What do you Believe??? (Religion)

[MartinC]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

 

Ya'll need to decide what kind of board you want going forward, because if you don't stop this more of him will eventually show up.  This isn't the worst thing he's posted, but at some point a line needs to be drawn

 

 

Agreed and a line has been drawn. The member who posted that anti Semitic drivel will not be posting on this site again.

 

We want to give members the space to have healthy debate and that requires a range of views to be present. Trolling can be subjective - so can racism to an extent but it’s normally far clearer. This was blatant and will not be tolerated.

[Renegade7]

n/m  Thank You

Edited April 11, 2018 by Renegade7

[Renegade7]

30 minutes ago, TK said:

Couple things here. There's always a method to our madness, even if we don't share it with you.   You have no actual idea how many have or have not been flagging these knuckledragging posts. And you already know that all of us have lives & jobs off the board so if no one immediately pops up when you rub the lamp, then the genie is taking care of something else.   

Ya, one day I'd like to hear the "why", but ya'll don't have to : ) 

 

Have a lot of respect for you, and remember before you were a Mod, so I know you care about this place a lot (hope you don't think I felt otherwise).  I knew people were reporting, how many, you're right, I had no idea.  For the most part, I'm pretty proud of the way we've tried to handle this as a community in the meantime, especially because of how hard it was dealing with someone who seemingly was playing by a different set of rules then us (I didn't know how else to put that, please don't take it the wrong way). 

 

This coulda gone south in a completely different manner but it didn't, and that's a testament to the effort put into building this community to begin with.

 

 

 

...back to your regularly scheduled program...

[TK]

40 minutes ago, twa said:

Wait....is TK god?

 

 

[Zguy28]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

 

1.  Obviously, I believe parts of the BIble are true and parts are more allegorical or like parables, and then there are parts that I don't really know about  (What you asked is do I believe the Bible is true.  Generally, believing is something true like that to me means believing the whole text is true, and given that if pushed, my answer would be no.  I do not believe (all of) the Bible is literally true, but that isn't an uncommon opinion held by Christians even historically.)

 

2.  "You are conflating belief in God through the latter with faith in Christ through the former."  I am not quite sure what you mean by this, especially in the context of Abraham.  (I guess you could argue that Paul believed in God, but did not have faith in the Christ.)  At the more general level of "evidence", I'm not sure why the distinction between general and special revelation maters.  Thomas' evidence was a special revelation, but it was still evidence.

 

3.  I do not consider reason and faith to be the same thing that it would it make sense to put above the other.  Reason (logic) is a reason to have faith.  Needing to travel is a reason for cars.  To say I put a car above needing to travel or the other way around seems nonsensical to me.

 

I reject the idea that we are asked to believe without reason or evidence.  In that context, the existence of the Bible doesn't make sense.

 

"But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

@Zguy28 Both special and general revelation can help people have faith.

Thank you for taking the time to answer thoughtfully (as always). My line of questioning was more to flesh out for my knowledge of how you reason and what value you place on each kind of revelation.

 

I believe the bible is literally true in all that it affirms as truth. That (the "literally") does not mean allegory is not present or valid interpretation. For instance, you say parables are not necessarily true, and I would agree about some of the elements; but the truth they communicate/explain in a figurative fashion is true and infallible. Example: Lazarus and the Rich man were likely not real people, but their types of actions and resultant eternal consequences are truth applicable to all people.

 

The difference between General/Natural Revelation and Special is a big thing though. One is revealing God the Creator while the other is revealing God the Redeemer in Christ. I agree that Natural Revelation can drive interpretation, but it never can surpass what is clear in Scripture.

 

I think we are closer than you think.

 

A good series of articles on Natural and Special Revelation can be found here for those interested:

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/introduction-reformed-approach-science-and-scripture/

 

Dr. Sproul's answer to age of the earth is very good theologically IMHO.

[Llevron]

The Mods have answered us!

[HOF44]

Just now, Llevron said:

The Mods have answered us!

Blessed are the true Mods!!

[MartinC]

5 minutes ago, TK said:

 

 

 

Dont encourage him.

[MartinC]

15 minutes ago, HOF44 said:

Blessed are the true Mods!!

 

You will find us to be benevolent Over Lords. To a point ...

[China]

45 minutes ago, TK said:

 

 

 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

5 hours ago, techboy said:

There's a handy button in the upper right hand corner of every post. Rather than ineffective (or even counterproductive) bullying, I'd suggest trying an approach that might actually yield results.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this I suppose but in my world, once someone says that a bunch of kids who survived a massacre are liars, and broadcasts his bigotry, and repeatedly calls us all mindless, and demonstrates himself to be a nutjob of highest order, it’s not bullying to tell him exactly what he is and exactly what you think of him.

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

 it’s not bullying to tell him exactly what he is and exactly what you think of him.

 

Have to agree with you on this one, bullying is not the word that comes to mind on this one.  Feel like we've been orbiting around each other on this issue in that I want to agree with you calling him out, but I knew it wasn't going to stop him. I had to wait until you calmed down in how you were talking to him so when I pulled the fire alarm you wouldn't get in trouble, too (kept trying to tell you that).

Edited April 11, 2018 by Renegade7

[Riggo-toni]

A pet peeve of mine as a history/Ancient Near East nerd. 

People today use the terms Jew and Israelite (and more absurdly in the case of ignorant right-wing racists "Zionists") interchangeably. This is simply not accurate.

 

To give you a modern equivalent, Americans used to refer to any Soviets as Russians. While all Russians were Soviets, not all Soviets were Russian. Kruschev was Ukrainian, Stalin was Georgian.

 

The term Jew (Yehuda) came into existence during the Babylonian exile. Outside of a brief period of united monarchy under Saul, David, and Solomon, Israel and Judah were separate nations and to some extent, different ethnicities - think of the modest distinctions between Scots, Welsh, and English.

Moses, Abraham, and Jacob were not Jews, though they provide the foundation of the Jewish religion. Moses was from the tribe of Levi, and Judah, the progenitor of the Jewish race, was born after Abraham (his grandfather) and Israel (his father).

Prior to the exile, there were Israelites and Judahites - Some historians prefer the designation Samarians rather than Israelites for members of the northern kingdom prior to its dismantling by the Assyria in order to avoid confusion, but the northerner would not have called themselves that, just as they have never called themselves Samaritans though that has been their designation post-conquest.

Moses freed the Israelites (or if you prefer, Hebrews) from Egypt, not just the Jews (though there may have been some Judahites amongst them).

A notably HORRIBLE TV mini series on the Bible produced by some fundy Christian group a few years ago had a narrator proclaiming "Moses led the Jews out of Israel..."  and I found myself screaming at the TV like I was watching a Jim Haslett defense.  Most of the Exodus likely involved the tribe of Joseph and the priestly warrior tribe of Levi.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

 

20 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

Have to agree with you on this one, bullying is not the word that comes to mind on this one.  Feel like we've been orbiting around each other on this issue in that I want to agree with you calling him out, but I knew it wasn't going to stop him. I had to wait until you calmed down in how you were talking to him so when I pulled the fire alarm you wouldn't get in trouble, too (kept trying to tell you that).

 

S'all good man. I got a slap on the wrist early on in my conversations with the guy and have been careful not to violate the rules since then. For instance, here is my last post that some took objection to because I wasn't being nice to the guy. There's nothing in here that's against the rules or over the line though.

 

On 4/8/2018 at 7:39 PM, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Uh huh. I’ve ranked every poster in this board in terms of their passion for knowledge. Turns out you’re actually last. Automatically believing everything is a lie without doing any sort of research or providing any evidence doesn’t make you smart or a free thinker. It’s dumb, it’s lazy, and it proves you to be every bit the automaton that you like to accuse everyone else of being.

 

BOWIE: ”Global warming, Russian interference in our election, and the Parkland massacre are all fake!!!”

 

ME: “Oh wow. How did you discover that?”

 

BOWIE: “I didn’t. I knew it as soon as I heard about it.”

 

ME: “So you have nothing to support that?”

 

BOWIE: “Support isn’t real! There’s no such thing as evidence or proof or facts. I’M THE SMART ONE!!!”

[PeterMP]

7 hours ago, Zguy28 said:

Thank you for taking the time to answer thoughtfully (as always). My line of questioning was more to flesh out for my knowledge of how you reason and what value you place on each kind of revelation.

 

I believe the bible is literally true in all that it affirms as truth. That (the "literally") does not mean allegory is not present or valid interpretation. For instance, you say parables are not necessarily true, and I would agree about some of the elements; but the truth they communicate/explain in a figurative fashion is true and infallible. Example: Lazarus and the Rich man were likely not real people, but their types of actions and resultant eternal consequences are truth applicable to all people.

 

The difference between General/Natural Revelation and Special is a big thing though. One is revealing God the Creator while the other is revealing God the Redeemer in Christ. I agree that Natural Revelation can drive interpretation, but it never can surpass what is clear in Scripture.

 

I think we are closer than you think.

 

A good series of articles on Natural and Special Revelation can be found here for those interested:

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/introduction-reformed-approach-science-and-scripture/

 

Dr. Sproul's answer to age of the earth is very good theologically IMHO.

 

1.  You seem to be very close to polytheistic thinking with the idea of the God the creator and God the redeemer.  Either Jesus was part of God at the creation or not.  Either the redeemer is part of the creator or not.  As part of that, you seem to drawing unnecessary and extra-Biblical lines.  I do not see how it is possible to reveal God the creator and not God the redeemer.  In addition, I would point out that when you consider what happened to Abraham, Moses, and even those that were present to witness the result of Daniel and the lion's den were all special revelation that did not (at least directly) involve the idea of Jesus as the redeemer.

 

Most basically, if God can reveal any aspect of himself through general revelation, I'm not sure why we should reject the revelation, and I'm not aware of a Biblical motivation to do so.

 

2.  For something clearly set up and labeled as a parable, I think that is not an issue.  I also think that was never much of an issue.  The problem becomes places that are not clearly labeled as a parable.  People really did used to think that a universe with the Earth in the center made sense partly from the Bible in parts that are not clearly labeled as parables.  There are people out there that today will still argue that (and that the Earth is flat) based on verses of the Bible not clearly indicated as parables.

 

http://barnabasnagy.com/blog/flat-earth-not-spinning-not-orbiting-but-stationary-bible-verses-empirical-evidence

 

The question is what are you going to do about those people.  What do you do with (at least) large chunks of Genesis?

 

3.  The universe is almost certainly billions of years old (given what I've said in this thread about proving things, I'm not going to out right claim that it is).  If not, you not only have to throw out the part nature proving God, but much of the spirit of the New Testament (e.g. God as the good shepherd).  You are left with a trickster God.

 

The idea of that universe is very old has been cross verified by different methods over long periods of time.  

 

(If the universe is not billions of years old and some how the age of the universe has been "faked", I think the most likely explanation is not "literal" interpretation of the Bible (I put quotes around literal because such an interpretation would be ignoring other parts of the Bible), but that we are a computer simulation of a more advanced society.  The major question then becomes are we a game like Sims or Civilization or are we part of sociology/economic/ecology study.)

 

4.  It isn't clear that the Luther and Calvin supported a heliocentric solar system.  The below is linked on the page you linked:

 

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/luther-calvin-and-copernicus-reformed-approach-science-and-scripture/

Edited April 11, 2018 by PeterMP

[PeterMP]

Generally, with respect to thinwhiteduke, while I'm not going to complain he was given the boot, I'd echo part of techboy's spirit, but from a different perspective.

 

I do not think the chances of reaching such a person on a message board like this are very high so from that perspective, I do not worry about his treatment.

 

However, for people that lean his way and might have some sympathy to him, given the numbers and intensity of responses, it might seem like he's being ganged up on (unfairly).  No matter what his initial offense was and how many people he insulted in his initial post, when the same attitude/vitriol flooding back the other way, there is an appearant unfairness to it.

 

Heck, even I felt sympathetic to him and for some feeling sympathetic to him, might make them more sympathetic to his arguments.

 

I'm a firm believer that the best way to handle such people is rationally, calmly, and not overtly attacking manner.  Point out the (large) flaws in their argument precisely and carefully, and continue to draw the attention to those issues.  People like that want it to turn into a name calling game because it is the only way they can even hold their own.  They will never engage in a careful and thorough conversation.

[MartinC]

45 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

Generally, with respect to thinwhiteduke, while I'm not going to complain he was given the boot, I'd echo part of techboy's spirit, but from a different perspective.

 

I do not think the chances of reaching such a person on a message board like this are very high so from that perspective, I do not worry about his treatment.

 

However, for people that lean his way and might have some sympathy to him, given the numbers and intensity of responses, it might seem like he's being ganged up on (unfairly).  No matter what his initial offense was and how many people he insulted in his initial post, when the same attitude/vitriol flooding back the other way, there is an appearant unfairness to it.

 

Heck, even I felt sympathetic to him and for some feeling sympathetic to him, might make them more sympathetic to his arguments.

 

I'm a firm believer that the best way to handle such people is rationally, calmly, and not overtly attacking manner.  Point out the (large) flaws in their argument precisely and carefully, and continue to draw the attention to those issues.  People like that want it to turn into a name calling game because it is the only way they can even hold their own.  They will never engage in a careful and thorough conversation.

 

MOD actions are at the discretion of the individual MOD. In this case me. If that member who was banned contacts me I will explain to him why he was banned in detail - I have already done that in the warning sent to him. That communication will remain personal.

 

However I do think it is worth saying he was NOT banned for any 'flame war' with others in this thread.  

 

He was banned for a flagrantly anti semitic post. Any other member who posts out right racist or discriminatory material like that will receive a similar action. If you see any please report it as others did in this case.

 

I am not going to engage in further discussion on this specific user and his treatment - but I thought it worth that clarification.

[Llevron]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

Generally, with respect to thinwhiteduke, while I'm not going to complain he was given the boot, I'd echo part of techboy's spirit, but from a different perspective.

 

I do not think the chances of reaching such a person on a message board like this are very high so from that perspective, I do not worry about his treatment.

 

However, for people that lean his way and might have some sympathy to him, given the numbers and intensity of responses, it might seem like he's being ganged up on (unfairly).  No matter what his initial offense was and how many people he insulted in his initial post, when the same attitude/vitriol flooding back the other way, there is an appearant unfairness to it.

 

Heck, even I felt sympathetic to him and for some feeling sympathetic to him, might make them more sympathetic to his arguments.

 

I'm a firm believer that the best way to handle such people is rationally, calmly, and not overtly attacking manner.  Point out the (large) flaws in their argument precisely and carefully, and continue to draw the attention to those issues.  People like that want it to turn into a name calling game because it is the only way they can even hold their own.  They will never engage in a careful and thorough conversation.

 

For what it's worth, long before this topic and when he first showed up I DM'ed him to tell him to pump the breaks a little. Calmly and flatly told him that 'they won't respond well to the I'm smarter than you and you all are idiots' stuff and he flat out said he doesn't care and that he enjoys it. 

 

So he deserved everything he got on that front. Not that it mattered. He enjoyed it and so did the rest of us otherwise we would have actually ****ing ignored him. 

 

I take the result as a success lol. But really he would have been fun to talk to had his head not been cemented into his anus. 

[PCS]

Peter's second statement above is dead on. Period.  The member in question by and large,didn't break the rules,(1 prior),until now. Hard to be a troll when one believes what they say and coincidentally enough,while pretty much staying on topic. Soon as that one started posting,I had the fleeting hope that twd would be ignored and that eventually would disappear,(largely),from the Forum. Would save some trouble and of course,this has happened before. However,this is the interwebz and some just have to win it. Knew I could count on some of the inmates here to respond to 'em and sooner rather than later,twd would out himself. Just had to be patient. That too,has happened before. Many times.  Whaddaya know?   TK covered things nicely earlier,(and whole lot nice than I would have earlier in the day). Now back on topic of the thread. ES carry's on as it tends to do.  

[Renegade7]

2 hours ago, Llevron said:

 

For what it's worth, long before this topic and when he first showed up I DM'ed him to tell him to pump the breaks a little. Calmly and flatly told him that 'they won't respond well to the I'm smarter than you and you all are idiots' stuff and he flat out said he doesn't care and that he enjoys it. 

 

 

I did, too, asked him for clarification on a racial comment he made in another thread.  It was like talking to a fleshing eating zombie that for two seconds remembered they were married with kids and a job at bank of america, then quickly went back to trying to kill me.  He was so arrogant, I don't know if he even realized he was making racially charged comments, but at the end of the day, that does not matter, you cannot do that.

 

I absolutely wanted his perspective here, but he went about it in a way that he had to go, end of story.

[TK]

11 hours ago, MartinC said:

 

Dont encourage him.

Silence you. Or I’ll be forced to DELETE you. 

 

[Renegade7]

On 4/10/2018 at 2:41 PM, ExoDus84 said:

 

I'm talking more about Big Bang cosmology. I'm a big science nerd when it comes to the universe and cosmology. The consensus seems to be that the Big Bang and all the matter in the universe can apparently spring from nothing at the quantum level. Either that or the oscillating universe theory states that there's basically an infinite number of Big Bang's and a corresponding Big Crunch (universe collapsing upon itself once cosmic inflation reverses). So either the universe has always existed or it sprang out of nothing at the sub-atomic level.

 

Either way, doesn't make sense to me.

I asked @techboy about this, but he might be busy or still looking into it.  I'm not comfortable with the idea that God existed before the Universe without an answer to where he came from.  I'm big on space as well, and glad you brought up the Big Crunch because despite the science of Dark Energy, I'm just not buying that the universe is going to expand until all the fuel for stars is used up and the universe becomes huge and dead and that's the end of it.  The whole expanding then gravity eventually winning and bringing it all back makes more sense to me.

 

So where does God possibly fit into that?  I have a theory, but I need someone to help confirm whether the word "universe" is actually in the Bible.  I'm not talking about the more recent English translation that try to make it easier to understand or worse peddle somebody's message.  I'm talking KJV for English or before (not too familiar with any before, but know they exist), or the closest we have to the original text for OT or NT.  It may be more "literal" then we realize.  I haven't found it, and when I look online, any verse I find when I look in my KJV that's not what it says at all.

 

Edit:  I don't know how many of you have had a chance to go through the links, videos, or books other have posted in this thread, but I'm trying to get through more of them before I get too deep back into this.  I'm taking a huge chunk out the book I said I had borrowed from a co-worker and I'm glad I am, its things I suspected, but now undeniable.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Renegade7

[techboy]

33 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

I asked @techboy about this, but he might be busy or still looking into it.  

 

I was busy finding a foster home for two puppies that suddenly appeared on my front porch yesterday, which is in itself a long story not germane here, but since you put it here, I'll just paste my response I just sent you.

 

I don't know the answer to your specific question off the top of my head, but I'd caution you on two things.

 

1. The King James is actually not a very good translation, in that it used some questionable methods and did not take into account many of the source texts a good modern translation can access. I haven't bothered pointing that out and I won't go further now because it's good enough for the core tenets of Christianity, but you shouldn't be going back to it as an ultimate authority and certainly not to underpin some unorthodox new theology.

 

2. In my view, even if you're correct that the word universe is not actually in the texts, your theory ignores the context of the message of the Bible, which is that God created everything and was Himself uncreated.

 

Don't struggle too much or compromise core beliefs because people don't like the implications of the finite universe when God is infinite, Physicists have proposed some pretty screwy ideas (like the multiverse) to try to explain how a finite universe can be created without cause and fine tuned for life.

 

We're certainly not in a position where scientific evidence contradicts the account of God creating the Universe, and we'd have to consider a new interpretation.

 

The idea of the Natural Laws of the Universe creating God means that God would be bound by Natural Laws, and that's not God.

[Renegade7]

2 minutes ago, techboy said:

 

I was busy finding a foster home for two puppies that suddenly appeared on my front porch yesterday, which is in itself a long story not germane here, but since you put it here, I'll just paste my response I just sent you.

 

I don't know the answer to your specific question off the top of my head, but I'd caution you on two things.

 

1. The King James is actually not a very good translation, in that it used some questionable methods and did not take into account many of the source texts a good modern translation can access. I haven't bothered pointing that out and I won't go further now because it's good enough for the core tenets of Christianity, but you shouldn't be going back to it as an ultimate authority and certainly not to underpin some unorthodox new theology.

 

2. In my view, even if you're correct that the word universe is not actually in the texts, your theory ignores the context of the message of the Bible, which is that God created everything and was Himself uncreated.

 

Don't struggle too much or compromise core beliefs because people don't like the implications of the finite universe when God is infinite, Physicists have proposed some pretty screwy ideas (like the multiverse) to try to explain how a finite universe can be created without cause and fine tuned for life.

 

We're certainly not in a position where scientific evidence contradicts the account of God creating the Universe, and we'd have to consider a new interpretation.

 

The idea of the Natural Laws of the Universe creating God means that God would be bound by Natural Laws, and that's not God.

 

It's all good, I just got back from birthday drinks with a co-worker, myself. You can either send me a PM like we talked about or do it in here.  This is an important concept you're bringing up.  I've had trouble taking KJV literally for along time, I just don't know Hebrew or Greek, so I feel stuck in that regard, so try to focus on the message.

 

Like I mentioned, I'm worried religion is going to die because instead of people looking at it from a combination of personal experience, philosophy, math, and science (where applicable, of course) due to people losing patience with the fundamentalist factions of it.  It doesn't have to be this way, but in my heart, I know that's where we're heading.

 

We're trying to rationalize something that in many ways is irrational because that's our nature, we may never be able to let this go until we (hopefully not) give up on it all together.

[techboy]

21 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

I've had trouble taking KJV literally for along time, I just don't know Hebrew or Greek, so I feel stuck in that regard, so try to focus on the message.

 

It's not an issue of taking it literally, it's an issue of it using an approach most scholars disagree with, combined with some other problems.

 

Those who are really interested can read about some of these problems by one of the foremost textual critics working today, Daniel B Wallace, here:

 

https://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bible-best-translation-available-today

 

In terms of knowing Hebrew or Greek, even if you did you'd still have to rely on the work of other textual critics (or go it alone, which is also dangerous), so it's really just as good to use a good modern translation.

 

Personally, I like the NET Bible:

 

https://net.bible.org/#!bible/Matthew+1

 

One of the reasons I like it so much is it has awesome and extensive footnotes where they explain (among other things) their translation, what other texts might indicate where there is a disagreement, and so forth.

 

EDIT: For example, we can look at Isaiah 7 here:https://net.bible.org/#!bible/Isaiah+7

 

And here is their footnote for the translation @Riggo-toniwas referencing earlier:

 

tn Traditionally, “virgin.” Because this verse from Isaiah is quoted in Matt 1:23 in connection with Jesus’ birth, the Isaiah passage has been regarded since the earliest Christian times as a prophecy of Christ’s virgin birth. Much debate has taken place over the best way to translate this Hebrew term, although ultimately one’s view of the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is unaffected. Though the Hebrew word used here (עַלְמָה, ’almah) can sometimes refer to a woman who is a virgin (Gen 24:43), it does not carry this meaning inherently. The word is simply the feminine form of the corresponding masculine noun עֶלֶם (’elem, “young man”; cf. 1 Sam 17:56; 20:22). The Aramaic and Ugaritic cognate terms are both used of women who are not virgins. The word seems to pertain to age, not sexual experience, and would normally be translated “young woman.” The LXX translator(s) who later translated the Book of Isaiah into Greek sometime between the second and first century b.c., however, rendered the Hebrew term by the more specific Greek word παρθένος (parqenos), which does mean “virgin” in a technical sense. This is the Greek term that also appears in the citation of Isa 7:14 in Matt 1:23. Therefore, regardless of the meaning of the term in the OT context, in the NT Matthew’s usage of the Greek term παρθένος clearly indicates that from his perspective a virgin birth has taken place.

 

That annoys the fundamentalists, of course.

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by techboy