[Alex Murphy]

If Calvinism continues to grow our great-grandchildren may see the hatred in the church go away because of the necessary inbreeding and natural selection that will go on with isolationist Arminian pastors. You'll see weird little Arminian communities with big walls and signs on the gate that say "Entrance permitted only on your own free will."

[Alex Murphy]

Calvinist Ping! Did I leave anyone out?

An Arminian would say that the Holy Spirit sort of woos the believer. They say God can attract believers but he can't actually do anything to get them to believe. God sits on His cloud wringing His Hands saying "Oooo, I hope they like Me." Which begs the question, when an Arminian prays for the salvation of an unbeliever, what exactly are they praying to God for? What do they expect Him to do? According to them He doesn't have that power.

[catholicfreeper]

I have been following this some. I used to be a Southern Baptist. When I was growing up "Calvanism" was sort of a murkey concept lol. I think as a kid we thought that whats the Presbytarians did and it had something todo with Predestination. That was about it for our knowledge. If you asked the average Southern Baptist 15 years ago what TULIP was they would say a flower(really a herb I guess) but you get the point.

I picked up a issue of Christianity today a couple months back and was shocked what a issue it was in the SOuthern Baptist Church. I dont know how it so quickly spread. SOme of my friends that went into the ministry attended the New Orleans Theological Seminary. They are not Calvinist? So I am not sure if this seminary based, depending where you go, or a huge grass roots movement.

[TomSmedley]

That bastardized arminian psuedo-sacrament, the "altar call," is tailor-made for catalyzing false conversions, responses to skillfully applied humanistic techniques, rather thanto the Spirit and WOrd of God. Something in me wants to scream whenever I see those hypnotic manipulations in use -- "Every eye closed, every head bowed," etc.

[Gamecock]

[r9etb]

What an ... interesting ... piece of hyperbolic hypocrisy. In this most emotion-filled screed the author claims that the opponents of Calvinism are "highly emotionally charged."

And by way of assuring us that Calvinism will bring peace, he says, "there are pastors around who would kill all the babies of this generation to keep it from spreading. I've seen how ugly people get over this issue."

Ugly, indeed. With a beard and turban, the author really wouldn't be out of place at a Mullah convention.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Your quote in post #1 is self-defeating. The mean and arrogant teacher soon has no students.

[aruanan]

Arminianism is the highly emotionally charged, reactionary, theological opposition to Calvinism. Joseph Arminius believed that John Calvin's theology made God into a tyrant and humans into automatons (although they didn't really have a word for that back then. He may have said words like puppets instead) because he seems to have given the matter about five minutes of thought.

Obviously the writer doesn't know much about Arminius: his first name was Jacob (AKA James) not Joseph. Nor does he appear to know anything about John Wesley who thoroughly skewered Calvin et al.

Calvinism was itself a reactionary religious philosophy that pitted against Church teaching the rationality of man, specifically one man, specifically John Calvin and his concept (fairly Muslim in comparison to traditional Christian teaching) of the nature of God.

[adiaireton8]

and the Bible's, the book we have to work with in this system. That's all we have to work with really.

In this statement, he goes beyond the Bible.

-A8