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atheism, blogging, faith, hope, insanitybytes, love, opinion, relationship
I regret this already, but Kia, critic of All Things Christian, made a declaration on his blog that I feel compelled to address.
He says, “The trouble with saying that God illumines scripture for believers to “rightly divide”, is that there are so many different believers “rightly dividing” with different opinions on what God has illumined them to understand.The first indication that most Christians get that there is more to the story is when they start encountering and mixing with other Christians of different stripes and denominations.”
First off, Kia who has called me rude, disrespectful, not meek, not humble and assorted other projections, does ask a good question, or at least it would be a good question if it were actually a question. It’s not a question at all, it’s a declaration that tries to establish there is no God because Christians are divided, there are many different denominations, and that we all interpret scripture differently.
Not so much. Here’s something I find really astounding. There are Christians from other cultures, other parts of the world, and yet when we are all at the foot of the cross we are all on the same page. We speak the same spiritual language, we recognize the same God, we grasp the same biblical principles.
In the US, where we have sharp divides over politics, race, class, traditionalists versus liberals, grace versus the law, we still all meet at the foot of the cross and interpret scripture very similarly. I like to crack jokes about communion wafers versus bread, wine versus grape juice, but all these things are just trifles in the larger scheme of things. John 13:35 tell us, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
There are some great theological debates and biblical exegesis and I shall no doubt offend those who love that sort of thing, but really it’s all just vanity. Scripture is simple enough a child can understand it…. or so complex it takes a life time to unravel it.
There can be some varied interpretations of scripture in the sense that God deals with each of us as individuals, so what I may be needing to hear in scripture, what I may need to glean from those passages, could well be different than what someone else sees. That is because we are at different places in our lives, dealing with different issues and God is speaking those words to us so we may apply them to our own lives.
The bible is meant to be received subjectively. That does not change the nature of the bible nor does it mean it is not also supposed to be taken literally. It simply means we are to take those words inside ourselves and to meditate on them and allow them to shape us. That is ideal, when we can surrender to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to reveal Himself…and ourselves, to us. The bible is not an instruction manual, like how to put together a piece of furniture from IKEA.
So Kia, you are rude, hostile, hard to love, you spread falsehoods about people, and yet I personally know of at least five Christian bloggers who have shown you grace and mercy, who have answered your questions, who have endured your attacks, and here we are still reaching out to you, still addressing your concerns about faith. You titled your post, “The most Unanswered Prayer that no one admits to.”
Your prayers have been answered, proving not only that prayer works, but that we are more than willing to “admit” to whatever deep, dark secrets you believe we are afraid to answer. Proving too that, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Love, Kia. Be very careful about rejecting that one. Life is too short for bitterness and cynicism. You may think you know the words of scripture, but you don’t know His heart.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I used to harbor bitterness, and I still do from time to time. Life is too short for that. Forgiveness is a good thing. Nice post.
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Amen! I still do sometimes myself, but not for long. Life is too short and God is too good.
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Thx for the link nk and the referral. I’ll let others judge for themselves from my post and the comments from all who has and has not been rude in tone
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I didn’t read Kia’s post, but the second to the last paragraph in your post reminded me of the atheist story David Foster Wallace told in his “This is Water” speech. https://youtu.be/8CrOL-ydFMI
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That’s really a good video. Thank you.
I love the fish asking what water is. 🙂
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Me too, there’s a lot of good stuff in there.
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No regrets Ms. IB. This was well done and beautifully written.
I liked how you got to the conclusion of their matter early on: declare certain parts of scripture to be false thus proving to themselves that God doesn’t exist. Even children display better logic.
Such is the desperation on their part to prove false what they know to be true. [yes, I will go there, because I know that they know God exists… but in the foolishness of their prideful hearts they keep telling themselves that by declaring Him non-existent they will not have to answer to Him…. How dumb can one get and still breathe.]
It’s love to speak the truth… no matter how much the hearer doesn’t want to hear it.
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Debate is good and it helps us to both understand other views and interpretation, but it also helps us to think deeper about our own beliefs. For me, debate causes me to research and study the topic deeper than I would have if no one challenged my positions. I think you got it right, which is that, despite different perspectives, as Christians we are united in who Christ is and why He came to save us. Unfortunately we are all fallible and don’t always get the details right.
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I love this comment. Debate also causes me to do more research, to clarify what I believe and where I stand,and that can be a great deal of fun. It’s also helpful to get a feel for other people’s views. I don’t always accept them, but sometimes I can empathize.
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This is a common Cult of Gnu (New Atheist) meme. Christians of many stripes disagree on a bunch of the details of Christianity, therefore God doesn’t exist/Christianity is false. I quake in front of such “unassailable” reasoning.
First of all, conflating the epistemic/doxastic (knowledge, beliefs or perceptions about something) with the ontic (the actual existence or nature of the something being perceived, believed, known) is what philosopher Bill Vallicella dubs the “continental shuffle.” Continental philosophers (Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, etc.) are notorious for making such sloppy inferences. I see such sloppiness also extends to online armchair philosophers of religions also, in this case KIA. Summarily, pointing to mere disagreement about something does not mean that something in question doesn’t exist or is false.
Additionally, as if any group has not had disagreement among different clusters of members within its whole. Inside the broad label of atheism, there’s no shortage of disagreement. Marxists rejected logical positivism, both of which are fundamentally atheistic philosophies. Richard Rorty is more interested in how humans as organisms cope with their environment than questions about whether God exists or not. The atheism of Robert Van Orman Quine critiqued logical positivism. There are a host of other examples. Are these grounds by which to dismiss atheism as a philosophical position? Nope, nor have I witnessed a Christian apologist, big or small, argue against atheism thusly. It’s ironic the “more rational” among us resort to such logically deficient arguments.
C.S. Lewis famously defended mere Christianity — essentially theism and the historical life and resurrection of Christ. These are the pillars of the Christian faith. The rest, whether we take the lord’s supper literally or symbolically is sorting out the details among the body of believers. In other words, these are in-house issues who are only pertinent to the members of the family, i.e. those who are theists and believe in the historicity of the divine revelation as revealed in the Gospel accounts.
So KIA is throwing stones from a glass house that is itself very much not the model family. Consider his reasoning “assailed,” his intellectual domicile disordered.
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I wish you had not included Kierkegaard in your list of sloppy philosophers. Captain Kierk was actually quite effective in his philosophical communication–and very faithful to Scripture and to historic Christianity. The fact that many of the others in your list claimed him as inspiration does not lower the value of what he wrote.
Which I guess supports one of the points that you and IB are making: just because the followers of Jesus disagree among themselves at times about things he said and did, no one should conclude that Jesus himself failed, was in error, or never even existed. J.
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Kierkegaard is brilliant but exasperating like Nietzsche. They both offer insight, but a lot of continental, existential philosophy is sloppy in how they formulate arguments: Dismissing absolute truth, being clear, defining what they mean. That’s all I’m saying and criticizing. KIA’s error is one continental philosophers make often.
I’m not opposed to Continental philosophers as such. They realize and embrace examining the “big questions in life” in the subjective, full-frontal, subjective manner intrinsic to those type of question, unlike the anesthetized analytics, who reduce philosophy to mere, dry premises. There’s advantages and disadvantages to both traditions of doing philosophy.
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Kierkegaard liked to show off by using Hegelian terms and structures to say non-Hegelian things, but he could be remarkably clear when he chose to be clear. When he said truth is subjective, he meant exactly what IB says above: “The bible is meant to be received subjectively. That does not change the nature of the bible nor does it mean it is not also supposed to be taken literally. It simply means we are to take those words inside ourselves and to meditate on them and allow them to shape us. That is ideal, when we can surrender to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to reveal Himself…and ourselves, to us.” He was no relativist. J.
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That’s an interesting point about the truth being subjective. I really believe it is, but there’s some qualifiers there. Being a relativist is like, “it’s all relative to how I feel and perceive things.” But to receive truth subjectively is more about the truth already being within us, about tapping into the Holy Spirit, not tapping into ourselves. The truth, absolute truth could be right in front of us, but we have to receive it subjectively or else we can’t really receive it at all.
All those philosophers can really mess with your mind, but at least they have taught us how to think. 🙂
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Can I just say your title here is awesome…………..
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Interesting! I really like your acceptance and encouragement of individual interpretation, yet still the very important feeling of unity. Unity that can hopefully help humans move forward into a more peaceful world.
I’m curious how far you’re comfortable extending that unity. You can extend it to other denominations, since they share the same scriptures? Would you extend that feeling of unity to others who share the same scriptures? Specifically, Judaism and Islam?
Just in case we’re taking a poll, I sure would. Though for that matter I extend unity to people of all religions, not just those of Abraham, and also the atheists and agnostics. But you certainly don’t have to agree with me. I’ll include you in my unity anyway. 😉
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I am all for moving forward towards a more peaceful world and if by “unity” you mean friendship, respect for human rights, than yes, I am all for it.
However, there’s a basic tenet in Christianity that tells us that not all religions are equal, that not all paths lead to the same place. John 14:6 tells us, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” There’s a lot of paths to Christ Himself, but He is the destination, He is the One who creates the unity.
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Interesting, thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Can I ask you a couple more questions? Does it matter to you that Islam does include Jesus and his teachings in a place of utmost respect?
And how do you feel about the billions of people who are born into places that have never heard of Christianity? Should they be excluded automatically?
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Islam does not acknowledge the divinity of Christ, so He is perceived more as a prophet. They follow Muhammad. The difference between Christ and Muhammad is like night and day. There are some other tenets of Islam that just make it incompatible with Christianity.
I used to be really bothered by your other question, the fact that some people may have never heard of Christ and so how could they have a choice? How could God condemn them? But then I realized that He makes Himself known to all of us, that He leaves no man behind. There are Muslims finding Christ right now and people far out in the jungle. I found Christ too,or rather He found me, as child in the midst of atheism. So basically what I realized was that the question was about doubting God, about not trusting His fairness. God is good and just, and fair. We are ourselves are called to spread the word,to share the good news with all the nations, too. I’m not sure how it all plays out in the end, but I know that God can be trusted, that He loves us all and has our best interests at heart. So I don’t worry about the billions of people who may not have heard of Christ, because God has the whole world in His hands and the good news is being spread across the world.
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I’m with ColorStorm…awesome title, and the rest was great too
So, not all the scientists agree, so chuck it all!
All the historians don’t agree…nothing ever really happened!
And so it goes.
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Hey W;
There’s that witness thing.
(But I’m still banished in the home of my friends. And I think you may have to open the basement door and let out some spam. 😉 It’s a plague I tell ya, and I hope it’s not contagious.
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Well darn..I will check. I am horrible about checking my spam.
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Oh..and you have been called out ..over yonder lol
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Reblogged this on Citizen Tom and commented:
“I regret this already, but… adds a lot to my last post. My thanks to insanitybytes22 for writing it.
As several commenters observed, the title is awesome.
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Thanks, Tom.
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Right on and delightful IB. If Kia’s definition of scripture does not include God’s Love then it is not a valid interpretation. I was reading along and my brain saw one line as “The bible is not an instruction manual, like how to put together a piece of scripture from I – KIA” ha!.
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Silly Brain of mine…
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Good.post but, why do you read KIA’s nonsensical blog?
You have a right, of course, but feeding the trolls only encourages them.
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That was ,my question too Isiah -especially since the Bible quite clearly implies that it is a waste of time (after one has been rejected). So, I have been nagging IB about it for a while now and she finally answered the other day. She told me that she felt a divine calling to confront and love those who are twisting Christianity to be about hate. What can I say? God works in mysterious ways. 😀
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God does work in mysterious ways indeed Paul. Thankfully entertaining hateful scoffers is not my calling. I used to think it was but no longer do.
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Not pretending to answer for ib22 53, but I would say, as long as the channel remains open……….there are a lot of regular bar patrons that frequent certain watering holes, who read what WE write on THEIR sites………that perhaps is more important.
We certainly are aware of the treachery of godlessness, and mindless attempted tactics to say there is somehow weakness in scripture. Obviously there is not, but you make a fair point. Why bother?
Well, I remember……….WE once walked according to the prince of this world, deceiving and being deceived……..but God who is rich in mercy……..shines the light in a dark place.
Personally, I think that God’s word does not return to Him blank even while we may see no evidence of churned hearts. There are some who would never admit it, but they know light when they see it. They see that believers do not speak with forked tongues of perversion, and that what we say here can be said in the company of parents without embarrassment.
We know the battle is not ours, but I would agree, not all are equipped to engage. Some would say I am not equipped, but to each his own. I admit there is a care to consider, and that is in ourselves when dealing with people who devour your words on a regular basis.
It is quite amusing to read the words of they who have no taste for the good word of God, while using that same word to chastise believers. Mind-numbing really. And on occasion, I do notice that mouths are rather quiet when faced with absolute truth, and that is a good thing. But eh, not all labor in the same field, yet we all serve the same purpose. 😉
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You make some good points but KIA is not amusing in the least.
Not trying to rebuke anyone, I just don’t get it. I saw a point in engaging KIA at first but we are all well beyond the point of shaking off the dust and moving on, IMHO.
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LOL, you can rebuke me anytime, you I trust. 🙂
Paul is right, I have felt a calling several times, not towards Kia in this particular case, but towards others. It can be powerful and unmistakable. Supernatural.
Sometimes, like with your blog, the person we are talking to is not the intended audience. On the internet especially you have to keep that in mind. There are often a whole lot of other people reading along silently that you don’t even know are there.
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I get it, I do. I have always wondered however, what the silent readers think of Christians who waste their time with obvious scoffers.
Don’t get me wrong, I have spent countless hours debating some of the worst so I’m clearly not above it in the least. Now though, I spend a lot of time wondering if those hours could have been used more productively.
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“We speak the same spiritual language, we recognize the same God, we grasp the same biblical principles.”
Really? I was raised Presbyterian and I remember the anti-Catholic nonsense when my cousin was going to marry a Catholic. Your claims are simply false when I can demonstrate how Christians cannot agree on what Christ really meant, how one should be baptized, and what it means to be a Christian. Every Christian invents Christ in their own image and insists that anyone who disagrees with them isn’t a “true” Christian. Since none of you can show that you are a true Christian, that you can do miracles just like JC does in the bible or better as is promised in the last verses in Mark, there is no reason to think any of you has the “right” version.
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Good post, praying for him.
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I love your reply!!
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Another powerful and thought-provoking blog. Thank you. I moved from the U.S. to Scotland. Yes, the churches here are a bit different – not so free and Holy Spirit filled as in Texas…but as you pointed out…we are all on the same page and at the foot of the same Cross.
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