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"Christians can't use circular reasoning by trying to prove the Bible by quoting from the Bible!" The "circular reasoning" argument is absurd. That's like saying you can't prove that the President lives in the White House by looking into the White House. It is looking into the White House that will provide the necessary proof. The fulfilled prophecies, the amazing consistency, and the many scientific statements of the Bible prove it to be the Word of God. They provide evidence that it is supernatural in origin. (from 100 Common Questions and Objections at www.wayofthemaster.com) "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power" (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Seems consistent in many ungodly youth today. Prophecy fulfilled. I would like to note one error I conveyed to you in a previous e-mail concerning Nietzsche: his library, as far as I know, is not used for printing Bibles. I am sorry for the error. I usually check my research but I didn't in this instance. The truth I was pointing out, however, remains the same: namely, the Bible endures, as God said it would, while other men fade into obscurity. Seeking truth is what led me to Scripture. If the world was right, and the Bible was mythology, then they would have concrete, indisputable proof. To the contrary, they have arguments and accusations, but no scientific, archaeological, historical, philosophical evidence to deny the supernatural origin of Scriptures. It is one of the greatest mysteries to the world, because those of this world do not want to solve the puzzle. I trust you are well, Mike |
| Michael Jones wrote: I would like to note one error I conveyed to you in a previous e-mail concerning Nietzsche: his library, as far as I know, is not used for printing Bibles. I am sorry for the error. I usually check my research but I didn't in this instance. The truth I was pointing out, however, remains the same: namely, the Bible endures, as God said it would, while other men fade into obscurity. Are you confusing me with somebody else? I can't find any evidence of you mentioning Nietzsche, which didn't stop me attacking you for doing so but that's force of habit. Have I mislaid a message or have you mixed me up with somebody else or perhaps you removed the reference before you posted it? I mentioned Nietzsche in combination with DC Comics and George Bernard Shaw, a Superman triple bill as it were. http://mwillett.org/atheism/chapter-and-verse.htm http://mwillett.org/atheism/chapter2.htm Let me know if I've misquoted you in any way or been unfair in the way I have presented our correspondence. You can send me a photo if you want it included, it all adds to the fun. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ |
Martin - I appreciate the correspondence and I trust you will represent our positions well since neither have anything to hide. One of my e-mails may have failed to reach you and I cannot remember exactly the one in which I am replying to, but it deals with slavery, genital mutilation, and so on. You do not have to reply to this one. I am working on another e-mail in response to one of your last ones and this may save you from having to repeat yourself. --- The Israelites were chosen to be a priestly nation representing God to the world. God saved non-Jews before Jesus Christ. Abraham was Middle Eastern (Mesopotamian) and so was Noah (since all nations descended through his sons after the global flood (God’s punishment on sin). Next time he will punish the world with fire. You need to understand God’s justice to understand that God used the Hebrew people not only to punish the Egyptians, but to also punish the Canaanites and the other inhabitants in the land of Canaan (of which Sodom and Gomorrah were a part). God used the Jews to mete out his judgment on the people who rejected and rebelled against Him. Circumcision was a covenant strictly between the Hebrew people and God. Also, the blood-clotting process is above 100% on the eighth day - the day on which the children were to be circumcised. The adults took this step in faith. Slavery was not what Europe and America made it. The Hebrews were revolutionary in their view on slavery. Remember, they were slaves in Egypt. God gave them instructions to treat slaves fairly with wages. Slaves had rights and were given opportunities of freedom. It’s all in Exodus. Why not attack every other culture in biblical times? Every culture had slaves but not all treated their slaves well. You do not need to understand an absolute truth to experience the effects of it. The difference is in the meaning you apply to that experience. You can experience cold and have knowledge that it is cold in the South Pole, as you mentioned in your previous e-mail, but the origins of cold and what cold is doing here in the first place is based on presuppositions of historical interpretation. We know how cold occurs. Earth rotation and so on as supported by science can observe the cause of cold. Science cannot tell us anything about history except validate what we know in literature or historical information that we discover. All of history is reliant on interpretation. Without interpretation science is meaningless. Interpretations are starting points of investigation. Science cannot tell us the origins of the universe. How can you test it when you do not know how it began? If evolution is used, you presume that is what happened, but evolution is always struggling to satisfactorily answer what Christians already know. www.answersingenesis.com is a Christian website that shows how science easily harmonizes and better fits the interpretation presented in Scripture. When you understand Genesis 1-11 as literal history, then science applied to the history of the universe all makes sense. You don’t need faith to know God exists because the diversity of Creation, everything that was made in the world, testifies to God. You only need faith to know who He is and why He does what He does. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). Atheism has an “anything goes” dogma. You might not like being labelled religious, but many atheists spend so much time “evangelizing” their beliefs with no proof to account for them. If atheists believe that the world began by some random chance explosion over billions of years while developing further things simultaneously by haphazard circumstance, then atheists would not be religious. However, if it isn’t some statistically impossible random chance, then some life force is needed. Some atheists come up with some supernatural driving force like mother nature to produce “survival of the fittest.” This would make atheism a religion because they have a god, and that god can take them out any time it likes: it’s called death. Why is death there to begin with? Is evolution so unstable that death is the undoing of an imperfect evolving nature? How can things get information into their DNA by natural means that will enable them to have features they never had before? Why would a creature who needed wings survive the million years and not die out before evolution could step in and fix the problem? The questions are endless, the theories ever-changing (not based on evidence but because of a lack of it), the science is fallible and unprovable and yet that is supposed to be the best intellectuals can accomplish? Evolution is an elaborate excuse to ignore the evidence: God exists. In truth, there is no such thing as an atheist. You have to be omniscient to make the claim God does not exist. If I say there are no dogs in England, that does not make my belief valid. I would have to know for sure that not one person in England has a dog at the time I make my claim. If I say there are dogs in England, all there has to be is one person who has a dog for that statement to be true. If there is someone who makes the claim that there is a dog in England and I deny it because I haven’t seen the proof myself though several others testify to the truthfulness of the claim, then my belief would make me a fool. Atheists are agnostic at best, because they do not truly know if there is a God. If there is they want to wish Him away. This small God you speak of sees everything and knows everything and His fierce anger burns at all sin. Sin is not His will, even though He used it for His sovereign purpose to bring about who He is to humanity. He died on the Cross for my sin and for your sin. You cannot be forgiven if you reject it because that would pervert justice and since you seem to like justice, you fail to recognize that you will be judged. You deny God so because you love to break God’s rules. Smart people came up with a way to interpret the world without needing God but that does not mean they are right. There are many intelligent people like Richard Dawkins. He has a smart brain but applies it to false reasoning. The Bible says he is a fool as are all who deny their God-given conscience and sight that proves He exists. Genesis 3 explains why we live in a fallen world: sin. Eve was deceived by the serpent and sinned; yet, it was Adam who sinned full well knowing he was breaking God’s rule. Humans did not evolve separately, we are all descended through one of the three sons of Noah, thus through Noah to Adam to God (since God created Adam). So whoever calls on the Lord with repentance and faith, are moved from being children of the devil to children of God. Every day you store up God’s wrath for yourself. Look at the Ten Commandments: ever lie, steal, look with lust, continuously honour God, thank Him for everything He’s done for you, use His name with vain purpose (such as a curse or empty expression), hated someone, and wanted what others had? The Commandments show us how we fail to live up to the standards of God’s perfection. If you even broke one of the laws you are guilty of all 613 precepts. You cannot live by religious rules and be saved. You can only be saved by an act of God. He willingly transforms all who turn from their sin and put their trust in Him. That is so He can get all the glory. He gives us the choice. Don’t be mad because you don’t like His justice. Of course you hate his wrath. You are guilty and deserve Hell. Your unbelief does not nullify you. There was once a time for ignorance, but now, God has commanded people everywhere to repent. Your analogy of the Bible being compared to a fraudulent nine dollar bill fails. You believe the Bible was composed by genius madmen and think it is false. That does not prove it is. On the contrary, the manuscript evidence is so vast that we can be certain that these characters existed and at least claimed to be who they said they were. You also use books of one author or so to compare a book that was written by around forty authors over a span of about 1600 years with absolute harmony on thousands of controversial issues. John MacArthur sums it up well: the Old Testament is a record of continual devastation produced by sin and disobedience to God’s law; the New Testament makes the tragedy of sin clearer and urges a call to repentance. You discredit the Bible but ignore the volumes of evidence that give precise answers to the very problems you have. The Bible has been attacked since its inception and not one argument (even though there are reasonable questions to ask) has ever proven the Bible to be false. You need it to be false. You don’t love truth or seek it. You hide from it and desperately search for some truth that suits you so you do not have to face justice. You mock God because you lack an understanding of His righteousness, justice, and holiness. You think of Him in human terms, imposing our limitations on Him. I quoted to you in the first e-mail 2 Peter 3: God is patiently waiting for people to come to repentance. Exodus 34: 6,7 explain some aspects of God’s character. God warns us how deeply rooted and influential sin is and how hard it is for people raised in those conditions to forsake them and turn to God. God was the same then, now, and forever will be. Your view of God is distorted by your misunderstanding of true justice. This is because you are under the wrath of God and don’t want to be punished by Him. Justice is corrupted by sin. We are fallen beings. We crave justice but are limited and blinded by our sin. Because of sin, people are separated from God until people choose to accept His sacrifice. You cannot understand the Bible because your mind is blinded by Satan to God’s truth (2 Corinthians 4:4). You are too proud to humble yourself. God speaks to everybody but He does not have a relationship with everybody. God is using me to get your attention. This is not some random chance we are talking. It is not up to me to save you. Only God can do that. You have to want to be saved by Him. He honours your free will but he honours justice too. Adolf Hitler got his wish. So did Mussolini. Death comes to all and then the judgment. Hitler has much to condemn himself with, and so do all who fail to repent. Why do you think God owes you answer? Read the book of Job. God rhetorically asked seventy questions of Job that rebuked him for trying to judge God. What right do we have to judge our Creator? You, Martin, a sinful, fallible judge, try to pass sentence on
the holy God who gives you life. Wake up, before it is too late.
Death comes to all. Don’t waste your hours trying to figure
out how to defend your indefensible position. Research the claims
of the Bible to see if they are true. If you reject them, that
is your choice. But try not to place yourself above that god thing
you can’t figure out because you don’t want to be accountable
to Him. I am not trying to win an argument. Remember, the intellect
cannot save people. You must know why you are a sinner, what makes
you a sinner and why you need to trust in Jesus Christ for eternal
life. Jesus will never make sense to you until you realize why
you nailed him to the cross. |
13 July 2007When God chose the Israelites to be a priestly nation why didn't he tell any other nation about that choice? Seriously, I really want to know. If he had done so things would be an awful lot more straight-forward wouldn't they? What use are priests who are listened to only by other priests? Indeed priests who feel defiled by talking to anybody who isn't also a priest. You are following a tribal myth which was invented by Hebrews to make out that whatever the Hebrew people had done was righteous and good. What people have ever claimed that their god wasn't on their side? You have been taken over by a virus of the mind which was originally designed to salve the conscience of genocidal warriors belonging to a foreign tribe. No tribe other than the Hebrews accepted the Hebrew god and the Israelites did a piss-poor job of smiting the unbelievers, just managing to eradicate a few local rival tribes who killed, laid siege, enslaved, sacrificed animals and circumcised their boys in the name of another god. At no time did the Israelites ever make a significant impact on the world or create a great and holy empire. What does righteousness mean? Read the Bible with an open mind for once and see what is really there. Righteous behaviour seems to mean observing the ten commandments, half of which involve pandering to the whims of the right jealous god. No secular society would ever regard the ten commandments as the last word in morality. What has tying yourself up in taboos one day in seven got to do with being good? Nothing. What is covetousness and why is it a sin? Is it wrong because it is an act of jealousy? So God can be jealous of the attentions offered to other gods, which don't exist, but envying what another Jew has is a sin. Where is the logic or consistency in that? Is sinning only something gods should be able to do? This God of yours seems to be a monster. If the leader of any country with oil behaved like your god does George W Bush would be planning to invade. Kill everybody! Every living thing, every animal, every man, woman, child and innocent foetus. Then say sorry. Won't do it again. Next time will be with fire. He's a bloody psychopath! If God was the leader of a country he would be indicted for war crimes, murder, arson, genocide, incitement to murder, incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity. Not forgetting Holy Spiritual rape of course. If he was your daughter's husband you would be hiring a hitman and no jury would convict you. How can you love a monster who would kill millions and promises to do it again? How can you call Lot a righteous man? If you knew a man who offered his daughters up to be raped by a mob would you call him a righteous man? "I was drunk, both nights" wouldn't count as a defence against a charge of incest even in Alabama. Neither would "God told me to kill my son! Don't blame me, he told me to do it." Genesis is a myth that the people who made it up didn't expect anybody to believe literally. Literalism is an abdication of thought. Genesis does not make any sense whatsoever about astronomy. 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% or more of the universe is dismissed in a single sub-clause. This is not just wrong it is an insult to the intelligence of everybody on the planet as well as the universe. Not a single person has ever studied geology, astronomy or biology in China or India and come to the conclusion that the only way to make sense of it all is to have special creation, a young Earth and a global flood by a jealous Jewish god - but where can they find the theory to explain all that? Creation science barely exists outside America. You could probably fit the rest of the world's biblical literalists into a single church and still have room for a breeding pair of vegetarian Tyrannosaurus Rex. American science is being crippled by this biblical literalism your nation is becoming a laughing stock. That is the biggest tragedy of modern times: the start of the American Dark Age. You are turning your back on the enlightenment and are following the Islamic world in a retreat into superstitious barbarism. The existence of the universe might be explicable by the existence of a creator god (as one candidate theory) but the universe does not testify clearly to the existence of a jealous Jewish queer-hating, shellfish and pork despising god who is squeamish about menstruation despite inventing it. Jesus is Lord - look there's a rainbow - that proves it doesn't work on anybody with the intellectual agility of a free-thinking nine year old. There is a universe, it was either created or it came into being some other way. I am not aware of anybody ever deciding that Jesus was the son of God by studying science. There is simply no way to get from scientific investigation to knowing the fine biographical details of the creator, you have to either settle for not knowing (the scientifically correct approach) or you choose to believe somebody's mythology on its own merits. You can't find evidence for Jesus or Moses by looking down a microscope or digging in the sand. They left no convincing evidence of their existence let alone their story. You absolutely do need faith to believe in the god of Abraham, you don't need faith to believe in "The Great Architect" or other deistic entity which was so commonly believed in by so many great scientists in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There may be a plausible case for a god, there is no convincing case for God apart from the Bible, which is only ever convincing to those who choose to be convinced by it. I will not discuss evolution with any Christian who does not demonstrate an understanding of evolution. It is simply a total waste of my time. If you wish to discuss evolution you will have to demonstrate that you understand what it is and how it works. So far I have seen no evidence of any such understanding in anything you have written and indeed you seem to share the deliberate wilful misunderstanding common to many Christians. Is this down to genuine, casual or tactical ignorance? Atheism doesn't have any dogma or creed. Atheists disagree about all sorts of things. We don't share common heroes or ways of analysing the world. I have come across some very nice atheists and some total jerks who have nothing in common with my beliefs. Some atheists have extremely strict moral codes, some are scarier than religious puritans. Most atheists have no interest whatsoever in convereting anybody or wasting another minute discussing a subject they regard as futile and stupid. Instead of inventing ways to prove false what you know to be true why not come up with some examples which are not biased? There are dogs in England. I know, I have seen them. How about proving there are no dragons in England? That is a much fairer comparison. But then dragons are meant to be quite big, aren't they? It would be possible to be fairly sure that were no dragons in England based on the assumption that anything that big has to make itself known from time to time. It isn't invisible. But of course God is invisible and he apparently lives in heaven where we can't go while we are alive as well as also in some unclear hand-waving way he's also everywhere and he only appears to those who believe he exists. That's handy isn't it? Proving the non-existence of something that is hiding everywhere and nowhere is to all intents and purposes impossible. Anybody who claims to know for absolute certain that God doesn't exist is no scientist, that is a faith position. It isn't my position. That isn't any kind of admission of weakness, there is great strenth in doubt. I am not certain that God does not exist in the same sense that I am not certain that Elvis is dead. Why is death there to begin with is actually a reasonably good question to ask. First off could there ever not be death? Once you have living things which are complicated self-repairing mechanisms it is inherent in that state that there is the possibility of damage which is too severe to repair. Nobody has to invent or allow death, it requires magical intervention to create immortality. Mortality is the default, just like it is with human-made devices, if you build a car you don't have to invent a supernatural Death of Cars to allow the car to cease to be a car. If the car gets damaged severely it will cease to be a car. With living things which reproduce death becomes a good survival strategy, for the genes, as it is the genes which do the surviving. Death of individuals is explicable in just the same way as dust is explicable. Most household dust is comprised of dead human skin cells. Programmed cell death is part of the survival strategy of the genes of the individual, death of the individual is also part of the gene's survival strategy. Life kills. The longer an individual lives the more damaged they become. Sex and death is a great way around this which keeps the genes alive far better than trying to repair a body using repair instructions which themselves are also being damaged. If you don't understand evolution this may not make any sense to you, that is your problem, there are plenty of good books out there that explain it, try reading one written by somebody who actually wants you to understand the theories rather than happily dismiss them. The majority of people who believe in evolution don't understand it. Almost everybody who doesn't believe in evolution doesn't understand it. However almost everybody who does understand evolution does believe it. You really can't say the same for any religion. There are plenty of atheists who could hold their own in theological discussions but few choose to. No Creation Scientist could ever get a job in a university outside of the bible-belt for the same reason European universities don't have chairs of astrology. Haven't I mentioned that I don't think the Bible was dictated by God? Why are you still quoting it at me as if I should be impressed? I am not. It is a big book of Hebrew nonsense, I am not a Hebrew and I don't respond to nonsense. The Bible says I am a fool, so what? The Koran says you are wrong and will be punished by God. I do not deny God because I want to break his rules. I don't believe in God for exactly the same reason I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy: I know the story was made up, I know why it was made up, I know why it is passed on and I know a much better explanation for the thing the story tries to explain. End of story. I am not a wicked sinner, I haven't had a fight since I was 14, I don't steal, I don't lie, I don't cheat on my wife and I have taken far fewer drugs than your Christian President did. This slur that people don't want to believe in the god they really know is real in order to carry on sinning is simply absurd and lame. I don't think the Bible was written by genius madmen. I don't think they were geniuses. I have read the thing, some of it is absolute drivel. The central character isn't believable in any sense of the word. It is full of filth and violence and thoroughly reprehensible behaviour. Many of the people in it are total shits doing dishonest things which would make Greek heroes blush. I struggle to recall a single major character who behaves reasonably. If God has a message for me he should know where I live and what it would take to make me take him seriously. Anybody can pretend to have talked with a god. I do not hand over the keys to my brain to anybody who asks for them and if you think that is a fault then we will just have to agree to differ. I am not credulous, I don't willingly accept bullshit and then feel myself a hero for doing so. The Bible is not consistent. It really is not. Genesis contains no mention of Satan or an afterlife. That's is pretty inconsistent with Revelations. If it had meant Satan in the form of a snake why didn't it say that? If that is what it meant why did God punish snakes for the crime of, well, being impersonated by Satan? Either the Bible is inconsistent or God is a shit who acts like a spoilt child. If God is everywhere at once how can he have been in another part of the Garden when the great mythic fruit theft took place? If you think the Bible is consistent please give me a thorough and complete description of what happened to Jesus from the moment of his death to the end of the day on which he was seen alive again, an account which uses and harmonizes all the Gospel accounts of the whereabouts of all characters involved. Even the Public Defender from Pig's Knuckle Arkansas could expose huge and telling inconsistencies in those supposed witness statements. It has never been my contention that the Bible is all false and nothing in it is true. That would be an absurd position to take. My position is that the Bible is a series of old manuscripts detailing Hebrew mythology, written by men, possibly written by men who genuinely believed they were writing the word of God. As there are no gods and therefore gods cannot speak to men the Bible is not divinely inspired, nothing is. If God wants me to believe him let him make himself known to me. If he is speaking to me he has a very warped sense of fair play because I have never heard anything. I have listened. What I haven't done is sucked sounds out of the silence by an act of will and then prayed to forget the details about how the "dialogue" began. Have you ever heard the phrase "it is written"? We don't give much credence these days to things simply because they have been written down by people who have mastered that rare talent. We no longer give things special credence because they are on the internet or in newspapers either. In ancient times writing was honoured more because scribes saw to it that their talents were appreciated and properly rewarded: basically they enjoyed being fed and bed in return for writing. Your attitude to the Bible belongs in another world, a world in which only a handful of privileged men (and of course no women) could write. You need the Bible to be true, you have faith so it is true. The evidence must show it to be true because it is the basis of your faith and your faith is what makes you superior to other people. Your entire life happiness strategy is based upon believing in the Bible totally and thereby validating your life and making you feel important. There is no point debating with you as you have not made any efforts to understand my position. You say God is using you to get my attention, what evidence have you got for that? I need some proof. You can prove to me that you are in contact with God quite easily by performing a miracle, ask your god to reveal to you the location of the next fatal global scale "Act of God", just the name of the nearest city to the next natural disaster that will kill enough people to make it onto CNN: volcanoes, earthquakes, or tsunamis, not weather related disasters which are relatively easy to predict by mortals. If that is too showy or he doesn't do indiscriminate killing these days then ask for the gift of tongues and telephone me. God will know my home number and my mobile. Before you tell me that God doesn't work this way please explain how he does work and how you know. If a burning bush is good enough for Moses and tombs vomiting zombies is OK for Jerusalem on Good Friday (according to one unreliable unimpeachable witness) why fob me off with you and your underwhelming persuasive talents? I have one last question for you, please answer as honestly as you can: how long would you last in the real hell of another god before you admitted you were wrong? If you won't give that question the careful, well thought out and honest answer it deserves there is no point in me publishing your reply. The question does make sense, you can imagine it and you can answer truthfully. If you choose to duck answering you will have demonstrated that you have no intention of debating, merely of witnessing to me and so you can go forth and multiply. But don't worry, I won't wish to send you to eternal torment, I am not as sick as your blessedly imaginary god. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ |