aa5874

But, what did "moderation" mean in antiquity? In antiquity a drunkard may be a person who drinks in "moderation" but gets drunk rather easily.

Please state the consumption of a "moderate" wine drinker in the days of Pilate.

Toto

As Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the US said about pornography, you know it when you see it. There are numerous Biblical references to wine in a positive sense, along with condemnations of drunkenness. There is no indication that anyone was confused about the difference.

Paul (or his forger) advises Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach and his infirmaties (1 Tim. 5:23), but also writes in Galatians 5:19–21: "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: ... drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

This is how wine or alcohol was used up until a few centuries ago, when a few Christians got the strange idea that alcohol was always evil.

aa5874

Are you claiming that a "moderate drinker" in antiquity could not be a drunkard? Are you suggesting that strict rules, regulations or laws where applied to the actual alcohol content of WINE in antiquity?

There is very little EVIDENCE that during the reign of Tiberius that ALCOHOL percentages of WINE were regulated.

You may be making reference to fiction. I can't tell what is credible in a text that may have been forged.

And what "proof" was the "little wine"?

A "little wine" with some "proof" can make one drunk or behave "evil".

There may have been "evil wine" in antiquity. It is the ALCOHOL content that may make the wine "EVIL".

Some Christians in antiquity may have behaved "EVIL" after consuming a "little evil wine".

Julio

And don't forget Proverbs 31:6-7, where STRONG alcohol was divinely suggested for poverty, stress and death's agony!
All in a holy book people carry to church today.

Proverbs 31:6-7 (NIV)

6 Give beer [5% alcohol content] to those who are perishing,
wine [15% alcohol content] to those who are in anguish;

7 let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
...

Proverbs 31:6-7 (KJV)

6 Give strong drink [40% alcohol content!] unto him that is ready to perish, and wine [15% alcohol content] unto those that be of heavy hearts.

7 Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
...
Proverbs 31:6-7 (Young's Literal T)

6 Give strong drink to the perishing, And wine to the bitter in soul,

7 He drinketh, and forgetteth his poverty, And his misery he remembereth not again.

Julio

The “second miracle” according to John was also in Cana of Galilee, but right away there is a problem:
it was performed MONTHS after the “first” (according to Matthew Henry’s commentary), when Jesus returned to that locality [after some serious problems in Jerusalem and other places], which creates a consternation for the fundamentalist Christians to resolve if the canonical constitution of the gospels is to be upheld.
Why would John tell us that Jesus’ public ministry would start with a miracle and next perform the second one MONTHS later?
Nicodemus observed to Jesus, in the previous chapter of John (3), that he was amazed at the [many] miracles performed.
Why were those miracles never mentioned?

Julio

A small miracle.
The nobleman implore Jesus to go with him to Capernaum, a day’s walk, and heal his dying son, but observe carefully how John puts Jesus’ reply.
Jesus could have answered the nobleman in the simplest words: go, your son is healed.
Yet, to convert this pathetic miracle into a publicity stunt, Jesus himself takes the opportunity to advertise his miraculous powers when he replies instead:
“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”
That healing was not to be a “SIGN” or a “WONDER” of publicity of a particular Christ!
There was a real need, it appears, like there had been MANY, MANY, MANY other needs for centuries but no Christ ever appeared to sort the problem out once and for all.
The fact that CHILDREN would die in their young age was a REAL PROBLEM that God should have fixed in some beginning when all children were INNOCENT.
Why, dear Jesus, would you not see the problem from its REAL angle: that is, that a child has the human right to be protected by the Almighty Creator, FREE of terminal diseases, if God is so benevolent and merciful as the Bible claims he is!
And, instead of healing ALL dying children right away, you took the cynical opportunity to advertise you miracle skills.
Come on, Jesus! We’re not blind; we can see where you coming from.
You came to advertise a certain “kingdom of heaven” where no children would be dying from any disease, but you FAILED in that endeavour, and now we have the right to be suspicious of christs, prophets, gods and the like, have we not?
The nobleman wasn’t worried a bit with your private plan of a kingdom that never came; he was worried that the Almighty Father needed YOU to go to his house and heal his son!
How come that could be classified as God’s plan?!
God’s plan would be to react to terminal disease when that CURSE appeared in the world for the first time!
So, here we see again what a Christ is made of: another man with a private plan of world domination, trying to become a superman with some inferior miracles!

aa5874

Are you using today's regulations for alcohol content of "wine"? It must be that in antiquity that there was very little or no standard at all and no means of actually knowing or testing alcohol content of "wine" except by consumption`and after effects.

I don't think there were labels on "wine" containers in antiquity stating the alcohol content.

Julio

I'm sure you're right.
But "strong drink" means high in alcohol, for sure.
The effects were that a dying person would be knocked out with that strong drink and die without pain - I presume.
However, the "volatile" part is Proverbs recommending getting drunk to heal life's troubles - for a while!
That is, the holy Bible of God had no better solution.
It was an almighty observing the miseries of life and offering ALCOHOL to heal them!!

Julio

This next miracle should have never been included in the gospel (the healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, in Jerusalem, the centre of national religion of Jehovah, John 5:1-16 [rejected by the Christians]).
It was very dishonouring of Jesus to say at the end that he was doing miracles on the Sabbath because his Father sanctioned it, while also working in the same "project".
“But Jesus answered them, My Father works until now, and I work.”, MKJV.
It was a BIG lie, because his “Father” had had MANY Saturdays to work out a solution for that problem at the pool, healing all those desperate people at once, but never did!
Christians would say: “No! Our God cannot do that: we have free will to do good or do evil and harvest the consequences!”
The “doctrine” of “Free Will” is not mentioned in the Bible, but nonetheless is a religious psychological offence, if we consider that then we have free will to ask God to HELP us resolve the universal problem of suffering; considering that once upon a time there was only ONE small problem to resolve, but that God, upon being asked to help sort out the SMALL situation, looked the other way.
It seems that God had free will to reject our plea when the situation was a small discordance.
We are free to ask, ask, ask, and ask again, insisting until we get beyond desperation, but God has the free will to tell us one time we are wasting his time!
How can we trust or worship a deficient God like that?
Are we then free to reject “him”?
We don’t even know if it’s “him” or “her”!
A God that looks the other way when there’s a tiny problem to fix is NOT a nice [most merciful and loving] God: “he” is an IDOL carved by a charlatan.
If God had the perfect free will we humans don’t, then he chose NOT to give us a SECOND, third, fourth and fifth chance when the initial problem was tiny and small.
Now, I have the free will to ask you this: how would you defend God against this indestructible logic?
An acquaintance tried to challenge me with the typical observation that spiritual matters are not all resolved with “logic”, meaning that the “spirit” has its own tools to find the truth; to which I replied that he used his brain and his logic to tell me exactly that!
There was nothing “spiritual” in that instruction.
If he could use his brain to tell me I cannot use mine, his logic is altogether defective.
Besides, I added, “spirit” has no definition anywhere; in the Bible it meant “wind”; invisible force, impersonal and yet sometimes evil.
The so-called “Spirit of God” seems to be in an eternal struggle with the other “Spirit of Evil”, but we, innocent victims of celestial conflicts, were caught in the crossfire.
Accordingly, God has never won any major battle in our favour, anything that we can OBJECTIVELY categorise as vital.
Can you argue against this declaration of fact?
You certainly cannot.
“The spirit (meaning his own spirit) has its own tools to find the truth”, he said.
But it is now TWENTY CENTURIES after the truth walked on Earth and we are still FIGHTING to define it.
It has been a time of intense struggles to agree even on minor matters like how to baptise, if by sprinkling or by immersion (Catholics against Anabaptists; and many were killed in the scuffle – why wouldn’t the Bible be CLEAR over such a simple matter? That tells you much about God’s infallible word).
Come on!, “What is truth!” exclaimed Pilate, and left without receiving an answer from Jesus.
Was Jesus advertising such a God?
Biblically speaking, yes!
His “Father” never helped anybody in a real crisis.
We have an objective history of TWO THOUSAND YEARS to demonstrate the thesis, and DISQUALIFY the God of Christianity as an incompetent Almighty, therefore only a commercial device to extract a lifestyle for an abusive elite of religious conscripts.
But again and again: wasn’t there a time when there was only ONE sick man at the pool; when to do the “job” would have been a piece of cake and a real divine pleasure?
What EXCUSE would the Almighty offer to defend “his” reluctance in helping the needy; considering that Jesus told the Pharisees that his Father was also at work helping the sick (verse 17)?
Was that the joke of the day from Jesus?
Any God with a bit of self-esteem and godly pride would start working right away and would not let the situation reach alarming proportions: HUNDREDS of the sick waiting (verse 3)!
HUNDREDS?!!
Oh, heavens, what a disgrace [and one Almighty God and powerful angels too]!
If Jesus meant REAL WORK, man, much of it was left undone; a divine disgrace, really.
The healed man had been there by the pool (we assume) for THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS, for goodness’ sake!!
Why do gods want us the fragile humans to suffer so much?!
Don’t tell me Jesus’ “Father” didn’t have one chance to take care of that sick individual?!
Wouldn’t he get worse over that period, while the “Father” looked around to do his “work”?!
Why not heal the man and bless him with a happy and productive life; instead of sitting by that putrid place, by a pool where sheep went to drink, where him and other sick defecated and urinated; oh heavens, the stench of the holy city!
Dear reader: WHERE IS THE TRUTH in these miracle accounts?
Are we so childish that we fail to see the deception Christians impose on the evangelised, by telling them the Bible is God’s word?
It is NOT: the Bible is a manmade book of fables and impostors.
This “miracle” is one of the weirdest of all.
How can a Christ tell such horrible lies to his audience?
How could he think we would all be uneducated like those of his days?
Why didn’t Jesus heal ALL those sick in an instant some other day, outside the Sabbath, to avoid the Pharisees’ consternation and hatred?
The God characterised in the story suffered from character arbitrariness in dealing with a serious problem of so many sick in the capital of his religion.
Those are the capitals where the gods have their headquarters and soon become centres of infirmity, FEAR, political struggles and wars.
To heal the man on the Sabbath, while watched by the pestering, pernicious and implacable Pharisees was really dumb and stupid; Jesus could have done it either on Sunday, or on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
He lost a great opportunity to demonstrate manly intelligence.
Jesus acted like the tribal god [idol] Jehovah which was constantly looking for “glory” but never satiated.
Why is it that in the Old Testament we read of such a god, “The glory of Jehovah”, etc.? Why not the glory of sick people being healed ALL in one glorious sweep?
A God constantly looking for our depressing praise – while we are surrounded by so much human misery – has a serious psychiatric problem to resolve, some pathological depression to repair.
“He” should not be allowed to rule anywhere until a thorough examination of his holy character could be revealed, or his dementia declared incurable.
We would gladly offer this God all the glory “he” deserved if we were not constantly MOLESTED by his [holy] insensitivity.

Julio

Look, it was only a mere six months into his ministry, after starting it by switching 600 litres of water with wine and thus promote unruliness by excessive alcohol, and already the religious authorities were plotting to KILL him.
WHY, for goodness’ sake?!
Why wanting to kill a nice prophet, teacher and miracle-doer so soon in his venture?
Something was terribly wrong with Jesus.
It is not possible that Jesus was condemned for telling the truth: he might have told MANY lies [in six months].
Remember this: the miracles are all described by the mesmerised bystanders and never by the performer!
That is a crucial point to understand “miracles”.
Healing one man at a pool wasn’t a big deal: the real miracle would be to heal ALL those unfortunates sitting in stench for YEARS, come summer or winter!!
Did Jesus fail to see the dirty conditions all those sick lived in?
Did he fail to hear the cries of the other hundreds of sick, when they saw the healed man walk away [finally, after suffering for 38 years!]?
Mercy, Lord, mercy!!”, they would cry, but it wouldn’t be registered in the gospel, to avoid embarrassment for the miracle performer.
One would be enough PROPAGANDA.
If there were two hundred sick men in the porches, then Jesus did only half of one percent of the job he was supposed to do; that is, he failed to heal the sick (Luke 4:18)!
A christ that fails that badly is suspicious.
“His Father was also working”, Jesus said.
What work?!
Two Gods in action and only one miracle?!…
Sorry, folks, it looks all the more dubious; that’s why I said this miracle should have not been included in the menu: it’s a serious obstacle to define God and the Saviour as our friends.
We had to expect more from the Duet of the Trinity.
The angel would come once in a while and “agitate” de dirty and contaminated waters (it was a stagnated pool with no chlorine available in the holy city, not a stream) and see the rush of all those sick men desperately trying to jump in.
What a spectacle!
In that, many were hurt even more [physically and psychologically], and the cries and agony so depressing.
But, alas, one sick man would that time benefit from the divine exercise [of that mediocre “trinity”: Angel, Son and Father].
The angel would soon depart – after his dirty job! – and leave behind hundreds of crying and weeping sick people, desperate for YEARS, waiting for a bit of mercy that wouldn’t come – from the All Merciful Three.
Some were blind; how could they ever reach the pool in time to be healed?
And yet, all the blind in that holy city would be by the pool the moment they had a hint that the angel was on his way to stir the “swamp”!
Oh, heavens and the cosmos, how nice to have such a concerning seraph in the glory!
Who would benefit this time?
Imagine the front page of the newspapers if it happened today?
For less spectacular “miracles” – “I SAW THE VIRGIN MARY!!” – the media go berserk for weeks.
“The angel is coming!
The angel is coming!!
Jump in the pool!
Quickly!!”
But one blind man would exclaim:
“It’s winter!
Why wouldn’t that weird angel come in summer, the idiot!
The last thirteen times I jumped I only caught a nasty cold and swallowed a lot of filthy water!!”