When Atheists Attack (Each Other)

Evolution News and Views ^ | April 28 2011 | Davld Klinghoffer

[metmom]

Planning on sinning expecting that you can just go in for forgiveness later is what you were addressing.

I responded adequately to that.

Don’t move the goalposts and claim the answer isn’t adequate because it didn’t address something else you were wondering. If you have a different question, by all means pose it, but don’t be so intellectually dishonest and lazy as to claim the first one wasn’t answered because you didn’t like the answer.

[metmom]

Yes. I am not stupid. My skepticism is my way of searching for the truth. I am content. If you are able to address satisfactorily the exceptions and anomalies raised by me throughout this thread and beyond regarding the nature of your deity, then yes, I will, by way of reason, have to accept the truth.

FWIW, God addresses those in the Bible, which you reject. Hence, nobody will ever be able to satisfy your demands and give you what you would consider an *adequate* answer, and you will die, unsaved, reveling (or maybe more accurately wallowing) contentedly in your skepticism.

What exactly is the purpose of your grilling people about the salvation of *tribals*? How is that relevant to you? Do you not trust God to judge them justly? How is His dealing with them going to affect you anyway?

You are not a *tribal* who has never heard the gospel. You have heard it plainly and clearly many times over the years here on FR. What you are responsible for is what you do with the knowledge which has been granted you and with the amount of knowledge you have available, you have the greater accountability.

Distraction techniques with questions about the tribals is not going to fool God, nor change your outcome when you face Him. Every man gives account for HIMSELF, not others.

[James C. Bennett]

I responded adequately to that.

Ummm, no. You didn't. You did supply a lot of obfuscation to what was a clear question. Are the tribals saved due to ignorance or not? Yes or no?

[metmom]

More than likely everything that was in their mind and heart all along - whether it be man made doctrine - which nullify His Word or expressed lies about God/His Word - will be what comes to them. God judges the heart - I doubt in one's last moments one would suddenly have a SINCERE desire to know Him but more of a cya desire. Fooling oneself through life does not mean one can fool The Almighty - only pride/deception would make that believable.

Which then makes being saved just fire insurance.

And God will not be used that way.

[metmom]

Last time I checked, Calvinists are Christians.

You show an abysmal ignorance of what it means to be a Christian.

Since you are starting from a flawed premise, it's no wonder you can't make any sense of the mess you post on FR about religion.

[James C. Bennett]

I take your second reply as an implicit admission of the fact that you inadequately answered the question, earlier. However, you're still obfuscating instead of providing a clear answer:

"What exactly is the purpose of your grilling people about the salvation of *tribals*? How is that relevant to you? Do you not trust God to judge them justly? How is His dealing with them going to affect you anyway?

You are not a *tribal* who has never heard the gospel. You have heard it plainly and clearly many times over the years here on FR. What you are responsible for is what you do with the knowledge which has been granted you and with the amount of knowledge you have available, you have the greater accountability."

See, I have clarified this earlier, repeatedly. All I need to do to prove your entire dogma as false is to provide a counter-example. This is how assumed theories are proven wrong. I am not speaking about myself here, but about an exception that fails the salvation test of your adopted dogma whilst being innocent.

Had you answered with a "yes" to the question whether the tribals are saved due to ignorance, then your entire scriptures, its dogma and its contents are not a pre-condition to salvation. Had you answered with a "no" then it makes your dogma inadequate to address the salvation modes necessary to make it applicable for all modes of human existence.

You are aware of this serious, serious problem, and hence, the obfuscation.

Saved or not?

[James C. Bennett]

Hardly. It is valid only because it is an idea affirmed by God, and it has its source in the awareness of the Creator extant within us all.

The oldest forms of the Golden Rule appear in places like China and India, independent of the Middle East.

The Golden Rule works in the animal kingdom, too. Are you admitting that animals are able to think like humans?

Your CHOSEN deity... "Supreme, non-negotiable, and True."

You want this to be true, but there is no good reason provided for it to be true. Your CHOSEN deity is not everyone else's deity.

[metmom]

There have been Scripture passages which have been posted to deal with that already. If you choose to ignore them, there is no point in posting them further.

You are not ignorant. What are YOU going to do about Jesus?

If the tribals salvation is of such concern to you, go tell them about Jesus yourself, so they are no longer ignorant. Or support some missionary agency which works with them. There are several which are worthy of support as they are working to translate Scripture into languages which have none yet.

Wycliffe Bible Translators comes to mind.
http://www.wycliffe.org/

[James C. Bennett]

"I would assert..."

A pretend solution is always a pretend solution - an ASSUMPTION, devoid of factual evidence. If human rights really did get sourced from such an entity, there wouldn't have been any necessity for human rights to evolve so drastically in the past couple of millennia. Only a few years ago it was morally okay to own slaves. Is this how an absolute moral compass works? You surely must be joking.

[Quix]

INDEED.

I think with Scripture . . . also . . .

there is a need to WANT to understand.

[James C. Bennett]

You have a fear in providing a clear YES/NO answer and hence, the continued, sustained obfuscation.

This is not about me, this is about a supposed universal standard failing the universality test. Understand that clearly, and don’t move the goalposts by ignoring this.

[James C. Bennett]

Thanks for the link, but the universality test should not be a victim of time, either. So, I would ask, what about the tribals who have passed on, without hearing your adopted dogma. Are they saved? Yes or no?

[metmom]

Your misunderstanding of salvation is your problem.

Salvation is not by dogma, nor adherence to a set of beliefs. What you are describing is religion, not Christianity.

Christianity is about forgiveness through the person of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins. God’s divine justice, death for sin, was satisfied with the death of Christ on the cross. Since Jesus was sinless, death could not hold Him.

God has decreed that anyone who puts their faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, will be saved, by grace through faith.

Each man is accountable to God for responding to the amount of knowledge that has been given him. God’s justice in the matter will be just as He alone knows the heart.

You can carry on all you want about those who have never heard and whether they are saved of not, but it makes not one bit of difference when YOU are standing before God and He is asking you to account for yourself. Pointing to the tribals and demanding that God answer adequately about them before you answer to Him is not going to cut it.

It is merely a distraction technique that God is not going to be side tracked by. There will be no negotiating with God that if He give you an adequate answer, then you’ll tell Him what he wants to know.

[James C. Bennett]

Are the tribals saved? Yes or no? Simple question, here.

[Wallop the Cat]

Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him. But in the meantime, if you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is to remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more work.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

[xzins]

Forms of the Golden Rule are of no consequence. They probably also had rules for eating roaches in polite company....those were not affirmed by God. This rule, also spoken by Jesus, was affirmed by God. Therefore, it is valid.

It matters not about other gods, James, don’t you know that by now. My point is that a life of faith in the Triune God of historic Christianity is the only path to truth. Therefore, if HE directly or indirectly states various human rights, then those are valid and unchangeable.

Any rights you might assume as yours because of some social convention can be taken away by changing societies or rulers.

[James C. Bennett]

But in the meantime, if you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is to remain outside yourself.

Again, I repeat, we are testing the alleged universality of what is supposed to be a 'universal truth'. To that end, discussing me is immaterial. Why is this so hard to grasp?

I guess the predictable self-pats will follow.

[YHAOS]

"That is a keeper."

Yes it is. Thanks for the ping.

[xzins]

The truth has always been the truth no matter how obstinate or misdirected were human beings who retained existence only by the grace of God.

In the beginning God made humans free, not master and slave. Paul recognizes this by encouraging any slave who can to get his freedom. The spiritual freedom that is ours in Christ has an impact on secular life in that the ideas of freedom point to the ideal plan of God.

[James C. Bennett]

You didn’t address the evolution of moral standards over the millennia, and therefore didn’t really address what I asked earlier. Absolute morality implies that moral codes do not change.

Your ASSUMPTIONS are inconsequential to these arguments. You believe because you CHOSE to do so. Others can do so with equal conviction, about their chosen deities, as you did so, and be equally convinced. You won’t be able to budge them from their position, for the same reasons.