Mullibok

Are you saying that 3000 years ago it was indeed ok to be forced to marry your rapist, but now that Jesus came it's an awful sin?

BrazenPenguin

It doesn't say "God's evil spirit," it says, "the evil spirit from God." That means God had this evili spirit, who was the Satan's evil spirit go and do his dirty work. God does do his own dirty work though, he destroyed Saddam(sp?) and Gamora(sp?) all by himself.

It seems as if you are arguing that a parent who disciplines (punishes) its child is not being loving or forgiving. And, if you continue reading, you see that both Saul and David benefited from this evil spirit. Saul became refreshed, as well as a much better king as a result of David. And later David became a great king.

BrazenPenguin

Thank you, I do fell welcome, since I have been replied lots within only a few hours, a ton more that i expected. I hope I don't get shot down and slaughtered too bad.

Ummm, yeah, I guess I am saying that. I aslo know that some years ago it was okay for teachers to talk about religion of any kind but now it is an "awful sin."

JEST2ASK

You must understand that what puzzels most of us .. is that you use logic to dismiss other religions but fail to apply it "equally" to your own beliefs....





The major difference is that a Christian could never respect the religious tradition of others as having value.

The underlaying motivation for doing charitable works also must be taken into account. [IMO]




Well in regards to Shiva, Thor, Odin, Zeus etc yes but there is that small point of that whole Father/Son/ Holy Spirit ... enity that pretty much disqualifies you ... nice try though ...




blame that idea on Paul ... see Matthew 5:18 etc. for the Gospels take on that ....



Ever wonder why Orthodox / Catholic / Protestant bibles have differences in the books included?

I hope you do study other views , however do so with the sincerity of seeking truth ...

Wayne Delia

Nor can you disprove the gods of a multitude of other non-Christian religions. But you haven't accepted them in the same manner you've accepted Christianity. You've selectively chosen the religion that is most likely and conveniently the one you were brought up in.

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And by the way, have you noticed the green elephants that live in the trees by your house? No? They hide pretty good, don't they? hahaha

Don't laugh too loudly. That analogy is used to demonstrate why unfalsifiable statements do not make good arguments by assertion - such as against those who insist God must exist because no disproof is given.

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Okay, okay, i probabl should not have used "insignificant." If you can think of a better word, please tell me. Maybe "not very importnat in some cases but ocasionaly the word translation has been very important"?

What this all sounds like is you used "insignificant" to mean "I hope there are errors only in insignificant places, even though I really don't know exactly what they are."

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Yes, people devoted their lives to trying to correctly interpret and translate the Bible and peace together different pieces of it. And they didn't always agree with each other which is part of the reason why Catholics have "extra" books in their Bible. And yeah, it is a faith thing. Christianity as a whole is a faith thing.

What would really be illogical is maintaining faith in something you can't accept as true. Why do you suppose your faith in your religion is correct, and everyone else who has faith in other non-Christian religions is wrong? What can you offer to show that you're objectively right?

WMD

Wayne Delia

I guess that means God isn't as omnipotent as Christian fundamentalists think he is.

Meanwhile, Jesus not only sins, He breaks several of the Ten commandments in the process. The way He spoke to His mother in John 2:1-4 would get me whupped upside the head if I spoke to my mother that way (disobeying Commandment 5, "Honor thy father and mother.") The commandeering of someone else's animals in Matthew 21:2-3 in order to fulfill a genuinely mistranslated Old Testament verse - Jesus was supposed to ride in on only one animal, instead of two - breaks either Commandment 8 ("Thou shalt not steal") or Commandment 10 ("Thou shalt not covet.") Jesus allowed His disciples to gather crops on the Sabbath, and His excuse for breaking Commandment 4 essentially was that He was above the law. Jesus tells His disciples He won't be going to a particular feast, but He shows up anyway, breaking Commandment 9 ("Thou shalt not bear false witness.")

WMD

Rational BAC

It is very obvious that Jesus WAS changing the OT covenant and very deliberately so.

And that those passages to the contrary were just made up later on along with a lot of other corruption of the Gospels.

Doesn't bother me any that Jesus came down to change things and kick a little butt.

Magus55

Not being able to sin doesn't deny omnipotence. Omnipotence is a divine quality that can't go against any other divine qualities. Contrary to popular ( atheist) belief, omnipotence doesn't mean do anything imaginable, even that which is logically impossible and creates a paradox. And sin is also below what God can do. Sin is inferior to good. Being able to do all good, and not sin is more powerful than being able to do both.

Being the creator of those laws in the first place, Jesus has the right to change them whenever He pleases, although He didn't actually violate any laws.

In that day and age, calling your mother woman was not disrespectful. The word used is the greek, Gune, which is a respectful word. In modern English, it may sound inappropriate, but in the original greek, it was out of respect.


Jhn 19:26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

First of all, being God, Jesus owns everything. He created those animals and can take them if He wants. Its not stealing when they belong to you. And second, Jesus said, if anyone questions the taking of those, tell them the Lord needs them. No one objected to the taking of the animals.

And, how do you figure the prophecy is mistranslated? It says 2 animals, a donkey and a colt.

Mullibok

In those old Hebrew books, phrases were repeated with slightly different words for poetic effect. Just reading the whole book where Matthew's alleged prophecy occurs (Zechariah?) shows this to happen many times. Riding two animals at once is just silly, what an odd thing for a messiah to have to do!

Wayne Delia

You claimed to be practically a Christian fundamentalist despite admitting that Christianity was illogical. Why wasn't logic a barrier for your beliefs in that case?

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You're right. Jesus said that if he wanted he could have thousands of angels come and rescue him from the roman soldies. He probably could've pulled a neo and flew out of there but didn't say that. However, there is the question of how omnipotent and omniscient Jesus was while he was on earth, while he was a man, while he was God. Thats confusing, yes.

Well, if that's allowable, then I can claim to be omnipotent. I just choose not to demonstrate it - ever. Do you believe me? Why would you believe similar claims about Jesus without evidence, but not the same claims about me?

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If I did, I didn't mean to say that charity doesn't exist.

You seemed very busy making the strawman argument that apparently atheists think that if something is illogical, it does not exist, and you tried to use charity as an example. Turns out it's not illogical, for the reasons I listed.

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What do you mean that human empathy seems to be a foreign concenpt to fundamentalist theists? Do you know how many christian charity organizations there are? Plenty, why do missionaries go to (yadda yadda yadda)

I was suprised that you described yourself as a fundamentalist Christian, and characterized charity as "illogical".

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I would think that christians would be the most empathetic, they should be, but maybe you have just seen bad examples.

Plenty. One word: "televangelists" - in particular, Benny Hinn, who plays a faith-healer on television but is only in it for the "Benjamins" (pun intended).

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I wasn't arguing against the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" principle. That is logical.

Funny - you completely overlooked that possibility when discussing charity, which you characterized as illogical. Perhaps you are under the impression that charity is only possible to appease God and avoid hell or something.

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I was speaking of giving a dollar to a bum on the street, it is very unlikely that you would gain anything from that kindness (unless you belived in karma).

A person could gain a very small sense of having done a good deed for another person who was down on his luck, not for any kind of brownie points from an imaginary God, not due to being intimidated by threats of hell, but simply doing a good deed for its own sake.

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Yes, it is ignorance (im not that ingorant though, i do unerstand the basics of how a computer works, sorry that it was such a bad example).

Read carefully: I said your argument confused "ignorance" with "illogical," not that you personally were ignorant.

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But, maybe you are just ignorant of God and the truth then?

That's a typical mistake made by naive apologists: assume that atheists have not heard the "Good News." I was as intensely involved a Christian as one could imagine, being "born-again" for about fifteen years. I've read the Bible cover to cover five times, twice as a Christian, once as a fence-sitting agnostic, and twice as an atheist. I'm fairly proficient at pointing out the logical fallacies in arguments for God: for example, the one you are making here is presupposing that your religious belief is "the truth" without actually having established that it's true. That's called "begging the question." [B][QUOTE]Yes, but what that means is that God and his actions are illogical to us.[B]That raises the question of whether it's a good idea to go ahead and not only believe, but dedicate one's life to the validity of an illogical idea. There are plenty of illogical ideas out there to believe in strongly; why do you figure the claims of Christianity should go to the head of the line and other absurd, illogical, crackpot claims be forced to take a back seat?

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So could I be described as an Atheist Christian if I follow athesit teachings, without believing that no Gods exist? Just wondering, I think I can be.

Exactly what do you consider "atheist teachings?" Atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in gods of any kind. If you can't believe that no gods exist, you're a theist, not an atheist.

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The Old Testament also says that in order to have forgiveness for you sins you have to sacrifice animals.

Why? Why can't God just spread His arms and say "I FORGIVE YOU ALL" without the need for any bloodshed? I could do that. Does that make me more moral than God?

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Obviously, Christians today don't sacrifice animals. That is because Jesus was the sacrifice, He changed a lot of things when he came,

Despite being quoted in Matthew 5:17-18 as saying "Think not that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law, till all be fulfilled"? Jesus is saying that all the Old Testament laws are still in effect. In fact, He goes on in the next verse to say that anyone who teaches otherwise (i.e. you) shall be called "the least in the Kingdom of Heaven."

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which is why they split the calendar.

You've GOT to be careful making claims about Jesus and the calendar: the days of the week are named for gods of Norse mythology. That probably won't convince you of the validity of Norse gods, so why should calendar claims about Jesus convince others of the validity of Christianity?

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He also came to do away with the old laws, the laws of the Jews, one of which you mentioned.

Drop whatever you're doing right now, find a Bible, and read Matthew 5:17-18. Jesus explicitly says He is NOT doing away with ANY of the old laws.

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But not all of the laws, you can still be a christian even if you only have the New Testament to go by.

The supposed authority of the central idea of Christianity - that Jesus is the Messiah - is based on the allegedly fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament. If the Old Testament is discarded, Jesus has no claim to authority as the Son of God.

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No, "pretend" isn't the right word, "faith" is. Which is sort've like pretending but not really becuase when you pretend you know that what you are pretending isn't true so i guess its the opposite.

Here's a really simple example. Leviticus 11:20-23 assert that certain fowl and insects have four legs. We know that's not the case; birds have two legs, and insects have six or more. There is no physical evidence to suggest that any birds or insects have ever had four legs. You seem to think that the Bible is inerrant. What's your position on how many legs an insect should have? If you're unwilling to admit the Bible contains an error here, you're forced to "pretend" (or, in your terms, "have faith") that insects have four legs. What is completely unreasonable is the expectation that other people should have the same faith despite lack of supporting evidence, and the presence of refuting counter-evidence.

WMD