Apologetics
ch 7
Lessons learned from an atheist
Lesson 1:
Willful ignorance is a very tough nut to crack.
Doug:
Chadwick, I MUST go on. I have no doubt that God in his sovereign power could heal you tomorrow if that's what He wanted. He could do it through me, or any other vessel of his choosing. I know personally several people who HAVE been divinely healed and have passed "my god's simple test" as you put it. Do you remember the old expression "God helps those who help themselves"? I used to find this expression somewhat perplexing, but I have lately come to understand it's wisdom. You see God uses His sovereignty COUPLED WITH our free will (our actions ) to work. This is even illustrated in our Salvation, when we "decide" to accept His sovereign Grace. I know this doesn't comport to how YOU think God should behave. But should I, if I don't like how God chooses to work, should I then "decide" that he doesn't exist?
I sincerely believe that the knowledge of the existence of a God truly does exist deep down in every man's heart and it is really undeniably present (even to an honest you, Chadwick ) as a FACT in our deepest of deepest souls. I assume this fact merely because I, having honestly searched my own heart, have found this to be true, and I know I am nothing special, or different than any other human.
THIS is why, I believe God CAN condemn us, and why he has given us "The Way" for us to "commune" with Him, as per His "instruction manual" the Bible.
Now here is the part where you can use your own free will to heal yourself (if that's what you want to call it ) ; look into the work of Dr. Joel Wallach. He is not some kind of quack. He, and at least a half dozen other doctors that come immediately to my mind use your beloved science to heal people every day. (Including a damaged pancreas, in your case ) But you won't hear about it, because (confirming my beliefs) there is a huge, money driven, evil conspiracy against true godlike healing, because of a stranglehold on the "medical system". ( See any one of my multitude of rants on my fb wall ).
There is a huge assault against human kind using horrible pharmaceutical drugs, (it is interesting that the Greek word for sorcery is pharmakeia) which ultimately kills us after stealing our wealth. This is indeed done at the hand of Satan who comes to devour, steal and destroy. I could go on and on about this, but I will stop.
God does say in the manual that he will one day reveal himself to everyone. (A wish of yours.) He WILL become undeniable to everyone at that point. (See Chadwick... God will do your wishes ...only on His own time line.) Unfortunately, by that time He says it will be too late.
I just want to expound a little bit further on my assertion over the continuing confirmation of my beliefs.
The more I study the truth about history, the more I study the truth about the geopolitical landscape, the more I study the truth about nutrition, the more I study the truth about our medical system, the more I study the truth about economics, the more I study the truth about our founding fathers, the more I study the truth about our own political system and the growing move towards despotism, the more I study the truth that is the Bible, and yes the more I study the truth of science. That's REAL science, not agenda driven propaganda "science", including science that presupposes non existence of God , or even the existence of God for that matter. Because REAL science brings forth REAL Truth.
When I study ALL these things it becomes painfully obvious to me that there IS this force of good called God, and there IS this force of evil called Satan.
Now Chadwick, I am struck with this realization that ALL of the truth seekers that I have found, all of them are either strong Christians or at least Judeo-Christian friendly. I really believe there is good reason for this.
Now I give you opportunity to show me my errors. Show me these great atheistic minds out there (maybe they exist and I don't know of them ). Who ARE these great minds shaping your thoughts? Who are these influences leading you down your path? Other than the likes of Dawkins and Darwin, and Cosmos "science " all of which I find laughable. Unless you can PROVE to me otherwise, I'm afraid YOU, sir are the one being "willfully ignorant".
Chadwick:
You must go on, but then you go on. lol ! We are more alike than either of us would like to admit. First, James McCanney is NOT a respected scientist. He is maligned for many good reasons. Remember, Hitler had "scientists" to back him up, too. You must look to industry standards and main stream standards to judge the experts you rely upon. James McCanney doesn't hold up. Second, you were not born a sinner, nor defective. That's your religion telling you a lie and you buying into your own self-hatred and insecurity. You don't need to do so. Free yourself from such negative thinking and beliefs ! Lastly, the burden of proof is on you, to prove that your invisible god exists. And, if he does, as I've stated, before, it should be easy to prove. Stage-4 cancer patients should be walking out of hospitals by the hundreds, daily. But, they're not. Why? Because your god isn't real, or his followers have no faith (which, in the end, is the same thing). That is the only conclusion. You will continue to do intellectual somersaults to get around this conclusion, but, I know, deep inside, you know I'm right. One main difference between me and you is that I will admit "I don't know" and wait or look for an answer. You invent a god, when you hit the wall of "I don't know." - You have adopted the approach of the cavemen, to address the unknown. That's the definition of purposeful ignorance.
Doug:
My "path to enlightenment " has taken the inverse of yours. To be totally honest my brain DID want to go almost exactly to the same
Place your brain is at now. But, I have come to my faith by the truthful analysis of the world around me by asking questions. But let's ask some questions :
James (an outside of the debate commenter and the mutual link between us) is so right in his statement that you need to become more politically aware.
Chadwick, why do they use divide and conquer? Why do they use this Hegelian dialectic? (That's problem/ reaction/ solution) Why do they use political correctness? Why do they use false flag terror? Why are they chemtrailing everywhere? Why do they push this agenda 21? Why do they use race baiting and race pimping ? Why are they dumbing down our language /thinking skills through technology? (Computer games and texting mostly), Why do they put this poison called fluoride in our drinking water? Why are they poisoning our food in the name of increasing their corporate profits? Why are they killing us with our own horrific medical system? That they now control. Why are they attacking us and our DNA electromagnetically in the name of technology? Why are they turning our kids into programmable zombies? Why do they push a Globalist agenda? Why are they saddling our kids with this insurmountable public debt? Why do they spy on us and track everything we do? Why do they use political footballs such as abortion, and gay/animal rights? (Talk about being duped!) Why do they do all of this social engineering to control us? Why do we worship our "new gladiators" or sports heroes? Why does this BEAST system acquire more and more power and money, while the average common man human being the world over gets more and more powerless, poor, weak and sick?
Talk about going on and on... whew! Why does so much literature continually point to this ever raging battle between good and evil? I have only read a little bit of pre 19th century literature. But newer works such as Brave new world by Huxley (one of the modern day forefathers of the trans humanistic, the new word for Nazism religion), or Orwell's 1984, or Animal farm, or Vonnegut's player piano, or the very old Machiavelli's the prince all point to this battle.
There must be an evil force behind all of this and I submit that its name is Satan. Seeing the Whole world through this paradigm, the world begins to make total sense. Why is this knowledge of good and evil written on our hearts?
Now my conclusion to the answer of all these questions quite honestly tells me, if Satan obviously exists, than so must God. So when I moved on from THAT point, God's presence is ever becoming more and more clear to me.
I would also take James' warning about your side of the power structure ultimately turning on you VERY SERIOUSLY !
Hey, I know we are a lot alike, that's one reason I like conversing with you. I told you Mccanney is maligned. Thanks for proving my point.
The system : "industry standards ,mainstream standards," as you call them, medical industrial, military complex, mainstream philosophical religion standards, the mainstream media... The WHOLE "powers that be" structure that we now operate under, or the BEAST SYSTEM I like to call it ,
this SYSTEM is in fact the EXACT system that was behind and backing up Hitler. If you are unaware of these facts I am truly sorry that you are SO misinformed. So it's no wonder that the likes of MCcanney and other truth seekers are so maligned by them. If you'd like, I could point you towards the truth in this matter, to save you some time.
People with stage 4 cancer ARE walking out of hospitals and never coming back. They are actually, by the grace of God, being healed by the thousands, because they are learning what a total FRAUD our, death machine medical system really is . (I'm tempted to insert one of my diatribes here to support this fact, but I wont ...maybe I will repost it and tag you with it ) but of course, the BEAST system you seem to love keeps you in the dark about all of THIS also.
I have told you over and over how I prove God's existence (to my mind, anyways which I guess is the most important to ME.) I guess because I sense that you think a lot like me, that maybe it could be helpful to you also.
Also, I posted my cancer diatribe.
Chadwick:
None of what you've said explains why you can't heal me of my type II diabetes. If your god is real, and your holy book is to be believed, you should be able to accomplish the task. Stop making excuses, and going off on tangents, and just do it. I'm waiting . . . If you can't, your belief system is without merit. The test I'm asking you to meet, comes from within your own belief system, so you can't complain about the terms.
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Chapter 8
Lessons learned
lesson 1:
A lesson that I learned through this correspondence came through some weird incidents that I now retrospectively have some trouble totally illuminating upon; but some strange things happened to my writings that I was doing in a text editor on my phone that I attributed at the time to some kind of intervention of God. I had written a long, scathing diatribe to Chadwick that, as the dialog alludes to, just disappeared right off of my phone, right in front of my eyes. (This by itself is not necessarily that weird, except for the fact that the only things that did NOT disappear out of my written diatribe were in fact, some Bible verses that were in the middle of my long treatise.)
Now instead of trying to rewrite it all, I felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to just tell Chadwick what happened and to just show him the Bible verses that I felt the Lord wanted us both to dwell upon. This is probably why this part of our dialog seems even more dis- jointed.
To this day, I still don't know what the Holy Spirit did with this. But I think someday in eternity I may find out.
Lesson 2:
This experience, coupled with a few others going on in my life at the time, went a long way in developing in my spiritual awareness a much keener sense for picking up those oftentimes gentler and subtler leadings of the Spirit. A very invaluable and ongoing lesson.
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Doug:
Chadwick, do you really think that your "test defense" is gonna fly in God's eyes when you meet your maker? "But Lord, I gave everybody a chance to heal me with THEIR "supposed" mustard seed of faith. My faith just wasn't required." COME ON! You can't fathom my conclusions anymore because your thoughts have been tainted and distorted by a gay, pridefully rebellious agenda.
If you humbly and sincerely ask God to show Himself to YOU in a way that YOU can't deny, I'M sure that He would.
I wrote up to this point, before I saw your line by line refutation. But I'll just add here that I'll stand on the works of the brilliant minds and thinkers through history, rather than the conclusions of a Mr. Chadwick.
I'll also add: did you know that every single great scientist through the last several hundred years ALL had deep faith in a God? Including Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Mendel,
Kelvin, Planck, Pascal and Einstein to name a few of the heavy hitters of science ; talk about your TRUTH seekers. I will even add that Sir Isaac Newton actually wrote as much or more Biblical commentary than he did on science.
Chadwick, believe it or not, (it really matters not to me what you believe ), but I HAD Typed up another long scathing refutation to your last thoughts. But through some "mistyping " on my part, I watched my whole article disappear right before my eyes. (Much to my chagrin ). The only thing that did not disappear is what follows and I believe is a message from God to both of us.
PRO1.7.ESV The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
PSA111.10.ESV The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!
JOB28.28.ESV And he said to man, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.'".
Chadwick:
I have never had the concept of free will satisfactorily explained to me, within the context of the Christian religion, nor any religion for that matter. If god is all-knowing, and thus, knows what we will choose, then free will is a myth. You can't have it both ways. Either your god is limited, or we have free will. Take your pick.
Doug
I struggled over that concept for years. Just because God knows what YOU will choose doesn't mean YOU didn't choose it. It's weird but it DOES make logical sense. God being outside of time sees future past and present all at His leisurely perusal.
Chadwick, here is a much more eloquent version of the writing I tried to send you, but lost.
Here is something that I submit that every mentally competent conscious human being can do. When the human mind honestly contemplates our existence beyond all space, beyond all time, beyond all dimensions beyond all cosmology, beyond all light , beyond all darkness beyond all life beyond all death beyond all science, beyond all reasoning beyond all religion, beyond all theology, beyond EVERYTHING.... breaking it ALL down to its smallest, most irreducible, most infinitesimal beginning point there is ONE thing that remains. IT is expressed in the first words of the Holy Bible when it says : " in the beginning God.... " this is the ultimate. This is the sharpest of sharpest razor's edge of Occam's razor which in definition basically says : "when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better."
With the acceptance of this first precept ( for our faith is built precept upon precept ) our otherwise. Seemingly pointless existence begins to take on relevance and real purpose.
Now, at the other side of these bookends of "God's point to our existence", in its most reduced,bare bones Biblical form, it comes to our awareness in this last phrase that the (human form) Jesus uttered when he said " it is finished " (John 19:30 ).
It is the contemplation, understanding, and acceptance or rejection (our free will) of what these final human words of Jesus meant that realizes our Creator's destiny for our eternal souls, out of this tiny point of time in this tiny speck of the eternal universe.
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ch 9
Lessons learned:
Lesson 1
Although my intents were noble in trying to convince Chadwick, sometimes instead of just praying more for the Holy Spirit to work in our conversation, I started to lean too hard on my own "wisdom in my own eyes" as the Bible calls it. A thing I probably still struggle with. As you will see, some of this "wisdom" gets spun here.
Lesson 2:
An ever growing sense that it is ALL about the state of our hearts over our minds.
Chadwick:
Yes, the simpler one
is better. You assert an unimaginably complex Being popped out of nothing, or has always existed. I assert simple energy popped out of nothing, or has always existed. My theory wins.
Doug:
Your right that your theory is simpler than mine, but have fun explaining it to God if mine is right.
Chadwick:
If the only reason you believe is to be safe, and your god is real, he won't be fooled by your insincere worship, with the underlying motive being to save your hide. And if he is troubled by my disbelief, I WILL have fun telling him off. He will deserve it.
Doug:
Chadwick you knew I wasn't gonna leave it with just that.
This is kind of an inverse, inside out so to speak way of explaining what I was trying to get across in my other "God exists diatribe". Here goes, I finally think I found a decent way to explain this weird thought/mindset I have had brewing in my brain for a number of years.
If you were to imagine and contemplate a world (and I submit THIS may be true) a world or existence, if you will, where every single thing is possible to exist. I mean anything and EVERY THING. If you can fathom it, or dream of its existence, then it CAN exist. Modern Quantum string theory even supports this kind of idea.
Now included in this set of possibilities is "God exists" AND "God doesn't exist", along with a zillion other subsets of this and other ultimate dualities. (When you look at any property of anything, it either does not exist or it does, with I guess, a zillion varying degrees of how it presents itself to us, which become meaningless in all practicality).
NOW just by definition, for lack of a better word, when all things are considered, and/or stripped away, there is only one possibility that stands up under its own power and this becomes the.... guess what, KING OF KINGS AND (Luckily for us ) RIGHTEOUS LORD OF LORDS possibility of "God exists".
Now as for any other possibility : they lose all of their power and relevance because ...see possibility #1 ( I will call it ) which says "GOD EXISTS" and if you don't like it ...well, see possibility #1.
Now luckily for us this possibility #1 left with us an instruction manual on how it wants us to comport ourselves, in this tiny speck of time, in this minuscule place we are at.
And luckily my God wants to have a real relationship with me so He understands how what starts out as a healthy (the Bible would even call wise) fear of Him can actually grow into a real, loving relationship with Him.
This is the part you are really missing out on Chadwick.
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