I always am a little confused on that but wasn't the OT based on old Judaic law? Yet at the same time, the people that wrote it were supposed to be "divinely inspired" by the Christian god. Its one in the same. I dont really understand. I know the Christians very often try to dodge responsibility by saying it was the Jews. A lot of those laws like stoning young women were based in Jewish culture in that period in history. Either way its in the bible. They are stuck with it.

The NT also has some horrible passages. Saul Paul and all that. Very misogynist. Its not as if it gets better really. Its just not as archaic.

There were many different "Christian" beliefs in the early going. The Cathers believed that Satan was the "God" of the OT. They also believe that Jesus was a parable and never actually existed in the flesh. They didn't believe that God would become incarnate in the flesh.

The Catholic Pope eventually had all the Cathers mass murdered for their beliefs that differed from the Chruch.

There were also "Christains" who believe that Jesus was a mortal prophet not unlike Buddha and that he was not born of a virgin nor was it his intent to be crucified to pay for the sins of mankind.

It was actually the authoritarian of the day that wrote up the gospels that are in the modern Bible. They tried to make it out like Jesus was the sacrifical lamb of the God of Abraham.

They used Jesus to prop up the very religion that Jesus denounced. They had no choice but to go along with many of the things Jesus had actually be famous for saying. Like not to stone people anymore, and to turn the other cheek.

So they had to incorportate those things into their story. They tried to make out like this wasn't a conflict with the OT. They were probably just as glad to stop mobs from stoning people to death anyway. That would give the church more authority to say who will be executed and who won't.

And having people turn the other cheek probably sounded like a great idea too. That'll just make them all the more passive toward the church.

Then after their wrote up their versions of the gospels they enforced them by swordpoint and threat of death to anyone who dares to blaspheme against the "Holy Scriptures".

And thus the modern day version of Christianity was born and it's been a thorn in the side of humanity ever since.

I don't believe for one second that it's the word of any God.

Christians claim that I'm "rejecting" God by denouncing the Bible, but that's precisely what the authors of the Bible want people to believe!

What better way to brainwash people than to have them believe that if they reject your book they are rejecting God himself!

Bull crap!

The book is the word of EVIL MEN!

It's not the word of any God.

The whole thing is confusing. I just find it interesting that christianity was not really a religion started by Jesus. Like James said, there were many different groups calling themselves followers of Jesus and they believed some radically different things from what Christians today believe.

As far as the Bible goes, the books it contains are all written by different men to serve different purposes at different times. I really don't find it very useful.

Bottom line, it just seems so glaringly obvious to me that it was written by men who were not inspired by anything other than their own desires to control people. Jesus had some good things to say but it wasnt as if he was imparting anything much beyond brotherly love and he basically called for introspection rather than projection.Thus all the "judge not, lest ye be judged." The people in that time just needed something other than the Roman oppression so they flocked to that. A lot of it was timing in my opinion. I dont necessarily believe Jesus wanted to die like that either.

Look how bad just the GR is... no wonder we had the crusades.
And such hypocrits... I mean goodness. I peeked in there a lil today as well Ruth. I guess I'm on a self destructive path

Do you think Jesus would have known he was the "son of God" if we hadn't told him so??

I think in the bible Jesus refers to god as being his father so that would indicate that he thought he was. However Jesus also never wrote anything himself so all of that stuff in the NT that is supposed to be him talking (even his speech up on the mountain) was recorded by other people and through the filter of their understanding of what Jesus was saying.

I know but I'm asking if Jesus would have known he was the actual son of God if no one had ever told him he was. From the moment of his conception according the bible... he was the Son of God. Therefore he was treated as such and told he was. What if no one had ever told him... do you still think he would have figured out he was the "son of God"? Or maybe things would have gone a completely different way altogether... ?? Sorry I'm in an odd mood tonight

I dont know. Thats a good question. You are right though come to think of it. All the wise men and gifts and from the moment he was born they were telling him he was the son of god and treating him differently. There was never a time when he didnt have that identify shoved onto him. Supposedly it was prophesied and that is why they did that to him. It wasnt a very accurate prophecy either.

1. The woman that was actually described as the mother of Jesus was alive at the time that the prophecy was written.

2. It said he would be named "Emanuel" and he was named Jesus.

3. It described his mother as "almah" which is the Hebrew word for young female. The Hebrew word for virgin is "bethulah." So that was just stupidity right there and a mistranslation.

I just can't help but wonder... if no one believed "Mary" and her immaculate conception. And people weren't surrounding him as the son of God, if things would have turned out the way they did.
You would think if he truly was the son of God, it would have come to him anyway. But if he wasn't... We wouldn't have the first idea of who Jesus even was. The conversation we're having right now would never even be taking place.

Personally I think you guys are giving way too much credit to the Bible as is.

I don't believe for one second that Jesus was born in a manger because the Inn was too full, and that three wise men came from the east to visit him.

As far as I'm concerned that was all demagoguery that was added later to give the story more credence.

It's also quite quaint. They did that on purpose too to win the hearts of all the mommies.

Little baby Jesus laying in the manger to become the King of Kings. How cute.

And of course he was recognized by existing Kings to remove any question that eveyone of imporance knew that he was sent by God Almighty!

Why would God have written that stuff in the Bible?

It's not important information unless you're trying to brainwash people.

The other thing too is that Jesus is always referred to as God's "Only Beggotten Son". Again, how quaint.

What? Poor God could only have one Son?

This is just another ploy to win people's hearts and try to make out like it's so special.

After all, they want to be sure that no other religion claims that God had more than ONE SON! Heaven forbid!

It's clearly all demagogurery added to make sure that no other religion can lay claim to any part of this authoritarian church!

This church is going to be the ONLY church who owns God and no other church is going to get any parts of God unless they come and bow down to this church.

That's what that was all about.

The men who wrote the Bible were no fools. They may have been devious, but they weren't fools. Although they did make plenty of mistakes.

There is no way to get out from under that religion. They proclaim that all men are sinners, no one is exempt from needing salvation. And only the church could give salavtion back then!

There weren't any Designer Christians running around like there are today on these forums.

Every person who calls themsleves a Christian today would have probably been considered to be a heathen by the original church.

People back then weren't even allowed to voice opinions about scripture. If they had a question they had better go see a preist and get the official heads up. Posting like is done on the GR forums would be consider heathen activity.

The Christians on the GR forums are think they ARE popes.

Some of them even think they are God!

Most of them believe that they speak for God.

They wouldn't be speaking for God had they lived back when the church was the government. They'd just shut up and do as they are told.

And they'd REBEL!

In fact, they finally did!

That's all the Protestants are. A bunch of rebels who refuse to listen to anyone other than their own personal views.

They don't even agree with each other. But they sure love to tell non-believers that they're going to hell.

I think they get some kind of power trip from that.

haha easy James... I'm not giving the bible credit, I'm trying to tear it apart. I'm asking "well if you say it happened this way then how come this happened instead?"
I'm just trying to disprove another theory of Jesus. By saying that is he really was the son of God, like the bible says, then howcome we had to tell him? And if we didn't tell him, would he still have known?

To be honest with you Jill, I don't think it happened like that.

You're taking the Bible quite literally to be true and precise.

If you believe in it that much why not believe in it all the way?

I don't think anyone knew that Mary was a virgin in fact I don't believe that she was!

If the people thought that the baby wasn't Joesph's son they probably would have stoned Mary to death as a whore.

She certainly wouldn't be going around telling people, "Oh ya know, I'm having God's baby and not my husbands"

How many people would have believed her anyway. They would have accused her of blaspheme.

I don't think any of that was even made up until the gospels were written, and they weren't written until several decades after Jesus was long dead.

All of that was either rumor, or demagogurery added later.

On the contrary, if you actually believe that Mary believed that she had God's child, then why aren't you a devout Christian?

Or are you?

Abra, you're mistaking my asking questions as belief. That would be a type of question I would ask the "christians" and have them yet again try to give me so far out explaination of "faith". How can you believe or not believe in something if you don't ask questions to prove or disprove it? To me, the bible is false. I guess I just like kicking the dead horse

Does it actually say in the Bible that someone had to tell Jesus that he was the Son of God?

I don't remember that part.

The way I see it Jesus himself never even directly claimed to be the son of God. (of course the Scriptures claim that he did), but I don't beleive them. I think what he most likely did was say things like "I and the Father are one".

No that's pantheism.

Also he said that before Abraham was I am. Again, that's pantheism. That's not saying that he is the God of Abraham. That's simply saying that he is spirit (just like all pantheists believe they are).

I don't believe that Jesus ever truly claimed to be the son of the God of Abraham.

Although, he may have allowed people to believe that if they wanted to.

I think that even Jesus himself may have gotten caught up in the whole thing himself.

At first he was trying to teach pantheism, then he realized that people were taking him to mean that he was the Son of the bibical God, so he let them think that. After all, being a pantheist Jesus did believe that he is the son of God (just like we are all children of God).

In fact, Jesus even tried to reasure the people by telling them, "Ye are also Gods".

I'm truly suprised that the men who wrote the Bible let that slip through. But maybe Jesus was pretty famous for having said that quite often so they had no choice but to stick it in there somewhere.

I do however believe that some of the people in the bible actually existed. I believe that Jesus did exist. Tho I have no belief that he was the son of God born in a manger from a virgin. That's why I'm asking the question, if no one ever came to him and told him he was the son of god, would he have ever claimed that he was?

To answer your earlier question... No, I am not a Christian.

James I realize the actual circumstances leading up to the birth of Jesus (wise men, manger) is probably a fictitious set of details. For one thing he was NOT even born in December. I think whoever wrote that had never spent a winter in Jerusalem. Child birth was also the most difficult and potentially dangerous thing a woman (or anyone for that matter) could take on in those days. So chances are Joseph got Mary to some midwives or his family or what not.

Thats probably more accurate. However, just based on that prophecy we know that Jesus more than likely was TOLD by other people shortly after he was capable of understanding that he was the son of god. I think that's probably true. Thats if you believe he existed at all and there is nothing to really verify that information. .

There are those who claim that he never existed at all. I have a bit of a problem with that simply because I don't think people would have fallen for a rumor that was completely made up out of the blue.

So I'm inclined to believe that someone did live and teach against the ways of the Old Testament and was unjustly crucified for it as a public spectacle and this is what sparked all the various rumors.

Moreover, the very reason that the rumors were so powerful is precisely because he did teach against the orthodox view!

There's no question that this is what Jesus did. Even going by what has been written in the New Testament verifies this.

I mean they certainly tried to twist it to make it appear that he was the son of the God of Abraham, but to be perfectly honest I don't think they did it very convincingly.

But there was probably some human associated with all the mythologies that have ever been written about mortal men who were supposedly associated with Gods. The story of Jesus most certainly isn't unique in that respect. In fact, in the Mediterranean region there were actually quite a few extremely similar stories that no one even bothers to give any credence to at all these days. But at one time they were just as strongly believed as the Jesus myth. Not that Jesus himself was a myth, but all the demagogurey surrounding him was the myth.

I'll never believe that the creator of this universe is a blood thirsty egotist who can't forgive people unless he is appeased by a blood sacarifice. Yet that's precisely the premise that the entire biblical picture of God is based on.

After recoginzing the scope of the true universe how anyone can believe that God would be such a selfish egotistical male-chauvinistic pig that the bible demands is utterly shocking.

The fact that anyone believe this story is just a testament to how utterly unevolved we truly are as a species.

To believe that our creator has lesser moral values that a bar room drunkard is just beyond comprehension, yet to believe in the Bible this is precisely what must be accepted.

I agree James. I to, have a difficult time believing the accounts that describe Jesus as a complete myth that never existed. That seems to be how JB feels about it and she does have a lot of evidence to support that theory. There is also a new movie do out that they have been advertising on this site that will go into all of that in detail. I plan on renting it. I just have this feeling that there was a man named Jesus. I don’t accept that he was "born of a virgin". That’s a load of crap. He was a HUMAN, Jewish man who got saddled with this. Well he was probably half Italian as Mary more then likely was raped by a Roman.

That’s another thread and is not really of great import and it just sets people off arguing. I have my own theories. I believe that Mary Magdalene was perhaps a High Priestess. I believe she taught him Witchcraft and many Pagan beliefs. He combined teachings.