Try me. :) I consider objective arguments. It's just when they morph into pink unicorns on Jupiter based on faith alone that I begin to disregard such "objective" arguments.
I HAVE tried. :) But the majority of my arguments are based directly on scripture, which I don't think you accept as objective. I presume you want me to use SOLELY non-Christian sources to prove the truth of my Christian arguments.
FK: God specifically ordered certain people to commit massacres at specific times.
Like that psycho who drowned her five children?
No, I don't recall that passage in the Bible. :) If you would put them on the same footing, then you can see where my opinion at the top comes from. If in your view you put Andrea Yates and Joshua in the same boat, then I don't think there is anything I can do to overcome that. It would seem you would declare Joshua as just some psycho who made up a mandate and went on a rampage, UNLESS, there was a credible, extra-Biblical non-believer there to back him up. At least, that's how it appears to me.
Maybe one day you will realize that the world starts with us and that what is true to us is not necessarily the objective truth.
And that is the HEART of Renaissance thinking. The world starts with man. And it was because of this thinking that they were never able to find unity between God and man. There is no way to do it if man is the starting point. Man wasn't around at the start so he cannot possibly know about it from himself. But, that never stopped those philosophers from trying to make it fit anyway. It never will.
Kosta: Doesn't the OT imply that massacres are "just" if they are Theopneumatos (God-breathed)?!?
FK: I don't think it implies it at all...
Oh yeah? I think it makes it very clear that they are "just" because they were God-inspired.
My whole statement was: "I don't think it implies it at all, it says it plainly. :)" So, I was agreeing or going even further than you did. :)
That's not what Jesus taught, however.
Yes, it certainly WAS. Jesus did not teach in the NT that we should go out and massacre at will, but He DID teach that we should always obey Him. The OT massacres (carried out righteously by humans) were always IN OBEDIENCE to God according to the scriptures. Therefore, they were implicitly following Christ's commands. In fact, many believe as I do that many/all of those OT commands were coming from Christ in the first place.
FK: God contacts me every day, but not like that.
Really? Why would that be necessary if there is an "indwelling Spirit" inside of you? Isn't that presence always "on?"
I didn't say anything about anything being necessary. I just think of the HUGE things that God asked of certain (many times unwilling) people throughout the OT and assume that His communication was sufficient enough such that it would "take". God hasn't asked of me anything like leading a nation of millions out of slavery. He hasn't asked me to kill my son or massacre an entire city. The communications I receive from the Holy Spirit just haven't been anything like that............ YET. :)
FK: But the majority of my arguments are based directly on scripture, which I don't think you accept as objective
No I don't, because the only thing that is objective about the Bible is that it is a book. Its spiritual veracity is not objective.
I presume you want me to use SOLELY non-Christian sources to prove the truth of my Christian arguments.
No, I want you to stop saying: "it's true because it's in the Bible." That is not an objective argument.
If in your view you put Andrea Yates and Joshua in the same boat, then I don't think there is anything I can do to overcome that
You mean, in that they murdered because (allegedly) a loving God told them so? Yeah, I do put that on the same level of insanity.
It would seem you would declare Joshua as just some psycho who made up a mandate and went on a rampage
No, Joshua is simply a good Jew who defended Jewish interests in that part of the world and believed that God was telling him to massacre people for the good of Israel. Sounds positively jihadist to me. But it is as far from Christ as it can be.
Kosta: Maybe one day you will realize that the world starts with us and that what is true to us is not necessarily the objective truth.
FK: And that is the HEART of Renaissance thinking
Goodness, without the Renaissance we wouldn't be having this discussion! Let's not forget that the Protestant Reformation was born in the middle of it and that without the renaissance the whole Lutheran movement would have been impossible.
It is because of the Rainaissance that we can all read and write, that we have human rights, that we have representative democracy and printed books.
The world starts with man.
The world as we know it (this planet earth) was given to us according to our faith. Your eyes and ears and your senses detect the world and interpret it. Of course it "starts" from us; where else can we begin to see and hear from? And what we see and hear and feel affects what we think and believe.
And it was because of this thinking that they were never able to find unity between God and man
Mankind never claimed to have all the answers. It admitted in the early 20th century that it can never know the atom as it really is, so there is the profound mystery of the Creation.
Our mind simply cannot comprehend beyond a certain point. Finding unity with God would mean we have resolved the mystery of Creation. All we can say is that something (we call God) caused all this to exist (directly or indirectly), but we have no way of knowing that Cause as it really is, except (we believe) through, and in, Christ's humanity.
There is no way to do it if man is the starting point
No Renaissance man will ever say that mankind created the world.
Man wasn't around at the start so he cannot possibly know about it from himself.
What we know is that all this exists. How some things evolves or resulted is revealed by various methods discovered by mankind, by connecting the dots. It doesn't really explain the ultimate Cause, but only the secondary ones. No one ever claimed to know how it all began.
We can either offer a biblical hypothesis or a scientific one, but they all pretty much come to the same conclusion: ex nihilo, from nothing!
Logic tells us that before there was something, there was nothing (but our logic is not necessarily universal!). Science stops at that point, but we (beievers) don't. We say God "existed" before existence but we have no explanation for it. Our belief is not objective reality.
Kosta: That's not what Jesus taught, however.
FK: Yes, it certainly WAS. Jesus did not teach in the NT that we should go out and massacre at will, but He DID teach that we should always obey Him
In love and not in massacres.
The OT massacres (carried out righteously by humans) were always IN OBEDIENCE to God according to the scriptures
Sounds like something straight out of the Koran.
Therefore, they were implicitly following Christ's commands. In fact, many believe as I do that many/all of those OT commands were coming from Christ in the first place.
Only if you are making Christ into the OT God and not the OT God into Christ. The living, walking Christ never commanded anything like that. In fact, His "pacifist" approach offended so many because they expected an OT warrior-king and not this Man preaching love for your enemies. There is no Christ in "righteous" massacres. There is no love of God in them.
God hasn't asked of me anything like leading a nation of millions out of slavery. He hasn't asked me to kill my son or massacre an entire city. The communications I receive from the Holy Spirit just haven't been anything like that............ YET. :)
Hope your sword is sharp and your slings loaded. For the rest if us from the Apostolic side, we will fervently pray for the everyone's souls and hope that God will remember us in His Kingdom.