Does anyone have proof of god, jesus, mary or any one from the bible other then the bible itself?

Hi Bacca.

For the most part I don't think there is any proof outside of the Bible.

Yeah I know that I just want to know if anyone knows of anything else.....Or if any of the believers will even touch the question

They probably won't, they have gotten burned by it way too often. I think they are slowly coming to recoginze that there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus ever lived. Some are even coming to admit this and saying they believe by faith alone! Might as well be followers of Krishnah or Osiris!

There is proof of Mary and Jesus, because they were pretty much royalty back then, which the bible will not tell you, they say they were poor and what not. Mary and Jesus come from the House of David, that is a steady fact. For the matter of god, all I have is blind faith But really, Mary and Jesus were real people. The image that they were prophets was only made by Constantine I.

there are the claims of celsus, a roman philosopher from the time of jesus who claims jesus to be the bastard son of mary (and a roman soldier) which maco explained further in another thread.

Bacca you posted this at 2:39 pm it's now after 8 and the only posts you have are from us NB's & NC's. That should be a clue. I actually came to this board believing a man named jesus walked the earth but now I'm having second thoughts.

Bacca, I have nothing to contribute girl, the only accounts I have heard of are biblical and I put no faith in it. Namaste sheri

Sheri girl I understand I don't really have much to contribute either, other then the idea that I don't personally put my faith in anything that has nothing but one thing to show it is true especially if that one think can't be proven either......I suppose I was hoping that someone would come up with something that may be possible for all the belief there is ya know?


Curiosity.....I noticed

Have faith in yourself, to use your God given talents, to make a difference in the world.

? I'm sorry huh? I have plenty of faith in myself, I think you misunderstood my question if you think I don't

Never said you didn't ?????

How about I put it this way I don't give god credit for my talents I don't give credit to deitys I don't believe in

Yep, there's plenty. Just read the apocrypha and the Gnostic gospels. They're not part of the bible.

Regards, PA

most of them were originally part of the new testament until the council of constinople

bacca asked for proof of Jesus outside the Bible, I provided it *shrugs shoulders*

and i refuted it, as these books were originally part of the n.t. before the council of constantinople.

If you can find a copy of the Bible with every single gnostic/apocryphal text, please..... by all means, provide it.

have you ever studied about the council of constantinople? you know, where they burned all the texts that they disagreed with?

They were part of the bible until the 4th century. You actually didn't provide anything outside of the bible.

In this, GM is correct to a point. Until the council, there was no real canon, each individual Bishopry had their own version of the NT. With the council, the first steps were taken to set up an approved canon (which was finalized in the 15th century). The only surviving intact bibles are dated later than the council and naturally do not contain anything remotely Gnostic. While the apocrypha and the Gnostic gospels are not part of the bible now, they are "the same difference", that is they are mythology dating from the same period of the rest of the NT. To attempt to use them as "outside evidence" of the existence of Jesus is rather like using Batman comics as"outside evidence" of the existence of Superman, because he has appeared in the Batman comics! Like Larry the Cable Guy says, "Thet's like wipin' before you poop, it jest don't make sense!"

I don't sorry.

But remember when SC proved Jesus rode a pogo stick.

Nope I sure don't. The bible basically tells you there is none. If it asks you to have faith in God and there was evidence, no one would need faith right? God, please read the bible before you ask these questions. Your answer would have been in there. It's not impossible for something to exist without evidence. Some people claim they KNOW there's life elsewhere, but is there evidence? I'm not talking about bacteria and things such as that. I mean Intelligent life.

I find these "Give Me Proof!" conversations very ... interesting. I'm surprised that no one has countered yet with "Give me proof he DIDN"T exist!" which no one can do either. So, if you can neither prove nor disprove something, what does that mean? It means it could or could not exist.
Why argue about it? There are gobs of threads asking for proof of a divine Jesus and a Christian God. Christians get offended becuase non-Cs are so logical. Non-Cs get offended because Cs have faith. That's the point of religion - FAITH. And everyone has faith in something - even if its just yourself. I have faith that my kids will grow up to be happy, healthy, functioning members of society. I have no PROOF of this - does that make it untrue? You may have faith that you will keep your job for a long time. You have no PROOF of this - does that make it untrue?

There is no PROOF that any religion exists. That's the point!!!!

PERFECTLY said.





I bet you passed your mouse over "PERFECT" XD...

I personally take no proof of his existance as proof of him not existing

Actually, it was Joseph, not Mary, who reportedly came from the House of David. Matthew 1:16 "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ"

I will repost what I placed in another thread. One of the evidences casting severe doubt on the existence of Jesus is the silence of historians who lived in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. Even though the Bible claims that "all of Jerusalem" knew of Jesus, there was nothing written about him.

"Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering this time of Christ's reputed existence. This work has perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the ninth century, who was acquainted with it, says: 'He (Justus) makes not the least mention of the appearances of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did' (Photius' Bibliotheca, code 33).

"Josephus: Late in the first century, Josephus wrote his celebrated work, _The_Antiquities_of_the_Jews_, giving a history of his race from the earliest ages down to his own time. Modern versions of this work contain the following passage:

"'Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Book XVIII, Chapter iii, Section 3).'
"For nearly sixteen hundred years Christians have been citing this passage as a testimonial, not merely to the historical existence, but to the divine character of Jesus Christ. And yet a ranker forgery was never penned.
"Its language is Christian. Every line proclaims it the work of a Christian writer. 'If it be lawful to call him a man.' 'He was the Christ.' 'He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.'

"These are the words of a Christian, a believer in the divinity of Christ. Josephus was a Jew, a devout believer in the Jewish faith -- the last man in the world to acknowledge the divinity of Christ. The inconsistency of this evidence was early recognized, and Abrose, writing in the generation succeeding its first appearance (360 A.D.), offers the following explanation, which only a theologican could frame:

"'If the Jews do not believe us, let them, at least, believe their own writers. Josephus, whom they esteem a great man, hath said this, and yet hath he spoken truth after such a manner; and so far was his mind wandered from the right way, that even he was not a believer as to what he himself said; but thus he spake, in order to deliver historical truth, because he thought it not lawful for him to deceive, while yet he was no believer, because of the hardness of his heart, and his perfidious intentiion.'
"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly fourty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."
-- The Christ, by John E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books, New York, 1994, pages 171-3.

they dont have, bible is paper and ink, nothing more, i could create something like that back then, people want to believe in something, they need it, they need to pray and hope for it to come true, god ? exist? yeah right

Bacca for me gone are any so called sacred scriptripers that portray a God that kils and plays favorites and sacrafices his children and calls only one child worthy the rest flawed and a mistake, who punishes kills millions of people who commands or demands others to PROTECT his honor by wiping out his own creations, Who denies his feminine side his most beautiful side I might add, who's Jealous of himself, okay I guess I'm getting off topic, But the point is I would not put any faith in this Book for anything. Namaste sheri

anyone? the babylonian and persian kings, Neb II, Darius, a couple of others, in daniel. thats all i can recall with 100% certainty.
that council did nothing of the sort.

Rather weak argument there, that would be like saying you have proof of Superman because he is mentioned in a magizine article.

I refer you to my earlier post indicating that no historian contemporary to Jesus made mention of him even though there were lengthy references to other characters who are unknown in modern times. The alleged impact of Jesus' presence or ministry in his own time is a fabrication existing only in the Bible. Rather complete records exist in the Vatican Archives of the official actions of Pontius Pilate from his time as a prelate in Jerusalem and even there are no mentionings of Jesus, his trial, his crucifixion or personal interview with Pilate.

Often times a solution can be found not by what evidence exists but by what does not exist.

you arent doubting the existance of neb II and darius are you?

I don't think we can offer you any proof because your mind is made up that they don't exist. What evidence would we have to provide you with that you would consider credible? Have you done any research into biblical archaeology? Alot of the bibles stories have been verified through archaeology.

I always thought it was funny how Spock is a deist who has "proof" of a deity, but offers no more proof of his God, than can a Christian or Jew of their god.

Do you believe in the supernatural? Ghosts, spirits, etc? If not is it because you can not see them or have never seen them or had an odd experiance that can't be explained? If someone told you of an experience that could not be explained would you automatically assume it was just a figment of an overactive imagination?

I have played the Quigi board and had some supernatural experiences, and I'm not talking about the piece moving by itself on the board.

My cousin and I were using the Quigi board, and asking questions, suddenly the lights flickered and the doors in my house shut all at once. This has never happened in my house prior to the Quigi board or after the quigi board. And no it wasn't the wind.

Here's a true story from my cousin. He was at a party, and went into a room with over 20 people who were standing around the quigi board and asking questions. He believes the quigi board is evil, and started praying that they stop playing it for their sake. Suddenly the quigi board stopped responding to their questions. They asked why it stopped and it said "their is someone in the room I don't like", they asked who it was, and it spelled out his name "ERIC", and everyone turned around and looked at him.

For me the proof I would give you is the Near Death experience, I think it proves the existence of God as everyone who has the experience is given that knowledge.

Hers the NDE and Jesus:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research22.html

Here's evidence of God:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research21.html

You may find this link particulary interesting as to how the NDE relates to science and the scientific proof:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research08.html


If you can't recognize truth when it's in front of you, you will never see it, and you will stay in the darkness.

Jesus said his followers would suffer for believing in him. And we do, we constantly are belittled by those who do not believe. I promise as your brother, you will be better off believing in God. Just trust me, you may not have seen proof, but those of us who have only want the best for you. Sure you will be made fun of, but that's part of the suffering you endure to make your soul stronger.

I think I might like to read some of this....do you have a link to this?

Now you know how we of no faith and of other faiths feel when we are told that the Christian God is the only true God. Your next sentence proves my point.



Some of us have what is best for us so....Thanks but no thanks.

The archaeological discoveries I will have to search for. They don't prove the miraclesof Jesus, just events that happened.

One example that comes to mind is Ron Wyatt:

http://www.wyattmuseum.com/


Also just out of curiosity, what benefits are there to not believing in God, how will you be better off. How will your morals be guided, and how will you decide what is right and what is wrong?

Scooby i want to answer that because I am one of those who doesn't worship gods or humans. I think the benefits are peace of mind, no expectations to live up to, no blaming something else for my shortcomings and I like the feeling that I don't have to bow to or obey something I don't believe is real.
I have a code of ethics I live by not your holyer than though christian moral code.
I am old enough to know right from wrong but I'm human and I slip once in a while like everybody else.

There is little to none.

“What we know of Jesus amounts to little more than a pragraph.” Dr. C. Shea, Professor of Classics, Ball State University.

One of the problems with retrieving the historical Jesus is that so little can be known of him with certainty. He is mentioned briefly in about a half-dozen non-Christian texts of the time: works by Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger.1 But these say little more than that he lived, preached, and was crucified [which was based on what Christians said, rather than what they knew from their own historical research]. Article below

Here's an interesting article that is an eye-opener ...

NEW TESTAMENT

A Catholic publication has finally come forward and revealed what are the most reasonable conclusions (up to a limit) about the Gospels.

"Who Do Men Say That I Am"

BY

Kerry Temple, Ph.D. {Managing editor of Notre Dame Magazine, a Catholic publication}

It all began because I wanted to know the truth about Jesus. I heard the stories before I could see over the pew in front of me, knelling prayerfully at St. John Berchmans Church. I'd heard of the loaves and fishes, the wedding feast at Can, the prodigal son. Jesus walked on water, calmed the storms, raised Lazaris form the dead, and said, Blessed are the meek.

I knew about the census and the trip by donkey to Bethlehem where there was no room at the inn. I knew of the. Through 16 years of Catholic education I heard about the carpenters son . And it was branded into me early on by the black-robed Daughters of the Cross that those who did not believe would burn in the fires of hell forever.

So here I was about to embark on a search for the historical Jesus, to discover who was the man called the Messiah, the Son of God, second person of the Holy Trinity. Who was he really? And as I began to wind my way back through 20 centuries of accumulated knowledge, trying to distinguished between fact and fiction, trying to peel away the layers of embellishment, I realized I was running counter to much of what had been ingrained in me. And I felt myself entering a relm that felt foreign and strange and disturbing.

The Jesus Debate

In many ways the figure of Jesus is like a poemor, as one prominent Catholic scholar wrote, Jesus is a parable. The story of his life has not come to us like a news report or documentary film that presents historical events literally and factually.

One day I sat in the office of the Reverend Robert Krieg, C.S.C., who teaches Christology at Notre Dame, and tried to explain this analogy to him. "Looking for Jesus," I said, "is like being back in a poetry class dissecting a poem. The poem is layered with meanings, and everyone has a different opinion." Nobody is certain any more what the poet intended, and you’re left with a variety of very subjective interpretations.

Krieg nodded but cautioned against individual interpretations not supported by the Catholic faith tradition and centuries of scholarship. And he warned against looking for the truth about Jesus in terms of literal or historical facts.

[T]he first thing to remember, he [Reverend Edward Schillebeck, O.P., a top Catholic, Dutch scholar] once said, is that there are limitations to what we can know by using the historical-critical approach. The only text that we have show Jesus already proclaimed as Christ by the church and by his first disciples. The New Testament is the testimony of a believing people, and what they are saying is not history but expressions of their belief in Jesus as Christ.

The fundamental Jesus debate (mere man or divine messiah?) as been waged since before the Sanhedrin and the Roman authorities contemplated his execution. Many of the churchs teachings about his nature, so familiar to us today, were not hammered out until centuries after his deathand after heated argument.

In a landmark book, The Life of Jesus; Critically Examined, David Friedrich Strauss concluded in 1835: if we would be candid with ourselves, that which was once sacred history for the Christian believer is, for the enlightened portion of our contemporaries, only fable. That view cost Strauss his job at the University of Tubingen, but he was not the only scholar whose rationalist approach demythologized Christ.

Early in this century, Albert Schweitzer {famed humanitarian and doctor who served in darkest Africa} launched his own search and in 1906 he stated in Quest for the Historical Jesus: "The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give his work its final consecration never had any existence." This image has not been destroyed from without, it has fallen to pieces, cleft and disintegrated by the concrete historical problems which came too the surface one after another.

A year later, in 1907, says Krieg, Pius X decreed in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis that to pursued historical research into the Bible and life of Jesus was a move into modernism, so he condemned it. But, ads the Holy Cross priest, in 1943 Pius XII in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu permitted historical studies of the Bible, its formation and Jesus life.

So what are scholars saying today about Jesus of Nazareth? And how is the explosion of Christology being incorporated into Catholicisms continually evolving theology?

Hero Tales

One of the problems with retrieving the historical Jesus is that so little can be known of him with certainty. He is mentioned briefly in about a half-dozen non-Christian texts of the time: works by Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger.1 But these say little more than that he lived, preached, and was crucified [which was based on what Christians said, rather than what they knew from their own historical research].

Most of what we know of Jesus come from the four gospels. Yet scholars agree that these are hardly dependable as historical sources. For one thing, they did not take shape until late in the first century, a generation or two after Jesus died; until then the stories and teachings of Jesus were spread orally, and it is probably that neither his exact words nor the stories details survived the retellings. Scholars also agree that the gospels were not written by any of the 12 apostles (probably not by anyone named Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, probably not by anyone who was even alive when Jesus was.2 Most importantly, the four gospels were compiled not as historical documents but as testimonies of faith by communities of believers.3 One of the intended effects, he [John Collins, internationally know biblical scholar from Notre Dame] was to make the New Testament accounts fit Old Testament prophecies. The stories were generated, say Collins, by authors trying to infer facts from biblical prophecies. And for that reason many scholars would regard these as fictions to make theological points.

Many of the stories about Jesus contained in these ancient documents [Gospels, both canonical and not] Kannengiesser says, were tales commonly applied to mythical figures and heroes of the time. It was almost obligatory to have such stories available, the theologian says; they were stock stories told to convert people to Jesus. Tales of virgin births, divine heroes, and miracles workers were relatively common 2,000 years ago and simply did not mean what they do to us today. [My emphasis, for this is central to this article by Kerry Temple]

One such mythical hero was Mithras, a Persian deity introduced to Rome midway through the first century, shortly before the synoptic gospels were written.4 He, too, was said to have been sent by a father-god to vanquish darkness and evil in the world. Born of a virgin (a birth witnessed only by shepherds), Mithras was described variously as the Way, the Truth, the Light, the Word, the Son of God, and the Good Shepherd and was often depicted carrying a lamb upon his shoulders.5

Followers of Mithras celebrated December 25 by ringing bells, singing hymns, lighting candles, giving gifts, and administering a sacrament of bread and water. Between December 25 and the spring equinox (Easter, from the Latin for earth goddess) came the 40 days search for Osiris, a god of justice and love. The cult also observed Black Friday, commemorating Mithras sacrificial bull slaying, which fructified the earth. Worn out by the battle, Mithras is symbolically represented as a corpse and is placed in a sacred rock tomb from which he is removed after three days in a festival of rejoicing.

Pick-up Sticks

His name was Jesus, the Aramaic version of Yeshu or Yeshua, which is the common form of the Hebrew Joshua, meaning the Lord saves. Historians estimate the year of his birth at about 6 to 4 BCE; the date, December 25, was adopted in the fourth century from a pagan-Roman feast day that coincided with the winter solstice.

The nativity stories are regarded by scholars as among the most recent and least authentic additions to the gospels. These narratives, writes Murphy, summarizing Jesus status among [Christian] historians, cannot be relied upon as historical fact but were inserted into the gospels of Luke and Matthews to assert certain claims about Jesus. The two versions, he adds, are utterly divergent and cannot be harmonized. But they do provide insight into the evangelists storytelling devices and their intent to link Jesus to Old Testament prophecies [emphasis added].6

One point is clear from the outset: our understanding of divine man or Son of God is different today than it was to the world in which Jesus lived. It was not an uncommon designation in those days. Nor was it uncommon to have gods impregnate mortals who yield divine offspring; [see Genesis 6:1]... Even in scripture the tile Son of God was used in a variety of ways. Notre Dames’ John Collins say it denotes angels, heaven being, the messiah, the king of Israel or the king of Judea, but it does not imply equality with God.

It was not until the Council of Nicea in 325 CE that church leaders determined that Jesus was of one substance with the Father. If the gospel writers said son of God they probably meant he was a specially chosen human being, says Collins the interpretation of what was said about the messiah in the Old Testament.

So I aksed Father Kannengiesser what we know for sure about the Jesus birth. He smiled and said, “The fact is Jesus existed. He was born. Period. That’s it. Accepting the mystery of Jesus incarnation, scholars will tell you, is more a matter of faith than reproductive biology, or linguistics, of the mythologies of ancient cultures.” The reason why it has never been possible to state a literal meaning for the ideal of Incarnation, says theologian John Hicks, is simply that it has no literal meaning. It is a mythological idea, a figure of speech, a piece of poetic imagery.

The ear in which he was raised was well suited for his public mission. Socially, politically, and religiously, the culture was in ferment. Armageddon seemed imminent, and miracle-workers, charismatic holy men, nomadic teachers, and doom sayaing prophets were common, wandering the arid plains preaching, healing, exorcising demons, and attracting followers.

Scholars have estimated the length of Jesus evangelical life as lasting anywhere from several months to two years. As with other aspects of his story, the events of this public ministry are shrouded in uncertainty and disagreement due to discrepancies in the sources and doubts about them. No one really knows for sure what is authentic and what is not.

Similar questions arise when the miracles are discussed. Historians indicate that healings and exorcisms were fairly common in Jesus time (and, they point out, are still considered legitimate occurrences in some cultures today). While scholars agree Jesus was doing extraordinary things, other miracle workers such as Hanina ben Dosa, Honi the Circle Drawer, and Apollonius of Tyana were performing similar deeds.

[The works of the New Testament do little to distinguish Jesus.] Son of Man, bar nisha, a seemingly profound and mysterious appellation found on some 70 occasions in the synoptic gospels, was used in the vernacular as a round about way of saying I or simply meant a person/someone. Others think it is an allusion to the mysterious figure prophesied in the seventh chapter of Daniel. Son of God, most scholars agree, is an ambigious title at best; so, too, is lord, from the Aramaic mare, which could be interpreted in a spectrum of ways from the mundane sir to the divine lord.

The meaning of messiah (the anointed one) is even more nuanceda rich mine for linguists to excavate. It could have meant several things, from a spiritual redeemer descending from David to a political and military king-and not necessarily a divine person [similar to the Maccabbees]. In the 150 years before Jesus, the messiah to come was anticipated in broader eschatological terms as the ruler of all nations whom God would appoint at the end of time. Jesus virtual silence on the subject has left scholars with more questions than answers.[/i]

Did he see himself as one sent from God on some sacred mission? Was he simply another Jewish prophet preparing his followers for the coming Parousia? Did events unfold in such a way that he became aware of his role and divinity as time went on? Or did he from the beginning considered himself Gods equal? The answer to these questions doubtlessly pondered by those who talked and laughed and ate with him, remain elusive to us today.

The End of Time

Though the gospels differ somewhat on what happened next, it is believed that Jesus faced a stern investigation before the chief priests of the Sanhedrin (the supreme council of the religious establishment). But if the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death, it is unclear why it did not carry out the execution but, instead, took the case to Pilate. He was executed by Roman authorities for being a messianic pretender.

Something Happened

The gospel accounts of Easter morning are sketchy and inconsistent. No one is certain precisely what it was that happened. Whatever happened had an incredible effect on Jesus followers...

At this point the following of Kerry’s account has lost all semblance of objective scholars; it is in the realm of faith.

*NT
http://jeromekahn123.tripod.com/newtestament/id11.html

Sorry for blabbing on here.

Take care.

Sean

First off I am always open to learning and changing that is how I as a person grows.....My opinions are never set it stone, and I don't wear blinders, that's why i ask so many questions so please stop with the comments about me not being able to be told something.

Second you idea that archeology proves anything is pointless since I can go to the bookstore right now and find hundreds of fiction books that use real places....It's just what writes do to give some semblence of truth to an otherwise fictional book.....

Third do I believe in ghosts, spirits etc....yes....why? because I've seen and felt and heard proof for myself not a second hand two thousand year old book.....

As for ouiji boards I don't have a problem as long as you can handle the consiquenses of doing so, and yes in my life I have used them and had "something" respond to them good, bad and in between.....

I do not take any near death experiance as proof unless the person had never heard of god or jesus before hand if not it is nothing more then the person finding a safe zone even in near death and the comfort that a heaven can bring....

Finally making reference to christians suffering is one of the most obserd things I've ever heard. Last time I checked christians are a protected group. Where I live if you are not a christian there must be something wrong with you and people treat you differently...You get threatened with eternal hell and damnation basically because it is now illegal to burn people at the stake now so they have to threaten it after death!!!!!

I did scan the web site a little BUT....all they have as far as evidence of the Ark are some blurry photos. I don't really see where this is evidence of there being a Noah's Ark.


I believed in him once for a number of years. I was a true believer such as you seem to be.
Benefits?
I don't have to worry about going to hell.

Why do you feel I need a God to tell me right from wrong? I am a very moral person. Why do you feel that a person can not make a moral judgement without your God?

With respect Scooby it is this type of attitude that is one of the reasons some non-Christians are so belligerent. Not all want to believe in the Christian God.

Also just out of curiosity, what benefits are there to not believing in God, how will you be better off. How will your morals be guided, and how will you decide what is right and what is wrong?

What benefit do I have not believing in a christian god? Well what benefit would it give me? I've tried it, it gave me nothing but self doubt and guilt and an inability to do anything on my own without out a fear of what would happen if I did something wrong.......

How do I get morals to guide me? well from me, I do for others I care I worry and I will tell you this there is not a person who knows me who will tell you that I am not a good friend and a good person....I don't need a book to tell me right from wrong I use common sense for that and I'm sorry that so many people need a book or a church to tell them that you should be kind to others and do things just because you are in a position that you can, to not be selfish and to not judge others. I don't which is something that I am proud of, it isn't my place to judge others and it also is not some god's job to do so who can not for a moment say that no matter what the circumstance that a sin is a sin which contrary to what some say is what the book says....

I have faith in me, I have faith in the people I have around me and I have faith that i will know what to do when I need to make a decision and you know what I am a hell of a lot better off when I started looking to myself instead of to a church

scoobysnack:

do you have any records of a captured "ghost"? A "ghost" that has been studied to identify exactly what it is? If not, than all we have is HYSTERICAL accounts, which are anything but reliable. We no nothing of what the "apperitions" are, but only what qualities people have assigned to them. This is a major difference. It is a difference between fact and fantasy.

The same thing happens with "gods" and their ilk.

You ask what benefit is there in not believing gods exist? Well, what benefit is their in not believing goblins, dragons, or tooth-fairies exist? Neither gods nor goblins are relevent to existance as we know it. Now before you claim anything about what we don't know let me state that whatever is out there is out there and not doing anything regarding our existance so it is irrelevent!

Death comes to us all. There is no need to fear it. However, if whatever world you have created gives you peace, so be it. Just don't try and sell it to others that are not in the market for such creations.

Scooby
Moral judgment? You want me to follow this?



I am sorry but you can keep your religion. My moral values are a bit higher than that.

My respect is still with you.


EDITED TO ADD: You talk of morals? From your SIG:
Mossad Motto = By way of deception, thou shalt do war

Isn't there talk of Jesus in the Torah, or the Koran?

The Torah is nothing more than a Jewish term for the first 5 books of the Old Testament (the ones that Moses is given credit by them for authoring.) The Koran was written some 6 centuries after the supposed life of Jesus, so would have nothing to do with being any sort of historic record.

I don't think you realize how much society molds your beliefs and morals and conditions you to conform to societies standards. You may think you are unique but there are thousands just like you. You learned how to act civil from your parents who were taught by their parents. Society as a whole and the rule of law at least in America was based off slightly from Jewish/Christians law (10 commandments)

Where I 'm going with this, is who decides if it is wrong to rape a young girl, or kill someone. You may think you came to your own moral beliefs on your own, but you have adopted societies values which are based on Jewish and Christian teachings. I used to work with a Hmong refugee from Laos, and he would tell me stories from back home. I forget the exact circumstances but I remember him saying something like if your neighbor stole your cow, you could kill him if it was less then a year from when the cow was stolen. In my anthropology class I learned about a tribe down in S. America somewhere where the chief of the tribe would have a ceremony with all the men of warriors of the tribe laying around a campfire, and the chief would Fu*k the other men in the ass to show and reinforce his dominance. Those sound like some pretty strange things to do, but it is the norm where those people grew up and live.

Ever learn about the Feral Children? Feral children, also known as wild children or wolf children, are children who have grown up with minimal human contact, or even none at all. They may have been raised by animals (often wolves) or somehow survived on their own. In some cases, children are confined and denied normal social interaction with other people.

They don't have nearly the same morals or behavior guidelines as you and me.

You are right about Christians not suffering, in fact they have it the best in the world. I meant currently, we are living in the end times, and Christians will be persecuted with the rise of the Anti-Christ, the signs are abundant, but you won't see them unless you know what to look for.

If archaeology proves nothing, why do you believe history, or science. History is always rewritten, by those in charge. I guess you could use that argument against the bible. You are supposed to have faith that the bible was never tampered with. It's hard to believe that it's the same as was written first.

If you believe in ghosts does that mean you admit there could be life after death of the physical body?

Whose morals do you think are better, yours, Satanic statements, or the 10 commandments and why? Of course these are just two set of laws, as many more exist:

The Nine Satanic Statements from The Satanic Bible, ©1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey


1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!

2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams!

3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit!

4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!

5. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek!

6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires!

7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!

8. Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!

9. Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!


The Ten Commandments given to Moses are these: (abbreviated form)

1. You shall not worship any other god but YHWH.

2. You shall not make a graven image.

3. You shall not take the name of YHWH in vain.

4. You shall not break the Sabbath.

5. You shall not dishonor your parents.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not commit perjury.

10. You shall not covet.


Athiests are in trouble, because they make decisions with out realizing there will be consequences they can't comprehend. Do some people who believe in God not make it to heaven, of course they do, I may be one of them, I'm not that great of a person, althougth I know what I should do, I rarely do it.

the same can be said of theists.