After re-reading my previous post I realized that there was a huge point that I wanted to make which I didn't get around to making. The point was that intentional or not, Dr. Martin's theory that Christ's disciples were little more than armed thugs was merely part of what appears to be a coordinated and multifaceted attack on the bible. It is quite possible, and probably likely, that some of Jesus' may have started out as lawless thugs, but in the end they were men and sinners like we all are and learned at the foot of God made man. To claim that Jesus was crucified simply because Peter was carrying a knife denies the sanctity of Jesus' atoning work on the cross and is nothing less than a blatant attack on God's word.
Does Dr. Martin even realize he's being used as a tool of Satan to sew doubt? Probably not, but as I researched that post I found so many 'great minds' all across the internet sewing doubt by proclaiming God's word as little more than insignificant babble that I began to get nervous. I shouldn't be surprised as creating doubt over God's word was Satan's first attack to drive a wedge between us and our Father;
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1)
However in recent days the attacks on the Bible seem to be coming fast and furious from all directions. I expect it from cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons who change scripture, change or ignore the meaning of words, use verses out of context, and add their own ideas to the bible as their personal desires dictate. (Proverbs 30:5-6 anyone?) I also expect it from self-aggrandizing bloviators such as Bill O'Reilly who from the depths of his Roman Catholic upbringing proudly deems the bible to be merely allegory. The attacks on God's word are coming faster and faster from a multitude of directions both within the church and from without.
Is it just me or does anyone else find it interesting that the bible has been subject to scrutiny, careful study, and analysis by both religious and secular scholars for two thousand years and now, all of a sudden these questions and accusations are magically coming up? As I researched the previous article I found ad hominem attacks on the bible over and over. Ad hominem (or argumentum ad hominem) attacks are the most foul and underhanded arguments one can use when discussing virtually anything.
Argumentum ad hominem is Latin for "to the man" or "to the person" which means responding to logical arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments. It's an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out the negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it. This is also known as a logical fallacy. One of the things devious people do when they don’t have a valid argument is to attribute a bad trait to their opponent in the hopes that others will doubt him, even if the bad trait is irrelevant to the arguments.
A Perfect example of an ad hominem attack is when Sarah Palin accused the Obama administration of implementing "death panels" that would deny health care to the elderly and infirm. In response Obama's supporters responded to these accusations by calling Governor Palin a "moron"and "liar of the year". They didn't address the fact that she was right, they clouded their collusion in one of the most grievous administrations in US history by assaulting her character.
As I perused article after article I began to see a pattern arising, rather than attacking God personally, atheists have taken to attacking the authors of the Bible. Long, sonorous, grandiloquent, and very scholarly sounding articles have been written by self worshiping atheists based on one principal: "The Man Whose Name Appears In The Title Of The Gospel May Not Have Written It Therefore God Is Evil."
I'm being very serious about this, these people are casting doubt on the entire existence of God because they have a problem with the titles of four books of the Bible. Their argument couldn't be more vacuous if they had set their principal to be "Deuteronomy Is Hard To Spell Therefore God Does Not Exist."
Note that these people are not attacking the content of the Gospels, they are dancing around the periphery by attacking the attributed author, by trying to shoehorn a spiritual work into the restraints of a scholarly historical study. A good equivalent would be to complain that Dr. Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time is incredibly bad poetry and is therefore not fit to be read.
However my favorite complaint (and theirs too because so many evangelical atheists use it); the Gospels were written 'way to long after Jesus' crucifixion to be accurate. Note to readers: Please wait while I burn my copies of Sandburg's Lincoln and Gibbon's The History of the Decline And Fall Of the Roman Empire, they were clearly written too long after actual events to be of any use by atheist standards.
It's heartbreaking to see these people being used as tools of Satan to carry out his nefarious plan of damnation, like Dr. Martin they're reading the Bible, but they're not READING the bible. They're trying to put themselves and their logic into the bible when they should be letting God's words and plan come out of the Bible.
So rather than in retaliation for all the misinformation and misguided opinions, in celebration of the fact that God's word is so powerful and awesome that it's causing Satan heartburn I am going back to the beginning. My next few posts will be my re-exploration of the origins of the Gospels to celebrate what God has given us through His words and through His son. I'm going to look at the authors of the Gospel and if an atheists sacred cow becomes a sacrificial ox, well.... there's always BBQ sauce.
Argumentum ad hominem is Latin for "to the man" or "to the person" which means responding to logical arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments. It's an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out the negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it. This is also known as a logical fallacy. One of the things devious people do when they don’t have a valid argument is to attribute a bad trait to their opponent in the hopes that others will doubt him, even if the bad trait is irrelevant to the arguments.
A Perfect example of an ad hominem attack is when Sarah Palin accused the Obama administration of implementing "death panels" that would deny health care to the elderly and infirm. In response Obama's supporters responded to these accusations by calling Governor Palin a "moron"and "liar of the year". They didn't address the fact that she was right, they clouded their collusion in one of the most grievous administrations in US history by assaulting her character.
As I perused article after article I began to see a pattern arising, rather than attacking God personally, atheists have taken to attacking the authors of the Bible. Long, sonorous, grandiloquent, and very scholarly sounding articles have been written by self worshiping atheists based on one principal: "The Man Whose Name Appears In The Title Of The Gospel May Not Have Written It Therefore God Is Evil."
I'm being very serious about this, these people are casting doubt on the entire existence of God because they have a problem with the titles of four books of the Bible. Their argument couldn't be more vacuous if they had set their principal to be "Deuteronomy Is Hard To Spell Therefore God Does Not Exist."
Note that these people are not attacking the content of the Gospels, they are dancing around the periphery by attacking the attributed author, by trying to shoehorn a spiritual work into the restraints of a scholarly historical study. A good equivalent would be to complain that Dr. Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time is incredibly bad poetry and is therefore not fit to be read.
However my favorite complaint (and theirs too because so many evangelical atheists use it); the Gospels were written 'way to long after Jesus' crucifixion to be accurate. Note to readers: Please wait while I burn my copies of Sandburg's Lincoln and Gibbon's The History of the Decline And Fall Of the Roman Empire, they were clearly written too long after actual events to be of any use by atheist standards.
It's heartbreaking to see these people being used as tools of Satan to carry out his nefarious plan of damnation, like Dr. Martin they're reading the Bible, but they're not READING the bible. They're trying to put themselves and their logic into the bible when they should be letting God's words and plan come out of the Bible.
So rather than in retaliation for all the misinformation and misguided opinions, in celebration of the fact that God's word is so powerful and awesome that it's causing Satan heartburn I am going back to the beginning. My next few posts will be my re-exploration of the origins of the Gospels to celebrate what God has given us through His words and through His son. I'm going to look at the authors of the Gospel and if an atheists sacred cow becomes a sacrificial ox, well.... there's always BBQ sauce.
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