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Originally Posted by ZaraZoteBuccaneer
For the same reason you see everyone jumping on the bandwagon believing in a pre-trib rapture.
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I think that proves only that people are weak and have severe difficulty facing Truth, whatever that Truth might be.
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Originally Posted by ZaraZoteBuccaneer
The church today has lost the meaning of several things. They are losing the understanding of context of texts, what was going on at the time something was written, even discipleship is not really being preacticed as it should be. The church is weak and is not mature as a whole
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I'm an atheist and glad you admitted that since I agree wholly, but my question is what are you (christians in general) doing about it?
Apparently nothing.
The reason the US is in the economic mess it is now is because Christianity in the US is total and complete failure, precisely because it failed or refused to preach the teachings of your Jesus-thing. Just as Marx predicted and stated, it became nothing more than a mouthpiece for the government and an opiate for the people.
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Originally Posted by ZaraZoteBuccaneer
- the best thing is has going for it is attracting new believers and fulfilling the immediate needs of those new believers.
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Exactly, and it does that through the most disingenuous methods.
Matthew 19:9 Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.â€
Luke 18:18 Now a certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?†18:19 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 18:20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’†18:21 The man replied, “I have wholeheartedly obeyed all these laws since my youth.†18:22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.â€
Those are the teachings of Jesus, and he states in no uncertain terms that if you want eternal life, then you must follow the Commandments, except that adulterers cannot stomach the thought of not having eternal life, so it is falsely taught that you can commit adultery (and murder) as many times as you so desire, and all you need to do for eternal life is just ask for forgiveness.
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Originally Posted by NMyTree
I still believe that there's a much higher likelyhood that we are all decendants of one or two humanoid (and in some cases, not so humanoid) alien species , who came to earth many hundreds of thousands of years ago.
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I have looked at this issue for years (literally more than two decades) and have come to the same conclusion.
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Originally Posted by NMyTree
I think and have thought since I was a teenager, that, what was perceived as "Gods" all those thousands of years ago: was alien vistors and/or alien settlers who came to earth (for what ever reason) and mixed DNA with other humanoids from earth and other different humanoid alien species.
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That is quite likely, but I would dispute that they were viewed as "gods" at least not initially.
Many of the texts I have read in the J
ournal of Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Journal of Assyriology etc, make it crystal clear that they did not view them as gods. They did use the appellation "lords" but that is merely a title of respect, no different than Lord Byron or Lord Mountbatten.
It's unfortunate, but important, to understand that nearly all archaeology and anthropology is prejudicially colored through the eyes of christians.
As an analogy, you and I know that Lord Byron and Lord Mountbatten are mortal men and not gods, but 3,000 years from now christians would look at our artifacts and wrongly conclude that we believed them to be gods.
The Sumerians clearly state that these beings who taught them everything were not gods, rather they were different beings who were mortal, able to die (and did die) and had no special powers, other than what you might logically conclude. Just as we on the Moon can hit a golf ball two miles because of the difference in gravity, someone from another Planet coming to Earth would be able to hit a golf ball 2 miles as well (assuming gravity on that Planet was stronger than on Earth).
It was only later that the Akkadians, Amorites (Babylonians), Assyrians and Chaldeans (Neo-Babylonians) came to believe they were gods, but that was only because they had no contact with them and did not fully understand the texts they were reading, and of course, knowledge, thoughts and beliefs are often corrupted during transmission.
People still hang Mistletoe and put out Yule Logs although they usually don't have the slightest clue why, because the ritual behind the traditions have been lost or corrupted (and that has been just in the last 200 years with all the means of communication that we have).
You see the same thing in the Old Testament. Reading one tablet from the Seven Tablets of Creation each day over the New Year (Spring Equinox) was ultimately corrupted into "the Earth was created in 6 days." Note that the original Seven Tablets of Creation the are 6 tablets about how the Solar System was formed and the seventh tablet extolled the virtues of the Planets and the aliens who taught the knowledge.
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Originally Posted by NMyTree
I remember expressing these ideas to other people when I was a teenager and people thought I was looney.
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It's easier to be ignorant that to be educated.
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Originally Posted by albion
In Enoch 7:2 the nephilim are described as being 300 cubits tall, or 450,' that would translate to 600' using Jewish cubit measurements.
I would think that anyone bearing nephilim DNA would certainly stand out, it's fiction, pure fiction.
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That proves nothing, other than information can be corrupted. You don't know for a fact that the original text used "cubits" as a measurement. It is possible it used another system of measurement, and the person copying the text was unfamiliar with that unit of measurement or simply assumed it equated to "cubits" when in fact it did not.