Where do your statistics come from? What leads you to deduce cause and effect rather than correlation?
Incidentally, here in the UK, the largest Christian Unions (student Christian societies in university) can be found in the more intellectual universities in each region, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews, Queen's University Belfast, etc. And within those universities a very large proportion of Christians are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, lawyers and medics. Possibly the greatest of the Puritan Christians was John Owen, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.
At the end of the day, intellect and education rather has nothing to do with whether you believe in God or not.
It's quite another to attack and try to tear down science itself, which is what the creationist/ID folks do. In the world they'd like to create, there would be no such thing as actual science -- and what passed for science in that world would be wrong, not just marginally wrong but drastically so, all the time.
The more I read on Slashdot, the more convinced I am that the bias lies on the other side. I, for example, am an Oxford University physics graduate, yet I am also a Creationist. Most of the Christians I knew at Oxford were scientists, engineers and mathematicians, with a good smattering of medics and lawyers thrown in. Back home in Northern Ireland, the majority of Chrisitans I know seem to be teachers, lecturers, medics/doctors, lawyers, engineers. In all these groups there was a broad range of views on whether evolution was a supportable scientific theory. The issue was never 'Is science good or bad?' but rather 'Is evolution good science? And if it is, is it historical fact?'
Actually, repeated betraying and suiciding was classed a cheating I tihnk in one of the Weekly What's Updates. I certainly report as cheating the few times I see it. At least you can boot team killers.
The one feature that Microsoft Windows used to have (I haven't checked recently) is the ability to maneuver around the system without a mouse. I'm not talking about a gazillion shortcut keys, but rather the ability to actually Get Work Done when you have no mouse at all hooked up to the system (or the mouse is buried under a pile of paper and you just need to quickly do some otherwise GUI-based task.
I'd be happy enough with the Amiga solution (Amiga-Arrow keys would move the mouse pointer, and Amiga-Return would send a mouse-click), so I guess there's an implementation that wouldn't be borrowing from Microsoft available
You can turn a similar system on using a keyboard short cut, or in the 'Mouse & Trackpad' section of the 'Universal Access' preference pane. If you turn on full keyboard access, you can a a lot of stuff like key presses to select the menus, dock, toggling between dialogue box options etc.
But that's only a few colors. And my favorite color (black) isn't even among them. Windows lets you use any color you want.
The colour picker allows you to chose any colour you want. Open the folder you want to change the background of in icon mode, bring up the view options, select 'Colour', click on the colour square and the standard system-wide colour palette comes up, which allows you to chose between colour wheel, colour sliders, predefined lists, a spectrum image or crayons. It also lets you store a range of favourite colours at the bottom of the palette. There should be a toolbar at the top of the palette to let you switch between the different choosing methods. If there isn't, just click the rounded rectangular button in the top-right corner to toggle the toolbar on.
That I knew, but for instance when you have Safari and Firefox installed, and you click on a link that was sent to you by e-mail (whilst you view it in your mail application), it will open in Safari and the only thing you can do about it is remove Safari from the system. If there is another way I would like to hear it.
Just change your default browser to Firefox. You can set it in the Safari preferences. You can also install the IceCoffee services/contextual menu to enable right clicking on any URL to select the browser to open in.
The same applies for a Pocket PC. But, the Pocket PC's Today screen (the main screen) shows an overview of the to-do list, calendar events, etc., and there is a multitude of plugins available for it.
The Palm screen shows to-do items and the upcoming diary. It would be nice if it showed to-do items due the enxt day as wekll, but it's better than the situation of just displaing applications as the article implied.
Pocket PC wins here; Palsm are just recently getting capability that Pocket PCs have had for awhile. Therefore, there's a lot more advanced games for Pocket PC.
My point was that he claimed that 3D games were exclusively avialable on the PPC, when that is blatantly untrue.
I remember when I used a Palm, this was extremely quirky. Does Palm OS execute programs directly from their location on the SD card yet?
Yes - 'I run quite a few apps from a 512 MB SD card.'
Not really. A lot of the SD hardware out there is designed for Pocket PC and only has drivers for it.
But there is SD ahrdware avialable for Palms, which should have been mentioned, rather than just saying that there was no CF hardware. Basically he didn't seem to have researched what was available for the Palm or made his conclusions before doing the research. The PoPC may still win in many or all of these areas, but the situation for the Palm is not the dire void that the article suggests. It's very miselading.
I'm not convinced the reviewer has used a Palm in the last few years as he seems to have a lot of gaps in his knowledge.
6. "Today" default screen more relevant than "Applications" (because of the very nature of PDAs in the business world).
When I turn my T3 on, it has open whatever I was last working on, so it's trivial to have it switch on at the PalmOS 'Today' equivalent. If you turn it on by pressing the calendar button, then it'll bring it up straight away.
11. Apps use the full 320x240 resolution (instead of the 160x160 that most PalmOS apps use and double-pixel at 320x320).
The vast majority of Palm apps I use will take advantage of the 480*320 resolution of the T3. Pretty much all the rest use 320*320 single pixel. It's only the really old stuff that goes double-pixel.
12. Able to run more complex games, some 3D games too.
I've got a decent 3D game called Space Combat on my Palm. There are others available.
15. Able to install/run apps from flash addon cards and built-in storage.
I run quite a few apps from a 512 MB SD card.
8. No compact flash to be found on most Palm devices. This means, considerably less accessory support (e.g. cameras, radios, ethernet, modem, wifi, gps etc).
Plenty of SD support though, which is just fine for cameras, wifi, gps, etc.
"the devil" that you mention was - guess what - a Cristian invention.
That's right. Neither of the two religious authorities in existance in Israel at the time - Roman priests and/or Jewish Pharesees - had a concept of "devil".
Actually they did. He appears in Genesis and Job for example. The Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons 'by the prince of demons.' They also refer to him as Beelzebul.
BTW, "The religious authorities hated him with a passion" is just as much bullshit.
The *authorities* hated him with a passion
That sounds a little contradictory, or have I misunderstood something?
'cause he was undermining them by having mass following. Theological issues nonwithstanding. If he was just a simple violator of the First commandment (which he was), they most likely wouldn't have bothered with him - the self-declared messiahs at the time were a dime a dozen. Worst thing they would have done would have been excommunicate him, or whatever the proper technical term for the procedure was in Judaism at that time.
What point are you trying to make? How does this relate to them being unable to disprove his miracles and on the contrary verifying them?
actually, how would this have worked? there wasn't refrigeration in those days, so after "x" days the body ought not to have been recognisable if he had not resurrected? in which case if they "lost" the body (through resurrection or otherwise) surely they could have just dug up some random highly-decomposed stiff and paraded it around?
They used various substances to preserve bodies when buried, so it would have lasted for a while. Not sure how long it would be recognisable for, but long enough for them to open up the tomb and say "See, here's a body that looks pretty much like Jesus, now do you believe he didn't rise?"
it seems more like they were so certain he was dead they couldn't be bothered
It would seem strange that they couldn't be bothered to produce a body from a tomb they had easy access to, yet could be bothered to hunt down, kill and generally persecute every Christian they could get their hands on. Unless there was no body.
the biggest foe to Christianity is MISINTERPRETATION... (that and those nuts on street corners with "your going to hell" signs)... maybe you shouldn't have stopped reading at John 20:29 and read John 20:31 "... Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing..."
people start and stop reading/believing parts of the Bible way too often, thats what leads to discrepancies
Why do you assume I didn't read it? Evidence for Jesus claiming to be God was asked for and it is clearly given in the verses I referenced. There was no need to also quote verse 31, though it does give his identity within the Trinity as the Son, distinct from the Father and the Spirit.
What discrepancy do you feel there was in what I said?
That's another thing that bugs me, and I'm not a homosexual. *Christians* pulling stuff out the *Old Testament* and trying to place its restrictions on non-Jews.
In the Old Testament, God revealed himself to the Jews as his chosen people. Part of that revelation was a revelation of his character, a revelation of activities that he abhorred. Another part was a revelation of how they were to act as a chosen people, in order to be a witness to the world. As an unchanging God, what we learn of his character then is still true now and activities he detests are still detestable, regardless of who commits them. The Jews were never supposed to keep what they knew of God to themselves. They were to be a light to the Gentiles and tell them about God. The ceremonial things, however, such as circumcision, are purely intended to mark out the Jewish people and are therefore not to be placed on Gentiles, as Paul makes clear in his letter to the Galatians.
If *Christians* want to impose segments of Old Testament morality onto people, then they themselves better not eat pork, better not eat shellfish at Red Lobster
In the book of Acts, such things are declared clean and edible by God, as sign that Gentiles are now clean and have access to the grace that Jesus offers.
better not fail to beat their wives or children for being unruly and challenging their authority.
There is a difference between disciplining and beating and every law must be applied within the context of the greatest commandments - love God with all you heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbour (including your wife and kids) as yourself. There are pretty clear guidelines in the New Testament about how to treat your wife e.g. Ephesians 5, where husbands are to love their wives as Christ does the church i.e. sacrificially, at a cost to himself.
Or, the whole "eye for an eye" routine which is counter to the teachings of Jesus.
Why do you think that? Jesus said he had come to uphold the law, not to abolish it and affirms every teaching of Scripture. 'An eye for an eye,' was not a requirement for revenge to be carried out - it was a restriction on punishments to be imposed. The punishment should fit the crime. If someone steals a sheep from you, you receive compensation rather than killing their family. Jesus says that while that is a good limit, it is even better to be merciful, as individuals.
That's why the argument for stressing the *Ten Commandments* is absurd too. To a Christian, they are the *Ten Suggestions.*
Again, I refer you to the words of Jesus in the sermon on the mount. He did not get rid of the law. In fact, he summarises it as the two greatest commandments and says that Christians should follow them.
I also forgot that under the Old Testament, and even New Testament thinking, epileptics (sic) are to be treated as if they are possessed by evil spirits and exorcized instead of treating them with modern medicine.
The Bible never mentions epilepsy. It mentions some people possessed by evil spirits and some of the symptoms may be the same, but it is very clear that it is a spiritual, rather than physical problem.
Umm... in regards to that last thought, I would say you are agreeing with the previous post.
The previous post claimed that Christianity had gone in many different directions and that Paul's message was at odds with Jesus'. The claim was backed up by Muslims, who aren't Christians, disagreeing with Paul. If Muslims aren't Christians they can hardly be taken as evidence for differing views of the compatibility of Paul with Jesus witihin Christian doctrine.
'm guessing you were intending to mean that Muslims are wrong or inaccurate regarding Jesus (if you're not, accept my apologies)
Ah, a genial discussion of religion on/. - a rare thing indeed. Much appreciated.
to which I say: if there are two different accounts of a 2000 year old event, who's to say with certainty, which, if any, is true?
If it was a trial in a court of law, how would you make a verdict? Listen to witnesses, weigh up the evidence, etc. Looking at the teaching of Paul and Jesus, as presented in the Bible, they are fully compatible. Indeed, Paul says that he preaches 'Christ crucified' and that Christians should no claim to follow any particular teacher except Christ.
Lets take the example of Jesus' deity, when it comes to comparing what Christians say and what Muslims say. The gospel record Jesus claiming to be able to do things that only God can do, such as forgive sin (Mark 2:1-12) and accepts Thomas' declaration that he is God (John 20:28-29). The testimony of the gospels is by eyewitnesses, or compiled from the accounts of eyewitnesses, for the purpose of presenting a certain, orderly account of what really happened (Luke 1:1-4). The authors and their witnesses suffered and/or died for their testimony, yet held to it even as they died, knowing if it was true or not. Muslims claim he was merely a prophet, having no witnesses to back up their claims.
As for the crucifixion and resurrection, Muslims claim that someone else died on the cross, yet the authorities were very familiar with who Jesus was and would have noticed if they had the wrong guy. As Christianity spread, they never claimed that Jesus hadn't been crucified. They couldn't even claim he had been crucified, but not resurrected because they couldn't produce his body, even though they would have been in possession of it if he was still dead, because they had put a guard on the tomb in which he was buried.
I think its an accurate critique. If a follower of a deity cannot even spell HIS name correctly (referring to him as "Jehovah" when his name is "Yeweh") then I do not place much stock in them or their message.
I don't recall the Bible ever spelling God's name wrong and as it contains the Christian message, surely it is that you should evaluate, not people who claim the be Christian and get things wrong from time to time? Incidentally, the Hebrew is simply YHWH or YHVH. The assumed vowels would make it YAHWEH.
And that's not even counting the fact that said sect has predicted the end of the world several times, giving the exact year of the end, and then being wrong each time.
What sect? Some Baptists may have claimed to know the end of the world, but it's hardly the whole denomination, or even the majority of it and they flat out contradict the Bible, which is the final authority on Christianity, not the claims of any man. Jesus said in several places that we would not know the time when he would return. The practise of predicting when he would come back is in fact condemned in the Bible.
And this is why Jimmy Hoffa is the new Messiah. They couldn't find that body either.
Lets see how well this situation compares with the historical facts surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection:
Jesus claimed he would rise from the dead on the third day. Jimmy Hoffa didn't.
Jesus' death was witnesses and his body was placed in a guarded tomb. Jimmy Hoffa's wasn't.
If Jesus was dead, it would have been possible for the authorities to prove it by producing the body. The authorities, on the other hand, did not know where Jimmy Hoffa's body was at any point.
Hundreds claimed to see the body of the risen Lord Jesus and died still proclaiming that testimony, knowing if it was true or not. No-one has died claiming that they have seen Jimy Hoffa be resurrected.
So, in other words, you worship an arbitrary, capricious god who randomly selects people to do good things for, even though those people aren't deserving.
I mentioned a merciful God with a plan for salvation. How can all suffering be removed from the world without removing all evil? And how can all evil be removed from the world without judging and rightly condemning those who do evil?
Oh, and he's showing mercy by giving us chance to believe in him, before he condemns us.
Yes. If God is truly God, then he is by definition worthy of worship and it is the worst thing imaginable to not worship him. That's something everyone is guilty of, along with a great many other things, so we are worthy of punishment. Being infinitely just, God must therefore punish. But being infinitely loving, he offers a way out by repenting and believing in Jesus.
Thanks, but I'll take my chances. I don't have much respect for religions that teach about an infinite being who behaves more like a psychotic five year old than an ultimate father figure.
What psychotic five-year old would endure the hatred of billions for millennial and freely offer them forgiveness, giving up his own dearly beloved son to take the punishment those who hate him deserve?
And surely whether it is true or not is more important than how much you respect it? Evidence over emotion.
Basically, they're working on a bill which would make stirring up hated against members of a religion, illegal. But the bill is total crap, so much so to the point where it would make any and all religions virtually immune to criticism.
Actually there's a lot of opposition to the bill from evangelical Christians because of concerns that it could make preaching the gospel illegal. Anything which claims any exclusivity is potentially illegal because anything which causes someone to feel hated, even if unintended, could result in a prosecutable offence. There's a similar law in Australia where a Christian minister was imprisoned for preaching that belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven and therefore everyone, Muslims included, need to repent and trust in him. He also said that Muslims were not the enemy and should be very much loved by Christians. Despite this, some Muslims claimed that they felt hated because of his words and had him charged. He was found guilty and imprisoned.
But it raises a pretty big question. If Jesus did heal your wounded hand, why doesn't he heal other believers' hands? I'll wager that most burn wards in the Americas and Western Europe are populated largely by Christians, so what makes you so damn special, or is there some sort of miracle lottery?
Why should Jesus heal everyone's hands? No-one is deserving of it. We have no right to expect Jesus to heal people. That it ever happens is a mercy from God and a part of his plans, not an act earned by the person who benefits from it. The Bible says that the world will only be made perfect when Jesus returns and that the imperfection of this current world, the suffering people experience is actually a sign of God's mercy because if he were to come back now, all those who do not believe in him would be condemned. By holding off his return, he gives time for more people to come to faith.
The Catholic/Orothodox Church is the original Christian denomination. Throw in the Egyptian Church in there as well.
The church was originally composed of the disciples and th early converts of Acts. Going on a century you end up with the early church fathers whose teachings differ substantially from Catholic doctrine. The Roman Catholic church has long been largely comprised of people who teach things contrary to the Bible, which is the only source of what true church doctrine should be. Regardless of what denomination was around first, it is what they teach now that matters ans the RC church is way off base.
They also tend to be the so-called *Bible Thumpers* who also believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old, evolution is a fraud, and all homosexuals shall burn in Hell, along with false Christians (of the other denominations), non-believers, and other sinful folk.
That's what the Bbile teaches. Aside from the homosexuals burning in hell bit. It teaches that all who sin are deserving of that fate, but that all can be saved by turning away from their sin and trusting in Jesus' death on the cross to pay the price for them. Being a homosexual isn't regarded as a sin; homosexual practise is. Just like many other things, such as heterosexual sex outside of marriage.
I find such a comment insulting, and I'm not even a Catholic. In fact, it makes me pitty such folk for being such outright simpletons. At least the Jehovah's Witnesses (who can't even spell their God's name correctly) have the decency not to vote.
Do you not find that how much you like an idea is a poor method for evaluating whether it is true or not? and that resorting to ad hominens is a poor manner of conducting a debate?
All Catholics are Christians. They believe in the Christ.
Not all who claim to be Catholic actually believe in Catholic doctrine. And Catholic doctrine is, in a great many significant parts, incompatible with what the Bible teaches, rendering it fundamentally unChristian. The Catholic Mass denies the humanity of Christ by claiming that his body and blood are present as the bread and wine, when the bible clearly teaches that Christ is in heaven. It denies the sufficiency of his atoning death on the cross by sacrificing him at each Mass. It denies the doctrine of justification by faith which is preached throughout the Bible, by claiming that you have to do good works to be saved. And it denies the uniqueness of Christ and contradicts his claim to be the only way to the Father by saying that devout members of other faiths will get into heaven.
Now, ignoring whatever faith you may have in him, based solely on a neutral reading of the scriptures, even considering most accounts of his life are paraboles and not actual fact, what honestly makes you think Jesus wasn't either a crook or a madman? honestly? I can't see much difference myself, try as I might (and believe me, I tried)..
The religious authorities hated him with a passion, yet they could not deny the miracles he performed. All they could do was claim that he had performed them by the power and the devil, rather than God.
The religious and secular authorities would have loved to stamp Christianity out at the start - witness the purging performed by Saul - yet they could produce no body from the tomb Jesus had been buried in and which had been guarded by Roman soldiers who knew that the penalty for failure was death. There were hundreds, then thousands of people running round claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead and all it would have taken to crush their faith is produce is body. But no-one could do that.
The disciples knew whether what they were preaching about the resurrection was true or not and they willingly went to their deaths for the sake of what they preached. Why die a horrific death for a lie?
'm fairly certain that Jesus never claimed to do miracles
He got on and did them. In Mark 2:1-12, he claims to be able to perform the miracles of healing sin and curing a paralytic. In fact he claimed on many occasions to be able to cure people and then did it. He also predicted that he would die and rise again on the third day, which would be considered a miracle.
the witnesses to his actions did. In fact quite often he reportedly told those that he helped to _not_ tell anyone else about it.
He did that because he didn't want people to follow him for his power, but rather for his teaching. Take a look at Mark 1-8. It's full of Jesus teaching about who he is. When he performs miracles, it is always to make a teaching point about his identity. This stops after Mark 8 because he's switched to teaching about what he's come to do because Peter finally understands who he is.
None of those witnesses ever claimed that he produced fish out of thin air.
The real miracle, according to them, was that Jesus managed to feed all those people starting with only that small number of breads. What he achived has convincing people to help each other. Which, giving what we see everyday of our lives, is enough of a miracle.
Many of the atendees had food and water with them. They Just shared with others.
That claim isn't compatible with the gospel record where it clearly states that all the food they had was the small number of loaves and fish. It clearly makes the point that Jesus multiplies the bread and fish, after taking and blessing it. He provides them with the food they need and provides it abundantly, having given them the spiritual food they needed in the form of teaching about the kingdom of God and the need for repentance.
A lot of places. Mark 2:1-12 is a good example where it is clearly stated that only God can forgive sins and Jesus then forgives sin. He accepts Thomas' declaration that he is God in John 20:28-29.
Slashdot Mirror
Irony.
Where do your statistics come from? What leads you to deduce cause and effect rather than correlation?
Incidentally, here in the UK, the largest Christian Unions (student Christian societies in university) can be found in the more intellectual universities in each region, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews, Queen's University Belfast, etc. And within those universities a very large proportion of Christians are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, lawyers and medics. Possibly the greatest of the Puritan Christians was John Owen, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.
At the end of the day, intellect and education rather has nothing to do with whether you believe in God or not.
The more I read on Slashdot, the more convinced I am that the bias lies on the other side. I, for example, am an Oxford University physics graduate, yet I am also a Creationist. Most of the Christians I knew at Oxford were scientists, engineers and mathematicians, with a good smattering of medics and lawyers thrown in. Back home in Northern Ireland, the majority of Chrisitans I know seem to be teachers, lecturers, medics/doctors, lawyers, engineers. In all these groups there was a broad range of views on whether evolution was a supportable scientific theory. The issue was never 'Is science good or bad?' but rather 'Is evolution good science? And if it is, is it historical fact?'
Actually, repeated betraying and suiciding was classed a cheating I tihnk in one of the Weekly What's Updates. I certainly report as cheating the few times I see it. At least you can boot team killers.
You can turn a similar system on using a keyboard short cut, or in the 'Mouse & Trackpad' section of the 'Universal Access' preference pane. If you turn on full keyboard access, you can a a lot of stuff like key presses to select the menus, dock, toggling between dialogue box options etc.
The colour picker allows you to chose any colour you want. Open the folder you want to change the background of in icon mode, bring up the view options, select 'Colour', click on the colour square and the standard system-wide colour palette comes up, which allows you to chose between colour wheel, colour sliders, predefined lists, a spectrum image or crayons. It also lets you store a range of favourite colours at the bottom of the palette. There should be a toolbar at the top of the palette to let you switch between the different choosing methods. If there isn't, just click the rounded rectangular button in the top-right corner to toggle the toolbar on.
Just change your default browser to Firefox. You can set it in the Safari preferences. You can also install the IceCoffee services/contextual menu to enable right clicking on any URL to select the browser to open in.
My point was that he claimed that 3D games were exclusively avialable on the PPC, when that is blatantly untrue.
Yes - 'I run quite a few apps from a 512 MB SD card.'
But there is SD ahrdware avialable for Palms, which should have been mentioned, rather than just saying that there was no CF hardware. Basically he didn't seem to have researched what was available for the Palm or made his conclusions before doing the research. The PoPC may still win in many or all of these areas, but the situation for the Palm is not the dire void that the article suggests. It's very miselading.
I'm not convinced the reviewer has used a Palm in the last few years as he seems to have a lot of gaps in his knowledge.
When I turn my T3 on, it has open whatever I was last working on, so it's trivial to have it switch on at the PalmOS 'Today' equivalent. If you turn it on by pressing the calendar button, then it'll bring it up straight away.
The vast majority of Palm apps I use will take advantage of the 480*320 resolution of the T3. Pretty much all the rest use 320*320 single pixel. It's only the really old stuff that goes double-pixel.
I've got a decent 3D game called Space Combat on my Palm. There are others available.
I run quite a few apps from a 512 MB SD card.
Plenty of SD support though, which is just fine for cameras, wifi, gps, etc.
Actually they did. He appears in Genesis and Job for example. The Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons 'by the prince of demons.' They also refer to him as Beelzebul.
That sounds a little contradictory, or have I misunderstood something?
What point are you trying to make? How does this relate to them being unable to disprove his miracles and on the contrary verifying them?
They used various substances to preserve bodies when buried, so it would have lasted for a while. Not sure how long it would be recognisable for, but long enough for them to open up the tomb and say "See, here's a body that looks pretty much like Jesus, now do you believe he didn't rise?"
It would seem strange that they couldn't be bothered to produce a body from a tomb they had easy access to, yet could be bothered to hunt down, kill and generally persecute every Christian they could get their hands on. Unless there was no body.
Why do you assume I didn't read it? Evidence for Jesus claiming to be God was asked for and it is clearly given in the verses I referenced. There was no need to also quote verse 31, though it does give his identity within the Trinity as the Son, distinct from the Father and the Spirit.
What discrepancy do you feel there was in what I said?
In the Old Testament, God revealed himself to the Jews as his chosen people. Part of that revelation was a revelation of his character, a revelation of activities that he abhorred. Another part was a revelation of how they were to act as a chosen people, in order to be a witness to the world. As an unchanging God, what we learn of his character then is still true now and activities he detests are still detestable, regardless of who commits them. The Jews were never supposed to keep what they knew of God to themselves. They were to be a light to the Gentiles and tell them about God. The ceremonial things, however, such as circumcision, are purely intended to mark out the Jewish people and are therefore not to be placed on Gentiles, as Paul makes clear in his letter to the Galatians.
In the book of Acts, such things are declared clean and edible by God, as sign that Gentiles are now clean and have access to the grace that Jesus offers.
There is a difference between disciplining and beating and every law must be applied within the context of the greatest commandments - love God with all you heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbour (including your wife and kids) as yourself. There are pretty clear guidelines in the New Testament about how to treat your wife e.g. Ephesians 5, where husbands are to love their wives as Christ does the church i.e. sacrificially, at a cost to himself.
Why do you think that? Jesus said he had come to uphold the law, not to abolish it and affirms every teaching of Scripture. 'An eye for an eye,' was not a requirement for revenge to be carried out - it was a restriction on punishments to be imposed. The punishment should fit the crime. If someone steals a sheep from you, you receive compensation rather than killing their family. Jesus says that while that is a good limit, it is even better to be merciful, as individuals.
Again, I refer you to the words of Jesus in the sermon on the mount. He did not get rid of the law. In fact, he summarises it as the two greatest commandments and says that Christians should follow them.
The Bible never mentions epilepsy. It mentions some people possessed by evil spirits and some of the symptoms may be the same, but it is very clear that it is a spiritual, rather than physical problem.
The previous post claimed that Christianity had gone in many different directions and that Paul's message was at odds with Jesus'. The claim was backed up by Muslims, who aren't Christians, disagreeing with Paul. If Muslims aren't Christians they can hardly be taken as evidence for differing views of the compatibility of Paul with Jesus witihin Christian doctrine.
Ah, a genial discussion of religion on /. - a rare thing indeed. Much appreciated.
If it was a trial in a court of law, how would you make a verdict? Listen to witnesses, weigh up the evidence, etc. Looking at the teaching of Paul and Jesus, as presented in the Bible, they are fully compatible. Indeed, Paul says that he preaches 'Christ crucified' and that Christians should no claim to follow any particular teacher except Christ.
Lets take the example of Jesus' deity, when it comes to comparing what Christians say and what Muslims say. The gospel record Jesus claiming to be able to do things that only God can do, such as forgive sin (Mark 2:1-12) and accepts Thomas' declaration that he is God (John 20:28-29). The testimony of the gospels is by eyewitnesses, or compiled from the accounts of eyewitnesses, for the purpose of presenting a certain, orderly account of what really happened (Luke 1:1-4). The authors and their witnesses suffered and/or died for their testimony, yet held to it even as they died, knowing if it was true or not. Muslims claim he was merely a prophet, having no witnesses to back up their claims.
As for the crucifixion and resurrection, Muslims claim that someone else died on the cross, yet the authorities were very familiar with who Jesus was and would have noticed if they had the wrong guy. As Christianity spread, they never claimed that Jesus hadn't been crucified. They couldn't even claim he had been crucified, but not resurrected because they couldn't produce his body, even though they would have been in possession of it if he was still dead, because they had put a guard on the tomb in which he was buried.
I don't recall the Bible ever spelling God's name wrong and as it contains the Christian message, surely it is that you should evaluate, not people who claim the be Christian and get things wrong from time to time? Incidentally, the Hebrew is simply YHWH or YHVH. The assumed vowels would make it YAHWEH.
What sect? Some Baptists may have claimed to know the end of the world, but it's hardly the whole denomination, or even the majority of it and they flat out contradict the Bible, which is the final authority on Christianity, not the claims of any man. Jesus said in several places that we would not know the time when he would return. The practise of predicting when he would come back is in fact condemned in the Bible.
Yes, I do. Anyway, the point is that the previous poster had made a claim for which there was no evidence and in fact contradicted the recorded facts.
Lets see how well this situation compares with the historical facts surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection:
Jesus claimed he would rise from the dead on the third day. Jimmy Hoffa didn't.
Jesus' death was witnesses and his body was placed in a guarded tomb. Jimmy Hoffa's wasn't.
If Jesus was dead, it would have been possible for the authorities to prove it by producing the body. The authorities, on the other hand, did not know where Jimmy Hoffa's body was at any point.
Hundreds claimed to see the body of the risen Lord Jesus and died still proclaiming that testimony, knowing if it was true or not. No-one has died claiming that they have seen Jimy Hoffa be resurrected.
I mentioned a merciful God with a plan for salvation. How can all suffering be removed from the world without removing all evil? And how can all evil be removed from the world without judging and rightly condemning those who do evil?
Yes. If God is truly God, then he is by definition worthy of worship and it is the worst thing imaginable to not worship him. That's something everyone is guilty of, along with a great many other things, so we are worthy of punishment. Being infinitely just, God must therefore punish. But being infinitely loving, he offers a way out by repenting and believing in Jesus.
What psychotic five-year old would endure the hatred of billions for millennial and freely offer them forgiveness, giving up his own dearly beloved son to take the punishment those who hate him deserve?
And surely whether it is true or not is more important than how much you respect it? Evidence over emotion.
Actually there's a lot of opposition to the bill from evangelical Christians because of concerns that it could make preaching the gospel illegal. Anything which claims any exclusivity is potentially illegal because anything which causes someone to feel hated, even if unintended, could result in a prosecutable offence. There's a similar law in Australia where a Christian minister was imprisoned for preaching that belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven and therefore everyone, Muslims included, need to repent and trust in him. He also said that Muslims were not the enemy and should be very much loved by Christians. Despite this, some Muslims claimed that they felt hated because of his words and had him charged. He was found guilty and imprisoned.
Why should Jesus heal everyone's hands? No-one is deserving of it. We have no right to expect Jesus to heal people. That it ever happens is a mercy from God and a part of his plans, not an act earned by the person who benefits from it. The Bible says that the world will only be made perfect when Jesus returns and that the imperfection of this current world, the suffering people experience is actually a sign of God's mercy because if he were to come back now, all those who do not believe in him would be condemned. By holding off his return, he gives time for more people to come to faith.
The church was originally composed of the disciples and th early converts of Acts. Going on a century you end up with the early church fathers whose teachings differ substantially from Catholic doctrine. The Roman Catholic church has long been largely comprised of people who teach things contrary to the Bible, which is the only source of what true church doctrine should be. Regardless of what denomination was around first, it is what they teach now that matters ans the RC church is way off base.
That's what the Bbile teaches. Aside from the homosexuals burning in hell bit. It teaches that all who sin are deserving of that fate, but that all can be saved by turning away from their sin and trusting in Jesus' death on the cross to pay the price for them. Being a homosexual isn't regarded as a sin; homosexual practise is. Just like many other things, such as heterosexual sex outside of marriage.
Do you not find that how much you like an idea is a poor method for evaluating whether it is true or not? and that resorting to ad hominens is a poor manner of conducting a debate?
Not all who claim to be Catholic actually believe in Catholic doctrine. And Catholic doctrine is, in a great many significant parts, incompatible with what the Bible teaches, rendering it fundamentally unChristian. The Catholic Mass denies the humanity of Christ by claiming that his body and blood are present as the bread and wine, when the bible clearly teaches that Christ is in heaven. It denies the sufficiency of his atoning death on the cross by sacrificing him at each Mass. It denies the doctrine of justification by faith which is preached throughout the Bible, by claiming that you have to do good works to be saved. And it denies the uniqueness of Christ and contradicts his claim to be the only way to the Father by saying that devout members of other faiths will get into heaven.
The religious authorities hated him with a passion, yet they could not deny the miracles he performed. All they could do was claim that he had performed them by the power and the devil, rather than God.
The religious and secular authorities would have loved to stamp Christianity out at the start - witness the purging performed by Saul - yet they could produce no body from the tomb Jesus had been buried in and which had been guarded by Roman soldiers who knew that the penalty for failure was death. There were hundreds, then thousands of people running round claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead and all it would have taken to crush their faith is produce is body. But no-one could do that.
The disciples knew whether what they were preaching about the resurrection was true or not and they willingly went to their deaths for the sake of what they preached. Why die a horrific death for a lie?
He got on and did them. In Mark 2:1-12, he claims to be able to perform the miracles of healing sin and curing a paralytic. In fact he claimed on many occasions to be able to cure people and then did it. He also predicted that he would die and rise again on the third day, which would be considered a miracle.
He did that because he didn't want people to follow him for his power, but rather for his teaching. Take a look at Mark 1-8. It's full of Jesus teaching about who he is. When he performs miracles, it is always to make a teaching point about his identity. This stops after Mark 8 because he's switched to teaching about what he's come to do because Peter finally understands who he is.
The gospel writers claim that he did.
That claim isn't compatible with the gospel record where it clearly states that all the food they had was the small number of loaves and fish. It clearly makes the point that Jesus multiplies the bread and fish, after taking and blessing it. He provides them with the food they need and provides it abundantly, having given them the spiritual food they needed in the form of teaching about the kingdom of God and the need for repentance.
A lot of places. Mark 2:1-12 is a good example where it is clearly stated that only God can forgive sins and Jesus then forgives sin. He accepts Thomas' declaration that he is God in John 20:28-29.