Jesus, what did he really say?

What your religious sentiments may be, if any, are a matter of no concern to me. I haven't "poked fun" nor have i said that Jesus was a myth. Keep the straw man fallacies for someone weak minded enough to put up with them. The Josephus passage is almost certainly an interpolation. Louis Feldman of Yeshiva University, widely considered to be the most knowledgeable living scholar on the subject did a survey of modern scholars and came to the conclusion that more than 80% of scholars consider the Josephus passage to be party or entirely an interpolation. It does not fit into the context of where it is found except from the point of view of a Christian. The Josephus passage is not mentioned by any ancient author until the time of Eusebius, in the early 4th century. That type of textual analysis is exactly why modern scholars consider the passage an interpolation.

Don't try to tell me where i can post and what i can post. Your specious claims about hell and death have already been adequately addressed. I wonder why you don't respond to the people who have pointed out to you that hell is not mentioned either in the new testament nor in the writings of Paul. For someone who says he is not a christian, you seem oddly obsessed with this subject.

I have never in my life read a single word written by Richard Dawkins, you snide, hateful son of a bitch.

If anything, a better choice for snide authors who argue against the validity of ‘Jesus’ would have been Hitchens. Sigh..., if only there were more like him.

Never read him, either. I came to the conclusion that the existence of Jesus was problematic more than 40 years ago. I don't need to read someone else's screed to arrive at my own conclusion. For me, being an atheist is not a religious or devotional experience. I don't need to read atheist scripture--if that is what Dawkins and Hitchens produce. As i've never read either of them, i wouldn't know.

Agreed, I just think it’s funny how people like to build up atheist authors as some kind of ‘prophet’ or ‘idol’ towards atheism.
People must have been lead astray, and these heathens are at fault!

In fact, i only know about Dawkins and Hitchens because of the religious types who come here and rant about them. If i were in a book store and picked up a book with a blurb about atheism on the dust cover, i'd put it back down and remind myself to ignore that author in the future. The problem, it seems to me, is that religious types think everyone else thinks in the same way they do, so they're always on the lookout for those vile heathens who are leading people astray. The one thing that doesn't occur to them is that people might actually think for themselves.

Thank you for sharing my thoughts on the matter.

Now that is a useful bit of information. Could you please post a link to that peticular survey? The only info I could find about the Josephus writings is the majority of scholars despute weather or not the part where he called James "the brother of the so-called christ" since calling him or anyone the christ was considered blasphemy. That was the shorter of the two references. The longer passage where he pretty much said he was a guy with some followers who caused a little ruckus wasn't disputed for authenticity that I know of. If it was I would like to see that one as well. Oh, the Dawkins thing... I was just joking about that, but the snide hateful s.o.b. remark literally made me lol. For the record I've never read any of Dawkins either, he's just the most highly publicized athiest I could think of at that moment.

Cure your own ignorance, i'm done trying to speak sense to someone who rants about religion and then denies being religious. It has been pointed out to you that neither the so-called new testament nor Paul mention hell. That's an answer to your question. Why haven't you responded to those people?

I too have avoided reading Dawkins and Hitchens. Many atheists who seek the limelight end up looking foolish. O'Hare comes readily to mind. Also some of Bertrand Russell's writing on the subject.

Jesus was the first to say;
"Thous shall playest Ball" (Its been shortened a lot in the last 2000 years. Jesus was a Phillies fan

Ya gotta read those guys, Dawkins has always made his points as attempts to extract from a scientific methodology. He falls dow in that he gets vituperative towards the "believers". However, his points of logic are pretty good.
Hitchens, to me, was a master of the bleedin obvious . He always followed someone elses trains of evidence and thought.

He will be missed however.

The problem with that drivel is that it does not address the issue of whether the "vile heathens" are or are not leading us astray. If they are leading us astray, as religious types think they are, then the RTs are pragmatically justified in being on the look out for them. The "vile heathens" need to show that they are not leading us astray. That's what the whole argument hinges upon. Whether we are led astray or not.

Being "led astray" is, of course, disastrous.

People thinking for themselves is neither here nor there. The expression is trotted out endlessly and sentimentally by those who think thinking for ourselves, scientifically impossible under any modern definition of the word "thinking", is both a good thing and not a danger to our being led down the paths of enlightenment.

As usual Setanta draws his conclusions from his premiss which is, as most other people know, nonsensical. And whatever conclusion he arrives at from whatever premiss he starts with can be guaranteed to be self-flattering as the drivel quoted makes abundantly clear in the sense that we are being told Setanta thinks for himself and is thus a suitable subject for our admiration. Which is only the case if thinking for ourselves is a good thing.

But, it only "seems" that way. Thus it hardly matters at all.

Anybody who wishes to argue for us thinking for ourselves should address himself to Media which is busily and continuously engineering all our thoughts to bring them in line with the thoughts of those who own and operate its engines of indoctrination.

Religious types are a far easier target. So much so that they constitute what may fairly described as "sitting ducks". And yet opposition to religious types is strong enough to prove that their indoctrination methods are not particularly efficient.

Opposition to Media requires a stiffer backbone.

1 Corinthians 15:55 paul declared victory over hell. His preachings were mainly focused on jesus being a Savior, you were right, but here's the question.. What was Jesus saving the believers from? Without hell and eternal punishment the Christian doctrine would not exist. Christianity relies solely on hell and redemption to exist. Its sad to me they even had to go as far as twisting the words of their "savior" just to be able to believe what he was saying.

“We preachers do not preach hell enough, and we do not say enough about sin. We talk about the gospel and wonder why people are not interested in what we say. Of course they are not interested. No man is interested in a piece of good news unless he has the consciousness of
needing it; no man is interested in an offer of salvation unless he knows that there is something from which he needs to be saved. It is quite useless to ask a man to adopt the Christian view of the gospel unless he first has the Christian view of sin.". - J. Gresham Machen taken from: Sin’s Wages and God’s Gift.

One of my favorite passages from the Book of Conrad, fm. Inspiring.

I had said that he doesn't mention hell or hades, but he does, in fact mention hades. This is an example of tortured exegesis where some people interpret him to be referring to the grave, and others to a place of torment after death.

Whatever Jesus may have said, as a Jew, he would have read Solomon and understood that ". . . the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . ." ( Ecclesiastes 9:5)

So, no baking or boiling, no frying or broiling.

Actually: removal of the eyes has always been going on. I think it's literate. Because one is fooled or tricked according to the principle teaching that's been going around forever. I think they did it in Greece. Would you?

You are speaking of nominal christianity.

The emphasis on defanging Hell rather than tending to Heaven is what rouses my suspicions. God is love, God is just, I don't need to determine the meaning of those verses to that extent. Sin is wrong. you don't deny that. We are all judged, you don't deny that.

Why do you appear to be 'backing' into Heaven ? Is Hell your main focus.