re: This isn’t a great look for the pentagon. They appear to claim Mormons aren’t Christians

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I didn't say it, Jesus said it in Matthew Chapter 25 in the post above.

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Again, I'm not arguing with Jesus or James. I'm interpreting verses in light of the rest of Scripture, and since they cannot contradict themselves, we have to understand what is being said holistically.

When Paul said no one is justified by the works of the law, but are justified by faith apart from works, and James said no one is justified by faith alone, and Jesus says believe and be saved and you'll know a tree by its fruits, I interpret all these together, in addition to Christ's death taking away sin, and that Jesus is a propitiation, not our works.

Faith alone saves, but saving faith is necessarily accompanied by good works.

Faith and works are both present in salvation, but only faith receives Christ's merits, while our works are an evidence of saving faith. You then have both faith and works without taking away from what Christ did on the cross, which is what you are essentially saying, if I understand you rightly.

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It does, though.

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No

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An objective moral standard is one whose truth and binding authority do not originate in and are not contingent upon the mind of the subject bound by it, but exist independently of that subject’s beliefs, preferences, or will.

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You can’t show that “the Bible” is sufficiently consistent with itself to have objectivity on the morality of actions such as killing, thievery, marriage, sex, rape, or slavery. Additionally, you can’t show that there is any truth whatsoever to “the Bible” and your belief system a d dogmas. There’s no objectivity at all, much less an objective moral standard.

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Morality is based on God’s nature, not His will, and not our wills. God wills morality because His will is consistent with His nature, but the basis of morality is in God’s nature/character, not in His decree. Objectivity speaks to the nature, origin, and authority or binding nature of morality. What you keep wanting to focus on is application of an objective moral code, and won’t accept any explanation that interferes with your mission to dismiss it.

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Ridiculous baseless assertions

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For example, stealing: stealing is ultimately wrong because it denies God’s ownership and authority over all things. When you steal from your neighbor, you are denying God’s authority and benevolence in giving something to the “owner”. When, for example, God commands the land of Canaan to be taken, that isn’t stealing because the true owner (God) is giving permission for Israel to take over stewardship. And that’s what property ownership really is; stewardship, since God owns all things and He can give “ownership” (from our perspective, but it’s actually stewardship) to whomever He pleases. It’s also why God cannot be guilty of stealing anything because everything belongs to Him already.

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More nonsense.

“Stealing isn’t wrong if God endorsed it. Heck, it’s not even stealing.”

Truly and utterly retarded, Foo. I would expect nothing less.

What can’t be justified by just saying “God told me to do it”.

You just support that woman who drowned all her kids because God told her to do it.

You’re sick. Get help.

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James the Apostle was not Jesus’s brother

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Sure he was. Just like all baptized followers of their Kyrio Kristos. All believers are brothers of the Lord and sons of God.
Romans 8:14-17,29

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Of course I can, and I have done so for years with you. You keep lobbing false accusations against God and the Bible, and when someone like me steps in and responds with an explanation as to why you are wrong, you respond with things like "Ridiculous baseless assertions", and "More nonsense".

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You cannot, and you never have. The issues I raise about the Bible are self evident and verifiable by anyone. Your explanations are baseless assertions and nonsense because they aren’t backed up by evidence or facts and they are all either made up on your head or pulled from biblical passages which themselves carry no factual or historical worth because they are simply words written on goat skins by uneducated people who thought the earth was a flat disk with a sky ocean held back by a solid sapphire-like structure. You can’t make assertions of truth claims and then attempt to back them up using the Bible that you pulled the truth claims from. That’s why your assertions are baseless. You might think your assertions have a basis - and that basis is your particular interpretation of whatever Bible you are using, but there is no basis since your Bible is a fantasy to begin with not containing any special facts or any facts at all about cosmology or history. Your Bible is complete fiction, even though it uses historical people groups and figures, in the same sense Batman is really set in Gotham city on a historical earth.

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First, you're missing the point that if all things belong to God, then He can decide who He loans it to at any moment. If a father let's his child play with his phone and then tells another child they can take it from the first child and play with it, it isn't "stealing", even if the first child cries to dad and says "he stole it from me!"

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Nice try to redefine “stealing”. If someone has been in possession of an object and believes it to be their property that they obtained through legitimate and fair means, and if you take it from them by force, that is stealing. What you’re saying Foo is bullshite.

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Second, simply saying God told you to do something isn't sufficient,

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Why the frick not? what’s your burden of proof? How do you know Joshua and Moses really talked to God and they didn’t make it up as an excuse to commit genocide? Because the Bible tells you so.

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God proves that He is God and should be listened to and obeyed through works of the miraculous

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Show us some of those proofs of miracles.

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He also doesn't communicate to us now like He did in ancient Israel. We have the Bible completed for us.

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Well that’s convenient… and pathetic.

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But you don't care about any of that, because you'll twist anything to your own ends as long as you can mock Christianity.

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You’re the twister, Foo. You don’t care about reality as long as you can trick yourself into believing your false reality. It’s sad, really.

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You cannot, and you never have. The issues I raise about the Bible are self evident and verifiable by anyone. Your explanations are baseless assertions and nonsense because they aren’t backed up by evidence or facts and they are all either made up on your head or pulled from biblical passages which themselves carry no factual or historical worth because they are simply words written on goat skins by uneducated people who thought the earth was a flat disk with a sky ocean held back by a solid sapphire-like structure. You can’t make assertions of truth claims and then attempt to back them up using the Bible that you pulled the truth claims from. That’s why your assertions are baseless. You might think your assertions have a basis - and that basis is your particular interpretation of whatever Bible you are using, but there is no basis since your Bible is a fantasy to begin with not containing any special facts or any facts at all about cosmology or history. Your Bible is complete fiction, even though it uses historical people groups and figures, in the same sense Batman is really set in Gotham city on a historical earth.

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All you have is your warped opinion. You keep saying “baseless” over and over again, but it reads to me like you are just trying to convince yourself.

You keep asking for proof and evidence but then reject everything provided because it doesn’t meet your standards. You don’t even accept the historical existence of Jesus, even though the evidence is overwhelming enough that even the vast majority of atheist scholars who are antagonistic to Christianity have to admit He existed. You take the fringe position against the evidence, so don’t come asking for proof and evidence from me because it won’t do any good: you don’t accept what you ask for. If God appeared to you and performed a miracle in front of your eyes, you would come up with some reason why it didn’t actually happen, but that you were hallucinating.

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Nice try to redefine “stealing”. If someone has been in possession of an object and believes it to be their property that they obtained through legitimate and fair means, and if you take it from them by force, that is stealing. What you’re saying Foo is bullshite.

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I didn’t redefine stealing at all. You just can’t accept the explanation because you don’t want to. Theft is determined based on ownership, and the Bible teaches that all things belong to God, who created all things. Therefore, God cannot steal from Himself. You can reject the Bible as a complete fabrication all you want but you can’t change standards in your argument: if you are going to reference the Bible to claim it supports theft, you have to also accept what it says about who owns everything in the first place.

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All you have is your warped opinion.

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Projection

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You keep saying “baseless” over and over again, but it reads to me like you are just trying to convince yourself.

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It’s because you are making assertions with nothing to substantiate your claims besides a mythical compilation, and you are confused because you can’t separate myth from reality.

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You keep asking for proof and evidence but then reject everything provided because it doesn’t meet your standards.

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“Everything provided” is just argument and baseless assertions - baseless because you are attempting to substantiate your assertions using the same myths you are trying to prove as being true and historical. It’s like you’re trying to prove Goldilocks was real by asserting the book says she really ate the porridge and slept in the bear’s bed, so it must be true and historical.

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You don’t even accept the historical existence of Jesus

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Paul and Clement of Rome and whomever wrote Jude, James, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation were worshipping Jesus as the firstborn son of God and another/second god before the first idea of a historical man Jesus on earth was ever mentioned. Philo of Alexandria was too - although because he was so early (in the BC timeframe) that second deity and firstborn son of God he worshipped hadn’t yet been named Jesus or said to have been sacrificed as a final atonement by Paul’s clan. Christians were worshipping Jesus before the first idea of the final atonement sacrifice was introduced - and they were celebrating the Eucharist too and they had no idea it was supposed to be Jesus’ body they were eating because those ideas hadn’t yet been invented by the time the didache was written.

Could there later have been a real historical rabbi named Jesus who was killed by Romans? Sure. But that’s not how the religion began. Those atheist scholars - that’s what they are talking about. A lot of them think there was a dude that was really crucified though they admit they don’t have any evidence. Bart Ehrman admits all he has are the unreliable gospel accounts and then a historical account which includes Christian forgeries (Josephus) and Tacitus and Pliny and others who wrote over 100 years after Jesus would’ve been crucified and aren’t contemporary and aren’t evidence for Jesus but rather evidence there we’re Christians who believed Jesus to be a historical man. Bart Ehrman has faith that there was a historical Jesus, and his faith is truly puzzling. He could say “I am convinced there is a kernel of a real guy in the gospels but no one can be sure” but instead he mocks atheist mythicists and refuses to understand the evidence presented by Carrier and Price.

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even though the evidence is overwhelming enough that even the vast majority of atheist scholars who are antagonistic to Christianity have to admit He existed.

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It isn’t overwhelming. As more and more scholars read and understand mythicist material, they will continue to grow in numbers. There’s already been an explosion of growth, and in 20 years Jesus will be just like Moses and Abraham and Adam - figments of the ancient imagination.

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If God appeared to you and performed a miracle in front of your eyes, you would come up with some reason why it didn’t actually happen, but that you were hallucinating.

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That is a horse shite apologetic argument. If a god shows up and performed a miracle before me, I’d have no choice but to acknowledge it.

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I didn’t redefine stealing at all.

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Yes, you did.

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You just can’t accept the explanation because you don’t want to.

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You are mistaken. The issue is I disagree with your explanation, and it’s because it was a poor explanation that wasn’t convincing and wasn’t substantiated.

You are a mess, Foo.

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It was his half-brother

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Maybe if you’re suggesting he’s Joseph’s son from a potential previous marriage. That is a possibility.
I don’t believe that to be the case though either.

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Paul was talking about works of the Old Testament Mosaic Law from Moses, i.e., following the rituals of the Old Testament Hebrew Law, such as not eating pork and other dietary laws; circumcision, etc.

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No he wasn't, because he held Gentiles accountable to the same law, even though they did not have it. Romans 2 is the proof of this. What Paul is referring to is broader than the Mosaic purity codes.

In Romans 3, Paul speaks of the whole world being guilty in the context of no one being justified by the works of the law. Israel was the only nation given the Mosaic ceremonial law, so Paul has to be speaking of something greater. We talk about divisions of the law, including the moral law, which is represented by the 10 commandments, which set the foundation for all the rest of the laws given to Israel, including the ceremonial laws. The Gentiles are not held accountable to the Mosaic law, but they are accountable to the moral law written on their hearts.

Paul also speaks of works as creating obligation on God. Romans 4 speaks of works as demanding a wage, but God's justification is a free gift, not a wage due. This applies to all works, not just the ceremonial law, because all works are still works, but Paul grounds salvation in grace, not works. He contrasts grace with works, since grace is an undeserved gift, while works create an obligation of payment due. And by contrast, Paul is not saying that grace is only active and present over and against the ceremonial law, but against all law. Grace isn't only for Jews and their ceremonial customs, as your interpretation would necessitate.

So no, the categories Paul uses aren't relegated to just some works of the Mosaic law, but all works, and it is applied to both Jews and Gentiles, AND Paul contrasts works with grace.

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And by the way, in that quote provided as a "proof text" for "Faith Alone", I noticed that Paul doesn't use the phrase "faith alone." The phrase is "justified by faith", not "justified by faith alone."

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Paul says, "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Rom. 3:28)

Unless you want to say there is a third category (faith, works, and... something else?), Paul's statement is logically saying "faith alone". If the only two components of our responsibility to God are faith and works, then Paul is saying that justification occurs apart from works, which only leaves faith.

Also, I hope you don't make a stink when non-Christians argue that the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, because the word doesn't have to be there for the concept to be taught.

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But I'm sure that Pope Foo will be here in a moment to lecture us all on how I'm reading the Bible wrong and the Pope Foo's reading of the Bible is Infallible.

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I believe the view I am describing makes the most sense of the most biblical data. It incorporates both faith and works while acknowledging the clear teaching on election being based on God's will and not man's. It recognizes that God is the one who saves us, not us cooperating with God to share some of the credit and allow us to boast. It recognizes that Christians do have an obligation towards obedience to God without trusting in that obedience as the foundation of salvation. It is the most God-glorifying way to read the Scriptures.

With that said, of course I believe I could be wrong. It's precisely why it's ridiculous and a self-own (as I see it) when Catholics like you think I'm making myself a Pope. The Pope can't be wrong (when speaking from Peter's chair), while I can. I can be reformed, but the Pope can't. You mock me for being infallible (even though I'm not and never claimed to be) while believing the Pope can be infallible.

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clear teaching on election being based on God's will and not man's.

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Not even your fellow Protestants agree with you here, Foo, on your belief in Double Predestination. Is Double Predestination even a majority theological position within all of Protestantism? I don't know.

I do know that there are Bible passages and other ancient writings that you use to support this notion of Double Predestination. I have read them and I understand how one might reach your interpretation on this theological issue. It's a very complicated issue and theologians over the past 2,000 years have pondered the question.

All I'm saying is that I'm not sure that your interpretation is shared by many or most of your fellow Christians.

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It was his half-brother

Maybe if you’re suggesting he’s Joseph’s son from a potential previous marriage. That is a possibility.
I don’t believe that to be the case though either.

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Same mother but Joseph was his father.