# The case of Cassie Bernall



## bullethead (May 17, 2016)

From kyroot.com

Cassie was one of the 13 fatality victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.  Purportedly, one of the shooters asked her if she believed in God.  She said “yes” and then was shot dead.  Her parents penned the book “Cassie Said Yes” which became a best seller and Cassie became a prototype Christian martyr for her generation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-10/14/026r-101499-idx.html

The problem with this story is that it is false.  Investigators determined that another girl, Valerie Schnurr, was the one who received the question about belief in a god.  The question was delivered after she was shot and she survived.  The witnesses who heard the question were near where Schnurr was shot, not close to Cassie’s location.  The case was sealed by testimony from Cassie’s closest friend, who was next to her when she was shot, heard about book, and asked why were they saying something that wasn’t true. That is, she knew definitively that Cassie was never asked that question.

Despite the certain evidence that the story is false, the book continued to be sold, and thousands of people continued to believe the story and deny all of the evidence to the contrary.  Initially, the claim could have been perceived as an honest mistake, but repeating it after the truth behind the incident became known to the public is dishonest. They were so enamored of their martrydom story that they could not allow it to be shattered.  Their faith trumped the evidence. To this day, evangelical Christians will claim that Cassie said yes to this iconic question and was killed as a consequence.

This is a perfect example how Christian martyrdom stories originated and were perpetuated.  Once a story captured the imagination of the faithful, no amount of evidence could dissuade them from believing it was true.  Keep in mind this Columbine myth occurred in the presence of video and sound tapes, and intensive eyewitness testimony.  The Christian myths occurred in a much less exacting milieu.  Despite that difference, the Columbine myth survived the definitive proof that it was false.


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## ambush80 (May 17, 2016)

There was a point in my life where I decided that I wanted to know what the truth is despite how difficult it might be to accept.  I decided that evidence and demonstrability was more important than my feelings.  It takes a high degree of purposeful, determined initiative to live by those standards.  It's far easier to believe in what simply feels good.


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## 660griz (May 18, 2016)

Jonestown, Branch Davidians, Heavens Gate. 
Saw a quote once to the affect, "There no limit to what people can be made to believe."
Truly sad that some folks 'need' this type of thing.


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## SemperFiDawg (May 18, 2016)

bullethead said:


> From kyroot.com
> 
> Cassie was one of the 13 fatality victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.  Purportedly, one of the shooters asked her if she believed in God.  She said “yes” and then was shot dead.  Her parents penned the book “Cassie Said Yes” which became a best seller and Cassie became a prototype Christian martyr for her generation.
> 
> ...



What's you're point? The one that believed in God lived?  Bummer huh?



bullethead said:


> This is a perfect example how Christian martyrdom stories originated and were perpetuated.  Once a story captured the imagination of the faithful, no amount of evidence could dissuade them from believing it was true.



No. This a "perfect example" of a leap from context to personal opinion with reasoning for it undefined and undefended. In other words Pure Rubbish.


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## SemperFiDawg (May 18, 2016)

660griz said:


> Jonestown, Branch Davidians, Heavens Gate.
> Saw a quote once to the affect, "There no limit to what people can be made to believe."
> Truly sad that some folks 'need' this type of thing.



I see why you were so sensitive to what you perceived as an ad hominem attack in my previous thread.  Appears it's your stock in trade.  Well....by all means, carry on.


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## bullethead (May 19, 2016)

SemperFiDawg said:


> What's you're point? The one that believed in God lived?  Bummer huh?
> 
> 
> 
> No. This a "perfect example" of a leap from context to personal opinion with reasoning for it undefined and undefended. In other words Pure Rubbish.


The point of the article is clear,  paragraph 3  says it all.


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## ambush80 (May 19, 2016)

_ The knowledge put the Schnurrs in a difficult position. No one wants to unravel a comforting narrative grieving parents take from their daughter's death, especially when their own daughter survived. But to say nothing felt like lying in silence.

"When you see a book that says 'She Said Yes' and you pretty much know what went down, what it's based on, it's just hard," says Mark Schnurr. "You want the truth for these kids, but you also don't want them to go through any more conflict."


"The church," he says, by which he means Catholic and Protestant, worldwide, "is going to stick to the martyr story. It's the story they heard first, and circulated for six months uncontested. You can say it didn't happen that way, but the church won't accept it. To the church, Cassie will always say yes, period."


The rest of the world can expect no more of a satisfying conclusion. When they publish their final report next year, investigators plan to leave out what they've discovered about Cassie. Davis say it's because "whether Cassie said yes has no bearing on the criminal case." But privately, investigators admit they'll avoid puncturing the myth for the same reason Schnurr did: They won't risk incurring the rage of a community addicted to it._

SemperFi,

Do you care about the truth?


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## 660griz (May 23, 2016)

SemperFiDawg said:


> I see why you were so sensitive to what you perceived as an ad hominem attack in my previous thread.  Appears it's your stock in trade.  Well....by all means, carry on.



Just trying to stay on topic. You should try it.


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## JB0704 (May 24, 2016)

660griz said:


> Truly sad that some folks 'need' this type of thing.



I have said this before, but, while at a funeral for a teenage suicide recently I looked at the girls' parents and was very thankful for them that they "had" this sort of thing.


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## 660griz (May 31, 2016)

JB0704 said:


> I have said this before, but, while at a funeral for a teenage suicide recently I looked at the girls' parents and was very thankful for them that they "had" this sort of thing.



"Thou shalt not kill." I wonder how they sorted that out.

Like I said, some folks need religion. Life is hard or anybody could do it.


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## welderguy (May 31, 2016)

660griz said:


> "Thou shalt not kill." I wonder how they sorted that out.
> 
> Like I said, some folks need religion. Life is hard or anybody could do it.



This makes no sense.
What has to be sorted out?


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## 660griz (May 31, 2016)

welderguy said:


> This makes no sense.
> What has to be sorted out?



Suicide, sin, soul, etc.
Suicide=murder=sin.
Really hard to ask forgiveness after that one.


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## ambush80 (May 31, 2016)

660griz said:


> Suicide, sin, soul, etc.
> Suicide=murder=sin.
> Really hard to ask forgiveness after that one.



Nah, Man.   You can ask for forgiveness for any sin.  There's a number of times you can commit the same sin:

_Mat 18 

21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven._

You can kidnap, torture, murder, eat then rape 77 children and be forgiven.  The ONLY thing that sends you to He11 is not believing Jesus is God.

Then there's this:

_Luke 17:4
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him._

Sounds like unlimited re-do's (I know you can't re-do with suicide). 

Welder,

Discern the word for us.  How many times can you eat children and be forgiven?


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## Huntinfool (May 31, 2016)

So...

I understand the question about why the book continued to be published.  I don't have an answer.  Having never read the book, I would suspect that it is about 1% about the "saying yes" event (or non-event) and 99% about her parents celebrating her faith in Jesus Christ and being fairly certain that, had she been asked the question, she likely would have said yes.  My guess is that the book is more a celebration of a teenager's faith and life.

Should it have been pulled from distribution when the truth of the matter came out?  Probably.  But I doubt that the parents had rights to do so at that point and, if they did, they probably should have.  

The second point made is more concerning to me and should be to everyone else who reads this drivel.  "This is a perfect example how Christian martyrdom stories originated and were perpetuated."  Really?  

The suggestion is that Christian "martyrs" really never died for their faith (whether faith in something real or not).  That they are just stories made up to further a cause. Complete and utter non-sense.  

History is littered with accounts of Christians dying for the cause of Christ.  Whether he was actually the son of a an unseen deity is irrelevant.  They were/are real people and there historical documents prove they really did die saying "yes".  There are Christians dying even this very day simply because they profess faith in Jesus.

You guys have plenty of ammunition to use against the existence of a god.  There's no need to make stuff up like this.  At best, it makes you look like you're reaching.


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## welderguy (May 31, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Nah, Man.   You can ask for forgiveness for any sin.  There's a number of times you can commit the same sin:
> 
> _Mat 18
> 
> ...



Some people think there will not be any murderers in heaven.But what about David?
Some think suicide is a one-way ticket to he11.I say balogni.
The scripture says there is only one unpardonable sin,blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
But,I don't believe those that Jesus atoned for are even capable of committing that sin.

Ambush,have you ever blasphemed the Holy Ghost?


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## ambush80 (May 31, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Some people think there will not be any murderers in heaven.But what about David?
> Some think suicide is a one-way ticket to he11.I say balogni.
> The scripture says there is only one unpardonable sin,blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
> But,I don't believe those that Jesus atoned for are even capable of committing that sin.
> ...




I blaspheme the holy ghost sometimes when I double fault at tennis, stub my toe or taste something particularly yummy.

How many children can someone torture, kill, rape and eat before they are excluded from Heaven?


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## bullethead (May 31, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> So...
> 
> I understand the question about why the book continued to be published.  I don't have an answer.  Having never read the book, I would suspect that it is about 1% about the "saying yes" event (or non-event) and 99% about her parents celebrating her faith in Jesus Christ and being fairly certain that, had she been asked the question, she likely would have said yes.  My guess is that the book is more a celebration of a teenager's faith and life.
> 
> ...



It was an example of how the Apostle Martyrdom stories originated.
We have discussed in great length how history told the stories of their deaths. Many were killed multiple times, multiple ways and in multiple countries. Yet, still in 2016 people are telling the tales of their deaths and routinely ask "Why would they die for lie"?
The bible tells of two apostle deaths. The rest seem to have been made up, died of old age, or were killed but there was never any mention if they were asked to recant or die...or if they were killed and happened to be Christians or were killed because they were christians. 

As far as Christian martyrs go, there are no more or no less than every other person that died for beliefs. The article did not address every Christian martyr. It was to show how stories grow and fit the apostle martyr stories perfectly.


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## welderguy (May 31, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> I blaspheme the holy ghost sometimes when I double fault at tennis, stub my toe or taste something particularly yummy.
> 
> How many children can someone torture, kill, rape and eat before they are excluded from Heaven?



Salvation,or lack of,is not based on works,good or bad,but on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

If you indeed blaspheme the Holy Ghost,that is evidence that you are condemned,not the cause.


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## ambush80 (May 31, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Salvation,or lack of,is not based on works,good or bad,but on the person and work of Jesus Christ.
> 
> If you indeed blaspheme the Holy Ghost,that is evidence that you are condemned,not the cause.



So how many children can someone torture, kill, rape and eat before they are excluded from Heaven?
__________________


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## welderguy (May 31, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> So how many children can someone torture, kill, rape and eat before they are excluded from Heaven?
> __________________



INFINITY__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.......and beyond.






cause that's not what excludes.


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## ambush80 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> INFINITY__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.......and beyond.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So I can go out and cannibalize, rape and torture as many children as I want as long as I declare Jesus Lord?


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> So I can go out and cannibalize, rape and torture as many children as I want as long as I declare Jesus Lord?



If you are a child of God,you might even do worse than that(many have). But,Jesus' blood is able to wash even the vilest clean.

"Where sin abounded,grace did much more abound."

Ain't His grace awesome?!?!?


Oh BTW,after He reveals His grace,He leads you to repentance.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> If you are a child of God,you might even do worse than that(many have). But,Jesus' blood is able to wash even the vilest clean.
> 
> "Where sin abounded,grace did much more abound."
> 
> ...


It's disgusting the focus is on grace for the murder/rapist and the innocent victims are merely a side note.
And you think that's awesome?


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## ambush80 (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> It's disgusting the focus is on grace for the murder/rapist and the innocent victims are merely a side note.
> And you think that's awesome?



I couldn't think of anything to say in response to Welder.  I though that the absurdity and repulsiveness of his statement said enough.  I was wrong.  Thanks for drilling down on the essence of the matter, Walt.

I can't wait for Isreal to come in and say how all sin is the same in light of the goodness of the Lord (who grants homicidal maniacs Heavenly pleasures).   Maybe they have all the children they want to molest and cannibalize in Heaven.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> I couldn't think of anything to say in response to Welder.  I though that the absurdity and repulsiveness of his statement said enough.  I was wrong.  Thanks for drilling down on the essence of the matter, Walt.
> 
> I can't wait for Isreal to come in and say how all sin is the same in light of the goodness of the Lord (who grants homicidal maniacs Heavenly pleasures).   Maybe they have all the children they want to molest and cannibalize in Heaven.


It's a good thing (or not) these guys can't see some of this stuff for the filth that is.


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## ambush80 (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> It's a good thing (or not) these guys can't see some of this stuff for the filth that is.



It's instances like these that the term "Brainwashed" really seems appropriate.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> The article did not address every Christian martyr. It was to show how stories grow and fit the apostle martyr stories perfectly.



I know the article didn't address Christian martyrs....you did....and poorly.

There is sufficient evidence that at least four who were personally close with Jesus were martyred and no historian worth his salt would argue that the apostles weren't intensely persecuted for spreading the gospel.  I assume you're aware of what persecution meant in those days.  They weren't having their ipod taken away for a week.

Comparing the PTSD related memory of a few teenagers in the 20th century to the intensely scrutinized tradition of oral history in biblical times is like comparing the mental capacity of President Obama to that of Stephen Hawking.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 1, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> So how many children can someone torture, kill, rape and eat before they are excluded from Heaven?
> __________________



They were excluded from Heaven before their first act of torture, rape or murder just like you and me.


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## bullethead (Jun 1, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I know the article didn't address Christian martyrs....you did....and poorly.
> 
> There is sufficient evidence that at least four who were personally close with Jesus were martyred and no historian worth his salt would argue that the apostles weren't intensely persecuted for spreading the gospel.  I assume you're aware of what persecution meant in those days.  They weren't having their ipod taken away for a week.
> 
> Comparing the PTSD related memory of a few teenagers in the 20th century to the intensely scrutinized tradition of oral history in biblical times is like comparing the mental capacity of President Obama to that of Stephen Hawking.


4/12....what happened to the other 8?
What evidence would a historian worth his salt be able to come up with to show the persecution of these apostles? 
You seem to have done your apostle persecution homework. Share your findings and I'll discuss them with you, even if it is poorly.


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## bullethead (Jun 1, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> They were excluded from Heaven before their first act of torture, rape or murder just like you and me.



Who should we believe, you or welder?


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## Huntinfool (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Who should we believe, you or welder?



Believe me.  I'm always right.  Don't you know that by now?


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Who should we believe, you or welder?



HF must have forgotten about David and Saul(Paul).

I'm glad you AA's are getting on this bandwagon.Maybe yall will vote more conservatively against all forms of abortion(murder,torture,etc.)

I'm gathering yall believe everyone should get what they deserve?
As far as your rejection of God's mercy and grace goes,...I guess you'd rather have the alternative?


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## Huntinfool (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> 4/12....what happened to the other 8?
> What evidence would a historian worth his salt be able to come up with to show the persecution of these apostles?
> You seem to have done your apostle persecution homework. Share your findings and I'll discuss them with you, even if it is poorly.



What happened to the other 8?  One we know died of old age.  Based on what happened to the four we do have reliable evidence of, probably most of them were killed for spreading the gospel of Jesus.  But I didn't claim that we know for certain that all of them were martyred.  Most Christians wouldn't make that claim.  Some definitely do, but they just look foolish when they do it.

I'll re-phrase.  No historian who accepts that Jesus existed and that he did actually have disciples who traveled the world spreading his religion would claim that those people weren't persecuted (though they may disagree on the intensity).  As you alluded earlier....people have been dying for their beliefs for thousands of years. 

Your original intent was to somehow use a story about a teenager to prove that the 'stories' about apostle martyrdom were made up in the same way.  This is not the telephone game.  Someone was holding a gun to their heads...I think we can allow them a little fog of war as they pass the message on.  

Had the girl who DID say "yes" been killed instead of wounded and it been accurately reported, would you have allowed me to use that as evidence that the apostle martyr stories are 100% reliable?


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## Huntinfool (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> HF must have forgotten about David and Saul(Paul).



They were just as condemned as you were at birth my man.  Just like this hypothetical rapist/murderer that's being put forth.  The rape/murder isn't what condemned him (or David or Paul).  His need for redemption didn't increase as he went on sinning....and neither does yours or mine.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> They were just as condemned as you were at birth my man.  Just like this hypothetical rapist/murderer that's being put forth.  The rape/murder isn't what condemned him (or David or Paul).  His need for redemption didn't increase as he went on sinning....and neither does yours or mine.



Oh.I see where you're going.Yes,I agree.
The way Ambush worded it was "how much would it take to exclude a person from heaven".To which I replied "that's not what condemned" and God's grace was sufficient".(paraphrase)


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## ambush80 (Jun 1, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> They were excluded from Heaven before their first act of torture, rape or murder just like you and me.





welderguy said:


> Oh.I see where you're going.Yes,I agree.
> The way Ambush worded it was "how much would it take to exclude a person from heaven".To which I replied "that's not what condemned" and God's grace was sufficient".(paraphrase)



If the victims were Hindu or atheist do they go to He11?


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## bullethead (Jun 1, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> What happened to the other 8?  One we know died of old age.  Based on what happened to the four we do have reliable evidence of, probably most of them were killed for spreading the gospel of Jesus.  But I didn't claim that we know for certain that all of them were martyred.  Most Christians wouldn't make that claim.  Some definitely do, but they just look foolish when they do it.
> 
> I'll re-phrase.  No historian who accepts that Jesus existed and that he did actually have disciples who traveled the world spreading his religion would claim that those people weren't persecuted (though they may disagree on the intensity).  As you alluded earlier....people have been dying for their beliefs for thousands of years.
> 
> ...



I think there is just evidence that the unkown/made up apostle martyrdom stories follow the same path as the Burnall story


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> If the victims were Hindu or atheist do they go to He11?



No one can answer that.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> HF must have forgotten about David and Saul(Paul).
> 
> I'm glad you AA's are getting on this bandwagon.Maybe yall will vote more conservatively against all forms of abortion(murder,torture,etc.)
> 
> ...


Welder we aren't the ones who get liberal with the definitions of abortion, murder and torture according to who does it.
But you do.
So exactly which bandwagon are you referring to?


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> Welder we aren't the ones who get liberal with the definitions of abortion, murder and torture according to who does it.
> But you do.
> So exactly which bandwagon are you referring to?



I was referring to the bandwagon yall seem to suddenly be on against the torture,murder,rape,cannibalism,etc of children,which I am also on.I even lump abortion into the torture and murder category.

So its refreshing to see the AA's in agreement with me for once.


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## bullethead (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> I was referring to the bandwagon yall seem to suddenly be on against the torture,murder,rape,cannibalism,etc of children,which I am also on.I even lump abortion into the torture and murder category.
> 
> So its refreshing to see the AA's in agreement with me for once.


But your scripture not only contains those things but promotes them.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> But your scripture not only contains those things but promotes them.



Ahh , so that's why you're on the bandwagon.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> I was referring to the bandwagon yall seem to suddenly be on against the torture,murder,rape,cannibalism,etc of children,which I am also on.I even lump abortion into the torture and murder category.
> 
> So its refreshing to see the AA's in agreement with me for once.


No I do not agree with you.
You change the definitions to fit your religious beliefs.
I can think murder or abortion is acceptable in certain situations but I still call them murder and abortion.
You do not.
That's the difference.


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## bullethead (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Ahh , so that's why you're on the bandwagon.


I'm not on the bandwagon.  I have always been more moral than the God in scripture. I call it what it is, not make excuses for a diety.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> No I do not agree with you.
> You change the definitions to fit your religious beliefs.
> I can think murder or abortion is acceptable in certain situations but I still call them murder and abortion.
> You do not.
> That's the difference.



The difference is I believe God is justified in whatever He says or does because He's the creator.
Man is not justified in everything because he is subject to his Creator.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> I'm not on the bandwagon.  I have always been more moral than the God in scripture. I call it what it is, not make excuses for a diety.



He's the judge,not you.


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## bullethead (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> He's the judge,not you.


There you go with the fairy tales again.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

bullethead said:


> There you go with the fairy tales again.



You just hope it's a made up story.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> The difference is I believe God is justified in whatever He says or does because He's the creator.
> Man is not justified in everything because he is subject to his Creator.


That's fine..  BUT
That makes it dishonest for you to say you are against abortion and murder.
You are fine with abortion and murder if your god did it.
That was my point to begin with.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> That's fine..  BUT
> That makes it dishonest for you to say you are against abortion and murder.
> You are fine with abortion and murder if your god did it.
> That was my point to begin with.



You are exactly correct.
God-creator
Man-created

God-just
Man-unjust

Nothing dishonest about that.Just a recognition of who's sovereign and who's not.
You should try recognizing it also.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> You are exactly correct.
> God-creator
> Man-created
> 
> ...



It's sad the word games you have to play with yourself.
Did I say ANYTHING about you being dishonest about who you think is sovereign and who isnt?
Your change of direction is obvious to everyone but you.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> It's sad the word games you have to play with yourself.
> Did I say ANYTHING about you being dishonest about who you think is sovereign and who isnt?
> Your change of direction is obvious to everyone but you.



Man,do I have to spell everything out?
I am against murder and abortion when man does it.
I am not against murder and abortion if God does it.

That's as honest as it gets brother.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Man,do I have to spell everything out?
> I am against murder and abortion when man does it.
> I am not against murder and abortion if God does it.
> 
> That's as honest as it gets brother.



Yeah Welder that's what I said about 10 posts ago. Now see if you  can connect the next dots -
Based on your admission (finally) above it is therefore dishonest for you to claim you are AGAINST abortion and murder.
All you have to do is look at what you just said.


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## drippin' rock (Jun 1, 2016)

So I can murder, rape, kill, repent( and mean it) and be accepted into heaven. But if I blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, I'm screwed.

I can see Jesus getting red faced at the Pharisees and saying something like, "Ya'll better quit talking about my Daddy or else!"


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> Yeah Welder that's what I said about 10 posts ago. Now see if you  can connect the next dots -
> Based on your admission (finally) above it is therefore dishonest for you to claim you are AGAINST abortion and murder.
> All you have to do is look at what you just said.



I made a distinction,over and over.You continually ignored the distinction,even after I broke it down into simple terms,just so you could force your point that I was dishonest.
Your point seems pointless to me.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> I made a distinction,over and over.You continually ignored the distinction,even after I broke it down into simple terms,just so you could force your point that I was dishonest.
> Your point seems pointless to me.



No you went round and round and finally spit it out.
You pointed out how you were happy to see A/As SUDDENLY get on the bandwagon.
I pointed out its not as though you have been sitting on the bandwagon all this time waiting for us to join you.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

drippin' rock said:


> So I can murder, rape, kill, repent( and mean it) and be accepted into heaven.



Not without the blood of Jesus.



drippin' rock said:


> But if I blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, I'm screwed.



Then you are without the blood of Jesus.


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## welderguy (Jun 1, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> No you went round and round and finally spit it out.
> You pointed out how you were happy to see A/As SUDDENLY get on the bandwagon.
> I pointed out its not as though you have been sitting on the bandwagon all this time waiting for us to join you.



No round and round,just a lot of progressive dumbing down...but I see its still not dumbed down enough for you.Its ok though because I didn't expect you to get it anyway.


----------



## drippin' rock (Jun 1, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Not without the blood of Jesus.
> 
> 
> 
> Then you are without the blood of Jesus.



Baloney.


----------



## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

welderguy said:


> No round and round,just a lot of progressive dumbing down...but I see its still not dumbed down enough for you.Its ok though because I didn't expect you to get it anyway.



You are a funny guy sometimes


----------



## gemcgrew (Jun 2, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> It's disgusting the focus is on grace for the murder/rapist and the innocent victims are merely a side note.
> And you think that's awesome?


And you think that there are innocent victims? 

You guys assure each other that the victims were innocent, in order to justify your own wickedness.


----------



## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

gemcgrew said:


> And you think that there are innocent victims?
> 
> You guys assure each other that the victims were innocent, in order to justify your own wickedness.


Here in reality yes there are innocent victims.
You guys assure each other there isn't in order to justify your own selfish beliefs.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 2, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> You are a funny guy sometimes



Here's what seems funny(strange) to me.You guys get so indignant toward God for allowing the horrible attrocities of man,but then get equally indignant with the concept of God having vengeance upon those that are guilty.
Make up your minds.Do you want justice or not?
You don't seem to like the concept of mercy,so...I'm confused.


----------



## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Here's what seems funny(strange) to me.You guys get so indignant toward God for allowing the horrible attrocities of man,but then get equally indignant with the concept of God having vengeance upon those that are guilty.
> Make up your minds.Do you want justice or not?
> You don't seem to like the concept of mercy,so...I'm confused.



We weren't talking about a god.
We were talking about how YOU view abortion/murder and how YOUR view changes depending on "who does it".


----------



## ambush80 (Jun 2, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Here's what seems funny(strange) to me.You guys get so indignant toward God for allowing the horrible attrocities of man,but then get equally indignant with the concept of God having vengeance upon those that are guilty.
> Make up your minds.Do you want justice or not?
> You don't seem to like the concept of mercy,so...I'm confused.



Guilty of what?!  Not believing that Jesus is Lord?  Original sin? That's good enough reason to send people to He11 for eternity?

That's sick as can be.

Addendum:  It's not that I believe that such a being exists. It's simply confounding that a reasonable, sane person might choose to believe in such a being with those values and qualities.


----------



## ambush80 (Jun 2, 2016)

gemcgrew said:


> And you think that there are innocent victims?
> 
> You guys assure each other that the victims were innocent, in order to justify your own wickedness.



What have you found are some psychological and emotional benefits of viewing yourself as filthy rags; wretched and deserving of He11?


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

bullethead said:


> I think there is just evidence that the unkown/made up apostle martyrdom stories follow the same path as the Burnall story



I'm not sure I'm getting what you mean here...


Also, unless you have some evidence that I'm not aware of that they are actually made up, let's throw that term out of the discussion.  "Unknown" is probably the best description of many of the accounts.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Guilty of what?!  Not believing that Jesus is Lord?  Original sin? That's good enough reason to send people to He11 for eternity?
> 
> That's sick as can be.
> 
> Addendum:  It's not that I believe that such a being exists. It's simply confounding that a reasonable, sane person might choose to believe in such a being with those values and qualities.


I think your Addendum hits on the major gulf between thought processes that neither side can or will ever figure out about the other.
And really it has nothing to do with whether God exists or not.
To us it's confounding that someone would worship a god who murders kids, literally create people to punish, egomaniacal worship me or pay the price and all the other things we find repulsive and certainly would not worship. We use Hitler as an example alot because it's the closest comparison we can think of.
The Christian is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. They deserved it, God is sovereign, people belong to him so anything he does is fine, no such thing as an innocent victim...
Both Welder's and Gem's posts illustrate that perfectly.
It's one major difference that I don't think will ever be understood by the other.


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## ambush80 (Jun 2, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> I think your Addendum hits on the major gulf between thought processes that neither side can or will ever figure out about the other.
> And really it has nothing to do with whether God exists or not.
> To us it's confounding that someone would worship a god who murders kids, literally create people to punish, egomaniacal worship me or pay the price and all the other things we find repulsive and certainly would not worship. We use Hitler as an example alot because it's the closest comparison we can think of.
> The Christian is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. They deserved it, God is sovereign, people belong to him so anything he does is fine, no such thing as an innocent victim...
> ...



The thing that confounds me (one of them, anyway) is that they would never use the same criterion for ANY OTHER beliefs in their lives.  Only this one bizarre and troublingly all pervasive thing gets a pass.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> The thing that confounds me (one of them, anyway) is that they would never use the same criterion for ANY OTHER beliefs in their lives.  Only this one bizarre and troublingly all pervasive thing gets a pass.



Bullet made a post recently that contained a snippet about how there is evidence that religious beliefs get stored in their own little compartment in the brain that does not interact with other functions of the brain such as reasoning etc.
While I'm not ready to buy into that, your point would be the exact kind of evidence they were talking about.
I know I've referred to it as a number of things based on my own observations - a brick wall, can see out but can't see in, tunnel vision, Christian goggles etc.
And yes it seems to be related only to their religious beliefs.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 2, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Guilty of what?!  Not believing that Jesus is Lord?  Original sin? That's good enough reason to send people to He11 for eternity?
> 
> That's sick as can be.
> 
> Addendum:  It's not that I believe that such a being exists. It's simply confounding that a reasonable, sane person might choose to believe in such a being with those values and qualities.



So,just not believing in Him makes Him non-existent?
Fraid not.

But,you are ok with vengeance being taken on the murdering torturing raping cannibal? Correct?
Just making sure I understand your view of "proper" justice.


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## ambush80 (Jun 2, 2016)

welderguy said:


> So,just not believing in Him makes Him non-existent?
> Fraid not.



Neither does believing make him existent.  Nether does his character in a mythology book make him existent.  Neither does the fact that you hear him as a voice in your head make him existent.



welderguy said:


> But,you are ok with vengeance being taken on the murdering torturing raping cannibal? Correct?
> Just making sure I understand your view of "proper" justice.



Vengeance is different from justice.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 2, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Neither does believing make him existent.  Nether does his character in a mythology book make him existent.  Neither does the fact that you hear him as a voice in your head make him existent.
> 
> 
> 
> Vengeance is different from justice.



Not if you are the father of the child who was violated by the murdering torturing raping cannibal.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I'm not sure I'm getting what you mean here...
> 
> 
> Also, unless you have some evidence that I'm not aware of that they are actually made up, let's throw that term out of the discussion.  "Unknown" is probably the best description of many of the accounts.



I've posted numerous sources in previous threads about the apostle/martyr discussion.

The fact that some have multiple deaths by different methods and in different countries would send a false flag that somebody is making things up.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

WaltL1 said:


> Bullet made a post recently that contained a snippet about how there is evidence that religious beliefs get stored in their own little compartment in the brain that does not interact with other functions of the brain such as reasoning etc.
> While I'm not ready to buy into that, your point would be the exact kind of evidence they were talking about...



Curious Walt...were you brought up in an atheist home?  Both parents insisted that God doesn't exist?

I'm fairly certain that I recall Ambush saying that he was brought up in a believing home (if I'm mistaken, forgive me).  But, either way, you are aware that a very large majority of atheists were brought up in Christian (or some other religion) homes I'm sure.

Think on that for a second and then let me know if you're ready to cross the line of totally buying into what you just posted.  You see how it would be impossible to reason yourself out of a belief in God.....right?


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

bullethead said:


> I've posted numerous sources in previous threads about the apostle/martyr discussion.
> 
> The fact that some have multiple deaths by different methods and in different countries would send a false flag that somebody is making things up.



Right....as I said..."unknown" is the best way to refer to that.  "Made up" just adds your bias to the issue because the inference is that they are all made up instead of divergences from the truth.  You have evidence that calls into question the manner of some of the apostles' deaths.  But there is no evidence that one of those written sources isn't the true account.  All you have is conflicting sources.  As I said, we don't know how all of them died for sure.  We have evidence that would point to persecution for most of them and we have detailed written accounts that several others did actually die martyrs.

My name is Andrew
My name is Bob
My name is Walt
My name is Eddie

All of them cannot be true and the fact that there are four sources claiming my name calls into question whether any of them are true....but one definitely is.  If I removed the true one and replaced it with a false one, I would still have four conflicting sources and they would all be "made up"....but you would have no way of knowing.

All that to say again...you guys have enough ammo to make your case in any of these threads.  Adding these little nuanced pejoratives doesn't add to the credibility of what you're saying.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

I think a lot of "us" have left open a 1% hope that there is a god. 
Speaking for myself I am 100% convinced that there is no God as described in the texts of ancient times. I am not saying that I cannot grasp the concept of a force or higher power but my life long quest to ease my own concerns about a god have led me to place serious doubt, based off of evidence that directly refutes religious claims, that there is a force that cares..watches over.. or has any concern about anything that goes on regarding humans or anything else in this universe.


----------



## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> Curious Walt...were you brought up in an atheist home?  Both parents insisted that God doesn't exist?
> 
> I'm fairly certain that I recall Ambush saying that he was brought up in a believing home (if I'm mistaken, forgive me).  But, either way, you are aware that a very large majority of atheists were brought up in Christian (or some other religion) homes I'm sure.
> 
> Think on that for a second and then let me know if you're ready to cross the line of totally buying into what you just posted.  You see how it would be impossible to reason yourself out of a belief in God.....right?


Nope grew up in a Catholic home, Catechism on Saturday, church on Sunday, communion, confession, priest over for dinner, same with all my relatives, the whole shebang.
And yes I did reason myself out of organized religion. Which is why I can't completely buy into the above. However i do believe there is dominant and subordinate use of the brain. With enough input, evidence and effort the subordinate can become dominant and vice versa.
So sure I'll discuss it but I won't be defending the own little religious place in the brain as I already recognize the problem with that theory.


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

> However i do believe there is dominant and subordinate use of the brain. With enough input, evidence and effort the subordinate can become dominant and vice versa



So then....a person actually can choose to be gay and vice versa?


----------



## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

bullethead said:


> I think a lot of "us" have left open a 1% hope that there is a god.
> Speaking for myself I am 100% convinced that there is no God as described in the texts of ancient times. I am not saying that I cannot grasp the concept of a force or higher power but my life long quest to ease my own concerns about a god have led me to place serious doubt, based off of evidence that directly refutes religious claims, that there is a force that cares..watches over.. or has any concern about anything that goes on regarding humans or anything else in this universe.


For me the 1% hope would apply only because the most important people in my life believed and I would like to see them get their "just rewards" for a life of faithfulness.
As for myself I sit in the same boat as you. With the addition of I find the Christian portrayal of what God is like not worthy of my worship.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> Right....as I said..."unknown" is the best way to refer to that.  "Made up" just adds your bias to the issue because the inference is that they are all made up instead of divergences from the truth.  You have evidence that calls into question the manner of some of the apostles' deaths.  But there is no evidence that one of those written sources isn't the true account.  All you have is conflicting sources.  As I said, we don't know how all of them died for sure.  We have evidence that would point to persecution for most of them and we have detailed written accounts that several others did actually die martyrs.
> 
> My name is Andrew
> My name is Bob
> ...


In your example above (providing you are telling the truth) one name is your correct name. But there is nothing to stop you from using four incorrect names and having us discuss for the next 27 pages which name we think is your correct name, making cases for each, and having us scour through 5 years of posts trying get to get evidence to back up our claims.
You overlook the fact that there IS evidence that NONE of the remaining 8 apostle deaths are true. Conflicting stories most likely are also conflicting completely false and totally made up stories.
We have shown time and time again about the things in scripture that are false additions added much after the originals were written. We have shown man's manipulation and destruction of the earliest writings. We have shown inaccuracies in geography, history, customs, cultures, archeology, dates, places, times, events,  names. We have shown contradictions within scripture itself that directly refute specific details of events. And all that is supposed to be from an infallible diety. When you try to introduce outside sources that are telling stories about characters that exist in already inaccurate stories... one version doesn't have to be right..they could and most likely are all false.


----------



## WaltL1 (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> So then....a person actually can choose to be gay and vice versa?


No. While there is no definitive answer yet on that my opinion is that is chemical and wiring. A person can choose to not be in a gay relationship or not have gay sex but they are in fact gay.
There are lots of examples of things we like and do and are without making a choice.
I would love to choose to be a talented artist..
But stick men is all I got.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> So then....a person actually can choose to be gay and vice versa?



A person can pretend, or choose to do or be whatever they want.
There are examples of that in every aspect of  human life.

But as much as that does go on there are as many genuine honest to goodness legitimate people doing and acting just as they always have felt and acted since they were born.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

> Conflicting stories most likely are also conflicting completely false and totally made up stories.



Highly debatable statement.  



> We have shown time and time again about the things in scripture that are false additions added much after the originals were written. We have shown man's manipulation and destruction of the earliest writings. We have shown inaccuracies in geography, history, customs, cultures, archeology, dates, places, times, events, names. We have shown contradictions within scripture itself that directly refute specific details of events. And all that is supposed to be from an infallible diety. When you try to introduce outside sources that are telling stories about characters that exist in already inaccurate stories... one version doesn't have to be right..they could and most likely are all false.



As I'm sure aware, educated Christians see that for every 'conflict' you see there is a very logical explanation.  I'm 100% aware that you don't agree and that's fine.  But trust me when I say that there are many Christians who don't accept things that seem odd just "because momma and daddy said so".  We dig just like you do.  We just come to a different conclusion.

One version doesn't have to be right.  You're correct.  But, again, you have literally nothing that proves they are all wrong.  You can come to an educated guess and that's as close as you or I can get.

As an aside, I'm still not seeing why it's important that they ALL died a martyr's death.  I think you and I agree that there is evidence that more than a couple did.  How many does it take for the statement "people don't willingly die for a lie" to hold water?


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

People die for lies all the time.
That is more to the point.
All they have to do is believe what they believe in is not a lie.

Every religion, every belief system, every country has people lining up to willingly give their life if necessary because they believe what they are being told is true.
How many of those does it take for you to accept that they are just as legitimate as Christians that supposedly died for their beliefs?
Are they equally as credible?
Are they equally as mistaken?


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> Highly debatable statement.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Actually the UCLA comment hurt your argument. Eyewitnesses couldn't get accurate descriptions or facts correct and that was why it was happening.
What happens to the facts and accuracy  40 years down the road? What happens 3 centuries later?


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

bullethead said:


> People die for lies all the time.
> That is more to the point.
> All they have to do is believe what they believe in is not a lie.
> 
> ...



The apostles weren't told it was true...they lived it.  They would have been eyewitnesses to what happened.  HUGE difference.  They would have been the liars themselves, not the lied to.  They would have seen Jesus work his smoke and mirror tricks and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether the message they were spreading was true.

If they died a martyr's death in order to hold fast to the message they were spreading, they either saw what Jesus did (i.e. miracles, signs, fulfilling prophecy, death/burial/resurrection type stuff) while they were with him and were so impacted they were willing to die or they came up with an elaborate scheme (i.e. lie) in an effort to fool the world and then agreed that it would be a good idea to die to pull the wool over our eyes.

If they died for it, they weren't dying for something they were told was true.  They were dying for something they either knew with absolute certainty was true because they were there or they were dying for the express purpose of perpetuating a lie.  

People don't willingly allow themselves to be killed for a cause that they know is a lie.  It's the height of lunacy.

"Is Jesus the Son of God?  If you say yes, I will kill you."

"Well, let me think on that.  I know good and well that he's not.  He's just a nut-job who wanted power and (by the way) is now dead and rotting in some tomb that I hid him in.  Ok, so the guy who started this whole thing is dead.  But I know he wanted me to keep this gag going.  Let's see, keep a dead guy's secret and die....or just call it off and live.  Man...I'm not sure which way to go here!"


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Actually the UCLA comment hurt your argument. Eyewitnesses couldn't get accurate descriptions or facts correct and that was why it was happening.
> What happens to the facts and accuracy  40 years down the road? What happens 3 centuries later?



I removed that because I didn't think it needed to be said.  The obvious debatability of the comment was enough.  But, to answer the question, the facts will be 100% accurate to a "T" 40 years down the road.  

Now, take that event and move it backwards in time several thousand years.  Remove TV cameras, the internet and cell phones...


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> The apostles weren't told it was true...they lived it.  They would have been eyewitnesses to what happened.  HUGE difference.  They would have been the liars themselves, not the lied to.  They would have seen Jesus work his smoke and mirror tricks and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether the message they were spreading was true.
> 
> If they died a martyr's death in order to hold fast to the message they were spreading, they either saw what Jesus did (i.e. miracles, signs, fulfilling prophecy, death/burial/resurrection type stuff) while they were with him and were so impacted they were willing to die or they came up with an elaborate scheme (i.e. lie) in an effort to fool the world and then agreed that it would be a good idea to die to pull the wool over our eyes.
> 
> ...



David Koresh  must have been Jesus by your  criteria.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I removed that because I didn't think it needed to be said.  The obvious debatability of the comment was enough.  But, to answer the question, the facts will be 100% accurate to a "T" 40 years down the road.
> 
> Now, take that event and move it backwards in time several thousand years.  Remove TV cameras, the internet and cell phones...


Take it back several thousand years....exactly, every historian, elder and educated person would have recorded what they witnessed. If you see a guy ascend into the sky you will write about it and tell everyone you bump into what you saw. Believer or not.
The VAST majority of regular people obviously were either not impressed by Jesus or else the miraculous events did not happen then but we're added later.
Since none of the actual disciples ever wrote recorded anything, jesus never recorded anything and those that did record things did so 40+years later and were woefully ignorant of the Jewish and Roman cultures, geography, and religion....their tales are not remotely accurate enough to be considered anything but folklore.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> The apostles weren't told it was true...they lived it.  They would have been eyewitnesses to what happened.  HUGE difference.  They would have been the liars themselves, not the lied to.  They would have seen Jesus work his smoke and mirror tricks and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether the message they were spreading was true.
> 
> If they died a martyr's death in order to hold fast to the message they were spreading, they either saw what Jesus did (i.e. miracles, signs, fulfilling prophecy, death/burial/resurrection type stuff) while they were with him and were so impacted they were willing to die or they came up with an elaborate scheme (i.e. lie) in an effort to fool the world and then agreed that it would be a good idea to die to pull the wool over our eyes.
> 
> ...



We can go over the disciples point by point if you like.
The authors of Matthew mark  Luke John and then Paul are the only ones who talk about them.

If you want to start with a homerun, how many disciples saw the ascension?


----------



## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

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.  The following is taken from:

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason32.htm

The writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the angel that was sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, said to the two Marys, chap. xxviii., ver. 7, “Behold Christ has gone before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him; lo, I have told you.” And the same writer at the next two verses (8, 9), makes Christ himself to speak to the same purpose to these women immediately after the angel had told it to them, and that they ran quickly to tell it to the disciples; and at the 16th verse it is said, “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them; and when they saw him, they worshiped him.”

But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very different to this; for he says, chap. xx., ver. 19, “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week [that is, the same day that Christ is said to have risen,] when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst of them.”

According to Matthew the eleven were marching to Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain, by his own appointment, at the very time when, according to John, they were assembled in another place, and that not by appointment, but in secret, for fear of the Jews.

The writer of the book of Luke contradicts that of Matthew more pointedly than John does; for he says expressly that the meeting was in Jerusalem the evening of the same day that he [Christ] rose, and that the eleven were there. See Luke, chap. xxiv, ver. 13, 33.

Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed disciples the right of willful lying, that the writer of those books could be any of the eleven persons called disciples; for if, according to Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain by his own appointment on the same day that he is said to have risen, Luke and John must have been two of that eleven; yet the writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies as much, that the meeting was that same day, in a house in Jerusalem; and, on the other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were assembled in a house in Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one of that eleven; yet Matthew says the meeting was in a mountain in Galilee, and consequently the evidence given in those books destroys each other.

This point is a significant because many Christian apologists have been reluctant to admit that the disciples were not the authors of the gospels, holding to that claim as a means to advertise the authenticity of these accounts. To explain away the problem above would take even more mental flexibility than a typical apologist can muster.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

There is a major conflict in the gospel scriptures.  On one hand, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he would be put to death and then rise on the third day, but on the other hand, when these events supposedly played out, the disciples acted as if they knew nothing of the sort.

The following is taken from:

http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/10/troubling_incon.html#InfluentialFriends

According to the Gospels, Jesus explicitly and repeatedly told his disciples that he would be put to death but would be raised on the third day [Mt 16.21-23, 17.22-23, 20.17-19; Mk 8.31-32; Lk 9.21-22, 18.31-33; Jn 14.18-20, 16.16-20].

Matthew and Mark indicate that the disciples very much got the message, judging by their strong reactions to it, including Peter’s saying, no way, Lord, I won’t allow it!  [Mt 16.22, 17.23; Mk 8.33].

And during Jesus’s ministry, the disciples are said to have seen not just one, but two examples of dead people being raised to life:  Jairus’s daughter [Mt 9.18-25, Mk 5.21-24, 35-42], and Lazarus [Jn 11].  So it’s not like the disciples would have been unfamiliar with the concept.

But then after Jesus’s own death, the disciples acted as though they’d never heard of anyone being raised from the dead, let alone that (supposedly) Jesus had explicitly and repeatedly foretold his own raising:

On Easter Sunday, a handful of disciples went to Joseph of Arimathea’s new tomb after the Sabbath.   They were perplexed when they found the tomb empty [Mk 16.5; Lk 24.4; Jn 20.2, 9].
Other disciples refused to believe the first reports of resurrection sightings [Mk 16.13; Lk 24.11; Jn 20.24-25].
Mary Magdalene initially failed to recognize Jesus when she encountered him [Jn. 20.14]; ditto with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus [Lk 24.16].
Jesus’s followers are described as being startled and terrified when they saw him, thinking they were seeing a ghost [Lk 24.5, 24.37; Mt 28.10].
You would think at least some of the Eleven would have remembered Jesus’s predictions of his resurrection.  It appears none of them did.

Additionally, the scriptures portray the disciples as cowering and being afraid, disavowing their master, at the time of the crucifixion. This would be unlikely if they knew this event had to happen.

As a historian, you must look at this evidence and try to ferret out what really happened, that is, which parts of this story ring true, and which parts appear to have been added after the fact.  What makes the most sense is that Jesus never prophecized his death and resurrection, and, in fact, never expected to die in the first place, but rather thought he would be exalted as the King of the Jews in a restored holy land kingdom.  By the time the gospels were written though, it became necessary to show that Jesus planned it this way all along, and therefore, some quotes needed to be added to confirm his foreknowledge of the events to come.

The other way, that the disciples were adequately prepared for the crucifixion and resurrection, and acted accordingly during these events, but the gospel authors wanted to make it look like they didn’t know, makes much less sense. Therefore, this scriptural conflict lends much evidence to the idea that Jesus did not predict his death and resurrection, that it was an unexpected turn of events, and that he was not a divine being


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

There are many historical inaccuracies contained in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s trial.  The Sanhedrin is said in the three synoptic gospels to have met during the Passover, but this was not permitted under Judaic law. It is said to have met at night, but again this was not permitted. It was said to have met in a private house, yet it was forbidden to meet outside the precincts of the Temple.

Also, it is claimed that the Jews were not permitted to pass the death sentence (John 18:31), but this cannot be true. Earlier, the chief priests had considered putting Lazarus to death (John 12:10) and Jews were responsible for other killings — both formally and informally. The Jews appear to have regarded blasphemy as a capital offence, but only if it involved worshipping idols or using a name of God (and Jesus had not been accused of either). Again, the custom of allowing the people to have a prisoner of their choice released for the Passover festival appears to be a fiction.  No such custom existed.

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/ab0_nt.htm

These critical errors in the scriptures indicate that the Gospels were written by people who did not witness the events and who were not knowledgeable of Jewish customs.  It is likely that they were written by Gentile followers of Paul’s gospel who viewed Jews as the scum of the earth.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

If anything in the Christian scriptures needs to be consistent, it is the description of the ascension of Jesus into heaven.  This is a seminal moment in the faith, when Jesus allegedly left the earth and floated up to heaven.  To Christianity’s embarrassment, different books in the Bible place this event in different places.

In Mark 19:20, the ascension occurs in room where the disciples were gathered (relined at table per verse 14):

So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

In Luke 24:50, the ascension occurs outdoors in the town of Bethany, a few miles outside Jerusalem:

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

In Acts 1:10-12, the ascension takes place on the Mount of Olives:

And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.

In Matthew and John, there is no mention at all of the ascension. This is a remarkable omission.  There are four events in Jesus’s life that require a consistent narrative- his birth, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.  None of these events are described consistently, and this fact definitively reveals the Bible’s lack of authenticity.  It also strongly hints that none of the accounts of these events is accurate- that they were all simply made up.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

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


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

2. Was it still dark out?	Yes-John 20:1	No-Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

These all deal with the resurrection.
The verses given after the question each answer either yes or no, contradicting each other.
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


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

HF, if you want me to believe that scripture is error free and non contradicting then you have a great deal of work cut out for you.
If you then want to show me how any of these disciple stories are accurate, based off of scripture let alone anywhere outside of scripture, you will be the first to do so. 
Most of the NT  is fabricated and so is the stories of apostles dying as martyrs.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Many still remember what happened with the Branch Davidians and Waco, Texas in 1993. The Branch Davidian cult failed to surrender their compound (however you want to say it) and 80 members died including the group’s “messiah” David Koresh (formally Vernon Wayne Howell).

For more on how Koresh became what he was if you aren’t familiar:

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

What most people aren’t aware of, or need to consider is the following:

- The Branch Davidian cult is still going strong, breeding children and indoctrinating them to the Branch Davidian faith

- Many surviving members consider Koresh their version of Jesus even though they believe in the bible just like other Christians do

- The Branch Davidians believe Koresh will someday be resurrected ( just like Jesus) and so will members killed in the fire

More on that here:

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/natio...d-koresh-resurrection-article-1.1734205#bmb=1

Christians need to realize that the Branch Davidian cult is just another demonstration about how fast a cult can grow and how firmly those members can believe something and make their children believe something unquestionably.

People need to understand that all religions, like Christianity, started out as nonsensical cults, that simply grew into a religion.

https://hateandanger.files.wordpres...and-a-religion-is-the-number-of-followers.jpg

Most of the reasons that Christians know the Branch Davidian belief to be false are generally the same reasons non-believers have for not believing in Christianity and knowing Christianity to be false


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## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

bullethead said:


> David Koresh  must have been Jesus by your  criteria.



Those people didn't die for something they were positive wasn't true. 

Jesus promised to die and come back to life before the apostles went out.  If he was still in the tomb the apostles did die for something they were positive was a lie.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 2, 2016)

Your Google powers are strong young Jedi.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> Those people didn't die for something they were positive wasn't true.
> 
> Jesus promised to die and come back to life before the apostles went out.  If he was still in the tomb the apostles did die for something they were positive was a lie.


Unless he wasn't in the tomb and they thought he came back to life, then 40-70 years later the resurrection stories were embellished.
Easily, the authorities could have had him removed from the tomb and placed elsewhere.
The stories of who was at the tomb, who saw jesus, who guarded the tomb are all over the place in details.
I personally think the disciples continued Jesus preaching to honor him and the resurrection story was added later.

If Jesus could go through locked doors why did he have to roll away a stone to exit the tomb?

Depending on which gospel you read Jesus was in the tomb anywhere from one day to three days. Which wouldn't jive with his promise.

The crucifixion story doesn't follow Jewish tradition.

Your whole belief system is based on inaccurate writings.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> Your Google powers are strong young Jedi.



My Google powers are outstanding.
I have no problem using accurate information that is worded better than I can word it.

The problem is not with my Google powers but  with having them refuted with hard facts and not twisted excuses that overlook the blatant errors, contradictions, mistakes, forgeries and lack of local knowledge found all throughout scripture.


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## bullethead (Jun 2, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> Those people didn't die for something they were positive wasn't true.
> 
> Jesus promised to die and come back to life before the apostles went out.  If he was still in the tomb the apostles did die for something they were positive was a lie.


Why are there still branch Davidians not only following but furthering the religion?
They certainly must know it was a lie, unless Koresh WAS telling them the truth?


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## gemcgrew (Jun 2, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> What have you found are some psychological and emotional benefits of viewing yourself as filthy rags; wretched and deserving of He11?


I have found those types of human benefits to be mostly insignificant.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 3, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Why are there still branch Davidians not only following but furthering the religion?
> They certainly must know it was a lie, unless Koresh WAS telling them the truth?



The Davidians existed long before Koresh arrived on scene. I don't know. But I have to assume that those who remain either never believed in him in the first place or now believe he was a false prophet like the rest of the world. He took the compound by force in the first place. I'm sure there were followers of the cult that were in for decades before he came and they continue on. Koresh wasn't the founder of the cult. He was not and is not what the cult was grounded in. 

But none of that is the case with Jesus. I think it's time to abandon the Waco analogy. It doesn't work.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 3, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Unless he wasn't in the tomb and they thought he came back to life, then 40-70 years later the resurrection stories were embellished.
> Easily, the authorities could have had him removed from the tomb and placed elsewhere.
> The stories of who was at the tomb, who saw jesus, who guarded the tomb are all over the place in details.
> I personally think the disciples continued Jesus preaching to honor him and the resurrection story was added later.
> ...



So somebody stole the body from a guarded tomb before they could steal it?  Who would further his case for ressurection other than his followers?  The authorities wouldn't have moved him. Why would they put a guard there if they had. They would want him to stay right where he was. In any case they didn't care WHAT happened to the body. They gave it to a stranger. They were in no way concerned with whether he might rise. They were concerned that he be moved by his followers...thus the guard. 

The apostles furthered his cause not because he came back to life but because they thought he was a good guy?  Are you kidding?

You are aware of how entirely foundational the ressurection is to the redemption narrative right?  If he didn't come back, then his entire credibility would have been shot with them and every other Christian who has ever lived. They wouldn't have furthered his message knowing that the most important thing he said he was going to do never happened.


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## WaltL1 (Jun 3, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> The Davidians existed long before Koresh arrived on scene. I don't know. But I have to assume that those who remain either never believed in him in the first place or now believe he was a false prophet like the rest of the world. He took the compound by force in the first place. I'm sure there were followers of the cult that were in for decades before he came and they continue on. Koresh wasn't the founder of the cult. He was not and is not what the cult was grounded in.
> 
> But none of that is the case with Jesus. I think it's time to abandon the Waco analogy. It doesn't work.


None of this was the case with Jesus?
Everybody agreed he was the son of God/God?
Or those that didn't agree were silenced, their writings destroyed ...
Let's not pretend there wasn't only one story/point of view that was allowed to exist.


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## 660griz (Jun 3, 2016)

I have a serious question.
If suicide is not a direct line to h3ll, and Heaven is the goal because it is a much better place and God is there, why are Christians still here?
There are other ways you could do "God's work" and speed your journey to Heaven.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> So somebody stole the body from a guarded tomb before they could steal it?  Who would further his case for ressurection other than his followers?  The authorities wouldn't have moved him. Why would they put a guard there if they had. They would want him to stay right where he was. In any case they didn't care WHAT happened to the body. They gave it to a stranger. They were in no way concerned with whether he might rise. They were concerned that he be moved by his followers...thus the guard.
> 
> The apostles furthered his cause not because he came back to life but because they thought he was a good guy?  Are you kidding?
> 
> You are aware of how entirely foundational the ressurection is to the redemption narrative right?  If he didn't come back, then his entire credibility would have been shot with them and every other Christian who has ever lived. They wouldn't have furthered his message knowing that the most important thing he said he was going to do never happened.


The resurrection story was added after the fact. No apostles saw it or expected it.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> So somebody stole the body from a guarded tomb before they could steal it?  Who would further his case for ressurection other than his followers?  The authorities wouldn't have moved him. Why would they put a guard there if they had. They would want him to stay right where he was. In any case they didn't care WHAT happened to the body. They gave it to a stranger. They were in no way concerned with whether he might rise. They were concerned that he be moved by his followers...thus the guard.
> 
> The apostles furthered his cause not because he came back to life but because they thought he was a good guy?  Are you kidding?
> 
> You are aware of how entirely foundational the ressurection is to the redemption narrative right?  If he didn't come back, then his entire credibility would have been shot with them and every other Christian who has ever lived. They wouldn't have furthered his message knowing that the most important thing he said he was going to do never happened.


Here is your problem. You are using scripture as fact. It is not.
The trial did not happen as it is penned.
It would not happened during passover.
No way does Roman law allow the people to pick  and choose who they want to be killed and who they want set free.
The Romans did not put a guard at the tomb. 
They didn't put two guards at tombs.
Romans put 10-12 men details when they guarded places.
Roman guards do not fall asleep while on duty. The punishment is death.
Roman guards do not report to Jewish priests.

I can go on and on and on about specific details that the writers of the gospels were blatantly ignorant on. They did not know the law, the customs, or the practices of the Jews and romans.
Don't take my word for it, please do yourself a favor and research what I've mentioned above. I can't make you do it, but you are arguing points that are historically incorrect and just flat out would not take place as written in scripture. Your arguments are false from the start and the more you try to connect the dots the farther from the truth you get.

Read the gospels. You tell me which ones talk about the resurrection.  You tell me just who witnessed what. Break them down on the details regarding the trial, the crucifixion, the tomb and the resurrection. They do not agree with each other let alone agree with what really happens.

Research what happens during crucifixions 2000 years ago and what happens to the cruxified. (What Jesus was accused of and tried for was not punishable by death, don't let that get in the way)
Odds are more likely that they left Jesus body on the wood to be eaten by buzzards and scavengers and then threw it in a dump.

For your own sake research what I am telling you.
Your entire argument above is fictional based off of fiction.  You are arguing points that are the equivalent of arguing how Wile E Coyote survives the mishaps of his failed Acme booby-traps.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

More from kyroot.com 
 The Romans were ruthless in their execution process, first of all making sure the condemned person was actually dead. If we are to believe the gospels, this strategy was not followed in Jesus’s case. Normally, people remained pinned to their crosses for many days, remained there long after death, and were attacked by birds of prey. This was done to create a visceral reaction in the local population to dissuade them from doing actions similar to the condemned.  In Jesus’s case, his body was allegedly and inexplicably allowed to be removed after only a few hours on the cross.

According to the scriptures, Jesus emerged from his tomb after a day and a half and began to walk around and converse with his disciples and, according to Paul, even appear before 500 people. Now, to be sure, the Romans would have known that this was happening and Jesus would still have been under a death warrant, meaning that he would be susceptible to recapture and being sent back to the cross.  However, the scriptures make it appear that Jesus is not concerned whatsoever about this fact, and has no qualms about circulating around and being seen by hundreds of people, some of whom undoubtedly would have been Romans or Roman sympathizers.

There is no reference to the Romans mounting a man hunt to recapture Jesus, or to the Jews who were supposedly instrumental in condemning him to death.  To be sure, if he actually rose from the dead, it might have converted some of the members of the Sanhedrin who had prosecuted him, but the unusually early dismantlement from the cross would have made it much more believable that he had swooned, not died, and then recuperated.

This is a conflict in the Biblical story, suggesting that the resurrection, as a true physical event, did not occur.  Otherwise, Jesus would have been secreted away and remained out of sight of all but his closest disciples, and certainly would not have appeared to over 500 people without any reference to still being under a death sentence.   The lack of any discussion of a Roman response to Jesus remaining alive is a red herring in the description of these events


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(362) The spread of early Christianity was very slow and was on life support as late as the 4th Century

Christians and the Bible itself present the idea that Christianity spread rapidly after the death of Jesus, easily displacing the predominant pagan religion, Mithraism, in the wake of its advance. This patently untrue.  The following is taken from:

Historians have estimated that by the year 200, less than one percent of the population of the central provinces of the Roman Empire were Christians.  And these were almost all confined to dwellers in the cities and town. The rural folk held so strongly to their old beliefs that the Latin term for peasants, pagani, became for Christians the generic term for adherents of the old religions.

When Christianity came under imperial favor under Constantine in the early fourth century, the Christians amounted to no more than five to ten percent of the population of the Roman Empire. Even after the conversion of Constantine the growth of the religion was by no means rapid. In Antioch, certainly one of the most important and oldest centers of Christianity, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius (emperor from 379-395), Christians made up no more than twenty percent of the population which numbered about half a million.  These considerations show that Christianity did not spread like wildfire with its self-evident truths compelling people to immediately embrace the religion.

In fact, it is a historical fact that by the beginning of the fourth century the Christian church was already on its death throes; partly due to the persecution by the Emperor Diocletian (245-313) and due to the intense competition for converts by the rival religion, Mithraism.

If there is one historical figure who contributed more than anybody else to the actual growth of Christianity it was, not Jesus, not Paul, but the Roman Emperor Constantine (c274-337). Had Christianity not found favor with Constantine, and his successors, who eventually suppressed Mithraism, this ancient Persian Sun-cult could well had become the predominant religion in Europe.

This is an important consideration because if Christianity was the one true divinely-inspired faith, it would be expected to sweep over the world like a firestorm.  Instead, it languished for 300 years before it was saved for posterity, not for any theological reason, but rather a political one.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(262) Three hours of darkness that nobody noticed

In Luke 23:44-45, the author describes an event that happened at the hour Jesus died on the cross:

And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

Some scientifically-minded people might think that this would have been the result of a solar eclipse.  Astronomers have ruled out the occurrence of such an eclipse in this area at anywhere near to the time associated with Jesus’s death- around 30 AD+/-.  Also, since according to the Bible the crucifixion was staged during the Passover, this would correspond to a time when the moon was full. A solar eclipse can only happen during a new moon, where the moon is not visible from the earth.

Additionally, no historian or scientist living in the area of Jerusalem or anywhere else on Earth recorded a period of unexpected darkness corresponding to this time in history.  What this means is that we have irrefutable evidence that the author of Luke made up a story to add artificial significance to Jesus’s death.  This is but another example for why the gospels cannot be taken as factual historical accounts.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(834) Time from resurrection to ascension

In the Books of Mark and Luke, Jesus appears to two disciples in the countryside, then returns to Jerusalem to confront all of the remaining eleven disciples (Judas was dead by this time). Immediately after this, Jesus ascended into heaven. By these accounts, Jesus ascended into heaven on the very evening of the morning that he rose from the dead.

The book of Matthew does not mention the ascension. The Book of John states that there were many appearances of Jesus after the resurrection, and that at least one week passed between two of them, as can be seen in John 20:24-27:

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus ), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Further, in the Book of Acts, we read this verse (1:3):

After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

The discrepancies in these accounts are unmistakable. It is informative to note that in the first accounts written (Mark and Luke), Jesus leaves very quickly, but then as the later accounts are written (John and Acts), the time span increases dramatically. This is quintessential evidence of an evolving myth.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(1073) Why was the tomb open?

In all of the gospel accounts, the women who visited Jesus’s tomb found that the stone covering the entrance had been rolled back, meaning that the tomb was open.  But why would the tomb need to be open if Jesus was capable of walking through solid objects.  That ability was demonstrated in John 20:19-20:

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

On the other hand, if the body had been stolen, then it would be expected that the stone would have been rolled back as it was found to be.  In other words, the gospel authors made a mistake.  If they had described the tomb as still being closed and sealed with a Roman guard present (as described in Matthew), but with Jesus out and walking about, it would have nullified the rumor of someone stealing the body.  Thus, the most likely explanation for the early belief in the resurrection, that the body was stolen, remains consistent with the gospel accounts.

Christians will complain that leaving the tomb closed in the narrative would have generated a rumor that Jesus’s body was still interred within and that the  resurrected ‘Jesus’ was an impostor. However, the gospel authors could have solved that problem by having the guards open the tomb, in response to rumors that Jesus has risen, and finding it empty. In other words, the sequence of tomb closed, Jesus appears, tomb is opened, tomb is found to be empty would have satisfactorily addressed the stolen body rumors.

As is, the Christian theory is that Jesus woke up, walked to the entrance of the tomb, broke the seal, and physically rolled back the stone.  By contrast, when he visited the disciples huddled together, he didn’t bother to open the locked door.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(569) Paul’s lie about 500 resurrection witnesses

In 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8, we read:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Here, Paul is claiming that at some time after Jesus rose from the dead and before he ascended into Heaven, he appeared before a crowd of more than 500 men and women.  He does not state where this happened or who was in the audience, but he does assert that some of these people remained alive at the time he was writing the letter, about 25 years after the alleged event.  Because Corinth lies about 800 kilometers from where this event supposedly occurred, it would have been difficult for anyone living in Corinth to investigate the claim.

What we do know is that none of the gospels, all written after Paul wrote this letter, discuss Jesus appearing before a large crowd after the resurrection. This is curious, because this would have been the most impressive evidence for the resurrection, the one event that would have been able to convince skeptical potential converts.

Also, none of the other Biblical epistle writers mention anything about it, even those alleged to have been written by the apostles. Add to that, no historians living in the time and region mention it. And none of eyewitnesses, 500 strong, wrote anything about it, at least anything that has survived for posterity.

Christians often use this verse to support their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, claiming that 500 people could not have been hallucinating the same image at the same time. This is true, but what is also true is that if this event had actually happened, it would have jump started Christianity in ways that were not observed in the First Century, and it would have convinced the Jews living in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas that Jesus was the true Messiah.   This is because the eyewitness testimony would have spread virally across the land.  As a result, It is likely that there would not be the division we see today between Judaism and Christianity.

But this didn’t happen, and further, there is no supporting documents to back up this claim.  It is clearly something Paul made up to impress likely converts to the faith.  It raises a question of Paul’s integrity and causes an objective person to question everything else that he wrote.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(1095) Passover events not claimed by other faiths

The gospels state that several miraculous events occurred at the time surrounding Jesus’s death on the cross, including:

an earthquake at the time of death
three hours of mid-day darkness
temple veil torn in half
dead people rising from their graves and greeting bystanders
a second earthquake on Easter morning
These are spectacular happenings occurring around a popular holiday weekend with a city overrun by large crowds. They should have been noticed by all of the faith groups in the area, including the Roman pagan religions, the Essenes, the Jews, and others.  If they had actually happened, these other religious groups would certainly have interpreted them within their own theological framework, and we would have evidence of this today.  However, only Christianity claims these events as being omens specific to their faith. This is strong evidence that these events are fictional.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(31) Passover Prisoner Release

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 (Jun 3, 2016)

(118) Extant New Testament manuscripts are not even close to being originals

The oldest existing New Testament manuscripts are all copies of copies and certainly contain many errors, omissions, and deliberate edits.  The following is from:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/symes02.htm

The original Greek manuscripts of the books of the New Testament have not survived. What are extant are hand written copies of copies of copies – over 5,600 fragments or complete copies in the original Greek, with 94 per cent dating from the 9th century. The earliest is a tiny fragment from the Gospel of John dated to the first half of the 2nd century. The earliest complete copy of the Gospel of Mark (which was written about the year 70) dates from the 4th century. Our earliest copies of Paul’s writings come about 150 years after he wrote them. Mistakes and intentional alterations in the copying process resulted in thousands of variations in these texts until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. The differences were mostly spelling and grammatical errors, but also there were some deliberate omissions, insertions and mistranslations in the New Testament. There are some significant differences and contradictions in the biblical texts that have a bearing on historical accuracy and Christian theology.

The earliest surviving version of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus (circa 300 CE), contains the book the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas that had been read in churches for years. They were eventually expunged from the canonical New Testament for not reflecting orthodox thinking. There are other books that are actually referenced by New Testament writers that are missing from the canon. For example, Paul urges believers to read his letter to the Laodiceans (see Colossians 4:16). It is disputed as to whether the surviving Latin copy, originally in some Bibles, is genuine. Also, the writer of Jude references the Jewish apocryphal book of Enoch as though it was authoritative (Jude 14-15). It is ironic that Jude is accepted into the Biblical Canon, but the book he quotes from is not. The early New Testament was a fluid entity for many decades and determining what was really the Word of God was controversial. Ultimately, men who did not personally know the authors of the scriptures made the decisions.

Very few Christians realize how much time separates the existing manuscripts from the originals.  For a god to be establishing a new religion, this is an abysmal way to have done it.  Even if the original writers wrote precisely what God wanted them to, we don’t have a reliable access to those divinely inspired words.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(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.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(212) The missing empty tomb

If the resurrection of Jesus had occurred as claimed, the tomb from which Jesus arose from the dead would have become an instant holy site, revered, protected, and advertised to others by the early Christians. It would have been written about by Paul, Josephus, and other scribes and historians, and become a place of worship by holy travelers.  It would still be available today for Christian pilgrims.

In fact, there is no tomb that fits this description.  The two ones visited by contemporary pilgrims are just for fun.  The lack of a specific tomb safeguarded and revered over the centuries is evidence that Jesus did not rise from the dead.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(131) The Gospel of Matthew and the Rosetta Stone of the resurrection

If we make two assumptions that all Christians will agree to, that Jesus was a real and unique person, and that his resurrection was based on some sort of physical evidence- not just the consequence of dreams or visionary experiences, or an author’s forgery, then the Gospel of Matthew provides good evidence for what really happened.

First consider Matthew 27:62-66:

Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ “Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.”

This story is almost assuredly fictional because it would have required the chief priests and the Pharisees to meet with Pilate on the Sabbath.  It is historically implausible that Pilate would have agreed to guard a tomb of a crucified man based on the religious sensibilities of the Jews.  Also, it is nearly certain that guarding of the tomb could have been accomplished by the concerned Jews themselves, which is likely how Pilate would have responded to this request.  After all, the Jews would have wanted to know for themselves if a resurrection actually occurred.  Also, this story is not in the Gospel of Mark, a book written about a decade earlier, an omission that would be unlikely given that it provides evidence for the truth of the resurrection and would have been a story that would have circulated virally among all of the Christians. It also does not appear in Luke or John.

Now consider Matthew 28:11-15:

Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’“And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.

Here, the story gets weirder.  Before the above, Matthew asserts that a large earthquake occurred (not mentioned in any other gospel) an angel rolled back the stone, and Jesus appeared (like lightning), leaving the Roman guards frightened (and they became like ‘dead men’).  So, starting with the scriptures above, we have the frightened guards returning to the city, having just experienced a remarkable supernatural event.  But somehow they were able to be bribed with money to concoct a story that the disciples stole the body while they slept.  Admitting that they slept while on guard duty would have been a dereliction of duty punishable under Roman Law by severe flogging or even possibly death.  And despite what they saw, which would have confirmed Jesus’s supernatural status, they evidently continued to follow the Roman deities.

It is clear that the author of Matthew went to great pains to concoct a story to rebut a rumor or else perhaps the conventional wisdom of the Jews that Jesus did not rise from the dead, but that the empty tomb was a consequence of his body being moved by someone- perhaps a disciple or perhaps someone else who wanted to create a tableau to make some sense of Jesus’s crucifixion and give hope to his aggrieved followers.   It is ironic that this clearly made-up story gives a major clue as to what most likely actually happened.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

It is almost unanimously agreed among biblical scholars that the same person wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.  Luke was written about 20 or more years before Acts, but nevertheless it was the same person who wrote it, or so it seems.  But assuming this to be true, there is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled by any Christian apologist- in Luke, Jesus ascends to Heaven on the same day as the resurrection, but in Acts he stays around for 40 days.

The following is taken from:

https://thechurchoftruth.org/the-bible-is-wrong-about-jesus-ascension/

Luke, who is the alleged author of the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts, can’t get his act together. In the gospel under his name, Luke, he writes that Jesus ascended on the first day (see top of page). In the Book of Acts, which all agree was written by Luke, he says he was seen forty days and then ascended. How can this be possible? Two different stories from the same author whose writings were subjected to edit by the Editor-of-editors, the Holy Spirit? How could the Holy Spirit allow such a monumental error slip through into the inviolate Holy Bible? Anyone? Anyone?

In Luke, Chapter 24, the story is told of the empty tomb, the two disciples who were joined by Jesus later that afternoon on the road to Emmaus, then how he appeared before all of the disciples later that evening when the two had returned, and then an immediate ascension into the heavens.  All of this action clearly takes place in a single day.

In Acts 1:3, a very different story is told:

After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

It should be clear that if Jesus actually remained with the disciples for 40 days after his resurrection that there would have been much written in the gospels about that fact and the many teachings and instructions that would have been imparted.  It likely would have taken up the bulk of the gospel text. That the same author could contradict his previous writings so blatantly is almost unbelievable.

The only out for an apologist would be to say that Luke was unaware of Jesus’s long stay until after he wrote his gospel, but became aware of it later and, thus, corrected his previous account. But this concession explodes the myth that the Holy Spirit was inspiring him while writing his gospel.  He would have made a human mistake based on receiving inaccurate information, meaning his gospel was simply a human-generated product.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(865) Problems with the story of Judas

Judas, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, supposedly betrayed Jesus to the Roman authorities, later felt remorse, and killed himself. But when you delve into the scriptures, some crucial inconsistencies emerge.  The following is taken from:

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

a. In Matthew 27:5 Judas hangs himself.

b. In Acts 1:18 he bursts open and his insides spill out.

c. According to the apostle Paul, neither of the above is true. Paul says Jesus appeared to “the twelve” after his resurrection. Mark 14:20 makes it clear that Judas was one of the twelve.

d. In Matthew 19:28, Jesus tells the twelve disciples, including Judas, that when Jesus rules from his throne, they will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

The problem with ‘a’ and ‘b’ is not trivial, despite many Christians who say it it.  The two causes of death are mutually exclusive and subject only to desperate attempts of rationalization.  Either Mark or Acts is correct, or neither one is, but both are not.

The problem with ‘c’ is that it indicates that Paul was uninformed about Judas’s betrayal and death.  Here is what he said in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.

This appearance was well before the apostles selected Matthias to replace Judas, so Paul should have written the Eleven.

The problem with ‘d’ is that it appears to show Jesus unaware that Judas will eventually betray him, although later he makes that very prediction.

Matthew 19:28:

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

It is reasonable to expect that a book inspired by the supernatural Holy Spirit would get straight the stories surrounding Judas.  On the other hand, an evolving myth would be expected to create these types of discrepancies.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(1126) John deletes nonsensical aspects of Jesus’s death

In the first three gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, there are a number of extraordinary phenomena that accompany the death of Jesus on the cross:

three hours of darkness (Mark, Matthew, Luke)
temple curtain torn in two (Mark, Matthew, Luke)
sun stopped shining (Luke)
earthquake (Matthew)
tombs opened, dead people rose and walked into the city (Matthew)
None of these miraculous events were included in John’s gospel which was written at least one decade after the other three.  It is certain that the author of John was aware of the contents of the other three gospels.  So why did he decide to eliminate all of the supernatural aspects of Jesus’s death? If he believed that these things had happened, it is certain that he would have included them in his narrative.  The fact that he didn’t indicates that he considered them to be fictional.  Any objective person today would agree.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(976) Jesus was charged with sedition, not blasphemy

The gospels all report that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate for the crime of blasphemy against God by proclaiming himself to be the son of God, or co-equal to God.  But the penalty for this crime would have been stoning, not crucifixion (which the Romans reserved for the crime of sedition). The following is taken from:

http://classroom.synonym.com/list-things-jesus-accused-6344.html

The Bible claims that Jesus was first arrested by Jewish leaders after protesting the excess he observed on display in the Jewish temple during Jerusalem’s Passover. Matthew, Mark and Luke report that he was first tried before a Jewish Sanhedrin court in Judea. They agree he was charged with blasphemy, convicted and turned over to local Roman prefect Pontius Pilate for a subsequent Roman trial. Though the charge was related to Jesus’s behavior in the temple, scholars cannot verify how his actions constituted blasphemy under Jewish law — or even that the Sanhedrin trial really happened.

After the Sanhedrin trial, Jesus was tried before prefect Pontius Pilate. It is unclear what the charges against him may have been under Roman law. Still, scholars know that Jesus was executed for crimes against Rome, not God, because of the manner of his crucifixion on a cross. Crimes against Judaism would have been punished by stoning. Whatever the charges, it is established that they were serious since Rome reserved crucifixion for what it regarded as the worst criminals.

One possibility is that Jesus was a Jewish nationalist who was linked to violent political uprising against the Roman occupation led by the nationalist Zealot movement. The sign placed on his cross, which read “King of the Jews,” may support this interpretation. If Jesus were linked to violent insurrection, this would have resulted in charges of sedition and punishment by crucifixion. This perspective was advanced by Jesus’ brother James after his death.

More commentary from this site:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/son.html

It even becomes an open question whether the Sanhedrin had any role in the trial and death of Jesus, simply because of the manner of execution. He was crucified, a Roman penalty inflicted on pirates, seditionists, and runaway slaves. A.N. Sherwin-White, though not an accomplished judge in the State of New York, was an authority on Roman law, and he argued in Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament that the Sanhedrin would have needed Pilate’s permission for Jesus to be executed, as the gospels say. Other scholars dispute Sherwin-White’s opinion. I am by no means in a position to take sides on the matter. But even if Sherwin-White is correct, the real difficulty remains unresolved: if Jesus were to be executed for blasphemy, why did Annas and Caiaphas not simply seek Pilate’s permission to have Jesus stoned to death, since stoning was the required penalty? That they did not raises the real possibility that the grounds for the execution were entirely different, perhaps political, as many scholars have held.

Therefore, there is a disconnect between the portrayal of the trial of Jesus and the manner in which he was executed.  The simplest explanation is that the Jewish trial was a concocted story and that Jesus was arrested by the Romans and tried for sedition based on his intent to overthrow Roman authority and become the king of Judea. This, of course, assumes that the entire story of Jesus is not made up.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(521) Jesus tomb burial anachronism

The gospels state that the stone used to block the burial crypt of Jesus was rolled away, for example in Matthew 17: 59-60:

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away.

The same is stated in Mark and Luke.  The problem with this is that spherical stones were not used for sealing tombs at the time of Jesus’s death. Instead, only square blocking stones were used. it was only after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD that round stones began to be used.  This corresponds to the time that the gospel authors were writing the books that were later included in the New Testament.  Therefore, it appears that they mistakenly used a currently common practice to describe the events that took place 40+ years earlier. This is evidence of fictional writing.

The following is taken from:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/improbabilities.html

There is another reason to doubt the tomb burial that has come to my attention since I first wrote this review: the tomb blocking stone is treated as round in the Gospels, but that would not have been the case in the time of Jesus, yet it was often the case after 70 C.E., just when the gospels were being written. Amos Kloner, in “Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus’ Tomb?” (Biblical Archaeology Review 25:5, Sep/Oct 1999, pp. 23-29, 76), discusses the archaeological evidence of Jewish tomb burial practices in antiquity. He observes that “more than 98 percent of the Jewish tombs from this period, called the Second Temple period (c. first century B.C.E. to 70 C.E.), were closed with square blocking stones” (p. 23), and only four round stones are known prior to the Jewish War, all of them blocking entrances to elaborate tomb complexes of the extremely rich (such as the tomb complex of Herod the Great and his ancestors and descendants). However, “the Second Temple period…ended with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. In later periods the situation changed, and round blocking stones became much more common” (p. 25).

Why is this significant? Three of the four Gospels repeatedly and consistently use the word “roll” to describe the moving of the tomb’s blocking stone (“rolled to”proskulisaV, Matthew 27:60; “rolled away” apekulisen, Matthew 28:2; “rolled to”prosekulisen, Mark 15:46; “roll away” apokulisei Mark 16:3; “rolled away”apokekulistai Mark 16:4; “rolled away” apokekulismenon Luke 24:2). The verb in every case here is a form of kuliein, which always means to roll: kuliein is the root of kulindros, i.e. cylinder (in antiquity a “rolling stone” or a even child’s marble). For example, the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9:20 “rolls around” on the ground (ekulieto, middle form meaning “roll oneself,” hence “wallow”). These are the only uses of any form of this verb in the New Testament.

This provides evidence that the author of Mark did not have documents written before 70 AD at his disposal when writing his gospel, lessening the likelihood that his account represents an accurate history.  Luke and Matthew copied his error.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(738) An improbable visit to the tomb

In Mark and Luke, it is stated that, after the Sabbath (Saturday), the women walked to Jesus’s tomb with spices in an effort to anoint the body.

Mark 16:1

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.

Luke 24:1

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

There is a major problem with this story.  The body had already been treated with spices and wrapped in a linen cloth.  There was no need or tradition for a deceased body to be unwrapped, re-treated with spices, and then re-wrapped.  The following is taken from:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/improbabilities.html

Concerning the statement that the women “brought spices” on Sunday morning after observing the burial by Joseph of Arimathea, Hendrickx states that, “the embalming of a body was apparently not in accordance with contemporary custom, since there is not a single example available.” If what the women were understood to be doing was not embalming, what was it? There was no such thing as a second anointing. The body was washed and anointed before the body was placed in the tomb or grave. Not only is this Jewish custom for burial, but it is also common sense that a body would be cleansed of sweat or blood before being wrapped in the cloth (usually white). Again, there is no example available for people going to a corpse after it was buried, removing the shroud, and anointing the corpse for a second time (since it would have been already washed/anointed before). This would make absolutely no sense; it would not occur to anyone, especially not in a Jewish culture, to anoint the body after it had been buried properly (and Craig does agree that there is no indication of improper burial). Craig states in his essay, “what the women were probably doing is precisely that described in the Mishnah, namely the use of aromatic oils and perfumes that could be rubbed on or simply poured over the body.” However, this obscures the fact that this was done prior to burial. Hans van Campenhausen writes, “The desire to anoint, ‘on the third day’, a dead body already buried and wrapped in linen cloths, is, however it be explained, not in accordance with any custom known to us…” It comes as little surprise then that Matthew and John, who are usually thought to have more knowledge of things Jewish, do not state that the women came to anoint the body on Sunday morning.

It is evident that Mark and Luke did not understand Jewish burial customs and made an error in the story they made up about Jesus’s resurrection.  This is another reason that the gospels cannot be relied upon for historical accuracy.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

There are three accounts of Jesus’s ascension into heaven:

Luke 24:50-51

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

Mark 16:19

So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

Acts 1:10-12

And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.



The three accounts contradict- in Luke and Acts he ascends from the outdoors, but in different locations, and in Mark from inside a room. But what is more dubious and implausible is the manner in which it happened.  Supposedly, Jesus resurrected in his flesh and blood body- he even ate something to prove he wasn’t a ghost.  So the scene is set.  Jesus is talking to his disciples and then suddenly, apparently without warning, he either begins to disintegrate (Star Trek style) or he begins to float into the air gaining elevation until he is out of sight.  It seems that his body would have to change from material to spirit at some time during the ascent, but then you must ask where did he go?  Did he suddenly lose the property of being in a specific location and dissolve into the entire universe- something that would be necessary to hear and answer prayers worldwide?

The stories of Jesus’s ascension are strong markers for what  appears to be an unmitigated exercise of mythmaking.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(1128) Implausibility of the guards’ report

In the Gospel of Matthew (and no other gospel), it is stated that a Roman guard was assigned to the tomb of Jesus, supposedly so that the body could not be stolen so as to create the illusion of a resurrection. Then, the following is alleged:

Matthew 28:2-4

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.  The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

Then, later on, the following describes what happened with the guard:

Matthew 28:11-15

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Other than the fact that sleeping on duty would be punishable by death, the instruction given to the guards is nonsensical.  How could the guards know that the disciples stole the body if they were asleep at the time? Also, if the guards witnessed a miraculous resurrection, that would mean that Jesus was actually up and about again, so how could the chief priests believe that bribing the guards in this manner would succeed- given the strong possibility that Jesus himself would soon appear to the very people they wanted to convince that Jesus was still dead? And instead of dealing with this ridiculous bribe, the chief priests would be more focused on re-arresting Jesus, who now would be a much bigger problem for them than before.  The author of Matthew did not know how to make fiction plausible.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(202) How belief in the resurrection originated

Almost everyone from the staunchest atheist to the evangelical Christian can agree that at some point during the 1st Century there was a group of people who came to believe that a man named Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified.  After that, there exists a widespread disagreement of how this belief came about.

There are many possibilities and it is an academic issue to assign a probability to each one.  The author attempted that effort below.  Here are the ways a resurrection belief could have originated:

Scenario 1: The entire story might have started with a single person writing a fictional story that later came to be believed as fact. This person could have simply made up a person named Jesus or else concocted a resurrection story about a real person named Jesus. Either way, the story could have spread virally and become a popular culture item that spawned additional writings from the gospel writers and Paul, the apostle, that could have fleshed out the story and added details that included fictional history about Jesus’s followers and the acts of the apostles.

Scenario 2: Jesus was nailed to the cross but taken down before he had died. This is the swoon theory. He lay in the tomb for about 36 hours and then regained consciousness on the morning of the third day. This theory has a few problems. First, it would be obvious to Jesus, who by virtue of this theory was not divine, that he would still be under a death warrant and that he would have to exit Jerusalem to ensure his personal safety. There is also an issue of how this story could have ended. It seems unlikely that if Jesus successfully left the area that he would have been able to cause people to believe that he was resurrected into heaven, unless he left unnoticed leaving only the empty tomb.  Nevertheless it is difficult to believe he would have simply vanished without notice.  If he had resurfaced somewhere and was identified, it would have been difficult to hide the humble details of his subsequent real death.

Scenario 3: After Jesus was crucified, the disciples and other followers of Jesus were severely dispirited and depressed. To assuage this situation, somebody (perhaps only a single person) who was sympathetic to Jesus’s mission broke into the tomb, removed Jesus’s body, and buried it in another location. This person then waited to see what would happen the next morning and perhaps acted as an angel to announce Jesus’s resurrection to the women who came to the tomb. This explanation fits both a plausible scenario and conforms to the scriptural descriptions of the event. Belief in his after-resurrection appearances could have been the result of dreams, hallucinations, or deliberately fabricated stories that later became believed as actual flesh and blood appearances.

Scenario 4:  Jesus was not given a burial at all.  In accordance with the Roman crucifixion tradition at the time, his body was left on the cross for several days and was chewed at by birds of prey as it decayed.  The Romans did this for maximum effect.  His body was then taken down and placed in a mass grave with other victims.  His disciples and other followers had visions and dreams of him, leading them to believe he had risen from the dead.  Some followers even made up stories as a means to give people hope that he had indeed conquered death and that his crucifixion was not the final story.

Scenario 5: Jesus was divine and rose from the dead as claimed by Christians.

As a subjective but learned guess as to which of these scenarios is most likely, considering both the details of each scenario and other facts related to the likelihood of each, here is the author’s assignment of probabilities:

Scenario 1- 9 %

Scenario 2- 1 %

Scenario 3- 60 %

Scenario 4- 30 %

Scenario 5- 0.0001 %


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(161) Historical inaccuracies in the books of Luke and Acts

One of the pillars supporting the authenticity of Christianity is the account in the Book of Acts chronicling the history of the new religion in the first few decades after Jesus’ death.  It is often used by Christian apologists to claim that Jesus must have been the divine figure as claimed because so many of his disciples and followers were willing to accept great danger and martyrdom in the defense of the faith. The author of Acts was also the author of Luke.

Unfortunately, for Christianity, there are several known errors in both of these books that doubt on the historical accuracy of the accounts:

http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/lukehistory.html

According to Luke 1:5, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. Yet the reason given for Joseph and Mary’s presence in Bethlehem was the “worldwide census” ordered by Quirinius (Luke 2:1). The problem is well known to historians. Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, while the census order by Quirinius has been accurately dated to 6 CE, a full ten years after the death of Herod! Attempts by fundamentalists to harmonize these account have met with failure.
  According to Luke 3:2 and Acts 4:6, Annas was the high priest during the ministry of Jesus. Yet we know from Josephus’ Antiquities 18:2:1-2 that Annas (or Ananus) was appointed high priest after the census (6 CE) and was deposed soon after Tiberius became Caesar (c 15 CE). After describing the appointment of three successive high priests in slightly more than two years, Josephus mentioned that Joseph Caiaphas was made high priest (c 18 CE). Caiphas was finally deposed by the proconsul Vitellius (Antiquities 18:4:3) around CE 36. Thus during the entire ministry of Jesus, it was Caiaphas not Annas who was the high priest. This is further corroborated by John 18:13 which states that Caiphas, who was the son-in-law of Annas, was the high priest.
 In Acts 21:38, Luke had the Roman tribune make the remark connecting Paul with an Egyptian who led 4,000 men of the sicarii into the desert. These three elements are historically unrelated as the accounts in Josephus (Antiquities 20:8:5-6,10) and Jewish War 2:13:3-5) make clear.
 In Acts 5:36-37, Luke put into the mouth of Gamaliel a gross anachronism. He had the revolt of Judas the Galilean (datable to 6 CE) after, the revolt by Theudas (which happened around 44-46 CE). Furthermore the speech by Gamaliel is set in the early thirties (between 30-33 CE, since Paul has not yet converted-Acts 8:1). This means that Luke had Gamaliel making a remark about a revolt (by Theudas) that, at that time had yet to occur! There are detailed reasons why it is Luke and not Josephus that made these the errors.
Acts 11:28 mentioned a severe “worldwide famine” during the reign of Claudius. While there was a famine in Judea around 46-48 CE during the reign of Claudius, there was no worldwide famine as such. Furthermore, Acts 11:29-30 mentioned that the congregation in Antioch was able to send aid to help. This would be impossible, for if the famine was “worldwide”, the congregation in Antioch would have been affected as well! Thus in generalizing a local phenomena, Luke had contradicted historical facts.
Luke also concocted an obviously fictional census that required Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem while she was 9 months pregnant with Jesus.  It was not recorded in the Roman records and if true would have been the only census ever conducted by the Romans that required a physical displacement of citizens, a certain way to cause economic chaos.  He made this up so that Jesus could be born in Bethlehem instead of Nazareth to comply with an Old Testament prophecy foretelling the messiah’s birth.

These are most likely not the only errors that were made in the Books of Luke and Acts because many others may be undetectable based on the unavailability of pertinent information.  But what can be gleaned from this situation is that the author was not a factual historian and was apt to make either deliberate of inadvertent mistakes in his accounts.  What this means is the stories presented in the Book of Acts cannot be seen as being reliable historical events.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(193) Contemporary historians fail to document the resurrection

There were two accomplished historians who documented detailed accounts of notable figures in and around Jerusalem during the times of Jesus’s ministry and his crucifixion and alleged resurrection. They were Justus of Tiberias and Philo of Alexandria.  Neither of these historians mentioned anything about Jesus, let alone what would have been a remarkable story surrounding his resurrection.

There is good evidence that Philo of Alexandria was in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’s entry into that city.  Based on the gospel accounts, Jesus was a major newsmaker during his brief visit there, and the events surrounding his actions, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection would have been quite newsworthy.   The lack of mention in his accounts of any mention of Jesus is significant evidence that the gospel stories are either untrue or considerably exaggerated.

http://new.exchristian.net/2015/01/an-unbiased-examination-of-resurrection_10.html

It might also be the case that Jesus’s experience in Jerusalem was somewhat mundane, and that it was fairly routine for the Romans to crucify itinerant preachers who approached the city with their messages that stimulated the Roman policy to eliminate any threats to their occupation of the territory.  In that case, the lack of mention of Jesus and his crucifixion by these historians might be explainable. However, the resurrection would have been a different matter, and considering that the Gospel claims he appeared before 500 people as a resurrected person, it becomes much harder to explain the silence.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(993) Gospels have no Hebrew or Aramaic sources

The gospels were written in Greek, not the language spoken by Jesus or his followers.  But the gospel authors, realizing this problem, tried to authenticate their accounts by inserting Hebrew or Aramaic references- to disastrous results. The following it taken from:

http://threeskeptics.blogspot.com/2011/05/literary-traditions-ten-reasons-gospels_02.html

Now it is well known that there is no Aramaic or Hebrew source for the synoptic tradition, something which Christians never seem to think twice about, but such a fact should cause us to pause. Without an original source written in the language of Jesus, we have little reason to assume any of the Gospels are authentic sayings. Even so, this has not prevented Christians from attempting to make the Gospels appear “authentic” by rewriting them to contain Hebrew or Aramaic grammar and vocabulary. Randel Helms outlines this showing how certain original Greek phrases in the Gospels were changed to Aramaic to sound more authentic, but then the Aramaic was changed to Hebrew as an apologetics ploy to avoid linguistic confusion which would arise through use of the Aramaic. In fact, this is such an important point in exposing the Gospels as works of fiction that I feel obliged to quote a large section of Randel Helms’ work since he explains things far more judiciously than I could. Again, we come back to the last words of Christ.

Mark presents these words in self-consciously realistic fashion, shifting from his usual Greek into the Aramaic of Jesus, transliterated into Greek letters: Eloi eloi lama sabachthanei (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?—Mark 15:34). Mark gives us no hint that Jesus is “quoting” Psalm 22:1; we are clearly to believe that we are hearing the grieving outcry of a dying man. But the author of Matthew, who used Mark as one of his major written sources, is self-consciously “literary” in both this and yet another way: though using Mark as his major source for the passion story, Matthew is fully aware that Mark’s crucifixion narrative is based largely on the Twenty-second Psalm, fully aware, that is, that Mark’s Gospel is part of a literary tradition (this description would not be Matthew’s vocabulary, but his method is nonetheless literary).

Aware of the tradition, Matthew concerned himself with another kind of “realism” or verisimilitude. When the bystanders heard Jesus crying, according to Mark, to “Eloi,” they assumed that “he is calling Elijah [Eleian]” (Mark 15:35). But Matthew knew that no Aramaic speaker present at the Cross would mistake a cry to God (Eloi) for one to Elijah—the words are too dissimilar. So Matthew self-consciously evoked yet another literary tradition in the service both of verisimilitude and of greater faithfulness to the Scriptures: not the Aramaic of Psalm 22:1 but the Hebrew, which he too transliterated into Greek—Eli Eli(Matt. 27:46)—a cry which could more realistically be confused for “Eleian.”

Matthew self-consciously appeals both to literary tradition—a “purer” text of the Psalms—and to verisimilitude as he reshapes Mark, his literary source. The author of Mark was apparently unaware that his account of the last words was edifying fiction… but Matthew certainly knew that he was creating a linguistic fiction in his case (Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew), though just as clearly he felt justified in doing so, given his conviction that since Psalm 22 had “predicted” events in the crucifixion, it could be appealed to even in the literary sense of one vocabulary rather than another, as a more “valid” description of the Passion.

Continuing on, Helms identifies similar literary emendation in Luke, observing:

Luke is even more self-consciously literary and fictive than Matthew in his crucifixion scene. Though, as I have said, he knew perfectly well what Mark had written as the dying words of Jesus, he created new ones more suitable to his understanding of what the death of Jesus meant—an act with at least two critical implications: First, that he has thus implicitly declared Mark’s account a fiction; second, that he self-consciously presents his own as a fiction.

For like Matthew, Luke in 23:46 deliberately placed his own work in the literary tradition by quoting Psalm 30 (31):5 in the Septuagint as the dying speech of Jesus: “Into your hands I will commit my spirit” (eis cheiras sou parathesomai to pneuma mou), changing the verb from future to present (paratithemai) to suit the circumstances and leaving the rest of the quotation exact. This is self-conscious creation of literary fiction, creation of part of a narrative scene for religious and moral rather than historical purposes.[xvi]

What this analytical approach shows is that the basic grammar and vocabulary of the text has been manipulated in an attempt to try to make it appear historically valid. Yet the leftover discrepancies reveal a rather slapdash approach where one author is attempting to correct the mistakes of a previous author, proving that the Gospels were written, rewritten, and rewritten yet again only to be (in many cases) redacted by later evangelical authors before they were ever considered finalized. As such, we have no reason to believe that they are not literary fabrications.

Christianity would have been far better served if only one gospel had been placed in the Bible while declaring the others to be heretical. Placing all four in the canon results is what we see above- clear signs of manipulation and fabrication, showing that Christianity is built on a very unreliable foundation.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(900) Gospels mostly silent on the ascension of Jesus

The critical elements of Jesus’s life are his birth, his ministry, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and his ascension into heaven.  The final element, his ascension, is strangely and suspiciously downplayed in the gospels.

The Gospel of Mark ends at Mark 16:8, if we discount the forged ending, and says nothing of Jesus after he resurrected. The Gospel of Matthew simply ends without any discussion of how Jesus left the world. The Gospel of John, even considering the forged final Chapter 21, says nothing about Jesus ascending into heaven.  Only in the Gospel of Luke is the ascension mentioned, and it is only a very brief description:

Luke 24:50-53

When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

This is the only gospel account of Jesus ascending to heaven.  The only other Biblical account is in Acts, written by the same author as Luke.

Acts 1:9-11

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

So, in the entire New Testament, only one person, a non-eyewitness, writes anything about how Jesus left the planet.  And he suspiciously adds a new detail the second time he writes about it (the angel’s proclamation).

The important point to take from this is that the historical truth of Jesus’s ascension is highly dubious.  What this indicates is the likelihood that Jesus’s resurrection was seen primarily as a spiritual event, not of flesh and blood, such that the ascension was more or less superfluous.  Otherwise each of the gospels would have described in considerable detail how the physical -bodied Jesus had left them to go to his Father- it would have been a seminal, psychologically important event worthy of a detailed account.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(366) Fictional crucifixion story

In Mark 15:32, there is a quote about people mocking Jesus as he was affixed to the cross:

“Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” Those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him.

Mark, being the oldest of the four gospels was used as source material for Matthew and Luke. In Matthew 27:43-44, we read something very similar:

“HE TRUSTS IN GOD; LET GOD RESCUE Him now, IF HE DELIGHTS IN HIM; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.'” The robbers who had been crucified with Him were also insulting Him with the same words.

Matthew is widely believed to be the second gospel that was written, followed closely by Luke.  But in Luke 23:39-43 , a totally different story is conveyed:

One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!”But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?“And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

It is clear that such an encounter with one of the robbers being crucified alongside Jesus wouldn’t have gone unreported in the earliest gospels or in the Q gospel which provided source material to both Matthew and Luke.  It is definitely a contradiction with the other two gospels and is most certainly fictional, for it exposes a doctrinal problem as well.  If Jesus made this claim to be going to paradise on this very day, it contradicts his claim to be in the belly of the earth for 3 days.  It also contradicts the Christian dogma that Jesus went into CensoredCensoredCensoredCensored to preach to the souls of those who had already died with no access to salvation.

It seems that Luke made up this story (he was also known to make up the story of the census to get Jesus to Bethlehem for his birth) to convey the idea that salvation was available even up the very end of life, no matter how bad a person had been up to that point.  It is another example showing that the gospel authors were not historians, but rather story tellers who used tales to flesh out their concept of theological truths.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

Fatal flaws in the ascension story

If anything in the Christian scriptures needs to be consistent, it is the description of the ascension of Jesus into heaven.  This is a seminal moment in the faith, when Jesus allegedly left the earth and floated up to heaven.  To Christianity’s embarrassment, different books in the Bible place this event in different places.

In Mark 19:20, the ascension occurs in room where the disciples were gathered (relined at table per verse 14):

So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

In Luke 24:50, the ascension occurs outdoors in the town of Bethany, a few miles outside Jerusalem:

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

In Acts 1:10-12, the ascension takes place on the Mount of Olives:

And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.

In Matthew and John, there is no mention at all of the ascension. This is a remarkable omission.  There are four events in Jesus’s life that require a consistent narrative- his birth, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.  None of these events are described consistently, and this fact definitively reveals the Bible’s lack of authenticity.  It also strongly hints that none of the accounts of these events is accurate- that they were all simply made up.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

(939) Did the women tell anyone about the empty tomb?

There is a glaring discrepancy in the gospels concerning the actions of the women who first identify that Jesus’s tomb is empty. It is described at this website:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/ken_daniels/why.html#Location

When viewed from a historical-critical perspective, there are numerous other examples of such apparent alterations in the gospel, reflecting the particular motives of the authors within the context of the early church. This is likely the case in the very next verse:

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid (Mark 16:8).

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples(Matthew 24:8).

It is generally recognized (even by the conservative translators of the New International Version) that the second half of Mark 16 (after verse 8) constitutes a much later scribal addition to the original text. So “They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” is how it all ends according to Mark, who may have been explaining why no one had yet heard of the empty tomb up until the time of Mark’s writing. Notice how Matthew skips on from the word afraid in Mark, fleshing it out into a positive account that is at odds with Mark’s: “afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” Matthew, writing later than Mark, after the story has had more time to spread and progress, turns Mark’s abrupt ending into a full-fledged Resurrection account.

Mark’s abrupt ending at 16:8 and the fact that he says that the women did not tell anyone about the empty tomb is an historically significant flag that there is something strange about the resurrection belief.  Mark wrote the original gospel and it is rather inconceivable that he would have left out any references to Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances or the disciples reaction to the empty tomb.  By saying the women told no one, it leaves open an explanation for what at that time might have been an absence of belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus.

Long before Mark wrote his gospel, Paul had written many letters that seem to point to Jesus’s resurrection as being spiritual in nature, including his appearances afterwards that were in the context of visions.  Putting these two facts together suggests that Jesus did not actually resurrect in his physical body and that the empty tomb was not a part of the doctrine of the earliest Christians (though Mark was then trying to introduce it with a plausible explanation for why it hadn’t become conventional knowledge).

This raises the theory that Jesus’s resurrection was first seen as being just the resurrection of his soul, but then over several decades it evolved to include a bodily resurrection as well.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

Contradiction proves disciples didn’t write the gospels

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.  The following is taken from:

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason32.htm

The writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the angel that was sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, said to the two Marys, chap. xxviii., ver. 7, “Behold Christ has gone before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him; lo, I have told you.” And the same writer at the next two verses (8, 9), makes Christ himself to speak to the same purpose to these women immediately after the angel had told it to them, and that they ran quickly to tell it to the disciples; and at the 16th verse it is said, “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them; and when they saw him, they worshiped him.”

But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very different to this; for he says, chap. xx., ver. 19, “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week [that is, the same day that Christ is said to have risen,] when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst of them.”

According to Matthew the eleven were marching to Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain, by his own appointment, at the very time when, according to John, they were assembled in another place, and that not by appointment, but in secret, for fear of the Jews.

The writer of the book of Luke contradicts that of Matthew more pointedly than John does; for he says expressly that the meeting was in Jerusalem the evening of the same day that he [Christ] rose, and that the eleven were there. See Luke, chap. xxiv, ver. 13, 33.

Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed disciples the right of willful lying, that the writer of those books could be any of the eleven persons called disciples; for if, according to Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain by his own appointment on the same day that he is said to have risen, Luke and John must have been two of that eleven; yet the writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies as much, that the meeting was that same day, in a house in Jerusalem; and, on the other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were assembled in a house in Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one of that eleven; yet Matthew says the meeting was in a mountain in Galilee, and consequently the evidence given in those books destroys each other.

This point is a significant because many Christian apologists have been reluctant to admit that the disciples were not the authors of the gospels, holding to that claim as a means to advertise the authenticity of these accounts. To explain away the problem above would take even more mental flexibility than a typical apologist can muster.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

Disciples acted like they didn’t expect the resurrection

There is a major conflict in the gospel scriptures.  On one hand, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he would be put to death and then rise on the third day, but on the other hand, when these events supposedly played out, the disciples acted as if they knew nothing of the sort.

The following is taken from:

http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/10/troubling_incon.html#InfluentialFriends

According to the Gospels, Jesus explicitly and repeatedly told his disciples that he would be put to death but would be raised on the third day [Mt 16.21-23, 17.22-23, 20.17-19; Mk 8.31-32; Lk 9.21-22, 18.31-33; Jn 14.18-20, 16.16-20].

Matthew and Mark indicate that the disciples very much got the message, judging by their strong reactions to it, including Peter’s saying, no way, Lord, I won’t allow it!  [Mt 16.22, 17.23; Mk 8.33].

And during Jesus’s ministry, the disciples are said to have seen not just one, but two examples of dead people being raised to life:  Jairus’s daughter [Mt 9.18-25, Mk 5.21-24, 35-42], and Lazarus [Jn 11].  So it’s not like the disciples would have been unfamiliar with the concept.

But then after Jesus’s own death, the disciples acted as though they’d never heard of anyone being raised from the dead, let alone that (supposedly) Jesus had explicitly and repeatedly foretold his own raising:

On Easter Sunday, a handful of disciples went to Joseph of Arimathea’s new tomb after the Sabbath.   They were perplexed when they found the tomb empty [Mk 16.5; Lk 24.4; Jn 20.2, 9].
Other disciples refused to believe the first reports of resurrection sightings [Mk 16.13; Lk 24.11; Jn 20.24-25].
Mary Magdalene initially failed to recognize Jesus when she encountered him [Jn. 20.14]; ditto with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus [Lk 24.16].
Jesus’s followers are described as being startled and terrified when they saw him, thinking they were seeing a ghost [Lk 24.5, 24.37; Mt 28.10].
You would think at least some of the Eleven would have remembered Jesus’s predictions of his resurrection.  It appears none of them did.

Additionally, the scriptures portray the disciples as cowering and being afraid, disavowing their master, at the time of the crucifixion. This would be unlikely if they knew this event had to happen.

As a historian, you must look at this evidence and try to ferret out what really happened, that is, which parts of this story ring true, and which parts appear to have been added after the fact.  What makes the most sense is that Jesus never prophecized his death and resurrection, and, in fact, never expected to die in the first place, but rather thought he would be exalted as the King of the Jews in a restored holy land kingdom.  By the time the gospels were written though, it became necessary to show that Jesus planned it this way all along, and therefore, some quotes needed to be added to confirm his foreknowledge of the events to come.

The other way, that the disciples were adequately prepared for the crucifixion and resurrection, and acted accordingly during these events, but the gospel authors wanted to make it look like they didn’t know, makes much less sense. Therefore, this scriptural conflict lends much evidence to the idea that Jesus did not predict his death and resurrection, that it was an unexpected turn of events, and that he was not a divine being.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

Destruction of records

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 (Jun 3, 2016)

First Romans, now Americans, reshape Christianity

Christianity started as a pure system of philosophy among a small sect of Jews in the First Century, but what it is today is something quite different.  It all comes down to who ‘owns’ the religion.  Early in the 4th Century it became owned by the Roman Empire, and what emerged was a Romanized version of the original.  Now, America ‘owns’ the faith, and what is emerging from that situation is readily seen in the excesses and distortions of theology being imposed by the Religious Right and the United States Republican Party.  The following is taken from:

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/sjesus.html

Eventually the Roman empire forced “its” version of Christianity on the whole world. The desposiny migrated south, the only place where they could avoid the persecution, and eventually settled in Arabia. Centuries later, their culture would originate Islam, and one of Islam’s tenets would be that “evil people changed the books”.

If Jesus truly existed, most likely he was the last of the Maccabeans and therefore claiming the Jewish throne for himself, but he was an “odd” character, that most Jews scorned instead of worshiping. He convinced a few of them that he was the one meant to lead the Jewish people, the messiah predicted by the Bible, but most Jews would not believe that such an odd character could be the messiah. The Romans were not worried by his claim precisely because he was the object of scorn by his own people. When he began causing serious trouble, the Romans did what they did to all the dissidents: they crucified him.

If the gospel of Thomas is true, then Jesus truly was a philosopher, and his words must have certainly impressed the few who listened to him. Then Paul would be the interpreter who translated those words for the masses and gave them the universal meaning that today we call the “Christian spirit”.
Today’s Christianity is, inevitably, the Christianity that the Roman empire chose. Every Christian in the world worships what the Roman empire decided s/he should worship. In a sense, every Christian betrays the desposyni and possibly Jesus himself by accepting the dogma of the ones who killed Jesus and persecuted his descendants.

Christianity therefore got a first twist when the Roman empire embraced it. Christianity is getting a second twist now that the American empire has embraced it. Just like Rome bestowed on Christianity the meaning that best served its interests, so America is bestowing on Christianity the meaning that best serves its interests. For example, greed is suddenly good, although the Gospels clearly state that criminals are more likely to enter Paradise than a rich man. The death penalty is good, even if the Gospels clearly preach forgiveness. Sooner or later, Americans will edit the Gospels the same way the Romans did and produce a new set of (self-serving) holy books.

And Jesus will have been crucified one more time.

Christianity today no longer follows the message of Christ. It is a completely new construction of theology where acquiring material wealth is seen as desirable, where the use of torture is authorized, where war is seen as a holy mission, where owning lots of guns is praiseworthy, where opposing civil authority and ignoring laws is virtuous, and where loving your enemy is scorned. So, in effect, Christianity is dead.  What we have left is a rotten and corrupted shell of its original inspiration.


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## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

The birth of Christianity- in 49 AD?

Although we have gospel accounts generally placing Jesus in the time frame from 4 BC to about 30 AD, the first mention in history of Christian followers comes in 49 AD with the first extant letter written by Paul to the Galatians.  It is enlightening to see what he wrote.

Galatians 1:1-11:

Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers and sisters with me, to the churches in Galatia:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

It is evident in this letter that Paul is writing to a pagan church, perhaps one he had preached at previously, and is upset that they are straying away from his gospel of Christ, that they had initially accepted, but were now turning back to their pagan gods. It is important to note that Paul stated that his gospel is not of human origin, so he seems to think of Jesus as only a spiritual creature. Indeed, he never wrote of any of the earthly history of Jesus but only referred to events after the resurrection.  Paul never saw Jesus.

This raises the possibility that Paul created Christianity all by himself based on some dream or hallucination, began preaching and writing to the pagan churches of his experience, and started to covert followers.  The gospels were not written until at least 70 AD, and these were most likely written by followers of Paul who had an incentive to create an historical footprint for the Jesus figure, and with a goal to make this figure consistent with Paul’s gospel. Another follower of Paul could have manufactured a fake history of the early church in the Book of Acts.

Even if Jesus was an actual historical figure, the admission of Paul in his letter to the Galatians indicates that the early Christians were not fully convinced of Jesus’s divinity, given that they were so easily de-converted less than 20 years after the resurrection, and given that some of them may have physically witnessed that event.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 3, 2016)

Discombobulation.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Discombobulation.


It takes some concentration and effort to learn, I'll admit that.

Without the effort people will believe whatever they are told.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 3, 2016)

bullethead said:


> It takes some concentration and effort to learn, I'll admit that.
> 
> Without the effort people will believe whatever they are told.



I can't say I disagree.
I guess a man must walk in whatever light he has been given.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

welderguy said:


> I can't say I disagree.
> I guess a man must walk in whatever light he has been given.



I've given everyone in here a lot of light, take the time to walk.


----------



## drippin' rock (Jun 3, 2016)

This is starting to resemble SFD's apologist quote thread.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

drippin' rock said:


> This is starting to resemble SFD's apologist quote thread.


I would say the exception being is that 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 was purposely redundant to show just how many points of contention there are.


----------



## drippin' rock (Jun 3, 2016)

bullethead said:


> I would say the exception being is that 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 was purposely redundant to show just how many points of contention there are.



I'm with you. Just thought I'd make my smart a.. comment of the day. 

Point is most of the time you and Walt and ambush say it so well, I would just be repeating what was already said. 

I have said before, and Walt said several posts back, if a divine creator ever revealed itself, I guarantee it would not be like the God of the bible. And if it were, I would not fall to my knees.  I'd have plenty of questions of the sort that would more than likely end with me as a pillar of salt, or a ball of fire.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 3, 2016)

drippin' rock said:


> i'm with you. Just thought i'd make my smart a.. Comment of the day.
> 
> Point is most of the time you and walt and ambush say it so well, i would just be repeating what was already said.
> 
> I have said before, and walt said several posts back, if a divine creator ever revealed itself, i guarantee it would not be like the god of the bible. And if it were, i would not fall to my knees.  I'd have plenty of questions of the sort that would more than likely end with me as a pillar of salt, or a ball of fire.



10-4 dr .


----------



## bullethead (Jun 4, 2016)

There are many historical inaccuracies contained in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s trial.  The Sanhedrin is said in the three synoptic gospels to have met during the Passover, but this was not permitted under Judaic law. It is said to have met at night, but again this was not permitted. It was said to have met in a private house, yet it was forbidden to meet outside the precincts of the Temple.

Also, it is claimed that the Jews were not permitted to pass the death sentence (John 18:31), but this cannot be true. Earlier, the chief priests had considered putting Lazarus to death (John 12:10) and Jews were responsible for other killings — both formally and informally. The Jews appear to have regarded blasphemy as a capital offence, but only if it involved worshipping idols or using a name of God (and Jesus had not been accused of either). Again, the custom of allowing the people to have a prisoner of their choice released for the Passover festival appears to be a fiction.  No such custom existed.

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/ab0_nt.htm

These critical errors in the scriptures indicate that the Gospels were written by people who did not witness the events and who were not knowledgeable of Jewish customs.  It is likely that they were written by Gentile followers of Paul’s gospel who viewed Jews as the scum of the earth.


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## bullethead (Jun 4, 2016)

Conflicting resurrection stories

The paramount and indispensable event of Christianity is the alleged resurrection of Jesus.  If it could be proven that this did not happen, Christianity would collapse and become nothing more than a minor philosophical sect of perhaps a few thousand persons.

If the resurrection of Jesus was a true historical event, the story of this amazing miracle would have buzzed around Jerusalem in a matter of hours and then would have spread rapidly around the world.  The details would have needed no embellishment and the stories would have remained reasonably consistent.  If, on other hand, the resurrection was only a myth started by various people who had visions of some nature, then you would expect to see a slower propagation of the news, and a divergence of the story details that tended to change over a long period of time. Unfortunately for Christianity, the latter is what actually happened.

The following accounts from the Bible reflect this divergence in the description of the resurrection:

1 Corinthians 15

And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

John 20

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst,

Luke 24

And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him. And he went in to tarry with them.And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.  And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

Matthew 28

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him,they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them.

Mark 16

Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.

Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.


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## Israel (Jun 5, 2016)

Unbelievers can find many reasons to not believe.
Believers come to know there is only One by which they do.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 5, 2016)

Israel said:


> Unbelievers can find many reasons to not believe.
> Believers come to know there is only One by which they do.


That is a statement made worldwide. It goes for gods, soccer teams, baseball teams, football teams, companies, partners and favorite rifles.
And like your religion, none stand out above any other. That's how personal claims work.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 5, 2016)

Israel said:


> Unbelievers can find many reasons to not believe.


Yes, they are called facts which are based off of evidence.


Israel said:


> Believers come to know there is only One by which they do.


Want. Need. Indoctrination. Are the paths.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 6, 2016)

Huntingfool,
Would you go to your grave for your belief Jesus?


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 6, 2016)

I believe I would, yes.

Why?  You finally track me down?


----------



## ambush80 (Jun 6, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I believe I would, yes.
> 
> Why?  You finally track me down?



Wow.  If a crazy gunman said all you had to do was say that you didn't believe that Jesus is Lord and he would release you to go home to your family you wouldn't do it?  What if he released 10 other hostages before you that renounced Jesus?  

Do you really think Jesus would hold it against you?

You sound a little Hale Boppy to me.


----------



## Israel (Jun 6, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Wow.  If a crazy gunman said all you had to do was say that you didn't believe that Jesus is Lord and he would release you to go home to your family you wouldn't do it?  What if he released 10 other hostages before you that renounced Jesus?
> 
> Do you really think Jesus would hold it against you?
> 
> You sound a little Hale Boppy to me.



I've done it.
I betrayed the Lord.
At the time it didn't look that way, at the time it didn't look like anything of that sort...but, it didn't look that way to Peter, either. Never does. Just looks like a path outta some dark woods, something you think you got yourself into. And you're feeling over your head, and all you know, like a feral, is that you feel trapped. You take a way out. It's easy.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 6, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I believe I would, yes.
> 
> Why?  You finally track me down?



Just wondering what resurrection you witnessed.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 6, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Wow.  If a crazy gunman said all you had to do was say that you didn't believe that Jesus is Lord and he would release you to go home to your family you wouldn't do it?  What if he released 10 other hostages before you that renounced Jesus?
> 
> Do you really think Jesus would hold it against you?
> 
> You sound a little Hale Boppy to me.


So the gunman is the crazy one?


----------



## ambush80 (Jun 6, 2016)

Israel said:


> I've done it.
> I betrayed the Lord.
> At the time it didn't look that way, at the time it didn't look like anything of that sort...but, it didn't look that way to Peter, either. Never does. Just looks like a path outta some dark woods, something you think you got yourself into. And you're feeling over your head, and all you know, like a feral, is that you feel trapped. You take a way out. It's easy.




Good thing you get infinite re-do's.


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Just wondering what resurrection you witnessed.



You lost me. 

I haven't witnessed one...yet.


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

bullethead said:


> So the gunman is the crazy one?



In all of this, I haven't insulted you a single time.


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Wow.  If a crazy gunman said all you had to do was say that you didn't believe that Jesus is Lord and he would release you to go home to your family you wouldn't do it?  What if he released 10 other hostages before you that renounced Jesus?
> 
> Do you really think Jesus would hold it against you?
> 
> You sound a little Hale Boppy to me.



I'm sure I do to you. Thankfully for me I'm not incredibly concerned with impressing ambush or bullethead. 

I certainly am not looking to be put in that situation and don't want my family to be without me anytime soon. But they will be without me eventually. Is it better they see me go upholding the very fabric of what I am convinced of and indoctrinate them with on a daily basis?  

I'm sure we don't agree on the answer to that. 

I pray I have the constitution to do well. But I'm willing to admit that it would be really hard to think of my family and not say "no".


----------



## ambush80 (Jun 7, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I'm sure I do to you. Thankfully for me I'm not incredibly concerned with impressing ambush or bullethead.
> 
> I certainly am not looking to be put in that situation and don't want my family to be without me anytime soon. But they will be without me eventually. Is it better they see me go upholding the very fabric of what I am convinced of and indoctrinate them with on a daily basis?
> 
> ...




By what you say here it seems that the Biblical principle of martyrdom is more of a driving force than forgiveness.  You might have just as easily said that you are showing your family how Jesus forgives a poor sinner but dying for your beliefs is more important.

Fascinating.......

Sam Harris said the he believes that Fundamentalist Christians have a better understanding of the motivations of suicide hijackers/bombers than Atheists.  He said that Fundamentalists REALLY know what devotion feels like; they know what it feels like to want to die for your beliefs.  They understand the powerful effects of believing in paradise.  

Clearly the Bible holds martyrdom in high regard.  It's the gist of the crucifixion story.  How many times is the martyrdom of the apostles given as a proof of the truth of Jesus' divinity?  Why would they die for a lie?   If Jihadists love Allah as much as you love Jesus, can you blame them for doing what they do?  And you can't say that the God of Abraham would never instruct people to kill for Him.

What's the only way to get a college educated, well to do doctor, to fly a plane into a building?


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

> By what you say here it seems that the Biblical principle of martyrdom is more of a driving force than forgiveness.  You might have just as easily said that you are showing your family how Jesus forgives a poor sinner but dying for your beliefs is more important.



I would say that martyrdom is not something to be desired (i.e. radical Islam), but rather something accepted if it comes as a result of service to Christ.  It's not something anyone would or should seek out or desire.  But I do believe that the possibility of someone killing a Christian for being a Christian is increasing.

Will Christ forgive a denial?  Well, it seemed to work out for Peter didn't it?

I think though that this is not a conversation that is easily had between someone who has an eternal perspective and one who doesn't.  Wouldn't you agree?

For me "BANG" isn't the end.  The perspective is entirely different.  




> Sam Harris said the he believes that Fundamentalist Christians have a better understanding of the motivations of suicide hijackers/bombers than Atheists.  He said that Fundamentalists REALLY know what devotion feels like; they know what it feels like to want to die for your beliefs.  They understand the powerful effects of believing in paradise.



I'd agree that's true at some level.  Though, I don't believe that Christians (at least not sane ones) understand what wanting to die for a belief feels like.  There is a huge schism between wanting to die for something and being will to.



> Clearly the Bible holds martyrdom in high regard.  It's the gist of the crucifixion story.



Jesus was not a martyr.  He was a willing sacrifice.  If you jumped in front of a bullet for your child, would you be a martyr?



> How many times is the martyrdom of the apostles given as a proof of the truth of Jesus' divinity?  Why would they die for a lie?   If Jihadists love Allah as much as you love Jesus, can you blame them for doing what they do?  And you can't say that the God of Abraham would never instruct people to kill for Him.



Again...for the sake of understanding.  The "Why would they die for a lie" question stems from the belief that, if Jesus said he would die and come back to life and didn't, why would someone who knew that claim for a fact to be a lie continue to spread his message and even die to further it?

If they didn't witness him bring others back to life, or put an ear back on, or make cripples walk....if they didn't witness any of those things happening dozens and dozens of times, why would they (the people who actually did or did not witness it) put their lives on the line?




> What's the only way to get a college educated, well to do doctor, to fly a plane into a building?



Ted Kaczynski had a PhD in Mathematics, entered Harvard at 16 and a 167 IQ.  Not all smart people do rational things.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 7, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> You lost me.
> 
> I haven't witnessed one...yet.



I am just wondering why it takes less evidence than a resurrection for you to die for your beliefs.
And I think those disciples had much less evidence of a resurrection also.
I think they thought Jesus would come back  in their lifetime, as he promised,  and that is why they were so faithful with no resurrection needed.


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

I would never die for a belief.


As to the second part.  Just examining scripture; did they personally witness him raising multiple people from the dead, healing cripples, putting ears back on, turning water into wine, etc?  Did he then also give that same power to them later having never had it before?

How many miracles performed right in front of you do you think it would take for someone to believe that he was who he said he was?

You're confusing the promise to return with the promise to be killed and come back to life three days later.  He explicitly promised that he would be killed and come back to life in three days in multiple gospels.  You don't think that, on the 6th or 7th day they might be wondering what's up?

Certainly there is sufficient scriptural evidence to conclude that at least most of them actually saw him dead and then saw him alive.  Whether they were there to witness him sit up and come out of the tomb would be rendered irrelevant once they had seen him alive.  

Regardless of whether you think there are some contradictions in the resurrection accounts (and obviously I don't agree with you), there is enough evidence to conclude that at least some of them did see him alive.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 7, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I would never die for a belief.
> 
> 
> As to the second part.  Just examining scripture; did they personally witness him raising multiple people from the dead, healing cripples, putting ears back on, turning water into wine, etc?  Did he then also give that same power to them later having never had it before?
> ...


So what is it that you said you would die for?

The ONLY place you find this resurrection stuff is IN scripture. 
That is the only place it can be examined.  The scripture throughout the entire bible has been shown to be flawed on many accounts.
You disagree but in no instance have you been able to back up that scripture is not flawed, made up, embellished, forged, inaccurate, inerrant, added to or is anything  more than the folklore stories of bronze age tribes.
I have provided evidence and you choose to ignore it. I don't care , it is no skin off my back, but I doesn't change the facts that what I've found and posted is not accurate. NOBODY outside of the pages of the bible recorded ONE single "miracle". NOBODY. 
NOBODY wrote of a guy flying up into the sky. NOBODY wrote about graves opening up and the dead coming out. NOBODY recorded earthquakes or darkness.
THE ONLY PLACE IT HAPPENED IS IN THE MAKE BELIEVE STORIES OF SCRIPTURE. 

You want us to hop into your world where scripture is used to back up scripture.  Even then it refutes itself but back in reality scripture is shown for what it really is.
Go ahead and think  a handful of guys saw jesus do those things because scripture says so. Argue it all you want. Use it as evidence for yourself to believe but do not expect me to  acknowledge that it is evidence of anything else other than using a Star Wars book to prove the events in the Star Wars book is truth. Nowhere outside of either book does evidence back them up.


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

I haven't ignored your evidence.  I just don't want to read through pages of copied text.  I've read it all before and I find it uncompelling.  I'm shocked and amazed that a bunch of atheist blogs come to atheist conclusions!

But, just to keep this fun discussion going let's be clear on the rules.  You are allowed to use scripture to prove that things didn't happen...but I'm not allowed to use it to prove they did?  10-4.





> THE ONLY PLACE IT HAPPENED IS IN THE MAKE BELIEVE STORIES OF SCRIPTURE.





> Go ahead and think a handful of guys saw jesus do those things because scripture says so. Argue it all you want. Use it as evidence for yourself to believe but do not expect me to acknowledge that it is evidence of anything else other than using a Star Wars book to prove the events in the Star Wars book is truth. Nowhere outside of either book does evidence back them up.



What are you so angry about?  Take a breath.  Tomorrow the flying spaghetti monster may come visit you in a dream and settle this whole thing.



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


----------



## Huntinfool (Jun 7, 2016)

Oh sorry...forgot to answer the first question.

I would die for my savior, my wife, my kids and for you if it came to it.  As I said before, this is a hard conversation to have with someone who believes that it all ends when the gun goes bang.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 7, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I haven't ignored your evidence.  I just don't want to read through pages of copied text.  I've read it all before and I find it uncompelling.  I'm shocked and amazed that a bunch of atheist blogs come to atheist conclusions!
> 
> But, just to keep this fun discussion going let's be clear on the rules.  You are allowed to use scripture to prove that things didn't happen...but I'm not allowed to use it to prove they did?  10-4.
> 
> ...



Dieing for family is a given.
Since you didn't witness a resurrection what evidence compels you to die for a savior?

Atheist websites have gathered facts, which when checked pan out.  History, science, and the other dozen I've mentioned do not bow to atheism. Your scripture and pro scripture do not stand up to real world facts.

What happened to all the graves that burst open and the dead came out?
Who saw that?
Where did the dead go?
Surely someone besides the disciples saw that. It had to be witnessed by at least hundreds.
The earthquakes had to be felt by thousands. 
How come NOBODY recorded them?
And hours of darkness most certainly would have been noticed by every human on the planet. Why is scripture the only recording?

I think you know why but refuse to admit why.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 7, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> I haven't ignored your evidence.  I just don't want to read through pages of copied text.  I've read it all before and I find it uncompelling.  I'm shocked and amazed that a bunch of atheist blogs come to atheist conclusions!
> 
> But, just to keep this fun discussion going let's be clear on the rules.  You are allowed to use scripture to prove that things didn't happen...but I'm not allowed to use it to prove they did?  10-4.
> 
> ...



As far as scripture is concerned we both use scripture. I use it to show how inaccurate it is and when you use it I just use facts to show you that the scripture you are using is inaccurate. While it may be accepted among believers (who argue constantly and cannot agree with each other about it) it is not accepted here. Not because we just do not want to but because facts and evidence do not allow us to.


----------



## stringmusic (Jun 7, 2016)

bullethead said:


> How come NOBODY recorded them?


Somebody did, in the scriptures.

The contention seems to be that if other ancient writings were to corroborate scripture it would somehow make the claims valid in your eyes.

Why is that?


----------



## Israel (Jun 8, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Good thing you get infinite re-do's.



That's everything not of Christ speaking in the above.
God's mercy _is good_.
Presuming upon it, isn't.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

stringmusic said:


> Somebody did, in the scriptures.
> 
> The contention seems to be that if other ancient writings were to corroborate scripture it would somehow make the claims valid in your eyes.
> 
> Why is that?



Because in every other aspect multiple recordings of the same events by different sources and cultures corroborate events.
In not just in my eyes.
It is how historians ensure accuracy.

You obviously do not understand what meticulous record keepers the ancient cultures were.

Unfortunately for your argument scripture has not been accurate or considered reliable.
Astronomers can date back solar eclipses due to moon ohases. None occurred when supposedly the world went dark for three hours.
Nobody else recorded the biblical events.
They were either so common that people just walked around and paid no attention to guys flying into the clouds and graves bursting open, or none of it happened and the stories are embellished. 
History without a doubt has enough evidence that proves it did not happen.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Because in every other aspect multiple recordings of the same events by different sources and cultures corroborate events.
> In not just in my eyes.
> It is how historians ensure accuracy.
> 
> ...



History records in detail the life and events of the Medo-Persian emporor Cyrus the great.
Astonishingly,the bible also contains very accurately detailed prophecy 150 years to the day before Cyrus was born.It foretold the time of his birth and his name and details of exactly what and when he would conquer Babylon and release the captives.
The chance of this kind of accuracy has been estmated at 1 in 10 to the 15th power.(10,000,000,000.000,000)


----------



## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

stringmusic said:


> Somebody did, in the scriptures.
> 
> The contention seems to be that if other ancient writings were to corroborate scripture it would somehow make the claims valid in your eyes.
> 
> Why is that?


String when something is recorded there is a protocol, a series of checks and balances that take place in order to ensure accuracy.
The bible is not in the same category as other history books because it does not meet the requirements. It is ancient folklore. It is not accurate on many qualifying levels.

I know you want to believe, possibly you have to believe, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I cannot believe based upon the facts and evidence that disprove scripture rather then prove it.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> History records in detail the life and events of the Medo-Persian emporor Cyrus the great.
> Astonishingly,the bible also contains very accurately detailed prophecy 150 years to the day before Cyrus was born.It foretold the time of his birth and his name and details of exactly what and when he would conquer Babylon and release the captives.
> The chance of this kind of accuracy has been estmated at 1 in 10 to the 15th power.(10,000,000,000.000,000)


I'll check into it later after work.


----------



## 660griz (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> History records in detail the life and events of the Medo-Persian emporor Cyrus the great.
> Astonishingly,the bible also contains very accurately detailed prophecy 150 years to the day before Cyrus was born.It foretold the time of his birth and his name and details of exactly what and when he would conquer Babylon and release the captives.
> The chance of this kind of accuracy has been estmated at 1 in 10 to the 15th power.(10,000,000,000.000,000)



Not if you write it after the fact.
Scholars agree that Isaiah is a composite of at least three different authors writing at different times. It's hard to astoundingly predict the future when the events you predict are actually in the past.


----------



## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

660griz said:


> Not if you write it after the fact.
> Scholars agree that Isaiah is a composite of at least three different authors writing at different times. It's hard to astoundingly predict the future when the events you predict are actually in the past.



Scholars also agree that the Dead Sea scrolls contained the entire book of Isaiah and that it dated back to the first century B.C.

Isaiah contains numerous detailed prophecies of Jesus' birth,life,and death,which were ALL fulfilled in precise accuracy between 4 B.C. and 36 A.D.

Are you telling me these things happened before they were written?

Your scholars say differently.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Scholars also agree that the Dead Sea scrolls contained the entire book of Isaiah and that it dated back to the first century B.C.
> 
> Isaiah contains numerous detailed prophecies of Jesus' birth,life,and death,which were ALL fulfilled in precise accuracy between 4 B.C. and 36 A.D.
> 
> ...


You've made the claims now back them up. Go verse by verse and we will discuss them.
Can't wait to hear Jesus called by name in Isaiah.


----------



## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Scholars also agree that the Dead Sea scrolls contained the entire book of Isaiah and that it dated back to the first century B.C.
> 
> Isaiah contains numerous detailed prophecies of Jesus' birth,life,and death,which were ALL fulfilled in precise accuracy between 4 B.C. and 36 A.D.
> 
> ...




The earliest manuscript we have of the Book of Isaiah is The Great Isaiah Scroll:

The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) is one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran in 1947. It is the largest (734 cm) and best preserved of all the biblical scrolls, and the only one that is almost complete. The 54 columns contain all 66 chapters of the Hebrew version of the biblical Book of Isaiah. Dating from ca. 125 BCE, it is also one of the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some one thousand years older than the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible known to us before the scrolls' discovery.

So our oldest extant copy of Isaiah dates to a much later period than that of Cyrus.

More directly regarding the question at hand:

Modern scholarship considers the Book of Isaiah to be an anthology, the two principal compositions of which are the Book of Isaiah proper (chapters 1-39, with some exceptions), containing the words of the prophet Isaiah himself, dating from the time of the First Temple, around 700 BCE, and Second Isaiah (Deutero-Isaiah, chapters 40-66), comprising the words of an anonymous prophet, who lived some one hundred and fifty years later, around the time of the Babylonian exile and the restoration of the Temple in the Persian Period. By the time our Isaiah Scroll was copied (the last third of the second century BCE), the book was already regarded as a single composition.

If so, no miracles or prophecies are required to explain the mention of Cyrus in the Book of Isaiah: Chapter 45, where his name is mentioned, was originally written during the time of Cyrus's rule.


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## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

bullethead said:


> You've made the claims now back them up. Go verse by verse and we will discuss them.
> Can't wait to hear Jesus called by name in Isaiah.



So now you want to argue whether or not Jesus is mentioned in the book of Isaiah?

That's pathetic.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> So now you want to argue whether or not Jesus is mentioned in the book of Isaiah?
> 
> That's pathetic.


It mentions things that are supposed to happen, and then hundreds of years later anonymous authors include things that make it seem as if prophesy was fulfilled. I could ride a donkey down a street lined with palm leaves or write a story about someone who did now that I know it was predicted.  Not hard to fulfill prophesy in stories after the fact.
If Isaiah mentioned Cyrus by name why didn't he mention Jesus by name?

What you overlook is all the prophesy that wasn't fulfilled by Jesus and all the prophesy that was fulfilled by others. There were Jewish men that fulfilled even more prophesy than Jesus and yet still did not fulfill enough to be their messiah.


Pathetic is your lack of a solid responce and lack of knowledge about jewish history.


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## Huntinfool (Jun 8, 2016)

No one in this discussion has a deep knowledge of jewish history.  

Google is driving the entire discussion and all of the very lengthy posts in here.  This thread is a wondrous tapestry of cuts and pastes.  

Let's don't pretend that any of this 'evidence' that you are posting has any basis in original thought or knowledge.  Granted, some of it may have basis in truth or fact.  But let's don't criticize each other for our lack of knowledge.  We all know the all-knowing search engine is the source of this stuff.


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## ambush80 (Jun 8, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> No one in this discussion has a deep knowledge of jewish history.
> 
> Google is driving the entire discussion and all of the very lengthy posts in here.  This thread is a wondrous tapestry of cuts and pastes.
> 
> Let's don't pretend that any of this 'evidence' that you are posting has any basis in original thought or knowledge.  Granted, some of it may have basis in truth or fact.  But let's don't criticize each other for our lack of knowledge.  We all know the all-knowing search engine is the source of this stuff.




Would going to the library and looking it up on microfische make the information more legitimate?


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

Huntinfool said:


> No one in this discussion has a deep knowledge of jewish history.
> 
> Google is driving the entire discussion and all of the very lengthy posts in here.  This thread is a wondrous tapestry of cuts and pastes.
> 
> Let's don't pretend that any of this 'evidence' that you are posting has any basis in original thought or knowledge.  Granted, some of it may have basis in truth or fact.  But let's don't criticize each other for our lack of knowledge.  We all know the all-knowing search engine is the source of this stuff.



I have an idea about how you conduct yourself in these threads but do not jump to conclusions about me.

The cut/paste I use is intentional for the sole purpose to back up my claims, which are based off of my knowledge, which comes from my years of research studying these biblical claims.
You don't take my word for anything, nor should you as I CONSTANTLY ask you to provide proof to back up your claims, so that is why I make sure to post whatever information I can in order to show an alternate source.

You have access to the same all-knowing search engines but the difference is that when you compare atheist and theological sources the deciding factor is which ones are backed by facts. History, science, geography, anthropology,contemporary sources and all the others back all the ones I use.
You do not counter them, except with statements of compalints about cut and pastes that refute your scripture , because there is nothing to counter. You cannot argue the facts.

It is not an I'm right, ha ha, you are wrong type of thing with me. It is simply me using the available evidence from multiple sources that use the facts to decide the truth. The truth is what it is. I used to make excuses like you do because I didn't like what I was finding, but I am beyond that now and accept what the facts provide. Facts do not lie. There is no bias. Either something happened or it didn't. Evidence backs up claims or refutes them.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

HF,  as far as you accusing me of pretending to have any basis in actual thoughts or knowledge, feel free to search my posts for the last few years and then compare them to the kyroot.com site I recently posted. I had finally found a source that gave detailed descriptions about the thougts, knowledge and claims I have been making for years.
Let your research of my prior posts either confirm or refute your statement.
I know how it is going to turn out, I want to see if you are man enough to admit it since you are  man enough to call me out.


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## drippin' rock (Jun 8, 2016)

ambush80 said:


> Would going to the library and looking it up on microfische make the information more legitimate?



Thank you.  This is such a ridiculous idea, that some how the internet is cheap bogus info.  You use microfishe, and I'll go dig out my parents Funk and Wagnall encyclopedia set.  We'll get to the bottom of this yet!


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## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

Here's a source you might check:

http://beginningandend.com/jesus-exist-historical-evidence-jesus-christ/

It's strictly secular so you should love it.


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## ambush80 (Jun 8, 2016)

drippin' rock said:


> Thank you.  This is such a ridiculous idea, that some how the internet is cheap bogus info.  You use microfishe, and I'll go dig out my parents Funk and Wagnall encyclopedia set.  We'll get to the bottom of this yet!



I can solve all of this mess with Papaw's ol' King James.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Here's a source you might check:
> 
> http://beginningandend.com/jesus-exist-historical-evidence-jesus-christ/
> 
> It's strictly secular so you should love it.


Part of having knowledge is retaining it.
Those sources have been given and refuted at LEAST a half dozen times in this forum.
The problem with these secular sites is that they rely on participants like above in the spiritual forums and a few that frequent here. It doesn't matter how thoroughly refuted their claims are, they just keep on going with it.

Super nice try though.
Repost it again in a few months. Maybe it will change in your favor.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Here's a source you might check:
> 
> http://beginningandend.com/jesus-exist-historical-evidence-jesus-christ/
> 
> It's strictly secular so you should love it.


This is sincere, I appreciate that you at least took the time to research it. I honestly do.

What I do is find a site like that and then another that says differently and then I dig further into what I can find throughout history that either confirms or refutes either.
I go with the one that has factual evidence that backs it up after multiple confirmations.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

Virtually all other claims of Jesus come from sources outside of Christian writings. Devastating to the claims of Christians, however, comes from the fact that all of these accounts come from authors who lived after the alleged life of Jesus. Since they did not live during the time of the hypothetical Jesus, none of their accounts serve as eyewitness evidence.

Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, lived as the earliest non-Christian who mentions a Jesus. Although many scholars think that Josephus' short accounts of Jesus (in Antiquities) came from interpolations perpetrated by a later Church father (most likely, Eusebius), Josephus' birth in 37 C.E. (well after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus), puts him out of range of an eyewitness account. Moreover, he wrote Antiquities in 93 C.E., after the first gospels got written! Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay.

Pliny the Younger (born: 62 C.E.) His letter about the Christians only shows that he got his information from Christian believers themselves. Regardless, his birth date puts him out of range as an eyewitness account.

Tacitus, the Roman historian's birth year at 64 C.E., puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a "Christus" in his Annals (Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 C.E. He gives no source for his material. Although many have disputed the authenticity of Tacitus' mention of Jesus, the very fact that his birth happened after the alleged Jesus and wrote the Annals during the formation of Christianity, shows that his writing can only provide us with hearsay accounts.

Suetonius, a Roman historian, born in 69 C.E., mentions a "Chrestus," a common name. Apologists assume that "Chrestus" means "Christ" (a disputable claim). But even if Seutonius had meant "Christ," it still says nothing about an earthly Jesus. Just like all the others, Suetonius' birth occurred well after the purported Jesus. Again, only hearsay.

Talmud: Amazingly some Christians use brief portions of the Talmud, (a collection of Jewish civil a religious law, including commentaries on the Torah), as evidence for Jesus. They claim that Yeshu in the Talmud refers to Jesus. However, this Yeshu, according to scholars depicts a disciple of Jehoshua Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Christian Jesus or it may refer to Yeshu ben Pandera, a teacher of the 2nd centuy CE. Regardless of how one interprets this, the Palestinian Talmud didn't come into existence until the 3rd and 5th century C.E., and the Babylonian Talmud between the 3rd and 6th century C.E., at least two centuries after the alleged crucifixion. At best it can only serve as a controversial Christian or Jewish legend; it cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.

Christian apologists mostly use the above sources for their "evidence" of Jesus because they believe they represent the best outside sources. All other sources (Christian and non-Christian) come from even less reliable sources, some of which include: Mara Bar-Serapion (circa 73 C.E.), Ignatius (50 - 98? C.E.), Polycarp (69 - 155 C.E.), Clement of Rome (? - circa 160 C.E.), Justin Martyr (100 - 165 C.E.), Lucian (circa 125 - 180 C.E.), Tertullian (160 - ? C.E.), Clement of Alexandria (? - 215 C.E.), Origen (185 - 232 C.E.), Hippolytus (? - 236 C.E.), and Cyprian (? - 254 C.E.). As you can see, all these people lived well after the alleged death of Jesus. Not one of them provides an eyewitness account, all of them simply spout hearsay.

As you can see, apologist Christians embarrass themselves when they unwittingly or deceptively violate the rules of historiography by using after-the-event writings as evidence for the event itself. Not one of these writers gives a source or backs up his claims with evidential material about Jesus. Although we can provide numerous reasons why the Christian and non-Christian sources prove spurious, and argue endlessly about them, we can cut to the chase by simply determining the dates of the documents and the birth dates of the authors. It doesn't matter what these people wrote about Jesus, an author who writes after the alleged happening and gives no detectable sources for his material can only give example of hearsay. All of these anachronistic writings about Jesus could easily have come from the beliefs and stories from Christian believers themselves. And as we know from myth, superstition, and faith, beliefs do not require facts or evidence for their propagation and circulation. Thus we have only beliefs about Jesus' existence, and nothing more.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

The editing and formation of the Bible came from members of the early Christian Church. Since the fathers of the Church possessed the scriptoria and determined what would appear in the Bible, there occurred plenty of opportunity and motive to change, modify, or create texts that might bolster the position of the Church or the members of the Church themselves.

The orthodox Church also fought against competing Christian cults. Irenaeus, who determined the inclusion of the four (now canonical) gospels, wrote his infamous book, "Against the Heresies." According to Romer, "Irenaeus' great book not only became the yardstick of major heresies and their refutations, the starting-point of later inquisitions, but simply by saying what Christianity was not it also, in a curious inverted way, became a definition of the orthodox faith." [Romer] If a Jesus did exist, perhaps eyewitness writings got burnt along with them because of their heretical nature. We will never know.

In attempting to salvage the Bible the respected revisionist and scholar, Bruce Metzger has written extensively on the problems of the New Testament. In his book, "The Text of the New Testament-- Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Metzger addresses: Errors arising from faulty eyesight; Errors arising from faulty hearing; Errors of the mind; Errors of judgment; Clearing up historical and geographical difficulties; and Alterations made because of doctrinal considerations. [Metzger]

The Church had such power over people, that to question the Church could result in death. Regardless of what the Church claimed, most people simply believed what their priests told them.

In letter LII To Nepotian, Jerome writes about his teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus when he asked him to explain a phrase in Luke, Nazianzus evaded his request by saying “I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, every one will put you down for a fool." Jerome responds with, "There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation."
In the 5th century, John Chrysostom in his "Treatise on the Priesthood, Book 1," wrote, "And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."
Ignatius Loyola of the 16th century wrote in his Spiritual Exercises: "To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it."

Martin Luther opined: "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."

With such admission to accepting lies, the burning of heretical texts, Bible errors and alterations, how could any honest scholar take any book from the New Testament as absolute, much less using extraneous texts that support a Church's intransigent and biased position, as reliable evidence?


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## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Part of having knowledge is retaining it.
> Those sources have been given and refuted at LEAST a half dozen times in this forum.
> The problem with these secular sites is that they rely on participants like above in the spiritual forums and a few that frequent here. It doesn't matter how thoroughly refuted their claims are, they just keep on going with it.
> 
> ...



I know they've been used a bluegazillion times but they are the next best thing to using the word of God.
So,trying to accomodate your love of secular,I thought I would humor you.
But,knowing that an unbeliever must remain an unbeliever unless God opens his eyes,I didn't look for any other response from you.I still enjoyed conversing with you about it.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

JESUS CHRIST - NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

IN ONE OF THE MOST CAREFULLY DOCUMENTED PERIODS OF ROMAN AND ANCIENT HISTORY



The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history.  Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record.  It is also important to understand that an absolute reign of terror was instituted when Christianity seized power in the Roman Empire as documented in our Christian Totalitarianism Report.   The Church appointed an official historian of dubious ethics, Eusebius, to write an official history.  Meanwhile, Christian launched the largest book burning campaign in history, destroying a vast part of the wisdom and history of the ancient world forever.

The Account of Josephus is a Fraud

When discussing the alleged existence of Jesus Christ, one piece of "evidence" that frequently gets mentioned is the account of Flavius Josephus, the famed Jewish general and historian who lived from 37 to 100 C.E. In Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews there is a notorious passage regarding Christ called the "Testimonium Flavium."

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." (Whitson, 379).

This brief piece of evidence which supposedly contributed the best "proof" of Jesus's existence has actually been proven to be a fraud. It has been demonstrated continuously over the centuries that "Testamonium Flavium" was a forgery manufactured by the Catholic Church, and was inserted into Josephus's works. The Testamonium Flavium account is so thoroughly refuted, that biblical scholars since the 19th century have refused to refer to it, unless to mention its false nature.

Dr. Gordon Stein gives a further explanation for this forgery. The History of Jesus: A Reply to Josh McDowell.

Another source is The Jesus Forgery: Josephus Untangled.

First Written Accounts of Jesus's Life Occur Decades After His Purported Existence

Most written accounts of the life of Jesus did not exist until a couple decades after his purported existence. These accounts were presented by a number of different authors and had somewhat conflicting stories about his existence. These written accounts are known as the Gospels. Also, it is worth knowing that not all of the gospels that were written even made their way into the bible. Only four gospels became the canonical writings for the church. The rest were burned, destroyed or lost. Historians estimate that the first written gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written sometime after 70 C.E, which means that at the earliest, it would have been written 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus.

PLINY, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS: NO PROOF OF JESUS

Nero's Persecution of Christians and Mention of Jesus is Highly Doubtful

There is widespread belief that Nero blamed the burning of Rome on the Christians; however, there are many holes in this theory.

This belief comes from the account of the Roman historian Tacitus (56-120 CE) about how Emperor Nero (37 - 68 CE) blamed the burning of Rome on "those people who were abhorred for their crimes and commonly called Christians." The passage then states that the fire agitators were followers of "Christus" who "was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate." The passage then also states that Christians constituted a "vast multitude at Rome" and goes on to discuss the ghastly ways in which they were persecuted.

However, there are many troubling details about the historical accuracy of this passage. Some critics call into question whether Tacitus wrote this account at all, or if it was yet another forgery. Around the date of Nero's Fire, 64 AD, there were no "multitude of Christians" in Rome. At this time, there was not even a multitude of Christians in Judea. Therefore, it is highly doubtful that Nero would refer to Christians in this way.

This is also the only mention of Christians in the work of Tacitus, despite the fact that he wrote several volumes

Also, the supposed persecution of the Christians by Nero is not recorded by any other historian of Nero's time. If the persecution of Christians were really that widespread, wouldn't other historians be writing about it? (Truth Be Known)

Pliny's Letter About "Christiani"

In addition to the Testomonium Flavianum, there exists another tenuous piece of evidence that some have tried to use as proof for the existence of Jesus. The Roman Historian, Pliny The Younger (62-113CE), wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan in 110 CE	requesting his assistance in the proper punishment of a group of "Christiani" who were causing trouble and would not bow to the image of the emperor. According to Pliny, these Christiani would meet before daylight and sing hymns with responses to "Christ as God."

However, this letter does not provide concrete evidence for the existence of Jesus as a person since it makes no direct mention of "Jesus of Nazareth," nor does it refer to his life. Also, there are many critics who have argued that this letter is a forgery. (Truth Be Known)

Suetonius's Reference to "Chresto"

The last piece of questionable historical evidence we'll discuss here is the passage in Suetonius's Life of Claudius, dating around 110 CE. There is a reference in this work to a figure named "Chresto" who caused the Jews to riot in Rome. First of all, if Jesus Christ did exist, it is not possible that he would have been in Rome at this time. Claudius reigned from 41-54 CE, this is at the time of Christ's alleged crucifixion.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> I know they've been used a bluegazillion times but they are the next best thing to using the word of God.
> So,trying to accomodate your love of secular,I thought I would humor you.
> But,knowing that an unbeliever must remain an unbeliever unless God opens his eyes,I didn't look for any other response from you.I still enjoyed conversing with you about it.


The word of god comes from the pen of man.


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## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

bullethead said:


> The word of god comes from the pen of man.



Sure.But inspired by the mind of God,which is the part you've obviously been blinded to.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> Sure.But inspired by the mind of God,which is the part you've obviously been blinded to.



Brother welderguy, not only have you been unable to provide extraordinary evidence regarding your extraordinary claims, but you are unable to provide even ordinary evidence.

Someone is certainly blinded bud.


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## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

bullethead said:


> Brother welderguy, not only have you been unable to provide extraordinary evidence regarding your extraordinary claims, but you are unable to provide even ordinary evidence.
> 
> Someone is certainly blinded bud.



You are correct.Nothing has been proven.It's not my job to make you believe.God's Spirit does that.
If it ever happens,you will know what I'm talking about.Until then,you'll continue to think I'm a nutcase.I'm ok with that.

But I don't think you realize who the loser is here.


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> You are correct.Nothing has been proven.It's not my job to make you believe.God's Spirit does that.
> If it ever happens,you will know what I'm talking about.Until then,you'll continue to think I'm a nutcase.I'm ok with that.
> 
> But I don't think you realize who the loser is here.


You continue to keep trying to stack the deck but ignoring the evidence doesn't change the evidence.


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## welderguy (Jun 8, 2016)

bullethead said:


> You continue to keep trying to stack the deck but ignoring the evidence doesn't change the evidence.



What evidence?


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## bullethead (Jun 8, 2016)

welderguy said:


> What evidence?



Incredulity serves you well.


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