About other gods-question for theists

[Minimalist]

From a spiritual perspective, God has elected me, regenerated me, and given me belief.

OR... you have deluded yourself into thinking that you have a special invisible friend in the sky.

I'll go with the latter.


And, yes. He means Antipas.

[ignoramus]

Isn't "Antipas" a subset of our favourite culinary god, the might FSM?
I'm getting peckish now just thinking about it.

[orangebox21]

If you're going to bring up the consistency argument as one of the reasons you 'chose' Christianity over Mormonism or Islam, I'm going to have to bring up Judaism again. There are explciit contradictions between the Old and New Testament inside your supposedly internally consistent choice of faith. The Torah at least doesn't have all that extra messiah crap thrown on. If consistency is the reason you're stating for choosing your faith over others, why not 'choose' Judaism?

I've already answered this question in post #35. Do you have questions about what the text is teaching?

Well the Bible is external to you. No doubt about that. And it certainly says god exists. But given the fact that it also says the world was created in six days and that there is essentially no historical corroboration for anything in it except bits of Kings and Chronicles, I wouldn't count it as evidence. Is the Book of the Dead evidence of Ra?

You're changing the conversation here. I'm clarifying that I didn't "look inside" to determine the truth, but rather was acted upon by an outside force. Are you denying that the Bible is something external to myself?

For example, please explain when Jesus was actually born since Matthew claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great but Luke claims that Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius (6-7 CE) which is ten years after Herod died in 4 BCE. Was he born twice?

Has been addressed.

The genealogies for Jesus in Mathew and Luke are so different that they hardly contain a single name in common. Further both are through Joseph which makes no sense at all if Jesus were born of a virgin. --apologists suggest that one of those genealogies was Mary's but that's not what either gospel says.

Alleged genealogy discrepancy

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Name one prophesy clearly stated in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. Give me the verses.

Daniel 9:25-26

Okay, let's look at what Daniel had to say and when he is supposed have said it:

In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian[b] kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

Daniel 9:1-2

So this prophesy was made during the Babylonian captivity. After much prayer concerning the misfortunes of Israel and the times god had both rewarded and punished Daniel, Gabriel came to Daniel and said:

“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish[d] transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’[i] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”

I've italicized the part you say was fulfilled in the New Testament.

You better explain just what you think this means. I don't think it in anyway clearly describes Jesus' coming and I'd like to know why you think it does. Or maybe you think it's John the Baptist? But supposing just for argument the Jesus is the "Anointed One": 7 sevens is 49 and 62 sevens is 434 bringing us to a total of 496. If that's 496 years, the Anointed one showed up way too soon after the beginning of the restoration of Jerusalem. If sevens mean weeks than it's 69 weeks (a little more than a year), than the Annointed One was very late.

Then again maybe it's not time at all. Whatever it is it's not very clear.

Jesus was put to death. But I wouldn't say he had nothing afterwords. Would you? There's been war since, but not especially more than there was before the prophesy.

The point is that it's all about as clear as mud. Worse than a horoscope.

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[The Grand Nudger]

You didn't address anything above, you simply offered more of your own competing ideology. Try harder.

1-The Biblical God cannot lie.
The Bible is the word(s) of God.
2-If the Biblical God cannot lie, then the words of the Biblical God are true.

Let me help you. 1 and 2 squeeze the middle as though it belonged or could modify the others. It can't. All three can be true (and are - to muslims no less-) but it won't lead to the conclusion you want. If 1......even if there were no bible..then 2 could be true. Can you take it from there? Do you see what you've done?

(this leaving out the obvious possibility that 1 and the middle could be true, while 2 is false - god might simply be mistaken - not lying - of course)

[Zidneya]

As far as I can see it's dated 2004. Can you post a link to the article you read?

I have it in a word document. I remembered I read it all in a library and then only copied the points that I wanted. BUT I SURE AS HELL REMEMBER THAT THOSE WEREN'T THE CONCLUSIONS THAT I READ.
Someone gave me incorrect data!!

The Jose Vasconcelos Library do not held responsible if the information or data contained in it's archives it's either incorrect, flawed or past time. We recommend our visitors to do the proper investigation before utilizing our data in any form of communicative work.



For more information go to the second page of this thread I'm out of here.
Oh and Confused Ape you were right by the way.

[Jenny A]

Well the Bible is external to you. No doubt about that. And it certainly says god exists. But given the fact that it also says the world was created in six days and that there is essentially no historical corroboration for anything in it except bits of Kings and Chronicles, I wouldn't count it as evidence. Is the Book of the Dead evidence of Ra?

You're changing the conversation here. I'm clarifying that I didn't "look inside" to determine the truth, but rather was acted upon by an outside force. Are you denying that the Bible is something external to myself?

Nope just that it's evidence of god. You have no external evidence unless the Bible is evidence. And frankly it isn't. It's just a book of myth. Reread my response which you so kindly quoted.

For example, please explain when Jesus was actually born since Matthew claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great but Luke claims that Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius (6-7 CE) which is ten years after Herod died in 4 BCE. Was he born twice?

Has been addressed.

Really? Where? Note my response to Lek below.

The genealogies for Jesus in Mathew and Luke are so different that they hardly contain a single name in common. Further both are through Joseph which makes no sense at all if Jesus were born of a virgin. --apologists suggest that one of those genealogies was Mary's but that's not what either gospel says.

/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=932]Alleged genealogy discrepancy[/url]

Does not address why it's Joseph's line, rather than Mary's given the virgin birth. Also really lame. Really, really lame. The Bible does not use the female line anywhere else for a man's genealogy. Why start here with Joseph's?

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Name one prophesy clearly stated in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. Give me the verses.

Okay, let's look at what Daniel had to say and when he is supposed have said it:

Daniel 9:1-2

So this prophesy was made during the Babylonian captivity. After much prayer concerning the misfortunes of Israel and the times god had both rewarded and punished Daniel, Gabriel came to Daniel and said:


I've italicized the part you say was fulfilled in the New Testament.

You better explain just what you think this means. I don't think it in anyway clearly describes Jesus' coming and I'd like to know why you think it does. Or maybe you think it's John the Baptist? But supposing just for argument the Jesus is the "Anointed One": 7 sevens is 49 and 62 sevens is 434 bringing us to a total of 496. If that's 496 years, the Anointed one showed up way too soon after the beginning of the restoration of Jerusalem. If sevens mean weeks than it's 69 weeks (a little more than a year), than the Annointed One was very late.

Then again maybe it's not time at all. Whatever it is it's not very clear.

Jesus was put to death. But I wouldn't say he had nothing afterwords. Would you? There's been war since, but not especially more than there was before the prophesy.

The point is that it's all about as clear as mud. Worse than a horoscope.

"...from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off..."
[Hide]
Nehemiah 2:1 states the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem occurred in the month of Nissan in the twentieth year of the reign of the Persian king, Artaxerxes. Encyclopedia Britannica says Artaxerxes Longimanus took the Persian throne in July of 465 BC. So his twentieth year began in July of 445 BC. The month of Nissan following that would have been in March of 444 BC, which was before the twenty-first anniversary of Artaxerxes' reign. The seven weeks, or 49 years, ran from Artaxerxes; decree to the year Jerusalem's wall and moat were finished in the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. From that time another 62 weeks went by until the Messiah was "cut off," a term meaning "put to death."

That's from Old Testament to Old Testament, not Old to New.

In the book "ON the Weeks and This Prophecy," in fragment 16 Julius Africanus shows how to make the calculation. He says that the "70 weeks" prophecy of Daniel 9 started when Artaxerxes gave the decree in his twentieth year. Years later, Sir Robert Anderson recreated the conversion process for our modern calendar as follows: There are 69 X 7 years until the Messiah's death (483 years)http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/weeks.htm

The prophesy doesn't tell us when to start counting.

Many people have proposed different years for different decrees. And I won't pretend to have the "only correct answer," because I don't know if I have that or not. In any event, here are four decrees that are often discussed in relation to Daniel 9:24-26:

1. The decree from Cyrus in 539 BC. (see Ezra 1:1-4)

2. The decree from Darius in 519 BC. (see Ezra 5:3-7)

3. The decree from Artaxerxes to Ezra in 457 BC. (see Ezra 7:11-16)

4. The decree from Artaxerxes to Nehemiah in 444 BC. (see Nehemiah 2:1-8)

http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/weeks.htm

In other words, clear as mud.

We convert from the Jewish/prophetic calendar to the Gregorian/Roman calendar this way: We take the 483 years times 360 days per year (the sacred Jewish calendar) and that comes to 173,880. On the modern calender that comes out to 476 years and 21 days. March 14, 444 BC plus 476 years comes out to March 14, AD 31. We add one year because there was no "0" year, then add the 21 days. April 6, AD 32.
For more info and view points you can go to:
carm.org
Apologetics Press

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[Ravenshire]

The Biblical God cannot lie.

Really?!?
"Genesis 2:17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
According to your nasty little collection of evil fairy tales, buy-bull gawd lied. Neither Adam nor Eve died the day they ate the fruit. Spin as you wish, but a lie is a lie is a lie.

Let me save you some trouble:
"Their death was spiritual."
Bullshit. Buy-bull gawd didn't say "you will be dead to me" or "it will be as though you died." He said they'd die, that day.

"But, they did die!"
Yeah. Allegedly 900+ years later. Not exactly "in the day."

But, but, er.... Oh! I know. One day for GOD is like a thousand years! Ha! Gotcha!!!
Um, no. We're talking about a part of a book where the days were clearly defined as 24-hour periods. "And the evening and the morning were the XXX day."

The Bible is the word(s) of God.

The buy-bull is a collection of oral traditions and, at very best, second-hand accounts (more likely fourth-, fifth-, eighth- or even twenty-seventh-hand), written down by man. Nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing inerrant about it. In fact it is riddled with mistakes and contradictions.

Also, despite the fact that the first century CE is the best documented period in antiquity there is not one single contemporary account of jeebus. Not one

If the Biblical God cannot lie, then the words of the Biblical God are true.

The authors of the buy-bull made gawd a liar in the first book. These words of men are no more true than any in the "Harry Potter" series. You could, with as much intellectual honesty as you're using now, bend your knee and pray to our savior Harry Potter whose coming was prophesied by Sybil Trelawny and who's actions fulfilled said prophesy. And, her's was much more specific than any buy-bull prophesy.

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On another, but related note, it always amuses me when christers put limits on their omniscient, omnipotent invisible sky-fairy daddy figure. "God cannot lie." Why the fuck not?!? It's supposed to be all powerful. Why can't it do what so many humans do every day, most of the time without qualm?!? Hell, he didn't even put lying completely off the table. "Thou salt not bear false-witness against your neighbor" is a far cry for "Thou shalt not lie." So, Sky-Superman has limits? In some ways humans are more powerful?

Wow! That's one awesome gawd you pray to.

[The Grand Nudger]

With any luck, we'll be conversing with a newly minted muslim here in a few pages.

[ignoramus]

Leave the poor guy alone.
OK, there's a couple of discrepancies in the bible. So what!
God doesn't need no man made stupid bible to prove he exists!
He is the Almighty!
He doesn't need to prove to anyone he exists!
And he has done a damn good job of it!

No, No, That's not what I meant you evil athiest bastards!
You know what I meant!
I meant you mere mortals can never prove it, so there!
God is "my" god! I'm not sharing him with anyone!
When I pass, I'm going to heaven and eating fairy floss all day!
You souless unbelievers are going to rot in hell for an eternity!
So there!

[Lek]

OK, there's a couple of discrepancies in the bible. So what!

Atheists always come up with this multitude of discrepancies and then you can research them and find refutations of these "discrepancies" from bible scholars. Google is just a click away. Check it out for yourself.