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Meet Dan
---------- Original Message
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From: "Daniel" <pnpmacknam@email.msn.com
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 21:42:57 -0700
Howdy,
Many atheists claim, against the standard and taken-for-granted Christian idea
of universal belief in a god, that no one is born having the concept of a god,
and that no one would even come to suppose that there may be a god if they were
not taught (or at least introduced to) the concept of a god. In other words,
the claim is that if the world (or a given group of people) could be
"freed" from the very idea of a god, then no one would ever think up
the idea and would live in scientific peace.
If this insistence is true, then where did the idea of God come from in the
first place?
What is your response to this and what do you know of this claim? Are atheists
right after all?
Daniel
----- Original
Message -----
From: "
To: "DANIEL" <pnpmacknam@email.msn.com
Sent:
Subject: Re: Seen this argument before?
(natural atheism shoots itself in
the foot)
Hi there,
I fully agree with you. If man wouldn't
believe in a God or gods without being taught such, what man thought such up to
begin with?
In Him,
----- Original
Message -----
From: "
To: "DANIEL" <pnpmacknam@email.msn.com
Sent:
Subject: Re: Seen this argument before? (Natural atheism shoots itself in
the foot)
Daniel,
I've pondered this deeper. I wonder:
Perhaps a skeptic could claim that whoever initially thought up a God could
have been someone who did not believe such but convinced others there was a
God; therefore, garnering their allegiance in following him/her in their desire
to please the God that person convinced them existed? To carry it further: Why
would only one
person dream up such a scam? Much like pick-pockets and miracle lotion
salespersons, it would not require one person to set it off for others. Many
would dream up such schemes with variations (e.g., Jesus, Mithra,
etc.). Hey, it's just a thought. How many children have been conned by an older
brother or sister into believing that a Boogey-man would suffocate them in
the night if they did not leave a prized possession in a secret spot? So, it is
conceivable that people could create a God idea in their pursuit to capitalize
on the fears of others.
Now, with that said, if my defense of
Christ's resurrection is factual, there would, indeed, also exist false
religions (science, humanism, Buddha, Muslim, etc.), which God's Word warns us
against. Nonetheless, the concept that man's separation from God left man with
a void in his being to know Him remains. So, no wonder then that man would seek
Him out. This would account for the countless testimonies of people who
accepted the Lord and a void was filled despite the atheists' claims of mere
emotional experiences accounting for their newfound joy and peace.
Bottom line: If Christ did not
resurrect, the atheist challenge remains debatable. If He did resurrect, both
above hypothesizes harmonize. So, did Christ resurrect? I believe so and will
defend it to my end.
In Him,
Jordan
To: Jordan
Subject: Re: Seen this argument before? (Natural atheism shoots itself in the
foot)
Date:
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Z. Jordan,
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To: Zeineldé I see two problems with this
atheistic argument: |
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From: "Daniel" <pnpmacknam@email.msn.com |
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Gospel Contradictions
From: "Dan" <pnpmacknam@email.msn.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 02:40:35 -0800
A post, and my reply to it:
http://www.str.org/cgi-bin/bbs_forum.pl?forum=apologetics&read=000698-000696
.msg&session=&use_last_read=on&last_read=0
“Wayne” wrote:
>>The 610 Gospel contradictions presented are by no means exhaustive,
but are enough to establish that when the Gospel accounts are compared to one
another, not only do they lack in their alleged harmony, but in their so-called
inerrancy, as well. For after one carefully considers the preponderance of this
presented evidence, if they have any integrity at all, surely they shall know
that to claim that God inspired the Gospel authors to record their accounts as
they did is the equivalent of saying God is an incompetent author of confusion.
For faith in God and faith in the Bible is not one and the same! >>
First and greatest, the objection he makes assumes a principle that would
destroy his theism. He cannot have it both ways.
A close second is the record-ology of the matter,
which is more important to the skeptic who is an atheist. Assumptions in
accounting, whether in numerical or linguistic accounting, are rarely
explicated in the text of the given account. Take twenty honest and
accurate-able people from twenty truly different cultures and have them each write a faithful account of the same
given thing. It is quite rare that you will not find any apparent
contradictions between their accounts. Unlike "educated" people who
are products of today's standardized mass "education," these twenty
people are *guaranteed* not to account all in the same way, and this is not
even include translation matters and language devolution. Upon interviewing
these five people, you will find, like many PI's do even of members of
standardized culture, that these twenty are all telling the truth. Any
well-experienced criminal attorney, unlike the masses of modern “Biblioskeptics,” will tell you that if five different,
supposedly independent stories of the same complex happening have a lot of
nearly word-for-word sameness and have *no* apparent contradictions, then the
stories have almost surely been the made-up product of a conspiracy between the
"independent" witnesses. You can easily experiment with all of this
yourself if you have enough people who are willing to participate (data-open
experiments that then lead to narrowly directed experiments, just like the baby
learns to walk). Although the "telephone game" objection to the
accuracy of an ancient text is a common sense objection, the realm of positive
common sense is far broader, deeper, detailed, and practical than this one
little negative problem. Ignorance is principle omniscience to itself (the
phrase "a little knowledge is dangerous" was originally only the
first phrase of a two-part saying, the latter part going on to mention how an
education can make that little knowledge less dangerous to the proud possessor
of that little knowledge).
The brine of "works of fiction," as a pastime, makes Western man the
most ignorant and gross-minded creature in history. Modern skeptics could not
so readily have the kind of impression of the Bible which they do have if their
minds were not so pickled in the culture that is defined far more by this brine
than by the advanced technology/science which they presume proves
their mental superiority (most of that technology they know next to nothing
about). Take most of these "civilized" people and remove all their
technology, so that they have to make a living from the earth with their own
raw ingenuity, and you will quickly have a society far more barbaric and
degraded than even the most isolated Amazonian tribe.
As for the idea that an omnipotent and good God would make a book that is
easily understood by all, that is not even an issue if the present book is
accurate concerning the fall of man and the nature of human corruption. Both I
and Stalin could agree on what Karl Marx meant in his famous book, but that
will not stop either of us from wanting to see the other dead (except that
Stalin is already dead, which saves me the expense). There was no Bible when
Cain killed Able.
The hearsay objection which the skeptic might make concerning any given thing
in the Bible, which he may be predisposed to think is just made-up myth, is an
objection that cannot be settled unless first the book looks historical. As I
explained above about the contradictions problem, the look of historicity is
partly determined by the presence of apparent contradictions. To this, the
skeptic may give the "how-do-we-know-it's-from-God " objection, which
is the objection that a book that is the witness of an omnipotent etc. being
would not be difficult to read, have apparent contradictions, have conflicts
with "science," etc. But, then, which is it? The first objection is
settled in the realm (realm: a big place) of common sense. The second objection
requires that the book read like a novel that also gives every possible
explanation to every possible objection made by every past and present culture.
Pertaining to the second objection, how much science would one have to first
know in order for one to see that this hypothetical "Ideal Book" of
God is true in all other points? Would it be too much deep science, perhaps,
for even the present state of "science?” Don
Stoner, the OEC author of A New Look At An Old Earth,
makes this mistake, but this has to do with his favoring of the Bible, not
against it. What about for people long ago who didn't know much science? At
least they could have had ready access to the common sense realm of apparent
historicity, which requires only one sophisticated instrument: the mind. And,
they weren't as dumb as modern-centric people think; they were only ignorant of
much of physical science.
A baby is born open to learning things far beyond the initial appearances of
things that his unexercised senses intercept, and he does not even set out, at
the start, to learn most of what he eventually does learn. To him, just as to
Adam, these greater things are wonderful gifts, not deceptions. Only in
defense, made out of a lack of faith, does anyone ever think that appearances
are “deceiving.” And, even then, an open atheist, such as Carl Sagan, sees the natural and human-dynamical world in this
open light anyway, just not when God is put into his picture. Clearly, God is
not the one on trial anyway, and the hypocrisy of atheism is so great that his
assumptions all lead to the very things that he had, at first, denied. Even to
the argument from evil, this argument presupposes an objective standard that,
once God is locked out of the picture, immanently fails to find that very
standard. If there is no God, then the worst thing that can happen in an
atheistic reality is also the worst thing that can be imagined: eternal
oppression, a self-created hell. And, yet, the most that could, then, be said
objectively about such a hell is that its victims don't like it.
The effort to find and realize the great and productive truths can be like
trying to follow the simple instructions for very complex dance moves which are
being given to you over the phone---and you have a hundred arms. Although there
is no doubt that, if some of your arms are in the wrong places, they will get
in the way, the problem is in determining which arms really *are* in the wrong
place. The if/then proposition is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
Using assumptions which you are not cognizant of is like having learned to
drive so well that you forget you own a car: you simply accept, as a matter of
course, that you will show up at work, without realizing how you got there.
e-mail: jordantheistDELETETHIS@bellsouth.net
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