JUST OPEN YOUR HEART, DAMMIT!

[T.J.]

Christians are in more denial about magic being in their book than GRRM is in his.

Just get to the White Walkers, and stop trying to be a historical text because you're not!

Not historical. Is that what atheist Bart Ehrman, professor at UNC - Chapel Hill has said?

"Serious historians of the early Christian movement—all of them—have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure." (Ehrman, Bart, Did Jesus Exist?, 5-6.)

He also wrote:

“It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection” (Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 276).

Jesus being real doesn't automatically mean that all of it was real, or even that he was the Son of God. Just like Vlad Dracula being real doesn't mean he was really a vampire.

All the second paragraph proves is that they believed it. Not that it was. I can also make a claim that I saw someone reported to be dead alive as well. People do it with Elvis all the time.

[ignoramus]

THEOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS
"A Brilliant Book of Immense Practical Usefulness"

Wow! SMACK IS GOBBED!

[Godscreated]

God doesn't do magic, just because you and I can't understand how He does it doesn't mean something else did, with God we have a absolute beginning. Why are you avoiding my question about the Holy Spirit, it's a simple thing I ask, it only requires a yes or no.

GC

Relax, Sparky...take it easy, before you burst a vessel. I don't get your Holy Spirit fetish, or what it is that you seem to need for me to say......what's my line here?

You as a Christian, are in fact promoting Biblical magic. Christians, hypocritically refuse to call it magic, but face it GC...that's exactly what it is. The Bible clearly says that your god spoke the world into existence....no mistaking it. That is a spell. A magic spell. Without a tremendous belief in magic, it is impossible to be true believer. All that you seem to be pushing is magic beliefs. You shouldn't get bent out of shape because people can't accept that
magic is real. Come on, GC. Be reasonable.

You good and well know what I'm asking about the Holy Spirit, you are afraid to answer, for what reason I have no idea but the only conclusion I can come to is you're afraid to answer a simple question that a ten year old would have no trouble answering. Have you ever seen or have proof of anyone doing this magic you speak of, seems to me you're taking things from a child's fairy tale books. Read William Paley's book Natural Theology: or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature. By the way I'm not the one getting excited here, you're tactic is to divert from what I have patiently been asking.

GC

[Homeless Nutter]

THEOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS
"A Brilliant Book of Immense Practical Usefulness"
[...]

Must be printed on toilet paper...

[Godscreated]

The big bang can't explain how the material came into existence. God said He created it, that would be, commanded it into existence. Through the word of God we have an explanation. Through man we have nothing.

GC

God is a superficial answer that cannot be proven as a real answer.  God is merely an answer to fill in the gaps of knowledge for idiots who are uncomfortable with the I don't know reality.  Truth is not something that can be brought out simply to fill in the gaps of knowledge, which is the entire foundation of religion, but rather truth is something that must have a basis of evidence to support it that does not rely upon faith.

You dismiss God by faith, you have no evidence to use to dismiss Him, faith is seemingly important to your life.

GC

[robvalue]

Theology for beginners! Oh yeah, I read that one. It's quite short.

Step 1: Make up whatever shit you want. You can copy other people's shit and change it a bit, or make up a whole new load of shit. IMPORTANT! Make sure that none of it can be proven wrong. Avoid anything that coincides with reality in any way.

Step 2: Say that it's your sincerely held religious belief and that you have the right to practice it, even if it involves mutilating passers by.

Step 3: Announce that everyone must live by your rules, and anyone that doesn't is oppressing you.

Congratulations! You are now an entry level theologist. Please continue onto Theology for the Smug Intermediate.

[Longhorn]

I'm a theologian. Watch

God is cheese. Cheese is eternal. The moon is cheese. The moon is god. That explains tides. Allah is a moon god. Praise Allah.

You can call me Mo

[Godscreated]

The following question would then be, how? God spoke it into existence, great. That still doesn't explain it.... where did the stuff come from? What energies are involved? What is the process? Is there any residual energies left over? Etc, etc...
If you don't feel you need to answer these question about creation, then no one needs to answer those questions about the big bang.

I'm comfortable saying I do not know, it's secular science that feels like it has to spout things to deny what man had accepted for thousands of years, even to the point of making up invisible things that have never been seen in nature nor the laboratory and then they will holler that Christians use an invisible being.

GC

[Redbeard The Pink]

No, I've noticed they tend to use the word "miracle," but Thena's right. They're magic tricks. It's the same thing.

Magic: the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces

Miracle: an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (god or gods), a miracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.

Miracles are nothing more than a god-people term for white magic. They could just call it white magic, but then they'd be admitting their connections to paganism, so they've found a more suitable word for an equally ridiculous idea.

There's that word "tricks" again. And again, you've ignored the fact that words have connotations associated with them that go beyond the dictionary definition.

There are lots of articles on the Internet describing the distinctions between miracles and magic; here is one targeted at middle-schoolers:

What is the Difference Between Miracles and Magic?
by Digger Doug
http://www.apologeticspress.org/Discover...ticle=2173

Dear reader,

First, magic can be used just for fun. Miracles were not just “for fun.” They were visible signs that a person was acting or speaking on God’s behalf (read Exodus 3:12-4:14).

Second, magic can be used to deceive. Miracles, on the other hand, were never used for deception. Rather, they were used to teach important spiritual lessons (like when Elijah asked God to perform a miracle on Mount Carmel to show that Baal was a false god—1 Kings 18:20-40). Miracles also were used to help people (like when Jesus healed a blind man—John 9:1-41).

Third, magic isn’t “real.” When a magician makes a woman “disappear,” she doesn’t really disappear into thin air. But miracles were real—very real! When Moses stretched his rod across the Red Sea and caused the waters to part so the Israelites could walk across on dry land, it was no trick. Moses (through God’s power) really did what the Bible says he did (read Exodus 13:14-22). When Pharaoh’s army followed the Israelites, and Moses caused the waters to come back together to destroy the Egyptians, the soldiers and horses really died (read Exodus 13:26-28).

Fourth, magic is intended to entertain us and show us the magician’s talent. That is not true of miracles. Their purpose never was to entertain an audience or to demonstrate how talented a person was. They were performed in order to show people the way to heaven.

"Blah blah blah, my Gaud does real magic, and that's what makes it miracles."

It's all supernatural power that breaks science, Randy. I'm not gonna read your patronizing little middle school pamphlet. Go fuck yourself.

[Randy Carson]

[...]
God is not complex. He is simple. No parts. God is pure spirit; there is nothing material about him.
[...]

Laughable. How can you make judgments on complexity of beings which you can't possibly perceive, examine or test?
"Parts"? Is that your best measure of complexity? lol Seriously - that's kind of like a plumber saying that a micro-chip is not complex, because there aren't any pipes in it...

God is pure spirit. Spirit does not have parts...it is completely homogenous. Speaking of the Trinity, Sheed wrote:

Returning to the point at which this digression started: we must not say three separate persons, but three distinct persons, because although they are distinct - that is to say, no one of them is either of the others - yet they cannot be separated, for each is what he is by the total possession of the one same nature: apart from that one same nature, no one of the three persons could exist at all. And we must not use any phrase which suggests that the three persons share the Divine Nature. For we have seen that in the Infinite there is utter simplicity, there are no parts, therefore no possibility of sharing. The infinite Divine Nature can be possessed only in its totality. In the words of the Fourth Council of the Lateran, "There are three persons indeed, but one utterly simple substance, essence, or nature." [Source]