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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: Questions about religion
Thread: Questions about religion This thread is 100 pages long: 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 ... 78 79 80 81 82 ... 90 100 · «PREV / NEXT»
artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted July 24, 2013 05:43 PM

Let me guess, Texas?

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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted July 25, 2013 12:57 AM

Moderator Note: I have cleaned the thread of nearly a dozen back and forth posts between artu and Drakon-Deus which were off-topic.  I don't think the rest of the community needs to suffer as you two barter a deal to not speak to each other.  Please stick to HCM for things like this.  
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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted July 25, 2013 07:08 AM
Edited by Elodin at 07:09, 25 Jul 2013.

artu said:
Quote:
No, I linked to the article to refute your false claim that people who claim to hear from God are mentally ill. She unequivocally states that is not the case.

She unequivocally states that is not the case because there are some special conditions which if had not existed, would be the case.



Actually, I'll quote again for the umpteenth time that she says religious people hearing from are not mentally ill. If you continue to say, "Nuh-uh, she does too say they are mentally ill" I can only assume you are: mentally ill; a liar; or just a trolling bully like the typical anti-theist (I did not say atheist.)

What she says

Quote:

There’s an old joke: When you talk to God, we call it prayer, but when God talks to you, we call it schizophrenia.

Except that usually it’s not.

Hearing a voice when alone, or seeing something no one else can see, is pretty common. At least one in 10 people will say they’ve had such an experience if you ask them bluntly. About four in 10 say they have unusual perceptual experiences between sleep and awareness if you interview them about their sleeping habits.

And if you ask them in a way that allows them to admit they made a mistake, the rate climbs even higher. By contrast, schizophrenia, the most debilitating of all mental disorders, is pretty rare. Only about one in 100 people can be diagnosed with the disorder.

Moreover, the patterns are quite distinct. People with schizophrenia who hear voices hear them frequently. They often hear them throughout the day, sometimes like a rain of sound, or a relentless hammer. They hear not only sentences, but paragraphs: words upon words upon words. What the voices say is horrid—insults, sneers and contemptuous jibes. “Dirty. You’re dirty.” “Stupid snow.” “You should’ve gone under the bus, not into it.”

That was not what Abraham, Moses and Job experienced, even when God was at his most fierce.

For the last 10 years, I have been doing anthropological and psychological research among experientially oriented evangelicals, the sort of people who seek a personal relationship with God and who expect that God will talk back. For most of them, most of the time, God talks back in a quiet voice they hear inside their minds, or through images that come to mind during prayer. But many of them also reported sensory experiences of God. They say God touched their shoulder, or that he spoke up from the back seat and said, in a way they heard with their ears, that he loved them. Indeed, in 1999, Gallup reported that 23% of all Americans had heard a voice or seen a vision in response to prayer.

These experiences were brief: at the most, a few words or short sentences. They were rare. Those who reported them reported no more than a few of them, if that. These experiences were not distressing, although they were often disconcerting and always startling. On the contrary, these experiences often made people feel more intimate with God, and more deeply loved

.....

This is important, because often, when voices are discussed in the media or around the kitchen table, the voices are treated unequivocally as symptoms of madness. And of course, voice-hearing is associated with psychiatric illness.

But not all the time. In fact, not most of the time.


About a third of the people I interviewed carefully at the church where I did research reported an unusual sensory experience they associated with God. While they found these experiences startling, they also found them deeply reassuring.

Science cannot tell us whether God generated the voice that Abraham or Augustine heard. But it can tell us that many of these events are normal, part of the fabric of human perception. History tells us that those experiences enable people to choose paths they should choose, but for various reasons they hesitate to choose.

When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sat at his kitchen table, in the winter of 1956, terrified by the fear of what might happen to him and his family during the Montgomery bus boycott, he said he heard the voice of Jesus promising, “I will be with you.” He went forward.

Voices may form part of human suffering. They also may inspire human greatness.




Quote:

Quote:
I really don't have to wonder if you calling me a shameless indecent liar who lives in a fantasyland and twists concepts is an insult or not. I kindly asked you to cease your provocation, as I have (with no results) asked you in the past.

I will not go quote hunting on this one. But I asked you many times not to ignore answers (with no results).



I don't ignore answers. I'm just not converted by "God does not exist because there is no God!!!!! Religious people are delusional liars!!!!!"  Get out of Dawkins mode and try to converse rationally and civilly.

Quote:

You can go as sarcastic as you want on whatever I say, as long as you acknowledge an answer has been given. What I find indecent and shameless are two things:
1- Deliberately ignoring answers as a tactical stance.
2- Just making up things beyond opinion.



You are acting like a liar, a bully, and and an anti-theist troll. I DON'T ignore answers, I don't make things up, and I'm not indecent or shameless.

Quote:

You can not expect not to be called shameless if you say things like "Others have formally "put him in his place" publicly by showing how illogical, unreasoned, and unscientific his book is." as if others say there is a God.



You statement makes not one bit of sense. I did link to Hawkins getting "owned" in a critique of his book.

Quote:

You had been given statistics about the belief in God among scientists in this thread many times. I EMPHASIZE, not even your mythological God but ANY God. Yet, you feel no shame to claim the opinion is unscientific. What am I supposed to call this deliberate denial?



There is no evidence for the dogma of the tiny cult of atheism's mythology. I have evidence for my beliefs. You have no shame in continually making false statements about me and repeating your "there is no God" mantra while condemning others and saying others are mentally ill because of their belief in the Living God who interacts with people today.

Something being beyond your personal experience or comprehension in no way implies the thing does not exist.

Quote:

Quote:
Actually, if I thought I saw someone from my family who had died I'd approach that person and see if they were actually that family member or if they just looked like him.

You were both on the highway in cars. You couldn't do that.



If my loved one were merely missing I'd believe that COULD possibly be him. And investigate further, such as searching nearby towns or "staking out" that area of the highway during that time of the day for a while.

If I had seen my loved one in a casket and attended the funeral I'd be inclined to believe the person merely had a resemblance to my dead loved one.

Quote:
 
Quote:
Or 3) The person is deceived by malevolent entitie(s)

If what you mean is being possessed by demons or something, sorry, I just cant take that stuff seriously. Honestly, it's beneath me.






That's ok. I can't take the irrationality of the anti-theist world view seriously and their rants are nothing more than trolling.

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted July 25, 2013 07:24 AM

Salamandre said:

Ok let's play to whose is bigger. Your sister healed and you call it a miracle. Can you prove why it is impossible for her healing to have occurred naturally?



Uh, she had scoliosis. Her back was severely curved and she had a short leg. She was healed instantly when she had hands laid on her and was prayed for in Jesus name.

Quote:


Good one elodin, this should be enough evidence(Oh the irony) that you are here just for the sake of trolling or simply do not posses the education or knowledge to understand what evidence is.



Awwww, you got your daily ego boost by insulting me. I have an extensive education. One thing anti-theists can always be counted on for is insults and lies. That is really the only thing they have to offer in any sort of religious discussion.

Quote:

So you believe in God, you have your reasons, but nothing about that qualifies as evidence in any meaningful sense.



How silly. I have a relationship with God. I know God. You can't know "not God." I have other things as evidence for God also, that I have previously related. You have no evidence for the mantra of "not God." None.
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted July 25, 2013 07:52 AM
Edited by artu at 07:55, 25 Jul 2013.

Quote:
Actually, I'll quote again for the umpteenth time that she says religious people hearing from are not mentally ill. If you continue to say, "Nuh-uh, she does too say they are mentally ill" I can only assume you are: mentally ill; a liar; or just a trolling bully like the typical anti-theist (I did not say atheist.)

She says their church coaches them to perceive part of their mind as God, which is the special condition. Generally, hearing voices literally is considered a very probable sign of illness. Her position can be explained as telling us  "Why they are not crazy" which by itself indicates, under normal circumstances, it would be quite reasonable to think they are.
And stop text-walling the same article ten times, I can read, it's your interpretation that I find wrong. It would be helpful to try understanding what she means by "part of the fabric of human perception."
Quote:
You are acting like a liar, a bully, and and an anti-theist troll. I DON'T ignore answers, I don't make things up, and I'm not indecent or shameless.

Oh, again with the reversing the accusation mode... Now somebody accused you of trolling, you'll do the same, the good ol' rubber and glue always comes for help. Except that it does not:
You have been explained like a hundred times by many that not believing in God is not unscientific both
Theoretically: God can not be falsified or proved, therefore the very question is impossible to be scientific to begin with,
Statistically: MAJORITY of scientists today, don't believe in a personal God.
Both of these are very clear and easy to understand  statements even for a ten year old. Stephen Hawking was just an example I picked because he's a famous figure. Insisting on atheism being unscientific can only mean two things:
1- You are absolutely clueless about the meaning of the word scientific just like you don't even know what theory means in scientific terminology.
2- You shamelessly ignore a simple fact beyond difference of opinion and have the weird belief that the opposite will be accepted as truth if you repeat it over and over again.
And since we rule out number one because you have been told what it is many times. I conclude number two.

Oh, btw, if you watch or read Dawkins, you will see that he is a far more civil person than you are and I am an atheist who is anti-religion not anti-theist. I have no problem with people who have their own version of a deity, I have problem with people who try to impose thousands of years-old degenerated morals  on society only because they are too blind to see they are indoctrinated by dogma and then teach little children, people who are not like them will burn in hell.
Quote:
That's ok. I can't take the irrationality of the anti-theist world view seriously and their rants are nothing more than trolling.

Yes, Elodin. Turns out I was wrong, you know what words mean. Not believing in possession by demons in the 21st century is indeed irrational. How trollish of me not to believe in such indisputable facts: Anybody not Christian and having similar experiences are possessed by demons and of course, once again, that's a possibility that applies only to them and not you.

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted July 25, 2013 08:20 AM

Elodin, any link to some medical article relating this miraculous cure? Because I think it worths one and I would expect to see one in the major news.

There are no mechanisms, there are no data, only biased anecdotes from pious deluded. There aren’t any sensible examples on the books. These stories are easy to find, and they always have the same trajectory: person is diagnosed with [...insert here any illness...], they pray and pray and pray while getting the best medical treatment possible, and then if they get better, all the credit goes to the prayers. If they die, it was god's will, thats a win-win conclusion, God exists.  How convenient.

Is there a certain secret magic wiggle you have to do during the prayer for it to be effective? Or is it just that all these cures are rare fortunate chance events that the catholics take advantage of to steal credit?
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Drakon-Deus
Drakon-Deus


Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
posted July 25, 2013 09:36 AM
Edited by Drakon-Deus at 09:40, 25 Jul 2013.

I was also cured by a miracle in my infancy after my father prayed for me. Doctors said there would be no chance that I'll live. Of course you'll all just scream "coincidence, chance, whatever, it wasn't God"


I had hydrocephalus and they said I was going to die for sure in a few months or in best case beome mentally disabled, no hope. After my father prayed I was cured.
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.

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GunFred
GunFred


Supreme Hero
Sexy Manticore
posted July 25, 2013 12:07 PM

The only times I really prayed was as a child when trying to catch pokemon. I prayed that the pokeballs would stay closed and sometimes they did. After this I soon realized that Asatro must be the world truth. The fact that better balls against weaker pokemons had higher catch rates was of course irrelevant because I had already seen the light.

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NoobX
NoobX


Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
posted July 25, 2013 01:06 PM

You know, when my dad had his car accident, I prayed that he survives.
Well, he didn't, and that's when I figured that God's not real. Surely it isn't greedy to pray for someone's survival, yet my prayer has not been answered.

Up until that point I've been a Christian in mind (and soul; but that thing doesn't really exsist) and I believed in Bible and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and I believed in miracles. Now I laugh when I hear about those things.
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Ghost said:
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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted July 25, 2013 02:15 PM

Moderator Note: Artu and Elodin, if you two can't figure out how to have a polite conversation with each other on this topic, you're both going to get a warning.  The two of you are ruining this thread.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg

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Drakon-Deus
Drakon-Deus


Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
posted July 25, 2013 02:35 PM

NoobX: two of my family members, aunt and grandfather, died one after another in 2010. And everyone prayed for them. But that didn't turn me into an unbeliever, it made me believe even harder in God, Jesus, the resurrection, fate and all that.
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted July 25, 2013 05:33 PM
Edited by Elodin at 17:42, 25 Jul 2013.

Corribus said:
Moderator Note: Artu and Elodin, if you two can't figure out how to have a polite conversation with each other on this topic, you're both going to get a warning.  The two of you are ruining this thread.


Really?  I've been called a liar repeatedly and insulted in other ways. Whe I HM'm you a week or so ago I was told to grow a thick skin. Sending a HM to you is pointless because you have NEVER acted on a HM I sent to you about direct personal insults hurled my way.

Now, when I call him on lying about me and insulting me you reprimand me. Hah!

And "pios deluded" and "liar" from Sal is not  very much in line with respect either, now is it? Or Seraphim calling me a troll?

As I pointed out in the feedback thread when you allow insults to go on things start to escalate.


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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted July 25, 2013 08:05 PM

Elodin said:
My sister had a severely curved back and a short leg. A pentecostal couple laid hands on her and prayed for her and she  was instantly healed. He spine straightened, her leg grew, the pain left her, and she did not have to wear leg braces. She joined the basketball team that week and soon became the starting point guard on the varsity squad.

All anti-theists can say is "Nuh uh, nuh uh!!!! Liar, liar, liar!!!!!"  



But you allowed me to. I only skipped the "nuh uh!!!!" part, to avoid parroting you.
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NoobX
NoobX


Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
posted July 25, 2013 08:59 PM

Drakon-Deus said:
NoobX: two of my family members, aunt and grandfather, died one after another in 2010. And everyone prayed for them. But that didn't turn me into an unbeliever, it made me believe even harder in God, Jesus, the resurrection, fate and all that.

But why? I don't see it as a good reason


@Elodin, you know, "not God" doesn't actually exist. Atheist simply don't worship any deities at all.
And stop calling me all those things (I'm an atheist too).
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Drakon-Deus
Drakon-Deus


Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
posted July 25, 2013 10:20 PM

As if I wasn't lonely enough, two of my family had to die after months of being in the hospital. Nothing but despair and sadness for me and my remaining family that year.


But I knew I had to keep fighting. And my faith helped me grow and turn into the young man I am today.
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fred79
fred79


Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
posted July 26, 2013 11:29 AM

whatever doesn't kill you, dd, prepares you for the future. remember that. only the hardened will last.

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Drakon-Deus
Drakon-Deus


Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
posted July 26, 2013 12:09 PM

And I will stand and fight. I will defeat the world.
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted July 27, 2013 03:48 PM
Edited by artu at 16:50, 27 Jul 2013.

@markkur

Your comment about some Greek scriptures on HCM made me curious and led me to do some research. It turns out some Christians do believe that Jesus was speaking Greek, and not just out of historical ignorance but because they think it was "the language of culture" in Ancient Rome. This opinion of course has no value among the scholars studying the subject. My research led me to a book, which is written by an ex-Christian, now agnostic Bart D. Ehrman
The book is called Jesus, Interrupted, you can download the pdf here, it started out as a quite interesting read:
Download

Some parts that are relevant to what I already told you:

Scholars of the Bible have made significant progress in understanding the Bible over the past two hundred years, building on archaeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of the ancient
Hebrew and Greek languages in which the books of Scripture were originally written, and deep and penetrating historical, literary, and textual analyses. This is a massive scholarly endeavor. Thousands of scholars just in North America alone continue to do serious research in the field, and the results of their study are regularly and routinely taught, both to graduate students in universities and to prospective pastors attending seminaries in preparation for the ministry. Yet such views of the Bible are virtually unknown among the population at large. In no small measure this is because those of us
who spend our professional lives studying the Bible have not done a good job communicating this knowledge to the general public and because many pastors who learned this material in seminary have, for a variety of reasons, not shared it with their parishioners once they take up positions in the church. As a result, not only are most Americans (increasingly) ignorant of the contents of the Bible, but they are also almost completely in the dark about what scholars have been saying about the Bible for the past two centuries. This book is meant to help redress that problem. It could be seen as my attempt to let the cat out of the bag.
.....
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “historical-critical” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church. The devotional approach to the Bible is concerned about what the Bible has to say—especially what it has to say to me personally or to my society. What does the
Bible tell me about God? Christ? The church? My relation to the world? What does it tell me about what to believe? About how to act? About social responsibilities? How can the Bible help make me closer to God? How does it help me to live? The historical-critical approach has a different set of concerns and therefore poses a different set of questions. At the heart of this approach is the historical question (hence its name) of what the biblical writings meant in their original historical context. Who were the actual authors of the Bible? Is it possible (yes!) that some of the authors of some of the biblical books were not in fact who they claimed, or were claimed, to be—say, that Timothy was not actually written by Paul, or that Genesis was not written by Moses? When did these authors live? What were the circumstances under which they wrote? What issues were they trying to address in their own day? How were they affected by the cultural and historical assumptions
of their time? What sources did these authors use? When were these sources produced? Is it possible that the perspectives of these sources differed from one another? Is it possible that the authors who used these sources had different perspectives, both from their sources and from one another? Is it possible that the books of the Bible, based on a variety of sources, have internal contradictions? That there are irreconcilable differences among them? And is it possible that what the books originally meant in their original context is not what they are taken to mean today? That our interpretations of Scripture involve taking its words out of context and thereby distorting its message?
And what if we don’t even have the original words? What if, during the centuries in which the Bible—both the Old Testament, in Hebrew, and the New Testament, in Greek—was copied by hand,
the words were changed by well-meaning but careless scribes, or by fully alert scribes who wanted to alter the texts in order to make them say what they wanted them to say?
..........
A very large percentage of seminarians are completely blind-sided by the historical-critical method. They come in with the expectation of learning the pious truths of the Bible so that they can pass
them along in their sermons, as their own pastors have done for them. Nothing prepares them for historical criticism. To their surprise they learn, instead of material for sermons, all the results of what historical critics have established on the basis of centuries of research. The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the
first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were considered
canonical—other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary. The Exodus probably did not happen as described in the Old Testament. The conquest of the Promised Land is probably based on legend. The Gospels are at odds on numerous points and contain non-historical material.It is hard to know whether Moses ever existed and what, exactly, the historical Jesus taught. The historical narratives of the Old Testament are filled with legendary fabrications and the book of Acts in the New Testament contains historically unreliable information about the life and teachings of Paul. Many of the books of the New Testament are pseudonymous—written not by the apostles but by later writers claiming to be apostles. The list goes on. Some students accept these new views from day one. Others—especially among the more conservative students—resist for a long time, secure in their knowledge that God would not allow any falsehoods into his sacred book. But before long, as students see more and more of the evidence, many of them find that their faith in the inerrancy and absolute historical truthfulness of the Bible begins to waver. There simply is too much evidence,and to reconcile all of the hundreds of differences among the biblical sources requires so much speculation and fancy interpretive footwork that eventually it gets to be too much for them.
.......
They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don’t have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all this,and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf. For reasons I will explore in the conclusion, pastors are, as a rule, reluctant to teach what they learned about the Bible in seminary.


Also check the chapter that starts at page 139 which expands your dilemma of "liar, lunatic or lord" into "liar, lunatic, lord or legend" which was exactly my objection to you. It seems, when you take the historical perspective, it's quite an easy conclusion to arrive at.

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markkur
markkur


Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
posted July 27, 2013 05:07 PM
Edited by markkur at 17:13, 27 Jul 2013.

Artu, you need to do the Paul-reversal and start working FOR the Church, and not against it...you'd be tenaciously perfect in your New Testament assignment.

You'll have to take my word for it but there's no new debate here "for me" because I argued and debated this area a long time ago. I spent about 3 years on-line debating with a very diverse group of Christians made up of people from many walks of life that held many different views. One of those groups were the seminary students and much of this was discussed over and over and over.<L>

Whatever the real purpose of such a book I can assure you of one thing, the author wanted to make money. By coincidence, controversy also sells in the church as it does in the secular tabloids. When Dan Brown wrote his "novel of fiction" since most Christians don't take the time to know the books they claim to follow but will suck-up junk in a nano-second, that rubbish had to debunked by clerical/historical person's efforts requiring a huge amount of wasted energies and time. That sad fact is a serious subject for debate.

Fyi, if it were ever possible for me to easily address all this panorama of thought, I can't do so now; my health has worsened recently. (nasty pain is not good for posting grand plans) However, if you can talk about one thing at a time, then I'll plod along a bit.

The Gospels were written by four witnesses and ofc that means by 4 different perspectives of looking at Christ and the events that surrounded him; each account has one person recording and sharing in their own unique fashion and likely for a specific purpose. The first three contain much the same and read like a court-doc while the 4th was written much later and reads like a love-letter. I've have no problem that they are all different, I would expect them to be. Conflicts would be a natural outcome of any recorded event; since perspective is critical for "point of view."

i.e. Three people see a car-wreck but only one "sees the rabbit". The wreck was caused by a driver swerving to miss "Peter". Now according to two of the 3 witnesses the driver swerved for no reason. Using only those two, it could concluded, the driver must have been drunk, had a heart attack or brain-fart, etc. It's combining that gives the best most accurate picture/account of what happened.

If I had my way, they would all be one book; one Gospel. Since the modern method of recording an event is to gather all of the witnesses and draft one account of what happened.



Btw, I've met plenty of men that took the opposite path and came to the church from the opposition.<S> What Christ said about "seeds" is true without any preference to "position." You know that in secular life people fall-away from their passions every day and ofc the church would naturally reflect the same decisions, since the church is entirely made from the people.
 

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted July 27, 2013 05:23 PM
Edited by artu at 17:25, 27 Jul 2013.

First of all, we are not talking about a book with scandalous information or fictional stuff that was meant to be a best-seller. As the writer says, these are things that are thought to priests in their standard seminaries. And if you read the chapter I mentioned (page 139) you will see that the four witnesses are not witnesses and all their gospels were written 35 to 65 years after Jesus died. And the contradictions he documented arent the sort you mentioned.

The book is based on common scholarly knowledge and as the writer himself says many times, it does not have to convert you, there are many scholars who are accepting these historical facts and they still remain Christian. Remaining a christian and claiming the Bible have 100 percent historical authenticity is not the same thing.

Just read it before answering, it's always the better road to take.

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