Does God cause evil?

[DanieltheDragon]

Does God cause evil?

Some assert that God causes no evil. Is there cause to believe this is true. Can this position be supported. Is the character described in the bible incapable of evil?

I would assert that a position that claims God created everything would make him the original cause of evil. That God cannot escape being the cause of evil since he created any and all situations in which evil would arise.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 198 by Tired of the Nonsense]

As I just pointe out in my previous post today, Christianity has always been a pluralistic faith. Hence, your claim that everyone believes the same thing is way, way off. You yourself here have presented evidence that claim of yours. Largely, your posts address and stereotype all Christians as largely unreflective , anti-intellectual fundamentalists, which is not true. Yes, there are such fundamentalists, but Christianity is far richer and diverse than right-wing fundamentalism.

[jcforever]

If God gave us the free will to choose, then we would all be doomed.

This blanket statement must be proven. How would our free will doom us? You gotta build your credibility, not just expect it.

I already have credibility with God because he's the one who chose to make me a servant used by him to write and speak for him. It's you who hasn't been chosen to believe his gospel.

II Thesalonians 2:
13: But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
14: To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

However, that is not how the will of God works.

A meaningless personal opinion unless you add the details of how HE works with our free will.

I don't have any personal opinions. I'm a servant of God who simply writes and speaks for Him. Apparently he didn't choose you to believe in him or his word.

God chooses who he will enlighten spiritually and teach the difference between the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Those he enlightens with his spirit will learn they are eating of the tree of life and will continue to eat of the tree of life even after the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has been destroyed.

What happens to those whom HE does not choose? What reason did HE have to choose some but not others?

All men created in the image of God called the word of God ( spirit of man and God ) will remain forever.

All the inhabitants on earth who believe they're real people will perish. These are the proud of the earth called the flesh of man.

Psalm 22:
25: From thee comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26: The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live for ever!
27: All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
28: For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.
29: Yea, to him shall all the proud of the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and he who cannot keep himself alive.
30: Posterity shall serve him; men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation,
31: and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it.

I Corinthians 5:

1: It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father's wife.
2: And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
3: For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment
4: in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5: you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Unspiritual men cannot understand the difference between the spirit of man and the flesh of man.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 198 by Tired of the Nonsense]

As I just pointe out in my previous post today, Christianity has always been a pluralistic faith. Hence, your claim that everyone believes the same thing is way, way off. You yourself here have presented evidence that claim of yours. Largely, your posts address and stereotype all Christians as largely unreflective , anti-intellectual fundamentalists, which is not true. Yes, there are such fundamentalists, but Christianity is far richer and diverse than right-wing fundamentalism.

In fact I have pointed out that there are more than 40,000 different denominations of Christians today. It's possible to make the case that the original Christian congregation in Jerusalem represented a unified version of Christianity. But that church was swept away by the Romans along with everything else in 70 AD. For the next two centuries there was no unified Christian church, no central authority, no unified doctrine. There were various Christian communities spread around the Mediterranean region practicing their beliefs in secret. In the fourth century when Constantine legalized Christianity he was dismayed by the way the fractured and contentious nature of the various Christian factions turned violent against each other over conflicting points of doctrine. Constantine ordered that the leaders of the various Christian communities should come together by forming a unified doctrine. This was the origin of the Catholic, or universal church.

Christianity is the creation of Christians who have continued to modify it to conform to their individual tastes right down to this very day. The original Yeshua, assuming that he actually existed, has long been lost to history. Jesus the Christ is a creation of Christian believers. And each individual believer is often perfectly happy to explain why they represent "true" Christianity, and that in truth there are relatively few true Christians. This is accomplished largely by using the Bible as one would a buffet, and cherry picking those bit which each individual finds personally appealing.

This is not true for fundamentalists of course. Fundamentalists stand by the Bible as the inerrant word of God. Which ultimately makes them look foolishly gullible and unrealistic to just about everyone else. To those who are outside of Christian belief entirely however, both the cherry pickers and the fundamentalists appear to be hopelessly foolish and unrealistic. Because at some point all of them are forced to turn to a claim of faith to support their beliefs. Because faith is not an argument based on the facts, or even, necessarily, the truth. Faith is an argument based on wishful thinking. Faith is what I refer to as "make it up and declare it to be true."

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 203 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Again, I say that, as I pointed out in a previous post, you're offering some serious caricatures of Christianity. Reading a historical account with discretion is not cherry picking, it's always the smart thing to do. If you are going to fault Christians for so doing, you are going to have to fault any and all students of history. You are going to have to throw out Caesar's "Gallic Wars," because he probably did exaggerate at more than one point. Totally objective history is impossible to come by. We do not know the human, historical Christ, but, for that matter we don't know the human, historical Billy the Kid, either.

And when it comes to Scripture, it seems you did some "cherry picking," if that is what you want to call it, yourself. You simply stressed what is questionable, unduly ignoring much solid material. Scripture is certainly not all myth.

You portray Christianity as a religion where people can just say anything they want to say and get away with it. Sorry, but it has never worked that way. On the reflective or scholarly side of Christianity, you have to make a case, engage in debate. So it's not as easy as you think. Critical, analytical work is definitely part of it. And those who think you can just get away with anything should just spend one day in a solid graduate-level program in theology and find out for themselves.

Much of the criticism you levy against Christianity can also be levied against any other field of disciplined inquiry, including science. Science, too, has had a long history of debate, has not proven infallible.

And I add that faith is essential part of even daily life. When you sit down in a chair, you are going on faith it won't break, which sometimes isn't the case. Science also depends on faith. Much science is speculation. That's why the best of scientists will tell you we are not dealing with absolute truth based on absolute proof, but degrees of probability of a proposition being true. And science also accepts much that cannot be scientifically proven, has to be accepted on faith, such as the reality of causality and also the verification principle. So don't give me this line that religion is all faith, whereas other fields are all fact.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 203 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Again, I say that, as I pointed out in a previous post, you're offering some serious caricatures of Christianity. Reading a historical account with discretion is not cherry picking, it's always the smart thing to do. If you are going to fault Christians for so doing, you are going to have to fault any and all students of history. You are going to have to throw out Caesar's "Gallic Wars," because he probably did exaggerate at more than one point. Totally objective history is impossible to come by. We do not know the human, historical Christ, but, for that matter we don't know the human, historical Billy the Kid, either.

I am offering nothing but a caricature of Christianity? Really?

Caesar's "Gallic Wars" represents the only source of information concerning Caesar's attempts to subdue the Gallic tribes. That the Gallic tribes were repressed is generally considered a historical fact. And it is generally considered that Caesar's documentation of how the job was accomplished represents an act of self glorification on Caesar's part as much as it represents genuine history. In the end Caesar's account of what occurred is the only historical source available. It should be noted that it is not generally considered historical that Caesar used supernatural means to accomplish the task of subduing the Galls. The account, although clearly self aggrandizing, is not entirely implausible historically. As opposed to, say, the story of a corpse which returns to life after three days and subsequently flies away.

Things which could be true might be true. Those portions of the Bible that are not implausible reasonably might be true. There is no real way of knowing. The Bible describes Jesus as a traveling teacher who ran afoul of the authorities and was executed. That is perfectly plausible. The claim that Jesus returned to life after his execution and then flew off up into the sky is implausible in the extreme.

As a non Christian I am perfectly within my rights to cherry pick out those portions of the accounts which are clearly insupportable, while considering those portions which are not implausible as potentially, at least, being true. But at least I am consistent in what I consider to be insupportable, as referring to those claims which contradict all observation, common experience and therefore all common sense. Since the resurrection of Jesus represents the central claim of Christianity, anyone claiming to be a Christian has no honest ability to cherry pick which implausible claims are true and which implausible claims are invalid if they are going to make the claim that NT is ultimately true and valid, and that Jesus was therefore a divine Being. For example, Gospel Matthew plainly asserts that Jesus returned to life. Gospel Matthew also asserts that hordes of dead people came up out of their graves and roamed the streets of Jerusalem. (Matt.27:52-53) When it comes to making preposterous assertions Gospel Matthew is either a dependable believable account, or it is not. It's not reliable in some instances simply because you crucially require it to be accepted as true to support your chosen belief system, and unreliable in those instance which are not crucial to supporting your belief system.

And when it comes to Scripture, it seems you did some "cherry picking," if that is what you want to call it, yourself. You simply stressed what is questionable, unduly ignoring much solid material. Scripture is certainly not all myth.

I am not a Christian. I am not claiming, and do not for a minute suppose, that Jesus was a divine Being and that the NT is historically accurate.

You portray Christianity as a religion where people can just say anything they want to say and get away with it. Sorry, but it has never worked that way. On the reflective or scholarly side of Christianity, you have to make a case, engage in debate. So it's not as easy as you think. Critical, analytical work is definitely part of it. And those who think you can just get away with anything should just spend one day in a solid graduate-level program in theology and find out for themselves.

Making various and competing claims about Jesus has been occurring since the earliest days of Christianity. Attempting to "get away with it" resulted in the slaughter of millions of "heretics" by the Catholic church over the centuries, once that organization came into being in the fourth century. But those days are over. People "can get away with saying,' or believing, pretty much whatever they choose now. Even a fraction of the things I have posted on this forum would have resulted in my being hung, drawn and quartered, and burned just a few centuries ago. But people are perfectly free in western society to take whatever position pleases them these days. Which perfectly coincides with the abrupt rise in the number of Christian denominations over the past century. As well as the abrupt rise of non believers.

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimated 34,000 denominations in 2000, rising to an estimated 43,000 in 2012. These numbers have exploded from 1,600 in the year 1900.
https://theway21stcentury.wordpress.com ... worldwide/

Much of the criticism you levy against Christianity can also be levied against any other field of disciplined inquiry, including science. Science, too, has had a long history of debate, has not proven infallible.

Science considers debate to be not only essential, but healthy. It is the nature of science to be self correcting as new and better information is acquired. Religion's history is one of dogmatism and the slaughter of those who veered from the path of the various dogmatic decrees.

In 393 the Roman emperor Theodosis, who had been raised Christian, made decrees which effectively made Christianity the state religion and the only legal Roman religion. The Catholic church moved quickly to eradicate all forms of belief and teachings they considered to be non Christian in nature. Not coincidentally the year 400 begins what has become known to history as the "dark ages" in Europe, which would last for nearly a thousand years. A span of time which not coincidentally also coincides with the the height of power of the Catholic church over European daily life.

And I add that faith is essential part of even daily life. When you sit down in a chair, you are going on faith it won't break, which sometimes isn't the case. Science also depends on faith. Much science is speculation. That's why the best of scientists will tell you we are not dealing with absolute truth based on absolute proof, but degrees of probability of a proposition being true. And science also accepts much that cannot be scientifically proven, has to be accepted on faith, such as the reality of causality and also the verification principle. So don't give me this line that religion is all faith, whereas other fields are all fact.

Having sat in chairs on numerous occasions, sitting in a chair, a device specifically designed for just such a use, is not "faith" but common experience. I do not have "faith" that when I jump into the air I will not go sailing off of the planet into outer space. I have all common experience to rely on. All common experience indicates that a body, fully and truly dead for several days, will not return to life and then subsequently fly off into the sky. Believing that such a thing occurred, that requires faith! Not to mention massive doses of gullibility. These are qualities which Christians have managed to convince themselves are desirable in a Christian believer. Again, it is not a coincidence that overtly gullible Christians are so effectively ripe for the plucking by con artists.


Jim Bakker, sentenced to 45 years in prison for fraud. Served only five, mainly because of a letter writing campaign from his gullible loyal followers. The very people he defrauded. GULLIBLE? How about not only easy, but WILLING MARKS, who are so eager to believe in their nonsense that they will not take "he lied and cheated you" for an answer?



Jimmy Swaggart, defrocked by the Assemblies of God for repeatedly cavorting with prostitutes. He's still preaching however because the faithful are forever gullible.

Faith healing a scam.


List Of just Christian Evangelist Scandals.

1.Aimee Semple McPherson, 1920s–40s
One of the most famous evangelist scandals involved Canadian-born Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s, who allegedly had an extramarital relationship and faked her own death as a cover. She later claimed that she had been kidnapped, but a grand jury could neither prove that a kidnapping occurred, nor that she had faked it. Roberta Semple Salter, her daughter from her first marriage, became estranged from Semple McPherson and successfully sued her mother’s attorney for slander during the 1930s. As a result of this she was cut out of her mother’s will. Aimee Semple McPherson died in 1944 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

2.Lonnie Frisbee, 1970s–1980s
Lonnie Frisbee was an American closeted gay Pentecostal evangelist and self-described “seeing prophet� in the late 1960s and 1970s who despite his “hippie� appearance had notable success as a minister and evangelist. Frisbee was a key figure in the Jesus Movement and was involved in the rise of two worldwide denominations (Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard Movement). Both churches later disowned him because of his active homosexuality, removing him first from leadership positions, then ultimately firing him. He eventually died from AIDS in 1993.

3. Billy James Hargis, Early 1970s
Hargis was a prolific author and radio evangelist. Hargis formed American Christian College in 1971 in order to teach fundamentalist Christian principles. However, a sex scandal erupted at the College, involving claims that Hargis had had sex with male and female students. Hargis was forced out of American Christian College’s presidency as a result. Further scandals erupted when members of Hargis’ youth choir, the “All American Kids�, accused Hargis of sexual misconduct as well. The college eventually closed down in the mid-1970s. Hargis denied the allegations publicly.

4. Marjoe Gortner, Early 1970s
Gortner rose to fame in the late 1940s as a child preacher, but he had simply been trained to do this by his parents and he had no personal faith. He was able to perform “miracles� and received large amounts of money in donations. After suffering a crisis of conscience, he invited a film crew to accompany him on a final preaching tour. The resulting film, Marjoe, mixes footage of revival meetings with Gortner’s explanations of how evangelists manipulate their audiences. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but was never screened in the Southern United States due to fears that it would cause outrage in the Bible Belt.[1]

5. Jim & Tammy Bakker And Jimmy Swaggart, 1986 And 1991
In 1986, evangelist Jimmy Swaggart began on-screen attacks against fellow televangelists Marvin Gorman and Jim Bakker. He uncovered Gorman’s affair with a member of Gorman’s congregation, and also helped expose Bakker’s infidelity (which was arranged by a colleague while on an out-of-state trip).[3] These exposures received widespread media coverage. Gorman retaliated in kind by hiring a private investigator to uncover Swaggart’s own adulterous indiscretions with a prostitute.[4] Swaggart was subsequently forced to step down from his pulpit for a year and made a tearful televised apology in February 1988 to his congregation, saying “I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God’s forgiveness.�[5][6]

Swaggart was caught again by California police three years later in 1991 with another prostitute, Rosemary Garcia, who was riding with him in his car when he was stopped for driving on the wrong side of the road. When asked why she was with Swaggart, she replied, “He asked me for sex. I mean, that’s why he stopped me. That’s what I do. I’m a prostitute.�[7]

6.Peter Popoff, 1987
A self-proclaimed prophet and faith healer in the 1980s, Popoff’s ministry went bankrupt in 1987 after magician and skeptic James Randi and Steve Shaw debunked his methods by showing that instead of receiving information about audience members from supernatural sources, he received it through an in-ear receiver.[8]

7. Morris Cerullo, 1990s
A number of incidents involving California-based televangelist Morris Cerullo caused outrage in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. Cerullo’s claims of faith healing were the focus of particular concern. At a London crusade in 1992, he pronounced a child cancer sufferer to be healed, yet the girl died two months later. Multiple complaints were upheld against satellite television channels transmitting Cerullo’s claims of faith-healing, and a panel of doctors concluded that Cerullo’s claims of miraculous healing powers could not be substantiated. Cerullo also produced fund-raising material, which was condemned as unethical by a number of religious leaders, as it implied that giving money to his organisation would result in family members becoming Christians.[9]

8.Mike Warnke, 1991
Warnke was a popular Christian evangelist and comedian during the 1970s and 1980s. He claimed in his autobiography, The Satan Seller (1973), that he had once been deeply involved in a Satanic cult and was a Satanic priest before converting to Christianity. In 1991, Cornerstone magazine launched an investigation into Warnke’s life and testimony. It investigated Warnke’s life, from interviews with over one hundred personal friends and acquaintances, to his ministry’s tax receipts. Its investigation turned up damaging evidence of fraud and deceit. The investigation also revealed the unflattering circumstances surrounding Warnke’s multiple marriages, affairs, and divorces. Most critically, however, the investigation showed how Warnke could not possibly have done the many things he claimed to have done throughout his nine-month tenure as a Satanist, much less become a drug-addicted dealer or become a Satanic high priest.

9. Robert Tilton, 1991
Tilton is an American televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his paid television program Success-N-Life. At its peak, it aired in all 235 American TV markets. In 1991, Diane Sawyer and ABC News conducted an investigation of Tilton. The investigation, broadcast on ABC’s Primetime Live on November 21, 1991, found that Tilton’s ministry threw away prayer requests without reading them, keeping only the money or valuables sent to them by viewers, garnering his ministry an estimated $80 million USD a year. In the original investigation, one of Tilton’s former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure that the phone operators were off the line in seven minutes. Tilton sued ABC for libel in 1992, but the case was dismissed in 1993, and Tilton’s show was off the air by October 30, 1993.

10. W. V. Grant, 1996 And 2003
Like Peter Popoff, Grant was investigated by James Randi regarding his faith healing claims. He was then imprisoned for tax evasion in 1996. After restarting his ministry upon release, a TV investigation found that claims of healing he made at a 2003 revival in Atlanta were false.

11. Roy Clements, 1999
Clements was a prominent figure within British evangelical christianity. In 1999, he revealed he was in a homosexual relationship with another man, resigned his pastorship, and separated from his wife. He had written a number of well-received books which were withdrawn from sale when the news broke.[10]

12. John Paulk, 2000
John Paulk (no relation to Earl Paulk) is a former leader of Focus on the Family‘s Love Won Out conference and former chairman of the board for Exodus International North America. His claimed shedding of homosexuality is also the subject of his autobiography Not Afraid to Change. In September 2000, Paulk was found and photographed in a Washington, D.C. gay bar, and accused by opponents of flirting with male patrons at the bar. Later questioned by gay rights activist Wayne Besen, Paulk denied being in the bar despite photographic proof to the contrary. Initially, FoF’s Dr. James Dobson sided with Paulk and supported his claims. Subsequently, Paulk, who himself had written about his habit of lying while he openly lived as a homosexual, confessed to being in the bar, but claimed he entered the establishment for reasons other than sexual pursuits. Paulk retained his Board seat for Exodus, however he did so while on probation. Paulk did not run again for chairman of the board of Exodus when his term expired.

13. Paul Crouch, 2004
Paul Crouch is the founder and president of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, or TBN, the world’s largest evangelical Christian television network, as well as the former host of TBN’s flagship variety show, Praise the Lord. In September 2004, the Los Angeles Times published a series of articles raising questions about the fundraising practices and financial transparency of TBN, as well as the allegations of a former ministry employee, Enoch Lonnie Ford, that he had a homosexual affair with Crouch during the 1990s. The Times spoke with several sources that claimed that other evangelists such as Benny Hinn, Jack Hayford, and Paul’s son Matthew were aware that an affair had taken place. TBN denied the allegations, claiming that Ford’s claims were part of an extortion scheme and that the Times was a “left-wing and anti-Christian newspaper� for publishing the articles. In 2005, Ford submitted to and passed a lie detector test on the ION Television program Lie Detector.

14. Douglas Goodman, 2004
Douglas Goodman, an evangelical preacher, and his wife Erica were pastors of Victory Christian Centre in London, England. The church was one of the largest in the United Kingdom. He came into notoriety when he was jailed for three and a half years for the sexual assault of four members of his congregation in 2004. VCC was closed by the Charity Commission, but his wife Erica started a new church, Victory to Victory, in Wembley. Douglas has upon his release resumed full pastoral ministry alongside his wife.[11][12][13][14][15]

15. Kent Hovind, 2006
Kent Hovind is an American Baptist minister and Young Earth creationist. He is most famous for creation science seminars, in which he argues for Young Earth creationism, using his self-formulated “Hovind Theory.� He has been criticized by both the mainstream scientific community and other creationists. In 2006, Hovind who also has a reputation as a tax protestor had been charged with falsely declaring bankruptcy, making threats against federal officials, filing false complaints, failing to get necessary building permits, and various tax-related charges. He was convicted of 58 federal tax offenses and related charges, for which he is currently serving a ten-year sentence.[16]

16. Ted Haggard, 2006
Ted Haggard was the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 until November 2006. Haggard’s position allowed him occasional access to President George W. Bush. In 2006 it was alleged that Haggard had been regularly visiting a male prostitute who also provided him with methamphetamine. Haggard admitted his wrongdoing and resigned as pastor of New Life church and as president of the NAE. The high-profile case was significant also because it immediately preceded the 2006 mid-term elections and may have even affected national voting patterns[citation needed]. In January 2009, Haggard admitted to a second homosexual relationship with a male church member on CNN-TV and other national media, and when asked, would not directly answer a question about his other possible homosexual relationships.[17]

17. Paul Barnes, 2006
Paul Barnes is the founder and former senior minister of the evangelical church Grace Chapel in Douglas County, Colorado. He confessed his homosexual activity to the church board, and his resignation was accepted on December 7, 2006.[18] He started the church in his basement and watched it reach a membership of 2,100 in his 28 years of leadership. This scandal was notable because it was similar to Ted Haggard’s (above), it occurred in the same state (Colorado) and around the same time (late 2006).

18.Lonnie Latham, 2006
In 2006, Latham, the senior pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church and a member of the powerful Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, was arrested for “offering to engage in an act of lewdness� with a male undercover police officer.[19]

19. Gilbert Deya, 2006
Kenyan-born Deya moved to the United Kingdom in the 1990s and started a number of churches. He claims to have supernatural powers that allow him to make infertile women become pregnant and give birth. However, police investigations in the UK and Kenya concluded that Deya and his wife were stealing Kenyan babies. Deya was arrested in London during December 2006 and as of April 2010 he is currently fighting extradition to Kenya.[20]

20.Richard Roberts, 2007
In October 2007, televangelist Richard Roberts (son of the late televangelist Oral Roberts), was president of Oral Roberts University until his forced resignation on November 23, 2007. Roberts was named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes and improper use of university resources.[21]

21. Earl Paulk, 2007
Earl Paulk (no relation to John Paulk) was the founder and head pastor of Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Decatur, Georgia from 1960 until the 1990s. A number of women from the congregation came forward during the 1990s claiming that Paulk had sexual relations with them. Some of these claims have subsequently been proven correct. Moreover, Donnie Earl Paulk, the current senior pastor of the church and nephew of Earl Paulk, had a court-ordered DNA test in 2007 which showed that he was Earl’s son, not his nephew, which means that Earl and his sister-in-law had had a sexual relationship which led to Donnie’s birth.[22]

22. Coy Privette, 2007
Privette is a Baptist pastor, conservative activist, and politician in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Privette was president of the Christian Action League and a prominent figure in North Carolina moral battles. In 2007, Privette resigned as president of North Carolina’s Christian Action League and from the Board of Directors of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, following revelations on July 19 that he had been charged with six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution.[23]

23. Thomas Wesley Weeks, III, 2007
Weeks married fellow evangelist Juanita Bynum in 2002, but they separated in May 2007. In August 2007, Weeks physically assaulted Bynum in a hotel parking lot and was convicted of the crime in March 2008. The couple divorced in June 2008 and Weeks remarried in October 2009.[24]

24. Michael Reid, 2008
Bishop Michael Reid (born 1944) is a Christian evangelist in Essex, England and founder of Michael Reid Ministries who resigned from the role of pastor at Peniel Church in April 2008, after admitting to an eight-year extra-marital sexual relationship. The scandal was widely reported online[25][26][27] and in UK newspapers.[28][29] He has since re-developed an itinerant evangelistic ministry and has been speaking at a number of churches in the UK and overseas.

25.Joe Barron, 2008
Joe Barron, one of the 40 ministers at Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in the United States with 26,000 members, was arrested on May 15, 2008 for solicitation of a minor after driving from the Dallas area to Bryan, Texas, in order to allegedly engage in sexual relations with what he thought to be a 13 year-old girl he had met online. The “girl� turned out to be an undercover law enforcement official.[30][31][32]

26.Todd Bentley, 2008
Canadian Todd Bentley rose to prominence as the evangelist at the Lakeland Revival in Florida, which began in April 2008. Bentley claimed that tens of thousands of people were healed at the revival, but a June 2008 investigation by ABC Nightline could not find a single confirmed case. Bentley took a short break after the program was broadcast, but returned to leading the meetings. However, in August 2008, he stepped down permanently when it was revealed he was separating from his wife, Shonnah, and was in a relationship with Jessa Hasbrook, a member of his staff.[33]

27. Tony Alamo, 2008

On September 20, 2008, FBI agents raided Tony Alamo Christian Ministries headquarters as part of a child pornography investigation.[34][35] This investigation involved allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse and allegations of polygamy and underage marriage. According to Terry Purvis, mayor of Fouke, Arkansas, his office has received complaints from former ministry members about allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse and polygamy since the ministry established itself in the area, and in turn, Purvis turned over information about the allegations to the FBI.[36] Investigators at the scene plan to conduct a search of ministry headquarters and the home of Alamo and interview children present on the compound. In late July 2009, Alamo (who had a previous conviction for tax evasion in the 1990s) was convicted on ten counts of transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes, sexual assault and other crimes. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison.[37][38]

28.George Alan Rekers, 2010
Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp of the Miami New Times reported on May 4, 2010, that on April 13, 2010, George Alan Rekers, a far-right Christian leader was encountered and photographed at Miami International Airport returning from an extended overseas trip with a twenty-year-old “rent boy“, or gay male prostitute, known as “Lucien� (later identified as Jo-Vanni Roman). Given his opinion on homosexuals and homosexual behavior, the scandal surrounds Rekers’ decision to employ a homosexual escort as a traveling companion, and how that runs contrary to Rekers’ public stances on such issues.

Rekers claimed that Lucien was there to help carry Rekers’ luggage as Rekers had allegedly had recent surgery, yet Rekers was seen carrying his own luggage when he and Lucien were spotted at the airport.[39] On his blog, Rekers denied having sex with the man.[40] In subsequent interviews, Roman said Rekers had paid him to provide nude massages daily, which included genital touching.

29.Eddie L. Long, 2010
On September 21st, 2010 a civil complaint was filed against Eddie L. Long by two young men that stated Mr. Long used his position as the church leader to entice the men into consensual sexual relationships in exchange for money, travel and goods.

https://letmetellyouthis.wordpress.com/ ... -scandals/

Am I presenting nothing but a "caricature" of Christianity? REALLY? I would suggest that what you subscribe to is a gross caricature of reality.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 205 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Yes, I still say you are offering a caricature of Christianity. Yes, Christianity did and does have its dark side and that needs to be discussed. And there was and is a very dark side to science that also should be discussed, such as medical experimentation in Nazi concentration camps, fakery (Piltdown man), etc. But just as science has a definite positive side, so, too , does contemporary Christianity. But that is not the whole of the matter. You yourself said things are very different today, and they are. I am in the liberal Christian tradition and our agenda calls for a healthy skepticism about dogma, and tradition, an emphasis on creativity, and emphasis on personal experience over doctrine, and interfaith, interreligious dialogues based on mutual understanding and respect, rather than finger-pointing and denunciations. You failed to mention anything at all about that, instead focusing on purely right-wing, anti-intellectual fundamentalists.

It is true that today there is no orthodoxy in theology, everything is up for grabs, being rethought, redefined. I am a neo-classical theist and we have been working to give the doctrine of God a major face lift. But that is another story. And that is also true of many other fields, especially science, as the scientific discoveries and major social upheavals of the last century has shaken our basic understanding of reality to its foundations. And, at least in the West, there is a great emphasis on religious freedom. Now, I see all of this as having a positive side. Christianity always was a pluralistic religion, and that means we have freedom, choices. If one church doesn't work for you, you can try another. One God, many paths. Different strokes for different folks. As I pointed out in a previous email, there are three basic appeals to authority in Christendom, church, sect, mystical. And that is good, because no one approach will work for everyone.

However, I think some qualifiers need to be put on your claim that absolutely anything goes, that you can get away with just anything you want. My world is the world of academia. And in modern academia, a kind of legalistic model is followed. Everyone is like an attorney going to court to make a case. In any field, theology included, you can get away with anything you are big enough to pull off. Note: I said anything you are" big enough to puff off." That means you have to make a case, give a solid rationale, you just can't saying anything and walk away. So again, you claims are a caricature because they focus on outmoded ancient times and because they fail to address the reflective side of Christianity.

OK, you feel the Resurrection is total nonsense. Well, where is your evidence that it is? Where is your documentation that it was all a big conspiracy? What is your rationale for assuming it absolutely could not happen? Science is not equipped to deal with life after death. Indeed, how would you scientifically investigate that matter one way or the other?

More importantly, what is your underlying metaphysic? Are you going on classical theism and the traditional idea of the supernatural? If so, then yes, there might be problems believing in the Resurrection. But classical theism isn't the only game in town today. There is also process-relational metaphysics. Here, the supernatural is out, the supra-natural is in. God is understood as the chief exemplification all metaphysical principles, not their negation, as per classical theism. Here, the Resurrection is most plausible. Now, I'm not going into process metaphysics here, as s that would require a much longer email. I'm simply trying to point out that there are additional, more solid options today that need to be considered.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 206 by hoghead1]

Yes, I still say you are offering a caricature of Christianity. Yes, Christianity did and does have its dark side and that needs to be discussed. And there was and is a very dark side to science that also should be discussed, such as medical experimentation in Nazi concentration camps, fakery (Piltdown man), etc. But just as science has a definite positive side, so, too , does contemporary Christianity. But that is not the whole of the matter. You yourself said things are very different today, and they are. I am in the liberal Christian tradition and our agenda calls for a healthy skepticism about dogma, and tradition, an emphasis on creativity, and emphasis on personal experience over doctrine, and interfaith, interreligious dialogues based on mutual understanding and respect, rather than finger-pointing and denunciations. You failed to mention anything at all about that, instead focusing on purely right-wing, anti-intellectual fundamentalists.

Saying the Christianity has a "dark side" is like acknowledging that the Nazi's behaved badly. Christians have done unspeakable things to others over the centuries in the name of their faith and their beliefs. And I am not merely talking about hideous things done to people of other faiths. I am referring to the hideous things that Christians have done to other Christians. All because of differences in dogma and doctrine. Because people over the centuries have read the Bible and reached different conclusions as to what it means. Nonsense kills! And sometimes in hideous ways.

It is true that today there is no orthodoxy in theology, everything is up for grabs, being rethought, redefined. I am a neo-classical theist and we have been working to give the doctrine of God a major face lift. But that is another story. And that is also true of many other fields, especially science, as the scientific discoveries and major social upheavals of the last century has shaken our basic understanding of reality to its foundations. And, at least in the West, there is a great emphasis on religious freedom. Now, I see all of this as having a positive side. Christianity always was a pluralistic religion, and that means we have freedom, choices. If one church doesn't work for you, you can try another. One God, many paths. Different strokes for different folks. As I pointed out in a previous email, there are three basic appeals to authority in Christendom, church, sect, mystical. And that is good, because no one approach will work for everyone.

We have legal religious freedom today, this is true. It was a hard won freedom, and it is the reason that the founding fathers chose to place freedom of religion in the very first Amendment of the Constitution.

However, I think some qualifiers need to be put on your claim that absolutely anything goes, that you can get away with just anything you want. My world is the world of academia. And in modern academia, a kind of legalistic model is followed. Everyone is like an attorney going to court to make a case. In any field, theology included, you can get away with anything you are big enough to pull off. Note: I said anything you are" big enough to puff off." That means you have to make a case, give a solid rationale, you just can't saying anything and walk away. So again, you claims are a caricature because they focus on outmoded ancient times and because they fail to address the reflective side of Christianity.

Wikipedia
Kolob
Kolob is a star or planet described in Mormon scripture. Reference to Kolob is found in the Book of Abraham, a work that is traditionally held by adherents of the Mormon faith as having been translated from an Egyptian papyrus scroll by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. According to this work, Kolob is the heavenly body nearest to the throne of God. While the Book of Abraham refers to Kolob as a "star",[1] it also refers to planets as "stars",[2] and, therefore, some Mormon commentators consider Kolob to be a planet.[3] The body also appears in Mormon culture, including a reference to Kolob in an LDS hymn.

Birthplace for the earth
According to several Mormon writers (such as Cleon Skousen in his book The First 2000 Years), the earth was created near Kolob over a period of 6000 years, and then moved to its present position in our solar system.[29][30][31] This hypothesis is based on oral comments attributed to Smith.[26] The hypothesis is also based on a passage from the Book of Abraham stating that in the Garden of Eden, time was measured "after the Lord's time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed to Adam his reckoning".[32] According to the hypothesis, the reason that Earth time was measured in Kolob time was because the earth was physically located near Kolob. As a corollary, some Mormon writers argue that at the end times, the earth will be plucked from the solar system and returned to its original orbit near Kolob.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob

Wikipedia
Beliefs and practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost

In LDS Church teachings, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are referred to as the "Godhead".[19] According to LDS scripture, the Godhead has the following attributes:
They are three separate and distinct beings. They are collectively "one God",[21] meaning that they are united in spirit, mind, and purpose.[22] According to LDS theology, Jesus is "one" with the Father in the same way as he asked his disciples to be "one" with him and each other.

Jesus and the Father have physical "bodies of flesh and bone", while the Holy Spirit does not, though the Holy Spirit has a "spirit body".[23][24]
God the Father is understood to be the literal father of the spirits of humanity,[25] as well as the literal father of both the spirit and physical body of Jesus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_a ... day_Saints

God the Father is called ELohim. Jesus is Jehovah. They are two distinct and separate entities.

This is just a brief taste of what Mormonism teaches. So how do they "get away with teaching this?" There is no law against it in a country that makes freedom of religion an intrinsic right. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 million practicing Mormons today. Including those freshly scrubbed boy "elders" in their ties and white shirts riding around on their bicycles in an effort to bring the "truth" of Mormonism to the unwashed masses. Why do they believe this so earnestly? A lifetime of intense indoctrination!

OK, you feel the Resurrection is total nonsense. Well, where is your evidence that it is? Where is your documentation that it was all a big conspiracy? What is your rationale for assuming it absolutely could not happen? Science is not equipped to deal with life after death. Indeed, how would you scientifically investigate that matter one way or the other?

1. All observation and experience overwhelmingly indicates that a corpse cannot come back to life and fly away. Christians are so use to accepting this claim without criticism that they commonly lose sight of just how silly a claim this really is.

2. There is no indication historically that anything of particular significance occurred in Jerusalem during the years around 30 AD, stemming from the time the events in question were supposed to have occurred. No one recorded any bit of it at the time.

3.No historical mention of the claims occur until about a quarter of a century after the events in question were supposed to have occurred. And this record was provided by Paul, who was not personally present for ANY of the events detailed in the Gospels.

4. The NT tells us very clearly that the followers of Jesus had the means, motive, opportunity and ability to spread the rumor that Jesus had risen from the dead. Which Acts clearly indicates is just what they did.

5. The followers of Jesus were self proclaimed "eyewitnesses" to what they alone claimed occurred.

6. The story was largely dismissed at the time as a hoax perpetrated by the followers of Jesus, by the very people in the best position to know what actually occurred... the Jewish population of Jerusalem.

More importantly, what is your underlying metaphysic? Are you going on classical theism and the traditional idea of the supernatural? If so, then yes, there might be problems believing in the Resurrection. But classical theism isn't the only game in town today. There is also process-relational metaphysics. Here, the supernatural is out, the supra-natural is in. God is understood as the chief exemplification all metaphysical principles, not their negation, as per classical theism. Here, the Resurrection is most plausible. Now, I'm not going into process metaphysics here, as s that would require a much longer email. I'm simply trying to point out that there are additional, more solid options today that need to be considered.

I have no "underlying metaphysic." I don't subscribe to magic, or astrology or fortune telling either. Make believe and wishful thinking are a waste of time. Empirical science has a much better track record of understanding what the universe has to tell us then the old fashioned method of "make it up and declare it to be true" does.

[William]

[Replying to post 205 by Tired of the Nonsense]

That's lot of cherry picking!

Even I, a definite non-Christian, can see that is a list of sleazy money hungry businessmen, being followers of their own lusts rather than of Jesus or even the biblical OT idea of GOD and in relation to Christendom, at the most, these are an Americanized adaptation of Christianity - understanding of course that one can call themselves whatever they want to, and the onus is on the individual to discern for themselves the truth of that.

The list does graphically enough illustrate how come America presently has the president it does, but so's not to be too fooled, whether it is done in the name of religion or politics, it is the same old same old and is a definite blight on humanity, and always has been.

The love of money cannot go any other way.


I think you are more than right to point out the gullibility of those who support such deceptiveness but wrong in assigning the focus ONLY to the religious aspects of these business practices. The dangers you see therein are real enough. Remove the religious sector from human society and the problem itself won't have vanished.

So you don't quite understand the full extent of the danger. Just the religious part of it. This in itself can only contribute to the problem remaining.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 208 by William]

That's lot of cherry picking! Very Happy

Even I, a definite non-Christian, can see that is a list of sleazy money hungry businessmen, being followers of their own lusts rather than of Jesus or even the biblical OT idea of GOD and in relation to Christendom, at the most, these are an Americanized adaptation of Christianity - understanding of course that one can call themselves whatever they want to, and the onus is on the individual to discern for themselves the truth of that.

The list does graphically enough illustrate how come America presently has the president it does, but so's not to be too fooled, whether it is done in the name of religion or politics, it is the same old same old and is a definite blight on humanity, and always has been.

The love of money cannot go any other way.


I think you are more than right to point out the gullibility of those who support such deceptiveness but wrong in assigning the focus ONLY to the religious aspects of these business practices. The dangers you see therein are real enough. Remove the religious sector from human society and the problem itself won't have vanished.

So you don't quite understand the full extent of the danger. Just the religious part of it. This in itself can only contribute to the problem remaining.

I have friends and some relatives that voted for Trump. They are also very religious. They know almost nothing about politics, and until the nineties were not even registered to vote. But they know that their pastors have told them essentially that God is a Republican and expects then to vote Republican. And of course they rejoiced at "God's victory" when Trump won. When I asked why it was good that Trump won, two of my cousins and the wife of my friend said almost exactly the same thing. "Now we can get rid of that awful Obamacare which has been such a disaster for America." All three are retired and have healthcare through their former jobs, and not Obamacare. When I asked why Obamacare was a disaster for America, I was given two reasons. First, because Obamacare is communistic, and they didn't want America to "go communistic." Because communism is against God. And second, because their pastors told them that Obamacare was a disaster for America and God wanted Trump to win.

When I pointed out that Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) allowed people who had previously been uninsurable, like children with lifelong congenital diseases, to get health insurance, they literally had no idea what I was talking about. Because a huge portion of their waking hours are spent on Bible study and church activities, and they have virtually no involvement and no interest in other "worldly" matters. To their credit, at least none of the three spend their days incessantly watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh the way so many right wing Republicans develop their views. But my friend and cousins do view the world through the colored prism of their religious beliefs. Essentially, they live in a world of make believe and have no concept of any other reality. If you mention the story of Trump joking about his ability to grope women and get away with it, the say that is false news. If you point to the fact that Trump has been married three times, they are unaware of it and will not be inclined to believe it. But if you mention Hillary Clinton, they will immediately begin a diatribe on just what a terrible pervert Bill Clinton was.

They represent the Christian right wing. Without whom Trump would not have been elected. Without whose support Mormon candidate Mitt Romney could not get elected.

World events are being directed by people who subscribe to make believe. Like a big rig barreling down the freeway driven by someone who is confidently relying on the force to guide them. And hoping that their letter got to Santa okay.

[William]

[Replying to post 209 by Tired of the Nonsense]

Like I said in my previous post.

"So you don't quite understand the full extent of the danger. Just the religious part of it. This in itself can only contribute to the problem remaining."

You seem to be under the impression that 'if only' [aka 'wishful thinking'] the religious did not support such stuff that the world would be a better place politically.

It wouldn't. It would still be the same old same old.

At least WITH the existence of the religious, there will always be some scapegoat to point the bent old hypocritical finger at.

Same old same old.

Way I see things. GOD is NOT involved in the political manufacturing of world events, period. Religious folk trying to dovetail GOD into the political sectors through the advice of their con-artist businessmen and women, do a disservice to GOD through that implication.

Take this cartoon member Once Convinced recently posted, and substitute the word "GOD" for Politics, and that is as accurate a true representation as any.