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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Dec 12, 2010 - 02:20pm PT
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Evolution = theory. Supported by abundant and consistent facts and virtually the entire scientific community. Open to updating and nuancing, as new information is discovered and new techniques developed.
Creationism = hypothesis. Supported by a few, cherry-picked facts and fewer peer-reviewed scientists. Does not have standing of a theory, as it lacks proof apart from belief. Not open to change as knowledge improves. Will never be considered a theory, in that its claims aren't falsifiable.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dec 12, 2010 - 02:33pm PT
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I so look forward to the Daily Readings From The Life of Christ.
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Dec 12, 2010 - 02:56pm PT
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Me too! I'm just on the verge of converting! So inspirational. I'm going to write my own fairy tale book one day too for the world to obey.
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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Dec 12, 2010 - 03:38pm PT
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Merry Christmas and Happy NEW Year!
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jstan
climber
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Dec 12, 2010 - 04:05pm PT
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._MacArthur#Biography
Biography
The son of Jack MacArthur (an accomplished preacher in his own right),[7] John MacArthur was an athlete and attended Bob Jones University before transferring to Los Angeles Pacific College (now Azusa Pacific University). He later obtained his Masters of Divinity from Biola University's Talbot Theological Seminary, in La Mirada, California. He graduated with honors. From 1964 to 1966, he served as an associate pastor at Calvary Bible Church, in Burbank, California and, from 1966 to 1969, as a faculty representative for Talbot Theological Seminary. Then, in 1969, he became the third pastor in the then-short history of the nondenominational Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California.[8]
His daily radio program, Grace to You, which is now broadcast throughout much of the world, began as an audio recording ministry to provide cassettes of his sermons to church members who were unable to attend. They were first broadcasted in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1977.[9]
In 1985, MacArthur became the president of The Master's College (formerly Los Angeles Baptist College), an accredited, four-year, liberal arts Christian college;[10] and, in 1986, he founded The Master's Seminary.
MacArthur also received an honorary doctorate from Talbot Theological Seminary[11] and an honorary doctorate from Grace Graduate School.[12]
Theological views
MacArthur describes himself as a "leaky dispensationalist."[13] While he holds to a premillennial and pre-tribulational rapture of the church and fulfillment of all the covenant promises made to the Jews at the end of the tribulation, he rejects some of the classic dispensational ideas, such as the Law having no application to the church. Dispensationalism has been a frequent source of controversy; critics claim that MacArthur's deviation from Reformed eschatology has led to an inconsistent Calvinism or self-contradiction suggesting two people groups of God, two roads to salvation, and the so-called, "Great parenthesis."
MacArthur is a key person in the debate over "Lordship salvation" in the 1980s, arguing against, "Free Grace theology." He states, "you must receive Jesus Christ for who He is, both Lord and Savior, to be truly saved (II Peter 2:20)."[14] Regarding eternal security, he states, "It should never be presented merely as a matter of being once saved, always saved--with no regard for what you believe or do. The writer of Hebrews 12:14 states frankly that only those who continue living holy lives will enter the Lord's presence."[15] MacArthur's views raised controversy within American, conservative evangelicalism and were challenged in print by non-lordship dispensationalist theologians, Charles Ryrie and Zane C. Hodges, who argued that MacArthur was teaching a form of works-based salvation.
In December 1989, the Bible Broadcasting Network terminated MacArthur's "Grace to You" program. In explaining that step, BBN president Lowell Davey referred to MacArthur's teachings on the blood of Christ, "Lordship Salvation," and, "Hyper-Calvinism." Davey called these teachings, "confusing." In a letter dated January 15, 1990, Davey cited a, "....drift by Dr. MacArthur to a theological position that we could not adhere to," and said that MacArthur's sermon series on the theology of election, "....convinced us that the direction of 'Grace to You' was toward Hyper-Calvinism...." MacArthur preaches "Salvation" by election of God's sovereignty.[16] However, the term "Hyper-Calvinism" is used by some to denote 5-point Calvinism or even any strong defense of Calvinism, rather than the historical "Hyper-Calvinism" position that only the "Elect" may be offered the Gospel. This position does not seem to reflect the truth of MacArthur's position in his sermons. The controversy concerning the efficacy of the Christ's blood stems from MacArthur's statement that it is not the literal liquid blood of Christ that saves, but his sacrificial death on the Cross, a view that he espoused in an article titled, "Not His Bleeding, but His Dying," published in the May 1976 issue of the Grace to You family paper that is distributed to his church.
In 1983, MacArthur first published his belief in the doctrine of "incarnational sonship." In 1989, after some criticism, he defended his views in a plenary session of the annual convention of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America. Subsequently, MacArthur has written that he has reversed this position and no longer regards Christ's sonship as a role he assumed in his incarnation.[17]
MacArthur is a cessationist, arguing that Charismatic and Pentecostal theology and their practice regarding the "gifts of the Spirit" (healing, miracles, Speaking in Tongues, etc.) are not for these times.[18] Rich Nathan, pastor of Vineyard Church of Columbus published "A Response to Charismatic Chaos" in 1993[19].
His writings are similarly critical of other modern Christian movements such as those who run "seeker-friendly" church services such as Robert Schuller, Bill Hybels, and Rick Warren.[20] He is also an advocate of Biblical Counseling (also known as Nouthetic Counseling), which stresses the Bible as a tool for counseling and rejects psychological theories and techniques, considering Psychology as contrary to the Bible.[21] His stance has caused several controversies, the most notable of which was the first time an employee of an evangelical church had ever been sued for malpractice.[22][23][24]
He has called Catholicism "a Satanic religious system that wants to engulf the earth."[25]
John MacArthur does not believe that Roman Catholics are Christians, and believes that ecumenism will not work because it is "another religion". He said that Roman Catholic "Priests are broken, shattered, tragic, sad, disconnected people; no past, no present, no future. They belittle the sanctity of the marriage relationship. They are denied normal relationships; the friendship of marriage. They are victims of a terrible system with no biblical basis whatsoever. It is a soul-destroying process that leaves them in a situation of rampant temptation, exposure to the worst. And the only way to fulfill these drives is sinfully. And they do not have the restraint of a transformed or sanctified life." Regarding monks, MacArthur says "the inmates, I call them inmates, of monasteries, are unmarried men. Its just bizarre and abnormal. I read today the 50% are homosexual when they get there. The rest have no chance. These people are predators." He says of convents, "I am surprised Amnesty International doesn't raid these places."[25]
MacArthur has stated that the "theology of Islam is false," and that Allah is the "wrong god."[26]
MacArthur has also been a proponent of Christian abstinence from alcohol, though he does not think it is necessarily sinful.[27] (See Christianity and alcohol.)
He is the fifth cousin of US General Douglas MacArthur.[28]
END QUOTE
Type boldened by myself.
Edit:
I took this opportunity to learn what a cousin is.
If two generations separate John from Douglas, being a fifth cousin means John's line sprang from Douglas's Grandfather. Genetics are amazing. John acts a lot like Douglas did.
The base drummer in our band served in the South Pacific during WWII. He said MacArthur always had twelve uniformed and armed body guards with him even when among the troops.
The guards always faced the troops.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Dec 12, 2010 - 04:52pm PT
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Dec 13, 2010 - 09:29am PT
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The trouble with some of you is you want to take away what we have (Jesus), but you got nothing!
I don't think anyone wants to take away what you "have."
1) if you truly believe it, no one can take it away,
2) you can't take away what doesn't exist,
3) the problem - as stated many, many times here - is that we tire of having to scroll through your endless "cut and pastes" to get to content that someone actually used their own brain to create. If anyone wants to read the pages you post, they certainly know where to go.
4) you're not converting anyone and it's more likely you're actually driving people further away from being interested in your views. Therefore you're actually performing "satan's" work by driving people away from "the truth" you promote. Good job!
Edit: I for one (and I think I speak for most of the rationalist viewpoints here) believe it is you that clings to a delusion (aka; "nothing") and are not accepting personal responsibility for your own morality & direction in life. I don't live my life by some dubious parables in a book written by humans to control other humans. That's not to say that some of the concepts in the bible aren't good to live by. On the contrary, many of them are essential. I just believe they are concepts we naturally gravitate towards and don't need to pin the authority on a higher power in order for us to accept them.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Dec 13, 2010 - 09:53am PT
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So after 4000 plus posts the god haters are plum worn out and have fled the field, leaving the faithful as strong as ever, proselytizing away.
I knew it would turn out this way.
DMT D... You know me better than that... I'm not much of a 'hater', as that's a pretty powerful and destructive emotion. I don't hate God, or any deity, any more than you hate unicorns. I would hope that you would take issue with people living their lives in accordance with the way they "think" a unicorn wants them to live, and even trying to get others to live in accordance with laws, imposed on all, derived from the unicorn.
And Dr F... goobers has nothing to offer but regirgitation of the book. He cannot think for himself, as even his most profound thinking is vacuous.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Dec 13, 2010 - 01:17pm PT
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any fifth cousin of douglas macarthur is a friend of mine.
um, that's true, catholics are not christians. mormons, however, are. if you go to the LDS website, in the Q & A, it has it right there: "Q: are mormons christians? A: yes, they are!" exciting, huh?
the most christian of all churches is the church of jesus christ christian. i think that means that jesus was a christian even before he invented christianity. i know that christ was a scientist even before science was invented--there are lots of churches of christ, scientist, out there. he probably would've gotten a PhD if they'd been invented. i would like to see a picture of jesus in a white laboratory smock.
now i hate to inject personal stuff in here, but i think it's time to focus on gobee a little. we've done a little private emailing and even talked about having lunch sometime, since we both live in the beautiful san fernando valley. i'm not going to tell you what gobee told me about himself, but there are certain irregularities, and i think he owes a little self-disclosure to this thread. c'mon now, gobe, man up. gobee isn't a dummy, but it seems harder than heck to get him out of this quotation loop.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Dec 13, 2010 - 01:19pm PT
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To those who think Dr. F's comments to Go-B are mean or uncalled for: Remember a couple of things: (1) Go-B puts himself out there. (2) Go-B votes. He's not a child, he's mature enough by law to vote.
Those who vote are open to criticism. Those who put themselves out there (e.g., on an internet forum by their own choosing) are open to criticism. They open themselves up to it. -Just like the ballerina in today's news: She put herself "out there" as a ballerina so if she was chubby she should be called for it - because ballerina's are "expected" to model certain standards in performance, appearance.
It's not a perfect heaven, just the world we live in - nature red in tooth and claw under the accoutrements.
.....
EDIT
"certain irregularities" ???
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dec 13, 2010 - 01:20pm PT
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Yeah, Gobbee.
Man up.
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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Dec 13, 2010 - 06:58pm PT
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I'm throwing the gantlet down, make my day!
Why do so many people believe in God? (Serious Question?), is the topic of this post,
Psalm 40:5, You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.
OK, let's see what you have to share, from anyone or anywhere that's good for the soul!
I know where I get my daily bread, and Who feeds me, and it nourishes my soul!
I can take what you want to throw my way, but give me something good that keeps you going and not just say nothing...
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Dec 13, 2010 - 07:48pm PT
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Ok-
I get to live each day knowing that I'm completely responsible for my destiny- my joys, my pains, my successes, my failures.
I don't have to live in fear that some unseen being is going to send me to hell for being compassionate & loving to people who are living their lives in ways that some consider an abomination, even though those people are consenting adults who aren't infringing on any one else's human or civil rights.
I don't have to spend countless hours rereading the same book each day.
I know that when I die, that's it. I live each day with that knowledge, so I try to focus on making each moment count.
And so much more I don't have time for now.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Dec 13, 2010 - 08:47pm PT
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dr. F, i'm flattered--that was a long time ago.
gobee, i just don't think you're living by the rigorous rules you propound. admittedly, you're a happy fella, and you thank god for all that, and i don't think anyone begrudges that to you. but you just dump stuff out of the bible here and that's downright irritating. people are trying to have a discussion here. discussion is putting stuff in your own words.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Dec 13, 2010 - 11:22pm PT
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This is why people believe in GOD . . .
Bruce Cockburn -- Lord of the Starfields
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFkM_R3CZvI
If music in praise of GOD like this doesn't touch your soul . . .
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nature
climber
Tuscon Again! India! India! Hawaii! LA?!?!
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Dec 13, 2010 - 11:27pm PT
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nature red in tooth
dood! I ain't got no teeff... did you miss that thread? it was stunning, absolutely stunning!
wait!
I do got a tooff. but it ain't red. still white.
sorta
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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Dec 14, 2010 - 08:16am PT
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Like ripe fruit, for the pickins...
Proverbs 3:5, Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Jesus wept, for you and me!
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dec 14, 2010 - 09:36am PT
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Tung Gwok
Mountain climber
South Bend, Indiana
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Dec 14, 2010 - 09:48am PT
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Go go Go-b, post some thought of your own. Here's mine. I put it on the other "god" thread, but given this discussion, it goes here too. A poem I wrote after Denali. The original had the scatological eschatology left in, but it seems the automatic censor on ST put in "*#": at any rate...
The West Rib of Denali
“What was it like?”
It was all light, white, and hell.
Picks chatter and bite.
We pull
they groan
We groan
under seventy-five pound packs
the straps
groan
our chests expand out and out
our legs
pump
slowly
one (breathe)
then (breathe)
the other (breathe).
No respite for a good vomit.
Oh, Holy God
is this the cost of heaven?
By faith alone my ass.
Every day load ‘em up
Every day move ‘em out
Rawhide!
Mules into thin air.
Adroit mules
on foot-and-a-half width snow ridges
seventy-degree slopes on each side that
fall away and away.
Is that a solid step?
Freeze-dried turkey tetrazini
our reward
will be in heaven
or the summit
whichever comes first.
curse and praise
praise and curse
praisecursepraisecursepraise
All rise while we sing hymn number 439.
Crevasse!
Boy that f*#ker goes a long way down.
Joe! Crevasse!
Keep the rope tight!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty!
I pray the Lord this snowbridge keep.
Shit!
easy. easy.
F*#kinggoddammitYes!
(You may all now be seated.)
Mugs Stump died so that I may cross this bridge.
His body and blood
still on the South Buttress of Denali
(No, no, no, not Mount McKinley.
That fat f*#k could never climb this mountain.)
Denali. The High One.
There is no need for Mugs to resurrect.
Gather your breath; gather your breath.
Okay, Joe. Go now. I’ll keep it tight.
This is what it is like.
Drudgery and panic.
Heat and cold.
Light and more light
Inside your body
lifting it
because it is so damned tired of lifting itself.
Go again.
Before it all bleeds out.
There, on Denali,
blood pumps and rushes
and sometimes stains
snow and ice and rock.
Better than no constricting vessels
and the curse of not being haunted.
Having only the outline of a face
behind smoked glass in an SUV christened
Explorer or Expedition or
even (why didn’t God forbid?) Denali.
and the mantra:
Risk nothing. Repeat. Risk Nothing.
The only honest SUV is the Suburban.
Stillborn blood.
Still angry born blood with no place to go:
God I hate my job.
God I hate my wife.
God I hate
God.
Nail me to the Cassin Ridge
with rusted pitons.
I am looking for Johnny Waterman
The one hundred forty-five day solo traverse
Mount Hunter Johnny Waterman
lost in a crevasse on the Ruth Glacier.
And Guy Waterman,
the father who begat this son,
Who, like any good father,
would not send his son to death,
but would freely follow him there.
Kyrie eleison.
Hammer my petitions to the Moonflower Buttress
or else they float detached or
for less than a moment
clutch
life to life
to Elmore James’ “The Sky is Crying”
in the car on the way to work.
In South Bend,
there are no places.
Only locations.
Barnes and Noble
features Kenny G.
eucuch jazz
and kills
(softly)
the soprano saxophone.
I cannot listen to it
any more
than I can Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto
after Roger said it sounded like
“I want to be an Army Ranger.”
It can no longer be an instrument of anything.
In South Bend,
we cannot speak,
we cannot sing,
we cannot love and die.
We are all connected
to nothing.
On Denali in June,
there is no division between night and day,
no fifty hats for fifty tasks.
I do one thing.
I am one person.
I am risen.
Todd "Tung Gwok" Whitmore
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Flanders!
Trad climber
June Lake, CA
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Dec 14, 2010 - 09:54am PT
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F sez "I'm an atheist, and am doing quite well all on my own"
I say "Oh really"?
Doug
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