Two evangelical preachers Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis explain that they had to ask their congregations to donate money so that they could fly in private luxury because it was not good for them to be cooped up in a ‘long tube’ surrounded by ‘dope-filled demons’. Besides, their god told them that they must have more than one of them in order for their faith to grow and who are they to defy god?
Duplantis then said God spoke to him about his one private jet and said just having the one is letting his “faith stagnate.” He described a casual chat he had with God while flying home on his jet.
“As I was going home, the lord, real quickly, he said, ‘Jesse, do you like your plane?’” Duplantis said. “I thought, that’s an odd statement. I said, ‘Well certainly lord. He said, ‘Do you really like it?’ And I thought, ‘Well yes, lord.’ And he said, ‘So that’s it? You gonna let your faith stagnate?’”
And then we have Kent Hovind who explains that god put contradictions in the Bible to get the atheists out of religious groups.
“If I was God,” Hovind explains, “I would write the book in such a way that those who don’t want to believe in me anyway would think they found something. ‘Aha, here’s why I don’t believe.’”
“And then they could go on with their own life because they don’t want to believe God anyways,” he continues. “I would put things in there that would appear without digging to be contradictions. I don’t think that’s deceptive, I think that’s wise for the Heavenly Father to weed out those who are really serious.”
Hovind’s logic escapes me but on doubt it makes sense to Hovind and his followers.
I am not hovind follower, never heard of him before, and I am an atheist, yet unlike you, it make total sense to me.
“There are so many naive and shitty contradictions are there in this stupid book called bible, yet you have to staunchly believe its holiness and accept without doubt and logic. If you do so, then you will give money to me, I can make shit load of money from you.”
I don’t know what escapes you ? hovind’s logic is very simple man, very simple.
And then torture the shit out of any that fall for my trickery. For infinity years.
#1
I think Mano’s point is simply that it isn’t logic.
Thank you, God, for creating me with sufficient reasoning faculties that I reject all the dreadful evidence for your existence.
Serious, interesting use of that word. It works but, in this usage, it references someone serious about self-deception. I guess it is consistent. God starts denying humans the fruit that was right there and then requires that they not use the brain you have.
God’s attitude seems to be that this is like the people who train their dog to balance a dog biscuit on their nose. God is into watching people struggle to not use the useful tools God himself leaves around them.
So this is the same God who said something about : “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”*
Plus :
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”*
That God right? That’s the one that wants his preacher to have not one but two private planes because having just one would equate -somehow -- to having his faith stagnate? Really?
Guess this song is these guys anthem : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35K6vQRt67g
Even if you believe their ideology and think their religion is real (I don’t) these guys and those like them are just obscenely wrong.
* Source : http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_money.htm Yeah religious site but first one that came upon my search engine and makes some pretty good points.
StevoR:
Depends. Trinitarianism is not universal amongst Christians.
Only if you conflate all the disparate beliefs as one belief.
You are so, so very confused and incoherent.
(“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”)
@ ^^ John Morales : Well that’s your opinion but I don’t agree with it as I guess you’d expect.
What’s so incoherent about pointing out the hypocrisy of these preachers -- Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis -- and saying that even if you believe in their religion they are clearly being unethical and wrong?
Whilst you are correct to say, Trinitarianism is not universal amongst Christians””I’m pretty sure taking the words of Jesus Christ seriously is pretty much universal or at least global amongst Christians.
So what precisely if anything have I got wrong in what I’ve said and what are you objecting to or finding “confused in my comment there?
StevoR:
(sigh)
Look at what you wrote:
It’s analytically spurious.
What you literally wrote was that they were wrong as an absolute, but you phrased it as a conditional.
(You obviously miss that if you believe their ideology, you perforce believe their ideology--of which the contention at hand is a component--and that to believe something is short-hand for believing that particular something is true)
Well, yes… but it’s only trinitarians (three godheads are one singular god) who believe Jesus (the Son) is the same god as JHVH (the Father).
(So, not all Christians, and therefore not universal that taking Jesus seriously is synonymous with taking YHVH seriously)