Personal blog that will cover my personal interests. I write about Christian Theology and Apologetics, politics, culture, science, and literature.
Monday, August 2, 2010
On atheism: Matt Slick and ex-atheist David Wood | True Freethinker
I always find peoples' testimonies interesting! David Wood's is extremely interesting. He used to be an atheist but now he tries to share with others what he has learned and share what he has gotten from God. Thanks Mariano.
Marcus; the doctrine of “false converts/no true scotsman” always amused me, and not that I recognize any authority in the Bible, but how do you reconcile your “false convert” belief with 1st Timothy 4:1 (i.e. you can’t abandon something you don’t actually have) and John 15:5-6 (i.e. one CAN be removed from the body of Christ).
What parts of scripture do you use to support your belief that all ex-christians were never true christians™?
Only silly because you can't be a "born-again" atheist. Your heart of stone never gets turned into a heart of flesh. Your mind stays hostile to God. There is no change in you. As for a Christian it's opposite. You change what AND WHO YOU ARE. According to the Bible you can't be a born-again believer and then go back to your life without God like a dog eating its own vomit (Bible's words not mine). Hey if you really want to equate an aposticism with becoming a Christian then you must also concede that Atheism is a religion. Thanks!
Also i want to be clear i don't care if you concede to me. I want you to concede to God...obviously you have never done so, that is why o know you were never born again.
So let me get this straight: You want to be counted among those who will be thrown into the fire? You want to be counted among those who leave? 1st Tim 4:1, says that people will leave the faith not that they had faith. "Faith" is referring to the message and the church. John 15:5-6 does not talk about a person who leaves Christ on his own. It says nothing about how that person leaves, just tells you what happens if you don't stay with Jesus. Jesus because someone goes through the motions don't mean they are a full Christian. You gave two scriptures and butchered them. Here are two that illustrate what I have already said.
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. - 1 John 2:19
The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. - Isaiah 29:13
You want to be counted among those who will be thrown into the fire? You want to be counted among those who leave?
Well, obviously I don't believe a word of it. But you do...
Otherwise, nice dodge.... ...says that people will leave the faith not that they had faith...
How's one leave something they weren't a part of?
Bob and weave... ...It says nothing about how that person leaves, just tells you what happens if you don't stay with Jesus...
If one doesn't "stay" in location x, the implication is that there were actually in location x for some period of time...
As for your counter examples, nice work showing how parts of the bible contridict other parts. That's what one would expect from a patchwork, not from holy revelation.
And it's important to note your second counter example actually had nothing to do with the topic at hand and merely addresses the fact that there are non-believers pretending to be believers (the topic of course is can true believers become non-believers).
That's exactly my point: true believers can't be non-believers. That was the point of Isaiah 29:13. They are faking, You didn't touch 1 John 2:19. There is no contradiction. Those who leave were faking it. And if the weren't, they will be back - like the prodigal son (Luke 15) with god welcoming them back with open arms. I sure hope you are like him - come to yourself and do not eat the pig slop. I'm not arguing that people aren't in church doing church things, I'm arguing that if they leave God they aren't really saved. Leaving is proof that they aren't saved. Your presupposition requires that you can be saved and then leave because then you can comfort yourself in your lack of faith. The problem is with you and me not God or the Bible. I don't have that so I don't see a contradiction. I'm not saying that you should give up the presupposition because of the contradiction but because the presupposition is wrong.
Jesus was not talking about fake branches. People can be effective in ministry but lost themselves. They aren't real Christians but they do effective Christian work. See also Matthew 25:31-46. And then there are those who just claim it and produce no fruit. You have to believe and produce fruit - that is how you know you are in the vine. If you don't believe you are not going to be producing good fruit reliably or sustainably.
Ryan that is not presupposition either. Jesus is alive. And if you have not had a relationship with Him then you then you have never been a Chrisian - from an objective and a quantifiable point of view.
I didn't mean to say that it was not a presupposition. I meant to write that I didn't share that presupposition. Jesus' branches parable does not apply specifically to apostates. Notice the unproductive branches are cut off not walking away.
So you put any ancient work under the same consistent skepticism as you do the Bible? I know you can get away with that because none of them really speak to you today or have any binding authority. So what about plain old historical fact? If you can't be sure of anything in History what value is there in studying history?
Have you ever studied Epistemology and do you know what History actually is? There are things we "know" and things we "know"... With history, you can make things fit and come to a reasonable conclusion about events, but you have to be aware that any conclusion about the past is provisional.
But extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence. If one of the finer details on how exactly Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon turns out to be different from what we thought, it doesn't affect our lives today or the broader historical narrative, so we can take it as "fact" that he crossed the Rubicon as described by Suetonius.
But I don't believe for a moment that because people wrote that "Homer" sang about real places (Mycenae) and real people (maybe Agamemnon) that Achilles was actually the offspring of a god and invulnerable every except his heel.
I would require better evidence then a book or a feeling that Achilles fit that description.
I know about epistemology. The thing I didn't ask you about the contents of the books attributed to Homer only that most folks accept Homer's authorship and you do too, but doubt the Bible which has better evidence.
Marcus I know I just made it about content because what is written in the Bible actually matters.
Well, it matters because it informed western civiliztion for 1650 years. But if you want it to be about content, your comparison to the Iliad and Odyssey is meaningless.
Geeze Marcus, you should know that David Wood was never a "true" atheist. He couldn't have been.
ReplyDeleteLOL... sounds silly, doesn't it?
Marcus; the doctrine of “false converts/no true scotsman” always amused me, and not that I recognize any authority in the Bible, but how do you reconcile your “false convert” belief with 1st Timothy 4:1 (i.e. you can’t abandon something you don’t actually have) and John 15:5-6 (i.e. one CAN be removed from the body of Christ).
ReplyDeleteWhat parts of scripture do you use to support your belief that all ex-christians were never true christians™?
Only silly because you can't be a "born-again" atheist. Your heart of stone never gets turned into a heart of flesh. Your mind stays hostile to God. There is no change in you. As for a Christian it's opposite. You change what AND WHO YOU ARE. According to the Bible you can't be a born-again believer and then go back to your life without God like a dog eating its own vomit (Bible's words not mine). Hey if you really want to equate an aposticism with becoming a Christian then you must also concede that Atheism is a religion. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAlso i want to be clear i don't care if you concede to me. I want you to concede to God...obviously you have never done so, that is why o know you were never born again.
So let me get this straight: You want to be counted among those who will be thrown into the fire? You want to be counted among those who leave? 1st Tim 4:1, says that people will leave the faith not that they had faith. "Faith" is referring to the message and the church. John 15:5-6 does not talk about a person who leaves Christ on his own. It says nothing about how that person leaves, just tells you what happens if you don't stay with Jesus. Jesus because someone goes through the motions don't mean they are a full Christian. You gave two scriptures and butchered them. Here are two that illustrate what I have already said.
ReplyDeleteThey went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. - 1 John 2:19
The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. - Isaiah 29:13
You want to be counted among those who will be thrown into the fire? You want to be counted among those who leave?
ReplyDeleteWell, obviously I don't believe a word of it. But you do...
Otherwise, nice dodge.... ...says that people will leave the faith not that they had faith...
How's one leave something they weren't a part of?
Bob and weave... ...It says nothing about how that person leaves, just tells you what happens if you don't stay with Jesus...
If one doesn't "stay" in location x, the implication is that there were actually in location x for some period of time...
As for your counter examples, nice work showing how parts of the bible contridict other parts. That's what one would expect from a patchwork, not from holy revelation.
And it's important to note your second counter example actually had nothing to do with the topic at hand and merely addresses the fact that there are non-believers pretending to be believers (the topic of course is can true believers become non-believers).
ReplyDeleteKeep trying...
That's exactly my point: true believers can't be non-believers. That was the point of Isaiah 29:13. They are faking, You didn't touch 1 John 2:19. There is no contradiction. Those who leave were faking it. And if the weren't, they will be back - like the prodigal son (Luke 15) with god welcoming them back with open arms. I sure hope you are like him - come to yourself and do not eat the pig slop. I'm not arguing that people aren't in church doing church things, I'm arguing that if they leave God they aren't really saved. Leaving is proof that they aren't saved. Your presupposition requires that you can be saved and then leave because then you can comfort yourself in your lack of faith. The problem is with you and me not God or the Bible. I don't have that so I don't see a contradiction. I'm not saying that you should give up the presupposition because of the contradiction but because the presupposition is wrong.
ReplyDeleteHow can a branch fake being part of a vine?
ReplyDeleteYour presupposition requires that you can be saved...
Actually, my presupposition is that no one is actually "saved" or has a relationship with a dead 1st century Judean...
@Ryan
ReplyDeleteJesus was not talking about fake branches. People can be effective in ministry but lost themselves. They aren't real Christians but they do effective Christian work. See also Matthew 25:31-46. And then there are those who just claim it and produce no fruit. You have to believe and produce fruit - that is how you know you are in the vine. If you don't believe you are not going to be producing good fruit reliably or sustainably.
Ryan that is not presupposition either. Jesus is alive. And if you have not had a relationship with Him then you then you have never been a Chrisian - from an objective and a quantifiable point of view.
Jesus was not talking about fake branches.
ReplyDeleteI know. But you were...
And now you are telling me what I presuppose isn't a presupposition? Do you know what presupposition means?
I didn't mean to say that it was not a presupposition. I meant to write that I didn't share that presupposition. Jesus' branches parable does not apply specifically to apostates. Notice the unproductive branches are cut off not walking away.
ReplyDeleteIt's loose enough you can make it apply however you like.
ReplyDeleteOkay so it's okay to put words in Jesus' mouth but not okay to say you said thing you did not say. Right?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have any of Jesus' original words. Everything we think he said has been "put in his mouth".
ReplyDeleteRyan said:
ReplyDeleteWe don't have any of Jesus' original words. Everything we think he said has been "put in his mouth".
Prove Jesus didn't say the things the gospel writers report him saying.
We don't have the original copy of the Iliad or the Oddessy. How do you know Homer really wrote it
How do you know Homer really wrote it
ReplyDeleteI don't.
So you put any ancient work under the same consistent skepticism as you do the Bible? I know you can get away with that because none of them really speak to you today or have any binding authority. So what about plain old historical fact? If you can't be sure of anything in History what value is there in studying history?
ReplyDeleteHave you ever studied Epistemology and do you know what History actually is? There are things we "know" and things we "know"... With history, you can make things fit and come to a reasonable conclusion about events, but you have to be aware that any conclusion about the past is provisional.
ReplyDeleteBut extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence. If one of the finer details on how exactly Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon turns out to be different from what we thought, it doesn't affect our lives today or the broader historical narrative, so we can take it as "fact" that he crossed the Rubicon as described by Suetonius.
But I don't believe for a moment that because people wrote that "Homer" sang about real places (Mycenae) and real people (maybe Agamemnon) that Achilles was actually the offspring of a god and invulnerable every except his heel.
I would require better evidence then a book or a feeling that Achilles fit that description.
I know about epistemology. The thing I didn't ask you about the contents of the books attributed to Homer only that most folks accept Homer's authorship and you do too, but doubt the Bible which has better evidence.
ReplyDeleteBig difference between "accept" and "know".
ReplyDeleteThen accept the Bible as reliable then.
ReplyDeleteArgument from authority. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you realize you just made the leap from authorship to content with your analogy?
ReplyDeleteShould we also accept the content of the Iliad and Odyssey as reliable?
Yup, I know I just made it about content because what is written in the Bible actually matters.
ReplyDeleteGood looking out
ReplyDeleteMarcus I know I just made it about content because what is written in the Bible actually matters.
ReplyDeleteWell, it matters because it informed western civiliztion for 1650 years. But if you want it to be about content, your comparison to the Iliad and Odyssey is meaningless.
I turned it. on purpose. Thanks for playing
ReplyDeleteYes, maybe you did it on purpose, but the effect was to undercut your argument, see my August 6, 2010 2:52 PM post.
ReplyDeleteI was making a new argument not continuing that one.
ReplyDeleteOf course you were. Have a good night.
ReplyDelete