I don't see the your point at all.

No one is claiming that Thomas Jefferson is the sacrificial lamb of God and that the Declaration of Independence is the word of God.

Even if Jesus existed (which I personally believe that he did), it doesn't automatically follow that he was the sacrifical lamb of God.

In fact, even the Biblical stories about Jesus don't support that idea as much as they would like to. Most of them sound like totally made up lies in an attempt to use the rumors of Jesus to prop up the very dogma that Jesus denounced.

I believe that some guy named Jesus did live and denounce the teaching of the Old Testament and was crucified for blaspheme by the Jews.

All of that makes perfect sense.

What doesn't make sense is that this was the plan of the God of Abraham. That part makes absolute no sense at all.

Why would the God of Abraham have been so stupid as to command the Jews to murder heathens, and then send his only begotten son to them to blaspheme his previous teachings?

Clearly such a God would need to be grossly inept if not insane.

The God of Abraham could not blame the Jews for murdering Jesus. On the contrary he would need to be highly pleased with the fact that they obeyed him so well!

The God of Abraham told the Jews though Moses and the ten commandments, "Thou shalt not have any other Gods BEFORE me!".

He also commanded them to murder 'heathens' where a 'heathen' is anyone who speaks out against the 'Word of God'.

Yet Jesus supposed did BOTH of those things! Jesus clearly denounced the ways of the God of Abraham, plus he supposedly claimed that the only way to get to the Father is THROUGH HIM! That's placing Jesus BEFORE the God of Abraham.

How could the Jews do anything BUT murder Jesus just as the God of Abraham had commanded them to do?

The story just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Thomas Jefferson may have written the Declaration of Independence, but he didn't claim that the King told him to write it!

So there's no comparison between Thomas Jefferson and Jesus. Thomas Jefferson stood on his own two feet. Jesus has no feet of his own. He only has clout if he's placed on the shoulders of the God of Abraham!

So comparing a belief that Thomas Jefferson existed with a belief that Jesus was the sacrifical lamb of God are two entirely different things.

I can believe that some guy named Jesus may have very well existed, denounced the ways of the God of Abraham and was crucified for his efforts.

That still doesn't make him the sacrificial lamb of God.

Believing that some guy named Jesus was crucified by the Romans at the request of the Jews is EASY to believe. Although I still don't see the historical evidence even for THAT.

But even if it existed it wouldn't automatically make the gospels true.

I believe that Jesus lived, denounced the Old Testament, was crucified, and rumors were started about what he stood for, and who he was. I even believe that there were indeed rumors that he rose from the dead.

The rumors were most likely confusing, some claiming that he had something to do with the God of Abraham, other's having him denounce the Old Texts.

Eventually the authoritarians wanted to make their rumors the 'gospel truth' so they wrote them out and proclaimed them as the only official "Holy Scriptures" and whosoever refuses to believe in them or speaks out against them will be beheaded!

Yep, that's what the "Holy Scriptures" are. Total lies made up by unscruplous men who wanted to use Jesus as a patsy to prop up their failing dogma.

How can you not see this?

Even the gospels themsleves confess that Jesus denounced they ways of the God of Abraham. They had no choice, because all of the rumors of Jesus had Jesus denouncing the Old Ways. So they were stuck with having to try to work that in.

But the problem is that it doesn't FIT!

That would be like trying to claim that the King told Thomas Jefferson to become independent of his rule!!!

Jesus rebuked the teachings of the God of Abraham. Even the gospels were stuck with that FACT. They tried to work with it but they didn't get it past me.

I'm onto them. They were using Jesus as a patsy to prop up the very dogma that Jesus himself denounced.

Did some guy name Jesus live, denounce the Old Testament, and was crucified?

Very possible!

Did the Christ that the gospels are written about exist? NOPE!

Proof!



He lives in Mexico. Says he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Can anyone prove that he is not. I guess it is just a matter of faith.

can he, beyond the shadow of a doubt, prove that he is?

again, this is an arguement that can't be won

Well, before he can be proven to be the second coming, it first needs to be proven there was a first coming...

there is more information writing about Jesus than anyone else that ever lived!! the question isn't DID he live but was he GOD in the flesh. you believe alexander the great lived and there is 100 times more info about Christ.

"No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. . . All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings.

Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge.

Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it."

Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, lived as the earliest non-Christian who mentions a Jesus. Although many scholars think that Josephus' short accounts of Jesus (in Antiquities) came from interpolations perpetrated by a later Church father (most likely, Eusebius), Josephus' birth in 37 C.E., well after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus, puts him out of range of an eyewitness account. Moreover, he wrote Antiquities in 93 C.E., after the first gospels got written! Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay.

Pliny the Younger, a Roman official, got born in 62 C.E. His letter about the Christians only shows that he got his information from Christian believers themselves. Regardless, his birth date puts him out of the range of eyewitness accounts.

Tacitus, the Roman historian's birth year at 64 C.E., puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a "Christus" in his Annals (Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 C.E. He gives no source for his material. Although many have disputed the authenticity of Tacitus' mention of Jesus, the very fact that his birth happened after the alleged Jesus and wrote the Annals during the formation of Christianity, shows that his writing can only provide us with hearsay accounts.

Suetonius, a Roman historian, born in 69 C.E. mentions a "Chrestus," a common name. Apologists assume that "Chrestus" means "Christ" (a disputable claim). But even if Seutonius had meant "Christ," it still says nothing about an earthly Jesus. Just like all the others, Suetonius' birth occurred well after the purported Jesus. Again, only hearsay.

Talmud: Amazingly some Christians use brief portions of the Talmud, (a collection of Jewish civil a religious law, including commentaries on the Torah), as evidence for Jesus. They claim that Yeshu (a common name in Jewish literature) in the Talmud refers to Jesus. However, this Jesus, according to Gerald Massey actually depicts a disciple of Jehoshua Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Christian Jesus. [Massey] Regardless of how one interprets this, the Palestinian Talmud got written between the 3rd and 5th century C.E., and the Babylonian Talmud between the 3rd and 6th century C.E., at least two centuries after the alleged crucifixion! At best it can only serve as a controversial Christian and pagan legend; it cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.

There occurs either artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas, for Jesus we have nothing.

Alexander, for example, left a wake of destroyed and created cities behind. We have buildings, libraries and cities, such as Alexandria, left in his name. We have treaties, and even a letter from Alexander to the people of Chios, engraved in stone, dated at 332 B.C.E. For Agustus Caesar, we have the Res gestae divi augusti, the emperor's own account of his works and deeds, a letter to his son (Epistula ad Gaium filium), Virgil's eyewitness accounts, and much more. Napoleon left behind artifacts, eyewitness accounts and letters. We can establish some historicity to these people because we have evidence that occurred during their life times. Yet even with contemporary evidence, historians have become wary of after-the-fact stories of many of these historical people. For example, some of the stories of Alexander's conquests, or Nero starting the fire in Rome always get questioned or doubted because they contain inconsistencies or come from authors who wrote years after the alleged facts. In qualifying the history of Alexander, Pierre Briant writes, "Although more than twenty of his contemporaries chronicled Alexander's life and campaigns, none of these texts survive in original form. Many letters and speeches attributed to Alexander are ancient forgeries or reconstructions inspired by imagination or political motives. The little solid documentation we possess from Alexander's own time is mainly to be found in stone inscriptions from the Greek cities of Europe and Asia." [Briant]

Inventing histories out of whole cloth or embellished from a seed of an actual historical event appears common throughout the chronicle of human thought. Robert Price observes, "Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle." [Price, pp. 260-261]

Interestingly, almost all important historical people have descriptions of what they looked like. We have the image of Augustus Caesar cast on denarius coins, busts of Greek and Roman aristocrats, artwork of Napoleon, etc. We have descriptions of facial qualities, height, weight, hair length & color, age and even portraits of most important historical figures. But for Jesus, we have nothing. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a description of the human shape of Jesus. How can we rely on the Gospels as the word of Jesus when no one even describes what he looked like? How odd that none of the disciple characters record what he looked like, yet believers attribute them to know exactly what he said. Indeed, this gives us a clue that Jesus came to the gospel writers and indirect and through myth. Not until hundreds of years after the alleged Jesus did pictures emerge as to what he looked like from cult Christians, and these widely differed from a blond clean shaven, curly haired Apollonian youth (found in the Roman catacombs) to a long-bearded Italian as depicted to this day. This mimics the pattern of Greek mythological figures as their believers constructed various images of what their gods looked like according to their own cultural image."

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

That doesn't mean a thing.

All that means that a lot of people were taken in by Christianity.

We already know that.

There is a lot written about Harry Potter too. Does that me he is real?

Think about the BIG PICTURE.

Forget about Jesus for a moment and think in terms of the God of Abraham.

The Old Testament clearly has the God of Abraham commanding the Jews that it's their duty to murder heathens. Where a "heathen" is simply anyone who rejects the word and authority of the God of Abraham.

This God also made it perfectly CLEAR in no uncertain terms even carved in STONE, "Thou shalt not have any other Gods before me!"

So this is what the God of Abraham has specifically commanded of the Jews. Put no other God BEFORE him, and it's the DUTY of the Jews to MURDER heathens.

So now does it make any sense at all that this God would send Jesus into that same crowd and have Jesus denounce his previous instructions and commandment and even claim that no one can get to the Father but THROUGH Jesus?

It's ludicous.

The God of Abraham would need to be an insane sadistic fool to have done such a horrible thing!

How this religion ever got off the ground is beyond me.

There's no way that Jesus could have possible been the Son of the God of Abraham sent as a sacrifical lamb to DENOUNCED the previous teachings of the God of Abraham, and demand that eveyone put Jesus BEFORE the God of Abraham!

Such a scenario would be a God that sense HORRIBLY mixed messages!

Such a God wouldn't be worthy of giving the time of day.

It would be a totally untrustworthy God!

We couldn't possible trust anything this God has to say because he gives grossly conflicting commandments!

What are we to believe?

That the God of Abraham sent Jesus to TEST the Jews to see if they would OBEY his PREVIOUS commandments?

Well, according to the story they did PRECISELY THAT!

The Jews must have passed God's test with flying colors!

The people who failed to follow God's original commandments and instead started to follow Jesus would be the losers!

They would clearly be rejecting the previous teachings of the God of Abraham in favor of worshiping Jesus who denounced the teachings fo the God of Abraham.

Christians put Jesus BEFORE the God of Abraham. They are guilty of breaking the FIRST of the Ten Commandments.

It's an oxymoronic religion.

What should we do?

Should we worship the God of Abraham? Or Jesus?

It's IMPOSSIBLE to decide!

The Bible sends horribly mixed messages. We have no clue what to do!

Should we stay loyal to the God of Abraham like the Jews and reject Jesus?

Or should we reject the God of Abraham and worship Jesus like the Christians?

It's a nightmare! You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't!

It's a lose/lose situation.

Mixed messages from a God that is supposed to be trustworthy!

I think the whole thing is a scam.

No genuinely divine God would play such a mean trick on the object of his creation. That would be a truly dastardly deed.

The religion must be false. God can't be that inept at communication and still be a divinly all-wise being.

Clearly the religion shot itself in the foot.

It's no less mythological than Zeus.

If Jesus was a real man he simply denounced the ways of the Old Testament and tried to teach people are REAL MORALS.

Morals that the authors of the fictional God of Abraham couldn't even begin to comprehend.

There's no way that Jesus could have been the Son of the God of Abraham. No way.

The God of Abraham would need to be a completely untrustworthy inept fool to have done what the Bible demands.

The story simply isn't workable.

It doesn't matter whether a man named Jesus lived or not.

I believe that Jesus lived and had Eastern influence somehow prior to the time in his life which is recorded in the Bible. How much of the gospels are an accurate depiction of actuality is anyone's guess, after all, the Catholic Church records claim more than 25 years of "oral tradition" before the first gospel was written.

I often wonder how much benefit is/was lost through the cracks. To this day, it finds a way to invoke hope in a hopeless person. I just do not see much evidence that it allows the person to know why they became hopeless to begin with, in order to avoid the same set of thinking mistakes in the future.

I have read the New Testament many times over, first as a devout believer in the fact that what I was reading was allowing me to become a better man, and then as a better man attempting to share the perspective of one who knows that great things can be acheived within one's self.

I read it for me... It showed me how to take the first steps to know me.

I would not and cannot come to terms with many things contained in the text, especially much of the Old Testament. I simply cannot reconcile some of the thoughts.

I find myself very disappointed when I think about how so many, who call themselves Christians, seem as if they have taken the hope that was invoked and twisted it into a form of something which I do not, and have not ever been able to assimilate to.

I came away with something different.

The beginnings of an internal transformation...

For the better.

Most *conservative* estimates put authorship of the earliest gospel at around 70 A.D., more realistic estimates are around 30 years later and after the likely life span of any of the 12 disciples. Regardless of what date you put on them, there is a large gap in time between when Jesus started his ministry and next earliest gospel account of life. It is said he was about 30ish when he started his ministry, even if we accept the single gospel account of him at twelve that still leaves about 18 years unaccounted for. What did he do during that time?
I am also bothered that an event as central to his ministry as his birth is only ever mentioned in the gospels second hand. None of the gospels directly quote Jesus, Mary, or Joseph telling the story of his birth.

My personal definition of religion is that it is an emotional crutch for those who unable or unwilling to accept personal responsibility for the direction of their life. It is easier to blame a higher power when something doesn't go right than blame yourself or those around you.

I believe life is all about the choices we make and who we choose to surround ourselves with. If we were perfect we would be able to know ahead of time the outcome of our choices and make the choice that best takes us where we want to be. I believe in real-time butterfly effect. Every decision we make has ripple effect, the outcomes of which may or may not be pleasant or what we would want. I don't believe there is any higher power in charge of it, it is just a natural law, like gravity or magnetism. I also believe from my observations and study that the universe and everything in it operates very similar to energy in that nothing is ever lost only transformed into another form. Energy is never lost only changed, into heat, light, whatever. Our decision are like energy, every decision has an effect of transforming the energy of the universe. I don't completely understand how it all works or how best to exploit it, but it makes sense to me based on my current available knowledge. I take an approach to understanding things by questioning most anything and everything and remain open minded enough to change when my understanding warrants it.
To take phrase out of context and misappropriate it: Bruce Lee said, "Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend."

That seems like a really narrow definition for 'religion'. A lot of people practice spiritualities that are focus almost entirely on self-discipline, introspection and taking full responsiblity for their own behavior.

Not all religions worship an egotistical jealous God that supposedly has a plan for each and every individual.

I will agree that some religions do tend to believe that way though. I was raised in Christianity and everyone was always assuring me that God would bring me a mate when the time was right. Unfortunately I actually fell for that one. Turned out not to be true.

But I see what you are saying. The problem is that many people who are suckered into those religions don't think of it as an 'emotional crutch'. On the contrary they are taught not to second-guess God! They are taught to be patient and LET God do his HIS WILL.

So many people in those religions are simply afraid to consciously make a choice on their own in the fear that they will be seen by God as rejecting his will and acting on their OWN will!

So I'm not convinced that it's so much of a crutch as it is a handicap. They just fear making their own decisions because it might be seen by God as an act of disrespect and lack of faith.

Christian schools and colleges are BIG on preaching the importance of FAITH. To DOUBT God is almost considered blaspheme! And therefore to make your own choices could be seen as not having faith in God.

I've known people who have been extremely emotionally traumatized and confused by such teachings. They actually became afraid to make their own decisions in the fear that this would be seen by God as lack of faith!

So I don't think it's as much of a crutch as it is a handicap. People don't mean to do it, they're just taught that to make their own choices would be blaspheme.

Not only are these people scared of what God may think, some are also scared of what their family may think.

I know people that have been completely ostracised and abandoned for leaving their religion, or breaking rules within it, such as marrying someone of a different faith.

Hello its me FABO and the only proof I have is that he helped me when I asked him to help me get rid of some thing that was inter fiering with something I was doing and he helped me with ok.

An Indigenous Australian creature, part of their Dreamtime, and like your sasquatch..

The day when your heart is truly ready

to believe...

and

to recieve....

is the day

you will have all the proof you need.

It would be nice if things were like that, but unfortunately its not possible for everyone to ignore some blatant facts about the reality of the bible. For any one who is subjective enough to all the information available, there is no amount of faith that can convince them otherwise.

Maybe there is a God, i cant really say there isnt for sure. But for the bible to be his word, i will always know it isnt.

Actually - that doesn't make any sense that the gospels were written after 70 AD, since not one of them reports the Temple being destroyed, since that event - which occured in 70 AD would have been a MAJOR fullfillment of Jesus' prophecy and one of the most significant occurance's in Jewish history. Matthew, Mark, and John would have surely noted it - and Luke would have reported it.

As to Jesus' birth - it was insignificant in comparison to what the meaning of his death and resurrection was. For that is the central theme of the Gospels. They were not intended to be a biography of Jesus - but a testament to why he was here.

You don't see the point?

I thought you better than that. Any "proof" we have concerning anyone in History is a matter on the faith we have in eye witness testamony. Since there is no one alive today who witnessed Thomas Jefferson arriving at the contenental Congrss with the Declaration of Independence - our proof that it is a legitimate document rests in our faith in eye witness documentation. We have no film of the event. No one photographed the signing. What then "proves" the event occured?

How do we know Thomas Jefferson even lived? What makes the references in History books about him true and accurate? Proof?
Hardly. There is no way to prove that Thomas Jefferson was any more real than Jesus, for the method by which we have to prove either one existed is exactly the same.