Book Burning

And I thought the NAZI Party started book burning, Alas! some group did it first.

Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. - Acts 19:19-20 (KJV)

Well, what can I say?
They suppose to read them, not burn them! 

Doubtful?

Strange that one of the hadith says this words...

Tabari 9:69 “He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for those who disbelieve, we will fight them forever in the Cause of Allah. Killing them is a small matter to us.”

Peace?

But when confronted about this hadith, the best Muslim response is...
"The Al-Tabari volume is not very authentic and very doubtful."

What the... ?

Sir George Bernard Shaw's Quote about Islam.

Hayz! I wonder if my Muslim friends really do intensive research. Anyway, I've notice that they always use a certain "quote" by Sir George Bernard Shaw about Islam...yeah right... as if this so-called quote does guarantee the validity of Islam.

Now, sad to burst their bubble...

One thing was very obvious, the said quote was... well...doctored. Shaw was interviewed by  a Sufi Sheikh by the name of His Eminence Maulana Mohammed Abdul Aleem Siddiqui. The interview is in a periodical published by the All Malaya Muslim Missionary Society in Singapore called the Genuine Islam; the interview itself was conducted while George Bernard Shaw was in Mombasa sometime between the 10th and 20th of April, 1935, and the interview was published in the January number of Vol. 1 (1936) of the periodical. Sadly, the most quoted part of that interview is not, in fact, any part of the interview itself. 

Also, haven't they know that Sir George Bernard Shaw also said this about Islam. I wonder why they don't post this quote? 

"Islam is very different, being ferociously intolerant. What I may call Manifold Monotheism becomes in the minds of very simple folk an absurdly polytheistic idolatry, just as European peasants not only worship Saints and the Virgin as Gods, but will fight fanatically for their faith in the ugly little black doll who is the Virgin of their own Church against the black doll of the next village. When the Arabs had run this sort of idolatry to such extremes [that] they did this without black dolls and worshipped any stone that looked funny, Mahomet rose up at the risk of his life and insulted the stones shockingly, declaring that there is only one God, Allah, the glorious, the great… And there was to be no nonsense about toleration. You accepted Allah or you had your throat cut by someone who did accept him, and who went to Paradise for having sent you to Hell. Mahomet was a great Protestant religious force, like George Fox or Wesley…." - Laurence, Dan H., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters, 1926-1950 (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1988) pp. 323-3

There is actually a great Hindu sect, the Jains, with Temples of amazing magnificence, which abolish God, not on materialist atheist considerations, but as unspeakable and unknowable, transcending all human comprehension. - pp. 323-3

Oh my gulay!

In Shaw's book The Adventure of the Black Girl in Search of God, he wrote

"When I ‘drove the camels” continued the Arab, not quite catching the interruption, “I carried in my pack idols of men seated on thrones with the heads of hawks on their shoulders and scourges in their hands. The Christians who began by worshipping God in the form of a man, now worship Him in the form of a lamb. This is the punishment decreed by Allah for the sin of presuming to imitate the work of His hands. But do not on that account dare to deny Allah. His sense of beauty… [T]he lilies of Allah are more lovely than the robes of Solomon in all his glory. Allah makes the skies His pictures and His children His statues, and does not withhold them from our earthly vision. He permits you to make lovely robes and saddles and trappings, and carpets to kneel on before Him, and windows like flower beds of precious stones. Yet you will be meddling in the work He reserves for Himself, and making idols. For ever be such sin forbidden to my people!”

“Pooh!” said the sculptor, “your Allah is a bungler; and he knows it…”

A little research will not hurt.


Astalabye-by!

[See: Being an Unforgivably Protracted Debunking of George Bernard Shaw’s Views of Islam]

The Bible - How It Came to Be

God, Haughtiness and Alex Gonzaga

It has been what? May 31 I think and Alex has already been thrown out of Kuya's house, but still the issue was not settled. There were no apology on her camp- Aha! Vanity! Anyway, I really don't want to give too much importance to this "has been" just to resurrect her dead showbis career (does she have a career in the first place?)

So instead let us just concentrate on what she said.

So, according to this Alex Gonzaga, a non-believer (obviously, she's talking about those who doesn't believe her God and Jesus - Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists) deteriorates easily if they have  problems and they become alcoholics, addicts criminals... what?

Hmmm... a lot of actors and actresses like her goes to drugs, illicit sex and some even commit suicide. Don't tell me that they're all atheists?

Now, why would you say that any person who doesn't believe in God can easily deteriorate into drug addicts or a life of crime...uh...any data to support this Ms. Gonzaga?

Well, I cannot really blame her of having such a prejudice remarks. Christians are so bigot when it comes to people who doesn't share their faith - some kind of a "holier than thou" attitude. Ms. Alex Gonzaga is just acting Christian-like. They think that when someone lose faith, it's a downhill life ahead.

No need to say that there are more Christian criminals inside national penitentiaries than non-believers. No need to remind her that it all about the attitude not the religious belief. No need to tell her that the Bible is more hedious compare to Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. She will never listen anyway... she already closed her mind that what she believed is true. Fucked up, holier than thou religious, self-righteous bi...

Nah...

Atheism on the march... and JW's were pissed. (Part 2)

It seems the Jehovah’s Witnesses are now affected by the "atheist scare" huh? In the latest Awake! (November 2010) they featured some stories about their issue against atheism.

These anti-atheist articles came out last September 2010.

The  first article is saying atheists are in a sort of "crusade". Crusade?

Ah OK...so atheists can't keep their view to themselves, say whom? Ah, those Jehovah's Witnesses who has this tradition of systematic, door-to-door sales pitch. They just love knocking to your gates in a peaceful Saturday morning to give you their magazines and try convincing you that the Jewish God name is "Jehovah."

These Jehovah's Witnesses who is knocking at your doors and doing the sales pitch not the atheists. In addition, what is the issue about atheist books? Why not write a JW best seller? Oh,  I get it, they seem to be having a hard time convincing people that it is a sin to salute to the American flag and to accept blood donations huh? Well...blame Red Cross not us atheists.

Moreover, when did we bully the agnostics? It seems the JW's doesn’t know that atheism and agnosticism can share a bed together. The issue here is, as Christopher Hitchin saw it, is how religion poison everything. This is beyond having a god belief or knowledge.

If a person believes that the gods are beyond human knowledge, then so be it. The only issue the New Atheists have with agnostics is that atheists now have factual evidences on the improbability of god. However, there is nothing wrong being an agnostic. Agnosticism will not make a person ram a jet plane into a building.

Whose Side Do You Think Time Will Vindicate?

The JW article poses two questions:

1.1. Is the belief in a Creator intrinsically harmful?

2.2. Would universal atheism makes for a better world?

Do these questions answer atheistic issues, or are the Jehovah Witnesses barking at the wrong tree? Let us explore them and, separate the fictions from the facts, and please...lets us have some ounces of honesty here.

Now, does believing in a Creator intrinsically harmful? It depends. If a person believes that a certain god ordered his people to refuse blood, thus letting her child die because of lack of blood, we have a problem.

In addition, what is this about “universal atheism?” Atheists are not interested with a so-called “universal atheism.” They just want to satisfy their skepticism towards religious claims. The issue here is not to proselytize atheism,  but free inquiry. When talking about something as “universal,” atheists are more interested on secularization: that church and state should be separated and that political decision should be based on reason rather than revelation.

I was wondering about this write-up on God’s view towards religious atrocities. Reading this gives me an impression; the people at Watch Tower are justifying God’s brutal action against the Canaanites.

In any case, the issue here is religious atrocities.

Besides, what is the difference between the Hebrews and the Canaanites when it comes to child sacrifices? The Hebrews were guilty of the same barbaric practice (See: Exodus 22:29-30 and Judges 11:39). According to Susan Niditch, “While there is considerable controversy about the matter, the consensus over the last decade concludes that child sacrifice was a part of ancient Israelite religion to large segments of Israelite communities of various periods.” (War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence p. 5)

So child sacrifice is only evil to Jehovah when it is done in the name of foreign gods huh?

Going back to the subject. So what are religious atrocities? I define it as violence and killing done in the name of God and the article seems to be skipping the subject altogether.

The next article (A WORLD WITHOUT RELIGION—AN IMPROVEMENT?) deals with the issue of a godless society. Again, the author seems to imply the connection of being morally good and believing in God. There are even pictures of something from Nazi death camps and Pol-Pot’s ‘Killing Fields’ in Cambodia.

Is there a connection?

It seems the article was implying that communism is synonymous with atheism. The JW article was quite misinformed on the issue. The crime committed by Pol-Pot has nothing to do with theological debates. The “Killing Fields” was about politics and ethnic cleansing, not atheistic.

So let us answer the question, is a society without religion an improvement? Oh…eh wait a minute there folks! This is a little bit of a tricky question. It seems the people at Watch Tower are ignorant to the fact that religion is not synonymous with god – belief. Maybe the better question is “if a society without a belief in a personal God an improvement?”

Well… we can study the statistics of a secular nation like Japan, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Now these nations do have religion, yet they seem to be too secular to bring God in their everyday issues. Happy, successful and almost crime-free even if these countries do not care what Jehovah has to say.

Zuckerman, Phil. "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns", chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism , ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005).

Religion is not the only reason why people kill other people… I agree, but it is “the reason” why a religious fanatic will blow himself together with innocent civilians as ordered by his “Holy Scripture.” As what Baise Pascal has already said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction” and as Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg observed, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”

Religion can impose a certain action in which believers think of it as a duty the pious has to perform in order to please their gods. That is why good Christians blow-up abortion clinics, good Muslims can destroy and vandalized national heritage sites (like what the Taliban did to the Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan) and good God believing families can attack and kill AFT agents (like what happened in Waco, Texas).

Morality Requires God

Does atheism mean relative morality as what Law Professor Philip Johnson (who is he?) says? Well, according to this certain Mr. Johnson, “No God means no accountability to a divine authority, as well as no objective values which we are obligated to respect, morality thus becomes relative, with each person determining his own standards-if he chooses to have any.”

Now, it seems this Johnson fellow thinks that the standard of morality can only come from divine authority. That is not true. Before humans have invented religion, we already have a standard source of ethics…if not our ancestors may have already killed each other. Such a standard is significant in the formation of a working society.

Not every atheist on this planet believed in a relative morality. Good examples are Paul Kurtz, Michael Martin and Wielenberg. Others say that the structure of moral theory is objective, yet its practice requires an input of subjective values (Steele 2008).

Yet by looking at it, the view that “morality” is objective seems to suggest that what is right or wrong can be ascertained by purely factual investigation, and if that is true, that would imply that a divine authority is no help in determining what’s right and what’s wrong.

Now the problem with Philip Johnson’s accountability to a divine authority is that he knew that God is all-good by a standard of God’s own decree thus making mortality arbitrary.

To convince their readers that belief in a god is somewhat scientific,  they have to place a certain celebrity – a guy who converted from being an atheist then converting to something else. Therefore, what is the best person to use? Why THEN, it is ex-atheist Anthony Flew (applause! applause!)

According to the article, Flew was convinced that there is a God because of science. What? Well… he was convinced that the universe, the law of nature, and life itself could not have arisen merely by chance. That is according to the JW article, but not from Flew himself.

The obvious reason why Flew headed in that direction is that he was a philosopher and not a scientist. Because of his ignorance with chemistry, physics, and biology, Flew was convinced by the so-called irreducible complexity. This has nothing to do with science. (See: Flew’s Flawed Science – Victor J. Stenger February/March 2005 Free Inquiry Vol. 25 No. 2)

The JW article is implying that an intelligent first cause was the start of everything. Intelligent… that means it is a person perhaps. According to the Jehovah’s Witnesses booklet entitled “Is The Bible really the word of God?” (Watch Tower Bible 1969) on page 17, “Interestingly, there seems to be one point on which most modern scientists agree following Einstein’s equation, the hold that just as matter can be converted into energy, so energy can be converted into matter. If this is so, it would mean that an Intelligent Source of tremendous energy would have no problem in producing a material universe… the Bible speaks of that One as Jehovah God.”

OK, so all the energy in the universe came from an outside source, which is a god-person, called Jehovah, right? Yet the JW article did not explain to us what the proofs that this Jehovah was the source. It can be many things. In addition, the Law of the conversation of mass-energy simply state that mass and energy cannot be created nor destroyed and the total energy in the universe is constant. That means energy can become mass (matter) and vice versa yet the total energy in the universe remains the dame. It is fixed.

If there is a so-called “source” outside the Universe, then that means, there will be an increase of the amount of energy every time the “source” released it, but that will contradict the laws of physics and… oh wait, the Intelligent First Cause can break any physical constraints in nature by making a miracle. Yeah, right… good science indeed!

It is quite amusing for a Cambridge professor to appeal to his ignorance on the subject of evolution. Anyway, the JW article seems to fail to mention what are those “many ways” in which life can fail to evolve in a complex and hostile environment. Since this Awake! article didn’t mention them, we may look at what the Jehovah’s Witnesses believed in.

The Jehovah Witnesses believe that the 6 days in Genesis mean a thousand years per “day” (based on Psalms 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8) They are even that specific to say that each “day” was 7,000 years in length. This is known as the Concordist Interpretation and its first proponent was Hugh Miller (1869).

The real reason for this is to reconcile science with their doctrine. How is that possible? Since geology has been proving the fallacy of a 6000-year-old Earth, the Jehovah’s Witnesses took this interpretation so that it can settle Genesis with recent scientific discoveries.

Yet even with this interpretation of the scriptures, they must explain to their readers the following problems:

1. Did planet Earth come first before the stars, the moon, and the Sun? Reading Genesis 1, we see that the Earth came first and other heavenly bodies followed on the fourth (or should I say, after 28,000 years) day.

2. Vegetations came first before the Sun, so did the green plants survive even without sunlight for 7,000 years? According to one of their booklets, plant life survived on planet Earth through “lightless photosynthesis” – for 7000 years?

Who’s Blind?

What does “blind chance” have to do with atheism?

If Jehovah does not exist, does it follow that everything existed because of chance?

Contrary to the Jehovah Witnesses suggestion, there are many options.

Bear in mind that the questions of existence are answered by “the best guesses” we can come up. We can assume that a supernatural, intelligent being named Jehovah created the material universe or we can assume that a natural event formed it. However, a natural explanation of cosmology is not blind chance as renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” He also added, “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

Is the First Cause Intelligent?

In the Awake! article, the First Cause is brought up on the issue of the origin of the universe and the evolution of life on Earth. Now, is First Cause a good argument to prove that Jehovah exists? Is it good science?

Ok, according to this argument:

1. Everything that exists has a cause

2. There is no infinite regression of causes; therefore there is an uncaused cause (a First Cause).

3. This First Cause is Jehovah.

Notice that the First Cause argument does not really answer the question. Why is the “First Cause” Jehovah? What is the explanation for that? That is not scientific. In fact, it only reflects the ignorance on scientific methodology.

True science requires explanations. As philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) has pointed out that what we assume to be the first cause may just as well be due to the ignorance of the cause and explanation of an event. It is a flaw of utilizing a principle beyond its valid range of application. The same issue was deeply expounded by Bertrand Russell in a debate with Father Copleston. According to Russell, the contingency argument rest in the misconception of what an explanation is and does and what makes it intelligible.

It is not surprising for the Jehovah Witnesses to use quotations from the Australian molecular biologist Michael Denton to discredit evolution. Dr. Denton was an influential proponent of Intelligent Design and was a former Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, the hub of the Intelligent Design movement. So that is self-serving huh?

They also forgot to say that Dr. Denton is known on recanting his own words. In his second book “Nature’s Destiny ”, Denton took back his earlier anti-evolutionary stand. He now believes that the Fine Tuning argument does not only imply cosmological evolution, but it also implies biological evolution (I wonder why the Watch Tower did not quote from Dr. Denton’s new book?).

The issue here is not faith but about natural or supernatural origin. Did the natural universe start to exist via natural method or with a help from a supernatural being named Jehovah? Maybe the Awake! article has a lot more to explain.

New scientific discoveries by prominent physicists and cosmologists are pointing to a direction that a natural origin of the universe is plausible. (For more discussion of the subject (see: Atkatz, David and Pagels, Heinz. "Origin of the Universe as a Quantum Tunneling Event," in Physical Review D, 25 (1982), pp.2065-2073. ... "Birth of Inflationary Universes," in Physical Review D, 27(1983), pp. 2848-2855).

So after reading the whole magazine...well...where's the beef? Where is the refutation against atheism? Oh I know...it is invisible to human eyes...

I thought so.

Read more: From The AWAKE! Magazine: IS ATHEISM ON THE MARCH? by The Atheist Geek

Atheism on the march...and JW's were pissed.

Have you ever encountered those annoying people who will knock on your door in a peaceful Saturday morning to convince you to…er… nope I’m not talking about Electrolux salesmen and Avon ladies. I am talking about those members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.


Now, these traveling salesmen of faith are saying to atheists to keep their ideas to themselves. What? Wait a minute there buddy, who’s the one tapping on windows to give (or sell) those nifty little magazines and pamphlets?


In their November 2010 issue, it seems the Watchtower Society has a lot to say about atheism (really?). Oh…yes it was on the Awake! Magazine. You know…that magazine who said that the Bible has 50,000 errors…I think it is their September 8, 1957 issue. Anyway, let see why atheism is pissing them off.


Let’s talk about what this Jehovah’s Witnesses are first.


Like those other Christian churches, JW (I’ll just call it JW, to save typing space) claims that they will restore Christianity to its original doctrines and practices. The organization adopted the name Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931 to emphasize the belief that the most accurate translation of the personal name of God in the Hebrew Scriptures is “Jehovah” (Ps. 83:18), and that as believers, they are his “witnesses” (Is. 43:10; Acts 1:8). Charles Taze Russell and his associates (whoever they are) founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1872. Russell’s church was called Millennial Danism and later as The International Bible Students.


Russell’s doctrines were heavily influenced by G. Jonas Wendel (1815 - 1873),  a zealous Adventist who believed that Christ Second Coming would happen in 1874. In Chapter 5 pp. 43-44 of his book Proclaiming the Lord’s Return (1870-1914) Russell said, “The twig, though, had been trained by God-fearing parents; it was inclined "in the direction of the Lord." 


While he was searching for the “truth” in 1869, something happens that reestablished Charles’ faith. According to the story, while walking along near the Russells’ store on Federal Street, Charles heard religious singing coming from a basement hall. In his own words, this is what took place: Seemingly by accident, one evening I dropped into a dusty, dingy hall, where I had heard religious services were held, to see if the handful who met there had anything more sensible to offer than the creeds of the great churches. There, for the first time, I heard something of the views of Second Adventists [Advent Christian Church], the preacher being Mr. Jonas Wendell . . . Thus, I confess indebtedness to Adventists as well as to other denominations.”


So that it how it all started…then came those prophesies.


It seems Russell has this habit of not keeping his doctrine straight – he keeps changing his prophetic claims. He claimed that believers would be ‘called away bodily’ in 1878 but when this didn't happen he corrected his ‘explanation’, saying what he really meant (?) is that believers that die in the year 1878 and onwards will go straight to Paradise instead of waiting for the Second Coming of Christ in their graves.


He also said that you could gain enlightenment just by reading his 6-volume Studies in the Scriptures – Yes! You do not need to study the Bible.


In 1908 to 1916, he sold his ‘Miracle Wheat’ through the pages of his Watchtower Magazine. For your information, this Miracle Wheat was 60 times the price of ordinary wheat (at $60 a bushel!). The Brooklyn Eagle exposed this fraud.


In a court case that Russell filed against Reverend J.S. Ross of Hamilton, Ontario, he claimed (under oath) that he understands Greek, but it was proven in court that he did not even know the Greek alphabet.


Russell (again) claimed that Christ will return in 1914, and the resurrection of the ‘heavenly organization’ will follow in 1918 (and believing that the “Great Pyramid of Gizeh” was “God’s stone witness” which proved Russell’s claims that “the time of the end”). Again, nothing happened, but Russell was a very stubborn man. He again insisted that Jesus did return…invisible to human eyes (Oh for crying out loud!). Nevertheless, he keeps on yapping about the end times that will occur in 1915 and 1916. In fact, Watchtower has a history of proclaiming the end of the world on several dates: 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, 1940’s, and in 1975.


Russell believed that all 144,000 members of the JW have a place in heaven. This caused a problem when church membership swelled. New York attorney Joseph Rutherford, who replaced Russell after his death in 1916 wrote a ‘new’ seventh volume of Studies in the Scripture announcing that once heaven is full, the excess members of the church will re-populate the new Earth.


When Rutherford died in 1942, he was succeeded by Nathan Homer Knorr, who commissioned a new translation of the Bible – the New World Translation that incorporated all the JW doctrines.

Bible vs. Bible

Christian defenders have always declare that all Bible is inspired by God.

According to the pages of the "good book", "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

19: We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any

private interpretation. 21: For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:19-21)

Really? Well read on.

*****

The "Dake's Bible"& Confused Charismatic Theology
by Joseph Chambers

Many years ago, I became leery of the Dake's Bible, but never really understood why. The only thing I could identify was that those who became strong in their study of Dake also became arrogant and unteachable. If Dake said it, then it really did not matter what anybody else said or what the general difference was in other Scriptures. I basically quit using the Dake's Bible about twenty years ago and simply put it on the shelf.

Finally, I am beginning to learn why the inspiration I experienced caused me to move away from Dake's Annotated Reference Bible. I never saw the deceptive quotes that I have recently discovered, probably because to begin with I never used it much. As I have now learned, the Dake's Bible was really the text of the Charismatics before there was a movement called "Charismatic." Let me give you one Scripture that is foundational to what Hagin, Copeland, Hinn, Crouch, etc. are now teaching around the world.

( According to this article, known evangelist use it like the late

Lester Sumrall and Benny Hinn.This Bible have helped form the

beliefs of many Pentecostal and Charismatic teachers on the scene

today. Dake was called a great Bible Scholar.~ John the Atheist )

This quote from Dake's Bible is the very first New Testament note in the edition that I have owned since the early seventies. The edition I am quoting from is the sixth printing, December 1971.

"Gr. Christos, `Anointed.' - Used in N.T. 577 times. Likethe name "Jesus" it has no reference to deity, but to the humanityof the Son of God, who became the Christ or the "Anointed One" 30years after He was born of Mary. God "made" Him both Lord andChrist. The Heb. Is `Messiah'." (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible,Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc,Lawrenceville, Georgia, New Testament, p. 1.)

No Biblically solid minister or Bible student would accept the quote above. It is rank heresy and must be totally rejected or our view of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God is compromised. To suggest that Jesus became the Christ or the "Anointed One" thirty years after His birth is to commit heresy. This is an ancient heresy that is called "adoptionism." Kenneth Scott Latourette stated in his book, History of Christianity, Volume I, the following:

"Others, called the Ebionites, maintained that Jesus was

merely a man, a prophet, a spokesman for God, as were the great

Hebrew prophets of the past. Although some of them accepted the

virgin birth of Jesus, others are said to have taught that Jesus was

the son of Joseph and Mary, that at His baptism Christ descended

upon him in the form of a dove, that he then proclaimed the unknown

Father, but that Christ who could not suffer, departed from him at

his crucifixion." (Latourette, page 121-122, Harper Collins).

This is a dividing of the natures of Jesus Christ, rather than the established truth of the unity of His Son of God and Son of Man natures. He was both Son of God and Son of Man at every point in His incarnation. Iraneaus spoke of this in his book, Against Heresies And Knowledge Falsely So Called. He stated, "Certainly the Gnostics confess with their tongues the ONE Jesus Christ, but in their minds they divide Him." (Iraneaus; ADVERSUS Haeresies III.16.1). His two natures cannot be divided.

John R. Stott, in a commentary on the letters of John addressed this great truth. "We need therefore to find an interpretation of the phrase which makes water and blood both historical experiences which he passed and witnesses in some sense to his divine/human person. The . . . most satisfactory interpretation, first given by Tertullion does this. It takes water as reference to Baptism of Jesus, at which he was declared the Son and commissioned and empowered for His work, and blood to His death, in which His work was finished. True, `water' and `blood' remain strange and surprising word symbols, and we can only guess that they were thus used in the theological controversy which had engulfed the Ephesian church. At least this meaning of the expression tallies with what Iraneaus disclosed of the heretical teaching of Cerinthus and his followers. They distinguished between `Jesus' and `Christ'. They held that Jesus was a mere man, born of Joseph and Mary in natural wedlock, upon whom Christ descended at the baptism, and from which Christ departed at the cross. According to this theory of the false teachers, Jesus was united with the Christ at the baptism, but became separated again before the cross. It was to refute this fundamental error that John, knowing that Jesus was the Christ, before, and during the baptism and cross, described Him as `the one who came by water and blood'." (Tyndale NT Commentaries, LETTERS OF FIRST JOHN, J.R.W. Stott, pp. 180-181.)

The words of the angel to Mary should settle this subject completely. The Scripture stated, "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35).

This is further emphasized in St. John's question of the Lord Himself, "Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not." (John 10:36-37).

He is, and was, eternally the Son of God, anointed of the Holy Ghost. The doctrines of Hagin, Copeland, Crouch, and Hinn, etc. are clearly associated with this heresy. Paul Crouch, in a statement to Benny Hinn on TBN, stated that Jesus received His divinity back when He ascended out of hell after being born again.
(See our video, TBN – The Temple Of The Gods and Goddesses.)

As I write this article, I remember a horrible crisis that occurred about twenty years ago in the church where I now pastor. We had won a man to our church and he had made wonderful progress in the study of Scripture and his spiritual life. We elevated him to a very strong leadership position and made him a key teacher in our Sunday School. He then became involved in the Copeland doctrines and began to teach the doctrine of unbiblical prosperity. One day, he proudly began to argue to me that Jesus only became the anointed one at His baptism and was not the divine Son of God until this point. I immediately knew I had a serious problem.

When our church board met to solve the problem, we asked him to either renounce this idea or resign from his class. He refused and we dismissed him. Of course, he went up the road a short distance and started his own church. We lost a host of family members; all of which have never been stable in their Christian life since that time. I remember that the Dake's Bible had become his primary study Bible and the arrogance that I now know was evident in Finis Dake had become evident in this individual. He has never returned to the stability and truth that he traded for the Charismatic deception.

Facts About The Late Finis Dake My method in trying to protect the body of Christ from deception is to refrain from any personal attack on anyone, but to deal with doctrine and Biblical truth. It seems appropriate to note some matters that relate to Dake because they were certainly part of the shaping of his ministry. My concerns are documented with information on the web site owned by the Dake's Ministry or from others, who have researched his personal life.

On the Dake web site there is an article dedicated to Finis Dake himself prior to his death, in which he stated some very remarkable things. Mr. Dake states, "I was immediately able to quote hundreds of Scriptures without memorizing them. I also noticed a quickening of my mind to know what chapters and books various verses were found in. Before conversion, I had not read one full chapter of the Bible. This new knowledge of Scripture was a gift to me, for which I give God the praise. From the time of this special anointing until now, I have never had to memorize the thousands of Scriptures I use in teaching. I just quote a verse when I need it, by the anointing of the Spirit." (Webmasters Note: I believe that Jesus had to memorize the scriptures just like any man would.)

This is absolutely contrary to Scripture and puts Dake, at least in his mind, on the same level as the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, the criticizers of Jesus Christ stated, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" (John 7:15). This would certainly give rise to him having an exalted opinion of himself and may have been one of the reasons for his arrogance. No Bible writer, Old Testament prophet, or New Testament apostle ever claimed such incredible ability. There is no Scripture to support this kind of gift by the Holy Ghost.

Research into Dake's background gives a picture of moral carelessness in his early ministry. Here is a lengthy quote by researcher, Les Brown.

"Finis Jennings Dake was born in 1902 and died in 1987. His son Finis, Jr. says it took Dake seven years of constant work to complete the 35,000 notes included in the 1,400-page Annotated Bible. It is a virtual systematic theology and a compilation of Dake's views and doctrines.

"Dake was ordained under the Assemblies of God in Texas. For a time he did evangelistic work in Oklahoma. He then moved to Zion, Illinois, where his fortunes declined, following a scandal involving a 16-year-old girl.

"The May 27, 1936, issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that `An indictment, returned last February in Milwaukee, charges that on April 23, 1935, Dake took Emma Barelli, 16 years old, of Kenosha, from her home town to East St. Louis for immoral purposes.' (pg. 1). The following day, the newspaper reported that
Dake registered at hotels in Waukegan, Bloomington, and East St. Louis with the girl under the name Christian Anderson and wife. Dake, according to government investigators, said he picked the girl up as she was hitchhiking and she insisted he drive her to East St. Louis, where he was to deliver Bible lectures in nearby communities. Dake denied that any immoral action had taken place, claiming, `I did take her there . . .but there was no immorality involved. I wanted to get her a job.' (Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1936, pg. 17).

"When Dake came to trial in February 1937, he placed himself on the mercy of the court by entering a plea of guilty to the charge of violating the Mann Act. He was sentenced to a six-month stay in the House of Corrections in Milwaukee. Dake admitted to having `petting parties' with the girl, but again denied any improper relations had occurred between him and the girl. The Waukegan News-Sun reported, `Had he been found guilty by a trial jury, Rev. Dake would have been subject to a maximum sentence of 10 years in a federal prison and a fine of $10,000.' (Feb. 10, 1937). Dake called the jail sentence a `vacation' and said he would use his incarceration as an opportunity to preach to the prisoners and devote time to writing a commentary on the Bible.

"The Assemblies of God severed its relationship with Dake, and he later joined the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. It is not clear how his union with the Church of God ended, but Dake eventually became independent of any church."

Dake And Mormonism
There is an abundance of confusion in Dake's Bible and his other writings. None can be worse than the quote we started this expose' with, but other departures from truth certainly paint a picture of confusion. His teachings on God the Father that are found in his notes on the book of St. John are extremely revealing. Read these words carefully.

"He is a person with a personal spirit body, a personal soul, and a personal spirit, like that of angels, and like that of man except His body is out of spirit substance instead of flesh and bones.

"He has a personal spirit body; shape; form; image and likeness of a man. He has bodily parts such as, back parts, heart, hands and fingers, mouth, lips and tongue, feet, eyes, ears, hair, head, face, arms, loins, and other bodily parts.

"He has bodily presence and goes from place to place in a body like all other persons.

"He has a voice; breath; and countenance. He wears clothes; eats; rests; dwells in a mansion and in a city located on a material planet called Heaven; sits on a throne; walks; rides; engages in other activities.

"He has a personal soul with feelings of grief; anger; repentance; jealousy; hate; love; pity; fellowship; pleasure and delight; and other soul passions like other beings.

"He has a personal spirit with mind; intelligence; will; power; truth; faith and hope; righteousness; faithfulness; knowledge and wisdom; reason; discernment; immutability; and many other attributes, powers, and spirit faculties." (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc, Lawrenceville, Georgia, New Testament, pp. 96-97.)

I presume this is where Kenneth Copeland got his Mormon doctrine of God being about 6'2" tall and weighing about 220 pounds, with a hand span of nine inches. Also, Benny Hinn is reported to have applied his teaching on "Nine numbers in the Godhead" to Dake's Bible. He later confessed that error and said he was joking with his congregation.

Such ideas about God have no relevance in the Scripture, although Dake gives multiple quotes to back up this doctrinal commentary.

Dake Limits God's Eternal Omnipotence
Here is an unbelievable commentary that is given within the story of Abraham and his visit by the pre-incarnate Christ. He suggests that God did not know what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah and came to find out. "Here we have another proof that God receives knowledge of true conditions and becomes acquainted with existing facts. This plainly teaches that God, as well as men and angels, is limited to one place as far as the body is concerned. The doctrine of omnipresence of God can be proved, but not His omnibody. In His body He goes from place to place like other persons. Abraham stood yet before the bodily presence of God, but not before the bodily presence of the 2 angels because they went to Sodom and were no longer bodily present." (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc, Lawrenceville, Georgia, Old Testament, p. 15.)

It is totally unacceptable to limit God, who is unlimited. He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (Hmmmmm...here's the incoherent attributes of the god-concept again ~ JA) Dake's confusion arises from identifying this Divine visitor as God the Father, instead of a pre-Incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our God (another type of Christian god-concept ~ JA) has certainly manifested Himself to different servants, but not His Divine essence. The writer in the New Testament stated plainly, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John
1:18).

Dake gets around this by saying, "Our English `seen' means to see with the eyes and also see with the mind. That it means here to comprehend fully or understand is clear from the fact that many men have seen God with the eyes. The verse could read, `No man has ever comprehended or experienced God at any time in all His fulness, save the only begotten Son…He hath declared Him.'" (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc, Lawrenceville, Georgia, New Testament, p. 93.)

The False Concept Of "Little Gods"
Dake not only was confused about the omnipotence of God, but he also taught that man was a miniature of God. In conjunction with Dake's commentary on the Book of Job, he wrote about the idea called anthropomorphism. Under that heading, he said some strange things. "Anthropomorphism is the ascription of human bodily parts, attributes, and passions to God, and taking the substantiating statements of Scripture to be literal, and not figurative. In support of such teaching an appropriate question is: If God did not mean all He said about Himself in over 20,000 scriptures then why did He say such things? They certainly do not add to a true understanding of Him if the passages do not mean what they say. Furthermore, why would God, in hundreds of places, refer to Himself as having bodily parts, soul passions, and spirit faculties if He does not have them? Would it be necessary for Him to tell us He has such in order to reveal that He does not have them? Would He not be more likely to say in plain language that He does not have eyes, hands, mouth, ears, and other bodily members?" (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc, Lawrenceville, Georgia, Old Testament, p. 547.)

His entire statement above seems childlike and basically ignorant of the revelation of Holy Scripture. Why would someone reduce God down to the level of men just because God speaks of Himself with words on our level? That is God's method throughout Scripture when He uses our language to convey His eternal truth. Because God said, "I saw you," does not mean His eyes are limited to human shape and size. The Bible said emphatically, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24).

From this false concept, it is natural to move directly to the next step. If God is man-like, then man must be god-like. Under the same heading as above, Dake wrote about our god-like state. "Truly He is not only all that man, angels, and other beings are in this respect, but infinitely greater in everything; and man, in reality, is simply a miniature of God in attributes and powers." (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc, Lawrenceville, Georgia, Old Testament, p. 587.)

This statement by Dake does not go as far as saying what is now being promoted by modern Charismatic leaders, but he does lay the foundation. His promoting of God as a man with all the human attributes, combined with the idea of us as miniature Gods, has been stretched to the present deception of men as "little gods."

Dake Carries The Idea Of Christ Emptying Himself To A Dangerous
Extreme 

The Son of God did indeed empty Himself to become the Son of man. What is extremely important is that this emptying was not a forsaking of His eternal essence, but an emptying of manifesting that essence. He was never void of His divine essence, but He did limit Himself not to express them while depending wholly on His Father and the Holy Spirit. Dake either did not understand the above or he willingly rejected it. Here are some of his statements on the subject: "Christ emptied Himself of His authority in heaven and in earth, which was given back to Him after the resurrection." "Christ emptied Himself of His divine attributes and
outward powers that He had with the Father from eternity. He had no power to do miracles until He received the Holy Spirit in all fullness. He could do nothing of Himself in all His earthly life. He attributed all His works, doctrines, powers, etc. to the Father through the anointing of the Holy Spirit." "Isaiah speaks of the Messiah being born without knowledge enough to know to refuse the evil and choose the good." "Isaiah predicted that the Messiah would be born without the tongue of the learned, without knowing how to speak a word in season to help any soul, and that He would be wakened day by day to increase in knowledge and wisdom." "He did not claim the attributes of God, but only the anointing of the Spirit to do His works." (Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, Finis Jennings Dake, published by Dake Bible Sales, Inc, Lawrenceville, Georgia, New Testament, p. 218.)

http://www.scionofzion.com/dakes.htm

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WOAH!!!! Now Christian Bible interpretations vs. Another Christian's Bible interpretation. That's not new. Christian always accuse other Christians of "false teaching,"  but if all of them accuse each one of being false, where the heck is the true one? Hmmmm....I am now having an idea why Jesus never answered Pilate when he was asked, "What is the truth?"

As I have said, "In speaking about Bible interpretations, I notice that everytime a person defended the holy scripture, it is not the scripture he is defending but the credibility of the man who interprets it for him."

Astalabye-bye!