Revealing post at Green Baggins

Update 2: I have to take back the compliment I gave to the one going by the name 'curate.' He's written this in a later comment: "Richard, grace is indeed mediated through the church." Hmm. Tell Warfield that. Warfield couldn't discern the pure and whole - received - Word of God, yet he could at least discern where grace comes from: "Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will." - B. B. Warfield

The reason these churchians are so easily picked off by the Beast Church of Rome and its glass-eyed apologists is because churchians default to Romanism at a foundational level of their understanding (or lack thereof).

Update: also give the commenter over there going by the name 'curate' some credit. He understands. Even though he thinks all Baptists are heretics. What is clear, and what is always never assumed, is the stark fact that Romanists simply don't read the Bible. They just simply don't read the Bible. They are like liberal, shallow Protestants who watch their plastic-haired television preachers or go to Crystal Cathedrals or whatever. Actually I suspect most church Christians - very much including Reformed/Calvinist - never actually read the Bible in anything close to a dedicated way giving real time and effort to the activity. Very much including Reformed academics. The fact that they can't discern cartoonishly corrupt manuscripts and versions based on them from the real thing (the real received thing) is also a result of never actually reading the Word of God.

* * *

This post at the Green Baggins blog is rather revealing. Basically what you have there, in the post and the 700+ comments (to date) that follow it, is a gaggle of church Christians trying to figure out how one can know what the Scripture teaches.

Skip to comment #40 (fortunately the comments are numbered) and read the very concise note written by Vern Crisler to have the subject put into perspective and explained, biblically (it has to do with Bereans, and illumination by the Holy Spirit).

Actually, I'll just post Mr. Crisler's comment because a follow-up was asked of him which he didn't respond to, so I will:

Mr. Crisler wrote:

I think the above discussion illustrates what happens when Protestants give up the Berean principle of interpretive authority (individualism) and place it in the hands of institutions (collectivism). The papists will mock you all the way down the line. And to start out with a self-stultifying Wittgensteinian principle –as Lane does — doesn’t help much either.

rfwhite asked a follow up to the above:

How is it that individual interpretations become a group interpretation?

It happens by default because the term 'Berean' suggests actually searching the Word of God - engaging it, reading it...complete - (not commentaries, not books of doctrine, not confessions, not sermons, but the actual Word of God). Again, it happens by default. Spirit speaks to spirit and truth is known among those who know the truth by the Holy Spirit. The eternal mocking of Romanists and other unregenerate fools who both can't and refuse to know the truth notwithstanding.

Act 17:11 These [in Berea] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

When you do this you get understanding which is seeing the parts in relation to the whole.

Why do I agree with the Reformation on the five solas? Because I see it in Scripture. Why do I agree with the doctrines of grace? Because I see it in Scripture. Why do I not agree with infant baptism? Because I don't see it in Scripture. Why do I not agree with the catechism of the catholic church? Because I don't see it in Scripture. It's really very simple. Oh, I have to actually engage Scripture. Actual Scripture. And I need the Spirit of truth which is the Holy Spirit (the trickiest requirement and the hardest to explain - or defend - when trying to explain this subject to the currently and proudly unregenerate; all one can say is: engage the Word of God complete and humbly, because that is the environment where regeneration happens, when it does happen).

One further, important note: you need a standard. A real standard. An unchanging standard. That means you need to humble yourselves to the pure and whole - received - text. The Hebrew Masoretic and the Greek Textus Receptus in sound translation (and the only one that exists in English, which is apparently how God intended it to be, is the Authorized - King James - Version. That is the necessary standard. Attempts to make a new translation based on those received Hebrew and Greek texts always deviate. This is due to the spirit of the times, which is a spirit of disobedience. The spirit of the devil.

Now you know the point at which your pride will be broken. If you can wipe the mocking grin off your face long enough to truly ponder your situation you will see how you must proceed, if you truly value the grace of God and the seeking of the Kingdom of God.

To an English guy who sees it as his duty to warn everybody about Calvinism on every video site on the internet

Calvinism is merely a nickname for apostolic biblical doctrine, un-watered-down, un-negotiated down to the demands of fallen man.

It is five solas doctrine. Classical Protestant doctrine derived from the Bible alone.

It is rare to see truth gaining a voice in the world, and when it does the world girds its loins and goes on the attack. Calvinism is experiencing a current revival of sorts, so the world will push back as usual.

God always has His remnant. His remnant know the voice of the Shepherd, the pure and whole, received, Word of God, and His remnant know his doctrine, derived solely from the Word of God.

If you are man-centered rather than God-centered of course Calvinism (apostolic biblical doctrine) is foolish and crazy and 'wrong'. If you are more just and good than God Himself then of course you will have criticisms of a God that is sovereign in creation, providence, *and grace.*

A note: modern Calvinist (Reformed) academics tend to be very different from Reformation era Calvinists (I'm not speaking of the Calvin vs. the Calvinists canard either). Calvin was a barefoot mystic compared to most Reformed/Calvinist academics today.

To a person who anwsers charges of the corruption of the Alexandrian manuscripts with all you need is the love of Christ

Yes, peace, peace, love, love, while I mutilate the Word of God. I tell you to follow the Word of God, while I mutilate the Word of God. Look at John 17 (see? we've kept it in for you!), while I mutilate the Word of God. Get down on your knees and feel the love of Christ, while I mutilate the Word of God. And when you've forgotten the Word of God, because we've mutilated the Word of God, well, all you really need is the love of Christ anyway, you know? Peace, peace, love, love...
- Satan

Response to a cleric who appeals to scholars to deny basic Satanic connections

*****, you just clearly are not yet able to discern foundational things. The Bible is simple. Satan is all through it in multiple names and manifestations and phenomena. Jesus is as well. Babylon = Satan. To see anything Babylonish in Romanism is like 2 + 2 = 4. You are still at a level of development where you hug the shore that is called the reverence for scholars and the authority of scholarship. And of course because this is absolute for you you will call me and anyone else who tells you such things "anti-intellectual."

If you ever find yourself in direct spiritual warfare you will begin to see the basics of the spiritual world and everything that seemed multifarious and myriad before (as the scholars preach on and on) will be seen for what they are. And you will see clearly the difference between revering and fearing man (scholars, in the context of your post) and revering and fearing God alone. I know you will protest that you fear God, but currently you don't fear God *alone.*

Fear God and not man, it is the beginning of wisdom.

Hornets

This is symbolic.

It's the type of thing God controls, like the oceans not over-running their bounds.

You've got evil in your midst, Europe. And the problem is not all external.

Steve Rafalsky, separate from them; they are goats

http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/skepticism-doubt-toward-bible-52046/

R. Scott Clark, pope of the 'Reformed' practical deists

These are the words of R. Scott Clark, as professor at a 'Reformed seminary' in California:

As I said above, I have spent plenty of time in the streets doing evangelism. To borrow from Paul, I must be out my mind to talk like this but I’m a certified EE trainer. I was doing street evangelism when you were in diapers.

Translation: I hit the street for an hour and a half in 1982, and like a life-long housewife who worked for all of two months at a retail store before she got married I've been repeating that episode, in world-weary tones, as if it was the greater part of my life ever since.

There’s a reason I don’t do it any more. It might have been emotionally satisfying but it didn’t produce much visible fruit for the visible church.

Wow, this Reformed professor really has a deep understanding of how planting the seed of the Word of God works in people, doesn't he? You mean the people you evangelized didn't on-the-spot get down on their knees and revere you as an accredited, ordained cleric? It's easy to see your disappointment.

Further, the culture has changed rather markedly since then. I’m not saying that no one should do it but I would certainly say that there’s no moral obligation for us to be “on the streets.”

Maybe not you, but it helps if the actual Word of God is out there in some fashion, preferably 'uncut' (to use street lingo, ha ha). And, by the way, it's good to know that culture has changed to the point where evangelism is no longer necessary. See, I thought human nature and the human condition were rather universal and pretty much static (the fallen parts anyway) despite what TV shows or pop song styles you're currently listening to.

Relative to strategy, I think it’s much wiser for God’s people to be concentrating, as it were, on those with whom they actually have a relationship.

Hear that Celtic missionaries who traveled far and wide to evangelize pagan tribes throughout Europe? What were you thinking?

As to ministers, I will be happy if they will simply preach Christ every week instead of trying to take back the culture for Christ or instead of preaching 10 steps to a fulfilled life or whatever. That’s what I mean by evangelism: ministers announcing the good news in the pulpit. That’s not a great burden; it’s a great joy!

Yeah, don't do embarrassing things! Stay in the Village of Morality where everybody already thinks alike, and don't worry about those people on the outside. Only evangelize people who are born into your church. Preferably people who are only born in your actual church building.

You might say: but that’s not very effective and I will repy: that’s the point. There’s a reason Paul calls the preaching of the gospel foolishness.

Oh, yeah, you've got that verse down, don't you, professor? The Gospel is foolishness because it is preached behind four walls where people on the outside can't hear it and thus it is ineffective. Show me the commentary you got that out of, I want to burn it now.

Yes, it’s a horribly ineffective method from the point of view of modern, entrepreneurial, evangelicalism but Jesus isn’t apparently very interested in numbers or success or as we define those things.

Didn't, though, you just say you stopped preaching on the street because it wasn't effective (as you understand effectiveness of course)? Now you're saying if you'd been drawing large crowds to yourself you'd have quit as well. I think you're a bit confused, professor.

He passed by people and never healed them. Should we remonstrate with God the Son for his lack of compassion. Did he drive out every single demon? Did he leave some folk in the grave? How “effective” was that? What sort of way is that for Jesus to bring his kingdom? I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to trust that the King knows what he’s doing.

Miracles performed by Jesus were special revelation designed to let people know He was who He said He was, they weren't supposed to be universal health care. (This shows why seminaries are inane institutions. Clark is a professor of church history, or some such specialty, yet his knowledge and understanding of the actual Word of God is at the level of Tammy Faye Bakker. This can only happen in inane educational institutions such as seminaries.)

He gave the keys to the visible institutional church. Full stop. That’s the great truth with which the modern revivialist movement has not grasped.

In the actual Bible it doesn't say visible, institutional. The Bible obviously defines church in many ways, the big, general way being the invisible church of which Christ is King. Interestingly this is how classical Reformed theologians define it as well. But this professor, R. Scott Clark, is not a classically Reformed Christian. He attacks Puritans, he announces that he is a greater theologian than Jonathan Edwards (I'll wait for the library of books to be written about R. Scott Clark before considering that one). He's a sacramentalist but hides it under a cloak of default practical deism (which his Reformed critics are beginning to see and to label him with). He's basically an unregenerate, angry, Village of Morality academic demanding to be respected as an 'accredited and ordained' cleric and to be honored as a 'scholar' and basically to be treated the way the inane world treats such inane figures.

An email response on repentance

Here is a response from a long-time email correspondent to this post:

Yes. That's my experience. When we discussed 'self-identified' Christians - this is the distinction (although not necessarily a real one but certainly one that I can sense). Some of us have lived a contra life and come to Christianity almost with our heels dug in, total resistance, kicking and screaming - it's simply not anything we want to accept or face up to and yet, everything tells us we must. And it takes a lot to break us down. I think CS Lewis had an experience something like this and I certainly did. So long as I was playing on the fringe, it was okay, more like a shock to awaken others but once it was really real and I was faced with the Truth, the shock was all mine. That's why statements like "Christianity is not a religion it's reality" have resonance for me where to others they seem like some sort of blind arrogance. If it wasn't a fact I could deny it. There is in any case a lot of internal struggles that go along with it as part of the process. I've always struggled with the 'christian community', the church as a legitimate body, and also a lot of the debates that Christians take up. We are just laden with associations too and we know everyone else is, coupled with our self-pictures and vanity and the whole thing is deeply threatening. Perhaps in a way, although I didn't follow you (C) into a deep study of theology, I tagged on, listened and followed up on certain leads as if to help me acclimatise and understand something that I may never have been able to tolerate otherwise. So a lot of the theology was really useful and a lot was crap or just good for the moment. Some outstanding stuff too. But it is this fact that one is changed emotionally that takes a lot of intellectual pondering to understand. (Speed of centres at variance. It's already happened but poor old intellect just can't get it's head around the heart of it, it's too big, too mysterious, too ... ) I would have been very content to find a groove with the 4thWay and just pursue that. Seen from below the Christian aspect came as an intrusion, seen from above we are fed heritage and restored to high places.

We never know who is called. This is the other thing we have always to remember. You. Me. Anyone. In company of a Christian, a pagan or an atheist - it's all the same, we just don't have a call on who gets saved, where and when the Spirit is working. We can't possibly know. It's a mystery. What man says he is, what claims he stakes is his own business. But that's just it, the 2nd commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Maybe Dawkins has the Spirit chasing him down and like Pharaoh his heart just hardens.

- Paul of England

Now Christians aren't supposed to evangelize the faith, pronounces R. Scott Clark

Wow, 'Leader of All Reformed Christians' R. Scott Clark is now saying Christians are not to evangelize but are to leave that to 'ordained ministers.'

So prophets, priests, and kings are not to evangelize the faith. And he goes over a passage of Scripture, explaining carefully that where it says Christians *are* supposed to evangelize the faith throughout the world it really means they aren't supposed to do that. (His 'exegesis' on the word 'all' in that passage is worthy of some kind of Reverse Arminian Non-Understanding of the Word All in Scripture Award.)

It's funny how the more these Jesuits in Calvinist clothing in the Reformed seminaries come out of their closets and the more they are publicly exposed and marked, the more they continue on, zombie-like, as if operating from some preconceived schedule on cue while still thinking they are somehow staying under the radar through it all.

Repentance

Interesting to observe how it is not so much change of intellectual opinions or ideas that is involved with real religion but it's a change in self-awareness, awareness of lying, awareness of self-justifying, awareness of one's condition, one's sin; change in one's ability to recognize something higher than oneself, to distinguish the Creator from the creation.

What I mean is it's not something you can find by noodling around with ideas. It's psychological and emotional development, and psychological 'turning' or internal 're-orientating' which happens less by one's will and more by God's will (which includes being aided by the living, piercing word of God).

Time 2

Following on this post...

I didn't make clear what it means when one says a person's time is alive and not dead once they are dead. God acts from eternity. A person's time (their birth-to-death line of time) is certainly not dead to God.

That linear birth-to-death line of time is not all of time. It is how a human being perceives time.

So what is that line from God's point-of-view? Without trying to actually get into God's point-of-view, which isn't necessary or possible, one can see that that line of time is part of a fuller phenomenon of time as it relates to one's life. The biblical phrase 'fullness of time' suggests the fuller phenomenon of time (higher aspects, higher dimensions, whatever), certainly more than the mere linear that human beings are constrained to perceive.

The human mind can't think of it clearly so usually pictures it as a revolution, or recurrence (note: same life, same time). This of course brings the bats out of the cave screaming "reincarnation!" or "we are only given once to die!"... So, it's not helpful. It's better to think of the 'fullness' of your time more as a cosmos. Something that is filled up as it develops. Yet the obvious interval that is death seems, to the human mind which can only see its time linearly, is difficult to see in a cosmos rather than in a 'circle.' Tough. You don't die more than once, and you are alive in all your time. Unless, of course, you are regenerated and you *leave your time* to be with God in heaven.

Which brings up the fact that this life, in this living time we have, is really death. It is being *dead in sin.* It is not really life at all, but it's all we have until being born again by the Word and the Spirit.

That interval of death is really the eschatological NOW. And...now...I've really confused my zero readers.

I'll try to explain that: that interval of death which 'seems' to reside at a point in a circle (followed by birth, and, again, no, we don't die more than once nor live more than once) is really where we are now. We are dead now, asleep, dead in sin, or, we are alive now, regenerated, with Christ in the 'heavenly places'. Now.

Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

The development of our time - the fullness of time with regards to our individual life - is consummated in regeneration. With regeneration (and all that follows that) we leave this time and join other saints in heaven with our King.

Until then we are 'dead in sin', literally, in a 'seeming' round of death which is really one life but alive at all its points in a way we can't perceive, but that God can. And God can act at any point of our living time.

Time

[updated below]

In this post the last one makes me look like a universalist perhaps, so, well here it is:

>
>
> 25) Here lies an atheist
> All dressed up
> And no place to go.
>
> EPITAPH
>
>

Most likely, like most atheists, he expected to be reincarnated. It's only his dead flesh body there though. His soul and satanic spirit are elsewhere. Until the return of the King he will have his time to be regenerated by the Word and the Spirit if that is what God has in store for him.

I am basically referring to God's ability to act in time unconstrained with how human beings are constrained to perceive time.

God can act in a person's time at any point of that time. He acts from eternity. He can regenerate how and when he pleases. Birth-to-death linear time makes a human being's time seem 'dead' once the person has physically died. To God that is not the case. Deal with it, theologians. The Bible doesn't discuss time 'much' because it tends to explode the narrative when higher aspects of time are discussed. You just have to kind of see it. Figure it out. There's a reason we don't run screaming through the streets evangelizing people when *we know* hell exists. "That person's going to hell unless someone gives them the good news!!" We don't feel this is necessary because this is not how it works. We do need to evangelize though. And not be ashamed of the name Christ.

There is also truth that we just *know* regarding the fact that an unbeliever at death is not necessarily a reprobate at death.

Not to mention not even Reformed theologians (the gold standard I say without sarcasm) can come to a clear conclusion on the 'intermediate state' with regards to unbelievers especially.

There is this thing called the 'fullness of time.' People come into faith, if they do, when they do, by the grace of God, in the fullness of their time. History develops in the fullness of time. God's plan of redemption comes to consummation in the fullness of time. *Fullness of time* suggests a higher aspect of time than our constrained linear perception of time.

It just does. Not an excuse to think you have more time to screw around. (Or that 'second chance' exists. That is a facile accusation in the context of the difficult subject of time and eternity and how God acts and is able to act in the life of an individual.) The more you know the more is demanded of you. So once regenerated your time *is counted*, pilgrim.
______________________

[update] Whenever one writes about the subject of time vis-a-vis biblical doctrine it is inevitable that the accusations of ignorance of orthodox teaching or accusations of heresy come at you as a matter of course. Theologians avoid the subject, for the most part, so it just sounds 'whacky' as the commenter below typically states.

But there are things that we sense, as Christians. As Christians who even know on-the-mark apostolic biblical doctrine.

One is that people who die as rather obvious unbelievers don't necessarily seem to be obvious reprobates. This is a fact we all see in our lives. We know God takes care of all his creation, and he does it as he sees fit, but that doesn't automatically mean X's unbelieving mother or father died a reprobate. Maybe they very well did and it will be revealed at the final judgment. At the end of the Age. But their death isn't the end of the Age.

Believers (born again Bible-believing Christians who have faith in Jesus Christ) go to be with God when they die. Theologians don't know where unbelievers go when they die (eternal hellfire is where you are judged to at the final judgment; it is not a waiting room prior to that) because the Bible is not clear on that (and when the Bible is not clear on something it is *intentionally* not clear, pilgrims). This is because time plays a role that we can't perceive. God is acting on people from eternity. There is *nothing* in the Bible that suggests God limits himself in how he can act regarding things like regeneration. The Westminster Confession of Faith acknowledges this fact (10.3).

III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

Written to a mocker of the Authorized Version 1611 and its readers

Oh, why don't you just read your Alexandrian, constructed 'bibles' and be content with it? The atheist-like justification for these continual attacks on Riplinger ("Well, I go after Christians rather than Hindus or Muslims because it's the *Christians* who are poisoning the world the *most*!")...and, yes, you go after the *crazy* Masoretic/Received Text types who read their 17th century English (which is way too hard for modern day people, especially if you've never read much literature to begin with!) because we Christians following such 'old paths' are screwing up the lives of your church members who get real confused and stuff when they see a thee or thou.

We aren't going away, count on that. You just need to reconcile yourself to the fact that Christians exist who see your Alexandrian modern version 'bibles' as corrupt garbage and get over it.

* * *

This is an issue not only of regeneration but of pride. Notice the pure and whole - received - Word of God is the point where the prideful refuse to to be *broken*? The thought is disgusting to them. It is *defeat.* They have yet to humble themselves to the Word of God and the Spirit. They want a bible (a document) that was created *by them.* That relied *on them* for its existence. All the while they want to prate on about their faith and righteousness.

Words the academic priesthood can neither grasp nor counter

The difference between the modern versions of the Bible vs. the Authorized - King James - Version comes down to the difference between a constructed text vs. a received text.

When you get serious with the Word of God you gravitate towards the received text (Hebrew Masoretic, Greek Textus Receptus, i.e. Traditional Text). You cease looking down at the Word of God as a document that requires 'you' to determine its content and you begin to look up to it, in humility, as something received, knowing that the Holy Spirit and Christians before you have shepherded it pure and whole down through history, through intense warfare and martyrdom, knowing you need it more than it needs you.

The constructed text is for children in the academy. The received text is for spiritual warriors on the Way.

The children of the academy are a petulant and deeply asleep playground lot. Their followers are simple dupes and useful idiots who currently fear the opinion of man more than they fear God and their own conscience.

The Word of God is a battleground of spiritual warfare. The devil has been attacking it and corrupting it from the beginning (he began in the Garden). The children of the academy know nothing of this battle. They know nothing of spiritual warfare. They are tame, deeply asleep slaves of the devil in the devil's kingdom.

The children of God, prophets, priests, and kings all of them, know they need the real Sword of the Spirit on the Way. They know they need real armor of God to stand against the world, the devil, and their own inner Old Man. The AV1611 is for spiritual warriors on the Way.

Written to a Muslim and some Euro atheists, and the same message needs to be heard by the rest of you

Muslim said:

Are you confused with all these gradual development of the English Bible
and the foundations upon which each successive version rests?

Muslims worship the devil. The devil attacked the Word of God starting in the Garden.

Modern day liberals attack the Word of God by using corrupt manuscripts.

If you have the Authorized Version (King James Version) in your hand you have the pure and whole - received - Word of God.

Engage it complete and humbly.

Don't conform to what your dead, atheist, socialist masters in Europe demand you conform to. Don't fall for Satanic Muslim or liberal or homosexual propaganda.

Christians are prophets, priests, and *kings.* Clerics are mostly of the devil in all churches in this era we live in. Follow the *old paths.*

Christians *are* prophets, priests, and kings. Follow the old paths, pilgrims. Wake up and see the Kingdom.

Practical deism, a stinging arrow

Sometimes a reviewer hits the nail on the head and the person being reviewed is publicly stung. This happened recently when Michael "iMonk" Spencer wrote an article for the Christian Science Monitor about the "coming collapse of evangelicalism." A reviewer deftly labeled the claim "autobiographical." (Spencer, an evangelical preacher, had just been through the rather unpleasant and embarrassing ordeal of witnessing his wife convert to Roman Catholicism.) The iMonk was stung.

Part of the sting is the unexpectedness of the truthful characterization.

Now we have another example. R. Scott Clark, the vicious warrior against all things mystical and anabaptist in Reformed Christianity, was recently nailed in a review of his book, Recovering the Reformed Confession, as a "practical deist."

The reviewer of Clark's book stated:

A problem that often bedevils Reformed spirituality is what Larry Wilson has pegged as the tendency of the Reformed to fall into "practical deism": God is out there and we are down here with our theology, lacking vital communion with and connection to our gracious covenant God. [link]

Clark responded with:

The review raises concerns about the piety advocated in the book, even associating it with "practical deism." One might have expected such an insinuation from Azusa Street but not from Dyer, Indiana. [link]

In other words, in a clear state of having been stung (unexpectedly) by a true characterization Clark basically sputters: "And you're a fag."

The reviewer answered:

Clark takes issue with my reference to "practical deism," about which I believe all the Reformed must ever be watchful: the temptation to see God in His sovereignty as "up there" and the means "down here" in such a way that the vital spiritual link is severed. The sovereign Spirit must always make effectual the means appointed, and we must wait on him in prayer for that. [link]

Clark was stung. Why? Because he (and many if not most Reformed academics of our day such as his very active book-writing friends Michael Horton and Darryl G. Hart) is a practical deist.

I've said before Calvin was a barefoot mystic compared to these guys. It's just another way of putting it. Somewhere along the line Reformed academics (teachers, church leaders) stopped talking about spiritual warfare, they ceased to write about such New Testament teachings as 'watchfulness', they lost the distinction between the fear of man and the fear of God, they lost touch with the pure and whole - received - Word of God; they know nothing about such things because they have not experienced them. But their arrogance and position of 'honor' (which they covet and protect as much as any in secular academia) denies them the self-awareness and humility necessary to get a clue. Or at least to stop affecting to be teachers of Christians.

Read the entire review of Clark's book.

Deadly, terrifying atheist quotes, beware!

Somebody sent somebody I know cyberly a list of atheist quotes in an attempt, he thinks, to turn his mind. I've responded to each:

> 1)
> Epicurus' old questions are yet unanswered.
>
> Is God will to prevent evil, but not able - then is he
> impotent?
>
> Is God able, but not willing - then is he malevolent?
>
> Is God both able and willing - then is he evil?
>
>
> David Hume

God knows that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is necessary to become real beings. It's called knowing the difference. But once you eat of it you are no longer innocent (innocent to not do evil nor innocent to not be effected by evil). Epicurus neither knows God's motive nor man's state. He also, in a juvenile manner, judges God using a standard he can't get anywhere other than from God. He's a fat, gluttonous moron, and David Hume was a typical atheist moron for quoting him.


>
>
> 2) Fear was the gods' begetter in this world.
>
> Petronius

Right, because atheists have nothing to fear from their fellow man. Atheists are parasites on whatever civilization is currently happening that respects human rights (to any degree). Leave them to the 'world' and they survive about two minutes.


>
>
> 3) From the point of view of a tapeworm, man was created by
> God to serve the appetite of the tapeworm.
>
> Edward Abbey

In the mind of the atheist any creature other than man is 'cool', including tapeworms. This is due to self-loathing.


>
> 4) Man create the gods after their own image, not only with
> regards to their form but with regard to their mode of
> life.
>
> Aristotle

Yeah, gods like Molech. Animal, monstrous, filthy. Aristotle didn't get out enough. He should have followed Alexander around.


>
>
> 5) Whatever we cannot easily understand we call
> God; this saves much tear
> and wear on the brain
> tissues.
>
> Edward
> Abbey
>

Abbey was popular with dumb college students in the '60s. It's easy to see why.


>
> 6)
> If I were personally to define religion I would say that it
> is a
> bandage that man invented to protect a soul made bloody by
> circumstance.
>
> Theodore Dreiser
>

This is why you're not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.


>
> 7) In church, sacred music would make believers of us all -
> but preachers can be counted on to restore the balance.
>
> Mignon McLaughlin
>

This quote is the most on-the-mark thus far.


> 8) Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when
> they do it from religious conviction.
>
> Blaise Pascal
>

Religious conviction can mean anything. Marxism. Whatever. A person with a new heart and an unburied conscience doesn't do evil cheerfully, completely or any other way.


>
> 9)
> The religions of mankind must be classed among the
> mass-delusions of
> this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion
> ever
> recognises it as such.
>
> Freud
>

Freud was stump dumb.


>
> 10)FAITH: The effort to believe that which your commonsense
> tells you is not true.
>
> Elbert Hubbard
>

This may be true. You need to be regenerated and hence have a sanctified commonsense to know God's Word is true.


>
> 11) Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator
> of human intelligence.
>
> Anonymous
>

Man is fallen. Man doesn't have a pristine intelligence he had in the Garden. And faith in things one cannot see is not the same as 'blind faith.' That's a dumb, juvenile conflation.


>
> 12)
> Three-quarters of the American population literally
> believes in religious
> miracles. The number who believe in the devil, in
> resurrection, God
> does this and that - astonishing. These are numbers that
> you have
> nowhere in the industrial world.
>
> Noam Chomsky
>

Noam Chomsky to this day considers Pol Pot to have been a hero of his people.


> 13)
> A tyrant should always show a particular zeal in the cult
> of the gods.
> People are less afraid of being treated unjustly by those
> of this sort,
> that is if they think that the ruler is
> god-fearing and pays some
> regard to the gods; and they are less ready to conspire
> against him, if
> they feel that the gods themselves are his friends.
>
> Aristotle
>

Thanks, Aristotle. A lot has happened since you departed.


> 14)
> The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no
> more to the
> point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a
> sober one.
>
> George Bernard Shaw

Are drunks happy? Are they not more asleep? More prone to fall for illusion?


>
> 15) The Christian religion not only was at first attended
> with miracles, but even at this day
> cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
>
> David Hume
>

Regeneration by the Word and the Spirit is real. It happens. People experience it.


> 16) Once miracles are admitted, every scientific
> explanation is out of the question.
>
> Kepler
>

So?


> 17) There is a very intimate connection between hypnotic
> phenomena and religion.
>
> Havelock Ellis
>

Yes, and if fish and thoroughbred horses are similar then you have a point.


> 18) It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an
> anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.
>
> Einstein
>

Jews are eternally ignorant of biblical doctrine. Yes, God became man. He didn't cease being God though!


> 19) Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength
> from its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful
> impulses.
>
> Freud
>

Yeah, we humans are just secretly chomping at the bit to fulfill those ten commandments... Freud's brilliance strikes again.


> 20) Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
> Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
>
> Anonymous
>

No, you can question them. Why not?


> 21)If
> triangles made a God, they would give him three sides.
>
> Montesquieu
>

If man had made the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, then man would not have made him an incomprehensible trinity.


> 22) Religion is for people who are afraid to go to hell,
> whereas spirituality is for people like me who have been
> there.
>
> Dave Mustaine
>

Dave thinks he's experienced hell because he got sick doing drugs and stuff. Hang in there, guy, like they say: when you're having a heart attack -- you'll know it.


> 23)
> This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need
> for
> complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart, is
> the temple;
> your philosophy is simple kindness.
>
> The Dalai Lama
>

The Dalai Lama is basically as profound as any number of new age gurus who play to women who call psychic hotlines. Thanks, Tibet.


> 24)
> Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it
> you would
> have good people doing good things and evil people doing
> evil things.
> But for good people to do evil things, that takes
> religion.
>
> Steven Weinberg
>

Except that Christianity is not about being good, it's about making contact. With God. Via the Holy Spirit. Being 'good' is for losers who are going to hell.


> 25) Not one man in ten thousand has goodness of heart or
> strength of mind to be an atheist.
>
> Samuel Taylor Coleridge
>

Not sure what Coleridge's quote is doing here.



> 1) The more I study religions the more I am convinced that
> man never worshipped anything but himself.
>
> Richard Francis Burton
>

You're learning about the fallen nature of man. Keep going.


>
> 2)
> You never see animals going through the absurd and often
> horrible
> fooleries of magic and religion... Only man behaves with
> such
> gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being
> intelligent,
> but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
>
> Aldous Huxley
>

The devil prefers to fool man. It's more fun for him. How fun is it to fool a dog?


>
> 3)
> For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really
> is than to
> persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
>
> Carl Sagan
>

No, delusion is not good. (Many of these quotes are missing necessary context. Obviously we're supposed to assume delusion = God or whatever, but it's hard to respond to many of these. 'Religion' is mentioned in a way that could mean chicken worship or whatever, for instance.


>
> 4) Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own
> mind.
>
> Ralph Waldo Emerson
>

Emerson wasn't an atheist. This quote though is another out-of-context empty thought.


>
> 5)
> It was of course a lie what you read about my religious
> convictions, a
> lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not
> believe in a
> personal God and I have never denied this but have
> expressed it
> clearly. If something is in me which can be called
> religious then it is
> the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so
> far as our
> science can reveal it.
>
> Einstein
>

Who cares what Einstein believed?


>
> 6) Atheism
> in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest
> affirmation
> of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose
> and beauty.
>
> Emma Goldman
>

Emma had been reading Nietzsche and was fired up. Nietzsche at that same time was catatonic in the upper room of his sister's house.


>
> 7) There is no God any more divine than Yourself.
>
> Walt Whitman
>

Well. OK. When and why did you start talking like the devil, Walt?


>
> 8) As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in
> schools.
>
> Anonymous
>

Rim shot.

>
> 9) I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up
> there, please save me, Superman.
>
> Homer Simpson
>

Modern day cartoons are soul-dead. Yes, all of them.


>
> 10) The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the
> most singular things in all literature.
>
> Alfred North Whitehead
>

This one I've heard before, and it does make one think. Of course humor can be many things to many people. I suspect there is little humor in the Bible because the Bible is serious as hell. And a little humor would give humans an 'out' to say, "See? He's just joking!" But if humor is about things that are true, and the Bible enables us to see our true nature, then there is humor in the Bible. It's kind of humorous that the Israelites hadn't been left to themselves two minutes before they started to worship a statue of a cow. When they were in the very presence of God Himself. That is humorous. If you can't see it that's your humorless problem.


>
> 11) When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God,
> forgetting we have just had one.
>
> Mignon McLaughlin
>

Yearn for a sign from God when suffering comes?


>
> 12)
> We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only
> in the sense and
> to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is
> beautiful and
> his children smart.
>
> H.L. Mencken
>

He spent his whole life coming up with that stuff.


>
> 13) I
> distrust those people who know so well what God wants them
> to do,
> because I notice it always coincides with their own
> desires.
>
> Susan B. Anthony
>

Like the ten commandments, yes.


>
> 14) By the year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children
> to believe in human potential, not God.
>
> Gloria Steinem
>

Her human potential was writing a lot of dumb forgettable books, then dying of disease. I think. Is she still alive?


>
> 15) Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
>
> Mark Twain
>

Mark Twain did a lot of psychological projecting in his life. He wasn't aware of the concept though.



>
> 16)
> Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture
> which they
> cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the
> passages in
> Scripture which trouble me most are those that I do
> understand.
>
> Mark Twain
>

Atheists always have to be the top intellectual monkey.


>
> 17) I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am
> bringing a change of underwear.
>
> Woody Allen
>

A sad Jew.


>
> 18) If God created us in his own image, we have more than
> reciprocated.
>
> Voltaire
>

How so, Voltaire?


>
> 19) And that what we call God's justice is only
> man's idea of what he would do if he were God.
>
> Elbert Hubbard
>

You got it ass-backward and sideways, Elbert. What you call God's justice is your demand that he do what you consider to be good and just.


>
> 20) What? Is man just one of God's mistakes? Or is God
> just one of man's?
>
> Friedrich Nietzsche
>

Go back to your vegetable state, Friedrich.


>
> 21) PRAY: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled
> in behalf of a single petitioner
> confessedly unworthy.
>
> Ambrose Bierce
>

Excellent. Why not? God says do it.


>
> 22)
> I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects
> of his
> creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own - a God,
> in short,
> who is but a reflection of human frailty.
>
> Einstein
>

Jesus, can we keep the Jews from theologizing?


>
> 23) Millions long for immortality who don't know what
> to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
>
> Susan Ertz
>

Humans.


>
> 24)
> I don't know that atheists should be regarded as
> citizens, nor should
> they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under
> God.
>
> George H. W. Bush


This 'quote' is a famous fake quote. It's only repeated by liberals and atheists. People under no conpunction by conscience or anything else to tell the truth.


>
>
> 25) Here lies an atheist
> All dressed up
> And no place to go.
>
> EPITAPH
>
>

Most likely, like most atheists, he expected to be reincarnated. It's only his dead flesh body there though. His soul and satanic spirit are elsewhere. Until the return of the King he will have his time to be regenerated by the Word and the Spirit if that is what God has in store for him.


- C.