Yahshua is not Yahweh. John 5:43 says he came in his fathers name. The family name just like any of us has taken from our family. Yah is the poetic name of Yahweh given to Yah-shua meaning Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh saves.Yahshua said he did nothing except it was told him from the father. an obedient son. Yahshua said nobody knows the time or hour of his return. Not even the son of man (Yahshua) only Yahweh. So how can he be the father and not know himself what he is doing. No wonder Abra says what he does. Blessings...Miles

Based on your response it's pretty clear that you didn't even read what Abra wrote.

we all read it and know the tenor my friend.



Jsus is God.

you are right i mainly go to the last few the go from thier. But i do believe what i said is a reason why you see religion as contridictive. Thus then how can it be true. Thats all maybe i was responding to reasoning I have for your pantheism... Am I right? Blessings to you Abra.. Miles

mormons also use this verse to support their view of multiple gods existing, and that they can become gods. i believe this is taken out of context. christ said this to the pharisees, making fun of them by being sarcastic. basically saying "oh, you're soooo cool. you're gods too." in a sarcastic way, implying they felt themselves that important. since the majority of the rest of the bible claims there's only one god, i'd be more inclined to go with that than 1 little verse that can easily be misinterpreted in a variety of ways.

and i think god can be as egotistical as he wants. we are not his equals, not by far. he's in charge. he's our boss. we exist because of him, so he deserves all the praise and worship we can give him in my opinion.

Those three possiblities are all there is. Jesus claimed to be God. So you only have three possiblities. It seems that you don't understand that C. S. Lewis accepted that Jesus was God and he was speaking to those who believe Jesus lived, but he wasn't God. I suppose you could take a fourth, completely illogical position, that Jesus existed, but we don't have an accurate history of Jesus. That position is on such shakey ground, that even a child can see the problems with it.

On shaky ground?

As far as I'm concerned it's the only reasonable interpretation possible.

Once you accept that Jesus knew that he was God, then you must face the fact that Jesus had no need to have faith in anything. So his test as a mortal man would have been totally meaningless.

No other mortal man knows that he’s God, so expecting a mortal man to take the example of Jesus is utterly ridiculous.

Of course, you could claim that Jesus didn’t know that he was God. But if you accept that, then you’re right back to the fact that he would have been lying to claim such a thing.

Moreover, you seem to be quite happy with the completely illogical position that Jesus was both God and not God. Whichever happens to be the most convenient for the point you are trying to make at that time.

You also continually talk about logic and pretend that you have a logical answer for all your religious dilemmas, but in truth none of them are ever logical. And then you do the about face thing and claim that logic doesn’t apply to God because God is beyond logic.

You talk about shaky ground, but you are the one who is always presenting ideas that necessarily required having your cake and eating it too. That kind of position is never logical

It is much more logical to accept that Jesus was just a mortal man than to believe that he was the single incarnation of the God of Abraham.

You think along the same lines as C. S. Lewis. You are locked into the belief that Jesus was God and you are totally incapable of even considering any other possibility.

This thread has only made me realize that Jesus Freaks are not unlike Elvis Fans. They aren’t about to consider anything that might lesson the status of their idols no matter how rational it might be.

your arguments are plenty rational based on your opinions. but that's only if your opinions are true and accurate.

jesus knew he was god, but he still was completely human. he still had to deal with temptation and other human problems. people knowingly sin because we can not grasp all that is god. i think if we did, we would try a lot harder NOT to sin. and this is what jesus was and did. he dealt with sinful things, yet he was god, so he knew how important it was not to sin. and it's not his faith that paid for our sins. it was his death on the cross. just because he knew god, and was god, doesnt invalidate what he did for us.

it's kinda hard to explain, and it's really just my personal beliefs.

abra, i think u approach it from a logical standpoint, even if you don't believe it. we see it from different viewpoints and based on those different viewpoints we could both be right, but one of those viewpoints has to be right and the other wrong. we'll just have to wait til we die to find out which is right and wrong.

and i will consider anything, even if it contradicts what i believe, but i feel i can still be reasonable and open. i have heard all the arguments, and i have gained doubt from them about my beliefs, so i researched them from both sides, and every time it only strengthens what i believe. not because i believe what i want, but because after all the arguments, it still makes the most sense to me than any other explanation.

god bless :)

Another "creative truth"? I must assume so, because I have never made that claim.

Yes, actually saying that it's on shaky ground is actually an understatement.

Abracadabra "Jesus exists, because the Bible says so."

SpiderCMB "Okay, we can agree on that."

Abracadabra "But most of the things that are attributed to Jesus are not true"

SpiderCMB "How do you know that?"

Abracadabra "I just do!"

SpiderCMB "How do you know which parts are true and which are fake? How do you know that Jesus even existed, if you reject parts of the Bible as fake? If parts of the Bible are fake, how can any of it be trusted?"

Abracadabra "You are a Jesus Freak, you are ao blind"



Your position is so completely and totally laughable. No historian would ever agree with you, it's just totally silly. It's self-serving and allows you to annoy Christians, that's all there is to it.

Abra..
I believe you have very good reasoning on this subject.1+1=1. Does not add up to me. Blessings of Shalom...Miles

I come from an academic environment. If we decide to consider something we consider it. That doesn’t mean we need to believe it. What I find on these forums is that there are man people who simply can’t even consider a possibility. They are so determined to chose the other outcome that they can’t even consider anything else. This was my point with C. S. Lewis. He never really took the consideration that Jesus might not be God seriously. His real motivation was to simply continue to always believe that Jesus is God and just arrive at conclusions from that point of view. He was incapable of thinking outside of his box. That’s not an ‘opinion’ that’s an observation of what he actually did and I think I gave clear enough reasons in my OP to show why he never left his box of belief.




And as you say, we all have our opinions. No human knows they are God (in the Christian sense of God) so I would disagree with your conclusion here.




But what is sin? It’s nothing more than disobeying God! That’s all sin is!

If Jesus was God, in order for him to sin he would have to disobey his own DESIRE!

After all, people keep saying how much God hates sin. Well, if Jesus was God then he would hate sin and not have been tempted by it in the least. To think that God would be tempted by the things he supposedly hates is ludicrous.



Well, there you go again, “he knew god” or “he was god” let’s try to make up our mind. If he merely knew god then he wasn’t god and he wasn’t any different that Moses, or Abraham, or Noah, or a host of others.



Beliefs are fine, and I’m certainly not asking you to change your beliefs. But discussion forums are for discussion these kinds of topics. I have suggested in the past, and I’ll suggest it again here, that people who are vehemently out to “defend” a belief they are in the wrong place in a discussion forum. That’s not the point of discussing things. The point is to consider other possibilities. Not to just blinded defend a belief. If that’s your purpose your just wasting everyone’s time including your own. That’s not the idea behind discussions. No one is attempting to change your beliefs.



Well again, I remind you that discussing these things and believing them are two different things. If you’re only purpose is to defend a belief then you’re just wasting your time posting here.

And yes, I do look at things logically. Just like in mathematics. Suppose I ask what geometry would be like if two parallel lines never meet? A lot of people would argue that by definition parallel lines never meet, and they don’t even want to consider such an absurd thing as parallel lines meeting. If we take that approach we never learn about spherical and hyperbolic geometry.

It’s the same way here. If you refuse to even consider the possibility that Jesus might not have been God then we’re stuck in the mud can can’t consider other possibilities. It’s not a matter of what we believe. It’s a matter of learning new perspectives.

Abracadabra said...


Abracadabra said...


Can you explain this appearant contradiction in your statements?

No contradiction. That was the major point.

C. S. Lewis claimed to be considering the possibility that Jesus wasn't god, but he never genuinely stepped outside of his box to make that assumption in its entirety.

He only stepped half-way out of the box keeping his other food well planted in his beliefs system.

In other words, my point is that is makes no sense to consider that Jesus might not have been God, yet fail to recognize that this would also mean that the Bible is not infallible truth.

Lewis merely assumed that Jesus wasn't God, but then retained that the Bible as the "gospel truth". This was a half-hearted approach to the question that wouldn’t naturally result in the conclusions he made.

My point was simply that C. S. Lewis was wrong. If we are going to consider that Jesus might not have been God then we need to do it fully, and also realize that the Biblical account of him was fabricated at least in part by his followers and who know who else.

Taking all of that into consideration, then Jesus could very well have been a mortal man and still have been quite sane and of high integrity.

In other words, Jesus can be saved from Christianity and still be respected as a wise man. C. S. Lewis says no.

I totally disagree with Lewis and I gave my sound reasoning that any scholar or historian would certainly recognize as having merit.

In short, I recognized the philosophical fallacy of Lewis’ position.

Okay...you're wrong.

C. S. Lewis clearly made that the possiblity. If Jesus isn't God, then the Bible isn't the absolute truth. That's already covered in the "liar" argument.

Suggesting that the Bible is true and a lie at the same time is a position that cannot be supported by anyone with credibility. To claim "Yes, Jesus lived, but he didn't say most of the stuff in the Bible"...okay...what do you base that on? Unless you have tape recordings of everything Jesus ever said, your position is completely unsupportable. The only knowlege we have of Jesus' life is the Bible. Once the Bible is no longer considered a valid source "Jesus didn't claim to be God" for instance, then every statement and action attributed to Jesus as well as his very existance is brought into question. That's all well and good if that's your belief, but that belief has no place in an honest discussion of Jesus' life.

Where did Yahshua ever say he was the Father Yahweh? Shalom..Miles

Who spoke from the burning bush? Jesus or YVWH?

Exodus 3:14
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

John 8:58
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Immediately after saying that, the people who heard him picked up rocks to stone Jesus to death for BLASPHEMY. Jews didn't stone people for being crazy, but they did for Blasphemy.

According to Jesus, he spoke to Moses from the burning bush.

John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Word = Jesus

John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

You’re obviously confused Spider.

This was not covered in the ‘liar’ argument. Because Jesus didn’t write the Bible. There is not a single solitary word in the Bible that came directly from Jesus. The Bible was written by other men. Those other men could have been liars, without Jesus having been a liar.

So it’s not covered in the ‘liar’ argument. You simply don’t understand the depth of the situation here.

I’m actually doing a positive thing here despite your inability to see it.

C. S. Lewis is saying that all non-believers should know that Jesus was a lunatic and a liar.

I’m saying that non-believers should know that Jesus may very well have been a very wise man of great integrity even though he wasn’t God.

I think Lewis’ view is quite negative and logically flawed as I have shown.

My view is quite positive and has more merit based on the reasons I already gave.

You clearly don’t understand the scenario based on your comment that the ‘liar’ argument was already covered. My scenario does not require that Jesus was a liar.



This is absurd Spider. All you are saying here is that if the Bible isn’t viewed as a infallible religious doctrine then it shouldn’t be viewed at all.

That’s totally incorrect.

The Bible exists as a writing of men. There is no reason whatsoever why people should believe that it contains infallible truths. There is every reason to exam it as a historical writing in a desperate time of oppression by desperate men.

To claim that people can’t discuss the Bible from a purely humanitarian perspective is absurd.

But I’ll tell you one thing, its this kind of fundamentalist attitude that destroys the religion and turns people against it. You make me just want to throw my hands up in the air and agree with Lewis that Jesus was just a lunatic and liar.

So much for anything positive coming out of that.

I’m trying to be positive here in a historical sense and you’re bucking it because of your overzealous need to defend a belief.

Fine, so if Jesus wasn’t God then he was a lunatic and liar. If this is what you’d like non-believers to believe about Jesus that’s fine with me.

I should have known better than try to be positive about something around religious people.

the main reason people dont like christians is because we claim we are the only true faith and every other religion has it wrong in some form.

people dont like absolute truth, because that means they have a standard to live to, and man, in our pride, want to make our own rules.

i can't help that. so reason away all you want. no one's gonna change anyone's opinion here.

faith or lack thereof, is a matter of the heart. the heart will believe what it wants to believe and find support for it. u claim christians are the only ones who do that, but obviously everyone does it, including you. everyone is biased, and subjective to their own desires, no matter how objective we try to be. anyone can find anything to support their beliefs from a logical perspective IN THEIR MINDS.

some of your arguments TO ME don't make any sense. and mine don't make sense to you, so it's silly to debate it over and over.

No, what I'm saying is that you have no proof that Jesus didn't say he was God. If you are going to arbitrarily claim that Jesus didn't make that statement, that is an unreasonable position. You have no proof. The only reason that makes you suggest that is because you want to believe it. There is no logical reason for taking one statement which is credited to Jesus and say "He didn't say that". What do you base that on? Personal bias. Therefore, it is not a position that can be argued or even should be argued by anyone who takes the subject seriously.

Basically, you are making a gratuitous assertion, which can be equally gratuitously refuted. My response: "Nuh uh!"





It's lunatic or liar. A lunatic might actually believe he/she was the begotten child of God, so it wouldn't be fair to call such a person a "liar".