altar of Quietness
arguments in apologtics
Since we live in a secular world, Christians encounter daily objections to their faith.
Sadly, many are so used to it that it doesn't even occur to them to make a rebuttal. As more and more Believers fall asleep, lulled senseless by the dizzying pace of our world and the overwhelming, constant barrage of media, less and less consideration is being given to the legitimacy of the One Eternal Truth of our faith.
For many Christians, the exclusive nature of our faith is simply too uncomfortable to address.
If someone claims to be a Christian, they are claiming to be a disciple of Christ. Therefore they must necessarily believe every word He said, which includes His statement that He is the ONLY way. That NO ONE gets to the Father but through Him. Case closed.
As followers of Christ, we should easily be able to present a rational basis for our faith.
True Believers should have an overwhelming desire to defend the integrity of Christ and His message at all costs! Apologetics is the defense of our faith against the objections of a secular world, using historical evidence, sound philosophical argument, scientific investigation (yes....science and religion can comfortably compliment each other as long as the parameters are Biblically defined), and arguments from various other rational disciplines.
The topics on this page are taken from actual conversations I've had or questions I've encountered from others challenging my faith-based perspective.
The red denotes the comments made by the other person, the yellow denotes the comments made by myself.
Words are very important. Etymology [the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history] is a sincere biblical tool.
For example, the Akkadian named Enmerkar, is without a doubt, The Biblical Nimrod.
Personally, I also think jesus was the Sumerian god they called "Enki." It fits his interactions with humans, to a T.
God exists outside of creation. Thus He had to project Himself within it to be able to interact with it---Now, you just met Jesus.
No one can look upon God, He simply is. He is indescribable, incomprehensible, He is nothing we have the capability to perceive because we are creations within a creation, thus we are limited to utilizing only the things which are within creation to understand something.
We cannot understand or perceive Him in any other way besides how He has chosen to reveal Himself unto His creation-- His Word. Take it or leave it.
The Bible is more than just a wad of crumbly, disputed collection of ancient texts. It's all we've got as a standard of measure.
Spiritual experiences are relative to the participant. Do you not think that the entities that perpetuate these meditational goddess experiences and enlightenment phenomenon and astral travel crap, all have the ability to manipulate the dopamine and serotonin in our brains to make us believe that what is being experienced is of God? What about the poor wretched souls who are being deceived in their sleep at night in their own beds?? Experiencing delusions of being abducted and being told that they CHOSE to be born as a human to undergo sadistic experimentations and living out the rest of their lives in Stockholm Syndrome?
I don't know what's worse, willfully choosing to worship the Fallen Ones as gods and goddesses or relenting to being their slave because you were told that you chose such a thing before you were even born.
The only way to "test the spirits" as we're instructed in the Bible, is through the knowledge and wisdom that can be wrought from the texts in which God has revealed Himself to us.
God PURPOSELY designed the Biblical texts to be written in such a way that the treasure contained within them would have to be mined by our spirit. God reveals true wisdom to those who seek it according to His holy standard: with a humble, penitent and contrite heart.
God does not exist outside of creation. "God," if he exists, he exists within the existence of creation. At the very least, God exists within a creation sphere created by another GOD, the father of God.
If you were to make a vase, you would exist outside and around the vase. You would not be the vase, but the vase wouldn't exist if you didn't exist.
Basic physics tells us that all matter is made up of sound and light. Vibrations and frequencies, etc.
We are told in the beginning that God spoke.
He spoke all things into existence.
I cannot imagine the voice of God Almighty, but I would assume it had sound.
We are then told:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. "
We are told time and time again that among many other ways to refer to Jesus, one of them is as the "Light of the World."
Once God spoke a new dimension into reality (creation itself), He then projected Himself into it in the form of sound and light to create the things and structures and systems within it. This Creator essence was Jesus.
God exists outside AND inside of creation. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, He is fully omniscient and fully omnipotent.
He is everywhere, but He is not limited to also being "everything". God is not a thing, He is a person. He has a personality. He desires a personal relationship with those beings within His creation that were to be a reflection of His anthropomorphic self--- us.
How can Jesus say that no one has seen the Father at any time other than He?
Because He is the Father.
Then how can Jesus say He has been "given" authority from God?
Because God, the ineffable, incomprehensible source of all that is, does NOT reside Himself within creation. Thus, Jesus is simply referring to Himself as He is outside of creation, being one-in-the-same and in total correspondence and agreement with Who He is and what He does on the inside of creation. He already knows this, but the men He was communicating with did not, they challenged Him as to Who He was and where His authority came from.
He is all around us, but creation itself could not possibly even BEGIN to contain God in the totality of His raw essence and state of existence! Just as if you tried to jump inside that vase you made, it would burst into pieces before it could ever contain you as you are.
God does not have a father, He IS the Father. Jesus said, "I and the Father are One." What He is trying to tell us is that although we perceive Jesus as Jesus, He and God Himself are One-in-the-same, One simply being a comprehensible projection of the Other.
For gross lack of a better analogy, let's say your kid missed school one day. So you wrote a note to excuse their absence and sent it to school with them. The note has the same authority over the situation as your full-bodily presence would. You communicate both your presence and your authority in that written note.
"God" didn't create us from nothing.
"God" used parts of creation, within the creation to create the creation.
No, He used sound and light and spoke a new dimension into being. Then the density of that initial dimension began to split among itself, yet remain connected= toroidal hypersphere
We, as human beings, perceive four of those dimensions-- Time plus the three dimensions of space.
Creation itself is a closed system. At our fall, corruption and death were unleashed, kicking off the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Before that, there was only the potential for corruption, since corruption itself had not actually manifested.
The latent potential for something is not the same as the existence of it.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would inevitably lead to corruption, because to know and understand the standard of measure between good and bad, you must know and understand one in comparison to the other, which means you must know good and you must know bad.
God told Adam and Eve that in the day they ate of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. This is because only God can consume corruption and withstand the effects of it, remaining pure, perfect and unchanged. Men can only be corrupted by it.
That is why we are told that after the culmination of all things, God will consume death and corruption and they will be no more. That is why we are told that Mighty God is an all-consuming fire.
There will be a culmination of this creation. We will reach a maximum state of chaos and corruption= entropy.
Entropy is a measure of the number of specific ways in which a system may be arranged , also taken to be a measure of disorder. The entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium, which is the state of maximum entropy, or the maximum state of disorder, aka corruption.
God can easily prove science. It is science that tries to disprove God.
So the law of the old testament is still in effect? if your god does not change, then why would he make 617 laws, then discard them?
His Law is still the same.
It is the covenants that have changed. Covenants are based upon conditions. When one of the parties under covenant agreement fail to uphold their end of the agreement conditions, then that covenant is rendered null.
God has always upheld His end of the bargain. It is men who fail to uphold theirs.
Your god is not divided? He has the 3 biggest religions in the world under his belt, all disagreeing with one another and fighting each other. That's not to mention the over 40,000 denominations that Christianity is "divided" into.
Your god was created for division, not unity. The 3 religions plus all the different denominations prove that without a doubt.
You only speak of the divisions of men.
God's Kingdom is not divided.
Answer these questions: Is Adam the first born of all creation?
No, Cain is the firstborn.
Adam is the first created man.
Jesus is the first 'borne' of ALL creation because He is the projection of Light & the Life of God Himself as the zero point of His own creation. God exists outside of creation, thus He participates in it spiritually through the self projection of His Spirit of Wisdom and physically through the creamy cosmic nougat of light & life itself, which He incarnated within the flesh of Jesus Christ. The Creator reduced Himself to fully, yet perfectly, participate within His own creation.
Jesus is not created, He is the impetus of creation itself Who was truly from the beginning because He IS our beginning..."Let there be light, and there was Light."
Is Adam the Father of mankind?
Physically, yes.
Does 1 Corinthians 15 name Christ as the Last Adam?
It says that "the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit".
It does not say nor imply they are the same person. It clearly contrasts the two, with the implications being that Christ was a type of Adam. Just as THE Adam was the corruptible physical, Jesus is the incorruptible spiritual.
Did Job name the Redeemer as the one the trouble come through?
Job 19
25 I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
28 “If you say, ‘How we will hound him,
since the root of the trouble lies in him,
No.
Verse 28 is the continuation of Job's lament of his miserable condition which begins at
verse 1.
Verses 25, 26 & 27 is Job's expression of confidence that God will vindicate the faithful when faced with false accusations, such as those claimed against him by his three friends.
Job pleads with his accusers for pity in verse 21, then warns them in verses 28 & 29 that their accusations are baseless & that they will have to answer for their false claims.
Read it again. What I've shared with you is true and sound. You are letting the yeast of gnosis spoil your loaf.
There are mysteries of our faith, but it is not a mystical faith. There is a difference.
A God willing to put his own son and people he claims to love through torture is either a false God or not worthy of any worship at all. His kingdom will never come to be because a house divided against itself cannot stand.
His house is not divided.
His people die for a lack of understanding.
All of His children will be given ample opportunity to choose Truth. Yet many will continue to choose to reject it out of stubbornness, pride or both. Just from television and books alone, not even including the Bible Itself, most people have had the Truth shoved in their face and dance a little jig.
How many times throughout your life just in your relationships and day-to-day circumstances has that same Truth presented itself, only for you to reject it once again?
You are not ignorant to the Truth, but it must be accepted before it can be understood. God is just and by His nature, infinitely fair. Make no mistake, all whom are living will have been given the opportunity to choose.
We are told that by Christ, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
At the time of Creation God said it was "very good". The potential of corruption is not the same as the manifestation of it. I have the potential to murder someone, yet that which is in me is good and would never choose to manifest such an evil thing.
Therefore, although this creation fell into corruption, we still know that God is good and His creation began as good. All things in creation are held together in Christ, Who is good. Thus, the ultimate outcome of any random event within that creation in the meantime, can only be good. Meaning, no matter how much evil perpetuates as entropy increases toward equilibrium, the ultimate outcome can, and necessarily must, be good.
Thus it is an absolute Truth that God's kingdom will stand.
The New Testament was originally transcribed into Hebrew and Ancient Greek, but was actually originally written in Aramaic. This is why there is large differences in the Ancient Greek and Hebrew versions as they were both translated from their original texts. I actually said that 'the most correct version in existence of these books is in Hebrew'.
I suggest you conduct more research before you talk of things you know very little about.
The Luke version from Hebrew is actually the most correct version that I have found so far. He has very cleverly hidden the truths within a version that wouldn't be removed from the Bible by the Romans who were deceived in their actions against the gnostic books.
Also note that before Jesus lets them know 'who to follow' he is in the house of Simon. It calls him a Leper but this is incorrect. He was in the house of Simon, the unworthy.
You will also notice that at the end of the prophecy of the crucifixion, Simon again appears where he "Takes the cross of religion" from the back of Jesus, just before he dies.
A death he knew he would suffer, that he would do willingly for the good of all mankind.
This is the PROPHECY OF WHAT IS NOW TAKING PLACE.
Are you all seriously too blind to see this?
Sir, the whole point of the Gospel message was to spread it around the globe. The universal language at the time was Greek. The native dialect of the Apostles was Aramaic, which was also the native dialect of Jesus of Nazareth-- the FIRST and ONLY. We are told TIME AND TIME AGAIN that Jesus came in the flesh
ONCE
that He died
ONCE
which was the
FINAL
propitiation to appease the judgment of death as the result of corruption.
The only people that read Hebrew at that time, were educated Jews, mostly comprising those of the priestly order (Pharisees). This is a simple fact. Tap dance around it all you like, but your claim-- and anyone else's for that matter-- that the Gospel message was originally penned in Hebrew, or even Aramaic, proves itself wrong without my help.
That is not to say that there weren't Aramaic or Hebrew translations of the Gospel message that were penned. However, the time, effort and resources it took to scribe a document at that time, would have been used in the most prudent method in an effort of obedience to our Lord and Savior, Who said to "spread His Gospel throughout the earth."
The universal language that could be read by those whom were literate, was Greek.
The universal language that could be understood by the illiterate when read to them, was Greek.
You fail on all measures with your counterfeit claims, to those who have the wisdom to see and understanding to hear the obnoxious untruths. The humility that you profess is utterly transparent and the spiritual words you attempt to pass off as some type of formal inspiration are perverse and vacuous. Like a barking dog in the middle of the night, the "gifts" of phrase you have so kindly bestowed on us only serve to throw a wrench in our peace.
Only by grace will your words fall on deaf ears-- those who have truly accepted God's Spirit and live in it. God Himself said that all will be deceived, even the elect if it were possible. The 'elect' does not mean special of their own accord, nor does it mean to insinuate better or greater than. It simply means those whom God foreknew would receive salvation with the soil of a fertile heart in which the roots would grow to the depths of their soul. Jesus said His sheep hear His voice and the voice of another THEY WILL NOT FOLLOW.
“When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” John Chapter 10
Therefore, for a short time, you will continue to encounter the annoying and frustrating sheep who will shout and bleat to anyone who will listen of the lies which you are speaking. For as our one and only Savior said Himself, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”
Lastly, we are also told, "Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned." (Titus 3)
It's in the bible . God killed Onan for wasting his seed. A man wasting his seed though masturbation or sex without intention of pregnancy is a sin (the very sin named after Onan who was slaughtered by god. - onanism)
Onan did not suffer death because he squirted his semen into the dirt. Onan died because he expressly rebelled against something God specifically asked him to do, which was produce offspring with his brother's widow. And at the context of the time, this was a highly important familial duty which would have been a great offense to not uphold.
The context in this particular case is the death of Onan's brother before he was able to have children with his own wife. When a man died and left no children, the next of kin was sometimes obligated to produce children with the widow of their deceased relation.
Any children produced would be considered as descendents of the original deceased husband and would be raised as such. The offspring would then be able to take care of their widowed mother, contribute more to the clan or tribe, and eventually raise their own children, continuing the name of that family.
This would have been a basic way of life for Onan, therefore he understood what God was asking him to do but he refused to take part in furthering the honor of his brother's name, the wife, and her future care.
To God, this was despicable character worthy of removing from influencing others to do same.
Besides all that, it was absolutely imperative that their genetic lineage be preserved at all costs. Anything less, and God would not have had an un-blemished line of humanity to incarnate Himself into. If God had been prevented from incarnating Himself within His own creation to reconcile it back to Himself, then the salvation of humanity would have been lost.
The bible has been perverted (to an extent) so that it may be used as a tool to romanticize followers with a portion of the truth.
I do not find alternative translations to be sacrilegious in it's common connotation. It is just a different magnifying glass to look through.
Which is exactly how men were deceived in the first place. God is a God of order and absolutes, not of hypothesis and suggestion.
You truly believe that if an indonesian man accidently type christ in google instead of chutney and the read a story of Jesus Christ and they don't convert then they are doomed? That is unrealistic to anyones standards.
What about the Sir Lankon tribe that was previously unknown to civilization before the great tsunami and were all killed? They didn't have a chance to know of Jesus, are they doomed too?
Do you see the wrong on this perspective?
You need to come to the realization that religion is cultural, every culture has their Jesus, and ours is most popular because of Western Civilization.
I know it is hard to accept. I lived it to.
I finally came to the conclusion that I was taught only a portion of the truth, and then taught even harder that I should guard that portion with my existence and forbid anything to enter.
All you are doing now is instinctually defending that portion my friend.
You either believe God is just and fair, or you don't.
Therefore, because He is, in fact, just and fair, all with the potential to receive Christ will be given ample opportunity to do so before it's all said and done and the fat lady sings.
You consider us blind imbeciles because our belief is the opposite of yours, even believing you have found some sort of higher truth that is far superior than the one given by Christ Himself, not to mention thousands of years of prophetic writings that all support each other even though they were written hundreds of years apart.
We are certain that what we believe to be Truth, is the one absolute Truth. There is no other. All others have pieces of Truth interwoven with lies and are usually tailor made to suit the individual-- per culture, per race, per environment, per personal preference, per whatever.
There is a reason that adages reference truth as usually being offensive--
'the truth hurts'
'truth can be brutal'
'a string of facts does not add up to the truth'
'truth is like the town whore. Everybody knows her, but nonetheless, it's embarrassing to meet her on the street'.
'truth never hurts the teller'
'truth will only make you unpopular.'
'most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.'
'the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it'.
'truth has rough flavors if we bite it through'
The inconvenient truth about faith in Christ is that it is, in fact, exclusive. There is simply no way around it. He said He is the only way-- not one of the ways.
"Directions to eternal life and salvation: 1. Believe Christ, 2. that's it."
For all intents and purposes, whether you choose to see it or not, that is actually marvelously fair. God has made it crazy simple for all men to gain eternal life-- believe in Christ. Yay, you're done. Whoot! Let's get this party started.
But men are stubborn. Since we took our first breath, we've tried to pursue our own way. We are vainly convinced that we know creation and how it works better than the one Who created it. All men have the disease of "self" running through their veins, which manifests itself as pride.
You see, the beauty of pride and deception is the fact that the people who are living under these cancers, are utterly oblivious to it. And to make matters worse, the disease creates the false illusion that everyone else is the problem because they are incapable of any sort of objective perception of themselves.
Make no assumption in regard to how I arrived at my certainty in faith. I tried to find God in religion, in education, in esoteric delusions, I've searched for truth my entire life trying to fill a hole that He created in me that only His absolute and infinite Truth could fill. Why I attained it and so many others get lost on the way, I have absolutely no idea. I've cried RIVERS of tears asking WHY ME?? Why was I given the grace to understand, when so many others get trapped in the lies? Why are they allowed to believe it? Why do some of us find our way and so many others wander into oblivion? Why do babies die? Why are they abused? Why are children sexually abused?? Why was a man allowed to eat an innocent bystander's face off? Why??????
I have asked the very same questions WE ALL ASK. I have wrestled with God over countless objections, myriads of excuses and oceans of suggestions.
The simple fact of the matter is, He is God.
Which means, I am not.
And the hardest thing for men to do is to concede to this relationship in humility.
What do you think about Pope Francis saying recently that even atheists can enter heaven as long as they are good to man? This seems to expand on different ways to enter heaven. Do you find it odd that the church is taking a broader (seemingly controversial) stance on who can make it to heaven?
LOL....I didn't know Pope Francis decided who does and who doesn't get to heaven.
Good people are not given eternal life. Only forgiven people.
Salvation 101: It's given through grace, not earned with works.
God is no respecter of religion, only faith.