Part 31 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity>>MOD WARNING<<

SEE MOD WARNING HERE

Part 31 is a continuation of Post your tough questions pertaining to God/Jesus/Holy Bible and I will do my best to clarify and make sense of it to those who are unaware...I still have questions and comments I haven't responded to in Part 8 thru 30.

Also I might answer questions that are on other members threads and so this will keep me real busy with the many questions that I will answer from my point of view/perspective keeping in line with Scripture.

I don't want my intentions to come across as converting you or whatever lol... but rather clear up things etc... so ask away.

 

That is just a theory and so it can never be regarded as something factual.

 

Actually, according to every textbook, scientist, university, biologist and pretty much everyone except yourself.....it is indeed fact.

 

According to our Creator, Almighty God that is not a fact and so all of us who have faith in God, who have trust in Him, know that it is just a theory/speculation/guesswork/opinion that you and others believe in.

 

You've refuted the claim that hearsay accounts don't prove the resurrection or other various supernatural occurrences? How'd you do that?

As crank pointed out, and is glaringly obvious to anybody with critical thinking skills: the Civil War and the Resurrection are two completely separate and distinct events. One is a claim of supernatural events recorded by a few different people in incredibly inconsistent and contradictory accounts. The other is a war, without any supernatural occurrences happening, recorded by literally THOUSANDS of people and substantiated with artifacts available to anybody.

 

I see....so this revolves around you Idea of what the word fact means rather than any biological or scientific data. Very well, I know a useless debate when it presents itself.

 

Umm.. Did you even look at what you quoted from my source?

 

The content of history is irrelevant. How history is recorded is what is relevant. Much like any other form of history, the details are recorded by witnesses of the event. Everyone knows this. You're just saying stuff that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Speaking of which, I'm starting to notice that all you do is redirect the conversation to topics that have nothing to do with anything I say. I wouldn't mind throwing you in the same bucket with Crank if you keep this up.

 

Exactly! Good post YL! We humans are in a class of our own which is the family of mankind! As YL said, "we're uniquely human."

 

And one unique characteristic of humans is that we have imagination and make up stories. Every culture has made up stories to explain our existence. It's what humans do. Every culture has their versions of how humans came to be. Some of the stories have caught on with large groups of people over the centuries. They're comfort food.

 

Exactly YL! So if we're not descendants of apes why are there some people who insist we are part of the ape family? Where is the connection? Where is this mysterious common ancestor I have been hearing these people spout off about?

Someone initially must have had delusional imaginary thoughts I suppose to concoct such a ludicrous claim of humans being part of this ape family simply because that was their way to deny the very existence of Almighty God the Creator!

 

Uh, why is the content of history irrelevant?I think it's incredibly relevant if some guy writes down that he saw Constantine turn into a crow and fly away. Why? Because this gives me reason to doubt the account since people don't just turn into crows and fly away daily. I think that it's incredibly important if somebody writes down that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and walked on water. Why? Because they're supernatural events and hearsay accounts of supernatural events can't be trusted.

Uh, I'm addressing the exact topic you're discussing, if I am straying, point out specifically how I'm doing so. You are claiming that we can't refute the Resurrection. You have also claimed, or at least insinuated, that the Resurrection is as substantiated as the Civil War. Well, one, it isn't our job to refute hearsay accounts of the Resurrection because hearsay accounts of the Resurrection are flimsy pieces of evidence for a supernatural event. Secondly, really? The Civil War, again, has THOUSANDS of personal accounts and artifacts to sift through. What does Jesus' Resurrection have? The Bible.

 

Well, we are descendants of apes.

Mitt Ryan, tell me about your ancestor that lived 2,000 years ago, please. Oh, you can't? You must not exist, and neither must your ancestor have existed.

One, there are Christians that accept this and there are even Christian scientists that helped create the taxonomic system that exists today, so no dice. Two, claiming we are not a part of the ape family is like claiming that the Hawk isn't a bird.

 

You know that disproving Evolution only disproves Evolution. It does not prove a Christian God.

 

Do you care to try again without breaking the forums rules? Do you actually ever intend on addressing points of other posters or are you here to simply repeat your argument over and over again?

 

Everything He created was good...the entire universe, the earth, sun, moon, etc. Even our first parents Adam & Eve were good when He first created them.

Obviously you didn't understand a word I said for you to make such a statement. So perhaps if you read what I said again very slowly this time you might understand much clearer what I said, then and only then will you see that your statement is invalid.

 

No...He didn't. Read my previous posts above for an explanation.

 

Was God just a bad parent then?

I mean, these days if someone were to raise kids who were so self centered and lacking of empathy for the hundreds of billions of people they were going to condemn to poverty, sickness and starvation by disobeying the orders of God - then wouldn't we at least question what in the world the parents (God) were teaching their kids?

Not only that, but apparently, God so ill prepared Adam and Eve as parents that they went out and raised their son to be a murderer.

I'm sorry - but millions of atheist or Hindu or Buddhist or Christian parents raise kids who have the moral fiber not to murder their brother or take actions that would cause the entire human race to suffer misery. What's up with that?

 

The rules are subject to the interpretation of the mods. I can't really avoid that. My guess is that, whatever I said previously, must've been misconstrued as an insult by a mod. ** shrugs ** I can't help that.

The content of history for this particular point is irrelevant, because it has nothing to do with the main topic at hand. The main topic is the validity of historical records. All of history is recorded by witnesses who are either present during whatever is being recorded, or are collections of historical testimonies. Saying the bible is exempt from this because someone doesn't believe in God is very foolish. If you're going to study history, you have to go through the information you have and you have to scrutinize it: You examine the writing style, you examine the archaeological evidence, you examine the age of the manuscripts written and the differences between each manuscript, you examine the political environment around what is being written, you examine the people the manuscripts are written about, and you also examine the social customs and language. There's even more than what I've listed, but as you can see, there's quite a bit that is examined before something is considered historical fact. The problem with arguing against the bible is that it passes every level of historical scrutiny. New Testament historians are tasked with finding out whether the New Testament is true or false. That's their job. So far, the New Testament has been proven to be historically accurate, even among skeptics.

Source: http://www.bibleodyssey.org/tools/bible-basics/how-do-biblical-scholars-study-the-new-testament.aspx

 

The validity of historical records is intimately tied to what the damn records say. If the records say that everybody was riding around giant unicorns, then how in the world can we accept the validity of such a record?

Wow, good thing that you've been paying attention and aren't just making up arguments for me. The Bible is exempt because the accounts CONTRADICT one another, and contain miraculous stories of SUPERNATURAL EVENTS. Now, let's stop and see if you can actually read these words.

How, to you, does none of this deal with what you call "the content" of history?

It DOES? Name ONE OTHER historical record that details SUPERNATURAL EVENTS that we consider to be historical fact.

No, I'm sorry, but it hasn't.

"Almost all historical critics agree, however, that a historical figure named Jesus taught throughout the Galilean countryside c. 30 CE, was believed by his followers to have performed supernatural acts, and was sentenced to death by the Romans, possibly for insurrection.[60]"'

This seems like an agreement about some minor things that were said in the Gospels.

"Many scholars have pointed out, that the Gospel of Mark shows signs of a lack of knowledge of geographical, political and religious matters in Judea in the time of Jesus."

"The historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles, the primary source for the Apostolic Age, is a major issue for biblical scholars and historians of Early Christianity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible#New_Testament_2

 

Sorry.

No historian excepts supernatural events as being "historically accurate", unless they are emotionally predisposed to do so, which makes their findings suspect.

And they certainly don't entertain the thought that (short of actual video or audio recordings) any dialog presented in the third person is "historically accurate". They would be laughed out of the lecture hall.

 

There's quite a few super natural events in history, such as:

The Miracle of the Sun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

and

The Dancing Plague of 1518: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518

You're pretty hung up on "miraculous stories" while ignoring the hundreds of "miraculous stories" throughout history.

Because the content is irrelevant. I've explained why already.

I can name two:

The Miracle of the Sun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

and

The Dancing Plague of 1518: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518

I dunno if I trust the sources Wikipedia is using for that paragraph you've quoted. There's no way for me to trace it. This source is a bit better:

http://www.theologynetwork.org/chri...on-mark--understanding-the-gospel-of-mark.htm

However, it disagrees with your assertion.

Anyway, talking about particular books is a waste of time when there's a ton of archaeological evidence which proves events, people and places in the bible. Besides, I'd believe an NT scholar with a pHD in their field over a random guy named "GraspingForPeace" over a message forum.

 

Why do you keep pointing to The Miracle of the Sun as undisputed historical fact when the link you have given us has numerous disputes of the event listed on the page. It also gives numerous possibilities as to what people were seeing and goes on to say that not all people present saw the event.
There certainly isn't any third person narration given from a hundred years after the fact that is listed as being historically accurate.

Dancing Plague? A miracle? Sounds more like high toxin levels in food or drink. Mercury poisoning. But again, there is no undisputed claim of divine or supernatural cause.

Not sure why you keep listing these events as some type of proof of biblical infallibility.

 

Care to point out which HISTORY BOOK that you've read, in school perhaps, describes the "Miracle of the Sun" as an actual, definitively supernatural event that happened in history?

Also, I don't know where you're getting your information that dancing hysteria is somehow supernatural.

I'm not ignoring them, I'm just not including them in history as actual history. You know, the same thing that all historians do.

No, you haven't. You've just repeated the claim over and over again.

I've already agreed that there are some things from the NT that can be picked out as probably historically accurate. You don't seem to want to read anything that I tell you. We just don't accept the supernatural events of the Bible. Just like you don't accept the supernatural events of numerous other holy texts, I would assume.

 

This is just mind blowingly absurd. Did God not create Satan ? or do you think that Satan is Good now too. Did God not create humans and the potential for humans for evil ?

God made a creature whose "every inclination was only evil all the time" with a heart that was only evil all the time.

God regrets his creation ... why ? because what God created was evil... not good.

Either you are completely ignorant of the Bible and Logic or you are in complete denial.