(January 16, 2015 at 7:56 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(January 16, 2015 at 1:54 pm)Lek Wrote: Good for Christopher!

What? Nice of you to throw an atheist a bone, but you do understand he is blasting the idea of a third party deciding for you what you and another party do and who forgives who? He is saying the Jesus character takes away his decision making and autonomy and personal responsibility.

I know you don't want to accept this, but the idea of blood sacrifice is not new to Christianity. Christians simply took that idea from animal form to human form.

In antiquity in polytheism and monotheism no one could have known what blood was scientifically, like the heart they thought it was magic.

And in battle especially taking one for your tribe was universal act of sacrifice.

The appeal of the Jesus story also really was not new. Our human empathy in reality loves a good story about the underdog defeating authority. In Plato's Apology Socrates upset all the teachers, noblemen and senators for questioning their authority. At the end of the play Socrates was forced to drink Hemlock as punishment for defying the state.

And even in ancient Egypt you had depictions of trinity in Ra, Osiris and Horus who sat in judgment of the dead. Horus was depicted as a savior son god who would save the Egyptian world. Even the idea of curing blindness was not new to Christianity.

If you live in America and see a pharmacy the Rx represents two Egyptian gods. The R is the healing god Thot, and the extended arm of the R going down is spit going into the eye or "x" of the god Horus.

I was saying "Good for Christopher....but that's his opinion, not mine." The christian idea of a blood sacrifice goes back to the beginnings of the old testament. The blood sacrifices that the Israelites were required to make for their sins were signs and symbols looking forward to the ultimate blood sacrifice of Jesus. The fact that it wasn't a new idea doesn't have anything to do with the authenticity of the sacrifice of Christ. If it was a totally new concept would you believe it?

(January 12, 2015 at 4:53 pm)Minimalist Wrote: At a minimum is an IQ below 60.

This was a funny statement, but they are not all science-hating Bible thumpers. My mom is Catholic, and a college biology teacher; she loves science, believes in evolution, and knows you are not supposed to take the Bible literally.

(January 16, 2015 at 8:05 pm)Lek Wrote:

(January 16, 2015 at 7:56 pm)Brian37 Wrote: What? Nice of you to throw an atheist a bone, but you do understand he is blasting the idea of a third party deciding for you what you and another party do and who forgives who? He is saying the Jesus character takes away his decision making and autonomy and personal responsibility.

I know you don't want to accept this, but the idea of blood sacrifice is not new to Christianity. Christians simply took that idea from animal form to human form.

In antiquity in polytheism and monotheism no one could have known what blood was scientifically, like the heart they thought it was magic.

And in battle especially taking one for your tribe was universal act of sacrifice.

The appeal of the Jesus story also really was not new. Our human empathy in reality loves a good story about the underdog defeating authority. In Plato's Apology Socrates upset all the teachers, noblemen and senators for questioning their authority. At the end of the play Socrates was forced to drink Hemlock as punishment for defying the state.

And even in ancient Egypt you had depictions of trinity in Ra, Osiris and Horus who sat in judgment of the dead. Horus was depicted as a savior son god who would save the Egyptian world. Even the idea of curing blindness was not new to Christianity.

If you live in America and see a pharmacy the Rx represents two Egyptian gods. The R is the healing god Thot, and the extended arm of the R going down is spit going into the eye or "x" of the god Horus.

I was saying "Good for Christopher....but that's his opinion, not mine." The christian idea of a blood sacrifice goes back to the beginnings of the old testament. The blood sacrifices that the Israelites were required to make for their sins were signs and symbols looking forward to the ultimate blood sacrifice of Jesus. The fact that it wasn't a new idea doesn't have anything to do with the authenticity of the sacrifice of Christ. If it was a totally new concept would you believe it?

Um no, animal sacrifice was around long before the Hebrews became a spin off of Ugartic Polytheism.

You simply want history to begin with the bible, the truth is the OT is simply another human invention as a result of prior polytheism.

Yahweh before the name was used as a monotheistic god was used by the Canaanites and was a lesser god under El in the divine family. Hebrews simply managed to splinter off and elevated a prior character to be a new god and only god.

That isn't even the first attempt at monotheism. Zoroastrianism is much older. And even one of the Egyptian Pharaohs made an attempt to make Ra the only god.

There still is nothing original about an underdog story.

The OT was NOT the beginning of human history. Sure that is what Jews and Christians claim, but science knows better.

Arguing that your religion is original is like arguing that Coke was the first beverage because it's can is red.

Humans make up gods and religions, they do not start in a vacuum.

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No I would not believe it. Babies are not born of virgins, and human flesh does not survive rigor mortis.

If I strung letters together that you never saw before, would you buy my definition of a made up word?

You are arguing details, I am telling you about motifs, tropes, ideas. There is nothing about the Jesus character that is original. Humans like the idea of have a super hero, an oracle, a savior.

And the magical claims of the bible are flat out crap in any case.

(January 16, 2015 at 8:35 pm)Brian37 Wrote: And the magical claims of the bible are flat out crap in any case.

What you are inferring is that certain concepts found in christianity are found in earlier religions, therefore christianity is false because it's not original? Okay. Besides all those magical claims are crap anyway. We know that people are healed of incurable diseases overnight with no natural explanation, but that can't be supernatural because we know that the supernatural doesn't exist....Not!

(January 16, 2015 at 9:05 pm)Lek Wrote: We know that people are healed of incurable diseases overnight with no natural explanation, but that can't be supernatural because we know that the supernatural doesn't exist....Not!

We know that they are healed with no natural explanation, but what we do not know is the how of it. Automatically resorting to goddidit is unreasonable because there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim. It is better to state I don't know than to resort to an insupportable claim.

(January 16, 2015 at 8:05 pm)Lek Wrote: The blood sacrifices that the Israelites were required to make for their sins were signs and symbols looking forward to the ultimate blood sacrifice of Jesus.

Maybe you should ask a jew what they think about that, rather than co-opting their cultural narrative, and then making such a heretical assertion? They're still waiting for their messiah, for word from their god. You have your own - and it isn't the same god.

(January 16, 2015 at 8:31 pm)Roxy904 Wrote: This was a funny statement, but they are not all science-hating Bible thumpers. My mom is Catholic, and a college biology teacher; she loves science, believes in evolution, and knows you are not supposed to take the Bible literally.

Sounds like she needs somebody in a funny hat to come set her straight.

(January 16, 2015 at 9:05 pm)Lek Wrote:

(January 16, 2015 at 8:35 pm)Brian37 Wrote: And the magical claims of the bible are flat out crap in any case.

What you are inferring is that certain concepts found in christianity are found in earlier religions, therefore christianity is false because it's not original? Okay. Besides all those magical claims are crap anyway. We know that people are healed of incurable diseases overnight with no natural explanation, but that can't be supernatural because we know that the supernatural doesn't exist....Not!

Yes. You think a god handed down his word to humans. Instead you need to consider that all that new stuff you call the bible was merely a product of competition of surrounding and prior ideas.

Christianity did not become successful because of a god anymore than Allah is real because of Islam's popularity. Religion competes just like business does. Religion is successful not because a god is real but because of mere marketing.

You'd have me believe an alleged "all powerful" being who "poofed" everything into existence, had to wait 4 billion years for humans to even evolve, then waits hundreds of thousands of years to get to the point of even the first writing, then takes over 1,000 years and 40 authors with books left out, which humans for the past 5000 years have never stopped fighting, keep making up new versions and splinter sects of religions, and kill over how to read that manual? Does that sound efficient to you for an "all powerful" god?

It makes much more sense to me that humans merely like the idea of a sky hero. It is much easier for humans to make up answers than to test and falsify to insure quality of data. Humans love sugar pills.

(January 16, 2015 at 9:05 pm)Lek Wrote:

(January 16, 2015 at 8:35 pm)Brian37 Wrote: And the magical claims of the bible are flat out crap in any case.

What you are inferring is that certain concepts found in christianity are found in earlier religions, therefore christianity is false because it's not original? Okay. Besides all those magical claims are crap anyway. We know that people are healed of incurable diseases overnight with no natural explanation, but that can't be supernatural because we know that the supernatural doesn't exist....Not!

Why doesn't god heal amputees?

And anencephalics . .

Magic is only for kids adults need to get that out of there heads i mean come on you tell kids there is no such thing
as magic then believe god is and can use magic...