Apologetics: witnessing to atheists

[Blue155]

And you are also relying on human opinion to define what is scripture. Are you aware that in Protestant bibles what is called the Apocrypha was included until publishers realized that it would cost less to print the bible if they left out the Apocrypa? Or how about the initial decision to not include the Apocrypha. are you aware that Martin Luther originally planned to include it and left it out because of one specific verse? How about the Shepherd of Hermas or 4th Maccabees, both were included in what is widely recognized as the earliest complete bible known. And of the three main known versions of the Old Testament, which do you think meets two standards, the overall shortest and least used by the writers of the New Testament? I will give you a hint, it is also the official version of the Protestant Old Testament.

Scripture as we have defined it today is purely the result of human opinion. Paul and Peter both referenced existent writings that some have recognized as scripture, but that the Protestants do not. Did Peter and Paul know something that Protestants have forgotten or chosen to ignore? Most Protestant denomination, including the conservative Church of God, admit that we cannot be certain as to what God considers scripture, only what man does. This view is discounted mostly by lay people who are not fully educated in the Bible.

Now if you can show me where which books qualify as scripture without resorting to obvious human opinion, I will listen, but no scholar I know of would dare take up that challenge any more than pitting an average high school baseball team against the current world champions in a serious game.

Once again, your comment is self-defeating. If you cannot see that, any answer from me would be pointless.

 

[rewriter]

Once again, your comment is self-defeating. If you cannot see that, any answer from me would be pointless.

Actually, you are the blind person. You rely on human opinion to define the Bible and then deny that human opinion regarding what is or is not scripture is invalid. I am recognizing that we humans MUST choose what we consider scripture and cannot cite some outside authority to justify our choice.

 

[NightTwister]

I agree, but at the same time which of the 66 Scripture has authority is a matter of opinion.

It's quite simple. All of them.

 

[Blue155]

Actually, you are the blind person. You rely on human opinion to define the Bible and then deny that human opinion regarding what is or is not scripture is invalid. I am recognizing that we humans MUST choose what we consider scripture and cannot cite some outside authority to justify our choice.

You say God’s word is not opinion, yet you claim humans must decide what counts as God’s word without any higher authority. That makes human judgment the authority, which is exactly what you are arguing against. Either Scripture is authoritative by God or by man. If by man, it is opinion. If by God, it is certain. There is no middle ground. You’ve just proven that your position lives entirely on the side you claim to reject.

Once again, your comment is self-defeating.

 

[rewriter]

You say God’s word is not opinion, yet you claim humans must decide what counts as God’s word without any higher authority. That makes human judgment the authority, which is exactly what you are arguing against. Either Scripture is authoritative by God or by man. If by man, it is opinion. If by God, it is certain. There is no middle ground. You’ve just proven that your position lives entirely on the side you claim to reject.

Once again, your comment is self-defeating.

A very simple question for you. what is the CLEAR source for scripture in your view and explain how he can know this view is accurate? I have the courage to maintain that HUMANS decide that certain works were or were not scripture, and different groups made different decisions. You seem to want to decree that somehow the divine has clearly designated what is scripture, totally independent of fillable humans. but you have not designated how this came to be or why there is such disagreement among different groups. Do you have the courage to respond directly or will you continue to attempt to deflect away from your fallible statements.

 

[Blue155]

A very simple question for you. what is the CLEAR source for scripture in your view and explain how he can know this view is accurate? I have the courage to maintain that HUMANS decide that certain works were or were not scripture, and different groups made different decisions. You seem to want to decree that somehow the divine has clearly designated what is scripture, totally independent of fillable humans. but you have not designated how this came to be or why there is such disagreement among different groups. Do you have the courage to respond directly or will you continue to attempt to deflect away from your fallible statements.

When a thermometer reads 72 degrees, did it create the temperature or discover it?

 

[rewriter]

Humans defined the temperature and there are three accepted temperature scales. Now who defined what scripture is without HUMAAN involvement? Do you have the COURAGE to answer?

 

[Blue155]

Humans defined the temperature and there are three accepted temperature scales. Now who defined what scripture is without HUMAAN involvement? Do you have the COURAGE to answer?

False. Humans did not define temperature itself. Temperature is an objective physical reality, as it exists independently of any measurement or tools. Just as a thermometer does not invent temperature but measures it, humans did not invent God’s Word. The courage you ask for is simply acknowledging that God (not fallible humans), is the ultimate authority over His word.

 

[rewriter]

False, temperature is a human measurement. HEAT is a natural phenomenon temperature is a reading on a human created scale. 73 F is different than 73 C and 73 K is different than both but all three are HUMAN measurements.

Now, do you have the COURAGE or are you afraid to tell me how God established what qualifies as scripture without human involvement? It is looking like you do not have the courage.

 

[Blue155]

False, temperature is a human measurement. HEAT is a natural phenomenon temperature is a reading on a human created scale. 73 F is different than 73 C and 73 K is different than both but all three are HUMAN measurements.

Now, do you have the COURAGE or are you afraid to tell me how God established what qualifies as scripture without human involvement? It is looking like you do not have the courage.

You are confusing measurement with reality. Heat and temperature exist independently of any tools or scales we use to quantify them. Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin are human-created scales—they measure, they do not create the reality they measure. Your argument is therefore false, as the existence of heat and temperature is not dependent on human invention.

Concerning courage, to insist humans must define Scripture is to make fallible human judgment the final authority—exactly what you claim cannot be done. That is the courage you are asking for:
Is that really courage?

 

[rewriter]

Correct, you are the one who designated the temperature as 73 degrees, which is meaningless without human involvement.

I have the courage to admit that I am making a judgement call about what God has said. You want to avoid having to make that admission and appeal to some standard that you either will not or more likely cannot describe.

 

[Blue155]

Correct, you are the one who designated the temperature as 73 degrees, which is meaningless without human involvement.

I have the courage to admit that I am making a judgement call about what God has said. You want to avoid having to make that admission and appeal to some standard that you either will not or more likely cannot describe.

You are still confusing the scale with the reality it measures. Measurements didn’t recognize the temperature or create it. It independently existed without human measurement.

Your admission that you are “making a judgment call” is telling: if humans define Scripture, then fallible human judgment is the final authority, which is exactly what you have insisted cannot be done. You are effectively proving your own position self-defeating.

Do you have the courage to say that God has preserved His word and has not been distorted?

 

[GWH]

I did not know God’s word was opinion.

GW is His ultimate/omnipotent opinion; our understanding of GW is our opinion, unless you have the gift of papal infallibility.

 

[Blue155]

Measurements recognize (as in measurements didn’t create or invent) the temperature. Measurements simply accepts and registers what already exists. A thermometer doesn’t make it hot or cold. It only shows the reality of the temperature. Likewise, humans did not create or invent Scripture. They accepted what God has already inspired. The reality of temperature is independent of any human scale. Accepting does not create human authority, just as accepting measurement does not create temperature.

So, since God (through Paul) said His Word is inspired (2 Tim. 3:16), then He is also capable of preserving it (Ps. 12:6, etc). To say He has not is to say He failed, which would be Jesus (Mt. 24:35), as God cannot lie Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18).

That defense is from God’s word itself. Not man’s. To say otherwise is to be dishonest.

 

[Blue155]

GW is His ultimate/omnipotent opinion; our understanding of GW is our opinion, unless you have the gift of papal infallibility.

I don’t have that gift, but God has the power/gift of preserving His holy word.

 

[GWH]

On point 1), the second temple Jews did not believe that salvation was via obedience to the Mosaic laws either, they also accepted that salvation was by grace. Please do not accept a myth developed by later Christendom as fact
.
2) That does not mean that the church was not profoundly upset over the loss of the temple, just that they found ways to reconcile the loss with their beliefs, but it does not address how the loss changed their beliefs. John appears to have been edited, and Matthew is of uncertain date, are these comments created or adjusted post-70 or can they be confirmed as pre-70 as we have them.

3) Clement just says that Paul went there. But if he was in exile, his abilities to do certain things would have been curtailed. He would have been actively prevented from contacting those he left behind. As for a church, churches did spring up in Spain fairly early, just when is unknown. And would any churches have survived the persecutions of the 1st Jewish war? If Paul was there, he likely was released by either Galba or Otho, but neither one stayed in power for long and Vitellius and Vespasian would have had reason to question the loyalty of Christians as shown by the persecutions in Rome.

4) Antipas's coinage from his 33-4 CE minting seems to indicate support for Christianity. As for Caiaphas and Pilate, the history that mentions them has them linked with Antipas and in connection with early Christianity. You do know that according to Coptic tradition, Pilate converted don't you. That is also claimed by the unofficial "long" version of Acts. And also remember the Roman tradition of discrediting people who ran afoul of Rome. Once disgraced their disgraceful actions moved back in time eliminating their good deeds. All the records we have on Antipas and Caiaphas are post-disgraced. This includes that there is reason to doubt that Antipas had John the Baptist killed, rather it appears that maybe Romans arrested him and detained him until his death sometime after the death of Jesus. If this is true, and it is debatable, the gospel stories would be a way of absolving Rome and pinning the action of a disgraced individual.

5) Hell is another recent invention. Revelation references the lake of fire where all whose names are not in the book of life will be thrown, but it does not specify whose names are in the book of life. Most scripture references either Sheol (OT) or Hades (NT) both of which appear to have been two-part destinations, one pleasant and one very nasty, but also important it that it was possible, in Hades, to move from the unpleasant realm into the pleasant side. Further, the Bible itself might be read as allowing such movement from unpleasant to pleasant. There are ample anecdotal reports to raise questions about exactly occurs in the afterlife.

Tradition makes many claims, but a closer look at the foundations reveals that tradition might not be on as firm a position as it claims.

1. I need to ask who your reliable source is for saying some Jews thought salvation was a gift rather than reward for good works.

2. Ditto re who said whom was upset. Yes, it is uncertain how the fall of Jerusalem affected the Revelation of John,
but Paul was probably dead by then. Some questions may not be answered until we get to heaven.

3. It sounds like Clement was guessing Paul may have made it to Spain, just as we are guessing why there is no NT record of that.

4. I see no reason to believe Coptic tradition, but your mention of the Antipas coins is interesting. How do they support Christianity?

5. Heaven and Hell were NT revelations of ultimate reward for the godly and justice for evildoers (the reason for needing salvation), with no indication of a second opportunity to repent and go to heaven although there is a reference to angels leaving heaven for hell as their final destiny.

Over...

 

[rewriter]

Measurements recognize (as in measurements didn’t create or invent) the temperature. Measurements simply accepts and registers what already exists. A thermometer doesn’t make it hot or cold. It only shows the reality of the temperature. Likewise, humans did not create or invent Scripture. They accepted what God has already inspired. The reality of temperature is independent of any human scale. Accepting does not create human authority, just as accepting measurement does not create temperature.

So, since God (through Paul) said His Word is inspired (2 Tim. 3:16), then He is also capable of preserving it (Ps. 12:6, etc). To say He has not is to say He failed, which would be Jesus (Mt. 24:35), as God cannot lie Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18).

That defense is from God’s word itself. Not man’s. To say otherwise is to be dishonest.

Correction, Paul tells us that all scripture "graphe" (writing or a thing written; scripture, the book itself or its contents; a portion or section of Holy Scripture), is "theopneustos", a word Paul invented, quite plausibly to use the term that was previously commonly used due to its connotations. Now, unless you have been able to talk to Paul and determine EXACTLY what PAUL meant, you are assigning your own meaning to the words, which may or may not be accurate.

As for temperature or any other measurement, the fact that something exists is objectively true, but as soon as you apply a measurement, assign a value to it or even name it, you have entered in a human judgement, not something purely objective.

So again, how does scripture come into human reality without human judgment involved? As soon as God speaks to a flawed human, God's message gets corrupted by the human because humans, in a physical state, cannot help but distort their perception of reality.

 

[rewriter]

1. I need to ask who your reliable source is for saying some Jews thought salvation was a gift rather than reward for good works.

2. Ditto re who said whom was upset. Yes, it is uncertain how the fall of Jerusalem affected the Revelation of John,
but Paul was probably dead by then. Some questions may not be answered until we get to heaven.

3. It sounds like Clement was guessing Paul may have made it to Spain, just as we are guessing why there is no NT record of that.

4. I see no reason to believe Coptic tradition, but your mention of the Antipas coins is interesting. How do they support Christianity?

5. Heaven and Hell were NT revelations of ultimate reward for the godly and justice for evildoers (the reason for needing salvation), with no indication of a second opportunity to repent and go to heaven although there is a reference to angels leaving heaven for hell as their final destiny.

Over...

My sources for saying that second temple Judaism recognized grace rather than obedience to the law once again relies of Dead Sea Scrolls.

Who claims whom, was upset, common sense is a big factor. God's house on earth, something that falls only when His people have been too disobedient is gone, is clearly not going to upset people who have been doing their best to do what God wants. This gets into a long silent period with very few surviving written records. Can you provide evidence that I am wrong?

Clement does not present it as he thought Paul made it, he claims Paul DID make it. Given that there is no reason to date 1 Clement later than 80 CE, there is an excellent chance that Clement had first hand knowledge.

English has created the term "hell" and ascribed it to a destination in the afterlife. The original Greek is vague beyond saying that those whose name is not in the Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire. It does not clearly say whose names are in the Book of Life and whose are not. Even the angels are cast into Tartarus, which was a specific region in Hades, until they are to be released at the end. And incidentally, that is one of the references in the NT to the Book of Jubilees, a work that is considered scripture by some Christian traditions but not most, and is also a work that is better represented in the DSS than some accepted scripture, and which appears to have been considered scripture by some during the second temple period.

 

[Blue155]

Correction, Paul tells us that all scripture "graphe" (writing or a thing written; scripture, the book itself or its contents; a portion or section of Holy Scripture), is "theopneustos", a word Paul invented, quite plausibly to use the term that was previously commonly used due to its connotations. Now, unless you have been able to talk to Paul and determine EXACTLY what PAUL meant, you are assigning your own meaning to the words, which may or may not be accurate.

As for temperature or any other measurement, the fact that something exists is objectively true, but as soon as you apply a measurement, assign a value to it or even name it, you have entered in a human judgement, not something purely objective.

So again, how does scripture come into human reality without human judgment involved? As soon as God speaks to a flawed human, God's message gets corrupted by the human because humans, in a physical state, cannot help but distort their perception of reality.

You offer a lot of assertions without scripture. Assigning a number (73 degrees) is not creating the temperature. Measurement is not the invention of temperature.

So again, do you have the courage to say that God has preserved His word and it has not been distorted?

 

[rewriter]

Gee, I cite 2 Timothy 3:16 and you claim I make assertions without scripture. I cite the exact wording, point out where there is reason to question your understanding of the passage, and you try to deflect. Temperature is a HUMAN invention. Varying amounts of energy may or may not be sensed as some level of heat, but it takes an entity experiencing or defining it as heat.

I will continue to maintain that as soon as humans perceived God's word, unless he granted it to either a perfected human or a perfect robot, it became distorted. That is human free will and the result of the attendant sin. Do you have the courage to admit that humans are flawed and sinful and cannot perceive reality as it truly exists (an action that requires perfection)? I have the courage to admit human nature as described by God, do you?