OH MY THOR! HE QUOTED THE BIBLE QUICK EVERYONE CONVERT!

My impression I got from this video was that if he were to meet an atheist in a bar after having a few, I could imagine an ass kicking to follow that would go something like this:

BtotheK:You fuckin retarded atheist!

Atheist: Hmm?

BtotheK: How dare you deny Jesus?  Let's go outside you fuckin idiot!

Atheist: Nah, just came in to drink my beer.  

BtotheK gets more irate, commencing the staredowns, along with pacing around doing shoulder bumps every chance he gets. 

Atheist says good night and is heading out the door.  Outside BtotheK is waiting.  He comes toward Atheist and says nothing at first.  He just stares, waiting for Atheist to make a move.  Atheist tries to sidestep.  BtotheK blocks him.  I forgot to mention that BtotheK has his "bros" egging him on to hit him.  So then he starts to pummle Atheist. I will skip the fight scene and get to the point when dialog picks up again.  

BtotheK:  Now, do you believe in God, Mother Fucker?

Atheist: (trying to formulate sound)...sure, whatever you say there.

BtotheK: There, I told you God is real.  (thinks he made his point and leaves Atheist gasping in his blood).

*** 

Me: Sorry this is just the impression I get when I see guys like that. 

yes sir yes sir

I didn't realize he warranted a response, I was just posting for comic relief.  I don't have the time to engage in a video response, but support the idea.  Actually having him on the show for more comic relief isn't a very bad idea.

 Yes we're well aware of Cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which parts to accept.  We're also well aware of the rationalizations one goes through to try and justify the buy-bull.  You could've posted these thoughts in one thread to contain the discussion, this will get cumbersome responding to the exact same thing in two threads.

 My post from the other thread:

And this is why theologians aren't credible.  You go ahead and point out the surrounding text of the three passages in the bible explaining that blasphemy of HS is an unforgivable sin that explains that to do it properly one must be repentant til death.  

Feel free to point out the passage that corrects Mark 3:29 to fit your interpretation.

Need I say more?  Your presenting the claims of professional liars as reason to believe something?  This only makes me more firm in reading the text as it's written, not with some extra context that is not mentioned anywhere in the buy bull.

Yours in Reality,

Sapient

The Catholic Church thinks that it's interpretation is correct because they are the ones responsible for deciding what books to put into the collection. 

The hundreds of years of being in control of the message allows them the license for arrogance in saying that it is the Protestants that get it wrong. The sophistry of the theologians and the sense of authority they give themselves.

Our dissent is necessary more to the Church than anyone else.  Although the Catholics tend to be less wacky in general, the Church itself is seething in arrogance and obnoxiousness. When Church thinkers have had centuries to frame your message in such a way that makes it sound invincible to them, they don't even realize that they sound like medieval sophists making a mockery out of intellectual progress.

A fundamentalist only has to have it shown that the Bible is not literally true to start really seeing their position as irratinal.  A theologian steeped in the church doesn't have to realize this, because they have hundreds of years of distinctions, creeds, and philosophical subteties that would take years of study to show as equally irrational. 

Omce seen, the irrationality is obvious.  To get them to see it, however, takes more time than it does for literalists.

Shaun 

One cannot justify the Scriptures to someone who does not accept them in their revelation - it has nothing to do with their internal coherence. I think part of the problem is that others tried and failed at an inherently impossible task. It is possible to prove things said in the Bible and to prove the rational character of Christian beliefs, but some Christian doctrine is inherently unprovable as it is revealed. If revealed, it remains rational, but it is beyond the ability of natural reason to prove.

I post the article from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which happens to be very thorough in its treatment of the issue:

"

The sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is mentioned in Matthew 12:22-32; Mark 3:22-30; Luke 12:10 (cf. 11:14-23); and Christ everywhere declares that it shall not be pardoned. In what does it consist? If we examine all the passages alluded to, there can be little doubt as to the reply.

Let us take, for instance, the account given by St. Matthew which is more complete than that of the other Synoptics. There had been brought to Christ "one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, so that he spoke and saw". While the crowd is wondering, and asking: "Is not this the Son of David?", the Pharisees, yielding to their wonted jealousy, and shutting their eyes to the light of evidence, say: "This man casteth not out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." Jesus then proves to them this absurdity, and, consequently, the malice of their explanation; He shows them that it is by "the Spirit of God" that He casts out devils, and then He concludes: "therefore I say to you: Ever sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not he forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."

So, to sin against the Holy Ghost is to confound Him with the spirit of evil, it is to deny, from pure malice, the Divine character of works manifestly Divine. This is the sense in which St. Mark also defines the sin question; for, after reciting the words of the Master: "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall never have forgiveness", he adds at once: "Because they said: He hath an unclean spirit." With this sin of pure downright malice, Jesus contrasts the sin "against the Son of man", that is the sin committed against Himself as man, the wrong done to His humanity in judging Him by His humble and lowly appearance. This fault, unlike the former, might he excused as the result of man's ignorance and misunderstanding.

But the Fathers of the Church, commenting on the Gospel texts we are treating of, did not confine themselves to the meaning given above. Whether it be that they wished to group together all objectively analogous cases, or whether they hesitated and wavered when confronted with this point of doctrine, which St. Augustine declares (Serm. ii de verbis Domini, c. v) one of the most difficult in Scripture, they have proposed different interpretations or explanations.

St. Thomas, whom we may safely follow, gives a very good summary of opinions in II-II, Q. xiv. He says that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was and may be explained in three ways.

• Sometimes, and in its most literal signification, it has been taken to mean the uttering of an insult against the Divine Spirit, applying the appellation either to the Holy Ghost or to all three Divine persons. This was the sin of the Pharisees, who spoke at first against "the Son of Man", criticizing the works and human ways of Jesus, accusing Him of loving good cheer and wine, of associating with the publicans, and who, later on, with undoubted bad faith, traduced His Divine works, the miracles which He wrought by virtue of His own Divinity.
• On the other hand, St. Augustine frequently explains blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to be final impenitence, perseverance till death in mortal sin. This impenitence is against the Holy Ghost, in the sense that it frustrates and is absolutely opposed to the remission of sins, and this remission is appropriated to the Holy Ghost, the mutual love of the Father and the Son. In this view, Jesus, in Matthew 12 and Mark 3 did not really accuse the Pharisees of blaspheming the Holy Ghost, He only warned them against the danger they were in of doing so.
• Finally, several Fathers, and after them, many scholastic theologians, apply the expression to all sins directly opposed to that quality which is, by appropriation, the characteristic quality of the Third Divine Person. Charity and goodness are especially attributed to the Holy Ghost, as power is to the Father and wisdom to the Son. Just, then, as they termed sins against the Father those that resulted from frailty, and sins against the Son those that sprang from ignorance, so the sins against the Holy Ghost are those that are committed from downright malice, either by despising or rejecting the inspirations and impulses which, having been stirred in man's soul by the Holy Ghost, would turn him away or deliver him from evil.

It is easy to see how this wide explanation suits all the circumstances of the case where Christ addresses the words to the Pharisees. These sins are commonly reckoned six: despair, presumption, impenitence or a fixed determination not to repent, obstinacy, resisting the known truth, and envy of another's spiritual welfare.

The sins against the Holy Ghost are said to be unpardonable, but the meaning of this assertion will vary very much according to which of the three explanations given above is accepted. As to final impenitence it is absolute; and this is easily understood, for even God cannot pardon where there is no repentance, and the moment of death is the fatal instant after which no mortal sin is remitted. It was because St. Augustine considered Christ's words to imply absolute unpardonableness that he held the sin against the Holy Ghost to be solely final impenitence. In the other two explanations, according to St. Thomas, the sin against the Holy Ghost is remissable -- not absolutely and always, but inasmuch as (considered in itself) it has not the claims and extenuating circumstance, inclining towards a pardon, that might be alleged in the case of sins of weakness and ignorance. He who, from pure and deliberate malice, refuses to recognize the manifest work of God, or rejects the necessary means of salvation, acts exactly like a sick man who not only refuses all medicine and all food, but who does all in his power to increase his illness, and whose malady becomes incurable, due to his own action. It is true, that in either case, God could, by a miracle, overcome the evil; He could, by His omnipotent intervention, either nuillify the natural causes of bodily death, or radically change the will of the stubborn sinner; but such intervention is not in accordance with His ordinary providence; and if he allows the secondary causes to act, if He offers the free human will of ordinary but sufficient grace, who shall seek cause of complaint? In a word, the irremissableness of the sins against the Holy Ghost is exclusively on the part of the sinner, on account of the sinner's act." (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07409a.htm)

There are different interpretations, but none is as shallow as the one given here.

The content of Revelation, at least for Catholics, is not exclusively the Scriptures, but the teaching of the Church and Tradition as well. If you want to argue against my beliefs, it would make sense to challenge them directly instead of moving onto a different area.

Finally, in response to

 I see no contradiction between religion and thinking about claims made therein. To quote J.H. Newman, "A thousand difficulties does not amount to a single doubt."

Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,

StMichael

Quote:

Quote:

but most Christians today and throughout history have not interpreted the Gospels in this superficial manner.

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Yes we're well aware of Cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which parts to accept.  We're also well aware of the rationalizations one goes through to try and justify the buy-bull.  You could've posted these thoughts in one thread to contain the discussion, this will get cumbersome responding to the exact same thing in two threads.

 My post from the other thread:

And this is why theologians aren't credible.  You go ahead and point out the surrounding text of the three passages in the bible explaining that blasphemy of HS is an unforgivable sin that explains that to do it properly one must be repentant til death.  

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One cannot justify the Scriptures to someone who does not accept them in their revelation - it has nothing to do with their internal coherence.