Your Help Refuting a Blog

[thenexttodie]

So, you're not going to answer the questions.

You'll forgive me when I take that as a failure on your part to provide evidence in support of your claims.

Kindest regards,

James

Well since you basically admitted that your own argument doesn't really make any sense...you've got me pretty well stumped as to what I should say now..

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greeitngs,

So, you're not going to answer the questions.

You'll forgive me when I take that as a failure on your part to provide evidence in support of your claims.

Kindest regards,

James

Well since you basically admitted that your own argument doesn't really make any sense...you've got me pretty well stumped as to what I should say now..

I admitted no such thing - you're simply claiming that to avoid answering the questions.

You still have not shown how/where Gentiles were made clean.

You claimed that Acts 10 was about rescinding the prohibition on eating pork - I've demonstrated that it has nothing to do with that but is allegorical: the vision tells Peter that Gentiles who are willing to receive the Holy Spirit are rendered "clean" and that, therefore, Jews - like Peter - can associate with them.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I feel I have already demonstrated the fact that none of you have any idea what you are talking about. Rather than explain to you every single question, or every single "Oh yeah! Well what about this!" Maybe you can provide some evidence for your side of the case. Whatever it is.

The rest of your post I don't really feel is worthwhile to comment on. To be honest, I didn't waste my time reading most of it because I know most of it would probably just be you blathering on about what Bible commentaries you have read.

BTW, I know what the Jews believed, then and now. I only pretended I didn't know because I was trying to fuck-start your head. I failed. Since its obvious that none of you even understand your own arguments, (this is because you copy them from other idiots, without taking the time to do any research at all to verify whether or not they hold water.) I thought I could help you by trying to usher you into an argument that a person who at least has a little bit of understanding about what the Bible, might make.

 

[SpecialFrog]

But the bible doesn't accept a lot of things, which is kind of my point.

Everything the Lord expects from you could be easily summarized in just a few sentences.

I'm still curious to know what these few sentences are. I would think if it was that simple it wouldn't be difficult to explain.

 

[Mr_Wilford]

I'm still curious to know what these few sentences are. I would think if it was that simple it wouldn't be difficult to explain.

I can pretty much sum it up in one: Love Christ and don't be a dick.

 

[SpecialFrog]

I'm still curious to know what these few sentences are. I would think if it was that simple it wouldn't be difficult to explain.

I can pretty much sum it up in one: Love Christ and don't be a dick.

Seem like one instruction too many for some people.

What I'm trying to get from thenexttodie is how that summation includes "homosexuality is bad".

 

[Deleted member 619]

It's a misprint. In one edition, rather than saying 'don't be a dick' it said 'don't take a dick'. :lol:

 

[Dustnite]

 

[thenexttodie]

Well since you basically admitted that your own argument doesn't really make any sense...you've got me pretty well stumped as to what I should say now..

I admitted no such thing - you're simply claiming that to avoid answering the questions.

I asked you whose understanding of Acts makes more sense, yours or mine..just when directly applied to Peter's Vision! And you said neither! So what the fuck? Why are you here?

Go out and have a cup of coffee with a nice girl and rethink your life.

You still have not shown how/where Gentiles were made clean..

And?

I'd also like to point out that you have yet to provide any evidence that the Bible teaches acceptance of homosexuality.

You claimed that Acts 10 was about rescinding the prohibition on eating pork.

No. I just wanted to point out that Peter's vision makes more sense when you have a better understanding of the Bible than someone who thinks that Christians who eat shrimp are hippocrites if they do not accept homosexuality.

It's just a small point. But you seem to have trouble with it.

- I've demonstrated..

You haven't demonstrated anything. You haven't even attempted to.

..that it has nothing to do with that but is allegorical: the vision tells Peter that Gentiles who are willing to receive the Holy Spirit are rendered "clean" and that, therefore, Jews - like Peter - can associate with them.,

Dragon Glas, you already gave this same arguement . And when I explained to you that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with something being clean or unclean but it was because of the fact that some gentiles did receive the Holy Spirit that Peter then understood that the Gentiles were no longer unclean, You said..

I am speaking from Peter's perspective...I erred in my earlier post when I said that God made them clean through the Holy Spirit - what I should have said was that God made them clean in Peter's eyes by their willingness to receive the Holy Spirit.

When I'm debating somebody, I don't like to go back and quote something my opponent said earlier just to use his own words against him- so to speak. But I feel I must do that here.

Dragon Glas, I think you don't really understand what we are talking about. I think you are only copying your ideas from somewhere else. My evidence for this is that

1) You seem unable to explain the ideas you have presented for your case thus far.

2) You forget your own argument.


So. I don't know what else to tell you. Don't be an idiot the rest of your life just because those around you expect you to be one.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Well since you basically admitted that your own argument doesn't really make any sense...you've got me pretty well stumped as to what I should say now..

I didn't - due to you completely misunderstanding Acts 10, and our discussion of it, you've come to a completely wrong conclusion.

I admitted no such thing - you're simply claiming that to avoid answering the questions.

I asked you whose understanding of Acts makes more sense, yours or mine..just when directly applied to Peter's Vision! And you said neither! So what the fuck? Why are you here?

Go out and have a cup of coffee with a nice girl and rethink your life.

You presented a false dichotomy based purely on eating clean/unclean food - I pointed out to you that it is not about eating food, but that it's an allegory for people: Jews (clean) and Gentiles (unclean) mixing.

You appear unable to grasp this concept, and - as a result - have completely misinterpreted our conversation.

You still have not shown how/where Gentiles were made clean..

You left out "before Peter's vision".

And?

You've made the claim - the onus is on you to provide evidence for it.

I'd also like to point out that you have yet to provide any evidence that the Bible teaches acceptance of homosexuality.

The Bible doesn't accept homosexuality - do you know why?

I have not been arguing that it does - what is being argued is the apparent hypocrisy in Christians abiding by some strictures in the Bible whilst ignoring others.

You claimed that Acts 10 was about rescinding the prohibition on eating pork.

No. I just wanted to point out that Peter's vision makes more sense when you have a better understanding of the Bible than someone who thinks that Christians who eat shrimp are hippocrites if they do not accept homosexuality.

It's just a small point. But you seem to have trouble with it.

It's not just "eating shrimp" - it's a whole plethora of strictures in the Bible that are ignored by Christians, whilst homosexuality is focussed upon to the exclusion of the others.

- I've demonstrated..

You haven't demonstrated anything. You haven't even attempted to.

I reproduced the whole of Acts 10 to show the verse you cited - out-of-context - in its proper context.

..that it has nothing to do with that but is allegorical: the vision tells Peter that Gentiles who are willing to receive the Holy Spirit are rendered "clean" and that, therefore, Jews - like Peter - can associate with them.,

Dragon Glas, you already gave this same arguement . And when I explained to you that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with something being clean or unclean but it was because of the fact that some gentiles did receive the Holy Spirit that Peter then understood that the Gentiles were no longer unclean, You said..

I am speaking from Peter's perspective...I erred in my earlier post when I said that God made them clean through the Holy Spirit - what I should have said was that God made them clean in Peter's eyes by their willingness to receive the Holy Spirit.

When I'm debating somebody, I don't like to go back and quote something my opponent said earlier just to use his own words against him- so to speak. But I feel I must do that here.

Dragon Glas, I think you don't really understand what we are talking about. I think you are only copying your ideas from somewhere else. My evidence for this is that

1) You seem unable to explain the ideas you have presented for your case thus far.

2) You forget your own argument.

So. I don't know what else to tell you. Don't be an idiot the rest of your life just because those around you expect you to be one.

As I said, due to your misinterpretation of Acts 10, you've misinterpreted our discussion.

In my original comment, I left out certain unspoken assumptions, of which I believed you were aware. In my later comment, I admitted that I hadn't made myself clear to you - not that I was wrong. I clarified what I said because I realised that you didn't know as much about Jewish culture as you appeared to portray - hence my later comment. [You later claimed that you did - and claimed that you only pretended not to.]

Their willingness to hear God's Word rendered them clean - the vision was to help Peter see past his bias, that Gentiles were unclean (and should not be associated with).

This is what Acts 10 is about and what I've been trying to explain to you throughout.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[thenexttodie]

Greetings,



Their willingness to hear God's Word rendered them clean

Wrong again! First it was the Holy Spirit and now it's the willingness to hear Gods Word.

No. The willingness to hear Gods Word is not what makes someone or some thing clean.

I'll give you a hint. The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

 

[SpecialFrog]

I'll give you a hint. The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

So God gives people arbitrary commands?

It sounds like you are saying that you can tell it is a meaningful command from God if we could work it out on our own without having been told it. Is that accurate? If so, in what sense should we care about what the Bible says if we can just work out how to live on our own?

Also, on what basis would we determine on our own that a man having sex with another man is bad but an infertile man having sex with a woman is okay?

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Greetings,

Their willingness to hear God's Word rendered them clean

Wrong again! First it was the Holy Spirit and now it's the willingness to hear Gods Word.

No. The willingness to hear Gods Word is not what makes someone or some thing clean.

I'll give you a hint. The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

We clearly disagree on this.

I'm going with biblical scholars and theologians, who actually know what they're talking about, who read the languages and study the bible in its cultural context.

You can stick with your opinion.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[red]

Greetings,



Their willingness to hear God's Word rendered them clean

Wrong again! First it was the Holy Spirit and now it's the willingness to hear Gods Word.

No. The willingness to hear Gods Word is not what makes someone or some thing clean.

I'll give you a hint. The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

Laws should never be "arbitrary" as they would then be called something else.
If the law says not to exceed a certain speed limit, it prevails where it states it is so. If you wish to exceed that speed limit where the law does not prevail, then there is no such law.
Given you need to eat to live, if the laws clearly state what you cannot eat, then you you cannot eat what is stated - it's not arbitrary. If laws do not prevail on eating tigers or ants, or spiders, then go for it.
What is arbitrary is the decision to practise a faith which prescribes certain "laws".

 

[thenexttodie]

The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

So God gives people arbitrary commands?

The dietary laws are arbitrary in the sense that the Isrealites would have no way to ever determine on their own what foods they should or should not eat. Not that the law served no purpose, but the rule God gave to determine which foods were clean or unclean, I believe was purely arbitrary. Is there something wrong with that?

I realize many people say it was for health reasons. But as long as something has be cleaned and cooked properly, we can eat anything. Can't we?

It sounds like you are saying that you can tell it is a meaningful command from God if we could work it out on our own without having been told it. Is that accurate?

No. The point I was trying to make with DraganGlas is that, when you investigate things a little deeper than what I think he has, you can show how ridiculous it is to argue that everything God told the Isrealites to do he also expected everyone else to do, forever. But we never got that far.

Also, on what basis would we determine on our own that a man having sex with another man is bad but an infertile man having sex with a woman is okay?

Well what happens is that when people hate God, they will generally be supportive of any idea that makes a mockery of Him or anything that could make life miserable for the people who love God. That's what they think is "okay".

 

[SpecialFrog]

The dietary laws are arbitrary in the sense that the Isrealites would have no way to ever determine on their own what foods they should or should not eat. Not that the law served no purpose, but the rule God gave to determine which foods were clean or unclean, I believe was purely arbitrary. Is there something wrong with that?

So what purpose does following arbitrary commands from a god serve? Are we required to follow pointless commands just because a god says so? That's fine if you believe that but then you have something like the Greek gods who were petty celestial dictators and not allegedly benevolent or just beings.

It sounds like you are saying that you can tell it is a meaningful command from God if we could work it out on our own without having been told it. Is that accurate?

No. The point I was trying to make with DraganGlas is that, when you investigate things a little deeper than what I think he has, you can show how ridiculous it is to argue that everything God told the Isrealites to do he also expected everyone else to do, forever. But we never got that far.

But you said that you could tell the difference between general commands and Israel-specific commands is that the Israel-specific ones were not ones that they could have come up with on their own. This implies that the general commands are ones that they could have come up with.

How does the first not imply the second?

Also, on what basis would we determine on our own that a man having sex with another man is bad but an infertile man having sex with a woman is okay?

Well what happens is that when people hate God, they will generally be supportive of any idea that makes a mockery of Him or anything that could make life miserable for the people who love God. That's what they think is "okay".

That does absolutely nothing to answer my question.

 

[thenexttodie]

The dietary laws are arbitrary in the sense that the Isrealites would have no way to ever determine on their own what foods they should or should not eat. Not that the law served no purpose, but the rule God gave to determine which foods were clean or unclean, I believe was purely arbitrary. Is there something wrong with that?

So what purpose does following arbitrary commands from a god serve?

After everything I have explained so far in this thread, I feel this question to be rather juvenile. Explain which commands you suppose we should not follow and the reasons thereof.

Are we required to follow pointless commands just because a god says so?

What the fuck? Are you high?

But you said that you could tell the difference between general commands and Israel-specific commands is that the Israel-specific ones were not ones that they could have come up with on their own.

I did not say this.

 

[SpecialFrog]

So what purpose does following arbitrary commands from a god serve?

After everything I have explained so far in this thread, I feel this question to be rather juvenile. Explain which commands you suppose we should not follow and the reasons thereof.

I think the onus on someone claiming we should follow laws that they acknowledge are arbitrarily should explain why anyone should follow them rather than the other way around.

Are we required to follow pointless commands just because a god says so?

What the fuck? Are you high?

That seems like something of a non-sequitur.

But you said that you could tell the difference between general commands and Israel-specific commands is that the Israel-specific ones were not ones that they could have come up with on their own.

I did not say this.

The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

The dietary laws are arbitrary in the sense that the Isrealites would have no way to ever determine on their own what foods they should or should not eat.

Please explain how this doesn't imply that there are laws that are not arbitrary in the sense that the Israelites would have a way to determine what the correct behaviour was.

This sentence structure implies that there is another set of laws with which you are contrasting the dietary laws.

Are you instead saying that all the laws are arbitrary? In which case you are still failing to explains fundamental difference between the laws Christians need to follow and the ones they don't.

 

[thenexttodie]

So what purpose does following arbitrary commands from a god serve?

quote="thenexttodie"] After everything I have explained so far in this thread, I feel this question to be rather juvenile. Explain which commands you suppose we should not follow and the reasons thereof.[/quote]

I think the onus on someone claiming we should follow laws that they acknowledge are arbitrarily should explain why anyone should follow them rather than the other way around.

*sigh* I think the word "arbitrary" might not mean what you think it means. Look it up. Then consider the following example

I have 2 sons, Jake and Dave. I tell Jake to trim the hedges and tell Dave to mow the lawn. I had no specific reason to assign the lawn mowing to Dave, nor the hedge trimming to Jake. Yet they obeyed me. Why? Was this wrong?
.

But you said that you could tell the difference between general commands and Israel-specific commands is that the Israel-specific ones were not ones that they could have come up with on their own.

I did not say this.

The dietary laws are arbitrary. There is no way for man to determine on his own that it was once wrong to eat a hippopotamus but not a giraffe.

The dietary laws are arbitrary in the sense that the Isrealites would have no way to ever determine on their own what foods they should or should not eat.

Please explain how this doesn't imply that there are laws that are not arbitrary in the sense that the Israelites would have a way to determine what the correct behaviour was.

This sentence structure implies that there is another set of laws with which you are contrasting the dietary laws.

Yes! There are certain laws and commandments God only gave to specific people. Does this blow your mind?

 

[SpecialFrog]

I think the onus on someone claiming we should follow laws that they acknowledge are arbitrarily should explain why anyone should follow them rather than the other way around.

*sigh* I think the word "arbitrary" might not mean what you think it means. Look it up. Then consider the following example

I have 2 sons, Jake and Dave. I tell Jake to trim the hedges and tell Dave to mow the lawn. I had no specific reason to assign the lawn mowing to Dave, nor the hedge trimming to Jake. Yet they obeyed me. Why? Was this wrong?

My use of arbitrary is correct. And your analogy is invalid. If you told Jake to drive carefully and Dave to only ever wear blue clothing it would be a better analogy. Dave would probably obey you as a child but as a rational adult would likely discard your commands that clearly have no objective basis.

Unless of course you think God needs some people not to eat shellfish for some reason. This is actually close to some Jewish thought though Jews don't tend to think that God gave commands to anyone else.

But you said that you could tell the difference between general commands and Israel-specific commands is that the Israel-specific ones were not ones that they could have come up with on their own.

Yes! There are certain laws and commandments God only gave to specific people. Does this blow your mind?

So, are you now acknowledging that you did say what I claimed despite your earlier denial?

If so, please explain.

If not, explain how the two statements I quoted (which you included in your own last message) do not say that.