Christianity and Religion

MHz

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Okay, as long as you think it's legitimate to cite texts from a superstitious, pre-literate, pre-scientific age in support of your position, try 1 Thessalonians 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

If you follow that advice, and understand the rules of evidence and logic, and have the critical thinking tools some of our brightest minds have worked out over the last few centuries for testing the truth content of claims, and you reason honestly, being mindful of the many well known ways human perception and cognition can go astray, you will arrive at the atheist position.
You have to first understand what the prophecies are promoting. if you mistake the brass for the iron then you will get the wrong version.

All my life I've been told by believers, including several in this thread, that if I do this and that and thus and so I'll end up in the same place they're at, why shouldn't I take the same attitude?
My path led me to be both sane and a believer, that only points to your 'conclusions' not being the one and only answer. That is is more that voices from my mind is what adds strength to the doctrine I push as being sound as far as Scripture is concerned.
 

Cliffy

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My path led me to be both sane and a believer, that only points to your 'conclusions' not being the one and only answer. That is is more that voices from my mind is what adds strength to the doctrine I push as being sound as far as Scripture is concerned.
There are a few who might question that claim. After working with mental health for years, I came to the conclusion that nobody is sane, just varying degrees of crazy.
 

MHz

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There are a few who might question that claim. After working with mental health for years, I came to the conclusion that nobody is sane, just varying degrees of crazy.
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I think first you have to believe that there's some substance to the prophecies and they have some relevance to the contemporary world. I don't.
The old earth creation models allows for the earth to be 6B years old, that is a new understanding as far as contemporary science goes.

To have 24 OT passages cover the same event from slightly different viewpoints is getting into the realm of being beyond the abilities of the original 40 writers. Just going over the term Babylon in Jeremiah makes it clear there are two fates yet the Babylon in Revelation is mentioned only in the last few pages. The odds of that being there due to the 40 writers is at zero, it being there because there is one author is perfectly understandable to somebody who can think independently.
 

Dexter Sinister

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The old earth creation models allows for the earth to be 6B years old, that is a new understanding as far as contemporary science goes.
The science came first, then religion had to retreat from its claim that the world was created in 4004 BC and rework the old "facts" into metaphors. If science hadn't falsified that claim I've no doubt the church would still be making it. In fact some people ARE still making it, not the mainstream Christian churches, but certain fringe groups.

To have 24 OT passages cover the same event from slightly different viewpoints is getting into the realm of being beyond the abilities of the original 40 writers. Just going over the term Babylon in Jeremiah makes it clear there are two fates yet the Babylon in Revelation is mentioned only in the last few pages. The odds of that being there due to the 40 writers is at zero, it being there because there is one author is perfectly understandable to somebody who can think independently.
Seriously? You can think of NO other explanation than that there must really be just a single author? I'd say that's a singular failure of imagination. It's perfectly clear the NT writers were familiar with the OT, is it impossible that the OT writers might have been familiar with the same stories, read the same things, perhaps even each other's work, used the same sources? Really MHz, you're grasping at straws here.
 

L Gilbert

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Gilbert, I get that. Maybe set that aside and seek out the Holy Spirit for awhile.
Thanks, but I already have my own spirit and I don't any more believe in biblical spirits than in Mother Goose or Dr. Seuss characters. IOW, it'd be a wild goose chase. And through the years, I have often come across the saying that if I want to find something and can't, quit looking for it and it'll show up. I haven't been looking and no spirit has shown up that is described as being your holy one.

Why debate the illogical? Should we rather consider why God chose these signs, miracles and happenings that defy human reason? Really, if God is God, I would think Him to have skill sets that we don't. I just think he has some powers that we do not and therefore it is very difficult to believe. Imagine if some dude or dudette showed up on your drive and said, "Hey I'm God". We would probably say something like, "no you're not, and if you are turn this tree into a gorilla". Then when the self annointed god says he can't, we would say - "Hmpff, you're a hack."
Why debate? For fun actually.
Is that any different than applying logic to something for which there is exactly 0 evidence pointing to its existence?
 
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darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
332​
For the fiercest fires of persecution and fiendish cruelty ever lighted upon earth flared out under the impulsion of the fantastic theological teaching that the acts of one’s brother may be the impious machination of "the devil." It is too gruesome and ghoulish a chapter of horrors to linger upon; yet the same philosophical benightedness out of which this atrocious monster of diabolism and demonism has emerged has never to this day been dispelled by the light of wisdom. A more sensitive humanity of the present, sickened by the ghastly spectacle of past tortures and holocausts inspired by fiendish zeal, has tried to drop the subject as far as possible out of sight, and has imposed a taboo upon its exploitation in religious quarters. But the darkness has not been dissipated, and the monster is still capable, on provocation, of glaring fiercely out of the murks. The light that would have enabled the Christian world to descry the Beast in his true outlines and character has never been rekindled since it was extinguished about the third century. Had that light been available it would have revealed that the fiery dragon of the pit was none other than the god himself, his face begrimed with smoke, his features distorted by the grimaces of the Beast through whose eyes he looked out upon this strange world, and his countenance luridly alight with the smudgy flare of the earthly furnace. Milton’s lakes of seething fire in Paradise Lost are a travesty of truth, unless taken purely as the symbology they are. For Satan is the god himself--on earth! This broad assertion is incontestable. It is proven by the very name. The descending god was the Light-bringer, Lucifer, the bright and morning star, which is precisely the character assumed by the Jesus of the Biblical Revelation! The Christian devil, the hated serpent of evil, Satan, is Lucifer, the god of light on earth, Prometheus, the "benefactor of mankind,"--"the god" himself.
Indoctrinated orthodoxy may rise to protest the identification. Some ghastly mistake will be alleged in the philology. It will be in vain. Erudite theology has at times perhaps known the truth, but has kept an advised silence. The general mind has lost the key to the mystery. By dropping the name Lucifer and clinging to that of Satan alone, the mischief has been bred and perpetuated. That Satan and Jesus are identical is as true as that Sut and Horus in Egypt are twins! The god and devil are kindred. They are full brothers. Their mother is one. They are the two aspects or manifestations of the same force. It may be said that the evil character is the good seen in reversed reflec- Lost Light A B Khun
 

L Gilbert

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Lettuce pray.
Let us spray.


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The old earth creation models allows for the earth to be 6B years old, that is a new understanding as far as contemporary science goes.

To have 24 OT passages cover the same event from slightly different viewpoints is getting into the realm of being beyond the abilities of the original 40 writers. Just going over the term Babylon in Jeremiah makes it clear there are two fates yet the Babylon in Revelation is mentioned only in the last few pages. The odds of that being there due to the 40 writers is at zero, it being there because there is one author is perfectly understandable to somebody who can think independently.
And 6 billion is wrong. Earth is slightly over 4.5 billion years old.
 

Spade

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Nov 18, 2008
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If I were offering advice (scientific) to cj44 and Motar, I would suggest they read "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" by Timothy Ferris.
 

MHz

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Mar 16, 2007
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The science came first, then religion had to retreat from its claim that the world was created in 4004 BC and rework the old "facts" into metaphors. If science hadn't falsified that claim I've no doubt the church would still be making it. In fact some people ARE still making it, not the mainstream Christian churches, but certain fringe groups. .
It is still a matter of fitting the knowledge available to the text. In the last 50 years one person could do as much 'research as a whole Monastery" could 100 years ago. This generation can appreciate an earth that experienced it's first sunrise some 4BYA. My making it a 'there is only one chance to get it right' theme then obviously the game is over before it begins. But if by chance the powers of 10 were part of the understanding needed then it is not unlike the 70 weeks of years. Only in our current times do we know the days, months and years would have been different 4BYA compared to 4MYA when the 4th day ended. What current science journal supports that in general, all of them yet in ancient texts that bit is left out as far as I am aware.

Be part of the fringe if you want to be more than a parrot.
24 passages that takes about an hour to cover when you have an e-bible and it should be apparent if the passages apply to the same event or not.
Babylon would be much longer and what you find is Neb's Babylon is never utterly destroyed yet Satan's is. Satan's Babylon is never called a servant yet Neb was a believer in God by the time he passed away from old-age.
That is what I went through before I made the decisions I promote today, your opinion that it wouldn't matter or help just doesn't stand to be the one and only explanation.


Seriously? You can think of NO other explanation than that there must really be just a single author? I'd say that's a singular failure of imagination. It's perfectly clear the NT writers were familiar with the OT, is it impossible that the OT writers might have been familiar with the same stories, read the same things, perhaps even each other's work, used the same sources? Really MHz, you're grasping at straws here.
When you have Daniel saying he has no idea what he is writing then yes, a single author is more than a slim possibility. Does Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 20-22 give a summation of the beginning and the end if all events and prophecies about the two bruises are left out. I would say using the knowledge we have today the Ge:1 account does follow history as we know it only if the creation days are either 10x longer in duration or shorter in duration depending which direction you go. Even the dates in Revelation can be used to determine the end of this earth by fire would be 3.6B years in the future. All of that is speculation, the things the Bible covers in fine detail doesn't have to be speculated about what it means.
In your specific case you are focused on the (needless) brutality in the OT so seeing how the ending goes can't help moderate you dislike for how some parts go. Perhaps that is why it will never be taken as something you should actually do just because it has some knowledge you are currently 'lacking'.

The test we should be conducting (and I have done it once in the past in an attempt to weed out the conflicting parts, obviously I didn't find it flawed as I am still involved with talking about it) is to see if the OT prophecy can be applied to topics mentioned in the Gospels or from Acts:10 and on as being specific to the bruise to Satan's head. Applying would come after the initial sorting but just that ends with a pretty vivid preview. The more it fits together in harmony the greater the odds that it has a single author, God from Ge:1:1.

That leaves us at Ge:1 and the old earth creation thing, Ge:2 would be Adam in the Garden area and it could be a preview of what happens after New Jerusalem lands in Re:22.
Ge:3 is why things are messed up. Re:20 is how things are fixed and Re:21 and 22 are how the new earth is revealed as the final piece of a creation that is meant to run for eternity, as is.
 

cj44

Electoral Member
Sep 18, 2013
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If I were offering advice (scientific) to cj44 and Motar, I would suggest they read "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" by Timothy Ferris.
I find God to be supernatural. As in having the ability to defy the laws of nature. Mostly because he created them. But, I will take a look at what ole Timmy has to say. Not expecting him to trump the Lord, but I will take a look.

As for those of you demanding scientific evidence - do you not even consider the possibility of let's say a supernatural force in the universe?
 

Motar

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Jun 18, 2013
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The need of the hour is to distinguish and differentiate between "religion" and Christianity. Christianity is NOT Religion What is religion? Was Jesus Christ religious? Is Christianity a religion?

Religion:
"The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven." (Matthew 16:1 NIV)

Christianity:
"He replied, 'When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away." (Matthew 16:2-4 NIV)

Matthew records yet another confrontation between religion and Christianity. In this encounter, Jesus contrasts the religious leaders' meteorological awareness with their theological dullness.
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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Religion:
"The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven." (Matthew 16:1 NIV)

Christianity:
"He replied, 'When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away." (Matthew 16:2-4 NIV)

Matthew records yet another confrontation between religion and Christianity. In this encounter, Jesus contrasts the religious leaders' meteorological awareness with their theological dullness.
The bible is full of conflicting and contradictory passages. None the less, Christianity is a religion, actually about 3500 different variations on a religion, probably because of all the contradictory and conflicting passages in the bible. Adhering to any dogmatic interpretation of anything is what religion is and holding firm to the belief that no one comes to god unless they are born again in Jesus' name is about as dogmatic as it gets.

If you attend church or services regularly, you are religious. You can, of course, pretend you are not, but that is only pretending for the purpose of feeling superior to others.
 
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