bacht

Someone had mentioned that believers in the Rapture are a special minority among contemporary Christians. In a sense these folks are closer to primitive believers than the majority, though I think they're all wrong anyway.

I don't really know what you mean by "disciples", what sort of discipline were they practising?

I don't believe there was an historical Jesus, I suspect there was no historical Paul, and I question whether there were any Christians at all before 70 AD. Like many believers you don't seem able to view the NT from a skeptical perspective, which means you can't really understand your critics. This makes your defense of orthodoxy weak.

show_no_mercy

Show how this follows from my post. You seem to be conflating epistemology with ontology.

And who decided which letters were included and which ones excluded?

Non-sequitur (ie show how this follows from my post)

lol

This assumes that "Christianity" was one homogenous entity c. 100 CE. I can't even name how many "Christ Cults" there were due to and after the fall of the Temple. How many "proto" Christianities existed prior to Jesus' supposed lifetime (like the Essenes, Notzrim, and Philo's writings). The later Catholic Church attempted to find the lowest common denominator in all of these Christ Cults/Christianities. What you end up with is a "universal" (Greek: catholicos) Christianity that appealed to the most (Greek ie Gentile) Christians.

Christianity in its inception just latched on to the already existing Gnostic/Messainic cults that already existed at least 100 years prior to Jesus' supposed lifetime. One of these cults was called the "Notzrim", which is the Hebrew form of the Aramaic "Natzoriya" which translated into Greek is supposedly "Nazarenes". The Notzrim prided themselves on being "sons of Joseph" which is why Jesus' father in both (contradictory) geneaologies lists his "father" as Joseph.

Every theodicy about Christianity existed priort to 33 CE. Virgin births. Humans impregnated by gods. Dying/resurrecting gods. Gods turning water into wine. The "Word" being used to create matter. Jewish Messiahs being raised from the dead after three days. It just took a relatively cataclysmic and noticable event like the destruction of the Temple to galvanize them. Eventually the ones that could be fused into a singular universal "Christianity" were fused and the ones that couldn't were deemed heretical and destroyed.

bacht

This is typical Christian harmonizing. If one reads the gospels without pre-conceived ideas it is plain that they contradict themselves and each other. When you add in the epistles there is even more trouble. And the last century or so of academic analysis points to multiple authorship and editing of all the canonical documents.

You can choose to continue with the traditional interpretations but disinterested non-believers won't buy it.

spamandham

Let's examine the following two possibilities:

1. Jesus really healed a whithered hand and raised Lazarus from the dead. How many people do you know who have had whithered hands miraculously healed or who have been raised from the dead? Certainly you will acknowledge these are rare events at best.

2. Jesus didn't heal a whithered hand, and didn't raise someone from the dead, but it was written that he did nonetheless. I'm going to guess you are familiar with the concept of deception, having probably been deceived numerous times in your life, and likely having deceived others numerous times.

So, to disbelieve that the stories are true aligns nicely with our everyday experiences that people deceive from time to time. To believe the stories are true is counter to our everyday experiences where people do not rise from the dead nor have whithered hands miraculously healed.

...and if it is all allegory, fiction, legend, myth, or lie, you would still expect such consistency between what is written about Jesus and what is written about who he claimed to be. This consistency does not aid the argument that it is real history.

Well, I agree with this, but the counter is, belief that something is true does not mean that it is true.

The Qu'ran tells us that Muhammed preached to the Jinn, and this is consistent with what the Qu'ran says about Muhhamed. Do you accept that as history? If not, why not?

rhutchin

Not that I am aware.

rhutchin

History records that Muhammed wrote the Qu'ran. I see no reason not to believe that.

I'll let the Jinn testify to the truthfulness of the Qu'ran where it says that Muhammed preached to the Jinn.

spamandham

Have you taken this same approach in regard to the man with the whithered hand, or Lazarus? Where is their testimony of these things? All we have is a third hand report from an ancient text, no different than what is written in regard to the Jinn in the Qu'ran.

If you are honest, you will acknowledge you have different standards for the Bible vs. the Qu'ran, or any other book for that matter.

bacht

You're kidding right? If not I suggest looking at some NT commentaries not written by apologists. You could start with some of the archived threads here.

Johnny Skeptic

I will be happy to if you agree to do the same. If you will agree, I will start a new thread at the General Religious Discussions Forum and we can have some discussions there. I assume that you will not agree. If you were trying to get me to be the claimant, and not defend any of your beliefs, you are quite naive. Trying to get skeptics to become the claimants is a well-known old fundie trick, a trick that you have tried on some occasions.

By the way, it is certainly legitimate in debates to ask questions. Asking questions is frequently an excellent way to show how little or how much a person knows about a certain issue. You certainly do not ever mind answering questions that you believe are easy to answer, and you know that some of my questions are not easy to answer, such as my question about how many cases of firsthand, eyewitness testimonies are you aware of in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Instead of discussing that issue in this thread, which is about the rapture, I suggest that we do so at the General Religious Discussions Forum.

I believe that you are poorly prepared to discuss a wide variety of issues at the General Religious Discussions Forum, and that if you participate in discussions there, you will embarrass yourself.

rhutchin

Go for it. If you provide substance people will respond.