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Proselytizing |
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Proselytizing has done some good*, but it has perhaps been outweighed by the evil it has left behind. Whether you profess one religion or another is of no consequence whatsoever.
-- Mahatma Gandhi TOPICS
We are but humble Christians "Witnessing" God's Truth KEVIN: I
realize that you’re offended by people trying to proselytize you but
remember that we are only “witnesses” to what God has done in our
lives and any “converting to GOD’S way of thinking” is accomplished
by the Holy Spirit, so the problem is between you and Him. BRUCE: This is the kind of circular logic I’m talking about Kevin. You just ASSUME, without a shred of evidence, that there not only is a god but that, by default evidently, that god MUST be the god(s) portrayed in the pages of the Judeo-Christian Bible! But you cannot make grandiose claims to the “truth” of Jesus, and then expect me (and the rest of the world) to just bow down to it as though your proclaiming it to be true somehow makes it so! Are
you familiar with logical fallacies, Kevin?
When I talk about terms like “circular reasoning,” “begging
the question,” and “special pleading,” do you understand what I am
referring to? When you
suggest such a thing as you do above, that “the problem is between [me] and Him
[God]” you are committing a logical fallacy called “begging the
question” and it means that you are presenting a premise that is at
least as questionable as the conclusion.
In this case your conclusion is “so the problem is between [me] and
Him [God]” but your premise, that God and also a certain Holy Spirit actually exists, are
both just unsupported assertions that you have not proven! It would be like me saying to you, “Kevin, converting to
SANTA’S way of thinking is accomplished by the North Pole Spirit, so your denial
of the truth I am witnessing to you is a problem
between YOU and SANTA, not with me, since I am only the messenger.” Do you see the problem? Why should “I” have a problem with some mythical being for which there is not a shred of evidence? Should I also have a problem with Rumpelstiltskin if he doesn’t appear before me and start spinning straw into gold? It is not this mythical god of yours that is proselytizing to me and millions of others, it is the flocks who blindly follow such myths that are doing all the proselytizing (as they are instructed to do from the pulpits, I might add). If a Muslim should proselytize you about the “truth” of Allah, and that “Those that deny Our revelations We will burn in Hell-fire” (Sura 4:56), would you consider “Allah” to be the problem or the people who have been instructed to go out and proselytize their higher-than-thou rhetoric to you? Do you see how this game goes, Kevin? Until
such time that you can produce actual verifiable evidence to prove that your God is real, then you have no
business going around calling it “truth” to anyone. When you do so you are (whether you realize it or not)
helping intolerance, discrimination, subjugation and animosity along, much
to the detriment of humanity. Why would the supreme "God" of the universe need your help? A further question for you to consider, Kevin, is why would a supreme god of the universe need the help of mere humans on our little speck of a planet to make sure he/she/it doesn’t get relegated to the mythology bin just like all the other “Gods” throughout the ancient world? Do you really think such a being would ever be in danger of being forgotten if it were real and wanted its creations to know about it? The
Egyptian, Sumerian and Greek gods dominated the ancient world for
thousands of years and those that followed them believed with just as much
certainty and vigor as you do in yours today. But eventually they fell by the
wayside to newly evolved “gods” that arose as the cultural balances of
power and politics changed. So
too will be Christianity’s fate one day.
Indeed, the evidence is all around you already that it is evolving;
there are literally thousands of different sects of Christianity in the
world today with dramatically divergent theology from one another—and
each of them believes they hold
“the truth”! In
spite of all the evidence, however, all it would take for me to believe is
just one resurrection from the
dead—just one Lazarus! How
about that two-year-old girl who died in station 10’s structure fire
last Christmas? Or how about Caleb Nunley? Let’s see him resurrected and returned to the arms of Rick and his wife and I
will gladly jump on the bandwagon in praise of Jesus. It’s funny, I think, how Christians are more than ready to give Jesus credit for any perceived “good” things that happen (usually at the expense of modern medical science where the real miracles are being performed), but when bad things happen and Jesus doesn’t lift a finger to stop innocent people from dying tragically (like at Columbine), then … well, that “must have been due to some higher ‘good’ from God that we simple-minded humans just cannot comprehend,” right? I mean, Jesus is supposed to be All-good, All-knowing, All-powerful and All-loving, right? If
these are true, and Jesus is real, then he would not only have known this
bloody event was going to occur in advance, but he also had the power and
means to prevent it! But he didn’t, did he?
Let me ask you this: If
you had known in advance that this event was going to occur and without
any risk to yourself you could have talked with those two boys and
prevented it, would you have done so?
If you say ‘yes’ then you
are nicer than Jesus, and also all the thousands of other “gods” being
worshiped around the world today, because none of them prevented it. All throughout the Bible we see
“God” coming to the aid of “his people” and helping them out at
their beckoned call, but today evidently, he just looks the other way when
young kids are screaming as they are gunned down with shotgun blasts. Since
you are such a strong believer, Kevin, perhaps you would like to take
another look at my infamous Prayer
Challenge on this very issue? It’s
interesting, I think, that you had nothing to say regarding the verses I
quoted within it—all of which came directly from your own Bible. Would you like for me to post it
again? How would the world be any different? It really is sad that so many people suffer and die as a result of plane crashes, auto accidents, fires, disease, murders, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes and the like, even though thousands of gods are being worshiped and prayed to around the world in effort to control or alter the results of such deadly phenomena. So my question, Kevin, is how would the world be any different if your god did not exist? KEVIN: I don’t know if you
are even looking for a Savior but those three reasons are predominately
why I choose Jesus. If I’m
going to rely on someone for my salvation I want it to be the One who
created the universe. BRUCE: Well,
first, there is nothing in the way of evidence either historically or even
theologically that clearly demonstrates the character of Jesus to be the
“One who created the universe.” This
is just more circular reasoning and special pleading that has dripped onto
you from the pulpits, and which you apparently accept without question. Virtually every culture throughout recorded history has produced their own divine mythology about the whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys and hows of the universe and their existence within it, and not surprisingly each proclaims theirs “the truth,” usually to the exclusion of all others. So
what evidence do you have to prove your
version to be the “true version,” Kevin? For someone who seems to go to
great lengths to block-out the mountains of physical evidence that
confirms biological evolution to be a fact, you certainly don’t hold the
untouchable sacred cows of your
professed religious dogma to the same standards of evidence, do you? But this is something I will
address a little later on in another section. Second, what makes you think we need a “Savior”? I certainly don’t. To even acknowledge such a thing begs the question, “a savior from what?” Sin? Such things as “sin” and “morals” are nothing more than subjective concepts that show dramatic differences from one culture to another and from one time period to another. If you don’t believe me, Kevin, then why don’t you define what is and is not a “sin” for me. Be forewarned that in my response I will be providing many silly examples of “sins” within the Bible you tout so highly, but which I guarantee that you, and virtually all Christians, just ignore because of their silliness. * By "good" here, Gandhi is not referring to proselytizing with a view toward conversion as being a good thing (to the contrary, such actions are "the deadliest poison that ever sapped the fountain of truth" --Mahadev Desai in Harijan, Jan. 16, 1937). No, what Gandhi is citing here is an "indirect contribution" whereby Hindus and Muslims (in India and Africa) have been stimulated to religious research of their own accord, within their own religious beliefs. It makes the Hindu look at himself and become a better Hindu. It makes the Muslim look at himself and become a better Muslim. It forces them to "put their own house in order." --Young India, December 17, 1925 Caleb Nunley was the son of a former Colorado
Springs firefighter (who had to retire on a medical following injuries he
sustained after falling off a ladder). Caleb was born without an
esophagus and had multiple surgeries throughout his short five years of
life to construct an artificial esophagus using intestines. There
were always associated complications and he often had to be fed through a
tube in his abdomen. Over the years this little boy had literally
THOUSANDS of prayers said for him and his family, and yet in spite of
these he died last year, during another operation, as the result of
a seizure (which, according to Jesus, is "demon possession" and
he needed to be exorcised! Luke 8:16, 28-32).
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