Terral:
My experience is that most professing Christians have never seen the precepts of any gospel message laid out in outline form.
I respectfully submit that the frustration you've expressed mainly stems from insufficient technique. Yours.
You have failed to fit your method of argumentation to the audience you hope to reach.
The Problem with Prooftexting
We debate here. Debate means multiple points of view. Nothing is amiss if you encounter points of view here that differ from yours. This is normal.
In debate your chosen method of argumentation,
prooftexting, is not very persuasive. I know things work otherwise within your religious community. If you are used to crafting your arguments for consumption inside that circle, you are likely to be a bit spoiled.
You may wonder why prooftexting does not travel better. I will show you.
Charlie's Locusts
A serial killer went on the rampage in the 1960s. His name was Charles Manson.
Even as serial killers go Manson was spectacularly psychotic. Yet this did not prevent some people from finding Manson a credible guy. He had disciples. Years after he went to prison one of his followers still believed in her 'Charlie' so much that she tried to kill President Ford.
Why did people find Manson's sociopathic ideas credible? For one thing, he could prove everything he believed using the Bible. It was all there--book, chapter, and verse.
One thing the Bible told him was that the Beatles were prophets sent to herald the end times. Manson got all his instructions from the messages encoded in their hit records. He recognized these prophets from the description given of them in the Book of Revelation, chapter 9:
quote:
In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, with stings, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.
Locusts and beetles are both insects--check. Crowns of gold would be stage lights--check. Women's hair would be long hair--check. Shiny breastplates would mean electric guitars--check. Noise of their wings would be amplifiers--check. Scorpion tails would be power cords, the sting being electricity--check.
Manson could account for every detail. His match of this Bible passage to the Beatles was thorough, self-consistent, vivid, unforgettable.
And 100% nuts.
Manson took this passage verse by verse, too. Think what he could have done with the latitude of isolated excerpts taken out of context, snipped from dozens of books written centuries apart for different purposes by different authors using a variety of means of expression.
One can justify anything by prooftexting. It does not make the ironclad case for a system that you think it does.
New Technique
Prooftexting is like playing tennis without a net. It's easy. Yes, it makes a great effect with all the references and page-flipping it entails. Yes, wide-ranging prooftexts can give the impression that someone has made a comprehensive study of the Bible. But the truth is that one does not have to know the Bible well at all. One only has to know the snippets. One can 'outline' any number of beliefs and justify them this way.
People here know this.
I suggest a different approach... if you intend to persuade.
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message or continue in this vein.
AdminPD
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Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.
Edited by AdminPD, : Thanks for trying.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : Title; touchup.
Archer
All species are transitional.
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