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Atheists have a strong argument against Christ? Give me a break- Jesus the Christ was considered a heretic in his time.
Please supply the verifiable evidence for the existence of this 'Jesus The Christ' that you speak of. If you could do that, we could than go on to discuss he was or wasn't. I can't accept your claim that he was considered a heretic 'in his time' because nobody wrote about him 'in his time'. Nobody, other than the gospel authors, appear to have been aware of a anyone wandering around 1st century Palestine, walking on water, raising the dead, making blind men see, curing the sick, feeding thousands with little food, performing astounding miracles, the like of which the world had not seen before or since and preaching to multitudes so vast that people were trampled in their haste to hear him.
You'd have thought someone might have noticed huh? You'd have thought that such a man might have garnered a line or two in the 'The Jerusalem Daily' or 'The Roman Times'...something like 'Two people trampled as man performs amazing miracle of bringing a dead person back to life!!'
Hell, even the men that allegedly spent every day with him didn't even bother to write anything down until 30-70 years after he was dead...and then, amazingly after all that time, were able to recall every deed done and every word spoken, where they went, what they did, who said what to whom and where they said it and what they were doing at the time. LOL!
Please supply the verifiable evidence for the existence of this 'Jesus The Christ' that you speak of. If you could do that, we could than go on to discuss he was or wasn't. I can't accept your claim that he was considered a heretic 'in his time' because nobody wrote about him 'in his time'. Nobody, other than the gospel authors, appear to have been aware of a anyone wandering around 1st century Palestine, walking on water, raising the dead, making blind men see, curing the sick, feeding thousands with little food, performing astounding miracles, the like of which the world had not seen before or since and preaching to multitudes so vast that people were trampled in their haste to hear him.
You'd have thought someone might have noticed huh? You'd have thought that such a man might have garnered a line or two in the 'The Jerusalem Daily' or 'The Roman Times'...something like 'Two people trampled as man performs amazing miracle of bringing a dead person back to life!!'
Hell, even the men that allegedly spent every day with him didn't even bother to write anything down until 30-70 years after he was dead...and then, amazingly after all that time, were able to recall every deed done and every word spoken, where they went, what they did, who said what to whom and where they said it and what they were doing at the time. LOL!
You sound so much like all those atheists that always want "scientific proof" of the existence of God
People of faith accept that for those with no faith no amount of "proof" will ever be sufficient.
The early history of the Church is similar to the early history of the Native American people - there simply was no real ability to record things by writing them down!
All tribal history was ORAL - told from one generation to the next. This was a SACRED duty and obligation that each tribe took extremely seriously. There would usually be several members of the tribe whose sole job was to be able to recite the entire history of the tribe - all its stories, every victory, every defeat, every birth, every death - word for word - VERBATIM - year after year to be sure the history stayed accurate for all future generations.
The early Christians who actually walked with Jesus were much the same
They kept the story of his life and death preserved through their oral tradition until such time as it became possible to begin writing it down.
You do not choose to believe in Jesus, that is your right.
But for those of us who do believe, who do see plenty of evidence that he did come down from heaven - that he is in fact the Messiah - all your insults won't change or sway our belief.
So rather than argue over it - why not just agree to disagree?
One day we will all die - we can find out then who was right and who was wrong
I take far more pleasure in two people coming to realize that a Sortagod -belief is nothing to quarrel about (though it can be discussed rather as scientists discuss rival theories) and that they both agree that man-made religion is a crock,than in just winning a debate.
I do indeed understand you much better and maybe you understand atheist and atheism (or at least this one) a bit better, too. I look forward to more amicable discussion and moving forwards.
Another nice post Arequipa, thank you. I have re-read some of my posts on this thread and I can see how some may think I already am an atheist. I am sure you have no problem letting me voice first and foremost that I DO believe in God and his son Jesus Christ. I now feel comfortable stating that, knowing I won't get the backlash of verbal assault. I appreciate that very much Arequipa. I do NOT believe in (OR) "organized religion" at all. In fact, I believe it is a main reason so many have been turned away because of OR. Please note I am not speaking about you personally but a general "feeling I have" about what organized religion has done to society. Seriously, how in the world could a person make any sort of decision when seeking God with the "Oh you better like Catholic, or you better like Mormon, Baptist, etc, on and on, or its hell and damnation for you SINNER"
Again, thank you Arequipa, I too take pleasure in discussions here with you in a civilized way, and look forward to many more.
God lets you make your own choices in life that's why.
Just an aside on dropping by this thread ( I haven't yet read all the 25+ pages of responses ), but this always struck me more as a question from someone troubled about their own faith than from an atheist's perspective.
The existence of omnipotent beings is a very different question from whether they would be favorable towards humanity. Whether it's the dove or the Demiurge is entirely different question from whether it is, at all...
[quote=lovesMountains;29181116]You sound so much like all those atheists that always want "scientific proof" of the existence of God
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Yup: "us" individuals do indeed politely ask to see whatever evidence (a word that is sorely misunderstood by the faith-alone theist minority...) you might have that provides even a semblance of validity before we'll grant full authority to some individual that has an iffy and obviously creative and dubious existence as this Jesus-come-lately fellow does.
I mean, if we stupitt atheists falsely came along and claimed some mysterious new-age technologically advanced astro-geo-God by virtue of a few paragraphs in, say, a book on geology or astronomy, but also insisted that the individual we'd just made up could alter time, warp the universe's dimensions and also cure disease (but only in the past, where such events can no longer be verified, recorded nor validated, and therefore NEVER in the present... hmmm...) , we'd also expect you to demand suitable and believable "evidence", perhaps in the form of a street-level demonstration. With video or a live CNN/FOX streaming video feed no less! Yes? No?
People of faith accept that for those with no faith no amount of "proof" will ever be sufficient.
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Again, you are categorically wrong, frankly and easily demonstrated. You have rather unskillfully reversed this argument 180˚ in order to deflect and run. I can define exactly what sort of proof I would accept as inarguable proof of his existence, and unlike ardent theist deniers, I would not then try to back deeper into my hidey-hole as my initial demands are met.
By comparison, as atheists continue to advance rapidly down the road of excellent research methodologies, established techniques, credible statistical sampling methodologies and conservative logical conclusions, we still find that theist denialists must always dig deeper into their own private bag of deflections and evasions; essentially anything to EVER tacitly avoid admitting to even a reasonable possibility of our well-supported presentations as facts.
So sorry, lovesMounains: you fail, again, and EPICALLY.
And so it go-eth: non-stop, unsupported, evidence-free claims of total superiority and miracle-working by what was, in all probability, a Jesus faker.
Some scientists claim they have duplicated life from non-life and proven evolution to be correct.
That would be a misunderstanding of the science on your part. Evolution is not about the creation of life. It is about what life does AFTER it has formed.
Your error is similar to saying that proving some area of ballistics is a verification of the chemistry of why gun powder explodes. They are two different things.
If scientists create life from non-life... of evidence how this can occur... they would be engaged in the science of Abiogenesis not evolution.
Please supply the verifiable evidence for the existence of this 'Jesus The Christ' that you speak of.
Plenty of irreligious people indicate Jesus was real. By 115 AD we have an, unsympathetic, letter from Pliny about Christians. Before that there's some evidence of stories of Christ.
Most any ancient religious figure of working-class origin is unlikely to have the level of verifiable evidence you likely desire. That doesn't mean they didn't exist.
You sound so much like all those atheists that always want "scientific proof" of the existence of God
Well yes! If I were claiming that mermaids existed and telling you that you should also believe in them, that we should enact laws based on what I thought the mermaids wanted for us and trying to get 'mermaidology' taught to your children, you would no doubt be demanding that I produce proof that mermaids exist wouldn't you?
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People of faith accept that for those with no faith no amount of "proof" will ever be sufficient.
Faith is what people use when the evidence tells them what they don't want to be true.
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The early history of the Church is similar to the early history of the Native American people - there simply was no real ability to record things by writing them down!
There is a vast difference between the early native Americans and say, the Greeks, the Egyptians or the Romans. There was plenty of opportunity to write things down. Historians were doing it all the time with no problem whatsoever. Historians also recorded far more mundane, everyday trivia than a man who was allegedly wandering around performing such miracles that, in a time of superstition such as it was, would have had people traveling from the 'four corners of the Earth' to see such things...but strangely and unbelievably..nobody but the Bible authors appear to have noticed!
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All tribal history was ORAL - told from one generation to the next.
..and you are going to tell me that over a period of 50, 70 or a hundred years, not one word of the story was omitted, altered or changed? You are going to claim that no words were added, nothing was elaborated upon and that men in their 70's, 80's and in the case of John, a man around 110 years old could remember every single word that was spoken, who said what to whom and where everyone was at any given time?
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This was a SACRED duty and obligation that each tribe took extremely seriously. There would usually be several members of the tribe whose sole job was to be able to recite the entire history of the tribe - all its stories, every victory, every defeat, every birth, every death - word for word - VERBATIM - year after year to be sure the history stayed accurate for all future generations.
Obviously that wasn't the case with the gospel writers or their accounts of what went on would not have differed so much.
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The early Christians who actually walked with Jesus were much the same
Amazing how they managed to get their stories so different then huh?
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They kept the story of his life and death preserved through their oral tradition until such time as it became possible to begin writing it down.
Oh come off it! Writing wasn't an unknown thing in the 1st century CE. It wasn't an unknown phenomena. It wasn't considered 'witchcraft' you know? There were millions of educated people all over the planet that were writing. There were thousands of educated Romans and Jews right there in Jerusalem at the time that this Jesus was allegedly wandering around raising people from the dead and feeding multitudes with very little food. There were visiting Greeks, Persians and all manner of foreigners, traders and businessmen from all over the world. Are you seriously telling me that none of them could write or had the means to write; or if they could do those things, they all considered a man who was walking on water and bring dead people back to life just wasn't important enough to mention????
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But for those of us who do believe, who do see plenty of evidence that he did come down from heaven
What you see is not evidence, well at least not what verifiable evidence..and that is the only sort that has any value.
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- that he is in fact the Messiah -
He wasn't the Jewish Messiah because he did not fulfill one single Messianic prophecy.
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all your insults won't change or sway our belief.
Insults?? Where are the insults. What is it about Christians that anything spoken against their beliefs is seen as an 'insult' yet they will happily tell a Muslim or a Hindu that the god THEY worship is false?
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So rather than argue over it - why not just agree to disagree?
...because this is a discussion forum and it's sole purpose is for people to discuss their differences. If you consider such activity to be "insulting", it might be advisable to either not to participate or possibly restrict yourself to the 'Christianity' forum. Just sayin'!
No offense rifleman, but my comments were for Rafius, not you.
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, but it's not really important, no reason to explain.
