Foxhole Atheist

From Vibr8gKiwi:

“Are the absurdities become a little clearer yet or should I go on? “

The absurdities are obvious to those of us who accept reality as it is observed. However, there are those who wish reality to be something other than what is observed. IMHO, it’s called wishful thinking, conditioning, cognitive dissonance, wanting to live forever.

lpetrich

Where did you get that "information"? From Acharya S? I think that AS is sometimes selective and uncritical about her sources. Can you quote chapter and verse from the New Testament on Jesus Christ's skin color? The NT is our only primary source on JC, so if the NT doesn't say anything, we're stuck.

In fairness, I would not be surprised if some Hindus think that Jesus Christ is a Krishna-like figure or even an avatar of Vishnu. But JC-Krishna similarities are more likely due to their fitting a Mythic Hero profile.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Vibr8,
Yeah. The absurdities are becoming clearer to me. But to protect the guilty, I won't say which ones.

When imperfect kids are bad their father punishes them in the hope that they may learn how to be good. That analogy does not hold between our Father in heaven and us.

When a perfect creature, like Adam or Lucifer, is bad just once, they are no longer perfect. That's called a metaphysical change, not a punishment. Of course, from their perspective, (shame over their nakedness, fig leaf gathering, concupiscence, hell) it looked like punishment.

But no amount of punishment could ever enable an imperfect creature to become a perfect creature. Ergo, the consequences of their Original Sin (hell for Lucifer, this cursed life for us) cannot be considered punishments. They are the natural results of Original Sin. Get over it!

Better yet, get baptized! Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]</p>

Foxhole Atheist

“When a perfect creature, like Adam or Lucifer, is bad just once, they are no longer perfect.”

If they were bad, then they were not perfect to begin with.

“…this cursed life for us…”

Now your postulates are beginning to make sense to me. You just don’t accept life as it is, do you? Even with all the dogma attached, your still doubting your god.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Oh, really? Cthulhu told me that too! INFIDEL!

Making a claim that yours is the one true path does not make it so. A quick glimpse at politics will tell you that...

RyanS2

"Where did you get that "information"? From Acharya S? I think that AS is sometimes selective and uncritical about her sources. Can you quote chapter and verse from the New Testament on Jesus Christ's skin color? The NT is our only primary source on JC, so if the NT doesn't say anything, we're stuck."

Well then, let's break out the Bible then. Since the ancients really didn't care what skin color someone was, (except maybe the Jews, ironically, in the Babylonian Talmud). Yeshua Ben Yosef was an Israelite, from the tribe of Judah. We'd have to assume that because he was from the lineage of David, and since everyone thought he was a Jew, he must have had the same cultural tendencies of everyone else of Semitic lineage. His skin color depended upon where he was born and lived.

Outside of his brief visit to Egypt, he spent the rest of his time in Nazareth:

Matt 2:23 "...and He came and resided in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'"

Lk 2:51-52 "And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."

Another famous verse, (can't find it just now) is where Yeshua visits his hometown and the residents recognize him. So, we probably can assume he did what most Jewish boys did then, and he became a student under his father in carpentry.

Where we contemporarily associate with Nazareth is in the middle of Israel, and it yields forth dark-skinned Hebraic people.

Besides, the top forensic science procedures say this:

<a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-105319,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-105319,00.html</a>

"The BBC’s Christ has a broad, peasant’s face with a prominent nose, dark olive skin and short curly hair"

Olive skin is a pretty dark complexion....

"In fairness, I would not be surprised if some Hindus think that Jesus Christ is a Krishna-like figure or even an avatar of Vishnu. But JC-Krishna similarities are more likely due to their fitting a Mythic Hero profile."

Some Hare Krishna's believe he is the 9th incarnation of Lord Vishnu. 3 more Yeshua's pop up and the World ends...

It's ironic you mention Acharya. Her main source for the theory is Christian missionaries. You can learn a lot about early Hinduism from Christian missionaries. For instance:

1762, P. Georgi, "Alphabetum Tibetanum":

"Krishnu" is only a "corruption of the name of the Saviour; the deeds correspond wonderfully with the name, though they have been impiously and cunningly polluted by most wicked imposters."

Albrecht Weber, "Uber die Krishnajanmasthami":

"Take, for example the statement of the Vishnu Purana that Nanda, the foster-father of Krishna, at the time of the latter’s birth, went with his pregnant wife Yasoda to Mathura to pay taxes (cf. Luke II, 4, 5) or the pictorial representation of the birth of Krishna in the cowstall or shepherd’s hut, that corresponds to the manger, and of the shepherds, shepherdesses, the ox and the ass that stand round the woman as she sleeps peacefully on her couch without fear of danger. Then the stories of the persecutions of Kamsa, of the massacre of the innocents, of the passage across the river (Christophorus), of the wonderful deeds of the child, of the healing-virtue of the water in which he was washed, etc., etc. Whether the accounts given in the Jaimini Bharata of the raising to life by Krishna of the dead son of Duhsala, of the cure of Kubja, of her pouring a vessel of ointment over him, of the power of his look to take away sin, and other subjects of the kind came to India in the same connection with the birth-day festival may remain an open question."

Weber goes so far to say the whole Vedic system of avatars, or incarnations of God, was "borrowed" from the "Incarnation of Jesus Christ."

Likewise, Dr. F. Lorinser translated the Bhagavad-gita and compared it scrupulously to the New Testament. "The author of the Hindu poem knew and used the Gospels and Christian Fathers." The similarities were "not single and obscure, but numerous and clear …"

Should have told the early Christian missionaries not to be so pretentious, otherwise, the theory would hold little weight. We now know the Veda's far predate the Christian Bible, so what's left of these early Christian writings?

Albert Cipriani

Dear Oxhole Atheist,
You assert:


Damn! I've been such a dunce all my life. Thanks for clearing that misconception of mine up. With my new eyes, I'm gonna focus on related misconceptions. For example:

If an egg is broken, it wasn't unbroken to begin with.

If a man is old, he wasn't young to begin with.

If a baby is born, it wasn't ever non-existent to begin with.

I should have known that once perfect, always perfect, and conversely, once imperfect always imperfect. (Sounds like you'd make a good Southern Baptist of the persuasion, once saved always saved.)

That slice of perfection on wheels known as a Ferrari will never fool me again! No sir-y! I know it is nothing more than a hunk of iron ore, as imperfect as the day it was formed in the bowels of the earth.

How I love the un-argued assertion. It's such a splendid cover for non-thinking. You're a master of the form. No yoke, Oxhole, no yoke! -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Foxhole Atheist

“Damn! I've been such a dunce all my life. Thanks for clearing that misconception of mine up. With my new eyes, I'm gonna focus on related misconceptions. …”

"When a perfect creature, like Adam or Lucifer, is bad just once, they are no longer perfect."

Those are your words Albert. You’re the one that stated they were perfect to begin with.

Your last post is the same as all your others; when they come full circle, they have no other place to go except ad hominem.

“How I love the un-argued assertion”

That is the only way to approach anything you present here, Albert. You can’t see the forest for the trees. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Albert Cipriani

Dear Foxhole,
Since you don't seem to get my sarcasm, I'll make this as clear as cucumber: What is perfect can become imperfect and vice versa. There's no law against it.

Adam was perfect. He became imperfect. Which explains his progeny being imperfect. Which explains you and our dialogue.

If you really think this is not possible, argue your case. Or if you wish, I'll argue mine. In any case, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I thought I was being funny. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic 1/3/01

FarSeeker

Originally posted by lpetrich:
posted January 02, 2002
I recently read an Atheist's arguement that he could accept Christianity because the Trinity was too paradoxical. Strange that he no doubt accepted such paradoxes as particle-wave duality. Then there is the "quantum foam" where particles appear suddenly out of nothing for no reason and quickly self-annihilate. Sort of throws a monkeywrench into the "nothing comes from nothing" saw of Atheists. But such uncaused events used to be called miracles and impossible; now they are called science.

But, hey, paradoxes aren't a problem to Atheists as long as they prefer "to avoid thinking about such" things.

Atheism is based on reason? Atheism is a conclusion based on the fallacy that the lack of evidence for equals evidence against. Agnosticism is infinitely more reasonable.
Different kinds? So? You forgot Marxist Atheists. Who says any of them are any more right that Peter Singer.
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/2900/psai3.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/2900/psai3.html</a>
If they are, why aren't they teaching their ethics at Princeton University?

I'm sorry, but I just haven't found anything to recommend Atheism as a rational choice.

Yet that wasn't the arguement that was made by Hinduwoman was it?

In Roman times, a mad Roman emperor raised a horse up to the level of a senator, who rased an elephant to diety? Jesus is God's chosen who came to serve and save mankind, thus he has a physical form. The God of Abraham is the only one I know of (but I admit to not have studied every religion) that does not have a idol, and Commanded that none be made. This on a landmass where everybody around Abraham had one. And logically having such a symbol to rally around would have helped the early Israelites, yet it was Commanded against.

[ January 05, 2002: Message edited by: FarSeeker ]</p>