# Reasons Christianity and the bible are false



## bullethead

I've been on a kyroot.com kick lately and found that these are too good not to share.
Read em, discuss em, share em,ignore em...I'm gonna throw some in here as I see fit or as the conversation goes.

(718) The folly of trying to marry Genesis with science

Many Christians are educated to the extent that they know the Earth is much older that 10,000 years, but, nevertheless, they are reluctant to admit that the opening passages of the Bible are in error.  So they say that a day in God’s world is much longer than in our world, so everything is OK, right?  No, it’s not.  The following is taken from:

http://faithskeptic.50megs.com/excuses.htm

According to the Bible, if you accept its literal interpretation, the earth is only about 7,000 years old.  Because the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and conflicts with the Bible’s account of creation only taking 6 days, some Christians claim that a day back then was much longer, something like a million years.  This is considered a “God day”.  So in actuality, God created the universe in 6 million years.  This sorry explanation creates many different problems.  If a “God day” is a million years long, and God supposedly created man on the 6th day, that would mean that the 6th day hasn’t ended yet.  Counting back the generations to Adam and Eve, only 7,000 years have passed, meaning we still have over 990,000 years left before the 6th day ends.  How could God have rested on the 7th day, since the 7th day hasn’t even gotten here?  Confused yet?  What about the Christian’s argument that time to God is not as long as it seems to us?  They say that 2,000 years to God is merely a nanosecond.  If you take the “God day” concept as equaling a million years, then 2,000 years to God would really be…let’s see…2,000 years x 365 days = 730,000 days.  730,000 days x 1 million = 730 billion years.  Well 730 billion years is much longer than a nanosecond.

So how long is a “God day”, or a “God minute”, or a “God second”?  Well they are as long as Christians claim they are, in order for them to fit into their belief system.  Sometimes a “God day” is a million years, sometimes it’s a billion, and in some cases it’s only a second long.

Stretching the Biblical length of a day does not work out.  It’s time for scientifically literate Christians to admit that Genesis is nothing more than a fairy tale, much like most of the other parts of the Bible.


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## hobbs27

Christianity and the Bible are not false. Man's understanding of it is false, but many of us are coming around and there's a growing number of people that realize the creation account was a Covenant creation, not a literal physical creation.


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## ambush80

hobbs27 said:


> Christianity and the Bible are not false. Man's understanding of it is false, but many of us are coming around and there's a growing number of people that realize the creation account was a Covenant creation, not a literal physical creation.



Just an observation, The Bible gets reinterpreted every so often when it runs into modernity.  The old guard says that their interpretations represent proper understanding. The younger crowd can no longer accept the literal translation as it contradicts modern knowledge so they say that those contradictory things are metaphor.  They _also_ say that they're interpreting correctly.

How do you guys tell whose right?

I contend that religious belief has always been either tempered or dismissed entirely by modernity.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Christianity and the Bible are not false. Man's understanding of it is false, but many of us are coming around and there's a growing number of people that realize the creation account was a Covenant creation, not a literal physical creation.


Imagine that, another person that has figured it out and everyone else is wrong. 

Listen, there are so many errors, untruths, wrong knowledge of traditions, practices, cultures. Flat out wrong about geography, archeology, disease, all areas of science. On and on and on.
The only misunderstanding is of the writers knowledge about all those things. They flat out got it wrong. They didn't know Jewish practices, they didn't know Roman practices, they didn't know the law of either.


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## bullethead

The four gospels state that the Roman governor over Judea, Pontius Pilate, was obligated during the Passover to commute one prisoner’s death sentence and to have him released based on the acclamation of those attending the ceremony.  There are no Roman records suggesting that such a custom existed.  Further, the implication of such a practice would be absurd.  It would mean that the Jews could plan for someone to perform a heinous crime just before the Passover and then have that perpetrator released.

This fictional story was first added to Mark’s gospel and then copied by the writers of the subsequent gospels.  The author of Mark used this tale, perhaps inspired by a similar story in Homer’s “The Odyssey,” to shift blame for the crucifixion away from the Romans and toward the Jews.  It is likely that Barabbas (translated as “son of the father”), the name of the criminal allegedly chosen by the crowd for release, was actually a nickname used for Jesus.  So, in effect, the crowd was actually demanding the release of Jesus, finding that his arrest was unwarranted.  When the author of Mark was confronted with the folklore that the Jews were asking for the release of Barabbas, he simply made Barabbas into a separate individual and then concocted the myth of the prisoner release tradition.


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## bullethead

The Gospel of Luke states that a Roman census was conducted during the time of Jesus’ birth (BC 4).   There is no record of this in Roman history.  According to the Roman’s meticulous records, the only census that took place during this time frame was in AD 6-7 and it did not include the areas of Nazareth and Bethlehem.  According to Luke, the residents were required to travel to their cities of birth to be counted.  This absurd requirement was never applied to any census that the Romans conducted throughout their empire.  This would have involved cases where families would have been split apart going to different cities, and it would have devastated the region’s economy.  Obviously, the Romans would want to know how many people were living currently in each area rather than how many were born in a certain city.

The reason for this artifice from the writer of this gospel is evident.   Jesus was known by many to have been born and raised in Nazareth, but the scriptures said that the savior was to be born in Bethlehem.  Therefore, some device was needed to convince followers that Jesus was not born in Nazareth as everyone had assumed, but rather that he had the appropriate credentials of the savior.  Further, that device had to entail something of a compulsory nature to explain why a full-term pregnant woman was transported 90 miles on a donkey away from her home and her doulas and midwives.

As a side note, this deception by the author of Luke provides some evidence that Jesus was a true historical figure, given that a mythical person could just as easily have been invented who was born and raised in Bethlehem.


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## bullethead

Christianity proposes that Jesus was both a man and a divine being, constituting 1/3 of a Godhead trinity.  Setting aside this bewildering doctrine, most Christians simply claim that Jesus is God.

Where this goes terribly wrong, is as follows: Jesus was a Jew and was following Jewish custom and law without making any effort to depart ways and start a new religion. The Jewish faith would not allow for a man to be a god, for the Jews were unyieldingly monotheistic. The best description of this is a quote from Reza Aslin, author of the book “Zealot:”

“If you’re asking if whether Jesus expected to be seen as God made flesh, as the living embodiment, the incarnation of God, then the answer to that is absolutely no. Such a thing did not exist in Judaism. In the 5,000-year history of Jewish thought, the notion of a God-man is completely anathema to everything Judaism stands for. The idea that Jesus could’ve conceived of himself — or that even his followers could’ve conceived of him — as divine, contradicts everything that has ever been said about Judaism as a religion.”

The unmistakable conclusion is that Christianity concocted a fatal contradiction regarding its central figure of worship, painting him as being something he absolutely could not have been within the context of his life and mission.  If Christianity wanted a god-man, they needed to find someone other than a Jewish preacher.


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> Imagine that, another person that has figured it out and everyone else is wrong.
> 
> Listen, there are so many errors, untruths, wrong knowledge of traditions, practices, cultures. Flat out wrong about geography, archeology, disease, all areas of science. On and on and on.
> The only misunderstanding is of the writers knowledge about all those things. They flat out got it wrong. They didn't know Jewish practices, they didn't know Roman practices, they didn't know the law of either.



I don't claim to have it figured out and everyone else is wrong. I know there are no mistakes in scripture, but I also know it is now in a language and culture that was foreign to its original pen.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> I don't claim to have it figured out and everyone else is wrong. I know there are no mistakes in scripture, but I also know it is now in a language and culture that was foreign to its original pen.


You KNOW there are no mistakes in scripture? 

But your excuse is that scripture is now in a language and culture foreign to its original pen??

So in essence, you do not have any access to the original scripture. At BEST we have postage sized fragments from 2nd century copies and the oldest full copies are from the 4th century which are in a foreign language and different culture.  The same foreign culture literally destroyed every earlier source they could get thier hands, they kept all rewritten versions solely in their possession until the 1500's when the printing press was invented.... so exactly WHICH version are you basing your claims on? What are you comparing the latest and earliest version to?


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## bullethead

Christianity claims that faithful followers have a direct connection to a benevolent, loving, and all-powerful god who has promised to hear and answer prayers.  So after 2000 years, what is the overall result of this propitious situation?  The following is taken from:

http://new.exchristian.net/2015/11/were-on-our-own.html

And yet, according to recent polls, there are at least 2.4 billion practicing Christians on this planet. Most of them, we must presume, spend a portion of their life praying. Praying for what? For peace. For goodwill. For the intervention of their God. Most of these Christians, we must presume, have petitioned their God about the current situation on Earth (as they have presumably been doing for at least 2,000 years). And their God (who allegedly said that when his believers ask anything in his name, it will be done) either doesn’t listen, or doesn’t care. But that wouldn’t make any sense. If he doesn’t care, then these believers are wrong about his love anyway and the whole point is moot. If he doesn’t listen, why did he lie to them when he said their prayers mattered? And neither can these Christians claim that their God has answered their prayers. There is no peace on Earth. There is no salvation. Reality is dark, and it’s getting darker. No one is answering any prayers (and the recovery of lost items or the finding of a parking space—these things don’t count; not when such bigger matters are being ignored).

Where is the God of the parking spaces and the greeting cards when 150 human beings are being senselessly butchered in the name of religion?So where is this God? Where is the God of the parking spaces and the greeting cards when 150 human beings are being senselessly butchered in the name of religion? Where is the net result of 2.4 billion prayers? Where is the result of 2,000 years worth of prayer? If this God existed and deigned to answer prayer, this planet would be completely different. But look around. Look for those answers. There are none.

We are on our own, people. There is no God out there. It’s time to finally come to terms with that, as a species. It’s time to stop praying and start taking matters into our own hands. The only ones who can save the humans are the humans. We must be our own salvation.

This is the argument of cumulative effect- if billions of people have prayed for the same things over twenty centuries to an actual, righteous, loving god who promised to deliver their petitions, the world would look VERY different than it does today.  This represents overwhelming evidence that Christianity is false.


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## bullethead

http://www.kyroot.com/?page_id=1340

The list grows daily. It is up to 1190 reasons as of today. Check it out. Even I have some that I disagree with but the overwhelming majority have valid points, sound reasoning and are backed up by facts.


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## RH Clark

I've always wondered why atheists spend so much time trying to disprove something that they don't believe it. I don't believe in aliens in flying saucers, but I don't spend time on those web sites arguing about their existence.

Oh, btw, you can find just as much material to validate a claim as to discredit it. It all just depends on what you are looking for.


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## bullethead

RH Clark said:


> I've always wondered why atheists spend so much time trying to disprove something that they don't believe it. I don't believe in aliens in flying saucers, but I don't spend time on those web sites arguing about their existence.
> 
> Oh, btw, you can find just as much material to validate a claim as to discredit it. It all just depends on what you are looking for.


Trying to disprove a god does not require effort. Believing or disbelieving in a god  does not require effort. Discussions with people who make claims about their gods and their personal relationships with gods require effort. Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary evidence and all that has been used against those claims is regular facts.
Last I checked I am in a forum that is specifically designed to discuss such things.
You may not frequent forums designed for aliens and flying saucers but you ARE in here when there are pro christianity, pro Jesus and pro god forums just two and three above this one.
I honestly hope I can stay here long enough for just one person to be able to produce a god. 
Anytime, and I mean ANYTIME, you want to provide a shred of material that validates your claims... by all means please do.
I know I am excited to hear it and it is the reason I am here in the first place.


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## bullethead

Christianity has a long record of destroying any written materials that contradicted its beliefs and tenets, or was not considered orthodox to its ever-changing dogma, or just about anything scientific, historical, or otherwise that shed an embarrassing light on the faith.  The following is taken from:

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/ca0_suppress.htm

Christian authorities have been responsible for the “loss” of countless invaluable historical and religious records over the last 2,000 years or so: purportedly apostolic and apocryphal writings, Gnostic and Ebionite writings, classical and philosophical writings, Jewish writings and the sacred writings of other religions, all criticism of Christianity, non-compliant histories, anything savoring of heresy or originality. Later we shall see that all manner of other works were also destroyed: science, mathematics, architecture, natural history, medicine, ancient classics — all writings in fact not currently considered orthodox, and in practice this meant everything except officially approved propaganda.

Even the records of Church Councils and ancient biblical texts were mislaid, destroyed or otherwise “lost”. Many such documents were for example collected for the famous Council of Trent (1546), never to be seen again. Other records have also been lost. For example Church records of trials for witchcraft and heresy are remarkably scanty. Much hard evidence comes from independent contemporary accounts, secret letters and municipal records. Other Church records have also been mysteriously lost — records of torture, show trials, interference in politics, and so on. Even recent records are prone to get unaccountably lost. Church records of proceedings against individuals and political groups even in the twentieth century have been mysteriously “lost”.

What better evidence is there that Christianity is untrue than its long campaign to weed out all of the things that show it to be false? If Christianity was true, nothing of that sort would have been necessary.  Instead, there would have been a concerted campaign to preserve non-canonical writings to demonstrate the validity of the faith independent of its holy scripture.


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## bullethead

Christians rarely sit back and examine the character of the god that they worship.  It is so ingrained in their psyche that God is all good, merciful, and benevolent, but this description is shown to be utterly false by an examination of scripture.  The following is a quote from Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899).

DID these words come from the heart of love?—”When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them.”

“I will heap mischief upon them. I will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction.”

“I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.”

“The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin; the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.”

“Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.”

“And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body—the flesh of thy sons and daughters.”

“And the heaven that is over thee shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.”

“Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.”

“I will make my arrows drunk with blood.”

“I will laugh at their calamity.”

Did these curses, these threats, come from the heart of love or from the mouth of savagery?

Was Jehovah god or devil?

Why should we place Jehovah above all the gods?

Has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster?

Have the barbarians of any land, in any time, worshipped a more heartless god?

Brahma was a thousand times nobler, and so was Osiris and Zeus and Jupiter. So was the supreme god of the Aztecs, to whom they offered only the perfume of flowers. The worst god of the Hindus, with his necklace of skulls and his bracelets of living snakes, was kind and merciful compared with Jehovah.

Compared with Marcus Aurelius, how small Jehovah seems. Compared with Abraham Lincoln, how cruel, how contemptible, is this god.”

Countless pagan gods and human philosophers and heads of state have shown a character, virtue, and integrity that vastly exceeds that of the Christian god.  And yet they worship him without reservation.  If a human displayed the same morality, they would hate and revile him.

The rationalization ‘that’s just the Old Testament’ is a feeble and unacceptable attempt to weasel out of this unassailable truth- the God presented in the Bible is not worthy of worship or even mild admiration, but rather he deserves contempt, disgust, and derision.


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## bullethead

The question of the Bible’s authenticity hangs to some extent on the background of those who authored it. The problem for the Bible is that it was written mostly in a language that was different from that spoken by the cast of characters or the local population.  This also indicates that it was written in locations that were probably quite distant from the scenes of the action.  The following was taken from:

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/What_language_was_the_bible_written_in?

So, with all of this in mind, the Torah, some of the Prophetic books, and many of the wisdom books were probably originally composed in Greek, and later adapted for Jewish settlements and villages in both the Greek polis’ and the chora (rural areas in Egypt), as well as other Diaspora settings where these settlements are not fully or mostly Hellenized and still communicated in Aramaic. There are perhaps some narratives that were originally composed in Hebrew, such as 1 Maccabees, Ester (although it seems more likely composed originally in Greek, the debate continues), Ecclesiastes (although some debate on this continues, the dating ranges from the fifth – third centuries BCE), and some of the prophetic books. Virtually all of the deuterocanonical books of the Hebrew Bible were not written in a Semitic language but rather in Greek.

Additionally, New Testament scholarship had for a very long time thought that the original composition of some of the Gospels (if not all of them) was in Aramaic, reflecting eyewitness authorship which no longer is assumed. Today, it is understood that the Gospels are not the works of eyewitnesses writing on historical events, but also literary creations composed by anonymous authors with very different motivations. The Gospel narratives, like many of the Old Testament literature, were written in Greek. All of Paul’s letters and the various pseudonymous epistles and Revelations were also written in Greek. And probably most of the Gnostic literature found at Nag Hammadi were also originally composed in Greek, and then later copied into Coptic – the language we currently have most of them in today (although some Greek fragments remain for some of them). The language adaptation of the texts reflects the adaptation of the interpretation by the authors of other narratives. It is all relative, and represents the times and culture of the day.

The Bible would be viewed as being more reliable if it was written predominantly in Hebrew and Aramaic. That being not the case elevates the probability that it contains a lot of non-eyewitness fiction.


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## bullethead

A common Christian argument is that the faith has survived twenty centuries of attack by skeptics.  John Loftus, in the following essay, destroys this false idea:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/11/christianity-has-died-out-hundred-times.html

Christians claim that skeptics have come and gone but their faith has withstood all attacks so far and survived. Balderdash!Here’s the truth. The Christianity that survived is a reinvented one in each generation as the result of skeptical attacks, sometimes coming from within. Just think of the modernist rift due to the enlightenment which divided all denominations to some degree. This division can be attributed to the skeptical attacks of Hume, Kant, Darwin, Nietzsche, Paine, Ingersoll, and many others. The liberal church is a testament to the effectiveness of the skeptical arguments.

Even within conservative denominations there are liberal ideas that would have been condemned by the Office of the Inquisition, like Open Theism, a metaphorical and/or annihilation view of CensoredCensoredCensoredCensored, women in leadership, Preterism, the emergent church, acceptance of a gay orientation, the mythical (or literary) view of Genesis 1-2, and so forth and so on. The Christianity practiced and believed by any denomination today is not something the early church would recognize. And the future church will be almost as different. Let’s have done then with this cockamamie notion that the church has survived our attacks. No it hasn’t. In each generation the former Christianity dies, so to speak, and a new one is invented due to skeptical arguments.

A true religion of an all-knowing god would not need to re-invent itself or capitulate to skeptical attacks.  Christianity has had to re-shape itself countless times to maintain its relevance in a fast-changing world.


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## WaltL1

RH Clark said:


> I've always wondered why atheists spend so much time trying to disprove something that they don't believe it. I don't believe in aliens in flying saucers, but I don't spend time on those web sites arguing about their existence.
> 
> Oh, btw, you can find just as much material to validate a claim as to discredit it. It all just depends on what you are looking for.


Such a lame excuse.
And offered up without discrediting
anything just that "it can be".
Ignorance is bliss.


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> You KNOW there are no mistakes in scripture?
> 
> But your excuse is that scripture is now in a language and culture foreign to its original pen??
> 
> So in essence, you do not have any access to the original scripture. At BEST we have postage sized fragments from 2nd century copies and the oldest full copies are from the 4th century which are in a foreign language and different culture.  The same foreign culture literally destroyed every earlier source they could get thier hands, they kept all rewritten versions solely in their possession until the 1500's when the printing press was invented.... so exactly WHICH version are you basing your claims on? What are you comparing the latest and earliest version to?



You realize Christianity  grew so big , so fast on eye witness testimony don't you?


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> You realize Christianity  grew so big , so fast on eye witness testimony don't you?



I realize that it most certainly did not.
It grew in the 4th century when it was mandated. It was almost dead a few times before that and by the 4th century it was nothing like the beginning.
You should research it sometime.


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## oldfella1962

hobbs27 said:


> Christianity and the Bible are not false. Man's understanding of it is false, but many of us are coming around and there's a growing number of people that realize the creation account was a Covenant creation, not a literal physical creation.


what is a "covenant creation?"


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## bullethead

Dan Barker is an American atheist activist who served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years.  He has issued the following challenge:

http://www.coppit.org/god/arguments.php

The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul’s tiny version of the story in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.

Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture–it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted.

No one has been able to respond to this challenge.

Most Christians do not understand the issue of plausibility.  When you have a set of facts that are all assumed to be true (in this case because biblical scripture is supposedly inspired by a celestial deity), there should be at least one plausible scenario that would incorporate all of the facts.  When it is impossible to construct any plausible scenarios, this proves that some of the facts must be false. In the case of the resurrection to ascension period, a plausible scenario cannot even be constructed by leaving out many of the facts- they are literally all over the board.  This is a dramatic demonstration of a fabled myth created by many uninspired hands.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> You realize Christianity  grew so big , so fast on eye witness testimony don't you?





We must look at the events of Christianity down a long tunnel of time, depending on non-eyewitness accounts, written in foreign lands, in foreign languages, and subjected to countless edits and unauthorized revisions.  On the other hand, the Jews of Jerusalem, Judea, and Galilee were physically there when all of the action was taking place.  It’s interesting to see how they reacted to the miracles, resurrection, and ascension.  The following is taken from:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/02/problem-of-miracles.html

Even if we agree with the Jews of Jesus’ day that Yahweh exists and he does miracles this still does very little if anything to lead us in today’s world to think Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead. Because a completely overwhelming number of Jews in Jesus’ day did not think Yahweh did this particular miracle in this particular case. If they were there, and if they knew their Scriptures, and if they believed in Yahweh, and if they believed in miracles, but they didn’t believe God raised Jesus from the dead THEN WHY SHOULD I believe? WHY SHOULD WE?

This is an extremely difficult point for Christian apologists to refute. Why should we exercise faith when the eyewitnesses who were there refused to become Christians?


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## bullethead

One of the best ways to evaluate the credibility of the Bible and Christianity is general is to observe how honest Christians have been in recent times in reporting events and apparent miracles.  The result is not impressive.

We have many faked discoveries of Noah’s Ark.  We have many faked analyses of the Shroud of Turin. We have the fake ‘miracles’ at Lourdes.  We have many fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Just recently we had the fabricated authentication of a miracle healing by Mother Theresa. We have the fake ‘incorruptible’ corpses of Christian saints.  We have the faked victims of stigmata, or bloody wounds on hands and feet to mimic Jesus on the cross.  We have the fake crying statues of Mary. We have the fake flying escapades of Joseph of Cupertino.  We have the numerous fake ‘miracle of the sun’ events at Fatima, along with the fake transfiguration of silver into gold.  We have the fake ‘healing’ services of evangelical preachers.  We have the fake exorcisms still performed in the Catholic Church.

So here is the problem.  If all of these alleged miracles are being faked in an information age, and yet still believed by millions of unquestioning, gullible, non-critical thinking Christians, how can we have any confidence in the miracles reported in the Bible, at at time before any reliable reporting or fact checking was possible?  The answer is we can’t.  The current history of deceit is an overwhelming reason to discount every miracle contained in the Bible.


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> We must look at the events of Christianity down a long tunnel of time, depending on non-eyewitness accounts, written in foreign lands, in foreign languages, and subjected to countless edits and unauthorized revisions.  On the other hand, the Jews of Jerusalem, Judea, and Galilee were physically there when all of the action was taking place.  It’s interesting to see how they reacted to the miracles, resurrection, and ascension.  The following is taken from:
> 
> http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/02/problem-of-miracles.html
> 
> Even if we agree with the Jews of Jesus’ day that Yahweh exists and he does miracles this still does very little if anything to lead us in today’s world to think Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead. Because a completely overwhelming number of Jews in Jesus’ day did not think Yahweh did this particular miracle in this particular case. If they were there, and if they knew their Scriptures, and if they believed in Yahweh, and if they believed in miracles, but they didn’t believe God raised Jesus from the dead THEN WHY SHOULD I believe? WHY SHOULD WE?
> 
> This is an extremely difficult point for Christian apologists to refute. Why should we exercise faith when the eyewitnesses who were there refused to become Christians?



33-37 years later those Jewish eyewitnesses that refused to believe found themselves surrounded by a Roman army. Starving to death, eating their own children for food, murdering one another trapped inside the walls of Jerusalem. It was like the days of Noe. 

When it was all said 1.1 million corpses laid dead and rotting, the rest taken into captivity and sent to foreign lands.

The Jews that did believe, heeded the words of Jesus we read in Matthew 24. They saw the signs of the end and left the city. Even though many Christians lived in Jerusalem, not a single one was  recorded as being killed.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> 33-37 years later those Jewish eyewitnesses that refused to believe found themselves surrounded by a Roman army. Starving to death, eating their own children for food, murdering one another trapped inside the walls of Jerusalem. It was like the days of Noe.
> 
> When it was all said 1.1 million corpses laid dead and rotting, the rest taken into captivity and sent to foreign lands.
> 
> The Jews that did believe, heeded the words of Jesus we read in Matthew 24. They saw the signs of the end and left the city. Even though many Christians lived in Jerusalem, not a single one was  recorded as being killed.


From: http://mailstar.net/jewish-revolt.html

{p. 64} These a priori considerations are reasonable and legitimate. They point to a predicament of the Gentile Christians, resulting from the Jewish war of 66-70, fraught with both danger and perplexity. But why, it must be asked, since this is so, is there no obvious evidence in the New Testament of Christian reaction to that war and its consequences? The answer seems to be that search has hitherto been made for the wrong things: 'obvious evidence' of reaction has been expected to take the form of clearly stated references and comments upon those notable events which are so vividly described by Josephus. Attention has not been given to the possibility that the effect of the Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem on the infant Christian Church may have been so profound that it produced such a transformation that, after AD 70, Christianity became almost a completely new movement. Further, the possibility has not been explored that Christian writings after that date are really the products of this transformation, and present a new interpretation of Jesus and his mission.


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## hobbs27

Bullet, Christianity did not develop post 70 ad. It began in the garden with Adam and Eve. Christianity is the true religion of the Almighty God.
 Through Peter , Paul, Barnabus, and other Jesus believing Israelites, the true religion escaped the physical Kingdom and began its reign in a spiritual Kingdom. 
 Judaism as we know it today was developed post 70 ad as was Islam. Christianity is way older than those.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Rabbinic_Judaism


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## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Bullet, Christianity did not develop post 70 ad. It began in the garden with Adam and Eve. Christianity is the true religion of the Almighty God.
> Through Peter , Paul, Barnabus, and other Jesus believing Israelites, the true religion escaped the physical Kingdom and began its reign in a spiritual Kingdom.
> Judaism as we know it today was developed post 70 ad as was Islam. Christianity is way older than those.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Rabbinic_Judaism



What about Muslims and Hindus? They are way older than Christianity.


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Bullet, Christianity did not develop post 70 ad. It began in the garden with Adam and Eve. Christianity is the true religion of the Almighty God.
> Through Peter , Paul, Barnabus, and other Jesus believing Israelites, the true religion escaped the physical Kingdom and began its reign in a spiritual Kingdom.
> Judaism as we know it today was developed post 70 ad as was Islam. Christianity is way older than those.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Rabbinic_Judaism


The only problem with that is the facts do not back up your claims.
If we have to humor you and go by the biblical accounts, the writers couldn't agree on or get  right the bloodline of Jesus.
Jesus did not fulfill the OT prophesies.
You are stuck in the mud trying to tie in your new, modern twist on Christianity just as every single denomination has had to do. An unchanging bible and a changing world has given its believers fits in trying to constantly make excuses as to why what it says and what the truth is are two different things.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Bullet, Christianity did not develop post 70 ad. It began in the garden with Adam and Eve. Christianity is the true religion of the Almighty God.
> Through Peter , Paul, Barnabus, and other Jesus believing Israelites, the true religion escaped the physical Kingdom and began its reign in a spiritual Kingdom.
> Judaism as we know it today was developed post 70 ad as was Islam. Christianity is way older than those.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Rabbinic_Judaism



Like every other religion, and especially yours since your religion is an offshoot of Judaism created by unhappy jews, Judaism has had its share of splinter groups.
Your link above does nothing to show your claim of Christianity being the world's oldest, first, true and especially not started with a symbolic Adam in a symbolic garden.


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## hobbs27

660griz said:


> What about Muslims and Hindus? They are way older than Christianity.



Muslim, definitely not. Islam was created after the fall of Jerusalem. I don't know much about Hinduism. It's possible  it was in existence as I'm sure many false religions were before God brought Adam into the garden.


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> Like every other religion, and especially yours since your religion is an offshoot of Judaism created by unhappy jews, Judaism has had its share of splinter groups.
> Your link above does nothing to show your claim of Christianity being the world's oldest, first, true and especially not started with a symbolic Adam in a symbolic garden.



Christianity is not an offshoot of Judaism. Judaism of today is an offshoot of Judaism . It's a totally different religion.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Muslim, definitely not. Islam was created after the fall of Jerusalem. I don't know much about Hinduism. It's possible  it was in existence as I'm sure many false religions were before God brought Adam into the garden.



You should thank your god for those earlier religions. Without those religions the writers of yours would have had nothing to copy from and plagiarize in order to create your god.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Christianity is not an offshoot of Judaism. Judaism of today is an offshoot of Judaism . It's a totally different religion.


Was Jesus jewish?


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> Was Jesus jewish?



Absolutely, He was the Lion out of the tribe of Judah.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Absolutely, He was the Lion out of the tribe of Judah.



And what did Jesus want to do with the OT, I mean Torah?


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> And what did Jesus want to do with the OT, I mean Torah?



It was  fulfilled through Him. Everything prophesied  in the OT is now fulfilled.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> It was  fulfilled through Him. Everything prophesied  in the OT is now fulfilled.


Hobbs, if that were so, Judaism would have ceased to exist.


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## bullethead

The following is taken from:

According to the Torah, the Messiah, the Mashiach, must be a descendant of King David. This is why the Torah named him “Mashiach Ben David.” The Messiah, a son of David, which means he has to be linked to King David. This is what G-d says in the Old Testament. Come along the people that wrote the New Testament and they know that the story has to match the Torah, because it has to be from the same God, there cannot be any contradiction. So, they come and describe all the generations from Kind David until Josef the carpenter, and, why, because they are trying to link Jesus to King David. If Jesus is not connected to King David he cannot be the Messiah. Because, if he is going to be a great grandson of King David he has a chance, not necessarily that he is the Messiah, but he at least he has a chance.

This is where Christianity made a fatal mistake. In their zeal to make Jesus more than just a man, in fact to make him into a god, they had to forgo a typical biological conception story and make Jesus the product of a divine inseminator and a human woman.  Otherwise he would have been rejected by practically all of the followers of pagan religions as being  less than divine.  And it was these people that Christianity desperately needed to convert.

Although Matthew and Luke devised contradictory and obviously fictional genealogies to connect Jesus to King David, it is quite clear to the most casual observer that Jesus was not the son of his mother’s husband, Joseph.  And because of this, Jesus could not be the Jewish Messiah.  And because of that, Christianity is a fraud


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## bullethead

As more is learned about the development of Christianity, it is becoming clear that the figure of Jesus was constructed as a means to compete with neighboring religions that had attributes that were more attractive than classical Judaism.  The following is taken from:

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/her...pect-jesus-never-existed/#.VnCJnxyWGjk.reddit

Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons. They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee, conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, and nonviolent pacifist to borrow from a much longer list assembled by Price. In his words (pp. 15-16), “The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage.  But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time.”  John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar grumbles that “the stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment.”

For David Fitzgerald, these issues and more lead to a conclusion that he finds inescapable:

Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’ longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.

Thus, Christianity appears to have been a movement within the Jewish community to develop a more competitive religious faith, using many of the attributes of the neighboring religions.  It failed to capture the bulk of the Jews, but later it was fully embraced by the Roman Empire and become the dominant world religion


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## bullethead

Christians claim that Jesus was the promised Jewish messiah, or savior, and the Gospel authors went out of their way to portray him as such, often referring to the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. But there is a huge problem with this- scripturally literate Jews have rejected this concept for 2000 years and for many good reasons. All of the following would have to happen before someone can be acknowledged as the messiah:

The messiah must be of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David and King Solomon. The New Testament scriptures confirm that Jesus did not have a birth father, and thus could not fulfill this requirement.

The temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt. The temple was destroyed 38 years after Jesus’s death and has not been rebuilt.

There will be worldwide peace and a complete end to war. Wars have increased since the birth of Christianity.

The messiah will reign as a king, with all Jews observing the Jewish commandments. Jesus never reigned as a king and all Jews do not observe the commandments.

The messiah is to rule when all the people of the world acknowledge and worship the one true god. This has not happened.

There will be an in-gathering of Jews to Israel. This has begun to happen, but has not been completed.

Christians claim that Jesus will fulfill all of these requirements when he returns. But Jewish people consider this claim to be an admission that Jesus failed to fulfill the Messianic criteria.

The fact that Jesus is a failed messiah destroys the credibility of Christianity. It creates a disconnect between the Old Testament god and the god of Christianity, but Jesus himself worshiped the Old Testament god. Therefore, Christianity can only be true if Jesus was the Jewish messiah and was universally accepted as such.


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## bullethead

If Jesus actually rose from the dead and appeared to 500 people in Jerusalem as Paul asserted, then word of his resurrection would have overtaken the city in a matter of hours.  It would have been very difficult for any Jew to deny that Jesus was at the very least a true prophet of God, deserving of the same adulation that was afforded to Abraham, Moses, and Elijah.

Further, the following section of scripture alleges that Jesus’s disciples were working astonishing miracles all around the area:

Acts 5:12-16

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

If these miracles were happening as alleged, there would have been very few Jews who would have rejected Jesus as being a true messiah, and Judaism would have incorporated Jesus within their theology.  But this didn’t happen.   Keep in mind that these were the same people who honored Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem by spreading palms fronds along his path into the city, with great chants of admiration and adulation.  So they were already predisposed to thinking of him as being a messiah.  Then, when hearing news of his resurrection from the dead and seeing with their own eyes everybody being healed in Jesus’s name, how on earth could they have then rejected him and gone along with their religion as if Jesus never existed? The Jews of Jerusalem are the tell-tale indicators that the Christian story of Jesus is a myth


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## bullethead

In the works of Josephus he writes about four other men that he implies were messiahs, without actually saying it. He specifically talks about them in messianic fashion by the deeds they performed (that he believed, or he wrote about their claims).

In his book On The Historicity Of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason To Doubt, Dr. Richard Carrier lists the four implied messiahs that Josephus wrote about in the first century.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23787579-on-the-historicity-of-jesus

As explained here, quoting Craig Evans:

http://richardcarrier.blogspot.ca/2011/10/dying-messiah.html?m=1

“(1) “The Samaritan” tried to gather Israelites at Mount Gerizim, at which point Pontius Pilate sent a legion to wipe them out. One might wonder why such a hasty scorched earth reaction from Pilate. But gathering the Israelites at Mount Gerizim is precisely what Joshua did, and which God had previously commanded him to do, once he had launched his conquest of the land of Israel (Deuteronomy 27:12 and 11:29, and Joshua 8:30-35; also alluded to in the parable of the trees in Judges 9). Pilate clearly had advisers who got the point. No doubt he had access to other confirming evidence that a reenactment was what the Samaritan had in mind. Thus just as the first Jesus did (meaning Joshua, the original Conqueror of the Holy Land), the last Jesus would do (reestablish the Holy Land by military might). The later Christians even made their Jesus allude to this (in John 4).

(2) “Theudas” gathered a multitude of Israelites and said he would part the Jordan, which is precisely what the first Jesus did to launch his original conquest of the Holy Land (Joshua 3). Theudas was thus modeling himself on the first Jesus, too, in effect claiming now to be the last Jesus, just as the Samaritan seems to have done. That the Romans responded again with overwhelming lethal force is thus not surprising here either. Notably the Christians made their Jesus “part the Jordan” as well, metaphorically: he is baptized in the Jordan and “parts the heavens” above it (Mk 1:9-11).

(3) “The Egyptian” preached from the Mount of Olives and claimed he would miraculously fell the walls of Jerusalem. The Messiah was expected to preach from the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14), and of course the Christians made their Jesus do so, too. But more importantly, miraculously felling the walls of Jericho is precisely what the first Jesus did to secure his first great victory in his conquest of the Holy Land (Joshua 6). Thus “the Egyptian” was also claiming to be the last Jesus, who would begin his reconquest of the Holy Land the same way the first Jesus did (only beginning with Jerusalem rather than Jericho). He was thus representing himself to be the final Jesus, Messiah. In other words, Jesus Christ.

The NT suggests John the Baptist (Jn. 1:20and Lk. 3:15) and Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-11) were also messianic pretenders (or else depicted John as preaching the messiah was nigh: e.g. Mt. 3:1-12; Mk. 1:1-8; Lk. 3:1-20; Jn. 1:15-28). The Gospels and Acts can’t really be trusted as historical sources since they are so laden with the skewed agendas and views of later Christians.”

So having acknowledged this, we need to remind ourselves that the “evidence” of Josephus that Christians try to use, that we know to be forgeries, doesn’t depict or describe the Jesus they  say died by the specific circumstances stated in the gospels or had the historical role that is claimed by the faith. What Josephus took the time and trouble to do was to detail other people with messianic roles and histories, so it’s odd he wouldn’t have mentioned Jesus if he had a messianic role.  Whether or not Josephus believed Jesus existed, or even if he did exist, Josephus didn’t describe Jesus as anything important, or in a detail similar to the other ‘messiahs.’

The latest from Dr. Carrier on the Testimonium Flavianum being exposed as forgery:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/7437

It is Interesting that what Christians often think is their greatest non-biblical evidence for Jesus actually works against them and reveals in fact that Christianity is a false religion


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> Hobbs, if that were so, Judaism would have ceased to exist.



Physical Israel was the representative bride of God. Through the Covenant  marriage of Israel and God. The northern tribes fell first, so much so the priests in Jerusalem would refer to them as Gentiles. Jerusalem fell in 70 ad just as Jesus said it would in the olivet discourse. 

 The bride was dead, but she rose again at that destruction as a spiritual Israel, known as the bride of Christ which then took His seat as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. ( Judaism) as you refer to it, continued in what is known today as Christianity.

 Judaism as we know it today was created after the destruction of the Temple. It's a false  religion. It and Islam were created as Christianity was growing out of the ashes of the Temple.

As for the genealogy of Jesus, neither of us or anyone else can prove to the critic that it is correct. All the genealogical records of the Jews were destroyed in the Temple fire. If Jews are awaiting a Messiah from the lineage of David they have no way of proving it today as they did during Christ's ministry.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Physical Israel was the representative bride of God. Through the Covenant  marriage of Israel and God. The northern tribes fell first, so much so the priests in Jerusalem would refer to them as Gentiles. Jerusalem fell in 70 ad just as Jesus said it would in the olivet discourse.
> 
> The bride was dead, but she rose again at that destruction as a spiritual Israel, know as the bride of Christ which then took His seat as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. ( Judaism) as you refer to it, continued in what is known today as Christianity.
> 
> Judaism as we know it today was created after the destruction of the Temple. It's a false  religion. It and Islam were created as Christianity was growing out of the ashes of the Temple.
> 
> As for the genealogy of Jesus, neither of us or anyone else can prove to the critic that it is correct. All the genealogical records of the Jews were destroyed in the Temple fire. If Jews are awaiting a Messiah from the lineage of David they have no way of proving it today as they did during Christ's ministry.



Genealogy of Jesus....
Women were sub-standard at the time. Nobody used the mother in tracing back genealogy back then.

That leaves Joseph. Do you care to trace his roots back to David?


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## bullethead

A study of early Church documents reveals that many of the conventional doctrines of Christianity were not in place in the first few centuries after Jesus.  Rather than being firmly established in scripture, the doctrine seems to have developed slowly over time, and with lots of political influence.  This website explains what happened:

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/bc0_doctrine.htm#other

Often there is no reliable support for doctrine at all. Early writers frequently failed to mention important doctrines, apparently because they were unaware of them. Sometimes they supported doctrines that are now considered heretical and rejected ones that are now considered orthodox. Often they contradicted one another.

The general pattern in the first few centuries is that some Christians adopt a popular pagan theme. It gains popularity and theologians refine it so that it can be accommodated into the body of acceptable Church doctrine. If possible, some sort of biblical justification is found for it, and if not, a suitable piece of text is inserted into the Bible. A Church Council eventually endorses it by a majority vote, and anathematises anyone who denies it. Those who do continue to deny it are condemned as heretics and persecuted into submission or extinction.

It is difficult to find any substantial doctrine that is clearly formulated, has explicit biblical support, and is free of the charge of having been borrowed from contemporary pagan religions. If consistency of teaching is sought as well, then the task appears impossible: not a single doctrine qualifies. An increasing number of Church scholars accept that almost all mainstream Christian doctrine was unknown to the biblical Jesus. It was developed after his death, largely borrowed from other religions, and subject to amendment in later centuries, often looking suspiciously as though it were determined by popular pressure and political expediency.

Evolving doctrine is a bulletproof demonstration of a human-centered enterprise.  If Christianity had been from God, the doctrine would have been precisely defined at the very start and would have remained constant to the current day.


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## bullethead

In Deuteronomy 18:21-22 we read:

You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.”

Jesus made several prophecies that failed to come true, but one in particular is indisputable- his prediction of his imminent return in glory within the lifespan of some of those people he was directly talking to, as seen in the following scriptures:

“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.“ (Matthew 16: 27, 28)

Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.“ (Matthew 24: 25-34)

“Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven. Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. Even so, you too, when you see these things happening, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place…“ (Mark 13:26-30)

Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Then He told them a parable: Behold the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they put forth leaves, you see it and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.“(Luke 21:27-32)

Attempts by Christian apologists to explain away this problem have been forcefully debunked, as described at the following website:

https://blacknonbelievers.wordpress.com/jesus-failed-prophecy-about-his-return/

It wasn’t long after the birth of Christianity that followers began to question why Jesus had not returned. This became especially true after all of his original apostles had died.  Someone, not Peter, wrote the following (possibly as late as 160 AD) to try to make some sense of the failure of Jesus to return as promised:

2 Peter 3:3-8

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

This presents a rationalization, still used today, that fails to address the scriptural references to “this generation” or “those who are standing here” as well as many other scriptures both in the gospels and the epistles that point to an very quick return of Jesus to administer the final judgment.

So, in short, Jesus was just another in a long line of preachers extending to the present day proclaiming that the end of the world is near.  As it states in Deuteronomy, this means that he was not delivering a message from God, but rather from his human mind. This fact alone is sufficient to prove that Christianity is false.  The only rational way to escape this problem is to state that Jesus never made these claims and they were forgeries inserted by the gospel writers, but this creates a problem that is just as severe- that the words of Jesus in the gospels are not authentic


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## bullethead

The Christian doctrine that the Jewish Messiah (Jesus) died to pay for mankind’s sins is to be found nowhere in the Old Testament.  In fact Deuteronomy 24:16 states:

“Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.”

This implies that everyone pays for their own sins, the complete opposite of Christian dogma.

Further, nowhere in the Old Testament is there a hint that the Messiah will appear on Earth, leave, and then make a second appearance.  This is significant evidence that Christianity is a fake religion that purports to be the divine extension of Judaism, but is in fact just a gross corruption of the same.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> Genealogy of Jesus....
> Women were sub-standard at the time. Nobody used the mother in tracing back genealogy back then.
> 
> That leaves Joseph. Do you care to trace his roots back to David?



https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/genealogy/whats-in-a-fathers-name/


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> As for the genealogy of Jesus, neither of us or anyone else can prove to the critic that it is correct. All the genealogical records of the Jews were destroyed in the Temple fire. If Jews are awaiting a Messiah from the lineage of David they have no way of proving it today as they did during Christ's ministry.


  The gospels of Matthew and Luke provide genealogies connecting King David to Jesus, which was necessary to qualify Jesus as the messiah according to Jewish scripture.  But when the legend of Jesus’s virgin birth was introduced, it made the genealogies redundant because it rendered Jesus not directly related to David.

The following is taken from:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html

Both the genealogies of Matthew and Luke show that Joseph was a direct descendant of King David. But if Joseph is not Jesus’ father, then Joseph’s genealogies are meaningless as far as Jesus is concerned, and one has to wonder why Matthew and Luke included them in their gospels. The answer, of course, is that the genealogies originally said that Jesus was the son of Joseph and thus Jesus fulfilled the messianic requirement of being a direct descendant of King David.

Long after Matthew and Luke wrote the genealogies the church invented (or more likely borrowed from the mystery religions) the doctrine of the virgin birth. Although the virgin birth could be accommodated by inserting a few words into the genealogies to break the physical link between Joseph and Jesus, those same insertions also broke the physical link between David and Jesus.

The church had now created two major problems: 1) to explain away the existence of two genealogies of Joseph, now rendered meaningless, and 2) to explain how Jesus was a descendant of David.

The apostle Paul says that Jesus “was born of the seed of David” (Romans 1:3). Here the word “seed” is literally in the Greek “sperma.” This same Greek word is translated in other verses as “descendant(s)” or “offspring.” The point is that the Messiah had to be a physical descendant of King David through the male line. That Jesus had to be a physical descendant of David means that even if Joseph had legally adopted Jesus (as some apologists have suggested), Jesus would still not qualify as Messiah if he had been born of a virgin – seed from the line of David was required.

Women did not count in reckoning descent for the simple reason that it was then believed that the complete human was present in the man’s sperm (the woman’s egg being discovered in 1827). The woman’s womb was just the soil in which the seed was planted. Just as there was barren soil that could not produce crops, so also the Bible speaks of barren wombs that could not produce children.

This is the reason that although there are many male genealogies in the Bible, there are no female genealogies. This also eliminates the possibility put forward by some apologists that Jesus could be of the “seed of David” through Mary.

The virgin birth might have made the new faith more palatable to people following pagan religions, but it also created a critical contradiction that made Jesus ineligible to be the Jewish messiah.  It was a solution that created a bigger problem than what it solved.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> The Christian doctrine that the Jewish Messiah (Jesus) died to pay for mankind’s sins is to be found nowhere in the Old Testament.  In fact Deuteronomy 24:16 states:
> 
> “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.”
> 
> This implies that everyone pays for their own sins, the complete opposite of Christian dogma.
> 
> Further, nowhere in the Old Testament is there a hint that the Messiah will appear on Earth, leave, and then make a second appearance.  This is significant evidence that Christianity is a fake religion that purports to be the divine extension of Judaism, but is in fact just a gross corruption of the same.



All these are covered in the books of the Prophets. Not to mention the Psalms also


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/genealogy/whats-in-a-fathers-name/


More probable answer.
The initial authors of the gospels were going with the original meaning of "young lady" and not "virgin" and had no reason to not include Joseph as Joseph was and is the real father of Jesus. Since the 4th century things changed and the link had to be made to a divine father in order to bring the pagans into the religion.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> All these are covered in the books of the Prophets. Not to mention the Psalms also


Oh that's right, those are the ones that said "He will be called Immanuel" , but in all actuality he was named Joshua but somehow called Jesus.
Spot on


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## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> More probable answer.
> The initial authors of the gospels were going with the original meaning of "young lady" and not "virgin" and had no reason to not include Joseph as Joseph was and is the real father of Jesus. Since the 4th century things changed and the link had to be made to a divine father in order to bring the pagans into the religion.



 I admit the fourth century was a setback for Christianity and it has taken many many years to get back to what was intended.

 I disagree that virgin is meant to be only young lady. The scripture is clear that Mary and Joseph were betrothed, ( engaged) 

 While showing Jesus being devine was not as important to the Pagans as showing Mary as devine. That is the deception Constantine pulled over on the liberal Christians and Pagans to have them come together  in a state controlled religion which was opposite of the teachings of Christ.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> I admit the fourth century was a setback for Christianity and it has taken many many years to get back to what was intended.
> 
> I disagree that virgin is meant to be only young lady. The scripture is clear that Mary and Joseph were betrothed, ( engaged)
> 
> While showing Jesus being devine was not as important to the Pagans as showing Mary as devine. That is the deception Constantine pulled over on the liberal Christians and Pagans to have them come together  in a state controlled religion which was opposite of the teachings of Christ.


And scripture is infallibile?
Just what did the 4th century add and take away?


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## bullethead

I can't wait to discuss the other messiahs that fulfilled even more prophesy than jesus.


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## 660griz

hobbs27 said:


> Muslim, definitely not. Islam was created after the fall of Jerusalem. I don't know much about Hinduism. It's possible  it was in existence as I'm sure many false religions were before God brought Adam into the garden.



You are right. Got my charts mixed up. 
Here you go.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> And scripture is infallibile?
> Just what did the 4th century add and take away?



There's  a lot, but there were also Christians of that time not affiliated with the church of Rome. They were in minority and little is recorded of them because they were being persecuted by Rome.

 The worship of Mary was introduced to satisfy Pagans.

The doctrine of eternal conscious torment was introduced to satisfy Pagans.


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## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> There's  a lot, but there were also Christians of that time not affiliated with the church of Rome. They were in minority and little is recorded of them because they were being persecuted by Rome.
> 
> The worship of Mary was introduced to satisfy Pagans.
> 
> The doctrine of eternal conscious torment was introduced to satisfy Pagans.



With ZERO original scripture in existence...
With postage stamp sized fragments of copies from the 2nd century...
With the earliest known full copies coming from the 4th  century...

How do you differentiate what is authentic?


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> With ZERO original scripture in existence...
> With postage stamp sized fragments of copies from the 2nd century...
> With the earliest known full copies coming from the 4th  century...
> 
> How do you differentiate what is authentic?



If I had that task I would follow the same strict guidelines as the men that decided what should be considered Canon.


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> There's  a lot, but there were also Christians of that time not affiliated with the church of Rome. They were in minority and little is recorded of them because they were being persecuted by Rome.
> 
> The worship of Mary was introduced to satisfy Pagans.
> 
> The doctrine of eternal conscious torment was introduced to satisfy Pagans.


It is obvious you know about the additions and you certainly know men purposely made those alterations to suit their needs, so why then do you say scripture is infallible and the word of god?
There is absolutely no possible way that you know what is original, let alone what has stayed original so please explain why it is all still original in your eyes.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> It is obvious you know about the additions and you certainly know men purposely made those alterations to suit their needs, so why then do you say scripture is infallible and the word of god?
> There is absolutely no possible way that you know what is original, let alone what has stayed original so please explain why it is all still original in your eyes.



Simple. I have yet to find any contradictions. Sure, if I were a strict literalist  or a hyper- skeptic I would find some things, but that would require me to misinterpret the figurative language or deny the obvious truthfulness in scripture. Not to mention the active God in my life that I commune with is the God reflected in the scriptures.


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> If I had that task I would follow the same strict guidelines as the men that decided what should be considered Canon.


Why would men have to decide at all?
Does the word of god have guidelines?

Would it be within the capabilities of a god to give the world an indestructible collection of gods words?
I would think it should show up in multiple places all over the world so every culture got the message at the same time, but I would concede if even there was one single version in Jerusalem that could be opened and read by all that see it, yet be unmovable, and incapable of destruction that it would certainly be the work of a god.

We have nothing even close. No originals.  Fragments of copies. And after the church burned every piece of religious literature it could get its hands on over centuries we have their version of what they say is God's word.
And, even more astonishing to me is that you believe it!


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> Simple. I have yet to find any contradictions. Sure, if I were a strict literalist  or a hyper- skeptic I would find some things, but that would require me to misinterpret the figurative language or deny the obvious truthfulness in scripture. Not to mention the active God in my life that I commune with is the God reflected in the scriptures.


Now here is where you are showing your true colors.
You have been shown time and time again that it is loaded with contradictions, lies, inaccuracies, forgeries,omissions, lack of scientific knowledge, lack of historical kowledge, lack of disease knowledge,lack of geographic knowledge,lack of knowledge of customs,laws and cultures. There is nothing in there that is beyond the minds of first century educated men and absolutely nothing god like.
And you IGNORE it.

For every point you do acknowledge and discuss you have yet to provide any concrete evidence that what you are telling us is anything but opinion or apologetic spin, all the while totally ignoring the rock solid evidence presented that directly counters it. And on top of that you skip over the things presented that are indisputable and act as if you didn't hear about them...or wilfully do not read them or research them because you don't want to hear it.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> And, even more astonishing to me is that you believe it!



You would be even more astonished if you knew the man I once was.

 But I do! I believe every jot and tittle.


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> You would be even more astonished if you knew the man I once was.
> 
> But I do! I believe every jot and tittle.



It doesn't matter to me who you were. Your actions now define you now.
I can't fault you for believing what you believe, but your inability to separate facts from folklore when given the information allows me to decide just who and what I am dealing with now.


----------



## WaltL1

bullethead said:


> Now here is where you are showing your true colors.
> You have been shown time and time again that it is loaded with contradictions, lies, inaccuracies, forgeries,omissions, lack of scientific knowledge, lack of historical kowledge, lack of disease knowledge,lack of geographic knowledge,lack of knowledge of customs,laws and cultures. There is nothing in there that is beyond the minds of first century educated men and absolutely nothing god like.
> And you IGNORE it.
> 
> For every point you do acknowledge and discuss you have yet to provide any concrete evidence that what you are telling us is anything but opinion or apologetic spin, all the while totally ignoring the rock solid evidence presented that directly counters it. And on top of that you skip over the things presented that are indisputable and act as if you didn't hear about them...or wilfully do not read them or research them because you don't want to hear it.


Were you expecting something different?
I particularly appreciate that the focus is on the legitimacy of Christianity and is not wasting time on the God argument.
Of course the only people who are actually reading this are the A/As. 
The Christians went into self protection mode at the first sign of danger.


----------



## WaltL1

hobbs27 said:


> You would be even more astonished if you knew the man I once was.
> 
> But I do! I believe every jot and tittle.


We see this alot. When confronted with strong evidence and facts all of a sudden we get hit with the diversionary tactic of " well I used to be and I used to do..".
All that does is speak to what you needed to motivate you to get your crap together and says NOTHING about the legitimacy, accuracy or truthfulness of Christianity.
Just like the Santa story of "he knows when you've been bad or good" motivates some to be good.


----------



## EverGreen1231

Let God be true and every man a liar.

Yet another thread exemplifying the parable about the blind leading the blind.


----------



## bullethead

WaltL1 said:


> Were you expecting something different?
> I particularly appreciate that the focus is on the legitimacy of Christianity and is not wasting time on the God argument.
> Of course the only people who are actually reading this are the A/As.
> The Christians went into self protection mode at the first sign of danger.


Well yes and no on the expecting something different.
Hobbs has a refreshing way of adding to a conversation and up to a point his style holds my attention. There are a few in here that have that quality and if anybody can add something new it is and will be those guys.

That being said, it went south when despite his own admission that men purposely tampered with the bible, the words in the bible are still infallible. I can handle it when people are uninformed but when they see evidence that refutes their own claims and then admit to that evidence being true and STILL stick to their own claims thats where I have to stop logical conversation and the hopes that follow.


----------



## bullethead

EverGreen1231 said:


> Let God be true and every man a liar.
> 
> Yet another thread exemplifying the parable about the blind leading the blind.


Yeah, thank goodness every culture doesn't have sayings like that or someone might get the impression that somehow reinforces an invisible, unknowable, silent, hands off diety.

All these posts and that is all you got.  Primo

It reminds me of a fox and sour grapes story....


----------



## EverGreen1231

bullethead said:


> All these posts and that is all you got.  Primo
> 
> It reminds me of a fox and sour grapes story....



It's more than you can comprehend, of that I'm certain. What would be worse is to have posted as much as you have and still have nothing.


----------



## bullethead

Sometimes, all it takes is a singular, clear, focused idea to understand the folly of religion.  The following quotes each have that pedigree- they make us realize that Christianity, and religion in general, is a phantom wrapped in a fairy tale:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/44vfa1/20_of_my_favorite_atheismrelated_quotes/

It’s a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for. It’s the opposite. We have nothing to die for. We have everything to live for. -Ricky Gervais
What’s ‘God’? Well, you know when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you. -From the movie The Island
When you need something to believe in, start with yourself. -Unknown
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens
Eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God’s infinite love. -Bill Hicks
The supernatural is the natural not yet understood. -Elbert Hubbard
Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you’re told, no matter what is right. -Unknown
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. -Steven Weinberg
Your religious beliefs typically depend on the community in which you were raised or live. The spiritual experiences of people in ancient Greece, medieval Japan or 21st-century Saudi Arabia do not lead to belief in Christianity. It seems, therefore, that religious belief very likely tracks not truth but social conditioning. -Gary Gutting
How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one. -Richard Dawkins
But why, in any case, do we so readily accept the idea that the one thing you must do if you want to please God is believe in him? What’s so special about believing? Isn’t it just as likely that God would reward kindness, or generosity, or humility? Or sincerity? What if God is a scientist who regards honest seeking after truth as the supreme virtue? -Richard Dawkins
Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it. [But] gaps shrink as science advances, and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide. -Richard Dawkins
If God can’t prove he exists, what makes you think you can? -John Willow
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. -Carl Sagan
Science adjusts its views based on what’s observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved. -Tim Minchin
What kind of God creates beings that are incapable of understanding him and then makes understanding him the criteria upon which they’re gonna base their salvation? -Matt Dillahunty
How is it that you use reason as a path to truth in every endeavor of your life, and then when it comes to the ultimate truth, the most important truth, you’re saying that faith is required? -Matt Dillahunty
Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do! And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time…but he loves you! -George Carlin
I tried to believe that there is a God, who created each of us in his own image and likeness, loves us very much, and keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is CensoredCensoredCensoredCensoreded up. -George Carlin
If Christianity was real, we wouldn’t have the intellectual luxury of making the types of statements that are listed above.  It’s truth would permeate our core existence and its denial would require a surrender of our faculties rather the free exercise of them.


----------



## bullethead

EverGreen1231 said:


> It's more than you can comprehend, of that I'm certain. What would be worse is to have posted as much as you have and still have nothing.



The evidence doesn't match your claims, where have we heard that before?


----------



## bullethead

For what it possesses, Christianity lacks several attributes that are listed here:

Logic, facts, evidence, science, common sense, proof, reasoning, probability, thinking, intelligence, feasibility, confirmation, wisdom, likelihood, knowledge, rationality, realism, plausibility, intellect, open mindedness, analysis, induction, deduction, logistics, brainpower, coherence , saneness, consistency, congruity, enlightenment, sensibility, legitimacy, authenticity, predictability, believability, and foresight.

If Christianity was true, it would be logical, it would have facts on its side, plenty of confirming evidence, would make common sense, be amenable to reason, etc.  The standard by which Christians judge the reality of their faith is set way too low.  We are dealing with a claim of vast and unlimited supernatural powers, a potency that exceeds our ability to imagine, and yet we are dealing with a religion that cannot even distinguish itself from countless other Bronze Age myths.


----------



## bullethead

Many Christians point to the rapid spread and global dominance of Christianity as evidence of its truthfulness. But a truthful examination of history paints a different picture. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/44zqc2/why_did_christianity_become_popular_and_why_does/

There was a long struggle for religious dominance over the Roman Empire, and it was a near thing. Had events gone differently Christianity probably would have remained an obscure cult on par with Zoroastrianism. But once Christianity was installed at the highest levels of Roman government it was then spread by force throughout the Empire with Roman armies being accompanied by Christian missionaries who put all those who refused to convert to the sword.

Christianity’s dominance had as much to do with military might as anything else. Once installed by fiat, the church enforced doctrinal purity with a zealotry equal to that of Muslim clerics. Heresy was punished by torture and death until the Enlightenment robbed the Church of its temporal power.

History does not back up what Christians would like to believe. Christianity is the most dominant religion in the world, but it got there not because of its truthfulness, but because it enjoyed a surreptitious confluence of historical events.


----------



## bullethead

A thousand years ago, no Christians doubted the story of the Garden of Eden, the tower of Babel, or the Noah’s flood.  But as science became more sophisticated, it became evident that these stories were fictional.  As a result, Christians had to start rationalizing the contradictions between their beliefs and the growing weight of scientific evidence.  The result was a band-aid approach- to make up all sort of excuses and guesses designed to cautiously admit some of the science but never to doubt the intrinsic claims of their faith.

Why is this a big deal? There’s always the view that the Bible doesn’t have to be literally true, and that it doesn’t have to be inerrant. I think most Christians hold just such a view. Over at the Christian blog Wide as the Waters, Jack Hudson wrote a post where he talked about the historicity of the Old Testament. He makes an important claim:

There were no archeological controversies over ancient Greek or Roman religious beliefs because they were never understood to be historical in nature – they didn’t pretend to be. We don’t talk about Hindu archeology or Buddhist archeology because those religions are not reliant upon historical facts. None of these religions even pretends to be the product of a set of events that occurred in a particular time and place in history; only vague references to certain individuals whose actual existence is unimportant to the belief system. Biblical belief however is definitively set in a particular places and times and concerns certain individuals. [link]

Exactly. The Bible is rooted in historical claims – so since we have overwhelming evidence that many of those historical claims are false, it creates real problems for Christian theology. Were it not for the progress of science, Christians would believe all these stories to be literally true. It’s only in the face of science that Christians change their tune and say, “Oh, but of course that scripture was never intended to be taken literally!” The obvious problem is that Christians have no independent means of discerning which parts of the Bible should be taken as historical, and which should not. Science does the work for them, and they subsequently alter their theology to make it fit the facts.

This is already evident with the non-existence of Adam and Eve. Biologos has an article on it, and this is what they say:

One option is to view Adam and Eve as a historical pair living among many 10,000 years ago, chosen to represent the rest of humanity before God.  Another option is to view Genesis 2-4 as an allegory in which Adam and Eve symbolize the large group of ancestors who lived 150,000 years ago.  Yet another option is to view Genesis 2-4 as an “everyman” story, a parable of each person’s individual rejection of God.

In other words, just make it up. I sincerely wonder how Christians can do this to themselves. When the facts reveal their theology as untenable, they don’t reject their theology – they just alter it with speculative nonsense to placate their cognitive dissonance. Why spend so much effort rationalizing beliefs for which there is no evidence?

Christianity bending to science instead of science aligning itself to Christianity is extremely solid evidence that Christianity is false


----------



## bullethead

WaltL1 said:


> Were you expecting something different?
> I particularly appreciate that the focus is on the legitimacy of Christianity and is not wasting time on the God argument.
> Of course the only people who are actually reading this are the A/As.
> The Christians went into self protection mode at the first sign of danger.


 the words of Carl Sagan:

“You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe”


----------



## bullethead

The famous agnostic novelist Mark Twain was especially critical of Christianity.  In the following quote he summed up the reasons why no one should worship this deity:

“…a God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented h3ll–mouths mercy, and invented h3ll–mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented h3ll; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

This cutting logic is unassailable and yet so many Christians overlook its obviousness


----------



## WaltL1

EverGreen1231 said:


> Let God be true and every man a liar.
> 
> Yet another thread exemplifying the parable about the blind leading the blind.


Yet another thread when confronted with evidence and facts the response is some silly saying but NOTHING to refute them.
There is alot of claims being thrown out there as fact. Why not disprove them with facts instead of feel good sayings?


----------



## 660griz

WaltL1 said:


> Why not disprove them with facts instead of feel good sayings?



Easy, because there are no facts, just feel good sayings.


----------



## RH Clark

WaltL1 said:


> Such a lame excuse.
> And offered up without discrediting
> anything just that "it can be".
> Ignorance is bliss.



Just to be honest, I feel that it's a waste of my time talking to you guys about God. Why would I want to keep beating my head against a wall? 

If one of you guys wanted to go fishing, we might argue a little about which bait to use but even then I wouldn't want to argue about God with you. I figure the best way to share God is to be the person God wants me to be and then if you want to ask anything I'll be ready to talk.


----------



## hobbs27

bullethead said:


> A thousand years ago, no Christians doubted the story of the Garden of Eden, the tower of Babel, or the Noah’s flood.  But as science became more sophisticated, it became evident that these stories were fictional.  As a result, Christians had to start rationalizing the contradictions between their beliefs and the growing weight of scientific evidence.  The result was a band-aid approach- to make up all sort of excuses and guesses designed to cautiously admit some of the science but never to doubt the intrinsic claims of their faith.
> 
> Why is this a big deal? There’s always the view that the Bible doesn’t have to be literally true, and that it doesn’t have to be inerrant. I think most Christians hold just such a view. Over at the Christian blog Wide as the Waters, Jack Hudson wrote a post where he talked about the historicity of the Old Testament. He makes an important claim:
> 
> There were no archeological controversies over ancient Greek or Roman religious beliefs because they were never understood to be historical in nature – they didn’t pretend to be. We don’t talk about Hindu archeology or Buddhist archeology because those religions are not reliant upon historical facts. None of these religions even pretends to be the product of a set of events that occurred in a particular time and place in history; only vague references to certain individuals whose actual existence is unimportant to the belief system. Biblical belief however is definitively set in a particular places and times and concerns certain individuals. [link]
> 
> Exactly. The Bible is rooted in historical claims – so since we have overwhelming evidence that many of those historical claims are false, it creates real problems for Christian theology. Were it not for the progress of science, Christians would believe all these stories to be literally true. It’s only in the face of science that Christians change their tune and say, “Oh, but of course that scripture was never intended to be taken literally!” The obvious problem is that Christians have no independent means of discerning which parts of the Bible should be taken as historical, and which should not. Science does the work for them, and they subsequently alter their theology to make it fit the facts.



1,000 years ago the lay member of the church had no Bible. They had to rely on someone to tell them what was in it.

 30 years ago the lay member didn't have internet and was subjected to the interpretation of their denomination, where as today many views can be examined and considered.

 Science is helping.


----------



## bullethead

hobbs27 said:


> 1,000 years ago the lay member of the church had no Bible. They had to rely on someone to tell them what was in it.
> 
> 30 years ago the lay member didn't have internet and was subjected to the interpretation of their denomination, where as today many views can be examined and considered.
> 
> Science is helping.


Now yer talkin Hobbs!


----------



## bullethead

RH Clark said:


> Just to be honest, I feel that it's a waste of my time talking to you guys about God. Why would I want to keep beating my head against a wall?
> 
> If one of you guys wanted to go fishing, we might argue a little about which bait to use but even then I wouldn't want to argue about God with you. I figure the best way to share God is to be the person God wants me to be and then if you want to ask anything I'll be ready to talk.


Do good, be good, treat others as you want to be treated yourself.
Sound words to live by.


----------



## WaltL1

RH Clark said:


> Just to be honest, I feel that it's a waste of my time talking to you guys about God. Why would I want to keep beating my head against a wall?
> 
> If one of you guys wanted to go fishing, we might argue a little about which bait to use but even then I wouldn't want to argue about God with you. I figure the best way to share God is to be the person God wants me to be and then if you want to ask anything I'll be ready to talk.


If your intention is to talk me/us into believing in a god then yes you are probably wasting your time.
If you enjoy debating the subject then you are in the right place.
And no arguing about God allowed while fishing or hunting! That way nobody ends up being an anchor or at the taxidermist.


----------



## ambush80

WaltL1 said:


> If your intention is to talk me/us into believing in a god then yes you are probably wasting your time.
> If you enjoy debating the subject then you are in the right place.
> And no arguing about God allowed while fishing or hunting! That way nobody ends up being an anchor or at the taxidermist.




I don't think any of them are wasting their time.  I'm personally quite close to being a full blown deist.  Christianity is a huge obstacle for me but you never know.  If Jesus is up there He knows what I need to hear/feel/see to believe.  He might use someone on here.....

Of course the same applies to Zeus, Onan, Ra, Vishnu, etc....


----------



## WaltL1

ambush80 said:


> I don't think any of them are wasting their time.  I'm personally quite close to being a full blown deist.  Christianity is a huge obstacle for me but you never know.  If Jesus is up there He knows what I need to hear/feel/see to believe.  He might use someone on here.....
> 
> Of course the same applies to Zeus, Onan, Ra, Vishnu, etc....


So what would it take?
When you say Jesus might use one of them do you mean an explanation you haven't heard before? Some sort of feeling through the keyboard? A package in the mail that when you open it is a chocolate chip cookie with God's  (whatever he might look like) image on it with a return address of Welderguy?


----------



## ambush80

WaltL1 said:


> So what would it take?
> When you say Jesus might use one of them do you mean an explanation you haven't heard before? Some sort of feeling through the keyboard? A package in the mail that when you open it is a chocolate chip cookie with God's  (whatever he might look like) image on it with a return address of Welderguy?



I think a supernatural miracle would be a good place to start. Something that was witnessed by many people at the same time, maybe documented on film; the same kinds of evidence that would make skeptics believe in Bigfoot.  

From an internet chat forum?  I suppose it would be something that someone said that made so much sense as to be undeniable.  A saying that I've taken to heart is "If your argument is sound, I will helplessly believe".   I'm waiting for someone to say something more useful that "When you decide to believe, then you will believe".  I want to be shown how God exists like someone showing me how a rock falls down every time.  I don't know how many times I've heard people say "God never lets me down" yet no one ever explains what that means.  I want someone to describe to me how they know that the voices in their heads are God and not an internal dialogue.

I'd be more receptive to meaningful testimony than Metaphysical or Philosophical argument.


----------



## JB0704

WaltL1 said:


> And no arguing about God allowed while fishing or hunting! That way nobody ends up being an anchor or at the taxidermist.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> I think a supernatural miracle would be a good place to start. Something that was witnessed by many people at the same time, maybe documented on film; the same kinds of evidence that would make skeptics believe in Bigfoot.
> 
> From an internet chat forum?  I suppose it would be something that someone said that made so much sense as to be undeniable.  A saying that I've taken to heart is "If your argument is sound, I will helplessly believe".   I'm waiting for someone to say something more useful that "When you decide to believe, then you will believe".  I want to be shown how God exists like someone showing me how a rock falls down every time.  I don't know how many times I've heard people say "God never lets me down" yet no one ever explains what that means.  _I want someone to describe to me how they know that the voices in their heads are God and not an internal dialogue._
> 
> I'd be more receptive to meaningful testimony than Metaphysical or Philosophical argument.



Though I have many things that have _happened_ with me/to me that have been, to my mind (and you will think of that as you will..._my mind_) beyond mere happenstance, none that I can offer would help anyone (believer/non believer) in regards to that purple statement. That discerning comes not with many miracles (if you don't mind the word) as men would describe them.

You may not like _my metaphysics_, but you can, I trust, see that that is something I cannot control.
To say, (if I am a believer, as _I believe I am_) that I "always know" when the Lord speaks to me, in that very instant...again..."always"...would be disingenuous (for me, at this time). But for me, in one sense...that is the greater "miracle" if you will. First, the knowing of that...and now its simple admission. The fact that it is now "too simple", or easy to admit I am sure, is appreciated by a few.
You have said something along these lines...if I may paraphrase "few things have grieved me more than to survey the things I said when _I was_ a christian"
Do you think, and I am not being condescending here, at all, you are the only one who thinks this way? I cringe to my toes when I "look back" at my cock sureness (as I thought I was "supposed to be") of my presumptions, arrogance...and ease of running rough shod as though I were the only man to ever see truth. At the time, it seemed so "right"...but now, it is nothing but a shame to me. What to do with that? Make amends where able...and confess. But I will say it is precisely here...I have learned what little I may yet presume to know...of mercy.

Being a liar had always come easy to me. Imagining I am something I am not, easier still. This is where (to the purple) I, at least, can offer you little. Where once it was "easy" to think "This is God, _and I know it_" and from that place to behave in the most unGodly way in unkindness, arrogance, well, to my mind, only _being me_ could show this to you. 

But...you might see how, in some way, this has had to be my journey...as a liar. The flushing out, so to speak...the causing a man to see "you are not what you think you are" by the manufacture of many lies, has for me been, in the profoundest way...the work of truth. Being forced..."out of hiding".
Do not think one is not aware of the simple response "you have just found a better place to hide". Do not think I presume, now, to be _all of truth_ in my speaking. In a week (if allowed it)...a year, or two, I may laugh at these words. Maybe even be ashamed...I really don't know. But, this is where I am...now...relative to what I believe as your sincere posture...as you see it. "I need to know!"
That's why I know it is such a paltry offering. "I need to know"....and all I am offered is more uncertainty. But...if you confuse my uncertainty "of myself" with what I cannot help but also offer, _in certainty_, that is, that no man of himself ever knows to his toes what he will become, or see, or do, or be shown (no matter his opinion of himself)...yes, of this, I am certain.
That I have come to know this, or anything at all of it, I credit the Lord, Jesus Christ. It matters not if some say "that is just life teaching you lessons" for I have come to know him as _my life._ And I can only testify that to that man, mercy, and specifically the mercy found there...all encompassing for me, has proved itself of far more worth, tenure and value, than any lie upon which I so casually (and found later) desperately, leaned.


----------



## PappyHoel

Wow .... Pages and pages of someone denying God and trying to disprove the bible.  I will pray for you.


----------



## welderguy

WaltL1 said:


> So what would it take?
> When you say Jesus might use one of them do you mean an explanation you haven't heard before? Some sort of feeling through the keyboard? A package in the mail that when you open it is a chocolate chip cookie with God's  (whatever he might look like) image on it with a return address of Welderguy?



Huhh???


----------



## hummerpoo

bullethead said:


> the words of Carl Sagan:
> 
> “You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe”



Statements such as Sagan's leave me asking "What does that mean?"

Is there a significance difference, perhaps I should say any difference, in believing "X" is and believing "X" is not?

Is not the ultimate question to be ask of all questions, "If there is an answer, why is there a question?"  "If there is truly evidence, why is the question ask?"  Perhaps there IS something that is beyond the evidence, beyond the question, a supra-thing.


----------



## WaltL1

welderguy said:


> Huhh???


Ambush was saying God might use one of you guys to help him see the light.....


----------



## WaltL1

PappyHoel said:


> Wow .... Pages and pages of someone denying God and trying to disprove the bible.  I will pray for you.


Doesn't seem very different than pages and pages of denying that scripture says this but really says that.


----------



## WaltL1

hummerpoo said:


> Statements such as Sagan's leave me asking "What does that mean?"
> 
> Is there a significance difference, perhaps I should say any difference, in believing "X" is and believing "X" is not?
> 
> Is not the ultimate question to be ask of all questions, "If there is an answer, why is there a question?"  "If there is truly evidence, why is the question ask?"  Perhaps there IS something that is beyond the evidence, beyond the question, a supra-thing.


I think one factor is that "evidence" means different things to different people.
For some the Bible is all the evidence they need. For others that's just a starting point and then delve into how accurate/what the value of that evidence is to determine how much weight to give it.


----------



## JB0704

WaltL1 said:


> I think one factor is that "evidence" means different things to different people.
> For some the Bible is all the evidence they need. For others that's just a starting point and then delve into how accurate/what the value of that evidence is to determine how much weight to give it.



True.  Sometimes it's difficult to break away from what one has been taught, and look at things from a new perspective.  Many believers can't bring themselves to question the 6K year old earth because it feels like heresy.

For me, I don't really need to have evidence that I exist, because I know I do.  So that is the starting point of my thought process.


----------



## hummerpoo

WaltL1 said:


> I think one factor is that "evidence" means different things to different people.
> For some the Bible is all the evidence they need. For others that's just a starting point and then delve into how accurate/what the value of that evidence is to determine how much weight to give it.


Yes, I first typed, then deleted, a couple of sentences about the "weight of evidence" when I realized that the honest child whose response to every explanation is "why", would only ask "why does one weigh the evidence differently than another?", to which the ultimate answer can only transcend us.


----------



## hummerpoo

JB0704 said:


> For me, I don't really need to have evidence that I exist, because I know I do.  So that is the starting point of my thought process.



Yep, and the fellow who said "I think, therefore I am" also concluded "In the beginning God created"; creation is the free (unencumbered/uninfluenced) act of the Creator.


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> Though I have many things that have _happened_ with me/to me that have been, to my mind (and you will think of that as you will..._my mind_) beyond mere happenstance, none that I can offer would help anyone (believer/non believer) in regards to that purple statement. That discerning comes not with many miracles (if you don't mind the word) as men would describe them.
> 
> You may not like _my metaphysics_, but you can, I trust, see that that is something I cannot control.
> To say, (if I am a believer, as _I believe I am_) that I "always know" when the Lord speaks to me, in that very instant...again..."always"...would be disingenuous (for me, at this time). But for me, in one sense...that is the greater "miracle" if you will. First, the knowing of that...and now its simple admission. The fact that it is now "too simple", or easy to admit I am sure, is appreciated by a few.
> You have said something along these lines...if I may paraphrase "few things have grieved me more than to survey the things I said when _I was_ a christian"
> Do you think, and I am not being condescending here, at all, you are the only one who thinks this way? I cringe to my toes when I "look back" at my cock sureness (as I thought I was "supposed to be") of my presumptions, arrogance...and ease of running rough shod as though I were the only man to ever see truth. At the time, it seemed so "right"...but now, it is nothing but a shame to me. What to do with that? Make amends where able...and confess. But I will say it is precisely here...I have learned what little I may yet presume to know...of mercy.
> 
> Being a liar had always come easy to me. Imagining I am something I am not, easier still. This is where (to the purple) I, at least, can offer you little. Where once it was "easy" to think "This is God, _and I know it_" and from that place to behave in the most unGodly way in unkindness, arrogance, well, to my mind, only _being me_ could show this to you.
> 
> But...you might see how, in some way, this has had to be my journey...as a liar. The flushing out, so to speak...the causing a man to see "you are not what you think you are" by the manufacture of many lies, has for me been, in the profoundest way...the work of truth. Being forced..."out of hiding".
> Do not think one is not unaware of the simple response "you have just found a better place to hide". Do not think I presume, now, to be _all of truth_ in my speaking. In a week (if allowed it)...a year, or two, I may laugh at these words. Maybe even be ashamed...I really don't know. But, this is where I am...now...relative to what I believe as your sincere posture...as you see it. "I need to know!"
> That's why I know it is such a paltry offering. "I need to know"....and all I am offered is more uncertainty. But...if you confuse my uncertainty "of myself" with what I cannot help but also offer, _in certainty_, that is, that no man of himself ever knows to his toes what he will become, or see, or do, or be shown (no matter his opinion of himself)...yes, of this, I am certain.
> That I have come to know this, or anything at all of it, I credit the Lord, Jesus Christ. It matters not if some say "that is just life teaching you lessons" for I have come to know him as _my life._ And I can only testify that to that man, mercy, and specifically the mercy found there...all encompassing for me, has proved itself of far more worth, tenure and value, than any lie upon which I so casually (and found later) desperately, leaned.



Give me some specifics.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> Give me some specifics.


Here is _the_ specific.
I used to believe a lie, and from that lie came all the others I manufactured in my attempts to satisfy the original lie.

I used to believe _I had to be a something._


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

Israel said:


> Here is _the_ specific.
> I used to believe a lie, and from that lie came all the others I manufactured in my attempts to satisfy the original lie.
> 
> I used to believe _I had to be a something._



History is replete with over confident, hyper-intellectual Atheist in the prime of their life, however a review of some of the most notables quotes from just before death tell a different story. Many a man may feel secure in living as an Atheist, but very few die as one.


----------



## WaltL1

Miguel Cervantes said:


> History is replete with over confident, hyper-intellectual Atheist in the prime of their life, however a review of some of the most notables quotes from just before death tell a different story. Many a man may feel secure in living as an Atheist, but very few die as one.



Please direct us to those statistics and death bed recordings.


----------



## 660griz

WaltL1 said:


> Please direct us to those statistics and death bed recordings.



This is the usual stuff.  A few quotes that prove that atheist convert on the deathbed or prove there is a God. Not sure what it proves. Maybe it proves that folks go a little crazy when they die a long suffering death. Maybe they should convert to all the Gods before they die. Gonna take some time. 

Christopher Hitchens last words, "Democracy" "Downfall".


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

WaltL1 said:


> Please direct us to those statistics and death bed recordings.



This one's easy. Please reference Google. Input "Famous Atheist Deathbed Quotes". 

Surely you use Google.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

660griz said:


> Maybe it proves that folks go a little crazy when they die a long suffering death.



Or maybe it is that long missing moment of lucidity after reflecting on a life of abject defiance. 

The humor in your retort is that it is textbook, yet it works both ways. I know that's not something you'd like to consider in the realm of possibilities.


----------



## WaltL1

Miguel Cervantes said:


> This one's easy. Please reference Google. Input "Famous Atheist Deathbed Quotes".
> 
> Surely you use Google.



Yes I do use google.
And all I came up with were some quotes on Christian websites.
Considering you even quantified it as "very few" I figured surely there was some formal study done on the subject.
Guess not.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

WaltL1 said:


> Yes I do use google.
> And all I came up with were some quotes on Christian websites.
> Considering you even quantified it as "very few" I figured surely there was some formal study done on the subject.
> Guess not.



Does every Atheist require a formal study as to why the sun rises in the morning? or why alcohol imbibed in mass quantities makes for a rough day the next day? 

Sometimes, and I know this is a stretch for a sect that requires data for every breath taken, things must be regarded in the category of common sense, for which there is no college degree or data to prove it so. 

All sarcastic leverage available was taken in that statement. 

But to wit; Common sense does dictate why an Atheist site would not want to publish such irrational ramblings of dying Atheist, even the most famous ones. It would play counterproductive in any data required to bolster an argument.


----------



## WaltL1

Miguel Cervantes said:


> Does every Atheist require a formal study as to why the sun rises in the morning? or why alcohol imbibed in mass quantities makes for a rough day the next day?
> 
> Sometimes, and I know this is a stretch for a sect that requires data for every breath taken, things must be regarded in the category of common sense, for which there is no college degree or data to prove it so.
> 
> All sarcastic leverage available was taken in that statement.
> 
> But to wit; Common sense does dictate why an Atheist site would not want to publish such irrational ramblings of dying Atheist, even the most famous ones. It would play counterproductive in any data required to bolster an argument.


You made a claim.
You quantified it.
Therefore your information must have come from some formal study.
Common sense is that of course some number of Atheists, for various reasons "find god" at their time of death.
And now because you are being asked to back up your claim you go off on a rant.
Common sense says something about that too.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

Miguel Cervantes said:


> History is replete with over confident, hyper-intellectual Atheist in the prime of their life, however a review of some of the most notables quotes from just before death tell a different story. Many a man may feel secure in living as an Atheist, but very few die as one.





WaltL1 said:


> You made a claim.
> You quantified it.
> Therefore your information must have come from some formal study.
> Common sense is that of course some number of Atheists, for various reasons "find god" at their time of death.
> And now because you are being asked to back up your claim you go off on a rant.
> Common sense says something about that too.



There is nothing in my above quote that implies data or even requires it. That was of your doing. Match point, and from this point on, given your obsession with insisting on points not stated, it is doomed to be a draw. Well done, you have accomplished the triumphant pinnacle of all Atheist arguments. A stalemate via feigning the obvious in favor of the non-existent. Something ironically, you so vehemently abhor. 

Good day.


----------



## WaltL1

Miguel Cervantes said:


> There is nothing in my above quote that implies data or even requires it. That was of your doing. Match point, and from this point on, given your obsession with insisting on points not stated, it is doomed to be a draw. Well done, you have accomplished the triumphant pinnacle of all Atheist arguments. A stalemate via feigning the obvious in favor of the non-existent. Something ironically, you so vehemently abhor.
> 
> Good day.


Read your last sentence in post 103.
Either you have something to back up your "very few" claim or you were just flapping your gums for dramatic effect.


----------



## 660griz

Miguel Cervantes said:


> Or maybe it is that long missing moment of lucidity after reflecting on a life of abject defiance.
> 
> The humor in your retort is that it is textbook, yet it works both ways. I know that's not something you'd like to consider in the realm of possibilities.



Oh, I'll consider it. Have considered it. Not near enough sample size to be considered for any length of time however. 
What about atheist that die that never heard of God? Now, if they suddenly cried out....
Or, if a person of a different religion cried out to a different God. Now, we are on to something. Crying out to the familiar? Not so much.


----------



## WaltL1

660griz said:


> Oh, I'll consider it. Have considered it. Not near enough sample size to be considered for any length of time however.
> What about atheist that die that never heard of God? Now, if they suddenly cried out....
> Or, if a person of a different religion cried out to a different God. Now, we are on to something. Crying out to the familiar? Not so much.



You atheists and your sample size.
If 1 or 5 or 10 out of a million makes you feel good and tells you what you want to hear
Just go with it!


----------



## EverGreen1231

WaltL1 said:


> Yet another thread when confronted with evidence and facts the response is some silly saying but NOTHING to refute them.
> There is alot of claims being thrown out there as fact. Why not disprove them with facts instead of feel good sayings?


----------



## swampstalker24

So a question for the apologetics....

Bullet clearly describes that in the bible there are varying accounts of the most fundamental event in Christianity, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus....

If the bible is in fact the word of god, written by his chosen scribes, then why the discrepancies?  Did god tell them all a different story?  Did they hear him wrong?  Or were they just repeating a story that had been passed along through the grape vine?


----------



## WaltL1

EverGreen1231 said:


>


Still got nothing huh?


----------



## EverGreen1231

WaltL1 said:


> Still got nothing huh?



Not so far as you're concerned, no.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> This one's easy. Please reference Google. Input "Famous Atheist Deathbed Quotes".
> 
> Surely you use Google.


I took it one further and searched "Why doesn't everyone of all beliefs and religions come to Jesus on their deathbed"

It said Miguel will have a better answer than google, even we can't find why that is.....


----------



## WaltL1

EverGreen1231 said:


> Not so far as you're concerned, no.


It's not about me.
It's about addressing the evidence and facts put forth. That's pretty much how debate works.
But I certainly understand why you would rather focus on meaningless sayings, emoticons and me.
I'm just kind of suprised you keep confirming that you got nothing else.


----------



## bullethead

Walt, we constantly hear from these guys that they have all the answers but when it comes time for them to actually produce them we hear that we are not worthy, wouldn't understand, it is of no concern to us, we are not serious, and the best is we have to open our mind to utter nonsense so that we believe the utter nonsense and do not question it. 

What better way to shut up and convert a skeptic than to show him facts or back up the claims? Wouldn't god know that giving bullethead a wiser upper would do well for christianity? Wouldn't having me post as much PRO as I do con be a service to the religion?
Nope 
God only wants people that already believe and are wizards at convincing other equally religious believers who require no proof of anything. 
Until we hit the "we are not worthy" rock bottom, we just can't understand.


----------



## EverGreen1231

WaltL1 said:


> It's not about me.
> It's about addressing the evidence and facts put forth. That's pretty much how debate works.
> But I certainly understand why you would rather focus on meaningless sayings, emoticons and me.
> I'm just kind of suprised you keep confirming that you got nothing else.



God is concerned about you; so, yes, it is _all_ about you.

There's no debate. Debate entails either side could be correct.

Right again; I have nothing.


----------



## bullethead

EverGreen1231 said:


> God is concerned about you; so, yes, it is _all_ about you.
> 
> There's no debate. Debate entails either side could be correct.
> 
> Right again; I have nothing.


Is it beyond the capability of God to contact Walt or myself and tell us he is concerned about either of us, or heck tell us he is not for that matter?

I am skeptical, for reasons that ive said a thousand times in here already,  that you know or could ever know what a god wants.
Can you explain how you know what God wants?


----------



## EverGreen1231

bullethead said:


> Is it beyond the capability of God to contact Walt or myself and tell us he is concerned about either of us, or heck tell us he is not for that matter?



He has already, only it wasn't in a form you accept so it makes little difference.



bullethead said:


> I am skeptical, for reasons that ive said a thousand times in here already,  that you know or could ever know what a god wants.
> Can you explain how you know what God wants?



God's word.


----------



## bullethead

EverGreen1231 said:


> He has already, only it wasn't in a form you accept so it makes little difference.
> 
> 
> 
> God's word.



A god should know how to get through to me.

Sounds more like your word.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

bullethead said:


> A god should know how to get through to me.





Yes, and Christy Brinkley should know your number as well too huh?


----------



## EverGreen1231

bullethead said:


> A god should know how to get through to me.



He does. He has. You have no excuse. Romans 1.



bullethead said:


> Sounds more like your word.



That's because you can't hear well.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> Yes, and Christy Brinkley should know your number as well too huh?



She might be more your age and you may worship her, but if she is a god then yes she WOULD know everyone's number. If she is not a god then your analogy is just plain stupid....unless the point your trying to make is that your god has the knowledge of a washed up 60yr old blonde.....then I agree.


----------



## bullethead

EverGreen1231 said:


> He does. He has. You have no excuse. Romans 1.
> 
> 
> 
> That's because you can't hear well.



Forged scripture. Awesome example. I hear that.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

bullethead said:


> She might be more your age and you may worship her, but if she is a god then yes she WOULD know everyone's number. If she is not a god then your analogy is just plain stupid....unless the point your trying to make is that your god has the knowledge of a washed up 60yr old blonde.....then I agree.



Actually none of that was the point. 

The arrogance of someone that wants nothing to do with God, and expecting Him to owe them something is the point. 

But thanks for playing. Hope this helps.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> Actually none of that was the point.
> 
> The arrogance of someone that wants nothing to do with God, and expecting Him to owe them something is the point.
> 
> But thanks for playing. Hope this helps.


Nobody owes me a darn thing.
My point is that if there is a god and it wants to contact me it would know how to do it.
I expect nothing.

Arrogance would be pretending to know an unknowable deity beyond the words in a man made book and continually claiming you do without being able to back it up.

Now, I am and was talking about the knowledge of a god.
Explain your Christy Brinkley analogy.
Why should Christy Brinkley know my number ?


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

bullethead said:


> Why should Christy Brinkley know my number ?



For exactly the same reason God should. But then again, I don't expect you to ever understand this.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> For exactly the same reason God should. But then again, I don't expect you to ever understand this.


Explain it.
I'll try to wrap my brain around it. I'm good with things that make sense.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

bullethead said:


> Explain it.
> I'll try to wrap my brain around it. I'm good with things that make sense.



I just did, twice. See, I told you it was useless.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> I just did, twice. See, I told you it was useless.



What is the reason miguel?
You are losing what little credibility you had left.


----------



## bullethead

swampstalker24 said:


> So a question for the apologetics....
> 
> Bullet clearly describes that in the bible there are varying accounts of the most fundamental event in Christianity, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus....
> 
> If the bible is in fact the word of god, written by his chosen scribes, then why the discrepancies?  Did god tell them all a different story?  Did they hear him wrong?  Or were they just repeating a story that had been passed along through the grape vine?


Swampstalker, here are just a few more for them to ponder. 
Couple more questions.  
1. How many women went to Jesus’s tomb?

One- John 20:1-18
Two- Matthew 28:1-8
Three- Mark 16:1-8
Many- Luke 23:55 to 24:10
These answer both yes and no to the same questions.
2. Was it still dark out?	John 20:1	Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2
3. Did Mary Magdalene tell any men about the tomb?	Mt 28:8; Lu 24:9-10; John 20:2	Mk 16:8
4. Did she go back to the tomb with any of them?	John 20:2-11	Mt 28:1-10,16; Mk 16:8-14; Lu 24:9-12
5. Was there just one angel at Jesus’s tomb?	Mt 28:2-5; Mk 16:5-6	(There were two.) Lu 24:4-5; John 20:11-13
6. Were the angels inside the tomb?	Mk 16:5; John 20:11-12	(The one angel was outside.) Mt 28:2
7. Were there guards at the tomb?	Mt 27:62-66, 28:2-4,11-15	Mk 15:44-16:10; Lu 23:50-24:12; John 19:38-20:12
8. Did the angel(s) look like lightning?	Mt 28:2-4	(Humanlike) Mk 16:5; Lu 24:4
9. Did the angel(s) get to the tomb first?	Mk 16:5	Lu 24:2-4; John 20:1-12
10. Did Peter go alone?	Lu 24:12	John 20:2-6
11. Did Jesus appear first to Cephas (Peter)?	1Co 15:3-5	Mt 28:9; Mk 16:9; Lu 24:9-15; John 20:14
12. Did he appear at all to Mary Magdalene?	Mt 28:9; Mk 16:9 John 20:11-14	Lu 24:1-51; 1Co 15:3-8
13. Did he appear to her at the tomb afterthe disciples were told?	John 20:1-14	(Not at the tomb, and before they were told) Mt 28:1-9; Mk 16:1-10
14. Was she alone when Jesus appeared to her?	Mk 16:9-10; John 20:10-14	(The other Mary was with her.) Mt 28:1-9
15. Did she recognize him immediately?	Mt 28:9; Mk 16:9-10	John 20:14
16. Did Peter go to the tomb before the others were told about it?	(But he was not alone.) John 20:1-3,18	(It was after, and he went alone.) Lu 24:9-12
17. Did Jesus specially appear to twodisciples?	Mk 16:12; Lu 24:13-31	Mt 28:16-18; John 20:19-29
18. Did they recognize him immediately?	Mk 16:12-13	Lu 24:13-16
19. Did he later appear as they spoke to the others?	Lu 24:36	(It was after.) Mk 16:14
20. Did he scold the others for not believing them?	Mk 16:14	Lu 24:35-51
21. Did Jesus appear just once to the disciples?	Mk 16:14-19; Lu 24:36-51	(It was thrice.) John 20:19-26, 21:1-2,14
22. Was the 1st appearance to them in Galilee?	Mt 28:9-10,16-18	Lu 24:33-36,49-51; John 20:18-26; Ac 1:4
23. Did they all recognize him immediately?	Mk 16:14-20; John 20:19-20	Mt 28:16-17; Lu 24:36-41
24. Did he ascend to heaven immediately afterwards?	Mt 28:9-10,16-20; Mk 16:14-19; Lu 24:36-51	John 20:19-26, 21:1; Ac 1:1-9; 1Co 15:3-8
25. Did he appear to them twice, eight days apart?	John 20:19-26	Mt 28:9-20; Mk 16:14-19; Lu 24:36-51
26. Did he appear to the Twelve, to over 500, & then specially to James?	1Co 15:5-7	Mt 27, 28; Mk 16; Lu 24; John 20, 21
27. Did Jesus ascend to heaven from Bethany?	Lu 24:50-51	(From Mt. Olivet) Ac 1:9-12; (Jerusalem) Mk 16:14-19
28. Was Jesus the only one to ascend to heaven?	John 3:13	(Enoch and Elijah too) Heb 11:5; 2Ki 2:11
29. Did Paul’s companions hear Jesus’s voice?	Ac 9:7	Ac 22:9, 26:14


----------



## bullethead

If Jesus was God and if the gospels are accurate accounts of his words, it would be expected that Jesus would be impeccable with his understanding of Old Testament scripture.  Clearly, at least one of these conditions was not met as Jesus is seen to make mistakes about scripture.  The following is taken from:

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/fe0_practical.htm#infallibility

Sometimes Jesus made mistakes about the scriptures. He said that no one except the son of man has ever ascended into Heaven (John 3:13). He has apparently forgotten Elijah who did exactly that (2 Kings 2:11). This error led some Christians to deduce that Jesus was Elijah come back to life. He said that no one had seen God (John 1:18), but the scriptures say otherwise. Abraham saw him (Genesis 18:1-2), Moses saw him (Exodus 33:9-11) and so did Aaron and seventy elders.

As an especial honor Moses was also permitted to see God’s back parts (Exodus 33:23). The author of Psalm 63 (see verse 2) also saw God, as did Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1), Jacob (Genesis 32:30), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:1). Again, Jesus said that David and others took shewbread to eat in the time of Abiathar the high priest (Mark 2:25-26), but this incident happened not in the time of Abiathar, but of Ahimelech (1 Samuel 21:1-6). He also seems to have accepted the traditionally ascribed authorship of the scriptures, which are now known to be bogus. For example he ascribed a psalm to David, although it is now known to have been written much later (Mark 12:36 referring to Psalm 110:1 ). He also quoted scripture that does not exist, for example in John 7:38 he cites the passage “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”, which occurs nowhere in the Old Testament. He even misquoted the Ten Commandments, thinking that one of them was “Defraud not” (Mark 10:19).

Any mistakes or inconsistencies in Jesus’s documented use of scripture is compounding evidence that something is amiss in Christian theology.  If Jesus was God, his knowledge of scripture would be perfect. If instead, it is assumed that the gospel authors made these mistakes, then the fidelity of all scripture is called into question.


----------



## bullethead

In Matthew 27:50-53, it is asserted that at the time of Jesus’s death, a good number of dead people rose out of their graves and greeted many of their former neighbors:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. [nothing more in mentioned about the resurrected people]

This story does not appear in any other gospel and is obviously untrue.  But what is remarkable is that Matthew failed to explain what happened to these zombies.  He did nothing to make his lie seem even remotely plausible. The following is a quote from Thomas Paine (1737-1809) in his book The Age of Reason, Part II:

It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterward, and who it was that saw them – for he is not hardy enough to say he saw them himself; whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints; or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses, whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. [adultery] against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves.

Strange, indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have anything to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us everything and we should have had posthumous prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Samuel and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the time then present, everybody would have known them, and they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But, instead of this, these saints were made to pop up, like Jonah’s gourd in the night, for no purpose at all but to wither in the morning. Thus much for this part of the story.

The fact that Matthew inserted a fictitious event of such spectacular consequence but then failed to finish the story indicates that he was a terrible historian, or more accurately, a terrible fictional writer.


----------



## bullethead

The gospels indicate that John the Baptist died while Jesus was still preaching.  Based on the biblical accounts, Jesus is supposed to have been born between 6 and 4 BC, during the reign of King Herod. Luke 3:23 also states that Jesus was about 30 years old when he started his ministry, placing that event between 24 and 26 CE. The Gospel of John states that Jesus’s ministry lasted three years (the other gospels suggest only one year), placing his death at 29 CE at the latest. However, the best historical evidence is that John the Baptist was executed in 36 CE, or at least 7 years after the death of Jesus.

The following is taken from:

http://www.josephus.org/JohnTBaptist.htm

Having said that, it does appear that Josephus is giving John’s death as occurring in 36 CE, which is at least 6 years later than what is expected from the New Testament, and after the crucifixion of Jesus. This date is seen as follows. Herod’s battle with Aretas appears to have broken out soon after Herod’s first wife, Aretas’s daughter, left him. If so, then John did not have much time between the moment people were aware Herod was remarrying and the start of the battle with Aretas, for John was already dead before the battle. Josephus gives several indications that the battle occurred in 36 CE:

 He states that the quarrel with Aretas sprang up “about the time” (Ant. 18.5.1. 109) that Herod’s brother Philip died in 34 CE (Ant. 18.4.6 106).
 During this time Herod’s brother Agrippa had gone to Rome “a year before the death of Tiberius” (Ant18.5.3 126), which places Agrippas’s departure in 36 CE.
Soon after the battle, the Syrian commander Vitellius was ordered by Tiberius to attack Aretas, whereupon Vitellius marched through Judea with his army, pausing in Jerusalem to placate the Jews and to sacrifice at a festival (probably Passover). On the fourth day of his stay in Jerusalem he learned of the death of Tiberius, which had occurred on March 16 37 CE (and it could have taken up to a month for Jerusalem to get the news). This puts the battle in the winter of 36/37 CE.
 Vitellius’ action against Aretas must have occurred between his action against the Parthians, under Tiberius’ orders, and the death of Tiberius. The Parthian war occurred in 35 and 36 CE, as indicated both by Josephus and by the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius. (Herod the Tetrarch assisted Vitellius in negotiations between Tiberius and the Parthian king.)
The only question, then, is whether Josephus is misleading when he implies that the battle with Aretas came immediately after Herod separated from  Aretas’ daughter.

So when did Herod marry Herodias? The only hint Josephus gives is that the pair first met when Herod was on his way to Rome, but unfortunately the only such journey we know about was when Herod visited Augustus to receive his inheritance in 6 CE. This is not very helpful. So the evidence of Josephus is that John the Baptist was executed in 36 CE, well after the time indicated by the gospels – but, it should be noted, still within the governorship of Pontius Pilate.

So, what this implies is that mistakes were made by the gospel authors in the chronology of Jesus’s life, something that might be expected when concocting stories 40 years after the events and in an era with little reliable documentation.  A deliberate effort to place John the Baptist’s death before Jesus’s crucifixion was likely done to de-emphasize John, who had a healthy following in the late First Century, that was in direct competition with the followers of Jesus. It is also interesting to note the there is much more extra-biblical historical evidence for John the Baptist than Jesus.


----------



## bullethead

It is next to certain that Jesus was not crucified during the Passover, and the fact that the gospels made this claim can be explained as a metaphorical allusion to the sacrifice of the Passover lamb.  The following was taken from:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm#1

According to the Gospels, Jesus was crucified on either the first day of Passover or the day before Passover, depending on the Gospel. The synoptics have Jesus crucified on the day of Passover, while John puts the crucifixion on the day before. This itself defies reason, as Passover is considered one of the holiest of Jewish holidays, and this holiday not only took considerable preparation, but was a time of forgiveness and celebration. It is also when the Jews made public sacrifices to their god. That the Jewish authorities would have held a public execution of someone at this time is itself pretty well beyond belief.

Not only this, but the arrest and (very short) trial of Jesus supposedly took place at night on Passover eve. That the Sanhedrin (the Jewish body of judges) would have assembled in the middle of the night on Passover eve to pass a quick judgment on anyone defies reason, but when you add to this the fact that in the story the members of the council slap Jesus and spit in his face the implausible borders on the impossible. To say that the Sanhedrin slapped and spit on someone in a trial is like saying that the justices of the Supreme Court would slap and spit on defendants. Yes, these were ancient times, but the institutions being talked about here were formal institutions that didn’t just convene on a whim and they didn’t act like savages, much less on Passover eve.

Here are rules of the Sanhedrin that were in place at the time according to the Jewish Mishnah:

1) No criminal session was allowed at night.
2) No Sanhedrin trial could be heard at any place other than the Temple precincts.
3) No capital crime could be tried in a one-day sitting.
4) No criminal trial could be held on the eve of a Sabbath or festival.
5) No one could be found guilty on his own confession.
6) No blasphemy charge could be sustained unless the accused pronounced the name of God in front of witnesses.
7) The Sanhedrin were allowed to execute people on their own and did not need the Romans to do so for them.
The trial of Jesus according to the Gospels violated all of these rules.

More information on the laws of the Sanhedrin can be found here: The Sanhedrin

So, the story of Jesus’ arrest and execution seems quite implausible at the outset, but when one considers the symbolism of the story it becomes apparent that the basis for this story is theological, not historical.

On Passover, at the time that this story is supposedly taking place, the Jews provided many sacrifices, most of them as burnt offerings, meaning animals that were slaughtered and then burned on a fire. In addition to these sacrifices there was a special sacrifice of a lamb which was not burnt, but was instead eaten.

Josephus tells us of this tradition:

The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month, and continues seven days, wherein they feed on unleavened bread; on every one of which days two bulls are killed, and one ram, and seven lambs. Now these lambs are entirely burnt, besides the ewe lamb which is added to all the rest, for sins; for it is intended as a feast for the priest on every one of those days.
- Antiquity of the Jews, Josephus

This special lamb is a sacrifice specifically for the forgiveness of sins.

The crucifixion of Jesus on Passover is a metaphor for this sacrificial lamb. This symbolism was, perhaps, one of the earliest and most developed parts of Jesus Christ theology among the early followers of the Christ mythos among the Jews. The idea of Jesus Christ as a sacrificial lamb is first recorded in the letters of Paul from 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul associates immoral people with yeast and urges his correspondents to expel an immoral man from among their group:

1 Corinthians 5: 7

Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians was probably written some time between 50 and 60 CE. We will specifically address the works of Paul later, but here we can see that the symbolism of Christ as a sacrificial Passover lamb was a part of the Christian tradition prior to the writing of the Gospels.

So after Paul equated Jesus’s death to the sacrifice of a lamb at the Passover, Jesus came to be known as such, and the first gospel writer, Mark, placed Jesus’s crucifixion at the Passover, perhaps not understanding the illogicality of that situation. Then the other gospels writers copied Mark and repeated the same chronology. This illuminates why the gospels cannot be considered as expressing actual history.


----------



## bullethead

Many Christians assert that God has told them to do something, such as apply for a job, attend a school, or move to a new location. Most of these claims are innocuous and hard to defend or refute, but there is a recent development in the United States that categorically proves that most, if not all, of these so-called ‘messages from God’ are nothing more than self-serving creations in peoples’ heads.

In the 2016 Republican presidential primary race, at least nine candidates stated that God told them to run for president or else that their relationship to God was involved in making the decision. As of May 4, 2016, all nine of these candidates have admitted defeat and suspended their campaigns.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...ho-thought-god-wanted-them-to-run-for-office/

It’s obvious that any candidate who failed to achieve the Republican nomination for president was not encouraged by God to run.  That is, assuming God is the all-powerful figure imagined by most Christians. What this proves beyond doubt is that what people perceive as God telling them something is actually just a contrivance of their own minds. This has a direct analogy to the biblical authors who believed that God was telling them what to write, but all the while making it up on their own.


----------



## Israel

Many years ago a brother shared this. For obvious reasons, it struck me then as it strikes me now.

A man and a dog.

A man throws a stick as his dog sits at his feet. The man says "fetch"...and the dog dutifully runs and fetches the stick. And returns to sit.

Again the man throws the stick and says "fetch"...and the dog does.

Once again the man picks up the stick and throws it and says "stay"...and the dog remains sitting at his feet.

All that a man may perceive in the Bible, of his apprehension of Jesus Christ and his doings, of his words and instructions, his commandments and sternest of warnings is to this end alone. That "a" man, any man with ears to hear, may be brought into such a relationship with his Master, and be at peace with Him, in Him and in the most real sense "by Him" in all things. It matters not at all what circumstance may seem to dictate, what conditions may appear most demanding of response.
To have chosen, by a choosing not his own for that "good thing"...to sit at the Master's feet _hearing_...is all that matters and will not be denied him.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Many years ago a brother shared this. For obvious reasons, it struck me then as it strikes me now.
> 
> A man and a dog.
> 
> A man throws a stick as his dog sits at his feet. The man says "fetch"...and the dog dutifully runs and fetches the stick. And returns to sit.
> 
> Again the man throws the stick and says "fetch"...and the dog does.
> 
> Once again the man picks up the stick and throws it and says "stay"...and the dog remains sitting at his feet.
> 
> All that a man may perceive in the Bible, of his apprehension of Jesus Christ and his doings, of his words and instructions, his commandments and sternest of warnings is to this end alone. That "a" man, any man with ears to hear, may be brought into such a relationship with his Master, and be at peace with Him, in Him and in the most real sense "by Him" in all things. It matters not at all what circumstance may seem to dictate, what conditions may appear most demanding of response.
> To have chosen, by a choosing not his own for that "good thing"...to sit at the Master's feet _hearing_...is all that matters and will not be denied him.


No way there are two "brothers" that use as many commas, quotations and redundant repeats of the same words.
Just another opportunity for you to add something in a thread that doesn't fit.


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> Many years ago a brother shared this. For obvious reasons, it struck me then as it strikes me now.
> 
> A man and a dog.
> 
> A man throws a stick as his dog sits at his feet. The man says "fetch"...and the dog dutifully runs and fetches the stick. And returns to sit.
> 
> Again the man throws the stick and says "fetch"...and the dog does.
> 
> Once again the man picks up the stick and throws it and says "stay"...and the dog remains sitting at his feet.
> 
> All that a man may perceive in the Bible, of his apprehension of Jesus Christ and his doings, of his words and instructions, his commandments and sternest of warnings is to this end alone. That "a" man, any man with ears to hear, may be brought into such a relationship with his Master, and be at peace with Him, in Him and in the most real sense "by Him" in all things. It matters not at all what circumstance may seem to dictate, what conditions may appear most demanding of response.
> To have chosen, by a choosing not his own for that "good thing"...to sit at the Master's feet _hearing_...is all that matters and will not be denied him.



Good dog.

(pathetic)


----------



## ambush80

Israel said:


> Many years ago a brother shared this. For obvious reasons, it struck me then as it strikes me now.
> 
> A man and a dog.
> 
> A man throws a stick as his dog sits at his feet. The man says "fetch"...and the dog dutifully runs and fetches the stick. And returns to sit.
> 
> Again the man throws the stick and says "fetch"...and the dog does.
> 
> Once again the man picks up the stick and throws it and says "stay"...and the dog remains sitting at his feet.
> 
> All that a man may perceive in the Bible, of his apprehension of Jesus Christ and his doings, of his words and instructions, his commandments and sternest of warnings is to this end alone. That "a" man, any man with ears to hear, may be brought into such a relationship with his Master, and be at peace with Him, in Him and in the most real sense "by Him" in all things. It matters not at all what circumstance may seem to dictate, what conditions may appear most demanding of response.
> To have chosen, by a choosing not his own for that "good thing"...to sit at the Master's feet _hearing_...is all that matters and will not be denied him.



You're not a dog.   Take control of your life like a full grown man, unless you feel like you don't deserve that kind of autonomy, in which case I would ask "why?".  Please try not to be cryptic or verbose in a Biblical way.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

The most peculiar and incessant behavior I have ever witnessed in this brief 58 year life of mine is the painstakingly laborious manner in which an Atheist will toil to attempt to disprove something they do not believe even exists.


----------



## hummerpoo

bullethead said:


> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...ho-thought-god-wanted-them-to-run-for-office/



Yesterday in a doctor's office waiting room I found, to my surprise, the latest issue of Time magazine.  There I found an article with an interesting title and started reading.  It started by quoting some comments made by a speaking at a rather large gathering with a specific political affiliation.  In the 6th or 7th paragraph the author stated, what he purported to be, the speakers intent in making the quoted statements; that intent being totally unsupported by anything yet revealed by the author.  After reading a couple more paragraphs, and finding it very obvious that no support was to be given, I went back to the contents page of the magazine and left the rest of the 4 page article unread.

When, in the linked article, I found a quote of a statement made in the previous election cycle by a candidates wife, like the experience yesterday I read a little further and found another quote relating to a candidates confidence that God would be helpful in overcoming the difficulties of the office, should he be elected. I mentally commented that I hoped that atheists have better sources of information from which to draw support (nothing so far having shown that any candidate had stated God's guidance other that he should become a candidate).  Again I left the remainder unread.


----------



## JimD

Bullet,

Obviously people who say things like you posted above, are full of bovine excrement. If God truly means for us to do something, the outcome speaks for itself. I know in my life, the things I have many times viewed as "terrible" turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me. Right now, I have been run off of a job by a new superintendent, a job I have had for 18 years. I have done a good job in all these years and never had a bad evaluation or gotten the system into a law suit. My wife has been there 15 years as well and is also being pushed out. All of this is because of a dislike for our color. I know that there is a reason for this and also know God will take care of us. Faith is believing in things that can't be seen and in outcomes that humans would say seems like there is no way out. I've heard it said prayer is us speaking to God and intuition is God speaking to us, and I believe that is a true statement. For me, when God is telling me to do something, it's really intuition, or a knowing. I can't really explain it other than that, there are just some things that you "know" to be true. It's the same way to me when reading the Bible, or listening to a "preacher". Certain things I've heard in church, even since I was a little boy, never sat right in my mind, so I reject them, period. I hope that wasn't too much rambling.


----------



## ambush80

Miguel Cervantes said:


> The most peculiar and incessant behavior I have ever witnessed in this brief 58 year life of mine is the painstakingly laborious manner in which an Atheist will toil to attempt to disprove something they do not believe even exists.



They're trying to help you and all those affected by your delusion.  They're trying to make the world a better place.

I believe that your delusion is real.


----------



## ambush80

JimD said:


> Bullet,
> 
> Obviously people who say things like you posted above, are full of bovine excrement. If God truly means for us to do something, the outcome speaks for itself. I know in my life, the things I have many times viewed as "terrible" turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me. Right now, I have been run off of a job by a new superintendent, a job I have had for 18 years. I have done a good job in all these years and never had a bad evaluation or gotten the system into a law suit. My wife has been there 15 years as well and is also being pushed out. All of this is because of a dislike for our color. I know that there is a reason for this and also know God will take care of us. Faith is believing in things that can't be seen and in outcomes that humans would say seems like there is no way out. I've heard it said prayer is us speaking to God and intuition is God speaking to us, and I believe that is a true statement. For me, when God is telling me to do something, it's really intuition, or a knowing. I can't really explain it other than that, there are just some things that you "know" to be true. It's the same way to me when reading the Bible, or listening to a "preacher". Certain things I've heard in church, even since I was a little boy, never sat right in my mind, so I reject them, period. I hope that wasn't too much rambling.



The resurrection doesn't sit right in my mind.  So I reject it.  The Bible as the word of God doesn't sit right in my mind so I reject it.  Same with any other religious text.  The notion of a supreme being that we have knowledge of doesn't sit right in my mind either.

I brought up the issue of 'agency' a while back.  What makes you want to assign agency to the intuitions in your mind?


----------



## ambush80

hummerpoo said:


> Yesterday in a doctor's office waiting room I found, to my surprise, the latest issue of Time magazine.  There I found an article with an interesting title and started reading.  It started by quoting some comments made by a speaking at a rather large gathering with a specific political affiliation.  In the 6th or 7th paragraph the author stated, what he purported to be, the speakers intent in making the quoted statements; that intent being totally unsupported by anything yet revealed by the author.  After reading a couple more paragraphs, and finding it very obvious that no support was to be given, I went back to the contents page of the magazine and left the rest of the 4 page article unread.
> 
> When, in the linked article, I found a quote of a statement made in the previous election cycle by a candidates wife, like the experience yesterday I read a little further and found another quote relating to a candidates confidence that God would be helpful in overcoming the difficulties of the office, should he be elected. I mentally commented that I hoped that atheists have better sources of information from which to draw support (nothing so far having shown that any candidate had stated God's guidance other that he should become a candidate).  Again I left the remainder unread.



It confounds me that anyone would take comfort knowing that a man with his hand on the nuclear button would be praying to God to decide whether or not to use it.


----------



## hummerpoo

ambush80 said:


> It confounds me that anyone would take comfort knowing that a man with his hand on the nuclear button would be praying to God to decide whether or not to use it.



Notwithstanding the fact that your comment is totally unrelated to my post; it confounds me that anyone would prefer that such control would be in the hands of men, who, from that perspective, have created the problem.


----------



## JimD

Ambush,

I'm sorry but I don't know what you mean by agency?


----------



## ambush80

JimD said:


> Ambush,
> 
> I'm sorry but I don't know what you mean by agency?




In short, a being that causes things.

Why attribute any of those things to a being?


----------



## ambush80

hummerpoo said:


> Notwithstanding the fact that your comment is totally unrelated to my post; it confounds me that anyone would prefer that such control would be in the hands of men, who, from that perspective, have created the problem.




OK.  My post was tangential to yours.  If by "those who created the problem" you mean scientists like Enrico Fermi, then I would reply that he wasn't the one that turned nuclear fission into a weapon.  I don't know the religious affiliations of the military persons who did that.  I would rater the responsibility of tending technology like that be in the hands of people that live their lives rationally, not just in every aspect but one.


----------



## hummerpoo

ambush80 said:


> OK.  My post was tangential to yours.  If by "those who created the problem" you mean scientists like Enrico Fermi, then I would reply that he wasn't the one that turned nuclear fission into a weapon.  I don't know the religious affiliations of the military persons who did that.  I would rater the responsibility of tending technology like that be in the hands of people that live their lives rationally, not just in every aspect but one.



It was tangential to the source to which I referred, which does not make it tangential to my post.

My reference was to men in general, and all the IRrationality they have implemented to created the threat to their kind.


----------



## ambush80

hummerpoo said:


> It was tangential to the source to which I referred, which does not make it tangential to my post.
> 
> My reference was to men in general, and all the IRrationality they have implemented to created the threat to their kind.



Thanks for pointing out that important detail.

Theorizing a nuclear bomb isn't irrational.  Making one might be.


----------



## hummerpoo

ambush80 said:


> Thanks for pointing out that important detail.



Your welcome.



> Theorizing a nuclear bomb isn't irrational.  Making one might be.



Agreed.


----------



## bullethead

JimD said:


> Bullet,
> 
> Obviously people who say things like you posted above, are full of bovine excrement. If God truly means for us to do something, the outcome speaks for itself. I know in my life, the things I have many times viewed as "terrible" turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me. Right now, I have been run off of a job by a new superintendent, a job I have had for 18 years. I have done a good job in all these years and never had a bad evaluation or gotten the system into a law suit. My wife has been there 15 years as well and is also being pushed out. All of this is because of a dislike for our color. I know that there is a reason for this and also know God will take care of us. Faith is believing in things that can't be seen and in outcomes that humans would say seems like there is no way out. I've heard it said prayer is us speaking to God and intuition is God speaking to us, and I believe that is a true statement. For me, when God is telling me to do something, it's really intuition, or a knowing. I can't really explain it other than that, there are just some things that you "know" to be true. It's the same way to me when reading the Bible, or listening to a "preacher". Certain things I've heard in church, even since I was a little boy, never sat right in my mind, so I reject them, period. I hope that wasn't too much rambling.


Bovine excrement is claiming you have an intuition or a knowing coming from a god and yet everyone in the world has intuitions and knowing no matter who, what or if they believe.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> The most peculiar and incessant behavior I have ever witnessed in this brief 58 year life of mine is the painstakingly laborious manner in which an Atheist will toil to attempt to disprove something they do not believe even exists.


An atheist doesn't have to even try to disprove a god. There is no God to dispute it with.
All that is  needed is to refute the claims of believers with facts.


----------



## Israel

ambush80 said:


> You're not a dog.   Take control of your life like a full grown man, unless you feel like you don't deserve that kind of autonomy, in which case I would ask "why?".  Please try not to be cryptic or verbose in a Biblical way.


Why?
It's only you telling me I am not a dog. And if I submit to your definition of me, or what I am not...to what end? (What else you got _in mind?_ for me?)
Been there, done that. Like a mad man running through the woods, with a bit in my teeth. If you know of anyone that has done it with more fervency, I'd like to meet him. (man, how I do like that movie)
Show me your authority to say anything man is. Or, is not.


Look, I know you guys like to hang a lot of all the things you perceive as evil on the religious folk, as you seem fond to think of some. Like abolishing God (look! It's just there...on the horizon! Paradise! Homo superstitialis' soon extinction!)
C'mon man, that flaming sword always bars the way.
Too silly for you?
Then find a mirror, and come back and tell me how that man fits in paradise. Or thinks he can rule it.
How much death...is enough for you?


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

bullethead said:


> An atheist doesn't have to even try to disprove a god. There is no God to dispute it with.
> All that is  needed is to refute the claims of believers with facts.



Why does what we believe bother you? I could care less what you believe. It doesn't bother me. 

The only sect of the US population that is hades bent on having everyone do as they say, but not necessarily as they do, but unwavering in controlling everyone's daily life, thoughts and speech are the Liberal Democrats. 

Surely that isn't synonymous with Atheism?


----------



## JimD

Bullet,

I never said people of other faiths are wrong or do not have a "knowing", in fact I do not have any problems with someone not believing in a higher power. Those are personal choices and I am certainly not an authority on what God or whatever we would call " a higher power" thinks. I also do not believe that only "Christians" will go to heaven.

Ambush,

I know this won't convince you and not trying to, but I once heard an analogy of not believing in some higher power creating the universe with a Boeing 747. He said it was like a tornado moving through a junk yard and whirling all of the million or so of parts together and when the tornado was gone, a 747 sat there. It struck me as a good example, but I doubt it holds much water here.


----------



## bullethead

Miguel Cervantes said:


> Why does what we believe bother you? I could care less what you believe. It doesn't bother me.
> 
> The only sect of the US population that is hades bent on having everyone do as they say, but not necessarily as they do, but unwavering in controlling everyone's daily life, thoughts and speech are the Liberal Democrats.
> 
> Surely that isn't synonymous with Atheism?


I could not care less about what you or anyone else belives. If peeing on a flat rock at sunset makes you think you are a better person then drink lots of fluids and go for it.
If you notice I am not a few floors up picking on anyone for their beliefs. I think it is fair here in this forum that when someone makes a claim about their god that they should at least back it up. I put forth sound arguments backed by facts that have refuted the claims.

I can't stand for what the liberal left democrats stand for.
Never have.
I tend to vote on the conservative side. I like freedom, guns and less gov't.

But I'm all for someone, regardless of their beliefs or political affiliation,  being able to back up their claims....especially when they purposely come in here where their claims are challenged .
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this the forum specified for such conversations?


----------



## bullethead

JimD said:


> Bullet,
> 
> I never said people of other faiths are wrong or do not have a "knowing", in fact I do not have any problems with someone not believing in a higher power. Those are personal choices and I am certainly not an authority on what God or whatever we would call " a higher power" thinks. I also do not believe that only "Christians" will go to heaven.


I know you have not said that, but you seem to use those intuitions as some sort of proof that a god gives you guidance. Otherwise I don't know why you mentioned them above.
I just wanted to point out to you that intuitions and inner gut feelings are not exclusive to christians or anyone else for that matter. Animals have them too.
I don't find anything exclusive, other than personal beliefs, that makes Christianity  (or any religion) stand out more or be more true than any other religion. 
That's what I'm looking for.





JimD said:


> Ambush,
> 
> I know this won't convince you and not trying to, but I once heard an analogy of not believing in some higher power creating the universe with a Boeing 747. He said it was like a tornado moving through a junk yard and whirling all of the million or so of parts together and when the tornado was gone, a 747 sat there. It struck me as a good example, but I doubt it holds much water here.



http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/the-tornado-in-the-junkyard/ first point is the most important. The tornado in the junkyard is an example of an intricate, complex and highly organized form being produced by nothing more than random chance. But evolution is not chance. (See this article for more on this.) Rather, it operates according to a fixed law – the law of natural selection – which favors some assemblages over others; it preferentially selects for those adaptations which improve fitness and selects against those that do not. The tornado, by contrast, slams parts together and tears them apart with no preference whatsoever, thus completely failing to represent natural selection, the central force which drives evolution. To more accurately represent evolution, one would have to grant the tornado some power to recognize assemblages of parts which could serve as part of a 747 and prevent it from tearing them apart.
Second, the tornado analogy is an example of single-step selection – in one step, it goes from a random pile of parts to a fully assembled airliner. This is completely unlike evolution, which operates according to a process of cumulative selection – complex results that are built up gradually, in a repetitive process guided at each step by selective forces. To more accurately represent evolution, the tornado could be sent through the junkyard not once, but thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving chance assemblages of parts that could make up a jumbo jet.
Third, in relation to the point above, the tornado in the junkyard is an example of saltation – a sudden leap in which the end product is completely different from the beginning product. Evolution does not work this way; birds do not hatch out of dinosaur eggs and monkeys do not give birth to humans. Rather, species grow different over time through a process of slow change in which each new creature is only slightly different from its ancestor. Evolution forms a gradually shading continuum in which any two steps are almost identical, though the creatures at the beginning and end of the continuum may be very different indeed. If we sent a tornado through a junkyard once, we would not expect to see a complete airplane; but if we repeated the process thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving useful assemblages, we might see a jumbo jet gradually taking shape out of slowly accreting collections of parts. The idea is the same with living things. We do not see complex new creatures appearing suddenly in the fossil record; rather, we see them gradually forming by a process of modification from a line of increasingly dissimilar ancestors.
Finally, the tornado analogy fails to represent evolution in one more significant way: it has a target specified ahead of time. Evolution does not. Natural selection is not a forward-looking process; it cannot select for what may become useful in the future, only what is immediately useful in the present. To more accurately represent evolution, we might add the additional stipulation that the tornado be allowed to assemble, not just a jumbo jet, but any functional piece of machinery.


----------



## Israel

Then natural selection as a _force_ is by definition supernatural, as the natural is subject to it.



> thus completely failing to represent natural selection, the central force which drives evolution.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Then natural selection as a _force_ is by definition supernatural, as the natural is subject to it.



It is natural. It happens every second of every day. It is not beyond nature. It is nature.

No need to try to make it into something else


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> Then natural selection as a _force_ is by definition supernatural, as the natural is subject to it.



Here is a good read for you
Supernatural and Natural Selection:  Description
About the Author
Lyle B. Steadman is Professor of human evolution and social change at Arizona State University. Craig T. Palmer is Assistant Professor of anthropology at the University of MissouriColumbia and coauthor of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (MIT Press 2001).
Product Description
Spanning many different epochs and varieties of religious experience, this book develops a new approach to religion and its role in human history. The authors look across a range of religious phenomena-from ancestor worship to totemism, shamanism, and worldwide modern religions-to offer a new explanation of the evolutionary success of religious behaviors. Their book is more empirical and verifiable than most previous books on evolution and religion because they develop an approach that removes guesswork about beliefs in the supernatural, focusing instead on the behaviors of individuals. The result is a pioneering look at how and why natural selection has favored religious behaviors throughout history.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> It is natural. It happens every second of every day. It is not beyond nature. It is nature.


Then natural selection is not the "central force", nature is.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Then natural selection is not the "central force", nature is.



Natural selection is part of nature. It is the central force, or driving force of evolution.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> It is nature.





bullethead said:


> Natural selection is part of nature.


Make up your mind.


----------



## ambush80

JimD said:


> Bullet,
> 
> I never said people of other faiths are wrong or do not have a "knowing", in fact I do not have any problems with someone not believing in a higher power. Those are personal choices and I am certainly not an authority on what God or whatever we would call " a higher power" thinks. I also do not believe that only "Christians" will go to heaven.
> 
> Ambush,
> 
> I know this won't convince you and not trying to, but I once heard an analogy of not believing in some higher power creating the universe with a Boeing 747. He said it was like a tornado moving through a junk yard and whirling all of the million or so of parts together and when the tornado was gone, a 747 sat there. It struck me as a good example, but I doubt it holds much water here.



An interesting point that I've never heard before (I'm not thoroughly convinced by it, though).  From https://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/68191/P15/#832901:

_Evidence of design:

Usually things designed have seams, showing how the parts have been assembled from pre created blocks. Living things have no such seams.

The only thing that comes close maybe is the mind body connection. But that would probably only be for epiphenomenalists* and the likes, the mind being suitably fitted to the body, yet without having an causal connection to have evolved such over time. Making it incidental that stubbing ones toe hurts etc. Hence the mind would be “fitted to” the body, like a plastic cover made for a vehicle, an external sheet rather than an intrinsic part…

God bless._

*http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Make up your mind.



I don't have to make up my mind.
Like the earth is part of a solar system and the solar system is part of a galaxy and the galaxy is part of the universe. The earth, solar system and galaxy still make up the universe. Separate parts of the same thing.

Kind of like three forces make up one god.


----------



## ambush80

bullethead said:


> I don't have to make up my mind.
> Like the earth is part of a solar system and the solar system is part of a galaxy and the galaxy is part of the universe. The earth, solar system and galaxy still make up the universe. Separate parts of the same thing.
> 
> Kind of like three forces make up one god.



You know I'm on your side but this is lame.  Not even close to a good analogy.  Just a dig.


----------



## bullethead

ambush80 said:


> You know I'm on your side but this is lame.  Not even close to a good analogy.  Just a dig.



Not if I needed to put it in terms that can be related to.
Each of those three act as independent forces within the bible yet all are one together.
Spot
Stinking
On
Absolutely no dig implied or intended.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> I don't have to make up my mind.
> Like the earth is part of a solar system and the solar system is part of a galaxy and the galaxy is part of the universe. The earth, solar system and galaxy still make up the universe. Separate parts of the same thing.


So the earth is the universe, by your way of thinking?


bullethead said:


> Kind of like three forces make up one god.


Not even similar.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> So the earth is the universe, by your way of thinking?
> 
> Not even similar.


I did not say that at all. That is your interpretation.
Earth is part of the universe.
My thoughts don't have anything to do with it.



All you have to do is explain your claim.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> I did not say that at all. That is your interpretation.
> Earth is part of the universe.
> My thoughts don't have anything to do with it.
> 
> 
> 
> All you have to do is explain your claim.


My claim is that you said natural selection is nature. You also said that natural selection is part of nature.

Have you made up your mind?


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> My claim is that you said natural selection is nature. You also said that natural selection is part of nature.
> 
> Have you made up your mind?



OK gem. You are going all stringmusic on me here.
You've been given your answers.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> OK gem. You are going all stringmusic on me here.


Compliment, Red Herring or Ad hominem?


bullethead said:


> You've been given your answers.


Yes, both of them. See post #171.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Compliment, Red Herring or Ad hominem?
> 
> Yes, both of them. See post #171.



Both answers are 100% correct. Nature is made of many things.


----------



## bullethead

Noun	1.	natural selection - a natural process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment
survival of the fittest, survival, selection
natural action, natural process, action, activity - a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings); "the action of natural forces";


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> Noun	1.	natural selection - a natural process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment
> survival of the fittest, survival, selection
> natural action, natural process, action, activity - a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings); "the action of natural forces";


In order to show that "Natural selection is nature." is 100% correct, you provide a definition stating that natural selection is a process of nature.

Am I with you so far?


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> In order to show that "Natural selection is nature." is 100% correct, you provide a definition stating that natural selection is a process of nature.
> 
> Am I with you so far?



No.
It is nature in action. It is the condition of nature being carried on.
It is not the product of nature. It is the process of nature. 
Like rain is weather. 


You have not been with me, purposely, at all.


----------



## Israel

> (rather than by the intent of human beings)



OK, then something is outside nature?
Is it supra or infra? Cause if it's neither, then the "intent of human beings" cannot be excluded.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> OK, then something is outside nature?
> Is it supra or infra? Cause if it's neither, then the "intent of human beings" cannot be excluded.



Unnatural.


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> Unnatural.



The intent of man, then, is what is "not nature?"


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> The intent of man, then, is what is "not nature?"



You have been given the definition. You are trying to split hairs with the messenger due to trying to interpret the definition into what you want it to say rather than what it does say. That is the problem with cherry picking a part of the definition and not the entire definition. 

The definition is not defining the intent of man. It is defining things produced outside of nature by the intent of man. Things that do not occur naturally but are man made.


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> You have been given the definition. You are trying to split hairs with the messenger due to trying to interpret the definition into what you want it to say rather than what it does say. That is the problem with cherry picking a part of the definition and not the entire definition.
> 
> The definition is not defining the intent of man. It is defining things produced outside of nature by the intent of man. Things that do not occur naturally but are man made.



That's your matter whether to submit to that definiton as being complete. Some are not under that obligation. 

Some, even if they were, might still legitimately question the care in excluding the intent of man as apart from nature as a very peculiar thing, if man himself be all and only "of nature". Very much as though man who, though readily admitting to being on the "inside" as product...also seems he has the authority to draw lines from the "outside" to circumscribe areas of that compendium.


An alien might laugh.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> That's your matter whether to submit to that definiton as being complete. Some are not under that obligation.
> 
> Some, even if they were, might still legitimately question the care in excluding the intent of man as apart from nature as a very peculiar thing, if man himself be all and only "of nature". Very much as though man who, though readily admitting to being on the "inside" as product...also seems he has the authority to draw lines from the "outside" to circumscribe areas of that compendium.
> 
> 
> An alien might laugh.



You are stuck on the "intent of man", which is absolutely not what the definition refers to.

I'd  ask which alien but you probably submitted to a different definition


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> No.
> It is nature in action. It is the condition of nature being carried on.
> It is not the product of nature. It is the process of nature.
> Like rain is weather.
> 
> 
> You have not been with me, purposely, at all.


Like steering wheel is car?


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Like steering wheel is car?



Nope


----------



## Terminal Idiot

gemcgrew said:


> Like steering wheel is car?



Purposefully obtuse because you can't come up with a decent response to about 7pages worth of queries, questions and statements that deserve thought. Good work sport!


----------



## gemcgrew

Terminal Idiot said:


> Purposefully obtuse because you can't come up with a decent response to about 7pages worth of queries, questions and statements that deserve thought. Good work sport!


There hasn't been much of anything worthy of response. I agree with post #1 as far as "(718) The folly of trying to marry Genesis with science" is concerned.

It is foolish to try and prove Genesis by using the same flawed methods of empiricism.


----------



## bullethead

P.o.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> There hasn't been much of anything worthy of response. I agree with post #1 as far as "(718) The folly of trying to marry Genesis with science" is concerned.
> 
> It is foolish to try and prove Genesis by using the same flawed methods of empiricism.




Flawed methods are a perfect match for flawed scripture.


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> You are stuck on the "intent of man", which is absolutely not what the definition refers to.
> 
> I'd  ask which alien but you probably submitted to a different definition



Full Definition of alien
1
a :  belonging or relating to another person, place, or thing :  strange
b :  relating, belonging, or owing allegiance to another country or government :  foreign
c :  exotic 1
2
:  differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility


----------



## bullethead

(402) Modern archaeology conflicts with the Bible

The following are quotes by credentialed archaeologists:

William G. Dever:

Archaeology certainly doesn’t prove literal readings of the Bible…It calls them into question, and that’s what bothers some people. Most people really think that archaeology is out there to prove the Bible. No archaeologist thinks so. From the beginnings of what we call biblical archaeology, perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly western scholars, have attempted to use archaeological data to prove the Bible. And for a long time it was thought to work. William Albright, the great father of our discipline, often spoke of the “archaeological revolution.” Well, the revolution has come but not in the way that Albright thought. The truth of the matter today is that archaeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that’s very disturbing to some people.

He also wrote:

Archaeology as it is practiced today must be able to challenge, as well as confirm, the Bible stories. Some things described there really did happen, but others did not. The biblical narratives about Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Solomon  probably reflect some historical memories of people and places, but the ‘larger than life’ portraits of the Bible are unrealistic and contradicted by the archaeological evidence.

Ze’ev Herzog:

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.

Professor Israel Finkelstein, who is known as “the father of biblical archaeology”, told the Jerusalem Post that Jewish archaeologists have found no historical or archaeological evidence to back the biblical narrative on the Exodus, the Jews’ wandering in Sinai or Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. On the alleged Temple of Solomon, Finkelstein said that there is no archaeological evidence to prove it really existed.

Professor Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist who has worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed with Israel Finkelstein.

Regarding the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said:

“Really, it’s a myth,”… “This is my career as an archaeologist. I should tell them the truth. If the people are upset, that is not my problem.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Bible

Christianity relies on the Bible being a factual account of history. Archaeology has revealed that many of the basic, foundational stories in the Bible are fictional.  This implies that Christianity sits on an unstable understructure of made-up tales, fables, legends, and myths that severely undermines it authenticity.


----------



## Israel

I really don't know all that christianity stands upon. Thankfully, I have never been called to _it._
The one who calls me has never used that word to either beckon or comfort.


----------



## WaltL1

Israel said:


> I really don't know all that christianity stands upon. Thankfully, I have never been called to _it._
> The one who calls me has never used that word to either beckon or comfort.


Sounds good but let's be honest, without Christianity you wouldn't even know who to attribute "the call" to.
Unless of course you chose one of the other gods to believe in.


----------



## Israel

The call led me to Christ, not christianity.


----------



## WaltL1

Israel said:


> The call led me to Christ, not christianity.



Come on Israel, as much as you went to separate them, the call led you to who Christianity told you Christ is. 
You may have formulated your own opinions and understandings in your own mind since then but unless you conjured up Christ on your own, you started with what Christianity told you.
You didn't start believing in something you never heard of and knew nothing about.


----------



## Israel

No, I didn't conjure up Christ.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> I really don't know all that christianity stands upon. Thankfully, I have never been called to _it._
> The one who calls me has never used that word to either beckon or comfort.



A product of your environment.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> No, I didn't conjure up Christ.


I've provided dozens of examples to show who did conjure up Christ, and all you've got to refute it is more personal pulpit proselytizing that takes you to your happy place.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> I really don't know all that christianity stands upon. Thankfully, I have never been called to _it._
> The one who calls me has never used that word to either beckon or comfort.



Perfect example of why people die for lie. The facts are there and purposely ignored due to want and need over truth.


----------



## WaltL1

Israel said:


> No, I didn't conjure up Christ.


It's unfortunate that Christ/God can't be separated from Christianity.
Once I rejected Christianity/organized religion (see the mountains  of evidence Bullet is posting) I was left with no choice but to doubt the existence of God unless proven in some other way not involving man.


----------



## Israel

WaltL1 said:


> It's unfortunate that Christ/God can't be separated from Christianity.
> Once I rejected Christianity/organized religion (see the mountains  of evidence Bullet is posting) I was left with no choice but to doubt the existence of God unless proven in some other way not involving man.



How far might a man go were he to apply his distrust of others to his own self? Precisely where to him, _it seems_ to matter most?


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> How far might a man go were he to apply his distrust of others to his own self? Precisely where to him, _it seems_ to matter most?



We can see how far by your posts.


----------



## WaltL1

Israel said:


> How far might a man go were he to apply his distrust of others to his own self? Precisely where to him, _it seems_ to matter most?


I'm not the one who believes people pop out of the womb evil.
So maybe your question is better directed to yoursel?


----------



## Israel

WaltL1 said:


> It's unfortunate that Christ/God can't be separated from Christianity.
> Once I rejected Christianity/organized religion (see the mountains  of evidence Bullet is posting) I was left with no choice but to doubt the existence of God unless proven in some other way not involving man.



I had thought you had written this.
If you be not man, what are you?


----------



## Israel

bullethead said:


> We can see how far by your posts.



My posts could never take you far enough.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> Flawed methods are a perfect match for flawed scripture.


Yes!


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Yes!



You say that science of the senses is flawed while basing your faith on an inner feeling sense.


----------



## bullethead

Israel said:


> I had thought you had written this.
> If you be not man, what are you?



He be open to something beyond what man has and can provide.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> You say that science of the senses is flawed while basing your faith on an inner feeling sense.


My faith secures nothing, even as a means of obtaining knowledge.


----------



## Huntinfool

bullethead said:


> Imagine that, another person that has figured it out and everyone else is wrong.


 


This is priceless!

Hello Pot?  This is Kettle.

YOU'RE BLACK!






Now I'll go back and read the thread.  This one was too classic to stop on.


----------



## ambush80

Huntinfool said:


> This is priceless!
> 
> Hello Pot?  This is Kettle.
> 
> YOU'RE BLACK!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now I'll go back and read the thread.  This one was too classic to stop on.



None of us unbelievers think that we're 100% right.  We maintain that we could be wrong.  Even Richard Dawkins admits that he could be wrong.  Can you say the same thing?

No. You can't.  And that's the twisted, mind job that you've done to yourself.


----------



## Huntinfool

Is that why the thread is titled "Reasons Christianity and the Bible are false" instead of "Reasons we have to question the validity of Christianity, the Bible and the existence of a god"?


----------



## ambush80

Huntinfool said:


> Is that why the thread is titled "Reasons Christianity and the Bible are false" instead of "Reasons we have to question the validity of Christianity, the Bible and the existence of a god"?



True and false are words that depend on evidence.  If I say "This thing is red" there are ways to prove that it's true.  You can ask everybody who isn't color blind or you can use a spectrometer.  If someone says "Jesus rose from the dead" that requires extraordinary evidence to prove.  I believe Bullet is demonstrating how the usual proofs for that claim are bogus; in the same way someone might attack and undermine the research methods of climate change scientists.  That's why someone might be completely justified in giving a talk or writing a paper on why "Human Caused Climate Change is False".


----------



## ambush80

People have written books about "Why Christianity is True" then show why they believe that.  It's all about the evidence.  Refute the evidence.


----------



## Huntinfool

This thread is not about proving Christ true.  It's about proving him false. It says so right there in the title.  

I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of Bullet (of all people) criticizing anyone for claiming to know he has things figured out and everyone else is wrong.  It's thick...and kind of funny.


----------



## ambush80

Huntinfool said:


> This thread is not about proving Christ true.  It's about proving him false. It says so right there in the title.
> 
> I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of Bullet (of all people) criticizing anyone for claiming to know he is 100% correct about anything.  It's thick...and kind of funny.



You just completely ignore the fact that neither Bullet nor Walt nor I nor Richard Dawkins claim that what they believe is absolutely true.  That circus belongs to you and yours (and the 19 hijackers).

Can you imagine if one of the hijackers flying the plane, as they drew down on the tower,  said to himself "What if I'm wrong"?


----------



## Huntinfool

Again....my comment is not about me claiming to be right.  It's about Bullet criticizing anyone for claiming to "have it all figured out".



> I have provided legitimate points that are backed by detailed facts to show that the claims made about the accuracy of scripture are *completely untrue*.
> It...





> An examination of the gospel narratives describing Jesus’s post-resurrection activities *proves beyond doubt* that Jesus’s disciples did not the gospels, nor did they dictate them to any scribes.





> *Fictional crucifixion story*




These are just from the past couple of days.  Sound like someone who is unsure that what he believes is true?

Eddie Haskell it up all you want.  The proof is actually, in this case, in the pudding.

I do have to say, though, (and in full disclosure)....sometimes I feel like it's MUCH easier to have an intelligent conversation in here than in the other subsections of the Spiritual area.


----------



## bullethead

Huntinfool said:


> Again....my comment is not about me claiming to be right.  It's about Bullet criticizing anyone for claiming to "have it all figured out".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These are just from the past couple of days.  Sound like someone who is unsure that what he believes is true?
> 
> Eddie Haskell it up all you want.  The proof is actually, in this case, in the pudding.
> 
> I do have to say, though, (and in full disclosure)....sometimes I feel like it's MUCH easier to have an intelligent conversation in here than in the other subsections of the Spiritual area.


Those claims were made and backed up with historical evidence, history, knowledge of cultures and practices of the times, geographical research, theology research and scientific knowledge.
Not in any case have you, or anyone else, came up with one single thing that refutes even one thing let alone all of it.
If the scripture you follow is false, it is false. No two ways about it .


----------



## bullethead

Huntinfool said:


> This is priceless!
> 
> Hello Pot?  This is Kettle.
> 
> YOU'RE BLACK!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now I'll go back and read the thread.  This one was too classic to stop on.


I am not making extraordinary claims.
I am not saying I am 100% correct. 
I have given darn good evidence of what I have claimed to be true so far in this discussion.


----------



## Huntinfool

You sure as heck sound convinced you're 100% correct my man.


----------



## ambush80

Huntinfool said:


> You sure as heck sound convinced you're 100% correct my man.



Pick ONE of the claims that Bullet posted and refute it with information of your own.  I will do my best to remain objective and impartial.  Present a case against what he posted.


----------



## bullethead

Huntinfool said:


> You sure as heck sound convinced you're 100% correct my man.



According to the evidence I have gathered I am darn sure that most likely than not, the biblical accounts of many things are totally man made and at the very least inaccurate. And that is putting it nicely.


----------



## bullethead

I've asked for explanations about the graves bursting open and the dead wandering about. 
Show us where in history that happened. Someone must have seen it.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> I've asked for explanations about the graves bursting open and the dead wandering about.
> Show us where in history that happened. Someone must have seen it.


Logically fallacious.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Logically fallacious.



You bet, the entire resurrection nonsense is logically fallicious.


----------



## gemcgrew

Bullet, why do you assume that the event would result in multiple historical recordings?


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Bullet, why do you assume that the event would result in multiple historical recordings?



Gem, I've given evidence that the Romans were meticulous record keepers. They recorded their history.  They have records of births, deaths, sizemic events, lunar events, crucifictions, detailed information on testimony in trials down to petty thieves.
Other world cultures at the time were also very accurate record keepers, the egyptians, Chinese , Greeks kept records of everything.
It stands to reason because of historical evidence that if graves had burst open after a man flew up into the sky and the dead came out of those graves and walked among the living,  earthquakes happened and the world went dark it would have not gone unnoticed right there as it happened and certainly not gone unmentioned worldwide.
Add in the facts that scripture is full of similar embellishments, and all the areas of inaccuracy that I've previously posted and the hard truth is that none of those events ever really happened. It is ancient folklore about a struggling culture that has been under occupied rule for centuries. They are tales of hope and dreams that involve magical events because that was the way to escape the reality of everyday life.
I do not assume anything. I believe the facts that history bears.


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## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> Gem, I've given evidence that the Romans were meticulous record keepers. They recorded their history.  They have records of births, deaths, sizemic events, lunar events, crucifictions, detailed information on testimony in trials down to petty thieves.
> Other world cultures at the time were also very accurate record keepers, the egyptians, Chinese , Greeks kept records of everything.
> It stands to reason because of historical evidence that if graves had burst open after a man flew up into the sky and the dead came out of those graves and walked among the living,  earthquakes happened and the world went dark it would have not gone unnoticed right there as it happened and certainly not gone unmentioned worldwide.
> Add in the facts that scripture is full of similar embellishments, and all the areas of inaccuracy that I've previously posted and the hard truth is that none of those events ever really happened. It is ancient folklore about a struggling culture that has been under occupied rule for centuries. They are tales of hope and dreams that involve magical events because that was the way to escape the reality of everyday life.
> I do not assume anything. I believe the facts that history bears.


What do you see in the Biblical record of this particular event(the graves opened and they appeared unto many) that would warrant recording by the "meticulous record keepers"?


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## drippin' rock

bullethead said:


> Gem, I've given evidence that the Romans were meticulous record keepers. They recorded their history.  They have records of births, deaths, sizemic events, lunar events, crucifictions, detailed information on testimony in trials down to petty thieves.
> Other world cultures at the time were also very accurate record keepers, the egyptians, Chinese , Greeks kept records of everything.
> It stands to reason because of historical evidence that if graves had burst open after a man flew up into the sky and the dead came out of those graves and walked among the living,  earthquakes happened and the world went dark it would have not gone unnoticed right there as it happened and certainly not gone unmentioned worldwide.
> Add in the facts that scripture is full of similar embellishments, and all the areas of inaccuracy that I've previously posted and the hard truth is that none of those events ever really happened. It is ancient folklore about a struggling culture that has been under occupied rule for centuries. They are tales of hope and dreams that involve magical events because that was the way to escape the reality of everyday life.
> I do not assume anything. I believe the facts that history bears.



I agree with this 100%. When the meek are persecuted so consistently over time, it is easy to see where verses like "the meek shall inherit the earth" come from. When people are enslaved they conjure stories wishing and hoping for a better time.


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## drippin' rock

gemcgrew said:


> What do you see in the Biblical record of this particular event(the graves opened and they appeared unto many) that would warrant recording by the "meticulous record keepers"?



Where did the resurrected saints go?


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## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> What do you see in the Biblical record of this particular event(the graves opened and they appeared unto many) that would warrant recording by the "meticulous record keepers"?



Gem, the playing coy is beneath you. 
They did not have cell phones and cameras. Everybody was not away on business. Any event was a big event that got noticed and recorded both orally and by writings and by multiple cultures that all lived together.
The local Jewish population, even mostly poor and uneducated, would have been astonished at a grave opening event that had the dead wandering about. It would still be talked about to this day and it is doubtful that Judaism would even exist if a man that claimed to be the son of God actually fulfilled prophesy and then as the final act, ascended into the heavens. There would have been immediate Christian conversions on the spot.
Now factor in that the region was under Roman control and there were people that were employed to report any and all activity back to rome. They had people infiltrate local groups to make sure they could gather info about possible uprisings or revolts. There were educated people that knew how to read and write. Cell phone or not, believer or not if I am downtown and a bunch of graves burst open (after the local trouble maker who claimed he was the son of God and said he was going to resurrect and ascend skyward ) I am going to notice it and at the very least tell someone about it. Multiply that by the at least hundreds if not thousands of witnesses and contemporary sources would not ignore it. Yet they did.
Evidence points to the reason being was not because it was so common that it wasn't something rare, not because people just didn't take notice, but because it just flat out did not actually happen.
There was no hours of darkness there were no multiple earthquakes. 
These events,like hundreds of others in scripture, are totally made up and or embellished versions of partly real events that were added to later.

They are no more real than the religious events told in other religions around the world, and for the same reasons you reject those others, I reject the writings in the bible.
There is nowhere else to dispute these events because they didn't happen anywhere else.
Such monumental events should, could and would be extremely simple to prove if they had in fact happened and impossible to refute. They would be extremely hard to prove if they did not happen and easy to refute.


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## bullethead

From Richard Carrier.
What follows is a half-hour lecture I have given on several public occasions, first at Yale on 26 October 2000 at the request of the Yale College Humanists and Secularists. It was followed by a Q & A session of nearly two hours. Many in my audiences have asked that I reproduce the speech online, with hyperlinked footnotes in brackets giving more detail than I am able to provide in person. I have now made this the central argument in my collection of essays on why I don't buy the resurrection story. In this 2004 edit, I have made only a few minor changes to the original 2000 text.

Today I am going to tell you why I don't buy the resurrection story. By that I mean the tales in the Gospels, of Jesus physically rising again from the grave. As a professional historian, I do not believe we have anywhere near sufficient evidence or reason to believe this, and I've been asked by the Yale College Humanists and Secularists to explain why. If any of you want to know more about this than what few points I can cover in thirty minutes, I have several writings on this and other subjects on the Secular Web. But here I will cover the most important reasons why I don't buy the resurrection story.

It actually begins with a different tale. In 520 A.D. an anonymous monk recorded the life of Saint Genevieve, who had died only ten years before that. In his account of her life, he describes how, when she ordered a cursed tree cut down, monsters sprang from it and breathed a fatal stench on many men for two hours; while she was sailing, eleven ships capsized, but at her prayers they were righted again spontaneously; she cast out demons, calmed storms, miraculously created water and oil from nothing before astonished crowds, healed the blind and lame, and several people who stole things from her actually went blind instead. No one wrote anything to contradict or challenge these claims, and they were written very near the time the events supposedly happened--by a religious man whom we suppose regarded lying to be a sin. Yet do we believe any of it? Not really. And we shouldn't.[1]

As David Hume once said, why do such things not happen now?[2] Is it a coincidence that the very time when these things no longer happen is the same time that we have the means and methods to check them in the light of science and careful investigation? I've never seen monsters spring from a tree, and I don't know anyone who has, and there are no women touring the country transmuting matter or levitating ships. These events look like tall tales, sound like tall tales, and smell like tall tales. Odds are, they're tall tales.

But we should try to be more specific in our reasons, and not rely solely on common sense impressions. And there are specific reasons to disbelieve the story of Genevieve, and they are the same reasons we have to doubt the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus. For the parallel is clear: the Gospels were written no sooner to the death of their main character--and more likely many decades later--than was the case for the account of Genevieve; and like that account, the Gospels were also originally anonymous--the names now attached to them were added by speculation and oral tradition half a century after they were actually written. Both contain fabulous miracles supposedly witnessed by numerous people. Both belong to the same genre of literature: what we call a "hagiography," a sacred account of a holy person regarded as representing a moral and divine ideal. Such a genre had as its principal aim the glorification of the religion itself and of the example set by the perfect holy person represented as its central focus. Such literature was also a tool of propaganda, used to promote certain moral or religious views, and to oppose different points of view. The life of Genevieve, for example, was written to combat Arianism. The canonical Gospels, on the other hand, appear to combat various forms of proto-Gnosticism. So being skeptical of what they say is sensible from the start.[3]

It is certainly reasonable to doubt the resurrection of Jesus in the flesh, an event placed some time between 26 and 36 A.D. For this we have only a few written sources near the event, all of it sacred writing, and entirely pro-Christian. Pliny the Younger was the first non-Christian to even mention the religion, in 110 A.D., but he doesn't mention the resurrection. No non-Christian mentions the resurrection until many decades later--Lucian, a critic of superstition, was the first, writing in the mid-2nd century, and likely getting his information from Christian sources. So the evidence is not what any historian would consider good.[4]

Nevertheless, Christian apologist Douglas Geivett has declared that the evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus meets, and I quote, "the highest standards of historical inquiry" and "if one takes the historian's own criteria for assessing the historicity of ancient events, the resurrection passes muster as a historically well-attested event of the ancient world," as well-attested, he says, as Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C.[5] Well, it is common in Christian apologetics, throughout history, to make absurdly exaggerated claims, and this is no exception. Let's look at Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon for a minute:

First of all, we have Caesar's own word on the subject. Indeed, The Civil War has been a Latin classic for two thousand years, written by Caesar himself and by one of his generals and closest of friends. In contrast, we do not have anything written by Jesus, and we do not know for certain the name of any author of any of the accounts of his earthly resurrection. 

Second, we have many of Caesar's enemies, including Cicero, a contemporary of the event, reporting the crossing of the Rubicon, whereas we have no hostile or even neutral records of the resurrection until over a hundred years after the event, which is fifty years after the Christians' own claims had been widely spread around. 

Third, we have a number of inscriptions and coins produced soon after the Republican Civil War related to the Rubicon crossing, including mentions of battles and conscriptions and judgments, which provide evidence for Caesar's march. On the other hand, we have absolutely no physical evidence of any kind in the case of the resurrection. 

Fourth, we have the story of the "Rubicon Crossing" in almost every historian of the period, including the most prominent scholars of the age: Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, Plutarch. Moreover, these scholars have a measure of proven reliability, since a great many of their reports on other matters have been confirmed in material evidence and in other sources. In addition, they often quote and name many different sources, showing a wide reading of the witnesses and documents, and they show a desire to critically examine claims for which there is any dispute. If that wasn't enough, all of them cite or quote sources written by witnesses, hostile and friendly, of the Rubicon crossing and its repercussions. 

Compare this with the resurrection: we have not even a single established historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians.[6] And of those few others who do mention it within a century of the event, none of them show any wide reading, never cite any other sources, show no sign of a skilled or critical examination of conflicting claims, have no other literature or scholarship to their credit that we can test for their skill and accuracy, are completely unknown, and have an overtly declared bias towards persuasion and conversion.[7] 

Fifth, the history of Rome could not have proceeded as it did had Caesar not physically moved an army into Italy. Even if Caesar could have somehow cultivated the mere belief that he had done this, he could not have captured Rome or conscripted Italian men against Pompey's forces in Greece. On the other hand, all that is needed to explain the rise of Christianity is a belief--a belief that the resurrection happened. There is nothing that an actual resurrection would have caused that could not have been caused by a mere belief in that resurrection. Thus, an actual resurrection is not necessary to explain all subsequent history, unlike Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon.[8]

It should be clear that we have many reasons to believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, all of which are lacking in the case of the resurrection. In fact, when we compare all five points, we see that in four of the five proofs of an event's historicity, the resurrection has no evidence at all, and in the one proof that it does have, it has not the best, but the very worst kind of evidence--a handful of biased, uncritical, unscholarly, unknown, second-hand witnesses. Indeed, you really have to look hard to find another event that is in a worse condition than this as far as evidence goes. So Geivett is guilty of a rather extreme exaggeration. This is not a historically well-attested event, and it does not meet the highest standards of evidence.

But reasons to be skeptical do not stop there. We must consider the setting--the place and time in which these stories spread. This was an age of fables and wonder. Magic and miracles and ghosts were everywhere, and almost never doubted. I'll give one example that illustrates this: we have several accounts of what the common people thought about lunar eclipses. They apparently had no doubt that this horrible event was the result of witches calling the moon down with diabolical spells. So when an eclipse occurred, everyone would frantically start banging pots and blowing brass horns furiously, to confuse the witches' spells. So tremendous was this din that many better-educated authors complain of how the racket filled entire cities and countrysides. This was a superstitious people.[9]

Only a small class of elite well-educated men adopted more skeptical points of view, and because they belonged to the upper class, both them and their arrogant skepticism were scorned by the common people, rather than respected. Plutarch laments how doctors were willing to attend to the sick among the poor for little or no fee, but they were usually sent away, in preference for the local wizard.[10] By modern standards, almost no one had any sort of education at all, and there were no mass media disseminating scientific facts in any form. By the estimates of William Harris, author of Ancient Literacy [1989], only 20% of the population could read anything at all, fewer than 10% could read well, and far fewer still had any access to books. He found that in comparative terms, even a single page of blank papyrus cost the equivalent of thirty dollars--ink, and the labor to hand copy every word, cost many times more. We find that books could run to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Consequently, only the rich had books, and only elite scholars had access to libraries, of which there were few. The result was that the masses had no understanding of science or critical thought. They were neither equipped nor skilled, nor even interested, in challenging an inspiring story, especially a story like that of the Gospels: utopian, wonderful, critical of upper class society--even more a story that, if believed, secured eternal life. Who wouldn't have bought a ticket to that lottery? Opposition arose mainly from prior commitments to other dogmas, not reason or evidence.

The differences between society then and now cannot be stressed enough. There didn't exist such things as coroners, reporters, cameras, newspapers, forensic science, or even police detectives. All the technology, all the people we have pursuing the truth of various claims now, did not exist then. In those days, few would even be able to check the details of a story if they wanted to--and few wanted to. Instead, people based their judgment on the display of sincerity by the storyteller, by his ability to impress them with a show or simply to persuade and "sell" his story, and by the potential rewards his story had to offer.[11] At the same time, doubters didn't care to waste the time or money debunking yet another crazy cult, of which there were hundreds then.[12] And so it should not surprise us that we have no writings by anyone hostile to Christianity until a century after it began--not even slanders or lies. Clearly, no doubter cared to check or even challenge the story in print until it was too late to investigate the facts.[13]

These are just some of the reasons why we cannot trust extraordinary reports from that time without excellent evidence, which we do not have in the case of the physical resurrection of Jesus. For on the same quality of evidence we have reports of talking dogs, flying wizards, magical statues, and monsters springing from trees.[14] Can you imagine a movement today claiming that a soldier in World War Two rose physically from the dead, but when you asked for proof all they offered you were a mere handful of anonymous religious tracts written in the 1980's? Would it be even remotely reasonable to believe such a thing on so feeble a proof? Well--no.[15] What about alien bodies recovered from a crashed flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico? Many people sincerely believe that legend today, yet this is the modern age, with ample evidence against it in print that is easily accessible to anyone, and this legend began only thirty years after the event.[16]


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## bullethead

Even so, it is often said in objection that we can trust the Gospels more than we normally would because they were based on the reports of eye-witnesses of the event who were willing to die for their belief in the physical resurrection, for surely no one would die for a lie. To quote a Christian website: "the first disciples were willing to suffer and die for their faith...for their claims to have seen Jesus...risen bodily from the dead." Of course, the Gospel of Matthew 28:17 actually claims that some eye-witnesses didn't believe what they saw and might not have become Christians, which suggests the experience was not so convincing after all. But there are two other key reasons why this argument sounds great in sermons but doesn't hold water under rational scrutiny.

First, it is based on nothing in the New Testament itself, or on any reliable evidence of any kind. None of the Gospels or Epistles mention anyone dying for their belief in the "physical" resurrection of Jesus. The only martyrdoms recorded in the New Testament are, first, the stoning of Stephen in the Book of Acts. But Stephen was not a witness. He was a later convert. So if he died for anything, he died for hearsay alone. But even in Acts the story has it that he was not killed for what he believed, but for some trumped up false charge, and by a mob, whom he could not have escaped even if he had recanted. So his death does not prove anything in that respect. Moreover, in his last breaths, we are told, he says nothing about dying for any belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus, but mentions only his belief that Jesus was the messiah, and was at that moment in heaven.[17] And then he sees Jesus--yet no one else does, so this was clearly a vision, not a physical appearance, and there is no good reason to believe earlier appearances were any different.

The second and only other "martyr" recorded in Acts is the execution of the Apostle James, but we are not told anything about why he was killed or whether recanting would have saved him, or what he thought he died for.[18] In fact, we have one independent account in the Jewish history of Josephus, of the stoning of a certain "James the brother of Jesus" in 62 A.D., possibly but not necessarily the very same James, and in that account he is stoned for breaking the Jewish law, which recanting would not escape, and in the account of the late 2nd century Christian hagiographer Hegesippus, as reported by Eusebius, he dies not for his belief in a physical resurrection, but, just like Stephen, solely for proclaiming Jesus the messiah, who was at that moment in heaven.[19]

Yet that is the last record of any martyrdom we have until the 2nd century. Then we start to hear about some unnamed Christians burned for arson by Nero in 64 A.D.,[20] but we do not know if any eye-witnesses were included in that group--and even if we did it would not matter, for they were killed on a false charge of arson, not for refusing to deny belief in a physical resurrection. So even if they had recanted, it would not have saved them, and therefore their deaths also do not prove anything, especially since such persecution was so rare and unpredictable in that century. We also do not even know what it was they believed--after all, Stephen and James did not appear to regard the physical resurrection as an essential component of their belief. It is not what they died for.

As far as we can tell, apart from perhaps James, no one knew what the fate was of any of the original eye-witnesses. People were even unclear about who the original eye-witnesses were. There were a variety of legends circulating centuries later about their travels and deaths, but it is clear from our earliest sources that no one knew for certain.[21] There was only one notable exception: the martyrdom of Peter. This we do not hear about until two or three generations after the event, and it is told in only one place: the Gnostic Acts of Peter, which was rejected as a false document by many Christians of the day. But even if this account is true, it claims that Peter was executed for political meddling and not for his beliefs. Even more important, it states that Peter believed Jesus was resurrected as a spirit, not in the flesh...[22]

Which brings us to the second point: it seems distinctly possible, if not definite, that the original Christians did not in fact believe in a physical resurrection (meaning a resurrection of his corpse), but that Jesus was taken up to heaven and given a new body--a more perfect, spiritual body--and then "the risen Jesus" was seen in visions and dreams, just like the vision Stephen has before he dies, and which Paul has on the road to Damascus. Visions of gods were not at all unusual, a cultural commonplace in those days, well documented by Robin Lane Fox in his excellent book Pagans and Christians.[23] But whatever their cause, if this is how Christianity actually started, it means that the resurrection story told in the Gospels, of a Jesus risen in the flesh, does not represent what the original disciples believed, but was made up generations later. So even if they did die for their beliefs, they did not die for the belief that Jesus was physically resurrected from the grave.

That the original Christians believed in a spiritual resurrection is hinted at in many strange features of the Gospel accounts of the appearances of Jesus after death, which may be survivals of an original mystical tradition later corrupted by the growing legend of a bodily resurrection, such as a Jesus that they do not recognize, or who vanishes into thin air.[24] But more importantly, it is also suggested by the letters of Paul, our earliest source of information on any of the details of the original Christian beliefs. For Paul never mentions or quotes any of the Gospels, so it seems clear that they were not written in his lifetime. This is supported by internal evidence that suggests all the Gospels were written around or after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., well after Paul's last surviving letter, which was written around the year 58.[25]

Yet Paul never mentions Jesus having been resurrected in the flesh. He never mentions empty tombs, physical appearances, or the ascension of Jesus into heaven afterward (i.e. when Paul mentions the ascension, he never ties it to appearances in this way, and never distinguishes it from the resurrection event itself). In Galatians 1 he tells us that he first met Jesus in a "revelation" on the road to Damascus, not in the flesh, and the Book of Acts gives several embellished accounts of this event that all clearly reflect not any tradition of a physical encounter, but a startling vision (a light and a voice, nothing more).[26] Then in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul reports that all the original eye-witnesses--Peter, James, the Twelve Disciples, and hundreds of others--saw Jesus in essentially the same way Paul did. The only difference, he says, was that they saw it before him. He then goes on to build an elaborate description of how the body that dies is not the body that rises, that the flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and how the resurrected body is a new, spiritual body. All this seems good evidence that Paul did not believe in the resurrection of a corpse, but something fundamentally different.[27]


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## bullethead

Finally, when we examine the Gospel record closely, it becomes apparent that the physical nature of the resurrection was a growing legend, becoming more and more fabulous over time, a good sign that it wasn't the original story. Now, we don't actually know when any of the Gospels were written, but we can infer their chronological order. Luke and Matthew both copy whole phrases from Mark and arrange them in an identical order as found in Mark, so it is clear that Mark came first among those three. Scholars dispute whether Luke preceded Matthew or the other way around, but it seems to me that, since they show no apparent awareness of each other, they were written around the same time, though scholars generally hold that Luke perhaps wrote later than Matthew. John presents the most theologically elaborate of the accounts, suggesting a late development, and even earliest Christian tradition held that this Gospel was the last to be written, and scholars generally agree on this.

So we start with Mark. It is little known among the laity, but in fact the ending of Mark, everything after verse 16:8, does not actually exist in the earliest versions of that Gospel that survive.[28] It was added some time late in the 2nd century or even later. Before that, as far as we can tell, Mark ended at verse 16:8. But that means his Gospel ended only with an empty tomb, and a pronouncement by a mysterious young man [29] that Jesus would be seen in Galilee--nothing is said of how he would be seen. This was clearly unsatisfactory for the growing powerful arm of the Church a century later, which had staked its claim on a physical resurrection, against competing segments of the Church usually collectively referred to as the Gnostics (though not always accurately). So an ending was added that quickly pinned some physical appearances of Jesus onto the story, and for good measure put in the mouth of Christ rabid condemnations of those who didn't believe it.[30] But when we consider the original story, it supports the notion that the original belief was of a spiritual rather than a physical event. The empty tomb for Mark was likely meant to be a symbol, not a historical reality, but even if he was repeating what was told him as true, it was not unusual in the ancient world for the bodies of heroes who became gods to vanish from this world: being deified entailed being taken up into heaven, as happened to men as diverse as Hercules and Apollonius of Tyana, and Mark's story of an empty tomb would simply represent that expectation.[31]

A decade or two passes, and then Matthew appears. As this Gospel tells it, there was a vast earthquake, and instead of a mere boy standing around beside an already-opened tomb, an angel--blazing like lightning--descended from the sky and paralyzed two guards that happened to be there, rolled away the stone single handedly before several witnesses--and then announced that Jesus will appear in Galilee. Obviously we are seeing a clear case of legendary embellishment of the otherwise simple story in Mark. Then in Matthew a report is given (similar to what was later added to Mark), where, contrary to the angel's announcement, Jesus immediately meets the women that attended to his grave and repeats what the angel said. Matthew is careful to add a hint that this was a physical Jesus, having the women grovel and grab his feet as he speaks.[32]

Then, maybe a little later still, Luke appears, and suddenly what was a vague and perhaps symbolic allusion to an ascension in Mark has now become a bodily appearance, complete with a dramatic reenactment of Peter rushing to the tomb and seeing the empty death shroud for himself.[32a] As happened in Matthew, other details have grown. The one young man of Mark, which became a flying angel in Matthew, in this account has suddenly become two men, this time not merely in white, but in dazzling raiment. And to make the new story even more suspicious as a doctrinal invention, Jesus goes out of his way to say he is not a vision, and proves it by asking the Disciples to touch him, and then by eating a fish. And though both Mark and Matthew said the visions would happen in Galilee, Luke changes the story, and places this particular experience in the more populous and prestigious Jerusalem.[33]

Finally along comes John, perhaps after another decade or more. Now the legend has grown full flower, and instead of one boy, or two men, or one angel, now we have two angels at the empty tomb. And outdoing Luke in style, John has Jesus prove he is solid by showing his wounds, and breathing on people, and even obliging the Doubting Thomas by letting him put his fingers into the very wounds themselves. Like Luke, the most grandiose appearances to the Disciples happen in Jerusalem, not Galilee as Mark originally claimed. In all, John devotes more space and detail than either Luke or Matthew to demonstrations of the physicality of the resurrection, details nowhere present or even implied in Mark. It is obvious that John is trying very hard to create proof that the resurrection was the physical raising of a corpse, and at the end of a steady growth of fable, he takes license to make up a lot of details.[34]

We have no primary sources on what was going on in the forty years of the Church between Paul in the year 58 and Clement of Rome in the year 95, and Paul tells us almost nothing about what happened in the beginning. We only conjecture that the Gospels were written between Paul and Clement, though they may have been written even ten or twenty years later still. But what I suspect happened is something like this: Jesus died, was buried, and then in a vision or dream appeared to one or more of his Disciples, convincing them he had ascended to heaven, marking the beginning of the fast-approaching End Times as the first to be raised, and then what began in the simple story of Mark as a symbolic allusion to an ascended Christ soon to reveal himself in visions from heaven, in time led some Christians to believe that the resurrection was a physical rising of a corpse. Then they heard or came up with increasingly elaborate stories proving themselves right. Overzealous people often add details and color to a story they've been told without even thinking about it, and as the story passed from each to the next more detail and elaboration was added, securing the notion of a physical resurrection in popular imagination and belief.

It would have been a natural mistake to make at the time, since gods were expected to be able to raise people bodily from the dead, and physical resurrections were actually in vogue in the very 1st century when Christianity began. Consider the god Asclepius. Doctors associated themselves with this god, and many legends were circulating of doctors becoming famous by restoring the dead to life, as recounted by Pliny the Elder, Apuleius and others.[35] Asclepius was also called SOTER, "The Savior," as many gods were in that day. He was especially so-named for being able to cure the sick and bring back the dead, and since "Jesus" (properly, Joshua) means "The Savior" in Hebrew it may have been expected that his resurrection would be physical in nature, too. After all, so was that of Lazarus, or of the boy raised by Elijah in 1 Kings--a prophet with whom Jesus was often equated.[36] Jesus' association with many healing miracles may also have implied a deliberate rivalry with Asclepius, and indeed, Jesus was actually called SOTER, and still is today: we see the Christian fishes on the backs of cars now, containing the Greek word ICHTHUS, the last letter of which stands for: SOTER. Not standing to be outdone by a pagan god, Christians may have simply expected that their god could raise himself physically from the grave.[37]

Then there is Herodotus, who was always a popular author and had been for centuries. He told of a Thracian religion that began with the physical resurrection of a man called Zalmoxis, who then started a cult in which it was taught that believers went to heaven when they died. We also know that circulating in the Middle East were very ancient legends regarding the resurrection of the goddess Inanna (also known as Ishtar), who was crucified in the underworld, then rescued and raised back to earth by her divine attendant, a tale recounted in a four thousand year old clay tablet from Sumeria.[38] Finally, Plutarch writes in the latter half of the 1st century how "Romeo-and-Juliet-style" returns from the dead were a popular theme in contemporary theatre, and we know from surviving summaries and fragments that they were also a feature in romance novels of that day. This trend is discussed at some length in G. W. Bowersock's book Fiction as History.[39]

So the idea of "physical resurrection" was popular, and circulating everywhere. Associating Jesus with this trend would have been a very easy mistake to make. Since religious trust was won in those days by the charisma of speakers and the audience's subjective estimation of their sincerity, it would not be long before a charismatic man, who heard the embellished accounts, came into a position of power, inspiring complete faith from his congregation, who then sought to defend the story, and so began the transformation of the Christian idea of the resurrection from a spiritual concept to a physical one--naturally, calling themselves the "true church" and attacking all rivals, as has sadly so often happened in history.

Lending plausibility to this chain of events was the Jewish War between 66 and 70 A.D.[40], which ended with the complete destruction of the original Christian Church in Jerusalem, and much of the entire city, after all Judaea itself was ravaged by war. It is likely that many if not all of the original believers still living were killed in this war, or in Nero's persecution of 64, and with the loss of the central source of Christian authority and tradition, legends were ripe for the growing. This would explain why later Christians were so in the dark about the history of their own Church between 58 and 95. It was a kind of mini-dark age for them, a time of confusion and uncertainty. But what exactly happened we may never know. However it came to change, it seems more than likely that the first Christians, among them Paul, believed in a spiritual resurrection, and not the resurrection story told in the Gospels.


----------



## bullethead

So this is where we end up. We have no trustworthy evidence of a physical resurrection, no reliable witnesses. It is among the most poorly attested of historical events. The earliest evidence, from the letters of Paul, does not appear to be of a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one. And we have at least one plausible reason available to us as to why and how the legend grew into something else. Finally, the original accounts of a resurrection of a flesh-and-blood corpse show obvious signs of legendary embellishment over time, and were written in an age of little education and even less science, a time overflowing with superstition and credulity. And, ultimately, the Gospels match perfectly the same genre of hagiography as that life of Genevieve with which I began. There the legends quickly arose, undoubted and unchallenged, of treeborn monsters and righted ships and blinded thieves. In the Gospels, we get angels and earthquakes and a resurrection of the flesh. So we have to admit that neither is any more believable than the other.

It should not be lost on us that Thomas was depicted as no less righteous for refusing to believe so wild a claim without physical proof. We have as much right, and ought to follow his example. He got to see and feel the wounds before believing, and so should we. I haven't, so I can't be expected to believe it.[41] And this leads me to one final reason why I don't buy the resurrection story. No wise or compassionate God would demand this from us. Such a god would not leave us so poorly informed about something so important.[42] If we have a message for someone that is urgently vital for their survival, and we have any compassion, that compassion will compel us to communicate that message clearly and with every necessary proof--not ambiguously, not through unreliable mediaries presenting no real evidence. Conversely, if we see something incredible, we do not attack or punish audiences who don't believe us, we don't even expect them to believe--unless and until we can present decisive proof.

There is a heroic legend in the technology community about the man who invented elevator safety brakes. He claimed that any elevator fitted with his brakes, even if all the cables broke, would be safely and swiftly stopped by his new invention. No one trusted it. Did he get angry or indignant? No. He simply put himself in an elevator, ordered the cables cut, and proved to the world, by risking his own life, that his brakes worked.[43] This is the very principle that has delivered us from superstition to science. Any claim can be made about a drug, but people are rightly wary of swallowing anything that hasn't been thoroughly tested and re-tested and tested again. Since I have no such proofs regarding the resurrection story, I'm not going to swallow it, and it would be cruel, even for a god, to expect otherwise of me. So I can reason rightly that a god of all humankind would not appear in one tiny backwater of the Earth, in a backward time, revealing himself to a tiny unknown few, and then expect the billions of the rest of us to take their word for it, and not even their word, but the word of some unknown person many times removed.

Yet, if one returns to what was probably Paul's conception of a Christ risen into a new, spiritual body, then the resurrection becomes no longer a historical proof of the truth of Christianity, but an article of faith, an affirmation that is supposed to follow nothing other than a personal revelation of Christ--not to be believed on hearsay, but experienced for oneself. Though I do not believe this is a reliable way to come to a true understanding of the world, as internal experience only tells us about ourselves and not the truth of the world outside of us,[44] I leave it to the Christians here to consider a spiritual resurrection as a different way to understand their faith. But I don't see any reason to buy the resurrection story found in the Gospels.


----------



## gemcgrew

drippin' rock said:


> Where did the resurrected saints go?


Into the holy city.

"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Into the holy city.
> 
> "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."


And then they got jobs at Walmart as greeters?
They had to wander about for two whole days, nobody thought enough of it to jot it down. Some apologists say that the saints returned to their families and lived out their lives to die and be buried again!
NOBODY recording that is a bigger miracle than anything else in scripture.

But don't forget that Matthew is only one to even mention it, the other gospels didn't think enough of it to write it down either.


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> And then they got jobs at Walmart as greeters?
> They had to wander about for two whole days, nobody thought enough of it to jot it down. Some apologists say that the saints returned to their families and lived out their lives to die and be buried again!NOBODY recording that is a bigger miracle than anything else in scripture.
> 
> But don't forget that Matthew is only one to even mention it, the other gospels didn't think enough of it to write it down either.



Did it ever occur to you that maybe God purposely intended that these things not be widely published?

I say that because of what Jesus prayed in Matthew 11:25.

" At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."


Jesus said many times "see that you tell no man these things."

I also believe the Christians of that day were persecuted so severely that they didn't unneccesarily involve the secular populace.They kept to themselves.

Furthermore,there was a lot of suppression of truth,just as there is today(Rom.1:18).I would speculate that whatever truth was told and spread about miraculous events,there were that many more attempts to cover up and eradicate it.Saul of Tarsus was one of the predominate ones involved in the suppression and oppression. Evil is always at work to oppose good.

Example:
When Jesus raised Lazerus from the dead,they not only wanted to kill Jesus but Lazerus also,to get rid of the evidence.

Another example:
After Jesus was resurrected,the Jews paid the Roman soldiers to lie and say the disciples came and took the body.

I think all this contributed to the absence of Christian documentation.But what is especially miraculous to me is the survival and preservation of God's word through all of the suppression.

God's word is eternal.It will never be snuffed out.


1 Peter 1:25

" But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> Did it ever occur to you that maybe God purposely intended that these things not be widely published?
> 
> I say that because of what Jesus prayed in Matthew 11:25.
> 
> " At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."
> 
> 
> Jesus said many times "see that you tell no man these things."
> 
> I also believe the Christians of that day were persecuted so severely that they didn't unneccesarily involve the secular populace.They kept to themselves.
> 
> Furthermore,there was a lot of suppression of truth,just as there is today(Rom.1:18).I would speculate that whatever truth was told and spread about miraculous events,there were that many more attempts to cover up and eradicate it.Saul of Tarsus was one of the predominate ones involved in the suppression and oppression. Evil is always at work to oppose good.
> 
> Example:
> When Jesus raised Lazerus from the dead,they not only wanted to kill Jesus but Lazerus also,to get rid of the evidence.
> 
> Another example:
> After Jesus was resurrected,the Jews paid the Roman soldiers to lie and say the disciples came and took the body.
> 
> I think all this contributed to the absence of Christian documentation.But what is especially miraculous to me is the survival and preservation of God's word through all of the suppression.
> 
> God's word is eternal.It will never be snuffed out.
> 
> 
> 1 Peter 1:25
> 
> " But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."


Another example is that since I am convinced scripture is totally man made, inaccurate, embellished stories and a god had nothing to do with it because the gods portrayed in the OT and NY are ficticious....NO it would never occur to me that a god is involved at all.

At least you are starting to see the faults but you will still make outlandish excuses full well knowing how ridiculous they are and sound.

The writers couldn't fathom future humans having the knowledge that we have now. They wrote for their time when every zany thing was attributed to ghosts, spirits, dragons, witches, gods  and demons. You think these biblical writings are unique. Every culture had versions of gods and strange happenings that they were all to happy to embellish also. 
Did you ever notice how no gods show up now that technology has advanced ?


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> Another example is that since I am convinced scripture is totally man made, inaccurate, embellished stories and a god had nothing to do with it because the gods portrayed in the OT and NY are ficticious....NO it would never occur to me that a god is involved at all.
> 
> At least you are starting to see the faults but you will still make outlandish excuses full well knowing how ridiculous they are and sound.
> 
> The writers couldn't fathom future humans having the knowledge that we have now. They wrote for their time when every zany thing was attributed to ghosts, spirits, dragons, witches, gods  and demons. You think these biblical writings are unique. Every culture had versions of gods and strange happenings that they were all to happy to embellish also.
> Did you ever notice how no gods show up now that technology has advanced ?



I understand you have that opinion,but I don't.

I gave you sound reasons why the miracles were not published.Simply put,it was rejected more than it was believed.And that was in the purpose of God.To blind some,and to strengthen others.What's so hard about that?It's still going on today.Some are blinded to the things of God,some are not.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I understand you have that opinion,but I don't.
> 
> I gave you sound reasons why the miracles were not published.Simply put,it was rejected more than it was believed.And that was in the purpose of God.To blind some,and to strengthen others.What's so hard about that?It's still going on today.Some are blinded to the things of God,some are not.



Your sounds reasons are actually poor excuses based on faulty scripture.  They were doomed from the start.
What's hard is you have no evidence to back up your claims.
 But if you need to convince yourself that thousands of zombies popped out of the graves and lived out the rest of their lives and only a handful of people noticed....
Neat to think Adam and Eve were strolling around again, unnoticed which possibly gave them the time to start the business that still  bears their names with a .Com at the end today.


----------



## gemcgrew

bullethead said:


> And then they got jobs at Walmart as greeters?


Not according to the text.


bullethead said:


> They had to wander about for two whole days, nobody thought enough of it to jot it down.


Remember when you said "I do not assume anything."?


bullethead said:


> Some apologists say that the saints returned to their families and lived out their lives to die and be buried again!


I have more respect for the text than I do for any apologist. Myself included. 


bullethead said:


> NOBODY recording that is a bigger miracle than anything else in scripture.


Would we be having this conversation if nobody recorded it?


bullethead said:


> But don't forget that Matthew is only one to even mention it, the other gospels didn't think enough of it to write it down either.


So it is recorded. Is that an admission? And don't forget that "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways".


----------



## Israel

Static, closed vs living, open.


----------



## WaltL1

welderguy said:


> I understand you have that opinion,but I don't.
> 
> I gave you sound reasons why the miracles were not published.Simply put,it was rejected more than it was believed.And that was in the purpose of God.To blind some,and to strengthen others.What's so hard about that?It's still going on today.Some are blinded to the things of God,some are not.



Look up the definition of "sound reasoning".
You will see why yours isnt.


----------



## drippin' rock

gemcgrew said:


> Into the holy city.
> 
> "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."



Yes. I got that. 

My question refers to the next step. Did they die again? Disappear? Interact with anyone?  This would have been a big durn deal. I wager it would warrant more that a couple of verses in one chapter of one book. 

If my Granddaddy, who passed in 1992, appeared knocking at my back door right now, I'd freak the..., well I certainly would be concerned.  And I would be highly skeptical that it was really him.


----------



## bullethead

gemcgrew said:


> Not according to the text.


That's right. They are still roaming the earth to be seen by many. 



gemcgrew said:


> Remember when you said "I do not assume anything."?


 I am not assuming anything. Evidence shows nobody wrote it down as it happened.



gemcgrew said:


> I have more respect for the text than I do for any apologist. Myself included.


We all have our downfalls.



gemcgrew said:


> Would we be having this conversation if nobody recorded it?


Now there you go changing the subject to suit yourself.  My argument is that nobody outside of the gospel recorded it. Nobody that was supposedly there recorded it. And it still stands.
Ol Matty wasn't there. He copied Mark and then added his embellishments.



gemcgrew said:


> So it is recorded. Is that an admission? And don't forget that "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways".


Again, you change to suit.
Nobody that was there recorded it.
You have not proved any different.

Nobody actually witnessed it.
You have not proven any different.

Matthews writings are by a greek, who was not there, did not witness it, was not familiar with the Jewish or Roman cultures and he embellished his copied stories.
You have not proven any different.

Remember this accurate historical quote   "a man that tries to twist fairytales to suit his needs in addition to conversing in a bait and switch style cannot be taken anymore seriously than the carpet bagger that tries to sell snake oil"


----------



## bullethead

drippin' rock said:


> Yes. I got that.
> 
> My question refers to the next step. Did they die again? Disappear? Interact with anyone?  This would have been a big durn deal. I wager it would warrant more that a couple of verses in one chapter of one book.
> 
> If my Granddaddy, who passed in 1992, appeared knocking at my back door right now, I'd freak the..., well I certainly would be concerned.  And I would be highly skeptical that it was really him.


His book didn't tell him what happened next so he cannot continue any further on his own.
Frozen in the scriptural headlights.


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> His book didn't tell him what happened next so he cannot continue any further on his own.
> Frozen in the scriptural headlights.



Don't laugh.You can't even get past "In the beginning God..."

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> Don't laugh.You can't even get past "In the beginning God..."
> 
> The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.


Again, you do not have to keep showing off your inability to back up your claims. We understand.

I've read it, proved it was the work of men with no God involved at all, and continue to do so.

Pop back in when you have another outlandish claim you can't back up.
Three...two... one..............


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> Again, you do not have to keep showing off your inability to back up your claims. We understand.
> 
> I've read it, proved it was the work of men with no God involved at all, and continue to do so.
> 
> Pop back in when you have another outlandish claim you can't back up.
> Three...two... one..............



You haven't proven anything except that you can cherry pick atheist blogs to support your view and then cut and paste page after page of the same,which I doubt anyone,even the atheists are even taking the time to bother reading.

If anything,you are affirming what I've been saying about the suppression of Christian experiences,more than anything.
So,for that I thank you.


----------



## ambush80

welderguy said:


> You haven't proven anything except that you can cherry pick atheist blogs to support your view and then cut and paste page after page of the same,which I doubt anyone,even the atheists are even taking the time to bother reading.
> 
> If anything,you are affirming what I've been saying about the suppression of Christian experiences,more than anything.
> So,for that I thank you.



I read them.  You should too.  Come back when you're done.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> You haven't proven anything except that you can cherry pick atheist blogs to support your view and then cut and paste page after page of the same,which I doubt anyone,even the atheists are even taking the time to bother reading.
> 
> If anything,you are affirming what I've been saying about the suppression of Christian experiences,more than anything.
> So,for that I thank you.


Thanks for confirming my last post.


----------



## welderguy

ambush80 said:


> I read them.  You should too.  Come back when you're done.



I skimmed a couple until the tears of boredom blurred my vision so badly I had to stop.


----------



## bullethead

ambush80 said:


> I read them.  You should too.  Come back when you're done.



Makes a guy wonder how Welder would know what is in my posts or where they came from if he didn't read them.
He just likes to ignore facts because they refute his beliefs.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I skimmed a couple until the tears of boredom blurred my vision so badly I had to stop.



Bored to tears by facts and evidence, perfect for religion.


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> Makes a guy wonder how Welder would know what is in my posts or where they came from if he didn't read them.
> He just likes to ignore facts because they refute his beliefs.



I don't think you have really considered that I've seen this thing from both sides.I was once a skeptic like yourself making all these same arguments against the things of God.But the Holy Spirit changed me.
If He ever gets a hold of you,you will be changed too.And you will have seen both sides too.As of now,you can only see one side.I get that.I don't hold it against you.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I don't think you have really considered that I've seen this thing from both sides.I was once a skeptic like yourself making all these same arguments against the things of God.But the Holy Spirit changed me.
> If He ever gets a hold of you,you will be changed too.And you will have seen both sides too.As of now,you can only see one side.I get that.I don't hold it against you.


I'd agree with you except for the fact that there is no holy spirit. It is impossible for something that does not exist to get a hold of anyone.
And again,you make claims that you cannot back up.
Of all my posts in here so far four of you have replied and not one reply had to do anything with a refutation of what I've posted.
You keep up with the same baseless claims and have not, because you cannot, provide any evidence that what I've posted is incorrect.
I get it, the big good wolf is gonna get me, but I have to want to be got, unless he chooses to get me which I cannot do anything about it then, unless I really want to be gotten and because I'm not it is because I am somehow less sincere as the rest of gotten sheep, unless of course it is predetermined I am to be got but freewill is keeping that from happening.
You are quite clear.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I don't think you have really considered that I've seen this thing from both sides.I was once a skeptic like yourself making all these same arguments against the things of God


I've considered that because there are two sides to my coin also.
What I have gathered from my considerations about you is that you hit a point in your life where you could no longer rely on yourself so you needed another option. You started to turn to religion and eventually convinced yourself that some power grabbed a hold of you and has given you the strength that you've never had. Truth is that it has been you all along, but I suggest you keep on believing that it is something else. It serves you well and that is all that matters.


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> I'd agree with you except for the fact that there is no holy spirit. It is impossible for something that does not exist to get a hold of anyone.
> And again,you make claims that you cannot back up.
> Of all my posts in here so far four of you have replied and not one reply had to do anything with a refutation of what I've posted.
> You keep up with the same baseless claims and have not, because you cannot, provide any evidence that what I've posted is incorrect.
> I get it, the big good wolf is gonna get me, but I have to want to be got, unless he chooses to get me which I cannot do anything about it then, unless I really want to be gotten and because I'm not it is because I am somehow less sincere as the rest of gotten sheep, unless of course it is predetermined I am to be got but freewill is keeping that from happening.
> You are quite clear.



I wasn't seeking to be "gotten" by Him when He got a hold of me.
I seek Him now,but that's because He changed me and made me want to.He sought me first.

Don't be fooled by the religionists who will tell you it happens in the reverse order.That is a false doctrine and a lie.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I wasn't seeking to be "gotten" by Him when He got a hold of me.
> I seek Him now,but that's because He changed me and made me want to.He sought me first.
> 
> Don't be fooled by the religionists who will tell you it happens in the reverse order.That is a false doctrine and a lie.


I was told not to be fooled by you.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I wasn't seeking to be "gotten" by Him when He got a hold of me.
> I seek Him now,but that's because He changed me and made me want to.He sought me first.
> 
> Don't be fooled by the religionists who will tell you it happens in the reverse order.That is a false doctrine and a lie.


Why am I not contacted? I am literally pumped to be sought out.  I want to be and I am open to it.
Cue the lame excuses.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> I wasn't seeking to be "gotten" by Him when He got a hold of me.
> I seek Him now,but that's because He changed me and made me want to.He sought me first.
> 
> Don't be fooled by the religionists who will tell you it happens in the reverse order.That is a false doctrine and a lie.


Give a shout out to whoever you have a relationship with and ask them to please contact me. They must know about me but maybe with your recommendation I'll get a 1st interview.
I will post my experience in here literally immediately afterwards.


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> Why am I not contacted? I am literally pumped to be sought out.  I want to be and I am open to it.
> Cue the lame excuses.



Who's to say you won't be?


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> Who's to say you won't be?




Unfalsifiability
(also known as: untestibility)

Description: Confidently asserting that a theory or hypothesis is true or false even though the theory or hypothesis cannot possibly be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of any physical experiment, usually without strong evidence or good reasons.

Making unfalsifiable claims is a way to leave the realm of rational discourse, since unfalsifiable claims are often faith-based, and not founded on evidence and reason.


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> Give a shout out to whoever you have a relationship with and ask them to please contact me. They must know about me but maybe with your recommendation I'll get a 1st interview.
> I will post my experience in here literally immediately afterwards.



Believe it or not,I have.Many times.But its not about the will of man, its according to His will and purpose.


----------



## bullethead

Since this thread is about reasons that christianity and the bible are false I would like to continue along those lines.
I am open to you providing any sort of proof to either refute or reinforce the examples I've given.


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> Believe it or not,I have.Many times.But its not about the will of man, its according to His will and purpose.



Unfalsifiability


----------



## bullethead

welderguy said:


> Believe it or not,I have.Many times.But its not about the will of man, its according to His will and purpose.



☆☆Frosted religious claims, they're logically fallicious☆☆


----------



## welderguy

bullethead said:


> Since this thread is about reasons that christianity and the bible are false I would like to continue along those lines.
> I am open to you providing any sort of proof to either refute or reinforce the examples I've given.



I understand your reasons for that.


----------



## WaltL1

welderguy said:


> You haven't proven anything except that you can cherry pick atheist blogs to support your view and then cut and paste page after page of the same,which I doubt anyone,even the atheists are even taking the time to bother reading.
> 
> If anything,you are affirming what I've been saying about the suppression of Christian experiences,more than anything.
> So,for that I thank you.



That "cherry picking Atheist blogs" is such a lame excuse. The evidence and points being made are not Atheist points or Christian points or Hindu points....
Points are points. 
If they are false they can be falsified.
They don't come from an Atheist Bible where that's the only place they exist.
Not one Christian has even made an attempt to falsify any of them.
Just lame excuses..
You think we don't see right through the "They are Atheist points" excuse?


----------



## bullethead

WaltL1 said:


> That "cherry picking Atheist blogs" is such a lame excuse. The evidence and points being made are not Atheist points or Christian points or Hindu points....
> Points are points.
> If they are false they can be falsified.
> They don't come from an Atheist Bible where that's the only place they exist.
> Not one Christian has even made an attempt to falsify any of them.
> Just lame excuses..
> You think we don't see right through the "They are Atheist points" excuse?



Precisely. Factual evidence is just that. Despite my dozens of explanations of why a cut and paste is necessary, some guys in here just cannot understand the specific reasons they are given.


----------



## gemcgrew

drippin' rock said:


> Yes. I got that.
> 
> My question refers to the next step. Did they die again? Disappear? Interact with anyone?


The text does not tell us. There are extra-Biblical records(art and writing) that are dated to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd century. I do not give them any weight in the matter.


drippin' rock said:


> This would have been a big durn deal. I wager it would warrant more that a couple of verses in one chapter of one book.


It would be advisable to understand Matthew's audience(primary concern). 


drippin' rock said:


> If my Granddaddy, who passed in 1992, appeared knocking at my back door right now, I'd freak the..., well I certainly would be concerned.  And I would be highly skeptical that it was really him.


As would I.


----------



## drippin' rock

gemcgrew said:


> The text does not tell us. There are extra-Biblical records(art and writing) that are dated to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd century. I do not give them any weight in the matter.




Really?  I haven't found them.  I'll keep looking. 

Any chance you could point me toward the extra-biblical stuff?


----------



## ambush80

In his interview with Dave Rubin, Peter Boghossian said "Believers use faith to make claims about the world".  

It got me to think about some of the claims that they make.  

Men rose from the dead.

A man walked on water

All the animals were put on a giant boat.

I know these things come up occasionally but when I think about these claims I can't help but wonder what is going on in the minds of people who belive these things.  Just when I think I can relate to belivers and feel that they aren't doing any harm, I remember these claims about reality and I remember that they're instilling in a new generation of young believers these ideas that fly in the face of rational inquiry.  

I don't know what to think about believers anymore.  It's time for belief in that stuff to just go away.


----------



## bullethead

ambush80 said:


> In his interview with Dave Rubin, Peter Boghossian said "Believers use faith to make claims about the world".
> 
> It got me to think about some of the claims that they make.
> 
> Men rose from the dead.
> 
> A man walked on water
> 
> All the animals were put on a giant boat.
> 
> I know these things come up occasionally but when I think about these claims I can't help but wonder what is going on in the minds of people who belive these things.  Just when I think I can relate to belivers and feel that they aren't doing any harm, I remember these claims about reality and I remember that they're instilling in a new generation of young believers these ideas that fly in the face of rational inquiry.
> 
> I don't know what to think about believers anymore.  It's time for belief in that stuff to just go away.


In no other instance in their lives, except religion, are they that gullible.
They grew out of Santa and Easter bunny and not only believe in the walking dead of religion but rely on it.


----------



## ambush80

bullethead said:


> In no other instance in their lives, except religion, are they that gullible.
> They grew out of Santa and Easter bunny and not only believe in the walking dead of religion but rely on it.



I guess what started my thinking about all this is I was having lunch at a local joint and a guy sat next to me.  We started talking about the heat and work, we had a couple of beers and then we ordered lunch.  Our food came and he bowed his head to pray.  While he was praying I realized that he probably believes in all the things that I brought up and more.  We continued having pleasant conversation while we had lunch and pleasantly went our own ways but for some reason I couldn't shake the thought of this reasonable adult believing in those things.  



It blows my mind.


----------



## bullethead

ambush80 said:


> I guess what started my thinking about all this is I was having lunch at a local joint and a guy sat next to me.  We started talking about the heat and work, we had a couple of beers and then we ordered lunch.  Our food came and he bowed his head to pray.  While he was praying I realized that he probably believes in all the things that I brought up and more.  We continued having pleasant conversation while we had lunch and pleasantly went our own ways but for some reason I couldn't shake the thought of this reasonable adult believing in those things.
> 
> 
> 
> It blows my mind.



I've admitted a few times that it was hard to shake for me. Indoctrination is powerful.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

bullethead said:


> I've been on a kyroot.com kick lately and found that these are too good not to share.
> Read em, discuss em, share em,ignore em...I'm gonna throw some in here as I see fit or as the conversation goes.
> 
> (718) The folly of trying to marry Genesis with science
> 
> Many Christians are educated to the extent that they know the Earth is much older that 10,000 years, but, nevertheless, they are reluctant to admit that the opening passages of the Bible are in error.  So they say that a day in God’s world is much longer than in our world, so everything is OK, right?  No, it’s not.  The following is taken from:
> 
> http://faithskeptic.50megs.com/excuses.htm
> 
> According to the Bible, if you accept its literal interpretation, the earth is only about 7,000 years old.  Because the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and conflicts with the Bible’s account of creation only taking 6 days, some Christians claim that a day back then was much longer, something like a million years.  This is considered a “God day”.  So in actuality, God created the universe in 6 million years.  This sorry explanation creates many different problems.  If a “God day” is a million years long, and God supposedly created man on the 6th day, that would mean that the 6th day hasn’t ended yet.  Counting back the generations to Adam and Eve, only 7,000 years have passed, meaning we still have over 990,000 years left before the 6th day ends.  How could God have rested on the 7th day, since the 7th day hasn’t even gotten here?  Confused yet?  What about the Christian’s argument that time to God is not as long as it seems to us?  They say that 2,000 years to God is merely a nanosecond.  If you take the “God day” concept as equaling a million years, then 2,000 years to God would really be…let’s see…2,000 years x 365 days = 730,000 days.  730,000 days x 1 million = 730 billion years.  Well 730 billion years is much longer than a nanosecond.
> 
> So how long is a “God day”, or a “God minute”, or a “God second”?  Well they are as long as Christians claim they are, in order for them to fit into their belief system.  Sometimes a “God day” is a million years, sometimes it’s a billion, and in some cases it’s only a second long.
> 
> Stretching the Biblical length of a day does not work out.  It’s time for scientifically literate Christians to admit that Genesis is nothing more than a fairy tale, much like most of the other parts of the Bible.



Got any more supposition to go with that red herring?  It's mighty bland by now, and if I may say, a bit rancid.


----------



## drippin' rock

SemperFiDawg said:


> Got any more supposition to go with that red herring?  It's mighty bland by now, and if I may say, a bit rancid.



What's he trying to divert our attention from?


----------



## bullethead

SemperFiDawg said:


> Got any more supposition to go with that red herring?  It's mighty bland by now, and if I may say, a bit rancid.



And here comes SFD tearing down the straight away with one more lap to go.
Meanwhile the rest of participants have finished the race, popped the champagne, did the interviews and have set up shop at the next track.


----------



## Miguel Cervantes

bullethead said:


> And here comes SFD tearing down the straight away with one more lap to go.
> Meanwhile the rest of participants have finished the race, popped the champagne, did the interviews and have set up shop at the next track.



One can only watch a dog chase his tail for so long before even that ceases to be entertaining.


----------



## SemperFiDawg

drippin' rock said:


> What's he trying to divert our attention from?



The truth.


----------



## drippin' rock

SemperFiDawg said:


> The truth.



Puuuhleeze


----------



## 1gr8bldr

Bullet's post "As a side note, this deception by the author of Luke provides some evidence that Jesus was a true historical figure, given that a mythical person could just as easily have been invented who was born and raised in Bethlehem".[/QUOTE]


Hey, anybody miss me, LOL,Bullet that is a good find. Somebody needs to  show this to Bart Erhman, this is his type of find


----------



## ambush80

1gr8bldr said:


> Bullet's post "As a side note, this deception by the author of Luke provides some evidence that Jesus was a true historical figure, given that a mythical person could just as easily have been invented who was born and raised in Bethlehem".
> 
> 
> Hey, anybody miss me, LOL,Bullet that is a good find. Somebody needs to  show this to Bart Erhman, this is his type of find



Welcome back.


----------



## 1gr8bldr

ambush80 said:


> Welcome back.


Bet your wondering where I have been? I have been spending alot of time witnessing down at the local topless bar LOL


----------



## ambush80

1gr8bldr said:


> Bet your wondering where I have been? I have been spending alot of time witnessing down at the local topless bar LOL



Amen.


----------



## 1gr8bldr

ambush80 said:


> Amen.


Instead of putting $$$$ in their Gstring, I give them salvation tracts


----------



## ambush80

1gr8bldr said:


> Instead of putting $$$$ in their Gstring, I give them salvation tracts



How many tracts does it take to get a lapdance?


----------



## Artfuldodger

1gr8bldr said:


> Instead of putting $$$$ in their Gstring, I give them salvation tracts



Wow, I bet that went over well. Reminds me of a co-worker who gives store coupons out of the newspaper for tips.

Welcome home!


----------



## 1gr8bldr

ambush80 said:


> How many tracts does it take to get a lapdance?


LOL, that's the good thing about this, I can read them aloud to them during a lap dance LOL, I better stop joking around, somebody might take me serious. I actually have never been in a strip joint.


----------



## mdgreco191

What evidence do you have to say how old the Earth is? If you're going by carbon-dating let me tell you it is absolutely unreliable.


----------



## drippin' rock

Oh brother.  Here we go again....


----------



## bullethead

A day late and a dollar short in two threads now.


----------



## ambush80

mdgreco191 said:


> What evidence do you have to say how old the Earth is? If you're going by carbon-dating let me tell you it is absolutely unreliable.



Just off the top of your head (no Google),  how many different ways can you think of that are used to date very old things?


----------



## mdgreco191

ambush80 said:


> Just off the top of your head (no Google),  how many different ways can you think of that are used to date very old things?



Alright, we get it. You are not going to see anything other than what you want to. I'm done arguing.

God bless you and hope you have a nice life.


----------



## drippin' rock

That was fast.


----------



## ambush80

drippin' rock said:


> That was fast.



"Done arguing"????????  He didn't even start.

I wonder if he recognized the irony in his statement.


----------



## drippin' rock

ambush80 said:


> "Done arguing"????????  He didn't even start.
> 
> I wonder if he recognized the irony in his statement.



I seriously doubt it.


----------



## ambush80

mdgreco191 said:


> Alright, we get it. You are not going to see anything other than what you want to. I'm done arguing.
> 
> God bless you and hope you have a nice life.



And the same to you, Good Sir. May the light of Ra shine upon you for all eternity.


----------



## drippin' rock

You can find current videos on YouTube of people that still argue for a flat earth. I put these folks and the "carbon dating is a lie" folks in the same category.


----------



## oldfella1962

Miguel Cervantes said:


> History is replete with over confident, hyper-intellectual Atheist in the prime of their life, however a review of some of the most notables quotes from just before death tell a different story. Many a man may feel secure in living as an Atheist, but very few die as one.



thus the bottom line - fear of eternal CensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredation. 
I just cannot equate an omnipotent loving caring god with sending people to eternal torment. Okay, back in the old testament days god flooded the world and encouraged his chosen people to kill millions of his enemies in warfare (which isn't a sin BTW because god's either doing the killing or directing it, so it's all good - mysterious ways and all that you know!) but smiting people is amateur hour - *eternal torment* really kicks it up a notch! 

So now some people will say "well god gives us a choice you know!" but my only question is why is the eternal torment option even on the punishment table to _begin _with? 

Seriously, I wouldn't even torture Hitler for eternity. A thousand years of Hitler torture? I'd have to think about it I guess. But eternity in pain for well behaved responsible generous people who only seek absolute truth through science and knowledge?


----------



## oldfella1962

bullethead said:


> Do good, be good, treat others as you want to be treated yourself.
> Sound words to live by.



sure....if you want to ride the express train to the land of eternal torment/fire/brimstone! 

you can't build a religion (at least a profitable successful one) around something that crude and simplistic! Where are the rules, the doctrine, the over-the-top dramatic stories? Your philosophy reeks of FAIL!


----------



## bullethead

oldfella1962 said:


> sure....if you want to ride the express train to the land of eternal torment/fire/brimstone!
> 
> you can't build a religion (at least a profitable successful one) around something that crude and simplistic! Where are the rules, the doctrine, the over-the-top dramatic stories? Your philosophy reeks of FAIL!



That is why I am not in the religion construction business.


----------



## oldfella1962

bullethead said:


> That is why I am not in the religion construction business.



interesting you said that: I have a weird idea! What if I were to pick through the bible (mostly old testament but it's not off-limits so why not) and construct sermons around the most brutal, bloody, racist, sexist, violently graphic and ridiculously embellished parts of the bible?
I mean the parts that make church members roll their eyes and squirm with awkwardness and want to cover their ears and pray for a hole in the ground to open up and swallow them? 

My point is the bible has a huge volume of material that can be molded to fit any narrative and prove any point. In for a penny, in for a pound - either it's all the word of god, and worthy of sharing, or it isn't. 

My bet is I'd be shut down and marginalized so fast your head would spin!


----------



## bullethead

oldfella1962 said:


> interesting you said that: I have a weird idea! What if I were to pick through the bible (mostly old testament but it's not off-limits so why not) and construct sermons around the most brutal, bloody, racist, sexist, violently graphic and ridiculously embellished parts of the bible?
> I mean the parts that make church members roll their eyes and squirm with awkwardness and want to cover their ears and pray for a hole in the ground to open up and swallow them?
> 
> My point is the bible has a huge volume of material that can be molded to fit any narrative and prove any point. In for a penny, in for a pound - either it's all the word of god, and worthy of sharing, or it isn't.
> 
> My bet is I'd be shut down and marginalized so fast your head would spin!



No doubt.


----------



## 1gr8bldr

oldfella1962 said:


> interesting you said that: I have a weird idea! What if I were to pick through the bible (mostly old testament but it's not off-limits so why not) and construct sermons around the most brutal, bloody, racist, sexist, violently graphic and ridiculously embellished parts of the bible?
> I mean the parts that make church members roll their eyes and squirm with awkwardness and want to cover their ears and pray for a hole in the ground to open up and swallow them?
> 
> My point is the bible has a huge volume of material that can be molded to fit any narrative and prove any point. In for a penny, in for a pound - either it's all the word of god, and worthy of sharing, or it isn't.
> 
> My bet is I'd be shut down and marginalized so fast your head would spin!


It would shock most people to know what is in there.


----------



## centerpin fan

oldfella1962 said:


> What if I were to pick through the bible (mostly old testament but it's not off-limits so why not) and construct sermons around the most brutal, bloody, racist, sexist, violently graphic and ridiculously embellished parts of the bible?



What would be the name of your synagogue?


----------



## ambush80

centerpin fan said:


> What would be the name of your synagogue?



Beth El Sheol


----------



## centerpin fan

ambush80 said:


> Beth El Sheol



Catchy!


----------



## Israel

I've always liked Ambush's scripture reference...it's so very to the point.
We could start there.

"She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. "Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth."


Who's "giving it up" in trade for favor from the world?


----------



## 660griz

Israel said:


> "She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. "Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth."



That is probably one of the milder translations. 
Enforces my view that man, alone, wrote the Bible. Or, God spends a lot of time thinking about sex.


----------



## Israel

Really, why wouldn't He?

Do you think He's ashamed of what He's established? 

Matters of implantations...and even explantations are very much His concern, the uprootings of things not established by righteous implantation.

We are both men, will either of us, or both...now feign an ignorance or parade cleverness as cover? 

Did we marry the cheerleader? What team did we quaterback for to gain her eye? Then her ear? Then her attention by carving ourselves up to whittle down all else in her heart? What did we adopt to advantage and abandon to disuse by its manifest inutility...in our quest to put something in her belly? Did we write her poetry? Build a city? Or did we find her the more inclined to be delighted by a man slayer? What trophy did we present?What did we do to prepare her earth for our reception? 

Where is our eye...aimed? What did we, what do we...reach out with then...to gain? What has taught us what gain is? What do we _dazzle with_ to apprehend? What do we send out with marching orders...to bring back plunder? Some skill? Intellect? Power? Some remarkable ability to make this world...our own? What do we extend to see our own image and likeness reproduced...to be satisfied? And what do we withhold to starve out what we find displeasing...that is unlike us? In what universe would you and I not have a siege mentality?

Yes, the Bible is written by men, men who have "told on themselves" after finding themselves, the besiegers, themselves besieged by _the stronger_. He has made Himself to appear in their eye, then their ear, and then heart that something might be placed in their belly. And, they wrote. Moved by a Spirit.

And out from their belly shall flow rivers...

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.

When we are laid waste by _that stronger_, spread wide open as a city whose walls are in ruin, whose doors and gates are blown off hinges by one word...the _sperma_ of God...something will grow...implanted.

Of course God understands sex...and war. And football, decathlons, drinking contests, and hunting. And _thinking_. 

It is we...who do not.

We are all men busy just trying to conquer the man we know we are not. And so we take the battle outside, lest we hurt our own selves.


----------



## WaltL1

Israel said:


> Really, why wouldn't He?
> 
> Do you think He's ashamed of what He's established?
> 
> Matters of implantations...and even explantations are very much His concern, the uprootings of things not established by righteous implantation.
> 
> We are both men, will either of us, or both...now feign an ignorance or parade cleverness as cover?
> 
> Did we marry the cheerleader? What team did we quaterback for to gain her eye? Then her ear? Then her attention by carving ourselves up to whittle down all else in her heart? What did we adopt to advantage and abandon to disuse by its manifest inutility...in our quest to put something in her belly? Did we write her poetry? Build a city? Or did we find her the more inclined to be delighted by a man slayer? What trophy did we present?What did we do to prepare her earth for our reception?
> 
> Where is our eye...aimed? What did we, what do we...reach out with then...to gain? What has taught us what gain is? What do we _dazzle with_ to apprehend? What do we send out with marching orders...to bring back plunder? Some skill? Intellect? Power? Some remarkable ability to make this world...our own? What do we extend to see our own image and likeness reproduced...to be satisfied? And what do we withhold to starve out what we find displeasing...that is unlike us? In what universe would you and I not have a siege mentality?
> 
> Yes, the Bible is written by men, men who have "told on themselves" after finding themselves, the besiegers, themselves besieged by _the stronger_. He has made Himself to appear in their eye, then their ear, and then heart that something might be placed in their belly. And, they wrote. Moved by a Spirit.
> 
> And out from their belly shall flow rivers...
> 
> Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.
> 
> When we are laid waste by _that stronger_, spread wide open as a city whose walls are in ruin, whose doors and gates are blown off hinges by one word...the _sperma_ of God...something will grow...implanted.
> 
> Of course God understands sex...and war. And football, decathlons, drinking contests, and hunting. And _thinking_.
> 
> It is we...who do not.
> 
> We are all men busy just trying to conquer the man we know we are not. And so we take the battle outside, lest we hurt our own selves.





> Really, why wouldn't He?
> Do you think He's ashamed of what He's established?


That might be a question better directed at the Church/Christianity. 
Give it some thought.


----------



## Israel

WaltL1 said:


> That might be a question better directed at the Church/Christianity.
> Give it some thought.



It's an interesting proposition, but I was referring to sex.

But, let's take what I perceive as your line of reasoning...to direct this toward something_ other._

Are _you_ ashamed of the church? Do you know it, have you seen it, have you ever been part of it? What part of it shames you? Or, what part of it do you find worthy of shame?

You may already know I find little benefit in reference to christianity as in reference it is a blurred amalgam of religious thought. It is not that itself (the word) is an offense, but that its utility requires a more than passing explanation of term before it shows any usefulness. 

If christianity is indeed understood as being comprised of those whose faith is of Jesus Christ, then it may be found one is speaking of the church...but if one is merely adopting a usage to include any and all religious practice that somehow, somewhere makes reference to Jesus Christ, it becomes less so. 

"The disciples were first called christians at Antioch." It could appear this word was hung upon them, placed upon them for reference. I don't know that it was adopted to themselves for I do not find the Spirit's urging there, that is to make a name that might be _given out_ for an identity. Believers already know the name that identifies them to each other and there is a particular prohibition I find in spirit of any impetus that would result in the sort of phrase "hey, I've got it, we'll call ourselves...this!".

But anyway, I just found this page that expands a bit on some thoughts I have come to entirely apart from it.

http://ichthys.com/mail-the-name-Christian.htm

So...when you say "church/christianity" as though there is a presumed equivalence, well, most of what is of the church do understand that to some "we all just look alike". And that's just fine so long as you understand I have never recommended christianity to you, or anyone as anything...not looking for you to enlist in it, nor endorsing it in any sense as a good, or better thing. (to "belong" to)

And I have long since been convinced that as surely as I could not "make myself belong to Jesus Christ", I have no misconceptions about my ability to make a man anything, at all. Surely including my own self. I simply found out I am owned.

I think may just be looking for family.  I'm just looking for the owner of all...wherever He may be found. And in whomever He cares to show up, and when. I'm not ashamed of my owner as I perceive the depths to which He has gone to have me returned to Him. And how He was not ashamed to do it, though every bit of man's scorn and shame was heaped upon heap to soil Him.
He kept himself unsullied. Because He alone, is the keeper.

Jesus Christ.

So, no, I find nothing of shame...in Him. Nor in what He has established.


----------



## atlashunter

Israel said:


> I've always liked Ambush's scripture reference...it's so very to the point.
> We could start there.
> 
> "She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. "Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth."
> 
> 
> Who's "giving it up" in trade for favor from the world?



Christians?


----------



## Israel

atlashunter said:


> Christians?




Do you believe then, that of whichever christians you are presently speaking, the faith of Jesus Christ is compromised?

Since Walt's story remains very fresh in my mind, and conversations, at least on my part, are being mulled in light of it, my mind goes to several things regarding it.

First is the matter of representation. Was there not a time when in all things our own parents were as God to us? They represented all authority and power, both over us, and to us. Pleasure and provision were at their hand alone. But we learned something as we grew, both "out of their control" and into the world in which we found ourselves. 

We learned of friends, playmates, things to do...which provided pleasures. Our parents, were not so "sole" as once they were. In this, their power to please was seen as fleeting as we sought out the "others" and other things. I think parents remember when the time has come that the child is not merely content to be held and cuddled..._it wants down_. The child is learning of its own powers. To crawl, to walk, to move about and discover...to exert some independence.

And here is where the seeming divergence of power and authority occur. For the parent's authority is undiminished even if its powers "over" the child begin a waning that not unusually, by teen years, is almost absent. Their powers to ground, chastise, restrict...even punish corporally are so outstripped by other pleasures discovered that their ground of authority is now open to attack. 

We may attack on grounds of hypocrisy, and what child is not expert in finding a parent's pecadillos when they can be turned to the child's service? A child better than I never sought to uncover their parent's weaknesses. And capitalize, by whatever means, that were to the child's (seeming)  advantage. Their power is now as nothing...and to the child, their authority, that is to dispense truth in matters of right and wrong, may be abandoned. They are reduced now, completely, no longer gods, at all. Just  "other people". Simply to be regarded as to himself, the child _sees fit._

And this is where the maintenance of authority by the parent despite all the _casting off_ by the child may lead to the understanding of sorrow. The parent may not relinquish responsibility for what is now in as complete a resistance as can be exercised, still feeding, still housing, still caring for _by means_ what _to itself_, wants as little to do _with them_, as possible.

It has much to do with _growing in power_ that may lead to the mistaken notion that it now has power to completely cast off authority. But many is the child that returns, is brought to see and understand certain things about all of this that says (often through the power _of life_ to inflict its_ undeniable power of tutelage)_ by _authority of life_
"Mom...Dad...I am sorry...and thank you...I see now..." Some, never get that opportunity, for life's patience with them has outstripped what has been afforded of it...to their parents.

Many things have power, but only One holds all power and authority to perfection. It is easy to see the flaws of power (to search out and find its weaknesses to be exploited) when one is pressed to by his own quest for it. And thereby even lose all seeming sense of authority. Even power _given to serve_...can be turned to its own service.


----------



## atlashunter

I didn't bother reading your long drawn out post. You've been repeatedly asked to make your point in a more concise manner. It appears you're either unwilling or unable to do that and I'm unwilling to read and try to piece together your posts that just seem to ramble. When it continues despite others requests (and I'm not the only one who has made the request) to get to the point it leads one to believe it's intentional.

That said...

My response to your question was made with the many ways christians rip off pop culture and secular marketing in mind.

Seth Andrews has an excellent speech on this topic on youtube titled  The Copycats: How Christianity Steals The Best Ideas.

People who claim Jesus is the "reason for the season" while they decorate their Christmas tree don't exactly have a claim on originality.


----------



## Israel

atlashunter said:


> I didn't bother reading your long drawn out post. You've been repeatedly asked to make your point in a more concise manner. It appears you're either unwilling or unable to do that and I'm unwilling to read and try to piece together your posts that just seem to ramble. When it continues despite others requests (and I'm not the only one who has made the request) to get to the point it leads one to believe it's intentional.
> 
> That said...
> 
> My response to your question was made with the many ways christians rip off pop culture and secular marketing in mind.
> 
> Seth Andrews has an excellent speech on this topic on youtube titled  The Copycats: How Christianity Steals The Best Ideas.
> 
> People who claim Jesus is the "reason for the season" while they decorate their Christmas tree don't exactly have a claim on originality.



First, it would appear you find it important enough to communicate to me your consideration that you find me something...or at least my communication as something akin to...well...would_ inane suffice_? 

If I am not being presumptuous in that interpretation, then at least we have established some ground of agreement. 

But it is your apparent need to let me know "how you find me" that is far more important. Not that_ I am anything at all,_ but that need to communicate this...(and we have all learned it)...to speak _to things_ of their relative importance to us, is really all we (indeed, any of us) are ever about.

Unless, of course, you are the only man who has never uttered to himself, or aloud, "I don't need this". But,
_everything_ is grist for the mill. Even the thing that prompts us to "but...I don't need this".

As to intent...and intentions, those things are a little less easily discussed. For judgment of intent is a sticky wicket. Here we find ourselves insufficient to disentangle our own self from the thing being judged. We need...help.
So am I surprised you bring a posse? Why would I be? We all call for _back up_.



> When it continues despite others requests (and I'm not the only one who has made the request) to get to the point it leads one to believe it's intentional.



So, even in this, I need a care in judgment. A help. A helper. I too, call for "back up". Are you just another man who, not finding a "thing" to his approval, yes, even a thing like me (or at least _its_ communications), must bring to bear a weight of opinion (this being the opinion of _others_) for some sort of reconciliation to himself or need, by that weight...to affect what he believes...needs change?

You speak like an intelligent man, so I would assume you know how dirt common that is. Maybe you have just let it slip for the moment, or had a temporary lapse of memory. (and that is always...most common to man when he encounters a thing he believes "needs change") And of all things, this is forgivable. We rarely see how our "putting the shoulder to the wheel" will turn out...ultimately.


----------



## bullethead

One man conversations


----------



## TripleXBullies

atlashunter said:


> I didn't bother reading your long drawn out post. You've been repeatedly asked to make your point in a more concise manner..... (and I'm not the only one who has made the request) to get to the point it leads one to believe it's intentional.



I always skip them and have asked for less fluff myself too.


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## atlashunter

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance..." Well, you know the rest.


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## Israel

Pretty well spoken by a man whose posse couldn't keep themselves from showing up. _They had to.
_
Every man will discover with whom they've been riding. After all, the Master has told every one of us "There is nothing hidden except to be revealed." 

And, "... what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

Even now some are saying within themselves "_Should_ I say anything?"

Tell me again, now which post didn't you read?

Behold, you despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no way believe, though a man declare it unto you.


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## atlashunter

No posse. Just people in agreement that long rambling posts chock full of incomplete sentences and incomplete thoughts are not conducive to having a discussion.


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## TripleXBullies

It's easier to say which I did read... or understand in less than twice the time it takes to read. I got the underlined one. That's the one I really read. Then I decided to try to give this short one a try anyway. It looks like you're trying to say that you are being persecuted, proving you're here from God, fulfilling a prophecy or something. That's the only thing I could pull from it. I'm probably totally wrong so I'll go back to skipping them.



Israel said:


> Pretty well spoken by a man whose posse couldn't keep themselves from showing up. _They had to.
> _
> Every man will discover with whom they've been riding. After all, the Master has told every one of us "There is nothing hidden except to be revealed."
> 
> And, "... what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."
> 
> Even now some are saying within themselves "_Should_ I say anything?"
> 
> *Tell me again, now which post didn't you read?*
> 
> Behold, you despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no way believe, though a man declare it unto you.


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## jmharris23

I missed this thread at some point...it seems interesting but it is way too long to read through it now


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## Israel

TripleXBullies said:


> It's easier to say which I did read... or understand in less than twice the time it takes to read. I got the underlined one. That's the one I really read. Then I decided to try to give this short one a try anyway. It looks like you're trying to say that you are being persecuted, proving you're here from God, fulfilling a prophecy or something. That's the only thing I could pull from it. I'm probably totally wrong so I'll go back to skipping them.



Everyone is part of prophesy's fulfillment. Everyone has a role. 

And I appreciate your responding, it speaks. 

And I truly do hope that in your faith there is found no room for the absurd notion that Jesus Christ is short sighted.


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## Israel

atlashunter said:


> No posse. Just people in agreement that long rambling posts chock full of incomplete sentences and incomplete thoughts are not conducive to having a discussion.



You speak of christmas and tree decorating. You believe your eye has captured all there is to the Christ of God according to some practices tolerated, even with His name attached. 

Another of you imagines he plays gotcha with those he assumes must surely have their homes festooned with crucifixes. 

In your expression you say far more about what you see, but of course, cannot say anything about what you don't.

It's not the crosses/crucifixes/tree that you can see and  consider yourselves so expert in that are of any concern.

It is the One who allowed and allows for them.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree:

For he (God) has made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

When you begin to see that, you will begin to understand grace. Such grace that allows for a thing to which He now allows His name attached...man. 

One is either tolerated...or allowed.

Adam, where are you?


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## atlashunter

I suppose if there was a pagan living in the household alongside the Christians these practices might be called tolerance. And the numerous Christian copycats of secular music groups shown in that video? And the blatant (and illegal) use of trademarked brands? Is that also tolerance? Or is it imitating the worldly to try to make Christianity more appealing?


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## Israel

atlashunter said:


> I suppose if there was a pagan living in the household alongside the Christians these practices might be called tolerance. And the numerous Christian copycats of secular music groups shown in that video? And the blatant (and illegal) use of trademarked brands? Is that also tolerance? Or is it imitating the worldly to try to make Christianity more appealing?



I'm sorry, I didn't watch the video. 

But I am glad that your interest in it has led you to ask that final question. It touches upon a thing in which I have also had many struggles with my own conscience which you may (or obviously may not) want to hear. But your question:



> Or is it imitating the worldly to try to make Christianity more appealing?



means far more to me than I could possibly tell you in a few words. That you ask it, and the way that you do (the very particular word usage) has volumes in it that:

#1 I really could not have expected from what might have appeared a quasi adversarial discussion. 

and

#2 Are (or at least could be) to one man akin to the opening of a can of worms, but to another (like me...starving) more like the opening of a free buffet.

But, since you have already pointed out I am gassy, a windbag that tends to vent in uncertain terms and by uncertain happenstance (in which we also find agreement),  I would rather not presume upon a new found kinship and abuse you.

But, your question ( from my point of view) is a singularly good one.


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