Sigh. This isn’t me attacking your faith, but I really have to ask you this. Beginning to end without contradiction? Even just looking at the resurrection, you have disagreements on when it ocurred, who witnessed it, what happened, and what Jesus and his disciples did afterwards.
The prophecies are a joke, especially the ones in the OT concerning the coming of “the One.” Give me any prophecy that was fulfilled by Jesus. To my knowledge, all such prophecies have, without exception, been refuted as either misquoted, fabricated entirely, or not about Jesus. I haven’t personally gone through them one by one though, so maybe you have a point. If that’s the case please refute this video
[media=youtube]wx5EKaY1B8g[/media]
and I will retract my comments about the prophecies being a joke and apologize.
Because you’re claiming it came from a supernatural source.
Presumably because you said so.
As pointed out already, there are contradictions.
They don’t mention names and dates so I dispute that they are “extremely detailed”.
Plenty of secular books can be life-altering too.
Not relevent to my concerns, I’m more interested in why people think its message is supernatural.
I don’t see the correlation here between historical accuracy and metaphysical authenticity.
The only way I can see would be the idea that people totally disconnected by space and time said the same thing about something very specific, possibly on multiple occasions. It would have to be bible writers commenting on events they hadn’t witnessed or heard of, and they’d have to cite God’s voice as telling them about them. I havent heard of such a case, if there is one, and if there is it is probably heavily disputed because it would be hard to prove that the person hadn’t heard of the events/passages.
Ironic that you forward the ‘indestrucible’ nature of THE bible as opposed to A bible.
But no, this doesnt suggest anything supernatural to me. I’m sure there are similar cases of book-burning where the original source material survived.
Except, of course, in the case of your resurrection.
There are no contradiction. Come on man, the authors used each others gospels as references, there was a reason why they had some differences. The gospels where delivering their own way of teaching the theology of Jesus to their different audiences.
[media=youtube]wx5EKaY1B8g[/media]
and I will retract my comments about the prophecies being a joke and apologize.
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The prophecies that Jesus fulfilled are
From the House of Judah
A full descendant of the house of david (check the two Genealogies)
The way he would be betrayed
The way he would die
And Allot more… I see the historicity of Jesus to be a good piece of the puzzle to who he really was, so lets go stick there and not jump into that big theology.
Explaining the reliability of the gospels is a good debate now.
Remove all that “super power stuff” out of your head as a reasoning for evidence… as i said to you early, there is a reason why God doesn’t display his power like that, and the greatest understanding of how God works and how what his “code” is, is seen during the temptation in the desert. We really can’t go into the debate on the existence of God primarily speaking. I suggest that you read the debate concerning the Historical Jesus and the historical reliability of the gospels here.
So it would be better that you debate against the academic reliability of the gospels instead of using the absence of the bible’s superpowers features. IMO, it’s the historical Jesus and the reliability of the gospels where you can probably trace the answer out of the “Does God exist” question, academically. Stop thinking of “super powers” and lets just go to the academics.
No. that’s what the Bible is and what the word of God means: God’s revelation to Man.
And as pointed out, there are no contradictions.
The gospels give out the dates and the names.
Not like the Bible. The Bible has been used and misused for allot of purposes for centuries, whether it where dictators misusing and misquoting it to gain power over the people (violently and tyrant like) or used for good in changing the lives of people who came from a road of drugs, violence, and depression. The Bible has been used for political purposes, life changing medicine, and even academically. There is more in that book than “there is a god and he loves”…
Why not? This means the Bible has an academic presence, that there are things written here that are actually proven to be historical fact.
This is because your understanding of super natural = super powers, from your definition of indestructible. Your concept and reasoning is ridiculous and it just shows how ignorant you are with the whole God subject, and you actually think the Bible in a whole is a book. The Bible is actually a compilation of many books. God does not need to use “magic”, like the pyromancers you see in video games, or the Super Powers of comic book characters. He doesn’t work like that to prove himself. The Bible is just a material but it’s the messages and the information that has been proven to be powerful.
Jesus needed the Resurrection to prove himself did he not. And his other miracles. If he hadn’t those, he would have just been a guy saying “I am God”
And yet, from the outside, it resembles in every way all the other works of man’s revelation to man.
I could dispute that, but to be honest that became a whole let less interesting to me when you said that the authors of the gospels referred to each other’s work. So there’s nothing supernatural about it being internally consistent anyway (if it indeed is, of which I am not certain).
Would love to see some modern-day predictions with names and times. Did you not learn from ‘the Bible code’ nonsense? They did the same thing with Moby Dick.
I bet the Quran has changed as many lives. Bet The Origin of Species was pretty influential on the whole, too.
Saying that historical fact equates to metaphysical certainty is like saying that you can add some religious propaganda to the end of any historical book and have it accepted as true. Clearly nonsense.
Except for when Jesus came back from the dead. Or turned water into wine. Or did miraculous healings.
You are right, Jesus needed the resurrection to prove who he really was. Until you can prove that it is possible to fake a crucifixion only that is when your dismissal of the resurrection is validated.
Please, remove the concept of super powers out of your head. You also misunderstood my post concerning that. Those authors used each others gospels as a guide, the “inconsistencies” is a misunderstanding accusation of the nature of each of the gospels. The authors commit errors, but intentionally wrote the things necessary for the theology they where teaching to their audience.
Well the Bible code is fake, so that will not be part of my arguments. The problem here is that your argument is from your concept and idea of super powers. Just study all of the events in history that where said first in the bible to happen. Such as Babylon being permanently overthrown, Egypt never ruling over other nations ever again, Jerusalem returning as a nation one day, the Gospels/the words of Jesus will reach all over the world … all of these became true. The reason why you won’t see them as prophetic because there are no “super powers” attach to it. which is what your whole argument is rooted from, your faulty idea of “supernatural”.
Yes they have, the Quran especially. But look at the difference in historical impact… another thing, wasn’t it the Bible (The Tannach and NT) where the Quran got it’s roots from.
No it isn’t. Forget Metaphysical, because your argument for the request super powers is the reason why you don’t see the importance of historical accuracy.
Your whole argument sums up as “I don’t see super powers therefore there is no evidence for me”.
The miraculous healing could be scientifically explained, and even if they an be explained scientifically it wouldn’t subtract any divine credibility. It’s just your concept of understanding God is seeing super powers. The resurrection is the one that meets your concept, so you need to actually disapprove that because that stands in your way.
Ok then. So can you now please accept that it is fair for me to expect similar miracles from the book that tells me about the event?
Because clearly: miracles are needed for anything of this world to convince anyone of its God-status. The supernatural is by definition what is required.
Nonsense. I will not accept any written report of a miracle. Miracles require much greater evidence than that.
Hell, I could see a miracle with my own eyes but unless I had other witnesses, in large numbers, I still would be skeptical.
I’d sooner doubt my own sanity than accept a miracle. In my 30 years on this planet, I have learnt to be skeptical.
Demons… OUT!
And I won’t believe in their theology without proof. And written proof of miracles is not enough for me, as it shouldn’t be for anyone who understands that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Anything that has a natural explanation is natural. God does not have a natural explanation. In order to prove he exists, he needs to over-ruled the natural (which he created). Which is why you appeal to your resurrection.
Yes, and as I am saying here, that is the exact attitude people of Jesus’ time may have taken. They then would have reversed it when he started healings and miracles.
Look, let me get this straight for you: I do want to believe in God. Not the christian God, because I think the concept of Hell is stupid and pointless. But I would love to find I am still experiencing after death. But I’ve looked into religions before (mostly Hindu shit actually) and found they were just full of shit. For example: according to Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, all things of this world are material. Except certain kinds of food, and a certain kind of tree, and images of Krishna, and the chant etc. And these things don’t seem any different to the other material things to me. So why are they designated as different?
Because that’s what those gullible people read in THEIR book.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m out to destroy your faith… although I am, I just don’t want to sound that way because that might prevent me from succeeding. Life after faith is hard but I think it is every thinking person’s duty.
The whole thing about God is something you’ll need to wait for. When you die. That is when all things will be answered (if he exists or not). Whatever things that you feel is “needed” for proof of his existence is subjective so the debate is getting kinda ridiculous.
Just my challenge goes, until the Atheist can effectively show me that the resurrection was a magic stunt, then there is no reason to stop believing what Jesus showed himself to be. There was a reason and root for the dedication and seriousness of the followers and it’s because they believed from what they saw, Jesus rising after being crucified. As to what we have studied in Sociology. Cults/followers get their beliefs from things they believed where true, and what way could anybody believe a person returned to life after being brutally executed? Gaining a belief in this does require seeing… and their actions later on shows how much they believed it.
The only logical way i see the apostles being mistaken from that is if Jesus was that great of a magician, but there is no basis for me to consider that. Lets forget about the prophecies, if miracles are real… that is clearly subjective.
I lived with a bunch of Poles for a while. Was friends with one, but some of the others were some real shitheads. Had to smack a Polsky for acting bolshy!
I see what you did there.
EDIT: I actually misread what you said there, and thought you said Donnie abides in The Dude, which would make sense what with the whole scattering incident…
But yes, I believe The Dude is the prophet of Larry. We are all his little Achievers, and proud He is of all of us.