Report Tekton/Tektoon problems here

[jpholding]

If you find a broken link on one of the two sites, stick 'em here and I'll try to put off fixing it for a few weeks before I finally get off my duff and fix 'em.

Actually I usually fix such things within a week.

[Piebald]

Here is my problem: I haven't kept up with the Tektoon webcomics, and now characters from the comics are appearing in my home and my workplace threatening me with physical violence unless I do. I am not sure if this is a problem with Firefox or the Windows Operating System but I would like it fixed post haste.

[jpholding]

Here is my problem: I haven't kept up with the Tektoon webcomics, and now characters from the comics are appearing in my home and my workplace threatening me with physical violence unless I do. I am not sure if this is a problem with Firefox or the Windows Operating System but I would like it fixed post haste.

Get to reading then. You should know better than to make Sheila mad.

Which reminds me, I guess you've read Perelandra lately.

[LilPunkishOfTerror]

I see the Skeptics Annotated Bible complains that Tekton has links missing in the critique, so if you don't mind JP, I'll use this thread to report on that so they have less to complain about and (eek) actually have to confront the arguments.

Edgar Jones reply on Luke 14:26, http://www.tektonics.org/af/crackedvoice02.html
should be http://tektoonics.com/parody/crackedvoice02.htm

This link is incorrect in this essay:
http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesussayshate.html

[JB]

If you find a broken link on one of the two sites, stick 'em here and I'll try to put off fixing it for a few weeks before I finally get off my duff and fix 'em.

Actually I usually fix such things within a week.

Good luck with these.

I'll warn you up front, it's painfully obvious that I'm an INTP. For example, on the way home from No Other Gods, my friend was flipping through the pages of The Mormon Defenders, spending maybe a half a second on each page at the most. What did I do? Spot a typo. (A missing "P" in "Appendix" at the top of page 133, to be precise.)

That said, I now unveil the fruits of a weekend spent searching through Tekton for broken links and such. But first, a quick three from Tektoon.

Page: Range Patrol #1 Insider (http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/rang...ninsider1.html)

To begin, if you've gotten this far and not read The Social World of Hearthstone supplement, you may want to have a look. There's some background detail on the Cartel as a force in Hearthstone's social world, as well as racial descriptions of the various peoples you'll meet on Hearthstone. Not required reading, but sort of like Cliff's Notes, it helps make even more sense of things.

The link provided is:

http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/rangtoon1/hearthsocial.html

The bolded part must be removed to produce:

http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/hearthsocial.html

Also on that page, I think we need to see a space of separation or something between "p. 38" and "p. 5":

The Met-Pan suit (page 25) and the vehicle shields (p. 38p. 5 -- no fossil fuels!) and so they have no powered flight; and so the Cartel depot need not fear any sort of serious aerial attack. Hence the force field (p. 43 ) only goes up so far; no need to cover from air attack.

(emphasis added)

Page: Shrike Team #1 Insider (http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/shri...ninsider1.html)

At the end of the insider page for "Cold Reception" I told you that you'd need to read BOTH sets of stories because they'd eventually join together from a narrative perspective. Well, in light of that, and as a way of showing that the reader who notices details here in rewarded (grin), there's a little puzzle here for you. For the next few stories, there will be "baubles" -- little verbal or visual similarities that allude back to the prior story. So in other words, here in Shrike Team #1, you will find "baubles" that refer back to Range Patrol #1. I'll tell you for now that there are just two of them....and I'll tell you what they are in the insider page for Range Patrol #2.

Similar (but not identical) to the errors found in the first posting of the Range Patrol #4 Insider, the case is that the bolded section needs to be removed in this:

http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/shriketoon1/rangtoon1/rangtooninsider1.html

Then we'll have the correct URL:

http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/rangtoon1/rangtooninsider1.html

Page: Range Patrol #3, page 71 (http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/rang...gtoon3071.html)

The link to the "Recommended Next Read" is defective as a result of a missing "intro".

http://www.tektoonics.com/shriketoon3/shriketoon3001.html

should become

http://www.tektoonics.com/intro/shriketoon3/shriketoon3001.html

That's all from Tektoon, now for Tekton. Here's the part where I take a deep breath. First, I'll repeat the ones I mentioned in the other thread, simply for the sake of gathering them all together.

Page: Dan Barker's Easter Challenge Eviscerated (http://www.tektonics.org/qt/rezrvw.html)

About halfway down, you'll find this sentence:

The main issue of difference is why only Matthew reports the angel -- as well as the other miracles recorded later -- and that matter we have answered with the principles found here.

The quoted link is broken. What is:

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/asilent.html

ought to be:

http://www.tektonics.org/af/asilent.html

On the same page, down at the bottom:

I would regard these as reporting the same meeting. Luke has no room now to report a dual meeting with Thomas first excluded, and each writer has their own focus: Luke on the tangible nature of Jesus' body; John on a more theological and "commissional" issue, as well as wanting to highlight Thomas' actions. If Luke is reporting to a Roman judge on behalf of Paul (as Mauck argues) then it isn't hard to see why he would report what he did. Meanwhile John will emphasize the tangible nature of Jesus in his second report.

Yep, that's the other link that needs changed. This:

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/mauckrvw.html

should be:

http://www.tektonics.org/books/mauckrvw.html

Okay, that's what I had before I set out on my quest to find broken links. Here's what I came up with.

Page: Le Nouveau Testament (http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhubfr.htm)

This probably isn't a big concern, seeing as how it's a foreign language article. But every one of those heading links goes to:

http://www.tektonics.org/l

Page: [url=http://www.tektonics.org/af/achygosp.html]Gospel Gossip: A Refutation to [sic] Acharya S on the Gospels[url] (http://www.tektonics.org/af/achygosp.html)

The first bulleted item is the problem:

"The Pauline epistles do not reveal any historical Jesus; nor do they demonstrate any knowledge of the existence of the four canonical gospels." The first part of this claim is false, as we show in our series refuting Earl Doherty. The second part is closer to true, but still false -- as we show in the same set of essays, Paul shows familiarity with the Jesus tradition found in the Gospels.

Problem? In the link, two of the letters in Doherty's last name got switched, rendering the link inoperative.

http://www.tektonics.org/dohetry/dohertyhub.html

http://www.tektonics.org/doherty/dohertyhub.html

Page: Come Again?: The Olivet Discourse and Prophetic Fulfillment (http://www.tektonics.org/esch/olivet01.html)

I'm estimating 2/7 of the way down is where the problem is.

There were indeed false prophets claiming to represent God in plenty [Josephus War 6.5.2 refers to a "great number of false prophets" who gave false hope to the people]; these tried to initiate various signs to "activate God's eschatological salvation" [Keener, 567-8], and they did indeed deceive many. Though there do continue to be pretenders around, this word was fulfilled between 30-70 AD. (And of course there is more to this: While some may have made "messianic" overtures, you won't find anyone other than Jesus who claimed to be God's Wisdom, a much stronger and clearer claim to divinity in context than "I am Messiah" would have been at any rate!)

That isn't the whole paragraph, just the latter portion. All you did was forget a letter, JP.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclais/trinitydefense.html

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.html

Page: Shattering the Christ Myth (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/jesusexisthub.html)

First of all, I can't find the French version anywhere. The link at the top doesn't work, and I tried a few alternative combinations. None worked. I even translated short phrases from the article into French and Google-searched Tektonics for them. I couldn't find the French version of this article. Maybe someone else will have better luck.

Another note. Right above the Gamaliel Challenge, there's a list of linked responses to various individuals on the topic. One of them, that directed to "Bananaz", is missing. I'm not sure where the response to him is supposed to be located now, if it's somewhere on the site at all.

Page: Josephus: A Double Dose of the Messiah (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/josephus.html)

Roughly 5/7 of the way down, I found this line:

For our comments on this section, please see this essay.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/gk/jesustrial.html

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesustrial.html

The same problem occurs at the very bottom of the article.

Issue of note: Some discussion has attended the argument that the Testimonium is strongly paralleled by Luke's Emmaus road narrative. Not surprisingly, this data has been used to suggest that Luke copied Josephus, or vice versa, or to suggest a common source. We now have a look at that issue here.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/lp/lukeandjoe.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/lukeandjoe.html

Page: Nero's Scapegoats: Cornelius Tacitus (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html)

Perhaps 7/9 of the way down the page, there's an error very familiar from the Josephus article:

This is truly a convoluted excuse to dismiss the testimony of Tacitus. So then: If Tacitus found nothing to contradict his sources, doesn't this mean that he investigated to see if there was any contradictory data? Couldn't this just as easily (indeed, more likely) to be taken to mean that the historicity of Jesus was so beyond question and clearly in evidence that one source was enough, or even no sources (i.e., that it was common knowledge)? Who would have contradicted such a source? In a collectivist society, anyone at all who didn't care for Christianity or for the Jews, and that included a substantial portion of the Roman Empire (see here for more details). Once again, the basis of argument is the blind stupidity of ancient peoples. Christian claims involved charges of serious action by the governor of a Roman province; if the governor of your state was accused of putting the leader of a local religious cult to death on a major religious holiday, and it was not public knowledge that this had been done, do you think it would be allowed to pass uncontested, especially in a hotbed of rebellion like Judaea?

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/lp/nowayjose.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose.html

Page: Thallus: Darkness Rules (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/thallus.html)

In the first paragraph:

We recommended here Glenn Miller's essay on this subject and our evaluation of his work and another countering work here. Here is a miscellaneous objection:

Only the second link is faulty:

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/thallcomp.html

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/thallcomp.html

Same page, halfway down, the second, third, and fourth links from which the quotations are taken are all inoperative, unless my computer's just being screwy.

Page: Pliny to Trajan: Help!!! (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/pliny.html)

Halfway down, we find:

True, but nor would Pliny say that Serapis and Apollo were sung to "as (or, as if) a god." Obviously, there would be no need for this distinction, since Serapis and Apollo were known as gods! The phrase here would indicate that someone who would not ordinarily be perceived as a god (in Roman eyes) was here being accorded the status of deity, and this points to someone who was (again, in Roman eyes) a known, supposedly mortal person. (For more on this point, see our response to G. A. Wells.)

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/uz/wellsga01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/wellsga01.html

Page: One Fish, Two Fish: Or, Don't Fall Hook, Line and Sinker (http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/fishsymbol.html)

Three problems on this page, none of extreme importance.

Halfway down, you're talking about a lawsuit over cartoon tigers, and you give two links. The second now takes me to a page regarding veterans' benefits. I'm going to assume that this was not always the case.

Further down, the link about Tiger Chai Tea no longer goes to the desired page.

Finally, the link to the ACLU site no longer reaches the desired article. I tried to find the article on there, but for some reason, I can't stay on the ACLU's site for too long without twitching and becoming rather annoyed.

Page: One Down, One to Go: Discussions with Unitarians (http://www.tektonics.org/uz/unitresp.html)

Okay, the link problems here were by far the most numerous of any page, and most of the links are having the same exact problem. So, hold onto your hat, if you're wearing one.

The Holy Spirit [215ff]: If The Holy Spirit was a person without an incarnation, as we showed here, then there is a substantial problem with B and H claiming that the word "becoming flesh" was also the start of his personhood, since clearly the Spirit didn't need incarnation to become personal. So of course B and H have a chapter trying to divest the Spirit of personhood, making the Spirit merely God's "energy" (which we agree that it is), but the best they can do is quote other people's confused opinions on the matter, irrelevantly quote complaints from Luther and Calvin that they didn't like the sound of the word "Trinity" (never mind that they fully endorsed the concept), and try to confuse us on other matters with selective quotation. For example, Acts 8:26-29:

ttp://www.tektonics.org/qt/quietthird.html

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/quietthird.html

Argument 2: Proverbs and other cites say Wisdom was "created". That means it had a beginning and was not eternal. Our opponent made much of this (for a partial reply see here), but moreover, there is a certain semantic limitation involved, and that is that there is no such thing as verb of production that, taken by itself, could not be twisted, argued, or mashed into some implication of a beginning at a point in time rather than eternality. Even "generated," used by the Nicean creed, could be twisted so. (Doesn't generation imply that what was generated was "turned on" at some point?) No surprise that the Arians kept playing games and the Athanasians needed to narrow things. Heretics have to have some way to keep appearing orthodox, otherwise no one would give them credence.

ttp://www.tektonics.org/gk/jwsandjesus.html

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jwsandjesus.html

In closing on this chapter, and as analogy, BH might consider the misuse of the word elohim by both atheists and Mormons (see here as an attempt to refute their version of monotheism! The attempt is made by loading the "freight" of the modern word God (with a capital G) into the ancient word elohim, which obviously had a much broader scope of meaning. It is our contention that BH make the same mistake with the word monotheism.

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/monoelohim.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/monoelohim.html

Chapter 3 -- The focus of this chapter is the question, "Did Jesus' followers think he was God?" if we mean, "did they think he was God (the Father - keeping in mind the personal name "God" was not yet used) in a one to one correspondence," the answer is NO. If we ask, "did they think he was a hypostasis or attribute of God, ontologically equal with yet functionally subordinate to God" (as the Nicean creed also states), then the answer is YES. For reference we again refer the reader to our essay here. Without conceding BH's arguments, we will not argue the points about John 20:28 as it does not establish the fundamental differentiation of Trinitarianism even if Jesus is being called "God" (it could just as well be used to support modalism). Other points of note:

Not really sure if that link is supposed to be going to an article still on Tekton.

Chapter 7 -- The subject here is preexistence in the NT. BH discuss the difference between actual preexistence and ideal preexistence (existing only in God's foreknowledge). Their conclusions here are very close to our own in Chapter 3 of The Mormon Defenders where we addressed the Mormon doctrine of preexistence of souls. (There is also a quick endorsement of "soul sleep" doctrine, which we look at here.)

ttp://www.tektonics.org/qt/sleepy.html

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/sleepy.html

Among the things considered actually preexistent in Judaism was the "Son of Man" figure in Daniel 7 (1 Enoch 46:1-3, 48:1-7). The Son of Man "came into being before the creation and now exists in heaven, waiting to be revealed in the last times." [17-18] If, as we have shown, Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man, he was making a claim to be what was regarded as a preexistent being.

ttp://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims.sonofman.html

ttp://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/sonofman.html

Chapter 8 -- This, BH's longest chapter, deals with the work of John. It begins with a note (which we have also discussed here) that singular pronouns are used to refer to God in the OT "tens of thousands of times." This is very true, and not at all relevant, for it does not at all establish that God is "a single individual, not a plurality of persons," as we have noted far above with our first Unitarian writer.

ttp://www.tektonics.org/lp/monoelohim.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/monoelohim.html

After spending some time refuting a concept of preexistence in John 1:15, in which John speaks of Jesus being "before" him (and which no advocate of Trinitarianism uses that BH cite), we step to John 3:13 and 6:62, where Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man. As noted above, this Son of Man was regarded in Judaism as an actually preexistent entity; BH dispense with this little problem by first making the same objection that skeptics do about 3:13 (see here) and offering a different and entirely senseless answer which tries to take the final phrase as "well-attested" (though from a textual-critical viewpoint, it is not to be included) and which sees Jesus as speaking in terms of his ascension having been already happened in terms of what was determined by the divine council, a concept significantly missing from the entire section of John 3, and which finds no support from commentators who came up with their own idea that the language was proleptic (because they had no better or less creative solution to offer).

ttp://www.tektonics.org/lp/maninheaven.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/maninheaven.html

Chapter 9 -- This is BH's attempt to "depersonalize" the Holy Spirit. Our response to those who engage this view is found here and BH offer nothing that responds to any of the data offered there. It is also rather hypocritical of them to observe that Trinitarians "seem unable to define the word [Person] with any confidence" when they have yet to define "human" in anything but modern anthropological terms, and do not provide or address any Trinitarian definitions of "person" at all.

ttp://www.tektonics.org/qt/quietthird.html

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/quietthird.html

Chapter 11 -- This chapter is titled "The Challenge facing Trinitarianism Today." BH proudly point out that anti-Trinitarianism have "long presented its case by showing that various orthodox Trinitarians have explained key Trinitarian verses in a unitarian way," which doesn't mean much, since Mormons and JWs have also presented their case for various doctrines by showing that orthodox opponents explain key verses in different ways. Lack of certainty by, or the ignorance of, others less informed, is not positive evidence for your own case. They also discuss some disputed texts that are said to call Jesus God (Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1), but which we will not argue (while not also endorsing BH's counters) since to say "Jesus = God" is not the sum of the case in the first place. They also mishandle Mark 13:32 as the atheists do. As a whole, however, this chapter contains material we see no need to address in light of what has proceeded above.

ttp://www.tektonics.org/lp/mk1332.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/mk1332.html

"You present John's use of the logos apellation [sic] as if it was written in the context of the quote from Revelation to which you appeal. This is very poor exposition, considering that the two books were written as many as 40 years apart. You are essentially claiming that the audience would interpret the logos of John 1 in the context of a book which had not been written." This is a wildly desperate appeal; the evidence, to begin, shows that John and Rev were both written before 70 AD; but even if they were not, the time makes no difference whatsoever, and our Unitarian opponent is straining to make a phrase used by the SAME author mean two different things -- while in essence admitting it means something contrary to what he wants it to in Revelation.

First link:

ttp://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/johndef.html

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/johndef.html

Second link:

ttp://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html

http://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html

This is apparently the "redundant confusion" we are supposed to be worried about, but it is only a worry to a pedantic Western-minded literalist. The parallels make perfect sense (if valid, which we will assume they are) within a chiastic structure, and if anything, emphasize the identity of Jesus with the Logos. Our Unitarian is as confused as Skeptics who find similar "confusion" in the chiastic structure of the account of David and Goliath.

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/davegol.html

http://www.tektonics.org/af/davegol.html

Go Home!

ttp://www.tektonics.org/

http://www.tektonics.org/

Phew! Okay, that was the article with the most that need fixed. Now, pressing onward...

Page: Not InDavincible (http://www.tektonics.org/davincicrude.htm)

The point of all this harrying about is what mainly concerns us here. Our Junior Batmen are chasing after the Holy Grail, which in Brown’s universe, shaped as it is by popular conspiracy-theory speculations rather than certified scholarship, is not the cup of Christ most lately pursued by Harrison Ford, but a “royal bloodline” composed of descendants of Jesus Christ and (who else?) Mary Magdalene. This theory has been promoted without success before, most notably in the 1983 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, and Richard Leigh (New York: Dell). That book has been soundly critiqued. (See, for example, http://anzwers.org/free/posmis/ , http://www.alpheus.org/html/articles...chardson1.html and http://www.anzwers.org/free/posdebunking/.)

I'd get rid of both "anzwers" links, seeing as how, well, they don't work properly but instead simply send me to a portal page.

Page: On the Trail of the Trilemma (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trilemma.html)

3. Regarding Matthew and John above, we are told: "Is any acceptance of professional secular scholarly consensus a 'mere assum[ption]'? Does Holding 'merely assume the standard line' that America declared independence in 1776?" I wouldn't, if I had investigated the arguments for independence in 1776 and found them full of holes. Our enterprising critic shows little propensity for engaging specifics (for he ignores completely the link in the paragraph below) but here's another. I would be especially interested in any commentary on how the Gospels would have to be dated late, and attributed to other than their stated authors, in light of the criteria applied to secular documents of the same period like Tacitus' Annals.

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html"

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html

Second paragraph under point 4:

Even in Mark's "action" gospel wher Jesus says comparatively little about anything, let alone about himself, there are ample indications that he knew and proclaimed his own position. As for "is reluctant for his special nature to be known," the critic forgets, even as Price did, that in spite of this, the special nature did get known, and also isn't cognizant of the social reasons for circumspection in such claims.

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims.sonofman.html#social

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/sonofman.html#social

Page: Scratching the Cat Post: Our Critic Continues on the Trilemma (http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trilemmadef01.html)

About 2/3 down:

Well, it looks mainly like a non-answer, but also perhaps another desperate and uninformed appeal. It's really too short on specifics for comment, but if it is being suggested that people would not remember sayings or claims of Jesus, our critic needs to study ancient oral tradition and memorization processes, another surd in his social equation he hasn't accounted for, and explain why someone claiming to be Wisdom, Messiah, etc. would not be remembered adequately as this would be the sort of offensive and startling event that would transfix itself in a Jewish memory for perpetuity, especially in the context of miraculous acts and a group of disciples following.

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/oraity01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/orality01.html

About 3/4 down:

Jesus called himself the "son of man". On this one, an update: I no longer hold that this title was intended to be mysterious. "Son of Man" is clear indication of divinity, at all times it is used by Jesus. (Latest, latest: Our critic now plays for his crowd, saying, "That the 'Son of Man' title was initially considered 'mysterious' by someone so desperate for Jesus to claim divinity is prima facie evidence that it is no such clear claim." How this works out logically, or addressed even a shred of the relevant data, is probably best left to the imagination.)

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/sonofman.html.html

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/sonofman.html

And, about 6/7 down:

Our critic wants "details or issues" on Lazarus; he has some of them above. Beyond that he can explain to us why there is no evidence that such fantastic claims were never disputed, and why instead the indication in all relevant records is that yes, Jesus was a worker of miracles; they were just attributable to him being a trained sorceror. Ancient people, despite our critic's bigotry, were no more ready to accept wild claims that we are; and the degree of acceptance was, by every evidence, proportionate to the outlandishness and demand quotient of the claim. Richard Carrier is fond of making comparisons to fortune tellers and the like, but this is miles away from asking someone to believe that a man (from a people highly regarded as superstitious, no less) raised someone who had been dead for four days or more, and then asking you to trust this same man with your eternal fate.

http://www.tektonics.org/af/alex01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/alex01.html

10. Carrier notes "the popularity of astrology and psychic powers, and popular support for astrologers and psychics and spirit mediums, with little effort at skepticism or investigation" but fails to note that his analysis on such grounds is refuted here (as well as mispelling Peter Popoff's name, if we want to get fussy ;-) ).

http://www.tektonics.org/af/alex01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/alex01.html

Page: Conspiracy-Searching Skeptics: A Note on the Typolical Use of Scripture (http://www.tektonics.org/qt/typola.html)

This item is written to offer a supplemental point to Glenn Miller's excellent item on typology and its use in the Biblical period. It is meant as a reply to the common canard -- most often associated with John Dominic Crossan -- that NT history was invented to some extent by early Christians who, being a tad upset over the loss of their leader, went back into the OT looking for answers and worked up a false or mutated history for Jesus based on their readings (i.e., the OT predicted a betrayal; hence Judas was invented). Here is an example from another Skeptic, which was written as a response to my article on the death of Judas:

Second link:

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/judasdeath.html

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/judasdeath.html

Page: Faith Fumbler: A Decent Skeptic's Response on Faith (http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith_CC1.html)

From the paragraph preceding the addendum:

Gleeson bewails, "In other words, if a person is not healed, or a disease is not eradicated, or a child is not resurrected, it's not because Jesus couldn't do those things; it's because Jesus merely withheld his favors from an ungracious host. Do you see the perfectly wondrous circularity here? Jesus can never lose and, by extension, you (the naive, believing Christian) can never win." I wonder if Gleeson has the same exegetical diseases Benny Hinn has. Nowhere at all do we have any indication that healing is a free-for-all gift, and if anything, we have some evidence that such miracles were to cease by 70 AD (see here -- maybe Gleeson can spend some time tackling preterism; he may do a better job than Farrell Till so far).

http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/cessgifts.html

http://www.tektonics.org/af/cessgifts.html

Page: Mercy You?: The Biblical Quality of "Mercy" (http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatmercy.html)

Another example would be favor shown within a relationship of love in the collective, interrelational sense. Mercy can be shown simply by entering into such a relationship with someone, and beginning the process of reciprocal exchange of favor. Mercy is also not involved with feelings of compassion, as today, though it is not mutually exclusive of it; in other words, you do not need to FEEL compassionate in order to offer Biblical mercy.

http://www.tektonics.org/whatiswhatlove.html

http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatlove.html

Page: You Ever Have to Say You're Sorry: What is Biblical Repentance? (http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatrepent.html)

Chamberlain notes that "the popular concept of repentance has been tragically shallow: it has been perverted into emotionalism or sacramentarianism." [18] In Protestantism "repentance has been almost exclusively associated with an emotional crisis of sorrow for sin and fear of punishment." [19] Note how this also corresponds with the threat of eternal hell as an evangelistic tactic -- something never found in the New Testament during missionary preaching. In contrast, repentance "prepares men to participate in" the Kingdom of God -- a definition which happens to dovetail precisely with our point that the KoG is an ideological rule within the minds (hearts) of God's people. Thus repentance is the act of "co-operating with God's will on earth."

http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/kingpret.html

http://www.tektonics.org/esch/kingpret.html

Page: What Shape is the Earth In? (http://www.tektonics.org/af/earthshape.html)

Right above "Sky-High Club":

For more on these passages, see here.

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/olivet01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/esch/olivet01.html

Page: Outrageous Reasoning (http://www.tektonics.org/lp/outrage.html)

Point 3: Second-Guessing God. We had a look at this issue here, but let's now make an application for this essay. We know of the nature of the Canaanites, as Miller has offered:

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/guess2much.html

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/guess2much.html

Page: Second Guessing God (http://www.tektonics.org/gk/guess2much.html)

About 2/7 down:

Also we need a little education about original sin -- http://www.tektonics.org/origsin.html Deception is most likely in any event.

http://www.tektonics.org/origsin.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/origsin.html

Page: Born Bad: The Problem of Total Depravity (http://www.tektonics.org/tulip/tulip.html)

Shortly before conclusion:

Calvinists take this verse as an indication of "total inability" [Palm.5P, 15] to do anything good, including choose Christ. But I find here the same mistake I have once found made by C. Dennis McKinsey, who argued against salvation by grace by saying that the "act of accepting by faith is a work itself." But acts of the will and mind were not considered "works" in this time. The Greek word indicates physical labor or toil, not an intellectual decision. I cannot give McKinsey credence, and can no more fairly grant it to the Calvinist in this context. (However, even if intellectual decision were included, the indication would be no more than what is indicated in our syllogism above; see moreover on the meaning of "faith", here.)

http://www.tektonics.org/tulip/whatfaith.html

http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith.html

Page: Un Conditioning: A Foray into the Doctrine of Unconditional Election (http://www.tektonics.org/tulip/ulip.html)

Third paragraph:

In principle the sovereignty of God, His ability to do as He pleases, is hardly to be denied. It would be foolish to suggest that anything happens by chance or that God may possibly wonder or fear the future. This is the error of neotheism. Yet Palmer's statement indicates a certain inflexibility in thinking and a certain interpretive assumption that leads to an absurdity if taken to other passages. Here is the full text of Ephesians 1:11:

http://www.tektonics.org/tulip/opentheism01.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/opentheism01.html

Page: Bible: The User's Manual (http://www.tektonics.org/uz/useguide.html)

Force meaning into texts. This is a habit of many modern pastors who have no concern for original intent of the Biblical authors. If a text's first context does not support a given view, it ought not be used -- period. Now a caveat here is that it can be said, "Didn't the NT use the OT without regard for context?" Yes, and that was normal exegetical method for the period. The problem is that you need a "license" to exegete that way -- either prophetic inspiration or else an act of God (like the resurrection of Jesus). If you don't have these, tread this territory at your own risk.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/baduseot.html

Page: Answers in a Nutshell (http://www.tektonics.org/nutshell/nutshellhub.html)

Essenes/Dead Sea Scrolls:

For further reading see here.

http://www.tektonics.org/af/essene.html"

http://www.tektonics.org/af/essene.html

JEDP - Book Reviews:

Who Wrote the Bible? by Friedman

http://www.tektonics.org/books/friendmanwwbrvw.html

http://www.tektonics.org/books/friedmanwwbrvw.html

Pages: "Yes Way, Jose" Articles 1, 2, and 3

The Impossible Faith

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/nowayjose.html

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose.html

Page: The Not-at-All Impossible-Faith ()

with an article that compares Christianity to another ancient religion that got started at about the same time, Mithraism.

http://www.tektonics.org/uz/tekton_04_02_04_MMM.html

Not quite sure where that should be ending up.


I think that's everything I have for the time being, JP. And I see that Punkish found one that I missed.

[LilPunkishOfTerror]

Now we know why it takes JP a week to fix links...

EDIT: Mighty Mithraic Madness goes in the pagan copycat section.

[JB]

Now we know why it takes JP a week to fix links...

If he fixes all of these within a week and retains his sanity (we'll know that he's failed the latter if we see him compliment Farrell Till), I'll be quite impressed.

EDIT: Mighty Mithraic Madness goes in the pagan copycat section.

So that's what that article was... I'm surprised I didn't recognize the acronym, I've read that one a few times.

[Darth Executor]

*massive post*

I'm INTP too.

[jpholding]

If he fixes all of these within a week and retains his sanity (we'll know that he's failed the latter if we see him compliment Farrell Till), I'll be quite impressed.

I'll just do 3-5 a day. Well, maybe up to 10.

[JB]

I'll just do 3-5 a day. Well, maybe up to 10.

I think you'll probably have to average 6 or 7 a day to make it within the week. But I have a feeling you can manage that. There aren't quite as many there as it felt like when I was writing them down during the weekend and then typing them up today.

So was the number about what you expected?

EDIT: looks like I had a few errors myself in that post! But none that should provide too large an obstacle to you in locating the problems, I hope.

[jpholding]

So was the number about what you expected?

I think so. They all look like "misses" from when I did the file restructuring.

[LilPunkishOfTerror]

Not a link issue, but a name.

In your rebuttal to Michael Martin's Case Against Christianity, JP, you have mentioned the privately published thesis by Robert Tanquay in chapter 2 . This should be Ronald Tanguay (with a g.)

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/martincac2.html
thanks

[ApologiaPhoenix]

I'd like to report the problem that there seems to be a strong lack of intelligent arguments against the faith. Do we have anything new coming around soon?

[jpholding]

Not a link issue, but a name.

In your rebuttal to Michael Martin's Case Against Christianity, JP, you have mentioned the privately published thesis by Robert Tanquay in chapter 2 . This should be Ronald Tanguay (with a g.)

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/martincac2.html
thanks

Heck -- Maybe Martin got it wrong then. I don't have the book any more.

I'd like to report the problem that there seems to be a strong lack of intelligent arguments against the faith. Do we have anything new coming around soon?

Sorry, but I've been waitin' longer than you have and that bus ain't comin'. All we got is a scooter, and DJ got off of it and there's no one else on the way.

[LilPunkishOfTerror]

No JP, it's the book where I got his name from.