Re: An Easter question for Christians

[curiosityandthecat]

Godschild, if we had been around then, we would've seen lots of "prophets" doing lots of "miracles" all over the place. Ever seen a street magician? I rest my case.

Also, lrn2punctuate.

[Godschild]

Yes I have and I've seen their tricks,I've never seen one raise the dead,heal limbs deformed from birth,brought sight to the blind and I'm pretty sure none have ever allowed thereselves to be tortured to death and then raise thereselves to life"eternal".

                                                               Love to all in Christ Jesus

[Hollownucleus]

Yes I have and I've seen their tricks,I've never seen one raise the dead,heal limbs deformed from birth,brought sight to the blind and I'm pretty sure none have ever allowed thereselves to be tortured to death and then raise thereselves to life"eternal".

                                                               Love to all in Christ Jesus

Your points seem contradictory to me. On one hand you say you would also doubt Jesus along with Thomas because you still fear death while on the other you imply that he is far removed from the title of mere street illusionist and is indeed the Lord of lords.

Either you think the guy has the right stuff and die for him or you think he is a quack/con-man/actor and get the hell outta there.

The point of this thread is that if one who witnessed the "awesome" power of Christ firsthand could doubt him then how can Jesus/God expect everyone else to believe in him without also showing himself to us and allowing us to stick our fingers in his holes.

[SSY]

Yes I have and I've seen their tricks,I've never seen one raise the dead,heal limbs deformed from birth,brought sight to the blind and I'm pretty sure none have ever allowed thereselves to be tortured to death and then raise thereselves to life"eternal".

                                                               Love to all in Christ Jesus

You have never seen anyone raise themselves from the dead, heal deformed limbs, brought sight to the blind or allow themselves to be tortured either, magician or not.

[Prometheus]

My wife is still a Christian and hasn't taken my de-conversion very well, so I do everything I can to be non-confrontational. She asked me to come to church on Easter Sunday, and I agreed on the condition that afterward, I could ask her one question without her breaking into tears. This is a big deal since she cries a lot, and then it's absolutely useless to try to carry on any meaningful discussion, so the end result is that we almost never talk about the subject at all.

Dude, I agree with your arguement about blind faith completely but i have some questions. Seeing that your wife's beliefs are so important to you(As far as I can tell you think it is unacceptable for her to remain a christian.) why did you marry her? If it meant that much to you maybe you shouldn't have married the poor girl or you could have at least leveled with her about your intentions to convert her. I experienced a similar scenario with my fiance but i handled it much differently. She was a christian who never really thought about the possibility of her god being a social delusion. I told her before we started dating that I was agnostic and would never marry/have kids with a christian(Think about it. Would you want your children being brainwashed by their own mother? Especially in our culture(I'm from tennessee. Ouch right?), I would have been percieved as a bad guy by most of my community just for offering them a second point of view.). We both have genious level IQ's(Starting my paragraph with the word "dude" doesn't help my case much ).

Back to the actual topic of this thread. You guys still expect christians to be rational? They worship a giant invisable guy who lives in the sky  Come on! lol Their arguement has always been that they have a combination of faith and intuition that god is real.(They "feel" god. I actually think this feeling(I've felt it and reject it) is an evolutionary adaptation which has allowed a sort of group euphoria and cohesion. The perk of having such a trait is unity. The ability to share your imaginary friend/social delusion with others and then go out and kill people over him(What fun!). Ever wonder how Christian culture(And other religious cultures. Don't mean to just pick on the one.) managed to displace/assimilate so many rival cultures? And to top it off they manage to rationalize it all by saying they're doing us a favor(Hate to see how they treat their real enemies) rofl.) Any attempt to prove anything borders on blashemy to them(They base their beliefs on millenia old texts which were second hand information centuries before they were actually written down. They have an awful lot of trust in their publishers lol(Anyone know what I'm getting at? The roman church/state supposedly edited the bible to suit their needs. Seems to me like they jumped off a burning "Jew ship" and shifted seemlessly into another convenient pile of dogma which would help them maintain their power and wealth. Funny but I'm on jesus's side. A lot of what he was doing was to free people from an oppressive aristocrasy which was using their religion as a sort of metaphysical shackle.).) And there's really no way to "meet" them in debate they just seem to reject reality/reason on principle. If you've found some way of reasoning with such creatures I could really use your help down here in tennesse man.

[Godschild]

SSY my point exactly no one of this era has seen anyone do those things,so without the evidence how is it you can discredit Jesus your always wanting evidence from christians when we disagree with you about evolution,if you want to disagree thats fine,but to reduce Jesus to a mere man bring the evidence and remember there is more than enough evidence that Jesus lived among mankind.

[joeactor]

SSY my point exactly no one of this era has seen anyone do those things,so without the evidence how is it you can discredit Jesus your always wanting evidence from christians when we disagree with you about evolution,if you want to disagree thats fine,but to reduce Jesus to a mere man bring the evidence and remember there is more than enough evidence that Jesus lived among mankind.

Actually, you're making SSY's point for him.

The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.
You claim that Jesus existed and performed these miracles.
Outside of the biblical texts, there is very little evidence of this.

In fact, there's very little evidence that Jesus existed at all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

So, what real proof can you provide outside of your own religion's writings?

That is the question...

[Godschild]

Hollownucleus no contradiction all the disciples fled and hid to save there lives,but once they saw they believed and then after His ascension they recieved the Holy Spirit and from that day forward they were willing to die for Him and they did, most very cruel deaths.Since we have past history to observe we can learn more about ourselves as long as we are true to ourseleves.No one wants to suffer especially to justifiy a story that we do not believe in,even Jesus ask His Father to release Him from this suffering if it were possible and then He told His father your will be done because He believed in His Fathers wisdom.

                                                                   Love to all in Christ Jesus

[Godschild]

JoeActor there is far less evidence of many of the evolutionary theories people ascribe to and that seems to be OK. Actually the reliability of the New Testament is well documented,we can get into that if you want but it will be a great wall of text or you can read some of it that Man of God wrote in the religious section titled Contradictions in the Bible,by perspective.Why should I have to go outside of the Bible when evolutionist do not have to go outside of their papers.To stray from the Bible just a bit there are secular writers that have written about Jesus.

                                                                                  Love to all in Christ Jesus

[curiosityandthecat]

Evolutionists, I love it.

Are people who think Gmail is a superior emailing method Gmailists?  

[BuckeyeInNC]

Yes I have and I've seen their tricks,I've never seen one raise the dead,heal limbs deformed from birth,brought sight to the blind and I'm pretty sure none have ever allowed thereselves to be tortured to death and then raise thereselves to life"eternal".

                                                               Love to all in Christ Jesus

If you are older than 10 year old, please use punctuation.  It makes it difficult to read what you are trying to write.

No one saw Jesus do these either.  The Gospel books are highly suspect.  They were not written by eyewitnesses, but by those who were competing amongst multiple sects.  Not only are they internally and externally inconsistent, but they import legends and myths from multiple other sources in an attempt to gain "credibility" amongst the sheeple.  He who had the most miracles in their books win! lol  If you are basing your belief system upon the fairytales of the New Testament.  I truly feel sorry for you.  You are exhibiting the traits of an unthinking sheep.

The fact is that Constantine was facing the collapse of the Roman Empire and USED religion in order to establish a heirarchy by which he could dominate and control his people.  In so doing, he selected the least threatening religious figure in Jesus because Jesus taught pacifism (e.g., "render unto Caesar") and carefully selected religious texts which were not "too" crazy or radical in order to gain acceptance, then MANDATED that all other texts were heretical, and persecuted those who were not agnostic followers of Jesus.  The gnostic followers of Jesus were the greatest threat as those texts and that sect taught them to find the truth (god) within themselves rather than have it dictated to them.  Can't have such "freethinkers" around as they would rabble rouse against the dictator.

The bible was a tool for political domination.  Nothing more, nothing less.  To base a belief and have faith in such nonsense as the myths and legends found within the bible is ridiculous

Heck, even Thomas Jefferson recognized this and rewrote the bible to remove the laughably ridiculous miracles out and left in only the pacifistic teachings of Jesus.

[BuckeyeInNC]

JoeActor there is far less evidence of many of the evolutionary theories people ascribe to and that seems to be OK. Actually the reliability of the New Testament is well documented,we can get into that if you want but it will be a great wall of text or you can read some of it that Man of God wrote in the religious section titled Contradictions in the Bible,by perspective.Why should I have to go outside of the Bible when evolutionist do not have to go outside of their papers.To stray from the Bible just a bit there are secular writers that have written about Jesus.

                                                                                  Love to all in Christ Jesus

What is your point about the theory of evolution? Are you arguing that there is far less evidence of evolution than in the reliability of the New Testament?  If so, how can you support that statement?

Why should you have to go outside of the bible?  C'mon, you can't be serious!?!  With that feeble standard, anything you pick up to read cannot be challenged.  You could run around holding up copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey and claim that the mythological gods and monsters within that book are valid . . . .  Think about what you are saying . . .

Evolutionists do not have to go outside of their papers!?!  That is completely false.  The scientists who write papers testing the theory of evolution do so with evidence that is found OUTSIDE OF THEIR PAPERS. . . .

Lastly, please provide evidence of secular writers that wrote about Jesus supporting the theory that Jesus was a god, without basing their writings upon the gospel texts.  The issue is NOT whether Jesus the man existed.  That is completely irrelevant.  The issue is whether Jesus was a god.

[Prometheus]

The fact is that Constantine was facing the collapse of the Roman Empire and USED religion in order to establish a heirarchy by which he could dominate and control his people. In so doing, he selected the least threatening religious figure in Jesus because Jesus taught pacifism (e.g., "render unto Caesar") and carefully selected religious texts which were not "too" crazy or radical in order to gain acceptance, then MANDATED that all other texts were heretical, and persecuted those who were not agnostic followers of Jesus. The gnostic followers of Jesus were the greatest threat as those texts and that sect taught them to find the truth (god) within themselves rather than have it dictated to them. Can't have such "freethinkers" around as they would rabble rouse against the dictator.

The bible was a tool for political domination. Nothing more, nothing less. To base a belief and have faith in such nonsense as the myths and legends found within the bible is ridiculous

Exactly. It was also a very safe bet for him to do this centuries afetr jesus was dead. The whole reason jesus got crucified was becuase he was upsetting the balance of power and posed a potential threat as a revolutionist of sorts.

What is your point about the theory of evolution? Are you arguing that there is far less evidence of evolution than in the reliability of the New Testament? If so, how can you support that statement?

Why should you have to go outside of the bible? C'mon, you can't be serious!?! With that feeble standard, anything you pick up to read cannot be challenged. You could run around holding up copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey and claim that the mythological gods and monsters within that book are valid . . . . Think about what you are saying . . .

Good arguement dude.

[Enoch Root]

Seeing that your wife's beliefs are so important to you(As far as I can tell you think it is unacceptable for her to remain a christian.) why did you marry her? If it meant that much to you maybe you shouldn't have married the poor girl or you could have at least leveled with her about your intentions to convert her.

You misunderstand.  First, we were both Christians when we married.  I have recently "seen the light" (or rather, that there is no light).  Second, I in no way think it's unacceptable for her to remain a Christian.  I do not try to de-convert or argue with her at all.  I think it's a personal decision.  Also, the church we attended (that she still attends) is not the crazy type that tends to make headlines around here.  They don't protest against gays or tell you how to vote, so it's not like I'm married to a member of the Taliban.  Third, while she may not like my de-conversion, it will not end our marriage.  I am quite confident about that.

I told her before we started dating that I was agnostic and would never marry/have kids with a christian(Think about it. Would you want your children being brainwashed by their own mother?)

We don't have kids yet but are talking about it.  I've made it clear to her that I won't stop her from bringing them to Sunday School, but I also won't lie to my children when they ask what I believe, or why daddy doesn't come to church with us.

Sorry, I tend to rant but my point is that if you really wanted a nonchristian wife, the time for persuassion was sometime before you ritualistically bound yourself to her forever. Seems like you've really screwed the pooch dude.

I think I did pretty well actually.  Christian or not she's still a keeper.

[Kylyssa]

Evolutionists, I love it.

Are people who think Gmail is a superior emailing method Gmailists?  

I direct your attention to Evolutionist and other silly words...