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#151: Gospel authors put words in Jesus’ mouth to sell fear to the masses
Quote:
The natural fear of death was not sufficient to sell Christianity to the masses so something even worse had to be devised--the idea of a post-life punishment. And not just a place where you are flogged for awhile, but where it goes on forever. It is quite unlikely that Jesus ever talked about Hell. He was a student of the Old Testament, which lacks any vision of Hell as described in the Gospels. If he really said all of those thing about Hell he would have been shunned and quartered as an apostate. So, what happened? It is likely that the during first few decades after Jesus died, recruitment of new Christians was a difficult proposition. After all, Jesus had died and the world was completely unchanged. Jesus had not fulfilled what he had promised- an earthly kingdom of the Jews with him as the King. So something was needed to corral people into the new belief system. The authors of the Gospels hit on the fact that the fear of being punished in the afterlife was an even stronger motivator than a promise of Heaven. So, 45 times in the Gospels, they ‘made’ Jesus threaten non-believers with the horrors of this new place, called Hell.
The people of this time were very superstitious and it didn’t take much persuasion for them to accept the reality of Hell, as well as the offerings of the new religion as the only means to avoid it.
I've been saying this for the last year before I stumbled onto this article. I didn't need to read this fact elsewhere to know it was the truth.
If you read even the first page of 200 reasons you will come away convinced today's Christianity is a totally false religion and should be done away with.
Some parts may advocate atheism which I do not support. I am not atheist. I just maintain Christianity as it has been constructed over the millennia by evil churchmen should be seriously reformed to stop the hemorrhaging of Christians filled with disgust over its policies from shunning belief in God altogether. A good start would be using the Thomas Jefferson Bible.
Some parts may advocate atheism which I do not support. I am not atheist. I just maintain Christianity as it has been constructed over the millennia by evil churchmen should be seriously reformed to stop the hemorrhaging of Christians filled with disgust over its policies from shunning belief in God altogether. A good start would be using the Thomas Jefferson Bible.
Just curious, Thrill: What reforms in doctrine would you personally need to see before you considered Christianity no longer false, or is that even a possibility?
There is really only one reason... you don't know God personally.
Everything else is just making yourselves believe you know what you are talking about.
(The "you" is general - not specific to you personally)
DRob, can you explain what it means to you to "know God personally"? I'm not asking what you think you know about God, but what that phrase actually means to you and how you experience it?
As Christopher Hitchens puts it: “One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge.”
#151: Gospel authors put words in Jesus’ mouth to sell fear to the masses
I've been saying this for the last year before I stumbled onto this article. I didn't need to read this fact elsewhere to know it was the truth.
If you read even the first page of 200 reasons you will come away convinced today's Christianity is a totally false religion and should be done away with.
Some parts may advocate atheism which I do not support. I am not atheist. I just maintain Christianity as it has been constructed over the millennia by evil churchmen should be seriously reformed to stop the hemorrhaging of Christians filled with disgust over its policies from shunning belief in God altogether. A good start would be using the Thomas Jefferson Bible.
DRob, can you explain what it means to you to "know God personally"? I'm not asking what you think you know about God, but what that phrase actually means to you and how you experience it?
How to explain this in 100 words or less...
Gospel of John... Jesus is about to leave the earth. He is talking with His disciples and giving them some final words.
John 14:18-20 - "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 "After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 "In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
John 14:28 - "You heard that I said to you, `I go away, and I will come to you.'
John 15:26 - "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,
John 16:13-15 - "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 "He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 "All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
From the these verses, Jesus is telling the disciples, He will send them the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will communicate to them the words of God, or Christ from heaven. Jesus will be with them through the presence of the Holy Spirit. That's the personal relationship that the disciples had with God and Jesus Christ after He went to heaven.
The same is the case for anyone today who possesses the Holy Spirit.
John 17:20-23 - "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; 21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
How do I experience that relationship? It's like most other relationships in that when you spend the time building the relationship, you get closer to Him... you understand His perspective... you know His likes and dislikes. It does not mean I get everything I want - because His goals for me are different than what I want to happen.
I was out of work from May to September. We ran through money that we have saved - but before we got to the point of deficit spending and creating a bunch of debt, I got a job. God gives us tests to test our faith because to Him, faith is more precious than gold.
There is really only one reason... you don't know God personally.
No one does. To know someone personally, you need to meet them. No one has ever had that experience. Many think they do but they can never provide any factual evidence. All they can say is you need to believe or have faith.
People believe in Bigfoot, crop circles and a number of other myths that have been debunked, yet they still believe. The human mind is capable of believing anything it is conditioned to believe.
If you were born in the Middle East, you'd probably believe in Islam. If in the Far East you may believe in Buddha or Lao Tzu. If in the Amazon jungle, you may believe that airplane that flew overhead was a god.
How do I experience that relationship? It's like most other relationships in that when you spend the time building the relationship, you get closer to Him... you understand His perspective... you know His likes and dislikes. It does not mean I get everything I want - because His goals for me are different than what I want to happen.
How do you see the "fruit of the spirit" showing up in that scenario?
How do you see the "fruit of the spirit" showing up in that scenario?
How is fruit produced? It doesn't do anything - it is produced naturally from abiding in the tree.
You purposely spent time with God, the fruit will naturally occur over time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tujuleez1
No one does. To know someone personally, you need to meet them. No one has ever had that experience.
That's simply incorrect.
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Reasons Christianity is False
