Can't die...

Am imortal...

shed my shell...

Dance from star to star...

as are you...

I AM

Some people wish they could die. They could live any kind of life they wanted and death would be the ultimate escape from the consequences of their actions.

You wish.

There be no death except in this dream of life and death. Death is the fantasy of an immortal being.

Death is nothing and nothing can have no existence. It is impossible for nothing to exist.

Therefore, thou art infinite.

JB

No spider, Jesus made the sacrifice for all mankind. When he said that the only way to get to God is through me, he didn't mean for us to worship and deify him. What he meant was that we should follow the example he made for us, and if we did this, we would be pleasing in the eyes of God.

The cross is basically a pagan symbol, so is the fish, so are all of the "pictures" of Jesus you see hanging anywhere. Two rules "No god's before Thee" and "Love thy neighbor as thyself." That's it, pretty simple, but no, people need a statue god, so we made one, only this time out of wood, not gold. Jehovah is the first God to demand no graven images, this also means of himself. Our God is supposed to be everywhere, not just in church. And he is supposed to love us all, not just those who fell on their face and said a prayer. Saying the words, and living your life by his example are two completely different things. He also said "they will know us by our works." We aren't supposed to advertise we are christians (it's vanity), if we are living our lives by God's word, we shouldn't have too.

Jesus made a new covenant. The old testimant is for the Israelites. It has no bearing on all of us "gentiles." We don't have to sacrifice the fat of the lamb anymore than we have to take our brothers wife should our brother die.

Bravo! That makes a LOT of sense.

The only bearing is the teachings themselves from the old testament......When Christ died for us...that made the mosiac law (Old testament) no longer necessary to us..but can you use the old testament as a learning or teaching tool.....yes

Why do you believe that you understand this, but his close friends got it so wrong?

Why is the cross a "pagan symbol"? Jesus died on a cross, it's kind of self explainatory there.

I'm sorry I won't ever agree with this statement.
Heaven in earn by a combination of faith and works.
I can't claim to have faith, and be a judgmental fundamentalist who judge other people simply because they don't believe the same I do. And then pretend to go to Heaven when I kept doing exactly what my Lord did not want me to do.

It's simple, Jesus' friends didn't write the bible. Matthew might have been able too having been a tax collector, but do you think any of those fisherman knew how to read and write? That is just modern eyes looking at the past. The apostles didn't write those books of the bible any more than you or I did.

Paul is the one that says to take up the cross, he never knew Jesus, and I doubt he ever quit his job from when he called himself "Saul." He encouraged christians not to marry, and thus not to reproduce, therefor decreasing their overall numbers. The one sect I know of that lived that mantra was the "Shakers." Good luck finding one of those.

And I never said I know what Christ wants better than the apostles, and the implication is the sign of a weak debater. The bible is for a personal journey with the Lord. You read it and get the message he intended for you. I read it, and get the message intended for me. Those don't necessarily have to be the same message. It is the communication link between a christian and his god. He has inspired both of us to come here and debate his word. Probably so someone that hasn't heard his message might read this thread and have a change happen to them. I'm not going to sit here and say I completely understand the wisdom of a god though. That would be arrogance of the greatest sort. If anything, I will be humble and say that if my rantings help open any eyes, I'm thankful for being of use. But my knowledge is poor at best.

Matthew was a tax collector: literate.

Luke was a physician and a historian: Very literate and detail minded.

John was a scholar: Very literate and deliberate.

Mark we aren't sure about, but according to writings by Papias dating back to 120 AD Mark was Peter's interpreter and that "The Gospel According to Mark" is actually Peter's gospel written by his interpreter. Peter, being a humble fisherman, probably couldn't read or write.



That's a strawman fallacy. What I said was...



What you are saying contradicts the Gospels, so I was asking you to clarify why I should trust you over the written record. Since your reply was a logical fallacy, I believe I have my answer.



Not true, Paul encouraged Christians to marry. He stated that if one could not remain celebate, one should get married. He supported both positions, but to claim that Paul encouraged Christians to not marry is almost a lie of omission. Paul was clear, if you can't remain celebate, then get married to one person and have lots of sex with that person.



That's true to a degree, but not as true as you appear to believe. The Bible is an onion, each of us might find different layers within the scriptures, but the top layer is there for everyone. One their face, there is a message delivered by every scripture. You might find another message within the text, but for that message to be true, it must not contradict the remainder of the Bible.

Spider you qoute a lot...

But I think you missed a point.

Christ did not die...

Cross - symbol... God is greater.
Statue - symbol... God is greater.

If it is made by the tools of man it is not of god nor is it god nor is it to be worshipped.

Hey Guys:

What I am trying to figure out is several things.

First: During the time of Jesus (supposedly) there were historians available, around that time, and not one of them even documents the existence of Jesus, whatsoever. Not one! The only Documentation is from the Bible, which is only a story book written by Scribes of Political Religious leaders of the Times (1,000 B.C. - 600 A.D.). Needless to say people at that time were nearly totally illiterate even up till just 100 years ago too. So what they were told by politically ambitious religious leaders were set in stone as law. Besides, Jesus taught (supposedly) in metaphors and not so much in real life events.

Secondly: Why is it that Religious leaders can not teach their flocks from one Chapter at a time instead of jumping from chapter to chapter and verse to verse just to justify their existence and job? The Chapters are set up to tell a complete story from start to finish, but preachers have this knack of taking issues out of context with the whole chapter, and jump back and forth between chapters and such just to make one small point in their teaching. Out of context issues seem the be the norm for most modern day preachers, it seems to me. These are the experts whom we should listen to? AND Experts mind you?

Thirdly: The story of Jesus is NOT the only Virginal Birth even mentioned in the Bible. Look at the virginal birth of Joseph in the Old Testament. A lot of similar events that happened there. Now look at other Religions and their claim to have Virginal Births, crucifixions, resurrections, and 12 followers too. So, who is copy-catting who here? People are too quick in Christianity, to take everything so literal from the Bible, instead of learning the lessons taught from the stories it presents. I debate if any of the stories told in that book are even real, let alone have much relevancy, as the Christian Religion places on it! Let's not leave out any other religion, for that matter.

False.
Google Flavius Josephus, and you will learn a little bit more.

AB,

Please don't do this, okay?

I didn't suggest that the cross should be worshipped. I was correcting a false claim that the cross is a pagan symbol. I really don't have the energy for pointless arguments, but I would enjoy debating with you. This post is just silly and doesn't address anything I posted. Let's stick to the topic at hand and not go reaching to get "hits" on each other.

What does this even mean? AB, really, let's not do this. If you don't have an argument, you don't have to post. Pipias wrote that in 120 AD, he was born in 60 AD. I didn't say that Pipias lived to be 120 years old, that's just a strawman fallacy.

Christians were persecuted until around 325 AD, so if you could explain why these people would have been Christians for the money when they were much more likely of being fed to lions than to actually make a profit in Christianity at that time?

Rebel I am thinking that you might not agree with me but...

The one thing that does lead credence to christians is the same thing that lends credence to Abraham, Zoroaster, Krishna, Mohammahad and the concept of Buddah.

Their lives still impact millions in this day...

Many years (and in some cases centuries) later.

Charisma of that strength can not be denied.

Unfortunately there will allways be someone willing to ride the coat tails of that in the name of glory and money causing their own intrepretations to muddy the original message.

Nice point TLW. There are also records that were found in the old roman storehouses. (They were very good at red tape much as was our government)

There are other eyewitness accounts... But to see them you would have to no the significance of knocking three times.

Joseph wasn't a virgin birth, he was the first son of Rachel. She got pregnant because she had sex with her husband. Once someone has sex, that person is no longer a virgin.

The claims of virginal births, crucifixions and resurrections could have come after Christianity. But those claims are made about Horus and are completely false. No Egyptologist believes that garbage. It was made up by one guy and gets repeated by everyone who wants to discredit Christianity.

Ok if going to heaven is not that simple, give me your steps to getting to heaven and BY THE WAY, define your heaven for me. I don't want to reply out of context with your thoughts.

IMHO Heaven is what we make of it in our lifetimes and not a specific location as religion likes to maintain. Heaven is our "Safe Place" our paradise if you will. This is our personal spot, not one associated with everyone going to meet some spiritual being there.

Is there a God? Sure there is, if you believe there is one, but each one's God is a totally personal belief system within one's self. Who can you or your God really Judge? You and you alone and nobody else, because you must be held accountable to yourself first and your God as you believe in it. You do not know what everyone else thinks, what they will do, and how they react to emotional events.

Besides, Emotional judgments are false judgments, because emotions are spontaneous reactions created by our inspirational right brains and set into motion without rational thinking prior, from our rational thinking left brain. And there is no factual, tangible issues that can be judged from emotional reactions, only the actions following the emotional reaction can be judged. You can not use the Emotional reaction as a rational basis for judgment of the action following, mainly because there was no rational thinking basis connected to it. On top of that, who made you a God to make that judgment call? You personally do not have that authority.

People must learn to hold themselves accountable before they can even think about holding anyone else accountable, and you had better know EVERYTHING going on in that person's mind before you make that judgment call. I don't think you can ever know everything that is in a person's mind, so judgments, then are taken out of context with actual facts. As far as I am concerned you can shove a psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other mind manipulator, where the sun will never shine, as these people implant their ideas into people's minds for their own justified ends. I have personally known a psychologist who was just as crazy acting as his patients, and he taught college psychology!