Simply Outrageous

Have you ever heard or read a statement that made you wonder how it ever could have been conceived? For example Bill O’Reilly, Fox News guru, said on national television that “the Catholic Church invented marriage” (WorldNetDaily, 2/10/2010). How does anyone that obtuse deserve a national audience? But he is not alone. Consider a few more quotes that are “simply outrageous.”

God’s Origin

“God is love and the absence of love is hate, so when God came into being before time began hate also was intrinsically in existence” (John N. Clayton, 1977, “The Origin of Satan,” Evidences of God, Vol. I, South Bend, IN: p. 154).

Human Existence Not Provable

“You cannot prove to me that you exist, for I can deny the use of sight by optical illusions or various other problems in interpretation” (John N. Clayton, 1990, The Source: Eternal Design or Infinite Accident?, South Bend, IN: p. 6).

Evolution and Bible Agree

“...[E]volution and the Bible show amazing agreement on almost all issues and one is not mutually exclusive of the other....” (John Clayton, 1990, The Source: Eternal Design or Infinite Accident?, South Bend, IN: p. 135).

Belief and Disbelief Compatible

“...[T]he science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism” (Stephen Jay Gould, Scientific American, July 1992, p. 119).

Something From Nothing

“. . .[T]he universe is probably the result of a random quantum fluctuation in a spaceless, timeless void . . . the earth and humanity are not conscious creations but an accident . . . it is not sufficient merely to say, ‘you can’t get something from nothing.’ While everyday experience and common sense seem to support this principle, if there is anything that we have learned from twentieth-century physics, it is this: Common sense is often wrong, and our normal experiences are but a tiny fraction of reality” (Victor Stenger, 1987, Free Inquiry, Summer, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 26-27).

Spontaneous Generation

“As far as biologists are concerned, however, the matter [of the spontaneous generation of life] was finally settled in the nineteenth century by the work of Pasteur (1822-1895). ... It was demonstrated that spontaneous generation does not occur in any known case. ... Most biologists think it probable that life did originally arise from nonliving matter by natural processes” (George G. Simpson, C. S. Pittendrigh, L. H. Tiffany, 1957. Life: An Introduction to Biology, Burlingame, NY: Harcourt & Brace, p. 261).

Design Without A Designer

“...[W]e all understand by what general process [an airliner] came into existence. It was designed by humans on a drawing board. ... What about our own bodies? Each one of us is a machine, like an airliner only much more complicated. Were we designed on a drawing board too, and were our parts assembled by a skilled engineer? The answer is no” (Richard Dawkins, atheist, 1986, The Blind Watchmaker. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., p. 3, emp. WJ).

No Moral Rules

“Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist” (Jean Paul Sartre, atheist, 1961, in French Philosophers, Leonard Marsak, ed. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing, p. 485. “...[W]e can never choose evil” (Sartre in: A Casebook on Existentialism, 1966, William Spanos, ed. New York: NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, p. 279).

Human Desire and Morality

“[O]utside of human desires there is no moral standard” (Bertrand Russell, 1950. Unpopular Essays. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, p. 62).

Killing a Newborn Baby

“Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living” (Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University, http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html.

No Human Free Will

In 1902 Clarence Darrow, famed criminal attorney, addressed the inmates of the Cook County Jail (Chicago), asserting: “There is no such thing as crime as the word is generally understood. ...The people here can no more help being here than the people outside can avoid being outside” (Arthur Weinberg, 1957, Attorney for the Damned. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, p. 3).

“The first dogma which I came to disbelieve was that of free will. It seemed to me that all motions of matter were determined by the laws of dynamics and could not therefore be influenced by the human will...” (Bertrand Russell, 1952, Dictionary of Mind, Matter and Morals, New York, NY: Philosophical Library, p. 79).

God Controls All Human Actions

“I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so” (Gordon H. Clark, Calvinist, 1961, Religion, Reason, and Revelation, Philadelphia, PA: p. 221).

Faith Not A Matter Of Freewill

“However much men and women are commanded to believe, and are held accountable for their unbelief, genuine coming to faith is never finally a matter of autonomous human decision” (D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids, MI. Eerdmans. 1991, pp. 302-303).

Preparation Unnecessary

“Since future salvation has been so fully provided by Christ’s finished work, it cannot be cancelled by lack of readiness. Moral preparedness or unpreparedness does not affect the issue one way or the other” (Robert L.Thomas, 1, 2 Thessalonians – The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Frank E. Gaebelein, ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1978. p. 286).

No OT Prophecy of Christ

“There is no unequivocal specific prediction of the coming of Jesus Christ and/or the church in the Old Testament. New Testament speakers reinterpreted and reapplied Old Testament text to Christ and/or the church” (John Willis, 2009, The Transforming Word, Abilene, TX: ACU Press, p. 66).

Jesus’ Death Not In God’s Plan

“Like a lower minor strain running through some great piece of music are the few indications of what God foreknew, though He did not foreplan, would happen to Jesus. ... Why did Jesus die? ... It can be said at once that His dying was not God’s own plan. It was a plan conceived somewhere else, and yielded to by God” (S. D. Gordon, 2003, Quiet Talks About Jesus. Shippenburg, PA: Destiny Image).

Men on the Moon and Sun

“Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening called the moon? ... when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the ignorant of their fellows. So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain,” (Brigham Young, President of the Mormon Church (1847-77), Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 271). http://www.journalofdiscourses.org/volume-13/

Receiving Christ

“Reception of Christ is a consequence, not a condition, of salvation” (Daniel B. Wallace, 1996, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan; emp. original).

Doing Without Doing

“I am going to maintain that there is no act at all that any man in the Old Testament time or the New ever had to perform in order to be saved. Salvation is received by faith, and faith is the only thing you can do without doing anything” (Ben Bogard, 1938, Hardeman-Bogard Debate, Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, emp. original, p. 93).

Sin Cannot Condemn the Soul

“We take the position that a Christian’s sins do not damn his soul. The way a Christian lives, what he says, his character, his conduct, or his attitude toward other people have nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul.... All the prayers a man may pray, all the Bibles he may read, all the churches he may belong to, all the services he may attend, all the sermons he may practice, all the debts he may pay, all the ordinances he may observe, all the laws he may keep, all the benevolent acts he may perform will not make his soul one whit safer; and all the sins he may commit from idolatry to murder will not make his soul in any more danger.... The way a man lives has nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul.... The way I live has nothing whatsoever to do with the salvation of my soul.” (Sam Morris, n.d. Do A Christian’s Sins Damn His Soul?, Stamford, TX, First Baptist Church).

As Perfect As God

“My soul sin? No. ‘Has Brother Bogard ever sinned?’ In my soul I do not. I am as perfect as God himself as far as my soul is concerned” (Ben M. Bogard, 1938, Hardeman-Bogard Debate, Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, pp. 309-310).

Departure From Apostolic Pattern

“It is most likely that in the Apostolic age when there was but ‘one Lord, one faith, and one baptism,’ and no differing denominations existed, the baptism of a convert by that very act constituted him a member of the church, and at once endowed him with all the rights and privileges of full membership. In that sense, ‘baptism was the door into the church.’ Now it is different...” (Edward Hiscox, 1951, The Standard Manual for Baptist Churches, Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, emp. WJ).

Tradition Vs. Scripture

“It is an article of faith from a decree of the Vatican Council that Tradition is a source of theological teaching distinct from Scripture, and that it is infallible. It is therefore to be received with the same internal assent as Scripture, for it is the word of God. Whereas much of the teaching of Scripture could not be determined without Tradition, Tradition would suffice without Scripture; it is the safeguard of Scripture” (Donald Attwater, 1961, A Catholic Dictionary, New York, NY: Macmillan, Imprimatur, pp. 41-42).

Babies Lost

“Even so, children are sinners and can also have evil intentions and thoughts (Romans 3:23). Today, for example, we see children killing children in school, child thieves, rape among children, and so on. But if children and infants didn’t make it to the ark (the means of salvation at the time), whose fault is it but their own and/or parents/guardians who refused to let them?! So why blame God when He offered them a means to be saved?” (Bodie Hodge, New Answers, Green Forest, AR: Master Books. Vol.3, p. 351)