The Antichristian Phenomenon
The Great Anath VS Brian Debate - Part 1
Posted by: Anath in Philosophy, Religion, tags: debateJust within the past few days I have been approached through comments by a Christian by the name of Brian who has a few bones to pick with my budding “Debunking Christianity” series. The comment replies became too lengthy and detailed to maintain a good comment-debate, and he expressed interest in using email as our primary form of communication. My problem with this was that it would take a topic that I would like to remain public and pulls it into the private domain, so I asked his permission if I could post our email exchange in article format for outside opinions on both sides.
This first part includes our original long comment debate, the second part will be our first email exchange. I do not know how long this debate will be or how frequent as we are both busy people, but I will be sure to make an article for each exchange so anyone who is interested can follow and contribute.
Originally posted on Debunking Christianity I. The debate started out a bit nitpicky and edgy but then expanded and evened out a bit. Edited lightly as I am only posting on-topic comments here as well as consolidating them.
Brian:
Anath, you have not debunked anything at all. I’ll include this one too in my reply of “Debunking Christianity II”. You take those Biblical passages extremely out of context without even realizing what you wanted to read into biblical text. You surely have not gone through Genesis 6 did ya? What about 2 Peter and Jude? Anyways, don’t puzzle Anath, I will explain it in the word document.
Note also that it is not an intellectual reading! At least, it is not limited to that…
Anath:
If you begin this debate by taking on an arrogant, holier-than-thou tone, no one will take you seriously. I hope for your sake your word document will not be as purposefully obscure and condescending as your comment.
Brian:
How about you stop using the word “Arrogant” without knowing what it means and mis-applying it to people. I could infer I lot of things by the way you wrote your article which did not debunk anything but false assumptions, instead of the real christianity of the Bible?
I will not critize you nor your writing style in my reply, I will only go against your research, conclusion and false assertions that you came up with. I will not attack you, but rather your points.
As if your article was not obscure either… No one after doing a thorough research and lived the Christian life can take seriously with what you came up with Anath, and yet hundreds of people believe you. You started to stir up things for nothing.
BTW, I don’t take this as a debate. My point is NOT to debate, but only to show you the errors I noticed in your articles for you to reconsider your research, to show you that you have not debunked Christianity as this is the supposed purpose of your articles.
1Peter 3:15 : But dedicate your lives to Christ as Lord. Always be ready to defend your confidence in God when anyone asks you to explain it. However, make your defense with gentleness and respect. —; This applies to both of us.
Anath:
Lets start this out by defining the TITLE for you. “Debunking Christianity” is not the title of this article specifically (which I hoped you picked up by the addition of roman numerals) and not the goal of any one individual article. It is impossible to “debunk” any system of belief in a single article, I figure you know this already? The goal of the SERIES is to ultimately culminate a series of points and arguments that when tied together, shed serious doubt on the religion as a belief system. I chose “Debunking Christianity” primarily because it was a very catchy, weighty, and ambitious title, not because it defined my exact goal of any individual article. You actually have divined the purpose of this specific article–to point out discrepancies–but you have failed to grasp its intent.
One of the first and most necessary steps in getting to the core of the various problems with Christianity is to examine its misunderstandings, mistranslations, misinterpretations, etc. It only takes one or two crazy assumptions or errors to start something like the Branch-Davidians, or many of the fundamentalist Evangelical currents flowing today. We need to find the source of these problems and begin to question and search. Some of the things I have provided in this and subsequent articles can act as instigators to deeper research and questioning. I only ask that the reader read, and think about what I have said. I care little whether or not they agree with me or believe that my interpretations are “correct”. One thing, but not the only, I mention in this article specifically is that the Bible is not the only book of truth, which is a core dogma in many Christian sects. You can argue that its not part of your sect, or you don’t believe that, or its not true Christianity… but the fact is, regardless of whether or not that idea is really true Christianity, it is masquerading under the guise of true Christianity, and it is these destructive ideas I oppose. From the get go I have a feeling that on much of our views we may not be really “against” each other.
Now for your first and slightly more rude comment:
I think you misread my wording quite a bit. By “obscure” I meant when you said: “You surely have not gone through Genesis 6 did ya? What about 2 Peter and Jude? Anyways, don’t puzzle Anath, I will explain it in the word document.”
Obscure does not always imply the certain type of obscurity that you define my article by where I used less common sources that the average reader may not have heard of. The “obscure” definition I was utilizing in my comment fell more along the lines of “not clear, not plain, ambiguous, hard to perceive, not clear to understanding, not expressing the meaning plainly or clearly”, because your wording of “oh don’t puzzle…” and references without any comments was in fact quite ambiguous. However based on the wording of my reply I felt that obscure flowed considerably better than “ambiguous” and was a much more fitting term as it embodies many layers of meaning I wished to capture. I always choose my words carefully.
My reasoning for choosing “arrogant” fell along those same lines. By purposefully obscuring your meaning with the seeming purpose of a condescending tone, you exhibited the quality of “making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights”, which is the first definition of the term “arrogant” on dictionary.com, if you would like to check for yourself. By implying that you knew more than me on a subject in a condescending way specifically through wording, that is arrogance. Yes, I know the word “Nephilim” is present in Genesis 6, but I do not know what you wish to prove with it? I brought up in the article that Nephilim was a plural word due to its suffix “-im”. Unless you have greater knowledge of Hebrew and can prove and back up that the suffix “-im” does not indicate a plurality, I fail to see what you intend on proving. Regardless, I will wait and see your point, just don’t be surprised if I shrug and say “that doesn’t have anything to do with this article…”
Though I am flattered by the idea that you think “hundreds” of people believe me. I had no idea this article had reached a page count of over 20… (db0 corrected this and informed me that it had 37 views!!)
Brian:
Anath said: Let’s start this out by defining the TITLE for you………………………………but you have failed to grasp its intent.
Brian Says: Fine Anath, I agree with you. One would not be capable of debunking a “system” (as you use it) in one or two articles. However, the point is that those accumulated series of points are 90 % wrong (just an estimate – don’t misunderstand me now). That is all! That was my first comment. Therefore, I should not have commented in the manner I did and ought to have been more specific, I’m ok with that! I should not have said that you did not “Debunk anything”, but rather, your conclusions in all three articles I read from you are incorrect, and just wanted to pointed out. But it cannot be clearly explained in a comment box.
Furthermore, knowing Christ is not a belief system, it is a life. Religion is what you do, based on what you believe. If indeed religion is a belief system, than almost anything you believe in is a belief system. I spoke with a Greek teacher once about the word Religion and its implications in the Biblical texts (but I did not limit my research to that alone). The word religion is defined in several different levels with slight differences in many dictionaries. Anyways, I’m getting carried away here. Briefly, Jesus Christ was anti-religious (in the same that we use the word), and always opposed the Pharisees and the Sadducees who were the religious of the day! God does not want religion, he wants fellowship, he wants us to walk with him, like Enoch and Noah and Elijah, and the apostles etc. But Israel failed to keep that (as we all fail), and this is why we are saved by faith and redemption, not by obeying the law. We are not saved by the law but by grace (the gift of God), so that no one would boast (or be prideful as Satan/Lucifer). Now don’t try to argue about Satan not being a person or Lucifer not being Satan (I read your article about this). I am capable of also showing you why your article about Satan / Lucifer is incorrect as well. I was confused about his myself a few years back.
Anath said: One of the first and most necessary steps …….or many of the fundamentalist Evangelical currents flowing today.
Brian Says: And yet this is exactly what you have done yourself!!! You got bogged down by the Hebrew words themselves instead of grasping the passages, books, the Torah, the whole Tanach, the gospels and the letters. You think God does not know that Hebrew and Greek were going to be problematic to a certain level in our day (even back then)? That is why you must grasp the passages and the ideas in all the books and see if they match and connect together (and they do). You should try to debunk the whole package, not the commentaries from Jews and other Christians that misinterpret the Bible. In fact, the Bible interprets itself. If we are to interpret ourselves, we will all be in error. Paul mentions this in his letters and the book of Proverbs gives good advice on this. That’s what leads me to wanting to reply to you, not to attack you and be disrespectful, but for you to reconsider to whole matter. You spent your time criticizing Matthew Henry’s concise commentary and the Jewish / Rabbi’s commentaries instead of the Bible itself; you only hit the wordings. You fail to realize that this will lead you more and more into the deep errors you got into already.
Don’t get me wrong, I have been in somewhat the same position. I was confused before and questioned the Bible. But it is not what you know, it is who you know. What I mean by that is, when someone really accepts Jesus Christ as the Son of God and ones life changes as per the Bible, God will guide that person into the truth. Because I got to know the author ( not blind belief), I came to accept God’s word and studied it and found out that there are no contradictions ( only apparent ones – especially when one gets bogged down by the language). But God is clear and precise enough to shed light in various passages that explain each other. It is an integrated message in 66 “Books” (not all are Books per se -some are letters) that were compiled over thousands of years and is still alive today!
It is more clear than you think. Permit that I use once again the example of the the word “YOM” in Hebrew in Genesis 1. Does it intend to convey a 24 hour day or ages? If you are going to argue solely (I emphasize “Solely”) on the word itself and show me that it could mean ages or periods, and plenty of other definitions, it is a stumbling block. Why because YOM + a numerical value adds the correct interpretation —> A regular day. Furthermore, the problem is not the word “YOM”, it is Exodus 20, where God clearly intends us to understand the 7days as….exactly that….7 literal days. It is compatible with Science? Yes, and this is a whole other subject that I would not like to get into because we will spend hours exchanging useless Keyboard characters (heheh “Useless typing indeed”).
Anath said: We need to find the source…..I care little whether or not they agree with me or believe that my interpretations are “correct”.
Brian Says: I agree, yes! But, what I care is for you to reconsider your research and most importantly come to accept Yeshua and he will guide you into all truth. You have not experienced it, so you cannot bring it down. You cannot Test God. It has to be a real repentance/acceptance. Ones life does change after one is born-again, and is a great testimony to the truth. That is why we witness, but Yeshua pleads not just to witness but to BE witnesses.
Anath said: One thing, but not the only, I mention……. guise of true Christianity, and it is these destructive ideas I oppose.
Brian says: Well, if this is what you oppose be careful because it is those other “Religions” and “Truths” that are taken from the Bible (This is a whole other subject that would take hours to compile). The Qu’ran is a good example in this case. Counterfeiting is the enemy’s trick to get you in trouble. What you are trying to debunk is the counterfeited “religion” of Christianity. You would need to debunk Christ, but prayerfully you will come to find out that he is the truth though your research…maybe not. We are saved by faith (faith is not a blind belief. I wrote an article about faith from the Biblical perspective. Faith is NOT a belief. Faith IS trust and includes a belief to begin with. Faith is trusting without seeing what is coming up. Abraham is the father of faith as per the Bible’s description in Hebrews and is a great example). Faith Implies you already know God.
Jesus Christ prayed 3 THREE times to the father if there was any other way, other than the Cross! 3 times! Guess what, that was the only way (do you want to know why? Let me know). If there would be other ways, they cannot contradict each other. But all other “religions” contradict each extensively, so they cannot be all truth. Only lies contradict each other.
Anath said: From the get go I have a feeling that on much of our views we may not be really “against” each other.
Brian Says: Really? I hope so, it will make it so much easier 
Anath Said: Now for your first and slightly more rude comment:
I think you misread my wording quite a bit. By “obscure” I meant when you said: “You surely have not gone through Genesis 6 did ya? What about 2 Peter and Jude? Anyways, don’t puzzle Anath, I will explain it in the word document.”
Obscure does not always imply the certain type of obscurity that you define my article by where I used less common sources that the average reader may not have heard of. The “obscure” definition I was utilizing in my comment fell more along the lines of “not clear, not plain, ambiguous, hard to perceive, not clear to understanding, not expressing the meaning plainly or clearly”, because your wording of “oh don’t puzzle…” and references without any comments was in fact quite ambiguous. However based on the wording of my reply I felt that obscure flowed considerably better than “ambiguous” and was a much more fitting term as it embodies many layers of meaning I wished to capture. I always choose my words carefully.
Brian Says: Ok good, I agree on this one. You have a good vocabulary and writing style compared to me. I did not misread you comment, you made me misunderstand by you trying to pick the correct word, as you say it. Thus I will be more careful with my wording from now on. So, next time I will be more careful. Use simple words Anath, that’s how misunderstandings emerge. I am now obligated ( I am being sarcastic duh.) to go to Dictionary.com now to try to guess which definition you chose to best fit your context and understanding.
Anath Said: My reasoning for choosing “arrogant” ……dictionary.com, if you would like to check for yourself.
Brian Said: Well, you are not facing me face to face are you? You cannot infer that! I could do the same to you with your word picking, to a certain extent of course.
Anath said: By implying that you knew more than me………………..”that doesn’t have anything to do with this article…”
Brian Says: Regarding the Nephilim, what I was aiming was your comment on Numbers 31:17, which is out of context. Now, Numbers 31:7 is when The 12,000 soldiers had to kill all the male children and the non-virgin women (why do you think?). The Nephilim are linked with the Rephaim genetically through blood-line. They come from the Anakins (or Anakims, I don’t remember right now), which in turn come from the Nephilims – and the Giants. The Giants also appear after the flood as it is seen in Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua. Actually, Joshua is guided to God to overthrow this “race” (of the giants) from the Promised Land. They were a corrupted blood-line and God orders to kill all women and children to stop that corruption. Otherwise it would spread all over the land (and they were sinful, throwing their Kids to god Moloch). I’m going to stop here because it is long to explain. You have to follow up through it in the Tanach. Thus, the enemy tried from Genesis 3 all they way to the coming of Christ, to pervert the Messianic blood-line so that Jesus could not be born sinless and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to perform his mission and finally crush the serpents (the Shining one) head. Etc…….
Anath Said: Though I am flattered by the idea that you think “hundreds” of people believe me. I had no idea this article had reached a page count of over 20…
Brian Says: It’s an expression Anath!!! Hehehe…come on…..
Forgive me if I seemed to have been rude with my word expressions, I will be careful from now on. You can correct me on that.
–Insert by Waldheri:–
Brian, I’ve read some of your responses to Anath and I just want to reply to a few statements you made, but not in a lot of detail. I’m quite sure you’re not going to agree, but I think the following has to be said. Before I do so, let me just say that I am quite annoyed by your repetative reminders that you were “also confused years back” about something you think Anath is incorrect about. If you would kindly stop that attitude we would all like you lots better.
You see, we’re all trying to make sense of this world. You’ve found “the answers” in the bible. Anath, db0 and I are not opposed to christianity just for the sake of it, we truly think it is wrong or even dangerous. Most of us has read that same bible you have (and let’s not argue over which translation is most correct, it is not important in what I am saying here). However, we’ve come to very different conclusions about the nature of this religion. Why? Because you interpret the bible. You can’t deny that. You read some passages and you think: “Hey, that means this”. It happens naturally. There is no “wrong” interpretation of the bible; the fact that there are so many denominations in christianity, and even people who have concluded something entirely “non-christian” after reading the bible should be enough proof of this. Saying that “the bible interprets itself” is bullocks. After reading about the exodus, some people conclude that God will save his people and lead them into promised land, and thereby looks after his flock. Others, like me, were quite appalled that God found it necessary to kill innocent first-borns to get his will done. Again: Don’t argue me over what I “should” have learned about this passage, you can’t deny that this is also a valid interpretation of the teachings found in the bible.
Secondly, saying that the seven day creation is compatible with science is misleading - Sure, you can mold it to sort of fit science, staying out of the way of natural laws and such, but that is just creative apologetics. The danger lies in the fact that it leads people to think that the creation story is science (Americans trying to teach creationism next to evolution?!?!) and this is a complete fabrication. Why do you think science has not embraced christian teachings? It’s not because they are “against christianity” (or any other major world religion, for that matter); their methods merely have shown to be incompatible with a lot of christian ideologies.
(I hope Brian does not forget to address this!!)
Anath:
I’m glad you are starting to get me here, as far as wording and such.
Though as far as the “not face to face”; it IS possible to be condescending through tone of writing, word arrangement, and specific word choice. You don’t have to physically say it sarcastically for it to read that way… though I will admit here, I may have read into it a bit more negatively based on my previous experience with debate, and sometimes it is hard to separate who you are debating with when the same topic comes up again… So if I have taken you the wrong way I apologize.
Now lets start from the beginning of these. First let me preface this with a slight disclaimer: the next few paragraphs are a completely NEUTRAL tone. If you are offended in any way or get angry, you should not be and you are reading into my words incorrectly. I can tell you now also that my point of view on much of what you have to say is drastically different than yours so you may have to read a few times and try and see things from my point of view before crying “HEATHEEENN” and burning me at the stake. 
Yes, there is a difference between “knowledge” and “belief”. However in terms of what you are talking about, it is still a subjective difference. As much as you “know” Christ and “know” you have a deep and personal relationship with your deity, it is as much as a Muslim “knows” his, or a neo-pagan “knows” hers, or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a scientologist or a… you get the picture. This will be a central problem with our exchange, I can tell you that right now. You “know” what you do because you feel it is right, but that does not make it true except to your subjective reality. I am not going to sit here and tell you that what you “know” with all your heart, and with your deep-seated conviction is false and mine is right, because realistically there is no way of “knowing” until (excuse the expression) Judgment Day. When your Jesus comes down from the clouds and all the prophecies and predictions of the Christian faith come true, or when I stand at the feet of Odin, I will admit my errors (but not repent). However, I don’t particularly care if you personally believe it because it is your subjective reality, not mine. I can “know” that aliens from another planet will pick me up on the full moon of next month–they could have told me! But is that really objective truth and knowledge, or a belief that “know” to be true because of my perception of reality? However, I’m a firm believer (know-er?) in a sort of universe-wide quantum probability, where there is a possibility for anything and everything but expressed in terms of likelihood, so I there is a possibility that you may be right, its just very, very small in my opinion. Thereby, I don’t fully discount everything you have to say, so don’t think I’m shrugging you off or not taking you seriously.
Ultimately, people can believe whatever they want as long as it does not negatively impact others. Your belief that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior and a personal god and such is pretty harmless to most everyone if you are reasonable about it. I have no real problems with Christians who do their homework, really live the faith, and don’t throw bottles at cars that don’t honk when passing a sign that says “honk if you hate abortion!”. I might argue that their beliefs are a bit delusional and irrational, but we all hold some sort of irrational beliefs, including myself… so what? What I DO have a problem with is institutionalized Christianity. If you are the personal-Jesus type that does not see an obligation to attend church and do all the extraneous ritual things (or risk hellfirez!!!11!!1), then I think we stand together for the most part. Interestingly, when you said “What you are trying to debunk is the counterfeited “religion” of Christianity” you were absolutely right. What you might see when you look at the majority of Christians, especially the ones trying to gain power in the government, is that they fall into this category. They are also the dangerous ones, who will try to put shackles on a human beings right to choice and freedom based on their own dogmas, and this is something that does not sit well with me.
Now I will politely disagree that I have gotten into the same “trap” as the literalists, and also point out that my point with this particular installment WAS to criticize the commentaries and pick out discrepancies instead of taking an overall view. That comes later. Where articles like this become necessary is when I DO eventually start taking a wider view and examining books and passages in context with the whole, I don’t get someone coming out saying “but MY book says…” or arguing with the concise commentary in hand, which as I mentioned, is a main staple of many bible study groups. When this happens I can just point them here and insinuate that just because a commentary says this, doesn’t mean they are right, and commentaries are riddled with errors as well, and since I would have already made that point, I would not need to waste time making it again. The writer of a commentary had a particular agenda and way to read into the story or sequence which may or may not be accurate. You say that “the bible interprets itself”, which may be true. However it “interprets itself” through the glass of a subjective reader, and as soon as the pen hits the paper in a commentary or reader’s companion, we are no longer looking at potential objective truth but a subjective interpretation of a potentially objective source.
For an example that I used in my extended 2.5 (which I don’t know if you have read? Oh and I don’t actually want to debate and nitpick this specific, I just want to make an overall point) what about the “snake” in Genesis? Christian commentaries will go off on a tangent about their fallen-angel-Lucifer/Satan. Jewish commentaries will talk about the snake as an animal, not an angel, and how Eve put words in God’s mouth, as he did not actually SAY that she would die if she ate the fruit. So which is right? I know you will argue that the Christian one is, and the Jew will argue that the Jewish one is, and the Muslims will probably agree more with the Christian but then go off about bowing to Adam, and so on, so here we have at least three conflicting points (we haven’t even gotten into individual commentators or editions yet) about the same character and story that all arguably have equal merit based on which you agree with or have been taught is true. Here, we are also agreed that they cannot all be truth, but disagreed on what the truth actually IS. Maybe none of them. (I personally lean towards the Jewish commentary on this particular verse, I’ve found them a bit more objective on OT matters, though I don’t believe it is a literal story by any means.)
Additionally I brought up the point of different editions of the bible itself, with the Message and so on, for the same purpose. When you can line up 5-10 bibles, and the very first line in them is all different, what then? What else has been watered down, or made to sound pretty instead of elucidate meaning? How much information has been lost because of a poor translation, subjective interpretation by the translator, or muddled wording? The point that can and should be taken from this is to be wary and cross-check the sources, as well as dabble in the original language, if you really care about the “true” meaning. From what I can see it seems as though you have done this, so there is little you can really get from reading this particular article other than nit-picking my choices of verse.
I would fully agree that I will “fall into more deep errors” and miss much if these issues preoccupied my thoughts and writing, and if my argument ended there. However, it doesn’t, it just happens to be all I have had a chance to write about here. I will repeat myself and say, “Debunking Christianity” is a SERIES. We have agreed that one or two posts will not be sufficient, and that we have to delve deeper and cover the “greater” package, but realistically, look at what I have right now. I have two and a half articles, I have not been working on it long. Do you honestly think the series is even anywhere near halfway? Do you honestly think I’ve brought out my “big guns” yet? You will find that I agree with you that my series is not yet successful. It has barely even begun.
I’ll cover the science / religion thing lightly as I don’t really feel like getting into that either, we have enough going. I don’t see any reason to waste time nitpicking various scientific evidences and comparing it to biblical ones. Personally, I accept that the bible is not a science textbook; it includes bats with egg-laying creatures, claims rabbits chew their cud, and insinuates the existence of unicorns and giant sea-serpents. I agree with you that when people get hung up on these details they miss the point, and I will also state that the inclusion of unicorns and liberal consistency of spacetime, if speaking purely literally, are definitely not the reasons I shelve the book next to Viking Sagas, the Odyssey, Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion, and other folk stories.
Starting lightly on the Nephilim, I told you I would most likely say this, and I am, but “this has nothing to do with this specific article”. Its fine to discuss details of stories and the overall “plot” of the bible, but in this article, I cited the Nephilim specifically to elucidate the fact that -im is plural, and Numbers 31:17 to cast a shadow of doubt (in those that don’t “know” as you “do”) that the contents of the bible are 100% “good”. Regardless of the actual plot of the story, the Hebrews were still murdering (male) children and women, and enslaving young women. Most good, upstanding Christians would agree that this is unacceptable, and classify the murder of women and children as “evil”, regardless of race and circumstance. There was nothing the 4 month old infant could do but be male and be of an undesirable race, and this was enough to kill him. To most modern people, regardless of religion or context, this is a barbaric atrocity, and held my purpose.
Following… I’m sorry but, what is THIS:
“Thus, the enemy tried from Genesis 3 all they way to the coming of Christ, to pervert the Messianic blood-line so that Jesus could not be born sinless and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to perform his mission and finally crush the serpents (the Shining one) head. Etc…….”
Are you serious? “The enemy”? WHAT enemy? This seems to me like some sort of amalgamation of folklore and the epitome of why I can’t stand Christian commentary. They always tie New and Old Testament together in very awkward and unnatural ways. You think the Nephilim’s existence was strictly to try and pervert the coming of Jesus specifically? You think that they were such a threat to the coming of the Christ that God actually deemed it necessary to try and obliterate the bloodline (which didn’t have to be there in the first place) for the coming of his son/self? Why would an omnipotent, omnipresent God even bother with such drama?
Ultimately this is one of the key paradoxes (you will not see it as such) that turns me off to any sort of single, omnipotent, “caring”, personal deity-with-a-plan. There is no “enemy” if the single deity is really all powerful. That “enemy” would have to be acting under the permission of the deity or not at all. You will probably agree with this and argue that that IS in fact the case, and God allows this and that because its “part of the plan”, and “we can’t know the full scope of His wisdom”. Fine, that’s a legit way to justify it operating under the personal deity-with-a-plan mindset. However, I don’t operate under that mindset, and in this instance I just see bad management. If, using the specific piece you brought up, part of the purpose of the flood was to eliminate the bloodline in conjunction with punishing the unrepentant, then why would the bloodline in ANY form be in existence after? We theoretically have a list of the only survivors. If the problem is still around after the solution, the solution clearly wasn’t effective. If the bloodline was still around after because of more of god’s good grace, then clearly he doesn’t really care to eliminate it as it is not really a problem, and if it isn’t a problem, then there is no struggle or “enemy”. And further, since by His Grace, awesome power, and ultimate plan, Jesus managed to be born sinless and just as he was supposed to be, there never was any real purpose to the struggle in terms of Jesus. Maybe you can justify it as tests for those living at the time, but in the end the all-powerful God miraculously(?) used his amazing power and achieved the ideal result. I will mention I do not wish to debate the technicalities of the situation or what “really” happened to make the bloodline continue and so on. I am using this as an example to elucidate my point that the mindset here is a bit skewed, paradoxical, and ultimately self-justifying. We’re using God’s perceived omnipotence to justify that he is omnipotent! This is like pointing to the car in front of you and saying “I can see that the car has a roof that is able to retract into the body and come down, which proves that the car I see is a convertible.” How could God have failed to set up for the coming of Jesus if that was the ultimate goal and plan, if he had the power to do it? How could the car with a top that is able to come down not be a convertible?
The other thing that I touch on in the article is the possibility of deceit through this method. You mention this: “Counterfeiting is the enemy’s trick to get you in trouble”. I agree in a sense. However, based on your beliefs and mindset it will become completely impossible for you to even imagine what I imply by this. I imply (lightly here) a big “WHAT IF…?” this was all a setup. Everything, and specifically Christian beliefs. What if… the perceived omnipotence “problem” from the above was due to false interpretation and a carefully constructed self-maintaining paradox? The reason some of us perceive an omnipotent god may not be because there actually is one, but because they are being led to perceive it. By whom or what? Why? I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to. I also don’t imply that this is the “truth”, but only a disquieting possibility. I don’t know whether or not it is. At this stage of your faith I am sure you will not even consider this possibility or shrug it off as something you thought of when you were in your “doubting stage”, and you passed it by once you “knew” that your faith was in the right place. Your mind is closed to the possibility. This is not an insult or negative comment but a fact. If you are as deep in your faith as you come across in your writing, there is absolutely no chance you would take such a proposal seriously, just as the devout Muslim deep in their faith would take the proposal of Christianity as truth (or even simply a high rate of probability) seriously. They have found their Truth.
Also a final sort-of disclaimer at the end: I am not by any means “preaching” in favor of Agnosticism. There is a possibility you could read into my words as agnostic. I am not an agnostic. I never was, and I never will be, even if the idea of a probability field seems that way cosmetically. Through it, I am arguing more for skepticism. We begin with a statement that is asserted to be true, then through active engagement determine whether or not it is likely enough to be considered “true”. This is a simplification of the method, but it seems that you have used a similar method to reach the conclusion that what you “know” is truth. For me, I keep getting those nagging “what-if?”s and an itching feeling that all is not what it seems, and until I find out what Is, I will funnel the possibilities through my subjective probability scope. This is part of what I “know”. Affectively, through the system of probability I acknowledge that if Christianity is right, then I am wrong and doomed to hellfire with the other goats, but I do not “believe” it is right, so even though I by technicality of wording allow room for Christianity to be “right” in my system, the degree is so small as to be insignificant. And besides, if it is true, then theoretically, if I really deeply repent in my heart (for some reason?) then I’ll be alright… which is a reverse take on Pascal’s Wager.
Of course, I couldn’t/wouldn’t actually do that, just as those who believe based on Pascal’s Wager will find themselves in trouble if the God of the bible actually exists as he does in the book! Haha!
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