Going a little off topic... let's look at how Christ lived his life. He hung out with hookers, lepers, and unclean women. That's pretty bold for a Jewish teacher in his day.
But perfectly in keeping with him being the Messiah. Isaiah 61 springs to mind.
He was a pacifist
Are you sure? He didn't directly comment on war in the gospels. He did however uphold the OT as the authoritative word of God and I wouldn't call it pacifistic.
and lived in the moment.
In what sense did he 'live in the moment'? His entire life was building up towards his death on the cross and eventual resurrection. He continually refers to it in the gospels and had a clear plan for his ministry prior to it.
He didn't write anything down either.
But there were plenty of witness to his words and deeds, enabling people such as Luke to accurately record what happened.
So it is inevitable that us dirty little humans would take advantage of his seeming nonchalance,
His nonchalance? The Jesus who upturned trading stalls in the temple? The same Jesus who loudly and publicly rebuked his own followers and the religious authorities? The same Jesus who frequently left his disciples terrified and bewildered?
promote him to figure head
He claimed to be able to forgive sins, said he was God, raised people from the dead, called men to follow him preached a powerful message of repentance and sent his disciples out with the same message. I'd say that that's fairly good self-promotion.
then use some half-baked philosophical drivel
Was there a particular doctrine you were thinking of?
to twist this new religion
Jesus and the early church preached from the OT. Christianity goes back to the creation of the world.
into an instrument of control.
When James and Stephen were martyred in the book of Acts, what control were they exerting over people? Or Paul and Peter in Rome? The greatest church leaders and preachers in the early church (and many since) were killed for preaching and believing Christiniaty. What ability to control people were they taking advantage when this happened? Why were they happy to do it?
The Bible is largely a farse that has been perverted. The Old Testament proved this and Christ's actions confirmed it.
How so? I don't follow your reasoning.
Religion need only go as far as the individual, after that it is a cult.
Why do you say that? Jesus preached to huge crowds and told everyone who trusted in him to go and tell others. In fact, if we have any love for others, we couldn't possibly not tell other people about the good news of the gospel.
Christ lived like a Bhuddist: harmoneously with his environment.
The Bible seems to disagree with that.
If we could even try to do that we wouldn't need the Bible
We need the Bible, otherwise how would we know Jesus? Without the Bible, we wouldn't know what we need to know in order to be saved.
As far as evolution goes, Darwin's theory was proven long ago. The only thing that keeps it from wider scale acceptance are the xenophobic little right-wing americans nervously clutching their bibles and guns
Interesting. I know quite a few xenophilic big and little left wing British/Irish biologists/chemists who don't like guns (though they do treasure their Bibles) and disagree with evolution. Natural selection has certainly been shown (but is a bit of a tautology - the member of the species most fit to survive will survive - no kidding!), but the creation of a new species, the creation of new genetic material through random mutation, is a very weak theory with an absurdly low probability of bringing about the world we see around us.
The God of the Bible makes it very clear that he is a just God who punishes wrong. that's why the central message of Jesus' teaching was 'repent' and why there are so many warnings about a need to ask God's forgiveness and turn back to him, or face an eternity in hell. It is God's great love of goodness and justice that demands he remove and punish evil.
a perfect creation goes awry and God is powerless to fix it unless a son is born to die and is expected to return to end the world all-together,
Powerless? Where does the Bible say he was powerless do fix the world any other way? He could have fixed it by simply wiping out everything corrupt, but out of love and a desire to show his mercy, he chose to do it by paying for our wrongdoing, so we wouldn't have to punished when he inevitably does remove all imperfection. The only sense in which he was powerless is that in order to save someone, the price for their wrong and God's anger about it had to paid. He was only'powerless' in the sense that being perfectly just, he had to punish wrong. It's 'powerlessness' in the same sense that a perfectly good God cannot do evil. It's not a lack of a bility, but rather an intrinsic impossability.
But there a lot of other things the Bible say that have been proven wrong. Like space is a gigantic Ocean.
Are you familiar with the concepts of metaphor, illustration and poetry?
f they get so defensive over this little fact from a story that has been passed down for generations by voice
Some of it was by voice, some was written down from the beginning. Plenty of cultures still encourage the memorisation of large sections of holy scripture, tribal stories, etc. It's not that hard if it's what you're used to and you've got a bit of time. Especially if it's in a memorable form, such as the poetry of the Pslams. And of course with the Holy Spirit's help, it's not going to be hard to remember.
, and translated from on language to an other until at some point someone decides to write it down
Modern translations are done straight from the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. No extra steps required. Alternatively, people learn Greek or Hebrew and get a Greek or Hebrew Bible.
, and translated from on language to an other until at some point someone decides to write it down
The OT is very critical of a great many rulers and governemnts, particularly in Israel and Judah, while the NT is critical of the religious authorities of the time. In fact, the people who wrote most of the NT were killed for writing and preaching its contents, by governments and authorities. People still get killed for it today.
If you read the New Testament (The part that Christianity is based off of)
The Bible has two testaments and Christianity is very much founded in the OT. The NT is the fulfilment of the OT promises. Jesus and the early church did their preaching from the OT scriptures.
Jesus himself goes against many of the old teaching that is found in the Old Testament.
Actually, Jesus said that he had come to fulfil the Law, not to remove any of it. What do you think he is contradicting? It his fulfilment, the ceremonial laws and the priesthood become redundant, but the essential truths God and our relationship with him, as revealed by those laws, remain the same.
To let plot holes in a collection of loosely connected story over a thousands of years tempt your faith.
For a story covering thousands of years, it is incredibly cohesive and I find it immensely encouraging to see the constant parallels between the OT and NT and the various promises, covenants and prophecies being fulfilled in the gospels and Acts. What plot holes are you thinking of?
To say God will not let his word be corrupted and change then why are there Hundreds if Not Thousands of different religions and sects?
In Exodus, Moses brings the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, only to find the Hebrews worshipping a golden calf. 2 Peter 3 warns about false teachers who will twist scripture. The Bible is very clear that people will go astray , worship things other than God and teach lies while claiming they are God's word. That's why there's a heavy emphasis on sound Biblical teaching, always going back to the gospel, through the letters of the OT and why there are so many prophets sent to proclaim God's word in the OT.
And how can you be sure your interpretation is actually the right one or you are the one being corrupted.
By testing scripture against scripture. by checking how well an interpretation of a passage matches the gospel. By checking the meanings of words to ensure that you understand them correctly. Lots of other sensible things that anyone seeking to understand a message would do.
Translation into other languages (English, Latin etc.) includes the possibility of not only errors in translation, but intentional corruptions of messages to suit the translator / commissioner.
That is why the best translations are done from the original languages by large teams of experts in the languages, who check each other's work for accuracy. Additionally, a lot of theology students and scholars, Christian and otherwise, study Greek and or Hebrew so that they can read in the original language themselves.
Because it didn't translate from the original language on every occasion and translation was poorer a few centuries ago, the King James Bible had various errors, but they are of little doctrinal consequence and are well known. Modern translations such as the NASB and ESV are pretty much as close as you can get to the original, while still being in English. Nevertheless, quite a few people have Greek or Hebrew Bibles, along with good lexicons and dictionaries. While I was a t university, quite a few Christians bought interlinear Greek Bibles and dictionaries to learn it themselves. Anyone getting ordained ends up studying Greek.
he got into his troubles for mocking the orthodoxy
It was the hypocrisy and lack of humility and faith that he mostly mocked. People were not acting as they had been called to be by the prophets and other writings of the scriptures.
telling people to make their spirituality an individual thing rather than kneeling in pews and chanting by rote.
He told people that they needed God's forgiveness in order to have a personal relationship with him, rather than simply doing things by rote. And while their is a private aspect to that, there is also a public one, with calls for corporate worship of God and a commission to share the good news of people able to repent and receive forgiveness.
hile on the subject, the committee that formed the whole of the religious canon of Christianity
Actaully, the canon was already being used by many churches. The council merely confirmed what was already in use.
did so from a narrow selection of letters
Quiten a few letters along with 4 gospels and the book of Acts, actually.
written by fanatical cult members
You mean Peter, who was the leader of Jesus' handpicked disciples? OR James, Jesus' brother who was highly skeptical of Jesus until after the resurrection? Or Paul, an apostle, who killed Christians until his conversion? Or John, one of the closest friends of Jesus You mean the leaders of the early church? People who suffered a great deal, were tortured and eventually martyred for what they preached and beleived, knowing whether or not it was the truth?
Christ's divinity was decided by a (non-unanimous) majority vote of the men present.
Christ's divinity is clear the whole Bible and was widely proclaimed during his ministry and the ministry of the early church.
Much of the body of the Bible was written in letters by a schizophrenic who was born a hundred years after Christ's death.
Considering that most of the people comprises the OT, which was complete several hundred years before his birth and the rest is by contemporaries of Jesus, your claim is rather far off.
Religion is one of the better examples of evolution around. They all interbreed and mutate to survive their environment.
That was very much the problem with the Roman Catholic church, which is one of the reasons for the Reformation and its rallying call of 'sola scriptura,' directing people to go back to the Bible, get things from the source rather than from traditions and society.
Stoned any gays lately? Or adulterers?
There is a difference between law and state punishment. We are not the ancient state of Israel, therefore we are not obliged to use the same punishments as them. The law has also been fulfilled in Jesus, rendering obedience to ceremonial laws redundant. In fact, to obey them now would be to deny the work of the cross. Adultery and homosexual acts however are not ceremonial and are still very much offensive to God. But everyone has turned from God in their lives, no-one follows him perfectly, so people who do such things are in further beyond his love and offer of forgiveness that anyone else.
The scientific method is nothing more than the explicit codification of the process by which intelligence can lead to greater certainty - by repeated affirmation of the theories in your head.
The scientific process is about refining models to produce ones which predict results gained from testing the world around us. If you put in the same input, you should get the same output. But that doesn't mean that the processes must be the same. They could in fact be very different.
Anything else is at a level of certainty that is low enough that I would avoid calling it "knowlege".
But there is knowledge apart from science. There can be good certainty without using the scientific method. It would be hard to form friendships if that wasn't true, or to write a reliable history book.
I concede that it would not be an absolute proof that Christianity was true, but it would be the most likely explanation and of considerably greater consequence than simply finding Nineveh.
Consider this. Jesus claimed that he would die and be raised to life on the third day. The gospels record these predictions, along with various claims that he was God and other teachings, accompanied by miracles. If, on the third day, he rose, appeared to a few hundred people and said that all he had promised had come true, what would be the most likely explanation?
Either the claims recorded in the gospels are true, or Jesus was raised from the dead in some other way and the three day thing was just coincidence. If the resurrection happened, I think we have to listen to his claims. And if we believe these claims, then we can trust the OT scriptures because he quotes from them and verifies them as the word of God. He also granted apostolic authority to his disciples and send the Holy Spirit to counsel and guide them, so that they would be able to teach others. We can therefore trust the rest of the NT.
Of course, all of this is predicated on the assumption that the resurrection did happen, but I think the evidence for that is pretty good. Thanks for listening so far, BTW. Nice to have a reasonable conversation.
No, that's not my view. He created Adam in a pre-aged state. That's hardly trickery. If the Bible says he created the universe in 6 days and the universe appears older, I simply assume the same principle is in play. Where is the trickery? If the universe was only 6000 years old and he didn't tell us, maybe you could claim some sort of trickery maybe but there is every reason to expect from Genesis that things would act as if they're older than their actual age.
Then as soon as a supernatural element is involved, you lose the right to make any claims whatseover because you've just moved it out of the realm of the knowable, and even out of the realm of the remotely guessable.
Not quite true. The ability to test something scientifically is quite different from the ability to know something. Christianity is a revealed religion. Knowledge imparted direct from God. It can not be tested scientifically, but it can be tested for consistency with itself and it's claims about the events surrounding the cross tested against our knowledge of histroy. A bunch of cowardly men, many of them uneducated fishermen, spread across the known world, preaching the gospel in many languages, at great and eventually fatal risk to their lives. Their teaching was never disproved by presenting Jesus' body and they gladly died for what they preached, knowing full well whether it was true or not. I think that's good reason to trust the Bible.
n other words, if you start claiming supernatural things exist, and start using them to explain phenomena, then you have just abandoned the ability to test theories, and thus all made up theories are equally valid, and there is never any reason to bother trying to determine what objective reality is anymore, so you might as well stop bothering to sift truth from conjecture in any aspect of your life
That's a false dilema, which qould require unpredictable supernatural intervention to be a regular thing. The Bible gives every reason, however, to believe that the world can be tested and examined by science as it is an ordered rather than chaotic creation.
tell me why any particular supernatural element is any more valid than any other. That's where the parent of your post stands when he says that not every guess is as good as any other. While it's possible that the Bible has the right Genesis story, it's also possible that some other supernatural element is correct, and there's nothing in your theory that can refute it.
The reason for my faith in the Bible would be the cross. The crucifixion and resurrection. If they didn't happen, there's no point in trusting the Bible, but if they did, then the NT is true and Jesus verifies the OT as true. There is good evidence to believe in the resurrection, therefore I believe in the Genesis account of creation.
I don't see how you extrapolate "verification" from that passage.
"8 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; 11 for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it."
That's even weaker than my bringing in Psalms 90:4
Pslam 90:4 doesn't reference the 6 days of creation. This verse does. Please point out how Psalm 90:4 gives you a stronger argument
and it does nothing to address the main problem with belief in six 24-hour days, which is that there were no 24-hour days for the first three "days" of creation.
There was no revolving earth, but time as an abstract concept, which can be measured in periods of days still existed. There was no earth revolving around the sun for quite a while, but we still measure a few billion years worth of time before then.
You and I both are interpreting the Bible to fit what we want.
That may be true in your case, but not in mine. Look objectively at the evidence. I was not a 6 day creationist until relatively recently. This passage is one of the things that convinced me.
The difference is that my contortions fit extrabiblical evidence, and yours go against that evidence.
No, the difference is that I am interpreting Genesis on the basis of Exodus. Interpreting scripture with scripture. You are twisting Psalms to fit what you think scientific evidence tells you must be true, rather than trusting God's word. There need be no contradiction with the current interpretation of scientific evidence if we simply assume that God created the universe pre-aged, just as he did the Garden of Eden and man.
There's plenty more wrong with genesis besides the length of the days. The order of the appearance of life forms is wrong, including where the some plants appear before the sun. Genesis also implies that the Earth is older than the sun.
There's nothing wrong with that. As long as the universe behaves now as if it was created 13.7 billion years ago and as if the sun predates the earth, then there's nothing wrong with God creating them in a different order and just pre-aging everything. He did it with Adam and Eve afterall.
My favorite example is the time frame of Creationism. The ICR insists that the Earth was created in 6 24-hour days, thus the "Evening" and "Morning." Now any Biblical scholar worth his salt will point out that the repeated "Evening and morning, an Nth Day" is a literary device, a part of Hebrew culture. The thing is, how could there have been earthly evenings and mornings, when the Sun wasn't created until the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19)? Also compare with Psalms 90:4, and particularly the notation "A prayer of Moses" at the beginning of Psalms 90; if you believe the traditional view that Moses penned Genesis, then the view that these were 24-hour days is increasingly difficult to buy given his statement here.
As someone with a Physics degree who spends his days studying and teaching the Bible, I would like to point you to Exodus 20:11 where Moses verifies that creation was a 6 day event, in the 24-hour context. The choice then becomes believe Moses or claim the Bible is wrong. Pslam 90:4 doesn't say that it's referring to creation. Rather, it seems to be referring to God's eternal nature.
IIRC, it is riddled with factual errors and biased character portrayals.
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Natural selection most definitely occurs and with it, the loss of genetic material. Mutation also occurs, but it's harmful, for instance cancer, and has never been shown to result in a new reproducing species occurring. In fact, if a mutation caused an animal to become a new, more complex species, it would have considerable difficulty reproducing with what it had once been.
Absolutely. In fact, thats pretty much separates myth from history, sociology from superstition. Both sociology and history involve evaluating evidence in the same way that biology does. Can you say the same thing for religion?
That's not very accurate. There are some similarities in the way history and science are examined, but also a lot of differences. You do not set up experiments. You can't rerun the Battle of Hastings to test whether or not Norman the Conqueror really invaded in 1066.
hink the point is that you can't actually have any knowledge of religion at all. You can only have beliefs.
That's not true. You can have knowledge, but it's of a different nature. Science deals with experimental knowledge - appearances and models, which ultimately can never claim to be the absolute truth. Christianity deals with revealed knowledge which is either the absolute truth or lies. In fact, if anything, it is science that is left with beliefs and religion with either the absolute truth or an absolute lie.
It's not just that. The important thing about science is that it has a way to filter out bogosity. Nobody believes in phlogiston any more, or thinks that acquired traits are inherited. The model that scientists generally agree on thus improves over time.
That doesn't mean it can ever get at the truth however. Science is useful for disproving things, but not for proving them. This is partially because it is limited by the assumption of a basic level of consistency and predictability somewhere. Science builds models. But if there's something you can't build a model of, then science is useless.
For instance, God is not modellable or predictable, therefore supernatural intervention into the natural world cannot be modelled or accounted for in a scientific theory. Science is therefore incapable of distinguishing between a universe that is 13.7 billion years old and a universe that is 6000 years old, but appears to function as if it was 13.7 billion years old.
Science can continually improve and build better and better models, which more accurately predict things, but it can never claim it know the truth about anything. All science is models and theories, a description of the surface appearance of reality. That is immensely useful, but to claim it as more than that, or the only way to deal with the world, is to misunderstand and misuse science.
Contrast with religion, which prides itself on being unchanging.
Such is the nature of revelation. If God revels something, you cannot experiment upon it, or improve it. Indeed, if God is eternally constant, why would religion change?
But if people, I think rightly, conclude that science is a better way to deal with the real world than religion
But you're asking (or answering) the wrong question there. The two are not in opposition. They're for different purposes. Science builds models with a powerful, but ultimately limited predictive capability, while religion, in the case of Christianity reveals the essential truths of the world with the purpose of building up a relationship with God.
On a personal level, though, gotta say that I prefer the traditional scientific viewpoint of "I have no idea what the hell is going on - lets find out" to the traditional religious viewpoint of "We already know all there is to know - fuck you"
The 'traditional religious viewpoint' in terms of what the Bible says is that the universe has an order and reason to it, meaning that it can be studied. Indeed, to do so is to investigate the very work of God and find yet more reasons to praise him. Science and Christianity have often been friends. It is religious authorities that have persecuted science, much as they persecuted Jesus and his followers.
If the earth was created in a pre-aged state, such that it appeared to be billions of years old and functioned as such, science would be unable to tell the difference between that and an earth that was actually created billions of years ago. Science can only attempt to describe how things appear to work, not give you the actual truth of anything.
Indeed, a scientific theory of a 13.7 billion year old universe can sit quite happily alongside a Biblical view of creation occurring 6000 years ago, as one is concerned with apparent functioning and predictive ability while another is concerned with the actual truth. As soon as a supernatural element is involved, science is incapable of determining the truth and is the wrong tool to use for it.
f you want to poke fun at the transubstantiation dogma, then focus on the "You're EATING Jesus" aspect.
It wasn't poking fun. It was a serious debate.
After all, disregarding the Law of Conservation of Mass is an established New Testament routine. If 70 people can eat 1 fish, why can't 7,000,000 people eat 1 Son?
Because God made other fish appear. There is only one incarnation. It is critical that Christ be like other humans in order that we can be raised from death to life through him. And it is very clear from Acts that he has ascended to heaven. His body remaining here would be a direct contradiction of that.
There's no sacrifice in Mass...
There's a priest, an altar and Jesus being eaten in order to atone for sin. That's a sacrifice. Which leads to confession and praying to saints. The bible is very clear that we have but one mediator between man and God - Jesus.
If you see and know all and do all that is good and righteous and see that you are perfectly good and infinitely worthy of worship, are you not compelled to have your worship as your number one priority and the failure to do that as a terrible wrong? Is that not by definition what a being infinitely worthy of worship and infinitely holy would do?
The problem with people reading the Bible and asking about Christianity is that unless you approach it with the perspective that God is unimaginably deserving of worship, it will make no sense. All that happens in it would be a terrible evil if he was not so. But if he is, the worst thing we can do is reject him and the best, worship.
I must confess that I was unaware of that. Little easy to forget about other cultures and assume that when someone says 'allah' they must be referring to another religion, rather than another language. Sorry about that.
That's the problem with the Bible, people read so much into such short sentences.
That's certainly a widespread problem among both people who claim to be Christians and people who don't.
hat exactly do you mean, being saved "through" Jesus? If you live according to his teachings, is that not qualification enough for being saved "through" him?
That depends on what you mean by living according to his teachings;^) If you mean by following a bunch of rules and regulations, then no, because Jesus said that the law could be summarised as love God completely and love your neighbour as yourself. I'll put my hand up and say that I've failed to do that perfectly. In fact, I'm pretty far short. He also said that he had come to fulfil the law. We can't do it, so he does it. The only way we can is through him. He elaborates on 'through him' by talking about repentance and faith. That's turning away from evil, turning towards God to say 'I want to follow you instead of sinful, self-centred desires' and trusting in Jesus' death and resurrection to save you. For a longer, better explanation, I'd suggest reading the gospel of Mark and paying close attention to what Jesus teaches about himself and what he's come to do. Or else read Romans, which is the greatest exposition on the gospel, the greatest explanation of what 'through Jesus' means.
I guess your religion believes they should be punished for their ignorance with eternal damnation?
It is central to Christianity that all men have fallen short of God's standards and wilfully rejected him, chossing to live out their own lives, centred round themselves. Speaking from personal experience, that's certainly true of me and everyone else I've ever met. If God is completely good, just and holy, of course he's going to punish anyone who isn't, which means us. Which is why we're talking about needing to saved 'through Jesus.' No-one deserves to be saved, at the end of the day, because everyone has done the worst thing imaginable - reject God. On the other hand, no-one is beyond redemption.
I'm curious, I've known a lot of Catholics, some of whom have actually ended up ay my Presbyterian church back home, so I'm quite aware that there's no such thing as the average Catholic and that there are often major differences between official Roman Catholic doctrine and what individual RCs believe. What do you believe about transubstantiation?
The Bible is very clear that Jesus became an incarnate man, like any other, otherwise his sacrifice on the cross couldn't have atoned for our sins and his resurrection couldn't bring us life. If that is true, his body cannot be in more than one place at once, so now that he's in heaven, the bread and the wine in Mass, cannot possibly be of the 'real substance.'
Given that Mass is a sacrifice and we are told in Hebrews, along with other epistles, that Christ died once for all and that there is no need for any more sacrifice, surely Mass is a denial of what Christ did on the cross, and a rejection of him?
Also, given that the dead are raised only on the last day, as seen in Revelation, and are judged by what they did in life and are then either saved by grace or condemned to the fire, which is total and eternal separation from God, a final judgement and final sentence, surely there is no room for purgatory?
The Catholic faith does not rely on scripture alone; we believe that there are people who are educated and blessed to be able to speak with authority on the interpretation of the Bible and its impact on our lives. It is very, very important to understand that this in no way supercedes the authority of the Bible
But every Christian has the Holy Spirit and it is only through God that are eyes can be opened and hearts softened to understand his word. We do not need other people to interpret the Bible for us and indeed we each have access to a great and higher authority.
Without having a centralized authority to determine the Bible's meanings, there is simply too much ambiguity in the fallible context of human language to force a single interpretation for all people
Yet the Popes have been utterly corrupt and the church (pre and post Christ) did quite well without a central interpreting authority. Actually, that's not entirely true. They did quite well with the Holy Spirit as the central interpreting authority.
there will always be those who disagree about what parts of the Bible mean. Just look at the different ways Baptists, Catholics, and Jehovah's Witnesses interpret the same books in the Scriptures!
There will certainly always be disagreements, but on the important issues, the Bible is quite clear and it is only false teaching or wilful ignoring of the text that results in misinterpretation. The Bible repeatedly warns against false teaching and generally speaking, it is religious authorities or popular speakers who are warned against. We are told to interpret scripture by scripture, not by men.
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But perfectly in keeping with him being the Messiah. Isaiah 61 springs to mind.
Are you sure? He didn't directly comment on war in the gospels. He did however uphold the OT as the authoritative word of God and I wouldn't call it pacifistic.
In what sense did he 'live in the moment'? His entire life was building up towards his death on the cross and eventual resurrection. He continually refers to it in the gospels and had a clear plan for his ministry prior to it.
But there were plenty of witness to his words and deeds, enabling people such as Luke to accurately record what happened.
His nonchalance? The Jesus who upturned trading stalls in the temple? The same Jesus who loudly and publicly rebuked his own followers and the religious authorities? The same Jesus who frequently left his disciples terrified and bewildered?
He claimed to be able to forgive sins, said he was God, raised people from the dead, called men to follow him preached a powerful message of repentance and sent his disciples out with the same message. I'd say that that's fairly good self-promotion.
Was there a particular doctrine you were thinking of?
Jesus and the early church preached from the OT. Christianity goes back to the creation of the world.
When James and Stephen were martyred in the book of Acts, what control were they exerting over people? Or Paul and Peter in Rome? The greatest church leaders and preachers in the early church (and many since) were killed for preaching and believing Christiniaty. What ability to control people were they taking advantage when this happened? Why were they happy to do it?
How so? I don't follow your reasoning.
Why do you say that? Jesus preached to huge crowds and told everyone who trusted in him to go and tell others. In fact, if we have any love for others, we couldn't possibly not tell other people about the good news of the gospel.
The Bible seems to disagree with that.
We need the Bible, otherwise how would we know Jesus? Without the Bible, we wouldn't know what we need to know in order to be saved.
Interesting. I know quite a few xenophilic big and little left wing British/Irish biologists/chemists who don't like guns (though they do treasure their Bibles) and disagree with evolution. Natural selection has certainly been shown (but is a bit of a tautology - the member of the species most fit to survive will survive - no kidding!), but the creation of a new species, the creation of new genetic material through random mutation, is a very weak theory with an absurdly low probability of bringing about the world we see around us.
The God of the Bible makes it very clear that he is a just God who punishes wrong. that's why the central message of Jesus' teaching was 'repent' and why there are so many warnings about a need to ask God's forgiveness and turn back to him, or face an eternity in hell. It is God's great love of goodness and justice that demands he remove and punish evil.
Powerless? Where does the Bible say he was powerless do fix the world any other way? He could have fixed it by simply wiping out everything corrupt, but out of love and a desire to show his mercy, he chose to do it by paying for our wrongdoing, so we wouldn't have to punished when he inevitably does remove all imperfection. The only sense in which he was powerless is that in order to save someone, the price for their wrong and God's anger about it had to paid. He was only'powerless' in the sense that being perfectly just, he had to punish wrong. It's 'powerlessness' in the same sense that a perfectly good God cannot do evil. It's not a lack of a bility, but rather an intrinsic impossability.
Are you familiar with the concepts of metaphor, illustration and poetry?
Some of it was by voice, some was written down from the beginning. Plenty of cultures still encourage the memorisation of large sections of holy scripture, tribal stories, etc. It's not that hard if it's what you're used to and you've got a bit of time. Especially if it's in a memorable form, such as the poetry of the Pslams. And of course with the Holy Spirit's help, it's not going to be hard to remember.
Modern translations are done straight from the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. No extra steps required. Alternatively, people learn Greek or Hebrew and get a Greek or Hebrew Bible.
The OT is very critical of a great many rulers and governemnts, particularly in Israel and Judah, while the NT is critical of the religious authorities of the time. In fact, the people who wrote most of the NT were killed for writing and preaching its contents, by governments and authorities. People still get killed for it today.
The Bible has two testaments and Christianity is very much founded in the OT. The NT is the fulfilment of the OT promises. Jesus and the early church did their preaching from the OT scriptures.
Actually, Jesus said that he had come to fulfil the Law, not to remove any of it. What do you think he is contradicting? It his fulfilment, the ceremonial laws and the priesthood become redundant, but the essential truths God and our relationship with him, as revealed by those laws, remain the same.
For a story covering thousands of years, it is incredibly cohesive and I find it immensely encouraging to see the constant parallels between the OT and NT and the various promises, covenants and prophecies being fulfilled in the gospels and Acts. What plot holes are you thinking of?
In Exodus, Moses brings the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, only to find the Hebrews worshipping a golden calf. 2 Peter 3 warns about false teachers who will twist scripture. The Bible is very clear that people will go astray , worship things other than God and teach lies while claiming they are God's word. That's why there's a heavy emphasis on sound Biblical teaching, always going back to the gospel, through the letters of the OT and why there are so many prophets sent to proclaim God's word in the OT.
By testing scripture against scripture. by checking how well an interpretation of a passage matches the gospel. By checking the meanings of words to ensure that you understand them correctly. Lots of other sensible things that anyone seeking to understand a message would do.
That is why the best translations are done from the original languages by large teams of experts in the languages, who check each other's work for accuracy. Additionally, a lot of theology students and scholars, Christian and otherwise, study Greek and or Hebrew so that they can read in the original language themselves.
Because it didn't translate from the original language on every occasion and translation was poorer a few centuries ago, the King James Bible had various errors, but they are of little doctrinal consequence and are well known. Modern translations such as the NASB and ESV are pretty much as close as you can get to the original, while still being in English. Nevertheless, quite a few people have Greek or Hebrew Bibles, along with good lexicons and dictionaries. While I was a t university, quite a few Christians bought interlinear Greek Bibles and dictionaries to learn it themselves. Anyone getting ordained ends up studying Greek.
It was the hypocrisy and lack of humility and faith that he mostly mocked. People were not acting as they had been called to be by the prophets and other writings of the scriptures.
He told people that they needed God's forgiveness in order to have a personal relationship with him, rather than simply doing things by rote. And while their is a private aspect to that, there is also a public one, with calls for corporate worship of God and a commission to share the good news of people able to repent and receive forgiveness.
Actaully, the canon was already being used by many churches. The council merely confirmed what was already in use.
Quiten a few letters along with 4 gospels and the book of Acts, actually.
You mean Peter, who was the leader of Jesus' handpicked disciples? OR James, Jesus' brother who was highly skeptical of Jesus until after the resurrection? Or Paul, an apostle, who killed Christians until his conversion? Or John, one of the closest friends of Jesus You mean the leaders of the early church? People who suffered a great deal, were tortured and eventually martyred for what they preached and beleived, knowing whether or not it was the truth?
Christ's divinity is clear the whole Bible and was widely proclaimed during his ministry and the ministry of the early church.
Considering that most of the people comprises the OT, which was complete several hundred years before his birth and the rest is by contemporaries of Jesus, your claim is rather far off.
That was very much the problem with the Roman Catholic church, which is one of the reasons for the Reformation and its rallying call of 'sola scriptura,' directing people to go back to the Bible, get things from the source rather than from traditions and society.
There is a difference between law and state punishment. We are not the ancient state of Israel, therefore we are not obliged to use the same punishments as them. The law has also been fulfilled in Jesus, rendering obedience to ceremonial laws redundant. In fact, to obey them now would be to deny the work of the cross. Adultery and homosexual acts however are not ceremonial and are still very much offensive to God. But everyone has turned from God in their lives, no-one follows him perfectly, so people who do such things are in further beyond his love and offer of forgiveness that anyone else.
The scientific process is about refining models to produce ones which predict results gained from testing the world around us. If you put in the same input, you should get the same output. But that doesn't mean that the processes must be the same. They could in fact be very different.
But there is knowledge apart from science. There can be good certainty without using the scientific method. It would be hard to form friendships if that wasn't true, or to write a reliable history book.
I concede that it would not be an absolute proof that Christianity was true, but it would be the most likely explanation and of considerably greater consequence than simply finding Nineveh.
Consider this. Jesus claimed that he would die and be raised to life on the third day. The gospels record these predictions, along with various claims that he was God and other teachings, accompanied by miracles. If, on the third day, he rose, appeared to a few hundred people and said that all he had promised had come true, what would be the most likely explanation?
Either the claims recorded in the gospels are true, or Jesus was raised from the dead in some other way and the three day thing was just coincidence. If the resurrection happened, I think we have to listen to his claims. And if we believe these claims, then we can trust the OT scriptures because he quotes from them and verifies them as the word of God. He also granted apostolic authority to his disciples and send the Holy Spirit to counsel and guide them, so that they would be able to teach others. We can therefore trust the rest of the NT.
Of course, all of this is predicated on the assumption that the resurrection did happen, but I think the evidence for that is pretty good. Thanks for listening so far, BTW. Nice to have a reasonable conversation.
No, that's not my view. He created Adam in a pre-aged state. That's hardly trickery. If the Bible says he created the universe in 6 days and the universe appears older, I simply assume the same principle is in play. Where is the trickery? If the universe was only 6000 years old and he didn't tell us, maybe you could claim some sort of trickery maybe but there is every reason to expect from Genesis that things would act as if they're older than their actual age.
Not quite true. The ability to test something scientifically is quite different from the ability to know something. Christianity is a revealed religion. Knowledge imparted direct from God. It can not be tested scientifically, but it can be tested for consistency with itself and it's claims about the events surrounding the cross tested against our knowledge of histroy. A bunch of cowardly men, many of them uneducated fishermen, spread across the known world, preaching the gospel in many languages, at great and eventually fatal risk to their lives. Their teaching was never disproved by presenting Jesus' body and they gladly died for what they preached, knowing full well whether it was true or not. I think that's good reason to trust the Bible.
That's a false dilema, which qould require unpredictable supernatural intervention to be a regular thing. The Bible gives every reason, however, to believe that the world can be tested and examined by science as it is an ordered rather than chaotic creation.
The reason for my faith in the Bible would be the cross. The crucifixion and resurrection. If they didn't happen, there's no point in trusting the Bible, but if they did, then the NT is true and Jesus verifies the OT as true. There is good evidence to believe in the resurrection, therefore I believe in the Genesis account of creation.
"8 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; 11 for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it."
Pslam 90:4 doesn't reference the 6 days of creation. This verse does. Please point out how Psalm 90:4 gives you a stronger argument
There was no revolving earth, but time as an abstract concept, which can be measured in periods of days still existed. There was no earth revolving around the sun for quite a while, but we still measure a few billion years worth of time before then.
That may be true in your case, but not in mine. Look objectively at the evidence. I was not a 6 day creationist until relatively recently. This passage is one of the things that convinced me.
No, the difference is that I am interpreting Genesis on the basis of Exodus. Interpreting scripture with scripture. You are twisting Psalms to fit what you think scientific evidence tells you must be true, rather than trusting God's word. There need be no contradiction with the current interpretation of scientific evidence if we simply assume that God created the universe pre-aged, just as he did the Garden of Eden and man.
There's nothing wrong with that. As long as the universe behaves now as if it was created 13.7 billion years ago and as if the sun predates the earth, then there's nothing wrong with God creating them in a different order and just pre-aging everything. He did it with Adam and Eve afterall.
As someone with a Physics degree who spends his days studying and teaching the Bible, I would like to point you to Exodus 20:11 where Moses verifies that creation was a 6 day event, in the 24-hour context. The choice then becomes believe Moses or claim the Bible is wrong. Pslam 90:4 doesn't say that it's referring to creation. Rather, it seems to be referring to God's eternal nature.
IIRC, it is riddled with factual errors and biased character portrayals.
Natural selection most definitely occurs and with it, the loss of genetic material. Mutation also occurs, but it's harmful, for instance cancer, and has never been shown to result in a new reproducing species occurring. In fact, if a mutation caused an animal to become a new, more complex species, it would have considerable difficulty reproducing with what it had once been.
That's not very accurate. There are some similarities in the way history and science are examined, but also a lot of differences. You do not set up experiments. You can't rerun the Battle of Hastings to test whether or not Norman the Conqueror really invaded in 1066.
That's not true. You can have knowledge, but it's of a different nature. Science deals with experimental knowledge - appearances and models, which ultimately can never claim to be the absolute truth. Christianity deals with revealed knowledge which is either the absolute truth or lies. In fact, if anything, it is science that is left with beliefs and religion with either the absolute truth or an absolute lie.
That doesn't mean it can ever get at the truth however. Science is useful for disproving things, but not for proving them. This is partially because it is limited by the assumption of a basic level of consistency and predictability somewhere. Science builds models. But if there's something you can't build a model of, then science is useless.
For instance, God is not modellable or predictable, therefore supernatural intervention into the natural world cannot be modelled or accounted for in a scientific theory. Science is therefore incapable of distinguishing between a universe that is 13.7 billion years old and a universe that is 6000 years old, but appears to function as if it was 13.7 billion years old.
Science can continually improve and build better and better models, which more accurately predict things, but it can never claim it know the truth about anything. All science is models and theories, a description of the surface appearance of reality. That is immensely useful, but to claim it as more than that, or the only way to deal with the world, is to misunderstand and misuse science.
Such is the nature of revelation. If God revels something, you cannot experiment upon it, or improve it. Indeed, if God is eternally constant, why would religion change?
But you're asking (or answering) the wrong question there. The two are not in opposition. They're for different purposes. Science builds models with a powerful, but ultimately limited predictive capability, while religion, in the case of Christianity reveals the essential truths of the world with the purpose of building up a relationship with God.
The 'traditional religious viewpoint' in terms of what the Bible says is that the universe has an order and reason to it, meaning that it can be studied. Indeed, to do so is to investigate the very work of God and find yet more reasons to praise him. Science and Christianity have often been friends. It is religious authorities that have persecuted science, much as they persecuted Jesus and his followers.
If the earth was created in a pre-aged state, such that it appeared to be billions of years old and functioned as such, science would be unable to tell the difference between that and an earth that was actually created billions of years ago. Science can only attempt to describe how things appear to work, not give you the actual truth of anything.
Indeed, a scientific theory of a 13.7 billion year old universe can sit quite happily alongside a Biblical view of creation occurring 6000 years ago, as one is concerned with apparent functioning and predictive ability while another is concerned with the actual truth. As soon as a supernatural element is involved, science is incapable of determining the truth and is the wrong tool to use for it.
It wasn't poking fun. It was a serious debate.
Because God made other fish appear. There is only one incarnation. It is critical that Christ be like other humans in order that we can be raised from death to life through him. And it is very clear from Acts that he has ascended to heaven. His body remaining here would be a direct contradiction of that.
There's a priest, an altar and Jesus being eaten in order to atone for sin. That's a sacrifice. Which leads to confession and praying to saints. The bible is very clear that we have but one mediator between man and God - Jesus.
If you see and know all and do all that is good and righteous and see that you are perfectly good and infinitely worthy of worship, are you not compelled to have your worship as your number one priority and the failure to do that as a terrible wrong? Is that not by definition what a being infinitely worthy of worship and infinitely holy would do? The problem with people reading the Bible and asking about Christianity is that unless you approach it with the perspective that God is unimaginably deserving of worship, it will make no sense. All that happens in it would be a terrible evil if he was not so. But if he is, the worst thing we can do is reject him and the best, worship.
I must confess that I was unaware of that. Little easy to forget about other cultures and assume that when someone says 'allah' they must be referring to another religion, rather than another language. Sorry about that.
That's certainly a widespread problem among both people who claim to be Christians and people who don't.
That depends on what you mean by living according to his teachings ;^) If you mean by following a bunch of rules and regulations, then no, because Jesus said that the law could be summarised as love God completely and love your neighbour as yourself. I'll put my hand up and say that I've failed to do that perfectly. In fact, I'm pretty far short. He also said that he had come to fulfil the law. We can't do it, so he does it. The only way we can is through him. He elaborates on 'through him' by talking about repentance and faith. That's turning away from evil, turning towards God to say 'I want to follow you instead of sinful, self-centred desires' and trusting in Jesus' death and resurrection to save you. For a longer, better explanation, I'd suggest reading the gospel of Mark and paying close attention to what Jesus teaches about himself and what he's come to do. Or else read Romans, which is the greatest exposition on the gospel, the greatest explanation of what 'through Jesus' means.
It is central to Christianity that all men have fallen short of God's standards and wilfully rejected him, chossing to live out their own lives, centred round themselves. Speaking from personal experience, that's certainly true of me and everyone else I've ever met. If God is completely good, just and holy, of course he's going to punish anyone who isn't, which means us. Which is why we're talking about needing to saved 'through Jesus.' No-one deserves to be saved, at the end of the day, because everyone has done the worst thing imaginable - reject God. On the other hand, no-one is beyond redemption.
I'm curious, I've known a lot of Catholics, some of whom have actually ended up ay my Presbyterian church back home, so I'm quite aware that there's no such thing as the average Catholic and that there are often major differences between official Roman Catholic doctrine and what individual RCs believe. What do you believe about transubstantiation?
The Bible is very clear that Jesus became an incarnate man, like any other, otherwise his sacrifice on the cross couldn't have atoned for our sins and his resurrection couldn't bring us life. If that is true, his body cannot be in more than one place at once, so now that he's in heaven, the bread and the wine in Mass, cannot possibly be of the 'real substance.'
Given that Mass is a sacrifice and we are told in Hebrews, along with other epistles, that Christ died once for all and that there is no need for any more sacrifice, surely Mass is a denial of what Christ did on the cross, and a rejection of him?
Also, given that the dead are raised only on the last day, as seen in Revelation, and are judged by what they did in life and are then either saved by grace or condemned to the fire, which is total and eternal separation from God, a final judgement and final sentence, surely there is no room for purgatory?
But every Christian has the Holy Spirit and it is only through God that are eyes can be opened and hearts softened to understand his word. We do not need other people to interpret the Bible for us and indeed we each have access to a great and higher authority.
Yet the Popes have been utterly corrupt and the church (pre and post Christ) did quite well without a central interpreting authority. Actually, that's not entirely true. They did quite well with the Holy Spirit as the central interpreting authority.
There will certainly always be disagreements, but on the important issues, the Bible is quite clear and it is only false teaching or wilful ignoring of the text that results in misinterpretation. The Bible repeatedly warns against false teaching and generally speaking, it is religious authorities or popular speakers who are warned against. We are told to interpret scripture by scripture, not by men.