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Re: Brian Emig's challenge -- Fred, 18:07:48 03/04/02 Mon
"I CHALLENGE YOU TO SINCERELY ASK GOD TO REVEAL HIMSELF
TO YOU!!!!!" says Brian. If you ask me, that's a Johnny-come-lately challenge! I've been asking "god" to reveal him/her/itself to me for the past twenty years, but to no avail. In fact, I’ll sincerely ask “god” to reveal itself to me right now! Nope, nothing! I guess “god” is very selective, right?
During my Christian years, I used to rationalize myself out of why "god" isn't revealing itself to me as it does with other Christians. My rationalization was the catch all my-dog-ate-my-homework of theology - "god works in mysterious ways"!
But now I comprehend why "god" doesn't reveal itself to me; and it’s through no fault of my own. I don't have the genetic make up and/or the neurotransmitter requirements for having the "fantasy prone personality". In other words, I'm mentally deficient in the hallucination department.
Sorry for going outside the bounds of BE, but over and over people make that silly suggestion that unless we honestly ask god to reveal himself, he won’t. I thought I would address it one more time! Furthermore, for just this one time I want to borrow a favorite fallacious argument within the Christian circles and apply it to myself – I’m proof that there is no such thing as a god (at least not the Christian “god”)!
It seems Christians are beginning to realize that it’s futile to defend the bible. Because more often than not, they keep trying to take the argument away from the problems of the bible and into philosophical questions such as metaphysics and cosmology. For the sake of focus I’d like to tell apologists that the issue isn’t whether god exists, but whether the bible passes as the word of god! -Fred
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Re: Brian Emig's challenge -- Rev Gadfly, 09:58:13 03/02/02 Sat
RevG
Well we now see Brian trying to defend his position by shifting the burden of proof. I will state for the record that I asked God to show me the truth about the Bible, and God answered my prayer by showing me that the Bible was a piece of priestly fiction written to fool the foolish out of their money.
I will address certain points which Brian brings up in his post.
"I don't want to argue too much because it is SINFUL - argumentation really doesn't accomplish anything." -- B.
This is a Petitio principii fallacy; for it begs the question as to whether 'sin' actually exists. Unless Brian can provide some evidence for this, then his assertion above fails. As Nietzsche pointed out, "sin" is a psychological construct invented by priests in order to justify their own jobs. I shall quote him:
"The priest disvalues, dissanctifies nature: it is only at the price of this that he exists at all. -- Disobedience of God, that is to say of the priest, of the 'Law', now acquires the name 'sin'; the means of 'becoming reconciled again with God' are, as is only to be expected, means by which subjection to the priest is only more thoroughly guaranteed: the priest alone 'redeems' .... From a
psychological point of view, 'sins' are indispensable in any society organized by priests: they are the actual levers of power, the priest lives on sins, he needs 'the commission of sins' .... Supreme law: 'God forgives him who repents' -- in plain language: who subjects himself to the priest." -- Nietzsche
Brian goes on to another assertion:
"I am an EXTREMELY logical man." -- B.
RevG
How logical is it to make unfounded assertions? Your post smacks of an emotional outburst, it sounds to me that you are trying to convince yourself more than anyone here. Where is the logic behind believing that God would punish or reward people; human problems are for humans to solve. Appealing to the justice of God is a cowardly means of avoiding our moral responsibility to contribute to the betterment of humanity.
"Don't tell me things just popped into thin air or that they came to some semblance of design over millions of years, that's ridiculous and defies the laws of rational thinking." -- B
RevG
Here we see a strawman being constructed, and more Petitio principii fallacies. First, Mr. McKinsey never said that things 'just popped into thin air'; second, Brian begs several questions, most notably:
1) What evidence is there that nature has a "semblance of design"? Since we don't have a 'nondesign' universe to compare our own, your statement is foolish.
2) What exactly "defies the laws of rational thinking"? You Brian made up the thin air nonsense; so if anything "defies the laws of rational thinking" is your resorting to a strawman.
"Please remember though that God has made even the wicked for his day of wrath and it is he himself who gives us even the POWER to have faith." -- B.
RevG
How do you know that Brian? Or are you just taking the idiot Paul at his word? Paul admits he lied, he also said that Jesus appeared to the 12 apostles after his resurrection -- are you aware that according to the gospels and Acts, Judas was not among those Jesus appeared to? So who are we to believe, the Gospels or Paul?
"Really, it doesn't matter how many arguments of logic I give you whatsoever for my faith." -- B.
RevG
You have yet to give a SINGLE logical argument to anything; all you have given is an emotional outburst, not unlike I repeatedly run into when Muslims are pushed into the corner over the absurd nature of the Qur'an.
"I CHALLENGE YOU TO SINCERELY ASK GOD TO REVEAL HIMSELF
TO YOU!!!!!" -- B.
RevG
I challenge you to prove that the Bible has anything to do with God. Where is its evidence of divinity? Is it with its endless genocides? Is it where Jesus cannot argue effectively and resorts to repeated logical fallacies, especially the argumentum ad hominem. Jesus never once gives a satisfactory answer to any question given him, instead he resorts to name calling like a cheap two-bit preacher peddling a new religion. Christians hold this fraud to be God, yet he supposedly said: "No man has ever ascended into heaven"; if so, then where did Ezekiel go? The Jesus described in the gospels is totally ignorant of Judaism, it is obvious that 'Jesus' is a fictional character invented by Gentiles.
"As a matter of fact the Bible says that God used the "foolishness" of preaching to reach people because that is
what pleased him." -- B.
RevG
Correction: The unknown authors of the Bible who repeatedly contradict each other SAY that God said this and that. The only reason Paul called the wisdom of this world [as if there is any other kind] 'foolishness' is because he tried his hand at logical argument and failed. So he ad hom-ed 'wisdom' itself. If your bible had any credibility, it would have SHOWN how the 'wisdom of this world' was foolishness. Instead it merely asserts it. Paul is BEGGING THE QUESTION of how it is foolish; if he has some holy spook in him, don't you think the spook could have given an argument so logical that everyone would have been stunned.
The Bible also says this: NASB Mark 16: 17-18, "15 And He [Jesus] said to them, '17 And these signs will accompany those who have believed: 18 ... if they drink ANY deadly poison, it shall not hurt them ....'"
Do you believe Jesus enough to take him up at his word? I challenge you to take a spoonful of liquid draino on your tongue; if it hurts, then either Jesus' promise is vain, or you are NO BELIEVER AT ALL.
"You have to seriously be seeking THE TRUTH and WISDOM to find God." -- B.
RevG
Here we see the insolence and arrogance of the Christian; so Brian, you have this truth and wisdom, yet cannot even provide a logical argument in your favor. Pathetic. Your Jesus promised that his followers would know all the truth, well in case you are unaware of it, Christians cannot and have never AGREED on what this truth is; and they have repeatedly killed each other in the name of this 'truth'. Just look at the Catholics and Protestants killing each other in the Thiry Year War which left between 10-20 million dead. Whatever the truth is, it isn't in your Bible.
"I've already got more evidence stacked in my favor - the whole creation." -- B.
RevG
As a deist I also believe in the Creation, but not in your vision of it. You Christians think that a Jewish moral parable is a historical event; how lame. You have committed another fallacy, +non-sequitur (does not follow). Can be demonstrated when an conclusion does not logically follow the premises. I went to school with a Muslim who argued that the Creation proved that Allah and the Qur'an were true; so I will ask you to prove it like I asked him previously.
"I have scrutinized it [the Bible] and continue to do so now after 6 years and still have not found fault with it." -- B.
This only proves that your standards of critical thinking are low. Do you have anything of substance to say? I will conclude with a Bible quote and a question:
II Chron 18: 22, "22 Now therefore, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; for the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you."
Tell us Brian, how can you show that YHWH did not put a decieving spirit in the mouth of Jesus and Paul? Unless you can do that, than the entire NT is suspect even for someone who believes it.
peace
Rev Gadfly
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Correction: Formerly: Re: Brian Emig's challenge -- Rev Gadfly, 10:10:20 03/02/02 Sat
RevG
My reference to in the 09:58:13 03/02/02 Sat post to this thread about Ezekiel, should have been Elijah.
II Kings 2:11, "Elijah went up by a whilwind to heaven."
Ezekiel was pulled by his hair up between heaven and earth, Ezekiel 8:3.
peace
Rev Gadfly
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