Toto

A pity the EOG mods didn't notice that the OP links to a previous post by this poster that has already been moved to Elsewhere.

Subforum indeed.

Smullyan-esque

This here is evidence that you are not thinking rationally about this topic.

Just because a character in a story is a real person, does not mean that the events described in that story are real. This is such a trivially obvious thing that I don't see how you can fail to see it.

And that's even assuming that Jesus of Nazareth actually DID exist. What evidence (other than the Bible stories themselves) is there that he existed?
Not exactly true, since many of the prophecies really weren't about Jesus, but were in fact commandeered to try to lend gravitas to the story. And, even if he fit every prophecy perfectly, that could just be because the story is well-written fiction.
Which men? More characters in the story? It should be obvious why the words of one character in a story cannot be used to support the existence of another character in the same story.

Have you got anything from a source that is NOT in the storybook called the Bible?

xaxxat

Where?

Joan of Bark

You need to argue with rabbis, who know the OT prophesies better than you or I ever will. They claim that in fact Jesus did not fulfill the prophesies.

To restate makerowner's comment: And Jesus' most important prophecy never came true, either. Namely:

Mark 9:1 (NIV) And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

Baalazel

Hi Jenny, can you find the prophecy in the OT that predicts the period of time between Luke 24: 51 and today. It seems to me that a significant lapse exists in the prophetic timeline.

The Messiah came and left without completing his kingly duty. Israel has not been restored to anything approaching her former glory and the Gentile nations still worry her at every turn.

Now I know you believe all of this will be set right at the Second Coming. And there’s the rub. Where is the prophesy in the Old Testament that explains the present age? That is, the time from the Ascension until whenever Jesus returns.

You will no doubt be very busy here and I would understand if you don’t get back to this for awhile. But do give it a try. Perhaps you have friends who can do the research for you. You might ask your Pastor for help. I’m sure he would appreciate the opportunity to explain this vital doctrine to you.

And just so you know why I ask, every aspect of the supposed truth of your argument rests on the answer to this question. If it can’t be clearly dealt with there is no reason to think that Christ ever came to Earth the first time, much less that he will come again.

Baal

Sheshonq

Wrong.

WishboneDawn

I think biblical prophecies are the worst kind of wishful thinking. I think those prophecies involving Jesus are especially questionable because they demand you forget that the gospel writers knew their OT and could craft a story that fit any prophecies in it.

New Atheist

Hi, Jenny. No offense taken no worries. And why should I be offended that you think I'm wrong, and defend your faith? Its what you should be doing, but hopefully keeping yourself open to other ideas as well.

Now, I'm hardly a scholar, or a huge expert on the bible to give you precise points and answer from the bible itself, but many here will do so. There was a time many years ago, just after my deconversion, when I knew and researched a lot more in order to debate with Christians, and try to make them see what I had understood. But later on I figured I had much better things to do with my time than becoming an expert in a religion I now saw as a fairy tale- and before you say that I SHOULD keep an interest if I'm going to make the decision not to believe in God, well, I did my research and my searching for years during my deconversion and early atheist years. So I'll give you my own general opinions, but you'll find the more expert people here to give you the details.

Here it is. Years ago when still a Christian and at the final stage of breaking away with Christianity, prophecy was the one thing that kept me in. After all, prophecy HAS to be a wonder, because how can one predict with certainty and in detail what will happen in the future? And due to prophecy Christianity HAS to be true. Well obviously wrong. Biblical prophecy falls in my view, I realized then, in one of the following categories:

1) Explained away after the prophecy. Obviously if somebody 500 years ago wrote that A will happen, and I today wrote down that A has happened thus prophecy is fullfilled- then obviously there's no prophecy, but just me trying to prove there is. There is nothing real there unless there is outside evidence that A actually did happen. So if early Christians wanted to write stories about their mythic messiah figure, the most obvious thing they would do is write in those stories how he fullfilled the prophecies about him. What you must do is show some outside evidence apart from those same stories, that what they say happened really did, in fact happen.
2) So vaguely written and interpreted that it is no prophecy at all- thus non-prophetic passages in the bible suddenly become prophetic if the writer of the NT book views them twistedly enough, and prophetic passages about anything, are twisted in meaning enough to fit the Christ character.

And in my view, most so-called prophecy are a combination of the two-> the writers of the NT writing so that they could make the Christ figure appear to fulfill twisted, and non-prophetic passages from the OT.

3) No-prophecies at all. I cannot remember now, and I'm sure others will point it out, but there is at least I believe one instance in the NT, where the writer says how event A fullfils the prophecy about the Christ- the problem being there is no such prophetic passage in any of the books of the OT or other record, making it a prophecy the writer either made out of thin air, or referring to some vague tradition or passage which we have lost, and probably fitted in either of the 2 categories above.
4) Failed prophecies. Funnily enough, when passages in the bible appear to be less vague and more precise in their prophetic nature and what is to happen in the future, they fail miserably.

That's it. I've found nothing that doesn't fit the above 4, and I challenge you to find me a single prophecy that can't be put in one of those categories.
My personal view on the bible today, which again some more knowledgeable people here may have different takes on, is that whether there was a Jesus character who was a teacher, or believed himself the Messiah, or such a person didn't exist at all, there was in the early first century a Jewish cult about some such figure. And the gospels, are nothing more than attempts from early followers to create a mythic story for that figure. It was nothing new or special. There were many, many, such Messianic cults at the time by Jews. The jesus character was not special, and far from the first person to whom miraculous traits were attributed, showing that it was not an uncommon practice of the time for people to claim miraculous attributed for chracters, and for many to believe them. And why should we see that as unreasonable? See the amount of people believing today in wild conspiracy theories, and in idiotic modern religions like scientology. if people will come up with, and believe in, the wildest fantasies today, why would they not do so 20 centuries ago?

I've had some Christians tell me when I answer back to any of their 'proofs' for Jesus' divinity, that the very fact that I have to come up with counter-arguments to all those points means that I have to be wrong at some point, and just trying to justify my non-faith. And after all how can so many millions of Christians be wrong? Which is of course nonsense. If you believe in myths and fiction, you can expect a rational and true answer to any of your arguements for your belief. The people used to believe the world was flat, and could come up with hundreds of proofs of it, to each of which there could have been produced a counter-answer. Yet it was not the people answering back making up things to justify their non-belief. Reality itself disagreed with the myth, and would provide the answers to the believers. And the fact is, the majority of the world is NOT Christian, but believes in some other faith. All of which are completely certain of its validity, with their own prophecies, and obvious proofs of their truth- and each one disagreeing with the other, and seeing the obvious falsehoods in the other's 'perfect' arguements. In fact what people believe is shown to be really a factor of where they were born, and what their parents and wider society believed in and had religious faith in. Does it not trouble you that people all around the world, including most probably you, believe really in what was passed down to them from society, rather than seeing the 'obvious' truth of the Christian faith? (and if it is this faith that will either get us to heaven or hell, it should be obvious)

Well here it is. There can only be a single reality. Either what the bible says is true, or its just as I believe the myth making of early Christians. And we have to decide which of these two views is the true one. Well the fact is, if you look at the facts, the second view simply makes SO much more sense than the first one. If you adopt the view that the gospels are merely human writings trying to create a mythical reality around their religious figure, they make so much more sense. The various inconsistencies around the stories, and the fact that they often disagree on vary basic details regarding the story, all make sense if you merely view them as human stories. The lack of any historic evidence about the Christ figure from the period in which he was supposed to have lived makes absolute sense. The view of early Christianity we get from early Christian scholars, that the 'theology' and beliefs of early Christians were far from decided and universal, makes absolute sense, as they each believed in different stories and differently passed down myths, some of which we no longer have access to, before canonical theology was decided and 'heretics' persecuted. The whole concept makes absolute sense, since those times were full of different sects, and different faiths, in a wide range of historic figures. And in my own opinion, the Jesus figure and early Christian faith was clearly a message very much of its time- in that Jesus was a Messianic figure that preached for the coming of the kingdom of heaven at that particular time period (a prophecy which strangely enough was not fulllfiled, and which in my own personal 'theological' views, was a reason for the later book of revelations, to explain how the second coming did not happen at the time it was preached about, but which others might disagree here and have their own views on the subject). A view which makes the Christian sect a very logical outcome given the times, of life under the Romans, and the then hardships of the Jews. Christianity was merely a sect to me which got lucky in that it was eventually adopted by a Roman emperor, and forefuly spread around the empire. Their myths aren't even unique in thenselves, many of the stories and attributes of the Christ figure being parallels and borrowing from earlier religious figures and faiths, again a fact which makes absolute sense if you see the gospels as purely human constructs from authors twisting and matching the various stories and wide-spread mythical elements of their times, with their own theology.
And more that than, such a view explains away the various philosophical inconsistencies regarding God- since such a figure simply doesn't exist.

In any case, I hope that in trying to convince us of the truth of your faith, you'll be open minded enough to look at the counter-view, as I think you'll expect us to be doing in our case.

Jenny911

New Athiest,

Thank you for sharing your testimony. I cannot imagine how you used to be a Christian and became an athiest. Such two extremes seperated by an endless space of rational reason.

Your points:

1) Outside evidence: See quotes in this section: http://www.proofdirectory.com/HisNam...Jesus%20Christ

I've already mentioned this prior but no one wants to see it lol! The "men" I spoke about earlier which recorded acts of Christ were not Christians and their information is apart from that of the Bible. See it!

2) Declared "vague" based on what?

3) A prophecy cannot be stated as such unless there is the event fortelling the second event which actually happened prior to the second event. This has happened over and over again. One has to see them first hand and study their historical records, apart from the Bible. To bluntly state no prophecies ever existed is pure denial with no back up.

4) Please specify which prophecy has failed?

People, would I seriously bother coming into an athiest forum unless I've felt burdened to do so. I dont care where you think that burden came from, but through out your lives you will constantly feel you have been fighting against an Entity that has always and will always be there. Your choice, your life, no one can change it, but the ironic thing is the very freedom you have to choose not to believe in God was given to you by God Himself!

Here's a testimony by C.S Lewis:

"I was an atheist at one time. And like most atheists, the issue of people believing in God bothered me greatly. What is it about atheists that we would spend so much time, attention, and energy refuting something that we don't believe even exists?! What causes us to do that? When I was an atheist, I attributed my intentions as caring for those poor, delusional people...to help them realize their hope was completely ill-founded. To be honest, I also had another motive. As I challenged those who believed in God, I was deeply curious to see if they could convince me otherwise. Part of my quest was to become free from the question of God. If I could conclusively prove to believers that they were wrong, then the issue is off the table, and I would be free to go about my life.
I didn't realize that the reason the topic of God weighed so heavily on my mind, was because God was pressing the issue. I have come to find out that God wants to be known. He created us with the intention that we would know him. He has surrounded us with evidence of himself and he keeps the question of his existence squarely before us. It was as if I couldn't escape thinking about the possibility of God. In fact, the day I chose to acknowledge God's existence, my prayer began with, "Ok, you win..." It might be that the underlying reason atheists are bothered by people believing in God is because God is actively pursuing them.
I am not the only one who has experienced this. Malcolm Muggeridge, socialist and philosophical author, wrote, "I had a notion that somehow, besides questing, I was being pursued." C.S. Lewis said he remembered, "...night after night, feeling whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England."
Lewis went on to write a book titled, "Surprised by Joy" as a result of knowing God. I too had no expectations other than rightfully admitting God's existence. Yet over the following several months, I became amazed by his love for me."

Jenny911

Btw, I suggest you see this website which made the vid: www.proofdirectory.com