Start Believing and Start Telling The Truth.

No, there are world religions and local ones. In regions where education is lacking and poverty is high, you tend to be stuck in a time warp of sorts.

 

They all are.

 

I can't speak for you and you can't speak for me.......I know what I know and I would be foolish to let someone convince me otherwise.

 

I'M NOT TRYING TO!
Can you read?

 

There is no need to be ofensive.

 

I have repeatedly stated I am not trying to impact anyone's faith. Why would you ignore that? I'm trying to discuss this topic without being one of the atheist trolls that try to beat up on believers, to treat you with respect and simply show why there is no point in trying to "prove" anything in respect to religion, and you want to characterize me as trying to be an enemy of your faith.
That ticks me off! Why shouldn't it? Take your agenda down and read my posts. Don't layer them with your own defensive agenda and take them as they stand and I'll be as cool as the other side of the pillow.

 

The problem is many people think that the Bible is about God's religion.....it’s not. In a nutshell, the Bible is about the kingdom of God, man's purpose in it and the restoring of that kingdom back on the Earth. That was the message that Jesus preached and told His disciples to preach. It was men that had no idea what God is doing that turned the Bible into a religious book.

 

Wow, it sure does not take much to get you upset.

 

People that post to me that don't have the discipline to read what is written is definitely one of them.

 

Oh, which religious leader from the first century eclipsed Jesus and left behind a greater evidential record of his fame?

Ergo, to the next question, when you make claims like this, in defiance of known fact, then we are thus left to conclude that your subseqent statements are less than true.

Additionally, what you argue is that you can claim anything without evidence and we'll just have to take it on faith. That is absurd.

After all, IF you had a diploma from Harvard, for example, well, we would be able to find said diploma would we not? If there were several people who went to school with, both friends and enemies mind you, that verified that you did indeed graduate from Harvard ... then what logical reason would you have for doubting that you had gone to Harvard?

Logically, we would not.

Ergo, when the Bible is strongly corroberated in the areas that we CAN check and viewed as accurate by the ENTIRE BODY OF EXAMINING scholars ... what logical reason do you have to doubt?

You don't. You have only your faith to drive doubt in this case do you not?

And that is why Jesus Mythers, and not thoe who believe in Jesus, are dismissed by actual period scholars as whacked out conspiracy theoriest that most will not even acknowledge.

Most people simply call this trail of evidential logic common sense. They usually call the opposite obfuscation.

 

Your arrogance is on display... The pot calling the kettle black.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants

Here are some of the folks who were considered the messiah through the ages. I leave the detailed research to you.
You won't do it, of course.

You could find the others that could corroborate my time at Harvard or Exeter. Scholars discussing Jesus after the fact are not able to corroborate squat. They can comment on it, but they weren't there. They are not witnesses, like my classmates were.
Is that an advanced distinction to you? Seriously?
You can verify some events mentioned in the Bible and some locations, but that doesn't verify the theological claims of the Bible. In the novel "Ragtime" there are plenty of historical figures and events that are chronicled, but the book is a novel and is not intended to be construed as history.

 

Show an example or an apology, please. Where have I misconstrued what someone has said.
If you are right, I will immediately apologize and not waste anyone's time trying to justify my error.
Please give me the same respect.

 

It is not so important how the apostles died. What is important is the fact that they were all willing to die for their faith. If Jesus had not been resurrected, the disciples would have known it. People will not die for something they know to be a lie. The fact that all of the apostles were willing to die horrible deaths, refusing to renounce their faith in Christ, is tremendous evidence that they had truly witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ.


Su-eeeeeey. Come and git it.

 

The point is those stories are as likely to have been invented as they are of being true. They surfaced many years after the events, when people were in need of corroboration of their faith. There is no way of knowing whether they died as martyrs to their faith or of old age or a carriage accident. There is no "fact" that they were willing to die horrible deaths. Possible, sure. But ultimately unknowable. You choose to blindly accept the myth.
The swine has clocked in.

 

I've already done the research, and that is how I know you are full of malarky.

Here is what scholars have to say about the documents, from the beginning.

"The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64, are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh. The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.... The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies, for example Hammurabi, David, Socrates would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so loft an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of Western man."

Now, here is the kicker, that was written by a man with a Ph.D,who happened to leave the Catholic Church, embracing Humanism - only without abandoning objectivity and factuality as some others have.

http://www.bede.org.uk/price1.htm

If you are struggling to tell the difference between a novel and a serious historical investigation, noting that such is again an arguement from the absurd (as Jesus Mythers usually do), then I leave you to actually conduct something with an iota of academic standing.

A reminder about your precious denial:

"Robert Van Voosrt writes in Jesus Outside the New Testament:

Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question. "

Oh, but YOU have reason to doubt because someone wrote a novel with Biblical names in it?

Your tin foil hat brother.

BTW - you are no different than any of the other Jesus Mythers who have graced these pages. You come out only to make the same tired, silly arguements. Zealots and conspiracy theorists, its little wonder that facts have so little bearing on them - hence they even the repeated showing of them is worthless.

 

You mean like teh sources that are repeatedly shown you and ... presumably not read because you fail to reject them?

Agh, this again. Noted.

 

James' death is mentioned in Acts. As for the others they are part of church doctrine so to speak. But still. I stand by my post.

 

All I'm saying is your belief is based on faith, not fact. As the bible says it should be.
You quote an individual and suggest that is what the entire world has agreed upon. They haven't. There is plenty of contention over the divinity of Christ.
I am not trying to deny his existence. I have complete confidence that he lived. No doubt. (Well, extremely little.) Not the point.
Also you aren't bright enough to understand the point I am making about historical novels. I'm not confusing the bible and novels. I am saying that simply because some things can be verified in the bible doesn't make all of it verifiable or trustworthy.
Goodnight.

 

They are part of church tradition. Nothing more.

 

Now that looks like a claim made withot a single bit of source - and act of faith if you will.

Lets try something a bit more - again - shall we.

Would Peter not be a reliable witness? John?

Why is the key parts of the miracles James is famously associated with also found in both the synoptic gospels and in 2nd Corinthians? (Whose authorship is not in doubt?)

So how exactly do scholars of the ancient figure out what is most likely true and what is not?

Certainly not by denying everything, they do not.

 

I think i probably meant tradition rather than doctrine. I knew that word wasn't right but couldn't hone in on the word i needed.

 

But you were telling me that what I believe is nothing more than just faith. Which is in effect trying to speak for me. You are sending a double message. Yours may have been nothing more than just faith mine is the fact that the Spirit of God lives in me.

 

so they can kill each other, perhaps!

perhaps like a 'creation' or that a dude is sitting on a thrown, with angels and demons talking to people

I agree,

mankind created the god(s)

 

because he was not alive when the evidence was written to stop the liars from lying

some items perhaps. Like for example; he could have been a man and he charged his disciples not to call him christ.

So there are a couple items that we know are fact!

he was not a religious leader.

There is no evidence of his life, except the stories and what people have believed of the stories

And most of that material, does not render him a 'god'.

So some use that alternative material to verify he was a life, but discount it when it contradicts the bible.

that a teacher was kind of cool, sure

and the newspaper has published on the Fine and Sardusky

He taught people that church was not all powerful!

That gave people hope!

Question ANSWERED!

what is tested? Perhaps that liars still lie?

Because Jesus was not 'the god', nor 'the christ' per his own words and mankind is not 'free' from the liars with the equal capability to judge, (just yet).

That's why!