Book debate on Christians Are Revolting

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otseng
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Book debate on Christians Are Revolting

Post #1

Post by otseng »

It's been suggested to debate the book "Christians Are Revolting: An Infidel's Progress":

viewtopic.php?t=34841

We'll start the debate soon in the Book Debates subforum. And who knows, we might even be able to get the author of the book to participate also!

Reply below if you'd like to be added to the book debate group to participate.

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Post #41

Post by Elijah John »

[Replying to post 39 by Divine Insight]

DI, have you read any books by historical Jesus scholars? Such as John Dominic Crossan, Bart Erhmann, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg any members of the Jesus Seminar, Karen Armstrong?

If you had, you would realize that our views are not that odd. Unorthodox, yes, but not necessarily "unChristian". And certainly not unheard of.

Of the people I have mentioned, only Bart Erhman identifies as an atheist*. The rest still consider themselves "Christian" but none (to the best of my knowledge) are Trintiarians in the strict sense. None beleive that Jesus was literally "God".

Regarding the Virgin Birth story, Crossan (a former Catholic priest) describes it as a "pious fiction". That is not to say the story does not have any value. It has mythic significance. The author's way of saying that Jesus is easily as important as any Medeterranean deity, or "demigod". Including Caesar himself, who was supposed to be part Divine. The author's way of saying something subversive. "Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not". A way of saying that God is with the poor and the lowly and not so much with the rich and powerful.

Have you noticed that the earliest Gospel Mark, has no Nativity story? Why do you suppose that is? What does that tell you?

Biut even if, for the sake of argument Jesus was "born of a Virgin" what does that prove? Muslims believe it too, but do not conclude that Jesus is "God". Or even the "Son of God".

----

*not sure about every member of the Jesus Semiar though. The composition of the group, Theist vs atheist that is.
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Re: Book debate on Christians Are Revolting

Post #42

Post by amortalman »

[Replying to post 1 by otseng]

Looking forward to the debate and Nov. 12 (the suggested start date) works for me. I hope the debate starts with Chapter 1 since this is a very busy time for me and I just bought the book.

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real scholars vs. imposters

Post #43

Post by Overcomer »

Elijah John wrote:
DI, have you read any books by historical Jesus scholars? Such as John Dominic Crossan, Bart Erhmann, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg any members of the Jesus Seminar, Karen Armstrong?
EJ, have you read any books by reputable and creditable Jesus scholars who don't use faulty methodology and aren't interested in simply making a name for themselves and an easy buck? I'm talking about people such as Craig Blomberg, Darrell Bock, Michael Licona, Gary Habermas, Dan Wallace, Craig Evans, F. F. Bruce, Craig Keener, and Richard Bauckham, just to name a few. If you haven't, then you haven't done your homework.

Karen Armstrong is no historical scholar. The Jesus Seminar has been debunked. Ehrmann writes for the masses, knowing that they won't recognize the errors in his work. Spong's work is spurious. And I would add Elaine Pagels to this list. Her work represents pseudo-scholarship as well.

Check out Ehrman's mispresentations of the Bible in Misquoting Jesus here:

https://bible.org/article/gospel-according-bart

And here:

https://danielbwallace.com/2012/05/01/t ... ment-text/

On the Jesus Seminar and their agenda and methodology, see here:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdrobe ... s-seminar/



If you only read the things that agree with the beliefs you already hold, then you are practicing a type of obscurantism.

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Post #44

Post by Divine Insight »

Elijah John wrote: If you had, you would realize that our views are not that odd. Unorthodox, yes, but not necessarily "unChristian". And certainly not unheard of.
IMHO, the error in your arguments is your very use of the term "unChristian". Apparently you are the one who has decided to define what it even means to be "Christian".

On this forum we may not be permitted to challenge what people mean when they call themselves a "Christian". And so, on this forum, people can get away with redefining a whole religion just for the sake of redefining it.

But historically, Christianity has held that Jesus is the virgin born, "Son of God", as explained by the Gospels. Including God speaking from the clouds proclaiming Jesus to be his Son. As well as Jesus being resurrected from the dead (the main thesis of Christianity), and then ascending to heaven on a cloud to sit at the right-hand of God.

Like I say, on this forum, you may be able to get away with pretending that you can redefine "Christianity" however you like, but that's only going to hold on this forum. Once you leave this forum and talk to anyone in the real world, your claims are going to be absolutely rejected as being totally absurd and unwarranted.

Just so you know. If you were talking to me in person I'd just roll my eyes at you and tell you to "Get Real". Obviously, I'm not permitted to do that on this forum because apparently, on this forum, "anything goes".

So this forum will apparently support your right to call anything "Christianity" that you so desire. But I certainly don't need to buy into that. And I don't. I don't consider your position to a valid form of "Christianity". I guess I'm permitted to at least say that much.

So on this forum, I can't tell you that you are not a "Christian", but I can tell you that I don't recognize your views on religion to be anywhere remotely representing "Chrsitianity".

And any argument you give trying to change that is not going to convince me.

So that's where I stand relative to your views on "Christianity". I simply dismiss your views as not representing "Christianity" at all. Period.
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Post #45

Post by otseng »

I've created the thread to debate and added everyone to the book debate group.

viewtopic.php?p=942257#942257

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Post #46

Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 12 by Divine Insight]
Although, it take a bit of wizardry to actually copy text from a Kindle book. I also had to join the Kindle Cloud in order to get it free, and they are threatening to charge me $9.99/mo. after the first free month. I can cancel before that happens, but then I'll no doubt lose access to your book at that time as well.
Download the program "Calibre"
https://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows64
and have a look for an Amazon Kindle DRM stripper plugin (which I will not link here). Calibre is basically an ebook database library, where you import your ebooks and it has them all nice and tidy for you. The plugin I mentioned strips the copy protections from your Kindle purchases. I've bought tons of books for my Kindle and to protect against losing them (there was a fiasco several years where people's purchased copies of George Orwell's "1984" were being deleted from their accounts, ironically enough), I import them into Calibre, the plugin strips their copy protection, then I upload the now copy-protection-free versions back onto my Kindle. This way, even if my Kindle connects to the Internet, contacts Amazon's servers and Amazon either has a hiccup or they deliberately delete books from customer's accounts, I still have my books.
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Post #47

Post by tam »

Peace to you!

I am not sure if I should put this here or on the other thread.

Since we are going chapter by chapter, I would like to suggest that we may also discuss the scriptural support the author lists at the end of his book... IF... a particular scripture/interpretation from that list is pertinent to something in the chapter we are discussing.


I am fine with things either way, so this is just a suggestion.

What do you think?

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Post #48

Post by otseng »

[Replying to tam]

Certainly, you can bring those up for debate.

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Re: Book debate on Christians Are Revolting

Post #49

Post by Don McIntosh »

[Replying to post 1 by otseng]

With Sean's approval I reviewed his book at my site:
https://www.gerizimpublishing.com/chris ... -revolting

If possible, I'd like to post that link at the main Book Debate thread also. Thanks.
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Re: Book debate on Christians Are Revolting

Post #50

Post by otseng »

Don McIntosh wrote: [Replying to post 1 by otseng]

With Sean's approval I reviewed his book at my site:
https://www.gerizimpublishing.com/chris ... -revolting

If possible, I'd like to post that link at the main Book Debate thread also. Thanks.
Sure thing. I've added you to the Book Debate group to allow you permission to post.

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