Former Fundamentalists: christian

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WHO is God?

A response to message: Ten Commandments Controversy - America Founded on Judaic-Christian Priniciples

From: "ricky"
To: edwardtbabinski.us
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:47 AM
Subject: WHO is G-d?

Gloria, I can see that you, like myself, are searching for the true G-d, because, for all these years, you have been inundated with conflicting information that has you confused and uncertain. Let me relate a true story of something that happened to me just last week that should help you find an answer.

For the past 35 years I have been an absolute atheist. Raised a Roman Catholic, I, of course, began to question the veracity of the scriptures and the authenticity of the new testament. It has been my belief that the story of Jesus was the greatest hoax perpetrated on mankind in all of history. NOBODY could convince me I was wrong. With this in mind, last week, Monday, September 15, I was checking out the stocks, looking for something to buy low and sell high, watching CNBC, when I realized it was time to take my granddaughter to the schoolbus, which has become a daily ritual for me. Before I disconnected from the trading site I said to G-d, "Father, I TRULY believe that YOU are the one true G-d and Jesus was not your son. I believe that Christians, believing otherwise, are breaking the first commandment. If I am on the right path, and YOU are the one TRUE G-d, please send me a sign...mess up my computer; leave a message across the screen....ANYTHING to give me a sign that I am on the right path."

I, then, shut down, went over to my son's house and picked up my granddaughter. After she wasdriven off, I returned home and returned to the very same website I had been on, only THIS time I couldn't submit a buy order, I couldn't browse, couldn't send or recieve EMail...in other words, my computer had gone haywire.

I packed up my equipment to take it to a computer expert to have it purged of this virus, and, later that night I was washing the supper dishes. My wife was gone, playing Bingo, and, as I rinsed a glass, with the TV on in the backround, I said aloud, "Well, G-d, I guess you showed me."

IMMEDIATELY, one of the characters, I think it was a woman, (and I really don't know what was being shown on the channel, or even WHICH channel I had on) said, "That's what you asked for, Ricardo". I know you must think I'm some lunatic, but the fact that I found your website should convince you that, since I experienced those two miracles, I have done little except try to find out whether this was truly a connection to the one, true G-d. Take it for what it's worth. I swear that EVERY word I have written here is the absolute truth. As hard as it is to go contrary to the Christian faith, I am CONVINCED now that the Jews and the Muslims might just be correct in their assertions that Jesus was no more than a man and that G-d is angry that this carpenter has been given a status
he does not deserve.

What do YOU think?

From: Gloria M.
To: edwardtbabinski.us
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 9:44 AM
Subject: Re: Hello

I read, with interest, your miracle, and certainly will not argue with your interpretation.......except........when I read:
"later that night I was washing the supper dishes."

Now we all know that male/washing dishes do not belong in the same sentence. What planet did you say you live on?

Just joking, I also, have a husband who washes dishes - (lucky me) -

Now for your question: What do YOU think?

You know 'Ricky' it is not for me to question your interpretation of an experience that you call a 'miracle'. I will share with you that my computer crashed last year, and it did not occur to me to put a 'God did it' interpretation on it. - and I will say that I disagree with your characterization of God as 'angry' - (amused, maybe), but we've got to stop attributing to God all these negative human emotions - Isn't it amazing he has not sued for defamation of character a long time ago?

Sincerely, Gloria, ss (struggling soul)

Too much secular influence in media and schools

Date: 5/10/2004 19:35:55 -0700
From: Michael M.
To: ed.babinski
Subject: Hello
Dear Sir:
It is a real place. I would suggest that you reconsider your positions. You can't intellectualize yourself to be God. Sorry...it doesn't work that way.

An Intellectual Christian who knows your viewpoints are complete bunk.

From: Ed Babinski
To: Micheal M.
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 2:52 PM
Subject: Intellectual Xtian knows your view r complete bunk-o

Hello Michael,

How did you hear about www.edwardtbabinski.us ?

If you disagree with what is on somebody else's website and have nothing to say to them except to email them a threat and an insult, why not simply go visit another website? I don't visit Christian sites just to leave insults.

Was there a particular Christian web-apologist whom you were trying to emulate in your email message to me?

Cheers,

From: Ed Babinski
To: Michael M.
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: Intellectual Xtian knows your view r complete bunk-o

ed babinski writes:
Michael M. writes:

Mr. Babinski:

There is too much of the secular ideas promoted in the media and collge campuses.

ED: There might also possibly be too much "know-nothing theology" preached in
1) churches across the country,
2) in church-schools,
3) on Christian radio and TV,
4) in Christian books sold in Christian bookstores and at Walmarts across the nation,
5) in Christian websites and emails,
6) on Evangelical Christian campuses,
7) in Christian campus groups on secular campuses,
8) in Christian home-schooling courses, etc.

But I don't get involved with arguing THAT point so much as explaining at my website why I personally left the fold. There are other websites like mine, as Steve Locks at "Leaving Christianity" proves with his list of links. (Just google, "Leaving Christianity")

In fact, Christianity is under constant attack from persons of the more liberal bent just because it evokes the concept of absolutes.

ED: Christianity is in constant martyr mode. "We're being attacked!" But in fact, we have a president who says Jesus is his favorite "philosopher" (sic). We have a fundamentalist Attorney General, Ashcroft.

We have Washington Prayer Groups galore, and influencial preachers meeting with Senators and Congressmen. The Bush Administration has spent hundreds of millions on faith related programs and on training churches how to apply for such programs. Christians have their own news (700 Club), radio, satellite networks (Catholic and Pentecostal), bookstores (Zondervan and others), Christian book and music kiosks in WalMarts.

Polls reveal that people with Evangelical Christian views number about a third of the U.S. population, that's enough votes to take over the country (since most of the eligible U.S. voting population doesn't even vote). If all Christians voted together, politically, they could take over.

As for absolutes, even Christians have not been able to demonstrate to fellow Christians exactly what those absolutes are across the board.

Christians who agree that the Bible is uniquely inspired, and/or without error -- and who agree that the Bible interprets itself ("Sola Scriptura") -- and who agree that the "Holy Spirit" guides them into "all truth" -- still find themselves disagreeing over what the Bible "really says." Protestant Reformers damned Biblical interpretations by fellow Reformers. Puritans split with Puritans. In our own day, America's single largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, fired missionaries and professors, split from the World Baptist Alliance, and incited the founding of the more moderate Baptist Cooperative Fellowship -- over differences in Biblical interpretation. Christian seminaries and universities have been founded in reaction to one anothers' differing Biblical interpretations. New translations of the Bible have been made to counter other translations.

Concerning differences in Biblical interpretation, the famed Scottish Christian, Thomas Erskine, said, "The most zealous defenders of the verbal inspiration of the Bible admit that there are parts of it of less importance than others. This is a great admission, because another is involved in it, namely that we ourselves must be judges of the comparative importance of these different parts."

At the very least, one must admit that disagreements and ambiguities exist among Christian interpretations of the Bible just as they do elsewhere in life and learning, so there is no evidence of the superiority of "revealled religion" when it comes to that.

Speaking of such disagreements and ambiguities, two Evangelical Christian presses, InterVarsity Press and Zondervan, began publishing books in the 1980s in which Evangelical Christian theologians explained their views and questioned each others' reasons for holding them. Keep in mind that the disagreements discussed in the books below are only between Evangelical Protestants (and E.P.'s do not constitute the biggest bulk of Christianity which remains Catholic). If the publishers began editing books that featured not only Protestant but also Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views, there would undoubtedly be more topics and more books required to discuss them. Moreover, there are disagreements between conservatives, moderates, and liberals within each major church division or denomination. The books below feature mostly the differing views of conservative Evangelical Protestants, while moderate and liberal views are under-represented (perhaps because moderates and liberals doubt that the Bible speaks perfectly clearly on as many matters as conservatives assume it does). Nor do the books below address many moderate/liberal questions concerning the historical development of Christian ideas and doctrines.

Books by InterVarsity Press:

Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialog
Four Views on Divine sovereignty and Human Freedom
Four Christian Views of Economics
Four Theologians Debate the Major Millennial Views
Women in Ministry: Four Views
Divorce and Remarriage: Four Christian Views
Theologians and Philosophers Examine Four Approaches to War

Books by Zondervan Press, part of their Counterpoints Series:

Two Views on Women in Ministry
Three Views on the Rapture
Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond
Three Views on Creation and Evolution
Are Miraculous Gifts for Today: Four Views
Show Them No Mercy: Four Views on God and Canaanite Genocide
Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World
Four Views on the Book of Revelation
Four Views on Eternal Security
Four Views on Hell
Five Views of Law and Gospel
Five Views on Sanctification
Five Views on Apologetics

The Society of Christian Philosophers has also gotten into the act and published a debate book: Contemporary Debate in the Philosophy of Religion (Section III. features debates between Christian philosophers on questions such as "Can Only One Religion Be True?" "Does God Take Risks in Governing the World?" "Does God Respond to Petitionary Prayer?" "Is Eternal Damnation Compatible with the Christian Concept of God?" "Is Morality Based on God's Commands?" "Should a Christian Be a Mind-Body Dualist?" Concerning such questions, none of the Christian/theistic philosophers were convinced by the others' arguments.)

Or take the disagreements within Protestantism between conservatives and moderates concerning Biblical inerrancy. One such debate took place in the pages of The Churchman (published in Great Britain): The moderate Protestant Christian theologian, James D.G. Dunn, argued for a less than inerrant view of the Bible in his article, "The Authority of Scripture According to Scripture" (in two parts that appeared in The Churchman 96.2 & 96.3, 1982) Dunn's article was challenged in that same journal by Roger Nicole (a founder and charter member of the Evangelical Theological Society). Dunn was not swayed by Nicole's lengthy three-part rebuttal, and answered Nicole briefly and with equanimity, seeking to widen the circle of Christianity that they may both inhabit it, even though Nicole filled pages of his reply with what can only be called "preaching" -- or quotations from past theologians who sounded more like preachers than anything else -- to try and rouse Dunn to convert back to Nicole's view of inerrancy.

James D.G. Dunn is a major theological figure among moderate Protestant Christians. His latest work, Jesus Remembered, is the first of a planned trilogy on the first 120 years of Christianity. Dunn argues that The Gospel of John's narrative is not reliable, nor the claims it makes for Jesus' quasi-divine status. (In his earlier work, Evidence for Jesus, Dunn didn't imagine that Jesus spoke even one word reported in John.) Dunn admits there is little to support the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke, and little evidence that Jesus supported a mission to the gentiles, and no evidence that Jesus saw himself as any kind of messiah. (The term does not even appear in Q.) Nor is there much left of the "Son of Man," except for a few uncertain eschatological allusions. Dunn argues that Jesus did not claim any title for himself. Jesus may have believed that he was going to die, but he did not believe he was dying to redeem the sins of the world. "If Jesus hoped for resurrection it was presumably to share in the general and final resurrection of the dead." There is astonishingly little support for what Jesus' last words were. There is a certain squirming as Dunn admits that Jesus believed in an imminent eschatological climax that, of course, did not happen. "Putting it bluntly, Jesus was proved wrong by the course of events." Then he goes on for four pages trying to argue that we shouldn't be too concerned about this. Dunn's account of the resurrection notes all of the weaknesses of the tradition: The link of Jesus' resurrection to a falsely imminent general resurrection, confusion as to what sort of Jesus the witnesses were seeing, a persistent theme of failure of the witnesses to recognize Jesus (in Matthew 28:17 the disciples are seeing him in Galilee yet "some doubted," not just Thomas), confusion as to where they were seeing Jesus (in Jerusalem and Galilee? On earth or in heaven?). Which is not to say that Dunn does not affirm the resurrection -- he does, which is what still puts him in the Christian camp (though somewhat doubtfully in the eyes of conservative Evangelical inerrantists like Roger Nicole).

Another leading moderate whose views conservatives find unsettling is William G. Dever, the son of a fundamentalist preacher. After starting his education at a small Christian liberal arts college in Tennessee he went to a Protestant theological seminary that exposed him to critical study of the Bible, a study that at first he resisted. In 1960 it was on to Harvard and a doctorate in Biblical theology. For thirty-five years he worked as an archaeologist, excavating in the Near East, and he is now professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona. In his book, What Did the Bible Writers Know and When Did They Know It?, he writes, "While the Hebrew Bible in its present, heavily edited form cannot be taken at face value as history in the modern sense, it nevertheless contains much history." He adds: "After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible 'historical figures.'" He writes of archaeological investigations of Moses and the Exodus as having been "discarded as a fruitless pursuit." He is not saying that the Biblical Moses was entirely mythical, though he does admit that ".the overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel leaves no room for an exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness. A Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in southern Transjordan in the mid-late13th century B.C., where many scholars think the Biblical traditions concerning the god Yahweh arose. But archaeology can do nothing to confirm such a figure as a historical personage, much less prove that he was the founder of later Israelite region." About Leviticus and Numbers he writes that these are "clearly additions to the 'pre-history' by very late Priestly editorial hands, preoccupied with notions of ritual purity, themes of the 'promised land,' and other literary motifs that most modern readers will scarcely find edifying much less historical." Dever writes that "the whole 'Exodus-Conquest' cycle of stories must now be set aside as largely mythical, but in the proper sense of the term 'myth': perhaps 'historical fiction,' but tales told primarily to validate religious beliefs."

Dever's conclusions about what archaeology tells us about the Bible are not very pleasing to fundamentalists or conservative Evangelicals, and I gather that Dever and his colleagues of high standing likewise dismiss fundamentalists and hard-core conservative Evangelicals who want to consider themselves scholars without accepting that which good scholars must do: engage in extensive critical analysis. Those testifying for Dever's book (on the back cover) are: Paul D. Hanson, Professor of Divinity and Old Testament at Harvard University; David Noel Freedman, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the University of Michigan; Philip M. King, Professor at Boston College and author of Jeremiah; William W. Hallo, Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature at Yale University; and Bernhard W. Anderson, Professor of Old Testament, Boston University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. Like Dever, these are not a bunch of radical revisionists, but moderates in the field of Christian archeology. Dever's latest book is, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Conservative and fundamentalist Christians who interpret the Bible literally will gain no encouragement after reading it.

Like Dever and Dunn, Bart D. Ehrman apparently started out as a conservative Christian, graduating magna cum laude with a B.A. from Wheaton College, Illinois (an Evangelical Christian institution) before attending Princeton Seminary and obtaining his doctorate. His highly successful introduction to the New Testament, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (published by Oxford University Press) is now in its third edition -- "It approaches the New Testament from a consistently historical and comparative perspective, emphasizing the rich diversity of the earliest Christian literature. Rather than shying away from the critical problems presented by these books, Ehrman addresses the historical and literary challenges they pose and shows why scholars continue to argue over such significant issues as how the books of the New Testament came into being, what they mean, how they relate to contemporary Christian and non-Christian literature, and how they came to be collected into a canon of Scripture." Dr. Ehrman's university lectures are also sold by The Teaching Company which features tapes and CDs by leading educators

My apologies if you were offended. However, I often believe it is necessary to stand up for faith that makes sense in a world where "right" and "wrong" is an invention of man.

ED: I fear that in your original email you may have confused "standing up for your faith" with "sending out a hell-threatening insulting email void of content, except for a threat and an insult."

I don't believe that concept in the interests of our survival.

ED: I try to think in terms of here and now. Here's an interesting fact, you know all the killing going on in the Middle East? Most of the people there don't have problems with believing in life after death. To believe in life before death -- a life which is worth living -- that's the difficulty.

Speaking of a connection between belief in the afterlife and a less than noble regard for the lives of those in this world, I once read about a Catholic ruler and leader in war who apparently commanded his troops to "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."

On the other hand, there's also fanatical atheists and people imbued with a superstition-based egoism, who have killed en masse, from Attila the Hun to Ghengiz Khan (Ghengiz was superstitious and believed he was chosen at birth to conquer the world); to Hitler (again, not an atheist, but a man of superstition who also had a sense of having been chosen); to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot (communistic atheists three, though it must be admitted, communism echoed the religious mentality since it promised paradise, a "worker's paradise" following an "apocalyptic" overturning of the feared and hated "bourgouisie"--it seems that every religion needs its promise of a new jerusalem rising out of the ashes and also needs "demons" upon which to project the in-group's fears, failures and insecurities).

But the main thing that kills in all cases, either in cases of religion or atheism or egoistic superstition, is applying one's beliefs "fanatically."

As a satirical t-shirt suggest, "Death to All Fanatics!" --or at least death to the bloodthirsty fanatics who fire bullets rather than aphorisms at each other.

Fundamentalists Anonymous and a Question

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The Psalms, God and Mother Nature (A Satirical Criticism)

The Psalms, God and Mother Nature (A Satirical Criticism)
by Edward T. Babinski

The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from the Lord...[What if that "meat" is a Christian in a Roman arena? ? Skip]...Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all...both small and great beasts... These all wait upon thee; that thou may give them their meat in due season.
- Psalm 104

How blind the psalmist was to nature's ways! He forgot to mention that "the Lord" either gives lions "their meat in due season;" Or has them be eaten by their own mother (because they are runts or deformed); Or has them be eaten by a rival male who has taken control of the pride; Or has them starve because their parents fail to bring enough food home or die trying; Or makes young lions the "meat" of some other predatory species that catches them off guard; Or (if they are male) has them grow up and be killed in combat by another male seeking territory or mates; Or makes them the "meat" for a parasite or disease organism. It's all the same to "the Lord."

In 1994 one thousand lions, one-third of the population of East Africa's Serengeti park, died from painful convulsions by a virus that attacked their blood cells, lungs and brain, i.e., the Canine Distemper Virus. The lions probably picked up the virus from hyenas who picked it up from domesticated dogs that lived just outside the park. (That same year, a tenth of the 500,000 western gray kangaroos in South Australia and the 2.8 million gray kangaroos in neighboring New South Wales, went blind due to a mystery virus.) Let us all praise "the Lord" for supplying those viruses their "meat" in due season.
- Skip Church

On Thy wonderful works I will meditate...The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works...Thou dost open Thy hand, and dost satisfy the desire of every living thing...[By giving them other living things to prey upon? But then how is the desire of every living thing satisfied? ? Skip]...He will also hear their cry and will SAVE them. [But if He "hears their cry and saves" them from being eaten by some living thing, then He is starving that other living thing. ? Skip] He gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens which cry.
- Psalms 145:5,9,16,19 & 147:9

Speaking of how well "the Lord" "satisfies the desire of every living thing," let's take "the young ravens which cry" as a prime example. A recent study showed that one-third of adult birds and four-fifths of their offspring die of starvation every year (David Lack, "Of Birds and Men," New Scientist, Jan., 1996). Not surprising, since birds have to eat from one-quarter to one-half their body weight daily, so starvation is a common killer of birds.

Neither does "the Lord" "save" the baby birds that the baby cuckoo tosses out of the nest (the cuckoo's mother lays her eggs in the nests of other birds, and when it hatches, her baby tosses the other birds out of the nest) so that only the cuckoo chick remains in the nest and is fed by the other bird's parents.

Nor does "the Lord" "save" the baby birds that I saw on the "Hunting and Escaping" video (in the Trials of Life series) which were dragged from their nests by sea birds of a rival predatory species in order to feed the predator's own hungry chicks.

Nor does "the Lord" "save" baby birds tossed out of the nest by their own parents (because they aren't developing properly or swiftly enough).

How blind the psalmist was to nature's ways!
- Skip Church

Surely He will deliver you...You will not be afraid of...the arrow that flies by day; or of the pestilence [disease] that stalks in darkness; or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you...Because you have made the Lord your refuge... no evil will befall you...His angels...will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and cobra...you will trample them under foot...Because you have set your love upon Me, therefore I will deliver you...with long life I will satisfy you.
- Psalm 91

A modern day editor of Psalm 91 would probably add that "Atomic bomb radiation shall not burn you even though thousands melt at your right hand and your left into puddles of ooze." Which reminds me of how Rev. Pat Robertson in the late 1970s gave a rousing speech about how "machine gun bullets" would not be able to harm true believers who stood up for Jesus.

Of course, anyone taking a moment's thought must recognize that Psalm 91 portrays a fantasy version of earthly existence, i.e., of a man incapable of being hurt by arrows, an army of foes, diseases, poisonous snakes, lions, not even a chance of painfully stubbing his toe. But if mankind's earthly existence teaches us anything it is that "bad things happen to even the most righteous believers." Job, Jesus, and Pope John Paul can all testify to that, not to mention the Christian and Olympic runner who was portrayed in the film, Chariots of Fire, who died at a relatively young age of a brain tumor while working as a missionary in China with his parents.

Another psalmist (or perhaps the same one who wrote Psalm 91) sang that he had "never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread." (Psalm 37:25). If he had only opened his eyes.
- Skip Church

What is Fundamentalism?

Definition of Fundamentalism
by Edward T. Babinski

MICHAEL: "What is YOUR definition of 'fundamentalism' as related to Christianity?"

ED: You will find "Christian fundamentalism" defined in the first two chapters of my book Leaving the Fold, but here's some additional observations:

FUNDAMENTALISTS
To a lot of fundamentalists, God's love just isn't any fun unless you can find somebody else to deny it to.
- Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity

Nowadays the "universalistic" Buddhists and "universalistic" Christians and "universalistic" Moslems feel closer to one another than they feel to the fundamentalists within their own religious traditions. And the fundamentalists of each tradition can't even get along with the other fundamentalists of that same tradition.
- Brother Steindal-Rast, "The Monk is a Radical," The Laughing Man, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1981

When the apostle Paul departed for Palestine his Christian brethren "all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him" (Acts 20:37), obeying a sacred command found in the New Testament:

Greet one another with a holy kiss.
- 1 Corinthians 16:20 & 2 Corinthians 13:12

Salute one another with a holy kiss.
- Romans 16:16

Greet one another with a kiss of charity.
- 1 Peter 5:14

Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:26

So why isn't there a "Church of the Holy Kiss?" There's "Foot Washing Baptists" and even "Snake Handling Baptists," who take their cue from more obscure and less well attested Biblical commands. But there are no "Holy Kissing Baptists?" I guess fundamentalists won't follow certain commands even if God tells them to.
- E.T.B.

YOU MIGHT BE A FUNDAMENTALIST IF?
?you belong to a Christian weight-lifting team.

?you think the Bhagavad Gita is an Italian sports car.

?you believe the ancient Israelites were great scientists.
- Neal Kelsey ( http://www.religion4now.com )

Most fundamentalists wish to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.
- E. T. B.

Eternal rewards can't possibly make up for a lifetime spent conforming to Southern Baptist rules.
- Jayelle Lukash

Original Thoughts on The Original Sin

(The 'Methodists') demonstrate to secure, contented, happy mankind that it is really unhappy and desperate, and merely unwilling to realize that it is in severe straits it knows nothing at all about, from which only they can rescue it. Wherever there is health, strength, security, simplicity, they spy luscious fruit to gnaw at or to lay their pernicious eggs in. They make it their object first of all to drive men to inward despair, and then it is all theirs.
- Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Evangelical Christianity: Being made to feel sinful and guilty for not having felt sinful and guilty, in order that one might experience release from sin and guilt; Like donning lead boots and walking about in them until totally exhausted in order to have the exhilarating experience of taking them off again.
- Conrad Hyers, Once-Born, Twice-Born Zen

IS THE HEART OF MAN DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS, AND DESPERATELY WICKED?
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus taught, "If you see a woman and lust after her, I say that you have already committed adultery in your heart." In other words, even if you don't commit adultery in the flesh, you've committed it just by lusting after someone. Now suppose you see someone in need, who needs some cash or a kind word, and you yearn in your heart to give it to them, but don't. Does that mean you have already committed "charity" in your heart? Think about it. If a lust-filled yearning is evidence of the depravity of the human heart, then what about the yearnings people feel to help one another? Is that not an indication of goodness in people's hearts?

Gandhi, the famous Hindu peace-activist, taught that people should seek out what was best in their own religions and hearts. Even Jesus put a positive spin on "the heart" when he taught that "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart" (Luke 6:45 & Mat. 12:35), and when he taught that people ought to "Love God with all thy heart," (Mat. 22:37).

No doubt the "wickedness" of "the heart" expressed by Jeremiah 17:9 ("The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked") certainly applies to some people at some times when they do certain things, especially when they are at their lowest and weakest points. But to take Jeremiah's hyperbole and bake it in an oven until it becomes as dry and hard as a brick of dogma, and make that brick a cornerstone of your theology, takes a genuinely deceived heart, a heart dry of true feelings and honest appraisals of others' beliefs and actions.
- Skip Church

One of Christianity's chief offenses is not that it has enlisted the services of bad men, but that it has misdirected the energies of good ones. The kindly, the sensitive, the thoughtful, those who are striving to do their best under its influence, are troubled, and consequently often develop a more or less morbid frame of mind. The biographies of the best men in Christian history offer many melancholy examples of the extent to which they have falsely accused themselves of sins during their "unconverted" state, and the manner in which harmless actions are magnified into deadly offenses.
- Chapman Cohen, Essays in Freethinking

The church must stop trying to act like a "spiritual pharmacist" - working to produce acute guilt, and then in effect saying, "We just happen to have the remedy for your guilt here in our pocket."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Christian Psychologist admits manic-depression amongst Pentecostals

Judy: I enjoyed meeting you again (I'm sure we must have crossed paths sometime during our four years at high school), and discussing some of my favorite topics. I haven't gotten a hold of your book yet, but plan to read it sometime soon and also check out your reviews. I'm sure I'll find the content very challenging!
As far as the stats on manic-depression, I cannot cite any studies I've come across, but I will forward anything I find in the future. I have a close friend in Florida who has "left the fold" of fundamentalism who also was diagnosed as bipolar. She just graduated with her masters in counseling and keeps up with more of the research on mood disorders. I will check in with her at Christmas when I visit my family in Orlando.

The stats I quoted you were from Duke University Medical Center's Epidemiologic Catchment Area survey (Meador, Koenig, Hughes, Turnbull & George, 1992) which examined the relationship between religious affiliation and major depression. The six-month prevalence of major depression among Pentecostals was 5.4 percent compared to 1.7 percent for the entire sample. Something to look into, huh?

To answer your question about the post-reunion party, I believe a group went out to a nearby restaurant/bar. Since I had my 13-year-old daughter with me, I decided to make it an early night as well as enjoy a full day on Saturday visiting friends and relatives, etc.

Gotta run for now, but I look forward to hearing from you again. Enjoy the holidays...

Sincerely,

Judy

Ed: I went to a class reunion last year where they gave away a copy of my book, Leaving the Fold, and the mention of the book interested one woman in particular who introduced herself to me and told me that she comes from a large family of Pentecostal ministers, and now works at Pat Robertson's CBN University where she is currently obtaining her master's in psychology. She used to be a "Bible counselor," but soon was at odds with the simplistic prescriptions she was dealing out to people, so she went for a genuine degree in psychology, though just how genuine it can be at CBN University is another question. Still, I had a good talk with her and she didn't run away when I told her things like, "Any religion that believes in heaven and hell is gonna be a haven for manic-depressives," and she even supplied further damning info below, including infor about a manic-depressive thread running through her entire family. (Email above).

Having been a fundamentalist I now have a joy and peace in things that I never had as a fundamentalist. My peace does not "pass all understanding," but is now equal with my understanding. As a Christian I was bi-polar. I'm more level emotionally and rationally than before. More patient, even with my most devout Christian family members and friends. Leaving the fold was also revelatory as a rite of passage just as entering it was, but in a different way. Leaving reawakened my natural curiosity (or, looked at another way, my natural curiosity awakened my itch to leave), and I learned more during the long involved arduous process of leaving than I did while entering or while in the fold. I learned more about myself and other people and the Bible and lots of other related ideas and issues. I also learned to enjoy more of life and a wider range of people, ideas, music, humor. Each testimony in the book, LEAVING THE FOLD, begins with a brief paragraph that is a synopsis of the testimony that follows. Those synopses are drawn from the testimony itself, and they often express the positive effect that leaving the fold had on each of the book's contributors.

Also, two years ago at my high school reunion where they raffled off a copy of my book, a female Christian psychologist who studies and works at Pat Robertson's university and CBN headquarters, told me how interesting the book sounded, and as we talked more she told me that she used to be a Biblical counselor, but she became dissatisfied with the simplistic Biblical answers she had to deliver at each counseling session, by the numbers, insisting that wives not leave their abusive overbearing Christian husbands, etc., and, she also told me on the sly that she was interested in the apparent connection between the most emotionally charged Christian denomination (Pentecostalism) and DEPRESSION. She cited some figures from a Methodist hospital emergency ward that placed Pentecostal christians in the highest average rank of manic-depression cases. She also saw a lot of depression in her own large family. Her Dad and brothers were Pentecostal preachers and they suffered from bi-polar depression along with her Mom. Depression ran through her family. So, she dumped the simplistic "Bible counseling" and sought a genuine psychology degree (at Pat Robertson's University where she was already working). After listening to her tell me this I commented that "any religion that teaches there's only heaven or hell is gonna be a haven for manic-depressives."

Best, Ed

Great Awakening, Revivals and Calvinism

The Great Awakening, Revivals and Calvinism
by Edward T. Babinski

Edward T. Babinski
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Trevor (Calvinist), Grt.Awaken, My Calvin research

Trevor writes:
Hello;

You mentioned briefly that the Great Awakening had no lasting effects, in our last email.

Here is further food for thought that verifies your conclusion. I have attached several quotes about the after-effects of the Great Awakening. There did seem to be some social effects, such as how life was conducted and how beliefs were changed (i.e. altar calls, prayer benches or weeping benches were commonplace for people to cry at in front of the church, the rise in millenial fervor, etc). American Christianity actually took on a sour note after the Awakening. To be truthful, the fervor of the awakening made people get into an uproar of emotions and hysteria over the feeling of religion and guilt, etc, but no lasting intellectual effects resulted (except the writngs of some of the Calvinists who were critical of the awakening.

SEE ATTACHED FOR QUOTES.

Also, you are proably busy (too busy...like me). But if you ever get the chance, the best analysis of the Great Awakening I have read has been "The Religious Affections" by Jonathan Edwards, who stated the hogwash in most of the manifestations of the Awakening. And HE was the one who supposedly started it...only to become its harshest critic. You might enjoy it.

G'DAY

Trevor J.

SEE ATTACHED. Tell me if it accords with your conclusions on the Great Awakening.

Thanks Trevor!

I forgot about Edwards being The Awakening's harshest critic.

Reminds me.... There was a famous Catholic, Cardinal Neuman (Newman?), who wrote a thick, highly praised book titled ENTHUSIASM in which he critiqued religious enthusiasms of the past. Actually when you study the Reformation and the subsequent Catholic Counter Reformation, you find the Protestant and Catholic scholars agreeing that serious thought takes precedence over religious enthusiasm. Scholars do not seem to appreciate religious enthusiasm very much, they are much more concerned with trying to "prove" things to one another via the intellect.

Here's a quotation I ran across that mentions ye olde "mourning bench":

ROBERT INGERSOLL ON "REVIVALS"
I regard revivals as essentially barbaric. The fire that has to be blown all the time is a poor thing to get warm by. I think they do no good but much harm; they make innocent people think they are guilty, and very mean people think they are good.

In the days of my youth, ministers depended on revivals to save souls and reform the world. The emotional sermons, the sad singing, the hysterical "Amens," the hope of heaven, the fear of hell, caused many to lose what little sense they had. In this condition they flocked to the "mourner's bench" -- asked for prayers of the faithful -- had strange feelings, prayed, and wept and thought they had been "born again." Then they would tell their experiences -- how wicked they had been, how evil had been their thoughts, their desires, and how good they had suddenly become.

They used to tell the story of an old woman who, in telling her experience, said, "Before I was converted, before I gave my heart to God, I used to lie and steal, but now, thanks to the grace and blood of Jesus Christ, I have quit 'em both, in a great measure."

Well, while the cold winter lasted, while the snows fell, the revival went on, but when the winter was over, the boats moved in the harbor again, the wagons rolled, and business started again, most of the converts "backslid" and fell again into their old ways. But the next winter they were on hand again, read to be "born again." They formed a kind of stock company, playing the same parts every winter and backsliding every spring.
- Robert Ingersoll, "Why I am An Agnostic"

HOW DIFFERENT ARE MOST "CONVERTED" PEOPLE?
Were it true that a converted man as such is of an entirely different kind from a natural man, there surely ought to be some distinctive radiance. But notoriously there is no such radiance. Converted men as a class are indistinguishable from normal men.

By the very intensity of his fidelity to the paltry ideals with which an inferior intellect may inspire him, a saint can be even more objectionable and damnable than a superficial "carnal" man would be in the same situation.
- William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Oh, I had no idea you were an Aussie! (But your "G'day" gave it away.)

I look forward to seeing your paper and/or your collection of quotations concerning the abominable fancy! Wish I had time to look in the book I already mentioned to you, for the Isaac Watt's quotation. (Some of those books must include an index of "topics" that might include "hell" or "the saints" and make it easier to find the line that we would both like to verify.)

Lastly, I recently completed some Calvin research, regarding two questions in particular, whether a "rebellious" child was exectued in Calvin's Geneva (at least one was -- see my references below), and adulterers as well, and what Calvin's complicity was in those events, and whether those events were unusual even for their brual time period. Kingdon (who has edited the definitive modern day translation of the Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in French, as well as publishing the first three years of them in English), admits that the executions for adultery In Geneva were unusual even for their time period, and Calvin argued for executions in both the case of adultery, and "rebellious" children.

Best, Ed

My Advice About Debating With Christians

My Advice About Debating With Christians
by Edward T. Babinski

David Lee:
Hi, I had a mini-debate with a man named Jason Gastrich. As soon as it became obvious I was doing well in a debate he booted me from his list and on a public newsgroup made remarks accusing me of making slanderous remarks. He also claimed to know you and said he was a good friend of yours. I told him I knew Ed and that post was the one that was booted from off his "forum." As soon as he starts losing he starts accusing you of using foul language. Jason also deleted a URL I made claiming it wasn't allowed, but let Charity post two of his. I just wanted to know if you knew of this man?
David

Ed Babinski:
Hello David, (you can also pass this along to Jason and his group, or anyone else for that matter),

Jason Gastrich rings a bell from a while back, we exchanged some emails and nothing was decided between us. *smile* I strive to remain polite in most cases with everyone I meet. Hey, making enemies is easy, especially when discussing "hot" topics. Keeping the pot from boiling over is the difficult part.

I have not been on Jason's list, but of course, if you join an Evangelical Christian group you should expect the Referee's judgment calls to be at least a little slanted in favors of the Ref's favorite team. I have noticed that most Evangelical websites I've visited, notably the young-earth creationist ones, and the hard line conservative apologetics ones, do not provide links to "heretical" sites of fellow Christians (like old earth creationists! or moderate historical Bible scholars), let alone links to freethought sites that question the Bible's history, science, etc. While the freethought sites do tend to provide links to conservative Christian sites. *smile*

When worse comes to worse in an email conversation there are a few things you can do:

1) Take a long walk or shoot some hoops, take a deep breath, stretch, and only dive back in after you're calm, relaxed and refreshed -- keeping in mind that taking whatever you do 'too seriously' is also one of the signs of an imminent nervous breakdown. *smile*

2) Remind yourself that you're just one person, you can't change the world, and that people are addicted to their beliefs, they identify their beliefs with their own egos and defend them like their own children, and that the mind of man is wonderfully versatile at inventing the most imaginative excuses rather than admit things it doesn't want to admit.

3) Keep in mind that people avoid change until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing.

4) Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance.

And...

5) The only books or ideas that usually influence us are those which have gone just a little bit further down our particular path than we have gone ourselves.

The wisdom of Line 5) may explain why most people, Christians included, do not usually seek to debate those with views near their own, they usually prefer people with views further from their own. There is less chance of such views connecting with their own and altering them. (Kind of like the way an immune cell needs SOMETHING to latch onto on the surface of an invading bacterium before it can interact with it and destroy it.) If young-earth creationist Biblical inerrantists debated mostly old-earth creationist Biblical inerrantists their interactions would have the most chance of being the most friendly and productive. But neither side really wants that. They want to destory the "infidels" who live far off in the distant land of evolutionary biology. *smile* It's more fun to hack your way through a thick jungle of views you differ with much more, cutting and slashing the thick vines in your way with your machette.

Oddly enough, Evangelical inerrantist Christians agree they have an inerrant perfect book along with the Holy Spirit "leading them into all truth," but even with those two BONUSES, they can't get fellow Evangelical inerrantists to agree on the meaning of a host of verses in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

It seems that they should tackle their fellow brethren, those who agree with inerrancy and the Holy Spirit's truth leading ability, i.e., before trying to convert others who don't share those two HUGE supernatural bonuses. I mean, theoretically it should be a piece of cake getting brethren to agree on lesser matters of Biblical interpretation if they first agreed that they had a perfect book, and they both prayed beforehand for the same Holy Spirit to guide them both into ALL truth. Yet in practice, conservative inerrantist Christians have a habit of not even being able to get along with fellow members of their own denominations. It's been that way since Calvin and Luther didn't get along (Luther thought Calvin's view of the Eucharist was "damnable" and threatened people with hell who agreed with it). See the first website below.

Calvin, Luther and other Reformers, and their animosities

Protestant Divisions and Mutual Animosities

Dialogue: John Calvin's Letter to Philip Melanchthon Concerning Protestant Divisions: Its Nature, Intent, and Larger Implications

Martin Luther the "Super-Pope" and de facto Infallibility With Extensive Documentation From Luther's Own Words

The Protestant Inquisition ("Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution)

John Calvin (what a guy)

Quotes from John Calvin

Quotes from Martin Luther

Luther the Deranged Theologian

Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor (an entire BOOK on the web)

I would also add that Europe was set ablaze by hosts of armed Christians who agreed with both the Trinity and Young Earth Creationism, but still wacked at each other for thirty years of perhaps the bloodiest battles Europe has ever seen, Catholic nation against Protestant nation. Oh well.

EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE THIRTY YEARS WAR (THE THIRTY YEARS WAR? WHAT'S THAT?)
By the division of Christianity at the Reformation, religious authority itself became the cause of conflict. The Protestant states thereafter rejected the right of the Universal Church to judge their actions, while the Catholic states took that rejection as grounds to make war against them in clear conscience. The outcome was the Thirty Years War, the worst thus far in European history, which may have killed a third of the German-speaking peoples and left Central Europe devastated for much of the seventeenth century.
- John Keegan, War and Our World (the Reith Lectures, 1998, broadcast on the BBC, recorded at the Royal Institution, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, King's College, London)

Herbert Langer in The Thirty Years' War, says that more than one quarter of Europe's population died as a result of those thirty years of slaughter, famine and disease. Ironically, the majority of Europeans who killed each other shared such orthodox Christian beliefs as Jesus' deity, the Trinity, and even "creationism." So you cannot blame the horrific spectacle of the Thirty Years' War on modern day scapegoats like atheism, humanism or the theory of evolution. Such a war demonstrates that getting nations to agree on major articles of faith does not ensure peace, far from it. Some of the most intense rivalries exist between groups whose beliefs broadly resemble one another but differ in subtle respects.
- E.T.B.

The Thirty Years' War was the last great religious war in Europe. Starting as a civil war between Protestants and Catholics in Germany, it burst into flame in 1618 when Protestants in Prague stormed the royal palace and threw the [Catholic] governors out the window (they landed on a pile of manure and survived). Shocked, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II sent troops into Prague to force all Protestants into exile, leading the Protestant king of Denmark, Christian IV, to attack Ferdinand in Saxony. The battle then raged through France, Germany, and Sweden with nations and religious groups fighting a long series of battles over both territory and theology. - Jerry MacGregor & Marie Prys, 1001 Surprising Things You Should Know About Christianity

The underlying causes of this devastating, general European war were conflicts of religion: Protestant verses Roman Catholic reform, pluralistic tolerance versus arbitrary imposition of faith, Lutheranism and Calvinism and the Protestant Union versus the Catholic League. - George Childs Kohn, "Thirty Years' War" (1618-48), Dictionary of Wars, rev. ed.

There was a time [during the Reformation] when religion played an all-powerful role in European politics with Protestants and Catholics organizing themselves into political factions and squandering the wealth of Europe on sectarian wars. English liberalism emerged in direct reaction to the religious fanaticism of the English Civil War. Contrary to those who at the time believed that religion was a necessary and permanent feature of the political landscape, liberalism vanquished religion in Europe. After a centuries-long confrontation with liberalism, religion was taught to be tolerant.

In the sixteenth century, it would have seemed strange to most Europeans not to use political power to enforce belief in their particular sectarian faith. Today, the idea that the practice of religion other than one's own should injure one's own faith seems bizarre, even to the most pious churchmen. Religion has been relegated to the sphere of private life -- exiled, it would seem, more or less permanently from European political life except on certain narrow issues like abortion.

Religion per se did not create free societies; Christianity in a certain sense had to abolish itself through a secularization of its goals before liberalism could emerge.

Political liberalism in England ended the religious wars between Protestant and Catholic that had nearly destroyed that country during the seventeenth century: with its advent, religion was defanged by being made tolerant.
- Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

Josh McDowell - Atheist Convert to Christianity?

Josh McDowell - Atheist Convert to Christianity?
Questions have been raised whether or not indeed Josh McDowell was an Atheist. Some on the web have reported McDowell was an atheist before accepting Christianity. A representative of McDowell's Ministries claims that was never so, and Ed Babinski quotes McDowell on what appears to be a testimonial of a former atheist.

From: sharon
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2003 6:53 PM
To: Josh Web
Subject: Review on a Book by Josh McDowell from Amazon

Greetings,

I'm writing because something has troubled me for years about Josh McDowell.

Josh McDowell claims he was an atheist, and I don't see how he possibly could have been one. It is impossible in my reasoning, to be an atheist (like Farrel Till and Dan Barker and the like) and becoming a Christian. I can only believe that Josh McDowell was a "backslider"... a Christian deep down at heart, and later began to take his faith seriously and following it. (Prv:22:6: Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (KJV)

Is there anything on the web which goes indepth on Mr. McDowell's former "atheist" beliefs? Because I sure would like to read them, and compare them with what I know from other atheists' beliefs. Thanks in advance!

I can see how a person raised in a foreign land, and taught non-Christian, non-Hindu, non-Muslim beliefs could be an atheist (lacking a substantial teaching about a god, although most places on earth teach of some kind of god(s) --- then convert to Christianity, but not due to "biblical knowledge". Rather their neighbors are doing it, it offers social opportunities, so they become like their neighbors, without even the need to read the Bible.

The group of atheists I speak of are those like Professor Till, a former preacher, whom with much knowledge about the Bible, loses faith, after years of study and research... one group of atheists are atheists for lack of exposure to Biblical knowledge. The second group of atheists, become atheists, due to exposure to Biblical knowledge.

I'm not very clear on how or why Josh McDowell claims often he is a former atheist. What were his beliefs, while he was an atheist?

Thank you sincerely, very much,

Sharon

___________________________

The Response from Josh McDowell's ministry went something as thus:

Josh says in his tract, "Skeptic's Quest," that he was looking for meaning and purpose in life. He had tried religion when he was young but could not find the answers he was searching for. What he did not know until he was in college was that it is a relationship with Jesus Christ, rather than religion, which gives meaning and purpose to life.

He does not use the word atheist in the tract, but set out to prove Christianity false. Instead of being able to do that, he came to the following three conclusions: Jesus Christ was who He said He was, there is historic evidence for the reliability of Scripture, and the Resurrection of Christ took place.

In His service,
Penny Woods
Josh McDowell Ministry

___________________________

From: sharon
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 3:55 PM
To: Penny Woods
Subject: Re: Review on a Book by Josh McDowell from Amazon

Dear Penny,

Thank you for responding.

Many people have it so written on the internet, and I've heard it spoken on K-Love Radio and elsewhere, that Josh McDowell said he was an atheist, and from my limited knowledge about what Josh McDowell teaches, and his personal testimony, I simply cannot find an atheist in the picture of Mr. McDowell's account on his life. I could and can only find a "backsliding Christian", not an atheist.

He does not use the word atheist in the tract, but set out to prove Christianity false.

And I was an unbeliever who set out to prove Christianity true...About 3 years ago, I was a confirmed Deist, and had rejected the Bible utterly, after leaving a cult from 10 years before (raised from about age 5, in the legalistic Worldwide Church of God... my parents were baptised around 1975 and I finally left the WWCG in 1991) ... the Church had fallen apart, so I spent years wandering in confusion, with no where to turn, but maintaining my belief in a God. It had taught us well, not to trust in any other religion, and then itself became untrustworthy, as Joseph Tkach reformed doctrines... I was one that could not accept these radical changes, and instead of joining like others had, in one of the splinter groups, I struck out on my own in much confusion to find God on my own.

What happened, was losing faith in the Bible... ( for instance, when Peter denies Jesus, the cock crows one time in Matthew, Luke and John, but is recorded to crow twice in Mark --- this contradiction devastated me when I saw it in the Bible... I was sick to my stomach, I could not sleep, or eat... I felt as if the world had caved in on me all over again .. first our reliable church had crumbled, and now the Bible... I was devastated... it was traumatizing to learn about discrepancies in the Bible, after years of being told it was without error or contradiction ) when I recovered from some of this grief, I gained an indifference for the Bible.

Three years ago that changed. I believe it was indeed God himself that was at work in my mind, and spirit, and forced me to pick up the Bible (after years of indifference and deism), and to accept it on blind faith. I did after weeks/months of spiritual warfare.. to believe in a book which a lifetime had taught me to not believe in, it was an impossible leap of faith, but I made it. Very fervent search that I had never experienced. Easter morning at 3 a.m., in my home I was awake and pacing the floor, and I prayed a fervent prayer --- holding the Bible toward heaven, shaking that book, and demanding if indeed that were the true Word of God, "GIVE ME PROOF GOD". Shortly after, I felt compelled to leave the church which did not have my answers, one Sunday School teacher could not even tell me where the Bible came from, because he himself had not ever bothered to take the time to read it, or research it, and yet defended it as "The Inerrant Word of God"... I left the church because of such people, and put my faith in God to guide me, and seek the truth about the Bible/Spiritualism. My journey lead me into buying several thousand dollars worth of books, and for the first time, to actually read the Bible from end to end, hearing every word, and if indeed I felt that I had not captured the context of a chapter I'd repeat the process 6 or 7 times if necessary... until I felt comfortable to move on to the next chapter. When all was said and done, including studying in reference books that I had purchased from Christian Book Distributors - - - I found myself back where I was years before, rejecting the Bible all over again - - - except without indifference this time around. That's where I am today. I take the Bible very seriously, but I do not revere it as the inerrant word of God. I tried like the devil, to make Genesis and Science reconcile, I made many people peaved with my enthusiasm --- I wanted so badly for the Bible to be inerrant and giving me the peace and hope that it was the Word of God... for the first time in my life, I had began to take a serious look at what science actually teaches. From my understanding now, many of the concepts found in Genesis, came from Babylonian mythology. My search for truth continues, a search which I believe that God put me on... in that alone, I find peace. I believe God exists, beyond any doubt in my mind.

For instance... after reading the Bible, for what it says.... it was the Bible itself, that lead me to conclude there is no Satan at work in this world, but rather as Gandhi said "The only devils we need fear are the ones running around in our own hearts." I came away from the Bible and these many reference books with a new found lack of fear of the spirit realm. (Years before, for lack of study, I had carried varied spiritual beliefs into my Deism, when I lost faith in religion and the Bible. I had great fears of demons and devils --- today, I have no fear of such beings, I do not have that old fear of God's wrath either, a fear which the WwCG put in to its flock, and the Protestant Church I was attending, helped to exaserbate three years ago. Some study in theologian books, and encyclopedias, and reading the Bible helped me to unlearn those grim evil fears... demons attacking... the Baptist church had me so afraid to pray out loud -- one minister said "you must be careful about prayer, because there are demons about and they can take what you say to Satan, and he use your weaknesses against you"... I was terrified to pray out loud, but my study brought me to the understanding there is no Satan. There are no demons. The early books of the Bible, are absent of such concepts being the main reason I thought to reject a belief in them... further study confirmed the suspicion. I can pray out loud, without fear of a Devil either hearing me, or using the information against me, to hurt me... as if part of the spiritual journey with God taught me, "just calm down and trust me... things are better than the Church has taught you about me..." I have peace in that regard today. No fears of devils or demons attacking... The God I know, set me on a path to seek knowledge... and is not that God of Wrath I was raised to dread in the WwCG's legalistic Old Testament, not even the Protestant's New Testament which speaks of hell and its eternal death and damnation... I have no fear of eternal torment from the God that is my God.)

It appears to me, that myself and Mr. McDowell started out on the same spiritual path, but ended up on 2 very different outcomes.... my journey still continues, and in many ways, is just beginning. (The Search for truth and knowledge.)

Best Regards,

Sharon

___________________________

Yet another reply came back something as thus:

Sharon, as believers, we need to be wise to the work of the enemy (1 Peter 5:8) but we do not need to fear him, because if we resist him he flees (James 4:7). The Lord has given us authority over Satan. Jesus was present when Satan was thrown out of heaven because of his rebellion against God. That is what Jesus is referring to in Luke 10:18, 19 when he says, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." The Bible assures us that He who is in us is greater than the enemy (1 John 4:4).

You mentioned that the early books of the Bible do not mention Satan. Actually, he makes his appearance early on, as the crafty serpent in Genesis 3:1.

It is unfortunate that some people are taught an unhealthy fear about the enemy in church, because correct biblical teaching will teach that though Satan is present and active in today's world, believers, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, need not fear what Satan can do. He was defeated at the cross. A good way to present Satan's position today is to say that he is condemned but not yet totally destroyed, almost like a person sitting on death row who is alive and can cause problems but is facing certain execution. Satan was condemned at the cross and one day he will be totally destroyed when he is thrown in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).

We know that Satan was condemned at the cross because Paul is referring to what Jesus did to Satan and his demons in Colossians 2:15 when he says, "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."

1 John 3:8--"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work."

Hebrews 2:14--"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil. . ."

Jesus told us in John 10:10 that Satan came to steal, kill, and destroy, but He came to give us an abundant life. For those who do not give their lives to Jesus or do not properly understand their power and authority over Satan, he will do all he can to destroy lives, but believers who stand on the Word, are obedient to the Lord's teachings, and practice spiritual warfare according to Ephesians 6:10-18, have nothing to fear. If the enemy should attack, it will only be because the Lord allowed it, as He did in the case of righteous Job (see Job 1 and 2). For a person who is living in God's will, nothing comes into his life without first passing through the hands of God.

I encourage you to take these verses before the Lord, Sharon, and ask Him to give you His wisdom, insight, discernment and understanding. He never wants any of us to miss any point of truth He wants to show us because Jesus came to set us free from bondage, and any time we aren't walking in truth we are, to some degree, in bondage.

In His service,
Penny Woods
Josh McDowell Ministry

___________________________

From: Edward T. Babinski
To: sharon
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 9:36 PM
Subject: McDowell's "atheism"

She apparently has not even read Genesis, which does NOT mention "Satan," instead it says that the serpent was "the wisest beast of the field that God had made." And it was cursed as a serpent would be cursed, not as Satan. I mean, was "Satan" cursed to go on his belly and eat dust all the days of his life? Was "Satan" cursed "more than all cattle?" Yes, she knows the later Christian theological interpretations of the tale about Eden, but she ignores the plain words of the text in favor of later theological interpretations.

I wrote about McDowell's alleged "atheism" at length. I sent McDowell ministries a paper copy too, and a copy online, sent to someone a bit higher up than Penny at his ministry. They never responded.

Best, Ed

___________________________

From: Edward T. Babinski
To: sharon
Cc: penny..
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 10:46 PM
Subject: Josh McDowell claimed he had "chucked religion."

Dear Penny,

I do not know what you have been reading about McDowell's testimony, but he claimed to have been more than simply a backsliding Christian. McDowell wrote that he had "chucked religion." He said he was not a "Christian." That's more than just "backsliding."

In the first edition of Evidence that Demands a Verdict his testimony was titled, "I've Got a Satisfied Mind" (referred to hereafter as "MT1" for "McDowell Testimony #1"). The second edition of ETDAV featured a longer rewritten version of MT1, titled, "He Changed My Life" (referred to hereafter as "MT2" for "McDowell Testimony #2").

"I chucked religion...it didn't work" (MT1&2).

"I thought most Christians were walking idiots... I imagined that if a Christian had a brain cell, it would die of loneliness" (MT2)."

"I figured every Christian had two brains; one was lost and the other was out looking for it" (MT1).

"I used to listen to professors in supercilious humanities classes, and if they didn't believe Christianity, you weren't going to catch me believing it." (MT1).

His "testimony" is unimpressive and expected, given the description he supplies of the state he was in at the time.

Best, Edward T. Babinski (author of Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists, Prometheus Books, 1995, now in paperback)