African Children Denounced As "Witches" By Christian Pastors

[Blake]

The language of Luke Chapter 7 CANNOT in any sane way be taken as an approval of slavery - it merely states a fact: Romans had servants and slaves. The Roman government allowed it and it was legal. The whole point of the narrative was to reveal the Centurion's faith and the love he had for his servants. Only someone as dense and skeptical as you all would view this as an endorsement of slavery because JESUS didn't explicitly confront the Roman authorities about it. JESUS accepted dinner invitations from all manner of "sinners", from tax collectors, talked with lepers and pros utes. The people of His time actually thought He condoned their immoral practices. At every turn and corner, however, His emphasis was geared towards the repentance of the heart of most of the people He met. The fact is, JESUS never owned any slaves, and He certainly did not back out from the opportunity of healing one... It's highly disingenuous to then suggests He condones slavery. Again, the passage from Luke tells us how JESUS praised the faith of this Gentile because, among his many virtues he took good care of his slaves. He was not there to sermon social justice the way we do in our society today, He was there to sermon a spiritual awakening.

Earlier folks like Fuzzy tried to suggest that JESUS' actions at the temple when He drove out the thieves with a cord whip were punishable, and YET no one brought this up at His trial? "None could accuse Him of anything..."

Right. ...keep ignoring the giant Exodus in the room.

[DarrinS]

No one wins these "debates", tbh


I don't know why you waste your time.

[DarrinS]

No one wins these "debates", tbh


I don't know why you waste your time.

[Blake]

No one wins these "debates", tbh


I don't know why you waste your time.

Its entertaining tbh but really, nobody cares about your opinion either. Not sure why you're wasting your time.

[Phenomanul]

Right. ...keep ignoring the giant Exodus in the room.

The part that belongs in the Old Covenant ---> which you keep wanting to dismiss...? But thanks for acknowledging that JESUS does not specifically endorse slavery as Random Guy disingenuously asserted.

My beliefs are rooted in the New Covenant, based on the teachings of, and sealed by the atonement of one JESUS Christ --> Hence, Christianity is my emblem, JESUS Himself the banner.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

A LOL was required.

BECAUSE YOU literally referenced phenomena that occurs within the framework of the established laws of the physical universe and then suggested that they apply to a period or an instant (take your pick) where those laws couldn’t be applied.

In fact, allow me to laugh again at the ridiculous nature of your assertion (“it works in atomics and telecom…”). The big-bang singularity being defined as having infinite density suggests that if the energy of the universe is finite (inclusive of all of the mass) THEN the volumetric parameter, i.e. space, is zero. If it is zero, and density is infinite THEN mathematically NOTHING is there.

Hence prior to t=0, nothing existed.

Shortly after t=0 everything existing.

It helps to illustrate (for the nay sayers in this board). The traditional big bang can be graphically illustrated with a cone, which comes to the singularity at the sharp edge where time moves forward towards the open end…

Yes, there are alternative theories which mathematically avoid this ratio… The alternative theories can be graphically illustrated with a badminton birdie, which avoids the sharp edge – if you were to start at the mouth of the cone and go backwards in time you would not come back to a beginning point, you would simply follow the curve and suddenly you would find yourself heading forward in time again...

The problem with these alternative theories however is that they are EVEN LESS provable with the Scientific Method (mathematically, an eternal timeline for our universe IS absurd due to the “Impossibility of Traversing the Infinite” paradox).



Believing such theories only to avoid the implications of a creatio ex-nihilo paradox only suggests that folks that believe such alternate theories feel compelled to believe in something else to ensure that the answer is never “GOD”. WHEN they do that, they are doing so on grounds of faith, BECAUSE their theories are completely umprovable.

You all called me condescending for attributing intent to you all or even the scientists pursuing these alternate theories but even Hawking addresses the matter by saying, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?” (from a book in my collection, “A Brief History in Time”)… In other words, even Hawking knows what the implications are - his equations are just more palatable to him the way he’s chosen to define them.

Folks here continually scoff with indignity at the mere suggestion that you all couldn't possibly claim any more proof about the cause of 'big bang' singularity as anything I or anyone else can provide. While it’s true that I attribute the creation of the universe to the GOD of the Bible, and I believe so on grounds of faith – I take confidence in the fact that the creation narrative jives with the description of the big-bang singularity. That the universe was birthed into existence by the power of GOD’s WORD. That physical time had a discrete beginning. That the probability that all of the physical constants which govern our universe would have the value they currently have being for all practical purposes zero points toward Creation (even if such scant probabilities alone don’t prove it).

Random Guy and Blake finally arrived to the point of semi-admission that their disbelief in a Creator (not necessarily the GOD of the Bible) is not belief that can be supported scientifically. They said, "Science doesn't know." Which is fine by me.

They won't admit, however, that Science cannot answer the origins of the cosmos riddle because t=0 is neither observable, repeatable, and offers only limited measurability (for the nth time - the Scientific Method cannot be applied because it is wholly ill-equipped to tackle the origins question).

You however are pressing further.



Empirical basis indeed…! You couldn’t even understand the meaning of the phrase "infinitesimally smaller THAN…" AND went on a derisive diatribe about your alleged unhinging of my position. THEN you suggested the use of imaginary numbers, negative numbers, Euler topology (kicking and screaming, I would add). I’ve already explained the problem with the use of negative numbers. AND here is my problem with a basis that proposes the use of imaginary numbers... In Hawking’s model or any variant quantum loop model, imaginary numbers have the effect of turning time into a dimension of space… The issue is that when imaginary numbers are employed, they’re just ‘computational devices’ used to grease the equations and get the result the mathematician wants... That’s fine, but when you want to get a real, physical result, you have to convert the imaginary numbers into real ones. Hawking simply refuses to convert them. He just keeps everything in the imaginary realm. When you convert the numbers into real ones, HOWEVER… Voila..! The singularity reappears… In fact, the singularity is really there the whole time - it’s just hidden behind the device of so-called ‘imaginary time’. Hawking even concedes this in a another book from my collection that he co-authored with Roger Penrose. He said he doesn’t pretend to be describing reality, because he says he doesn’t know what reality is… So Hawking himself recognizes that this is not a realistic description of the universe or its origin… it’s merely a mathematical way of modeling the beginning of the universe in such a manner that the singularity doesn’t appear…

I’ve said this on many occasions; the situation is reversed from say, a hundred years ago… Back then, Christians had to maintain by faith in the Bible that despite all appearances to the contrary, the universe was not eternal but was created out of nothing a finite time ago. Now, the situation is exactly the opposite… IT is the atheist who has to maintain, by faith, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, that the universe did not have a beginning a finite time ago but is in some inexplicable way eternal after all.

My professor, Dr. Alan Guth (one of the most staunch proponents for naturalistic cosmological origins – yet far more civil than anyone on this board) used to say, that our universe was essentially a “free lunch”. HE knew the implications too, which is why he tried to suggest - “it just happened”.



What?? You think this is grade school...?

Your program was waving your hands and insisting that there was no time less than zero. Nevermind that there is no unified field theory that works to make such a claim authoritatively. That the current models are insufficient si no excuse for your God of the gaps.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

No one wins these "debates", tbh


I don't know why you waste your time.

Seeing your position on the climate debate, your hypocrisy does know no bounds.

No one finds you credible anyway.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

lol

Pilate, a Roman non-christian prefect, ignored Roman property law?

We've already gone over thanks to dip that Pilates records were almost certainly changed. Accounts older than the e enial mention heresy and blashphemy that aren't in what the catholics have now. REmember the context of 4th-7th century book burnings on the regular.

The famous stuff are the circular motion works of Hero and Archimedes but it obviously wasn't limited to only that. What couldn't be hidden could always be rewritten.

[Blake]

The part that belongs in the Old Covenant ---> which you keep wanting to dismiss...? But thanks for acknowledging that JESUS does not specifically endorse slavery as Random Guy disingenuously asserted.

My beliefs are rooted in the New Covenant, based on the teachings of, and sealed by the atonement of one JESUS Christ --> Hence, Christianity is my emblem, JESUS Himself the banner.

No, it's the Old Testament that you are wanting to ignore and dismiss.

Jesus' daddeh is the god of the OT. The god that ordained the laws of slavery in Exodus 21.

There's no way around it. You're trying to give God a pass for his OT evil.

[Phenomanul]

I see you keep pressing some more... is it that uncomfortable to get yourself to state that your disbelief in GOD is not scientifically supported...?

Your program was waving your hands and insisting that there was no time less than zero.

And your program was waving your hands and insisting that somehow your observations from telecom somehow applied to the big-bang singularity.

Oh AND THEN claiming I had somehow lost the argument...

You can claim that there is still no "official" Grand Unified Theory of Everything, but that doesn't justify ANYONE's staunch disbelief. ALL of the working models we currently have today (with real solutions) and the bulk of the empirical data from observing the cosmos suggests that the universe had a finite beginning. IF our universe had a finite beginning, THEN a t=0 premise is mathematically defensible... There is no other way around it. IF t was allowed to be negative you would have needed to "traverse the infinite" to get to zero, which is impossible. And as I stated before, mathematical models that claim to validate an eternal cyclical nature are not based on reality because they inherently work with the use of 'imaginary time'. Again, even Hawking, Penrose and my professors have verbally acknowledged what the implications of a finite beginning are...

Nevermind that there is no unified field theory that works to make such a claim authoritatively.

That's the whole conundrum with the singularity! The equations don't work there (they blow up). But mostly they reveal that in our very real realm the singularity was present and cannot be avoided.

That the current models are insufficient si no excuse for your God of the gaps.

One of the other reasons why I wanted to graphically illustrate the big-bang expansion is because that is how I would envision GOD's command of "Let there be light!" to proceed if someone had 'spoken light into being'. It would 'progress' in the direction away from the origin of the command. Which is exactly what it looks like. And why is the usage of the term "light" in said command significant? Light has come to represent energy, and from energy all matter can condense... HENCE with that one statement GOD successfully created "everything" - which is consistent with our understanding of physics today.

Creation points to theism. For me it simply does, the more I've learned over the past two decades of academic accreditation and the work field the more it has all pointed back at the Creator - that is my truth. You have chosen not to see this for whatever reasons are near and dear to your heart - so that is your truth. AND YOU ARE VERY MUCH EN LED to believe so.

My beef with you, and other atheist/agnostics like you however, is that somehow you view your position as being superior and have chosen to brand me as intellectually inferior simply because I don't agree with you.

BUT your position is scientifically no more valid than mine - and certainly not as iron-clad as you all think it is... You can't even come to grips with that.

ME PERSONALLY, I don't care that you don't believe my position - but your disagreement with my tenets can't be used to suggest that it cannot be truth for me.

You all keep throwing the "God of the gaps fallacy" in my face as if somehow that is the governing dynamic that has brought me to my knees in belief of JESUS as the LORD and Savior of my life. It's pure arrogance to suggest that any of you could claim that said fallacy is why I follow Him and serve Him - why I worship Him... This whole exercise just proves that your disbelief is not based on the rock hard, solid foundation you all claimed to have. The worst part is you can't even get yourselves to say it.

The best you can say is "I see no reason to believe your GOD".

Which is wholly different from:

"I don't believe in GOD because it is established fact the universe did not need to be created, and because life did not need to be created..."

Which many of you are guilty of uttering in a myriad of variations - over and over and over again.

[Phenomanul]

No, it's the Old Testament that you are wanting to ignore and dismiss.

Jesus' daddeh is the god of the OT. The god that ordained the laws of slavery in Exodus 21.

There's no way around it. You're trying to give God a pass for his OT evil.

OR rather that you don't understand that until we were covered with JESUS' atoning justice all we deserved prior to that was punishment for our sin. IN other words, death.

The explanations are in the very Scriptures you reject - so how can I satisfactorily answer your alleged inconsistency...? THERE is NO WAY AROUND THAT.

[Blake]

OR rather that you don't understand that until we were covered with JESUS' atoning justice all we deserved prior to that was punishment for our sin. IN other words, death.

The explanations are in the very Scriptures you reject - so how can I satisfactorily answer your alleged inconsistency...? THERE is NO WAY AROUND THAT.

No, there's no explanation in the bible for the justification of owning, selling and beating up on another human being.

God endorsed it. Jesus is God. Therefore Jesus endorsed slavery. Why is this so hard for you?

[Blake]

I see you keep pressing some more... is it that uncomfortable to get yourself to state that your disbelief in GOD is not scientifically supported...?

is your belief in bible god scientifically supported?

Simple yes or no will do.

[Phenomanul]

is your belief in bible god scientifically supported?

Simple yes or no will do.

BUT your position is scientifically no more valid than mine - and certainly not as iron-clad as you all think it is...

[Phenomanul]

No, there's no explanation in the bible for the justification of owning, selling and beating up on another human being.

God endorsed it. Jesus is God. Therefore Jesus endorsed slavery. Why is this so hard for you?

GOD allowing something is not the same as GOD endorsing something.

GOD allowed man to follow the desires of his heart.

Man has free-will.

Ultimately, that is why man does evil things --> the will of his choices to "follow all manner of wickedness"...

[Phenomanul]

See you peeps on Monday.

(pour it on...)

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I see you keep pressing some more... is it that uncomfortable to get yourself to state that your disbelief in GOD is not scientifically supported...?



And your program was waving your hands and insisting that somehow your observations from telecom somehow applied to the big-bang singularity.

Oh AND THEN claiming I had somehow lost the argument...

You can claim that there is still no "official" Grand Unified Theory of Everything, but that doesn't justify ANYONE's staunch disbelief. ALL of the working models we currently have today (with real solutions) and the bulk of the empirical data from observing the cosmos suggests that the universe had a finite beginning. IF our universe had a finite beginning, THEN a t=0 premise is mathematically defensible... There is no other way around it. IF t was allowed to be negative you would have needed to "traverse the infinite" to get to zero, which is impossible. And as I stated before, mathematical models that claim to validate an eternal cyclical nature are not based on reality because they inherently work with the use of 'imaginary time'. Again, even Hawking, Penrose and my professors have verbally acknowledged what the implications of a finite beginning are...



That's the whole conundrum with the singularity! The equations don't work there (they blow up). But mostly they reveal that in our very real realm the singularity was present and cannot be avoided.



One of the other reasons why I wanted to graphically illustrate the big-bang expansion is because that is how I would envision GOD's command of "Let there be light!" to proceed if someone had 'spoken light into being'. It would 'progress' in the direction away from the origin of the command. Which is exactly what it looks like. And why is the usage of the term "light" in said command significant? Light has come to represent energy, and from energy all matter can condense... HENCE with that one statement GOD successfully created "everything" - which is consistent with our understanding of physics today.

Creation points to theism. For me it simply does, the more I've learned over the past two decades of academic accreditation and the work field the more it has all pointed back at the Creator - that is my truth. You have chosen not to see this for whatever reasons are near and dear to your heart - so that is your truth. AND YOU ARE VERY MUCH EN LED to believe so.

My beef with you, and other atheist/agnostics like you however, is that somehow you view your position as being superior and have chosen to brand me as intellectually inferior simply because I don't agree with you.

BUT your position is scientifically no more valid than mine - and certainly not as iron-clad as you all think it is... You can't even come to grips with that.

ME PERSONALLY, I don't care that you don't believe my position - but your disagreement with my tenets can't be used to suggest that it cannot be truth for me.

You all keep throwing the "God of the gaps fallacy" in my face as if somehow that is the governing dynamic that has brought me to my knees in belief of JESUS as the LORD and Savior of my life. It's pure arrogance to suggest that any of you could claim that said fallacy is why I follow Him and serve Him - why I worship Him... This whole exercise just proves that your disbelief is not based on the rock hard, solid foundation you all claimed to have. The worst part is you can't even get yourselves to say it.

The best you can say is "I see no reason to believe your GOD".

Which is wholly different from:

"I don't believe in GOD because it is established fact the universe did not need to be created, and because life did not need to be created..."

Which many of you are guilty of uttering in a myriad of variations - over and over and over again.

Nice wall of text that no one including myself is going to read.

Not all math is real. It's the entire point of initial premise. My point about telecom was to show that the complex plane is real and thus my topology of zero not being an endpoint. That is my premise demonstrated in reality. Now let's compare how you talk about t = 0.

Hence prior to t=0, nothing existed.

Shortly after t=0 everything existing.

How do you account for quantum behavior at t= 0? That is my point about there not being a unified field theory. You talk about it in declarations as if you know what happened.

You don't except to say 'it has to be God.' You ignorance does not make a case. It doesn't even have to be your God even if the rest of your argument is correct.

There is no reason to believe your Bible in anything you've said.

[Blake]

no

Saying bible god created the universe has absolutely no scientific merit. Saying "I don't know" is perfectly reasonable in science

[Blake]

GOD allowing something is not the same as GOD endorsing something.

GOD allowed man to follow the desires of his heart.

Man has free-will.

Ultimately, that is why man does evil things --> the will of his choices to "follow all manner of wickedness"...

God endorsed slavery by not only allowing it but giving rules on how to use it.

If he saw it to be evil, which he should have because we do, then he should have specifically not allowed it. That's all there is to it.

[Blake]

See you peeps on Monday.

(pour it on...)

The the temperature dropped pretty low today in San Antonio. There must be some demons leaving

[mingus]

Psalm 22 was written by King David. Several centuries before JESUS' timeline (or about 1,000 years prior). With the oldest known copies of it found in Dead Sea Scrolls that pre-date Jesus' timeline as well by over a century.

As for the "piercing" translation, I'm not a Hebrew scholar:

http://www.hadavar.org/critical-issu...xt/psalm-2216/





Like I said, it can't be used as proof for anyone other than myself. But I was there, I definitely know what I saw, heard and felt.

That's one psalm that meets the criteria of being prophetic that I laid out before, and that's only if I'm to believe your interpretation of it, which is by no means THE ONLY, or necessarily the MOST CREDIBLE one. Unless of course you toss out the Hebrew interpretation of it, which you've already done way back in this thread.

The thing that pisses me off, and why I called you arragont, is that many times you've said something to the effect of "well it's your choice to not believe, there are repercussions", as if your in God's head. You're not giving the divine authority to be the judge of anyone in the afterlife.

[Phenomanul]

That's one psalm that meets the criteria of being prophetic that I laid out before, and that's only if I'm to believe your interpretation of it, which is by no means THE ONLY, or necessarily the MOST CREDIBLE one. Unless of course you toss out the Hebrew interpretation of it, which you've already done way back in this thread.

The thing that pisses me off, and why I called you arragont, is that many times you've said something to the effect of "well it's your choice to not believe, there are repercussions", as if your in God's head. You're not giving the divine authority to be the judge of anyone in the afterlife.

Wait what....?

I've specifically said, I believe that scripture supports the doctrine that NO ONE is blameless. Everyone has sinned, i.e. I gain nothing by comparing myself to anyone else. According to the 'law' - no one is good enough.

I've said this repeatedly. So frankly, I don't know how you can substantiate your claim that somehow I've cast condemnation over anyone here.

[Blake]

Wait what....?

I've specifically said, I believe that scripture supports the doctrine that NO ONE is blameless. Everyone has sinned, i.e. I gain nothing by comparing myself to anyone else. According to the 'law' - no one is good enough.

Even bible God has sinned.

[RandomGuy]

Random Guy and Blake finally arrived to the point of semi-admission that their disbelief in a Creator (not necessarily the GOD of the Bible) is not belief that can be supported scientifically. They said, "Science doesn't know." Which is fine by me.

your position is scientifically no more valid than mine - and certainly not as iron-clad as you all think it is... You can't even come to grips with that.

Um, not quite.

First there is a distinction between "a god", and your "God".

One doesn't need science to be sure that your "God" is provably false, given the logical contradictions. "omnipotence" and "omniscience" are logically impossible characteristics. The concept of "omnibenevolent" is directly contradicted by "jealous and angry". It is a bit like claiming that God has the properties of being a four-sided triangle.

The default position for ANY hypothesis is "not true" until there is evidence to prove "true". Lack of belief in something is therefore not anything that can, or has to be, supported scientifically.

The amount of proof required to accept something is generally commensurate with the claim. Your burden of proof is pretty big.

You have to sort out the logical contradictions, then go about watering down the obviously false bits about six day creations, mythical adam & eve/lilith, global floods, etc. into "that is just a parable", without really a guide as to what is "parable" and what is supposed to be actual real events, until you are left with a mushy, inconsistent mess, open to tens of thousand of interpretations, which is what we have today in all the various denominations.

If one had asked the earliest Christians about whether Adam and Eve were literally true, talking snakes were real, global floods were real, they would answer rather unequivocally "yes". The sun goes around the earth.

All of this offers a lot of testable claims that each failed. With each failure, "true" retreated into "parable".

Lack of belief in something is not something that has to be "scientifically" justified. It is the very definition of science.

The two positions are NOT equal. One has a burden of proof, "bible God" exists, and the other, withholding acceptance of the theory, doesn't.

All you are left with is an argument from ignorance. "you don't know what happened before X, so therefore bible GOD."

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

God of the gaps (or a divine fallacy) is logical fallacy that occurs when Goddidit (or a variant) is invoked to explain some natural phenomena that science cannot (at the time of the argument). "God of the gaps" is a bad argument not only on logical grounds, but on empirical grounds: there is a long history of "gaps" being filled and the gap for God thus getting smaller and smaller, suggesting "we don't know yet" as an alternative that works better in practice; naturalistic explanations for still-mysterious phenomena are always possible, especially in the future where more information may be uncovered.[1]

[RandomGuy]

You all keep throwing the "God of the gaps fallacy" in my face as if somehow that is the governing dynamic that has brought me to my knees in belief of JESUS as the LORD and Savior of my life. It's pure arrogance to suggest that any of you could claim that said fallacy is why I follow Him and serve Him - why I worship Him... This whole exercise just proves that your disbelief is not based on the rock hard, solid foundation you all claimed to have. The worst part is you can't even get yourselves to say it.

The best you can say is "I see no reason to believe your GOD".

Which is wholly different from:

"I don't believe in GOD because it is established fact the universe did not need to be created, and because life did not need to be created..."

Which many of you are guilty of uttering in a myriad of variations - over and over and over again.

Again, not quite.

You fall on your knees because you accept it is true.

"Bible God is true" has to be accepted before worship, given that people generally don't worship things they hold to be non-existent.

To get THERE, you have to go through "A God exists AND the bible is true"
"
Your ultimate problem is that "bible" can be replaced by just about any other myth in that sentence. "A God exists AND the [insert holy book here] is true"

Your un-testable claim falls in with every other un-testable claim in terms of validity, leaving me with little reason to accept "bible" explanations" over anything else.