Xanga Archive

[warning: this is far too long.   But if you enjoy deep theological discussion you will probably enjoy it.  Otherwise, go ahead and skip down to an earlier post and leave a comment on it ]

www.ChristianBurner.com

When you go to this site, you will be greeted with a short flash movie, followed by an image which displays one of these messages:

“Come on son, let’s kick some Christian ass.”
“Extra, extra!  Christianity is false.  You are free to go now.”
“Your children are ours, finally they have faith.”
“Does the corporate world pause for God?  Don’t bet your money on it.”
“Even God logs on.”

Yet at the bottom of this page, what do we find?

“Our promise to you…

Family Site

Christianburner.com is kid tested, mother approved.  There will be no pornographic or violent links, banners, images, or affiliations on this site.  We aim to keep our content wholesome and family oriented for your peace of mind and for the saftey of your children.  That is the christianburner.com promise you you… and much like god, we cannot tell a lie.”

Ok, so it’s true, there are no pornographics banners or links…  However, the entire concept of the site is based on the HATRED of Christians.  I mean, think about the name of the site…. ChristianBurner.com.  Gee, that sounds perfectly family oriented.

And now for a point by point rebuttal of the site: (note: titles come from section titles, etc. that are used on the site…  read the site first if you want to completely understand what I’m talking about).

Reality-

Intoduction

He starts off saying that one of these 4 things must be true: Either God is 1.) limited  2.) evil  3.) perfect  or 4.) false.  Ok, I’ll agree with that.  One of those things has to be true.  Relatively good arguments are given for why He can’t be limited or evil, although I am not certain that God neccesarily HAS to be completely unlimited.  I mean certain things HAVE to be impossible, and that’s just the way they are… example being:  Can God create a boulder that is so big that even He himself cannot lift it?  Either way, God is limited.  He either cannot create a boulder he can’t lift, or He can’t lift something.  Hmmm…  But that does not make God an impossibility.  The next argument he makes is that God is NOT perfect.  His argument for this makes little sense though.  He says that God is limited and therefore not perfect and the reason for this is that He is a He.  Apparently a perfect, not limited God, would not have a gender, according to him.  My argument here is, God is not neccesarily a He as we think of “he”s.  God uses symbolism a lot of the time, and family has always been symbolic of God’s relationship to man.  The man is to be the head.  He makes the important decisions, and takes care of his wife and children… not because He is better then the wife, or smarter then the wife, or anything like that… but so that the wife doesn’t have to.  I could go on about this topic, but it is not what I am addressing, so I won’t :).  Anyway, he does not make a strong enough argument that God is not perfect, so therefore he has not ruled it out, and it is as every bit as much of a possibility as “God is false” is.

(as a side note, apparently this guy is omniscient…  this is what he says after that argument “I understand for many the above summary is not good enough. If you are a Christian, your calculations are in error. I will now go into greater detail and discipline your feeble mind.”  I certainly am glad he informed me that my calculations are in error.  I will now believe everything which he tells me is true.  Sorry for questioning your supreme knowledge, oh great omniscient one.)

In the beginning

This section talks about desire and how a complete, unlimited God could not have it.  Either God NEEDED to create other beings, or he DESIRED to.  Yeah, that’s true.  If you want to look at desire as a limitation, then fine, God is limited by your definition.  God did not create God, you did not create God.  God is as God is, and He is the only way that God could be.  God couldn’t have been any other way, so how can you say that God cannot experience desire?  When God created us, he created us with many of the same emotions, feelings, etc, that he experiences.  Example being, he gave us the ability to love.  He tells us that He IS love.  Think about this: What good is love if there is no one else TO love?  God is complete in that He is a completely self-sufficient being, but NO, he was NOT satisfied without any companionship.  That is the whole point of creation.  I am not arguing this point with you, because it is true, but it does not support what you are saying.  God is also not satisfied with the state of His creation right now.  An unsatisfied state does not mean that God cannot exist.

Heaven

Something about angels and how God either made a mistake with them or else the angel’s “miscalculated god’s plans”.  He also says that the bible says that the angels are God’s helpers, but that God shouldn’t need helpers.  Close.  The greek word for angel is “angelos”, and it means messenger.  Messenger, not helper.  They tell things on God’s behalf to we humans, and they also have the capacity to do other things as well, while those things may not be strictly their duty.  The angels were created in a holy state just as humans were, but they are not a race, in that they do not reproduce, therefore they do not inherit an evil nature, they must choose it, which is what happened when the 1/3 fell.  Certainly God COULD have not given them free will and thereby kept them from choosing evil.  But that does not mean he made a mistake to give them free will.  Again, an insufficient argument.

Earth

A rather pointless challenge to the Genesis account of Creation.  Apparently he feels it is impossible for God to have created the sun on the first day, and the rest of the stars later.  Insuffcient argument.

Garden of Eden

Says that God is testing Adam.  No, He was NOT testing Adam.  The fruit was there because in order for there to be free will, one must be ABLE to choose the other way.  That was the only thing that humans could do wrong at that point.  Otherwise, they knew only good.  If there is no ability to do wrong, then you do not have free will.  Invalid argument because it is based on an incorrect assumption.

He also talks about how God creates man with a desire for sex, but forbids fornication.  That’s RIGHT my friend, He forbids FORNICATION, NOT SEX.  SEX and FORNICATION are 2 different things.  God created sex as a union of 1 man and 1 woman.  He is not cruel to forbid fornication.

Angels and Animals

Ummm.. extremely poor title choice because it doesn’t talk about animals at ALL.  This section refers to human/demon half-breeds.  This is in fact a possibility, if that is what the Nephilim WERE.  However, the bible does NOT read “angels” (note to those who may not know: demons are angels, only fallen).  It reads “Sons of God”.  According to the notes in my Bible, which may or may not be correct, “since angels do not marry or reproduce” they were probably NOT angels.  It says that they may have been the descendants of Seth who intermarried with Cain’s descendants (in this case, the descendants of Seth would be the Sons of God, and Cain’s would be the “daughters of men”.)  Which way is right?  I don’t know.  In either case, simply because God ALLOWS something to happen does not mean that he WANTS it to happen, or that it is a good thing.  Yeah, seems odd that He would give angels the ability to interbreed with humans, but 1.) That may be a misinterpretation of Genesis 6:4, and 2.) That does not prove that God does not exist.  Also, nowhere that i see does the bible say ANYTHING about God being mad about the nephilim.  It simply comes right before it talks of the world having become very wicked.  In fact, it seems to make a positive statement about them, again sort of saying the half-breed thing probably isn’t true.  It says “They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”  Another flawed argument.

The Flood

All I can say here is he obviously hasn’t looked into pre-flood theories AT ALL.  Before you talk about something, make an attempt to research it.  It’s called the canopy theory my freind.  If it is true, who knows if it is or not, then the world DID have a uniform climate.  Also, I am certain that the oceans changed a great deal following the flood.  and rain did not just come from the sky, it also came from WITHIN the earth.  This could cause the ground to split, etc, and cause the formation of continents from one BIG land mass.  Which is a theory that more then just Creationists use.  Yes, some species probably died off after the flood (dinosaurs for one), but that does not mean that God wasted His time on them.  The sin of man effects all of man’s world, because it brings mortality into the picture.  Before the fall of man there was no death.  Insufficient argument.

Moses and Egypt

Ok, covers a very broad portion of the Bible and I don’t really have the time to sit and look up each speciffic thing…  however, he does talk about God “murdering” the children of the egyptians (you know the angel of death, killed all the firstborn sons).  It also talks of God ordering the Isrealites to “murder” those that worshipped the golden calf.  1.) God cannot murder.  God is the one that gives life.  It is his life to give, and it is his life to take away.  He has every right to do it, as creator.  And killing the calf-worshippers is no more murder then putting someone in an electric chair and throwing the switch is murder.  It is punishment, not murder.  He also talks about God commanding them not to eat meat, and gives them manna, and then after they complain he sends them foul to eat, but then changes His mind and kills off a third of them.  I’d have to read through I whole lot of Exodus to find anything about this, and I don’t paticularly feel like it right now….  It certainly doesn’t sound like it is accurate though.  I will check into it later, but, other then that, which I have yet to verify, this is an insufficient argument as well.

Jesus

He tries to say that it makes no sense for Jesus to be punished in our place for sin.  The problem is, it’s not neccesarily a punishment.  It’s more a payment of a debt.  Sin demands death.  That is sin’s nature.  It is not GOD that demands the death.  Without blood, there is no remission of sins.  Jesus gave that blood.  Only one who was fully God and fully man could do that for everyone, and that was Jesus.  It makes perfect sense.  The argument is based on an incorrect assumption and therefore invalid.

Hell

Basically the same as the last thing.  God doesn’t send people to Hell as punishment.  In life you either choose to be with God, or away from God.  All Hell is, is complete seperation from God.  It’s people getting what they CHOSE.  They just find out that what they chose isn’t quite what it was cracked up to be.

Conclusion

No comments on his conclusion.  My conclusion is that the debate is still very much open.  I am interested to hear any of your opinions.  Do you disagree with me?  I want to hear what you think.  So comment away.