Well Andrew, aka Askegg, has responded to my previous post from last week. I appreciate him taking the time to give a whole blog entry to our discussion. I will do so in kind. My response will again be in red and his original post to which I am responding can be read here.
…and around we go.
// July 13th, 2009 // Blog
Once again Marcus has responded, but seems to miss the point of my arguments so far. In typical deluded theist fashion he has once again failed to give me an adequate explanation for the arguments put forward, and quotes the Bible as if it’s some kind of authoritative source.
The Bible is an authorative source especially when you take it out of context and say it says something it does not say. I understand your arguments and find them wanting.
Marcus raises a few points which I cannot help respond to, but not for the reasons you might think. There are statements in his latest reply which really underline the fact that no amount of evidence or rational, logical constructions will convince him otherwise. He has made up his mind, and nothing will convince him otherwise.
It's not about me being right. God is right.
So this will be my last reply to Marcus, but not because I think he has won or I am painted into a corner. I am slowly learning that people need to come to their senses in their own time, in their own way. My hope with these conversations has always to be to drop that one gem of doubt and questioning into someone’s mind – as happened to me. I realise now that this is largely a pointless exercise. These people are sent for our amusement, and should not be engaged in meaningful debate unless you have countless hours to waste.
Conversing about such things is important. A viewpoint that fails to stand up to scrutiny is not worth defending let-alone believing. Biblical Christianity stands no matter what you or I think. It's only pointless if you do not think about both sides. If you look at our conversations as a waste of time, I'm sorry. I don't. I truly care about you and don't want to see you miss a great opportunity - to know God for yourself. I can't argue into it. That's not my goal. Your assertion is that there is no good reason or evidence to put your faith in the God of the Bible - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The one who spoke our reality into existence. This is plainly not true. I can't allow you to say that without challenging you with the truth.
As usual, Marcus’s responses are quoted below, with my comments underneath.
Yes, Jesus knew He was going to die. And He knew it was going to hurt. He also knew He did not deserve it. He know You and I deserve it. A sacrifice means giving up something that you don’t have to give up. He chose to give up His life and pay for our sins. He paid the penalty of sin for us. That does not mean that He had to stay dead.
It’s the “did not deserve it” part that bothers me here. As I have outlined previously, we are lead to believe that Jesus is God, and therefor he is responsible for the creation of the universe (according to the awful arguments from design, and ignorance). An omniscient being could not help but foresee and predict ever consequence of ever action, ever. God, knowing who would sin first and his punishment, would have also known billions of others since he came to Earth to kill himself would reject him and be sent to Hell. For this we are meant to praise him? Fuck that.
In addition, who says the price of sin is death? Who sets the penalty? Can the penalties be changed? What would an all loving being do – forgive us anyway?
Sin is a tresspass against God himself. He sets the bar and the penalty. Who is any of us to argue that He is wrong. Think about that. If someone steals something from you, don't you have the right demand restitution? Doesn't justice demand it? I have stated that I understand your point about God's omniscience and that He has set all this up. I just disagree with how you have chosen to respond to this. Think about it. Really, think about what you are saying. You are saying that the one who gave you life, the one you owe everything to...everything you are or ever will be is not worthy of your love or worship. If God lowered the standard and gave everyone a pass, how is that justice? How is that fair? A loving God must also be just. A loving God must also be merciful. God chooses to show mercy by saving those who put their faith in Jesus. Setting aside the question on how we come to choose Jesus for a minute...the bottom line is that if we do we are saved. You are consciously and on purpose choosing to reject Jesus and then complain about getting what you deserve. How rational is that? It is not.
Who says you are free now? We are in bondage to sin. You feel it. You know that. You look at the standard in the Bible for what Holiness looks like and you know you can never meet that. Jesus came to free us from our inability to live up to that. He didn’t come to free us from that standard. Is there free will in Heaven? I don’t know. What i do now it’s gonna be better than what we got now.
You are obviously talking about a different kind of free will to the one I am referring to. I have been talking about the freedom to choose as you please. For example: Are you free to eat when you please, or is this an irresistible urge driven by your bodies need for fuel? Are you free to chose what you want to eat, or is that the eventual result of what happens to be available at the time and a incredibly complex series of biochemical reactions in your brain and body?
Is there any decision we could make that would surprise God? If God is all knowing, then the answer must be “no”. We only have the apparent illusion of free will. We think we are free to choose, but it has all been designed, conceived, and set into play by an all knowing being to fulfil some grand divine plan.
I have understood and completely have been using the same definition of "Free Will" you have. And I have stated that we don't have free will because we don't have the ability to completely choose never to sin. That is why we need a savior. This is why we need Jesus. And I agree Jesus is never surprised by any decision we make and I'd argue that sometimes we make descisions that He himself determines - whenever we do somthing "good". And we agree God has a plan to fulfill and there is nothing you can do to mess it up.
The Bible promises that on Judgement day we will see what complete justice and mercy looks like. No one will have any excuse. Everyone will know that God is right in everything He has done. The Bible also promises no tears and no suffering for those who are spending eternitiy with Him that means that we won’t be witnessing the suffering of those who are in Hell. This isn’t conjecture this is what the Bible teaches. If you want take issue with, you have to take it up with God. I didn’t write it. Another thing is true repentence comes from responding to the love of God not from the fear of hell and eternal punishiment.
A little bit of unfounded Biblical assertion as truth, mixed with some Pascal’s wager, and a dash of “nobody knows, but I’m sure she’ll be right mate.”
I didn't say "nobody knows". What I said and you said is that from my Worldview that God knows exactly everything. The best answer I can give is what the Bible says. Thanks for agreeing that I correctly gave a Biblical argument. Coming from you, that makes me feel good. Do you have a better answer? Let me guess because the only answer atheism can offer is that none of imatter because we cease exist when we die and life has no purpose other than what we give it. How is that better? How does that make sense? How do you prove that? You can't. You have no objective proof of the atheistic conclusion.
You still havern’t proved that God does not exist.
You can’t prove a negative.
Marcus, let me try to illustrate. You have not proved Allah does not exist. By your own argument, he therefore must exist. You can’t prove I do not have a diamond the size of a refrigerator in my backyard, but that says nothing about the truth of my claim I do. It’s a stupid fucking argument.
Andrew, the only way you can prove that God, as I understand him, does not exist is to prove that the Bible is a lie. You can't. The Bible and Koran conflict. They both can't be true. Therefore if the Bible is true and the Koran is not, then by definition Allah does not exist. The burden of proof that the Bible is false is on you. As far as the analogy you used we can confirm if you have a diamond the size of a refrigerator in your backyard it can be confirmed by looking in your yard. The Bible's validity can be tested on many points. We've been over this over and over again. You've brought up thing where it's wrong and I've answered each one and showed why the Bible is true and you are misinformed and you have provided no counter. The stupid argument is yours.
God can do whatever He wants to do. He will have mercy on whom He willl have mercy. Read Romans 9.
And those God does not “choose to have mercy on”? What about them?
Another big fuck up here is apparently everything God does is totally moral, just, and perfect. He can (and has) murdered millions, yet his hands are clean. For some reason, God’s morality is not the same as ours (to spite being made in his image). We have built a society where murderers are isolated from the general population, and in some cases removed from the gene pool altogether. Yet, this judgement on God for exactly the same (and worse) atrocities is not allowed. Amazing.
By living and breathing, and not sending you to hell right now, God is having mercy on you. God's morality is not the same as ours. You said it yourself when you admitted that the moral standards and precepts defined in the Bible are higher than anyone could possibly meet. God knows what He's doing and you don't know what He's doing. Again can the clay pot call the potter who made it to the carpet to answer to the design decisions that the potter made? Nope! Read Issiah 55 (by the way, I will continue to use the Bible as an authority since you refuse to refute my refutations on Biblical validity).
No where does God say that anyone, who has the opportunity to accept/reject Christ, get a free pass to heaven. The truth is i have been given too much information…too much light….to get a free pass. He isn’t going to give me a free pass. I’m going to have to live the way He says because I belong to Him. Jesus paid a high price and being aware of that and accepting that brings consequences just as rejecting if bring awful consequences. I’m getting this from the Bible which you can’t prove to be false.
It is trivial to prove the Bible wrong, but centuries of apologetics and a dim mind lets any excuse pass as a rational explanation for the obvious flaws.
If it's so trivial to prove the Bible wrong, why haven't you. You provided many things that you thought were problems in the Bible and I have answered them. If there were points that you thought that I didn't answer why not bring them back up and we can deal with them. Otherwise you stand refutted.
Also interesting that neither of them are supported in the Bible either. Could God had somehow intervened to maskes sure those ideas were squashed? Yes He did.
Oh I see – God suppressed the incorrect religions of the world, but somehow managed to miss Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Scientology, Catholicism, and all other others. He just picked on a few slightly different versions of Christianity that happened to be conflicting with your at one point in history. Riiiiight.
That is not what I said. The two incorret "-isms" you listed were flavors of Christianity, not separate religions. Judgement begins at the house. God is correcting all the false imaginations and religions of the world. He's just not doing it in the way you think He should. But it's not about you or me. He really is in control and doing as He sees fit. You are just rejecting the truth because you don't like it.
Okay, that is similar to how I look at it…almost. The future is not something that God just knows about. It’s something that he controls and guides.
Preciously. So tell me how we escape his control and guidance? The morality God has placed in me judges him to be a complete bastard, and I want nothing to do with him. Thank Christ he does not exist!
What does your morality say about you? If you would damned God, then that means you will surely damn youself and see no redeeming quality in yourself. You would see that you deserve hell. You are no different than anyone of us. I am the worse sinner that I know. You are worse sinner that you know. If you want to be free, you will go to Jesus. If not, you are responsible for your sins.
Yes, Hell will suck and I’m not going because Jesus paid for my sins on the cross so I don’t has to go. Now, I’d be way more worried about these verses if I were you.
First you say that Hell is not described in the Bible, so I show you some verses that do. Now you’re admitting it’s a scary place and I should be worried about it. Pascal’s wager again? Seriously?
I did not say that Hell is not described in the Bible. I said that how you described hell was not in the Bible. You said that in hell that "white hot pokers shoved into their eyes and their intestines gnawed by rats". That is not Bible.
You don’t actively interfere in everyone of your daughters decisions even if you know that sometimes it will cause them pain. If you did, they would never learn from failure. They would never grow. God does the same with us.
So God builds a universal system to inflict pain to teach us a lesson. If you don’t learn that lesson you will suffer in the most unimaginable pain for ever more. Nice guy.
Who's fault is it that don't learn it? It's not God's fault. It's your fault.
There is plenty evidence that the gospel account is the best explanation for the facts that we know.
Hahahahaaaa.
I provided evidence. You never refuted it. Laughing is not a defense.
There are hundreds of supposed events that are not supported by any evidence at all, but you believe what you want.
All you have to do is prove the Bible false and my who arguement collapases. This you have failed to do.
No – you have failed to listen and think.
I did listen. I made refutations. And you have offered nothing in rebuttal. You failed not then Bible.
You know nothing. The Bible says Eve was tricked. Adam was not tricked. He knew what he was doing. Eve thought that she was doing the right thing. Adam damned us. It wasn’t on Eve.
Adam was tricked by Eve. Douche.
Name-calling is the refuge of those who have no argument. Where does the Bible say that Adam was tricked? It doesn't. "Through one man, sin entered the world." (Romans 5:12) and 1 Timothy 2:14 says "And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner."
You are right. That is not how you get a good number. I only used that number because It seems to me that the Old Testament only covers that amount not that it is the age of the earth. The Bible does not claim that the geneologies in Genesis give the names and ages of everyone. Remember what I tweeted earlier: hebrew geneologies are not exhaustive. They only hit the high points.
So the Earth is not 6,000 years old? I wonder if your estimation is anywhere near the scientific one of 4.54 billion years, which is verified by independent and mutually supporting lines of inquiry? That’s one large magnitude of error, but of course the Bible is correct regardless of any evidence to the contrary – right?
If your claim that “they only hit the high points” is correct, then a notable person does not come along that often. Your error is 756,666 times OFF the actual estimate! So what are we lead to believed happened? Adam started a book and wrote his name in it, then every one worthy afterwards did the same? Or was is that some drugged up goat herder was inspired by the holy spirit to write down a few names? You seriously consider these kind of explanations plausible? No wonder you will believe any old crap told to you.
It's not my estimate. I never claimed to know the age of the earth or universe. The Bible does not give us that information. It's not a Bible error. It's yours. When I was in college I worked out a physics calculation of the age of the earth. You may find it useful Mathematic and Theology - The Age of the Earth.
If this bothers you..the fault is in how people have used the Bible not in the Bible itself.
…and poof! Any error found in the Bible are not errors after all. They are just our misunderstandings of the Bible. The Bible is perfect except where we have shown it is not, in which case the Bible is perfect and we are still wrong.
Idiotic.
"Denial" is not just a river in Africa. You have not proven the Bible is false. You have nothing.
No comments:
Post a Comment