This is a follow up OP to my previous two where I’d challenged some of the common Christian views, such as the immortally of the soul and the origin of evil.
At UD, I also questioned the suppose holiness of Billy Graham-who recently passed away-and the comparison of him to apostle Paul as well as Graham’s confidence that he was going to go to heaven to be with the Lord here.
It looks like that pushed some of the true Christians over the edge at UD and consequently I was challenged to admit as being a closet atheist or as Truth Will Set You Free called me a/mat (atheist/materialist)…
41 Truth Will Set You Free
You are delusional, and you are the real coward. Stop lying to yourself. Embrace your a/mat nihllism.”
My response to this challenge was:
42 J-Mac
Well, I think the only way out of this for you is that you are going to have to prove your claim…
I hope you live up to your name Truth Will Set You Free… Otherwise I’d suggest you change your name to Falsehood Will Set You Up…”
As expected, I never got a response with at least some proof why Truth Will Set You Free and others would think I was a closet atheist…
Although this is not the first time I was accused of being an atheist, this time though it happened after I had taken some shots at the most cherished belief of the frequent contributors at UD, namely BA77, kairosfocus, Truth Will Set You Free, Barry, Dionisio and many others… namely the afterlife….
Here is my final comment on the challenge:
“So, it looks like the time has come for me to face the truth and make up my mind whether I should support the atheistic/materialistic views, like the view of material, soulless body, or the theistic views with the immortal soul that survives the death of the body and either inherited the heavenly realm or the fiery hell…
Ever since I have been challenged by Truth Will Set You Free and others I have been thinking about it for few days and it looks like I’m going to need help of all of you… Simply put, it is not an easy decision. So, please help me out to make the right one.
As you may remember that one of the reasons I question some theistic/ Christian believes is the teaching of the immortality of the soul.
In Gen 2:16 and 17 we read:
“16 God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
So, according to the bible scripture, in God’s own words, the penalty for eating the forbidden fruit, which meant disobedience and sin, was supposed to be death. There is no mention of the survival of anything, like a soul, that was going to continue living in a spiritual realm, either in heaven or hell…
God said: “…You will surely die…” No hell, no afterlife, no nothing is ever said
After Adam and Eve sinned, one would hope that God would surly tell them all the details about their future regarding the continuation of their life as immortal souls…
And yet, nothing again:ì
Gen 3:19
“By the sweat of your face, You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
God said: “…You will return do the ground… because from it you were taken…”
So again, no word about the immortal soul continuing to live on in the spirit realm as the theistic/Christian teachings claim…
Instead, God clearly tells them that they are going to return to where they were before…
So, as you can see, if I were to accept the theistic/Christian teaching of the immortality of the soul, which continues after death, I would have to go against God’s own statements that are clearly the opposite to the beliefs of many Christians, including the many at UD, like Truth Will Set You free, BA77, ET, and many, many others…
However, this is not the end of the story…
When Satan convinced Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, what did he tell them the effect of the eating of the fruit would be?
Well read it for yourself:
Gen 3:1-5
“1 Now the serpent (Satan) was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’? 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’?”4 (Satan) “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.”
So, obviously you can see the real problem I would have if I were to accept the theistic/Christian teachings of the immortality of the soul that survives death.
I would not only be supporting Satan’s claim that the eating of the forbidden fruit doesn’t lead to death, but rather to being like God, I would also have to be forced to claim that God, yes the Christian God, is a liar… because he said if you sin, you will die…
So, if I decide to stick with theists and support the teachings of immortality of the soul, like the true Christians like, Truth Will Set You Free , BA77, KF and many others believe, I actually would have to claim that God is a liar and Satan’s claim when he said:
“No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.”
was actually true…
So, please help me to make the right decisions.
If I stick with the beliefs of Truth Will Set You Free, BA77, KF and many others at UD, I’m going to be a hypocrite, and accuse God of lying. But if I support God’s statements and expose Satan as slander and lair, the true Christians at UD are going to continue to claim that I hide my true beliefs and you will call me an atheist/materialist… What should I do?
Truth Will Set You Free, BA77, ET, KF and others; what would you do if you were in my situation?
I think, I have no choice and I’m going to support God’s claims and oppose Satan’s falsehood even though I’m going to risk to be abused by you and called names like a/mat…
After all, if I can’t be true to myself, why even bother to breath? We agree at least on one thing: God is righteous and truthful even when hypocrites accused Him of being a lair….He will repay everyone in full…We can be assured of that…
I’m just wondering: Who is it going to be?
Am I going straight to hell?”
What do you all think? Did I do the right thing despite the possible consequences of being accused of being delusional and closet atheist? Am I a closet atheist? What do atheists think? Do I belong with you? Do I belong with true Christians like BA77, Barry, Dr. Egnor ,TWSYF and others? Do I even belong with the ID crowd?
From where I sit, you look theist. But I suspect that the correct technical term is “heretic”.
JW, perhaps?
Of course, God was lying, and the snake (which for some unknown reason people associate with Satan) was telling the truth. That much should be obvious from the story.
Why?
Why do you think that? I’ve heard this before, maybe even from you…definitely from keiths…
You are disagreeing with a lot of what good Christians are supposed to accept. And that makes you a heretic.
Actually, it is probably okay to disagree with those views, as long as you keep quiet about it. But since you didn’t keep it to yourself, you are going to be criticized by those who have appointed themselves tribal guardians.
Thanks Neil. I still don’t understand what a good Christian is who is expected to keep his mouth shut if he has doubts…
How does it make me a good Christian? You are an atheist. You tell me what a good Christian is….
Why, that’s what the story says. They eat, they don’t die, but they gain knowledge of good and evil. The only reason they eventually died (long after the fact) is that they were prevented from eating from the tree of life. And the snake was a snake, the cleverest of animals. That’s why snakes don’t have any legs, while Satan apparently has them.
So, why do you hate punctuation?
It’s not up to me to tell you that.
I was Christian at one time. And I always had my doubts. I never really knew whether I was a “good Christian” — I don’t think there’s a standard for that.
On the other hand, I never discussed those doubts with my pastor, mainly because nothing he could have said would have resolved those doubts.
Actually the belief in conditional immortality is an accepted minority position among evangelicals at least. There is a lot of discussion and debate about the topic.
As far as the origin of evil goes as long as you don’t hold that God does evil and that humans are responsible for their actions I think that most Christians would not consider you a heretic.
That is just me.
peace
Why would you but the condition that God does no evil in the mix? Many of his actions seem evil to me. Or, at least, extremely vindictive, arbitrary and cruel.
J-Mac,
This is a very interesting post. What I would suggest is to study the passage from the original ancient hebrew language and see if that changes anything. I am wondering if there is a blog where this can be facilitated.
In addition, saying you will die may not be inconsistent with the fact that Adam did eventually die which may not have occurred if he had not eaten the fruit.
Makes no sense…
BTW: I saw someone once using ellipses…a lot…
I asked why. He said: ” I want people to believe I have put in a lot of thought into my comments, when I actually didn’t…”
Interesting.
I left the Catholic Church many years ago because they teach their “goats” nonsense…
Immortality of the soul, unless quantum, is nonsense… same for hell and the rupture…
What? Where is it accepted?
Thanks. I’m doing it… I’m going to meet an evangelical scholar to discuss this issue and other…
start here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_conditionalism
here is a good website to check out
peace
Because an evil god is not worthy of worship.
That is because you don’t have the whole story.
A spoiled adolescent might think many of his parents actions are extremely vindictive, arbitrary and cruel but that is just because his knowledge is limited and he is selfish and incredibly shortsighted.
peace
Any discussion of goat ruptures would probably have driven me off too.
Unless it was a discussion of a quantum rupture. 😉
seriously walto, you are mean.
I would like to see a discussion on why spell check is evil.
peace
LMFAO!
This is my challenge to true Christians at UD. Still no response… as I suspected …
“I’m looking for courageous Christians who are not afraid to face challenges to their faith…Is this the right blog?
Or, is it the blog of self-proclaimed Christians who fade away when their beliefs are challenged and they continue on with their preconceived, supposed Christian ideas, as if nothing happened?
I have been wondering what Christianity is about and what it should be about…
As a former Roman Catholic, I find some of the attitudes of Catholics on this blog either ludicrous or unacceptable even for atheists…
These are your” best” comments… unfortunately…
You can rest in peace…
Have you lost our mind? Why would I read Wiki on this issue if I’d stopped reading the Vatican on same and more many years ago?
Only if I can get that image out of my head!
I’m not asking you to read Wikipedia to understand conditional immortality.
I’m using Wikipedia to show you that you are not alone and your position is not unique in Evangelicalism
Peace
It’s inevitable…for both of us and all the believes in ..whatever on this blog…We will be 100 percent sure when we get there…which we will. Unfortunately, we will be unable to tell anybody, including Harshmans, whether we were right or wrong…apparently…
Attacking billy graham?? WTF. Bill graham, as he said, is in heaven for the same equation anyone has who goes to heaven.
Bill Graham converted heaps of people and so is one of the great men in human history. he did the important thing and well.
he was great mostly. I’m not sure he had a great pro-life opinion and a few other things i didn’t like.
yet he was the winner in religion and shows the difference between evangelical christianity and other faiths. Others don’t have evangelistys because they have no reason to. they don’t have a equation to get to heaven and a insistence you must have it.
Looking at you roman catholics!!
Thats the proof of the true faith.
You might not be able to tell one way or another. An evil God would lie, if he was omnipotent he could lie so you thought you knew stuff.
fifth:
newton:
When I’ve pointed this out in the past, fifth’s idiotic response has been to say that God is by definition honest.
What can you do? Fifth is a believer, not a thinker.
walto:
J-Mac:
He’s talking about the image of the ruptured goats. This is all going over your head, isn’t it?
The Vatican has physicists who believe that “quantum = god” just like you do.
Quantum Christian Realism: How Quantum Mechanics Underwrites and Realizes Classical Christian Theism
So that’s why.
Regarding the thread title, “courageous Christians” — those who are willing to ask the hard questions and think carefully and honestly about the answers — have a tendency to become ex-Christians.
You might do worse than have a look at the Society of Friends. Or have a look at this lecture transcript by Henry Cadbury.
An evil God would not die in my place.
peace
Rupture could leave your vessel unmanned.
fifth:
An evil God could fool you into thinking he did.
Probably not, of course there are other explanations. Not saying an evil God exists just that it might be impossible to tell. Then it would come down to faith in the unknown.
explanations for what?
Sure, it’s possible that God is evil and I can’t know anything at all.
I know that. Get it?
Instead it comes down to faith in the one I know
peace
Explanations for the death of Jesus.
Only if the sole way to gain knowledge is thru God.
If it is an evil God it is faith in the one you don’t know. I still think faith requires the possibility you are wrong.
Of course there are other options for God, neither of the human constructs of good or evil.
crucifixion seems to work as an explanation but death is death regardless of how you explain it.
Do you know of another way? And how do you know?
quote:
But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.
(2Ti 1:12b)
end quote:
knowledge does not require certainty but certainty is certainly not impossible
peace
Talking snake, huh?
I guess talking snakes must’ve lost their ability of speech the same way flightless birds lost their ability to fly…
However, flightless birds still have feathers and wings. What do speechless snakes have left of the former ability to talk?
Unless rattlesnakes’ ass doing Morse code is the evolutionary solution to this obvious problem…
I wonder what would happen if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the forbidden fruit and actually hadn’t sinned?
How would they have known what good and evil is? Would there be evil at all?
I guess the perfect “Christian God” of Dr. Egnor and the many at UD would’ve had to found another way to trick them into committing evil otherwise they would be like God or the would be God, as per Dr. Egnor’s theory:
“Evil exists because the created universe is not God, but His creation, so it must of necessity fall short of God, who is perfectly Good. After all, if the universe were perfectly good, without evil, it would just be God.
depends on what you mean by Know.
I would suggest that Adam and Eve knew what good and evil were propositionally before they ate the fruit.
After they ate it they knew evil experientially and they also better understood the difference between that evil and the good they had experienced in the time before the fall.
peace
Does it make sense to assert that am omniscient god has free will?
I mean, a being that knows everything knows the future.
I’m afraid so. Of course, anything can happen in a work of fiction.
Exactly.
“That is because you don’t have the whole story.
A spoiled adolescent might think many of his parents actions are extremely vindictive, arbitrary and cruel but that is just because his knowledge is limited and he is selfish and incredibly shortsighted.“
So, what is the “whole story” behind him ordering the Israelites to kill all of the women, children and infants of their defeated enemies? When Hitler did this, he was called evil.
Yeah… I hear you…
Just like in the miraculous gene insertions into the tree of life to support nested hierarchy and call it science but omitting the fiction part…
Why is converting people an important thing? And if it is important for a Christian preacher, it must be equally important for a Muslim emir.
If he died, why are we still arguing about the existence of god?