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Someone once said: "The Bible is like a human being- torture it long enough and you can get it to say anything."
Yep.
Just so.
This is why I stay out of those debates regarding: "Well this verse actually mean this even though most people believe it means that." Or ... "This is what it says in ancient Greek"
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Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
Because you'd rather torture it and make it say what you want than to see what it actually says?
Ummm ....
We are not the ones who torture the bible to mean something other than what it actually says.
I've had some of Mike before. He's good. but he Will appeal to Authority (including early Church fathers, like we can trust them), gets frustrated when I don't take his word for it and flounces off. Raffs (where's he got to?) knows, he was the first Identified Flounce. Like the Higgs -Boson of Bible apologetics.
But this isn't about analysing Mike but about scotching the efforts to make a martyred hero out of this violator (1) of Foreign law and really doing a social crime because of his egotistical take on his damfool religion, and trying to pull the old Ploy -anything good - God gets the credit, anything not so good, God has nothing to do with it.
And the wriggling! Jesus said prayers by the faithful would be answered. You think this guy didn't pray before he waded in with his shorts with the buckles dangling and his visor on backwards? And trying to equate this with God letting everyone else know his intentions beforehand. He knows about some obscure Christian scribbler swearing to anyone who would listen that a Church in Syracuse has been showing Christian tourists Jesus' actual hot water bottle at a drachma a peek and that's good enough evidence for him - but he ignores that the sons of Zebedee were warned beforehand that they would be for the chop and they said OK.
I have a lot of time for Mike555, but he's a believer after all and that means Dishonesty is part of the game. That's why we cannot give them an inch.
(1) anybody see how they are already referring to him as "John", like he was a Buddy of theirs and they can swear what a saint he was.
You know, like 120 posts later I still have to explain myself, especially to Mike, what the title of this thread really means. Mike spent the first three or four posts trying to convince me that Jesus wasn't imaginary; that he really lived. I get that. I acknowledged a Jesus character probably lived and was crucified; I mean the legend had to start somewhere.
But the Jesus of the title--the son of God who WAS God, who did all these miracles and resurrected on the 3rd day and then ascended into heaven and all the rest--THIS is the Jesus that is imaginary, that doesn't exist today up in heaven seated at the right hand of God and all that dogmatic baloney.
Christians today don't know what to believe about Jesus. They pray to him. They believe he answers prayers but then 95% of their prayers go unanswered. 5% appear to get answered but that's just smoke-and mirrors--random chance.
Everybody should know by now about this large study--which is just one of many--that all found prayer has no effect on outcome. But here is one again in case somebody missed it:
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The three-year Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer... found no differences in survival or complication rates compared with those who did not receive prayers.
Jesus simply doesn't answer prayers. Why? Because he doesn't exist today, that's why. He might have existed 2000 years ago but he was crucified, died and....that's the end of him, except for this gigantic mythology that has grown up around him.
It's ironic that Mike acknowledges that Jesus said, "Hey, you guys are going to be tortured and killed for my sake but take heart because great is your reward in heaven."
Thanks a lot, Jesus. I suffer, I get shot full of arrows for you and I've got a big fat reward waiting for me in heaven. Thanks one hell of a lot!
It's a great way to structure a religion. No way for corrupt churchmen to demonstrate a payoff here on earth so make the sheep believe they get their hot fudge sundae at a table in the sky and a personal audience with Jesus who will be waiting there to greet them with a gold spoon---after they give their lives for him.
All I see is the thread title, but I can't imagine a more heartless, tacky, idiotic, and just plain obnoxious post. This thread displays a new level of bigotry and hatred by the non-religious toward Christianity.
Although trying to convert a protected and unwelcoming people (remember Texa's "shoot them if they're in your property" Bible&Gun laws) is most certainly an astronomical level of bigotry and hatred by the Christian toward the indigenous. You see, the O.P. is thinking that they are educating zealous Christians and borderline Christians and that is it better for them to know what they are and what "consequences" there exist.
Still, the O.P. seems very desperate for justification to me as well. Not much different from a desperate Christian. This occurrence means nothing and anything you want, the religious precepts are very malleable.
One unsupported but felt religious precept is that humans have free-will. And humans killed this particularly insane missionary, not an act of nature or poisoning or whatever else.
For his better good, the parents should have Baker acted him.
Why would he feel responsible that the tribes are choosing not to talk to false religions like Christianity and Islam? Well, I guess it has to do with Christian indoctrination.
I remember my Sunday School "teacher" talked about how "definitely all people" have heard about Jesus being God in some way or another by now and are therefore in threat of Hell, and Christianity is justified to say you need Jesus and not just God (which the Jews have, and technically the Muslims too).
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 11-26-2018 at 11:14 PM..
Nope. I think it's tacky and rude and incredibly heartless and uncaring to to gleefully rejoice at a man's death.
I don't see any rejoicing going on.
Could you possibly get any more hyperbolic?
All I see is people saying that they're not crying in their beers over this guy getting killed by dangerous natives who shot him once already - and he was stupid enough to go back. Sometimes the Darwin Awards are very well deserved.
Besides, until you've been in a situation whereby it's YOUR culture and YOUR way of life being torn apart by these missionaries who do nothing but create a horrible rift in a once unified community by luring some away from their former traditions while others remain true to their original beliefs ... until ou've been in that situation, you have no right to judge.
Leave people be. A lot of these cultures are tens of thousands of years older than your book and they've been getting along fine without missionaries and their self-righteous soul-saving.
Thing is, once they've done their time overseas, these missionaries get to come home to their nice comfortable house, put their feet up, watch some television, eat a big meal, take a nice long hot shower, then sleep in a plush bed with plenty of blankets. Meanwhile, as they do that, familes, villages, and towns are on the verge of civil war thanks to them. People starve, there are no showers, no plush beds, no televisions, no comforts - and now missionaries took from people the one thing they did have, and that was their identity as being part of the community.
Great point. But the point is lost on the anti-religion crowd here.
It can hardly be lost on atheists who see anything other than docile silence in the face of every asshattry, offence and crime perpetrated by religion receive a "How dare you mention this?" response from the Faithful.
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Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
Religious bigots rarely do want to see religion get any credit for anything.
Or those with a sense of justice see organised interference get credit for it instead of the blame they deserve.
I'm sorry, but where does Jesus promise ultimate physical protection when we go out into the world and keep us from dying?
Equally though where are the people testing the promise about snakes? That seems to be a double blind scientific experiment in the making right there and very easy to test. So far however it seems that most people are just as prone to injury and death from snake bite as every other person. So not a shred of evidence just yet to support the "promise" in question.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Anyone who is taking some enjoyment in the fact that this man was murdered is disgusting, in my book.
He was not murdered. That is not what "murder" means.
The word murder means to kill unlawfully. A fact some people missed in things like the recent abortion debates for example.
Exactly which law and of which land do you think applies in this context here? Which extradition treaties would you be applying to? And through which embassies?
Or is it possible that you are applying the ideals of our society and the member states that make it up and the interactions between them - to a society who is not even remotely part of _any_ of that?
If they open up their borders and become a member of our global community _then_ we can hold them to the standards and ideals and laws of our societies. Before that however - we would only be projecting. Hell even mindless Prime Time entertainment understands the basics of this - such as the concept of the "Prime Directive" in Star Trek.
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