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Author Topic:   Catholics are making it up.
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 128 of 507 (768463)
09-12-2015 2:35 AM
Reply to: Message 127 by Tangle
09-12-2015 2:27 AM


You are most likely right about how things are going to play out politically on such an issue as assisted suicide and other areas with strong Christian influence behind them, but if you're wrong in your own beliefs all you are doing is dispatching suffering people into a Hell of eternal suffering by giving them a painless death, based only on your entrenched prejudice that this world is all there is and there is no afterlife. Sad to think you most likely won't know the truth until your own death, and you'll just go on in your delusion helping to dismantle the glorious Christian heritage of your nation. .
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 130 of 507 (768466)
09-12-2015 3:00 AM
Reply to: Message 129 by Tangle
09-12-2015 2:54 AM


Unlike the RCC examples, which can clearly be shown to have been made up with respect to the actual teachings of Christianity in the Bible, you haven't a leg to stand on when you say Hell is made up. Every religion with few exceptions has had its own version of a Hell, the Buddhists having many Hells designed to deal with many different kinds of sins. I remember being shocked when I first discovered that Hell wasn't a Christian invention. Sure suggests to me that so much human testimony to an afterlife of suffering for our sins deserves to be taken seriously. But alas, modern man has the arrogance to think he knows everything and the ancients knew nothing.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 132 of 507 (768468)
09-12-2015 3:15 AM
Reply to: Message 131 by Tangle
09-12-2015 3:09 AM


Funny you can't tell fiction from reality. So much for superior intelligence due to large cranial capacity.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 134 of 507 (768470)
09-12-2015 3:26 AM
Reply to: Message 133 by Tangle
09-12-2015 3:21 AM


You clearly have a false definition of "real" as material or visible. So nonmaterial or invisible realities would of course escape you altogether. Short of God's having mercy on you and giving you the experience of the manifestation of a spiritual being, I wonder what could possibly suffice as evidence of such things against a prejudice such as yours? For me it was the quality and quantity of witnesses to such things. And of course I believe I can tell the difference between a made-up fiction and a sincere testimony to invisible realities.
But if you can't you can't. Guess I can't help you there.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 138 of 507 (768679)
09-12-2015 10:23 PM
Reply to: Message 136 by kbertsche
09-12-2015 11:45 AM


Re: TRVTH?
I'm not getting you KB.
Faith writes:
I don't think any of those ideas can be convincingly defended from scripture but are imposed on it by one degree or another of self-deception due to worldly influences.
KB writes:
I agree. But we all live in the world and are subconsciously influenced by it in many ways.
How can you agree that self-deception is the explanation of liberal positions you yourself hold? For instance you certainly disagree with the 6000 year old earth, and I forget how you put it all together but you apparently accept some form of evolution, oh yes, I think I remember: the death of animals before Adam and Eve? But those would of course be the liberal deceptions I'm talking about. You also think Kim Davis should issue licenses for gay marriage as if there is no conflict with biblical revelation in your mind. That's a boggler to me of course and a clear case of being guided by worldly influences rather than scripture.
So, sure, I can agree in principle that any of us could be deceived by worldly influences but there isn't any problem judging which is biblical and which is worldly influence in the examples so far given and I can't even think of another that might be questionable.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 140 of 507 (768684)
09-13-2015 2:12 AM
Reply to: Message 139 by kbertsche
09-13-2015 1:04 AM


Re: TRVTH?
How can you agree that self-deception is the explanation of liberal positions you yourself hold? For instance you certainly disagree with the 6000 year old earth, and I forget how you put it all together but you apparently accept some form of evolution, oh yes, I think I remember: the death of animals before Adam and Eve? But those would of course be the liberal deceptions I'm talking about.
If this is your measure of "liberal", then I am less "liberal" than B.B. Warield. And about as "liberal" as Charles Hodge and James Boice. I don't think one's view of the age of creation is a very good metric by which to gauge "liberal" or "conservative".
It's one of the criteria we were discussing, and one of the forms of the liberal mindset. As I said I believe even good theologians can make mistakes and I consider this to be a mistake in the liberal direction, since I don't think any of it can be convincingly shown to be biblical. Which I said and thought you were agreeing with. Perhaps you shouldn't be classed as a liberal in general, I don't know yet, but to hold this view is to hold a liberal view, whatever else you may believe.
If issuing licenses would truly violate her conscience, then she should resign rather than issuing the licenses. But if she can do it without violating her conscience, she should probably do so.
This is a boggler in itself because I think the Bible is very clear that God ordained marriage for a mam and a woman, it's not something open to interpretation or differences of conscience.
I view civil marriage as mainly a civil contract, with rules set by the state. Civil marriage is not necessarily biblical marriage. Most Christians view their public church wedding, not the signing of civil papers, as their "real" wedding. (I would strongly oppose any efforts to force churches to officiate gay weddings, of course.)
But marriage is a universal ordinance decreed by God in Eden, it's not a function of Christian belief or any cultural system or legal system or church, it's universal and all peoples inherit it, often distorting it through the fallen mind of course such as by polygamy for instance, but it belongs to the whole human race, not just Bible believers. All peoples have the Law of God written in their hearts, that's not just for Christians either.
I think my position on this is a "boggler" to you because you have accepted Calvin's view of church and state, which would put the state under biblical law. My own view is more along the lines of Luther and Augustine; we are members of two separate "kingdoms".
This is an unfortunate thing to say and you probably don't mean how it comes across. If a position derives from the bible I'm sure you wouldn't say we can disobey it in the secular world, would you? Since I regard Davis' position as Bible based your differing view is a boggler because as stated it seems to deny the Biblical authority, which can't be ignored in either kingdom.
I don't have a clue about what Calvin said about church and state by the way, so that's certainly not why your view is a boggler to me. I'm sure you don't mean we can sin with impunity in the secular world because our true home is the kingdom of God. I certainly hope that's the case anyway. In any case I think you are supporting an unbiblical position here.
Incidentally, the Puritans had seen the problems that Calvin's view caused in England and (fortunately) broke from their theological forebear when they set up the US as a secular state, specifically NOT under any church.
I don't consider myself a Calvinist in such a strict sense because I'm not up on everything Calvin taught. Again, I have no idea of his views on church and state or their effect on Americans.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 156 of 507 (768791)
09-14-2015 4:17 AM
Reply to: Message 151 by AZPaul3
09-14-2015 12:56 AM


Re: The Delusions of Religion's Accomodation
But the history of religion, all religion, is one of poisoning relationships between individuals, communities and nations, stifling intellect and advancement and enslaving the mind, the spirit and the soul of all humanity. This far outweighs any good you may see in it.
That religion is so enmeshed in the fabric of modern society is an indictment of religion for the insidious way it poisons the human mind. Activist atheists cannot accommodate anything in religion because despite any good it may do in individual cases religious organizations perpetrate ignorance and bigotry around the world. And, as we have seen in our own country in these modern times, allowing religion to influence public and international policy has been a horridly bloody abomination.
These facts make religion the greatest evil on the world stage today and every effort needs to be made to expunge religion from human consciousness. I am not nave enough to think we will succeed in this anytime soon. I have my doubts whether, thanks to the illogic of religious thinking, we as a species can survive long enough to see the day when religion’s influence is finally broken the whole world over. But we do have to try.
All I'm going to say is that there would not have been universities or universal education if it hadn't been for Christianity. All the great universities of Europe for instance, and Harvard was founded to train Christian pastors, and most of the other great universities of America were founded for Christian education as well. The education of children was begun in America to teach them to read so that they could read the Bible.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 160 of 507 (768795)
09-14-2015 7:01 AM
Reply to: Message 158 by Tangle
09-14-2015 6:16 AM


Re: The Delusions of Religion's Accomodation
My mistake apparently. Put it another way: there would have been no universities IN THE WEST without Christianity.
In America all the original universities were founded for Christian education.
Colonial colleges - Wikipedia
The original motto of Harvard was Truth for Christ and the Church:
Harvard University - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harvard's original motto is Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae ("Truth for Christ and the Church")

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 161 of 507 (768796)
09-14-2015 7:03 AM
Reply to: Message 159 by Omnivorous
09-14-2015 6:50 AM


Re: The Delusions of Religion's Accomodation
Yes the European universities were founded by the RCC, which was the only Christian influence at the time with enough influence and wealth to do so.
Catholicism has definitely been an influence for "hurt" overall. Nevertheless some Christian truth got through their wall of pagan lies. If that hadn't been the case there couldn't have been a Luther or any of the other Reformers. There had to be enough knowledge of truth as a foundation for showing the lies of Rome.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 163 of 507 (768798)
09-14-2015 7:09 AM
Reply to: Message 162 by Omnivorous
09-14-2015 7:07 AM


Re: The Delusions of Religion's Accomodation
Or perhaps we'd have had them sooner and better--we can't re-run history to see.
Where would it have come from? Who would have filled the vacuum of the Roman Empire?* It happened to be the papacy. The RCC is the heir of pagan Rome. Which barbarian tribe would you nominate for the source of a better education? Would you have been happier if Islam had won its war to conquer the west?
ABE *Ideally the true Christian church would have prevailed, but it didn't have the ambition to power the RCC had due to its Roman pagan roots. You are right of course we can't rewrite history. I think it's sad that every time the true Christianity has asserted itself it has succumbed over time to the forces of evil. That's what happened to all the originally Christian universities in the US. But of course you celebrate this along with most of the rest here. If God doesn't enlighten you I certainly can't.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 166 of 507 (768807)
09-14-2015 8:03 AM


Atheists turn reality into myth. Amazing alchemy
Bunch of half-baked accusatory rhetoric against "religion" here. It seems to start with the inability to accept the supernatural, is that right? It sounds so "enlightened," so "progressive" to reject invisible worlds, but in reality it's only today's form of ignorant bigotry. I appreciate Mr. Hunger's generally magnanimous and historically more informed attitude about religion, but he too has this same prejudice. "I can't see it, therefore it doesn't exist."
Of course it has some creditable roots, Jefferson for instance suffered from the same infirmity. Yet Deists must acknowledge SOME degree of invisible reality. Why limit it?
"I can't see it, therefore it doesn't exist." Doesn't matter that humanity as a whole is in the same boat, yet some of us overcame the prejudice. Yet the ones with the infirmity judge the ones who believe as mentally incompetent. Did I suddenly lose all my IQ points when I became a believer? How exactly would that happen? To my mind I acquired a whole world of new knowledge but I'm treated like I'm mentally incompetent. All because of this entrenched prejudice that I myself was set free from. They want "evidence" they say. I did have some supernatural experiences that contributed to my belief I suppose, but the evidence of the truth of the Bible is all from its witnesses. But those they discredit without a second thought based only on their woodenheaded prejudice, treating those dreadfully real people as fictions.
Negotiating the paths of atheistic self-justification must make them all dizzy.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 169 of 507 (768813)
09-14-2015 9:12 AM
Reply to: Message 168 by jar
09-14-2015 9:06 AM


Re: The Delusions of Religion's Accomodation
Well, I could agree that it couldn't have been a lot worse being under the tyranny of Islam than under the tyranny of Rome.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 172 of 507 (768819)
09-14-2015 10:31 AM
Reply to: Message 170 by AZPaul3
09-14-2015 9:57 AM


Re: Accomodationism Perpetuates Evil
What nuanced meanings does one give to a talking snake? The facts the snake spoke not withstanding Knowledge is bad?
The talking snake isn't a myth. It represents Satan, which we are told in the Book of Revelation. It talks because Satan talks and Satan had taken on its form for the seduction of Adam and Eve.
And Knowledge is NOT bad and the Bible says nothing of the sort. It says if they eat of the tree they will have knowledge of GOOD AND EVIL. Before eating of it they had nothing but happiness. The disobedience of doing what God told them not to do brought the knowledge of evil, in the sense of misery, which is what the Hebrew word means. Me, I could do without the knowledge of misery, I don't know about you.
Or to a super sky daddy so pissed off that it floods the entire world killing every man, woman, child? Tow my line as given by my priests and don't piss me off again or else?
The degree of sin in the world ("it was filled with violence" says scripture) was beyond anything we can even imagine. And Noah preached to the people that they could save themselves from the disaster that was coming but they ignored him, as so many do today. I know sin is a meaningless concept to people these days. Murder, stealing, adultery, lying, you know, was it Dr. A who just wrote a post pretty much saying we think all those things are OK these days? Well, God doesn't, and if we're honest we should see that a society that doesn't punish such things is a society out of control, ruled by chaos and destruction. Enough of it and He tries to save us from more of it by eliminating the causes of it. But you put an evil spin on it.
Also, sin is inherited, according to the Bible. Even babies inherit it and grow up to be evil people if their family line was evil. You can learn from such revelations, but so many choose not to.
Or to the myth of the exodus? Carry god before you as you slaughter the innocent and you will surely know victory?
Where do you get such evil ideas? There's nothing in the image of God's going before the Israelites about killing innocent people, it's solely a reminder that He is their God, which they managed to keep forgetting anyway, being fallen creatures like the rest of humanity. And the people who threatened them were not "innocent" by a long shot. If you are talking about the Canaanites, I understand that you have a soft spot for idolators and other sinners, but the whole point of eliminating them from the land was that their sin had accumulated to the point that God was going to judge them one way or another. He wanted to do it by the Israelites because He's teaching us that His own chosen people are going to off the demon hordes some day. You may not like that either, but then I don't suppose you've ever met a demon. They tend to avoid giving away their existence to people who serve their purposes better by not believing in them. Anyway the Canaanites had indulged in hundreds of years of sin and were due for judgment. If it hadn't been the Israelites it would have been some other tribe that attacked them, or maybe just famine. The Israelites unfortunately failed in their mission and were plagued from then on by the presence of their enemies in the land.
The thing about the Bible is that it simply reveals reality to us. The disasters that occur are caused by God's judgment against sin for instance, but unless the Bible had told us that we wouldn't know it. So now you know it and you're mad at God although the knowledge doesn't change one thing about the realities of life on this planet. You'd rather not know their causes I suppose, especially if sin is the cause. So much easier to just believe it's all arbitrary accidental history or natural disasters. Me I find it helpful to know why disasters happen, including my own sufferings. Knowledge gives a way to avoid it. And I have the advantage of being able to pray too.
Some of the stuff you accuse religion of, has nothing to do with religion, such as racism, white supremacy etc.
But I suppose I should just give up, you LIKE your lies so I should not give myself an ulcer trying to disabuse you of them.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 174 of 507 (768822)
09-14-2015 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 173 by jar
09-14-2015 10:35 AM


Re: Accomodationism Perpetuates Evil
It won't penetrate your skull of course, but God wrote (inspired the writers of) Genesis and Revelation both, and chose to reveal the meanings behind the earlier history in their own time.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 178 of 507 (768843)
09-14-2015 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 176 by kbertsche
09-14-2015 11:26 AM


Re: The Delusions of Religion's Accomodation
More to the point, it can be argued that there would not be modern science without Christianity. Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Maxwell, Faraday, etc. were motivated by their Christian convictions to develop modern science. Without Christianity we would arguably still be stuck with Greek science.
Thank you. And modern science was not developed in any of the "centers of learning" of any other civilization either, it's specifically an outgrowth of Christianity. And, just as a matter of fact, I think the only nonProtestant on your list is Galileo, right?

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