The backbreaker

[TheRocketSurgeon]

That's just pathetic. Jesus was talking to himself (as God) in the garden when he begged himself to change his own mind?  You really think that's a plausible explanation, rather than an ad-hoc concept added later? You really think that your "but he was God" is a convoluted way to explain what is really quite simpler. Seriously, is it not simpler to admit that you just want to believe in the Trinitarian doctrine that was developed a century after the start of the church, and prefer to ignore that we refute what you want to believe?

Are you sure you fully understand the Trinity, Rocket? (If so, you're the first person in history to do so.   )

Jesus is fully God and fully man. As God, He knows all things, etc. But as a man, he still had to go to school, do his homework, and so forth. And as a man like us in all things, except sin, he also experienced normal human emotions such as anger and fear as well as physical sensations like hunger and pain.

As the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus prayed to the first Person of the Trinity, the Father. As a man, He prayed to God just as any other believer would do. He wasn't merely "talking to Himself".

It isn't that we don't hear what you say. It's not that we just refuse to accept it out of some counter-doctrinal bias... we just realize that your concepts don't make sense to anyone not already accepting of the doctrines of your cult.

Well, that doesn't really follow, does it? People spend all kinds of time earning degrees in various subjects related to history and foreign cultures and religions that they don't personally accept but are interested in, and while they may not ACCEPT the beliefs and ideas they study, they do try to "make sense" of them. IOW, they want to understand them.

That doesn't appear to be your approach. Since September 7, you've spent the equivalent of more than 22 days (500+ hours) online posting over 2,400 times frequently discussing a subject that you don't accept and apparently have no real interest in understanding. You've taken some pains to convince me that you have some background in Christianity, but then you post something like that above, and it's obvious that you don't know and don't care to know what you're talking about.

Let me propose an alternative approach: learn orthodox Catholic doctrine better than Catholics know it themselves. THEN when you express your rejection of it, at least you'll have some credibility. And I, of course, must do the same with regards to atheism. This is a fair exchange, and it's what members of this forum are constantly demanding (and rightly so) when new Christian members show up with all sorts of misinformation about what atheists believe and don't believe. I'll do my homework if you'll do yours.

I mean, seriously, Athrock... you come here thinking we don't know or haven't heard of these doctrines, when the fact is most of us have studied every form of Christianity we could find information about, have faced these points (in their various versions) from every Christian who comes on these types of sites--in some cases, we've been doing it for decades--and we have concluded that they hold no weight. All of them, in their various versions.

Let me interrupt for just a moment here to point out that there are obvious differences in knowledge among various individuals in this forum - whether they are theists or atheists. Some posts on both sides are truly cringe-worthy.

But assuming that what you say is true, Rocket, could you (or one of your co-non-religionists) explain in Christian terms how and why Jesus would NOT be praying to Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane (since this would not be an example of him praying to set an example for others). IOW, tell me how a really knowledgeable Christian would answer the question. THEN tell me why that is wrong.

But you, who cling to your particular version, try to tell us that we're just being stubborn, or that we don't really understand, or that we're just angry. Et cetera, ad nauseam. Yet you can't see that it's you who clings to your dogma like a child clinging to a blanket, and that it's you who doesn't get what it actually means to say that every Christian has their own version that they claim is The One Right Interpretation of Scipture™, and that these vary widely.

I'm going to speculate that I've been a believer longer than you've been alive, Rocket, so I'm no child clinging to a blanket. I don't recall ever saying that you're "just being stubborn", but I WILL say that for some here, the choice, freely made, was to reject God because of moral issues. They prefer the temporal pleasures their "lifestyle" over the ETERNAL joy of heaven. So, yes, those people are being willfully stubborn.

As noted above, yes, there are some, many actually, who don't really understand Christian doctrine and they cannot make sense of certain passages of scripture - particularly the OT. This is clearly evident in your own signature, for example, as well as in the discussions concerning why Jesus had to die on the Cross, etc. It's kind of amusing to me when one of the more learned atheists in the forum bitch-slaps the truly ignorant trolls who have free run of the place. It's a pity that it doesn't happen more often. One example: Jesus Mythicism <snicker>. Oh, yes, Rocket...now, there's the intelligent result of "decades" of study. LOL. Seriously, as an atheist, are you ever embarrassed by some of these folks with whom you share that moniker?

You all sound just like each other, and you all disagree. Yet we're the ones whom you claim are "indoctrinated" and claim we refuse to believe in the claims of your sub-cult because we are emotional (and thus illogical) about it? Puh-leeeeeeze! We're not the ones who pledge mental allegiance to dogma every Sunday.

I chose to say "indoctrinated" because you used it first and because it works both ways. If all I read are Craig, Blomberg, Sheed or John Paul II and all you read are  Hitchens, Dawkins, Krauss and Carrier, aren't we both at risk of indoctrination? One solution is to discuss these ideas and to be challenged.

So, I am here...in a hostile environment...listening to opposing arguments and seeking to respond intelligently with as much charity and patience as I can.

Will you do the same?

I've never read any of the authors you mention, except for Dawkins' The God Delusion (I've also read The Selfish Gene, but it's not the type of book I'm describing), and I found that book to be awful in places, and to contain even some arguments I don't accept. I have, however, read G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. I strongly disagree with most of Carrier's assertions (except the stuff about the Heavenly Host, which rings true to me based on other things I've read about ancient Judaism) although any honest person will admit that our evidence for an historical Jesus is spotty at best... the passages in James containing elements of the Sermon on the Mount seems to me to be the best evidence pointing to someone who actually knew the man, but the arguments made via Tacitus and Josephus are easily refuted. They suggest, only, and only if you read the passage a certain way. But of course, to people already predisposed to believe it, you can't show them that, because they cannot be honest. As an honest skeptic, I admit that the weight of the evidence seems to point to an historical Essene Rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef, who preached a peaceful and then later apocalyptic message during the initial Roman occupation of Judea.

Oh, and I've only ever watched Krauss on YouTube, via this board.

You yourself say no one understands the Trinity, and yet blame me for "failing" to do so? Can it simply be that it's a man-made concept as a slapdash attempt to cover Paul's new concept of god-as-man, and it simply doesn't make sense in light of the rest of the writings about him?

I'm 39 years old, so maybe you have been a believer longer than I've been alive. And?

As for the prayers in the garden, the Lord's Prayer is a good example of "teaching others how to pray". But saying that he was begging himself, in man-form, to his god-form, to do something he wanted done, implies either schizophrenia or a man who didn't actually think he was God, but only an example of the Path to God, modified later into "well, when he said 'who do other say I am', he was really trying to say he was God Incarnate. I also point to the horrible translation of Isaiah's "alma" into "virgin", when bethula means virgin, and alma is used in other places to describe a slut...not to mention that the passage in Isaiah clearly involves a prophecy that is for the King, and is meant to happen during his lifetime. 

The seemingly-obvious (to non-cultists) answer is that Paul didn't have a good grasp of Hebrew, but was trying to reconcile his upbringing as a Roman Jew in Greek (modern) Turkey into a theology with which he could be comfortable, and succeeding only enough to convince people who don't think too much about it.