rhutchin

The Jesus that is described regardless whether He was born before Herod died and was living in Egypt as a child, or the Jesus that was born during the census by Cyrenius, or the Jesus who was erroneously thought to be a deceiver.

Johnny Skeptic

If God does not want to save everyone, he most certainly ought to. If a man had two children who were drowning, and refused to try to save both of them, he would be ostracized from society, even from Christian society, and he would possibly be convicted of negligence and sent to prison. If an ordinary man were willing to suffer and die for some people (some skeptics are willing to suffer and die for some people), and killed some people (God kills people with hurricanes, including some of his most devout followers, and babies), he would be considered irrational, bi-polar, and mentally incompetent. Why should the behavior of a God be considered any differently? No rational minded and fair minded person can will himself to accept a God who is a hypocrite, a God who has no concept of fair, merciful, and just punishment. Making people blind, deaf, and dumb, and killing one fourth of the people in Europe with the Bubonic Plague is most certainly NOT fair, merciful, and just punishment. Are you so naïve and gullible that you will claim that those detestable practices provide benefits to mankind?

If God inspired the writing of the Bible, what makes his judgments right? Yes, he might be able to beat up anyone who disagrees with him, but do you have any evidence that power necessarily has anything to do with good character? No?, I didn’t think so.

Rational minded and fair minded people are not able to will themselves to accept a God who endorses favoritism, reveals himself to some people who never accept him, refuses to reveal himself to some people who would accept him if they had better evidence that he exists, (No man can fairly be held accountable for refusing to accept a message that he would accept if he knew that the being who delivered the message exists.), makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11, punishes people for sins that their grandparents committed, reference Exodus 20:5, and injures and kills people with hurricanes, including some of his most devout and faithful followers, and babies, even though the Bible says that killing people is wrong. May I ask why you consider lying to be any worse than those atrocities? Surely you consider killing babies to be worse than lying, but knowing you, maybe you don’t. You wouldn’t be able to love any supposed God who endorsed lying, so why do you ask people to endorse a God who endorses the atrocities that I mentioned?

If God chooses who he will save, how can human decisions have anything to do with salvation?

If the God of the Bible created the abilities to love, to be merciful, to be forgiving, to be fair, to not be hypocritical, to heal people (I mean doctors), to not endorse favoritism, and to feed starving people, and then decides to frequently act completely contrary to how he wants humans to act, you have no business asking anyone to accept a God who frequently makes a mockery of what he said. God has convicted himself with his own rules.

It is up to you to reasonably prove not only that skeptics are ABLE to accept God, but that they OUGHT to accept him because of his good character.

Although God plays favorites regarding who he reveals himself to, to his credit, when he injures and kills people with hurricanes, he does not play favorites. What is the difference between God and Attila the Hun. Well, if Attila had somehow acquired the power to create hurricanes, he most certainly would not have killed his own faithful followers with them. In addition, if he had somehow acquired the power to heal people, he most certainly would have healed his own faithful followers, and not allowed healing to be distributed in a completely random fashion like God does. Today, randomness regarding tangible evidence DOES NOT indicate the presence of a divine being. If a loving God does not exist, it is to be expected that tangible benefits such as healing and food would frequently be distributed to those who are not in greatest need, and frequently withheld from those who are in greatest need. You have said that the Bible does not promise that God will provide healing and food, but what evidence do you have that a loving God would not provide his followers with healing and food?

Paul says that the Resurrection of Jesus is the most important part of Christianity. He basically says that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, nothing else matters. Would you like to start a new thread and tell us why you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? I think that you will agree that such an important topic deserves a new thread of its own. Richard Carrier has written excellent articles regarding why he does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. We can discuss that article and a number of other articles and books about the Resurrection. The moderators at this forum, and other skeptics as well, are well-prepared to participate in the discussions about the Resurrection.

Ignostic Morgan

:angel: :notworthy: Why, to beg the question, does anyone want to worship that depraved Yahweh? One would worship might makes right! Johnny Skeptic speaks for me in his denunciation of that creep. Fundamentalists should read Callahan's "Secret Origins of the Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk)" to understand why more rational people know that the book is totally man-inspired. Mere ignorant, bigoted men wrote it. Richard Carrier reasons well . His book is superb. I contemn Rhutchin's silly remarks:huh: :Cheeky: A good joke book is I don't have enough Faith to be an Atheist."McDowell and Strobel say nothing!

Johnny Skeptic

Message to rhutchin: Consider the following:

http://www.crivoice.org/arminianism.html

The Calvinist teaching of "irresistible grace" argues that there is nothing whatsoever a man or woman can do to keep from being saved if he or she were already chosen. The grace of God is totally irresistible. Those elected by God will be saved. They can't help it and they can't resist it.

Arminians believe that Christ died for all men, and thus He granted common grace to all so that "whosoever will" may be saved, not just those picked beforehand. Most Christians today lean toward the Arminian approach that anyone may be saved and a person can refuse God's grace.

Johnny: If I cannot help from being saved if God has chosen that I will be saved, then my choice does not have anything to do with my salvation, and yet you are asking me to make a choice, are you not?

Please reply to my post #112.

jakejonesiv

The author of Gal. 3:6-7 would not agree with you.

Galatians Chapter 3 NIV
6 Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." (see Gen 15:6)
7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.
8 The Scripture (i.e the "Old Testament") foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."
9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Jake Jones IV

Johnny Skeptic

Are you saying that you are not interested in who created the heavens and the earth, reference Genesis 1:1? You cannot get away with discounting the Old Testament that easily. You need to tell us whether or not the Old Testament contains a lot of false and misleading claims. What about the global flood and the plagues in Egypt? Do you believe that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and told Moses to kill his own people if they worked on the Sabbath Day? Did God kill Ananias and Saphira in the New Testament?

What do you believe happens to people after they die? I am still not certain whether or not you believe in an afterlife and a literal heaven where believers will enjoy a comfortable eternal life.

rhutchin

The Calvinists argue that God can be very persuasive when He wants to. The Arminians argue that God is as persuasive as is necessary to save those whom He foresaw would repent (i.e., with a little persuasion from His grace, of course).

Basically, either purposely or by default, everyone makes a choice. However, you do not have to make a choice. You should know that the choice is available and what it is.

rhutchin

A person would worship God only if they were convinced that they had sinned against Him and were ashamed of that sin. That does not appear to be you.

Gamera

[QUOTE=aa5874;3831015]I don't know, I find a lot of fellow Christains funny. But it's particularly funny for a skeptic to define Christianity and then inform a Christian he fails to meet his definition. It's just odd.

Gamera

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic;3831177]I know that's your argument. It's simply a naive view of Christianity. The gospel kerygma is the essence of Christianity, not knowledge of God. And the idea is that the gospel (which is rather simple) is sufficient. Hence:


Romans 1:16 - For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

You focus on God; Christians focus on the gospel. That's all we have is this narrative, this text. It is a particular understanding of a text that defines Christianity, not a particular understanding of God.

As to those who didn't have the gospel before Jesus, or didn't get it afterwards, that's a theological questions Christian theologians have addressed for years. The usual conclusion is that God is omniscient and outside of time. So he already knows who will accept the gospel and who won't. Indeed he knows who would accept the gospel if presented to them. So God can make whatever arrangements with them on that score. Admittedly this is pure speculation, but you asked for it. My answer is, I don't know what God is up to with people who don't have the gospel, but I have it, so I'm accepting it. I'll let God figure out the former problem on his own. And since the gospel teaches that the essence of God is love, I have faith God will deal lovingly with all those who choose or would choose love over self. There's a lot of things about God, I know nothing about, indeed, most everything.

Haven't the foggiest notion and don't really care. Christianity is about my life here and now, not about what happens when I die. As Pauls says the only thing that counts is a new creation, which happens upon acceptance of the gospel.

I think I answered that, but happy to do it again.

"The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

Most Christians of the time, including Paul, thought the world could come to an end at any time. Peter points out that God in fact will be slow in ending the age, because he wants to give everybody the chance who will accept the gospel to in fact accept the gospel. It's a rather beautiful sentiment.