“To believe that only your beliefs are the true beliefs is pure arrogance.”
This is a claim that can rightly be levelled at Christianity, Islam and Atheism. This could not really be made against any other religion. On the other hand, a tone of arrogance does not make someone’s claims automatically wrong. For example, for someone to say that Jesus has told us about a spiritual cure for the human dilemma may sound arrogant but that does not make it untrue.
Well, the fact is, Christianity i.e. the teachings of Jesus the Christ are by definition the least arrogant and least exclusive of all belief systems. Here’s why. Every belief system except Christianity depends on self-fulfilment; the belief that we, through our own work can deliver ourselves, even unto salvation. This kind of self-enhancement leads directly to pride and on to arrogance.
Christianity and only Christianity relies totally and completely on the grace and mercy of God, which is given to us, to provide for our salvation - this is from beginning to end. In fact it's from one eternity to another. "Where then is boasting? There is none!" We were chosen for salvation before the material universe was even brought into being. Christianity clearly teaches that there is nothing upon which we can base personal pride or arrogance for everything we have we have from God.
Now, claims of exclusivity may also make a religion or philosophy sound arrogant. Again however, the initial tone may not be what it seems. Christianity (Jesus' teaching) says that there IS only one way of salvation, just as there is only one way to solve many problems. That sounds exclusive, yet this solution is available to everyone in the whole world. In fact it is very inclusive.
Finally, those who charge Christians with arrogance must face their own charge. Those people who say that it’s arrogant to try to persuade others to think your position is the right one are doing exactly the same thing. And anyone who disagrees with them is pronounced wrong. When you think about it, that sounds pretty arrogant.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Nohm
The answer to your last reply takes too much room so here it is as a post.
``Where/when did these imaginary atheists promise this?"
You obviously didn't come of age in the 60's. Atheists and anti-theists wrote books making these claims by the truck load.
======
"Why not quote what someone has actually said?"
Must I do the work for you? Have you never read Richard Dawkins? Christopher Hitchens?
“Intolerance [the author means aimed at Christianity] toward beliefs and doctrines that serve only to promote hatred, bigotry and discrimination should be lauded, as should extremist points of view toward the eradication of these beliefs and doctrines.
It should come as no surprise that the individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian doctrines would be the first to cry out that they are being persecuted when their dangerous, damaging and disingenuous beliefs come under attack. Most of these people lack the maturity and intelligence to act in a socially acceptable manner. Many of them are sociopaths and quite a good number of them are psychopaths. All of them are clearly delusional. The fact is that fundamentalist Christians are not interested in coexisting or getting along. They have no desire for peace. They do not want to sit down with us in diplomatic efforts to iron out our differences and come to an agreement on developing an integrated society.
They want us to die.
Their interpretation of the Bible are such that there is no other course of action but to kill the infidel, and if anyone believes otherwise they are only fooling themselves. As long as they are allowed to exist [He means Christians], we will continue to be inundated with accounts of buses, buildings, markets and abortion clinics being blown up, rape victims being murdered for adultery, wives being beaten (sometimes to death), airplanes being flown into buildings, people being tortured and sometimes beheaded for blasphemy, people being burned for witchcraft and sorcery and all the other horrific, inhumane and insane practices that are part of fundamental Christianity and Radical Islam.
Al Stefanelli, Georgia State Director of American Atheists, Inc. - September / 2011
=====
[The Christian God is] “Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Richard Dawkins
“All religions and all churches are equally demented in their belief in the existence of the divine.”2 Christopher Hitchens.
“Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”3
Richard Dawkins
“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”
Sam Harris
Dawkins again, “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”
Atheists say that teaching Christianity is harmful, even abusive to children.
Christopher Hitchens writes, “How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith?” The atheist answer? Inculcate all children with atheist beliefs.
Atheists say that Christian Children are not the property of their parents.
Daniel Dennett, “How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents? Should [Christian parents] be free to impose their beliefs on their children?”
Again, the atheist answer is to impose atheist beliefs upon not just their children but upon everyone’s children. This is exactly the tactics used by Stalin et al.
Atheists know best what children need to learn.
Christopher Hitchens suggests that atheists become the defenders of the world’s children, “Parents don’t literally own their children . . . [Christian parents] ought to be held accountable by outsiders (read atheists, perhaps the drunken Hitchens himself) for their guardianship, which does imply that outsiders have a right to interfere.”
Atheists say that Christian parents have no right to teach their children about Jesus.
Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, “ [Christian] Parents, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever way they choose . . . to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma . . . or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.” While totally ignoring a Christian’s God-given mandate to raise up our children in the fear of the Lord, I’ve personally experienced this developing atheist dogma from an atheist blogger. His stated hope is that our children will be taken from us to keep them from being taught about Christianity. This of course implies the hope that someone else will raise our children and teach them the tenets of his faith.
I`m sure that you think you`re the exception - right. You`re the nice atheist. You`re not the one, like on one atheist blog who pictures a commercial dumpster with bodies hanging out and a label on it, ``Christians Only.`` You`re not the atheist who shows on his blog a smiling wolf in sheep`s clothing, with blood dripping from his mouth and a half eaten Christian lying on the ground. All of the above as well as the atheists down through the years were quite as confident as you that they were good people - certainly better than Christians who were deluded and dangerous. Well, believe what you want.
``Where/when did these imaginary atheists promise this?"
You obviously didn't come of age in the 60's. Atheists and anti-theists wrote books making these claims by the truck load.
======
"Why not quote what someone has actually said?"
Must I do the work for you? Have you never read Richard Dawkins? Christopher Hitchens?
“Intolerance [the author means aimed at Christianity] toward beliefs and doctrines that serve only to promote hatred, bigotry and discrimination should be lauded, as should extremist points of view toward the eradication of these beliefs and doctrines.
It should come as no surprise that the individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian doctrines would be the first to cry out that they are being persecuted when their dangerous, damaging and disingenuous beliefs come under attack. Most of these people lack the maturity and intelligence to act in a socially acceptable manner. Many of them are sociopaths and quite a good number of them are psychopaths. All of them are clearly delusional. The fact is that fundamentalist Christians are not interested in coexisting or getting along. They have no desire for peace. They do not want to sit down with us in diplomatic efforts to iron out our differences and come to an agreement on developing an integrated society.
They want us to die.
Their interpretation of the Bible are such that there is no other course of action but to kill the infidel, and if anyone believes otherwise they are only fooling themselves. As long as they are allowed to exist [He means Christians], we will continue to be inundated with accounts of buses, buildings, markets and abortion clinics being blown up, rape victims being murdered for adultery, wives being beaten (sometimes to death), airplanes being flown into buildings, people being tortured and sometimes beheaded for blasphemy, people being burned for witchcraft and sorcery and all the other horrific, inhumane and insane practices that are part of fundamental Christianity and Radical Islam.
Al Stefanelli, Georgia State Director of American Atheists, Inc. - September / 2011
=====
[The Christian God is] “Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Richard Dawkins
“All religions and all churches are equally demented in their belief in the existence of the divine.”2 Christopher Hitchens.
“Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”3
Richard Dawkins
“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”
Sam Harris
Dawkins again, “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”
Atheists say that teaching Christianity is harmful, even abusive to children.
Christopher Hitchens writes, “How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith?” The atheist answer? Inculcate all children with atheist beliefs.
Atheists say that Christian Children are not the property of their parents.
Daniel Dennett, “How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents? Should [Christian parents] be free to impose their beliefs on their children?”
Again, the atheist answer is to impose atheist beliefs upon not just their children but upon everyone’s children. This is exactly the tactics used by Stalin et al.
Atheists know best what children need to learn.
Christopher Hitchens suggests that atheists become the defenders of the world’s children, “Parents don’t literally own their children . . . [Christian parents] ought to be held accountable by outsiders (read atheists, perhaps the drunken Hitchens himself) for their guardianship, which does imply that outsiders have a right to interfere.”
Atheists say that Christian parents have no right to teach their children about Jesus.
Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, “ [Christian] Parents, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever way they choose . . . to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma . . . or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.” While totally ignoring a Christian’s God-given mandate to raise up our children in the fear of the Lord, I’ve personally experienced this developing atheist dogma from an atheist blogger. His stated hope is that our children will be taken from us to keep them from being taught about Christianity. This of course implies the hope that someone else will raise our children and teach them the tenets of his faith.
I`m sure that you think you`re the exception - right. You`re the nice atheist. You`re not the one, like on one atheist blog who pictures a commercial dumpster with bodies hanging out and a label on it, ``Christians Only.`` You`re not the atheist who shows on his blog a smiling wolf in sheep`s clothing, with blood dripping from his mouth and a half eaten Christian lying on the ground. All of the above as well as the atheists down through the years were quite as confident as you that they were good people - certainly better than Christians who were deluded and dangerous. Well, believe what you want.
Deceitful Beyond Understanding
“The heart is desperately wicked. Who can understand it?”
Both the Old and the New Testament speaks of the complete and hopeless corruption of the human soul. It is the source of all our world’s problems (atheist bigots would like to just pick a group of people and blame them). From the dawn of history, we have seen that if we ignore this fact, all attempts to solve the world’s problems and to bring peace to the world will end in failure. To ignore the fact of our wicked and deceitful heart is only fooling ourselves.
Actually, that is what deceitful means. To say that our problems stem from a lack of wealth, or a lack of education, or a lack of freedom or the lack of clean drinking water or the lack of access to proper birth control or the presence of Christians or the lack of proper medical care or anything else is deceiving ourselves.
Deceitfulness within this context means that we are believing wrong thoughts and behaviours about what contributes to our problem. Therefore any effort to fix the human dilemma with outside influences (leaving the inner man untouched) will also entail wrong efforts, thoughts and behaviours.
Both the Old and the New Testament speaks of the complete and hopeless corruption of the human soul. It is the source of all our world’s problems (atheist bigots would like to just pick a group of people and blame them). From the dawn of history, we have seen that if we ignore this fact, all attempts to solve the world’s problems and to bring peace to the world will end in failure. To ignore the fact of our wicked and deceitful heart is only fooling ourselves.
Actually, that is what deceitful means. To say that our problems stem from a lack of wealth, or a lack of education, or a lack of freedom or the lack of clean drinking water or the lack of access to proper birth control or the presence of Christians or the lack of proper medical care or anything else is deceiving ourselves.
Deceitfulness within this context means that we are believing wrong thoughts and behaviours about what contributes to our problem. Therefore any effort to fix the human dilemma with outside influences (leaving the inner man untouched) will also entail wrong efforts, thoughts and behaviours.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
“All Religions Are The Same”
This is a statement that is often made in the same breath as “All religions lead to God,” or something similar. Atheists insist that all belief systems, save their own, are wrong. How inclusive and tolerant of them.
At any rate, there is some truth to the statement that all religions teach truths. For example, all belief systems including atheism state that murder is wrong - although atheists have no moral basis for claiming that murder is wrong. And atheist leaders of the 20th century proved that fact roughly 100 million times.
All religions and some atheists believe that greed and self-centeredness are wrong - although most of us live as though that isn’t true. Not to worry - we’re all hypocrites to one degree or another. Regardless, it is true that there are some similarities in all belief systems. On the other hand, there are at least two major problems with this statement.
First: In order to actually believe that all religions are basically the same, you have to ignore their most important and deeply held differences. For example, you can’t have one God (Christianity) and 5,000 gods (Hindu). You can’t have one God, Creator of but separate from His creation (Christian) and god the same as creation (pantheism). You can’t have one Creator God, personally involved in creation (Christian) and no god (Buddhism).
Atheists understand that this type of plurality does not and cannot exist and that is why atheists seek to do away with every belief system except their own.
Second: Where Christianity veers wildly off on its own is when it comes to the nature of a fulfilling life and salvation.
All other religions, including atheism demand that Jesus was not God in human form.
All other religions, including atheism conclude that the way to a fulfilling life and to ultimate salvation is through self-effort.
Jesus insists that we are only saved by grace through faith in the fact that Jesus is God the Son (“If you have seen Me, you have see Father God”) and in what He accomplished for us during His sacrificial death, burial and resurrection.
At any rate, there is some truth to the statement that all religions teach truths. For example, all belief systems including atheism state that murder is wrong - although atheists have no moral basis for claiming that murder is wrong. And atheist leaders of the 20th century proved that fact roughly 100 million times.
All religions and some atheists believe that greed and self-centeredness are wrong - although most of us live as though that isn’t true. Not to worry - we’re all hypocrites to one degree or another. Regardless, it is true that there are some similarities in all belief systems. On the other hand, there are at least two major problems with this statement.
First: In order to actually believe that all religions are basically the same, you have to ignore their most important and deeply held differences. For example, you can’t have one God (Christianity) and 5,000 gods (Hindu). You can’t have one God, Creator of but separate from His creation (Christian) and god the same as creation (pantheism). You can’t have one Creator God, personally involved in creation (Christian) and no god (Buddhism).
Atheists understand that this type of plurality does not and cannot exist and that is why atheists seek to do away with every belief system except their own.
Second: Where Christianity veers wildly off on its own is when it comes to the nature of a fulfilling life and salvation.
All other religions, including atheism demand that Jesus was not God in human form.
All other religions, including atheism conclude that the way to a fulfilling life and to ultimate salvation is through self-effort.
Jesus insists that we are only saved by grace through faith in the fact that Jesus is God the Son (“If you have seen Me, you have see Father God”) and in what He accomplished for us during His sacrificial death, burial and resurrection.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
God is Sovereign
I’d said last Tuesday that roughly once a week (as memory allows) I was going to fill out the post that I’d done on the characteristics of Creator God.
http://thesauros-store.blogspot.com/2011/10/can-we-know-god.html
A God of love, such as our Creator would not and does not leave us in the dark, so to speak. He has revealed Himself to us. One of the main things about God is that He does not need anything outside of Himself. He is self-sufficient, self-existent and eternal. Creator God has never not existed.
The first attribute of God that I want to focus on is, Creator God is Sovereign:
This applies to both the creation of the universe and the creation of saved souls.
We ask the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Creation was a sovereign act brought about by nothing outside of the Cause. Our Creator did not need anything outside of Himself to make Himself complete. Our Creator is eminently worthy to be praised and worshipped. There is not and never has been any other Being like Him. God is absolutely and totally perfect. He creates and upholds His creation yet is utterly independent of His creation. In my post “Why I’m Not An Atheist,” I give several levels of evidence that point toward the existence of a Creator. One of those lines is the obvious design and mathematical precision with which our universe was put together. The thing is, the argument of design gives only a mere glimpse of our Creator’s majesty. Even a seemingly infinite universe is inadequate to measure His infinite power and might. The universe is in itself an metaphor of sorts for the greatness of God in comparison to ourselves and the earth. For earth, this mere speck floating in what seems infinity is comparable to the greatness of God and our finite ability to comprehend His greatness.
God’s sovereignty applies not only to salvation of the elect, it also applies to Himself and His death on the cross. It was His will that decided Jesus should die and appease God’s wrath toward our sin. It was the only solution that could demonstrate both His love and His justice while destroying the power of evil and paying the penalty of our choosing evil over and above our Creator.
Think about that! Try to remember the worst sex offender you can think of. And then ask if you would suffer God’s wrath to redeem that person’s soul. In Canada the worst offender might be (there are many other potential candidates) Clifford Olson who, until his dying day tormented the parents of the children he raped and killed with lurid details, sent from prison, of how he tortured and degraded the kids prior to killing them. And God, out of infinite and sovereign love for you and all other humans on their way to hell, sent His one and only Son to offer Clifford Olson forgiveness for his sins. On the other hand, if Olson refused that offer of forgiveness, God’s infinite and sovereign Justice will ensure that the full force of His hatred of evil will be handed out to Olson and all others who side with evil of any degree for eternity.
It was His love for us that sent Jesus to the cross. It was His sovereign authority that God sent Jesus to do this job. The job entailed the following:
God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself.
This was done by becoming a human in flesh.
He bore all the sins of all the people in His own body.
He paid the price of our sin in full.
He endured the full wrath of God against our sin.
He endured a physical death and burial.
He defeated the power of sin to cause death and He rose from the dead, coming physically back to life.
Because He took our place, by sovereign decree, those He has chosen now get to share His riches. We get His righteousness and His standing before God. God loves us as much as He loves Jesus (John 17:23). By sovereign decree there is nothing left for us to do to gain salvation. There is no condition left unmet. I don’t have to partake in communion or attend Church. There is no responsibility left to fulfill. I don’t have to pray a certain number of times per day or wash my hands or eat certain foods. My sins have been unconditionally forgiven. This is different than Adam and Eve. Their “good standing with God” was on a conditional footing. If they obeyed, all would have been well. Since they disobeyed, the world continues to groan under the penalty and power of sin until Jesus returns. Those of us who have been elected for salvation have an unconditional base. We have been chosen by sovereign decree for salvation. Jesus did it all. Adam’s standing was based upon what he did. Our standing is based upon what Jesus has done according to God’s sovereign decree. Nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away. “I have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will harden whom I will harden.”
This is something that we can know about Creator God. He’s not asking you to like it. But He is letting you know well in advance what the ground-rules are. Ignorance will not be an excuse.
http://thesauros-store.blogspot.com/2011/10/can-we-know-god.html
A God of love, such as our Creator would not and does not leave us in the dark, so to speak. He has revealed Himself to us. One of the main things about God is that He does not need anything outside of Himself. He is self-sufficient, self-existent and eternal. Creator God has never not existed.
The first attribute of God that I want to focus on is, Creator God is Sovereign:
This applies to both the creation of the universe and the creation of saved souls.
We ask the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Creation was a sovereign act brought about by nothing outside of the Cause. Our Creator did not need anything outside of Himself to make Himself complete. Our Creator is eminently worthy to be praised and worshipped. There is not and never has been any other Being like Him. God is absolutely and totally perfect. He creates and upholds His creation yet is utterly independent of His creation. In my post “Why I’m Not An Atheist,” I give several levels of evidence that point toward the existence of a Creator. One of those lines is the obvious design and mathematical precision with which our universe was put together. The thing is, the argument of design gives only a mere glimpse of our Creator’s majesty. Even a seemingly infinite universe is inadequate to measure His infinite power and might. The universe is in itself an metaphor of sorts for the greatness of God in comparison to ourselves and the earth. For earth, this mere speck floating in what seems infinity is comparable to the greatness of God and our finite ability to comprehend His greatness.
God’s sovereignty applies not only to salvation of the elect, it also applies to Himself and His death on the cross. It was His will that decided Jesus should die and appease God’s wrath toward our sin. It was the only solution that could demonstrate both His love and His justice while destroying the power of evil and paying the penalty of our choosing evil over and above our Creator.
Think about that! Try to remember the worst sex offender you can think of. And then ask if you would suffer God’s wrath to redeem that person’s soul. In Canada the worst offender might be (there are many other potential candidates) Clifford Olson who, until his dying day tormented the parents of the children he raped and killed with lurid details, sent from prison, of how he tortured and degraded the kids prior to killing them. And God, out of infinite and sovereign love for you and all other humans on their way to hell, sent His one and only Son to offer Clifford Olson forgiveness for his sins. On the other hand, if Olson refused that offer of forgiveness, God’s infinite and sovereign Justice will ensure that the full force of His hatred of evil will be handed out to Olson and all others who side with evil of any degree for eternity.
It was His love for us that sent Jesus to the cross. It was His sovereign authority that God sent Jesus to do this job. The job entailed the following:
God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself.
This was done by becoming a human in flesh.
He bore all the sins of all the people in His own body.
He paid the price of our sin in full.
He endured the full wrath of God against our sin.
He endured a physical death and burial.
He defeated the power of sin to cause death and He rose from the dead, coming physically back to life.
Because He took our place, by sovereign decree, those He has chosen now get to share His riches. We get His righteousness and His standing before God. God loves us as much as He loves Jesus (John 17:23). By sovereign decree there is nothing left for us to do to gain salvation. There is no condition left unmet. I don’t have to partake in communion or attend Church. There is no responsibility left to fulfill. I don’t have to pray a certain number of times per day or wash my hands or eat certain foods. My sins have been unconditionally forgiven. This is different than Adam and Eve. Their “good standing with God” was on a conditional footing. If they obeyed, all would have been well. Since they disobeyed, the world continues to groan under the penalty and power of sin until Jesus returns. Those of us who have been elected for salvation have an unconditional base. We have been chosen by sovereign decree for salvation. Jesus did it all. Adam’s standing was based upon what he did. Our standing is based upon what Jesus has done according to God’s sovereign decree. Nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away. “I have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will harden whom I will harden.”
This is something that we can know about Creator God. He’s not asking you to like it. But He is letting you know well in advance what the ground-rules are. Ignorance will not be an excuse.
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