(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: if you look at the scholarship on the historical Jesus, we have traditions and writings that go back to within 5 to 10 years of His life... And keep in mind that the so-called “Bible” wasn’t a Bible at all for hundreds of years.  They were letters and accounts written by followers of Jesus in their day, which were later passed around to various churches and carefully copied so that multiple churches could read and be educated

It’s not until the late 2nd/early 3rd century that we begin to get the complete texts of some of the individual books of the New Testament, and not until the early-to-mid 4th century that we have our first two complete New Testaments, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Siniaticus. And even that is a bit misleading; since both codices have different books from each other  and for that matter, from our own bibles. Even today the major branches of Christendom (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) still differ in their canons.
This is not to imply that no early Christian scripture was written until the end of the second century. The problem is that only tiny scraps remain from any Christian writing for the first 150 - 200+ years of this religion.

Even NT scholar, Bruce Metzger, said in his book "The Text of the New Testament" that even if we lost all our manuscripts of the New Testament, we could still recreate its contents from the quotations in the sermons and letters of the early church fathers. But then he refuted himself by saying “On the other hand, however, before the textual critic can use the patristic evidence with confidence, he must determine whether the true text of the ecclesiastical writer has been transmitted.” He goes on to describe several of the difficulties involved with this, and then discusses these early church fathers who are meant to provide our failsafe backup of the NT. One glaring problem immediately arises: his list of “early” church fathers (including a few heretics, too) are a little late: none of the Church Fathers he cites are from the first century of Christianity, and only three are even from the 2nd century; the vast majority are from the 3rd, 4th, and even the 5th and 6th centuries.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: And as I’ve said, any moderately informed Christian with a good Bible is aware of any passages that should be taken with a grain of salt

There you go you explain why Bible fails because anyone reading it today sees it contains a lot of immorality from today's point of view. To pick and choose Bible (or any other book) you need to use other mechanisms like secular morality so there is no need to claim that something that has immoral stuff in it can teach you about morality because you already know it without ever looking into it.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: The rest of the differences have primarily to do with spelling and punctuation, not substantive changes to the texts themselves

Well we already talked about divorce which you embrace and yet to Catholics this is capital sin for which you'll go to hell - so not a minor difference. Some other differences that Jesus said he was sent only for Jews and not for Gentiles but then later on said  "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them..."
Or Paul says, "Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment," but in Luke 14:26 Jesus states, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." - so what would that Christian with the grain of salt do?
Or look at Jesus statement "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." and yet Christians, including yourself don't follow the old law like circumcision or Sabbath or not eating pork or not collecting sticks on Sabbath because you know that Jesus teaching is contradicting and so on.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: In either case, the God of Christianity existed long before Epicurus or Atheism.

And yet now those people apparently burn in Hell because god didn't reveal to them the message. As if he doesn't care about them.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: In the case of the Christian God, preventing evil would be to prevent freedom

Nope. It's total god's design failure. There is no reason he couldn't create all people to choose good. Unless you think that so called saints and "good" people have no will of their own?

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: It’s possible that only in a world that allows for human freedom and is exposed both evil and suffering would the maximum number of people freely seek God and avail themselves of His offer of rescue and redemption.

We do not know that.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: And to the degree that Atheism has grown and thrived in our day (i.e. the last 300 to 400 years or so), it has done so primarily, in the context of opposing or objecting to Christianity

Needles to say 70% of people in this world don't believe that Jesus is a god. They are mostly other religions or no religion.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: The fact that the Bible contains writings from various genres does not disqualify it from being a document.

Yeah, fantasy events doesn't make you a valid document because that would also mean that "Lord Of The Rings" books are also some sort of document.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: You don’t understand the slavery system that existed in the Middle East.

There you go. You cling to some revisionist history and even seem to embrace slavery as a good thing, but it's enough to look at the Bible to see those were cruel and inhumane customs of their primitive age. The treatment of slaves by the Israelites varied from harsh to moderately lenient, depending on whether the subjugated human being was one of their own people or a foreigner. They were most cruel when they captured non-Hebrew people. Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. (Leviticus 25:44–46)
So they were less cruel when they purchased their own people as slaves, and if the purpose was to pay off a debt, it sometimes slightly resembled indentured servitude. Hebrew slaves were treated less severely, but hardly humanely.
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,” then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt faithlessly with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money. (Exodus 21:2–11)

The first sentence might resemble a six-year work contract, but what employer gets to keep the wife and children when the job is over? The slave held on to his wife only if they were married before purchase. If the man wanted to stay with his family, he became the master’s branded property for life. A girl slave could never leave, unless she did not please the master sexually, in which case he could sell her to another Hebrew, or give her to one of his sons.

A few verses later, we find a perverse token of fairness regarding Hebrew slaves:
An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth. (Exodus 21:26–27)
According to the God there is nothing wrong with owning or beating slaves. Just don’t hit them so hard they lose body parts. Bruises and broken bones were tolerable violence. Slaves were treated not as human beings, but as commodity subject to ancient laws of financial recompense.

Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property. (Exodus 21:20–21)
The cruel slave owner Simon Legree in Uncle Tom’s Cabin appears to be modeled on those ancient Israelite practices.

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: The point I’m making is that there were all kinds of reasons why people were slaves and ways by which they became slaves.

Yeah like sexual reasons because God approved of the master-slave relationship, and not just for labor:
If a man has sexual relations with a woman who is a slave, designated for another man but not ransomed or given her freedom, an inquiry shall be held. They shall not be put to death, since she has not been freed; but he shall bring a guilt offering for himself to the Lord, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram as guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he committed; and the sin he committed shall be forgiven him. (Leviticus 19:20–22)
So it’s not a capital crime to have sex with a female slave belonging to another man. You can pay for it with a ram. The slave woman is lucky in that she cannot be put to death for the act because that would lower the value of her master’s estate. Like story of the slave Hagar when Abraham and Sarah used their slave girl for sex Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” … Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived. (Genesis 16:1–4)  Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her. (Genesis 16:6)

Slaves were not allowed to run away, so God sent out a bounty hunter. His angel found her in the wilderness and later even cursed her and her child because of that:
The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” (Genesis 16:9)

And on and on and on...

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: That may tell you something about the Catholic church, but it doesn’t tell you much about the Bible or Christianity.

Of course. You talk about Christianity and when I take few examples then you try to make excuses how those were not real Christians because they are Catholics, or because they interpret bible in the different way then you do and so on. So it's basically you who and your family who are right Christians?

(November 5, 2017 at 9:09 am)Odoital77 Wrote: And from the perspective of Noah, he wouldn’t have known that he could have simply moved away to the unaffected parts.

LOL god could have told him. It would have been easier then feeding tens of thousands of animals on one boat with one window for a year - wouldn't you say?

I think my faith is true because of the life and death of Jesus, how quickly Christianity was able to spread during a time with no communication or transportation technologies, the fact that Jesus's 12 friends believed so strongly that He was God that they all were willing to die horrible painful deaths for it, the miracles of the Saints (particularly the Fatima sun miracle), the fact that it really does just make sense to me, and probably most importantly of all: having had my own supernatural experience which pointed directly to Christianity because it involved the Virgin Mary.

(November 5, 2017 at 12:57 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I think my faith is true because of the life and death of Jesus, how quickly Christianity was able to spread during a time with no communication or transportation technologies, the fact that Jesus's 12 friends believed so strongly that He was God that they all were willing to die horrible painful deaths for it, the miracles of the Saints (particularly the Fatima sun miracle), the fact that it really does just make sense to me, and probably most importantly of all: having had my own supernatural experience which pointed directly to Christianity because it involved the Virgin Mary.

Which is strange, because according to your faith jesus is no dead at all, the "faith" did not spread particularly quickly, the 12 friends were 11 friends plus 500 zombies that nobody noticed, people die willingly for all manner of bonkers belief, no miracle ever happened and Fatima is a joke, Mary was a slut who forgot to count and you had no supernatural experience.

Apart from that, sure it makes sense. To someone from planet sausage perhaps.

(November 5, 2017 at 12:57 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I think my faith is true because of the life and death of Jesus, how quickly Christianity was able to spread during a time with no communication or transportation technologies, the fact that Jesus's 12 friends believed so strongly that He was God that they all were willing to die horrible painful deaths for it, the miracles of the Saints (particularly the Fatima sun miracle), the fact that it really does just make sense to me, and probably most importantly of all: having had my own supernatural experience which pointed directly to Christianity because it involved the Virgin Mary.

So how does believer in Virgin Mary explain the part described in Mark 3:21 where she and Jesus' brothers thought he was possessed by demons. They even journeyed from Nazareth to Capernaum to take him away and then Jesus denounced her. I mean she acted as if she didn't believe her son was god, but a crazy man.

I think those are not real reasons but you rather see them as miracles because you didn't think it trough and as such is prone to see "miracles" just as UFO believers see alien spaceships, ghost believers see ghosts and so on.
Do you not think there could be additional evidence that could prove this was a nonsense like the so called Fatima miracles? Do you not think you should investigate it better? Like  investigator Joe Nickell reports that girl Lucia's own mother said that she was "Nothing but a fake who is leading half the world astray." Friar Mario de Oliveira, who knew her well, described her as living in a "delirious world of infantile fantasies" and suffering from "religious hallucinations". There are alternate explanations for the children's stories, imagination and boredom being chief among them.
If we look at the photo of the event there is nothing that looks unusual. Could people not be fueled by having spent many happy hours as a child laying on my back and staring directly at the sun and also most of the people reported that they saw nothing unusual.

(November 5, 2017 at 12:57 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I think my faith is true because of the life and death of Jesus, how quickly Christianity was able to spread during a time with no communication or transportation technologies, the fact that Jesus's 12 friends believed so strongly that He was God that they all were willing to die horrible painful deaths for it, the miracles of the Saints (particularly the Fatima sun miracle), the fact that it really does just make sense to me, and probably most importantly of all: having had my own supernatural experience which pointed directly to Christianity because it involved the Virgin Mary.

Can you pm me what you experience with supernatural experience. Thank you ahead of time. I promise I won't tell anyone unless you permit me.

(November 5, 2017 at 1:48 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(November 5, 2017 at 12:57 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I think my faith is true because of the life and death of Jesus, how quickly Christianity was able to spread during a time with no communication or transportation technologies, the fact that Jesus's 12 friends believed so strongly that He was God that they all were willing to die horrible painful deaths for it, the miracles of the Saints (particularly the Fatima sun miracle), the fact that it really does just make sense to me, and probably most importantly of all: having had my own supernatural experience which pointed directly to Christianity because it involved the Virgin Mary.

Can you pm me what you experience with supernatural experience. Thank you ahead of time. I promise I won't tell anyone unless you permit me.

I have it all written out and saved on my computer. It's long. I'll PM it to you when I get home.

(November 5, 2017 at 2:18 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(November 5, 2017 at 1:48 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Can you pm me what you experience with supernatural experience. Thank you ahead of time. I promise I won't tell anyone unless you permit me.

I have it all written out and saved on my computer. It's long. I'll PM it to you when I get home.

Thank you so much!

Would an interesting variation on this topic be to inquire why you know another faith is untrue ??

(November 5, 2017 at 2:18 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(November 5, 2017 at 1:48 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Can you pm me what you experience with supernatural experience. Thank you ahead of time. I promise I won't tell anyone unless you permit me.

I have it all written out and saved on my computer. It's long. I'll PM it to you when I get home.

Well, I would also be interested to read that, and like MK, I rigorously observe the right to privacy, so if you could go so far?....

(November 6, 2017 at 12:08 am)Abaddon_ire Wrote:

(November 5, 2017 at 2:18 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I have it all written out and saved on my computer. It's long. I'll PM it to you when I get home.

Well, I would also be interested to read that, and like MK, I rigorously observe the right to privacy, so if you could go so far?....

I thought you already said it wasn't true anyway?