Tag: Beliefs

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Christianity is NOT Violent.

Christianity is not violent, meaning true Christianity, not the corrupted Church version of it. Jesus commanded love for enemies and stated that the meek shall inherit the Earth. And on the one occasion that He was confronted with a judicial execution, one that was fully legal given the laws at the time, he prevented it. If even judicial execution is not acceptable, what violence can ever be? That’s a very long way from America, the World’s most strongly Christian nation – more accurately the most strongly churched nation –  being also by far the biggest military nation. This is so simple that it should be blindingly obvious to everyone, but hundreds of years of church violence have pulled a veil over the truth. See other articles:

Calvin the “Christian”  Murdering Blasphemer

Westminster Confession of Faith – Violence is Built-in!

Theresa May – “Christian” War Criminal.

The Special Place of the Amish in History.

Is Your Truth Worth Dying For?

Violence in Self-Defence is OK? The Narrative Here Will Give You Second Thoughts.

Wanting to Offend God? Is it better to be Gay or Violent?

Make Love, Not War! But What is Love?

Media and Truth Part Company Over Syria

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Darwin Exposes Himself!

Charles Darwin was the effective founder of the modern theory of evolution through the publication of his book “The Origin of Species” in 1859. The theory was very weak at the time, and, contrary to popular belief, has become no stronger since. Science now has uncovered the incredible complexity of the living cell, which Darwin thought was simple; and genetics, of which Darwin knew nothing, show that mutations are no longer tenable as the source of information on DNA.

It is important to refer to Darwinian Evolution rather than the shorthand “Evolution”. This is because use of the shorthand form promotes one of the major deceptions of Evolution. To give a simple example, a fox losing it’s fur colour to become a Snow Fox is called “Evolution”,  and bacteria turning into men is also called “Evolution”. The two are conflated in the popular imagination to become the same process. They are not. The first involves only a minor change to a particular Kind of animal, easily caused by a small loss or mutation of genetic information. The second involves one Kind of organism changing into another, a process which would involve the creation of vast quantities of new genetic information, for which Darwinism offers no plausible source.

The exposure of this exact deception is actually made plain in the full title of Darwin’s book:

The Origin of Species

by means of

Natural Selection

Here the same logical trick is performed by the use of the word “species”. In Darwin’s day there was no clear definition of “species”, as he himself was well aware. Today, there is still no clear definition across all sciences. It is, therefore, a term that should not be used in science, as science relies totally on precision. More precisely, Snow Foxes and Brown Foxes are Variants of Fox, while bacteria and men are different Kinds of organisms. Natural Selection, or equally, human breeding programmes, do indeed produce different Varieties of plants and animals. But Natural Selection can never make one Kind turn into another Kind. Some people claim to be unable to understand the term “Kind”, as in Mankind, Dogkind, Horsekind, Catkind, Rodentkind and so on. It seems that Darwin had the same problem, or deliberately used the loose term “species” in an attempt to blur the distinction between Varieties and Kinds. Today, the term micro-evolution is often used to describe the changes within a Kind which happen, and have happened, on a huge scale, and macro-evolution to refer to one Kind of creature changing into another Kind, which never happens.

The title also reveals a second error in Darwin’s thinking which people manage to miss. Natural Selection is a Selection process. That’s why it’s called Natural Selection! It is not a creative process; it merely selects from features that already exist, whether they be visible in the organism concerned, or already encoded in it’s DNA. It cannot create a new feature or structure. It literally just remixes pre-existing features. That is why a dog can “evolve” or be bred into a different variety of dog, a horse into a different variety of horse, and so on. But a dog cannot “evolve” into a bird, because Natural Selection cannot select feathers, wings, avian lungs, nor any other bird-type features from a dog. They aren’t there, neither visible on the dog, nor hidden in it’s DNA.  Darwin used a lot of imagination to conceive the process that turned a brown fox into a white fox continuing to turn the white fox into a bird. But that was all it was: imagination. And that is all it is today. The difference now is that we understand Genetics, of which Darwin knew nothing, so it needs still greater imagination. We now have to believe that mutations, which are merely the DNA equivalent of a typographical error, produce almost infinite numbers of exquisite designs. When did a good book reproduced with a million errors ever become a great book? Or even one that was still readable?

So, for those with a little scientific knowledge, the mere title of Darwin’s book exposes it’s false premises. There’s no need to read the book! Though if you do, it is interesting to see how he gets round the massive problem of the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record (Now normally referred to as Missing Links.) Darwin himself recognised that this was a killer for his theory. His way round it? He had “faith” that they would be found. It remains the case today that it takes faith of the worst sort to believe in Evolution, while the concept of an Intelligent Creator, Biblical or otherwise, provides an obvious fit with what we observe around us.

For more on Evolution, see a quick run through Evolution’s other fatal flaws here, or (some of) the evidence for short Geological time scales here.  Or review the Home Page here.

 

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Clarification Q1

Question 1

SR Asked:

“How can God judge someone for something that they didn’t do?”

The original answer is an attempt to explain what happens to a child who dies immediately after birth. The Bible never tells us this directly. Do they get saved even though they have never accepted Jesus? Do they go to Hell because they have never accepted Jesus? My reasoning is based primarily on God’s foreknowledge; God knows in advance how people are likely to turn out. Even we, as humans, know people we trust and people we don’t. That does not mean we know everything they will do in the future, but we know the nature of the things they will do. Added to this, after 6000 years of human history and billions of individual lives, it will be very clear, when all the books are opened (and all the videos are shown) where people belong, and what someone with a similar spirit would have done. God’s Judgement will be in accordance with His justice, His love, and His mercy, and also with the requirement that rebels cannot be allowed into Heaven to cause the same mess that we have on Earth. I also believe that Justice will not only be done, but be seen to be done. See also Question 6:

6 Do Men Understand Exactly how God Works?

No. The belief that they do is based on pride. Men have neither the perspective, the knowledge, nor the intelligence to know exactly how God works. Any attempt to tie God down to a few simple mechanisms is a futile endeavour, based on pride. We are not called upon to understand God, but merely to have Faith in him; that does not mean having Faith that He exists, as that is obvious from what has been made. It means having trust and confidence in what He does and will do.

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Sins Visited on the Fourth Generation? Is That Justice?

The statement that sins will be visited even to the third and fourth generations of the the Fathers is one of the more worrying ones in Scripture. The Bible also clearly states that everyone is to be punished specifically for his own sin. Theologians can and do debate this endlessly. We think the answer is simple, and found in the latter part of the article on Predestination here.

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Wanting to Offend God? Is it better to be Gay or Violent?

 

Homosexuality and violence are rarely out of the media for long, whether they are in the news or presented in fictional portrayals. But they are rarely mentioned in the same sentence as here. And there is a widespread view that Homosexuality is especially offensive to God, whilst violence does not carry the same stigma. How does such a view arise, and is it correct?

The dreadful Westboro Baptist Church of “GOD HATES FAGS” fame in Topeka, Kansas, cannot take the whole blame for this. They are but one tiny church among thousands with varying views. But their claims get some leverage because they claim to be Bible-based, and almost everyone, however thin their Biblical knowledge, knows the account of the destruction of Sodom by God. Sodom, the city which gave its name to sodomy; and the Sodom event being the only time God chose to rain destruction on a whole city (more accurately five; four apart from Sodom itself).

It turns out that this is a fine example of a little knowledge being dangerous. Digging a little deeper, we see that some of the men of Sodom wanted to rape two male visitors to the city. This precisely parallels another event in the land of Benjamin, described in Judges, where men demanded sex with a male visitor. The difference in the two passages is that in the Sodom account the visitors were protected supernaturally; in the Benjamin account the demanding locals were given a woman, whom they raped to death. There’s just a bit more going on in these passages than homosexuality:

1) Total failure to welcome and care for visitors.

2) Total disregard for the well-being of others.

3) Rampant, uncontrolled sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

4) Violence to the point of murder.

And although the incidents each only involved a limited number of men, it appears that the rest of the populations were doing little about it. Their silence made them complicit.

So which of these offences upset God so much? We are not told in either passage, but elsewhere in Scripture we read that the people of Sodom were punished because they were “overfed and did not care about the poor”. Does that mean that God was happy with the other behaviour? Clearly not. You don’t need to be a great Bible scholar to know that. When it came to living godly lives, the people of Sodom had lost the plot completely. So why the imagined specific connection to homosexuality? Actually it is only because of a post facto (after the event) adoption of the name of the city to mean homosexual sex. Ignore that, as you should, and the story of Sodom changes completely.

We can dig deeper still. A full search of the Bible reveals only about ten occasions when it addresses homosexuality directly, and that’s on the basis of including the two references already discussed. Only ten references in about seven hundred and fifty thousand words? Anybody who wants to make a case for gayness being especially offensive to God on the basis of that is definitely on a losing wicket! (Note that there are other places where Sodom is mentioned, and people assume a specific reference to homosexuality, but this is not in the text. Sodom stood for unrestrained godlessness.)

Another event that warrants specific mention, that almost certainly references homosexuality, is in Genesis 9, when Noah becomes drunk and his son Ham “uncovers his nakedness.” Because of this Noah puts a curse on Ham and his descendants. But here again, if the homosexual inference is correct, there is more than that; there is rape, incest, deceit, and even boasting and/or an attempt to corrupt others. Interestingly, given the question posed in this article, Genesis 9 also contains crystal-clear warnings about bloodshed. The idea that the Old Testament allows violence apart from that commanded or specifically sanctioned by God is wrong.

There is still more. The belief that the Sodom event was the only time God poured out mass destruction is in itself incorrect. Sodom was a walk in the park compared to Noah’s Flood. And if you don’t yet know that Noah’s Flood was real and global, look at the Science Page here, and the Evolution Page here. The Flood wiped out everyone except Noah and his family. The World, we are told, was wicked, evil and corrupt, all of which is a little vague when it comes to knowing what exactly the pre-flood people were up to. However, just one thing does get a specific mention: there was a huge amount of violence. So whatever else we may surmise, it is clear that there was at least one common factor that brought about both the destruction of the Flood, and the destruction of Sodom. That factor was violence.

The answer to the question posed in the title is clear. There is no wriggle room. People may say that the the argument above is based on the Old Testament, but the New Testament goes even further, confronting us with the command to love our enemies. Others point out that God Himself has used violence. But God has taken exclusively to Himself the right to use violence in Judgement, and the times when He has done so happen to be rather few. He has used men at times to execute such judgement, but that does not give men the right to use it on their own initiative. People professing Christianity need to be extremely wary of having even a faint smell of blood on their hands. Take note here that Judicial Execution for law breaking is probably the most acceptable form of violence; but when Jesus came across such an execution he aborted it. He did not question the guilt of the person concerned; in fact He confirmed it. And He did not question that the law in force at the time prescribed the death penalty. He did, however, abort the execution and sent the woman on her way. If even legal execution is unacceptable, what form of violence can ever be?

They key points here are that Homosexuality has been hyped into a Mega-Sin in the absence of Biblical Support, and the promotion of that concept has helped to obscure the wrongful nature of violence, and also the wrongful nature of heterosexual activity outside of marriage; we don’t hear quite so much condemnation of that from the Churches. As ever, the need is for people to read Scripture for themselves, ignoring the biased representations that too often come from Press or Pulpit.

Catholic Tony Blair and Protestant George Bush are well known for engineering the Iraq War. Their actions and professions of Faith send a message to everyone, be they Christian, Atheist, Muslim or anything else, that Christianity and violence can fit together; they do not. We cannot deny the Church connections of Blair and Bush; but we must deny that they or their respective churches are in any way representative of genuine Christianity.

 

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Why You Should Understand Thermodynamics and Information.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is effectively the most fundamental law in all of science apart from, as you may have guessed, the First Law of Thermodynamics. The First Law is pretty simple and fairly intuitive; in essence, it just says that you can’t make something out of nothing. It doesn’t have the profound implications which the Second Law has.

From here on we’ll normally refer to the Second Law of Thermodynamics as simply “2TD”. What it says, in very, very simple terms, is that over time things get worse. This is also stated as things moving into greater chaos, or, more scientifically, as the “Increase of Disorder.” It may well be that in a particular place at a particular time things have become neater, better organised, cleaner or whatever, but overall there is always a decline because energy has inevitably been used. When used, energy degrades, and that degradation has an end point where it can never be used or do anything again. That is a very big deal indeed, since nothing happens without energy being used. This gradual degradation of energy is what tells scientists that the Universe had a definite beginning, and must also have an end, because the energy is running down so that the Universe is, in effect, gradually dying. (Physicists say “Entropy increases”.) This is a process which is quite different from, for example, planetary orbits which appear to be a cyclic, repeatable phenomenon. The degradation of energy is neither cyclic nor repeatable; it’s a one-off, single occurrence. It is, in fact, what gives us Time itself! If you ever wondered if Time was an invention of men to make life more convenient, or alternatively something that has an actual physical reality (as I did in my teens), you now have the answer; Time is a result of 2TD. I did say 2TD was fundamental, didn’t I?

This has implications for Eternity. If Time is limited, Eternity must be something different from Time and infinitely greater than Time. This concept of being Outside of Time gives us the understanding that Eternity is not Time going on, and on, and on, and on; it is actually the absence of Time. You can think of Time as a bubble within Eternity.

This understanding of Eternity and Time is also scientifically satisfying due to the principle that the “Cause is Always Greater than the Effect“. When we try to understand the beginning, or creation, of Time, that principle leads us to conclude that before Time existed there must have been something greater that could have caused it, which logically would be Eternity.

So the first points to take away from an understanding of 2TD are that Eternity is not a long extension of time, but the absence of it; and that time can run alongside or within Eternity. That’s a bit mind-boggling for most people, but follows logically from the science.

The next point to ponder is that Thermodynamics only relates to physical things: matter and energy. Such things are locked within Time. It is therefore a reasonable assumption that anything which existed in eternity/Outside of Time would also be completely outwith the matter/energy/time matrix that Thermodynamics defines. As such, it might also be non-material, and have no requirement for energy. Hold this in mind, and read on.

A related matter here is Information. Wherever we observe a high-level of organisation, which is the opposite of chaos or Disorder, Information is always involved. This is true regardless of whether that organised system is a living thing or an object like a car. The Universe is commonly defined as “All the Matter and Energy that exists.” But the Universe also contains Information; there happens to be bucket-loads of it on DNA! And two things science knows about Information are that, firstly, it only derives from Intelligence; it can never be created by chance. And secondly, that Information is a fundamentally different quantity from Matter or Energy. If it were not, it could be measured with the same units; but it can’t. Matter is measured in grams, Energy is measured in joules; and Information is measured in bytes. We use both matter and energy all the time to store or transmit information, but information has absolutely no fundamental or mathematical connection to either. The only entity it directly connects with is Intelligence. Since there is no Intelligence in the Matter or Energy within the Universe, and since there must be an Intelligent source for the Information on DNA, we should logically expect such a source to exist outside the Universe.

Putting all the points above together leads to a most interesting conclusion: such an information source would be outside the Universe, outside of Time, and non-material. That is exactly how we conceive of God or a spirit, and it is surely not coincidence that the most fundamental science implies the existence of such entities.

The Second Law also provides us with a devastating one-shot kill of Evolution. The many difficulties of Darwinian Evolution actually happening are always explained away by the supposed power of billions of years. But when we understand 2TD we know that billions of years of Time must produce chaos. That would be true even if the starting point were something highly organised. If the starting point is accepted as something as chaotic as a massive, mindless “Big Bang”, then the idea of aeons of Time ever producing anything organised is a double absurdity. Either Darwin’s Theory is wrong, or 2TD is wrong. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is never wrong! (This might just be why you never heard of 2TD in school. Pupils are forced by law to learn Darwin’s theory. Teaching them a physical law that contradicts it might cause doubts.)

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Christian Zionism is a Contradiction in Terms

Of all the new winds of doctrine to engulf the churches in the last two hundred years, Christian Zionism has to be one of the most grievous. And perhaps its most remarkable feature is that it is in obvious contradiction with the Gospel. Since this is clearly not obvious to many, a little repetition of basic facts is in order here.

First, Christianity is based on the actions and teachings of Jesus Christ as written in the New Testament. At the heart of Christianity is the Once-for-All substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross; the final sacrifice that makes it possible for all men to be Saved, with no further punishment. One might even say that this concept, known as the Gospel, is not merely the heart of Christianity, but actually is Christianity.

Second, Christ’s sacrifice replaced the Old Covenant sacrificial system documented in the Old Testament. This system relied on the ongoing blood sacrifices of animals in the Jerusalem Temple to expiate sin. Most Jews of the first century did not accept the New Testament teachings about Jesus, and continued with the Temple sacrifices for forty years after the Crucifixion; until Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews scattered in 70 AD.

It should be clear from the above points that the Christian Zionist desire to rebuild the Temple and restore animal sacrifices is completely antithetical to the once-for-all Sacrifice of Jesus. One may support one or the other, but not both. If Christ’s Sacrifice was what the New Testament says it is, then animal sacrifice is not merely redundant, but blasphemous. And if animal sacrifice is still necessary, then the teaching of an effective, substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ is wrong.

This is not saying that people cannot choose either one or the other. We have free will and we all make our choices. But plain logic does not allow someone to choose both. To support animal sacrifice is to reject the cross. It is hard to conceive of a more serious error for a Christian to make.

For those who prefer a more Biblical treatment of this subject, we recommend the video below. It was  made by Steven Anderson who we do not support due to several statements made by him with which we do not agree. This video, however, deals very well with the subject from a Biblical viewpoint and is well worth the time needed to view it. You could skip the second part where he lectures on genealogies and DNA; the argument presented there is secondary, though probably also sound. The video is called “Marching to Zion”. Click HERE to watch (1 hour 48 minutes for whole video, 1 hour 10 minutes for the main part.)

There is also the far from inconsequential matter of the violence, suffering and death resulting from Zionist migration to Palestine. There are those who claim that Jewish immigrants to the area found an empty desert, and Palestinians only arrived subsequently from their native areas to make trouble. This story is patently absurd, since the Mediterranean and the Middle East are the cradles of Western Civilisation, and have been permanently occupied for thousands of years. The creation of a new state or colony almost inevitably results in violence between the new arrivals and the original inhabitants.  In this case it has certainly caused, and still causes, huge bouts of violence and suffering. For a Christian endeavouring to propagate love for enemies and peace, support for any of the coercion or violence that takes place in this situation is simply not possible.

(Parenthetically, for atheists there is a variation on the Christian Zionist attempt to philosophically both have their cake and eat it; they will often point to the historical, Biblical claim that Jews have to the Holy Land, while simultaneously denouncing the Bible as mere fables.)

The Christian Zionist error links with another rather common one of putting too much emphasis on the Old Testament. Clearly the Old Testament has much to teach us, but for a Christian the New Testament is paramount, and the Old must always be viewed through the framework of the New. Expressed in poor but pithy poetry we might say:

If you wish to put more emphasis

On the Old Testament  than the New,

Don’t call yourself a Christian,

Call yourself a Jew.

 

A further matter which really should not need discussion, at least by Christians, is the likelihood of the Temple being rebuilt. The Bible makes clear in 2 Thessalonians that the Temple will be rebuilt, and the “Man of Sin” will set himself up there as God, before Jesus returns. And all the things that have happened in the last hundred years or so, and continue to happen today in the Middle East, are moving toward that conclusion. Whatever any individual Christian does or does not do today, the Third Temple will be built. The only issue for Christians is whether they are able to witness to the Cross and show Love for all men, completely free of any false doctrine that compromises and undermines their words and actions.

See also Evangelical Really Means Zionist?

 

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Is Christianity a Religion? No, it’s a Relationship with Jesus.

Since this site is primarily about the failure of Churches to represent true Christianity, a few words on what Christianity really is are in order. People are so conditioned to thinking of Christianity as something centred on churchgoing, especially the Sunday Service of Hymns and Sermon, that they find it hard to imagine any alternative.

The real fundamentals of Christianity, however, are not hard to understand. A person’s Christian Life begins with conversion, which is the acceptance of the validity of Christ’s Sacrifice and their personal need for it. (See Gospel if you are not clear on this.) The dynamics of this conversion in reality only involve Jesus and the New Christian. It may well be that some Church or Missionary, or tract or website, played a part in the conversion, but the power for Salvation comes only from Jesus, and it is only to Jesus that the new convert has allegiance. A new two-way loving relationship has been formed, very much akin to marriage, and everything now depends on the outworking of that relationship. This is what Paul is talking about in Philippians 2 when he instructs Christians to “work out your own salvation.”

Just as every Marriage relationship differs, every relationship with Jesus differs. The often wide differences are caused by the very different situations people are in when they turn to Christ, and differences in speed at which the relationship matures. No such thing as a typical, black and white, boilerplate Christian! Take two extreme examples:

  1. Imagine a drug addict and thief from an abusive home who eventually meets Jesus at age thirty.
  2. For comparison, think of an Amish person who decides at eighteen to accept Amish teaching, lifestyle and Baptism. (See The Special Place of the Amish in History for more on the Amish.)

Ten years on, the Amish person will almost certainly be leading a life that has every appearance of genuine conversion. Yet it’s possible that he is merely following his particular culture; it’s more difficult to see the effect of conversion on someone who already functions well, and lives in a society where things like sharing, faithfulness and modesty are normal. However, the ex-addict ten years on may still be dealing with issues from his previous life, even though he has made huge steps forward in his relationship with Jesus and improving his lifestyle. The permutations and variations are infinite. It makes it very hard to know who is really in a relationship with Jesus. There is no simple marker like weekly church attendance or Infant Baptism. It’s about working out the relationship because you love Him, because He first loved you.

For all Christians, and especially new ones, the key advice is to get soaked in the Bible from personal reading; sadly there are very few people who will give that vital advice. The teaching from churches, whether Protestant, Mormon, Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, or whatever is much more “Listen to us!”

Click here to browse other articles on the Home Page.

Or here to read more on “working out your own salvation.”

 

 

 

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Calvin the “Christian” Murdering Blasphemer

 

Calvin plays a key role in the history of the Churches and Christianity. Mostly he is lauded as a great sage, a virtual Protestant Saint, and, of course, the mastermind behind the Reformation. As so often with these matters, the truth is somewhat different.

Calvin was born in 1509. This was over 80 years after the reformer John Wycliffe was burned at the stake; and Wycliffe’s burning did not take place until over 40 years after he himself died. The Catholics had to dig his body up to burn it. So the total time between Wycliffe’s Bible translating and other reforming activities, and the start of Calvins’, is the better part of two centuries. Calvin was very, very far from being in the forefront of the Reformation.

Calvin was born in France to a strongly Catholic family, and was expected to become a Priest. He was very bright, and already working as a clerk to a Bishop at the age of twelve. He subsequently attended the prestigious College de Montaigu in Paris. This is the same college where Ignatious Loyola saw fit to remain for seven years. Ignatious Loyola, of course, was the founder of the infamous, counter-reformation Jesuits. Ignatious and Calvin were not contemporaries at the college, but there is a strong indication here of the sort teaching that Calvin was immersed in.

There is no clear narrative of Calvin’s conversion, something which is debated to this day. Yet by 1536, at the age of just 27, Calvin had published his key work, “Institutes of the Christian Religion”. Notice here that by this age he had not merely begun his research, not merely written the book, was not still searching for a publisher, but had already done all of these things, and the book was published. Even Jesus did not begin his Ministry until the age of thirty. How did Calvin have such a meteoric rise to respected Reformation Author, given his background, and given not only the lack of any clear account of his conversion, but the likelihood that he accredited his personal Christianity to his Catholic Baptism as a baby? Infant Baptism is very significant in Calvin’s story as we shall see in the next paragraph.

Michael Servetus was a Spanish Doctor and polymath, and was the first European to accurately describe the flow of blood through the heart. He was also a radical Christian reformer. He did not accept the standard doctrine of the Trinity, was opposed to Calvin’s view of predestination, and like many radical reformers did not accept Infant Baptism. The term Anabaptist was used for those reformers who only accepted baptism given to adults following a conscious decision for Christ. Servetus was condemned to death by the Catholics. He escaped but fell into the hands of Calvin in Geneva, where he was duly burned at the stake. His was not the only execution carried out in the Geneva Theocracy that Calvin led. Beheading, drowning and burning were all methods of execution used. The execution of Servetus stands out because of his fame at the time, his scientific accomplishments, and particularly for the justifications used for his execution such as the rejection of Infant Baptism. Jesus never used force or manipulation on anybody. He spoke the truth and those who would not accept it were left to go their own way. Even the valid-in-its-time execution of a woman for adultery was quashed by Jesus. The idea that Calvin was a true disciple of Jesus Christ is untenable in view of his actions.

The other reason to reject Calvin as a Christian is his preaching of predestination. Calvin’s version of predestination makes God into an unjust ogre, who punishes men for eternity on account of living a sinful life; a sinful life about which they had no choice, because God made them sinful. See more on this both here, Predestination 101, and here,  Free Will and Predestination: No Contradiction.

It is not possible to come to a compromise conclusion about Calvin. Perhaps he was one of the Greatest Christians who ever lived, as many believe. Alternatively he was a fraud, with the mission of destroying and sowing discord among the radical reformers. Just one part of his legacy today is that many reject God because they have accepted Calvin’s monstrous depiction of Him. We all have to decide whether Calvin was Great or Fake. Our decision on that point matters deeply.