Shaking the Dust at CARM

After ten years of fighting along side fellow Christians against the forces of atheism, unbelief, and Jesus mytherism, I have finally been betrayed by the narrow mindedness and callous stupidity of those who should be my allies. Just last summer Diane S. chief moderator of CARM boards sent me a PM saying "we thank God for you...you are called to do battle with the atheists." Now she issues a papal as though she's the pope warning posters to beware false teachers. It's clear, even though I'm not mentioned, that she means me since I was leaing the forces of reason against narrow minded bibliolotry. Her papal bull says:

There are people on these forums claiming to be Christians, they are supporting and teaching that Bible is a "myth", that it contains errors and you should believe its message but not every word or verse, you should even deny the OT as mythology and not factual events.........they are false teachers that we are taught by our God, would enter the church, with their "itching ears"..They want to erase what they do not want to believe and suggest it is error....... The word inerrancy means without error, the CARM administration and ministry believes as well as the majority of Evangelical Christians, do support and testify that God's word is WITHOUT ERROR in the "original manuscripts," it is "inerrant" to the words written in the "original documents"....Those claiming to be Christian on these forums, that are calling us "Bible idolators" because we believe His word is without error are false teachers.....do not trust what they have posted to you in their attacks on Scripture. The CARM administration will warn our posters, since we have received complaints of the many false teachers now coming to these forums, they are false teachers, you should trust God's word and not such men....

Please be aware it is your cults, false religions, Mormons that make the same arguments about God's word. Please be WARNED......again, they are false teachers. I will respond when I see such false teachings to warn you, do not trust the words of any person that will deny the Word of God and suggest it is a "myth" or in error....

I consider this an utter betrayal and knife in the back. The reference to the Bible as "myth" is a clear reference to me since I'm one of the oly two who spoke of "mythology in the Bible." Of cousre what I meant by that was a far cry from calling the bible a myth. Little distinctions like that don't matter to these guys. You don't have to worry about little things like accruacy and fairness when you control the zap button. Before demonstrating the unfairness of her statment I will set the stage by dscribing what my position turely is and what the general issues were about.

Basically there was a board split 50-50 with most of the major apologists who actually know what they are talking about on my side, the rest (the feeble minded who can't argue and use "bible said it, I believe it, that settles it" kind of logic) taking sides with the literalist biblioloters previously discussed on this blog. This was the group that says the bible literally is Jesus. Of course when Diane denounced that view and proclaimed it "error" the major proponent of it dropped it like a hot potato (that would be "Carico") and began qualifying it in ways she would never do for us before.

The basic issue began with an argument about evolution. Can a "true Christian" accept evolution or must one reject modern science in favor of faith? My position that I had set out. on inspiration is designed to allow one to accept modern science, evolution and the whole modern boat load of scientific goodies without giving up faith or denouncing the bible as "in error." To do this I have to step back from the traditional Verbal Plenary model of inspiration and look at other models that allowed greater room in understanding the kinds of texts that might be presented.


The creation story of Genesis, if taken in the Verbal Plenary since, where God is the boss dictating a memo to a secretary, then it is just understood straight forward and literally most of the time. If that is the case then the Bible has error, because science disproves creationism, the firmament, the flood, and other aspects of Genesis. We should interpret those figuratively, such as day = age, but then we are moving away from the model. If we adopt another model, we might be able to understand the creation account as Hebrew authors turning pagan myth on its head. This is not error because its not an attempt at scientific accuracy. It's an attempt to work within the knowledge categories of that time, without establishing any greater intent to impose those categories upon modern times.

Thus new models of revelation might understand the Bible as diverse, consisting of different kinds of texts. The Genesis text uses muthology to teach theological truth, that is not error, and it's not a lie, it's a sophisticated use of ancient understanding. But that's not good enough for the Bibliolotors. They can't understand the position because they are not smart enough. They have to keep it simple, Bible = good, or Bible bad! Those are the options for the bibliolotry crowd.To be spescific my view is that of dialectical retrival, which was brought out by the totally unorhtodx figure of Carndinal Avery Dulles who is very conservative and was appointed by JPII. These views are brought out in his work (written prior to becoming a Cardinal (Models of Revealation). The idea is that a dialetical relation exists between the author and the source of inspiration. The Bible is a diversity of different kinds of texts, and inspiration sometimes takes the form of the wirters on words, sometimes of dictator word for word from God, sometimes just of the authors own impressions based upon encounter with the ddivine. The common charactoristic is the encoutner; the Bible is the result of divine/human encounter. It is the importation of truth from the divine, but the ony question is in what way this is accomplished, it is not always in the same mannar. While methods of inspairtion very, it is always truth and thus we cannot speak of error in the larger theological sense. There may be inacuracies in the recording of some passages, or in their understanding, but there are no lies, no wrong teachings, no over all "error" in the more serious sense.In addition to the dialectical relation between author and divine, there is a dialetical relationship between the reader and the text.
what that means is the reader doesn't always get the same thing out of the reading. The piont counter point of dialatic can contian uninspried as well as inspired text, but the over all effect is a sublation process, just like with Hegel, where the progress of the dialectic continues to build upward, in this case, to reveal truth in every incounter the reader takes to the text.


Now let's look at the official CARM warning about the evil false teachers:

There are people on these forums claiming to be Christians, they are supporting and teaching that Bible is a "myth",

People claiming to be Christians. So the biliolotry crowd cannot take Paul at his word and see that "another Jesus" is defined by Grace, the cross, the resurrection, it is not defined by one's take on scripture. No passage anywhere in the Bible tells us that Christian identity is dependent upon accepting Verbal Plenary Inspiration as a theological position. Moreover, what did they think I was for 10 years? When they said "we thank God for you... you are called to fight the atheists" they should have said "and to be a false teacher." How could they have been so fooled for ten years? because they don't listen. They can't think.

But to say that I teach that the Bible is a myth is totally wrong and a lie. I never said that, I never said anything of the kind. I said it's only theological baggage from the Reformation that tells us Genesis is a literal scientific account of creation and to understand it as Hebrew writers dealing with pagan myth is a totally orthodox position given that certain other attitudes are in place as well. But of course this is way too complex for them.

that it contains errors and you should believe its message but not every word or verse,

I can't understand why this is would not be a minmally acceptable position. I think most conservatives would agree that it is at least possible to accept such a position and be thought of as a real christian, even if they themeselves think it's a weak position. Where do these guys getting off deicing this is beyond the line of Chritsian belief?

where does the Bible say we must believe every word or verse? This was a major issue in all the harrangs for a month. The bible never says to have a bible. It never auhtorizes itself. It never says "this God's word." The may be logical reason to string together ideas like Paul's use of the term Scripture and Jesus identiifcation with the "the law and prophits" as valid divisions of scirpture. But these are still ideas, conscturcts that make up a big theory of inspriation, they are not divine mandates and each one of them can be taken in different ways. No one has the right to make these things indicative of Christian identity!

you should even deny the OT as mythology and not factual events.........

No one said this. I certainly did not say it and the other person, Matrix who argued for Mythology in parts of scripture (and ironically is an inerrentist) did not say it. I emphaically said the oppossite when I made it very clear that certian protions of scripture (when the phrophets say "thus says the Lord" for example) are actually literal dictation from God word for word!

they are false teachers that we are taught by our God, would enter the church, with their "itching ears".They want to erase what they do not want to believe and suggest it is error.......

no one involved on our side of the debate ever said anything about the bible being in error. I reputated the use of the word error as a means of describing our side, I did so repeatedly. I said specifically that error in the more important sense is theological, not merely factual and that is not in the Bible. Factual matter of accuracy do not count as "error" in a theological sense. That's not good enough. They have to have us believe in the firmament and in God inspiring Paul to forget his coat and the whole nine yards.

The word inerrancy means without error, the CARM administration and ministry believes as well as the majority of Evangelical Christians, do support and testify that God's word is WITHOUT ERROR in the "original manuscripts," it is "inerrant" to the words written in the "original documents"...

Inerrency doesnt' mean wihtout any inacrruacy. Even Karl C.F. Henry allowed minor mistakes in the text. So did Luther. these people have no thoelogical knowledge at all.This has nothing to do with the issues at hand. The original documents are not at issue here. They don't even address the distinction between in accuracy and error.


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Those claiming to be Christian on these forums

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Of course none of this is mandated in the bible, it's all a matter of interpretation they have to make it a matter of Christian identity. True Christian believes in verbal Plenary inspiration. How is it that Paul did not use that standard and mentions nothing about a position on inspiration in Galations one where he explains the true Gospel? This is obvious proof that these people biblioloters because they have made the bible indicative of all of Christian faith.

that are calling us "Bible idolators" because we believe His word is without error are false teachers....

she has no right to say that, no one has made these people popes, They have authority over no one, except the little kingdom of CARM where they can be as arbitrary and unfair and hyocritical as they wish to be.


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do not trust what they have posted to you in their attacks on Scripture.

In the name Jesus Christ do they have to characterize it as "attacks." Who is attacking? that's the thanks get for 10 years of salving to win people to the Lord and to answer atheists who Matt Slick doesn't have the brains to confront. he couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag. If it wasn't for circular reasoning he would have no reasoning at all. The point was to defend the Bible This was all a defense that would be understood by modern people and that would allow one not to have to throw away one's brains. But the problem is they do not want a modern world friendly form of understanding the Gospel. They only have their little power when they can set up a little kingdom where an embittered minority try to hide form the modern world and live in a fantasy world of 19th century piety.

The CARM administration will warn our posters, since we have received complaints of the many false teachers now coming to these forums, they are false teachers, you should trust God's word and not such men....

Makes it sound as though I just started posting there doesn't it? I was the last one left from the God squad of 98. I have been posting there every day since then. I have argued with atheits almost every day since 98. I was arguing with them the day My father died, as a means of dealing with Greif. But that means nothing to these hypocrites. the thrill making a big prononcement far out weighs any sentimental stuff like friendship, loyalty, or even fairness.

Please be aware it is your cults, false religions, Mormons that make the same arguments about God's word. Please be WARNED......again, they are false teachers. I will respond when I see such false teachings to warn you, do not trust the words of any person that will deny the Word of God and suggest it is a "myth" or in error....

Well I warn my friends Matt Slick and Diane S. are hypocrates. liars. waves without foam, leaders of of the leagion of barinwahsed zombies. I shake the dust the at thenm.

they are preaching another Gospel. their Jesus is the Bible. they make the Bible the issue of salvation and thus risk theirs because they don't heed the very book they pretend to care so much about.


they are conducting a witch hunt.

shake shake sahke that dust.