Posts by RWC

38

Response to RWC's Atheist Questions

by Liberty in

hi rwc,.

i'm sure you're a very nice person and i don't want to get into an argument but rather a civil debate.

i just wanted to point out that as ex-jws many of us are a little obsessed with truth (not to be confused with "the truth" tm) and that after being burned by the watchtower society and hating ourselves for being so stupid to have fallen for its bs we have now become highly skeptical of the bible as well.

RWC

Liberty, first let me address your points. As for the origin of the universe, I would agree with you that the Bible tells us that God is eternal, that he has always been. Based upon a belief in the Bible therefore he had no beginning. I don't expect you to agree with that, but that is a Christian perspective. From a scientific perspective to stay within the realm of our understanding, the materials to create the Big Bang must have come from somewhere, because science tells us that something cannot come from nothing. We don't know the answer to that question scientifically yet, so to reject God based upon science, you are placing your belief in an unknown.

Your thoughts on the flood as being a reason to reject the entire bible are interesting. The creation and the flood account comprise the first nine chpaters of the first book of the Bible. Whether they are to be taken literally or not is really a matter of our understanding. Suppose God never meant the accounts to be taken literally and that as Abbaddon puts it, he made it simple so Bronze Age Goatherders could understand it. Does the fact that these stories should not be taken literally mean that the events never happened, or is that really a problem of our lack of understanding? And is this lack of understanding a reason to reject the entire Bible and all that it teaches?

As for the tower of Babel, the problem there was not really the heighth of the tower and I am not sure that the tower is ever described as to a particular height. Nor does the Bible say that God was scared of the tower or of man. It was really a question of man's pride and lack of trust in God that was the issue.

The chronolgy you mention can really only go back so far. The first "seven days" are unkown as to how long they really were. Again that is a question of literal or not literal interpretation.

As for your comments that God should call down from the heavens and tell everyone that he is here, that would destroy the need for faith. And even if he did, those who did not hear it would question whether it happened. I contend that God has made his presence known through out the ages and the message of salvation is known. You clearly know it, but have chosen not to beleive it. So it is not a matter of lack of knowledge.

140

Just As In the Days of Noah

by Farkel in

since the bible makes it clear that jesus believed in the scriptural account of the flood and since the evidence that a worldwide flood as described in that same scriptural account would have been virtually impossible, why should anyone trust jesus to be man's redeemer and the only begotten son of god?.

farkel

RWC

This board has alot of discussions about the flood and whether it was global or not. Some say it should be taken literally others say it shouldn't. Skeptics say it scientifically couldn't have been global so if that is the proper interpretation, the Bible cannot be taken as being true.

My thoughts on this debate are :

1. The problem of whether the flood account was intended to be taken as a literal world flood or as an account of God's judgment on mankind through an allegory is really a question of interpretation, not of whether the event happened.

2. Those who use the account of the flood ( and creation )as a reason to throw out the entire Bible are using the first nine chapters of the first book of the Bible to discount the rest of it. Again this is really a question of interpretation and not on whether God created the universe or passed judgment on his people.

If the real question is only whether the accounts are taken literally or not, than the problem is our lack of understanding on the proper interpretation, not on whether God exists or dealt with his creation. The fact that the Bible has proven time and again to be a reliable source of history ( more so than any other spiritual text) more logically should be taken into account than dismissing it because of a problem of the proper interpretation of the first nine chapters of teh first book.

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

One more thought, how do you explain that Paul taught that Jesus was the messiah using the old testament scriptures which I listed? The Bible clearly says he did

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

I have already answered thes questions. Paul wrote to specific churches or individuals for specific reasons. He was not writing to mankind in general at the time he wrote the letters. They have since proved timeless and are used by mankind, but that was not their original intent. He wrote what was needed to address the problems the letter was addressing.

What makes you think that Paul failed to mention the things you mention because he didn't know about them? And from there, where do you leap logically to the point that because he didn't mention them the events never happened?

Priests and missionaries since the beginning of the Church have been writing letters to churches. I am confident that they do not mention all of the things you list. Does that mean that they never happened?

We do not know if Paul did not write some of these things down. We only have the letters that were cannoized. That does not mean that we have all of the letters that Paul wrote. When the canon was decided that was around the year 340, so the Gospels were already written and being used. Had Paul written his own version of the events you describe or his own gospel, it would have been redundant and not the most direct source of the information which was one of the tests for cannonized.

Are these events the most astonishing since the beginning of mankind? yes

For the answer to the rest of your questions in the post, see above.

10

The Last Supper - very simple

by Atreyu in

jesus took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples.

take it and eat it, he said, this is my body.

then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he handed it to them saying, drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

RWC

One of the most revealing scriptures that shows that the Lord's supper is for everyone is 1 Cor 11:23 where Paul is instructing the church in Corinth on how to partake of the Lrod's supper. If it was only meant for a few why would he do that?

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

Joseph we can go round and round on this but let me respond to your latest. One, you are changing the reason for Paul's letters in your argument without any foundation for the assumption.

Second, let me give you some more examples of where Paul does mention some of the things you list:

1. baptized by John - Acts 13:23-25

2. Tried by Pilate -Acts 13:28

3. Was called the Son of God - Romans 8:3

4. left an empty tomb behind - Acts 13:30 and the many references from Paul that Jesus was raised from the dead.

5. taught that Jesus fulfilled the old testament scriptures for the messiah - Acts 13:32; Romans 1:1-6

6. virgin birth - Romans 1:4 ( by implication)

The bottom line is that the assumption you make is absolutly unsupportable and is no evidence that the teachings of the Gospels are false and made up.

72

Question for Atheists

by RWC in

christians who believe in the bible and the teachings of christ use that as a moral core and code of conduct.

for those who don't believe in god, where do you get your sense of moral right and wrong?

what is your moral foundation?

RWC

Larc, I would assume they learned alot of their goodness from you. Where did you learn your moral compass? Another question, would be by whose definition are they moral and loving people? Don't take that as I am questioning that they are, only, by what standard are you making that comment.

Julien, I do not know where you determined that God is a God of war that believes in child sacrifice of humans. That is certainly not the God that I worship, nor is it the God as lived through Jesus Christ. If you are referring to the events in the Old testament, I would think that you received a warped interpretation of them and have completely ignored the teachings of Jesus. And in what way do you say that "true" morals are better today than in the past?

38

Response to RWC's Atheist Questions

by Liberty in

hi rwc,.

i'm sure you're a very nice person and i don't want to get into an argument but rather a civil debate.

i just wanted to point out that as ex-jws many of us are a little obsessed with truth (not to be confused with "the truth" tm) and that after being burned by the watchtower society and hating ourselves for being so stupid to have fallen for its bs we have now become highly skeptical of the bible as well.

RWC

Peaceful Pete, Interesting response. But I must correct you on one thing. My thoughts went more how something came from nothing, and not just what happened in the first 1/1000000 second. Do you think that science will be able to tell us how something came from nothing regardless of how it started?

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

Thank you for the answer to your motivation. We can discuss that in another post. For now, I cannot agree that just because Paul didn't include all of these specifics in the letters that were cannoized that means that he did not know of them and thus they did not happen. That line of argument is based upon too many assumptions to be credible. What we do know is that the letters that were cannonized were written to specific churchs for specific reasons. They already believed that Jesus was the Messiah and there would be no reason to include the information to convince them. The Gospels were written to chronicle Jesus' life and thus they include this information. You will note that Paul refers to Jesus as the son of God in many of his letters, so he knew the connection. He also talks of the cross and the resurrection. He does not write specifically about Mary and the tomb, but how does that deny that the ressurrection ever occurred?

You start the argument with two incorrect assumptions. One that Paul was writing his letters for all mankind - he wasn't. They were personally directed to individual churches and in some cases to individuals. The second assumption is that he would have wanted to include all of these important events to get his message across. He was writing for specific purposes and included what he needed to get this message across.

"Just because Paul taught that Jesus was the messiah doesn't mean that he also had to have taught that Jesus did all of those other things that Paul didn't put in his writings. He certainly would have told them about the many miracles if he had known about them, and since he didn't put them in writing, we should take this as evidence--not proof--that he may not have known about those miracles, and therefore that they didn't occur."

I would contend that if he was winning converts from the Jewish people from the Scriptures he would need to tell them of these things to show that he was the messiah they were waiting for. The messianic scriptures include the virign birth (Isaiah 7:14), betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9), crucifixion (Psalm 22; 69:21), perform miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6), Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), Forsaken by disciples (Zechariah 13:7), etc.. Thus the vidence of what is written shows that Paul would had to have preached these things in order for him to win converts among the Jewish people. He could not have ignored the Messianinc prophecies when he preached to them.

14

Bible Contradition: Cursing the Fig Tree

by JosephAlward in

the contradiction below is just one among a great many which show that the bible cannot be trusted to give an accurate account of jesus life.. mark believes that jesus cursed the fig tree before he drove the merchants from the temple:.

the next day as they were leaving bethany, jesus..said to the tree, "may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

" (mark 11:12-14).

RWC

I will only address the thoughts on the motivation. Read the verses that follow where Jesus tells his disciples that they need to ask for things in prayer. The cursing of the fig tree was a teaching tool on prayer. It was not a childish act of an angry Jesus.

Why did he walk to it? So the disciples could see it had no fruit.