Sunday, October 27, 2013

Ten Signs That You Don't Know What A Christian Is


I found the above image posted on Tumblr and I think its very illustrative of the fact that while many atheists and agnostics like to pretend the Christians believe the Bible and in God out of ignorance and we can be shamed and ridiculed into accepting their way of thinking, they really don't know what they are talking about. This particular graphic contradicts reality and has some real problems that fail to show that Christians are unthinking. This is so bad that I wonder if people who believe these 10 things actually think.

1. You know a lot less than Atheists and Agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - and yet still call yourself a Christian.

I have to agree that there are many people who are Christians that do not think critically about what they say they believe or why. They don't think about history and theology as much as we should. Unfortunately, I have not found a single atheist nor agnostic who can consistently and correctly describe nor refute what Christian believe or teach. Therefore they don't know the Bible much better.

2. You defend the 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% failure was simply the will of God.

Here is a case in point. The person who compiled this list makes many of the same mistakes people make about God. They don't know what prayer is or what it's for. Prayer is not convincing God to do something on your behalf. Prayer is communication with God. Prayer changes us not God. Other thing is the Bible teaches us to pray according to God's will. Another thing is that "No" is just as much an answer as "Yes". The only way you could get a "Yes" only 0.01% of the time, is that  you only pray according to God's will 0.01% of the time. That is on you, not God.

3. While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor "speaking in tongues" may be all the evidence you need.

I've heard many an atheist and agnostics make claims like this, but they never back it up with a single scientific or historical fact disproves the Bible. The majority of the people who make such objections are not capable of defending such a claim..and those who do try to produce such "evidence" can easily be refuted and ignored.

4. You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs - though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend eternity in an infinite hell of suffering. Yet you consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving".

This is another misconception that shows that the author of this list don;t know what Christians are saying. The Bible shows that every single person is sinner and deserves to spend an eternity in an infinite hell or suffering.  It is through Jesus that we are saved. Grace and Mercy. God holds back what we deserve and instead gives us a gift - Himself! We deserve hell because we reject God and trespass against his commandments and character. To say nothing of the pain and suffering we inflict on one another. Why should you or I get away with that? Jesus took the punishment we deserve for those things so that we don't have to. When you reject Christ, you say to God, I can bear the weight of my own sin, I don't need help. God just let's you have things your way. Good luck with that.

5.  You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of the Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by pre-historic tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that the Earth is a couple of generations old.

No loopholes are needed because no where does the Bible tell us that the earth is a couple of generations old. You can't get that from Young Earth creationism.  Typically they argue that the earth is 6 thousand to 10 thousand years old. They get that from the way they interpret the Bible but this not a salvation issue and you can be a Christian and yet accept either position. The Bible does not give us any dates for the age of the earth. Makes me wonder if the one who made this list ever bothered actually read the Bible.

6. You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

More ignorance on display. Mary was not impregnated sexually. Had she been impregnated sexually, she would not have been a virgin any longer. The Greek claims of gods having sex with women was sexual intercourse as we understand it today. Making a claim of Jesus' conception being similar only further highlights how much is not understood. A thinking Christian would want to now why Jesus laid down his life. Of course the same one who spoke reality into existence out of nothing would be able to resurrect the dead. Jesus was not a  man-god or demigod like Hercules or Perseus. To claim this about Jesus means you don't know nothing about the Trinity.

7.  Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" - including women, children, and animals!

God did not slaughter all the Babies of Egypt. Only the first born of each family died. It was not just the Babies - but even grown humans and even the animals. I don't flinch because I see that God gave Pharoah the opportunity to avoid this but he didn't listen. All lives belong to God and he can do things as he pleases. As for the comment about Allah, I think that the author of this list knows even less about Islam than he/she knows about Christianity. I see more a problem with what Muhammad and his followers did than what the Quran says Allah has done.  And for the claim of  "ethnic cleansing" you have to go back to Genesis 15 to truly understand what happened in Joshua. God had told Abraham that He was going to wait to destroy the Ammorites because of their sin - which included child sacrifice which has been proven by archaeology.

16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” - Genesis 15:16

8. You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Trinity god.

One more time - tritheism is not trinitarianism. WE do not believe in three gods. God is one being. Three persons. We are monotheistic. One God. God is not like us in that we are each one being and one person. "Being" and "person" are not the same thing. If you are going to reject Christianity at least get the teachings correct. 

9. You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from lesser life forms but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

Prove it. Prove that an amoeba and a tardigrade have a common ancestor. You have to prove that all living things on earth have a common ancestor to show that people evolved from lesser life forms and I have not seen anyone do that.  We can demonstrate animals and plants mutating and adapting but not from one species to another. Dogs stay dogs. Fruit flies stay fruit flies.

10. You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your god.

That's because the God of the Bible is the one and only God and we don't like people going to hell in ignorance.  You should at least know why you are going. 

Grant Morrison Quote



Here is a very interesting quote by the author Grant Morrison. I think he's right. However very few people seem to realize that the Bible also tells us how special and unique each one of us are. The Bible also tells us why God did this:

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” - Romans 17:24-31


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

A Skewed History of Religion








I have been studying this really stupid argument for a few years. It’s a “go-to” argument for many people against Christianity. It does not hold. And I have compiled a list of videos and articles that can help get real clarity here!

http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com/search/label/Jesus%20Parallels

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Jim Bob Duggar Compares Abortion to the Holocaust

Jim Bob Duggar recently restated his position that abortion is like Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. Of course this thought causes all kinds of controversy and strong emotions. In one such article, a woman makes dismisses the Duggars for being ignorant and uninformed. I think it's partly because he and his wife have decided to have so many children of their own in a society where people think that that is backwards. She attempts to explain the difference between abortion and the Holocaust as follows.
Several million human beings died in The Holocaust because a homicidal sociopath decided that they didn’t deserve to live based solely on their religion or sexual orientation or mental abilities. Even though these people did not in any way affect Hitler or the way he chose to live his life, he had them systemically enslaved and murdered. In contrast, several million fetuses are aborted every year because the women carrying them decided that it wasn’t in the fetus and/or the woman’s best interest to bring the fetus to term.
I think she misses the following point that Duggar and people like him see in the similarities. You have someone in power determining that it is not in the best interest for a human being to live. Set aside for a moment the idea that a woman should have the right to determine what is right for her body and compare it to the right that we would give any other human being to live. In effect when a baby is aborted, the same choice is made against a human being as when the Nazis decided that those millions of people did not deserve to live. This thought comes from the idea that I don't see how any of us has the right or authority to determine who should live and who should die. 

Hitler did think that the people he murdered were affecting his interest negatively. They were in his way. They were inconvenient to him reaching agendas and goals - same reason some choose abortion.

Jim Bob Duggar Compares Abortion to the Holocaust

Friday, October 4, 2013