A Response to Stephen's Threads

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Since I have been censored and blocked from responding to Stephen's threads by Stephen I will establish my own thread in response to his allegations since he responds to my posts on these threads, then does not give me the courtesy to respond to his.

He mocks Christianity with thread after thread through a variety of methods such as collapsing passages of Scripture to one or two verses, taking out of context, not understanding the root Greek words, not relating to passages that share the same teaching and through a number of other exegetical fallacies of reading into Scripture what it does not teach. In other words, he does not seek the author's meaning but supplies his own. 


Having said all that, I do not doubt that God still performs miracles. His providence allows things to happen both good and bad to believers in this world.

You say this as if only those who believe in god and Jesus and miracles  can do benevolent acts.
Not at all. I believe Stephen as well as I am created in the image and likeness of God. Thus, he retains a marred picture at times of right and wrong because of the Fall. What is more, his system of morality becomes suspect and relative if he cannot establish an absolute, objective, universal, unchanging source for benevolence/morality. So why should I believe his actions are beneficial unless they can be established as such? And he borrows from a worldview that can make sense of morality because it contains such a source when he refers to the Christian Scriptures. 

Although Stephen understands the biblical requirements he fails to live up to them at all times as does every other human being of accountable/reasoning age. 

This is what I just cannot stand about you lot. You believe that you have the monopoly on morals and ethics, believing only the " devout religious" can  perform good deeds. I am not religious in the slightest. But I do and my family does perform "good deeds" on a daily basis, without having to be prompted to do so by Jesus or a god or a hypocrite preacher.


I do not believe what Stephen claims and credits to me at all. He misrepresents my position once again. I see my faults. I realize that I cannot stand before God on my own merit or good works. My good deeds are just as flawed as every other person who tries to do this. I recognize this. I see that some see their own flaws in their good deeds too. I will also give credit where credit is due. It is good to do what is good! But, God judges the motive of the heart - why it is done. Some want to boast of what they have done. It seems to me to be human nature to prop oneself up by righteous actions. I also acknowledge and understand that there is One who has done what I could not do and He has done it on my behalf if I believe. My sinful and wrongful actions have been paid for by the life of another. 

Romans 3:9-11 (NASB)
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written,
There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;

Supposing for Stephen's sake (since I have no doubt) that God exists and He is the biblical God, why would Stephen's "good deeds" outweigh his bad deeds or why would he not be guilty of punishment for his wrongs? Why would he get away without being judged for all the wrongful actions he has done in his life?

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My sinful and wrongful actions have been paid for by the life of another. 
This is the problem with your religion. 


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@janesix

My sinful and wrongful actions have been paid for by the life of another. 
This is the problem with your religion. 
Would you rather pay for them by your life and actions?
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Supposing for Stephen's sake (since I have no doubt) that God exists and He is the biblical God, why would Stephen's "good deeds" outweigh his bad deeds or why would he not be guilty of punishment for his wrongs? Why would he get away without being judged for all the wrongful actions he has done in his life?

God judges the motive of the heart - why it is done
The problem is not with Stephen, it's with you, printed there in bold above.The answer to your question is the latter bold.


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Would you rather pay for them by your life and actions?
Isn't that what being responsible is all about? Why should someone else pay for your actions? That's absurd. All it manages to accomplish is to teach its followers to be irresponsible.
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@Goldtop

Supposing for Stephen's sake (since I have no doubt) that God exists and He is the biblical God, why would Stephen's "good deeds" outweigh his bad deeds or why would he not be guilty of punishment for his wrongs? Why would he get away without being judged for all the wrongful actions he has done in his life?

God judges the motive of the heart - why it is done
The problem is not with Stephen, it's with you, printed there in bold above.The answer to your question is the latter bold.
It is not my problem but yours, who object. You are creating a problem, not me. I am presenting a scenario, a poser. 
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@Goldtop

Would you rather pay for them by your life and actions?
Isn't that what being responsible is all about? Why should someone else pay for your actions? That's absurd. All it manages to accomplish is to teach its followers to be irresponsible. 
Then feel free to do so. 

Someone had mercy on me and helped me. They paid for something that I could not pay for. I did not have the means. Is mercy good? 

God's grace does not teach His followers to be irresponsible. It teaches them of God's love for them and what He was willing to do for them. It teaches them to be merciful and kind to others because they have received kindness themselves. It teaches them that the cost for sin is great. Sin destroys lives. Sin is something we witness every day throughout the world by people who ignore God's righteous decrees of doing unto others as you would have them do to you. It calls us to repentance and to change from doing evil. It gives us the means to do so to a degree since we are still fallible human beings on this earth. 

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It is not my problem but yours, who object. You are creating a problem, not me. I am presenting a scenario, a poser. 
If you admit to presenting a scenario, then you're admitting to instigating and creating the problem in the first place, which has been pointed out to you as the result of your beliefs and nothing to do with anyone else. If someone decides to punch you in the mouth and you deflect the punch, are you the one causing the problem?

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Someone had mercy on me and helped me. They paid for something that I could not pay for. I did not have the means. Is mercy good? 
Like what? Bought you a coffee or paid for your mortgage? What does that have to do with anything?

Sin destroys lives. Sin is something we witness every day throughout the world by people who ignore God's righteous decrees of doing unto others as you would have them do to you.
Then, after creating the problem, you decided to judge others rather than just work on yourself to improve. A good start at improving yourself would be to stop creating problems with your religious beliefs... or as you call it, "presenting a scenario".
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Since I have been censored and blocked from responding to Stephen's threads by Stephen I will establish my own thread in response to his allegations since he responds to my posts on these threads, then does not give me the courtesy to respond to his. 

What are you doing now if not responding, you clown? Congratulations!!!!  As you have eventually worked out for yourself, there is absolutely no way that  I could stop you responding to me in any way. The block facility on this sight is laughable as you have proven. You can still respond on  any given thread in question itself, there is nothing stopping you  at all. It just won't show who you are  quoting. I have been blocked by many here, but it hasn't stopped me posting on the thread I have been blocked. So stop crying and whining. 

I am not interested in what you in particular have to stay for many reasons. (1)  you never stay on track. (2) you post responses that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic. (3) you bombard and clutter up my threads with SO MUCH absolute nonsense that there should be a rule against it.

It is hard to complain about this sort of rude behaviour as one can only flag the post but not give a reason for flagging it. It leaves one with the single option of simply "blocking" you.

I could take this post of yours as a personal attack as it , like a few others now, have been directed at me personally, with my name in your title and two of those are authored by >>>>>> YOU<<<<<<<<. I don't mind. I can always ignore , you see, I have been created with a built in Ignore facility that I can switch on or off at any given time I choose to. Brilliant isn't it!!!!! ? I bet you wish were created with one , don't you?

But I won't whinge and whine and throw my rattle out of the pram. I have been given warnings twice simply for calling someone  stupid, so the only thing that I will complain about is if someone calls me stupid, which is often and so I must be driving the mods up the wall for keeping them on overtime

He mocks Christianity 


I may appear to be mocking Christianity. But highlighting biblical flaws and biblical contradictions is not mockery.  I don't think you know or understand the difference. I will admit to highlighting some very silly and contradictory biblical verses, but this is , after all, a religion forum to discuss religion. I will also admit that some theist here do actually invite "mockery" AND ridicule, for statements not only the bible makes, but for statements they make but never ever back up. You are of the opinion that by you simply quoting unreliable verses in defence of a unreliable verse/s that I have highlighted from the same unreliable source, somehow proves your case and me wrong.  it doesn't .

And he borrows from a worldview that can make sense of morality because it contains such a source when he refers to the Christian Scriptures. 

Nonsense . It is very rare that I even have to quote any other "worldview" sources than the scriptures themselves. In many cases it takes only seconds to counter one biblical verse with another biblical verse from the same source bible, THAT IS HOW CONTRADICTORY the bible is. The flaws lie with you and the scriptures sunshine. It is not for me to explain away the anomalous, ambiguous, contradictory half stories. Is all I do is highlight what I believe are mistakes, contradiction, and downright lies. It is up to you to scrabble around searching desperately to find a response and or answer., which usually boils down to you and your kind simple changing the scripture and adding a new definition to what is actually written, for which,in my opinion, you would deserve to be "mocked". 

Although Stephen understands the biblical requirements he fails to live up to them at all times as does every other human being of accountable/reasoning age. 

Oh stop with your back porch preaching. "The lord" requires nothing of me that my parents required of me: to be as good and as honest that I can be.

why would Stephen's "good deeds" outweigh his bad deeds

How do you know that they don't ,you jumped up self serving bible punching narcissist? 


or why would he not be guilty of punishment for his wrongs?
Guilty of punishment!!?   Don't you mean  - deserving of punishment?

Why would he get away without being judged for all the wrongful actions he has done in his life?

Who said I have?. This is where you do actually invite and deserve mockery. You are just like the other religious clowns here. Get over yourself,  for god's sake!!!

I am responsible for my actions and no one else. And I take responsibility for my actions, I would not let someone else take my punishment for me when it it is I who deserves the punishment that I am sure  you wish on me.
 
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Of course I would. 
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Of course I would. 
👏👏👏
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@janesix
My sinful and wrongful actions have been paid for by the life of another. 
This is the problem with your religion. 
Would you rather pay for them by your life and actions?

Of course I would. 
Then consider doing so. Good luck with that!

Also, consider those sins of Hitler. Do you think he paid for his wrongful actions, or is there no justice there for his wrongdoing? If there is no justice there then your system of justice sucks. 

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Of course I would. 
👏👏👏
You liked that one! (^8
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According to your system of "justice", if hitler is saved, he also gets off scott free. 
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Of course I would. 
👏👏👏
You liked that one! (^8

Well, yea! 

 
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@PGA2.0
Also, consider those sins of Hitler. Do you think he paid for his wrongful actions, or is there no justice there for his wrongdoing? If there is no justice there then your system of justice sucks. 
I'm surprised you even bother to ask.  But its not atheist justice that sucks.  What sucks is the universe doesn't put things right.   If we want a just and fair world - and we do - then we have to make it fair and just ourselves.  its not fair that Africans starve while Amercans are too fat... but it won't change unless we do something about it - and i don't mean praying.




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@PGA2.0
Also, consider those sins of Hitler. Do you think he paid for his wrongful actions, or is there no justice there for his wrongdoing? If there is no justice there then your system of justice sucks. 
It's difficult to tell what it is you're trying to say here. Do you actually believe Jesus should pay for the sins of Hitler and consider that justice? That makes zero sense. Hitler committed suicide rather than be captured, so he paid with his life. And although that's not nearly enough for the crimes he committed against humanity, there's not much more one can do. In that respect, there was no real justice for Hitlers crimes. Deal with it.

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@janesix

According to your system of "justice", if hitler is saved, he also gets off scott free. 
God's justice is met in His Son. The Son paid the penalty and suffered the wrath for those who believe. 

The price for Hitler's acquittal requires acceptance of the gift. There is no sign he did that, especially if he committed suicide, but that is between him and God.

God's justice is satisfied in His Son's sacrifice for those who will believe. He paid the price for the sinner. Sin was punished through His vicarious obedience and offering, His life for ours. We need to do two things, repent and believe. We can't earn our salvation by our own merit or good deeds, because they are flawed with many works of unrighteousness too. Living up to God's righteousness is not something an accountable human being can do by their own merit for He is completely pure, righteous and holy. God's gift of salvation is not something we deserve. It is through His mercy and by His grace. 

The difference between religion and relationship is that religion requires works or good deeds to earn a relationship with their gods. Christianity requires we believe in the merit and good deeds of another to put us right with God. Jesus lived the life before God we are incapable of and He mercifully offers Himself in our place out of love.

Take that for what it is worth to you.
 

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Living up to God's righteousness is not something an accountable human being can do
Yeah I mean how many of us can have our child offered up to us as a human sacrifice? How many would even ask? If you can't sacrifice your son to yourself you can't be righteous.

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@janesix


According to your system of "justice", if hitler is saved, he also gets off scott free. 
 
That is something between each one of us and God.

Do you think you've lived a good enough life? The Bible teaches none of us has because God is holy and pure - morally perfect - and will not accept sinfulness in His presence but will judge it. Would you call a judge who overlooked what is wrong a good judge? 

Sin separates us from God. What was the first commandment? 

Exodus 20:3
You shall have no other gods before Me.

What are gods? They are idols that humanity place before God, whether wooden of mental. We use them in place of God. We form our own gods that do not have the power, nor grace, nor majesty of God. So, on the first commandment alone we have fallen short of His glory and majesty. We have rebelled against Him. 
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,  but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Since our sin separates us from God we need an offering that satiates God's wrath and judgment for our sin. It needs to be perfectly righteous. A righteous life meets His standard of righteousness. Thus, your does not. Neither does Hitler's. Jesus kept every righteous commandment of God.

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

In other words, you do not meet the standard. 





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@keithprosser

Also, consider those sins of Hitler. Do you think he paid for his wrongful actions, or is there no justice there for his wrongdoing? If there is no justice there then your system of justice sucks. 
I'm surprised you even bother to ask.  But its not atheist justice that sucks.  What sucks is the universe doesn't put things right.   If we want a just and fair world - and we do - then we have to make it fair and just ourselves.  its not fair that Africans starve while Amercans are too fat... but it won't change unless we do something about it - and i don't mean praying.
I asked but you did not answer. Did he pay equally for what he inflicted? If not, then he did not get justice, which was my point. 

You are a product of your worldview. There is no ultimate meaning from a meaningless universe. You make up something which in the big picture is meaningless.

Some people want a just and fair world. Others like exploiting others because of what they get from it. 

Fair and just in whose mind? What is your objective, universal, objective reference point since you speak of fairness and justice?

No, it is not fair. The world has many evils in it, but how do you account for justice and fairness for people like Hitler or Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot, or a thousand others who do not view the world in the way you do?

Sometimes prayer is the only thing we can do and sometimes it is the best thing we can do because God is the sovereign Lord. There will always be more starving people than those who feel as you do and are willing to reach out to them and feed them. Yes, inaction is not a solution. Sometimes there is only so much you can do without putting yourself in the same position. Are you willing to sell everything to feed the poor? What happens to your family if you sell all and give your money to the poor? 

And what are you doing? (You don't have to answer)



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@Goldtop

Also, consider those sins of Hitler. Do you think he paid for his wrongful actions, or is there no justice there for his wrongdoing? If there is no justice there then your system of justice sucks. 
It's difficult to tell what it is you're trying to say here.
Simple. Explain how someone like him would get justice since you are so concerned about it. Oh, sorry, you did. The is no justice.

So your worldview does not deal with justice for all. Some get away with the worst atrocities in the history of humanity without receiving any judgment for their crimes. There is nothing fair about that, yet you criticize God for being just and fair in that we are judged for our life lived and what we do with it? 



Do you actually believe Jesus should pay for the sins of Hitler and consider that justice? That makes zero sense.
Sin is wrong. It is wrongful action against another. Your worldview has no ultimate accountability for wrongful action. Some people do not get the just damages for their wrongful acts.

Jesus paid for sin for those who will believe. If Hitler committed suicide it is hard to believe he repented and changed. 


Hitler committed suicide rather than be captured, so he paid with his life.
That is not equal justice, for the suffering he caused.

And although that's not nearly enough for the crimes he committed against humanity, there's not much more one can do. In that respect, there was no real justice for Hitlers crimes. Deal with it.

No justice in your worldview. Thus, there is no accountability. Do what you can get away with. Who cares? What does it matter in a pointless, uncaring, indifferent, amoral universe? Not one iota. Yet you live inconsistently within such a universe. You pick apart injustice in God yet there is no ultimate reason why we SHOULD be just or concerned about it in such a universe. If I can survive by exploiting others, such as Kim Jong-un or Hitler, then I get what I want. Why SHOULD I care about you unless you serve my purpose? Again, I bet your worldview is inconsistent with its ultimate source of meaning - there is none. Yet you find it everywhere. It is just made up to serve whatever someone likes to do. In some countries, they kill the unborn because they find it an inconvenience. In others the condemn such acts because they value all human beings. What do you PREFER?
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@disgusted

Living up to God's righteousness is not something an accountable human being can do
Yeah I mean how many of us can have our child offered up to us as a human sacrifice? How many would even ask? If you can't sacrifice your son to yourself you can't be righteous.
The Son volunteered to pay the penalty for sin on behalf of others. He GAVE His life for the sake of others. He was not forced to but He knew what needed to be done to meet God's perfect righteousness and appease the anger of God against sin and unrighteous, hideous acts. He met that righteousness requirement by becoming a human and living as a human before God without sinning. Then He died and took the penalty God required on Himself which is separation from God. He died (death - the penalty for sin, per God) in the place of believers that they may be restored before God.   
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Stephen is more obnoxious to those who go by sola scripture than he is for Orthodox.

All we really have to say is, "that isn't what the church teaches."


I think his dishonesty is apparent to all, and even people who don't believe the bible can see that he simply throws as much crap against the wall as he can in the hopes that something will stick.

Guy found a copy of the skeptics annotated bible or something and fancies himself a scholar.

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@Mopac

Stephen is more obnoxious to those who go by sola scripture than he is for Orthodox.

All we really have to say is, "that isn't what the church teaches."


I think his dishonesty is apparent to all, and even people who don't believe the bible can see that he simply throws as much crap against the wall as he can in the hopes that something will stick.

Guy found a copy of the skeptics annotated bible or something and fancies himself a scholar.

The problem I see is how he posts thread after thread that all misrepresent the Bible and he can't see where he is being inconsistent with what the passage reads because he only selects what he wants from it.  
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"Because they received not the love of truth, they jave been cursed with strong delusion"

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So your worldview does not deal with justice for all. Some get away with the worst atrocities in the history of humanity without receiving any judgment for their crimes. There is nothing fair about that, yet you criticize God for being just and fair in that we are judged for our life lived and what we do with it? 


I don't think anyone is critiizing God for being fair!   I am saying the fairness and justice you think god provides is illusory.   Hitler didn't suffer enough for his crimes and many good people die young or poor.   The world sucks like that because there is no god to make things better.

Atheists have a problem answering 'Why bother? you just die anyway.'  I've never found a good reason to care about others.  But I - and 99% of atheists care anyway.   I can explain why humans have evolved empathy, but that expains why we are not all rabid egoists not why we shouldn't be rabid egoists!   i'm not sure 'should' can ever be explained totally logically.   At least theists can evoke 'enlightened self-interest' -atheists don't even have that option.

Sure some people seem born with defective empathy cells in their heads but that is inevitable as every brain is unique.   But most humans have a healthy mix of selishness and altruism built in to their brains.   Atheists tend to explain human nature using genes, theists prefer to think a god is responsible.  The thing is we know that genes exist and how altruism can evolve against naive expectation.  The existence of the gods,on the other hand, is infintely debatable.


    

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God is holy and pure - morally perfect
Not if he gets angry as you claim in post #24.

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@Mopac
"Because they received not the love of truth, they jave been cursed with strong delusion"

This from someone who knew that the sun revolved around a flat earth, wow we've just gotta listen to them.
How deluded can you get.