Jesus Invented By The Romans?

[mike]

So, did God directly perfrom the 10th plague or not? The verbiage in the quote makes it sound so (like in many other cases).

Yes it does doesnt it.

It clearly says the lord killed all the first born.

But that dosesn't mean that God could have had some other agent do it for him

Is a pointless argument, you may as well say it wasnt the mafia boss who was responsible for the murder, if he uses a hitman then he is innocent of any crime.

Or if i use a knife to stab someone to death its the agent (knife) thats to blame

Or if i write you a letter, the mailman who deliveres it becomes the author by proxy.

 

[mike]

True to the following definition: The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.

Fantastic, we can actually perform a very simple scientific test that will prove one of us right and the other dead wrong once and for all.......


MK 16:17-18 Those who believe are able to handle snakes and drink any deadly poison without suffering harm.


So, all you need to do is mix draino and weedkiller (you can throw in some ratsak for roughage if you like)

And drink it down, if you are right and MK 16:17-18 doesnt affirm anything contrary to fact you will suffer no harm.

 

[breddell]

No, it doesn't... As i said in my message, which you conveniently pulled out... "the destroyer" performed the act.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

[mike]

Hundreds of years of highly competent biblical scholars have read and studied the problem texts and still have found no difficulty in holding to inerrancy- this gives me more confidence.

You forgot the Rabbinical Scholars.......

It is their tradition after all, they "wrote the book" on the bible

Judaism generally views Jesus as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history.[1] Jesus is viewed as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging, of all false messiahs.[2] However, since the mainstream Jewish belief is that the Messiah has not yet come and that the Messianic Age is not yet present, the total rejection of Jesus as either messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism. At the heart of Judaism are the Torah, its commandments, the Tanakh, and ethical monotheism such as in the Shema — all of which predated Jesus.
Judaism has never accepted any of the claimed fulfillments of prophecy that Christianity attributes to Jesus. Judaism also forbids the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, since the central belief of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God.[3][4] Jewish eschatology holds that the coming of the Messiah will be associated with a specific series of events that have not yet occurred, including the return of Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of The Temple, a Messianic Age of peace[5] and understanding during which "the knowledge of God" fills the earth,[6] and since Jews believe that none of these events occurred during the lifetime of Jesus (nor have they occurred afterwards, except for the return of many Jews to their homeland in Israel), he is not a candidate for messiah.

For Hundreds of years of highly competent biblical Rabbinical scholars, have said otherwise

Jews do not accept Jesus as the messiah because:

1. Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies.
2. Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah.
3. Biblical verses "referring" to Jesus are mistranslations.
4. Jewish belief is based on national revelation.

Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus, why Jews reject Jesus

 

[mike]

No, it doesn't... As i said in my message, which you conveniently pulled out... "the destroyer" performed the act.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Here is what the bible says

And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died. (Exodus 12:29-30 NLT)


the LORD killed all the firstborn ......

The weapon of choice, is irrelevant. guns dont kill people people kill people....... The intent is what counts not the method or hitman employed

the LORD killed all the firstborn ,( with a destroyer) if that makes you feel better about the deed

and these examples

In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you. I will pour out my indignation upon you, breathing my fiery wrath upon you, I will hand you over to ravaging men, artisans of destruction. You shall be fuel for the fire, your blood shall flow throughout the land. You shall not be remembered, for I, the LORD, have spoken. (Ezekiel 21:33-37 NAB)

So in the above its not god who destroys the target, its his agent his fiery wrath ?

When they came to the threshing floor of Nodan, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God to steady it, for the oxen were making it tip. But the Lord was angry with Uzzah; God struck him on that spot, and he died there before God. (2 Samuel 6:3-7 NAB)

This one cant be dodged, god got angry,struck him and he died.

 

[Han]

I really really really want to post a clip from the film "bad boy bubby" but I cant find the exact one I want so this one will have to do:

If you have not seen this film I would recommend it, but I must warn you it is not comfortable viewing. (don't say I did not warn you if you are offended by it)

 

[breddell]

The weapon of choice, is irrelevant. guns dont kill people people kill people....... The intent is what counts not the method or hitman employed

the LORD killed all the firstborn ,( with a destroyer) if that makes you feel better about the deed
quote]
This is the last time I am repeating my original claim, God can bring about whatever he wants and I originally said that he didn't *directly* perform the evil deeds.

verse 23, "... the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you."

Who is the Lord preventing from entering?

Please provide an answer.

I got to go hand out candy...will try to check later tonight.

 

[mike]

Specifically, the Bible says he will:

1. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
2. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
3. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
4. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world ― on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, then he cannot be the Messiah.
Because no one has ever fulfilled the Bible's description of this future King, Jews still await the coming of the Messiah. All past Messianic claimants, including Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Cochba and Shabbtai Tzvi have been rejected.
Christians counter that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming. Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright; in the Bible no concept of a second coming exists.

Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus, why Jews reject Jesus

 

[mike]

"... the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you."
Who is the Lord preventing from entering?

The "angel" of death, gods hitman acting on his instructions to kill the first born of man and animal

Your argument seems to be the guns used in the columbine massacre are the guilty party, the person pulling the trigger didnt kill anybody, the bullets did

I originally said that he didn't *directly* perform the evil deeds.

Is proven wrong by this

When they came to the threshing floor of Nodan, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God to steady it, for the oxen were making it tip. But the Lord was angry with Uzzah; God struck him on that spot, and he died there before God. (2 Samuel 6:3-7 NAB)

 

[mike]

And its the same with the great flood, god was the only suspect with both the means and the motive to kill off every living thing save the impossible cargo manifest of the ark.

There are approximately 30 Million different living organisms on the Planet and for the Noah story to be literally true they must all have been on board the Ark.
If Noah loaded them in pairs as the Bible say at a very fast rate of lets say one pair per second it still would have taken him at least 347 Years j just to load the Ark!
This presents a few problems like most Organisms don't have that long of a life span and what did those already on board awaiting embarkation eat while waiting the Three Centuries till the flood?
Also what about those creatures who couldn't scuttle up the gang plank without assistance? did Noah have to load them himself then get out of the Ark past a wall of oncoming creatures coming at him at one per second?
How long would it have taken Noah to load the Ark? - Yahoo! Answers

God killed babies still in the womb, what sin could they have possibly committed to warrant their murder ?

You can try the dodge employed above, it was the water that drowned them, or that gods motives for such a mass murder were just, but to the question did god do it, the answer is yes

Only god had the means and motive, no one else did. The glove fits, you cannot acquit

 

[mike]

Now now! You know that Noah did not take all species of animal aboard! He only took KINDS of animals aboard!

Some Creationists believe that all of animalkind could have come from as few as 14 kinds (birds, cows, dogs, cats, monkeys, kangaroos, elephants, lizards, squirrels, fish, creepy crawlies (including crayfish and cockroaches and such), elephants, giraffes and butterflies.
That would have taken Noah about a minute with time to spare!

Well... this is somewhat ham-handed satire, but that is what it boils down to. All we have today flash-evolved from a handful of kinds (not 14, more like a hundred, as if that makes it more likely) in 43 centuries. And that's not even counting the species that became extinct during that time.

It's silly.

"There were approximately 16,000 animals on Noah's Ark."

Hmmm. Even assuming that ship could exist and float (and guess what - it couldn't), it would have been about 140 meters long and 22 meters wide based on the measurements given in the Bible. That's about 3100 meters times three, call it 10,000 square meters total if we are very kind.

And even if we assume there were only 16,000 animals (bollocks) there would have been 1,6 animal on every square meter (roughly 10 square feet).
Yes, I know there were bunnies and mice. There were also elephants, buffalo, giraffes, camels, crocodiles, rhinos, hippos, antelopes, zebras, deer and ostriches, some of whom (practically all the birds, for instance) were represented by seven individuals. Lions, wolves, hyenas, bears, seals, foxes, koalas, condors. And what about animals with special needs? Like frogs and salamanders?
How do you keep the insects from breeding?

And how about hygiene? Fungus, mold, airborne spores - not to mention simply urine and feces! And farts! Sounds banal, doesn't it? And yet, think it over. An enclosed space - by necessity air-tight - with only one window at the top, filled with 16,000 animals. Yeah, okay, that's gonna work just fine.

Food! Where do we put the food! Enough food to sustain 16,000 animals for a whole year! Some animals will only eat fresh meat. Some animals have to eat fresh green foliage, because that is where they get all their water from. Some animals actually eat live prey!

16,000 animals! Eight people to take care of them! Each person to take care of 2000 animals every day. Every day! For a year! Under those circumstances! If you spent 20 hours every day on it, you'd have 100 animals an hour. 36 seconds per animal!

It's total, utter, abject and complete nonsense, and anyone who takes it seriously should be banned from voting or holding any position of responsibility.

How long would it have taken Noah to load the Ark? - Yahoo! Answers

Most of that work can't be taken seriously. Just silly.

 

[bonaventura]

It's amazing how voluble people get over religious questions. A few observations:

1. It's strange that atheist polemicists and fundamentalist believers seem to view the Bible the same way. There are more informed, richer, and more interesting ways of reading it, whether you believe it or not.
2. People, even very bright people, seem to think they can become experts in theology and philosophy with very little knowledge of, or engagement with, the work done by theologians and philosophers of religion, especially the work of the latter in the past couple of decades, which even atheist philosophers admit is rigorous and worth examining carefully. I'm as suspicious of biologists talking theology as I am of theologians talking science.
3. People on the fringes--Atwell and Pat Robertson, Acharya S and Paul Crouch--don't make the best dialogue partners.
4. Discussions are usually more fruitful if they concentrate on one point at a time.
5. There are many topics on this forum that aren't worth taking seriously. This isn't one of them.

 

[mike]

More contradictions

Contradictions

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time.
Exodus 33:20 Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
John 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God [Jesus], he hath seen the Father.
1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Genesis 32:30 For I have seen God face to face.
Exodus 33:11 And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
Isaiah 6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Job 42:5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

LOL..................
Apologetic Excuses

 

[mike]

Atrocities

Absurdities

Problems With The Bible

 

[starise]

Thanks, Mike, for doing a better job than anyone writing what needed to be said! Cheers!

If that's the best you can come up with you let go far too easily. In my opinion Mike takes what he wants to see from the book and looks the other way on the rest of it.

Some of the greatest minds that have ever been, some of the most prolific institutions and many of the most noble causes have come from the teachings of the Bible.

There's what the Bible says, there's what people say about what the Bible says. There's what you think the Bible says.

Bonaventra I agree with you. Especially on your last two points. The tactic that Mike takes is to overload you with what seem to be bad things about God and about what seem to be contradictions. The chief word here being overload.

Mike maybe you don't see it that way but I think others would agree that to approach any subject matter in this way is absurd. I don't type 100 words a minute. I don't have time to read a book from you Mike. Maybe you have tons of time over there in New Zealand taking shots at Christianity and Christians. You must know most of us have a life elsewhere.

Mike how about we approach this in a way that the average human being can logically digest it?

For someone like me who has a background in the Bible to a small extent I can see right through at least half of what you say and it wouldn't be difficult to explain the rest. But to a layman who maybe has zero background this approach is both unproductive and unfair to any objective thought. For one thing it isn't the best thing to start a layman off with some of the most difficult passages in the book. No wonder it is misunderstood.

If we approached UFOs this way we would have all newspaper stories from the last 50 years strewn across the table and demand that some expert somewhere determine what it all means at once. We would then cherry pick the information that we wanted to bring out so that our predetermined view would seem to be the most acceptable.

 

[breddell]

Is proven wrong by this

What I said was God didn't do anything evil directly. Based on the evil definition I already stated, this is consistent. Once again, if you read the full passage you will see that the people were commanded to not touch the ark. The ark was very holy and pure and anyone who touches (because they have sin, etc.) would die. So far, you have yet to find an example that shows God directly doing an evil deed. ALL examples you have shown so far, are not only taken out of context, but they are all examples that people brought on themselves in one way or another.

 

[pickles]

Count on atheists to write books proving their positions, if not their points. I'm always struck that it seems they're working so very hard to convince themselves of something, since if their positions were unassailable those efforts could surely be reduced.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Forget whether 'God' is evil according to the bible. How about agreeing that the bible was written by multiple people over a fair period of time.
To me, the thing that matters most is whether there was some 'divine hand' guiding the scribe at the time or not? Either this book was actually God speaking by writing through men, or it was men writing thinking they were writing what God wanted to say or even they were pretending to be doing that.

Do any of you in fact believe Jesus was the son of God? Do you believe he was conceived from a virgin? Do you believe that after his death he came back to life and then 'ascended' to heaven and if so, how do you imagine this ascending took place?

Either he was really the son of God or he was not, there is no middle ground. To me it is plainly obvious there have been all sorts of 'artistic licence' taken with the life of a possible historical figure resembling the modern version of Jesus.

If the bible is the word of God, then I find it hard to believe he intentionally had a book written in which some parts are allegorical, some true and some totally made up - or was it supposed to be all true? Noah, the flood, the parting of the Red Sea and a host of other fantastical Old Testament stuff. How are people supposed to judge what is supposed to have happened?

If you believe Jesus was the son of God, that pretty much excludes all other religions as being what they claim. There is a lot of mutual exclusion going on. I'd be willing to bet most Christians in this forum were brought up in Christian households. If you are a Christian its basically an accident of birth. If your parents were not religious, the chances are you wouldn't be either. To me it seems obvious that anyone who is religious assumes (for self preservation) that it must be their religion that is the true one. I can't believe people cannot see the world picture of all these religions in different areas due to the history of the region, not because of the truth or otherwise of that faith. It is to me, plainly obvious that religion is man-made and I actually find it hard to reconcile otherwise intelligent people falling for what are basically fairy stories.

 

[boomerang]

Forget whether 'God' is evil according to the bible. How about agreeing that the bible was written by multiple people over a fair period of time.
To me, the thing that matters most is whether there was some 'divine hand' guiding the scribe at the time or not? Either this book was actually God speaking by writing through men, or it was men writing thinking they were writing what God wanted to say or even they were pretending to be doing that.

Oh no... I find myself once again sucked into this always endless debate. Another sure sign I need to get out more.

In answer to Goggs proposition: I think the best for which we can rationally hope is that all religious texts may be the result, not of a cosmic downloading of raw data into the minds of obscure writers (who probably needed to get out more). But rather, that they are the result of an ongoing interaction of said writers with some larger truth. One may choose to see said truth as valid or not, as personified sentience or as something more philosophically complex.

 

[breddell]

Forget whether 'God' is evil according to the bible. How about agreeing that the bible was written by multiple people over a fair period of time.
To me, the thing that matters most is whether there was some 'divine hand' guiding the scribe at the time or not? Either this book was actually God speaking by writing through men, or it was men writing thinking they were writing what God wanted to say or even they were pretending to be doing that.

Do any of you in fact believe Jesus was the son of God? Do you believe he was conceived from a virgin? Do you believe that after his death he came back to life and then 'ascended' to heaven and if so, how do you imagine this ascending took place?

Either he was really the son of God or he was not, there is no middle ground. To me it is plainly obvious there have been all sorts of 'artistic licence' taken with the life of a possible historical figure resembling the modern version of Jesus.

If the bible is the word of God, then I find it hard to believe he intentionally had a book written in which some parts are allegorical, some true and some totally made up - or was it supposed to be all true? Noah, the flood, the parting of the Red Sea and a host of other fantastical Old Testament stuff. How are people supposed to judge what is supposed to have happened?

If you believe Jesus was the son of God, that pretty much excludes all other religions as being what they claim. There is a lot of mutual exclusion going on. I'd be willing to bet most Christians in this forum were brought up in Christian households. If you are a Christian its basically an accident of birth. If your parents were not religious, the chances are you wouldn't be either. To me it seems obvious that anyone who is religious assumes (for self preservation) that it must be their religion that is the true one. I can't believe people cannot see the world picture of all these religions in different areas due to the history of the region, not because of the truth or otherwise of that faith. It is to me, plainly obvious that religion is man-made and I actually find it hard to reconcile otherwise intelligent people falling for what are basically fairy stories.

Goggs... The question of what God is, is a fair and hard question. It is the source of contention in many religions and nobody really knows. I believe in the trinity, as there is Biblical text to support it...that is God is three persons, each person us fully God, and there is one God. Since he is an infinite being and we are finite, we just cant fully understand this. There is plenty of research on the internet that points to the passages in the Bible... I suggest, if interested, go read them yourself and decide for yourself!