How to Avoid the Question: Lessons from Professor Rauser
Don't get me wrong. I like Professor Randal Rauser. I think he's creative, intelligent, and a nice guy to boot. But he doesn't seem to care at all that Anne Askew was tortured and burned at the stake even though God had a multiple number of ways to keep that from happening. I wrote about Anne here.
So far he does not want to deal with her case. He wants me to chase him down the rabbit hole of definitions about what kind of a revelation God should have produced, sort of like following a Socratic method, which would end up being more interesting to him than the particular case before us. He'd rather play Pharisee by discussing what it means to work on the Sabbath day rather than help someone in need. I'd rather discuss concrete examples, people, good people who suffered because his God was inept. He doesn't get it. He's far too gone as the brainwashed person he is. He cannot be helped, not by me. So I write for other people who are reading this exchange. I do this quite a bit, really. Here then is the problem he fails to see with regard to the Anne Askew's of this world.
God could have done a number of things for Anne Askew. Let's name just one, okay?
Way back in ancient Israelite culture he could have done like the heathen nations surrounding the Jews and granted them first amendment type liberties (as Hector Avalos argued in chapter 8 of TCD). Then no one would be killed for what they believed or said.
There, that does it, doesn't it?
Oh, but you could argue that without the suppression of freethought and the free expression of ideas that the Israelites would have strayed completely away from Yahweh, their tribal deity. [Yes, tribal deity!]
But then you're presupposing that the evidence is not there to believe in the first place such that God needs to suppress freethought and the free exchange of ideas. I mean really, you cannot have it both ways. Either the evidence is there to believe or it isn't. If there is enough evidence then there is no reason to suppress freedom of thought or the free expression of ideas. If there isn't enough evidence then your God should provide more of it. With a few extra prophets and a little more evidence the Israelites would freely choose to believe. Then there would be no precedent for the Inquisitional rallying cry of "Convert or Die" that rang in Europe's dungeons for 200 years. This kind of thinking busted forth into the streets in several wars between Christians themselves to the tune of over 8 million lives being killed for Jesus.
Not only that, but God should've known skeptics would use this as a good reason for thinking there is no loving omniscient God found in the pages of the Bible. For why couldn't God foresee that these sufferings would take place between believers who were obeying him by suppressing freethought and the free expression of ideas? I mean, really, it's like someone once said that God planted fake fossils in the earth to lead scientists to conclude the earth was older than it really is, except this is far worse. For in this case he allowed a great deal of human carnage as collateral damage so that skeptics could make their case. Such a duplicitous God. It's hard to take this all in. It's hard to deal respectfully with Christians who defend such idiocies. God not only fails to provide the evidence needed to allow the free expression of ideas, but he also repeatedly steps on his dick so to speak, and does himself in. What an idiot of a deity!
You see, this is what I mean when I say you don't get it. You're in the dark. You will always be in the dark. I am a smarter person, a more caring person than you and your God.
That’s just ONE SCENARIO. Give that one a go will you? There are many others.
So while Randal claims I'm avoiding the question, he cannot see what the question really is, for the question is about people, real people, good people, flesh and blooded people like Anne Askew. This is what the gospels show us Jesus was concerned with. Why isn't Randal like Jesus in this respect? Why does Randal think being a Pharisee pleases his God now when it didn't in Jesus' day?
So far he does not want to deal with her case. He wants me to chase him down the rabbit hole of definitions about what kind of a revelation God should have produced, sort of like following a Socratic method, which would end up being more interesting to him than the particular case before us. He'd rather play Pharisee by discussing what it means to work on the Sabbath day rather than help someone in need. I'd rather discuss concrete examples, people, good people who suffered because his God was inept. He doesn't get it. He's far too gone as the brainwashed person he is. He cannot be helped, not by me. So I write for other people who are reading this exchange. I do this quite a bit, really. Here then is the problem he fails to see with regard to the Anne Askew's of this world.
God could have done a number of things for Anne Askew. Let's name just one, okay?
Way back in ancient Israelite culture he could have done like the heathen nations surrounding the Jews and granted them first amendment type liberties (as Hector Avalos argued in chapter 8 of TCD). Then no one would be killed for what they believed or said.
There, that does it, doesn't it?
Oh, but you could argue that without the suppression of freethought and the free expression of ideas that the Israelites would have strayed completely away from Yahweh, their tribal deity. [Yes, tribal deity!]
But then you're presupposing that the evidence is not there to believe in the first place such that God needs to suppress freethought and the free exchange of ideas. I mean really, you cannot have it both ways. Either the evidence is there to believe or it isn't. If there is enough evidence then there is no reason to suppress freedom of thought or the free expression of ideas. If there isn't enough evidence then your God should provide more of it. With a few extra prophets and a little more evidence the Israelites would freely choose to believe. Then there would be no precedent for the Inquisitional rallying cry of "Convert or Die" that rang in Europe's dungeons for 200 years. This kind of thinking busted forth into the streets in several wars between Christians themselves to the tune of over 8 million lives being killed for Jesus.
Not only that, but God should've known skeptics would use this as a good reason for thinking there is no loving omniscient God found in the pages of the Bible. For why couldn't God foresee that these sufferings would take place between believers who were obeying him by suppressing freethought and the free expression of ideas? I mean, really, it's like someone once said that God planted fake fossils in the earth to lead scientists to conclude the earth was older than it really is, except this is far worse. For in this case he allowed a great deal of human carnage as collateral damage so that skeptics could make their case. Such a duplicitous God. It's hard to take this all in. It's hard to deal respectfully with Christians who defend such idiocies. God not only fails to provide the evidence needed to allow the free expression of ideas, but he also repeatedly steps on his dick so to speak, and does himself in. What an idiot of a deity!
You see, this is what I mean when I say you don't get it. You're in the dark. You will always be in the dark. I am a smarter person, a more caring person than you and your God.
That’s just ONE SCENARIO. Give that one a go will you? There are many others.
So while Randal claims I'm avoiding the question, he cannot see what the question really is, for the question is about people, real people, good people, flesh and blooded people like Anne Askew. This is what the gospels show us Jesus was concerned with. Why isn't Randal like Jesus in this respect? Why does Randal think being a Pharisee pleases his God now when it didn't in Jesus' day?
39 comments:
I agree with your thoughts, John. What matters is real people in the real world-not getting all the theology and doctrine right.
I respect people-not according to their thoughts re God, but what kind of person they seem to be. Are they human? Do they have empathy? I actually think religion can take away your humanity. Well, obviously it has in the past-with Christians killing other Christians, Muslims killing Christians, etc., etc.
John,
As you (and anybody who would go to my blog) would know, the context here is that I was reviewing your essay "What we have here is a failure to communicate." And I pointed out that your argument here depends on a contentious premiss. And I asked you to defend that premiss.
Instead you started talking about the problem of evil and a sixteenth century martyr and saying that I would have killed that martyr. You have also, in the last day alone, called me a dishonest, paranoid schizophrenic, Pharisaical snake!
And I merely have asked you to try and stay on topic for once, set aside your ad hominems, and defend your argument.
Since you insist: your question is absurd, since Christianity never expected anything less than sheer martyrdom. Will we be brutally but temporarily tortured? God will give us everlasting bliss. Will we be killed? God will raise us up. Will we be mocked? God will glorify us. Will we be robbed of our earthly possessions? God will give us His heavenly Kingdom in return. Will we sin? If we repent, God will forgive us. -- I don't expect you to be happy with this answer, but this is our what our faith teaches, and we believe it.
John wrote, "the question really is, for the question is about people, real people, good people, flesh and blooded people like Anne Askew. This is what the gospels show us Jesus was concerned with."
So, God is only interested in helping the ppl you think are "good"? I think you missed the gospel message majorly---
At any rate, who would you have God eliminate or subjugate/marginalize or any of the other methods we humans use??? That is a very real question regarding very real ppl in very real situations and when we answer it, the crux for our need for salvation is revealed.
And since a picture's woth more than a thousand words, here's a little demotivational poster for you to ponder upon.
John,
I would add that I am a pacifist, and my wife and I have supported Kiva, a microlending agency helping the world's poor, as well as World Vision (we support two children), the World Wildlife Fund and Amnesty International for years.
I also speak and help out once a month at a men's homeless shelter here in Edmonton, so I find your claim that I would kill a Christian martyr if I only had the chance really pathetic.
Again, please focus on arguments and leave the ad hominem attacks at home.
Randal, this is emphatically NOT a Pharisaical game with me like it is with you. I am not interested in chasing you down the rabbit hole of definitions. That's for people who like doing those sorts of things. I can do that, trust me. But I have found it to be a complete and utter waste of my time, especially with people like you who could not be convinced no matter what I say (and that is true).
I am interested in making a difference, not in entering the world of someone like you whom I consider to be nothing more than an intelligent Scientologist on stilts.
For the problem will remain: what about the Anne Askew's of the world? In fact, I think it's much healthier to look at concrete examples like Anne's when forming our definitions. This concrete example speaks like a megaphone regardless of whether we can come to an agreed definition about how God should've revealed himself: NOT LIKE HE DID! There. Done. There is no requirement that I must chase you down the rabbit hole before that lesson should be as plain as your face. Again, NOT LIKE THAT. It's utter buffoonery to suggest for a second that unless I can build a a house I cannot criticize the builder if the house is poorly made, and it's utter buffoonery to suggest I must be able to specific how God should reveal himself before I can criticize how he did. Although, I do suggest ways your God could have done so much better, even though I do not have to.
If I let you get away with definitional red herrings then we will forever be locked into the fallacy of the beard. You know, at what point when the last whisker is pulled is it no longer a beard? This is nothing but tomfoolery and I won't play these games with you. Again, I have more important points to make, persuasive points, while you sit around looking stupid to our readers. If I didn't steer you away into the important issues you will get away with building an intellectual castle in the sky without ever having to touch down on earth.
Oh, but wait. That's what you specialize in:
Earth to Randal.
Earth to Randal.
Can you hear me?
"That’s just ONE SCENARIO. Give that one a go will you? There are many others."
How's this for another scenario:
We are constantly told, by Christians, that God is Love. And very shortly after that, we are usually reminded that we MUST have morally significant free will in order to satisfy our capacity to truly love God back.
But then we are Commanded to love God:
Exodus 20:1-6
Matthew 22:34-40
Love, if it is to be TRUE, cannot be commanded, and furthermore, to command us to love violates our free will. What we're left with is freedom to love a god who spends a lot of time murdering his children that disagree with him (and even his own son, in a vain attempt to prove to us that he loves us by killing something--his usual solution), and is otherwise unworthy of our love.
Randal, now embracing counter-factual questions after all wrote: "I find your claim that I would kill a Christian martyr if I only had the chance really pathetic."
Here's what you need to do in order to show you would not have lit the fires that burned Anne Askew, or watched in the crowds or heard about it afterwards with gladness.
Ready? Show me from historical records that there were many dissidents to these proceedings. Show me that the people doing these deeds and the one's in authority were in an utter minority who were doing these evil deeds against the will of the majority.
You can't. the only reason those in authority could do these things in the first place, even with Anne's husband's approval is because believers, a great majority of them, agreed with it.
Come on now. Think 30 years war. Heretics must ALL die.
Now place yourself back in those days and yes, the odds are overwhelming you would approve and kill for Jesus.
Sheesh.
As I said, I like you and everything but you're just dumb.
John,
My theology is closest to the pacifistic Anabaptist communities of the sixteenth century which looked with horror on the persecution of those with dissenting religious views. Ever heard of Menno Simons? Perhaps you ought to read some history before you make grandiose statements about the social and religious climate of sixteenth century Europe.
It is sad that the minute somebody challenges your arguments it becomes a matter of "chasing one down the rabbit hole of definitions". How self-serving is that?
Incidentally, an "ad hominem" is not the same thing as an insult. An ad hominem presumes to dismiss the validity of an argument by denigrating the character of the opponent, like: "You are a jerk, therefor your argument is false."
And really, doesn't the whole tragedy simply illustrate that the Christian God did a really bad job communicating with the Bible? People used it justify all kinds of atrocities, and do so to this day. Who demarcates what the "proper" interpretation of the Bible is? We don't necessarily object to the conclusions theists arrive at – what we object to is their process for arriving at them.
Randal, you can challenge me all you want to, but don't try to offer something as an explanation that is palpably false.
Take for instance Menno Simons and the Anabaptists, yes, I would have expected that you would identify with them and him. But then the whole reason they adopted a pacifist position in the first place isn't because of the Bible, but because they had no political power. People without political power adopt positions like they did. But just give them that political power and they too would have done what all other church groups were doing to each other in those days. That's the nature of human reasoning. That's how we reason. And that's how you're reasoning right now.
I'll bet'cha in your mind you are Abraham, Moses, Elijah and Jesus, ne'er do wrong heroes (no nitpicking, okay?). Yep, in your mind you are one of the rare heroes, never the sinner. Ne'er would you own slaves, beat women, or persecute people of different faiths. Ne're would you "put a witch to the question" either.
No, not you. Like every single Christian I have ever talked to about this without exception all of them would have been like you, one of the heroes, just as you imagine yourself to be, above the times had you lived back then.
Congratulations Randal! Kudos to you and every other Christian alive today.
But then wait, what's this I read about in history? Who did these deeds if Christians didn't? Apparently there were a bad crop of Christians that lasted for 200-500 years. not representative of what God wanted them to think and do, clearly evil people, not caring to do God's will at all.
Who's deceiving themselves?
I think you are deluded and here is more evidence for it, if you are willing to think this time.
An honest person would have said, "You know, it's quite probable that had I been raised in the same culture as Anne's detractors I would have done to her as they did based upon what I knew about the Bible and the teachings of the church."
I really don't see any other admission coming from an honest person but that one. The fact that you attempted to weasel out of the conclusion given the premises of your having lived in that culture means you should seriously consider checking yourself into the deluded hospital for a check up.
I'll welcome you and show you the way more clearly.
...and as one of the healers in that hospital the prescribed medicine and the physical exercise to help you on your road to recovery can be painful at first.
As I said, I'm not playing games here.
John,
Have you READ ANY Menno Simons? Balthasar Hubmaier? Other leadrs of Anabaptism? Obviously not, or you'd know that they left comfortable lives as leaders in the Catholic Church because of the life and teachings of Jesus.
Well, I do know how they were persecuted extensively.
Glad to know you identify with the rare heroes in the past who would have been able to know the true will of God (presumably as you do now in the 21st century).
Kudos to you for rising above the times, or at least asserting such a thing despite the fact that heroes are people who are rare by definition.
In what other areas do you do so?
This ought to be good. Do tell us how you would see the will of God clearly in every case of abuse?
Anabaptists/Rauser 1
The Devil 0
I think it is obvious that Anne Askew was caught up in political intrigue. The people who persecuted her did not act in the name of their religious convictions but were instead motivated by their desire for political power.
You know... exactly how Joseph Stalin was also not motived by his atheism but only sought to consolidate his political power.
The New Atheists will never move from the kiddie table to where the adults talk until they honestly confront the reality of atheism instead of the delusional strawman they have constructed for themselves.
John Loftus said
"This concrete example speaks like a megaphone regardless of whether we can come to an agreed definition about how God should've revealed himself: NOT LIKE HE DID! There. Done."
Job's wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?"
Do you really want to live in a world where the rain falls only on unjust? I don't. I think that would be a nightmare.
Brenda, you know I hardly ever respond to your ignorance. But okay. First. become biblically literate. The story of Job is a story, nothing more. There never was a Job. Next, please take a critical thinking class. The options here are not between a sky that rains only on the just (which was considered a blessing) and never on the unjust. This is an either/or fallacy, look it up.
Sheesh.
That's why I don't bother with you, and I won't do so much any further either.
Brenda,
1) It seems to me you're streching this specific argument out into some main argument that atheists as a whole use. Is this an accurate understanding? If not, please expliain.
2) You too will not be taken seriously until you stop using the term "new atheists" and refrain from those silly insults you try and throw in, like "kiddie table".
"I mean really, you cannot have it both ways. Either the evidence is there to believe or it isn't."
This is an over-simplification that ignores the nature of humankind to be rebellious. This nature
is the result of judgement (that was appropriate - regardless of how you disagree).
" If there is enough evidence then there is no reason to suppress freedom of thought or the free expression of ideas."
O.J. Simpson trial. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much evidence... there are always agendas.
"With a few extra prophets and a little more evidence the Israelites would freely choose to believe."
This ignores their rebellious hearts. Loving God and obeying Him comes from the heart/mind/soul/
human consciousness that is the very debt of who we are from which we self-generate.
"Then there would be no precedent for the Inquisitional rallying cry of "Convert or Die" "
There was already no precedent for this. Jesus would have us pray for their salvation. Question
everything. How can you be following Jesus when you are violating His teachings during the
Crusades or Inquisition. "The atrocities of the many will be blamed on the innocence of the
few or the One."
"God should've known skeptics would use this as a good reason for thinking there is no loving omniscient God found in the pages of the Bible."
God knows everyone who will reject Him. He is omniscient. He knows exactly what will blind you to truth.
He also knows that the road to Truth is paved with humility. When you recognize He is Infinite and you are finite... then and only then will you begin to "see" that humility before HIM is logical.
Question the relationship between the Infinite and the finite and why you are possibly now blind.
"that these sufferings would take place between believers who were obeying him by suppressing freethought and the free expression of ideas?"
They weren't obeying Him or they would have been in intercessory prayer for the lost.
Like so many Christians are praying for John Loftus (who somehow thinks he is smarter than the Christian God because He doesn't address the REAL truth about this Infinite Creator. If he really understood what the Infinite Creator was doing then he would fall to his knees in repentence and ask God for forgiveness.)
The disobedience of Christians is NOT a valid reason not to be forgiven for your own transgressions against a Holy Creator. Consequences for actions. It is extremely unwise to think that sin will go into eternity and not be dealth with.
Question everything.
"it's quite probable that had I been raised in the same culture as Anne's detractors I would have done to her as they did based upon what I knew about the Bible and the teachings of the church."
Deception doesn't excuse the violation. I can agree to this!
Of course I can...but guess what! I'm NOT them. If I was in their circumstances (exact circumstances) I would have been them. This doesn't excuse the violation against a Holy Creator.
The need for forgiveness is still the same. If I killed the prophets or Jesus because I was in deception then I would have needed salvation just as much as they do.
It's by God's grace that I got saved OUT OF my deception. Ignorance of the law doesn't change the need for forgiveness because God is a Holy Creator.
What you really don't seem to understand is that those who martyr believers sin against God...because God OWNS every servant.
Question everything!
"We are constantly told, by Christians, that God is Love."
Love is ONE of His attributes. But God is also a God of ORDER (consequences for actions). A Creator Who is Perfectly Just. (the nature of sin taints a being of choice and eternal hell is multi-faceted and can not be isolated from connected premises).
God is a God of relationships as well as "RULES." Truth and Order and Justice "come equally" from the God of LOVE. (anything in quotes is often imperfect and needs much more clarification)
God is also a Holy God Who will judge all sin (that is not paid for and forgiven).
"that we MUST have morally significant free will in order to satisfy our capacity to truly love God back."
I would put it this way. You can't say yes if you can't say no. You can't agree with God if you can't (this addresses the potential to do so - or the actual "ability" to do so..this doesn't mean you should DO something that you have the ability to do) disagree with God.
LOGIC = Disagreeing with the Owner and Creator of the universe is a bad thing. It's sin/evil to disagree with the Holy Creator Who created you. There is no logical humility in disagreeing with your maker. This isn't so difficult to see once you remove the blindness of alleged critical thinking and hyper-technicality which fails to address the difference between "should be" (morally right to do) verses "will exist" or "should exist."
You may feel this is off on a tangent...but I've been down this road hundreds of times and it is important to address such equivocations. (cont).
"But then we are Commanded to love God:"
Yes, it is optimal for us to Love God. To choose to agree with your Creator. You can't love God if you don't have the ability NOT to love God. But having this ability may be a requirement for geniune love, but it is also an eternal danger to us. We are told to do what is GOOD for us.
"Love, if it is to be TRUE, cannot be commanded,"
What you are doing is confusing what takes place among humans (who didn't create each other and don't logically OWN each other the way in which God owns us)and attempting to apply this human to human relationship equally to a Holy Creator. Not loving the Holy Creator is quite different from loving a fellow human. A fellow human doesn't have to separate you from themselves for all of eternity if you don't receive their forgiveness.
"What we're left with is freedom to love a god who spends a lot of time murdering his children that disagree with him"
True freedom would know the truth and be FREE FROM EVIL and always love God which is cosmologically right to do. God "determines" (imperfect) all lifespans so He kills all of us through circumstances and natural causes. "Murder" is unlawful killing and God sets the standard for what is lawful in His Universe which He created and it is unwise to accuse the LawGiver of anything Unlawful - since He is NOT a man that would have the ten commandments somehow apply to Him (love to go through the 10 commandments with you to expose the ridiculousness of God doing anything unlawful). )cont)
John, Your reasons to criticise the Bible are strong but these criticisms of Randal are little more than rants.
So Randal, as a former believer who has read John's books and found them convincing, I don't support the insults thrown at you. I've read your paper on Biblical genocide (Let Nothing that Breathes Remain Alive). It was excellent.
You are claiming that God is somehow "unworthy" of Love, yet the Infinite Creator created you in His Conscious Image and gave you the ability to love Him (or the ability to choose against Him which is a danger to you without logical loyalty - without motive to always love Him - without the knowledge to be eternally free from evil).
If you can concluded that the ability to Love is a danger to a finite being...the you have concluded correctly... However, God has created a temporary creation to deal with this REAL problem of evil...the problem of how volition/choice (the ability to love) is a danger to His children. God is not going to lose any of His adopted children in heaven. He can still adopt YOU out of this temporary creation.
John W. Loftus said...
"Brenda, you know I hardly ever respond to your ignorance. But okay. First. become biblically literate. The story of Job is a story, nothing more."
Yes, your inner fundamentalist tells you that only literal texts have any importance. Non literal texts can be safely ignored and in fact must be relegated to the wilderness.
All fiction is a lie!!
"Next, please take a critical thinking class. The options here are not between a sky that rains only on the just (which was considered a blessing) and never on the unjust. This is an either/or fallacy, look it up."
Whooooooooooooooossh!!
I brought up the metaphor in order to point to the difference between your conception of justice and god's justice. You would have god punish the wicked and reward the faithful. This is not god's way.
"Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those you hate you." Love, bless, do good, not just for your friends, but for your enemies as well. That is God’s way.
But your's is man's way. You want revenge for the crimes committed against Anne Askew. That is an un-Christian conception of justice. God commands that you forgive those who do you evil. That our response to the evil that men do should be to love them in return.
@ Breckmin
Everything you posted takes as premise that God exists.
Nowhere is this proved.
To be clear John, I'm not saying your criticisms against Randal's position are rants. You make a lot of points that deserve a thoughtful and direct Christian response. They do however sound like rants when you mix in personal attacks.
Breckmin said,
"...A fellow human doesn't have to separate you from themselves for all of eternity if you don't receive their forgiveness."
God doesn't NEED to, either. He just chooses to do so, according to your earlier (although incomplete) statement:
"God knows everyone who will reject Him. He is omniscient."
You rant on about the "logic of god", but this is no more than a semantic exercise, determineing what life should be based on a flawed fairy tale.
"...A fellow human doesn't have to separate you from themselves for all of eternity if you don't receive their forgiveness."
"God doesn't NEED to, either. He just chooses to do so...etc"
I read to fast and type too fast quite often. Lately, I've been making so many mistakes on here (like the Joseph blunder..or even in this thread with "debt" instead of "depth" or 'can instead of 'have, etc) that it is concerning - my old age).
I should have said "separate you from His Eternal Glory" first of all. Second, these were responses to objections about the Christian faith and were NOT addressing an accumulative case argument for how we conclude that there is "a" Creator and "Who" that Creator actually is with respect to Orthodox Monotheism (a subject which will require book's worth of accumulative case argument - only because of modern objections which are progressively growing due to the rebellious nature of humankind).
When you say "God doesn't NEED to, either." This fails to address what God "WILL DO" and why. It first and foremost fails to address the Holiness of God and why He will impose Justice (consequences for actions).
"He just chooses to do so" is a petty God concept which attempts to make God's Holy Election and acts of grace whimsical. It ignores the role of Trusting the Creator and ignores the Power of Jesus' Sacrifice on the Cross to forgive sins.
Question everything...but when you question, pray for God to open your spiritual eyes and ears so you can see the love/trust that is missing from your "heart."
Breckmin,
"...because of modern objections which are progressively growing due to the rebellious nature of humankind"
Modern objections are not growing due to "the rebellious nature of humankind"; they're growing due to the recognition that credulous prescientific humans believed a lot of stuff that demonstrably is not true. And the sooner humanity gets beyond this obsession with mythology and spirit realms, the better off we'll be.
"Question everything...but when you question, pray for God to open your spiritual eyes and ears..."
Attempt to coerce a god that I don't believe exists as described? So that I can experience something from some sort of "spirit realm" that I don't believe exists either?
Look, I'm perfectly OK with you wearing out your knees if it makes you feel better. I just really don't see where your beliefs are binding on the rest of us.
I don't think that the story of Anne Askew is in any sense a simplistic "see what religion can do" case; even a cursory reading of it suggests that there were political motivations (e.g. the relationship between Henry VIII and Charles V) at play as well. This is not to say that Christianity played no role; it rather obviously did. But it doesn't seem to be as simple as it's being made out to be.
But that aside, let's look at two counterfactuals: I can't say for sure if Randal would've countenanced the torture and execution of Askew if he had been alive in the 16th century, but I can say with a high degree of confidence that if Askew had been asked, before her execution, if the cause of her death could be attributed to Christianity as such -- that is, if she would have agreed with Randall or with John as far as this discussion goes -- she would have answered with an emphatic "No," and would thus have sided with Randall. (Incidentally, this seems to be a common theme: Atheists living comfortably in prosperous Western nations point to the suffering of those in some of the poorest areas of the world as evidence against the existence of a loving, omnipotent god, but the poor, suffering people themselves are very frequently believers; that is, their suffering seems to be stronger evidence against the existence of god from a third person point of view than it is from a first person point of view...this is odd, no? What is the atheist response to this? A condescending, "Well, they don't know any better," or "Well, they've suffered so much that they need a source of hope" or something similar? I for one don't find such explanations persuasive at all.)
No one seems to be addressing Anne's eternal reward in heaven for her faithfulness. That she will lay her reward at the feet of Jesus and worship Him forever by God's grace.
It seems self defeating to choose a born-again Christian martyr who you know is going to be rewarded in heaven forever.
I would have expected him (Loftus) to choose an unbeliever who will be eternally separated from God's glory due to reasons which are mult-faceted.
Eric said "...but I can say with a high degree of confidence that if Askew had been asked, before her execution, if the cause of her death could be attributed to Christianity as such -- that is, if she would have agreed with Randall or with John as far as this discussion goes -- she would have answered with an emphatic "No," and would thus have sided with Randall."
Does the victims opinion have any bearing on the matter?
Being of the 'gentry', Anne Askew would have been aware of the political components of the reasons why she was being executed. So it would not be beyond her intellectual capacity to know that the religious component of what they were doing to her was intimately tied to the political component, and it would have been obvious to her that "political power" was the ultimate justification for her execution.
But that doesn't excuse the executioners for using religion to silence her.
I must grant Randal one point in this discussion : Christians in modern times are so used to define their way into belief, so used to dealing with cognitive dissonance by way of the Definition Game that they don't really even notice it anymore. So when Randal invites us to follow him down the rabbit hole of sophistry (aka theology and apologetics) we should understand that this is the way of the modern Christian. Define something until it makes sense.
There isn't necessarily any dishonesty involved, just an entrenched requirement of self-delusion and the need to sell that self-delusion to others.
Breckmin:
No one seems to be addressing Anne's eternal reward in heaven for her faithfulness. That she will lay her reward at the feet of Jesus and worship Him forever by God's grace.
Let's look at this one step at a time.
Was Anne's suffering as she died significant and/or necessary in terms of demonstrating her faithfullness, or not?
If it wasn't significant or necessary, then her reward in heaven cannot justify God's inaction to save her. She could have entered heaven without that suffering.
If it was significant, then can we say in general that people (or a single person might) need to suffer as much as Anne did in order to earn a heavenly reward?
If people do not need to suffer as much as Anne did, and yet God's inaction allowed Anne to suffer as she did anyway, then we have a monster in God.
If people do need to suffer as much as Anne did in order to earn a heavenly reward, then we have a monster in God.
Let's not forget, by the way, the monstrosity of Anne's suffering. Protesting Buddhist monks in the 1960s aside, imagine holding just your little finger over your stove's flame until it begins to blacken, and then multiply that by an unimaginable amount, and that is what Anne suffered.
One would have to imagine that the *only* possible way for Anne to get into heaven would be to burn at the stake to show her faith, but that is not only ad hoc, but monstrous anyway.
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