AW! Epistles
From Richard L and James MB
Abstract
Saturday, May 19, 2001
The following exchange was expurgated by the administrators of the Bravenet forum to which AW! publications once subscribed. Christians are still trying to hide the truth from their flocks.
Richard L: It’s difficult to know where to start when asked to contribute to the discussions here. [No one here asked him, Mike]
I have debated with non-believing scientists for several years and have gone through most of the usual objections to Christianity. I have always respected peoples views and beliefs and hope that people will respect mine. What I find hard to accept is when people accuse christians of having a hidden agenda, and use this to attack the faith. I observe this in much of what I have read on this site and can only comment that to use this as an attack on the truth or otherwise of christianity shows that the arguer has already lost the arguement and is trying to bring other things into the debate to prop up their weak ideas. We should debate on truth and fact and that alone, this is where it stands or falls. If you go to Israel noone there will deny the existence of Jesus, nor what happened to him, Jews or others. The evidence is there and Jewish scholars will confirm it (they may have different conclusions but that is another matter). Jewish and Roman records also confirm the history and also other non-believing writers who confirmed the miracles, ascribing them to Satan (but not denying them).
In terms of what the writer has written regarding Jesus teaching on the subject, they have clearly misunderstood both standard biblical teaching and also Jewish terminology such as in the “this generation shall not pass away” passage. Anyone can teach that Jesus was saying something different if they want, and then claim that Jesus was not a prophet but this is up to them but it only reveals their ignorance when they are found out that they don’t know that “generation” means “race” as well.
The so-called “tough questions for the christian church” are not tough at all and anyone who has had the merest look into them would quickly find out the answers. That is if they want to hear the answer! I’m sure the writer has had christians tell them what the answers are, they probably just don’t want to hear them. They then imply that such answers don’t exist or that christians don’t want to tackle these questions. To quote an example “Why doesn’t prayer work when the bible promises it will?” is such a ridiculous questions with no thought gone into it at all. Anyone who has spent even a week looking at the bible will know that the it doesn’t teach that prayer will work in all circumstances: hardness of heart, unbelief, unforgiveness, asking for the wrong reasons, wrong motives and other reasons all can have an effect on why prayer will not work for an individual. The bible teaches all these things about prayer and I could list all the passages. To simply say that prayer does not work is like saying no cars work when the one you have has no petrol in it! And people say christians are simplistic! As for prophesies in the Old Testament, firstly most of them are conditional, that means that certainly things will happen only if certain other things happen. If those other things didn’t happen it would explain why certain other predicted things didn’t happen. Israel could have had all the prophecies happen to them but they didn’t because they blew it! Simple as that. “If you do this, I’ll do that, if you don’t then you don’t get it!”. It says that plenty of times.
What about miracles you say. I’ve seen plenty of them, the deaf hearing, the lame walking the dumb talking. Just go somewhere where someone is operating in the gifts of healing and you will see them. Stay where you are and you won’t. Depends if you really want to know though. Miracles are happening all over the world, particularly where the church is growing the fastest such as in China and South America but also now in Islamic countries as well. Many Muslims are being converted these days through miracles of healing.
Other questions you ask are simply assertions with no data to back them up. You say that the prophets were false prophets because you say their prophecies failed (I presume that’s what your saying). I have answered this earlier by saying the prophecies were conditional. The canon is not disputed by the church, it was agreed upon many centuries ago. Perhaps you should read how they agreed on the canon and then it would answer your questions. They did use tests, other things as well as this were voted on after prayer. This was accepted practice, if you don’t like it then that’s up to you. Why not actual books you ask? Is this a real argument against Christianity? I can’t believe you are using these things to knock it. The answer is that Paul and the other were getting on with spreading the word and that the letters were sufficient. You would think that there were other ways of doing it and of course there were but this is what happened. To argue that there were better ways is just your opinion I’m afraid.
God did not lie about the outcome of eating the fruit. They did die on that day you just misunderstand what death is. You are dying today and if you don’t know God you are dead already. Adam and Eve were alive with God and when they sinned they lost that and were dead to the life of God and banned from taking any more from the tree of life. Death is not merely physical death, that is the least of it.
Your criticism of the implied sexism of the bible is ridiculous. You clearly don’t understand the culture of the time. Jesus always treated women with the greatest respect and Paul was writing against a background where the church was facing accusations from outside about their new attitude to women. Again with slavery. You misunderstand what was going on at the time.
You then use “US christians” in your accusations. Don’t bring other peoples opinions into this, just because someone says something doesn’t mean we all do and that is a really devious way to knock something. It would be like me using Hitlers views or Stalins views to knock all atheists.
You then say that faith is believing in something for which there is no evidence. Well you again are putting words into our mouths as a whole. Its seems you are happy to quote one christian or someone who calls themselves a christian and apply what they have said to the rest of us. I don’t accept that definition of faith at all. The bible itself says “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” That word evidence is used. Just because I have faith doesn’t mean I have no evidence for having it. Faith is simply trust, I use faith whenever I sit on a chair as I trust is to hold me. Every time I start my car I trust it will work even though I don’t understand it. Faith in Jesus is the same. I know he lived, and I have evidence of his work in my life.
Your criticism of our views on skepticism is misplaced as well. The bible says “test all things and hold on to the good,” “Test the spirits and see if they are from God.” There is plenty about testing and this must involve thinking. I do welcome debate between christian and non-christians I have done so for many years amongst top UK scientist. A good proportion of scientists are christians these days as well, more so than in recent years. You say that “creation science” does not survive scrutiny. Well if you are determined to not believe it then you wont deliberately have the same conclusions. It’s a simple thing really. If you are going to hang on to evolution despite what science has been finding out about the complexity of cells for example then that’s up to you. The bible is not a scientific book and was never meant to be. It people want to find scientific terms in Genesis and then dispute what they find they of course they will disagree with it. It’s the wrong place to start.
You then go on to what you call “absurd doctrines” well that is just your opinion. Original sin is not that we are being punished for Adams sin. We are all punished for our own sin individually. You have obviously either never read any theology about this or you have simple rejected what you have read. There are perfectly good explanations for these things if you really want to know.
Punishing Jesus for our sins is the heart of the good news.
I could go on an answer some of the other questions you have. There are biblical explanations for all of it yet you make out that the church is silent of irrational about it. Please have some intellectual integrity and give both sides of the story and let people make up their own minds. Please also don’t just assert things with no explanation (you don’t give examples many times) Much of what you say is simply your opinion rather than any intellectual rationale or proper biblical or logical debate. You assert many things and don’t give examples or in other cases quote individuals or movements and assume they speak for all of us. You hardly ever quote the accepted answers to your questions giving the impression that what you have said has never been said before. I quote: Why does the church conceal and ignore and misrepresent legitimate criticisms and critics? You say that the church is trying to hide something by not refuting these things and yet you also talk about “apologetics” so you must acknowledge that this is simply not the case. Of course your not going to teach this in Sunday school, that would be stupid. But its taught in Bible colleges and in many many books.
Mike: Richard L is blatantly ignoring what is on this website. This site has a simple outlook. Christians are liars and obfuscators and Richard L continues proudly in that tradition.
It is tedious to say again here what has already been said on the pages. There are hundreds of pages of argument, though Mr Lloyd prefers to say it is unwarranted assertion. Doubtless readers of this forum will read and make up their own minds who merely asserts. Ultimately, Christianity is faith (trust, if that is Richard L’s preferred word), which means that Christianity falls back on assertions that must be held by the faithful—dogma! To argue otherwise is dishonest, but that is typically Christian. Richard L’s dire contribution carries on in like manner. Despite his attempt to make out these pages are assertion without argument, what he himself asserts is answered on the pages. Just ignore this man’s vain attempt to say otherwise and read them to get the answers he pretends are not there. Just to give an example of the man’s dishonesty and suggest follow ups…
When Richard L speaks of hidden agendas, I imagine he means the fact that Christianity is a scam for extracting mites from widows. Ministers of religion are paid for doing nothing useful. They have no skills and no strengths, so they cannot do anything of practical value in the world. They therefore pretend they have a special knowledge or even a direct line to God and charge simple and undiscerning people for pleading individual cases before God. They are no less than confidence tricksters, yet it is a confidence trick that is permitted by society because Christianity is “our” religion. Richard L will say I am making assertions, but nothing I say equals the incredible assertions that Christians make on no authority at all, other than that of previous Christians.
Richard L pretends, as usual, that Christians debate about truth, when everything they say is based on falsehood. What sort of argument is it to say, without evidence, that people in Israel will not deny the existence of Jesus. Even if it is true, it it not proof that Jesus did exist. Historical facts are not established by majority vote. It is however a popular Christian ploy to pretend it is. It looks impressive to the people they want to gull. More lies…
The evidence is there and Jewish scholars will confirm it (they may have different conclusions but that is another matter). Jewish and Roman records also confirm the history and also other non-believing writers who confirmed the miracles, ascribing them to Satan (but not denying them).
This is simply wrong. It is fully refuted on these pages, and Richard L is doing what dishonest Christians always do, ignoring the evidence and baldly reasserting their own lies.
The word which means generation in Greek when Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done,” also means nation, people or race (whence the word genocide), allowing the cunning and deceitful nodern Christian to pretend that Jesus prophesied that he would return at his parousia only when the Jewish race ended. If that were the only way in which Jesus made this prophesy, there would be room for doubt, but the original Christians were expecting a quick return as Paul the Apostle confirms while he denigrated the Jews, and proof of the correct interpretation is not hard to find because Jesus also said “Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” Jesus was himself expecting God’s final miracle. 2000 years later we are still waiting and Jesus was hung for his mistake.
Christians depend upon their potential converts being ignorant of the bible, as indeed most people are, so that they can give partial explanations like Richard L’s and seem convincing. It is truth to Christians, and to no one else who knows what truth means..
James: I have just read Mr. Lloyd’s message and the response by Mike Magee. I am impressed with both Mr. Lloyd’s and Mr. Magee’s articles and their powers of argument. I am a Catholic Christian, and while I am acutely aware of the atrocities committed throughout history by adherents to the Faith, and still find some of the doctrines of the Church difficult to accept, I am nevertheless drawn to it as if by a powerful hand. I cannot explain why I believe in the great majority of its tenets, yet I do. I firmly believe that faith is a gift from God. Only He give it or take it away. Why He has given it to me and not to others is, for me, a great mystery.
I was not born to Catholicism, but became a convert while a student in Rome, Italy, many years ago. I suppose what drew me to the Faith initially, and still draws me, is the Eucharist—the transformation of the bread and wine on the altar into the true body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, the Son of God. At every mass, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the sins of mankind is renewed. The bread and wine are changed, through a miraculous act of God called “transubstantiation,” into the true Body and Blood of Our Lord. Every Catholic who participates at mass anywhere in the world, believing in this miraculous act, (which, I believe, is by far the greatest mystery in the history of mankind,) is present at the Last Supper and at Calvary during the Crucifixion. This Cup which we share and the Life which It gives is, I believe, the Holy Grail spoken of in all the medieval legends, and the answer to the second Grail question, “Whom does it(the Cup) serve?” is thus answered: “It serves mankind.” The true Grail Quest, as several writers on this subject have said, is for the Life of God that transforms a man into the image and likeness of God: “It is no longer I who live, but Jesus, who lives in me,” as St. Paul said.
Now, why do I believe this? I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to understand it. I do know that my belief has nothing to do with a desire for eternal life, or for even a long life. Instead, it comes from a pure desire to be with God, wherever He is. Where, in turn, did this desire come from? Again, I don’t know. Perhaps this is why unbelievers are never convinced by intellectual arguments. One cannot argue what is beyond comprehension.
Mike: “One cannot argue what is beyond comprehension” indeed, but what is beyond comprehension is why people with the views of James suspend their sanity when they address the truth of the beliefs taught by the Church. They freely regard God as unfair and whimsical in giving some mysterious gift to some but denying it to others. People who thought about it would not want a god like that, and, if they did, would turn to Indra or some such capricious God, not one who is supposed to love us all and want to save us.
James cannot see why he believes most of these tenets except that he is drawn to them by a powerful hand—with a firm grip on his nose presumably. It is quite impossible for any reasonable, or indeed sane person, to accept that God is a god who loves us but wants some to suffer while others are arbitrarily saved. It is equally hard to believe that God, according to Christians, created us with brains but offers us a prospectus that demands that we refuse to use them. Some of us refuse to accept such a prospectus. Perhaps, it is the Devil that gave us brains not God, to tempt us. That means that the Devil is our creator and therefore our god. Do Christians really want to worship the Devil? Many centuries ago, a perfectly sensible and attractive religion called Gnosticism was based on the idea that the Hebrew god was the Devil. The 2000 years of history since then, that James wants to ignore, would confirm the theory to those who are not besotted with inexplicable beliefs.
Regarding the Eucharist, “the transformation of the bread and wine on the altar into the true body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, the Son of God,” many of the thousands of Christian sects no longer literally believe this. It is a belief that depended upon utter ignorance for its propagation. We have no reason to pretend today that we are that ignorant, and mainly it is only certain paid Christians who want us to believe it.
In Angela’s Ashes, the young Irish boy in the 1930s, after having too rich a communion breakfast for his starved belly and anxious at the mysteries he has faced, returns from his first communion and throws up the body of Christ. His grandma, no less a faithful believer than James, urgently sends the quesy lad to the priest to ask him what to do about the body of Christ in their yard. The boy returns to say that it is to be swilled away. “With water or holy water?” the grandma demands to know. The boy has to go again to the priest with his question, and the irritated priest tells the boy just to swill it away with plain water. This is amusing for most of us, but doubtless is an awful mockery of their faith for Catholics. Yet it is their own beliefs that invite it, and pose real problems.
The body of Christ is plainly still a bit of soggy dough, yet it has been imbibed and ought to have been transubstantiated into human flesh. So, two miracles have occurred, transubstantiation on the way down, and antitransubstantiation on the way up. There is a mystical gateway somewhere around the epiglottis where the miracle occurs in both directions, depending upon the motion vector representing the body of Christ. This should be investigated further. Needless to say the priest had no illusions that the sicked-up dough was anything other than dough. Only the indoctrinated flock had to believe it. In short, there is no mystery about the Catholic mass, but like anything else, if you willfully insist on a mystery, then a mystery it is.
The motivation of James in believing all this is that he will live with god, wherever he is. It is a reward that he will never be able to complain about when it does not happen. That is why Christianity is such a perfect scam. When I buy a pig in a poke, eventually I discover I have been tricked and have the option of seeking retribution. The tricked Christian believer is in no position to do that. They are just dead.
