SouthWalesSam

iTrader: (1)

So to clarify: Hodgy, put up (YOUR evidence) or shut (YOUR gut) up.

However, ... .... require no tangible evidence for our irrational beliefs. We know it in our gut.

Rank hypocrisy. Pious-sounding, sanctimonious, self-satisfied, smug hypocrisy at its best.

FranK RA

Priceless

JTaylor

From a previous discussion:

First, I must acknowledge that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, at least not in a way that might be correctly described as conclusive. However, I’ve come to accept that there’s such overwhelming evidence to support the existence of a personal, creator God that unbelief would be intellectually and spiritually dishonest. Whilst my brand of apologetics can be accurately described as evidentialist, I feel compelled to clarify and must acknowledge that scripture, the inspired Word of God, has ultimate authority and is my primary source text. It must be stated then that the Bible says this, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6) and “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’” (John 20:29). This can be rightfully read as meaning faith alone is sufficient for salvation or, as it is within Protestant nomenclature, the doctrine of ‘sola fide’. Nonetheless, as someone who came to faith as a seeker (and the sought, but I’ll come to that later) I entirely understand the need for rational, considered and cogent discourse when witnessing to the agnostic and the atheist.

The Bible states, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19: 1-4). In other words, if I may be so bold, the evidence for God’s creation is all around us. I became spectacularly aware of this towards the end of my journey from atheism to theism. Below is an extract from a post I made in June 2011, about six months before I came to faith:

Quote:
If God is a place-marker for the unknown, I know it exists; if God is the Universe, I Know it exists; if God is the source of all life, I know it exists; if God is the Sun, I know it exists; if God is our collective consciousness, I know it exists; if God is the sum of human knowledge, I know it exists; if God is my conscience, I know it exists; if God gave rise to beauty, love, happiness, wisdom and fidelity after 3.8 billion years of evolution, I know it exists and if God is abiogenesis, I know it exists. If God is a bird singing, an act of true altruism, a baby's first breath, Mozart, sunset from Vesuvius, sunrise from Table Mountain, the eyes of a chimpanzee or my mother's unconditional love, I know God exists. If God is my desire to find truth and my sense of self beyond the atoms that make up my body, I know it exists.

Take each of these things, and a thousand others, and you have my God. /Quote

You’ll notice that I (ignorantly) use the word ‘it’ to describe God. At this stage I acknowledged a pantheistic God concept, but not a personal, Christian God and I felt a non-anthropomorphic description best fitted my beliefs of the time.

From (Ecclesiastes 3:11), “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.” I’d felt this sense of the eternal from a young boy when I first looked up to the heavens, nonetheless the Bible also states, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). Like most, I needed logical arguments before I could leap to faith. I needed evidence.

The challenge with the kind of pantheistic view of the universe illustrated above is that it doesn’t solve the problem of infinite regress. To say that “all is God” works until one asks “who or what created the all?” The cosmological argument answers that question. Every effect must have a cause. This universe and everything in it is an effect. There must be something that caused everything to come into existence. That uncaused cause, or ‘unmoved mover’ as Aristotle described Him, is God. Even when this is countered with the question of the multiverse, infinite regress is simply moved further back. The only satisfactory answer is God. Who created God? No one or no thing - God is supernatural and eternal, the uncreated creator.

Exhibit B is the argument from design or the teleological argument. If the earth were significantly closer or further away from the sun, it would not be capable of supporting the life it does. If the elements in our atmosphere were even a few percentage points different, nearly every living thing on earth would die. The odds of a single protein molecule forming by chance is 1 in 10 to the power 243 (that is a 1 followed by 243 zeros). A single cell is comprised of millions of protein molecules. The odds of us being here are virtually infinite and yet here we are, reading and writing and playing and working and breathing and singing. This can again be countered by the question of the multiverse. The teleological argument’s detractors will say that within an infinite number of universes it necessarily follows that one of them will have the exact parameters upon which sentient life is contingent. So did we simply win the lottery? I’d refer my opponent in this to the preceding paragraph and point out that even infinity has a beginning and that only the eternal does not!

The ontological argument uses the concept of God to prove God’s existence. If the definition of God is “a being than which no greater can be conceived” then to exist is greater than to not exist and therefore the greatest conceivable being must exist. If God did not exist, then God would not be the greatest conceivable being, and that would contradict the very definition of God. A thinking atheist will dismiss this as sophistry, but I am of the view (perhaps controversially) that we are hard-wired to seek God; as Cicero put it, “Nature herself has imprinted on the minds of all the idea of God."

A fourth argument is known as the moral argument. CS Lewis argued that "conscience reveals to us a moral law whose source cannot be found in the natural world, thus pointing to a supernatural Lawgiver.” John Henry Newman said that the conscience supports the claim that objective moral truths exist because it drives people to act morally even when it is not in their own interest. If there is an objective moral truth, a distinct right from wrong, and I believe there is, then there must be an authoritative God.

So, if I came to reason my way to belief in a monotheistic, creator God, why not Judaism or Islam? Well, I wanted to know God, and I realised that this lofty ambition could be realised through Jesus Christ. Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) If I wanted to know the Father, there was only one path!

I now realise that the Lord our shepherd came looking for me as a lost sheep and that he was the door to life. All I had to do was knock and the door was opened. I accept that this is not scientific and the evidence - my proof - of the Son’s divinity resides within the deep recesses of my heart. I hope that I can show my friends and family the miraculous workings of Jesus through the transformation in my own life and that they too may come to know His beauty and perfection.

Nonetheless, the Bible says that people will reject the knowledge of God and believe a lie instead. Romans 1:25 tells us that, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.” And that, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

It is my view that to reject God on the grounds that it’s not scientific or because there is a lack of ‘proof’ is an excuse. It strikes me that if God exists, then we are accountable to Him for our actions. If God does not exist, then we can do whatever we want without having to worry about God judging us. Additionally, to accept Christ as Lord and Saviour is an admission that we are not our own gods - this is a lot of power to give up! My final observation is that those who most stridently deny Him become the closest to seeing His truth - the Apostle Paul being the most famous illustration of this fact. To borrow a few lines from Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven:

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’

Faith in God is not a blind leap into the dark; it is a safe step into a well-lit room!

FranK RA

Could you explain the book of Enoch please ( if you haven’t already) and why the bible has changed so many times over the years. Do people with faith still abide by the removed books, text etc or only adhere to latest edition ?

JTaylor

Big subject, Frank. I’m about to head out for the evening, but will have a go at it for you tomorrow.

R666ORY+1

A leader of men? A preacher to many? Capable of creating world changing events? Wrote a world renowned book? Only thing is he never took the time to repent. A real shame as of course he would of been forgiven and would of been viewed in a differing light I’m sure. Mr A Hitler of course.

If you are more into a figurehead that represents all thst is good in humanity and truly does fight the good fight then check out “Deadpool”. Not sure if he can do the whole water into wine thing but he can heal holes in his hands no problem.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

Good questions!

JTaylor

Apologies for the delay in replying. I’ve been trying (and failing) to respond in a way that’s digestible and where I avoid copying and pasting swathes of text that you could google yourself. The subject is simply too big for me to deal with here, but it’s absolutely relevant and, as Paben says, your question is a good one.

If you’re serious and want to find out more I recommend Berkhof; this was the book my pastor bought me when I was asking similar questions a few years back.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

God made Adam.
God broke Adam to make Eve.
Adam boned Eve and got her pregnant out of wedlock, so inventing sin.
She had 2 bstard sons, Cane and Abel
Cane killed Abel, the first murderer so another sin.
Adam stole an apple, yet another sin and a broken commandment.

so the poor snake had nothing to do with it really.
The end.

If this is the case, bearing in mind Eve never had any more children or girls where did the rest of the population come from?
Also Cane must have died a virgin unless he boned his mother and father subsequently inventing buggery and incest in one fell swoop.

Or is the bible wrong?

JTaylor

I’m what’s known as an evolutionary creationist and as such see most of Genesis through that lense. The thread’s title subject, Jordan Peterson, has produced a series of lectures exploring the first book of the bible from the perspective of an evolutionary psychologist. You may find it helpful if you’re genuinely interested in answering the questions you’ve posed above. Here’s lecture IV in the series:

FranK RA

That’s the point JT. I don’t want you to copy and paste anything. I was looking forward to hearing “your” point of view and explanation. All you’ve done is put a leaflet through my door and ran away!
If you truly don’t understand or know the answer I’d rather you say so than hide behind scripture you don’t fully understand in the first place. We can all quote some person/book etc
There’s no shame in saying you don’t know...

I’ve asked the same questions to many a person of faith and to date they’ve all either evaded the questions altogether or replied the same way you have.

Berkohf. Im lead to believe that’s a book of science not religion so that doesn’t help either sadly.
You do realise the bible isn’t a book of fact...
Tbh... I’m still trying to figure out if you’ve let me or yourself down. I’ve lost faith in you JT !
Over and trout

madscoob

iTrader: (3)

one thing that makes me smile, if god made adam and eve why do allk picture ive ever seen of them depict them with belly buttons ??

legb4rsk

Quote: 'If you’re serious and want to find out more I recommend Berkhof; this was the book my pastor bought me when I was asking similar questions a few years back. '


Interesting he says he was given a book by his 'pastor'.That strikes me as one of these self appointed positions with no recognised accreditation to any mainstream church or religious order. Can or will you say what 'church' you belong to?

JTaylor

I attend this church:

http://www.calvaryogmore.co.uk/

I was baptised (Christened) as an infant in to the Church of England and I have attended the baptist church above since I was born again seven years ago. My theology is Calvinist and my view on origins is evolutionary creationist. I do not consider myself a Baptist or a member of the CofE, but simply a Christian.

JTaylor

The challenge you face in getting a satisfactory answer to your question is that the case for the biblical canon as it stands has been built over several thousand years and even then good men disagree and what is God-breathed and what is not. A Catholic might disagree with a Protestant about the Apocrypha for example and to understand why this is one would have to understand the Reformation and the history leading up to it and so on and so forth.

I’m happy to concede that I don’t have all the answers, Frank, even after a lifetime of searching. Only God has all the answers and He chooses to reveal them to His people through scripture. That man has proved imperfect in handling the word is self evident, but this does not diminish the perfection of the word itself.

FranK RA

You still choose not to answer any of my questions (because you can’t) and prefer to hide behind these scriptures you keep banging on about. I’ll say it again. The bible is NOT a factual book!

Most Christians will also tell you evolution and creationism don’t/can’t mix. The baptist church as a whole doesn’t even share the same beliefs church to church. No wonder you’re confused!
I’d give it up if I was you. I don’t think this rebirth thing you’ve got going on is working for you.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

God has visited death and destruction in all its forms upon us ‘his children’ yet billions still bow low before him. Why would we do this? The Devil has not committed a small fraction of the crimes against humanity that God has yet he gets all the bad press. God even allowed his own Son to be humiliated, tortured and crucified, allegedly to save sinners - from God Himself! This is something an omnipotent being could have achieved with the merest thought, no dead Son required. So who’s the bad guy here? Perhaps Devil worshippers are not as wide of the mark as they are usually painted.

JTaylor

“Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...”

Paben

iTrader: (5)

Quoting the Rolling Stones just avoids the harsh truth. Would we prefer (for example) sex and drugs and rock and roll, OR misery, deprivation, starvation, genocide, plague, etc etc, plus eternal damnation if you're a non believer. Hmmm, tricky decision.

JTaylor

You seem very angry at a God in whom you do not believe.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

It’s a true quandary. An intelligent man who wishes to believe in a loving God must acknowledge that God as portrayed in the Bible is a dreadful tyrant in every clear definition of that word. Either that or the Bible spouts nonsense. How do you resolve that dichotomy to your personal satisfaction?

JTaylor

Man ate of the fruit. We rebel and rebel and rebel and yet still the Father sent His only Son to atone for our sin. Your pride is stopping you from acknowledging this truth and bowing your knee and I have and will continue to pray for your heart to be softened. When I prayed sincerely for the first time I felt a force holding me back, but the Christ’s strength won through. I confessed. I confessed that I am a hopeless sinner and that I cannot save myself. I asked to be washed clean by the Son’s blood and gave myself over to the Creator. Now I have real life. Gone are the days of pleasure seeking to distract me from the perpetual, existential crisis that accompanies the nihilism and despair of living in a universe of pitiless indifference. I do not fear death. From time to time I have a fleeting glimpse of the eternal. I forgive and have been forgiven. I have seen and felt and heard beauty of such profundity that it rendered ineffable. If one knows the Trinity, and I mean really knows the Three Persons, one knows agape love. There is nothing greater - it is the very apex of existence. Confess, Paben. Meet the living God.

zip106

Surely no one of sound mind can actually believe all this guff?

Paben

iTrader: (5)

Good God man, have you read what you've written? Have you taken to flagellating yourself yet, or is that the next step? The only confession I can make, and don't take this too much to heart because I'm sure you mean well, is that you sound like religion has sent you off your head

JTaylor

I’ve no need to self-flagellate, Paben, Christ has already taken all the blows.

yabbadoo4

iTrader: (8)

what actually turned you to god JT?

JTaylor

Taken from another thread:

I was brought-up in a household that was nominally Christian. As I said earlier, my father, who was an intelligent man, was a strong atheist although he was ethically and morally Christian. My mother was and is a Christian. She has a believer's heart, but struggles with some of the deeper ideas - the Big Bang, infinite regress, vicarious redemption and so forth are alien to her. Her faith is simple and childlike.

I didn't attend a faith based primary school, but we did say the Lord's Prayer everyday and we acted out the nativity and I can distinctly remember being told that God created the world when I started asking the big questions. With that as a backdrop, as well as attending cubs, Sunday school and living in a very white, middle-class and culturally Christian area, it's fair to say that I was socialised into Christianity of sorts.

This all changed as I entered adolescence. I distinctly recall sitting in the physics classroom at an all-boy grammar school in Plymouth. We were being taught the truth: the universe is 13.8 billion years old; the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Then in to biology: Darwinism; humans have been around for 100-200 thousand years. In to R.E. and a plethora of other faiths were explored which brought with it the crushing realisation that culture and belief is relative. I stopped saying the Lord's Prayer in assembly and thought that believers were ignorant. School didn't teach evolutionary creationism - one was either a young earth creationist or an atheist. This of course proved to be a false dichotomy.

About a decade of general debauchery ensued. I led an amoral life centred around me, money, sex, drugs, cars and rock and roll. But it wasn't enough. No amount of coke, track-days and all night sessions could sate my appetite - there was a massive void that I just couldn't fill. I went back to uni' to study for a politics and sociology degree thinking that the answer lay there. It didn't. I turned to Buddhism for a fleeting moment, but it proved unsatisfactory. I adopted various philosophies: nihilism and Stoicism and integral theory...I wanted structure and was looking for a antidote to the gross materialism that surrounded me.

I eventually met my current partner and she calmed me down significantly. I was offered a job in Wales and took the opportunity. A succession of promotions came my way and the money was rolling in. By this time I was in to visualisation and the law of attraction. I became interested in the ancient mystery religions and even became a Freemason. All the boxes were ticked and yet there was still this sehnsucht.

By this time I had developed a theistic outlook of sorts. Technically, it's known as deism. I'd been struggling with the notion of infinite regress for some time, no amount of Dawkins, Hawking, Hitchens or Harris could resolve the issue. Additionally, I couldn't know the impersonal God of deism. Pandeism, then? Surely knowing God through nature was the answer. It wasn't. Eventually I looked inward and didn't like what I saw! Some posters will recall the thread on altruism and it was around that time I began to despair at what I saw as a selfish world full of greed and materialism.

I needed somebody I could trust and call a brother, somebody who was selfless. I asked the NSR crowd who their role models were. I was still searching.

When I was 35 I went to South Africa and had a deeply numinous experience as I looked-up at the Southern Cross and saw two shooting stars flash across the sky. I'd just witnessed the most awesome sunset and saw beautiful creatures in their own spectacular setting. I was on my knees, confronted by the overwhelming sense that I was home.

Within a month I'd stepped down from a senior management position and moved in to a much more relaxed job. I also enrolled at Cardiff Uni' on a philosophy course. It was here that I realised I was now a full blown theist. I'd also come to realise that the only way to truly know God was through Jesus Christ. I went home one evening around Christmas, got down on my knees and asked Christ to come in to my life. After a period of contrition and deep repentance I began to attend my local baptist church. The first conversation I had with the pastor (who's since become a good friend) was "Hitchens was wrong". That was nearly seven years ago now and I genuinely haven't looked back.

hodgy0_2

:-)

@JT

Where to start with JP, well using the term “Cultural Marxism” is a good as any – to me that is like being told of an amazing Chef who cooks a sublime roast beef, only for him to turn up to your table and carve it with a plastic knife.

Or something snetter’s may appreciate, looking into a garage workshop and only seeing mole grips of various sizes (and the odd hammer)

He is an academic, words are his tools, people like you and me JT can get away with lazy terms like “Cultural Marxism” but JP does not get a free pass, and his using it immediately ring alarm bells with me.

Interestingly, and in a way related to the recent Facebook post (which I don’t use btw) I still “surf” the internet, (remember that old school term) rather than get my news and views fed to me in the manner of Facebook, I go where I find interesting articles and commentators

So via a blog I read/contribute too I was directed to the below essay on JP, Tribalism and the culture wars

https://alastairadversaria.com/2018/...for-catharsis/

It is a good essay, he makes some valid points some of which I agree with regarding JP and the furore he has engendered – I suspect some of the attention JP distances himself from, but some he actively encourages

But the essay also links to the below

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/...ual-we-deserve

Which although a long read, I thought nailed JP and his pseudo intellectual nonsense (I am sure in his narrow field he has some useful things to say, but suffers from intellectual mission creep and steps outside his field something no academic/scientist is immune tbh so not, in itself, a specific criticism of JP)

What was really interesting to me was in the very first paragraph Nathan Robinson says

“If you want to appear very profound and convince people to take you seriously, but have nothing of value to say, there is a tried and tested method. First, take some extremely obvious platitude or truism. Make sure it actually does contain some insight, though it can be rather vague. Something like “if you’re too conciliatory, you will sometimes get taken advantage of” or “many moral values are similar across human societies.” Then, try to restate your platitude using as many words as possible, as unintelligibly as possible, while never repeating yourself exactly.”

It immediately resonated with me as I had recently and coincidently posted the following on a blog I follow – it was in response to someone who posted something along the lines of “we have a future and it is real”


yes me too - just vacuous meaningless hyperbole it reminds me of the techniques used by mediums who utter vague meaningless platitudes designed to ensnare the hard of thinking "you are a generous person but sometimes think you are being taken for granted"

err yes, wow so perceptive

I can't help thinking of Ernest Rutherford wonderful quote

"there are two types of science, physics and stamp collecting"

and this sort of "we have a great future" nonsense reminds me of verbal stamp collecting


as the commentators on both sides of the “debate” have acknowledged there is a culture war of some sorts going on, discourse has become “tribal” in nature and to that extent JP can’t be wholly blamed by the Alt-Rights appropriation of his ideas - they are so desperate for any intellectual cover it is hardly surprising, there is only so much Ann Coulter a sane person can stomach

go onto any youtube video of JP and the side bar will be full of videos titled "Hannity owns SJW" , "Farage schools Chuka Umunna" "Monckton destroys climate scientist" "Douglas Murray teaches [insert some one] about [insert something]- blah blah fvcking blah

I totally acknowledge my bias’ and “tribal” affiliations in this “culture war” (for want of a better term) and take steps to address them when I spot them. But it also make me acutely aware of other people’s tribal affiliations, so I was totally unsurprised to see JP tweet nonsense from various climate denial sites – the problem for me is when “tribalism” turns into “Crank Magnetism” and imv JP comes perilously close

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism

JTaylor

Except when he’s quoting somebody else, can you show me where JP uses the term ‘cultural-Marxist’, please Hodgy? I’ve followed JP for some time and whilst he criticises Marxism and its off-spring postmodernism, he’s been careful to avoid the term ‘cultural-Marxism’.

sprigeteer

iTrader: (9)

Total Recall - Arnie version.