reprise

Cloppy, clop, cloppy clop, clop.

For our younger readers Under the Bridge might be a more appropriate reference.

GermanHeretic

I do not have excuses - I have valid reasons to state that there are no gods.

And since no gods, no sons of gods. The only reason I need to "refuse" a saviour (christ).

BTW, I am quite happy to accept that this Jesus guy existed and really did tell all the crap written down in the gospels and was crucified for the nonsense he uttered.
But, honestly, he did not heal anyone, unless by a placebo effect, did not walk on water, unless by knowing where the stones were, and did not rise from the dead unless he wasn't dead in the first place.

Queen of Swords

I believe Jesus walked on water. Of course, I believe it was very, very cold at the time.

Dean Anderson

Now, now, Magus. I'd be careful throwing this verse around as 'proof' that the Bible is God's word, if I were you.

1) You are using a dodgy translation. The most accurate translation of the Greek is that 'All inspired (God Breathed) writing is also useful for doctrine...', not 'all scripture is inspired and useful for doctrine...'.

2) You are using the verse seriously out of context. The preceding verses warn against false scripture - and the context of this verse is clearly saying that only certain scripture is useful - not that all scripture is inspired and useful.

3) Even if this verse were to mean that all scripture is inspired by God - it gives no indication of what should and shouldn't be considered scripture. Is the Gospel of Mark scripture? What about the Gospel of Thomas? What about the Book of Enoch? What about the Book of Mormon?

4) Even if this verse were to mean that all scripture is inspired by God and even if scripture was clearly defined to mean 'the books included in the Bible - not including apocrypha', it would still be circular logic and be no more valid than my claim that this Internet posting is inspired by God. It must be because it says so in the posting and God does not lie...

See this thread for a more detailed discussion of the translation and context issues in this verse.

Ronin

Except that you forget that atheists do not "do whatever they want and screw the laws"...they simply do not find evidence for the existence of "God"(s) and, therefore, do not believe in them.

In particular, this atheist (a law enforcement officer) not only obeys laws but does his best to promote a more civilized society by enforcing them...especially in the area of violent crimes.

So, in short, your claim:

...is problematic to the concept that "God" is unconditional in his love for humanity, particularly to those humans who simply are not "for God", but are still caring, loving humans.

Now, for the purposes of our discussion, how would you percieve your God would treat the likes of those atheists that are not "for God", but exhibit love and caring and service to others?

lpetrich

Richard Carrier is a professional historian (strictly speaking, a graduate student) associated with this site; he has written several essays on historical methods and other subjects, which can be found here at this site. In particular, he has contrasted the evidence for the occurrence of two events:

* Jesus Christ's resurrection
* Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon with his army, which sealed the fate of the Roman Republic

Evidence:

* Julius Caesar is the self-proclaimed author of a book on the subject of the civil war that he had participated in. Can Jesus Christ make a similar claim?

* Julius Caesar's opponents describe him in action, at the Rubicon and elsewhere, while there are no hostile or neutral sources for JC's resurrection for some centuries after the Bible's hagiographic account.

* Lots of inscriptions and coins for Julius Caesar's march, and his career in general, but none of Jesus Christ's. Nobody inscribing "I almost can't believe my eyes, but Jesus Christ has risen from the dead."

* Lots of notable historians have discussed Julius Caesar's Rubicon crossing, and indeed, much of the rest of his career. They often show evidence of being careful scholars, comparing their various sources and trying to puzzle out what had happened. By contrast, the sources for Jesus Christ's resurrection do not seem like careful historians, but more than propagandists.

* Rome's history requires that something like Julius Caesar's Rubicon crossing to have happened, while only the belief in Jesus Christ's resurrection is needed to explain the rise of Christianity.

Richard Carrier has also written on Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story; in his short version, he compares Jesus Christ's career to that of St. Genevieve.

And I'm sure that the support for Charles Darwin having written the Origin of Species is more comparable to the evidence of Julius Caesar's career than Jesus Christ's.

And I'd like to see Magus55 follow that link on St. Genevieve and assess her credibility. She was an ascetic who had lived near Paris around 500 CE. She had allegedly lived off two meals a week, of bread and water and some occasional beans; when she reached 50, she followed her doctors' advice and started eating milk and fish. Yet she had found the energy to perform the wanderings described in the above biography.

She had also worked lots of miracles, or at least so we are told, like filling empty oil lamps, driving out demons, curing blindness, striking blind those who stole from her, calming storms, righting ships that had overturned, pointing out a monster-containing tree, etc.

Which is absolutely absurd. Islam treats Jesus Christ as a predecessor prophet, but one who is not as great as the prophet Mohammed. Muslims also believe that errors have crept into accounts of previous revelations, like the Bible, though they believe that none have crept into the Koran (of course!).

Furthermore, about a billion of the world's Xtians are Catholics, and we all know what Magus55 thinks about Catholicism.

And what are "Christian morals and values", O Magus55? I think that if he had been born and raised in Saudi Arabia, he'd be calling the Islamic, if in India, he'd be calling them Hindu, etc.

Gospelog2 in quoting from "GOD IS GOD IN THE LAW OF LIFE" reminds me of when I was looking for info on the story of Samson and Delilah. I checked some church's site, and it seemed annoyingly preachy, saying how Samson had loved God and blah blah blah. I decided that I might as well read the original in the Bible (Judges 13-16), and it was not very difficult to read -- and much less preachy.

xsquid

Um...excuse me, Gospelog2, but didn't you start this whole thread with "What are the biggest excuses for refusing Christ?" By coming to this place, you have a ready-made audience of people who have reasons, not excuses, for dismissing an idea we, frankly, find absurd. You've dropped a match in a fuel tank and now you don't want to accept any responsibility for it.

You want mindless responses, go back to church. We ARE truth-seekers here; but you seem to think you've found it. We don't agree with that. If you think you've got what it takes, we can start from there.

When you come in here with a loaded question about "refusing Christ" and asking us for "excuses" for it, this is not my idea of "intelligent loving conversation". In fact, it inclines me to think you're asking for "excuses" because you can't think of any of your own. So don't be surprised that your posts are getting all the consideration they deserve (in fact, they're getting much more consideration than they deserve!).

Be seeing you! Come back when (a) you've learned some manners on how to conduct yourself and (b) when you're prepared to respond with more than quotes and threats to take your ball and go home.
You may now rub your hands in anticipation of us all being turned into pillars of salt...

Zeda

As I posted a bit earlier : Christians--one must judge the validity of the cult by the actions of it's followers.

Also:
1) The inabiltily to judge the accuracy of the Scriptures. What in fact did Christ really say about himself? Did he believe he was God? Or were the parts of the New Testament that seem to point to this, words put in his mouth by his followers?

2) The problems with the differing accounts of his resurection. Read all the different accounts in the Bible side by side. The events dont match up. Where are the outside sources that saw the darkness occur, the dead men walking and the temple veil split> Surely someone would have noticed these things?

3) The unfillfilled promise of his return.

4) The inabilitly of the Christian sects to agree on just about anything.
Such as: The nature of Christ
The Trinity
The means of Salvation
The Place of the Virgin Birth and the place of Mary
The Nature of the Sacraments

5) His Father-- The God of the Old Testament and his evil nature

6) Hell-- it's Injustice and Unfairness

dado

there is only one law - that which you hate, don't do to others. that's it. source? the greatest, most venerated Jewish sage of all time. if you live like that "law", then you are righteous, and if there is an afterlife, you will receive your fair share no matter what you believe in. if there is no afterlife, you'll still be rewarded here in this world because people remember when they're being treated well. what goes around, comes around.

the G-d that offers "salvation" is a x'ian myth - NOBODY is going to burn in hell - there is no hell for anybody to burn in - it's an elitist x'ian fantasy with absolutely no basis in pre-x'ian texts.

if you do good, you are good.

period.

full stop.

glad i could help, hope you have a nice day.

Dean Anderson

Well - I'm one who seeks to understand truth and get to the heart of the matter. I have respectfully listened to (well, read - but you know what I mean) the words you posted and here is my thought out response to them. No mindless jokes or putdowns - just a reasoned response.

Okay, well you must realise that this passage simply assumes that God exists. Since most of us here do not believe that to be true, the assertion is not likely to be taken seriously on its own. Do you have any arguments or evidence to back this up? Your OP together with this seems to assume that we somehow know that God exists and we wilfully reject him. This a Christian stereotype of atheim and is not true. We do not 'reject' God. We simply do not believe that there is a God to reject. Do you see the difference?

Anyway, for the sake of discussion, I will hypothetically assume that God does exist and that what the Bible says is true. Otherwise this will be a very short discussion.

Actually, Genesis 2 tells us nothing of the sort. God does not make Adam and then tell him to exercise his free will. God makes Adam and then specifically tells him not to exercise his free will. God does not say 'There is the fruit of Knowledge over there. It is up to you whether you eat it or not'. Instead he resorts to lying and threatening to try to stop Adam eating the fruit.

Actually, it does. Genesis 2:5 says "GEN 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." and Genesis 2:15 says "GEN 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."

God desired to get a race of slaves to do his manual labour for him.

Sin is not mentioned in Genesis 3. Neither is the devil. Only the talking snake that tells Adam the truth about God's lying threat. God then curses Adam for disobeying him and maliciously prevents him from gaining immortality - despite Adam having done no wrong - since Adam disobeyed God innocently (not having any knowledge of morality until after he had eaten the fruit).

So if God didn't tell mankind what he wanted and what his rules were until the Mount Sinai incident - why did he kill everyone in the world except Noah for being wicked and going against his laws? It wasn't their fault they displeased him. He hadn't yet told mankind what those laws were.

Okay then. Let's look at them more closely...

It is quite interesting to note that God (as in Yahweh/Jehovah) never claims to be the only god, he only ever claims to be the only god that the Hebrews are allowed to worship. He acknowedges the presence of the gods of other tribes and nations - but is jealous and refuses to allow his chosen tribe to worship them.

I wouldn't call the fourth one the 'heart desire' of God. He obviously didn't consider it that fundamental - since his own son Jesus broke it and declared that it was not important.

You have me somewhat confused here. How do 'Only worship me', 'Don't worship anyone else', 'Don't speak my name', and 'Don't work on one day of the week' have anything to do with redemption? They seem to be simply a case of 'I'm bigger than you so do as I say' type of laws. They are not even moral laws like 'Don't kill people' or 'Don't steal'.

Well - that seems to be something that is easy to achieve. After all, I don't have any problems being me - so why should God have any difficulty being God?

Erm... Ezekiel 28:12-19 is talking about the King (and city) of Tyre. The prophet is comparing them to a 'cherub' as an indication of their former beauty. He then points out that they have been destroyed by God (in verse 16). None of this is talking about an actual cherub rebelling against God and becoming the devil.

Isaiah 14:12-15 is a rant at the King of Babylon - calling him 'morning star' as a piece of sarcastic and insincere flattery.

Neither of these talk about Satan - who, don't forget, sits at God's side chatting to him during the assembly of gods and wagering with him over mortals' lives.

Now this one - I'll grant you - is accurate. Assuming you take the Bible as inerrant truth (as I have for purposes of this discussion), then this is what actually happened.

I would hardly call the repetition of the third commandment a 'great revelation'. The commandment had already been around for centuries by this time.

Could you tell me how to tell the difference between God hiding himself as if he is non-existant and God actually being non-existant?

If there were some way to actually determine that he exists, God would get a lot more people praising him (which seems to be what you think it his heart's desire).

Apart from the other gods, of course. I think what you meant was 'so that we may declare that he is the only god we worship - since his jealousy does not allow us to worship any of the others'

So in summary, you seem to be saying that God created mankind and gave us free will so that we could choose of their own free will to praise him constantly.

Unfortunately, you don't seem to have much biblical support for your position - and that is even if we assume:

1) The Bible is correct and inerrant.

2) God exists.

Neither of which claim you have provided any evidence to support.