The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[Society]

Jesus does act better than Yahweh. Which really isn't saying a whole lot. It's like saying guy A is an asshole, but at least he's not a complete psychopath like guy B is. Although you still have people saying guy A is guy B showing his nicer side. Which in the end still isn't all that great.

I thought Jesus and Yahweh were the same? 

[Chad32]

Jesus does act better than Yahweh. Which really isn't saying a whole lot. It's like saying guy A is an asshole, but at least he's not a complete psychopath like guy B is. Although you still have people saying guy A is guy B showing his nicer side. Which in the end still isn't all that great.

I thought Jesus and Yahweh were the same? 

Many believe he is, though it's a bit bizarre how they say their god is different things that aren't really possible to be at the same time.

[Society]

I thought Jesus and Yahweh were the same? 

Many believe he is, though it's a bit bizarre how they say their god is different things that aren't really possible to be at the same time.

Funny how all Christians think the next christian is wrong and that they are right. Example would be Jehovah witnesses. They won't pray with you until you submit to the church since they believe all Christians worship a different God than them. Same with Jews.

[Chad32]

Many believe he is, though it's a bit bizarre how they say their god is different things that aren't really possible to be at the same time.

Funny how all Christians think the next christian is wrong and that they are right. Example would be Jehovah witnesses. They won't pray with you until you submit to the church since they believe all Christians worship a different God than them. Same with Jews.

Yeah. Whatever you believe, no matter how strongly, there will be someone else who uses the same book, calling you a heretic.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Before I start talking about what Christianity is and why Christians look like the world. Would you mind explaining what you believed when you practiced Christianity, or what you think your parents believe as Christians?

 

Why, so you can decide whether we're True Scotsman?

Biblically a Christian is someone who accepts the Gospel (that Jesus died for their sins). Having agreed that they sin (wanting life on their own terms, which leads to death and separation from God) and ask for forgiveness. This entire process is done by faith (belief but into action), which leads to their salvation.  Then as a guarantee of their salvation God will give His Spirit. Once this happens a Christian will begin to mature into their new spiritual life. Much like a child matures into adulthood. People don't come out of the womb walking and talking; a Christian doesn't become a mature Christian at the moment they believe. They have to learn to navigate their new life by God's word. Overcoming their past sinful habits by the power of the Holy Spirit. This process varies and has setbacks, but there is a move towards God in love, with devotion, and through obedience. A Christian may look/act like the culture they are from, because that is all they knew before.  Also, one is not simply a Christian because they "say" they are, or were brought up by Christian parents.  There should be some evidence of change, and a desire to change more.  Their life as a Christian isn't a whim or tradition and but a worthwhile sacrifice for something infinitely better.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of what I believed when I was in your death cult.

Any religion or system of thinking that promotes working your way to God is false (No matter its degree of correct theology). In other words no Jesus +, the book of Galatians covers this topic I am speaking of.  

 

Any religion or system of thinking that promotes God is false. There is no such thing as correct theology, not even in the book of Galatians.

You spoke about not seeing certain elements of the gospels as being cohesive. So I was thought about your objection and God brought to mind the resurrection account, and how many women were at the tomb. It isn't a problem if you allow them to harmonize. In a musical composition parts are written with variation to create depth and richness in the piece. I propose this is what's happening in the Gospels. In the book of Matthew, Mary Magdalene and another Mary (28:1) find the empty tomb. In Mark Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (16:1) find the tomb. In Luke Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others (24:10) find the tomb.  Lastly in John Mary Magdalene (20:18) finds the tomb. The writers of the Gospels focus on certain parts of the resurrection account that satisfies their reasoning. If you allow the gospels to harmonize then you see the full account in more detail than any one Gospel gives.  This one may not be what you were thinking of and there are other apparent "contradictions" in the gospels so I am willing to discuss those if you wish.

 

The number of women isn't the only detail that's problematic with that part of the story. Scholars have tried to sit down and build a cohesive narrative that accounts for all the post-resurrection details that the gospels present, and it simply cannot be done. The details of the stories are mutually exclusive, which should tell you all you need to know about the fallibility of the humans who wrote them.

As you said in you previous post there was an type of indentured slavery in Israel, which afforded the poor and indebted a way out of their poverty. Then after 6 years they were set free.  Greco-Roman slavery is the slavery system of the new testament. Up to a 3rd of the people in Rome were like employees, teachers, craftsmen, managers, cooks, government officials and some slaves even owned slaves. Some become slaves to gain Roman citizenship and a social standing. It provided security and stability and many slaves were released by 30 to stand on their own. However this doesn't mean its inclusion in the Bible therefore concludes God's will was for man to own slaves.

Leviticus 25:44-46New International Version (NIV)

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Again, you're just objectively wrong about what the Bible says about slavery. The caveats and restrictions only applied to Jewish slaves, and even those were pretty loose. Foreign slaves could be kept for life and were treated strictly as property, not "servants" or anything else, and even Jewish slaves could be beaten, provided you did not knock out their eyes or teeth or kill them (see the previously discussed passage in Numbers).


According to Numbers, Leviticus, and Ephesians (at least), your god is totally cool with slavery. At no point does he speak against it in the Bible even a little bit.

The slavery in America was built on human-trafficking and sub-humanism propaganda. This was done by people, yes even Christians, who were more interested in their own gains than the personhood of the slave.

American slavery (most especially in the South) was expressly based on the law of Moses. Look it up if you don't believe me. Those people were using the Bible to justify and regulate slavery, and the Bible does not make that hard. Furthermore (I realize this is, like, the #1 racist argument about slavery, so I'm loathe to bring it up, but here goes), many slaves were sold to us as war prisoners by tribes who had conquered them, and another great many were born right here in the States. Kidnapping raids were fairly common early in the American Slave Trade, but these excursions proved to be dangerous, so it actually became more common just to buy them from other Africans. The whole "kidnapping" thing you're trying to base this whole argument on has the same problem here that it did with the Jews; all told, "kidnapping" isn't how most American slaves were obtained. Most of them were sold into it or were born into it.

They were abused and misused and the repercussions of that still affects America today. Some people were "Christians" out of tradition and others allowed themselves to be blinded to the reality of this evil.

Funny how a thing like religious beliefs can cause a person to lose sight of what's evil.

Much like in today's society we are blind to abortion and pornography. The slave owners rapped when the wanted, killed when they wanted and become hardened by the cruelty.

Some of them did, sure, but some of them didn't treat their slaves any worse than you'd treat a plow animal (which is still a terrible way to treat a human). Slave owners, contrary to modern popular belief, weren't routinely torturing their slaves or beating them to death; slaves cost money and do work, so most owners couldn't afford to just spend them on a whim. Furthermore, Biblical slave masters could "marry" their slaves without consent and beat them to death as long as it took them more than a day or two to bite it. That's not at all better than what you're describing in the South.

This is not the same type of slavery written about in the New testament when Paul tells a slave to return home and for the master to forgive him. Knowledge of past cultures in the Bible helps us to put into perspective what is actually being said and how that applies to our lives in the 20th Century. There is another type of slavery spoken of in the bible and that is spiritual slavery. When anyone worships anything other than God they become a slave to sin. No matter what kind of outward change they perform they'll never be free. God, through Jesus' sacrifice, buys us out of our slavery to sin and death. God uses the theme of slavery as a picture of our bondage to sin.

The god of morality allowed and regulated an immoral practice just as an object lesson? What a dick.

 

Now the question is are you supporting the degradation of humans? There are men, women, boys, and girls who are sex slaves for the production of pornography and when you support that you support slavery. This industry is destructive to all involved it dehumanizes people making it easier to abuse them. It also robs all involved of their humanity. The only hope is God He and His ability to free slaves from every from of slavery.

 

Do I support human trafficking? No. Do I support sexual slavery of any kind? No. Do I support the sexual exploitation of children for any reason, pornographic or otherwise? No.


Do I support pornography that's made and viewed by consenting adults? Yes, absolutely.

DNA is genetic information and people are trying now to use DNA as a storage system. It is a far more advanced storage system than anything we have created (you can look at this CNN article). Since computer code act similar to DNA if it were to evolve or change randomly it would degrade long before it had a positive mutation. You offered up time as a solution to this problem. The problem is that there isn't enough time to move through all the possible combinations of proteins to create a positive mutation. Here is a debate with Stephen Meyer (my main source) and Charles Marshall. The question is where did all that information come from?

 

And the problem with that, again, is that science not having the answer does not make your god the answer; that's an argument from ignorance. You're basically saying "I don't understand DNA or how it can do what it does, therefore my god must be responsible." It doesn't matter how long that debate went on or what was said, really. The theist is arguing from ignorance, so he loses. To prove that DNA came from his god, he would have to have a way to demonstrate that; he doesn't simply win the argument because the scientist can't answer his question about "where the information came from."

I don't see your "just is" as equivalent to my statement that God is self-existent. He isn't a thing but a being possessing infinite knowledge, immutability, all power and is eternal. He is therefore able to work in every moment and can accomplish what is necessary for the out come that He wants. It is reasonable to believe God created us simply because of the information in the Bible let alone the information found in DNA. Information always traces back to a mind, why would it be different with DNA. When we find information in books or on a disc we don't assume it evolved, but that it was created.

 

If god can "just is," so can other things. If he's the only thing that can "just is," then that's special pleading. We have been over this...so many times...

Finally; human beings are categorized as "Hominids" and the word ape is an English word not a taxonomic category. If you could point me to the fossil information you sighted, because my search was mostly fruitless.

"Ape" is an English word describing a taxonomic branch of tailless, old-world primates whose scientific name is "Hominoidea." "Hominids (aka Great Apes)" are a subset of this category, and we are in that category. We are tailless primates native to Africa. We are literally apes by definition.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

LINNAEAN CLASSIFICATION OF HUMANS:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Order: Primates
Suborder: Anthropoidea
Superfamily: Hominoidea
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens

LINNAEAN CLASSIFICATION OF CHIMPANZEES:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Order: Primates
Suborder: Anthropoidea
Superfamily: Hominoidea
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Pan
Species: troglodytes

Note that the only place they fall into a new category is at the Genus and Species level.

You might be interested to learn more about the various classifications of our near relatives, and why they are classed the way they are. Note the bottom row of the chart, where it shows what Redbeard was trying to tell you about human and other great ape classification.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/table_primates.htm

Edit to Add: It should also be noted that there's not really enough evidence, under the standards for classifying things by the Linnaean system, to keep humans and chimpanzees in separate Genuses, so there is debate over it among the scientific community. At the moment, I think no one wants to ruffle as many feathers as reclassifying them to belong to the same Genus as us would likely cause. See article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...092615.htm (or if you prefer National Geographic, instead: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...nzees.html)

[TheRocketSurgeon]

 
DNA is genetic information and people are trying now to use DNA as a storage system. It is a far more advanced storage system than anything we have created (you can look at this CNN article). Since computer code act similar to DNA if it were to evolve or change randomly it would degrade long before it had a positive mutation. You offered up time as a solution to this problem. The problem is that there isn't enough time to move through all the possible combinations of proteins to create a positive mutation. Here is a debate with Stephen Meyer (my main source) and Charles Marshall. The question is where did all that information come from?
 
I don't see your "just is" as equivalent to my statement that God is self-existent. He isn't a thing but a being possessing infinite knowledge, immutability, all power and is eternal. He is therefore able to work in every moment and can accomplish what is necessary for the out come that He wants. It is reasonable to believe God created us simply because of the information in the Bible let alone the information found in DNA. Information always traces back to a mind, why would it be different with DNA. When we find information in books or on a disc we don't assume it evolved, but that it was created.
 
Finally; human beings are categorized as "Hominids" and the word ape is an English word not a taxonomic category. If you could point me to the fossil information you sighted, because my search was mostly fruitless.

Okay, I'm going to leave most of the theological points to Redbeard, since he seems to handle them at least as well as I could, and likely better. However, I watched that debate video you posted with the douchebag from the Creation Institute, and I think it's clear that you have misunderstood what Dr. Meyer is claiming (or hoping you miss that he's not claiming).

Dr. Meyer is one of the worst cases of someone who deliberately went and got degrees (incidentally, his PhD is in the "history of science", not in science) for the purpose of giving the appearance of credibility to the Creationist case, as proposed in the infamous Wedge Document, to which we have linked you, many many times. They are deliberately trying to misrepresent their credentials in order to give the appearance of a controversy, into which gap they can insert their pre-existing ideas about God, in the public eye, because they see science as anti-God. Why you refuse to understand what the Wedge Document represents, I cannot grasp. But it amounts to this: he has been very selective in what parts of science he accepts and which he rejects via his pre-existing filter. For instance, he talks a great deal about how DNA must change too many base pairs in order to produce the novel proteins he says are necessary for the changes to occur, but ignores completely our discoveries in the past 20 years about regulatory gene sequences that radically alter body-forms (called Gene Regulatory Networks), or that the changes observed in the "Cambrian Explosion" were well within the expected rates of evolutionary change after statistical analysis. If you want to see a good analysis of why Meyer clearly doesn't understand some of these major elements of how science determines the things it determines, read this article at the science blog, The Panda's Thumb.

You really should read the New Yorker article posted about Meyer's book, which shows where he deliberately ignores science and promotes pseudoscience to make his case. If you continue to quote Meyer in an attempt to support your position, you're simply showing anyone who actually knows science that you are unaware of the advances science has made in the 150+ years since Darwin wrote down his doubts about the Cambrian Explosion (upon which Meyer primarily focuses).

Of course, you're not GOING to read any of the harsh criticisms of your champion, because you prefer what he's telling you over harsh truths. That's what the Discovery/Creation Institute are counting on, the way charlatans and other charismatic "flim-flam" artists always have.

[energizer bunny]

I rather take this thread as: "The Reason why "Just Following" Doesn't work." You won't get very far just following regardless of who it is.

[Rekeisha]

The number of women isn't the only detail that's problematic with that part of the story. Scholars have tried to sit down and build a cohesive narrative that accounts for all the post-resurrection details that the gospels present, and it simply cannot be done. The details of the stories are mutually exclusive, which should tell you all you need to know about the fallibility of the humans who wrote them

First the ladies set out for the tomb early at daybreak (matt 28:1, John 20:1, Luke 24:1, Mark 16:1). They could already have been outside of Jerusalem. Around this time at the tomb the guards have fainted at the appearance of the Angels who roll away the stone.(Matt 28:34)  They also recover and run back to tell what happened (Mt 28:1112)  When the women arrive they find the tomb open, Mary M (John 20:12), runs to find Peter and John who were probably in Jerusalem since they followed Jesus to his trial and John to his crucifixion. The other ladies go into the tomb and find the angels in there and receive the news of Jesus resurrection (Mt 28:1, Luke 24:1, Mt 16:16, Mt 28:5) . When Mary M reaches P/J they all run back to the tomb while the other ladies are possible taking another route back to find the tomb (John 20:2). P/J arrive at the tomb and enter to find it empty (john 20:3-7) and then Mary arrives and as they go back she encounters the resurrected Jesus (John 11-17, Mark 16:9). Then after Jesus appears to Mary, He appears to the other women on there way to meet other disciples. Later Jesus appeared to the disciple on the road to Emmaus (Luke 13-35). Then Later Jesus appeared to all of them in the room. (Luke 24:38-40)  for an more in depth explanation you can look at this link

Any religion or system of thinking that promotes God is false. There is no such thing as correct theology, not even in the book of Galatians.
 
According to Numbers, Leviticus, and Ephesians (at least), your god is totally cool with slavery. At no point does he speak against it in the Bible even a little bit. The god of morality allowed and regulated an immoral practice just as an object lesson? What a dick. Funny how a thing like religious beliefs can cause a person to lose sight of what's evil.

Here are some bible excepts that are God speaking out against slavery (physical and spiritual)  that is oppressive
 
Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Israel and for four
I will not revoke its punishment,
Because they sell the righteous for money
And the needy for a pair of sandals. (Joel 2:6)
 
 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs [a]according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7)
 
“Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
7 “Is it not to divide your bread [c]with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (isa 58:67)
 
If He had no problem with it then he would have left the Israelites in their slavery (Exodus) if He was ok with it He wouldn't have died for the sins of mankind so that they would not be enslaved to their sin. Also it isn't religion that makes people lose sight of evil. That would mean that religion was the only thing to blame for evil, not the people, and that isn't true. It is the nature of man and his rejection of God that makes him blind of what is evil. You don't have an objection porn, because people are willing to objectify themselves to it (right?). While I have an objection to porn, because it objectives people (which is evil).  Our country doesn't see the murder of an unborn child as wrong because they want to redefine what is life to suit their own desires. Things only get "gray" when people seek their own desires and reject what God says is right. (changing and redefining the meaning of words to suit their own needs and purposes) 

Leviticus 25:44-46New International Version (NIV)

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

 
NUM 15:15 The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the LORD:
Lev 19:34The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Lev 19:33“ ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.
Lev 24:22 You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.' ”
 
When these people come into their country as salves then they should be treated as a natural born.
 

And the problem with that, again, is that science not having the answer does not make your god the answer; that's an argument from ignorance. You're basically saying "I don't understand DNA or how it can do what it does, therefore my god must be responsible." It doesn't matter how long that debate went on or what was said, really. The theist is arguing from ignorance, so he loses. To prove that DNA came from his god, he would have to have a way to demonstrate that; he doesn't simply win the argument because the scientist can't answer his question about "where the information came from."

What I am saying is that DNA is information and information comes from a mind and that mind could only be God. Modern science seems to have a problem with saying what is actually alive or dead. Since our society started throwing out the Knowledge of God everything has become blurred and confusing.  There is no defined Truth, no lasting way of thinking. What is male what is female, what is alive what isn't, what is an animal what isn't, what is right what isn't. You don't have any answers just a lot of data that you can't make since of because with the rejection of God you have rejected knowledge and wisdom.
 

If god can "just is," so can other things. If he's the only thing that can "just is," then that's special pleading. We have been over this...so many times...

When I say that God is and that he created everything He did it outside of space and time. Since He is eternal and a spirit He isn't subject to space or time. A thing needs to have space so if it just is then there was space before there was a thing and so now you must explain where that space came from. Also a thing does not have a will where as God is a being and He has a will and decided to start time, space and life.
 

[Rekeisha]

Okay, I'm going to leave most of the theological points to Redbeard, since he seems to handle them at least as well as I could, and likely better. However, I watched that debate video you posted with the douchebag from the Creation Institute, and I think it's clear that you have misunderstood what Dr. Meyer is claiming (or hoping you miss that he's not claiming).

Dr. Meyer is one of the worst cases of someone who deliberately went and got degrees (incidentally, his PhD is in the "history of science", not in science) for the purpose of giving the appearance of credibility to the Creationist case, as proposed in the infamous Wedge Document, to which we have linked you, many many times. They are deliberately trying to misrepresent their credentials in order to give the appearance of a controversy, into which gap they can insert their pre-existing ideas about God, in the public eye, because they see science as anti-God. Why you refuse to understand what the Wedge Document represents, I cannot grasp. But it amounts to this: he has been very selective in what parts of science he accepts and which he rejects via his pre-existing filter. For instance, he talks a great deal about how DNA must change too many base pairs in order to produce the novel proteins he says are necessary for the changes to occur, but ignores completely our discoveries in the past 20 years about regulatory gene sequences that radically alter body-forms (called Gene Regulatory Networks), or that the changes observed in the "Cambrian Explosion" were well within the expected rates of evolutionary change after statistical analysis. If you want to see a good analysis of why Meyer clearly doesn't understand some of these major elements of how science determines the things it determines, read this article at the science blog, The Panda's Thumb.

You really should read the New Yorker article posted about Meyer's book, which shows where he deliberately ignores science and promotes pseudoscience to make his case. If you continue to quote Meyer in an attempt to support your position, you're simply showing anyone who actually knows science that you are unaware of the advances science has made in the 150+ years since Darwin wrote down his doubts about the Cambrian Explosion (upon which Meyer primarily focuses).

Of course, you're not GOING to read any of the harsh criticisms of your champion, because you prefer what he's telling you over harsh truths. That's what the Discovery/Creation Institute are counting on, the way charlatans and other charismatic "flim-flam" artists always have.

I took a look at your artical and I will admit that the panda's thumb article was confusing since I don't have a Bachelors or a PHD in any kind of science. Yet, the New Yorker article and some other articles helped me to understand some of what he was talking about. What I found from looking around is that what we have is data about the cambrian period. Before there were not so many animals and then there were a lot in the cambrian period. It would seem that scientist have done some inferring with chemistry and have used computers to play out the scenario which they have drawn conclusions from. I haven't looked into that so I don't know what criterion they are using. Those who believe in a creator have filled in the gaps with science as well but they believe that it points to a creator. So my conclusion is we have data about the cambrian period, and this data has been interpreted in different ways. This got me asking some more questions which lead me to seek some popular scientific views on our "origins". 

So where did life come from? I read that we could have all come from a comet, panspermia, bringing with it proteins that were needed to create life.  This plus many other theories, and found what they are saying is we are star stuff, and some therefore conclude we are not created beings rather things grown up out of happy happenstance.  So I concluded, if that is the case doing right or wrong really doesn't matter, as whatever happens... happens. Or as I would say "so what". So what to slavery, so what to religion etc. As in the great words of King Solomon “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”(ecc 1:1) Now if there is a God then things are made for a reason and therefore they have a purpose and meaning.  Giving men the reference point to understand morality and life and making sense of all the "gray areas".  

I want to thank you for taking the time to watch the debate, and for your insights into the credentials of Dr. Meyer; though I would think that holding a Masters and Ph.D in the History and Philosophy of Science would give someone a good perspective as to how science got where it is now, and where it may be heading too. Also he was a former geophysicist and college professor and holds a B.S in Physics/Earth Science. 

We all have filters the question is are we willing to put them to the test? Can these filters we use give us clarity or do they blind us?

Here is the Discovery Institute's response to the Wedge Document.