Stephen T-B

His belief in god and the divinity of Jesus Christ did not require a magical element in order to make it real, and he attempted to persuade the boys he taught at that school that if you trust in the miracles as the basis of your faith, that faith will be undermined should evidence come to light that the "magic" did in fact have a rational explanation.
This was also his argument against accepting the Creationist myth because he knew that advances in our understanding of what went on in the past were making it increasingly untenable.
His god was a loving being, and forgiveness of sins through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ was, for him, an actual fact.
He based his life on the morality taught by Christ: "love your enemy," "turn the other cheek," "Love thy neighbour as thyself."
In the war he served in the Medical Corps - as an ordained priest he was not obliged to take a roll which would put him in the line of enemy fire - and he was one of exceedingly few who volunteered to collect the mutilated dead from the battlefield. This was a detested job because it was so deeply upsetting, and the experience induced in him something like shell shock.
And you suggest that this man was "dangerously close to going to hell."
Ed - WHAT sort of god is it that you worship?

Ed

So basically his faith was not based on any reasons, ie an irrational faith. If Christ did not perform any miracles on what basis did he believe in Christ's divinity? Just him saying that he was God? This is a very gullible form of Christian faith. There is no reason to worry that your faith will be undermined by real science since God himself created nature. Therefore nothing in it will contradict what he has revealed in the scriptures. This is called trust in GOD, not the miracles. The miracles just confirm the words.

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STB: This was also his argument against accepting the Creationist myth because he knew that advances in our understanding of what went on in the past were making it increasingly untenable.

See above about not fearing real science.

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STB: His god was a loving being, and forgiveness of sins through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ was, for him, an actual fact.

But if the scriptures are wrong about miracles occuring then how did he not know that they are not wrong about God being loving and that sins can be forgiven through the redemptive power of Christ?


[b] Again, if the scriptures are wrong about miracles then how does he know that they are not wrong about Christ's teachings?

atheist_in_foxhole

One of my Jewish friends died in a car accident last year.

Where is he now, Ed?

Stephen T-B

Ed's still got that last question to answer, and when he has, he might consider this:
since the WHOLE Bible has got to be taken as the literal truth, or you go to hell, then preumably only the Creationist / Fundamentalist faction is destined for heaven? Every other so-called Christian is frying in hell, not to mention the non-Christians.
Nice religion you've got there, Ed.
Here's something else for you to think about: Jesus, born of a virgin and attended soon after his birth by three wise men or even kings who followed a star in order to find him.
That's the stuff legends are made of, Ed, can you imagine anyone having any knowledge of those events forgetting them, or not telling others. So how come Jesus remained in obscurity until he got to be - what - 30 was it?
Ed, someone whose natural mother was a VIRGIN, whose birth was marked by a special star, visible to everyone, and who was attended in a manger by three exotic characters from far away would have been the most famous person in the known world.
Think it through, Ed. Don't make specious excuses; consider the reality of human nature and what would really have happened had these events taken place as the Gospels say.

Ed

It depends on what happened shortly before his death.

Ed

Huh? I never said that. As I stated above, you dont have to accept every single miracle in the scriptures, only the ones I mentioned above otherwise it is not christianity. Not all the scriptures are meant to be taken literally either. Some parts are poetic, some are allegorical, some are parables and etc. And you can believe that God used evolution if you are convinced by that questionable theory.

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stb: Nice religion you've got there, Ed. Here's something else for you to think about: Jesus, born of a virgin and attended soon after his birth by three wise men or even kings who followed a star in order to find him. That's the stuff legends are made of, Ed, can you imagine anyone having any knowledge of those events forgetting them, or not telling others. So how come Jesus remained in obscurity until he got to be - what - 30 was it?

Actually we dont know how many wise men there were. They were what we would call 1st century scientists. Unless you were an expert in astronomy the star may not have attracted a whole lot of attention. As far as being born of a virgin, I dont think Mary talked about it that much given that most people even back then would have said "yeah right"(sarcasm). Of course she later, probably after his resurrection, started telling people when it became quite obvious that he was who he claimed to be.

[b] The event that would have most caught people's interest would have been the astrologers visiting him but that would hardly make him the most famous person in the known world. Probably just the people in the region knew about it. But they may have thought they were there to visit Herod and that the visit to the child was just a side trip.