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thrillobyte, I was reading your post and a thought hit me.
I know, what you need.
You need to find your own, personal faith, that makes you at peace. Primarily, with yourself. I don't really want to go into deep analysis of why you are on such a crusade against Christianity.
Best course of action will be - don't be a nosy, prying neighbor. Let people be, what they want to be. No need to disturb their lives, life is hard, as is. Instead, find your own peace. Find your faith. When you will, you will notice that, suddenly, such trvia as why Joe Believes in Christ and Shanti into a rock are very irrelevant and do not disturb you anymore.
Quote: Originally Posted by phetaroi View Post Do you realize that non-believers or other-believers don't recognize the bible as an historical record?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
Yes. I do recognize that. And it's a shame that you won't give Christians the same consideration that you expect us to give.
Quite a few, actually. But "verified" is indeed in the eye of the beholder. If you've prejudged that it can never be verified, then to you, it won't be.
Let's see...you do recognize that secular scholars do not consider the Bible to be a valid historic record because it is a religious text filled with improbable supernatural miracles and other completely off the wall stories, yet you despair that non-Christians and secular scholars do not recognize the Bible as a legitimate historical record? The former is a fact while your wishing the Bible would be taken more seriously is just that...wishful thinking. The two are not compatible, any more than wishing 2+2=5 would change the fact that 2+2=4.
Scholars have established that the Bible is a religious text placed within the ubiquitous framework of its own version of history. You can choose to function within reality and accept that fact or you can revert to your own fantasy world and claim that every story in the Bible actually happened just as it's presented as most Christians do. But ex-Christians are those who woke up and saw reality as it really is and decided to join the real world, not continue to live in a fantasy world where snakes and donkeys talk and the sun pauses its movement for 24 hours to help out a Biblical hero and a man derives supernatural strength from the length of his hair and women turn into salt and giant fish swallow men whole who then live inside the fish for 3 days and on and on. There's simply no basis in reality when insisting that all these mythical stories are factual. I hope one day you and your friends come to realize this and move from your fantasy world into the real one where such things could not and have never happened.
thrillobyte, I was reading your post and a thought hit me.
I know, what you need.
You need to find your own, personal faith, that makes you at peace. Primarily, with yourself. I don't really want to go into deep analysis of why you are on such a crusade against Christianity.
Best course of action will be - don't be a nosy, prying neighbor. Let people be, what they want to be. No need to disturb their lives, life is hard, as is. Instead, find your own peace. Find your faith. When you will, you will notice that, suddenly, such trvia as why Joe Believes in Christ and Shanti into a rock are very irrelevant and do not disturb you anymore.
Peace, brother.
Ukrkoz, if there weren't people like myself trying to draw to the readers' attention all that is wrong with Christianity then where would discussion commence? I am trying to do newbies a valuable service--I am trying to deliver the facts to them that they would never get from Christian leaders--leaders who want people to stay in the dark about the realities of their religion because it benefits them, not the individuals. It does nobody any good to grow up believing that the world is 6000 years old when science shows us fossils that have existed for millions of years.
I'm not surprised you don't want to go into a deep analysis of what I say because what I say is the truth, in contrast with the falsehoods that flow out of Christianity to keep it viable. My original premise was that if God loves us and really wants to save us he could accomplish his goal in a matter of seconds, yet as BF points out, he doesn't want to. That creates a serious cognitive dissonance situation where God says he wants something desperately but then chooses not to bring it about. But when one analyzes the situation one comes to two implacable realities:
Either God doesn't really love us as much as he claims or he would move heaven and earth to bring us to the knowledge of Jesus' sacrifice
or
He simply doesn't exist, which would explain perfectly his refusal to do anything meaningful that can be observed overtly to help us to attain salvation.
Gotta be one or the other if you're using sound rational logic. Take your pick.
Let's see what the author of Luke has to say about this.
Luke:
Introduction
1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. -
There, the author himself, said that he wasn't one of the eyewitnesses.
I'm sorry if I misspoke. Yes, I'm aware Luke was not an eyewitness account. But he DID interview eyewitnesses. And the other 3 were written by eyewitnesses. The epistles were written by eyewitnesses. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was personally tutored and commissioned by him.
Let's see...you do recognize that secular scholars do not consider the Bible to be a valid historic record because it is a religious text filled with improbable supernatural miracles and other completely off the wall stories, yet you despair that non-Christians and secular scholars do not recognize the Bible as a legitimate historical record? The former is a fact while your wishing the Bible would be taken more seriously is just that...wishful thinking. The two are not compatible, any more than wishing 2+2=5 would change the fact that 2+2=4.
Does it shock me that a bunch of folks that don't believe it don't accept it as valid? Is that an honest question?
Quote:
Scholars have established that the Bible is a religious text placed within the ubiquitous framework of its own version of history. You can choose to function within reality and accept that fact or you can revert to your own fantasy world and claim that every story in the Bible actually happened just as it's presented as most Christians do. But ex-Christians are those who woke up and saw reality as it really is and decided to join the real world, not continue to live in a fantasy world where snakes and donkeys talk and the sun pauses its movement for 24 hours to help out a Biblical hero and a man derives supernatural strength from the length of his hair and women turn into salt and giant fish swallow men whole who then live inside the fish for 3 days and on and on. There's simply no basis in reality when insisting that all these mythical stories are factual. I hope one day you and your friends come to realize this and move from your fantasy world into the real one where such things could not and have never happened.
There ya go. "Scholars" have established that the things that are mentioned in the Bible can't happen, so they reject it. Yay.
I'm sorry if I misspoke. Yes, I'm aware Luke was not an eyewitness account. But he DID interview eyewitnesses. And the other 3 were written by eyewitnesses. The epistles were written by eyewitnesses. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was personally tutored and commissioned by him.
1. Prove it.
2. Do you believe everything you read?
thrillobyte, I was reading your post and a thought hit me.
I know, what you need.
You need to find your own, personal faith, that makes you at peace. Primarily, with yourself. I don't really want to go into deep analysis of why you are on such a crusade against Christianity.
Best course of action will be - don't be a nosy, prying neighbor. Let people be, what they want to be. No need to disturb their lives, life is hard, as is. Instead, find your own peace.
I was reading your post and a thought hit me.
I know what you need.
You need to get Christians to quit telling people that they are going to hell if they don't buy in Christianity.
You need to get Christians to quit demanding that others live up to said Christian's idea of a "moral code"... or at least be consistent concerning what that moral code might be.
It is truly amazing that Christians can't understand why there is pushback to all this.
But the most pathetic thing about Christianity is that Christians can't even agree with themselves. Perhaps if Christians could figure out exactly what their "perfect book" actually says.
All one needs to see that is to visit our own Christianity forum to see evidence of this.
You need to get Christians to quit telling people that they are going to hell if they don't buy in Christianity.
You need to get Christians to quit demanding that others live up to said Christian's idea of a "moral code"... or at least be consistent concerning what that moral code might be.
It is truly amazing that Christians can't understand why there is pushback to all this.
But the most pathetic thing about Christianity is that Christians can't even agree with themselves. Perhaps if Christians could figure out exactly what their "perfect book" actually says.
All one needs to see that is to visit our own Christianity forum to see evidence of this.
In interpersonal interactions it is obnoxious and arrogant. When it is politically enforced by laws it is unconscionable.
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