Jesus' last words

And everyone who has not (everyone but you) will require something more. Since your omnipotent and all powerful God in not interested in sharing his reality with anyone but you he is considered non-existent...He could very easily remedy this situation.

Why is he does not, in your opinion?

 

I'd say his username is a Helluva lot more telling than anything he posts. Wouldn't you?

 

So, you are saying that in order to have proof.... i need to be a scholar? An unfortunate situation for the bulk of people wo are not scholars and/or have neither time, nor talent, nor academic predisposition to avail themselves of such proof

That said, there is a well regarded academic named Bart Ehrman. He has written over thirty books, several of those books are best sellers.... i have read several f his books and listened to many of his speeches, interviews, and debates. He certainly meets your standard of being a scholar, and has done extensive research. He agrees with the position that i have put forward. I can provide citations

Which are the scholars that you wish to present?

And i believe the preponderance of evidence is that there is no god.

And, from the evidence i see, the books of the bible tell different,, incompatible, illogical, unbelievable, and evolving versions of events. This fact seems to me to be incompatible with your belief that the holy spirit “wrote” scriptures through people.

And, given god’s all powerful nature....it makes no sense why scriptures would be written indirectly through fallible men ... when god could have directly written error free and indisputable scriptures.... either then, or now. Instead we have to consult copies of copies of copies..written through various men.... written in a language that we do not speak.... written with allegory and parables whose meanings are unclear... written in such an abstruse manner that there are hundreds of different interpretations and sects promoting various different interpretations of what it all means

I recognize your belief, which you have expressed
But i have A different belief... which i am expressing

 

Actually you're wrong. Many of the Books of the Bible are named by 'tradition', and many are written by two or more people. If the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible he made a lot of mistakes. Some of which have been pointed out to you.

Many of us are not skeptics. We've simply done the study you haven't. Judaism is a mixture of more ancient beliefs and their own, and Christianity is a mixture of both.As is Islam.

 

Some while ago i listened to a speech by a woman talking about how she gradually left her religious faith.



In summary, she discusses how Mormon missionaries tred to convert her.... so she listened to their story.... and despite finding the missionaries to be nice, sincere, and intelligent... never the less sue found their mormon story to be unbelievable.... even strange and bizarre.... she goes over all that... and explains how much more sensible her catholic up bringing had been.... and then has an ah ha moment where she realizes that the christian “story” is pretty much as incredible as the hindu story, or the mormon story.... which is to say that if you look at the abrahamic religions from the outside, they do not make any more sense than the mormon or the hindu story.

I now want to address one aspect of the Christian story: atonement


Atonement is, imo, fundamental to Christianity: the idea that we are sinners and need to pay for our sins. That god essentially gave up on us being able to “Not be sinners”. And so after trying many other opinions... like noah and moses... god needed a new plan and decided to send his only son to suffer a terrible human death on our behalf to “atone” for our sins.... because we could not manage this on our own.

When i was a Christian, this all seemed to make sense. But, like julia sweeny in the above link, after i look at these ideas from a more objective perspective.... the whole story sound entirely absurd. It is basically a sacrificial death cult... not unlike aztec priests ripping out beating hearts on top of their pyramids.

Atonement? Someone else suffering a horrible death so my crimes can be forgiven..... it seems a bizarre idea to me

 

A study Bible has a list of contributors at the front of the book. All I have to do is look at nature and see the hand of God in creation. It's obvious.

 

The idea that God gave up and decided to send his Son is false. The Bible says Jesus was God's plan from the beginning. The reason he chose animal sacrifice was to cover sin until the chosen time for the Lamb of God, Jesus. Everything God does is showing us his Character. There must be death for sin. God created man to live forever, but God also knew that having free will man would sin, and God would provide Himself to pay for man's sin. It's all in the Scriptures if you study.

 

Presumably this will make it easy for you to provide the name of a scholar

The mormons think their belifs are obvious, as do the hindu, jews and muslims

Further, whether or not there is a creator god is not relevant to the question we were discussing.... who were the authors of the New Testament

 

So why did he bother with moses and noah and david... etc

Animal sacrifice
In any other context this idea would sound laughably primative

As i said... a death cult

I leave it to readers of this thread to judge for themselves as to whether what you are saying makes sense to them. For me, it is completely unconvincing

 

All you have to do is get a study Bible and you'll see the names of the scholars. Me providing you names is meaningless.

 

Of course you aren't convinced. Carry on. The Scripture says..."When YOU seek Me with all your heart, then I will reveal Myself to YOU". It's your job to seek God. Jesus told his disciples when he sent them out to leave after being rejected. Bye.

 

I already have a scholar, thx

 

It appears that you are looking at God from a human perspective. God is a Spirit. As a former Christian you know that from Scripture. Nothing in the Spirit makes sense in the natural. Surely, you must have read in Corinthians about the natural mind not being able to understand the things of the Spirit. Read this.
https://www.bible-equip.org/emed-daily/2018/01/24/natural-vs-spiritual-man-corinthians-214-16/

 

Imo, an all powerful god could have done an enormously more effective job in conveying his message. To me, the anarchy i see in the worlds various religions and sects appears to be wha5 i would expect if religions were an artifact of humanity, rather than divinity

 

Okay. I see everything in the light of Scripture and it makes perfect sense, according to Scripture. There is a spiritual war going on. There are many false religions. The devil is a deceiver and liar. All religions are a lie. There is only one way and Jesus is the way. The more I study Scripture, the more I understand what is happening in this world. The devil will do all he can to keep people confused and in darkness. That's why there are so many false religions. Jesus is the only way.

 

That's your problem. Try scholars who have studied the Bible but are not Christians. I've spent decades studying both the Bible, the background on which it was written, Judaism (without whose beliefs Christianity would never have existed). The cultures of the time. The geography of the area. Without knowing these Christianity and Bible study has no meaning. If Jesus had said he was THE SON OF GOD even the people would have rejected him. Their belief was ingrained in them "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃), found in Deuteronomy 6:4. Jesus would had said 'I am A son of god' the people would have understood and accepted him. All Jews believed they were Jahwehs children. The OT tells them so.

You only understand what you are told to believe. That's inward looking.

 

On what grounds do you say this? How do you know other beliefs are wrong? Words in a book.

 

Grace is a gift. Life is a gift. Both come from God. It's ll through the Bible.

Source?

 

There are about a half dozen unique Gods in the Bible so which one are you talking about?

 

Tell that to the millions of refugees, starving children, homeless. Tell that to the Islamic terrorist who will tell you infidels are only worth shooting. Tell that to your god who allows innocent children to suffer and die.- sometimes at his command. It's all in the Bible.

 

Biblical inerrancy

Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching";[1] or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact".[2] Some equate inerrancy with biblical infallibility; others do not.[3][4] The belief is of particular significance within parts of evangelicalism, where it is formulated in the "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy".

A formal statement in favor of biblical inerrancy was published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in 1978.[5] The signatories to the "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" admit that "inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture". However, even though there may be no extant original manuscripts of the Bible, those which exist can be considered inerrant, because, as the statement reads: "the autographic text of Scripture, ... in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy".[6]

The "doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture"[7] held by the Catholic Church, as expressed by the Second Vatican Council, is that "the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation."[8]

Inerrancy has been much more of an issue in American evangelicalism than in British evangelicalism.[9] According to Stephen R. Holmes, it "plays almost no role in British evangelical life".[10]

A minority of biblical inerrantists go further than the Chicago Statement, arguing that the original text has been perfectly preserved and passed down through time. "Textus Receptus onlyism" holds that the Greek text of this name (Latin for received text) is a perfect and inspired copy of the original and supersedes earlier manuscript copies. The King James Only movement ascribes inerrancy only to the King James English translation made from the Textus Receptus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy

Now, are you going to answer what you mean by objective truth? Since objective truth doesn't really exist.

 

Objective truth exists. It exists outside the points of view of collected humanity.

First, we must accept that all objectively real things affect all other objectively real things, however slightly. That is to say, a thing that is unaffected by real things or does not affect real things is not real. The things that affect other things and their interactions, stripped of point of view or emotion are objective reality.

 

No one believes in the Bible because no one does what it says they should do if they worship the God character.

 

Such as?

 

The question, to me, is false. Even saying that this jesus did exist and rose from the dead, he is alleged to have then spoken to many people. So the words on the cross would not have been his last words. IMO.