Discussion With An Atheist (Whom Is A Former Christian)

This is an ongoing discussion I’m now having with James Stillwell. You can easily find his youtube channel by searching. He formerly did open-air preaching with Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. I guess the “crock-o-duck” wasn’t convincing him enough.

What I want you to notice is how the atheist assumes their stance is a purely neutral stance, and that theists must answer all the tough questions, while they somehow get a free pass. They often assume they possess no “positive” assumptions about he world and reality, but only a “negation” of beliefs (God). What we must do is point out to them that they do possess many positive beliefs about the world, hence morality, logic, and purpose rising from non-morality, non-logic, and non-purpose, etc. Enjoy, and please feel free to comment below.

ME:

I’ve watched some of your videos and think it’s interesting that a former Christian whom did open air preaching with Kirk and Ray is now an atheist. I’ve watched a few of your videos and figured I try to start a friendly dialogue with you on this one. So here goes… First, you say you are a former Baptist, and I must strongly assert that a Baptistic hermeneutic is more like a brute fact approach to Scripture, rather than a typological approach, whereas the latter is much more consistent.

Why I’m Not, And Never Will Be, A Roman Catholic (Reason 5: Teachings On Mary)

Dulia: veneration given to icons, relics, saints, etc.

Hyper-dulia: special veneration given to Mary.

Latria: worship given to God.

(James White discusses Rome’s un-Biblical uses of “dulia” and “latria”)

After reading more about the official teachings of the Church in regard to Mary, this became one of the clearest points of doctrine for me as to why I believe Rome has gone astray. Many of the functions given to God the Son have increasingly been mimicked in Mary over the history of the Church. In 1854, the Church declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and that it is required to believe for salvation. It is now integral to the gospel. Then in 1950, the doctrine of the Bodily Assumption was declared as dogma. Many Catholics I’ve spoken with say these teachings were not “new”, nor became “official”, but were “re-confirmed”.

Gray Fades Into Color

The world spinning out of control

Spinning aimlessly in space

Selfish people calling others selfish

Narcissism having no time for grace

No grace for me

No grace for others

No grace ‘til

Gray fades into color

Welcome To My Worst News/ Best News Blog!

		R.C. Sproul gospel excerpt (3:48 ) Mark Driscoll on “religion” (17:23) Testimony of Johnny Cash (6:49) Andy Hunter Outro (3:25)

What does Galatians 3:6-14 tell us about the real gospel? Answer: What it really is! (click here for more)

Read about the missing gospel here.

Listen to the missing gospel here.

Good luck finding a church today that loves truth and loves the real gospel. The church is plagued with anti-nomianism and legalism…

The Foolishness of Materialistic, Relativistic, Humanism (It Leads Us To Crap)

My opinions on this topic are taken from lectures I’ve heard on gnosticism and insights I’ve gathered from the late Francis Schaeffer.

The supposed utopian implications of naturalism are that God can supposedly continue to be justifiably pushed out of the media, the arts, and science so long as Evolution is not openly challenged. As long as Evolution stands un-questioned, naturalism will supposedly remain justified. As long as naturalism is predominant, objective morality, beauty, truth, and meaning will go down the drain. It will be replaced with our invented morality and invented truth which will ultimately end in destruction. The unforeseen downfall to all this is that naturalism inevitably brings about humanism, autonomy, and hedonism in the worst ways. These will become, and have already become the guiding factors of our societies worldview.

Why The Beef With Intelligent Design? (Naturalism Is At Stake)

ID became more popularized in 1985 after the publication of Michael Denton’s book “Evolution: A Theory In Crisis”, and in 1999 after the publication of Michael Behe’s book “Darwin’s Black Box”. You can go to my other thread here and read my responses to commonly raised objections to ID. For the purposes of this thread, however, I want to touch on what I see as being the heart of the matter, or the heart of why ID is so controversial. The heart of the matter is that ID poses a threat to philosophical naturalism (matter is all there is), and where there is a threat to philosophical naturalism, there is also believed to be a threat to methodological naturalism (empiricism is the only way to attain true knowledge).

Around 250 years ago it was primarily the influence of philosopher David Hume whom sparked the modern notion that empiricism (observation via the 5 senses) leads to the truth of the world. This has morphed into many assumptions that atheists currently have, ie. the idea that something shouldn’t be believed unless it can by physically demonstrated. It gives the atheist an excuse and means they supposedly are justified in their rejection of God. They fail to consult God as a prime cause (personal starting point for everything). Nor do they wish to acknowledge God through final causes (purpose and order behind creation), but only wish to limit their inquiry of God to Hume’s 5 senses.

T.D. Jakes At The ER2

Brief thoughts on the ER2 and T.D. Jakes

Yes, as Christians it is good that we give people the benefit of the doubt. However, the ER2 did not really do its job and press T.D. Jakes on if he retracts any of his oneness teachings in the past, which should have been done, and Jakes would have done if he really did change his view. Also, Jakes affirming Driscoll’s quick list of points doesn’t do anything when Jakes also just got done saying he prefers to NOT say “persons” but “manifestations” in regard to the Trinity. That issue should have been specifically addressed. Should it not have?

Jakes’ core verse to back this, and to assume that the idea of manifestations “is Pauline”, comes from 1 Tim 3:16. However, if you look into it you’ll find that the original manuscripts actually say “he (Jesus) was manifest in the flesh”, not “God was manifest in the flesh”. It is now known that someone fudged with one manuscript and changed the Greek word “he” into “God” (the abbreviation for God). This is very easy to do by just adding 2 line strokes. Thus, Jakes’ main support verse doesn’t really support his view at all, hence it clearly not being original.