Ryan: ….. He will not react to us, we must react to him. This may sound contradictory to such verses as Matthew 22, "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith,"
DDN: Yes, it DOES sound contradictory to MANY verses in the Bible including Mathew 22. And there’s a good reason for that: Because it IS contradictory to many verses in the Bible (the new testament included). I could list dozens of examples here (as I and others have done before) that are even more clearly at odds with the Christian claim that what we do does not matter. How many examples do you need? Five? Ten? Twenty? One Hundred? Are you just going to ignore these examples? Pretend like they don’t exist because they contradict other verses in the new testament that seem to free us from the burden of ethical behavior and our responsibility to love one another?
Ryan: ….. He will not react to us, we must react to him. This may sound contradictory to such verses as Matthew 22, "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith," but the truth is ……..
DDN: Uh, excuse me, but how do YOU know what the truth is, Ryan? What are you going by? You’re obviously not going by the bible because, if you were, you’d understand from verses like Mathew 22 that what we DO in this world DOES matter. You, like all the other well-meaning christians on this site, are simply choosing to ignore the verses that you personally don’t like because of their contradictory nature. ANY written material could be made to look like "the Truth" if we could just pretend like certain parts of it didn’t exist so that we could more easily assign whatever meaning we want to the other parts. Its called "making up your own religion".
If referencing bible verses is adequate for backing up your pro-christian claims then referencing bible verses should be adequate for backing up my anti-christian claims. You can sight examples of christ saying that our actions don’t matter and call yourself "logical". But if I sight examples of christ saying that our actions DO matter then I’m just being "hard", "difficult" and "antagonistic". This is the kind bullshit response I’ve been getting consistently from Christians for years. If the bible is "The Truth" then shouldn’t it be able to stand up to human scrutiny? Why won’t my christian opponents address these apparent contradictions directly? "Well Christ didn’t really mean to say that……,". Pfffff. Yeah, right. Everybody is an expert on what Christ really meant to say and what he really didn’t mean to say. The bottom line should be this: Can I open the bible and pick a verse of my choosing and believe what it says to be true or NOT? If I can’t then what’s the point of these freakin thing?!!
If examples like this Mathew 22 and the other better ones that I’ve listed are not contradictions then what are they? What are these verses saying if they are not claiming that our actions DO matter?
Ryan: ……He has seen the way our sin separates us from him and being a loving God has seen it just and right to send his only begotten son to die for you.
DDN: Well that was a damned stupid thing to do, wasn’t it? Send your only son to die in agony for a bunch of people you value as "nothing" (as you said we are "nothing" compared to God). Let’s tag this as your first personal contribution to the ever growing list of unresolved christian contradictions on this site.
Ryan: …..He reacted to your open rebellion with love, now all you have to do is react to his love with your own love.
DDN: To MY open rebellion? How did he react to MY open rebellion? Was I here when he sent Jesus? I thought christians didn’t believe in reincarnation? Or are you saying that I am 2000 years old? I don’t get it.
Ryan: …..He reacted to your open rebellion with love, now all you have to do is react to his love with your own love.
DDN: Ok. How? Send him flowers through the mail? What’s his address? Please explain.
Ryan: ….Paul was very religious before his conversion. In paraphrase he said, "I was the most religious Jew I knew, I was a Jew of Jews, I could quote the Tora and as for zeal I killed Christian. But then when I met Jesus I realized that it was all trash. I threw it all away for just a chance to know Jesus." A whole lot of modern church goers think that by doing religious things such as going to church they become saved, they think that some how they are doing God a favor. Every week they go to church and leave expecting God to react to their act of religious piety, and in some way saving them.
DDN: But Mathew 22 says they should pray. Don’t people go to church to pray? Are you saying that they are wasting their time following Jesus’ instructions? Is nothing to come from following his instructions? Why follow these instructions then? Why are they in the bible if we are supposed to ignore them?
I’m out of time. I’ll respond to the rest later.
