Sorry, Christianity as we know it comes from (S)Paul, not Jesus. Jesus' teachings spread many directions and took on many different forms, most of which are now completely gone.
The things that have gone are gone because they weren't Christianity. Take a look at the New Testament and you'll see that the first 4 books, the gospels, are all about the life and death of resurrection of Jesus. Nothing about Paul. He doesn't appear until Acts 7, in the form of Saul. Once he becomes Paul, he teaches things that spring directly from the gospel, as preached by Jesus.
Ask any Muslim -- Jesus was a prophet like Moses; they blame Paul for screwing up his message.
Muslims aren't Christians and what they claim about Jesus directly contradicts what is taught in the gospels and the rest of Christan Scripture.
Actually, it doesn't explicitly say he didn't use force.
Look at it this way: a guy has just come up to you, driven off your livestock with a whip, overturned your tables and thrown your money to the ground. Then he tells you in no uncertain terms to get out. Even if he's not physically grabbing you and throwing you out, there's an undeniable threat that you're going to be moving, whether you want to or not. I would count that as physical force.
Given the number of times that Jesus appears in the OT, in the guise of the messenger or angel of the LORD to execute judgement or in the NT in Revelation as the judge, it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to say that he is physically bringing about a limited form of judgement on these people.
On the other hand, such 'gods' are mocked in the Psalms and various narrative books (such as Judges and the Samuel-Kings-Chronicles block) as being idols, false, made of wood, clay, gold, etc. There are places where other powers are mentioned e.g. Romans 8 and the devil is clearly a real character in the Bible (called the god of this age in 2 Corinthians I think), but that's as far as it goes.
Fundamentalists are too invested in behaving self-righteously and proclaiming how persecuted they are to turn the other cheek and love their enemies as Christ instructed. Jesus said, "As you do to the least among you, you do to me." Well, considering how Fundamentalist Christians treat homosexuals, Roman Catholics, liberals, Moslems, and anyone else who disagrees with them, they do wrong by Christ all the time.
Well there's some nice sweeping statements.
I take it that by saying Fundamentalists do wrong, you're stating what you consider to be an absolute i.e. objective, rather than subjective truth. Afterall, if it's objective, then the viewpoint has no inherent legitimacy and matters no more than any other. If it is objective, then you have to accept that there can be other absolute, objective truths.
If the need to repent and believe in Christ as the only way to God, if the need to be redeemed by his death on the cross, his blood paying the price of death that we deserve for failing to live up to God's standards, if that is an absolute truth, then anyone who does not do it (i.e. repent and believe) is in trouble - they're ignoring the only route to salvation and headed for Hell. The most loving thing to do in that circumstance is obviously to graciously tell people that they're wrong and show them the only route to salvation.
Note the use of the word 'graciously.' It means not shoving it in people's faces, not persecuting those who believe differently, not thinking you're better than them, etc. But ti does mean being bold and sincere and eager to tell them. Anything else would be unloving.
The same applies to homosexuals. If homosexual acts are a sin, as the Bible says, then the most loving thing to tell a non-Christian homosexual is the gospel and the most loving thing to tell a Christian practising homosexual is that it is a sin and they need to repent, or they're hurting their relationship with God. Again, it's something done graciously, not arrogantly. Everyone has sinned and homosexual acts are no different. Anyone who looks down on a homosexual as a worse sinner or screams hate at them while claiming to be a Christian is deeply offending God and calling down judgement on themselves. Telling someone that they're doing wrong is not, however, hateful.
Now, to classify all Fundamentalists as being too invested in behaving self-righteously and saying that they're failing to be loving in their treatment of other people is true to a certain extent because everyone is flawed. It's not a fair or accurate generalisation to make however as most of the Fundamentalists I know are very loving toward homosexuals and people of other (or no) beliefs. While at the same time declaring the gospel to them. A Fundamentalist, after all, is someone who believes in the fundamentals of the Bible i.e. the Gospel.
That's one of the more frightening posts I've read on Slashdot. You do realize that the point of Revelation (singular, not plural) was not to give a play-by-play of the End Times, but rather to give Christians at the time hope for the future, as their present wasn't so good? Metaphor plays a huge role in the book, which is natural since it's a transcription of a vision. Visions are rarely taken at face value in the rest of the Bible, so why should this one be different? Or will Christ truly have a sword sticking out of his mouth, too?
I was about to post something similar to that, but you beat me to it.
I would like to know how you can reconcile the idea of an all-good all-loving God who individually created each person on this planet and cared enough to die for them and your statement about his slaughtering of those selfsame people. This inconsistency alone should give you a clue that something about your beliefs doesn't line up.
The Bible is very clear that God is just and that Christ will return to judge the world fairly. It's also very clear that the required standard is one no-one can live up to, so the just response is to throw everyone into Hell. But, like you said, God is all-loving, so how do you reconcile the requirement that justice be satisfied, with God's love? Again, you've given the answer by talking about the cross, but the Bible is pretty clear that not everyone is going to be saved by it. It's pretty clear in Revelation that there is going to be a vast multitude saved, but also a lot of people who reject Jesus and consequently aren't saved. At the end of the day, no-one deserves to be saved; everyone deserves to go to Hell. It's only God's grace and leading some to repent and believe in his Son that means anyone at all will be saved.
If I were not a Christian reading this, the statement above would give me even less of a reason to listen to those who are. Why would I want to follow a god who acts as a final judge and throws fairness out the window? You seem to be referring to the God of Chaos or something...
I was goign to haul him up on this point as well. The idea of God being unfair is ridiculous and pretty insulting to God. Revelation 20 makes it very clear that God will judge on the basis of all the evidence and give a fair judgement i.e. guilty if not trusting in Jesus, innocent if Jesus has already paid the price for you.
I realize this is supposed to be about games, but statements like those in your post reflect exactly what's wrong with Christians today - Christ taught a doctrine of love and we've replaced it with bigotry, exclusivism, and hate
Interesting point here. Love is fully compatible with exclusivism and hate. Hate in the sense that God loves good and hates evil. Exclusivism in the sense that if Christianity is true, then it is mutually exclusive with anything contradicting it i.e. if repenting and placing your faith in Jesus is the only way to heaven, then anything contradictory claims - and therefore all other religions - must be wrong.
Please revisit the Gospels and concentrate on Jesus' teachings. They're the most central to the faith, and yet they always seem to be overshadowed by a lust for death and self-righteousness.
Interestingly, Jesus says in Luke 24 that the whole of the OT is about him and is effectively his teaching. In many ways I enjoy the OT more because the teaching is placed in so many different contexts and is so clearly presented in the midst of a messy messy world that is quite reminiscent of our own. The refrain in Judges about there being no king and everyone doing as they see fit certainly seems as true now as it did then. The same old problems are there and the same solution - it all points to Jesus. In fact, the message of the OT seems to be very much about the need for and promise of a coming salvation, while the NT looks forward to and warns of the impending judgement when Jesus returns. Quite appropriate to think about with Ascension Day coming up. Jesus left and next time he's back, it'll be to judge.
As much as one might long to go ad fontes -- to the wellspring, Christianity as we know it in the West is irretrievably commingled with the violent, demon haunted world view of the northern tribes it filtered through. Certain elements of the ancient first and second century viewpoint can be recaptured, such as proximate parousia (the belief in the imminent Secnd Coming), but somehow they come out with more than a soupçon of Ragnarok in them.
A church which teaches the Bible as the word of God will be going back to what was written in the first century AD and previous to that and would therefore be avoiding the contamination you suggest.
If you read carefully in a good translation, or in the Greek, you will discover that he didn't drive the salesmen, but their stock.
I've got the Greek here and in Mark 11, it says that he began to drive out the ones selling and the ones buying in the temple. He also overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of the people selling the doves, so maybe that's what is confusing you.
Take a look at Yoder's The Politics of Jesus for a much better understanding of who Jesus really is as opposed to the guy that the religious right and religious left want to expropriate for their agenda.
Alternatively, reading the Bible should make it fairly clear that his most preached message was 'repent and believe.'
As far as I know, the first books of the New Testament weren't even written for the first coupla Centuries! AFTER Christ died!!
Actually the earliest copies we have are from a few decades after his death. The earliest epistles, which back up the gospels, date from around 60 AD. You may be thinking of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, which dates from around 200AD. This is not considered canon, however, precisely because it comes from such a late date and massively contradicts the rest of the gospels.
The Apollo program achieved all of its goals in allowing for frequent human missions to space and the moon. The Space Shuttle has failed in most of its design goals; if you don't recall, the program was designed to put a shuttle in to orbit 10 times a year for 10 years each ferrying inhabitants and materials to a space station. Each shuttle was supposed to last for 100 flights and there were 5 shuttles, the math show then that there should have been 500 shuttle flights between 1981 and today. To date I think there have been 103; that's pathetic.
Minor correction to yours maths. If the goal was 10 flights a year, then we'd expect 220 flights between 1981 and 2003, with each shuttle having made 44 flights and being able to last for another 56, which would take 28 years. In other words, the shuttle has achieved roughly half of this particular goal. Wouldn't go so far as to call it pathetic, but it is certainly disappointing.
If you're NOT kidding, you're completely out of your mind.
[snip]
I spanked them... even the "I finished Goldeneye on 00 Level" guys. And I don't just mean I won. I totally dominated. And on real FPSs, I was never really even that GOOD.... strictly average. But playing with those POS console controllers, and their associated crutches (cheats like auto-aim, for example) instilled so many bad habits into them that even the best were all but helpless against just an average "mouse and keyboard" player.
Surely this proves the point? If a mouse and keyboard was more intuitive and easier to pick up than a controller, then they wouldn't have had too many problems playing against you.
Oh and mocking beating the game on 00 agent mode without having done it yourself doesn't add any credibility to your claims. Same goes for your lack of knowledge that auto-aim can be turned off for multiplayer.
Actually, if you look through Jesus' teaching, most of it was about the kingdom of God, its coming, what it would look like, how to be in it and his most repeated refrain was 'repent and believe.' His teaching very much concentrated on the need to be forgiven and turn to living a life for God. Hence the most important commandment being 'Love the LORD your God with all you heart and soul and mind and strength.' Helping others in need is a natural consequence of that, but that an end in itself or the main point.
Modern translations are made by experts in ancient Greek and Hebrew from the most reliable early manuscripts. They don't keep translating form past translations. What we have should match the original to 99% accuracy.
You've got to be joking. There are about a zillion places where the Bible contradicts itself.
I've seen those lists plenty of times. The lists are very badly put together as the authors have taken no time to use a more modern translation (they misinterpret some of the words from the KJV because language has changed in the last few centuries), do not bother to interpret passages in context, get the chronology wrong and always assume contradiction when there is a much more obvious explanation. E.g. if A was at a party last night and spoke to B, C and D, he might tell E the next day that he spoke to B at the party. F might report that A spoke to C and D. Both A and F are telling the truth, but may have reasons for only reporting certain details. The same thing happens all through the gospels.
irrelevant to modern life (try Leviticus 15:19-30 on menstruation, for example, or all the advice on what to do about errant oxen at the end of Exodus 21).
All relevant in that they teach us things about God, us and our relationship with him.
And if you think the Bible has been proven to be historically accurate - well, lucky you're not an historian then.
The evidence I have seen suggests historical accuracy and there have been a great number of historians who agree. Historians, lawyers and reporters who have examined the evidence to prove Christianity wrong have been converted by it.
Two of every species being preserved from a worldwide flood in Noah's ark? 600,000 Israelites wandering around the Sinai for 40 years?
I don't have a problem with those events.
All the accounts of the kings and so forth are riddled with political and religous bias, just as one might expect from a historical document.
They are only biased in the sense that they report from the point of view of how faithful to God the people are.
It's just another historical source, no more authoritative than any other. In fact, less so.
The New Testament manuscripts date from much closer to the time they were authored, were authored closer to the events described and occur in much greater numbers than any other historical document from the period.
This is precisely what I was on about in my original post. If you want to convince a non-Christian of the truth of your argument that Jesus wasn't a pacifist, then you cannot assume "Jesus is God" as an initial premise - because I don't accept that as a premise. You'll need to argue it a different way.
If you don't accept Jesus as God, then you're suddenly talking about a completely different person tot he Jesus of the Bible. If you don't accept Jesus as God, then there's little point in trying to convince you that he wasn't a pacifist and indeed, that argument pales into insignificance next to the consequences of not believing Jesus is God.
It is never an issue of God failing because he never tries to do it. If he wants someone to be saved, they will be. If he doesn't, they won't. He isn't desperately trying to make friends with the whole world. No-one deserves to be saved and the Bible makes it clear that relatively few will be. It is his merciful love and power that results in even a few being saved and his righteous judgement that results in the rest being condemned. In both cases, God's plans succeed, so I have no concerns about him. By concern is for whether people are destined for salvation or condemnation. Both glorify God, but one is mroe preferable for the people concerned than the other.
I enjoyed the discussion as well and I hope you will read and think about what I said. Investigate the evidence and see for yourself if I'm bonkers, or if what I've said is based on good foundations. You wouldn't be the first to investigate the evidence with a view to disproving Christianity, only to be converted. I may not be able to convince you, but I'm thoroughly convinced that God can. It's just a question of whether or not he will.
There are so many assumptions you've clearly never thought to question here.
Such as? You're in danger of making an assumption yourself.
If you think the Bible has some sort of "authority", then good for you. Why do you expect me to believe it does as well?
It's only good if I'm right. And if I'm right, then it would be good for everyone else to trust in that authority. I believe in the authority because of the self-consistency, the relevancy, the the self-evident truthfulness and the historical reliability of the Bible.
As an ex-physicist, it's simple - causality. The OT was written before Jesus was even born, therefore nothing Jesus did or said can have influenced it. (Absent time travel etc.) Equally and equivalently, nothing in the OT can provide any information about Jesus.
If he was a man, that would be true, but the claim of the Bible is that he is God, who incarnated himself as a man in the NT. Take the book of Ezekiel for example. Ezekiel has visions of one 'like a son of man' which would be the pre-incarnation Jesus. Jesus is said in Colossians 1 and John 1 to have been responsible for creation.
Yes, you are right, that is some evidence for non-pacifist views. Driving out the money-changers was an aggressive act, surely. But that's only one incident - he wouldn't be the first person in history to apply their philosophy inconsistently.
And claiming that he was the god of the OT is not explicitly the same as being non-pacifistic.
It is if we see God being non-pacifistic in the OT. After all, God says that he doesn't change, therefore he would be no different in the NT.
We don't have any evidence, that I'm aware of, for Jesus' attitude to all the raping, pillaging, baby-killing, etc that the OT testament god condones.
Actually there's a lot of stuff in the OT (such as rape) that the Israelites carry out, but God doesn't condone. He doe, however, send the Israelites off to war. Given that Jesus is God, he condones that.
If A=B and A approves of C then B approves of C.
You can argue that he implicitly takes responsibility for those acts, and you might be right to do so, but you have to balance that with all the blessed are the meek, turning the other cheek, do unto others stuff which is not in the least warlike.
There is a difference between personal response to grievances and the response of the state. While we are asked to forgive sin and not seek vengeance on people, the state still has a responsibility towards doing justice and punishing criminals. Jesus says to turn the toher hcheek, but at the same time, we are told that state authorities do not carry the sword (symbolising authority to punish crime) without reason.
Dude. You have not presented reasons, you've only thrown dogma around.
I've explained my beliefs and given reasons for them. Rather than address those reasons and answer my questions, you've labelled it all 'dogma' as if that suddenly invalidates everything.
Which is fine, but hardly scientific.
We're not discussing science. The scientific method is not appropriate for debate, discussions of theology or historical investigations.
Then again, I don't think science will interest you very much
Actually I have a degree in Physics from the University of Oxford:^) Most of the Christians I knew there were scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Quite a few medics and lawyers too.
as long as you claim that the inability of anyone to prove their preaching wrong by producing a body seems to make it quite clear that the resurrection happened. You want me to engage in a discussion of that caliber? You can't be serious. What kind of ridiculous thing is that to say?
IIRC, I said more than just that.
A body disappears; some people claim it rose to the heavens; no one can produce the body; therefore it must be true that he rose to the skies in a blaze of glory.
Jesus dies, his disciples scatter, afraid. They're not expecting him to rise again and are too afraid to show their faces in case they get killed too. A few days later, they start proclaiming that he has risen and show no fear of death. A mass hallucination with all 10 disciples seeing the same thing is highly unlikely. Thomas doubted that it had happned, but he was convinced when he saw. 500 more people saw the same thing.
The Jewish authorities got a little concerned about this and started persecuting and killing the early church, trying to stamp it out. This would have been fairly easy if they'd been able to produce Jesus' body... but they didn't.
The disciples couldn't have stolen the body because:
they were too afraid
they would have had to roll away a large stone from in front of the grave, which was under the guard of the Romans
they died testifying that Jesus had risen
Say I have a cabbage. I just know that it is the son of god. Only it doesn't speak. But that is a sign of wisdom, therefore I must worship it.
Jesus spoke, fulfilled prophesies and performed miracles.
Then I put the cabbage in a cupboard. The next day, it is gone. Anyone with half a brain can think of about fifteen different ways that cabbage disappeared, but to the devout followers of the cabbage, it is clear it changed into a flying horse and rose to heaven to meet the lord creator. We must therefore each and all of us worship the cabbage.
Except the cabbage wasn't under heavy guard. Over 500 people did not see the risen cabbage. Your cabbage cult was not deemed dangerous and faced with opposition from authorities who could have produced the body if it had existed.
Basically, your analogy bears very little resemblance to the gospel history.
It takes very little talent and ingenuity to manufacture a miracle, because there are too many gullible people out there.
The disciples didn't expect a miracle and were incapable of recovering Jesus' body. They also died testifying to the truth of the resurrection, knowing whether they had perpetrated a fraud or not. Why would simple, scared fishermen die for what they would have known to be a lie?
Surely you must disapprove of psychics and new-age quackery and healing energy and all that clap-trap - quite why you would choose to believe something equally laughable is a mystery.
I do disapprove of it. The difference with Christianity is
It was (almost) a rhetorical question on my part - I was pretty sure that your answer would be along those lines. No argument of that sort is going to convince somebody who doesn't agree with you already.
If someone doesn't believe that Jesus is God and refuses to trust the authority of the Bible, then I guess there are more important discussions to be having.
Sorry, I'm sticking with physics and history on this one
Physics? As a Physicist, I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant here.
only sources from Jesus' lifetime or (perhaps) later can tell us anything about whether he was a pacifist or not, and sources written by him are vastly preferable to any others (and unfortunately, non-existent).
How about the sources based on eye-witness accounts of him driving out the money changed from the temple and proclaiming that the OT was about him, that he was God and therefore acting in the OT and that judgement would later come?
The great irony of your boast that it is the sceptics who possess and wield logic is that in response ot every claim of yours, I have presented reasons why your claims are wrong. You fail to address the points I make, refuse to engage in discussion and refuse to employ this 'reason' that you hold so dear.
The reason I believe in Jesus Christ as opposed to any other deity is that the Bible describes historical events which we can examine. My faith is founded on a belief in the historicity of the resurrection, based on the evidence we have from the time in the form of the gospels, other writings and the recorded actions of the disciples following his resurrection. The massive shift in their actions following it and the inability of anyone to prove their preaching wrong by producing a body seems to make it quite clear that the resurrection happened.
If you could disprove the resurrection, you could disprove Christianity. But many people who set out to do that were converted in the process.
Yes but how many biblical scholars have attained christhood/enlightenment?
You can't 'attain christhood or enlightenment' and the Bible talks of no need to. It fact it never mentions such things as existing at all.
The church seems to be more like the blind leading the blind.
How so? There are plenty of churches with pastors who have studied the Bible and are theologically articulate. I have attended a number of them.
You would think that if the church had the correct interpretation of Jesus' words that there would be a hell of a lot more enlightened people around
There are quite a lot of people ho do understand the Bible. But the Bible also teaches that a lot of people will reject God and so be rejected by him, resulting in them not being able to understand the Bible.
But face it, the bible in it's current state is a means to propagate the church and not to teach the message that Jesus had.
How so? What is it, exactly, that you think the hundreds of world-experts in Greek , Hebrew and Aramaic got wrong when they translated the Bible? Translators from a vast array of denominations to prevent any bias? Translations that liberal and atheist theologians haven't picked holes in?
at we are ALL god, and all of us are capable of all the deeds that jesus did.
Where did Jesus say that? He made it quite clear that we are God's creations and in need of his forgiveness because we were incapable of saving ourselves. The most common teaching of Jesus is 'repent and believe.'
It's funny that it's still included
Where, exactly?
in the few gospels that the church decided to include in the bible
They included the ones that there was good reason to include. I.e. reliable ones based on eye-witness reports that were in agreement with each other. Not made-up ones written centuries later that were totally inconsistent with what was known about Jesus.
but everybody comes away with the church message of being a sinner and Jesus something unattainable
The Old Testament, the Gospels and the Epistles all make it very clear that we are fallen, sinful men and women who need to be saved through a relationship with Jesus Christ, who alone is God, in conjunction with the other two persons of the trinity.
Likewise, if the Bible is at odds with nature, than the Bible has to change.
The Bible and nature cannot be at odds. What you mean is scientific theories and the Bible, in which case I'll let the Bible arbitrate between the theories.
Because the works of god are collectively natural revelation.
No, the Bible is supernatural revelation.
Man and the devil can deceive with words.
Yes, but we have God's words in languages with rules of meaning and grammar, allowing them to be understood. When there are disagreements in interpretation, one will be wrong and one will be right. Careful analysis of structure and context should make the meaning plain.
Do you have special knowledge from the Holy Spirit about this subject?
Which subject? The doctrine of the Trinity? Or the necessity of believing Christ's divinity for salvation?
I suggest you get your facts straight before you start making such wide accusations. I've done in depth studies on the subject and there is no such thing stated in the bible.
Any my job is to study and teach the Bible. I have been (and continue to be) trained by some of the best bible teachers in the UK and have widely read other people.
Most bible scholars will tell you the same thing.
Who are 'most Bbible scholars'? I doubt you can speak for them. Even so, it is the points made, not the weight of a name that matters. You cannot make appeals to nameless (or named) authorities to try and make a point. Make an argument and let it stand on its own merit.
The Trinity doctrine found intact in the bible is a figment of your imagination. As for individual scriptures that seem to imply it, I suggest you look at them a little more closely and in context.
The Bible never uses the word 'Trinity,' but then I never claimed that it did. It does however make numerous references to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and affirms all three as being God, while also saying that there is one God. Are you questioning the divinity of Christ or of the Holy Spirit? Or perhaps the Father?
Yes -- Christ said that the rules still applied until the covanent was fullfilled, and all who violated the law before the covanent was fulfilled would be damned by such a violation. However, when he died on the Cross, the covanent was fulfilled. Thus, the old law was at least partially obsolete.
He said he had come to fulfil the law, not abolish it. Every man stands condemned by the law because every man has broken it. Anyone who repents and believes in Jesus is saved because Jesus has fulfilled the law and can take our place, so that we appear perfect before God, as if we had kept the law. Some of it is obsolete in the sense that Christians no longer need carry it out (such as sacrifices, which are fulfilled by Jesus), but they are not obsolete n the sense that we should still study and learn from what the Bible says about them. Indeed, the letter to the Hebrews does this a fair bit.
The law was re-written by Christ, and Paul, and Peter, and Clement, and Ignatious of Antioch, and soforth.
Christ said he wasn't going to rewrite the law, Paul and Peter made no claims about changing it and the rest had no authority or reason to.
Really? Where do you get this? It's not said in scripture, and it's rather contradicted by the fact that Paul only saw the risen Christ in a vision.
Jesus granted authority to the 11 disciples who remained with him. Peter then confirmed Paul's authority. No-one else was given any authority to write scripture. And if you read Acts 9, Paul clearly has a conversation with the risen Jesus.
In addition, the bible wasn't assembled until after the death of all of the original apostles.
It was written before, so the definition still stands.
Who had the authority to infallibly assemble the bible? Why, the See of Rome!
Err, no. The Bible says nothing about a pope. The New Testament books were already in widespread use by the time of the Council of Nicea. They simply voted there to confirm the canon that was already in use.
Yes -- we haven't ammended scripture; The Bible is a complete work (the Catholic bible that is; the protestants removed the deuterocanonical books sometime in the 1620's or so)
The Apocrypha was never seen by the Jews as being canocial, Jesus doesn't say it's canonical, Jerome don't include it in the Vulgate and it was never in universal use in the church. In fact, the RC church didn't official count it as canonical until the Council of Trent in 1546, which was in response to the Reformation, not prior to it. Protestants simply kept out books that were never in the canon in the first place.
And I think it is the Church, rather than Jesus, who has deprecated at least some of the Old Testament.
Any church that does that is in serious error.
The problem is, some of the OT clearly needs to be deprecated
Jesus and his disciples disagreed quite strongly. All the early preaching was done form the OT and Jesus held it up on numerous occasions as being trustworthy and all about him. He clearly said that he had come to fulfil it, not remove it. Paul affirmed it all as being useful.
and is at odds with the Church's current position
If a church is at odds with the Bible, then it is the church that should change, not the Bible. You cannot change God's revealed will. You can either submit to its authority, or ignore it and follow your own will, rather than God's. The second means that you are not a part of the invisible and universal church that comprises all believers.
One of the advantages Christians have in theological debates is that they acknowledge that the Bible is an imperfect transcription of God's will.
No, the advantage Christians have is that we have the perfect revealed word of God. Our translations are not perfect, but they're 99.9% perfect and the uncertainties we have affect no major doctrine. We have the advantage of a God who has revealed himself through history and has left us with historical events to learn from along with direct speech on his part.
So it follows that there could be a legitimate corrected version of the Bible.
The only sense in which the Bible could be 'legitimately corrected' would be if we made improvements to our translations. Removing any verse would be clearly condemned by the Bible and make it illegitimate and incomplete.
Here we go then, wielding that book as if it were a metaphorical weapon to slay all ideas that contradict it.
Of course. If it is the revelation of God then nothing can contradict it. If it is not the revelation of God, then it is a lie. If I do not believe in it, then it is not worth arguing from, but if I do believe in it, then I must debate from it.
Why run away from it? Because it's masochistic self-delusion and it prevents me from doing better things with my time - such as spending time with wife and my child and my friends, or reading a good book. Preferably fiction - not fiction disguised as holy writ.
That would be true if the Bible was a lie. But if it is the revelation of God, then you must agree that it would be foolishness in the extreme to do anything but embrace it?
Is it now. You are absolutely, positively sure it is the revealed word of your god, and not the translation of another translation of yet another translation of some scrolls on which a race surrounded by enemies tried to record its identity and traditions? Then again, of course you are sure, because you have decided to surrender your reasoning abilities (judging by the way you write you are fully capable of rational thought) and pray instead of think. To each his own, but still - I call that a waste.
I am sure, yes. The Bible is not built up upon successive translations. I have a compilation of the most reliable Greek manuscripts beside me. The English translations I use are based direct from the most reliable Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts. We know how the languages work pretty well, so translations are 99.9% reliable. The bits we're not sure about make no difference to a major doctrine. Even if I only had the New Testament, which is of more historical reliability (in terms of the documents we have being what was originally written) then any other document from that era, I would have enough to know saving faith that is entirely consistent with the Old Testament scriptures.
(who, incidentally, favours only those who worship him and damns all the others - a more fiendish idea of a deity, I have never heard)
He doesn't favour those who worship him. No-one can earn his favour. Out of love, he shows mercy to some and saves them, enabling them to worship him. There is nothing special about any Christian, no merit of their own that they can claim to be responsible for their salvation. The claim of the Bible is that God is infinitely glorious and infinitely deserving of worship. Both because of who he is and what he has done (creation, salvation, etc.). Ih he is, then it is the worst crime imaginable to not worship him. As an utterly righteous and just God, he is compelled to punish such a crime with Hell. Christianity hinges on this. If he is not worth it, then the Bible is a lie. Though, from a pragmatic point of view, if God is the one who can judge, then to call him immoral is ultimately futile as his morality is the one that will ultimately be enforced. It is his justice that will dominate.
Er...no, no, and no. If that makes me a sinner, then tough tit for me. Any god who demands worship and respect, rather than earn them, is a fallacy I would never choose to indulge in, if only because it offends my intellectual abilities and makes a mockery of my IQ
What if he deserves it inherently? And surely the act of creation, of creating us with the purpose of worshipping him and the act of saving us all deserve worship? Are you so proud as to say that none of that matters?
OK, I'll bite. By that reasoning, fascism, national-socialism, and communism were not inherently evil, they were but simple ideologies people abused and twisted, right?
Actually, I'm saying that the teachings of a belief and the actions of those claiming to follow
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The things that have gone are gone because they weren't Christianity. Take a look at the New Testament and you'll see that the first 4 books, the gospels, are all about the life and death of resurrection of Jesus. Nothing about Paul. He doesn't appear until Acts 7, in the form of Saul. Once he becomes Paul, he teaches things that spring directly from the gospel, as preached by Jesus.
Muslims aren't Christians and what they claim about Jesus directly contradicts what is taught in the gospels and the rest of Christan Scripture.
Actually, it doesn't explicitly say he didn't use force.
Look at it this way: a guy has just come up to you, driven off your livestock with a whip, overturned your tables and thrown your money to the ground. Then he tells you in no uncertain terms to get out. Even if he's not physically grabbing you and throwing you out, there's an undeniable threat that you're going to be moving, whether you want to or not. I would count that as physical force.
Given the number of times that Jesus appears in the OT, in the guise of the messenger or angel of the LORD to execute judgement or in the NT in Revelation as the judge, it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to say that he is physically bringing about a limited form of judgement on these people.
On the other hand, such 'gods' are mocked in the Psalms and various narrative books (such as Judges and the Samuel-Kings-Chronicles block) as being idols, false, made of wood, clay, gold, etc. There are places where other powers are mentioned e.g. Romans 8 and the devil is clearly a real character in the Bible (called the god of this age in 2 Corinthians I think), but that's as far as it goes.
Well there's some nice sweeping statements.
I take it that by saying Fundamentalists do wrong, you're stating what you consider to be an absolute i.e. objective, rather than subjective truth. Afterall, if it's objective, then the viewpoint has no inherent legitimacy and matters no more than any other. If it is objective, then you have to accept that there can be other absolute, objective truths.
If the need to repent and believe in Christ as the only way to God, if the need to be redeemed by his death on the cross, his blood paying the price of death that we deserve for failing to live up to God's standards, if that is an absolute truth, then anyone who does not do it (i.e. repent and believe) is in trouble - they're ignoring the only route to salvation and headed for Hell. The most loving thing to do in that circumstance is obviously to graciously tell people that they're wrong and show them the only route to salvation.
Note the use of the word 'graciously.' It means not shoving it in people's faces, not persecuting those who believe differently, not thinking you're better than them, etc. But ti does mean being bold and sincere and eager to tell them. Anything else would be unloving.
The same applies to homosexuals. If homosexual acts are a sin, as the Bible says, then the most loving thing to tell a non-Christian homosexual is the gospel and the most loving thing to tell a Christian practising homosexual is that it is a sin and they need to repent, or they're hurting their relationship with God. Again, it's something done graciously, not arrogantly. Everyone has sinned and homosexual acts are no different. Anyone who looks down on a homosexual as a worse sinner or screams hate at them while claiming to be a Christian is deeply offending God and calling down judgement on themselves. Telling someone that they're doing wrong is not, however, hateful.
Now, to classify all Fundamentalists as being too invested in behaving self-righteously and saying that they're failing to be loving in their treatment of other people is true to a certain extent because everyone is flawed. It's not a fair or accurate generalisation to make however as most of the Fundamentalists I know are very loving toward homosexuals and people of other (or no) beliefs. While at the same time declaring the gospel to them. A Fundamentalist, after all, is someone who believes in the fundamentals of the Bible i.e. the Gospel.
I was about to post something similar to that, but you beat me to it.
The Bible is very clear that God is just and that Christ will return to judge the world fairly. It's also very clear that the required standard is one no-one can live up to, so the just response is to throw everyone into Hell. But, like you said, God is all-loving, so how do you reconcile the requirement that justice be satisfied, with God's love? Again, you've given the answer by talking about the cross, but the Bible is pretty clear that not everyone is going to be saved by it. It's pretty clear in Revelation that there is going to be a vast multitude saved, but also a lot of people who reject Jesus and consequently aren't saved. At the end of the day, no-one deserves to be saved; everyone deserves to go to Hell. It's only God's grace and leading some to repent and believe in his Son that means anyone at all will be saved.
I was goign to haul him up on this point as well. The idea of God being unfair is ridiculous and pretty insulting to God. Revelation 20 makes it very clear that God will judge on the basis of all the evidence and give a fair judgement i.e. guilty if not trusting in Jesus, innocent if Jesus has already paid the price for you.
Interesting point here. Love is fully compatible with exclusivism and hate. Hate in the sense that God loves good and hates evil. Exclusivism in the sense that if Christianity is true, then it is mutually exclusive with anything contradicting it i.e. if repenting and placing your faith in Jesus is the only way to heaven, then anything contradictory claims - and therefore all other religions - must be wrong.
Interestingly, Jesus says in Luke 24 that the whole of the OT is about him and is effectively his teaching. In many ways I enjoy the OT more because the teaching is placed in so many different contexts and is so clearly presented in the midst of a messy messy world that is quite reminiscent of our own. The refrain in Judges about there being no king and everyone doing as they see fit certainly seems as true now as it did then. The same old problems are there and the same solution - it all points to Jesus. In fact, the message of the OT seems to be very much about the need for and promise of a coming salvation, while the NT looks forward to and warns of the impending judgement when Jesus returns. Quite appropriate to think about with Ascension Day coming up. Jesus left and next time he's back, it'll be to judge.
A church which teaches the Bible as the word of God will be going back to what was written in the first century AD and previous to that and would therefore be avoiding the contamination you suggest.
I've got the Greek here and in Mark 11, it says that he began to drive out the ones selling and the ones buying in the temple. He also overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of the people selling the doves, so maybe that's what is confusing you.
Alternatively, reading the Bible should make it fairly clear that his most preached message was 'repent and believe.'
Actually the earliest copies we have are from a few decades after his death. The earliest epistles, which back up the gospels, date from around 60 AD. You may be thinking of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, which dates from around 200AD. This is not considered canon, however, precisely because it comes from such a late date and massively contradicts the rest of the gospels.
Minor correction to yours maths. If the goal was 10 flights a year, then we'd expect 220 flights between 1981 and 2003, with each shuttle having made 44 flights and being able to last for another 56, which would take 28 years. In other words, the shuttle has achieved roughly half of this particular goal. Wouldn't go so far as to call it pathetic, but it is certainly disappointing.
Surely this proves the point? If a mouse and keyboard was more intuitive and easier to pick up than a controller, then they wouldn't have had too many problems playing against you.
Oh and mocking beating the game on 00 agent mode without having done it yourself doesn't add any credibility to your claims. Same goes for your lack of knowledge that auto-aim can be turned off for multiplayer.
Actually, if you look through Jesus' teaching, most of it was about the kingdom of God, its coming, what it would look like, how to be in it and his most repeated refrain was 'repent and believe.' His teaching very much concentrated on the need to be forgiven and turn to living a life for God. Hence the most important commandment being 'Love the LORD your God with all you heart and soul and mind and strength.' Helping others in need is a natural consequence of that, but that an end in itself or the main point.
Modern translations are made by experts in ancient Greek and Hebrew from the most reliable early manuscripts. They don't keep translating form past translations. What we have should match the original to 99% accuracy.
I've seen those lists plenty of times. The lists are very badly put together as the authors have taken no time to use a more modern translation (they misinterpret some of the words from the KJV because language has changed in the last few centuries), do not bother to interpret passages in context, get the chronology wrong and always assume contradiction when there is a much more obvious explanation. E.g. if A was at a party last night and spoke to B, C and D, he might tell E the next day that he spoke to B at the party. F might report that A spoke to C and D. Both A and F are telling the truth, but may have reasons for only reporting certain details. The same thing happens all through the gospels.
All relevant in that they teach us things about God, us and our relationship with him.
The evidence I have seen suggests historical accuracy and there have been a great number of historians who agree. Historians, lawyers and reporters who have examined the evidence to prove Christianity wrong have been converted by it.
I don't have a problem with those events.
They are only biased in the sense that they report from the point of view of how faithful to God the people are.
The New Testament manuscripts date from much closer to the time they were authored, were authored closer to the events described and occur in much greater numbers than any other historical document from the period.
If you don't accept Jesus as God, then you're suddenly talking about a completely different person tot he Jesus of the Bible. If you don't accept Jesus as God, then there's little point in trying to convince you that he wasn't a pacifist and indeed, that argument pales into insignificance next to the consequences of not believing Jesus is God.
It is never an issue of God failing because he never tries to do it. If he wants someone to be saved, they will be. If he doesn't, they won't. He isn't desperately trying to make friends with the whole world. No-one deserves to be saved and the Bible makes it clear that relatively few will be. It is his merciful love and power that results in even a few being saved and his righteous judgement that results in the rest being condemned. In both cases, God's plans succeed, so I have no concerns about him. By concern is for whether people are destined for salvation or condemnation. Both glorify God, but one is mroe preferable for the people concerned than the other.
I enjoyed the discussion as well and I hope you will read and think about what I said. Investigate the evidence and see for yourself if I'm bonkers, or if what I've said is based on good foundations. You wouldn't be the first to investigate the evidence with a view to disproving Christianity, only to be converted. I may not be able to convince you, but I'm thoroughly convinced that God can. It's just a question of whether or not he will.
Such as? You're in danger of making an assumption yourself.
It's only good if I'm right. And if I'm right, then it would be good for everyone else to trust in that authority. I believe in the authority because of the self-consistency, the relevancy, the the self-evident truthfulness and the historical reliability of the Bible.
If he was a man, that would be true, but the claim of the Bible is that he is God, who incarnated himself as a man in the NT. Take the book of Ezekiel for example. Ezekiel has visions of one 'like a son of man' which would be the pre-incarnation Jesus. Jesus is said in Colossians 1 and John 1 to have been responsible for creation.
It is if we see God being non-pacifistic in the OT. After all, God says that he doesn't change, therefore he would be no different in the NT.
Actually there's a lot of stuff in the OT (such as rape) that the Israelites carry out, but God doesn't condone. He doe, however, send the Israelites off to war. Given that Jesus is God, he condones that.
If A=B and A approves of C then B approves of C.
There is a difference between personal response to grievances and the response of the state. While we are asked to forgive sin and not seek vengeance on people, the state still has a responsibility towards doing justice and punishing criminals. Jesus says to turn the toher hcheek, but at the same time, we are told that state authorities do not carry the sword (symbolising authority to punish crime) without reason.
I've explained my beliefs and given reasons for them. Rather than address those reasons and answer my questions, you've labelled it all 'dogma' as if that suddenly invalidates everything.
We're not discussing science. The scientific method is not appropriate for debate, discussions of theology or historical investigations.
Actually I have a degree in Physics from the University of Oxford :^) Most of the Christians I knew there were scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Quite a few medics and lawyers too.
IIRC, I said more than just that.
Jesus dies, his disciples scatter, afraid. They're not expecting him to rise again and are too afraid to show their faces in case they get killed too. A few days later, they start proclaiming that he has risen and show no fear of death. A mass hallucination with all 10 disciples seeing the same thing is highly unlikely. Thomas doubted that it had happned, but he was convinced when he saw. 500 more people saw the same thing.
The Jewish authorities got a little concerned about this and started persecuting and killing the early church, trying to stamp it out. This would have been fairly easy if they'd been able to produce Jesus' body... but they didn't.
The disciples couldn't have stolen the body because:
they were too afraid
they would have had to roll away a large stone from in front of the grave, which was under the guard of the Romans
they died testifying that Jesus had risen
Jesus spoke, fulfilled prophesies and performed miracles.
Except the cabbage wasn't under heavy guard. Over 500 people did not see the risen cabbage. Your cabbage cult was not deemed dangerous and faced with opposition from authorities who could have produced the body if it had existed.
Basically, your analogy bears very little resemblance to the gospel history.
The disciples didn't expect a miracle and were incapable of recovering Jesus' body. They also died testifying to the truth of the resurrection, knowing whether they had perpetrated a fraud or not. Why would simple, scared fishermen die for what they would have known to be a lie?
I do disapprove of it. The difference with Christianity is
If someone doesn't believe that Jesus is God and refuses to trust the authority of the Bible, then I guess there are more important discussions to be having.
Physics? As a Physicist, I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant here.
How about the sources based on eye-witness accounts of him driving out the money changed from the temple and proclaiming that the OT was about him, that he was God and therefore acting in the OT and that judgement would later come?
The great irony of your boast that it is the sceptics who possess and wield logic is that in response ot every claim of yours, I have presented reasons why your claims are wrong. You fail to address the points I make, refuse to engage in discussion and refuse to employ this 'reason' that you hold so dear.
The reason I believe in Jesus Christ as opposed to any other deity is that the Bible describes historical events which we can examine. My faith is founded on a belief in the historicity of the resurrection, based on the evidence we have from the time in the form of the gospels, other writings and the recorded actions of the disciples following his resurrection. The massive shift in their actions following it and the inability of anyone to prove their preaching wrong by producing a body seems to make it quite clear that the resurrection happened.
If you could disprove the resurrection, you could disprove Christianity. But many people who set out to do that were converted in the process.
You can't 'attain christhood or enlightenment' and the Bible talks of no need to. It fact it never mentions such things as existing at all.
How so? There are plenty of churches with pastors who have studied the Bible and are theologically articulate. I have attended a number of them.
There are quite a lot of people ho do understand the Bible. But the Bible also teaches that a lot of people will reject God and so be rejected by him, resulting in them not being able to understand the Bible.
How so? What is it, exactly, that you think the hundreds of world-experts in Greek , Hebrew and Aramaic got wrong when they translated the Bible? Translators from a vast array of denominations to prevent any bias? Translations that liberal and atheist theologians haven't picked holes in?
Where did Jesus say that? He made it quite clear that we are God's creations and in need of his forgiveness because we were incapable of saving ourselves. The most common teaching of Jesus is 'repent and believe.'
Where, exactly?
They included the ones that there was good reason to include. I.e. reliable ones based on eye-witness reports that were in agreement with each other. Not made-up ones written centuries later that were totally inconsistent with what was known about Jesus.
The Old Testament, the Gospels and the Epistles all make it very clear that we are fallen, sinful men and women who need to be saved through a relationship with Jesus Christ, who alone is God, in conjunction with the other two persons of the trinity.
The Bible and nature cannot be at odds. What you mean is scientific theories and the Bible, in which case I'll let the Bible arbitrate between the theories.
No, the Bible is supernatural revelation.
Yes, but we have God's words in languages with rules of meaning and grammar, allowing them to be understood. When there are disagreements in interpretation, one will be wrong and one will be right. Careful analysis of structure and context should make the meaning plain.
Which subject? The doctrine of the Trinity? Or the necessity of believing Christ's divinity for salvation?
Any my job is to study and teach the Bible. I have been (and continue to be) trained by some of the best bible teachers in the UK and have widely read other people.
Who are 'most Bbible scholars'? I doubt you can speak for them. Even so, it is the points made, not the weight of a name that matters. You cannot make appeals to nameless (or named) authorities to try and make a point. Make an argument and let it stand on its own merit.
The Bible never uses the word 'Trinity,' but then I never claimed that it did. It does however make numerous references to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and affirms all three as being God, while also saying that there is one God. Are you questioning the divinity of Christ or of the Holy Spirit? Or perhaps the Father?
He said he had come to fulfil the law, not abolish it. Every man stands condemned by the law because every man has broken it. Anyone who repents and believes in Jesus is saved because Jesus has fulfilled the law and can take our place, so that we appear perfect before God, as if we had kept the law. Some of it is obsolete in the sense that Christians no longer need carry it out (such as sacrifices, which are fulfilled by Jesus), but they are not obsolete n the sense that we should still study and learn from what the Bible says about them. Indeed, the letter to the Hebrews does this a fair bit.
Christ said he wasn't going to rewrite the law, Paul and Peter made no claims about changing it and the rest had no authority or reason to.
Jesus granted authority to the 11 disciples who remained with him. Peter then confirmed Paul's authority. No-one else was given any authority to write scripture. And if you read Acts 9, Paul clearly has a conversation with the risen Jesus.
It was written before, so the definition still stands.
Err, no. The Bible says nothing about a pope. The New Testament books were already in widespread use by the time of the Council of Nicea. They simply voted there to confirm the canon that was already in use.
The Apocrypha was never seen by the Jews as being canocial, Jesus doesn't say it's canonical, Jerome don't include it in the Vulgate and it was never in universal use in the church. In fact, the RC church didn't official count it as canonical until the Council of Trent in 1546, which was in response to the Reformation, not prior to it. Protestants simply kept out books that were never in the canon in the first place.
Any church that does that is in serious error.
Jesus and his disciples disagreed quite strongly. All the early preaching was done form the OT and Jesus held it up on numerous occasions as being trustworthy and all about him. He clearly said that he had come to fulfil it, not remove it. Paul affirmed it all as being useful.
If a church is at odds with the Bible, then it is the church that should change, not the Bible. You cannot change God's revealed will. You can either submit to its authority, or ignore it and follow your own will, rather than God's. The second means that you are not a part of the invisible and universal church that comprises all believers.
No, the advantage Christians have is that we have the perfect revealed word of God. Our translations are not perfect, but they're 99.9% perfect and the uncertainties we have affect no major doctrine. We have the advantage of a God who has revealed himself through history and has left us with historical events to learn from along with direct speech on his part.
The only sense in which the Bible could be 'legitimately corrected' would be if we made improvements to our translations. Removing any verse would be clearly condemned by the Bible and make it illegitimate and incomplete.
Of course. If it is the revelation of God then nothing can contradict it. If it is not the revelation of God, then it is a lie. If I do not believe in it, then it is not worth arguing from, but if I do believe in it, then I must debate from it.
That would be true if the Bible was a lie. But if it is the revelation of God, then you must agree that it would be foolishness in the extreme to do anything but embrace it?
I am sure, yes. The Bible is not built up upon successive translations. I have a compilation of the most reliable Greek manuscripts beside me. The English translations I use are based direct from the most reliable Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts. We know how the languages work pretty well, so translations are 99.9% reliable. The bits we're not sure about make no difference to a major doctrine. Even if I only had the New Testament, which is of more historical reliability (in terms of the documents we have being what was originally written) then any other document from that era, I would have enough to know saving faith that is entirely consistent with the Old Testament scriptures.
He doesn't favour those who worship him. No-one can earn his favour. Out of love, he shows mercy to some and saves them, enabling them to worship him. There is nothing special about any Christian, no merit of their own that they can claim to be responsible for their salvation. The claim of the Bible is that God is infinitely glorious and infinitely deserving of worship. Both because of who he is and what he has done (creation, salvation, etc.). Ih he is, then it is the worst crime imaginable to not worship him. As an utterly righteous and just God, he is compelled to punish such a crime with Hell. Christianity hinges on this. If he is not worth it, then the Bible is a lie. Though, from a pragmatic point of view, if God is the one who can judge, then to call him immoral is ultimately futile as his morality is the one that will ultimately be enforced. It is his justice that will dominate.
What if he deserves it inherently? And surely the act of creation, of creating us with the purpose of worshipping him and the act of saving us all deserve worship? Are you so proud as to say that none of that matters?
Actually, I'm saying that the teachings of a belief and the actions of those claiming to follow