Blowhard from Myspace Returns
Offline This is a reply to my blog on Myspace, in which a Christian and I have been debating. Below is his reply:
WOW! That is the longest response I have ever seen.....Anyway, I think my favorite part is when you tried to use Scripture to prove Christ wrong. Silly man, that just wont work.
Let me try to explain this in the simplest form. You - don’t - believe - in - Christ. Therefore, you - don’t - believe - in - the - Scriptures. That means, they DONT MAKE SENCE TO YOU! Nor will they ever, as long as you’re in this mind frame.
Half of the Scriptures you were using dont mean what you think they mean! Not even close! Yet you claim they "clearly" mean whatever gibberish your trying to promote.
Matt 16:28
Mark 9:1
Mark 13:30
Luke 9:27
These are just SOME of the scriptures where your off on left field. And we are playing Basketball, not base ball, so there isnt even a left field to begin with. Your really far off! Just like the silly people who always thought Jesus was talking about one thing, when in reality He was talking about something totally different. You’re just like them. Your not going to catch the real meaning of whats said. And what did Jesus say about them (Matt 22:29 KJV) Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
Let’s try it again with the NIV: Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."
How about the Alex translation: You guys are blithering idiots!
You sir, simply cannot understand what the Scriptures say. Sometimes even believers can’t. The Scriptures come from another place, they are not of this world. You won’t be able to understand them unless you ASK HIM FOR HELP! I do it every time I read the Word. "Jesus, thanks to liberals and atheists making me so dumb, I cant understand Your Holy Word, please help me."
You’re going to have to find some other way to discredit Christ. You cant use the Scriptures, thats already been tried. It didn’t work out so well.
It’s like you’re the Japanese trying to figure out the Navajo code in WWII and then plan accordingly. YOU CAN’T DO IT! IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK! Half the time you ever speak Scripture, chances are your so far off as to its true meaning, that its not even worth arguing over. Just like its not worth arguing with a deaf guy what John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra sounds like, you just shake your head, walk away, and forget it.
And as far as covering up evidence goes, just because someone does something in the name of something else, dosnt make them a follower of that particular cause. People can do things in the name of Christ, that dosnt make them followers of Him. I do not deny that extremely dumb things have been done in the name of religion. The Crusades being one of them. It sucks that most of those "Crusaders" could have cared less about Christ or His cause. Just cause a building has a little steeple and a cute little cross on it DOSNT MEAN THEY PREACH THE TRUTH! And trust me, I know of the evils (not all, but some) that folks in the "church" have committed over the years. Im a conspiracy theorist of sorts (at least thats what everyone thinks of me, I think there just out to get me) so I have read up on it and have come up with some conclusions of my own. I really dont know why your complaining about it though, they work for the same team you do, they just figured out that if they hide behind the shield of God, they can get away with it easier. Blaming all for the stupidity of some just dosnt make sense. Please dont use that, its lame and makes you sound weak.
As far as you and your Goof Troop go about trying to disprove God, I think your best bet would be trying to do so scientifically. But PLEASE don’t use evolution as your defense. That will only make people point and laugh more.
As for you personally sir, dont allow yourself to be deceived. You ARE special, you DO have a purpose in your life, You are NOT an accident, and you are in no way, shape, or form, related to an animal.
Ciao.
P.S. I saved my response to you on my hard drive so just in case the magical delete bunny strikes again, I’ll have another one here for you and I wont have to re-type it. Just let me know if ya need it.
By rebuttal below in the next post.
The Blasphemy Challenged?
It is an interesting phenomenon in which is growing momentum slowly, despite of what the claims may be. Free-thinking is as old as the revolution that began with separation of church and state; during an era known as the DARK AGES. It may come to some as a surprise, for those who are not well versed in history or in their own past. I would like to encourage my Atheist friends to include in their reading: a dictionary, preferably a Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which is written by many and not by one person’s point of view. Let us first define some words as it is stated in black and white band not a group of or a persons ideas, belief or “say so”:
Blasphemy= n, pl –mies 1a: the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for GOD b: the act of claiming the attributes of deity 2: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.
1Conjecture n 1 ob a: interpretation of omens b: SUPPOSITION 2 a: inference from defective or presumptive evidence b: a conclusion deduced by surmise or guess work c: a proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved.
2Conjecture vb –tured; -turing 1: to arrive at or deduce by conjecture: Guess 2: to make conjectures as to {-the meaning of a statement-}
(There are many more words that as a person, atheist, christian, whomever you wish to align or misalign yourself…you should know like the back of your hand… I am not going to go through all of them, but I would encourage you to make the effort and learn some of them…you might be surprise to find out, what you thought it meant is not what you have learned.)
Interesting enough this book makes mention of GOD (in a Dictionary where some scientist use to write their report for approval for more funding). No where do you see that blasphemy is defined as “to deny existence of a person, place or thing. (Found in a Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition ISBN 0-87779-809-5 [Wow, three 7’s coincidence?], Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA; copyright 2004.) It might be a slight oversight made (i.e. a mistake, human error, and narrow minded flaw) as it happens too many of us to include Preachers, Evangelist, Christians and others who follow their own religion. While it may be true that some of you had religion crammed down your throat, you seem pretty well rested and screaming your stance to the rest of the world, without even a hint of hoarseness. I wonder if you just jumped on the band wagon to be seen or know what you stand on.
While both side, God-believing and Atheist, stand on the verge of being labled “Extremist, Radical or even terrorist”. Let us reflect on another free thinker/religious believer who made it his business to eliminate the way people thought, read, believed and even lived...ADOLF HITLER. Now, here is a man who believed everything could be explained with science. Even up to the point of explaining how human evolution points to the German race being superior (even how you can tell the difference in other races) and what made other races inferior; due to their genetic structure. This trend is slowly on the rise in many parts of the world but surely even scientist and doctors are finding out that “Hitler’s thinking tank” was onto something; genetically speaking of course (STEM CELL research, it was also thanks to German engineering that was the catalyst for our increase in our knowledge of technology) If you remember history correctly. Dr. Joseph Mengele was always experimenting with a group of people (“who crammed religion down there throats by posting Jewish stars all over the place, building, writings and many other venues”) that were considered “illegal”. He tried to figure out a drug that would make them stop thinking contrary to the German legal ideology, to include trying to change hair and eye color, hypothermia testing, fetal development testing, genetic alterations and could go on. Ironic, it was all in the name of science to (GERMAN science if you want to distance yourself). How was this all possible, you might wonder? How did one man try to eradicate a group of people who believed in a GOD? Yes, the German economy at the time was going through there own “depression” as was AMERICA.
Yes, perception is reality, and when HITLER himself saw these “GOD believing JEWS, other races, other religions, gypsies, and homosexuals” he sought to eradicate them, LEGALLY. Which is pretty much what we are doing today, saying where a person can express or not express there faith publicly or privately. Slowly, we as AMERICAN are getting closer to repeating history on a GLOBAL scale though (Reference: RFID passport). YES it is important to express our point of view and let people know where we stand. It is not right though to make it legal to force a person’s faith to become a crime, sickness, or consider a physiological (or psychological) disorder. After all, it has been said “PERCEPTION is REALITY.”
Science is real to some and has its own systematical way of providing what is considered to be concrete “truth” (man-made). The same holds correct to those who believe in a “higher power”. Yes, it might be hard to let these people “lie” to themselves or be lied to. Isn’t equally hard to get a drug user to admit they have a problem and stop using drug, cold turkey? Even if you got him to admit his/her problem and send them to rehab, the majority of the time they will end up on it again. What makes them believe that they need it? What brings them back to it? Is it a chemical imbalance in their genetic make up? Is it just that they want to fit in within a certain caste? What brings them back? More important what about that other minority that does not come back to it? What made them change and not come back to it? (While there are questions here, please note that I am not requiring you to answer them on a reply…I am sure there are better ways to spend your time than critically thinking through these questions)
While I have respect for a person who stands there ground and knows why they are doing it; instead of wavering with the shift of the wind of what is popular with the masses. I pity those who think that by changing laws, to suite their need is just and claim it to be part of rights. Just imaging if we made a law requiring that all drug users have to be sent to rehab for X amount of years and their life would be under constant surveillance…kind like sex offenders? Take that same line of thought and apply it to people with faith or to people who do not believe at all. The only difference here is that they are not wearing an arm band to show that they believe or not, committed a crime or not. It is in their “records” that the burden of proof is located a “Scarlet letter” if you will. I agree that we need some way to protect our citizens, what we do not need is to go the extreme with it (Christian or Atheist). While we have the right to express our views in a sociable and amicable manner, be cautious of those who would seek to eradicate them all in the name of science, free thinking, or even in the name of faith.
What is oddly enough is the fact that something that has been claimed to be as real as the Eater bunny or Santa Clause is being made the focal point, and not the latter. Why give importance to something that one does not believe in? Sure you have your reasons but why go at it this way and not in a more productive way. Sure, publicity is wonderful and great to have…and I am sure there are many other venues that it could have been used to approach it. How do you fight something you do not believe in? By rationalizing it and exploiting their error?
Think about it, you are making your scientific theorem/predictions on an assumption that: “there is nothing ‘there’ after you are gone from this earth.” Can you prove that the eye was created through natural evolution and that “GOD” was not involved? Let’s get real, if that is the case (natural evolution) then why has our eye not evolved further? Why do we need microscopes, surely it has been atleast 2 or 3 million years since the first human (CRO-MAGNUM MAN/WOMAN) has been roaming around on this earth? By now we should have telescopic vision without the aide of man made materials. Wait…if evolution is to evolve for betterment of a species? Why are disabled people born (similar to your “why would GOD let disable people be born?”). Oh, sure genetics play a part on it Where did that defective gene come from? What proof do you have?
One can say; that there is almost an answer for every question or should I say there is a rational explanation. Okay, so when natural evolution was taking its course; Where were you or others like you, who are trying to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt that “GOD” was there? After all, who came up with this “point of view” which you claim should be crammed down the throat of others like religion (after all you stated that you have positive proof on your side and not “imaginary belief”), you are a free-thinker, surely you have questioned who came up with the theorem, that you yourself claim to hold as absolute truth? Name the earliest author (even if it was pas down word of mouth and then thousands of years later written on “papyrus/paper”) who started natural evolution? Does he/she pre-date early known civilization?
Who was their instructor or “free-thinker” if you will? Just as you have questioned and claimed to have blaspheme GOD (or any of the other gods wether they are from GREEK, ROMAN, EGYPTIAN or any other religious belief or disbelief)…have you questioned your beliefs? Or did you embrace them because it shared a common goal to your self preservation? How rational is thinking that nothing evolved into something? How would you go to get the information to prove that dust particles sat around one day and decided to create a huge explosion and make billions of stars? Which particle was responsible for becoming the first microbe? Aside from being carbon based; What was its genetic structure? PROOF, not ideas, and “it could haves” after all rational thinker works on solid hard facts “beyond a shadow of a doubt” (Find them for yourself, just like you claim to have found out that GOD does not exist in your beliefs).True free thinkers, question constantly, examine, relate, experience…. Band-wagon jumpers fake the funk. Don’t even have a clue to what they want in life or are doing with it to begin with. Just as long as they are getting some sort of positive or negative public relation, they are happy.
Whose more ignorant…the one who believes in GOD (or another “higher power”) or the other one, which chooses to “prove beyond a shadow of a doubt” that GOD does not exist? How can you base your arguments and point of views on something you have chosen to be ignorant to? It logically does not make any sense…regardless of what excuse you may have to deem it necessary. If you are truly an atheist then, why even acknowledge GOD, whom you do not believe in, by challenging that HE does not exist? How can someone be an Atheist, if at one point they (themselves) believed in GOD (or “higher power”)? Born-again Atheist…sounds like something out of a Sunday school teaching. Yes, I am sure it is a pun on the fixed belief system you are mocking…yet you are still giving them credit by even acknowledging it and for what?? To be in the media spotlight?
Let me leave you with this: If you were a medical doctor, you wouldn’t heal the healthy people, would you? NO, you would go to the sick to try and heal them instead of pulling a Dr. Kevorkian and assist them to commit suicide or waste your time on someone who is not even sick at all. Having said all this, you are welcome to credit it/discredit it, learn from it/be ignorant to it; after all it is my point of view.
Are you going to repeat history by becoming an extremist and eradicating a group of people’s way of thinking, look, breathing, or even mannerism (kind of reminds me of when the Jews were forced to move from their homes and the people whom they knew as "friends/neighbors" were spitting, throwing rocks and even making fun of them) or are you going to find a positive venue and change the system from within truly studying it and expanding on what you have learned.
No matter what you want to call it, every religious and non-religious group/masses has a set of beliefs like Christianity, Judaism, Satanism, Pagans, Wiccans, Buddhism, Islam, and even Atheism has a set of beliefs (only that one of its belief is that “There are no GOD/gods/god”). Surely, you don’t want to be breeding ignorance? The choice is yours…as it has been…since the beginning of time.
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So, you're just going to tell me how I think and not dispute anything I said? Awesome, thanks for proving my points for me.
For future reference, in a debate, it's nice to back up what you say with evidence and not "YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE" - this is not how intellectuals debate. But apparently you've never done this before, so I'll give you a few little pointers on where you need to cite evidence and back up claims you make.
You claim, "Anyway, I think my favorite part is when you tried to use Scripture to prove Christ wrong. Silly man, that just wont work."
I don't have to prove Christ wrong. The Gospels do that for me. What I do is cite instances where Christ WAS incorrect, or wrong, or immoral, or commited a crime against the commandments. So for starters, this is where you first misrepresent the case in point, which was that Christ claims to return within the lifetime of his followers. The Bible speaks for itself, I do not need to add anything to it, nor did I.
You then border on the absurd when you state, "Let me try to explain this in the simplest form. You - don’t - believe - in - Christ." Well, d'uh. You continue, "Therefore, you - don’t - believe - in - the - Scriptures." Again, d'uh. "That means, they DONT MAKE SENCE TO YOU!"
Wait just one minute. Now you claim, as so many of you do, that I need to Believe in the scriptures to be able to read that? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? "The Bible only makes sense if you believe it makes sense." Well sure, and Moby Dick also then, by your moronic logical abilities MUST BE TRUE, all we have to do is believe it is, right? What about the Quran? Is the Quran true? People believe in that, does that mean it is the correct Holy Book? What about the Vetas? Are they true? And so on, and so forth. This is why something exists called "textual criticism", ironically this is what your buddy Shotgun was talking about - the idea that through critical analysis of the text we can determine things from it.
But since you think you have some masterful understanding of the texts, can you please through your epic beliefs in them, make sense of the complicated wrong-doings of your savior in the Bible below?
Jesus Goes Against The Commandments:
God goes against his commandments as well:
I eagerly await you to tell me I'm misunderstanding the Bible again, although I think you'll be hardpressed to prove it.
Then you claim the most ironic thing of all, "Nor will they ever, as long as you’re in this mind frame." Interestingly enough, you've proven my point for me. You are projecting here, you know that the scriptures will never make sense to you, but you don't know why. You can't understand why there are problems in the Bible, and you are projecting your frailties onto me. This is what theists do when contronted with a problem. You project your insecurities. You do it a bunch of times in your response to me, and I will point them out to you each time.
Moving on, you state, "Half of the Scriptures you were using dont mean what you think they mean! Not even close! Yet you claim they "clearly" mean whatever gibberish your trying to promote." I'm sorry, I'm not buying your naked assertion. Prove it to me. Prove to me they don't mean what I say they mean? Are you suggesting that when Jesus says "Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.” (Mark 13:30) that Jesus isn't suggesting that the generation he's talking to won't pass until all things are done? Because to me that is exactly what Jesus is saying. Okay, Mr. I'm Smarter Then Biblical Scholars, why don't you PROVE it? Prove to me that isn't what it says. In fact, I dare you.
Now, you may be wondering, "What things What things need to be done that aren't done?" Well, actually, now that you mention it, I do have a list of things that were supposed to happen in the Old Testament at the coming of the Messiah, that never happened in the Gospels - or ever. This is from "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" by Dennis McKinsey (a very good friend of mine):
Now you may state that this is all going to happen upon the return of the Savior, his second coming. But this is the very reason why followers of Christianinty in the first and second century EXPECTED his return to be in their lifetimes! This is the very REASON why he was expected to come back within their lives existence because he failed to usher in the age of Messianic prophecies, and people were doubting him! This is why Paul reassures everyone, "He will come quickly" he states, over and over again.
To further prove my point, in Acts (c. 88-120 CE as per Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible and the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church - see how I backed up my statements using authoritative volumes?), the opening line states, "So when they had come together, they asked, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' " (Acts 1:6) This is important because for the last 60+ years Christians had been dying! The generations of the time speculated to be the death of Christ were going the way of the dinosaurs, and people started freaking out. This is what happened in Corinthians, why Paul was there trying to comfort them about the resurrection, as that people there were starting to doubt the resurrection of Christ, and themselves, as people were dying - this is the context of this epistle (See the ODoCC, EDoB, Richard Carrier's "Spiritual Body" chapter in The Empty Tomb; and W. Schmithals, Das Verhaltnis von Gnosis und Neuem Testament als mthodisches Problem)
The way Acts corrects the problem is by suggesting a statement made by Jesus (keep in mind this was written long after the supposed death of Christ), "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the father has fixed by his own authority." (Acts 1:7) The author of Acts wrote this into his texts to explain why Christs words were not coming true, and why so many of that generation was dying.
You then continue to be incredulously absurd, you list four passage numbers, but not the passage, and then say, "These are just SOME of the scriptures where your off on left field. " Okay, but you don't PROVE it to me, or anybody reading this. Look, just because you state it, doesn't mean it's so. And to state that I'm wrong about this, is to suggest that every scholar and historian who has looked at these passages over the past two hundred years is wrong. Are you suggesting that you know more then they do? That you can translate the texts better then they can? Let me break it down for you to the iota, because I, unlike you, prove my claims:
Mark 13:30 states, "Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." and the Greek for this passage is as follows; αμην λεγω υμιν οτι ου μη παρελθη η γενεα αυτη μεχρις ου ταυτα παντα γενηται. The Greek is literally, "Amen I recount (λεγω) unto you that you (ου μη; plural) this generation (γενεα) shall not pass (παρελθη) until (μεχρις) all these things (ταυτα παντα; neut. plural) come to pass (γενηται)."
There is no way to get around the Greek on this. The words "παρελθη η γενεα" are very literal here. The phrase "παρελθη" means literally "pass on" or "pass away." And the Greek matches up in Matthew and Luke as well. What bothers me is that you want to believe that these passages don’t say this, so you assert it as if it were true. The problem is to do so, you have to pretend the Greek doesn’t add up with what hundreds of biblical translators and scholars have said on the matter, and ignore every authority on these manuscripts, which leaves guys like me to do all the work refuting you. An analogy would be you claiming that my hair was purple, and I’d have to actually go through the ridiculous process of gathering all the evidence and witnesses to prove my hair was blonde.
It’s safe to see that you only say what you like, and don’t care much about the evidence to the contrary, or even checking your facts. This is a grave mistake on your part because not checking your facts leads to making you look like a fool. IT doesn’t bother me, because it’s really not my problem. But it is yours, and this is advice you should take with you the next time you step into the ring with an intellectual superior. At least then if your information is challenged, you’ll be able to say “I pulled this from this source” and not say what you have to say now, which is “I pulled this from my ass.” I hope I’ve been clear on this.
You make all these preposterous claims like, “Your (You’re?) off on left field” or “Your (You’re?) really far off!” yet you never SHOW me where exactly I’m off, or where I’m missing something. And then you compare me with the people Jesus suggests don’t know the scripture, which is rich, because Jesus doesn’t know scripture. (Sort of like the pot calling the kettle black)
There are three ways Jesus and other New Testament authors can screw up scripture, either by misquoting scripture (deliberately rewriting or restating a passage), nonquotes (where a passage in the Old Testament simply doesn’t exist when they say it does), or through misrepresentations (where they take the passage and twist it around to mean something it doesn’t). This happens very frequently in the New Testament, where a verse or passage quoted by the authors of the Gospels and epistles, and one of these three happenings takes place.
For the sake of time and length, I’ll only list five of the first category (Misquotes). Here are some examples of Jesus screwing up Old Testament Scripture:
· (1) MATT. 3:3 ("For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias (Isaiah--Ed.), saying, 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight"
is an inaccurate translation of Isa. 40:3 RSV ("A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God"
.
o (a) Nothing is said in Isaiah about one crying in the wilderness.
o (b) The present tense verb "that crieth" shows that Isaiah is not making a prophecy but only speaking of a contemporary.
o (c) Matthew has "paths," (pl.) while Isaiah has "a highway."
· (2) MATT. 4:10 ("Then Jesus saith unto him, 'Get thee hence Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve'"
is a major distortion of Deut. 6:13 ("Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name"
. Nowhere does Deut. 6:13 say thou shalt serve God only.
· (3) MATT. 4:13-16 ("And leaving Nazareth, he (Jesus--Ed.) came and dwelt in Capernaum.... That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet saying, 'The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up"
is a misquotation of Isa. 9:1-2 ("Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined"
.
o (a) Matthew falsified the text. He began his quote where there is not even a comma and thereby cut off everything relating to the first affliction. He then left out all that related to the 2nd affliction. He left out everything making the verse intelligible. He extracted just what he wanted. Matthew left out those words that show Isaiah was speaking of some past events relating to afflictions already suffered.
o (b) The "great light" which the people saw was the joy they felt in having their burdens lifted and their oppressor broken; it was not Jesus.
o (c) Isaiah says the people that "walked" in darkness, not "sat" in darkness.
o (d) "Walked," "have seen," and "hath shined" show that the events have already occurred. Everything in Isaiah relates to two circumstances that had already occurred when Isaiah wrote. One refers to the lands of Zebulon and Naphtali being lightly afflicted. The other refers to the more grievous events that happened afterwards by way of the sea.
· (4) MATT. 11:10 ("For this is he, of whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee"
misquotes Mal. 3:1 ("Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me...."
.
o (a) The OT says "the way before me," not "thy way before thee."
o (b) Jesus created the phrase "before thy face" which does not exist in Malachi.
o (c) As is true in much of the Bible, it is unclear as to whom many of the pronouns refer. There is little reason to believe that Malachi is referring to John the Baptist or Jesus.
o (d) Mal. 3:1 says "will send" (future tense) rather than "send."
o (e) The coming of the Lord in Malachi 4:1 ("For Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble...."
and Mal. 4:5 ("Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes"
are scenes of fear and terror like the day of judgment. Yet, the coming of Jesus was always spoken of as a time of joy and happiness. How, then, could the scene in Malachi be referring to the birth of Jesus as some allege?
· (5) The attempt by Matthew in MATT. 12:17-21 ("That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah--Ed.) the prophet, saying, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust"
to apply Isa. 42:1-4 ("Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law"
to Jesus is a major distortion for many reasons.
o (a) Isaiah says "have put" (past tense) rather than "will put."
o (b) "Not strive" isn't in Isaiah.
o (c) "Nor lift up" is in Isaiah but not Matthew.
o (d) "Streets" in Matthew is "street" (singular) in Isaiah.
o (e) "Victory" in Matthew is "truth" in Isaiah.
o (f) There is no conditional "till" in Isaiah.
o (g) "in his name shall the Gentiles trust" is not in Isaiah.
o (h) And it appears Matthew omitted, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law" because reality set in.
For a guy who ridicules others about their usage of the Old Testament, he certainly doesn’t know it himself. This is yet another example why Jesus’ character is that much more not-worthy of my respect or admiration. He is indeed a hypocrite. And if I must, I will get down to the nitty-gritty, and grab the Greek of both passages in all five examples and show you how badly he misquotes the text.
To continue, here is more of you projecting your insecurities onto me. I made a list of a large selection of your insecurities (there were a lot to choose from, in fact, one could say your entire pros was one big projection of your defeat intellectually). I made this list so you can see why I feel so bad for you and why I'm trying to help you:
o "It’s like you’re the Japanese trying to figure out the Navajo code in WWII and then plan accordingly. YOU CAN’T DO IT! IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK!" Read below.
o "You won’t be able to understand them unless you ASK HIM FOR HELP!" This explains it all right here, you can't figure out scripture, because of the errors, so you have to pretend they make sense, even though they don't!! Here is your telling omission, "I do it every time I read the Word." You need to stop projecting.
o "Half the time you ever speak Scripture, chances are your so far off as to its true meaning, that its not even worth arguing over." That is because you can't argue over it, you're not wise enough to do so. YOU can't figure it out, therefore NOBODY can figure it out. Another projection. This is where your mind is at, don't you see that?
o "As far as you and your Goof Troop go about trying to disprove God, I think your best bet would be trying to do so scientifically. But PLEASE don’t use evolution as your defense. That will only make people point and laugh more." You don't understand evolution, therefore, in your mind, nobody can! Another projection of your insecurities.
o "As for you personally sir, dont allow yourself to be deceived. You ARE special, you DO have a purpose in your life, You are NOT an accident, and you are in no way, shape, or form, related to an animal." This is a multi-part projection. I'll break it down.
· (a)You have been deceived, and you know it. But you can't handle that, so you flip it. Now I'm the one who has been deceived. But by what? I came to this conclusion based on reason and study, you came to yours through indoctrination. I made an independent choice in spite of the majority of the population, and became a minority. You didn't make a choice, you just are what your parents were, and are part of a majority. You are again, projecting your insecurities (that you've been lied to by the people you trust and care about the most) all your life.
· (b) You claim that I have a purpose, as if I don't already have one for myself. You need God to have a purpose for you because you can't find one on your own. But I'm not like you. I don't need God to have a purpose for myself, and to live. I don't need to validate my existence with a myth. I have friends and family and most importantly myself to validate my existence. I have to live because otherwise I don't. To me it's that simple. You are projecting your inability to conceive a reason for your own independence.
· (c) You claim, I am in no way like an animal, but this contradicts the Bible when it states, "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea they all have one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." (Eccles. 3:19-21) and "For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know nothing, neither have they any more a reward: for the memory of them is forgotten." (Eccles. 9:5). Further your projection here is that you need to believe in life after death because you are afraid. You're scared of death, and more importantly, you are afraid that Hell exists, and if it does, denying an afterlife may lead you there. I'm not scared like you are, I have no fear of death because I know it is inevitable that I will die. And so will you. I have faced it, and accepted it. Your projections of your own inadequacies here are so prevalent it is not even funny.
I hope this is a lesson to you. I hope you take what I say to heart, because nobody can think for you, but they can damn well put you in your place.
The best to you,
Rook
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
give me tonite or a couple days to sift through this
masterful.
That's funny, because I'm still waiting on you to get me those peer reviewed papers on the other thread. I hope you have the time to get those to me, because that should be your first priority, this thread your second. I don't like dishonest people, or claims that are made without evidence. I don't want to think you're dishonest, so I am still giving you the benefit of the doubt. Don't let me down.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
done check the other thread
He returns:
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
My reply:
Thank you so much for proving how dishonest you are. And you really made my whole case for me with just three sentences:
With these three sentences you have made it clear to me that you a.) don't care what I have to say, b.) don't even care what YOU have to say (because if you did you'd have taken the time to respect yourself enough to make your reply look presentable) and c.) lie and make up excuses for your insecurities. I suggest you go back and read the two posts I made when you have "time."
What is funny is you had the time to make two long posts but not to read my replies? You see, I'm sorry, but I take pride in what I have to say, and I obviously was wrong about you. I thought you wanted well-thought replies with specific references to sources so you could read them yourself. I thought that maybe you'd want to have a rational and sensible conversation but apparently I was just flat wrong about your character. I had also ignorantly assumed that you would enjoy my commentary about proving through the Greek that Jesus does state what I and the rest of the scholarly community state he does.
But alas, I was wrong. You didn't want a well-discripted, well-concluded response with lots of facts and source information - you wanted me to post a bunch of short, non-substantial replies just like the one you've given me, that take five minutes to type up instead of the three hours it took me to diligently research and post mine. You don't want facts because you wouldn't check them anyway, even though I took the time to get you the source information and made it clear as day. And you certainly didn't want to read what I wrote because you have no intention of being open-minded, you'd rather cling to your myth for dear life.
My boy, you've done me a service here. You've saved me the time or spending another 3 hours on a post that is just as well thought out and concise as the one previous, and you've made yourself a shining example of Christian arrogance and ignorance and laziness. I'll be sure to post this blog around myspace as a way of making sure everyone knows exactly what type of Christian you are - one who cannot rationally defend his faith.
What? You don't like this? Prove me wrong. Prove to me that YOU can do this, read my posts, and refute my claims, check my sources and facts, do that. Do it well. And maybe you'll regain your honor.
Until that day, because I doubt you'll have the intellectual honesty to do so, you will never be anything more to me then a fraud.
Rook
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
What an interesting contradiction... you try to write off his arguments, but then you need days to respond.... I bet you don't see the contradiction in that, do you?
By the way, if this is your belief, why do you need days to respond? One would believe that you've not critically examined your own beliefs....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Rook, I said this on the other thread and I'll say it again...
PWNED!
Yes but I have school...? I only have so much time to come on this site, to reply and go to bed, and repeat (not to mention the loads of homework) I say I need days, so i can balance time, and not rush through the reply, not to mention Rook's post was just simply huge; and i want to read everything as detailed as possible
The contradiction in what you're saying is thats if your beliefs are true, it shouldn't take you more then five minutes to refute my whole argument. The fact that you know it will take days is because you actually need the time to see if you have a chance at refuting me. (Good luck with that, by the way, no seriously)
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
it doesn't take 5 minutes, you'll know why in my reply (half way done in replying to everything you have said, i'll try to work more on it, and finish it tonight or tomorrow)