HOLY BIBLE Batman

[Ravi]

Hmmm...what other fabrications do you know of where people down through the ages have laid down their lives in support of? Over and over again? For 2 thousand years?

Islam

How long did people believe in the Greek gods?

 

[Ravi]

And what, exactly, was the profit to the disciples, who all but one died poor and tortured, to spread this ideology? What was their motivation, if it was all just vapid musings and power-mad fabrication?

Why are there suicide bombers that see themselves trying to spread an ideology?

 

[AllieBaba]

Honey, Islam came along after Christianity. Islam doesn't contradict Christianity, either, nor the existence of Christ. In fact, Islam supports the NT EXCEPT for the view of Christ as God. So actually, I'm glad you brought it up.
I don't believe anybody died for Greek gods, or in the interest of spreading news of their individual cults to others, far away.

Though you have to admit, that's much too far away, in terms of years, for us to get any "reliable" information on. The oldest and best documented occurence we have from ancient times is the life and times of Christ....and you think even that information is not reliable. So of course you can't believe anything less well documented....

 

[Care4all]

Where does the future lie for the Bible then? If it continually gets debunked, do you think we are going to see a move to a new type of worship. Like when humans moved from pagan worship to monotheistic religion to worshiping figures like Jesus, Mary, Muhammed, etc.

I don't believe what made it in to the Bible is something writen at the last minute or FALSE....we are just missing additional books that also should be in theire, if they truely are inspired....kinda hard to know for certain which are and which aren't....

I personally think they are all wonderful and insighful to read, even the missing books of the Bible or the Apocryphilia books....

Those leading the churches today can not be blamed for what the early christians did a couple of thousand years ago though....at least not in my opinion....

I have met many Christians that are opened to reading other inspired books that were left out of the Bible intentionally....

care

 

[AllieBaba]

Why are there suicide bombers that see themselves trying to spread an ideology?

THey aren't interested in spreading an ideology. Islam doesn't seek converts. It seeks to destroy Christians, nitwit. You don't spread ideology by killing your potential converts, or by blowing your own self up, genius.

 

[jillian]

Why are there suicide bombers that see themselves trying to spread an ideology?

In 1997, thirty-nine well-educated members of the so-called “Heaven’s Gate” cult, many of whom were computer programmers who worked on the cult’s web sites, committed suicide in a town near San Diego, California, because they were certain that their “prophet’s” vision of a spaceship traveling in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet was true. The “prophet,” a man named Marshall Applewhite, told them that if they all committed suicide when the comet was passing near the earth, they all would enter heaven right away. These poor folks didn’t know first-hand that a vehicle which would take them to heaven was in the comet’s tail, but they obviously believed it as strongly as apostles of Jesus in the first century must have believed in their God.

The same type of psychology would have been at work in the minds of members of other religious groups of the 20th Century who willingly die for their beliefs, including for example the nine-hundred faithful Peoples’ Temple followers of Jim Jones in Guyana, and the 76 members of David Koresh's Branch Davidians, who believed him when he told them he was the divinely appointed head of the biblical House of David, and an angel and agent of God, and allowed themselves to die in the fire at the church compound in Waco, Texas.

The Apostles

 

[Ravi]

THey aren't interested in spreading an ideology. Islam doesn't seek converts. It seeks to destroy Christians, nitwit. You don't spread ideology by killing your potential converts, or by blowing your own self up, genius.

Not true. They are open to converts. Just like Christians are. And need I remind you of the crusades?

 

[AllieBaba]

I don't believe what made it in to the Bible is something writen at the last minute or FALSE....we are just missing additional books that also should be in theire, if they truely are inspired....kinda hard to know for certain which are and which aren't....

I personally think they are all wonderful and insighful to read, even the missing books of the Bible or the Apocryphilia books....

Those leading the churches today can not be blamed for what the early christians did a couple of thousand years ago though....at least not in my opinion....

I have met many Christians that are opened to reading other inspired books that were left out of the Bible intentionally....

care

The only problem with this is that if you believe those books are inspired, then you think God is infallible and made a "mistake" somewhere...or was duped by man.

I believe the bible is perfect and is the word of God. I think the other books were not inspired, though they are certainly interesting, and as they were not inspired have no place in the bible.

 

[random3434]

This pretty much sums up how I feel:

What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand.

~Adlai E. Stevenson:

 

[Ravi]

The Apostles

Yes, exactly. People believe what they want to believe, even if it is against their own best interests.

 

[AllieBaba]

Not true. They are open to converts. Just like Christians are. And need I remind you of the crusades?

Hmm....1500 years ago a few Christians marched into the Middle East and claimed it for God. That was a really long time ago. And do you have 200-300 thousand pieces of documentation to back it up? I don't think so. So, given the sneering attitude you have regarding the reliability of an event which DOES have that much documentation, one can only assume that you don't really believe the Crusades ever happened. People's memories and all that.

 

[Ravi]

Good link, Jillian. This one made me laugh:

If the gospel stories about Jesus were false, the apostles would have said so.

Not necessarily. This assumes that the gospel stories were in circulation at the time the apostles died. However, the gospels were written between 70-120 AD, about forty to ninety years after the events alleged in the gospel stories. If the average age of the apostles at the time they allegedly walked with Jesus was 20 years, then they would have been between 60-100 years old when the stories were written. The life expectancy in those days was 40 years, so there is a good chance all of them were long already dead before the first gospel story about Jesus was written. Thus, the apostles prior to the time of their deaths would obviously not be in a position to deny stories if they had not yet in circulation because they had not yet been written.

 

[Care4all]

THey aren't interested in spreading an ideology. Islam doesn't seek converts. It seeks to destroy Christians, nitwit. You don't spread ideology by killing your potential converts, or by blowing your own self up, genius.

they don't seek converts?

Tell that to those in prison...Islam is the number one religion of choice to convert to while in prison.....

 

[AllieBaba]

they don't seek converts?

Tell that to those in prison...Islam is the number one religion of choice to convert to while in prison.....

Lol. It's because it appeals to criminals. And also if you claim you are a Muslim, you get MUCH better food.

 

[Ravi]

More from Jillian's link:

Dying for one’s faith is nothing new; people do it every day, but those willing deaths don’t prove the truth of the martyr’s belief. They only prove that the believer's faith is extremely strong--so strong in fact that they’re willing to die for it. Examples of this type martyrdom for one’s faith abound in the 20th Century. Suicide-bombing Palestinians believe in their god, too, but their willingness to die doesn’t prove that the stories about Allah being god are true.

 

[Nemo Securus]

Actually the Mormons happen to believe Jesus did visit the America's and that the Book of Mormon is that chronicle and religious text.

On what? A rowboat? I think THAT would have certainly been in the bible don't you? I mean if he had lived 100 years maybe I would believe that but honestly he wasn't alive long enough to conquer such a task as that.

 

[AllieBaba]

Remember, he is God as well as man. He died and returned; he ascended physically to heaven.

I don't think it would be a hard thing for God to get Jesus to North America, if that was his desire. I personally don't think it happened, but if it did, the ocean would have been no obstacle and time no impairment.

 

[Nemo Securus]

Hmmm...what other fabrications do you know of where people down through the ages have laid down their lives in support of? Over and over again? For 2 thousand years?

Ever heard of the Mayans or the Aztecs?

 

[AllieBaba]

You of course have eyewitness testimony and more than 200-300,000 pieces of written testimony about them?

 

[Care4all]

The only problem with this is that if you believe those books are inspired, then you think God is infallible and made a "mistake" somewhere...or was duped by man.

I believe the bible is perfect and is the word of God. I think the other books were not inspired, though they are certainly interesting, and as they were not inspired have no place in the bible.

no, i don't believe that God made the mistake.... in fact we were warned of this happening.....in revelation there is a passage that speaks of what terrible things will happen to anyone that adds a word to this inspoired word or takes one word out....

just making mention of such shows that God already knows that "man" will try to pervert his word via omissions and admissions....this is why we need to take scripture and verify it with other scripture to get full understanding and to vet whether it really is God's word...

even paul in several passages gives warnings to such, in letters to timothy i believe where he warned timothy of these churches he will come upon that are distorting God's word to them....

and in Peter I believe there is made mention to this also, that god's word will be perverted, then and in the future...he mentions this being antichrist...and antichrists among them...these were not people that were not supposedly Christians but christians perverting the word of God or what they were taught by Jesus....

This is what i believe thru reading the Bible....it is IN THE BIBLE, the mention of the Word being distorted and antichrists among them even back then...