Message #1526

[Jan]

Jan,
I am a God fearing Christian. I belive in the book, the blood and the blessed hope. I've seen that atheist site before. Their contradictions are not contraditions if you read in CONTEXT.

Pow wow - some contradictions have been 'explained' - or to be more precise, someone has tried to give their understanding of them (which may or may not make sense). Not all of them have been 'explained' (context or not). I personally put this down to there being different authors of different books (the Bible is after all not the book, it is actually a collection of books - decided at the Council of Nicea). My point being that we have in the Bible different 'views' (on war, violence etc) depending on who wrote the particular book of the Bible you are reading. I choose to go with Christs teaching of love, peace, turning the other cheek etc etc for as far as I can go. To me that is clear. To interpret it any other way is (to me) to go against Christs teachings - regardless of the violence & hostility, cruelty etc displayed   in other parts of the Bible!

But it has been my experience that even when you show how their accusation of contradiction actually isn't, it does nothing. For them to admit no contradiction would turn their world upside down.

 

No - 'they' (if you mean the atheists) are willing to listen - if not then why do they put on the Christian responses to the contradictions they have found?. As a Christian you should be able to deal with the questions and be honest at least if you have been given a question to which you don't have an answer for. Just by giving a standard kind of response such as

Their contradictions are not contraditions if you read in CONTEXT

is not really answering the question is it. Atheists (generally) aren't stupid - they won't generally fall for that you see

As well as contradictions in the bible we have absurdity, intolerance and cruelty. But then we have some wonderful stuff - parables of Jesus (the good Samaritan etc - loving thy neighbour), spiritual gifts (eg in Corinthians), passages about the meaning of love (Corinthians).

So it is pointless to explain or for you to even read the clear instuctions for us to love each other and the states responsibility and justification in using the sword to destroy those that do evil. Or perhaps Osama was not evil in your eyes. Perhaps you do not believe there is such a thing as evil and those that use it and are controled by it.

Oh evil exists - we are all capable of doing evil deeds. You do not destroy evil by doing more evil. It has already been explained what happens when you do. You already know what Jesus said

With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword