Matthew 5:21-22 (NIV):
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother o...
Not one of those comments represents a Christian view or attitude. Of any of them were made by professing Christians they were speaking out of their sinful flesh rather than regenerate hearts and they need to repent and stop it! Your understanding of the verse is correct but the example bogusly makes a non-representative sample as representative.
Everybody saying the same thing doesn't make them right. They can (and in this case are) all wrong. It also doesn't make them representative or a set since they are fundamentally at odds with it, it is probably an indication that they are not a part of the set in question.
And I'm saying you have the wrong definition of Christian. This site's 'definition' is a secular meta-definition that is utterly useless for anything other than scoping a QnA site. I could claim to be a bird until I'm blue in the face but as long as I have gills rather than wings it's pretty clear that I'm actually a fish. You've just netted a whole school of fish there, I don't see any feathers.
No it's not. That's the definition that gets you labeled as Christian in todays culture and makes your questions on topic at StackExchange. That doesn't make the things you do or say actually Christian. In order for the things you do and say to be Christian they must stem from the new heart and new mind that born-again believers are given by Christ. Those quotes show no evidence of such.
@Atheist Actually, Scripture does. It says we are to judge people by their fruits. The kinds of things people say and do is the fruit of what kind of tree they are.
@Atheist That the bible is full of contradictions is a false premise to your argument. What's actually true is that men are desperately wicked and prone to every form of corruption.
@Atheist Many of them do, but actually not all of them.
@Atheist Yes. Mine and a lot of others :)
@Atheist Every Christian must come to a conclusion about what it means for them to be Christian. Anybody who doesn't probably should be culled from the list right off the bat. After that you are ALWAYS going to have to judge based on some theological framework and criteria. As you say there are groups coming to different conclusions, but that doesn't mean they are all wrong. It means you're going to have to figure out why there are differences and judge between them.
@Atheist not at all. There are plenty of different interpretations of any literary work. Some of them better than others, some of them valid and some of them invalid.
@Atheist partly so that we would worship him instead of the book. Look at the reason Jesus didn't baptize, and Paul also didn't baptize. So that our attention would directed at God not at a book or a person.
God actually does sort of beam stuff directly to us. The bible is a tangible thing however his spirit does in fact work actively in the world. He didn't just give us the bible and stop. He sent his spirit who acts on our hearts and draws us to him.
@Atheist lol you realize this is an incredibly poor analogue? All powerful infinite God vs your girlfriend. If you saw God right now you'd be struck dead (so would all of us). I'm pretty sure you can look at your girlfriend without dieing...
@waxeagle I made exactly that point somewhere in an answer.
Anything other than exactly what God did through the inspiration of Scripture would either be analogous to flashing a ROM or, on in the other direction, abandoning us to our own guesses and wims.
@BeatMe My interpretation is limited by my own sinful and creature natures, but that doesn't make it guesswork. The Holy Spirit is also some assistance in this area.
@Atheist ok time for some theology. Aer you familiar with the terms general and special revelation?
@Atheist ok, special revelation is when God spoke to the prophets, when he inspired scripture and when he revealed himself indirectly to moses et al (burning bush, mt sainai etc). General revelation is him revealing himself through creation.
God doesn't hide himself, he is right there in creation.
@Atheist lol, if only it were so simple
@Atheist yes he could
@Atheist simple belief that God exists is not enough for salvation.
@Atheist I believe he gives people ENOUGH to convince them but not enough to FORCE them or leave them no choice. How would him using his knowledge of you and power to manipulate you into believing what he wants you to believe NOT be the same as programming you a certain way?
@Atheist That's why omnipotent is defined as he can do anything that is not against his nature.
@Atheist Actually according to you just a second ago, anything ELSE is contradictory and nonsense. And I agree.
@Atheist You keep using your presuppositions about the natures of any would-be God and people as proof of your argument. Do you realize where those presuppositions differ?
I mean you are using premises that are themselves neither proven nor agreed on between us (and a couple times even conclusions drawn from those premises) as proof that the conclusion of my argument is bogus. Until we can stop doing that we're not going to get anywhere.
@Atheist Yes, but I think we established that we likely mean something different by even those terms.
@Atheist I just got around to watching this. I'm not sure I'm glad I did. Some parts are hysterically comic, others needlessly crude. However it does at least do Christianity the dignity of focusing on a real question. The problem of how a perfectly good God can forgive ANYTHING is, I believe, one of the hardest and most important questions that could ever be asked. That caricature almost (but not fully) catches the point of God being REQUIRED by nature to dole out judgement.
In order to ask this, let me set a stage. This is just a scenario that will be recast in a second.
As Christians we believe that God is good. We trumpet his justice, rightness, holiness, and so on and so forth. We say that he is the true standard of what goodness and justice are. When we make ju...
@Atheist This one on the other hand is utterly pointless. It starts out with a false premise, reading 400 year old King James English out of context using the modern connotation of a word that meant something quite different without bothering to check other translations. As a result a meaningless argument, and it doesn't get better with any of the other points.
@waxeagle Exactly ... I'm amazed nobody had included that detail in answers yet. The question got so much critique it turned into a CW through too many edits, but nobody has even mentioned that key detail in an answer.
@Atheist The "that's how you know" was based entirely on false premises, ever single one of his citations was out of context, straw man, or otherwise bogus. Right after that comment he goes on to make the same mistake you made that led to this chat room being opened in the first place, blaming the actions of some people claiming to be Christians on Christianity (largest military, captitalism, etc are not caused by Christianity).
@Atheist That was the only true statement in the entire clip and just the one that I was trying to convince YOU of in post comments. What people say and do does more to prove what they are than what they might CLAIM to be. Someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn't talk or act like one probably ISN'T ... exactly because that statement is true.
@Atheist Unregenerate, depraved hypocrites. Yes. But there is another detail that needs to be thrown about now ... and that is that as humans we CANNOT follow either the law or Christs (arguably harder) teachings.
@Atheist The clip entirely did away with the concept of sin and said "if you are offended by anything you see" ... that's not at all the same as "if it causes you to sin". The latter is meant as a literary aide to understanding but it wouldn't matter if you did take it litterally because your eye ball itself isn't the thing that causes you to sin. But if it was, having one eye and being free from sin wouldn't be such a bad thing.
@Atheist It can't, that's the whole point and a great textual clue that you're reading hyperbole. Your will causes you to sin and you USE your eyeball as a tool, not the other way around.
@Atheist The difference you are arguing for seems pedantic to me. You don't blame the gun for the crime it's owner commits by shooting it but you WOULD blame the finger as causing the owner to sin by pulling the trigger?
@Atheist sorry as a programmer we say things like "he isn't a programmer" about people who program
being a programmer, like being a Christian is about a mindset and a practice, not just a term
@Atheist are you a programmer?
@Atheist have you ever encountered someone (often self taught) that more than anything wanted to be programmer, but just didn't have the mindset for it, couldn't actually do it and just wasted everyone's time?
these people often claim to be programmers, and by certain definitions actually are programmers, but when it comes down to it, they don't think like programmers, they don't code like programmers, they aren't really programmers
@Atheist but are they really programmers though? There is something more to "being" a programmer than just saying you are one right?
@Atheist sure, cognitive processes the ability to code a coherent simple program etc. sure.
@Atheist you don't its just a useful distinction to distinguish between people who call themselves Christians and those that actually are. Its less quantafiable, but its more of like the duck problem most of the time
@Atheist looks like a duck, acts like a duck must be a duck
if someone acts like a Christian they should be acknowledged as one because its not quantifiable, but if they claim to be one and don't act like one then they probably aren't.
@Atheist I'll give you that. That's a huge reason why the def of Christian is so broad here.
@Atheist Provided that they live and act as a Christian then yes they must. (Also rarely if ever is one in a position to judge a person's salvific state)
Christianity makes the assertion that all of humanity "sinned" when Adam sinned, or "through Adam".
By what mechanism can Adam be considered my representative? I never voted for him nor was offered a choice to participate in his blood line. How is it logical that the choices he made should be he...
aren't you responsible for your own actions? God isn't a puppetmaster, you a free to act. And therefore you are responsible for your own actions. Sure sinner since birth, but its not a passive thing, you are part of that too
yes there is imputation of sin, but that has a far less dramatic effect than the sins that we commit ourselves all the time.
@Atheist No, that's not the conclusion of those statements. The conclusion would be this:
Nobody can be a Christian on their own volition. It's something only God himself can make.
That's what Christ is all about, making it possible for God to forgive and making a way for people who CANNOT of their own will or action become saved to be given salvation.
@Atheist Yup. And that I didn't deserve it any more than any "other person" because I was a perverted murderer just like your Revelation passage lists.
@Atheist It would only be presumptuous if it had been I doing the choice. In that sense non-predestination theology is incredibly presumptuous to think that mere mortals could make a choice that makes them better/more deserving than some other set of unsaved.
@Atheist Because he said he didn't, and it's pretty obvious looking around that he hasn't regenerated them into creatures that even desire much less reflect the state of being saved.
@Atheist yes.
@Atheist No, and I cannot pronouce for sure the state of their souls. I suggested in an early comment that they might be speaking out of their flesh in sin rather than the regenerate nature of one saved, but that would be something that God would eventually bring them to repentence on. It's a strong indication that they have a problem, either not being saved or still loosing a battle with sin. Nothing in those comments shows any evidence of being regenerate and every indication of non-Christian.
If speaking to them it would be a warning that what shows in their life is NOT the fruit we're told to look for in Christian lives.
And any-way you cut the cake it can't be taken as a representative of Christian teachings even if some set of Christianity-professing culture acts that way.
Discussion between Atheist and Caleb
Discussion between Atheist and Caleb