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Couple of points. First, I would seriously not brag about being in that company. Second, that I chased DWBH off the site is a slanderous lie. That you believe your so-called insider information WITHOUT HAVING DISCUSSED IT WITH ME speaks volumes about your fact-finding efforts. Had you one OUNCE of decency and fairness, you would have contacted me for my side of the story. You never did. You judged me on the word of a man who has chased every close friend out of his life with his increasingly unhinged behavior. But you never even ASKED for my side of the story. Why don't you ask oldiesman how DWBH treated him before I had to step in? Because that would be fair and that's the last thing you want. Has OS seen any meaningful eclipses lately? What did they mean? Before you go trusting his lying-ass word about what happened on GSC, why don't you check out his reliability? Better yet, I defy you to find a single example of me shutting OS down over an issue of faith. One. ONE. You won't be able to because it never happened. Of course you know skyrider stopped posting because he died. DIDN'T STOP YOU FROM DISHONESTLY BLAMING ME FOR HIS ABSENCE THOUGH, DID IT?

So have many of the atheists. Hell most of the moderators are gone. PAW is gone most of the time. Most of GSC did exactly what its critics said they should do: they've moved on.

Something is really wrong with you, chockfull. If you want to relitigate DWBH's departure from GSC, you are free to take it up with the site owner. But at this point after being told multiple times you continue to blame me, there is no reasoning with you. Continue to post all you want. Continue to express your evasive, criticism-immune faith all you want. I will not stop you. I didn't expect an apology from you, bur I did expect a modicum of decency. Somehow you didn't even manage THAT.

What an idiotic statement. Of course I know sky passed and that is why he no longer posts here. OS stopped due to anti Christian bias and perceived moderation in that direction whatever your story is. I can ask him if you want. Yes DWBH quit posting here over a conflict with you I’ve spoken with him outside of here. Your side of the story shows how hot the argument got. The edit to my post was unnecessary I never said he was banned. I do think I remember a temp ban but won’t stick on that point. Still in the history of this site he has posted the most relevant insider knowledge of anyone here. And you chased him off. This is fact not opinion so deal with it. I’m on up there in that list too with insider information. As is OS. And look where we are with you. The dog in a manger statement is a simile. It is describing your behavior of barking at people who believe scripture contains inspiration. You know figurative language? Oh wait you don’t know what that is. That is why you guys can’t figure out Abraham and Isaac even though TWI taught you God didn’t ask him to kill his kid. I mean Mikey would be here to point out what collateral that is in. He’s gone too. Maybe that’s my fault who knows. You are stuck on fundamentalism. This to me shows the true anti Christ nature of TWI. For a large part the cult teachings are so strong people need to depart from all of Christianity to deal with it. Deal with it however you want. This site is losing relevance and interest to me. I believe there are 2 categories of knowledge in scripture - natural reasoning knowledge and spiritual inspiration knowledge. The Bible contains many strange OT accounts. No stranger than other history books who discuss the same killing and war and atrocity. People in the OT crafted a golden calf idol after a very short time absent Moses direction. TWI leadership crafted a similar image of VPW. So peoples behavior in the NT with all the extras available supposedly from scripture don’t seem all that more advanced from the OT. Many of the remaining Christian posters have grown silent over time. Read into that what you will.

I made a deliberate decision not to reply to WordWolf's thread in doctrinal, because it's doctrinal, or here, because of the time investment that would be required to handle the material adequately. But someone somewhere should point out: the notion that Genesis correctly outlines the progress of the appearance of life on earth is... not correct. I mean, Genesis has plant life beginning before aquatic life. That is not correct. Sharks have been around longer than trees. It fails [as most would] to recognize that some animal life went from land to sea, not just sea to land. Whales evolved from land mammals. But Genesis has "the great creatures of the sea" appearing before land animals. Hard to imagine whales were not included in "great creatures of the sea." Birds. Meanwhile, descended from reptile like ancestors. So did mammals. Which means you can't say [as Genesis 1 does] that birds preceded land animals. I don't need to nitpick Genesis. But I would not subscribe to the notion that it got anything "right" about the progression of the appearance of life on earth, ESPECIALLY after taking into account that plant life showed up before the sun, moon and stars were placed in the giant dome covering the earth and keeping it from being flooded by the waters above. Would this be appropriate to post on WordWolf's thread? Maybe. But it doesn't feel very sportsmanlike.

Genesis 22 - the real story Why does God need to test a believer's faith if he knows their thoughts and what's in their heart? He had to have known what Abraham would do. (You have to ignore verse 12 though - for just like with Adam and Eve, YHWH appears to be a totally clueless God.) So, if testing was not necessary to prove Abraham's faith to God, it must have been to prove Abraham's faith to himself. Regardless of having to experience for 3 days the mental and emotional anguish from having to kill his only child, Abraham would learn just how strong his trust in God actually was. BUT, there incredibly Abraham doesn't struggle with the idea at all. Supposedly, the reason for this was because Abraham knew that God's plan was to raise Isaac from the dead! So, the rational question is why play the whole thing out? God could have said to Abraham, "Look Abe, I knew if I asked you that you would do it. Wait to go!" Then Abraham could say, "I knew, all-powerful and merciful God, that you would raise Isaac's ashes back to life. Glory be to you!" Then they could have shook hands - end of story. This whole ridiculous story was not about God and Abraham - it's a lesson to the readers. OBEY GOD NO MATTER WHAT AND YOU WILL GET YOUR FULL REWARDS AFTER YOU DIE. (See vs 16-18) One last thing, apologists will say that the purpose of the story is to foretell God sending his own only-begotten son into the world to die FOR US. My response is what's so great about God doing it when Abraham was willing to do the same thing.

Completely agree. Thank you.

let, Let, LET me repeat this... Raf wrote, "Lesson: If God tells you to kill your kid, the morally correct answer is "NO YOU BLOOMING SOCIOPATH! I WILL NOT KILL MY SON! AND IF THAT'S YOUR IDEA OF A TEST, I'D BETTER HAVE PASSED BY SAYING NO, YOU SICK THUCK!" But no, Abraham is the HERO of this story. Unless he were alive today. Someone kills their kid today and says God told them to do it, you KNOW he's psychotic, no questions asked. But it happens in the desert 5,000 years ago and you're supposed to say "What Incredible Faith!" NO!"

You know cman, I really appreciate this post of yours. Thanks

Thanks for your post Raf. It's obvious that you have spent time researching evolution which is great. There is so much information about it out there, all of which never interested me in the past. But now that I no longer believe a god exists and that the bible is not his word, what's left is how do I make sense of the natural beauty of life on this planet. Just to observe it, to interact with it and to appreciate it, for me, begs an answer to the question of how did it all come to be. I'm surprised by how emotional this topic is turning out to be. I can't explain why, so I'm calling it a night and will see what the morning brings.

what or who is god, if prelearned ideas of god are eliminated then what could it be it's fine to not believe in god, it's mostly someone else's idea of what god is that has been introduced in some sort of biased way an old Indian/survival book I read once called it "the spirit that moves through all things" there will always be the old back and forth between ideas, but really what is god and what is it that is believed or not believed, something that should be answered to yourself

I made a deliberate decision not to reply to WordWolf's thread in doctrinal, because it's doctrinal, or here, because of the time investment that would be required to handle the material adequately. But someone somewhere should point out: the notion that Genesis correctly outlines the progress of the appearance of life on earth is... not correct. I mean, Genesis has plant life beginning before sea life. That is not correct. It fails [as most would] to recognize that some animal life went from land to sea, not just sea to land. Whales evolved from land mammals. But Genesis has "the great creatures of the sea" appearing before land animals. Hard to imagine whales were not included in "great creatures of the sea." I don't need to nitpick Genesis. But I would not subscribe to the notion that it got anything "right" about the progression of the appearance of life on earth, ESPECIALLY after taking into account that plant life showed up before the sun, moon and stars were placed in the giant dome covering the earth and keeping it from being flooded by the waters above.

How do you let go of the theory of divine intelligence after always believing it was a strong argument for God being the Creator of everything? I’ve started by recently listening to two videos. In the first, Seth Andrews interviews the authors of “Evolving out of Eden: Christian Responses to Evolution” - Robert Price and Edwin A. Suominen. They get into deconstructing the works of “science-savvy theologians” who have come up with ways to combine Genesis and Genetics such as “Evolutionary Creation.” Their conclusion is that such theories don’t hold up under scientific scrutiny. In the second one, Seth Andrews interviews Abby Hafer about her book “The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not.” In the video, she gives a number of examples of faulty designs, one of the first being about testicles being outside of the human body while certain other animals have them inside, safe and protected. Faulty designs point to a faulty designer which would remove a perfect God from the equation. I know WordWolf has a thread in the Doctrinal: Exploring the Bible sub-forum called “What Happened in Genesis 1?” This thread is in the Atheism sub-forum for the reason I gave above. I’ll start reading “Evolving out of Eden” on Kindle tomorrow and then begin sharing some ideas as I go along. Any posts on the topic would be helpful as well.

"She's making sure she is not dreaming. See the lights of a neighbor's house. Now she's starting to rise. Take a minute to concentrate And she opens up her eyes." "Moving into the universe And she's drifting this way and that. Not touching the ground at all And she's up above the yard." "no doubt about it She isn't sure about what she's done. No time to think about what to tell them. No time to think about what she's done"

Sorry, it is not.

One of the things atheists constantly need to contend with is the constant invocation of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. In short, this is a technique in which a member of a group denounces another member of the same group for a real or perceived difference that the atheist is somehow supposed to account for prior to making any criticism. "I understand you don't like Christianity because A, but you need to realize REAL Christians reject A." Meanwhile most don't. You do. But only because you know A is indefensible even though you wish it weren't. "You know. most Christians don't believe the Bible is inerrant." They don't? Ok, so when we complain about errors in the Bible, we're not undermining your... "Shut up about errors in the Bible. That doesn't prove anything!" Sure it does. It proves the book has errors and you can't rely on it as history, for example. "No True Christian considers the Bible an account of history." Fantastic. So we agree Exodus and the Great Flood, among other stories, never happened. "How do YOU know they never happened?" But you JUST SAID we can't trust the Bible as history. "PROVE IT'S WRONG!" There is no record of the 10 plagues or the firstborn of everyone in Egypt dying. "No True Christian believes that's history." It is IMPOSSIBLE to have a rational discussion with people who "debate" like this. It's one excuse after another and we're just standing by watching you twist yourself into a pretzel and begging you to see reason by asking "DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?!?!" There are some people who follow a version of Christianity so unique to themselves that it's impossible for anyone to discuss it with them rationally. "My Christianity holds that Genesis didn't really happen but it talks about these stories to impart spiritual truths that, when you look really closely at them, make us better people." Except they don't. Lesson: If God tells you to kill your kid, the morally correct answer is "NO YOU BLOOMING SOCIOPATH! I WILL NOT KILL MY SON! AND IF THAT'S YOUR IDEA OF A TEST, I'D BETTER HAVE PASSED BY SAYING NO, YOU SICK THUCK!" But no, Abraham is the HERO of this story. Unless he were alive today. Someone kills their kid today and says God told them to do it, you KNOW he's psychotic, no questions asked. But it happens in the desert 5,000 years ago and you're supposed to say "What Incredible Faith!" NO! Why do we accept conduct from the characters of the Bible that we would never accept today, even those who claimed back then they were acting on God's instructions? "Ok, here's what I need you to do. You see those people over there? Kill them all. All of them. Even the kids. Kill every last one of them. Leave none alive." William Lane Craig looks at that instruction and feels sorry for the poor person who has to do all that killing. The trauma! How about having a little compassion for the women and children being killed? Nope. Not an ounce. The real victims are the killers. They were just following God's instruction. Poor things. And WE don't get to say this is morally indefensible because if we do, get this, WE are arrogant! You know...

FYI, I will be computer-free over the weekend. I'm sure you'll all struggle along without me. George

Oops. I got it confused with another thread (name the actor or role). Thanks George. I'll put something else up.

Is this Floyd, WordWolf?

No worries. See what I did there? On another front, I wanted to thank Modgellan for stepping in yesterday. We don't always see eye to eye, and I tried to make it clear that I would accept his review even if I didn't agree with it. One thing he only touched on that I think needs to be said out loud. And I'm putting on the modhat even though I take it very personally. DWBH said a LOT of hateful things about me after he left GSC, and I am not really at liberty to respond because he's no longer on this site to defend himself. I will tell you that he went on a vicious and hostile social media campaign to slander my personal and professional reputation. I do not accept the blame for his disappearance from GSC, and while I don't expect one, I believe I am entitled to an apology for this cheap, petty and ignorant allegation. OldSkool can come here and defend himself whenever he wants. But I expect him and everyone else to be honest about it. He was always perfectly free to espouse his point of view. That was never the problem. The problem was he had zero tolerance for anyone espousing the opposite point of view. GSC has dozens of threads where Christianity is presumed, the scripture is respected as an authority, and unbelievers have [at best] limited reign to interject. That wasn't good enough for OS. He had to say Christianity is no longer welcome at GSC, which is demonstrably untrue. Then he got mad at me for calling that lie a lie. Too bad. OS was not banned. He left because he wanted to, never recanting the lie that served as his motive. I do not accept the blame for his disappearance from GSC, and while I don't expect one, I believe I am entitled to an apology for this cheap, petty and ignorant allegation. Finally, poor skyrider. I believe in our years on GSC, we maybe crossed swords a few times. I want to say I challenged an anecdote of his, but I truly don't recall if it was skyrider, Socrates or socks. Whoever it was, it was years ago and never stopped any of them from posting. Maybe they avoided ME. Hard to tell seeing as I don't/didn't interact with any of them often enough to notice. Sorry, but it's true. They say their thing and nine times out of eight I don't get involved. I'm not saying never, but it's rare. In his very last post, May 25, 2023, he praised GSC for shining the light on TWI. He also quoted scripture. It's in the Time To Come Home thread in About the Way. Here's something skyrider wrote in Feb. 2023: THAT is what skyrider thought of GSC. Five months after his final post, Skyrider died. DIED. He didn't "quit posting because Raf made him feel unwelcome." He DIED. And you have the cold-hearted AUDACITY to blame MY conduct as a moderator for the decision of a man to stop posting here after his DEATH?!?! I do not accept the blame for his disappearance from GSC, and while I don't expect one, I believe I am entitled to an apology for this cheap, petty and ignorant absolutely contemptible allegation. The phrase gets used too often to be effective, but if ever there was a time it was appropriate: YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. Off my soap box. Apologies for digressing from the thread topic.

You know there is a new Disney musical drama film being released in December about the life of Mufasa. I don't know if it will make those of us who were traumatized by his treacherous murder when he was pushed from the cliff and then trampled to death by the stampeding wildebeest as his adorable son who had just been saved from said stampede by his brave father watched him fall...feel any better, but it's worth a try, I guess. And thanks for changing the name!

It is done.

Modcat5 killed Simba's father!!? But why??? On the other hand, considered them said.

No, and no. But "answers" aren't always there for me either. Hi oldiesman, thank you for your answer. The action I was referring in my question though is whether it is okay with God for believers to choose which scriptures to believe and which to discard. Phil 2:12 does not speak to this. It speaks about how obedience is required when working out ones salvation because God will be working in them, at the same time, to be willing to do his good pleasure. Phil 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (The phrase "fear and trembling" is used in two more verses and obedience is mentioned in them as well. They are 2 Cor 7: 15 and Eph 6:5.) Agree, and agree. The first one, I don't know if it's ok with God to believe one "translation" over another; I think it's one of those mysteries but I do believe that God will be judging that from what he sees in our hearts. The second post, agree, eternal life comes with conditions. Thx for the correction.

You're supposed to say the magic words: "Modcat5 killed Mufasa." Then we can change it.