Dan Barkers "Easter Challenge"

[crazy-tiger]

Nice to see you're still around Madame...

[Ouroboros]

Heres the thing that cannot be denied. The "moving" of the Holy Spririt has been "recorded" in all times since the death of Jesus. Are ALL these people mentally having seizures and spells?

 

I actually have been to many of those meetings, and even being prayed for.

And I've learned how powefull suggestion it is, that you want to believe, therefore you act accordingly. The preachers expect you to fall, and they even give a little push to help you get the hint.

 

At one point I saw how much, my own will to get anointed, effected the behavior, that I decided that "if I'm going to fall, it has to be the Holy Spirit doing it, and not just me bending of the slight push from the preacher." And lo and behold, I didn't fall anymore. It was not that I didn't want to fall, but I focused on "I'm going to stand up, and not just trip over".

 

My dedication was that if God wants me on the floor then he has to force me down, to convince me that it was trule and fully his power and nothing else. But that never happened. Only way to fall under Gods power is to have the belief that you will fall under Gods power. Basically it is a form of hypnosis or mass suggestion or mass hysteria.

 

The biggest fool is not the joker telling you to do things, but your own mind acting on it.

[Ouroboros]

I always find if amusing how the Bible becomes "just a text" or "just a story" when inconsistencies are pointed out.  Yet, the rest of the time it is lauded as perfect, infalliable truth.  You don't find that ironic?

 

Kind of how Christians claim that Jesus saves a person from sin and that Christians are "new beings" with God living inside them and an eternal life to look forward to.  But when it is pointed out that Christians still engage in sin, suddenly they are just mere, imperfect mortals again.

 

Can't have it both ways.

 

That's all I have to say about that.  Gotta stop slacking off and get back to my research paper.

 

Well Hello There and Welcome!

 

Wonderful to see newcomers with cool input.

Very good point you made.

 

Good luck with you research paper

 

[Mr. Neil]

Oh Jesus Christ...

 

 

Heres the thing that cannot be denied. The "moving" of the Holy Spririt has been "recorded" in all times since the death of Jesus.

How do you "record" the moving of the Holy Spirit? What is a spirit? What behavioral characteristics do spirits have? How do we know when a spirit is moving through someone? How do we distinguish one from a seizure?

 

 

Are ALL these people mentally having seizures and spells?

Is there anything particularly unbelievable about a whole lot of people over a long period of time having seizures?

 

[Abiyoyo]

I actually have been to many of those meetings, and even being prayed for.

And I've learned how powefull suggestion it is, that you want to believe, therefore you act accordingly. The preachers expect you to fall, and they even give a little push to help you get the hint.

 

At one point I saw how much, my own will to get anointed, effected the behavior, that I decided that "if I'm going to fall, it has to be the Holy Spirit doing it, and not just me bending of the slight push from the preacher." And lo and behold, I didn't fall anymore. It was not that I didn't want to fall, but I focused on "I'm going to stand up, and not just trip over".

 

My dedication was that if God wants me on the floor then he has to force me down, to convince me that it was trule and fully his power and nothing else. But that never happened. Only way to fall under Gods power is to have the belief that you will fall under Gods power. Basically it is a form of hypnosis or mass suggestion or mass hysteria.

 

The biggest fool is not the joker telling you to do things, but your own mind acting on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Did anyone say that you have to fall when the Holy Spirit comes upon someone. No, or maybe thats the "doctrine" taught in the church of your attendance. I personally, more than none, begin to cry without cease for a period of time, and sometimes I have to sit down, being in a weak state. This was truly a overwhelming moment, but not a falling down in some act of passing out.

[crazy-tiger]

Did anyone say that you have to fall when the Holy Spirit comes upon someone. No, or maybe thats the "doctrine" taught in the church of your attendance. I personally, more than none, begin to cry without cease for a period of time, and sometimes I have to sit down, being in a weak state. This was truly a overwhelming moment, but not a falling down in some act of passing out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You've just described two of the most common symptoms of being under high emotional stress...

 

Now, what kind of environment would you expect at the churches where all this takes place? That's right... A very highly emotionaly charged one.

Everyone there is under high emotional stress and, for some reason, lots of people just happen to suffer the common symptoms...

 

 

People are seeing through your little magic trick, and we can see it's naff all to do with and "spirit"

[Ouroboros]

Oh, I just remembered something that happened during my xian period.

 

The church I belonged to do a lot of mission work, and I joined a team going to Prague, in then Tjeckoslovakia. Our pastor, which is very strong charismatic, fundamentalistic preacher was going there to preach.

 

Well to make it short, during one of the sessions when the music team (worship team, as they were called) was playing one of the more sentimental kind of worships that the eastern block have. It's kind of common for that side of the continent to have slightly sad tone to the music.

 

So anyhow, our pastor was working up "the presence" of the HG, and he expect music to be happy and jumpy and such. And he was working the stage, going back and forth and charging the spiritual batteries.

 

The music team had been playing fairly happy song until this one, and now they started this sentimental song.

 

Our pastor got so friggin mad! He started to scream at them and told them that the HG can't come when they play sad song and they had to change song immediately or the HG would be upset and not come back.

 

So of course they changed song.

 

I kind of liked the song, so I felt bad, and this was one of many occasions of wierd behavior, that got me really, really thinking about how Jesus change people. I didn't see much of "changed to the better", but more of "changed to the same or worse".

 

Today I can play any sad songs I want, and I like it. Sometimes even the HG comes upon me ...

[Mr. Neil]

You have a redundant quote tag. Remove the very last tag of the post, and it should fix itself.

[Abiyoyo]

That doesnt make this false, it makes it an unknown. There is a huge difference between a falsehood and an un known. My question is, Did anyone record that this day was sunny, cloudy, rainy, etc.. I think this is a fair assumtion to the comment. Also, there is much debate even in the Christian groups about what actual day Christ was crucified. Is there evidence that there was a solar eclipise in any other cultures that all happened on the same day nearly 2005 years ago? This is probualy a better formed question of the point being made in this comment. The answer is we dont know.

Now, if there is no record of a WORLDWIDE BLACKOUT, something that would be so out of the ordinary that it is impossible to accept that no-one recorded it, then it's bleeding obvious that there was no worldwide blackout.

 

Remember, there were plenty of cultures extant at the time that made a point of recording anything out of the ordinary, yet such an occurance somehow failed to be noted.

 

What we do know is that there were no eclipses at that time of year for the possible years that Jesus would have been crucified in.

What is the conclusion? THE BIBLE LIES when it says it was a worldwide blackout.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The question being implied was, Did anyone else record how the weather was for say 30days of the time of death. Exp. sunny, cloudy, windy, etc..?

[Lokmer]

The question being implied was, Did anyone else record how the weather was for say 30days of the time of death. Exp. sunny, cloudy, windy, etc..?

 

I can tell you difinitively that there was no solar total solar eclipse over California for the last 70 years at least. Do I know what weather was like every day of the 20th century? No. Do I know precise astronomical conditions for all that time? Of course not. People who record such things only record significant anomolies. And, in such a case, absence of evidence = evidence of absence.

 

Period.

-Lokmer

[Kryten]

No historian at the supposed time of Jesus EVER mentioned the existence of jesus...not even the romans...there were no roman records of his cruxifiction.  THe ONLY contemporary source that mentions a man named jesus is josephus...which has been proven to be a forgery by euseubius...and not just cause it mentions jesus but for many reasons which I'm not going to go into here...but i can give you links to people who can explain it better than I.  EVEN HONEST christian scholars have conceded this point.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Actually, Josephus was born years after Gospel Jesus supposedly died, so he is NOT his contemporary. Nobody that lived during that time ever wrote about him, except for Paul, who appears to know nothing of his life.

[- AUB -]

Actually that's not half the story, the reason the fraud was put into Josephus was not just to make the Jesus character look historical but to draw attention to his accounts of 1st century Judea, as they are regarded as accurate, and were used to prove the accuracy of the gospels, as they share certain details. However that is because the gospels rip off Josephus! Luke especially used whole sections of his Jewish War to produce believable background details and even plagiarised his writing style in order to impress educated Romans. We know all the gospels (and Acts) took details from Josephus which means they all had to have been written after 74 C.E. when his War was published. This proves they were not contemporary accounts, or even written by Jews, if in order to set the story in Judea they had to look up what it was like in a popular Roman history book. The word is fiction.

 

The reason they plagiarise so much of his work is because his was the only account to make it past the Flavian censors, and the only source on an area and era the gentile Greek or Roman evangelists were unfamiliar with, and was all they had to work from when researching their novels. Hence all the ridiculously inaccurate details concerning Jewish practices and Judean Geography, what they could not get from Josephus they simply made up, gentiles writing for gentiles, relying on the ignorance of their audience like xtian apologists and creationists do today. Hence also the anti-Semitic and anti intellectual tone of the N.T. as they had to keep the flock away from those with the information that debunked their lies.

[Guest Euthyphro]

Actually that's not half the story, the reason the fraud was put into Josephus was not just to make the Jesus character look historical but to draw attention to his accounts of 1st century Judea, as they are regarded as accurate, and were used to prove the accuracy of the gospels, as they share certain details. However that is because the gospels rip off Josephus! Luke especially used whole sections of his Jewish War to produce believable background details and even plagiarised his writing style in order to impress educated Romans. We know all the gospels (and Acts) took details from Josephus which means they all had to have been written after 74 C.E. when his War was published.

 

WOW! I have never heard anything like this before. I've only read debates in forums about the Testimonium Flavianum and "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" reference. Er...also early christian writings website. I never heard anyone mention the bible ripping off josephus. How long have scholars held this theory of the bible writers ripping off josephus? Damn. Anymore info given on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks AUB!

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[- AUB -]

Euthyphro

 

I was as surprised as you are, all this time we've been hearing about Josephus as the "testamonium flaveus" and have gone through the fraud over and over again, and never has anyone pointed out the fact that he was the source for the gospels in the first place! Why has it been kept under wraps? Well it's anti-xtian dynamite for a start, and they don't what to refute it as that would draw attention to it, but the evidence is conclusive as far as I'm concerned, but you may have to do your own research, as very little has been done. There are very few sources for this, even jesusneverexisted haven’t caught this one yet, it took me a hell of a lot of digging, infidels have only one article.

 

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ric...ndjosephus.html

 

And the Pascal lot do a brief bit on it.

 

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/lukejosephus.html

 

 

The point I’d like to add here is the connection between Luke/Acts and jospehus is the obvious one, however as all the synoptics include the Gaderene swine miracle they must all have had Josephus as their source, including mark. It really is a horrible idea, making an anti-Semitic satire out of a Jewish holocaust, sic and evil are what the gospels writers where, and now we have them red handed. (It also supports my “xtianity as Sophic gentile cult” hypothesis.)

 

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/3678/

 

This guy goes into more detail than any other I've found online, he's a "flavian conspiracy" guy, but on the josephus issue he's really done his homework.

 

This when added to all the pagan sources covers the entire gospels, there is now nothing we cannot trace to another source. Maybe if the gospel hacks weren’t such plagiarists they’d have gotten away with it longer, but the evidence is overwhelming, a comprehensive debunking it called for, which is what I’m working on right now, hence my absence from the forums. (You may recall it was to be just Matthew, then Luke, now I’ve got to do the whole lot, as this ties them all together in the same lie) This is not simply a matter of faith anymore, you have to positively and willingly ignore the data to maintain the gospels as truth. I’ll write more but there’s still a hell of a lot more research I’ve got to do. If I find any more sources on this I’ll post them here.

 

How long have scholars held this theory of the bible writers ripping off josephus?

 

That’s the question, so few dare to go that far, most don’t want to rock the boat, look at the Jesus seminar and their 84% untrue figure, they still assume he was real, yet they still get heat for it, and back away, spineless, like scientists unwilling to admit their work debunks superstition. This is cutting edge bible destruction, not your SAB or “Acharya S” stuff, and what annoys me is that it’s been staring me in a face for years, I kicked myself for not seeing it earlier, as I’ve been studying Jospehus for a while. Research is all I’m doing from now on.

[dogmatically_challenged]

- AUB -

"This is not simply a matter of faith anymore, you have to positively and willingly ignore the data to maintain the gospels as truth. I’ll write more but there’s still a hell of a lot more research I’ve got to do. If I find any more sources on this I’ll post them here. "

 

I am very eager to see how this develops!

 

Thank you very much for the links and information AUB.

[quicksand]

AUB (or anybody),

 

Could one infer then, or make the connection that the "testamonium flaveus" is the alledged Q ("the Quelle") that Luke and Mark draw from?

 

I haven't had time to follow-up on the links you've provided, and probably won't until this weekend.

 

Anyone have an answer? Or am I trugging a wrong hee?

[Lokmer]

AUB (or anybody),

 

Could one infer then, or make the connection that the "testamonium flaveus" is the alledged Q ("the Quelle") that Luke and Mark draw from?

 

I haven't had time to follow-up on the links you've provided, and probably won't until this weekend.

 

Anyone have an answer? Or am I trugging a wrong hee?

 

 

You're tugging the wrong heel. "Q," as posited, is a sayings source much like the Gospel of Thmoas. Nearly everything it is supposed to contain are clever quips and proverbs, which is not the character of the Josephus borrowing at all (Josephus' style was almost thoroughly narrative - he used very few quotes and even fewer proverbs).

 

-Lokmer

[quicksand]

You're tugging the wrong heel.  "Q," as posited, is a sayings source much like the Gospel of Thmoas.  Nearly everything it is supposed to contain are clever quips and proverbs, which is not the character of the Josephus borrowing at all (Josephus' style was almost thoroughly narrative - he used very few quotes and even fewer proverbs).

 

-Lokmer

I forgot about Thomas. Which is either supposed to be a much earlier or later book than Luke. That's right. What's the second line... "Understand these words and you'll never die" or whatever.

 

I knew something was wrong in my thinking.

 

Thanks.

 

Now I can go hug the right tree.

 

Or eat. Lunchtime.

[- AUB -]

Could one infer then, or make the connection that the "testamonium flaveus" is the alledged Q ("the Quelle") that Luke and Mark draw from?

 

No, the testamonium flaveus is an interpolation put into Josephus by xtians, and is irrelevant, as its a product of later liars, not the gospel writers. Joe was the source for the following...

 

Historical details, kings, events, certain rebels and geography.

 

Some of the really bad parables are re-worked accounts of events Joe described, turned into moral or religious tracts, and as such don't hold together in their new context.

 

Some of the miracles, (such as the infamous Gaderene swine itself) where re-worked from Joe's accounts, and were turned from pro-Jewish to anti-Jewish, pro-Jesus nonsense.

 

The purpose of Joe's histories was reversed, (a common tactic) by using the names and events to prove the opposite point.

 

And finally the overall linguistic style was ripped off to give the impression "Luke" was a legitimate historian.

 

Q is a hypothetical, and I wouldn’t take it too seriously, I follow the direct hypotheses, Mark-Mathew-Luke-John, with the remaining elements taken from contemporary Jewish and Pagan sources. The 2 reasons the gospels ever agree is due to either a common doctrinal position they need to expand on or because they copy from each other.