Testing The Christian Apologists

I'd react the same way I do when someone comes along and tries to explain to me what the Bible really means. I'd show him where he's wrong. Why would I "interpret" Treasure Island? It says what it says.Have you ever read Treasure Island? Do you make up a "living Long John Silver" who wants to "commune" with you? Doesn't that sound crazy to you? I don't tell people to get lost. I follow them around from thread to thread trying to get them to engage. Not at all. I just acknowledge that the Jesus character understood a thing or two about humanist community building. If you're going to believe that the character is real, that should be your takeaway. On the contrary, I'm the one who is constantly telling you to use it instead of just bleating, "Lord! Lord!" Oooh! That's impressive. And I bet many bus drivers drive buses too. Getting offended doesn't accomplish anything. Show how they're wrong. It's not a contest. It seems to me it's the Christians who are getting mad. They don't like having their fairy tale challenged.

I keep asking you: If you're getting some kind of "special communication" from Jesus, why doesn't it manifest as the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance)? Creationists - particularly the young, uneducated ones - call that "thinking outside the box". My standard response is: You shouldn't try to think outside the box until you understand the box. You should be trying to understand the text before you swallow any "fresh" outside-the-box "interpretations" (fairy tales) from apologists. So did the messenger. On the contrary, socialism is our only hope. Wake up! You're dreaming. Christianity is already struggling. It will go the way of Zeus. We already have you and Faith.

It's "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Contribute what you can, get what you need. It's exactly what Jesus taught. Ironic choice of words.

That's just hypocrisy. That's mostly because they have the organization.

Nobody has said anything about surrendering everything to government.

That happens all the time. The Roman Empire collapsed and Jupiter/Zeus is now forgotten. We're already organized into collectives. They're called "nations". We already have that too. We can tell the "fake Christians" by their all-caps posts.

I don't necessarily advocate "implementing socialism". I advocate being a decent human being, which is also what Jesus advocated. Do what needs doing even if it means giving up that second ivory back-scratcher.But what you're missing is that pulling up the poor benefits everybody. The poor get richer and pay more taxes, which reduces your tax burden.

You see it in the microcosm of right-wing politics. What you're missing is that more workers produce more, so there's more to go around.I've only ever had one job where seniority counted for anything and that was only an extra week of vacation. Employers should recognize that older workers bring experience, reliabilty, etc. to make up for slowing down, etc. but I don't see any reason to give preference to seniority for its own sake.

And that's dishonest. It's putting the conclusion before the argument.

Honesty does not depend on whether you're a believer or not. If you believe something contrary to the evidence, you're being dishonest with yourself. ANY time the conclusion comes before the argument, it is ALWAYS dishonest. You have no business drawing a conclusion before looking at the argument(s). You don't get "saved" at all until the judgement. And what you are saved from is God. How can you claim the scripture is "alive" to you when you reject what it says? Since when does something have to be mangled to be alive?

No. You reject what it says in favour of assertions made by apologists. They do not "share what it says". They try to explain away what it says. Exactly. You need to know the different authors of the different books that make up the Bible. You can not assume that they are all marching in lockstep and use that assumption to force a universal "meaning" on all of them. That's obviously false. Paulk is another one who disagrees with you. You shouldn't believe anybody, least of all the ones who tell you what you want you hear. You should use your head. You shouldn't. It's often wrong. But again you only ask the ones who tell you what you want to hear. That's fundamentally dishonest. How can it be "stubborn" to argue that they say what they say? It's a tautology, for Christ's sake. They DO say what they say. That's a lie. But you never produce an argument against it. If you want to be taken seriously, you'll have to stop all this meta nonsense and make an actual argument. Nonsense. God is the only one who is threatening to harm us if we get out of line. He's the only enemy. YOU try to explain it. If you understand it, you should be able to explain it. And if you don't understand it, that's likely because it doesn't make sense. Why don't you stick to one issue at a time? Why do the apologists lie about Genesis 2-3?

It's a lie to say the snake lied. It's a lie to say God told the truth. It's a lie to say there was a Fall. When the book says, "White", it's a lie to claim the message is,"Black."You're just denying. You're not presenting any argument. Back up what you claim.

You claim that you have seen no evidence of apologist lies. I've shown you evidence. I'm not "explaining" anything. I'm quoting. The book does say what it says. What part of that is so difficult to understand? Judgement doesn't enter into it. That seems to be your basic problem: you trust the apologists' judgement. You shouldn't. Again, there doesn't need to be any truth in me. What the book says is the beginning of truth. Spackling a "meaning" on top of what it says is dishonest, especially when the supposed "meaning" directly contradicts what the book says. You don't need to. If you knew me since the day you were born it wouldn't make my posts any more true or more false. Then why did you start a thread about "Testing the Christian Apologists"? Did you ever intend to actually test the apologists? Did you ever intend to actually discuss anything? Or did you intend from the start to just repeat, "Nuh uh," over and over again?Nobody is trying to force you to deny your beliefs but you're not going to get away with preaching. If what you say is wrong, it will be pointed out. You don't "maintain". You just keep repeating the same empty claim. Maintenance requires some actual work.

That's where you go wrong. You should't be pondering how many cartwheels and backflips it takes to reconcile the Bible with your beliefs. It doesn't really matter why God lied. What you need to reconcile with your beliefs is the fact that He did lie. Well no, we can't debate that at all because you keep refusing to bring anything resembling an argument.

Yes.