Sorry for the late response I was out shopping and partying.
In response to my charge against the immoral ways or Jehovahs Witness Skeptic posts in defense:
So do most Christians.
No your wrong Christians have been delivered from those sins that doesnt mean that there would be a very few number that would struggle against such a sin and temptation but as the spirit of God as promised by God, will be working in the hearts of such sinners that they will repent of and leave such practice. This is the advantage that the Christian has over the Jehovahs Witness and other lost sinners. I know this is only experiential data but Ill submit it anyway. When I was a JW there where about 15-20 cases or incidents a year of sexual fornication or adultery out of a 95-110 people. That is proximately 17% of the congregations of Jehovahs Witnesses were screwing around, that is disgusting. I remember an elder telling me in a conversation during dinner that if he had a dime for every incident of fornication or adultery that the J-Dubs were engaged in he would be a very rich man and could by the Shell Oil company. Compare that with the 0.00025% of those poor but still redeemed bible-believing Christians that get ensnared into this activity. But the good news is that since Christ is in them (Col 1:17; 1John 4:4) they will repent be restored and will abandon such sinful ways by Gods grace alone.
Skeptic posts:
I attended my son's Christmas concert this year. The fellow named Santa seems to get a lot more worship than Jesus.
This is due to the commercial perversion of the meaning and intention of Christmas. This is materialism that has a dollar centered Christmas. The true meaning of Christmas was always Christ centered.
Skeptic who errors by ignoring the initial historical premise writes:
And if you were truly a Christian, you would have nothing to do with Christmas. By your logic, you are worshipping pagan gods when you do.
Before you do the reductio please pay attention to the first premise. That is when the church did Christmas the intention was to remove all the pagan worship and its meaning, and its meaning is the key. Just because they had some of the pagan toys of the winter solstice does not mean they used them for the intention of pagan celebration. The intention and the meaning was replaced from pagan definitions and uses to that of the biblical account and intention of the worship of Christ. Now I agree this was not done 100% according to the regulative principle that is Christmas is and how it is done 100% biblical but the intention and meaning is very biblical.
In short if Christian were celebrating winter solstice and throwing some pagan party on Dec. 24-25 then yes your reductio would stand but since Christians are celebrating the birth of their king and savor Jesus Christ God the son come in human flesh and that has and is the meaning of Chris tmas then it is consistent with the worldview of Christianity.
Skeptic you go on and give about 3 or 4 sentences of why we should have religious tolerance and pluralism. I appreciate your emotional anecdotal defense of pluralism but it is sorely lacking cogency and consistency. First if one were a true atheist then he would true to his assertions and premises that there is no place for religious gods or deities because they dont exists therefore the logical implication there would be no room for religious tolerance and pluralism.
Skeptic I can no longer believe that you are truly an atheist. Your responses are as if the philosophic assertions and premises of theism are unpalatable for you to except them. True it is obvious that you do not except the one true biblical God. It does sound like that you are hoping that there is some higher power great wazoo up there some where in outer space that is constructed to the likes of some sappy sentimental humanistic man centered worldview. A great wazooo that would except human merit for the terms of salvation and not one who gives salvation freely.
Skeptic who sounds like he has failed a few history classes in his time writes these comments that were ignorant of original sources and were just a quick responses with out any close consideration of the historical accounts posts:
Clash, Hitler was a Catholic. And he definitely believed in God. It was not just rethoric either. Some of Hilter's more devout statements about God were made to very close friends of his, in private.
The Nazis were Christians.
This is misleading but coming from you Im not surprised. Hitler was raised a Catholic but as he grew older he left his catholic teachings for a more Neitchien teaching of thehumanistic uberminch or superman. This was clear in the writings ofMein Kampf If you read vol. 2 Chapter 1 Philosophy and Party. You will see his meaning of religion and man and that religion was a means of motivating mans will. When you read you will see that he doesnt use historic protestant or catholic terms for theology God and religion thus will put his view out of the category of Christian even in the most generic sense. Just because he uses the word God doesnt mean he uses the word in the biblical Christian sense. Its called equivocation. Do you know what that is? If you read Mein Kampf you will see it is not a Christian document like lets say the Westminster Confession or 1689 London Baptist Confession or Berkhofs Systematic Theology. Its not even a Papist document like Vatican 1 or 2. So to say that Hitler was a bible believing Christian or even a good papist is really ignorant of using terms and the written facts of history and original sources and how to read them.
Skeptic who is really demonstrating his foolishness when he responds to hastily with out taking the time to understand political contexts writes:
How many atheists blew up pubs and cars in Ireland for decades? It was the Christians who did those things.
First it was the IRA who are supposedly professed Roman Catholics, But the Roman Catholic church has officially condemned the IRA and the catholic church has in the pass suffered terrorism from the IRA for their condemnation of the IRA. Did you know the IRA even bombs its own Catholic churches. So by even Roman Catholic standards the IRA (not Christians) have been condemned as an evil organization. Second there is a difference between Roman Catholicism and biblical reformed Christianity. I highly recommend a book that will explain the political context in Ulster. Written by a British Anglican theologian Alistair McGrath and American Catholic Convert Richard John Newhouse these people will introduce you to the political context in Northern Ireland. Plus it is obvious when people blow up cars and machine gun drive by some poor sap what this action goes against the teaching of Christ Christianity is not islam we do not teach as the Muslims do to kill and knock off our unbelieving neibor but to lshare the gospel with them and love them Cheers,jrEdited by - clash_city_rockers on 23 December 2002 11:13:35
Edited by - clash_city_rockers on 23 December 2002 11:16:44
