AthenaAwakened

See that's where your belief system went wrong. You don't leave Santa cookies, you leave him Bourbon. Like Poppa use to say, "Baby. it's cold outside."

Clivedurdle

Why?

I used to believe this myself - I was trained to evangelise this - why have you stayed with it?

Really, I am very interested. For example how do you define infallible? How old is the earth?

OldYgg

And....that they argue with each other. It specifically states that Jesus mediates between humanity and god. Sounds like someone has a wee bit of a mental problem...

Old Ygg

BioBeing

But - if I read our other recent conversation correctly - you can't possibly believe that Jesus was an honest-to-god, Divine, Son of God. Can you? I mean, uncaused causes is one thing; having a supernatural creature in human form is quite another.

ksen

I've stayed with it because in my experience it is all true. I trust that the Bible is accurate and the things in that statement of faith can be shown as being taught in the Bible.

I've yet to be convinced that those things aren't so.

Trustworthy.

I don't know how old the earth is. I suspect though that it is younger than people currently think.

Febble

Well, I'm going to irritate you by saying that I don't know what "supernatural" means. But if it means an uncaused-cause, then because I choose to believe that we are morally responsible agents (despite no evidence that we are), then it follows that we are all "supernatural" creatures in human form. That we are something more than the sum of our inputs and outputs. That "I" am an actual self that can choose. And in fact, according to John's report, when accused of blaspheming by claiming to be God, Jesus quoted a psalm that says "you are all gods".

To me, the biggest leap is the acceptance of an autonomous moral self. That's where my theism comes from. As for Jesus, frankly, I don't know, and accept that I can't know. I think the balance of evidence suggests that he lived, taught some cool stuff, and was crucified. I find that at least one tradition of interpretation of the story makes sense to me as a structure on which to hang my God-model, so while I've chucked out quite a lot, I haven't chucked out the whole thing (though parts are definitely in my pending tray).

But the God part seems to be stuck, and the trinity (perhaps oddly) is a concept I've always found useful. I think that even if I was to be presented with unimpeachable evidence that it was pure myth, I'd still find it useful. But so far I haven't found that evidence.

ELECTROGOD

Then I think that my post with the links that Billy ought to see should also apply to you as well.

ksen

I see no reason why I should trust what a source says or claims about Christianity when that source is in opposition to Christianity. I hardly see how it can be objective in its criticism. :huh:

Would you bother with links to white separatist sites in order to get an objective view of affirmative action programs?

ELECTROGOD

Ah, the usual cop-out answer. Won't even check it out because you fear that it doesn't go along with your religion's propoganda and myths.
The funny thing is that it's IS your Bible. It's the words, etc. directly from your religion's book which you mistakenly think is infallible. As a loyal Christian, shouldn't you actually know all about your Bible?...or is that asking too much?

Jobar

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

Please, all of you who think there's some historical basis for the Jesus of the NT- go read that site. It's a lot to read, yes, but really fascinating stuff.

I've been a mythicist since back in the eighties, and the more I study the topic, the more convinced I am that Jesus the Christ never existed, and didn't ever have a living human being at the core of any of the tales.