Christianity allows the use of deception

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sawthelight
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Christianity allows the use of deception

Post #1

Post by sawthelight »

It seems that worldwide Christianity is the supposed religion of truth.

John 8:32 quotes Jesus as saying that "the truth will set you free" which indicates that Christianity is supposed to be the religion of truth.

Does that mean they do not use deception at all whatsoever?

According to 2 Corinthians 4:2, it seems that Christians do not use deception at all:
Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.
However, that is negated by the fact that Christians in fact DO USE deception for the cause of their religion:
Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.

“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.

“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.
It seems apparent that God DOES use deception and allows his servants (both spirits and humans) to go around deceiving people as has been the case before.

Is this religion no different from Islam where Muslims endorse Taqiyya (the use of deception)? It seems that a religion that preaches the truth should abide by the truth without falsehood or deception. So how can Christianity be considered the truth if they use deception?

Truth is synonymous with deception?

Are we all being deceived to submit to Christian dogma so we can give the Christians an endless supply of donations in time and money? That is the pay off for the deception, no?

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Re: Christianity allows the use of deception

Post #2

Post by JehovahsWitness »

[Replying to post 1 by sawthelight]

Well as one of jehovah's Witnesses I don't interpret this passage to mean God used falsehood or that the angel was given permission to originate a lie, but that God allowed or permitted falsehood to prevail . Bible commentator Walter Kaiser, noted:
“many biblical writers dismiss secondary causes and attribute all that happens directly to God, since he is over all things. Therefore, statements expressed in the imperative form of the verb often represent only what is permitted to happen- Kaiser, Walter (1988), Hard Sayings of the Old Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity) 1988, p. 119
The way I see it, the "deceptive" spirit (angel) ensured that the false Prophets said whatever was in their hearts, and what was in their hearts was lies; it reminds me of reports I've read of people given "spiked" drinks that remove all their inhibitions so they do exactly what they desire to do. Or "Wikileaks" revealing government corruption, the angel manipulated affairs so that the lies were spoken.

As the religious magazine The Watchtower (February 1956) puts it:
[The spirit let] them speak out of their own hearts what they wanted to speak to please the one supporting them, their king. Thus the spirit creature or angel was responsible, not for their lies, but merely for their speaking. - 2/1 p.85 par 32

This spirit creature exercised his power upon them so that they spoke, not truth, but what they themselves wanted to say and what Ahab wanted to hear." - Insight on the Scriptures vol II p. 245
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Last edited by JehovahsWitness on Sat Aug 06, 2022 3:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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sawthelight
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Re: Christianity allows the use of deception

Post #3

Post by sawthelight »

[Replying to post 2 by JehovahsWitness]

Well put.

That actually made sense.

Every other debate you had with me still makes no sense but this one does.

=D> :clap: =D>
Last edited by sawthelight on Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Christianity allows the use of deception

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Post by postroad »

[Replying to post 2 by JehovahsWitness]

I do not even know how to respond to your assertions.

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Post by marco »

postroad wrote: [Replying to post 2 by JehovahsWitness]

I do not even know how to respond to your assertions.
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Re: Christianity allows the use of deception

Post #6

Post by Realworldjack »

sawthelight wrote: It seems that worldwide Christianity is the supposed religion of truth.

John 8:32 quotes Jesus as saying that "the truth will set you free" which indicates that Christianity is supposed to be the religion of truth.

Does that mean they do not use deception at all whatsoever?

According to 2 Corinthians 4:2, it seems that Christians do not use deception at all:
Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.
However, that is negated by the fact that Christians in fact DO USE deception for the cause of their religion:
Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.

“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.

“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.
It seems apparent that God DOES use deception and allows his servants (both spirits and humans) to go around deceiving people as has been the case before.

Is this religion no different from Islam where Muslims endorse Taqiyya (the use of deception)? It seems that a religion that preaches the truth should abide by the truth without falsehood or deception. So how can Christianity be considered the truth if they use deception?

Truth is synonymous with deception?

Are we all being deceived to submit to Christian dogma so we can give the Christians an endless supply of donations in time and money? That is the pay off for the deception, no?


The first passage you point to, which was,
Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.
This passage can be found in 2 Corn. 4:2, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with, "Christians not using deceit." If you were to go back and read this passage in it's context, you will clearly see that the word "WE" refers to Paul, and Timothy, since they both are the authors of this letter, which you can see by returning to the beginning of the letter when it says,
1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
So again, the word "WE" does not refer to Christians, but rather to Paul, and Timothy. This becomes clear when we arrive at verse 5, where it says

2 Corn. 2:5- For we do not preach OURSELVES (Paul and Timothy) but Christ Jesus as Lord, and OURSELVES (Paul and Timothy) as YOUR (the Corinthians) bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.

My point becomes even more clear when we read verse 12.

2 Corn. 4-12-
So death works in us, (Paul and Timothy) but life in you, (Corinthians).

The point is, you have referred to a passage, claiming that it supports the notion that "Christians do not use deception." However, as you can clearly now see, it says nothing whatsoever concerning such a thing. There is a tremendous difference between, the authors claiming that, "Christians do not use deception", and claiming that they themselves, "did not use deception" when they were speaking to the Corinthians.

This is a classic example of someone pulling a passage of Scripture out of it's context and forcing a meaning upon it, that is clearly not there. Or it demonstrates, a lack of actually reading the whole of the context, and simply assuming what must be being communicated, because if one were to read the whole context, what you suggest could not make sense at all!

If there is a passage of Scripture that makes the claim that, "Christians as a whole do not use deception" then I am completely unaware of it. However, if there is, you would need to go find, and use it, as opposed to this one, because as you can see, it makes no such claim.

This is why, if one is going to use Scripture, then one should ensure they use it correctly, so as to save us all, at lot of time and effort.

Now as far as the other passage you refer too from 2 Kings, I am not going to elaborate all that much, other than to say, if you were to actually read the whole context here, you would clearly see, the people who were to receive the lying spirit, had already set their mind to what they wanted to do, and did not want to receive anything that would be said to the contrary. Therefore, God simply turned them over to what they desired.

It is not much different to what I did to my own son, a couple of years ago. He was insistent on buying a certain car, and wanted, (or rather needed) my blessing. I warned him against it, but he continued. Therefore, I turned him over to his desire, being certain he would regret it.

All of the above is the sort of thing that continues to convince me that, many of those who are opposed to Christianity, were at one time Christians themselves, but they have no idea how to read the content of the Bible. This causes them to completely misunderstand the content of the Bible, and to reject things according to this misunderstanding, as clearly demonstrated above!

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Re: Christianity allows the use of deception

Post #7

Post by 1213 »

sawthelight wrote: …
According to 2 Corinthians 4:2, it seems that Christians do not use deception at all:
Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.
However, that is negated by the fact that Christians in fact DO USE deception for the cause of their religion:
Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.

“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.

“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.
It seems apparent that God DOES use deception and allows his servants (both spirits and humans) to go around deceiving people as has been the case before.

Is this religion no different from Islam where Muslims endorse Taqiyya (the use of deception)? It seems that a religion that preaches the truth should abide by the truth without falsehood or deception. So how can Christianity be considered the truth if they use deception?
Interesting thing is that truth can also be used to deceive people.

I recommend people to read the whole 1 Kings 22, before thinking that it is command to deceive and lie. Those who read it whole can see that the truth is revealed to the king, but still king did the thing that led to that what was foretold.

It would be also good to notice, 1 Kings 22 is not commandment for “Christians�, similarly as 2 Corinthians 4:2 is directed to “Christians�.

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Re: Christianity allows the use of deception

Post #8

Post by The Nice Centurion »

sawthelight wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2017 5:44 pm It seems that worldwide Christianity is the supposed religion of truth.

John 8:32 quotes Jesus as saying that "the truth will set you free" which indicates that Christianity is supposed to be the religion of truth.

Does that mean they do not use deception at all whatsoever?

According to 2 Corinthians 4:2, it seems that Christians do not use deception at all:
Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.
However, that is negated by the fact that Christians in fact DO USE deception for the cause of their religion:
Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.

“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.

“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.
It seems apparent that God DOES use deception and allows his servants (both spirits and humans) to go around deceiving people as has been the case before.

Is this religion no different from Islam where Muslims endorse Taqiyya (the use of deception)? It seems that a religion that preaches the truth should abide by the truth without falsehood or deception. So how can Christianity be considered the truth if they use deception?

Truth is synonymous with deception?

Are we all being deceived to submit to Christian dogma so we can give the Christians an endless supply of donations in time and money? That is the pay off for the deception, no?
You forgot the most important scripture, which allows even todays christians to deceive in order to convert:
1 Corinthians 9: Apostle Paul’s Missionary Deception (Taqiyya)!

Paul admits during his ministry, preaching his Paulinism (Christianity of today), he falsely acted in order to draw people to his faith. In the following passage he openly confesses that he used deception for conversion:

“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” – 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Paul is confesses here that he acted as a Jew in order to convert them to his faith. He even acted as a pagan so that he can lure them to his religion. The above verse shows that Paul would go in great lengths to spread his religion by deception. Let’s see now what the experts have to say on the above passage.

Loyal D. Rue who is a Professor of religion and Philosophy at Luther college, comments on the passage, he writes:

“In the Christian tradition there is very early precedent for the use of deceptive means for evangelistic purposes. St. Paul himself makes a remarkable admission of his chameleon-like behaviour in the winning converts. Like the consummate used-car salesman, Paul pretends to share the concerns of his immediate audience in order to manipulate them into submitting to his Gospel: “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”
https://discover-the-truth.com/2013/11/ ... n-taqiyya/
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"Joseph Smith can't possibly have been a deceiver.
For if he had been, the Angel Moroni never would have taken the risk of enthrusting him with the Golden Plates❗"

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