Zenaphobe

Providing evidence is not violating anyone's will.

Did Yahweh violate the free will of those he led through the desert with a pillar of smoke and fire?

Did Jesus violate the disciples free will be appearing to them in human form and doing miracles?

Was Paul's free will violated when Jesus gave him his own personal revelation of himself?

Do you see how silly your argument is yet?

Utu

Yes, like answering why someone would paint a picture of a green zombie Jesus unless it was so.



Come on Self Mutation, I was on your side during your original post, but I am baffled by your resistance to embracing the truth of green zombie Jesus. Even the atheists here have accepted that. Why can't you? Is it because you hate green zombie Jesus? Jesus obviously must have been a green zombie because he looks weird when not represented so. Everyone knows Jesus was a green zombie. Your criticism of green zombie Jesus means you know it is true. The truth stings which is why you attack the idea of a green zombie so much. Show me where in the bible it says "Jesus was not a green zombie."

Keith&Co.

I think we should learn from the example of the disciples. People that walked with Jesus every day. Spoke with him, drank with him, watched him perform miracles.

Each and every time he promised to reveal his miraculous powers, they were skeptical of his spoken claims. And each time he whipped out a new superpower, they believed. As long as they had physical evidence, they believed based on pure faith. And physical demonstrations.

Until the end, when he promised that he would be back, got nailed to a tree, and the apostles all ran and hid, sure that this time, he was dead. They even denied knowing him, breaking faith with his memory, teachings and example.
Until he came back. THEN, once they were sure he could conquer death, they believed him without once demanding further evidence. Oh, except for Thomas.

Based on that, i think that we should all demand no more evidence for Christ's divinity than he offered his closest friends. Which was pretty impressive physical evidence, when you think about it.

So, if God demonstrating his divine existence preempts free will, which God holds to be anathema, that would mean that all the putative gospels are held to have been written by people whose free will had been preempted. So the gospels are anathema, no?

James Brown

Not all of them. Peter and John didn't believe Mary's eye-witness testimony, but went to the tomb to see for themselves (John 20). And there's this:
Matt 27:17.

So some disciples looked the risen Jesus in the face and doubted it was him. Could those be the disciples whom are never again mentioned in any New Testament work? Disciples like Bartholomew, or James son of Alphaeus, or Thaddaeus, or Simon the Zealot? The ones whose only mention even in the Gospels is in the roll call of disciples (and even those don't agree with each other)? Where are their gospels? Where are their eye-witness testimonies, these disciples who exited stage right muttering, "I don't know what Peter is trying to pull, but that's not Jesus."

Thomas' examination wasn't the most scientific, but it's far and away better than what we're able to perform. And yet Jesus didn't violate Thomas' free will by allowing himself to be examined.

I've felt that Jesus' disappearance shortly after his resurrection smacked of being awfully convenient. Wouldn't an immortal Jesus, still alive today, still moving among us preaching God's word, healing the sick, diverting storms, subjecting himself to scientific scrutiny--wouldn't a Jesus that never dies be a far better proof of his power than the contradictory, decades-old, third-hand, anonymous recollections of a superstitious group of mostly illiterates?

Yes. If Self-Mutation were living in Palestine in the year 40 AD, he would argue against anyone writing gospels on the grounds that stories told around the campfire by eye-witnesses (or by someone who knew someone who knew an eye-witness) would be a violation of our free will.

Keith&Co.

Oh, not at all.

If SM was alive in 40AD, he'd argue that we HAD to take the word of eyewitness, for if God does anything on Earth, it's through human agency and obvert, irrefutable miracles.
Now that it's much harder to convince skeptics that a miracle is actually miraculous, he has to depend heavily on the 'faith depends on NO proof' argument, tailored to the state of affairs we find today, trying to explain why the apparently godless universe proves that his god exists.

WVIncagold

So which does jesus prefer MP3 or Blue Ray? I mean your so in touch with what the guy wants and can and can not do. It seams though more and more that he can't sema to do allot! So basically miracles don't really happen because for a miracle to happen that would impact free will? I mean those peolle choose to smoke and live in allentown PA so thatws free will. And when the cancer went away that was just good medicne god had NOTHING to do with it because that would interfere with free will. So now that we have estavlished the Miracles never happen i feel so much better.

Dogfish

Only until it makes sense.

purple_kathryn

So I take it then you don't believe god ever helps anyone at anytime. Not in basketball games, not in surviving cancer, not in surviving a disaster?

Anat

Exactly. God appearing to do anything at all to make the world anything different than a world in which there is no god would be a violation of free will. Thus the only thing such a god can do is nothing at all. Not even exist. Yes, I can see how this goes.

ElectEngr

WARNING....WARNING...

Zombie derail comming on

Later,
ElectEngr