How long will christians take this???

Yes shame on us for sticking by what we believe..........I wonder how many atheists and agnostics, throughout the yrs have come in here with openminds, examined their beliefs and ended up becoming religious?? Not many i bet.........

Deist,

Your choice.

1corinthians 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty...

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Dang Kate! I thought when I invited you to A2K I explained things! Geesh woman! Don't you know expecting to hear about God on the religion and spirituality forum is probably as insane as expecting to find out how to worm cats by visiting the pets threads? hehehehehe

Quote:

Kate, I suspect that any lack of conversions to religiosity would be due to the quality of arguments put forward rather than lack of openmindedness

1corinthians 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty...

I don't know why you guys feel the need to always mock and belittle the religious beliefs held strongly by people in this forum...but i will say this and not say anymore on this subject...

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

You may not believe in Jesus but he believes and loves you so much that he willingly died for you.

...and if believing that makes me closedminded or foolish in your eyes then thats fine...i will gladly align myself with the Apostle paul who proclaimed boldy that he was a "Fool for Christ"

Don't patronize me.

I choose to focus myself on this life, the people around me, my family. My choice the way I see it, and trust me, I've been looking, I choose correctly with my values. I choose to align myself with the wise not the fool.

Which is characterized where in our world? It is only the desire of the fool to be accidentally right.

You know this is probably to most quoted phrase in the bible. The things that always gets me is this. First the word "gave" as in "...he gave his only begotton son..." What was actually given that wasn't taken back? What sacrifice is actually desribed in this passage? It seems to me that Jesus's resurection kind of removes anything profound abuot this statement. Keep score, play the numbers, before and after, God would retain the same amount of Jesus. What was given? So if this passage is the contract God with man, it seems that it was voided a week after it was signed by God.

The next thing about this passage that bothers me is that yes Jesus suffered, but in the history of man, his suffering does not compare to that of the common man. But the common man is not the mayter. If this was the great act to bring salvation, it's simply not enough.

If every lash, if every strike, if every second on the cross was his predetermined, then there is nothing profound about this.

I worry about Christians that feel they have their sins atoned by this act. They'd never be on the cross to pay for their own sins.

What is your expectation of people? There is plenty of discussion on God in the S&R threads. I'm not sure how anyone has failed to meet any rational expectation in tat matter. If you want to start a worming cats thread in the pets forum... what's stopping you? Same goes here. If you want to tlak about god, go make a thread. Ask a direct question, or make a statement about your beliefs. But be prepared to be critiqued. Anything else would be the true failure for the postrs in A2K.

BTW, nobody's belittling your words. You choose to post them, so if they don't hold any credibility with people here, you'd be better to find better words.

How come the Gospel of Mark is based on the Greek (pagan) 'Odyssey'?

Diest TKO wrote:

Don't patronize me.

I wasn't patronizing you. I merely stated a fact.

Quote:

I choose to focus myself on this life, the people around me, my family. My choice the way I see it, and trust me, I've been looking, I choose correctly with my values. I choose to align myself with the wise not the fool.

Hey, as long as you are willing to live with the consequences of your choices, I got no problem with it.

Quote:

Which is characterized where in our world? It is only the desire of the fool to be accidentally right.

Who says it's an accident? What IF the Bible is true. What IF God really does exist? Then who believes what by accident? Two way street.

Quote:

You know this is probably to most quoted phrase in the bible. The things that always gets me is this. First the word "gave" as in "...he gave his only begotton son..." What was actually given that wasn't taken back? What sacrifice is actually desribed in this passage? It seems to me that Jesus's resurection kind of removes anything profound abuot this statement. Keep score, play the numbers, before and after, God would retain the same amount of Jesus. What was given? So if this passage is the contract God with man, it seems that it was voided a week after it was signed by God.

I pray someday that it makes sense to you.

Quote:

The next thing about this passage that bothers me is that yes Jesus suffered, but in the history of man, his suffering does not compare to that of the common man. But the common man is not the mayter. If this was the great act to bring salvation, it's simply not enough.

It was more than enough for me.

Quote:

If every lash, if every strike, if every second on the cross was his predetermined, then there is nothing profound about this.

I worry about Christians that feel they have their sins atoned by this act. They'd never be on the cross to pay for their own sins.

Uh, that's the point. He died in our place.

Quote:

BTW, nobody's belittling your words. You choose to post them, so if they don't hold any credibility with people here, you'd be better to find better words.

Oh, you mean words that agree with the way you believe? Be honest, those are the only words you'd accept as credible, aren't they? So, I will just accept being written off as uncredible by you and take no offense at it whatsoever. No harm. No foul.

So basically, your point 1 establishes you point 2. This only means that the bible is the truth because of your opinion, not because of God at all. Perhaps you misspoke. Reread.

Point 3 goes for me as wll, I think no less of others with different ideas. I thiink less of those who think that they must condesend upon me. So as I said, tread lightly.

God's word may not need defending, but God is yet to speak. If you want to claim the bible as god's word, then you beg the bible's credibility to be analysed. For instance, let's imagine that in the Bible is God's word. It would only follow that the one would wonder how much the Bible is man's word and thus requires defending. If you believe that the entire bible from beginnning to end is God's word, then you open up the notion that God's words are often contrary and thus i need of close inspection. It would be the reader's duty to amend in their mind how to translate a confusing messege. And the second Mand has to compose in their brian anything in this nature the word of God begins to be paraphrased.

You don't think that warrants a credibility check?

Raul-7 wrote:

How come the Gospel of Mark is based on the Greek (pagan) 'Odyssey'?

It's not.

Nope, sorry. You can't use the bible to prove or disprove something since the bible has not been proven to be true. All you can say is that something disagrees with what is written there. That was the point of quoting Maccoby, to show that someone that has studied it, disagrees. There are quite a few bible scholars out there that think it shouldn't be taken literally. No talking snake, no talking ass (except politicians) and no world-wide flood. I, for one, really don't know if Jesus existed. I'm pretty sure the God described in the bible doesn't. Can I prove it? No, no more that you can prove that he does. Belief does not equal proof. Nor does quoting verse.

Setanta wrote:

I'll second that--Mesquite, you are a low and vile realist, and in a decent, Christian nation, you'd be locked up.

I also agree with you that all of the Big Bird's efforts with the God squad have likely been wasted, because they don't come here to learn, or to examine their beliefs. They only come here to prate about the excellence of their spiritual understanding, to peddle their personal and particularist version of biblical exegesis, and to deplore the depravity of anyone who has the temerity to think differently than do they.

Wasted on the posters themselves perhaps, but not on all the readers of the thread. We've had a few spectacular changes of religious persuasion, and they are just the public ones. Some were very passionate theists, perhaps these guys are also testing their faith?

To be fair, I doubt timber's departure is related to these guys returning. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

This was not a discussion on proving the bible is true. This was not a discussion on faith.

There are no contradictions in the Bible.

It is always hilarious, though, to see those who insist upon their own pecurliar exegesis complaining if someone else quotes scripture to them

No bait involved, i asked you for your source so that we could judge whether or not that source was reliable. You failed to provide a source. Your entry can therefore be dismissed as unreliable.

Arella Mae wrote:

There are no contradictions in the Bible.

No contradictions? That's because every bit of the Bible requires interpretation. You choose to read it very creatively, which allows you to avoid any contradictions.

Quote:

It is always hilarious, though, to see those who insist upon their own pecurliar exegesis complaining if someone else quotes scripture to them

I never once complained about anyone quoting scripture to make a point. I would love for pauligirl to give scripture proving her points; that there are two types of Christianity (Christ's and paul's), that paul was never accepted by the apostles, and that the ending of the law was solely in paul's hands. All i was given was an article by an atheist ex-christian. He never gives any outside accredited sources for his views. His only reference is the bible, and yet nothing he says lines up with it.

Quote:

No bait involved, i asked you for your source so that we could judge whether or not that source was reliable. You failed to provide a source. Your entry can therefore be dismissed as unreliable.

This was from your conversation with arella. You two were debating muslim scripture and the importance of having a reliable source for comparing scriptures etc. I find it ironic that in your discussion you gave objection to her citing text from a christian source to prove something in the koran. yet when i find it preposterous to use an athiest site to do an exegesis of christian scriptures, you accuse me of complaining...

It is always hilarious, though, to see those who insist upon their own pecurliar exegesis complaining if someone else quotes scripture to them