Topic: Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye? (Read 2093 times)

Tony N · « **on:** November 17, 2005, 04:41:30 AM »

Dear Atheists,
I posted this on the "Christian" (LOL) forum and was reprimanded by sntjohnny for not reaching out to the non-Christian. So here I am.

What do you think of the logic behind what Thomas Allin and Thomas Erskine as to how they perceive ChristenDUMB?

Thomas Allin wrote:
"The popular creed presents us with a Being who fluctuates between tenderness and wrath: One who has ever-changing plans, and a will that is divided, and baffled. For half His creatures, His love is in fact momentary and His vengeance eternal. For the other half, His pity is eternal and dHis wrath transient. This God is not even Lord in His own house; for the worst and feeblest of His creatures can defeat His most cherished plan; can paralyze the Cross of Christ. In such a God I can see no trace of Him who is almighty and unchanging, whose property is to always have mercy; whose love, tho it must take the form of vengeance against sin, never ceases to pursue the sinners for 'love never faileth'; never to all eternity. Against the popular caricature of God, this . . . is a special protest--that caricature which represents eternal love as turning to hate as soon as the sinner dies; which vainly talks of an Eternal Father, whose judgments mean salvation in one world and change to d--nation in the next; of eternal love, whose fire purifies and refines in time and then beyond the grave turns to mere (purposeless) torture. All this is not alone morally repulsive, but a plain contradiction in terms."

Thomas Erskine wonderfully wrote:
"Hence the painful evasions; the manifold sophistry; the halting logic that (honestly) turns the Bible upside down; i.e., teaching that all men are drawn to Christ means half mankind drawn to the devil; all things reconciled through Christ means the final perdition of half the universe. The notion, which is in fact that of the popular creed, i.e., that God is in the Bible detailing the story of His own defeat, is telling how sin has proved too strong for Him; this notion is worse than absurd. Assuredly the Bible is not the story of sin deepening into eternal ruin--of creation darkened forever by a ghastly hell--of God's own Son worsted in His utmost effort. It is from the opening to the close the story of grace stronger than sin--of life victorious over every form of death--of God triumphing over evil."

Copernicus · « **Reply #1 on:** November 17, 2005, 11:50:47 AM »

Quote from: Tony N

Dear Atheists,

What do you think of the logic behind what Thomas Allin and Thomas Erskine as to how they perceive ChristenDUMB?

Tony, these sentiments strike me as very much what a lot of atheists see when they paint Christians with a broad brush. Why ask for the reaction from atheists? That's preaching to the choir. I think that the text itself is designed to provoke a defensive response from Christians.

Myself, I see the Bible as a compendium of conflicting records, ideas and pronouncements that modern believers use as a kind of Rorschach test. Just as different people see different patterns in ink blots, different people see different versions of God in the Bible. Various churches set parameters on how to interpret the Bible, but individuals even within the same church can come up with very different conceptions of what God is like, what God wants, and how humanlike God has to be. Most modern Christians have probably never even read the Bible from cover to cover, and many don't really care about the literal interpretation of verses. If more Christians did read the Bible carefully, there would probably be even more atheists than there are.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #2 on:** November 17, 2005, 11:57:40 AM »

Tony N · « **Reply #3 on:** November 17, 2005, 12:03:34 PM »

Let me get this straight, johnny,

You reprimand me for posting that post on the Christian board and tell me to go to the unbelievers. I go to the unbelievers here and yet again you reprimand me. You know what? I think the Atheists on this board see right through you.

How can I be preaching to the choir when I'm not an atheist?

Furthermore, a properly translated Bible does not have all the mumbo jumbo your infer it does. I'd advise you to get a better bible such as Young's Literal or Concordant Literal. Otherwise you will remain in darkness like your little buddies.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #4 on:** November 17, 2005, 12:14:56 PM »

Quote

Let me get this straight, johnny,

You reprimand me for posting that post on the Christian board and tell me to go to the unbelievers. I go to the unbelievers here and yet again you reprimand me. You know what? I think the Atheists on this board see right through you.

How can I be preaching to the choir when I'm not an atheist?

Furthermore, a properly translated Bible does not have all the mumbo jumbo your infer it does. I'd advise you to get a better bible such as Young's Literal or Concordant Literal. Otherwise you will remain in darkness like your little buddies.

Copernicus · « **Reply #5 on:** November 17, 2005, 12:26:40 PM »

I agree with Tony that the more interesting reaction would come from Christians and that sntjohnny's tactic is a transparent ploy to avoid addressing the serious issue of diversity of opinion on what lessons can be drawn from biblical text. That diversity of opinion is sometimes used by atheists to attack Christianity, but it is more often debated at length amongst Christians themselves. Differences of opinion on scripture are the primary reason for so many different churches and sects out there.

Anthony Horvath · « **Reply #6 on:** November 17, 2005, 12:30:34 PM »

Quote

I agree with Tony that the more interesting reaction would come from Christians and that sntjohnny's tactic is a transparent ploy to avoid addressing the serious issue of diversity of opinion on what lessons can be drawn from biblical text. That diversity of opinion is sometimes used by atheists to attack Christianity, but it is more often debated at length amongst Christians themselves. Differences of opinion on scripture are the primary reason for so many different churches and sects out there.

lol you're both nuts.

Here Cop, some context: http://www.sntjohnny.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1706

and pal... you didn't happen to notice he replied to your post thinking I wrote it? lol I wonder why I sometimes think people aren't listening....

TheDoctor · « **Reply #7 on:** November 17, 2005, 01:23:22 PM »

This is better than TV.

Tony N · « **Reply #8 on:** November 18, 2005, 12:27:18 PM »

Sorry, sntjohnny, it was actually pointed to Copernicus.

Tony N · « **Reply #9 on:** November 18, 2005, 12:32:40 PM »

O.K. Atheist's choir: After me: me me me me me . . . do re me fa so la ti do!

Now then, what do you actually think of what Erskine and Allin's ideas?

Don't you think it hypocritical of Christians to say what they say?

Their views do not match of with the God of the Bible Who "will have all mankind to be saved" (1 Tim.2:4) and is in fact "the saviour of all mankind" (1 Tim.4:10) and that includes atheists.

Copernicus · « **Reply #10 on:** November 18, 2005, 03:22:04 PM »

Quote from: Tony N

Now then, what do you actually think of what Erskine and Allin's ideas?

See my ink blot comment above. I think that both gentlemen are addressing diversity of opinion on the Bible, which really presents no single, coherent picture of God. That so many think it does requires a great deal of interpretation, and it is no surprise that so many people have come up with so many different interpretations.

Quote

Don't you think it hypocritical of Christians to say what they say?

That depends on how consistent their behavior is with what they say. I don't think that there is a great deal of value in putting such labels on people.

Quote

Their views do not match of with the God of the Bible Who "will have all mankind to be saved" (1 Tim.2:4) and is in fact "the saviour of all mankind" (1 Tim.4:10) and that includes atheists.

You are talking about a version of God that is not consistently represented in the Bible.

Tony N · « **Reply #11 on:** November 19, 2005, 05:20:51 AM »

Copernicus,
Thanks for the exchange.

Are you an atheist? Just curious.

I think part of the problem with people's perception of God is due to translations they use.

I think that a properly translated Bible clears up allot of those misperceptions.

For instance, if the Greek words Aion/Aionion are translated as "eternal" or "everlasting" then we have God torturing people unendingly and thus turning Him into a monster. However, if those words are given their transliterated Anglicized form i.e., "eon" and "eonian" and one seeks out the meaning of those words by their usage in the Scriptures, then there is no eternal torment. It is for a specified duration and is remedial and so becomes loving chastening rather than torture.

Get it?

Tony

Copernicus · « **Reply #12 on:** November 19, 2005, 11:26:58 AM »

Quote from: Tony N

Are you an atheist? Just curious.

Yes. I am a "strong atheist" in that I believe that gods do not exist. I go beyond the claim of merely failing to have a belief in their existence.

Quote

I think part of the problem with people's perception of God is due to translations they use.

I certainly agree with this point, but I don't think that you can dismiss all such perceptions that you disagree with in that way. The material in the Bible comes from many different sources, and it is not surprising that different people might contradict each other on historical events, the nature of God, and other matters. BTW, an excellent source on linguistic issues surrounding the biblical literature can be found in Gordon and Rendsburg's The Bible and the Ancient Near East. Both scholars are familiar with a wide variety of languages and dialects in biblical times.

Tony N · « **Reply #13 on:** November 24, 2005, 05:12:59 AM »

Hi copernicus,
Finally got back to this dialog.

I went to the link you provided re., The Bible and the Ancienct Near East and the blurb stated:

"This account of the historical context for the Hebrew Bible explores the diverse origins of such stories as the creation and the flood in the cultures of the ancient Near East. The authors show the striking parallels in the foundational stories told in the Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Hebrew cultures of the time. "

What I don't buy is the idea that Moses' account is just a compilation of "stories" for the creation, flood etc. I truly believe Moses was inspired with divine revelation to record actual events and dialogs pertaining to those activities and which bring out all the divine aspects of the Promised Seed: the Christ.

But, yea, I agree with you that one cannot dismiss all such perceptions that I disagree with on the basis of poor translation. But, 99% of people get their wrong thinking due to going to a poisoned source, i.e., a bad translation, to begin with.

For instance, translate AIWNION as "everlasting" as done in Matthew 25:46 and this automatically sets up barriers to one's perception of God's justice and love. Translate AIWNION as "age-abiding" or "for the age" or Anglicized: "eonian" which, being the adjective of "aion/eon" means "pertaining to the eon, and, automatically the problem of God's justice and love are in a better light.

No one in classic Greek ever used aionion nor aion to mean never ending/eternal.

So I believe the "popular creed" which Allin and Erskine wrote about was based indeed on faulty translation.

Tony
http://www.saviour-of-all.org

Copernicus · « **Reply #14 on:** November 24, 2005, 11:57:53 AM »

Quote from: Tony N

What I don't buy is the idea that Moses' account is just a compilation of "stories" for the creation, flood etc. I truly believe Moses was inspired with divine revelation to record actual events and dialogs pertaining to those activities and which bring out all the divine aspects of the Promised Seed: the Christ.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that stories found in the Bible contain accretions of other sources. For example, his birth story of Moses contains considerable parallels with Sargon of Agide's, who ruled about 3800 BCE--centuries before the Moses. The pagan Ugaritic literature (which comes to us untouched by a rabbinic tradition of compilation and editing) contains exact parallels in language with the Flood tale. Several of the Psalms are verbatim parallels, with the Hebrew "Yahwe" god substituted for the Ugaritic chief god "El". Gordon and Rendsburg go into great detail on such matters. It is difficult to explain such parallels in pagan texts, especially when the pagan texts appear to be older source material.

Author Topic: Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye? (Read 2093 times)

Tony N

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Copernicus

Re: Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Anthony Horvath

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Tony N

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Anthony Horvath

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Copernicus

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Anthony Horvath

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

TheDoctor

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Tony N

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Tony N

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Copernicus

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Tony N

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Copernicus

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Tony N

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?

Copernicus

Allin and Erskine on Christendumb. What think ye?