The Bible is literally true.

[Nighthawk 0]

Since we both have been on this board a while, are you bothered by all of the things you've done?

 

Also, I guess I have a hard time with being told to be pessimistic about my very nature. I mean I understand I'm not perfect, that I need God... I just don't get the idea that I need to be so ashamed of myself just for living.

 

Or maybe I misunderstood something.

Sure. I'd regret half the stuff I've done anyway, regardless of the Bible. That's another reason God makes sense. He tells you stuff you don't understand, but through your own experience you come to understand why he said it.

 

It's true you don't have to be ashamed if you are a Christian, but there is a shame associated with sin. As a Christian, you are joined with Christ, and if you sin, you are dragging Christ into your sin. For example, in 1 Corinthians it says that if you as a Christian have sex with a prostitute, you have joined Christ with a prostitute. If he was standing there with you, or course you'd be ashamed, and that's what's happening.

But sin is not your nature anymore, really. It's the nature of your flesh, but no longer of your spirit. Paul talks about being at war with the flesh, to keep from sin. When you fail, there's naturally a disgust with the sin, but there's a joy as well in being forgiven. It says God separates your sin from you as far as the east is from the west and remembers them no more, so even as you hate the sin, you know that God is not angry with you, he's forgiving you. I don't know if you've had this experience, but it's like a relationship with a woman (one you love, anyway). You may fight and say horrible things to each other, but you know, even while it's happening, that your relationship is greater than that.

 

I agree with what SP was saying, mostly, I just think it can be the seed of an unfortunate mindset, that is, being forgiven, we should no longer pay attention to sin at all. Sin is meaningless and to ask God for forgiveness is to doubt him. This is a great mindset to have if you want to sin, but it's pretty far from the truth.

[Guest SP-1]

Yes, there is a shame associated with conviction when you do stumble and sin. But it doesn't need to be an everlasting shame that never leaves you. Handle it with God and handle it with the person you might need to handle it with to repair a relationship or whatever.

 

And move on. Accept forgiveness, try to avoid falling into it, and move on. Don't dwell on it forever. You're in Christ. You are not what you once were.

 

It's difficult to put into words and do it justice. Of course, at the end of the day, my words won't do it justice.

[Guest Nanks]

Is there actually anywhere in the Bible that states having sex outside of marriage is a sin??

[Nighthawk 0]

Many places. Too many for me to summarize concisely, because it says many different things about it.

[Guest SP-1]

Yes. It's Fornication, which is clearly condemned in scripture. I think Hebrews 13:4 says it best: Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

 

Sex is the highest form of intimacy between a man and a woman. And that is reserved for the highest form of love and committment to one another in being bound to one another under God. Marriage isn't simply about being in emotional love. Love is much more than a romantic feeling. Marriage is agreeing to put someone else above yourself. Sex outside of that is self-centered on both ends and a waste of something so much more important and better.

[Guest Nanks]

I don't care for that rule at all.

[Guest SP-1]

Indeed.

[TheBigSwigg 0]

I have to admit, now that I'm married I'm glad I waited. But I'm only 22. If I waited another 5 years, that might have changed.

[Nighthawk 0]

Well, Paul does say it's better to get married than to burn (burn with lust, in this case) so if you just can't hold it, you would be advised to just get married. Of course, that's no flippant thing either, as God also hates divorce... which raises an interesting observation I've made about commitment, which is not necesarily relevant to the present conversation, but interesting.

It seems to me you can choose to love someone, anyone you decide. If you really try to, I've found you can actually make yourself fall in love. I first noticed it by some friends of mine who had had arranged marriages. I don't think you can make yourself not love someone, however.

This does end up relating to to how high a priority God places on marriage. With as much divorce as we have, it just breeds more divorce. If someone sees divorce as an option, they may take it after a falling out, and the more readily available and viable option it is, the less provocation it takes to use it. When, if you really were commited to your relationship, you could work out pretty much anything. The key is a willingness to try.

[TheBigSwigg 0]

Very True, IDRM, very true. Marriage would be dating with a license if you didn't consider it a serious commitment.

[Guest Nanks]

Well I personally would see it as far more prudent to not have married my girlfriend when I was 16. But I guess that's not really the point of the rule. Either way, once the paper's crumpled up....

[Guest SP-1]

What do you mean by that, Nanks? Are you saying that it was best not to marry her because you had sex when you were 16? If that's what you're saying, I would suggest that it's easier to just not have sex until you're married. Sex isn't the most important thing EVER~! as it's made out to be. It's important, especially within the context of marriage, but outside of that it's just a perverted, flawed image of something so much bigger.

[chaosrage 0]

Sure. For one, it doesn't really say that. It says he was struck ill and died seven days later. There's nothing about the nature of the illness, or suffering. It could have been a coma for all we know. And if you've watched enough movies, you know that a coma could well be the funnest thing to ever happen to you.

Well it says he was very sick. If you're very sick, you usually suffer. It doesn't say anything about a coma. Anyway, if any baby has ever had a disease and suffered because of it, then God tortures infants. Who else could be to blame? If any child has ever been born in a starving country and God let them starve and doesn't rain manna down to feed them, then he tortures children.

[chaosrage 0]

1.  Show me evidence detracting from the authorship of Luke.  Credible evidence.  Not shit you make up or pull from sources with a clear agenda who don't generally know what they're talking about.

That's not how it works. You're the one stating something so you have to back it up. It's impossible to show you any evidence detracting from the authorship of Luke because there's no evidence for the authorship of Luke. If you think a historian named Luke wrote Luke, please show me the evidence of this.

 

2. Why? You weren't havingthat discussion with me, you were having it with IDRM. Don't try to change who you're arguing with because the guy you got into it with is making valid points against you.

 

Why? Because I wanted to know what you thought. If it hurts you that much to think about it that you have to give me a couple of enraged paragraphs instead of a simple straight answer, then don't worry about it.

 

You don't have a clue about what you're saying half the time when you try to argue scripture itself. You don't have the slightest sense of language or contextual/hermeneutical study and then you try to ignore anything anyone else says when you realize you're in trouble. I don't spend my time arguing with you because its impossible have an intelligent discussion with you past 2 or 3 replies.

 

Sure, I believe you.

[chaosrage 0]

Destruction in it's essence implies a state of totality being achieved. Fast and slow almost cease to have meaning in the realm of eternity. Even if it took a million billion zillion eons to destroy body and soul, once they're destroyed, they're destroyed. And you'd be no closer to the end of eternity than you were the first day.

True, does destruction necessarily mean there's nothing left though? Something has to be left because the book says it's an eternal torment. And you believe it's an eternal torment.

 

Not really. God created the universe but he didn't create himself. He simply exists, he has a nature, that being, unable to tolerate sin. He's, metaphorically speaking, polarized with it. If happiness is an extension of the presence of God, he cannot create a place where happiness exists, and then leave it. If you are attached to your sin and refuse to let go of it, God must, by his nature, put you away from him. And, as I just pointed out, he can't let you be happy without him, even if he wanted to, because happiness is a direct result of him.

 

The bible says God's power is without limits and he has sway over all things. All, so that includes himself. Not that it really matters, it's still his leaving that causes it. Even if we could choose to believe him or not (we can't) and even if not believing was the same thing as rejecting him (it isn't), no one would get tormented if he didn't put us away from him. Is he forced to put us away from him for not believing? Well we know that can't be right because if it was, the second we stopped believing, we would have to get sent to hell and there's nothing God could do about it. But I don't believe and I guess you would say he hasn't put me away from him yet. So he doesn't have to do it. He just wants to.

 

I used Lazarus being to there to say it wasn't hell. As I said, the word was hades, which, biblically and otherwise, is a place of the dead where everyone goes good or bad. They wait there for the final judgement where they will be admitted to heaven or condemned to hell. This final judgement is sometimes called the Great White Throne judgement and will occur after the end of the world. Remember that, because I'll refer to it when I discuss babies again. Another reason this is not Hell, is because if Abraham and Lazarus were in Heaven, Heaven is in the presence of God, Hell is, by definition, not. If the rich man is able to converse with Abraham, and Abraham is with God, he is by proxy in the presence of God.

 

Whether it's hell, gehenna, or Hades, it's a place of torment as illustrated by the parable. It can't be biblically a place where everyone goes good or bad unless the good and the bad are both "tormented in flame". The rich man couldn't have went to the same place as Lazarus, there's a gulf between them, a gulf that couldn't be crossed. It wouldn't make any sense if he did. And just wondering, where does it say in the bible that hell is by definition without the presence of God?

 

I never said you get smiles and sunshine when you die if you've lived an evil life. That doesn't affect whether or not the parable has a point.

 

The point is that Lazarus wished he hadn't been greedy not because it was wrong but because he's being tormented in fire. If the torment doesn't exist, then there's no point to it. It's not like he learned some kind of lesson, he was just scared for his rich buddies being tortured forever. That's all.

 

He was telling this story to Jews, they knew very well about eternal judgement.

 

They knew but they were wrong. Who knows more about the afterlife? The Jews or Jesus?

 

Remember, it's not as if God likes condemning people. He's diametrically opposed to sin. He wants you to be forgiven so you can be reunited with him, but if you love your sin too much, he can't just tolerate it. To use your analogy, and I realize this is a bit simplistic, but I think you'll get the gist of it, suppose you live in one of those John Travolta plastic bubbles, and your son comes in smoking a cigarette. You love him, and you want to be with him, but you can't just tolerate the smoke. Another parable applies here, the Prodigal Son.

 

How's about making him stop smoking the cigarette? Or I could show him the flames outside the bubble. If I'm mean enough to think that the choice of smoking the cigarette is more important than forcing him to feel pain, then I could make him burn himself to show him I mean business. What does God do? He throws him in the flames, refuses to let him back in even if he promises not to smoke, and laughs.

[Nighthawk 0]

If you think a historian named Luke wrote Luke, please show me the evidence of this.

Well, for one, it was universally believed by the early church (by which I refer to when nonbiblical records pick up) who wouldn't have had any reason to lie or be decieved. Luke was not a particularly important person (apart from his books) and there wouldn't be much of a reason to falsely attribute the writings under discussion to him.

If somebody was going to lie, they'd at least say an apostle wrote it, which was done several times.

[Nighthawk 0]

Well it says he was very sick. If you're very sick, you usually suffer. It doesn't say anything about a coma. Anyway, if any baby has ever had a disease and suffered because of it, then God tortures infants. Who else could be to blame? If any child has ever been born in a starving country and God let them starve and doesn't rain manna down to feed them, then he tortures children

 

Yes, it doesn't say in that particular passage. So we don't know and I'm satisfied leaving it at that. It doesn't say anything about a coma just like it doesn't say anything about suffering. It could have been, oh... leprosy (old world leprosy, the kind that kills your pain sensing nerves) or any number of other things.

By this definition, you torture children. Why haven't you sold all your possesions and devoted every moment of your time to feeding starving children? I recognize the flaws in comparing God to you, but the principle remains.

Sin is to blame, by the way. I know, why does God allow sin? A question for the ages if ever there was one. It has to do with allowing you to have choice. He could wipe it all out now (he will eventually) but then he'd be condemning everyone who hasn't had time or the chance to be saved by him, which he doesn't want to do.

In another way, God doesn't have to rain down manna, he has us. It really should be our responsibility to take care of those starving children, as God has never been a magic problem solver. If he was it would result in attitudes like this. You'd say, "Well, I don't have to anything, because God is my butler, and even if I actively screw up, he'll bail me out."

And from another angle, if you believe God takes children who die to heaven, which as I've shown, is not an absolutely airtight belief, but is by all means within the realm of believability, then dying babies is not quite as harrowing as it first appears.

[Nighthawk 0]

True, does destruction necessarily mean there's nothing left though?  Something has to be left because the book says it's an eternal torment.  And you believe it's an eternal torment.

 

Unless that verse is talking about something else. As I've said, Hell is not a very clear cut idea, all we can discern with absolute certainty is that you don't want to go there and how to avoid it.

 

The bible says God's power is without limits and he has sway over all things.  All, so that includes himself.  Not that it really matters, it's still his leaving that causes it.  Even if we could choose to believe him or not (we can't) and even if not believing was the same thing as rejecting him (it isn't), no one would get tormented if he didn't put us away from him.  Is he forced to put us away from him for not believing?

 

That's just another zen riddle. Is God so powerful he's more powerful than himself? It's a ridiculous question. He is forced to, actually, because he can't coexist with sin. We are incapable of getting rid of our sin, so the only way is Jesus' payment for it, the power of which is realized by belief.

 

  Well we know that can't be right because if it was, the second we stopped believing, we would have to get sent to hell and there's nothing God could do about it.  But I don't believe and I guess you would say he hasn't put me away from him yet.  So he doesn't have to do it.  He just wants to.

 

That's what Earth is for, to give us a chance. What you described actually is what happened, to Satan, and there is no possibility of redemption for him.

 

Whether it's hell, gehenna, or Hades, it's a place of torment as illustrated by the parable.  It can't be biblically a place where everyone goes good or bad unless the good and the bad are both "tormented in flame".  The rich man couldn't have went to the same place as Lazarus, there's a gulf between them, a gulf that couldn't be crossed.  It wouldn't make any sense if he did.

 

In principle, I agree, because they won't end up in the same place in the end. Remember, it's a parable. People in heaven and hell can't talk with each other, but Jesus is telling a story in which they can because he wants to illustrate something by the dialogue. That's why I don't think we can be so quick to use this story as evidence for the nature of hell.

 

And just wondering, where does it say in the bible that hell is by definition without the presence of God? 

 

God's standard declaration of a sentence to Hell begins with "Depart from me..." Also 2 Thessalonians 1:8 and 9. I think you knew that, because it mentions eternal destruction and so have you recently.

 

The point is that Lazarus wished he hadn't been greedy not because it was wrong but because he's being tormented in fire.  If the torment doesn't exist, then there's no point to it.  It's not like he learned some kind of lesson, he was just scared for his rich buddies being tortured forever.  That's all.

 

It's all about who he's talking to. The Jews never questioned torment in fire, it was a given for them, the only question was who was going. They were incredibly self righteous people, in general, and very class discriminatory. The message about the poor is the main point of the story. That the rich man would be tormented and the beggar rewarded was radical stuff to them.

 

They knew but they were wrong.  Who knows more about the afterlife?  The Jews or Jesus?

 

They believed the same thing. That's not the point of the story. Their point of dispute was who and why.

 

How's about making him stop smoking the cigarette?  Or I could show him the flames outside the bubble.  If I'm mean enough to think that the choice of smoking the cigarette is more important than forcing him to feel pain, then I could make him burn himself to show him I mean business.  What does God do?  He throws him in the flames, refuses to let him back in even if he promises not to smoke, and laughs.

 

Well, sure God could make you stop sinning. But then you'd be a robot and this time I don't think you'll argue with me. Anyone who sees Hell is going to try to avoid it, that's obvious. It's almost on robotic levels again. If Hell's open before someone and God says "Follow me or go in there." is that even really a choice? That would be more like a threat. God gives you all kinds of warnings. The fact that I've told you this is a warning. The fact that you argue it shows you already knew. You've read the entire Bible. Yeah, you can use your intellect to conclude that God doesn't exist, that's fair, and you can tell him that when you see him. "Sorry, there just wasn't enough evidence." I'm sure he'll understand.

[Guest Nanks]

What do you mean by that, Nanks? Are you saying that it was best not to marry her because you had sex when you were 16? If that's what you're saying, I would suggest that it's easier to just not have sex until you're married. Sex isn't the most important thing EVER~! as it's made out to be. It's important, especially within the context of marriage, but outside of that it's just a perverted, flawed image of something so much bigger.

This isn't an issue that we'll ever agree on, we clearly have two totally different belief systems. That's not something I'd ever vilify anyone for, but this is my stance on it.

 

Of course sex isn't the most important thing ever. I didn't have sex with my girlfriend at 16 because of peer pressure or any of that bullshit. I see no reason sex can't just be an expression of passion between two people. I'll never claim for it to have been about love, having never been in love myself. It's certainly not 'perverted' though, that's a skewed perception as a result of religious beliefs. There's nothing inheritly evil about sex, it's enjoyable and I see it as a big part of a healthy relationship.

 

My overall problem with the rule is that I don't really agree with marriage at an early age, more often than not it falls apart because when you're in your teens/early 20s you really haven't totally matured as a person yet and marriage isn't something I take lightly and all too often I see kids getting married for what seems to be religiously influenced reasons. What does God care if we have sex with people we're not married to? Surely it's a bigger affront to Him if we are joined in union before Him and decide shortly thereafter to break that union.

[Nighthawk 0]

You'll probably rethink some things after you've been in love.

I wouldn't agree with marriage at an early age either, but the answer is just don't have sex. It's not that hard.

Christianity never claimed sex was evil, after all, God invented it. That's a false image, although it is perverted in the sense that perversion is what deviates from what is normal or intended, and as God intended sex to be restricted to marriage, to not do so is a perversion. It's no "worse" than any other sin though. Sin is sin, in the eyes of God.

It being enjoyable isn't the standard, as I'm sure we could all name enjoyable things which are not good for us.

Once you start having more sex, and start dealing with the consequences of sex, you'll see that there really was something to what God said afterall. Trust me on this one.

[Guest Nanks]

I've had my fair share of sex and dealt with emotional consequences and such but I cannot ever imagine a time when I'll look back and think, "if only I hadn't had sex until I was 29". Don't confuse my attitude with an adolescent kind of, "sex is so awesome, it's the best thing ever, life's not worth living if you don't fuck people". I also don't believe you can really know you're completely compatible with someone if you've never been physically intimate with them.

[Nighthawk 0]

Maybe not, but if you had waited until you were 29, you wouldn't look back and regret not doing it either.

 

Eh, I consider that copatability thing pretty much bullshit, kind of a crutch for people who feel guilty about having sex. Sex is sex, it's not like blood types.

[Guest Nanks]

It's one of those unproveable things, whether or not one would regret abstinence. As I said before, once the paper's crumpled up...

 

The physical compatibility thing is obviously largely a mental thing, it's not like the pieces aren't going to fit or anything (one would hope!), but physical intimacy is just something important to me in establishing a relationship. Each to their own. It's certainly not a guilt-deflecting device. For there to be guilt there would first have to be a negative feeling toward the action.

[Nighthawk 0]

Perhaps there is, on a subconscious level. I mean, if somebody's just completely clueless and awkward at sex, it's not like it's particularly difficult to learn or improve.

 

By the way, I can't think of anyone offhand who has regretted abstinance, but I can think of several people who regretted doing it. But you're right, what's done is done, it's not going to kill you (probably).

[Guest SP-1]

IDRM's point explains why the burden of proof is on you. The text itself points to Luke as the author, early church tradition, which was closer to the events and the writings, holds Luke as the author. Simply because you don't want it to be so doesn't automatically mean everyone else has to build a case for you. It doesn't work THAT way. If you're going to go against an accepted claim that's stood for a couple thousand years or so, you'd better have some reasons as to why.

 

As for my "enraged" paragraphs: My, we like to try and paint pictures, don't we? Point me to actual rage in my words, chaos. Otherwise, try not to be quite so manipulative of your readers next time. I know, that's a resort of someone who doesn't have much to offer but wants to talk alot, but let's at least try, mmkay?

 

In short: You give me evidence to disprove the authorship of Luke. You do your homework first since you're making the claim that goes against accepted standing. You do that and I'll throw out why it's fairly accepted.

Edited October 19, 2004 by SP-1

[TheBigSwigg 0]

By the way, I can't think of anyone offhand who has regretted abstinance, but I can think of several people who regretted doing it. But you're right, what's done is done, it's not going to kill you (probably).

A youth leader in my church told me that he used to have sex whenever he saw fit. A few years later(his early twenties), he converted and met his wife, who was a virgin. They love each other very much, and are still married to this day. But every time the idea of his sex life before her is somehow brought about, she cries. Not just a few tears, but "I have to leave the room, I can't talk to you right now" crying. He told me that it's harder to deal with those situations than to talk about his drug use or his crime record in an interview.

 

My best friend is 26. He's gotten more action than the back seat of a 72 Dodge. He's decided to stop having sex, because he realizes that it's prevented him from getting into several relationships which could've lead to marriage.

 

This is why I'm glad that I was a virgin when I got married. It may not change anyone's mind, but I will never regret my abstinence.

 

As for the early marriage deal, I have a buddy who's married because he was having sex. His wife was dumb enough to tell her parents, and they were forced into it. While I don't agree with it, I understand their logic. But my argument is this: In Biblical times, there was only divorce for limited reasons. Marriage was lifelong, whether you wanted out or not. Now, it's not so much. And you can respect marriage infinitely and still get a divorce. I know, because I've known people who have. Marriage isn't about being happy with each other. It's a commitment whether or not you're happy with each other. COMMITMENT.

 

I wish more people saw it that way.

[Guest SP-1]

Bingo. Swigg nailed it. Marriage isn't just about romantic love. Why? Because romantic love comes and goes. It's a feeling. My Youth Pastor once told me, "I don't like my wife all the time. But I love her." Because he understood that love is much more than a romantic feeling. He understands that love is a continual choice, despite the bad times and all.

[Nighthawk 0]

Excellent points, although I have one minor quibble, in Biblical times (with increasing regularity reaching a high point during the time of Jesus) there was rampant divorce. People were misusing a verse in Dueteronomy to say that God allowed them to get a divorce for any reason whenever they wanted.

There was a lot of this in the New Testament Jews. They were extremely religious people, but no less sinful than anyone else. They would take the Old Testament and twist it around to allow them to do things which God had forbid, but they wanted to do. They had a rationalization for everything.

Much of what Jesus said and did was countering this course of action. All he said about how it matters where your heart is was in response to this, about how it matters less what God says and more what he means. Not that it's difficult to know what God means, it's about you twisting a perfectly understandable decree of God around to fit your preference.

And people today are doing the very same thing with Jesus' rebukes as the Jews were doing to warrant his rebuke in the first place. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Guest SP-1]

That they are, which is becoming increasingly annoying. I'm very thankful for my school's Hermeneutics course. It's very eye opening.

[chaosrage 0]

Well, can you argue this: I make a choice to eat frosted flakes, so God knows before that I will. I had free will to choose something else, and if I had, God would have known that instead. Your concept of free will and foreknowledge is working backwards. If I had *chosen* to eat something else, God would have known that instead. I still made the choice. In fact, you could say that because I have the ability to make a choice, God does not ultimately have free will. He can only foreknow what choice I will make.

Is God a robot?

It's not working backwards. If he knows before you do something, then your choice is dependent on his knowledge, not the other way around. You could ask him "What am I going to eat for breakfast tomorrow?" and he would be able to tell you. If he is able to tell you, then you couldn't choose to do differently, or else his knowledge would be wrong. If, instead, the knowledge is dependent on the choice, then he wouldn't be able to tell you what you'll eat because you haven't decided on it. How can it be known what you will do if you haven't made up your free will yet?

 

Now, on the other hand, this is a very loose argument to begin with. The idea that nothing exists besides what is tangible is materialism, and that's a debate in itself, with or without God.

 

Yes, but it's all we have to work with. If we assume that things exist beyond what is tangible than we have to assume everything is true and it'd be impossible to say anything is wrong. We could all be the dream of a 3 year old kangaroo. But there's no justification for it outside of human imagination. So it shouldn't even be put into the mix for consideration. We can't really debate something that we don't know anything about.

 

Ah ha, so you are emotionally incapable, yet you are physically capable. So it is possible for something to be both within and without the realm of capability for you. Yes, one supercedes the other, so we can say with certainty "He will not murder his grandmother." even though in another sense it would be possible. Now project this onto God. When I say God can't do something, I'm not talking about a limit of his power, I'm talking about a limit of his nature. So he would still, technically, be omnipotent. I'll say some more when I get to the 2 + 2 issue.

 

But the reason it wouldn't be possible is because I wouldn't be physically capable of controlling my emotions and making myself do it. If omnipotence was just being able to do whatever it is in your nature to do, then technically I would be omnipotent. Omnipotence means the power to do everything.

 

I can understand it. It's an interesting notion. I was reading some Calvin the other day and considering the very thing. I have more thought left to do.

 

Ok, I appreciate that you're still thinking about it.

 

Unless he changes your mind about that. Or every time two twos are added, he creates another among them. It's just an example to say that God can't make what is not, so. God can't make himself not God, as another example. Math is a concept, saying he can't change it is like saying he can't make good into evil. That's not really a limit on power, because these concepts are part of what defines power, and God himself for that matter.

 

If his power is just limited to doing things that can be done, then you really can't say he has unlimited power, can you?

 

Well, is a concept really a thing? A squared circle is an idea, but it doesn't exist. It can't. We can contemplate things which are not, self contradictory ideas, which by definition cannot exist. These do not fall under God's power because if they did exist, everything we know would fall apart, theoretically, as they define what we know.

 

Things are concepts, concrete, abstract, real and unreal. The word "thing" just separates one from another. I agree with you. Omnipotence is a self contradictory idea and it can't exist.

 

You would be a robot if he induced acceptance. I think that in this day and age, since we have become so despiritualized, incontrovertable evidence of God's existance would probably induce belief, because we no longer have any options. They didn't have atheism in the Bible. The issue was which god somebody followed. As time went on, we finally developed a way to explain the nonexistance of God (evolution). Now that that has become our natural belief system, God's appearance would in itself overthrow our natural line of thought. It wouldn't be an equal playing field.

 

They didn't have atheism, but they didn't believe in the God of the bible and he proved himself to them. That overthrew their belief system and their natural line of thought. Did they become robots? Of course they didn't. Evolution doesn't explain the nonexistance of God anyway, just that some things in the bible are wrong. Unless evolution proves God wrong, we would just try to explain how the Adam and Eve story fits with evolution, like christians do now. We'd say that the story wasn't meant to be taken literally, or that Adam and Eve were two little amebas and God just didn't want to confuse the Hebrews, or that the people screwed up his message, or he invented fossils to test people's faith.

 

Well, it is true that if God created everything, he does have authority to do whatever he wants with it, including people.

 

By that logic, it's okay for us to do whatever we want to our kids, including rape, torture, and kill them because we created them.

 

If God is infinitely holy, and infinitely worthy of devotion, then rejection is worthy of being punished infinitely. It is challenging to think of how you'll react in heaven if you have children in hell, and there are several people in the Bible in that situation. I would think that when we are in Heaven, we, fully realizing the nature of God, will see things as he sees them, and understand what we can't now.

 

So in heaven, we'll understand that our atheist kids deserve to be tortured eternally for their beliefs. Sounds like a cool place.

 

Well, I can think of a reason he would create the universe in maturity. If he didn't, it would have to to be here for billions of years. If his objective with creation was man, why waste billions of years waiting around for him to evolve? Or maybe God also made aliens. Maybe there are other populated planets in the universe with their own plans of salvation, alien races which we will meet in heaven. Yes, making shit up is fun.

Or, suppose you're God. You're lonely because you just exist alone with no equal. You make some angels, but they know you made them and are infinitely powerful, so they're no help, some of them even try to overthrow you. So you make man. But they won't be like the angels, they can choose to love you, you can have real fellowship with them. But if you just shove your Godliness in their face, that's hardly any better. So you make it to where it's not so easy to come to you. You make it a challenge. Then you know the ones who end up with you really want to be with you. That's a pretty good idea.

 

What's a billion years to God? I know you could come up with a reason, but your bullshit reasons are just as good as my bullshit reasons. We don't have any way of knowing whose bullshit is right, so the odds that you're a disappointment to God and you're going to hell are just as good as my odds. He might actually want atheists because he wants humanity to learn reason and compassion and use them to decide to reject him. Considering all the visciousness in the bible, if he does exist, I think that's the only reasonable explanation.

 

That is a good idea. But perhaps if some of the people that didn't believe had proof that he existed, they would really want to be with him. Here's a better idea. A omnipotent loving God who was really concerned about choice should make heaven and hell both equally wonderful paradises, the only difference his presence. (And he's omnipotent so he would be able to do it.) Then, and only then, could he know that his followers really want to be with him and not just because he threatened them.

 

The song Buffalo Gal proves you wrong. If we have the light of the moon, which we do, the moon becomes a de facto source of light. This is like saying a lightbulb isn't a source of light, the fillament is. But wait, the fillament isn't either, it's the heat running through it. But no, all that is is atoms moving at a high rate of speed. If you go outside and night and can see you hand in front of your face, look around and see no light save the moon, the moon is a light. The end.

 

The filament is a part of the lightbulb so there's nothing wrong with saying the lightbulb produces light. The moon isn't a light. It just reflects light. I can't see how you could call it a source of light because it's not where you really get the light from.

 

I agree. You were the one who brought up your pals Jingus Brian and Rudo.

 

Because you said everyone understood omniscience except me.

 

Nah. A lot of people think they can prove the Bible wrong. Philosophically, at least. In your example the kid would then have to produce the correct answers. The Bible is not fantasy (not entirely, regardless of your perspective), much in it is verified. I suppose this will come up later.

 

Heh, I'd love to see a professor ask him to give the correct answers or let him retake the test after he gave that kind of response.

 

It does mean expanse. Or heaven.

 

A heaven that's "considered by Hebrews as solid and supporting 'waters' above" according to the Hebrew Lexicon. The bible even says there's waters above it. For the expanse meaning, it has "Flat as base" and "support" right next to it. I don't know what the hell that means but it doesn't sound like it's referring to a sky.

 

That's actually a good point (part of it, anyway... look again at what people were murdered and plauged for in the Old Testament). The fact that it doesn't say outright that the sky is solid or the sun revolved around the Earth either says that it wasn't important either way.

 

Or they thought it just didn't need to be explained because it was a given. Everyone believed those things. Or they didn't know for sure, so they decided not to talk about it.

 

What is it with you and little mud people? There's more to the Bible than inability to be proven wrong. See below.

 

Well without mud people, we wouldn't have mud or people. Then where would be today? It's not just the inability to prove the bible wrong. It's a common thread through most of your arguments that if you can't prove something wrong, it's an equally valid viewpoint. But obviously that isn't true. I have no problem saying that little mud people in the Earth don't exist. I'm sure you don't either. But I also have no problem saying a global flood didn't happen, the world is billions of years old, and the population of Earth didn't start with Adam and Eve. It's possible that I'm wrong and mud people do exist. It's possible that God did use miracles to make the flood, but since it doesn't say he did, it's much more likely that the writers just didn't think about these things and made up a story.

 

Ok, this is where you hurt your credibility. Nobody informed would ever say there's absolutely no evidence in support of the Bible. It's absurd. We have much more evidence more the Bible than for a lot of other ancient writings scholars have no trouble accepting. There's not a lot of reason to doubt the general slant of the gospels anyway, but Jesus is confirmed by Jospehus and Tacitus. Jewish writings called him a sorcerer who led Israel astray, confirming that he had powers, although denying their source. We can date Christian writings to within a generation of Jesus' death, something nearly unheard of in ancient biography.

And what about the times when the Bible has been in disagreement with generally held opinion only to be proven right, such as with Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon. Speaking of which, Nebuchadnezzar was a main character in the Bible, is there no evidence of him either? The Babylonian captivity, the Medo-Persian takeover and eventual return to Israel was the most important thing happening in half of the old testament. This is history, not fantasy. Many things in the book of Acts are paralleled in secular records of the period. Josephus talks about John the Baptist... the list goes on and on. I mean, damn, man.

 

Here's why the gospels aren't trustable. Back in that time, Jesus wasn't the only savior God in town. There were dozens and they all had religious writings about them all over the area. If you accept the gospels as evidence for Jesus, you'd have to accept that all of those other savior Gods existed, and somehow I doubt that's enough for you to believe that they all went around doing miracles, dying for your sins, and rising from the dead. Not only that, but Jesus is nearly identical to Mithra. Mithra was born of a virgin. He was followed by twelve companions. His disciples and he shared a last supper. He was a great teacher and savior who spoke of salvation throught the father. He was sacrificed to save mankind and rose from the grave after three days and ascended into heaven. Wow, that all sounds kind of familiar. Centuries before Jesus came along. Can you give me a logical reason of why to believe in Mithra over Jesus?

 

No one knows who wrote any of the gospels and nobody can trace any back to the time of Jesus. The earliest copy of a part of any gospel that we can trace is somewhere around 150 AD. The consensus (look at Wikipedia) is that the earliest gospel was written about 40 years after Jesus's death. Just for an example, Luke mentions Bernice at the end of Acts, without explaining who she was. He expected people to know her. Bernice didn't become famous until 69AD. Have you ever played the game of telephone when you were little? Can you imagine what a 40 year game of telephone would be like?

 

They contradict each other hundreds of times. For instance,

Matthew 27:46

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

 

Luke 23:46

And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

 

John 19:30

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

 

Which was it? Who's telling the truth here?

 

Same for the old testament. How did Saul die?

He killed himself by falling on a sword. (1 Samuel 31:4)

The Amalekite killed him, at Saul's request. (2 Samuel 1:7-10)

The Philistines killed him. (2 Samuel 21:12)

God killed him. (1 Ch 10:14)

 

If it was history, instead of fantasy, this couldn't happen.

 

You're not going to like this one but the fact that it has miracles and people turning into zombies is enough, by itself to dismiss it as a myth. This is what historians usually use as a dividing line between history and fantasy. Nobody knows if there really was a King Arthur, but magicians and dragons are enough to cast doubt on the whole story. See, even if it could be proved without a doubt that King Arthur really existed, the story would STILL be considered fantasy and Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, and Merlin still wouldn't be seen as real.

 

Or an even better example, Hercules. All the Romans and Greeks believed he was real. His words are quoted. There's accounts of what he did. Josephus talks about Hercules. Tacitus talks about Hercules. Plato talks about Hercules. The list goes on and on. We FOUND Troy because we knew the location from the Illiad. The Greeks taught Hercules along with the entire Illiad and Odyssey in schools. How can we just throw it away as fantasy when their historians thought it really happened?

 

Yet, Josephus was still a historian, and if a historian did record Jesus down around his time, that would be some kind of evidence, evidence can be good or bad. The thing is... the first record we have of Josephus mentioning Jesus was from the third century when he was quoted by Eusebius, a bishop who ADMITTED it was good to tell lies to further christianity. As Brian pointed out, Josephus was not a christian, so he also wouldn't have called Jesus "The christ"

 

Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar existed, but the bible says that Belshazzar is Nebuchadnezzar's son. According to Babylonian records, that's not true. Plus he wasn't even a king. Nabudonius was actually the last king. Just another example of the bible, even though it can verify some things, not being reliable as history.

 

The Medo-Persian take over didn't happen. The Medes were defeated by Cyrus years before he took over Babylon. Darius the Mede wasn't a real person. However Darius the Persian became king after Cyrus. Cyrus was the one that conquered Babylon, not a mede. Daniel was a little confused.

 

Those aren't main characters anyway. Jesus, the disciples, Abraham, Moses, Noah, those are main characters. There's no evidence of any of them. What evidence is there of Babylonian captivity and exile? If I'm wrong and some major events can be verified, it'd still just be in the same way that the civil war can be verified in Gone with the Wind. Does that mean there was a Scarlet, a Rhett, etc.? Does that make Gone with the Wind history instead of fantasy?

 

No Egyptian records of a Moses, the plagues and killing of every first born, the drowning of their army, of an exodus. Those are huge events. Why wouldn't they write about them?

 

As for Tacitus,

This passage, which would have served the purpose of Christian quotation better than any other in all the writings of Tacitus, or of any Pagan writer whatever, is not quoted by any of the Christian Fathers.

It is not quoted by Tertullian, though he had read and largely quotes the works of Tacitus.

And though his argument immediately called for the use of this quotation with so loud a voice (Apol. ch. v.), that his omission of it, if it had really existed, amounts to a violent improbability.

This Father has spoken of Tacitus in a way that it is absolutely impossible that he should have spoken of him, had his writings contained such a passage.

It is not quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, who set himself entirely to the work of adducing and bringing together all the admissions and recognitions which Pagan authors had made of the existence of Christ Jesus or Christians before his time.

It has been nowhere stumbled upon by the laborious and all-seeking Eusebius, who could by no possibility have overlooked it, and whom it would have saved from the labor of forging the passage in Josephus; of adducing the correspondence of Christ Jesus and Abgarus, and the Sibylline verses; of forging a divine revelation from the god Apollo, in attestation of Christ Jesus' ascension into heaven; and innumerable other of his pious and holy cheats.

Tacitus has in no other part of his writings made the least allusion to "Christ" or "Christians."

The use of this passage as part of the evidences of the Christian religion, is absolutely modern.

There is no vestige nor trace of its existence anywhere in the world before the 15th century.

No reference whatever is made to this passage by any writer or historian, monkish or otherwise, before that time, which, to say the least, is very singular, considering that after that time it is quoted, or referred to, in an endless list of works, which by itself is all but conclusive that it was not in existence till the fifteenth century, which was an age of imposture and of credulity so immoderate that people were easily imposed upon, believing, as they did, without sufficient evidence, whatever was foisted upon them.

The interpolator of the passage makes Tacitus speak of "Christ," not of Jesus the Christ, showing that—like the passage in Josephus—it is, comparatively, a modern interpolation, for

The word "Christ" is not a name, but a title; it being simply the Greek for the Hebrew word "Messiah." Therefore,

When Tacitus is made to speak of Jesus as "Christ," it is equivalent to my speaking of Tacitus as "Historian," or George Washington as "General," or of any individual as "Mister," without adding a name by which either could be distinguished. And therefore,

It has no sense or meaning as he is said to have used it.

Tacitus is also made to say that the Christians had their denomination from Christ, which would apply to any other of the so-called Christs who were put to death in Judea, as well as to Christ Jesus. And

"The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch" (Acts xi. 26), not because they were followers of a certain Jesus who claimed to be the Christ, but because "Christian" or "Chrestian," was a name applied, at that time, to any good man And,

The worshipers of the Sun-god, Serapis, were also called "Christians," and his disciples "Bishops of Christ."

 

In the King James it says that. The correct vision of the text is as I described. The age would be X's age when their first child (or actually, first son) was born, thus the birth of the family line which resulted in Z. So, that age would be their age when they spawned that line. We're arguing because you said we have records that go back further than 6000 years. I don't know offhand what they would be, but assuming that's the case, this explains it.

 

Okay, I don't read hebrew, but what do you think of this? http://www.aiias.edu/ict/vol_26A/26Acc_433-442.pdf

"c. To further substantiate the absence of gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5:11, the Hebrew grammatical form of the verb "begat" (yalad in the Hifil) used throughout this chapter is the special causative form that always elsewhere in the OT refers to actual direct physical offspring, i.e. biological father-son relationship (Gen 6:10; Judg 11:1; 1Chro 8:9; 14:3; 2Chro 11:21; 24:3). This is in contrast to the use of yalad in the simple Qal in many of the other biblical genealogies in which cases it can refer to other than direct physical fathering of immediately succeeding offspring."

 

We have things from Indians that go back 30,000 years, cave paintings and such.

 

Go talk to John Milton. In Joshua, are you refering to the sun standing still? Because that's clearly accurate from Earth's perspective. That falls under my initial sunrise rebuttal.

 

Except you know whoever wrote Joshua really believed the sun actually moved and it stood still for a day. Just like you know the writers of Job thought that the Earth was flat because that's what they all thought. And if the sun really did in fact stop for a whole day, don't you think it would've been recorded in every single culture at the time?

 

Yes, they believe that Christ is the son of God and died for their sins. The same Christ that appears to them in cookie form, and whose mother is a co-redemptress (look it up in the catechism if you don't believe me), and requires them to do a bunch of crap he didn't bother to write down when he was inspiring the Bible. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. That's a Jesus they made up.

 

That's all true, I'm supposed to be a catholic, even when I was little the Mary thing didn't make much sense. But the bible describes Jesus as omnipotent and you seem to think there are things he can't do. Hey, maybe you're not believing in the Jesus of the bible. Every christian I meet has different beliefs, and they can't all be right. Maybe no one really is a christian. Wouldn't that be a shock?

 

It is rather long, I've noticed.

He wants them to kill in certain situations. He said "I want this person to be killed, kill them." It's no different (morally or theologically) than an executioner, or a soldier, which was actually what was happening a lot of the time. Joshue was fighting a conquest of the land of Canaan, which God had commanded the Israelites to conquer and take for their own. There are instances in the Old Testament, by the way, of God allowing his people to sin to a point without overtly punishing them. It's the same as parent child relationships. If you tell a kid not to play in the rain because he'll catch a cold, and he does it anyway, sometimes you just let him catch the cold. If he's running into the street, however, you stop him.

 

The things he punishes them for are so silly. He'll have someone killed because they're picking up sticks on the Sabbith, he'll turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for glancing back at a burning city, he'll kill 50,000 for looking at the ark, but going around killing thousands of innocent people, no punishment. Does God have to command Joshua to utterly destroy everything that breathed because it's a conquest? That's why it's different. He didn't just command him to kill soldiers in a war. He comanded him to murder everybody. Is murder good or bad?

 

I know. But I was like 15 by then, and by that time I was studying all religions. You said again that I grew up with it, but if anything, I grew up hating it, and again, I was 15. I have studied all the major religions by the way. For a religion to be true, it should be known. If God created man, he created him for a reason, a reason not accomplished by hiding from him. The fact that Christianity is so pervasive shows that there's something to it. There's something to Islam and Hinduism and the rest too. Christianity makes more sense than those, however.

 

Maybe God wants to make it more of a challenge for you by making you look harder for the right religion. So perhaps the one that makes the least sense and is the least known is the one with the true God. You grew up hating it but nonetheless, you grew up believing it. Yeah, I don't doubt that you studied all the major religions and you looked at them unbiased, but I think it's still slightly more believable to you than the rest because it had an influence on you. The single best indicator of someone's religion is what religion the people he grew up around was. That means religion is indoctrination, not knowledge. Again, maybe the true test from God is to break the cultural indoctrination barrier and find the religion that looks like it's the biggest pile of shit. Then he would know that the ones who end up with him REALLY want to be with him. Pretend you're Indiana Jones looking for the Holy Grail. You don't want to just stop on biggest and prettiest looking cup. You want to pick the one that's the most ordinary, nothing special about it, nothing stands out. Better include those unknown tribal religions in your search.