When a Calvinist tells an unsaved person that God loves them when they don't really believe that (God only loves the elect), that's dishonest.
Certainly a Calvinist believes that God loves even the non-elect. He just loves them differently. I love my own children different than the children of my friends, and I'd assume you do to.
Nevertheless, you are taking your own thoughts and assumptions about a caricature of Calvinism and applying them universally to everyone who has a reformed soteriology. That's dishonest. And when we tell you about it, you try to convince us that you know better than we ourselves what we believe. That's just small, and quite repugnant.
When a person sends me a picture of a pig after making fun of me for being Jewish, the anti-Semitic as well as racist.
And so now all Calvinists are racist because of the actions of one person?
When 3 more of his buddies lash out at something I wrote and call me a Zionist, even after I explained that such is a pejorative term that is offensive to Christian Jews, and they do so for no other reason than to slander me because I gave an opinion about the future of Israel, and none of them used that term toward anyone else on the forum who shared the same views, that's racist.
Oh...you mean like calling all Calvinists "determinists" or giving hearty approval to those that do? Even after we've said time and time again that we are not determinists by your fatalistic definition and that your definition of us as fatalistic was pejorative, defamatory, etc.?
Nobody ever said that Calvinists were Buddhists. What was said AND PROVEN is that the origin of the current view of election and predistination as developed by John Calvin was based on Augustines writings, which were based off of Manicheans writings, which were based on Buddhism. Several people disputed that, but nobody REFUTED it.
When something so asinine is stated as "fact" and "proven" trying to refute it only lends credence to it--Pearls before swine; fools and their folly.
The complaint is that Non Cals were treated differently by a wide margin. Furthermore, it was discovered today that someone who supposedly received an infraction for sending me a picture of a pig making fun of me, never actually had an infraction for it which makes me very curious as to why he needed to lie about it, and then why he really wasn't infracted for such a blatantly racist gesture.
Yes. Non-Cals are treated differently, and it is by a wide margin.
You may not like my views or how I argue for them, but I argue for my views just as vehemently as Calvinists argue theirs. The major difference that has been apparent though is that Calvinists have had much more leeway to make attempts to refute the Non Calvinist position, then we have had to argue against theirs. Non Calvinists get just as angry at being misrepresented as any Calvinist feel that they are. But you can accuse us of "hating the sovereignty of God" and that's perfectly acceptable rhetoric, but let one of us prove that the origins of particular Calvinist doctrines are derived from heretical sources, and instead of specifically refuting the documents, citations, quotes, and verses, "OH that's hateful...we see through your agenda...you hate God" etc...and then the thread gets shut down because somebody is not willing to accept the same criticism that is dished out as us.
It doesn't bother me very much that others disagree with my views. What bothers me is when they don't attempt or can not PROVE IT, and then put their thumb on the scales to prevent discussions that permit us to prove our assertions.
Yeah, that's "BENT".
It isn't that I don't care for your views, I don't. But, non-Calvinist theology in the vein of what is commonly referred to as "Arminianism" is still orthodox. Some of the people I admire most in the faith are not Calvinists and I long for the day when I am as "good" a Christian as they are.
No, I'll tell you what I don't like...I don't like that you think poking your fingers in the eyes of those who disagree with you is your spiritual gift and your responsibility. Being a burr under the saddle of your opponents and being adversarial to everyone with whom you disagree or everyone who dares disagree with you is not the mark of a believer in Christ (and yet we all demonstrate, from time to time, those things that call into question our faith in Christ). And, for the record, I did not nor am I questioning your salvation.
You feel you are speaking the truth. But, we are commanded to "speak the truth in love, are we not? It is not loving to make yourself a pebble in your opponent's shoe and it is not loving to view all others as adversaries.
There are many others on this board (Allan is one) with whom I would greatly enjoy time and fellowship if geography permitted. And, he and I do not share many (if any) similarities in our soteriology. Though I don't mean to speak for him, I view Allan as a partner in the faith, not an adversary. When I pray for our church to grow, and it doesn't, but his does, I rejoice greatly with him and for him.
Certainly there are times when harsh words are all that are left. Even Jesus had very harsh words for the Pharisees. Paul used harsh words. But, harsh words spoken in love, do not bear the marks of your postings here. You always play the martyr and you are always the pariah. You seem to operate under the idea that it is your mission in life to pull splinters out of the eyes of others regardless of what may be in your own eyes.
That's what I don't like.
The Archangel
