Raf

Bolshevik, I'm going to try to be polite here: You derail threads with a skill that puts Mike to shame by trying to reduce everything to definitions that YOU accept, many of which have NOTHING to do with how the rest of the world defines those terms. It is exhausting and has derailed EVERY SINGLE conversation you and I have had. I'm not putting up with it again. "Rebuild all of society" to escape that I just wrote? That's absurd. And I will not have this thread derailed before it's even had a chance to start just because you aqre determined to make every thread about your inability to draw a straight line from one concept to the next. Enough. If you don't understand the points being raised, sit back and enjoy the conversation among those of us who do. Somebody had to say it.

I tended to use PFAL's definitions of the characteristics of God-breathed scripture, as they were the only ones for which we all had a common frame of reference. Whether a scripture can be "God-breathed" and not have those characteristics is a whole other issue. I think if anyone is going to make a case that a work is God-breathed, it's incumbent on that person to define it in a way that's falsifiable. You don't get to just say "It's God-breathed and you can't prove it's not." You have to prove it IS. That's how burden of proof works. If you make an affirmative claim, the burden is on you to prove it. Give PFAL credit for defining the characteristics of the God-breathed word, even if you don't agree with it. PFAL does not live up to those characteristics. Neither does the Bible. If you have an alternate set of characteristics, I'm happy to entertain them. If you have a definition of God-breathed we can explore, I'm happy to explore it.

Originally posted in the Absent Christ thread... There is no basis for rejecting PFAL as God-breathed that does not apply equally to scriptures that have been considered God-breathed since there was a canon.

This is a meta-reply that is kind of off-topic but speaks to the larger point of Mike's thesis, which hasbeen the undercurrent of multiple threads. I'll make the point here, but it A. deserves its own thread and B. that thread belongs in Questioning Faith or whatever we're calling the Oh Shinola corner of GSC these days. The point is this: There is no basis for rejecting PFAL as God-breathed that does not apply equally to scriptures that have been considered God-breathed since there was a canon. That is why you'll never get through to Mike any more than Richard Dawkins, Penn Jillette or I will ever get through to you.

PFAL has errors and contradictions. So what?

"You're blaming the Bible for slavery..." No, I'm not. Not what I said and cannot be inferred by what I said.

Mike, you're welcome to leave, you're welcome to stay. I realized after my change of heart that there was probably a shred of difference, if that, between the arguments we had and the arguments they had when the first believers had the audacity to suggest that Paul's letters were God-breathed. And those arguments no doubt preceded the endless debates about what gets in the cannon [sic] and what gets preserved as The Word of God. No doubt some wiseass completely dismissed Matthew and Luke for their painfully obvious plagiarism of Mark, and Mark got raked over the coals for knowing as much about Palestinian geography as Craig Martindale knew about celibacy and humility. And I'm sure lists of contradictions were compiled. How dare you put Paul's writings on the same level as Moses? Or John's writings on the same level as David's? Funny thing is, I now put them ALL on the same plane, but not because they're divine. I put them on thecsame plane because they all contain massive errors that disqualify them from being anything other than the scribblings of ignorant men who could have guided us away from people owning each other but instead made damn sure cheeseburgers were not on the menu. Maybe throw in that rape is a violent crime against a woman, not a property crime against her husband or father. But hey, go ahead and keep dodging and distracting and refusing to call an error an error. You won't be the first or the last. They did it with the 66 books, with the Quran, with the Book of Mormon. JWs refuse to admit their errors. It's the same old lie.

Like as of fire

Cut me some slack. I saw the movie one time. Ignore what I previously wrote. Wrong thread. New clue coming up.

It's fun, but best if you start from the beginning to get a sense of the character development.

Just Another F*ing Officer, you mean? Blue Thunder

John Leguizamo Ice Age Denis Leary

Just to clear something up: I don't "agree with Mike," per se. I see where Wierwille is coming from and submit that he has a point. Whether that point outweighs the points you guys raise in opposition to it is really up to each individual believer (or unbeliever) to decide (though believers are the only ones who have an actual stake in the answer). I decline to accept Mike as a frame of reference for my viewpoint here because I come to my point of view independent of his arguments. That is: I see Wierwille's point because I believe there is evidence to support it. I accept that there is also evidence to contradict it, and I can live with those contradictions because I accept contradictions as an attribute of the scriptures. Mike sees Wierwille's point because Wierwille can say the moon is made of green cheese and, as long as it was written in a PFAL collateral, Mike would accept it and dodge, distract, deny, etc if anyone told him it was objectively bulls hit. Wierwille was a con man. He saw the absent Christ in the scriptures and exploited it for his own gain. He exploited LOTS of things he saw in the scriptures for his own gain. Why should the physical absence of Christ and the future hope of his presence be any different? I accept that Mike and I are in agreement that there is a Biblical justification for the use of the term "absent Christ," but to say I "agree with Mike" is a bit misleading without the context that I still think he and Wierwille are absolutely full of solid excrement. No offense, Mike.

[quick aside: after our last interaction on this thread, Charity and I had a private chat during which I thanked her for correcting a mistake I made. The thread continued just fine without my elaborating on why I said what I did. But I didn't want anyone to think I ignored Charity after she pwned me on a discussion.]

Oooh, The last one gave it away for me

I'm thinking Maine or Vermont. Someolace that would be proud of supporting local over corporate. Naybe even too small to support a McD's. Montpelier?

I'm getting a kick out of Ghosts on CBS. Some clever writing and bread crumbs [a writer's term for comments, asides and plot points that get dismissed immediately but pay off later. Think Captain America nudging Thor's hammer in Age of Ultron, then wielding it in Endgame].

I skipped last season so i felt a little lost. Anyone got a recap?

Second movie. I'm gonna go with Iron Man 2

Up to heaven. Down from heaven. In the heavenlies. I think a full exploration of first century cosmology (which is to say, what people believed about the planet and the sky in first century Palestine) would be a fascinating thread. I think I'll do some research and post some thoughts in the Questioning Faith subforum. It's definitely off topic here (speaking as a poster, not a mod).

Not quite sure where I ever said the words "absent in his authority," because I did not. And I never said the "absent Christ" is a term you will find in scripture. Neither is "second coming" or "return." The Biblical word to describe what happens in the future is "presence," and it's spoken of as a future event. Presence as a future hope implies absent as a current reality. In any event.

There is that.

Let me agree, again, the Bible teaches exactly what you say it does. Jesus IS present in his lordship, directing the affairs of the church in Acts. But what about NOW? He's directing the affairs of church A and of church B, which go to war over belly buttons (not really, but the real disputes are just as substantive). When two churches, both directed by the lordship of the present Christ, disagree on a point of doctrine, who settles it? Church C? Church C doesn't believe in belly buttons. It's only the Word that can resolve disputes, Biblically. "Try the spirits," the Bible says. How? Against what standard? Your gut? What if your gut disagrees with another believer's gut? Listen for the still small voice? But they don't agree with each other. "The Word takes the place of the absent Christ" is the only way to resolve disagreements about the will of God. Isn't it?

Two of the characters in this classic horror movie were convinced their characters were so over-the-top that they genuinely thought they were either in a comedy or playing comic-relief characters. Both were significant (and not at all funny) antagonists to the title character. One teen character and her mother are played by a real life (then) teen and her real life mother. In the last scene of the movie, the teen screamed in such realistic terror that her mother called out the teen's real name out of concern instead of the character's. The author of the novel on which the movie is based was paid $2,500 for the rights. He eventually did better. Steven Spielberg, then little-known, used to hang around the set at the director's invitation because. The director was trying to fix him up with one of the actresses. It worked. One of the actresses in this movie (I've already brought her up twice) auditioned for the role of Princess Leia. She didn't get it. Another actor auditioned for Luke Skywalker. He didn't get it either. Maybe he lost the book of instructions on how to audition for a sci fi/fantasy role? If so, that was an error he would later correct.

A brief timeout to answer this question, which I overlooked when it was originally posted. It is correct that I put no credence in scripture as far as its truthfulness. It would be incorrect to say I don't think there is any coherent message to be found in its pages. I believe the Bible teaches what it teaches. Sometimes it's contradictory. Often it's not. But in any event, I think one can look at the Bible fairly and come to a conclusion about what it teaches, even without believing it. I believe in a very real, tangible way that the Bible teaches an absent Christ and that the Word is the only thing that takes the place of the absent Christ in a manner outside the subjective control of someone claiming to experience him. That I believe it's a bunch of hooey is rather besides the point, as OldSkool correctly noted in the remainder of the post I just quoted. To wit: [Emphasis mine] If you can't see my point scripturally, then I have failed to communicate it. If you don't agree with my point, fine by me. I'm not exactly disagreeing with yours. In doctrinal, I tend not to challenge the authority of scripture (now and then, as an aside, but not generally). This forum is trying to get at what the Bible actually teaches. That's what I tried to get at. That I don't believe it anymore has no bearing on what it teaches.