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You chose to quote Paul, who is writing letters to one Christian sect that existed at the time.
You can go ahead and quote Jesus, at least that would comport more with Christian faith. Faith is not facts, and I would gladly change my mind if anyone could provide the extraordinary evidence that the extraordinary claim of a Jesus that did all those phantasmagorical things claimed.
You chose to quote Paul, who is writing letters to one Christian sect that existed at the time.
Very creative and clever spin there. He's writing the letters to different churches. And it's amazing how all his letters to all the churches are in agreement, and they agree with the other letters from other apostles, and Jesus.
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You can go ahead and quote Jesus, at least that would comport more with Christian faith. Faith is not facts, and I would gladly change my mind if anyone could provide the extraordinary evidence that the extraordinary claim of a Jesus that did all those phantasmagorical things claimed.
Maybe you would be that person?
I asked because I'm just curious. You know we don't have any letters or books that Jesus wrote, right? So if we were to quote from a Gospel...why would we believe that his words as recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John are any more likely to be God's Word than any other author?
You chose to quote Paul, who is writing letters to one Christian sect that existed at the time.
You can go ahead and quote Jesus, at least that would comport more with Christian faith. Faith is not facts, and I would gladly change my mind if anyone could provide the extraordinary evidence that the extraordinary claim of a Jesus that did all those phantasmagorical things claimed.
Maybe you would be that person?
The claim that we originated from a random pile of goop is pretty extraordinary. Where is the extraordinary evidence for that? OTOH, our need to love and receive love says a lot about the truth in Christianity.
You call it nonsense without a single shred of evidence. Typical of your ilk. How do you as fact that his faith healing is a fraud? You don't. Futhermore, I've watched youtube videos of his healing seminars. Unless you have prove that the people receiving amazing healing are paid actors, you can't say it's not real.
My evidence that it is a nonsense and a fraud? He can't show proof of any of it. He claims he has seen terminal illnesses healed, cancers, and seen multiple people be brought back from the dead, yet has no proof of such claims. Also, if this were the case, why isn't he helping people heal every single day? Seems like a wasted opportunity to help people, doesn't it? But please, do bring some evidence of these supposed healings to the table, and we can certainly talk about the veracity of the claims.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Typical condescending garbage from you. I guess expecting you to not post this way is like expecting a sewer pit to produce clean water every now and then. My argument is perfectly valid. If you behave different than everyone else in society, don't expect your demands to be serviced (excluding essential needs and services which should never be denied) It would be like someone coming in with a pile of dirt and saying they want to marry dirt. Service me. Umm no. IF a preacher refuses to do that, he is not treating someone as a 2nd class citizen. Your need to compare to the civil rights era just shows how flimsy and hollow your argument is.
Aww, now I'm like a sewer pit. How sweet, Jeffery!
Your example above, once again, make no sense. Your argument amounts to "they have the same rights, just not equal rights". You know, the same type of things the people like you said back during the "separate but equal days". Also, trying to marry an inanimate object is not even remotely close to marrying someone you love. Again, why do you go to these nonsensical and ignorant comparisons? It's like saying, "The baker turning away the gay couple is the same as the baker turning away a rock and a shoe". It doesn't make sense Jeff. Especially considering at least one of these bakers made a cake for a couple of dogs who "got married".... They literally think more of dogs than gay people.
And you bring up a preacher, which I am not sure has any bearing on the conversation at all, since no one is asking for preachers to have to service gay weddings, are they?
You chose to quote Paul, who is writing letters to one Christian sect that existed at the time.
You can go ahead and quote Jesus, at least that would comport more with Christian faith. Faith is not facts, and I would gladly change my mind if anyone could provide the extraordinary evidence that the extraordinary claim of a Jesus that did all those phantasmagorical things claimed.
Maybe you would be that person?
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Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
Very creative and clever spin there. He's writing the letters to different churches. And it's amazing how all his letters to all the churches are in agreement, and they agree with the other letters from other apostles, and Jesus.
Which other apostles? Paul is the only NT writer we know actually existed. Any of the others, who are ascribed as Mark, Luke, Mattew and John (not exactly Middle Eastern names of the time), are authors whose real identity is unknown. Christian Biblical scholars almost universally subscribe to this.
We also know, and you should also, that the Gospels were written well AFTER Paul's letters, and used them as reference. Even Paul's epistles were written well after the supposed fact of the Jesus incidents, and of course, he had no direct knowledge of the events, as he was not around then.
Not even all of the letters are viewed as authentic. Only name – Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon – are almost universally accepted as being entirely authentic. Acts was quite likely written by whoever wrote Luke. You should know this, and if not, why not?
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I asked because I'm just curious. You know we don't have any letters or books that Jesus wrote, right? So if we were to quote from a Gospel...why would we believe that his words as recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John are any more likely to be God's Word than any other author?
Do you now find it curious that Jesus didn't write anything? After all, if a religion is to be spread, the prime protagonist should be heavily involved in communicating that faith. In a common language? I mean, if Mohammed, Joesph Smith, Ellen White and L.Ron Hubbard could do this, why couldn't Jesus?
The claim that we originated from a random pile of goop is pretty extraordinary. Where is the extraordinary evidence for that? OTOH, our need to love and receive love says a lot about the truth in Christianity.
Why are you confusing evolution and religion, and I presume, creation
Creation addresses HOW life started. Evolution doesn't. It only addresses speciation.
My evidence that it is a nonsense and a fraud? He can't show proof of any of it. He claims he has seen terminal illnesses healed, cancers, and seen multiple people be brought back from the dead, yet has no proof of such claims. Also, if this were the case, why isn't he helping people heal every single day? Seems like a wasted opportunity to help people, doesn't it? But please, do bring some evidence of these supposed healings to the table, and we can certainly talk about the veracity of the claims.
Well how would you prove such things to your satisfaction? You can't unless you witness it in person. His website has a treasure trove of healing testimonies backed up with documentation from doctors, lab results, tests, xrays etc. but that is still not good enough for people like you. NOTHING is because u won't accept anything that challenges your fantasy world.
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Originally Posted by ImissThe90's
Aww, now I'm like a sewer pit. How sweet, Jeffery!
Take it however you want, but I'm talking about the disgusting nature of your posts.
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Originally Posted by ImissThe90's
Your example above, once again, make no sense. Your argument amounts to "they have the same rights, just not equal rights". You know, the same type of things the people like you said back during the "separate but equal days". Also, trying to marry an inanimate object is not even remotely close to marrying someone you love. Again, why do you go to these nonsensical and ignorant comparisons? It's like saying, "The baker turning away the gay couple is the same as the baker turning away a rock and a shoe". It doesn't make sense Jeff. Especially considering at least one of these bakers made a cake for a couple of dogs who "got married".... They literally think more of dogs than gay people.
The comparison is perfectly valid when you look at the principle being forcing someone to engage in a ceremony that they feel is unnatural or out of the norm. If you behave out of the norm then you have separated yourself. It has NOTHING to do with treating someone as a 2nd class citizen. I don't know all the facts about them marrying dogs, but I would suspect they saw it as just some joke thing not to be taking seriously.
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Originally Posted by ImissThe90's
And you bring up a preacher, which I am not sure has any bearing on the conversation at all, since no one is asking for preachers to have to service gay weddings, are they?
Yet the principle is the same. If he refused to marriage, wouldn't you say he is treating them as a 2nd class citizen? If not, then how is he different from the businesses?
Which other apostles? Paul is the only NT writer we know actually existed. Any of the others, who are ascribed as Mark, Luke, Mattew and John (not exactly Middle Eastern names of the time), are authors whose real identity is unknown. Christian Biblical scholars almost universally subscribe to this.
One has to make some leaps of faith to assume that Peter, James, John, and Jude didn't exist. There is no reason to believe they didn't.
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We also know, and you should also, that the Gospels were written well AFTER Paul's letters, and used them as reference. Even Paul's epistles were written well after the supposed fact of the Jesus incidents, and of course, he had no direct knowledge of the events, as he was not around then.
Yes. They were written after. Probably 20-30 years after Christ. It makes sense that the apostles would likely want to write it down when they figured out Jesus wasn't coming back before they died. Of course, they were eyewitnesses (except probably Luke), so they walked and talked with him.
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Not even all of the letters are viewed as authentic. Only name – Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon – are almost universally accepted as being entirely authentic. Acts was quite likely written by whoever wrote Luke. You should know this, and if not, why not?
That's a bit of a stretch. Yes, I've heard the idea of pseudopygraphal letters, but I see no reason to believe that they were written by the men whose names they bear. And yes--Luke wrote Acts and Luke.
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Do you now find it curious that Jesus didn't write anything? After all, if a religion is to be spread, the prime protagonist should be heavily involved in communicating that faith. In a common language? I mean, if Mohammed, Joesph Smith, Ellen White and L.Ron Hubbard could do this, why couldn't Jesus?
Think about that for a moment.
Think about it. There are enough "relics" of the cross to build a bridge the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. One could probably find a matched set of the nails used to hang Jesus to the cross, and a vendor that had boxes of those matched sets.
If any letters that Jesus actually wrote still existed, you don't believe they'd be worshiped? That's what human beings do. Give us a concrete object that can be linked to God in a physical way, and it's worshiped. It was good that Jesus didn't write anything. Instead, God spoke through others, and we have 66 books in a collection.
That's a bit of a stretch. Yes, I've heard the idea of pseudopygraphal letters, but I see no reason to believe that they were written by the men whose names they bear. And yes--Luke wrote Acts and Luke.
<snipped>.
That's where it comes in handy to do a real Bible study using outsides sources in conjunction with the Bible in instead of just memorizing verses without real context. There's really nothing to fear about doing this. It can't hurt your faith if it is strong, and you will really be gaining some truly in-depth knowledge.
In the EFM course I took through a neighboring church, the second year was a study of the New Testament using this book (although this looks like an updated edition).
The letters thought to be pseudographical (although there is not 100% agreement on any of them) are categorized that way because of style of writing, word choices, obvious cultural influences, etc. It's not that different from how mods on an Internet forum often identify trolls, lol. (We've got one who reappears here time and again, and I just wait because I know sooner or later she'll misspell a word as she always does and use another word that others rarely employ.)
It doesn't mean that you might not still find value in the words of, say, 2 Thessalonians even if you become convinced yourself that Paul didn't write it. But again, there is really nothing to fear by really and truly studying the Bible with an objective and open-minded point of view.
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