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Author | Topic: A Way to Think About Free Will and God: Open Theism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Getting accused of something that has never happened and isn't likely to happen, based only on atheist paranoia or something like that, is a pretty depressing experience.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes: Getting accused of something that has never happened and isn't likely to happen, based only on atheist paranoia or something like that, is a pretty depressing experience. It's happening all the time in many parts of the world. People are being murdered for what they call blasphemy. In Pakistan there's been national riots over it.
quote: Even in the developed world blasphemy laws still exist, Ireland only dropped theirs this year. Stephen Fry was being investigated for blasphemy
quote: Did you notice that - the *2009* blasphemy law!! Luckily. the fundamentalist idiots have finally been outvoted.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
Let's not be too optimistic about the "finally". Luckily. the fundamentalist idiots have finally been outvoted.And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Been reading a book I've had on my PC kindle page for quite a while, The Great Evangelical Disaster Revisited by Peter Glover and finding it to be a strong argument against all the subjectivist ideas about God that are so common at EvC.
Riverrat just more or less bragged about how he doesn't get his ideas about God from the church, Phat says something similar about the Bible: he has his own version of subjectivism though he answers Riverrat that he isn't completely in line with what he'd said. GDR's views are unfolding more and more lately as a clearcut heresy of some sort, sort of reminiscent of Robert Schuller of Crystal Cathedral fame I think, though I'm not exactly sure how to label it. Now we've got Percy describing his own belief in God as something that's just in him, that he can't defend objectively, it's just there. And Stile just joined the lineup with a thread proposal about a totally subjective approach to believing in God or not believing according to what feels right or something like that. Who am I forgetting? All of these listed object to making the Bible the foundation of their belief, aggressively attacking it in some cases. Here God spent millennia inspiring His prophets to give us the truth about Himself and you all ignore it and tear it to shreds. What is the point in having any belief in God at all if you're going to ignore the only source of objective knowledge about Him? Or make up your own interpretations and reject the accumulated wisdom of the Church on what it means?Never mind, I don't want to hear another bunch of nonsense in answer to this question. I've spent my whole Christian life trying to understand the Bible as the foundation of solid traditional Christian faith, through as many preachers and teachers as I've been able to read over the years, including all the Catechisms and Confessions which aim to condense its truths for us. Why anyone would trust in their own judgment instead of making this sort of effort is beyond me. Truly building your house on the sand it seems to me. Glover's book mentions Open Theism as a heresy along these subjectivist heretical lines, though "mystical" is his favorite category for these things. His book is presented as a revisiting of the famous book by Francis Schaeffer written back in the 80s, The Great Evangelical Disaster which similarly identified the errors the Church was falling into in his day as "super-spiritual" or mystical. His focus seems to have been mostly on the Charismatic Movement which made personal experience more important than the Bible, which is basically what all these subjectivist movements have in common. Schaeffer identified the watershed between true believers and heretics as those for whom the Bible is foundational and those for whom it isn't, and Glover follows the same way of dividing the orthodox from the heresies. Glover's book is a strong argument for traditional Bible-believing Christianity against all this subjectivism, which he sees as the cause of the weakness of the Church these days, due partly to God's judgment on us for embracing these heresies and abandoning His word. I recommend the book to all you subjectivists. (It's only a few bucks but you can only get it for Kindle at Amazon. If you don't have a Kindle you can start a Kindle Cloud Reader page at Amazon, which is what I have. Means you can only read it when you're at the PC.) Anyway, again, Open Theism denies the scripture too, it's just another subjectivist anti-Bible deception. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
As I already pointed out, the only examples you have or ever can or will have of your claim that the idea of heresy always leads to "bad stuff" is Islam and Roman Catholicism. Not sure since when Romanism has been called "fundamentalism" though.
abe(Oh, and this Stephen Fry is a complete idiot). Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined:
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Faith writes: All of these listed object to making the Bible the foundation of their belief... I do object to making the Bible the foundation of my belief - the Bible is too... immature... for me.But I don't object to making the Bible the foundation of others' beliefs. In fact, I support and endorse that those who find the Bible to be... profoundly signficant... should definitely make the Bible the foundation of their beliefs. His focus seems to have been mostly on the Charismatic Movement which made personal experience more important than the Bible, which is basically what all these subjectivist movements have in common. Schaeffer identified the watershed between true believers and heretics as those for whom the Bible is foundational and those for whom it isn't, and Glover follows the same way of dividing the orthodox from the heresies. I can understand Glover's and Schaeffer's objection to focusing on personal experience. When you focus on personal experience instead of orthodox teachings, you no longer have any excuse of "trying to understand the mysteries of the Lord" or "attempting to find what Christ really wants." All you have is personal responsibility. Lots and lots of personal responsibility and no excuses of any kind. Most people do try to shy away from such things, it's easier that way.
Glover's book is a strong argument for traditional Bible-believing Christianity against all this subjectivism, which he sees as the cause of the weakness of the Church these days, due partly to God's judgment on us for embracing these heresies and abandoning His word. I recommend the book to all you subjectivists. It's not really much of an argument at all against what you're calling "subjectivism."You can't say "God doesn't want you to do this!" to someone who doesn't believe in God... it's not an argument of any sort. It's like attempting to argue that lollipops are the best candy to an engineer who needs to design a bridge so that it doesn't fall apart and kill anyone.You may very well be right that lollipops are great... but it's irrelevant to anyone who has more important goals to strive for. You are right about it causing a weakness of the Church though... and that's really what it seems to be more about. Something to rally the all-ready-believing troops. "Subjectivism" may very well undermine Christianity.In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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Faith writes: As I already pointed out, the only examples you have or ever can or will have of your claim that the idea of heresy always leads to "bad stuff" is Islam and Roman Catholicism. 90 seconds on google...
quote: Heresy - Wikipedia How many examples do you require?Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
When you focus on personal experience instead of orthodox teachings, you no longer have any excuse of "trying to understand the mysteries of the Lord" or "attempting to find what Christ really wants." All you have is personal responsibility. Lots and lots of personal responsibility and no excuses of any kind. Most people do try to shy away from such things, it's easier that way. I guess you have no idea whatever how bizarrely wrongheaded this notion is. Since I'm on a public computer and have to leave pretty soon I'm not going to try to explain this now, maybe tomorrow. Or maybe not.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
How many examples do you require? Let me know when you're approaching fifty million which was the tally of Bible Christians killed by Rome over six centuries. The examples you give don't include numbers, for some reason, and were very short-lived as it was soon recognized that it is a violation of Christian faith. Islam has murdered untold numbers, I don't think anyone knows. Mohammed himself wiped out a whole Jewish town. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes: abe(Oh, and this Stephen Fry is a complete idiot). Stephen Fry is a funny and highly intelligent man who also happens to be gay and homosexual, traits that could get him murdered by the state in some countries and prosecuted in even some modern Western ones. And luckily being thought an idiot by fundamendaist idiots does not yet constitute a criminal offenseJe suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes: Let me know when you're approaching fifty million which was the tally of Bible Christians killed by Rome over six centuries. The examples you give don't include numbers, for some reason, and were very short-lived as it was soon recognized that it is a violation of Christian faith. Islam has murdered untold numbers, I don't think anyone knows. Mohammed himself wiped out a whole Jewish town. Thank you, that's exactly my point. As soon as religious fundamentalists get in charge they start crying heresy and killing people. Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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ringo Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Faith writes:
Argumentum ad body-countum. Let me know when you're approaching fifty million which was the tally of Bible Christians killed by Rome over six centuries.And our geese will blot out the sun.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Islam has murdered untold numbers, I don't think anyone knows. Mohammed himself wiped out a whole Jewish town. Thank you, that's exactly my point. As soon as religious fundamentalists get in charge they start crying heresy and killing people. No. The difference is in the ideology itself. Islam preaches killing "infidels" and taking over the world. The Roman Church was not following the Bible but in fact prohibiting people from reading it in their own language during the years they were murdering everybody, and they themselves were teaching pagan superstitions and a distorted understanding of the Bible. That is why the Reformation was needed. So it was not Biblical Christianity that murdered heretics, it was pagan Romanism that murdered heretics and when Protestantism came along and founded itself on the Bible it had an ideology that is strongly against murdering heretics or anybody. That some incidents persisted is just the exception that proves the rule because they were very few and quickly stopped because it was recognized how wrong it is. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes: No. The difference is in the ideology itself. There is no difference. All religious fundamentalists cry herecy and try to remove those that have different ideas one way or another. The rest is just special pleading.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
That's a lie, and all you've done is assert it. I answered your one puny false example. Give us some evidence for your false accusation.
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