Save Jesus from Murder

[Godscreated]

[quote='Godschild' pid='161267' dateline='1312403752']
Yes the plan was perfect, it came from the perfect mind of God, yes there would be forums like this because this perfect plan will only work if freewill is envolved.

But, if God wanted people to accept Jesus as their saviour, an omniscient God would have known that there are some people who will not believe something on "blind faith" without evidence. Yes, it's been shown here before that faith cannot require proof, or it becomes science rather than faith, but I'll avoid that question and use "accept Christ".

There is no objective evidence that Yeshua bar Josef ever existed, much less that he was the biological child of the Holy Spirit with a betrothed virgin. There is no evidence that Jesus was God, or the son of God, or the nephew of God, or the third cousin twice removed of God.

Yes, there are stories of him going around making obscure references and performing miracles. These would be somewhat compelling except that 1) None of the accounts were written by eye witnesses. They were written about 2 generations later. 2) The accounts do not agree with each other. 3) Where they do agree, they seem to have copied from each other. 4) Some of the events listed to not agree with what is written about Roman Law and Roman custom of the time. 5) There are no records of anyone like Jesus of Nazareth or Yeshua bar Josef being tried or executed on any charge. The Romans kept as good of records as the IRS.

The other thing that makes these stories of miracles less than compelling for Jesus being the son of God is that there are numerous stories of other heroes and holy men and gods performing identical miracles within a couple of centuries of 1 C.E. There is as good of a case for Mithras or Hercules as there is for Jesus.

Certainly, if Jesus did represent an omnipotent God who had a plan to save all of human kind through their belief in Jesus, some sort of compelling evidence should exist. It doesn't. Not unless you count hard-sales like the door-to-door proseletyzing types or the hard-sales of "accept Jesus NOW or you will go to Hell (with vivid description)", or the guilt-trip one "Accept Jesus and send me money or God will take me to heaven." I've found that anything that needs to be hard-sold is not worth having - whether it's a religion, a used car, life insurance, or multi-level marketing products.

As you said above faith has no proof. As for the Romans I have no doubt that they keep excellent records, the problem is getting them through time and what the Empire went through that would be impossible, so that should put this point of argument to rest. I do believe in evangelizing, I do not think it proper to put on the hard sale as you say, telling the gospel of Christ and backing it up with the OT is proper, the OT is all that the disciples had besides their eyewittness testimony.
If the case for Mithras and Hercules was as good then why are not millions worshiping them. Yes God knew many would not take Christ on faith, but He still made the sacrifice and the offer of salvation to all.

The plan was perfect and thus the timing had to be perfect, Christ himself said on the cross it is finished, I would think that He most of all would have known when to finish His work.

Perfect for whom?

Perfect for the world.

The fear factor you mentioned must be your own fear, christians see what Christ did as an incredible act of love.

I see a lot of feeling sorry for Jesus and not a lot of desire to emulate him or follow his teachings.

Or, I see a lot of sadistic voyeurism involved with the whole "Passion of Christ" thing. See the box office revenues from the whole "Singing Jesus" or "Sexy Jesus" or "Bloody Jesus" . Hint: "The Passion of the Christ" is the bloodiest movie ever made, and one of the most successful.

Yes it was a very bloody movie, however according to scripture the real thing was worse. Portraying something as real as possible is not wrong, the movie Saving Private Ryan was not a pertty sight either, but according to men that were on the beaches of D-Day the move was fairly realistic.
I do not know to many people that feel sorry for Jesus, I do know a lot of people that feel guilty about their part in His death. You are correct many christians do not emulate Christ, I struggle with that to often myself. I do have the priviledge of knowing some that do live very Godly lives.

I You should study the Bible from beginning to end and I do not mean just read through it, get a good study Bible, I suggest the New American Standard it's generally accepted as the best translation and The New Strong's Concordance would be helpful also.

Most atheists have. And, studied it without someone guiding us in just what parts to study or what parts not to bother reading. Such as the part about selling your daughter into slavery, the part about Abraham and Sarah lying to get into Egypt and mislead the Pharaoh into having sex with her (they told the Egyptians they were brother and sister), the part about it being GOD who creates evil, or on and on.

Some began as Christians studying the Bible as we were told, but just got a little too curious about what was in the Bible, and read it ourselves besides what we were being told about in class. Ah, but it was the whole thing about Eve being curious about that one tree that got her led astray. God obviously meant to design mindless sheep, and curiosity and intelligence are clearly a design flaw, as we say in engineering.

The entire Bible is to be studied not just select passages and that goes for both christians and atheists who wish to show they made an honest attempt at learning the truths of scripture. Cherry picking through the Bible is an unjust way for one to represent therself as truth seekers. As for the events you mention God has never tried to white wash His chosen people, He always shows them in their true light as bad as it may be. No where in scriptures does it say God created evil, this is why I said to get a better translation, one like the New American Standard, this translation is seen as the best we have by most people. Why did you not ask for someone to explain the parts you found to be distasteful?