Testing The Christian Apologists

I do understand. I believe that God is a part of all reality. And you think that "No God" is a part of all truth. Critics will say that No God is not a belief. But I can argue that "NoGod" is a thing. An idea. Because how on earth could one claim that the absence of evidence equals evidence of absence? (Unless they had a belief that NoGod (as a Noun...a Thing) equates to NoGod as Evidence. ) It is a tough concept to wrap one's mind around but think of it this way.GIVEN:
That God by definition is omnipresent (everywhere detectable)
God Is All-Knowing and All-Aware. (Omniscient)
Is Hopefully All Good (Omnibenevolent)Also Given:Stile believes that evidence is the "best way to know things" and thus a belief. Your primary hangup is that you allow evidence to be your core belief, which leaves no room for any other possible idea. Critics would say that people like you worship science in the definition of a tried and true best way (only way) of knowing things. Because of this faith in empiricism, you cannot believe any other way, which has given society supercomputers, the eradication of many diseases, longer lifespans, and technological wonders.I get it. (I think )Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

Honestly, I prefer believing in a God of consensus rather than one club's teacher telling me what the book says. I trust that God is experienced by some, though not by all. I also believe that it was meant for this not to be provable by model, mechanism, method, process or procedure. If there is an absolute right and wrong interpretation for the Bible, I go with what I know (or believe) I find little value in the God of the Bible as you describe Him.The God that you say the Bible describes does not interact with humanity, expects us to go and do, is likely not supernatural, and serves as but a teaching model.I do not believe that humans are solely responsible for their actions and destiny, would the God whom I believe in exist.

One reason that I like sparring with you is that you get me to think. Well, even the apologists know that! The main difference between you and them is that you rarely if ever presuppose anything while many other Christians do. STOP
FULL STOP And yet you have. Or at least you have interpreted GOD, God, and god. So that is what the Bible says, or what jar wishes it has said? You seem to describe Jesus apart from simply being fully human as a man who lets people do what they feel like doing and who shares in the fun, and the beer runs, and the characteristic that Biblical Christians would describe as "of the flesh". You indirectly teach that Jesus simply taught us to do our best and didn't expect us to worship Him or GOD except by that action of doing our best. I have many more examples from the archives. You very much DO interpret the Bible and its characters. Why do you dislike apologists so much? Don't they use what the scriptures say to support what they believe the text says? And how are you any different? I charge that you too interpret the Bible.I don't deny that you present the book without elaboration, but when you say really stupid things like "the snake told the truth. God (character) lied" you become an embarrassment to classic Christian interpretation.Finally...notice how to magnify the snake's truthful statement that we would not die, as well as the God character saying we would.You fail to mention that the snake also said that we would be as Gods. The fact that this is somewhat truthful among today's secular humanists and unbelievers should be something worth pointing out (if this snake is so honest)The Bible clearly says that Satan is the father of lies. Most Christian interpretations show the snake as being a metaphor. If you claim that this metaphor does not clearly represent satan who does it represent?

And yet would you not agree that Jesus is? Do you not believe that Jesus is God?

One man's rubbish is another man's refuge. First off, how do you know that God does not speak through it? I recall once you said that if the God of popular apologetic scriptural interpretation were actually real, you likely would laugh in his face. By refusing to believe, you are actually advocating a different religion than Christianity as taught by the majority. Your God is unknowable and cares nothing special towards humans.

If so, what is a modern seeker to do? Where you and I differ is that you believe some things that I would also challenge as nonsense. Let me see if I can lay some of them out without misrepresenting what you say (or have said) For the vast majority of Christians, the Bible is not simply some scholarly study from antiquity. It speaks of the character of Jesus Christ. Every single other book that has anything to do with the concept of the church, and of a believer, and of church tradition also gravitates toward this direction. I note with bemusement how my friend ringo always brays loudly about embracing "the message" and throwing the messenger away(a concept he likely fleshed out courtesy of *you*. Some questions related to this are as follows:

Should the universal message be one of One God and One Spirit amongst the people or should it be of the people uniting, forming a consensus and an understanding of unity as relativistic? I, of course, embrace the former. I believe that it was the intention of Jesus as well. You guys will argue that the message is really simple: Feed and clothe and love others as you feed and clothe and love yourself. Without religion. Without apologetics. Without the need for agreement on Who or What to worship. Am I right or am I wrong?

How did Jesus pray to GOD?

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Does the Book Of Common Prayer offer support for the message of unity in recognizing One God? Is The BCP a product of ONE mind or ONE purpose or ONE goal?

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JESUS, if JESUS exists, does not exist to be of value to humans.

I need evidence of this. It sounds totally WRONG.

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Edited by Thugpreacha, : added point

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith

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You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

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As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.
? R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

First of all, the Bible is not simply some storybook of a compilation of goatherder stories describing the various ideas about a god whom they believed in. It is a story of a people who actually had a god (God) reveal Himself to them. They may have had different levels of understanding based on their exposure to information and consensus from other goatherders (and fishermen and..well, Levites) but my belief is that the Bible describes peoples' attempts to understand One God...not mere human descriptions of many. Once Jesus came along, the deal was done. No longer would there be any disagreement over which God was/is represented. Our only squabbles now revolve around the question of whether God exists or not (a free-will thing in our own minds) and whether Jesus was simply some human teacher who died like every other teacher in history or whether Jesus represented One God.

The snake story which you defend is implausible to me for several reasons.1) Assuming we are discussing a book of origins and a growing understanding of who God is, the consensus seems to be that God cannot lie. If as you claim God did in fact lie, what do you expect people to do? Worship the snake? Worship the Books themselves, as GDR warns us against? Throw all apologetics, gods, and Gods out the window and go watch the ducks? I am not challenging what the book says. I am challenging what you get out of it and why you defend it simply because "the book says it". You know all too well what a lot of apologetics teaches. It is becoming more and more evident to me, yet I am searching for some original ideas. ( I never find them from you. )

Upon further reflection, I am not defending what the book says. That is your job. I am not defending the accusation that anyone can then make up whatever they want, which breeds moral relativism, which I somewhat oppose. I am not defending myself except that I believe that I am one of the ones who have the Spirit. So to break it all down, I am defending the idea that the ones with the Spirit are the fiery preachers, anointed teachers, and wise prophets of the modern age.I make no claim to wisdom. I make no claim to strict exclusivity, though I will defend absolute truth. For that reason, I reject the snake story described the way you describe it. You are and have always been a contrarian. ( adjective contrarian
opposing or rejecting popular opinion; going against current practice. )Granted you could be right. I don't yet see it, however.

Hi Paul. I'm glad that you jumped on board this one. I was getting bored. For now, let's just say that jar and ringos interpretation is unpopular. It makes God out to be a human creation and a character who lies in the book. I'm going to stop trying to defend the book. I'm simply defending the premise that I got from the book, which is that Jesus is alive, GOD is His Father, and the Holy Spirit is living and active among believers today. I risk the charge of exclusivity by also saying that only a minority of churchgoers have the Spirit, are saved, or are otherwise in touch with universal wisdom. You may challenge this by showing us some wisdom of your own. jar gets around that one by calling God the "god character", lending support to his idea that there are many different "god characters" within the book. Apologists would counter that by saying that some things are only discerned through "spiritual eyes". None of you believe in Classic Apologetics, as your argument is that it was used to push an agenda and that the modern truth-seeker (as you all claim to be, as do I) searches for evidence, reasoned argumentation, and context rather than a voice of intuition within themselves. Which is a good counter-argument, I will admit. GDR used to warn Faith against worshiping the Bible, so if that is also what you are suggesting, I can see your point. Some say that Jesus was the first true apologist and that the Apostle Paul was the next one. Critics say that Paul was trying to start his own religion in opposition to the Judaism he was raised in. You also assert that redactors sabotaged John and other parts of the book, whichj if we believe that, dismantles the book as a valid description of Christian belief.So that gets us back to square one. We are the modern goatherders making up our own stories about God. These days, the atheist voice is gaining ground as a rational alternative belief system. In that regard, I will say that I was impressed with this secular humanist, mentioned in my other topic:
Secular Humanism: A Proactive Approach to Goodness | Bart CampoloCampolos basic message is similar to what ringo has been trying to get me to accept as well as jar. That it is not the source that is important but the content as lived out through us in our daily lives. Critics could argue that this is in fact the Holy Spirit, and I believe that Campolo actually does have the Holy Spirit and is a stealth operative for God. He even gets to lecture the atheists!

how do you explain john 3:16 in light of that? The bible supports the idea that God cares about humanity. Nevermind phat.

Double PostEdited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

OK, I've got one for you! And what's really surprising me is that I'm finally finding myself agreeing with you guys. (In some things, anyway. ) Podcast by Secular Humanist Apologist You will like it. Listen and tell me what you think.

No. But you are too damn impatient. You think you have it all figured out. I am 60, and I learn slowly yet thoroughly.And I believe that Secular Humanists and Christians both can learn from each other and that this is God's plan from the get-go. You, of course, would argue that its just reality and that my "God Character" has absolutely nothing to do with it, but my point is that you need to trust me enough to listen to a few of these sources, which I put online here at EvC. Listening to a podcast this morning, I was intrigued by the content of the communication. Which (correct me if I'm wrong) you are unamazed about since you always trusted secular humanist wisdom.Fair enough.Let me recap how this all came about.Our boy ringo, my internet thorn in the flesh, challenged me to find an "honest Christian Apologist." (I started this thread to chronicle my findings)I went through several. Honestly, I found the same basic schpiel from each one and was coming to a slow realization that you guys were right...but remained determined to find my honest apologist since I am a believer who remains true to my world view. I am, however, more open-minded than most evangelical and conservative Christians (remember that I consider myself more moderate than traditional), and I do pray to God (I prefer to call it "commune with God") on a near-daily basis.Thus, I will attribute my finding this "honest apologist" to God. The irony is strong. I was searching for an honest Christian Apologist.I had listened to Dr.Ravi Zacharias (whom Theodoric exposed as a man with flaws) yet whom I still have some respect for his intelligence. I took into consideration his previous dishonest actions, yet evaluated his ministry as a whole and the message contained through it.I moved on to Dr.Frank Turek. His podcasts were all right, but I was more impressed with the counter-arguments from skilled atheists such as Matt Dillahunty. While not ready to dismiss the Christian Apologetic as "making stuff up" as you guys seem to do, I felt I needed to search deeper. Ringo, of course, claims that were I honest with myself, I would agree with EvC's line of reasoning. Still, you forget that I have experienced what I truly believed and believe to be supernatural (or at least unexplained) events that grounded and solidified my faith.To continue.Turek was unconvincing because he was a bit too smug. He learned from the late Dr.Norman Geisler, considered by the mainstream to be one of the best, as was Josh McDowell, but I knew that either of those two would not impress the arguments presented by EvC and by Matt Dillahunty.I found Dr.Sean McDowell, Josh McDowells, son. (Why are they all Doctors, anyway? ) and upon listening to his podcasts, found a more modern type of apologist who, through confronting today's college youth culture, is more open-minded as to what the cultural zeitgeist has become.Through the Christian Apologist, I found an interview with the secular humanist apologist whose Dad is an Evangelical. Bart Campolo is an honest apologist. (as is Sean McDowell, in my opinion)
LOSING FAITH AND KEEPING FAITH: SEAN MCDOWELL AND BART CAMPOLOFor those of you who wish to skip the Christian Apologetics and move directly to a secular humanist world view, might I suggest this episode? It reminds me of how we grew up in high school....nerdy white guys with an overactive imagination discussing how to improve the world. It is, after all, optimistic. The Social Impact Of The Internet with Hank Green

quote:

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On this week's episode, Bart Campolo introduces that conversation, in which he and Hank talk about individuals versus groups, how to get on the same page with people in your life, how to make the most of your talents and opportunities, and how to humanize the internet.

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Hank Green is a web content producer, vlogger, and now author. His new book, out now, is called An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.

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"It" is anything but simple. Take Karl Barth for example. You can somewhat smugly stand on your assertion that the book says what it says, but you cannot argue that what it says is plainly and simply what it means. The reason being is that you don't even believe that the characters exist outside of the book. Thus, what leg have you to stand on?The book?Try again. If you understood Karl Barth, you would understand the road that led to my argument. After all, he was not simply a character in a book. Nor is Jesus.At this point, I need to stop. I'm not even sure what the argument is between you and I. All I know is that I disagree. And don't accuse me of ignoring the message. I will testify in court that I do not. (apart from not giving away every material possession I have, which is patently ridiculous. ) If Jesus cares to prosecute me, He has every right. You, on the other hand, need to stop using the book against Christians. You have a warped view of what you are even apologizing for. Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.