Why Do You Remain A Christian?

February 21, 2013

"The bible is older,"

Than what? And NO, IT'S NOT. There are other older texts out there... WAY older - in the original

(cuneiform tablets by the thousands - many not even deciphered yet,

Egyptian hieroglyphics carved in stone and written on papyri), quite a

few actually.

All these are older than the Torah: Some by thousands of years.

Early Bronze Age:

2600 BCE Sumerian texts from Abu Salabikh, including the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh temple hymn

2600 BCE Akkadian Legend of Etana

2400 BCE Egyptian Pyramid Texts, including the Cannibal Hymn

2400 BCE Sumerian Code of Urukagina

2400 BCE Egyptian Palermo stone

2350 BCE Egyptian The Maxims of Ptahhotep

2270 BCE Sumerian Enheduanna's Hymns

2250-2000 BCE Sumerian Earliest stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh

2100 BCE Sumerian Curse of Agade

2100 BCE Sumerian Debate between Bird and Fish

2050 BCE Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu

2000 BCE Egyptian Coffin Texts

2000 BCE Sumerian Lament for Ur

2000 BCE Sumerian Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta

1950 Akkadian Laws of Eshnunna

Middle Bronze Age:

1950 BCE Akkadian Laws of Eshnunna

1900 BCE Sumerian Code of Lipit-Ishtar

1900 BCE Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh

1850 BCE Akkadian Kultepe texts

1800 BCE Egyptian Story of Sinuhe (in Hieratic)

*1800 BCE Sumerian Eridu Genesis

*1800 BCE Akkadian Enûma Eliš

(*these two are where the hebrews got their creation myth from - which

goes back to the original story from 2200 BCE Sumerian stories)

1800 BCE Akkadian Atra-Hasis epic

1780 BCE Akkadian Code of Hammurabi stele

1780 BCE Akkadian Mari letters, including the Epic of Zimri-Lim

1750 BCE Hittite Anitta text

1700 BCE Egyptian Westcar Papyrus

1650 BCE Egyptian Ipuwer Papyrus

Late Bronze Age:

1700-1100 BCE Vedic Sanskrit: approximate date of the composition of the Rigveda. (Oh looky - the Hindus show up)

1600 BCE Hittite Code of the Nesilim

1500 BCE Akkadian Poor Man of Nippur

1550 BCE Egyptian Book of the Dead

1500 BCE Akkadian Dynasty of Dunnum

Gee whiz, where are the Hebrews in all this history?

1400 BCE Akkadian Marriage of Nergal and Ereshkigal

1400 BCE Akkadian Autobiography of Kurigalzu

1400 BCE Akkadian Amarna letters

1330 BCE Egyptian Great Hymn to the Aten

1240 BCE Egyptian Papyrus of Ani, Book of the Dead

1200 BCE Akkadian Tukulti-Ninurta Epic

Iron Age:

1200-1100 BC approximate date of books RV 1 and RV 10 in the Rigveda (The Hindus again)

1200-800 BC approximate date of the Vedic Sanskrit Yajurveda, Atharvaveda

1050 BC Egyptian Story of Wenamun

1050 BC Akkadian Sakikkū (SA.GIG) “Diagnostic Omens” by Esagil-kin-apli

1050 BC The Babylonian Theodicy of Šaggil-kīnam-ubbib.

1000-600 BC Chinese Classic of Poetry (Shījīng), Classic of Documents (Shūjīng) (authentic portions), Classic of Changes (I Ching)

Where are the Hebrews again?

The oldest surviving Hebrew Bible manuscripts date to about the 2nd century BCE...

You may be right on originals but it is believed by most Most of who? and No, it's not. that Moses wrote the first five books around 1450 putting it before any others ...So, math is not your forte either. The Instructions of Shurrupak is the oldest book in history, written circa 2600 BCE (that's over a thousand years before 'Moses')

"Dating back to circa 2600 BCE, Instructions of Shuruppak concerns itself with a mysterious, frequently overlooked Sumerian king and is

currently one of the oldest known works of literature. Painfully little is written of the figure beyond his depiction in the Instructions, with some scholars speculating on whether or not he even existed in the first place. Regardless of his status as an actual flesh-and-blood human being, Shuruppak’s story involves the archetypical, ancient, and comfortably familiar great flood plotline. Having survived the devastating deluge along with his family, the clay tablets that contain the Instructions speak of the moral code the king upholds. These guidelines win him the favor of the gods, allowing him to rule Mesopotamia once the flood waters recede. Anyone familiar with the Old Testament – even peripherally – will recognize many of the points that Shuruppak discusses as an early version of the Ten Commandments. Other tidbits include basic advice regarding self-preservation, such as never traversing at night or refraining from “passing judgment” when consuming alcohol."

and some believe Job to be older. The bible is believed to be the first printed book No it's not, unless you mean printed on a press, in 1455AD by Johannes Gutenberg - that's 3500 years AFTER Shurrupak and everyonr certainly regards the bible to be the oldest book of religion. No, they don't, the Pyramid Texts are the oldest surviving religious texts with the oldest surviving copies dating 2350BCE Ofcourse, dates can be questioned, but if correct, Moses did right the first books in history that are still read today.

Moses? You do realize there's no evidence for Moses right? He may have existed... he may not have.

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3529/did-moses-live

"has many more authors"...

So.. it's a collection of books. what's your point? It's also been

revised many many times... Karen Armstrong has a good book on this, "The

History of the Bible". and they still couldn't get it right - it's rife

with contradictions.

"and spans thousands of years,"

the Rig Vedas also span thousands of years, actually more than the bible, so what?

The Rigvedas are religious texts by the way.

"and can be verified as true in almost every regard,"

No it can't... and it hasn't. Even apologists would

disagree with you here. True as in the Exodus? Never happened.. not one

iota of archaeological or historical evidence exists to support that

claim.. not one.

http://www.charismamag.com/site-archives/570-news/featured-news/4255-archeologists-find-proof-of-israelite-exodus-entry-to-canaan

http://www.konig.org/wc188.htm

http://appleofgodseye.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/forgotten-sinai-inscriptions-prove-exodus-was-real/

^^^If this is where you get your sources then that explains a lot. Not peer reviewed, not cited... please look at real scientific and scholarly works. Ignoring the data available does not make your position very strong.

"more so than any other book, more

so with those dating back even a fraction of the bible, and we have more

copies of the bible than any other historic book."

I've dealt with the dating above... and of course we have more

copies. The Catholic Church has made a living off of copying biblical

texts—had entire monasteries devoted to it. Most copies were made after

200AD. The largest proportion probably after 800AD, your point?

I mean, these words were written down well before paper.
Proof? How can you possibly assert that without evidence? There are NO words of the Hebrew texts written down anywhere before the 2nd century bce. None. Not on stone, not on Papyri, not on vellum or parchment...

You are seriously an historical ignoramus. Do you even know who

invented paper? Do you have any conception of the historical timeline

of.. anything? (based in reality?)

"Paper, and the pulp papermaking process, was said to be developed in China during the early 2nd century AD by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun, although the earliest archaeological fragments of paper derive from the 2nd century BC in China"

"For a long time the Chinese closely guarded the secret of paper

manufacture and tried to eliminate other Oriental centers of production

to ensure a monopoly. However in 751 A.D. the T'ang army was defeated by

the Ottoman Turks at a mighty battle at the Talas River. Some Chinese

soldiers and paper makers were captured and brought to Samarkand. The

Arabs learned the paper making from

the Chinese prisoners and built the first paper industry in Baghdad in

793 A.D. They, too, kept it a secret, and Europeans did not learn how to

make paper until several centuries later. The Egyptians learned the

paper making from the Arabs during the early 10th century. Around 1100

A.D. paper arrived in Northern Africa and by 1150 A.D. it arrived to Spain as a result of the crusades and established the first paper industry in Europe."

source - http://www.silk-road...permaking.shtml

Could be Egypt used papryus around 2500 Yes they did... the Egyptians, not the Hebrews - they didn't even exist as a people when the Pyramid texts were written.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were written on parchment.(inner lining of goatskin) Around 150 — 200BC. These are the oldest existing documents we have of the Hebrew texts.

Can you show me even one book that

comes close to the diversity, age, and factual points found true than

what the bible has to say. I think not. There is none.

What factual points found true? Talking donkeys? Vague assertions with no support. The rest is dealt with above. You lie.

You didn't answer the question. I would be most interested in this evidence. What factual points? As far as diversity, age, etc.. I've dealt with that.. you are wrong.

You take for truth books a fraction

of the bibles age written by one author with few copies yet throw the

bible as trash. Honestly, have you done your homework? There is none

other that comes

close to comparing."

What 'books' are you referring to that we take as truth?

Again... no answer. If you are going to make an assertion, especially an insulting one, back it up, or retract it.

I don't know one person here that swallows anything without investigation... no matter who wrote what.

You are making a fool of yourself with your incredible lack of knowledge of ancient history and literature.. and you lie. Yes, I have done my homework... I'm an art historian. hmmm... there is a decided lack

of Hebrew art, including literature, in the ancient middle-east.

However... there is TONS of it from Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc... There are

some people, just on this website alone, that could mop the floor with

your 'knowledge' with their eyes closed and one hand behind their

backs.. because we cared enough to seek the truth no matter how uncomfortable it was, and we did our friggin' homework... my 14 year old daughter knows more about history than you do.

This could be true. I have read many books concerning the history of the bible but I did not do a huge study on comparing to all other books, That's obvious. You have ignored all other sources of information except those which support your conclusion - that's called confirmation bias and therefore your conclusions can not be taken seriously and can be summarily discarded as one-sided and seriously ignorant twaddle. though earlier when I did the evedince seemed prettty over whelming for the bible comparison being different from any other and earlier originals in the quanity. You DID NOT investigate anything with an open mind, nor did you look at all the evidence, YOU LIE. You are incredibly dishonest with yourself and hence with every one else. What does your book say about false witnessing? You are guilty.

Any how, yes, you have done your homework. Yes, I have... and you will NOT get away with butchering history, or prevaricating it on my watch.

>

I was right about all of it. Many god myths have a god who died and

three days later rose again. Jesus was just a plagiarism of earlier

religions. And I've been the life transformed with Jesus dwelling

inside me Christen filled with the Holy Spirit and all that. I lived it

for 35 years. It is self-delusion and willful ignorance. Christianity

brings the opposite of forgiveness because Christianity must invent the

sin to make people feel guilty. Your God is no more real than any

other man-made God. And in the original Old Testament sources Judaism

was pagan and polytheistic. All those names for God were not different

names for the same God. They were different names for the different

gods worshiped by the Jewish people. Yahweh had a wife goddess. The

"sons of God" mentioned in Job and Psalm mean the 70 gods who were the

children of the High God. That is right - Yahweh and "the accuser" were

originally brothers. That is why Yahweh's brother Jehovah commanded

that no other gods be worshiped before him. And it's why in Genesis 2

the Gods and Goddesses were talking among themselves and decided to make

humans in their own images. Eve was in the image of all the goddesses.

Your religion is a pack of lies.

That is a lot to chew on. Do you know of any links of these statements.

Yes as a matter of fact... many. Here are just a few... if you are honest you will follow the citations and find more.

http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying-and-rising_god

http://oldtestamentstudies.datascenesdev.com/languages/asherahandashtoreth.asp?item=4&variant=0

                    Posted Yesterday, 06:14 AM











BBA, do me a favor if you would. type out just ten things, just

out of the blue, the first things that come to your head, that are

"facts" and let us see where the road takes us. No cheating. LOL Just

quick responses, than thinking.

No problem!

1. I'm wearing glasses.

2. My cat is called Beauty.
does your cat get called any other names by any one on even on ocasion? If so, 2 could have more than one fact.

3. She drinks mineral water.
Like wise was statement 3. Does your cat drink milk?

4. I ate chicken yesterday.
Wings?, Thighs?, tenders?. If someone said you ate wings yesterday would they be wrong?

5. The capital of China is Beijing.

6. I'm painfully slow at texting.

7. I like vanilla.

8. My garden needs some work.

9. Abraham Lincoln is dead.

10. You live near the Great Lakes.

Those do?

Fyi, Stranger, here are some additional facts about those ten facts I listed.

1. It doesn't matter what you believe about them - they remain facts, not beliefs.
true, however, more than one fact can be said or found within, and if so, unless understood in context, someone learning English could declare contradictions.

2. It doesn't matter what you believe about them - your beliefs change nothing about them.

True, but if we claim our beliefs are facts or facts are our beliefs is it possible to change what one believes? if so, a preceived fact changes with it. You may say that in that case it was never fact but if at the time we believed it to be so, how many other facts are really just a wrong belief?

This is sophistry at it's finest. Do you not know the difference between believing something and accepting something as true based on evidence? Your 'belief' is not based on evidence - you haven't provided any evidence. Facts don't change, interpretation might with new evidence. Example: I don't 'believe' in evolution, I accept it as true based on the evidence - the facts. It isn't a position of faith.

3. It doesn't matter what you believe about them - all you can do is accept or deny them.

Unless we learn different down the road.

4. It doesn't matter what I believe about them, either - all I can do is accept or deny them.

5. Beijing has been the capital of China since 1949 and nothing you or I believe can change that fact.

6. The truth of any fact is independent of anyone's belief or doubt

in it. This explains why people can be killed by things don't know about

(i.e., things they haven't had a chance to believe in or not.)

True. That being said, is there a good chance what we believe to be fact is not? Or unknown facts that will challenge the preceived facts of today? Knowledge increases with new data... but the data doesn't change. Seriously, think about it, do you really believe that the FACT that the earth is a sphere will be found to be false? Or that electro-magneticism will be found to be false and Thor is the real reason.. we just got the facts wrong? Give your head a shake.

7. The truth of any fact remains the truth, regardless of anyone's

belief. That's why a falling tree makes a noise, even if nobody hears

it. Reality doesn't need us to believe in it, for it to be real.

8. The truth of any fact can't be altered by our decision to

disbelieve it. Disbelief changes nothing, except our minds. Which is

why we can only accept or deny the facts and never change them from what

they are.

9. Abraham Lincoln's death is a recorded historical fact. All you

can do is to accept or deny that. Nothing you believe or disbelieve

changes anything, Stranger - except inside your head.

10. If I choose to believe that you live on Mars, does my belief change the truth of the fact that you don't?

BAA

p.s.

It's BAA, not BBA. ok?

I got ya BAA. BAA is a fact and another fact is it is not BBA. After all of these years I might just agree with you. The problem comes in when what we believe to be fact may be found out to be wrong later on. Sometimes misunderstandings happen when different points of the same facts are told in different ways. With science, our facts seem to change often, No they don't.. the facts don't change, you flippin' nimrod - the working theories adjust to take new information into account. Facts are facts. (this is easily described in the rise of quantum mechanics to explain the behavior of subatomic particles because Newton's mechanics didn't work with the universe on that level.. the FACTS are still the same) unless you would comply that what was thought of as fact was not fact at all. In doing so, one has to question everything else one considers or calls fact right now. If we say all the evidence points toward this fact thus conclude it to be fact but later find new evidence that dismantkes the first or puts it into a new light than we must conclude what we use to hold as fact was a lie. Thus why I always have said it is what we choose to be fact. You are right. A fact is a fact, but we must be very careful in understanding we may be wrong upon many things we believe or call facts.

We do NOT choose what is a fact. Facts exist regardless of how we see them - otherwise the entire field of physics is wrong and there would be no way to predict anything, this would result in a universe of complete chaos. It has NOTHING to do with belief!

That's how science works...it progresses with new data...you are correct in that new data changes the way we develop theories, but it's very unlikely that any new data would completely overturn the basics of the scientific theory we have now- the models we have, have been tested, over and over and over, and they WORK... they are tweaked and adjusted but our basic understanding of the material world is solid... animals don't talk - not because they are stupid, because they don't have the vocal structure/ability, people do not rise from the dead after 3 days and the world could not have been completely covered in water, EVER - it's against the laws of physics. You are using a computer which is PROOF that our models work, we have a working understanding of the laws of physics even if we are still learning. No magic needed. NEVER has anyone seen/proven that the laws of physics can be broken... not once, other than anecdotes and ancient legend. Hercules did some amazing things too... why do you dismiss those?

evidence? I think not.

As far as texts and evidence goes: if you don't even look at all the evidence how can you possibly make any conclusion at all? You religious people seem to think that we aren't open to new evidence. We are and because we are, but we've looked at more than just biased evidence to begin with... and the overwhelming majority of it points towards the Bible being no more than a collection of texts, songs, legends and mythology and political propaganda... it's not 'history' though - though there are some historical events and people mentioned (Nebuchadnezzer is one we KNOW existed - because he is mentioned in various writings throughout the region, not just the Bible).

You can play word games all you want... that may work on the ignorant and gullible - but ultimately you are fooling no one but yourself.

If you could prove even 5% of the assertions you have made, we might.. no, the world might, take you seriously. If you showed the very minimum of being open to looking at ALL the evidence and then submitting a hypothesis you might have a leg to stand on. You don't. At this point I'm lumping you in with those who say we have no transitional fossils... because.. crocoduck!

February 21, 2013

Moses? You do realize there's no evidence for Moses right? He may have existed... he may not have.

http://skeptics.stac.../did-moses-live

I expect that when the people who would become the Jews were making their mad dash to get away from the Sea People that they had several leaders or leader types who were Egyptian. These Egyptian men would have been "son of" somebody and thus they would have been called (Something)moses as part of their name. When those folks were trying to carve out an existence as hilltop farmers they probably would have leaned heavily on their leaders. For them the Golden Age had ended and the Dark Age had begun. Later generations started telling stories, tall tales and myths to justify their existence and the Egyptian word for "son of" got randomly preserved.

February 21, 2013

If you read the stories around Moses it's pretty clear that he was an Egyptian priest/magician. And yes, 'moses' is basically 'the son of'. The 'memory' of the power of the Egyptian priesthood is obvious - which makes sense since Egypt was the most powerful civilization on the planet at that time. Creating a story to discredit them is a particularly clever way to promote their religion.

The story about how he turns his staff into a serpent is obvious Egyptian magic.. 'pharoah's' priests do the same trick (why does Pharoah not have a name? Pharoah is a title - equivalent to 'king'... could it be because he represents the 'authority of egypt' and not a real person?) very strange because many other rulers are named in the OT. Frequently out of date/timeline, but still.

Aaron was probably a priest of Canaan (Baal - a fertility god, represented by a bull) and became Moses 'brother' in the priesthood.

It's like centuries of myth and events all got mashed up into a somewhat coherent story. I believe it was either the Sumerians or maybe Akkadians/Mesopotamians (Persians? I'll have to look it up WAIT! I remember.. it was Sargon of Akkad!!!! 2334 to 2279 BCE )

http://www.ancient.eu.com/Sargon_of_Akkad/

who have a story about a baby set adrift in a river and found by royalty... . It's a retelling of an old familiar story. Like the flood myth/legend.

http://history-world.org/floods.htm

February 21, 2013

Yes that is a bit odd in the Bible isn't it - that he's called Pharaoh and not The Pharaoh. Hmm.

February 21, 2013

Yes that is a bit odd in the Bible isn't it - that he's called Pharaoh and not The Pharaoh. Hmm.

Not that. It's that the Bible author(s) didn't know which Pharaoh ruled back when the story was set. So the author(s) didn't know the Pharaoh's name. Imagine a history book about a US president and it never named which president it was talking about. Lincoln? Carter? Washington? Bush? Roosevelt? Wilson? Obama? And you can't tell from the story which president it is talking about because none of the details of the story match any president nor give any indicator of when the time was set. Seems kind of fishy?

February 22, 2013

yes... I have a theory that the ancient Hebrews (backwoods rednecks) were very envious of Egypt (sophisticated city slickers)... the myriad bible stories about their superiority to Egypt are kind of like their monster trucks.

If you want your god to be the best - he'd HAVE to be able to beat Egypt. That would be the standard.

February 22, 2013

Yeah, God killed all their kids! Score one for the little guys! ... now let's go and kill some Amelekites and rape their daughters...

What a horrible, horrible book.

February 22, 2013

rape their daughters...

Where is this again? I musta missed it:)

Not that. It's that the Bible author(s) didn't know which Pharaoh ruled
back when the story was set. So the author(s) didn't know the

Pharaoh's name.

I read plenty of articles with just the title president. The exodus was a major event, thus if giving a book about 9/11 one might only refere to the term president as it might have been well known at the time. I am not so sure these writers like Moses knew their books would be forever published. It is believed Thutmoses

III was Pharaoh in 1440 BC for a total of 54 years. (1479-1425). Our President rules for eight years top.

Yes, it is true there are many gods or religions that share similar stories with the bible. Does that discredit or support the bible? If all came from a few on the ark than all would have flood stories, and they do. Also being the Jews lived with the Greeks so long the Greeks may of used the ideas from Israel. Read Acts where the Greek called Paul a Greek God and Paul rebuked them, saying clearly Christianity is not part of the Greek god system.

Ravenstar, you are a very smart lady. Concerning the bible being the oldest book in the world, It appears I was wrong. I know I would have trouble keeping pace with your mind. It is too bad you take it your that smart just by chance. You are right about my studies. I do look at Christian web sites much more often than not for clear reasons. It does seem with Christianity there is rarely middle ground. Between you look for ways to disproof God and the bible or one looks for ways to proof God and the bible. You did take a quick look at the links I gave for the Exodus I hope. If you want facts, what do you do when you find some that counteract with your believes? Later on I will get into more of some of your statements because it is clear this has been your study for many years and you know I cannot compete. That being said, I will be looking more into these things. When it does revolve around the truth of the bible stories there does seem to be an overwhelming amount of evidence to support them. Any how, I will have to take one at a time. I can never say your thoughts are higher than mine, as my thoughts rest in heaven, but you certainly have been gifted with many smarts:)

Indeed!

That is why we must always back up our

beliefs with evidence. That is why we must always seek to find out the

facts. If we can't do either of these things, the most honest course of

action is to say that we cannot support our beliefs with evidence or

facts. We must also say that our beliefs are not the truth, but that we

believe that they are.

Agreed? Y? N?

I agree. In saying that, often times what one sees as evidence another dismisses. So, even if we both have a stack of evidense, though they point in two different directions, than it would be hard to call either one fact, correct?

Do you see it now?

Faith and belief fill in the gaps in the facts and the evidence.

Where there is hard, factual evidence, no faith or belief is needed.

That was some good scripture you put out there. And to some degree you are most certainly correct, but not with replacing faith with the facts, but using faith until we see the facts. This can often usually be done after seeing facts before hand. Abel and Cain still talked with the Lord and knew the first man created very well. Enoch we only know he wa taken up. We do not know what he saw or did before in his life. Noah God told directly to as a face to face conversation. The same was true with Abram. It should also be noted none saw the complete promise but all saw part fullfilled.

All i all I will let you win with the fact case as I no longer have the strength to carry on. Just so long it is noted that we both agree evidence does not always mean fact. Also, we cannot even base facts on facts because if a new fact comes into play it may topple the one on top. So, we will leave a fact is indeed a fact, but a fact is only those things known as a certainty on both sides. In other words, if two parties can not see the same results or come to the same conclusions based on different testing or looking at the results in a different manner than no one side could claim their case is factual.

In the end, you can say I cannot, under what we call fact, make God a fact for you. In the end, we will know what is fact and fiction. By the way, you are right. A lie is different from a new conclusion based on new evidence, but we still must conclude it was therefore not a fact. Even if part of it may have been the fact as a whole was not fact after all.

Hope you don't mind my butting into this discussion. If I may as,

what do statements such as "Jesus is the only one know to have died for

our sins..." and "all other religions are based on works and dead

Gods..." even mean? Let me clarify this. As an ex-Christian who is not

an atheist, I've got no problem with your claims of the existence of

the supernatural. But when you say that only Jesus is the only god who

died for our sins, you're assuming everyone believes that some atonement

for sin is necessary in everyone's mind. I could just as well say that

Sri Krishna is the only God who's instructed a warrior on the eve of a

holy war (and I intentionally chose an example from a religion I

actually believe in). And your statement that other religions are based

on dead gods seems likewise meaningless. No one believes that their

God is dead. I certainly don't.

I see evangelicals repeatedly making statements to the effect of "my

God died for me and yours didn't," or "my God is alive and yours is

dead." These statements aren't legitimate arguments; they are only

persuasive if you already believe that they're true. I'm hoping that

you can expand on this. A lot, if possible. If you say something

substantive, I honestly don't mind reading a long post.

Would you say you have sin? Let me ask that in a different light. Have you ever done something you had wished you had not? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen from anyone or place, even in a small regard?

I believe that the majority of people on earth believe they have sin in their lives or have sinned to at least say they have not lived perfect lives, such as God in heaven Who has no sin at all and is set apart holy from all sin and in fact, He cannot sin. This is the reason in which I believe most religions offer sacrifices. Not usually with animals these days though it has been known that children in some cases were often used. Theses days I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that one must do things, or works, or like manner to possibly have a chance to go to heaven. Pray three times a day, facing a certain direction. Do good works x amount of times per week. Hike and bow to a rock some call God. You see, most religions one must live a life of structure. A life of costume. One must try to over come their sin, or better put have more good come out of them than evil or bad things.

They make their religion as a balence being in which one must try to out weigh the bad with the good in hopes of maybe being accepted by their God. Also it seems the Gods I know of most are not Gods of mersy but of revenge, always out to get the humans. Thus why the structured religion is needed along with certain sacrifices like paying debt or bowing down x amount of times a day, and perhaps with gifts of many items.

Grant it, I do not speak on this subject in a mindset where I got it all figured out as I know about Christianity but not so much about many other religions.

This is where Jesus is different. First, unlike most cultures, we believe in One God only (via the Godhead -- The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and we believe Jesus came down and took human form to take the punishment, the curse of which was brought on with the sin of Adam, resulting in death and suffering due to sin in the world, away. In other words, all creation has a curse. That curse is a selfish heart and the results from. This can be seen in babies. We are born with a thought process that the world revilves around self. Often later when we realize we are not in control we look for some type of God for security. This is found more often than not, though of course, many are raised in one religion or another.

In other religions, from what I know, because there is no cure for sin, and no payment to justify for, the only hope is not to piss God off too much and if we do enough good or meditate enough or bow down enough maybe just maybe we can work ourselves into heaven with the balencing system, not understanding that even one sin is one sin too many and the curse is forever present.

When Jesus died, He made away for us to go to heaven. He was perfect thus the only sacrifice that would work. No other God has paid the price for our sin. Further more, though we act differently because Jesus lives inside of us and changes our hearts and our attitudes if allowed, there is no payment that we must make except to live a life of thanksgiving to the One Who saved us. This is not works but a new way of living with the blessed Holy Spirit guiding our way. If we live by the Spirit we are no longer under the law. You see, Jesus makes us free from all sin. No other god has that power.

Now when I refere to dead Gods I most often refere to the prophets who god went through to start their religion who has died or meaning gods made of wood or other such things. A god that is made by humans cannot be a living god, let alone a god, seeing that God is the Creater. This is not to say that many do not believe in a living God. Roman did many moons ago. In fact, they believed in so many no one could could keep them straight.

Does the God you believe in and worship give you peace inside? Does peace like a river flow from your veins? Does joy unspeakable come from your heart and mouth? Does your God make you want to shout for joy. Does your God live inside of you and direct your every path. The more I think of how many times God has saved my butt or how many times things that looked like they would all fall apart came together after a feeling of my prayer being answered in advance.

You see, when we say a living God, we mean a God in which day after day, week after week, month after month, we can see Him at work in our lives and in the world around us. Each day He draws closer to us. Each day He becomes more and more apart of you. It is only by remembering the goodness of God in the past that we can trust God through our test. This was the problem in part for the Israelites. History is indeed a great lesson. It is interesting many claim Christianity was a Greek branch off when the Greek was not even an established nation for many a moons after the Israelites came on the scene.

Now it may be said not everyone thinks atonement is a must for sin, but if not, what do you have? If one thinks this earth is unfair or bad any other place in the future that has sin allowed i it cannot be any better so unless one has no hope for a future past this life than atonement for sin is a must unless one would want to live in this world of suffering for ever. I know I do not.

Does your religion give you what you long for? Does your god show himself real to you? Has your god or religion changed your life in an over whelming postitive way?

Like I would like to say all Christians walk the walk (as I should do better myself at times) just as I would like all doctors to walk the talk but we are all human for sure. Perfection as humans is a impossible task but forgiveness and a changed heart and a direct pass to God is very possible.

Thank you for asking your question and feel free to expound upon your belief.

I'm new to this post, so I may be a pain in the ass with respect to

the question I want to ask you, stranger. I have not read the whole

post. I will later. But the question I want to ask you relates to a

presumption that I want you to make for the purpose of discussion. It is

intended to get to the real issues first, without presuming the very

thing you want us to believe.

That is, will you be willing to presume for the purpose of discussion only that

you don't know whether the Bible is the word of God, you don't know if

the God of the Bible is the one true God, you don't if Jesus was God's

son, or if he was resurrected from the dead, you don't know if there is a

God at all, and you don't know who created the earth, stars, sun, moon,

animals, plants and human beings Not only do you not know these

things, but you neither believe nor deny that the any of the forgoing is

true. You will put your mind in neutral to the extent humanly possible.

You see, if one enters this discussion with "arguing points" that he

wants the other side to take as true, and if these are in fact contested

issues, we will get nowhere. So on the major issues, to wit: Is there a

god who created the universe and all living creatures, who is

omnipotent, all beneficent, all knowing of the past, present and future,

and who involves himself in human affairs, I say, on these issues, will

you agree to be totally neutral? This way we can discuss the issues

based on what can be reasonably shown by empirical evidence and what

logically follows from there. If you will do that, you will be the first

christian I know of who would. bill

First Bill, I do thank you for your question. That is a hard question to ask. You see, I have doubted God many times in the 15 plus years of being a Christian though less now than ever before based on the miracles He has done in my life and all the ways and times He has shown Himself to be true to me. It is kind of like asking me to try to pretent my mother was not born or I do not live on planet earth. You see, during my questioning God I certainly looked on the other side of things for quite a while. Fact is, I use to be quite rebellious.

But please understand, I could be wrong, but I would say most of us, no matter how hard we try, can never be truly nutral as we all have preconceived ideas before hand. I can promise, as I always have, that I will try to keep an open mind. When I am proven wrong I admit it, as I had to do even upon this very posting. However, the thing you ask of me is truly not possible. If I could be honest with you and tell you differently I would. I think we all come to the table with atleast what we believe we will see as the truth.

With all due respect, it would be like me asking you to come to the table believing that there is a God and that He did in fact create the world and everything in it. I am sorry my friend. I will not lie intentally to you.

I'll just make three points and try to do so briefly (not easy for me!):

1. The immediate issue in the posts we've exchanged is not, can

humans make choices and decide things, or can humans do what they decide

without some interference in their mental processes from God.

No theologian claims that creatures don't make choices.  No Calvinist

has a problem saying that a creature is the proximate cause of its own

choice. The issue is, whether God from eternity decided or

determined all outcomes - including creatures' choices - that would

occur in the creation he was about to create, or only some of them.

2. You speak about creaturely free will. You need to

make clear that this concept - NOT the concept merely of creaturely will

- is taught in scripture. BTW unless you can show that you understand

ancient Greek, don't talk about the meanings of Greek words. Πότε

έμαθες τα Ελληνικά;

3. You make noble efforts to reconcile God's ultimate causation of

all things (still not fully clear what your take is - talk of

"permission" from an all-powerful being is a cop-out) with his

punishment of creatures.  The difficulty, which theologians have faced

since they had to deal with the NT (I don't comment on Judaism), points

out how the bible is a collection of different writings that contain

mutually contradictory statements. Some of the verses you point to

don't harmonize with other verses. It's OK for believers to fall back

on "it's a mystery too deep for us", but that's not a strong argument

for belief. A lot of what we've been debating are in fact pseudo-questions; there is in principle no way to demonstrate that an answer is true.

Thank you for your pointers. I can promise I have not researched such things as you have. I can also promise I do not speak Greek. I will contend with your pointers being the finale posting for that exact questioning.

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

Centauri -- It is great to chat with you again. I do want to respond to your post in some length but I have been up too long at this point. I have in the past sometimes been forgetful to get back to you with replies. The next time I am on the site, yours will be the first I will respond to.

February 22, 2013

Quote

rape their daughters...

Where is this again? I musta missed it:)

NUMBERS

31 The Lord said to Moses, ²“Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

³So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. ⁴Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” ⁵So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. ⁶Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.

⁷They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. ⁸Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. ⁹The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. ¹⁰They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. ¹¹They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, ¹²and brought the captives, spoilsand plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

¹³Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. ¹⁴Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

¹⁵“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. ¹⁶“They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. ¹⁷Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, ¹⁸but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

¹⁹“Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. ²⁰Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

²¹Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, “This is what is required by the law that the Lord gave Moses: ²²Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead ²³and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water. ²⁴On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp.”

...

So, keep all the virgin girls for yourself...

I wonder what for?

Obviously not simply for use as labour slaves because the older women would have been good for that too.

Maybe Moses thought the soldiers should wine, dine, and romance the young girls until they accepted a proposal of marriage. Somehow I expect not, since the soldiers had just killed the girls' mothers, fathers and brothers and subjected them to vaginal inspection before kidnapping them.

February 22, 2013

I read plenty of articles with just the title president. The exodus was a major event, thus if giving a book about 9/11 one might only refere to the term president as it might have been well known at the time. I am not so sure these writers like Moses knew their books would be forever published. It is believed Thutmoses

III was Pharaoh in 1440 BC for a total of 54 years. (1479-1425). Our President rules for eight years top.

You don't get it. Moses didn't write any part of the Bible. Moses didn't even exist in the form you are thinking of. The closest thing to Moses that was real were people like Thutmoses. Moses is an Egyptian word. The exodus was not a major event nor even a minor event. It was as real as Rudolf leading Santa's Flying Sleigh through the blizzard for the first time. There is zero evidence that the Exodus happened.

People working for King Josiah wrote part of Deuteronomy. Then later on some writers put out some Yhawaist and Elohem writings. When Ezra came back from Babylon he took these sources along with traditions from a wide variety of sources and he weaved them together to form the Old Testament.

When you read the the Old Testament you find something curious. The phrase " . . . and that is why it is called (name) to this very day". The myth is trying to justify names that were modern to when the story was written. You don't write a story about the 1990's and include things like " . . . and that is why it is called (name) to this very day".

Edit:

When Paul of Tarsus was writing his letters the Old Testament was only about 500 years old. Ezra used older sources but he also changed the material and there is no way to know how much he changed and how much he conjured out of thin air. The Bible as reliable as the texts for any other religion.

Yes, it is true there are many gods or religions that share similar stories with the bible. Does that discredit or support the bible? If all came from a few on the ark than all would have flood stories, and they do. Also being the Jews lived with the Greeks so long the Greeks may of used the ideas from Israel. Read Acts where the Greek called Paul a Greek God and Paul rebuked them, saying clearly Christianity is not part of the Greek god system.

The evidence shows that Jewish religion came from Egyptian and Babylonian sources that was later home brewed. The evidence shows that Romans created Christianity from Jewish, Gnostic and Mithraist sources. The evidence shows that humans create all kinds of gods. The ones in the Bible are quite typical examples. Creating gods is human nature. We have been doing it for at least 50,000 years.

I agree. In saying that, often times what one sees as evidence another dismisses. So, even if we both have a stack of evidense, though they point in two different directions, than it would be hard to call either one fact, correct?

You don't have a stack of evidence. You don't have any objective evidence at all. You just have the times when you lost your car keys and then later found where you put them in your own home and told yourself that this was some kind of miracle. You know atheists can find their car keys too. And agnostics can roll up to an empty parking spot sometimes without even asking any god. And pagans sometimes find it stops raining just when it's time for them to go out.

February 22, 2013

You don't have a stack of evidence. You don't have any objective evidence at all. You just have the times when you lost your car keys and then later found where you put them in your own home and told yourself that this was some kind of miracle. You know atheists can find their car keys too. And agnostics can roll up to an empty parking spot sometimes without even asking any god. And pagans sometimes find it stops raining just when it's time for them to go out.

Bangarang mymistake.

February 22, 2013

Yes, it is true there are many gods or religions that share similar stories with the bible. Does that discredit or support the bible? If all came from a few on the ark than all would have flood stories, and they do. Also being the Jews lived with the Greeks so long the Greeks may of used the ideas from Israel. Read Acts where the Greek called Paul a Greek God and Paul rebuked them, saying clearly Christianity is not part of the Greek god system.

*sigh* There was no worldwide flood. (though an ancient memory of local flooding, maybe from the paleolithic era, is a possibility for the origin of the story) It's not physically possible - as in the Laws of Physics.

There are so many problems with this story I don't even know where to start. For one, genetically, it isn't possible for the entire human race to have descended from 8 people.. and 5 were blood related. We'd all be down's syndrome or something worse. That's not enough genetic variability. Gathering, caring for and feeding all the animals of the world? No... not possible. The amount of water needed to cover all the mountains of the earth? The salinity problem (all the ocean life would have died out too), the plants would have all died after so much time under water... it's so completely ridiculous.

http://ncse.com/cej/4/1/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark

please check the citations - they aren't making shit up.

Morally, it's reprehensible. Really.. drown every living being on the planet.. infants, children, everyone? Why? Didn't god know this would happen before he created the world? It doesn't logically jive with omniscience - at all. Why kill all the animals? If this god can pop beings into existence why the heck would he need to drown them (pretty terrifying death, no?) to get rid of them?

The Flood myth comes from the story of Sargon Of Akkad, which predates the Hebrews by a LONG time. The Greeks (Egyptians, Sumerians, Persians, etc..) can NOT have gotten their info from the Israelites because they didn't exist yet. These cultures were BEFORE the Hebrews. The archaeological record is very clear on that. You aren't grasping the timelines... we are talking thousands of years here, not 50. Good grief, the Sumerians even predate the Egyptians.

Ravenstar, you are a very smart lady. Concerning the bible being the oldest book in the world, It appears I was wrong. I know I would have trouble keeping pace with your mind. It is too bad you take it your that smart just by chance.

Thank you but I'm no genius. But who said I took it as chance? The basic ability runs in my family (Thanks mom and dad!) but I've worked damn hard to educate myself. It's not chance at all. It didn't come out of the blue - I didn't get my knowledge supernaturally. Now if I could just put that kind of effort in at the gym...

You are right about my studies. I do look at Christian web sites much more often than not for clear reasons. It does seem with Christianity there is rarely middle ground. Between you look for ways to disproof God and the bible or one looks for ways to proof God and the bible.

You seem to think that I've spent my life trying to disprove god... you are SO wrong there. I'm an EX-christian, a whole lot of time was seeking truth within christianity. I figured that if it was true the evidence would back it up... it doesn't. Not even close... but I started out, and for many years, studying all this stuff believing that it was true. I reject your sources because I've already been IMMERSED in them. I might even know the interpretations better than you. But...They are wrong.

You did take a quick look at the links I gave for the Exodus I hope.

Yes.. I KNOW them, I knew them years ago.. they are wrong. So far there is NO evidence for the Exodus.. none. If they find something I am willing to look at it - but 2-3 million people wandering in the desert for 40 years should leave SOME evidence. There is nothing.

If you want facts, what do you do when you find some that counteract with your believes?

I've already looked at both sides.. all sides..and still do, if it's a fact no matter what it is I will consider it. I don't study with a conclusion in mind. I don't swallow other's interpretations.. and MOST christian sites and books unfortunately are very low on scientific facts and very high on opinions and trying to justify things instead of just taking the evidence or lack thereof and being neutral in examining it. However... I try very hard to be unbiased when looking at facts. I am brutal in my expectations of scholarship. Example.. if you are trying to prove an hypothesis about an aspect of evolution, you'd better have a background in biology or biochemistry and be prepared to submit it for peer review. A PH.D in Engineering ain't gonna cut it. Everyone has an opinion, can you back it up empirically? Anecdotes and eye-witness accounts are among the most unreliable forms of evidence (ask the FBI). IF god interacts with the physical world there would be SOME evidence. If he doesn't what's the point?

and exactly WHERE is heaven? The NT tells us that Jesus rose bodily... and went to Heaven. That would make Heaven a physical place.. where? In the sky? Hubble hasn't found it yet. If he didn't then where is the body? Why raise him physically at all just to discard the body again? It's ILLOGICAL.

Later on I will get into more of some of your statements because it is clear this has been your study for many years and you know I cannot compete. That being said, I will be looking more into these things. When it does revolve around the truth of the bible stories there does seem to be an overwhelming amount of evidence to support them.

No there isn't... the archaeological evidence does NOT back up the majority of the Bible stories. Please cite serious studies on this - maybe I've missed something. I would admnish you to do the same.. LOOK at the evidence. With an open mind.

Any how, I will have to take one at a time. I can never say your thoughts are higher than mine, as my thoughts rest in heaven, but you certainly have been gifted with many smarts:)

I have to give credit to my addiction to reading, history, and teh Google.

Would you say you have sin? Let me ask that in a different light. Have you ever done something you had wished you had not? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen from anyone or place, even in a small regard?

I don't believe in 'sin', the way christians do. Sin means 'missing the mark' in Hebrew. Here's the rub.. there is no such thing as 'perfection' in our universe. We haven't seen it yet.. there is such a thing as balance though and laws of the material world. Cause and effect, yada, yada,yada... everything we know about evolution and psychology demonstrates that nothing is perfect, it just changes to adapt to it's environment. People do bad things, people do good things.. it seems we are progressing to be more empathetic, because it's a good survival technique. Science predicts these things.

Have I ever done things I'm not proud of? Yes... everyone has. Have I done things I'm proud of, yes. I'm very committed to personal growth and being a better person... I don't feel any existential guilt for not being perfect. I fail sometimes, I get up - dust myself off, make amends and own up to my bullcrap and learn my lesson. I become a better person that way. I FORGIVE myself, I take personal responsibility for my actions. I also give myself credit for the things I do right.

I believe that the majority of people on earth believe they have sin in their lives or have sinned to at least say they have not lived perfect lives, such as God in heaven Who has no sin at all and is set apart holy from all sin and in fact, He cannot sin. This is the reason in which I believe most religions offer sacrifices. Not usually with animals these days though it has been known that children in some cases were often used. Theses days I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that one must do things, or works, or like manner to possibly have a chance to go to heaven. Pray three times a day, facing a certain direction. Do good works x amount of times per week. Hike and bow to a rock some call God. You see, most religions one must live a life of structure. A life of costume. One must try to over come their sin, or better put have more good come out of them than evil or bad things.

God is not perfect - he is a monster. Read your darn bible. He has broken at least one 'commandment' over and over to the tune of MILLIONS, murder. Thou shalt not kill.. really now. Or is he a 'do as I say, not as I do' parent? He has commanded many others to commit atrocities... so he is culpable. If you think he is perfect you haven't read the bible. Sending people to hell for eternity for a finite life is not JUSTICE. It's sadism.

The funny thing is I see no difference between christians (or any other religion - maybe buddhism) and other people as far as 'sin' goes. There is NO power there and they aren't better people than anyone else - if anything christiandom is responsible for most of the horrid atrocities throughout history. IF there was any truth to it there would be SOME evidence that being a christian makes one a better person. There is none. People are good, people are bad... it's pretty much the same throughout the world. Actually, secular nations are more peaceful and have a better standard of living and human rights records. So.. the evidence is actually kind of against it.. though not conclusive yet.

They make their religion as a balence being in which one must try to out weigh the bad with the good in hopes of maybe being accepted by their God. Also it seems the Gods I know of most are not Gods of mersy but of revenge, always out to get the humans. Thus why the structured religion is needed along with certain sacrifices like paying debt or bowing down x amount of times a day, and perhaps with gifts of many items.

You have NO education of comparative religion.. stop there please.

Grant it, I do not speak on this subject in a mindset where I got it all figured out as I know about Christianity but not so much about many other religions.

exactly

This is where Jesus is different. First, unlike most cultures, we believe in One God only (via the Godhead -- The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and we believe Jesus came down and took human form to take the punishment, the curse of which was brought on with the sin of Adam, resulting in death and suffering due to sin in the world, away. In other words, all creation has a curse. That curse is a selfish heart and the results from. This can be seen in babies. We are born with a thought process that the world revilves around self. Often later when we realize we are not in control we look for some type of God for security. This is found more often than not, though of course, many are raised in one religion or another.

The trinity is not supported by the Bible. Child psychology is also not your forte. Babies are not evil... sheesh. Adam.. oh crikey. Yup, it's moral to punish someone who had NO KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. You can not make a informed choice without knowledge.. you can't CHOOSE between good and evil if you don't know what they are. Jesus is not unique by the way.

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

In other religions, from what I know, because there is no cure for sin, and no payment to justify for, the only hope is not to piss God off too much and if we do enough good or meditate enough or bow down enough maybe just maybe we can work ourselves into heaven with the balencing system, not understanding that even one sin is one sin too many and the curse is forever present.

Again.. you have NO understanding of other religions or philosophies. You don't meditate to appease the gods.. Buddhism in particular has no deity. Heaven doesn't even exist in some religions. Becoming a better person is the basis of most systems.. and a worthy goal - in itself. You don't need a god for that.

When Jesus died, He made away for us to go to heaven. He was perfect thus the only sacrifice that would work. No other God has paid the price for our sin. Further more, though we act differently because Jesus lives inside of us and changes our hearts and our attitudes if allowed, there is no payment that we must make except to live a life of thanksgiving to the One Who saved us. This is not works but a new way of living with the blessed Holy Spirit guiding our way. If we live by the Spirit we are no longer under the law. You see, Jesus makes us free from all sin. No other god has that power.

Again, where is heaven? You DON'T act differently - there is no evidence to suggest christians are better people.

Now when I refere to dead Gods I most often refere to the prophets who god went through to start their religion who has died or meaning gods made of wood or other such things. A god that is made by humans cannot be a living god, let alone a god, seeing that God is the Creater. This is not to say that many do not believe in a living God. Roman did many moons ago. In fact, they believed in so many no one could could keep them straight.

Please go to religioustolerance.org and educate yourself on the worlds religions.. please. At least start there.

Does the God you believe in and worship give you peace inside? Does peace like a river flow from your veins? Does joy unspeakable come from your heart and mouth? Does your God make you want to shout for joy. Does your God live inside of you and direct your every path. The more I think of how many times God has saved my butt or how many times things that looked like they would all fall apart came together after a feeling of my prayer being answered in advance.

Actually I'm more peaceful now than I was as a christian. If you really believe this then it would follow that those who don't have god 'directing' their lives would have worse lives. Sorry, but that's not the case.

You see, when we say a living God, we mean a God in which day after day, week after week, month after month, we can see Him at work in our lives and in the world around us. Each day He draws closer to us. Each day He becomes more and more apart of you. It is only by remembering the goodness of God in the past that we can trust God through our test. This was the problem in part for the Israelites. History is indeed a great lesson. It is interesting many claim Christianity was a Greek branch off when the Greek was not even an established nation for many a moons after the Israelites came on the scene.

What? Are you really that ignorant? oh crap.. timelines again. Judaism was HELLENIZED by christianity, no one ever said it came from the Greek religion. The Greeks were late-comers to this history but they didn't come AFTER the Hebrews - they were contemporary, But ALL the other civilizations were not. Sumeria, Babylonia, Akkadia, Egypt, Phoenecia, etc... predate the Israelites by at the very least a thousand years.. closer to 2 thousand in some instances. PLEASE learn some history. Here is a good start. http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/lecture_ancient_civ.htm

Now it may be said not everyone thinks atonement is a must for sin, but if not, what do you have? If one thinks this earth is unfair or bad any other place in the future that has sin allowed i it cannot be any better so unless one has no hope for a future past this life than atonement for sin is a must unless one would want to live in this world of suffering for ever. I know I do not.

Is your life a vale of tears? I thought you just said you have unspeakable joy? You are contradicting yourself.

Does your religion give you what you long for? Does your god show himself real to you? Has your god or religion changed your life in an over whelming postitive way?

No. But learning the truth has. Life is much better now.

Like I would like to say all Christians walk the walk (as I should do better myself at times) just as I would like all doctors to walk the talk but we are all human for sure. Perfection as humans is a impossible task but forgiveness and a changed heart and a direct pass to God is very possible.

A get out of jail free card? Bought with innocent blood?... no thanks. I will accept responsibility for myself.

Thank you for asking your question and feel free to expound upon your belief.

First Bill, I do thank you for your question. That is a hard question to ask. You see, I have doubted God many times in the 15 plus years of being a Christian though less now than ever before based on the miracles He has done in my life and all the ways and times He has shown Himself to be true to me. It is kind of like asking me to try to pretent my mother was not born or I do not live on planet earth. You see, during my questioning God I certainly looked on the other side of things for quite a while. Fact is, I use to be quite rebellious.

You have deceived yourself. and NO, you didn't question anything - that is obvious by your decided lack of knowledge. Stop lying. Yes, understand that we can't choose to believe either... same same.

But please understand, I could be wrong, but I would say most of us, no matter how hard we try, can never be truly nutral as we all have preconceived ideas before hand. I can promise, as I always have, that I will try to keep an open mind. When I am proven wrong I admit it, as I had to do even upon this very posting. However, the thing you ask of me is truly not possible. If I could be honest with you and tell you differently I would. I think we all come to the table with atleast what we believe we will see as the truth.

This is good to know... truth however has nothing to do with what we believe, or want to believe. It just is.. like facts. It's rarely comfortable... and I think many of us have paid some heavy prices for the truth.

With all due respect, it would be like me asking you to come to the table believing that there is a God and that He did in fact create the world and everything in it. I am sorry my friend. I will not lie intentally to you.

No.. you still don't get it.. we all DID believe at one time. Deeply. We believed just like you do now... we were 'saved' and had the holy spirit and all of that. We've been on your side of the fence... we said the exact things you do, felt all those feelings, etc.. etc.. etc.. Please understand that we aren't ignorant of your beliefs, we know them all too well - we lived them. Our biases were yours. Read the testimonies... there's a whole lot of pain there. And a whole lot of difficult honesty.

February 22, 2013

Ravenstar, I truly applaud your effort here. It takes serious tenacity.

I wish I had the same drive as you!

February 22, 2013

Stranger wrote:

Centauri -- It is great to chat with you again. I do want to respond to your post in some length but I have been up too long at this point. I have in the past sometimes been forgetful to get back to you with replies. The next time I am on the site, yours will be the first I will respond to.

Take your time as I can see you have many to respond to.

In other religions, from what I know, because there is no cure for sin, and no payment to justify for, the only hope is not to piss God off too much and if we do enough good or meditate enough or bow down enough maybe just maybe we can work ourselves into heaven with the balencing system, not understanding that even one sin is one sin too many and the curse is forever present.

In Judaism, sin is atoned for via repenting. Sacrifice is also involved for unintentional sins.

If you doubt this, read Ezek 18:20-27, where sins will not be remembered if a person does good and repents.

The law provides for atonement. If sin was not part of creation, then there would be no need for God to have provided ways to atone for it.

Some sin is built into creation. Women must offer sin sacrifices after giving birth.

When Jesus died, He made away for us to go to heaven. He was perfect thus the only sacrifice that would work.

Jesus wasn't perfect because he violated the law too.

He taught that all foods were clean, which they are not.

No other God has paid the price for our sin. Further more, though we act differently because Jesus lives inside of us and changes our hearts and our attitudes if allowed, there is no payment that we must make except to live a life of thanksgiving to the One Who saved us. This is not works but a new way of living with the blessed Holy Spirit guiding our way. If we live by the Spirit we are no longer under the law. You see, Jesus makes us free from all sin. No other god has that power.

Jesus was not a proper sacrifice for sin according to the very law that God gave his people.

Jesus is not needed to be part of God's fold.

Any gentile can join with God by keeping his law.

In fact, that is how they are to do so.

This is clearly spelled out in Isa 56:1-8.

As noted before, Ezek 18:20-27 states that each person saves themselves through proper action.

These two passages soundly refute Christianity.

The only apologetic rationalization I've had presented to me when I point out these uncomfortable scriptures is that God changed the system.

If God changed the system, that makes a mockery of the prophets and violates his own edict that he does not change his mind.

This is why I keep repeating that Christianity is revisionist theology. It has nothing to do with honoring and serving the Hebrew god.

February 22, 2013

The Flood myth comes from the story of Sargon Of Akkad, which predates the Hebrews by a LONG time. The Greeks (Egyptians, Sumerians, Persians, etc..) can NOT have gotten their info from the Israelites because they didn't exist yet. These cultures were BEFORE the Hebrews. The archaeological record is very clear on that. You aren't grasping the timelines... we are talking thousands of years here, not 50. Good grief, the Sumerians even predate the Egyptians.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl,2879/

"I do not understand," reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. "A booming voice is saying, 'Let there be light,' but there is already light. It is saying, 'Let the earth bring forth grass,' but I am already standing on grass."

"Everything is here already," the pictograph continues. "We do not need more stars."

February 22, 2013

Theology isn't history and it isn't science. Theology, at least the Christian version, is a flawed attempt to literalize myth and metaphor and then propogandize it as historical fact.

February 22, 2013

LOL that was awesome! Maybe that's why their votive figures all look kind of confused! hahahahahaha

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aCKwZ_k_ABE/T8wHhZamlaI/AAAAAAAAEWE/Fzorp13lSU0/s1600/abu1.PNG

I wonder how christians explain the 12,000 year old Gobleki Tepe complex?

February 22, 2013

LOL that was awesome! Maybe that's why their votive figures all look kind of confused! hahahahahaha

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aCKwZ_k_ABE/T8wHhZamlaI/AAAAAAAAEWE/Fzorp13lSU0/s1600/abu1.PNG

I wonder how christians explain the 12,000 year old Gobleki Tepe complex?

Oh, i got this, thats easy.

Radiometric dating is influenced by Satan. derp.

February 22, 2013

Indeed!

That is why we must always back up our

beliefs with evidence. That is why we must always seek to find out the

facts. If we can't do either of these things, the most honest course of

action is to say that we cannot support our beliefs with evidence or

facts. We must also say that our beliefs are not the truth, but that we

believe that they are.

Agreed? Y? N?

I agree. In saying that, often times what one sees as evidence another dismisses. So, even if we both have a stack of evidense, though they point in two different directions, than it would be hard to call either one fact, correct?

Do you see it now? Faith and belief fill in the gaps in the facts and the evidence.

Where there is hard, factual evidence, no faith or belief is needed.

That was some good scripture you put out there. And to some degree you are most certainly correct, but not with replacing faith with the facts, but using faith until we see the facts. This can often usually be done after seeing facts before hand.

'Until we see the facts' and 'after seeing the facts' can't and won't ever apply to most of the Bible, Stranger. According to the basic tenets of the Christian faith, the content of that book can't be added to or taken away from. God's revealed truth is complete. If there are gaps of information in it, that's what your faith is for - to fill in those gaps.

Therefore, nobody will ever know if Jesus did visit the places the Gospels said he did. Nobody will ever know where the Israelites wandered in the desert, if that event ever happened at all. There's no corroborating, extra-Biblical evidence for most of the Bible. So there will never be a time when you, 'see these facts' and there will never come a time after you've, 'seen the facts before hand.'

It's for you to believe in the things the Bible doesn't say, thru faith - not thru the evidence of facts.

Ok, you can believe that the Bible is 100% accurate history, but that's an act of faith, on your part. There are simply too many gaps, too little hard evidence and too few facts for you to claim that it's ALL true. If you want to believe (by faith) it's true, that's fine... but you've got next to no factual basis for doing so.

Abel and Cain still talked with the Lord and knew the first man created very well.

You can't establish this as a fact. You can believe it's true - but that's a matter of faith, not fact.

Enoch we only know he wa taken up.

Same as Cain and Abel. You believe it by faith, not by facts you can see and check.

We do not know what he saw or did before in his life.

Ditto. We can't 'know' thru facts because there are none for us to see.

Noah God told directly to as a face to face conversation.

Same story. There are no facts to see about Noah, outside of the Bible.

The same was true with Abram.

The same lack of facts is true with Abram. None exist outside of the Bible.

It should also be noted none saw the complete promise but all saw part fullfilled.

All i all I will let you win with the fact case as I no longer have the strength to carry on.

Well, I'm not looking to win or to beat you, Stranger. Only to bring clearer understanding.

Just so long it is noted that we both agree evidence does not always mean fact. Also, we cannot even base facts on facts because if a new fact comes into play it may topple the one on top. So, we will leave a fact is indeed a fact, but a fact is only those things known as a certainty on both sides. In other words, if two parties can not see the same results or come to the same conclusions based on different testing or looking at the results in a different manner than no one side could claim their case is factual.

In the end, you can say I cannot, under what we call fact, make God a fact for you. In the end, we will know what is fact and fiction. By the way, you are right. A lie is different from a new conclusion based on new evidence, but we still must conclude it was therefore not a fact. Even if part of it may have been the fact as a whole was not fact after all.

Thanks,

BAA.

February 23, 2013

Hi Stranger, thanks for replying to my question with a fairly thorough response. I do recognize that these things take some time to write. I understand you're facing a sort of "war on all fronts" on a forum populated by us ex-Christians. So if you like, at some point we can continue this discussion in a separate thread to keep things organized.

Also you probably don't know me yet, since I'm new to this forum. To get a better idea of where I'm coming from, you can read my thread in the testimonies forum titled "A Hindu Converts To Christianity And Recognizes His Error." That said, I think the title is fairly self-explanatory. Long story short: I'm an Indian American, born and raised here in the US, and Hindu by upbringing. I spent six years in college as an evangelical Christian before returning to my actual religion, so I'm familiar with the Bible and quite a bit of Reformd Protestant theology (I've read the whole Bible, most of it multiple times, so feel free to make any references to the Bible you feel necessary). Anyway, I'll address the points you've raised.

Would you say you have sin? Let me ask that in a different light. Have you ever done something you had wished you had not? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen from anyone or place, even in a small regard?

I believe that the majority of people on earth believe they have sin in their lives or have sinned to at least say they have not lived perfect lives, such as God in heaven Who has no sin at all and is set apart holy from all sin and in fact, He cannot sin. This is the reason in which I believe most religions offer sacrifices. Not usually with animals these days though it has been known that children in some cases were often used. Theses days I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that one must do things, or works, or like manner to possibly have a chance to go to heaven. Pray three times a day, facing a certain direction. Do good works x amount of times per week. Hike and bow to a rock some call God. You see, most religions one must live a life of structure. A life of costume. One must try to over come their sin, or better put have more good come out of them than evil or bad things.

I'm familiar with this line of reasoning, since I've used it to defend the Christian faith or attempt to convert others. The question "have you sinned" is rhetorical, however it carries a lot of assumptions with it. I think everyone has done things that they later deem wrong, but the Christian definition of sin involves transgression of God's law. Quite a number of us don't believe that God has a codified legal system at all. Even among Abrahamic religions, Jews only believe that the law in the Bible, i.e. the Law of Moses, is only binding to Jews. I do believe in objective moral good and evil, but I don't believe it can be presented in a legal format, and I while I do believe in God's holiness (to use a Christian term), I don't believe that this necessitates eternal punishment for wrongdoing.

I'm going to have to disagree with the claim that most religions prescribe sacrifice, by which I assume you mean animal sacrifice. Jews do not do this in modern times. I know the practice of animal sacrifice exists among Nepali Hindus, but Indian Hindus tend to condemn this. The only religion I can think of where animal sacrifice is regularly offered is Islam. I assume that most of what you've said above applies to Islam more than any other relgion, since you refer to daily prayer, facing a certain direction, bowing to a rock, and so forth. Since I am not and have never been Muslim, this isn't really relevant to me. I realize you're trying to generalize to all religions other than Christianity, and this is a difficult task. But I don't think Islam is the best starting place for this.

They make their religion as a balence being in which one must try to out weigh the bad with the good in hopes of maybe being accepted by their God. Also it seems the Gods I know of most are not Gods of mersy but of revenge, always out to get the humans. Thus why the structured religion is needed along with certain sacrifices like paying debt or bowing down x amount of times a day, and perhaps with gifts of many items.

Grant it, I do not speak on this subject in a mindset where I got it all figured out as I know about Christianity but not so much about many other religions.

The only God I know of who is a God of revenge is the God in the Old Testament. "Vengeance is mine, and recompense" comes from Deuteronomy 32:35. Actually I don't think this is a bad thing, since revenge is the just punishment for wrongdoing when meted out by a third party. Indeed, I find that the Old Testament God talks a fair bit about mercy as well, unlike Jesus in the New Testament. Oh yes, Jesus uses the word "mercy" fairly often. But he also introduced the concept of eternal hell, something unfamiliar to the Old Testament. Believe it or not I don't have too many objections to the Old Testament portrayal of God. He punishes evil and kills evildoers. But nowhere is it written that he tortures their souls in eternal hellfire. This is an artform practiced only by Jesus. I have to ask: what good is mercy when it's based solely on confession of Jesus as Lord? In the Old Testament, mercy was given upon repentance. You didn't need to discard your culture and join a new religion; indeed, very few people in the Old Testament actually joined the nation of Israel, and nations were punished for their deeds rather than their religious beliefs.

In Hinduism we don't have this concept of sin as a form of debt, as though it must be paid. Certainly there's a concept of evil, and for the sake of this argument we can call it sin. But we think of sin in terms of negative consequences rather than debt to God. Actually, there's a puja that most Hindus do to be freed of the burdens of sin. When I was a kid my parents used to do it once every month. There's no sacrifice, and no transferrence of guilt (as in penal substitutionary atonement). No one else has to pay the price for your sin, because sin is not regarded as a financial debt that must be forgiven. Indeed, we don't even ask for "forgiveness" as you might think of it. Prayer is offered to God, and that's the end of the matter. We don't view God as a legal judge who wishes to pour out just wrath on people.

This is where Jesus is different. First, unlike most cultures, we believe in One God only (via the Godhead -- The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and we believe Jesus came down and took human form to take the punishment, the curse of which was brought on with the sin of Adam, resulting in death and suffering due to sin in the world, away. In other words, all creation has a curse. That curse is a selfish heart and the results from. This can be seen in babies. We are born with a thought process that the world revilves around self. Often later when we realize we are not in control we look for some type of God for security. This is found more often than not, though of course, many are raised in one religion or another.

I disagree that Jesus is different in regards to monotheism. Most religions are monotheistic, including most schools of thought that I know of in Hinduism. As for this idea of sin as a curse, I will certainly agree that Christianity is unique. I don't know that this is a point in favor of Christianity though. All religions are unique in one way or another. Hinduism is the only religion I know of where it is taught that God will continually incarnate himself whenever there is a decline of righteousness in the world. No offense intended, but this sounds more benevolent to me than a God who sends you to hell unless you convert to a European religion.

Christian ideas of original sin do explain the self-centered nature of infants. They don't explain altruism that well. We all know about selfless individuals who are not Christian, and I don't think I even need to provide examples of this. The fact that Christians and non-Christians are both capable of good and evil demonstrates to me that faith in Jesus has no power to change a person's behavior. Christianity would say that altruistic non-Christians can be explained by God's "common grace," but I've always found this to be a bit of a cop out. What do you think?

In other religions, from what I know, because there is no cure for sin, and no payment to justify for, the only hope is not to piss God off too much and if we do enough good or meditate enough or bow down enough maybe just maybe we can work ourselves into heaven with the balencing system, not understanding that even one sin is one sin too many and the curse is forever present.

Again, in many other religions the idea of sin itself (as transgression of God's law or an inherently evil nature) simply don't exist, so you're offering a cure to a disease that no one has. As far as not angering God goes, I think the concept of an angry God is fairly specific to Christianity (and Islam as well, to be fair). The title of Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is quite telling. As per Reformed Christian doctrine, God is viewed as a judge who is angry at sin and who must spend his wrath. He offers to spend it on the sinner, or on Jesus who offers himself as the substitution. This theology evokes the notion of a God whom you must indeed hope "not to piss off." In my religion we don't believe that God is angry, whether corporately at man or individually at people. This doesn't mean he doesn't get angry at all. There's a story in the Mahabharata of Sri Krishna suffering 1,000 insults from Shishupal before beheading him. Even here though, it's shown that God does not have an angry disposition, and he isn't eager to punish humans.

More importantly, there is no concept of eternal hell, which I find to be the epitome of mercilessness. I would be far more afraid of pissing off Jesus than I would be of pissing off Hindu Gods or even the God of Israel as depicted in the Old Testament. At least the God of Israel is satisfied if you acknowledge your wrongdoing before him. Unlike Jesus he doesn't expect you to walk away from the religion and culture that your ancestors have practiced for thousands of years. This is what Jesus demanded of me. I can't speak about other religions, but personally I can say that I was more worried about pissing off Jesus than I ever was of any Hindu God. And this was despite everything I knew about God's grace apart from works. Even when you believe in faith apart from works, Jesus demands other things. He demands your heart and your mind, and if any thought crosses your mind that displeases him, it will indeed piss him off. Give me works any day. At least if there's a set of rituals in place, I can attempt to obey. But these promises that Jesus will "change your heart" led me to fruitless endeavors.

When Jesus died, He made away for us to go to heaven. He was perfect thus the only sacrifice that would work. No other God has paid the price for our sin. Further more, though we act differently because Jesus lives inside of us and changes our hearts and our attitudes if allowed, there is no payment that we must make except to live a life of thanksgiving to the One Who saved us. This is not works but a new way of living with the blessed Holy Spirit guiding our way. If we live by the Spirit we are no longer under the law. You see, Jesus makes us free from all sin. No other god has that power.

Now when I refere to dead Gods I most often refere to the prophets who god went through to start their religion who has died or meaning gods made of wood or other such things. A god that is made by humans cannot be a living god, let alone a god, seeing that God is the Creater. This is not to say that many do not believe in a living God. Roman did many moons ago. In fact, they believed in so many no one could could keep them straight.

Let's be clear that when anyone makes an image of God, they typically don't believe that the image is God. If one were to take Old Testament commandments about images of God seriously and simultaneously believed in the divinity of Jesus, then these Christian practices of making images of Jesus would be problematic. Most people know that an image of Jesus isn't really Jesus. The same is true of anyone else who makes an image, even a wooden image, of God.

I'm also going to have to disagree with the comment that Romans believed in innumerable gods. The Roman pantheon of gods is pretty well documented. True, various locals had individual deities. But these deities were not worshiped widely, so I don't know that anyone would have to "keep them straight" in the first place.

Does the God you believe in and worship give you peace inside? Does peace like a river flow from your veins? Does joy unspeakable come from your heart and mouth? Does your God make you want to shout for joy. Does your God live inside of you and direct your every path. The more I think of how many times God has saved my butt or how many times things that looked like they would all fall apart came together after a feeling of my prayer being answered in advance.

I'll be honest in saying that I don't have any of these things. But if you read my introductory thread you'll note that I'm not particularly spiritual. Indeed, I don't personally see much evidence for the existence of a God, but only believe in him because I'm not really cut out to be an atheist. That said, I know plenty of Hindus who do indeed have the peace and joy you speak of, all without being Christian. Jesus, on the other hand, offered me only the promise that everyone I knew would end up in eternal hellfire. I'll take my current state over Jesus any day.

You say that God has saved your butt, but what about prayers of others that aren't answered by Jesus? I don't want to get into this atheistic "God hates amputees" argument, but you must understand that your personal experiences with Jesus can't be communicated to others, and thus will never be very convincing.

You see, when we say a living God, we mean a God in which day after day, week after week, month after month, we can see Him at work in our lives and in the world around us. Each day He draws closer to us. Each day He becomes more and more apart of you. It is only by remembering the goodness of God in the past that we can trust God through our test. This was the problem in part for the Israelites. History is indeed a great lesson. It is interesting many claim Christianity was a Greek branch off when the Greek was not even an established nation for many a moons after the Israelites came on the scene.

I've never heard the cliam that Christianity is an offshoot of a Greek religion. I will say, however, that Christianity is more a European religion than a Hebrew one. It combines Hebrew scriptures with Greek philosophy, and exceedingly few Jews are Christians.

As to these statements that "each day he draws closer to us," I don't mean to sound offensive but these are meaningless platitudes. I know plenty of Hindus who believe the same thing about our God. What makes their experiences different from those of Christians? If there's only one question in this post that you can address, I think this is the one to respond to.

Anyway, thank you for reading my responses, and I look forward to reading yours. Again, feel free to start another thread if you want to keep this discussion organized and separate from the rest of the conversations going on here.

February 23, 2013

Wow, Bhim, this is great reading. When I was a Christian I knew a Hindu guy in my building, but he didn't go into as many issues about Christianity as you do - he hadn't been a Christian himself. I wish I'd met you back then -- in addition to getting to know someone who seems like a great person, I would possibly have come out of the X-ian cult earlier than I did! Christians are so enculturated to think that their religion's uniquessness makes it superior that they can easily overlook how those elements of uniqueness are big problems!

February 23, 2013

Wow, Bhim, this is great reading. When I was a Christian I knew a Hindu guy in my building, but he didn't go into as many issues about Christianity as you do - he hadn't been a Christian himself. I wish I'd met you back then -- in addition to getting to know someone who seems like a great person, I would possibly have come out of the X-ian cult earlier than I did! Christians are so enculturated to think that their religion's uniquessness makes it superior that they can easily overlook how those elements of uniqueness are big problems!

HI Ficino. Good to hear your thoughts on this. As you've probably seen, most Hindus aren't that familiar with Christianity. For better or worse most of them tend to regard all religions as equally valid, and some even have a favorable impression of evangelical Christianity. I suppose I have a somewhat unique perspective on things, being the only ex-Christian I know of who was actually raised Hindu. The most similar case to myself I've ever encountered is a Jew I once knew in college (back when I was a Christian) who was raised Jewish, became Christian, and then left. At the time I was of course "defending the faith" to him and he would explain to me that he couldn't be a Christian again since it ran contrary to everything he was. He actually used some harsh language with me, telling me that it would in some sense destroy his soul to return to Christianity (there may have also been some foul language involved on his part, if I remember correctly). At the time I didn't understand him, but I do now. As you say Christianity is not unique in many of the ways Christians think it is. They seem to view the world according to a Christian/atheist dichotomy, and have a hard time recognizing that people from other religions really do believe in God but not in Jesus. When they do consider other religions, Islam is often used as the template by which they understand every other one. This makes it difficult to communicate one's beliefs with Christians.

I'm glad to hear that you did leave Christianity. I don't know if you personally were raised in this religion, but for those who are it's a very difficult transition. At least when I left, my family and non-Christian friends fully approved. It's hard to imagine the reprisal faced by people who come from a Christian culture (though I can relate, since I suppose it's similar to what I experienced when I became a Christian in the first place).

February 24, 2013

I read plenty of articles with just the title president.

"Articles"? You did, did you? Oh, and did these "plenty of articles" never mention what President they were talking about, and give contradictory facts about timelines and the wrong names or titles for various other heads of states, like Princess Vladimir Putin of the Victorian Age? At some point, every article lists names. No article I've ever seen said just "the President" without including the name somewhere. You're full of shit and I'm calling your bluff. Please list one single of these "plenty of articles" that mysteriously don't list any names and are as contradictory and impossible as the OT and NT are regarding political figures. JUST ONE will do.

Yes, it is true there are many gods or religions that share similar stories with the bible. Does that discredit or support the bible? If all came from a few on the ark than all would have flood stories, and they do. Also being the Jews lived with the Greeks so long the Greeks may of used the ideas from Israel. Read Acts where the Greek called Paul a Greek God and Paul rebuked them, saying clearly Christianity is not part of the Greek god system.

You're not getting it.

There was no ark.

None.

So it's not possible for the Ark to be the source.

I know what you're aiming for; back in college, I heard (and parroted, to my lasting shame) that the many Tower-of-Babel and worldwide-flood stories I was reading about in my history classes were all based off the Bible's stories. The truth is so much harder: that yes, there's probably a "source narrative" for the Flood narrative, but it is absolutely not going to be the Bible. Sorry.

Ravenstar, you are a very smart lady.

Just FYI, she is a very smart PERSON. Her gender has nothing to do with the fact that she's worked hard to educate herself. It's hard to hear a Christian say a line like that and not immediately suspect an -ism at play, just like that creationist who got pwned by a 10-year-old on video who faux-compliments the kid several times as a "smart child," directly implying that a smart "child" isn't as smart as a smart "adult" (like him). She is a smart PERSON, just as you are a remarkably uneducated, gullible, uninformed PERSON. Please keep gender out of your compliments to avoid misunderstandings.

I agree. In saying that, often times what one sees as evidence another dismisses. So, even if we both have a stack of evidense, though they point in two different directions, than it would be hard to call either one fact, correct?

Others have already mentioned this, but I think it's worth re-noting: you don't have a stack of evidence. You have none at all.

To add to it, I'd say this: when two people are categorically in disagreement, the situation might well be that one is right and one is wrong; they could also both be wrong. But they both cannot be right. One looks at the facts to decide, and you have none. So.... just purely based on the fact that you have NO facts behind you whatsoever, and BAA and Raven have *all* the facts behind them, it's hard to take your claims seriously. You want us to totally disregard reality and truth to buy into your scam, and it's just not going to happen.

That was some good scripture you put out there. And to some degree you are most certainly correct, but not with replacing faith with the facts, but using faith until we see the facts. This can often usually be done after seeing facts before hand. Abel and Cain still talked with the Lord and knew the first man created very well. Enoch we only know he wa taken up. We do not know what he saw or did before in his life. Noah God told directly to as a face to face conversation. The same was true with Abram. It should also be noted none saw the complete promise but all saw part fullfilled.

Abel and Cain, Enoch and Noah, did not exist, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, but it backfired.

All i all I will let you win with the fact case as I no longer have the strength to carry on. Just so long it is noted that we both agree evidence does not always mean fact.

Also, we cannot even base facts on facts because if a new fact comes into play it may topple the one on top. So, we will leave a fact is indeed a fact, but a fact is only those things known as a certainty on both sides. In other words, if two parties can not see the same results or come to the same conclusions based on different testing or looking at the results in a different manner than no one side could claim their case is factual.

You're not getting out of your ass-whipping that easily. The martyred, poor-widdle-Cwistian act doesn't fly here. You're not "letting" these folks win. You got your ass kicked legitimately whether you "let" them do it or not.

Oh, and evidence leads to facts. Facts don't happen in a vacuum. You're trying to set up another postmodern, subjective touchy-feeling bullshit thing and I'm not buying it. You'd be a little more stringent about using facts to base your position on if you actually had *any*. You don't, so you have indoctrinated yourself with a severe distrust of facts.

Facts don't change, you see. Evidence is always evidence. New facts come into play to change our theories, but we're always big boys and girls who understand that and are okay with it. When scientists thought they might have found a particle that went faster than light, did anybody freak out and demand those scientists shut the fuck up and sit down? NO! We quietly, calmly, set up the experiment again to make sure of our numbers. Had it turned out to be so, then yes, it would have changed a lot of things, but it wouldn't have destroyed us.

That, and you confuse evidence with subjective certainty. You're never going to understand, perhaps, but here it is anyway: a fact is something that doesn't depend AT ALL on the opinions of its observers.

Would you say you have sin? Let me ask that in a different light. Have you ever done something you had wished you had not? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen from anyone or place, even in a small regard? I believe that the majority of people on earth believe they have sin in their lives or have sinned to at least say they have not lived perfect lives, such as God in heaven Who has no sin at all and is set apart holy from all sin and in fact, He cannot sin.

You know, Iron Chariots did a great takedown of that Ray Comfort series where he asks that of people. You might want to read it before you humiliate yourself worse than you already have.

And Yahweh sins. He "repented" of drowning the entire world in a flood for not being good. You don't "repent" unless you did wrong. Oh, yeah, and he drowned the entire world in a flood for not conforming to his demands. Tiny little babies, adorable kittens, obedient dogs, wild animals who'd never even seen people, little boys and girls clinging to their parents' skirts, men and women whose only sin was living their lives not obeying him--and you believe God never sins.

He has blamed humanity for countless generations for the sins of the original couple he made. He promised he wouldn't hold sons accountable for their fathers' sins, yet he's done it without repenting since the beginning. He cursed women with painful childbirth, a curse that has murdered in cold blood millions of women and innocent babies. He cursed men to work the soil, a demand that's destroyed our health and our basic human decency (as there is evidence that a move to an agrarian, urban-based civilization brought about health deficiencies and a more patriarchal societal structure), killing further millions through violence and malnutrition. Yet you believe God is holy and sinless.

I could go on, but others have made the point effectively enough that I will say only this: only someone who is totally unfamiliar with his source material could think that Yahweh is a good being. By contrast, I'd say he is humanity's worst and most vile enemy.

This is where Jesus. . . First, unlike most cultures, we believe in One God only (via the Godhead -- The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and we believe Jesus came down and took human form to take the punishment, the curse of which was brought on with the sin of Adam, resulting in death and suffering due to sin in the world, away.

Plenty of Mediterranean religions of the 1st century CE involve incarnated god-men, just sayin'. Jesus wasn't unique or original to his culture and time. And the philosophy of what the crucifixion meant has changed dramatically over the years. Our current understanding of it is not at all what the 1st century would have made of it. You might want to look into that.

There's no cure for what isn't actually a disease. You don't know much about other religions, clearly. You might want to look into that. Christianity especially manufactures its need, then answers it. It's a very smoothly-machined scam.

Does the God you believe in and worship give you peace inside? Does peace like a river flow from your veins? Does joy unspeakable come from your heart and mouth? Does your God make you want to shout for joy. Does your God live inside of you and direct your every path. The more I think of how many times God has saved my butt or how many times things that looked like they would all fall apart came together after a feeling of my prayer being answered in advance.

Does your religion give you what you long for? Does your god show himself real to you? Has your god or religion changed your life in an over whelming postitive way?

I'm going to speak very directly here, and hope that you understand.

Your feelings do not make a religion true. Even your desperate hope that Christianity is true doesn't make it so. And your stories of your god "saving your butt" don't have evidence behind them, only your subjective impressions and a backward-looking lens of confirmation bias, and you know it, or you'd already have ponied up the evidence we requested pages ago.

I've known plenty of pagans and non-theists alike who are very joyful, happy, peaceful, and gentle people. Many of us have miraculous stories just like yours, and many of us have felt that "joy unspeakable and full of glory" you talk about in decidedly non-Christian situations--and in fact many of us felt that joy in Christianity before, so we know that feeling isn't unique at all to Christianity. So you can't use that feeling as a marker for truth.

You ask the questions, but you think you already know the answers. You ask only rhetorically, because you think that your religion is the only one that features those wild outpourings of emotion.

Why don't you try asking again, and this time really care about the answers you get?

February 24, 2013

Ravenstar wrote such an excellent rebuttal of Stranger's posts, very specifically, about the ancientness of the Bible that I am compelled to put in a question regarding ancient literature for her. Weren't there things written before even Shruppnuk? (Apologies for not being able to spell his name properly)

No, before you go criticising Raven again regarding ancient literature, her facts are correct. I've even read some of the texts, notably the Book of the Dead and Epic of Gilgamesh, so they are physically real in existence and are tangible.

February 24, 2013

This is primarily for Stranger, regarding the possible Greek influence on Christianity.
This is from one of my articles.

http://agnosticreview.com/fame.htm

Philo of Alexandria(~20 BCE-~50 CE) was a Hellenized(Greek influenced) Jewish philosopher that lived right in the "sweet spot" of history, the prime time and location to have been alive to witness evidence for the existence and fame of Jesus.
(The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, or Septuagint, is supposed to have originated in Alexandria, Egypt and was performed between 300-100 B.C.E..)
The Hebrew and Greek cultures had mingled prior to Philo being born and during his life he encountered various religious concepts.
Philo made a trip to Jerusalem(Philo-On Providence(64)) during his life and had connections with Jewish and Roman authorities, and he wrote about a trip to Rome around 39-40 C.E. when he led a delegation of Jewish representatives to see the Emperor Gaius(Caligula).
Philo had an interest in reconciling elements of Hebrew teachings and thought with Greek philosophy, forming a type of religious philosophy.
The writings of Philo are very extensive and cover many facets of Old Testament teachings melded with Greek philosophical concepts, which results in a synthesis that creates a new expression of metaphysical thought.
Philo, acting as a bridge between Hebrew teaching and Greek philosophy, may have been quite influential in the formation of some key New Testament concepts.
Philo may have supplied the lubricant that greased the way for Jesus of Nazareth to become a god-man.
Rather than asserting that the New Testament was directly inspired by God, Christians would be more credible if they said that Philo might have inspired many of the concepts found in the New Testament.
However, appealing to the authority of Philo, who was only a man, would ruin the allegedly divine and absolute nature of their holy book.
It sounds so much more convincing, unique, and authoritative to say that "God" inspired the New Testament.
From a Christian standpoint, it would be advantageous if Philo the Jew could be portrayed as supporting or even "borrowing" concepts from Christianity.
Not surprisingly, the Church historian Eusebius(260 C.E.-341 C.E.) in his History of the Church, vouches for a story, from an unidentified source, which claimed that Philo met with the Apostle Peter in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius(41 C.E.-54 C.E.) Eusebius also claimed that Philo had not only encountered the Gospels and writings of Paul in his travels, but that he clearly knew Apostolic figures of that time and endorsed their teachings and doctrines.
If this is true, then it's certainly curious that Philo would have incorporated key elements of his writing from Christians yet failed to mention the most important element of all them, which is Jesus of Nazareth, the long awaited King Messiah!
The fact remains that Philo never once mentioned Jesus or Jesus of Nazareth, nor does he say anything about other travels to Rome or meetings with a Apostolic leader that promoted a sacrificed "Christ" for the sins of the world.
The musings and claims made by Eusebius centuries later, about Philo endorsing Christianity and implying that he might have borrowed some of his concepts from Christians, should raise red flags that could indicate the employment of doctrine promoting propaganda on the part of Eusebius.

Philo wrote of the Logos or Word.

Now the image of God is the Word, by which all the world was made.
De Specialibus Legibus I;
The Special Laws I(82)

The "Old Testament" expressed something similar:

Psa 33:6(JPS 1917 Tanach)
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

Note that the scripture states that the word of God creates. It does not say that the Word was God.
The word is a product of God.

The New Testament takes the motif further by declaring that the Word was God.

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word(Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In particular, Philo and the New Testament share the theme of an intermediary celestial power, or Logos, that mediates between God and the elements of the world.
Philo wrote a description of the Logos, the celestial being, or force that is heir to the creation of the father:

Text:
"And the father who created the universe has given to his archangel and most ancient Logos a pre-eminent gift, to stand on the confines of both, and separate that which had been created from the Creator. And this same Logos is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race, which is exposed to affliction and misery; and is also the ambassador, sent by the Ruler of all, to the subject race."
Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit; (205)
WHO IS THE HEIR OF DIVINE THINGS section XLII
Translation by Charles Duke Yonge

Text courtesy of Early Christian Writings, The Works of Philo Judaeus

Note how closely the New Testament claims about Jesus follow the description that Philo gave for a celestial mediator between God and men.

1 Tim 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

Hebrews 1:1-3
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:

The mediator between God and the Hebrews was Moses, who was a man, not a celestial being.
The mediator between God and man then evolves into a powerful celestial being, a form of god-man called Jesus who not only mediates but cleanses as well.
Later on, the Church elevated "Jesus" to an even higher level and defined him being completely equal to God himself, a process that involves God sprouting three heads that become the three "persons" of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Christianity is to a large degree a blending of Hebrew religious elements and Greek metaphysical concepts.
Philo laid out the template for this belief system and key parts of his work can be seen in the New Testament.
However, as noted earlier, Philo made no mention at all of Jesus, Christ, or Jesus of Nazareth.

Why Do You Remain A Christian?

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