• 25/05/2022
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:: OSEL.CZ :: - Ask your priest 8: Interview with Rostislav Klimt<

JŠ: Can you tell us something about yourself? Where and when did you study and where do you preach and what do you do?

I am what used to be called Písmák and even earlier Zákonik (yes, those are the negative characters from the Bible :)) and I occasionally preach in the choir of the Apostolic Church in Prostějov (AC Prostějov).

JŠ: You told me that theologically educated people are not interested in doing a media interview with someone biased like me. At the same time, readers show that they are interested in this kind of conversation. For example, the interview with Doctor of Theology Hošek has already been read by over 125,000 people. Why do you think that theologically educated people are not interested in these conversations? And what, on the other hand, led you to contact the editorial office of Oslo with an offer for an interview?

RK: Lack of interest stems from bad experiences. It is better to speak to people who want to listen to us and not to impose ourselves on everyone. Throwing peas at the wall has never been a very effective thing to do. I was quite surprised that Osel left the scientific focus by publishing a series of your articles, so I responded to your interest.

Paradoxically, creationism requires many orders of magnitude faster evolution: In a few thousand years after the world flood, millions of new species of animals and plants had to evolve from saved species and reach the current places of occurrence.

JŠ: I am also biased based on previous experiences , but I have not dismissed the topic of faith and I am still interested because it affects the lives of many people. I think public conversations are an important source of information. Mr. Marek Vácha says that people still think that science is in conflict with faith and adds that this is a big mistake. I claim that faith contradicts science and that is a fact. I don't see a contradiction between science and faith only in strictly agnostic deism, to which only a very small part of the population subscribes. How do you feel about the conflict between science and faith?

RK: There is a certain contradiction between science and faith here, but some consider science a specific kind of religion, which would explain a certain hostility of science to other religions. The pitfall of these conversations is often that one person is talking about the goat and the other is talking about the car. Confrontation without seeking understanding leads to nothing.

JŠ: Do you think it's a good idea to turn down offers to interview when they come from a person with the opposite opinion?

RK: Plurality of opinions also includes the freedom not to present one's opinions.

JŠ: Where do you think there is a contradiction between science and faith in the Apostolic Church?

RK: We believe that God exists and that the Bible is God's word. However, science demands evidence, and God refuses to give it to those who do not believe in him. God is not going to force people to believe in him by providing proof of his existence. That is, not yet.

JŠ: Let's leave the question of God's existence aside for now. So do you believe that Moses wrote the five books of Moses? Or that the apostles were the authors of the Gospels? Do you reject the linguistic analysis of the original biblical texts and the determination of their age and the assignment of individual texts to authors? And for completeness - do you believe that life and individual groups of organisms were created?

RK: Who physically wrote the books is not that important. We use the terminus technicus "God-inspired word", that is, the writers wrote what God communicated or showed them, but described it in their own words. It does not affect the result. The final question is a bit impertinent. If we believe that the Bible is God's word, we must believe that life was created as it is written. God cannot lie.

JŠ: The fact that God cannot lie is actually stated in several places in the Bible. But in the bible it is also stated in several places that God forced people to lie or let people believe lies:

And now, behold, the Lord has put a treacherous spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has told you bad things. (1 Kings 22:23 and the same 2 Chronicles 18:22)

I say: “Oh, Sovereign Lord, you have deceived this people and Jerusalem. You said, 'You will have peace,' and yet the sword has penetrated to the soul." (Jeremiah 4:10)

And in the New Testament:

:: OSEL.CZ :: - Ask your priest 8: Interview with Rostislav Klimt

That is why God gives them over to the power of deception to believe lies. (2 Thessalonians 2:11)

Sorry for another impertinence, but are you sure God didn't lie to the writers of the bible for some reason? Do you believe, for example, that during the crucifixion of Jesus many dead rose from their graves and walked the streets, as Matthew claims (27:52-53)? According to non-canonical writings, there were up to 12,000 dead who came from Hades and stayed on earth for 40 days before they entered heaven with Jesus. Do you think the Romans wouldn't have noticed? Why did none of the other New Testament writers consider this event worthy of record?

"When midnight came, the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock." Exodus 12:29. (Credit: Charles Sprague Pearce) God was killing Egypt's firstborn because Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go. Interestingly, Pharaoh had no choice because God repeatedly hardened his heart every time Moses asked for his release (Exodus 9:12, 10:20, 10:27 and 11:10).

RK: That's it. , what I'm talking about. Writers record the meaning of God's words in their own words. God cannot force anyone to lie, he created us as beings with free will, capable of contradicting him. All God can do is to withdraw His protective hand from us and expose us to deception. However, deception does not come from God, it is God's absence, because God is Truth, he is not capable of deception.

I don't know how many people Jesus raised from the dead, I personally doubt that there were that many. The evangelists described the events each from their point of view, recording what they considered essential.

JŠ: Does God know the future of humanity? God knows what I'll have for dinner tomorrow?

RK: The future of humanity is described in the Bible, so not only God knows it. God knows what you'll have for dinner tomorrow, but that doesn't mean you don't have free will. Unfortunately, the explanation of this paradox is beyond the intellectual capabilities of mankind, but it is so.

JŠ: How many people in the world share your belief that the Bible is the word of God and completely true?

RK: I have no idea, I'd have to look up some statistics. In general, it should be all churches labeled as Pentecostal or Charismatic, I do not exclude others as well. We also have many of them.

JŠ: Pentecostal churches (Pentacostalism) have a total population of over 580 million people (less than a third of Christians).

What do you think is the punishment for people who refuse to believe the bible is true? For example, I know the Bible in detail, but I am not able to believe it because, from my point of view, it is full of contradictions both with itself and with reality. In my opinion, Jesus, if he existed, was at most (for that time) a progressive philosopher.

RK: The punishment for people who do not believe in God will be the absence of God's presence. God is not going to spend eternity with those who do not love him.

JŠ: God knew in advance that people would commit acts that would lead to his anger and the subsequent flood, but did he still do them?

RK: He had no other choice. God seeks our love and love cannot be forced. Part of loving someone is that they can hurt you and let you down. Love is not without freedom, and freedom also means the risk of rebellion. God knew he wouldn't win everyone's love, but he did it for the love of those who love him.

JŠ: So God created the entire universe in order to give life on one of the planets to beings who will love him and with whom he will spend eternity (even though he knows exactly what will happen in that eternity). But if we take the Bible literally, he will drown those who do not love him, he will send plagues on them, he will have them slaughtered by his chosen people or he will cast them into hell for eternity. This love, like the combination of free will and God's omniscience, seems incomprehensible to me.

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." Pentacostalism teaches us that we all have a free choice: either believe in God or spend eternity in hell.

RK: I understand you don't understand, people don't have the intellectual capacity to to understand God. God does not send plagues or other things on people, he can only take away his protection from them, leave them at the mercy of evil, that is why those things will happen to them. To the uninitiated, however, it may appear as if God caused it.

JŠ: From what you say, I take it that God is such a big boss, whom if a person does not like, then God will turn away from him and the evil that he previously created will destroy the person. But God has clean hands (except for some cases when he decided to destroy human life himself, or when making a bet with the devil in the case of Job).

RK: God cannot create evil, God is Good and evil is God's absence. Would you like to spend your life with someone who hates you? But do you want it for God? In Job's case there was no stake, it was the same case as the tree in Eden.

JŠ: Why do they immediately hate? I just very much doubt the existence of any deity described by man. I wouldn't want to live with someone I created, but since man can't understand God's psychology, this question seems pointless to me.

When you wrote to me, you said that you would like to correct what I write. What did you think was the most wrong statement from what you read?

RK: You have the freedom to doubt what you want, you have a lifetime to do so. Freedom also brings responsibility for one's own destiny - what happens to you after death is only up to you. And if you don't believe in the afterlife, you don't have to worry about it:) Do you have children? I like my children and I like to live with them, even though I kind of created them with my wife:) I don't remember writing to you about getting things right, nor does my email history show me anything like that. Considering the volume of your articles, it would not even be possible.


“An invisible pink unicorn orders me to wear socks with my sandals. To question this commandment offends my God! And do you even have proof that it doesn't exist?!"

This interview draws attention to the fact that there is a contradiction between faith and science, even if Messrs. Vácha and Grygar (for example here and here) claim the opposite more often than not. Some forms of belief contradict scientific knowledge more, others less so. Mr. František Houdek (Vesmír) sums it up well. In some cases, one has to deny scientific evidence in order to believe in the truth of some form of belief. The fact is that people who deny some of the scientific findings because of their faith are the majority in the world. On the other hand, some forms of belief (more often deistic than theistic) do not require the denial of scientific evidence. But it should be noted that even agnostic deism contradicts the scientific method, if not specific scientific findings: The hypothesis of the existence of an undefined god for which there is no evidence can be ruled out with reference to Occam's razor, similar to the belief in the existence of an invisible pink unicorn, or the hypothesis of the existence of a tea service in orbit between Mars and Earth. Moreover, the burden of proof is always on the person making the positive claim: if someone tells me that there is a packet of salted peanuts orbiting Jupiter, it is their responsibility to prove it to me, not mine to disprove it.

“For, behold, he is the maker of the mountains and the maker of the wind, he tells man what is in his mind, he causes dawn and dusk, he treads on the sacred hills of the earth. His name is the Lord God of hosts.” Amos 4:13

My position is that I don't know WHY I'm here, but the search for an answer is interesting even if over time the question turns out to be meaningless, similar to asking WHY the mountains are here (beyond the geological explanation of HOW the mountains came to be).

I see the position of many believers as that they know very clearly why they are here and what the meaning of life is and they are upset that many of their dogmatic explanations are displaced by objective knowledge of reality (including the belief in the existence of an immortal soul, as I state in the first three volumes of this series).

I understand faith as people's effort to have certainty in life and to feel good about satisfied curiosity. Therefore, it is understandable that people try to refute scientific facts or remain tactically silent about this topic. They care about their psychological comfort, which is more important to them than knowing reality. The fact that I understand the motive of these people does not mean that I want to live in a society of people who reject reality and replace it with all sorts of legends on which they (partially) base their decisions.

The call is still valid that I am interested in an unmoderated conversation with any priest, vicar or pastor. We can meet by appointment at any time, either online or in person. We did this interview with Mr. Klimt in written form within one day. (Next time I would prefer a verbal interview - it takes less time for both parties).

The interview with Mr. Marko Orko Vácha, which we started at the beginning of April, is still not finished due to Mr. Vácha's busy schedule, but now he has promised me again that he will find more time, so hopefully we will finish it soon.

Please ask your priest if it is good to think about faith and if it is good to communicate about faith with non-believers (which certainly brings a lot of food for thought on both sides). If he agrees, ask him if he would be interested in talking to me (the range of topics is suggested by my series of articles). If he is not interested, ask him why and send his justification to the editorial office. If there is interest, we will place the subsequent interview here on the osel.cz website, or on another frequented place on the Internet, and we will at least put a link on osel.cz (and of course it can be reprinted anywhere else).

In my opinion, it is a shame when preachers use the freedom not to present their opinions on certain topics and thus prevent the majority society from knowing these opinions of theirs...

In the next part, I will look in more detail at the secular explanation of the circumstances of the creation of the biblical ten, which I wrote about last time (and the book of Exodus in general).