Think about it ... just a second

Greatest man in history

He had no servants, yet millions called him Master.
Had no degree or formal education, yet they called him Teacher.
Had no medicines, yet they called him Healer.
He had no army, yet kings thru history fear Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today (there is an empty tomb back there that men are STILL trying to explain away).

You can ignore Him and his claims if you wish, but don't give me any stupid idiotic nonsense about Him being a "good teacher" or "example."
There simply is no "Jesus" if you strip out his claims to be God come to earth and God's portal way to knowing Him.


He claimed to be the one who will decide my eternal fate depending on whether I ....simply believe him that is able to forgive and to run my life better than I can.... and willing to do both.

Don't you think something like that bears just a little consideration at this time when we commemorate his birth?

Amen brother!

The greatest Gift of All is timeless and priceless.

So many people, including my son, rationalize the history of Jesus. They don't realize that there are only two positions one can take: either you believe He lied, or you believe He is Lord.

Those that call Him a great teacher but don't believe He is Lord are ignoring that He said many things that they think are not true.

MacEntyre said:

So many people, including my son, rationalize the history of Jesus. They don't realize that there are only two positions one can take: either you believe He lied, or you believe He is Lord.

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Ok, now I admittedly approach this from the side of not believing in Jesus as divine, so please keep that in mind. I still inquire innocently. My understanding from what I’ve read, and what Ive been told by those more knowledgable in the subject is. that there is little or no record of his alleged doings and history from the time period he would have existed outside of the testament of Saul or Paul, which is also a transition I don’t understand, roughly 200 years later.

noway2 said:

Ok, now I admittedly approach this from the side of not believing in Jesus as divine, so please keep that in mind. I still inquire innocently. My understanding from what I’ve read, and what Ive been told by those more knowledgable in the subject is. that there is little or no record of his alleged doings and history from the time period he would have existed outside of the testament of Saul or Paul, which is also a transition I don’t understand, roughly 200 years later.

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Other than the 4 gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who were 4 apostles; contemporaries of Jesus; the writings of Josephus, a historian from the period shortly after; those are records considered to be from the time period.

Off the top of my head I don't recall who is considered to be the author of the Acts of the Apostles, but that book of the Bible is also contemporaneous.

Believe or don't, your prerogative but there are records other than Paul/Saul's epistles. Paul was late to the party; during the early days of Christianity Saul was batting for the other side. His conversion on the road to Damascus changed him so completely he changed his name to Paul.

Car0linab0y said:

Other than the 4 gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who were 4 apostles; contemporaries of Jesus; the writings of Josephus, a historian from the period shortly after; those are records considered to be from the time period.

Off the top of my head I don't recall who is considered to be the author of the Acts of the Apostles, but that book of the Bible is also contemporaneous.

Believe or don't, your prerogative but there are records other than Paul/Saul's epistles. Paul was late to the party; during the early days of Christianity Saul was batting for the other side. His conversion on the road to Damascus changed him so completely he changed his name to Paul.

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@Car0linab0y thank you for the sincere answer.

Happy to help. Some of the translated old texts are a great substitute for sleeping pills; hard slogging to get through.

There is information out there but not always easy to read. I try to study because I question things myself and need to check sources. Over the years I have answered some questions for myself, and raised more.

Events in my life have made it clear, at least to my satisfaction, that God is real. I have come to realize that I am one of His slower children, but even I catch on after a couple of bricks to the forehead.

Question, and ask questions of people who disagree with you. That's how you learn.

He changed my life , my eternal destiny and that of my immediate and extended family….God‘s greatest gift
thru his Son Jesus.

The fact that there are >any< writings outside of the gospels that mention Jesus in any form is, itself, pretty amazing. Literacy at the time was low, and those that were writing were writing of great military victories, rules, and politics. They had scant time, especially in Rome, to mention some upstart holy man from a backwater town in a distant Roman province. Especially one that was only active for a couple of years, when the big news in the area was fear of uprising and civil unrest.

The information is there. The true barrier is true effort to seek it, and then seeking it with no bias. Lee Strobel wrote a pretty awesome book called "A case for Christ" that is easily palatable apologetics.

The story of Jesus is one of the best documented events of anything in history, including several writings (Josephus wasn't the only one) that are not in the bible.

Luke wrote Acts.

Amen

noway2 said:

Ok, now I admittedly approach this from the side of not believing in Jesus as divine, so please keep that in mind. I still inquire innocently. My understanding from what I’ve read, and what Ive been told by those more knowledgable in the subject is. that there is little or no record of his alleged doings and history from the time period he would have existed outside of the testament of Saul or Paul, which is also a transition I don’t understand, roughly 200 years later.

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Evidence That Demands a Verdict ...is a book from Josh McDowell that specificity answers this in detail. This author began studying the historicity of Jesus, while he was an athiest in law school. During his study, he became a Christian. His thesis in this book is that Jesus Christ is the most historically verifiable figure in all of ancient history.
If you would read this book, I will buy it and mail it to you.

And he gave up his earthly life to save us.

noway2 said:

Ok, now I admittedly approach this from the side of not believing in Jesus as divine, so please keep that in mind. I still inquire innocently. My understanding from what I’ve read, and what Ive been told by those more knowledgable in the subject is. that there is little or no record of his alleged doings and history from the time period he would have existed outside of the testament of Saul or Paul, which is also a transition I don’t understand, roughly 200 years later.

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I will be happy to demo this with details should you wish. The essence of that statement though is that it is demonstrably and empirically demonstrably false. A person is free to believe as they wish, of course. Someone has said well that one is welcome to his own conclusions about the facts. He is not welcome to your his own facts, though.

Anyway, I will be happy to walk you (or anyone else) thru a history of the textual transmission of the NT documents. Yes, I have read Ehrman.

I am not stupid enough to believe that documentable evidence "changes anyone's mind." People (especially on these issues) make choices for reasons other than rational thoughts. They then go and seek rational defenses for their positions. HOWEVER, I do think that reason, were it to be unprejudiced, would lead us to faith.

Anyway, I am your servant should you want more info.

🙏🏻

tanstaafl72555 said:

... I do think that reason, were it to be unprejudiced, would lead us to faith.

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Beg pardon, sir... but faith is a gift from God.

So is unprejudiced reason, actually. But the point is that you cannot come to faith on your own.

MacEntyre said:

Beg pardon, sir... but faith is a gift from God.

So is unprejudiced reason, actually. But the point is that you cannot come to faith on your own.

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Oh, but I agree. People have dogged on Aquinas because of his statements and implications that reason "unaided" might lead to faith. I don't think this is what he meant at all, though. I believe that UNPREJUDICED reason would clearly lead us to faith. Problem is, reason is not unprejudiced. We WANT to escape God and will use our reason to that end. This is not to say that unregenerate man will come to believe 2+2 =5, but that our perverted wills will engage in much more sophisticated turns, and bend fact into either a denial of God, or at a minimum turn it into a means for "insufficient evidence."

This is, I believe, the message of Romans 1: Men knew God but suppressed the truth they know.... because they don't like that truth and wish to banish it.

I am in agreement with that, for sure. At the same time, I affirm that truth is crystal clear, and that rationality, pure untwisted rationality, would affirm truth. Maybe it is a moot point since our rational faculties are NOT pure and untwisted, but there you go, anyway.

I get a hoot sometimes listening to bright skeptics who deny the reliability of revelation, and in doing so, actually cut the ground out from under ANY ability to rely on the very reason they are using to deny it.

Noway,
I respect your honesty about not believing. I truly hope you will take up some of the kind offers made to you on here.
I think you'll find real love at the base of these and other offers to help you or others see the truth. Unlike a lot of " religious people", a true Christian doesnt browbeat or force anything on anybody. We're only responsible for planting good seeds by our words and actions; the ground grows the flowers or not.
I truly wish you well in your search for truth. Merry Christmas, He loves you !!

xtp308 said:

Noway,
I respect your honesty about not believing. I truly hope you will take up some of the kind offers made to you on here.
I think you'll find real love at the base of these and other offers to help you or others see the truth. Unlike a lot of " religious people", a true Christian doesnt browbeat or force anything on anybody. We're only responsible for planting good seeds by our words and actions; the ground grows the flowers or not.
I truly wish you well in your search for truth. Merry Christmas, He loves you !!

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Well put young man!

noway2 said:

Ok, now I admittedly approach this from the side of not believing in Jesus as divine, so please keep that in mind. I still inquire innocently. My understanding from what I’ve read, and what Ive been told by those more knowledgable in the subject is. that there is little or no record of his alleged doings and history from the time period he would have existed outside of the testament of Saul or Paul, which is also a transition I don’t understand, roughly 200 years later.

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Yeah about that, its all wrong, everything you said....wrong.. I trust your sincerity and lack of dishonesty on the matter because what you said is very respectful. It seems you have been listening to the world because I also have read the things you mentioned and then upon doing my own research, including what were the qualifications for the books of the New Testament to be considered as genuine and Canon. A sincere search for truth can lead one to realize just what lengths the world goes to in order to dispel the truth and plant false claims. Peace man

tanstaafl72555 said:

Oh, but I agree. People have dogged on Aquinas because of his statements and implications that reason "unaided" might lead to faith. I don't think this is what he meant at all, though. I believe that UNPREJUDICED reason would clearly lead us to faith. Problem is, reason is not unprejudiced. We WANT to escape God and will use our reason to that end. This is not to say that unregenerate man will come to believe 2+2 =5, but that our perverted wills will engage in much more sophisticated turns, and bend fact into either a denial of God, or at a minimum turn it into a means for "insufficient evidence."

This is, I believe, the message of Romans 1: Men knew God but suppressed the truth they know.... because they don't like that truth and wish to banish it.

I am in agreement with that, for sure. At the same time, I affirm that truth is crystal clear, and that rationality, pure untwisted rationality, would affirm truth. Maybe it is a moot point since our rational faculties are NOT pure and untwisted, but there you go, anyway.

I get a hoot sometimes listening to bright skeptics who deny the reliability of revelation, and in doing so, actually cut the ground out from under ANY ability to rely on the very reason they are using to deny it.

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The world seems to have an ostrich mentality. They believe if they bury their head in the sand deep enough that lion charging at them will just go away and it will all be ok. The world today believes that if they can just wish God away then they wont ever have to deal with Him..

Starkherz199 said:

Evidence That Demands a Verdict ...is a book from Josh McDowell that specificity answers this in detail. This author began studying the historicity of Jesus, while he was an athiest in law school. During his study, he became a Christian. His thesis in this book is that Jesus Christ is the most historically verifiable figure in all of ancient history.
If you would read this book, I will buy it and mail it to you.
View attachment 715663

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I’m going to have to check this out, thanks.

Also, I may be mistaken but I believe @noway2 is of a religion that doesn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God, not that he’s indifferent or atheist. Or maybe he is, but still.

DannyStayzHome said:

The world today believes that if they can just wish God away then they wont ever have to deal with Him..

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And what if it is you who is wrong?

noway2 said:

And what if it is you who is wrong?

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Well I am not but lets play on that. If I am wrong then I die and just rot like a tree in the ground. I lived a good life. I had a basis for morality above my own. I had peace of mind in my beliefs so I suffered not either here or eternity. Now lets play this the other way and suppose a person does not believe and is wrong. That means they get that big uh-oh feeling knowing they face judgemen and they have no recourse. Eternity is a long long long time to be wrong and suffer for it. I truly do believe in my heart and that means I have nothing to fear in either way

Mathieu18 said:

I’m going to have to check this out, thanks.

Also, I may be mistaken but I believe @noway2 is of a religion that doesn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God, not that he’s indifferent or atheist. Or maybe he is, but still.

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My wife was brought up in a religion that did not believe in Jesus being God in the flesh. She now does not feel that way. She was studying in her book and found contradictions in what they teach. When she sought answers to the questions she had they pretty much told her to accept whatever they tell her and do not do any independent study on the matter or they would make life hard on her. That was all she needed to hear and she was done with it all.

DannyStayzHome said:

That means they get that big uh-oh feeling knowing they face judgemen and they have no recourse. Eternity is a long long long time to be wrong and suffer for it. I truly do believe in my heart and that means I have nothing to fear in either way.

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I don’t believe in the concept of original sin and hence don’t need to be “saved”. Likewise, I don’t believe in judgment upon death, at least in the that I believe you do. Either way, I have no fear of what waits beyond.

Also, as your NT has been mentioned a few times, how do you reconcile the vengeful war god of the OT, who also makes it clear that people like me (and probably most here) are NOT his people with the NT concept of the loving all father? I find it hard to believe that both are correct.

Mathieu18 said:

Also, I may be mistaken but I believe @noway2 is of a religion that doesn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God, not that he’s indifferent or atheist. Or maybe he is, but still.

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You are correct. I am not an atheist (or agnostic) but I do not believe Jesus was the son of god. I believe in god, but not in the way most here do.

noway2 said:

I don’t believe in the concept of original sin and hence don’t need to be “saved”. Likewise, I don’t believe in judgment upon death, at least in the that I believe you do. Either way, I have no fear of what waits beyond.

Also, as your NT has been mentioned a few times, how do you reconcile the vengeful war god of the OT, who also makes it clear that people like me (and probably most here) are NOT his people with the NT concept of the loving all father? I find it hard to believe that both are correct.

You are correct. I am not an atheist (or agnostic) but I do not believe Jesus was the son of god. I believe in god, but not in the way most here do.

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Man you ask great questions and you are on one of my favorite subjects. I hope it is ok to carry this discussion out with the moderators and staff here as I did not come here to wage a ministry but I am more than happy to discuss it especially with respectable people such as you. Let me try to be brief and share my beliefs. 1. There has to be sin. If there was not sin who gets to decide what is right and wrong? What would divide Gods people from those who follow evil? example. You believe that your property belongs to you because you worked for it. The bum down the street thinks what you have should be his free and clear He comes to your house and takes your stuff. Is he wrong? If he is wrong that is sin Sin is simply doing wrong. Who decides what is wrong, you or your neighbor? You see there has to be guidelines and those guidelines define sin.
The "God of War" of the Old Testament, who was he warring against and why? Who were those evil peoples and what raised Gods anger? God never said He does not get angry. His patience is long but his anger is terrible when kindled. That is why I attempt to stay on His good side.
I mean this with all respect but I think you look at the Bible as the world has taught. We are all Gods people. Those Jews who were Gods chosed rejected Jesus and therefore the world was offered redemption. God loves you and I just as much as He loves the Jews. Jesus did not die for the Jews alone because they rejected Him. If you read the Book of Peter it clearly says that God told Peter not to call anything He created unclean. This not only meant food but it meant the people of the Earth as well..
I am available in private message at any time to chat with you. I am available here as well as long as it is ok with the powers that be here.. I promise to respect you and listen with an open ear. May you be blessed with wisdom and understanding

@DannyStayzHome it's getting late, and I'm getting tired, so I am going to bow out of this thread for now as it deserves more thought and energy than I can devote right now.

I will however share a link to a subject that I admit I don't fully understand, but it discusses the concept of authority and by extension sin. I believe you will find it interesting. It says something along the lines of, say for example, your father was a pedophile (sin) and hence wrong in his "authority" over you that you go back to the ways of your grandfather or even father, all the way back, if necessary.

Like I said, I don't fully understand it.

noway2 said:

And what if it is you who is wrong?

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I think the wise course of action is to always be searching and learning. And maybe be willing to accept the fact someday your beliefs may be proven wrong, it’s good for all sides and all people IMO. I have opinions, thoughts and ideas, but really know nothing.

There is a doctor from Wilmington N.C named Greg Viehman. His wife was a Christian and he was a man of science and medicine. Religion really got under his skin. He sat out to prove that Jesus and the Bible and God were not real. He did a thorough historical research project on it. He tried to prove it wrong every way he could. What he ended up doing was proving to himself that it was real. He has a book that he will give away if someone simply contacts him called The God Diagnosis. They sell it on Amazon as well but he does not let money stand in the way of getting a book. He does some outstanding lectures at churches free of charge. He allows the church to take up an offering to defray his expenses but he does not let money stop him from speaking and getting books out to people. He will speak at your church or any decent event. He also does a lecture on The Crucifixion and the physical aspects of what it meant to the human body. He has authentic items that were used by the Romans in this horrible death sentence. Anyone that needs help I am willing to show you how to contact him.

noway2 said:

@DannyStayzHome it's getting late, and I'm getting tired, so I am going to bow out of this thread for now as it deserves more thought and energy than I can devote right now.

I will however share a link to a subject that I admit I don't fully understand, but it discusses the concept of authority and by extension sin. I believe you will find it interesting. It says something along the lines of, say for example, your father was a pedophile (sin) and hence wrong in his "authority" over you that you go back to the ways of your grandfather or even father, all the way back, if necessary.

Like I said, I don't fully understand it.

Where Do Pagans Get Their Authority?

A Quick and Dirty Guide to the Ancestral Principle

imperiumpress.substack.com

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One must keep in mind that paganism is absolutely against everything about God.

Ever feel like forum posts are telling you what you NEED to hear, when you need to hear it?

Mathieu18 said:

Ever feel like forum posts are telling you what you NEED to hear, when you need to hear it?

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Only in the smoking threads. 🤣

DannyStayzHome said:

One must keep in mind that paganism is absolutely against everything about God.

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Please set that aside, for now, and check out the article / blog. It’s not a treatise on paganism as much as a discussion of different views on the origins of authority, including that of liberalism (classic and current), pagan, and Abrahamic. As I said, I don’t fully understand the subject, or the point he’s driving towards, but it’s interesting philosophically.

Here’s a piece ftom it:

If you look a little deeper, you find that people justify by pointing to authority. If you’re in perfect agreement with modern liberalism, this is easy—you just point to who’s in charge and say “might is right”. For anyone else, pointing to authority involves what we have called the ancestral principle. The idea is that you point to whatever it was that made everything great possible. For Steven Pinker, everything great is basically science, and what made it possible is the Enlightenment. For the Christian, everything great is basically the West, and what made it possible is Christianity.

If we were to formalize the ancestral principle, we would say that authorship is authority. What makes X authoritative over Y is that X is the father of Y. This is the deepest layer of Abrahamic morality, as we find in the book of Job. After Yahweh whoops Job just to prove a point to Satan, Job finally stands up and calls out Yahweh. Job gets an answer he didn’t expect. Instead of giving… well, any reason at all, Yahweh tells Job to shut up and stop asking questions. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?” Yahweh is the boss of Job because without Yahweh, there is no Job.

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noway2 said:

Please set that aside, for now, and check out the article / blog. It’s not a treatise on paganism as much as a discussion of different views on the origins of authority, including that of liberalism (classic and current), pagan, and Abrahamic. As I said, I don’t fully understand the subject, or the point he’s driving towards, but it’s interesting philosophically.

Here’s a piece ftom it:

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When it comes to Bible study, and discussions with non-believers there is a term called "cherry picking". What that means is they take a general idea or teaching that is presented over the expanse of a chapter or even an entire book of The Bible. They pull one verse or sentence out and come up with an idea of the meaning of that verse that goes against the entire expanse of the entire subject. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is an example. People use that as justification for revenge. They leave out the rest of it that says "but vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord". Those that present that idea of the conversation between God and Job are doing the same thing. They do not read or state the entire book just those couple of verses. The idea presented there was that Job was questioning God in a disrespectful manner and God pretty much asked him who he though he was and to remember who he was dealing with there. Parents used to raise kids and demand they be respectful even if disagreeing or questioning their authority. In todays terms I see God was saying to Job "watch your tone". Funny how the world always somehow leaves that out.

Jesus is the only hope for this world, and your soul.

About to go to my daughter's house to play cards and dominoes. So, instead of entering into this branch of this thread, I will just say that I am very thankful for @noway2 who have consistently been willing to voice alt-opinions in here on a variety of topics with deference and respect. When you are dealing with questions about ABSOLUTE issue (nothing much more absolute than "what is the nature of the cosmos and its origins?") then it is common to have contrasting ideas create an atmosphere of hostility. I feel "safer" here in this forum than any online discussion arena I have been in, and, as you might guess, I have been in a ton of them over the years.

So, congrats is in order to a number of guys here.

Thanks. --Tans

MacEntyre said:

So many people, including my son, rationalize the history of Jesus. They don't realize that there are only two positions one can take: either you believe He lied, or you believe He is Lord.

Those that call Him a great teacher but don't believe He is Lord are ignoring that He said many things that they think are not true.

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Well, he might have believed he was God, and really wasn't, in which case he was a lunatic insane. That is a logical possibility, although one I cannot buy into for other reasons (later, if you wanna hear them).

Interestingly enough, this famous "apologetic" of a "trilemma" -- Liar, Lunatic, or Lord (Josh McDowell ripped it off from CS Lewis, who got it from Chesterson) was actually first presented by a skeptic. Albert Schweitzer (yeah, THAT Schweitzer!) wrote a famous book called The Quest of the Historical Jesus, where he grasped the truth that the liberal desire to make Jesus a historical figure who was a "good teacher" but not God was simply impossible. His conclusion was that Jesus died a deluded religious fanatic, and "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" was not a cry of God under his own curse of sin, but the wails of a frustrated man who saw himself as throwing himself into the gap of history to "force" God to come and change things, and instead died an utter failure.

One of the things you see right away when diving into history of thought is that most of the good thoughts have already been thunk, and you are just figuring out which stream of thought makes the most sense. It is kind of humbling to realize how stupid I am when missing the obvious .

@DannyStayzHome I am not familiar enough with your scriptures to “cherry pick” them, however I believe @tanstaafl72555 is correct when he says they need to be taken as a whole in their entirety, which is both difficult and something few do.

I think we may also have a bit of misunderstanding each other, which makes sense as we’re coming at various texts and treatises from wildly different perspectives and positions. However, as I read the passage I linked to a few times an interesting thought did occur to me regarding the concept of “authority”. I am going to make an assumption, based upon the many comments I’ve read in multiple venues by Christians about submitting to your lord as believing that your god is the ultimate authority and by extension your scriptures which you believe to be the word of god. More on this in a second.

Before I connect the dots that are in my head, in recent years there has been a revival of sorts of people looking to relearn and go back to the old ways of their ancestors, which varies according to geographic regions, but is largely what I will call greater Germanic and Scandinavian areas. This can be seen in the subjects like Odinism and Asatru. These are very different than the new age paganism with a sprinkle of this and a dash of that, but instead go back to the concept of the origin of authority being the gods. In this case, however, the gods are not the same as the Abrahamic one.

Back to the point of authority, in the case of the Odinist, the “authority” is that of our ancestors and our ancestral gods, much like the Christian believes the ultimate authority is the Christian god.

To make a comment on paganism, including Odinism, you are correct in that, “paganism is absolutely against everything about God“, but not in the way I frequently see Christians refer to it. It is NOT Satanism or satanic; it isn’t even defined in terms of the Abrahamic view, though the Jews do refer to the pagan gods as demons and in doing so at least recognize their existence. Also, the existence of one does not preclude the existence of the other. As I have said in this thread or another, I am not Jewish, my ancestry is mostly Germanic, and I choose to follow my ancestral gods rather than that of a sect of Judaism and pointing to the NT (a rewrite hundreds (?) of years later in a different language Greek rather than Hebrew) saying that yours is now the one true god of everyone doesn’t make the sale for me.

What the Odinist doesn’t have, that you do, is both the volumes of written history and a large social connection, though the latter is changing. While there are a few poetic edas, e.g. Beowulf, and other documents like the Codex Oera Linda that delve into the concepts of law in those early societies prior to the invasion by Rome it still remains a very folkish system; very opposite that of Christianity. It leaves the people who choose to follow it having to interpret and intuit it for themselves, much like our ancestors originally did.