Can Atheists be Blessed?

[jessehove]

Are Atheists Godless? Can they be blessed, and bless others through their own belief system?
Here is my take.....

http://mercyandmessiah.blogspot.ca/2012 ... essed.html

[jessehove]

"See you are already drawing conclusions that may not have any merit."

And who decides what has Merit? For you the Historical Critical thinker alone decides. Hence why you are being arrogant. I have fully admitted I draw my conclusions based on presuppositions. You like to pretend you don't have any. Hence why you are arrogant.

[Divine Insight]

"See you are already drawing conclusions that may not have any merit."

And who decides what has Merit? For you the Historical Critical thinker alone decides. Hence why you are being arrogant. I have fully admitted I draw my conclusions based on presuppositions. You like to pretend you don't have any. Hence why you are arrogant.

You seem to be quick with trying to label someone as being arrogant. Can you expand on what you personally mean by that term? To me it simply means "self-important", in what way do you think I'm conveying a sense of self-importance?

Or are you using the term to mean something different from this?

You say that you have fully admitted that you draw your conclusions based on presuppositions, and then you accuse me of pretending that I don't have any.

But what do you mean by presuppositions?

If your presupposition is that the Bible is indeed the "Word of God", then I would say that you are being inconsistent in your presupposition by finding fault with the words of Paul in the Holy Scriptures. Or suggesting that any of the authors of the Holy Scriptures could be flawed in their presentation in any way.

I confess, that I do indeed come into the New Testament from a "presupposition" that the Old Testament already has no merit. After all, I feel that I have make a sound logical case for this (not in this thread of course), but certainly to my own satisfaction. Therefore, yes, of course I'm going to apply my previous knowledge and findings to the New Testament. This is how logic and reason work.

So I openly confess that I come into the New Testament with sound presuppositions. And when I do this I see a whole different picture than had I come into it with the idea that Jesus could actually be the demigod Son of the God of Abraham.

Moreover, I've studied the bible from both of these perspectives. Originally I studied the New Testament assuming that it was indeed true. However, even under that presupposition I found many inconsistency and contradictions that I felt were beyond rational explanation even within the context of the presupposition that these stories could be true.

It was actually quite a bit later in my life that I changed over to the presupposition that maybe Jesus wasn't a demigod, and that possibly the whole thing is just a superstitious rumor. When I did that, everything fell into place perfectly and made perfect sense. I was able to explain away all of the previous problems leaving nothing unexplained.

How is this "arrogant"?

It's simply a report of years of study.

Your very question of this thread, isn't even a valid question to ask outside of the Abrahamic picture with its jealous God who demands to be worshiped. So your very question is based on a presupposition that there exist some jealous God who might potentially hate those who don't worship him.

My point was quite simple. Both the New and the Old Testaments contain statements that non-believers, and especially believers in other Gods, are indeed "heathens" whom the Biblical God deems to be sinners. In many cases, he commands people to actually stone to death such heathens.

That's where the whole idea that atheists are 'ungodly' comes from in the first place.

And so when you ask, "Can atheists be blessed?" from a biblical picture, that answer appears to be no. Yet here you are trying to argue against the biblical picture of God yourself.

So why would you suggest that I'm coming from a position of arrogance, when you, yourself, are taking a position of self-importance by attempting to trump the biblical claims of the Biblical God himself?

[jessehove]

Your right I shouldn't isolate you, the indivdual as arrogant. You are not alone. It is the product of Modernity for you to claim historical critique as the only means of "sound presupposition" for the New and Old Testament.

But of course your critical presuppositions go beyond this.

For me to proclaim that the Bible is "word of God" I have to somehow see the writers of them to have not to have made mistakes. It not possibe to see God sharing his truth through the context of the whole narrative. The blind believer could not possibly have nuance to their biblical position. If we choose to trust in authors intent and God's providence over their whole story we must somehow accept a literal disembodied anti-narrative. It is time to expand your mind a little modern man.

[Divine Insight]

Your right I shouldn't isolate you, the indivdual as arrogant. You are not alone. It is the product of Modernity for you to claim historical critique as the only means of "sound presupposition" for the New and Old Testament.

But of course your critical presuppositions go beyond this.

For me to proclaim that the Bible is "word of God" I have to somehow see the writers of them to have not to have made mistakes. It not possibe to see God sharing his truth through the context of the whole narrative. The blind believer could not possibly have nuance to their biblical position. If we choose to trust in authors intent and God's providence over their whole story we must somehow accept a literal disembodied anti-narrative. It is time to expand your mind a little modern man.

I've taken that approach and found it to also be impossible to implement for several reasons.

First, at the very moment that you decide to "read between the lines", you instantly begin making up your own religion. How can you continue to point to the scriptures if where you are actually pointing to is "between the lines". That place doesn't exist in the scriptures, it only exists in your own imagination.

So the scriptures become a moot point. You end up standing there with a bible in one hand, and an opinion in the other acting as if they have something do do with each other when in reality they don't.

The second problem with taking the whole narrative as a context is that this also fails. I'll give just one example, probably the greatest of all examples, but there are many more:

Looking at the biblical stories in a large narrative context what do we see?

Well, In the story of Noah and the Great Flood we see a God who so hated the world that he drown out humanity.

Then in the story of Jesus of Nazareth we see a God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to save it.

You can hardly get a greater contradiction than this.

You have a God who can't make up his mind whether he loves the world or hates the world.

So looking at the biblical picture as a larger narrative in the big picture we see a canon of fables that completely contradicts the very idea of a trustworthy or consistent God. We can't know whether this God is going to love us so much one day to sacrifice his son to save us, or hate us so much the next day to annihilate us.

Many people have pointed out that the biblical God is necessarily schizophrenic for this very reason. And I don't blame them. They're right. These stories in the larger picture are highly contradicting.

How does this related to your question in this thread?

Well, if the biblical God is a self confessed jealous God who demands to be worshiped then how can he be said to bless atheists?

You'd really need to be pointing "between the lines" of then narratives to get that, because it's not actually written in the scriptures.

So again I would ask, why try to twist a religion into something its not just to make yourself happy? Why not just go out and get a religion that's already compatible with what you'd like God to be like?

I think that's a fair question.

[jessehove]

"First, at the very moment that you decide to "read between the lines", you instantly begin making up your own religion. How can you continue to point to the scriptures if where you are actually pointing to is "between the lines". That place doesn't exist in the scriptures, it only exists in your own imagination."

Recgonzing two streams of thought within the Old Testament is not reading between the lines so much as it is being a good exegete. How do we reconcile Canannite invasion and genocide with Exodus 23:9 call to not opressess the foreigner becuase you to were once a foreigner. This requires metanarrative to understand what God is doing. It requires a metanarrative to say that perhaps God did not call for canannite genocide, and perhaps we need to look deeper into the story. As a Christian through the lens of Christ and his fulfillment of what has been alluded to in the Old Testament.

You are right the Flood and Christ does seem to be a contradiction. Interestingly so does God's regret after the flood and the theological idea that God does not change his mind. which the Bible seems to say he does throughout scripture. This is why you need a metanarrative, not why it does not work. If you take it in literal isolation than God is awful, but that is never how the church read the Bible until the 20th century. It is a product of modern man.

Furthermore The New Testament itself alters the Old Testament in order to fit how it understands Christ, while at the same time continually affirming the Old Testament in use (a large part of the new testament is simply old testament allusions, fulfillments of prophecy, quotes etc. etc.) So once it again it is all in how you choose to read the scripture, and what your presuppositions are.

This is not creating a new religion. It is understanding our limited methodologies we as a church have been given. If anything the kind of Christianity you keep alluding to is the New religion. I am holding onto the biblical and apostolic continuity of the Church. It is a religion that is always changing and adapting but maintaining a fundamental meta-narrative