One verse will say one thing then another verse will say something similar but different....Like the number of fighting men for example. But that is not this thread.

the only ones drunk around here are the ones that have been dipping too deeply into the fermented texts of old!

the summary of what i said is christianity=a dark force impeding mankind.

Will mentioning the Dark Ages help?

no. christiantiy had little to do with causing the dark ages. the collapse of the western roman empire did.

in addition, calling the pharisees "fool" and other insults is standard rhetoric of the day. paul uses a lot of somewhat similar rhetoric in galations and tertullian was a master of it.

the only thing lacking is your knowledge of ANE culture and koine greek.

the hebrew word for heaven, by itself, carries no theological meaning. it is simply the sky. it is probably a carryover from the KJV that it appears as heaven in more modern translations instead of sky or something similar. some times the word appears twice together. that is usually rendered as heaven's heaven. the greek word can carry a theological connotation.

i think i am not the only one that has seen inconsitancies in the understanding of the messages..... and it has been going on for 2000 years now.


and more on perfection:

was jesus a god or a man?

if he was a god, then he could not have died by mortal wounds (on the cross)!

if he was a man, then by all understanding of humans he would not have been perfect!

or do you take the middleground and he was a demigod?

in that case he would be akin to hercules, wouldn't he? but what then of all the bible-talk of killing of halfbreeds? is there then a double standard, or did the god intend to kill jesus on the cross to further cleanse the race? back to perfection, a demigod is not perfect (displays faults) and thus a perfect message could not come from a demigod!

edit:
if jesus was perfect, we would not have this discussion. further, christians would not convert to other religions, and most importantly there would not have been the seal of the prophets (muhammad) to clear things up!

He was God in the flesh.

so then he could not die, so he did not sacrifice himself. thus the most fundamental aspect of christianity is false: jesus did not die and rise from the grave!

I can find more tomorrow.

Jesus never died. His fleshy body died.

And he did rise from the grave.

thus confirming that falstity of christianity!

Sorry, im not sure what you mean here.

if he never died, he did not sacrifice himself for anything. he gave up something he never had, mortality! that would be like me (a non-smoker) saying i will give up smoking to "save" you.

it was a false offering.

many gods from various mythologies died, in the sense that their current forms ceased to be alive. krishna and osiris come to mind easily.

perhaps,

but if he was a god, he knew what would happen to his body and he knew he would not really die. thus he did not really sacrifice himself because he knew what would happen (and by bible mythology it was a return to his father in a better place - hardly any kind of sacrifice)

Jesus was just like a person. He could feel pain. He had to go through what any other person would have went through during the crucifixion. God didn't cut him any slack.

but he knew what was on the other end of it. (the great reward)

lets do a comparison:

a poor man with but $5 to his name walks into a store to spend his only money on a meal. He looks at the counter and sees the "big lottery" is 10 million dollars. He stops to think, "i could perhaps go without food, and panhandle for enough money to eat tomorrow, or i could buy a ticket and end all my money problems".

secnario 1 ) he does not know the outcome of the lottery in advance.
then to give up food for a chance on the lottery is making a scarifice for he may end up with nothing (and he may not be able to panhandle enough money to eat, so his immediate ability to eat is questionable)

scenario 2 ) by some method, he knows for certian what the winning numbers of the lottery are going to be.
now if he does play, he is sacrificing nothing, for he will have all his food needs met with the ticket, and suffering a couple of days is fine with the end being so rosey.

the point is that jesus is like scenario 2. he did not sacrifice anything, and he knew what was awaiting him (according to the mythology), so a little pain in exchange for great reward is nothing!

Jesus bore much more burden than that. He was tortured, and he felt pain. He even prayed to God so that he would have strengh in during the crucifixion. It wasn't just a paper cut he went through. It was very bloody, and painfull.

but if he was a god, than it was nothing at all compared to what he KNEW was awaiting him.

you are making sound more like he was just a mere mortal that did not have the knowledge of what the outcome would be for certian. if that is the case we can switch to how his being a mortal falsifies christianity (yup, i have both sides covered )

I know whats awaiting for me, does this mean I am God too?

but are you certian (with prior knowledge)?

you believe, based on writings what awaits you. a god would know for certian because he is part of what awaits him. (in essence, he was always there to begin with or he brought his experiential knowledge with him down to earth)

Yes, I am certain. I do not have prior knowledge, but I still feel "certain."

hyperactive, might i suggest reading this: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/2littlepain.html
it deals with what you are talking about.

well, that answers a couple questions!

still, it does not answer clearly one thing for me: did jesus know a proiri that he was a god and what awaited him? if he did, then while according to this link he still carries the pain of death, he still did not give up anything because there was no risk he would end up with nothing. on the other hand, if as the article suggests, he needed strong faith to perservere the pain and meet his maker, i again find this god quite frightening because that suggests the father would make his son suffer and if the son faltered he would abandon him. this is again another example of why i don't see the god of the bible as very godly.

Of course he did.

God still feels the pain that was inflicted by his only Son hanging on a tree. Jesus was spit on, humiliated, and treated like utter feces in the crucifixion. Many people hated Jesus (and still do.) This hurt God to see these people acting like this. In turn he gave his son to save us, but also it gave many more people reasons to hate God indirectly. Not loving the Son, is the same as not loving God. Any many don't recognize him.

If you think God is frightening, just wait till you hear/see more of Satan. Anyway, God made Jesus go through what any other person would have gone through. We are all equal in the eyes of God. Jesus was the son, yes. However, nothing would have been genuine had Jesus not felt a thing. It wouldn't have been a true sacrifice, it would have all been counterfeit and fake. God is the real deal when he does things, he doesn't kid around.

is that a contradiction there?

you say jesus knew a priori what awaited him after death (for certian) and then you say we are all equal. well we as humans don't have the knowledge of a god to know what happens a priori!

What is "a priori?"

prior

you say jesus knew prior to the crucifiction what awaited him after death....

Oh, ok.

When I say "we are all equal in Gods eyes" I mean't that we all must do the same things to get into heaven. Jesus knew to begin with, but he couldn't go and disobey God. Hell, even Lucifer knows who God is, but he hates God. Lucifer probably had this so called "prior knowledge" of how things worked, but I doubt he really cared. It's kind of like Hitler. He knew he was doomed when the allies took Paris, but he didn't care, he kept fighting.

but again, if he was a god with prior knowledge, he would have an advantage over the mortal man. he may have been equal to us in the god's eyes, but he would have been far from equal (which would raise the sticky issue of how all-knowing this god is when there seems to be so many times he is not)

He did have an advantage over the mortal man, however Jesus still had to do the things mortal man does to go into heaven. Of course, he did those things because he was the son of God. However he still had to pass the test, regardless.

Jesus had gobs of knowledge, there is no doubt. However, all the knowledge in the world can still lead to blindness to the light of God. The only thing that Jesus did not know, was the day and the hour.

Let's take this imagery further. I, a Christian, cannot prove, but know fully in my heart, without any doubt that when I die, I will go to heaven. There's no if's but's or maybe's. I will be there.

But if someone tortures me, does that make my pain any less real???

Edit - phrasing issues

And this pair of highlighted words says it best. You 'fully believe' is NOT the same as 'fully know'.
Look at the difference in the following two statements:
"I fully believe that it will rain today."
"I know it will rain today."
See the subtle difference?
To put it in modern day terms we can all relate to, Jesus had inside knowledge of what lay on the other side. Your pain of torture, nor the carpenters son, has any bearing on this. Martha Stewart engaged in insider trading: She had knowledge of a coming negative impact and acted on it. He trial and incarceration, do not diminish the knowledge she had.

Too him, he "fully knows" but he cannot prove anything. He used the correct words. Had he said "I fully know" someone would have jumped on him and asked him for proof.

Then he should have used the correct words, and defended his postion with whatever 'proof' he has.

Not to be a total acknard, but this is an example of why I am starting to become annoyed with these threads: If you say one thing, but claim it means something else, it is very hard to argue against.

I hate penquins. And, of course, by this I mean that I really like custard pie, as everyone is aware.

JMPD1 off air.

You are too funny. I guess sometimes we all have blonde moments. Take care, 101

I read a book once that was very similar.

and yet still no answer to the questions on jesus as god are answered!

i will have to settle for there is no christian that can explain the faults

This is based on faith alone. It is not based on one of the senses. Sight, smell, taste, hearing, or touch.
How can you compare the two? Faith is a state of mind not a physical pain.



**The sound of crickets**

Thanks Amalgamut. That's exactly right.

"I believe" is another way of saying "my understanding and knowledge is..."

It's a lose/ lose situation for believers. The moment we post "I know this is what's going to happen", then people jump down our throat about being close-minded.

Yet we say "I believe" (because that's what we believe), then our opinions are discarded because, after all, they are only our opinions...

Until next time,

I think the answers are quite clear.

It's just that he finds a way for his mind to move around them...

"My understanding ..." You are absolutely correct. It is only your personal understanding of what is presented.

I believe pigs fly on golden gossamer wings.

Does the fact that I prefaced the above with "I believe.." make it true?

If you had said something like "I cannot prove it, but I know in my heart that...." I really do not think anyone here would say anything to refute that. It is your personal belief and opinion.

I believe, although you may disagree, that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world.

One of the major problems with humanity is the fact that we have no concise, consistant language to express ourselves in. There are numerous languages, dialects, idioms and substitutions that make communication difficult. When people start to make up words to identify their social group from others, it becomes more difficult. And, when people substitute one word and its meaning for another word and its meaning, yet claim they both mean the same thing, then communication becomes impossible.


In Russian, "pravda" means truth. But, in Russia, during the bad old days of Communisism, "Pravda" meant whatever the State told you it meant.

How many times I've wondered what the heck happened to us how did we as a conciousness go from designing pryamids, Harnessing energy in Atlantis and Lemuria to Capitalistic robots? People actually say how amazing technology is. I shake my head and wonder where am I is this all a bad dream?

Muslim, Jews and Christians worship the same God. Abraham's God, their argument is more upon the point of heresy. Jews do not accept Jesus as a prophet, this was a point of contention in the Bible wasn't it? If the Jews had accepted Jesus he would not have been crucified. Jesus made a statement that the second coming would come ere before the death of many people in his presence, it was false, because they died. It implied that Jesus believed that the second coming was eminent. Muslims believe that Christians have sullied the purity of their faith by equating Jesus with God, in their opinion this is rubbish. The Koran was compiled many years after the death of Mohhamed, many local customs of the Arabs was appended in to satisfiy the locals. The Gospels of the Bible were written many years after the death of Jesus, it was compiled even later! Gospels that contradicted each other were rejected and those that reinforce each other were chosen instead. The enmity between Jews and Muslims were more a modern conflict than age old one, the Muslim Caliphate were more tolerant of Jews than the Christians were in Europe. Also many historians believed that Constantine's adoption of Christianity accelerated Rome's dissolution instead of reinforcing it

Alright, the OP which sparked this believe/know/understand debate is changed below to use the phrase "I cannot prove it, but I know in my heart that....". I've also edited it in the original.



Remember of course that the only difference is the original post said "I, a Christian, fully believe without any doubt that when I die". I can't see that big a difference in the wording to tell the truth.