Open Letter to Andy Poland of Concerned Christians

[_KevinSim]

Good morning Andy Poland,

I found out yesterday that I've been banned from posting to the "www.concernedchristians.com" forums. This is an appeal to you to please consider reinstating my posting privileges.

As a result of what I've posted on the "Main Biblical Christian Truth Claims about God" thread on the "Christianity" forum, Bob Betts said in article #84219, "Since I don't think you're that unintelligent, then you must be toying with me. This discussion is over. You are not being serious. You are being foolish. I'm not playing your game anymore, anymore than Christ would keep playing along with the Pharisees of His day. You are no longer welcome here." And in article #84220 of the "My answer to Kevin's question" thread of the same forum Bob told Fred Anson, "Kevin's been banned. His most recent post to me in the other thread, convinces me he's toying with us."

Andy, could you simply read what I've posted in the "Main Biblical Christian Truth Claims" thread, and see for yourself if it's absolutely clear that Bob made the right conclusions about what I said, or whether it's possible he may have misunderstood me?

I'll be completely honest with you; I have a major problem with the Biblical Christian idea that God is both absolutely, literally omnipotent and also unwilling to use His power to cause the souls of the unsaved to cease to exist, but rather has made the conscious decision to let the unsaved suffer unbearable agony for the rest of eternity. But if Bob didn't want to discuss that question, then why didn't he say so after I said in article #84133 (of the "Main Biblical Christian Truth Claims" thread), "If you don't want to answer, that's fine; if you think the answer would be speculating, just tell me so and that also would be fine"?

I personally think the whole thing was a huge misunderstanding, over what it meant to be able to do something. I asked Bob in article #84118, "Do they [Biblical Christians] believe that God can literally do anything that doesn't involve a logical contradiction?" Bob quoted that question in article #84119 and replied, "Yes. 'all-powerful' is taken literally." So I thought that if God "can literally do anything" (that doesn't involve a logical contradiction) then it followed that God can cause souls to cease to exist. Bob wasn't willing to come to that conclusion.

A particularly morbid example illustrates the problem we had. When Andrea Yates killed her four children in June 2001, my children were also pretty young, eight, seven, and six, to be precise. It occurred to me at the time that I was able to do the same thing that Andrea had done; I had strong arms; if I tried hard enough I could also drown those three children in a bathtub. But I certainly hoped I was not the kind of person that would do something like that. And it turned out I wasn't; my three older children are still alive, and my youngest daughter died of SIDS, not from drowning in a bathtub. So although in one sense I was able, in another sense I wan't able; it was not in my nature to have any desire to drown my children. Sorry for the example; I just couldn't think of any other example that would illustrate the point!

Anyhow, Bob insisted that God was not able to cause souls to cease to exist, using the second sense of the word able; I was trying to show Bob that his own statement about the omnipotence of God implied that God was able, using the first sense of the word able. God certainly had sufficient power to cause someone to cease to exist.

Finally, after much discussion, in article #84131 Bob quoted me, "It just seems so natural to me that a being that has the power to create intelligence out of nothing, would also have the power to take intelligent beings back to nothing," and Bob replied with, "If it was within His will, nature and character (divine attributes) to do the latter, then He would be able. since it's not within His will, nature and character, then your question is moot."

As soon as I saw this statement, I knew that it was precisely what I had been waiting for him to say. My whole intent in posting to your forum had been to find out if Biblical Christians believed that if "it was within" God's will to cause souls to cease to exist, "then He would be able."

At this point I probably should have quoted both statements together, but I thought that Bob's statement, although it clearly stated that it wasn't God's will to do it, still just as clearly implied that if "it was within His will, nature and character" He would be able to do it. Anyhow, I did post both statements, but I separated them by two paragraphs of my own text, and Bob concluded that I was therefore taking his statements out of context.

It soon became very clear to me that Bob thought I was arguing that the God of the Bible would cause souls to cease to exist, or that it might be true that God might cause them to cease to exist. No matter how much I told him that I was in complete agreement with his statements, I couldn't convince him that I didn't think the God of the Bible would cause them to cease to exist or that He might cause them to cease to exist. This morning I've gone over all my posts in that thread, and I certainly can't find anything I said that implied what Bob thought I said.

Perhaps you can take a look at what I posted and see if I ever said anything that could be taken to mean that I thought the God of the Bible might use His power to cause souls to cease to exist. If you do and point them out to me, I'd really appreciate it. I definitely didn't mean to say any such thing; of that I'm pretty sure.

At any rate, having achieved my objective, I turned to asking Bob why God wouldn't cause the souls of the unsaved to cease to exist, but then again I wasn't talking about the God of the Bible; I was talking about God in the general sense.

The straw that broke the camel's back started when Bob asked me in article #84180, "What's the incentive to repent of sinning, knowing that the end is to simply, painlessly cease to exist? Where's the consequence for rebellion against God? Which would be easier? To live one's life in a struggle against one's sinful nature, as Paul describes in Rom. 7?, Or, to sin freely, because the result will be to painlessly be non-existent in the end?"

I thought he was implying that if God didn't have more of a consequence for not repenting then people would not have an incentive to repent. So I replied in article #84214, "The same incentive your every-day, run-of-the-mill atheist has to keep on living, every day. Bob, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be implying that with a deity who annihilates the souls of the unsaved, people wouldn't have any incentive to repent from sinning. If that is what you're saying, then by the same logic atheists should start killing themselves in droves."

Bob quoted that line in article #84219 and then replied, "'Annihilates'? Are you serious? The definition of 'annihilate' is to cause to cease to exist. WHY would I be implying that God annihilates the souls of the unsaved, when I have always said to you that God does not cause souls to cease to exist. Why would you slip the word 'annihilate' into something you think I'm implying, since it is the opposite of what I've been saying?

"I can only think of two reasons. Either you're just toying with me, or you do not have the mental capacity to have an intelligent discussion beyond about a 6th grade level." Then he goes on to make the statement I quoted at the beginning of this e-mail, ending by telling me I'm "no longer welcome here."

If you'll look carefully at what I said I never came even close to implying that Bob ever implied "that God annihilates the souls of the unsaved"; rather I paraphrased his argument by saying with "a deity who annihilates the souls of the unsaved, people wouldn't have any incentive ...." Can you see how that statement is fundamentally different from what Bob meant by asking me his questions in article #84180? I certainly can't. I'm not convinced Bob ever actually read article #84214 in its entirety.

That's my story. Bob called me intellectually dishonest in article #84134 and in article #84219 he said he has "been looking for one honest Mormon for years. I have yet to find one," implying once again that I'm dishonest. I really don't see any conclusive evidence that I was being dishonest in either instance. If it looks to you like I have been dishonest, please let me know why you think so so I can repent. Regardless of what Bob said, I am firmly convinced that I at least want to be honest.

Kevin Sim

[_KevinSim]

I sent the preceding note to Andy Poland, listed as the general manager of Concerned Christians according to website "http://www.concernedchristians.com", on 18 September. It was in reference to discussion forums that Concerned Christians used to have, but it would appear they're not on the website any more; at any rate I have brought up the website twice, and haven't seen a forum link either time. I don't know why Concerned Christians discontinued them. After I sent this e-mail to Andy, he replied positively on 19 September, and although he didn't promise me I would have my posting privileges to those forums restored, he told me he would talk to Bob Betts about my grievances, and although he did speak of my fundamental problem of suggesting the Bible was unreliable, he also said he agreed with my logic to a point.

So I took heart, and sent him off an e-mail on the same day expressing my gratitude for his attempts to mediate between Bob Betts and me.

Andy didn't respond, so after waiting for two days I sent him off another e-mail on 21 September asking him if he had any word on whether Bob Betts was willing to consider letting me back on the forums. On the same day Andy replied saying that after he had read my last e-mail he had decided that I shouldn't be posting to the Concerned Christians website.

It took me a while to figure out what precisely I had done to make him draw that conclusion. Basically my crime was that when I had responded to him I had cut and pasted his conversation back to him, and he concluded that meant I hadn't really been listening to him, and all I wanted to do was get my own agenda through.

I was pretty flabbergasted to hear this. I've been cutting and pasting people's responses back to them for years now. I thought it was evidence that I was listening to my audience, not evidence that I wasn't. I mean, it put their words right there on the response so I could be sure I was addressing their concerns, and also so that they could clearly see I was addressing their concerns. Can anybody else explain to me how cutting and pasting someone's responses can possibly be taken as me not listening to the other person?

And in article #84133 of the forum I said, "However, I think I'm going to ask one more question. If you don't want to answer, that's fine; if you think the answer would be speculating, just tell me so and that also would be fine." In other words, I was giving Bob Betts an out. If he had replied that the answer would have been speculating, then I would have had to honor my word and cut off questioning.

Does that sound like a person with an agenda? What person with an agenda gives his audience a clear way to stop the agenda from being presented?

My agenda, if it can be called that, was to show Mister IT that Biblical Christianity was no more rational than Mormonism. In order to do that I needed to find out what Mister IT himself believed about the Biblical Christian God. He wouldn't answer questions I asked him directly about what Biblical Christians (like him) believed about God, but he did mention Concerned Christians once, I asked him if I could go to that organization to get information about Biblical Christain truth claims about God, and he indicated I could.

So I went to the discussion forum on Christianity, asked Bob my questions, got my answer, and that was it. Asking Bob why the Biblical Christian God didn't annihilate the unsaved was an afterthought, not an agenda.

I sent an e-mail back to Andy Poland trying to reason with him that I was innocent of the charges he was accusing me of, and he replied with an e-mail telling me he didn't want to communicate with me any more.

So the moral of this story is that if you have no opinions about God, then the Concerned Christians website is a great place to go to point you to what Biblical Christians think about God. But if you are unlucky enough to actually have some opinions about God, and want feedback on those opinions, then going to the Concerned Christians organization runs the risk of them concluding that those opinions are evidence that you have an agenda you're pursuing, and you might end up banned from their site. And whatever you do, don't cut and paste what they've e-mailed you when you reply to them!

[_Dr. Shades]

My agenda, if it can be called that, was to show Mister IT that Biblical Christianity was no more rational than Mormonism.

A lesson that I wish the Temple Square protesters would learn.

[_KevinSim]

My agenda, if it can be called that, was to show Mister IT that Biblical Christianity was no more rational than Mormonism.

A lesson that I wish the Temple Square protesters would learn.

Amen! I was walking back from the Conference Center yesterday with my son just after the morning session ended, and one protester I passed was asking the crowd why we couldn't just believe the Bible. Obviously he thought we didn't need to add LDS scripture to what he considered the Christian canon. I thought to myself, if I didn't believe God gave the LDS Church authority to determine what was scripture and what wasn't, what reason would I have for believing that God wants us to treat the Bible as scripture?

But my son wanted to get home, so I didn't stop and ask the guy that question. I wonder what he would have replied had I stopped?

[_Hoops]

Do you have a link for the exhange that led to your correspondence with this guy?

[_Nightlion]

The straw that broke the camel's back started when Bob asked me in article #84180, "What's the incentive to repent of sinning, knowing that the end is to simply, painlessly cease to exist? Where's the consequence for rebellion against God? Which would be easier? To live one's life in a struggle against one's sinful nature, as Paul describes in Rom. 7?, Or, to sin freely, because the result will be to painlessly be non-existent in the end?"

Kevin Sim

You missed the most obvious "tell" that Bible christians own a Bible Jesus and a Bible god that is corrupted by their vulgar and self serving tradition of making the Bible rule over both Christ and God. I have always called it their putting of God into a box (Bible) that they control and thus they rule over the Most High doing the works of Satan who sought the same. Obviously, their Bible Jesus is not capable of changing them from the natural man who is an enemy of God into a saint filled with the power of the Holy Ghost and fully furnished to overcome the world.

So I would conclude that it is they who have killed Christ afresh and put him to open shame by trampling upon the gospel of Jesus Christ with their perverse salvation by the Bible. What sane person would want to be associated with an impotent salvation that cannot deliver a soul in this life from the power of Satan? What does that tell you about their god's lack of power to NOT save you from both death and hell in the NEXT life? I would flee their Bible Jesus and flee the Bible christian wholly and shake off my garments as a witness of their abominations.

How long do you think I could last with these guys? I wonder. They do not know God whom the testaments witness of, neither do they honor him by doing his gospel. None circumcise the foreskin of their hearts that God might put the love of God within their inward parts. This is evident by their admission of constant bondage to the natural man that they justify by a stupid reading of Paul not knowing enough to rightly divide the word of truth.

I hope those guys get a chance to read this. I will prove them dishonest with their Bibles all day long.

[_KevinSim]

Do you have a link for the exhange that led to your correspondence with this guy?

No I don't. Like I said, you used to be able to go to "http://www.concernedchristians.com", and click on the "Forum" or "Forums" link (I don't remember which), and that would take you to the forums; then you could click on the "Christianity" link, which would take you to the Christianity Forum; and last I checked my thread, named "Main Biblical Christian Truth Claims about God", was up at the top of the threads for that forum. But now when you go to the mentioned Concerned Christians website, there is no link labeled "Forum" or "Forums". So apparently the organization has discontinued its forums, though I don't know why.

However, on 19 September I wanted to have a local copy of that particular thread, so on that day I copied all three pages of it to a local file, so if you'd like, I could post that file to this forum. Let me know what you want me to do. I'll warn you, it's pretty long though. In fact, for the record that file has 2264 lines.