Please don't do what.
Look it up. The cross IS also a pagan symbol. Dates back to at least the Sumerian culture. You did say Christ died on it. Which according to eyewitness could not have happened. (he was seen days later).

If you bow, kneel, make hand gestures, hold it when you pray or pray to or through it...

It is an idol. (pagan symbol)

God is far greater than a mere piece of wood.

How old would Mark or Peter have been in 60 AD or better at the time Pipias would have been old enough to write, read, listen and learn.

Strange that you would mention 325 AD. Councils of men decided about that time frame what would or would not be included in the bible for the good of the church.

A money making, political power.

Who were the Edomites? To accurately discuss the Edomites, you would have to start with Esau in Genesis. Then you would have to hit at least half of the books of the Old Testament. If a preacher only mentioned them in passing, then I wouldn't expect a full lesson on the subject. But there are things to be learned by hearing their history as described in the Bible.

So why shouldn't a preacher fully cover a subject, rather than focusing on one chapter?

Some preachers do preach word for word, chapter by chapter. Some preachers go from one topic to another. One month might be dedicated to salvation and the next to repentance. I see benefit in both preaching styles and I am not sure why one would fault either method.

50's...60s? Not sure what that has to do with anything. They could talk, so they could have told other members of the church. "Hey Peter, who is that guy with you?" "Oh, that's my interpreter." Seems like a fairly legitimate question to me, so why would it be unusual for someone to have asked it and then passed it along? "Hey, who is this Mark I keep reading about?" "That was Peter's interpreter, I met them both when they were in town" Not hard to imagine and it makes perfect sense. I'm not sure that it's true, but it is very reasonable.



No, they didn't. Put down the conspiracy books and actually read what happened at Nicea. It was called to address a heresy, not decide which books would compose the Bible.

And he only called him Christ because that was a definition of "The Anointed One" too. Plus he never documented the whole life of Jesus either. Only what the Church wrote about him, because he never even knew the man personally. Flavius was born in 37-38 A.D. which was after the supposed crucifixion. So how did he know of Jesus except through word of mouth from authorities other than his own. Flavius only spoke of Jesus in passing once and a small note of Jesus even being a so-called Christ, supposedly, but not believed by him totally! So this is also out of context!

From a purely intellectual point of view this is one of the clearest reasons why we should not believe that the biblical stories are divine.

The biblical stories aren't hardly any different at all from all the other mythologies that grew out of the Mediterranean cultures. In fact, it's not all that different from Greek Mythology in principle. All of those religions were about gods who were very human-like deities that demanded to be worshiped in one way or another and required appeasements, quite often in the form of blood sacrifices. That was a very common myth and superstition of the time.

Why should we even remotely consider the absurd idea that the real creator of this universe would just accidentally happened to turn out to be precisely the same as all the myths that we clearly accept are nothing more than manmade fantasies?

Why would the real creator of this universe demand blood sacrifices before it can forgive sins? That's clearly a manmade superstition that is based on ignorance and fear.

Yet, the very story of the crucifixion of Christ as having been sent by God to be the sacrificial lamb to pay for the sins of all mankind is nothing more than the pinnacle of those absurd notions that God is appeased by blood sacrifices. And that was common to almost all manmade religions. It's a logically understandable superstition, but would a genuinely all-wise, all-intelligent, all-loving creator be interested in blood sacrifices?

I personal think it's utterly absurd to believe that the creator of this universe would be so sadistic. What kind of a God would be obsessed with blood sacrifices? That's nothing short of sick if you just stop and think about it for even a short moment. Do people really believe that the creator of this universe is that demented and petty?

I certainly don't.

Men are the ones who created the whole idea of sin as being this terribly blood-soaked shameful thing. And then they turn around and try to proclaim that the entire human race is guilty of sin. What a terrible negative sick demented picture of creation. It's disgusting.

Anyone who teaches this sick demented picture of God and humanity to little children should be locked up for child abuse. This religion is nothing short of sick. It's an extremely unhealthy negative picture of both God and humanity.

We truly need to get our heads out of the gutter clinging to those ancient sick superstitions and start showing some respect for both humanity and our creator.

Those ancient demented religions serve to do nothing but pit man against man, as well as claiming that all of humanity is a dismal failure in God's eyes. So much so that he had to have his only begotten son butchered on a pole just to save our pathetically worthless butts from sin.

It's the sickest picture of God and humanity I can possibly imagine.

And look what it produces. It produces extremely arrogant and egotistical fundamentalists who think they speak for this demented God. They go around telling everyone who doesn't believe in it that they are rejecting God and they are sinners, etc, etc, etc.

It's the sickest thing mankind ever invented. Fortunately it's on it's way out. As an 'organized' religion it has basically dissipated into nothingness. The vast majority of modern "Christians" are truly "Designer Christians" most of whom do not support any church with any kind of regularity, especially from a financial perspective. The egotistical fundamentalists are just passing gas, they even argue with each other about who's blowing the hottest air.

The very term "Chruchianity" is being used so frequently by "Christians" themselves that it has found it's way into dictionaries and even the spell checkers of word processors. Many people are denouncing organized religion. We can only thank God for that!

These archaic religions are on their way out. They are already dead carcasses. What we are actually witnessing on the forums etc, are the twitching muscles of a dead horse.

In fact, there's been a lot of hoopla lately about the "Great Religious Revival". But in truth, all that amounts to is the last desperate gasp of a dying dragon. It's making every attempt to revive itself because it knows that it's dying. But it can't be revived because far too many people have already fully accepted the concept of "Designer Christianity". They might be willing to attend a revival meeting and be 'saved', but that will be a very short-lived event. They aren't about to become dedicated to supporting the beast of organized religion. They'll just become "Designer Christians" and denounce "Chruchianity".

The "Jesus Concept" will finally catch on and the Old Testament will be swept so far under the carpet that to point to it will be meaningless. People will use terms like "The New Covenant" to dismiss the Old Testament as being irrelevant and meaningless. They'll use terms like "Personal Relationship and Walk with God" to denounce organized "Chruchianity".

The true teachings of Jesus himself will finally emerge to take precedence. Non-judgment will become the rule, and slogans like "Love Your Neighbor" and "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You" will reign supreme.

The bigotry and hatred of the fire and brimstone preachers of the Old Testament will finally be silenced. Gays will rejoice in the love of the new "Designer Christians" who have no choice but to embrace them lovingly without judgments. The WORDS of Jesus Christ will finally rule the world. All will confess that HE and HE ALONE is God, and the God of Abraham will be crucified and burned with the ashes of the cathedrals of "Chruchianity".

Bigotry, Judgment, and Hatred will finally be put asunder by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Almighty.

Amen.

Regardless of if or why another religion used the cross, the cross in Christianity is directly related to the cross on which Jesus died.

Witnesses saw Jesus die on a cross.

Witnesses buried Jesus.

Witnesses saw Jesus alive and went to their deaths claiming that Jesus is God.

There is only one conclusion that can rightly be drawn from those facts.

Genesis is nothing more than a genealogy of the people, as records were kept and a supposed idea of the creation of Earth and man. Many of the old Testament books were written as newspaper stories with no known consciousness thinking used whatsoever.

As for preachers, I have listened to one every Sunday morning just to see what he taught, and each Sunday he quotes from one verse in one Chapter and then jumps automatically to another Chapter to support his initial claim. Well, the support to his claim should have been on farther in the same Chapter he first read out of, but he jumped elsewhere to support it. This is out of context teaching and locally nearly all of the Religious preachers do that here in the Midwest in the Bible Belt. So for me it is hard for me to see his relevance in his teachings, but I just listen to see how far out he will go in that realm.

There are witnesses who see Elvis all the time.

There are witnesses to UFO sightings.

There are witnesses to bigfoot.

There are witnesses to the Loch Ness Monster.

There are witnesses to ghosts.

There are witnesses to out-of-body experiences

There are witnesses to Near-death experiences.

There were witnesses to the God's of Greek Mythology.

In fact there were supposely witnesses to all mythologies, that's why they became mythologies in the first place.

There are witnesses to Flying Spaghetti Monsters.

You can always find witnesses for just about anything you'd like to claim was witnessed. And you can call those "facts". But it doesn't make it so.

for heaven's sake what historian ever knew the people who he talks about.
all what they do is collect accounts of witnesses or other historians.
you have a lot of research to do, but keep your research unbiased.
if not is a lack of time. you just will research whatever fits what you have set on your mind.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. -- Proverbs 3:5-6

How do you know there were witnesses and how do you know they were not just made up characters in a fictional tale? What are there names and where are their written testimonies signed by them? They don't exist. There is only a story. You can believe the story as fact or not.

JB

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. -- John 4:12

They are not facts ... they are heresay - 2000 year old heresay

According to the Muslims, Jesus did live.
But he didnt die on the cross
He wasnt buried.
So there is a possibility that the christians did see him alive.

So, there is only one conclusion that can rightly be drawn from that - its all heresay

No, it is written that you should trust in the High Priestess of the Universal Life Church of Brutal Truth and Honesty, who has stated that,

"Thou art infinite and thou art free, and thou are thy own authority. Use thy own will; for Prime Source flows through you. Worship no being who claims to be God."

JB
The High Priestess of the Universal life Church of Brutal Truth and Honesty.

There you go!

That's the only verse you need. Just print out that one verse and toss the rest of the book away. All the rest of the book just contradicts this verses anyway.

Im getting the urge to kneel and pay homage again ... boy these jeans are getting the knees ripped out of them ...

hey hey hey -!!! leave my god spheghett out of this - you can witness his exsistance at any local italian resteraunt r even at home if you worship him there also, he to gives his life daily to save others form starvation.

No kneeling allowed, for it has been written that you should worship no being who claims to be God, for we are all Gods and equal in our journey.

JB
The High Priestess of the Universal life Church of Brutal Truth and Honesty.

Abra,

The obvious difference is bolded above. Why would the apostles have proclaimed Jesus' divinity all the way to their graves if all they had to do was recant in order to live? The apostles were first hand witnesses, who were absolutely convinced of Jesus' resurrection and divinity.