Freethought & Rationalism Archive

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:18 PM

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Originally posted by Rational Ag:
I think you guys are missing the point entirely.

I think that they are so far off the track that it is disconcerting.

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From what I can tell, Don is writing that essay to the Christian, not to the atheist.

Of course--to Christians who insist that Jesus was "perfect" and to fundamentalists in particular. To me, it seemed that would be rather obvious. Perhaps I expect too much of the average reader.

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Many Christians cannot hold a conversation without referring to the bible. They hold the bible to be the inspired, inerrant word of god. To be able to speak with Christians on the issue, Don has given the Christian the benefit of the doubt that they bible is the word of God, and then goes on to show that Jesus was a false prophet. He is using biblical criteria to show Jesus and the New Testament stories concerning him to be bunk.

You have it 100% correct.

Everything that we allegedly know of Jesus and the Christian "God" come from the Bible. Why wouldn't I use the Bible as a standard by which to judge "God" or Jesus?

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Don agrees with you that the bible is not historically reliable. His point in this essay is to show exactly that it is unreliable, by turning the criteria of the Bible back on itself to show that the Old Testament contradicts the New Testament.

Exactly.

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-Rational Ag

Good name. You are rational.

--Don--

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:22 PM

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Originally posted by aza wood:
The point that i tried to make, was that Don himself says that, "Jesus" possibly did not make the N.T. statements, that he(Don)is using, as the only bases for his argument. He gives no evidence other than, what he himself shoots down. Don's case would only hold-up in an arena such as this, where most want it to prevail.

I don't want to seem rude, but I am beginning to think that you are incapable of understanding the closing words of the article. The point is that either Jesus did or did not say what the Bible attributes to him and that which I have used in my article. If he did say those things, then by biblical standards he is a false prophet. If he did not say those things, then the Bible is so unreliable that we cannot believe anything that it says about Jesus.

--Don--

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by aza wood:
. . . i have proven him wrong on every verse that he tries to use in this manor.

Actually, you have agreed with me: the Bible is unreliable--either that, or Jesus is a false prophet according to biblical standards.

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Where has Don done this here in this document?

In the closing paragraph. But I notice that the online version HTML needs to be reworked. Still, it is there if you read it.

--Don--

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:34 PM

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Originally posted by aza wood:
It also proves nothing about "Jesus", which is his purpose for writing this SA, according to his tittle("Jesus" is a false prophet).[/QB]

Unless you are clairvoyant, or some such, you could not know with certainty what the purpose of the article is. The title alone does not necessarily reveal the purpose. The title is meant to be an attention-getter. The context is a better indication of the purpose, but even then, someone who is basically imperceptive might not get it. In any case, and unfortunately for the sake of the accuracy of your statement, you state only a small part of my purpose. My main purpose was to get Christians, and particularly fundamentalist Christians, to actually think about what the Bible says with regard to who is and isn't a false prophet and what the Bible says about what Jesus allegedly said and did, then apply the first to the second and consider that in the light of Jesus allegedly being perfect. I hope you will begin to understand.

--Don--

[Corrected typo. --Don--]

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: Don Morgan ]

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BibleBelted:
[responding to Aza]
. . . You know there is little said about Jebus outside of the bible and other non-canonical gospels. In fact, it is hard to find any non-biblical references to Jebus that are not spurious or written well after the fact. Almost like some fictional character.

If we take only what the Church deems authentic regarding Jesus, that leaves only the Bible. What little we think we know about Jesus comes from the Bible, period. It is as simple as that.

Aza can't have it both ways: either he can trust nothing of what the Bible says about Jesus and he therefore knows nothing about Jesus or else he accepts at least some of what the Bible says about Jesus. If the latter, then he has no business saying that I cannot use the Bible against itself and/or against Jesus. Even if the Bible is so hopelessly flawed that it cannot tell us anything at all that can be reliably believed, it can still be legitimately used against itself and against the biblical Jesus.

--Don--

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:44 PM

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Originally posted by NOGO:
Jesus had something much more in mind than just a king and subjects.

Unfortunately, those who try to tell us what Jesus "had in mind" often seem unable to agree on what "he had in mind." Even the so-called Holy Spirit leads different devout Christians to mutually exclusive understandings of what "he had in mind." The 20,000+ denominations (and growing) provide evidence to that claim.

--Don--

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 09:52 PM

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Originally posted by aza wood:
I think that it is great that you are discussing the bible, but you can not say, the bible is incorrect and then, use it as your only model of documentation.

Plain and simply, you are wrong. One can do so, many have done so, and it is perfectly legitimate to do so. At the very least, the Bible can be used to prove that what it says is unreliable. It can also be used to show that by biblical standards, Jesus was not perfect, that he was in fact a hypocrite and a false prophet.

--Don--

P.S. This concludes my contribution to this thread.

-DM- · 05-16-2002, 10:19 PM

[Note: There were several errant "<A " sequences in the last part of the false prophet article, put there by whomever did the original HTML coding. I have removed them so that the article looks about like it did in its printed form. --Don--]

aza wood · 05-17-2002, 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Don Morgan:


Aza:

It should have occurred to you that the only kind of "false prophet" that I am concerned with in my <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/FalseProphet.html" target="_blank">Jesus Was a False Prophet</a> article is the biblical false prophet, therefore it is the biblical standard which I apply to Jesus. And inasmuch as my article concludes with words which state that either Jesus was a false prophet [which is understood to be according to the Bible] or else "the Bible itself is NOT trustworthy, and we cannot believe with any certainty, anything else which the Bible purports to tell us about Jesus!"

It would seem, therefore, that you spent a good deal of time and effort essentially agreeing with me, thus making your critique moot in the process.

--Don--

Hi, Don. On the contrary, you have proved nothing by using the bible, because you have not shown by the bible that "Jesus" is a false prophet. By Scripture, he is right on target. And if he were not on target, we know that the bible is wrong. And I have delivered point by point blows to your analogies. You feed this garbage to your friends, who know nothing of scriptures, but you have nothing but a poor understanding of the bible, that you got from your (no) fundi days, in blabtist "church". Thanks for your reply Don.

aza wood · 05-17-2002, 06:10 AM

[quote]

Quote:

Originally posted by Don Morgan:
[qb]

If that is what you are saying, then you are simply wrong. The fact that a book is flawed in parts does not mean that it cannot be used to prove something.

Your statement would be correct Don, if we knew the exact extent of the flaws, and absolutely where they are located. Do you know this? Then how can you use this flawed book to prove anything about "Jesus".

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One obvious example of something which a flawed book can be used to prove is that the book is flawed.

Don, your tittle is not "The Bible is Flawed".

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Further, the biblical standard for a false prophet can be used to provide evidence that Jesus himself would be a false prophet according to that standard.

How do we know that this verse is not one of the flawed ones? If it is not then, He could be, if you gave any good evidence to that effect, but you have not.

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Even by what little remains of the historical Jesus in the Bible, it is quite obvious to me that he was not "perfect" as has been claimed.

How do you know that His claims to be, is found in the accurate part, and not in the in accurate?

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It is no consequence to me, however, what you personally believe. What matters to me most of all is what I believe, and based on what the Bible says about Jesus, I say that he was--according to the Bible--a hypocrite and that he would have been deemed a false prophet deserving of death.

Some people believe in fairy-tales. What you believe ("Jesus"is a false Prophet))has in no way been proven by you. Is this a fair-tale Don?

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There is one major problem, however, with your theory that the Bible is flawed to the point that it cannot be used to prove anything,
and that is that everything that we allegedly know about Jesus comes from that book. For you to say that Jesus remains "unscaved [sic]" is self-contradictory. Either the Bible is flawed to the point that you cannot know anything with certainty about Jesus and you cannot therefore say that he remains unscathed, or else you can know something about Jesus based on the Bible, in which case, by biblical standards, he can be judged a false prophet.

You can Know nothing from a 6000 year old book, that has been translated numerous times, by imperfect mankind. That is why it is called believing, and is not called knowing.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: aza wood ]

05-16-2002, 10:19 PM	#48
-DM- Honorary Member Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: West Coast Posts: 5,714	[Note: There were several errant "<A </P>" sequences in the last part of the false prophet article, put there by whomever did the original HTML coding. I have removed them so that the article looks about like it did in its printed form. --Don--]

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