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Christianity is the world's largest religion with over 2 billion (that's two thousand million) followers, so I'd say it's grown to be a pretty big snowball..
As for the Jewish priests and Romans, it went like this-
PILATE - "I find Jesus not guilty"
PRIESTS - "Whoa bub, he said he was a King so that makes him guilty of treason against your Caesar who's the only true king. If you let a traitor off it'll look bad on your military record and you'll end up sweeping out the latrines in the Colosseum"..
PILATE - "Hmm yes, okay I'd better sign the death warrant to cover my ass"
Luke ch 23- 22 And Pilate said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. 23 And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. 24 And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.
But isn't it interesting that the historians of the day (Philo and Josephus especially) paint a vastly different picture of Pontius Pilate than is shown in the Gospels? The historians show a man who was ruthless, harsh and did not tolerate any form of sedition. The historians also show a man who apparently had little or no regard for Jewish sensitivities.
Odd that a man who once had soldiers hidden in a crowd of Jews while addressing them concerning their grievances; and, after giving a signal had those soldiers randomly attack, beat, and kill scores of Jews to silence their petitions would be the same man to cower before a crowd of Jews over the fate of a rabble-rousing rabbi from Galilee. I find that doubtful.
..Odd that a man who once had soldiers hidden in a crowd of Jews while addressing them concerning their grievances; and, after giving a signal had those soldiers randomly attack, beat, and kill scores of Jews to silence their petitions would be the same man to cower before a crowd of Jews over the fate of a rabble-rousing rabbi from Galilee. I find that doubtful. ..
Remind us of the chapter/verse in which that incident occurs mate, i can't seem to find it..
Anyway, no doubt Pilate's troops had to crack a few jewish citizens heads now and again, but he went into 'diplomatic mode' and trod very carefully when it came to dealing with the snooty priests which is why he kept them sweet by giving in to their wishes to execute Jesus, and covering his ass at the same time.
Christianity is the world's largest religion with over 2 billion (that's two thousand million) followers, so I'd say it's grown to be a pretty big snowball..
Sort of, but who am I to judge?..
In my opinion they waste far too much time praying to human Mary and to human 'saints' instead of directly to God and Jesus, so in that respect it's only a whisker away from spiritism as the Bible is crystal clear that talking to dead humans is a big no-no.
Jesus said:- "Ask anything in my name and I will do it" (John 14:14)
Sort of, but who am I to judge?..
In my opinion they waste far too much time praying to human Mary and to human 'saints' instead of directly to God and Jesus, so in that respect it's only a whisker away from spiritism as the Bible is crystal clear that talking to dead humans is a big no-no.
Jesus said:- "Ask anything in my name and I will do it" (John 14:14)
I ask because many Christians seem to believe they are not. However if you remove them from the world count of Christians that reduces the the number of Christians to less than 1 billion, making Christianity the 3rd largest denomination. Islam first with 1.5 billion, Catholics second with 1.25 Billion and Christians 3rd with about .75 billion.
To me, it's highly unlikely that one third of the world's population today would embrace the teachings of someone who didn't even exist.
So what you are saying is that the two thirds of the world that believe in other gods is evidence that their gods did exist huh? Don't forget man....Christians are a minority in the world when it comes to god belief. Two billion Christians compared to 4 billion other beliefs.
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I'm not saying that that this is any proof that He was who He claimed to be. I'm just saying that it seems to me that it would be pretty hard for a religion to grow to the size of Christianity if the person it was built around never even existed.
There was a time when huge numbers of people believed in Zeus or Mithra. Your logic says that they those 'gods' existed too.
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Sure, today many people are just Christian-by-birth, but during the first hundred years after Christ's death, the number of believers would have to have increased pretty dramatically in order for the religion to even survive.
On the contrary....after the alleged death of the man god, 'Christianity' as was, broke up into various warring sects that took every opportunity to cut each others throat.
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The people who became Christians back in the first century would have very likely known that He existed.
The people who became Christians back in the first century would have very likely believed that He existed.
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Originally Posted by Waymarker
Jesus's credentials for his existence are impeccable...
For a start his arrival was foretold centuries before just as he said, - "All things about me in the law of Moses,the Prophets and the Psalms,must be fulfilled" (Luke 24:44)
You're still not getting it dude. You are using the Bible to prove the Bible. It's called 'Circular Reasoning'. How about the Hindu Vedas foretelling the arrival of the Buddha?
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Originally Posted by jetset1966
Either way my jesus save your soul and when your time comes you can explain to him why you chose not to believe.
...or perhaps it will be you trying to explain to Mithra why you didn't believe in him huh?
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Originally Posted by Waymarker
That can be easily explained..
When christianity began snowballing in popularity after Jesus's execution, ......
Wrong!! You guys just don't have the first clue about the religion you loudly proclaim as 'truth' do you? Christianity was not 'popular' until the 4th century CE when Constantine, fed up with so many different warring religious sects within the Roman Empire, call together the important religious leaders of the day and told them that there had to be ONE religion so that the Empire could be unified under that religion. A vote was taken....and Christianity won. After that, anyone who didn't convert to Christianity had a fair chance of getting his head separated from his body. THAT is why Christianity spread...not because it was true.
.. if you remove them [catholics] from the world count of Christians that reduces the the number of Christians to less than 1 billion, making Christianity the 3rd largest denomination. Islam first with 1.5 billion, Catholics second with 1.25 Billion and Christians 3rd with about .75 billion.
Like I said, most world religions are divided among themselves, not just Christianity..
You're still not getting it dude. You are using the Bible to prove the Bible. It's called 'Circular Reasoning'..
If I want to learn about WW2 tank fighting, I go buy a history book such as Robert Kershaw's acclaimed 'Tank Men' which is full of eyewitness accounts.
If I want to learn about humankinds close encounters with spiritual entities over the past 3000 years I go buy 66 history books of eyewitness accounts.
That's what the Bible is, 66 separate books conveniently bound into one.
Why should we accept the war books eyewitness accounts as fact, but not the Bibles?
Why should we accept the war books eyewitness accounts as fact, but not the Bibles?
...because the war books have objective verifiable evidence to back them up.
Take an example like a war book that has eye-witness accounts of the bombing of Dresden. We know that Dresden exists. We have photographs, news media and military evidence that it was bombed and thus we conclude that during WWII, Dresden was bombed.
Contrast that with a book that tells the story of a man-god that came from the town/city of Nazareth. When we look, we find that there was no such town/city existing in the 1st century CE. What are we to conclude from that?
If I want to learn about WW2 tank fighting, I go buy a history book such as Robert Kershaw's acclaimed 'Tank Men' which is full of eyewitness accounts.
If I want to learn about humankinds close encounters with spiritual entities over the past 3000 years I go buy 66 history books of eyewitness accounts.
That's what the Bible is, 66 separate books conveniently bound into one.
Why should we accept the war books eyewitness accounts as fact, but not the Bibles?
One reason is because it has been reasonably shown that the NT was not written by eye witnesses. Except for 7 epistles of Paul we have no knowledge of who the actual authors were. The names of the Authors were selected by committees and attributed to the books at least 100 years after the books were written. We do not even know for certain the real names of any of the apostles and disciples. Most Christians do not even know Jesus(as)'s name, they believe Jesus(as) was his name. The name Jesus was not used until the third edition of the KJV
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