Painful argument with a Christian

[nogodsforme]

The vast majority of people who get sick with something get better. It's called the immune system. Add in public sanitation and modern medical treatment et voila! Miracles all the time, whether accompanied by prayer or not.

[velkyn]

indeed. I gues it was God's will to have people die of cholera, etc rather than just say "don't shit near your water source."

[jaimehlers]

I'll take a stab at kaziglu bey's friend, since I have a different perspective than a number of the people here.

Four things are required: 1) Ancient Scripture, to be understood in the original context and intent. This is most easily accomplished by 2) More ancient scripture from alternate sources, translated correctly, and this is only accomplished through 3) living prophets who are most easily understood through 4) Personal revelation based on an individual relationship with God. All these things must work together to gain a proper understanding.

A) Scripture taken out of context should not be ignored or accepted. Get it in the full context, understand it, and then live according to it. Get all four elements together and we can proceed with confidence.

It is grave fallacy to think we understand when we do not. Until we get all four elements, let's keep thinking about it.

This doesn't seem too unreasonable, provided they actually follow through with it.  Of course, that must include the fact that (for example) we don't actually have most of the original writings.  Therefore, until Christians get the oldest ones, they cannot say that they understand, because they are missing large parts of two of these basic 'elements'.

C) It is massive arrogance to say that we represent God when we represent only ourselves. This completely explains your objections concerning Columbus and the rather vague concept of so-called Christian Nations. It is a very easy thing to attach "Holy" to our deeds. It is much harder truly to represent God. Three elements will not do. It takes four.

Again, this does not seem unreasonable[1], and it is an attitude I wish more Christians would take on.  There are far too many people who do things because they believe they are representing God by them, when they are only representing themselves.

D) It is fallacy to assign to God "unchanging" that means to us that He is incapable of discerning different situations, in different times and places, with different solutions and different outcomes. Ultimate Judgment, life and death, truth and error - these things are the realm of God. Again, until we get all four elements working together, we will not gain a true understanding.

This kind of shoots the "objective morality" argument in the head, actually, even if it were to come from God.  It's a much more introspective way of looking at things than I'm used to hearing from the majority of Christians.

God has given many individuals great gifts to prepare for these last days. They did not all pray for these gifts. God has used me, at times, because I was the only one available. He has put knowledge in my head that I had no reason to know. He has put specific words from a foreign language into my mind so that I could talk to those who spoke only that language. These things are evidence. None can deny this evidence. I am telling you that it is so, that I lived it myself. It is not hearsay. I am a direct, involved witness.

I would have to ask what knowledge and words were put in this person's head, and why they think that they were gifts from God instead of, say, something they simply don't remember hearing or learning.

It is also true that many things that are quite reasonable can be rephrased so that they appear to be as offensive as possible. Try preparing a chicken for dinner, for example. It sounds rather innocuous with that simple language. It is quite simple to make it as gruesome-sounding as can be imagined. This is exactly what you have done by calling Jesus a "Human Sacrifice". Your attempts are horrible-izing expose your intent only to profane, and utterly discount any supposed effort to gain understanding or to disseminate useful information.

While this is technically true, the argument cuts both ways.  If it's propaganda to state that Jesus was a human sacrifice, then it is also propaganda to put things in a purely Christian manner.

How many witnesses with what sort of evidence do you need before you will be convinced that there is a God, that He does speak to us, and that he does involve Himself in our lives? Count me as one who cannot be discounted.

Fallacy of the majority.  It doesn't matter how many witnesses are gathered, it matters what evidence they provide.

How many who deny God will be needed before I fail to believe in Him? You can gather a great number. The fact is that I know of myself that there is a God. He has involved Himself in my life over and over and over and I cannot deny it.

This goes back to the saying that a person can't be reasoned out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into.  Your friend wasn't rationally convinced of the existence of God, she is basing it off of personal experience, which is why she is asking how many witnesses it would take to convince you and how many it would take to convince her the other way.  The problem with that is that one person's personal experience doesn't have a whole lot of meaning unless they can verify it in a way that other people can experience.  And she can't.  All she can provide are things that are purely subjective.

1.	Of course, when I say that, I mean for a Christian believer.

[kaziglu bey]

I have noticed that it seems rather important to discussions and debates on this forum to have a good knowledge of the types of logical fallacies and how to spot them. Though I did take some philosophy in college, I never really took the time to learn all of these. It seems that some folks here are very good at this. I have a link to a list of fallacious arguments, but I am not sure that it is complete, or necessarily the best one out there. Does anyone have a link to share? Also, if I were to go through my friends response and try to find the fallacies, could someone possibly confirm or deny them? I feel that this is vital to my ability to stand for myself as an Atheist in arguments, and only wish i had learned sooner.

[curiousgirl]

KB, I like this one:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

[kaziglu bey]

hmm nice and juicy, thanks curiousgirl!

[curiousgirl]

No, prob, KB! Trust me, it comes in handy. Especially against pushy theists. 

[Historicity]

I have a link to a list of fallacious arguments, but I am not sure that it is complete, or necessarily the best one out there.

I have heard that Schopenauer proposed to write a book on logic and started to list all the fallacies that had been identified.  It went on and on and on and he came to the conclusion that it was extensible and gave up on the project deeply depressed.  (I don't know much about Schopenauer but if the story is apocryphal, it's a good parable.)

I have seen such lists and I don't recommend them offhand because such discussions don't start with this very important division:

FORMAL FALLACIES = always wrong, such as self-contradicition
INFORMAL FALLACIES =
   Very often right but not always.
   Red herrings to evade the reasoning or the evidence.

For instance, if you truly abjure the Argumentum ad Hominem then you have to give a full hearing to every child or  subliterate or crazy person or fanatically biased or self-serving individual because they might, just might, have a pearl of wisdom somewhere in there.  Do you have enough hours in your life, do you have enough hours in the day?  Yes, more than half the time, you can tell a book by its cover.  Just afford a little doubt some of the time.  Be open minded but not wide open.

And so on.  I could spend a lot of time defending the other formal fallacies.

Argumentum ad Verecundiam -- Do get your info from responsible sources.  Even an irrelevant authority probably knows more than the average.
Argumentum ad Populum -- If there is a growing trend, a bandwagon there is often a good reason for it.
Argumentum ad Numerum -- aka "Data is not the plural of anecdote." But a bunch of anecdotes (in the absence of well gathered info) are a good reason to consider it.

You could live your life successfully (lots of people do) just by following these fallacies and you'd be right 60% of the time by my guesstimate.

This distinction is important because an opponent can hit you with a claim that he has proved you wrong -- absolutely geometrically proved you wrong -- because you have used such a fallacy.  You can come back that you were still probably right if not in point of fact.
BTW, I can write Latin (haltlngly but accurately) so I sometimes identify fallacies not in the book.  (For the sake of honesty I always tell people that I made up the Latin translation.)

Argumentum ad Librum -- It's somewhere in that big, thick book.  What?  I have cited my source.  Read the big thick book and get back to me.
Argumentum ad Legem -- Laying down the law. 

  "The First Law of Thermodynamics is a law, not a theory", Bryan Fischer of the AFA claiming to have disproved evolution.
  "{name} showing utter contempt for the rules of personal communication has refused to answer my question", the jerk who runs TrueOrigins and does such things as altering what his correspondents say.  When someone ceases communication with him he always has that as a catchphrase.

Argumentum ad Nivem -- (Nivis is Latin for snow) My translation of the term snow job.  My definition (you may disagree) is slipping an undocumented statement between 2 documented ones.  My classic example is from Hal Lindsey in Satan is Alive and Well on the Planet Earth.  He contended that Satan had sent 4 Thought Bombs.  The people who said them were inspired by Satan.  They were Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.  For Sigmund Freud he said,

Sigmund Freud defined psychotherapy as {quote} and properly footnoted it.
Psychiatrists say the majority of people in mental institutions are there because of guilt problems. "We Christians could have told them that", quipped Lindsey.
Then a properly footnoted quote that Freud's philosophy excuses all behavior and undermines all morality.  That, concludes Lindsey, is evidence of Satan's inspiration of Freud.

I was momentarily impressed till (1) I detected the two Ad Verecundiams.  The first is that Lindsey, a guy who drank his way out of college, was giving the impression that he had studied Freud.  But Freud's definition of psychotherapy should reasonably be in the first few pages of the book.  When I looked at the quote about undermining morals I found it was attributed to some Frenchman I had never heard of.  Since all Frenchmen think they are philosophers it means nothing.  Then (2) I noticed he had not documented his claim about the mental institutions full of people on guilt trips.  He had given the impression of erudition by carefully documenting the trivial to sneak in something that was likely to be a lie.

BTW, Mad Magazine once imagined a drug for students who are unprepared called Snowjobberol.  They defined it as such things as giving history answers to math questions. In other words, well documented but irrelevant.  I accept the authority of Mad as another appropriate definition.  Note that when the question of the validity of the Bible itself comes up we get people who come here to give us a veritable blizzard of Bible quotes which is irrelevant if none of them are true.

[kaziglu bey]

I'm finding in many cases that sometimes it is a stretch to make something fit the requirements for whatever fallacy. For example, I would propose a specific type of appeal to authority, called either "Not a member of the club" or "Appeal to Bigfoot". In this, someone says that only members of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization have seen and therefore truly believe in bigfoot, therefore they are the ONLY people with authority to comment on the matter. Similarly, by saying that only by believing can someone ever understand the bible, only believers can accurately interpret the Bible.

[Hatter23]

I have a link to a list of fallacious arguments, but I am not sure that it is complete, or necessarily the best one out there.

I have heard that Schopenauer proposed to write a book on logic and started to list all the fallacies that had been identified.  It went on and on and on and he came to the conclusion that it was extensible and gave up on the project deeply depressed.  (I don't know much about Schopenauer but if the story is apocryphal, it's a good parable.)

I have seen such lists and I don't recommend them offhand because such discussions don't start with this very important division:

FORMAL FALLACIES = always wrong, such as self-contradicition
INFORMAL FALLACIES =
   Very often right but not always.
   Red herrings to evade the reasoning or the evidence.

For instance, if you truly abjure the Argumentum ad Hominem then you have to give a full hearing to every child or  subliterate or crazy person or fanatically biased or self-serving individual because they might, just might, have a pearl of wisdom somewhere in there.  Do you have enough hours in your life, do you have enough hours in the day?  Yes, more than half the time, you can tell a book by its cover.  Just afford a little doubt some of the time.  Be open minded but not wide open.

And so on.  I could spend a lot of time defending the other formal fallacies.

Argumentum ad Verecundiam -- Do get your info from responsible sources.  Even an irrelevant authority probably knows more than the average.
Argumentum ad Populum -- If there is a growing trend, a bandwagon there is often a good reason for it.
Argumentum ad Numerum -- aka "Data is not the plural of anecdote." But a bunch of anecdotes (in the absence of well gathered info) are a good reason to consider it.

You could live your life successfully (lots of people do) just by following these fallacies and you'd be right 60% of the time by my guesstimate.

This distinction is important because an opponent can hit you with a claim that he has proved you wrong -- absolutely geometrically proved you wrong -- because you have used such a fallacy.  You can come back that you were still probably right if not in point of fact.

And despite my willingness to dissect opponent's arguments by pointing out, one by one their logical fallacies, you are correct.

The one the gives me trouble is slippery slope. Over time, to ignore slippery slope is.. well to commit the ignoring the counter evidence fallacy. For example, there are ways that people safeguard their children today that would have sounded like ludicrous hyperbole in 1850.

"What, not allow Ebenezer to handle a firearm when he's nine? Do you suppose we should put a law out there that every gun under lock and key in a household with anyone not old enough to vote?"

[RaymondKHessel]

It really didn't take me long to realize that what LaVey was describing was really more agnostic or perhaps even Atheist than religious, and that he included so much extra pointless bullshit (but hey, what would religion be without that?) as to make it worthless.

Oh yeah. The pointless bullshit is your money-maker, baby. People LOVE filler content. 

Kings play cards on fat green stools.

Lmao... At first, I thought to myself "Ahhh damn. There goes another one. Too much religious talk and the poor bastard's brain done broke!" 

I put it together quick enough though. Except I learned it as "Kevin poured cola on Frank's good shirt." When both sentences are taken out of context and read by themselves, I prefer yours. It's a nice little self-contained statement of outright weirdness, which agrees with me.

Mine, however, only raises questions. Like who is Kevin, and why is he such a dick? 

[Add Homonym]

Prepare to have your brain exploded.

.... And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken pre­diction about “this generation” after the passage of time had shown the (appar­ent) mistake. This passage (Mark 13:30-32) and the cry “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) together make up the strongest proof that the New Testament is historically reliable. The evangelists have the first great character­istic of honest witnesses: they mention facts which are, at first sight, damaging to their main contention.

  {Bold mine}

So in other words, if the Bible reports something and turns out to be correct, this proves that it is reliable.  On the other hand, if the Bible reports something and turns out to be wrong... this also proves that it is reliable.  No matter which way we turn, the Bible is vindicated, ...

It's actually worse than that. The quotes come from Mark, which is a more human Jesus, who would have been allowed to have a sudden lack of faith. So, he's actually declaring an error where there is none, and saying it's awesome proof.

EDIT: Looked at the other way around, we could say that the Gospel of John, portraying Jesus as God, is one horrendous error from start to finish. Who else would have included this ridiculous narrative, but people attempting to tell the truth?

[Hatter23]

lol Wow. You know, there are actually *very* few actual "Satanists" out there, as in theistic Satanism - people who worship Big Gay Satan. So few in fact, I can't even find numbers for them.

You could certainly describe me as one of the LaVey school of Satanists, though not really committed. It really didn't take me long to realize that what LaVey was describing was really more agnostic or perhaps even Atheist than religious, and that he included so much extra pointless bullshit (but hey, what would religion be without that?) as to make it worthless.

As you pointed out from your own experience, I too came to see Satan as more of a symbol of refusal to submit, rather than a symbol of evil. Satan refused to submit himself before God (as I do, since if the Bible is true, he's a tyrant) and instead embraces personal leadership. Satan is kind of a sympathetic character to me really, with God being the big bully who is always whining and bringing the pain when things don't go his way, while obsessing over circumcision, discharge, and menstruation. I can certainly respect a character who just wants to be able to look after himself a lot more than a spoiled cosmic dictator. (If Kim Jong Il had been the biblegod, could it really have been any more insane?) I'm kind of a loner anyways.

LeVey Satanism always struck me as the Playboy philosophy with a lot of woo jargon globbed on top.

[kaziglu bey]

Holy God, her latest response is really just embarrassing:

Her:
You have this exactly correct: "It just means that we do not (yet) know what caused X." This also applies to the scriptures that you continue not to understand, using some recent translation of what someone thought they might mean at some time in his/her life. I gave you four elements to find the information you fail to refute. Which of these four is fulfilled by your limb-regrowing experiment? Besides, you clearly have left yourself an out with the "no other explanation" clause. No mater how clear the evidence, one can always dream up some other explanation. Defense Lawyers do it all the time.

"Original Sin" - False doctrine. Refute this all you wish.
"Eternal Punishment" (meaning punishment that continues forever and ever) - False Doctrine. Feel free to refute it.

There are many false doctrines brought about by the hand of man. I join you in their refutation, but prefer to replace them with true doctrine, rather than just throwing them out. Many false doctrines have actually resulted in some good. There is no need to excise them immediately, but we should be about that business as we are able.

"Iluvatar" - Nice. I wasn't expecting anything from the Silmarillion. Do you know how this name may imply the feminine nature of god? There are many interesting claims and stories. This is why we need the four elements I have suggested, so that we may be able to sort it all out and utterly fail to be confused.

[kcrady]

Four things are required: 1) Ancient Scripture, to be understood in the original context and intent. This is most easily accomplished by 2) More ancient scripture from alternate sources, translated correctly, and this is only accomplished through 3) living prophets who are most easily understood through 4) Personal revelation based on an individual relationship with God. All these things must work together to gain a proper understanding.

Whoooooaaaa there!  Who are these "living prophets?"  Looking at the structure of these four points, it is clear that the claims of the "living prophets" are the sole foundation of your beliefs, since they (and only they) can interpret the ancient scriptures by means of their alleged personal revelations.  Since these men (given Christianity's patriarchal tendencies, they are rather likely to be men) are the channel through which all knowledge of Yahweh's infallible word comes, you have granted these men de facto Divine infallibility. 

If they aren't infallible, then the whole rest of your structure collapses.  There is no longer any means to translate and interpret ancient scripture correctly (per your second principle above), and without that you're left with no way to know anything about Yahweh or his will for your life.  Since their claimed "personal revelations" are the source of your beliefs and the standard by which everything else (such as "ancient scripture") is judged, you have no possible methodology to distinguish a truth spoken by a "living prophet" from an error or a lie.

So why should anyone believe that these men are infallible Spokesmen for God?  Perhaps you will say that they have super powers?  Well, even if they do, so what?  There is no inherent connection between possessing super powers and being infallible, or even honest.  If you were to encounter an Egyptian magician who could turn water into blood, and his staff into a cobra, I'm guessing it's rather unlikely that you would say, "Huh.  Well, alright then, I guess he must be right about Amun-Re being King of the Gods then.  All hail Amun-Re, Lord of Amenta, who rises in triumph in the East!"

A) Scripture taken out of context should not be ignored or accepted. Get it in the full context, understand it, and then live according to it. Get all four elements together and we can proceed with confidence.

Since your "four" elements reduce to one--the alleged personal revelations of your "living prophets," I can see no reason at all to "proceed with confidence" in following their teachings.  David Hume 101: Which is more likely--that the omnimax Creator of all things (if such exists) should decide to speak through a certain, few, privileged individuals when He/She/It/Them is/are equally capable of speaking through or to every human being or finding some other unambiguous method of communication?  Or that a human being might claim to be a uniquely privileged Voice of God on Earth out of delusion, or to gain the unlimited power over followers that comes with representing oneself as a special conduit of Divine commandments? 

Furthermore, since the alleged revelations are personal, coming uniquely and unverifiably to the minds of these special individuals, they cannot, by that very fact, be for anyone but those individuals.  Let's say I have a what I believe to be revelation from Yahweh.  The experience may well be compelling enough to convince me of its validity, and I would be cognitively entitled to accept it for myself (though I should really check to make sure my mind is working properly).  However, if I try to tell you of this revelation, you don't have the revelation.  You have my assertions about the revelation.  You have no way to know if I am relaying the revelation accurately (my memory of it could be flawed) or honestly. 

It is grave fallacy to think we understand when we do not. Until we get all four elements, let's keep thinking about it.

Again, your "four" elements reduce to one, "whatever the 'living prophets' say." 

C) It is massive arrogance to say that we represent God when we represent only ourselves.

And yet, your whole belief system rests on the claims of people who say they represent God as 'living prophets.'  Let's keep thinking about it.

>snip more appeals to the "four" principles<

God has given many individuals great gifts to prepare for these last days. They did not all pray for these gifts.

How do you explain the contradiction between the claims of these "gifted" people that the "last days" are now, and the claims of Jesus that they were the time of his own disciples and people like the High Priest Caiaphas, who would, Jesus said, see the Son of Man coming in glory?  Or the makeup, strategy, and tactics of modern military forces, vs. the battle of massed cavalry forces predicted for Armageddon in the Book of Revelation?

God has used me, at times, because I was the only one available. He has put knowledge in my head that I had no reason to know. He has put specific words from a foreign language into my mind so that I could talk to those who spoke only that language. These things are evidence.

Do you speak, or have you studied that language?  Your wording here doesn't exactly state that you have zero mundanely-acquired knowledge of that language.  As for your other claims, they are neither specific nor documented, so I can't do much to evaluate them.  However, as I've explained already, wielding super powers is not proof that one is infallible, honest, or that the source of the super powers is infallible or honest.  Especially given that, in the conventional Christian cosmology (I'm not sure about your particular sect, since I don't know who its 'living prophets' are or what they teach) there is a Devil with an army of demons who are also supernaturally-empowered and capable of working deceptive miracles.  Not to mention the other "principalities and powers" spoken of in the Bible.

Furthermore, your sect, whatever it is, is hardly the only version of Christianity, or the only theistic belief system claiming miracles and special revelations.  Since you cannot demonstrate that your sect's alleged miracle-powers are authentic and others' are not, or that yours are the most powerful at all times (which would lend some credence to the claim that your powers come from a god while others' come from lesser entities like demons), we have no reason to privilege your sect when it comes to claims of supernatural power.  I am going to hazard a guess that neither you, nor any of your "living prophets" would be willing to demonstrate supernatural powers under conditions set up to rule out cognitive bias, fraud, or trickery.  I estimate a high probability that, if asked, you or they would say "Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test!"

So, in the absence of such a compelling demonstration, we're back to Hume 101.  It is simply far more likely that human beings would be deluded, or trick people like you into believing they have supernatural powers and are Divine spokespersons, because doing so gives them total power over anyone they can convince.  In your case, I have to estimate a higher likelihood that you are either in error (cognitive biases, flawed perception, or delusion) or lying to get the rise in status that comes with being specially-empowered by the Divine, than that you really do have super powers.  That is, unless you are willing to contact the James Randi Educational Foundation and arrange for an unambiguous test demo of your abilities.  Should you succeed in doing so, James Randi will give you a million dollars, which you can then donate to your church, the "living prophet" of your choice, charity, whatever--or just get yourself a Ferrari Testarossa and a new wardrobe.

None can deny this evidence.

*raises hand*  Hello?  Excuse me?  Here, here in the back.  Yes, I can deny it.  Just like you would deny the same sort of claims, made by a Hindu on the behalf of herself and/or her favorite Gurus.

I am telling you that it is so, that I lived it myself.

Granting that you have made the effort to examine and rule out other possibilities, such as cognitive biases, flawed human perception,[1] the possibility that you could be psychic,[2] Mage-talented, demon-possessed, or whatever, you could reasonably adhere to these beliefs.

It is not hearsay. I am a direct, involved witness.

Actually, for us, it is hearsay.  We have to take your word for it.

It is also true that many things that are quite reasonable can be rephrased so that they appear to be as offensive as possible. Try preparing a chicken for dinner, for example. It sounds rather innocuous with that simple language. It is quite simple to make it as gruesome-sounding as can be imagined. This is exactly what you have done by calling Jesus a "Human Sacrifice".

Was Jesus human?[3]  Y/N?

Was Jesus sacrificed on the Cross?  Y/N?

If the answer to both is "yes," then Jesus was a human sacrifice.

How many witnesses with what sort of evidence do you need before you will be convinced that there is a God, that He does speak to us, and that he does involve Himself in our lives? Count me as one who cannot be discounted.

How many witnesses with what sort of evidence do you need before you will be convinced that there [are extraterrestrials visiting the Earth], that [they do] speak to us, and that [they do] involve [themselves] in our lives?

How many who deny God will be needed before I fail to believe in Him? You can gather a great number. The fact is that I know of myself that there is a God. He has involved Himself in my life over and over and over and I cannot deny it.

Assuming you're telling the truth here, and not falling prey to the ordinary foibles of fallible human consciousness (cognitive biases, overactive pattern-recognition and agency-detection, etc.) or a higher level of psychiatric delusion, then I suppose you must be very fortunate, compared to nearly everybody else who believes in deities of one sort or another.  Most of them have to go by faith, the poor sods.  On the other hand, taking into consideration the Doubting Thomas story, maybe they'll be the lucky ones in the long run, for "because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
 

1.	Such as the over-active pattern-recognition system of the human brain that lets us turn random arrangements of stars into pictures of animals, people, etc., or see the Virgin Mary in the patterning of a tortilla chip.
2.	And thus wield your psychic powers thinking they come from your god, while other psychics like you (but in different religions) think theirs come from their gods, etc..
3.	Setting aside his putative divine nature for the moment, because the present question is aimed at determining if he was a God-man, rather than a God-badger or God-someothercreature.

[kaziglu bey]

Wow, beautiful response Kcrady, much better and even faster than mine lol! I should just wait for the seasoned vets here to respond and then plagiarize.  Here is my response:

"No mater how clear the evidence, one can always dream up some other explanation. Defense Lawyers do it all the time." 
-Ignoring evidence that points to a clear conclusion and instead making up a conclusion in spite of contradicting evidence is delusional. Why ignore conclusions supported by evidence in favor of those not supported(or even contradicted) by evidence? Would you want your jury to do that?

Your "fourth element" assumes that only someone who believes and has been witness can be offer a valid interpretation. So, in other words, someone who is not a member of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization doesn't truly believe, so therefore could have no valid opinion about the existence or "True Doctrine" of Bigfoot.

"Do you know how this name may imply the feminine nature of god?"
-Irrelevant since Iluvatar is a figment of J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination, just as Zeus was a figment of the Romans imagination, Osiris is a figment of Ancient Egyptian imagination, and God is the modern day figment of Christian imagination, just as he was to primitive sheep herders in biblical times.

"I gave you four elements to find the information you fail to refute." 
-Who gave YOU these four elements? Unless you have a letter from God that says that is the only way to understand him, aren't you (or someone else) just making this up? "This is why we need the four elements I have suggested" It seems that you are might be establishing these as your criteria and not God's.

"It is massive arrogance to say that we represent God when we represent only ourselves."
Are you not, by saying that since you have a special relationship with God and have borne witness, and I have not (how do you know?) that you are able to understand and therefore are the only one of the two of us able to represent God? Aren't you, by claiming to have this witness/faith based 4th element of yours, claiming to have a more accurate representation of God, when you consider it arrogant to do so? Isn't "getting it" because " I am part of the special club" arrogant?

I am not trying to insult when I say this, but I am pretty sure that you do not know what a fallacy is. For example, your statement: "This completely explains your objections concerning Columbus and the rather vague concept of so-called Christian Nations. It is a very easy thing to attach "Holy" to our deeds." 

Is an example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Deeds which you do not consider holy (even if God advocates them himself in his book) cannot be holy, as no one who is actually holy would do those things. Moses, Joshua and Aaron are supposedly Holy people, but they go on an all out killing spree, on God's orders, to destroy non-believers, man woman and child (except the women who are kept to be sex slaves, of course). So, either Moses, Aaron and Joshua are not holy men, or God's commands to his followers are not holy. If it is the first, then why is god giving them instruction and a prominent place in his book? If it is the second, how can God give unholy orders? If it's good enough for Moses, Joshua and Aaron, why is not good enough for Columbus?

"There are many false doctrines brought about by the hand of man. I join you in their refutation, but prefer to replace them with true doctrine"
 
But "false doctrines brought about by the hand of man" doesn't include yours? Another actual fallacy, called Special Pleading. What then, IS true doctrine?  "True Doctrine" in religion is in the eye of the beholder. Remember that SPAG thing? Because one of your requirements to attain this true doctrine is bearing witness and believing, such a person cannot be an unbiased observer, and as such unable to ascertain without bias what truth is.

"God has given many individuals great gifts to prepare for these last days."

What are these gifts? And what are "these last days"? Everyone who has ever stated, whether based on faith in God or faith in Mayan calendars, that end times are upon us has been wrong, as evidenced by the very obvious fact that we are still here, and there is no sign of Armageddon (or Ragnarok for that matter. No Three Winters yet).

"He has put knowledge in my head that I had no reason to know. He has put specific words from a foreign language into my mind so that I could talk to those who spoke only that language."

What language is that? How many of those people have you talked to? Any other knowledge that He has put into your head? Ever heard of Xenoglossy? How is it that there can be no other explanation for this other than God? Also, unless the language God granted you was Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Egyptian, or Arabic, I am not sure how you could possess any better knowledge of the true translation of the bible and associated works than I. There are how many translations of the Bible (and associated works) out there? Which one is the ONLY correct one? Or are none of them? Then you have another problem: which is the ONLY correction interpretation of the ONLY correct translation of the Bible(and associated works)? I am afraid that arrogance would be to claim to truly know this.

Linda, you are forgetting. I used to be a believer. I fell for it, hook line and sinker. I believed that God had revealed himself to me in certain ways. There could be no other explanation. I had discussions with priests (who, for the sake of argument, I am going to assume are one of those people who have actually experienced God), prayed daily, spread the word, and was generally willing to shun all logic and reason in exchange for a really cozy worldview. I was where you are now (with the exception of the xenoglossy). Though I always questioned things, and had doubts, it seemed that the answer was just that it was still just one of those mysteries of God.  In my search to fully understand God, and his doctrine, it became clear to me that the whole idea was just nonsense. No matter how the Bible is explained, or who does the explaining, it never makes any sense in the real world. As I came to understand God's Doctrine, it did not make sense how it could contain so many contradictions, so many threats, so many vile recommendations, so much slaughter. Of those incidences in which the Bible gives us a specific number, there are 2,476,633 deaths, most of them brutal murder, for which God is directly responsible. This does not include the Great Flood, Sodom and Gamorrah, or any other event for which a specific number is not given, or those killed as a result of the Death Penalty God assigns for so many infractions (Thou Shalt Not Kill?) . Why would a god that loves us cause so much cruel suffering and death? Why does he apparently continue to do so? After all, Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." God is saying, in his book, that he creates evil. I trust (again, for the sake of argument) that someone as powerful and knowledgeable as he is knows what he is talking about.

[Add Homonym]

Ok, so below is what my Christian friend recently sent me. Next post is my response.


Four things are required: 1) Ancient Scripture, to be understood in the original context and intent. This is most easily accomplished by 2) More ancient scripture from alternate sources, translated correctly, ....

You get this type of crap from new agers, too. Incapable of admitting a single error. Always evading admissions by changing the subject, and spurious counter-attack. You should investigate whether she'll admit being wrong on any topic.

[One Above All]

You get this type of crap from new agers, too. Incapable of admitting a single error. Always evading admissions by changing the subject, and spurious counter-attack. You should investigate whether she'll admit being wrong on any topic.

Odds are she won't and, if kaziglu points that out and states that it's pointless to argue, she will most likely declare "victory"

[screwtape]

Four things are required: 1) Ancient Scripture, to be understood in the original context and intent.

tentatively, I agree.  The problem is, most xians don't understand context or intent.

This is most easily accomplished by 2) More ancient scripture from alternate sources, translated correctly,

eh, not so much. I'm not an expert, but at some point you run out of "more ancient scripture" and "alternate sources".  And it is not always easy to know whether these dead languages are translated correctly.  You also have to understand not just language, but cultural context.  In the story of Tamar it is important to know that the moral of the story is about protecting a woman's rights, not the evils of masturbation.  And that is only known through cultural understanding.  And because we are talking about cultures that have been dead for 2000 years, that is not easy to understand.  Most xians know nothing of it.

and this is only accomplished through 3) living prophets

Oh, shit!  Full fail.  How does one differentiate between a "living prophet" and a "lunatic" or a "con man"?  Does one "just know in her heart"?  "Feel the holy spook"?  On one hand I pity rubes like her.  On the other hand, I'd like to cave in their skulls with a roofing hammer.

who are most easily understood through 4) Personal revelation based on an individual relationship with God.

Full fail #2.  How does one discern "revelations" from mental illness or just ordinary id?

A) Scripture taken out of context should not be ignored or accepted. Get it in the full context, understand it, and then live according to it. Get all four elements together and we can proceed with confidence.

this isn't actually saying anything.

C) It is massive arrogance to say that we represent God when we represent only ourselves.

what happened to B)?  Anyway, who is "we"?  Does that include the "living prophets"?  Does that include her?

D) It is fallacy to assign to God "unchanging"

1. how the hell would she know?
2. that makes her a heretic to about 99% of xianity.  Do a google search on "is god unchanging".
3. the bible does not support her.

malachi 3:6

I the LORD do not change.

James 1:17

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

also,  hebrews 1:10, hebrews 13:8, psalm 102:27

God has given many individuals great gifts to prepare for these last days.

Begs the questions - what god?  How do you know?

God has used me, at times, because I was the only one available.

OMG. The ego.  The self importance.  "I am an instrument of god".  yeah. sure.

He has put knowledge in my head that I had no reason to know. He has put specific words from a foreign language into my mind so that I could talk to those who spoke only that language.

what language, liar?

This is exactly what you have done by calling Jesus a "Human Sacrifice".

?  That is what xians call him!  The Lamb of God is a sacrificial lamb!  This stupid twat doesn't even know her own stupid religion.

How many who deny God will be needed before I fail to believe in Him? You can gather a great number. The fact is that I know of myself that there is a God.

In other words "my mind is made up, so shut up."

 

[Samuelxcs]

If a Christian says it was a 'God' that heals those who get sick, 'God' must be the immune system, or medicines.

[Add Homonym]

Just point her to this thread. That will pretty much solve the problem.

[Samuelxcs]

Just point her to this thread. That will pretty much solve the problem.

Someone should have thought of that before.

[velkyn]

There are many false doctrines brought about by the hand of man. I join you in their refutation, but prefer to replace them with true doctrine, rather than just throwing them out. Many false doctrines have actually resulted in some good. There is no need to excise them immediately, but we should be about that business as we are able.

sad.  So, dear, how can we figure out what is false and what God "really" meant?  Oh yes, I'm sure you'll claim you know but all Christians do that, all certain that their version is the only "right" one.  You all have your little magic decoder ring and you prate on how in touch with the holy spirit you are.  So, dear, are you willing to take the altar challenge of Elijah and show me just how real you and your god are? may be able to sort it all out and utterly fail to be confused.

What an arrogant little thing.  She reminds me of "agent40", a former poster here. 

[kcrady]

Wow, beautiful response Kcrady, much better and even faster than mine lol! I should just wait for the seasoned vets here to respond and then plagiarize. 

Thank you.  You're welcome to send her my post, with attribution (then it's not plagiarism )  Or you can do as others have suggested and point her to this thread.

[MMcNeely]

On the other hand, I'd like to cave in their skulls with a roofing hammer.

Watch out Screwtape... YY might say your trying to kill people again!  LOL

[nogodsforme]

If a Christian says it was a 'God' that heals those who get sick, 'God' must be the immune system, or medicines.

God also makes everyone sick in the first place. Unless it is the devil who makes people sick, and god who heals them. In which case the devil wins if the person does not get well.  Unless the person who dies is gay and had AIDS. Or if there was a miscarriage. Or in the execution of a murderer. Or if there was a natural disaster. Then it is of course god's will.

[Malfunc]

All too often I have encountered 'christians' who claim that God is their heavenly father and that God "is love". They speak of love, forgiveness, gentleness, meekness, kindness ect. but the moment I attempted to question Bible scriptures and teachings they immediately got their backs up and became very nasty. 

[curiousgirl]

Welcome, Malfunc! What you are saying does not surprise me in the least. Christians usually feel (not sure whether this is conscious or not on their part) that their potential eternal life as God's special chosen child is threatened when atheists try to bring up Biblical contradictions or irrationality. Christians want to live inside their bubble of fantasy, and they will get nasty with anyone who tries to burst it.

[Malfunc]

Hi curiousgirl:), ty for your response. I'm not an atheist but I don't believe in the same literal God as religious people do. Their 'God' is conveniently packaged to cater to their needs and wants.