Jesus
 

Again, I can't find his posts among all the mishmash of hundreds, but Insane recently talked about "when Jesus comes back".
Here's a hint: he ain't comin' back. Every generation of Christians for 2000 years thought that they were living in "end times". Not gonna happen. It's a myth. If you are a devout Christian, so unlike your great leader Trump, then enjoy that culture of kindness and devote more time to social justice rather than to ranting about abortion and gays. I am paraphrasing Pope Francis here.

In the meantime, Humanism has the answers.

I say live a good life with compassion and kindness towards all others.

Then it will not matter one way or the other if or when........

No point in discussing. All the basic religious questions give rise, from the believers, to closed-minded special pleading. Like, they have to know all the answers going in, or their very souls are in peril.

Jesus is one aspect of the Holy Trinity. He is the son of our Father, our Creator.

Christ was temporarily the physical incarnation of God. And he will be manifest again, but not on the planet earth.

The Holy Spirit is also God. The Holy Spirit can and does enter peoples' spiritual hearts at times, even to this day.

"Closed minded special pleading" is the same as 'prayers of petition'. Jesus said 'don't bother doing it'.

God already knows what you're going to ask for, even before you ask.

God's not going to ask questions. Your soul won't be saved by passing a 'question and answer' type test.

If anyone has any questions about any religion, I'd be willing to try and answer.

Matthew 7:16, "By their fruits----".
If it wasn't for living examples like Jimmy Carter, the elevation of a vicious troll to the presidency would move me that the whole thing is self-serving bullshit.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-lost/613999/y

What I meant by 'closed-minded special pleading' is advocacy of a position to which one is committed before any argument and regardless of it.

Oh, that's very different then.

You think you have an open mind, like the enlightenment of Budda?

Have you 'sat Zen' ?

By their fruits, they will be known.

But not saved.

For all I known, Ghandi could go to Hell, and John Wayne Gacy could go to Heaven.

It ain't up to me to judge anyone in any definitive way. There are certain people I'd like to avoid during my life, however. I make 'judgement call' decisions. .

No and no.

Do you believe that compromising your beliefs would put you more at risk of eternal damnation?

There is only one transgression against God that would seal my fate and condemn me to Hell.

That transgression is 'blasphemy of, or against, the Holy Spirit'.

What is 'blasphemy of, or against, the Holy Spirit?' Such a deadly sin should be simply understandable.

There was never supposed to be a religion worshiping Christ.

The disciples were supposed to spread the good news.

No church buildings, no communion, no statues.

It's failure to believe in it's (or His) existence.

To deny it to yourself, or speak against it.

Opinions vary. Thanks so much for sharing yours!

BTW, your post shows an utter ignorance on the whole issue. I don't know where you got that end times meme from or what that has to do with anything here. Nobody knows when he's returning.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but he satisfied over 300 prophesies and yet not a single person on the entire planet knew who he was. This includes those that walked with him and received direct teaching from him for over three years.

They all got it wrong - until AFTER his death and resurrection.

And this is how he will return. We are told to watch and recognize the signs, but nobody will know the day UNTIL it actually comes. Then it will be obvious to those that had been paying attention.

It's right there in the bible. But as nice as the bible is, what matters is a personal relationship with Him. That is where it really happens.

Yep. And I think it is because you seal your own fate. Once you throw him out, you have doomed yourself to a world of unbelief. It's similar to taking that one hit of crack. As one addict told me, once you take the one, you are hooked for life, no matter how much you take afterward.

And the great temptation that tempts us all is the belief that how good we are actually matters to God, regarding salvation from death. What matters is belief. And you can tell what a person believes by what they do.

Agree. Religion is man made. Christianity is something else. But even then, the bible describes true religion: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

The doctrine of salvation looks like a con to me, of little practical value if it conveys a blanket forgiveness without practical redemption for the harm caused. A con in the sense that a sale based on a cosmic need that cannot be proven other than by taking someone's word without practical verification.
Ethical altruism as the Christian example has a meaningful demonstrable practical purpose in the here and now. Cosmic promises of pie in the sky by and by, not so much. Too many Christians in prison for violent crimes for the dogma to be proven an effective deterrent to abhorrent behavior.

Yep. That's what makes Christianity unique. It's Grace, and no man made religion has that aspect. It's always based on works. But Christianity is not.

I use this example: Two boys are told by their individual fathers to clean up their room. One boy's father is a typical "man made" God. e.g. Allah. The other's is Jesus.

The first boy cleans up his room out of fear because he knows that if he doesn't, he's gonna be written out of the will. The second may choose to clean up his room or he may choose not to. But he knows he is in the will regardless. If he chooses to clean up his room he does it out of love and respect for his father, who he knows has his best interests at heart. If he doesn't, he knows he's being disobedient and it will chip away at his joy in his life if he does it too much, but he will still be in the will.

It's why the bible calls us heirs.

Why does god care so much what people believe?

I know why priests care, but why would it be the very biggest deal to god?

'Why' is a philosophical question.

Why does anything exist, rather than nothing at all ?

Why you, why me, why anything ?

The first commandment; Thou shall have no gods before me, for I am a jealous God.

And yet, it's a sin for people to be jealous of anything. Seems not fair.

Why would God be jealous ? Who could possibly know what God thinks, or how God thinks ?

Without getting down a huge rabbit trail, I consider this life to be like a test and boot camp.

I also compare it to a "life simulation" video game. Our bodies are what the bible calls the "natural man". Our spiritual man is inserted into it (at belief) and is instructed to subdue it. We occupy the body in the same way a person may occupy a "self driving" car.

Which brings up the other aspect. A natural man without a spiritual person in it is an NPC. I was an NPC before I became a follower of Christ.

And I don't believe in "hell and suffering" for the lost. I think that they simply die. The natural man NPC body, that is. But the believers live on in the "real world".

This life is like a life in the womb, and death is the journey down the birth canal into the "real world". And as with the analogy, the real world is a much better and more fulfilling place than the world we occupy before death.

But none of that is "scripture". It's me trying to explain it with analogies. Nobody knows until they experience it.

This is why I value Christianity over science. Science is good. It's cool, interesting and brings many positive benefits. It tells us how things work so we can manipulate the world in which we live.

But all that is pointless until one can figure out WHY we exist. That is where Christianity comes in. And "why" is a higher pursuit than "how".

It does look like a con.

Be submissive to everything. Slavery is a fact of life, be a good slave.

But the people that wrote the con did not gain anything from it. Actually, they were tortured and killed. They wrote it so some future phony preachers could be rich ? I don't think so.

The 'why' question goes to credibility. Having no direct evidence for the claim that god cares most about belief, we must try to assess if the claim makes sense.

Non-scriptural. It is of course possible to make up amendments to orthodox christianity, that cause it to make somewhat more sense. But other belief, or lack of belief, may make even more sense.

Jesus said they would be cast into Gehenna, a buring pit, where they would weep and gnash their teeth for all eternity.

Some kind of body would be necessary for that. It's going to hurt.

I guess you were converted by a Jehovah's Witness perhaps.

There are two deaths a human can experience according to the Bible; the white death (in which they die to sin) and the final death in which they wait for resurrection. The unsaved are given a body, and thrown into Gehenna.

The claim makes perfect sense. 'Don't believe in the other bullshit, I AM. I AM God'.

The direct evidence was destroyed when Moses threw down the stone table.

The Bible doesn't say what happened to the fragments of the table.

You could say the Bible isn't credible, because the story is too goofy. The authors are virtually unknown.

But God's claim as the only God has credibility in the context of the 'story'.

Trump being President is further proof to you that God does not exist.

OK

God, as I understand him, does not rule this world.

Jimmy would have won re-election in 1980, if the hostages had been released. Remember our anticipation in the media ? The release had been negotiated by Jimmy's State Department, they were coming home any day.

Any day now. Three months passed.

Because CIA director George H W Bush had under-cut the State Department, negotiated a delay. People say this is a conspiracy theory, and you have to research it deep. About nine credible people say it happened.

And the Neo-Cons were born.

Moses and the Qur’an

Here’s an interesting trivia question that hardly anyone gets right: What person is mentioned by name the most times in the Qur’an? If you guessed Muhammad you’d be wrong, because he’s referred to by name only four times in the approximately 6,300 verses of Islam’s sacred text. The correct answer is Moses, who is named a remarkable 115 times. More narrative is devoted to him than to any other person, biblical or not. That fact takes many non-Muslims by surprise...

Oh, Moses figures heavily in the Jewish bible, too. So, your response justifies Islam and Judaism. Good job!

Lots of “witnessing” from Insane and El, it doesn’t mean a whole lot to an atheist. I don’t have time now, but later on I’ll delve into this a bit more deeply. And citing the Bible means nothing to an atheist either. It is a compilation of HUMAN writings that are steeped in myth and superstition. I am not impressed.
Humanism has the answers.

Steve

The Bible is useless because it doesn't deter people from committing crimes (?)

The fear of going to prison doesn't seem to deter crimes. Are prisons useless ?

Thanks.

I've read the Qua'ran.

The Big Three religions are all based on the same core theology, but they split radically over the identity and relevance of Jesus Christ.

Islam and Judaism exist. Their beliefs can't be reconciled with the New Testament of the Christian Bible.

Islam says Jesus was just another prophet, another John the Baptist prelude to Muhammad.

Judaism says Jesus was a heretic. A blasphemer.

""Study: One-fifth of Jewish millennials believe Jesus is the son of God""


https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Study...-of-God-512015

Not quite what I said, there's an inference that Christianity is essential for an ethical meaningful life. There is scant evidence that either is correct, and that belief deterrs criminal behavior.

Worse than useless, often enough. But that's another thread.

You're not getting it. Let's say the Christian God is real as described. Some guy may believe in Him, or he may not. If he doesn't since we're saying God is real, the guy us making a mistake. He's wrong about this matter. But why does making this mistake render him damned, while the mistake of torturing babies, for example, is forgivable? Why should God be so touchy about whether people believe in him or not?

Gotta go to work guys.

Like I said, we can't know why God does what He does.

Or maybe it's all just a huge myth.

"BTW, your post shows an utter ignorance on the whole issue. I don't know where you got that end times meme from or what that has to do with anything here. Nobody knows when he's returning."

Utter ignorance? Are you doing ad hom? And I already answered that. He's not coming back. Ever. No matter what the Bible says. And I was exactly correct. There are plenty of both lay and ministers who are foreseeing signs that the end times are near, and they can show it by reference to the Book of Revelation. And it's been like that for 2000 years, every generation has lots of people who are claiming that the end times are near.


"And not to put too fine a point on it, but he satisfied over 300 prophesies and yet not a single person on the entire planet knew who he was. This includes those that walked with him and received direct teaching from him for over three years."

Yes, apologists have spent a lot of time backing in the prophesies to make the claim that they apply to Jesus. They probably apply to a lot of people, actually.


"They all got it wrong - until AFTER his death and resurrection."

And the brand new Christians expected him to come back fairly immediately after the Resurrection and it didn't happen then and it hasn't happened for 2000 years, etc.
And the Bible has, as you know, at least three DIFFERENT versions of the Resurrection that have some major differences between them, such as the earthquake that appeared in one story but not in the others, the time that the women arrived, etc etc etc. And thus the Bible cannot be defined as "truth" because obviously the details in some or all of the stories are simply not true.
For a more detailed explanation of the differences: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/crosse...ion-account-3/

A more likely scenario is that there were grave robbers. The Jews may have robbed the grave to keep the Christians from using the body as an icon. The Christians may have robbed the grave to keep the Jews from having access. Or maybe it was just common thief grave robbers. For more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_body_hypothesis