Christian answering questions too!

[pocaracas]

You do realize don't you that people only became aware of the universe very recently.  In ancient times people thought that the Earth was all there was.  They thought that the lights that they saw in the night sky were simply tiny lights comparable to meteors they saw streaking through the atmosphere at night.  They had no idea what stars really are.  They thought that the visible planets they saw moving through the night sky were just tiny moving lights like the stars.  They had no idea what they were or where they were located.  

Jesus thought that the stars would fall from heaven.  Today we know that that is simply impossible.  He had no clue what stars are.  Be smarter than Jesus.

The name "planet" itself still retains that old meaning:
"Planet (from Ancient Greek ἀστήρ πλανήτης astēr planētēs, or πλάνης ἀστήρ plánēs astēr, meaning "wandering star")"

[robvalue]

I don't understand why people are Christians.

I understand why they believe the religion is true, but I don't understand why they then choose to be a part of it. (Disregarding peer pressure and abuse from society and such.)

Is it just to get rewards and to avoid punishments? Is that fundamentally the reason? I don't think I've ever heard anything sensible beyond this. If the rewards and punishments were removed, how many Christians would be left?

They want to worship the being that is threatening them with punishment? I really don't get it. If I thought it was real, I'd tell that being to fuck out of out of it.

[Pat Mustard]

Hello and thank you all for having me in the forum.  I am new here and registered because I felt the urge to undertake a part in the great commission.  I have not failed to notice the application of Christianity from churches and organized religion is hypocritical, atrocious at times, and is rarely in line with the intent of the Bible and its Author.  It is with great consequence that people are influenced by the misguided and twisted forms Christ's message often comes in.  I hope to do better.  I am offering to answer, to the best of my ability, any question, on any topic that I feel remotely qualified to respond to.  Please refrain from cheap baiting attempts often used to trap someone into a play on words or the like and I will do the same.  If you have questions I will offer my thoughts.   I won't attempt to restrict the areas of conversation too much but I do ask that we remain respectful towards one another.  I would also ask that all questions regarding the Christian bible pertain to the KJV.  I will answer as promptly as 6 children, 2 careers, and a part time job will allow.

V/R

Pete

Why take the King James version, a bible created in the 17th century to try and give religious backing to James II & VII's claims to have a divine right to rule absolutely?

Would it not be better to follow either the Codex Vaticanus or Siniaticus, the two oldest known bibles?

[Alex K]

What's your favourite type of Heavy Metal?

[Pat Mustard]

As for whom I believe Jesus was/is:  I believe Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament.  That he was both God and man.  I would not state that he was misunderstood if you are referring to the Jewish leadership of the New Testament.  I would say he was a wise man but that mere wisdom does not denote deity or anything truly remarkable, just being wise. 

Tried to reply to this on my phone, but it et that one, so lets go again off the desktop:

First of all how to you reconcile Jesus to the jewish conception of the messiah? The jewish messiah was to be a second David, to restore the jews to the land of Israel from the sea to the river Jordan (and possibly beyond), to destroy their enemies with fire and sword, and to create the land of milk and honey that yhwh supposedly promised in the convenant? A person such as Simon bar Kochba came far closer to being the messiah according to the talmud than Jesus ever did.

In corollary to that, how do you explain the systematic mangling of talmudic prophesy in the gospels and new testament? The most salient example being the supposed virgin birth of Jesus, which fulfilled a prophesy which neither spoke about a virgin birth nor was about any messiah. It is nearly impossible to reconcile Jesus with the great leader which the talmud foretold.

[Pat Mustard]

I would not disagree.  Two descriptions.  I fail to see the contradictions in them.

Genesis 1 speaks of a single god, yhwh, creating the world, genesis 2-3 speaks of a pantheon (Elohim being literally the plural of god from Aramaic), and speaks in the plural term we. In terms of creation, in gen 1 humans were created after animals, in gen 2-3 humans were created before animals. In gen 1 man and woman were created at the same time, in gen 2-3 woman was created after man, specifically from his spare rib.

[Pat Mustard]

No.  I would ask that if we as humans did not have a consciousness, then what is the point of all that we see around us in the universe.  If we aren’t here to observe it, what’s it here for?

Oooh the strong anthropic fallacy. The reason humanity is here is because given the constraints of the physical universe we are a possible and plausible result. Nothing more, nothing less. The universe wasn't created for us, we evolved because we fit in under the physical laws of the universe. If the universe were different, who's to say a species made up of a single hive mind of all the mass on a planet would not develop under the different constraints thus pertaining and try to figure out its place in the universe? Or even given the current universe, who's to say we're the first intelligent species to spring up over the course of the c4,500,000,000 years of earth's existence? Maybe there was a crab civilisation ready to make the Great Leap Sideways into an industrial revolution just as a giant asteroid hit.

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Directed at everybody: You win 1 internet cookie if you get either of my references, two if you get both

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[Pat Mustard]

It's not about correctness, it's that your statements are not consistent with the scripture's internal logic.

If the implication here is that Jesus statement in Math 5:17 contradicts the Mosaic law in the Old Testament I would say that when I considered this years ago I came to the understanding that the law was not destroyed or abolished but fulfilled by Jesus life, His keeping of the law, and subsequent death and sacrifice on the cross.  The key words being fulfilled and not destroyed.

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Going to pick this up again on Tuesday my friends.  Until then thank you for your time and have a blessed evening.

No what ApeShallNotKillApe was pointing out is that Jesus didn't revoke the mosaic law in leviticus he came to reinforce it. So if you are discarding those laws you are discarding the christianity of the bible.

[brewer]

Using one syllable words, can you explain String Theory?

It is right on?

[Nihilist Virus]

I have three questions. Take your pick.

1

Is God above the law or not?

It would seem to me that the answer to this question is an obvious no. Jesus had to die because of the weight of the law. If God was above the law then he would just forgive everyone without sending his son to pay for the debts.

But then there is a problem. Deuteronomy 24:16 says,

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

This, presumably, is directly from God.

Then in 2 Samuel 12:13-20, David's son is tortured and killed by God because of sins committed by David.

So... is God above the law or not?

2

1. Men accidentally corrupted the Bible despite trying not to (example: compare the list in Ezra 2 with the list in Nehemiah 7)
2. Satan is more intelligent and more powerful than any man
3. Satan is motivated to corrupt the Bible
4. ???
5. Satan cannot even corrupt the Bible to the same degree that man has

If you admit that Satan actually has corrupted the Bible, then boy are you in trouble. So premise 4 must be, "God manually prevents Satan from corrupting the Bible."

But then why doesn't God also manually prevent scribes from corrupting the Bible, especially if we can agree that they are probably praying for such divine intervention (John 14:13)? This would not be a vulgar miracle, nor would it be the overriding of free will. I know that some Bibles will be corrupted by man - I could easily type one up myself and change some things - but why has God allowed the corruption of the text to get so bad that there is not a single perfect copy on earth? And how does this reconcile with Psalms 12:6-7?

3