ApostateAbe

Huh. How do you make sense of the gospels? I have thought of the gospels as religious propaganda literature, designed to evangelize the religion. Do you think of the gospels as works of entertaining fiction or something?

aa5874

Your post is just loaded with Presumptions. The very same Gospels that you reject are the same stories that you believe.

First of all, An Apologetic source claimed Jesus Suffered at about 50 years of age under Cladius.

Secondly, the authors who quote Jesus claimed he was the Son of a Ghost and that he walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended.

The Jesus of the Synoptics said NOTHING.

The authors of the Synoptics were unknown.

The Jesus story could have been written later than 90 CE with the very same so-called Falied Prophecies.

Mark 13:30 KJV[/[ 1800 year later, Christians read gMark 13.30 and claim Jesus was supposed to come on May 21, 2011 and that he is Still Coming Soon.

Christians believe Jesus words in gMark 13.30-31 will NOT ever fail --even today.

The so-called Failed Prophecies have NOTHING whatsoever to with the date of authorship of the Gospels.

The Jesus story had NO impact at all on Jewish writings of the 1st century and the cult was in its infancy stage around the mid 2nd century and NO Jesus story have been recovered dating to the 1st century.

The earliest gMark appears to have been written AFTER the Works of Josephus, c 96 CE and the cult developed AFTER the writings of Suetonius and Tacitus c 115 CE.

MrMacSon

The more popular, entertaining stories at the time were those that fulfilled the OT prophecies, so there was 'currency' in aligning as many stories as possible with the OT.

GenesisNemesis

...Astronomy is very complex. :huh:

For the record, if not actual scientists, who do you think is actually qualified to critique astrology? Someone who understands how the world actually works? You don't need to study astrology in depth to see the flaws in it.

ApostateAbe

The people qualified to critique astrology are the people who have studied astrology for years, such as the former astrologers. Of course that doesnt mean nobody else is justified dismissing astrology with only superficial knowledge, but there are very few people who would not be in over their heads.

ApostateAbe

That perspective is new to me. What were the other entertaining stories that fulfilled OT prophecies?

MrMacSon

The gnostics.

ApostateAbe

Can you please be more specific? Thanks.

GenesisNemesis

Why would you have to have a deep knowledge of astrology in order to surmise that the basic ideas of astrology are false and explain why they're false? That's all that you really need to do. I don't have a deep knowledge of astrology but I can understand the semi-famous experiment that was done by James Randi which demonstrates how it's merely chance-based. There isn't much else you can say about it.

ApostateAbe

It takes a deep knowledge of astrology to know whether the experiment debunks all of astrology, some of astrology, or just one of its many variations. You would need to know if the experiment debunks the commonly accepted astrology or just a strawman. You would need to know the counter-arguments, the counter-counterarguments, and the counter-counter-counterarguments. That stuff would not be easy for something as complex as astrology. It is older than Christianity and its variations are global.