Suffering and Spiritual Growth Part 1

Dennis McCallum's lecture on the role of suffering in transforming Christian's lives at the 4th St. Study Center on the campus of The Ohio State University.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Bible
• suffering
• affliction
• Romans
• Dennis McCallum
• Ohio State University
• Christianity
• Spiritual growth
• 2 Corinthians 4

[Distortion0]

I want to point out that most of Stalin's fiercest opponents, the people who were the first and most opposed to him were atheists. Leon Trotsky is a great example of this, and to my knowledge Lenin and Marx were atheists and never went on a genocidal rampage.

Mao being confusciusist (even if he doesn't credit Confucius for his ideas) is pretty mainstream history. Any Chinese historian will tell he draws from Confucian roots.

[4thstreetstudycenter]

Not true. Lions males kill the young fathered by others, and hyenas kill their brothers and sisters.

[Distortion0]

Once again, they don't kill the animals in their social groups, neither do we. They kill the animals outside their social groups, so do we.

[4thstreetstudycenter]

Lions kill other lions all the time. So do hyenas. They survive just fine, and both are in social groups.

[4thstreetstudycenter]

Absurd. It must be nice to create history they way you want it to be.

[Distortion0]

Mao drew from confuscian teachings ("Obey your father. Mao is your father. Obey Mao.") Stalin was the patron saint of Russian Catholics, "Mein Kampf" is an extremely religious novel, apparent to anyone whose actually opened it, and you, in spite of your claims to morality, would not give a shit about the lives of 1.7 million Cambodians if you weren't using their deaths to promote your agenda.

There are plenty of notable, good atheists, look them up. Meanwhile, we have much less crime than you.

[Distortion0]

Killing a human is wrong because we are humans, you idiot. We need other humans to survive. Any civilization or person that went about randomly killing humans within in their social group wouldn't survive long. I'd like to point out that both atheists and the religious do kill plenty of people today through war and neglect, we just don't make a big deal out of it.

[4thstreetstudycenter]

God is dangerous to those who want to fight him. No argument there.

Xians say wrong is based on God's nature. On the other hand, naturalists have no basis for saying anything is wrong. Killing a human is no different than killing a worm. They're all material objects. That's why your fellow-naturalists like Mao, Stalin, and Polpot have dwarfed all religious persecutors and slayers put together. Nobody can match the atheists for immorality.

[Distortion0]

This is why god is dangerous. God himself is extramoral therefor his commands are extramoral, therefor, his followers perceive themselves as extramoral. The non-religious person believe that killing, theft, other violations are just inherently wrong, but the religious, they are the whim of a being whose mind can (and certainly has) changed over time.

[4thstreetstudycenter]

You would have no right to do that, as you are a man just like them. By posturing God as no different than humans, you make him seem unreasonable. But if he is the creator and sovereign, then if we rebel against his authority, how can we expect his protection from disaster? We want to make the decisions, but have him responsible for the outcome.