On Changing Minds

[StevoMuso]

One of the reasons Christ performed miracles was to demonstrate to the rational minds of those around Him that He was in fact the Christ. Belief in Christ is both rational and of faith.

Performing miracles doesn't validate anyone as being the expected king messiah.

(Exo 7:11-12, Deut 13:1-5)

That validation comes from actually sitting on the throne of David, being properly anointed as king by a prophet and/or high priest, leading people into great compliance with the law, and ushering in the messianic era of great peace and prosperity.

To believe Jesus was "the Christ" is to have no faith in the Old Testament proclamations about such a person.

Correct. And furthermore, "the Christ" had to be directly related to King David ("of his seed" John 7:42, Ps 132:11, Jeremiah 23:5), and the NT Jesus didn't fulfill that requirement either. For the Christians who haven't read their Bibles Matthew 1:18 says Joseph had no part in Jesus' conception (Mary was a "virgin") and yet to "prove" Jesus was "of the seed of David" the ancestral line of Joseph is used. Like duh ... you didn't spot that one?

 

Doing "miracles" would not have established Jesus as the messiah either, because there were so many "healers" in those days. In fact, the Essenian Jews were called "the healers" by the locals coz they used to go around in pairs ministering to the sick. On every street corner there were "prophets" claiming to be able to "heal" people - much like today (turn on your TV).

[Ouroboros]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles for the rational and critical minds of that time... farmers, fishermen, and such, but when he went to his hometown, he couldn't show any miracles because they were too critical (doubting)!

 

It's amazing how apologists work so hard trying to convince themselves.

[StevoMuso]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles for the rational and critical minds of that time... farmers, fishermen, and such, but when he went to his hometown, he couldn't show any miracles because they were too critical (doubting)!

 

It's amazing how apologists work so hard trying to convince themselves.

 

Fascinating how the people who wrote the Gospels in order to make their leader fulfill OT prophecy didn't suss that out. One thinks they would have at least tried a bit harder to be convincing. Oh my ... and the people who read all that stuff and actually don't spot this? Maybe they think, "The Bible must be true because it is the Word of God" instead of saying, "The Bible could be the Word of God if it was true."

[Guest end3]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles for the rational and critical minds of that time... farmers, fishermen, and such, but when he went to his hometown, he couldn't show any miracles because they were too critical (doubting)!

 

It's amazing how apologists work so hard trying to convince themselves.

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

[Ouroboros]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles for the rational and critical minds of that time... farmers, fishermen, and such, but when he went to his hometown, he couldn't show any miracles because they were too critical (doubting)!

 

It's amazing how apologists work so hard trying to convince themselves.

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

Yes, because they were the scholars, trained in critical and rational thinking. They were perfect to prove that Jesus didn't use just parlor tricks. After all, it takes a Masters Degree to be a fisherman and at least upper calculus classes. So they of course would not be able to be tricked in any way.

 

However, those untrained, unskilled, idiots, like Jesus own family and neighbors, or the non-educated pharisees, they wouldn't believe since they where stupid.

 

But the highly skilled farmers, most definitely knew the difference between scams and the real thing.

 

It's just like today, isn't it? The highly trained bush people, who are rocket scientists with their farming, they see real miracles all the time, while someone like me, not rational and a complete idiot, I can't see miracles.

 

Yup. There it is.

 

(Do you even get my sarcasm here?)

[Kuroikaze]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

 

Haven't you been around here long enough to know that

"men of faith" is just a nicer way of saying "gullible idiot" as far as we are concerned?

[Guest end3]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles for the rational and critical minds of that time... farmers, fishermen, and such, but when he went to his hometown, he couldn't show any miracles because they were too critical (doubting)!

 

It's amazing how apologists work so hard trying to convince themselves.

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

Yes, because they were the scholars, trained in critical and rational thinking. They were perfect to prove that Jesus didn't use just parlor tricks. After all, it takes a Masters Degree to be a fisherman and at least upper calculus classes. So they of course would not be able to be tricked in any way.

 

However, those untrained, unskilled, idiots, like Jesus own family and neighbors, or the non-educated pharisees, they wouldn't believe since they where stupid.

 

But the highly skilled farmers, most definitely knew the difference between scams and the real thing.

 

I think Shyone posted a scripture that demonstrates this point.

 

1Cr 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

 

You are reading this different than me for sure.

[Guest end3]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

 

Haven't you been around here long enough to know that

"men of faith" is just a nicer way of saying "gullible idiot" as far as we are concerned?

 

The point is, I doubt any of you less gullible idiots would know one end of a tractor from the other....or boat, or hook.

[par4dcourse]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

 

Haven't you been around here long enough to know that

"men of faith" is just a nicer way of saying "gullible idiot" as far as we are concerned?

 

That's taught in ex-c 101. End hasn't gotten there.....yet.

[Ouroboros]

The point is, I doubt any of you less gullible idiots would know one end of a tractor from the other....or boat, or hook.

I drove my grandfather's tractor when I was nine, and helped on the fields.

 

I was fishing, alone, in a rowing boat, when I was ten.

 

But you know, that I know a multitude of programming languages, relational databases, server technology, and many different operating systems, even wrote my own graphic library 20 years ago, or my own Eliza program 25 years ago, only means I'm an idiot.

 

I learned assembly code in 1980. and I wrote my own disassembler in 1981. I memorized the whole op-code set for the Motorola 6502. I could convert decimal to hexadecimal, back and forth, in my head.

 

The fact that I once was working on building my own CPU or a static field sensor when 16, only means I'm too stupid to believe in your rational miracles.

 

So do you know the end from the other when it comes to a MMU, ALU, CPU, GPU, etc?

 

You're the smart guy here. You know more than me. So you tell me, explain the concept of NULL in a database. You're the master of the universe and not gullible at all because you're so smart. Or perhaps I should give you a simpler problem to solve, can you give the different ways of arriving at the vertical, horizontal, and slant asymptotes for a rational expression?

[StevoMuso]

The point is, I doubt any of you less gullible idiots would know one end of a tractor from the other....or boat, or hook.

 

You mean we have to be farmers or fishermen to understand the Gospel? Nope - sorry - I don't qualify. I only have a bachelors degree in music, a diploma in C++ computer programming, another diploma in financial management and have also spent many years studying other disciplines like philosophy, psychology, neurology, ethics, estate/property law, religious history, extensive Biblical studies (qualified pastor/missionary) and so forth. This is obviously waaay tooo much education to qualify me as a person who is uneducated enough to believe.

[Guest end3]

The point is, I doubt any of you less gullible idiots would know one end of a tractor from the other....or boat, or hook.

I drove my grandfather's tractor when I was nine, and helped on the fields.

 

I was fishing, alone, in a rowing boat, when I was ten.

 

But you know, that I know a multitude of programming languages, relational databases, server technology, and many different operating systems, even wrote my own graphic library 20 years ago, or my own Eliza program 25 years ago, only means I'm an idiot.

 

I wrote my own disassembler in 1981. I memorized the whole op-code set for the Motorola 6502. I could convert decimal to hexadecimal, back and forth, in my head.

 

The fact that I once was working on building my own CPU or a static field sensor when 16, only means I'm too stupid to believe in your rational miracles.

 

So do you know the end from the other when it comes to a MMU, ALU, CPU, GPU, etc?

 

You're the smart guy here. You know more than me. So you tell me, explain the concept of NULL in a database. You're the master of the universe and not gullible at all because you're so smart. Or perhaps I should give you a simpler problem to solve, can you give the different ways of arriving at the vertical, horizontal, and slant asymptotes for a rational expression?

 

What's your point? Are you a farmer or fisherman today?.....did you just miss the scripture I posted? I am the one claiming brokenness and faith.

[Sconnor]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles to men of faith like farmers, fishermen, and such?

 

Isn't it fascinating that you're a morbidly gullible, crazy-ass, ignoramus, who gladly laps up this bullshit, without an ounce of objective evidence to support it, when it is perfectly obvious, Jesus is a fictional character based on perhaps a fallible human prophet and/or an amalgamation of several people and several earlier legends and myths -- where writers embellished and made up this Jesus-character adding conjured-up miracles and phony prophesies, 30-100 years after the supposed death of Jesus, giving it a bogus sense of credibility, and authority, where there was none to begin with, so as to push their religious agendas of the day.

 

End, you've got as much credibility as a hot fart in the wind..............

 

Your bullshit is NOTHING but hot air that stinks up the joint. Wooooooosh...........

 

--S.

[StevoMuso]

What's your point? Are you a farmer or fisherman today?.....did you just miss the scripture I posted? I am the one claiming brokenness and faith.

 

No .. we are not missing your point or the scripture you posted about becoming like a child in order to believe (or becoming like a fisherman or farmer). We are being sarcastic because we have heard the "brokenness and faith" story too many times. Are you missing our point End3? Does a nuclear physicist also have to become "broken" to find faith? Lose all the mental skills of sound reasoning and critical analysis in order to "just believe"?

 

[i use the word "we" but don't mean to speak for other posters (sorry if "we" is a bit presumptuous OuroBro)]

[Shyone]

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus showed miracles for the rational and critical minds of that time... farmers, fishermen, and such, but when he went to his hometown, he couldn't show any miracles because they were too critical (doubting)!

 

It's amazing how apologists work so hard trying to convince themselves.

I've also noticed that the bible is a bit short on the specific miracles. We think mainly of faith healing, withering a fig tree, casting out demons and such, but they speak of performing some other kinds of miracles that are unspecified:

 

Mark 6:5. He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

 

What other miracles? Card tricks? Turning a stick into a snake? Sawing a woman in half?

 

After reading about the "miracles, wonders and signs" of Jesus, I have to wonder what they really were. Many times, Jesus would say, "I have done a miracle" but the context does not reveal any specific miracle. It sounds like someone left out the "conjuring" of the magician and only included the healing and driving out demons.

 

And today, driving out demons doesn't count for much.

[par4dcourse]

I've also noticed that the bible is a bit short on the specific miracles.

 

If, instead of demonstrating how to wash feet, jesus had said "tiny invisible things called germs cause disease. Wash your hands a lot and use clean knives to operate" how many lives would have been spared. That would have been a miracle.

[Guest end3]

So logically, who would you have given the message and miracles to?

[Phanta]

So logically, who would you have given the message and miracles to?

 

Me.

[Guest end3]

So logically, who would you have given the message and miracles to?

 

Me.

 

He did P....the message is in the Bible and the miracles come through faith.

[Phanta]

Within the context of performing miracles in front of doubting people so they can see and touch and observe with their senses, if I were he, I would do this for the likes of me.

 

Thomas got to touch, see, hear. I need that.

 

Phanta

[Ouroboros]

What's your point? Are you a farmer or fisherman today?.....did you just miss the scripture I posted? I am the one claiming brokenness and faith.

Fuck it.

 

Clay said that miracles were made to convince the rational and critical fishermen at the time of Jesus. That's what I made a comment about. My cynical approach was a statement to point out that fishermen and farmers of that time were NOT (of course, ) very critical or rational. They were the guild of gullible galore. So don't fucking try to convince me that they were the 200 IQ Einsteins of their day. It's just retarded beyond comprehension.

 

The only reason why you're fucking my chain right now is because you have nothing sensible or intelligible to say, but you're too horny to stop yourself.

 

So, whatever. You're crazy.

[Ouroboros]

So logically, who would you have given the message and miracles to?

 

Me.

 

He did P....the message is in the Bible and the miracles come through faith.

Those are just words. Only text.

 

Show the real thing. Give us real miracles. Tangible, real, touchable, factual, here-and-now miracles. But you can't, because those miracles happened only for the purpose to convince the super-intelligent fishermen, and today we're too stupid to see miracles.

 

What a asinine excuse.

[Guest end3]

What's your point? Are you a farmer or fisherman today?.....did you just miss the scripture I posted? I am the one claiming brokenness and faith.

Fuck it.

 

Clay said that miracles were made to convince the rational and critical fishermen at the time of Jesus. That's what I made a comment about. My cynical approach was a statement to point out that fishermen and farmers of that time were NOT (of course, ) very critical or rational. They were the guild of gullible galore. So don't fucking try to convince me that they were the 200 IQ Einsteins of their day. It's just retarded beyond comprehension.

 

The only reason why you're fucking my chain right now is because you have nothing sensible or intelligible to say, but you're too horny to stop yourself.

 

So, whatever. You're crazy.

 

I read backwards and understand the context that you are referring to. My mistake. Doesn't make sense to me if that is what Clay said.

[Guest end3]

So logically, who would you have given the message and miracles to?

 

Me.

 

He did P....the message is in the Bible and the miracles come through faith.

Those are just words. Only text.

 

Show the real thing. Give us real miracles. Tangible, real, touchable, factual, here-and-now miracles. But you can't, because those miracles happened only for the purpose to convince the super-intelligent fishermen, and today we're too stupid to see miracles.

 

What a asinine excuse.

If I could, you wouldn't believe it anyhow.

[Phanta]

So logically, who would you have given the message and miracles to?

 

Me.

 

He did P....the message is in the Bible and the miracles come through faith.

Those are just words. Only text.

 

Show the real thing. Give us real miracles. Tangible, real, touchable, factual, here-and-now miracles. But you can't, because those miracles happened only for the purpose to convince the super-intelligent fishermen, and today we're too stupid to see miracles.

 

What a asinine excuse.

If I could, you wouldn't believe it anyhow.

 

There was a time I would have. I was open. Then, with none in sight, I had to change to survive and thrive as best I could on my own.

 

Phanta