JIG wrote: S4, So you are saying that God, whether Father, Son or Holy Spirit, that a man named Jesus, called Christ, who walked the earth, died on a cross and rose again was imaginary? That the Christian faith is something born in the minds of human beings? Is this what you believe now? Do you then believe that all belief systems originate in the mind of man?
I am saying this: God and Holy Spirit are imaginary, yes, just like Zeus or Thor or Isis. Just another mythical, ancient diety. Now Jesus may have been a real Jewish rabbi, and may even have been crucified. Did he rise from the dead? No, no more than any of the other ancient mythic gods that supposedly did. Jesus is just one of a bunch of ancient dieties that supposedly died a sacrificial death and then were resurrected.
JIG, Do you believe any of these other ancient gods rose from the dead? There is as much proof for them as there is for Jesus having risen - in other words, no proof at all. I tried to make this point in my first post on this thread - you cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible, it's a meaningless exercise, and outside of the Bible, there is no evidence for a supernatural Jesus. Yet all you do is continue to quote scripture as though that meant something. It is meaningless.
For someone to say, "I've got the truth becauseI say I've got the truth" is meaningless - and that in effect is what quoting the Bible is. You're saying the Bible is The Truth because it says it's The Truth. Do you understand what a non-reason that is?
You're damn right I think that the Christian faith is something born in the minds of human beings. Let me ask you this: Do you, JIG, believe that Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism were born in the minds of men or were these great religious systems created by God?
If they are only the products of the minds of men, then certainly the same can be said for Christianity, which is hardly superior to any of these other religions. If, on the other hand, you feel that these are truly religions created by God's hand, than what advantage is there to belief in Christ? Two of these other three religions give Jesus little or no special consideration.
And finally, it is just simply sooo convenient (as well as incredibly intellectually dishonest) to say that if you once believed and no longer believed, then you were never a true, spirit begotten believer to begin with. That's a copout. Maybe what it really means is that you simply continue to deceive yourself that you have some kind of special relationship with an imaginary creator while some of us have been honest enough to recognize such a relationship is just in our minds and have moved away from the need to believe in an imaginary, never seen Big Daddy in the sky who will solve all our problems and make us feel less guilty.
People who feel EXACTLY the same way you do can be found in Judaism, Isalm and Hinduism - that feeling you have is hardly unique to Christianity! If it can be a delusion for what Christians have to see as false religions, it can just as easily be a delusion for Christians.
S4