Ray Comfort on The Atheist Experience

But that wouldn't be an apologist.

quote:

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apologist
An apologist is a person who argues in favor of something unpopular. If you're an apologist for deep sea oil drilling, you would argue that drilling in the ocean is necessary and the benefits make up for any environmental damage.

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Apologists tend to be seen in a negative light, as defensive people who make excuses. The word apologist comes from the Greek word apologia, meaning "speaking in defense." Not all apologists are bad news; some just defend an unpopular idea. Even though apologist is similar to apology, don't confuse them if you make an apology you're admitting to being wrong. But if you're an apologist, you justify your belief or action, and would do it all again!

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In that line of definition, you yourself are an apologist...though I would argue that you are not defending God and Jesus the way that I understand them. You are defending the "reality" of what the bible says...even if it is unpopular. (Which it is) and I don't agree with your defense because it does not support my case for a God and a Jesus who existed long before humans even evolved enough to imagine these sort of things.

Yet it is what is actually written in the Bible even if it does not support the God and Jesus you want to create. I do not support my position, rather what is actually written in the Bible supports my position.

Sam Harris is no different than an apologist. He is a conman. He pontificates on subjects he has no expertise in. He does not represent any atheists or atheist views other than himself and his own views. He promotes hate and division. He is a vile human being.

And what does God say to you?

How can I know it is God talking to me?Further, what does that have to do with what is actually written in the Bible?

Because you stubbornly cling to the title of being a Christian when the fact remains that you teach the Bible without giving it the credit that generations of Christian teachers have given it. You basically conclude that any teaching in the books shows us what *we* are charged to do and that God (and Jesus) are mere characters in the stories. Sorry, Charlie but this is a dishonest representation of Christianity in general. Remind me to come and speak to your club. And I am sure that you will challenge this assertion. Yes, jar you do have a sound argument. But let's discuss it. Lets set aside the argument of what is actually written (for a moment). You are not the only person who has read the bible, after all.Let's get back to the topic of jar vs the "other" apologists. OK, first of all, what is their "product"? For the sake of argument, lets say that their product is to convince people that Jesus is alive and that GOD wants to have a personal relationship with them. We need to ask ourselves if this is1) A realistic product? (Yes, it has absolutely no liability! )
2) A desired product? (This gets to the issue of why *you* never desired it. I suspect it is because you valued what you were taught...namely that honor and personal responsibility were preferable to a free lunch, a decoder ring, and a get-out-of-hell free card.) One could ask themselves how many possible voices could be in their mind at the same time. If we turn off the TV, the radio, the internet, and quit reading the fake news (or even the real news) we may clear a few of them up. Now...alone in your room, do you ever kneel down and pray? Talk to God? Or do you consider this silly and unproductive?

No Phat, that is NOT what I say. I don't teach a Bible, I report what the Bible actually says.The characters in the stories are, guess what? They are characters in stories.Sorry Phat but thems the actual reality.AbE: I often pray, not any time, and I can even walk and pray at the same time. Talk to God? How would I know I was talking to God?You keep harping on the same old stuff yet never ever explain how it is possible or how anyone could know that is what they were doing.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

im a bit confused. Explain to me how one can pray and not be having a conversation/dialogue or even monologue with God? I'm guessing that you are meditating on what *you* could do that day to help someone. Which is commendable. May God be with you.

Explain to me how I could know I was having a conversation/dialogue or even monologue with God?

So you are essentially claiming that throughout History, anyone and everyone who was perceived as being close to God, in reality, had no clue who they were talking to and if in fact, they were talking to anyone, right? In addition, anyone who thought they heard wisdom or insight through prayer was in fact delusional. Got it. And why did you claim to be a Christian again? Oh, thats right...you belonged to an established church and were officially certified by them. Got it. And so you essentially teach that God is unknowable and that we are charged to do our best according to our own moral compass regarding right and wrong...which IIRC was a great gift received by humanity symbolically in the tales of Mythos. Got it.You are teaching people to essentially throw God away. I knew it. Whats scary is that no one can stop you from damaging the faith of many weaker individuals. Iano once said that you were essentially a fifth columnist. Now I see what he meant. So what's the difference between what you do and what a secular humanist atheist does by belonging to the rotary club? And I still think it is a bastardization of terms to call yourself a Christian and yet advocate throwing God away. Maybe you and the rotary club can feed a few people, carry in groceries for older neighbors, and spread this secular teaching among the masses in your fight against Biblical Christianity and what you perceive as willful ignorance.God might be proud of you, but I highly doubt it.Of course, then again He might be angry at me also. And i can no more throw Him away than could I throw away Oxygen or Gravity or Consciousness.

No Phat, I have asked at least once on this board "How can anyone know they are close to God or that they were talking to God.And no one has ever offered an answer.And I have said at least once on this board that it is the content that is significant rather than the source. If someone comes up with a wise thought then that is good regardless of whence came that wisdom. All of the Gods and gods humanity has ever created should be thrown away. Throw away the "Savior" and the "Father" and the "Servant". Stop waiting for God to make you win the lottery or fix Social Security or solve Global Warming or End War. GOD is not Jeeves. Who else can carry in groceries?

Perhaps there is no answer. As a Christian, why do you fight and debate your own people? How can one be a Christian and not know God? Isn't it obvious that it is a belief and not an objective proof? Now you have moved the goalposts. In my mind, it would be more proper to label someone who believed that wisdom could come from many sources as a philosopher or spiritually minded person. A Christian by definition would believe that such wisdom came from GOD or at best arose from a conversation about the God defined through one of several Creeds...(we always referred to the Nicene Creed in our past arguments)We established that Christianity was but a belief. It has never been shown to be an objective fact. Moreover, subjectively it has wandered all over the map. You yourself even say that God is logically unknowable and that Jesus may never have existed and in fact has no need to exist as..(how did you put it?) even if the stories were simply tales told 'round a campfire, they still had value. Which in my mind is more philosophical than Biblically Christian. Furthermore, why is the content more valuable than the source? In the Beginning GOD...seems, more source focused than content-focused. You may disagree, defending the plain reading of the Bible as content-based. But I might point out that what is happening is simple philosophy. Without the source, you don't have any light. Point taken. It is *we* who represent the content...or as ringo likes to say, "The Message." This supports your argument that Heaven will hypothetically be filled with more diverse people than simply those who claim to be Christians and children of the Source.My whole argument is that you confuse the issue by focusing only on content and defending the idea that the Source can never be validated. Who do you pray to? Yourself???Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

Knowing and believing are not synonymous. So a Christian can only gain wisdom through God, not through experience or evidence or environment or ...? Not even at the level of word salad rather simple sloganizing. You have no light has abso0lutely no meaning Phat. I think you have no idea of what prayer is.

Reminds me of an old joke. Or haggadah (in the general sense taught to us by Rabbi Kalir, teaching Torah through an illustrative story instead of pure analysis (which I remember as being called khalakhah -- in my notes, I wrote it in Hebrew so I have no idea how it's transliterated into Roman script)).St. Peter greets the latest batch of new arrivals at the Pearly Gates and guides them through their orientation tour of Heaven. Taking them to their rooms in the "house of many mansions" St. Peter explains that it has a separate floor for each religion while they get into the elevator to their own floor. On the way up, they chat and ask St. Peter questions when suddenly St. Peter cautions them to remain silent when passing through the next floor. After passing that floor, conversation picks up again and somebody asks why they had to be quiet for that floor. "Oh, that's the floor for the {insert name of extreme fundamentalist sect}s. They think that they're the only ones here." 
Similarly, in a religious sci-fi novel, it turns out that in all of human history only four humans had ever gone to Heaven while everybody else went to Hell. It turns out to qualify for going to Hell, there has to be a religious group that condemns you to go there. Since every religious group condemns all others ... .

Enlighten me, oh prideful one. Your brash statement bothered me a bit, so I looked up other opinions. God forbid I am praying wrong!One thing prayer is most certainly not and that is simple meditation on how you can do better. The whole point of Christianity is that He must increase and we must decrease. You deify yourself by keeping your focus on what you can do.