I took your question to mean there is no difference - a duck is a duck; and an atheist is no different from a made-up god because there is no "real" god in either case.
Now if you and Waysider would like to stop communicating in a way that one has to guess what you're getting at (much like Jesus did when he used parables ), that would be honky-dory (satisfactory, first-rate, excellent) .
Sorry for the confusion. I assure you, we are on the same page. As the saying goes, if the shoe fits, wear a glove. Mmmph.
This reminds me of one of my favorite exchanges between Hitch and a zealot…
I watched the whole debate, and Sharpton repeatedly criticized Hitchens for talking about horrendous deeds done by those who believe in God (while not addressing Hitchens biblical references of God doing much the same). Instead, he wanted Hitchens to talk about God Himself, apart from the bible, whom Sharpton believes exists because of intelligent design and his personal experiences with Him.
IMO, Sharpton's dismissal of the bible shows he has a "Build-a-God" mindset. I guess I am late to the party on recognizing how acceptable this has become.
I watched the whole debate, and Sharpton repeatedly criticized Hitchens for talking about horrendous deeds done by those who believe in God (while not addressing Hitchens biblical references of God doing much the same). Instead, he wanted Hitchens to talk about God Himself, apart from the bible, whom Sharpton believes exists because of intelligent design and his personal experiences with Him.
IMO, Sharpton's dismissal of the bible shows he has a "Build-a-God" mindset. I guess I am late to the party on recognizing how acceptable this has become.
The Sharpton debate is my least favorite, because, well, Sharpton. If you can tolerate William Lane Craig's grating tone, that one is decent. Hitch always said Dinesh D'Souza was his most formidable opponent - those debates are good and lively. There are many more worth watching, but the one with Frank Turek is the most fun for me.
I just ran across this reference to a new book dealing with an aspect of deconverting: (From the Amazon blurb)
A gripping memoir about coming of age in the stay-at-home daughter movement and the quest to piece together a future on your own terms.
Raised in the Christian patriarchy movement, Cait West was homeschooled and could only wear clothes her father deemed modest. She was five years old the first time she was told her swimsuit was too revealing, to go change. There would be no college in her future, no career. She was a stay-at-home daughter and would move out only when her father allowed her to become a wife. She was trained to serve men, and her life would never be her own.
Until she escaped.
In Rift, Cait West tells a harrowing story of chaos and control hidden beneath the facade of a happy family. Weaving together lyrical meditations on the geology of the places her family lived with her story of spiritual and emotional manipulation as a stay-at-home daughter, Cait creates a stirring portrait of one young woman’s growing awareness that she is experiencing abuse. With the ground shifting beneath her feet, Cait mustered the courage to break free from all she’d ever known and choose a future of her own making.
Rift is a story of survival. It’s also a story about what happens after you survive. With compassion and clarity, Cait explores the complex legacy of patriarchal religious trauma in her life, including the ways she has also been complicit in systems of oppression. A remarkable literary debut, Rift offers an essential personal perspective on the fraught legacy of purity culture and recent reckonings with abuse in Christian communities.
I've only recently become aware of the "Christian" doctrine of purity culture from some of the people sharing their deconversion stories. Both males and females speak of the harmful impact it has on them as the topic of sexuality is very sin/shame based.
It would be interesting to read Cait's story and see how she was able to heal from such an upbringing. Thanks for recommending it.
The Sharpton debate is my least favorite, because, well, Sharpton. If you can tolerate William Lane Craig's grating tone, that one is decent. Hitch always said Dinesh D'Souza was his most formidable opponent - those debates are good and lively. There are many more worth watching, but the one with Frank Turek is the most fun for me.
I'm looking forward to watching the Turek one then.
The Sharpton debate is my least favorite, because, well, Sharpton. If you can tolerate William Lane Craig's grating tone, that one is decent. Hitch always said Dinesh D'Souza was his most formidable opponent - those debates are good and lively. There are many more worth watching, but the one with Frank Turek is the most fun for me.
I'll have to watch this debate a second time since so much was covered. Turek's religious arguments concerning God were basically "everything is man's fault" (which is nothing new) so he fell well short when opposing Hitchens' arguments. However, much of Turek's rapid science speak for the existence of God went over my head, so I'm wondering if from memory, you think Hitchens effectively debunked any of his assertions. Just a general yes or no is all I'm looking for since I plan to watch the video again.
I'll have to watch this debate a second time since so much was covered. Turek's religious arguments concerning God were basically "everything is man's fault" (which is nothing new) so he fell well short when opposing Hitchens' arguments. However, much of Turek's rapid science speak for the existence of God went over my head, so I'm wondering if from memory, you think Hitchens effectively debunked any of his assertions. Just a general yes or no is all I'm looking for since I plan to watch the video again.
I didn't remember. I should watch it again myself. It has been a few years.
William Lane Craig is the master of the Gish Gallop, a form of debate in which you efficiently spout as much bulls hit in the time allotted as you possibly can. Since it takes more time to clean bulls hit than it does to defecate it, the opponent will leave some arguments unanswered strictly because there's not enough time in the world to answer it. Then Craig cites all the points he made that were not refuted and declares victory.
Meanwhile ALL his arguments are bulls hit. All of them, without exception or distinction.
I watched the whole debate, and Sharpton repeatedly criticized Hitchens for talking about horrendous deeds done by those who believe in God (while not addressing Hitchens biblical references of God doing much the same). Instead, he wanted Hitchens to talk about God Himself, apart from the bible, whom Sharpton believes exists because of intelligent design and his personal experiences with Him.
IMO, Sharpton's dismissal of the bible shows he has a "Build-a-God" mindset. I guess I am late to the party on recognizing how acceptable this has become.
In the short clip Mr. Hitchens refers to the fear of death. Does he mean 'eternal death'. If so, I would agree, it's there for me. The only comfort I see in eternal death if there's any at all is, it's not eternal fire and brimstone torture. Otherwise I think it's eternally tragic and something to be afraid about.
On the substance of that portion of the discussion, I don't see why it would be so strange to have an unbeliever ask a believer to take a deeper look at scripture. Why wouldn't we? It's from a deeper look at scripture that we realize the evolution of Yahweh as a character (we would add "fictional" to character, but that would be presumptuous). It's from a deeper look at scripture that you realize the cosmology of Genesis is incompatible with what we know to be true. There is no firmament (big solid wall) holding back water from the sky.
I personally WELCOME in depth analyses of scripture. What I don't accept is ad hoc explanations that force scripture to say things it doesn't say. The firmament is not "the expanse" or "the universe." The Exodus from Egypt was not a secret prediction that Jesus would spend a couple of years as a baby in Egypt. The "virgin shall conceive and be with child" has nothing to do with the messiah. When you take a deeper look at the verses that are supposedly fulfilments of old testament prophecies, you will find more often than not that the prophecies are not talking about the messiah at all.
Oh but they're types. Nope, that's made up.
The strange part is that you are blind to the bias you are bringing to the analysis.
its easy to be critical of everything and to adopt a critical bias. But even with humans if you approach them with a critical bias it completely affects how you perceive them.
This produces a new type of sunglasses- the poop tinted ones.
There is no “cosmology” of Genesis that is something you are reading into it. It is an origin story with a lot of symbolic elements.
Likewise those who think that Jesus Christ was mentally abusing children he was healing or that somebody made up all those stories completely is delusional. They are ignoring probabilities of any kind discounting inaccuracies introduced by centuries of hand copying and just making up their own narrative completely and saying unless you “prove me wrong” what I say is true.
I can read “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and get out of it what it has - the culture of a story passed down by bards, rhyming verse, some elements of the world they lived in, etc.
It’s only with the inflated egos like I see on this thread that think they are all the center of the universe that every such literary work must be accompanied by their version of scientific proof. You’re not that important to require or demand any such thing.
The scriptures say of themself they are not valuable without a positive outlook toward them. Your attitude towards a Creator really determines what unlocks for you in scripture.
If He doesn’t exist then your bias is to tear down everything attached and pointing out inconsistencies to invalidate any value in His messages. So you yourself are the impediment to actually accomplishing an in depth analysis of scripture. And your confirmation bias will allow you to “prove” anything you want.
Regarding censorship I believe you at your word it didn’t happen and the 3 dropped posts were something to do with either login issues or the forum database resetting or something. But between dropped posts and the in line responses within a quote it is too tedious to answer certain posts that are now stacking up with similar kind of illogic.
You are being a dog in the manger. That is not my problem.
Jesus provided exact guidance for these types of interactions in the gospels as he conversed with the Pharisees. They also did not believe in him and were trying to use their “in depth analysis” of scripture to catch him in his words.
Conspiracy theory is not in depth analysis. VPWs Advanced Class is living proof of this.
To me there absolutely is fundamentalist Way bias in how you are presenting your arguments for being an atheist.
“The Word” does not fit with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision. God does not have a purpose for every adjective He inspired, and He doesn’t possess people and write with their hands like automatic writing.
That is TWI BS and a symptom of an overly aggressive fundamentalist bias.
I find the same hyper ventilation over adjectives in other cults - Mormons and JWs. Except they also use the fundamentalist approach to “prove” Joseph Smiths delusions or the GBs true position as the faithful and discreet slave.
The giant wall/bubble idea is something Earl Burton brought into the mix. I don't remember any specifics. I know. I know. It was only 50 years ago. I should remember this stuff. It was in a class or an AC teaching or a paper or something.
William Lane Craig is the master of the Gish Gallop, a form of debate in which you efficiently spout as much bulls hit in the time allotted as you possibly can. Since it takes more time to clean bulls hit than it does to defecate it, the opponent will leave some arguments unanswered strictly because there's not enough time in the world to answer it. Then Craig cites all the points he made that were not refuted and declares victory.
Meanwhile ALL his arguments are bulls hit. All of them, without exception or distinction.
Thanks for clarifying what Turek definitely appeared to be doing. It would be very time consuming to read up on his SPURGE theory to see its flaws and as tempting as that is, there are other priorities in life at the moment.
In the short clip Mr. Hitchens refers to the fear of death. Does he mean 'eternal death'. If so, I would agree, it's there for me. The only comfort I see in eternal death if there's any at all is, it's not eternal fire and brimstone torture. Otherwise I think it's eternally tragic and something to be afraid about.
I totally understand what you are saying. If the scriptures are true, there is a certain comfort in believing one has eternal life over eternal death. I think a "once saved, always saved" doctrine is needed though because without it, many Christians continue to strive to keep in God's graces. I would see that as having both a fear of life, as well as a fear of death, which makes it a kind of hell on earth to live that way.
If the scriptures were written by men alone, eternal life is the biggest of all carrots on a stick churches can rely on to get people to believe and act a certain way.
In the short clip Mr. Hitchens refers to the fear of death. Does he mean 'eternal death'. If so, I would agree, it's there for me. The only comfort I see in eternal death if there's any at all is, it's not eternal fire and brimstone torture. Otherwise I think it's eternally tragic and something to be afraid about.
I suspect he means natural, physical, mammalian death.
What was it like before I was were born? I don’t know. I don’t remember. So, I am not afraid of death. I won’t even know that I’m dead.
The strange part is that you are blind to the bias you are bringing to the analysis.
Likewise those who think that Jesus Christ was mentally abusing children he was healing or that somebody made up all those stories completely is delusional. They are ignoring probabilities of any kind discounting inaccuracies introduced by centuries of hand copying and just making up their own narrative completely and saying unless you “prove me wrong” what I say is true.
Since there doesn't seem to be a way of knowing what these probable inaccuracies were, how is anyone supposed to know what the original account, if there was one, even said?
Is calling certain people delusional because of their conclusions about the bible not your own way of bringing "bias for the scriptures" to the analysis?
I think the account of Jesus casting out that demon from a child is fictional for a number of reasons, one being that if there is no god, then there would also be no devil spirits. Another reason is given at the end of this post.
I’ll repeat what I said before except to add "causing physical abuse" to Jesus' actions when he cast out the devil spirit in such a way that the demon “rent him sore (mangled, convulsed), and came out of him: and he was as one dead.” I’ll also repeat my reason for saying this - if Jesus had the authority over devil spirits, why did he not add the command to leave the child without causing harm when he said, “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.” Jesus was obviously the one in control, yet he allowed the spirit to come out in such a violent way as to cause physical harm to the child. (Nothing to be concerned about though, we'll just overlook that part since Jesus then simply took him by the hand and lifted up the boy.)
Now, compare this to another account in Mark 5. This demon named Legion (because there were many devil spirits present) was strong enough to repeatedly break the chains which bound the man. When Jesus granted Legion's request to be sent into the swine, this specifically strong demon just came out of the man after Jesus gave them leave. I guess it's "probable" that they were so thankful that Jesus agreed to the swine thing that they decided not to leave violently - but didn't feel the same way when entering the swine.
IMO, these accounts were written by men in a way to emphasize the evil and power of demons to make the story more gripping with the additional benefit of likely putting fear of them in the reader.
Didn’t he have something to do with that “spiritual” Ghost Busters book? All that ectoplasm and other such pseudo-scientific bullshonta?
Well, I don't know about that. Heh
Burton was the first limb leader for Ohio and the first Ohio FellowLaborers director. I read some sort of thing he wrote about it that was kind of like a high school term paper, complete with scripture references. If I remember correctly (and I'm not certain I do) I think he presented it at some HQ function, such as AC or Summer School or something along those lines.
The strange part is that you are blind to the bias you are bringing to the analysis.
its easy to be critical of everything and to adopt a critical bias. But even with humans if you approach them with a critical bias it completely affects how you perceive them.
This produces a new type of sunglasses- the poop tinted ones.
There is no “cosmology” of Genesis that is something you are reading into it. It is an origin story with a lot of symbolic elements.
Likewise those who think that Jesus Christ was mentally abusing children he was healing or that somebody made up all those stories completely is delusional. They are ignoring probabilities of any kind discounting inaccuracies introduced by centuries of hand copying and just making up their own narrative completely and saying unless you “prove me wrong” what I say is true.
I can read “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and get out of it what it has - the culture of a story passed down by bards, rhyming verse, some elements of the world they lived in, etc.
It’s only with the inflated egos like I see on this thread that think they are all the center of the universe that every such literary work must be accompanied by their version of scientific proof. You’re not that important to require or demand any such thing.
The scriptures say of themself they are not valuable without a positive outlook toward them. Your attitude towards a Creator really determines what unlocks for you in scripture.
If He doesn’t exist then your bias is to tear down everything attached and pointing out inconsistencies to invalidate any value in His messages. So you yourself are the impediment to actually accomplishing an in depth analysis of scripture. And your confirmation bias will allow you to “prove” anything you want.
Regarding censorship I believe you at your word it didn’t happen and the 3 dropped posts were something to do with either login issues or the forum database resetting or something. But between dropped posts and the in line responses within a quote it is too tedious to answer certain posts that are now stacking up with similar kind of illogic.
You are being a dog in the manger. That is not my problem.
Jesus provided exact guidance for these types of interactions in the gospels as he conversed with the Pharisees. They also did not believe in him and were trying to use their “in depth analysis” of scripture to catch him in his words.
Conspiracy theory is not in depth analysis. VPWs Advanced Class is living proof of this.
To me there absolutely is fundamentalist Way bias in how you are presenting your arguments for being an atheist.
“The Word” does not fit with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision. God does not have a purpose for every adjective He inspired, and He doesn’t possess people and write with their hands like automatic writing.
That is TWI BS and a symptom of an overly aggressive fundamentalist bias.
I find the same hyper ventilation over adjectives in other cults - Mormons and JWs. Except they also use the fundamentalist approach to “prove” Joseph Smiths delusions or the GBs true position as the faithful and discreet slave.
That's Clark, nice.
Anyone wondering what a Gish Gallop looks like, there's a prime example.
The scriptures say of themself they are not valuable without a positive outlook toward them. Your attitude towards a Creator really determines what unlocks for you in scripture.
If He doesn’t exist then your bias is to tear down everything attached and pointing out inconsistencies to invalidate any value in His messages. So you yourself are the impediment to actually accomplishing an in depth analysis of scripture. And your confirmation bias will allow you to “prove” anything you want.
What makes you think that an atheist did not do “in-depth analysis of scripture” (sometimes for years) or have a positive outlook when they did believe in God and in the bible? More than likely, some believed in many things then that you still believe today.
As it often happens, people begin deconstructing their “beliefs” because of what their continued study begins to point out to them, inconsistencies being only one of them. I can’t speak for Penworks personally, but it seems to have been that way for her. And it definitely happened that way for Julia Sweeney according to her story.
What you wrote above is what people did concerning vpw's and other twi's teachings, usually beginning to question while still being involved and even more so after leaving. You were okay with the process then. It’s only now when some apply the same process to God and the bible that you seem to take issue with it.
Perhaps it's not the process you're objecting to but the results of it because with atheists, their results disagree with what you believe. Then, it becomes all about their egos. I'm pretty sure twi followers said the same thing about the people who posted here on the "About the Way" forum.
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waysider
Yeah, see. That kinda leaves us between a rock and a hard place. We were either following the teachings of a man with devil spirits or he was wrong about what he taught. That means he could have been
Rocky
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html Where does it come from? The Russian propaganda model of Firehose of Falsehoods.
cman
no worries raf...
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Nathan_Jr
Sorry for the confusion. I assure you, we are on the same page. As the saying goes, if the shoe fits, wear a glove. Mmmph.
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Raf
Define glove.
And fits.
I should be able to use whatever definition of fits I want.
Shoes don't have epileptic seizures.
Therefore faith makes no sense.
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Charity
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Charity
I watched the whole debate, and Sharpton repeatedly criticized Hitchens for talking about horrendous deeds done by those who believe in God (while not addressing Hitchens biblical references of God doing much the same). Instead, he wanted Hitchens to talk about God Himself, apart from the bible, whom Sharpton believes exists because of intelligent design and his personal experiences with Him.
IMO, Sharpton's dismissal of the bible shows he has a "Build-a-God" mindset. I guess I am late to the party on recognizing how acceptable this has become.
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Nathan_Jr
Use the original definitions as they were intended. Don't let context distort your understanding.
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Nathan_Jr
The Sharpton debate is my least favorite, because, well, Sharpton. If you can tolerate William Lane Craig's grating tone, that one is decent. Hitch always said Dinesh D'Souza was his most formidable opponent - those debates are good and lively. There are many more worth watching, but the one with Frank Turek is the most fun for me.
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Charity
I've only recently become aware of the "Christian" doctrine of purity culture from some of the people sharing their deconversion stories. Both males and females speak of the harmful impact it has on them as the topic of sexuality is very sin/shame based.
It would be interesting to read Cait's story and see how she was able to heal from such an upbringing. Thanks for recommending it.
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Charity
I'm looking forward to watching the Turek one then.
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Charity
I'll have to watch this debate a second time since so much was covered. Turek's religious arguments concerning God were basically "everything is man's fault" (which is nothing new) so he fell well short when opposing Hitchens' arguments. However, much of Turek's rapid science speak for the existence of God went over my head, so I'm wondering if from memory, you think Hitchens effectively debunked any of his assertions. Just a general yes or no is all I'm looking for since I plan to watch the video again.
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Nathan_Jr
I didn't remember. I should watch it again myself. It has been a few years.
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Charity
No problem.
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Raf
William Lane Craig is the master of the Gish Gallop, a form of debate in which you efficiently spout as much bulls hit in the time allotted as you possibly can. Since it takes more time to clean bulls hit than it does to defecate it, the opponent will leave some arguments unanswered strictly because there's not enough time in the world to answer it. Then Craig cites all the points he made that were not refuted and declares victory.
Meanwhile ALL his arguments are bulls hit. All of them, without exception or distinction.
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oldiesman
In the short clip Mr. Hitchens refers to the fear of death. Does he mean 'eternal death'. If so, I would agree, it's there for me. The only comfort I see in eternal death if there's any at all is, it's not eternal fire and brimstone torture. Otherwise I think it's eternally tragic and something to be afraid about.
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chockfull
The strange part is that you are blind to the bias you are bringing to the analysis.
its easy to be critical of everything and to adopt a critical bias. But even with humans if you approach them with a critical bias it completely affects how you perceive them.
This produces a new type of sunglasses- the poop tinted ones.
There is no “cosmology” of Genesis that is something you are reading into it. It is an origin story with a lot of symbolic elements.
Likewise those who think that Jesus Christ was mentally abusing children he was healing or that somebody made up all those stories completely is delusional. They are ignoring probabilities of any kind discounting inaccuracies introduced by centuries of hand copying and just making up their own narrative completely and saying unless you “prove me wrong” what I say is true.
I can read “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and get out of it what it has - the culture of a story passed down by bards, rhyming verse, some elements of the world they lived in, etc.
It’s only with the inflated egos like I see on this thread that think they are all the center of the universe that every such literary work must be accompanied by their version of scientific proof. You’re not that important to require or demand any such thing.
The scriptures say of themself they are not valuable without a positive outlook toward them. Your attitude towards a Creator really determines what unlocks for you in scripture.
If He doesn’t exist then your bias is to tear down everything attached and pointing out inconsistencies to invalidate any value in His messages. So you yourself are the impediment to actually accomplishing an in depth analysis of scripture. And your confirmation bias will allow you to “prove” anything you want.
Regarding censorship I believe you at your word it didn’t happen and the 3 dropped posts were something to do with either login issues or the forum database resetting or something. But between dropped posts and the in line responses within a quote it is too tedious to answer certain posts that are now stacking up with similar kind of illogic.
You are being a dog in the manger. That is not my problem.
Jesus provided exact guidance for these types of interactions in the gospels as he conversed with the Pharisees. They also did not believe in him and were trying to use their “in depth analysis” of scripture to catch him in his words.
Conspiracy theory is not in depth analysis. VPWs Advanced Class is living proof of this.
To me there absolutely is fundamentalist Way bias in how you are presenting your arguments for being an atheist.
“The Word” does not fit with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision. God does not have a purpose for every adjective He inspired, and He doesn’t possess people and write with their hands like automatic writing.
That is TWI BS and a symptom of an overly aggressive fundamentalist bias.
I find the same hyper ventilation over adjectives in other cults - Mormons and JWs. Except they also use the fundamentalist approach to “prove” Joseph Smiths delusions or the GBs true position as the faithful and discreet slave.
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waysider
The giant wall/bubble idea is something Earl Burton brought into the mix. I don't remember any specifics. I know. I know. It was only 50 years ago. I should remember this stuff. It was in a class or an AC teaching or a paper or something.
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Charity
Thanks for clarifying what Turek definitely appeared to be doing. It would be very time consuming to read up on his SPURGE theory to see its flaws and as tempting as that is, there are other priorities in life at the moment.
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Nathan_Jr
Didn’t he have something to do with that “spiritual” Ghost Busters book? All that ectoplasm and other such pseudo-scientific bullshonta?
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Charity
I totally understand what you are saying. If the scriptures are true, there is a certain comfort in believing one has eternal life over eternal death. I think a "once saved, always saved" doctrine is needed though because without it, many Christians continue to strive to keep in God's graces. I would see that as having both a fear of life, as well as a fear of death, which makes it a kind of hell on earth to live that way.
If the scriptures were written by men alone, eternal life is the biggest of all carrots on a stick churches can rely on to get people to believe and act a certain way.
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Nathan_Jr
I suspect he means natural, physical, mammalian death.
What was it like before I was were born? I don’t know. I don’t remember. So, I am not afraid of death. I won’t even know that I’m dead.
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Charity
Since there doesn't seem to be a way of knowing what these probable inaccuracies were, how is anyone supposed to know what the original account, if there was one, even said?
Is calling certain people delusional because of their conclusions about the bible not your own way of bringing "bias for the scriptures" to the analysis?
I think the account of Jesus casting out that demon from a child is fictional for a number of reasons, one being that if there is no god, then there would also be no devil spirits. Another reason is given at the end of this post.
I’ll repeat what I said before except to add "causing physical abuse" to Jesus' actions when he cast out the devil spirit in such a way that the demon “rent him sore (mangled, convulsed), and came out of him: and he was as one dead.” I’ll also repeat my reason for saying this - if Jesus had the authority over devil spirits, why did he not add the command to leave the child without causing harm when he said, “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.” Jesus was obviously the one in control, yet he allowed the spirit to come out in such a violent way as to cause physical harm to the child. (Nothing to be concerned about though, we'll just overlook that part since Jesus then simply took him by the hand and lifted up the boy.)
Now, compare this to another account in Mark 5. This demon named Legion (because there were many devil spirits present) was strong enough to repeatedly break the chains which bound the man. When Jesus granted Legion's request to be sent into the swine, this specifically strong demon just came out of the man after Jesus gave them leave. I guess it's "probable" that they were so thankful that Jesus agreed to the swine thing that they decided not to leave violently - but didn't feel the same way when entering the swine.
IMO, these accounts were written by men in a way to emphasize the evil and power of demons to make the story more gripping with the additional benefit of likely putting fear of them in the reader.
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waysider
Well, I don't know about that. Heh
Burton was the first limb leader for Ohio and the first Ohio FellowLaborers director. I read some sort of thing he wrote about it that was kind of like a high school term paper, complete with scripture references. If I remember correctly (and I'm not certain I do) I think he presented it at some HQ function, such as AC or Summer School or something along those lines.
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Raf
That's Clark, nice.
Anyone wondering what a Gish Gallop looks like, there's a prime example.
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Raf
The Challenging Counterfeit, by Raphael Gasson, if memory serves
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Charity
What makes you think that an atheist did not do “in-depth analysis of scripture” (sometimes for years) or have a positive outlook when they did believe in God and in the bible? More than likely, some believed in many things then that you still believe today.
As it often happens, people begin deconstructing their “beliefs” because of what their continued study begins to point out to them, inconsistencies being only one of them. I can’t speak for Penworks personally, but it seems to have been that way for her. And it definitely happened that way for Julia Sweeney according to her story.
What you wrote above is what people did concerning vpw's and other twi's teachings, usually beginning to question while still being involved and even more so after leaving. You were okay with the process then. It’s only now when some apply the same process to God and the bible that you seem to take issue with it.
Perhaps it's not the process you're objecting to but the results of it because with atheists, their results disagree with what you believe. Then, it becomes all about their egos. I'm pretty sure twi followers said the same thing about the people who posted here on the "About the Way" forum.
Edited by CharityAdd last paragraph
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