SLD

Hey Gospel! Welcome. Please do stay and don't let any jerks run you off. I hope that you will participate in these boards and try to learn something of where we as freethinkers are coming from and in the spirit of tolerance on which this Country was founded we can all treat each other respectfully.

I know you came here just for my answer, right? OK. Here are my top three reasons:

1) Far too much in common with many other mystery cults that clearly pre-existed Christ. For example, the Eucharist, one of the most important sacraments of the early church is a clear rip off of many other previous religious beliefs, even being discussed by Cicero 50 years before Christ was even born. And Jesus even uses a line of another God, Dionysus (who incidentally turns water into wine as well), in Acts, when he complains to his persecutor that it hurts when he kicks against the Goads. The line is virtually straight out of Euripides' play "The Bacchae" who wrote it 400 years before Christ. There are far too many other gods who were born of a virgin and were killed and then resurrected.

2) It's been 2,000 years and no one's heard a peep out of him. Yet the bible prophecies a rather immediate return.

3) To paraphrase Thomas Paine: What is more likely? That the laws of nature would be violated, or that a man would lie? I've seen a lot of liars, Gospel. Heck in the legal field I listen to them all too often, and many of them, as I'm sure you are aware, profess their undying faith in Jesus. I've never seen a violation of the laws of nature.

But the bottom line is simply this. You don't have to believe like me if you don't want to. I believe in this way because of a world view that I have developed over my 43 years and that is that the universe, operates according to physical laws and that is all we can know about. All else is beyond human ken and pointless to ultimately debate. I do believe that we can find a lot out, but in the end, you must make a choice to accept the evidence or accept your faith.

Did Jesus Christ really rise from the dead 2,000 years ago and reveal himself to a handful of followers, and really is a God? Fine by me if that's what you want to believe. I don't. But then again, who the hell am I to tell you what you ought to believe? You make that choice for yourself, and don't let any asshole on IIDB, or Rapture Ready (there are plenty on both) tell you.

Again, welcome, and I hope you'll stay and pose more questions that generate 5 page responses from members in less than 24 hours. Just try to keep an open mind and read the responses, and read the library.

SLD

DISSIDENT AGGRESSOR

Gospelog2

Now we know why there is a heaven and a hell.

DISSIDENT AGGRESSOR

a.To scare children.

b.So recovering drunks/drug addicts can feel better about themselves being "saved"


c.What else could an insane person believe other than hell exists?

Ad Astra

Because YHWH is a sick tyrant that, despite being all-powerful, cannot convince everyone he even exists?

cjack

1. Loaded question, don't you think? There are a few billion people living on this rock who, by definition, "refuse Christ." I am just one of an overwhelming majority of human beings who have no use for Christianity in any of its forms.


2. Lather, rinse.


3. Repeat.

Magus55

Who says He can't? Maybe He just chooses not to because the consequences of doing so destroy the reason He created humanity in the first place.

Ad Astra

And that reason would be...?

Magus55

Argumentum ad popularum. And actually over 4 billion people have a use for Christianity, because Islam borrowed aspects of Christianity, and integrated Jesus as being their highest prophet into the religion. So you are actually the overwhelming minority.

Magus55

Don't know, I'm not God. But seems to me that God valued the ability for us to choose to have a relationship or not, over having a bunch of robots wander around in Heaven. Would be just as cruel for God to force people to be in Heaven and worship Him if they don't want to.