On my JC hearing, one of the 5 Elders (yes, there were 5!), actually the one who was presiding, turned to me, holding the Bible in the air: "I don't care what historians say. If history contradicts the Bible, I will believe the Bible". I told him, well that settles it, doesn't it - it's useless to continue this discussion with you.
EdenOne
JoinedPosts by EdenOne
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43
It seems that many witnesses simply dont care about facts?
by stuckinarut2 ini often wonder if the current crop of witnesses, especially the youth and younger ones simply don't care about facts?.
i mean for some, even with knowledge of the past scandals, misleading teachings, mistruths, etc etc, they simply don't care.
"it is the truth after all".. they are so intertwined in the operations and activities of the society, that they cant see anything outside of it.
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496
This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe
by cofty insometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.
various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.
i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.
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EdenOne
The only reason why Jesus was baptized by John is that Jesus was initially a disciple of John, who later on started his own sect of radical, messianic judaism. That's the simple truth that the early christian writers attempted to obfuscate when they wrote the gospels. Because that would undermine the belief that Jesus had been God's anointed envoy.
The baptism of Jesus (not in the sense it was performed directly by Him) is totally different from the baptism of John.
Of course, that's the explanation that the later followers of chistianity had to come up with to say that the baptism of Jesus was superior to that of John. This happened in a time when the disciples of John who didn't buy into Jesus' sect were still raising controversy with the Jesus followers, as it is vaguely documented in Acts. The fact that the author of Acts even mentioned it (only to then tell the story that those had finally converted to christianity) denotes that this controversy was still well alive still many decades after Jesus' death and was a theological problem for the early Christian congregation. That is why (not a coincidence!) only Luke and Matthew tell the story that John Baptist wanted to be sure that Jesus was the messiah (Matthew 11:3; Luke 7:18, 19), to give the impression that even John Baptist accepted Jesus as the messiah. This story is implausible and probably never took place, and that's why Mark (the earliest gospel) and John don't mention it.
Still, if baptism is an essential sacrament for salvation, why weren't the apostles baptized by Jesus?
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496
This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe
by cofty insometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.
various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.
i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.
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EdenOne
Jesus himself instituted baptism
Wrong. Jesus himself never performed a baptism. His 12 apostles weren't baptized by him. Some of them weren't even baptized by John. But Jesus was indeed baptized by John, who performed baptisms in the same fashion the Essenes had been practising for nearly a century already. The passage of Matthew 28:19, 20 (like many sayings attributed to Jesus in this gospel, also in Luke) is most likely a later adition to justify the practice of baptism by the christians. Actually, one of the most well established events of Jesus's life is also one of the things that caused more embarassments to the early christians: the fact that Jesus was baptized by John, thus being his disciple. THIS was an embarassing fact that the early christian writers had to get very creative in order to make it look otherwise. In turn, around those explanations, a whole new theology was then constructed (erm ... invented)
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Forum feature request
by EdenOne inthis one for simon.
others chime in if you agree.. sometimes i find it hard to track the threads where i have posted and where i have posted last on a particular thread.
it's very time consuming to go and look for it.
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496
This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe
by cofty insometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.
various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.
i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.
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EdenOne
Regarding the "sign of Jonah", it's worth mentioning that the only two gospels that mention Jesus as saying this are Luke and Matthew, who draw from a common source, "Q" and from Mark. Coincidently or not, Mark, the oldest gospel who is mute about a story of resurrection of Jesus also omits this passage that was added to support the tale that Jesus prophetically foretold his own resurrection. And so does John, who offers a different view of Jesus, a "son of man" who had a pre-human existence as the "logos" and returned to such existence after the physical death of the man Jesus - a vision that's not too far off from gnostic christianity.
It is most probable that the real historical Jesus never said anything about the "sign of Jonah". As it happens in other parts of Matthew and Luke, the author of the gospel attempts to find in the old testament passages that seem to validate the role of Jesus as the one who fulfilled the prophetic utterances about a future jewish messiah (as is the case of the unwarranted and very clumsy use of Isaiah 7:14 to apply it to the story of the 'virginal conception' of Jesus).
It so happens that the fictional Jonah stayed for 3 days in the sheol (the whale's belly), but Jesus stayed on the tomb for parts of three days, not 3 full days. Besides, Jonah didn't die, and, as far as Pauline christology is concerned, it was necessary that Jesus died in order to pay for our sins.
So, you have the whole "sign of Jonah" very messed up.
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496
This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe
by cofty insometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.
various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.
i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.
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EdenOne
The highest level of your will, the center of your intentions, will be fixed at the time of your death. The Christian eternity is not an infinite amount of time but the absence of physical time. The pursue of nihil is Hell.
Those are concepts that wholly absent from the early christian writings, including the gospels, even flat out contradicting them. Your philosophical speculation is as good as anyone else's. And it doesn't meet the challenge anyway: Since you claim that god creates every soul at the moment of conception, then the destiny of each soul rests under his wing. Including abandoning such soul to a supposed hell of nihlism. Again, why would a god of love and justice do that? After all, that soul didn't ask god to come to existence.
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496
This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe
by cofty insometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.
various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.
i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.
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EdenOne
But your soul can be subject to an eternal dreadful state..
Why would a good of love and justice subject anyone to an eternity of punishment for wrongful deeds that were practiced during a few decades in the material life? Such god would lack basic decency.
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Forum feature request
by EdenOne inthis one for simon.
others chime in if you agree.. sometimes i find it hard to track the threads where i have posted and where i have posted last on a particular thread.
it's very time consuming to go and look for it.
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EdenOne
I see that, but it doesn't take me to my last post - that's the key request ... in a thread with dozens of pages, where my last post is buried somewhere on the last 10-15 pages, it would be helpful to have a quick way to find it and see what has been posted ever since. At least on my ipad it takes me always to the OP.
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How many years did you waste away in the Org?
by Tallon inin my case; 27 years.
7 of which were as a ministerial serpent ... sorry, i mean 'servant' ;).
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EdenOne
40, from 4 to 44. Baptized at 16. MS and Elder then resigned, then MS again, then removed, then disassociated.
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Forum feature request
by EdenOne inthis one for simon.
others chime in if you agree.. sometimes i find it hard to track the threads where i have posted and where i have posted last on a particular thread.
it's very time consuming to go and look for it.
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EdenOne
I know those routes, but the key element here is to direct the logged in user to its last post on the thread; regardless of being one that was started by the user or just posted on.