You know Kathy, we’ve been fairly blunt with you today. Flippant, too. And it’s tough when people talk to/about you that way. I’m sorry for that.
If we could cut through all the rhetoric for a second, I’d like to commiserate with you. A little over 4 years ago, I was a very dedicated Christian. I had some doubts, but they weren’t about the Christian faith, just my understanding of it.
I felt like there were problems in my beliefs about the gospel. I believed in a literal Hell, and I believed a lot of people would be going there. But I had a very hard time squaring that with a loving God. I had matured enough to realize that most people were pretty decent. Not perfect, certainly, but good people who cared about others and typically wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t think such people deserved Hell. In fact, like Paul, I often thought that if God would accept it, I’d gladly go to Hell myself, if it would save my friends and family. And if everyone else could be added into that deal too, even better.
So if I felt that way, could I be more compassionate than God? Of course not. But I had a very hard time finding anything in the Bible that backed up an idea that most people, regardless of creed or belief would be saved.
I didn’t give up though. I knew about Universalists, so I decided to read up on their reasons for thinking everyone went to Heaven. It sounded good, but I just wasn’t convinced by their arguments. I just didn’t see the Bible teaching such a doctrine, and I still believed the Bible was the inerrant word of God.
I was in a state of flux.
And that’s the position I was in when I first ran across articles that pointed out flaws in the Bible. I was shocked by what the articles said, but since I didn’t have any answers against them at the moment, I got busy with research. I didn’t even comment on the articles — I just went to work. It wasn’t about winning any arguments; it was simply a search for answers.
I think that frame of mind I was in made all the difference for me. Deep down, I was already struggling. The doctrines I had long believed in, and even taught to others, didn’t fit together in my mind as well as they once had.
That’s probably the difference between you and me. I get the feeling that you question nothing about your faith. Not trying to put you down about that; just making an observation.
For me, discovering that the Bible was not the perfect book I had always thought it to be, and finding out that some of these church leaders I had always admired knew of these problems but never spoke of them, helped me make sense of a lot of things. It took time, and it wasn’t easy to come to the realizations, but everything finally fell into place for me when I realized Christianity was just another religion. For the first time, I finally understood the sentiment of that line from “Amazing Grace,” I once was blind, but now I see…
I don’t know if that’s helpful to you at all. Maybe one day it will be. Maybe one day, something will make you ask a few questions, and you’ll think back to those non- believers who were so insistent that Christianity was certainly not the only way. If that day comes, I hope you’ll find this exchange helpful and realize you’re not alone.
Finding Truth 
“Take Tyson’s comment that atheists memorize and go into a state of zen over – that God is a “ever decreasing pocket of ignorance” – it s amusingly actually quite the contrary. ”
Tell that to Galileo.
The church seems to tend to lag behind in accepting scientific discoveries as truth. God is commonly used as a source of willful ignorance by the religious.
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@anaivethinker:
I’m reminded of the scripture in Solomon (16:7) that says (NRSV): ” … for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
In other words, God is more interested in the motive behind the things a person says or does. A Christian may faithfully read the bible, attend church regularly, pray everyday, and defend their faith, but if their heart is not in the right place (i.e., to honor God), then they are nothing short of a hypocrite.
Moreover, judging others is forbidden and your comment clearly illustrates why.
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Nowhere does it say that God controls all of people’s actions?
You mean except https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen+25%3A23%3BExodus+9%3A16%2C+33%3A19%3BIsaiah+29%3A16%3B+45%3A9%3BActs+13%3A48%3B+Rom+8%3A28-30%3B+Rom+9%3A11-21%3B+Eph+1%3A4-5%2C+11%3B+2+Thes+2%3A11-12%3B+2+Tim+1%3A9&version=NIV“>here.
My point stands firm and resolute. The buck stops with the creator of the universe. And a god that guides everything has no grounds for getting irate when things go just as it has planned them in advance—unless. of course, it’s psychotic.
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Why would it need to be, Brandon – why do you need a god so desperately? What psychological feelings of inadequacy are driving you to need someone superior to yourself, and why haven’t you sought therapy for it?
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“Gen 14:10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of asphalt pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled; some fell there, and the remainder fled to the mountains.” – yeah, I recall that one, that was the Tall Tale where 100-year old Abe and his 300 Ninja-shepherds routed five seasoned Mesopotamian armies and chased them all the way to Dan, despite the fact that they had Lot’s family and all of his livestock along to slow them down. I remember I laughed for a week! Thanks for reminding me, now I can get a second round of laughter out of it!
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“The church seems to tend to lag behind in accepting scientific discoveries as truth.
Apparently you know how to do nothing but spout rhetoric as fact. The much ballyhoed example of Galileo (whatever would atheist do without him?)ignores the fact that scientists themselves have resisted certain truths because consensus can often get in the way of ANY set of people being slow to accept new things. Not that Gallileo was all that revolutionary even to “the church” (which atheist seem particularly dull in recognizing was not and is not the Roman Catholic church) .
“God is commonly used as a source of willful ignorance by the religious.”
and as you demonstrate rhetoric is commonly used as a source for the ignorant as well.
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“You mean except ”
My point stands firm and resolute. If you think any of those passages teach that god control all the actions of human being you are a nit.
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@william: those are fantastic questions, I had anticipated the problem of evil would come up. If I said, “Yeah God planned on destroying Sodom from the beginning and programmed the plate tectonic shift from the very beginning of time at the Big Bang” it opens up a slew of secondary problems. The most significant is the problem of evil.
I don’t want to bore you with a treatise here, so I’ll be very brief (hopefully). Ultimately, I think we don’t fully understand the moral relationship between Creator and humanity and the problem of evil must assume that we understand it. Sodom did not have even 10 righteous men, so God destroyed it for its wickedness. But, God permitted Job to undergo suffering even though Job was righteous. What does this say? Well, it’s complicated. God can judge through natural disaster, but also some people will suffer that don’t deserve this by moral standing. Has God wronged them? You need to construct some theory in order to judge God and condemn God, but is this construction actually true? Both the problem of evil and theodicies are constructions that rest on certain assumptions.
In Judaism it was not clear what was the character of God. God was very high and holy (separated), unreachable, and a divine judge. But, we learned the character of God when it was revealed to us in Jesus. Jesus endured mocking and torture, extreme suffering to provide us with atonement, NOTto absorb God’s wrath, but to provide us a place to come before God and request forgiveness and mercy. This action reveals God’s character to be the utmost humility and that of love. That’s why John said God is love.
Of course there are evil forces out there, be they evil ideologies, selfish desires, or if you believe in Satan or whatever. Whatever they are, they are evil. But, they do not come from God. God just permits them temporarily until this universe is destroyed and remade into a new creation.
So much for a brief comment. . . and your other question about humans being natural, I guess I don’t really have a problem with someone claiming humans are only natural. I don’t support the idea of “supernatural” because I think it’s an unnecessarily constructed idea. Along those lines, why can’t the soul be natural? What does it mean to be natural? This is actually a difficult philosophical question to answer.
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“yeah, I recall that one, ”
🙂 glad to be of assistance in jogging your slowing memory. Pity you hadn’t recalled it before making a fool of yourself claiming the geology of the area was not known.
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“Has God wronged them? You need to construct some theory in order to judge God and condemn God, but is this construction actually true?”
or, has god even played a role?
I mean, I get what you’re saying about us not being able to fully understand the relationship between creator and creation, but the bible uses certain terms, defines them at times, terms like “love,” “mercy,” “justice”, etc, etc.
It goes on in places to say that we should do good when it’s in our power to do so…
So I think we can know those terms. I think that when the bible identifies god as such, we can know what that means, and if we cant understand the descriptions of god when they’re given to descriptive god, then that presents many more questions.
Here’s how i look at it. The bible makes certain claims – do those claims hold up? The bible says that god is just, yet it shows him punishing certain people that did no wrong (david’s baby with bathsheba – sure it punished david as well, but …). The bible says that god is merciful, yet we see him act without mercy…
So, the question i think is, “does the bible really speak for god?” the “problem of evil” shows a problem – god is either contradictory, or the bible somewhat flawed, or the bible is just a product of man.
and since god is said to have man write the bible, questioning the messenger to ensure the message is actually from the one they claim it’s from, is not the same as questioning the king.
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@Nan: nice scripture, I forgot about that one! And, I see you use NRSV as well. 😉 I agree with you, and knowing that we can appear to be doing good even with evil hearts is fearful. It should cause us to examine ourselves for sure!
@archaeopteryx1: Arch, to me God is not a psychological crutch. Do you think my belief has ridded me of suffering and feelings of meaninglessness? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s complicated. The path toward psychological stability is not always connected with what people believe. And, when it is connected, is this correlation or causation? How about I get in your head now. Why do you want my belief to be a psychological crutch? Is that your psychological crutch?
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Nate,
Feel free to move any discussion generated by this comment into a separate thread (attached to a separate post, I guess), and direct us to follow, if you think it may help to keep this metadiscussion separate.
————————–
I’ve been following some of the messes in the last few comment threads quietly.
Kathy said here, “Again, Nate, ‘finding truth’ (IF that is your TRUE goal) can only truly be done through open dialogue with those who disagree… and if BOTH sides apply objectivity, the truth WILL surface eventually.”
I agree that this is possibly the best way to have hope of arriving at truth in these matters, though I won’t go so far as to say that it’s a sure thing we’ll get there.
My mantra since the beginning of my recent questioning had been that the truth should withstand scrutiny. That’s why I started reading blogs like this one. As a Christian, I was applying scrutiny to my own beliefs. Now, as an unbeliever (am I still even tentative? IDK), I’m happy to have Christians posting in the comments sections, to serve the same purpose.
TBlacksman (formerly known as “Mike Anthony”, IIRC) has not been contributing productively to the conversations here. I asked him once or twice to put more substance and less vitriol in his comments, but he refused. I explained how it detracts from any worthwhile points he may be making (and it makes it harder to tell what they are), but he expressly didn’t care. He seems to think that the ends justify the means (whereas I tried to explain how it’s counterproductive). Not only have several unbelievers chided him, but even several other Christians here have attempted to get him to change his tone, but he still refuses.
It seems to me that he’s not constructing any coherent positive cases for his beliefs or the challenges he’s making to claims made by you and others here. He mostly handwaves and obfuscates and take us into conversations that go far off topic, and lead nowhere useful that I can tell.
So, here it is Nate, my request: please ban TBlacksman (Mike). (Or at least put it to a vote.)
He has singlehandedly turned the comments sections of the posts on your blog in which he participates into shitstorms of frustratingly useless disagreement. (Note the qualifiers; disagreement can be productive.) The “signal to noise ratio” of the conversation here has been drastically reduced, and I hope it can be restored.
If some Christians here disagree and think I’m (we’re) just biased–I’d say let’s have some of your other friends join you in the dialog here–as long as they can be civil, and at least attempt to construct coherent, logical arguments for their positions.
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“I asked him once or twice to put more substance and less vitriol in his comments, but he refused. I explained how it detracts from any worthwhile points he may be making (and it makes it harder to tell what they are), but he expressly didn’t care.”
Rata as i’ve told you and others before the presence of Arch’s and Arks vitriol LOOOOOONG before I ever arrived – name calling, cursing, slander and hate speech – FOREVER rebuts your claims that you wish to ban me for “detracting” and exposes your hypocrisy
Its a point proven by their many vitriolic posts that if I supported your atheistic viewpoints you would EMBRACE me with OPEN LOVING arms 🙂 as you do the foaming at the mouth arck brothers
So be my guest and ban Away. i have told Nate on many occasions it doesn’t matter to me. I know that beyond the ability to answer you back with your own style better than you can (collectively) give what really enrages you is how many of your alleged “contradictions” have been exposed by me to be on veeeery shaky grounds at best.
I only have one demand should Nate decided to follow through on your request _ don;t mention my name on the blog or on comments either directly or indirectly. I say demand because as wordpress webmaster myself I know it just is not possible to ban anyone with the amount of free email addresses and IPs on the net.
You are free to continue slandering Christians in general from the NT era to present day as you do often and what this blog is actually about but name my name or attempt to identify me indirectly then I am will not be obliged to abide the banning.
As matter of fact heres a deal. Don’t mention my name nor respond to me and I can go softly into that good night right now.
Deal? 🙂
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Note how Miguelito denigrates that which is backed by evidence, while promoting that which has none. What a Schmoo!
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” but even several other Christians here have attempted to get him to change his tone, but he still refuses.”
Outside of kathy and anaivethinker (who despite having an extremely bend back gentle tone has been nevertheless been laced with vitriol by arch and company with no talk of a ban of his abusers) and possibly Port I haven’t seen any Christian engaged here. There have been two drive byers who by not presenting anything else seemed to have just been sent for the purpose or really had no Christian convictions so – tokens? I dunno.
Would have been more convincing had they hung around to say something else.
I will say that I agree at this point there is no real productive dialogue going on but then there never was or has been. Some of the greatest anger from Nate’s regular readers came about when they had certain long held alleged contradictions debunked. That pretty much confirmed that the whole “place of dialogue” and discussions is just quite the farce – which is why I am quite willing to leave as i said given the conditions just explained.
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“In Judaism it was not clear what was the character of God.” – How odd, when it’s very clear to me – we created him, in our own image.
“Jesus endured mocking and torture, extreme suffering to provide us with atonement” – as reported to us by men who never met him.
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“Note how Miguelito denigrates that which is backed by evidence,”
What would that be Arch? the primary evidence I have asked for but never received or the evidence of everything coming out of nothing our high priest claims and you posted a video of to show Kathy how uninformed she is. Or was it the duck and run for cover of Finkelstein being debunked on his David hypothesis.
What a laugher. Citing the consensus of only your skeptic scholars as evidence, You are as always a funny funny guy.
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Obviously I didn’t claim that the geology of the area was unknown, as I specifically mentioned that Egyptians came to the area to mine bitumen. Possibly you should get your tri-focals changed. I said your son of god hadn’t a clue when it came to knowing the cause of the destruction of the area.
Comprehension problem?
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“Comprehension problem?”
None whatsoever. I comprehend fully you are attempting to spin yourself out of your latest blunder.
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“Why do you want my belief to be a psychological crutch?” – It has nothing to do with what I want, but rather with what it is. Since there are no gods, the problem could only be psychological.
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In addition to being a legend in his own mind, now he’s a wordpress webmaster – a wordpress webmaster that spells like a ten-year old. I’d bet that Nate can ban faster than Mikey can get new email addresses, and IP addresses aren’t that easy to fake – I can’t imagine it would be hard to guess which new commenter is Mike, because I doubt that he could behave any differently than he does.
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You’ve GOT to be kidding! Do you REALLY think you’ve debunked anything? You’ve accomplished nothing, except waste yours and everyone else’s time.
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“I comprehend fully you are attempting to spin yourself out of your latest blunder.” – said the dervish.
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@TBlacksman,
“Rata as i’ve told you and others before the presence of Arch’s and Arks vitriol LOOOOOONG before I ever arrived – name calling, cursing, slander and hate speech – FOREVER rebuts your claims that you wish to ban me for ‘detracting’ and exposes your hypocrisy
“Its a point proven by their many vitriolic posts that if I supported your atheistic viewpoints you would EMBRACE me with OPEN LOVING arms 🙂 as you do the foaming at the mouth arck brothers”
1. In the interest of fairness: I’ve already admitted that ark’s and arch’s tones and approaches are sometimes less than ideal, and I invited Nate to moderate/advise if he saw fit. Personally, I’ve often wondered if they were treating the subject matter fairly. However, I tend to engage in more conversation in with others, as I found it more productive for my goals.
Nevertheless, I find your posts to be far more off the mark than theirs may or may not be. I suspect I’m not alone in this assessment.
And at least when they’re poking fun or insulting, they’re funny. I could see that even as a believer; even if I felt insulted, at least they might have a point. I can’t say the same for most of your comments.
2. A weak/agnostic atheist need not necessarily build a constructive case for there being no deity; he/she need only show that the claims of revealed deities are improbable/implausible. By constrast, a theist claiming revelation has more work to do. You’re failing at your task, and setting a poor example of behavior.
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Ark,
me: “You and Neil Tyson and every other atheist LIES to yourselves by believing that knowing how it all works somehow disproves a Creator.”
“Wrong, Kathy. Very wrong.
The atheist is in no position to categorically state there is or is not a creator.
What we ARE saying is this:
The evidence offered up so far for this creator deity, especially by theists such as yourself and Mike does not warrant consideration and can be dismissed.”
Wrong, very wrong Ark. What atheists like Nate and others here clearly claim is that God or a Creator doesn’t exist.. period. You all make this claim and then always try to backtrack when cornered. If you truly are in “no position” to state God doesn’t exist.. then STOP claiming we are not created beings.. that we evolved from pond scum, fully explainable through your god.. science. Which, it is most certainly NOT fully explainable through your god. Your god says we shouldn’t be… quite the opposite of explaining existence.
And you are especially wrong in claiming that there is no “warranted” evidence for the God of the Bible.. you are FACTUALLY wrong on that. Again, the evidence for the God of the Bible far exceeds all other religions.. that warrants consideration.
“It is unverifiable, not falsifiable and is largely derived from erroneous fallacious religious text.”
Then how do you know that ANYTHING about the past is accurate? I bet you accept plenty of accounts that come from non Christians.. huh?
The overwhelming majority of the Bible which gives dates, names, places etc.. are VERY MUCH verifiable. And all of that can also be falsified. And also proven erroneous.. but despite the desperation of people like you and Nate and others, nothing’s been proven erroneous.
And this blog is full of comments that offer evidence for the truth of the Bible.. I don’t know where you’ve been.
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