Peter Watts

It's such a painful issue for me, and I hate taking up time talking about myself. Please, just take my word for it that it's hard to examine the Bible without finding yourself asking tough questions a nonbeliever should leave alone.
C.S. Lewis, who keeps coming up in this discussion, was as ardent an atheist as you can get. No one can argue that the guy was a dummy — Oxford scholar, poet, brilliant man. He converted to Christianity after a long struggle, and then BAM!
What do people know about Lewis today? The fact that he was influential Christian apologist. Do you think people talk about Lewis the former atheist?

SaintCog

I'm afraid this thread has become fairly pointless. It has been reduced to personal conversion stories, anecdotes of people whom we know or claim to know, and arguments by appealing to authority. None of this proves anything. And not only doesn't it prove anything, it offers nothing of substance that can be discussed

For every story of conversion to Christianity from skepticism, there is one to match it on the other side. And if a person knows "too many atheists" who have become Christians, that should come as no surprise since this person probably hangs around a lot of Christians. Here's one for you - I'm a skeptic who hangs around a lot of skeptics, and I'll tell ya, I've just known too many Christians who have become atheists just from reading the Bible. Trust me people, it's hard to examine the Bible as a Christian without finding yourself asking tough questions a believer should leave alone. OK there, so now we have personal testimony and anecdotes from both sides. And that amounts to absolutely nothing.

C.S. Lewis - who cares? It's hardly breaking news that there were and are intelligent, well educated people on both sides of this issue. Honestly, do we really want to spend this thread tossing the names of famous well educated people from prestigious universities back and forth? Because if you want to play that game, there is no shortage of religious skeptics in the world's prestigious universities.

So, uh, did Paul advocate deception in spreading the Gospel. My answer is No.

Cheers,
SC

Peter Watts

Well, I sure hope not everyone feels the way Saint Cog does about having a meaningful discussion.

For the record, I don't think Paul was advocating deception. I think Cog makes a pretty strong case.

Amaleq13

No, I won't take your word for it because I have found it to be entirely untrue. In fact, I have found the exact opposite to be the case. I know I found my faith to be severely weakened the more I held the Bible and related claims to the same standards I held every other astounding claim. I've encountered many, many people here who describe the same experience and I've encountered none who have claimed conversion based on a critical examination of the Bible.

You seem to have completely missed the point that Lewis' conversion had absolutely nothing to do with his intelligence, education or a critical examination of the Bible.

Do you think Paul would have considered anything to constitute "deception" if it ultimately resulted in acceptance of the gospel?

Toto

Frequently. We know about Lewis's conversion, because he wrote about it. He said that he was an agnostic because that's was everyone was in his social circle, and then he became friends with some Christians. They seemed to be happy and he wanted to join them in their religion. He read the Bible in the original Greek (he had studied classical Greek), and he decided that the Greek was so bad, that it must reflect the reports of honest disciples who were too simple-minded to make up anything like that, so it must be true. He then went on to make up other reasons to believe in Christianity. None of his reasons stand up to any sort of critical scrutiny or our current knowledge about the language and literary styles of the gospels.

In fact, all of his reasons for his conversion should be an embarrassment to Christians. He was not a specialist in the Bible and made many mistakes when writing about it.

SaintCog

I don't know. I don't know what Paul was like. All we know about him is what we can glean from seven of his letters, which is almost nothing as far as being able to judge a person's character adequately is concerned.

Cheers,
SC