THE SCOTTTCAST

1) Megan Phelps – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62sKs7HXocM&t=447s

7:27 Well so, there’s this passage in Romans 9… Well it’s not the only reason, I should say. But I have real trouble with this, and I think it’s still hard for me to say. I think this is evil.

There’s this passage in Romans 9 that talks about, it gives us an analogy of God as Potter and humans as clay in his hands. And it uses the example of Jacob and Esau who, in the Bible Jacob and Esau were twins, and says while they were yet in the womb before either of them had done good or evil, God loved Jacob and hated Esau.

And it’s what paints this picture of God, you know. Says, what if God willing to show his wrath and make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath made for destruction? So it says, God created some people as vessels of mercy, people that he loves. And others as vessels of wrath made for destruction. So made for the express purpose of destroying them, of torturing them in hell for eternity.

So it’s Paul who’s writing, he paints this picture, God making you do all of the things that you do, and then blessing some and cursing others, and he says, well you’re gonna ask me then, why does God yet find fault? For who resists his will right? So God’s making you do it, why is he punishing you for it, right? If God’s making you do a horrible thing, you resist, well you can’t resist as well, right? So he makes you do it and then he punishes you for it.

And the answer is, you don’t get to ask that question. Oh, it says nay, but o man who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me this? He just wanted to ask that question.

And to me, why this is, I’ve asked like, for I spent a long time talking to Christians and you know people of mostly Christians because it’s obviously it’s New Testament so, but also talking to Jewish people about the Old Testament. And found so many of the interpretations and so many of our beliefs are not fully supported by by the Bible. And that there are so many different ways of interpreting so many of the more destructive of our beliefs.

But that one, I have not found any explanation for that passage that’s anything that makes any kind of sense, that’s consistent with the text and not evil. And I just didn’t, I thought I couldn’t ask that question for so long when I was at the church right? I thought I just had to accept this is the truth and nothing that I feel or think matters against it.

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2) DEREK WEBB & MATT COOKE – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unSgJ9Ao6Ik

0:00 With my Christian friends who try to convince me, I say listen, like I don’t know why you’re trying to persuade me. Because your own Bible says it’s a gift, it’s the work of the spirit start to finish. It’s a removing of a heart of stone and replacing with a heart of flesh. That is not something you can do for me.

So if it’s true we’re both depending on the spirit to show up. I’m literally in the grave next to Lazarus, waiting to hear my name. I’m going to lay in there dead till he shows up.

Somebody asked me uh near the beginning of this year, what would it take for you to believe? What would it take for you to believe in God? That’s easy. God would have to give me faith. Because I can’t reach out and grab it. What it would take is a miracle. It would take a miracle.

What does it take for a dead man to come out of, to come six feet out of the ground? It takes someone to dig him out, to open the box and revive him, breathe into his nostrils. And the Bible makes it very clear that there is nothing less spiritually than that going on in salvation. Absolute new life, from death to life. And that’s what would be required.

And I’m open to it. I mean I’m literally in the grave waiting to hear my name anytime. If there is going to be a work of the spirit going on, I want in. And I won’t be able to resist it. And I can’t call out for it, I cannot coax him over. Either my name is written in the Book of Life or it’s not.

1:35 Maybe fashion me for destruction vessel, for because he does that. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. For the good pleasure of his own will to and he receives no counsel but his own about that. And so there’s nothing I’m going to be able to do to change his mind about it.

So maybe it’s all real and I’m just not chosen, and that’s a thing I’m going to have going to have to reckon with. And that’s not a thing I can really do anything about.

2:12 I mean in as far as Lazarus was listening the moment before he heard his name out of Jesus’ mouth, which a dead man cannot can’t. So he wasn’t listening, he wasn’t paying attention. He wasn’t flagging someone down, he wasn’t wishing or hoping for it. He wasn’t leaning forward, he wasn’t seeking it. He was just suddenly called out, came alive and came out. And that was the only response he could have had. Cos he had no choice. I mean that’s a hard and Biblical word.

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3) PRExBYTERIAN – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJOXHqIMsZM?t=58s

9:58 Along with the perennial problem of evil, which no theodicy had ever truly satisfied, there was the troubling morality of God’s commands, especially in the Old Testament. Was “who are you, O man, who answers back to God” the rebuke of a deity above human comprehension or a facile human response to Christianity’s flaws?

12:29 I was not requesting worldly benefits, just faith. I wanted God. I wanted to believe. An omnipotent God could have made me believe. A loving God would have. No God did. That was that. I no longer believed in God. I was an atheist.

13:28 I don’t believe in God – because why should I? If I’m one of God’s reprobates, what’s the point? And if God wanted me to believe in Him, it wouldn’t be that hard
– after all if He is real, He was the one who made me believe in the first place.

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4) KRISTI BURKE – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qXcJyg7kNI?t=42s

0:42 The first passage I want to talk about is from Romans 9, which was the starting point of my deconstruction journey. Up until the point that I read and studied and chewed on the words in Romans 9, I believed in a God who created all people, gave them free will, and that he wanted all people to be saved, but he couldn’t violate their free will to save them. And that it was the most loving thing he could do to give people freedom, and within that freedom they could either choose him and go to heaven, or they could reject him and go to hell. And that would be entirely their choice.

1:30 I was 17 years old I was introduced to the concept of Calvinism. And when I was introduced to this I said no way there is no way that God created people just to go to hell. And then I read Romans 9, starting in verse 16. It does not therefore depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy, for scripture says to Pharaoh, raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the Earth. Therefore God has Mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me then, why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will? But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, why did you make me like? Does not the Potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for his glory, even us whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

It says it’s starting in verse 16, it does not therefore depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. Meaning there is nothing about you that can come to God and choose. God has to choose you. It says in verse 18, therefore God has Mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden. When Christians talk about you have a hardened heart against God, the Bible says that God’s the one that hardened it.

And then it even goes on to ask, well then why does God still blame us? You know, if he created this way how come he blames us? And Paul is saying, who are you to question God? How can the clay question the Potter and ask, why have you made me like this? It says, what if God although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? If he has decided he wants to create you just to destroy you, then he’s gonna do that and that’s his right. You don’t get to question that.

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5) EDWIN CURLEY – https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/the-existence-of-the-christian-god-the-craig-curley-debate

Opening Speech – Dr. Curley

5. Then, at 16, I read those Articles of Religion, carefully and critically for the first time. I was disturbed that my church accepted pre-destination. Before the foundation of the world, the Articles said, God had chosen some vessels for honor and others for dishonor.
6. I cannot believe that a just and loving God would create beings he knew and had pre-determined would spend eternity in hell. But Christians can reject pre-destination only at the cost of ignoring the authority of their scriptures and the implications of their theology.
7. In the Christian tradition it is normal to baptize infants at an early age because it is believed that they come into the world tainted by the sin of Adam and Eve. This is the doctrine of original sin. I cannot believe in original sin. My granddaughter may be a sinner now, but not when she was in the intensive care unit.
8. So usually it is held that God has no reason for choosing some and not others. He acts quite arbitrarily. It’s a hard and ugly doctrine, this doctrine of grace. I suppose that if you have already accepted Hell and original sin, you may be grateful for having a shot at salvation even if it does seem to be a lottery in which the odds are not on your side. Of course, if you think you have faith, then you may also think you have won the lottery and you may set aside thoughts about the unlucky losers.
9. So there you have my opening argument. I have offered seven objections, seven deadly objections, I would say: Christian theism is committed to pre-destination, to Hell, to original sin, to justification by faith, and to exclusivism; it has no good solution to the problem of evil; and it is destructive of morality as we understand it. These are only some of the objections which make it impossible for me to believe in the Christian God.

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6) TYLER VELA & MYTHVISION – https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2023/05/25/in-tyler-velas-own-words/

Sure, they say Tyler’s Calvinism had nothing to do with his deconversion. But read the longer transcript at the link and then come back here.

MythVision: I so relate to you Tyler right now this was my issue as well. There’s, I had a problem. I read Romans 9 and Paul’s hypothetical debate partner when he says – after he explains before any of them had done either good or bad, I hate and I love – and then he explains, for the purpose of election. This is why systematically I’m with you. At least Pauline, if we take Paul – Paul and his perception – and make that the whole systematic view of the Bible. Yes, I think that we’re dealing with the kind of what we call Reformed or Calvinistic type of thinking…

Vela: He’s a predestinian.

MythVision: He’s some kind of, yeah and I don’t know all the nuts and bolts, but at the end of the day he’s like “Well how can He, I mean like, how can God find fault?”. And he, pretty much his answer is “Shut up you mortal clay! God the maker can do whatever He wants, He’s Justified to do it.”

MythVision: And I now imagine, in that world, that kind of makes me wonder like, how were parents at this time? Like you’re calling Him Heavenly Father, so like like, you’re describing here. I’m a father of three sons. I-I’ve been married half, over half my life almost. I mean like for a long time, 16 years. And I’m sitting here thinking, I love people that may be reprobates. We love to throw that term around in the Calvinist circles, and does that mean that I love people more than God loves some people?

Vela: Yeah.

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BONUS) Derek Murrell giving an excuse for unrepentance to atheist Youtuber, along with thousands of viewers – https://youtu.be/_a3eMTy4mAw?si=8Xj63l2v-coFyUJ_

You might have been already wavering between different positions, not fully swayed by the arguments of any side. Or you could have been tilting in a certain direction already, and that last nudge was the catalyst needed.

Use whichever metaphor or analogy you like: One stone can cause an avalanche. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Removing one brick makes the whole wall topple. The single deciding vote that breaks the tie.

And once you fall into the new position, what follows is often that all the arguments against it are seen in a new light. The paradigm shift is full and complete, and the new position confidently solidifies.

In the soteriology debate, examples I’ve heard are Derek Murrell saying that Limited Atonement got him to accept the rest of TULIP. Brad Saab was convinced into Calvinism by its interpretation of Ephesians 1, then convinced out of it by other interpretations of it. Idol Killer’s rapid deconstruction of TULIP was kicked off by realizing the prooftexts for Total Depravity didn’t actually state what the doctrine needs them to state.

For me personally, I was flip-flopping on these following debates until one single realization caused me to fall fully off one side of the fence I had been sitting on:

1) Was Melchizedek the pre-incarnate Jesus?

As Dr Michael Heiser pointed out, Hebrews compares the two… But it never says Melchizedek WAS Jesus.

So I landed on “No”.

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2) Was Michael the pre-incarnate Jesus?

Various Trinitarians like John Calvin and John Wesley said “Yes”, not just the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But again from Dr Michael Heiser, Michael is ‘one of the chief princes’ and not the singular chief prince which would be expected if Jesus is to be identified with Michael. So I landed on “No”.

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3) Are the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6:1-4 heavenly/angelic beings, polygamous kings, or the line of Seth?

The deciding factor was when I realized “If the author wanted to indicate polygamous kings or the line of Seth, then WHY NOT JUST SAY SO? Whereas by contrast, ‘Bene Elohim’ is exactly the term to use if supernatural beings are intended – see Job 1:6 & 2:1 (they are gathered in front of God and then Ha Shatan shows up), Job 38:7 (they watch God form the earth), Deuteronomy 32:8 (ESV), Psalm 29:1 (Bene Elim), Psalm 82 (v6 “You are elohim, Bene Elyown”), Psalm 89:5-7 (Bene Elim in the skies).

So I landed on that view.

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4) Is the Rapture pre-tribulation?

On my own I came to the ‘Problem of Two Seconds”.

The first problem with a pre-Trib Rapture is rather pedantic, more of a naming convention – if Jesus comes to catch up believers, and then 7 years later comes to destroy the armies of the End Times Beast, then that would be the THIRD coming of Christ.

But the other problem is Scripturally based – the beheaded coming to life is specifically called ‘the first resurrection’ in Revelation 20:4-5. But if this takes place 7 years after the pre-Trib Rapture, then it would actually be the SECOND resurrection because ‘the dead in Christ shall rise first’ already happened earlier per 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17!

So I landed on “No”.

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5) Did the devil know about the Crucifixion plan and actually want Jesus to avoid it?

I said ‘Yes’ and based my reasoning on “Surely the devil knows the Scriptures, prophesying of how Messiah must suffer & die, to defeat sin & death & the powers of evil! See how he tried to tempt Jesus away from the path of the cross by offering Him all the nations of the world.” I even confidently stated as much during a pulpit sermon.

All it took was 1 Corinthians 2:8 “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” to disabuse me of my assumption (thanks to Michael Heiser mentioning this passage often in the context of the DCW).

In later pulpit sermons, I admitted my complete earlier error on this view.

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6) Which ‘Rea Sea’ crossing took place during the Exodus?

In brief, the last one sealed the deal for me:

the correct answer is to the question of v19, we contend that Paul is basically going “Who can resist His will? YOU GUYS have been resisting God’s will for centuries, here are some examples!”

v20: Cites Isaiah ch44-45, which is about Israel resisting God’s will to obey & be holy – leading to the Exile, and God later using Gentile Cyrus to restore them to the land.

vv21-24: Cites Jeremiah 18:1-11, where clay pots can change the planned use God had for them. Israel’s resisting of God’s will causes Him to change their outcome from blessing to curse, while the repentance of Gentile nations changes their outcome from curse to blessing.

vv25-26: Cites Hosea 1 & 2, which is about Israel resisting God’s will that they be loyal to Him.

v27: Cites Isaiah ch9-10, which is about Israel resisting God’s will that they be loyal Him. Hence God uses the Gentile Assyrians to punish them.

v28: Cites Isaiah ch1, which is about Israel resisting God’s will to be righteous and loyal to Him.