Dwindling in Unbelief has found what the Bible has to say about the Tea Party Movement:
The Lord knoweth how to … reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that … despise government.These … speak evil of the things that they understand not.
They … count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings.
Beguiling unstable souls … cursed children. 2 Peter 2:9-14
That’s the nice thing about the Bible. It can be made to say anything! It must be from a god!
Yer nawt readin’ it rite. C, for that histeric countext, that may have bean so. But thous versus don’t applah tu current times.
Of course you can make it say anything you want when you take it completely out of context! You need to accept Jesus into your heart in order to understand the true meaning. I’ll pray for you. ***
*** Note to knee-jerk flamers who cannot detect sarcasm: The above comment was intended to be sarcastic and is not meant to be taken literally.
Darn it Sarah I was waiting for you pop out so I could play whack-a-mole then you play the whole sarcasm thing and now I’m left admitting here that I am agreeing with Sarah Palin.. ugh. :)
Where would I be without Daniel to point out the useful passages of the bible to me. Without it I would just use it as bathroom reading material.
The buybull has better uses in the bathroom.
Actually, despite the gratuitous ellipsis, I think you effectively conveyed the spirit of the text.
2:19 “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”
Even as a Christian, I say perhaps they ought humble themselves, read the bible a bit more, check their facts, and be careful of those that don’t. It’d do us all some good.
I’m intrigued by your handle.
@LMNOP:
Thanks, yours is pretty innovative as well.
The handle signifies three things, all of which I can now see as a Christian and as a former Alex-Joneser. I’ve been around the block, so since you asked, allow me to explain my hard-earned worldview.
1: Muck-rakers don’t seem to check their own facts. This makes the most noble dissident look like an idiot, and creates yet another non-populist mob mentality. Unfortunately every grain of truth presented in mainstream “trutherism” is packed with twice it’s weight in pre-drawn conclusions and hollow accusations, wrapped in a not-so-subtle agenda, and it often misses the point entirely. Mind you, I’ve found that this is true even of the Athiest “movement.” Either way, it’s best to hear what they say, weigh each point, then stand back and look at the whole mess, think for yourself, and if you’re so inclined, pray for greater understanding as well.
2: New-Testament Christians are made to take the high road, not clinging to the things of the world. “…Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Personally, I have repeatedly taken the step of trusting in Christ and I’ve seen Him deliver, faithfully. He is not to be tested, but He gives opportunities to trust Him and He proves Himself faithful, no matter the odds! (I was once an atheist, and trust me, this is not just the “God part of the brain”). He “makes a way where there is no way.” This both enables and challenges us to be generous and loving to ‘neighbors’ in need, in any circumstance, as we were commanded. I’ll be the first to admit we’ve fallen greatly short of that expectation, and we’ll answer for it.
The fact remains that we’ve got something too big and too real for “evolution” or “aliens” or “bad translations” or even persecution to shake. This faith, which is a “knowledge” rather than a “hope,” translates into a solid expectation of things to come. It will sustain us through the “wars and rumors of wars” that we are not to “be alarmed” about. Now, if you don’t believe in prophecy, then that just sounds silly. If, however, you know Christ, then you likely accept that the 300 or so prophecies regarding Him were fulfilled in his coming (see Isaiah 53 for one). Then the prophecies and promises that He made don’t sound so silly. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; ”
3: “Our battle is not against flesh and blood…” Put down your guns, guys. I’ve known missionaries who were facing persecution at one point. They had perfectly functioning guns pointed at them, and they didn’t flinch – only prayed and trusted. The gun only failed to fire when pointed at them. Think about that. They pointed at his face, click. Up, BAM. Face, Click. Click. Click. You’ve never seem militia men run scared like they did. My point is, that’s the kind of deliverance that I’d rather trust in. They don’t call Yehoshua the Good Sheppard for nothing. Besides, if you can trust Him with your eternal soul, why not trust Him with your mere mortal body, right?
Anyhow, that sums it up as far as the tea party stuff is concerned.
For the moderator, I’m not here to evangelize, there is just simply no way to explain where I’m at without coming off that way.
Guns jam or misfire. It happens, rarely. But the vast majority of missionaries who have been in this position are not around to share their story, which skews people’s perception of the statistics.
I’m not suggesting that missionaries never get shot, but they do see an inordinate share of miraculous deliverances. There was one small tribe that came to Christ and later confessed to the missionaries involved that they had surrounded the hut they were in, seeking to kill them, but then fled at the sight of gigantic “warriors with swords” who had appeared out of thin air… It brought them crawling back, humbled and repentant. Make what you will of the stories, the point is that God will carry out His plans, and you’re better off on His side. Look what happened to Egypt when they wouldn’t let the Israelite slaves leave. Look at what happened to Jericho, Canaan, Rome… It’s not just stories, it’s our civilization’s history. God doesn’t need a majority to believe in Him, and never has. Just the same, He gives plenty of notice of His plans, for those with “ears to hear,” and offers hope to those who want to get right with Him.
P-L,
I’m curious as to what definition of ‘atheist’ you are using in the phrase “I was once an atheist”. Don’t mean to offend, just to clarify.
No problem. Webster’s perhaps?
atheism n 1 a: disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity b: the doctrine that there is neither god nor any other deity
As a teen I studied up on the manipulation tactics commonly employed by certain mainstream cults, and it affected me… I drew parallels to “religion” in general and saw it as being a huge and intimidating “control scheme.”
To this day, I say that is true of certain religious constructs, institutions, and movements – even some that claim the banner “Christian.” What I found in time though, was that Christ himself can break through all that noise and deal with you personally, and open your eyes to see clean through the distortions that enigmatically (and tragically) pursue him. Between that, and the constant and clear answering of prayer, it makes all the nit-picky debate feel “extracurricular.” It’s true what he promised: “Seek and you will find.”
Stop me, I sound preachy.
Well that is the definition of atheism. Probably should have phrased my question a little clearer. It has been my experience that when someone says “I used to be an atheist” they are using a different meaning than when someone says “I am an atheist”. Most of the atheists here come from a religious background, and have arrived at atheism as a result of closely examining their own religion and finding it untrue. While neither skepticism or coming from a religious background are part of the actual definition of atheism, they are a very important part of the practical definition. I do not wish to pigeonhole anyone, but I have become accustomed to reading “I used to be an atheist” as “I used to be unsure of my faith / less active in my faith / stopped going to church for a while”. While webster makes no differentiation there is a very significant difference between being unsure in one’s faith, and actually determining that said faith was never true in the first place. So to rephrase my original question, when you were an atheist, did you lack faith, or did you lack belief?
The reason I have to ask this is because of your comment that “the 300 or so prophecies regarding Him were fulfilled in his coming”. To my mind this is something that could only be said by someone who has never actually investigated the truth of christianity. In my own journey out of the matrix, one of the biggest things which forced me to confront the inaccuracy of the bible was the old testament “prophecies” regarding Jesus, and how much they did not seem like they could be describing Jesus. There are around 30 places (mostly in Matthew) throughout the 4 gospels where the text tells us that some detail of Jesus’ life was a fulfillment of some old testament prophecy. That all sounds very reassuring if you have only read the gospels, but a cursory glance at any of these prophecies, reveals that they could not possibly be about Jesus. Several are not even prophecies, but I’ll get to that in a moment. The new testament authors misquoted, twisted, and in a couple cases just made up old testament passages in an attempt to make their messiah seem legitimate.
(continued)
On prophecy (continued):
Right out of the gate the first words in the first gospel are a bastardized reading of the old testament. Matthew devotes the first 17 verses of his first chapter to a genealogy (of Joseph for some reason) which retells a genealogy from 1st Chronicles 10 except it leaves out 4 generations of the Chronicles genealogy. Immediately after this Matthew (1:22) tells us that Jesus was born of a virgin and that this was a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. But if you read Isaiah 7, Jesus is absolutely ruled out of this prophecy. In fact Isaiah makes it very clear that the prophesied child would be born 600 years before Jesus (according to Isaiah 8, he was and his name was Mahershalalhashbaz). The “prophecy” in this case was not even that the virgin would conceive, the young woman conceiving was meant to be a sign to King Ahaz of Judah that he would be successful in an upcoming battle (according to 2nd Chronicles 28, Ahaz lost that battle and was killed in the aftermath).
Right after this (Matthew 2:5) we get another fulfilled prophecy. Herod asks the priests where the messiah is to be born and they quote Micah 5:2 to him stating that he is to be born in Bethlehem. The 5th chapter of Micah does make mention of Bethlehem, but clearly states that the person who fulfills this prophecy must be a military leader. According to Micah this promised redeemer “shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian”. By the time Jesus arrived, the Jews were a lot more worried about Romans than Assyrians.
The next 2 prophecies come back to back in Matthew 2:15-18 claiming that Jesus living in Egypt is a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 which is not a prophecy but a past tense statement about the Jewish exodus from Egypt (“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt”). 3 verses after this Matthew tells us that Jeremiah 31:15 is a prediction of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. Jeremiah seems to think differently, and if one reads the chapter in question he is quite explicit that this is a description of the Jewish exile in Babylon (see the book of Daniel).
In Matthew 2:23 we are told that Joseph moved to Nazareth “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene”. This one is not a mere misunderstanding. There is absolutely nowhere in the old testament that anyone is called a Nazarene, nor is it predicted anywhere that someone will later be called a Nazarene. It is either a made up prophecy or it is attempting to quote Judges 13:5 where an angel tells Samson’s parents that their child (Samson, not Jesus) will be a Nazarite (Not even close to the same thing as a Nazarene).
There are a couple dozen more of these scattered throughout the 4 books, every one of them falls apart when you read the passage it claims to be quoting from (ask a Jew why they don’t accept Jesus as the moschiach). Interestingly the closest match is the one you mentioned (Isaiah 53), and it suffers from a unique disqualifying factor. On it’s face the “suffering servant” passage seems suspiciously like it could be referring to Jesus. “Surely he hath born our griefs”, “he was wounded for our transgressions”, and “by his stripes we are healed” all seem to match the crucifixion story quite well. Almost well enough that I would count it, except the bible does not claim Isaiah 53 as a prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion. According to Matthew 8:17, this portion of Isaiah actually refers to Jesus healing sick people in Capernaum early in his ministry.
I know this whole rant has been a little off-topic (wasn’t this thread about tea partys) but I kinda felt like this needed to be addressed.
I don’t suppose you can provide statistics for that, can you? What proportion of missionaries in potentially lethal situations are saved by events you’d describe as “miraculous”? How does that compare to non-missionary Christians, or to non-Christians? I mean, you wouldn’t make a statement like that without having some evidence for it, would you?
It’s amazing how these obvious, undeniable miracles always happen in distant, unspecified places, where’s it’s impossible to get any kind of corroboration, isn’t it?
When you claim that someone was going to get shot, but then the gun jammed, I believe that happened. This, however, I suspect that someone lied to you, and for some reason managed to bypass your common sense filters. Of course, I’m open to anything even remotely resembling evidence that it happened. Not that I’m holding my breath.
“Make what you will of the stories, the point is that God will carry out His plans, and you’re better off on His side.”
God: He will mess you UP! Unless you ask for his “love”? Oh how I wish God was love.
Also, I love magic too, but like most things in life that are too-good-to-be-true, it’s fake. At least I have found this to be true so far.
“Make what you will of the stories, the point is that God will carry out His plans, and you’re better off on His side.”
Who told you this? I’ve not known any christians on his side.
And you believe these stories?
Hmm, well in that case I have some swamp lan- er….. “prime real estate” that you might be interested in.
After reading the whole thing, I’m not intrigued anymore.
I suspect that the author meant people who “despise government” were those who didn’t follow the dictates of their tribal priests and pooh-bahs, or who goof off instead of toiling in the fields. But that wouldn’t stop me from putting this on a sign!