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atheism, faith, fish, garden fairies, insanitybytes22, Jonah, logic, pirates, whales
Not sure why, but Jonah keeps coming up lately. First it began with a discussion with some people about how a whale couldn’t have possibly swallowed Jonah, therefore we must toss out the entire bible. I gotta tell you, atheism requires a real leap of faith, because flat-out, you have to gamble your entire chance of salvation against your ability to misinterpret a tiny bit of scripture.
So, “I don’t believe in God because a whale is not a fish, it’s a mammal” has got to be one of the silliest things I’ve heard in a while. The literal truth of the whale tale is we really don’t know. Jonah is swallowed by a “behemoth sea creature,” the only words we can really translate that to are “a big fish,” often presumed to be a whale. Jonah may have been swallowed by a giant cracken of the sort that eats pirate ships for all I know.
So now we have Jonah in the belly of a giant cracken, which really makes no difference to me because the precise nature of the beast that swallowed Jonah is not really the story at all. Which leads me to garden fairies, yes garden fairies, because no one can tell a proper whale tale with a cracken and a pirate ship, without adding some garden fairies to it.
The garden fairies must enter our story, because as everyone knows non belief is a rational, logical, resistance to believing in anything you haven’t been provided absolute proof of. Like garden fairies, except you sure don’t see me running around investing all my time in trying to disprove the existence of garden fairies. I don’t demand proof of garden fairies at all. In fact, I have absolutely no evidence that they don’t exist therefore it would be completely illogical for me to try to claim they don’t. Even more insane for me to demand they show themselves or I’ll just refuse to believe in them and that will teach them a lesson.
So Jonah for those who don’t know, is a man called by God to go speak to a city full of people he doesn’t really like. Jonah being man after my own heart, promptly disobeys, and decides to hide from God by pretty much stowing away on a ship, a bit unlike a pirate ship, but close enough. Naturally the ship is heading in the precise opposite direction God wants him to go, when an epic storm comes up. Epic. It threatens to drown them all. The sailors pray and toss weight overboard and cast lots trying to decide what to do. Finally they come to the conclusion that the storm will stop if they just throw Jonah overboard. That is also evidence that Jonah is a man after my own heart, because people coming together, casting lots, and deciding to toss me overboard is a frequent theme in my life.
They promptly throw Jonah overboard, the storm stops, and before Jonah can drown, a whale swallows him up. Or a behemoth. Or a really big fish. Or perhaps even a cracken, but certainly not a bunch of garden fairies. Jonah spends 3 days in the whale, just as Jesus spends 3 days in the tomb. At the end of 3 days, the whale spits Jonah out on dry land. Actually, the behemoth “vomits him out,” which sounds absolutely awful. Jonah goes to Nineveh and begins speaking to the people there and they believe God, they listen to Jonah and they begin to repent.
There is great debate as to why the people listened. No one really knows for sure. Perhaps God prepared their hearts. Some have theorized that Jonah may have looked rather scary after spending 3 days in the stomach of a fish. Perhaps the acids bleached him white. Maybe he was shriveled up like a prune. Maybe he was covered in seaweed and starting to grow barnacles all over his head. We aren’t quite sure, but the point is, when Jonah finally obeyed God, people listened.
“When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.“
Jonah is actually angry at the Lord’s compassion for the people of Nineveh and says the equivalent of, ” just kill me now.” Jonah is once again a man after my own heart, as in He is not enthusiastic about God’s plan, God’s will, or God’s compassion for a group of people Jonah does not particularly like. I get the impression Jonah would much prefer that God just smote the Ninevehites and let him watch.
There are numerous lessons to be found in the book of Jonah, treasures that reveal themselves in those pages, but what I like is the way God speaks of the fragility of human emotion and reason as a framework for morality. We feel, we reason, and in the heat of the moment we are often convinced we are 100% right. God says to Jonah, “is it right for you to be angry…” And Jonah says, oh yes, “I’m so angry I wish I were dead!” God’s will versus our own will, and naturally we tend to believe our own will have got to be vastly superior, surely more reasonable, more just.
The bible is full of real people just like Jonah, people God deals with compassionately, imperfect people He calls to do His will.
There is something to be learned from the garden fairies, too. Non belief is not the “simple disbelief in gods in light of having no evidence,” Non belief is actually our own cognitive dissonance in action. Our brains know it is irrational to refuse to believe in something we have no evidence does not exist, so we are compelled to constantly go forth and confirm our own biases. That is how we arrive at, “I refuse to believe in God because whales are mammals, not fish.” Just those very words, “I refuse to believe,” indicate a state of resistance. That resistence must be constantly validated, reaffirmed, so our brains will accept that our disbelief is justified, logical, based on hard, empirical data.
irtfyblog said:
I almost posted about Jonah today…but I thought better of it.
Nice post, however.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Isn’t that interesting? I seem to keep bumping into Jonah lately. Glad I’m not the only one 🙂
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Pete Deakon said:
We just covered Jonah last semester as well, and as a veteran, I couldn’t help but get my worldview shaken by the lesson. Does God really want the folks that comprise ISIS obliterated?
I blame well-meaning but untrained Sunday school teachers for emphasizing the whale part to kids more than the “God desires and responds to repentance” part and therefore devaluing the entire Bible and religion in the process. Kids will understand what we tell them to understand (or that we think they can’t understand things). Ah, don’t get me started. Ha. Have a good day/night, my non-suburbanite blogger-friend.
Pete
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Paul said:
Ha! have you ever seen the Veggie Tales Movies and stories IB? they are designed to bring Biblical stories to young people and each character is played by a vegetable. Jonah is portrayed by an asparagus. here’s a short clip where God has told Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah is trying his best to get away and yet everyone seems to know he is supposed to go to Nineveh.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ha! I haven’t actually watched them until just now. I stopped watching kids shows when the Teletubbies came out. Those critters scared me! But yes, I imagine Jonah was just about that enthusiastic about going to Nineveh. He tries to hide from God basically, which is such a human thing to try to do it always makes me laugh. Run towards Him not away from Him, but of course that’s easier said than done. We really can’t hide from an omnipotent, omnipresent being, but even better, we don’t have to.
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jeanleesworld said:
LOL Thank goodness Teletubbies are before my parent-time. But yes, *I* was going to mention this Jonah film, too! The major theme of this film is the importance of compassion and mercy: God gives us both, and we should do the same to others. That Jonah does NOT learn this lesson is also emphasized by the VT movie, which I actually found to be pretty ballsy (any kid movie that does NOT end with a super-happy-everyone-wins ending these days should be considered ballsy). I also just wanted to say that the story of Jonah is one of Blondie’s all-time favorite bible stories (tied with Daniel in the Lion’s Den). Thanks for reminding me that grownups have a lot to learn from the stories we usually “pawn off” on the children.
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dawnlizjones said:
I LOVE veggie tales!
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Will be back stronger and better. One day. said:
But people who believe in garden fairies have no real power, aren’t making policies based on their belief in garden fairies, and any that tried to wouldn’t be taken seriously. Yet someone who believes in god, will be taken seriously and they will use their belief in god to impliment whatever changes it is they want. It is insane to impliment changes when there is no proof of the thing that is apparently informing their decisions.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“But people who believe in garden fairies have no real power, aren’t making policies based on their belief in garden fairies…”
Ah, now you must be a Brit, because I assure you in America, politicians have clearly based many of their policies on garden fairies. 🙂
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Eric said:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, believed in garden fairies and wrote books proving their existence. Doyle obviously had a very logical mind; so who are these Liberals to deny their existence? After all, any of many modern Hollywood numbskulls—none of whom have near the talent or intelligence that Doyle had—tell us that Christianity is stupid and that homo marriage is normal; and Liberals take them as authorities.
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Will be back stronger and better. One day. said:
Straight in there with the homo marriage thing. lol. Doyle was tricked by some photographs. We can now say those fairies don’t and didn’t exist, knowing what we know now that they’re fake.
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Wally Fry said:
Hey Will
We all inform our decisions based on our worldview. How else would we inform them? Of course Christians inform their voting based on their Christian morals. Or, they should.
But you present as if the average Christian is trying to establish some Theocracy. And that would be patently untrue. If informing our decisions by our faith is not allowed, then what else would you add to the list if things not allowed to influence a persons decisions?
I mean, seriously? What makes the worldview you use to make decisions valid, while a faith based worldview is not?
I am not trying to be contentious here, but am genuinely curious. What, inherently, makes Christians voting their faith wrong? By what moral guide would you make policies? And what makes that correct? Because you believe it? What about all who disagree? Or, are they all fairy tales also?
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newenglandsun said:
Reblogged this on Theological Rejuvenation.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for the reblog 🙂
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newenglandsun said:
Jonah shows up in 2 Kings 14:25 where he is the servant of God. But then he went and started to deny God’s will.
It’s a good commentary on unbelief and the great fish. I am aware that there are medieval depictions of the arch-heretic Arius being swallowed alive by a sea serpent. This is interpreted as “Hell” or the fish that swallowed Jonah which Jesus refers to when he mentions his own descent into Hell.
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ColorStorm said:
Ah yes, nothing like a bit of controversy ms bytes. What controversy, as if scripture is not plain enough?
Gotta love the foreknowledge of God. The greatest playgrounds of the world (oceans) needed the greatest of guests, so we read, ‘He made great whales.’ Of course. Now that’s a really big fish!
Allowing men to tamper with common sense, you can almost see the sarcasm in the book of Jonah when we see now the Lord prepared a big fish………….almost seeing the humor and sarcasm. Of course it was a whale, as Christ Himself said so.
And to they who gripe that a whale could not swallow a man. Please. Uh, no slur intended, but ask any woman giving birth about small openings!! And btw, there is plenty of proof that whales have swallowed some rather large things……….Let the Googlecrakenmonster be their guide.
But the real meat is not the whale but the man Jonah as you cite, and just how he is like all of us. Stubborn. Imperfect. Awesome. And of course the 3 days of Christ is a bonus. 😉 Good stuff by you, and happy Memorial day too.
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David said:
If non belief is just cognitive dissonance, then is it ever “rational” to conclude that something doesn’t exist or did not happen?
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insanitybytes22 said:
“If non belief is just cognitive dissonance, then is it ever “rational” to conclude that something doesn’t exist or did not happen?”
Well, greatly simplified but, no it is pretty much always irrational to conclude something doesn’t exist or did not happen, because if it did not exist in some form or happen in some way, you would have no knowledge of it at all. It is possible to perceive the things we observe improperly however.
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David said:
Are you saying that anything that anyone has ever thought of could exist or could have happened? It’s always irrational to conclude that a given described item doesn’t exist or that a given described event didn’t occur?
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insanitybytes22 said:
“Are you saying that anything that anyone has ever thought of could exist or could have happened?”
Well actually, it is very science minded to embrace that philosophy. Human observation is always colored by our very limited perceptions and often heavily influenced by our own biases, so to declare ourselves “rational” requires a leap of faith all by itself. The best we can ever hope for is an educated guestimate.
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David said:
Ah, well. Anything goes then. If I can imagine it, then it can be so. Garden fairies for everyone! Sound like fun!
However, I would say that being science-minded means that one’s goal is to narrow down the possibilities, despite our limitations. You know, like it means drawing conclusions such as it’s very unlikely to a given hypothesized event actually occurred. Scientists are such party poopers! Irrational bastards.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“Scientists are such party poopers! Irrational bastards.”
Not at all. I think you may be confusing scientists with atheists.
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David said:
Am I confusing scientist with atheists? Hmm. I’m not so sure about this.
Are there scientist who think that garden fairies exist? I know a lot of scientists. They’re a pretty skeptical bunch. Not really into fairies. I don’t think you going to many who will say that fairies could exist because someone thought up the idea of fairies.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“Are there scientist who think that garden fairies exist? ”
Actually, the proper answer from any scientist who believes in logic and reason is going to be, I have no evidence to suggest they do not.
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David said:
And so know we back to anything goes. Fairies, goblins, fire-breathing dragons guarding castles…
Well, of course no one has evidence that fairies don’t exist. But so what? I don’t have any evidence that there isn’t a teapot circling the sun or that hobbits don’t exist.
But I doubt if you’re going to find any scientists doing research on fairies and teapots and hobbits. This makes them, in practice, irrational. In effect, by their actions, they are saying that they refuse to believe in fairies and celestial teapots and Frodo.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Scientists study many things, David. You might enjoy this, I certainly did.
http://www.livescience.com/2278-science-fairy-tales.html
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David said:
I’m having trouble with link. Could you summarize what this was about?
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insanitybytes22 said:
I am not going to summarize it. It is called “The Science of Fairy Tales,”and it simply gives a light hearted account of how genuine scientists do not dismiss anything out of hand or “refuse to believe.”
You were just claiming that you know all about what scientists will and will not research. Rubbish, money has actually been invested in studying both garden fairies and hobbits, and one of my personal favorites, rice crispies and the noise they make. My point being, you continue to misrepresent the very nature of science.
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David said:
Could you point me in the direction of a peer-reviewed paper on garden fairies? I don’t mean a study about what people think about fairies or wrote about fairies. I mean a study of actual, physical fairies. As in Tinker Bell. As in a study of the anatomy and physiology of fairies.
I also like a reference for, say, a paper on the ecology of hobbits. Real hobbits, as in Middle Earth hobbits. Not those fossil hominids that were nicknamed hobbits. Actual, physical Frodo-type hobbits.
I did not say that scientists “dismiss things out of hand,” nor should they. However, if a little investigation shows that it’s almost totally certain that something doesn’t exit or that something didn’t happen, then the vast majority or scientists will, in effect, refuse to believe. Atheist scientists, Christian scientist, it doesn’t matter. They won’t spend money on it, they won’t waste their research careers on it. They will become quite “irrational” on the subject.
For example, I think it would be far today to say that Christian scientists “refuse to believe” that little green men live on Mars. It not just the atheist astronomers, it’s the Christian scientists, too. And I don’t know of any Christian scientists who are studying fairies.
And rice crispies are clearly not the same thing as garden fairies. They are much crunchier.
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David said:
Finally got the link to work. I believe that the misrepresentation is on your part.
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Wally Fry said:
“I refuse to believe”
That pretty much sums it all up
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David said:
Wally, do you refuse to believe that an angel handed golden plates to Joseph Smith?
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Wally Fry said:
Cough up the Golden plates and I am on board, David.
Next rabbit trail
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David said:
So, you don’t refuse to believe that the golden plates exist? Despite all that the Bible says, you do not refuse to believe that the golden plates exist?
This is not a rabbit trail unless you are saying that there is nothing that you refuse to believe. Is there anything about which you would say “I refuse to believe it.”
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David said:
I should add that the angel took the plates back to heaven. So, now, do you refuse to believe they existed?
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Wally Fry said:
David, I call this a rabbit trail, because frankly I don’t follow what you are trying to determine here. Does it bother you that I said non believers refuse to believe? Well, if it does, I offer no apology. It IS refusal to believe.
David, God Himself could come sit beside you on the couch and turn your TV into a burning bush, and i suspect the first thing you would do is interrogate Him about the Global Flood.
Yes, David, you refuse to believe. It’s really that simple. Contrary to how you present, it’s not only fools who believe, and “education” does not rule out belief. Look around you, and there is your evidence. You simply choose to reject it. The good part is, you can stop rejecting up until your final breath.
Proof, proof. give me proof! That’s the mantra, isn’t it David?
God owes you no proof, David. But, He graciously gives plenty. Yet, the non believer rails against it all.
Wake up David, before it’s too late
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xPraetorius said:
Wally, you said:
That is so right on the nose!
I once wrote a post in which I said something similar. It was something like: God Himself could come down and in full view of the whole world, pick up Mount Everest, K2 and the Matterhorn, juggle them like hackysacks, cure cancer, arthritis and the common cold with a word, and eliminate hunger, and as soon as He went away from view, the skeptics would start trying to debunk the whole thing.
What everyone saw, they’d say, were merely visual effects by Hollywood. The misplaced mountains would be a freak earthquake. The millions and millions of videos would all be of the Hollywood effects. The disease cures would be an instance of spontaneous evolution, and so on. If God had done that before Hollywood special effects, the skeptics would claim that all the millions and millions of eyewitness accounts were mass hysteria, or the hallucinations of a few persuasive witnesses. And that the accounts were all filled with metaphors and figurative speech.
The point: our current limitations require that belief be undergirded by faith, not by the parlor tricks that the skeptics keep demanding from God, which they’d spend their time debunking anyway. The thing that the skeptics always miss is simple: what kind of Creator of the universe has to do what His creations tell him to do, in order to prove Himself? Why does our Creator have to prove Himself to us, rather than the other way ’round? Why does the Creator have to do all the effort to justify Himself to us, rather than the creation justifying himself to the Creator?
Well, it seems obvious: the atheist who doesn’t make a good faith effort to seek out the real reasons for belief is … a fraud. Or he has no idea what he’s talking about. Goodness knows, we believers don’t stint in our efforts to debunk our own faith! 🙂
Bottom line: a person who makes a good faith effort to explore both belief and unbelief, will inevitably believe. And it won’t be because of a God who does parlor tricks on demand.
Best,
— x
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Wally Fry said:
Hey xP. I like your words better LOL. If you have a link to that post, I would love to read it.
It’s true though, isn’t it? I can attest to that personally.
Really like your statement here:
“Why does our Creator have to prove Himself to us, rather than the other way ’round? Why does the Creator have to do all the effort to justify Himself to us, rather than the creation justifying himself to the Creator”
As you well know, the answer is He does not have to justify anything. We are blessed He gives enough to even come to believe in the first place.
Thanks for the backup, friend.
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xPraetorius said:
One quick addendum to the above: A person who says, “I refuse to believe” is by definition admitting (1) that he’s not willing to make a good faith effort to explore the real reasons for belief, and is therefore (2) a fraud.
Best,
— x
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xPraetorius said:
Hi, Wally! You’re very welcome. The link, or at least one of ’em, is here: https://praetori.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/left-and-right-a-wide-ranging-discussion.
I’m afraid the post is quite long, but if you search for “In a thousand years Mount Everest would enjoy the same status as Atlantis” in the browser page search box, you’ll go right to the spot.
I remembered my example incorrectly — I imagined God taking the form of a 25,000 foot tall man and hurling Mt. Everest into the heavens. I think I used the juggling image somewhere else. The concept in the discussion is the same, though: A non-believer is telling me that unless God proves Himself, then he refuses to believe.
Interestingly, the context of the whole thing was to take a post from this very wonderful blog, in which I argued at length with the interesting, and very stubborn, Finn, Rautakky.
Quick note: Thank you for your very kind words, but I find, that I prefer your writing. 🙂 You’re a much nicer, more gracious, and graceful, person in print than I am.
Also, you’re much more readable, because you’re much more to the point. If I don’t support a point several different ways, then I get this frustrating feeling that I’ve left something out, and left an insufficiently supported assertion hanging out there. My way might make for an effectively buttoned-down bit of argumentation, but it also makes for much more turgid writing.
You, however, make your point, you make it really well, and then you extend to your reader the courtesy of assuming that he understands both your supporting arguments, and the other supporting argumentation in your arsenal.
Best,
— x
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Wally Fry said:
Thanks, friend, your kind words are appreciated.
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David said:
Wally, the point is that you criticize others by saying that these others say “I refuse to believe.”
However, there many cases in which you would say “I refuse to believe.” Yes, Wally, you refuse to believe. You refuse to believe the truths of Islam, you refuse to believe the truths of Mormonism, and since YOU brought it up, not me, I would add that you refuse to believe that there was no global flood.
Understand now? Not a rabbit trail. Why do you insist on labeling everything that I say a “rabbit trail.” Does this comfort you in some way? Provide an excuse to not think about what I’m saying?
As for the rest, you don’t know me, and please stop putting words in my mouth. It is clear that you prefer to think the worst of me. Not a very Christian thing to do.
And please, no more threats. It makes Jesus look bed.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Stuff an nonsense, David. We all “refuse to believe, ” in certain things. What makes non believers different is that they insist that their own non belief is based on their own superior ability to reason and that everyone else in the world is required to provide them proof and validation of their own non belief. That is what you are doing right here and right now, attempting to use others to validate and confirm your own biases.
You may have noticed I have no problem claiming “I have chosen to believe.” You however, do not want to take responsibility for your own leap of faith, having “chosen to not believe,” so you try to cloak it in logic, reason, evidence.
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David said:
YES! We all “refuse to believe” one thing or another! My point exactly! I guess I just wasn’t clear enough about this from the start.
As for the rest, to be honest, I’m not sure I follow what you are saying.
But, good Lord, we sure wouldn’t want to be using logic, reason and evidence when drawing conclusions about what we believe, right? That would kill the fairies.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“That would kill the fairies.”
Ah, but see David, I have no need or desire to kill the fairies at all. I have no investment in trying to disprove their existence at all. You however, are attempting to kill the Creator of the universe. That always conceals some interesting psychology.
I suppose if someone ran around trying to kill garden fairies I would also state they have some interesting psychology, but I’ve never met one of those people, so I can’t really say. The point is, running about hoping to kill the Creator of the universe is even more illogical and irrational than someone running about trying to kill garden fairies.
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David said:
Well, you’re welcome to the fairies. I’m not sure what “investment” you’re talking about here as I spend very little time worrying about fairies. So, enjoy! They’re all yours.
Now, who said I was trying to kill the Creator of the universe? Why do you draw this conclusion?
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Wally Fry said:
David
Why is saying you refuse to believe a criticism? And saying Christians would give it up if only we got some education is not? Odd. It’s NOT a criticism at all. I say it’s fact, you disagree. That is why they call this conversation.
Threats? David, I threaten nothing. I share the Gospel. You actually don’t understand. Um..I sure make Jesus look bad if I don’t share it.
Words in our mouth, David? Do you actually deny that you make endless demand for more evidence and more proof, and that no answer is ever enough? That as soon as you get an answer, you immediately have to rephrase into another question, because you didn’t “understand?” David, you are obviously very smart, yet you habitually fail to have understood, when you actually get an answer to a question. So, yes rabbit trails.
I really don’t think I am unfair in the way I characterize your behavior at all David. In fact, you somewhat take advantage and play that card very well. How very mean the ugly Christian is to you. Hogwash David. Not putting up with chasing you around in circles is NOT being mean to you.
You seem adamant to convince me that I refuse to believe things, and yet are horribly insulted that I have said that about you. Do you not see this disconnect, David.
Sorry David, I stand by my statement. In the face of compelling evidence, you shake your fist and refuse to believe. Now, why do you only zero in on the “before it’s too late” verbage, and not consider that it is not, in fact, too late. All you see is the “threat” and not the wonderful grace. Why? Well, of course, if you can make me, and God, monsters you can justify your refusal to believe. David, you obviously have spent at least some time with the Bible. The way you criticize it, I sure hope you have, otherwise..well we won’t go there. Anyway, if you have spent some time with it, you know this is not my message, but the message from the word. You may not agree with it, but if you know it at all, you also know I am delivering it correctly. If you don’t know whether I am or not, then you have no place criticizing it, because you are then criticizing something you don’t even know.
Peace David, I have taken enough of IBs space.
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David said:
Why did I say that refusing to believe is a criticism? You did not intend for this to be a criticism? Then what was you point in saying it?
Perhaps I misunderstood.
However, regardless of how you meant it, my only point in responding, in asking about golden plates, etc., was to demonstrate that everyone refuses to believe one thing or another. And it looks like the point was successfully made.
Again, you show you don’t understand me. I wasn’t insulted. I was mostly amused. Here you are, talking about how others refuse to believe…and the same is true of you. Of course we all have things we “refuse to believe!” If this wasn’t so, we could not function on a daily basis. The important question is…what is the basis for a given refusal to believe a given item?
How many times, in one form or another, have you accused me of lying or of being dishonest? I’ve lost count, but we had a case just the other day, right? What this indicates is that you chose to assume the worst. I don’t think you’re mean. I just think that it comforts you to think the worst of those who disagree with you. And am I wrong in thinking that this is inconsistent with your Christian beliefs?
Sorry that you see my comments as rabbit trails. Perhaps I need to be clearer from the start of the conversation so that you can follow what I’m trying to say. Also, I think that you may that you may think that you’ve given me “answers,” but most of your answers aren’t really answers at all. You see, I’ve heard the Sunday school answers. Problem is, if you really think about these for just a few minutes, they often fall apart. They just do.
And yeah, Christianity is ultimately about threats. Eternal torture. That’s a threat. It just is. It’s not about justifying my disbelief. It’s just in the Bible. Nothing anyone can do about it. Not my fault it’s there.
Thump, thump, right, old boy? Not your message?
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ColorStorm said:
Here ya go dave, no charge, and a one way comment:
God has no competitors. His word is good. There are fingerprints provable from Genesis to Revelation that clearly present His word as good. As a matter of fact, it is settled in heaven. And He also said this.
Even though an angel from heaven……………..preach any other gospel than that which was preached, (according to the scriptures) let him be accursed. Strong language about the warping of the truth.
It is by knowing the true, that the false is easily identified. If you were interested in what is true, you would understand this. But yep, just another trail, headed in the wrong direction. And oh, yes, Jonah lived. And the rest is well, history.
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David said:
Ah, CS, you’re always a hoot! Still acting like a god.
Sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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Anna Waldherr said:
The struggle between good and evil is central to the human condition. That is why we argue so heatedly over the existence of God, rather than the existence of garden fairies.
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Grace and Truth Ministries International said:
What a creative way to rebuke the false premises of logic the proud use to excuse themselves of dealing with the truth, and witnessing to God’s character, and the gospel story all at the same time. 🙂
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