Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[Foster Zygote]

Also, it's very clear that Luke and Matthew copied Mark or another source. That other source is usually referred to as Q. And then embellished them.

Even If we agree that there was a Jesus. And that just maybe this person was the son of God. What makes anyone believe that the words these people wrote were Jesus's words and teachings? Few people can remember accurately what happened yesterday. Let alone decades later. And why would Paul know a damn thing? He wasn't there.

Paul, somewhat amusingly, goes to great pains to explain to his readers why they should believe him rather than those who knew Jeshua ben Joseph in life, saying, basically, "sure, they hung out with him before the whole crucifixion thing, but I met him in a divine vision, and that's way cooler". He even talks about meeting Jesus's companions and agreeing to divide Jesus's message between themselves, with them sharing it with other Jews, and him sharing it with the gentiles. Reading between the lines it's pretty obvious they thought that was an acceptable way of getting rid of him.

Based on what most secular academics say, I'm pretty sure there was an apocalyptic rabbi in the early 1st Century who gathered a decent following (though nothing to set him apart from other similar figures at the time) and managed to get himself executed for sedition by the Roman authorities for trying to start the Big Revolution® that would restore the rule of the House of David to Israel. But I don't think that historical figure bares any more resemblance to the figure(s) in the gospels any more than Nicholas of Myra resembles modern day Santa Clause. In fact, I think it's safe to say that Jeshua ben Joseph would have been positively apoplectic over the idea that a major religion would grow in his name that not only uttered the unforgivable blasphemy that he was one and the same as Jehovah, but would also eventually become the central religion of the Roman Empire he despised so deeply.

 

[Norman Alexander]

Nazareth apparently didn't exist until after Jesus was born.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

"you should listen to me because of a gut feeling I have" is what you say when you know there is no coherent argument or evidence for your beliefs.

 

[acbytesla]

Paul, somewhat amusingly, goes to great pains to explain to his readers why they should believe him rather than those who knew Jeshua ben Joseph in life, saying, basically, "sure, they hung out with him before the whole crucifixion thing, but I met him in a divine vision, and that's way cooler". He even talks about meeting Jesus's companions and agreeing to divide Jesus's message between themselves, with them sharing it with other Jews, and him sharing it with the gentiles. Reading between the lines it's pretty obvious they thought that was an acceptable way of getting rid of him.

Based on what most secular academics say, I'm pretty sure there was an apocalyptic rabbi in the early 1st Century who gathered a decent following (though nothing to set him apart from other similar figures at the time) and managed to get himself executed for sedition by the Roman authorities for trying to start the Big Revolution® that would restore the rule of the House of David to Israel. But I don't think that historical figure bares any more resemblance to the figure(s) in the gospels any more than Nicholas of Myra resembles modern day Santa Clause. In fact, I think it's safe to say that Jeshua ben Joseph would have been positively apoplectic over the idea that a major religion would grow in his name that not only uttered the unforgivable blasphemy that he was one and the same as Jehovah, but would also eventually become the central religion of the Roman Empire he despised so deeply.

There are reasons that Jewish people at the time didnt think that Jesus was the messiah. And tthey don't today for the same reasons today.

Jesus never fulfilled a single Jewish prophecy.

• His name isn't Emanuel.
• He doesn't come from the line of King David.
• He never sat upon the throne of Israel.
• He didn't oust the Romans out of Israel. Rome ruled Israel long after Jesus's death.

But I don't believe in the Jesus story mostly because it is stupid. Totally moronic. Think about it. The story is a logical mess.

God is all powerful. But the only way God can forgive mankind's sins is by torturing his sone for a day and a half. Never mind that God forgives multiple people in the Old Testament without a blood sacrifice. I mean he can create a univers 50 billion lightyears across with trillions of billions of stars and likely ten times that number of planets. And God is so stupid that he needs to kill and torture humans?

 

[catsmate]

You're touching on one of the biggest apologetic problems. We have different versions of Jesus created by different authors. They were each embellishing stories with elements that focused on what they thought the real focus of the tales was, or should be.

Which rather invalidates the whole "inerrant word of god" bit.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

And that's where evolution stopped for some unknown reason?

No, evolution continues.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Has humankind evolved since Adam?

Seeing as Adam is a fictional character with no real life counterpart, that question makes no sense.

But yes humanity has evolved since the advent of the first homo sapiens sapens, for example there have been multiple other species of homo sapiens that homo sapiens sapiens have bred with. Also, our brain has shrunk in volume over the last few hundred thousands of years.

 

[catsmate]

The new testament is mostly eye-witness accounts in the gospels (supposedly) and letter sent to the churches.
Why would you question it as historic? Just to go with the popular dismissal of the Bible?

This is not even remotely true.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Why do you claim that lactose digestion is caused by evolution?

Why do we have lactose intolerance now? A step backward?

Humanity always had lactose intolerance. A frw humans in Europe (mainly) found they could eat/drink dairy products from other mammals which produced lactose. This gave them an evolutionary advantage over their neighbours, because they now had extra sources of nutrition.

Lactose tolerance is spreading to any part of the world where dairy animals are kept as food sources. There are fewer lactose intolerant people (percentage wise) now than there were a thousand years ago.

 

[Darat]

That's debatable.
Is that a reference to Matthew 5:17-18 ? see below.
Jesus explained what He meant in Luke 24:44 see below.
(this was after His resurrection)
It was the BOOKS of the Law, not the laws themselves.

Matthew 5:17-18 NIV
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear,
not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means
disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Luke 24:44 NIV
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you:
Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in
the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Yep again very clear that Jesus being a good devout Jewish bloke knew the law was forever.

I understand the Christians after Jesus decided not to follow the law and followed Paul's teachings instead of Jesus's. I'm not arguing against Christians deciding to ignore what Jesus actually said (according to their Bible) and claiming that they are wrong. I simply find Christian apologetics interesting especially when they have to argue that words don't mean words. However I do find it funny when apparently non-Christians start rabbiting Christian apologetics, often it seems they want to argue that the apologetics that the sect of Christianity they were born into are somehow "right" and quoting the words of the bible without the apologetics wrapper is cheating!

"I came not to abolish the law" -Jesus
"Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law" Paul

 

[Darat]

Also, it's very clear that Luke and Matthew copied Mark or another source. That other source is usually referred to as Q. And then embellished them.

Even If we agree that there was a Jesus. And that just maybe this person was the son of God. What makes anyone believe that the words these people wrote were Jesus's words and teachings? Few people can remember accurately what happened yesterday. Let alone decades later. And why would Paul know a damn thing? He wasn't there.

Look Paul fell off his horse, bumped his head, was knocked unconscious and Jesus told him things, how could anything have any more verisimilitude?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Look Paul fell off his horse, bumped his head, was knocked unconscious and Jesus told him things, how could anything have any more verisimilitude?

It was a very hard knock and he had a Near Deity Experience.

 

[Helen]

It was a very hard knock and he had a Near Deity Experience.

Speaking of Near Deity Experiences, my mother Leda had one of those (he was always swanning around, eagle-eyed when it came to the ladies. And lads. Quite bullish, also, by all accounts), and that deity wasn't exactly up front about the rules either. Seems to run in the family.

 

[Darat]

There are reasons that Jewish people at the time didnt think that Jesus was the messiah. And tthey don't today for the same reasons today.

Jesus never fulfilled a single Jewish prophecy.

• His name isn't Emanuel.
• He doesn't come from the line of King David.
• He never sat upon the throne of Israel.
• He didn't oust the Romans out of Israel. Rome ruled Israel long after Jesus's death.

But I don't believe in the Jesus story mostly because it is stupid. Totally moronic. Think about it. The story is a logical mess.

God is all powerful. But the only way God can forgive mankind's sins is by torturing his sone for a day and a half. Never mind that God forgives multiple people in the Old Testament without a blood sacrifice. I mean he can create a univers 50 billion lightyears across with trillions of billions of stars and likely ten times that number of planets. And God is so stupid that he needs to kill and torture humans?

Most Christians hear about how he fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, there's a document that floats around the internet these days as a file and used to be a paper list that I think has about a hundred filled prophecies on it. Once you look into those prophecies you soon realise that many people could have fulfilled that level of prophecy! Have you ever ridden a donkey? If so you are the Messiah.

Plus then you have the issue that the authors of the gospel often not seeming to know what was in the Hebrew bible, getting books wrong, misunderstanding the Greek translation and so on. The absolute bedrock of the sect that came to dominate Christian faith for hundreds of years is Jesus being born of a virgin and that fulfilled a prophecy. Problem with that is it came from the authors of Matthew not seemingly to be able to read biblical Hebrew and reading the Septuagint translation and grabbing the wrong end of the stick. In the Hebrew the word is not virgin it's the word for a young woman and it gets worse. When you read the actual full prophecy you learn that this young lady is already pregnant when the prophecy is given! (I've mentioned the actual prophecy earlier in the thread.) It's astonishing what one misunderstood word can lead to.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

No, they're not. You are funny though. You go to the church to confirm that their fairy tales are real? Puhleease. Yes, almost a billion Christians believe a fairy tale. I grant you that. But that is not evidence that the miracles in the Bible actually happened. Only that people believe. Classic ad populum fallacy.

The most that actual historical scholars would say about Jesus is that there are writings about this person beginning in the first century. Not that the miracle stories are true, or not true.

And if Fatima were true you wouldn't have a large number of attendees disputing that the miracle occurred or that all the witnesses disclosed different events. In fact the only common thing the witnesses disclosed was apparent movements of the sun (described in different movements depending on tbe witness) consistent with retina damage from looking at the sun too much.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

More like Kiteo, his eyes closed.

 

[acbytesla]

No, evolution continues.

Exactly. What makes morons think evolution stopped? Humans are on average, taller and larger. Plants and animals are also different today then they were 10 years ago and 200 years. Evolution is the change of populations over generations. And that not only happens through natural selection, it happens through artificial selection.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are a bunch of practical jokers who meet somewhere and decide to have a contest. They invent a character, agree on a few basic facts, and then each one's free to take it and run with it. At the end, they'll see who's done the best job. The four stories are picked up by some friends who act as critics: Matthew is fairly realistic, but insists on that Messiah business too much: Mark isn't bad, just a little sloppy: Luke is elegant, no denying that; and John takes the philosophy a little too far. Actually, though, the books have an appeal, they circulate, and when the four realize what's happening, it's too late, Paul has already met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Pliny begins his investigation ordered by the worried emperor, and a legion of apocryphal writers pretends also to know plenty....It all goes to Peter's head; he takes himself seriously. John threatens to tell the truth, Peter and Paul have him chained up on the island of Patmos.”

― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Rusty Tyler said:
That's debatable.
Is that a reference to Matthew 5:17-18 ? see below.
Jesus explained what He meant in Luke 24:44 see below.
(this was after His resurrection)
It was the BOOKS of the Law, not the laws themselves.

Matthew 5:17-18 NIV
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear,
not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means
disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Luke 24:44 NIV
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you:
Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in
the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

You're touching on one of the biggest apologetic problems. We have different versions of Jesus created by different authors. They were each embellishing stories with elements that focused on what they thought the real focus of the tales was, or should be.

There's something to that.

My view of Jesus, which is not standard, is that He was deconstructing the law.
The Apostle Paul comes along later to confirm that we are not under the law that God gave to the Israelites alone through Moses.
Even the forerunner was a mile-marker in this.

In Matthew chapter five Jesus treats the law as hearsay six times saying, "You have heard that it was said... But I tell you..."

John 1:17 NIV
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Matthew 11:13 NIV
For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.


Until John? Then what?

 

[Rusty Tyler]

And why would Paul know a damn thing? He wasn't there.

Paul (Saul) had a personal relationship with Christ which began on the road to Damascus.

2 Corinthians 12:1 1 NIV
I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:23 NIV
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread,

Ephesians 3:3-4 NIV
that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.
4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ,

Romans 16:25 NIV
Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message
I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past,