Religion or Science - How do they compare?

So you're agreeing with me? Yes. We've already done that.

I quote John 8:44 but of course, you will say that it is altered marketing. There is no winning with you.

And I can quote Genesis 2&3.The point Phat is that the Bible is as it should be, inconsistent, contradictory and filled with factual errors. What is left is the God(s) that humans create, whether the author of John or the author of Genesis 2&3.When you make statements like God does not lie or Satan does not tell the truth you are worshiping the God you create.

I thing that struck me about Rutledge's book was not about correct doctrine at all. All Christians come to their own conclusions about the nature of God and what it means to our lives and how we should live them. Doctrine is interesting but what is primary is how we allow whatever doctrine we choose to shape our hearts and through that our lives.What really struck me about the book was the answer to a question somebody asked recently at a study which was 'why does Paul go on about not being ashamed to preach a crucified messiah'. This book very much painted a picture of not only the horrendous suffering involved in dying in that manner, but the the humiliation and shame of it.One of the reasons for crucifixion was to absolutely shame and humiliate the person being crucified. A Roman citizen could not being crucified and it was only done to the lowest members of society. The individual would be stripped naked, nailed or hung on a cross, and would be subject to having both stones and taunts thrown at them. It was designed to dehumanize people. The idea of a crucified messiah was absolutely scandalous to Jews and ridiculous to Gentiles. In spite of this Paul goes on at great personal cost to himself preaching a crucified messiah.It obviously took something very powerful to convince the early Christians, (even before they were called that), that there was a reason to claim that Jesus really was the Messiah even though He had been thoroughly discredited by the fact that He had been crucified. Their claim was that the reason was the resurrection, and from what I read that is the only sensible explanation for the rise of the Christian faith.

I don't want to diminish her presentation of the cross as instrument of humiliation and degradation and shame as well as torture because it sounds like she did a good job of it, but I get the impression she's just discovered it, or those in her theological camp haven't been aware of it and need her to bring it to their attention, although it is biblical and preached on quite a bit in my theological camp..

The obvious answer is because he failed. He wasn't the messia. That why the Jews are still waiting. It's why the ressurection story had to be invented and why it's now so important for Christians.The simple facts are that a man was killed, stayed killed and the claims he made about a second coming didn't happen. The whole thing failed. Hence Paul's shame - he was flat out wrong but had to carry on with the claim.He's was just doing what Faith does now believing something despite the evidence and spinning stories to make it fit the belief.

What facts?

I haven't noticed a second coming, have you?

GDR is right: Paul mentions shame because crucifixion was such a shameful way to die and both the Jews and the Greeks considered the whole idea of a dying Messiah to be absurd.The idea that the disciples made any of this up is even more absurd since they were quite intimidated by Jesus' death and stayed secluded for fear until Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, and then they knew the truth about His death and resurrection, after which they boldly proclaimed it.The Second Coming, by the way, is still future, but a lot of us feel it can't be very far off. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Just another weak story invented to cover up the fact that the 'god' was afterall simply mortal. And that the prophecies failed and remain failed. It's very obvious from the bible itself that Jesus's followers expected the second coming pretty immediately. Didn't happen and people like you have been forecasting it to be 'soon' for 2,000 years. Hasn't happened, won't happen. It's just a bedtime story Faith.GDR loves CS Lewis. He's as big a fraud as the rest of the apologists but he at least got this right.

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Say what you like, we shall be told, the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.

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It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.

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C.S. Lewis, "The World's Last Night" (1960)

I suppose you believe the lie that His body was stolen out of the tomb too?I suspect you left out the rest of C. S. Lewis' statement since you only quoted what he paraphrased of what the debunkers say.

I don't believe a word of the entire story, it's just a story. You can very easily find it if you want to.He goes on to say that Jesus - even though he said the second coming would be within the lifetimes of the people listening - was also unable to say exactly what particular day in their lifetime the big event would happen, and because he can't do this it's strong evidence that it's true! It's hilarious stuff.

quote:

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Say what you like, we shall be told, the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.

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It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.

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Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt. Unless the reporter were perfectly honest he would never have recorded the confession of ignorance at all; he could have had no motive for doing so except a desire to tell the whole truth. And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken prediction about this generation after the passage of time had shown the (apparent) mistake. This passage (Mark 13:30-32) and the cry Why hast thou forsaken me? (Mark 15:34) together make up the strongest proof that the New Testament is historically reliable. The evangelists have the first great characteristic of honest witnesses: they mention facts which are, at first sight, damaging to their main contention.

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Firstly that wasn't the point of my statement. The idea that a crucified would be dreamed up by any Jew at the time, let alone Paul, is ridiculous. It was so shameful that Paul has to address the issue by starting off saying that he wasn't ashamed to preach a crucified messiah.You will no doubt argue against this but there are so many things in the NT that it makes no sense for us now to believe that the writers didn't believe the accounts to be true. No Jew would concoct a story about a crucified messiah.In addition to that we have people sacrificing their lives for this belief right from the beginning. Paul himself spent the bulk of the rest of his life suffering long stretches of imprisonment, numerous beatings and eventually death to support his beliefs.You can say that they were somehow mistaken as to what happened but it is nonsense to contend that they just made the whole thing up. Sure there are inconsistencies in the story and no doubt there are embellishments and biases influencing their accounts but obviously they believed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

You can't assume that nobody "would" make up such a thing so it must be true. You might as well say that nobody "would" climb Mount Everest or go to the ISS if he/she was afraid of heights. You don't have the data to back up that assumption. So did the Mormons. It seem to me that it's your assumptions that are nonsense.

That wasn't my point. My point was that they believed it to be true which does not make it true. Whether it is actually true or not is a different discussion. .. and obviously they also believed in what they died for.