Raf

One of the first things I realized pre-deconversion is that the story of Job was just a story and not history. It does not pretend to have actually taken place in history. It was a fable, no more historical than The Fox and the Grapes. Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob... fictional characters in an origin story designed to unify a politically vulnerable people. It took a little longer for Moses and Joshua to sink in.

Which of you by being a megawatt movie star can add a cubit to his stature?

Heh heh heh. George thought he was completely lost, and he was. Was this Simple Minds?

The problem from an unbeliever's perspective is that some believers tend to hide God in "I don't know." Where does thunder come from? I don't know. GOD!!! Actually, there's a natural explanation. Does it account for hurricanes? No, I don't know where... GOD!!! Actually, there's a natural cause for hurricanes. Evolution answers a lot of questions and challenges a lot of preconceptions. But it doesn't answer a LOT. Nor does it claim to. How did life begin? Evolution does not answer. The answer does not affect evolution at all. So even if it was God who got the ball rolling, that does not change the FACT of evolution. It happened. It's how we arrived at the variety of species we have today. It's why there are more species of birds on earth than there are verses in the New Testament. Some creationists are fond of asking questions that lack foundation and comprehension. Why is evolution "only" a theory? Because so is gravity. Theories don't graduate into laws. Theories in science are conclusions, not hypotheses. You don't experiment to prove a theory. You experiment, get the results and incorporate them into the theory. Evolution is not a hypothesis. It's not a preconception. It's the opposite of a bias. It's what you get when you ditch the biases and let the evidence speak for itself. But there will always be questions to which we don't have the answer. And we will answer "I don't know." And the Ken Hamms of the world will say aha! GOD is THERE! Until we find the answer. Then God is elsewhere. Every. Single. Time.

Seems to me we have addressed this claim before. I would ask that we all be respectful of each other's journeys and not seek to second-guess what others believed at different points in their lives. Frankly, it's rude. If you can't handle the fact that a sincere Christian had a sincere change of heart, you should sincerely reconsider visiting a forum called Questioning Faith. I apologize if I misunderstood your point and respectfully request clarification.

Paul was a very skilled and knowledgeable interpreter of Old Testament scripture, which is probably why he was so good at converting Jews to Christianity... Except of course he wasn't. He was dreadful at it. That's why he turned to the Gentiles. See, it's a lot easier to sell bizarre interpretations of the Old Testament to people who had no fundamental understanding of the scriptures than it is to sell them to people who actually knew what they were talking about. I mean, it shouldn't strike anyone as odd that the demographic least likely to accept Paul's interpretation of Hebrew Scripture are the very people who most revere Hebrew Scripture.

I always thought WordWolf was the best clue giver in this category. And he was.

The discussion here so far assumes Tongues are genuine and questions whether it proves anything. That is off topic on THIS thread. Examining SIT as part of the "deconversion" process is fair game but not what was happening.

Nice catch. Abraham was ready to make his kid a burnt offering. Jephthah made his kid a burnt offering. VPW made his followers into burnt-out offerings. And we haven't even gotten to Job yet!

waysider, I think it would have been great if vpw had included a citation that could be checked. He's not exactly reliable. But he's not necessarily wrong just because we don't trust him. Here's my thoughts on human sacrifice in the Bible: There is nothing in Genesis that even hints that Abraham was asked to do anything other than kill his kid. There appears to be no historical record of any interpretation of Genesis 22 that claims Abraham misunderstood what God meant when he asked to sacrifice Isaac. Centuries of Jewish scholarship and rabbinical tradition: not a hint of this "Three's Company" interpretation. I have a hard time thinking VPW got this one right and no one else in history did. Jephthah is another story. There does seem to be at least some support for the notion that his daughter basically lived out her life as a kind of nun. It's a minority position, but it's not without support. I intend to look into it further, but that's where I'm at now. A few points: In the story in Judges, we never hear God's point of view. Is he ok with what Jephthah vowed? Is he ok with Jephthah following through? We don't know, because he doesn't say. And he doesn't say because... Wait, why DOESN'T he say? I mean, he stopped Abraham. He got a jackass to talk to Balaam. For someone so chatty to suddenly fall silent when the life of a teenage girl is at stake...? Out of character. And let's suppose Jephthah's daughter suffers the fate VPW suggested. Does that make it remotely just? I mean, yeah, it's better than killing her, but what is the lesson behind this story? Because Jephthah is kind of an a-hole. And why should his daughter have to suffer for his hasty vow? Maybe more later.

Digressing ends here. Next mention gets deleted without warning

Good point. There are tons of Bible stories that make no sense when you look at them dispassionately. Abraham is just the tip of the iceberg.

Obviously no one is entitled to an opinion on scripture except chockfull, so you should just accept that you're wrong, biased and wearing sh!t-colored glasses because if you don't, you might kill another Christian GSer to keep him from posting. Is that how it works now? Self-appointed prophets are ok because they have faith. Non-theists are blinded by bias because they reject God

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

One thing I have tried to be careful about, and you guys can "report" me (or others) if I'm wrong, is trying to keep the "critical" posts off the main doctrinal sections (Matters of Faith and Doctrinal). Nonbelievers are just as welcome to post there, but those pages are set up to give believers space to explore without our constant interference. An unbelieving perspective would threaten to derail EVERY doctrinal discussion if not for that fact (just like Mike's thesis derails any discussion that's not already about Mike's thesis. It just does. I'm not judging). Bottom line, I think, is that we have a doctrinal section where people are talking about Genesis 1, Purgatory, the Trinity, what God thinks of you, the cry of triumph, the unforgivable sin and numerous other issues. Sometimes a non-believer's view is tangentially relevant. Usually it's not. When I participate in those threads, it's typically minimal, makes its point, and then backs away. I think ANYONE can comment on the Bible on its own terms. You don't need to be a believer. For example, I think "My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me" was, doctrinally, Jesus quoting Psalm 22 and not making up some new expression for VPW to clarify 2,000 years later. And I said that on the thread. Because it's a doctrinal thread. I also believe that never happened. I did not say that on the thread. Because it's off topic and inappropriate. So I kept that to myself because it was beside the point. And we could do that with LOTS of issues. Point is, the notion that Christians are unwelcome at GSC and that their beliefs are constantly under fire to get shouted down is a false one. It is untrue. The reason posters seem to feel that way is that they come into the atheist subforum and think that we are somehow obliged to give Christian beliefs a deference to which no other religion is entitled. This isn't even remotely complicated: The atheist subforum exists to give people like me a chance to demonstrate why I believe what I do without getting in YOUR space. It gives people like Charity a place to "come out" and share their journey. It gives people like Stayed Too Long a place to vent. All without disrupting honest discussions about doctrine. You cannot come on this forum unless you do so voluntarily, and you don't get to come here and issue blanket denunciations of people for the crime of disagreeing with you. Calling someone "arrogant" or "egotistical" is namecalling. It does not further discussion. It is not constructive criticism. It's judgmental namecalling, and if it had been handled the way it should at its first occurrence, perhaps that would have been more efficient. But then I would be accused of censorship, which happened ANYWAY. If you want to challenge my ideas, then challenge them. But YOU CHOSE TO MAKE THIS ABOUT ME by attacking ME and not by engaging in an honest discussion. When you saw you had no logical or reasonable grounds to disagree with me, you went STRAIGHT to the personal attacks. And it's not the first time. It's like you walked into an R-rated movie and were shocked that it had bad language, violence and nudity. Dude, you walked into an R-rated movie. What did you THINK you were going to find? But then you take it too far and you claim there are no PG movies anymore, no G movies. When there are. You just keep buying tickets to the R-rated ones. That's on you. You don't like it, you stay out. Go watch another movie. Go participate in another discussion. There are dozens, and the atheists on this site are pretty much leaving them alone. Why are you?

Clearly I killed skyrider. OS is perfectly welcome to post. He is not welcome to LIE. DWBH used this site to libel people. He proceeded to harass me on various social media sites in an effort to defame me before my friends, colleagues and peers. I DARE you talk to him personally about his relationship with me and why we're no longer on speaking terms. Bring a tape recorder. You called me a dog and got mad at MY vitriol? Please. GET YOURSELF Once again, people are perfectly welcome to post all sorts of views about all sorts of things. What you want is not equal treatment, but privilege. You want to be able to call us arrogant and dogs and closed-minded and biased [and I see now that you have decided to escalate the name-calling], and you want us to not respond. You and I had it out, we made our peace, and that was that. But for some reason this thread has you gobsmacked to the point where you can't disagree with Charity or with me without being personal about it, calling us names and accusing us of lacking your open-mindedness (which is not open-minded at all). This is not how people with evidence on their side behave. This is how one behaves when one has lost a debate centered on ideas but still wants to appear to have some standing. Like I said, I asked the other mods to have a look so that I am not moderating myself.

FYI: I did alert the other moderator(s) about the content of this thread, but I did not request any action be taken. I alerted them both to make sure we were ALL in compliance with site rules AND to make sure that I personally was held accountable to someone other than myself. Thank you.

I was teasing.

The whole scheme is just odd. He pays the price. He is the price. He is the creditor to whom the debt is owed. But Satan gets the blame for killing him. And the princes of this world: demons. They did it. And if they knew the result, they would not have killed him. But that makes no sense at all.