Julio

Me, too.
The fundamentalists are not yet a plague, thank God!

Chili

Notice that one line again in Jn. 5:14 while in the portico: ". . . you have been cured. Give up your sins so that something worse may not overtake you." Here Jesus was referring to the 'saved sinner complex' and for this religion must be left behind and now you should read Galations 5:4 to validate that: "Any one of you who seek your justification in the law (religion), have severed yourself from Christ and fallen from God's favor!" As I see it then a Christian should never be seen in church and that is the problem in protestant denominations. Iow, be anything but a Christian and go to Church for what it is worth.

Julio

Well, I like that [esoteric?] deduction, really do.

Julio

One detail that is perhaps purposely missing in the fable is the natural diligence of those in the crowd.
That is, Philip found quickly a lad with some food.
What does that mean?
Did the child leave home with enough food for himself, assuming he would be out for the day, or was his mother or father nearby, and the food had been brought along for their own use?
I mean, FIVE loaves and two fishes was a meal for a family of three in those difficult days, was it not?
You see, this is enough evidence that maybe MOST of those in the crowd had brought their lunch along, not stupid to understand that they would spend the day out in the field.
Many went along only to see the “prophet”, not to change their religious allegiances, taking the day off for a picnic too.
Come on, why be so spiritual that all the fun of life is removed?
Why spend you life cloistered in a monastery for the sake of pleasing the Invisible?
Well, well.
Isn’t this missing detail enough evidence that the story is going to be exaggerated and made to sound like a miracle?
Oh, heavens, how then so simple the miracle was going to be!
Besides, we understand through textual studying that John is writing his gospel sometime in the second century, after he read the account in the other canonical gospels.
That is, by that time much FOLKLORE had been disseminated in the churches, mainly made of illiterate people, unable to read, therefore inclined to believe all that said to have happened a century before.
John wasn’t happy with the flat reading in the synoptic, and so endeavoured to build a bit more detail into it.
However, how dishonest of commentators like Matthew Henry and Darby when they purposely or conveniently forget to mention those important details omitted in the miracle.
We can easily find those godly men painting the story with their own theological colours, and bending the details according to their doctrinal whims.

Julio

Meanwhile, what gives this miracle represented in the four canonical gospels away is the second one only mentioned in Matthew and Mark.
The detrimental evidence is simply found in the words the disciples expressed in Matthew 15:33 (MKJV):
“From where should we get so many loaves in the wilderness, so as to fill so great a crowd?”
Do you see it?
Not long before, in fact at Matthew 14:17, the same disciples had seen Jesus provide the multiplied bread and fish from five and two.
How is it possible that they so quickly became incredulous about the repetition of the same situation?
That’s why these two multiplication miracles are all the more unsubstantiated.
It is, in other words, the question in Matthew 15:33 that discredits those two miracles as genuine stuff.
You see, John describes only the first; the one mentioned in the four gospels, albeit with some differences in the details; whereas the second multiplication appears only in Matthew and Mark.
Why is this default accepted in matters of inspiration?
It is evidence of its inexistence.
There is no “verbal inspiration” of any kind in the canonical gospels; besides, the dates of “production” fight against the principle.
However, pay attention to this other incriminating detail, this time in the words of Jesus in the previous verse (Matthew 15:32), where he comments:
“I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.”
Three days, but AGAIN, what about the food Jesus and the disciples were eating every day themselves?
That is, Jesus and his entourage had had enough food for three days, while the crown went without it!
Why didn’t Jesus provide them with HIS OWN FOOD multiplied in the first day?
IN THE FIRST DAY; because the Lord was supposed to [divinely] know that his sermon would take three full-day sessions.
He would have performed the miracle in the first day with enough food to last for three; with the instruction to preserve it carefully without anything spoiled!
No, this time Jesus is the evidence against himself.
Sorry folks, if I have hurt your religious susceptibilities.

Doug Shaver

At least if he spends all his time doing it in skeptics' forums, it probably won't make the situation any worse.

Julio

Correct.
In other forums I don't stand a chance.
I've been banned from more than 20 in Portuguese alone!
[Mainly at Orkut ones]
Here, I don't only [occasionally] blast my anger against religion, but - most importantly - I learn a lot from folks much better prepared than me.
While I avoid participating in some debates, I still read them and LEARN matters.
For instance, Chili's exegesis is not better or worse than most here: it's simply outrageously different.
But he has no enemies here.
He should, actually, write a book about his "interpretations" [which he is perfectly entitled to].

Have a stressless day.

Chili

The answer here is very simple Julio, in that Matthew's Jesus was 'James' who is in the desert instead of the sea of Galilee where the angel of the Lord (read 'angel of light') must provide. I once wrote a post wherein 'wide waters are as deep as they are wide' to show that 'all [learned] knowledge' that has been retained in those same 38 years will be brought to understanding because that is where the 'fish' are at, and here, you may have noticed, [this] Jesus crossed the sea of Galilee to do it: take note that in Gen. 1 water was separated so that dry land would appear for us to walk on while in oblivion = the water is where our life is to be consolidated, and note please that there is no history in Genesis.

Chili

lol, I have been banned from enough discussion boards and never tried to make enemies. It seems that wherever I go people are offended by my interpretation except here and that is why I lasted this long, and it still is true that I try to be gentle when I express my point of view.

. . . but these guys are soo intelligent and I am just a poor farmer who actually did a BA when I was 40 to help me organize my trains of thought and lines of thinking. You see, I used to talk to myself when I was driving a tractor, which wasn't so bad in itself but it was when I started answering my own questions that my point of view became my very own.

Oh, and I did write 50 pages on a book that I then called "A Senecan Tragedy Unfolding" wherein I tried to expain a failed Divine Comedy. The problem was my audience at that time as I did not know who I was writing it to and felt the need to explain my explanations for nearly everything I wrote. And for what it is worth, I am never angry about religion as I have nothing invested in it. I just like Catholicism because you can do soo much with it.

Julio

An important lesson:
The most striking “spiritual” statement one gets from this “miracle” has a tremendous bearing on the future characterisation of the apostles:
the import subliminally reflected in the fearful cry “It’s a spirit!”.
Nothing is of greater psychological value to define the intellectual immaturity of those “apostles” than that scream.
Sure it has to be sacred scripture.
Imagine twelve men, supposedly of the highest moral integrity, frenetically rowing without direction in the dark of the night, with the wind howling around their ears, wet and cold, suddenly “seeing” a ghost walking over the water in their direction to frighten the hell out of their souls.
Imagine their agony and scrambling in fear.
Those men were going to be the pillars of the faith, the spiritual giants of the church, the saints on its altars; but the evil spirits of the sea knew their cowardice and superstition, and would not let them out of their constricting fear of the dark.
They would in an instant lose, so terrified were they, all the spirituality recently acquired at miracle stunts by the Master, and cry in unison:
“It’s a spirit!
It’s a spirit!
It’s a spirit!
Virgin Mary, deliver us!!”