We’ve talked a lot about the church lately. Part of the reason for this is that I am convinced that one of the biggest reasons followers of Jesus don’t live fully up to the glorious calling we have in Him is because we don’t fully understand what the church is and has been called to be in Christ. I want to fix that. This week and next we are talking about God’s purpose for the church and how we as a church can be a part of fulfilling it. You may not be a part of this church, but if you are part of the church, there’s something here for you to know. And if you’re not a part of any church, this is a good primer on the calling you are missing out on by your absence. Let’s look at what God’s plans have always been and how we can be a part of them.
Dwelling Place
I had the opportunity to talk to someone recently who is at the beginning of their journey into engaging with the Scriptures in pursuit of a deeper, fuller, richer, more robust relationship with Jesus. This young person has also made the choice to engage with the Scriptures from the standpoint of faith, assuming that they are true and that God will make answers available to tough questions at some point in the future. These are both really good things that are to be encouraged in every single person who starts down this path. But one of the things this individual observed to me is how crazy it seems that Israel slaughtered all of those Canaanite people at God’s command when they were moving into the Promised Land. Well, this led us into a conversation about all of the different factors we have to keep in mind when engaging with a story like this if we are going to be able to make any kind of positive sense out of it. These include things like God’s character as revealed by the rest of the Scriptures, the nature of God’s commands in the first place, how Israel and other ancient peoples received and processed commands like we find here, the nature of the culture of the ancient world, how God has always worked with and revealed Himself to us, and so on and so forth. The bigger point here, though, is one we should not miss and to which you may or may not have given much in the way of critical thought before: Understanding the ways God is revealed in the Old Testament narrative through the lens of the New Testament can be tricky.
God said and did a lot of things then that don’t make much sense to us. It’s sometimes hard for us to understand what exactly he was trying to do with Israel. We’re not really sure how relevant anything in the Old Testament is for us. I mean, we have heard so many people say over the years that we have to keep the Ten Commandments that we assume we have to keep the Ten Commandments, but do we really? What about the other laws? Things like the law repeated three separate times not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk don’t seem particularly relevant for us without doing some serious spiritual and theological gymnastics to make it say something it almost surely couldn’t have meant to its original audience. But are there parts that are relevant? How do we pick and choose? Should we pick and choose? After all, the apostle Paul and James, Jesus’ brother, both seem to argue pretty clearly that if we are going to try to live by any part of the old covenant, we have to live by the whole of the old covenant. To miss out on any of it is to miss out on the whole thing. But if it’s an all-or-nothing affair, does that mean we can disregard all of it? Sure, there are some parts we would rather disregard because they’re so hard to understand, but other parts seem really worthwhile. What exactly are we supposed to do with all of this?
Well, while that line of questioning could lead us off into some weeds that we will have to sort through in more detail another time, let me offer a couple of thoughts to get us pointed in the right direction for this morning. Rather than worrying so much about the details of the old covenant which do not actually apply to us as the old covenant has been fulfilled and replaced by the new covenant in Christ, a better use of our time and attention is to notice the patterns and themes of God’s interacting with us, what these are, and how they have always been the same. When you do this, it starts to become clear that God’s goal toward us has always been the same: to dwell among us in a relationship with us.
In the next few months, we are going to take a big step together in the direction of the realization of a vision that this church has been slowly angling toward for a very long time. We almost got up and running with it four years ago, but a global pandemic pretty well put a halt to at least that version of the vision. We are working now with a fresh version and are ready to start taking some intentional steps in the direction of seeing it brought into reality. Before we get there, though, I want us all to be really clear on what it is we are doing and why. Yes, we are planning to build a building. That’s the physical form this vision is going to take. But we are also doing much more than that. We are building God’s kingdom from our little corner of the world to take things outward from here. Well, building His kingdom has always what God has been about. What that looks like for Him, though, and how we have far too often interpreted that idea often haven’t been the same. If we are going to be about building God’s kingdom, then I want to make sure we understand what that means. Over the course of this week and next, in a new series called Building the Kingdom, we are going to see if we can’t bring some clarity to that so when we are ready to take that big step together in a few months, we’ll know just exactly what it is we are doing
If we are going to understand what God’s goal has always been with humanity and our role in that as a church, we are going to need to start by looking further back in God’s story than merely the New Testament teachings on the church. We are going to need to look back at how God was building a relationship with Israel, what the purposes of that relationship were, and what all of that looks like through the lens of the new covenant. That’s what we are going to try to tackle together this morning. Next week, we’ll talk about something specific this means for us as a church as far as what we need to do together in light of God’s goal for us. In other words, today is the beginning of a two-part conversation. You won’t want to miss either part.
God started building His relationship with Israel most intentionally in the Exodus journey. I don’t want to take you to the beginning of that journey, though, but to a scene that unfolded between the Lord and Moses in which the former gives the latter instructions for building the place where the people were going to worship Him in Exodus 25. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy, find your way there with me. The section here begins with God’s telling Moses to direct the people to take up an offering so they had the supplies they needed for the tabernacle. Could God have just done it all for them? Of course. But He wanted them to have some skin in the game in building their place of worship. There’s probably a sermon in there we need to hear, but we’ll have to save that for another time.
For now, listen to this: “The Lord spoke to Moses: ‘Tell the Israelites to take an offering from everyone who is willing to give.’” Okay, pause there for just a second. This was an invitation, not a coercion. God never works by coercion. He always woos and invites; never forces. He doesn’t want anyone to follow Him because they’ve been somehow made to do it. Begrudging offerings are worthless to Him. This is because He doesn’t need anything from us. His commands for us to give are invitations to trust in Him, not requests for us to give Him things He doesn’t already have. God wants our hearts, not our stuff. But our stuff is a way to our hearts, so God sometimes asks us to give our stuff.
Back on track. “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Tell the Israelites to take an offering for me. You are to take my offering from everyone who is willing to give. This is the offering you are to receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet yarn; fine linen and goat hair; ram skins dyed red and fine leather; acacia wood; oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; and onyx along with other gemstones for mounting on the ephod and breastpiece.’”
These were all the supplies that were going to be needed for the building of the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the temple before there was a temple. It was to be a mobile place of worship that the people could set up and tear down as they moved from place to place between Sinai and the Promised Land (and then in the various places they stopped on their 40-year trek after refusing to go into the Promised Land on their first go-round). The instructions go on from here to describe all of the various parts and pieces of the tabernacle starting from the center of the tent where they understood God’s presence to dwell, and moving outward from there. That’s the part that can get boring if you’re not prepared for it and don’t know what you’re doing. But just before God starts giving those instructions, He says something important. He tells them why He wants them to build this whole thing. Look at this in v. 8: “They are to make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them.”
This was why God wanted them to build. He wanted a place to dwell among them. Now, did God need a physical place in order to dwell among them? Of course not. God isn’t restricted to space and time like we are. But the people then didn’t understand that. The only experience any of them or any of their ancestors had with religion was that the god lived in the temple. The Israelites had experienced God’s power, but they didn’t yet connect that with God’s presence. They needed something to serve as a physical reminder that God was in their midst. There were two problems, though. First, they didn’t have a permanent home such that building a temple made any sense. And second, God wasn’t like the other gods worshiped by the people around them. He wasn’t limited like they understood them to be. So, if Israel built Him a dwelling place that was like every other god’s dwelling place, they would think about Him in the same terms as they did those gods. As a result, their worship space didn’t have any kind of an idol to represent God. Instead, He told them that His presence would dwell above the lid of the sacred box He was going to have them build to hold all their most important reminders of His actions on their behalf in between two sculptures of angels. It sounds weird to us, I know, but for the Israelites, this assurance of God’s presence among them was a very big deal.
Here’s the thing, though, none of the things God was going to have them build were real. I mean, they were real in a physical sense, but in terms of the spiritual realities they were conveying to the people, they were never intended to be anything more than symbols. They were symbols of the heavenly realities they were meant to help the people understand. Writing many centuries later, the author of Hebrews understood all of this and wanted to make sure the believers in his audience learned to put more stock in the spiritual realities made even more accessible by Jesus than the physical facsimiles represented by the temple and the tabernacle before it.
If you are still with me in your Bibles, flip way to the other side to the letter of Hebrews and check this out with me in Hebrews 9. “Now the first covenant also had regulations for ministry and an earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was set up, and in the first room, which is called the holy place, were the lampstand, the table, and the presentation loaves. Behind the second curtain was a tent called the most holy place. It had the gold altar of incense and the ark of the covenant, covered with gold on all sides, in which was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. The cherubim of glory were above the ark overshadowing the mercy seat [which was where God’s presence was understood to dwell]. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now.”
He’s just describing the things Moses tells the people to build in Exodus 25 and in the following chapters. Next, he talks about the process of worship that took place using all of these things. “With these things prepared like this, the priests enter the first room repeatedly, performing their ministry. But the high priest alone enters the second room, and he does that only once a year [on what we know today as Yom Kippur], and never without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was making it clear that the way into the most holy place had not yet been disclosed while the first tabernacle was still standing. This is a symbol for the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshiper’s conscience. They are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings imposed until the time of the new order.”
Okay, that’s a lot, but what’s he saying here? All of that old stuff, while necessary and important when it was in operation, was always intended to convey a spiritual truth that is still very much in play. And that spiritual truth is this: God wants to dwell among His people. He wants to dwell among us, to live among us, because He wants to have a relationship with us and it’s really hard to have a relationship with someone when you’re not ever around them. Ever try a long-distance relationship before? They’re tough. God had maintained a long-distance relationship with us for a very long time. He was ready to get closer. But getting close to God isn’t as easy as walking into the next room. He’s holy and we are not and so we don’t deserve to be able to be in His presence in the first place. All of the things He was instructing Israel to put in place were about His graciously creating some structures that would allow them to better understand who He is as well as to get as close to His presence as possible given the limitations of their sin.
For all of those structures, though, they only ever allowed the people to get but so close. Building a relationship was more possible, but it was still hard. God’s desire, though, to dwell among us to be in a relationship with us remained unchanged. And so, when the time was right, He took things another step forward in Christ. Look at the text again now at Hebrews 9:11. Using the language of the old covenant to help his audience who was well-versed in old covenant thinking understand what he was saying, the author of Hebrews took things the next step forward. “But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?”
Are you with Him? Because of what Jesus did, we can gain access to God’s presence in a way the people living under the old covenant never could. That’s why the author of Hebrews at the tail end of chapter 8 pronounces the entire old covenant to be obsolete and passing away. It was good when it was in place, but its time has passed and God has given us something new; a new covenant in Christ. Now, through Christ, we can get into God’s presence. He can dwell among us through His Spirit and have the relationship with us we were all designed for in the first place. Used to be you had to go to the tabernacle to experience God’s presence. The apostle Paul told us that each of us as followers of Jesus is the dwelling place of God’s Spirit. Your body is the temple. You are the temple. Everywhere you go as a follower of Jesus you are serving a similar function and purpose as the tabernacle did.
Here, then is where things start to get really interesting for us. The purpose of Israel and later the purpose of the church was always to serve as an invitation point to the rest of the world to enter into a relationship with God. Under the old covenant, the tabernacle and later the temple were where God’s presence was understood to dwell such that anyone in the world could come there and experience Him. But that was one place. God wanted more. So He sent Jesus and Jesus launched a movement of His Spirit built on the faithfulness of His followers called the church. Now, every place the church dwells is a place where God’s presence dwells. In other words—and don’t miss this—God’s purpose has never changed since the beginning. His approach has changed over time because we have changed over time, but the goal has always been the same: to dwell among us in order to be able to have a relationship with us.
So then, what does any of this mean for us as a church? Do a little bit of thinking here with me and let’s figure this out together. God wants a relationship with us. Relationships require presence to become fully what they are designed to be. So, God gave us (and by “us,” I mean humanity through Israel) a way to be engaged with His presence in the tabernacle. That was always intended to be a temporary solution to the problem of a lack of relationship. When the time was right, Jesus arrived and made God’s presence something that we can have in us all the time through the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in us. But God still wants a relationship with the rest of the world that isn’t already engaged in a relationship with Him through the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. To put that another way, God still wants to dwell among us for the world. Well, how is the world supposed to encounter His presence such that they can experience who He is and be drawn by that into a relationship with Him? In the ancient past, they could go to Jerusalem and encounter Him there, or at least get as close as was humanly possible to Him. What are they supposed to do now? The same thing. They have to go to the place where His presence dwells. And where does His presence dwell? In and through the lives of His gathered people. That is, in and through the church. God still wants to live among us. He simply does that now through the church. God lives among us through the church.
Do you see what this means? We are the place God’s presence dwells in this world so that those who have not yet entered into a relationship with Him can experience Him and do so. We are along with every church that is faithful to its Gospel identity in Christ. You and you and you and you and you are the place—the people through whom—where God’s presence dwells in this world; in this community. If someone is going to experience God’s presence in Oakboro, it is going to be because you allowed that to happen by your faithfulness to demonstrating it for them. Your willingness to accept and live in light of the fact that you are the bearer of the presence of God by virtue of your relationship with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit is how someone who is not in a relationship with Jesus is going to experience Him and fix that. You. Us. Together. As the church. God lives among us through the church.
We’ve talked a lot about the church lately. This is because I want us to understand what it is and what it is for. Well, this idea today is perhaps the most important thing to understand about the church we’ve talked about yet. Our job may be to advance the message and mission of Jesus. We may be a gathering of Jesus followers called out for the purpose of advancing His kingdom on earth. But even more fundamentally than that, we are the dwelling place of God’s Spirit in this world. God lives among us through the church. He is building His kingdom through the church. He is inviting people into a relationship with Him through the church. He is calling us from out of our darkness and into His glorious light through the church. God lives among us through the church. And we are the church. We’re not the only church, but we are this church. And God’s plans are to grow His kingdom through this church so that all the world may know Him and be in a relationship with Him. God lives among us through the church. So, if that’s really the case, then let’s live like it together. Come back next week, and we’ll talk about some practical ways we can do it.
The Nexus 
Wow…. Way, way too long.
Two points I garnered while skip scanning.
That is unfortunate. Any student should approach any sort of text from a neutral perspective and follow where the evidence leads, trying their very best to avoid any sort of confirmation bias.
2. Your reference to the Exodus.
I am surprised you still look at this tale as anything but a geopolitical foundation myth.
Are you at least away of the archaeological evidence that refutes any such notion of Captivity, Exodus and Conquest?
LikeLike
I assume you mean since we’ve talked 😉
My encouragement to this young person was to carefully examine the evidence and not to take his position on the truthfulness of the text on the basis of anyone’s understanding but his own. We rarely come to any issue without at least some form of presuppositions, Scriptures included. That being said, we take all kinds of matters as true on authority before we have the opportunity and ability to examine and decide on the question of truthfulness for ourselves.
Taking the Scriptures as true on the authority of someone we trust and then studying them for ourselves is a perfectly fine way to go about engaging with them. It’s when we only take them on authority and never own our personally formed opinion on them that we run into trouble on both sides of the question of truth.
And, we’ve been at this long enough you should already know my take on the Exodus story and why. I’ve explained it more than once.
LikeLike
If you are genuine about examining the evidence, then this young person should at some point lose faith and deconvert.
Yes, we have discussed the Exodus before but it is always worth bringing up the topic again in the hope that one day you might actually put aside your faith based position and do some genuine research into the tale and as with the young person come to realise it is geopolitical foundation myth.
LikeLike
I am, of course, very genuinely interested, and remain convinced from my own experience, but also that of many others, that he will come to precisely the opposition conclusion as you have.
On Exodus, I am convinced it is absolutely a geopolitical foundation story, but not a mythical one.
Speaking of myths, though, how familiar are you with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s work? In particular, have you done any looking at their thoughts on myths and Christianity?
LikeLike
Then what evidence can you provide to demonstrate that the scripture your young person is reading is true/fact etc
Exodus.
If you have not investigated the evidence how can you be convinced it is not a myth?
Never read Lewis. Started Tolkien but got fed up.
LikeLike
Beyond the self-evident truthfulness of huge parts of the New Testament, I would (and will) point him to the great deal of archaeological evidence supporting the various historical claims the Scriptures make. And for those parts that still lack clear archaeological evidence, I’ll talk with him about some of the same things you and I have talked about regarding the character of God, the position of Jesus on the Old Testament, and why extending the benefit of the doubt to places that are harder to understand is a reasonable (and even worthwhile) thing to do.
On Exodus, we’ve talked about that. A lot. I have spent time investigating much of the evidence. Because of the broader perspective I bring to the question, while I appreciate the work of those critical scholars who are convinced they’ve proven the whole thing false, I’m willing to take their work with more humility than perhaps even they are that there’s still more yet to be discovered about the ancient world including clearer evidence for the truthfulness of the thing.
What about Tolkien made you fed up? If you’re ever interested in a genuine challenge to your perspective, Lewis is worth your time. Start with Abolition of Man, then go to Mere Christianity. Both are worth your time if for no other reason than to better understand the position you are rejecting, so you properly understand what it is you are rejecting rather than falling into the trap that so many atheists get caught in of rejecting a straw man rather than the real thing.
LikeLike
Self evident truth?
Have you some examples that would be considered unique.
Archaeological evidence abounds in a James Bond novel. This doesn’t make Ian Fleming’s works anything more than at most historical fiction.
The Bible suffers in exactly the same way. More so in fact.
Extending the benefit of the doubt opens the door to suspending critical thinking and allowing the very real possibility of indoctrination, especially for young impressionable minds who have not yet fully developed and are putting their trust in an adult to guide them.
Firvthiscreason I would NEVER allow any child of mine to be mentored in any way by a member of a religious institution, be they pastor, priest or any variety thereof.
Exodus
Your comment comes across as equivocating.
As the evidence points to an internal settlement and there is no evidence of Captivity or Exodus and the Conquest model has been abandoned by all but those ignorant of the evidence or those who are simply wilfully ignorant on what basis can you afford the Bible text credibility?
It is a similar position when defending the Noachian Flood tale or the Adam and Eve tale.
I got bored with Tolkien as he laboured Bilbo Baggins birthday party to the point of tedium. I did not enjoy the films for similar reasons. My own opinion.
I have read a fair amount of fantasy.
My favorite author being Stephen Donaldson.
I also enjoy Piers Anthony among others.
Ah, yes. CS Lewis. Every Christian’s favorite go to, especially when trying to demonstrate to atheists the validity of converting!
🤣
LikeLike
Much of the Sermon on the Mount would fit that bill, I believe.
You keep coming back to your Bond argument like it’s any good. It was bad the first time you made it, and it has stayed bad every single time since. The historical reliability of any ancient document is borne out by the archaeological evidence confirming historical existence and accuracy the people, places, and events it mentions. Your persistently putting the Scriptures in the same category as a fictional novel is entirely the result of their containing reports of supernatural events combined with your antisupernaturalist worldview framework, and has almost nothing to do with the text itself. In other words, the worldview assumptions you bring to the text frame out your willingness to receive it as it is presented. Until you’re willing to reevaluate those, having conversations about the Scriptures is almost totally pointless for us.
Back to Exodus, as long as scholars think like you do, you agree with them. If they don’t, they’re either ignorant innocently or willingly or else drive purely by indoctrination rather than following the evidence wherever it leads. In other words, as long as they agree with you, they are good scholars who are following the evidence wherever it leads, and all of their conclusions are valid. If they don’t, they’re not. That’s the position you always take. As before, though, your perspective is framed out entirely by your worldview commitments. I think those commitments are in error and thus your conclusions are.
You seem to laugh somewhat mockingly at my reference Lewis….yet you’ve never read him. Interesting. So really, you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about or laughing at. Perhaps giving him a look will give you a better understanding into why he is cited so frequently. I wasn’t pointing to him for the validity of conversion, but for a good framing of the philosophical arguments both for Christianity and against atheism as made by someone who was a committed atheist until he realized the position didn’t make good philosophical sense.
I’ve not heard of those two authors, but Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, and Brandon Sanderson rank among my favorites. I respect your opinion on Tolkien, but I can’t say I share it. Oh well.
LikeLike
The sermon on the mount is a cobbled together series of possible quotes / homilies from the character Jesus of Nazareth and could not possibly be a verbatim record – according to a least one critical scholar I read a while back.
As there is no evidence whatsoever of the ministry of the bible character Jesus of Nazareth the nature of historic fiction as reflected in any Bond novel is a perfect comparison with the tales in the anonymous gospels.
The consensus of critical scholarship and historians is the gospels, as with Acts, are not historically reliable.
Examples: The nature of Pilate as described in the gospels, for example, is so far removed from what his character was truly like as to be considered almost entirely made up simply to serve a theological objective.
You are aware of why hecwas recalled to Rome, yes?
The fact that enemies of the state were left on the cross to rot or subsequently dumped in a shallow ditch makes the notion the character Jesus of Nazareth was given a formal buriel in a tomb risible. When one considers the contradictory reports of the Tomb this makes the notion even more so.
Furthermore, Paul mentions nothing of any tomb and if it actually existed it would have been the most sacred / revered piece of archeology in Christendom.
In fact you have Helena to thank for “discovering” it and ordering a church built around it. Tis a miracle!!
And much of bible scholarship consider the Empty Tomb tale was a much later addition.
Origen never mentions it and I stand under correction, neither did Eusebius.
There are numerous other tales in the gospels that are not bound by miracles or supernaturalism.
The nonsense of the census, the Three Wise Men, the erroneous and contradictory geographical descriptions, the interpolations and fraud, including those in the epistles all make the assertion the gospels are little more than historical fiction an accurate assessment.
EXODUS.
If you are truly in pursuit of truth then you should ditch faith for a while and follow where the evidence leads.
As there is no evidence of Captivity, or Exodus and the Conquest model has been ditched by all but the ignorant or wilfully ignorant I truly cannot understand what your gripe is?
To accuse me of only aligning with those scholars who agree with my position suggests I rejected the Exodus before I even encountered the likes of Finkelstein, et al which is nonsense.
As you consider my perspective in error then we will have to include the hundreds if not thousands of archaeologists who have dug tirelessly for several generations and who have arrived at the conclusion the Exodus as described in the Bible is simply myth. And we should also mention the majority of Jewish scholars and Rabbis who hold similar views who respect the evidence and seem quite content with the current state of affairs.
Therefore your accusations are baseless and if you want to show any meaningful measure of integrity then you should present evidence that refutes what amounts to pretty much the entire corpus of relevant archaeology and scholarship.
Lewis’ famous Liar, Lunatic or Lord is all I really need to know regarding Lewis, and what I have read about him and his conversion.
As already mentioned there is a reason why he is referenced by so many Christians and that in itself is a red flag.
Evidence is all that matters and I’m sorry, but based on what I have read about him, limited as this may be, Lewis’ arguments are as devoid of evidence as are yours.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Quite literally not a word of that is convincing or persuasive and you sound like someone who simply has not the foggiest clue of what he’s talking about when it comes to the Scriptures and the broader Christian worldview. I’m honestly not even sure what kind of an answer would be worthwhile to give. On Jesus, you simply cite a list of objections that have long since been answered. And on Exodus, you’re just making my point for me and making a compelling case that I’m right not only in the position I hold, but in my understanding of your position. As for Lewis, if you’ve never read him, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You say, “evidence is all that matters,” but you’re only willing to consider evidence that supports and affirms your position. Everything else you find some reason or way to discount as not evidence to save yourself from having to be meaningfully impacted by it. You’ve been doing that since we got started so many months ago. And the humorous irony to me is that the whole time you’ve basically been accusing me of doing the same thing. But the truth is, evidence is not all that matters. Evidence simply is. Philosophy dictates and determines how we interact with. Your generally philosophically impoverished understanding of the world keeps you limited to making statements like that which from a philosophical standpoint are manifest nonsense. Spending some time engaging with a great philosophical intellect like Lewis might actually do you a lot of good not because it might convince you to abandon your atheism (although that certainly would be a happy byproduct of it), but so that you gain a deeper understanding of good philosophy (not Christian philosophy, per se, but simply good philosophy), such that you can see why so many of the arguments you make are so bad and severely limited. It’ll help you avoid continuing to fall in the trap that kept capturing the likes of Stephen Hawking. He was a towering intellect of the first order. No doubt about it. But he was a terrible philosopher. He didn’t understand it at all. He once pronounced philosophy to be dead because of the incredible advances humans had achieved in science. But that was a statement of philosophy. How can you use something that’s dead in order to pronounce it to be dead? Spend some time with some good philosophers. It’ll let you see a whole world that you’ve been missing out on.
LikeLike
Once again all you have done is rattle off unsubstantiated Christian apologetics with not a single piece of evidence to refute anything I wrote, and then you have the audacity to assert I do not know what I am talking about!
You did not address a single point regarding the Exodus and until you show some of this humility you claim to have then your dismissal of the archaeology and the rabbis who acknowledge the tale is myth your unwarranted opinion has no merit whatsoever, and far from being humble is the epitome of arrogance
Have you read anything by Josephus besides the forged TF?
Do you know why Pilate was apparently recalled to Rome?
The gospels are anonymous: fact.
The empty tomb is not mentioned by Paul and critical scholarship considers it is a latter addition: fact.
The long ending of GMark is a forgery:fact.
The census is nonsense: fact.
There are numerous aspects of the gospels that are simply factually wrong on several levels and one does not even need to include a single miracle account.
Your criticisms have no basis in fact/ evidence and asserting it is my worldview that is at fault is risible as you are ostensibly levelling the same accusation at the entire body of Bible scholarship and historians across the globe.
As for Lewis, his famous lunatic, liar or lord quote tells anyone all they need to know about his ‘philosophy’, which also requires no evidence whatsoever to support such a sweeping assertion.
Why did he not include legend?
I have spent time with some “good philosophers” thanks very much. Dan Dennet is a good as any.
Meantime until your claims are supported by evidence they will be dismissed accordingly.
LikeLike
You know, as infuriating as you can be, I really did miss you when you were gone :~)
When it comes to Christianity…you don’t. That I can tell, you never have. Now, you’re so caught up in an anti-Christian worldview position, you generally can’t understand it.
Again on Exodus, you don’t like that I don’t accept lock, stock, and barrel like you do the scholars with whose work you agree in favor of those whose work you don’t. Being a rabbi doesn’t give someone a special dispensation on understanding the Old Testament, much less in have THE authoritative interpretation of it. There are liberal rabbis who no doubt reject the historicity of their founding documents. There are no doubt much more conservative rabbis who don’t. That’s meaningless as far as my view on it goes.
On the Gospels, I’d have to go back and double check to be sure, but you don’t raise any objections there that aren’t addressed and answered in Craig’s book that we have talked about before. None of those things even make me blink.
Take the Gospel anonymity point you enjoy raising as if that somehow threatens their reliability. From the ESV Study Bible introduction to Matthew: “Since none of the four Gospels includes the names of their authors in the original manuscripts, they are all technically anonymous. [Wait for it…] This is not surprising, since the authors likely compiled their Gospel accounts for members of their own churches, to whom they were already well known. However, historical documents from early church history provide significant insight into the Gospel’s authorship. The earliest traditions of the church are unanimous in attributing the first Gospel to Matthew, the former tax collector who followed Jesus and became one of his 12 disciples. The earliest and most important of these traditions comes from the second century in the writings of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (c. A.D. 135), and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul (c. 175). Because these early church leaders had either direct or indirect contact with the apostolic community, they would have bene very familiar with the Gospels’ origins. Moreover, no competing traditions now exist (if they ever did) attributing Matthew’s Gospel any other author. If Matthew did not write the book, it is hard to see why the false ascription would bear the name of a relatively obscure apostle when more well-known and popular figures could have been chosen (e.g., Philip, Thomas, or James).”
And just for fun, here’s from the intro to Mark: “Widespread evidence from the early church fathers affirms that Peter passed on reports of the words and deeds of Jesus to his attendant and writer, John Mark. Of particular significance in this regard are the brief statements by Papias (Bishop of Hierapolis; c. A.D. 120), preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea (260-360). Papias states that he received oral tradition from John the elder and apostle, and he passes on the following regarding Mark: (1) he was the writer for Peter; (2) he wrote down accurately as much as he could remember of Peter’s words, which the latter had adapted to the needs of the moment; (3) he was not an eyewitness of Jesus, nor a disciple; and (4) it was his desire not to omit or misrepresent anything. Papias concluded that the Gospel of Mark gains its apostolic and reliable character from its Petrine origin (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.15.1-2; 3.39.14-16).”
Anonymous? Technically. Can we be confident enough about who wrote them to say they’re not really anonymous? From the available evidence, absolutely.
On Lewis, if you haven’t read him, then you really don’t know. If you’ve spent time with good philosophers, then why do you keep making philosophically ridiculous statements like, “evidence is everything”? Dismissing Christian claims on the basis of bad philosophical assumptions say way more about you than the claims themselves.
LikeLike
Exodus.
Once again, you haven’t offered a single piece of evidence to refute what ostensibly amounts to the entire archaeological community who have worked on the Exodus issue for several generations.
Therefore your opinions, which are all heavily biased toward your unsubstantiated Christian worldview can he summarily dimissed.
What widespread evidence from early church fathers?
Papias, Ireneus, Justin Martyr?
And you really want to cite Eusebius? For goodness’ sake!
And how does your weak attempt at a rebuttal in any way answer the charge of historical fiction with regard the gospels?
As already mentioned, Lewis was a Christian first and foremost. His beliefs were not based on evidence any more than yours, and his notorious Liar, Lunatic Lord argument is simply vacuous.
LikeLike
Not the entire archaeological community, just the secular archaeological community. You just don’t like the work of the archaeologists who don’t share your worldview position, and you are willing to accept the criticisms of those who do without argument or complaint because you share the same theological outlook.
I didn’t cite Justin Martyr at all. And, yes, the early church fathers are a perfectly viable historical source. The charge of historical fiction is nonsense and has been refuted by others over and over and over again. We’ve talked about that before. I didn’t feel the need to do much more than I already have to address it.
And, once again, you haven’t read Lewis by your own admission, so you don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to his work and thinking. To borrow (with slight modification) your own line, “therefore your opinions, which are all heavily biased toward your unsubstantiated [secular] worldview can be summarily dismissed.” ;~)
LikeLike
The secular community is the only one that counts as they produce evidence, and this is why most Jewish people are secular and why Jewish rabbis, scholars and historians in the main concur with the evidence, whereas the tiny minority crowd you pander to have never produced evidence to support their claims and are pretty much ignored by mainstream scholars historians and archaeologists.
There is a very good reason why the Conquest model for example has been abandoned.
Also, I don’t recall if you ever bothered to address the Kadesh issue?
Or the unrefuted dating of Jericho by Kenyon.
Feel free to refresh my memory on both issues, and see if you can do it solely with verified evidence and without invoking anything broaching a Christian worldview.
Ftr I do not have a theological outlook.
I am atheist. My outlook is secular. I have no need of god bothering nonsense, thank you.
If the early church fathers are a reliable source why are they summarily dismissed when it comes to historical reliability of the gospels?
And the notable word in you defense of them was tradition.
Another red flag,
Find me a secular scholar who has dismissed the charge of historical fiction as it pertains to the gospels.
Furthermore you still have not addressed the numerous forgeries/ fraud/ interpolations but seem to prefer to hand wave and then gaslight somewhat instead of providing evidence that refutes mainstream scholarship.
For the umpteenth time, Lewis laid his cards on the table with his drivel of Liar Lunatic Lord assertion.
That is enough to know all one needs.
But as you, like as so many believers, revere Lewis so much why not present evidence that demonstrates the veracity of his position?
LikeLike
There are no forgeries. There is no fraud. The interpolations don’t take away from the larger case for historicity.
More to the larger point, though, once again, as long as I am willing to play entirely by your rules and adopted the worldview framework you have decided is correct, then we can find common ground. But I’m not willing to play by your rules and I have entirely rejected the worldview framework you hold. Therefore, we’re not going to find any common ground in our arguing. You will continue to think I’m blind to the obvious facts of reality and I’ll continue to think the same about you. You don’t or aren’t willing to recognize the philosophical house of cards your position is built on. Because of that, you keep stamping your foot on the evidence charge. Meanwhile, because of your ideological blinders, you won’t accept any evidence that points in a direction other than the one you’ve decided to commit yourself, preferring to use the method of categorically declaring it to be not evidence in the first place. The result is that you keep waving that flag around in spite of my having already addressed the questions in our previous conversations more than once. And, I’m not ever going to give you an answer to anything that doesn’t come out of a committedly Christian worldview. Continuing to insist I do so is just silly.
I give secular scholars the same credence that you give Christian scholars. Waving them around accomplishes about the same thing in terms of giving credibility to your arguments that my doing so does with you.
Again to Lewis, the utter shortsightedness of your statement just reveals your profound ignorance of his work. You dismiss him because he’s a Christian, not because of that particular argument for the identity of Jesus. That says a world more about you than it does about Lewis. And the more you wave around your “evidence is everything” flag, the worse it sounds. That position is philosophically nonsensical. You can keep waving it, but I’m going to have to simply ignore it in our future dialogues.
LikeLike
Yes the are forgeries and fraud and interpolation.
Here are a few…
The Joannine comma, the long ending of Mark, the pericope of the woman caught in adultery, at least half the epistles, not to mention the blatent plagiarism.
You have yet to offer any evidence that points in a direction that verifies your position.
As it has massive influence on numerous aspects of your faith why not simply look at the Exodus tale?
What evidence can you offer that demonstrates the veracity of any aspects of the Bible tale?
LikeLike
None that you’re going to be willing to accept. We both know that already. Why bother trying? I’ve tried to show why and demonstrate veracity before and pointed you to resources where you can learn more on your own. You’ve refused to accept or engage with them. There’s really not much more I can do beyond continuing to give you truthful answers to the questions you ask. Whether you accept them or not is up to you.
LikeLike
Every critical scholar accepts the long ending of GMark is an interpolation, and this is based on evidence.
Every critical scholar accepts that at least six epistles are forgeries and there may be more, though those are contested.
The same goes for all the other things I have listed. In fact, the only ones who refuse to accept the evidence are literalists and fundamental evangelicals.
Even eminent scholar and theologian NT Wright acknowledges the gospels are anonymous.
Most Bible scholars of all stripes who I have read ( albeit not that many) acknowledge the woman caught in adultery pericope is a later addition that does not feature on the earliest manuscripts.
The same for the Johanine comma.
I am truly baffled why you are so desperate to defend what the majority of historians, critical scholars and even some of your fellow fundamentalists grudginly accept?
Is it because you are afraid your faith will not withstand such scrutiny, I wonder?
LikeLike
I’m not desperate to defend those at all. We’ve talked about those at length before. Neither the longer ending of Mark nor the story of the woman caught in adultery have any bearing on the historical reliability of those two Gospels whatsoever. You greatly overplay the significance of Gospel anonymity. Church tradition dating back to guys who knew John personally have held that the authors are who the titles claim they are. And you keep citing critical scholars like that’s somehow helping your point. Yes, guys who don’t believe any of it question the reliability of it. Shocker. That might as well be a Babylon Bee headline. The Christian faith has withstood a great deal more scrutiny than you give and is still around and kicking. Your recycling long since answered arguments isn’t really accomplishing much.
LikeLike
They are two instances of interpolation.
Two of numerous instances of forgery.
The johanine comma is another very important example
Ergo, they are not historically reliable.
“Church tradition”
My goodness! Really? Church tradition once decreed the Pope to be infallible. How did that work out for you lot!
You can dig your heels in all you like but the church has changed its stance on a great many things and they still do.
LikeLike
Again, you’re raising points that have long since been answered and discredited. I’ve told you where you can go to engage with those. I”m not sure why you keep bringing this same set of things back up again and again. Let’s get on to something new.
LikeLike
None have been discredited and that, Jonathan is an outright falsehood.
I realise that Lying for Jesus is considered a virtue in some circles, even Luther upheld such a view and so did Eusebius If I’m not mistaken but
I would have thought it beneath you.
LikeLike
Sigh….are you going to join the other guy in accusing me of lying all the time? I really don’t have patience for that. I wasn’t talking about only our conversation, but much more generally. I haven’t discredited all of your claims. I haven’t tried to do that. I’ve tried to give you an honest answer from out of the Christian worldview to every matter you’ve raised. Some I’ve been more knowledgeable about and have been able to do so fairly easily. Some I haven’t and have tried to point you to where folks who know better than me have answered. What you do with all of that is up to you. But stop with the lying nonsense. I haven’t lied to you, and so far as it depends on me, I won’t.
LikeLike
Asserting that something has been discredited when it has not suggests either you are simply wilfully ignorant of the scholarly position – which is highly unlikely – or you are uttering blatent falssood, and to try to cover your back by using your catch all phrase of Christian Worldview is not going to redeem you either.
LikeLike
I’ve learned well over the course of our conversation that you are sufficiently committed to your position that you aren’t going to be willing to acknowledge when a secular belief has been discredited in the direction of a Christian one no matter how obvious to many, many others the case may be. I have not and will not lie to you. If you take it as otherwise, that’s on you, not me. I’m not willing to keep banging away at that debate though. I don’t have interest in or time for it.
LikeLike
Unless you are going to tout miracles the oonly thing that will discredit a secular belief (regarding the veracity of a religious/ Bible claim) is evidence.
I am unaware of any Christian, apologist or otherwise have done such a thing.
However, as you are adamant this is the case then please offer some examples.
Once you have done this I am quite prepared to do the research from thereon in.
LikeLike
I’ve pointed you to a book (The Historical Reliability of the New Testament) to do more research on a topic before and even offered to mail you my own personal copy and you declined. Josh McDowell’s classic, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, is another good place to turn. When you’re willing to purchase and read those two, we can talk more. I don’t have time or interest for more than that right now.
LikeLike
Blomberg is a Christian. His aim is to defend his faith.
McDowell is an evangelical fundamentalist and apologist. An even worse case.
But, like Blomberg his primary goal is to defend the faith, not provide evidence to challenge that faith.
I was hoping for a little more integrity from you this time around but I suppose that is a bridgevtoo far and the saying… Birds of a feather and all that, right?
LikeLike
You’re realize you’re making my point for me, right? You’re not willing to listen to or engage with anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. And, when I am not willing to dance by your music, you accuse me of a lack of integrity. It’s silly. You have on such tight worldview blinders you’re not willing to see beyond the end of your worldview nose. I fundamentally and entirely disagree with your entire worldview framework. Of course I’m not going to adopt it in order to make a case along the only lines you insist it can be made. And to think you accused me of playing pitiful games. I’m going to continue to engage with you from out of the starting point of the Christian worldview, and I’m not going to apologize for that. You’ll have to either get over it or give up the debate.
LikeLike
Wrong again!.
How many more times must I stress this?
One’s worldview has no bearing on the fact the earth is a spheroid and orbits the sun, for example.
Evidence clearly dictates this is so and no amount of nonsense from Flat Earthers and their idiotic minions will change this fact
Likewise, if what either of these two gentlemen assert is supported by evidence / fact then one’s worldview will have no bearing Yet, their primary aim is to defend the faith.
Thus msny/ most of their views are vehemently contested by secular scholars because they lack evidrntiak support.
Once again, if you are truly interested in the pursuit of truth/ fact then you should not have any issues with supporting religious claims with rock solid evidence.
LikeLike
I don’t. But how you and I define evidence and what we are willing to consider as evidence aren’t the same. Go read McDowell’s book. Again, the title is Evidence That Demands a Verdict. The fact that you would dismiss him simply because he’s a Christian without actually, you know, engaging with the evidence he presents tells me everything I need to know about just how serious you really are about all of this. Once you’ve read his book from cover to cover and meaningfully interacted with the evidence he presents and discusses, then we can talk more. Until then, I’m just not willing to do more than that.
LikeLike
I have listened to more apologists than is good for my health.
I have read reviews of his book and read what a few former Christians have had to say about him/ it.
You can imagine how enamoured
former Christians are with his work.
Therefore, why should I shell out money for a book that does not provide evidence for the claims Christians make?
As you defend him I presume the evidence/ arguments you consider valid are similar/ the same as he holds?
That is not evidence but unsupported claims.
Much like what Strobel espouses. They are not interested in showing non believers any sort of facts but rather present clever arguments to shore up the faith of those who are already believers.
LikeLike
Have you read the book and honestly interacted with the evidence he discusses? Have you tracked down his sources and proved their invalidity? Once you’ve done that, then we can talk more. On Blomberg’s book, that one wouldn’t have cost you a dime, but you similarly refused. You’re only willing to have the debate on your terms. I’m not willing to have it on those terms. We’ll just keep talking past each other until we’re ready to give up.
LikeLike
Again, McDowell believes the Bible is the inerrent word of his/your god, Yahweh.
He writes for those who are already believers, and need their faith shoring up using apologetic arguments rather than addressing genuine shortcomings that critical scholars raise.
He even uses Lewis’ trilema argument, for goodness sake!
I say again. Worldview has no bearing on evidence.
To construct an argument that rejects evidence so as to fit a presupoosed belief is simply dishonest and disingenious.
To paraphrase the Life of Brian.
“That’s just making it up as you go along. ”
LikeLike
Worldview has a bearing on everything. I feel compelled to keep making this point because you don’t seem to be able to grasp it. The evidence simply is. Worldview affects how we interpret it. Worldview is unavoidably a part of the entire process. Try as you might, you can’t escape that. It’s the water in which the rest of the fishes are swimming.
LikeLike
If your worldview contradicts facts then your worldview is wrong. It is as simple as that.
A worldview that is underpinned by YEC is wrong.
They believe it is correct. Their belief does not make it so.
The same rule applies to you and your religious beliefs.
Ergo, much of what you consider is evidence for your faith-based beliefs does not meet recognised criteria.
This is the fact you constantly try to sidestep.
For you either this is wilfull ignorance or it illustrates a degree of indoctrination you are unable to recognise.
LikeLike
I agree with you on that first part 100%. But, what facts are subject to worldview interpretation all the same. That is, a person’s worldview can affect even what gets considered a fact.
LikeLike
If facts are interpreted to fit a worldview then these facts are no longer facts.
When such disingenuity/ dishonesty is then exported into the general marketplace of ideas a degree of harm is unavoidable.
Again we can use Ken Ham and his idiotic YEC garbage as an example.
Your claim you have evidence of the destruction of Pharoah’s army might be considered a slightly less disingenious example, but nevertheless, if you pass this belief on as fact( to your young person or even your children) this has potential to cause a degree of harm.
Those who claim some sort of divinely inspired moral high ground should have the integrity to acknowledge a fact is not subject to their personal whimsy.
LikeLike
Facts aren’t (rightly anyway) interpreted to fit worldviews. They are interpreted by worldviews. For example, it is a fact that the world began to exist at some point in the finite past. It is also a fact that we don’t have evidence of anything beginning to exist without a cause. Logically then, the universe should have had a cause. Whether you interpret the facts of the universe’s existence and the total lack of evidence of something beginning to exist without a cause as best explained by a creator or figure out some way to explain it without that depends on your worldview. Same facts. Different worldviews. The real question is: which worldview is true. That’s a question of philosophy, not science. Thus, your demands for evidence ultimately can’t get you the answers that matter most.
LikeLike
As there is currently no answer to your scenario) the only honest reply is “We don’t know”.
That is the fact of the matter, and the only fact.
Your wish to insert your god to fit your worldview is dishonest.
LikeLike
You interpret the fact from out of your secular worldview and can only say, “We don’t know.” I argue that the best interpretation of the available facts is the existence of a creator of some sort. There’s nothing even remotely dishonest about that. Your worldview simply doesn’t allow you to accept otherwise. For most people across the history of humanity, some version of my interpretation was self-evidently true. That anyone ever consider otherwise was, minus a couple of exceptions, a fairly recent invention historically speaking. It was a conclusion not borne out of any evidence or some commitment to honesty. It was borne out of a worldview commitment. Everything else was added from there.
LikeLike
Again interpretation. I could have asserted we are simply part of an elaborate synthetic experiment, or bytes in an alien computer game.
We simply do not know so your interpretation is as much without substance as mine.
And, if we are being honest, a concept that you seem to be rather flexible about, your scenario includes the man made Canaanite deity, Yahweh come in the flesh human sacrifice, the bible character Jesus of Nazareth.
Therefore, the assertion, we don’t know is not only a fact but currently the only honest answer.
LikeLike
Once again, I’ve not ever lied to you, and I won’t. Stop confusing dishonesty with lack of agreement. It’s not a good look.
And, yes, while I do believe all those other things albeit not in the way you so crassly describe them, those are secondary to the first question.
If we are being honest, the trouble for you is that your worldview commitments limit you to ignorance on the question of universal origins. The other silly things you suggest are philosophical nonsense. The answer of ignorance is one of philosophy, not evidence, and besides, it’s a cop out to help you avoid the broader implications of a creator. The best explanation for the existence of the universe based on the only experience we have is a creator.
LikeLike
The origin of life is unknown.
To assert otherwise is gross dishonesty.
You have no evidence of a creator and the fact you are hiding your true belief that you consider this creator is the Canaanite deity made flesh, the bible character Jesus Nazareth is further evidence of your dishonesty.
To assert this is the best explanation is simply a load of bollocks.
LikeLike
Again, there’s nothing dishonest about this at all. It is a philosophically legitimate interpretation of the available data based on the evidence of human experience and the sum total of human knowledge. Nothing has ever come into existence without a cause. And specified, organized, and complex information has never come from any source other than a mind. Based on the available evidence, the argument for a creator makes more sense than the argument that it just happened (which, other than claiming ignorance, is all you have as a secularist). That’s just good philosophy. You simply won’t accept that because of your own secular philosophical commitments. And I haven’t hidden anything. I’m simply starting from first principles.
LikeLike
Wrong. I don’t know and neither do you.
And again, you are masking your true belief of this creator and that is dishonest.
LikeLike
I’m perfectly comfortable and have no reservations saying that I do know. And I’m not masking anything. You know what I believe.
LikeLike
But you do not know and belief is not equal to evidence.
Yes, I know what you believe and you have no evidence for said belief. To assert otherwise is tantamount to delusion.
LikeLike
Philosophically speaking, knowledge is justified true belief. I believe it, and I think the philosophical and rational arguments are overwhelming that the belief is true and justified. Thus, I know it. Using your severely limited understanding of evidence, no, there’s no evidence, but if you limit yourself to that, a great deal of what we know about the ancient past we don’t actually know. The philosophy behind our confidence in things we know about the ancient for which there is not the kind of evidence you demand is sound and so is the knowledge. That includes the origin of the universe.
LikeLike
More weasel words.
Overwhelming🤣
LikeLike
Just sound philosophy. I can see why that would be overwhelming.
LikeLike
No, weasel words is correct.
You do not know, therefore to assert you do you are lying. Period
LikeLike
By the philosophically accepted definition of knowledge, yes, I know. Me and a whole bunch of other people across the last 2,000 years have indeed known it. You choose not to know it, but that’s on you.
You’re sounding more and more like the other guy. Debating him isn’t fun because all he does is accuse me lying over and over and over again. It gets tiresome. If you’re going to go down that road too, then we need to just quit. I don’t have time for two of you.
LikeLike
Which “other guy”?
Again, you can try to make your case that you know but you really don’t and all you are doing is illustrating the power of indoctrination.
But just for shits and giggles I would love to see how you get from a creator to this creator being the Bible character Jesus of Nazareth.
LikeLike
No you wouldn’t. I know better than that. And the only other guy to comment on this post besides you and me.
LikeLike
Yes, I would. I have never read a single Christian able to defend the silly lotion that Jesus of Nazareth is the Creator of the universe.
What other “guy” ? Name?
LikeLike
That’s because you’ve already decided you think it’s nonsense. Until you’re honestly willing to give it meaningful consideration starting from a neutral place rather than the “this is all stupid” place – something I’ve seen not the first shred of evidence you are willing to do – it’s not worth mine or anyone else’s time to bother trying. You can’t convince someone of what they don’t want to believe.
And I don’t know what his name is. There’s literally only one other commenter on this post besides the two of us. That’s the extent of what I know. He’s the guy through whose blog you originally found me. Or perhaps he’s a she. I honestly don’t even know that for sure.
LikeLike
Well, every Christian I have read who tried to explain it was presumably sincere, but that didn’t make their explanation any less silly.
You are correct about convincing. You reject evolution and think you have evidence that Pharoah and his army drowned in the Red Sea( sic)
🤣
Your creation story with Jesus at the helm is nuch like the invented doctrine of the Trinity, and there are plenty of Christians who acknowkedge it is simply garbage.
And some sects do lot consider JC is the creator of the universe either.
You are referring to Club?
Club is a she and she had you bang to rights from the beginning!
LikeLike
I reject macroevolution for which there isn’t any evidence, but I have no interest in going back down that road with you again.
There aren’t any historically orthodox Christians who reject the Trinity. Once you’ve done that, you aren’t worshiping to the same God I am anymore. To call us both Christians at that point isn’t accurate. Maybe they are and I’m not, but we can’t both be by the law of non-contradiction. Your caricatured-at-best understanding of Christianity prevents you from really being able to grasp the kind of distinctions at play there.
And if Club’s arguments are the kind you find convincing, my confidence in our ability to have any further productive conversations has decreased mightily.
LikeLike
Of course there is evidence!
What are you, a closet YEC?
You simply do not understand evolution and are too damn lazy to do the spade work.
Your definition of Christian is biased.
Christadelphians for example reject the Trinity and recognise it for what it is… A church construct.
There were sects that held non Trinitarian views before bloody Niceae, you know?
And of course loving Christians set out on a Crusade to exterminate the Cathars because of their nontrinitarian views.
What a vile religion you promote.
Club recognizes your arguments for what they are- specious – and as a former Christian she can spot a Liar for Jesus without breaking sweat.
LikeLike
Of macroevolution? No, there’s not. I’ve long since told you I reject YEC.
My definition of Christian is historically orthodox. Either God is a Trinity or He’s not. He can’t be both. Your cherry picking a relatively tiny, unorthodox sect to make your point only demonstrates how little you understand what you are talking about. And Christians behaving badly in support of a particular doctrine doesn’t make the doctrine untrue, it makes them wrong in how they were expressing their support of it. As long as you caricature Christian history, cherry picking all the genuinely dark periods while ignoring the larger volume of good, you’ll keep seeing things the way you do.
And I’ve been thinking this whole time you were a much more reasonable debating partner than that. If that’s where you are too, we probably just need to call it quits because we really aren’t going to get anywhere.
LikeLike
Again, your blatent ignorance of evolution is palpable.
The evolution of the bat wing is one example.
You just present yourself as an( wilfully) ignorant fool.
As already stated. Non trinitarian beliefs preceded Nicaea and Athanasius.
The doctrine is a church construct, which is why it was and is rejected by several Christian sects.
LikeLike
The doctrine of the Trinity was not invented at Nicaea nor by Athanasius. It goes all the way back to the beginning and there are obvious hints in the New Testament that the earliest church had already embraced by the time those documents were being written. Non-trinitarian believers have always been considered unorthodox.
And, no, there’s no evidence for macroevolution. But again, we’ve already hashed that out and came to a place of recognized disagreement. There’s no reason to go back there again.
LikeLike
It is a church construct.
If it was explicit in the Bible then why on earth would some sects disagree and why the need for the church to wrote it into a creed?
Your continual intransigence and refusal to study evolution further illustrates your wilfull ignorance and how ridiculous you are.
LikeLike
I’m sorry you think so.
LikeLike
No, you aren’t in the least sorry.
If you had any intention of genuine remorse you would acknowledge the Trinity is a Church construct and was part and parcel of Constantine’s initial attempt to force the Bishops to adopt a unified Christian doctrine.
Theodosius furthered the process issuing some revolting edicts.
LikeLike
Other than being totally mistaken, sure, we can go with that. And, I am indeed genuinely sorry you feel the way you do.
LikeLike
The first to describe/outline a concept of Trinity was Tertullian.
The idea eventually became built into the Nicene Creed.
It has no biblical origin or authority(sic)
Ergo, it is a church construct.
LikeLike
It does. You simply don’t understand the relevant texts properly. But, being a committed atheist, I wouldn’t expect you to.
LikeLike
Wrong. There is no Trinity in the Bible. Another reason there are Christian sects that are non- trinitarian.
And right on cue, when called out… heeere’s Jonathan and the condescension.
LikeLike
Explicitly, no, that’s correct. Implicitly there are references all over the place that theologians recognized very quickly after the original formation of the church as pointing to the Trinitarian nature of God. Was that too condescending of an explanation?
LikeLike
No, just more apologetic drivel and as mentioned before, one reason why non trinitarians don’t accept that crap.
LikeLike
Which is their prerogative. But they are also in the decided minority and have been considered unorthodox since just nearly the beginning. And, to say they are Christians and I am a Christian as well is not correct. I may be in the wrong, but to say we worship the same God is not accurate.
LikeLike
I never asserted you worship the same god.
And, yes, you are wrong.
The only issue is the fact the Trinity is a Church construct.
There is no Bible authority for the man made Trinity and the Johannine comma is a forgery.
LikeLike
Condescension trigger warning!
I’m trying to think of a good point of comparison to illustrate how little it means that you as a committed atheist believe me to be in the wrong on an intramural Christian debate when you don’t believe a word of any of it anyway, but I just can’t think of a good one. We’ll call it writer’s block. All the same, your objections to my position which is fully in line with nearly the entire weight of church history and has been vigorously defended by biblical theologians for centuries upon centuries, is duly noted. The Trinity is a revealed doctrine that’s fully consistent with the teachings of the Scriptures. That’s been the overwhelmingly dominant position of the church since pretty much day one, and I share it entirely.
LikeLike
Yes, revealed. They made it up in other words.
LikeLike
Unless God exists, and then it’s not made up at all. You’re analyzing the whole thing from the standpoint that God doesn’t exist. There’s your problem. As we have talked about before, absent that belief, nothing about the Christian worldview—especially detailed theological debates—won’t make any sense. Why you keep insisting on analyzing them through the wrong set of lenses doesn’t make any sense to me.
LikeLike
I am not analyzing anything but simply going off the available evidence.
The Trinity is a doctrine.
That is, a belief taught by the church and Iike all fundamental religious belief it has no basis in evidence /fact but simply something concocted to get around the question of godhood as it relates to the bible character Jesus of Nazareth. Can’t have Christians being labeled polytheist!
And while some would like to read into supposed obscure hints in the bible scripture contains no such thing as the Trinity
And the Johannine comma is regarded as a forgery.
Neither of the other Abrahamic faiths acknowledge the nonsense of the Trinity and a number of sects within your own religion reject it for exactly what it is – a church / *man-made construct.
*nod to Tertullian.
LikeLike
But again, being a non-believer who doesn’t accept any of it from the start and can’t understand it by virtue of your unwillingness to accept the starting premises, all your thinking and posturing about the doctrine comes off a little like a toddler telling a NASA astrophysicist how spaceships work. I’m definitely not that level of an expert on the whole thing, but after 30+ years of study, I do feel like I understand it at least reasonably well. That you keep insisting I’m wrong about this kind of question based on the “evidence” of a bunch of people who also don’t believe it’s true or who have been rejected as incorrect on the matter by the vast majority of theologians over the last 2,000 years is humorous and a little cute, but ultimately theologically impoverished and you don’t know what you’re talking about.
LikeLike
That you insist there is evidence for the Trinity is merely evidence of your indoctrination or wilfull ignorance.
That there are several million Christians who reject the Trinity doctrine and over a billion others of Abrahamic religions certainly supports your admission that you are not an expert.
As not a single theogian has ever successfully explained the Trinity doctrine your claim of understanding it “reasonably well” made me almost spit out my coffee at the sheer arrogance on display.
So when it comes to not knowing what one is talking about you most definitely take the biscuit.
PLEASE write a post on the Trinity and let’s see just how well you can explain it.
LikeLike
Wait, wait, wait!!! Are you telling me that non-Christian religions don’t accept a uniquely Christian doctrine?!? And here this whole time I thought everyone just understood it was true.
Several million out of more than 2 billion is still a tiny minority just like I said.
And I perhaps should have added the caveat that I understand it reasonably well given the extent to which it can be fully understood. But again, that you as an atheist reject the doctrine is meaningless.
LikeLike
Amazing is it not? Not only do the two other Abrahamic faiths numbering over a billion followers who reject the made up nonsense of the Trinity but also several million Christians.
I wonder why?
Could it be that there is a surely no evidence for the claim and it is solely a church doctrine?
Good grief, you know I really think that may be it!
So, in essence like every believer before you, it cannot be understood
( because it is bullshit) in actual you cannot explain the Trinity.
I don’t reject it because I am an atheist.
What a thoroughly ignorant thing to write.
If this were the case then how would you account for several million fellow Christians who also reject it?
LikeLike
But several million Christians don’t reject it. Several million Unitarians reject it. Unitarians aren’t Christians. But again, this is an intramural Christian debate. For you to wade into as someone who doesn’t believe a word of it from the start is just silly.
LikeLike
Sorry, Jonathan, you and your ilk are not the final arbiter who is or who is not a Christian.How dare you?
If this were the case we can wind the clock back and declare protestants like you heretics…. again.
And then there was the Great Schism.
And of course there were the pogroms against people such as the Cathars,
Non-trinitarians regard themselves as Christian and therefore, they are.
LikeLike
You’re right on that. Jesus is. That being said, I’m just requiring us to use honest and logically consistent language. To call people who worship two different beings by the same name doesn’t make sense. It’s like calling Buddhists, Hindus. Unitarians believe in a god who is Unitarian in nature. Historically orthodox Christians believe in a God who is Trinitarian in nature. Either God is a Trinity or He’s not. But He can’t be both by the Law of Non-Contradiction. Maybe I’m the heretic, but calling both groups Christian isn’t accurate. When words mean whatever we decide they mean rather than having a fixed meaning, communication becomes impossible.
And I am curious: how do you as an atheist think we should decide who’s a Christian and who isn’t?
LikeLike
Jesus is no arbiter on the Trinity as he didn’t invent it.
If unitarians consider they are Christians then that’s good enough.
I don’t care, as you are all delusional.
I read all sorts of you lot and you might be surprised what type of idiot considers they are Christian.
One bloke who goes by the handle edwinrad attends a church, Two by Two, someone told me, has a pastor but doesn’t consider himself religious and believes religion is the tool of Satan. Hilarious but true.
And of course you have Ken Ham and his YEC cohorts.
You should look up ACE. Accelerated Christian Education.
Truly vile.
For a while I blogged with a chap called Johnny Scaramanga who was indoctrinated into this sect.
They once had a text book depicting a peasent from the middle ages riding a wagon pulled by a dinosaur! I kid you not.
Jonny eventually got out later and was instrumental in getting the UK government to conduct an investigation into them. He went on to get a PhD writing his thesis on them. In the end the pressure got to him and he quit everything, dropped off the scene completely and went back to playing guitar in a band.
Lost contact with him a while back, sadly.
So you see, I know a little about your faith and your religion, and the damage it has done and the harm it still does.
LikeLike
You’ve heard lots of angry and hurt stories from folks who left it behind. You consistently demonstrate a badly caricatured and generally woefully impoverished understanding of the Christian faith. Your insistence that you know about it is, to offer a slight variation on the point, a bit like a toddler telling a NASA engineer how to best build a spaceship.
You’ve talked about Johnny before. I’ll say now as I said then: that’s a really sad story. And there are no doubt many more like his. There are also plenty of folks who were raised in that kind of an environment, left it, and then returned to a much healthier and personal embrace of the faith. They are now happy, healthy, committed followers of Jesus. But, I suspect that regardless of what they say about their own reasons for believing, you won’t accept their stories as you accept without question the stories that do support what you already believe because your worldview commitments won’t allow you to do so. That’s really not different from my arguing that some of the folks whose stories you like never really believed it in the first place.
And your third line is why none of your opinions on any of this are worth much more than a bucket of warm spit. You don’t believe any of it. And because you don’t believe any of it, who cares what your definition of Christian is or which side of a theological debate gets it right?
But again, as a matter of logical and philosophical consistency, either God is a Trinity or He’s not. Because of that, to call both Unitarians and Trinitarians Christians doesn’t make any sense. Folks arguing otherwise are either totally ignorant on the matter, or else they’re being willfully deceptive about it. Either way, to continue to insist otherwise when you’re certainly not deceiving me forces me to put you in the former camp.
LikeLike
There is no evidence of your god, Yahweh so whether he is a Trinity is moot. But nevertheless this does not negate the fact the Trinity is an invented doctrine.
This of course raises an interesting yet rather hilarious scenario.
If the criteria for being a Christian is acceptance of an invented doctrine then surely those who reject the Trinity are more Christian than Trinitarians?.
But as there is no evidence of your god, the divine bible character of Yahweh come in the flesh then all you lot are arguing over is simply a load of made up nonsense.
It’s like a spat between petulant children. “Tis so!” “Tis not, so there!!”
It would seem inevitable that many of those who deconverted were upset and angry. After all, they had been duped and lied to. I would imagine the ones who felt the most anger etc were those who, like you, were essentially fundamentalist/ evangelical and fully invested in the whole heaven and hell paradigm being utterly convinced they were sinners and worthless without Jesus.
I can’t imagine how hectic it must feel to suffer that degree of mental torment.
But it does illustrate just how vile and damaging your religion can be.
I blog with a woman called Zoe who still attends therapy. I may have mentioned get before as well?
It’s interesting that in the time we have dialogue I don’t recall you offering a single reason for being a Christian or believing in the bible character Jesus of Nazareth.
LikeLike
Thus my point: you don’t believe any of it, so your opinion on the question is irrelevant. And you aren’t interested in reasons to believe. Why bother giving any?
If you had spent as much time listening to the stories of folks whose lives have been dramatically changed for the better by their faith in Christ instead of those who had some kind of a terrible experience with the faith and so therefore (and understandably so) left it, I wonder how different your perspective on the matter would be. Maybe not at all, but I suspect you wouldn’t have quite the animus against the faith and religion generally that you do. Or maybe that’s just you.
LikeLike
My opinion is simply echoing the opinion of those who have deconverted.
The reasons given for believing are all based on the carrot and the stick.
Most of those (, adults) who have converted and declared their lives better were usually at some dreadful point in their lives, often because of some sort of addiction – drugs, alcohol, pornography – family or personal tragedy, reached rock bottom, financial problems and such like. And yes, I have read a few, usually found on Christian sites.
I have never encountered an emotionally stable, happy, healthy individual who ever said: “My life would be better with Jesus”
LikeLike
And again to my point, and like I just on the other thread. Your perspective is so warped by the entirely one sided input you have given yourself that you can only see things one way; and one way that is an overwhelmingly minority report. I wonder in what other areas of your life you use this same kind of thinking. If 95% of the people who frequent a certain coffee shop down the street you haven’t yet visited absolutely rave about, but 5% vigorously dislike it, are you the kind of person who says, “Well, 5% can’t be wrong, so I’m not going there”?
LikeLike
And you continue to deride my posts but have yet to provide a single example that refutes anything I have written or validates your claims.
Give me at least one example of a healthy, happy, emotionally stable adult with no addictions you know or are aware of who converted of their own volition( without influence from a believer).
LikeLike
Almost nobody becomes a follower of Jesus without the leadership of another believer. That’s not how God designed the thing to work. You’re once again asking for something that doesn’t exist. As long as you keep demanding a caricature that conforms to your wrongheaded thinking about the whole thing, you’re never going to find the real thing. It’s like you are sitting in an echo chamber while demanding to hear something other than your own voice. It’s just silliness.
LikeLike
So, every new believer has been influenced by an existing believer.
And what you seem to be grudgingly admitting is that, a healthy, happy emotionally stable individual will not likely succumb to the unsubstantiated faith based claims of the average Christian who might ask: “Have you found Jesus ”
LikeLike
I can’t think of many who would be the exception to that.
And, no, I’m not admitting that at all. In fact, the people who are healthy and happy and emotionally stable are, if anything, in the most danger, because they don’t recognize the real state they are in. Although sin is often messy and makes a mess of our lives, it’s not necessarily like that. Unbelief itself is a sin. Your life can look all put together, and still need Jesus because you are a sinner and can’t save yourself.
The basic Christian message is not, “Your life is a mess, you should follow Jesus.” The basic Christian message is “Jesus died, Jesus rose, Jesus is Lord, and you should follow Him.” You don’t accept the Christian faith because it will make your life better, you accept it because it’s true. If it’s not, don’t. I already said that to you some time ago.
LikeLike
That is funny. Healthy happy emotionally stable people are in the most danger.
Wtf! That is sick to the core. This is why your religion – All religion is vile
You truly are indoctrinated up the wazoo.
Good grief, if it were possible in a secular democracy to pass some sort of
law to keep that garbage away from children I would be right behind it.
LikeLike
“If you’re ever interested in a genuine challenge to your perspective, Lewis is worth your time. Start with Abolition of Man, then go to Mere Christianity. Both are worth your time if for no other reason than to better understand the position you are rejecting, so you properly understand what it is you are rejecting rather than falling into the trap that so many atheists get caught in of rejecting a straw man rather than the real thing.”
Funny how Lewis is not worthy of anyone’s time. What I enjoy most about his writing is that he admits that christians need to lie to potential converts about the contradictions and splits in christianity so they won’t find out the dirty laundry of christians. This is called lying by omission and is intended to benefit the liar by making the target make an uninformed decision.
“And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son.” Preface, Mere Christianity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have you read Lewis? What have you read that he has written?
LikeLike
Yes, I’ve read quite a few of his books, the narnia ones, Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, the abolition of man, etc. That last was probably the most pitiful considering the nonsense about objective values in it, which Lewis is unable to support. Like you he has no evidence for objective morality at all, nor any for his god.
The great divorce showed exactly how unpleasant christian fantasies about the afterlife are, with Lewis trying to make a more palatable hell since he doesn’t like to be associated with such a vicious god, but insisting that heaven is forgetting who you are and who you cared for.
Mere Christianity was an interesting attempt to try to claim that there is only one Christianity, and it fails since there is not. Even Lewis had to admit that when he has to encourage people to lie about the religion. Christians don’t agree about the most basic things in their religion.
You see, Jonathan, when I was losing my faith, I did look for reasons to keep on being a Christian. So I read a lot of apologetics. They did not work as advertised, making me even more aware of how this religion fails.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good for you on that. Your opinion of Lewis puts you in a rather decided minority. I don’t agree with your assessments of those three books at all, and you don’t seem to have understood The Great Divorce at all if that’s what you got from it, but I’m glad you’ve at least read them.
As for your charge that Lewis endorses lying, no, I don’t think that’s what he was doing there at all. There are totally legitimate intramural Christian debates about a number of different topics whose ultimate answer is not ultimate. That is, it doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not someone is following Jesus and is thus saved.
These debates, though, are often about minutiae of the Christian faith and interpreting the Scriptures that are beyond what someone new to the faith or outside the faith entirely will be able to positively understand. Intentionally alerting them to these kinds of debates or, worse, involving them in them when their opinions will be poorly formed and likely misinformed won’t do anyone any good. They won’t encourage anyone, and will likely so confusion and discouragement. Keeping these kinds of debates in house is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. If someone wants to know about them, being anything but honest about them won’t do, but neither will they be things to make part of the Christianity 101 lessons.
This is the same kind of thing high level scholars in any field do with students just beginning to get a handle on the discipline. Beginners get expose to introductory level topics and at a depth they can handle. As they learn and grow, they become ready for richer, deeper, fuller debates.
LikeLike
A minority among whom, Jonathan? Christians who are desperate for anyone to tell them their nonsense is true? That’s not impressive. I don’t care what you agree with. Those books are exactly as described, and show just how pathetic Christianity can be.
I got exactly what the Great Divorce said. I not that you can’t show I’m wrong. Lewis invented a heaven and hell that made him feel better about being a Christian. He ignored his bible when it says this god does send people to hell, trying for the usual Christian lie that it’s humans who send themselves to hell. Then Lewis tried to make a heaven so the Christian didn’t have to feel guilty about approving of their god’s hell.
If you were buying a car from me and I didn’t tell you that it had problems, would I be lying to you, Jonathan? I suspect you would agree that I was. That is exactly what Lewis is suggesting be done, that the prospective “buyer” is to be lied to for the benefit of the seller.
There are no “truly legitimate intramural Christian debates” since not one of you has any evidence that your version is the right one. You are simply arguing about imaginary nonsense, and have killed each other over it. Curious how you all claim to have the “ultimate” truth, and yet can’t show it. Those differences do have complete bearing on whether or notn someone is following jesus and thus saved. You can’t even agree on how to follow this jesus or what it wants.
Your continued attempts to try to lie about the status of the various versions of Christianity hold no water when I can see Christians attacking each other constantly thanks to the lovely internet.
These debates are *not* about the minutiae about christnaity. They are about who is saved and how one is saved. They are about what morals this god wants and what will get you damned. Sorry, your attempts to try to hide how Christianity is fractured are no better than Lewis’.
These debates aren’t beyond anyone, dear, and your excuse that they need to be lied to so you can hide your fault because they don’t’ understand is ridiculous. IF they can’t understand this “minutiae” then they can’t grasp the rest of the nonsense you claim is true. If you tell someone “believe this character is god and you’ll get magical prezzies”, then they’ll ask “why? And how?” So what will the Christian tell them? Well depends on the version since you all have different ones. Lewis’ attempt to lie gets problematic quickly. He has no answer in his “mere christainity” only the sects have that detail
Why should people be encouraged to believe in something you all can’t agree on? Hmmm? That’s a simple question, Jonathan. Can you answer it? You say that you need people to “positively understand” your religion, admitting that you don’t want the negative truth out. Your religion again depends on deceit and ignorance.
It isn’t legitimate at all to lie to someone so you benefit from them being unable to make a informed decision. There is no Christianity 101. You depend on intentional omission for your lies.
No, your lies aren’t what high level scholars do with new students. They do not try to hide any problems, and you are a liar again for trying to claim that they do. Starting people at a beginning level isn’t hiding the problems inherent in the system.
All you have is the usual “sophisticated theology” nonsense that so many pretentious church leaders have, that those below you aren’t as deep as you are. That’s what any cult leader does. Sorry, your arguments for your god are no better than anyone else’s. You still have no evidence for your god or objective morality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I really am sorry you have such anger toward Christianity and that your perspective and understanding is so framed out by your anger. I’m not even going to try to respond to the rest. I don’t think it’ll be worth either of our time. I’m pretty sure our views are irreconcilably different.
LikeLike
and yet more false accusations. Still no evidence for your god or objective morality.
LikeLike
I guess we’re all finished then.
LikeLike
And still no evidence for your god or for objective morality. Yep, you are finished.
LikeLike
I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but it’s been an interesting experience all the same. Have a good weekend and beyond.
LikeLike
Still no evidence for your god or objective morality. Great to see that your claims have been shown to be what they are, complete nonsense. Also great fun to see how you can’t refute that C.S. Lewis was a liar.
LikeLike
If that’s what you need to come away concluding from this, by all means. Again, have a good weekend and beyond.
LikeLike
Still no evidence for your god or objective morality. And still unable to show that Lewis isn’t a liar. You claimed to have evidence. You don’t.
LikeLike
And here I almost thought you had forgotten about me.
LikeLike
curious how you seem to be trying to ignore what Lewis did.
LikeLiked by 1 person