Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels

[Mudhammam]

Now I have embraced Christianity and in order to silence the voice of conviction and common sense I rail and rant and rave viciously at anyone who speaks of science and logic. I try to drown that voice of reason that whispers to me in the innermost part of my being by a multiplicity of words and arguments that I know are simply ridiculous.

There Discipulus. Fixed it for you.

[Whateverist]

God's Kingdom is not of this world. It is a spiritual kingdom. It is eternal. And since it is spiritual, it is not limited to the confines of time and space and matter. That is why Christ said that I will send you the Comforter, The Spirit of Truth who will come to you and abide with you and lead you into all truth. This Spirit of Truth resides within a person and cannot be seen by the eye of sinful man. He exists beyond the five senses. You can see His power and love through the actions of them that He indwells, but you cannot "see Him" except through the eyes of faith.

Reminds me of the story of the Emperor's New Cloths. Only the worthy can see Him, so you say you do? Interesting.

[Esquilax]

And anyway, what is it about the moral views of Christians that is so bad?

I couldn't just let this pass, because your post that follows displays such a breathtaking ignorance of (or dishonesty towards) your own holy book, that I had to add some corrections.

Break out the asterisks!

Do not murder, oh wow! That is such a horrible thing to say!

* Except if they're of other tribes, other religions, other sexualities, practice witchcraft, are disobedient children, are slaves, are apostates...

Do not steal, oh wow! I would never want my child to hear that!

* Just do it in a church and call it tithing instead!

Do not hate people or think evil of others because they happen to have different religious views, my goodness, what a horrible thing to teach a child!

*Just murder them if they even think about converting you! Oh, and think evil of them for the right reason, which is that everyone is evil by dint of being human, so much so that god needs to kill himself just to forgive them!

You are special and of infinite worth, oh no! My kids should never be told that!

*Special, but also super vile and worthless! Needs saving!

Do not have sex before marriage! Yikes! I want my kids to have all kinds of premarital sex so they can just contract all kids of diseases and have pleasure at the expense of their dignity and honor!

*Yeah! How will you be able to sell your daughters for the right amount of money if they keep slutting it up! And just go ahead and murder anyone who uses their naughty bits outside of the pre-approved manner! Also, no safe sex, because... um, no!

Love your neighbor as you love yourself!, Woah wait a minute, that is just evil!!!!

*Unless they differ in their beliefs in any way. Also, you might be able to enslave them.

In all things, do unto others as you would have them do to you! May it never be!!!!

*Unless you're one of god's chosen people! Then you can act any way you want and expect no treatment in kind, because god!

Wow, you're right, those Christians should be shot for forcing their evil morality on us!

Come on man really?hock:

If all those asterisks haven't clued you in, I'll say it plain: you are a dishonest conman.

[max-greece]

If all those asterisks haven't clued you in, I'll say it plain: you are a dishonest conman.

Like - this we didn't know. I kinda pointed that out in the 50 page thread on preparing for discussion - or, perhaps, one of his other diatribes.

Remember when he was offering miracles for belief? When I gave him something I would truly regard as a miracle (ending of Malaria) he came back to ask me why I wasn't doing that, if it was so important to me.

The guy is fundamentally dishonest. Why do you think he manages those preparation for discussion threads - so he can get it on to a subject he is prepared for.

Not worth anyone's time on here - IMHO and all that.

[Tonus]

Mark's account could have been from a witness who described the cloak as scarlett when it was really purple or vice versa. Or maybe the writers weren't really concerned about the difference between scarlett and purple. It doesn't have any effect on the inspiration of the bible. To me it's a "so what?".

There are two reasons I consider it a non-issue.

1- As Minimalist said, there are enough other parts of the Bible that are problematic that something like the inability to distinguish the color of a robe is pretty far down on the list of things to haggle over.

2- If the gospels matched on every point, the argument against them would be the opposite: the writers would have been accused of collaboration and their work dismissed. The inconsistencies are a problem for the Christian, sure. But for the atheist they are a secondary issue at best.

For me the real issues, the things that undermined my faith as I tried to make sense of them, are the stories of people like Judas or Job. Those stories must either reveal a side of god that is cause for major concern, or they introduce serious doubts into the basic understanding of god, or they reinforce the idea that god's ways are unnecessarily complicated and cannot be understood, in which case it doesn't matter whether or not the Bible makes sense. But if it's the latter, then the only thing you have is faith, and a very shaky faith at that.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Mark's account could have been from a witness who described the cloak as scarlett when it was really purple or vice versa. Or maybe the writers weren't really concerned about the difference between scarlett and purple. It doesn't have any effect on the inspiration of the bible. To me it's a "so what?".

Either of those is entirely possible. I suspect that the former is the case.

But it does absolutely have an effect (or rather informs a view) about the inspiration of the bible. If eyewitness reports are used, and variations in perspective can affect what's written then the bible is subject to error. That's quite a big deal!

[Mudhammam]

Red, purple, blah blah... I'm surprised no one has brought up the Gospel's elephant in the room, the most glaring contradiction that forces Christians to jump through a number of speculative loops to even attempt a correction: the vastly different narratives of Jesus' miraculous birth in Matthew and Luke.

[Esquilax]

If we're doing bible contradictions, I brought a chart.

[pocaracas]

I think you "guyses" should pick another book... one written (allegedly) by one single illiterate person, and so with no internal contradictions:

---

Al Qur'an!

---

Now... why should I not take such a book seriously?

[*Deidre*]

Now I have embraced Christianity and in order to silence the voice of conviction and common sense I rail and rant and rave viciously at anyone who speaks of science and logic. I try to drown that voice of reason that whispers to me in the innermost part of my being by a multiplicity of words and arguments that I know are simply ridiculous.

There Discipulus. Fixed it for you.

Took me a minute, but I sea what ewe did dere.