Kilgore Trout

This subject is getting pretty boring. I see you like to gloss over a lot of my key points, so I'll just assume the reason you do is because you have no answer for them.

I'll just add a couple of quick points.

Last I heard christians are not required to get circumcised, they can eat pork, and all the other forbidden foods. They can eat blood even though god made a special point of forbidding it. God said "Don't eat blood, because the life is in the blood." Not only is is he forbidding it, but he is telling you why. Christians follow almost none of the laws in the Torah. So if Jesus did not abolish the law, then I guess christians completely disobey him all the time. Jesus said in Mark 7:14-19 that you can eat anything you want because it would not make you unclean. That is against the Torah.

The "new covenant" that Jer. 31 speaks about is obviously not here yet because it says you will not have to tell anybody about god for everybody will know him. Since you are here telling us about god, that did not happen. Oh... that's right, there must be a condition to that! That's why it didn't come true. More reasons why you have that conditional cop-out, so if some part of a prophecy doesn't come true, but the prophecy fits your whims you can just pretend that part was conditional. You guys are amazing. Anybody can "claim" they are starting the new covenant.

I get tired of these "textual" arguments. People can use the text of the NT to "prove" Jesus was a space alien. You can use text to show anything you want.

That's what I mean by using text to say anything you want. Those verses are proof of my point about following the law of the Torah! Notice it says is verses 6-9 to never forget the commands I am giving you, write them down etc. So god is making a point of telling you to do the commands not things like love your enemies, but the commands you insult god with by calling "dead rtualism." God said men should be circumcised FOREVER. He said follow the Torah commands FOREVER.He's your god, not mine. If you want to insult what he thought should be obeyed FOREVER then you are following a false prophet.

I am NOT using circular reasoning with Jesus. I realize that anybody can "claim" to be some sort of messiah, and lots of people have. I test Jesus in the same way I would test any other "messiah." You ASSUME Jesus is the messiah and use the text to fit your argument.

wordsmyth

Anyone could easily pass themselves off as a prophet and go around making wild claims about future events, then simply make an off hand remark about everything being contingent on certain events. If the prophecies happen to come true, people believe they are a true prophet, and if the prophecies don't come true, its "oh, well, these contingencies weren't met, so thats why they didn't come true" and all the believers just put their faith blinders on and turn a blind eye to the scam.

Sometimes it seems like the more blatant the scam, the more willing people are to believe it and they will twist themselves in knots to rationalize the irrational. :banghead:

CJD

A few thoughts in closing . . . (I couldn't resist)

The reason why you have failed to pull any long drawn-out answers from me, Kilgore, is because it's a lot of work and largely unappreciated.

I run out of things to say to someone who won't even recognize at least the smallest possibility that--unless they are professionals in the field--their "intrepretations" are far more subject to over/understatment, non sequiturs, etc. Why should I take much more time with this if you respond as you have above? I understand everything you have said regarding how you read the text. But what do you base your understanding of the text on? Who have you read? What informs your decision-making process? Can you explain how another human being has come to an entirely different decision than you have?

I gather this is an impossibility from the very beginning based on your standards/methods. How have you avoided 'circularity'?

In the end, Kilgore, I think that you have assumed my intentions are more than simply showing you how someone who has actually studied this stuff on a professional level would read the text. I am not concerned with "proving" anything to you; I am merely asking you to check your humility in at the door and look for more substantial reasons to reject the Christian faith. Sure, you are free to point out my a priori assumptions, but can't you see that this cuts both ways? You are not on any 'higher ground' epistemically speaking than anyone else in the world.

Regards,

CJD

Kilgore Trout

The reason why you are an "expert in the field" is because you study up on the apologetic excuses of why Jesus is not a false prophet, you don't care that they make no sense or that anybody can "claim" to be the start of a new covenant.

You are right. Only an "expert" in apologetics can be so obsessed with "proving" Jesus that he misses the clear points of the Torah and uses verbal trickery to pretend it was supposed to end. The laws were supposed to last forever. It can't get any clearer than that.

B. H. Manners

:notworthy

In other words, it's just a bunch of mental masterbation.