“Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of israel’s elders, and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself. God did not harm the Israelite nobles; they saw him, and they ate and drank.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Starting out something new with God feels good. It’s exciting. We pour ourselves into it and into Him. Everything is going just as it’s supposed to go. Now, this doesn’t mean everything is going to stay that way. But getting off on the right foot is better than getting off on the wrong one. This next passage is unexpected and, honestly, kind of weird. But it’s pretty important. Let’s talk about why and what’s going on here.
The Westminster Catechism declares right out of the gate that the chief end, or purpose, of man (by which the authors meant people generally) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. In order to fully enjoy someone, you really need to be able to be with them. Presence is a powerful thing. Well, one of the means by which God blessed people throughout the Scriptures in light of our chief purpose in creation is to give them the gift of His presence.
This comes in a variety of ways, but it pretty well always consists of a vision of a kind of heavenly throne room with God seated on His throne. This is consistently a picture of His sovereignty and power and authority. It is meant to convey a clear sense that He has creation well in hand, and that the ones experiencing His presence are part of the good plans He is slowly but steadily working out for, with, and through the people who are willing to follow Him faithfully. In other words, these experiences of God’s presence throughout the Scriptures are an indication that the people involved in them are on the right track and should keep going in the direction they are heading.
What we see here falls perfectly in line with this. Moses has received the basic outline of the covenant from God. The people have heard it and agreed to it. They have together and under Moses’ leadership entered into a covenant with the Lord. He will be their God, and they will be His people. This may be one of the greatest spiritual highs the people of Israel ever experienced. Their formal relationship with God is pretty much as new as it can be. The new car smell is still very much hanging in the air.
With all this heady and exciting newness still overwhelming their sense, God takes things another step further. He calls Moses and the other leaders who went to the mountain to receive the covenant from Him in the first place back to the mountain and gives the whole lot of them a vision of Himself. As Moses wrote, “They saw the God of Israel.”
Now, what exactly this was like, we have no idea. It would have likely had all of their brains running in overdrive just to process what they were seeing. Describing it in such a way that someone else could really get a full sense of what they experienced was probably beyond what they could really manage. Still, though, Moses did his best, and there are a handful of things to notice in the scene.
First, Moses doesn’t describe their vision of God very well. He took note of some of the details of what the throne room was like, but that was about it. Most notably, he described the floor under God’s feet. Now, why would he take such interest in the floor? Probably because he was looking at it from a fairly short distance. In other words, the lot of these leaders were on their faces before God in a posture of submission and worship. That’s always the proper posture to take before Him. Even if we don’t take it physically, still, carrying the mindset that He is God, we are not, and He could squash us like a bug in an instant if He wanted will never not serve us well.
Second, Moses goes out of his way to note that God didn’t harm them. Why does this matter (beyond the obvious)? Because it is a sign that He had accepted their sacrifices and considered them sufficiently cleansed of their sins in order to be in His presence in the first place. Sin cannot exist in God’s presence because of His overwhelming holiness. If they had had unredeemed sin in them, they could not have been there experiencing what they did. In a time when the best they could do to deal with their sin short of laying down their own lives was to offer an animal’s life in their place, God was gracious enough to accept the animal’s life and let them into an experience of Him.
The third thing here is that they ate and drank. They didn’t merely enter into God’s presence, they had fellowship with Him. This was not just any fellowship either. This was table fellowship; the most intimate kind they could have. Table fellowship happens when we are building relationships. And indeed, He wanted to be in a relationship with them as their God. No other god was interested in a relationship with his people like this. This was something new. He wanted them to be able to get to know Him so that their faith in Him was rooted in familiarity and trust rather than merely commands and controls.
This experience for these 74 individuals (and really probably 75 since Joshua was almost surely there too) was unlike anything they had ever experienced before. With the exception of Moses, none of them ever experienced anything like this again that we know of. And almost no one in the rest of the nation had an experience similar to what God gave them here. This kind of thing was an extraordinarily rare treat over the course of Israel’s history.
Today, on this side of the cross, under the auspices of the new covenant in Christ, though, this kind of thing is not nearly so uncommon anymore. That doesn’t mean that a great many more people are having dramatic visions of God’s throne room like this, but experiences of God’s presence are entirely more common than they were. This is the result of the work of Christ on the cross and His ongoing intercession for us before the Father as ministered through the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus paid the price for all sins once for all time, through Him, we can have the kind of access to God the Father as Moses and the Israelite leaders experienced here anytime we want it. In Christ, you have direct access to God. You can experience His presence. And that means you can experience the chief purpose of your creation a whole lot more easily than they could back then. That’s quite a gift. I hope you are using it to its fullest.
Okay, but how do you do that? The easiest and best are the trio of things we have talked about over and over again. Engage regularly and consistently with God through prayer, through the Scriptures, and through the church. When you put yourself in position to experience Him like that through the primary means He’s given us to do it, the odds are pretty high that you are going to indeed experience Him. You were made to glorify God and enjoy Him. He’s provided the means for you to do just that. All you have to do is take them and experience Him.
The Nexus 
Not to diminish your main point of living with (not merely acknowledging) God, I was struck and cannot quit thinking about a preliminary reference you made that, “The Westminster Catechism declares right out of the gate that the chief end, or purpose, of man (by which the authors meant people generally) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” I believe the primary purpose of a professed believer is the Great Commission. Without doing my homework, I believe Luther would support that in contrast to the Westminster Assembly. Glorifying and enjoying God is a means to the end of evangelizing. Also, not knowing the history of the Westminster Catechism, other than the objective of the Assembly to unify the English and Scottish churches, I am a bit surprised by their declaration of purpose?
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Great observation, John. I think there’s a way to harmonize the two ideas. When we are making disciples of all nations, we are ultimately bringing glory to God. And we will enjoy God most when we glorify Him best. Additionally (although admittedly having not studied the history behind its construction),
I think the writers of the Westminster Catechism were thinking eternally and not merely temporally. There will come a day when the Great Commission is complete. Once we reach that day, if the Great Commission was our primary purpose, then what will our purpose be? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever along with all those we played a role in bringing into His kingdom through our commitment to our earthly purpose.
Which purpose is primary? Both. The former, though, is truly eternal in its scope, while the latter is limited to the boundaries of this world. That doesn’t make it any less important, of course, but just speaks to the inherent compatibility of the two.
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Are you approaching from the perspective of making a point merely to further your Christian beliefs or do you consider the Exodus was a genuine historical event as recorded in the Bible?
If the latter it would be an excellent place to tease out any historicity to see if it aligns with archaeological and historical evidence.
Example:
Do you consider that Pharoah and his entire army were destroyed while attempting to cross the Red Sea?
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You already know the answer to that first question. Can we skip the merry-go-round of debate here? We’re up to three threads now. Let’s keep things to just one or two or else I can’t keep up with everything else going on around here. As for the final question, yes, I’m willing to accept that happened historically.
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What evidence can you provide to demonstrate the veracity of the account?
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Of an event that was miraculous? None that you’ll be willing to accept.
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Try me….
Just for the record, miraculous or not, considering the size of the army some physical evidence would have remained.
And of course being such a major regional power news of such a massive destruction, and the likely security issues this would have caused, not to mention the economic pressure, would have reached neighboring states, even if the Egyptians weren’t particularly fond of recording their failures.
Nevertheless, as I said… Try me.
The floor is yours.
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Not interested, sorry. We’ve been down a similar path too many other times and gotten exactly nowhere. I’ll leave you to conclude whatever you need to about that.
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So hand-waving again. What is it this time , wilfull ignorance or blatent dishonesty masked by your refusal to face facts that will upend the religious apple cart?
It truly is pitiful the games you play.
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Nope, just an unwillingness to engage in another fruitless debate. Again, you are free to conclude whatever else you need from there.
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It isn’t fruitless if the ultimate goal is the pursuit of truth/ fact.
This is not a case of your worldview or bust.
If the evidence for your claims regarding the destruction of Pharoah’s army pans out then it is me who eats humble pie and I am honest enough to acknowledge this and sincerely apologize.
The Exodus tale is one that holds particular interest for me so if you say you have evidence of the destruction, miraculous or otherwise, then it is the interest of both of us that you share it.
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The kind of evidence you’ll demand and the only kind you’ve shown yourself willing to accept very likely doesn’t exist. That doesn’t mean the event didn’t happen. It means we have to take another route to demonstrate its veracity. You’ve already and repeatedly shown yourself entirely unwilling to consider any alternative route, though, so, no, it’s not worth our time.
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An entire army is destroyed by Yahweh who drowned it in the Red Sea.
What evidence would any normal individual expect to support such a claim.
You tell me, Jonathan.
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I’ve already told you: I’m not going down this particular path with you. You can keep on baiting me, but I’m not going to bite. It’s not worth our time. Well, maybe you have a lot more of it than I do. It’s at least not worth my time.
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I am left with the conclusion that your refusal to engage this topic is because you have no evidence to support your faith based belief and you will pursue this course no matter how much it compromises your integrity.
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That’s okay. You can think that. It’s not true, of course, but as I’ve already said, I’m not willing to engage this particular point any further. Besides, it is entirely irrelevant to the original post.
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Everything that is related to faith-based religious beliefs is relevant.
The title of the post reveals just how relevent.
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This post is about a miraculous vision shared by Moses and the leadership of Israel it doesn’t have the first thing to do with the drowning of the Egyptian army. Try as you might, I’m just not going there.
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It is part of the Exodus tale.
Therefore if one aspect of the tale is simply erroneous then it casts doubt on the rest of the tale.
If you cannot provide an answer that meets the criteria of fact/ evidence then why should anyone afford trust/ credibility to the rest of your post?
Or does such a degree of honesty not interest you because your target audience is one that already believes and has limited interest in evidence that might bring into question their faith based beliefs?
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That I can tell, you don’t think much of anything I write has any credibility. Meeting with your particular approval has not ever been something that has featured very prominently on my radar. This bait won’t work either.
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My approval is immaterial.
You blog, I read.
As you have an open comment section the assumption is you invite comments?
If you don’t want your faith based beliefs challenged then all you have to do is ask me not to comment.
Trust me, that is no great hardship.
I reiterate, your continual avoidance of the challenge and your equivocation reinforces my belief that you have nothing to offer in the form of evidence and are simply pandering to those who are already on board with your faith based approach.
That is by definition dishonest and shows a lack of integrity.
I would think you were better than this.
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Wrong again. I invite challenges. I’ve tolerated yours in a variety of forms for a very long time now. I’m simply not willing to engage with this particular challenge because I don’t have time or interest in a debate whose outcome I can already predict. I’m sorry if you don’t like that. The fact that you’re being so strident in your insistence that I give you what you want is coming across a bit like a child who’s used to getting his own way all the time being told no. Pick a different day and a challenge that’s actually relevant to the post rather than relevant just because you’ve decided to insist that it is, and we can try again.
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If you can already predict the outcome then you are already aware you have no evidence to offer.
That you refuse to acknowledge your faith based belief has no substance is coming across very much like a show of petulance.
The Exodus is one of the foundational stories of your faith based religion and is highly relevent.
I reiterate, your refusal to engage the topic illustrates a fundamental lack of integrity that you sees more than willing to go to great lengths to defend something that you know very well has no evidential basis in reality.
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And there you’ve made the point you’ve made numerous times, that you were going to eventually land on regardless of what I said, and which you were likely waiting to make when you started. And we got to skip out on hours of debate to get there. Look how much time I saved you by not being willing to engage in this particular debate and letting you just draw the conclusions you were never not going to draw because you had decided on those before we even started. You’re welcome. Enjoy your unexpectedly free sentinel hours. I’m going to go meet my family at the pool because it’s far too hot for comfortable human habitation.
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As were you which was why you said you had evidence but I wouldn’t like it.
Baiting. You are guilty of the very thing you accused me of. Although you get first prize as you were bring dishonest right from the start.
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No, I meant exactly what I said. I have evidence I could present, but you won’t accept as evidence, and I’m not willing to engage in that debate. I wasn’t dishonest in the least. You just didn’t like my answer. Once again: dishonesty and disagreement are two different things.
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Then present it and let the chips fall where they will.
As you gave no interest in what I think why do you care if I accept this evidence?
Am I the only one that reads your blog?
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Nope, but I suspect you are the source of all my views from South Africa. Unless your family is reading my blog too. You’re welcome to share it with them if they aren’t. Maybe they’ll at least appreciate the entertainment of our debates.
But again, I’m not interested in this particular debate, so, no, I’m not going to go any further on it. Shame on me for letting you drag things out this far.
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Good gods, they would never read your blog!
Actually the only shame is your dishonesty, that you make vacuous assertions and consider you are justified because of faith.
I would like to raise one point.
This evidence you claim you have. Does it involve the late Ron Wyatt, by any chance?
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Not dishonesty, merely disagreement. And, I don’t know who Ron Wyatt is, so I’m going to go with no on that one. As for your family, you should share it with them and let them make up their own minds. That way you can share the load of carrying the views of a whole nation. Although it would be a rather delicious irony if one of them started reading, got convinced I was right, and became a follower of Jesus because of it. I would laugh for sure—mostly with joy, but with a little bit of irony too.
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If you make assertions but cannot support them with evidence then this is dishonesty.
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Not cannot, will not. Two different things. Okay, no more entertainment for you tonight. I’m off duty for the evening here. Have a good start to your Friday while I’m snoozing…and probably snoring.
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No. That is a falsehood. You cannot support you assertion with evidence because the tale is fiction.
Your intransigence is becoming pedantic.
I think I will leave you to your wilfull ignorance and disingenuity.
You must really enjoy lying for Jesus.
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See, that’s why I didn’t want to get into the debate with you in the first place. You already had your mind made up. You really get kind of cranky when I won’t play your game by your rules. Oh well.
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Wiki.
No clear archaeological evidence has been found that directly supports the story of Exodus, other than the biblical account.[15] Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist and formerly Egypt’s Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, says: “Really, it’s a myth… Sometimes as archaeologists we have to say that never happened because there is no historical evidence.”[16] Despite the lack of evidence, some have created theories as to what may have inspired the biblical authors’ narrative, providing natural explanations.
There is no evidence. If you still assert you have evidence then I am afraid you have been misled or you are lying.
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Wiki said it, so it must be true. I told it wasn’t evidence you would accept, so I wasn’t going to bother presenting it and having a debate about it. That’s still the case. You can whine about it all you want and accuse me of whatever you need to accuse me of, but I’m just not going to play ball.
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If you have the stamina to read the entire article you will note the myriad theories from all sorts of your fundy friends, including Hoffmeier and Kitchen.
None of them has ever produced a shred of evidence so I am amazed at your claims. You must be very, very special or know some truly outstanding and very, very secret archaeologists.
Furthermore, the KJV translation is incorrect, as I am sure you are aware.
It has to be said that, most people when caught with their pants down will refuse to play ball when called out.
Truth is if you had evidence you would have presented it right from the off and immediately shut down the discussion.
And if it was evidence it would have made the cover of National Geographic.
You have been duped or you’re lying.
I really couldn’t care which.
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I’ve got to admit: I’m loving how much this is driving you crazy.
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I’m rather enjoying discovering your true nature
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Isn’t it good to be able to entertain each other? What would you do on those long, sentinel nights without me? You’d be sitting there bored out of your mind. You’re welcome :~) Be honest: you missed this while you were gone.
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I had access while I was in the UK and France. I just found your apologetic drivel not worth the effort.
I am fast reaching a similar point.
There is only so much obfuscation, and dishonesty I can take.
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But you only took a break while you were gone and then you came right on back. It’s like the last time you told me you were done. Don’t kid yourself: You missed me too much to stay gone long. 😉
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Not missed, but more of a morbid fascination.
I must confess I do find fascinating those Christians who continually misrepresent facts, blatantly lie and go to the ends of the earth to defend their wilfull ignorance / indoctrination while trashing every challenge, even to the point of besmirching Christians of other sects.
I confess, the gag-worthy holier than thou twisted sense of morality continually on display I find as much of a draw as reading some of my favorite gardening blogs.
But there is a threshold for everything.
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Whatever keeps you reading I guess 🙂
And I still have yet to be dishonest with you. I’ve disagreed a lot, but never dishonest.
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Wilfull ignorance is nothing but dishonesty.
Bart Ehrman says it rather well. His final paragraph spells it out nicely.
Flat-out Lies or Willful Ignorance. How Do They Get Away With It?
June 26, 2019
Sometimes it’s enough to make my blood boil. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
If you were to interview the 7,346,235,000 occupants of this planet, you would find *no* group of people who declare themselves MORE committed to “truth” than the evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christianity, historically, is about nothing other than the Truth. Jesus himself said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by me” (John 14:6); and “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The Christian faith, for these people, is all about finding the Truth that leads to eternal life.
So why do so many of their spokespersons simply tell lies? Or at least propagate willful ignorance? Those are the two choices: they either know what they’re saying is absolutely false or they don’t go to the bother of finding out, when the information is readily available to anyone who wants to take 38 seconds to look for it.
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If I’m getting you too riled up, you can stop any time you’d like.
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Riled? Not in the least. The more you post the more you validate the assertion you are simply wilfully ignorant /dishonest.
Ehrman expressed it very well and it fits you like a tailored suit.
Isn’t there something in the bible about ignorance, wilfull or otherwise?
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Yes indeed, and from the time perspective of the guy who wrote that, you fit that warning to a T.
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In actual fact there is only one guilty of wilfull ignorance in this conversation, Jonathan, and that is you.
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And if you need to keep telling yourself that to make you feel better, I won’t stand in your way. I’m not sure who you’re trying to convince beyond that, though. If it’s Club, she already agrees with you. Most of the rest of the folks who I know are reading are as convinced as I am that you’ve got that backwards, but our thinking the other is guilty of willful ignorance only makes sense given the totally opposite perspectives we have on the relevant issues.
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No need for me to “feel better”.
I already feel great!
You’re the one who is prevaricating and scrambling to make a defense out of the indefensible.
Ehrman’s description was eloquent as it was spot on.
It is fortunate I never succumbed to the mind numbing nonsense you have made a career out of, but it is telling that every deconvert, historian, archaeologist, egyptologist and critical bible scholar I have ever read/watched, all hold similar views that, to a large degree mirror my own.
Can you honestly imagine someone like Israel Finkelstein open an archaeological lecture on the Bible description of the destruction of Pharoah’s army with the statement. “I have evidence the army was destroyed as described in the bible but you are not going to like it.”
The mere notion is laughable as it is unthinkable. However, YOU, without any qualifications or previous examples to demonstrate even the mearest hint of bona fides consider you can get away with such an assertion with not so much as a by your leave.
, 🤦
If any of the thousands of those eminent people relied on faith for their explanations they would be out of a job within two shakes of a lamb’s tail, whereas you and your fellow believing professionals of whichever sect are employed not because you can provide evidence, but largely because of faith which underpins everything you teach/ preach.
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Well then I’m glad you’re feeling great. Our ongoing challenge, though, is that I steadfastly refuse to give you the answers you want. As near as I can tell, you are a sufficiently evangelical atheist that you can’t stand the idea that someone might not agree with you. It infuriates you enough that you just keep coming back again and again to the table in spite of how crazy it drives you, in a vain attempt to persuade me to agree with your opinion. Would that my own folks in the church here were as committtedly evangelistic for the Gospel as you are for its opposite. I really do have high respect for your care for me in that regard. I just think you’re entirely wrong and you have yet to come anywhere in the universe of close to persuading me otherwise. I’ve spent the better part of 30 years studying this stuff and am awfully convinced I’m right. At the very least, while I haven’t know the direct answer to every single challenge you’ve lodged, none of them has made me blink on my own convictions. And citing folks like Ehrman or other people who have deconverted don’t lend the slightest bit of strength to your arguments.
I’m still pretty amused, though, how utterly infuriating it obviously is for you that I’m just not willing to get into the debate you want to have.
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You have spent thirty years studying from an presuppositional indoctrinated pov.
It is telling that in the defense of your assertion of evidence you omiited every archaeologist, egyotologist, critical scholar and historian and only mentioned Ehrman and othef deconverts. Perhaps you don’t even recognize the disngenuity?
Again, you consider it infuriating simply because you cannot contemplate that I really don’t give a monkey’s uncle about your prevaricating nonsense and the more you assert you have evidence the more you simply demonstrate that whether you are willing to present it or not, you are ostensibly lying.
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No, I just didn’t feel the need to address the whole post. And, no, no, I’m not infuriated. You are coming across infuriated. I’m enjoying the spectacle. And, if you care as little as you claim, why do you keep trying to convince me I’m wrong?
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You truly think I comment because I am trying to convince you that you are wrong?
🤣
That you are wrong is not even a point of contention, it is a fact
You believe because of faith and indoctrination.
The only who will alter such a silly position is you.
Ask any former professional god botherer.
They have all been in your position.
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Given the sheer amount of time you give to all of this, I suppose I’m just trying to figure out your goal. Care? Convincing? Boredom?
I’ve explained some before why I believe. That you seem incapable of accepting my report—the only actual evidence you have on the question—is merely a function of your worldview commitments. Or pure arrogance. Or perhaps both.
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Call it a hobby. .
Again, the reason for you beliefs have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with evidence or rational arguments but is primarily down to two things geography and indoctrination, which comes in a number of forms.
This is nothing original on my part, but the testimonies of all the deconverts I have read, including those of former professionals over at the clergy project.
And what exactly do you consider is my worldview?
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Given that you’re not me, you can only guess at why I believe what I do. And your guesses are all worldview dependent. You conclude the way you do on the basis of your worldview commitments and not evidence. Which means, you are a person of faith no less than I am. You simply place your faith in something different than I do.
Ironically, though, your willingness to place such strong faith in something when the only available evidence (i.e., my testimony in this case since we are again talking about why I believe) points in exactly the opposite direction as your regularly stated and firmly held beliefs makes you guilty of exactly the same thing you regularly accuse me of, just from the opposite direction. Now that’s funny.
As for your worldview, it’s some flavor of secularism with a heavy dose of materialism, a healthy dash of empiricism, and a more than a touch of scientism. At least, you’ve expressed beliefs that fall in line with all three of those at various times. I’ve given up any confidence I might have held once of giving it a precise label, but elements of all those are mixed together. Personally, though, I find all three of those worldview elements to be ultimately irrational and self-defeating, so all of your arguments that come from such a place are profoundly unconvincing and smack of the very willful ignorance you’ve so regularly accused me of displaying.
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You must have scoured the thesaurus for all that drivel.
I don’t need to guess why you believe as being a Christian there are only a limited number of reasons why you could possibly believe.
And as I already told you those reasons were predominantly gleaned from the testimonies of deconverts and former paid up members of your god-botherers union. Therefore, any objections should be leveled at your former delusional brothers and sisters in Christ.
However, as a mark of respect, I did avoid mentioning emotional / trauma issues you likely experienced as this probably involves personal details you might feel uncomfortable about revealing.
This aside, your reasons for belief do NOT involve evidence, of this we can be assured.
That you find secularism and empiricism etc (scientism, really?) self-defeating while-clinging to the absurd belief you are a sinner whose only chance of redemption is via the blood of a first century human sacrifice and failure to worship said sacrifice will see you spend eternity in Hell( sic) is as close to a recognised mental Illness as one could get.
Worse, the fact you incucalcate what amounts to nothing more than the contents of a baby’s nappy into children is tantamount to child abuse.
So, once again, they are not my arguments, but those offered by former believers who once were as heavily indoctrinated with the same faith-based nonsense as you currently are but managed to throw off the shackles of supernaturalism and joined reality.
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I came up with all of that all by myself. Aren’t you proud?
You took the word of a tiny minority of people who agreed with you and decided they must be right. You did this because you already didn’t believe any of it and they gave you welcome justification for your beliefs. That all is what it is, but it doesn’t make yours or their arguments any better.
As for why I believe, other than what I tell you, you don’t have any idea except to make worldview-dependent guesses and place your faith in those. You really are a person of great faith.
Do you know what scientism is? I assume so, but thought I’d ask just in case.
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I accepted what this minority said, especially the former professionals because they have experience of both sides of the fence.
And why would they lie, for goodness sake?
I’m pretty sure these folk know this nonsene as well as you and are thoroughly schooled in all apologetic arguments for it’s defense. From listening to several YouTube videos this certainly seems to be the case.
They explained how they came to believe, which included such things as raised in Christian families, the cultural exposure / indoctrination which would tie in with geographical location( why they weren’t Muslim, for example) and some include details of emotional issues.
You are aware that Francis Collins suffered a form of death anxiety?
You really should spend some time reading as many of the testimonies as possible over at clergy project. com
It is pretty much a given you will recognise yourself among any number of these folk.
Just a point. Not a single person I’ve ever read listed evidence as the reason for their conversion, therefore there is absolutely no reason to consider your conversion is any different.
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And yet that’s still a decidedly minority report from a group who, I would be willing to wager a fairly sizable amount, departed the faith not primarily for reasons of evidence, but for reasons that were overwhelmingly related to bad experiences and emotions. The arguments they later learned served to give them apparently intellectual cover. Or, like you, they never actually believed it in the first place, but unlike you lived in a context in which they didn’t feel safe expressing or honestly investigating their doubts (and shame on the people who created those contexts), and finally found something to give them a reason to cover their departure. I’ve read the accounts of several folks who cited evidence as the reason they converted. But you won’t accept those testimonies because your worldview commitments don’t allow it. Basically, as long as they believe like you do, they are reasonable and rational. If they don’t, they’re not. You’re really no different from the people creating the contexts in which those deconverts departed. You just focus your emphasis in a different direction.
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A minority can and often is right.
Remember, it was a minority of Christians who eventually developed a conscience and set about dismantling slavery.
Were they wrong?
But in truth, I was waiting for the usual fundy trope : they never actually believed etc.
In fact I am a little surprised it took you this long to drag out that piece of disingenious garbage.
Most of you indoctrinated hypocrites tend to play that card a lot earlier.
Nevertheless, how very humble of you.
Maybe one day you will gain a degree of integrity and genuine humility.
Then when you deconvert you look back in the way you disparaged deconverts and think:
What an insensitive arrogant arse I was.
I will guarantee you will be exactly the same as your former delusional brothers and sisters in Christ should you ever develop the fortitude to re- examine the emotional reasons you converted in the first place.
Nobody was ever reasoned into the faith.there iscajwahs an emotional trigger, ALWAYS!
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And I would argue no one ever reasons out of the faith. There is always an emotional trigger. How is that different? But again: absent your great faith in your worldview-dependent conclusions, you don’t have any idea why I started following Jesus in the first place. Maybe we should retitle atheists generally to something more appropriate like evangelical secularists. That would certainly seem to better fit your strong convictions and increasingly passionate attempts to convince me to convert.
And, my goodness, you’re right! A minority can and often is right. Have you considered the intelligent design movement lately? There’s a beleaguered minority if there ever was one. And yet they keep getting more and more mainstream exposure from genuinely interested interviewers. Stephen Meyer did a full interview with Joe Rogan the other day. That’s about as mainstream an exposure as you can get these days. He did Piers Morgan too, and got a pretty good reception I’m told. I haven’t had time to listen to either interview just yet. Why, could they be right too? Man would that cause you to have to eat a lot of crow. And, I’m sorry, I put a whole bunch of your trigger words in that paragraph without appropriate warnings. I’ll do better next time.
And, no, of course they weren’t wrong. The moral trajectory of the Scriptures clearly points in that direction which is why Christians were the very first people to systematically question and then oppose slavery in the world. And we started that work really early on in our history.
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The emotion is usually triggered by realizing the fact they have been duped.
Anger, guilt and a feeling of being cheated are some of the things I have been told deconverts experience, especially when they have been responsible for indoctrinating their own kids. One chap, Ben took it very badly and the lady I read had still not reconciled with his eldest son. But after he deconverted ( and later his wife) they had a fourth child, a girl, and according to what he wrote, one of greatest joys that he and his wife felt was they could raise their daughter completely free of religion.
We’ve done the whole whole ID crap. Creationism in a party dress. Yes, I listened to some of the Piers Morgan interview. A load of tripe but as a Christian, Piers seemed to lap it up.
In actual fact the Chinese, or at least one of their emperors. was the first to abolish slavery, but I think it didn’t carry through.
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Right, because they didn’t have the worldview framework for it to stick. A whole lot of good ideas predated Christianity, but only Christianity had the worldview framework to see them become more than flashes in the pan. Modern science as a whole is one of the more notable examples of this.
And I would argue the emotion is more often triggered by some bad experience with a family member or pastor or other church member. Abuse of some kind very often plays a role. That’s always especially tragic. I’d be curious to learn how all four of the children turned out, and especially if the youngest girl became a follower of Jesus on her own.
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Religion as a whole is abusive. It is, simply a matter of degree.
Every deconvert I have interacted with or read, or watched has expressed their lives were much better, and healthier without religion, which they consider to be toxic.
A sentiment with which I concur.
Let’s be brutally honest here, Jonathan the Christian religion is by its very nature abusive.
It is an all or nothing belief system that claims to reward, but only after death and threatens eternal banishment/ torture for non-belief or even wrong belief as you have so vehemently expressed with regard non Trinitarians.
The other two Abrahamic religions are regarded as wrong and their followers are considered doomed. A sentiment I am sure they reciprocate!
Your religious history, ( and that of Islam) although having several high watermarks is littered with wars, pogroms, genocide.
Humanity isn’t perfect but it would be a lot better without religion.
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It really is breathtaking sometimes how profoundly ignorant you sound when you talk about religion like this. I’m sorry your perspective has been so tremendously warped by soaking so long in all these truly terrible stories. What a disservice they have done you. I truly wish there was more I could do to help give you a better frame of reference, but alas, I fear you are so utterly committed to this one, there’s not much I can do except to be keep patiently answering your questions and objections honestly whether you like it or not.
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All you ever do is reject without offering anything, and especially any evidence to refute the things I post.
Does Christianity regard everyone to be a sinner? That is a straightforward question and simply requires a yes or no answer.
Go ahead.
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Sure. That’s as clear as can be in Romans 3. But salvation from sin is offered to everyone as well. Man, that was an easy one. Give me some more of those.
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But sin is a religious concept that is considered any transgression again st your god, Yahweh.
Therefore it does not apply to anyone who lacks belief in your god.
Do you believe anyone who does not accept Jesus as their savior will ultimately be doomed, either in Hell or by being eternally separated from your god, Yahweh?
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Unless God exists, which is the presupposition that’s in place before you start talking about sin. As I’ve said many, many times before, if you reject belief in God as a starting point, then none of Christian theology is going to make any sense. Why would you keep seeming to expect it to by asking questions like this?
And, yes, the Scriptures are abundantly clear on that point.
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How would one become aware they were a sinner unless they had been told by a Christian?
If one is never aware, by dint of being part of another religion for example, does the Christian doctrine assert they are still doomed/ going to Hell/ separated from your god, Yahweh?
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God’s perfectly of making us aware of our sin all by Himself is need be. Read Martin Luther’s testimony. No one was preaching to him about sin when he started actually following Jesus. Paul addresses most of these last few questions you are asking in Romans. You should give a fresh read if you haven’t in a while. Paul makes it clear: all people are without excuse in their unbelief.
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Martin Luther was a fucking deranged anti semite. He should have been strung up by his ankles. Paul was off his rocker as well, and it is obvious you have bought into this revolting delusion hook line and sinker
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As you once gave me credit for, I haven’t edited or filtered any comment you’ve ever written, and I don’t plan on changing that. I’d rather keep profanity off my blog site, all things considered. I’ll ask you to please respect that. I let the first one go. I’m asking this time.
I don’t need to defend either of those men to you. The broad strokes criticisms you’ve routinely painted all Christians with on the basis of the actions of a relative minority reveals you to be guilty of the same kind of thinking as a garden variety antisemite. You simply focus your animus in a different direction. Yes, Luther expressed some awful views late in his life. That doesn’t negate the rest of his life and work. The fact that you have to resort to statements like this as a substitute for reasonable arguments betrays the ultimate weakness of the position you keep staking out.
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His “recommendations” regarding Jews added to the flagrant anti Semitic nature of Christianity in general and history bares this out.
Hitler exploited Luther and solely for this he should be vilified.
What about Luther’s life and work is truly worthy in the broadef scheme of things?
There are no reasonable arguments in defense of Luther.
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Luther was wrong about Jews. That’s undeniable. That doesn’t mean everything else he wrote or said is wrong. Darwin was a racist and his theory was also used by Hitler to advance his aims. Should we also write off Origin of a Species or Descent of Man or anything else he said solely for that reason?
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Tell me something Luther did that was beneficial to humankind?
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Other than playing a key role in helping to jump start the scientific revolution or breaking the power of the Catholic Church’s hold on society which was increasingly causing all kinds of issues or paving the way for the development of the Christian idea that the state and the church should be two separate entities?
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Yes, he was responsible for the reformation and look his that turned out!
And how did he “jump start” the scientific revolution?
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I’d say the Reformation turned out pretty good on the whole. It had a rocky start because a small group of a brave souls were challenging the governing authorities of their day, those authorities didn’t take that very well (as governing authorities tend not to do), and the persecuted often became the persecutors when they got some political power of their own (as tends to happen). But it paved the way for all sorts of ideas which have changed society for the better many times over.
And on the second part, because Luther popularized the idea that people should be able to read the Bible in their own language which gave a huge boost to Gutenberg’s new printing press. The result was a major increase to the literacy rates of Western Europe as more and more people (mostly Protestants, but increasingly Catholics as well) learned how to read so that they could read their Bibles like the Reformer’s encouraged. The growing literacy rates launched a renaissance in learning and invention and discovering more and more about the world and how it works. Before you know it, the scientific revolution was up and off to the races.
Bottom line: no Protestant reformation, no scientific revolution. No modern world. You’re welcome.
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The reformation just created more division, internecine war and tens of thousands of more revolting religious sects.
You didn’t identify any of these things that paved the way to make society better. Just more biased unsupported nonsense, it seems?
Guttenberg’s, press would have encouraged greater literacy bible or no bible.
Your final paragraph is simply speculative errant drivel.
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The Reformation completely upset the established social and political order of the day. That was never not going to cause division and chaos. As I’ve said several times before, though, as long as you insist on seeing only through the caricatured and jaded lens you’ve developed for yourself, you’ll always have a reason for why religion in general and Christianity in particular never did anything good for the world. The view is utter historical nonsense, but you’re stuck on it, so you’ll just keep seeing things that way.
And as for my “speculative errant drivel,” it’s not speculative at all. It’s what actually happened. You are the one doing the speculating about what might have happened without the push for reading the Bible. if people had learned to read things other than the Bible, though, they wouldn’t have had their understanding of the world shaped by the worldview of the Bible. Without those worldview beliefs, the scientific revolution would not have happened. No other worldview possessed the necessary elements to allow for it. Don’t believe me? Then why did modern science as we know it develop in one place and one time when one particular worldview was dominant? Lots of other cultures before that one had lots of great ideas and should be credited for those. But none of them were systematized in such a way as to produce what the Christian worldview did in this one time and place. No Christian worldview, no modern science. The Reformation, largely sparked by Martin Luther, played a profound role in that. That’s just history, like it or not.
Try as you might, you can’t separate the development of the modern world from the positive influence of the Christian worldview without sounding like someone who is determined to not know what he’s talking about. Were there problems and challenges and tragedies along the way? Of course. Many of them. The doctrine of sin explains that easily. But the many, many more good things that have come from it are equally attributable to a biblical worldview.
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Anything that might be regarded as positive has to balanced by an honest regard for the truly dreadful things religion is historically guilty of and continues to be guilty of.
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Except you don’t give an honest regard. You haven’t at any point in our conversation. And I’m not interested in the impact of religion generally. I’m interested in the impact of Christianity. For that, you have yet to demonstrate anything like an honest regard for its historical impact. You focus entirely on the negative and overemphasize it to help make your case. Where there has been any even potentially positive impact, you explain it away as not really positive. That’s all the product of your faith-driven commitment to your worldview to reject or otherwise reinterpret the evidence before you in ways that better fit the narrative you have adopted.
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At a time in history when Christianity was the dominant religion/ force it would be ridiculous to suggest it did not impact western civilization.
Remember, Christians asserted their dominance by going out of their way to obliterate all resistance.
For all intent and purpose they did a pretty good job.
You refuse to look at the impact of a religion like Islam for example but in context you really need to, especially where it has a stranglehold on the population.
Secularism is slowly but inexorably chipping away at Christianity, and there is a good reason why people deconvert and why more and more people in developed countries are simply turning their back and walking away.
By the way, I love how you insist on labeling me as faith driven, trying at all costs to use the term in a manner that puts me on a similar footing as you, only on the opposite side of the coin.
I rather look at it as you trying to drag me down to your level and failing every time, as your use of it in a pejorative sense merely backfires and makes you look spiteful and a little silly.
I have no faith. I am not religious.
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No, I’m just accurately labeling the kind of thinking you consistently demonstrate. You choose to reject the only available evidence you have on why people begin following Jesus (namely, their testimonies). Given your insistence on doing this in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, it is right and proper to say that you must have great faith in your worldview-driven conclusions about why someone would start following Jesus. I didn’t say you were religious. I merely said and will continue to say that you have faith.
Secularism is not “slowly but inexorably chipping away at Christianity.” Your demographics there aren’t very good. The church is exploding in many parts of the world. Yes, it is ebbing in the West, but it is generally not being replaced by secularism. I know the New Atheist movement to which you owe so very much of your thinking on all of these matters trumpeted that cultural outcome in the wake of 9/11, but history has demonstrated them to have been profoundly mistaken (which is probably why you don’t hear much from many of those folks anymore). The West didn’t get less religious as Christianity began to decline as the dominant religious framework, it has gotten more religious. Way more religious. Paganism is on the rise and all kinds of superstition is flourishing again with it.
And, no, your history isn’t very good there. Political leaders capitalized on what they saw as a relatively unstoppable cultural force and began using it to give justification to things they did. I agree with you that wasn’t good. But why did Christianity grow so fast in the first place? It wasn’t because they had any power. Rodney Stark’s work on this is helpful. And, by the way, he’s another example of someone who converted as an adult. He was not a believer when he began his research as a sociologist into the history of the West (which is inextricably linked with the history of Christianity). By the end of his career, however, and after having spent decades studying some of the very things we’re talking about, he concluded that Christianity was not merely a net good for the world, but true, and became a follower of Jesus Himself.
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My perspective on these testimonies is largely framed around the testimonies of those who deconvert, most identifying their conversion being due to the many factors I have identified.
None ever cited evidence.
In developed countries secularism is chipping away at Christianity.
Western Europe a good example.
Although Islam seems to be gaining ground.
That promises to be interesting within a few decades, don’t you think?
It might be the catalyst for more drastic action like what we have witnessed in countries like France and the Netherlands.
I read recently the the UK is set on deporting Islamists (though I confess I am not sure if this was not merely a but of sensationalist journalism)
I am aware of Stark. Out of interest, does Stark identify the emotional issues that drove him to confess being a sinner and seek redemption through the blood of the first century human sacrifice Jesus of Nazareth?
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Exactly. That’s my point. You’ve had your perspective warped and jaded by all the one star reviews. Really, all those folks have done a grave disservice to you in that they have taken away your ability to come to a well-formed opinion on your own. They’ve forced you to see through the incredibly (if understandably) jaded lens they’ve developed (through reasons that were by no means all their own fault). I’m sorry for that.
Yes, in developed countries the impact and influence of Christianity is waning. But it is growing faster in other places. Islam is gaining ground by birth rate, not conversion. As Muslim majority nations continue to secularize themselves, I suspect that will slow down in over the next few decades. In the West, though, it is not secularism that is on the rise, but a new kind of paganism. And, it was the Christian worldview that allowed for those Western nations to become what they are; to have the freedoms they enjoy. I wonder if they will be able to sustain them long once they finally finish sawing off the branch on which they grow. The evidence so far isn’t very encouraging.
Stark never wrote about his conversion that I’m aware of, and he died a few years ago. You should give his work some attention. For someone to spend way more time than either of us have done studying the history of Christianity as an unbeliever, including all of the ugliest parts of it, and to come away convinced that not only was it not nearly as bad as modern apologists for atheism like to make it sound, but that Christianity was worth committing his life to is pretty interesting. But your assumption of emotional issues just betrays once again the presuppositions you bring to the table on this kind of a conversation.
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I have already outlined that my initial perspective was framed, from research into Moses when I wrote my second fantasy novel.
That was the point I discovered the entire Exodus narrative was a geopolitical foundation myth.
Only afterwards, my curiosity piqued, did I delve further and it was by chance I stumbled across the clergy project.
Their initial conversions all cited cultural influence, which included friends, family, church and of course emotional / trauma issues Although the latter was usually cited by adults who were not necessarily professional clergy.
Yet I reiterate, no evidence was ever presented or cited to demonstrate the veracity of the claims.
Not even one as esteemed as Francis Collins could present a shred of evidence for his reason for conversion.
The demise of Christianity in the West can generally be linked to the scientific and social advancements of society, and the ever growing realization that the Bible is little more than superstitious hokum not supported by evidence.
Odd that the US is constantly the outlier in this regard? Maybe this too will change in the not too distant future?
Yes, Islam will overtake Christianity and you are absolutely correct will be outstripped by birthrate rather than conversion which, I think I am right in saying, proselytizing is not something Muslims are very active in. Could be wrong?
I will remind you once again, I had little to no interest in religion until I began writing and had no presuppositions.
My view is based almost exclusively on the testimonies of numerous deconverts and those who have been bamboozled into confessing they are sinners and need redemption via the spilled blood of a barbaric first century human sacrifice.
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You keep making the case for me on how your perspective was totally framed out by critics.
The waning influence of Christianity in the West is the result of philosophy, not science. That and the wrestling with the difficult question of the problem of evil after two world wars. I should also add the impact of having state funded churches which tend to decrease devotion and grow cynicism. If anything, scientific advancements were among the least impactful elements. The U.S. is most definitely an outlier in all of this, but that’s in large part because of founding philosophy was so different from Europe’s and so much more explicitly Judeo-Christian in its religious worldview while at the same time explicitly not establishing a state church. The influence of Christianity here is absolutely waning, but the rise of secularism (the “nones”) seems to have stalled and started to decline a bit based on some of the most recent survey data.
No, I remain decidedly unconvinced that Islam will overtake Christianity. And, no, Muslims don’t tend to be very active in proselytizing. For Christians the command is explicit and all over the place. Thus the missionary movement.
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Well, Christians are known for their missionary position.
Obviously your god, Yahweh being so busy creating plagues, natural disasters, fatal diseases, child mortality, famine etc was ever so grateful for your missionaries handling some of the work load of converting the natives, don’tcha know?
However, it seems a bit odd that he.. Oops.. He is constantly putting a spanner in the works and chucking metaphorical glass in the path to salvation for these poor missionaries.
You’d think your god, Yahweh would have smoothed their passage somewhat, but this never seems to be the case, does it?
Oh, what a cad old Yahweh is!
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Heh. I see what you did there. And, that’s a good secular caricature of the whole endeavor, but absent any insider understanding, it’s not going to make any sense to you.
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“Insider understanding”?
You’ll have to explain this one.
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You’re criticizing missionaries from the outside. You have exactly zero understanding of why they do what they do in spite of the hardships they face. It all seems irrational to you, thus your criticisms are meaningless. Until you’ve experienced what they’ve experienced, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
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They do what they do primarily because of the idiotic Great Commission ( ‘cos Yahweh was just too damn busy to spread the word himself, right?) and thus, gleefully run off to “forun places” to convert the natives and run soup kitchens.
Odd really, that your god-man Jesus of Nowhere asserted he had originally come only for the lost of the House of Israel.
You’d think being your god, Yahweh in the flesh he would have known how that would turn out? Funny how the more you read the gospels ( and the Bible in genera) it all seems like something man made.
You should read/ watch Dan Barker. I seem to recall he was a missionary for a while?
He is great to listen to and he fully exposes the garbage you still cling to and how he vehemently defended the faith but eventually woke up and walked away.
Fascinating chap. Sincere, honest and thoroughly engrossing.
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The more I read the Gospels, the less man-made the whole thing feels. Perspective, I suppose.
On the rest, you’re just making my point. You don’t have any concept of what drives a missionary, but you don’t like Christianity, and so you settle on whatever is the most unreasonable-sounding explanation. It’s what you always do.
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“….. the less man made the whole thing feels. ”
Yes, indoctrination does this to people. Especially those who have so much invested in promoting such a belief, career, family, friends etc
The mere thought of walking away would probably seem like Hell.
Based on what a former full on fundamentalist missionary like Barker revealed, indoctrination is most certainly the key.
I take him at his word
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That’s just it. You only take the word of people who already agree with you. It makes for a nice echo chamber.
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I had no presuppositions. I have explained this several times.
Please stop making this accusation it is getting older than stale cheese and beginning to smell.
Barker’s testimony was a first regarding missionary work.
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I didn’t say anything there about presuppositions. I said you only take the word of people who already agree with you. Whenever somebody’s testimony conflicts with or otherwise challenges what you believe, you find some grounds for dismiss it.
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Only taking the word of people who agree with me implies a presuppositional belief on my part.
Eg: ” I consider they were indoctrinated!
.. Oh look, I have found people who claim they were indoctrinated. ”
I challenge or dismiss certain claims if they do not confirm to reality/ evidence.
You know, like the amazing disappearance of Pharoah’s army for example.
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Oh, and I will add, your replies perfectly illustrate how your religion is abusive.
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Now that’s funny. How exactly?
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Sorry, were you unable to understand my previous reply about sin?
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So, because Christians talk about sin, Christianity is abusive?
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Yes! Especially when they inculcate such revolting and blatently unsupportable diatribe into children.
Then it should he regarded as child abuse.
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So, because the Christian worldview includes an idea you don’t like and don’t agree with, it’s child abuse? Should the state be empowered to take children from
Christian parents away from their parents to raise them in a purely secular environment?
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There is no evidence for the notion and yes, because of the potential and very real danger to cause serious emotional damage it should be considered child abuse, no doubt about it.
Your asinine response to a real issue reducing it to reductio ad absursdum is typical of one who has no genuine defense of such a revolting and harmful practice.
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My response wasn’t asinine in the least. I’m merely probing a bit to see the logical implications of the ideas you are espousing. What you have communicated is that you are okay with the government taking children away from parents who teach their children ideas that you don’t agree with and have decided are irrational. Are there other ideas whose teaching would be considered damaging enough to result in separating children from their parents? What other religious teachings would qualify for this punitive policy? Or would it be religious teaching in general? Are there any secular ideas you would consider in this category? Or are secular ideas the only safe ones? How would the policy be enforced? Would you punish parents who refused to hand them over? What kind of counseling measures would you provide for the children who will no doubt be traumatized if they are taken from their parents by force (which presumably would be necessary because there’s no way I’m just letting you take my kids from me…a position most parents would probably hold)? What if the children respond to being forcibly removed from their homes by doubling down on the beliefs you’ve determined to be unacceptable? Would you put them through “reeducation courses”? If they continue to cling to those religious ideas, would you punish them somehow? How? Would you create a government agency to handle all of this? What would you call it? What other powers would this agency be given? What if this government agency gets created and the idea that it is okay to separate children from their parents when a sufficient majority (or else a sufficiently powerful totalitarian leader) determine the parents to be inculcating unacceptable worldview beliefs becomes acceptable, but then someone takes over the government somehow who believes that secular ideas are unacceptable and turns this apparatus against people who believe things like you do? Would you oppose that? How? Ballot box? Armed rebellion? What do you make of the fact that Christian parents having been passing on Christian ideas to their children for centuries and most of them have turned out pretty okay? They’ve mostly gone on to live relatively healthy lives and contributed positively to society in all sorts of ways, ways most of them would attribute directly to their religious beliefs (including a belief in the doctrine of sin)?
And before you try to say this is all just nonsense, remember, you’re the one who proposed this idea. I’m just asking questions aimed at getting to the bottom of its logical implications.
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I never once suggested or implied that Children be removed from their families.
Do please stop lying.
However, Native American children were removed from their families and placed in boarding schools run by the federal goverment and the Christian church. Ironic.
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Labelling something child abuse comes with implications. In most modern nations, when situations of child abuse are known, the state steps in first to try to resolve the situation peacefully, and then to remove the children from the abusive situation directly.
Your comments absolutely point in that direction when scaled up to the level of national policy. And if they don’t work there, or seem ridiculous there, that’s an indicator that they’re logically flawed on a small scale as well.
Calling ideas that you don’t agree with child abuse when there’s so very little actual evidence of that is ridiculous. And, yes, I know you’ve spent lots of time cooking in blog sites that are dedicated to people who had terrible experiences in a faith environment telling their stories. But those are minority reports that are overwhelmingly connected to some sort of abuse that had very little, if anything, to do with the doctrine of sin itself. Millions upon millions more children are raised in such in environments and turn out just fine.
Once again, you’re letting the understandable complaints of a minority affect your view of the much larger majority. Do you refuse to buy a product that has thousands of five star reviews because you read one negative review?
Yes, Native Americans were treated terribly by the government and sometimes the church as well. There were also many more missionaries who opposed those practices and spent years ministering to those populations, trying to help them through the worst of the treatment they were receiving at the hands of the government. Do you know how some of that awful treatment, especially the removal of Native American children from their homes, got started? People didn’t agree with the ideas they were teaching their children because they thought they were smarter and knew better, labeled those teachings child abuse, and then acted accordingly. The kinds of deeply ignorant statements you’re making about Christian theology may be different in detail from your example, but their implications point in the same direction.
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If you tell children they are sinners this is abuse.
If you tell children Jesus died / was executed for their sins. This too is abuse.
If you tell children that all people who do not believe in Jesus will go to Hell when they die, this is abuse.
Ostensibly the parent is simply lying to their child.
Indoctrinating children the earth is 6000 years old is lying and also a form of abuse.
I am sure there are numerous other examples I could come up with and no doubt former believers could offer some unique incites into their own childhood.
Asserting something is child abuse does not automatically assume my intent was to have the child removed into protective custody.
I also challenge your assertion that those deconverts who suffered abuse are a minority as there are undoubtedly millions who remain under the yoke of religion, ( and not just Christianity) who were subject to the same indoctrination and carried the stigma into adulthood, even if they were able to handle it better.
You are an example.
It is still abuse.
Perhaps if you were able to demonstrate the things I consider abuse are based on demonstrable evidence/ fact you may have a case.
If you choose to respond please avoid terms such as worldview.
Thanks.
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Your whole thinking here is entirely wrapped up in worldview. Sorry, I can’t avoid that term. It’s the correct one. You can only speculate about why someone has remained committed to the Christian faith (I’m not interested in debating the merits of other religions) because you don’t have evidence. You only have worldview beliefs that you use to base your speculation. This is, ironically, the very thing you are accusing me of doing (minus using the word “worldview”).
Your entire argument rests on the premise that the whole thing is untrue. As long as you hold to that position, it will only ever seem to be abuse. If it’s true, though, it’s the most loving thing in the world to teach. In think the case in favor of that position is much, much stronger than the case against it.
It is unavoidably true, though, that people do what they shouldn’t do all the time. There are two questions that must be answered here: Who says and why? Why have some things been considered wrong by every single human culture without exception? Why those things? Why not other things? And why, even if we acknowledge and accept that people operate according to differing standards of right and wrong do they nonetheless consistently violate their adopted standards? What is it that causes people to do bad things? How do we know those are bad? Sin is the one Christian doctrine that you don’t need the Scriptures to help you understand, you just need eyes and a brain.
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I asked you to demonstrate that my assertions were false.
You didn’t even bother, merely espoused yet another dose of apologetic rhetoric.
If my assertions regarding abuse all come from the testimonies of former believers how is MY worldview wrong?
I can confidently assert that lying to a child regarding the age of the earth and all that YEC encompasses is abuse just as repeatedly telling a child they are worthless and stupid is abuse.
Therefore, indoctrinating a child with the vile unsubstantiated notion they are born sinners and their only avenue of redemotion in order to spare them from spending eternity in Hell is through the belief and worship of the first century human sacrifice Jesus of Nazareth is unquestionably abuse.
It is about time you stopped lying to me and yourself and confronted the reality of abuse that your religion is built upon.
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More with the lying canard? Good grief. Yes, I think your worldview is wrong. And you consistently call any of my responses you don’t like “apologetic rhetoric.” It’s just your way of saying, “I don’t agree with you.” It is beside the point that I didn’t engage in any apologetic rhetoric at all.
The substance of my argument was this: “There are two questions that must be answered here: Who says and why? Why have some things been considered wrong by every single human culture without exception? Why those things? Why not other things? And why, even if we acknowledge and accept that people operate according to differing standards of right and wrong do they nonetheless consistently violate their adopted standards? What is it that causes people to do bad things? How do we know those are bad?”
How is that “apologetic rhetoric”? Those were questions, not statements. Do you not want to answer those questions? Why?
Your entire framework on religion in general and Christianity in particular seems to have been formed by listening to the unquestionably terribly experiences of a relative handful of people whose bad experiences (at least from the stories you’ve told me) had little to do with actual Christian theology and a great deal more to do with poorly understood and badly or selectively applied theology, and abuse from broken parents.
I heard a story the other day about a gay couple who got busted for child pornography and who were caught acknowledging that they were hiring a surrogate mother to bear a child for them that they intended to sexually abuse. From that story, would it be rational for me to conclude that all gay people are horrible, child-abusing perverts? Obviously not, but you’re guilty of that very kind of thinking here. You’re taking the genuinely bad experiences of a few and drawing the conclusion that those bad experiences must be normative and the whole of Christianity must be bad.
And when you suggest that Christian theology is about telling children they are worthless, you betray once again your total lack of understanding of basic Christian theology. You really don’t make anything you say sound very convincing when you make statements like that.
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Once again you have deftly avoided addressing the specific issues I have raised.
And now you are trying to introduce the morality argument.
Well let me stop you before you hijack this thread and drive it further into the weeds.
Telling children they are born sinners and are destined to spend eternity in Hell if they do not believe that the character Jesus Christ died for their sins and all the other vile garbage that accompanies this unsubstantiated rubbish is blatent lies and abuse.
Please address this specific issue.
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No, I’m addressing the fact that every culture, every religion, every worldview (including secular ones) have had some kind of an explanation for the fact that people don’t do what they should do. “Should” is defined in a whole variety of ways, but however it happens to be defined, we violate it.
I really don’t know what personal morality code you operate by, but you violate that code on occasion. People have always done it. Some have done it in small ways. Some in really, really big ones. The fact remains, though, that this “ought” exists. And, yes, I could take this in the direction of making a philosophically valid argument for God’s existence, but that’s not what I’m interested in doing right now. I’m only interested in establishing the fact that people don’t do what they should do. I don’t even care how should is defined. Each person can define it entirely differently. Still, people don’t do what they should do. Any parent is aware of this simply by having been through the toddler stage.
About the only way you can attempt to deny this is to take the thoroughly materialistic line that no one is really responsible for their actions, but that we are all nothing more than the product of our DNA. That’s a pretty hard argument to make very successfully, though, given that it removes any sort of responsibility for anyone’s actions, including the really heinous ones. I assume you don’t hold to that position.
So then, given that this is the case, what do you suggest we call this stubborn tendency that appears to exist in everyone (with the singular exception of Jesus, but before you think it, I am not going to get into that particular theological conversation with you) of not doing what we should? The Christian worldview calls this sin. Telling people (including children) they are sinners isn’t even remotely abusive. Nor is it dishonest. It’s simply sharing the truth. Now, that can be done in ways that are hurtful and abusive, but it can also be done in ways that are gentle and loving and life-giving. Just because a particular idea is presented badly doesn’t make the idea untrue.
Unpacking why the rest of it is neither abusive nor dishonest is going to require a much longer answer. If you’re interested, I can write all that out, but it’ll be the equivalent of 2-3 whole blog entries because there are a lot of ideas to unpack. Sure you want that?
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The problem is, you indoctrinate children they are born sinners and only through the blood of a first century human sacrifice can they be redeemed i and avoid going to Hell.
That is such absolute unsubstantiated, lying, revolting bullshit and is nothing BUT child abuse.
If you doubt this I can direct you to quite a few deconverts who will attest to the truth of my comment
My kids were taught the basics of right and wrong, largely through example I’d like to think, ethics,morals and as much as I could to ensure they grew up well balanced productive members of society.
Based on the evidence ( look the word up) I reckon my wife and I did a pretty good job.
And guess what? No man made psychotic god hovering over their shoulder.
I’ll wager that anything you try to justify will simply be apologetic nonsense. But, hey… your blog… do whatever your little delusional heart wants.
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Now who’s doing the hand-waving? I’m surprised both of our arms don’t get tired 😉
How did you determine what’s right and what’s wrong to teach your kids and why those particular things? And, do you (or they) always do the one and not the other? If not, why not? Do you have any habits you identify as bad habits? Why? Why don’t you break those and get rid of them? What’s stopping you?
And you can make that wager. The beauty of your doing that is that you use the phrase “apologetic nonsense” to label any argument I make that you don’t agree with. Well, from our history, you’re not likely to agree with any argument I make, so you’ll always be right. How utterly convenient for you.
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Ah, you are trying to steer the discussion into the weeds with your objective morality crap.
One word. Evolution. Look it up.
I used to smoke. Quit years ago. Rarely drink. Yes, I probably do have some bad habits.
But you will be pleased to know I did stop beating my wife.
Otherwise I can think of nothing that would see me burn in hell or even a night in Jail.
Apologetic nonsense is simply unfounded and unsupported claims based on the foundational tenets of your faith and used to defend against fair and honest criticism.
That word is important so consider it and the implications again. Faith.
I will almost always be correct when making assertions about your religion.
There may be points I might not be 100% accurate over but the basics, most of which I have garnered through research and /or discussions with deconverts, I will guarantee are bang to rights.
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I’ve seen the evolutionary explanations for morality. They’re laughably pathetic from a philosophical standpoint. But, that wasn’t where I was trying to steer the discussion at all. I was just aiming to establish the fact that every single culture and every single worldview has some sort of an explanation for why people don’t do what they should do. Christians (and many other religious worldviews) call that sin. Non-religious worldviews call it something else. They’re just different words for the same thing: people don’t do what they should do. That fact needs an explanation.
And your final paragraph about made me laugh myself out of my chair. I appreciate that. I’m always up for a good laugh.
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So you are an evolution denier as well. Are you sure you and Ken Ham aren’t chums?., Of course every culture has similar mores about specific human actions.
Evolution, Jonathan. Humans would not have survived otherwise.
But if you think this is pathetic then you will have to wallow on your Goddidit delusion.
Wrong. Sin is one of those words like faith abused by theists to try to establish credibility for supernatural crap.
You think I am wrong about your religion?
Then provide evidence of the destruction of Pharoah’s army.
Let’s see how much integrity you really have.
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He’s a third cousin, once removed.
Once again: I’ve heard the evolutionary explanations for how we developed morality. They’re pathetic. They’re philosophical nonsense.
Sin is a word to describe the fact that people don’t do what they should do. The fact that you and I both know there are things people should do and shouldn’t do needs explaining itself. The fact that they (we) consistently don’t do what we should do needs explaining as well. If you prefer a different word for it, that’s fine. Most religions have used the word sin in one form or fashion. What’s your explanation.
On Pharaoh’s army, I’ve already said I’m not interested in that debate. It’s a waste of both of our time. There’s almost certainly not archaeological evidence for it that has yet been discovered, if it even exists. That doesn’t dissuade me from accepting its truthfulness because I accept the general historical reliability of the whole text. But again, we don’t agree on that and aren’t going to unless you decide to change your mind. Debating the matter is pointless for us.
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That you dismiss evolutionary science when it doesn’t suit your religious narrative says a lot. Hypocrisy comes to mind.
Sin:
Wrong. Sin is a theological construct meaning any transgression against your god, Yahweh.
Good and bad behavior is part of being human. No gods needed, and especially not one as vile as Yahweh!
Pharoah and his army.
No evidence then. To paraphrase Life of Brian: You’re making it up as you go along.
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I didn’t say I simply dismiss it. I said that I’ve engaged with it and find the explanations lacking. They start from the standpoint of secularism and seek to provide explanations to justify it. If I’m making it up as I go along, the evolutionists coming up with non-religious explanations for reality are doing no less the same thing. If we’re all just making it up, then, I greatly prefer the explanations the Christian worldview offers. They make more sense at the end of the day.
You say “good and bad behavior is part of being human,” but what do you even mean by that? How do you define good versus bad? Why those things in those categories? How do you know? Why do we do the bad even when we know we shouldn’t?
And, again, no, I am simply willing to accept a broader understanding and definition of evidence than you are.
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Odds on, if you find the theory of evolution lacking it is likely because you do not understand it.
So the question: As it is regarded to be the most comprehensive explanation there is, what alternative do you propose, and can you provide evidence?
Bad: Beating my wife.
Good: Having stopped beating my wife.
Evidence is evidence. It does not include the unsubstantiated claims of supernaturalism.
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Or, I do understand it reasonably well and find it lacking in terms of explaining adequately and with an eye toward reality how and why everything is the way it is today.
What do you do with somebody like Gunter Bechly, a German biologist and devoted supporter of Darwinian evolution who created a display at his museum designed to refute intelligent design, actually started reading some of the pro-ID books he included in the display as evidence for the terrible arguments of design theorists, and wound up rejecting Darwinian evolution in favor of ID and even became a follower of Jesus because of it? He understood evolution better than either you or I do and when presented with the evidence for design, rejected Darwinian evolution.
The more we learn about cells and DNA and proteins and the sheer volume of specified and complex information necessary for life to exist, the more scientists – and not merely Christian scientists either – are openly questioning whether Darwin’s theory is really as sufficient or comprehensive as they once believed it to be.
How do you know beating your wife is bad? Cultures in the past encouraged that kind of a thing. A man who didn’t beat his wife on occasion to keep her in line and submissive wasn’t a real man. How did we come to decide that was good (because, of course, it is good to not beat your wife…or your kids…or anybody else for that matter)?
And just so you’re clear, your repeated refrain “evidence is evidence” is a mark of the scientistic worldview beliefs I’ve been trying to help you see and understand. That is the result of a particular philosophy of science that you have adopted whether you realize it or not. You need to go back to the beginning, do some more philosophical learning, and consider whether or not that’s the best philosophy of science by which you could be operating. And, by the way, I didn’t say anything about supernaturalism there. You brought that up. I simply observed that your definition of what counts as evidence (thanks to your philosophy of science) is too narrow.
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1. If you consider there is merit in ID then no, sorry, you do not understand evolution.
2. How do I know beating my wife is bad?
Well, for starters she doesn’t really understand chess so beating her puts her in a bad mood and the rest of the evening is pretty much doomed, and I fir one do not want to sleep on the couch, thank you very much!
3. As you still seem a bit blurry around the edges about what is evidence then there is always the dictionary. However, I fear we have trundled down this path and in the distance I see that rather irritating word “Worldview” looming ever larger.
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By the way, I’m out of town for the weekend. I’ll be scarce until Monday. I’ll try to get back on it then. Have a good weekend!
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Always. Safe travels.
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I did not remember this story. Everywhere else actually seeing God is fatal.
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Absent a special extension of grace from Him, that is the case. This would have indeed been a pretty powerful moment.
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Again, you consider it infuriating simply because you cannot contemplate that I really don’t give a monkey’s uncle about your prevaricating nonsense
Really? And yet you’ve spent how much time in the past 3 months reminding us what idiots we are for being believers? Sir, I do indeed believe you give a monkey’s uncle.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much
you need to get a hobby.
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Well, you obviously do not consider yourself an “idiot” for believing, so tell us, why are you a believer?
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Us? Are you reading with your family now? I’ve already told you that. Multiple times. Do you want me to rehash it again?
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The comment was directed at Thomas Meadors.
I’m interested to read what was the reason for his conversion or was he indoctrinated at the knee?
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He can speak for himself, but he converted as an adult. He had some church growing up, but never bought any of it until much later.
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Converted as an adult, then.
I will await the reason for converting – if he decides to a share – with interest.
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Are you going to be willing to accept his reasoning if it doesn’t fit with one on your predetermined categories?
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I always keep a completely neutral pov until I hear from the individual.
Are you going to give credit where credit is due if his reason/s align with my so called “predetermined categories”?
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We both know that’s not true. You’ve already declared that there can be no objective, rational reason someone would start following Jesus. If Thomas were to say that he started following Jesus because He investigated the matter carefully and came to the conclusion that it was all true, you wouldn’t begin to accept that. You reject the testimonies of guys like Strobel and Wallace when they say as much. Why should you be expected to do any differently should that be the case here?
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Everyone is deserving of stating their own case.
While I have yet to encounter a conversion that did not include those things I have mentioned, this does not preclude a reason not previously mentioned.
Have you read Strobel’s book?
🤦
If there was any genuine validity to Wallace’ approach then a lot more police officers would have converted.
As it happens this did not turn out to the case.
One has to wonder why not?
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I’ve read three or four of Strobel’s books. The first interviewee in his first book was my New Testament professor and the guy whose book I have offered twice to send you, but you refuse to engage with it. And your criticisms of Wallace are just silly and entirely avoid actually engaging with the point I was making.
Actually, scratch that. You demonstrate the point I was making. Both of those gentlemen said and continue to say that their journey to faith from atheism was driven entirely by the evidence they investigated. That was their testimony. Rather than believing them, though, you insist that you know better than they do what led them to faith. Your willingness to do this in spite of the only actual evidence you have pointing in the exact opposite direction can only be driven by your faith in your worldview commitments, and not the actual evidence you have available to you.
That remains deeply and hysterically ironic to me. If only all of my church members had as much faith in the Christian worldview as you do in your secular one. But because of your radical faith commitment that you have demonstrated multiple times and continue to do so, no, I find your implying you will believe Thomas’ or anyone else’s testimony as to why they started following Jesus if it doesn’t fit in one of your predetermined boxes to be manifest nonsense.
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Except neither Strobel or Wallace presented any evidence whatsoever, but merely regurgitated tired old apologetics.
The core of religious belief is faith, not evidence, and acceptance of the fundamental tenets of said religion.
Both Strobel and Wallace arrived at faith by accepting the claims made by Christianity.
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The core of Christian belief (not merely religious belief) is faith supported by evidence. And, once again, your worldview blinders keep resulting in your pronouncing evidence in favor of Christian truth claims as not evidence. You can’t allow for it to be called evidence because otherwise you might have to honestly engage with it. You’ve been doing that since we got started. Those two – by their own testimony – arrived at faith by carefully investigating the truth claims made by the Christian worldview, holding them up against the available evidence, and finding them well-supported and correct over and against the truth claims made by a secular worldview. That’s their testimony. They’ve made it over and over and over again. That you continue to reject it reveals your faith in your worldview presuppositions resulting in a determined unwillingness to engage with the only actual evidence you have on the matter.
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Evidence?
You have yet to present any evidence for the core foundational tenets of your religion.
Strobel was dishonest in his ‘quest’ (groan)
He did not interview a single non religious individual who could have offered any sort of balance to his heavily biased approach.
While I have not read anything by Wallace, I have watched a couple of his videos and his testimony, wrapped up in his Colomboesque style delivery is devoid of evidence and is simply apologetics with a novel twist.
In truth, nothing but presuppositional waffle.
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He already knew all of those arguments. He’s said as much numerous times. He was interviewing Chrisitan scholars to ask them hard questions about the truthfulness of Christianity, and when he started, he was convinced it wasn’t true and was looking to be able to discredit their arguments and show they were false. Wallace took much the same path. And, once again, they dealt with evidence, I’ve presented evidence, you simply label it all as not evidence because of your worldview presuppositions.
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No. Not evidence.
There is no evidence for supernaturalism.
If Strobel “already knew” those arguments he would have put them in his book to show believers and non believer alike the truthfulness of his research and as a demonstration of his integrity.
He failed.
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They are implicit all over his book. You indicated you’ve read it. You don’t seem to have read it very carefully. And, there’s only no evidence if you operate under the artificially narrow definition of evidence you use because of the worldview commitments you have made. You still haven’t said, by the way, if you know what scientism is.
And, also, I was thinking about it, and when I said yesterday (maybe? the day before?) that I had presented you a positive case for becoming a follower of Jesus and you had rejected it, that wasn’t quite true. I presented the case, but I did so just before you headed out of town, and you never responded to it at all.
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Implicit does not mean interviewing those who hold vastly different perspectives to his heavily biased chrisian view.
No, I nave not read the book in the hold- the-book-in-my-hands sense but I have read a chapter by chapter breakdown featured on a site a few years ago. Each chapter was posted and each point addressed.
I think it was on Viridar, if I’m not mistaken. And I have listened to a couple of videos as well.
I balked at the movie.
I refuse to address your pedantic reference to scientism which apologists like you love to throw about like a childish pejorative.
I must have missed your positive case following Jesus
You can post it again if you like or direct me to the specific post?
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Oof, that’ll take some time to find. I’ll see what I can do. I don’t know if you can see all these lined up by date in your feed like I can in mine. It was just before you hit the road when you were sitting sick in bed.
So then, should I take it that you do know what scientism is? You’ve put it on display enough times in your responses that I at least hope you do. The word isn’t a childish pejorative at all. It’s a philosophical position that many folks (including apparently you) hold.
And, ah. So, once again, you are offering all kinds of criticism for a work you haven’t actually read for yourself. You’ve only engaged with him through the lens of people who already agree with you on the subject. Strobel originally went into the process of interviewing all those folks with a heavily biased atheist view. He was the vastly different perspective in the process. So was Wallace when he was doing his research that led to his conversion. You would think, too, that a famous cold case detective would understand what evidence is pretty well. When he says he examined and was convinced by the evidence, I would tend to take him at his word.
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Again, the book was reviewed on a chapter by chapter basis, with each chapter bring posted.
How is that not reading the book?
As I said about Wallace. Yes, you would think that a cold case cop would know and fully understand about evidence, wouldn’t you?
It’s truly baffling why ALL his colleagues didn’t rally to his evangelical call and suddenly pledge allegiance to a first century human sacrifice to avoid spending eternity with all those naughty criminals they arrested.
Perhaps those other cops know a thing or two about evidence that Wallace forgot to mention?
Anyway, at least he probably sold lots an’ lots of books.
Nothing wrong with making a bit of cold hard cash. In his case by fair means or foul, right?
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Okay, you’ve made that same argument against Wallace before, and it was just as ridiculous then. The reasons people choose not to follow Jesus are manifold. Some have to do with how they interpret evidence. Others don’t have the first thing to do with that. I’ve not ever heard Wallace even describe what his efforts were in trying to convince others in his department about the truthfulness of Christianity. You’re just speculating rather than dealing with the actual substance of his arguments. And my point was that if I have to choose between the non-expert’s narrow definition of what counts as evidence and what doesn’t and the definition of the career law enforcement officer whose entire job was about examining evidence in order to make cases, I’m going to have to go with the latter.
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There is no substance to his arguments.
They are just tired old apololgegic dross.
If have to turn to a “expert” – ( such as an indoctrinated god botherer like Wallace) to understand what is evidence it is no wonder you were so easily duped into becoming a Christian.
I just picked up a dictionary.
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Have you interacted with his work yourself, or only listened to other critics engage with it? And you’re hand-waving yourself again. Give me a heads up next time so I can wave hi back :~)
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I have watched a couple of Wallace’s videos. Truly cringe worthy apologetic garbage.
I would have though his level of drivel was beneath even you. Obviously this is not the case.
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I think that makes me about caught up now. Whew! That’s likely all for today. Happy Wednesday to you.
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I’ve been thinking how unproductive this back and forth is and I was wondering how truly heartening it would be if you were able to ditch the apologetic indoctrinated nonsense just for once and earnestly engage the archaeological evidence or lack thereof ( Pharoah’s army, Noah’s ark for example) and approach your religion with integrity and honesty instead of from your presuppositional stance that Goddidit, so now let me defend this at all costs irrespective what the evidence really indicates.
Perhaps that would be a bridge, too far?
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Given that as near as I can tell, whenever you use the phrase “apologetics” what you mean is “an argument rooted in something other than the narrow band of things I’ve decided count as evidence,” I suspect that’s probably not going to happen. But I do agree with you that we haven’t been particularly productive in our conversating.
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You see, when you use terms like narrow band you simply illustrate the point about apologetics.
Let try to explain.
If you’ve ever read Histories by Tacitus you will be aware of the miracle curing exploits of Vespasian which were seen by numerous witnesses and seem to mirror certain acts by the bible character Jesus of Nazareth.
Now, as Tacitus’ is regarded as a good historian few people doubt his account of the crucifiction, yet I’ll wager pretty much anything you or anyone in their right mind would believe his account of Vespasian curing a blind man.
So why do you accept the similar account of the bible character Jesus of Nazareth?
Faith, or evidence?
Therefore, when I ask you to present evidence for such claims regarding the destruction of Pharoah’s army and the archaeological evidence refuting Exodus and the geological evidence refuting Noah’s flood can you at least understand why I consider your responses about “my worldview” nothing but a brush off as a way of not honestly addressing the evidence which, by the way, uses the same or similar methodology for every related scientific endeavor, the bulk of which you, like most of us, have little knowledge or awareness of and in the main accept without question ?
So, how about it?
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I’ve given you my thoughts on those pieces of evidence numerous times. And I accept that Jesus was who the Scriptures say He was on the basis of faith supported by evidence.
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You accept the character Jesus was who the Scriptures say yet do you reject the miracle claims Tacitus made of Vespasian, and if so on what grounds?
I would still like to see you engage honestly and openly on the destruction of Pharoah’s army from an archaeological Pov rather than just hand waving and saying God did it!
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I didn’t say I reject Tacitus’ claims. You did. I didn’t comment on them at all, I don’t think. It could be that Vespasian did those things. I doubt it because there aren’t any other attestations of it that I’m aware of, but stranger things have happened.
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I didn’t say you reject the miracle claims of Tacitus. I asked IF you reject the miracle claims of Tacitus with regard Vespasian.
What independant non-Christian attestations of Jesus’ miracles are there?
Please, I beg you, don’t cite the TF.
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I’m not immediately aware of any. But that doesn’t surprise me or really discourage me at all. Jesus was a relatively unknown first century rabbi in a backwoods part of the Roman empire. Rome mostly didn’t care about Him at all. But His followers sure made a splash after a few years. The real question is why would such a relatively unknown rabbi from nowheresville attract such a following that would eventually grow to convert the most powerful empire in the world? What was it about the message and behavior of His followers that would attract so many other people to commit their lives to it (even when such a commitment came at a significant personal cost including their own death)?
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So, do you reject the miracle claims of Tacitus?
Example: Before Christianity was made Law what was the predominant religious belief among Roman troops?
People believe all sits of nonsense. You do..
9/11?
Christian martyrs?
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The predominant religious belief among Roman troops before Constantine was paganism in one form or fashion.
I already answered the question on my position on the Tacitus claims. I doubt them, but not categorically so.
What did you mean by “Christian martyrs?”?
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1. Mithraism. A sect of Zorastianism.
2. Just to be perfectly clear, you honestly consider there is a real possibility Vespasian actually cured someone of blindness as per the account by Tacitus?
3. You asserted believers suffered death because of their belief in the unsubstantiated claims regarding the resurrection of the Bible character Jesus of Nazareth.
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https://philosophy.fullerton.edu
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That link took me to Cal State Fullerton’s philosophy department homepage. Is that what you meant to link?
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That was a slip. Of the keyboard. The one below.
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The UMass one?
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Dunno. I’m lost in links. It was about your scientism pejorative I think?
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Who knows…but it still wasn’t pejorative. It was and is an accurate description of the philosophical commitment you have demonstrated over and over again in our conversations. If you don’t like it, commit yourself to better philosophy.
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The article asserts it is generally used as a pejorative, especially by smarny theists. I’ll go with their take.
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That’s your prerogative. It’s still an accurate philosophical description of the position you’ve taken. But, if it seems pejorative, that could be because you’re building your position on a foundation of bad philosophy. Maybe that’s an indication that it’s time to rethink things.
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My position, as I have stressed on numerous occasions, is built primarily on evidence or lack thereof and the testimonies of former believers, professional and lay persons.
Always bare in mind I am an atheist.
No doctrine, dogma, worldview or silly holy texts.
You have to defend your position…. Your eternal soul depends on it!
(It doesn’t really, but you believe it does.)
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This is all review. Nonetheless, as an atheist, there are philosophical assumptions on which you operate. Maybe you’re aware of all of these. Maybe you’re not. Listening…well…reading you, I get the sense that you are not. One of the philosophical presuppositions you have demonstrated more than once by your comments is scientism. I’m not sure what’s so problematic about that. If it is, just own it. If it’s not, then why do you keep making statements that are consistent with the position? If it is, though, just understand that scientism is philosophically nonsensical and self-defeating. If you don’t like that fact, adopt a different position.
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You probably shouldn’t make assumptions, Jonathan.
Atheism is simply the lack of belief in gods, your god, Yahweh and all others.
Why do you consider scientism nonsensical?
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Because the idea that “all forms of intellectual inquiry must conform to the model(s) of science in order to be rational” is not an idea that can itself be conformed to the model(s) of science. It is a philosophical position that is intensely circular in its form. It is a philosophical position masquerading as a scientific position but which when submitted to rigorously philosophical scrutiny, immediately comes unraveled. If part of your position is based on bad philosophy, it’s time to consider whether it would be wiser to reject that part of your position in favor of one more philosophically sound.
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I am only interested in evidence.
Read into that what you will.
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I’m not reading into anything. I’m merely describing with accurate philosophical terms the position you have consistently demonstrated. Whether you continue to hold the position or not in spite of its irrationality and inherently self-defeating nature is up to you.
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Then please explain what is irrational about being interested in evidence?
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Scientism is the idea that all forms of intellectual inquiry must conform to the model(s) of science in order to be rational. [1] However, the name ‘scientism’ is a pejorative: no one who holds the view in question will refer to it as scientism.
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Well, of course no one who holds the view is going to give it that kind of a title. When you define it properly it sounds ridiculous…because it is. It’s philosophically nonsensical. And yet the thinking persists in secular circles. I still don’t intend it to be pejorative. I’m simply describing the philosophical influences that you have clearly displayed in your arguments and comments over our journey together.
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If you say so…. Next.
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Can’t find the Vridar review and I now suspect it was on another site entirely.
Meantime… This was a fun read, especially the mention of Blomberg.
https://www.ruthlessreviews.com/features/the-case-for-christ/
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Minus being totally devoid of substance and not seeming to care at all about getting things like Blomberg’s name spelled correctly (twice), sure, I guess it was fun. Plus, that was a review of the movie, not the book.
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Well, I was trying to find something to keep you entertained while I scoured the internet for the review. It was on Infidels not Vridar but still not joy locating it.
But the point about Blomberg was very telling don’t you think?
I forgot those working at fundy schools have to sign a little piece of paper about biblical inerrancy.
Rather puts a damper on any claim about his ( objective and impartial) bona fides I’d say.
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The point about Blomberg wasn’t telling at all. It dismissed him on the basis of what he believes rather than actually engaging with the substance of his work. It was lazy. And pretty much every seminary requires faculty to sign a statement of faith of some kind. Their goal is to train students for serving in churches. Many seminaries are funded by groups of churches. They have a vested interest in making sure the students are being taught in ways that correspond with the beliefs of the denomination. That’s not surprising at all. Nor does necessarily mean any of their scholarship is bad. Rejecting the work of faculty from institutions like that on that basis is lazy.
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What Blamberg believes directly influences the substance, and as he too is an indoctrinatdd believer who also has to sign a contract stating he actually believes all that nonsense.. or else.. his credibility is more than a little compromised.
Vested interest indeed! Makes indoctrinating children all the more pertinant, and disgusting.
Ftr Ehrman and several others attended similar institutions but in the long run didn’t succumb.
I wonder why this is?
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From what I heard, for Ehrman at least, it was the problem of evil, not any kind of evidence. In other words, it was a philosophical challenge that led him away (a philosophical challenge, I might add, that has been answered time and time and time again).
And are you really so petty as to just keep misspelling his name on purpose in order to bug me? I feel like I’m debating with a child sometimes.
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Suffering is the term he used. And one can still cite evidence or lack thereof, but you will argue the philosophical point.
Regardless, he left, eventually, and the complete lack of evidence for the claims of Christianity he has time and again revealed has undoubtedly confirmed and vindicated his decision.
Would that all those who attended seminaries were as open and honest as he was.
But many a damn wall eventually broke from a tiny crack, right?
Maybe one day you will be as open and honest as Ehrman? Though I suspect there have been times you have had serious doubts, am I right?
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Not particularly, no. And the more I’ve interacted with arguments to the contrary, the more confident I’ve grown that they are ultimately without substance. And Ehrman rather makes my point. He didn’t leave for evidentiary reasons. He left for emotional and philosophical ones. He later found some arguments to give cover to his emotionally-driven departure and built his whole career on those.
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Funny how you will gleefully point out Ehrman left for emotional and NOT evidentiary reasons yet have a bit of a meltdown everyone I am assert that ( adult) converts inevitably turn to faith because of similar emotional reasons and NOT evidence. And here you are building a career on exactly the same grounds!
Oh, the irony. Or would that be hypocrisy? You have to love it, right?
🤣
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Of course there are people who convert for emotional reasons and later find reasons to support their decision. My enduring point has been that contrary to your assertion, those aren’t the only reasons someone might convert.
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Of course there may be other reasons, but emotion and trauma or indoctrinafion( kids) are the prime driving factors.
Evidence? No.
And as you steadfastly refuse
to supply this evidence for the destruction of Pharoah’s army then you have little credibility when it comes to what you or the world in general considers evidence.
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Here’s another. This one reveals just how dishonest Strobel was, and presumably still is
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You know, for somebody who doesn’t give a monkey’s uncle about convincing me of anything, you’ve spent quite a lot of time on this today. I’m flattered. ;~) I’ll look through these, but it’ll be a day or two.
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I was simply trying to find the Strobel article I mentioned, just so you didn’t wonder if I was making it up.
I am still struggling to find it.
Truly I am not interested in convincing you. That light bulb moment you will discover on your own, just as every deconvert did.
I am simply pointing out where you are wrong.
In your heart, (and your intellectual side) you already know your faith-based beliefs are indefensible.
This is why you will recognize the dishonesty in Strobel’s apologetic garbage.
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I’m glad we’re agreed at least on what our goal for the other is and what it will take for us to respectively reach that goal. And, for the record, I didn’t ever think you were making it up. I trust that if you tell me you read something, you read it.
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You have a goal in mind for little old moi?
How sweet.
Care to share or is that between you and Jesus?
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Oh, it’s no secret. I’m glad to share it. It’s the same as your goal for me…just the opposite. You’re waiting for the day when I finally come to my senses and embrace the silliness of Christianity and step into the reality of secularism. I’m waiting for the day when you finally come to your senses, embrace the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, and commit your life to following Jesus.
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Again, I have no interest in converting you. I am not so arrogant.
I am merely pointing out the reasons why your religion is patently wrong, absurd and and vile and your failure to recognise this fact is because of your indoctrination.
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Then we’re agreed in our aims, just from opposite directions.
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Interesting. In what way is atheism, vile, wrong and atheists indoctrinated?
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https://valerietarico.com/2019/03/20/how-case-for-christ-author-lee-strobel-fabricated-his-best-selling-story-an-interview-with-religion-critic-david-fitzgerald/
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Meh. Very little of substance again here. The way they dismiss Blomberg smacks of the very same kind of sloppy work they accuse Strobel of doing.
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Meh. Blimberg’s an evangelical fundy.
Next!
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To my knowledge, you’ve never actually interacted with his work. Once you’ve done that (I’ll still mail you the book if you’d like), your opinion will mean something.
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Blemberg is an evangelical, fundamental biblical inerrantist.
He is schooled in apologetics.
This has little if anything to do with evidence.
I can get a dose of that sort of crap watching a Frank Turek or Gary Habermas video on YouTube any time I feel like.
Thank the gods, my masochistic side rarely rears it’s ugly head.
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He’s schooled in the historical reliability of the New Testament. But again, you just keep using the word “apologetics” as a substitute for “an argument in favor of the Christian faith that I don’t like,” so your complaints about the discipline are increasingly meaningless.
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Wrong. Bolmberg is a biblical inerrantist and thus his view of history is underpinned by the belief the Bible is Yahweh-breathed.
And of course he has to sign a contact to this effect at his place of employment.
So much for free speech, right.
🤦
There is no general historical reliability in the New Testament. There is, however, historical fiction and I challenge you to produce a short list of non Christian historians who aren’t obliged to sign idiotic contracts stressing their allegiance to their work place or to Yahweh who assert the Gospels/ New Testament is/ are historically reliable.
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No, no, he literally has a PhD in the historical reliability of the New Testament from the University of Aberdeen. And, honestly, it would be rather amusing to watch you try to debate him on the subject.
And of course nothing like that exists for secular historians. What a silly thing to say. There are modern, secular universities that make their faculty sign DEI statements, certifying their commitment to that particular agenda item. Everybody has their orthodoxies.
But, once again, you’re wading into waters you don’t understand. Unless and until you get the first part right, the rest of it won’t make any sense. I keep saying that, but you keep ignoring it and trying to jump into the same pool over and over again. It’s increasingly humorous watching you try to flail around to make sense out of something you don’t and can’t understand because you reject the first principles.
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I was always under the impression genuine historians do not consider the gospels/NT historically reliable in part because of the miracle claims?
Maybe this is not the case? Nevertheless, you should have no problem supplying the names of a few non-Christian/ non religious historians who support your’s and Blumberg’s assertion the Gospels/NT are historically reliable.
Just a couple of names and I will gladly do the research.
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I’ll once again direct you to his book. Read it and decide for yourself. If you find him unconvincing, so be it. And if they accepted the historical reliability of the Gospels, they probably wouldn’t be non-Christian. I see what you’re doing, but it’s just not very convincing. I just won’t play by the rules you insist on. I reject those for reasons we’ve talked about before.
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You wish me to engage with a evangelical fundamentalist but refuse to supply even one or two names of non Christian historians who support Blomberg’s position on historical reliability.
I am not “doing” anything. I am asking you to be honest, show some integrity and see if “the other side” regard people like Blomberg with the same degree of respect, and integrity over historical reliability as you shower him with.
What on earth are you afraid of?
.
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I didn’t refuse to supply them, I said I don’t know of any. Two different things there. There’s really not anything I’m afraid of here that I can think of.
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Then don’t you consider it encumbant on you to go and find some historians that support Blamberg’s position?
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Find non-Christian historians that support the position of a Christian scholar? If they supported his position, they’d probably be Christians themselves. They don’t support his position because they’re not Christians. The fact that you keep trying to demand this is silly to me.
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Exactly! And therein lies your problem.
See if you can figure it out?
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Except I don’t see that as a problem at all. People who don’t accept Christianity refuse to or otherwise find reasons for not accepting positions that, if true, would force them (if they are intellectually honest people) to abandon their skepticism in favor of the faith they once rejected. Color me shocked. People find all kinds of reasons for rejecting things they don’t want to believe.
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Unfortunately it is you who are refusing to accept a position that, if true, and were intellectually honest would oblige you to abandon faith.
Historians do not entertain the supernatural.
In the face of no evidence whatsoever one has to wonder, why do you?
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