Why do the God-haters persist?

[Steven_R]

I didn't have a moment when I decided the Judeo-Christian religion was just as much mythology as what the Greeks or Aztecs worshiped. It came down to realizing many things in the Bible can't be literally real and if some of it can't be real, then all of it might not be real. Then we get into stuff like kids with cancer but evil men dying in their own beds. Then I took science classes and realized I needed proof if I was going to buy into a religion and none would be forthcoming.

 

[Boss]

You think it is articulate and intelligent to hold Paul up as a biblical hero while discrediting what Paul preached about the Fruits and saying they don't apply to him? For saying you can't see evidence for something if you don't believe in it, when this is exactly what happens to Paul?

I never said that anything didn't apply to me. I never discredited anything Paul preached. These are more distortions you introduce to try and use Christianity against Christians. The truth is, you can't see evidence for what you don't believe in, and that's NOT what happened to Paul. He was visited by Jesus after the Crucifixion. A purely spiritual thing happened there. One he could not deny. Perhaps if Jesus were to pay you a visit, it would convince you spiritual nature is real? Who knows?

 

[Boss]

I didn't have a moment when I decided the Judeo-Christian religion was just as much mythology as what the Greeks or Aztecs worshiped. It came down to realizing many things in the Bible can't be literally real and if some of it can't be real, then all of it might not be real. Then we get into stuff like kids with cancer but evil men dying in their own beds. Then I took science classes and realized I needed proof if I was going to buy into a religion and none would be forthcoming.

So you don't believe you have a soul, a spirit, an essence of who you are?

 

[Steven_R]

I didn't have a moment when I decided the Judeo-Christian religion was just as much mythology as what the Greeks or Aztecs worshiped. It came down to realizing many things in the Bible can't be literally real and if some of it can't be real, then all of it might not be real. Then we get into stuff like kids with cancer but evil men dying in their own beds. Then I took science classes and realized I needed proof if I was going to buy into a religion and none would be forthcoming.

So you don't believe you have a soul, a spirit, an essence of who you are?

I don't know one way or another, but I suspect not, or at least not in some form where I maintain some consciousness. When I die, whatever makes me me just goes away.

 

[HUGGY]

I didn't have a moment when I decided the Judeo-Christian religion was just as much mythology as what the Greeks or Aztecs worshiped. It came down to realizing many things in the Bible can't be literally real and if some of it can't be real, then all of it might not be real. Then we get into stuff like kids with cancer but evil men dying in their own beds. Then I took science classes and realized I needed proof if I was going to buy into a religion and none would be forthcoming.

So you don't believe you have a soul, a spirit, an essence of who you are?

That wasn't so hard...was it ?

 

[Montrovant]

Do you see how you said exactly what I said you did? You said I have a professed faith in spiritual nature. I denied having professed faith in spiritual nature, because I did not. You responded by telling me you never said I have faith in spirituality. Well, there's the quote for you, your own words, which say just what I told you they did. Ready with some sort of denial or attempt to pretend that's a distortion?

No, that was called "sarcasm." If you BELIEVE something is possible, you HAVE FAITH something is possible. The words are synonymous.

You're right, I don't believe in spiritual nature. I've freely admitted that.

Exactly! Which is what I said all along.



No difference in this case. You don't believe in spiritual nature and don't believe it's possible. You are simply lying about the later in order to appear credible and objective.

That's odd, given your citing Paul of Tarsus as someone who didn't believe and then had his mind changed. But oh, wait, according to you he was a god-hater, meaning he secretly believed but didn't admit it. Oh, but if I'm a god-hater as well, then I secretly believe.....but that would mean your statement that I don't believe god or spirituality are possible is not only asinine assumption but contradicts your entire argument, wouldn't it?

Wow, that's actually a compelling point! You could honestly be someone who does believe in God but hates Him. This would explain why you have been so defensive and have spent days on this thread defending yourself. It would also explain your convoluted reasoning of how you don't believe in spirituality but believe it's possible, but not really.

Ready to explain how my quoting of your own words is a distortion? How you know what I think and believe and I do not? Or whatever other nonsense you want to try and pass off as reasoned conversation this time?

You're right. I can't speak for what's actually in your heart. But whether I have been right or wrong about you and your beliefs, it seems to have at least made you examine what you do actually believe. I've not let you get away with distorting my comments and taking them out of context, and I will never knowingly allow you to do this. You can keep trying, but I'm pretty sharp and generally know what I have said.

I see I was correct that you would ignore your own words pointed out to you.

You haven't let me get away with taking your comments in context, let alone out of context.

 

[daws101]

that's one of my favorite fairy tales out of the bible...

Except the people are real and the historic events well documented.

false...paul's story is a redemption myth,
he Legend of Paul's Conversion
We Have Ways of Making You Talk




One reason it is so often difficult to tell whether, with a particular piece of biblical narrative, we are dealing with history or fiction is that stories appear in the Bible for their edifying and theological value. Since the stories are not there simply to satisfy idle reader curiosity, we cannot readily determine whether a given story has been remembered or fabricated, or a bit of both. And in the nature of the case, it will always be easier to show the unhistorical nature of a narrative than to verify one as historical. For historical criticism scrutinizes; it doubts; it holds the text's feet to the fire, rather like the evil interrogator in the movies who must assume his captive has information, that he is lying when he pretends not to know anything. Even though the poor prisoner may, like Dustin Hoffman in The Marathon Man, really know nothing, the interrogator must nonetheless assume he is lying ("I'll ask you one more time..."). Even so, the biblical critic may never be finally convinced his story is true even if God knows it to be a factual account. It is a matter of the futility of trying to prove a negative, in this case that the text is not a piece of fiction. At any rate, the story of Paul's conversion (Acts 9, 22, 26) has been for many hundreds of years both edifying (as a paradigm case of God's forgiving grace even to the chief of sinners) and apologetically important (miraculously proving the reality of the Risen Christ). As such it naturally calls forth our suspicions. And if the critic is like a merciless interrogator of texts, we may compare him with the picture of Paul as a persecutor1 of the saints in the very story we intend to subject to such cross-examination here.



Seeing Double

To suspect or reject the historical basis of the story of Paul's conversion as we read it in Acts is certainly nothing new in the history of scholarship. Indeed, one might have thought the issue settled long ago, with a negative verdict, by Baur, Zeller, and Haenchen.2 The contradictions and implausibilities of the three linked episodes (Paul's persecution after Stephen's stoning; his vision of the Risen Jesus on the Damascus Road; and his catechism and baptism by Ananias) are well known. To review just a few of them, and thus to beat a dead horse, the Stephen martyrdom (as Hans-Joachim Schoeps,3 followed by Robert Eisenman,4 suggests) is a fictionalization of the story of the martyrdom of James the Just in similar circumstances (as one can still glimpse in Acts 7:52, "... the Just One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered."). Luke's reduction of the Jewish Sanhedrin to a howling lynch mob is not to be dignified with learned discussion. Worse yet, Saul has been appended to the narrative by means of a typical Lukan blunder. The Law mandated the casting aside of the clothes of the one executed, not those of his executioners, but Luke has Saul play coat-check for the mob. And then Saul does not so much spearhead as personify the persecution, which, as Haenchen notes,5 is primarily a piece of "darkness before the dawn" hagiography anticipating the impending conversion of the enemy of the faith. The whole church is supposedly dispersed, jailed, or tortured into blaspheming Jesus, but the Apostles and myriads of their followers remain unmolested all the way into chapter 21. Saul obtains a hunting license from the high priest to persecute Jewish Jesus-believers in Damascus, though in fact the jurisdiction of that worthy extended into Damascus no more than did that of Quirinius into Bethlehem.

That the Damascus Road Christophany is the creation of Luke is evident, first, from the fact that, for artistry's sake, he quite properly varied the details between his three accounts, even as he had with his two accounts of the Ascension, a full forty days apart. As James Barr said regarding the latter case, a writer who is so little concerned for consistency cannot very well have been striving for historical accuracy.6 Second, as Gerhard Lohfink notes, Luke's stories copy standard scriptural type-scenes (to borrow Robert Alter's phrase).7 The scenes "work" because they prompt the reader to recall the biblical prototypes. Since he offers them as transparent literary allusions, he simply cannot have expected his readers to take such scenes as historical reportage. And the Damascus Road episode certainly does embody such a type-scene, the kind Lohfink calls the "double vision." In such a sequence a heavenly visitant grants the protagonist a revelation, adding that at the very same moment he/she is appearing to someone elsewhere with instructions to meet/help the protagonist.8 A third reason, and the strongest of all, as we will see, is that, while Paul's epistles provide nary a historical peg from which to hang the Lukan tale, there are strikingly close literary prototypes on which Luke seems to have drawn.
The Legend of Paul's Conversion We Have Ways of Making You Talk by Robert M. Price

 

[daws101]

God haters persist because God is pursuing them.

No matter how many times an atheist says there is no God, he can not help himself but to talk about God.

God works in mysterious ways indeed.

bahahahahahahahahah!

 

[daws101]

There's the first problem with your post, bolded in red... Perhaps you do 'think', it's just lacking in quality and quantity.

You have no idea what believers would find objectionable, claiming that you do is a fallacy. I love Boss, he owns every single one of you haters in here, and you all know it, it's why you persist and persist, you can't remotely win a debate with him.

And yet he doesn't endorse your faith in the least.
As a former pastor, I have a bit of understanding regarding believers.
If you think Boss owns anything, you aren't a very careful reader.
You both do the same thing. When cornered, here comes the swearing and the really crude comments and the ignoring of the actual arguments.

Yeah, sure you were...

fine display of christian intolerance...do you have any evidence that he was not or are you just talking out your ass?

 

[Boss]

I didn't have a moment when I decided the Judeo-Christian religion was just as much mythology as what the Greeks or Aztecs worshiped. It came down to realizing many things in the Bible can't be literally real and if some of it can't be real, then all of it might not be real. Then we get into stuff like kids with cancer but evil men dying in their own beds. Then I took science classes and realized I needed proof if I was going to buy into a religion and none would be forthcoming.

So you don't believe you have a soul, a spirit, an essence of who you are?

I don't know one way or another, but I suspect not, or at least not in some form where I maintain some consciousness. When I die, whatever makes me me just goes away.

How do you know what happens when your physical body dies? If you accept the idea of this "whatever makes me" that must go away when you die, then you must believe your soul, spirit and essence of who you are, is a physical thing. That means your thoughts, desires and dreams, they must be physical things as well. Is that what you honestly think? Or --- you don't know one way or another?

That wasn't so hard...was it ?

Seems to be a little hard for him to commit.

 

[daws101]

I've blown your cover by revealing your fraud. You have never been a pastor or you would have been able to tell us the details of your supposed spiritual downfall. You couldn't come up with anything, you floundered around and tried to pass off platitudes and bullshit that had no real meaning. I even gave you a second chance to clarify detail and you once again failed to do so.

You've not put me in any corner, nor have I avoided any questions. I've clearly stated my personal beliefs in this thread and others. I have no problem going into as much detail as needed and explaining what I believe and why. You've shown a clear pattern of using religion and the religious beliefs of others against them, and your 'former pastor' lie is another example of that same tactic.

You honestly believe you can pull it off, that you can fool people into thinking you've honestly been a pastor and now you've "seen the light" ..pun intended. You figure, if people buy this bullshit, they may question their own faith, and that's what you are all about. But you blew it when you couldn't answer my question. So now you're thinking you can paint me as delusional and unhinged, which is also a very common tactic of those who have been exposed as frauds.

Without writing a book about my experiences, I answered your question. Who here but you cares about the minutiae of my leaving the ministry? You want to share a lot of details here about your personal life? How would that change the impoverished nature of your arguments?
Stop derailing with your absurd unfounded accusations.
You are very clearly nuts. You run away from many of my responses to you. You have no answers so you ignore them and try to pretend you never saw them. You do it repeatedly.
You want to try to attack the messenger, because you can't handle the message. You succeed only in making yourself look like the clown to match the avatars.

You lie, he's responded to every post you and other like you have made on here, he has 'run' from nothing. All you have is lies, all you do is lie.

attention posters the above is a classic newby dodge..

 

[daws101]

You lie, he's responded to every post you and other like you have made on here, he has 'run' from nothing. All you have is lies, all you do is lie.

No, he really hasn't. He's avoided a lot of my responses.
I don't expect you to keep up with his responses, or lack of same, to my posts like I do.
But if you did, you would have a paradigm shift (that's a hint to a couple of my posts he's ignored).

He's kept up with all of you haters in here, one against how many now? Trying to answer and respond to every one of you with posts addressing everything that's been said to him. And he's done so without anger, very little insults considering how many have been hurled at him, and with a logic and truth that none of you have been able to refute(hence the insults and anger towards him). He's done a great job, I applaud him and have much respect for him, he's very articulate and intelligent, many qualities to admire.

woow boosy has a groupie!...or a sycophant .....she probably thinks jim jones and david koresh are rock stars!
boosy must be proud ,he's bagged another sucker!

 

[Steven_R]

So you don't believe you have a soul, a spirit, an essence of who you are?

I don't know one way or another, but I suspect not, or at least not in some form where I maintain some consciousness. When I die, whatever makes me me just goes away.

How do you know what happens when your physical body dies? If you accept the idea of this "whatever makes me" that must go away when you die, then you must believe your soul, spirit and essence of who you are, is a physical thing. That means your thoughts, desires and dreams, they must be physical things as well. Is that what you honestly think? Or --- you don't know one way or another?

That wasn't so hard...was it ?

Seems to be a little hard for him to commit.

You're asking me to commit when I keep saying I don't know. I don't know one way or another. Do I have a soul, do you, does anyone or is it all just electro-chemical brain activity? What makes people unique? I don't have any data either way for what happens to that special essence that makes humans unique when we die. I assume nothing except we die and that's it because I have no data other than people die. So far as I know, my brain simply shuts down and that's the end of the story. I'm willing to accept that may be wrong, but I need data first.

Maybe there's a soul, maybe there isn't. Maybe there's a god, maybe there' isn't. I just don't know one way or another. I'm just as agnostic about my soul as I am about god. I have no proof either way and nobody has ever produced proof.

 

[daws101]

I didn't have a moment when I decided the Judeo-Christian religion was just as much mythology as what the Greeks or Aztecs worshiped. It came down to realizing many things in the Bible can't be literally real and if some of it can't be real, then all of it might not be real. Then we get into stuff like kids with cancer but evil men dying in their own beds. Then I took science classes and realized I needed proof if I was going to buy into a religion and none would be forthcoming.

So you don't believe you have a soul, a spirit, an essence of who you are?

this is amusing boosy is absolutely certain he has a soul......fact is no one is exactly sure what a soul is..

 

[Boss]

false...paul's story is a redemption myth

But the story is not mythical at all. By your own evidence, the people and events were real, not mythical. You present some supposed "investigative opinion" to contradict the Biblical story, mostly by pointing out how the Biblical story leaves out some details, but it smacks of the intellectualism of a Bill Mahr or Richard Dawkins, who doesn't want to recognize the story as truth to begin with. It's full of sneering mockery and ridicule, not indicative of anyone honestly trying to find the truth. There is no objective evaluation happening here, it's more anti-Christian bullshit topped off with your proclamation of "myth" when that clearly is untrue by your own accounts.

This man, Paul, existed and was a real live person who persecuted Christians. He was like you in so many ways, except where you stumble out of your bed over to the computer to log on the Internet and persecute Christians, he mounted a donkey and rode off into the desert for days, in order to hunt down Christians and kill them. He ends up being the most prolific writer of the New Testament. What changed him? A spiritual event, spiritual nature intervened. And that's really all it takes for any of you to be converted and changed for life, your whole perspective changes.

 

[Boss]

You're asking me to commit when I keep saying I don't know. I don't know one way or another. Do I have a soul, do you, does anyone or is it all just electro-chemical brain activity? What makes people unique? I don't have any data either way for what happens to that special essence that makes humans unique when we die. I assume nothing except we die and that's it because I have no data other than people die. So far as I know, my brain simply shuts down and that's the end of the story. I'm willing to accept that may be wrong, but I need data first.

Maybe there's a soul, maybe there isn't. Maybe there's a god, maybe there' isn't. I just don't know one way or another. I'm just as agnostic about my soul as I am about god. I have no proof either way and nobody has ever produced proof.

Well I am asking you to commit because you should be able to if you're absolutely certain about your convictions. But as we can see here, you're not absolutely sure about anything. This tells me that you DO realize there is something more to you than your physical being. You recognize that is the case, but you've somehow managed to justify that whatever it is that you define as such, must be a manifestation of your mind.

You say that you need "proof" but you're only looking to physical science for proof of something that you know is not physical. You are fully aware that it's not physical, but yet, you require some form of physical validation before you can accept it exists. Now you must be aware that you're never going to find physical evidence to support something that is clearly not physical in nature, but still... that's where you've decided to let things rest. Not knowing and searching endlessly for answers in a place they can't be found.

 

[thebrucebeat]

You think it is articulate and intelligent to hold Paul up as a biblical hero while discrediting what Paul preached about the Fruits and saying they don't apply to him? For saying you can't see evidence for something if you don't believe in it, when this is exactly what happens to Paul?

I never said that anything didn't apply to me. I never discredited anything Paul preached. These are more distortions you introduce to try and use Christianity against Christians. The truth is, you can't see evidence for what you don't believe in, and that's NOT what happened to Paul. He was visited by Jesus after the Crucifixion. A purely spiritual thing happened there. One he could not deny. Perhaps if Jesus were to pay you a visit, it would convince you spiritual nature is real? Who knows?

So now I could see spiritual evidence even if I didn't believe, just like Paul?
Now I've got it.

 

[Boss]

this is amusing boosy is absolutely certain he has a soul......fact is no one is exactly sure what a soul is..

Revealing testimony from dawsy. No one is exactly sure what a soul is... notice this is not "there is no such thing as a soul" or anything indicating that our soul, spirit and essence of who we are doesn't exist. No science is being offered to reject the notion of a soul. Nothing to disprove we have one. Not even a clear indication that he doesn't believe souls exist. Just the admonition that "we don't know what a soul is."

However, billions and billions of humans over many thousands of years, certainly have believed they knew what a soul was and that they had one. I don't think dawsy is an exception because he doesn't commit to not having a soul, spirit or essence of who he is. Isn't it amazing how few non-believers are comfortable coming out and pronouncing this?

 

[G.T.]

A soul does not need to be disproven, as it is not proven.

 

[thebrucebeat]

When you show or illustrate where I supposedly 'rejected the fruits', then perhaps we'll talk, until then I'll just chalk it up to desparation on your part. Or you're just delusional, which confirms what I've thought all along.

All of your posts illustrate your rejection of the Fruits.Did you take the time to compare them to aggression?
What did you find?

Okay...

I concede that I totally 'reject the fruits'. You can go away now.

I may use your post as a signature with an attribution to you. Is that ok?