spamandham

Once you have a master deceiver in the loop, how can you distinguish between the will of God and a deception by the master deceiver? If you believe in a master deceiver, there is no reason the Bible could not be the work of that entity. Everything you think you know about "the real God", could be a lie intended to draw you away from the truth.

He allowed it in the Garden according to Genesis.

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

God allowed Satan to trick Eve into losing her immortality, so why do you think God would prevent Satan from tricking people into losing a mere chance at immortality, when he even allows them to be tricked into losing the immortality they already have?

...or maybe what they feel is part of the ruse. What better way to seel the deception?

So? Can a master deceiver not temporarily feign love and compassion in order to get what he wants? Can a master deceiver not misrepresent both his own nature and that of his adversary?

I asked you how you knew Jesus was not part of the deception. Your response does not answer that question.

I'm saying there is no way for you to know he was not.

Personally, I doubt there was a historical Jesus at all. I think he's a character constructed from the Jewish scriptures.

spamandham

Glad to help make your day. I haven't heard "awesome" since my second year of grad school.

Johnny Skeptic

But God did not write anything. Men wrote the Bible, and the Bible is full of provable errors.

funinspace

I guess you will just have to set those 2 srings equal to "NULL"

BTW, welcome to the board :wave:

IBelieveInHymn

But the bible says "THE LORD SAYS.."

That's the proof I need.

IBelieveInHymn

Well, to be perfectly honest. I would have to say I have a better understanding of the bible because I believe in God. Atheists just twist scripture so badly, it's hardly recognizable.

Atheist - Jesus said hate your parents!
Christian - No! Jesus said love your parents lesser than God.
Atheist - No, it says the word hate, so that's what I believe.
Christian - But Jesus said Honor your parents.
Atheist - Jesus was bipolar

Sai

so what is it exactly you are doing here? Other than just telling and showing us over and over that any evidence will do if you think it confirms what you already think, and no evidence will do if it doesnt.

Like that stuff you cut and pasted about geology. Pure crap.

graymouser

Apparently to IBIH, "twisting scripture" means demanding that Christians deal with the face-value readings of the books of the Bible, such as Luke 14:26 (which claims that to follow Jesus, one must hate his family and even himself).

And "understanding scripture" doesn't mean reading it and comprehending what it says as one would any written document, it means reading the book and then coming up with bizarre and convoluted alternate interpretations for all the "hard verses," many of which are based on unfounded claims about the original language that would have been spoken.

Case in point.

Dark Virtue

WHAT? I think we've proven over and over that YOU are the one twisting scripture.

show_no_mercy

Here's the more obvious solution:

Atheist - Jesus said hate your parents!
Christian - No! Jesus said love your parents lesser than God.
Atheist - No, it says the word hate, so that's what I believe.
Christian - But Jesus said Honor your parents.
New Testament Scholar - Jesus was probably just the mouthpiece of separate Christian communities who had him say things they wanted him to say. Combining all of these disparate Christianities leads to contradictions.