@pychen - The bigger issue is that that they are Ben's
made up and false views that he himself do not hold to, and #5 is not
what I nor you hold to (unless I am mistaken).

Of course they are Ben's premises, and no, I don't agree with Premise 5 or the conclusions Ben has, which is why I gave my rebuttals.  Anytime you are arguing with an atheist, he is going to have different premises, otherwise their would be nothing to argue about. If Ben agreed with our premises, he would be a Christian. This doesn't take away from your rebuttals. They are still valid from the Christian worldview. I really believe it's important to let people see where you disagree. Like I said, a Christian reading that is not going to agree with Premise 5, but will agree with what you said if you allow them to see it.

The premises are foundational part of the conversation. As they are, they do not make any sense.

Right, and a bible believing Christian will see that and not agree with it or the conclusions, but will agree with what you and I said, if they can read what we said.

@pychen - Hey Peter,

Sorry you feel the way you do.  I don't understand why I'm not allowed to make an alternate Christian argument.  There are plenty of Christians who agree with premise 5 and not with premise 4 for instance.  Anom was one of them, I think.  So I would be arguing on their behalf here in possibly a different way.  I'm doing so in a more consistent way since obviously Jesus really *does* teach eternal damnation (as shown in the Biblical evidence).

If there's a such thing as righteous lying in the Bible's moral paradigm (as shown in the Biblical evidence), then premises 1-5 and the green conclusion that directly follows makes perfect sense.  Even if there's not such a thing as righteous lying in the Bible's moral paradigm, then there's plenty of space to rebut that after my original (supposedly faulty) argument has been presented.  That's the whole point of the argument map.  Somebody is wrong and someone may be right.  Maybe I'm the one who is wrong, but that can be shown on the map. I don't see what the problem is. 

Maybe you could tell me what other premises you feel would make more sense to you from my original comment (link) that started the conversation, because I don't understand how I could have misled you.  What did you think I've been arguing all along?   

Ben

@pychen - Peter,

I put a lot of time and effort into this chart and I still think you are being unreasonable.  I've already explained this, so I'm not going to repeat myself much here.  And I don't see anything in your comment above that clarifies how exactly you've been misled.  I presented the argument based off of my first comment to you and I've shown how it isn't a breach of the Christian worldview on the argument map.  I can claim to be arguing from the Christian worldview as a result.  All I see from you is a "no true Scottsman" fallacy as though you get to claim to represent true Christianity without being able to show why that is.  You claim you want honest reporting, but you can't show me how I've misrepresented my own original comment.  You just make bogus analogies that have nothing to do with what we are talking about. The premises you want to add are represented on the map already as supporting verses in your first rebuttal.  As I explained, those verses don't change anything.  I also don't see why you want me to misrepresent Larry's views as though he didn't walk into this debate with the same take on it as you.  He changed his mind after the fact, not before, so that would be dishonest to assert otherwise like he always believed as he does now.  People change their minds.  That's no crime.  However, it appears that one has to be intellectually dishonest in order to be a "true Christian" by your standards since clearly there is such a thing as righteous lying in the Bible's moral paradigm as I've shown.  God does it and God approves of people who do it.  Just because you are confused, doesn't mean you've been misled by me.  It just means you are confused.

Ben

@pychen - You still haven't shown me how my original comment could be more appropriately represented or how I've been inconsistent with the Christian worldview (if taken directly from the Bible) or how the additional redundant premises you keep bringing up change anything significant on the argument map even though they've been incorporated into your first rebuttal.  If you can't do any of that, you aren't stepping up to anything I'm saying.  You aren't my employer and as much as I would like to let you just have your way in a friendly manner (regardless of how coherent the request is), there are boundaries for that too and you are plainly stepping out of them without a hint of justifiable cause.  As it is, you just want to say "Christians don't do that."  Do you suppose a pastor or anyone that wrote the creeds could refute my argument?  If not, then why does their opinion matter?  Did you think the argument was that God was an unsuccessful liar?  Abraham sure was convinced given that he was just about to physically murder Isaac right up until the end!  You have absolutely no problem going with a "spiritual truth" despite the physical reality in that scenario, but all of the sudden when it comes to "God is truth" and "Christians walk in the truth" (and Satan as the father of lies would be the father of spiritually evil lies) that can't be just as much reality contradicting/spiritual truth as well?  Your position is sooooo arbitrary.  

If you want to just assert your uncritical conclusion and slap the label "conjecture" on what is clearly just reading comprehension, because mainstream Christian orthodoxy has ideologically steam rolled such passages historically, that's fine.  I would be happy to put that on the argument map and it will be just as easily refuted as everything else as circular reasoning.  The white lie theory (that's its possible for God to righteously lie, and that there are some good candidates) will be unaffected in any logical or Biblical way.  I can argue from these premises as a secular humanist that Christians have no right to be ideological hacks and do in fact have to think for themselves even if the core spiritual truth of Christianity is real.  The natural evidence still matters and Biblically speaking God may have deliberately misled people for righteous spiritual ends just like he did to Abraham.  There's nothing illogical about the position unlike the endless lame excuses contrived to justify things like eternal damnation (as though the Bible is totally unfamiliar with punishments fitting the crime or compassion).  Conservative Christians now have no excuse even in their loyalty to God.  They can't necessarily just toss up their hands despite their better judgment and say they don't know why eternal damnation is moral, they just "know" that it is because God says so.  "Maybe God was fibbing" is a much better explanation.  There's nothing "atheist" about this.  It's just an alternate Christian view that explains all the Biblical evidence better than your version does.  Unless you can show where I've been inconsistent logically, or scripturally, or how I've introduced the "lack of God" into the equation, it makes ZERO sense to call that an "atheist move." 

So, I don't need to change anything on the argument map to sustain my fundamental contention of the argument map.  In fact, it's already there in the purple box in the lower right hand corner of Map A.  So again, your confusion is just your confusion and just because you fail to put all the pieces together coherently doesn't mean we need to strip your contribution off the map.  Musterion99, LSP1, oeshpdog2, and yourself are the only Christian contributors and all of their red boxes are from virtually the same counter perspective to my blue and green boxes.  I can't tell any of them ideologically apart as stated on the map.  Larry's change of mind isn't even represented on the map (though it is mentioned once), but his objections still need to be there because other Christians will still believe in them regardless (just like yours).  Nobody else seems to think they have to agree with the opposing view (i.e. the original argument) in order to make rebuttals.  Why would they?  That makes no sense.  Your insistence that no one believes in all 5 premises is a complete failure to comprehend what is going on.  I'd like to say otherwise so this would be more pleasant, but that's exactly what it is. 

You want accurate reporting and the five premises and first conclusion clearly represent my original comment on your site.  It's just the breakdown of that so it is easy to see where I was coming from.  To change that is dishonest reporting.  And the only "change" you want to make is redundant and unnecessary as I explained eons ago and to which you've failed to step up to.  Truly there is no issue other than your misbegotten conviction that there is an issue.  You still think I'm all about deleting your comments even though I never have and don't have any plans to.  (And you still probably believe when I said I misread something you wrote a long time ago that I was actually conceding something important!  And yet you still bring that up on occasion!  All these persistent meaningless misunderstandings!  WHY!?!)  You never seem to let things go. 

We've wasted most of these comments on this.  I don't understand why you are so stubborn on such a trivial issue.  You're wrong about the conversation and you're wrong about the conversation about the conversation.   It sucks to have to take such a strong stand on the conversation about the conversation, but you might as well ask me to delete all of your regular comments, too, as though they have absolutely no coherent place in the conversation (even though technically many of them are originally on your site).  If the only way you can make your case is by continuing to think what you only believe are "Christian thoughts" as opposed to just "thought thoughts" I'm not even sorry.  That's just a license to be illogical and a failure of debate and reasonable conversation.  To remove your comments is a cop-out, because you can't defend your point of view without circular reasoning.  What would you think if I were asking something similar?  "I'm sorry, atheists, historically, just don't think that way.  Please remove all my comments because I thought you would understand atheists just think atheist thoughts to stay atheists."    Wouldn't you laugh your Christian rear end off?  And who would blame you? 

Anyway, all of this is incredibly unpleasant.  I don't look forward to correcting your gross misunderstandings of trivial issues when we could be talking about things of substance.  I would very much like to move on, but I'm not going to remove your contributions unless I have good cause.  And you simply aren't presenting it. 

Ben   

@pychen - Rebuttal 4A has been on the argument map since version 1, dude.  Maybe you could try replacing unargued Rebuttal 5A_1 on version 17.  That would be more prudent than calling me a sinner after accusing me of losing my cool.  Your PR skills suck, btw.  But mine aren't always the greatest either.   

Ben

@pychen - 

"...to call God a liar is to be an inserrectionist. But you are just being you, the rebellious sinner against the kingdom and rule of God over your life. So, we are back to the fact that you are working from your own worldview as an atheist in rebellion against God."

You are trying to pass that off as "ordinary person?"  Let's test this hypothesis.  Since we're both sinners here and there is absolutely no pejorative connotation (right?), then it logically follows in our persistent rebellion against god (whether saved or not) that it may be you who is rebelling against the appropriate understanding of God as a dynamic moral agent capable of misleading the elect for righteous ends, correct? 

I highly doubt you are cool with this.  If you truly mean "ordinary person" in no ad hominem way, then why even bring it up?  I don't often make mention of the fact we are just two ordinary fallible beings struggling to get things right in life, do I?  Is that where I bring every argument to?  Why would I unless it meant something more than that?  There must be *something* else going on there that you aren't willing to be straight forward with and I don't think you can answer these questions fairly.  I'm sure I will fail to convince you as I have in the past, but the point remains that you are making specific accusations against someone's character by pitting them in rebellion against your god, which is especially incoherent as you also claim in tandem that they aren't working from your worldview.  Can someone be in rebellion against another person and not know it?  Seems a bit implausible. 

"you give numbers and reference to your chart, but where is the discussion? Where is the dealing with the reaching of the Bible itself? Please address the "hinge" issues raised."

The discussion continued on the chart.  Everyone else seemed cool with tracking things on the map after they gave their rebuttals.  It makes things more efficient when you can easily see where any argument gets you and where things have already gone. 

I already dealt with the "hinge" issue.  Please follow along. 

Ben

@pychen - 

"I have not stated anything to attack you."

I believe you are mistaken.  Do you know what ad hominem arguments are?  Let me show you:

"You are a sinner out side of grace and are stilling living your life in rebellion to God and, while I have given up my rebellion, and fled to Jesus for acceptance with God. So, you and I are not the in the same boat as fellow sinners."

So we tested the hypothesis that we are just two ordinary folks talking to each other and that idea came up negative.  You are clearly asserting there is something wrong with me that is not wrong with you just because I disagree with your conclusions about the Bible.  The Eastern Orthodox had a clever saying.  "We know where the Holy Spirit is. We don't know where it isn't."  In other words, they knew better than to so quickly demonize people who weren't "official" members of their god club.  How do you know the Holy Spirit isn't talking through me in order to correct you?  Maybe I wouldn't even know it and he only wants to talk to you.  You are still a sinner right?  Maybe you shouldn't be saying things like this:

"the Christian worldview says that you do so because your spiritual father is the father of lies and so you take after your own father to call the holy and true God a liar."

And I'm in league with Satan apparently.  But you're not quite done contradicting the claim I first quoted:

"Until then, it is expected that you would call God a liar as your Spiritual father, Satan, called God a liar, (John 8:44)."

And that's the reason I'm reading Genesis coherently?  This is slander, Peter.  Especially since I'm calling God a righteous liar in this argument. In other words, God occasionally lies with good intentions.  Do you think Satan was enthusiastic about Germans lying to Nazis about the Jews they were hiding?  Probably not.  So you even misrepresent my position to slander me.  And you aren't even done:

"You know that you are in rebellion against God."

And I'm a big fat liar myself apparently since I claim to not believe God exists.   And none of this at all strikes you as ad hominem?  Sorry, Peter.  Despite what you would like to believe, deferring to your worldview does not somehow magically stop you from being responsible for your own claims.  Or are you not actually a Christian?  If not please say so.  Then you won't be responsible for the claims of the Christian worldview.  As it is, you are making an objective claim about my frame of mind.  You said "you know" as though I believe God exists.  How in the world would you know I know?  How do you know the mental states of hundreds of thousands of non-believers all over the world?  You can't pass this off as though it is neutral information you are not responsible for in any way.  They are claims you believe in and routinely apply regardless of the evidence in the way.

"I am sure you know enough of the Bible to acknowledge that that is the teachings of the Bible."

Yes, and since you know I know, it is amazing that you feel the persistent need to keep bringing it up.  Do you think I have a poor memory?  Why not bring up a hundred thousand other random claims from the Bible?  Why these claims?  You are always ready to jump the gun and call me a liar because I'm an atheist.  I can document several instances of this if you like from our past conversations.  You are quite "trigger happy" in that regard.  And you still manage to maintain there is no ad hominem theme here. All I would like to point out here is that this is your mental architecture inherited straight from Biblical doctrine and it is unavoidably ad hominem.   This makes for yet another good reason to reject Christianity for its internal moral inconsistency.

"and apposed to the clear didactic teachings of the Bible, and Heb. 11:19 clearly stated that Issac was received back from death."

There is nothing incompatible logically between God misleading Abraham and there IN ADDITION being a figurative meaning.  Both can be true simultaneously.  The one does not cancel out the other and this has been my argument since map number 1.  Hence, my interpretation is consistent with both passages and yours destroys the coherency of the Abraham story as though he was not mislead by God deliberately into believing God wanted him to physically sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering.

"You want to keep insisting that God is a liar, but without basis from the Christian worldview, other than your own worldview braking in."

I lifted the morality of righteous lying right out of your Bible and you are in denial of it.  Rahab does it and James didactically condones it.  That meets your criteria.  I've also plainly shown where God righteously misleads people in two explicit instances.  So all of this is coming from your worldview.  If you'd like to pretend otherwise, the conversation shifts from "thinking Christian thoughts" to "thinking deal-breaking thoughts."  In other words, if you are correct about the "god does not lie" passages, then I get to turn around and claim the Bible contradicts itself since you still aren't being straight with other parts of the Bible.  So pick your conversation, but I don't think you'll appreciate either result. 

If you want to hear about my moral paradigm, it doesn't allow me to condone a God who even pretends like eternal damnation is real.  That's like a parent threatening a child with throwing them in front of a bus, even if they don't really mean it.  It's still wrong.  Likewise, it is immoral to me for a God to command a person to murder their own child even if he doesn't really mean it.  What kind of psychological abuse is that for Isaac?  "Hope the voice in dad's head doesn't change its mind again?"  Oh dear...  So, no, this isn't my worldview talking.  This is unfortunately yours.

"To even claim God to be a liar, you have to state it from the Christian worldview..."

Um, no I don't.  Even if a deity needs to be responsible for mental and moral states, that doesn't mean Christianity has to be true.  You've heard of other theistic religions, right? 

"You really think that a one sided controlled boxes draw out by the one side without the agreement of the other  person, is the conversation itself?"

You've not shown it is one sided, but you have shown persistent gross misunderstandings of even remedial aspects of it.  I doubt anyone else will see it from your point of view. 

"Frankly, if anyone wants to take that as the discussion, then they really have no care for the truth of the case anyways."

Apparently you haven't even read it, so how would you know?  And you are slandering even the other Christians who were involved in the discussion apparently just to cover for your own misunderstandings. 

"I still insist that you remove my screen name from that chart."

I'm trying to be polite about this, but you honestly aren't presenting anything that is remotely compelling.  The discussion is at map 18 and you still haven't come to grips with map 1.     It's been 17 days and 18 of your comments since you decided to hold up this conversation over misunderstandings that don't even have to do with the core conversation itself.  You appear to stand entirely alone in your accusations even though 3 other Christians were involved in the argument map.  Time and again you've appealed to circular reasoning to justify what you only think are "Christian" conclusions whereas I've shown how my position is more consistent with what the Bible actually says.  As I've shown you've brought a whole lot of slander to bear in absence of substance to argue.  As I've said, "You still haven't shown me how my original comment could be more appropriately represented or how I've been inconsistent with the Christian worldview (if taken directly from the Bible) or how the additional redundant premises you keep bringing up change anything significant on the argument map even though they've been incorporated into your first rebuttal.  If you can't do any of that, you aren't stepping up to anything I'm saying."  That is still true. 

I would appreciate it if you would stop the ad hominem attacks and start getting the remedial aspects of the argument map straight so we could move on into productive conversation.  Perhaps we could even take a break and come back?  I have lots of other things to do in the meantime.   

Ben

@pychen - I think you are mistaken again, Peter.  Perhaps you should take more care with your understanding before you deepen your errors further.  But, in the meantime, I'm happy to continue to point out where you've gone astray with your understanding of the conversation.  Then you will be able to deal straightforwardly with what I have to say.

"You are taking my words out of context, I think anyone who read the above comment knows that I was stating the Christian worldview, which you still are unwilling to address."

But then you later say:

"You your self acknowledged that this is the Christian worldview"

One would think there's a missing puzzle piece there.  As I said, you are responsible for your own beliefs regardless of where you got them from.  Anyone is.  You have not even addressed that point, and instead pretend like I don't know what the Bible says.  Most of your comment is all about that error of yours.  I do know what the Bible says, and I know where you were coming from, and no, nothing was taken out of context, but you did take my criticism out of context because you still think you aren't responsible for your own beliefs and you didn't even address it.  That is your own error.  This will be comment 18 of you wasting our time with your misunderstandings.

"I am not an EO, as you know, so I do reject that quote even if it is EO or not."

Are you just a loyalist or are you a critical thinker?  Why does it matter where the saying came from (the genetic fallacy)? 

"The Bible states that all people who sin are a slave to sin."

I'm sorry, that doesn't give you absolute knowledge about any individual's spiritual state of affairs and so does not even address the EO's point of view.  In other words, since they cannot be presuppositonally sure of the spiritual state of affairs of any individual regardless of what god club they may or may not be currently a part of, they know not to so quickly demonize "out group" with Biblical rhetoric as you like to do as though it is already Judgment Day.  You are not only responsible for the beliefs of your worldview, but also how you put it into practice. 

"The issue is not weather a person who is an enemy of God, could be used by God to correct his people, that is a given fact of history in the Bible as a possibility."

Yay! If premise 1 is true, then maybe that's me!

"so, either you are a child of God or a child of Satan / either you belong to God or you do not / either you have eternal life or you don't"

So it is all black and white, and you propose to see clearly right now in this life?  And only those who give public lip service to what you think is correct are in fact children of God? 

"To declare the Christian worldview is not an ad hominem."

Merely asserting the contrary does not make it so.  You have to actually defend the integrity of the contents.  Not just present it as though there is no debate to be had.

"How is it that you are not aware that this is what the Bible says about you a nonbeliever? It maybe the Christians fault for not making it more clear. I am glad I had the chance to raise it here."

Oh it was clear.  That doesn't mean I think it's not an ad hominem.  In fact, being aware of what the Bible says is what makes me think it *is* ad hominem.  Merely quoting more of the Bible's ad hominem does not make it not ad hominem.  It just reinforces the same point that was already addressed. I'm perplexed you are "glad" since my criticism was that you keep bringing this up even though I am already familiar with it or that I'm going to forget 2 seconds from now.  And when I don't agree with you, you go even more in depth with it, like I don't understand.  I mean, do I need to give you Ben's Full Commentary on Every Bible Verse Ever to get you to let this ad hominem go?  You don't seem to recognize the reality that we do in fact persistently disagree. You think it is "too obvious" you are correct and so cannot seem to deal with someone actually disagreeing with what you would like to take for granted.

"and attacked me for even presenting the Christian worldview of your state as a lost sinner."

In the context of a civil conversation with people who disagree, it is ad hominem to claim that the disagreement is a result of some unknown and unprovable spiritual state.  You've apparently blasted even Larry with this even though he was honestly convinced by some "atheistic" argument and have defined yourself as the only true Christian in this conversation (musterion99 and oeshpdog2 aside).  As I continue to show, you are responsible for your own beliefs and your execution of those in practice.  You even admitted unbelievers can be used by God to correct the elect.  So you really don't have any excuse.

"Where is the Scriptural response to my points?"

On that argument map you won't read.  Remember?  I said, "If there's a such thing as righteous lying in the Bible's moral paradigm (as shown in the Biblical evidence), then premises 1-5 and the green conclusion that directly follows makes perfect sense."

"Where from the Bible are you able to make your accusation that God lied to Abraham?"

It was the part where God lies to Abraham in Genesis 22:2.

"The words are not there, as you admitted." 

That's a red herring, since you will be unable to describe what God did to Abraham in any other way without forfeiting the coherency of the passage. 

"What about the clear teachings of the Bible that God does not lie?"

That's rebuttal 8A, btw.

"How have you Biblically handled those where to claim that those verses are wrong? How about verses that Jesus is the truth, that God is truth, that the word of God is truth? How have you disqualify those verses? What about the Bible's teaching that Christians are to walk in the way of God, the way of truth? And that it is the sinners who's father is the the way of lying? How have you dealt with anyone of these issues against your false assumption conjecture, not found in the Bible?"

As I said 19 of your comments ago when this all started, those verses are redundant given that there is already representation on the argument map for them and for the rebuttal to them.  Premise 2 and premise 3 cover the fact that Jesus is God and that God is moral.  Hence everything argued by me in blue will be consistent with those premises on the argument map.  Righteous lying if God does it, is morally the same as Jesus doing it.  Hence the verses you present have the same rebuttal.  Rebuttal 2.  And rebuttal 8 for some clarification.  There is no issue here.

"Your own worldview of naturalism is unable to even to state that morality is wrong or good, and so you have to even assume the Christian worldview to claim God a liar."

The natural basis for morality is just another argument that we aren't discussing here.  And you are right, I've used the Christian worldview to call God a *righteous* liar.  Duh. 

"But maybe you can think about this, that your accepted faith in naturalism is so inapt that you have to assume the Christian worldview to even call God a liar."

Since when do I *have* to?  I do so in order to give you fewer excuses to be uncritical ideological loyalists.  That doesn't mean I think there is something wrong with naturalistic morality.  It just means there are many ways to go about that.  In my opinion your arguments fail in either discussion.  Perhaps you should not try to declare victory on arguments not currently being discussed.

So, will you be quoting me even more of the Bible that I'm already aware of?  I reject Christianity for lots of reasons you may want to steer clear of.  Perhaps you should keep the debate on topic.  Can we move on to productive conversation about what is actually on version 18 of the argument map?  There are tons of unaddressed blue boxes of mine just sitting there waiting for you to catch up with. 

Ben

@pychen - "I would expect you to say that I am mistaken."

You mean you wouldn't expect me to agree with your superior analysis of the conversation about the conversation?  :p  See, I actually do expect you to stop disagreeing with me about that so we can move on to productive conversation.  I'm sure you'll come around when you realize that you aren't losing anything by doing so.  I'm just trying to help you get there.  I have many more argument maps on the way (on naturalistic logic, morality, and on how eternal damnation isn't morally justified), and we need some trust on the foundational level so that every single one of them isn't undermined with some other unfortunate misunderstanding that doesn't have to do with the core issue.  So hopefully you'll be able to see that so that we can move on.

"You claimed, as you do again, to know the teachings of the Bible on this matter, and yet you accused me of "ad hominem". I clearly told you that I was talking from the Christian worldview. Why the false accusation of me?"

You said, "To declare the Christian worldview is not an ad hominem." proving you understand there is an issue to contest rather than there just being random false accusations being thrown at you for no particular reason.  If there is possibility that the Biblical worldview is inherently ad hominem towards unbelievers, then it makes perfect sense to point that out in discussion.  (Especially a discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with that aspect of Christianity.) 

You seem to be pretending like I didn't explain why, but this will be the third time I've explained why and the third time you haven't addressed the personal responsibility factor.  Remember, the last time around I said, "As I said, you are responsible for your own beliefs regardless of where you got them from.  Anyone is.  You have not even addressed that point, and instead pretend like I don't know what the Bible says.  Most of your comment is all about that error of yours.  I do know what the Bible says, and I know where you were coming from, and no, nothing was taken out of context, but you did take my criticism out of context because you still think you aren't responsible for your own beliefs and you didn't even address it.  That is your own error."  And I said, "I'm sorry, that doesn't give you absolute knowledge about any individual's spiritual state of affairs and so does not even address the EO's point of view.  In other words, since they cannot be presuppositonally sure of the spiritual state of affairs of any individual regardless of what god club they may or may not be currently a part of, they know not to so quickly demonize "out group" with Biblical rhetoric as you like to do as though it is already Judgment Day.  You are not only responsible for the beliefs of your worldview, but also how you put it into practice."  And I said, "So it is all black and white, and you propose to see clearly right now in this life?  And only those who give public lip service to what you think is correct are in fact children of God?"  And I said, "being aware of what the Bible says is what makes me think it *is* ad hominem.  Merely quoting more of the Bible's ad hominem does not make it not ad hominem.  It just reinforces the same point that was already addressed."  And I said, "In the context of a civil conversation with people who disagree, it is ad hominem to claim that the disagreement is a result of some unknown and unprovable spiritual state.  You've apparently blasted even Larry with this even though he was honestly convinced by some "atheistic" argument and have defined yourself as the only true Christian in this conversation (musterion99 and oeshpdog2 aside).  As I continue to show, you are responsible for your own beliefs and your execution of those in practice."  I'm sure you read all of this and decided you didn't care about it for some reason.  But that doesn't mean I didn't mean it and it is part of the conversation.  Perhaps you need an example to help you understand why it is important.

What if Richard Dawkins' book, "The God Delusion" taught that all religious people are puppy kickers who believe atheism is out to stop their puppy kicking habit and that's the only reason they don't listen to atheists?  What if I pointed to his book and merely explained that from my worldview, you are a puppy kicker.  What if I required no proof that you were a puppy kicker or that any other religious person ever was a puppy kicker?  Wouldn't you try to point out that you are not a puppy kicker, or not necessarily a puppy kicker, or that I have not shown that you are a puppy kicker, or that believing all religious people are puppy kickers who don't listen to good arguments for atheism because they don't want to stop kicking puppies is a prejudiced perspective and functions as an ad hominem attack in a civil debate?  What if when you do that I just start quoting more and more of "The God Delusion" to show that "it is just my worldview that all religious people are puppy kickers."  What if I don't listen to your persistent pleas for personal responsibility for my own worldview since I am the one that believes in it?  You see, Peter, it is not a false accusation.  You may not be used to thinking personal responsibility plays any role in the acceptance of your own belief system, but that doesn't mean someone shouldn't point it out to you. 

"How have you dealt with the problem of your claiming to hold to the Christian worldview for the sake of conversation and yet depart from it to formulate you own person conjecture not found in, and rejected by the clear teachings of the Bible."   

This is why we have argument maps to keep us from repeating the same rebuttals over and over and over again.  I've shown in great detail across the argument map how my interpretation is consistent with all of the Biblical evidence presented and how yours fails to deal with it.  I also responded to this in my last comment that you are unable to explain the Abraham story in a way that avoids the fact that God deliberately misled him to believe God wanted his son Isaac to be physically sacrificed as a burnt offering.  You still have not done this and not finding the exact words "god mislead Abraham" is a red herring.  I've shown you where James clearly teaches that Rahab was righteous for lying and you should know that God cannot condone sin.  If righteous lying is not a sin, then there's no reason a righteous God cannot righteously lie, just as the Abraham story shows him doing.  ALL of the verses directed at God or Jesus that say they cannot lie or say they are without sin should then be interpreted to mean they cannot *unrighteously* lie.  Even though the Bible has some nasty things to say about jealousy and anger, God and Jesus are still portrayed as jealous and angry on occasion.  As Larry pointed out, we should think there are righteous and unrighteous ways of being jealous and angry to avoid the contradiction even if the Bible doesn't absolutely spell it out.  

"How have you dealt with the issue that you are a lost sinner without Jesus, and subject to the judgement of God, as I have shown from the Bible."

For the sake of the conversation, since eternal damnation is against the punishment fitting the crime (an eye for an eye), and since I've shown consistently how God has no problem misleading the elect for righteous spiritual ends, it logically follows that if the core of the Christian worldview is established for other reasons, then Jesus is probably lying about hell.  Whatever crimes I'm guilty of in this life as an apostate will be sufficiently punished in some way.  And after that, presumably I'd go to heaven with everyone else.  Since God is supposedly a perfect being, he should have no trouble pulling a perfect win out of every situation.However, since I don't believe any of this is true, there's really nothing to deal with is there?  I've humored you, so now, can we leave this aside? 

"Your claim of EO teachings is rejected by me as false teaching."

I presented the EO perspective in order to give you another Christian option that might enable the Christian worldview to not be inherently ad hominem towards people not in your god club.  That's fine if you don't accept it.  I was trying to help you there, not refute you.  However, since you've again reaffirmed your conviction in the ad hominem, we are simply back to that and how you are avoiding taking personal responsibility for the claims of your worldview.

"Again, Ben, I employ you to repent of your sin and giveup your rebellion against God."

I still don't understand how you can maintain that I come at these issues from atheistic worldview and also am rebelling against a God I don't think exists.  I also don't think you need to evangelize me in just about every single comment.  I'm not trying to convert you to atheism in every comment, am I?  Not only are we not on topic, but we are having a conversation about a conversation and bringing up even another conversation about my own place in the Christian salvation scheme without establishing it is true or it even being a relevant topic.  Even if God exists, I'm not rebelling against him.  And if your worldview requires that to be the case, then that means your worldview is wrong and I have all the evidence I need of this in my own mind.  So the more you make the accusation, the more I can be confident Christianity is false first hand. 

"I have not at all claim to be the "only" Christian."

Well, you did say:

"Then added to that those who say they are Christians but would claim that God tell white lies, as Larry does"

It did seem like you were deriding his claim to being a Christian because he disagreed with you.  Just so we are clear, you really meant to say is that Larry is a mistaken Christian, right?  On just this issue as far as you know?  I can accept that. 

"surely I think even you could admit that Larry was not representing the Christian view on the matter in saying that God lies. I took him to task for it, as you can see above. He would admit that his pastor at the time would not agree with his point."

Um, no, I think Larry believes he is the one advocating the proper Christian view on the matter since he is going with what the Bible actually says rather than ideologically steam rolling it with one imbalanced perspective.  Can't pastors be wrong about it?  Does it matter if the whole Christian world disagrees with Larry?  Does that make him wrong?  Ad populam is a logical fallacy, remember? 

"I don't know much about EO, but I sure don't think they would claim that God lies, even with good intent."

If St. Kyril is any indication, of 2 Thessalonians 2:11, he says, "And on this account God shall send (that is, shall allow to happen) to them an influence (a mode or impulse to action) of error for them to believe the lie'"  The issue of God misleading people in many of the commentaries and position papers I've found online seems pretty evenly divided 50/50.  One group either goes with the ideology that God doesn't lie and interprets it out of the text without getting very specific (as you do) and the other group basically validates the "lie by proxy" model and then says "so what?" because God can't be accused of any wrong.  And I've even found another "heretic" Christian (other than Larry) that doesn't attempt to split any hairs and just accepts that God righteously lies.  You can check on my research on that if you want (link).

"You and Larry both agree that it is just a conjecture, then what is there to say about it?"

Larry says he's not dogmatic about it, but I certainly don't think it's conjecture at all.  It may be convenient for you to label my claims "conjecture" but you've admitted that "mislead" basically means the same thing as "lie" and you've failed to overturn the fact that God misleads Abraham into believing God wants him to physically offer Isaac as a burnt offering.  Are you saying that Abraham *knew* that it was only a spiritual sacrifice?  Are you saying Abraham knew the angel was going to stop him?  Was he just waiting for it?  Are you saying that God didn't realize Abraham would "misinterpret" the command?  *Those* would be random conjectures and my position isn't conjectural at all.  It's straight forward reading comprehension and the only reason you disagree is because of your ideological predispositions.  Period.  It doesn't matter if your local pastor agrees or not.  If he gives the same refuted rebuttals, then he's wrong.

"It is foolish for anyone who think that then they are looking at it, that they can honestly say that they are not seeing merely one side opinion." 

Anyone?  Remember, you are the only one of 4 other Christians involved who is making this accusation.  Larry thinks you should chill out.  I think musterion99 and oeshpdog2 would easily understand that the premises you wanted to be added are redundant and unnecessary and that they already have representation on the map as I've explained several times.  Musterion99 recognized she didn't agree with premise 5 and was okay with the fact it would be argued on another argument map.  Oeshpdog2 gave a rebuttal that was already covered by LSP1 and he accepted that promptly.  It is no crime to have a misunderstanding, but then to take 20 more comments?  I think I'm being pretty patient with this misunderstanding of yours.

Peter: "That is clearly what you said it is:  I asked: Is this going to be a chart that reflects the conversation we have or is it going to be just one sided?"

Ben wrote: "[Are you serious?  This argument map is a specific argument of mine and hence the 5 premises that go into that directly reflect the 5 premises of MY argument.  I'm sure all of the other Christians that have participated in the chart understand that.  There's no conspiracy.]"

Clearly?  Haven't I corrected this misunderstanding as well more than once already?  Recall, I explained at length in response:

"I was responding to this quote of yours in context (link): Peter:  "Any honest person looking at this should be able to pick up the fact that your # 5 is not speaking from the Christian. That is your belief. Not Biblical and not Christian. Yet you stack them together with the Christian views. Why?"  I was answering the "why" question at the end, and it appears you think I was directly responding to the first half of your comment instead.  I can somewhat see why you might get that impression, but that's just a misunderstanding and we could leave it at that.  The reason I was telling you that the argument was mine is because it was my argument.  You are reading way too far into that and not seeing things from my perspective.  Obviously there wouldn't even be something to argue about if I were not making some new challenging argument.  I would agree that the entire argument map is undermined if I'm leaving out some critical part of Christian theology just because.  If that were the case, I'd want my arguments pulled off the map, too!  I happen to be under the conviction that my hypothesis of what my quote meant is a better explanation of the facts from our comments.  Mainly because I knew what I was thinking when I wrote it.  :D  If you want to continue with your misguided interpretation of what I said, then that will greatly hinder our ability to communicate with one another.  I would greatly appreciate if you would take the time to reconsider, since I have a lot to do, and none of this is contributing to progress." 

In response to that you ignored the fact I *explained* why I didn't include your premises and you ignored the fact there was an argument to be had at all.  And you've ignored the already implemented compromise of including the verses you wanted as supporting verses for your first rebuttal. 

Hopefully, you'll finally be able to see where I'm coming from and that there is no reason to be threatened by moving on to have a discussion on the argument map about the core issue. 

Ben 

@pychen - "Well, trust is ideal, if the person who I am talking with will not distort the very conversation that we had with false premises that where not part of the conversation, nor held my anyone in the conversation."

If you had shown me what would make a better presentation of my original comment that started this argument map, and it was I who was being unreasonable, you might have a point.  However you've simply avoided the issue in favor of accusations and some very twisted understanding.  

"Ben, do you have any idea of what an ad hominem is? Then the judge says to the criminal, "you are found guilty."  Is that an ad hominem?"

That analogy presupposes the Christian worldview has been established as true in this conversation for real rather than as a necessary premise (premise 1) for a hypothetical argument.  I don't know why you think I'm going to somehow respond to it, just because I'm making a consistent argument based off of Christian premises I don't believe in. 

"Again, you claim to know the teachings of the Bible, but here I state that according to the Bible (as quoted above) you are a lost sinner, subject to the judgment of God. I am not stating my knowledge of you, but the Bible state clearly that those who do not have only Savior are lost and will be dammed."

If you know these things are not true about me, then why do you keep pretending like they apply?  

"Ben, you know every well that I have been saying this is the declaration of the Bible, and you know every well that you do not claim to believe in Jesus for salvation. Why the false accusation of me?"

I agree it is a declaration of the Bible, and that I am an atheist.  Not sure why you keep bringing that up like that magically absolves you from being responsible for what you believe and how you present it in a conversation with a non-believer.

"According to the Bible you are a lost sinner. You responce is that I don't the the spiritual state of a person, well, I did not claim to, but according to Jesus. John 14: 6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." There is no other access to the God without Jesus. So, do you have Christ Jesus as your savior or not? If not then, what is more for me to say that you are a lost sinner, without a the Savior."

Well, since you haven't shown that the Christian worldview is actually true (and this argument map is not even a conversation about whether Christianity is true or not), then either being a "lost sinner" doesn't really mean anything or it does.  If it doesn't mean anything, then why bring it up?  I guess being a lost sinner must not be so bad then, eh?  Or if it does mean something, it is slander against my character.  There really aren't other options here.  You've admitted that none of this actually has to do with any of your knowledge of me personally. Degrading claims against someone without proof is ad hominem in a debate about some other topic.  Do you want to say that being a lost sinner in rebellion against God is a morally neutral claim?  Seems to me that you should probably tactfully save such rhetoric for when I actually agree with you that Christianity is true.  I already have my Christianity vaccination shot, so it is neither here nor there to me, but it is ad hominem nonetheless and I'm sure you bring it to bear quite often with lots of atheists.  If you want to improve your communication skills, you should probably listen. 

"So, Dawkins' book is your Bible??? ha ha. That is funny. But, Ben, Dawkins is not the God of your worldview, is he?  Ben, do you claim to be without sin? Never done anything wrong in your life? Never once lied? What do you do about your life time of sining?"

Your response to my analogy is that it doesn't apply because Dawkins is not God and that I'm obliged to think for myself.  That completely misses the point, but okay.  Let's pretend Dawkins is God, and that "The God Delusion" is his holy book denouncing Judeo-Christianity as the false religion, and in it he says that all Christians are puppy kickers and that they avoid the conclusions of Dawkinsism because they secretly wish to continue kicking puppies.  Does this make me not responsible for the accusation that all Christians are puppy kickers?  Should the fact that not all Christians are puppy kickers matter?  If I can't prove to you that Dawkins is God, should I feel free to slander all Christians with accusations of puppy kicking anyway?

"Drawing an arrow is not expositing the text itself. You make this claim, but where is that shown? You keep going to your chart, but it is not there. If you really got words to say that is meaning to enable you to state: [God lies to Abraham in Genesis 22:2.]  Then show me in Gen 22, where you say that the Bible teach that God lied to Abraham. Where in the entire chapter? Where?"

That's Rebuttal 2 and 4A.  God tells Abraham to offering Isaac as a burnt offering, but then reveals through an angel that he doesn't really want him to do that.  It's pretty straight forward.   There is no way to get around that Abraham was misled,  and that God deliberately did it to inspire a positive spiritual reaction.  You can't possibly deal with all the aspects of the story without affirming my conclusion and that's why you so heavily rely on your superficial responses. 

"Again you say, "God deliberately misled him". Where in the text says that God lied to or misled Abraham? It is your personal conjecture, not stated in the text itself."

The passage does not have to contain that exact phrase for it to mean exactly that.  You've completely ignored my questions to avoid the issue:  "Are you saying that Abraham *knew* that it was only a spiritual sacrifice?  Are you saying Abraham knew the angel was going to stop him?  Was he just waiting for it?  Are you saying that God didn't realize Abraham would "misinterpret" the command?"  Perhaps your standard for being convinced is for the Bible to explicitly say, "God righteously misleads people" but that doesn't mean my brain is going to arbitrarily shut off when reading Genesis 22.  If that's what it takes to be a Christian, then I have good reason not to be one. 

"What does James says is why she was considered righteous? Where is the word lying anywhere in the text? It is not. What was she considered righteous? "she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction". No where in the text says what you are anting it to say."

The argument map already covers this:  In Rebuttal 12A_1B: "The act of protecting the spies *required* righteous lying.  Joshua 2:4-5  "But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, 'Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.  At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don't know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.'"  Rebuttal 14A_1A: "So you think Rahab *will* be judged *later* for lying?  Even though James *specifically* says she was counted righteous?  Wow."  Maybe you could try following along so that we don't have to repeat ourselves over and over and over again?  Do you like the repetition for some reason?  I'd like to complete the conversation sometime this year. 

"That is the problem with your worldview imposing on to the narrative of the Bible what the Bible it self does not state. By imposing your atheistic worldview, you left the conversation."

Does everyone leave the conversation when they disagree with you?

"As I have said, Larry is wrong to let your worldview, dictate how the Bible is to be understood as you are doing."

You think Larry is infected with the atheism?  Is that what they call reading comprehension these days? :p

"And still yet, your worldview is fine with lying. For you white, gray, or black lies are equal in your view of the world. So, I do reject your lying worldview, and clearly hold that God, as the Bible states does not lie. You does your worldview have to say about that? Nothing."

I think we can leave this to our conversation on natural morality.  

"Entirely false confusion of subjects. But your worldview is fine with confusing subject, because your worldview has no basis for logic."

Well in your worldview, God has no basis for *his* logic, but I think we can set the discussion on natural logic aside as well.

"However, the Bible does not state that anger is itself sinful. (Eph 4:26). It is good and right to be jealous and angry when the occasion calls for it. The Bible clearly states that God is a just and angry God. His anger is not human anger that is often given over to sin, but his anger is only and righteous."

Matthew 5:22 sure does seem to condemn all anger on the face of it. Ephesians 4:26 could be interpreted to mean that one should not sin *further* in anger in light of Matthew.  It does not specifically say that "anger is not sinful" does it?  Isn't that your standard?  Shouldn't everything else be considered conjecture?  

And if God is love (1 John 4:8) and if love is not jealous (1 Corinthians 13:4), then how can God be a jealous god?  Perhaps there are some passages that Christians just have to "understand" to avoid contradictions in concept.  

"Can anyone of these verses be taken to mean that God does lie? I clearly don't think so. The Bible is clear about this, and Larry was wrong to state otherwise."

I'm sure you're aware that I clearly think otherwise and that the Bible clearly shows otherwise.  That's why there's an argument map, dude.  We disagree!  Now if you could just stop reading so much into the fact that I disagree with you, we might actually be able to have a pleasant conversation.  If you are interested in that, please see Rebuttal 2 and the rest of the argument map from there to know what needs to be addressed from your perspective.

"Well, Ben, you have been humoring Larry and me this entire time. I knew you don't claim to be a believer, and again, you have no frame work to even talk about the teachings of the Bible. You don't believe there is a God, you don't have any moral basis not to lie. But that is the problem, this entire-subject is outside of your worldview, and you are not able to hold on to the Christian worldview consistently for even the sake of conversation."

Well, if "holding on to the Christian worldview consistently" just means being an ideological hack who steam rolls all contrary data uncritically, then that wouldn't have been very hard to do would it?  Why can't we pretend like "being a consistent Christian thinker, conversation 1" is over.  Yay!  Hell is real!  And God doesn't righteously lie!  The end.  And we can start "being a consistent Christian thinker, conversation 2" where we actually think critically about what we are saying because God gave us the brains to do so?  If logic and thought in general is only valid in the Christian worldview, then why don't you use it?  If God gave us a sense of right and wrong and humans are capable of coming to accurate moral conclusions, then why is it you don't do that?  If you are willing to accept a God who lets people suffer in hell for all eternity, then it really shouldn't be any problem for you to accept a God who even lies with *evil* intent.  But I suppose, that's another argument map.  

"It is my guess, but I would even bet that you know what I have been saying about this point all along. You would even agree with me that the Bible does not say that God lies. Yet, you want to do what you can to distort the teaching of the Bible on the matter, because according to the Bible you are a God hater. You don't believe that, as you don't believe there is a God. But... do you believe that lying is a bad thing. Don't you? Why? On what basis?"

No, I think I've made a perfectly consistent Christian argument.  I don't think finding the exact phrase "God righteously lies" is relevant when the Abraham story cannot be understood in any other way.  I think you are the one distorting Biblical teachings especially the James passage in reference to Rahab.  I think you are still making an ad hominem attack by deferring to the Bible's characterizations of non-believers to explain my motives and I think you should take responsibility for your own beliefs rather than avoiding the issue.  

I think lying is a bad thing for a number of reasons.  I wouldn't want to be lied to myself and an environment of mutual trust supports all of my other desires in life.  Typically lying doesn't work (I also just kind of suck at it), and is too much work to maintain.  The truth is just plain easier to keep track of.  And I think these basic reasons would appeal to most people who want that same arena of mutual trust with their fellow human beings.  No imaginary basis is necessary when we have lots of real reasons to avoid lying.  It seems to me that Christians are already very familiar with all the worldly benefits of living a moral lifestyle, but still somehow they don't recognize the stand alone selling point of morality in and of itself as though that could never be appealing if God wasn't coaxing them into it.  And then they are totally mystified when just as many atheists are moral.  I wonder when that wall of cognitive dissonance will finally fall.   

"Ben, I am very much on the subject, because it was your claim that you are able to hold on to the Christian worldview for the sake of conversation, and yet the Christian worldview has you burning in the lake of fire."

I will get right on pretending to convert for the sake of this conversation to avoid this hypothetical lake of fire.  Quit trying to justify yourself, Peter.  You are waaaaaaay off topic.

"But I got to evangelize to you because you really, in all realness, is heading to the pits of Hell. It is not an intellectual game. The real worldview is God's created world. It is he who enables you to think and live in this world. I am sure you would consider your self to be a moral person. yet, on what basis is there morality? By what standard are you able to know right from wrong?"

I'm certainly not going to convert to Christianity based on you asserting your conclusion a whole lot.  Twenty-one comments later, you still aren't arguing on the argument map.  You're still making petty arguments about the argument.  You are still making all sorts of ad hominem attacks on me and not taking responsibility for your own worldview or how you present it.  You are still appealing to other debates you also haven't won as though they are settled.  You are still trying to evangelize me in a completely off topic kind of way.  And out of all of this, you expect me to convert to Christianity?  When did God tell you to be incredibly unreasonable in order to get to my heart?     

"Ben, you know very well, there is a God and that you are answerable to him. That is why you don't like it. That is why you cling to a false worldview of naturalism."

Peter, if I told you that you know very well that there isn't a God and that you are too afraid to have to think for yourself and that's why you don't like it.  And if I told you that you cling to an imaginary worldview for that sense of false security, what would be your response?  Pretend like I said something similar.  

"Friend, there is salvation in Jesus. You don't have to be confronted with God's holy wrath against you. In Jesus, God extents his love to rebellious sinners. You don't have to face the holy righteous wrath of God. He is wiling to save you and accept you into his family.  Consider your life time of sinning, and repent. Confess your sins to Jesus, and he may except you, and make you right with God."

If that's all true, then maybe you should think about doing a better job defending your worldview so that I have good reason to think it is actually true.  I think that may actually require listening to me, rather than pretending like your perspective is beyond criticism.

Ben

@pychen - Peter,

As I just said in the pulse, I think your attitude is taking a change for the worse and that you no longer are interested in what my perspective actually is.  If that's really the case, then that's fine.  Please say so, so that I can quit wasting my time thinking that politely correcting these misunderstandings is actually going somewhere.  This is an 8 page long response after all, and I don't anticipate you changing your mind even though many of these misunderstandings are pretty trivial in nature.  You've gone as far as calling me a liar in your last comment and it seems that you have started interpreting everything I say through a jaded lens.  I apologize for whatever my contribution to that effect was.  I'm only human.  Regardless, in the interest of actually communicating and moving forward, that doesn't leave me many options other than making you even more jaded by continuing to disagree with you at length.  My experience with this kind of conversation type in the past is that it just goes on and on and on with very little content at stake and supported primarily by stubbornness and ego on both sides.  That's just not a fun game to play.  If you cannot honestly show any good faith here and take some mundane explanations of my perspective seriously, then we can call this quits.  I'm sure you'll find lots of other atheists out there to talk to who will be as kind and patient as I have been with you.

"Ben, maybe if you would read my comments over again before you cut it up to comment on them. Then you would not be contradicting your own comments in response."

I actually spend many hours trying to make sure I get things right even though my girlfriend disproves. 

"Do you really think you can rewrite the conversation with me even as I am talking with you?"

I'm not sure what you are talking about.  I didn't change the words of any of your comments (though I do occasionally correct grammar). 

"You should at least make it into a meaningless chart then in that chart claim that I did not clearly pointed out that you created false premises that you nor I hold to, and not part of the original conversation."

Is it only meaningless because you can't argue at where the conversation is actually at?  The five premises are clearly representative of my original comment on your site that started the entire discussion.  You've not shown otherwise. 

"How many times do I have to state this over and over again, until you are willing to stop over looking the issue (or as you said that I did not make that case, when I so clearly have, repeatedly)?"

The issue is that you have been grossly misunderstanding some very trivial aspects of the argument map for 22 comments now.  The extra premises you want added are already accounted for on the map.  You have in no way stepped up to the claim that they are redundant and unnecessary.  The only thing you clearly do is repeat your already refuted claims or refer back them as though I can't just refer back to my refutation.

Ben:  "[If you know these things are not true about me, then why do you keep pretending like they apply?]"

Peter:  "Ben, how is that even a response to what I said: "here I state that according to the Bible (as quoted above) you are a lost sinner, subject to the judgment of God... the Bible state clearly that those who do not have only Savior are lost and will be dammed."?"

The full quote of yours is:  ""Again, you claim to know the teachings of the Bible, but here I state that according to the Bible (as quoted above) you are a lost sinner, subject to the judgment of God. ****I am not stating my knowledge of you,**** but the Bible state clearly that those who do not have only Savior are lost and will be dammed.""[emphasis mine]  Are you the one rewriting the conversation to suit your own ends? That seems pretty dubious, Peter.  It appears you still aren't interested in acknowledging you are responsible for your own worldview.  And you aren't taking responsibility for how you present that worldview in the context of a debate/discussion with someone who disagrees with you about a lot of things.  You are using the Bible's ad hominem against my character to explain why I disagree with you and that's still an ad hominem attack from you even if that's really what the Bible intends to teach (which I was never disputing, since it's one of the many reasons I reject Christianity as a morally incoherent worldview).  Even if I am damned, that doesn't mean you are correct about the actual argument.  Non-damned people can be wrong and damned people can be right.  Do you think Larry is now damned?  Or can he just be honestly mistaken?  Can damned people be honestly mistaken?  There's no way around it.  You habitually rely on ad hominem in debate when unbelievers don't agree with you and then you have an entirely different standard for believers that has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the arguments.  That's ad hominem.  You are attacking me personally rather than sticking to the issue.  If you don't like me pointing this out, it seems obvious you should just stop doing it.   

"all you had to do is read what I wrote in context. But I guess you are not willing to do that with the Bible, you are not going to do that with me either."

I'm trying to show you how your Christian beliefs function in debate for the sake of your own presentation skills.  You can take that personally or you can learn from it and be a better communicator in the future. 

"I have shown Christianity to be true in other talks. But that is not what is going on here."

You are justifying your ad hominem based off the premise you have been successful in convincing me that Christianity is true.  The false premise there is that you've actually convinced me.  As I've said before, if you don't want me to talk as though I am the clear victor in every discussion, then you should probably extend me the same courteousy.  Last time you claimed to be factoring that in, but I never quite get to see the dividend of that claim, do I?  

"You claim that you are able to hold on to the Christian worldveiw consistently, and that means that you are going to have to work from the worldview that the Christian worldview is true. Christianity says that all sinners without Jesus are lost and going to hell. So, then it follows that you are trying to hold to a worldview, that reject you as a lost sinner going to Hell."

Do you want me to pretend convert or not? 

"Ben, I am glad that you do not want your "character" to be slandered (I do not want to do that, and I do not want that done to me)."

So stop doing it.  What's so hard about this?  Stop quoting me the ad hominem from the Bible against non-believers.  Stick to the actual topic.  That's not an unreasonable request.

"But by what do you judge? Why do you assume it is a wrong thing to have your character slandered? You say you don't like it, but by what standard are you able to say that it is wrong to do so against you?"

Perhaps you don't recall our conversation on morality where I pointed out that if "Gentiles" cannot evaluate moral claims, then Paul is wrong to say they can and therefore your version of Christianity is wrong.  Further, there are many versions of theism out there and so even if it takes a deity to justify all things mental, that doesn't mean Christianity wins by default.  And just because I may be damned in your worldview, does not mean that is the reason I may be mistaken about any given topic.  To connect it in this conversation as though my damnedness is affecting my ability to think rationally *is* ad hominem.  Please quit attacking my character.  It will not win the argument and it will not win my nonexistent soul. 

"Again, I have claimed that the atheist worldview you hold to has not issue with your character being slandered or spit at, the only reason you are even able to make issue with it is because you are borrowing from the Christian worldview that human lives have dignity."

Maybe when you actually prove that Christianity is true, you can claim ownership of dignity.  In the meantime, I can't help but notice you worship a being that enslaved humanity to depravity in order to get attention.  Perhaps we should reevaluate our definitions of dysfunctional relationships in general to accommodate this "basis" of dignity, or maybe we should recognize that being a Christian is not so manly as you claimed before, but instead more like being a battered housewife. 

"On the other hand, is it a slandered if the Christian worldview, God himself says  that you are a sinner, when you actually are?"

In context of this conversation it is slander to say the reason I disagree with you is because I'm not a follower of Jesus.  You don't know what my true spiritual state of affairs is.  You haven't proved Christianity is true.  If the Bible claims I'm in rebellion against God, and I know I'm not, then that means I have an easy access disproof in my own brain that your worldview is wrong.  It should work both ways if you really think your worldview is coherent.  Further, unless you are going to pretend like these are morally neutral claims, you are complicit in the insult of a whole lot of people in a bunch of other religions who are probably much more sincere and spiritually advanced than you who you don't even know.  You can't tell me your worldview owns morality and then ignore all of this with blind ideology.  You cannot avoid taking responsibility for these real world claims about real world people.   

"You don't like to hear it, but that is not the same as to say that by calling you a sinner, when in fact you are a holy and righteous person, without even one spot, not even one act of sin. Do you sin, Ben? If so, then isn't it fitting to call what a person is?"

Being imperfect is a mundane fact of human existence. Christianity blows that grossly out of proportion for its own dysfunctional theological ends as though one blemish deserves an eternity of punishment.  It's ridiculous.  If God gave me a sense of right and wrong, then why is it this sense tells me God is wrong?  Christianity is internally incoherent all over the place.  I'm sure you love hearing all about how messed up your religion is, but the point is that you aren't just saying I'm imperfect in a completely neutral descriptive kind of way that equally applies to us both in some meaningless sense.  You are specifically saying that I am in active rebellion against your imaginary friend and that I am more depraved than you are simply because you are in the Jesus club.  That is ad hominem and it is as arbitrarily imposed a character profile as the hypothetical Dawkinsism claim that all Christians kick puppies.    

"So, you are not an atheist? You worship Dawkins. That maybe saying more than you want. Everyone's got to worship something, and you choose to worship the creature rather than the Creator."

Yes, I'm an atheist.  No, I don't worship Dawkins.  No, it's not saying more than I want.  It's just a hypothetical scenario that you are reading way too much into.  Being desperate for a point and opportunistic is not very dignified of you, in my opinion.  Do you actually think "The God Delusion" says that all Christians kick puppies?  I haven't even read the book, Peter.  The first chapter was too painful.  The only reason I use it is because I don't think you'd recognize my favorite atheist writers.  Dawkins is just a random atheist symbol out of the communication grab bag and you are way too opportunistic to keep yourself from jumping to all these lame conclusions.  And just because you worship something, doesn't mean everyone else does as well.  How is that not just more degrading slander for Christians to mischaracterize unbelievers with?  Perhaps you just don't want to feel awkward about worshiping something so everyone has to worship things (even if they really don't)?  Please keep your ad hominem to yourself.  It isn't going to convince me of anything favorable to your position. 

"You are just being nice again."

Would you prefer me to start being mean?  ;)

"Your god-Dawkins have very nasty things to say about Christians"

I'm sure he does.  He's incredibly tactless.  Seems like you two would get along. :p  Does that mean I should treat all Christians poorly based off of his words?  Or should I take responsibility for my own beliefs?   

"So, Ben, are you a sinner? Have you ever sinned once in your life? Do you sin? What your trying to say is rejected by that fact that not all Christians kick puppies. I have never kicked a puppy in my life. I have never been even close to a puppy enough to kick one. But have you ever been closed to sinning? Have you ever sinned? You on the other hand kicked that puppy, told the lie, fibbed, cheated,"

How do I *know* that you don't kick puppies?  If Dawkins says it, it must be true.  Maybe I should just start quoting you a whole bunch of imaginary passages from "The God Delusion" to show you have you've taken what I've said out of context?  I would be in no way responsible for that claim because Dawkins is god.  And even though you know for sure that you don't kick puppies, that doesn't matter in the slightest to me.  I'll just keep repeating the claim because Dawkins says so even if you are laughing your rear end off at me for being so mistaken.  Sound good?

"was angry with people,"

Oopsie.  I thought anger wasn't a sin in and of itself.  ;)

"hated God, lusted after a girl(s), (not really even trying to list what you have done, I don't even claim to know), but  the point is, Have you ever sinned? What does that make you, Ben? A Sinner?!? {my guess is, I think you are honest enough to say that you do sin. You did not write back stating that you never sinned, that you are the accessional holy person.} What do you do about your life time of sinning?"

Yes, well I think it was already plain from other things I've written to you that I believe I'm morally imperfect.  But my point is it doesn't matter.  My imperfection doesn't mean I'm wrong about what is on the argument map or the argument about the argument map.  You are still stuck in ad hominem land burrying yourself deeper and deeper in as you try to justify yourself more and more.  You are just as imperfect as I am, and I don't use your morally depraved status against you in the conversation.  Just pointing out your actual errors will do.  All you got to do is drop it.  It'd be polite if you would apologize, too.  But I'll settle for just moving on, since crazy Christian claims don't really mean anything to me.  *Can* we move on without further misunderstandings, ad hominem, and evangelism?  Or not? 

Peter:  "You wrote: [That's Rebuttal 2 and 4A....]"

"How is that even a response to the factual question I am asking?: "Again you say, "God deliberately misled him". Where in the text says that God lied to or misled Abraham? It is your personal conjecture, not stated in the text itself."

So are you trying to pretend like those "..." don't have anything after them?  Seems pretty dubious, Peter.  Especially for someone claiming that I don't read what you write and that I rewrite your part of the conversation.  The full quote that you are avoiding goes like this:  "That's Rebuttal 2 and 4A.  God tells Abraham to offering Isaac as a burnt offering, but then reveals through an angel that he doesn't really want him to do that.  It's pretty straight forward.   There is no way to get around that Abraham was misled,  and that God deliberately did it to inspire a positive spiritual reaction.  You can't possibly deal with all the aspects of the story without affirming my conclusion and that's why you so heavily rely on your superficial responses."  So you are still relying on your superficial responses instead of dealing with my argument.  I'm not going to somehow forget what I've said just because you fail to quote it. 

"The problem is that you have arbitrarily claimed what you say the text teach, but even you admitted that it is not in there and it is your own conjecture, not found in the text. I rest my case."

You didn't answer any of my questions and that's probably because you know you can't.  It's quite dubious that you quoted around them:  "Are you saying that Abraham *knew* that it was only a spiritual sacrifice?  Are you saying Abraham knew the angel was going to stop him?  Was he just waiting for it?  Are you saying that God didn't realize Abraham would "misinterpret" the command?"  Like I keep saying, you can't possibly engage the narrative without affirming my conclusion or coming up with crazy conjectures to support some other interpretation.  The fact the Bible has God mislead Abraham is not a matter of "conjecture" but instead mere reading comprehension.  That's not going to change just because that doesn't fit your preconceived notions.   

"I demonstrated by providing and analyzing the text it self, that that is another false conjecture on your part. How many times do you have to be refuted for you to start being honest with the fact that you are just spinning things not found in the Bible itself? You are misreading James. Is that true?"

Being refuted once will do.  Perhaps you should try it sometime. 

"But you left the subject of what James said, and for what James says she was counted righteous. Then you try to pull James right back, as if you continued talking about James when you moved out of the context. Why the distortion?"

It is distortion to say that she protected the spies without lying to the guards.  James would not have condoned her actions if it required sin to pull it off.  If she'd robbed a bank to donate to charity would we expect James to condone the action of donating to charity?  Is she going to have to answer to God for that evil lie of hers that got her counted as righteous?  I don't think you will ever answer those questions honestly. 

"Not at all, but you are an atheist, and you don't have the frame work to talk about the subject meaningfully. Ya, You left the subject when YOU imposed YOUR opinion onto the text, as if the text says what you want it to say. You are no longer working from the Christian worldview when you do that, and thus, left the building."

That's just your opinion.  It should have been up for debate.  You are conflating multiple levels and it amounts to you asserting your conclusion and blaming me for your fallacious reasoning in the argument and the argument about the argument.  If I'm stepping out of Christianity, then you should have been able to show that with argument on the argument map.  You are unable to provide consistent rational reasons for your perspective and so instead you try to shut down the argument.  Seems pretty dubious.

"You are wrong, because you don't know the context. Jesus is talking with people on the human level of being angry and acting out in that anger being sinful. The text is not talking about God, as you are trying to context it to God."

So what exactly could God do that could ever be considered evil?  If he's off the hook for everything, then lying with malicious intent doesn't sound like a divine crime.  Makes no sense, dude.

Ben:  "[Ephesians 4:26 could be interpreted to mean that one should not sin *further* in anger in light of Matthew.  It does not specifically say that "anger is not sinful" does it?  Isn't that your standard?  Shouldn't everything else be considered conjecture?]"

Peter:  "So you do know that you should follow this rule, when why the rejecting of the rule when you feel like it, and accepting it when you feel like it? Why the hypocrisy?"

So how exactly did your hypocrisy turn into my hypocrisy?  I don't have to endorse a method in order to show that you are inconsistent.  Certainly there is such a thing as imposing conjecture on a text, but that's just not the issue here.  It's just basic reading comprehension and I'm forcing you to defend numerous passages based on reading comprehension and context, just like I'm doing for the Abraham story.  You are validating my perspective by continuing to disagree here. 

"You are wrong, Each verses must be understood in their own context before one can say anything about them in relation to the other. Eph 4:26 is clearly saying that being angry does not follow as identical to sinning, thus anger is not inherently sinful. That is what it says: "In your anger do not sin". The text instructs the person to while being angry, do not sin."

Yeah, if your standard is that the Bible has to explicitly spell every little thing out for you to believe it, then you have no basis for your conjecture since it doesn't say "anger is not a sin"  Sorry.  You are just labeling it "clearly" and being hypocritical and arbitrary. 

"You have made another mistake in your interpretation: You quotes that "God is love," but then you turned that to mean that "love is God." Thus, A=B, does not always mean that B=A."

Actually A=B is the same as B=A, technically. 

"Humans love, does not mean love is human."

Well that's an action. 

"Grass is green, does not mean green is grass."

Hey, a good example!  Yay!  The problem is we agree here and you don't realize you are supposed to be *disagreeing* here.  I claimed we needed to "understand" these passages rather than be so superficial.  You attempt to turn the tables, but fail to recognize you are arguing against your own perspective on the Abraham story. 

"Again, your false conjecture, and thus the rest of your point falls to pieces."

See, since you were arguing on my side there for a minute, it is so easy for you to see how the opposing view (your view) falls to pieces.  :D

"You don't have the frame work to deal with the subject, but you say that you are able to hold on to the Christian worldview for the sake of conversation, but you did not, and so the issue."

Yes!  There's an issue!  To debate!  Incidentally I won the debate partially with another Christian.  That's what the argument map is for!  It's not for us to get miffed when we don't have good arguments for our side and we just need to be ideological loyalists rather than critical thinkers. 

"It is indeed funny that you would make this claim, when you also insist that I should stick with the words of the text, and yet what you do is to make false claim onto the Bible. So, clearly you are lying. You did not present a Christian argument at all."

So now you come out and say it.  You think I'm a liar.  Peter, are you absolutely sure that we don't just disagree?  Do you have good evidence that I'm a liar?  I defend Christians from these accusations all the time (link) from other atheists that jump to similar conclusions about creationists.  It's just too difficult sometimes to see where someone else is honestly coming from.  If you are going to call me a liar, then I think it's only fair to start calling you a puppy kicker.  Why do you hate puppies so much, Peter? 

"You do not hold to the Christian worldview, when you just said above that you where doing so. Then, you only stated your don't like to be lied to, and that it would be hard work for you to  tell a lie and live consistent to it. I was not asking for your personal dislike or inability. I was asking for the standard for morality." 

Isn't the golden rule the same thing?  It's amazing how you put down your own belief system without even noticing.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Uh duh, that's basically exactly what I started off with and you accuse me of not using the Christian belief system and in addition to that borrowing from your worldview.  Man, that's just all kinds of inconsistent, isn't it?  Is the puppy kicking really worth it?  Let's think some real thoughts here shall we?  There are lifestyles that work towards happiness and those that wage war against it.  That is the standard of morality.  Even if you appeal to God's arbitrary moral opinions, I can still ask, why should I listen to God?  Isn't it because I don't want to be unhappy in hell?  So genuine happiness is the standard of morality wherever you go.  And the basic tenets of reciprocation (like the golden, silver, or platinum rules) are a pretty decent place to start even though lots of other supplementary reasons come into play as well.  As I said, I'm sure you take great pride in the moral lifestyle and consider that a selling point for your Christian worldview.  My argument is that the natural benefits of moral behavior is a sufficient reason to be moral.  You are stuck saying that there are no natural benefits to moral behavior or that we cannot figure out what successful moral behavior is on its own (even though we could just lift them right out of your own lifestyle if in fact there is any reason to be that way). There isn't a better way that I know of to create genuine, long term, stable happiness other than engaging in empirically identifiable patterns of behavior that we have traditionally given the label "morality."   

Peter:  "I wrote: "it was your claim that you are able to hold on to the Christian worldview for the sake of conversation, and yet the Christian worldview has you burning in the lake of fire."

"and So, how is this "off" the subject from the above? You claim so, but you have not even began to indicate why. It is perfectly on subject."

Perfectly on the wrong subject.  The subject is whether or not it is theologically consistent to suppose that Jesus might be lying about hell.  Remember?  That issue you are avoiding because your arguments suck and because you want to keep kicking puppies?  It is not about me going to hell or not.  I said, "I will get right on pretending to convert for the sake of this conversation to avoid this hypothetical lake of fire," to *begin to indicate* that it is ridiculous to try to evangelize me based off of pretend.  Quit trying to justify yourself, Peter.  It's never going to work.  It's just going to get more and more silly.

"Ben, you are more helpless than you think you are." 

Yay!  More ad hominem!  Peter, you can feel free to stop pretending like you know anything about how helpless I may or may not be and just stick the actual topic.  See argument map.  Stop kicking puppies.  Puppies have feelings, too.

"Sure you will not convert to Christianity. You in fact can NOT converts. That is your problem. You are a hater of God (Rom 3:30), and a God hater does not want the God whom he hates. You can't convert any more than leopard can change his own spots. The only reason you would be willing to change is because God enables you to do so. A dead sinner does not will himself back to life (Eph 2.), the dead in sin, must be given spiritual life."

If it is all up to God, then I don't understand why you are bothering me about it.  You are the one who believes in magic, so why don't you take some more time out of your busy schedule of kicking puppies and just say your magic words to your imaginary friend, so he can do a magic trick in my brain, rather than pretending like you are doing anything other than making ad hominem attacks.   

"But are you able to say that my worldview is not able to account for logics, morality, order, trust of the 5 senses, etc. Naturalism is a False worldview. You don't like to hear it, but that is the facts. You don't like God, or the Christian worldview, but I am able to make sense of logic, able to account for this interaction, when your worldview is not. I am appealing to fact that you live by, yet your accepted worldview is not able to account for anyone of them. Even this very conversation is not possible in your worldview. For this conversation to be meaningful, you expect a meaningful logical conversation. How does your worldview account for logic? It does not."

So you think your other arguments (not being discussed right now) are convincing and that's why your ad hominem attacks are justified here?  I think my arguments are great across the board and that yours suck.  That doesn't justify attacking you personally, you puppy kicker, you.  Stop kicking puppies!  Dawkins sees it when you wiggle your toes savoring the delights of puppy kicking!  He's gonna get you! 

"Friend, You know very well, the points that I am making. It is very clear, if you just read this one time through before you chop it up. I am not even trying to make you do anything, or to make you think any which way. The points I have made above are not new. The issue is, you as a sinner against God, will try your very best to reject God, but as I have said, you would have to reject logic, and morality, and order, and your own ability to trust your 5 senses about the world around you. In part, this was the message of your own non-believing people. Live more consistent to your own confession, and I will try to live more consistent to mine."

Isn't it possible that I know very well the points that you are making and that I do honestly disagree with you in all the ways I've carefully articulated?  I don't know what other kind of evidence I could hope to present to you to prove that other than just disagreeing.  Do you have any ideas on that?  If you are unable to treat these issues in this discussion as honest misunderstandings, then please be upfront about that, so I know it is time to give up trying to communicate with you.  I'm sure it seems soooo obvious to you that you are right about everything, right?  Well isn't it soooo obvious to me that *I* am right about everything?  Do either of us have to be liars?  It's bad enough that you kick puppies, but seriously.  Let's work toward a civil conversation where everyone is allowed to honestly disagree.  If you don't have anything new or productive to say about your Biblical ad hominem attacks, about the pretend evangelism, or about the trivial misunderstandings about the argument map, then I suggest that you just don't bother responding to those topics.  Your choice, but I don't think they are important.  Our other two conversations (on logic and morality) don't even apply since I'm *not* arguing against Christianity on this argument map.  Premise 1 already covers them so there's little reason to bring them up here.  I'm interested in discussing the issues directly related to the contents of the argument map and that's it.  Let's get back on track and try to pretend like the last 50 or so comments between us never happened.   

Ben