than all the Imperators tax in a a single gold coin
tossed back at the myriad graspings hands
of a lesser multitude of deceitful, greedy

Judas Priests

The fundamental difference between you and Kenneth is Ken actually has utilised science and studied in great depth where us monkeys and truly wonderful plants like good zol come from and more importantly HOW – whereas you claim to know where all the monkeys who disagree with you are going forever, carbon footprints, fantasy friends and mythological books notwithstanding.

What a lag.

You have no idea of what faith is except what you expect it to benefit you personally – My God you are so SAVED – and you cannot even define it in action coherently, but maybe that is all you will ever regurgitate as theology. Your problem R, but, Do yourself a huge favour, follow your own advice and Do crawl back into the primordial slime of the Faith Movement and buy yourself a bigger holy pat on the back until you ooze arrogance more sweetly, and copy a better tack – because, quite frankly, you stink at selling Jesus properly for fuck all.

Al

P.S. Yap! Yap! Yap-yap-yap!

Firstly please don’t read the implication of this as an attack on you, or the iuntegrity of scripture. I ask that you humbly listen and consider how i feel about this matter.

I love scripture. I have had many a friendly bout with people on this blog or even in person, over coffee, about the unique value that lies therein. I do not feel however the need to defend something that is “living” from anything or anyone. In fact i find it ironic that when do this they seem to be completely unaware of the fact that they are not allowing it to be what it is: the recollections of a helluva varied bunch of people with a real God. Scripture, as Jesus, is supposed to be as much human as it is divine – by the standards that the text itself imply. i.e. Contradictions and paradoxes are to be expected. It was written from a whole bunch of worldviews – there is no one worldview.

Now (again not as an attack – i have a deep understanding & a lot more time than most on this blog – considering i was sold out to this kind of system for a long time) the approach to scripture that you seem to subscribe to (don’t want to make assumptions is a response to modernistic individualistic pseudo-itellectual-autonomy (Ken is gonna wanna crucify me over this!). It is 300 years MAX old, and it bears no resemblance to how Jesus, the early church or the disciples approached scripture, because there was no such document in their age. I don’t think to admit the human fallibility in scripture excludes the possibility of it being divinely inspired & capable of conveying experienced truth much better than scientific factual documents (for instance) . BUT it does open up the possibility for taking specific scriptures; written to specific people at a specific time, out of context.

For instance: I have a serious objection to the way you use Paul’s scripture on “foolishness”. I really believe that if this scripture is viewed within the prevalent roman paradigm’s context – i.e. POWER CONQUERS AND SHOULD BE REVERED – that Paul is saying SPECIFICALLY that the pacifistic way of Christ seems really stupid to the roman mind.

The irony to me is that in fact the sola scriptura approach imposes a modernistic logic upon scripture – likie creationists , trying to justify a document that is 2000 years old by the standards of a systm that is 300 years old. Instead of admitting scriputre is a complex and big reality – best approached with humility & extreme care – I attempts to make sense of it WITHIN a contemporary worldview – and ends up losing much of its veracity by cramming it in there!

Read the wiki article on fundamentalism – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism – not as some political labvel that attempts to dismiss your admirable concern for the integrity of the Word of a God you know and LOVE, but as the reportage of a system which ironically may be robbing you of a fuller understanding of who & what He is.

Shalom.
Ben

(For cathartic reasons I’ll probably eventually write a response, but will put it off for at least three days. I don’t think actually having a conversation about it is worthwhile.)

With regards to the conversation/debate, yes, I suspect ending it would be the wisest choice. If we were to continue (or if others want to continue), I’d suggest defining what it is that we’re actually trying to discuss or debate here. If the purpose of the discussion is the following:

I have just tried to clear up what seems to be this unyielding stigma of what a Christian is in the atheist and other people’s minds.

I think that you’re not successful in this. Unless you have a different stigma in mind than I do.

(Thus far this conversation has, I think, been confirming Ben’Jammin’s experiences, which I had been attempting to disagree with. I was about to ask if Ben’Jammin’s still watching, pop-corn in hand, but I now know he was following, and getting at least a little drawn in, evidenced by #126, possibly motivated by a superlative of SIWOTI? )

Stone throwing or labelling is when someone starts to make statements of comparisons with others in a derogatory way or scale someones character without knowing that person and even if they did, it’s not good practice. I never once pointed my finger at anybody for their lack of anything. However, when referring to what God said, I do not apologize for Him. However, those who do not respect where I stand, will dismiss me referring to God completely and state that it is my opinion, no matter what I say.

When you say, “I have to conclude that you’re not a Christian etc.”, you are are not judging, you are condemning and that has not place in any decent conversation or argument. Becoming personal does not serve any purpose here. I’ve got pretty thick skin so I am not bothered personally with it. I know where I stand with confidence in Christ. I do call my self a Christian, but I usually qualify that in certain circumstances to avoid generalizations.

You bet “perspectives within Christianity differ”, and that may be part of the reason why people on the outside are wondering. The world is supposed to “see how they love one another”. What you are referring to in perspectives are mostly what I call “table manners”, as long as you eat the right food, it does not matter how you get it inside. It will do it’s work. The problem I believe is that many Christians today has drifted away from the Word of God and become a complacent bunch of churchgoers that have a double life – One on Sunday listening to “make me feel good sermons” and another life the rest of the week. For me it’s no difference any day of the week. It’s one life lived for God – all the time. Don’t let the scientific aspect of things drive you “nuts”, it’s not good for your mental health . As far as the scientific aspect of thing, it really intrigues me, and it’s incredibly interesting, but it has no effect on my faith one way or the other. I love to dig into it, but I find that, since this is not my speciality, although the information is readily available, I do not have the time to debate that at length.

As a matter of fact, the followers of Jesus was not called Christians until later, in Antioch. If we should be very accurate we should be called “saints” (not in the catholic context), which was used by the apostles in their writings – “greet the saints at….. etc”. Follower of Jesus Christ is probably a better way of declaring who you really are.

Everything has to be taken in context. For example, if you just read the lines where Jesus made a whip and drove the money changers and the merchants out of the Temple and over turned the tables, in some people’s opinion would not look very “humble” or “Christlike”. Jesus was not a soft, weak man in a white gown, although He is often portrayed that way. He was after all God in the flesh and did not take kindly to people that opposed the truth. He was invited to one of the Pharisees for dinner and literally ripped him apart for his hypocrisy. People with an attitude did not fare well in the presence of Jesus, but everyone that came to him for help he gave it, many times to demonstrate to the “religious establishment” how wrong they were. Since I am writing this to a follower of Christ, who will understand…..What would Jesus do? Well, this is what he did, and as followers we should do the same: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised”

I have no right to tell anyone they are not a Christian or not, only God knows the heart, but there is something still to be said for “you shall know them by their fruit”.

I have no idea where Bendul stands, since he has not indicated that, but you obviously know him better.

Should you not say; what “I” perceive (meaning you) instead of interpreting others response? At any rate you say : “….in your comments we perceive what your opinion of God’s opinion is, we do not directly perceive God’s opinion in your statement.”
Well, first of all God’s word is not an “opinion” that God has. It’s His eternal word and He declares He does not change – ever. So, when I directly quote what God says, it’s what He is, not His opinion, and it certainly is not mine.

You are saying, in your perception I am implying who can wear the “Christian” label. Well, I don’t, but clearly God does. Hey, you’re allowed to disagree, but don’t take it up with me. I did not say it, God did.

I did not respond to Bendul’s worldview, which I am obviously not privy to, only what he wrote. Implication can and often is seen by the recipient, specially in a written dialogue. If in person it would have been cleared up immediately. Here it is slow, we have to scroll back a mile to see what was said etc. Anyway, judging someones heart or motive is wrong. What they say or do in public certainly will be critiqued.

For someone who does not believe God exist, all what I have been saying here is of course fairy tales. But, that’s OK too. Doesn’t bother me in the least.

Your last paragraph…..Again you are talking about my opinion. I never gave any! As I have said earlier (several times), I quoted what God said in His word, but if one (no implication!!) does not believe in the inerrency of Scripture, then that is pointless. That opens the door to man’s interpretation and God says clearly that it is not; “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”. And that:
“for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” And…..”So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

I think that speaks for itself, however let me hasten to say this…a lot of scripture has been taken out of context to seemingly support all kinds of ideas. Typically and unfortunately many preachers will speak about their particular views on certain things and what they do is look for all the scriptures that seemingly fit the bill, many times totally out of context and with their own interpretation (see above). Personally, I believe the right way to expound on the Word of God is to help people with their problems by finding out what God says about it. After all He wrote the book on how to live. In my writings, I probably use more scriptures that my own words, because (again) otherwise it would just be my opinion and my opinion is worthless, but God’s word stands for ever.

That should answer your last question. Those who believe that God’s word was written by men and their opinion rather than inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives way to everything for open for discussion and under the gavel of the human intellect, opinion, reasonings – the pot telling the potter what to do.

It’s definitely time to Get Back to the Word of God.

I have referred to what God says, not my opinion.

No. You are the one typing what you think is correct. You are referring to your opinion. God, being a fictional character, has said nothing.

Apologies if I was offensive / throwing stones. What I wrote:

Roy, you’re making huge assumptions. You don’t know me, you especially don’t know Bendul.

I see my comment here was picked up and the issue resolved. Cool.

Your assumptions come across as extremelly arrogant.

Rephrase this as “subjective experience of arrogance from/by certain theologies”. You’re deferring to a theological stance, the deferment comes from your beliefs, the perceived arrogance from the theologies deferred to, that doesn’t mean you’re arrogant.

This is what I think was perceived as the stone throwing (correct me if I’m wrong):

In terms of the way I know Jesus, extremely un-Christlike.

I have a certain perspective, a certain understanding of what I believe should be the fruits of being a follower of Jesus. My perspective differs from yours. So you consider my worldview un-Christian (I’m uncertain if from your perspective “un-Christian” is the same as “un-Christlike”), and mine considers your worldview (the theology you subscribe to) to be un-Christian. I should have stated this in a more polite fashion.

My last sentence was meant in good humour, which the smiley was hoping to help convey, and derived from the above:

In the context of how you assert one recognises Christians, I’d have to conclude you’re not a Christian and Bendul is more a Christian than you.

My argument here is again for “perspectives within Christianity differ”, and an included nuance of ironic self-referential conscious potential hypocrisy: something I really hate about certain strains of Christianity is assertions by certain Christians that certain other Christians aren’t Christians. In the latter group, I do mean people doing their utmost to live as good a Christian life as they can, the most compassionate and neighbour-loving kind of people you find. When the former degrade the latter because they’re baptising babies, or because they’re baptising teenagers, or because they work on a Sabbath, or because they insist on not working on a Sabbath, or because they don’t assert the Nicene creed, or accept the scientific understanding of the universe, or if they don’t accept the scientific understanding of the universe, it drives me nuts. I’m emotionally affected by that. I probably attach way too much weight to one Christian telling another Christian “you aren’t Christian enough”, too much weight to the label. Which I have long since rejected anyway: I’m no longer a Christian. (“I follow Jesus but I’m not a Christian” seems very contradictory to some. )

So, I’m at a place where I do feel comfortable pointing out things that I consider un-Christlike. (This is indicative of my views of what it is to be Christlike. It is an opinion.) I refrain from calling someone not-a-Christian though (except for myself): being labels, I prefer to allow people to self-label or self-unlabel, or to be more utilitarian in the use when communicating an idea or stance to another.

But I do still assert that Bendul is much more a Christian than I am.

Onto your comment:

Now, you are unfortunately starting to throw stones, which I have never done. I have referred to what God says, not my opinion.

A potential problem you’re facing is that in your comments we perceive what your opinion of God’s opinion is, we do not directly perceive God’s opinion in your comment.

Starting to scale or label people does not have any place in a discussion like this

I would agree with that, but in my perception you are also over-stepping this in the way you imply who should and shouldn’t be walking around with a “Christian” label. Nevermind, it’s not a particular issue for me, I just want to be permitted the space to disagree then I’m happy.

and I am afraid you have overstepped your boundaries, as you yourself say, I don’t know you. Well neither do you know me. You are now starting to call people more or less or not Christian, which surely must make the atheists laugh.

Indeed, it does make atheists laugh, and the smiley was there for that purpose. Bendul-more-Christian-than-you was, again, intended in jest. The function was also to alert you to the fact that you don’t know Bendul’s worldview. And lastly, I do still feel your comments have been doing just that, by implication. (Implying certain people are more Christian than others.) I recognise I was the only one to bring in names, but vagueness and abstract reasoning doesn’t necessarily make something less personal. Names could provide concrete examples to make the reasoning easier to grasp. Could maybe work with fictitious people instead though.

I’ll drag myself into this later, which is what I promised above with “I’ll try to share more of my context about 14 hours from now. That might prove helpful”, but might postpone that until another day (seeing as I’m not working right now, though I should be).

…

So that was my attempt to unpack the perceived stone-throwing in my comment. Let me know if I mistook it in some way, or confirm if I have it right? (“It” being what you perceived to be the stone.)

I hope this served to clarify and soothe perceived offences.

…

In the context of how one recognize a Christian I gave you God’s word not my own opinion. You can argue that with Him. I never told you once how you can recognize a Christian apart from what God says. Talking about big assumptions??

I perceive you giving your opinion of what God says. And I consider a stance of absolute certainty on God’s opinion to be making big assumptions. With regards to Bendul’s mention of the decontextualisation of Bible passages, if I quote decontextualised Bible passages I can “make God say things” which I’m certain isn’t God’s opinion. Additionally you were quoting the First Epistle of John (chapter 2), traditionally attributed to John the Evangelist. How do you so directly and solidly conclude that by quoting 1 John, you’re quoting God’s opinion, rather than the opinion of one of God’s followers?

[Ed: fixed]

One thing makes me curious though – how you can say “I can and have argued that”, since you don’t believe in the Kingdom of God in the first place and can/will only argue as to it’s non existence??

You are claiming as fact a thing for which there is no evidence outside of your own experience. You admit that it is true with 100 % certainty. You are not even considering the possibility that you are wrong. You yourself admit that, is that right?

This is your definition of faith. I am saying that there is no way for you to differentiate between a delusion about an invisible dragon in your garage* and your belief in the kingdom of god. They are both stunningly unlikely, based on the evidence. You can believe either, with absolute faith. But based on the evidence, you are misleading yourself.

*hat tip: Carl Sagan.

How can you discuss what’s inside of something you don’t believe in? How can you discuss what’s inside a box if you don’t believe the box exist?

Really? I think you are reversing the burden of proof here. You are the one asserting the box exists. I don’t see the box, so I am only asking for evidence for your case. You are telling me to take the existence of the box on faith. I don’t see this as sufficient reason to believe you.

You have problems with the lifestyle of some people calling themselves Christians? So do I.

Please look up the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Do you mean the idea was first foolish and then it was evidenced and it was not foolish anymore? I would think that an evidenced foolish idea is still foolish. And you would support it? Hmm. Maybe I am not clear on what you mean by support?

When I say foolish, I mean non-obvious or counterintuitive. Even silly. As an example, let’s take the Big Bang you were referring to earlier. To a layperson it may sound foolish, but there is evidence to support it. So I have a measure of confidence in the truth of the theory. A theory/guess/idea that is silly (again, invisible dragon in garage etc), and that has no evidence to support it, is worth discarding in favour of an idea that fits better.

It’s not much to elaborate on the laughing, or I won’t because I’ll never get any work done. I have attended enough dialogues between evolutionists and creationists to affirm that. That’s all. Getting into that debate is interesting but way too time consuming for me.

Which is a pity. I assume you have some interest in the findings of science? I would have liked very much to show you how deeply wrong the creationist perspective is.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Agreed. However, in order to know the truth, you must at least entertain the possibility that you might be wrong.

You’ll probably ask; “What is truth?” How do you think that you have the only claim to the truth?

Roy, I am not the one asserting, with 100 % certainty, what the truth is in this conversation.

I am sorry if I have offended you in any way, and I’ll try to clear a few things up. I don’t know if you are a Christian or an atheist from what you wrote. I just responded to what you were saying, not to you as a person. Let me comment on what you say. Don’t worry, I can handle your emotions, but I am trying to find out what caused it.

A million responses are flashing through my mind now, but I too have work to do. I must say though that I am truly saddened by your attitude as a Christian.

What specifically are you referring to?

I don’t want to say anything to try and break you down, because I’m not angry at you (even though mildly annoyed), but I have to say that if this kind of disrespect for people who refuse to subscribe to YOUR idea of what Christianity is, and is supposed to be, is the “Fruit of the spirit” – then I don’t want anything to do with it.

Please tell me where I showed disrespect or where I displayed my opinion of what a Christian is. I only pointed to what God said. If you feel that is disrespectful, then I cannot help it. It is not my opinion, but what God says that matter.

And please don’t through decontextualised bible scriptures at me. I know you think I’m going to hell, but frankly, I’m not really that bothered with what you think. And I wish I could say this to you in person, so that maybe I could convey a tone that is not dismissive, but frustrated to the point of defeat.

Without the scriptural basis, I have nothing to say.

Hugo wrote me as you will see and said I mad huge assumptions when I wrote to you, which I did not. Now it seams you are of the same mind, assuming that I have judged you and thinking that you’re going to hell. Well in all this conversation hell has not been on my mind at all and to assume that I think that about you, I would say IS a huge assumption.

As a Christian and born again believer in Jesus Christ I stand upon the Word of God and if that is a problem, then I guess we’re done. Opinions are just opinions and we can discuss that until we’re blue in the face and waste a lot of time.

You are right, if we could speak face to face in person many things would probably not be misunderstood like this and would take a lot less time.

It is not my intention nor my desire to “defeat” you, but to dialogue this as a Christian, which cannot be done without the word of God. My own opinion does not count in the least.

Have a good day

Now, you are unfortunately starting to throw stones, which I have never done. I have referred to what God says, not my opinion. If that is offending, so be it, but I have just tried to clear up what seems to be this unyielding stigma of what a Christian is in the atheist and other people’s minds.

You are right, I don’t know you or Bendul and only respond to what you are writing. I speak in general terms about people’s opinion, attitudes etc. making no assumptions or accusations against anybody in particular. But if the shoe fits….only you know.

If you can’t handle that and want to bring this down on a personal level, we might as well be done with this now. Starting to scale or label people does not have any place in a discussion like this and I am afraid you have overstepped your boundaries, as you yourself say, I don’t know you. Well neither do you know me. You are now starting to call people more or less or not Christian, which surely must make the atheists laugh.

In the context of how one recognize a Christian I gave you God’s word not my own opinion. You can argue that with Him. I never told you once how you can recognize a Christian apart from what God says. Talking about big assumptions??

Maybe you should let Bendul respond on his own if he has a problem. If I have offended him in anyway or caused a misunderstanding, I would sure be quick to apologize. However, I thought that what dialogue was all about.
I have been dialoguing with Kenneth back and forth with seemingly no problem.