Fallen and Flawed

I don’t feel like you’re a vertical corpse! Do you feel that way about me? What a shocking suggestion, why would you say such a thing? Do atheists not have emotions, loves, hates, passions and desires the same as everyone else?
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I confess, there is a long and ignoble history of people stripping away the humanity of groups they disagree with, usually to disastrous consequence. Whether out of misplaced good intentions or a slip of the tongue, accusing a diverse group (worse, a mistrusted minority group) of being dead you are doing a huge disservice to yourself and your faith. This sort of rhetoric has been used to ignore, dismiss, oppress and even kill others. I can’t imagine why you would use such inflammatory rhetoric when you’re ostensibly trying to reach out to others.
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Here’s a tip: don’t say your discussion partners are corpses or imply they’re sub-human if your intention is to foster communication.
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As for your list, it isn’t merely disturbing but actually quite insulting and degrading. I find it hard to understand how you can say that you have failed if you don’t “move to a graceful articulation of the good news” and then in the very next paragraph call people slaves of sin, hard hearted, wrathful, hating the light and worst of all, “no good thing dwells in us”.
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It seems to me that anyone who believes these things has walled off themselves from the wondrous goodness that is in people everywhere. To call this debasing, self-hating philosophy “Good News” and those who don’t share it “vertical corpses” seems totally backwards. (Though I would never say you were a corpse!)
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There’s no silver bullet in my apologetics toolbox that will take you out of your atheism. That’s one of the reasons I don’t spend much time mastering classical or current arguments.

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Evidence my good man, evidence.
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I don’t think atheism is a philosophical position. It doesn’t have any creeds, tenants, dogmas, or moral propositions. It’s merely a statement about the existence of gods. If you do not understand this fundamental fact and instead try to shape it as a battle of philosophies then you’ll just be talking past us and, you’re right, it probably won’t succeed.

Hey Tyro,

Thanks for your comments. If Jesus historically lived, died, and rose again, would that be compelling evidence?

Ryan,
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If Jesus historically lived, died and rose again would be a conclusion based on evidence. This isn’t just semantics, it’s an important distinction because even trying to gather evidence for this claim is quite a task even with excellent evidence and what we’ve got is far from that. There are hundreds of stories of miracles and resurrections from antiquity so we need to find a methodology for investigating each claim impartially.
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Would you treat the claims of miracles from other religions as seriously as from your own?
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But for the sake of argument, let’s say we had convincing proof that Jesus rose, what then? In all other domains we don’t feel confident in our conclusion until we’ve considered alternative explanations and ruled them out. Which alternatives have you considered and how did you rule them out?
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Are there any other observations we could make to confirm or potentially reject this theory?

Thanks Demian for the reminder. We will never know salvation until we know who we are apart from Christ. And as a Christian, we will cease to be amazed at grace unless we remember who we were apart from Christ.

BTW: putting periods or dashes in comments to add whitespace just to work around the comment formatting seems silly. Is there any way that the wordpress blog configs can be changed to convert newlines into paragraph (p) instead of line breaks (br)? It’s been a while since I messed with WP but I thought it was configurable enough to support that.

That’s all, carry on with the discussion

Thanks Tyro. You wrote, “Which alternatives have you considered and how did you rule them out?”
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Needless to say, much academic work has been done on this subject, both from the pro-Christian stance and the anti-Christian stance. There are all sorts of theories about if people stole the body, if Jesus really died on the cross, etc. From everything I have read, the Gospel accounts are very hard to refute as being false. They are fully consistent with history, biology, medicine, psychology, archaeology, etc. – and it’s pretty clear that Jesus was a real person who lived, was crucified, rose again, and was seen by many people after His death. One of the biggest pieces of evidence for me (I wasn’t a Christian for 23 years of my life) was that 11 of the 12 apostles all testified to this truth and went to their violent deaths as martyrs (the other one was exiled to an island).
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Of course you’ll now say, “Well there are crazy religious people who die for their cause all the time. Look at Islam. What does this prove?” Well here’s the difference: The apostles all claimed to be first-hand witnesses who saw Jesus after His death. This is different from believing something you read and then dying for it. They went to their horrific deaths claiming that they had seen with their own eyes the risen Christ. People might die for something they believe to be true. People will never die for something they know to be false.
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Also, we have to look at the fact that Jesus predicted His own death and resurrection over and over again during His life on earth. He also said things like, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And, “I and the Father are one.” In other words, He claimed to be God and the only way to salvation. That’s pretty insane. Unless He really is God. He then predicts His own death perfectly and fulfills it perfectly. Certainly that gives Him some credibility, does it not? And if so, then do we not also need to look at all the other things He said and take them seriously?

Ryan,
Those are some alternatives, that the whole thing was fiction is another. Saying that a resurrection is consistent with biology, medicine and history is either an outrageous lie or a gross misunderstanding of these sciences. The whole point of miracles is they are not consistent with any of these things. If they were, they’d be natural, everyday occurrences and nothing special – like surviving the common cold.
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But no, what I meant was, assuming that people really did see Jesus rise from the dead, what alternate explanations have you considered to explain how this happened? Without any corroborating theories for the mechanism of resurrection, the origin and character of God and so on, all you’ve given is an event that you don’t understand. There are millions of possible explanations that are consistent with our current body of knowledge so how do you rule these out?
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I also notice that you freely say “Jesus said”, “Jesus predicted” and the rest. If you wish to honestly present evidence you should remember that you aren’t quoting Jesus, you’re quoting the bible. It’s ancient writers writing these things, not Jesus actually speaking.
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As for the rest, I’ll be brief.
Predictions – no problem when the book was written after the events occurred (“look at me, I predicted 9/11 according to this book I just wrote”).
Claimed to be witnesses – so you believe everything provided someone says they saw it? Come on. (Though kudos for recognizing it was a claim.)
Die for truth vs false – people regularly die for dogma and values, not for factual claims. No idea why you think this should be different. People also go to greater lengths for things they suspect are false but have committed to being true, just look at the Millerites, Jonestowners, and even Mormon spirit miners.

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Finally, you haven’t begun to get a methodology. All religious believers have a similar string of defences for their beliefs. Until you can look as sceptically at your own beliefs as at others, it’s hard to take your claims seriously.

There’s a lot to work with here Tyro. Just a few points:
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1. Miracles do not contradict reality. They simply introduce the supernatural into the natural. Healings and miracles happen all over the world, some by demonic powers and some through the power of the Holy Spirit. These are not “anti-reality.” They are reality affected by the supernatural.
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2. The reference to “biology, history, etc.” was in regard to the entire scope of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection – not just His rising from the grave. The point of saying this is that the way Jesus died, the location of the tomb – and the loads of other factors from these accounts – all line up with truth from the world around us. In other words, the burden of (negative) proof is actually on those who disbelieve, not on those who do believe.
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3. The alternatives to people seeing Jesus alive after His death are few and rather silly. Hallucinations. Dreams. Things like that. Yet Jesus appeared to people and allowed them to touch Him. Those same people went and died revolting deaths proclaiming that He was alive and risen and appeared to them in the flesh. Jesus also appeared to some 500 people at a time. Did all those people have simultaneous hallucinations?
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4. What about the fact that the disciples didn’t initially believe that Jesus had risen? They thought it was crazy-talk. So it wasn’t as if they were biased toward believing and decided to make something up. And if this was all made up, how would Christianity have exploded like it did in the 1st century based purely on a lie?
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5. Okay, scrap the predictions from Jesus. How about the ones written hundreds of years prior in the Old Testament? These appear over and over again in the Torah, the Prophets, the Wisdom Literature and the Law. What’s the likelihood that these would all come exactly true? Remember we’re talking about things written centuries before they happened. Check out Isaiah 53. Many Jewish people deny that passage or say it refers to something other than Jesus, but it’s pretty clear who it’s referring to. Does that prophecy (and the fact that it perfectly predicts the coming events in the New Testament) have any credibility?
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6. I do not believe everything people claim. I believe the truth of the Bible because of history, experience, internal claims, external realities, fulfilled prophecies, and ultimately because faith is a gift from God, where our hearts and minds are illuminated to the truth of God’s word through the power of the Holy Spirit. Before I was a Christian I got nothing out of the Bible. I hated reading it. It was silly and weird (it still is in many ways . I thought it was all rubbish and fairy tale. Yet when I was saved by God’s grace, the lightbulbs when on and the truth came to life. This is certainly a gift from God, and I know that it might not make any sense until the same thing happens in your life (and I definitely pray that it will!).
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7. You wrote, “People regularly die for dogma and values, not for factual claims.” Exactly the point! The apostles died for factual claims, NOT dogma and values. They claimed a fact: they saw Jesus. This was not a dogma. For them it was reality.
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Okay my fingers are starting to hurt, but thanks for engaging Tyro! Hope we’re having fun

Ryan,
Typing too much? I think we’re being brief but these side-tracks do seem to be multiplying!
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Miracles do not contradict reality. Of course we’ll differ on that but it wasn’t what I intended to say. I meant to say that they are extremely rare and contradict our scientific theories. If they weren’t, then they would just be mundane or unusual. Make matters worse, humans not only tell stories/lies for a wide range of reasons but get their memories genuinely and unintentionally confused. So you tell me, how do we make the extremely improbable miracle become more probable than the common, mundane alternatives? I’ve never seen any apologist describe how this is done in any general sense. This is bad, very bad. Looks like wishful thinking and special pleading.
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The point of saying this is that the way Jesus died, the location of the tomb – and the loads of other factors from these accounts – all line up with truth from the world around us. Without going into the myriad problems with this statement, I don’t know what you think this shows. Fictitious stories and embellishments are often set in real locations. You’ve shown it’s not set on clearly fictitious locations like Atlantis but this is no evidence for the Gospels being historically accurate beyond trivial details of what life was like at the time. Certainly doesn’t attest to Jesus’s miracles any more than the Harry Potter books are evidence for magic, even though many of the cities are real.
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The alternatives to people seeing Jesus alive after His death are few and rather silly. But all are more credible than positing a deity, that’s my point. Perhaps you miss this because you’ve grown up where gods are accepted but other explanations are not but this doesn’t change the facts. (And let’s face it, the whole thing being entirely made up is vastly more likely still.)
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Jesus also appeared to some 500 people at a time. Did all those people have simultaneous hallucinations? Again, you really must learn that you can’t use biblical claims alone to prove that the bible is truthful. Here for instance, we do not know that 500 people saw Jesus, we just have a passage saying that this happened. Using one probably fiction to support another is no help. You and other Christians seem either unaware of this or unwilling to submit your claims to the same scrutiny you regularly subject the claims of other religions. It’s not a good thing.
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Check out Isaiah 53. Many Jewish people deny that passage or say it refers to something other than Jesus, but it’s pretty clear who it’s referring to. Does that prophecy (and the fact that it perfectly predicts the coming events in the New Testament) have any credibility? Well yeah, can you blame them? It’s written in a clearly metaphorical way and when taken in conjunction with the rest of Isaiah it is pretty clearly talking about Israel and not Jesus. But whatever, let’s say you’re right. Where’s the evidence this was fulfilled instead of merely made up and written down? This is yet another prophesy which is easy to fulfil by the gospel writers who have their Jesus character doing what they wish. We see in other places that the gospel writers are making stuff up in order to “fulfil” prophesies, such as the virgin birth and Jesus riding two donkeys – these are obvious because they’re based on misunderstanding the original text. Because of this accident, we know the gospel writers were not being truthful when their stories tell of Jesus fulfilling prophesies so how can we trust the others? Telling stories with characters who fulfil prophesies is easy and meaningless. You might as well point to the prophesies Harry Potter fulfilled (London is a real city after all, plenty of archaeological and biological evidence, etc.).
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Yet when I was saved by God’s grace, the lightbulbs when on and the truth came to life. If that’s true, God is lighting the same lightbulbs for Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, and Scientologists. You can’t all be right but you can all be wrong. What objective tools can we use to determine which claims of divine inspiration are right, if any?
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Exactly the point! The apostles died for factual claims, NOT dogma and values. They claimed a fact: they saw Jesus. This was not a dogma. For them it was reality. If you agree that people don’t die for simple facts, how can you turn around and say that these people died for facts? Can have it both ways. Can you think of other factual claims people have died for so we at least understand the psychology you’re claiming? Galileo recanted and retired to house arrest even though he was definitely right. If the apostles did die for their beliefs (and we have very little evidence that they did), our knowledge of psychology tells us that they were almost certainly dying for dogma. This isn’t surprising when we see the emphasis on blind faith throughout the bible. It also gives us reason to believe that any early Christians who died did so not because they knew Jesus rose but because they believed in the Christian dogma without evidence. They took it on faith and died because of it. And all of this assumes we have evidence of how the apostles died which, surprise, we do not. We have the bible which leads us to the same problem of using Harry Potter to confirm the existence of Harry Potter.
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But be this as it may, the point I wanted to get you thinking about wasn’t the details of the evidence which is pretty sparse (essentially it’s just the bible). I was hoping to get you thinking of what you think it would take to establish that a god existed.
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What evidence did it take to confirm Newton’s Gravity? Evolution? Germ theory? How long did it take before people accepted that light moved at a constant velocity? These all led to elegant experiments and many years of work as people kept considering alternate explanations and one by one knocking them down until only one theory was left standing.
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The key success of science comes from the recognition that humans fool ourselves, we often see only what we want to see and we jump to conclusions which are often wrong. We look for ways to correct that by carefully evaluating all alternatives in an even and consistent fashion. Who has done any of this for theology?
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So to answer your question, would a resurrection prove the existence of God (assuming we could prove a resurrection)? Definitely not since there are many, many, many alternate explanations which are far more consistent with the rest of our knowledge. You simply must do the extra work to rule these out and provide more evidence for your own claims.
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Okay, I’ll admit, that looks much, much longer now that I’ve posted it. Very sorry Ryan, will try to hold my tongue in the future.

Thanks again Tyro! I’d love to answer all these objections, but unfortunately I don’t think I have time right now. With that said I’ll just try to get to your central point… “I was hoping to get you thinking of what you think it would take to establish that a god existed.”
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I think it would take exactly what God has given us, and probably less. He has given us amazing creation, galaxies, minds, hearts, souls, morality, His Word, and ultimately Jesus Christ. This stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. Your conscience isn’t a result of chance or random particle bursts. So I think creation alone is amazing evidence, though of course there many, many more pieces of evidence to add to that list.
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If I can ask you one big question as well… Do you really believe in your heart that there is no God? Or do you hope that there isn’t one because of what that would mean for your life?

Amen, that is my response to your original post Demian. However for some reason I feel compelled to weigh in on the significant discussion taking place in the comments. I see little point in even civil discussion with atheists. The reason is that even in our fullest human intellectual capacity (which I am far from!) we fundamentally lack the ability to work out God ourselves. Argument or discussion implies that it’s within our ability believe or not believe based on sensible evidence, but such is not the case. God either calls a man or He doesn’t. Either way it has nothing to do with us or our intellectual magnitude. I’m just grateful to be counted among those called to believe and I hold no animosity toward those that are not.

Tyro: I believe the format issue is inside the design, so not a WP problem. [I know, periods are lame. But bear with me. I'm a writer, not a coder. Getting help. ]
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Your reaction to the post is not surprising, and in fact proves my point, but…
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I will say this: My central point is not that you are inhumane or without emotion, but spiritually dead. [Spirit as meaning soul. A spark of the divine. Unresponsive to talk of the spirit That sort of thing. ]
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And understand that this perspective drives me to care MORE for you than I would otherwise.
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I do want to foster communication, but never at the expense of the Gospel.
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Thanks Tyro.

Ryan,
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I know I’m not Tyro, but I’d like a chance to answer this question.
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“Do you really believe in your heart that there is no God? Or do you hope that there isn’t one because of what that would mean for your life?”
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I don’t know if there are any gods or not. That’s why I am an agnostic atheist. I don’t believe in any gods, but I cannot know 100% for certain. Of course, if I only lived my life based on what I could know 100% for certain, I’d never do anything.
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Based on the evidence that I have now, it seems vastly more probable to me that there is not a god behind our existence, especially an interventionist kind of god as proposed by Christianity.
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My life really has not changed from the time I was a Christian until now. Does that disappoint you? Except for church things (which I no longer do for what should be obvious reasons), I do the same things with mostly the same group of friends. I have my own ideas about what is moral, and I try to adhere to those principles.
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Regardless of what it would mean to my life, I really do not feel that there is a god, and most god beliefs to me seem implausible or improbable. Sometimes, I wish there was some kind of benevolent god-force in the background who would straighten things out for us from time to time…but that’s my wishful thinking.
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If there is a god, it probably wouldn’t affect my life either way, and that is part of what I have realized. So much of what we do is by our own efforts…even if there is a god, what kind of credit would we owe such a being? I don’t mean malice by that statement, but it is my question. What has been done that hasn’t been done by the human hand, or by nature? I don’t see any god in nature, either.

Ryan,

He has given us amazing creation, galaxies, minds, hearts, souls, morality, His Word, and ultimately Jesus Christ.

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How do galaxies fit into this gift to us? We only identified them as something distinct from gaseous nebulae in the 1920s. It’s impossible to appreciate what a tiny part of the universe our solar system really is, and then to say that it was a gift to us…?
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If we were to judge the creator by the creation, I don’t think you’d like the conclusions.
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If I can ask you one big question as well… Do you really believe in your heart that there is no God? Or do you hope that there isn’t one because of what that would mean for your life?

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I occasionally experience the same sensations of euphoria and bliss when hiking, climbing or listening to music that many religious people say is “experiencing god”, only I see no reason to think this is divine. Other than that, I can’t think what it would mean to believe there was a god in my heart. I accept that there’s almost certainly no god but I don’t claim certainty and I’ll happily change my mind if evidence and strong arguments come in.
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I liken it to homeopathy. It goes against everything we understand about the world, the evidence to date has been terrible, the advocates are more interested in pushing their own faith-based agenda than objectively examining the evidence and the little evidence there is discredits the claims. BUT if that were to change, I would happily incorporate homeopathy/Christianity into my life. I don’t hate gods, I just don’t believe one exists.
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As for changes, I don’t see how my life would change much. I’m a fairly moral person already. I explained how I believe it’s wrong to cause pain or suffering to others and once I acknowledged that I became a vegetarian and have been one for over ten years now, even though it’s not always convenient. I give to charity, volunteer my time and try to do right by my friends and family.
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From what I’ve heard, people may tie their identity, their social group and their friends to their religion. Why would anyone give all of that up and call it convenient? I know that my friends wouldn’t care if I adopted a religion so I feel free to examine the question freely. Can you say the same?

@Demian,
Sorry to hear about your WP theme problems. I had a WP blog and spent a while fiddling with different themes but I never encountered this problem. It doesn’t look like a simple theme problem though – the underlying HTML is being changed to strip out the blank lines. Maybe you have a comment plugin that’s not working? Kind of a pain I know. I wish you luck through your frustrations.
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And understand that this perspective drives me to care MORE for you than I would otherwise.

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I think that if you cared about me for me you would not denigrate or deride me yourself or through inflammatory quotes. None of my friends or family would talk to me this way. I wouldn’t treat an acquaintance or co-worker like that. I don’t see how you square concern with this treatment. I don’t care if Paul treated outsiders like this, it’s no excuse.
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Instead of saying I was merely deaf to the holy spirit, you compared me to the dead, the wrathful, the pale vermin who fear the light, and said that there was nothing good in me. That sounds like contempt to me, not caring.
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I do want to foster communication, but never at the expense of the Gospel.

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If you can’t think of us as people first instead of as proselytizing targets, I don’t think you’ll find much success. Maybe you make yourself feel good but you’ll continue to make Christians look bad.
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Atheists are just regular people after all and some would welcome a discussion about faith, love and hope. But we are people, and when you treat people with hostility and think they have nothing good in them, you aren’t conveying a message of love and hope, you’re showing Christianity is a religion of self-hatred, fear, exclusion and jealousy.
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Just my opinion and you don’t need to listen. I’m dead to the holy spirit so whatever I say is probably coming from my master, Satan
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(I do like the blog otherwise, wouldn’t comment if I thought you were really this dismissive.)

Christendom is a very broad slice of the world’s societal pie. It is fundamentally everyone who in any way links his life to the name of Christ. There are literally millions whose only link to Christ is that He is mentioned in the name or literature of the church in which they were baptized, christened or confirmed. Surveys ask, Religion? and everyone who answers with a name that can be linked to Christ is categorized “Christian.” My point? Say I robbed a bank and killed a teller, a guard and a patron in the process before being captured, and when questioned I told the police and the press I’m a Tyroite, that wouldn’t make Tyro a bad person or even a bad influence.
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The issue is not about what Christians believe or preach. The issue is what God has said. Demian quotes Scripture to support every claim he makes about the state of humankind prior to the new birth. He also makes it clear that his goal is not to proselytize, and that he has no hope of doing so because God has said it is impossible that a Christian can change the heart or mind of another person. Only the Holy Spirit can breathe spiritual life into someone who is spiritually dead. Demian has not declared you dead, Tyro– he is only telling you that God has done so.
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Now if the Bible is the basis of all Christian faith, belief, and practice, how can you expect Christians to lay it aside in order to win you over by meeting you on your godless side of the field to try to convince you with reason of that which can only be seen by faith?
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And how do you, who do not believe in any god, find yourself in the position to tell believing disciples of Jesus Christ what is good or not good or very bad about their manner of serving God? You assume too much, trying to be an authority on how God must be presented in order to be found believable.
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Just consider: IF there could be a God capable of eternally existing, creating from nothing all matter and energy that exists, then sustaining and ruling over it, why would He be obligated to convince you (one of His humble creations) of anything about Himself? How effective do you suppose your capability would be to evaluate One who is all powerful and all knowing?
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You think having to format blog paragraphs is silly? Your appraisal of Almighty God is silly!
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No one has insulted you by telling you the truth as it is explained in the Bible, and that you must be born again by means of God’s gracious gift to you in the sacrifice of His Son to pay the penalty for your sins. We have expressed only heartfelt concern that if you refuse to open your heart and mind to Jesus Christ you will ultimately persish.
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We are not ashamed or afraid to befriend you even though you oppose our beliefs, even if you may hate us for them. We are able to love even our enemies because God loved us when we were His enemies. Many, if not most of us have been skeptics, agnostics, atheists, or just plain hedonists before our eyes were opened to Christ. We were, as you have suggested, blind and deaf to God’s words, but we now know that it was because we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We know that because God has made us alive in Christ Jesus.
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So, if you want to discuss our differences, it needs to be with the understanding that we presuppose that God IS, that He is the God of the Bible, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. We are not willing to suspend belief in Him who we know to be true, just so we can submit ourselves to your biased scrutiny.
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You ARE biased you know, so you should have no objection to our being biased. The primary difference is that you appear to believe man’s intellect to be the highest authority, whereas we recognize no authority to be higher than God’s. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and has chosen that through the foolishness of the preaching of Christ crucified men should be saved.
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Thanks for the dialog.

YOU know, if you don’t feel like spending much time on apologetical arguements, then why devote so much space to a liar like John Loftus?

He admits many lies in his book, and he continued the practice long after his “deconersion”.

The most amusing example was the fake J P Holding blog, and the only thing more amusing was his stumbling explanation of why he was liar but not really a liar because he has admitted he is a liar whenever he gets caught lying?

LOL!

It wouldn’t be important, but his “deconversion” is trumpted all over, and the fact is he is lying about the reasons.

He knows this, and that is why he gets uncontrollably angry when he is called on it.

John, if you read this and don’t like it:

Tough Cookies.

Hey Tyro,
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Thanks for sharing your heart and mind with us on these rather weighty issues. Rather than address everything you wrote, I just want to pull out one key thing you said. In your response to Demian you wrote, “Instead of saying I was merely deaf to the holy spirit, you compared me to the dead, the wrathful, the pale vermin who fear the light, and said that there was nothing good in me. That sounds like contempt to me, not caring.”
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I know this sounds mean and judgmental, but the Bible tells us that we are ALL wicked and that “no one is righteous; not even one.” It also tells us that we were conceived in sin, by nature we are children of wrath, our hearts are deceitful above all things, and our lives are destined for ruin apart from Jesus Christ (no matter how “morally” we behave). So in essence, we’re in the same boat as you! The only difference is that God’s redeeming grace has regenerated our hearts and minds, so that we have a righteousness not our own, but a righteousness imputed (transferred) to us through Christ.
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One of the biggest things Jesus railed against during His ministry was the religious people of the day. All their works, all their good deeds, and all their attempts at moralism were just a cover-up for the evil in their hearts. They put on a front of “good behavior” but inside they were rotting and spiritually dead. This is what most people try to do in this world. They think their actions will save them if they’re good enough. But the problem is not our actions. It’s our heart. And the only hope for a renewed heart is through Christ.
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The problem with other religions is that they are all man-made. They tell you that if you do enough good stuff, you’ll get to heaven. Christianity turns that on its head. It says, “You can never do enough good stuff to please God because your heart is broken and you’re spiritually dead. But rather than leave you out to dry, Jesus came to pay for your sins on the cross that you might receive Him and be cleansed from all unrighteousness.” So there is nothing man-made about Christianity. The reason people hate it is because it requires humility. You have to accept something done for you by someone else. You can’t achieve it on your own. And our proud hearts despise that. We want to do it on your own! Yet God says we can’t.
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So we are all in the same boat, Tyro. We’re wicked sinners with messed-up hearts. This is why Jesus calls us to repentance. Until we repent for our sins, we will never be able to receive His grace. We’ll simply keep trying to do it on our own and live how we want to live. Yet in the end this leads to death. I know that sounds harsh, but the time is short and this world is passing away. I pray that the Lord might open your eyes to His supreme glory and the Treasure of His Son Jesus Christ. There is no other name by which men can be saved. Yes it’s exclusive. Yes the gate is narrow. Yes the road is hard. Yes it’s counter to everything this world stands for. But in the end all things will be revealed and we will all face judgment in one way or the other: on the side of Christ, or in opposition to Christ. I sincerely pray that God might draw you to Himself before it’s too late. Thanks again for sharing with us.

@aj

Demian has not declared you dead, Tyro– he is only telling you that God has done so.

Uh huh. If I provide a string of quotes without comment or critique, calling all Christians imbeciles, would you really imagine that it wasn’t me slinging mud? What if I dug up some racist literature and quoted it on my web site, would you believe me when I said I loved racial minorities? Of course not. Demian carefully selected the quotes, presented them without critique and endorsed them in a prominent list at the head of his own site. They’re his words now.

And how do you, who do not believe in any god, find yourself in the position to tell believing disciples of Jesus Christ what is good or not good or very bad about their manner of serving God?

I’m speaking as one human being talking to another. Demian expressed his desire to reach out and communicate with others and I was offering suggestions. If his goal is to puff up his own ego and satisfy his desire to proselytize I can’t help but I was taking him at his word that he cared about communication. He said he cared about atheists yet his words dehumanized and attacked.
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I didn’t say anything about how he should serve or worship. If he thinks that God wishes him to insult others and spread hatred and vitriol as many Christians do, then more power to him.

We are able to love even our enemies because God loved us when we were His enemies.

Anyone who has read the bible probably knows that God’s “love” is indistinguishable from cruelty or callous indifference but we’re told “God’s ways are not our own.” Clearly. But you are not God and when you say you love someone but treat them with scorn, contempt and derision you should be called on it. If this is love, you don’t know the meaning of it.

The primary difference is that you appear to believe man’s intellect to be the highest authority, whereas we recognize no authority to be higher than God’s.

Unless God is whispering in your ear as you type then whenever you say what God wants, what God says, or what God will do, you are demonstrating you believe your thoughts are the highest authority around. You elevate your own views to those of God. You quote the bible and you speak as God. You pray and meditate and call your own feelings Gods. In your ultimate arrogance you call yourself humble and condemn those who recognize the fallibility of human thought.
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No, I do not think human intellect is the highest authority. The first step in any scientific endeavour is to recognize that we fool ourselves, we jump to conclusions and we see what we want to see and so we take steps to avoid these. Your arrogance has blinded you to the possibility of error which is why you now presume to speak for God.
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No aj, like “love”, you’ve twisted this 180 degrees around.

@Ryan

It also tells us that we were conceived in sin, by nature we are children of wrath, our hearts are deceitful above all things, and our lives are destined for ruin apart from Jesus Christ (no matter how “morally” we behave). So in essence, we’re in the same boat as you!

Thank you for the kind words and the explanation.
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I wonder, are you familiar with any of the 12 Steps Programs like Alcoholics Anonymous? Not necessarily personally but through media, tv or books? It was started by an evangelical Christian who incorporated much of Christian theology into the process even though it has been watered down lately. As a part of the process, inductees must “admit” they’re powerless to help themselves and turn to a higher power.
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The process never fails to shock me. These addicts do have the power to help themselves and they demonstrate it every day that they remain sober and in control. Instead of building this hard-earned sense of self-empowerment and control, they’re taught that they are weak, powerless and out of control even when they are not. Some people clearly are not exercising this control but they learn how and with practise and maturity they do.
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I can’t help but notice the parallels with Christianity. Instead of saying that some people are wrathful, a few people are hedonists, a couple are depraved and weak, you’re taught that everyone is. It seems to me that feeling of being “saved” is little more than relief of having the unfair and unjust accusations lifted from you.
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No doubt we can make improvements in our lives but what good is there in treating us like powerless, miserable, evil creatures? It seems to me that philosophies which try to recognize the truth about people – the good and the bad – can lead to much greater accomplishments and satisfaction than ones which teach that we’re weak and shameful.
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Sorry, one of my patented side-tracks

Good stuff Tyro. I think the key is to separate “morally good behavior” from spiritual rightness with God. There are atheists who are externally “better people” than some Christians. They might volunteer more, donate more, etc. But what about the sin their lives? What about the condition of their hearts? What about what’s inside? This is what God is after. The world looks at the outside; God looks at the heart.
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So heaven knows that I am not kind enough, not humble enough, do not volunteer enough, could give more to charity, and so on. But these are all things which the Holy Spirit continues to work on in my life that I might further be conformed into the image of God’s Son. I still wrestle with sin every day, but that sin is forgiven in Christ and I have received Him as my Lord and Savior. No longer do I need to fight every battle and try to “pull myself up by my bootstraps.” Eventually that will fail. Eventually we see that we cannot save ourselves from our sin.
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We may be able to behave as the world sees “good behavior.” We work a good job, take care of our family, give our time and money to others, etc. But the heart has never been addressed. The sin has never been addressed. All we’re doing is modifying behavior. And then what happens? If our behavior changes for the good, we get proud. If our behavior changes for the worse, we despair and get depressed because we’ve failed.
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A perfect example of this is dieting. If we do well and lose weight, we’re proud of our effort. If we fail and gain weight, we get down in the dumps. So behavior modification always leads to one of two roads: Pride or Despair. And God doesn’t want either of those for our lives. He wants humility and joy for us, and behavior modification can’t truly produce either of those. Even if you do have joy from doing well, it’s still laced with pride and self-righteousness. Both of which are devastating to our walk with God.
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So yes, human beings can do “good things” apart from God. That’s called Common Grace. But their hearts will never be right with their Maker. They will remain in rebellion. And what God really wants is to change your heart. The true changes in behavior (that are meant to glorify God, not ourselves) will then flow out of that renewed heart.

Demian,
I did a bit of playing around in Firebug and I found one possible, simple fix which could improve the line formatting in comments. Edit ’style.css’ and below the “.comment-text p” element add:
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.comment-text br {
margin-bottom:10px;
}
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You can play around with the margin sizes to find something that suits you. The “proper” fix is still probably to figure out why your line breaks are showing as ‘br’ instead of ‘p’ but this should look good in the meantime.
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Hope it helps.

Tyro: Dude, thanks for the WP suggestions! When I get some time, I’ll dig in.
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You said: “Atheists are just regular people after all and some would welcome a discussion about faith, love and hope.” No dispute there.
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I have friends who are non-believers and enjoy meeting new non-believers, especially of the intellectual sort. Not just as a target for the Gospel [although it's always in the back of mind ], but for the common ground we DO have. At this time in my life, I’ve learned more about my faith in discussion with non-believers than I do with Christians.
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So I’m afraid you’re pouring too much into what I’m saying. I do NOT think atheists are monsters. In fact, I think they [you] are human beings infused with dignity and meaning, and not some naked ape.
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Understand, I’m not suggesting you’re down here and I’m up here. We’re equally guilty before God, which is probably not a new concept to you.
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What it boils down to is our measure for man’s worth. You look to man and I look to God. Naturally, this flows from our beliefs about God, so I understand what you mean when you say why do we have to think of man as weak, powerless and miserable creature. I’m with you on that. When man’s the standard.
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But as a Christian I believe God is our creator who is infinitely good, holy, just and merciful. It’s like putting a 3-year old in a cage match with a professional fighter. There’s no competition. It’s a kick in the face and a Coke for the pro.
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Yet, that doesn’t mean that I think I’m worthless or you’re worthless or an alcoholic is worthless. In fact, I think we ARE all worthy…because we’re made in the image of God. It’s our efforts and desires to get to God that are worthless, especially in light of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
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Hope that helps. And thanks again for being so kind to tinker with a solution for my formatting issue. [I've even noticed in posts the emoticons get shoved to the left, no matter where I place them.]

Ryan,

A perfect example of this is dieting. If we do well and lose weight, we’re proud of our effort. If we fail and gain weight, we get down in the dumps.

If you don’t get a swollen head, what’s so wrong with feeling satisfaction for accomplishing a difficult task? Sounds like a reasonable, justifiable reaction to me.
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And why are you so concerned with thought crimes anyway? If someone feels good about themselves, who does it hurt? If someone feels so good that they put down others then it’s the put down which is the problem surely.
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If pride is a problem, how can you justify speaking on behalf of God and presuming to know the mind or wishes of God? It’s one thing to try to live in a way that you think will please him, quite another to instruct others! I can’t imagine a more prideful act, can you?

Ryan,
That smiley problem is another CSS issue. Look for the “.box-left img” element and remove the line beginning with “float”. When you do that, the smiley should appear embedded in the text as you’d expect.
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I’m not a CSS guy at all but I’ve been playing with a great Firefox plugin called Firebug which lets you see which CSS tags are active for a given page element and then change it dynamically. If you start messing around with your layout this is a very handy tool to have!
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As for your other comments, I think I know where you’re coming from. I have seen that sentiment directed inwards before, but outside of the Fred Phelps’s of the world, it’s rare to see it directed at others.
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It’s the difference between someone saying they’re a stupid idiot and someone saying that another person is a stupid idiot. The former is saddening, the latter is maddening.

Oops, last comment was for Demian, not Ryan. Apologies.

Thanks for your response Tyro. In regards to the question… “If pride is a problem, how can you justify speaking on behalf of God and presuming to know the mind or wishes of God? It’s one thing to try to live in a way that you think will please him, quite another to instruct others! I can’t imagine a more prideful act, can you?”
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…I guess a little clarity might be helpful. In instructing others about God, we (Christians) believe that we are helping other people – not hurting them or being proud. Since God is the ultimate source of hope, joy, love, peace, justice, mercy, holiness, righteousness and goodness, it would only make sense to point others to Him, no? I’m not saying you have to agree that God is all those things. But if He is (as we believe) then the best thing we can do is direct people toward Christ and God. This actually points AWAY from us and TO God. That is one of the major goals of every believer. For God to increase, and us to decrease.
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I guess an example would be if you really loved a restaurant and thought it made the best food in the world. If somebody you knew was hungry and loved food, would it be proud to direct them to that restaurant? By no means! You would be doing them a service and loving them by directing them toward that place. This is how we view the teaching of God’s Word.
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Also, you make a great point about pride. If Christians become cocky and proud of themselves for understanding God and the Bible, then yes, that is a wrongful act. But we are called to live as Jesus lived, who came “not to be served, but to serve and to give [His] life as a ransom for many.” So in teaching others, we must act with humility and seek to serve. If we get proud (as we often do!), then you’re right – it’s sinful. And we ask for forgiveness and pursue humility by the grace of God.
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Hopefully that makes at least a little sense

Ryan,

In instructing others about God, we (Christians) believe that we are helping other people – not hurting them or being proud.

That’s a funny sort of a response. I understand that you believe you are humble and not proud, but surely this just means you lack self-awareness as well as humility

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There is a big difference between steering people towards God and presuming to speak on God’s behalf. To use your restaurant example, one may say that the food is excellent without speaking for the chef. One may say “try the dumplings, they’re tasty” without saying “Chef wants everyone to eat dumplings every day and Chef will surely punish you if you don’t.” One may say “Marios is the best kitchen in town” without claiming knowledge of what Mario wants, believes or thinks.
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(This isn’t a new concept, in fact it has been around for centuries. Check out the fascinating if occasionally dry book “A History of God” by Karen Armstrong.)
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It seems to me that humility must entail an appreciation of one’s weaknesses and limitations. What is faith if not the belief that your beliefs cannot be mistaken and mere evidence is just for other people? Talk about conceit!
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Humble people respect those of more power and rank. How many times I’ve heard Christians attack “experts” (said with dripping contempt), believing their gut instincts are worth far more than mere training and skill.
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And if you really believe that God has both power and rank as Christians say they do, why then do you so quickly and easily speak as if you were speaking on God’s behalf? Are you conceited and arrogant as to imagine you are God’s equal that you can speak for him? Or do you think God is so weak that you must stand up for him?
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If the former, Christians are among the most conceited, arrogant people I’ve met. How many times each week do you presume to speak for God? How many times have you done so in this discussion alone? If the latter, what a pathetic creature God must be, to require so many people to defend him.
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And despite the claims of miracles and active intervention, I do wonder if Christians actually think of God as the latter, something like a struggling kitten who needs active protection lest it die. Even young children get told to fight their own battles and resolve their own disputes but almost every Christian knows that God can’t even manage this on his own and needs everyone to stand up for him.
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So I’m torn. If Christians are taken at their word, they’re arrogant and conceited while claiming to be humble. If taken by their actions, they’re nobly defending a helpless and powerless god while lying to others about how great and powerful he is.
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A study in contradictions.
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For myself, if God cares about me, he knows how to find me. As long as God has the communication abilities of a mewling newborn kitten, I’ll pay attention yet I hear nothing. So much for the Great and Powerful Oz

Would it be a proper and fully meaningful analogy if someone didn’t say, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”?

What is the purpose of debate? Is it (as I believe) for the mutual education of all parties concerned, including the audience, or is it merely a verbal version of professional wrestling– a no holds barred slugfest, winner take all? If the latter, surely a Christian has no business being involved.
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What transpires on this thread is Christians politely explaining their views and positions only to be countered with what appear to be venomous insults against their persons and their God from a self-proclaimed superior intellect who calls the Christians liars to their faces. This individual purports to hold the keys to evaluating what constitutes genuine love arrogance, humility, conceit, nobility in other people; even to be in the position to define the God whose existence he denies, describing what qualifications He would need in order to exist.
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But what is the source of all these value standards? when and where was it established that these are the rules and guidelines? They are unfounded figments of imagination, whether of one person or of many in agreement, but without absolute basis and subject to the whims of changing times and minds. They are accepted by the very kind of faith, the validity of they deny.
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No sour grapes on my part. The God who created the human mind allows for its exercise, even to the point of self-condemnation and destruction. My purpose here is to point out the stalemate between Christians and nonbelievers exchanging views on what we believe. Ryan and others state what “Christians believe,” while Tyro presents such terms “I can’t imagine,” and “It seems to me.” Are not both positions equally abstract?
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What Christians believe is only important to the relationship between the Christian and his Lord, having no potential to influence the nonbeliever either by its sincerity or its relevance– it is to him no more than the variant opinion of a person with whom he disagrees. Likewise, the feelings and opinions of the unbeliever is meaningless to the Christian, being founded on nothing solid, but on the collective denial of the inadequacies of science, so-called. Genuine science, the legitimate open-minded quest to discover whatever is real, has historically been actively supported and advanced by Christianity, despite the “teachings” of revisionist history. But when people deny the possiblity of the supernatural and of intelligence that cannot be naturally defined, they have abandoned science in favor of hypocracy.
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Now admittedly I have been hard on all parties in pressing my point, so let me state it as clearly as I can: What I believe doesn’t matter unless it is true. My believing it doesn’t make it true. What is true IS true whether or not I believe it. Therefore, what is true matters ONLY because it is true, and not because of anything to do with me. It may be my privilege to [1] have learned the truth and [2] to tell it to others, but that puts no feather in my cap. But what is true is unchangeably so: it is not true because of me and I have no power to make it more true, less true, or untrue.
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What you may hear from me is that there is a God, that He is the God of the Bible, that the Bible is His own self-affirmation of His person, character, attributes, nature, and worth. That the same Holy Book declares His wonderful workings on the behalf of His creation, especially mankind, from before the dawn of time until the end of history and beyond. That everything in this paragraph is centered upon His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Beginning and the End of all things, and the only Mediator between God and mankind. That there is understanding and wisdom unto salvation in no other person, place or thing. That whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, and whoever does not believe shall not be saved. That the fool has said in his heart that there is no God, and that God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.
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That I believe these things means nothing to you. But that they are true– that they even may be true means the difference between death or life for you. Please don’t let foolish, arrogant pride keep your intellect from calling on God– whoever comes to Him He will receive and empower to become children of God. Forever.

Al,
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“What transpires on this thread is Christians politely explaining their views and positions only to be countered with what appear to be venomous insults against their persons and their God from a self-proclaimed superior intellect who calls the Christians liars to their faces.”
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I really don’t see what you’re seeing on this front. I agree that the Christian commenters have been polite, and then our views diverge. I don’t see the venomous insults, Tyro’s proclamation of a superior intellect, or any time that someone called Christians liars to their faces. But if you can find evidence of this, I will be satisfied that your objections are justified. Could you satisfy my curiousity?
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“This individual purports to hold the keys to evaluating what constitutes genuine love arrogance, humility, conceit, nobility in other people; even to be in the position to define the God whose existence he denies, describing what qualifications He would need in order to exist.”
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But how do we as individuals evaluate what constitutes genuine love, arrogance, humility, conceit or nobility? How do we as individuals know anything about a God or even try to define a God? How do we justify claims about a divine nature such as those which I have heard you make frequently and repeatedly in this space? These are important questions, and in answering them, perhaps we can accomplish something worthwhile: learning something from each other. I agree with you that this is what the purpose of debate should be.
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So with those goals in mind, I will try to briefly offer what I believe. The annals of history and literature offer evidence for the existence of love, arrogance, humility, conceit, and nobility for thousands of years before Judeo-civillization and in diverse cultures around the world. Do we need a God, especially the OT God, to account for these emotions? Yet still, I grant your question as to how we can judge these emotions. Where do our standards originate – where do my standards originate?
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I believe that through social interactions, our morality has evolved over time. I believe that we all have an objective idea of morality, but that it is actually subjective. We calculate informally what we believe to be right or wrong in many instances; in other instances, our culture and tradition or related experiences suggest to us that something is right or wrong. I believe that many of our morals have derived from patterns of social interactions. Of course this is guess-work for now, but it seems plausible to me. This isn’t meant to convince anyone, but it’s a basic explanation of my stance on morality for background purposes.
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Accusing someone of falsely being in a position to define the terms of a God as part of an argument justifying the existence or inexistence of a God seems to be an awkward position for a theist to assume. How can you define the terms of a God as part of an attempt to convince me to believe? What is your position so you can be so certain of what you are saying? Why do you have such enormous confidence that you are correct in your perceptions?
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Are you going to base your confidence on your scriptures? I don’t inherently trust your scriptures for truth with a capital “T” any more than I trust the Bhagavad-Gita, the Qur’an, or the Book of Mormon. If I quoted sections of those books to you, you would probably feel that my comments were completely irrelevant. This is exactly how I feel when Christians try to justify premises of their religion to me using the Bible. To me, it’s just another Holy Book. There have been a few of them over the years – it’s not the first, and it may not be the last. Paul’s letters and Dianetics, they sound the same, to the non-believer.
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So why would I want to speculate as to how a God should act? Perhaps it is mostly because most Gods seem to act so human. It would appear that the Gods have acquired characteristics of their creation…or maybe it is the other way around? Would a Bronze Age civillization be appeased by burning goat flesh? Maybe. Would the Creator of an entire Universe take a similar pleasure, which seems entirely dependent on which group of people perceived Him? It’s too much of a leap of faith for me to attribute something like this to coincidence, let alone a divine plan.
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“They are unfounded figments of imagination, whether of one person or of many in agreement, but without absolute basis and subject to the whims of changing times and minds. They are accepted by the very kind of faith, the validity of they deny.”
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Subject to the whims and changing times and minds? This is what I see when I examine theistic morality. Slavery, is it moral? Wiping out entire communities of neighboring tribes, is it moral? Having multiple wives and concubines, is it moral? Biblical morality is a great example of morality that is “subject to the whims of changing times and minds”. In one hundred years from now, what will people justify using the Bible that they abhor now? What will people abhor then that was justified by the Bible now?
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Christians for hundreds of years have allowed their “changing times and minds” to define how they interpret their holy scripture. For a scripture that is supposedly continually revealed by the guidance of a godhead, it seems that a lot of Christians just take their own biases and the ideas of their societies and use that as a lense to understand their religion. It’s almost as if their religion is an artifact of their culture and society, and not an immutable holy artifice.
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“But when people deny the possiblity of the supernatural and of intelligence that cannot be naturally defined, they have abandoned science in favor of hypocracy.”
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I have not denied the possibility of the supernatural and of intelligence that cannot be naturally defined…I have merely affirmed that the probability of such supernatural intelligence based on the evidence currently available to me is so low as to render my acceptance of supernatural claims unwarranted, and the evidence for specific hypotheses such as Christianity is so improbable or implausible to me that I cannot even foresee what future evidence could lead to assent to it — however, I will acknowledge the superiority of Christianity if compelling reasons or evidence arises.
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Until then, I cannot assent to a hypothesis that is as vague and unsupported as Christianity, and I have no grounds to assent to the existence of the supernatural due to the corresponding absence of evidence. All of my beliefs on these matters are entirely tentative, in that they could all be changed as soon as I have new evidence. But this is what I believe according to the understandings I currently possess, and though it could change at any time, I see no reason to change at this moment.
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“That I believe these things means nothing to you. But that they are true– that they even may be true means the difference between death or life for you. Please don’t let foolish, arrogant pride keep your intellect from calling on God– whoever comes to Him He will receive and empower to become children of God. Forever.”
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My intellect does not call on any god at this time, because my intellect “sees no need for that hypothesis”, as Laplace purportedly said.

Teleprompter, thank you for a clear presentation of your beliefs and the reasons for them. I believe I understand and acknowledge the reasonableness of both. I earnestly wish I could present you with as clear and comprehensible explanation of Christianity, but that is only possible if God chooses to make it so.
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My advantage is also my disadvantage. I was once as you, to put it in Bible terms, separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. So I understand what it is like to be dead, deaf, and blind to the words of God, insensitive to His truth, having to attempt to satisfy my insatiable curiosity about all things with the products of my own limited reasoning and itellectual capacity. My advantage is that God chose to make Himself known to me. Please note: this was His choice, NOT mine! I was neither raised to, nor did I seek to believe in Jesus Christ, but when He was revealed to me I could not deny Him, although I tried to for years. My conversion to following Christ was not miraculous nor rapid, but has been painfully slow. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
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My disadvantage is that, in attempting to communicate the truth of God, I am limited by Him to only stating the truth while not being empowered to make anyone able to understand it. This statement may, in itself, seem incredible. Why would God commission His followers to speak of Him in terms that He knows cannot be understood or will not be accepted. The scriptural answer is because it pleased Him. Unbelievers rage and imagine vanities, and God sits in the heavens and laughs at their derision.
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Such a God could never be, they suppose– how egotistical He would be; how petty. He laughs because He has given them ample proof of Himself in nature [even in their own nature], but they have chosen self-interest over interest in Him, and He has sent prophets to declare Him, finally sending even His own Son, and they rejected them all, so blind were they in the vanity of self-pursuit. They even imagined themselves wise enough to judge God by their limited comprehension of His attributes, and to judge Him nonexistent. His is not a gleeful sort of laughter, but sad, as one might laugh at a fool who would eat a road apple because it was found in a muffin wrapper.
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Consider the words of the unbelievers, “I can’t believe…”, “I think…”, “In my view…”, “I won’t accept…”, “My way of thinking…”, “I wouldn’t…”, “I won’t…”, “I…”, “I…”, “I…”
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The Christian may hold opinions, philosophies, various points of view, but he comes to realize that they are useless and helpless towards the helping of other men because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Nor has God commissioned Christ’s followers to preach their convictions, but His Word only. Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. All other discussion is purely horizontal; only God’s words provide a vertical access between heaven and earth, that man might hear God and be saved from himself, the world around him, and the devil that God has allowed to be upon it.
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I know you may tire of my repetitions, but they [not my intellect] are your only hope of salvation. My Lord bore ridicule for His testimony; I have no incentive to seek better treatment than He received, especially if by the derision of me you may benefit. This is no attempt at nobility on my part. God has made peace with me, who was once His enemy, and In turn and by His enabling, I wish the same good for you.
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I have no defense to offer for my thoughts or actions. If I err God will judge me; if I do well He may reward me at His pleasure, but I deserve no reward, having performed any good only by His enabling and not on my own incentive nor by my own strength. This does not allow me irresponsibility, because I answer to Him for every thought. But it allows me liberty from my former bondage to serving only myself, thereby to now serve Christ and others.
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If this all comes across as rambling gibberish, I understand, having once thought the same. That is because God has promised, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart, and, Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
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There is no use to my responding specifically to your questions, as I have nothing to offer you except what I have said. Any question you have asked me or would ask me, I urge you to address them to God through Jesus Christ. It may feel foolish, and it may go against everything you profess, but if God isn’t real and you speak to Him privately, where’s the harm? [When I have refused to pray it was not because I thought there was no one there to hear me, but because I feared there was, and that He would.]
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Anyway, Teleprompter, I appreciate hearing from you, I wish you well, and I wish there were something I could do to help you get what I’m saying, but there isn’t. My Lord can, and I hope you’ll ask Him and let Him.

Amen!

Wow! Thanks, Carey. I was really surprised to see this thread revived after over three months…

Thanks, because I’ve been somewhat out of touch with this blog lately, and I appreciate the incentive to resume praying for Teleprompter and others who have posted here. I love and appreciate these people, but I’m not as faithful in prayer as I might wish to be. God is changing me, always for the better, but I am stubborn & selfish, making it a slow process.

Tele, if you’re reading this, I still care & I’m praying for you right now.