I've warned him for the last time to stop doing this and to limit his replies here to single points...since narrowing the issues down that far works wonders at preventing deceived apologists from wiggling out of an argument. If you doubt that, ask yourself how many liars are cheerful at the thought of being grilled on the witness stand by an experienced prosecutor.
For example, while
"how do you know the bible is the word of God"
is rather easy for an apologist to tackle, a more nuanced challenge can cause apologists to have a bad day. Consider:
"what rule of hermeneutics am I violating when I use Galatians 1:1, 11-12
to clarify Paul's unqualified "received" in 1st Corinthians 15:3?"
or
"aren't you putting just as much faith in mere human tradition as Roman
Catholics do,when you treat the historical evidence in favor of the Protestant
NT canonas if it revealed God's intentions equally as strongly as biblical evidence?"
Catholics do,when you treat the historical evidence in favor of the Protestant
NT canonas if it revealed God's intentions equally as strongly as biblical evidence?"
I trust that the reader is satisfied that I correctly refute AP on this point: forcing the questions at issue to be narrowly drawn dramatically increases the probability that the person in error will not be able to save face when their errors are exposed.
However, somebody may fall into the same error AP does, and perhaps think that because AP posted all that crap here, it "refutes" whatever i believe unless I offer a point by point rebuttal.
I now respond to most of AP's assertions. Hopefully AP will learn to argue more succinctly so that the reader will be more easily enabled to detect which of us is in the wrong:
a) the Christian interpretation of something is the only reasonable one, or
b) the atheist viewpoint is unreasonable.
Those apologists are all high on crack. They don't have a robust understanding of "reasonable", they think it is a synonym for "biblical". That would most especially be true for the Calvinists, the presuppositionalists and mostly the Van Tilians. Jeff Durbin and Sye Ten Bruggencate are examples of the latter. Steve Hays might deny being in the same group, but his fanatical committment to bible inerracy makes it reasonable to lump him into the group anyway. He's still going to say any concept is crazy unless it harmonizes with the bible.
This is a powerful argument, since you refuse to say that the only reason 2 Christians disagree on bible interpretation is because one of them is unsaved or insincere or has unconfessed sin, etc. You know full well that equally saved, equally sincere, equally smart, equally Christ-walking Christians can disagree with each other, for decades, lifetimes and centuries, about how to interpret something in the bible. Since at least one such person in every such debate logically has to be in the wrong, they become a supporting evidence that a Christian's attempt to learn hermeneutics will never suffice to make them see actual biblical truth. If there is any person who actually does have the correct interpretation, they cannot demonstrate they have it. Apparently, there's nothing more special about the bible than there is in any other similarly ancient piece of theological sophistry: the meaning of all those other ancient religious tracts can also be endlessly debated.
I hope everybody goes to jail.
Furthermore, the fact that Christians have disagreed on biblical theology for so many centuries sounds more like a case of the bible making ambiguous statements about unprovable premises, another justification for skeptics to give the bible the middle finger and consider earning a living and raising a family more important than trifling with somebody on the internet about things nobody can ever nail down with any reasonable certainty...like god's "will"...a thing Christians could not be in more disagreement about, despite the presumed authenticity of their salvation, sincerity of purpose, and respect for context, genre and bible "inerrancy".
And contrary to your predictable excuse, no, you don't do anything by invoking god's mysterious ways or "well maybe god...", except demonstrate that you have lost the debate. Since heretics appeal to such excuses and you find them unpersuasive, logic dictates that YOU not be allowed to benefit from this cop-out either.
Hume said it best: Commit it to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
But yes, this is how apostle Paul and Jesus thought, so there's no compelling reason to distinguish them from typical cultists and fanatics who employ the same excuse in the effort to facilitate a fallacious-yet-useful "us v them" herd-mentality in their group. That kind of mentality is intentionally designed to shelter one from the rigors of logic and argumentation. You don't believe in Jesus because you aren't spiritual. Quick, easy, and let's get back to saying grace over dinner for 5 hours because the infinite God is worthy of so much more.
If any human being secretly willed for his subjects to disobey his revealed will, we'd call that idiot a sadist. You will say human analogies break down with God, but perhaps they do because god is like every other concept for which human logic is insufficient; both are false theories. yoru god's allege being "inscrutible" and "incomprehensible" might actually suggest that literally NOTHING about him can be reasonably deduced...whether that threatens your sense of theological security or not.
I've snipped the bible quotations you posted. Probably because your god infallibly predestined me to...which means I didn't have a choice...which means the only way God could still blame me for failing to deviate from infallible predestination decree is for him to be a sadistic lunatic.
And then you want me to think the only 'true' love is the love from this god?
snip
That's important because if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, he was a false prophet at best, and his followers who composed the NT book certainly were false witnesses, which would then mean the only thing you gain by defaulting to the OT YHWH is his calling for your death for having followed a worker of miracles who wasn't preaching the truth. Deuteronomy 13 and 18.
Hopefully, then, you can understand why I agree with Paul that Christianity's veracity cannot be rescued if Jesus didn't rise from the dead. You lose the resurrection, you lose the significance of Calvinism, debating god's sovereignty, refuting the Arminians, the transcendental argument and your motive to post trainloads of old hat to other people's blogs.
If you are concerned about my soul, you might consider answering my objections to the historicity of Jesus resurrection...like the fact that 1st Corinthians 15:3-4 is not historical evidence of early resurrection belief among the apostles, because it is not a 'creed' in the first place. And numerous other objections.
If you wish to prove me wrong, I'll start a new blog piece where I confront you, one point at a time, with my objections to the resurrection of Jesus, and we'll just see how long you last.
The sad fact is that Jesus was nowhere near the loudmouth today's Calvinists are in stuffing the scriptures down the throats of Gentiles, or warning them about hell fire.
So you might consider that the only reason you are concerned for my soul is because you have allowed later NT authors to pervert the original gospel of Jesus. And of course I assume you know that I designate apostle Paul as a heretic...and I think using bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic does little more than facilitate misunderstanding.
ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:34 PMThat's because many prominent Christian apologists, like Frank Turek, overstate their case and insist either
It seems a reoccurring theme in all your blogs is about about "reasonableness".
a) the Christian interpretation of something is the only reasonable one, or
b) the atheist viewpoint is unreasonable.
Those apologists are all high on crack. They don't have a robust understanding of "reasonable", they think it is a synonym for "biblical". That would most especially be true for the Calvinists, the presuppositionalists and mostly the Van Tilians. Jeff Durbin and Sye Ten Bruggencate are examples of the latter. Steve Hays might deny being in the same group, but his fanatical committment to bible inerracy makes it reasonable to lump him into the group anyway. He's still going to say any concept is crazy unless it harmonizes with the bible.
So, in answer to that I've written the following.No, it only assumes what is plainly obvious, that even if somebody earned advanced degrees in biblical theology, or took a course in "hermeneutics", this does precisely nothing to ensure that the way they interpret the bible is "correct". They are prevented from babyish errors, perhaps, but that's all. And if you foolishly insist that "bible inerrancy" be used as a herrmeneutic, you further harm the whole purpose of interpretation.
----//If even Calvinists can disagree with each other over what the bible is teaching, then ----apparently learning hermenutics is an exercise in futility. //
That seems to assume that the Bible has to have been written so that every reader would come the exact same conclusions.
This is a powerful argument, since you refuse to say that the only reason 2 Christians disagree on bible interpretation is because one of them is unsaved or insincere or has unconfessed sin, etc. You know full well that equally saved, equally sincere, equally smart, equally Christ-walking Christians can disagree with each other, for decades, lifetimes and centuries, about how to interpret something in the bible. Since at least one such person in every such debate logically has to be in the wrong, they become a supporting evidence that a Christian's attempt to learn hermeneutics will never suffice to make them see actual biblical truth. If there is any person who actually does have the correct interpretation, they cannot demonstrate they have it. Apparently, there's nothing more special about the bible than there is in any other similarly ancient piece of theological sophistry: the meaning of all those other ancient religious tracts can also be endlessly debated.
But God didn't inspire the Bible to be completely understood upon first reading.I was talking about Christians, who have been reading the bible for years, still disagreeing with each other. Nobody said anything about correctly interpreting the whole thing at the first reading.
Or even multiple reading throughout a lifetime.The irony is that many Christians, all of them Arminian to one degree or other, would disagree, and say God always desires the genuinely born-again, sin-confessing, light-walking sincere Christian to correctly understand whatever part of the bible that they ask God to guide their understanding of. Therefore, while my argument might not faze YOU, a Calvinist, my argument about why this 'god' doesn't do for us today what he allegedly did in biblical times and MAKE us believe either infallibly or with forceful presentation, remains a legitimate rebuttal to the Arminians...who stand a chance of taking my argument, bypassing Calvinism and other modes of Christianity, and going straight to skeptical jail, don't collect $200.
I hope everybody goes to jail.
The subjects involved are too lofty/august/transcendent to exhaust the topics in a single book of any size.That's funny, I thought Christians had a "holy spirit" who not only "teaches" them (John 14:26) but CAUSES them and others to understand or else do and believe whatever he wants them to do and believe (Exodus 4:21, Numbers 22:35, 38, 1st Kings 22:19-23, Ezra 1:1, Jeremiah 20:9, Acts 9:3-8, Acts 16:14, Revelation 17:17)? See especially Ezekiel 38-39, where God characterizes a future army's attack on Israel as the army being a fish on a hook, and god is drawing them against Israel. If God then chooses whether or not he will cause a person to correctly discern truth, he can hardly blame those whom he wishes to keep ignorant. But because the biblical answer is "who are you to answer back to god" (Romans 9:20), I'm pretty sure this particular fictional character is merely a sadistic lunatic.
Furthermore, the fact that Christians have disagreed on biblical theology for so many centuries sounds more like a case of the bible making ambiguous statements about unprovable premises, another justification for skeptics to give the bible the middle finger and consider earning a living and raising a family more important than trifling with somebody on the internet about things nobody can ever nail down with any reasonable certainty...like god's "will"...a thing Christians could not be in more disagreement about, despite the presumed authenticity of their salvation, sincerity of purpose, and respect for context, genre and bible "inerrancy".
And contrary to your predictable excuse, no, you don't do anything by invoking god's mysterious ways or "well maybe god...", except demonstrate that you have lost the debate. Since heretics appeal to such excuses and you find them unpersuasive, logic dictates that YOU not be allowed to benefit from this cop-out either.
Hume said it best: Commit it to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
Morever, it's providentially inspired in such a way that it takes the Spirit of God to understand it, perceive it spiritually and believe it.That's the same excuse non-Calvinists use to explain the "error" of Calvinism when they are asked how they explain that Calvinists can be true Christains yet adopt that heresy. Many Arminians insist that Calvinism cannot quality as heterodox, it is purely unorthodox and is worthy dividing fellowship over. Remember Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel?. Apparently, "you just aren't spiritual" is a false excuse that could be employed by anybody to get away from having to actually justify their bible-interpretation on the merits.
To those who have spiritual eyes and ears.How conveniently useless to argumentation: see above.
But yes, this is how apostle Paul and Jesus thought, so there's no compelling reason to distinguish them from typical cultists and fanatics who employ the same excuse in the effort to facilitate a fallacious-yet-useful "us v them" herd-mentality in their group. That kind of mentality is intentionally designed to shelter one from the rigors of logic and argumentation. You don't believe in Jesus because you aren't spiritual. Quick, easy, and let's get back to saying grace over dinner for 5 hours because the infinite God is worthy of so much more.
Just as Jesus spoke in parables not to elucidate, but to veil His meaning [Mark 4:11ff.; Matt. 13:10ff.; Luke 8:10ff.; John 12:39ff.].That doesn't get rid of the problem, he also told the disciples to reveal whatever hidden things he formerly told them. Matthew 10:27. See also Matthew 28:20, the part of the great commission most Christians miss. So Jesus' intention to veil his teachings before the crucifixion isn't supposed to be used to justify continued veiling after he issued the Great Commission. But I suppose your presupposition of biblical inerrancy will motivate you to simply combine your theory with something apostle Paul said, and presto, look how many rainbows we can created by drawing with all the crayons in the box at the same time.
And in such a way that as people fallibly read it down through the centuries God's providential plan in & for HIStory unfolds as He predetermined it.Why should anybody find study of biblical hermeneutics as helping them to figure out how to avoid misinterpreting the bible? After all, you will not credit their getting something right in the bible to their study, you will simply say God predestined them to get it right. If they get something wrong in the bible, you will not credit this to their misunderstanding of hermeneutics, or the limited nature of the evidence, you will conclude God predestined them to get it wrong. Your problem still exists: We don't have to worry about anything, ever, because nothing can possibly happen except what God has infallibly predestined...including sin. That's Calvinism, stripped of all the car-salesman pitch that James White constantly smothers it with. See Steve Hays' admission that God secretly wills ALL disobedience to his revealed will. Link. Which can only mean that when God gets angry over somebody's sin, he is getting angry that they did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted, why he wanted and how he wanted.
If any human being secretly willed for his subjects to disobey his revealed will, we'd call that idiot a sadist. You will say human analogies break down with God, but perhaps they do because god is like every other concept for which human logic is insufficient; both are false theories. yoru god's allege being "inscrutible" and "incomprehensible" might actually suggest that literally NOTHING about him can be reasonably deduced...whether that threatens your sense of theological security or not.
I've snipped the bible quotations you posted. Probably because your god infallibly predestined me to...which means I didn't have a choice...which means the only way God could still blame me for failing to deviate from infallible predestination decree is for him to be a sadistic lunatic.
And then you want me to think the only 'true' love is the love from this god?
Not when you have an all-powerful God who allegedly has the ability to MAKE people believe whatever he wants them to believe. Exodus 4:21, Numbers 22:35, 38, 1st Kings 22:19-23, Ezra 1:1, Jeremiah 20:9, Acts 9:3-8, Acts 16:14, Revelation 17:17. Your objection is frivolous; your Calvinist god can make ANYBODY understand ANYTHING he wishes for them to understand. So the problem of why equally saved equally sincere Christians disagree for centuries on how to interpret biblical phrases remains. Of course, you offer one solution: God causes everything, including misunderstanding, but you have to remember that I also preach my skeptical arguments to Arminians, that is: some of the power of my skeptical arguments draws from presumptions about God that are Arminian (i.e., god wants everybody to get saved and avoid teaching heresy).
ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:34 PM
Moreover, it's difficult for ANY document on an important and involved topic to be written in such a way that multiple interpretations are precluded.
Including non-religious documents. Even an error free book on math can be misunderstood by humans.Not if the author the power to make humans correctly understand it.
Also, other things contribute to differing interpretations like:But since as a Calvinist you are forced to believe that all this misunderstanding is ULTIMATELY caused by God's infallible predestining decree, all you are doing with the above is wasting time on secondary causation. Truth is not served solely by focus on secondary causation. And once again, my skeptical position speaks mostly to Arminian Christians and their assumption that God wants everybody to get saved and avoid heresy.
level of intelligence/aptitude;
level of education;
knowledge of cultural background;
human traditions and presuppositions brought to the text;
amount of time studying the document. A man who has studied the U.S. Constitution (or the Bible) for 50 years will understand it better than someone who has only studied it for 2 years.;
opportunity and access to resources and available time can hinder people. For example, a simple missionary in the 17th century didn't have access to 21st century Logos Bible software; archaeological and textual discoveries etc.;
degree of sinfulness, rebellion and attitudes brought to the text;
As Blaise Pascal wrote in his Pensées:God predestined me to snip your quote.
That IF is so big that I deny its legitimacy.
ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:35 PM
If the Christian God exists, then it's not reasonable to read the Bible, and to expect it to have been written as if the Christian God were the one on trial.
Rather, it's reasonable to expect it to be inspired as if we're on trial and being judged by our attitude toward the God behind the text and the subjects addressed in the book.But only "if" the Christian god exists. That hypothetical is too extreme.
snip
That's old news to me. But more importantly none of it overcomes my interpretation of the biblical evidence Christians typically cite in favor of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection.
ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:47 PM
And all that sets aside the positive evidence for God and the weakness against belief in the Christian God.
Evidence for God
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/im-going-to-list-and-summarize-what-i.html
Required reading for atheists
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/required-reading-for-atheists.html
Making a case for Christianity
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/12/making-case-for-christianity.html
A case for Christ
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-case-for-christ.html
Common Objections to Christianity from Skeptics
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/qa_steve_hays.html
Book Reviews of Recent Atheist Authors by Christian Apologists https://misclane.blogspot.com/2013/09/book-reviews-of-recent-atheist-authors.html
That's important because if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, he was a false prophet at best, and his followers who composed the NT book certainly were false witnesses, which would then mean the only thing you gain by defaulting to the OT YHWH is his calling for your death for having followed a worker of miracles who wasn't preaching the truth. Deuteronomy 13 and 18.
Hopefully, then, you can understand why I agree with Paul that Christianity's veracity cannot be rescued if Jesus didn't rise from the dead. You lose the resurrection, you lose the significance of Calvinism, debating god's sovereignty, refuting the Arminians, the transcendental argument and your motive to post trainloads of old hat to other people's blogs.
I posted the above things because I'm concerned for your soul.But only because God infallibly predestined you to care. If God predestined you to be apathetic toward my soul, you would be. Hence, Calvinist theology steals the soul out of human compassion by turning everything into robots. Your caring attitude thus isn't really your own individual creation. That's not a true friend.
If you are concerned about my soul, you might consider answering my objections to the historicity of Jesus resurrection...like the fact that 1st Corinthians 15:3-4 is not historical evidence of early resurrection belief among the apostles, because it is not a 'creed' in the first place. And numerous other objections.
Not because I'm trying to overwhelm you with information.I'm sorry, Mr. Pinoy, but you've demonstrated, at your own blog and here, that you do indeed happily mistake quantity for quality. You simply do not like being required to limit your replies to singular issues. I suspect it is because you realize that when the issues are narrowed, it makes it much more difficult for you to escape a rebuttal. That is exactly what happened when you tried to argue narrowed issues of bible inerrancy with me.
If you wish to prove me wrong, I'll start a new blog piece where I confront you, one point at a time, with my objections to the resurrection of Jesus, and we'll just see how long you last.
I'm just trying to fill in some of the lacunae in your knowledge.Then God must have infallibly predestined you to be misinformed...the material you linked me to is stuff I already know and stuff I've already rebutted in the draft for my book, not yet published.
And in hopes that you might eventually come to embrace the Savior as your own hope and joy one day.Except that because Jesus didn't preach hell-fire to Gentiles, I have a very reasonable basis to accuse the later NT authors of expanding his message far beyond what he intended, and therefore, your Jesus probably doesn't concern himself with becoming my daily lord anymore than he concerned himself to be the daily lord of the Gentiles he interacted with. For example:
33 And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.What I'm not seeing is any sign that Jesus wanted that guy to do what you think Jesus wants today's Gentiles to do: study the scriptures, or "get saved". Jesus exorcised the demons out of that man. That's not evidence that he "got saved". That man sat at the feet of Jesus. You have no fucking clue what Jesus and that man talked about. That's not evidence that he "got saved". But since in context Jesus wants that man to go away, we can be god-damn sure that Jesus rejects MacArthur's "lordship salvation" doctrine, a doctrine that Calvinists tightly embrace.
34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they ran away and reported it in the city and out in the country.
35 The people went out to see what had happened; and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they became frightened.
36 Those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well.
37 And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked Him to leave them, for they were gripped with great fear; and He got into a boat and returned.
38 But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying,
39 "Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.
(Lk. 8:33-39 NAU)
The sad fact is that Jesus was nowhere near the loudmouth today's Calvinists are in stuffing the scriptures down the throats of Gentiles, or warning them about hell fire.
So you might consider that the only reason you are concerned for my soul is because you have allowed later NT authors to pervert the original gospel of Jesus. And of course I assume you know that I designate apostle Paul as a heretic...and I think using bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic does little more than facilitate misunderstanding.
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-general-challenge-to-annoyed-pinoy.html