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Thursday, September 04, 2008

Pawns of the devil

john w. loftus said...

If only he [Hays] was a reasonable polite discussion partner!?

That would be easier if Evan were a reasonable discussion partner.

He's not and he never will be.

I can be perfectly polite when I have a reasonable discussion partner.

He views us as pawns of the devil.

True!

He thinks we are purposely misleading others.

True!

We are not honest with the facts.

True!

We distort them because we love sin.

True!

Couldn’t have put it better myself. Loftus is really on a roll here.

Such arrognace and hubris is as unbelieveable to me, as is the Calvinist gospel he preaches.

Oh, well, nothing good lasts forever! (At least not in this life!)

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this characterization is accurate, why does an atheist think that arrogance and hubris are wrong?

And while we’re on the subject of my horrible attitude, let’s compare my attitude with the attitude of Scripture—vis-à-vis unbelievers:

Psalm 5:9

9For there is no truth in their mouth;_ their inmost self is destruction;_their throat is an open grave;_ they flatter with their tongue.

Psalm 10:7

7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;_ under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.

Psalm 14:1

1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.

Psalm 140:3

3They make their tongue sharp as a serpent’s,_ and under their lips is the venom of asps.

Romans 1:18-25

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Ephesians 4:17-19

17Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

John 3:19-20

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

1 John 3:8,10

8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil…10By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

The Bible is so polite!

6 comments:

  1. Steve, we all know you can quote Sripture. Should this necessarily lead us to believe that you "are of God"?

    I'm sure you're familiar with the Westboro clan. They know Scripture backwards, forwards and upside-down. Apparently, they've come to determine that being "loving" and being "of God" entails rejoicing in the sorrow and pain of others. In fact, Scripture gives them the idea that this is the way to behave: consider Psalms 58:10 which promises that the "righteous shall wash their feet in the blood" of unbelievers.

    So are these people "loving" when they thank God for dead Boy Scouts, dead soldiers and dead Amish children? Are they "of God"?

    I'm just wondering how you define such terms.

    (For the record, the Westboro folks are not kooks, and you might do well not to write them off as such. Their know and embrace Calvinist theology in a more pure and honest fashion than any other Christian apologist.)

    http://www.signmovies.net/videos/news/2008/20080901thankgodforgustav.html

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  2. JAMES SAID:

    “Steve, we all know you can quote Sripture. Should this necessarily lead us to believe that you ‘are of God’?”

    That’s exactly what I’d expect a devilish pawn like you to say.

    “I'm sure you're familiar with the Westboro clan.”

    Yes, they’re pawns of the devil.

    “I'm just wondering how you define such terms.”

    The question lies less in the definition than in the application.

    “(For the record, the Westboro folks are not kooks, and you might do well not to write them off as such.”

    Ah, nothing like a good dare.

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    The Westboro folks are kooks!

    [repeat as necessary]

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  3. James writes:

    "For the record, the Westboro folks are not kooks, and you might do well not to write them off as such. Their know and embrace Calvinist theology in a more pure and honest fashion than any other Christian apologist."

    Notice how James feigns ignorance when he wants to claim that scripture is too difficult to understand, that theological controversies are too difficult to sort through, etc., but on other occasions he makes comments like the above, as if he's so knowledgeable of "Calvinist theology" and what's "known and embraced" by "any other Christian apologist".

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  4. The Bible is so polite!

    IMHO, this is an appropriate use of sarcasm.

    But on a serious note, the Bible is NOT politically correct. And Jesus, as He really is in the Gospels is not politically correct either, not now and not back then.

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  5. For the record, the Westboro folks are not kooks...

    Oh, brother. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Have you actually read any of their material? Or seem them in action? If so, I don't see how you could type a statement like that and keep a straight face. They're just up the interstate from where I live, so I know a thing or two about Rev. Fred and his merry band of loons. Now, I'll grant that they are shrewd, well-educated kooks (bunch of lawyers in the extended family), but they're kooks all the same.

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  6. Since we're on the subject of kooks...

    John Loftus is a documented and proven liar (e.g. he has been caught using sock puppets to attack his opponents and/or support himself and then he lied about it several times until his User ID was posted as evidence, at which point he finally confessed). He has demonstrated time and time again to be philosophically incompetent and uninformed precisely in areas of philosophy in which he claims expertise (e.g. an agnostic undergraduate had to spoon-feed him during a debate on the variety of arguments from evil, even though Mr. Loftus claims to have "the equivalent of a Ph.D." in these matters). He regularly censors comments on his DC blog in order to give readers the impression that there aren't any solid objections to his entries. He will however allow the weaker objections to pass through. He is almost totally ignorant on elementary matters of historical theology and philosophy (e.g. he embarrassingly thought that all theistic philosophers in the past believed the universe was small and finite). He claims to have "studied under" Dr. Craig, a phrase commonly used to refer to one's dissertation advisor or academic mentor; the truth is, Mr. Loftus never defended any dissertation (he doesn't actually have a Ph.D) and in reality he took no more than a few courses that Dr. Craig taught to students in general. This is not meant to bash Mr. Loftus, only to point out, in objectivity, how deceitful and incompetent he is.

    He also misleads people by trying to imply that there is widespread and serious attention being placed on his book among Christian philosophers. What really happened was this: Loftus repeatedly petitioned several christians and atheists around the web, and through personal correspondence, to provide blurbs for his book. The two or so christian philosophers that he managed to recruit did NOT actually endorse his book, and did not endorse John as competent in contemporary philosophy of religion or western analytic theology. John's book deserves a response to the extent that responses to it would help theistic laypeople understand how the atheism promulgated by John and his cohorts is intellectually and logically vacuous. John has never actually provided a sound argument for atheism or against theism, neither on his blog nor in his book. His book is another popularistic dose of commercialized athei$m, propped up with superficial rhetoric and ready for mass consumption. Having reviewed it, it will have sway on the gullible, but intellectually it is the weakest piece of atheistic nonargument and dogma since Dawkins's TGD.

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