how do i shot web :saddowns:

Why do people try so hard to destroy a man who preached nothing but kindness?

Because it's a load of nonsense that is perpatrated by hundreds of years of lies and dogma. It controls people's lives, and many people never have a choice about believing in it because they're indoctrinated with it before they're old enough to know any better.

I consider those people who actually believe in this man's teachings about kindness true Christians - hell, they're actually good people.

Those who kill abortion doctors, wreck funerals etc. are just entities belonging to the large category of CrapPeople. It doesn't really matter if they claim Jesus (bAppearingAsAChristian=True) or Allah (bAppearingAsAMuslim=True) made them do it, they're the same crap after all.

Oh well.

/me goes back to call people Godbotherers

GODBOTHERERS!

So you claim.

It doesn't matter if you prove that "Jesus" wasn't resurrected. Many Christians, especially fundamentalists will continue to find a way to ignore the evidence (e.g. evolution, age of the earth, etc.). The difficulty with the religious is that they allow religion to hinder independent thought. They 'think' something and instead of looking for the truth of things, they tend to look for ways to prove what they already 'think'. Not only this, but many of even the most well respected and admired Christian leaders from around the world seem to have very little knowledge of science.

.

YES, WELL I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?

I AM RUBBER, YOU ARE GLUE

I'm not really participating.

Hey Tracer, how's tracing today?

Bleh, I'm just trying to discourage the simple "this is right cause I say so" comments.

My prediction is that these *******s are going to be have their faces melted by divine rays of justice for opening the crypt.

And for making Titanic.

Also, this brings that Terminator-Jesus skit into perspective.

I've gotten a lot more religious lately, but I don't let it hinder my thinking about science and such. I agree with evolution, how old the earth is, big bang, whatever.

This reminds me of this company my friend was saying is going to make this big announcement about what amounts to a perpetual motion machine at face value.

But Mentat isn't talking about you in particular, or even Christianity as a whole. There are a significant number of Christians out there who will simply ignore anything, valid or not, that challenges their beliefs. That is an undeniable fact.

lol, that's what I was gonna say. I wasn't aware they had samples of Jesus' dna.

Exactly...unless they had the spear of destiny or something.

The spear is on loan to Keanu Reeves.

They should clone him.

They can't disprove the death, burial, and resurrection of Jeus Christ. It actually happened, so... yeah. They can do a lot of science and what not, but they just can't. It doesn't help that people are coming into this with a really strong bias. Not that I can blame them. Every human being makes presuppositions. If we didn't, we would have a hard time functioning with the world and reality.


Oh, and... Gary Habermas is a pretty knowledgeable fellow on the subject of Jesus' resurrection. He has excellent books on the subject that blow apart any 'theory' that subtracts from the Biblical account.

My 2 cents.


[edit]

"It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua."

Anyone else find that strange?

So where is the proof that it DID happen?


Are you suggesting that proves something?

The bible :downs:

Emon, if you are interested/curious I suggest reading Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. I'm not going to take the time to write out everything the book goes through in a post, but you might want to check your local library and see if they have it. A significant part of the evidence isn't taken from the Bible, and Habermas writes from a very skeptic point of view. He also takes a lot of time to examine every possible explanation for what could have happened with the Jesus' resurrection, and presents what can be concluded from the known facts.


As for the 20 year thing, I'm not trying to prove anything at all with that. I just think it's a little wierd that it would take 20 years to decipher ten names.

You seriously think this man was magically resurrected from the dead?

Yes. That's what makes it so special.

But see, that's the problem. Mentat doesn't attack the dumb followers, he attacks Christianity as a whole.

Despite the constant censorship and tweaking of the bible by corrupt Popes, it still is a collection of personal accounts of the disciples iirc.

It's not an ancient piece of literature like the Illiad, but in fact eye-witness accounts (with the odd "gays are bad" thrown in by a pope here and there)

The gospels were passed down orally until they were finally written down. Considering that, and the intentional mistranslations by the church, it's easy to see how there could be a drastic difference between the Bible and what actually happened.

And all of those contemporary accounts.

Yeah, all of those.

This is true. Oral stories change when people tell them. I hope people aren't forgetting this when they read the Bible, they weren't written by the original disciples of Christ.

Which you know, have probably been translated several times with alot of BIAS and ADDED MAGIC.

Passing something down orally makes it easy to change, yeah.

The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) were not passed down orally. They were written shortly after the death of Christ, and copies were passed to the churches in different regions where Christianity was first starting out. One church might have a copy of John, and another might have a copy of Luke. They would also have letters from Paul, or copies of letters from Paul. (Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, etc.)

It's also important to remember that the apostles that actually knew Jesus went out and spread the word. I don't know if they had any idea how major Jesus would be two thousand years later. They seriously may have expected Christ to return during their lifetimes, or shortly thereafter. ( I wasn't them. )

Glyde Bane hit the nail on the head as far as what was written. They were eye witness accounts, and letters written from one apostle to a church or group. It wasn't until later that someone collected the letters and accounts to make an official book.

I'm not sure (knowledgeable) about corrupt Popes and censorship playing much of a role in anything, since modern translations of the Bible use the best manuscripts available from very long ago. I find it hard to believe that there could be a drastic difference between the Biblical account and what actually happened due to an intentional mistranslation by the church. The manuscripts are really consistent, so... I dunno about that.

The apostles went to different areas and preached what they believed to be true. If I'm not mistaken, tradition says that they all died for what they believed to be true. (12 disciples + Paul)
Being a martyr shows complete sincerity, and in the case of the apostles, it holds weight for my personnal opinion. I'm just talking about the resurrection, not necessarily the entire Bible.

Does it still say that Mary whatsherface was a whore? One of the Popes changed it to that as to make women look less 'good' I suppose, because of the situations and ideals at the time.

I've heard that a lot, but I don't recall ever seeing it in the Bible. Maybe I just missed it or something. *shrug*

WTF no, it's the protected word of God. Why do you hate baby Jesus pagan?:downs:

Being a martyr shows complete sincerity, and in the case of the apostles, it holds weight for my personnal opinion. I'm just talking about the resurrection, not necessarily the entire Bible.[/QUOTE]

So why aren't you Mormon? Joseph Smith was a Martyr. Martyrdom only shows someones dedication. Has absolutely no bearing on how true their cause is.

And Glyde it never really SAID in the bible that Mary was a whore. It was kind of made into the reading by one of the popes.

I see contradictions (a lot) in Mormon teaching, and have heard some pretty negative stuff about the life of Joseph Smith + where he got the information he had. There's also the recanting of people that originally were a part of the Mormon movement. (Like, significant people, not just random folkes) I could be wrong, but I don't recall too many people taking a bullet for insisting on having seen some golden tablets.

I seriously looked into Mormonism with an open mind as best I could, and if any Mormon wants to PM me or e-mail me about it, I'd love to discuss it one on one.

The tracing is going pretty good, FGR. Thanks for asking.

Joseph Smith was a prophet dum dum dum dum dum...

Well that sounds dum dum dum dum dum...

How? It's almost a certainty that other people (probably relatives) were buried in the tomb later. Those things were expensive.

The trail is way too old. Give it up.

Well, there's also the fact conventions such as the Council(s) of Nicea, where, thanks to disagreements about "true" or "proper" Christian doctrine, delegates pretty much decided which parts of the would-be Bible to keep or "throw out" because it was heresy or drastically inconsistent or contradictory with other parts.