What is a Christian fundamentalist?

[smaller]

Let us consider which of us is sick.

A man is unwittingly heading towards a cliff.

And you're not? Let's get the FINGERS pointed at least in the RIGHT direction.

I am standing nearby and yelling at him, warning him of the cliff and impending doom. "Turn back," I plead.

That is exactly my point LIGHTSON. You think THIS IS THE FULL EXTENT OF YOUR OBLIGATION and that it is LOVE.

Unfortunately YOU ARE ALSO subject to the same things AS THE BLINDED ONES yet you DENY that you are ETERNALLY DAMNED and THEY ARE for the SAME THINGS.

This is just being a pathetic HYPOCRITE. It has NOTHING to do with either TRUTH or LOVE.

You observe my efforts and accuse me of "desiring his torture".

You use THIS POSTION continually to JUSTIFY YOURSELF and CONDEMN THE VERY ONES WHO ARE BLINDED by the "god" of this world. Jesus did not come to ETERNALLY TORTURE THE BLIND you idiot.

Meanwhile you are standing by, giving him a and reassuring him that everything will be "okay".

When you see me siding with sin, give me a call. You will not find such in me. THAT UNBELIEVER IS A BLINDED SLAVE.

You are NO DIFFERENT in your ETERNAL CONDEMNATION of him.

Which of us is demonstrating love and which of us is desiring the hurt of the wayward?

Yeah, GOD LOVES YOU SOOOOO MUCHHHH THAT HE IS GOING TO BURN YOU FOREVER...what a joke you guys are.

The love of Christ compells us to reach the lost. The love of God in our hearts is what compells us to give them the gospel. They are lost smaller and need Jesus. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Your efforts will effectively damn many who might have otherwise turned in faith to Jesus and escaped.

You wouldn't know love if it SLAPPED you in the face.

smaller

 

[Aimiel]

The funny part is, if we're right, we've actually done no harm; and smaller's allowing them to head for that cliff, headlong. We aren't saying that they're any different than us, or less than anyone else, only lost. He's saying that no one is lost, which is a lie, and is the main 'selling point' of all of hell, namely: "You shall not surely die."

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by BChristianK But you would say that our conception of reality is limited due to our inability to experience reality directly, which is what I was getting at.

It's not that we experience it indirectly, it's that we can only experience it partially. When we see light, we only see a small area of the full spectrum of light. When we hear sounds, we only hear sounds within a limited range of frequencies. When we feel temperatures with our skin, we can only feel a limited range of temperatures without being injured in the process. When we smell oders, our sense of smell can only detect a limited number of them. And when we conceptualize the information that our senses send to our brains, we are only capable of doing so within the limitations of the physics of our biological brains. And all these limitations leave us with only a very minimal "sketch" of what all is actually going on around us. We recognize this "unknowing" within ourselves because we have discovered new aspects of reality that we had never before even suspected existed many times in the past, and so we can reasonably assume that there are many more things, yet, that we don't know.

Originally posted by BChristianK You can say that it appears to you that we can only experience the truth of reality indirectly and therefore we can never be certain that the truth we apprehend is an exact representation of the truth that is real. I can respond with the same objection, the observation that we can only experience the truth of reality indirectly is subject to its own limitation, it is an observation that may or may not be an exact representation of the limitations of human knowledge. In other words, it may appear that we are not able to see the truth of reality because we cannot experience reality directly, when in fact our representation of reality is quite accurate.

You keep citing this contradiction, but I still don't see how it matters. The very fact that it exists only bears out my original premise. And what would bear out the opposite premise: that even though we humans can't experience truth except in very limited and relative ways, we can somehow know that it is absolute truth, never-the-less? The only way this statement can even become possible is through some act of "divine magic".

Originally posted by BChristianK In other words, the limitations of knowledge you have pointed out stem from an ontological question, what, in reality, are the limits to human knowledge? You have built your ontological conclusion about the limits of human knowledge through an epistemological model that posits the limits of human knowledge. And so your understanding of the breach between human knowledge and reality cannot be proven to be a perfect representation of reality either. In fact, the canyon breach between knowledge and reality that you posit may not be as wide in all places as you claim, and it may not be as wide as you think it is as a whole.


Allow me to draw upon a well known story that relativists love to tell.


A wise king brought in three feuding blind philosophers in order to teach them a lesson. He told them that he was going to bring in an object and the person who could tell him what that thing was would be considered the wisest philosopher in the land.

He brought forth an elephant and told the blind philosophers to go to work.

One who was felling the tail confidently proclaimed: it is a snake!
One who had a hold on the elephants leg said, “it is a grand tree!
One who had hold of the elephants trunk said: It is a great spear!

The crowd howled with laughter and the King told them that what they had all been groping at was really an elephant. The King told them to let that be a lesson to them…

The point of the story is supposed to be that our perspectives our limited, and that we can scarcely afford to be dogmatic.


But I think the real point of the story was missed. The point of the story, in my opinion, is that the guy telling the story thinks he is like the wise king who sees the elephant, while the rest of us are poor blind philosophers…..

The king just had the advantage of not wearing the blinders. That's the reason he could see that what the philosophers were touching was an elephant. I would say that the important lesson of the story is that things are not always what we think they are. The king also had the advantage of having worn blinders in the past, I would guess, or he wouldn't have understood why the philosophers and others would misunderstand the evidence of their own hands. Sometimes, and in some circumstances, we are like the king - we can see and understand the whole of the situation when others can't. And sometimes we are like the philosophers, making wrong assumptions based on too little information. The key to life, of course, is to figure out when we are being which. And to do so we will need to understand that sometimes we are assessing life with blinders on.

Originally posted by BChristianK Now you have readily admitted that your ability to know reality is limited, and as such you no longer have claim to be the wise seeing king,...

Not necessarily. The king didn't have to see everything, he just had to see more than the philosophers could see. I don't have to know everything to know that you DON'T know everything. But you keep trying to imply that I do. You keep saying that because I could be in error, that I MUST be in error, and therefor my assertion must be dismissed. But just because I could be wrong doesn't mean that I am wrong. The king didn't have to see everything to be right about the elephant, he only had to be able to see the elephant.

Originally posted by BChristianK Maybe the thing the fundamentalists are holding on to really is an absolute and the things you are holding on to really aren’t.

Maybe we are all little toys living in a giant toddler's toy box. The possibilities of what could be happening in the area of what we don't know are endless, which is why we don't live by what's possible, but instead we live by what is probable.

Originally posted by BChristianK You can only point out that human knowledge is limited, but you can’t point out that this limit of human knowledge necessarily proves that what we perceive in limited fashion, like spears, snakes, trees, etc… aren’t really what we conclude they are?

They are what they are. They don't need "proof" to be what they are. What we think they are is only what we think they are. Is what we think they are, right? Do you want proof that these things are what you think they are? Where will you find this proof? Who is going to be the arbitor of the definition of these thing's for us?

I can point out to you that ideas about reality are not actual reality. But I can't be the arbitor of actual reality for you, or for anyone else. I can only decide this for myself.

Originally posted by BChristianK If they happen to be right, then the fundamentalists are more than justified in claiming that they have found truth.

They aren't right, they're just being willfully irrational.

 

[smaller]

AIMmeal it is YOU who says you will not surely die BUT YOU WILL LIVE ETERNALLY IN TORTUROUS fire.

get a clue about WHAT YOU PRESENT.

 

[LightSon]

I continue to live in hope, smaller, that in one of these exchanges, you will actually respond directly to the arguments put before you. You are a master of avoidance, obfuscation and redirection.

 

[smaller]

Are you going to condemn me to burn forever as well LIGHTson???

come on...out with it. Step up to your plate...

 

[ebenz47037]

Originally posted by LightSon

Let us consider which of us is sick.

A man is unwittingly heading towards a cliff.
I am standing nearby and yelling at him, warning him of the cliff and impending doom. "Turn back," I plead.

You observe my efforts and accuse me of "desiring his torture".

Meanwhile you are standing by, giving him a :thumb: and reassuring him that everything will be "okay".

Which of us is demonstrating love and which of us is desiring the hurt of the wayward?

The love of Christ compells us to reach the lost. The love of God in our hearts is what compells us to give them the gospel. They are lost smaller and need Jesus. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Your efforts will effectively damn many who might have otherwise turned in faith to Jesus and escaped.

POTD!

 

[LightSon]

Originally posted by smaller

Are you going to condemn me to burn forever as well LIGHTson???

Nope; that is not my job smaller. The scriptures speak to the fallen condition of all men. If you won't hear my words, perhaps you'll receive God's WORD.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:18


Believe smaller; trust Christ as your savior. And then encourage other lost men to believe in Jesus too.

 

[smaller]

Why NOT? You condemn everyone ELSE who does NOT CONFORM to your LIST OF REQUIREMENTS. Those whom YOU deem as "the condemned" unbeliever.

It is YOU who are the ETERNAL JUDGE OF MEN in this lightson. You and your compatRIOTS do it CONTINUALLY.

And

You are calling me an UNBELIEVER in your TORTURE doctrine and therefore NOT A BELIEVER.

So WILL I BURN IN HELL IF I DO NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR ETERNAL TORTURE OF PEOPLE DOCTRINE you CHICKEN???

 

[jjjg]

Purex, you keep confusing conception with perception.

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by jjjg

Purex, you keep confusing conception with perception.

They are essentially aspects of the same process. Photons tickle the nerves on the back of our eyes, the nerves send electrochemical signals to the brain, and the brain "interprets" these signals by comparing them to similar patterns of signals it has stored in it's memory. This is called perception, but in itself it adds up to nothing. The brain has to continue comparing and contrasting each conclusion it develops about this pattern of sensory stimuli until it finally 'places' the phenomena, to it's satisfaction, into it's concept of the world around it. And sometimes this means we have to change that concept. some, to accomodate this new information. Perception refers to the beginning of the process, and conception refers to the results of the process.

So what part of this process do you imagine that I'm getting confused about?

 

[jjjg]

Conceptions are abstractions and part of the active mind. Perceptions are part of the passive mind. This whole nonsense about general and particulars is a waste of time.

The generalizations are abstracted from the particulars and are never exclusivelly subjective. We know things together in the particulr sense and in the objective sense.

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by jjjg The generalizations are abstracted from the particulars and are never exclusivelly subjective.

I am not an absolutist, so I never intended to suggest that subjectivity is "exclusive". I am a relativist, so of course my idea of subjectivity is relative as well. I'm not sure why you think I was implying otherwise.

Originally posted by jjjg We know things together in the particular sense and in the objective sense.

We develop concepts of reality from our limited experiences (perceptions) of reality.

OK, soooooo....?

 

[jjjg]

You are implying it because all bk implied was there is objective truth not absolute truth and to counter his claim you went into the "we don't know how true our subjective is to the objective" nonsense.

Sooooo .... we check our subjective ideas to our experience and we come to objective truths.

You still have to explain how our knowledge being built upon relationships somehow limits what we know as true.

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by jjjg Sooooo .... we check our subjective ideas to our experience and we come to objective truths.

We come to presumably more accurate subjective ideas about what is real and true. How real and true they actually are, however, we can't be certain of.

 

[LightSon]

Originally posted by smaller
You condemn everyone ELSE who does NOT CONFORM to your LIST OF REQUIREMENTS.

No.

Originally posted by smaller

It is YOU who are the ETERNAL JUDGE OF MEN in this lightson.

No.

Originally posted by smaller
So WILL I BURN IN HELL IF I DO NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR ETERNAL TORTURE OF PEOPLE DOCTRINE you CHICKEN???

I keep telling you that I am not the judge yet you keep insisting that I am. :kookoo: It is hard to have a pleasant conversation with someone that refuses to be rational.

Let me share the verse again smaller. I will resist putting any interpretation to the verse, because #1 it is self-expanatory, and #2 I know from past experience that you will twist my words into LightSon's ETERNAL TORTURE OF PEOPLE DOCTRINE. :down:

Here's the verse. For your sake, I do recommend you read it veeeeeerrrry sloooooowly.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:18

It is hard for thee to kick against the goads. eh?

 

[jjjg]

Certainly we can by reflection and testing our subjective ideas with what we observe.

 

[Delmar]

Originally posted by PureX

I think fundamentalism is more an ego-centric reaction to complexity and intellectualism that it is any particular set of ideological beliefs. It's main characteristic is extreme over-simplification with the intent of gaining, through the illusion of self-righteousness, what one secretly feels they lack in intellectual sophistication. Fundamentalism is the attitude that the "slow kids" adopt so that they can tell themselves (and everyone else) that being slow isn't important. In fact, fundamentalists actually convince themselves that being ignorant is an asset, while being intelligent is an impediment.

Fundamentalisn is basically an obsession with righteousness in order to avoid recognizing and dealing with one's own ignorance.

Call me the slow kid that's fine! I do accept the 5 points that Clete mentioned.

 

[geralduk]

Originally posted by smaller

And you're not? Let's get the FINGERS pointed at least in the RIGHT direction.


That is exactly my point LIGHTSON. You think THIS IS THE FULL EXTENT OF YOUR OBLIGATION and that it is LOVE.

Unfortunately YOU ARE ALSO subject to the same things AS THE BLINDED ONES yet you DENY that you are ETERNALLY DAMNED and THEY ARE for the SAME THINGS.

This is just being a pathetic HYPOCRITE. It has NOTHING to do with either TRUTH or LOVE.


You use THIS POSTION continually to JUSTIFY YOURSELF and CONDEMN THE VERY ONES WHO ARE BLINDED by the "god" of this world. Jesus did not come to ETERNALLY TORTURE THE BLIND you idiot.


When you see me siding with sin, give me a call. You will not find such in me. THAT UNBELIEVER IS A BLINDED SLAVE.

You are NO DIFFERENT in your ETERNAL CONDEMNATION of him.


Yeah, GOD LOVES YOU SOOOOO MUCHHHH THAT HE IS GOING TO BURN YOU FOREVER...what a joke you guys are.


You wouldn't know love if it SLAPPED you in the face.

smaller

By so answering you show you have no (lively) knowldge of salvation and of the truth.
For is it not written taht "these things are written that yoyu might KNOW you have eternal life"?
Does not HIS SPIRIT witness with our spirit that we aRE THE SONS OF GOD?
How then can you condemn a person for saying that he is saved and NOT heading towards the cliff edge?
For how can a person who has "DIED TO SIN now live in it"?

if then they HAVE"been made conformable to His death"and as such do in some measure at least know the "power of His resdurection" because of it,be heading towards destruction!?
yet you reply to his post says and implies that wether we are saved or not we are ALL heading in the same direction!
How can this be seeing that there is the WAY OF MAN "all we like sheep have gone astray...."
and there is the WAY OF GOD?
which all saved should be traveleing on it.
Thus one path which is BROAD leads to DESTRUCTION and "many "walk in it. and there is GODS way which is NARROW and "few" FIND IT.
Now you say here and elsewhere that REGARDELESS of which road we are on we are ALL heading in the same direction!
Thsi is both unreasonable and counter to ALL scripture!

Your 'LOVE' seems to be saying that to love all men we should all go off the cliff with them!

Where IN THE SCRIPTURES you find this i cannot imagine.


You say we (that is TRUE BORNagain CHILDREN OF GOD) are as SUBJECT to those things that the unsaved are.
This si NOT true.
though it CAN be said that we WERE as they and also SUBJECT to the LAW of sin and death" and WERE "children of disobedience" and WALKING after the spirit of this world.
But if salvation meens anything and ios so proved by the scriptures we are NO LONGER subject toTHAT LAW BUT HAVE BEEN "MADE FREE from the law"
now if the law "IS THE POWER OF SIN" then we are set free from the power of sin!
and it no longer (IN CHRIST) HAS "DOMINION OVER US"
THEREFORE WE ARE TO "aBIDE IN CHRIST"!
and if w ewalk in the LIGHT as HE is in the light then we have felowship one with the other and the blood of JESUS CHRIST Gods Son cleanses us from all sin"
But if a man "loves darkness MORE THAN THE LIGHT" then both reasonably and scripturaly he is BLIND to the danger that he is in.
but those who are walking in the light are not only FREE from that danger but are able to SEE also THE DANGER that others who are not are>

Your contention therefore is to condemn those who ARE NOW IN THE LIGHT seeing that they (you say) do NO LONGER WALK the same as those who STILL walk in darkness BUT WOULD WARN them of the danger which they have so narrowly missed!

STRANGE in deed.

For you seem neither to see the truth or are reasoneable enough to come to a knowldge of it!

For your own words would tell you of it and lead you to it if you would step back from your OWN preconceptions.

The challenge that you have is to refrain from revilements and the condemnation you accuse others of.
and listen to what si beign said in the LIGHT of ALL the scriptures.
Not just those few verses that suit your own thinking.

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by jjjg

Certainly we can by reflection and testing our subjective ideas with what we observe.

But our certainty is always relative to the limits of our ability to test, and to understand the results of our tests. It's not absolute. And this whole discussion all along has been about the fundamentalist's assertion that they can have absolute knowledge of God and of God's will. The only way this can happen is through "divine magic", which is how they claim it happens. But what they overlook, and wish to ignore, is that for a human being to possess absolute knowledge, they would have to cease being human, and become a god. As a human, all we can really have is an absolute conviction, which may or may not be correct.