The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[Longhorn]

In my mind, you've all proved me right here!

in my mind, your mind is wrong

[Rekeisha]

@Secular Elf did you have a relationship with Jesus?
@Rob that was a weird video... God is a just judge and will judge our actions. He will separate those who follow him from those who haven't. He will reward those who have been faithful and punish those who have rejected him. We are God's servant wither you like it or not and we are responsible for the information He has revealed to us. We will all be judge for what we have done or not done on this earth.

Please explain to me how the hell one can have a "relationship" with a "person" who is also a zombie and his own father, that is invisible, cannot be felt, cannot be touched, and is supposedly up there in some realm called "Heaven"?  HOW??!!

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I got a question though.

If you were born in a Muslim country, then much more likely than not you'd be a Muslim instead of a Christian, telling me a completely different set of "truths".

Now how can that be? How the can the truth depend on where you are born? Why does god tell people different things in different countries? This sounds much more like there are several gods to me, with limited ranges of influence. If it's all the same God and just misunderstandings, why is God letting people kill each other over it instead of sorting it out? He sounds kind of a dick.

Also, I'm thinking of a four figure number. Please ask God to tell you what it is. If he does, I'll be impressed.

Exactly rob.  Your point reminded me of a myth that Joseph Campbell related that is from one of the tribes of western Africa.  It is a trickster story.  This trickster walked in the middle of a grain field and he wore a hat with one side that was red and the other side was white.  There were two farmers on opposite sides of the field and both saw the trickster walk down the field.  One farmer ran to the other and said "did you see the god with the white hat?"  The other man said no and asked did he see the god with the red hat.  One called the other one a liar and  then they began fighting.  Sounds very much like the history of Christianity.  I got the story from watching the Power of Myth years ago.

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You stated that what you care about are facts, so why are you presenting the above as facts.  You are presenting a bunch of "facts" that in no way disprove orthodox christianity.  The earliest christians were not monolithic?  What other gods did they worship?  What does christianity starting out as a Jewish sect have to do with whether or not it's true?  Of course it was a Jewish sect.  The whole story of the bible is based on the promise that the messiah would come to the Jews,  What else would the first christians be?  Why would novatianism cause you to leave christianity?  Christianity is not true because some christians gave in to the demandsd of the government?  I like how how you've thrown out all this extraneous information and then drawn these crazy conclusions.

Willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of.

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Your sig states, you believe in the trinity, so you can continue your sermon from here on to eternity without anyone even being remotely impressed.

But from a believer in the trinity, there's the obvious and mandatory question to be asked: There's god, there's the holy spirit and there's Jesus. They're all one spirit and so they are all god with all the powers god is attributed with. So Jesus can't die by definition, since it's in the job description of an omnipotent, eternal being that it can't perish. And since we can establish, again going by the idea of the trinity, that he pulled his dying trick for a sin, he, in his other persona, has created, it's even more ludicrous. And nevermind the fact that he was talking to himself when pleading to take this cup away from him.

So we can also establish that you're simply talking out of your ass, simply assembling a string of kitchen theology you grew up with.

Color me unimpressed.

Having read much on the history of Early Christianity, I submit some notations from my own essay on the subject that I wrote for my own use:

 XI. Valentinianism and the Origins of the Trinity

Another Christian sect that arose in the 130s and gained a large following within the Roman Empire was that of the Gnostic Christian Valentinus (also called Valentinius). Born in Phrebonis, Egypt in 100 CE, Valentinus was schooled in Alexandria . He was reported to have been trained by Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, from whom Valentinus professes to derive his ideas from. Teaching first in Alexandria, Valentinus went to Rome in 136 CE, and had between 150 and 155 CE arose to the heights of his teaching career and had been a well respected member of the Christian community in Rome. A prolific writer, the only surviving remains of his texts were transmitted by Clement of Alexandria, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Hippolytus. Most scholars believe that Valentinus wrote the Gospel of Truth, one of the texts found within the Nag Hammadi Library. Epiphanius reports that Valentinus withdrew to Cyprus after a long career and continued to teach and attract students. He died in 160 CE.

A school of gnostic philosophy was named after him, Valentinianism. It became a major gnostic movement after Valentinus's death, having spread from Rome to Egypt, Northwest Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor. Among the most notable Valentinians were Axionicus, Florinus, Heracleon, Marcus, and Ptolemy the Gnostic. Valentinus attempted, among many other Early Christians, to align Christianity with Platonism's dualistic conceptions (pleroma and kenoma). Valentinian cosmology included the Primal Being, called Bythos, as the beginning of everything, who gave rise to other beings (aeons, syzgies, Sophia, Man, Horos, etc.). According to Valentinianism, the God of the Torah/Old Testament is identified as the Demiurge, the imperfect creator of the material world. Valentinians held that Man participates in both spiritual and material nature.

Valentinian Christology contemplated the existence of three redeeming beings, or hypostases, the Godhead had three prosopas: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Gospel of Truth explains that possessing the unknown name of the Father enables the knower to penetrate the veil of ignorance separating all created beings from the Father, and declares that Jesus Christ as Savior has revealed that name through a variety of modes laden with a language of abstract elements. This Christological trinity and the figure of Horos the Limiter underscores the Ancient Egyptian religious influence upon Valentinianism in particular, and with Christianity in general. In Ancient Egyptian religion major and minor cults usually occurred in groupings of threes referred to as Triads , holy families consisting of two parents and an offspring ( e.g., Osiris the father, Isis the wife and mother, and their son Horus). The adoption of this concept within Christianity had a practical application in gaining more converts. Pagan converts to the new religion readily accepted the concept of a triune godhead as many non-Christian religions from the Middle East, especially Egyptian religious concepts, were imbued with orders of three within them. Getting back to Valentinian Christianity, the Valentinian belief was that gnosis, not faith, was the key to salvation. Valentinus' system was more monistic (the proposition that there is only one basic substance or principle as the ground of reality), though it was expressed in dualistic terms.

Valentinianism became a serious challenge to Proto-orthodox Christianity. The distinction between the human and divine Savior was a major point of contention between these two branches of Christianity. Valentinus had separated Christ into three figures: the spiritual, psychical, and the material. Each of the three Christ figures had its own meaning and purpose. Another point of contention between the two was the Valentinian assertion that God and the creator were two separate beings. Valentinians also considered women as equals or near-equals, for there were among them female prophets, healers, evangelists, and teachers. The Proto-orthodox saw this as a threat to what they considered the God-ordained male hierarchy of clerics. The most notable critic of Valentiniansm was Irenaeus, who vigorously condemned it as heresy.

The Valentinian movement later broke into two schools, an Eastern and a Western one. Disciples of Valentinus continued to be active in the 4th Century CE.

The most interesting thing about the Trinity as a doctrine is that it was supported by Irenaeus around 110 CE and was not really formally adopted as orthodoxy until the Council of Nicaea in 325.

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@Secular Elf did you have a relationship with Jesus?

Interesting how you sidestepped my question.  So I ask it again.

If your god came to you in a vision and asked you to kill your kids (like he asked Abraham to do) or to shootup a location full of "sinners", would you do it?  Remember, you have to obey god, it is a Biblical imperative (Job 36:11; John 14:15; Luke 6:46; Ephesians 6: 5-9, etc., etc., etc.).

I didn't side step it I either didn't see it of thought it was foolish and didn't answer it.

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Rek: you don't play tricks? Or you're admitting God doesn't know what number I'm thinking of? See, I'm challenging you to prove your case and you refuse.

What you are appealing to is the argument from ignorance. You are asking that I disprove your claim, rather than you having to prove it. Your claims cannot be proved wrong, so this is an impossible request. However, that does not imply that they are correct. Please see my explanation on my website here:

http://robvalue.wix.com/atheism#!argumen...lity/c1831

You're conversation style is a list of judgements and demands, and if that doesn't change, we'll be done talking.

I don't play tricks.

I am not arguing from ignorance I gave you the bible as my evidence of truth. Study it, what is in it and it's history.
If the idea that the God of the bible is not true then that fact can be proven. I don't care about any other god just the one true God of the Bible. If he is a lie then it should be able to be disproved. Every lie can be brought out.

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@Secular Elf did you have a relationship with Jesus?
@Rob that was a weird video... God is a just judge and will judge our actions. He will separate those who follow him from those who haven't. He will reward those who have been faithful and punish those who have rejected him. We are God's servant wither you like it or not and we are responsible for the information He has revealed to us. We will all be judge for what we have done or not done on this earth.

Please explain to me how the hell one can have a "relationship" with a "person" who is also a zombie and his own father, that is invisible, cannot be felt, cannot be touched, and is supposedly up there in some realm called "Heaven"?  HOW??!!

---

I got a question though.

If you were born in a Muslim country, then much more likely than not you'd be a Muslim instead of a Christian, telling me a completely different set of "truths".

Now how can that be? How the can the truth depend on where you are born? Why does god tell people different things in different countries? This sounds much more like there are several gods to me, with limited ranges of influence. If it's all the same God and just misunderstandings, why is God letting people kill each other over it instead of sorting it out? He sounds kind of a dick.

Also, I'm thinking of a four figure number. Please ask God to tell you what it is. If he does, I'll be impressed.

Exactly rob.  Your point reminded me of a myth that Joseph Campbell related that is from one of the tribes of western Africa.  It is a trickster story.  This trickster walked in the middle of a grain field and he wore a hat with one side that was red and the other side was white.  There were two farmers on opposite sides of the field and both saw the trickster walk down the field.  One farmer ran to the other and said "did you see the god with the white hat?"  The other man said no and asked did he see the god with the red hat.  One called the other one a liar and  then they began fighting.  Sounds very much like the history of Christianity.  I got the story from watching the Power of Myth years ago.

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You stated that what you care about are facts, so why are you presenting the above as facts.  You are presenting a bunch of "facts" that in no way disprove orthodox christianity.  The earliest christians were not monolithic?  What other gods did they worship?  What does christianity starting out as a Jewish sect have to do with whether or not it's true?  Of course it was a Jewish sect.  The whole story of the bible is based on the promise that the messiah would come to the Jews,  What else would the first christians be?  Why would novatianism cause you to leave christianity?  Christianity is not true because some christians gave in to the demandsd of the government?  I like how how you've thrown out all this extraneous information and then drawn these crazy conclusions.

Willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of.

---

Your sig states, you believe in the trinity, so you can continue your sermon from here on to eternity without anyone even being remotely impressed.

But from a believer in the trinity, there's the obvious and mandatory question to be asked: There's god, there's the holy spirit and there's Jesus. They're all one spirit and so they are all god with all the powers god is attributed with. So Jesus can't die by definition, since it's in the job description of an omnipotent, eternal being that it can't perish. And since we can establish, again going by the idea of the trinity, that he pulled his dying trick for a sin, he, in his other persona, has created, it's even more ludicrous. And nevermind the fact that he was talking to himself when pleading to take this cup away from him.

So we can also establish that you're simply talking out of your ass, simply assembling a string of kitchen theology you grew up with.

Color me unimpressed.

Having read much on the history of Early Christianity, I submit some notations from my own essay on the subject that I wrote for my own use:

 XI. Valentinianism and the Origins of the Trinity

Another Christian sect that arose in the 130s and gained a large following within the Roman Empire was that of the Gnostic Christian Valentinus (also called Valentinius). Born in Phrebonis, Egypt in 100 CE, Valentinus was schooled in Alexandria . He was reported to have been trained by Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, from whom Valentinus professes to derive his ideas from. Teaching first in Alexandria, Valentinus went to Rome in 136 CE, and had between 150 and 155 CE arose to the heights of his teaching career and had been a well respected member of the Christian community in Rome. A prolific writer, the only surviving remains of his texts were transmitted by Clement of Alexandria, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Hippolytus. Most scholars believe that Valentinus wrote the Gospel of Truth, one of the texts found within the Nag Hammadi Library. Epiphanius reports that Valentinus withdrew to Cyprus after a long career and continued to teach and attract students. He died in 160 CE.

A school of gnostic philosophy was named after him, Valentinianism. It became a major gnostic movement after Valentinus's death, having spread from Rome to Egypt, Northwest Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor. Among the most notable Valentinians were Axionicus, Florinus, Heracleon, Marcus, and Ptolemy the Gnostic. Valentinus attempted, among many other Early Christians, to align Christianity with Platonism's dualistic conceptions (pleroma and kenoma). Valentinian cosmology included the Primal Being, called Bythos, as the beginning of everything, who gave rise to other beings (aeons, syzgies, Sophia, Man, Horos, etc.). According to Valentinianism, the God of the Torah/Old Testament is identified as the Demiurge, the imperfect creator of the material world. Valentinians held that Man participates in both spiritual and material nature.

Valentinian Christology contemplated the existence of three redeeming beings, or hypostases, the Godhead had three prosopas: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Gospel of Truth explains that possessing the unknown name of the Father enables the knower to penetrate the veil of ignorance separating all created beings from the Father, and declares that Jesus Christ as Savior has revealed that name through a variety of modes laden with a language of abstract elements. This Christological trinity and the figure of Horos the Limiter underscores the Ancient Egyptian religious influence upon Valentinianism in particular, and with Christianity in general. In Ancient Egyptian religion major and minor cults usually occurred in groupings of threes referred to as Triads , holy families consisting of two parents and an offspring ( e.g., Osiris the father, Isis the wife and mother, and their son Horus). The adoption of this concept within Christianity had a practical application in gaining more converts. Pagan converts to the new religion readily accepted the concept of a triune godhead as many non-Christian religions from the Middle East, especially Egyptian religious concepts, were imbued with orders of three within them. Getting back to Valentinian Christianity, the Valentinian belief was that gnosis, not faith, was the key to salvation. Valentinus' system was more monistic (the proposition that there is only one basic substance or principle as the ground of reality), though it was expressed in dualistic terms.

Valentinianism became a serious challenge to Proto-orthodox Christianity. The distinction between the human and divine Savior was a major point of contention between these two branches of Christianity. Valentinus had separated Christ into three figures: the spiritual, psychical, and the material. Each of the three Christ figures had its own meaning and purpose. Another point of contention between the two was the Valentinian assertion that God and the creator were two separate beings. Valentinians also considered women as equals or near-equals, for there were among them female prophets, healers, evangelists, and teachers. The Proto-orthodox saw this as a threat to what they considered the God-ordained male hierarchy of clerics. The most notable critic of Valentiniansm was Irenaeus, who vigorously condemned it as heresy.

The Valentinian movement later broke into two schools, an Eastern and a Western one. Disciples of Valentinus continued to be active in the 4th Century CE.

The most interesting thing about the Trinity as a doctrine is that it was supported by Irenaeus around 110 CE and was not really formally adopted as orthodoxy until the Council of Nicaea in 325.

---

@Secular Elf did you have a relationship with Jesus?

Interesting how you sidestepped my question.  So I ask it again.

If your god came to you in a vision and asked you to kill your kids (like he asked Abraham to do) or to shootup a location full of "sinners", would you do it?  Remember, you have to obey god, it is a Biblical imperative (Job 36:11; John 14:15; Luke 6:46; Ephesians 6: 5-9, etc., etc., etc.).

where did you get your quotation from?

[robvalue]

You clearly didn't read my link to explain what I meant by "argument from ignorance" so continuing is rather pointless. No, not every statements that is true can be proven. We need look no further than mathematics to see this.

If however you can give me a way in which I can actually test for your God, in a way that has a failure criteria then I'm all ears, because no one has ever given me one. All I get is, "Do this, and if it doesn't work, God still exists and you're doing it wrong." No failure criteria.

[robvalue]

Here's an interesting question though. If I was going to either become a Muslim or stay atheist, what would a Christian prefer? Which kind of "wrong" is worse?

[Lek]

Here's an interesting question though. If I was going to either become a Muslim or stay atheist, what would a Christian prefer? Which kind of "wrong" is worse?

Becoming a muslim would require that you believe in God and would be a step in the direction of the truth.  So generally speaking I would prefer that you become a muslim. especially since the vast majority of muslims don't try to kill infidels.  Now if you wanted to become a muslim and begin ravaging those who don't believe the way you do, then it would probably be better for the world that you become an atheist.

[robvalue]

Okay I see, thanks. The fact that I'd start thinking you'll be burning in hell for not worshipping Allah, and deserve it, wouldn't bother you?

[Lek]

Okay I see, thanks. The fact that I'd start thinking you'll be burning in hell for not worshipping Allah, and deserve it, wouldn't bother you?

It would bother me, but you asked a christian to pick which one would be better or worse. Coming to the true God is a process, and believing that God exists is the first step in that process.

[robvalue]

I see. You run the risk that I continue to think you deserve eternal fire though and never progress, whereas as an atheist I have no desire to see anyone get burned. Also, maybe as a Muslim I'm right and you do get burned.

Is that a gamble you're willing to take?

P-K4 P-K4
P-Q4 PxP
P-QB3 PxP
KB-B4 PxP
BxP

This has been deemed unsound but can be extremely dangerous in the hands of an aggressive player. Will you throw two pawns in the fire for the long game?

[Lek]

I see. You run the risk that I continue to think you deserve eternal fire though and never progress, whereas as an atheist I have no desire to see anyone get burned. Also, maybe as a Muslim I'm right and you do get burned.

Is that a gamble you're willing to take?

P-K4   P-K4
P-Q4   PxP
P-QB3 PxP
KB-B4 PxP
BxP

This has been deemed unsound but can be extremely dangerous in the hands of an aggressive player. Will you throw two pawns in the fire for the long game?

You believing that I will burn has no effect on whether or not I really get burned. Yeah. I'm willing to take that gamble. But I wouldn't want someone to accept a certain faith which is not true and would cause them to murder people. I'm no more afraid of not accepting the muslim faith than you are of not accepting the christian faith. I'm not a christian because I'm afraid to go to hell if I'm not one. I'm a christian because I believe it's true.

[robvalue]

Ok. Good catch on the belief thing! You're exactly right there.

So... if you knew I'd stay Muslim, or else I stay atheist, which is better? (Sorry for the weird questions! Just seemed interesting.)