re rw is robert weiss the only orthodox christian i m curious to know if christians ever read books based on critique on the religion classical text such as age of reason by paine or the myth maker by jacobi sometimes it is good to know your enemy and if you want to do serious research you have to understand both sides and not solely the one and only right one yes one does i examined a critique of the book of romans by i think benjamin franklin once a deist i found it amazing that benjamin franklin missed the whole boat i also have the writings on thomas jefferson sitting on my shelf and it is amazing how much he missed i have studied plato s theory of forms and aristotelian hylomorphesism what a pile of junk jesus makes plato and aristotle look like kindergardeners psychology the id ego superego by freud elements of truth but jesus explained it far better and gave reasons thomas paine benjamin franklin thomas jefferson are mere men they can screw up the bible just as well as any man i do not put these men on a pedestal and if i remember t j s autobiography correctly he thought thomas paine was the most unread man he ever met here s some more circular reasoning to you paul says to the corinthians that that the gospel will be foolishness to the world because it is spiritually discerned and so people without the spirit of god haven t a clue to what the bible is saying from your point of view that s incredibly circular and convenient to me it is mysteriously and supernaturally bizarre i can see it but you can t this is not arrogance on my part trust me it is as bizarre to you as it is to me but nonetheless it is a truth explainable or not are any of you color blind to red and green i am remember those dot tests they do at the optomologist s they put pictures in front of you and you are supposed to identify the pattern in the dots if your eyes are perfectly normal you can see letters or numerals embedded in the dots they are a slightly different color and stand out from the background but if you are color blind to red and green you will not see anything but gray shaded dots that is how a dot test appears to me i do not see a pattern at all a normal seeing person will see the patterns and to him i seem like a total anomaly to him i appear as if i am missing the universe or something it is hard for him to understand why i can t see anything that to him is as plain as day that it what it is like with the bible the word of god to the believer the believer can see the meaning in the words i can see how the patterns fit together there is such depth such consistency but then on the other hand i notice the non believer he doesn t see it he thinks i am weird because he thinks i am seeing things i look at him and say no you are weird you do not see then it is time for a sanity check i go to another christian and say do you see this and they go yes it is an x and i say thank god i see the x too it is truly the strangest thing it adds a little extra dimension to the phrase he will make the blind see and the deaf hear i am glad that jesus has enabled me to see i wish every non believer could see what they are missing
