their head.
Then you say this: “You’re my friend now, am I right?” Are you kidding? I choose my friends carefully. You are a rude, narrow-minded bigot. You are a discredit to the Christian faith and probably an embarrassment to some of the other Christians on this blog. If I were considering converting to Christianity, talking to you would have convinced me not to. Ever. Are these the kinds of real world results that have resulted, as you put it, from your faith, the faith that is the evidence for what you believe? Yeah, your faith works here all right. For what exactly?
Baggins: “I wonder how Cyrus would react to the idea of God.”
You don’t have to wonder. Tradition maintains that Cyrus was a practitioner of Zorastrianism. A cylinder was discovered in 1878 at the site of Babylon, inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform. Now housed in the British Museum, it includes a detailed account by Cyrus of his conquest of Babylon in 539BCE and his subsequent humane treatment of his conquered subjects. It has been hailed as the world’s first declaration of human rights. The (incomplete) inscription on the cylinder starts by describing the criminal deeds of the Babylonian king Nabonidus; as well as how Marduk, the Babylonian god, had looked for a new king and chosen Cyrus. It continues with the famous: “I am Cyrus, king of the world, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world” After a description of Cyrus’ ancestry and of royal protocol, it goes on to explain how Cyrus established peace and abolished forced labour: “The people of Babylon . . . the shameful yoke was removed from them” The inscription continues by detailing reparative building activities in Babylon as well as asking for prayers for Cyrus. It makes specific reference to the Jews, who have been brought to Babylon – and who Cyrus supported in leaving for their homeland. Further demonstrating his religious tolerance, Cyrus restored the local cults by allowing the gods to return to their shrines. The cylinder describes the Great King not as a conqueror, but as a liberator and the legitimate successor to the crown of Mesopotamia. The same text has also been found, in a more complete version, in an inscription discovered in the ancient city of Ur, in Mesopotamia. Both documents corroborate many of the details in Ezra 1:1-5 describing Cyrus supporting the Jews in returning to Judea from captivity to rebuild the Temple in 537BCE. Isaiah 45:1-13 also backs up the idea of Cyrus as a benign and chosen ruler. The Cyrus Cylinder, alongside the Biblical and other historical statements, seems to substantiate the idea that Cyrus not only allowed many of the nations he conquered to practice their various religious beliefs – an unprecedented tolerance – but that he even actively assisted captive peoples, including the Jews, to return to their lands of origin. This support was not only political but even financial – as he gave grants both from the Imperial treasury and also from his own personal fortune. The Cylinder has especial resonance for the Iranian peoples and is an integral part of Iran’s cultural heritage and national identity. Antedating the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen by more than two millennia, it can also be considered as a world treasure – and the first international declaration of human rights. The text was translated into all the United Nations’ official languages in 1971.
Gurgus: Apparently the Hebrews under orders from Moses who supposedly got his orders from God found a way to adopt all the teenage virgin girls for obvious reasons while slaughtering all their relatives in front of them.
I don’t remember this part – where can I find it?
Gurgus: Have you ever bothered to read the Old Testament past the first few chapters of Genesis?
I’ve read the Bible more than once, but haven’t memorized it yet.
Gurgus: How do you know for sure the people you learn from aren’t corrupt or fake?
I look at the fruits of their faith. I actually don’t yet know a teacher that I find completely acceptable. Instead I just try to learn what I can from everyone.
Gurgus: That’s why I trust science over faith. Science has to be fair, honest, above board and always ready to admit and correct its errors and revise its theories.
That’s like replacing an apple with an orange.
Gurgus: You love the female form, intimacy and children. Do you have any of those things at the present?
I have a wife and close friends. I interact with children – nieces, nephews, etc., but no sons or daughters yet. Do you require that I own women and children?
Gurgus: Why I don’t want more children is beside the point.
I don’t think so.
Gurgus: My wife doesn’t want any more children either and if she were to get pregnant she would get an abortion no matter what I wanted her to do.
I don’t think I’d be very interested in a woman who would act like that.
Gurgus: There is no comparison between a woman getting a legal medical procedure and the Nazis.
Yes there is, because legality doesn’t equal goodness. The Nazis were working within legal constraints, but were evil – just like all the women out there who are getting abortions for terrible reasons (e.g. to make their lives convenient, in their own mind).
Gurgus: Women have been having abortions since human beings have existed.
The length of time that this crime has been occurring is irrelevant (tradition for tradition’s sake). This is an old whore’s trick.
Gurgus: Abortions are legal procedures, terminating a pregnancy is not murder and fetuses are not babies.
Abortions should be illegal – except, perhaps, in the most extreme cases. Abortion is not a healthy practice – it’s a sick one. Fetuses are essential to humanity, but people treat them worse than animals. You excuse the killings as the killing of a “potential human”. Babies, toddlers, children and teens are potential humans too – yet to be fully developed and grown. They all have unique identities, they’re all growing…I don’t believe it’s alright to consider any of these expendable.
A ball held in the air has potential energy. The instant after it is dropped it has both kinetic energy and potential energy. In the same way when a child is conceived you could say it has potential humanity and real humanity. As it grows the potential humanity is being converted into real – so abortions are just as much murder as the killing of a toddler – you’re still murdering real humanity and it is bad.
Gurgus: Most people who oppose a woman’s right to control her own body like you have a shallow understanding of the issues.
You are sick. The fetus has a unique identity and real humanity – this isn’t the woman’s body, it is her baby’s body. I do not support a mother’s absolute power over her baby (i.e. I don’t support a woman killing her baby, I oppose it).
Gurgus: It doesn’t matter what some people thought or think about legalized homosexual unions. They are not harmful to the people involved but only to sensibilities and fears of narrow minded, uneducated bigots.
You’re sick. You were the one that said it matters what people think flip-flopper. Homosexuality is harmful to its participants and connected outsiders – just like all other forms of sexual immorality. Just imagine – if everyone turned homosexual or if everyone had abortions all the time the human population would die off. This suggests that there is something innately harmful to these practices.
Tangent: Should prostitution and illegal drugs be legal in your opinion – if practiced in a “safe” manner (like alcohol is)?
Gurgus: Prove God probably exists and supply some statistics that support your claim that I misused statistics. You’re not going to even come close to doing either thing
I don’t have to prove anything. You made the statistical claim and you are responsible for backing it up if you don’t want us all to think that you’re delusional. So far you’ve provided no reason for anyone to agree with you. I’m certain that you have no basis for your claim except delusion, but go ahead and try.
Gurgus: Please continue because you are knowingly breaking God’s law.
I am upholding God’s law in the face of your sinful acts. Stop the lies.
Gurgus: Your mind has to be really warped by religious nonsense if you think people reject your faith knowing full well they’re wrong.
That’s why you come to this site isn’t it? You know your wrong and you’re afraid.
Gurgus: You cannot even conceive of why 5 billion people on this earth don’t believe in your God and 2 billion don’t believe in any God at all. To you they’re all just evil.
That has never been my claim.
Gurgus: And YOU talk about someone not having a lick of data in their head.
Precisely. I don’t make claims I can’t back up, though I’m not perfect.
Gurgus: Are you kidding? I choose my friends carefully. You are a rude, narrow-minded bigot.
Well that’s too bad, I thought we were laying the groundwork for a friendship all this time.
Gurgus: You are a discredit to the Christian faith and probably an embarrassment to some of the other Christians on this blog.
I am sure to be both a discredit to the Christian faith and an embarrassment to some Christians, but I’m not here to please them. Jesus lends credit to the faith and everyone else falls short – even me.
Gurgus: If I were considering converting to Christianity, talking to you would have convinced me not to. Ever.
That’s not surprising. Jesus was known for polarizing people he encountered too. Good people loved him and bad ones hated him.
Gurgus: Are these the kinds of real world results that have resulted, as you put it, from your faith, the faith that is the evidence for what you believe? Yeah, your faith works here all right. For what exactly?
This is one sub-section of the fruits of my faith. Discussing faith in the public forum is important – even if you are interacting with an enemy to the faith.
b baggins, as for message # 92, very well said. Gurgus like Bernie fabricates his own data / history. Discussing issues of faith with him is casting pearls before swine. I have an aunt that is schizophrenic. When my niece was 14 she earned some money as a clown for children’s parties. My niece is now 30, has a post doctorate in Chemistry, and works for Proctor and Gamble in their research division. My aunt insists that my niece’s job is being a clown for children’s parties. Nothing anyone can say to her can convince her otherwise. My sister has even shown my aunt my niece’s doctorate and post doctorate work on the internet as well as the awards she has won, but still my aunt insists my niece’s profession is being a clown.
I came to think of Bernie in the same category as my aunt. Gurgus, is either Bernie, or he was cut from the same mold.
kash: “It continues with the famous: “I am Cyrus, king of the world, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world” ”
Careful kash, Gurgus will come at you with the fact that no one has ever been “king of the world” nor governed “the four quarters,” therefore the whole archeological find is a fraud. Nothing in the document can be accepted since it obviously makes a statement that when literally interpreted is false.
Baggins,
Since you don’t know your way around the Bible yet I’ll just tell you what it says: “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves” (Numbers 31 17-18). The excuse for all the ethnic cleansing commanded by God in the Bible offered by embarrassed apologists is that entire populations had to be annihilated to the last person to stem the continuation and spread of a population’s competing religion. Even the women and children had to be murdered, even the animals from some reason – but not the young virgins. Why not them too? No need to get graphic. We all know why.
What is so funny about the story in Numbers is that it obviously isn’t true. The Midianites who were completely annihilated according to the Bible reappear in Judges just a generation later so numerous they were locusts on the land. Now how is that possible may I ask? It’s the same with other people groups like the Amorites who were supposedly annihilated. I’ve asked many Christian apologists to explain these obvious discrepancies and they are always really embarrassed by this problem. I’ve yet to meet even one Christian who was even aware of the problem until I pointed it out to them. Evangelists rely totally on the same old tired arguments and pat answers. When they are confronted with problems they are unprepared to deal with the debate usually ends quickly with the failed evangelist yammering about how my eyes have been closed by Satan or some other religious nonsense and that they will be praying for me. It’s always amazing how easily Satan defeats people who have on “the full armor of God.” I’m hoping you’ll also realize you’re in way over your head and just give up now too.
You claim that the best evidence for your faith is the positive results you get from it. What kind of results you get from your faith says nothing about whether the religion you belong to is true or the God you have faith in is real. Muslims, Hindus, and members of other theistic religions can point to positive results they get from their faith too. Using your anti-logic we should deduce that those religions must also be true and the Gods they believe in are real too. While your argument from faith might seem sound to you I’ve just shown that it is full of holes and not a good argument at all. Your arguments could only deceive someone wanting very badly to be deceived anyway.
You say you look at the fruits of a teacher’s faith to decide whom to learn from. But as I’ve just proved that doesn’t prove that their faith is in something real or true. Why not learn from science and scientists instead? You already enjoy the fruits of diligent scientific pursuits much more than you do the fruits of all the positive results of all the religious faith there ever was every time you turn on your computer, drive your car or flush your toilet. Trusting science over faith is hardly like replacing an apple with an orange. It’s more like replacing a rotten inedible piece of boring fruit with a fresh delicious and interesting one.
Comparing someone to the Nazis is a fallacy known as Reductio ad Hitlerum and is a version of association fallacy or guilt by association. The Nazis were also Bible believing Christian fundamentalists who believed they were carrying out the will of the Christian God. So I’d be careful whom you compare your fellow fundamentalist Christians to if I were you.
Your claim that abortions should be illegal is based on ignorance of some very important facts. A recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins confirmed earlier data that shows that women who live in the countries where abortion is still illegal get abortions at the same rate women do who live in countries where abortion is legal. The difference is that almost 200 women die every day in countries where abortion is still illegal from botched abortions. Making abortions illegal does not cut down on the numbers of abortions. It would only make them more dangerous. This is why the Supreme Court made the decision they did on the Roe verses Wade case. You tell me I’m sick but your religious ideology is more important to you than the health and safety of women who choose to get abortions. You said abortion is not a healthy practice but you are willing to do everything you can to not only make it unhealthy but also dangerous. Dangerous would be people like you, your backward self-righteous thinking and the twisted religious ideology you use to support it.
Babies, toddlers, children and teens are not potential humans too. Killing a toddler is not the same thing as terminating a pregnancy. If these are the best arguments you have why waste space with them? Your arguments are full of logical fallacies, deceptive terminology, outright lies and a whole lot of nonsense. Most of all they clearly illustrate the weakness of your position for everyone to see.
You might not support a mother’s absolute power over the fetus she is carrying but what is the alternative? To give a fetus rights that contradict a woman’s rights? The law doesn’t give rights that conflict with other rights. A woman has rights and a fetus has no right to be in a woman’s body, none at all. It is there by the woman’s permission only and permissions are not rights. I’ve given this issue some careful thought and it is quite obvious you have not and wouldn’t even if you could.
Your puritanical opinions about what constitutes sexual immorality and what acts may be harmful or not has no bearing on whether gay marriage should be legal. The number of people who hold your views is insignificant anyway. The question is whether legalizing gay relationships is harmful to either the participants and or society. You haven’t shown that it is. But you haven’t been able to support any of your other ridiculous claims either.
Illegal drugs should not be legal because they are harmful to the people who use them and to society in general. I would make an exception for marijuana as I think most people would. Legalizing marijuana and prostitution would be great ways to raise tax revenues. Prostitution is legal in Nevada.
You said: “I don’t have to prove anything. You made the statistical claim and you are responsible for backing it up if you don’t want us all to think that you’re delusional. So far you’ve provided no reason for anyone to agree with you. I’m certain that you have no basis for your claim except delusion, but go ahead and try.”
The only people on this blog who accuse me of being delusional believe in magic, demons, Satan, angels and a lot of other delusions. The fact is that there are few atheists in prison, as compared to their representation in the population at large. In “The New Criminology,” Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith reported that two generations of statisticians found the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10th of 1%. W.T. Root, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said, “Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character,” adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers were absent from penitentiaries, or nearly so.
Then you said: “I am upholding God’s law in the face of your sinful acts. Stop the lies.”
What sinful acts am I committing? And again what lies have I told?
Then you said: “That’s why you come to this site isn’t it? You know your wrong and you’re afraid.”
I already stated why I’m on this blog, which is to discuss specific issues that Truth Talk Live raises here. I did not get on this blog to promote atheism, destroy anyone’s faith as you claim atheists gather and plot to do and I certainly did not get on this blog in the hopes that I’ll be converted to Christianity or talked into a relationship with Jesus by other people to use religion speak. The question then is why did you and the other fundamentalists on this site initiate conversations with an atheist that quickly turned into running debates? Could it be because it is YOU who knows there’s a very good possibility that you are wrong and that you’re very afraid? Well it though you’d never admit it for two reasons. First your inflated holier-than-thou ego wouldn’t allow it but most importantly you believe that admission would by you a one-way ticket to hell. No go ahead and tell me all about how you love critical thinking “and all.” Atheists and atheism have always been around and they are a constant reminder that the reasons for unbelief, disbelief, atheism or whatever you want to call it are simply much better than the reasons for belief. You can attack my character, taunt me with insults, post your fallacious and delusory arguments a small child could see through, ignore refutations of your claims and go through any other kinds of contortions you want but that won’t change the fact that I have the facts, I have good reasons and you have neither.
That’s right Mike. Make more claims you can’t back up and attack my character. Meanwhile of ruined a few more of your posts on the atheists and aliens threads.
Gurgus, I’ve got too many things to do these days to debate a person whose mind is slammed shut. Did you have a Happy Thanksgiving? You know the secular holiday where we are suppose to give thanks to luck. Christmas is now upon us. I am sure you will sing no carols that even come close to referencing Christ. But of course you cannot deny the fact that this is a holiday whose origins are based on Christ……yes you can deny it as your hatred of anything Christian is such that you hallucinate.
When Spring comes, you can rejoice in the Easter Bunny although that holiday too has religious overtones for our nation….but we are not a nation founded on Judaic / Christian principles.
BTW have you checked out some of my picks. KBX has more than doubled in less than 2 weeks. Little Tyhee was up 50% last week. Callinan (CAA in Canada) is busting out all over the place as is Orko Silver. Minefinders and Silvercorp, two core holdings, are finally consolidating their huge moves since this summer.
Not bad for a Christian that believes in a diety that according to you does not exist. Everyday I thank God for what he has given me to steward. I plan on only keeping what I need in the future, the rest is His. My church is going through some tough times and whatever wealth I can aquire that I do not need for myself and my family goes to the church.
Whether or not I increase wealth is unimportant, it’s not mine. Most of all my calling is to instruct people on how to protected themselves financially in this crisis that is now unfolding.
This is for everyone that reads these messages. What use to be safe, cash / cash like investments (meaning money in the bank or US government bonds) are now the riskiest. Should the dollar continue its downward slide, prices for every goods and services will surely rise. This process, which many call inflation – it isn’t, it is one of the symptoms, will steal your purchasing power as surely as someone breaking into your account and taking money.
Mike,
A person like you Mike, who won’t accept anything that conflicts with his religion’s book of magic and fairies is as closed-minded as one can get. Your mind was slammed shut by religious doctrine, fear and superstition a long time ago. Don’t you know the apologists and pastors don’t want you to use the word Easter anymore but Resurrection Sunday now? See now the general public knows that Easter is really named after Ishtar the virgin mother of the dying and resurrecting savior of the world Adonis and that this holiday like everything else in Christianity was stolen from another religion. So your religious leaders are trying to hide this fact with a little tricky name change. They’re only fooling people like you though – people who want top be deceived anyway.
I don’t know why you don’t believe in the Easter Bunny. The evidence for this magic egg delivering rabbit and its eggs is just as solid as the evidence for Jesus and his disciples. Why believe in one and not the other? Because there are no magical dire consequences for not believing in the magic rabbit right?
Finally if you knew what you claim to about the market you would be a billionaire. But I’ve read a lot of your posts and you haven’t got two nickels to rub together. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a bigger phony than you.
Gurgus: “Finally if you knew what you claim to about the market you would be a billionaire. But I’ve read a lot of your posts and you haven’t got two nickels to rub together.”
I only got interested in markets back in the mid to late 90s. I started studying and didn’t see the need as my retirement was all in a defined pension plan. The only investments I had at the time were in real estate. I started speculating a small amount of money in an IRA in 1997. The more I learned the more I realized that we were at the end of the Secular Bull Market that began in 1982. Let me back up a bit, I did indirectly have some investments in Preferred Borden Stock which I sold prior to the 87 crash. This was stock that my first wife and I had inherited from her grandfather. We sold the stock to buy a motor home. We decided to do this because her breast cancer had returned, it runs in her family. Her death 2 years later market the 13th of 14 women to have died of the disease before menopause. Anyway we sold the shares and traveled in the motor home. I did not become an active investor until the early part of 2000. I sold all my paper equities during 2000 and started to build my commodities portfolio in 2001.
Whether or not I have two nickels is not important. What is important is that I made predictions with specific targets in both time and price and lo and behold, I have been 100% correct. You can’t stand it can you? It drives you nuts that a Bible Believing Christian that gives all the Glory to God uses the Bible to make accurate predictions that actually lead to tangible benefit in this world. I rely on Him for my wisdom and know not to gamble with all that He has given me. As a steward of the wealth, and everything else, he has provided, I am to use it all wisely. So far I think I am doing a pretty good job.
I don’t expect to be the Jimmy Rogers of commodities, but I do expect to do well for my family and my church, and anything else God lays on my heart to do. I trust and depend on Him and so far He has not let me down….NOT ONCE.
Back before I accepted Christ, I depended on my own knowledge and wisdom, and I let myself down plenty of times…..I nearly destroyed my life.
So in regards to my quality of life and my outlook towards the future I am more than a Billionaire. In Christ I have wealth beyond measure, and “wealth” that was given to me free of charge. It cannot be measured in dollars, gold or silver. It is a wealth owned by all that have believed in their hearts and confessed with their mouth the Jesus is Lord and have accepted Him as savior.
What is so sad is that you too can have this peace of mind, and if you were obediant to what God says about economics and investing, you too could accumulate material wealth that in the end will be eaten by moths and rust. It is really sad, I’m having the time of my life.
Hey Mike, I’d like to receive your newsletters if you are willing to send them to me. If so:
billybaggins74@yahoo.com
Post 95 – Gurgus: The excuse for all the ethnic cleansing commanded by God in the Bible offered by embarrassed apologists is that entire populations had to be annihilated to the last person to stem the continuation and spread of a population’s competing religion.
Destruction wasn’t to stop the spread of another religion, it was to stop sin from taking over.
Gurgus: Even the women and children had to be murdered, even the animals from some reason – but not the young virgins. Why not them too? No need to get graphic. We all know why.
Can it be supposed that this group did not need to be completely destroyed, while others should have been? The young virgins and the animals were spared destruction. Perhaps these young virgins and animals were the only ones that could be tamed – and live alongside the Israelites in lasting peace?
Talk to you later.
Mike,
I already discussed the sophistry you use to support your claims to be a chosen conduit for God to pass special knowledge through or in other words a prophet from God. Let me be more precise and expose it. Your claims fall into three categories. First many of them predict the obvious and thus are of the same nature as predicting the sun will come up tomorrow. The second category is the Purposely Vague category, not unlike something one would get from a phony psychic. Then the third is the cover your behind category in which you say one thing will happen unless something else causes it not to happen. Gee that’s risky. And you always qualify your doomsday predictions with the fact that you are praying really, really hard that they won’t come true so just in case they don’t you can claim your prayers had the magic power to save the day. No matter what happens you can’t lose. You’re as phony as a three-dollar bill and not very good at this con game. I’ve see how the pros work this game and so it was easy for me to spot what you were doing and the trickery and word games you use to pull this ruse. Of course people like you can be easily exposed once you understand what they’re up to. Like this: I challenged you to make a risky and precise prediction and you ignored me like I knew you would. For some reason you prophets from God don’t ever make any risky predictions do you? Game over dude.
You said: “Back before I accepted Christ, I depended on my own knowledge and wisdom, and I let myself down plenty of times…..I nearly destroyed my life.
I am so sick of reading these exaggerated Lee Strobel stories about how someone was so lost, evil, degenerate and nearly died and then was magically saved by their religion. That of course says nothing about whether your religion is actually true or not. People of all religions make the exact same claims.
You actually said this: “So in regards to my quality of life and my outlook towards the future I am more than a Billionaire.”
Huh? As I’ve already pointed out your posts contain a mass of contradictions. Now if that statement doesn’t prove all your posts are nothing but mindless blabber I don’t know what does. You’re the one who claims very shortly the world’s economy is going to collapse and therefore the entire population of the world is about to run out of food, gasoline and everything else and become dirt poor. Gee that’s a bright outlook. Of course you can’t wait because you’ve prepared yourself and so you’re itching to tell everyone you told them so. Is that why your outlook is so bright Mr. Contradiction Man?
I have peace of mind Mike. Please don’t tell me what God says in the Bible. This is the 21rst century and you haven’t really read the Bible. It simply boggles the mind that there are still people on this planet who think the supposed creator of the universe spoke to a bunch of backward superstitious sheepherders and they diligently recorded his words before there was any written Hebrew language or anything to write them on besides stone. The Hebrews didn’t even exist during the period God supposedly spoke in the Bible. Obedient to what God says about investing? Sure Mike. What you are really doing is following the investing advice of a bunch of animal sacrificing primitives. Good luck with that.
Baggins,
You Bible thumpers are always so busy telling the rest of us how to live because the Bible says whatever you say it does. Yet both you and Mike are so intellectually lazy you haven’t bothered to actually read much of the Bible at all. I can tell. You didn’t even bother to look at this story in Numbers before you commented on it again. In verse 15 Moses makes it very clear that all the women should have been killed because they are the ones who got the Israelites to worship the Midianite god. The reason for the destruction was indeed to kill all the members of another religion. During the Conquest this is almost always the reason given for all the ethnic cleansing supposedly done by the Israelites. Read your Bible man. Also all the animals were killed, they were not spared destruction. Read the story man. Does unnecessary animal cruelty bother you at all? How about the murder of women and small children? Even the Nazis didn’t mistreat their prisoners of war and they certainly didn’t murder them as the Bible says the Israelites did theirs. That is a war crime in case you didn’t know. How about the rape of young girls who just witnessed their entire families get slaughtered by a Genghis Kahn like marauding band of looters and pillagers? Is that what you call being tamed?
Do you really believe there is a God that would command and condone these atrocities? Or are these more likely ancient fables that reflect primitive man’s savage and bloodletting nature? These fables if taken literally should offend a person’s moral and ethical sensibilities. A mind dulled and controlled by religious dogma like yours sees nothing wrong with them and can make an excuse for any atrocity as long as they think God condoned it. And you have the nerve to call me sick and delusional.
I don’t need a person who knows so little about their own religion and its holy book to tell me that I need to change my ways and start believing what they do. You might want to read your Bible before you start initiating debates with atheists especially on the Internet because I can tell you most of them are former Christians and have read and studied the Bible a lot more carefully than you have. You should have read your Bible thoroughly BEFORE you let other people put their own ideas about it in your head too. The Bible is the only book that people believe before they even know what it says. Like you have.
Mike and Baggins,
Let me repeat that I did not get on this blog to promote atheism or denigrate religion or argue with believers about either. Both of you initiated debates with me that really had nothing to do with the subject of the thread they were on. Neither was prepared to discuss the subjects you brought up and your methods of argumentation were confrontational, fallacious, childish and of course completely ineffective. You didn’t make your points. Now let’s end these conversations right here.
Gurgus aka. Bernie: “your claims to be a chosen conduit for God to pass special knowledge through or in other words a prophet from God.”
I’ve never claimed to be a prophet from God. I only claim to read His word, pay attention to what He says in His word, and live my life accordingly.
As for prophets and false prophets, just watch CNBC or Fox Business and you will get your full of both.
My beliefs and opinions regarding the economy and where we are headed, are based on numerous factors and data. I’ve provided these.
The reason I call you Gurgus aka. Bernie is that you sound just like him. Your hatred of anything Christian comes through loud and clear. In addition to that you seem to only accept that which fits your view of people. In your mind, anything Christian is bad; everything atheist is good.
Before I forget, the political movements of the 20th Century, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, did indeed bastardized evolutionary theory.
I will be away from my computer for the next month.
b baggins: “Hey Mike, I’d like to receive your newsletters if you are willing to send them to me.”
You are now on my list. I am going to be gone for the next month. If I have a chance I will send out a few as I will have access to a computer at my sister’s house. Next week the family will meet at a resort so I doubt I will send out much. I may be able to send some out Monday or Tuesday evening as some of my readers say they will go through withdrawal if they don’t get my email.
Right now I am packing my bags and getting ready but I will send something out to you ASAP.
If at any time you wish to cancel, I send a lot of information out sometimes 2 or more emails in a day, just let me know. You do not have to read all of them.
Mike.
Gurgus: “Like this: I challenged you to make a risky and precise prediction and you ignored me like I knew you would. For some reason you prophets from God don’t ever make any risky predictions do you? Game over dude. ”
I made predictions nearly a year ago when Doug Tjaden was on TTL. I have also made precise predictions when Bernie, your alias, was ranting and raving. I put the US dollar on a count down and have stated that “this will be a cold winter for the USD.” Then on top of it all I gave out some of my investments, providing the names of the companies, and all are up strong.
You statement that I am not precise, is delusional at best. What do you want me to do predict the rain and the number of drops that will fall on a precise area?
I’ve added b baggins to my emails. I just sent him introductory email and a few recent ones that I sent out. Most everyone that has gotten onto my email list has stayed with me. It grows each and every year even though I do not advertise anywhere. The folks that have taken my advice to heart are doing very well and like I said they sleep well at night knowing that their Ark is ready and will save them from the coming storms.
So rant and rave all you want. In my opinion you are one sick puppy. You hatred of Christians is unfounded. It is based on heart that is poisoned and miserable.
I get frustrated with people that choose to be blind like MattF and Kash, but at no time is my heart filled with venom. I feel sorry for such people as they are involved in their own destruction and the destruction of their children and grandchildren. They support a system that is corrupt to the core. I have family members that I love dearly that are of the same mindset. They cannot believe that the US is headed for a catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
Such individuals do not hate me although they get tired of my tirates against the system that is bringing on the greatest transfer of wealth in human history. The transfer will be from the poor / middle class to a few of the rich (Wall Street’s banksters); and from the West to the East.
So while I do get frustrated with MattF, kash, and some in my family; I am not full of hatred towards them or anyone for that matter, not even you. You on the other hand hate everything Christian. It is the HATE that comes through loud and clear. The same hate we saw with Bernie. It is truly sad as I know some atheist and none of them are so filled with this venom.
Gurgus: ” Now let’s end these conversations right here.”
On this I agree whole heartedly.
Mike,
Somehow I knew you would repeat this lie even though another blogger, Matt, already patiently and thoroughly refuted it for you: “Before I forget, the political movements of the 20th Century, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, did indeed bastardized evolutionary theory.”
You should have forgotten that because that statement proves that you are not only a liar but have been badly misinformed by the religious leaders you get your revisionist history from. I asked you to provide proof that these Nazis and communists mentioned evolutionary theory in the tenets of their ideology or their writings or speeches. You did not and could not provide this because no such literature exists nor did it ever. Yet you made this false claim anyway with no evidence at all to support it. Imagine that – a fundamentalist Christian making claims completely unsupported by evidence. Gee that never happens. Ha! Both the Nazis and communists rejected evolutionary theory as a bourgeois Western philosophy. That’s what their literature really says. Read it. No need to consider facts when you’re spewing fundamentalist Christian religious lies and propaganda is there Mike? The Nazis were young earth creationists and Stalinist Russia adopted a bizarre pseudo-science similar to the Christian Intelligent Design hoax called Lysenkoism. Neither of these political movements had anything to do with evolutionary theory. They both rejected it 100 percent. Matt already explained to you that the Nazis were fundamentalist Christians and had nothing to do with evolution. It’s one thing not to agree with those rebuttals, but quite another to go on repeating the argument as if no objections had been raised at all. This only proves what a shameless liar you really are. If you want to kill your chance at a substantive conversation with an atheist, demonstrate that you didn’t do any research ahead of time and spew a bunch of outright lies gleaned from creationist websites like you just did. Shame on you. The thing that clearly demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty of biblical fundamentalists is that even after they see their false claims refuted and their lies exposed the next conversation they get in on this subject they will again make these false claims and tell these very same lies in the hope that their new target won’t know how to refute them. I know your game very well. It’s called let’s hide our fundamentalist Christian lies with smoke and mirrors and repeat them ad nauseum.
Mike promised: “I will be away from my computer for the next month.”
Really? There may just be a kind and merciful God after all!
You said: “I made predictions nearly a year ago when Doug Tjaden was on TTL. I have also made precise predictions when Bernie, your alias, was ranting and raving. I put the US dollar on a count down and have stated that “this will be a cold winter for the USD.”
A cold winter for the U.S. dollar? Do you call that a precise and risky prediction? I checked that thread Mike and all your predictions were so vague they really didn’t say anything. I’ve already exposed the trickery you use to support your claims of having magical predictive powers. You are going to have to reinvent yourself now and pretend to be someone else you’re not.
You are paranoid and schizophrenic. I don’t hate Christians. Of course like most atheists I hate religion because I can see through all of its lies and sophistry and the damage it does to people and has done to our civilization.
It’s funny you should mention the phrase “biblical proportions.” That phrase has taken a modern definition that basically means “tall tales.” Kind of like your posts.
Gurgus here is my response:
ADOLPH HITLER: (b. Adolph Schicklgruber, 1889; d. 1945.) It can be said without fear of contradiction that this man singlehandedly came pretty close to turning the world upside down for a few years. But what high test philosophy fueled Hitler’s cerebral engine? In short, what fundamental belief did Hitler have about his own and all of mankind’s origins?
Dr. Jerry Bergman, a college professor somewhere in Ohio the last I heard, put together information from various authorities showing important connections between Hitler’s Nazism and Darwin’s Evolutionism. A few quotations will make the accepted but rarely discussed point that Hitler’s Nazism was a calculated and deliberate plan to apply evolutionary “science” to government policy. Indeed, Darwinism was the heartbeat of Nazism as Hitler conceived it. Note Bergman’s findings:
“Adolph Hitler’s mind was captivated by evolutionary teaching–probably since he was a boy.”
“One of the central planks in Nazi theory and doctrine was…evolutionary theory…”, we read in another place.
The whole Hitlerian idea of the “master race” of “supermen” was based on the Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest” which Hitler proposed to speed up by various policies. Jews and Blacks were singled out as retards on the evolutionary scale who must not be allowed to contaminate the more evolved, i.e., the more advanced “aryan master race”. (This was the ultimate effrontery, the unpardonable sin, as far as the Talmudic Jews were concerned. How dare he appropriate THEIR position on the subject of superiority and inferiority! That blankety-blank paperhanger–and the whole German people–will find out who is superior and who isn’t! They are going to pay and pay, and then pay some more for this effrontery!)
Dr. Bergman’s conclusion: “The evidence is very clear that Darwinian ideas had a tremendous impact on German thought and practice…. In fact, Darwinian ideas had a tremendous influence on causing WWII, the loss of 40 million lives, and the waste of about 6 trillion 1945 dollars. Firmly convinced that evolution was true, Hitler saw himself as the modern savior of mankind…. By breeding a superior race, the world would look upon him as the man who pulled humanity up to a higher level of evolution.”
NIKOLAI LENIN: (b. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov,1870; d. 1924.) Lenin, the first murderous communist dictator of the USSR said: “Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were created by God , and hence immutable.” (The heart of this statement is: “Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by God….”)
Lenin was “…a confirmed atheist, dedicated to the destruction of…all religious worship…he regarded Christ with undisguised hatred.”
On his desk Lenin had a statue displayed in a “prominent position for all to see…its vivid presence dominated the room.” (What kind of statue?)
It was a “…bronze statue of an ape gazing at an oversized human skull.” This symbolized the evolutionary core of Lenin’s atheism. It further symbolized the core of Marx’s Communism which Lenin set about imposing on Russia and much of the rest of the world. When Lenin died in 1924, control of the Soviet Union passed to Joseph Stalin.
Let’s glance at the role evolutionism played in Stalin’s mind (a mind, all agree, which conceived and carried out the calculated murder of at least ten–and more likely–twenty to thirty million people, mostly Christians):
JOSEPH V. STALIN: (b. IOSIF VISSARIONOVICH DZHUGASHVILI, b.1879; d. 1953; Following Lenin, Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist for thirty years. From Landmarks in the Life of Stalin we read:
“At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school, Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments. He began to read Darwin and became an atheist.”
G. Gludjidze, a boyhood friend of Stalin’s relates: “I began to speak of God. Joseph heard me out, and after a moment’s silence said: ‘You know, they are fooling us, there is no God….’”
Gludjidze reported: “I was astonished at these words. I had never heard anything like it before. How can you say such things, Soso?” he asked Stalin, who replied:
“I will lend you a book to read: it will show you that the world and all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all this talk about God is sheer nonsense.”
“What book is that?” his friend inquired.
“Darwin. You must read it,’ Joseph impressed on me.”
A few pages later, another person who was in school with Stalin, said of what they were taught:
“…in order to disabuse [i.e., free from deception or error] the minds of our seminary students of the myth that the world was created in six days, we had to acquaint ourselves with the geological origin and age of the earth, and be able to prove them in argument; we had to familiarize ourselves with Darwin’s teachings.”
So, in plain words, the church school Joseph Stalin attended labored to get the Bible’s explanation for origins out of kid’s heads and fill those same heads with the evolutionary explanation for origins. And that was church school well over a hundred years ago! Education–public, private, church, TV, whatever–is THE tool for getting the evolution explanation for the origin of man and all else into peoples heads.
A quick note on how Mao Tse-tung made indoctrination into evolutionism his very first priority after the Communist victory in China in late 1949 is of interest, I think. See if you agree:
MAO TSE TUNG: (b. 1893; d. 1976) In a graduate school paper about the way the communists dealt with the 85% illiteracy problem in China, I found two things that stuck with me:
1) Mao’s method was quite resourceful given what he had to work with. He called it “Each One Teach One”. It was basically the idea that every literate person would teach an illiterate person and, as soon as the pupil learned enough to read and write he would then teach what he had learned to another illiterate person. Within a few short years the 85% figure was totally reversed…. It was quite an accomplishment given all the obstacles.
2) Being a Marxist and an atheist and a firm believer in evolutionism himself, Mao mandated that the reading material used in this early day “Great Leap Forward” in literacy would be the writings of Charles Darwin and other materials supportive of the evolution paradigm. Understanding modern China of necessity includes an understanding of the transference of this state mandated indoctrination into evolution-based atheism from one generation to another for more than a half century. The fact that Mao’s regime was responsible for the out-and-out murder of somewhere between 30 and 60 million people…many of them Christian missionaries and their flocks…does not suggest that all evolutionists are potential mass murderers, of course. However, it does strongly suggest that a passionate belief that man is just another evolved animal is a conviction that is fully capable of creating a mind-set which cheapens life and excuses whatever behavior and policies individuals may pursue, no matter how hurtful and even deadly that behavior and those policies may be to millions of other people. Indeed, one abiding result of this passionate belief in the evolutionary origins scenario–a result more evident in the lives of the Lenin, Stalin, and Mao than in Hitler–is an utter disdain–often escalating to outright hatred–of Christians in particular. One can see the source of this malevolence in a few facts about modern communism’s founder:……
So there you have it sir. Your opinion can differ from anyone elses but unless one can come up with the PROOF, as I have with my most accurate predictions, all we have are opinions. Yours are no better than the ones above. THIS ENDS IT AS I AM LEAVING ON A JET PLANE, DON’T KNOW WHEN I’LL BE BACK AGAIN…… I need a break.
Gurgus: “A cold winter for the U.S. dollar? Do you call that a precise and risky prediction? ”
I can see where you would not be able to interpret what I wrote, after all the best you can do is a simple minded wooden literal interpretation of anything. I also said that the dollar would continue to weaken and put it on a 130 day count which specifically called for the USD to break to new yearly lows in the first week or two of November. From their it would continue its trek lower with it eventually breaking to new all time lows. THIS WILL HAPPEN, IT IS NOT A MATTER OF IF BUT WHEN. And since anything can happen in the short term to prevent such a fall, in the longer term (over the next 3 to 5 years) I fully expect the dollar to fall to 52 on the USDX. God help us if it goes lower. At some point the government will call for a devaluation, and that can happen overnight. Gold will finish the year strong, just as I predicted way back in May. Longer term (next 3 to 5 years) I expect gold to hit $3500 for higher.
For someone calling any aspect of the market these are pretty precise predictions as where my calls for unemployment to rise above 10% (higher in real terms) while government hacks were saying it would only get to 8.1%. Back when G. Bush was saying our economy was strong, I was saying it was in recession and headed for depression. This was before the government in June of 2008 stated that we had been in recession since Dec. 2007.
Bernie, I mean Gurgus, I feel like I am arguing with my crazy aunt Josephine, except I think she may have more periods of being lucid.
Merry Christmas and hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving both of which we all know are strictly non-Christian based holidays. Who do we give thanks to? The slimy ooze from which all life was created?
Mike,
I have a very big problem with the source you used to defend your claim that the Nazis and communists based their ideology on Darwinian evolution. You wrote, “Gurgus here is my response:” and then cut and pasted material directly from http://www.fixedearth.com. In other words your response was actually plagiarized word for word from a Christian young earth creationist website that promotes modern geocentrism or the view that the earth is the center of the universe and does not move. Here are some of the other claims this organization makes:
“The Copernican System, the Big Bang, Evolutionism, NASA’s extraterrestrial “exobiology” hype, are all deceptions fetchingly disguised as “science”. The hour of their exposure as such is on God’s calendar. HE calls it “The Fall of Babylon”, i.e., The Fall of Confusion about what is from God and is True and what is from the father of lies and is false.”
“The belief that the earth turns on an “axis” daily and orbits the sun annually is a carefully crafted Bible-bashing lie. All facts show a stationary earth.”
“God alone can (and will!) force the Non-Moving Earth Truths of the Bible and Science back on the world stage.”
Of course this fundamentalist Christian organization uses Bible passages such as these to prove their claim that the earth is stationary:
“The world also is established that it cannot be moved.” Psalm 93:1 “He…hangeth the Earth upon nothing.” Job 26:7
Any Christian apologists who want to claim the Bible does not posit a flat immovable earth cosmology need to convince their fellow Christian young earth creationists of that fact before they throw that baloney at atheists. At least the young stationary earth people make a very good case for what the Bible really says especially compared to the desperate and absurd arguments offered by Christian apologists that the Bible somehow agrees with modern science. These apologists always claim Christians have never really believed the earth was flat and or stationary. Of course they can’t explain the existence of this organization, The Association for Biblical Astronomy, The Flat Earth Society or any of the other Christian organizations that still cling to these archaic Bible based views.
I’m not sure what to think here, either you ascribe to the biblical notion that the earth is stationary or you didn’t bother to check your sources. It really is disingenuous to disagree with the Fixed Earth organization if one is really a Bible literalist and you are definitely one of them. Plus you could not have easily missed the name of this organization or what they stand for. If you did that says a lot about just how carefully you check you sources and demonstrates the hypocrisy of you claiming that I think anything atheist is good and anything Christian is bad. You’ll cut and paste ANYTHING negative ANY Christian says about atheism or science without checking your or worse their sources.
Considering the rest of the things that comprise your worldview however, I’m much more inclined to think you agree with the Fixed Earth organization and their claims that the earth is stationary. You wouldn’t plagiarize from a website you didn’t totally agree with. You are welcome to your literal biblical worldview and I would applaud your intellectual honesty on this one subject. To me it’s frightening that some polls show that as many as one out of five Americans hold this view and another nine percent weren’t sure. Only in America. However the people who promote this pseudo-science are Christian religious extremists and it can be shown that they use lies and distortions to further their religious agenda no matter what you think about the validity of their other beliefs. People who actually believe the earth is stationary and would go to such lengths as Fixed Earth does to promote this ridiculous idea (no offense) cannot be trusted. They have an obvious Christian extremist religious agenda. This includes fabricating indefensible lies only someone desperately wanting to be deceived anyway could believe. The problem with debating someone like you is that not only do you also fabricate falsehoods you believe other extremist’s falsehoods as well. It’s hard to discern precisely where the line between willful deception and self-deception lies with you. One thing is definitely apparent though: all of you creationists are connected to the same Internet websites and read and repeat the exact same lies and propaganda. Anyone can see where you have cut and pasted your arguments from. In a nutshell: Your claims that evolution influenced the thinking of the Nazis and the communists are plagiarized and cut and pasted from a website that promotes Christian young stationary earth creationism. Your and their religious agenda is as transparent as it can be. So are the falsehoods you both use to support it, your stationary earth dogma and the claims about the ideologies of the Nazis and communists.
For anyone who wants a really good laugh I suggest you google one of Fixed Earth’s pages: The Spiritual Roots of NASA’s Big Bang Premise.
I don’t appreciate the comparison to your “crazy” aunt Josephine. I think you’re treading on thin ice espousing the absurd views you do because someone might easily conclude that whatever your dear aunt has runs in the family.
I hope you have happy holidays too. You can give thanks to God and I’ll be thankful to my family and friends. It’s ironic that you should decide to take a vacation and then commit intellectual suicide for us all on this blog in your last post. Thanks for plagiarizing that material from Fixed Earth though. When I saw where you copied the material from I laughed harder than I had in a long time. I’m very familiar with this Christian fundamentalist organization and have been for years. They’re an almost endless source of amusement. One of the many good reasons atheists, stay atheists.
A safe and pleasant trip and vacation to you, Mike.
Gurgus, as[good]Christians are concerned with the spiritual well being of others, and due to the topic of this particular show, I think I’ll put my machete down[Grin] and try to play the roll of peacekeeper here[because it's starting to look like the efforts of one would be appreciated here]and share a thought of mine with you, heretical as it may seem to some of the others who visit here.
You can be an Atheist if it pleases you, but also, try to be this…..
Ever strive to be a good man. Be fair and just, honest.
Be sympathetic and generous to others who are going through a hard time.
Avoid people who are a vexation to your spirit, people with habits and language that is cruder and unhealthier than your own.
Protect and try to help those that are weaker than yourself.
Don’t be a bully, but don’t back away from bullies who are tormenting others.
Never lose a sense of humility.
Be respectful of strange people and their strange ways.
Try and make other people desire to be better people themselves.
If you can do all of this throughout your life, or at least try to keep doing all of this throughout your life, then perhaps, just maybe, whether or not you ever come to recognize it and know it, you will have touched the face of God.
And when that day or night comes when you finally die, then perhaps that will be worth something when you face the Divine. And if not, and you as an Atheist simply disappear into oblivion, then you can take some satisfaction in knowing that while you lived you helped make this weird world of hardships and chaos a better place for those whom your existence touched.
Ah well, I tried[smile].
Gurgus: You Bible thumpers are always so busy telling the rest of us how to live because the Bible says whatever you say it does. Yet both you and Mike are so intellectually lazy you haven’t bothered to actually read much of the Bible at all. I can tell. You didn’t even bother to look at this story in Numbers before you commented on it again. In verse 15 Moses makes it very clear that all the women should have been killed because they are the ones who got the Israelites to worship the Midianite god. The reason for the destruction was indeed to kill all the members of another religion.
The reason the women were included in the “to be destroyed” command is because they led Israelites into sexual immorality – not simply because they were of a different religion. The young virgins were not among the guilty or vengeful. People of varying religions were always around the Israelites, but only the evil doers are ever faced with justice – legitimately.
Gurgus: During the Conquest this is almost always the reason given for all the ethnic cleansing supposedly done by the Israelites. Read your Bible man. Also all the animals were killed, they were not spared destruction. Read the story man.
The animals and the young virgins were NOT destroyed. Go back and read the story again Gurgus. I’ll quote the pertinent verses for you:
Numbers 31:9 – The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder.
The non-virgin women and males were killed – the young virgins and animals remained as described in the following:
Numbers 31:32-35 – The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.
Gurgus: Does unnecessary animal cruelty bother you at all?
Kosher guidelines came from the Jews – and insure the most humane/sanitary treatment of animals. They are in a league of their own – they’re the cream of the crop.
Gurgus: How about the murder of women and small children?
From what I’ve read the people who did not want to fight a war against the Israelites were given a chance to flee and people who wanted mercy were given it. The people who wanted the Israelites destroyed fought…and they were the ones destroyed. The women were guilty. The male children had no care-taker left – they were mercifully killed rather than abandoned to the wild. The young virgins could serve the Israelites in peace and eventually could be child bearing mothers I suppose. — Also, the Midianites were fairly closely related to the Israelites I’ve read.
Gurgus: How about the rape of young girls who just witnessed their entire families get slaughtered by a Genghis Kahn like marauding band of looters and pillagers? Is that what you call being tamed?
Rape is a violation of God’s law and I have no reason to think that that was necessary for them to live in peace with the Israelites – for them to be tamed.
Gurgus: Do you really believe there is a God that would command and condone these atrocities?
Rape didn’t happen, and if it did those responsible will be brought to justice. The simple fact is that a immoral tribe at war with the Israelites lost – justice was served. The tribe didn’t have to face destruction, they could have ran away or begged for mercy – they chose to fight and they lost Gurgus. Why do you pretend this is some sort of illegitimate rampage on the part of the Israelites?
Gurgus: And you have the nerve to call me sick and delusional.
You are sick and delusional. Your wild and insane interpretation of this ancient war is just another straw on the already crushed camel’s back.
Gurgus: I don’t need a person who knows so little about their own religion and its holy book to tell me that I need to change my ways and start believing what they do.
You obviously aren’t well versed with the story or with sound, contextual interpretation.
Gurgus: You might want to read your Bible before you start initiating debates with atheists especially on the Internet because I can tell you most of them are former Christians and have read and studied the Bible a lot more carefully than you have.
I have just very clearly shown you to be wrong. You didn’t read the story carefully, I did.
Gurgus: You should have read your Bible thoroughly BEFORE you let other people put their own ideas about it in your head too. The Bible is the only book that people believe before they even know what it says. Like you have.
I strive to understand things myself, and not just take people’s words for it. I’m glad I didn’t take your word for it, because you were dead wrong.
Baggins,
Don’t think other people and I don’t notice how you cherry pick my comments and ignore major problems you have no explanation for. How about those amazing reappearing Midianites and those resurrecting Amorites? Don’t want to tackle that problem either do you? That’s okay. All the apologizing apologizers and mighty defenders of the faith crumble like cookies when faced with problems in the Bible like this. If you want to ignore it and pretend it isn’t there, has a good explanation or think you can pray it away fine. I don’t care to talk about it either. Cognitive dissonance. Look it up.
You said: “The reason the women were included in the “to be destroyed” command is because they led Israelites into sexual immorality – not simply because they were of a different religion.”
The Bible clearly says the women got the Israelites to worship their God: “He said, ‘Why have you spared the lives of all these women? They were the very ones who, on Balaam’s advice, caused the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh in the affair at Poor; hence the plague which struck Yahweh’s community (Numbers 31:15-16). If you check what this affair was in Numbers 25:1:3 you’ll see the prostitution is not sexual immorality but rather the Israelites prostituting themselves to Baal: “With Israel thus committed to Baal of Peor, Yahweh’s anger was aroused against them” (Numbers 25:3). That could not be any clearer. The Israelites had adopted another religion, one that worshiped a dying a resurrecting savior Baal, who was born to the virgin mother Asherah, a female deity the Israelites also worshiped.
But let’s say the reason was the one you gave, sexual immorality. You think women who seduced men were justifiably destroyed. I’m sick and delusional? On what basis do women deserve the death penalty for seducing willing male partners? You call yourself “pro-life” too! Should prostitutes get the death penalty in the United States?
You said: “The young virgins were not among the guilty or vengeful.
Oh really? You don’t think young women who just saw their entire family slaughtered and community wiped would not be vengeful? I don’t know what kosher guidelines have to do with the senseless slaughter of animals. I forgot this was the rare instance where God didn’t tell the Israelites to kill everything that breathed like he usually did. Most of the time the animals were killed too. The point is killing doesn’t bother you if it is done in the name of religion. How are you any different from Muslims who support the actions of terrorists and suicide bombers? The answer is you’re not. You’re just as much of a dangerous fanatic as any Muslim who condones killing to further their religion.
Baggins: “From what I’ve read the people who did not want to fight a war against the Israelites were given a chance to flee and people who wanted mercy were given it. The people who wanted the Israelites destroyed fought…and they were the ones destroyed. The women were guilty.”
What crime did the women commit that deserved the death penalty Mr. Pro Life?
The following statement proves you do not and cannot think about what you say: “The male children had no care-taker left – they were mercifully killed rather than abandoned to the wild. The young virgins could serve the Israelites in peace and eventually could be child bearing mothers I suppose.”
Mercifully killed? Somehow you can justify the “merciful” killing of young male children simply because they had no one who wanted to take care of them. But if a woman wants to terminate a pregnancy because she doesn’t want to or cannot take care of a child you call her a murderer. Do you want to tell me how you can so easily justify killing small children and then rage about abortion, which happens to be legal? In other words can you explain to us all how you can be such a hypocrite and stand to live with yourself? Young virgins will willingly bear the children of the men who murdered their families. Sure they will. Only in your religious fantasy.
You said: “Rape is a violation of God’s law and I have no reason to think that that was necessary for them to live in peace with the Israelites – for them to be tamed.”
Human beings are not herd animals who need to be tamed. And again what woman is going to willingly have relations with the looters and pillagers that murdered her entire family? You are living in some kind of religious fantasyland where any atrocity, any absurdity, any lie can easily be justified because it’s all for the greater good of spreading your religion.
You said: “Rape didn’t happen, and if it did those responsible will be brought to justice. The simple fact is that a immoral tribe at war with the Israelites lost – justice was served.”
Where in the Bible does it say rape did not happen? I have news for you. People who attack other people, kill them all and take their land are immoral. It doesn’t matter if they believe they are doing it because their God wants them to. It’s still immoral. What justice was served exactly?
I would expect an un-American coward to respond like this: “The tribe didn’t have to face destruction, they could have ran away or begged for mercy – they chose to fight and they lost Gurgus.”
Is that what you would do if your community were attacked by a bunch of religious fanatics bent on wiping out all competing religions including yours and forcing theirs on everyone? Would you just run away or beg for mercy like the coward we’ve already established you are? You sure think just like a coward.
You ask: “Why do you pretend this is some sort of illegitimate rampage on the part of the Israelites?”
How is taking land from people by killing them a legitimate rampage? What justification do you give for the Israelites taking land that wasn’t theirs and killing people minding their own business? You say my interpretation of this ancient war is wild and insane? You’re the one who thinks he can justify this war of aggression. Go ahead try because only sick and delusional people try to justify wars of aggression. So have it. Tell us all why killing people for the sake of religion is a good thing and a pro-life position.
Then you make this misstatement: “I strive to understand things myself, and not just take people’s words for it.
Sure you do. Who told you that the stories in the Bible were true? Somebody had to tell you that, you didn’t come up with that yourself. Nobody does, that’s part of the religious indoctrination by other believers you succumbed to. What’s funny about this whole thing is you think I’m dead wrong. You have no idea how far off you really are. What evidence from outside the Bible can you supply that the events of the Conquest even ever occurred? How do you know the Israelites didn’t just evolve from the general population in Palestine the way genealogists and other scientists who have studied the DNA of the population say they did? Or the way archaeologists who can’t find a trace of evidence for the Conquest or the Exodus say they did? Or the way Bible scholars who say the stories were all plagiarized from other cultures say they did? Or the way the Palestinians themselves say they did? Or the way historians say they did? Millions of people supposedly wandered in the desert before the Conquest and not one grave site, not one camp site, not one religious site not even one potsherd has ever been found to support this story about people being fed by magic birds with magic food for forty years. You didn’t even know that and never even stopped to wonder if there was actually any evidence that could support these stories in the Bible. You just assumed it was there. Go find me some proof the events of the Conquest really took place just like the Bible says they did including the sun being stopped from going across the sky. When you find it get back to me. After you pick up your Nobel Prize that is because should you actually find anything you’ll be the first.