Counter-Apologetics

OK, let's say that He did. You hardly have legal credentials to represent the goats, do you? What will you argue before the Court?

Besides, I know your legal strategy! You will argue that both the OT God and Jesus are fictional. You were taught too much science and logic in your legal training and not enough respect for a Creator. Even some scientists have such respect.Note: Can A Scientist Believe in The resurrection?

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Today’s widespread materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are inviolable is not necessary for science to function. Science offers natural explanations of natural events. It has no power or need to assert that only natural events happen.

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Counselor? Your Client

I'll bet you have! Even though I always get it wrong, I'm still gonna try and figure you out.You first went off the rails when you logically deduced that science determines reality. Granted you challenge everything, but you somehow decided to challenge/question God. What you found became your new belief. You cannot claim that you are forced to go where the evidence leads you, for you have rejected belief. You have even said that belief should be a last resort. Sometimes it is fun to argue with you as there is an undercurrent of humor and clever quips and comebacks. You are usually a very worthy opponent. After reading your last final insistence that your argument is sound, however, i am feeling as if you will never change it no matter how much I send back at you. Thus I am forced to concede your argument that we are the only ones who can pick up the duty that God won't do for us...but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. If you ever became a traveling counter-apologist, you likely would be faced with hostile audiences in the churches you spoke at...but your basic challenge would be for the congregation to throw away their preconceived beliefs and ideas and simply go feed people and hand out spare change etc. They would likely hate you for it. I don't hate you by any means...I've accepted your argument regarding the value of the message and the duty of all of humanity to provide for each other. If God actually sent you out with that message, the only possible reason he would do it is to take the crutch away from the Christians.It seems odd for someone to preach a message that God was literary fiction, Jesus was embellished, both were bloodthirsty according to the books, and that we are expected to do it ourselves!You and jar are very similar. Tangle, on the other hand, is prematurely conclusive. One cannot assume that everything is simply fiction just because they have never had reason to think otherwise. (apart from his insistence that he once believed it all.)

It means you would have had a good reason to think or believe otherwise. Examples of this would include subjective corroborations, answered prayers of a major life-changing degree, experiences such as I had regarding unexplained voices coming out of someone 3 feet in front of me, coupled at that same moment with my armhair literally standing on end and an electrical feeling in the air.In other words, once someone has adequate subjective "evidence" or experience that rules out fiction, they won't stop believing.Finally, I think too many people read too many reports from critics who persuade them to logically stop believing. You may claim that dogmatic propoganda is harmful, but I would claim the same for its atheistic counterpart.

So you are essentially saying that secular humanist perspectives are all truth and reality while all beliefs throughout time have been wrong. Correct?

I had to look up some dictionary meanings in order to get my head around what is being said here. Thus my question to you,(So you are essentially saying that secular humanist perspectives are all truth and reality while all beliefs throughout time have been wrong?) You reply "No"...yet go on to state: GDR argues that some doctrine is historically based, whereas Percy argues as you do that it is all belief and hence all dogmatic.Churches were never formed based on evidence-based science or logic, however. And if so, it was based on a common subjective experience which led to the common dogma experienced and accepted.

So first we have to establish what is and is not Christian Doctrine. Additionally, we have the question of what is doctrine vs what is dogma. Or if the two can be seperate.So we go back to what you say is the only real source we have...the 66 books themselves.(give or take a few added here and there) But you throw yet another wrench at us: Now to be precise, we have 66 books rather than one book, thus 66 sources. Thus when people claim that its not valid to use the Bible to corroborate the Bible, they are speaking as if it is one book. It is arguably kosher to use one of the 66 books to defend another of the 66 books, however. jar always argued that there were different god characters in different books. Your argument now seems to be that there is one God who is the same in the OT and the NT. Further, you argue that such a God is mean and unfair...to goats and enemies of Israel at least. These days people avoid religion because they claim that the God of religion is mean to Illegals, gays, women who had abortions, and atheists. Yet you conclude by saying that the specific message has value. Thus, in order to satisfy this argument, the "loving God" has to be imagined and lived by us and through us. Is that about right?

You claim that the evidence led you to reject belief. I see no evidence that would lead me to reject my belief. Granted there is evidence that has me question the authenticity of what the apologists preach, but I see many people defend their belief and wonder why you so readily discarded yours? You cant have evidence in invisible Spirits either pro or con.Belief is a simple choice. There is no reason to reject belief in an invisible power that permeates the universe simply because such a hypothetical power doesn't *do* everything that you think such a power *should* do. And skepticism is?We are back to the whole Leap Of Faith argument. In other words, faith is based on hope. Your problem is that all you have ever hoped for is significant evidence. And not evidence for God so much as evidence for why your doubts and questions had substance. You found it. End of your story.

I'm not talking so much of children. I am talking of adult over the age of 21 who have been exposed to the internet, missionaries, and aware of the choices offered globally. True you may have a point that most of them will accept the local product if at all. But this presupposes that all of the products are equally palatable. If there actually is something to my brand---in that the solution of accepting a living Christ is an actual possibility and if something actually happens through accepting Jesus the character vs simply dogma chanted by the local shaman...Christianity will have a statistical advantage.

That's quite shocking what Steve Baughman claims, but it looks accurate. From what I understand, Ravi and his organization retracted the claims. I'm still reading about the online sexual innuendo. This hurts all of us. We all sin, but individual sin hurts the entire body. I hope that it turns out to not be as bad as accused.The complaint he filed in Federal Court actually indicted him.

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On July 31, 2017, Mr. Zacharias responded by filing a federal lawsuit against Ms. Thompson and her husband, Bradley Thompson, accusing them of carrying out an extortion scheme against him. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

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Looking only at the evidence presented by Mr. Zacharias we learn that he had indeed carried on an online relationship with Ms. Thompson, one that involved her sending him nude photos of herself. (There was no physical sexual contact between them.)

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Reading further into this from several online sources, Isee the following:

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In a statement released Sunday, December 3, 2017, Zacharias says he first met the couple in October 2014 while he was speaking at a conference in Canada. An honored apologist and well-known speaker, this was nothing out of the ordinary for him. According to Zacharias, the wife asked him to follow up with her husband, who apparently was questioning the Christian faith. This was the beginning of a correspondence which Zacharias claims was initiated by the wife. When the wife surprisingly sent nude photos of herself in 2016, Zacharias says he “clearly instructed her to stop contacting me in any form; I blocked her messages, and I resolved to terminate all contact with her.”

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According to the couple, however, the correspondence looked more like Zacharias grooming the wife for sexual exploitation. Christianity Today (CT) reports in April 2017 the couple sent a demand letter through their attorney, asking for $5 million in exchange for keeping silent about the correspondence. In the demand letter, the couple state Zacharias exercised “controlling influence over [the wife] as one with spiritual authority.”

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Zacharias’s Federal Lawsuit
Zacharias filed a federal lawsuit against the couple in August 2017, stating the husband and wife conspired together to damage Zacharias and to extract “an exorbitant sum of money” from him. Also stated in the lawsuit is the fact that the couple previously sued a pastor in Ontario, Canada, for allegedly coercing them into unadvisable loans and investments. The couple asked for $1 million in damages, but the lawsuit was ultimately dropped.

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Zacharias dropped his federal lawsuit against the couple on November 9, 2017, after the couple requested mediation in lieu of going to trial. Since then, the two parties have reached a private settlement. While Zacharias has published a statement addressing the settlement, he told CT he is “legally prevented from answering or even discussing the questions and claims being made by some . ” He did wish to assure the supporters of his ministry, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, that no ministry funds were used to pay legal expenses.

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The Hard Lesson Zacharias Learned
Although Zacharias claims he did not do anything to sexually exploit the wife or mislead the couple, he does admit he “failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety.” In the statement, he says he is “profoundly sorry” and that he has acknowledged this “to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board and my colleagues.”

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“The question is not whether I solicited or sent any illicit photos or messages to another woman”I did not, and there is no evidence to the contrary”but rather, whether I should have been a willing participant in any extended communication with a woman not my wife,” Zacharias explains in his statement.

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Ravi claims that he was wrong, yet claims no motive for her sending him the pictures. It looks to me like the couple was trying to set him up, evidence being another lawsuit they failed to cash in on from another minister.So that leaves Charlatan. Any reason why he is one?Granted I dont think he is entirely innocent. He blew it and admitted as much under pressure. This information surprised me, and I am disillusioned with another Christian whom I had looked up to. Perhaps I should learn not to put anybody on a pedestal....neither minister nor scientist. I know a lot of you looked up to Hitchens. And he seemed more honest. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Are there any Christian apologists that you *do* respect?

...Correction: Virtually nothing in religion is taught the way it actually is. And a lot of these so-called facts are not conclusive. But you guys will think they are actual facts.