Response to Local Readers' Forum Comments

[EscapingDelusion]

A couple weeks ago, a lady wrote a letter in to our local newspaper's Readers' Forum saying that her "God" was not a god of wrath. A man replied with the following letter (found here):
"This is in response to Tina Blough’s letter on Aug. 19, 'Being good a personal choice.' As part of her response to another letter, she says that 'my God would never show wrath.'
That is the thinking of many Americans today, but the problem with that is the god they describe does not exist. How can we possibly understand anything about a God we cannot see? The only way to know God is to see him as he is revealed in the Bible.
The God of the Bible is described in many ways, and one them is that he is 'angry with the wicked everyday.'
To deny the wrath of God is to deny the justice of God against evil. Even a cursory reading of the Bible shows that God cannot tolerate evil, will judge it, and even show his terrible wrath against it and those who propagate it.
Blough and others who claim God is anything other than what he is described in the Holy Scriptures have created a god out of their own imagination.

I responded on the website's Discussion section:
"You are right to point out that the God of the Bible is indeed a God of wrath. As Richard Dawkins puts it, he 'is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.'
The problem is that there is not just one 'God' described in the Bible. I am not implying that Christianity is a polytheistic religion; I mean that God as described by one author (Amos, for example) is very different than the God described by another biblical author (the author of Jonah, for example). When you compare the Old Testament to the New Testament, the differences are compounded far more! The result is that any one God with definable attributes, even by fundamentalist Christians such as yourself who truly think that they follow the bible explicitly, must be a self-created conglomerate being, pieced together by the portions of Scripture you accept. It is impossible to have one God that possesses all of the attributes given to him in the bible, since many of these attributes are conflicting. (Granted, some Christians try by saying that God is both 'infinitely just and infinitely merciful' which is a logical impossibility; I have been told that this is not an impossibility for God, but this just shows the ignorance of the one making the claim. 'Infinite justice' leaves no room for mercy; any act of mercy is not justice. 'Infinite mercy' leaves no room for justice, as people are not getting what is deserved. Yet many Christians love to make this logically-impossible, 'cute' claim about God.)
So, Jeff, I applaud you for not glossing over the vengeful, tyrannical nature of the god you worship as many Christians try to do. However, please recognize that you too create a god out of your own imagination. You state that the problem with people like Tina Blough is that 'the god they describe does not exist.' The god you describe does not exist either, as an in depth study of the bible, its writing, and its canonization will reveal that Judaism and Christianity are made up religions, just like any religion. Escape your delusion, recognize that this reality is all we get and it truly is magical, and embrace this world."

The fellow who wrote the original letter responded on the Discussion forum:
"Just a few notes in response to your discussion. First, your quoting of Richard Dawkins shows an inherent bias against any spiritual. It would be like asking a Japanese soldier trapped and being bombed on Okinawa what he thought of FDR.
The Scriptures are very clear in pointing out that mankind in general is the enemy of God and hates His laws and everything about Him. Dawkins is just more vocal in his mischaracterization of the God of the Bible. He comes across differently in different books because of the great ignorance of His enemies and the biased hatred in their hearts they have toward Him. Thousands of others have studied the Bible and came to opposite (and more reasonable) conclusions.
Though Dawkins makes great sport of mocking the spiritual, he has no real answers to the origin of life, any more than the uneducated atheist drunk at the bar. It takes great faith to believe that the great complexity of life and the universe around us somehow 'evolved' from nothing (against all scientific observation). So Dawkins goes on his rampages, and the spiritually blind mockers join right in, having no more idea how we got here than he does.
I am not going to rehash the dozen or so arguments you pose against the Christian religion, other than to say this - exactly what would this world be like had it not been for Jesus Christ? Follow Christianity around the world and around the centuries, and you see the end of cannibalism, Viking raids, widow burning, polygamy, and so forth. Even the freedom we enjoy right now is the result of the Protestant idea of religious liberty, and the chaos we see happening at the same time is the result of our losing that foundation. Atheism has produced only the Russian gulag and the Chinese mass murder, forced abortions, and general cruelty. Jesus said you will know them by there fruits, and there is no denying the bloody fruit of Atheism. As a side note, how many hospitals around the globe are founded, funded, and staff by self-sacrificing atheists?
When it comes to the idea of how we and the universe got here, atheism draws a big blank. Something does not come form nothing. The complex does not arise from the nonexistent. That is observable science, and it also why a person should start looking for answers in Genesis 1:1."

I initially planned to let bygones be bygones and let the argument end here, but now I'm tempted to respond. In particular, I'm annoyed that he spends half of his response attacking Richard Dawkins, claiming there is no proof for cosmological or biological evolution, and then for some bizarre reason claiming that the entire world is better off because of Christianity and atheism has only ever brought evil. The more I think about it, the more this annoys me. Would you all recommend from debating experience that I let this one go or push it? If I should push it, are there any points in particular that you recommend I argue in order to try to at least get this guy to see the other side? Thanks!!!

[Reforged]

Has anyone ever told you that you look like Tin-tin?
Because if not I have something to tell you, please scroll down...










Further...











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You look like Tin-tin. Well done by the way and welcome to the forum. Personally I would choose to push it for reasons referred to in my title.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Has anyone ever told you that you look like Tin-tin?

Indeed,as did our erstwhile Prime Minster,Kevin Rudd,,who often appeared in political cartoons in that guise.

Today Australian politics is far less re assuring. Our incumbent PM, Lady Macbeth, (Julia Gillard) has all the charm of a trapdoor spider. The leader of the opposition,The Mad Monk, (Tony Abbot) comes across as a ferret. His rotund buffoon of a deputy, (Joe Hockey) is known as "Shrek"

Welcome ED

[Minimalist]

"Just a few notes in response to your discussion. First, your quoting of Richard Dawkins shows an inherent bias against any spiritual. It would be like asking a Japanese soldier trapped and being bombed on Okinawa what he thought of FDR.

Isn't it ironic that morons like this can never see the shoe on the other foot? They are so devoted to their fictional sky-daddy that they can't accept that they have an inherent bias against rationality.

People like this are too fucking stupid to bother with.

[Mystic]

I know from experience with religious people, is they tend to emphasize on one of the opposing attributes, while try to ignore the other.

For example, emphasize on God's Mercy and praise it, while merely tolerate and accept his Wrath. Emphasize on God's Forgiveness and praise it, while merely tolerate and accept his punishment.

You can see by this, truly, what humans truly adore and praise and exalt. And the exalted attributes and beautiful attributes are those of mercy, compassion, forbearance, love and forgiveness.

People are in a double think. They want to believe God is Most Merciful, Ultimately compassionate, even though their religion truly describes him in the exact opposite while yet praising him with such titles.

This shows deep down people adore a different God then described by their religion, and are trying to cover the monster god with titles and praise of the true divine beauty that we all adore (whether we believe it exists or not, is a different matter).

[Kayenneh]

EscapingDelusion, if you want to bang your head against a brick wall, be my guest. That guy is never going to be sensible and listen to what you have to say. On the other hand, if you leave the debate now, one fundie out there is going to be smug as hell, thinking he made really good points..

[Angrboda]

Funny you should say that, Mystic....

[pocaracas]

if you leave the debate now, one fundie out there is going to be smug as hell, thinking he made really good points..

This would do more damage than good!
Kick his ass.

You can start with his own arsenal:

Pope John Paul II revisited the question of evolution in a 1996 a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Unlike Pius XII, John Paul is broadly read, and embraces science and reason. He won the respect of many scientists in 1993, when in April 1993 he formally acquitted Galileo, 360 years after his indictment, of heretical support for Copernicus’s heliocentrism. The pontiff began his statement with the hope that “we will all be able to profit from the fruitfulness of a trustful dialogue between the Church and science.” Evolution, he said, is “an essential subject which deeply interests the Church.” He recognized that science and Scripture sometimes have “apparent contradictions,” but said that when this is the case, a “solution” must be found because “truth cannot contradict truth.” The Pope pointed to the Church’s coming to terms with Galileo’s discoveries concerning the nature of the solar system as an example of how science might inspire the Church to seek a new and “correct interpretation of the inspired word.”

When the pope came to the subject of the scientific merits of evolution, it soon became clear how much things had changed in the nearly since the Vatican last addressed the issue. John Paul said:

Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.

Evolution, a doctrine that Pius XII only acknowledged as an unfortunate possibility, John Paul accepts forty-six years later “as an effectively proven fact.” (ROA, 82)

in
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ft...nview.html

And these guys:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shorts...s-cre.html


Once that's convinced him, it's just a step to remove the external god from the equation. Good luck!

[Napoléon]

Once that's convinced him

More chance of Jesus returning to Earth than that happening.

[pocaracas]

Once that's convinced him

More chance of Jesus returning to Earth than that happening.

hence the "good luck!", with a fair bit of irony... I grant you it doesn't show through the text...