Open Letter To Christians

[Esquilax]

Did you watch the video, Esq?

Yes. However, that's irrelevant to my objections to Snowy's conclusion: "Your reasons for disagreeing with me are different and less worthy than your stated ones," is not something he, or anyone, could possibly know.

As much as you seem to ignore it, I am right from time to time in this forum. This is one of those times.

Yeah, I know you think that. Of course you do; that's not surprising or controversial. I don't think anybody puts forth their positions on things while simultaneously thinking that they're wrong.

It is obvious that those events did NOT anger God enough to "return to earth". Does it follow that they did not anger God at all?

Which doesn't alter the objection: anger without action is impotent. Sitting there stewing through a cavalcade of human suffering, while having the power to help, is not any more noble than being coldly unaffected by it all.

And to the point, nope writes, "the fact that two men can legally marry is the tipping point that makes him want to destroy a large portion of humankind?"

Tipping point? Is nope highlighting that gay "marriage" (technically, it's civil union since marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman, but whatever) is the point which "tips the balance of the scale"? If so, what else is on that scale to which gay marriage was added?

First of all, you're welcome to imbue whatever religious significance to marriage that you wish, but you don't get to claim ownership over a concept that both predates, and is not exclusive to, your religion. That historical revisionist schtick won't play here.

Secondly, you still seem to not understand the gist of the argument, which is that "two dudes can get married" should not be a catalyst to rousing god to do something, but "people are dying in the millions" is, and yet god sat by there. It's a question of priorities, not accumulation; frankly, god should have been moved to aid in the black plague, to pick one example, on its own, devoid of additional context. The point is that playing these sorts of moral accounting games with human lives is grotesque, as is the idea, that you seem to fully endorse, that god would ignore the big ticket game pieces regardless of the suffering involved until he gets enough of the paltry pieces (gay marriage and porn? Really? That's what's gonna do it, while the holocaust does not?) to make it worth his while.

[Drich]

That translation about the holy spirit is a mere convenience for you. In the translation I quoted originally, it merely says "good gifts." There is no mention of the holy spirit. We'd have to go to the source texts to figure out which translation is closer, but it doesn't really matter because even then we could still go back and forth about which translation is more valid.

"Good gifts" are used in place of "The Holy Spirit" In non Trinitarian bibles. Such as the Mormon version of the bible and the one the J/W's use. The translations you are using are known as contextual or doctrinal translations. They bend the orginal texts to fit a given demonational teaching rather than truly represent how the orginal greek presents, as with the case of a literal translation which most bibles are. Doctrinal bibles have to omit the Greek words like "ἅγιος/hagios"= Holy and πνεῦμα pneuma =Spirit which if you click on the link is clearly apart of Luke 11 which means my translation is indeed more accurate.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm...onc_984013

Suffice it to say that, at best, this passage may or may not be talking about those who seek the holy spirit, but the rest of the passage seems to read as if it's talking about god'd gifts in general.

That's the thing pinky The Holy Spirit is THE Good gift God offers. Why? Because the Holy Spirit literally provides absolutely anything we can need and or want to establish and maintain our belief. It is through the Holy Spirit that "Prayers, and even our petitions get answered.

You're simply adhering to the bent that is more convenient for your argument, which leaves me to do the same.

Ah... no. What I have does is provide an accurate exegesis of Luke 11 and Mat 7 concerning the common verses they share by compiling the teaching and providing a singular biblically based doctrinal truth, by citing book chapter and verse as well as providing an on line/verifiable link to the orginal text and it's meaning. What you did was try and baffle me with conjecture and unfounded speculation about what you think my approach was based on nothing.

Do you see the difference?
Me= explaination based on three points of verifiable refrence.
You= flash in the pan explaination based on what you think about the bible, citing nothing.

As for my "un-cited scholars," I'm talking about whoever it is that teaches the preachers I've been listening to since I was a child (which includes a wide range of speakers from various corners of the faith). Any time I've heard the aforementioned passages taught, the aforementioned interpretations have been the ones in play. One of the unfortunate things about ancient texts like these is that they're so easy to bend, warp, and simply mis-quote for the convenience of the argument at hand.[/color]

But, do you see how their explaination does not include the whole context of the complete passage? They would have to literally ignore everything said from verse 15 to the end of the chapter concerning what Christ said about forgiveness or pretend that the context provided by verse 15 to the end of the chapter is indeed about forgiveness and then verse 19 Christ suddenly breaks away from his teaching on forgiveness and then tells everyone to just wish in groups to get what you want from God, then in verse 20 goes right back to speaking about forgiveness..

How target locked one have to be to not see that everything said in that block of text is about forgiveness? Take the verse denotations out of the text and read through again. Does it make sense that Christ mid stream stop his teaching about sin and forgiveness and the out of the blue in a single breath teach how to get wishes granted by praying in twos, and then next breath go back to teach forgiveness following up a parable on the subject?

Sorry no. you and your 'scholars' got it wrong.

Have you stopped to consider that maybe the reason your faith failed is because you were wrong on too many critical issues that God could not support your understanding of Him? After all why would God positively reinforce something He does not want you to understand or believe?

So when you were old enough to test your faith you rightly found out that your understanding of God does not exist...

[loganonekenobi]

-Or maybe the supreme court decision is apart of humanity's decent into the level of iniquity needed for God to say ENOUGH! and trigger all the wonderful things nope posted in her thread about the last days. That way all you people who want proof will simply have to look out their windows or on their TV's to see God's wrath being poured out onto humanity via the 4 horsemen as described by the book of Revelation.

After all that would answer the Prayer "Your will be done on earth and it is in Heaven" a prayer we 'christians' are all supposed to be praying from the time of Christ Himself.

I wonder what form God's wrath will come in. A Meteor, a super volcano, climate change? When ever something bad happened to the weather or geology man has said "it's God's wrath we are sinning too much." then we as humans survived and went on. Countless examples of natural (and man made) disasters abound that even in the wake of scientific explanation was used to site God's displeasure. So God's wrath will have to be more than something that is naturaly explained. Now if a dude in robes comes down with no obvious way of flying and just starts blasting the world with his mind or what ever then you might see me start praying. Until then we can predict our own world end in at least a dozen different scenarios. No supernatural stuff needed. No amount of homosexuality will change when the meteor or super volcano will hit. Now our own actions and greed may kill us in other disasters that we CAN prevent. We should focus on that.

---

Dear Christians,

The god of the bible has promised, without disclaimer, to grant any request made to him by his followers.  Millions of Christians prayed while protesting on court steps all over the US for their god to prevent the legalization of gay marriage.  No help.  Nine devout parishioners in a bible study were gunned down by a racist in their own “house of god.”  Was god there for them?  No help.  Leave prayer in our schools.  No help.  Leave the bible in our courtrooms.  No help.  Millions of innocent children stricken with Cancer.  No help.  Protect our church in this recent rash of tornados.  No help.  On and on and on it goes.  The pleas and desperate prayers of Christians just keep going unheard and unanswered. 
 
Well Christians, perhaps it isn’t that your god doesn’t like us – it’s that he doesn’t like you…
Hmmm, maybe your god doesn’t appreciate you muddying his name with the myriad of headlines that contain the reprehensible nature of "god-serving citizens."  These are taken word for word from recent news stories:
 
   “Protesters of same-sex marriage were also there, calling others in the crowd perverts”…“Many of the protesters against same-sex marriage were not subtle, shouting and carrying signs such as “Fags are Beasts.””
 
   "I saw you there (at the rally) on the side of the children of darkness. Christ is coming soon. Please don't be lost. The fires of Hell are real."
 
   “it actually says in Leviticus 20:13 that if a man also lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them," said Anderson in the just over one-hour session. Prior to that, he had argued that women who wear mini-skirts were dressing like "whores" and that it was inappropriate for women to wear pants.”
 
   “Council of Conservative Citizens a Christian hate group that routinely denigrates blacks as “genetically inferior,” complains about “Jewish power brokers,”    calls homosexuals “perverted sodomites,” accuses immigrants of turning America into a “slimy brown mass of glop,”
 
    “a Christian lawyer living in California has proposed that the state start executing all gay people with bullets to the head.”


      “A gay Tennessee couple was reportedly attacked — physically and verbally assaulted — by a Christian Pastor and his deacons to prevent the same-sex couple from entering the Pastor’s church. Sadly, the pastor is the father of one of the two members of the gay couple. Also sadly, the church members and bystanders did not lift a finger to help the couple or to stop church leaders from perpetrating the crime. Further, initially, local authorities refused to allow the couple to file charges.”
 
     “Campus Crusade for Christ—now rebranded, ludicrously, as “Cru”—is a massive organization, and involved in some of the meanest homophobia-for-export in Africa.”
 

These are real legit stories.  There are thousands upon thousands of these sorts of stories all over the world.  Christians doing horrible things to anyone and everyone they disagree with and using your precious god as the almighty justification to be ignorant violent bigots.  Maybe you can’t catch a break any more because your god is just really sick of you.  Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s nothing more than the ink and paper machinations of primitive tent dwellers, but if you really believe he’s real, I think you should seriously consider that he just really can’t stand any of you.
 
[color=black][size=small][font=Arial, sans-serif]Consider it, don’t consider it … it doesn’t matter.  Your religion is dying and it seems obvious to me that you Christians are the biggest reason for it's inevitable demise.  200 years from now, you will be a joke, and any remaining zealots will be a fringe cult that even your great great grand children will long to be rid of.

And let's not forgot those great atheists of the 20th and 21st centuries :  Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, along with many other loving atheists who were responsible for way more slaughter of innocents than any christians of the time.  I suggest you get off your high horse and stop preaching hate and defaming billions of decent christians.

These are people who took the marxis philosophy about religion. However, the reason (for them) was so that they didn't have to share power. I am no fan of mass murder (not even christians) but one thing is for certain they did not do this in the name of athiesm. NO they did that to promote thier own power. the philosophy of the secular was to think for themselves wich was something that these people did not want. So these men do not represnt athiesm in esence but in the bible it clearly states that non believers should be killed, shunned, and in general be treated negativly. there is no such doctrine for the athiest. This is a common poke from the religious to the non religious but from what I've seen having or not having a god only brings about better behavior about 10% of the time (yeah there was a study). If you are going to be evil then god or not you will be.

[Redbeard The Pink]

"Good gifts" are used in place of "The Holy Spirit" In non Trinitarian bibles. Such as the Mormon version of the bible and the one the J/W's use. The translations you are using are known as contextual or doctrinal translations. They bend the orginal texts to fit a given demonational teaching rather than truly represent how the orginal greek presents, as with the case of a literal translation which most bibles are. Doctrinal bibles have to omit the Greek words like "ἅγιος/hagios"= Holy and πνεῦμα pneuma =Spirit which if you click on the link is clearly apart of Luke 11 which means my translation is indeed more accurate.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm...onc_984013

Ok, first off, the translation I was using is the New International Version, which is a Trinitarian text and which is used by plenty of christian churches and denominations who aren't Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, or anything else that you would define as a heresy of christianity. While some people like other modern translations better, it's pretty comparable to other current translations of the bible.


Now, I don't know if you meant for this to happen, but your link goes to the King James Bible, which is an older text that was commissioned by an English King for a particular time and country (Medieval England) and a particular denomination (the Anglican Church). It is considered one of the least useful and most suspect English translations of the bible by a broad base of both laymen and clergy alike. If you're seriously calling the translation of the NIV into question and the standard you're holding it up against is the King James Version, you need to try again.

That's the thing pinky The Holy Spirit is THE Good gift God offers. Why? Because the Holy Spirit literally provides absolutely anything we can need and or want to establish and maintain our belief. It is through the Holy Spirit that "Prayers, and even our petitions get answered.

Or maybe he's just talking about good gifts in general, as the context of the passage seems to suggest. Maybe your translation is wrong and mine is right. Any attempt to prove one or the other would essentially be appealing to authority, as both explanations of the passage are (apparently) widely accepted. Besides, all I have to do is claim that I have received a recent revelation from god that says the "good gifts" translation is the right one. Who's to say I'm wrong? You?


As far as your prayers getting answered, that happens because of some combination of confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophesy, and random chance. You send those prayers up, accept any outcome as "god's will," and act like it's proof of miracles when completely mundane events just happen (by chance or by human design) to line up with whatever you prayed for. It's the same mechanism that makes fortune telling work.

Ah... no. What I have does is provide an accurate exegesis of Luke 11 and Mat 7 concerning the common verses they share by compiling the teaching and providing a singular biblically based doctrinal truth, by citing book chapter and verse as well as providing an on line/verifiable link to the orginal text and it's meaning. What you did was try and baffle me with conjecture and unfounded speculation about what you think my approach was based on nothing.

Do you see the difference?
Me= explaination based on three points of verifiable refrence.
You= flash in the pan explaination based on what you think about the bible, citing nothing.

Ah...no. What you've done is started squibbling over which translation is the best one to use and how much context is needed to understand the verses in question. I quoted all of Matthew 7 and picked apart each parable, destroying your claim that the "context" is the key to understanding this quote. It isn't. The key to understanding this quote, according to your other arguments, is to decide what's the best translation to use, and that's a game for theists to play. To me, it all says the same thing, and it's all a fictional story.

But, do you see how their explaination does not include the whole context of the complete passage? They would have to literally ignore everything said from verse 15 to the end of the chapter concerning what Christ said about forgiveness or pretend that the context provided by verse 15 to the end of the chapter is indeed about forgiveness and then verse 19 Christ suddenly breaks away from his teaching on forgiveness and then tells everyone to just wish in groups to get what you want from God, then in verse 20 goes right back to speaking about forgiveness..

How target locked one have to be to not see that everything said in that block of text is about forgiveness? Take the verse denotations out of the text and read through again. Does it make sense that Christ mid stream stop his teaching about sin and forgiveness and the out of the blue in a single breath teach how to get wishes granted by praying in twos, and then next breath go back to teach forgiveness following up a parable on the subject?

Sorry no. you and your 'scholars' got it wrong.

For somebody who's accusing me of not citing things, you're having a lot of trouble with this whole "context and quotations" thing, aren't ya? Everything said in that block of text is about forgiveness, huh? Let's look at Matthew, chapter 18 (NIV again because Google likes it):

---

The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
Causing to Stumble
6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
The Parable of the Wandering Sheep
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [11] [a]
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
Dealing With Sin in the Church
15 “If your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be[e] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[f] loosed in heaven.
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[g]
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

---

So, as you can plainly see, this "block of text" is talking about several different things. The last block is about forgiveness, but that's its own passage, separate from the one where the contentious verse appears. The passage where the verse actually appears seems to be describing how to handle church members who won't listen when told of their sin. The passages before that talk about removing sin-causing obstacles from one's life, how Jehovah wants no one to wander or perish, and coming to god with the humility and faith of a child.


What the whole chapter is talking about is an instance where the disciples were arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus proceeds to tell them what the criteria for greatness in heaven are. This passage is about what must be done to get in good with god and get what you want from him. Forgiveness is mentioned, but it's far from the focus if this story. The focus is actually celestial self-service.

Have you stopped to consider that maybe the reason your faith failed is because you were wrong on too many critical issues that God could not support your understanding of Him? After all why would God positively reinforce something He does not want you to understand or believe?

So when you were old enough to test your faith you rightly found out that your understanding of God does not exist...

The reason my faith failed is that my critical thinking skills progressed to such an extent that I could no longer justify believing claims with no evidence. Furthermore, I was exposed to convincing evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a purely fictional character who never walked Earth. In order for christianity to be even remotely plausible, Jesus has to have at least lived, leaving it up to faith whether he did miracles or rose from the dead. If he wasn't a real person, though, the test is no longer whether you can believe in something that is unlikely, but whether you can believe something that runs directly contrary to evidenced reality.


What that means is that god wants us to believe he exists in a world that he deliberately invented to point to the idea that he is fictional. He isn't just asking us to believe something that is improbable, but something that is shown to be untrue by the evidence in the universe that he himself built. If he's working that hard to seem fictional just so we'll have to take him on faith, then fuck him. It's much more likely, though, that he doesn't exist at all, and that christians are guilty of a host of mental gymnastics (like I used to employ) to make these beliefs seem reasonable. They are not.


So yeah...while it's cute of you to try to say that my unbelief somehow equates with a lack of understanding of scripture, the fact is that the more I understood about scripture and how it conflicts with the observable world, the more I realized how fictional it all had to be. It was like piecing together the non-existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy when I was a young kid. The evidence just lined up, and I stopped believing because I knew it wasn't true. I had been lying to myself all my life, just as you are lying to yourself now.

[Drich]

-Or maybe the supreme court decision is apart of humanity's decent into the level of iniquity needed for God to say ENOUGH! and trigger all the wonderful things nope posted in her thread about the last days. That way all you people who want proof will simply have to look out their windows or on their TV's to see God's wrath being poured out onto humanity via the 4 horsemen as described by the book of Revelation.

After all that would answer the Prayer "Your will be done on earth and it is in Heaven" a prayer we 'christians' are all supposed to be praying from the time of Christ Himself.

I wonder what form God's wrath will come in. A Meteor, a super volcano, climate change?  When ever something  bad happened to the weather or geology man has said "it's God's wrath we are sinning too much."  then we as humans survived and went on. Countless examples of natural (and man made) disasters abound that even in the wake of scientific explanation was used to site God's displeasure.  So God's wrath will have to be more than something that is naturaly explained.  Now if a dude in robes comes down with no obvious way of flying and just starts blasting the world with his mind or what ever then you might see me start praying.  Until then we can predict our own world end in at least a dozen different scenarios.  No supernatural stuff needed.  No amount of homosexuality will change when the meteor or super volcano will hit.  Now our own actions and greed may kill us in other disasters that we CAN prevent.  We should focus on that.

---

And let's not forgot those great atheists of the 20th and 21st centuries :  Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, along with many other loving atheists who were responsible for way more slaughter of innocents than any christians of the time.  I suggest you get off your high horse and stop preaching hate and defaming billions of decent christians.

These are people who took the marxis philosophy about religion.  However,  the reason (for them) was so that they didn't have to share power.  I am no fan of mass murder (not even christians) but one thing is for certain they did not do this in the name of athiesm.  NO they did that  to  promote thier own power.  the philosophy of the secular was to think for themselves wich was something that these people did not want.  So these men do not represnt athiesm in esence but in the bible it clearly states that non believers should be killed, shunned, and in general be treated negativly.  there is no such doctrine for the athiest.  This is a common poke from the religious to the non religious but from what I've seen having or not having a god only brings about better  behavior about 10% of the time (yeah there was a study).  If you are going to be evil then god or not you will be.

Why would God's wrath need to come in a form that can't naturally be explained?

How does our ablity to identify the tool of God's wrath make it any less from God? God is the God of the natural universe so why is He somehow omitted from using the things He put into existence for His purposes?

Or should I re phrase, Why/how does your personally antiquated idea of How god is supposed to work in the world 'limit' The Alpha and Omega from caring out his will?

[Minimalist]

And all you need to do is demonstrate that your particular invisible friend is real, drippy.  When you finish that we can move on to a discussion of his/her attributes but until then you are just stuck in the same old bible-induced rut that you waste your life in.

[TubbyTubby]

4

This is a common poke from the religious to the non religious but from what I've seen having or not having a god only brings about better  behavior about 10% of the time (yeah there was a study).  If you are going to be evil then god or not you will be.

"having a god"? I presume you accept other gods to be as real as your "God" then Drich?

[Drich]

]Ok, first off, the translation I was using is the New International Version, which is a Trinitarian text and which is used by plenty of christian churches and denominations who aren't Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, or anything else that you would define as a heresy of christianity. While some people like other modern translations better, it's pretty comparable to other current translations of the bible.

Here is what the NIV actually says:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

You are right about the NIV being a Trinitarian text. However as you can clearly see above you did not quote from it. Your either mistaken, or maybe no one here has warned you about me yet, and you think you can get away with the typical atheist dog and pony show, of just trying to come off like you know what your talking about as a means of trying to intimidate the Christian into silence.

Save yourself the time and don't post unreferenced BS. The reason it takes me so long to respond is I check everything that I say as well as everything you say EVERY time. x10 years in this format of answering questions/debate plus another 10+ in study. Again save the song and dance for someone else, because I have no issue calling you on obviously wrong/foolish posts.

Now, I don't know if you meant for this to happen, but your link goes to the King James Bible, which is an older text that was commissioned by an English King for a particular time and country (Medieval England) and a particular denomination (the Anglican Church).

The link also provides a drop down at the top of the page to change to any literal translation you like. Here is a link to the NIV:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm...onc_984013

How can it do this? The core Greek text does not change. Despite the popular belief among Atheist, the bible is not a translation of a translation of a translation. All literal copies come from a single codex (The greek that does not change) and the English translation that does is just over laided the same greek text.

It is considered one of the least useful and most suspect English translations of the bible by a broad base of both laymen and clergy alike. If you're seriously calling the translation of the NIV into question and the standard you're holding it up against is the King James Version, you need to try again.

You are barking up the wrong tree pinky, I am not a single translation/KJV purest. I use which ever translation works best with the person I am speaking to. My 'bible' was written in the koine Greek, and it is to the greek I refer to first not the English. The English is a tool of convience, used to quickly identify and capture a given precept. Complete excegesis comes from the Greek.

That's the thing pinky The Holy Spirit is THE Good gift God offers. Why? Because the Holy Spirit literally provides absolutely anything we can need and or want to establish and maintain our belief. It is through the Holy Spirit that "Prayers, and even our petitions get answered.

Or maybe he's just talking about good gifts in general, as the context of the passage seems to suggest.

Again, The passage Identifies the HOLY SPIRIT Specifically, not Good gifts, Unless again you are quoting from a non Trinitarian/doctrinally specific translation of the bible.

Maybe your translation is wrong and mine is right.

Again you have FAILED to correctly identify a translation that portrays the term "Good gifts." Therefore at best you are Mistaken about 'your translation.'

Any attempt to prove one or the other would essentially be appealing to authority, as both explanations of the passage are (apparently) widely accepted. Besides, all I have to do is claim that I have received a recent revelation from god that says the "good gifts" translation is the right one. Who's to say I'm wrong? You?

IF You Had Actually Provided a legit source for your quote I would ask to see or simply look up the Greek/codex in which your translation was created from. Then would move to validate the codex. (because obviously it did not come from the codex sinaiticus which is where Christianity gets it's bible's translated from)

If you can not provide the source material/bible you supposedly quoted from then I would move to identify your 'good works' translation as a personal textual fabrication. then to drive the point home I would show two or three more different literal translations, and maybe even go to another concordance/lexicon to collaborate what I have said... And depending on how obstinate you were to get us to this point would determine whether or not I would draw attention to your intellectual dishonesty you have displayed to this point and call into question the fabric of your character.

As far as your prayers getting answered, that happens because of some combination of confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophesy, and random chance.

Uh, no.. Again. Prayers and petition are not the same thing. Answered prayers are unique as they Ask god to Change the nature of our character to align ourselves with Him. This transformation is a long and rough road, that most bail out on. not a self full filling prophesy

You send those prayers up, accept any outcome as "god's will," and act like it's proof of miracles when completely mundane events just happen (by chance or by human design) to line up with whatever you prayed for. It's the same mechanism that makes fortune telling work.

This statement is why I believe you have confused Prayer with a petition/supplication. Again prayer = change my nature to match what God wants for us. Petition/supplication As God for 'stuff.' The more one Prays the less one asks for 'stuff.'

Ah... no. What I have does is provide an accurate exegesis of Luke 11 and Mat 7 concerning the common verses they share by compiling the teaching and providing a singular biblically based doctrinal truth, by citing book chapter and verse as well as providing an on line/verifiable link to the orginal text and it's meaning. What you did was try and baffle me with conjecture and unfounded speculation about what you think my approach was based on nothing.

Do you see the difference?
Me= explaination based on three points of verifiable refrence.
You= flash in the pan explaination based on what you think about the bible, citing nothing.

Ah...no. What you've done is started squibbling over which translation is the best one to use and how much context is needed to understand the verses in question. I quoted all of Matthew 7 and picked apart each parable, destroying your claim that the "context" is the key to understanding this quote. It isn't. The key to understanding this quote, according to your other arguments, is to decide what's the best translation to use, and that's a game for theists to play. To me, it all says the same thing, and it's all a fictional story.

This is a dishonest representation of my argument. If this is not the case then I ask you which translation are you saying I have said is better than another?

This is a failed attempt at a 'pink herring.'

But, do you see how their explaination does not include the whole context of the complete passage? They would have to literally ignore everything said from verse 15 to the end of the chapter concerning what Christ said about forgiveness or pretend that the context provided by verse 15 to the end of the chapter is indeed about forgiveness and then verse 19 Christ suddenly breaks away from his teaching on forgiveness and then tells everyone to just wish in groups to get what you want from God, then in verse 20 goes right back to speaking about forgiveness..

How target locked one have to be to not see that everything said in that block of text is about forgiveness? Take the verse denotations out of the text and read through again. Does it make sense that Christ mid stream stop his teaching about sin and forgiveness and the out of the blue in a single breath teach how to get wishes granted by praying in twos, and then next breath go back to teach forgiveness following up a parable on the subject?

Sorry no. you and your 'scholars' got it wrong.

For somebody who's accusing me of not citing things, you're having a lot of trouble with this whole "context and quotations" thing, aren't ya? Everything said in that block of text is about forgiveness, huh? Let's look at Matthew, chapter 18 (NIV again because Google likes it):

---

The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
Causing to Stumble
6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! 8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
The Parable of the Wandering Sheep
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [11] [a]
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
Dealing With Sin in the Church
15 “If your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be[e] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[f] loosed in heaven.
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[g]
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

---

So, as you can plainly see, this "block of text" is talking about several different things. The last block is about forgiveness, but that's its own passage, separate from the one where the contentious verse appears. The passage where the verse actually appears seems to be describing how to handle church members who won't listen when told of their sin. The passages before that talk about removing sin-causing obstacles from one's life, how Jehovah wants no one to wander or perish, and coming to god with the humility and faith of a child.
...Again Mat 18:15 through the end of the chapter is about sin and forgiveness NOT about getting petitions granted. Where do you see it differently? Where in Mat 18:15 thru the end of the chapter beside '19' is Jesus speaking about how to pray or petition God?

Now, because 19 mentions prayer/how to pray and the surrounding context is about sin and forgivness then that means the passage that speaks on prayer is directly speaking about how/what to pray inorder to forgive and receive forgiveness. Verse 19 is not a stand alone mid paragraph appeal to group wishing/petitions. It just does not read correctly in context.

What the whole chapter is talking about is an instance where the disciples were arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus proceeds to tell them what the criteria for greatness in heaven are. This passage is about what must be done to get in good with god and get what you want from him. Forgiveness is mentioned, but it's far from the focus if this story. The focus is actually celestial self-service.

Again pinky I meantion verse 15 to the end of the chapter because It directly speaks to sin and forgiveness. I am well aware of what the start of the Chapter speaks to.

Have you stopped to consider that maybe the reason your faith failed is because you were wrong on too many critical issues that God could not support your understanding of Him? After all why would God positively reinforce something He does not want you to understand or believe?

So when you were old enough to test your faith you rightly found out that your understanding of God does not exist...

The reason my faith failed is that my critical thinking skills progressed to such an extent that I could no longer justify believing claims with no evidence.

This is exactly what I meant. You had a corrupt understanding of God. So much so He could not support it with the 'evidence you sought.' Again why would God positively support a understanding of him He did not want you to have? So when you grew up you tested what you thought was God and found out there was nothing there.

Now just because your understanding of God failed to pass, how is it in your mind you can say God can not exist? What if God exists outside of your limited/broken understanding?

Furthermore, I was exposed to convincing evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a purely fictional character who never walked Earth. In order for christianity to be even remotely plausible, Jesus has to have at least lived, leaving it up to faith whether he did miracles or rose from the dead. If he wasn't a real person, though, the test is no longer whether you can believe in something that is unlikely, but whether you can believe something that runs directly contrary to evidenced reality.

"Evidenced reality" is a subjective term isn't it? It is based on what You personally believe to be evidence. The problem with that? what if what you believe is incomplete?

Example: 600 years ago 'evidenced reality determined the earth was flat. Because of said evidence and pop culture's support this 'evidenced reality was understood to be 100% truth, and all of the evidence we now use to support a spherical planet was ignored.

The question here then becomes how can you say for sure your 'evidenced reality' is not really a biased reality similar to the reality of those who lived 600 years ago and believed the world was flat? How do you know your 'reality' is not limited by what you can perceive? This at it's core is exactly what made men think the world was flat.

What that means is that god wants us to believe he exists in a world that he deliberately invented to point to the idea that he is fictional. He isn't just asking us to believe something that is improbable, but something that is shown to be untrue by the evidence in the universe that he himself built. If he's working that hard to seem fictional just so we'll have to take him on faith, then fuck him. It's much more likely, though, that he doesn't exist at all, and that christians are guilty of a host of mental gymnastics (like I used to employ) to make these beliefs seem reasonable. They are not.

The only way one can foolishly assume God is fictional is if one believes that our ablity to explain how the universe works somehow superceeds God.. I went into greater detail in my piano/mouse thread, but the bottom line was, that god is the God/Creator of the natural Universe, So why would be Limited to only move through it supernaturally?

Even the term 'Supernatural' only describes what we perceive to be natural, it does not actually mean an event or happening must be beyond all scientific explaination. If you look up the word it means an event is currently beyond our scientific understanding. It is the unknown not the unknowable. So as our understanding of the universe around us grows, what in the bible or in your mind/perception of god says that He must remain beyond all explaination?

So yeah...while it's cute of you to try to say that my unbelief somehow equates with a lack of understanding of scripture, the fact is that the more I understood about scripture and how it conflicts with the observable world, the more I realized how fictional it all had to be. It was like piecing together the non-existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy when I was a young kid. The evidence just lined up, and I stopped believing because I knew it wasn't true. I had been lying to myself all my life, just as you are lying to yourself now.

Again, no. My post said your lack of understanding did not come from a lack of Scripture, it came from silence from God. 'Scripture' is the tool we use that points us in the direction of God and the tool we use to verify what we found is indeed God. Failed belief is almost always the direct result of God not supporting a broken understanding of Him/Religious belief of Him.

[Minimalist]

The only way one can foolishly assume God is fictional is if one believes that our ablity to explain how the universe works somehow superceeds God.

That's not evidence, drippy.  That's you puking up the same old nonsense....AGAIN.

Science does not need god to explain how the universe works.  Only shitheads need god to answer their questions.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Here is what the NIV actually says:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

You are right about the NIV being a Trinitarian text. However as you can clearly see above you did not quote from it. Your either mistaken, or maybe no one here has warned you about me yet, and you think you can get away with the typical atheist dog and pony show, of just trying to come off like you know what your talking about as a means of trying to intimidate the Christian into silence.

Save yourself the time and don't post unreferenced BS. The reason it takes me so long to respond is I check everything that I say as well as everything you say EVERY time. x10 years in this format of answering questions/debate plus another 10+ in study. Again save the song and dance for someone else, because I have no issue calling you on obviously wrong/foolish posts.

Oh, I see what you did there. I quoted from Matthew, while you're jumping back over to Luke. That doesn't really help your argument that much, by the way. If the story says the same thing, then why doesn't it say the same thing? If the text from Matthew is also talking about the holy spirit, why aren't they both translated that way? Why have the other translation in god's infallible word if that translation isn't also a valid one that we're supposed to use and interpret from? In fact, why have dissenting versions of the story at all? If you're all-powerful and can select humans who will record you perfectly, why not get it down to one book? Instead we have 4, all with different agendas and different versions of events.


In any case, whether we're arguing about which translation to use, how much context to use, or which book to read from, the point is the same: we could go back and forth endlessly, quoting and re-quoting and arguing about which text is newer, better, more reliable...all to lend credence to our arguments where there basically isn't any, since we're basically arguing over what Gandalf did or did not say. Gandalf says whatever you want him to. That's the beauty of a fictional character.


Let's see...skipping a bit because it's more translation-mongering...

Again, The passage Identifies the HOLY SPIRIT Specifically, not Good gifts, Unless again you are quoting from a non Trinitarian/doctrinally specific translation of the bible.

Not the passage in Matthew. The passage in Matthew says good gifts. Plural. Even if the holy spirit is one of the gifts, Matthew implies there are still more, and that we should ask for them.

Again you have FAILED to correctly identify a translation that portrays the term "Good gifts." Therefore at best you are Mistaken about 'your translation.'

NIV. Book of Matthew. Pay attention. It's the same translation I've been using. I can't help that it doesn't agree with what Luke says. Not my book, not my problem. If you're gonna say that Luke is correct and they both say the same thing, with Luke being more specific, I'd say that's arbitrary speculation and mental gymnastics to make your texts agree.

IF You Had Actually Provided a legit source for your quote I would ask to see or simply look up the Greek/codex in which your translation was created from. Then would move to validate the codex. (because obviously it did not come from the codex sinaiticus which is where Christianity gets it's bible's translated from)

I've been quoting the book of Matthew from the NIV this WHOLE TIME. The same story does seem to appear in Luke, and I might have even mentioned that for reference in the original quote, but that's not relevant to your argument. The quote appears in the book of Matthew (NIV), which is the exact text I copied and pasted it into my post.

If you can not provide the source material/bible you supposedly quoted from then I would move to identify your 'good works' translation as a personal textual fabrication. then to drive the point home I would show two or three more different literal translations, and maybe even go to another concordance/lexicon to collaborate what I have said... And depending on how obstinate you were to get us to this point would determine whether or not I would draw attention to your intellectual dishonesty you have displayed to this point and call into question the fabric of your character.

Matthew. Fuck. We're in Matthew, here. If you wanna argue about Luke, we can start arguing about how not even your gospel writers could get their fucking story straight.

Uh, no.. Again. Prayers and petition are not the same thing. Answered prayers are unique as they Ask god to Change the nature of our character to align ourselves with Him. This transformation is a long and rough road, that most bail out on. not a self full filling prophesy


This statement is why I believe you have confused Prayer with a petition/supplication. Again prayer = change my nature to match what God wants for us. Petition/supplication As God for 'stuff.' The more one Prays the less one asks for 'stuff.'

You're wanting to redefine prayer, now? Jesus, dude, the semantic bullshit is practically bottomless with you people.


Prayer: a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.


Whether you're asking for god to take away your sody-pop addiction because Jesus didn't drink soda or asking him to give you a mountain of pussy and a pile of candy, you're still praying. End of story. Any answer that comes is the equivalent of people reading meaning into their horoscopes and tarot cards. You might as well pray to your Magic 8 Ball...at least those answers are immediate.

This is a dishonest representation of my argument. If this is not the case then I ask you which translation are you saying I have said is better than another?

This is a failed attempt at a 'pink herring.'

Well, the bar does seem to keep moving on exactly what you don't agree with (a problem complicated by the fact that we were talking about two different passages, yet now we're on 3). At first it seemed like it was the context, then it was the translation itself, maybe, and now it's that we don't agree on which gospel has a "more correct" version of the teaching.

...Again Mat 18:15 through the end of the chapter is about sin and forgiveness NOT about getting petitions granted. Where do you see it differently? Where in Mat 18:15 thru the end of the chapter beside '19' is Jesus speaking about how to pray or petition God?

Now, because 19 mentions prayer/how to pray and the surrounding context is about sin and forgivness then that means the passage that speaks on prayer is directly speaking about how/what to pray inorder to forgive and receive forgiveness. Verse 19 is not a stand alone mid paragraph appeal to group wishing/petitions. It just does not read correctly in context.

Again pinky I meantion verse 15 to the end of the chapter because It directly speaks to sin and forgiveness. I am well aware of what the start of the Chapter speaks to.

Now you're trying to cherry-pick those verses out of the context of the rest of the story. Jesus is talking specifically about how to gain favor with god throughout this story. Perhaps asking for forgiveness is a part of that, but that part is in a passage that is clearly labeled and clearly falls after the verse you're lumping in with it. Even if the gifts they're talking about asking for are heavenly gifts for after you die, that doesn't change the fact that, one way or another, god gives good gifts to those of his children who ask him, especially if two or more agree on it.

This is exactly what I meant. You had a corrupt understanding of God. So much so He could not support it with the 'evidence you sought.' Again why would God positively support a understanding of him He did not want you to have? So when you grew up you tested what you thought was God and found out there was nothing there.

Now just because your understanding of God failed to pass, how is it in your mind you can say God can not exist? What if God exists outside of your limited/broken understanding?

Where do I even begin with this? It looks like a version of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, with a smattering of "Argument From Ignorance" thrown in (because, let's face it, it always is). What you're basically saying is that my lack of belief is evidence that I just didn't "really" understand god or the concept of god in the proper way.


The problem with this argument is that it has no provable basis, as we could argue all day about what a "corrupt understanding" of god entails, or how you'd assume to lump your presumptions onto my belief system (oh yeah, I forgot "Straw Man"). I could as easily turn the argument around and say that the reason you concluded there is a god is that you have a corrupt understanding of what evidence is.


Furthermore, the existence of something is a non-falsifiable claim. This means that to prove or disprove it, you have to approach the opposite claim (that there is no god). This claim of non-existence is the null hypothesis and is the only claim in the equation that can be proven wrong (as all one would have to do is show evidence that god exists and the hypothesis becomes false). This means that until evidence surfaces to the contrary, non-existence of god is the most scientifically sound claim based on the level of evidence at hand. That's not to say that it definitely is true, that's just to say that there's no reason to assume the opposite is true (that god does exist), until this claim is proven false.


So, I'm not saying that the gods do not exist. I'm just saying that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they do exist, and until that evidence arises there is no reason to believe that they do. The burden of proof is not on me to prove that god does not exist, it's on you to prove that he does. Until then, you can't tout my lack of understanding as a victory for you because my lack of understanding isn't established.

"Evidenced reality" is a subjective term isn't it? It is based on what You personally believe to be evidence. The problem with that? what if what you believe is incomplete?

Example: 600 years ago 'evidenced reality determined the earth was flat. Because of said evidence and pop culture's support this 'evidenced reality was understood to be 100% truth, and all of the evidence we now use to support a spherical planet was ignored.

The question here then becomes how can you say for sure your 'evidenced reality' is not really a biased reality similar to the reality of those who lived 600 years ago and believed the world was flat? How do you know your 'reality' is not limited by what you can perceive? This at it's core is exactly what made men think the world was flat.

What I personally believe to be evidence is irrelevant, and no, material reality is not subjective. It is very much objective. Perhaps I should be more clear about "evidence" and specify that I like to rely on "empirical" evidence. To me, evidence has to be observable and peer-reviewable. Anecdotes and personal experience are not evidence, consensus belief is not evidence, and 2,000-year-old claims about miracle-men are not evidence. If you want to accept such minimal evidence for such extraordinary claims, be my fucking guest. Your standard of evidence just isn't as high as mine.

The only way one can foolishly assume God is fictional is if one believes that our ablity to explain how the universe works somehow superceeds God.. I went into greater detail in my piano/mouse thread, but the bottom line was, that god is the God/Creator of the natural Universe, So why would be Limited to only move through it supernaturally?

Even the term 'Supernatural' only describes what we perceive to be natural, it does not actually mean an event or happening must be beyond all scientific explaination. If you look up the word it means an event is currently beyond our scientific understanding. It is the unknown not the unknowable. So as our understanding of the universe around us grows, what in the bible or in your mind/perception of god says that He must remain beyond all explaination?

"There's still so much we don't understand, so god could still be out there, un-proven and un-discovered, in something we don't understand yet." That's basically what you're saying, right?


This is a flat-out "God of the Gaps" argument, and it's the core of most Theist apologetics. We don't know, therefore: GOD!


Are you sure that's how you wanna play that game? Because if it is, there's a whole laundry list of scientific phenomenon throughout history that we used to blame on god and have since come to understand as being self-perpetuating (weather, life, the cosmos, etc.) This means that if that's how you define god, then god is an ever-shrinking pocket of scientific ignorance that is literally and obviously just an excuse we throw out when we don't know something.

Again, no. My post said your lack of understanding did not come from a lack of Scripture, it came from silence from God. 'Scripture' is the tool we use that points us in the direction of God and the tool we use to verify what we found is indeed God. Failed belief is almost always the direct result of God not supporting a broken understanding of Him/Religious belief of Him.

Regardless of where you think my alleged lack of understanding comes from, it is a groundless assumption that you cannot prove; all I have to do is claim the contrary, and we're at a standstill. We could argue all day about who really understands god better, and neither of us would be able to prove anything because that's not a testable claim.