JESUS said:

"Therefore doth my Father love me,
because I lay down my life,
that I might take it again."
"No man taketh it from me,
but I lay it down of myself.
I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my Father."

John_10:17-18

You claim that Jesus said this, but in reality John said that Jesus said this. That's hearsay gossip.

This was also written long after Jesus had died, and it's crystal clear that the author who wrote this was indeed trying to build a case that Jesus was "The Christ".

So we have an extremely biased hearsay writings here of someone who is trying to make claims about what Jesus might have said.

Again, why should anyone be impressed by any of this?

If Jesus were truly the son of the creator of this universe he could have written all these things down in his own hand. In fact, if he was the son of God with a message from God his writings should have been so crystal clear and unambiguous that historians jaws would drop at his display of infinite wisdom.

But that's not what we have here at all. On the contrary, all we have is hearsay rumors by authors who are clearly trying to make a case for an argument. And the didn't even convince the Jews themselves.

Plus the whole historical biblical cannon is extremely biased. It doesn't contain any arguments from the other side at all! They purposefully collected only stories and writings that supported their views. And I think we'd truly need to be extremely naive to believe that they didn't also do a lot of editing and transcribing entirely from the point of view that they were trying hard to support their own conclusions of how these stories should go.

Cowboy says that there's no 'excuse' for not believing in these fables, but that simply not true. That is a Christian LIE.

There are is more than sufficient reasons for sane intelligent and rational people to totally dismiss these stories as being completely outrageous and non-senseless.

The claim that there's no "excuse" for not believing in the biblical picture of God is total baloney.

Even the people who WANT to believe in this stuff can't agree on what it says. The Jews themselves don't agree with it. The Muslims who also worship the foundational stories of this ancient religion also reject the New Testament.

The Protestants rejected the Catholic view, and the Protestants even protest against each other's views and interpretations all the time.

Yet ironically it's Protestants who try to push this religion onto other people more than any other group.

The greatest protesters of all are trying to claim that other people have "no excuse" for not accepting THEIR Protestant views.

As far as I can see, this is just an example of a religion that has gone about as haywire as a religion can get.

The greatest protesters of all are trying to claim that other people have "no excuse" for not accepting THEIR Protestant views.

You claim that Jesus said this, but in reality John said that Jesus said this. That's hearsay gossip.

This was also written long after Jesus had died, and it's crystal clear that the author who wrote this was indeed trying to build a case that Jesus was "The Christ".

So we have an extremely biased hearsay writings here of someone who is trying to make claims about what Jesus might have said.

Again, why should anyone be impressed by any of this?

If Jesus were truly the son of the creator of this universe he could have written all these things down in his own hand. In fact, if he was the son of God with a message from God his writings should have been so crystal clear and unambiguous that historians jaws would drop at his display of infinite wisdom.

But that's not what we have here at all. On the contrary, all we have is hearsay rumors by authors who are clearly trying to make a case for an argument. And the didn't even convince the Jews themselves.

Plus the whole historical biblical cannon is extremely biased. It doesn't contain any arguments from the other side at all! They purposefully collected only stories and writings that supported their views. And I think we'd truly need to be extremely naive to believe that they didn't also do a lot of editing and transcribing entirely from the point of view that they were trying hard to support their own conclusions of how these stories should go.

Cowboy says that there's no 'excuse' for not believing in these fables, but that simply not true. That is a Christian LIE.

There are is more than sufficient reasons for sane intelligent and rational people to totally dismiss these stories as being completely outrageous and non-senseless.

The claim that there's no "excuse" for not believing in the biblical picture of God is total baloney.

Even the people who WANT to believe in this stuff can't agree on what it says. The Jews themselves don't agree with it. The Muslims who also worship the foundational stories of this ancient religion also reject the New Testament.

The Protestants rejected the Catholic view, and the Protestants even protest against each other's views and interpretations all the time.

Yet ironically it's Protestants who try to push this religion onto other people more than any other group.

The greatest protesters of all are trying to claim that other people have "no excuse" for not accepting THEIR Protestant views.

As far as I can see, this is just an example of a religion that has gone about as haywire as a religion can get.

But that's not what we have here at all. On the contrary, all we have is hearsay rumors by authors who are clearly trying to make a case for an argument. And the didn't even convince the Jews themselves.

Cowboy wrote:

Not true. Learning to please the father is a life long process. Just because one believe this or that doesn't make it right. That's why me personally have said multiple times over and over that if someone has a different interpretation to say it and we then discuss. The rest of your post wasn't all to false. This is do to ego of oneself. They feel they know the truth and no other interpretation of the scripture is true. This is a huge fault on their side.

A huge fault on who's side?

For example, the interpretation by the Jews that Jesus could not have been the messiah is just as valid as anyone else's interpretation then.

That's my point.

In fact, the very notion that the stories of the Torah have anything to do with any God is a matter of personal interpretation.

So the bottom line is that it's utterly absurd to claim that there is "no excuse" for not believing in the Christian view of these fables and rumors.

There are plenty of sane rational and sound reasons to reject these stories as nothing more than superstitious rumors.

Cowboy wrote:

Well what you always say about hearsay rumors and the bible holds no water. It's just as much hearsay rumor as the different quotes people make on this forum. I could never PROVE that YOU said what I quoted.

And I wouldn't blame anyone for not believing something that you might claim that I might have said.

So if I won't blame people for not believing hearsay gossip about me, then why should an all-wise God blame people for not believing in hearsay gossip about him?

If I'm going to believe in a God I'm going to believe in a God who is at least as sane and rational as myself. I would never expect anyone to believe stories as highly controversial, convoluted, and confusing as the biblical stories. Yet, you're expecting me to believe that a God would hold people responsible for not believing in these stories.

That's nonsense as far as I'm concerned.

Such a God would need to be irrational.

I don't believe in an irrational God.

Atheism makes more sense than that.

Okay, let's sort this out...one of you people that believe in God tell God to give me a call and me and him will talk about it, alright?

Cowboy wrote:

How could this be when Jesus fits PERFECTLY into the prophecies of the Torah. Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies that we have in the torah. How then could he not be as he said he was?

If there were any TRUTH to that, the Jews themselves would not have been able to argue otherwise.

Also the Greatest analytical minds of humanity would have been convinced. But they weren't. On the contrary they were convinced or precisely the opposite.

Isaac Newton came to the same conclusion. He concluded that Jesus could not have possibly been the messiah, and it is said that he spent more dedication into biblical studies than he did in his scientific studies! I have a documentary here from the History Channel that says that Isaac Newton had over 200 copies of the scriptures, and he scoured through all of them desperately trying to make them WORK! He actually wanted it to be true but eventually had to face the fact that the opposite conclusion is far more reasonable!

Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Steven Hawking, the list goes on and on and on, these are just the names of some of the most popular well-educated and greatest minds of humanity. All of whom see nothing in these biblical stories that have convinced them that they hold any truth.

So your claim that Jesus fulfilled prophecies "Perfectly" is your own personal opinion and view, it can't be held out as any sort of provable "absolute truth". The prophecies are far too vague for that. There are many people who have rejected this notion including the Jews themselves. The Muslims clearly don't buy into it either. Yet both of those religions are ultimately based on the same fundamental religious folklore.

Okay, let's sort this out...one of you people that believe in God tell God to give me a call and me and him will talk about it, alright?

Cowboy wrote:

So you're saying God would have to make an appearance every generation? Cause if he didn't people such as you would just say it's hearsay rumors.

Any jealous God who demands to be worshiped and obeyed has every responsibility to make himself known to every individual that he expects to worship and obey him.

Cowboy wrote:

People will only believe what they wish to believe. You can not convince a person a round peg will fit into a round hole unless they wish to accept it as true.

I agree, if Allah is real, he should appear to everyone to tell them so.

But back to the Bible and Judeo-Christian beliefs, God doesn't demand that he be worshiped and God doesn't demand that we obey him. God asks us to do so if we love him.

Far more than that Cowboy!

Any jealous God who demands to be worshiped and obeyed has every responsibility to make himself known to every individual that he expects to worship and obey him.

He had every responsibility to make sure that every one of his children know precisely who he is and what he expects from them without any ambiguity whatsoever.

Absolute Cowboy.

Not just every generation, but to every individual ONE-on-ONE.

This should be no problem at all for a God who is omnipotent and can for him anything is possible.

In fact, he shouldn't be having more children than he can properly communicate and raise on a ONE-on-ONE basis. There's no excuse for him to have billions of children if he can't deal with mentoring each and every one of them properly.

So yes, I absolutely expect that any God who demands to be worshiped and obeyed should always be present at all times without any ambiguity whatsoever.

I see no value in a parent who plays hide-and-seek and expects his children to believe in totally outrageous hearsay stories about deities supposedly being nailed to poles to pay for their sins.

I would expect that kind of behavior from an all-wise intelligent responsible parent.

The kind of behavior that has been attributed to God via these biblical fables is the kind of behavior I would attribute to a totally irresponsible barroom drunkard.

Absolutely Cowboy.

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that a genuinely all-wise intelligent God would even remotely think about playing hide-and-seek with his children and only attempting to communicate to them via vague ambiguous gossips and rumors that even he could CLEARLY SEE are being hotly questioned for their validity even by the most intelligent and greatest minds of his children.

That makes absolutely no sense to me at all Cowboy.

Even if he was lazy and only wanted to make an appearance once in a great while, he's long overdue for an update!

He should have stepped in during the Crusades. He should have stepped in during the burning times. He should have stepped in during the Nazi Holocaust.

There's no excuse for his gross negligence.

Talk about there being "no excuse"? There's no excuse for the behavior of the Biblical God to begin with.

He had every responsibility to make sure that every one of his children know precisely who he is and what he expects from them without any ambiguity whatsoever.

Absolute Cowboy.

Not just every generation, but to every individual ONE-on-ONE.

If that's the case, then it would not be important to believe in the bible at all. Anyone who loves and revers life, loves God. Even if they proclaim to be an atheist. It wouldn't matter.

Religion would be totally unimportant and you wouldn't have a God who rejects people who don't believe in a particular historical legend.

I have no problem with that view Spider. If the only true thing that God wants is to be loved then God knows that I love her.

And it would then have nothing to do with any religions of demigods or messiahs being nailed to poles to pay for people's sins.

Spider wrote:

John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."

That's the problem with worshiping God, you have to keep his rules, not make up your own.

Now you're right back to religion again.

Your asking me to worship a fable, not a God.

If I love the creator of this universe then I love God. I don't need any stories that claim to speak for God.

There is no reason for me to believe that the creator of this universe had anything more to do with Hebrew mythology than She had to do with Greek mythology.

So your just pushing dogma, not God.