Let’s chat about the atheist religion.

[ding]

This is a sentiment Jesus repeats several times and in his apocalyptic view of the world it makes perfect sense. Since the end times were coming soon, family and material goods were unimportant. Everyone should give all their money to the poor, leave their family, and follow him.

Again, not even close to my understanding and I believe you are looking to confirm your bias. You can prove me wrong by showing me a positive explanation that you considered and the explain why you rejected it. This is what it means to test your notional beliefs. You literally need to take a position counter to your belief and genuinely test your belief to arrive at objective truth.

I gave you my interpretation. What is yours? Please include the opposing explanation and why you rejected it.

Thank you for asking.

I believe the message of Christ goes back to the account of Adam and Eve where their true crime was not disobeying God but failing to take accountability for disobeying God. That is the original sin. Rationalizing wrong as a right. We are all guilty of it. The sword Jesus brought was objective truth. He wants us to see everything as it really is, especially ourselves. The sword Jesus brought to us is objective truth. He was born into the world to testify to the truth. The conflict is subjectivity. Subjectivity is what keeps us from seeing reality. Subjectivity is what keeps us from transforming ourselves.

You have a very positive interpretation of the Bible but I think you are essentially writing your own Bible. I've always thought of the Bible as a wonderful smorgasbord. Since everything is in it you can take out of it whatever you want. Of course when you do that you have to ignore the parts that contradict your interpretation.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

 

[ding]

This is a sentiment Jesus repeats several times and in his apocalyptic view of the world it makes perfect sense. Since the end times were coming soon, family and material goods were unimportant. Everyone should give all their money to the poor, leave their family, and follow him.

Again, not even close to my understanding and I believe you are looking to confirm your bias. You can prove me wrong by showing me a positive explanation that you considered and the explain why you rejected it. This is what it means to test your notional beliefs. You literally need to take a position counter to your belief and genuinely test your belief to arrive at objective truth.

I gave you my interpretation. What is yours? Please include the opposing explanation and why you rejected it.

As for material possessions and earthly desires. We are free to pursue pleasure, wealth, power and fame but none of those things will satisfy us because we were made for more. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of our labor. The Bible is very clear on this. The issue is one of balance. Everything must be in balance. Do the right thing, the right way for the right reason. If one becomes out of balance he begins worshipping created things instead of the creator. That usually doesn’t end well. We do have an obligation to be stewards. We do have an obligation to be fair. We do have an obligation to treat others well. These things all sort themselves out if one is objective. The cornerstone of objectivity is humility. If one is humble he cannot help but be objective. If one is objective he cannot help but do the right thing, the right way for the right reason. Then, being a steward, treating others fairly, helping your fellow man comes naturally.

I have no objection to what you wrote, I just think you are putting your spin on what is actually there and thereby ignoring the original context.

I disagree. Where else do you think I got it from?

Do you know why sometimes he would say don’t tell anyone what he did and other times he would say go and tell others what you saw?

 

[BreezeWood]

This is a sentiment Jesus repeats several times and in his apocalyptic view of the world it makes perfect sense. Since the end times were coming soon, family and material goods were unimportant. Everyone should give all their money to the poor, leave their family, and follow him.

Again, not even close to my understanding and I believe you are looking to confirm your bias. You can prove me wrong by showing me a positive explanation that you considered and the explain why you rejected it. This is what it means to test your notional beliefs. You literally need to take a position counter to your belief and genuinely test your belief to arrive at objective truth.

I gave you my interpretation. What is yours? Please include the opposing explanation and why you rejected it.

Thank you for asking.

I believe the message of Christ goes back to the account of Adam and Eve where their true crime was not disobeying God but failing to take accountability for disobeying God. That is the original sin. Rationalizing wrong as a right. We are all guilty of it. The sword Jesus brought was objective truth. He wants us to see everything as it really is, especially ourselves. The sword Jesus brought to us is objective truth. He was born into the world to testify to the truth. The conflict is subjectivity. Subjectivity is what keeps us from seeing reality. Subjectivity is what keeps us from transforming ourselves.

You have a very positive interpretation of the Bible but I think you are essentially writing your own Bible. I've always thought of the Bible as a wonderful smorgasbord. Since everything is in it you can take out of it whatever you want. Of course when you do that you have to ignore the parts that contradict your interpretation.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

.
like fly tape, something you say will certainly stick ... actually the religious itinerant's death wasn't to himself but the physical ending to their existence. they knew it was inevitable their message to triumph over evil the religion of antiquity they died for.

 

[ding]

This is a sentiment Jesus repeats several times and in his apocalyptic view of the world it makes perfect sense. Since the end times were coming soon, family and material goods were unimportant. Everyone should give all their money to the poor, leave their family, and follow him.

Again, not even close to my understanding and I believe you are looking to confirm your bias. You can prove me wrong by showing me a positive explanation that you considered and the explain why you rejected it. This is what it means to test your notional beliefs. You literally need to take a position counter to your belief and genuinely test your belief to arrive at objective truth.

I gave you my interpretation. What is yours? Please include the opposing explanation and why you rejected it.

Thank you for asking.

I believe the message of Christ goes back to the account of Adam and Eve where their true crime was not disobeying God but failing to take accountability for disobeying God. That is the original sin. Rationalizing wrong as a right. We are all guilty of it. The sword Jesus brought was objective truth. He wants us to see everything as it really is, especially ourselves. The sword Jesus brought to us is objective truth. He was born into the world to testify to the truth. The conflict is subjectivity. Subjectivity is what keeps us from seeing reality. Subjectivity is what keeps us from transforming ourselves.

You have a very positive interpretation of the Bible but I think you are essentially writing your own Bible. I've always thought of the Bible as a wonderful smorgasbord. Since everything is in it you can take out of it whatever you want. Of course when you do that you have to ignore the parts that contradict your interpretation.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

.
like fly tape, something you say will certainly stick ... actually the religious itinerant's death wasn't to himself but the physical ending to their existence. they knew it was inevitable their message to triumph over evil the religion of antiquity they died for.

I have chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from me. What you intend for "evil" God is using for good.

 

[ding]

As I said as smart as we think we are we only understand about 5% of the matter and energy that exists in the universe.

We actually know a great deal about how the universe began. There is even an elegant equation that explains how space and time were created from nothing and then began to expand and cool.

All that is theory based on our observations.

Knowing that we have no understanding of 95% of the matter and energy that the universe is made of it is arrogant to think we understand the origins of the universe

What's 96 Percent of the Universe Made Of? Astronomers Don't Know

Almost all of the universe — 96 percent — is invisible stuff called dark matter and dark energy. The new book "The 4 Percent Universe" by Richard Panek describes how this bizarre picture came to be.

www.space.com

This Is What We Don’t Know About The Universe

In recent days I’ve had some interesting conversations. There’s a giddiness going around, related to an outpouring of science love – the kind you get from President Obama introducing TV science shows, the kind that has wonderful visuals, but is, well, a wee bit simplistic (a sin that none of us...

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Incorrect. What you are talking about is what will happen to the universe. It doesn’t have anything to do with how the universe began.

Of course it does.

If we can't even figure out what the universe is made of we cannot with any certainty say how it began

You are kidding, right?

We know from science that space and time had a beginning. Specifically, red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Inflation Theory.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation and Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations tells us that all matter and energy in the universe once occupied a very tiny space and then began to expand and cool. The the First Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. conservation of energy) tells us that since that time matter and energy has only changed form. Which means that the atoms in our bodies were created from nothing when space and and time were created from nothing.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that space and time did have a beginning. If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Inflation Theory, the First Law of Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool. In this description, the same laws that describe the evolution of the universe also describe the appearance of the universe which means that the laws were in place before the universe itself.

 

[alang1216]

Do you know why sometimes he would say don’t tell anyone what he did and other times he would say go and tell others what you saw?

Because John didn't have the synoptic Gospels to use as a source and put his unique theological spin on the stories he did know?

 

[ding]

Do you know why sometimes he would say don’t tell anyone what he did and other times he would say go and tell others what you saw?

Because John didn't have the synoptic Gospels to use as a source and put his unique theological spin on the stories he did know?

Interesting. Are you certain that the other Gospels didn’t record this difference in instructions? Because I believe it was in Mark where at certain times after performing a miracle he would say tell no one about this and then at another time he would say go tell everyone.

I believe the difference was due to the phases of his ministry. He first preached the good news to his people, then he preached the good news to the gentiles and lastly he focused on training his apostles. Each Gospel has a different perspective. For instance, I believe it is Mark, where only the reader knows Jesus is Christ, the Book is written such that the apostles don’t know Jesus is Christ. In fact, they keep repeating who is this guy. The question of who Jesus is is the central theme of Mark and really all Gospels except John.

But just to clarify, my beliefs that I expressed earlier are based upon the whole body of work; both OT and NT. Parsing it does not work.

As I have gone through life I picked up knowledge that was unrelated to the Bible, and totally unrelated to each other. But as I read the Bible the knowledge I picked up made the Bible easier to understand. And it wasn’t always in that order. Sometimes when I read passages in the Bible that didn’t make sense I would later gain knowledge outside of the Bible and then the passage that didn’t make sense would come into focus. Now considering that I am not that well read it is unusual that the limited things I have read would have helped me form such a tightly integrated world view. Lastly I am the last person in the world I would have expected to be championing God. And I expect anyone i was close to growing up through the age of 34 would agree with me in that point but here I am.

 

[alang1216]

Do you know why sometimes he would say don’t tell anyone what he did and other times he would say go and tell others what you saw?

Because John didn't have the synoptic Gospels to use as a source and put his unique theological spin on the stories he did know?

Interesting. Are you certain that the other Gospels didn’t record this difference in instructions? Because I believe it was in Mark where at certain times after performing a miracle he would say tell no one about this and then at another time he would say go tell everyone.

I believe the difference was due to the phases of his ministry. He first preached the good news to his people, then he preached the good news to the gentiles and lastly he focused on training his apostles. Each Gospel has a different perspective. For instance, I believe it is Mark, where only the reader knows Jesus is Christ, the Book is written such that the apostles don’t know Jesus is Christ. In fact, they keep repeating who is this guy. The question of who Jesus is is the central theme of Mark and really all Gospels except John.

But just to clarify, my beliefs that I expressed earlier are based upon the whole body of work; both OT and NT. Parsing it does not work.

As I have gone through life I picked up knowledge that was unrelated to the Bible, and totally unrelated to each other. But as I read the Bible the knowledge I picked up made the Bible easier to understand. And it wasn’t always in that order. Sometimes what I read in the Bible would trigger thoughts as I gained knowledge outside of the Bible. Now considering that I am not that well read it is unusual that the limited things I have read would helped me form such a tightly integrated world view. Lastly I am the last person in the world I would have expected to be championing God. And I expect anyone i was close to growing up through the age of 34 would agree with me in that point but here I am.

I believe you're correct about Mark vs John but I doubt it was according to any plan since they didn't know about each other.

I think that you, like just about every other believer, takes from the text what they already believe to be true based on their worldview. That is why you believe "parsing it does not work". What you have ended up doing is taking each work out of its original context.

 

[ding]

Do you know why sometimes he would say don’t tell anyone what he did and other times he would say go and tell others what you saw?

Because John didn't have the synoptic Gospels to use as a source and put his unique theological spin on the stories he did know?

Interesting. Are you certain that the other Gospels didn’t record this difference in instructions? Because I believe it was in Mark where at certain times after performing a miracle he would say tell no one about this and then at another time he would say go tell everyone.

I believe the difference was due to the phases of his ministry. He first preached the good news to his people, then he preached the good news to the gentiles and lastly he focused on training his apostles. Each Gospel has a different perspective. For instance, I believe it is Mark, where only the reader knows Jesus is Christ, the Book is written such that the apostles don’t know Jesus is Christ. In fact, they keep repeating who is this guy. The question of who Jesus is is the central theme of Mark and really all Gospels except John.

But just to clarify, my beliefs that I expressed earlier are based upon the whole body of work; both OT and NT. Parsing it does not work.

As I have gone through life I picked up knowledge that was unrelated to the Bible, and totally unrelated to each other. But as I read the Bible the knowledge I picked up made the Bible easier to understand. And it wasn’t always in that order. Sometimes what I read in the Bible would trigger thoughts as I gained knowledge outside of the Bible. Now considering that I am not that well read it is unusual that the limited things I have read would helped me form such a tightly integrated world view. Lastly I am the last person in the world I would have expected to be championing God. And I expect anyone i was close to growing up through the age of 34 would agree with me in that point but here I am.

I believe you're correct about Mark vs John but I doubt it was according to any plan since they didn't know about each other.

I think that you, like just about every other believer, takes from the text what they already believe to be true based on their worldview. That is why you believe "parsing it does not work". What you have ended up doing is taking each work out of its original context.

Interesting. You could say the same thing about yourself, right?

The only difference is I tested it and you didn’t. I have put my interpretation to the test and found that it did effect change for the positive on many levels and in many relationships. He has literally transformed me.

I guess I could be wrong about you testing your interpretation though. So feel free to share how you were able to test it. Maybe you can persuade me.

 

[ding]

Do you know why sometimes he would say don’t tell anyone what he did and other times he would say go and tell others what you saw?

Because John didn't have the synoptic Gospels to use as a source and put his unique theological spin on the stories he did know?

Interesting. Are you certain that the other Gospels didn’t record this difference in instructions? Because I believe it was in Mark where at certain times after performing a miracle he would say tell no one about this and then at another time he would say go tell everyone.

I believe the difference was due to the phases of his ministry. He first preached the good news to his people, then he preached the good news to the gentiles and lastly he focused on training his apostles. Each Gospel has a different perspective. For instance, I believe it is Mark, where only the reader knows Jesus is Christ, the Book is written such that the apostles don’t know Jesus is Christ. In fact, they keep repeating who is this guy. The question of who Jesus is is the central theme of Mark and really all Gospels except John.

But just to clarify, my beliefs that I expressed earlier are based upon the whole body of work; both OT and NT. Parsing it does not work.

As I have gone through life I picked up knowledge that was unrelated to the Bible, and totally unrelated to each other. But as I read the Bible the knowledge I picked up made the Bible easier to understand. And it wasn’t always in that order. Sometimes what I read in the Bible would trigger thoughts as I gained knowledge outside of the Bible. Now considering that I am not that well read it is unusual that the limited things I have read would helped me form such a tightly integrated world view. Lastly I am the last person in the world I would have expected to be championing God. And I expect anyone i was close to growing up through the age of 34 would agree with me in that point but here I am.

I believe you're correct about Mark vs John but I doubt it was according to any plan since they didn't know about each other.

I think that you, like just about every other believer, takes from the text what they already believe to be true based on their worldview. That is why you believe "parsing it does not work". What you have ended up doing is taking each work out of its original context.

For the record it is parsing it that literally leads to people cherry picking what they want to see as that is the definition of cherry picking.

Can you tell me how that is not the case?

 

[alang1216]

Interesting. You could say the same thing about yourself, right?

The only difference is I tested it and you didn’t. I have put my interpretation to the test and found that it did effect change for the positive on many levels and in many relationships. He has literally transformed me.

I guess I could be wrong about you testing your interpretation though. So feel free to share how you were able to test it. Maybe you can persuade me.

I was never a Christian so the NT was completely new to me so I tried to keep my mind open. We all have our biases of course so who knows how well they do.

You took the theology of the Bible you liked so I don't doubt it was a positive experience. I don't care much for anyone's theology but there are some good moral lessons there I try to emulate.

The tests are historical context, Occam's Razor, and my years of experience.

 

[alang1216]

For the record it is parsing it that literally leads to people cherry picking what they want to see as that is the definition of cherry picking.

Can you tell me how that is not the case?

In my estimation, the Bible is not a single work of a single God, it is the work of many men over many millennium. To conflate the work of multiple authors into a single mashup must distort what each author is saying. The birth narrative is a prime example. Our Xmas holiday is a homogenized mix of Matthew and Luke's very different stories and yields a third story not found in either.

 

[BreezeWood]

This is a sentiment Jesus repeats several times and in his apocalyptic view of the world it makes perfect sense. Since the end times were coming soon, family and material goods were unimportant. Everyone should give all their money to the poor, leave their family, and follow him.

Again, not even close to my understanding and I believe you are looking to confirm your bias. You can prove me wrong by showing me a positive explanation that you considered and the explain why you rejected it. This is what it means to test your notional beliefs. You literally need to take a position counter to your belief and genuinely test your belief to arrive at objective truth.

I gave you my interpretation. What is yours? Please include the opposing explanation and why you rejected it.

Thank you for asking.

I believe the message of Christ goes back to the account of Adam and Eve where their true crime was not disobeying God but failing to take accountability for disobeying God. That is the original sin. Rationalizing wrong as a right. We are all guilty of it. The sword Jesus brought was objective truth. He wants us to see everything as it really is, especially ourselves. The sword Jesus brought to us is objective truth. He was born into the world to testify to the truth. The conflict is subjectivity. Subjectivity is what keeps us from seeing reality. Subjectivity is what keeps us from transforming ourselves.

You have a very positive interpretation of the Bible but I think you are essentially writing your own Bible. I've always thought of the Bible as a wonderful smorgasbord. Since everything is in it you can take out of it whatever you want. Of course when you do that you have to ignore the parts that contradict your interpretation.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

.
like fly tape, something you say will certainly stick ... actually the religious itinerant's death wasn't to himself but the physical ending to their existence. they knew it was inevitable their message to triumph over evil the religion of antiquity they died for.

I have chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from me. What you intend for "evil" God is using for good.

like fly tape, something you say will certainly stick ... actually the religious itinerant's death wasn't to himself but the physical ending to their existence. they knew it was inevitable their message to triumph over evil the religion of antiquity they died for.

I have chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from me. What you intend for "evil" God is using for good.

.
who would care to take from you your forged religious beliefs - just keep them to yourself when inable to make a reasonable reply to your own comments ...

no, they never died to themselves they liberated their spirit and were willing to do the same to help others in the same pursuit. by overcoming their sins and living sin free as for them to free their spirits as well. the 1st century.

can't imagin what dieing to self would be for a sinner. sinner.

 

[ding]

Interesting. You could say the same thing about yourself, right?

The only difference is I tested it and you didn’t. I have put my interpretation to the test and found that it did effect change for the positive on many levels and in many relationships. He has literally transformed me.

I guess I could be wrong about you testing your interpretation though. So feel free to share how you were able to test it. Maybe you can persuade me.

I was never a Christian so the NT was completely new to me so I tried to keep my mind open. We all have our biases of course so who knows how well they do.

You took the theology of the Bible you liked so I don't doubt it was a positive experience. I don't care much for anyone's theology but there are some good moral lessons there I try to emulate.

The tests are historical context, Occam's Razor, and my years of experience.

No. I said I didn’t parse it. I am willing to bet your historical context was cherry picked.

Occams Razor would predict that intelligence created intelligence.

What did your years of experience prove exactly? That God doesn’t exist?

 

[ding]

This is a sentiment Jesus repeats several times and in his apocalyptic view of the world it makes perfect sense. Since the end times were coming soon, family and material goods were unimportant. Everyone should give all their money to the poor, leave their family, and follow him.

Again, not even close to my understanding and I believe you are looking to confirm your bias. You can prove me wrong by showing me a positive explanation that you considered and the explain why you rejected it. This is what it means to test your notional beliefs. You literally need to take a position counter to your belief and genuinely test your belief to arrive at objective truth.

I gave you my interpretation. What is yours? Please include the opposing explanation and why you rejected it.

Thank you for asking.

I believe the message of Christ goes back to the account of Adam and Eve where their true crime was not disobeying God but failing to take accountability for disobeying God. That is the original sin. Rationalizing wrong as a right. We are all guilty of it. The sword Jesus brought was objective truth. He wants us to see everything as it really is, especially ourselves. The sword Jesus brought to us is objective truth. He was born into the world to testify to the truth. The conflict is subjectivity. Subjectivity is what keeps us from seeing reality. Subjectivity is what keeps us from transforming ourselves.

You have a very positive interpretation of the Bible but I think you are essentially writing your own Bible. I've always thought of the Bible as a wonderful smorgasbord. Since everything is in it you can take out of it whatever you want. Of course when you do that you have to ignore the parts that contradict your interpretation.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Actually not. The message of Christ is a personal message to all of us. Truth is arrived at through a conflict and confusion process. His message of picking up our cross and following him is a message of dying to self. Dying to self is the only way to see objective truth and confront reality. Lots of good things occur when one does that. Of course it’s not easy. If it were easy everyone would do it.

.
like fly tape, something you say will certainly stick ... actually the religious itinerant's death wasn't to himself but the physical ending to their existence. they knew it was inevitable their message to triumph over evil the religion of antiquity they died for.

I have chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from me. What you intend for "evil" God is using for good.

like fly tape, something you say will certainly stick ... actually the religious itinerant's death wasn't to himself but the physical ending to their existence. they knew it was inevitable their message to triumph over evil the religion of antiquity they died for.

I have chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from me. What you intend for "evil" God is using for good.

.
who would care to take from you your forged religious beliefs - just keep them to yourself when inable to make a reasonable reply to your own comments ...

no, they never died to themselves they liberated their spirit and were willing to do the same to help others in the same pursuit. by overcoming their sins and living sin free as for them to free their spirits as well. the 1st century.

can't imagin what dieing to self would be for a sinner. sinner.

You are wasting your time here.

 

[ding]

For the record it is parsing it that literally leads to people cherry picking what they want to see as that is the definition of cherry picking.

Can you tell me how that is not the case?

In my estimation, the Bible is not a single work of a single God, it is the work of many men over many millennium. To conflate the work of multiple authors into a single mashup must distort what each author is saying. The birth narrative is a prime example. Our Xmas holiday is a homogenized mix of Matthew and Luke's very different stories and yields a third story not found in either.

It’s effectively a how to book. How to live and how not to live.

 

[alang1216]

Interesting. You could say the same thing about yourself, right?

The only difference is I tested it and you didn’t. I have put my interpretation to the test and found that it did effect change for the positive on many levels and in many relationships. He has literally transformed me.

I guess I could be wrong about you testing your interpretation though. So feel free to share how you were able to test it. Maybe you can persuade me.

I was never a Christian so the NT was completely new to me so I tried to keep my mind open. We all have our biases of course so who knows how well they do.

You took the theology of the Bible you liked so I don't doubt it was a positive experience. I don't care much for anyone's theology but there are some good moral lessons there I try to emulate.

The tests are historical context, Occam's Razor, and my years of experience.

No. I said I didn’t parse it. I am willing to bet your historical context was cherry picked.

Occams Razor would predict that intelligence created intelligence.

What did your years of experience prove exactly? That God doesn’t exist?

The OT speaks of justice, eye or an eye, while the NT speaks of not judging (let he who is without sin cast the first stone). If you don't parse do you accept both?

His razor would ask where that first intelligence came from.

In all my years I have never encountered anything that was, without doubt, supernatural. Unexplained mysterious, maybe, supernatural, never. Jesus performed miracles to convince his followers, even a small one would be enough for me.

 

[alang1216]

It’s effectively a how to book. How to live and how not to live.

It's a book of many authors telling us how we should live. I see little agreement between them and they offer many different ways to live. Jesus was a devout Jew who lived by the Laws of Moses and, no doubt kept the kosher rules in them. What happened? (Rhetorical question, I know what happened.)

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Nutball logic:

1) Something cannot come from nothing
2) except god. God came from nothing.
3) everything came from god

Therefore, everything came from nothing.

It makes sense, if you don't think about it.

 

[ding]

Interesting. You could say the same thing about yourself, right?

The only difference is I tested it and you didn’t. I have put my interpretation to the test and found that it did effect change for the positive on many levels and in many relationships. He has literally transformed me.

I guess I could be wrong about you testing your interpretation though. So feel free to share how you were able to test it. Maybe you can persuade me.

I was never a Christian so the NT was completely new to me so I tried to keep my mind open. We all have our biases of course so who knows how well they do.

You took the theology of the Bible you liked so I don't doubt it was a positive experience. I don't care much for anyone's theology but there are some good moral lessons there I try to emulate.

The tests are historical context, Occam's Razor, and my years of experience.

No. I said I didn’t parse it. I am willing to bet your historical context was cherry picked.

Occams Razor would predict that intelligence created intelligence.

What did your years of experience prove exactly? That God doesn’t exist?

The OT speaks of justice, eye or an eye, while the NT speaks of not judging (let he who is without sin cast the first stone). If you don't parse do you accept both?

His razor would ask where that first intelligence came from.

In all my years I have never encountered anything that was, without doubt, supernatural. Unexplained mysterious, maybe, supernatural, never. Jesus performed miracles to convince his followers, even a small one would be enough for me.

Sure. Why not? Are you telling me you haven’t done both?