Nonsense.
You made a decision and acted on it.
You can chose not to follow every trail that presents itself to you. Learning to reject a path that likely will not serve your best interests is part of learning wisdom.
Get cracking.
This is a naive response to his claims or objections, and a naive view of the course you are taking.
People often make claims and draw conclusions based on ignorance, misunderstanding, gut reaction or the desire to mislead. The claim itself is worthless in the “search for truth” if it’s wrong or merely an opinion.
For example this:
Does his claim above seem remotely plausible? Can you think of NO Christians who have done deep biblical analysis and remained Christians? Have you investigated that? Go find out about it, rather than worrying about the damage you might do to your faith by deeply analyzing the Bible.
You might find your faith strengthened by the deep analysis other Christians have done for the past 2000 years.
The “Search for Truth” is a life-long pursuit that requires real study and intellectual formation. Your own interests can be a valuable guide in the direction to take and what lose threads you need to follow for answers. Those interests are not served well online.
You need to be honest with yourself about the choices you make. You choose the information sources you use, how much of them you consume, or what sources you engage with that are coughed up by an algorithm. You can chose otherwise and better.
Dinking around on the Internet is not research.
At the risk of repeating myself, let me repeat myself. Again.
Alright. Thank you for the advice. Again, I hadn’t sought out this author again. These were kinds the last remnants of the arguments I had stumbled upon that I was trying to make peace with. I’ve long since stopped using search engines to answer these questions, because they often bring up all sorts of different (and often unhelpful) topics.
Here is a list of highly-rated Christian academic libraries in the U.S. : Wright Library (Princeton Theological Seminary) - Princeton, NJ: This is the largest theological collection in the United States and the second-largest globally, trailing only the Vatican Library. It holds over 1.2 million items, offering unmatched resources for Reformed theology and global church history. Plan your research visit through Wright Library. [1, 2]
The Burke Library (Union Theological Seminary) - New York, NY: Affiliated with Columbia University Libraries, this is one of the largest theological libraries in North America, holding over 700,000 items. It is celebrated for its deep special collections, including the Missionary Research Collection and the Bonhoeffer Collection. Explore their catalogs on The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary. [1, 2]
Pitts Theology Library (Emory University) - Atlanta, GA: Part of Emory’s Candler School of Theology, Pitts is a premier facility housing superb collections. It is known for its John August Swanson art collection and holds over 155,000 rare books. Discover their digital and physical archives at Pitts Theology Library. [1]
Bridwell Library (Southern Methodist University) - Dallas, TX: Located within the Perkins School of Theology, Bridwell houses massive holdings focused on Wesleyan studies, church history, and a rich collection of early printed Bibles. Learn more about their special collections at Bridwell Library. [1]
Day Missions Library and Divinity Library (Yale University) - New Haven, CT: Yale’s Divinity Library is a sprawling, world-class academic resource. The combined collections offer deep, primary-source access to ecumenical history, Christian art, and global missions. [1, 2]
Figure out one question you would like to research for real – research means reading multiple books by serious scholars in the field. Write your question out in a fairly formal email, something like this:
Dear Research Library Staff,
I would like to research this topic/question. [Describe the topic or question.] Could you, please, recommend a book or two that will help me get started. I am a [tell them your level of education ] student.
Thank you for your help with my research.
Sincerely,
BuffaloMax17
Send the same email to all the libraries above, and any others you think would be good. Since you are not a student at those institutions, they may choose to ignore your question, but usually librarians are generous with their time and will provide some basic information anyway. The answers will probably all be different, so you will come up with a good list to get started.
Then ask your local library to help you get the books through interlibrary loan. And READ the books.
Alrighty. I’ll have to think of a good question. One that I do have is what we actually mean by “The Lord taketh away.” Why would God decide to take away something from us, at least how it is sometimes depicted in the Scriptures?
Fair enough. And how would a good therapist respond? At some point he would say that you need to move from unloading to reloading, from dumping all the toxic stuff to replacing it with positive content.
Here’s my specific proposal:
Decide not to read any more material from these kinds of sites. (If you need help, write down your commitment.)
Review the previous posts where people have made recommendations for alternative healthy reading material. Choose one book. (Personally I don’t think it matters which one. All the recommendations I’ve seen have been high quality.)
Treat that book exactly the same way you have treated the Internet sites. Take notes. Ask questions. Start to assess what you agree or disagree with.
When you have a page of notes, come back to us and post that material. We will try to help you with further suggestions.
You can look that up in any number of commentaries, which your church library should, but probably doesn’t, have. If the church library exits at all. Looking into one verse doesn’t constitute “deep analysis.”
How about something higher order? That’s what your “search for truth” keeps indicating you are seeking.
What about researching the history of the development of the Old Testament? Or of the New? A huge overview type questions, but a good intro. Eventually you would need to narrow these down a lot.
Or the history of Christian biblical interpretation methods?
Or the historic placement of the OT?
Or the history of Christian views and attitudes toward the Bible itself.
Or,…….
Thank about what your real questions are. The big ones. The ones that keep you asking if any of what you believe is true.
It is your prerogative to categorize my online persona the way you want based on the fruit of my discourse. The difference here is we have had personal correspondence. I would lump many people into categories on the internet (e.g. flat earth’s, young earthers, science deniers), just as you would apparently by your usage of “exclusivist Christian.” I’d say it’s not that you don’t like the lumping itself, but you take exception to my categories. It’s no secret here I think atheism is demonstrably false and that naturalistic worldviews that reduce things to the physical only are intellectual on par with belief in a flat earth or young earth creationism. I see nothing new from that guy that is not standard fare. If you think he is offering something new to the debate that Max should be worrying specifically about him so much, feel free to present it.
Some on this forum want to throw parades for atheists and celebrate them as great free thinkers. I appreciate the quest for truth (its the end or telos of our intellect to seek truth and ultimately God–the highest truth) and I appreciate dispensing with poor formulations of God. I would actually lump many on this forum as theistic personalists with poor formulations of God (because I am a classical theist) and they are some of the brightest minds here. This is not an indictment of anyone’s value, worth as a person or personality. It’s categorizing their intellectual thinking in general. Christianity has been infiltrated and plagued with this, especially those growing uo in evangelical circles the last 100 years or so. In a direct conversation, one needs to treat the individual they are talking to as a person, not a category. If I fail in the regard then I sin greatly. I admit is harder on the internet to always do this than in real life.
I’d like to think my thinking on lacking belief or denying belief in God and Jesus is much more Biblically based. All truth claims seem exclusive in one way or another. Calling me an exclusivist Christian is fitting. In the gospels (not just John) Jesus is reported as saying the only way to the father is through him. As a Christian I believe him. What that looks like and how God assesses people based on what they know, their environment and upbringing, we can certainly talk about. The prior belief isn’t up for debate to me though. It’s a staple of Christianity. So I am absolutely an exclusivist Christian. Just not one that says if you don’t share all my intellectual beliefs you will be condemned to hell. But neither Jesus nor the Bible as a whole is kind to people who don’t repent and who ultimately reject and don’t align themselves in God.
Max, listen to a few hours of Michael Heiser’s material and you’ll see that Jorge is lying – and my bet is that he darned well knows he’s lying; he just doesn’t want you to do any looking because his case is so slipshod and shallow.
Keep it with the first clause – “The Lord gave”. It’s an all-inclusive covering everything that comes into your life (“The Lord gives”) and everything that leaves your life (“the Lord takes away”), recognizing that God is in charge.
I have personally learned a lot from Marxist critical theorists and they have helped me see the ways the true gospel dismantles and inverts the toxic power structures of the world to promote the kind of peaceful kingdom Jesus came to earth to inaugurate. Life is so much better if you can approach other people’s ideas without treating them as a threat to or an indictment of your own. People can reason together without declaring winners and losers and people from very different perspectives can influence each other to be better people and challenge each other to make the world better without either person fundamentally changing what they believe.
I think sometimes I did just focus on the little things, have I? I’m certainly going to try looking into these questions into more depth. Again, thank you for the help!