1 edit
If "experience" does not translate into behaviour that can be witnessed [and experienced] by others, it is not relevant to "morality".
I am not waiting for your approval.
It is enough to know full well that I have had some failures.
We Christians don't close down because of this.
Are you hoping I'll shut up about God is real ?
"Oh dear! This atheist gives me a failing grade in being like Christ."
If the mob cried out for Jesus to be crucified because they too saw no evidence that He was Son of God, it is likely that His followers will receive similar treatment.
No, this is not a martyr complex. And no this is not me saying each of us is exactly like Jesus from the moment of being saved on.
Now if you know how a Christian should act, and it constantly judge me to be below YOUR standard, that only means that you'll be held all the more responsible for not repenting and believing yourself.
Get a clue. Christians are not going to shut down just because you hand out your bad report cards.
@sonship saidI am not proposing to give or withhold "approval". This is a red herring. I am asking what evidence you believe you have that someone who is "the highest manifestation of moral goodness" is "flowing through" you. and that you are "becoming like" him ~ and how this has influenced you as a moral agent. Don't worry about approval. Just offer some evidence to back your claims.
I am not waiting for your approval.
If "experience" does not translate into behaviour that can be witnessed [and experienced] by others, it is not relevant to "morality".
I agree with this.
But I expect that if no amount of testimony could exempt Christ from being led off to Calvary, His followers will not always be approved of.
I can have a realistic view of my need to grow on one hand, and a realistic expectation that for some people with a vested interest in discounting the Gospel, all I'll ever get is their bad report card on living.
As an atheist don't you have every intention to discredit someone saying he is living unto God? Sure you do.
@sonship saidYour "need to grow"?
I can have a realistic view of my need to grow on one hand, and a realistic expectation that for some people with a vested interest in discounting the Gospel, all I'll ever get is their bad report card on living.
Is your stance now shifting to 'the becoming' has not started yet and 'the following' has not started yet, and you "need to grow"?
1 edit
@sonship saidAny discredit that may be going on here is surely that you have made self-aggrandizing claims about the impact of a supernatural being on you in terms of morality and yet, when asked for evidence of this impact on you as a moral agent, you are empty-handed and resort to tossing logical fallacies and rhetorical gimmicks at me as if they were horseshoes and I was a stake in the ground.
As an atheist don't you have every intention to discredit someone saying he is living unto God?
1 edit
This is a red herring. I am asking what evidence you believe you have that someone who is "the highest manifestation of moral goodness"
I didn't say I was the highest manifestation of moral goodness." If I wrote something like that it certainly was about Jesus Christ.
I think you may know that. But the temptation to twist my words is just too much for you to resist.
Christ - I have said and would only say, is that Perfect Person manifesting the highest level of morality.
That's why He's the Savior and the rest of us are candidates to be the saved.
Now I did say God's purpose is that all whom He foreknew, He has marked out beforehand a destiny to be conformed to the image of His Son.
So I boast that He is a High Priest, as the New Testament says, able to save us to the uttermost.
"But He, because He abides forever, has His priesthood unalterable.
Hence also He is able to save to the uttermost those who come forward to God through Him, since He lives always to intercede for them." (Heb. 7:24,25)
Christ is bound by His own righteousness to follow through to sanctifying the saved to the uttermost. He has bound Himself to complete this work.
It is amazing how this good news can be perverted into bad news by the unbeliever.
1 edit
is "flowing through" you. and that you are "becoming like" him
Both are true.
And I need much more enjoyment of both.
If I said they were not happening, I would be lying.
~ and how this has influenced you as a moral agent. Don't worry about approval. Just offer some evidence to back your claims.
And I repeat to your goading - "Let another praise you and not your own mouth."
Probably, when I am not being trapped to act as a braggart you may find me mentioning in passing how God has changed my life.
But I'll pass on the beckoning to walk into your trap of bragging. One thing I would say. Being "built up" with others in Christ as I have been, only could take place as each of us becomes here and there more like the Lord.
Unlike any other posters I can think of, I have listed the websites of places I have met with other Christians over a period of decades from New York, Boston, Dunn Loring -.
That certainly was a practical way anyone could make a random contact and inquire what kind of Christian brother I was among them. I couldn't stop anyone. And I trust that what was reported would stand on its on merit for good or bad.
Now, lest you forget again - it is Jesus Christ I pointed to as the Perfect Person. He's the perfect Savior. I am one of the sinners saved by grace BEING saved in Him.
You should stop twisting this to me saying publicly I manifest the highest level of morality personally and continually.
That is a warped and twisted accusation of both the objective and subjective truths I have written about.
@sonship saidI know you didn't. You know you didn't. You know I didn't say you did. More disinhibited and gimmicky casual dishonesty on your part.
I didn't say I was the highest manifestation of moral goodness.
I said, if you claim you are becoming like the man who you believe was the highest manifestation of moral goodness and if you believe this man is flowing through you in some supernatural way [and not in the form of mere torrents of text], then what evidence is there that it has had any impact on you as a moral agent, for example your behaviour and your integrity.
@sonship saidWhat is "bad news" about the evidence you are withholding? Surely you believe it would be "good news" if you stopped dodging and just substantiated your supernatural claims about yourself?
It is amazing how this good news can be perverted into bad news by the unbeliever.
6 edits
Your "need to grow"?
Sure. You never read when you were supposedly a Christian? - "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18a)
You never read in the days before you developed this "lack of belief" in the One you say you formerly believed in ? -
" As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may GROW into salvation,
If you have tasted that the Lord is good." (1 Pet. 2:2)
Is your stance now shifting to 'the becoming' has not started yet and 'the following' has not started yet, and you "need to grow"?
Another skillfully thought out, devastating, knock down question FMF?
Obviously "becoming" involves "growing".
No shift at all.
The Body of Christ as a whole needs to grow. We learn to be one with the Body and grow along with the growth of the practical church life.
In whom all the building, being fitted together, is GROWING into a holy temple in the Lord, In whom also you also are being built up a dwelling place of God in spirit." (Eph. 2:21,22)
Sure we Christians need to grow as we are in the PROCESS of doing so. God gives the growth.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters,
but God who causes the growth." (1 Cor. 3:6,7)
Sure as we are becoming we have need to more grow. That's common sense and elementary.
Time to give some attention to some other posters' comments.