In the OT, god makes a lot of hay about how the number one rule, as far as god is concerned, is not to be a good person or do good things, not to treat your fellow human well, not to be moral, but to obey god. It is the first commandment given of the 10 commandments, and the one that goes into the most detail. god even goes so far as to emphasize that 'obeying other gods is wrong, even looking at other gods is wrong - you must obey me, me, me!'
So, has that changed? At the very end of the book of Matthew (Matt. 28:19-20), are we left with a commandment to love one another? No. Are we left with a commandment to be good or moral or perform moral acts? No. We are told to proselytize and make sure that everyone obeys god. god is reminding all that the number one priority is to obey him.
Well, we can see the obvious problems with this. When someone claims that god is telling them to drown their children or push them into traffic (both have happened) the "rational" response for a Xian that believes that god is to be obeyed above all is to go ahead and do it. What a monstrous theology.
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Note to all apologists that will claim that god would never order such a thing:
1. You can't provide evidence that your conception of a god that could not do such things is correct.
2. Your god has ordered the killings of children before, including ordering fathers to slay/sacrifice their children, so we have a past history of this.
20 comments:
may be i think that you have to rethink your opinions on Jesus.
i am not here to find wrong with your beliefs and also i am not here to quarrel with you but i ask you to taste Jesus once and see his goodness..
Coz he has done a lot in my life and can change yours too...all you have to do is to give him a chance..and place in your heart..
Please i request it.don't doubt his goodness.all that matters is to give him a chance.
Your friend
hari.y1988@gmail.com
"may be i think that you have to rethink your opinions on Jesus."
Why should I?
"i am not here to find wrong with your beliefs and also i am not here to quarrel with you but i ask you to taste Jesus once and see his goodness.."
1) I used to be a Xian.
2) How do you know that god is good?
"Coz he has done a lot in my life and can change yours too...all you have to do is to give him a chance..and place in your heart.."
And, many people he supposedly tortures for eternity.
"Please i request it.don't doubt his goodness.all that matters is to give him a chance."
What exactly am I giving a chance to? A tyrant that will throw me into hell for not following him? How does one "give him a chance?" Why should I believe in things that have no evidence? If I give god a chance, should I also not give unicorns (invisible pink ones even), leprechauns, Thor, Baal, and Zeus a chance, just to name a couple?
Only jesus has the way to life.not the ones you mentioned like baal,thor etc coz they dont exist.
Give me one good reason that they are real,but i will give you thousand reasons that jesus is real.
Even Science Proves jesus Existence.
There Is No GOD other Than Jesus.
Please do mail me to comment on y comments
Your Friend,
hari.y1988@gmail.com
i will give you thousand reasons that jesus is real.
Okay. Give me objective, verifiable evidence that jesus is real.
Even Science Proves jesus Existence.
Okay. Give me objective, verifiable evidence that proves jesus exists.
You can make this claim but without actually providing the evidence, you've done nothing.
The truth is that there is no evidence that jesus exists (and most christian apologists would agree with that statement, due to the doctrine of faith). In fact, there's no reliable historical evidence that the stories are even based on a real man.
Flavius Josephus, a first century historian and non-christian offers one of many accounts of Jesus and his workings from extra-biblical sources. I was a former skeptic and took the time to search the word of God for its validity.
Aside from extra-biblical sources and manuscripts, there are thousands of archaelogical findings like the church in Megiddo that acknowledges Jesus Christ as their Lord in stone...google it. Dr. Nelson Glueck probably the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology, and non-Christian has said, “No archeological discovery has ever controverted [overturned] a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.”
From the beginning with Adam and Eve God gave them a choice; to eat of all trees except one: the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But even one without God can agree that in life, every choice has its repercussion. Knowing that it was against God's wishes, Eve made her choice and reaped what she sowed...
God wants all to follow Him but he will never force you. He doesn't want robots as followers. Jesus Christ died for the sins of all to make that step in faith and follow Him. Im a 22 year old tattoo artist and former skeptic. I've lived a life without Jesus and recently found the truth. I pray this might soften your heart to accept it.
look to www.alwaysbeready.com for more evidence of the bibles trustworthiness.
Welcome HoldFast,
You may want to rethink your reference to Josephus. The majority of scholars reject the passages in Josephus as later Xian forgeries, and for good reasons. You can find a good round-up here.
"Aside from extra-biblical sources and manuscripts, there are thousands of archaelogical findings like the church in Megiddo that acknowledges Jesus Christ as their Lord in stone...google it."
I did. It seems to be a third century church. So what?
“No archeological discovery has ever controverted [overturned] a Biblical reference."
This is simply not true, as we know that the exodus story never happened. We also have other evidence that overturns other stories, like the flood and the creation of the universe. We also have many stories that are not supported by archeology, like the tower of Babel. Yes, some stories in the Bible refer to actual events, but not all, and the ones that do don't prove that god exists anymore than a history text does.
"Knowing that it was against God's wishes, Eve made her choice and reaped what she sowed..."
Except, without knowledge of good and evil, she could not have understood the moral implications of her "choice."
"God wants all to follow Him but he will never force you."
Then, he does want obedience, just like I said.
gct, why spend so much of your time writing about something you DONT believe in? Besides your obvious effort to shoot down the hope people have in Jesus Christ...I encourage those that read this to search your heart because the Almighty God is merciful and offers a free gift of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ dying for your sins, and its not of good works, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). And do not believe by blind faith but i encourage you to research. (Alwaysbeready.com is a great source for the defense of Christianity)
gtc, im going to present just a bit of evidence proving the amazing trustworthiness of the bible (provided by Pastor Charlie Campbell) and I pray you will rethink your assumptions. The Bible is the best selling, most quoted, most published, most circulated, most translated, most influential book in the history of mankind. There's a reason...
FULFILLED PROPHECY
The bible contains 100's of specific prophecies in the old testament regarding the coming of Jesus Christ that have been fulfilled. i.e.The city in which He would be born (Micah 5:2), that He’d come while the temple was still standing (Malachi 3:1), that He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), that He would perform miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6), that He’d be rejected by His own people (Psalm 118:22; 1 Peter 2:7), the precise time in history when He would die (Daniel 9:24-26; 483 years after the declaration to reconstruct the city of Jerusalem in 444 B.C. This was fulfilled to the very year.) There's 100s of manuscript evidence that pre-dates the time of jesus showing iGod's word has not been altered. (google the dead sea scrolls)
ARCHAEOLOGIST DISCOVERIES
For the past 150 years archaeologists have been verifying the exact truthfulness of the Bible's detailed records of various events, customs, persons, cities, nations, and geographical locations. Somewhat recently they found the real location for Mount Sinai, where Moses led God's people, showed them the 10 commandments, split the rock to bring them water, etc. (youtube the search for the Mount Sinai-Mountain of Fire) there are 1000's of other findings mentioned in the bible.
By the way gtc, you disregarded flavius josephus (a non christian) as an accurate first century historian (with no good reason) but either way he acknowledged Jesus Christ in his recordings. But he is not the only one...Cornelius Tacitus (ca. A.D. 55 –120) a Roman Historian by who wrote around A.D. 115. Although he was not a Christian but he did verify that Jesus lived, that He was from Judea, that He lived during the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), and was executed by Pontius Pilate, who governed the province of Judea from A.D. 26-36.). Gaius Suetonius (the chief secretary of Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117 –138)
I'll post more evidence soon
"gct, why spend so much of your time writing about something you DONT believe in?"
Because people like you persist in passing off falsehoods (whether you know they are falsehoods or not) and hitting all the rest of us over the head with them.
"...salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ dying for your sins..."
Yay, another Xian that admits that Xianity has nothing to do with morality.
"...I pray you will rethink your assumptions."
Which assumptions? Not adopting your assumption that the Xian god exists does not necessitate that I've adopted alternate assumptions. So, please list these supposed assumptions.
"The Bible is the best selling, most quoted, most published, most circulated, most translated, most influential book in the history of mankind. There's a reason..."
Maybe because of its unearned place in our culture and the fact that it's been pervasive in our culture.
"The bible contains 100's of specific prophecies in the old testament regarding the coming of Jesus Christ that have been fulfilled."
So, writers who were familiar with the OT prophecies wrote a book, after the fact, in which their supposed savior met all these prophecies (and was based on interpretation) and that's miraculous? Not only that, but they actually got some of them wrong.
"For the past 150 years archaeologists have been verifying the exact truthfulness of the Bible's detailed records of various events, customs, persons, cities, nations, and geographical locations."
And there's been lots of failure. No tower of Babel, no exodus, no garden of Eden, no Noah's ark, etc. Some of the stories contain some nuggets of actual places and events, but those don't mean that the supernatural components are real or that all of it is accurate. See here.
"By the way gtc, you disregarded flavius josephus (a non christian) as an accurate first century historian (with no good reason) but either way he acknowledged Jesus Christ in his recordings."
Because his writings are widely regarded as having been forged by later Xians is a rather good reason in my mind. Perhaps you don't think that Xians rewriting history after the fact is a bad thing, but I do.
As for the rest of them, there are good reasons, and some of what you say is simply not accurate. I suggest you don't get your information from lying creationists that don't care about the truth, but only defending their beliefs. See here.
part 2
The old testament prophecies about the coming Jesus were specific and hard to misinterpret.
ODDS OF FULFILLING THE PROPHECIES OF JESUS
(from charlie h. campbell's evidence for the trustworthiness of the bible)
First, it’s hard to think of any person deliberately setting out to fulfill prophecies that would result in a short life and an excruciating drawn out death on a cross. Secondly, how does a man deliberately choose the lineage he is born into, the time period in which he is born, -the city in which he is born? Was the fulfillment of these prophecies an accident? Peter Stoner, a mathematician, and Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, in his book Science Speaks (Moody 1963) calculated the odds of a single man fulfilling just eight of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled as the mathematical improbability of 1 in 10 to the 17th. That is a HUGE number. One in ten to the seventeenth power. That's a one with seventeen zeros after it (100,000,000,000,000,000). If we had 100 quadrillion 1” x 1.5” tiles we could cover every square inch of dry land on planet Earth. The fact that these prophecies and hundreds of others have been fulfilled, even though they were spoken hundreds and even thousands of years before their fulfillment, is strong evidence that a God, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, orchestrated the Bible’s completion.
HE BIBLE’S FORTHRIGHTNESS ABOUT ITS AUTHOR’S AND HERO’S FAILURES
The bible has approximately 40 different authors over a span of about 1500 years in 3 different languages, and 3 continents, all with completely different educational backgrounds from shepherds to doctors to kings. Unlike other religious books the writers did not try to put themselves in a greater light but were very open about their shortcomings (ex. Moses wrote about his bursts of anger, misrepresentations of God. David wrote about his adultery and subsequent murder of Uriah. Jesus's disciples argued constantly about who was the greatest follower even till the night of his arrest and crucifixion. If i was just making up the bible i would leave stuff like that out. On top of that, they still wrote about the highest standards of conduct the world has seen.
External sources verify that at least 80 persons were actual historical figures, 50 people from the Old Testament and 30 people from the New Testament (see list of names and sources on p. 270 in I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek). We know what 18 (12 from the OT and 6 from the NT) of them looked like because of engravings and statues, etc.
Part 3
THE WILLINGNESS OF JESUS' DISCIPLES TO SUFFER
(from Evidence of the Bible's Trusworthiness-Charlie H. Campbell) The disciples went to their graves, one by one, suffering and dying martyr's deaths for their on-going belief and preaching that Jesus’ resurrection was an absolute fact of history! Historians like Flavius Josephus, Eusebius and others tell us that Matthew was slain with a sword in a city of Ethiopia. Mark died in Alexandria, in Northern Egypt after having been cruelly dragged through the streets of that city. Luke was hung upon an olive tree in the land of Greece. James was beheaded in Jerusalem. James the Less (as he’s called in Mark 15:40) was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple. Philip was hung up against a pillar at Heiropolis in the province of Phrygia. Bartholomew was flayed alive. Andrew was bound to a cross, and left to die. Jude was shot to death with arrows. Matthias (the apostle chosen to replace Judas) was first stoned, and then beheaded. Barnabas was stoned to death by the Jews at Salonica. Paul, that former enemy of Christ (Acts 9), after a variety of tortures and persecutions, was finally beheaded in Rome. Peter was crucified (just as Jesus told him he would be in John 21) in Rome. Thomas, the former skeptic of the resurrection (John 20:28), was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies for preaching the gospel. Guys the disciples sealed their testimony that Christ was alive with their own blood. They went to their graves still affirming that the events which they had witnessed had actually occurred. I find it hard to believe that these men were lying. People may be willing to die for something that they think is true, but nobody willingly dies for something they know is a lie. If anybody knew whether or not Jesus was alive after His resurrection, it would have been the disciples. They were in a unique position historically that allowed them to know whether what they were saying was true or not. They actually lived in Israel, at the time Jesus lived and was raised from the dead, or was not. They were there.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDINGS
Sharing these findings is only to express that the Bible is the only of the 26 various books of religion that are historical and geographically accurate. Again thousands of artifacts mentioned in the Bible have been found by using the Bible. Just because archaeologists have not found a few artifacts in the Bible does not prove the Bible to be wrong. Thats like saying because you found a kite but no key in Benjamin Franklin's house means i shouldn't believe that he discovered there's electricity in lightning.
Exodus, being your biggest false assumption, I'll take the time to explain. THE SEARCH FOR THE REAL MOUNT SINAI:Mountain of Fire, a documentary shows that the real Mount Sinai is not where historians guessed but in Saudi Arabia, hundreds of miles away. There they found a mountain blackened at the top. "Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire"-Exodus 19:18. Along with 12 other specific findings
that would result in a short life
Jesus allegedly lived to be 34 years old, roughly 6-16 years over the life expectancy of average people in his day. Just saying.
Also what if Jesus never existed or the people who wrote about him changed details about his life to match the "prophecies"?
Anon: "The old testament prophecies about the coming Jesus were specific and hard to misinterpret."
If Jesus had been the jewish messiah, you wouldn't be here talking about christianity as if it were factual, you idiot. Your entire religion is based on blatant misinterpretations of jewish prophecy.
Anon,
Please don't copy and paste from other sites. It's rather rude. (Yes, what you wrote came directly lifted from www.alwaysbeready.com...what? You thought I wouldn't notice?)
I've already addressed quite a bit of this.
The prophecies are not very specific in many cases and the later authors got them wrong in many cases as well. Born of a virgin? That was likely a mistranslation. But, the birth story of Jesus (two different authors place him in two different locations due to them not agreeing on the prophecy BTW) is fishy to begin with. Later authors had access to these prophecies and wrote their messianic figure to meet them. It's not hard to meet a prophecy for a fictitious character made up after the fact.
When it comes to hero's failures, you have to remember that the heros weren't actually writing these stories. Moses never wrote anything. All of these stories were written well after the fact, by people that weren't there.
"External sources verify that at least 80 persons were actual historical figures, 50 people from the Old Testament and 30 people from the New Testament..."
My first inclination is to say, "So what?" They threw in some names that turn out to be historical. But, my second inclination is to point out that if we actually go by the names given, they throw the whole Bible account into disarray, as you would know if you actually read the link I provided you.
"The disciples went to their graves, one by one, suffering and dying martyr's deaths for their on-going belief and preaching that Jesus’ resurrection was an absolute fact of history!"
There is actually scant historical evidence of this. We really only know what became of 1 or 2 of the supposed disciples, and that's only from second-hand sources. We don't know of anyone who claims to have met Jesus. Also, your assertion that they must have been telling the truth is suspect. It's a false dichotomy to say that they either believed the truth or a lie in the sense that they may have believed fervently enough to be willing to die for something without truly knowing the truth or falsity of it. It happens all the time, or are you unaware of events like 9/11?
Lastly, again you bring up the archaeological findings, which if you had read the link I provided you would realize that archaeology is not supportive of the OT accounts.
btw, this is HoldFast2Him that's been writing, your site wouldn't let me log in. I stated numerous times where the information was taken from and it doesn't make it any less true. Whether you believe the Bible is the word of God, it has a unmistakeable power to change the lives of those that study it. You can sit here and blame it on blind faith or whatever but the reality is i have experienced its power first hand.
You are entitled to believe whatever you want be it Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Christian or Atheist fact is you're a sinner. and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and death means eternity in the Lake of Fire. But God offers a free gift not by works but by grace through faith that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins (Ephesians 2:8,9) If you 1. Admit, "I am a sinner." 2. Confess and be willing to turn from your sin. 3. Believe, by faith that Jesus Christ died for you on the cross. 4. Receive, through prayer, Jesus Christ into your heart and receive eternal life. Then God will cast your sins as far as the east is from the west in to the deepest part of the ocean never to remember them again.
Gct, i wrote initially to soften your heart until i realized you and your friends enjoy putting people down and destroying hope. Don't you see everyone else here speaks out of love when you choose to speak out of hate? There's this journalist and editor of the Chicago Tribune i read about named Lee Strobel who set out on a 2 year journey to prove Christianity wrong and ended up proving himself wrong. Now he's a top apologetics writer and pastor. Although he was bias towards atheism he was responsible enough to look at evidence from both sides unbiasedly before stating his case. i pray you will come to know the truth...
Anon: ... you and your friends enjoy putting people down and destroying hope.
You run around telling people they deserve to spend eternity being tortured because they're dirty, sinful pieces of shit, and we're the ones putting people down?
Hope? Hope is for suckers. Hope ain't worth shit. But if it were, I for one would sure be hoping your god doesn't exist, because I'd no sooner hope to spend eternity in his presence than I would the alternative he allegedly has for people with self respect, and here you'd be, destroying my hope, you sniveling, hypocritical simpleton.
HF2H
"Whether you believe the Bible is the word of God, it has a unmistakeable power to change the lives of those that study it."
It's more a part of culture. Go to another culture and you find the same claims made of other religions.
"...fact is you're a sinner."
You have yet to establish that as a fact.
"and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and death means eternity in the Lake of Fire."
Do as god says or he'll lovingly roast you for eternity.
"But God offers a free gift not by works but by grace through faith that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins..."
Thus showing that Xianity has nothing to do with morality. If salvation is by faith alone (belief) then god only seems to care that one has the correct beliefs, and no amount of morality or immorality would change that. In the system you are proposing, a serial killer can enter heaven, given the right beliefs, while Ghandi would not.
"1. Admit, "I am a sinner.""
Which is an action that I must perform - a work - which means the "gift" isn't really "free" is it?
"Gct, i wrote initially to soften your heart until i realized you and your friends enjoy putting people down and destroying hope."
I have not put you down. And, what hope have I tried to destroy? Hope of an afterlife maybe? So what? What good is your hope of an afterlife if you spend all of this life pining for it?
"Don't you see everyone else here speaks out of love when you choose to speak out of hate?"
What hatred am I speaking from? Rational debate is what I'm doing. What are you doing?
"There's this journalist and editor of the Chicago Tribune i read about named Lee Strobel who set out on a 2 year journey to prove Christianity wrong and ended up proving himself wrong."
Lee Strobel is a charlatan. Look at his books. Note that he only talks to Xian apologists, which he then presents as trying to "Prove Christianity wrong." Yeah right.
"i pray you will come to know the truth..."
Prayer doesn't seem to work, does it?
If what you have is the truth, then you should be able to cogently and coherently argue it with correct facts and rational argumentation. Yet, that's not what is happening here. You're having to ignore counter-points (as you've made obvious) while putting forth dubious claims by apologists that are simply not accurate. Sorry, but your faith, no matter how fervently you believe in it, does not automatically become true simply because you want it to be true.
Where's the fucking proof, bible bashers? At the start of 2010 i was having a pretty damn hard time, thinking about suicide. I prayed everyday and helped others as much as I could and guess what? Fuck all happened. So on the 1st march I lost my faith... It was the best damn thing that ever happened to me. Everything got better and better and the more I hate "Jesus" the better my life gets. Jesus is a. WANKER and probably isn't even there! I love life!
HoldFast2Him wrote "You can sit here and blame it on blind faith or whatever but the reality is i have experienced its power first hand."
And so have others who have now turned away because of the hundreds of unanswered prayers OR realization of the bibles numerous contradictions; I myself being one. In fact, you too, may find yourself feeling disillusioned one day (and don't say "not me" like I used to say).
Millions of people have experienced something just because they believed - Muslim body parts lie scattered because they "experienced the power". Anything you have faith in has power in your mind, but try moving a mountain with it, or bringing your alienated spouse back to a marriage they don't want to be in, or stopping natural disasters that wipe out millions of people ...
For all the "great" shit you would state god has done, I'll point out a lot of bullshit that he has likewise done (or "allowed to happen" - same difference)
Jesus's disciples were in a unique position because they lived during the same time as Jesus. Not only that but they followed Him throughout his ministry to see if He was legit or not. Look, I was never here to convert you and others but to warn you. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior this world is the most hell you will ever see, but if you reject Him this world is the most heaven you will ever see.
"Jesus's disciples were in a unique position because they lived during the same time as Jesus."
Or so we are told through stories related to us well after the fact which may or may not be accurate (probably not).
"Not only that but they followed Him throughout his ministry to see if He was legit or not."
As did the followers of Mohammed, Joseph Smith, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard, etc.
"Look, I was never here to convert you and others but to warn you. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior this world is the most hell you will ever see, but if you reject Him this world is the most heaven you will ever see."
Ah, when all else fails, make threats, right? Your religion is fear based is what you seem to be admitting here. Besides, Pascal's Wager is a spectacularly bad argument to make for many reasons. If you really believe that you should believe in a deity to avoid hell, why not also believe in Allah?
Also, if it comes down solely to belief, then you're admitting that your god (and hence religion) are completely unconcerned with morality.
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