Free, Free,It is free for all, regardless of the country of origin...
Salvation is free for all, regardless of your religion, faith, country of origin, your ethnicity, cast, creed or your language, it is free for all. Jesus paid the price. Just believe that Jesus came to this world, died for our sin and resurrected on the third day. He paid the price of your sin and redeemed you through his blood.
It is absolutely free gift for those who believe.
When Adam and Eve rebelled, man was separated from God through sin. God's holiness required punishment and payment (atonement) for sin, which was (and still is) eternal death. Our death is not sufficient to cover the payment for sin. Only a perfect, spotless sacrifice, offered in just the right way, can pay for our sin. Jesus, the perfect God-man, came to offer the pure, complete and everlasting sacrifice to remove, atone, and make eternal payment for sin. Why? Because God loves us and desires an intimate relationship with us.
A prayer for salvation:
Dear Lord,
I admit that I am a sinner. I have done many things that don’t please you. I have lived my life for myself. I am sorry and I repent. I ask you to forgive me. I believe that you died on the cross for me, to save me. You did what I could not do for myself. I come to you now and ask you to take control of my life, I give it to you. Help me to live every day in a way that pleases you. I love you, Lord, and I thank you that I will spend all eternity with you.
Amen.All are welcome to receive this free gift...
I think you'll find salvation is a free gift irrespective of whether one believes or not. The Father's gifts come without evangelical strings attached preconditions and they do not expire at the point of death.
Temporary human sin committed in a finite life does not result in eternal death or punishment. You have completely missed the point of the law, that punishment is measured in accordance with the crime; eye for eye tooth for tooth.
Do you think the Father was caught by surprise by the antics of Adam and Eve? He created them knowing it would go horribly wrong for them.....but not for him. Because where sin abounds so his grace abounds all the more and he is more glorified because his love and sacrifice covers that sin. Sin was inevitable, it came as a result of granting man choice. But knowing this, the Messiah's mission was prepared before creation.
Do you think The Father would tell man to love his enemies and do good to them if he will not do that himself? If you think he will see anyone in your pagan hell you have a warped view of love.Thanks for projecting God as a good and loving God. God loves all mankind. He loves me and loves you irrespective of your cast, religion or ethnicity. But do you think he will not show justice to the afflicted. To show justice to the afflicted, he has to punish all the wrongs done by me and you.
There comes the need of the penalty for your sin. Jesus did it at the cross. Jesus paid for your sins. Now if you believe that Jesus died for your sin, then you will have eternal life. But for those who do not believe, there is only one hope of eternal punishment.
Why God sent his son Jesus to be sacrificed on the cross? The only purpose of sending Jesus was to pay the price of sin as well as show the way of life.
Now this salvation is free for those who believe in Jesus.
Thanks for your views.So what you are saying is god is a judge to settle your silly disputes?
Now don't you need justice? If I did you wrong, how Jesus' s death undo it? Or are you saying that this is all nonsense and the effort to believe it will be the penance?
You first said, salvation cannot be given to everyone because it won't serve justice. Now you are saying it serve justice provided the rapist or murderer or thief 'believe' in Jesus. So which is it?Anybody’s dog will follow me if I feed it, but only my own dog will follow me if I beat it. And any man will be a Christian, or profess to be one, while it is all joy, and silver slippers, and gravel walks—but only the
man who really loves God, who says, “All the daylong have I been plagued and chastened every morning”—it is only the man of God who can say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him—if He takes away my comfort, and I have no joy but in Himself, still will I cling to Him.”Your dog will grow to despise and hate you for beating it.
I gotta admit I wondered why she chose that analogy.
Last warning to you:
God/Jesus says to you:
Those who find joy because of me will experience more joy.
Those who look down on and despise me will get what they have sown.
I will make it sure they will have their comeuppance soon.
Therefore, you repent.
Plow the old land and come to me with a pure and soft mind.
If you repent from the bottom of your heart, I will undo your sins and remember nothing about them.
If you refuse to change your actions in spite of my warning, I will never stop my wrath on those who still have arrogant eyes, cynical remarks, and boasting head moves.
I will never stop until my judgment comes.
Therefore, you repent.
I repeat you repent.
I will make those who neglect my warnings realize.
They will be punished.
They will be made to realize that all that comes from me.
Therefore, you repent.No. I will not "repent". I will not believe in your version of god - or any other version of god - until that god can be sufficiently proven and/or demonstrated.
Christianity makes you sick - or makes you THINK your sick by giving you the disease (telling you that you are sinful and unworthy of love or salvation) and then offers the cure to the disease that it created. Why should I repent of asking for evidence before blindly believing and following some deity? Why should I repent of using the brain that you think your god gave me to ask for proof?Um, if you have the evidence then it's not blind belief.
Unless semantics have changed. I don't know.If you have evidence or verifiable proof that a god exists, then you no longer require faith.
The faith is not that He exists but that He will do what He said He will (through the Bible.) It's still not totally blind faith.
Then demonstrate your evidence. Show me your god. Demonstrate that any of it is true.
We've been through this. If you want to continue the conversation I'm here any time. If you want to browbeat me into what you've decided is the only acceptable evidence then you'll never get what you want and as someone who has studied the Bible you should be familiar with that and why.
I know that the Bible states that its the word of god and that you shouldn't question it. I find nothing in theBible to be evidence at all, let alone evidence that be confirmed. I'm browbeating you? By asking questions?
Do you believe in all of the personal experience claims that other Christians claim to have? How about catholics? How about muslims or hindus or pagans? By what criteria do you determine their validity? How do you determine the source? How do you rule out other explanations? Do you only accept the experiences that line up with your belief system, and therefore discount the experiences claimed by others?
I'm asking you to SHOW ME the proof. I can't see inside your mind. I can't go back in time to experience them with you. You claim these a evidence, but they're evidence too no one but yourself because you're the only one that experienced them. You can't expect others to automatically come to the same conclusions that you did without sharing your bias.1) All of them? No. Some of them? Yes.
2) Ditto.
3) I believe they have experiences. To be honest I'm not that familiar with the stories they tell to see where they are similar and where they differ (on the whole) from Christian claims. But it's already established that I believe in God and I believe there is a devil.
4), 5) & 6) If you believe in a particular God or god you have to make a decision and sometimes that is the criterion. But I didn't come to my belief in God based on someone else's say-so (well, yes I did but it was God's, not a human being's.) If they line up with my belief then yes I would tend to believe that it comes from God. That does not mean I believe that every experience claimed is real or that every experience that is claimed to be from the God of the Bible actually is. And like I said, just because I don't believe their experiences were generated by God doesn't mean I don't think they had an experience of some kind.Cherry picking appears to be the great past time of believers, yet we find no rhyme or reason to their choices other than what they want to believe.
A pattern is emerging. Every time I thank you for making me laugh I just have to wait for another post or two and you say something even funnier!
You're browbeating me by asking me the same questions over and over again even though I've already answered them. Instead of exploring the entire situation and making a decision based on that, you seem to want me to give you the quick yes/no answer by which I can be boxed into whatever straw man argument that can be made.
In other words, you're here to beat around the bush and not provide the evidence you claim exists, but you'll keep claiming, nonetheless.
Actually my day was going pretty well, but thanks for the laugh anyway!
Question: How would you answer the question "Prove to me that God exists"? Thanks
Response: The first thing that should be pointed out in your question about proving the existence of God is that there exists an entire sub-field of theology known as "apologetics" which is, theoretically, devoted to answering this and similar questions. I am not specially trained in apologetics, and do not necessarily share its enthusiasms, but I will give the best answer I can to this question, from my own discrete point of view, that is.
Let me start with an historical example. During the Reformation, John Calvin wrote an extensive, multi-volume treatise known by the English title "Institutes of the Christian Religion". In this work, by many accounts his "magnum opus" (though his commentaries are even more extensive), Calvin sought to prove through the most diligent and scholarly research that the "Church Fathers" of yesteryear, far from being at odds with the doctrines being proclaimed by the reformers, were actually in essential agreement with them. For it was in reality the Roman Catholic Church which had strayed from the principles and practices of the traditional faith. This is a highly polished and incredibly detailed work, an exhaustive and systematic defense of the position of the reformed Church from the standpoint of traditional Church writings. Perhaps it was something that needed to be said at the time; perhaps it needed to be written. But it didn't convince the Roman Catholics that they were wrong; and, on the other hand, those who were convinced from scripture, conscience, and the Holy Spirit of the rightness of breaking away from Rome hardly needed the support of scholars and Church-men from centuries earlier to believe what they had already believed. As I say, there were reasons for this sort of thing at this time, when the reformist movement was only just getting its legs. Once opinions had hardened, however, "Institutes" became mostly a curiosity - I'm not that interested in how Roman Catholic doctrine has strayed, and they are not interested in hearing it at all.
Your question, especially the way in which you phrase it (i.e., "prove to me that ..."), really does parallel this example to a certain degree. For once a person takes this attitude ("You've got to prove it to me!"), there is really very little hope that such a person is ever going to acknowledge God. Why? Because such people have almost inevitably already faced the question of God and have already rejected Him.
Apologetics of the past were a relatively simple matter (compared to the discipline today), and very often hinged upon various arguments developed for just this purpose, namely "proving the existence of God". For example, the so-called "ontological, teleological, and anthropological" arguments advanced by philosophers and theologians of the past (see, in particular, Charles Hodges' Systematic Philosophy), "proving" that God exists logically by examination of the very nature of being, universal structure, and human design respectively. While not necessarily without worth, these arguments, to my mind, all approach the matter from the same, somewhat flawed starting point suggested above. That is to say, they are all designed to "prove it" to someone who is no longer listening, and such a thing is generally an impossibility. Human beings have a long and noted track record for being able to ignore the truth and the facts (about anything) when it suits them to do so for whatever reason.
Even more to the point here is what I believe to be the biblical assessment of this issue. In my reading of scripture, God created all mankind with an innate capacity for understanding and appreciating Him (cf. Eccl.3:11; Acts 17:27). More than this, He also brings every person (of competent and therefore responsible mentality) to the point of recognizing His existence at some time in their life, for it is His desire for all to know Him and choose for Him (Ezek.18:23; Matt.18:14; Jn.12:47; 1Tim.2:4; 2Tim.2:24-26; 2Pet.3:9). If this is this is the case (and, as I say, I believe this is the scriptural position), then it is unnecessary for us to "prove it" to anyone. For, in the first place, we can't really prove anything to anybody through our own efforts - it is the Spirit of God who makes these issues clear, and those who will not respond to God's Spirit certainly will not respond to us either, no matter how solid our logic or how persuasive our rhetoric. In the second place, in such cases God has most likely already made the truth of Himself quite clear to the people who say this sort of thing to us. To attempt to "prove God's existence" to unbelievers who have already rejected the idea of having any relationship with God at all (and are now even proudly proclaiming His non-existence) may fall into the category of casting "pearls before swine". For in such cases, the best we can hope for is a mere trampling of our truths underfoot. In the worst case, should our words cut to the quick, we stand to be trampled ourselves! And all for the sake of people whose negativity to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ is evident enough in the very challenge "prove it to me". I am not saying we should not be zealous to witness for our Lord, only that we have been commanded by Him to exercise judgment and prudence when confronted with extreme cases like this. Sometimes a simple question that makes such people think twice is the best approach (e.g., "Isn't the fact that you can open your eyes and see a miracle?"). For such people have known about God - it is simply that they have chosen against Him and His Son and are now seeking to justify their choice.
That all do in fact come to be aware of His existence is clear from scripture:
The heavens recount the glory of God, and the firmament tells of the work of His hands. One day after another pours forth [His] words, and one night after another declares [His] knowledge. There is no tongue or culture that cannot understand their voice (i.e., of the heavens/firmament). Their design has gone out into (i.e., "is visible throughout") the entire earth, and their words to the end of the world. He has set a tent for the sun within them (i.e., hidden it in the heavens/firmament's night sky), and from this it goes forth like a [resplendent] bridegroom from his [wedding] canopy. [The sun] exults to run its course like an athlete [does]. Its starting line is at one end of the heavens, and its circuit [takes it] to the ends [of the sky]. And nothing is hidden from its view.
Psalm 19:1-6
God's wrath is about to be revealed from heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness – on men who suppress the truth [about God] in their unrighteousness. For that which can be known about God [from everyday experience] is obvious to them, because God has made it obvious. His nature, though invisible, is nevertheless plainly apparent, and has been since His foundation of the world, for it may be clearly inferred from this creation of His – [this is true of] both His eternal power and His divinity – so that they are without any excuse: they knew about God, but they neither honored Him as God nor thanked Him. Instead, they gave themselves over to [the] vanity [of this world] in their speculations, and their senseless hearts were filled with darkness. Claiming to be wise, they became foolish, for they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for images and likenesses of corruptible men, of birds and beasts and reptiles.
Romans 1:18-23
I have seen all the work that God has given Man to occupy himself with. [God] has made everything beautiful in its [limited] time; but He has also placed [the notion of] eternity in the hearts of mankind – and [He has done this], moreover, without Man being able to discover the work which God has done from the beginning unto the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:10-11
Psalm 19 shows that God has placed innumerable witnesses to Himself throughout His creation which are impossible for mankind to refute (the heavenly bodies being merely the most dramatic). The Romans passage states explicitly that "consciousness of God" is universal, while the Ecclesiastes passage explains that this is because God has placed the spark "of eternity" in the heart of every human being.
Therefore, those who say they don't believe in God have made the conscious decision to reject truth which at one point they knew in their hearts to be true. That is a sobering and important perspective for Christians to have and hold. Those who claim that this is not the case, therefore, are either liars or have truly hardened their hearts to such an intense degree that they have actually forgotten the moment when they became completely aware of God's existence. Sadly, this is far from uncommon. Like the Pharaoh of the Exodus, many have indeed chosen to use their free will to blot out knowledge of the truth within them rather than to respond to it, in spite of the fact that this truth was made decisively clear to them.
Prove the existence of God? One might as well set out to prove that the sun rises and sets. Everyone knows that this is true (and how can you possibly convince contrarians who may choose to reject what is so patently obvious?). Yes, everyone knows that "He is" - at least at some point and for some moment, however short. The real question, for those who have determined not to reject this truth, is what to do next, and that question can be summed in the name of names, Jesus Christ.
(copy paste from: http://ichthys.com/mail-existence%20of%20God.htm)Sun rises and sets? Don't you know it is the earth that rotates and it is the horizon that "sets" not the sun rising?
Just because you trust the bible and the people who wrote it, just because you suppose those ancients who didn't even know the treatment of tuberculosis or leprosy nor knew how to fly nor knew computer, knows better than you and are trustworthy, why should anybody else do that?The question of course has nothing to do with religion, which is as you said man made. The proof that God exists really is determined by your definition of God. God to me, refers more to the energy or life force within everything. That energy whatever it is has to have a source. That source to me is a higher power, superior intellect or perhaps what people refer to as God. I just see the complexity of life and know that there has to be some sort of beginning or creator. That is pure logic. Perhaps our creators are another race of aliens, perhaps we are a virus in relative terms. Whatever we are we can't have just existed. There must logically be a beginning and that is what I could refer to as God. We are indeed proof that there is a God, in that context.
Certainly. So what is the objective definition of god?
OK, lets agree for the time being, though that is not an objective definition.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? We might be a virus in relation to god, then obviously you say that creator is a complex being. And according to you a complex thing needs a creator which is more complex. What you are saying is that all complex things except god need a creator and god does not need a creator because he is [i]very complex[/i[.
If you are saying that about mankind, yes we had a beginning. But why should we suppose that we are "made"? And am I to understand that you agree that the universe was always here?If God does not exist, life is ultimately meaningless. If your life is doomed to end in death, then ultimately it does not matter how you live. In the end it makes no ultimate difference whether you existed or not. Sure, your life might have a relative significance in that you influenced others or affected the course of history. But ultimately mankind is doomed to perish in the heat death of the universe. Ultimately it makes no difference who you are or what you do. Your life is inconsequential.
You can do whatever you want to do. Moral values has no meaning. Because life is a chance happening. Killing is a chance happening, raping is a chance happening, abusing and kidnapings are chance happening and does not have to prevent it. Kill, eat, covet, and die. Because every act is meaning less and chance happening.
Thus, the contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the research of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race—ultimately all these come to nothing. Thus, if atheism is true, life is ultimately meaningless.
Atheists face a big dilemma when they point at things in the world and say, “God would not allow this evil to take place.”
Here’s the problem. There can be no such thing as evil apart from the existence of God. Why not?
Without God, without a moral law giver, we would not have any objective (real) standards (laws) by which we might deem something to be evil. We would not be able to conclusively say, “Kidnapping children and murdering them is evil.”
We could say, "We don't like these things." But we could not call that kind of behavior evil (that which is morally wrong). It would just be a matter of opinion (one man's opinion against another's).
In an atheistic universe, where no moral laws really exist, there could be no such thing as evil. And yet evil does exist! The existence of evil is the number one reason most atheists give as to why they don’t believe in God. They are convinced that there is evil. They point to things like slavery, racism, rape, kidnapping, molesting children, murder, and they say, “These things are truly evil.” And rightly so! These things are evil!
Well, it is this evil that actually exists that verifies there is an actual, objective, real moral law in the universe. But there can be no such thing as an objective moral law apart from a moral law giver, God.
So as complex as this might sound, the reality of evil is actually evidence for the existence of God, not against it.Here we go once again. We have a person who knows nothing about Atheism telling us all about it. I wonder where he got all his information from? Oh well, I guess I'll get back to my meaningless, doomed, immoral life of killing, raping, kidnaping and coveting. Somehow with all of that we manage to stay out of the prison system at a far greater rate than Christians.
I guess me and Devon will have to go ahead and serve that baby for dinner tonight. I had SO hoped that we were moving away from it. It's really rich and flavorful, but you can have too much of a good thing.
Well, hope it works, but I thought baby goes straight to your hips
lol what else are all of us immoral, evil atheists supposed to eat?
We have to love the logic that states we know God exists because evil exists. It's just like saying we know spiderman exists because bad guys exist.
I thought that we knew spiderman exists because New York City exists, and obviously if it's a real place, then all of the stories about it MUST be true.
No.. Spiderman exists because I've seen a guy running around on TV wearing red and blue (and sometimes black) tights.
You watch a lot of TV that includes men in tights? Not that there is anything wrong with that!
not a lot.. I was flipping channels an saw this dude swinging on a web and decided to watch.. he was fighting this old man with 8 metallic appendages growing from his back
Did you just tell a women to watch her diet? She'll eat you for that you know.
I was just saying.. She was saying that since she was such an atheist that she was going to go back to eating babies and being the friend I am I was reminding her that babies go to her hips..Then again, That might not be too bad from behind
We certainly were not discussing evil or meaning, but logic or the lack of it in your argument..
Now that you have pointed it out, let me ask you some questions?
If there is no god, will you behave evil?
Bad people will behave badly irrespective of whether there is a god or not and good will do good. Or are you telling me that you will go about murdering, thieving and raping if it is proved to you that there is no god?
Throughout history as mankind evolved, the importance of priests and gods decreased in society, it has become more moral and good. Earlier there were sacrifices, including human sacrifices in the name of god.
So it is not god, but a good police force that is needed to prevent crimes.
And you also know that, in animals that live in groups, there are rules they follow without the help of any god? For example a pride will take care of the injured among them, and lionesses milk all young irrespective of whether they are theirs or not and a pride members do not harm each other without any god or religion or morals.
Are you proposing god, just to have a meaning in life?
Knowing that it is a falsehood, how will that entail any meaning to your life?
And meaning of life for each is different and people define it individually. Bhagat Singh's, an atheist, and Gandhi's, a theist, meaning of life were the independence of their country.
So in proposing that without god men's life will be immoral and meaningless(in spite of great number of atheists who were moral and had meaningful lives) aren't you saying that you yourself will be immoral and your life will be meaningless without the concept of god imposed on you?
So, according to the believer, life is "meaningful" if one accepts blind obedience as their lifestyle, never having to think or learn anything.
So what? We all share that ultimate heat death of the universe. Obviously, if one embraces religion, they are terrified of such an ending and must resort to fabricating nonsense and lies in order to make themselves feel special.
Yes, we understand believers have no concept of morals and ethics and where they are derived, hence they assume it's all doom and gloom without their fairy tales to provide meaning.
And, we point at Christians who praise their gods for finding their car keys or getting them out of traffic jams.
Hilarious, you're saying that if one doesn't follow your God's so-called moral standards, we would all immediately kidnap and murder children.
And yet, crime statistics are much higher in those places with higher religious population.
Many of those "evil" things are supported in the Bible by your God.
That is because your God is pure evil.Clarification:(these is an editing of the last post which I forgot to add)
We were discussing the definition of god, not about evil. I didn't ask anything about evil.
Evil has nothing for or against god, but let me ask you one simple question,
Do you love your parents because they are your parents or because god told you so?
Energy has been studied, understood and defined there are no definitions that include gods in energy.
No, that is a fallacy, it's called an argument from incredulity littered with appeals to belief.
Your conclusions are not only fallacious, they are biased. You allow for no other alternatives other than invisible super daddies.
I"m not interested in your copy and paste. I've studied apologetics in college, and I've studied counter apologetics for the rest of my adult life, and I've heard it all before. The existence of evil does not prove that god exists. It's special pleading, and ultimately irrelevant. Free will can exist without evil. Christians believe that they will have free will in heaven, and heaven has no evil. Free will can also exist with absolute knowledge. God can make himself known to all of humanity, and humanity would still retain their free will. Knowing something exists (and we don't know that a god exists, let alone a specific one) still leaves us with a choice of whether or not to worship that deity. I want the evidence, not philosophical, repeated, cut and pasted rhetoric. It's pretty amateur.
You cannot use circular logic to say that in order for morals to exist, there must be a source for those morals. That source is "obviously" a moral law-giver, therefore since we have morals, there MUST be a god. It's self-confirmation bias, circular reasoning and completely flawed. Atheists are not immoral, evil people. We don't eat babies. We don't just go out and do whatever we want. Morality is a by-product of evolution, because we had to learn to coexist as a species. IMO the "moral" argument is one of the weakest arguments in the apologist handbook.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php? … l_argument
I believe the bible says Jesus says the end will come before his generation dies. That didn't happen. It also says prayer can move mountains, that certainly doesn't happen.
He said that if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can tell the mountain to throw itself into the sea and it will do so. And how do you know? I've seen some awesome things. Not a literal moving mountain, but some stone-like people have certainly been moved.
If that is true, pray for god to reveal himself in an undeniable way to me and rad. Ask god to tell you what you should say next to convince us. If it is his will that all should be saved and ifyou ask anything in his name, you shall receive, you should expect an answer. I'm honest enough to admit when our if I've been stumped. How big is YOUR faith, Chris. Bigger than a mustard seed?
Excellent tactic! Turning it back on the messenger, always very good! Notice how well that worked for getitrite?
How do you know I haven't? And how do you know that He hasn't? Even if He hasn't yet, doesn't mean He won't. How big IS my faith? Do you really feel prepared to judge it?I'm not judging you or browbeating you, Chris. I don't understand why you're rushing to be the persecuted victim when you're in the overwhelming majority.
If you have, then your god has not answered you. I keep waiting for actual evidence. I'm sorry, but you claim that your personal experiences that you CHOOSE (by your own words, not mine) to attribute to the god that you believe in are proof. Fine. They're proof for you. I have no way of verifying that they actually happened or what took place. I have no way of knowing if you even are who you say you are. I have no way of knowing anything except to just take your word for it with no confirming evidence whatsoever and just believe everything that you claim to have experienced - and then believe that the source is what you claim it is. I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. Why do you think that god singled you out to talk to? What about the other several billion people in the world? Out of those billion, a fraction claim to have had a personal experience with a god. Out of that fraction, and even smaller fraction claim to have a personal experience with a god that is the same god that you believe in. Some of them are in prison right now for drowning their children in bathtubs because god told them to kill their children.
I'm not "turning it back on the messenger" in the same way Getit did, and the defensive, aggressive and/or sarcastic response isn't doing you any favors. I don't think that's fair of you. I'm not calling you names. I'm not being derogatory or demeaning, I'm just questioning you, and trying get the real, underlying answer the only way i know how. I'm being respectful. I'm just looking for an actual answer from you. And since this is (once again) turning into what feels like an argument with someone insisting on being defensive and not an actual productive conversation, it's time once again for me to bow out and back off. If you didn't want to answer or couldn't answer you could have just said so, you know.I'm really not. Either of those things. But, apart from the fact that a majority of people in the US SAY they are Christian, that encompasses a lot, from people who make me look like Timothy Leary to Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons (meaning people whose beliefs directly contradict the Bible.) I will cop to maybe overreacting a bit, as getitrite has tried similar tactics often enough and I respect you more than I respect him (I think it's a him. I've been surprised a couple of times lately.)
And even my relatively mild, low-key brand of Calvinism is on the wane, so I definitely don't feel like I'm in the majority.God didn't "single me out." I have never believed that I'm some specially anointed messenger, because I'm not. There are literally millions of other people in the world who have heard His voice, one way or another (let me repeat that I have never heard a literal voice.)
If you're going to start arguing that you don't really know whether I'm who I say I am or that anything I claim has actually happened, then you need to decide. Either you're going to "have faith" (no pun intended) that I'm genuine or you're going to have to decide that I'm not. Deciding that I'm the real deal (meaning that a guy named Chris Neal exists who really has had all the experiences, thoughts, ponderings, studies, loves, laughter and loss that I have claimed) does not mean you agree with me, it just means that you agree that I'm here and I'm not lying (at least as far as you know.) IMO, once we start getting into this "I don't know if you even exist" argument we're veering into solipsism and we start laying the groundwork for a much more metaphysical, and ultimately pointless, debate.
I wouldn't be so quick to judge God a failure. I've often been surprised looking back at the times He had his hand on me. Do I know for a fact that you will become a believer? No. The future is not for me to see. But I do know that He works in mysterious ways indeed...Ah yes, the same nonsense again. God does things for me because I'm special, and to hell with those who are not special.
Ah! Finally you talk about yourself, even if you cloak it in religious language!
I loved it when getitrite did that too!Actually Chris, I think he's making perfect sense. Many Christians (not you) claim God helps them in all kinds of ways including everything from curing cancer to organizing vacations, but they fail to see past themselves. They don't see the homeless or the victims of violence or starvation. They for some reason think that they are so special God helps them find their missing car keys, but that same God has no concern for others.
This line of thinking seems infantile if not immature.And indicative of the stinking thinking that some have when claiming their faith is stronger because God "heard" their prayer over all others.
Yes, notice that Chris had nothing to say other than some offhand remark? He knows it is true. He knows he is just as guilty for promoting that ideal as other Christians.
a) God does help people in all sorts of ways. And sometimes He doesn't, but people attribute it to Him anyway. We are supposed to praise Him in all things, and of course as a Calvinist I do believe that everything is in His hands.
b) Yes, a lot of people do fail to see past themselves. Although that can be attributed to general human failings, it's also true that a lot of American Christianity (and possibly in other countries as well but I don't know) has preached a very self-centered form of the faith. And that's more than a shame, it could lead people off into the wrong path in the general (the proverbial wide path.)
c) I'm glad you differentiate between me and "other people" (although of course I should always be examining myself to make sure I'm not falling into the same sorts of behaviors and mindsets) but ATM does not. His insults are targeted specifically at me. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre.Chris, far be it from me to give you advice, however try to be the better man.
For me, most of what ATM makes perfect sense, but I can understand where you're coming from.The "sometimes He doesn't" appears to show in tens of thousands of individuals every day as their small bloated bodies litter the landscape from starvation. Such a loving God that He helped you find your car keys all the while ignoring them.
Hence, the reason you are defenseless with nothing to say when others place a stark reality in front of you.
Yes, you have been led down the wrong path.
Another lie. Keep em coming. History awaits.I got one thing to say to you, and you would do well to remember it when you start talking to me about "small, bloated bodies."
My wife, who was a stronger believer than I am, died of cancer. It was horrible and I still cry every day.
Do not ever, for one second, think I am not aware of and/or do not think about these things.I've said this before but it's never been more true. You make my point for me. And no, I do not thank you for it. This one time if no other I think some of that common sense you tout so highly, or at least a little discretion, would have served you really, really well.
Thought I'd add something here, you can call them insults if you like, but I'd prefer observations. He doesn't target you only and specifically. Just ask Beth and every other Christian who passes by.
ATM is nothing if not an equal opportunity and consistent responder...lol
Of course, those particular Christians who feel they are being insulted personally haven't the capacity to differentiate their beliefs (which actually are not their beliefs, but the beliefs of others they have accepted) from their own arms and legs and brains.
Allow me to demonstrate...
Personal: arms, legs, brains, etc.
Non-personal: words in a book, ie. Bible, Quran, Talmud, etc.Personal: You have no defense.
Non-personal: Christians have no defense.
I'm not saying that you single me out for things that you don't say to other people. But our particular conversation has become very focused between the two of us. You rarely, if ever, make general observations about Christians when responding to me any more. You always phrase it in second person, and if you are using plural instead of singular you might want to point that out more often than every third week, and even then only to other people.
Having said that, no, I don't feel singled out by you. But it is disingenuous at best to say that you're not responding to me, specifically, with some of your statements.Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
nobody is persecuting Christians. We're disagreeing with them, and unwilling to just accept any miraculous claims they make as truth.
No one is throwing you in jail because of your religious beliefs. You are not being tortured or executed. If you were (and in some parts of the world, some christians ARE) then you could claim persecution. You cannot claim persecution (despite how much you want to) because of verbal disagreements. that's just stupid.Calling it stupid is persecution.. You should be ashamed of yourself, JM!!
Yes, of course.
All he's doing is trivializing and marginalizing the multiple people who are actually suffering because of what they believe
Did you, like, actually read my post? Do you, like, talk that way all the time? Like, when you walk into a room full of people, do you say things like that?
Hello? Anybody in there?
Yes, he targets me specifically. I'm sure he doesn't say anything to me that he hasn't said to Beth or other Christians, he and I have been going at it for a while. I have read most of what he has written (as time permits) to me and to others. But that does not mean he doesn't tailor specific statements to specific people. And even if I agree that what he does is "make observations," get real. If I think you smell funny, I can take you aside and say, "Maybe you need some deodorant." I can try to get your attention in a crowded room and point surreptitiously at my armpits, hoping you'll get the point. Or I can stand up in front of everyone and say, "You need a shower!" They're all "just observations." But do you really think that last one is tactful? Respectful? And that's pretty much what he does.
Also if you ever stop making my points for me, I will be more than happy to acknowledge that as well.
*Sigh* I suppose this is where I start trying to be "the bigger man."
So what? Delusions have been shown to toss those mountains into the sea.
You've seen some awesome things? LOL. Yes, we have all seen awesome things, but we don't automatically conclude gods.Nor do I.
I always wonder if you're really as dense as you present yourself to be.Resorting to petty insults only shows you have nothing to say and are defenseless.
I agree but that's certainly never stopped you.
Besides, in response to what you actually say to me I think my response is wholly appropriate. If you ever want to have an actual, you know, conversation then I will stop letting you know how funny I find you.
If you actually have the evidence you should be able to share the evidence in a real way. If the evidence only exists in your mind then it's not verifiable evidence.
If the evidence exists outside my mind but not in a way that I can "prove" to you (which is sometimes called paranormal or, wait for it, supernatural) then the evidence still exists. Pat write-offs about "superego" don't answer the questions of why sometimes real, actual people (as opposed to straw men) change from one mind-set to something very, very different.
And if the evidence exists only in the paranormal and can't be proven, it could just as well be only in your mind. There is no way to tell which is true; it is still quite unverifiable and thus useless.
Chris, this is exactly spot on. You claim that your evidence comes from your god, but you can't prove where it came from. You just accredit your god for it. Its equally as likely that Allah did it, or Shiva or Krishna. You can't possibly test its origins, you just demonstrate confirmation bias that it confirms to your preexisting beliefs. That's the problem I have with you're experiences in simple terms.
Not so. If you assume because you can't see it that it basically doesn't exist, then for certain purposes it is useless. If you're actually willing to examine the totality of the situation (which so far has been resisted as if to do so would automatically make you and ID'er under the very worst description of same) then very useful information might indeed be learned.
Freud's description of the superego most certainly does explain why some change there minds. If they believe and then don't (as I did) then the mind no longer or never did have a need to hid the truth of death from you. If someone doesn't believe and then does, the superego feels it has to create an illusion for the better of the mind to perhaps prevent one from worrying about death.
You have no evidence Chris, you've just convinced yourself and that's okay if it's what you need, but don't assume we all need the same thing.Ahem. I am avoiding yelling at you. But you have made a huge presumption and are acting like a jerk.
Perhaps I'm acting like a jerk, but you are calling me a jerk. I've only ever disagreed with you on your religious views and have never disrespected you by calling you names. I'd like to think I can disagree with you and have an honest conversation without one of us loosing our temper. I'm not attacking you personally as you know I have much respect for you as a father, husband and as a person. I'd like to think we can be somewhat honest about our thoughts and beliefs. I listen to you talk or type about your thoughts and thought you'd give me the same respect and not take it personal.
Let me clarify, which I have been thinking I needed to do anyway.
Your first paragraph, where you said that superego could very well describe some people, I agreed with.
Your second, where you repeated your action of claiming to know what I think and why and passing judgement on it (and if you think it didn't come across as condescending, try reversing positions) was, since we've had this particular discussion before, being a jerk.
Yes, I said it. In fact, I still like you and if we lived near each other I would come over to your barbecue
and invite you to mine. BYOB though, I'm a teetotaler.It's okay, you can call me a jerk or an a-hole as I've already admitted that I am at times both of those. I never really know when I'm being a jerk and I assure you there is no intent, but I've been called these things before and will be called them again. I've reread the paragraph in question and I'm not really sure what you found offensive, but I'll take your word that I was being a jerk.
Unfortunately, the laws of physics prohibit the supernatural because it violates the laws, which is something a believer most likely doesn't understand but must deal with in their claims of so-called evidence.
On the other hand if the laws of physics were created by an outside force then that force could indeed violate those laws, even though created beings bound by those laws could not.
Which is law of a different sort.
And is something that many non-believers seem congenitally incapable of grasping even in theory.Finally, you have something to say. It's about time.
Yes, that could very well be true, Chris. So, because we have deduced that if the laws of physics were created by a god, that god could violate those laws. That deduction must then prove that God does in fact exist, correct?Here is the problem in a nutshell. They start with the assumption that God exists as a fact and then try to find a way for it to be possible and for said God to be exactly as they describe.
Well, when you have something to say I respond appropriately. I think history will bare this out.
Yes but don't ignore the fact that a supernatural agent, one that is outside of and in fact created the physical universe including the laws governing same, can bend not only larger physical laws (and I'm sure that's not the correct term but I think you will understand what I mean) such as gravity, inertia and entropy. This same agent could be selective in how they reveal themselves and who they reveal themselves to, since, having created the human physiology and also the human psyche, they would know how to bypass physical laws and make themselves known to select subjects.While I was happy to agree with premise regarding the violation of laws, the premise that your god actually exists is another story altogether.
No, you are not special, Chris. No gods have revealed themselves to YOU, specifically.a) I have taken great pains to point out that I am not special. It was pointed out to me once or twice that I was starting to sound that way. And I appreciated when those people, who did not agree with me on religious matters but apparently enjoyed hearing me out (so to speak) took the trouble to point this out to me. I do not consider myself special. In any way shape or form.
b) Yes, God has revealed Himself to me. Your refusal to believe it is all well and good and I completely understand it. I am not asking you to believe it just because I said so. And the fact that it is true does not make me special. If I have ever claimed that it does, I apologize.No Chris, you are not special, God has not revealed himself to you, that is a lie.
*Ahem*
No, but thanks for taking the high road there. Restores my faith in you.
Tell me what do you meant by the word "God"?
Your question (Using the word "God") proves the existence of God!
More extortion, Do as I say or I'll punish you.
It's rather infantile and very embarrassing.Thank you very much for your post, youcanwin, it describes perfectly the kind of selfish, tyrannical egomaniac that is the God of the Bible, nothing short of how a despot would act and what he would demand from his followers.
And, just to be clear, that is a threat, not a warning.
Ivan the terrible or Qin Shi Huangdi? May be it is Chingis Khan..
All this characters are now only in the books brother, so forget about them and live a life for yourself and try not to direct other people's life, especially with nonsensical threats.
Last time I checked, If you beat a dog, it will either avoid you or try to tear your leg off
Your blatant contradiction and ridiculous threat have been noted. Do you enjoy making conflict, too?
" And all mankind will see God's salvation." It is something that I think would be difficult to avoid regardless of what one believes or disbelieves. Yet I like your prayer, quite humble.
No thanks. What is it you think I need saving from again? Your god?
You need saving from eternal punishment for your sins.
Right. Your god. You don't really believe that do you? And you expect me to believe that there is a god that is so petty that he punishes eternally for not believing he exists? You don't think much of your god's intellect do you?
Actually He's pretty much laid it out like that. Why would it be disrespect to believe He will do what He says He will do?
That is great!
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.So, by not living a life of sin, I am living a life of deception and lies?
You really saying you've never even thought about taking something that wasn't yours, ever? You never ever told even the teeniest little lie in your whole life? Then you're wasting your time here, you need to be out selling how-to's.
Here we see a couple of intelligent individuals, each with a different outlook on the world, their outlooks at least reasonable and arguably valid, taking up most of two Hubs, getting nowhere useful, IMHO.
Is there ever likely to be resolution? I don't think so. Change of opinion(s) can only normally take place when a need arises.
Background information is helpful because it does give a bigger picture of an individual's point of view and understanding. So we can at least gain from that.
(I will now shut up and go back to bed... it's gone 3.00am here!)
No sin means no need of salvation.
A doctor is required for the patient. Not for the healthy.
Hmm. Without regard to religion, you say? Does that mean that a Muslim that knows quite well that Jesus was just a man can still be saved without changing his religion? Or a pagan, that knows there are no gods at all? An atheist that knows the same thing - that your god is simply a figment of your imagination? Can these all be saved without becoming a Christian first?
There is no restriction on the basis of religion which you belongs to. Still you can be saved only if you believe that Jesus was/is the son of God and he died for your sins. It is same with a pagan or an atheist. They can also become a child of God and attain salvation by believing in Jesus.
Please note many atheists and other religious people are being saved every day. It is open to everybody and free for all. Come on and be saved.
Thanks for your visit and comment.Again contradiction, you say there is no restriction based on religion then say one has to believe in jesus. So which is it?
religion and restrictions are hand in hand. believing that some god let his kid be killed to save us and then saying in order to be saved you have to worship him isn't only a restriction, it's the ultimate control weapon. it's all absurd.
Is it a control weapon or a complete submission to the higher authority? When you work with an organization, you have to obey the authority. You submit yourselves to do the work for an earing. It is just like that. We submit ourselves to the all powerful God for our salvation. You are free to rebel or obey the commandments. It is your choice.
On the contrary, there is a genuine depth to the entire thing that is missed so often by so many, both within and without the church (body of believers.) God has laid out His plan. Of course there is submission, there has to be, but a true relationship with God, which is reciprocal, is a sweet thing, full of depth and warmth.
Of course a Muslim who believe in Jesus can go to heaven. Many Muslims does so. Change in the heart that God look for...
Can paradox exist?
Yes.
But the Bible has made it clear that you must accept Jesus in order to be saved. So the direct answer to your question is no.
Can you prove historically that jesus came into the world at all - let alone that he was the son of god?
If the Gospels are so false, then why are there no documents from that era stating so? And don't give me junk about them being buried by the Nicene Council or anything all "Da Vinci Code" like that. Fragments would have survived. No earthly power, no matter how ubiquitous or aggressive, has ever been able to completely eradicate sources of conflict with itself. And the church is certainly no exception.
are you kidding? The gospels have been ridiculed by contemporary people ever since they surfaced.
Just so I know where we're starting from -
who wrote the gospels and when?Yes, but there was never anything written saying "Joshua was there and none of that happened," or "Rabbi Michael was in the Sanhedrin and Jesus never entered the Temple and did that."
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Between 30 and 60 years after the crufixion.have you ever told someone something, then asked them to repeat it in 30 years? how much is it like the thing you originally told them?
Try a smaller example. Have you ever played telephone? a group of people sit in a circle. The first person whispers a sentence to the person next to them, so forth and so on - then the last person says what they heard out loud and everyone has a good laugh - why? Because it's NOTHING LIKE the original sentence at all. That's only in the space of 5-10 minutes.
Contemporary secularists of the gospels ridiculed the things they got wrong - like geography or topography. For example, in one of the gospels, it says that jesus went from one city to another city - by way of a third city. The problem is, that third city is 50 miles away in the opposite direction. Or another example - the sea of galilee isn't a sea. Contemporary writers were mocking it from the moment it was written down, and the sea of galilee wasn't called a sea at all until the gospels were written.
There were dozens of contemporary historians in the area that discussed (often in great detail) other "messiah" figures, but none of them mention jesus at all. Not his miracles. Not his teachings. not his entry into jerusalem. Not his illegal trial. Not his execution or his resurrection - or the jewish zombies that were wandering the streets when he died, not the earthquakes or the darkness. Nothing. You think that all of them just forgot to mention it?Have you ever sat through something that you've heard 1000 times before just because someone is convinced that it's absolute proof, when it's not?
Telephone, 30 years, you might as well trot out the trope that the AVERAGE lifespan at that time was 40 years as a codeword for the MAXIMUM lifespan was 40 years (which is untrue) and therefor no one would have survived to tell the tale 60 years hence.
The fact is that most people in that day and age were illiterate and even those who could read depended on people's memories because writing instruments were expensive. Memories back then were developed to a degree that you rarely see now because they had to be.
Contemporary secularists want pinpoint accuracy with complete disregard for time and culture. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if the world worked that way? Things were different back then. I'm not saying the third city was somehow closer back then, I'm saying that the way people talked about things back then, they sometimes edited for content and people living in that area at that time were familiar with what was being discussed. I've as yet to meet a contemporary secularist who can point to the thousands of papers from antiquity that got it 100% right and these poor stone aged herdsman were so stupid.
And, just like everything else you've mentioned, the "other messiahs" are both well known and well discussed among modern theologians and apologists. Many Jews cite the case of Bar Kochba as a good reason why Jesus couldn't be the Messiah.
Yeah, people have been ridculing the Gospels since they were written. But three of the writers claim eye-witness to some or all of the events described (Mark is thought to be Peter's story, with a little bit of stuff that Mark would have seen first-hand like Gethsemane) while Luke claimed to thoroughly research everything he wrote about. And there are no contradicting scholars, nobody saying that it didn't happen, only that it's ridiculous.Nobody saying that unicorns flying didn't happen either, only that it's ridiculous.
Um, you want to try again? Don't get so caught up in your own cleverness that you defeat yourself.
One need not be clever to understand nonsense as nonsense, being normal is enough.
Then stop trying to be clever in your responses because you can really trip yourself up.
Name a single unicorn story that lists specific people, at a specific time in a specific place where someone who was actually there at that time in that place could say "No, it wasn't like that" and prove it. Well, the Gospels did. Greek mythology, Celtic mythology, Norse mythology did not, but the Gospels did and did it within a time frame where people could have said "I was there" or even "my rabbi/my cousin/my friend" and refute what was written. But they didn't. It's one thing to say something is ridiculous. Lots of true, real life things sound ridiculous to lots of "normal people." It's another thing to say it's untrue and provide proof. And simply saying it's nonsense is not the same thing at all.Unfortunately there are no eyewitness accounts and all the ancient god stories have all this impossible events like god impregnating, miracles, resurrected dead people, gods and devils talking to men... unnatural 'natural events' and all these noticed by 'eyewitness' who lived half a century later.
Yes, they lived half a century later but they weren't BORN a half century later. That's just when they wrote down what they had seen a half century earlier.
You're reaching. You're making assumptions. You're not dealing directly with my point.None of them were eyewitness to Jesus birth, the angels visiting the sheperds, the sweating of blood, Pilate's wife's dream, but they made it all up. There was no Nazerath, no resurrection that too was made up, just like the stories of Zeus, or Imhotep or Dionysus..
Um, yes, there was a Nazareth. So there's one down.
As for the rest of it, I stand by what I wrote. Simply saying they made it all up is not a refutation.There was Nazareth but NO CITY/TOWN/VILLAGE CALLED Nazareth as claimed by the gospels. It was a burial site and jews do not stay near burial sites. The town was built only after 1st century.
That's the first time I heard that it was only a burial site. And obviously Jews stay "near" burial sites, town are near them all the time. I've often heard that Nazareth was incredibly small, but not that there were literally no living people there. Got a source?
Are you asking that whether somebody claims that some story actually happened?
I think you are not familiar with Hindu stories, in fact the great epic Mahabharata was written by Vyasa who himself was one character in the story and it is, as per the Indians, a true story. It too has similar myths like dead man living, miracles, magic, and all, including a god.You are correct, I do not have much familiarity with Hindu stories. Still, if that was your point, it would have been better to cite that, rather than unicorns. At least there's some academic debate there, which I'm slightly more familiar with. The unicorns thing was just kind of silly.
You are not familiar with Hindu stories so what is the point? I mentioned a story which I thought you might have heard and you are calling it silly.
If you mean the unicorn story, I pointed out how that's silly. The unicorn myths were unspecific. The Gospels are extremely specific. The Hindu stories may also be specific, I only have what you wrote, I haven't had the time to research myself. I have some familiarity with a lot of myths and sagas that supposedly the Christian story "stole" from and more often than not the differences far outweigh the similarities, or the stories themselves were changed after Jesus' death and resurrection. Obviously I'm not making that claim about the Hindu narrative. But the unicorn thing was silly.
Other cultures have their myths. How did they started it? It is the same mechanism behind Jesus too, may not be necessarily copies.
Unicorn is silly? your Jesus story appears silly to me. I can tell you about unicorn or werewolfs, I can also tell you about Asuras, devas and gandharvas all which are silly to me and may be to you(specific though) but not so for the millions of Hindus who follow that.I get where you're coming from (boy, am I old!) I only have a passing familiarity with the Hindu mythology (and I know it's not mythology to Hindus) and I understand that Jesus does seem ridiculous to a lot of people. Still, there are serious differences between the werewolf stories and the Jesus stories, serious enough that even a cursory looking into them would reveal it. So, and no offence is meant by this, people who hold up unicorns and werewolves as on par in any way with the Gospels are showing their bias more than their research, IMHO. The Hindu stories, or Mithras, or other stories like that are somewhat different, but that doesn't prove that the Gospel accounts are wrong or fictitious. Seriously, these men went to their deaths for this stuff, and that is historical. Who willingly goes to their death, their gruesome death, for a lie? Especially when it would be so easy to just recant and be done with it. Sure, they'd live in a degree of shame for a while, but honestly how many people would rather die horribly than face a bit of shame?
I grew up hearing all those stories and later read most of it that I'm familiar with these stories more than some Hindus are.
They all have miracles, it is the same with every religious stories to the present day. We have shrines, saints and pilgrimage centres(all religion) where miracles occur daily but they are no miracles.
People dying for beliefs never prove the truth of the belief but only the conviction of those who believe. Communists, terrorist like LeT, LTTE, ismailis all die for their belief, does that make such beliefs true?You have a point but there's a difference. The cases you cite are people who have heard something from someone else that they are convinced is worth dying for. The Apostles claimed to have actually seen Jesus and witnessed His miracles. In fact, after His death they all lay low, fearing for their lives. Jesus was killed, were they next? But then they inexplicably burst forth on the world with great energy. They literally changed it.
But the so called apostles are also fiction. There were no eyewitness. It is stories handed down to them that they wrote as eyewitness accounts.
Mahabharata was written by one of the characters in the story, does that make all those magic true?
And people give up their lives for various reasons. Even today Christian who never saw Jesus die in his name.Um, the Apostles were not fiction. If you stick by that point, I need your sources to weigh for myself.
Can you tell me who the apostles are? Every time they're listed, its a different list.
There is no historical documents about any apostles except for church tradition. Paul says about a Peter who was sent to the Jews but tradition says Paul went to Rome, a tradition created by a latter day bishop(Anicetus (156-166) was the one who invented the tombs of peter) of Rome to make himself superior to other bishops.
Now why is he peter? According to gospel is name is simon and jesus called him peter[And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas(Κηφᾶς)" (which, when translated, is Peter)]. But why did jesus call him peter? Petros is latin, cephas is greek but jesus was speaking Aramaic(kipha) and the pun only works in latin.
"hat thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;"
And how did jesus say church in Aramaic?Why do you say that Jesus only spoke Aramaic? That is what Muslims say. Latin and Greek were both widely spoken in the area at that time, and there is no reason to think that Jesus couldn't have known and used it. It may not have been the primary language, but the Romans spoke Latin and their servants (Jews in Palestine) did as well. The Helenists spoke Greek.
You forget that Jesus was talking to uneducated fishermen, who do not know Latin or greek, the language of educated people.
And that will not change the fact that all the apostle stories were made up. We do not even know who the apostle were!Other than Peter and James and John and Andrew, exactly who were the uneducated fisherman? Levi the tax collector, better known as Matthew? And Mark's family had some money, and Peter was his relative.
Besides, the Apostles were real people and we know who they were!It was directed to peter and he was uneducated. There is no word for church in Aramaic.
Then when a teacher, a Hebrew teacher, when teaching the uneducated or ill educated students use Greek and Latin?
Besides there is no historical documents except for church tradition about any of them?
You didn't say why peter went to Rome when he was sent to Jews according to Paul?There are tons of historical events that we believe happen on as little or less documentation. Why do we assume that "early church documentation" is so suspect?
because it is? The early church had a definite goal to accomplish, to spread their religion and give it an air of authority. There are documented cases of early church fathers destroying documents that disagree with their particular version of dogma, enhancing ones that needed a little boost and even forging documents (like the passage in Josephus that seems to mention Jesus) That almost all scholars will agree is a forgery and an addition well-after Antiquities was widespread. The early church was on an eager hunt to find proof of a historical jesus, and when none was found they invented it - or railed against the fact that early historians ignored or downplayed their "christ". It's not just agnostic or atheistic scholars that think this way. Christian historians notice it too, and they decry a lot of the early "evidence" of christ as forgeries propounded and created by the early church.
Most scholars agree that Josephus didn't call Jesus a wise man. They don't agree that it was an outright forgery. I fully believe that most of the ones you respect do, but does that really constitute most scholars?
Have you read the entire passage? Its known to be a forgery. The only debate is over how much is. The passage before it and the one after it flow perfectly together. The Jesus passage in the middle does not. It doesn't flow. The tone doesn't match. Additionally, when the early church fathers reference the work, the don't mention that passage at all - until Origen gets his hands on it, who has also been caught (and admits to) altering other texts. All of a sudden, after Origin, the Josephus passage poofs into existence. Isn't that just amazing.
Seems to me I said pretty much the same thing. It's not a total forgery. I don't argue the likelihood that Josephus would have complemented Jesus, it's not likely. The most conservative modern day historians don't think he did. But it wasn't a complete forgery.
Read the surrounding texts. Prior to the "mention" of Jesus, he was talking about a Jewish misfortune them the "Jesus" tidbit. Immediately following, Josephus says "another misfortune befell the people". What misfortune?! It was just an advertisement for Jesus. Context. It doesn't make sense. Without the passage, however, it makes perfect sense and fits with the previous statement completely.
I'll admit it's been awhile since I've read that. The last time I looked, it didn't seem any weirder to me than many old writings, but I'll go back and look that one up. It's been quite a while.
Because church has an angle to spread such beliefs as in the case of Anictus who wanted to claim superiority above Polycarp.
Secondly the what the church says is not supported by history.This is assuming that the church was some great, monolithic structure (politically speaking) from almost the very beginning. Sort of like assuming that Peter really was the first Pope, miter and scepter and throne in St. Peter's and the whole schmeer. That people were debating what Christianity is and sometimes it got heated is supported by history. That some sinister organization actively destroyed every single piece evidence contradicting their official position is not. Yet that's the position so many take. I don't understand it. If Nazi Germany and Communist Russia couldn't totally stamp out dissent, how could the church, in the Third Century, when they weren't even a temporal power?
Church didn't destroy much evidence because there was none. Why should it be monolithic structure to invent stories? The peter story though invented by Roman bishop later got incorporated into church tradition, and though for a brief time the church was only one under Constantine and rest were forced to go underground, like gnostics, from which they never recovered.
Which roman bishop? Got something I can look at?
http://www.gotquestions.org/Peter-first-pope.html
Didn't read all of it, but it's from a christian source. Took two seconds to find.I already knew all this. It doesn't address what we were talking about. Riddle666 is asserting that the "I will call you Peter and upon this rock I will build my church" was a fabrication by a roman bishop. At least that's how I understood what he (I think Riddle is a he, I could just be showing bias) was saying.
Although for the record I agree with that source you quoted.
1) Anicetus
2) calling peter was the first thing Jesus did according to john, and only peter and his brother was there. Both were uneducated fishermen, and Jesus talked to them in Latin?
3) According to Paul peter was sent to Jews not Romans.You've lost me. I know it's been a while since I did any serious research, but with the possible exception of one instance (and to date you are the one and only person who has told me this) Jesus is not recorded ever speaking Latin. Where's that coming from? Greek would not be a stretch, again Romans (Latin speakers) occupied Syria Palestine (the Roman name for Israel) and the Hellenists spoke Greek, so it's not a stretch to think that even "uneducated" people might pick up a little of both, they would have heard it.
You told Jesus might have been speaking Latin.
If Jesus was not speaking Latin why did he call Simon, Peter?
Isn't it too much to claim that an uneducated fishermen of Galilee sea (not sea) studied the Latin for not stone but rock?
Yes same pope anicetus. He was the one who 'discovered' Peter's tomb, to score over polycarp of Smyrna. No Christian nor Roman noticed peter in rome before him and as stated by Paul he was with Jews.Again, to call them uneducated does not mean they are stupid. Fishermen in the Galilee were not subsistance fishermen, the Romans were making them get as many fish as they could out of the water in order for it to be shipped to other parts of the empire. So it's not even remotely out of the realm of possibility that these men would have heard and maybe even come to understand a little Latin. I understand a little Spanish, just enough to order my favorite Mexican food (I always tell people that all the Spanish I know I learned in Mexican restaurants, despite two years of it in school.) And Greek was not that uncommon in that area. So for your argument to stand you would have to prove that Jesus and the Apostles would have had no knowledge of Latin or Greek, an argument that seems to largely stand on what I perceive to be your equating "uneducated" with "unintelligent."
As for your second point, I'm vaguely familiar with it, and it has been well discussed in Protestant theological and historical circles. I've never been taught that Peter's actual tomb was where it's claimed to be. But again, I'm a little rusty on this, so I can't comment too much on it.So when you speak to your neighbor you use spanish?
Peter was a fish merchant, who could use many languages or was he a big shot?
A carpenter and a fishermen talking latin will be a scene. Even if they use only two words they have to use "petre" and the word for "church". Not common words among fishermen or carpenters. And I said uneducated non unintelligent.
I am a post graduate and I can speak three languages fluently and two more languages awkwardly. I have friends who know more languages and different languages but I myself has never used nor has seen my friends using non-native languages to natives even educated natives.
And knowing that this peter has no evidence for his living and much of the gospel were later edited and two gospels differ in when jesus saw peter, it could only be a late addition and fantasy. And to add that jesus himself was a fantasy, his disciples could be nothing but fantasy.
Peter has never even gone to Rome, but his tomb is there. All his persona and martyrdom is "tradition", not history, made up by church. So is all his apostles.
And the major character in Acts is not peter, and the major leaders are Cephas and John but the most important person is Paul the person who "re-discovered" Jesus and Christianity. Even he is lost to history by around AD65, his martyrdom too was a story, and in the first century, christains were not differentiated from jews by romans, and if they got in persecutions it was part of being a jew and not christain and the "big stories of martyrs" are pious fiction. Of course here and there there are some fanatic idiots but as a comparison they can be compared only to people like osama bin laden(one bent on killing other on dying).
SO a few persons dying for what they believed to be true does not vouch the veracity of christian story nor negate the ridiculousness of it.You do believe in the pregnant pause, don't you?
Do I speak fluent Spanish when talking to my neighbors? No. Nor do I remember that being the point you were attempting to make. Do I sometimes use Spanish words when talking to people I know even when Spanish is not the language? Depending on context and company, yes. So your bit about fluency is, um, well, beside the point. Sort of lost the frisson if you catch my drift.
BTW, nice attempt to intimidate me with your higher education. Very subtle.
As for your second paragraph, it's been so long that I've forgotten what the original thread even was. But if people dying for what they believe does not "negate the ridiculousness" of that belief, simply making statements about their "supposed" lives does not confirm it either.Chris, you are getting more rude and condescending with each post. I don't know what's happened to you, but you might need to reevaluate your approach.
Which part was condescending? The one where I called him out for attempting to make it sound like his command of languages means that I know nothing? It probably wasn't even a conscious attempt on his part, I'll grant that, but that's how it came off. I respect people who can speak multiple languages, I wish I was one of them, but that doesn't negate my point at all. The common person is perfectly capable of picking up some words and even using them ironically or humorously depending on the situation. Back around the turn of the century, frisson, a French word, gained a bit of coin so I was using that for humorous effect to illustrate my point. So, assuming that Jesus was using Latin at all, it's not in the least improbable that He, as an "uneducated" person living in that place at that time, would have picked it up, or that the others, including the fishermen who were constantly dealing with the Latin-speaking Romans, would have picked up some Latin.
Probably more than you wanted to know, I'm sure.
And yeah, there was a long, long time between my post and his reply. That's why the "pregnant pause" response and also why I said I couldn't remember the original thread.Just the sarcasm and the little statements you make are causing me to not even want to have a conversation with you. You've done it to me, and then apologized asks said that you were wrong. Twice. Now you continue to do it to others. I'm starting to think that its just you - and the apology was either a fluke or just a strange coincidence. I do know, however, that if someone points our that I've done something wrong and I recognize it and apologize for it, then I try to not turn around and make the exact same mistake. Otherwise, what value does my apology have? Apologizing losses its meaning when you don't seem to care about doing the same thing immediately afterwards.
There have been posts of mine that you've responded to much later - or not responded at all. Sure, I could call you out on it - but what purpose does it serve?I understand and appreciate your point. The use of sarcasm is something I started doing against a lot of the people who reflexively put me down for being "uneducated" and/or a believer (which is often interchangeable in the posts.) So while I often try to give straight answers to questions, sometimes when I perceive the person to be getting more than a bit condescending themselves I become sarcastic. I don't respect it when people try to "put me in my place" so to speak. And yeah, that will turn some people off and for that I am sorry. I will admit that I'm constantly surprised by the people who claim they are at least listening to what I say. I don't always feel respected, and that's cost me at least one relationship I can think of which I regret losing. I will try to tone it down but I don't promise that I'll never do it again.
You make several very good points.
It was not a pregnant pause, I missed your reply.
It was not to intimidate but to tell you that if an educated person don't use words he is familiar with, persons who are trained as carpenter or fisherman will not.
The last part you totally missed. There was no jesus nor his followers and the persecutions and deaths started only after almost a centuary.The last part I obviously disagree with. There is a Jesus and He did have followers.
As for the first part, sorry you missed the reply. I do that too sometimes. I guess the point we are arguing turns on the word "unfamiliar." If you have constant exposure to something, you become familiar with it. It's not the familiarity of the indigenous, if that doesn't sound too pompous of a phrase, but you can still be familiar with it. That Romans did occupy Israel is not in question, nor is it in question that the Hellenists spoke Greek. So it's not improbable that "ordinary" fisherman and especially tax collectors would know some of the words, possibly even entire sentences. The Romans didn't like speaking Hebrew is my understanding, which would have been a cause for resentment among the Jewish population but would also have meant, like it or not, that they would have had to learn at least a little Latin.If there was a Jesus at all, then a) his name wasn't Jesus, and b) they're is no contemporary evidence for him.
While it may be possible to assume that people may know some Latin, its not a fair assumption to decide that he spoke it to and around his Hebrew followers.Why? Why? and Why?
Those are three separate questions by the way. And just because He would have been called Jeshua doesn't really change anything. I've never been real clear on why so many people get hung up on that fact.Chris, his name wasn't Jeshua either. Not until he died, anyway.
According to Paul in Philippians,
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[a] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
God exalted the person of Jesus after his death and gave him the name that is above every other name - the name of Jesus. Lord is not a name. Christ is not a name. Both of them are titles - the only NAME listed is Jesus, which means that whoever he was speaking about was not Jesus, not Joshua, not Jeshua - no one knows what his name was.
If the gospels were written after Paul's epistles (and they were), then they were based off of Paul's writing - since they use the name Jesus, and that was NOT a name that was granted until after his death. How would god exalt someone who was supposedly god the whole time? What would there be to exalt? If Jesus was god, he would already be exalted.
Why is there no contemporary evidence for this man who supposedly rocked the world and changed everything? I don't know, you tell me. You can either claim that he was unknown while he was alive, and his fame took root afterwards, or he was famous within his lifetime. If the previous is true, then how was he so much of a threat that not only the Jews but the Romans took enough notice of him to pursue him and execute him? If the latter is true, then why are there no contemporary accounts of him? You can't have it both ways.
As for the "dying for a lie" claim - people die for a lie all of the time. Since you don't believe that Islam is the true religion, then the hijackers that flew planes into buildings on September 11 all died for a lie. So did all of the people they killed. You don't have to KNOW it's a lie - but even in that instance, people will die for something. You can believe wholeheartedly that something is true, but that doesn't make it true. You can even be willing to die for it. In other cases, you can die willingly for something that you know to be a lie. It happened in the inquisition all the time. Once you were arrested for heresy, you were forced under torture in order to confess. People who confessed notoriously received lighter sentences, so it's safe to say that a lot of people lied under torture. If it was your second offense, however, the penalties were much more strict - and it's easy to recognize that people died for a lie that they told under torture when they tried to save their hides. You can also lie and name others who conspired with you, in which case not only YOU are dying for your lie - other people are as well. You could also be executed for NOT naming others, even if you knew other guilty parties, in which case you're still dying for a lie.
Thirdly, christianity did NOT grow and spread like wildfire from the time of Jesus' death until Constantine. It was a fringe cult, with no more than a handful of followers in any city for over two hundred years. This is well documented in the historical record, and I have a wonderful book on the subject. Most of the early christians did NOT accept Jesus as the son of god by birth. They either believed like the Philippian hymn above that god adopted him because of his faithfulness in death, or that he was adopted by god at the moment of his baptism. there was not one christianity - there were hundreds. The doctrines of christianity itself did not begin with christ or the apostles - they already existed - and a lot of christian doctrines from the early church (and today) were extrapolated from earlier pagan traditions.
There is no evidence that a man named jesus christ from nazarath ever existed at all. All you have are the after effects of people who already believed in him, who were determined to find anything possible to validate and prove that their already held beliefs were valid - even if it meant forging, extrapolating and inventing evidence about him, as evidenced from a large portion of early christian writings where they admit to doing just that, and accusing and ridiculing early historical writers who fail to mention their savior.I'll admit you lost me there. Jesus (actually Yeshua) was the man's given name, the name Mary and Joseph and the crowds would have known Him by. The name was bestowed upon Him after death. And yes, Lord is a title but it is also a name by which many people refer to God (myself included.) This text is one of the bases for the formulation of the Doctrine of Trinity.
I never said they weren't. That's Paul's epistles came first is not in any doubt. That's an assumption based on an extrapolation. I've never heard that one before. I even watched that whole series that PBS put on that was put together by the Jesus Seminar, and I heard the "Super Moses" theory but I never heard what you just wrote. Even the extrapolation is an assumption.
That would be the Gospels. Though they weren't written at the time of His walking the earth, they were written in response to people wanting to know more about Him by people who walked with Him (or who knew people who did. Mark and Luke both had access to the Apostles.) He was famous in his lifetime in a small section of the world, then it got bigger after His death and resurrection. A small section of the world where people told each other the news verbally, didn't read it in books. There were no printing presses. (BTW - my answer to the "Telephone" hypothesis is Benjamin Banneker. When Pierre Charles L'Enfant resigned the District of Columbia commission and took all the original plans with him, Banneker drew them all up again from memory. So that kind of memory is entirely possible.)
Huh? No, that's a big, big stretch. I've read it twice and it still doesn't make sense. Muslims who die for their beliefs are not dying for something they knew to be a lie. But what I read and hear all the time is that the Apostles knew Jesus never came back. Therefor they all died to spread a lie. But they didn't. As for the Inquisition, what I said was that they could have saved their skins by denying Christ, and then in shame after exposure they wouldn't have gone around spreading what they knew to be a lie. You're saying that under extreme duress (not unlike Nazi Germany or camps run by both sides in the Middle East) people will say things they know to be untrue to save their skins. Granted that's true, how is it the same thing? And yeah, some people give up others to get better treatment, again how's that the same thing? It's not a one-to-one comparison.
I never said it did. Granted, I never said it DIDN'T, but don't assume that I believe it did. No reliable historian of any stripe has made that assumption, at least not in the modern era. Me too! More than one! Most? I agree that "many" but "most" is a pretty strong statement. Nevertheless, that's why the Gospels were written, so that those who were actually there could correct the misperceptions of those who were not. Again, that's something that I've written time and time and time again. That's not in question. What's apparently up for debate is whether the fact that many early Christians adapted or simply imported pagan practices into early Christianity means that Christianity itself is just a disguised pagan religion, which it's not.
That's pretty strong. You've got to have something to show me that Matthew and John never existed, let alone that they never walked with Jesus at all.I'll admit you lost me there. Jesus (actually Yeshua) was the man's given name, the name Mary and
How do you know that? Before the Gospels tell you so? The name JESUS was bestowed on him after death. Lord is not a name, Chris. Lord is a given TITLE, but the Name is Jesus - Just like the hymn says. I don't know what the super moses theory is, but if you're trying to make this out to be an absurd claim, it's not. I don't know why you've never heard it before, but just because you haven't does not make it "out there". Try to separate yourself from what you already believe to be true, and read the hymn again from that perspective. For those who had never heard anything about Jesus up until this point, what do you think it would sound like to them?
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The gospels are not contemporary evidence for the person that they're written about. They're not self-confirming. There are no independent contemporary accounts that confirm the gospels at all - and for that matter, the gospels don't even confirm themselves because they disagree so often. I sincerely think that you would be a good candidate for the easter challenge by former Pentecostal preacher Dan Barker. There's a $1000 reward for ANYONE who can write a chronological account of the easter story without leaving any of the details from all four gospels out and without contradicting anything. You should try it. Just because the gospels (and for that matter the entire bible) claims it is true does not make it true - and when you have nothing else at all to confirm anything in it, it begins to be a problem.
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Chris, I never said that the apostles KNEW that jesus had not been resurrected, but they went on telling the story anyway. Now you are assuming things that I didn't say. In fact, what I said was "You don't have to KNOW it's a lie - but even in that instance, people will die for something. You can believe wholeheartedly that something is true, but that doesn't make it true. You can even be willing to die for it" Muslim extremists that become suicide bombers fully believe, I'm sure, that their beliefs are true - but that does not MAKE their beliefs true. In fact, since they're worshiping the wrong god, according to you, they ARE in fact, dying for a lie - are they not? The whole religion is a lie - according to christianity and every other religion that claims to be the true faith - is it not? Islam would say the same thing about christianity and judaism. They can't ALL be true - which makes it possible that one (or all) of them are lies. Yet people die for all three. they're dying for a lie. What I don't understand is how you can point out that you read what I wrote more than once, miss what I said completely and then assume that I said something that I didn't say at all. You can believe something that turns out to be a lie, but you could still be willing to die for it because you believe it to be true.
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You're asserting that christianity is NOT an imported pagan religion. How do you know? Or are you just asserting that to be truth because you want it to be?
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I never said that matthew and john never existed or walked with jesus - I don't know where you got that from. Maybe you were responding to something someone else said. What I did say is that there is no evidence that a Jesus from Nazarath existed at all, and if Jesus never existed, then it makes sense that his 12 apostles didn't exist in the manner in which they're portrayed either. If you're referring to the gospels of matthew and john - they weren't actually written by matthew and john at all - so no. It doesn't matter.I think that most people would use common sense and assume that a man named Jesus was walking the earth. They may or may not believe that He is God, but to claim that the name Jesus was given to Him after death is a bit absurd. What would He have been called as a child, "Hey you?"
If not many people espouse a theory, then it may not be "out there" but it's certainly not "in here."
The Super Moses Theory is simply the theory that Christians took the Moses stories and magnified them and applied them to Jesus. I've only heard it one place, so I wouldn't say it's wide-spread, but it was a very, very public place I heard it.
We take a lot of ancient documents that have no other confirmation as valid. Yet we reject the Gospels because there aren't fifty of them written during Jesus' lifetime? How's that again? Why do we apply a different standard to the Gospels than to Herodotus?
And again, Muslim suicide bombers don't claim to have walked around with Mohammed. Peter and John did. That's a huge and hugely important difference. Your analogy is fallacious. When you find a better one, then let's talk.
Only if your assertion is equally based on personal desire (that would be a "no" for you literalists and wannabe muckrakers out there.) Many people have studied the relationship between Christianity and Judaism and many have made the comparisons between Christianity and pagan religions and found them wanting. In many cases the idea that Christianity aped some pagan religion is actually reversed, where the pagan religion took on Christian overtones after more people started converting.
All right, I'll bite. Just who did write Matthew and John?
I am from India, and we use a lot many English words even in normal speech. But the words like "stone" are not used for it is the common term. And there is "no church" in israel so they do not have to use it. ANd before we use any term we have to know that the other person is also familiar with the terms, but according to gospel jesus was seeing peter for the first time there.
There is no evidence for jesus "as in gospels" and nothing about the apostles. No one even knows the name of all them. The current 12 and what they did is by "tradition" that is fiction. Peter according to letters by paul was sent to jews, but "tradition" says he went to rome to die. Even paul went to rome to "die" there, tradition not history. Even if we accept there was jesus and his followers, follwers dying for the teacher will not prove the veracity of the teachings nor will prove that the events described happen as such. Man is prone for exaggeration and bias. Not many people of that time knew "bias" or psychology nor statistical analysis nor archeology.I'll admit you lose me in a few places here. What "bias" or statistical analysis or acheology (as pertains to what 1st century people would have known of it) has to do with this I'm really not clear.
According to the Gospels, Jesus is God. He knew many of them before He ever met them face to face. So for your assumption to hold up He would have had to be just a man, which He isn't.
All twelve are named, so I'm not sure what you're getting at there.
Your arguments about language make just as many assumptions as you say I make. You assume that "uneducated" Jews would be unfamiliar with different words. Why?
Tradition exists for a reason.
And yeah, everyone I talk to (figuratively) will at some point say something to the effect that just because people were willing to die doesn't prove they were right. Okay, but it doesn't mean they were wrong either. We're talking about men who were literally cowering in an upper room after watching their teacher suffer the most painful, humiliating death imaginable, wondering if they were next. Which, back then, would not have been an unreasonable thing to wonder. I mean, they watched Him die. So we're not talking the Raliens who gave their lives for a belief that never was challenged. And then suddenly they burst out with such vigor that they were willing to travel to distant lands and die for this? For a guy who, if there was no resurrection, was just another in a line of wannabe Messiahs, no different really from Bar Kochva? They gave their lives for what? But if there was a resurrection, that would explain a lot. It would certainly explain why a small group of men following a disgraced and executed leader would be willing to give their lives for that. If it was all a lie, they wouldn't have given their lives for that.Can you name all the apostles from all the gospels?
Tradition is good, but there is no historical evidence that there were this people and they went to the places mentioned by the tradition. These made up people saw the made up death of their teacher, but again there is no evidence. And the birth of Christianity was not forceful and fast as you want. It took a century for Christians to get a decent number of followers and even then, as it is now, it was not a single sect but a different sects rivaling each other.
Humans are prone for exaggeration. The latter day writers and followers simply accepted those before them and added their own stories to it. They never checked the facts. As people of those time didn't know about bias and all they believed magic can take place they accepted all the miracle and resurrection stories.
As per gospel jesus might be god, but according to history and logic, if he lived then he was just a man.
But the jesus of nazerath, the jesus of gospel is not a person who ever lived.On the contrary, not only did He live, He is alive today.
Surely, he lived then just as he is living now - inside the minds of his followers. Other than that he never had a physical existence.
It is just faith and it is only faith all the charlatans asked all through out the history. They knew, once they are believed, money and power will follow without any prompting.No, He has a corporeal body in Heaven just the same way He did on earth.
As heaven itself is non physical, a concept, I agree.
Regarding the apostles dying for, there was no apostle to die for, that's a later invention. Even the first gospel, mark, stopped just after death. "Resurrection" is Paul's contribution[It was spiritual death and resurrection for paul and later body and other embellishments were added on and it became a bodily death and resurrection and Ascension varied from the same day to 40 days]. By the time there was a proper resurrection story, by the time people started to distinguish christianity from jewish religion[for the Romans, all were jews and for jews they were a fringe sect(sects actually, for there were many with different beliefs some even claiming that jesus didn't die on cross)], by the the time people started to die for jesus there was none who could claim to have seen jesus.
And the evolution of jesus story is clear from the gospels itself, in mark he was just an anointed one while in john he is a full blown god who was along with god and is god.
If there ever was a jesus who contributed to the story (jesus ben Pandira or Ananus are real candidates) he is not the jesus mentioned in gospel.Heaven is not a concept. The physical description we have of Heaven is for a future time, we don't know what it looks like right now, but it's a real place.
Where?
How does one get there?
What do one do there?
It is a hope, hope of humans to live forever.You get there by believing in Jesus so that when you die, you go to Heaven. I do believe that we have souls. So if it's not a physical place that we can find right now, that doesn't mean it's just a concept.
The Hindus and Muslims say differently.
Though you believe there is soul, there is none. That also is hope.
Will an alien hand syndrome patient go to heaven whose one side of brain believe in jesus while the other don't?
Will a multiple personality disorder patient whose one personality is atheistic while the other is Christian?
Will a person who is genetically programmed to have "anti social personality disorder" goes to heaven?
Will a rapist goes to heaven if he believe in jesus?I don't get where a lack of a soul is hope. I really don't. Explain that one to me.
I was saying that soul is also a hope, hope of humans to live eternally, just like heaven.
And yes, anti-social people can go to Heaven.
Notice I didn't apply that to every single category. At least you're asking some good questions this time.What will he do in heaven, eternally?
Will he change his personality?He will worship God.
The whole personality thing has been the subject of debate. But if he really trusted and believed in God on Earth, he will spend eterinity in God's unfiltered presence, which we do not do now. I have a hard time seeing how that wouldn't affect someone."The whole personality thing has been the subject of debate"
Then hope as usual.
It is the hope to live eternally and forgetting conveniently what i=one do in that eternity is what drives human.
Familiarity breeds contempt, heard that?
And no without negative there is no positive, only zero.
The wish to be happy always is a mirage, against human nature. If you do not die, what is the fun in doing dangerous adventures?I'll admit, you've completely lost me. I'm not even sure how to respond.
Heaven and soul are hopes.
Heaven is like the utopia, a dream but is not possible because of human nature.
Soul is another dream, that our memory and personality will continue even if we die.
But more than the hope to live it is the fear of death.
If you are to live eternally what will you do?
You assume doing nothing and having no hunger will be pleasurable. But is it?
What will you do in heaven?
What will be your personality?You are correct, if Heaven were something we could ony attain through our own selves, it would be impossible. God gives us access to Heaven as a gift if we believe in Jesus and follow Him.
I'm not sure there will be no hunger in Heaven. The Tree Of Life will be there, growing twelve different fruits. Sounds to me like we're going to eat.
I think we will still have personalities in Heaven, but the only thing I really know for sure is that we will be in the infiltered presence of God all the time. There will be no sun or moon because God will provide the light all the time. I can't imagine anything better than that.
A rapist can get to heaven, if he/she believes in Jesus. Believe that Jesus died for him at the cross and paid for his sins.
and that's what makes christianity so immoral and backwards. A rapist can ask for forgiveness on his deathbed and receive eternal reward for his belief. His victim, on the other hand, did their best to live a good life, but didn't have a belief in god when the rapist forced her against her will and then brutally killed her. She gets tortured forever in a lake of fire, while the rapist reaps eternal reward.
That sure sounds fair to me.Gaahhhh!
This is for you and IamSam and Riddle666 (and ATM and Mark Knowles and everyone else who has "dealt" with this question, on both sides.) I've staid largely out of this for the very reason that I am now getting into it. And it give me no joy.
Is there really and truly only one side to this question? Are there no nuances, extenuating circumstances, holes in the road? Is this really about the situation or are you just defending the point you have already decided in your mind?
First of all, ain't none of us God. You laugh, but that's not just a simplistic point. It's very, very easy to say that the rapist will go to Heaven simply because they believe in God and the victim will burn in hell despite being a "good person" when the rapist was obviously not. It's very, very easy to then pronounce Christianity as backward and immoral based solely on that one technical point. What is not very easy, and therefor is not often dealt with, is what that means. It's no secret that plenty of people who aren't Christian, whether they are atheist or Muslim or Hindu or whatever, are "good people." Nice, caring, compassionate, not wanting to hurt anyone and certainly not deserving of being forced to submit to someone in that way. But God has made it pretty clear that if they didn't need Him on earth, and they've had plenty of warning and opportunity, then they don't get a mulligan and into Heaven on any sort of technicality. This may sound a bit cold, but speaking about the afterlife, and the afterlife only, no matter how "good" or "bad" they were on earth they've been told what will happen afterwards. Conversely, if the rapist REALLY believes in Jesus (which is a big "if") and is really repentant for what they've done, then yes they get in. IF. Lots of people SAY they believe when they don't. Some don't understand what they're saying, and some are simply mouthing it. But God is not fooled. He knows what the rapist is really thinking and feeling. And Jesus made it clear in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, as well as other places, that many people who think they are following Him are in fact going to the other place.
It's easy for us to assume what is good and bad. To think we know a person's heart. And to make absolute judgements based upon theoretical situations that we have no actual knowledge of. But God doesn't work that way.
And if anyone thinks I believe the matter is now settled, you don't know me very well.
And can he continue that it heaven?
And they say region is needed for morality!!No he cannot continue that at heaven. Believe in Jesus involve repentance. put a full stop to all wrong doings.
All that does is teach Christians they don't have to take responsibility for their actions and do whatever they want without consequence.
It would IF the rest of the Bible had never been written. Or it would IF the only thing these Christians were learning was a few pat answers to hypothetical situations. But the Bible does not teach that.
The reasoning is that if you actually study Christianity then you would learn that you don't have to take responsibility for yourself from the religion. The Bible makes clear that we are all responsible for our own decisions. Anyone (whether Christian or not) who thinks otherwise does not understand what the Bible actually teaches.
In the Genesis account for one. Adam and Eve were expelled for what they each did, not what they other or the snake made them do.
And Jesus' Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Many will think they are following God but they aren't. Each is individually responsible for their own actions, the devil did not make them do it.So, where does it say in Genesis one is supposed to take responsibility for their actions?
Yes, you'll find many believers will argue that the devil makes people do bad things.Isn't it obvious? You believers can't even agree with each other let alone non-believers, mostly because you make up stuff as you go along.
