You know, if I were dealing with anyone else on this forum (okay, maybe not shunyadragon), i'd be fascinated how much of a song and dance you're putting on to avoid the simple question I put to you in post #198 and #208, but since this is your typical modus operandi on this forum, I just find it kinda pathetic. At any rate, I think your non-answering has pretty much told me what I was expecting.
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This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.
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What must I do to be Born Again?
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Originally posted by OingoBoingo View PostYou know, if I were dealing with anyone else on this forum (okay, maybe not shunyadragon), i'd be fascinated how much of a song and dance you're putting on to avoid the simple question I put to you in post #198 and #208, but since this is your typical modus operandi on this forum, I just find it kinda pathetic. At any rate, I think your non-answering has pretty much told me what I was expecting.
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Originally posted by whag View PostI wasn't expecting you to feign exasperation so soon. This might be a record for you.
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Originally posted by RBermanThat was the point of my second paragraph. I'm not sure how far I can go with "how" except to say that it's a universal human faculty independent from cognition.
Originally posted by RBermanMore precisely, babies (even before being born) possess a spiritual dimension which may be inclined to either trust or mistrust God. As a spiritual interaction, it's not dependent on the physical sensorium or on cognitive faculties.
Originally posted by RBermanThat also makes it a world not amenable to analysis by our usual tools-- like the challenge of explaining color to a man born blind, only worse.
If the human spirit chooses good or evil in the womb, we probably have the capacity to understand how this is done, at least in a comprehensibly analogous way. Are you sticking with the mom smell metaphor, or can you provide another?
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Obligatory love? Really? Wow - that's cold! I'm just as confused as you are, Whag. I've never even heard of obligatory love, and I was RAISED as a Christian!
Now, perhaps what OB is trying to say is unconditional love...? That's the kind of love I've heard in the Christian religion, and that makes sense. Unconditional love is not exclusive to Christianity, though. So, perhaps transcendent, obligatory love is something new.
NORMWhen the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. - Bishop Desmond Tutu
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Originally posted by NormATive View PostObligatory love? Really? Wow - that's cold! I'm just as confused as you are, Whag. I've never even heard of obligatory love, and I was RAISED as a Christian!
Now, perhaps what OB is trying to say is unconditional love...? That's the kind of love I've heard in the Christian religion, and that makes sense. Unconditional love is not exclusive to Christianity, though. So, perhaps transcendent, obligatory love is something new.
NORM
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Originally posted by whag View PostAlso, remember this circles back to the compulsory love demand outlined in the redundant "free gift" apologetic.
NORMWhen the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. - Bishop Desmond Tutu
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Originally posted by NormATive View PostObligatory love? Really? Wow - that's cold! I'm just as confused as you are, Whag. I've never even heard of obligatory love, and I was RAISED as a Christian!
Now, perhaps what OB is trying to say is unconditional love...? That's the kind of love I've heard in the Christian religion, and that makes sense. Unconditional love is not exclusive to Christianity, though. So, perhaps transcendent, obligatory love is something new.
NORM
When whag told me in post #197 that he felt no obligation to love his mother, I found that curious, because he's told us before that he's an atheist. Most atheists I know are materialists, and it didn't seem to me that his comment aligned with a materialist position on the concept of love. From a materialist's perspective love is nothing more than an evolutionarily advantageous neurobiological phenomenon. From the materialist's perspective, loving one's mother is in our nature. That's why I asked him in post #198 if he thought love was perhaps...non-physiological, transcendent even. It'd be a curious position for an atheist to hold, but who knows. He wouldn't answer that question. So then I made the question simpler in post #208 and asked him to just define what he thought love was. He wouldn't answer that either. When he realized that the questions sort of pushed him into a corner, he did his typical song and dance routine.
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Originally posted by OingoBoingo View PostHuh? How did you get that out of anything you read? I never proposed that love actually was obligatory, nor have the questions I've asked been based on any sort of Christian perspective (I don't know how many times I have to tell you that).
Originally posted by WhagI love my mom. I feel no obligation to love her, nor would I know how to actualize it.
Originally posted by OingoBoingoWhen whag told me in post #197 that he felt no obligation to love his mother, I found that curious, because he's told us before that he's an atheist. Most atheists I know are materialists, and it didn't seem to me that his comment aligned with a materialist position on the concept of love.
Originally posted by OingoBoingoFrom a materialist's perspective love is nothing more than an evolutionarily advantageous neurobiological phenomenon. From the materialist's perspective, loving one's mother is in our nature.
Originally posted by OingoBoingoThat's why I asked him in post #198 if he thought love was perhaps...non-physiological, transcendent even. It'd be a curious position for an atheist to hold, but who knows. He wouldn't answer that question.
You needed to slow down like you promised. That requires actual writing and opening yourself up with examples of obligatory love. Remember, this goes back to compulsory love of the free gift.
Originally posted by OingoBoingoSo then I made the question simpler in post #208 and asked him to just define what he thought love was.
Originally posted by OingoBoingoHe wouldn't answer that either. When he realized that the questions sort of pushed him into a corner, he did his typical song and dance routine.
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In the end of this discussion, what good is it, if it does not lead to begin born from God? Do you even know what it means to believe Jesus is the Christ? The bottom line is unless God gives one this new birth, then one is toast. (Revelation 21:8.) And all this discussion is for not.. . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV
. . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV
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Originally posted by 37818 View PostIn the end of this discussion, what good is it, if it does not lead to begin born from God? Do you even know what it means to believe Jesus is the Christ? The bottom line is unless God gives one this new birth, then one is toast. (Revelation 21:8.) And all this discussion is for not.
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Originally posted by 37818 View PostIn the end of this discussion, what good is it, if it does not lead to begin born from God?
Originally posted by 37818 View PostDo you even know what it means to believe Jesus is the Christ?
Originally posted by 37818 View PostThe bottom line is unless God gives one this new birth, then one is toast. (Revelation 21:8.) And all this discussion is for not.
NORMWhen the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. - Bishop Desmond Tutu
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Originally posted by RBerman View PostWhere does the pederast end up, if not dining with Jesus, in your version of universalism? It sounds more like you are an inclusivist (some enjoy God's favor without faith) than a universalist (everyone, without exception, ultimately enjoys God's favor). And indeed, the Reformed Christian tradition has always had room for a limited inclusivism with regard to the mentally defective. See this example from the Westminster Confession (1646):
Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who works when, and where, and how He pleases: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word. (WCF 10:3)
Billy Graham: Guilty of Inclusivism
Billy Graham is, perhaps, the epitome of the evangelical identity.
Or, so we thought…
Like C.S. Lewis, Graham believes that those who do not hear of Christ may, indeed, be saved without explicitly confessing him as Lord.
In a 1997 interview with Robert Schuller, Graham said,
Billy Graham“I think that everybody that loves or knows Christ, whether they are conscious of it or not, they are members of the body of Christ. . . . [God] is calling people out of the world for his name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light they have, and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven.” (This statement starts at 1:18 in this video)
http://andygill.org/heretics-banned-evangelicalism/βλέπομεν γὰρ ἄρτι δι᾿ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον·
ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρους, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσομαι καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσθην.אָכֵ֕ן אַתָּ֖ה אֵ֣ל מִסְתַּתֵּ֑ר אֱלֹהֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מוֹשִֽׁיעַ׃
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Originally posted by robrecht View PostIs that the limit of God's ability to save those without explicit faith in the Reformed tradition? Would Billy Graham, a Southern Baptist, be considered a heretic?
Billy Graham: Guilty of Inclusivism
Billy Graham is, perhaps, the epitome of the evangelical identity.
Or, so we thought…
Like C.S. Lewis, Graham believes that those who do not hear of Christ may, indeed, be saved without explicitly confessing him as Lord.
In a 1997 interview with Robert Schuller, Graham said,
Billy Graham“I think that everybody that loves or knows Christ, whether they are conscious of it or not, they are members of the body of Christ. . . . [God] is calling people out of the world for his name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light they have, and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven.” (This statement starts at 1:18 in this video)
http://andygill.org/heretics-banned-evangelicalism/
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