shmatt.com

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1. Well, how could I pass this by, being associated with WOTMA. I’d like to zero onto this statement:

   “…the book of Acts never once mentions the love of God and that God will “Squash” you. True enough of a fact (the Acts part), but he also fails to point out that it is one of the only books in the New Testament part of the bible that does not mention this dominant theme of the Love of God. ”

   John Legg, of Way of the Master Australia, often teaches that whenever the Love of God is presented in Scripture, it is always in the context of the Cross. Penal Substitution isn’t a matter of “angry god / loving Jesus”, but more, “loving God comes to earth to appease His own anger”.

   The sad thing is that there is a tendency for many to ignore references to God’s anger, out of a fear of minimising God’s love. Paul, on the other hand said “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Fact is, if God were to wink at iniquity, it would not so much be love, as much as moral indifference. Although we are, as David, to look at our sin as being “against Thee and Thee only”, mostly its expression results in offence against another. In these cases, for God to let us off the hook would mean denying another the right to justice.

   This is the genius of the “mystery of the Cross”, in that “the love of God is manifested to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Paul’s words in his Roman epistle). In other words, to quote Ray Comfort, “You did the crime, Jesus paid the fine.” Christ Himself said that he came to “seek and to save that which is lost”. I know of at least one wise commentator who has read into this statement the implication that unless we know we are lost, we cannot be saved.

   At the end of the day, the real question around the issue you discuss here, is “Why does it have to be ‘either/or’?” Is the gospel explained within the context of “Penal Substitution?” Of course. “Is it explained in the context of the Slave Market?” Yes, and not only that, but in terms of “Husband/Wife relationship”, “Botany”, “Father Son (must be understood in a Hebrew context, or at least Roman)”, “Levitical Atonement”, among others. Each portrays an element, and interestingly, most of these comparisons are found in Paul’s Roman epistle.

   Consider that amongst Jewish principles of Hermeneutics, there many schools of interpretation. One of particular note, is that of Rabbi Hillel, who was the grandfather of Rabbi Gamaliel (you may recognise the name from the Acts of the Apostles. He was the guy who said that if Christianity was just a fad, then it would just die out if the Jews left it be). There were two prominent students of this Rabbi. One was Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai, who redefined Judaism into it’s current Rabbinical flavour, after the destruction of the Temple in 70AD. Regarding the other, I’ll quote J Jacob Prasch, a Messianic Jewish Bible teacher:

   “There is a Biblical principle understood from a Jewish perspective called Qol veh Homer, which in English means ‘light to heavy’. It is the first of the Migdoth of Rabbi Hillel, who was Rabbi Gamaliel’s grandfather. Rabbi Gamaliel was tutor to the Apostle Paul when Paul became a rabbi. Rabbi Hillel had seven Migdoth, or principles, of interpreting Scripture. The New Testament uses these repeatedly. Ool veh Homer, or light to heavy, is again the first of these.”

   The major principle behind Jewish hermeneutics is one that focuses of inclusion rather than exclusion. If I had time I would show, using the Gospel record in the New Testament, instances where this principle was applied to Old Testament prophecies. There is one passage that comes to mind where the context of the statement refers to Israel being led out of Egypt, but Luke has the same statement predicting Jesus return from Egypt as a child.

   The underlying principle of WOTM’s teaching (aka WDJD) are found in James’ words, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. Their utilisation of the Law to magnify sin, often leads to accusations of legalism. This would be accurate if their end was “Law for righteousness”, however the ultimate goal is always grace. After all, Paul wrote “Christ is the end (as in ultimate goal) of the Law for righteousness for those that believe”. The Law is merely used to prove that it all attempts to obey it are futile, in our own strength, however in spite of this, it will be the standard used when Christ will “judge the world in righteousness”.

   The very word “Law” is a penal word, as is “Condemnation” and “Justification”. No Law, no basis for Justification. No Law, no Guilt. No Guilt, no logic behind Mercy. WOTM’s use of Penal Substitution is merely a means at helping the “guilty” realise their need for “mercy”, thereby revealing grace as “amazing”.

   Once the “proud sinner” has been “Humbled” by the Law, then they become fit to receive His “Grace through faith, and that not of yourselves but it is a gift of God”. Trust me, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, Todd Friel, etc all state clearly that the life lived in Christ must be lived by “faith of the Son of God”. WOTM is an evangelism movement, not a deeper life movement. It lays out principles of how to present the gospel in a manner that avoids producing counterfeit converts. Considering the massive “fall away rate” in the church today, this surely needs to be considered.

   Sorry for the length of the “comment” I got a little carried away. =)

   Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 3, 2007 @ 1:28 am

2. Whew!

   I expected a comment from you Aaron, but not neccessarily a sermon. I wish I had that sort of energy to blog..

   WOTM seems on the surface to be about evangelism, which is what gets many excited about them and their materials. A little bit of that initial excitement also owes itself (dare I say it) to identification with celebrity Kirk. But WOTM are not just about evangelism - they dogmatically defend their position and only their position on atonement. They regularly, routinely and intentionally attack other parts of the body of Christ that may present a different aspect of the Cross, or a different expression of faith that they disagree with. This is the epitome of what I am saying we DON’T need.

   I agree with most of what penal substitution offers (as a metaphor). I also agree wholeheartedly that WOTM does indeed point to grace as means to escape the consequences of sin. I even agree with the methods of evangelism that they promote. But I do not agree that it is the only perspective on atonement, and I certainly don’t believe that it is they only way to share your faith - I for one would not use it.

   Lastly - your list of acceptable themes leaves out the Christus Victor theme - this seems to be where the debate lies - one or the other. Again, I think that there is room for an understanding from both perspectives. Yes, this does create paradoxes, that would have to be ironed out if you needed to be dogmatic. What I suggest is the ability (to a degree) to not be able to explain it completely. This is humility.

   Thanks for your post.

   Comment by shmatt � May 3, 2007 @ 7:50 am

3. Again, sorry about the length. When I saw how long it was, I was going to replace it with a brief comment, place what I posted into my blog, and link to it, for clarification. Unfortunately I clicked the “Submit” button by mistake. Oops…

   “..your list of acceptable themes leaves out the Christus Victor theme - this seems to be where the debate lies - one or the other.”

   I think you missed my initial distinction between the “Penal” and “Slave Market” metaphors. I then went on to insert other metaphors used. Christus Victor says “ransom” and I say “redemption”, but in essence the two are the same.

   Allow me to illustrate (and I will try to be brief). Often I am asked, while preaching open air, “What are you selling?” My response is, “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not selling anything. I’m as a purchasing officer, coming to a save market. I represent an interested party who who is interested in buying your life from a cruel master who wants you dead. If you’re not interested in the offer, then I’ll move onto the next slave.”

   As the term, “Christus Victus” is new to me, I ran it through Wikipedia, and found that there was a glaring omission of any reference to “judgement”. This, in spite of the fact that Jesus said when the Comforter comes, who he identified as the Spirit of Truth, He will “convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgement”. As he elaborated, he stated that the Holy Spirit’s testimony to the world of “judgement” was because “the prince of this world stands condemned”.

   My question would be, “How does Christus Victus handle the issue of Divine Judgement?” and “How does it go about showing the sinner’s (insert ’slave’ or ‘captive’, if a word that is less offensive is needed) need for a Saviour?”

   Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 3, 2007 @ 1:02 pm

4. Hence why I say Christus Victor falls short. However, if I were to ‘take sides’ I would tend to side more with that theme than penal substitution, because 1) I believe the primary problem with sin is not that it is rebellion against God (and therefore incurs the wrath of God), but that it in itself generates death, hence the reason that God calls it sin in the first place. And 2) I think that God’s primary motivation is His Love (paying the ransom), and not His Justice/judgement (requiring substitutional redemption).

   However, after saying that - I come back to my original point, which you highlight oh so well; the reason that there is polarisation on this issue is that the work of atonement is a mystery that we cannot summarise in an anectode. But in faith we know that we have been made new and set free by whatever actually happened on that day..

   Comment by shmatt � May 4, 2007 @ 1:38 am

5. What’s the difference between your beliefs and the following sentence:

   “Bhuyffg gkjuttos autthqwldd sftsofgttwe ftklqlosas!”

   Both are a mystery.

   Comment by dissenter � May 7, 2007 @ 10:35 am

6. Probably true. I confuse myself sometimes.

   Comment by shmatt � May 7, 2007 @ 11:07 am

7. Dissenter….I like your style. I find it strange that we who believe that the God of the universe, the supreme being, the omnipotent one, the one who can be known only as he reveals Himself etc can be fully understood and rationalised, and then turned into a DVD series! I don’t doubt that God does reveal Himself….ultimately through Christ and His Word, and that we can understand Him…in part. I think our desire to fully understand and define God and His actions…especially the cross, is more a desire to remove the unknown and mystery (a very western way of thinking) and thereby end up removing some element of Faith. In doing so we end up reducing faith to ‘being able to cognitively accept a structured argument’. This then leads to the next step of having to disprove any other views and arguments of the cross, ie Christus Victor. There are many problems with this, not the least of which is that we have limited God to what we can understand. I see the ransom theory, the Christus victor theory, the penal substitution etc all as pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle. They all fit but they are not complete. as we get the biiger picture what we thought we had may change into something else we couyld not see. We need to see we do not have it all and therefore avoid arrogance and the idol of self opinion….and also thereby making ourselves open to the whisper of the Spirit of God and His Word.

   Comment by Angryandshallow � May 11, 2007 @ 9:28 am

8. “This then leads to the next step of having to disprove any other views and arguments of the cross, ie Christus Victor. There are many problems with this, not the least of which is that we have limited God to what we can understand. I see the ransom theory, the Christus victor theory, the penal substitution etc all as pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle. They all fit but they are not complete. as we get the biiger picture what we thought we had may change into something else we couyld not see.”

   This really sums up what I have been trying to say, oh grumpy one =). The issue that I have with Christus Victor is that it appears to deny Penal Substitution. While Charles Finney may have denied the atonement models over the penal ones, Comfort and Cameron always keep Finney at arms length.

   As one who uses the WWJD (WoTM) meathod of evangelism, I always switch the conversation off of law court mentality, toward an exchanged life model, once they acknowledge their need to repent. Once they realise that Christ is the Judge, Plantiff, and the means of Justification, it is rare to see anything but a response of wide eyed appreciation of God’s grace. Now the only issue that they need to be aware of, once they’ve settled the sin question, is that they can know union with Christ.

   Indeed, the salvation of God is such a multifaceted thing.

   Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 12, 2007 @ 7:10 pm

9. Nice blog and interesting post.

   Comment by Janna � May 12, 2007 @ 8:10 pm

10. Sounds like you’ve kept the bits with the most emotional impact to you personally.

    I doubt that your average person would get anything out the jargon you utter.

    That’s it. Of the set of possible gramatically correct sentences available in English, theology takes ownership of the most meaningless ones.

    Comment by dissenter � May 14, 2007 @ 8:19 pm

11. It’s interesting you should say that. This post is completely different to most of the posts on this blog, in that it is far more theological in it’s nature.

    And it has probably got the most attention.

    Part of the reason that I posted it was because I am grappling with understanding and communicating faith in the way it should be - not spouting cliches or traditional rhetoric. As the cross is central to the Christian faith, it is important that I start there.

    Do you propose, dissenter, that Christians throw out any concept that does not relate to those outside of our faith so that faith becomes more understandable and rational, and more meaningful to the ‘Average Person’?

    It has been done. Over and over. What you end up with is deformed mis-representations spirituality - lacking true substance - manifesting in such forms as a do-gooders society that breeds self-righteousness and judgementalism (is that a word?) or hollow, plastic corporate gatherings, bowing to the whims of pop culture.

    Now do you have anything of substance to contribute to this discussion? I’d love to hear it. What is it that you believe (or do not believe), that gives you the foundation to bring such a critique?

    Comment by shmatt � May 14, 2007 @ 10:25 pm

12. How meaningful are your beliefs?

    Using the scientific process as an analogy, does a similar set of processes exist that lead to increased understanding of “spiritual facts/theories”? Do you participate in a community process that leads to a gradually increased understanding, a process that may take place over centuries? Isn’t this what the established church(es) have been doing for centuries, so that today we are much clearer about the nature of God than we were 1000, 2000 years ago.

    Or is all belief and insight into the nature of God purely within the private realm. Whatever level of understanding you have, you are unable to convey it meaningfully to another. Are you saying that there can be little common ground to people’s belief?

    Are you also saying that the path of propositional clarity has in the past led to degenerate spiritual practices? If so, that itself is some clarity.

    If binary true/false logic doesn’t appeal, why not use a fuzzy logic system. By all means, remove certainty where it is not warranted, but please do it in a logical manner.

    Comment by dissenter � May 15, 2007 @ 2:16 pm

13. Jesus spoke in Parables not to illustrate or uncover the truth, but to conceal the truth.  This has been the biblical pattern from the beginning.  We can clearly see actual events prophesied both literally and metaphorically (especially when it relates to messianic writings) penned a thousand years before they took place.  But the scholars at the time completely misunderstood those prophetic scriptures.

    And the Bible says itself that according to the wisdom of the world (read: scientific process) the message of Jesus seems foolishness.

    God rebuked Job for trying to capture the nature of God in words - even though he was right in his summarisation.  It was only when he in humility recognised himself as a man who needed God, and that God was beyond his ‘handling’, that God restored to him all he had lost.

    I do not believe that the Gospel can be communicated in just words.  But texts, theological teachings, and centuries of scholarly insight are still very important for it is in the context of those words that faith is illuminated.  But I believe this illumination is a work of the Spirit - something that we probably don’t agree on.

    So - in answer to your question - I do believe in absolute truth.  God is God, and His nature is constant.  But our understanding/revelation of that is personal and for it to be true faith, can only be brought about by a work of the Spirit of God.  And we come back to my original point - my issue is that we in our arrogance try to rationalise something that possibly can never be rationalised to our current state of understanding - we look through a glass, darkly.

    Comment by shmatt � May 15, 2007 @ 3:23 pm

14. I think the problem is that theological understanding of truth is highly dependent on authority. Much more so than scientific truth. Also, in science, truth can only be ever held provisionally, not in an absolute sense - i.e. we can only have models that are possible approximations to truth; models/theories which may be radically different in 100 years from now.

    What christians seek is an authorative, absolute, unchanging truth. This may be an idealistic pipe-dream.

    You have already pointed out the problem of our limited understanding being unable to recognise or formulate absolute truth.

    Another source is what do we recognize as an authority. From your usage of the Biblical text, I sense that you take the bible as one such authority. I also see that you recognise some “inward working of the Holy Spirit” as another authority. Both have problems, and neither method comes with a universally recognized validity test.

    Evidence from the last 2000 years of Christianity would suggest that these are very poor methods of becoming acquainted with the true nature of reality.

    Comment by dissenter � May 15, 2007 @ 5:56 pm

15. No doubt that this is true. But nevertheless I do take the scripture as authoritive, as well as the working of the Holy Spirit within the context of scripture.

    And the primary scriptural foundation for my beliefs is the understanding that ‘God is Love’. God is good, and all good things come from Him and I reject any scriptural interpretation that contradicts this. Jesus made this clear when he said that all of scriptural instruction could be summed up as “Love God completely, and others as much as yourself”.

    As a result of this, I choose to put faith in what I believe is a God who has the best for me, and not in my own understanding. My hope is that this will produce a more fruitful, productive and generous life. I don’t subscribe to Pascal’s Wager, but in the end *IF* I am wrong, then hopefully I will have made the world a better place by my presence.

    I understand that this is irrational, but I do not apologise for it, and nor will I try to justify it with ‘proof’. I have my doubts, but I invest my hope and faith regardless.

    And I thank you for expounding your position

    Comment by shmatt � May 15, 2007 @ 6:36 pm

16. Why would any reasonable person take a book like the Bible to be authoratitive on the nature of reality?

    Why would any reasonable person think that entities like spirits (or disembodied minds, for want of a better description) have a real and separate existence?

    You understand these types of beliefs are irrational, you have doubts, but nevertheless you battle on.

    Is this a sign of a dysfunctional mind? If so, how can you rely on your mind to direct you to any truth at all?

    Comment by dissenter � May 16, 2007 @ 2:49 pm

17. I choose not to rely on my mind - that is my point here! The best the mind can do is observe not reality - but only our perspective on reality.

    And, I do not believe that scripture tries to expound on reality so much as it gives us a foundation for faith - and instruction on how that faith should be lived out. In that regard, I take it as authoritive. But certainly - science has it’s place in attempting to oberve and understand our natural world - the context that God has placed us within. I like to think that I have a scientific mind, and have quite an understanding of natural science. But when it comes to faith, I have come to the resignation that I cannot (at least in my current context) understand spiritual matters completely and dogmatically.

    And it comes to this - I believe it is this proud dogmatism that has lead to most of Christianities failures in the past. We come to the conclusion that we have arrived a defined knowledge, and then turn on those with a differing opinion.

    Comment by shmatt � May 16, 2007 @ 3:27 pm

18. Would have to disagree with your claim not to rely on your mind.

    Whatever source of information you accept as authoratitive or valid, whether from experience, obvservation, experiment, conversation with others, reading texts, hallucination - all these present themselves as input to your own mind. Your mind is then the mechanism which evaluates, plans responses, judges, accepts or otherwise acts on this input data.

    I may have misunderstood what you meant by not relying on your mind. I would contend that faith is also a property of the mind, how could it be otherwise?

    Comment by dissenter � May 16, 2007 @ 7:14 pm

19. I guess that’s where we differ - You do not seem to be able to accept spirituality as anything other than a concept created by our mind. I believe in the spiritual as an actual supernatural existence, outside of our mind. This belief is not completely irrational.

    Thousands of years of religious belief by most of humankind show that it is at least part of our genetic makeup, for whatever reason that you may apply to this fact.

    Comment by shmatt � May 16, 2007 @ 7:27 pm

20. That’s interesting - are you saying that we have another mechanism that functions in ways similar to the mind - a “spirit” - but differs in that our spirits interact with other spiritual entities, like God.

    I’m hoping your response to this would offer further clarification - does the spirit pass on its data to our minds in some form so that we get some sense of spiritual events, or does our spirit have completely separate mechanisms that run parallel to our minds?

    Comment by dissenter � May 16, 2007 @ 7:40 pm

21. Yes - to a degree - that is what I am suggesting.

    My belief is that we have a body that exists and interacts in what we know as the physical/natural world. We also have a spirit that interacts with a supernatural existence. One that we cannot completely understand.

    It is the cojoining of these entities that allows the existence of our ’soul’ or mind (yes, I do believe the soul and spirit differ). This is in line with how the bible describes the creation of man (whether you take it literally or metaphorically) - that he formed man from the dust of the earth, and ‘breathed’ spirit into him.  The mind is not just a result of chemical function of our brain, but of an inexplicable relationship between the body and spirit.

    This belief isn’t entirely unscientific either; http://english.pravda.ru/society/anomal/04-05-2007/90931-beheaded-0

    �

    Comment by shmatt � May 16, 2007 @ 8:07 pm

22. It’s the existence of this separate spirit that I’m having difficulty understanding. Nevertheless, I think I get what you are saying about the mind being dependent on the body and the spirit

    Can you describe some properties of spirits? And/or are you saying that the mind is in some way influenced by the spirit? Is it still only with our minds that we actually come to have knowledge of any kind, and if so, what knowledge of the spirit can the mind have? I suppose I’m asking you to go a bit futher analytically, think a bit deeper about what you actually mean by terms like “spirit” and “God”. (Saying they are a mystery really avoids this hard work of analysis, they must mean something, otherwise they would be indistinguishable from random rubbish)

    Comment by dissenter � May 17, 2007 @ 11:37 am

23. My summary so far,

    Schmatt says that people are made up of body, mind and spirit. On terminology, soul is another term which means the same thing as mind. The mind is a function of or arises from the interaction of body and spirit. A spirit is a vaguely defined concept subject to further analysis, but some of things we can say about spirits are that they can communicate with other spirits, for example, with God.

    Dissenter rejects the notion of a spirit separate from the mind. Instead, the mind (or soul) depends entirely on the body. When the body dies the mind ceases. Their is overwhelming evidence to support the close dependence of the mind on the body (in spite of the pravda.ru link above).

    Comment by dissenter � May 17, 2007 @ 11:55 am

24. Our lack of understanding of ’spirit’ is hardly due to lack of analysis. It has been given more of mankinds thought, including some deal of my own, than probably any other subject. Over analysed, I would say - back to my original point.

    You are asking me do define something that I cannot. You are asking me to do what I started out by saying that I have resigned not to do (that is, require definition).

    My faith alone is evidence and proof enough (to me) of what I believe. I cannot ask you to accept that as reasonable. And I choose not to be drawn into your way of thinking - that everything must be rationalised and defined to be real and believable.

    Comment by shmatt � May 18, 2007 @ 5:12 pm

25. Well, it sounds like your beliefs are only so much mumbo-jumbo. They might have some personal emotional meaning. You can’t be sure what you are talking about, how do you know you are on the same song-sheet as your fellow Christians. Everyone might have her individual, personal belief. A private domain.

    How can you communicate that with other people? I’d stay well clear of it - it’s all too new-age-ish for me.

    Comment by dissenter � May 19, 2007 @ 12:34 am

26. Well, I know this - and certainly can communicate it;

    While I was living a life that rejected God, and was leading to death, God in His love and mercy sent his Son Jesus to die for me and purchase me from certain death. Through that act I now have a hope and a future. I know peace that passes understanding and joy that flows when when others would say ‘give up’. He helps me find love for others and changes me from day to day.

    This Hope is available to all who choose to put their faith in Him, and not their own understanding.

    Comment by shmatt � May 19, 2007 @ 10:48 am

27. Clarity? That sounds like American tele-evangelism. Without the request for money.

    Have you picked up the born-again-ism fad? Why spout other people’s cliched phrases?

    Not once have you presented any evidence to support any of your beliefs.

    By the way, are you tertiary educated? Did you finish your high-school education?

    Comment by dissenter � May 19, 2007 @ 9:48 pm

28. “Everyone might have her individual, personal belief. A private domain.”

    “Have you picked up the born-again-ism fad? Why spout other people’s cliched phrases?”

    I find myself asking whether or not your are a Christian, dissenter? If you are not, then why do you even enter into this conversation? If you don’t believe in God, then why waste your energy trying to disprove His existence. I have never found myself wating my energy trying to disprove the existance of Santa Claus. It is of no consequence to me if someone chooses to believe a fairy tale.

    I say this, because your comments regarding the existence of “spirit”, cuts straight to the heart of this. After all, the Bible says that “God is Spirit”. Unlike many Christians, I do not try to separate the “invisible attributes” of man, in two portions, ie “spirit and soul”, but rather consider mind, spirit, soul” to be interchangeable words.

    Fact is, “mind” in itself, is an unknowable thing. It cannot be dissected. It cannot be observed in any direct manner. Sure, neurological impulses can be observed, but my dream of falling off a cliff cannot be seen by anyone but me. I cannot “show it” to you, I can only recreate the event with verbal description, video simulation, or like manner. In spite of this, you wouldn’t deny the existence of the dream, as a dream, if you dreamt it.

    I for one, have not “picked up born-again-ism”, as you put it, I have BEEN born again. As surely as you have experienced an event in your life of being born, I have experienced an event in my life of being born again. I have not “entered into my mother’s womb a second time”, but have been born, from above, by the Spirit of God. Does that sound foolish? Well sir, all that means is that you are perishing. I only say this, because the Bible says that “the message of the Cross is foolishness to those that are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”

    Paul wrote in his first letter to the church of Corinth, “..what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God.” While this seems to support your views of “private belief” and “unknowable mysteries” (bearing in mind that Paul earlier in the letter wrote of speaking “the wisdom of God in a mystery”), he immediately followed up this statement with the words, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; THAT WE MIGHT KNOW the things that are freely given to us by God.” And if that wasn’t enough, he later adds, “..who has known the MIND OF THE LORD, that he may instruct him? But WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST.”

    While I’ll admit, this may all sound ludicrous, and it does. However, sandwiched in-between these statements, Paul writes, “..the natural man receives not the things of God: for THEY ARE FOOLISHNESS TO HIM: neither can he know them, because they are SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED.”

    I’ll add here that I have no tertiary education, and although I did complete high-school, I failed due to lack of application. In spite of this, I have more than made up for lost time in private study. As one who has dedicated his life to learning, I have acquired much information regarding science, philosophy, politics, and religion. However all this is nothing apart from the knowledge of God, for “God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the things which are mighty.”

    You mistakenly think that our purpose is to convince you of our “individual, personal belief”, well, the fact is to believe in anything other than that which is factual, is to be deceived, pure and simple. It is either true, or not. If something is true, then empirical evidence neither adds nor removes it’s truth, it merely testifies to it’s authenticity. Gravity was a fact long before Newton’s theories were formulated. You can neither add nor remove to it’s existence by experimentation, so as to stop you from falling to the ground when leaping off a cliff naked. Likewise, you will have to bear with the consequences of what you chose to believe regarding the Cross of Christ. The responsibility is yours, not ours. Ours is just to make it plain. My apologies if you consider this to be full of “cliched phrases”. Fact is, this is effectively a waste of time if you have not the “mind of Christ”.

    My hope and prayer is that the following words disturb to enough to consider what your are doing here, with more clarity. They are the words of the prophet Isaiah, which Jesus cited as the reason why he spake in parables:

    “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear indeed, but understand not; and see indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” (Is 6:9-10)

    If you can’t “understand” or “perceive” what we are trying to say, then this could be a sign that the wrath of God abides over you. These are not my words, but those of Scripture. It is not I who are judging you, but the words of Scripture. It is convenient to discount the Scripture, by denying It’s Source. However, if it is of Divine origin, it is under know obligation to to prove itself to you. It begins with the words, “In the beginning God..” not with an attempt to prove His existence, and at no replace does it try to prove the point.

    I implore you to repent while there is still time.

    (Sorry about the length Matt)

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 20, 2007 @ 5:48 am

29. “How can you communicate that with other people? I’d stay well clear of it - it’s all too new-age-ish for me.”

    Jesus said to “Go into all the word and preach the Gospel”. To “stay well clear of it” would be to disobey his directive, “new-age-ish” or not.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 20, 2007 @ 5:51 am

30. “God rebuked Job for trying to capture the nature of God in words - even though he was right in his summarisation. It was only when he in humility recognised himself as a man who needed God, and that God was beyond his ‘handling’, that God restored to him all he had lost.”

    Here is the key, Matt. The ultimate question would be, how does one come to such a realisation? How did Job, for that matter?

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 20, 2007 @ 6:14 am

31. Dissenter: “Clarity? That sounds like American tele-evangelism.”

    Would you like me to make up a new religion altogether? That sounds familiar to you, because that is *the* foundation of Christian faith - in all it’s forms. Although what I said were completely my own words (and not “other people’s cliched phrases”), I could not summarise faith in any other way.

    Aaron: ” find myself asking whether or not your are a Christian, dissenter? If you are not, then why do you even enter into this conversation?”

    I came to the conclusion long ago that dissenter was either not a christian, or a christian trying to poke holes in my thinking.

    Although I also have found myself wondering why dissenter would want to be a part of this conversation, I want to make it clear that his comments are welcome.

    Aaron: “The ultimate question would be, how does one come to such a realisation? How did Job, for that matter? ”

    I suppose “repentance” is the word you are looking for, but I would propose that “he in humility recognised himself as a man who needed God, and that God was beyond his ‘handling’” would equate to repentance, without the symantics

    Comment by shmatt � May 20, 2007 @ 12:44 pm

32. Now you’re questioning whether I’m a Christian or not.

    I’m not exactly convinced you’re a Christian, shmatt. Please arrange a time with me so you can demonstrate the following:

    “And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

    Also, shmatt, do you own anything? A true Christian must give away all his possessions to anyone who asks. Anyone - not just poor people - but middle-class pricks like me. Be ready to liquidate everything when I ask, ok?

    Comment by dissenter � May 20, 2007 @ 2:10 pm

33. Please note, it is important that you give all your posessions to me BEFORE you start playing around with poisons and dangerous snakes.

    I know God won’t let you down, shmatt. I can sense your faith is strong.

    Comment by dissenter � May 20, 2007 @ 7:00 pm

34. I like to think that I own only enough to look after my family, which is also a biblical imperative. But yes, there is probably more that I could give away.

    As for snakes and poisons - I remain hopeful that God will never need to prove that one through me.

    Comment by shmatt � May 21, 2007 @ 9:36 am

35. Why is it so frustratingly difficult to provide convincing reasons for:

    Believing their is a God who requires blood sacrifice of himself to himself in order to carry out some “mysterious process” that has something to do with “forgiveness of sins” and “avoiding death”.

    I even have trouble with the existence of God. Please provide evidence that there is such an entity.

    Where is God? What is He/She/It doing?

    If you have an important message for humanity, shmatt, why can’t you make it absolutely clear. Isn’t clarity needed for people to understand what you are saying.

    Comment by dissenter � May 21, 2007 @ 4:04 pm

36. Because this is not something I can do. I have said it before, and we are starting to go in circles: The task of ‘convincing’ you is an act of the Holy Spirit.

    If the world around you is not enough to convince you of a Creator, then how could my mere words achieve that? You are not open to the option. My suggestion is that if you are seriously looking for an answer, that you give up your pride and seek after God Himself.

    You know as well as I do that I could spend years of research (as many have done) just to present to you a reasonable, scientific explanation of God (as many have done), and you would still reject my findings. It is simply a matter of faith.

    I am not interested in debating the issue for the sake of a debate. That is a pride-filled waste of time.

    Comment by shmatt � May 21, 2007 @ 4:37 pm

37. But if you wanted to share stories, learn from each other’s experiences, struggle and journey together on issues of life, faith and understanding.. or even just chat over coffee or a beer - then I am more than willing.

    It’s not my goal to convince you or anybody else. I just hope that I can be a faithful enough witness and representative of Jesus while I live out this life.

    Comment by shmatt � May 21, 2007 @ 4:44 pm

38. “Now you’re questioning whether I’m a Christian or not.”

    Is it a crime to assume nothing, but rather enquire? My question was meant to be a question, pure and simple. I further pointed out some observations that I have made, being prepared for you to correct them where I am wrong. Unfortunately, like most who claim to be “scientific” you cannot tolerate scientific method being applied, by making it impossible to be observed, yourself thereby skewing any conclusions that can be made by denying accurate information, leaving only assumptions.

    My observations of your comments, so far, has led me to come to a variety of possible conclusions. Either you are,
    1) a Christian who desires to stimulate thought by being contentious
    2) an Atheist/Agnostic who believes that because who are not convinced that there is a God, neither can anyone else
    3) someone who is bored, and generally wants to poke fun at Christians, just to get a response
    4) a seeker after truth, who is attempting to make it difficult to answer their questions, so as to avoid pat answers

    While I am open to the possibility that there are other conclusions that could be made, I must say that I can eliminate the possibility that you are a Bible believing Christian, who is born again by the Spirit of God. I also must add that I can respect whatever stance you have taken, and am interested in understanding the basis of your rejection of what I would believe to be truth, and therefore will simple call “truth”, period. After all, to have to insert the words, “I believe…” before what you believe to be true, implies that you are not really convinced of its reality. It is out of patronism toward your apparent disbelief, I have insert these words above.

    I too am glad that you have entered this conversation, dissenter because having a “devil advocate”, so to speak, is enabling this theme to be fleshed out, whilst avoiding excess “Christian jargon”. Mind you, I find it intriguing that such a apparently cultured scientific mind would resort to petty shots at our acceptance of God’s words in Scripture. Consider the fact that Jesus said, “You shall…” not “Go and…” in those statements. He also said to Satan in the wilderness, “You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test.” quoting Scripture, when Satan suggested that he throw himself from the Temple roof, in order to prove the Psalmist right, who wrote “He shall give His angels charge over you, lest you dash your foot upon the stone”.

    My statement for you to “repent while there is still time” was a plea for you to “change you mind” (meaning of “metanoia”, which is the Koinea Greek word translated as “repent”), regarding your sin, because this is the basis of coming to God. James wrote in his epistle that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. It goes like this, God allows “reality” to be concealed from the mind of the one who has patterned his life to reject Him (working definition of the word “sinner”). He does so, in His mercy, to allow you to enjoy this life, while you can. He says that “without holiness (being set apart for Him), no man shall see God”. He makes those who place their trust (faith) in Christ’s sacrifice, “for the remission of sins”, holy (see above definition).

    Only those who repent can see there need to put their trust in Him, and so those who don’t, can’t because they won’t. And they won’t because they refuse to, out of pride. So you see, repentance is impossible without an admission of sinfulness. This cannot be truly done, unless we consider the ramification of our sinful actions, as being offensive to God. For God to be a loving God, He cannot overlook wrong doing, for to do so would be to deny justice to another. It would mean for Him to be morally indifferent to the suffering that we have caused to another. Human tendency is to highlight the good we have done, and minimise the wrong we have committed. We work hard to silence our conscience in order to remain sane, and thereby embrace a lie, rather than the naked truth.

    The reason why you cannot comprehend God’s requiring of a perfect sacrifice, is because you have no understanding of penal substitution. Hell is deserved, because you would rather be a lawbreaker than a peacemaker. You may obey the law of the land, when it is convenient, but fact is, that is just another way of saying that you are breaking the law. You allow, to varying degrees, comfort, pleasure, possessions, and power to justify bending (ie, breaking) the rules. Perhaps you even rewrite the rules, in order to allow you to break them with a clear conscience. We only have to break one law to be a lawbreaker, and it only takes one crime to be brought before a earthly tribunal.

    Is penal substitution the answer? No, it merely highlights the problem, that being that you have decided that the “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life” are more important than God’s requirement to demonstrate your love for Him, by loving those that He loves (which is the whole world). By the way, by “love” I mean put them before yourself.

    I had the privilege of watching Richard Hawkins’ “The God Delusion” on Compass last night. It struck me that he interviewed Roman Catholics, Jews, “Mega-church attending” Evangelicals, and Fundamentalist Muslims, being able to build up a case that religion ultimately leads to violent struggle. Why didn’t he interview someone like Richard Wurmbrand, who was horrifically tortured by the Communist regime (which is Atheistic by nature), for the crime of “distributing ideas that are contrary to that of the state”? Whose passive resistance led him to lovingly serve his torturers, to the extent that many joined him in the prison camps as the result of being confounded by his love for them? Why not interview the humble street preacher who warns of sin and Judgement, allowing the hearer to reject his message, if they so chose? Who can have a pleasant respectful conversation with a Muslim, all the while making it clear that they both believe that their Gods would send each other to hell?

    What about with someone like Jurgen Moltmann who came to Christ as a German prisoner of the allied army, in WW2, and wrestled with comprehending a God that would allow six million Jews to die in Nazi death camps? There are many Christians who live practically in a life of passive resistance, who you would find it difficult to call them cowards, as they willingly lay down there life for the people who are trying to kill them.

    The sad thing is, that you would put words into the mouths of Christians, rather than try to find out what they truly believe. You watch the “tele-evangelists” without considering those who would distance themselves from such “workers of iniquity”. The Church of Christ is a hidden thing, concealed within and without the walls of denominational congregations. They believe the whole Bible, not just the parts that are soothing to the ear, and not just the parts that appear incriminating.

    My hope that you will repent, isn’t a threat of judgement, but an offer of mercy. If you are a true believer, then surely you would rejoice that one would care enough to watch over your soul. Your life is as a vapour, which is here for a little while, and then vanishes away.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 22, 2007 @ 2:31 am

39. ” I suppose “repentance” is the word you are looking for, but I would propose that “he in humility recognised himself as a man who needed God, and that God was beyond his ‘handling’”…”

    No trick question, Matt. I was more opening up the consideration of the processes involved in coming to such a realisation, and how this could relate to the “taking up of one’s own cross”. To quote Josef Tson, “Christ’s cross is for propitiation, our cross is for propagation.”

    Perhaps a consideration of the Mystery of the Cross is impossible from any place that is not “on it”.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 22, 2007 @ 2:39 am

40. “If you have an important message for humanity, shmatt, why can’t you make it absolutely clear. Isn’t clarity needed for people to understand what you are saying.”

    The problem isn’t lack of clarity. The problem is that you have defined your own rules, and then gotten upset when we haven’t played by them. The plain fact is, as I have earlier stated, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.”

    You have the audacity to think that we need to convince you with enticing words, but this isn’t the case. We are merely God’s bond slaves. Our life is not our own, we are bought with a price. The preacher of the gospel isn’t a salesman trying to sell God, but a purchasing officer, coming to a slave market, offering to buy your life from a master that wants you dead. The sad thing is, because you consider yourself to be free, and don’t believe that you are slave, you deny the offer.

    It is your responsibility to accept or deny. God needs nothing from you, for He gives to all life, breath and all things (you included). His offer to you is a free gift, which only requires that you be cleansed of the unrighteousness the causes you to repeat your sinful actions.

    Accept the offer, reject the offer, it’s none of our business, that’s between you and our Master. We’ll move onto the next slave, wondering if He’ll ever make such an offer to you again. Doesn’t mean we can’t sit down, over a coffee or whatever, and discuss football, or music or whatever.

    If that isn’t clear enough, then please help me to see what you don’t understand.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 22, 2007 @ 2:55 am

41. Ok, I’ll admit that you’ve described your beliefs with crystal clear clarity.

    But you see the problem is that relying on the Holy Spirit and a particular interpretation of the Bible is, I think, not sufficient. From observing the conflicting claims of different Christians, and different schools of Christian thought from Roman Catholicism to the numerous Protestant strands, I cannot have confidence that this will work. I wouldn’t be happy “trading in” (some of) my rational thinking ability (”pride” in your language) for some dodgy spirit-led process that leads to dubious results.

    How do you know you are right, or indeed, which part of your beliefs will change in the future? And if I follow the same track as you, I can see myself entering into murky waters, never being sure, always being in conflict with other Christians, never being able to distinguish between emotionalism and being spirit-led.

    I missed the Compass program, but I have read Richard Dawkin’s Book, “The God Delusion”. The existence of God and the validity of Christianity has got to be based on more than the personal life of specific people like the ones that you mention. People other than Christians lead virtuous and self-sacrificial lives - you know that.

    It seems to me that your belief system comes with a huge emotional attachment, an attachment which serves to strongly re-inforce your beliefs. For me, emotionalism is not enough.

    Comment by dissenter � May 22, 2007 @ 7:10 pm

42. “The existence of God and the validity of Christianity has got to be based on more than the personal life of specific people like the ones that you mention. People other than Christians lead virtuous and self-sacrificial lives - you know that.”

    I realise and admit that many Atheists and Muslims shame the average Christian in the areas of compassion, sincerity and integrity. My point in mentioning the examples that I did, was to refute Hawkins’ claim that religion ultimately leads to violence. This because his point has established by parading people before us, to confirm his suspicions.

    Now considering that I am very much an Evangelical, I am almost ashamed of being called such, if it means being associated with such a man as Ted Haggard. I say this merely as a result of listening to his rage filled, paranoid rebuttal of Dawkins’ evolutionist beliefs, by trying to “tell him what his own beliefs are”, while ignoring the corrections that Dawkins tried to make. These observations could be made merely by watching the show, without requiring any knowledge of Haggard’s fall from grace with a male prostitute, something that Dawkins failed to mention (whether because it hadn’t happened yet, or because he didn’t want to tarnish his subject’s character, I don’t know).

    I was not being flippant when I said it was a pleasure watching the show. Obviously Dawkins is a brilliant man with a colossal intellect. I can understand his reasoning for writing such a book, based or his obvious of persecution, at the hands of religious zealots. However, regarding Biblical Christianity, this is unfounded, considering that Christ would have as love our enemies. Anyone ignoring such a command is missing the heart of Christianity, and therefore has no right to call themselves one.

    ” I wouldn’t be happy “trading in” (some of) my rational thinking ability (”pride” in your language) for some dodgy spirit-led process that leads to dubious results.”

    It is interesting that you define the word “pride” form me, rather than ask what I mean by it. Pride is not “rational thinking”. Rational thinking is applauded by God. He exhorts us to “count the cost” before following Him. He invited Israel to consider His ways, with the words, “Come, let us reason.” Even Paul beseeched the church of Rome to present themselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, saying that this was to be their “reasonable service”. Also, Paul on Mars Hill challenged the Athenians’ superstition, challenging the to consider the logic of their beliefs in contrast to what he was presenting.

    Moving away from the actual words of Scripture, to the words of those who comment on the Bible, A.W Tozer once said, “Scripture may at times transcend reason, but it never violates it.” Chuck Missler defined faith by saying, “Faith is not belief in spite of facts, it is obedience in spite of the consequences.” I demonstrate my faith by trusting that there is One who knows more than me, and living my life as such.

    I present this to refute the claim that faith requires that we shut down our brains. In fact there are repeated exhortations to “test all things”. Sadly many read a portion of Scripture, or observe only a particular facet of the church, or religion as a whole.

    “…the problem is that relying on the Holy Spirit and a particular interpretation of the Bible is, I think, not sufficient. From observing the conflicting claims of different Christians, and different schools of Christian thought from Roman Catholicism to the numerous Protestant strands, I cannot have confidence that this will work.”

    It’s interesting that you say this, because my observation has been that when people throw out all that they have ever been “told” that the Bible says, and allowed it to speak for itself, they draw the same conclusions as to what it has to say. Granted, their are some elements of theology that are contentious, but never on the essentials.

    The issue of true vs false Christianity (personally I loathe the word, but it serves its purpose) is whether its goal is that sinners are brought to a right relationship with God, or does it merely create a social phenomena. Is it concerned with the Spiritual Birth, or does it simply want to form a club for “Born Again”s.

    Regarding Catholic vs Protestant, consider that the heart of the word “Protestant” is protest. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Martin Luther’s “95 Theses”, but may I suggest having a peek (it can be Googled quite easily)? Bear in mind that an “indulgence” is when the Pope lets soul out of purgatory by Papal decree. If you do read it, ask yourself whether he had a point. Mind you Luther certainly had some issues of his own, which I won’t go into now.

    Being someone who would dare to call himself a theologian, of sorts, I would challenge you to read the Bible, for yourself, asking yourself the following questions:
    Is it consistent with itself?
    Is what it has to say plausible?
    What are the ramifications of it being true?
    Once you have compared it with itself, then compare it with outside sources. Also, above all, QUESTION EVERYTHING!!! If it is true, it doesn’t need your, or my help proving it so. I have personally found that it can stand up to a skeptics scrutiny.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 22, 2007 @ 10:56 pm

43. “It seems to me that your belief system comes with a huge emotional attachment, an attachment which serves to strongly re-inforce your beliefs. For me, emotionalism is not enough.”

    I can’t speak for shmatt, but I wonder what I have Said to give you this impression?

    One thing that I left off my last post, was to express my gratitude for finally expressing what is obviously your own heart, rather than just the usual kind of rhetoric that athiests/agnostics throw into a discussion on religion.

    Thank you dissenter. =)

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 22, 2007 @ 11:03 pm

44. ” I wouldn’t be happy “trading in” (some of) my rational thinking ability (”pride” in your language) for some dodgy spirit-led process that leads to dubious results.”

    I just realised that I told you what I didn’t mean by pride, but failed to define it. Pride is the opposite to humility. Humility has as one of its cornerstones the ability to admit when it is wrong, and then receive assistance in correction.

    I was watching “Joan of Arcadia” on Sunday (not that I’m advocating its theology in anyway) and something that happened illustrated the contrast well. There was a family member who had to stay with them, and she was wheelchair ridden. The mother kept trying to molly coddle her, knowing that it can be difficult integrating to a disabled lifestyle, due to her son being a paraplegic. The lady (I think it was an aunt) resented the expressions of loving assistance, and lashed out, perceiving them as interference. This is pride.

    By the end of the episode, the aunt was telling the mother her secret recipe, because she was incapable of making it herself. With the aunt’s knowledge and the mother’s mobility, they were able to work together. This is humility, because the aunt recognised her limitations and received the assistance she needed.

    Pride’s origin was when Lucifer decided that he would ascend to the throne of God, thereby replaying Him. This was obviously futile, and led to him becoming Satan, after being cast down from heaven. From there, his attention was directed at ruling over God’s crowning glory, humanity. Humanity’s pride originated in choosing to acquire knowledge of what good and evil is, independent of God, as a means of acquiring their own life, rather than having it bestowed freely from God. Mankind’s natural tendency, as a result, is to figure things out for themselves, rather than receive assistance from another. We would rather teach than learn, take than receive, and rule than submit. This is pride. Pride screams, “I don’t need your help!!!”

    Consider that if a blind man denied assistance from one that can see, and then embarked on a journey across a busy highway. Unless he has some kind of assistance, it is likely that he will be roadkill within moments. This life that we are living, is for the most a mystery, full of surprises. Some are good, some bad. Some choices lead to pain, some to pleasure. Some for our gain, some for our loss. The kicker is, that we have know guarantees of which is which, until hindsight reveals, and even then the image can be distorted.

    Imagine if that blind man all dodgy “guide dog”-led process, that leads to dodgy results? After all, a cat could run past and the dog might chase it into an oncoming car, for example. No, far better that he doesn’t “trade in his rational thinking ability” and carefully inch his way across on his own. Perhaps he can try a “seeing eye fish”. After all, he has never seen one, so perhaps they really can walk on a leash. Maybe all these people who can see, don’t know what their talking about. Maybe they can’t really see at all. Maybe they are just deluded by an irrational belief that they have sight.

    The Bible says that the “God of this world (ie, Satan - long story) has blinded the eyes of those who do not believe.” I don;t know of a place where it says that a believer has sight, but the Psalms are riddled with statements like “You (God’s) Word is a lamp unto my feet. and a light unto my path” (as if all we can see is enough to put one foot in front of the other, safely), and “You (God again) are continually with me. You hold me by my right hand. You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me unto glory”. Being led makes a lot of sense when you are blind. Let’s face it, how much of what is after this life can you see? Do you totally disbelieve that a spiritual realm exists, or just doubt it? It could be possible that you are simply blind to it. Have you ever considered something as simple [sic] as “string theory”? Supposedly physicists “predict that the space in general has in fact 10 or 11 dimensions, respectively, but that the universe, when measured along these additional dimensions, is subatomic in size. As a result, we perceive only the three spatial dimensions that have macroscopic size. We as humans can only perceive up to the third dimension while we have knowledge of our travel through the fourth. We, however can not perceive anything past the fourth.” (Wikipedia)

    If there are six or seven physical dimensions in the universe, which at some point you were totally unaware of, and still cannot see, then couldn’t it be possible that a further non-physical dimension exists? Who better qualified to lead you through such a realm, than the Holy Spirit?

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 23, 2007 @ 1:04 am

45. There is a difference. You are using examples that obviously work, and comparing them to a process that is not obvious.

    It is obvious that if a blind man accepts help to cross a busy road he is far less likely to be killed than if he attempts it alone. It is obvious that if one put’s one’s pride aside to ask for assistance then that can also be beneficial. We can all observe and experience similar examples.

    And yes some theoretical physics models suggest a multi-dimensional universe with the higher dimensions on a micro level. These theories can be analysed mathmatically in a rigorous fashion and subject to experimental testing. The whole process of improving scientific theories is an open process that anyone with interest and sufficient background knowledge can participate in. This doesn’t mean that any one unified field theory has become widely accepted yet - but the process of evaluating and testing them is not a mysterious process like being led by the holy spirit is.

    There is no way you can be sure that someone else’s alleged Holy Spirit guidance is the genuine thing. You don’t even know what a spirit is, let alone a Holy one. Trying to come to an understanding of “spiritual matters” is like nailing jelly to a tree. It’s vague, varies vastly with personal experience and always leads to a myriad different spiritual ideas, religions and paths. And there is no non-controversial, simple and obvious way to differentiate one from the other.

    Our knowledge is not just the some total of our sense observations; it also includes logical inferences we make from that. So we can, through theory, experimentation and logical analysis, conclude that we live in a multi-dimensional universe, but how can we conclude that there are disembodied minds floating about that talk to us?

    Comment by dissenter � May 23, 2007 @ 2:05 pm

46. And there a further problems. Why would you accept a book like the bible as the word of a “Holy God”. At some level associating God with the Bible is a form of blasphemy. How dare you suggest that God is a genocidal, killing machine as portrayed in the old testament.

    Why would god set up a system in such a way as to end up with a virtually empty heaven and a massively crowded hell. What sort of picture is this, after the last judgement when we all reach our final destiny, can you imagine
    God and the saved saying to the denizens of hell, “You deserve that punishment, but we stil love you”

    Comment by dissenter � May 23, 2007 @ 2:11 pm

47. Oh, I forget. The good citizens of heaven will no longer be concerned with “loving thy neighbour” and “turning the other cheek”. All that charade will be behind them as they devote eternity to the pursuit of pleasure.

    Comment by dissenter � May 23, 2007 @ 3:09 pm

48. “And there a further problems. Why would you accept a book like the bible as the word of a “Holy God”. At some level associating God with the Bible is a form of blasphemy. How dare you suggest that God is a genocidal, killing machine as portrayed in the old testament.”

    You ask a question that you don’t want to answer. You say it is blasphemy, but I ask, “According to what?” If God doesn’t exist, then there is no one to blaspheme. If God is real, however, then he need not justify Himself to you. You have need to justify yourself to Him. Since this is impossible, the only alternative is that He justify you to Himself.

    The logic you bring reminds me the time that my five year old daughter would refuse to get off the road when I asked her. She thought it was reasonable that I should give an acceptable explanation before she obeyed. After all, we keep telling her how clever she is. She could go to the toilet by herself, draw nice pictures, and even write her name. Can me secretive and cruel, but all I could think about was getting her out of the way of the oncoming car. She didn’t fully understand the effect that a moving car can have on human flesh, and I didn’t have time to explain it to her.

    Imagine if I could actually give access to the thoughts of my head, as required? This is what I meant earlier when I quoted Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians’s, “..but we have the mind of Christ.” The Bible promises that God will put His own Spirit inside the nature of His people, ie, those He has chosen. Jesus went referred to “the Spirit of Truth” who would remind his disciples of his words, after he ascended into heaven. The epistles further declare that the words of Jesus are the spirit of prophecy. This isn’t a matter of “being Spirit led” being proof of the existence of God, but that knowing God is impossible without being led of the Spirit. It can only be understood from the inside out, not from the outside.

    God does not have time to justify Himself to you. It would take more time than you both have existed and will exist. Because of this, He has sent “the Law and the prophets” and has even sent His Son, testifying to his integrity, by raising him from the dead. These each gave you enough information to communicate His desire for you to “get off the road”, so to speak.

    God is not a “genocidal, killing machine” as you put it, for to be genocidal, in a criminal sense would be based on bigotry, paranoia and/or misinformation. God has perfect knowledge, therefore cannot be misinformed, neither can He be paranoid. He allows His sun to shine, and rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, therefore He has proven that is not bigoted. The only thing left is to consider the possibility that He had good reason for the killings in the Old Testament.

    Again, I ask if you have read the Bible from cover to cover, weighing each statement against itself? If you haven’t, then you are risking being guilty of slander, in that you have accused God of crime, without properly examining the evidence. I could answer many of these accusations myself, however history tells me that we will go around and around, with your fluid opinion, that can change at your every whim, being pitted against the written words of Scripture, which even if only on the basis of it being in written form, cannot change. Talk about “nailing jelly to a tree”. Your can throw back the words of Scripture, but I would have no recourse against your accusations, because I can never predict when you will change gears, and invent a new basis of truth.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 24, 2007 @ 11:25 pm

49. “Oh, I forget. The good citizens of heaven will no longer be concerned with “loving thy neighbour” and “turning the other cheek”. All that charade will be behind them as they devote eternity to the pursuit of pleasure.”

    “Love” is described as “suffering long”, not forever. “Love” thinks highly of other, thereby expecting much from them. Any love that didn’t do so, would be mere patriotism. Regarding “turning the other cheek”, this is meant to happen when someone strikes the first. Note also that when Peter asked how many times he should forgive his neighbour, the answer given was “seventy times seven”. In other words, although the amount of time we are expected to forgive goes beyond mere human limitation, there is a limit.

    These statements, that you have made here, further prove that you know little about the subject matter. Even if you don’t want to read the whole Bible, these words can be found, in their proper context, in Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 5-7. Herein is a microcosm of the revelation of God’s Kingdom, in that this is a sermon, given by Jesus Himself, that most likely was recorded word for word, by someone with shorthand dictation skills. Again I say, weigh each statement against each other, considering their ramifications, and then raise your objections, against the actual words, not what you think he meant.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 24, 2007 @ 11:26 pm

50. “Why would you accept a book like the bible as the word of a “Holy God”.”

    I choose to because It says to, and because I have yet to find a basis of doubting it (and yes, I do look for one every time I open it). Considering that the Christian faith is firmly centered around the integrity of the words of its Holy Book, then it must fall over when prodded if it is false. I have very carefully tried to show you that I have not thrown out logic, for the sake of my faith, and yet you continue refuse to consider the possible ramifications of the Bible (btw…I noticed that we both capitalised the title of “The God Delusion”, and yet you couldn’t pay the same courtesy to the “Bible”) being what it claims to be. If it is God’s Word, then it would be enough to merely state it. After all, He owes us no no explanations if He has and continues to give “life, breath and all things” to all.

    From some reason you seem to be afraid to look into what an actual Christian believes, preferring you own pale imitation, based on disinformation. I find this hard to conceive, as one who believes that truth will stand for itself, and will not be disproved by a lie, which all ways have a way of being exposed. I have made a point to work hard to find out what people believe about life, sin, death, and the afterlife, rather than lean on secondhand opinions, of what people say that they would believe. I was the “humble street preacher” who I spoke of in my earlier post, and the “Muslim” that I refer to, was actually two young men, who agreed with me when I presented their beliefs to them, unbiasedly as if I believed them. Even when I pointed out the elements that I found offensive. After presenting it to them, he could still have a pleasant conversation, being aware that neither of us were going to budge from our stance, unless something logical and conclusive was presented.

    My comments about “pride” were quoting Scripture. If the Bible is the Word of God, then that would mean that it is saying that your “inability to receive assistance, in order to look past your own opinion, without feeling the urge to ridicule the other opinion as nonsense” (ie, pride), is causing God to resist you, rather than offer you grace, which is reserved for “those who realise that they haven’t got all the answers, and the ones that they have require them to ignore other facts to maintain them, and therefore have given up trying to work it all out on their own” (ie, humble).

    I personally think that the reason my blind man comment offended your logic, was because you cannot tolerate anyone thinking that you are ignorant. Consider the fact that you have never seen spiritual reality (granted, you would say that this is because it doesn’t exist). In the same way someone who is blind from birth, and therefore cannot say that they have “seen” a car, meaning that it “mustn’t exist”, is misinformed. You, with sight, could argue that cars do indeed exist, but they don’t have to believe you. You could offer to walk them over to a car, so they can touch it. If they refuse, then you have to seek another way to convince them. Perhaps you can start a car, so they car hear it and smell its exhaust, but if they refuse to believe that it is a car, preferring to think that it is a wild beast growling at the fire that you lit.

    No amount of explaining internal combustion theory and the history of automobiles will do, because you and your textbooks could have just made it all up. After all, how do you know that Henry Ford got it right? You can try analogies, but they can respond by pointing to their irrelevance. The ultimate question is, at what point do you say, “I can’t believe someone can be so stubborn in their ignorance. After all, I am the one who can see here. Who cares anyway? I owe them nothing. If it is going to take them being squashed by a semi trailer on the Western Ring Road, before they believe, then so be it.” This wouldn’t be arrogance, on your part, but you would be merely stating a fact.

    So I say to you, dissenter, I have done all that I can do here. You will need to face God on Judgement Day. You will be as guilty as anyone else. Every lie, every theft, every expression of anger, every lustful glance, every blasphemy, every time you disrespected your parents, every envious thought and action, and every time you neglect of God’s rest, every time you formed an impression of what you think that God is or should be, and replaced the true God with it, on top of the times that you placed yourself over God, as having the right to determine your own morality, will be judged. In essence, your every thought, word and deed will be weighed against His Holy Law, which is confirmed with your own conscience (except where it has grown cold as a result of repeated disobedience).

    The only difference between you and us, is that we have accepted Another’s offer to stand in our place, to receive the punishement, and have accepted the terms of recognising the horrific loathfulness of our sin, and allowing the one who paid our price to have the right to rule our individual lives, from that day on (you call this being “Spirit-led”. You, on the other hand, not only have commited such crimes, but at times you feeled justified in doing so and enjoying doing them. At times you fail to even blush at the thought of what you have doen. Also, you arrogantly deny the need for another to pay your “fine”, which you have no way of paying yourself. No amount of good deeds and right motives can take away from the times when they weren’t there. God cannot, in good conscience, forgive a man who has no intention of reforming his life.

    Whether you believe this, or not, neither adds to, nor removes from its inevitability. Fact of the matter is, it is appointed unto every man, once to die, and after that, judgement. I am merely echoing what Jesus said would be the Holy Spirit’s message for the world, after he ascended to heaven: that being to convince them of “sin, righteousness, and judgement”. “Sin” because you believe not on Christ. “Righteousness”, because Christ has gone to be with the Father in heaven. “Judgement”, because the Prince of this world (ie, Satan) has had his sentence cast against him, already.

    The Bible further says that “all that is in the world, is the LUST OF THE EYES, the LUST OF THE FLESH, and the PRIDE OF LIFE”. In other words, these three things make up the manifesto of Satan’s kingdom. To consider these three things to be primary, is to pledge allegiance to him. All who are his subjects, will share his fate, just as Nazi war criminals share in the fate due to Hitler. Your crime is in essence to submit yourself to Satan, over God, and to encourage others to do likewise. Think about it, you would agree that most of the crimes that I listed earlier are wrong, if they were commited against you. In spite of this, you would do them to others, if it furthered your ends. Why would that happen, except that you have a “higher law” at work in you, which tells you that “acquisition of wealth and possessions”, “pleasure and comfort” and “a sense of importance” are more important? Your God given conscience told you that it was wrong, and yet you did it anyway, in favour of serving your master. After all, he just wants to let you have everything you ever wanted, right.

    Just as with the blind man earlier, whose broken body is lying on the ground, awaiting the next car to strike him, if it doesn’t see him, you will know on “that day” that you were warned and ignored it. Enjoy life, while you still can. That is God’s merciful gift to you. I hope you figure it out and repent before it’s too late.

    “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that which he has done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.”
    (2 Cor 5:10-11)

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 25, 2007 @ 12:05 am

51. “Love” is described as “suffering long”, not forever.

    Ok, let’s think about this statement.

    You are saying that love is limited to a finite time. Nominate any finite length of time. Choose any arbitrary amount, from 2 nanoseconds to the age of the universe times a very large number. After the nominated time elapses, love ceases. Whatever amount of time you chose, it is trivially short compared to the eternity that will follow. As someone said recently, eternity is a very long time, especially the last part.

    Comment by dissenter � May 25, 2007 @ 10:43 am

52. Your daughter is in danger on a busy road. What do you do if she doesn’t move? You dash out and save her, of course.

    What would God do. He appears to not care about human suffering. We don’t see God dashing out onto busy roads rescuing people. We don’t see God saving people from cancer. Well, some people claim miracles, but if you concede this what are you saying? You’re saying that God arbitrarily rescues some and not most others.

    Now you have “the mind of Christ”. Well, with your mind of God, please explain why this mind is so cruel and arbitrary.

    Why do you worship an immoral God. And yes, I have read at least some of the atrocious Old Testament stories where God commands the mass killing of whole groups of people. This behaviour is wrong, otherwise are you saying it’s one standard for God and another for us humans? Is God saying “Do as I say, not as I do” ? Is it a case of “might is right”?

    Comment by dissenter � May 25, 2007 @ 11:15 am

53. The Bible says there was a world-wide flood. Do you believe this, even though there is no evidence for such an event? The Bible says Earth and all life were created in seven days. Do you believe this despite evidence that life evolved over millions of years?

    The Bible has many contradictions and failed prophecies. And you still believe it?

    Are you preparing a comedy sketch for “The Chaser”?

    Comment by dissenter � May 25, 2007 @ 11:55 am

54. “Your daughter is in danger on a busy road. What do you do if she doesn’t move? You dash out and save her, of course.”

    Christ did “dash out onto the road”, 2000 years ago, and then has sent apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors to continue doing the job. The maladies which you speak of are temporal. You cannot have it both ways, dissenter. You cannot, on one hand, point out the fact that the eternal hereafter is “a very long time”, and then mention death by cancer as ultimate. You know in part, and therefore “prophecy” in part.

    The thing that you left out was that after dashing out on the road, my daughter would be punished for her disobedience, in order to reinforce the fact that her rebellion is a serious matter, that nearly claimed her life. The punishment would fit the crime, with the goal of having her reform her ways.

    The major difference between her “temporal rebellion” and your potential “ultimate rebellion” is that once you step out of this temporal reality, through the veil of death, the possibility of change ceases. Consider that time is the one consistent factor, in change, if one were to cease to exist in the time domain, they would become fixed in what their choices have made them. They would bring their unrepentant sinful nature and actions into the eternal realm, thereby tarnishing whatever they come into contact with. This is why there is no forgiveness for the fallen angels, led by Lucifer. This fact is established, by God sending an angel to stop Adam and Eve returning to the Garden of Eden. He gave reason to the angel, that if they were to eat of the Tree of Life (the other tree in the midst of the garden) then they would become immortal in their sin.

    The only responsible thing that a loving creator could do would be to “quarantine” those who “chose a fixed condition of sinfulness” from those who have “submitted their lives to obedience to Him”. I don’t know about you, but I put my household refuse into the bin, no matter how useful it was before it began to rot. It keeps my house sanitary. The rebellious mortal, who has crossed over into immortality, clothed in corruption, having refused the offer of in-corruption, would have become refuse, fit for no good thing.

    Hell is described as the lake of fire, where the worm turns and the flame is not quenched. Be that literal, or not, if God “is” love, then ultimate separation from Him, would be ultimate separation from love itself. Having experienced brokenheartedness, I have been aware that no matter how bad things got, there was always someone who would show love toward me, even if only minutely, but that only knocked the edge off of the agony. To not even have that… Give me a lake of fire any day!!

    Separation from Him is a choice made during this life, by us. We refuse to consider His ways, and only look to His acts. You would curse Him for taking our loved one, and yet you ignore Him as you celebrate your good times. If one came from Him, then so did the other. The sun still shines, and the rain still falls, just as it does on the one who expresses his appreciation practically. In fact, you would tend to suffer less than that one, for the enemy of your soul has no need to try to have you doubt the faithfulness of God.

    Note that I said that “Love” is described as “SUFFERING long”, not forever. (emphasis added) The actual love endures forever, but its patience cannot, though it endures for a lifetime. Love that totally ignores the fact that its loved ones are being harmed at the hands of other people, who it also loves, is a complacent love that is voided by its complacency. It is a love that is void of justice. Our sin forces Him to make a choice, and in spite of this, He manifests His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

    You say “I have read at least some of the atrocious Old Testament stories where God commands the mass killing of whole groups of people”, well change your “SOME” to “ALL”, and then we’ll discuss this. You don’t need to go far to find the reasons for these killings. Go ahead, cite me one event, and tell me the reason that He gave, not just your opinions.

    There is evidence of a flood, it is just that you choose to interpret it for your atheistic standpoint. Consider this one fact alone: If the were a global cataclysmic flood, you would expect to find millions of dead things buried beneath rock layers all over the earth. I find it fascinating that when you find millions of dead thing buried beneath rock layers all over the earth, you say, “All this happened over millions of years, and each layer is an eon of time, where you can see species of animals that died out at various times”, in spite of the fact that the animals appear in different orders in each location. We have a rational explanation: “Global flood rearranges the earth top layer, leaving massive amounts of animals buried beneath the settled layers”; but we can’t believe that, because that would require believing the Bible. Add to this the fact that there were apparently some animals that died, remained standing over millions of years, as the sediment slowly buried them, whole. Yep…that makes sense.

    Oh….these contradictions and failed prophecies…please show them to us. Considering that you have not read the Bible in its entirety, weighing each statement against each other, could it be possible that you missed something that reconciled what you thought was a contradiction? I look forward to what you put forth, as I have been looking for them for twelve years now, and have yet to find one.

    Finally…

    “Are you preparing a comedy sketch for “The Chaser”?”

    How sad. I was impressed with the degree of maturity that you have been showing lately, but I guess one should expect such from someone who feels that they are capable of defining their own morality, on the fly.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 26, 2007 @ 3:35 am

55. On prophecies: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/prophecy.html

    You sound as if you are influenced by Young Earth Creationism. Your interpretation of scientific evidence has been twisted to fit your fundamentalist understanding of the Bible.

    Comment by dissenter � May 26, 2007 @ 7:37 pm

56. http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/34/

    Comment by shmatt � May 26, 2007 @ 11:21 pm

57. “You sound as if you are influenced by Young Earth Creationism.”

    And…? Considering that I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and that the Bible speaks of a “young earth”… well it is simple logic. You say that my interpretation if scientific evidence is twisted by my “fundamentalist understanding of the Bible”, and I say that your interpretations are twisted by your denial of the existence of God. I think I can sense a stalemate here.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 27, 2007 @ 2:29 am

58. “In two different places, then, New Testament writers claimed that the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day had been predicted in the scriptures. Try as they may, however, bibliolaters cannot produce an Old Testament passage that made this alleged third-day prediction. It simply doesn’t exist.”

    This one is easy to refute, when one understands Jewish Hermeneutics (mentioned in my first comment in this post). Elsewhere Jesus said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here.” (Mat 12:39-41)

    Jesus’ Hebrew hearers would have understood the symbolism here. Every character who followed after God in the Torah and Tannach was a type of Meshiach. Jonah came to Nineveh preaching repentance; Jesus preached repentance. Jonah spent three days and nights in the fish’s belly; Jesus spent three days and night in the “belly” of the earth. Jonah was cast overboard by his own choice; Jesus went to the cross by his own choice.

    By implication, Jonah’s story tells us that Meshiach must spend three days in some kind of death, and then return from it. Therefore, it can be said that Jesus rose on the third day, “according to the Scriptures”.

    Do you see the danger in taking a second-hand opinion of what the Bible says, over checking it out for yourself? Mr Till has brought a Western mindset to a Hebraic book. Everything about the culture, including the very language spoken was radically different to what we have, with our Hellenistic mindsets. We like things placed into nice neat little categories, where the Hebrew sees a lattice of interconnecting ideas, each dependant on the other.

    For us, a name is but a mere label, but for the Hebrew it is as much a description as a title. Even the very letters used in a word have symbolism, to the degree that teachers of the modern Hebrew language utilise them to aid in retainment of learning. The Hebrew language lends itself to frequent puns. There is a constant irony being offered in every statement of Scripture, where each event holds pinpoint precision.

    To further add to the Scripture testifying to Jesus resurrection, we can look at Abraham’s offering of Isaac. The account has three characters, Abraham, Isaac, and the Abraham’s unnamed servant. The three serve as a type of the three Person’s of the Godhead, Father (Abraham), Son (Isaac) and Holy Spirit (unnamed servant). Isaac carries His own wood, just as Jesus carried his own cross. Isaac comes voluntarily, just as Jesus went voluntarily. A lamb replaced Isaac; Jesus is repeatedly declared to be the lamb. Also, Isaac being replaced by the lamb effectively snatches him from death; Jesus raises from the dead.

    From when Abraham came down from the mountain, to when Rebekah is brought to Isaac, Isaac is conspicuously absent from the record. Logic would say that he was there, but he is not mentioned once. This bears testimony to Jesus’ absence after his ascension. During Isaac’s absence from the narrative, the unnamed servant seeks out a bride for Isaac; the Holy Spirit seeks out a bride for Christ (ie, the regenerate church).

    The typology is consistent throughout the Old Testament narrative. Read it for yourself, dissenter. Bring me your own conclusions. There was much to comment on in Till’s article, but as you have no doubt noticed, I can be long winded enough without taking up Mb of shmatt’s storage with what I can offer to answer his allegations. Till has merely looked at the surface of the Old Testament, while to gospel can be found even in the meaning of names in genealogies, and by equidistant letter sequences contained within Messianic prophecies.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 27, 2007 @ 2:30 am

59. Again I say to you that all this is futile. You seem have set your mind at denying the existence of God. You appear to have come here with statements about things that we know, in order to cause us to doubt, rather than with questions about things that you do not to know. I’m not sure whether you are one who “believes that there is no God”, or “does not know if there is a God”, but the fact is that as long as you ignore the moral question, you will have no hope of seeing Him. Therefore this post and every one that I have made, previous serves only to show that I can give a logical answer for my belief.

    Till started off his article by saying that, “Prophecy fulfillment is a popular argument that bibliolaters rely on in trying to prove the divine inspiration of the Bible.” That is a ridiculous statement. The Bible makes no attempt to prove itself. This is its ultimate integrity statement. The gospels sole reason for citing the Messianic prophecies is to communicate some of the information that Jesus gave to his disciples between his resurrection and ascension.

    Matthew was a tax collector prior to following Christ, so naturally the kind of reconciliation of data, common amongst accountants can be seen in his gospel. Mark’s gospel is very light of on Messianic prophecy, as it deals primarily with his actions. Luke’s gospel was written by a gentile to a gentile, for the purpose that the reader would “know the certainty of those things which he was instructed”, not to convince a nonbeliever of the existence of God, for example. In fact, reading this gospel is actually reading someone else’s mail, as it is a letter addressed to a guy named Theophilus. John wrote his gospel, again for believers, to confirm the fact Jesus was in fact God. Considering that this apostle was the one closest to Jesus, and was the one to whom the “revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants things which must shortly take place” show shown to, one it can plainly be seen why this would be.

    Paul, being a rabbi who testified of the fact that his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved”, going as far as to wish to be “accursed from Christ for his brethren”, the Jews. Naturally, he would often mention the Scriptures as he implored them to repent and trust in Christ. Note, however that the only synagogue that the Acts of the Apostles says actually “searched the Scriptures” to see if the things that Paul said were true, were the only ones the not only didn’t raise up a mob in jealousy against him, but many of them believed.

    All this is futile to convince you of anything. Only if you can see through the words that we put hear, even through the words of Scripture, to “hear what the Spirit is saying”, salvation will be shut off to you. And His voice is only heard by those who He reveals Himself to. My hope and prayer is that He will do just that. I was one, just as you, who made sport of these “poor deluded Christians”. I would, at school, spend one class proving that God couldn’t be real, and the next proving that there had to be a God. Why? Because it was fun to mess with peoples heads.

    The only thing is, that on the 2nd January 1993, God revealed Himself to me, in a way that I could not deny. He spoke words to me that I later found in the Scripture, having never read it before. Even today I encounter things that I heard, that day, that didn’t make sense at the time, but now are confirmed in the Scripture. The Scripture does not “prove God” to the nonbeliever, but “confirms God” to the believer. It gives explanation of the hope that He gives to those that He saves.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 27, 2007 @ 2:31 am

60. “God revealed Himself to me”.

    Are you a former drug user? Have you had psychiatric “episodes” or suffered from clinical psychological disorders?

    Comment by dissenter � May 27, 2007 @ 1:19 pm

61. You base your beliefs on a private personal experience. An experience you have chosen to interpet according to a particular religous tradition.

    How non-convincing can you be?

    Where is the objective evidence. You have presented none.

    I suspect you are being puposely deceitful.

    Comment by dissenter � May 27, 2007 @ 2:14 pm

62. “I suspect you are being puposely deceitful.”

    Now you reduce yourself to slander. You are quick to pick up on the “foolish” components of my comments, which I only cite to validate the fact that it is impossible that anyone can “perceive” God, except that God reveals Himself to them, and ignore my refutations of your accusations against Scripture. On top of this, I mention my own experience, and you accuse me of deliberate deception. What’s the matter, can’t you answer the facts presented previously?

    I have at no point tried to convince you of the existence of God, stating that it would be pointless to do so. I have merely answered the accusations that you have leveled at the Bible, giving a logical answer for what I believe (something that Scripture exhorts me to do), however you cannot humble yourself to consider the ramifications of it being true, thereby confirming further what the word of God says.

    I will stand before God innocent of your blood because I have done my best to warn you of Judgment. You are the one who stands to lose or gain here, not me. I have had and will have worse accusations, than you have said, leveled at me, and I continue to count it all joy.

    Ask yourself this question, dissenter, what do I have to gain in deceiving you? I have no idea where you live, so I’m obviously not trying to get you to join my “social club”. I don’t believe that the enforcement of tithing is Biblical (and can back this statement up Scripturally) so even if you did convert, I would receive no money from you. I have not come with enticing words but with the accusations of God’s Holy Law and the foolish message of substitutionary atonement leading to regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

    I have willingly opened myself to ridicule, by shamelessly stating my beliefs, and you have responded predictably. Fact: the Bible says that the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, qualifying that “whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish”. And here you are not believing in Christ, calling the gospel foolish, thereby confirming Scripture. Fact: you claim that it is impossible to “see” a spiritual realm/entity, assuming that it therefore cannot exist. And the Bible states that the Devil has blinded the eyes of those who do not believe.

    Your comments are textbook responses to the pleadings of God to repent, made by a rebellious sinner, who cannot tolerate having One rule over him. I feel sorry for you, dissenter as I contemplate the moment of disillusionment when you stand before the One you accuse of barbarity (and worse), finally realising the lengths He went to to offer you mercy.

    Good luck to you. To quote Keith Green,
    “You’re gonna find out that He’s the way
    No matter which way you choose
    But I pray you
    Find out by His love for you”

    I’ll be praying and weeping over your soul. :’(

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 27, 2007 @ 6:52 pm

63. How touching. I guess I’m left with no option but to turn from my wicked ways and seek Jesus. Whilst I’m still alive. It’s too late when you’re dead, right?

    Once saved always saved. So once the salvation stuff is out of the way, I can resume my selfish life of evil and wicked wrong-doing, but this time it will be covered by the blood of Jesus. How convenient the Christian faith is. And I don’t even have to donate 10%. Sounds like heaven on earth.

    Comment by dissenter � May 27, 2007 @ 7:03 pm

64. You said “God revealed Himself to me”.

    Once again, I ask: Are you a former drug user? Have you had psychiatric “episodes” or suffered from clinical psychological disorders?

    Does God still “reveal himself to you”? If so, get a medical check up immediately.

    Comment by dissenter � May 27, 2007 @ 9:39 pm

65. “How touching. I guess I’m left with no option but to turn from my wicked ways and seek Jesus. Whilst I’m still alive. It’s too late when you’re dead, right?”
    “You said “God revealed Himself to me”.”

    …you’ll notice that I intentionally gave no details of the manner in which He revealed Himslef to me, simply because my Lord said not to “cast my pearls before swine, and give not that which is holy to the dogs.”. You can be offended all you want at being compared to a pig or a dog, but the point is simply that these were unclean animals. Seeing as you appear to be one who believes that we all evolved from animals, there should be nothing unflattering here.

    Notice that I also said, “All this is futile to convince you of anything. Only if you can see through the words that we put hear, even through the words of Scripture, to “hear what the Spirit is saying”, salvation will be shut off to you.” In other words your sacastic comments are ludicrous (bearing in mind that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour). Just as one can only approach royalty with permission, so to can the sinner only aproach God is He draws them. No room for putting it all off, anticipating a deathbed conversion. It just don’t work that way.

    For the record, I an perfectly sane, having this confirmed by professionals. Have you? After all I am really concerned with your need show up on a Christian site, purely with the intention to shake believers’ faith. Some could say that this is displaying symptoms of narcisism, or at least are a touch borderline. I mean, you are welcome to be here and do so, and I for one never grow tired of responding.

    Mind you, when my master says stop, I assure you that that is just what I will do.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 28, 2007 @ 12:20 am

66. “Once saved always saved. So once the salvation stuff is out of the way, I can resume my selfish life of evil and wicked wrong-doing, but this time it will be covered by the blood of Jesus.”

    How many times do I have to say this: READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU TRY TO DISTORT IT!!!

    “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” (Ro 6:1-6)

    To quote Tozer, “All forgiveness is conditional on the intention to reform.”

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 28, 2007 @ 12:26 am

67. By the way, did you watch Dawkins tonight? He was a little less biased than last week. Still quoted Scripture out of context though.

    Comment by Aaron Ireland � May 28, 2007 @ 12:27 am

68. Dawkins is on too late for me. Anyway, I was up bashing my wife and terrorising the dog - you know, engaging in sin.

    I’ve read bits of the Bible. A lot of it is boring. What about the bit where one of the writers requests that an article of clothing be sent - is that God’s word?

    Now if you’ve already got the insurance ticket to heaven, you’d be really stupid to let your faith curtail your lifestyle. What’s wrong with a bit of recreational drug taking, some whoring and boozing?

    Comment by dissenter � May 28, 2007 @ 9:40 am

69. Interesting that you need to undergo sanity certification. Obviously it was touch-and-go with the drugs at one stage - I do feel like I’m talking to a drug-addled, brain-dead religious nut.

    Comment by dissenter � May 28, 2007 @ 9:42 am

70. Intelligent conversation, please.

    I honestly can’t see the point of this conversation anymore, but if you must continue, then please do not resort to school yard name calling.

    Comment by shmatt � May 28, 2007 @ 1:26 pm

71. I have watched this conversation go on for the past few weeks with interest wanting to comment but afraid that my answers would not sound intelligent enough. However the comments left in the past 48hrs have pushed me over the edge.
    I am saddeded that what started out as a adult conversation has become nothing more than a slanging match.
    Dissenter,I could enter the debate you are having with the others but there would be no point as you are determined not to believe anyone who has a belief in God anyway. Instead I ask you these questions.
    I wonder what has happened to you in the past to make you so anti God?
    You ask for hard evidence of Gods existence.My question is if you are so sure He doesnt why ask at all?
    When Matt asked you to meet with him and share life stories there was no reply to that offer. Why is that?
    If you find nothing, in hearing his lifes story, that interest you and that it does infact continue to confirm your belief that God does not exist what have you lost? Or are you afraid that you may find the opposite?

    Comment by Lou � May 28, 2007 @ 2:15 pm

72. On the original idea about the “Mystery of the Cross”.

    The atonement story throws up more questions that answers. Which is why some say it is a mystery (a convenient label to avoid having to be pushed into an intellectual corner).

    Effectively, God committed temporary suicide to make some abstract point about blood sacrifice to himself. This was done because the human species is in some abstract condition of sin.

    What is sin? Breaking the crude and primitive Old Testament law? Breaking any socially sanctioned legal system?

    Once again, we go around in circles. It’s one thing to believe in disembodied minds. Why do people believe in this stuff? Why do they think that their imaginary disembodied spirits wrote books like the Bible (or the Koran if you’re Muslim)?

    We’ve all had life experiences. So what? Someone claims God spoke to them, others will see it as the mis-firing of neurones in a brain.

    Do you notice how God never speaks to people in groups, so that each and every group member can confirm what is being said, word for word. Even in places of worship, everyone is engaging in private communication with God. Why does God behave like this? Because He doesn’t exist?

    Comment by dissenter � May 28, 2007 @ 2:48 pm

73. “Dawkins is on too late for me. Anyway, I was up bashing my wife and terrorising the dog - you know, engaging in sin.”

    Further proving your ignorance of what sin is. Sin is merely falling short of perfect obedience to God’s expectation. I have never accused you of harming animals or beating your wife. In fact I get the impression that you are someone who would ascribe to a high humanistic morality, which would certainly be impressive. It has been disappointing to see you resort to such name calling and twisting of my words, when a wiser man would seek clarification.

    Forget violence, wouldn’t disrespect be considered slnful? Even a Satanist would concede this point (incidently, a LaVeyan Satanist doesn’t believe in God, or Satan either, for that matter), with part of what they call Lex Satanicus saying, “When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.”

    In fact, disrespect would also be anti-Darwinian, because