Atheism - who knew?

We have evidence. You do not.

My evidence is admittedly not objective in the sense that it can be presented for critical review by a rainbow coalition of educated humanists. I would protest that such a group, likely composed largely of unbelievers or inclusivists, would itself be unable to appreciate the evidence if it somehow subjectively became known to them. They would write it off as a bad burrito or as authoritarian propaganda.Does that make sense to you, or are you again annoyed by my insistence upon equal weight being given to exclusivity over inclusion? You cannot have evidence for an eternal Deity nor of a living character. All that you have is a structured argument over why the book should be interpreted critically and dispassionate versus as a belief. Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

In order to respond with a coherent reply to your post, I tried to do a bit of quick research into what Pope Francis professes to believe. Some of my fundy friends (uneducated though they are) are convinced that Pope Francis is likely the False Prophet of the book of Revelation. Despite you guys thinking I have drunk the kool-aid, I reject such a belief unless and until I arrive at the same conclusion through my own research. So here I go:First Source:
Theology Of Pope Francis.
Notable quotes gleaned from article:

quote:

---

It is suggested that the pontificate of Pope Francis will be looked back upon as the "decisive moment in the history of the church in which the full force of the Second Vatican Council's reformist vision was finally realized". Francis returned to the Vatican II theme of ressourcement,(healing) making the church "more faithful to the original sources in scripture and early traditions than to the social, political, and cultural aspects of more recent times". In contrast to John Paul II who emphasized continuity with the past in Vatican II's teachings, and reconciling discontinuities, Francis' papacy from the start emphasized discontinuities: a "church that is poor and for the poor"; "disposal of the baroque trappings" in liturgical celebrations; revision of the institutional aspects of the church, and emphasizing mercy; the need to go into the margins of the world, with a bias toward appointing cardinals from the southern hemisphere; and implementing "one of the original proposals of Vatican II" in constituting a council of eight cardinals who would be above the Roman Curia.

---

I can see where conservative Biblical Literalists who involve themselves with conservative politics would be outraged at a Pope who claimed to be the merciful shepherd to the poor rather than a capitalist believer who sees money as a blessing from God and who cringes at the prospect of giving away all that they own to the poor.

quote:

---

Brendan Leahy, Bishop of Limerick, sees Francis' priorities as... formation of the clergy and laity to be capable of warming peoples' hearts, walking with them, dialoguing, and mending their brokenness; solidarity and collegiality; being in a permanent state of mission, with a maternal heart; and speaking up on social justice issues, for the improvement of society.

---

Protestant literalists would argue that original sin and an unregenerated heart make the vision of Pope Francis unrealistic and that he is, in fact, the false prophet because he seems so meek and Christlike yet has an underlying socialist agenda to redistribute the world's wealth.

quote:

---

According to the editors of a collection of essays on Francis, "the essence of Francis' theology is formed by a commitment to the poor and the marginalized, and unwillingness to pass moral judgment on others, a dislike of legalism and decrees from on high, and distrust of monolithic institutions.

---

That sums up a lot.
Personally, my jury is still out. ringo and I have argued before whether the messenger (Jesus Christ) is as important as the message (feeding the poor and thinking logically rather than dogmatically) I insist that both the message and the messenger come together as a package deal. It is one thing to allow yourself to be a freethinker doing good deeds and quite another to walk in the Spirit and fulfill Christ's mission on earth. (yes I know that sounds arrogant and exclusivist! )Finally, to sum it all up--Catholics value educated Priests and Bishops, claiming that some backwoods hick from Arkansas cant simply get slain in "the spirit" and become a preacher of any authority. The counter-argument to that is that one can not learn the principles of God through any secular education...one only learns to be critical of organized religion and to imagine that God is a definable concept rather than a living reality.Edited by Thugpreacha, : clarification

You addressed this to me but I didn't write it. However.Your fundie friends will, by definition, be nutters so we can dismiss their primitive superstitious nonsense out of hand.As far as Francis goes he seems the best of a bad bunch and has his heart roughly where it should be. He's still part of a hugely corrupt and opaque institution though and he's mostly controlled by it.As for all that incoherent religious blather, I've no time for it, sorry.

Because nobody would choose Hell. I've told you that a dozen times. And that's why we consider the whole belief system nonsense. One bad apple spoils the whole barrel. Not at all. Where did you get that idea? We never get anywhere because you keep getting the same answers but you conveniently forget them and ask the same nonsensical questions a few days later. But why would you do that? Does it make you feel good to insult me? We DID.

So anybody who can look at your "evidence" objectively is No True Christian.Edited by ringo, : No reason given.

quote:

---

BLIND ADVICE

​

People often make the mistake of giving simple answers to those who are in stressful situations. Such was the case with Job’s friend, Zophar. Regardless of Job’s insistence that he was innocent of wrongdoing (6:24; 9:21; 10:2, 7), this third companion began his analysis of Job’s situation based on the flawed assumption that his friend’s great torment was clear evidence of his hidden moral guilt. Citing God’s infinite wisdom, he intimated that not only was Job receiving his due penalty but that if the full depth of Job’s sin were revealed, it would be just for him to gain even greater punishment than he had thus far experienced (11:5 - 6). However, this insensitive friend missed his hypocrisy. Since no one can be judged faultless compared to the perfection of God, Zophar also merited the same penalty he thought Job deserved.

​

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus used an exaggerated contrast to warn his followers of well-intentioned but damaging double standards. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?... You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Mt 7:3, 5). Scripture encourages believers to help and guide others as they deal with wrongdoing (Gal 6:2; Col 3:13, 16), but not before severe self-examination and dealing honestly with personal failures.

​

~ Job” ”11:2-11” ”NKJV””~
“Should not the multitude of words be answered? And should a man full of talk be vindicated? Should your empty talk make men hold their peace? And when you mock, should no one rebuke you? For you have said, ”My doctrine is pure, And I am clean in your eyes.’ But oh, that God would speak, And open His lips against you, That He would show you the secrets of wisdom! For they would double your prudence. Know therefore that God exacts from you Less than your iniquity deserves. “Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven” what can you do? Deeper than Sheol” what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth And broader than the sea. “If He passes by, imprisons, and gathers to judgment, Then who can hinder Him? For He knows deceitful men; He sees wickedness also. Will He not then consider it?”
””
Jesus, forgive us for those times when we feel smug and self-righteous. Please help us to remember that only you see the big picture. We want to relate to people as you would connect to them: with compassion and grace.

---

We both could learn a lesson about smugness and self-righteousness. I am not trying to insult you. I am offending that arrogant spirit that runs you around. It has no power, however since it denies Christ. He will prevail, however. In the meantime, you and I can continue our debate/discussion.

You're not discussing anything anymore Phat. Where once you'd at least attempt discussion then ignore/ forget what had been said, now you just preach and ignore what has been said.And by preach, I mean talk religious sounding fundie bollox like the nutters with placards on their backs on street corners.
Find professional help.Edited by Tangle, : Spelling

Pot, meet the kettle.Let's take a step back and look at what you are saying. First, you claim that this whole universe was created for you, and there is a deity who cares about your day to day life. On top of that, you think you know what this deity wants, which scriptures are actually from this deity, and you also smugly believe you know the future of other people and how this deity will treat them.Thugpreacha, look in a mirror.

You're as much as saying I'm possessed by demons. See? Stop thinking in terms of spooks. I deny Christ. He never existed. I don't need some figment of your fevered mind to tell me that. I can see the evidence for myself.

Of course, a counter-observation is that whereas the Spirit has revealed the Truth to so many (dare we say "countless"?) individuals, all of whom ended up with vastly different versions of that "Truth". What good is a Holy Spirit who cannot keep its story straight?As Thomas Paine observed in the first part of his Age of Reason:

quote:

---

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

​

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

​

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

​

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

​

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

---

I maintain that Paine was much to optimistic about that first stage of any revelation. The first thing that that person receiving that revelation would do would be to try to understand it. It is at that point that the revelation first becomes hearsay, having been irreparably corrupted from the very start.Back in the 90's an evangelical Christian and post-graduate student in physical geology was very active on-line running a discussion board on science and religion -- he was strongly opposed to and critical of YEC. Most of that fell by the wayside when he received his PhD and his life priorities changed (eg, career, raising his family), but there was much wisdom in his web pages so I reposted some of them on my old web site with his permission. Recently I contacted him again for permission to repost them on my present site and this time he declined. Honoring that, I will not reveal his name here and will also not provide the title of the page I got this quote from (emphasis added):

quote:

---

I've read many of the materials written by young-earth creationists such as Steve Austin, Thomas Barnes, Carl Baugh, Duane Gish, Ken Ham, Henry Morris, John Morris, Gary Parker, and Harold Slusher among others. I'm also very familiar with the material put out by Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society. In addition, I've even attended lectures and seminars by several well-known young-earth creationists.

​

In general, I've been dismayed by the lack of scholarship, research, and ethics displayed by these men who claim to be devout Christians. They totally misrepresent mainstream science and scientists, ignore evidence contrary to their claims, and display an amazing ignorance of even the most basic fundamentals of science and scientific inquiry. Their materials are aimed toward laypeople who are in no position to evaluate their claims. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but who is better qualified to judge the accuracy of K-Ar dating, an evangelist who reads creationist literature and has never taken a physics or geology course in his life or a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry (who may also be a devout Christian) who has spent 25 years studying K-Ar dating in granites?

---

You set up a comparison between "educated Priests and Bishops" and "some backwoods hick from Arkansas" (be careful to call him a "hillbilly" instead of a "red neck" in order to avoid a shotgun blast in the face -- see Ozark on Netflix). Certainly there is value to having teachers who have actually studied the topic over somebody all hopped up on stuff that is virtually guaranteed to be wrong (again, refer to the Holy Spirit's proven track record of giving notoriously bad gouge).There's also the practical organizational considerations. If you allow your lay members to try to interpret Scripture for themselves, then your church will end up tearing itself apart, splintering into many different mutually antagonistic churches based on disagreement over interpretation. Therefore, you make your priests the authorities in matters of interpretation and you act against the heresy of having a different interpretation.Of course, the far more practical reason for those practices was the rarity of books, placing them and the ability to read out of the reason of the laity. That situation changed with the Gutenberg press, which coincided with Martin Luther and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation -- indeed, Luther's local protest went Continent-wide when someone printed off copies of his "99 Theses" and distributed them.With the Gutenberg Bible, anyone could read the Bible for himself and interpret it for himself. That resulted in precisely what the Catholic Church was trying to prevent: the splintering of churches over picky little disagreements. Ed Babinski's cartoon from 1986 illustrates that rather well: So, knowledge versus ignorance. We've already learned that ignorance does not work, yet that we continue to see too many people choosing ignorance.

---

And just to nip in the bud that tired old lie that Thomas Paine was an atheist, he wrote in Age of Reason:

quote:

---

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

​

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

​

... [massive ellipsis] ...

​

As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism- a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade.

​

The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everything upside down, and representing it in reverse, and among the revolutions it has thus magically produced, it has made a revolution in theology.

​

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.

​

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works or writings that man has made; and it is not among the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag of superstition.

---

I respect your thoughtful reply. I wanted to push a few buttons, and I achieved exactly that.