Posts by JosephAlward

17

Revelation Teaches Jesus is God

by JosephAlward in

i understand that jehovah's witnesses teach that jesus is not god, but the author of revelation seems to teach otherwise:.

yahweh speaking: "i am the alpha and the omega," says the lord god" (revelation 1:8).

more yahweh: "i am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

JosephAlward

I understand that Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is not God, but the author of Revelation seems to teach otherwise:

Yahweh speaking:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God" (Revelation 1:8)

More Yahweh:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." (Revelation 22:13)

Jesus speaking:

"Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! (Revelation 1:17-18)

So, here we have the First and the Last, dead once, now alive. Who else could it be, but Jesus, who was killed, then resurrected to life? Thus, Jesus became God, the one who is the Alpha and Omega of all things, according to John.

Are there any Witnesses on this forum who will say it's not so?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

16

Another family lost (I'm feeling sick)

by Andee in

jw
friends

just thought i would take a look over at wol.

then, i found this.. of course, all the responses were what fantastic news this was.. .

hdhslh .

JosephAlward

Cygnus wrote,

For the last year or so I've made it a practice to defend Witness beliefs against fundies, and I always win the debate. Every time.

I'm not a JW, but I understand that JWs believe that Jesus is not God, nor the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega. If it's true that's what they believe, can you defend that belief? I believe that Revelation shows clearly that Jesus is God. If you disagree, come on over to the Bible Research forum and try to win yet one more debate.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

20

Does God Really Want to Save Everyone?"

by JosephAlward in

a striking difference of opinion about gods attitude seems to have existed between the author of 1 timothy and the author of 2 thessalonians.

one thinks that god wants all men to be saved, but the other speaks of god deliberately deluding people in order to condemn them.

both pictures of god cannot be true, so there is a clear contradiction.

JosephAlward

Bang,

What would be "effective" is God simply pouring into the minds of these transgressors all of the knowledge necessary for them to love God the way he wants to be loved in order for them to be saved. He can do that, right?

The fact that he apparently doesn't always do this shows that he doesn't want some men to be saved; if he did, he would save them in the manner I described above.

I wouldn't have a problem with the Bible in this regard if it weren't for the contradictory teaching in 1 Timothy 2:3-4, which says that "God wants all men to be saved."

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

18

Destruction of Families: A False Prophecy

by JosephAlward in

the author of the matthew gospel was by far the most unreliable of the bibles writers, as evidenced by his appalling lack of understanding of the old testament and his willingness to imagine that it was filled with prophecies of the coming savior.. he was wrong about jesus triumphant ride into jerusalem, about jesus being born of a virgin, about his being born in bethlehem, about being called a nazarene, about herod ordering the slaughter of the innocent children after jesus birth, about judas thirty pieces of silver, and many other events in the life of jesus because he evidently completely misunderstood or misrepresented stories in the old testament.

readers dont have to take my word for it.

the evidence is on display in the articles in the false prophecy section of the directory at the web site at .

JosephAlward

In other words, don't do anything to excess. If this is all you meant by "worldly ways," I'm surprised it took you so long to share this with us.

Now, you've claimed that avoiding these ways makes one's parents proud. Where in the Bible does it say this? If there is no such teaching, then shouldn't you have told us a long time ago that this was just your opinion and saved us all of this trouble?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

20

Does God Really Want to Save Everyone?"

by JosephAlward in

a striking difference of opinion about gods attitude seems to have existed between the author of 1 timothy and the author of 2 thessalonians.

one thinks that god wants all men to be saved, but the other speaks of god deliberately deluding people in order to condemn them.

both pictures of god cannot be true, so there is a clear contradiction.

JosephAlward

Bang,

You are the one who doesn't understand the argument, not I. Here it is, one more time:

1. The all-powerful God has the power to make any man believe the "truth," to love God, and thus save that man.

2. Thus, if God allows some men to go unsaved, it must be true that God did not choose to use his power to save that man.

There's no problem here, so far, no contradiction. However, after we read in 1 Timothy 2:3-4 that "God wants all men to be saved," we have an obvious contradiction.

Would it make sense to speak of a man standing on the shore of a lake who effortlessly could save a drowning person, and who wants the person to be saved, but who stands by and lets it happen?

I think you're being too defensive about this and you're concentrating too much on defending your god; you need to focus instead on the author of 1 Timothy, who was careless in his use of words. All you have to do to defend yourself and your god is say that the author meant to say, "God wants man to learn to love God the way God wants to be loved, and thus to be saved, without God having to do all of the teaching and the saving himself."

The 1 Timothy author's verse was clumsily composed, and therefore the author wasn't inspired by God. That's the only point I've ever wanted to make. Unless you're operating at the idiot-fundamentalist level of mindless acceptance of the notion that every word in the Bible came from God--and I don't think you are--then you should have no trouble accepting that the author was not inspired and that he could have better communicated his important message to the readers.

I hope we're done with this.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

18

Destruction of Families: A False Prophecy

by JosephAlward in

the author of the matthew gospel was by far the most unreliable of the bibles writers, as evidenced by his appalling lack of understanding of the old testament and his willingness to imagine that it was filled with prophecies of the coming savior.. he was wrong about jesus triumphant ride into jerusalem, about jesus being born of a virgin, about his being born in bethlehem, about being called a nazarene, about herod ordering the slaughter of the innocent children after jesus birth, about judas thirty pieces of silver, and many other events in the life of jesus because he evidently completely misunderstood or misrepresented stories in the old testament.

readers dont have to take my word for it.

the evidence is on display in the articles in the false prophecy section of the directory at the web site at .

JosephAlward

Bang,

You said that "Christians honour and bring honour to their parents in the humble refusal to partake in worldly ways," but you haven't defined worldly ways. All you done is provide a few verses which have the words "world," or "worldly" in them, but those haven't even come close to describing what these "ways" are.

Will you define "worldly ways" for the forum, and give a few examples of them, and then show where the Bible says that avoiding them will bring "honour to...parents"?

In regards to marriage: you seem to be implying that marriage leads to problems of a "worldly" nature, and that avoiding marriage would bring honour to your parents. If this is not what you're saying, then what are you saying?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

17

What does AMICUS CURIAE mean??

by OhHappyDay in

jw
friends

hi folks,.

well i know about swaggart.. but what i need is the exact lingiustic and judicial meaning of.

amicus curiae,.

JosephAlward

Everyone who's reading this post can do themselves a HUGE favor by going to fornada.com and downloading the free software, MagicKeys. This program is resident in the background from the time you turn on your computer, and whenever you see a word or phrase you don't understand on some webpage, all you have to do is highlight it and press CTRL-L to receive the definition.

Please don't flood my email box with Thank You's.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

24

Dead Sea Scrolls published Jesus not There

by Satanus in

the prep and publishing of the dead sea scrolls is finally finishing.

they date from 250 bc to 70 ce.

out of a total of 52 volumes, jesus christ is not mentioned even once.. _________.

JosephAlward

Accuracy,

I decided to attack your argument and to highlight its silliness not because I had any expectation that I would be able to transform your beliefs, but so that others who beliefs are not as strongly rooted in mindless acceptance might see what they might become once they embrace inerrancy. One of my goals on this forum is to expose more reasonable-minded Christians to the kind of preposterous defenses one most resort to once one decides to believe that the Bible is the literal truth. What happened to you in the current argument--they wouldn't want to happen to them; that's my hope, anyway.

So, you're wrong; I do have a use for your beliefs--just not the kind of use you might have hoped. You and other inerrantists who attempt to defend your illogical beliefs with "logical" argument in a public forum are one of the more effective weapons skeptics can use to debunk biblical inerrancy.

Thank you.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

24

Dead Sea Scrolls published Jesus not There

by Satanus in

the prep and publishing of the dead sea scrolls is finally finishing.

they date from 250 bc to 70 ce.

out of a total of 52 volumes, jesus christ is not mentioned even once.. _________.

JosephAlward

Accuracy writes,

If Jesus didn't exist, that would have been an excellent argument to make for those who wished to snuff Christianity out from the beginning.

With his kind of reasoning, one could offer up “evidence” for the occurrence of any event whatsoever. For example, if a writer in 1840 had claimed that the twelve apostles and the Mormon leader Joseph Smith walked together about the land working miracles, someone using Acc’s logic could quickly come up with evidence that these things actually happened: They could argue that the fact that there’s no record of anyone in 1840 ever saying that these events did not happen, this shows that they knew that they DID happen, otherwise they would have said something!

Ridiculous, right? This just shows you the extent to which apologists will go—even to the point of severe embarrassment—to defend their beliefs. It's no wonder that Acc wrote,

I will have no more to say on this

because things would only get worse for him.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

20

Does God Really Want to Save Everyone?"

by JosephAlward in

a striking difference of opinion about gods attitude seems to have existed between the author of 1 timothy and the author of 2 thessalonians.

one thinks that god wants all men to be saved, but the other speaks of god deliberately deluding people in order to condemn them.

both pictures of god cannot be true, so there is a clear contradiction.

JosephAlward

2 Thessalonians shows that God didn't speak to the wicked directly and put into their hearts the love of God that was necessary to be saved. Instead, God enabled them to believe a lie. God had the power to save these men, but he didn't. That directly contradicts what the author of 1 Timothy said: "God WANTS to save all men." If the 1 Timothy author was correct, then the god described in 2 Thessalonians wouldn't have let the wicked men believe a lie, because such an act is the opposite of what you'd expect from a god who WANTS the men to be saved. Thus, either 1 Timothy is wrong, or 2 Thessalonians is wrong, or both are wrong. Either way, the Bible is in error.

We've said all on this subject that needs to be said, I think.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html