The Problem with Christians

[athrock]

Because God Himself established the Catholic Church for the express purpose of assisting you on your journey home.

Oh, I didn't know that God is called Theodosis. I call him Theo from now on.

Theodosis did not establish the Catholic Church, and your ignorance is on display for all to see.

Believers referred to the "Catholic Church" as early as AD 107 as seen in a letter written by Ignatius of Antioch...and possibly earlier for reasons which you do not grasp.

[athrock]

God would have preferred that Pharaoh simply accept Moses' initial request, but it didn't play out that way. God allowed or permitted Pharaoh to harden his own heart rather than FORCING him to let the Israelites go.

Wrong!  Read it again!

Exodus 7   King James Version (KJV)
7 And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.
2 Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land.
3 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Your god was adamant that the plagues would ensue and having the Pharaoh give in was not part of the plan.

Post #1138. 

READ. IT. AGAIN.

Try to understand what idiomatic expressions are, okay?

[abaris]

Theodosis did not establish the Catholic Church, and your ignorance is on display for all to see.

Believers referred to the "Catholic Church" as early as AD 107 as seen in a letter written by Ignatius of Antioch...and possibly earlier for reasons which you do not grasp.

Oh yes? So, since you're obviously not ignorant, you know of course what cathoilic means in the most basic sense of the word. The greek one. You also know how united, what you like to call church, was before the concils. Of course there's that little problem of Arianus, to name only the most prominent of all the different sects and cults. Or the schisma of 451. Not important at all, I gather.

Keep on preaching, big boy. You're not the first one having a try at selling his particular flavor.

[IATIA]

Wrong!  Read it again!


Your god was adamant that the plagues would ensue and having the Pharaoh give in was not part of the plan.

Post #1138. 

READ. IT. AGAIN.

Try to understand what idiomatic expressions are, okay?

New International Version
But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt,

New Living Translation
But I will make Pharaoh's heart stubborn so I can multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

English Standard Version
But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,

New American Standard Bible 
"But I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.

King James Bible
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
But I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. 

International Standard Version
I'll harden Pharaoh's heart and I'll add more and more of my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. 

NET Bible
But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and although I will multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt,

GOD'S WORD® Translation
But I will make Pharaoh stubborn. Even though I will do many miraculous signs and amazing things in Egypt,

JPS Tanakh 1917
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.

New American Standard 1977 
“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.

Jubilee Bible 2000
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

King James 2000 Bible
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

American King James Version
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

American Standard Version
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But I shall harden his heart, and shall multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 

Darby Bible Translation
And I will render Pharaoh's heart obdurate, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

English Revised Version
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Webster's Bible Translation
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

World English Bible
I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Young's Literal Translation
'And I harden the heart of Pharaoh, and have multiplied My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt,

All translations say the same thing.  This was an action by your god, not an idiomatic expression.  For an idiomatic expression, the translation would be something akin to "The Pharaoh's heart will be hardened.", but it is not.  It says "I will".

[athrock]

Theodosis did not establish the Catholic Church, and your ignorance is on display for all to see.

Believers referred to the "Catholic Church" as early as AD 107 as seen in a letter written by Ignatius of Antioch...and possibly earlier for reasons which you do not grasp.

Oh yes? So, since you're obviously not ignorant, you know of course what cathoilic means in the most basic sense of the word. The greek one. You also know how united, what you like to call church, was before the concils. Of course there's that little problem of Arianus, to name only the most prominent of all the different sects and cults. Or the schisma of 451. Not important at all, I gather.

Keep on preaching, big boy. You're not the first one having a try at selling his particular flavor.

Thank you. I will.

Unfortunately, you do not seem to grasp the significance of Ignatius' use of the term. Even Protestants have understood that the word "catholic" with a little "c" - meaning "universal" - came to be a Proper Noun with a capital "C" by the middle of the second century. 

So, yeah. 

Oh, do you need a quote and link to that?

[Mr.wizard]

But why would he need god's permission if he had free will already?

We're saying the same thing.  

God would have preferred that Pharaoh simply accept Moses' initial request, but it didn't play out that way. God allowed or permitted Pharaoh to harden his own heart rather than FORCING him to let the Israelites go.

No we are not saying the same thing! If pharaoh's heart couldn't harden without gods permission that means his free will was already violated. Either god hardened his heart violating his free will or his heart couldn't be hardened until god permitted it which was also violating his free will.

[pocaracas]

I wonder... athrock...
Actually, I've wondered this for a long time and the conclusion only seems damning for catholicism....
Why are the Essenes not mentioned in the bible?

[AJW333]

I gave you a a perfectly reasonable definition of intelligence and showed you how perfectly DNA fits the definition. You then completely avoided the question, "How is it that this does not qualify as intelligent?" I would like an answer to this please.

I presume you know that DNA senses errors, retains the knowledge of what is correct and what is incorrect sequencing and conducts complex repair procedures. If this is not the case, I can point you to any one of hundreds of papers laying it out for you.

My point was that at no time did you establish that what DNA does is "sensing," nor that it "knows" anything, let alone remembers. You just said those things as fiat assertions and expected me to prove you wrong, which I don't really need to do for a claim where every important factor was simply demanded to be true without justification. You're asserting agency to things that you can't possibly demonstrate agency for.

Now you're just being pedantic.

"DNA mismatch repair is a system for recognizing and repairing erroneous insertion, deletion, and mis-incorporation of bases that can arise during DNA replication and recombination, as well as repairing some forms of DNA damage.[1][2]"   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_mismatch_repair

What does recognizing mean? How can you recognize that which you don't know or have no memory of? It is abundantly clear that the DNA repair system has the capacity to differentiate many different types of errors and to tailor an appropriate response in each case. That requires information!

[athrock]

All translations say the same thing.  This was an action by your god, not an idiomatic expression.  For an idiomatic expression, the translation would be something akin to "The Pharaoh's heart will be hardened.", but it is not.  It says "I will".

Thank you. Did you read the full article from which that excerpt was taken?

[athrock]

We're saying the same thing.  

God would have preferred that Pharaoh simply accept Moses' initial request, but it didn't play out that way. God allowed or permitted Pharaoh to harden his own heart rather than FORCING him to let the Israelites go.

No we are not saying the same thing! If pharaoh's heart couldn't harden without gods permission that means his free will was already violated. Either god hardened his heart violating his free will or his heart couldn't be hardened until god permitted it which was also violating his free will.

Pharaoh's heart could be hardened on his own accord. He did not need God's permission. 

Let me this in negative terms. God did not prevent Pharaoh from hardening his own heart. To do so would have violated Pharaoh's free will. God allowed Pharaoh to choose. As the events unfolded, it became obvious that Pharaoh had chosen to harden his own heart. God allowed him to do this.