i dont understand how a book written 400 years after the events took place can be taken seriously

reply to post by Rustami


Sigh. Your naive and ignorance riddled world view is disgusting. Go drive your motorbike like a cool Christian does and leave us progressive thinkers be.

PS. quoting bible verses is really lame. At least formulate your own opinion and your own MIND. It's okay, you won't be punished by anyone.

reply to post by Zamini


did you just get through reading my words in another post before calling me a "fool"? so looks like you ran into a catch22 scenario right "wise" "guy"?

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? -Proverbs

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise-1Corinthians

He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself-John

that very word which I spoke-John

reply to post by Zamini


"Your brothers who hate you,
and exclude you because of my name

Hear that uproar from the city,
hear that noise from the temple!

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.



AHAHAHAHAHA! now that's funny I don't care who you are!

reply to post by Rustami


I don't hate you, that is something your pre conditioned mind makes of it. You however, are ready with bible scriptures to put down anyone with an idea of self. Do you understand why those bible verses tell people to not have ideas of themselves? BECAUSE ONLY THE CHURCH WAS ALLOWED TO. Makes it easier to control people and have people kill people without mercy. You live in a state of slavery.

Again: The bible scriptures you quote reflect back onto YOURSELF, not me. You can rest assured.

Leviticus:

26:27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;

26:28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

26:29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

If I was a zombie and believed in this kind of stuff, then I would probably also post bible-verses all the time to appease the threatening guy above. It's not really civilized to be a cannibal.

Except when its done through transubstantiation; then it's OK.

Originally posted by Zamini
reply to post by Rustami

 

I don't hate you, that is something your pre conditioned mind makes of it. You however, are ready with bible scriptures to put down anyone with an idea of self. Do you understand why those bible verses tell people to not have ideas of themselves? BECAUSE ONLY THE CHURCH WAS ALLOWED TO. Makes it easier to control people and have people kill people without mercy. You live in a state of slavery.

Again: The bible scriptures you quote reflect back onto YOURSELF, not me. You can rest assured.

Umm, no, your previous post has a distinctive stench of hatred.

What do you have to say to those of us who LEFT the wisdom of the world to embrace Christianity???

Originally posted by Zamini
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

I'd argue that when you weigh the accuracy of prophetic verses and knowledge you have to agree that it was given by the inspiration of a deity outside of the dimension of time. A deity who could see the end from the beginning. So it had to originate from a source outside of time.

And I'd argue that the book is a means of social control, not written by some deity outside the dimension of time but rather powerhungry 'leaders', whom you still serve today(I wonder why? Could it be that they wrote the books years and years ago and therefore still remain in charge? Churches/Royalty anyone?)

So, your theory is that the authors of the Bible, and we'll just focus on the New Testament, made the whole thing up with the sole intent of controlling other people?

You do realize, I'm sure, that there is historical evidence that the New Testament was written prior to mid-second century, and little to evidence it being written after the destruction of the Temple in 70AD. Stating that the Bible was written at a time when Christianity was sanctioned by the Roman government requires either time travel or unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that ignore evidence in an effort to bolster a biased belief.

And you realize, I'm sure, that tradition and history says that all of the authors of the New Testament, save John, were put to death for the beliefs they wrote about, and they could have saved their necks through the simple repudiation of Christianity, specifically the refusal to worship the Emperor.

So, I'm curious to understand your logic in saying that the church fathers -- Paul, Peter, John and all the rest, knew somehow that their minor sect of Judaism (which is, arguably, all that it was for the first century or so,) which maintained beliefs in extreme opposition to their old Jewish faith, and which preached that the end of the world, the return of Christ to establish his kingdom, was going to happen at any time, would develop into a worldwide religion many centuries after their unpleasant death (which, if they were just making it up, their Jewish faith told them would result in "wrath of God" kind of punishment.)

To claim that, subsequent to its founding, and long after the scripture was written, some in the church have used the faith of the followers to control them for their own personal gain, is not something that I would disagree with. But to say that, for example, Paul would write about obeying government officials, at a time that the government was still having "Throw a Christian to the Lions Day" at the Colosseum, because he wanted his flock to be controlled by the government is foolishness.

And to claim that he wrote it, believing that church leaders a thousand years later would be able to use it to wage war and extort money to get people out of Purgatory early is absolute nonsense.

Re NoturTypical

You wrote:

"What do you have to say to those of us who LEFT the wisdom of the world to embrace Christianity???"

My answer to that would be: "Fine. No-one is going to prevent you".

But an increasing amount of people are getting tired of or are distrusting the 2000 year old pauline-christian crusade, so when the missionaries start to push (as is happening all the time), you christians must simply accept, that non-christians push back.

Your time of privileges is over, and you must learn the difference between offering your ideology and enforcing it.

Re adjensen

You wrote:

"So, I'm curious to understand your logic in saying that the church fathers -- Paul, Peter, John and all the rest, knew somehow that their minor sect of Judaism (which is, arguably, all that it was for the first century or so,) which maintained beliefs in extreme opposition to their old Jewish faith, and which preached that the end of the world, the return of Christ to establish his kingdom, was going to happen at any time, would develop into a worldwide religion many centuries after their unpleasant death (which, if they were just making it up, their Jewish faith told them would result in "wrath of God" kind of punishment.)"


So.... Paulinism (As usual I exclude the jewish-christian crowd) is a movement with a long time-perspective. The longest existing and most destructive bid for world power in known historical time.

Originally posted by bogomil
So.... Paulinism (As usual I exclude the jewish-christian crowd) is a movement with a long time-perspective. The longest existing and most destructive bid for world power in known historical time.

A completely illogical and counter-intuitive statement, made with absolutely no basis, as per usual. I understand that you just make this stuff up, and you're welcome to your opinion, but why would you think anyone is going to believe you, when simple reasoning demonstrates that you're wrong?

reply to post by bogomil

You wrote:

"What do you have to say to those of us who LEFT the wisdom of the world to embrace Christianity???"

My answer to that would be: "Fine. No-one is going to prevent you".

For one thing, my question wasn't directed at you. Secondly, your answer has nothing to do with the posters statement my question was relevant to.

You follow me around from thread to thread replying to my posts with arbitrary opinions, do you have a crush? Are you hoping to get my Facebook page or something???

Sorry, your fascination with replying to me in virtually every thread I reply is a tad odd. Secondly, you are a self-described non-Christian.. so what is your fascination with discussions of Christianity???

I'm not a Muslim.. I don't reply in threads about Islam except for extreme rare instances.

Re adjensen

You wrote:

".....but why would you think anyone is going to believe you, when simple reasoning demonstrates that you're wrong?"

Hang on to that. You'll need it later, when I have my sourcematerial finished. Books to buy and read, people to communicate with. While you can hardly expect an academical thesis here on ATS, I would like to present some serious background.
And, by the way, I believed your basis was faith. Or do you switch forth and back between faith and simple reasoning, as it suits you best?

Anyway, here are my outlines. Ofcourse I don't operate from a faith platform. I use contemporary knowledge and methodology, with the not generally accepted addition of metaphysics used as I would in a context of 'soft' social sciences. (But at least this will save you from having the word 'fairytale' thrown at you in you ALL circumstances).

While it's possible to establish some historical authenticity to texts, documents, scrolls etc., and thus see a development of opinions in a time-perspective, this doesn't in any sense give credibility to the actual content of such texts in a broader context of 'reality' (be it mundane or divine).

History as to 'reality'-credibility: It's probably possible to find the exact date of the brother Grimm's first publication. This does not give their fairytales any value as 'reality'-descriptions.

The early fight in Sovjet between Stalin and the more anarchistically oriented groups produced a lot of propaganda material, presenting different opinions. Again no 'reality'-credibility.

What I will do, is to make a textual analysis, measuring the various relevant texts from the period of early christianity against each other. Consider doctrines from a rational/logic perspective (not as a way of 'disproving' them, but to place them as faith/not-faith) and when necessary use a metaphysical perspective on claims of para-normality and possible transcendence.

The opinions I have arrived at are, that there are great inconsistencies through both OT and NT. Naturally in the relationship between these two parts of the bible (after all the alleged Jesus-movement was said to be a maverick-movement), but also inside each of them. The OT part is less interesting in this context, but I see great problems also with NT. You and I have earlier had disputes about this, and ofcourse we both have a bias on the subject. It's in your interest to show an image of a united early christianity, while I propose a schism already from the appearance of Paulus.

I have some additional comments on that. Paulus, who in my opinion was either a bounty-hunter or a paid spy, turns up suddenly out of nowhere, hunt down individuals amongst the apostles' converts (quite clearly with the help of some authority), have his alleged epinoia experience and is accepted without much ado as an apostle.

His epinoia experience is VERY questionable, and could either be a complete fake or more likely a possession by a socalled 'neg' (negative entity).

His later activities as an apostle is based on this alleged epinoia experience, and he states clearly, that this is the authentic information about Jesus. Not what the original disciples say. At one point he gets rather aggressive about this, emphasizing the superiority of his own 'interpretation'.

That the original disciples lived and worked with, and learned from the alleged Jesus, seems to be of minor importance. How comes, that this upstart suddenly could get such a position?

The most reasonable explanation is, that NT already from the start is a pro-pauline propaganda document, where only the commonly known information of the jewish faction was included, when it was unavoidable.

A more detailed analysis will follow some time later on a separate thread.

Sorry about spelling errors etc. I have a cold, so I'm not in perfect condition.

Re NoturTypical

It's common, that posters comment on anything, whether it's directed to them personally or not. As to following you around I'm afraid, that your fantasy is overplaying it somewhat. It's more probable, that we end up on the same topics.

Are only christians supposed to debate christianity? The 2000 year pauline crusades concern us all; so do you expect me passively to sit back and accept whatever happens?

Recently our local fundies suggested (for the umpteenth time) that christianity should have special prominence in public school education. In spite of that the fundies are less than 5% of the population here. And this is not my business? Next time it'll be the gays or something.

Sorry for your cold, hope that you're feeling better soon!

Originally posted by bogomil
You and I have earlier had disputes about this, and ofcourse we both have a bias on the subject. It's in your interest to show an image of a united early christianity, while I propose a schism already from the appearance of Paulus.

To the contrary, I agreed that there was a fairly large dispute, and pointed out the nature of it. You dropped that matter, at that point, because the nature of the disagreement is not particularly conspiratorial.

His later activities as an apostle is based on this alleged epinoia experience, and he states clearly, that this is the authentic information about Jesus. Not what the original disciples say. At one point he gets rather aggressive about this, emphasizing the superiority of his own 'interpretation'.

That the original disciples lived and worked with, and learned from the alleged Jesus, seems to be of minor importance. How comes, that this upstart suddenly could get such a position?

As I have said, over and over, there is nothing that Paul says which is significantly askew of Christ's teachings. Your counter to that is that we can't rely on knowing what Christ taught, but then we're back to the question of how any assumption of being in harmony or not can be made.

Paul arose to such a position of consequence for two reasons -- first, he was authoritative. He was a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, and thus well schooled in a way that Christ's Apostles were not. When you read Paul's letters, he is clearly able to muster a solid defense of Christianity based on Judaic law and history, while at the same demonstrating how Christ supersedes that.

The second reason is that the Apostles were seemingly content (at least through the history written about in Acts) in nurturing the Jewish Christian church -- Paul was the one who was commissioned to introduce the faith to the Gentiles. Combined with his expansive traveling, Paul is credited with the spread of Christianity and the maintenance of it through much of the eastern Mediterranean.

Unless you throw out the whole of the Bible (in which case, we have nothing to discuss,) an unbiased reading demonstrates that Paul clarified Christ's teachings and persuaded the reasoning behind things like Gentiles not needing to be circumcised. He remained in harmony with those teachings, and it seems clear that a Christianity that didn't include Paul likely would not have included the Gentiles, at least not in the numbers that it has, not by a fraction.

Re adjensen

can't answer at depth now, my head is to clogged. But I appreciate your offer of an armistice, though I will reserve my right to question the bible. That's where we started, isn't it?

Can hardly hit the keyboard now, so some silence will follow.

reply to post by Zamini


These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.-1Corinthians

He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.-Acts17

You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat.-Romans14

the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.-Revelation3

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.-Luke12

when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.-Thessalonians1

As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.-John12

Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?-Matthew26

reply to post by adjensen


["Christianity that didn't include Paul likely would not have included the Gentiles']

you hit the nail on the head with that one my friend!

This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”-Hebrews10.16

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.-Romans2.14

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."-Galatians5.14

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.-Isaiah11.16

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.-Galatina3.28

Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me.-John12.44

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.-John3.17

who say 'Keep away; don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you!' Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.-Isaiah65.5

So then, the word of the LORD to them will become:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there—
so that they will go and fall backward,
be injured and snared and captured.-Isaiah28.13

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."-Galatians3.10

Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.-1John5.10

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Stench of hatred? You got smell-o-vision where you live? Nice! Seriously though, there is no hatred. There is however a whole bunch of self-victimizing done on your part.

reply to post by Rustami


More bible verses? Raising the dead is derived from the Zoroastrian notion as well by the way, as is your whole system of duality. You however don't realize that it is old and since then people have moved on. You however can dwell in the middle ages as long as you wish as it is your good right.

reply to post by Zamini


LOL wuuut?

"Self-victimizing"?

I commented on your reply to Rustami..

I'm not Rustami.

I do however, quite enjoy your attempt to decry the intolerance and bigotry of Christianity, by being intolerant of and bigoted towards Christians.

reply to post by Zamini


For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword-Hebrews

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds