So I’ve decided to bring the “Kathy” series to an end. However, we’ve had some fun in those threads when the conversation has gone off into interesting tangents, so I’d like to keep that part of it going for anyone who’s interested. These new threads will no longer focus on Kathy or the things we were discussing with her. So thanks for your time, Kathy! Take care.
There are no real rules for these threads. But to kick off the conversation, I’ll go back to the discussion on Paul that a few of us were having. Laurie views Deut 13 as a prophecy about Paul, so why don’t we take a quick look at it?
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16 You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
I can see how one could apply this to Paul. However, I can also see how Jews could have applied it to Jesus as well, especially if he was claiming divinity for himself. And I’m sure this could have applied to lots of people during Israel’s history. Why should we think it’s pointing to Paul specifically, and why wouldn’t it also apply to Jesus?
Finding Truth 
Uh-oh. Just when we thought it was safe.
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😉 From her article, Kathy must…
love all people (Matt 5:43-48)
*giggles*
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Notice the use of the word “context” in the article? Sound familiar?
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LOL
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I had heard that CocoaPuffs was back:
Words that Kathy Doesn’t Understand
1. Objectivity
2. Proof
3. Fact
4. Evidence
5. Compelling
6. Debate
7. Truth
8. Hearsay
9. Analogy
10. Obfuscate
11. Logical
12. Context
13. Circular Reasoning
14. Bias
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Hey, hey, before this turns into another “Kathy-bashing” session, let’s give her a chance. To her credit, her comment to Laurie was very reasonable and specific.
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Brandon, there were several things in your last comment to Dave that I’d like to discuss in a bit more detail.
This was not my experience, though it may have been for others here. For a very long time, I believed in a literal Hell, and my idea of a True Christian ™ didn’t include most people who called themselves one. It was a horrible set of beliefs, and it weighed on me heavily. Yet I still believed it. My deconversion didn’t come from what I wanted to be true, but from seeing that many of the things I had held to be true didn’t have the kind of evidence I’d thought they did.
In fact, I had pretty much given up the idea that Christianity could be true before the problem of evil really started to resonate with me. And to be honest, the problem of evil doesn’t make me more certain that no god exits — it just makes me more certain that no omnipotent, omnibenevolent god exists.
You may be right about this, but how does one do it? How can we reconcile genocide and the “good” label? It’s said that God is beyond our comprehension, and I’m willing to entertain that notion. But “good” is not beyond my comprehension, nor is “genocide.” I know what those terms mean, and I don’t know of a way to make them fit together without contradiction.
Why is it different? As you say, we can determine if an Ebola vaccine is effective through observation. And through many of these observations we can form a larger, cohesive picture of a particular thing: like the germ theory of disease. While we may not be able to jump from that to the biggest question of all (why is there anything?), there’s still an awful lot in between that we can come to terms with. For instance, most of us here would feel very confident that science will never use “fairies” as an explanation for anything, right? Because in all of the repeatable observations that have been made over the centuries, we’ve established that there’s a natural order to things. There’s no reason for us to think that’s suddenly going to change.
So when it comes to whether or not we have an inspired text, is it really true that we can’t make any reasonable judgments? We already know what man-made texts look like: ancient ones rely on superstition and magic, they mirror the ethical and moral values of their time (male dominated, ethnocentric), they contain scientific and historical mistakes, they sometimes contradict themselves, etc. However, man-made texts can also be very insightful, inspiring, and revolutionary. So is it unreasonable to look at something like the Bible and conclude that it’s also man-made?
I agree with you that we have no objective standard to point to and say “this is what a divinely-inspired text looks like.” But we have a limitless supply of texts to look at that were not divinely inspired, and I think that’s a pretty good basis for making a judgment here.
I don’t imagine that any of these points are revolutionary, so I’m not trying to use them as “gotchas,” just trying to see how you’ve thought through them.
Thanks 🙂
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@Nate
“This was not my experience, though it may have been for others here. For a very long time, I believed in a literal Hell, and my idea of a True Christian ™ didn’t include most people who called themselves one. It was a horrible set of beliefs, and it weighed on me heavily. Yet I still believed it. My deconversion didn’t come from what I wanted to be true, but from seeing that many of the things I had held to be true didn’t have the kind of evidence I’d thought they did.
In fact, I had pretty much given up the idea that Christianity could be true before the problem of evil really started to resonate with me. And to be honest, the problem of evil doesn’t make me more certain that no god exits — it just makes me more certain that no omnipotent, omnibenevolent god exists.”
What you said resonates a lot with me as well. Problem of evil didn’t really come in until rather late in the game. TBH, problem of evil will not be a problem with Christians at all since they have faith that all things happened for a purpose and ultimately everything will be good. In fact, one of the rationalization i had for the suffering of the world is that there will be bliss in eternity, so whatever suffering you have is just a blink of an eye.
(just to digress a little bit, I have sometime wondered if God doesn’t care about short-term suffering because of this, as he is too macro. One example is the fact that Jesus said he’ll be back in a little while – but obviously 2000 years later he’s still not back. So perhaps God has no sense of time because he is timeless)
Anyway, the biggest issue I had is this – bible contradictions. This is a huge problem imo, more so than the problem of evil. If I cannot even trust what God says about himself, how can I trust what he says about the problem of evil?
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Nan,
Sorry about that, some nights (like tonight) there are so many questions asked that I feel overwhelmed and can’t answer them all. I’m am going to bed, so I can’t quote you scripture right now, but I will give you the short answers to your questions.
The messiah does fit the bill in every way. I will explain this when I get to Kathy.
The Jews do expect tribulation. It is prophecied in Isaiah, and Zechariah. I’ll post those scriptures later.
The Jews don’t believe in a rapture because the Tanakh says the meek will inherit the earth, and YHWH will dwell here on earth with us. It is Paul that says we will be caught up in the air to meet him and so will we ever be with the Lord.
Sorry for the quick post. Hope that helped some.
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“To her credit, her comment to Laurie was very reasonable and specific.”
I guess I don’t see it? I’m actually getting pretty frustrated.
This is the last time I’m going to attempt this. If you don’t understand this time, you’ll have to flip to the begining of your bible and read it yourself. I promise, this huge portion of scripture wasn’t written so it could be thrown away when Paul came along.
The feasts of YHWH are His anointed times. These were commanded by Him… for us …to keep for as long as this earth is here.
The feasts are each about Messiah, not one, but all of them. The sacrifice has been completed, but the redemption is not finished yet.
Hosea tells us that YHWH’s salvation comes to us like the rain, the former and the latter rain. This is a reference to the Holy Feasts of YHWH. The spring feasts (former rain) and the fall feasts (latter rain).
If salvation was here, and finished, why outs there still sin and sorrow? Now you can answer my questions.
I’m not cherry picking scripture here. For every verse you can provide that says YHWH’s law will be abolished, I will provide 10 verses that say it won’t.
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Why *is* there
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Matthew 10:17
Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues.
oh, LOL, she always comes back, Kathy is like herpes. you can’t get rid of it.
nate, and the rest, if you think for one second Kathy is back to get some understanding,
or to make a valid point, you are sadly mistaken.
she is only here to disrupt, it’s just a matter of minutes before she starts her nonsense with you all again. I’ve seen this hundreds of times.
it is her M.O., her trick, her manipulation,
she does this all of the time.
don’t fall for it. just ignore her.
you have already given her a platform via Kathy part 1 thru 5.
where did that get you?
Laurie said, ” I guess I don’t see it? I’m actually getting pretty frustrated.”
right on Luke Warm, that is Kathy’s point, to frustrate, to annoy.
don’t fall for her trick. that’s what she counts on.
she’s playing a game with you.
she orgasms over screwing with the “liberals”.
portal, arch, nate, loving red dead redemption.
one of the best games I’ve ever played.
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Kathy @kayms99 · Sep 19
@greggutfeld @oreillyfactor Gee.. I wonder if she’s a liberal.. #cantstoplibbashing #theydeserveit
here is empirical evidence of what I’m saying, Kathy’s only motivation is bashing liberals. in her own words on twitter, look for yourself, Kathy sez:
hashtag, “can’t stop lib bashing”,
hashtag, “they deserve it.”
I’ve proven my point, all she want to do is bash you.
you should all tell this lib basher to go fuck off.
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Paul, I understand your anger and you are certainly enlightening us as to specifics, but c’mon – let’s be civil, eh?
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Carmen, I dont’ believe in being civil to the enemy.
I’m not going to be polite and make nice to someone that wants to deny me my own “civil rights”
Kathy compares homosexuality (that would be me and my friends and loved ones) to bestiality and pedophilia,
soooooo…….indeed she can go “F’ off!”
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Kathy,
it’s good to hear from you again. I’m glad we have this chance to start over and perhaps have a more cordial and productive discussion.
you said,
“You never adequately answered my question/ point Laurie.. it’s not a “dead horse”.. Your beliefs claim that God had His Son suffer and die on the cross as part the “7 feasts plan”.. His sacrifice was a “step” in that plan. By contrast, Paul is saying that Jesus’ sacrifice IS the plan. You put Jesus in the background, Paul puts Jesus and His love for us in the forefront. You claim that what Jesus did on the cross is not enough to save us.. Paul said that what He did is the ONLY way we can be saved.”
If I may, I think that you and laurie aren’t that far apart.
You say that jesus’ death is the only step, yet you dont think that every soul that has ever lived and will ever live is going to be saved, correct? You believe that in order to be saved a person must do something, not in order to earn their salvation, but in order to accept god’s grace, correct? If no one had to do anything, then everyone, even infidels like us, would all still go to heaven.
Sort of like a drowning person reaching out and grabbing the lifeline that was thrown to them. Did the drowning person save themselves? did they earn their salvation from the water? Or were they saved by the people who threw out the lifeline, but in order to be saved by it, the drowning person had to reach for and grab it?
So, you may say that person grabs the lifeline that god threw you (in the form of jesus’ death) by believing in and acknowledging his divine nature, other christians believe that they grab that line through baptism or whatever else, and laurie (if i am understanding her correctly) is saying that she is saved by grace, through reaching for the lifeline by following the law, etc.
So to me, I think most people believe there are qualifiers that are needed to obtain god’s grace and mercy and salvation – though none of them claim that by doing what’s required actually “earns” their salvation.
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Paul, I hear you – I honestly do. I also agree that anyone who holds the kind of animosity to LGBTQ people need to go in a certain direction. I just think it’s a tad more civil to say ‘eff’ than spelling it out.
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Hi Brandon,
As Nate mentioned, I think that making a comparison between the big question of why time, space and matter exist and the Bible is an unfair comparison. We have millions of examples of how human’s think and what humans write and we also have physical copies of the Bible to look at. On the flip side, we don’t get to observe universes starting so we have nothing to compare to.
Well said Nate.
Brandon, you sort of sidestepped my question about burden of proof. I understand your theory about a “most rational” belief not existing, but what about something simply being “more rational”?
If you hear a noise in your house while in bed and it sounds like the footsteps of your dog, wouldn’t it be rational to think that it is your dog? You know what your dog sounds like, just as we know a lot about the writings of men and women. Your mate becomes concerned that a vampire is in the house and wants you to wear a garlic necklace. Is this less rational, more rational or equally rational?
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Carmen, what is the difference?
if I’m saying eff or fuck, it’s the same thing.
everyone knows what eff means,
so just not spelling it out somehow spares your delicate sensitivities?
oh, how funny.
after 5 Kathy blogs,
if anyone hasn’t learned their lesson yet on what Kathy is doing,
and continues to engage her, that person is an “effing idiot”.
I do hope that makes it more palatable for you carmen.
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in response to William, Kathy said:
“I’ve got better more important things to do than play games on this blog with people who choose deliberate ignorance.”
source: https://findingtruth.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/kathy-part-3/#comment-15750
seriously you all, are you going to continue this insanity.
shut her down,
let her get on with those “more important things”
she isn’t here to engage in polite discourse, she is here to “eff” with you.
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“after 5 Kathy blogs,
if anyone hasn’t learned their lesson yet on what Kathy is doing,
and continues to engage her, that person is an “effing idiot”. – paul
and you’re an effing idiot like rest of us, or, or we all know what kathy is doing, but we engage her anyways and will try to do so with empathy and try to do so with kindness. And even though she has shown herself previously to be unwilling to actually discuss things rationally and honestly, we choose to present rational and honest discussion to her for many reasons, one of which being that we all hope that one day she’ll be swayed by our chaste conversation.
We wont be confused if she does not, but this is an exercise in patience and long suffering.
If she does not come around, then i havent wasted my time. If you feel you’re wasting yours, then you may want to address that.
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as long as her “effing” is in line with the discussion, and so far it is, i dont see a problem.
But your point is well taken. I really dont mean to come off as short with you, because I certainly see where you’re coming from.
But we can be more compassionate that she is. we can have mire understating than she has. If it doesnt dawn on her, then it should to others who may not even comment at all. Atheists and non-believers have more christian attributes than a self proclaimed christian. Whether kathy gets that point or not isnt the point.
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Thank you, William, for saying that better than I have been able to.
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@Paul – if that even IS Kathy and not someone commenting, using her name, clearly she’s being coached. Kathy hasn’t the intellectual capacity to compose such a comment, but since we’ve been admonished not to speak our minds, I’ll likely stay out of this one.
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RE: “everyone, even infidels like us, would all still go to heaven” – Would that be the same “heaven,” William, that has to “pass away” before “all is fulfilled”?
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