Proof positive Christians cannot differentiate God from Satan
Francois Tremblay Permalink
14 comments
As part of my argument about the epistemic anxiety of Christianity, I always say that a Christian could not make the difference between God's words and Satan's words, if they both decided to "talk" to someone, and that there was a fundamental epistemic anxiety in any form of divine revelation or belief in a holy book because of that. Well, now we have proof positive :
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/retracted_bible_quote/
This nice Bible quote was displayed on a Church's site.
"If you will but worship me, all will be yours" (Luke 4:7)
And then they realized that it was actually a quote from Satan:
For those of you who were kind enough to inform us about our previously inaccurate quote...we thank you! We were recently made aware that the former quote we had posted in the header on our site was actually not based on the word of Jesus but was a quote posed to him during his temptation. As soon as we were made aware of this we removed the quote from our site.
We removed it...not hackers as some ill-informed bloggers would have you believe. This lesson is a demonstration why when using tools online to identify quotes that you think deliver the honest and sincere message you intended you should always view the quotes in their whole context.
So the question arises... if you can't even make the difference between "good" and "bad" dogma when the answer is available, how are you so sure of your figuring about the rest of the Bible, Christian jackasses ? Talk about arrogance !
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14 Comments:
What I find funny is that, although the quote is actually Satan's, it can be applied to Jesus' message just as easily. So why get rid of the quote?
"you cannot differentiate because they do not exist. Get real!"
Eeeeeeeexactly.
Most excellent post, Francois!
I don't get it. You choose what is clearly an error, and even acknowledged as an error by those who wrote it, and then use it as evidence against Christianity? That's like saying my math teacher flubbed up 1+1=3 and therefore addition does not work. Just as 1+1=3 does not violate 1+1=2 so God does not violate his own nature or else He could not be God. You and I (or a Church blog) may make that mistake, but He does not and so attributing anything to the Almighty, such as promising an earthly inheritence to a worshipper, must be consistent with who He is, or it is not from Him. Thus one lesson in how to differentiate. By the way, the Bible describes Satan as a liar so be careful at taking him at his word that he can deliver anything, not to mention earthly kindoms.
Barry : you're a big slow aren't you ? I guess that comes with the religion.
My point is that these CHRISTIANS were FOOLED into attributing something to God, when it was from Satan, according to their own Bible. So how can they be confident that they can EVER make that difference, when it comes to the Bible itself ?
Or said more simply : if they fail even with the cheat sheet, how good can they be at the real test ?
I forgot to add also "divine revelation", wherein a person is simply supposed to divine whether they are getting a holy or satanic message. If they can't figure it out within the Bible, how are they gonna do it without it ?
Insults aside, it is clear from your original post you are not questioning whether the truth is knowable, but concluding from their error that it is not. Thus my analogy. Which, in your present question, I can reformulate now as if my math teacher can make a mistake like 1+1=2 then how can anyone EVER be sure 1+1=2? It's not a silly question, you ask a good one. So ask yourself, if people make mistakes in mathematics, how can we be sure that ANY math works? What you are therefore questioning, it seems to slow me, is how can we know what we know? Yours is a question in epistemology, and its a good one. But it by no means is an attack against Christianity per se. And so, since you withdraw, I would digress. But you ask,how can they be confident? The same way you are confident that 1+1=2. By revelation, by thinking Gods thoughts after Him, and by observation seeing with open eyes that they are so. Take the kind of math where 1+1=3 and try to make airplanes fly or boats float or blogs. It does not work in nature because there is a law and we use 1+1=2 to represent that immutable law.
Could we be fooled about anything? Yes, and so we are on our guard. But that should not be used to suggest that nothing is knowable lest all science lose its footing and collapse.
I like your next question. How can anyone know a message from God from a message from Satan. Yours is a blog in the antithesis of Christianity so certainly you must know the Christian response to this? Are you attacking the antithesis, whereupon I'm happy to defend it? or are you simply wondering? in which case I am happy to respond?
Anyway, the Bible is very clear on this point and unfortunately time does not permit me much room, but I point to 1 John 4:6 "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error." that is, we can know it by revelation. It's not clear how anyone else can know it.
LOL Barry the whole point of this post went over your head.
Good one Franc!
"Could we be fooled about anything? Yes, and so we are on our guard. But that should not be used to suggest that nothing is knowable lest all science lose its footing and collapse."
Wrong again, godboy. We can know about reality because IT EXISTS. It's right there in front of us. We can test it and know about it. Your silly gods don't exist, therefore you have no standard to determine what is "of God" and what is "of Satan".
YOU, as a Christian, cannot know anything about what is from God and what is from Satan. But this inability means absolutely nothing in regards to things that are NOT fantasies.
"We know about reality because it exists"...wow...that is powerful...I think it is time to throw away the Bible because francois says so. Give me a break.
You look at the world around you and assume it runs apart from the Triune God.
You say, "We can test it and know about it.
You test reality with your presuppositions [which are foolish] and the Christian tests reality according to God's revelation [truth].
I have checked out some of the links to your blog and know you are not ignorant to Van Til or Bahnsen or the TAG. I haven't read a real intelligent response to TAG though.
Give an answer of how according to your world view you can use logic, science, reason.
How do you account for universals, the uniformity of nature or any absolute?
Or are we going to hear another powerful argument of. I use logic, science and morality because it is a part of reality...and we know that we don't have to give an account for reality because it just is [it exists]...lol...how lame
All I have seen is a blow hard who enjoys name calling...that is not a powerful argument.
I follow Jesus Christ because He changed my life. He paid for my sins and showed me what love is. My life had no hope in this world and now it is good. Atheism is bleak and ugly...those who follow it are truly miserable...I know I professed to be one for years.
Are you seriously arguing that reality does not exist ? You know, there are asylums that exist to treat people like you.
"We can know about reality because IT EXISTS." THAT nature exists is neither your point nor mine so not sure where you pick this up. My point is that on your worldview the uniform laws of nature SHOULD NOT exist because materialism is bankrupt in accounting for WHY they are there, not THAT they are there. Christianity can account for uniformity in nature.
"We can test it and know about it." We know that. You know that. But what we know is that based on your conclusions about the universe, that it is material only and moving around in pure random chance motion, it SHOULDN'T be testable. Testing random things never produces predictable results. That is, the very predictability in nature reveals that there is a God which accounts for it. Try, without stating something like "well its predictable because it just is" or "it's knowable because I know it", to provide some reason at all why nature is uniform...how can it be that way to a materialistic worldview?
As for "Are you seriously arguing that reality does not exist ?". Please, read a little closer...nobody could be saying that. Basically the point is that on your worldview it shouldn't exist as it does because you can not account or justify uniformity, but since it does exist this way, your wordview is refuted.
This is not the time for you to pester atheist on blogs. You need professional help.
Phooey said "Wow, how ridiculous. Things that we can't explain simply SHOULD NOT exist". Missed my point there, Phooey, but I suppose I could clarify my "bankrupt" comment. It's not that the materialist can't explain the uniformity of nature. He can. He knows WHAT it is as well as I do. I said that on the materialist worldview (that is, if that worldview were true and accurate) uniformity in nature "SHOULD NOT exist". Why? Because according to materialism the universe is just matter moving in random chance motion. So how, out of randomness, do unchanging, universal laws come? I know that you know that they are there, I would just like to see one materialist enter the fray and unravel the dilemma with a straightforward, rational answer. How do you get uniformity of nature from utter randomness? Just answer the question, Phooey and drop the juvenile name calling.
But start with figuring out what we're talking about. Try "uniformity of nature" on any search engine, but start here: http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_uniformity.htm
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