Hidey Ho Neighboureenos. 1I here.
Wasn't that a sweet thread we had going over there at the Secular Cafe? Well, after a much deserved break, I'm back to help you learn how to be a Christian.
Now tell me, what is it again that prevents you from believing zis Holy Bible? I will try to help you see it my way, and I trust you will do the same. Let's be respectful though, ya?
Now, as promised, I will continue to answer your questions from the past as best as I can. Looking back to the archives, I see I owe an answer to our good friend DMB who said the following:
Well, that's all I can answer to this one for now. But in a nutshell - don't throw out the Baby Jesus (and your chance at Salvation) based on a couple of typos - ie. little details that you think out to be a bit different. Full points though for your biblical knowledge. You obviously have looked into the matter. I am comforted by the fact that God knows exactly where you, DMB, and where we all are exactly with our thoughts and knowledge in the matter. I trust too that he is infinitely more compassionate, wise, forgiving and fair, then we could ever hope to be - so let's just trust God's judgement. Every little thing is going to be alright.
BTW: If not Christian, have you found another way out of here?
I would just add that, in the end, we are not going to prove this sucker either way - . Because God is entirely beyond our human comprehension, so is the whole matter. You just have to either choose to believe it, or not believe it. I chose yes.
Without Cost! Without Cost! It truly is without cost. Do you thirst for it? I know I do.
Peace and love to you all
1ICrying
Wasn't that a sweet thread we had going over there at the Secular Cafe? Well, after a much deserved break, I'm back to help you learn how to be a Christian.
Now tell me, what is it again that prevents you from believing zis Holy Bible? I will try to help you see it my way, and I trust you will do the same. Let's be respectful though, ya?
Now, as promised, I will continue to answer your questions from the past as best as I can. Looking back to the archives, I see I owe an answer to our good friend DMB who said the following:
You do seem to me to indulge in circular reasoning: the bible is history because it is the voice of God; we know about God because of the bible. So Noah is really unbelievable, but because God can do anything it could have happened. But that is hardly evidence for Noah or for God.
Stop there. Okay. The bible is the bible. It's in the hotel rooms - might have seen it. So there is your proof for the bible. And archeologists are continuing to confirm that what is written i there is historical fact. For instance - there was no other record of Pontius Pilate, other than the Bible, until the 1960s, when someone found it etched in some ancient Roman building. So there is a case of reality backing up the Bible. That's just one, but I will list some others, but let's move on.
Yes, God can do anything, so all that unbelievable stuff could have happened. I see unbelievable stuff happening all the time. Flying around on this rock in space is pretty unbelievable, but we're doing it.
There is great evidence for Noah. Didn't you watch that video I sent the link to? Ill resend it. Great evidence that the boat is the one they found on Ararat - just as the Bible says.
Proof for God is right in front of your face. Look at the Grand design which is the Universe. That right there is proof of higher thinking. I didn't do all this. Did you? Did you? Did that mud puddle over there think it up? No, it was just a fluke, right. Well that fluke is about as probable as the Bible being real, right. I would say less so actually. I have no trouble believing in a God - what's so hard about that? The proof is all around us. Including the Bible, which explains exactly what is happening. And at the heart of it all, Jesus has instructed us to love our neighbours as ourselves, and to love God. That's it. Love and more love. What is so ominous about that.
The bible is not straightforward history (inasmuch as there is ever any such a thing). It is primarily a set of religious stories and recommendations. How do you distinguish between the bible and the Arabian Nights, Grimm's fairy tales or Homer's Iliad? (The Iliad is also supposed to be history.) It is also a mistake to regard the bible as a single book or even two. It is a ragbag collection of books that owes its modern existence to decisions made by the church on what to include and what to exclude.
Okay DMB. How Do I distinguish between those three? For one, by reading them and making up my mind for myself. Two, by looking around me. About one third of the world is Christian - but I don't see huge line ups for the Arabian Nights or Grimm's. I don't see anyone discussing those much either. But hey, start a thread - maybe I'll listen.
As for being a rag tag collection of books - ya - i know. So what. It is what it is DMB. And yes, I know that the Church guys pruned it here and there. Isn't it great that we have the ancient manuscripts online that we can now see for ourselves. Doesn't mean the core message isn't true. Don't throw away your golden ticket because you think maybe you see a thread showing. Just redeem it.
For all of you in DMB's situation: that you just don't believe because of this or that - how about you throw up this little prayer (Yes, I said prayer - a little internal dialogue if you will), and it goes a little something like this. "Uh, God, if you are real, and this whole thing about believing in Jesus, who promises to save us from death, if that's real - then can you just like add me to the list. I don't really believe it just yet, as you know *(God knows just where you're at anyhow as you may know), but I am open to seeing it differently, if this is the case. No, I don't want to miss the big party." So if you could get that far, maybe that would be considered enough of a 'knock' as far as God is concerned.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Mathew 7.7
The question of the "sacrifice" of Jesus is really a completely separate topic, well worth its own discussion.
Okely dokely, it's getting past my bedtime anyway, so that's good.
Your parable of the ants betrays an apparent misunderstanding of atheism and agnosticism. Non-believers don't say "F U God"; they don't believe that there is a god to whom that can be addressed. It would be like saying "F U Santa Claus".
My apologies. You are seemingly right.
For someone who does not believe in the existence of God (I give him a capital G so we know we mean that particular god a opposed to the thousands of others such as Thor, Baal, Osiris, Poseidon, Huitzilopochtli...) there is no question of rejecting a supposed sacrifice by him. We don't believe the sacrifice happened either. There may well have been someone named the Aramaic equivalent of Jesus who was crucified by the Romans -- the Romans did a lot of that -- but we see no reason to believe that his death was a divine sacrifice.
Now this is the part that you need to believe it. It was a design sacrifice. This is the gift that was given to us by God via Jesus. Weird, I know. No, I can't explain it. Did it happen. Apparently, it did. No air tight proof going either way, but that is where you just got to believe I guess. I'm going with it. Is it wishful thinking *as a Hermit once asked? Hell ya. Wishful as you can get. What a dream heaven would be. It actually seems impossible, but if God can create this shithole reality (that's a joke, kinda, son), then maybe he can whip up something just a bit more appetizing. I think he can. He has promised he would, in a little book called the Bible, which we are discussing to this day right here, a book that I think becomes more and more evidently true as time goes on.
I am by no means suggesting that the bible is a lot of deliberate lies or that nothing it recounts could be true, but it really isn't the sort of thing that nowadays we would classify as history.
There is a problem that so much in the bible is without alternative sources or supporting evidence.
Consider the present-day difficulty of disentangling truth, lies and exaggeration, even with modern communications technology. There is Fox News and there is CNN. They often produce conflicting accounts of what is going on now. For example, as a result of watching a late-night Fox News programme and then misunderstanding what he had listened to, Donald Trump amazed Swedes the other day by claiming a non-existent terrorist attack in Sweden. How much more difficult it is to work out what was happening in Palestine 2000 years ago.
Take the stories around the birth of Jesus. Most theologians I have come across think that the biblical accounts about Jesus's birth are fiction, added to the story so as to be able to claim a fulfilled prophecy. If there was a real Jesus, he is usually referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth" so he came from Nazareth. He wasn't born in Bethlehem. There is no supporting evidence of the Roman requirement for the Jesus family to go to Bethlehem to be taxed. It wasn't the sort of thing the Romans did. But there was this verse in Micah:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
And so Matthew has the wise men tell Herod:
And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,
And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.
It is fairly clear that that is added to the story to make sure that Jesus did conform to what was seen as a prophecy.
As with the crucifixion, the gospels don't even agree with one another on what happened around the birth of Jesus.
Stop there. Okay. The bible is the bible. It's in the hotel rooms - might have seen it. So there is your proof for the bible. And archeologists are continuing to confirm that what is written i there is historical fact. For instance - there was no other record of Pontius Pilate, other than the Bible, until the 1960s, when someone found it etched in some ancient Roman building. So there is a case of reality backing up the Bible. That's just one, but I will list some others, but let's move on.
Yes, God can do anything, so all that unbelievable stuff could have happened. I see unbelievable stuff happening all the time. Flying around on this rock in space is pretty unbelievable, but we're doing it.
There is great evidence for Noah. Didn't you watch that video I sent the link to? Ill resend it. Great evidence that the boat is the one they found on Ararat - just as the Bible says.
Proof for God is right in front of your face. Look at the Grand design which is the Universe. That right there is proof of higher thinking. I didn't do all this. Did you? Did you? Did that mud puddle over there think it up? No, it was just a fluke, right. Well that fluke is about as probable as the Bible being real, right. I would say less so actually. I have no trouble believing in a God - what's so hard about that? The proof is all around us. Including the Bible, which explains exactly what is happening. And at the heart of it all, Jesus has instructed us to love our neighbours as ourselves, and to love God. That's it. Love and more love. What is so ominous about that.
The bible is not straightforward history (inasmuch as there is ever any such a thing). It is primarily a set of religious stories and recommendations. How do you distinguish between the bible and the Arabian Nights, Grimm's fairy tales or Homer's Iliad? (The Iliad is also supposed to be history.) It is also a mistake to regard the bible as a single book or even two. It is a ragbag collection of books that owes its modern existence to decisions made by the church on what to include and what to exclude.
Okay DMB. How Do I distinguish between those three? For one, by reading them and making up my mind for myself. Two, by looking around me. About one third of the world is Christian - but I don't see huge line ups for the Arabian Nights or Grimm's. I don't see anyone discussing those much either. But hey, start a thread - maybe I'll listen.
As for being a rag tag collection of books - ya - i know. So what. It is what it is DMB. And yes, I know that the Church guys pruned it here and there. Isn't it great that we have the ancient manuscripts online that we can now see for ourselves. Doesn't mean the core message isn't true. Don't throw away your golden ticket because you think maybe you see a thread showing. Just redeem it.
For all of you in DMB's situation: that you just don't believe because of this or that - how about you throw up this little prayer (Yes, I said prayer - a little internal dialogue if you will), and it goes a little something like this. "Uh, God, if you are real, and this whole thing about believing in Jesus, who promises to save us from death, if that's real - then can you just like add me to the list. I don't really believe it just yet, as you know *(God knows just where you're at anyhow as you may know), but I am open to seeing it differently, if this is the case. No, I don't want to miss the big party." So if you could get that far, maybe that would be considered enough of a 'knock' as far as God is concerned.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Mathew 7.7
The question of the "sacrifice" of Jesus is really a completely separate topic, well worth its own discussion.
Okely dokely, it's getting past my bedtime anyway, so that's good.
Your parable of the ants betrays an apparent misunderstanding of atheism and agnosticism. Non-believers don't say "F U God"; they don't believe that there is a god to whom that can be addressed. It would be like saying "F U Santa Claus".
My apologies. You are seemingly right.
For someone who does not believe in the existence of God (I give him a capital G so we know we mean that particular god a opposed to the thousands of others such as Thor, Baal, Osiris, Poseidon, Huitzilopochtli...) there is no question of rejecting a supposed sacrifice by him. We don't believe the sacrifice happened either. There may well have been someone named the Aramaic equivalent of Jesus who was crucified by the Romans -- the Romans did a lot of that -- but we see no reason to believe that his death was a divine sacrifice.
Now this is the part that you need to believe it. It was a design sacrifice. This is the gift that was given to us by God via Jesus. Weird, I know. No, I can't explain it. Did it happen. Apparently, it did. No air tight proof going either way, but that is where you just got to believe I guess. I'm going with it. Is it wishful thinking *as a Hermit once asked? Hell ya. Wishful as you can get. What a dream heaven would be. It actually seems impossible, but if God can create this shithole reality (that's a joke, kinda, son), then maybe he can whip up something just a bit more appetizing. I think he can. He has promised he would, in a little book called the Bible, which we are discussing to this day right here, a book that I think becomes more and more evidently true as time goes on.
I am by no means suggesting that the bible is a lot of deliberate lies or that nothing it recounts could be true, but it really isn't the sort of thing that nowadays we would classify as history.
There is a problem that so much in the bible is without alternative sources or supporting evidence.
Consider the present-day difficulty of disentangling truth, lies and exaggeration, even with modern communications technology. There is Fox News and there is CNN. They often produce conflicting accounts of what is going on now. For example, as a result of watching a late-night Fox News programme and then misunderstanding what he had listened to, Donald Trump amazed Swedes the other day by claiming a non-existent terrorist attack in Sweden. How much more difficult it is to work out what was happening in Palestine 2000 years ago.
Take the stories around the birth of Jesus. Most theologians I have come across think that the biblical accounts about Jesus's birth are fiction, added to the story so as to be able to claim a fulfilled prophecy. If there was a real Jesus, he is usually referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth" so he came from Nazareth. He wasn't born in Bethlehem. There is no supporting evidence of the Roman requirement for the Jesus family to go to Bethlehem to be taxed. It wasn't the sort of thing the Romans did. But there was this verse in Micah:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
And so Matthew has the wise men tell Herod:
And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,
And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.
It is fairly clear that that is added to the story to make sure that Jesus did conform to what was seen as a prophecy.
As with the crucifixion, the gospels don't even agree with one another on what happened around the birth of Jesus.
Well, that's all I can answer to this one for now. But in a nutshell - don't throw out the Baby Jesus (and your chance at Salvation) based on a couple of typos - ie. little details that you think out to be a bit different. Full points though for your biblical knowledge. You obviously have looked into the matter. I am comforted by the fact that God knows exactly where you, DMB, and where we all are exactly with our thoughts and knowledge in the matter. I trust too that he is infinitely more compassionate, wise, forgiving and fair, then we could ever hope to be - so let's just trust God's judgement. Every little thing is going to be alright.
BTW: If not Christian, have you found another way out of here?
I would just add that, in the end, we are not going to prove this sucker either way - . Because God is entirely beyond our human comprehension, so is the whole matter. You just have to either choose to believe it, or not believe it. I chose yes.
Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.
Without Cost! Without Cost! It truly is without cost. Do you thirst for it? I know I do.
Peace and love to you all
1ICrying
I try not to do that, although I'm not always successful. 