I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline Republican.
On 2-22-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog the person using the username “Olphart” asserted:
“Olphart you have a head knowledge of the Bible and you say you would accept written decisions from God but you would not. Just like Sagan you set out stipulations for God but He has given you sufficient evidence through Old Testiment prophecies such as the one on the destruction of Tyre and also Psalms 22 and Isaiah 53.You do not accept them because of intellectual problems but you want your independence. Very smart people are believers and some dummies too. It has nothing to do with how smart a person is.”
I agree that none of this has much to do with how smart you are. Francis Collins, the head of the group who mapped the human genome is, obviously, very smart, and is a practicing Christian. I don’t believe that I.Q. tells you much about how smart you are either. At best, it tells you what potential you may have to become smart.
Yes, I WOULD ACCEPT a certifiable written decision from God. I WOULDN’T accept it relayed from you or any other 3rd party, religious or not. How do you know ME better than I know ME? That makes no sense. It would be arrogant of me if I claimed to know you better than you know you. Independence from what? A celestial puppeteer? Independence from control by your religion which tells me what I should do, based on your interpretation of some ancient and contradictory text?
About your so-called prophesies: Nobody knows when the prophesies were written, much less what they actually predicted. It’s very possible that the prophesied event was written before the prophesy. And yes, I know that the latest nation of Israel was formed in 1948 but the temple hasn’t been entirely razed to the ground–the west wall still stands. That’s a self-fulfilling prophesy anyway, enabled by “Christian” nations.
In other posts you claim to admire Carl Sagan and detest Adolph Hitler. I concur with those opinions. But answer me this: Since both of these men are both deceased, according to any reasonable interpretation of your beliefs, the souls of both men are currently being tortured for their sins in the flames of Hell and that torture will continue forever. Hitler is being tortured for the deaths of millions of humans and Sagan is being tortured because he didn’t believe in your God. Of course, either or both may have had a deathbed conversion but, barring that, how can you possibly reconcile that with a just and loving God?
Somewhere you decry ad hominem attacks on your person. I believe that I have avoided those here. I have asked you some questions though and am anxiously awaiting your answers.
On 2-22-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog I responded:
Olphart me answer your questions but here is just the first part.
Thank you for avoiding Ad hominem attacks so we can discuss the issues. You are right about that prophecies must be clear and be written before the events they are talking about.
Remember that the dead sea scrolls have part of every Old Testament book except Esther and a complete scroll of Isaiah. All these books are dated pre100BC. With that in mind take a look at these prophecies:
In the fifth century B.C. a prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem’s poor foreigners (Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a “potter’s field,” used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1011.)
SECOND:
Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel’s King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah’s death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.
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https://thedailyhatch.org/2011/06/23/book-o…
Israel was predicted to return to the holy land and that occurred in 1948 and they are the first to revive a dead language (Hebrew)…Olphart you are correct that I hold to the view that faith in Christ is the only way to heaven. John 14:6 makes it clear that Christ is the only way to heaven. I have friends and relatives who have died as unbelievers and they are in hell unless they had deathbed conversions.
Hank Hannegraff notes:
Finally, common sense regarding justice dictates that there must be a hell. Without hell, the wrongs of Hitler’s Holocaust would never be righted. Justice would be impugned if, after slaughtering six million Jews, Hitler merely died in the arms of his mistress with no eternal consequences. The ancients knew better than to think such a thing. David knew that it might seem for a time as though the wicked prosper despite their evil deeds, but in the end justice will be served. We may wish to think that no one will go to hell, but common sense regarding justice precludes that possibility.
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Here is a portion of an article I wrote back in 2009 about Chris Martin who like you Olphart had a problem with the idea of hell but he can’t get away from it logically if he wanted to.
Chris Martin of the rock group Coldplay wrote the song Viva La Vida, and the song just won both the grammy for the “Song of the Year” and “Best Pop Performance by a duo or Group with Vocals.”
In this song, Martin is discussing an evil king that has been disposed. “I used to rule the world…Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes…there was never an honest word and that was when I ruled the world, It was the wicked and wild wind, Blew down the doors to let me in, Shattered windows and the sound of drums, People couldn’t believe what I’d become…For some reason I can’t explain, I know Saint Peter won’t call my name, Never an honest word, But that was when I ruled the world.”
Q Magazine asked Chris Martin about the lyric in this song “I know Saint Peter won’t call my name.” Martin replied, “It’s about…You’re not on the list. I was a naughty boy. Its always fascinated me that idea of finishing your life and then being analyzed on it…That is the most frightening thing you could possibly say to somebody. Eternal damnation. I know about this stuff because I studied it. I was into it all. I know it. It’s mildly terrifying to me. And this is serious.”
I have been following the career of Chris Martin for the last decade. He grew up in a Christian home that believed in Heaven and Hell, but made it clear several years ago that he actually resents those who hold to those same religious dogmatic views he did as a youth. Yet it seems his view on the possibility of an afterlife has changed again.
________________
Dr. C. Everett Koop is pictured above.
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY
Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis
Great quotes from “Whatever happened to the human race?” by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop (from the shelter website):.
Summary
Francis Schaeffer and, former Surgeon General, C. Everette Koop deal directly with the devaluing of human life and its results in our society. It did not take place in a vacuum. It is a direct result of a worldview that has rejected the doctrine of man being created in the image of God. Man as a product of the impersonal, plus time and chance has no sufficient basis for worth.
The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of God and therefore is unique. Remove that teaching, as humanism has done on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and there is no adequate basis for treating people well.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)
Justin Taylor|12:29 pm CT
5 Things You Didn’t Know about “Jane Roe”
Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the controversial Supreme Court ruling that progressives want to enshrine and conservatives want to overturn. Few rulings have been more consequential. According to Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute, 22% of all pregnancies now end in abortion, with 3 in 10 women terminating their pregnancy by the age of 45. There have been approximately 57 million legally induced abortions in the U.S. since 1973—nearly the current population of California and Texas combined.
Yet a recent Pew study found that 4 in 10 “Millennials” don’t even know that Roe v. Wade has to do with abortion. And even fewer today know the true story of the woman who started it all, the pseudonymous plaintiff “Jane Roe.” Here are five things you may not know about her, culled from interviews and profiles along with her sworn congressional testimony and memoirs.
(1) The name “Jane Roe” was created over beer and pizza.
In 1969 Norma was 21 years old, divorced, and pregnant for the third time. (The first two children were placed for adoption.) After seeking an abortion but finding out it was illegal, and then driving to an illegal clinic only to find it closed, adoption attorney Henry McCluskey referred her to two young lawyers in Dallas, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee. Weddington (who had traveled to Mexico a couple of years earlier to have an abortion) was seeking a class-action lawsuit against the state of Texas in order to legalize abortion. It was an unlikely party at the corner booth of Columbo’s pizza parlor in Dallas: two recent law-school grads in business suits sitting across the table from a rough and uneducated homeless woman. The lawyers needed a representative for all women seeking abortions—one who was young, poor, and white. They just didn’t want her to cross state lines to get a legal abortion, or the case would be considered moot and dismissed. Without money and five months pregnant, Norma was the ideal candidate. After downing several pitchers of beer, they agreed on using the pseudonym “Jane Roe.” (“Wade” referred to Henry B. Wade, the attorney general of Dallas.)
(2) Jane Roe didn’t know the meaning of “abortion.”
Weddington and Coffee told Norma that abortion just dealt with a piece of tissue, and that it was like passing a period rather than the termination of a distinct, living, and whole human organism. Abortion was a taboo topic in 1970, and Norma had dropped out of school at the age of 14. She knew that John Wayne movies talked about “aborting the mission,” so she thought it meant to “go back”—as in, going back to not being pregnant. She honestly believed “abortion” meant a child was prevented from coming into existence.
(3) Jane Roe never appeared in court.
Her lawyers drafted a one-page legal affidavit, which she signed but did not read. (Even today, she has not read it.) This was only the second time she would meet with her lawyers—and it turned out to be the last. She would not be called to testify and attended none of the trial. She found out about the Supreme Court ruling from the newspaper on January 23, 1973, just like the rest of the nation. Few on that day understood the implications of Justice Blackmun’s instruction that Roe v. Wade was to be read in conjunction with its companion case Doe v. Bolton, which effectively made abortion legal at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. As a result, the United States (with Canada) became the only Western country offering no legal protection for the unborn at any stage of the pregnancy.
(4) Jane Roe never had an abortion.
Norma had already given birth and placed the baby for adoption before the three-judge Texas panel ruled against her in May of 1970, long before the Supreme Court decision in January of 1973. She was in a committed lesbian relationship and would not become pregnant again. Abortion continued to be a part of her life, however. She went on to work in abortion clinics, holding the hands of women and offering reassurance as they terminated their pregnancies, and making appearances on the Roe anniversaries.
(5) Jane Roe became pro-life.
In 1995, while working at the clinic, Norma became haunted by the sight and sound of empty playgrounds in her neighborhood. Once teeming with kids, they now seemed deserted. And she began to see it was the result of what she once called “my law.” But the decisive change happened when she met Emily Mackey, a seven-year-old girl whose parents were protesting at the clinic where “Miss Norma” worked. Emily, who had almost been aborted herself, befriended Norma, showing genuine interest and love, giving her hugs and inviting her to church. Through the influence this young girl’s combination of truth and grace, along with those who shared the gospel of Jesus with her, Norma not only became convinced of the pro-life position but also converted to Christianity.
* * *
Norma McCorvey now says that “Jane Roe has been laid to rest.” Both sides in America’s most contentious debate have claimed her at one point, and both have had reason to be disappointed. But for evangelicals—the demographic most committed to overturning Roe—the case for protecting the smallest and most defenseless members of the human race does not rest with the testimony of a single individual. It does not even rest on biblical revelation; moral philosophers have pointed out that the differences between a fetus in utero and an infant outside the womb—size, location, degree of dependency, and level of development—are morally irrelevant when determining a person’s right to life.
On this fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, evangelicals would do well to remember that we must not only labor to protect the unborn, but to continue reaching out with assistance and love and the good news of grace to the Norma McCorveys of the world—broken women who feel they have no other place to turn.
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