Lasksharis> "Nope, Jesus existed."
Prove it.
"Whether or not you are a Christian, you must admit that religions just don't suddenly appear out of nowhere. Someone has to start them."
“Someone” is not synonymous with a god or divinity. Do you believe that Mohammed was the prophet of God? That Buddha was en enlightened boddhisatva? That the Greek gods really ex-isted, or the Norse ones?
Maybe the Romans just needed a new religion to match the "One Empire, One Emperor, One God" ideal? So they looked around and found various goodies in the Empire, especially the Jewish One-God.
But circumcision? NO, thank you. So what did they do, Judaism 2.0. Does go a long way to ex-plain all the contradictions, errors and flaws in the first books in the NT.
Originally posted by Morningstar
😛 ok
Y'know what I've never understood, is why the hell Christians are so insistint upon the idea that EVERYBODY is, by the act of existing, a sinner, and that the only way to redeem themselves in God's eyes is to assimilate to Christianity. See, there are ten commandments... If you break any one of these, it is a sin. So, if you're not Christian by birth, and you don't know what the commandments are, you theoretically cannot be a sinner since you have no way of knowing what a sin is. And don't give me that "everybody has the chance to become Christian" crap, because you know as well as I do it's not true. There are some people who, despite having conscious knowledge of Christianity, simply will never change their own beliefs at the threat of going to Hell. We all believe our own beliefs are the correct ones. Any god who thinks that by simply telling people about one religion, the world will eventually be entirely that religion, is a retard plain and simple.
The Gospels do NOT contradict each other. If we were all standing in front of a burning building, we would all see different things that happened, YET it was the same building on fire. Meaning, mattew, mark, LUke and JOhn, were all there, they just told what stood out most to them. NOT contradictions.
Originally posted by The Omega
ArachnoidFreak> Considering the fact that NO ONE has ever come up with the slightest piece of evidence that Jesus EVER existed... he didn't die for ANYONE. As he didn't die...
Oh Omega, there's no need to try to convince me of that fact. I'm just using Christianity against the Christians. There are so many flaws and contradictions that I can just pick at whatever I want and make it all seem...unrealistic and illogical.
Originally posted by Darth Revan
Y'know what I've never understood, is why the hell Christians are so insistint upon the idea that EVERYBODY is, by the act of existing, a sinner, and that the only way to redeem themselves in God's eyes is to assimilate to Christianity. See, there are ten commandments... If you break any one of these, it is a sin. So, if you're not Christian by birth, and you don't know what the commandments are, you theoretically cannot be a sinner since you have no way of knowing what a sin is. And don't give me that "everybody has the chance to become Christian" crap, because you know as well as I do it's not true. There are some people who, despite having conscious knowledge of Christianity, simply will never change their own beliefs at the threat of going to Hell. We all believe our own beliefs are the correct ones. Any god who thinks that by simply telling people about one religion, the world will eventually be entirely that religion, is a retard plain and simple.
just wondering, why were you quoting me saying 'ok'? I simply decided not to argue with finti on that particular point. *shrugs*
If you've never heard of Jesus/God or havent heard of sin or anything, at judgement day (from a Christian perspective) they would be judged on how pure their heart is.
The Gospels do NOT contradict each otherok explain this then
Jesus instructed them not to take a staff, not to wear sandals Matthew 10:10
Jesus instructed his disciples to wear sandals and take a staff on their journey Mark 6:8-9
The fig tree withered immediately. and the disciples registered surprise then and there Matthew 21:9
The morning after Jesus cursed the fig tree, the disciples noticed it had withered and expressed astonishment. Mark 11:12-14 & 20
The father of Joseph was Jacob. Matthew 1:16
The father of Joseph was Heli Luke 3 :23
This probably won't help, but I get the feeling that the chronology of a tree dying was of little importance to a bunch of wild-eyed ex-fisherman who spent most of their time either preaching in a hail of rocks and rotten fruit or being thrown into prison for their disgustingly non-Roman ways. Read the book of Acts, the energy and passion in there is absolutely incredible.
Read the book of Acts, the energy and passion in there is absolutely incredible.so is The Wuthering Heights 😮💨
but I get the feeling that the chronology of a tree dying was of little importance to a bunch of wild-eyed ex-fishermanstill it is mention in the gospels
Written by different people at different times who apparently didn't remember every detail from the other books....probably very close to the truth
Every reference to Jesus in a book I'm holding
Originally posted by The Omega
ArachnoidFreak> Considering the fact that NO ONE has ever come up with the slightest piece of evidence that Jesus EVER existed... he didn't die for ANYONE. As he didn't die...
From Jospehus, the Jewish Roman (he was biased to the Romans, but also Jew)
Testimonium Flavianum: about this time lived Jesus, a wise man, "if indeed one ought to call him a man". For he was the one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. "He was the Christ". When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. "On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesised these and countless other marvellous things about him." And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still till to this day not disappeared
(Certain bits aren't consistent with his language, and were probably added by Christian copyists (interpolations). They're in quotation marks) This shows that he was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem, that he was a wise teacher with a large following, and that Jewish priests made Pilate do it.
Somewhere in the Antiquities(the history of the Jews from creation till the present day) He also says "He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, (means anointed one, or messiah) and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned
Ignore the bits in brackets. Note, if this was made up by Christians, it would have shown more praise of James (maybe contested the charge) as said by L.H. Feldman.
Next, Tacitus the Roman historian
Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had it's origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome....Accordingly, an arrest was made of all those who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much for the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.
He accused Nero (fiddled whilst the city burned) of blaming the Christians. A note that "the extreme penalty" that Jesus received was the origin of ex*crus*ifing (crux means cross). They invented a term to deal with the pain. Also that there's a movement based on a crucified man to explain.
Then there's Pliny the younger (nephew of Pliny the elder, who died at Pomeii
I have asked them if they are Christians, and they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be lead away for execution: for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished....
They also declared that the sum of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn to chant verses alternately among themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft robbery and adultery….
This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom the called deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths.
What a bastard. You hear about these guys, but you have to read them to get the truth. This testifies to the rapid spread of Christianity, even to slaves, the high ethical standards, and that they were not easily (but could be) swayed from their beliefs.
There’s an eclipse one by Thallus (he wrote the history of the eastern Mediterranean since the Trojan war in 52), and although his work was lost, It was quoted by Julius Africanus in AD 221
Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away the darkness as an eclipse of the sun- unreasonably as it seems to me.
A bit weak, but interesting.
In the Talmud (an important Jewish work in 500 circa that includes there’s a little on Jesus. They call him a false Messiah who practises magic and who was justly condemned to death. They also suggest that Jesus was born from a Roman soldier and Mary, suggesting something unusual about the birth (or the cause of impregnating)
There’s a ton of evidence outside the Bible.
Re: Science vs Religion
Originally posted by Unholy_Cheese
In the end, who do you think will win?
I'll give my opinion here. 😉
I'm a person who believes in science rather than religion (my 1st career choice was Biology), but I'm convinced that none of them will be able to be better than the other since they need each other. They just cannot be separated. Albert Einstein's phrase about them says it clearly (I think it was already mentioned here, but...): "SCIENCE WITHOUT RELIGION IS LAME. RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE IS BLIND".
There are many things that science cannot explain and probably will never be able to. Most of these are just not meant to be discovered. And religion... well, I think that the Church is making too many mistakes.
So, I had to choose and answer, I would say that science is further than religion right now.
Originally posted by Fire
It's not because some romans write about Christ that he existed (let alone that he was the man the bible claims he was)
I was providing evidence that he existed, outside the bible. I cannot prove a point about him, unless I can conclusively prove that he exists ( as many atheists disagree with his existance, and the bible's truth).
Read it. It shows a lot of stuff about him.