ANy one a CHristian post here

[boots555]

yeah

[boots555]

Here are some interesting ones:
(courtesy of http://faithskeptic.50megs.com/prophecies.htm )

----------------
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.


Christians say that this verse is a prophecy of Jesus' birth to a virgin. There are a couple problems with this prophecy...First, virgin in this verse is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word "almah", which actually means "young woman". A young woman is not necessarily a virgin. "Bethulah" would have been the correct word to use if the author meant virgin. Second, nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus referred to as Immanuel.


-----------------
Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.


There are uncircumcised people living in Jerusalem even today.
-------------------


Zechariah 11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.


Christians say that this prophecy is was fulfilled when Judas received 30 pieces of silver for betraying Jesus. Matthew 27:9 recites this verse, but incorrectly credits Jeremiah with the prophecy.

---------------------

Matthew 1:22-23 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Again, Jesus is never referred to as Emmanuel (Immanuel).
-----------------------

Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.


Nowhere in the Old Testament is such a prophecy found, so how could such a one be fulfilled?
------------------

Matthew 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?


There is no passage in the Old Testament that can be attributed to what Jesus is saying here.
-------------------


Matthew 27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.


This prophecy was never spoken by Jeremiah.

Tock I will answer one of these. Isaiah 7:14 "Since Ahaz refused to choose a sign, the Lord chose his own sign , whose implementation would occur far beyound Ahaz's lifetime. THE VIRGIN. This prophecy reach forward to the virgin birth of the Messiah, as the New Testament notes (Matt 1:23). The Heb. word refers to a unmarried woman and means "virgin" (Gen 24:43, Prov. 30:19; Song 1:3;6:8), so the birth of Isaiahs son could not have fully satisfied the prophecy.

I got this from John Macarthur

[boots555]

Tock what is you source for that info. I know Macarthur is a legit scholar.

[Fat Guy]

No I am sorry but more people have been killed in the name of atheism than all other religious wars combined. Hitler was an atheist so was stalin

Hitler was not an atheist. He uses god references all through his book Mein Kampf and various speeches he made. Also, hitler took the contemporary christian anti-Semitic view of that time (and still some still believe today) in that the Jews were viewed as god killers and hence forth one of the main reasons for the holocaust.

Theism makes no sense in that if you think about it logically it does not follow and only leads to conflict and regression of progress in society.

Example:

Statement 1: god is the almighty
Statement 2: god is benevolent
Statement 3: god is the creator of all in the universe
Conclusion : god is the reason for all things in the universe including douche bags like hitler and stalin

My question: Why the fack would an almighty, creator of all in the universe create douches like Hitler and the many a$$holes who created human misery throughout history unless god was a douche or did not exists (either way I not buying)… Was the Holocaust some sick little play exterminating 6 million Jews and around 5 million others just because there was a lesson to be learned somewhere… Tell it to the families (to the mothers & fathers who lost their children it was god’s will. I’m sure they will get that benevolent feeling… sarcasm)

My conclusion: There is no god and the world would be a better place without religion or the belief of god.

Have a nice day.

[Amorphic]

Hitler was not an atheist. He uses god references all through his book Mein Kampf and various speeches he made. Also, hitler took the contemporary christian anti-Semitic view of that time (and still some still believe today) in that the Jews were viewed as god killers and hence forth one of the main reasons for the holocaust.

Theism makes no sense in that if you think about it logically it does not follow and only leads to conflict and regression of progress in society.

Example:

Statement 1: god is the almighty
Statement 2: god is benevolent
Statement 3: god is the creator of all in the universe
Conclusion : god is the reason for all things in the universe including douche bags like hitler and stalin

My question: Why the fack would an almighty, creator of all in the universe create douches like Hitler and the many a$$holes who created human misery throughout history unless god was a douche or did not exists (either way I not buying)… Was the Holocaust some sick little play exterminating 6 million Jews and around 5 million others just because there was a lesson to be learned somewhere…

My conclusion: There is no god and the world would be a better place without religion or the belief of god.

Have a nice day.

to reinforce your point further, God is supposed to be omnipotent as well, so he would have known hitler and stalin would do the things they did beforehand.

doesnt sound like too great of a god to me.

lastly, if a god is omnipotent and knows everything, he would have absolutely no interest in anything to do with us, since he already knows whats going to happen. no divine intervention would save you since god already knew everything that was going to happen to you from the start.

the only plausible thing god doesnt know is what would happen if he destroyed himself. i find that view very interesting.

[boots555]

Hitler was not an atheist. He uses god references all through his book Mein Kampf and various speeches he made. Also, hitler took the contemporary christian anti-Semitic view of that time (and still some still believe today) in that the Jews were viewed as god killers and hence forth one of the main reasons for the holocaust.

Theism makes no sense in that if you think about it logically it does not follow and only leads to conflict and regression of progress in society.

Example:

Statement 1: god is the almighty
Statement 2: god is benevolent
Statement 3: god is the creator of all in the universe
Conclusion : god is the reason for all things in the universe including douche bags like hitler and stalin

My question: Why the fack would an almighty, creator of all in the universe create douches like Hitler and the many a$$holes who created human misery throughout history unless god was a douche or did not exists (either way I not buying)… Was the Holocaust some sick little play exterminating 6 million Jews and around 5 million others just because there was a lesson to be learned somewhere…

My conclusion: There is no god and the world would be a better place without religion or the belief of god.

Have a nice day.

One at a time


However, the ideological connection between Nietzsche and Hitler has been made by various scholars. J. P. Stern, Professor of German at the University of London, who co-authored a book on Nietzsche,[9] points out that Mussolini, who read Nietzsche extensively, received a copy of Nietzsche’s Collected Works as a present from the Führer on the Brenner Pass in 1938.[10] Another point worth noting is that, according to historian William Shirer, "Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and publicized his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man."[11]

Historian Paul Johnson writes of the ideological connection between Nietzsche and Hitler:

Adolf Hitler . . . was a disciple of Friedrich Nietzsche. . . . Hitler hated Christianity with a passion which rivaled Lenin’s. Shortly after assuming power in 1933, he told Hermann Rauschnig that he intended ‘to stamp out Christianity root and branch.’ ‘One is either a Christian or a German -- you cannot be both,’ he added. . . . He said, ‘I want a powerful, masterly, cruel and fearless youth. . . . The freedom and dignity of the wild beast must shine from their eyes. . . .’[12]



.......


Krueger goes on to assert that Hitler was a theist: "In many of his speeches, Hitler asserted that he was acting in accordance with god’s will." But this type of political pandering is certainly not unusual. One can probably safely say that many politicians have glibly invoked the name of God to gain broader support from religious constituents. Hitler was no theist. We saw above that he despised Christianity. He also despised Judaism. Hitler reportedly claimed that conscience was a Jewish invention and had to be abolished.[13] That’s Christianity and Judaism down -- we’re quickly running out of theistic options.

Hitler in public was not hitler in private



http://www.rzim.org/resources/essay_arttext.php?id=2

[boots555]

I suggest you read Anthony Flews new book concerning theism. Flew was probably one of the brightest philosophers defending atheism untill He converted to theism.

[boots555]

God will not violate human free will.

[Gators]

Follower of Christ here, but will not get in the debate, neither side will change the others mind. Heading back into the mission field in 6 weeks, going back to Manila. I never anticipated i would have a calling to the mission field...

[Diary of a Mad-man]

The bible is the devinely inspired word of God. What other book has been attacked for so long and still survived? And the Dead Sea scrolls only suppoerted the Bible. There are also NO contradictions in it. For a book that was written by so many men and thousands of years apart, how is that possible if it were not for some "help from above"??

What other book? You seriously want me just to find ONE book that is older and has been attacked yet survived????? You know there are at least 1000 of them right? So then it all HAS to be true.

You saying "there are NO contradictions" is not fact. You are in denial. Interpreted, translated stories from HUMAN BEINGS playing the "telephone" game for 2000 years does not make something fact.

Then to wrap it all up by saying "see? god HAD to have something to do with it if" based on your really lame "evidence" sounds very simple.

Just because you are a fan of something doesnt mean you can convince me that the sky isnt blue. Its borderline offensive. The sky is still blue no matter how much you like your hobby and you cant convince me otherwise. You seem to think any body's word is good enough to be considered fact. I dont.

[Fat Guy]

However, the ideological connection between Nietzsche and Hitler has been made by various scholars. J. P. Stern, Professor of German at the University of London, who co-authored a book on Nietzsche,[9] points out that Mussolini, who read Nietzsche extensively, received a copy of Nietzsche’s Collected Works as a present from the Führer on the Brenner Pass in 1938.[10] Another point worth noting is that, according to historian William Shirer, "Hitler often visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and publicized his veneration for the philosopher by posing for photographs of himself staring in rapture at the bust of the great man."[11]

Historian Paul Johnson writes of the ideological connection between Nietzsche and Hitler:

Adolf Hitler . . . was a disciple of Friedrich Nietzsche. . . . Hitler hated Christianity with a passion which rivaled Lenin’s. Shortly after assuming power in 1933, he told Hermann Rauschnig that he intended ‘to stamp out Christianity root and branch.’ ‘One is either a Christian or a German -- you cannot be both,’ he added. . . . He said, ‘I want a powerful, masterly, cruel and fearless youth. . . . The freedom and dignity of the wild beast must shine from their eyes. . . .’[12]
.......
Krueger goes on to assert that Hitler was a theist: "In many of his speeches, Hitler asserted that he was acting in accordance with god’s will." But this type of political pandering is certainly not unusual. One can probably safely say that many politicians have glibly invoked the name of God to gain broader support from religious constituents. Hitler was no theist. We saw above that he despised Christianity. He also despised Judaism. Hitler reportedly claimed that conscience was a Jewish invention and had to be abolished.[13] That’s Christianity and Judaism down -- we’re quickly running out of theistic options. (Response: Whether hitler was a theist or not he played on the irrational belief systems of theist creating one of the worst atrocities in history. If more people were atheist and did not follow blind irrational belief systems, hitler’s motivations and intentions would have been more scrutinized possibly exposing this atrocity to the world at large. IT WAS AND STILL IS BLIND FAITH THAT HIDES THE TRUTH…And only people of faith can be duped like this because independent thinkers are going to question, scrutinize, criticize and come to LOGICAL conclusions.)

It is irrelevant that hitler was a theist or atheist, he was an a$$hole either way, but what is relevant is his writings and his influence appealing to theist and pitting one group against another group based on religious beliefs. (That seems to be a common theme around the world)

I suggest you read Anthony Flews new book concerning theism. Flew was probably one of the brightest philosophers defending atheism untill He converted to theism.

It is rather presumptuous of you to suggest I need further reading on this topic… (however I am open to many ideas) May I presumptuously suggest to you that you read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins

God will not violate human free will.

God is an irrational and illogical concept and this statement is a perfect example of the many paradoxes associated with religion and god… IT’S A ROUND SQUARE… It just does not work and creates conflict, confusion and regression.

Boots I do not mean any disrespect to you or any other of the believers of this thread. As my fellow human beings you are worthy of respect, dignity, and value and I hope the best for everyone. My intention here is just to illustrate the illogical arguments that religion and the god concept creates and the better we understand rational reasonable thought the freer of dogma, manipulation, divine dictatorships, and religious conflict we will be as a global society…

Peace be with you and everyone else
FG

[rockinred]

Hitler was not an atheist. He uses god references all through his book Mein Kampf and various speeches he made. Also, hitler took the contemporary christian anti-Semitic view of that time (and still some still believe today) in that the Jews were viewed as god killers and hence forth one of the main reasons for the holocaust.

Theism makes no sense in that if you think about it logically it does not follow and only leads to conflict and regression of progress in society.

Example:

Statement 1: god is the almighty
Statement 2: god is benevolent
Statement 3: god is the creator of all in the universe
Conclusion : god is the reason for all things in the universe including douche bags like hitler and stalin

My question: Why the fack would an almighty, creator of all in the universe create douches like Hitler and the many a$$holes who created human misery throughout history unless god was a douche or did not exists (either way I not buying)… Was the Holocaust some sick little play exterminating 6 million Jews and around 5 million others just because there was a lesson to be learned somewhere… Tell it to the families (to the mothers & fathers who lost their children it was god’s will. I’m sure they will get that benevolent feeling… sarcasm)

My conclusion: There is no god and the world would be a better place without religion or the belief of god.

Have a nice day.

Well, it seems that you have looked at this a little more then just a surface perspective.... but also, your understanding of God's relation to the madness is what causes the unbelief. This is speaking from the Crhistian perspective and understanding of what the Bible says about God's role in all this.

First off, according to the Bible, God does not want the current state of atrosity... But he does allow it to continure right? Because he is the creator...

Now my understanding is there is a great debate going on the Earth and in the Heavens. There is a falling that referrs to a 1/3 of the angels of heaven and all of the human race...

We are all a part of it... the fallen race hear on Earth that God condemed along with the followers... but what was the debate over that causes the creatures to rebel against the creator and why not just destroy and start over?? right?

According to Adam and Eve (mans first) and the Devil (opposer of God, who was also an angel and servant in heaven), was that you can live without God and be a god yourself.. right? that is what the story is... well if they were to eat the fruit they would die... God holds true and we all have to die..

Well from there why not kill them and Satan off and start over? Well from my understanding God is more true... he let's man and Satan try to live without him as we are doing now to no success... war, famine, all the things you say you dislike... why does he allow.. to prove the point so that no one will ever question again.... wouldn't you do the same... Go ahead do as you will and wish, but you live in sin, you reap what you sow... right?

Now in the midst of all this I say why didn't I get a chance to make a choice to serve God and have to suffer the consequences of Adam??? Well, once again God is just and this is where Jesus his son comes in to the picture... and then we continue to talk from there...

Now, if you read this you can see that God has nothing to do with the current state and there is a reason he lets it go on....until the appointed time...

[rockinred]

It is irrelevant that hitler was a theist or atheist, he was an a$$hole either way, but what is relevant is his writings and his influence appealing to theist and pitting one group against another group based on religious beliefs. (That seems to be a common theme around the world)




It is rather presumptuous of you to suggest I need further reading on this topic… (however I am open to many ideas) May I presumptuously suggest to you that you read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins





God is an irrational and illogical concept and this statement is a perfect example of the many paradoxes associated with religion and god… IT’S A ROUND SQUARE… It just does not work and creates conflict, confusion and regression.

Boots I do not mean any disrespect to you or any other of the believers of this thread. As my fellow human beings you are worthy of respect, dignity, and value and I hope the best for everyone. My intention here is just to illustrate the illogical arguments that religion and the god concept creates and the better we understand rational reasonable thought the freer of dogma, manipulation, divine dictatorships, and religious conflict we will be as a global society…

Peace be with you and everyone else
FG

Very nice words... but where does all the meaning and terms derive from?? are they your own feelings? What is respect? Can I have a different opinion of what is ok to treat others? Is it just a universal standard? is it morals? Where does that morals or standard originate...

I do believe as well as my teacher Jesus, that the religion and religious leaders are corrupt and oppress your free thoughts..

[Tock]

God will not violate human free will.

Exodus 4:21
And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

Jehovah messed with Pharaoh's free will to ensure that he would refuse Moses' request many times. The last time Jehovah did this, he killed tens of thousands of people (He killed the firstborn son of all the Egyptians).

So . . . there you have it. God indeed will violate human free will.

[kirk3624]

there is an interesting study showing that when people increase their education level i.e. past bachelors, they are significantly more likely to be atheist. Check out wikipedia's write up on atheism if interested on documented sources.

Also, the video Zeitgeist, http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...43189197&hl=en
does an excellent job detailing how religion is a tool to control masses. The video is among the most viewed in the entire world on google video.

[xlxBigSexyxlx]

Richard Dawkins is the man!


We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.-RD


One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all-RD


“I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.” [Bertrand Russell]


"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?" [Justin Brown]

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” [Epicurus]

"If a man would follow today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly, the teachings of the new, he would be insane." [Robert Ingersoll]

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” [Stephen F Roberts]

[feanixco]

Richard Dawkins is the man!

Richard Dawkins is the dumbest smart person on the face of the earth. He refutes intelligent design adimentlly but believes that the first origin of a cell organism might have been "seeded" by aliens in an attempt to "create" life on earth. Hmm....isn't that a little contradictory?

[feanixco]

there is an interesting study showing that when people increase their education level i.e. past bachelors, they are significantly more likely to be atheist. Check out wikipedia's write up on atheism if interested on documented sources.

Also, the video Zeitgeist, http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...43189197&hl=en
does an excellent job detailing how religion is a tool to control masses. The video is among the most viewed in the entire world on google video.

I do not disagree with the fact that the more a person study's modern day "controlled" science the more they will move away from the ideals of an ultimate creator and GOD.

This is why....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCxbhGaVfE

[Tock]

I suggest you read Anthony Flews new book concerning theism. Flew was probably one of the brightest philosophers defending atheism untill He converted to theism.

Huh? He was "bright" until he converted to theism?

Talk about a dull subject . . .

[Tock]

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” [Epicurus]

"If a man would follow today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly, the teachings of the new, he would be insane." [Robert Ingersoll]

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” [Stephen F Roberts]

If Satan is the Father of All Evil, and
if God created Satan, then
God is the Grandfather of All Evil.

[xlxBigSexyxlx]

If Satan is the Father of All Evil, and
if God created Satan, then
God is the Grandfather of All Evil.

lol yep....

god these days....

[Psychotron]

Good times. The simple answer here is that the Gospels are not historical accounts of anything. Written many years after even Paul's epistles, they used this theology and the old testament as a guide for creating their own deity account. It was done all the time. Reading the epistles alone, you get the impression Paul doesn't know of any "Son of Man".

[feanixco]

Who was at the tomb when they arrived?

* Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)
* Mark: One young man (16:5)
* Luke: Two men (24:4)
* John: Two angels (20:12)

Mark 16:5 "a young man" You have to read the entire verse instead of taking it out of context. It says A YOUNG MAN (not one) sitting on THE RIGHT SIDE, clothed in a long white garment, and they were afraid.(nowhere in the text does it say only one young man was present) Matthew 28:2 says the women encountered an "angel"; Luke 24:4 says there were "two men"; and John 20:12 says Mary Magdalene saw "two angels". Since angels often appear as men, there is no contradiction. The word "angel" in Greek is the same as "messenger", and GOD sent two messengers (whether angels or men) to roll the stone from the tomb and greet the women.

I started with this question because I have dealt with his before. I will address the others as well.

[feanixco]

What time did the women visit the tomb?

* Matthew: "as it began to dawn" (28:1)
* Mark: "very early in the morning . . . at the rising of the sun" (16:2, KJV); "when the sun had risen" (NRSV); "just after sunrise" (NIV)
* Luke: "very early in the morning" (24:1, KJV) "at early dawn" (NRSV)
* John: "when it was yet dark" (20:1)

This question in itself is utterly ridiculous. Are you saying that when the sun first begin to rise it is not dark outside?

Mark 16:2 And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepculchre at the rising of the sun.
In now way do any of these verses contradict each other.
When it was yet dark
As it began to dawn
At the rising of the sun
Very early in the morning
When it was yet dark

All the same ....

[feanixco]

Who were the women?

* Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
* Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)
* Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)
* John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

Matthew 28:1
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

Mark 16:1
And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

Luke 24:10
It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women were with them, WHICH TOLD THESE THINGS TO THE APOSTLES.
This is transpiring after the TWO MARY'S left and ran to tell everyone else that he had risen. This is an account of the individuals who were present when the news was delivered to the disciples. It also never states that others did not witness the open tomb.

John20:1
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Cometh Mary Magdalene. The verb here is actually "went". She apparently met some of the other women who also had gone to the tomb (Mark 16:1). When they saw the stone rolled away, Mary Magdalene ran back to tell John and Peter(who by this time, had gone back to be with John and Jesus' mother).
Once again, nowhere does it state in this passage that she was alone. It is a valid account of the event.

[feanixco]

Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?

* Matthew: Yes (28:9)
* John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)

John 20:17
Jesus said unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascended unto my Father, and your Father, and unto my God, and your God.


Mary then leaves and tells the disciples that she has seen the Lord at this time when Jesus will be cleansed by his Father and reappear unto the disciples at a later time.
Each of the four gospel writers has a different account of the resurrection events, written from his own knowledge and perspective. While they may appear superficially to be somewhat contradictory their very differences prove the absence of collusion. Furthermore, when compared carefully, the contradictions vanish and their combined testimony becomes an impregnable verification of the reality of Christ's bodily resurrection.

Very important....

In reference to John 20:27
Jesus allowed Thomas to do much more than "touch" Him, a privileged He had denied Mary Magdalene (in John 20:17). However, in the eight day interim, He had not only led the Old testament saints up to Paradise but also had presented His shed blood the the Father, received the Father's promise (plasm 2:7-9), and presented the firstfruits. However, Thomas did not need to touch him, for him, seeing was believing!

[feanixco]

Originally Posted by boots555
RED HERRINGS.

Why?

Either the Bible is a reliable source of information, or it isn't. If it gives more than one account of the same story, then how reliable can it be?

Extremely reliable and infallible ...I have smashed every single question so far. I will continue to do so as well. The problem is people don't want to give up their selfish ways and see the truth.
I have no problems with people who don't believe....one of my best friends is an atheist.
Thats his choice! In fact, I would encourage anyone to ask questions and read with a sense of understanding through questioning not doubt.

Most of them can be thrown out. Many of them are the same questions that have been debated down through the century. There is nothing new under the sun.

Boots555 were you saying throw out some of the questions or throw out some of the text?

Some of the text does not apply to us "Gentiles" as they would unto the Jews.... under their laws. Any man who chooses to live under the law shall die under that same set of laws, but any man who is of faith can inherit the kingdom of God through faith and grace alone.

In Revelations 22:19 it talks about adding and taking away from the scripture.
Even a more serious crime than adding words to the Bible (as many cults do, Mormonism and the Catholic church to some degree) is that of taking away from it's word (as many theologians have done as well as people trying to find fault by taking scripture out of context and excluding KEY words). Taking human reason with it's evolutionary presumptions as their guide instead of Biblical authority, the cultic and liberal approach has undermined every book of the Bible, especially the foundational book of Genesis and the consummational book of Revelation, MY FAVORITE BOOK with he Acts of the Apostles following. As the Apostle Peter had already warned, "they deny or allegorize the promise of his coming" because they are "willing and ignorant" of the supernatural creation of the world in the beginning and it's later cataclsymic destruction by the great flood.

Such an important text to acknowledge is Revelation 22:19
"And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

[feanixco]

^^^^^^^^^Shall I continue?

[feanixco]

Good times. The simple answer here is that the Gospels are not historical accounts of anything. Written many years after even Paul's epistles, they used this theology and the old testament as a guide for creating their own deity account. It was done all the time. Reading the epistles alone, you get the impression Paul doesn't know of any "Son of Man".

Evidence?

[feanixco]

It is rather presumptuous of you to suggest I need further reading on this topic… (however I am open to many ideas) May I presumptuously suggest to you that you read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins

Yes, you may suggest that.
However I would suggest that you read the best selling book of all time. The Bible...

Do you agree with Richard Dawkins when he says that he has no clue how life was formed and how the first single cell organism was originated...but if he had to give his best guess he believes that the planet was "seeded" with life by aliens? Or another good one that he defends is that the four essential compounds to sustain life just happened to make it into our atmosphere by chance and then they somehow formed into a crystal and slowly over time your body was developed by cells "piggbacking" off the crystals?

Hmm...do you really believe that primordial sludge just happened to create the super complex endocrinal system and the DNA structure that codes your body through growth stages. We still have no idea how complex and detailed the human body is. We can't even cure cancer but mud can somehow develop into billions and trillions of organisms.

[lotaquestions]

^^^^^^^^^Shall I continue?

yes please i am loving this. good job man thanks. i only type like 15 words a min so i have to stay out of it.

[Dobie-BOY]

thats a great aspiration. Good luck and God strength.

People get very emotional and defensive about these subjects, however I like speaking with people about their views and beliefs.
I have a degree in Bible/Religion and I am considering returning to school to get my Masters in Divinity.

[Psychotron]

Evidence?

As far as the historical accuracy among the gospels, it suffices to say that the many contradictions in story make them very in-credible. But, who can blame them, Mark is the original gospel story from which Matthew and Luke copied from, all of which were written close to the begining of the second century.

As for Paul not having a clue and early apologists not knowing an earthly christ here is a decent short essay on it. But read two books: The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty and The Incredible Shrinking Son Of Man by Robert Price.

Imagine that you were a history student assigned the task of writing a paper on the life of George Washington, America's first president and one of the country's most influential founding fathers.

On its face, this seems like a simple assignment. Encyclopedias and textbooks full of biographical information about Washington, written by notable scholars on his life, abound. Any one of them would provide enough material for a reasonably detailed report. However, this is not good enough for a diligent student such as yourself. To get the most detailed and accurate picture requires skipping the modern references, which were written centuries after the fact, and going straight to the original sources. You decide to base your report on first-hand evidence: letters written by Washington himself, accounts of his life written by people who knew him personally, and stories of his sayings and deeds recorded while he was still alive.

But, as you comb the records, you find something strange: you cannot seem to locate any first-hand sources. Though Washington is claimed to have done many wonderful things - leading the Continental Army, freeing the American colonies from British rule, presiding over the convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution, becoming the first President of the United States - somehow, there are no records of these deeds written by people who actually saw them happen, or even by people who were alive at the time. The historians who were alive during Washington's lifetime, as well as the ones that lived soon afterward, do not mention him at all. The first mentions of him come in disputed and scattered records written decades after his death; over time, these mentions grow more numerous until, by about a hundred years after his death, a chorus of historians who had never seen or met Washington themselves all testify to his existence and his deeds. It is their writings, not any first-hand evidence, that have filtered down to modern times to create the abundance of records we have today.

Would you begin to conclude that there was something very wrong here?

According to the New Testament gospels, Jesus' fame spread far and wide throughout his lifetime. He was known throughout Israel and beyond (Matthew 4:25), renowned not only as a teacher and wise man, but also as a prophet and miraculous healer (Matthew 14:5, Luke 5:15, John 6:2). Great multitudes of people followed him everywhere he went (Luke 12:1). He converted many Jews, enough to draw the anger of the Jerusalem temple elders (John 12:11). He attracted the attention of some of the most prominent leaders of his day, both Roman and Jewish (Matthew 14:1, Luke 19:47). And when he was crucified, portentous and dramatic miracles occurred on a massive scale: a great earthquake (Matthew 27:51), a worldwide three-hour darkness (Luke 23:44), and the bodies of the saints arising from their tombs and walking the streets of Jerusalem, showing themselves to many people (Matthew 27:52-53).

If these things were true, it is beyond belief that the historians of the day could have failed to notice.

And yet, when we examine the evidence, that is precisely what we do find. Not a single contemporary historian mentions Jesus. The historical record is devoid of references to him for decades after his supposed death. The very first extra-biblical documents that do mention him are two brief passages in the works of the historian Josephus, written around 90 CE, but the longer of the two is widely considered to be a forgery and the shorter is likely to be one as well (see part 2). The first unambiguous extra-biblical references to a historical, human Jesus do not appear until well into the second century.

Few if any Christian apologists will mention these extraordinary facts, but as in the George Washington hypothetical, we can rightfully conclude that there is something wrong here. The rosy picture painted by the gospels of a preaching sage and famous miracle worker followed by crowds of thousands stands in stark contrast to the reality of the extra-biblical historical record, and that reality is that mentions of the man Jesus do not exist until almost the end of the first century.

Why is this? It is not as if there were no capable historians at the time. There was, for example, Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who lived from about 20 BCE to 50 CE. His own beliefs were influenced by Platonic elements that were in some ways similar to Christianity, and his writings show interest in other offshoot sects such as the Essenes and the Therapeutae; he wrote about Pontius Pilate and he was, by some accounts, living in or near Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' death and, presumably, the attendant miracles. Yet none of his works contain any mention of Jesus or Christianity.

Other writers of the time show the same pattern. Justus of Tiberius, a native of Galilee who wrote a history around 80 CE covering the time Jesus supposedly lived, does not mention him. The Roman writer Seneca the Younger, who was born around 3 BCE and lived into the 60s CE, wrote extensively about ethics but says nothing about Jesus or his teachings. The historian Pliny the Elder, born around 20 CE, took a special interest in writing about science and natural phenomena, but his thirty-seven-volume Natural History says nothing about an earthquake or a strange darkness around the supposed time of Jesus' death, although he would have been alive at the time it happened. In fact, not a single contemporary record exists of the darkness, and there was a widespread failure to note the earthquake, much less the appearance of the resurrected saints.

Events such as these create historians. To assume that not a single person who witnessed these monumental events would have felt compelled to write them down, or that no one bothered to preserve those records if they had, violates all standards of credulity. Jesus' healings alone, if news of them became generally known, would have attracted a flood of people from every corner of the Roman Empire desperate to be cured of their ailments; and if in addition news got out of his ability to revive the dead, as the gospels say it did (Matthew 9:25-26), those crowds would have been multiplied tenfold. Surely at least one person somewhere would have written about this, even if only to dismiss it as a peasant superstition. And events such as the darkening of the sun and the resurrection of the saints, if they really happened, would have left a vivid imprint on humanity's collective memory and would have produced a flood of awed and astonished records. To suggest that the succeeding generation simply let all memory of them disappear crosses the line from unbelievable to absurd.

The only rational way to explain this, if we are not to postulate a "conspiracy of silence" among ancient writers, is that the miraculous events recorded in the gospels never happened. And some non-fundamentalist believers might indeed choose this option. Yes, some might say, the gospels are the work of men. They may have exaggerated Jesus' fame and maybe even invented a few miracles to give the story more pizzazz. But this does not necessarily mean Jesus himself never existed. Might the gospels have preserved a core of historical reality, telling a story about a preaching, reform-minded Galilean rabbi that was built upon and embellished by later generations?

In response to this, it should be noted that the historians of the time not only fail to confirm the particulars of the gospel accounts, they fail to mention Jesus at all. But if he had been a real person who did even some of the things the Bible says, it is not at all unreasonable that at least some historians would have taken notice; Josephus and others do write about other would-be messiahs of their day. Of course, if one postulates a Jesus who did not perform miracles and did not attract much notice during his lifetime, it can never be proved that such a person did not exist. However, as part 3 will show, there is a superior way to explain the origins of Christianity, one that better explains all the evidence without positing a historical Jesus at all.

The gospels cannot help in proving the historicity of Jesus, since the accuracy of the gospels is itself what is in question. When they make extraordinary claims that contemporary records fail to corroborate, as argued above, this alone casts doubt on their reliability. Additionally, their numerous internal contradictions suggest that their authors were not recording historical events they remembered, but rather telling a story, changing events where they felt it necessary to make a point. Finally, and most importantly, the gospels themselves are not first-hand witnesses. In fact, the very first unambiguous references to them do not appear until the writings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons, around 150 CE! This fact, combined with other evidence, has led to the conclusion that they were written, at the earliest, near the end of the first century - decades after the events they purport to describe, more than enough time for fact to become inextricably entangled with mythology and legend. Nor are the gospels independent witnesses. It has long been known that Mark, the simplest and therefore most likely the earliest gospel, provided the basic story upon which Matthew, Luke, and probably John as well simply elaborated, adding and changing details. At best, then, what the gospels provide is one anonymous, late, theologically driven source providing details which other, contemporary sources fail to confirm.

If Jesus Christ had been an actual, historical person, we would expect to have first-hand, contemporary documentation: records of his words and deeds written by people who actually saw him, or who were at least alive during his lifetime. We would expect the record of his life to be plentiful from the very beginning. On the other hand, if he was only a legend later turned into a real person, we would expect not to have any first-hand witness to his life. We would expect the historical record to be scanty and details elusive or non-existent at first, these details appearing only later as the stories about him grew in the telling. We would expect clear references to him not to appear until long after his supposed death. And of course, this scenario is exactly what we do in fact find.

Christian apologists often insist that the evidence for Jesus' existence is so strong that to deny he ever lived would force one to deny the existence of many other historical figures as well, such as Alexander the Great or Abraham Lincoln. This comparison, however, cannot be sustained. We know that people such as Alexander or Lincoln were historical precisely because we do have first-hand evidence: artifacts made by them, things they wrote, things their contemporaries wrote about them. In Jesus' case, however, we have none of these things. The pattern of evidence much better fits the birth and growth of a legend. No matter who first said it, to uncritically accept the historicity of Jesus is to strain at gnats while attempting to swallow a camel.

But can the man Jesus be dismissed so easily? Modern-day Christian apologists say not. Despite the lack of first-hand evidence, they claim, there is still good reason to believe that their messiah really did once walk the earth. Part 2 will therefore critically examine the evidence they present, demonstrating that it does not hold up under scrutiny.

When, long ago, I first learned that some theorized that Jesus had never existed as an historical figure, I dismissed the notion as mere crankism, as most still do. Indeed, Rudolf Bultmann, supposedly the arch-skeptic, quipped that no sane person could doubt that Jesus existed (though he himself came surprisingly close to the same opinion, as did Paul Tillich). For a number of years I held a more or less Bultmannian estimate of the historical Jesus as a prophet heralding the arrival of the eschatological Kingdom of God, an end to which his parables, faith healings and exorcisms were directed. Jesus had, I thought, predicted the coming of the Son of Man, an angelic figure who should raise the dead and judge mankind. When his cleansing of the temple invited the unforgiving ire of the Sadducee establishment, in cahoots with the Romans, he sealed his own doom. He died by crucifixion, and a few days later his disciples began experiencing visions of him raised from the dead. They concluded that he himself was now to be considered the Son of Man, and they expected his messianic advent in the near future.

From this eminently reasonable position (its cogency reinforced by the postmortem unfolding of the messiahship of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson) I eventually found myself gravitating to that crazy view, that Jesus hadn’t existed, that he was mythic all the way down, like Hercules. I do not hold it as a dogma. I do not prefer that it be true. It is just that the evidence now seems to me to point that way. The burden of proof would seem to belong with those who believe there was an historical man named Jesus. I fully admit and remind the reader that all historical hypotheses are provisional and tentative. This one certainly is. And yet I do favor it. Why?

I remember first encountering the notion that the Jesus saga was formally similar to the Mediterranean dying and rising god myths of saviors including Attis, Adonis, Tammuz/Dumuzi, Dionysus, Osiris, and Baal. I felt almost at once that the jig was up. I could not explain away those parallels, parallels that went right to the heart of the thing. I felt momentary respite when I read the false reassurances of Bruce M. Metzger (may this great man rest in peace), J.N.D. Anderson, Edwin Yamauchi (may I someday gain a tenth of his knowledge!), and others that these parallels were false or that they were later in origin, perhaps even borrowed by the pagans from Christianity. But it did not take long to discover the spurious nature of such apologetical special pleading. There was ample and early pre-Christian evidence for the dying and rising gods. The parallels were very close. And it was simply not true that no one ever held that, like Jesus, these saviors had been historical figures. And if the ancient apologists had not known that the pagan parallels were pre-Christian, why on earth would they have mounted a suicidal argument that Satan counterfeited the real dying and rising god ahead of time. That is like the fundamentalists of the 19th century arguing desperately that God created fossils of dinosaurs that had never existed.

And, yet, all of this scarcely proved that Jesus had not existed at all. Bultmann freely admitted that such myths clothed and shaped the form of resurrection belief among the early Christians, but he felt there had actually been certain Easter morning experiences, visions that might have given rise to a different explanation in a different age. I now think Bultmann’s argument runs afoul of Ockham’s Razor, since it posits redundant explanations. If you recognize the recurrence of the pagan savior myth in the Christian proclamation, then no need remains to suggest an initial “Big Bang” (Burton L. Mack) of an Easter Morning Experience of the First Disciples.

G.A. Wells, like his predecessors advocating the Christ Myth theory, discounted the gospel story of an historical Jesus, an itinerant teacher and miracle worker, on the grounds of its seeming absence from the Epistle literature, earlier than the gospels, implying that there was no Jesus tradition floating around in either oral or written form at the time Paul and Peter were writing letters. All they referred to was a supernatural Son of God who descended from heaven to vanquish the evil angels ruling the world, then returned heavenward to reign in divine glory till his second advent. Had Paul known of the teaching of Jesus, why did he not quote it when it would have settled this and that controversial question (e.g., paying Roman taxes, celibacy for the Kingdom, congregational discipline)? Why does he seem to refer to occasional “commands of the Lord” in a manner so vague as to suggest charismatic revelations to himself? Why does he never mention Jesus having healed the sick or done miracles? How can he say the Roman Empire never punishes the righteous, only the wicked?

This is a weighty argument, but another makes it almost superfluous. Take the gospel Jesus story as a whole, whether earlier or later than the Jesus story of the Epistles; it is part and parcel of the Mythic Hero Archetype shared by cultures and religions worldwide and throughout history (Lord Raglan and then, later, Alan Dundes showed this in great detail.). Leave the gospel story on the table, then. You still do not have any truly historical data. There is no “secular” biographical information about Jesus. Even the seeming “facts” irrelevant to faith dissolve upon scrutiny. Did he live in Nazareth? Or was that a tendentious reinterpretation of the earlier notion he had been thought a member of the Nazorean sect? Did he work some years as a carpenter? Or does that story not rather reflect the crowd’s pegging him as an expert in scripture, a la the Rabbinic proverb, “Not even a carpenter, or a carpenter’s son could solve this one!”? Was his father named Joseph, or is that an historicization of his earlier designation as the Galilean Messiah, Messiah ben Joseph? On and on it goes, and when we are done, there is nothing left of Jesus that does not appear to serve all too clearly the interests of faith, the faith even of rival, hence contradictory, factions among the early Christians.

I admit that a historical hero might attract to himself the standard flattering legends and myths to the extent that the original lines of the figure could no longer be discerned. He may have lived nonetheless. Can we tell the difference between such cases and others where we can still discern at least some historical core? Apollonius of Tyana, itinerant Neo-Pythagorean contemporary of Jesus (with whom the ancients often compare him) is one such. He, too, seems entirely cut from the cloth of the fabulous. His story, too, conforms exactly to the Mythic Hero Archetype. To a lesser extent, so does Caesar Augustus, of whom miracles were told. The difference is that Jesus has left no footprint on profane history as these others managed to do. The famous texts of Josephus and Tacitus, even if genuine, amount merely to references to the preaching of contemporary Christians, not reporting about Jesus as a contemporary. We still have documentation from people who claimed to have met Apollonius, Peregrinus, and, of course, Augustus. It might be that Jesus was just as historical as these other remarkable individuals, and that it was mere chance that no contemporary documentation referring to him survives. But we cannot assume the truth of that for which we have no evidence.

A paragraph back, I referred to the central ****m of form criticism: that nothing would have been passed down in the tradition unless it was useful to prove some point, to provide some precedent. I am sorry to say that this ****m cancels out another, the Criterion of Dissimilarity: the closer a Jesus-saying seems to match the practice or teaching of the early Church, the greater likelihood that it stems from the latter and has been placed fictively into the speech or life of Jesus merely to secure its authority. Put the two principles together and observe how one consumes the other without remainder: all pericopae of the Jesus tradition owe their survival to the fact that they were useful. On the assumption that Christians saw some usefulness to them, we can posit a Sitz-im-Leben Kirche for each one. And that means it is redundant to posit a pre-Christian Sitz-im-Leben Jesu context. None of it need go back to Jesus.

Additionally, we can demonstrate that every hortatory saying is so closely paralleled in contemporary Rabbinic or Hellenistic lore that there is no particular reason to be sure this or that saying originated with Jesus. Such words commonly passed from one famous name to another, especially in Jewish circles, as Jacob Neusner has shown. Jesus might have said it, sure, but then he was just one more voice in the general choir. Is that what we want to know about him? And, as Bultmann observed, who remembers the great man quoting somebody else?

Another shocker: it hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized, after studying much previous research on the question, that virtually every story in the gospels and Acts can be shown to be very likely a Christian rewrite of material from the Septuagint, Homer, Euripides’ Bacchae, and Josephus. One need not be David Hume to see that, if a story tells us a man multiplied food to feed a multitude, it is inherently much more likely that the story is a rewrite of an older miracle tale (starring Elisha) than that it is a report of a real event. A literary origin is always to be preferred to an historical one in such a case. And that is the choice we have to make in virtually every case of New Testament narrative. I refer the interested reader to my essay “New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash,” in Jacob Neusner and Alan Avery-Peck, eds., Encyclopedia of Midrash. Of course I am dependent here upon many fine works by Randel Helms, Thomas L. Brodie, John Dominic Crossan, and others. None of them went as far as I am going. It is just that as I counted up the gospel stories I felt each scholar had convincingly traced back to a previous literary prototype, it dawned on me that there was virtually nothing left. None tried to argue for the fictive character of the whole tradition, and each offered some cases I found arbitrary and implausible. Still, their work, when combined, militated toward a wholly fictive Jesus story.

It is not as if I believe there is no strong argument for an historical Jesus. There is one: one can very plausibly read certain texts in Acts, Mark, and Galatians as fossils preserving the memory of a succession struggle following the death of Jesus, who, therefore, must have existed. Who should follow Jesus as his vicar on earth? His disciples (analogous to the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, who provided the first three caliphs)? Or should it be the Pillars, his own relatives (the Shi’ite Muslims called Muhammad’s kinsmen the Pillars, too, and supported their dynastic claims). One can trace the same struggles in the Baha’i Faith after the death of the Bab (Mirza Ali Muhammad): who should rule, his brother Subh-i-Azal, or his disciple Hussein Ali, Baha’Ullah? Who should follow the Prophet Joseph Smith? His disciples, or his son, Joseph, Jr.? When the Honorable Elijah Muhammad died, Black Muslims split and followed either his son and heir Wareeth Deen Muhammad or his former lieutenant Louis Farrakhan. In the New Testament, as Harnack and Stauffer argued, we seem to see the remains of a Caliphate of James. And that implies (though it does not prove) an historical Jesus.

And it implies an historical Jesus of a particular type. It implies a Jesus who was a latter-day Judah Maccabee, with a group of brothers who could take up the banner when their eldest brother, killed in battle, perforce let it fall. S.G.F. Brandon made a very compelling case for the original revolutionary character of Jesus, subsequently sanitized and made politically harmless by Mark the evangelist. Judging by the skirt-clutching outrage of subsequent scholars, Mark’s apologetical efforts to depoliticize the Jesus story have their own successors. Brandon’s work is a genuine piece of the classic Higher Criticism of the gospels, with the same depth of reason and argumentation. If there was an historical Jesus, my vote is for Brandon’s version.
But I must point out that there is another way to read the evidence for the Zealot Jesus hypothesis. As Burton Mack has suggested, the political element in the Passion seems likely to represent an anachronistic confusion by Mark with the events leading to the fall of Jerusalem. When the Olivet Discourse warns its readers not to take any of a number of false messiahs and Zealot agitators for their own Jesus, does this not imply Christians were receiving the news of Theudas or Jesus ben Ananias or John of Gischala as news of Jesus’ return? You don’t tell people not to do what they’re already not doing. If they were making such confusions, it would be inevitable that the events attached to them would find their way back into the telling of the Jesus story. It looks like this very thing happened. One notices how closely the interrogation and flogging of Jesus ben-Ananias, in trouble for predicting the destruction of the temple, parallels that of Jesus, ostensibly 40 years previously. We notice how Simon bar Gioras was welcomed into the temple with palm branches to cleanse the sacred precinct from the “thieves” who infested it, Zealots under John of Gischala. Uh-oh. Suppose these signs of historical-political verisimilitude are interlopers in the gospels from the following generation. The evidence for the Zealot Jesus evaporates.

I have not tried to amass every argument I could think of to destroy the historicity of Jesus. Rather, I have summarized the series of realizations about methodology and evidence that eventually led me to embrace the Christ Myth Theory. There may once have been an historical Jesus, but for us there is one no longer. If he existed, he is forever lost behind the stained glass curtain of holy myth. At least that’s the current state of the evidence as I see it.
by, Robert M. Price

Just food for thought.

[DeputyLoneWolf]

What other book? You seriously want me just to find ONE book that is older and has been attacked yet survived????? You know there are at least 1000 of them right? So then it all HAS to be true.

You saying "there are NO contradictions" is not fact. You are in denial. Interpreted, translated stories from HUMAN BEINGS playing the "telephone" game for 2000 years does not make something fact.

Then to wrap it all up by saying "see? god HAD to have something to do with it if" based on your really lame "evidence" sounds very simple.

Just because you are a fan of something doesnt mean you can convince me that the sky isnt blue. Its borderline offensive. The sky is still blue no matter how much you like your hobby and you cant convince me otherwise. You seem to think any body's word is good enough to be considered fact. I dont.

I just got off work so I will be back tomarrow but I would like to ask you; what is contradictory????? I would LOVE for you to tell me.

[Dobie-BOY]

I was an athiest for a long time. I wanted to believe in God, but could not make myself. until I prayed this simple prayer aloud i bed one night, "I can not MAKE myself believe in something. I want to believe in you, but I cant. I asked him to help me believe. I went to sleep. When I woke in the next morning my radio alarm clock, you know the knd that you can never get tuned perfectly on the station you want, the kind with the little bitty roller on the side.. Well, fell asleep with it dialed as closely to 100.5 the kat (rock station) as I could get it. When I woke up, it was tuned perfectly to 87.5 KLOVE christian radio and it was singing Halleluiah Jesus Christ. iT is hard for me to believe this story myself and so I would expect It to be nearly impossible for a non-believer and even most Christians to believe. This was the beginning of my slow gradually increasing trust in the Lord.
I believe that God judges us not for what we do or where we are in our relationship with him, but where or who we are in contrast to where or who we used to be.
All I had to do was ask him and he reached out to me.
It takes far more faith to be an athiest than to be a christian.
As an athiest, one major problem I had with athiesm was Love. NO ONE CAN EVER CONVINCE ME THAT THE FEELINGS I HAVE FOR MY FAMILY ARE MERE CHEMICAL AND ELECTRICAL IMPULSES IN MY BRAIN. and I feel sorry for the people who feel loved by someone who contributes the feelings they have to science.

[feanixco]

God is love
I was an athiest for a long time. I wanted to believe in God, but could not make myself. until I prayed this simple prayer aloud i bed one night, "I can not MAKE myself believe in something. I want to believe in you, but I cant. I asked him to help me believe. I went to sleep. When I woke in the next morning my radio alarm clock, you know the knd that you can never get tuned perfectly on the station you want, the kind with the little bitty roller on the side.. Well, fell asleep with it dialed as closely to 100.5 the kat (rock station) as I could get it. When I woke up, it was tuned perfectly to 87.5 KLOVE christian radio and it was singing Halleluiah Jesus Christ. iT is hard for me to believe this story myself and so I would expect It to be nearly impossible for a non-believer and even most Christians to believe. This was the beginning of my slow gradually increasing trust in the Lord.
I believe that God judges us not for what we do or where we are in our relationship with him, but where or who we are in contrast to where or who we used to be.
All I had to do was ask him and he reached out to me.
It takes far more faith to be an athiest than to be a christian.
As an athiest, one major problem I had with athiesm was Love. NO ONE CAN EVER CONVINCE ME THAT THE FEELINGS I HAVE FOR MY FAMILY ARE MERE CHEMICAL AND ELECTRICAL IMPULSES IN MY BRAIN. and I feel sorry for the people who feel loved by someone who contributes the feelings they have to science.

The Holy Spirit is a great thing isn't it? Amen brother.

[Diary of a Mad-man]

Evidence?

exactly........that is not evidence.

Can you guys look at me with a straight face, and tell me that none of the PEOPLE that wrote the bible over 3000 years, did so for their own entertainment and control of their family/village/town?

One human being ruins the story. Hundreds of human beings and languages = a big book of fun stories! Im just going to quote myself again because no one replied.

[quote]He may not have said that millstone drowning thing at all. Whenever I tell a story, I tend to exagerate to make it more exiting. Now imagine life where you eat shit and die at the age of 25. Story telling would be THE BOMB![quote]

There was no tv to control people and con them out of their money. You dont think humans are fallable enough to write something incorectly either by choice or accident and pass it down through a few thousand years?

[rockinred]

there is an interesting study showing that when people increase their education level i.e. past bachelors, they are significantly more likely to be atheist. Check out wikipedia's write up on atheism if interested on documented sources.


Also, the video Zeitgeist, http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...43189197&hl=en
does an excellent job detailing how religion is a tool to control masses. The video is among the most viewed in the entire world on google video.

What is so interesting about that? It is not suprising at all... most that pursue post bachelor degree are middle to upperclass citizens in western civilization... Major concerns for this group would be what color shoes to wear for the day, what clothes to wear to work, etc... no major worries about your day-to day dealings in life... they look at things from a textbook perspective and look at others beliefs and problems and solving them all in the comfort of their couch, yet never dealing with their own problems... why believe in God? There to smart for that sillieness... now take away their job, their house, their security and you bet almost all will become believers.. when the system fails and all your world is meaningless... you bet you start to understand and look at things on an entirely different level.

I have my Master's degree and I can honestly say I am not smarter or a better person then before.. more knowledgeable on certain subjects I studied, but not like some reality check by going to school. I too can be classified in the upper or middle class citizen, but i don't close my eyes to what has been real all around me and what I have seen throughout the world.

Look around the world and those who fall outside of this small minority group are all believers of some God... Go to any slum or majority of the world and it is a reality for them. The funny thing is those are the ones getting life handed to them hard... the system and governments failed them... yet they still understand differently.

The sad thing is that a lot who have the opportunity to get up and make choices and live a healthy life and enjoy a lot of things... don't take one minute out of their day to say Thank You..... I get up everyday and thank God that I can go to work and enjoy food, enjoy lifting and health... and enjoy LIFE...

[ecto9]

I was an athiest for a long time. I wanted to believe in God, but could not make myself. until I prayed this simple prayer aloud i bed one night, "I can not MAKE myself believe in something. I want to believe in you, but I cant. I asked him to help me believe. I went to sleep. When I woke in the next morning my radio alarm clock, you know the knd that you can never get tuned perfectly on the station you want, the kind with the little bitty roller on the side.. Well, fell asleep with it dialed as closely to 100.5 the kat (rock station) as I could get it. When I woke up, it was tuned perfectly to 87.5 KLOVE christian radio and it was singing Halleluiah Jesus Christ. iT is hard for me to believe this story myself and so I would expect It to be nearly impossible for a non-believer and even most Christians to believe. This was the beginning of my slow gradually increasing trust in the Lord.
I believe that God judges us not for what we do or where we are in our relationship with him, but where or who we are in contrast to where or who we used to be.
All I had to do was ask him and he reached out to me.
It takes far more faith to be an athiest than to be a christian.
As an athiest, one major problem I had with athiesm was Love. NO ONE CAN EVER CONVINCE ME THAT THE FEELINGS I HAVE FOR MY FAMILY ARE MERE CHEMICAL AND ELECTRICAL IMPULSES IN MY BRAIN. and I feel sorry for the people who feel loved by someone who contributes the feelings they have to science.

Wow, that's a great story. I too have had many "mysterious" such things happen to me in my walk with God. I don't even mention them to anybody. There's no way to proof any of it.

It says somewhere in Hebrews: "Faith is the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for".

I feel sorry for ppl that don't beleive in God. I would think that eventually, if their heart ever becomes open, God will reveal Himself to them.

[rockinred]

there is an interesting study showing that when people increase their education level i.e. past bachelors, they are significantly more likely to be atheist. Check out wikipedia's write up on atheism if interested on documented sources.

Also, the video Zeitgeist, http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...43189197&hl=en
does an excellent job detailing how religion is a tool to control masses. The video is among the most viewed in the entire world on google video.

the control is a by product of organized religion... professing faith and what Jesus talked about had nothing to do with controlling masses... This is looking at things after the fact and trying to act smart with how you view it.

As far as Moses maintaining order with Laws, that was necessary for any government.... Those people could have went back to Egypt and slaved... It was not intended to control the world??? just those followers of God... Paranoia leads to this big consipiracy theory in churches, and governments, etc... I don't see it like that at all.