So today marks 8 years that I’ve been doing this blog. That’s a pretty big milestone! I had two posts on November 14, 2006, and I thought it would be fun to repost them here (along with a little commentary).
Here’s the first:
Wish me luck… 🙂
So that was innocuous enough. Now here’s post number 2:
I think 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 best explains the way in which Christ’s gospel was/is a mystery. As vs 18 says:
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
We can see from this passage that God’s plan of salvation makes no sense to those who refuse to believe it, but to those of us who accept it, it’s brilliant! Verse 21 goes on to say:
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
See, because the world is so “wise,” it views the concept of God as foolishness. They have been blinded by their own pretensions. For the Jews and Greeks of the day, it wasn’t that they didn’t believe in the supernatural; it wasn’t that they didn’t believe in deities. Their problem was that they thought they already knew what God would do. The Jews already had a fixed idea of what the Messiah would be, so when Christ appeared and didn’t lead them to victory against the Romans, they refused to accept him. The Greeks didn’t accept Christ because they couldn’t conceive of a god allowing himself to be put to death by his own creation. And because they already had things “figured out,” they missed their chance.
Today, people do the same thing. They would rather put faith in scientific theories that have not been proven. They would rather believe that all of the order we see in our universe (the fragile food chain, vast differences throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, the very specific orbits of planets, etc) was created through a giant explosion (something that, in all practical applications, has only been shown to destroy, not create). Have they been blinded by their own “wisdom?”
Too often, even those who profess to be religious only listen to their own ideas about what God wants. Many times they view the Bible as a collection of stories or suggestions, and not the “wisdom of God that leads to salvation” that 1 Corinthians purports it to be. How is that different from what the Jews and Greeks were condemned for?
Throughout the Bible, passages talk about truth and understanding. I firmly believe that God gave us understanding and intellect for a reason. We are supposed to be able to understand God’s message for us. It’s not supposed to be “mysterious” any longer. It’s not supposed to be some “better felt than told” experience. No, God’s word is supposed to be powerful and undeniable. It’s supposed to move us and touch us in a way that nothing else can. But for it to do that, we have to read it, study it, know it.
It’s a little painful to read through that. I cringe when I read how badly I understood things about evolution and the Big Bang back then, or when I alluded to non-Christians as just being those who “refuse to believe it”. It’s kind of funny, but I was guilty of the same thing I was accusing others of. I thought I had the answers, but I had never taken time to really examine any other point of view.
The one decent thing from the post that serves as a bit of foreshadowing about where I would eventually wind up is the last paragraph. You can see that while I was firmly ensnared in Christianity, I believed that it was not supposed to be utterly mysterious. It was supposed to be consistent and “undeniable.” It took a while, but I finally realized that Christianity just didn’t deliver in that regard.
Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little jaunt down memory lane. Someone suggested to me recently that I should think about doing this kind of review with more of my old posts. I’ve been considering it… Thoughts?
Finding Truth 
kathy,
since your faith in the bible is rooted and prefaced by faith in the claims of the men who wrote it, what about the bible is more convincing to you of divine origin than all the other religions in the world?
How many of them have you really studied?
and if you studied any, when studying them, did you really try to learn from them as you do the bible, or were you looking for errors in them since they’re not the bible?
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Nate,
“The formation of the canon was nebulous, and it lasted over centuries. If you want to know more about it, you can start with links like these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_biblical_canon ”
Again, you are avoiding my point. Either you believe the books were chosen based on divinity or they were chose to make Jesus “look good”. You tried to have it both ways. The whole reason I asked why the “contradictions” would be left in is because of your insinuation, insinuations by all atheists, all the tiome, that the Bible is a deliberate lie. Of course, when it’s convenient, when pressed with challenges to that claim, you THEN claim they weren’t lying.. only misinformed or “duped” by previous liars. Typical games and dishonesty.
“You talk about evidence, but you’re only considering the evidence from one side of the ledger. No one denies that the Bible contains some reliable information. The real issue comes when trying to decide what to do about the wrong information it contains. You think that since it got some things right, we can just give it the benefit of the doubt in places where it got it wrong. And that’s fine if you want to look at it that way, but it’s not going to resonate with people like me.”
Wow.. I’ve written over and over the idea of WEIGHING the evidence. What you just wrote shows you don’t grasp any points that challenge your beliefs.. you somehow manage to block it all out.
“If God gave you empirical proof of His existence, you, all of us, would obey Him out of pure fear. He might as well have created us without free will. Or.. He could create us with free will and given us the opportunity to SEEK Him and GENUINELY love Him. -me
Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t support your claim here. Pharaoh had no doubt about who God was by the end, but that didn’t make him obey. Moses absolutely knew who God was and what he wanted, but he still disobeyed God when bringing the water from the rock. Solomon knew who God was but fell away. Saul did the same thing.”
Pharoah? as in king? Of course there are going to be exceptions.. highly narcissistic and arrogant human beings. And the others most definitely did fear God and obey Him. Again, you are bringing up exceptions. Use the scale analogy.. exceptions weigh LESS. Exceptions are NOT valid arguments Nate. Why do I have to keep explaining this basic concept?
“Furthermore, Hebrews refers to the heroes of the OT as people of faith — but according to you, they couldn’t have had faith, since they had actual knowledge of God.”
They had faith that God was Good. Abraham had faith that God wouldn’t allow his son to die. There are different kinds of faith. Again, Nate, you make assumptions.. you don’t try to find reasonable explanations.
“Kathy, what’s your goal here? We’re never going to agree with one another, because we simply look at this too differently. There’s no common ground for us to even begin a discussion, much less come to a conclusion about anything. I don’t get satisfaction from endless wrangling — if a discussion isn’t going to go anywhere, I’d prefer not to have it. This is why I don’t track you down on Twitter. Why do you continue to hang around here?”
I told you what my goal was. I’m trying to help you and others here see that you lack honest objectivity. I’m trying to help you and others here understand how important honesty and objectivity is in regards to this subject.
We don’t agree because you aren’t applying objectivity. I’ve spent nearly 100% of my time here trying to show you this.. and by contrast you haven’t tried to show me my lack of objectivity at all. That should tell you something right there.
Honesty and objectivity is the foundation of debate.. just as your title implies. It’s the NECESSARY component to TRULY “Finding Truth”.
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Mikey.. I hope this will help.. I don’t know of anything that disproves the NT. I only know about the historical and archaeological evidence and the witnesses/ martyrs that corroborate the claims. There’s nothing that disproves this evidence.
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This is what it sounds like when world’s collide 🙂
Kathy
I respect that you share your convictions and beliefs, even if we may have different understandings of the world liberal 🙂
Nate
As you know, I think your a top bloke
Here are some thoughts I have,
Nate has been open enough to provide a space on his blog for people to share what they believe is important.
I think that’s pretty decent of him.
You both are taking the time to answer questions, and you both are taking the time to answer based on what you feel and think, even if you stand on different conclusions.
Although what you are both discussing are completely different world views, founded on very different beginning premises…
And even if those answers are not what you both necessarily all agree on
You are still both taking the time treat each other decently.
I’d say for what its worth, that’s considerate of you both.
especially considering your both doing this, despite how differently you both might feel about certain things.
None of us are completely objective.
we’re all just beginning from different points and drawing from different experiences.
Somehow we all have crossed paths online.
Even if neither of you think that the other is not considering things as they should in order to be honest…
I hope you all have a great night 🙂
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Wow I wrote “both” alot.
Hope that made sense to you both 🙂
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Meant to write:
You are still both taking the time *to* treat each other decently.
I’d say for what its worth, that’s considerate of you both.
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“If God gave you empirical proof of His existence, you, all of us, would obey Him out of pure fear. He might as well have created us without free will. Or.. He could create us with free will and given us the opportunity to SEEK Him and GENUINELY love Him.
How much free will is involved with saying, “Believe in me or I will send you to hell!”?
“Pharaoh had no doubt about who God was by the end, but that didn’t make him obey.
Because the anonymous authors of the book of Exodus wrote that your god “hardened his heart” – is that free will?
“Abraham had faith that God wouldn’t allow his son to die.” – Abe was completely and totally ready to kill his son to save his own 112-year old ass!
“by contrast you haven’t tried to show me my lack of objectivity at all” – Every comment you make is LOADED with your lack of objectivity – this comment included! Look how you’ve taken your god’s threat to burn us for eternity, and tried to make it look like your invisible sky-spirit doesn’t use coercion to demand obedience! Look how you blame Pharaoh for disobedience when it was your god who “hardened his heart”! Look how you maintain that Abe KNEW his boogyman wouldn’t let him kill his son, when the alleged angel itself said, “Now I know you love god.” – why would he say that if he wasn’t positive that Abe would go through with it?
Just a few examples of your total lack of objectivity – in your own words, all in a single comment – no one has to comb through your old comments to find them, they’re in every comment you make.
And you still haven’t answered these question, Kathy:
“I told you what my goal was. I’m trying to help you and others here see that you lack honest objectivity. I’m trying to help you and others here understand how important honesty and objectivity is in regards to this subject.”
Then lead by example, Kathy – start by being honest and objective yourself, for a change.
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“Mikey.. I hope this will help.. I don’t know of anything that disproves the NT.”
The reason she doesn’t, Mike, is that everytime someone tries to point out the many, MANY things that disprove much, if not most of the NT, she sticks her fingers in her ears and screams, “OBJECTIVITY!” over and over at the top of her lungs.
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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they generally get the crap knocked out of them from both sides —
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portal, can you read?
if someone were to call you a liar every time they spoke to you,
despite the fact that you were telling them the truth as you know it without any intent of deception,
would you consider them treating you decently?
in nearly every comment Kathy has made,
she has referred to pretty much everyone here as dishonest,
that means “liar”.
it has the same meaning here in the states as it does in kangarooville.
if you really believe that repeatedly calling someone a liar who is being honest with you is treating someone “decently”,
then you truly are an expletive deleted.
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holy macaroni,
as always, Kathy refuses to answer any questions,
or to back up any of her claims with actual evidence.
instead she engages in accusations of dishonesty and lack of objectivity.
oh, H-E-double-hockey-sticks,
we all know that Kathy is nothing more than a %$#@* bleeping, bleep.
we’re just to decent to say such things in public,
my goodness.
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Kathy,
Perhaps to you nate and the rest of us look like we’re not being objective or honest, but to us, it’s you who seems to be lacking in these areas.
let me also remind you that you routinely ignore questions and points presented to you.
most recently you said this,
“Again, you are avoiding my point. Either you believe the books were chosen based on divinity or they were chose to make Jesus “look good”. You tried to have it both ways. The whole reason I asked why the “contradictions” would be left in is because of your insinuation, insinuations by all atheists, all the tiome, that the Bible is a deliberate lie. Of course, when it’s convenient, when pressed with challenges to that claim, you THEN claim they weren’t lying.. only misinformed or “duped” by previous liars. Typical games and dishonesty.” – kathy
I dont think your point is being avoided. Each of your points are being addressed. I dont think you can limit the options down to just “either… based on divinity, or chosen to make jesus look good.” You’re ignoring human nature and you’re ignoring the hundreds of years of history that took place before the “bible” was compiled and canonized.
dave gave a lot of info regarding this, and you ignored it, just like paulie and arch said you would. none the less, the people who were voting on the books of the bible believed some to be inspired and others to be uninspired. Not all of the voters agreed all of the time. but by the time they voted, jesus had been dead for several hundred years.
And people were troubled or at least confused by things like the conflicting genealogies during and before that time as there are writings where people were trying to make sense of them back then. the people who believed both books were inspired and who actually looked close enough to see the discrepancies, likely tossed it aside as something they just didnt understand; “it’s right, although I may not know how, i just know god is perfect and his word is right, and since this is his word, I know it’s right somehow.”
this is a basic concept that you seem determined to pretend doesnt exist. you seem to rather prefer to think that people deciding if something is from god would perfectly know if it’s from god or not and people who try to edit books to create a seamless version would do so perfectly without error. people arent perfect, and that line of reasoning is very flawed.
And any religion can be defended that way.
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Paul, you crack me up!
BTW, Portal’s a good kid (25) but a little naive – he’ll grow out of that, once Life slaps him around a little.
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“Mikey.. I hope this will help.. I don’t know of anything that disproves the NT. I only know about the historical and archaeological evidence and the witnesses/ martyrs that corroborate the claims. There’s nothing that disproves this evidence.” – kathy
kathy, there’s nothing that proves that evidence either.
Now, there are some very strong evidences that the bible is not written by god, but written by men.
1) the bible says it was written by men. The bible only claims that these men knew what god wanted them to say. faith in the god of the bible first requires faith in man.
2) the NT isnt consistent in several places:
a) OT prophecies. if you read the OT and then look where the NT says if fulfills the OT, it’s silly.
b) where were the angels encountered at jesus tomb?
c) what day was jesus crucified; passover or the day before?
d) what is jesus linage through joseph and how many people are in it?
e) was it sinful to eat meats offered to idols or not?
f) justified by works or by faith?
g) where did joseph, mary and jesus go after leaving bethlehem?
h) were the disciples to wait in jerusalem or go to gallilee after jesus rose from the grave?
3) the bible claims that certain events happened that would have been visisble in the entire world, yet no one else records them.
a) the sun standing still for Joshua – no one else records that depsite there being several groups at that time that were astronomers.
b) the sun moved backward for hezekiah – no one else records that depsite there being several groups at that time that were astronomers.
c) dead people got up out of their graves and walked around when jesus died – no one records this, as if it was not noteworthy.
d) Egyptian plagues – recorded no where. nor is there any evidence of the exodus or the 400 year slavery of the hebrews.
4) the bible portrays god in human ways with human emotions, often wearing human clothes and with angels who play human instruments. The bible also has a loving and merciful and just god acting in ways that are in conflict with those traits (ie: genocide, baby killing, virgin steeling, killing children to punish the parents, etc, etc)
5) history: the bible is just wrong in a few places. Daniel is one book: Darius the Mede didnt take babylon, but Cyrus the Persian King did. Jeremiah says that the medes will destroy babylon, but they didnt as the persians took it with little bloodshed or destruction. just two examples.
6) archaeology: no evidence of the exodus or the wondering in the wilderness. Contrary evidence of the invasion on conquest of canaan an of the isaraelite kingdoms. Contrary evidence to the book of daniel, kings and chronicles, etc
7) evdience for the NT? basically claims of the NT authors. naming real places and a few historical figures isnt miraculous and is done by many writers of fiction. Martyrs? Martyrs only serve as evidence of people who believed in something, not that something’s actual truthfulness. If believers counted as great evidence toward a religion, then all religions share that same evidence – thereby making it moot.
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“Pharoah? as in king? Of course there are going to be exceptions.. highly narcissistic and arrogant human beings. And the others most definitely did fear God and obey Him. Again, you are bringing up exceptions. Use the scale analogy.. exceptions weigh LESS. Exceptions are NOT valid arguments Nate. Why do I have to keep explaining this basic concept?” – kathy
except there’s more examples that pharaoh. except this exception shows that the bible shows that people can still refuse to obey god even if they had empirical proof that he were real.
except that you were saying that god wouldnt give us empirical proof because we’d only obey him out of fear and god would rather have followers that followed him out of love.
except that makes zero sense since god supposedly knows the hearts of man and would know why people followed him. and if he didnt want people to be compelled by fear, is that why he created hell and told everyone about it, is that why he had people killed horrible and painful ways – because he didnt want fear to be a motivator?
come on kathy, you talk so much about objectivity, yet you avoid it every chance you get.
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RE, “the conflicting genealogies” – imagine, if you lived in those times, ran across two conflicting genealogies, and didn’t know which (if any) was the accurate one, which would you choose? Or would you include both, just to be on the safe side, and let it be somebody else’s problem, as it is now?
And we can never forget – as Kathy seems not to have ever known – that the entire Bible, as you’ve often said, William, was written, not by a god, but by men claiming to speak for a god.
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“They had faith that God was Good. Abraham had faith that God wouldn’t allow his son to die. There are different kinds of faith. Again, Nate, you make assumptions.. you don’t try to find reasonable explanations.” – kathy
kathy, all your “reasonable explanations” are, are assumptions!
you know, you label the rest of us as dishonest and un-objective and liberal, etc, etc, and you say it’s because of how we present ourselves. I’d disagree, but when it comes to the bible, you wont take it at what it says for itself, instead you’ll accept any imagines and made up story that could possibly (no matter how unlikely) fix the internal problems of the bible.
you’re inconsistent and stubbornly biased.
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“We don’t agree because you aren’t applying objectivity. I’ve spent nearly 100% of my time here trying to show you this.. and by contrast you haven’t tried to show me my lack of objectivity at all. That should tell you something right there.” – kathy
no, we disagree because we’re looking at what the bible says, and you’re looking at what the bible says and what other people have imagined or created to bridge over the problems of the bible.
we disagree because you think the bible is god’s direct word to man, while recognize that it is a collection of books and letters that were written by men who said that god said or did…
we disagree because because we think god would be perfect and realize that man is flawed, while you make excuses as to why your perfect god’s word has flaws while you also act as if men wouldnt make any mistakes when writing/editing the same book.
we disagree because we want to educate ourselves and consult a multitude of sources while you refuse to educate yourself.
those are some of the real reasons we disagree.
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oh, I know portal means well,
i’m just pointing out the error of his ways.
we can’t just spend your whole life skipping along the rainbow highways eating cotton candy,
we’re not all faerie princesses,
I know this for a fact.
believe me, I’ve tried.
“for pete’s sake”, anyone that thinks Kathy is being decent could certainly use that slap.
although I would never condone violence, ever*.
*(except in video games and chick fights)
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Kathy,
you say that you want to debate and that you want to have an honest and objective exchange, but you do not act that way.
If you truly want a productive discussion and an honest and objective exchange of ideas, you cannot keep skipping over points and ignoring questions.
If you dont want to talk about the points, then how can you hope that anyone will believe that you want an actual debate?
is it about winning to you, scoring points, or actually finding truth? I dont know that you’re doing well in any regard, but i’d still suggest actually searching for truth, where ever it leads, and that would entail not hiding from certain issues, points, resources and evidences.
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Hi all,
I have three of my grandkids here today and needed a ‘blog break’ – decided to look through Nate’s latest. . oh, my! I am laughing loudly at the usual comedians. (of course the kids want to know about WHAT? – I can’t tell ’em as their parents don’t want them to repeat swear words just yet. . well, probably never.. . and then there’s their heathen Nannie). Nate, I’ve got to hand it to you, you attract the people with the best sense of humour!! 🙂
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OOPS!! I forgot to say, “Happy Anniversary”!!
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Kathy,
In the years preceding the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD the Jewish historian Josephus made the following claims: “A cow gave birth to a lamb inside the temple.”, “A star resembling a sword stood over the city of Jerusalem”, and “Chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds.” This is from History of the Wars 6.5.3.
Do you think that Josephus was flat out lying or did these events actually take place?
Hopefully you realize that there are more possibilities than just these two.
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William, while I (and I would imagine most others that contribute to Nate’s blog) agree with everything you’ve written, the odds that Kathy will take any of it to heart (IF she even reads it!) are zilch, zero, nada, zip.
Everything you wrote has been stated in one form or another (most graphically by Paul) and still, she refuses to present valid arguments. Instead, she puts forth a bunch of blither-blather and ends her dissertations by branding everyone as … well, you know the names. I need not repeat them here.
Some dislike Brandon’s POV, but at least he’s added to the discussion … which is more than can be said of Kathy. And I think Dave’s comment and questions have also stirred some discussion, as well as input from the many others who frequent this blog. (I would name them but don’t want to overlook anyone … you know who you are.)
Finally, did anyone else notice how this particular posting started out on a very neutral note (an 8-year anniversary with a little reminiscing) and once again got hijacked by Kathy? *sigh*
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nan, of course you’re right, but honestly, kathy is very entertaining to me. I guess I like conflict and pain.
and while she wont admit or realize any of it, other passerby’s will.
Plus, I want kathy to know she’s lying when she says no one answers her, etc. She may try and act as if she doesnt realize that, but I am sure she does.
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