firebug

Have to disagree. Those two gods are the same - the same illusion (or delusion).

I begin to wonder - do you believe in all this nonsense or you are simply cataloguing it?

ohmi

Simply study the scripture , or one's own 'heart' of desire, to find the differences, there are many...

Whatever else it may be, you have offered no evidence that it is nonsense ... and I offer it in discussion only, as my current beliefs....

firebug

You are missing my point again (seems to be a habit). Of course, Thor is different from Zeus in details, but they are both non-existent. In that respect, they are the same.

Not really. All what you do you quote scriptures which you apparently believe to be literally true. If you want a discussion, tell me why do you think so? It's just a book, do you also believe the mormon version of imaginary reality? It's a book too

Illusio

Coming from the conspiracy theorist Muhammed, who claims to correct the story of Jesus 600 years later, I think we can dismiss that outright. It simply makes zero sense to say that the followers of a religion would willingly forge their revelation. Their religion would have no value to them if they changed it. And especially for the Jews, who alledgedly charged into combat with "God" literally on their side, this would be insane beyond words.

Now, I don't think Christianity or Judaism have any truth to them, but compared to Islam they at least have an element of doubt about their man-madeness and can hide in obscurity somewhat. Islam falls flat on its face, among other things because of the ridiculous claims that God speaks Arabic and that this was the original language of man. This is such a sad near sighted, arab-power nationalist idea that it would kill the claims of divinity even if we didn't have linguistic evidence of the origins of Arabic and know how languages mutate to incomprehensibility in just a few 100 years. The God of the Israelites has much of the same nationalist problem of course, but at least the Jews were lucky enough to not make a big point of their alternative linguistics.

As far as "reliability of divine origin" goes, Muhammed has no authority to discredit other religions or establish his entirely new theology on the foundation of the abrahamic god. Clearly there is no trace of the pillars of Islam in earlier societies, so it must have been invented on the spot.(Sometimes, more than once even, such as which direction to pray

ohmi

Scripture is famously poetical, the greatest literature of all time ... the intricate structure of its many modes of expression exceed the skills of human playwrights ... it never was just a book... and never will be [not least because scripture refers to many scrolls which we do not have and some which are somewhat arbitrarily not included in the so-called 'canon']

rizdek

Actually, this is just evidence that the oral traditions that eventually became parts of the gospel were probably developing before 70AD. As I understand it from reading LStrobel The Case for Christ (~p25 as best I can recall from my notes, I don't have the book in hand), the gospels documented the various oral traditions that were being handed down. And so I would assume that once they became "oral tradition" they became sacred and symbolic and no longer subject to "what was really going on around" those repeating the accounts and stories. So to me, it doesn't mean even the notes and memoirs that were written down before, and from which, the gospels were compiled got "written" before 70AD and certainly does not even suggest when the document was finalized in it's entirety.

As Strobel makes clear the concept of Matthew or some other gospel writer just "waking up one morning and deciding to write down all that they saw and heard in one long narrative" is not how things got written down then. He freely admits that first there was oral tradition in which the speakers tried to paraphrase what was said. So what people think are direct quotes from the lips of Jesus are really a parphrase. It doesn't mean they didn't get the gist of the conversations and monologues, but if someone believes Strobel, it might kind of blunt the wonderful feeling one might get thinking they are quoting words from the very lips of the son of God.

Toto

Strobel is not a credible source in this forum. There is no evidence that the gospels were based on any oral traditions at all.

The entire nation of Isreal was not scattered by the Romans until after the Bar Kochba rebellion around 132 CE.

rizdek

And yet, according to one website there are ~1 million muslims (http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_numb.htm)
So what does that tell us about peoples willingness to go along with whatever god belief they are brought up with and/or convert to when faced with "believe or...die/go hungry/be excommunicated/suffer persecution or torture etc.

rizdek

That's a relief, I thought his book was full of BS myself.

Well, they must've come from somewhere. Are you saying there was a scribe following Jesus around or some sort of divine webcam, even when he was alone in the wilderness? Or are you saying someone just pulled the gospels out of thin air and wrote them down? Oral tradition seemed to make some sense to me. I actually thought Strobel's case was weakened substantially by the admission of the people (supposed experts) that he interviewed that in those days, people didn't actually remember quotes and events specifically but ad libbed/paraphrased and added their own thoughts where there were gaps in the story. They had no problem taking things second/third/fourth hand and then claiming to quote the person directly, or taking third party accounts and calling them their own.

ohmi

The antichrist has power over all the nations to make them worship Satan as if he were the Christ and makes war on the true saints of God ... religion of men is thus predicted by Jesus to become wholly corrupted , that is all of divided modern christian creeds worship a false image of a christ that is not Jesus bar only those very few [Matt 7:14] who are not sinners[2 Timothy 2:19 ,Matthew 7:23].