I'm not always sure when you are tongue in cheek screwtape, but I assume you are kidding here.
I'm not.
...when it becomes bad news.
That's a matter of perspective. Many xians - and I would not be shocked to learn you count yourself among them - are looking forward to a final nuclear war because they think that will herald a new age in which jesus H comes to earth to rule. And as for a second Obama presidency, I don't see that as a bad thing at all. And maybe you should consider the possibility that was yhwh telling you your priorities and values are completely backward.
It's like, every time there is a hurricane or earthquake or tornado, some butthole televangelist declares it to be god's judgment on the nation for not murdering homosexuals, or for witchcraft, or for not making atheism illegal. But the overwhelming number of these events take place in solidly bible-thumping areas. The gay marriage capital of the world - Massachussetts - never, ever seems to have natural disasters like that. No judgment from yhwh.
So to me, the only conclusion is the would-be prophets have the message completely backward. It is god punishing xians for their horrid values. (of course it isn't god doing anything. They are just natural phenomenon with no meaning or intent.) They (the xians) are just too wrapped up in ego and pride and delusion to get the message. When Louisianna throws Piyush Jindal into the gulf with an anchor tied to him, restores abortion providers and enacts gay marriage, maybe then the hurricanes will abate. (of course, even if Louisana got its act together there will still be hurricanes. Nature cares not for righteousness.)
My personality can enter into it without being the controlling mechanism your definition requires.
It cannot. And it's not my theory. It is the theory of former member DTE. He was a theologian who came to his senses and became an atheist.
Let me ask you this - would you allow women to speak in church?
They do it all the time in my church, I've benefitted from it many times...
Then you and your church have engaged in SPAG. You have made a decsion based on your personal preferences, assuming your opinions and values are yhwh's.
Since I know you like 1Corinthians...
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
And to back that up, 1 Tim...
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
Anything else is SPAG. Obviously, in this case, as well as many other, SPAG is good. You are using better morality than what it in the bible. You will find it typical that modern morality is superious to biblical morality. That is part of the overall point I am making with you. That is because we've learned some things over the last 2000 years. Which begs the question - why bother with the bible?
Your brevity speaks for itself. I wouldn't get too deep here if I was you, that superior thing is quite precious. Just remember this next time you accuse me of dodging.
It's not a dodge Wayne. Your weird ramblings about Lincoln had no relevance to the conversation at hand. I did not want to go off on a tangent. If you would like me to talk about it, copy your statement in context and start a new thread.
I'm glad you backed off the SPAG there, I didn't think you could defend your shotgun in the face of reality.
If that is the message you got, then you completely misunderstood possibly everything I have written in this entire thread. I did not back off at all. I said straight up Lincoln engaged in SPAG. Maybe you should reread my post, more slowly this time.
Lincoln pooped, too.
You lost me, I guess it's that superior thing you have going.
It looks like I lost you long before that. That is not a barb intended to dig at you.
I'm with Lincoln all the way. We say just, you say not. It's two against one, you lose.
That's not how it tallies. I've not had the chance to present my case to Abe, so he doesn't get a vote here. Plus, he's been dead for 160 years. And why does it seem like you are whistling past the graveyard? Lincoln is a red herring. Address my arguments or concede them.
I know you have read the second inaugural sometime in your life.
Actually, I've not. I had memorized the Gettysburg address at one point, though.
My simplification is so unbelievably profound here that it just busts your chops now doesn't it.
no. It saddens me that you think you can boil the point of Job down to one sentence and ignore everything else I wrote. It tells me you are barely reading what I am telling you and you certainly are not trying to understand. It tells me our conversation has become a playground stand off to you, an exchange of Your Mama jokes. You are not engaged.
I won't walk you through the sequence again. I know you understand it. The self aggrandizing part is a cheap shot and a dodge.
It's not. It is rather the point. You are operating under the delusion that you are so special that yhwh, the omnipotent creator of the universe, is sending messages to you, Wayne Harropson, a contractor, one man out of 6.5 Billion on one planet that circles a star in a galaxy that has 300 billion stars in it, in a universe that is 150 Billion light years across and holds at least 100 Billion galaxies.
Does that put too fine a point on how special you think you are? You are less to the universe than a single electron orbiting a single hydrogen atom in your body. Yet you are getting visions and messages
from God. Right.
It is not me.
But it
is you. Other people experience similar things and do not assume they are receiving messages from the Almighty. That would be egotistical. Things have happened to me that I cannot explain. For example, one day when I was home alone, my cell phone turned on all by itself. I cannot explain it. I could say it was yhwh, or the devil or goblins or faeries or aliens. Or I could say it was some natural phenomenon, some quirk of electronics I do not understand.
I chose the latter as my answer. It does not require me to be be special in any way. It requires I acknowledge my limitations. You, on the other hand, chose the answer that puts you on par with Elijiah and Moses.
Here's another quickie.
This is what I mean. You fail to understand you are not the hero of The Story. There is no Story. In your mind it is always all about you.
...you don't even have to acknowledge a Christian's evidence.
You've not brought evidence. You've brought your weird and egocentric interpretations of dreams and coincidences. None of which has any bearing on xianity. Even if they were genuine visions or premonitions, they could be a natural phenomenon or they could be related to other supernatural, non-xian entities. You've not connected all the dots. You have only jumped to your own favored conclusions in a rather unconvincing manner.
the absolutely stunning reality that God inspired me to write it,
But that is a leap. You may have been inspired but you have no idea whether it was god, baal or your own overactive imagination. You are pointing to these things and saying "viola. Proves xianity." I am saying xianity undermines itself long before your stories come into the picture, so discussing them is putting the cart ahead of the horse.
The world is just chalk full of injustices,
We're not talking about the world. We are talking about yhwh. Remember? The god who is supposed to be the embodiment of justice?
the amazing contributions god minded people from there have given the world.
? what's israel given the world? I mean, besides another apartheid state?
Severe mercy? What the heck does that even mean? It sounds completely selfcontradictory.
Some verse in II Hesitations. I don't know, I heard it somewhere
II Hesitations. That's funny. I had to look that up. But seriously dude, how do you get dressed and find your way to work in the morning?
I beg. I'm not kidding.
You think I didn't?
And there are many witnesses of GW praying privately like here:
Don't care. Bush is a war criminal but could probably avoid the gallows by reason of mental incapacity. Still, I'd like to see him hang. So, you're not getting any traction with me by talking about Bush.
This is the obvious dodge I had a "premonition" about earlier on this page.
what dodge are you talking about? You asked me a question and I answered.
Did you see that picture in my article
I have not been able to access any of your articles. I have clicked the links on different computers with different browsers and they never came through. So, no.
edit - I assume the lack of access I mentioned is due to my equipment or software, not Wayne's. I did not mean to imply otherwise. I was only trying to say that I at least tried, but was unsuccessful.
