aNSWERING aTHEISM

Bret Weinstein had Michael Schermer of Skeptic Magazoine on his podcast this week and among other things they talked about religion.  Both are atheists and flatluy j reject it all as simply false but they also find value in it as metaphor or myth or some such, something helpful to humanity even if falsae.  Argfuing with atheists isn't usually my thing because I'm not very good at it but now and then I'll take a stab at it.    I have little hope of success to any degree but oh well.  

When they dismiss the Bible as fiction I am pupretty such the whole thing is a lost cause.  As C. S. Lewis wrote, the Bible has absolutely none of the characteristics of fiction, none, and he should know because he was a professor of English literature.    But although that strikes me as a good start toward undoing atheism it just never happens.  D. S. Lewis; judgment ought to carry some weight, but it doesn't.  they are convinced because they are convinced and that is that.

In fact it's pretty certain that they don't bother actually thinking about the claims of scripture to be a revealer of truth, they impose their bias on it from the beginning and it's the bias that judges it all in the end.  There is no "science" here altnhough both these guys claim to have some respect for science as method, in fact there is no truly honest inquiry at all.    They alreayd "know" that the supernatural is false, so that when they encounter it in the book they just use it as an excuse to call the book fiction.  It can't be anything else.  The idea that if they took the book seriously and really thought about it they might discover that there's a lot there that proves its claims to be factual truth, so that they ight actually learn that the supernautral as revealed in it is in fact actual factual truth, that isn't going to happen.  They can never learn that the supernatural is true because they've determined from the start that it isn'tt trute.   And that is that.

Nobody has ever risen from the deatd , therefore Jesus did not rise from the dead.  Well, but nobody BUT Jesus rose from the dead, that's what the scripture says, and it certainly doesn't treat the event as a commonplace thing or anythig to be expected at all, but on the contrary as an event that blew the minds of everybody at the time, all of Jesus' disciples for sure.  They certainly weren't expecting Him to rise from the dead.  Thomsas refuse d to believe it altogether from the testomony of the others who hasd been to the tomb and found that He was not there but that the women had seen Him and then some of the others.  Thomas wouldn't believe them, he had to see for himself.  So Jesus allowed him to see for himself.  And that is supposed to be some help to the skeptcis who read the Bibld now.  All we have is witness testimony, and AJsus said to Thomas that those who believed the witnesses, those who believed although they had not seen, were blessed, thouigh He was kind enough to show Thomas directly nevertheless.  And now we have the story of Thomas as another witness to be believed or not by us.

Of course the virgin birth would be a stumbling block to these guys too although that subject didn't come up.  But Jesus was born of a virgin because He didn;'t have a human father, His father was God Himself who planted the seed in Mary's womb.  Jesus was both God and Man, as the creeds say, fully or truly or wholly God and fuly or truly and wholly Man.  Both natures in one person.    He as the only sinless human beineing who ever ived.  We are all born in sin inherited from our first patenrents Adama dn Eve, no doubt another scriptural fact they choke on, so that we are all doomed to Hell.  Only a sinless sacrifice taking on the death we deserve for our sins, could save us from Hell.  Only Jesus would do that.  That is how He is a Savior.  When He did d on the cross, he died for us.  AS A SINLESS HUMAN BEING hE WAS ACTUALLY UNABLE TO DIE, hE WAS IMMORTAL, SO THE ONLY WAY hE COULD DIE WAS BY DYING FOR THE SINS OF TOERHS.  hE DIED FOR MY SINS, i AM CRUCIFIED WITH hiM, AND hE SAVED ME FROM HAVING TO GO TO hELL.  rHAT MAKES ME hIS GRATEFUL SERANTG FOREVER.  aND FOREVER i HAVE NOW.

Son't know how long the caps lock was on, sorry about ithat.

Schermer is OK with us believers as long as we don't try to convert anyone else.  Golly gosh.  Jesus tells us we are to take the gospel message to others so that they might be saved too.  If they don't hear the message they won't have a chance to be saved.   Schermer wasnts us to keep silent because according to his bias we are wrong.  He's sure ov that, and since we are wrong we shouldn't be allowed to try to convince anyoothers of our wrong believfs.   I'ts only OK for him and others who believe in evolution to try to convince others of THAT, although that is the real lie and it can only take people to Hell to believe it.  But that's the way the world works.  

One thing Schermer says that must be answered his his claim that Jesus could not have been the true Messiah anyway because the Old Testament does not present a picture of anythig like Him in its portraits of God's appointed Savior to come, but presents a picture of a warrior king who will asave the Jews from the Romans.  It's a worldly vision of course, but Jesus said He is not of this world.  That is not clearly shown in the Old Testament as I recalls, but certainly there is a strong portrait of a suffering Messiah there, in Isaiah 53, where it says He was stricken for our transgressions.  He died for our sins, same thing.Upon Him was the chatisement for our peace.  We have peace with God because He died in our place and took our punishment on HImself.  Yes, Jesus the New Testmaent Jesus is definitely there in the Old Testament.

He is also there in the book of Daniel where Daniel is told that Messiah the Princew who is to come will be cut off, but not for HImself.  Cut off means He will be killed.  

In Isaiah Nine we find out that He will be called Almighty God, among His various titles.  Not a mere man, God and Man.  We are also told He will be born of a virgin.  And born in Bethlehem.   Yep, Jesus is there in the Old Testament.  In Luke 24 He says so Himself to a couple of His followers, that the Messiah was to surffer and die.  And that the scripture, meaning the Old Testament, which is all they had at that time, is all about Himself.

Yesah you can wist it to make it say what you want, although if you are honest you will see that it's really not there at all and that your forcing it is obvious, that it doesn't say anything remotly like what you want i t to say.  In fct if you read carefully you will find many statements that are threere specifically to contradict all such efforts.      It won't matter, if you want it to be false you will make sure it is false according to your own belief system.

And so much, or course, for John's efforts in his gospel, for which he says,  These things have I witten that ye might believe, and believing might have eternal life.  

Jesus is going to come back to earth a second time as the warrior King.  There are two advents, the first as suffering servant, the last as King to who the entire Earth will bow, and that may not be far off as we are told in scripture that the closer we get the ethe end the more iniquity will abound, which scertainly seems to be the scase in our time.  I guess it culd get wowrse.

I keep trying to remember another thing that was said on that podcast I canwanted to answer.  But  at least I want to comment on Bret's saying tht or was it Schirmer?  Anyway, that kiosher foods are outdated because pork is excoluded, presumabley for the danger of trichinosi or some uch.  This is typical flesly thinking.  God did not limit the diet of the Israelities for health reasons, but for spiritual reasons, to set His people apart from the heathen as His own holy people.  There is some kid that the animals called unclean were used as sacrifices by tsome heathen tribes.  I don't know about that but certainly all those foods are eaten by all sorts of peoples all over the earth.  And one way we dan know that it had nothing to do with health that the Jews were forbidden to eat poerk is that in the New Testament, the Book of Acts, Peter is specifically told by God that the food laws are now rescinded and that they , believers in Christ He is addressing but of course the principle applies to all, may eat of any of the heathen or unclean foods aswell.  If His eason for the restriction had been health He wouldn't have rescinded the restrictions.  Surely there was no less danger of trichinosis in Peter's time than in the time of Moses.

As for the Bible's being an sncient book that doesn't address modern scientific questions or other modern problems, it doesn't specifically address that cateogry of things at all, but we can nevertheless get help on such questions through God Himself because we have preayer and He seems to love to answer prayers for knowledge and wisdom.  

Unbelievers can't know God because fallennness we are all born into means taht we lack the spiritual faculty for knowing God.  That is what died when Adam and Eve disobeyed God's commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Because they lost their faculty for knowing God their descendants are all born without that fofaculty.  That's why the physiclal world seems to be all there is to the person born into this world but not born again.  When we are born again by believing that Jesus died on the Cross to pay for our sins, then we will; be given the Holy Spirit and our spirirual faculty for sknowing God wil be 
quickckened regrenerated, brought back to life.  As an infant of course, a newborn, but it will row over time and become a reliable connection with God and things supernatural.  But those not born again are stuck in their fleshly bodiues without a spiritaul sense.  They can only know God by inference from nature or by believing the testimony of those who do hav spiritual knowledge.    Once they beleive then they too will be given the Holy Spirit.

Still can't remember something that is nagging at me.  Oh well.  I'll finish by mentioning that Uncommon KNoweldge podcast with Steven Meyer, Douglas Muray and Tom Haolland in which they talk about how very Christian is the cultural atmosphere of the west.  The idea of these atheists that Christianity needed to encounter enthe Enlightenment to change is just plain wrong.  Without Christianity the Enlightenement would never have come about.   We are CHristian through and through if only culturally for the most part, and even though the cultural expressions are dying all around us.

It's not true, says Bret, as far as we know.  The resurrection that is.  Well, if he doesn't know he has no excuse for it because I know it's true and millions of other s know and have known ghtat istis true, and twe have no more evidence than he hasa.  He has us and he has the scripture and he has the entire history of Christianity.  He has the story of Thomas too.  He has no kexcuse.    I suppose God ight provide a rising from the edea d for him ,  He could if He wanted to, though I doubt He will.    So all he has is witness testimony the same as the rest of us.  Lots of people saw Jesus edead and then saw Him alive.  He stayed with the apostles for the next forty days, He didn't go to India or California or wherevewr, He stayed and taught them before He ascended to heaven and then sent the Holy Spirit.

How abourt Isaac Newton for a witness?  How about Johannes Kepler?  Watch the vido you can find on You Tube called The Beth   no, the Star of Bethlehem Star, about how a lawyer got an astronomy probgram and tracked down the star that the Magi followed to Bethleheme.    Kepler had been looking for that star himself using his mathematical geniue but according to this little film he was let astroy aby a wrong date in an important historical docuyment.  With that ccorrected it seems the star can now by found.