I want to be convinced - an experiment

Truthlover, it looks like I accidentally adited this message of you! How is it possible that I can edit a message by someone else??? Anyway, I have replied to the content that used to be in this message... Sorry![This message has been edited by Sarde, 03-05-2004]{This glitch has been reported to Percy - Adminnemooseus, 3/6/04}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-06-2004]{Test, test, test - minnemooseus}[This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 03-06-2004]

Just some initial thoughts. There's an awful lot on that web page, can we narrow the subject down a little?Two, are you running on the assumption that if the Bible can be proven inerrant, then Christianity is disproven? I don't believe the Bible is inerrant. Heck, I'm certain that six million people didn't cross the Sinai desert any time during the 2nd millennium BC, and I would acknowledge the possibility (only the possibility) that there was no Exodus at all. There's something neat to me about the progression seen in the reports in Kings and Chronicles about the census David took, where one attributes the motivation for the census to God and the later one attributes the motivation to satan, showing signs of the later influence of Babylonian theology.However, I'm a believer, and a pretty radical one at that.Your 2nd web site gives a main premise, that the major claims of Christianity are demonstrably untrue and that it has brought more harm than good to the world.My response to the main premise is that the major claim of Christianity is that Jesus Christ was an exceptional being, God's Son, who came to earth to raise up a people who would all receive a Spirit from God, and that this Spirit would cause them to live an extraordinary life of unity, joy, in daily awe of the power of God.I do not believe that this is demonstrably untrue, but that it has happened repeatedly throughout the last 2,000 years, and that those who will abandon everything for the life that Jesus sends from heaven live with the daily attention and intervention of God.In response to the second part of his premise, I agree completely that Christianity has done far more harm than good throughout history. In fact, it is significant that the reign of Christianity in Europe is called the Dark Ages and that deliverance from that reign is called either "The Enlightenment" or "The Rebirth (Renaissance)."Christianity, in my opinion, is that ridiculous religion that formed when people were asked or encouraged by the government to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ, causing about 90% of the population to become "Christian."Since the real faith of Jesus Christ is one in which a person abandons everything and everyone to become a disciple, and in return God gives his Spirit to that person, creating a whole new life of unity, joy, and love inside of the community of disciples, the Christianity described above, where everyone (almost) is Christian, has nothing whatsoever to do with the faith of Christ. Of course it's terrible. All religion in power is terrible.Almost all Christianity seen in the Western world is the offspring of the Christianity that produced the Dark Ages. Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the rest of the Protestants all required a Christian societ, governmentally enforced, every bit as much as the Catholics, which is why they got the same awful results the Roman Catholics got.I have read the histories written by Eusebius (AD 323) and Socrates (AD, uh, 380 or so, I'm pretty sure). There is no comparison between the two. The former is an account of mostly spiritual men and the latter is an account of bloodshed, intrigue, deceit, and revolution that would make a great series of R-rated adventure movies. The difference between the two histories is in one, Christianity is men giving up everything to gain God's Spirit, and in the other, Christianity is the story of a Christian society.I assert that where men have believed in Christ as the provider of a Spirit in return for giving up everything, and where they have done that together, an impressive society of people has risen up every time. This is not true where men have believed in Christ as the provider of a book or of mere teachings, nor where the Government has tried to enforce its ideas on Christ's teachings.That's my response to his main points.

Here's a further response. I'll try to keep it short.The Jesus page on that 2nd site says there's no proof about Jesus' historicity. It suggests that the Gospels were too late to be certain proof. I agree that they're too late to be certain proof.This doesn't make their history wrong!My argument for the historicity of Jesus is that those who believe in him have effectively received the Spirit of God and created incredibly beautiful societies.One addition, I started following the page rejecting the authorship of Mark. I have to read more, as I would be prone to defending Markan authorship, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to do that. I did have time already to look at Mark's supposed lack of knowledge of Palestinian geography, and I didn't know what to think. I only have an NKJV at work, and it's Mark 7:31 doesn't read anything like the reference on that web site. The site says Mark describes a trip from Tyre to Galilee through Sidon, but my Mark 7:31 says nothing remotely like that. It says Jesus went from the region of Tyre and Sidon through the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.The other geographical problem is that Mark has the pigs drowning fifty miles (I think I heard 30 from Brian on this site) from the Sea of Galilee. Fine, but I don't think you can argue that Mark, a resident of the Jerusalem area who is said to have gone to Rome and Alexandria, had to know that the site was that far from the Sea of Galilee if that's how he heard the story. This was 2000 years ago, remember, and assuming that Mark had a good map and was familiar with the area east of the Jordan is not a trustworthy assumption, in my opinion.More later, when I have time, and especially if you can clarify an area to focus on. That site covers everything!

Later today I'll get a chance to look at the specific things you mentioned. Thanks for narrowing it down. A couple comments now so that any post later can be shorter! I will read those specifically, and I will stick to those. I didn't make up that main point thing, though. He has a button top and center on the home page that says "Central Thesis." If you click on it, it says the central thesis is "The major claims of Christianity are demonstrably untrue and, on balance, it has brought more harm than good to the world."Since I wasn't sure where to start, I figured it was safe to start there. My mistake. This was in reference to my Mark 7:31 reading differently than the web site. I should have been clearer. Let me add this to help.The King James Version was first put out in 1611. Not surprisingly, they only had a few manuscripts to work with back then. We have many more now. As a result, more modern translations read differently in a lot of places, most pretty minor, some major. The modern translations tend to agree with each other, because they'll base their translation on some well-researched composite text such as Nestle's 26th edition of the Greek NT (sorry if I got the name or edition wrong).That's why I mentioned I only have an NKJV here. It's based on the KJV text, and maybe the person who did your Rejecting Pascal's Wager site is using updated texts and figures his are better. On the other hand, it is really, really sloppy to make that kind of charge and not mention that some texts don't agree with your reading. It doesn't make me think that site is very scholarly.In fact, he mentions that the KJV is one of the versions used on his web site. You'd think he would mention that if the KJV reading is correct, then he has no argument. He should then present reasons why his reading MUST be the correct one, because rejecting Markan authorship on a POSSIBLE reading doesn't seem right to me.I just checked a friend's Complete Jewish Bible, and its Mark 7:31 does indeed read as the web site reads. I wondered about that, too. It doesn't say they drowned in the Sea of Galilee, but your web site points out that "there is not even a hint of any lake nearby." I went over this with Brian on this site once, and Brian's generally pretty reliable in his research. I question his interpretations some time, but if there was a lake nearby or if someone even said there was, Brian would have found it. LOL. I hope I can explain to you why this tickles my funny bone so much. What you're saying here I think is definitely true, and it's funny that Christians would even try to deny it.I'm not impressed with American Christianity. Like I mentioned yesterday, almost all American Christianity is descended from that government-enforced Christianity that produced the Dark Ages.American Christians, at least fundamentalists, act like there's these clear prophecies and that Jesus came along and fulfilled them in a clear way. That's crazy, and there's a time when no one even claimed that.Yes, the early Christians claimed that Yeshua (I'm going to quit using Jesus here, as you know who I'm talking about, and I'm used to referring to him as Yeshua) fulfilled prophecies, but they were not the kind of people to be real literal in the way they read Scripture.Take the prophecy of the virgin birth, for instance, from Isaiah 7. The early Christians were aware that the Hebrew of that passage said "young woman," not "virgin." They were also aware that there's a context to that passage that involved King Ahaz several hundred years earlier. They had no qualms, however, about yanking it out of context and then claiming that their Greek translation was divinely inspired--God changing it to virgin on purpose. (Actually, Justin Martyr claimed that the Jews changed their Hebrew version to young woman in order to refute the Christians--not a valid charge, of course.)If you read through the prophecies in the writings of the early church, you'll see how non-literal they tended to be. Hebrews in the Bible is a great example (it's a lot like the writings of the later fathers, in the way it feels, in my opinion). He pulls out stuff about Melchizedek, and he takes God's statement to Solomon that Solomon would be a son to God and makes it a prophecy about Christ.I don't object to this. We ourselves, at the village I'm a part of, apply a story about Jacob on his way to Laban as a prophecy, because of some incredible coincidences between the story and a major experience in our lives. It's completely out of context, but we believe the Scriptures are spiritual. No, it's not unreasonable, but here's why I am a "Christian," if as a disciple of Christ I should be so designated. Jesus' claim to fame, according to the Gospels, is not that he fulfilled prophecy. He claimed that he could deliver people from selfishness and bind them into a unit held together by love (Jn 13:35, 17:20-23).Therefore, what better thing should I offer as proof of the veracity of Christ's message than a people, growing out of selfishness into a family held together by love?Justin Martyr once offered the same proof to the emperor of Rome. "We who used to hate and war with one another now share the same hearth." Tertullian, fifty years later, offered the same, "We share everything except our wives." Origen, another thirty years later, pointed to the same thing, "I would happily compare the worst ten people in our society with the best ten people in yours" (that last one's a paraphrase).I think the societies formed when the Spirit of God comes are extraordinary enough to make supernatural intervention easily believable.If other religions are doing this, more power to them! If Gandhi's ashrams were like the village I live in, then all hail the power of Gandhi's truth!All I know is that Yeshua promised a Spirit that could knit people together into a family, and--with awe and amazement--I have watched it happen. It looks convincingly spiritual to me.

I'm only having short bits and pieces of time to read. A couple general notes from the parts of the site you mentioned. There's a problem with all his complaints about the use of the Septuagint, whether by Mark or by Luke, and that's in the assumption that "the Hebrew" differs. What is "the Hebrew"? The earliest manuscripts available that match the currently popular Masoretic text belong to the 9th century. The Dead Sea Scrolls have a copy of Jeremiah that differs from "the Hebrew" by seven whole chapters! The Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah is a third text type that matches neither the Septuagint nor "the Hebrew."The Septuagint was translated from "the Hebrew." It was tranlated from a Hebrew text 1000 years older (and thus a better testimony to the original) than the current "Hebrew," the Masoretic text. Where James is quoted it is right to say James wouldn't have quoted the Septuagint, but it is not accurate to say that James' Hebrew text didn't match or nearly match the Septuagint, because there's argument over a lot of the Hebrew text from the 1st century.The site also says: In my opinion, this is typical of the abundant presumption that marks that web site. Paul cannot have spoken this way??? And why not?I believe I know people a lot like Paul. I have read histories of people I consider a lot like Paul (George Fox, Jim Elliott, Felix Manz, and on and on). It is very difficult to predict what a man of God will do. This statement, that because the actual inscription was "unknown gods" rather than "unknown god" does not in any way disprove the story. If Paul would have leap-frogged from an "unknown god" inscription, he most certainly would have leap-frogged from an "unknown gods" inscription, saying that he was speaking of one of the unknown gods.Presumption, presumption.One of his other anachronistic examples is Luke's use of Gamaliel, giving a speech about an uprising that didn't happen till AD 44. Well, great. Luke couldn't have written Acts till at least around AD 60, so he's writing about a speech that happened 3 decades earlier. So what if that speech isn't recorded accurately? So what if that speech never happened! Luke says Gamaliel had been a teacher of Paul's, so maybe he added that 30-year-old detail to his story so as not to include Gamaliel among the opposing Pharisees.He accuses Luke of making up the actual speeches given in Acts. Wow! What a surprise! Short speeches that happened anywhere from 25 to 15 years earlier were made up by the author! Be still, my beating heart!Luke's telling a story, and it seems to me that considering the timing and circumstances of that story, of course he didn't have any of the speeches remembered word for word, so therefore they're all in his own wording. He's trying to tell us that he's telling the story the best that he can reconstruct it, and I see nothing here that gives me reason to doubt that.Of course, there are the massive contradictions between Galatians 2 and Paul's conversion in Acts, but we can address that later. I think Acts is just wrong ( ), bad memory by Luke or something.Finally, I have one large point to make, so I want to put it in a new post.

That web site has a section headed: I agree that there are massive contradictions between Jesus' teachings and Martin Luther's teachings. I believe there are massive contradictions between Jesus' teachings and Protestant teachings. I do not believe that there are massive contradictions between Jesus' teachings and Paul's, and I don't believe even one of that web sites' examples are accurate.Let me grant the argument to those who would argue that Jesus' words would have been filtered by the time we got them. The Gospels were not written down until AD 60, at least 30 years after Jesus' spoke the words, and after Paul had already had great influence. Surely Paul's teachings, and the evolution of church life, would have affected the writers of the Gospels. I acknowledge this almost has to be true.All the more reason that the contradictions between Jesus and Paul are imaginary, based more on Martin Luther's interpretations than on anything Paul actually said. Paul taught the necessity of good works as much as anyone did. See my post on Paul and James for more information on this.Now to some specifics.Referring to Matt 8:25-34, that site says: Excuse me? It's message is obvious? I have been reading the Bible, books about the Bible, the early fathers, books about the fathers, and church history books for about 20 years and I have never heard anyone suggest before that Jesus wanted all his followers to quit working for a living. I realize I haven't read everything, and I've missed a lot of liberal scholarship (which I now wish I hadn't), but it is not "obvious" that Yeshua wanted his followers to quit working for a living. His apostles, yes, but everyone? No way.If he did, then you're right, we should throw Christianity out at the outset, because Jesus was wrong. His non-working followers would have starved or become beggars.But think about this. These anonymous authors of the Gospel, writing AD 60 and maybe later, wrote down that Yeshua wanted all his followers to quit working? And they wrote this down while at least thousands and maybe tens of thousands of Christians were out there working for a living?No way. Uh, huh. I see, and Jesus had, what, six male apostles and six female? Paul commended Phoebe to the church at Rome as a "fellow worker." Show me some evidence that Yeshua sent any women out as teachers?A verse here and a verse there can be construed however you want to construe it. Paul referred to women in very positive ways quite a lot, and to pull out one sentence in Corinthians as proof that Paul was more negative towards women than Yeshua is not honest.Even if Yeshua had been more open to women than Paul, what does that prove as far as contradictions? It would only prove that Paul was not as open-minded or maybe not as godly as Yeshua. That would hardly have been a surprise. But like I said, he wasn't less open to women. That's imaginary. This is a passage by Jesus about the law.One, I think the faith of Yeshua is supposed to change. It's supposed to grow, and it's supposed to adapt some to its audience. God wants righteousness, and righteousness will vary from culture to culture. Paul's audience was Gentiles, and Yeshua's, at that time, was Jews. Their approach to the law is supposed to differ...some.The difference is exaggerated, however.Here's a crucial part of that passage: Notice the phrase "fulfil them." In Greek it is quite a different word from "is accomplished," which is at the end of the passage I just quoted. "Is accomplished" is "genoito," which means to happen or to come to pass, as in fulfilled prophecy. So, the least stroke of the Low will not end until all of it comes to pass, as in prophecy. Paul believed the point of the Law had been fulfilled in that way in Christ.The other word "fulfilled" is "pleroo." It means to expand or bring to fulness. Irenaeus, a Greek speaker, had a very interesting explanation of what that means, which fits beautifully into the context of Matthew 5. Yeshua came to take the Law in its flat, empty form and blow life into it, blowing it up as one would a balloon (one meaning of pleroo, according to Irenaeus, a Greek speaker).So Yeshua says he came to "blow up" or "expand" the law, and then what does he say? He begins a long list of "You have heard it said, but I say..." He changes law after law after law. Some of them, in his "expanding" he completely contradicts. For example, "You have heard it said" that you should make oaths and fulfill them, "but I say" that you shouldn't make any oaths at all! Two of the laws he "expands" are among the ten commandments.Paul was the same. In First Corithians 9, he says, "But what does the law say?" He then quotes the law that says that one shouldn't muzzle an ox as it treads out corn. Paul then "expands" it. He says that God doesn't care about oxen, but that was said so that men would know that those who work in the Gospel should have the right to live from it (a right Paul did not use).Yeshua violated the law every bit as much as Paul did. Both of them seem contradictory to us looking back. Yeshua tells the people to obey the Pharisees, because they occupy the seat of Moses, but then he tells them to ignore the Pharisees when they teach the commandments of men in opposition to the commands of God. Paul quotes the law (just referenced), says Yeshua is the end of the law, but also offers sacrifices to prove that he upholds the law (Acts 21).Hey, the law was a difficult thing. The council of Jerusalem was held just to address it, and they decided that the Jews and Gentiles could have different obligations put on them.But after the council decided that, now web sites want to accuse Paul of contradictions when he tells Gentiles they can be saved apart from the law, but he himself keeps the law, takes Nazarite vows, and goes to the feasts.It's not contradictions here, it is what to do with the Law when it reached the Gentiles. Paul had the help of James and Peter and the elders in Jerusalem in that decision. The Gentiles don't have to keep the law. Why blame Paul for contradictions when he tells the Gentiles why they don't?Remember, Yeshua was quite prone to praising Centurions and Syro-Phoenician women as great people of faith, yet neither the centurion nor that woman were keepers of the Law.This is long enough. I don't want to go on. I think my case that those contradictions are manufactured is very, very solid.How am I doing so far?

One more quick thing: Here he admits my reconciliation of Paul and Matthew works "albeit rather uneasily." I don't think it's uneasily. In what way does he say "twisted out of all context." Has he not read Matthew 5? It's not twisted out of context. Look how Yeshua applied it himself in the verses immediately following Matt 5:20! He started going beyond the law and making it superfluous. Do you have a better description of Matt 5:21 forward?Shoot, Yeshua even says, there in Matt 5, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you shall not see the kingdom of heaven" (quoted from memory). How much clearer does the context have to be?And please, please, don't anyone suggest Paul's stringent requirements for holiness somehow were less than those of Matt 5.Personally, I think Matt 5 and Paul's letters match way better than could even be expected considering their different audience. Folks are welcome to use that as proof that Matthew has been "paulinized," but there is no contradiction there.

Gosh, I keep forgetting how different my mindset is from Christianity around me. I forget to make one really major issue clear.I don't believe the faith of Christ has a whole heck of a lot to do with individuals. It does have to do with individuals, but the message of Christ and of the apostles has the purpose of creating the church, which is Yeshua's body and the dwelling place of God. Without a people, a society, then the things Yeshua himself listed as proof of his ministry become impossible. His proofs were that his disciples would be known by their love for one another and that his own messiahship would be known by the unity of the disciples that would be as great as the unity he had with his Father (Jn 17:20-23).If you're looking for something to fulfill your life better as a person, then I recommend trying everything and sticking with whatever works for you. I don't think Christianity has worked very well for too many people.I thought you were asking why the message of Christ might be true, and so my answer reflected that. Yeshua isn't interested in improving your life. He's interested in ending your life and making you part of his, and his attention is to his bride, the church.

1.6, I just noticed your message (though I must have read it already--brain damage of some sort, I'm sure). I've sort of addressed it already, but I wanted to reply directly. I don't see that a "reason" and facts or evidence have to be different. Surely every "good" reason is based on some sort of evidence. More to follow. Follows a term he used. If he's dead, it no longer applies. If he's alive and on earth, even spirutally, then one can still follow him, and the "reasons" are what we've been discussing in this thread. Not just no, but hell no. This has always sounded insane to me. I don't have a clue why anyone would do this.Y'shua said, "You will know a prophet by his fruit." He never said just believe, and I would ignore anyone who said, "Just believe, because I said so." Show me some good reason--i.e., evidence--that you're trustworthy and believable, and I will believe.Faith, I guess, can occasionally mean believing without facts, but only because evidence have already shown that the person you're believing is trustworthy. "Factual evidence" and "scientifically verifiable" are not the same thing. Court cases go on all the time, and they accept what science would call anecdotes, which science cannot accept. There are some things that are evidence--lame or not so lame--that science cannot accept, because it is not falsifiable or repeatable. If five people swear that they saw a ghost appear in their living room, science would pretty much ignore that evidence, because it has nothing to do with evidence. A judge would not ignore such evidence.If there's no evidence for a religion, one should ignore it. The fact that a religion works--that it produces what it claims it can produce, is evidence for that religion. If you are after continual peace, and Buddhism claims it can provide that, and you can look around and see that it does provide that to all or most of its followers, then you ought to become a Buddhist, at least until something better comes along.That's evidence, and there ought to be some evidence. The faith of Christ, according to the Bible, has always offered success in producing love and unity or miraculous power to a greater or lesser extent as its evidence. It never asks for a blind faith that requires no evidence. If Christianity can't produce unity and love--an unusual unity and love that is remarkable even to the world--then there are only two possibilities: one, Y'shua isn't the Christ Christianity claims he is, or two, Christianity is not the religion he started, and his followers are found elsewhere.

I've been to a couple services in Holland. Really interesting for an American. There were a couple baptisms, and the pastor said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" in four languages. I think the languages were English, Dutch, German, and Spanish. Apparently, they had several Spanish-speakers in the congregation.They had little radio translators you could pick up at a desk so that you could get a sermon translation in your language of choice. I didn't use one, because my German was pretty good at the time, and it helped me pick up a lot of the Dutch being preached. I was with a Surinamian lady, and she was fluent in Dutch, of course, so she made sure I at least had the gist of the sermon.It was real fun singing the songs that were in "Sranang Tonge" (sp?). "Mi wana waka foe Jesu" and "Jesu de da winiman" almost made me burst out laughing, because I'd never really experienced a mixed, pidgeon language like that before.

Anyone can do this, regardless of religion, but I think Crash is saying some scholars manage to avoid this. Philosophy arguments are incredibly difficult. I've read some philosophy, and it was overwhelming. Both sides easily convinced me, depending on which I was reading at the time. I felt stupid reading some of them, and I'm not dumb--I was an excellent student in school.Anyway, I say that to say, I think there's always some "obvious" counter that gets missed. I read part of mere Christianity, and I already knew what Crash would think. If C.S. Lewis was engaged in a debate with an atheist, his arguments in that book would be sloppy. They could be taken apart.I don't think I agree that C.S. Lewis is sloppy (though someone more familiar with him than me may shoot me down). I don't think he was debating atheists when he wrote that book, despite the fact that it is written to convince. You can present all the sides of an argument and bore the average listener to death. (I know, as I have done it repeatedly.) I think Lewis avoided that on purpose, and as a result, his book is very powerful to the average person, and, not, I don't think, just because they're "stupid."I'll bet the average IQ on this forum is well over 120. I'd also guess that C.S. Lewis would have changed his book if Crash was his audience, or even if the members of this forum were his audience.

Without getting into the meaning of 1 Cor 11, I'd like to comment on your link. I was pretty irritated about one particular statement:

quote:

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We would NEVER come up with 'authority' from the actions and attributes of Christ in THAT passage! (He obviously has authority over His Bride, but it is not remotely in view in that passage.) But the literal notion of "that which completes" or "a major source of change" (i.e. "head"!) makes quite a lot of sense here. Simple inductive Bible study--without starting with a loaded meaning of 'head'--would yield something much more akin to 'active change agent' than 'ordained authority'...

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I don't see any truth in this. Is he talking about the passage that says, "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church." He said he was talking about "the headship passage in Ephesians," and then he says, "He obviously has authority over His Bride, but it is not remotely in view in that passage."It isn't, huh? When it says "submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord," it's not remotely talking about authority over his Bride????People are always dodging things. Maybe the cultural aspect they address on that page is correct. Either way, it's obvious that Paul had reasons for asking women to wear a head covering in 1 Corithians. I don't believe those reasons apply today. That part's fine.The part that's not fine is trying to make a women's libber out of Paul. Sorry, Paul was not into women's equality. He was not the woman basher some make him out to be, though. He refers to Phoebe as a fellow worker in Romans 16, and he allows women to pray and prophesy in public there in 1 Cor 11, but it's clear he believed in women submitting to their husbands.Personally, I think there's good reasons for that, although I don't want to defend the "do whatever I say" mentality that it is used to justify. But I really don't want to get into that here. I just want to say that page sounds like it's trying to dodge the fact that Paul clearly said he wanted wives to submit to husbands.{edited to add a NOT so I didn't call Paul a women basher! }[This message has been edited by truthlover, 03-10-2004]

1st, I'd be happy to discuss the wives in submission thing with you, even publicly. It would just draw us off on this thread, though.As to your post 72. Don't I know the frustration of those questions. They've been worse for me, because I'm in it--all the way in it, whole-heartedly and whole-"lifedly." It's a big deal to deal with all those things. There's been times over the last couple years I thought about walking away. One of the biggest issues was finding out there's no way 6 million people crossed the desert in the 2nd millennium BC.I can no longer accept that God told people to go and massacre other people. I guess I do accept that he made laws sanctioning the stoning to death of disloyal women and insubordinate children. Ah, such a point. I do understand.My thought is that most of the history of Israel was written in the AD 700's and later (one of the more pleasant things I've found out on this forum). Israel conquered their neighbors some centuries before this, and the stories got handed down as history. Of course, everything they did was ordered by God, because that's how history is generally written.I don't believe God ordered the destruction of all men, women, and children back then. I believe that story came later. I'm a little more open to the possibility that he ordered that destruction than you are, but I don't think it happened.What I do know is that I can't not believe (if you can follow that grammar). I was drawn to this life by power, and I live in power daily. The leading of His Spirit, the one I met through the name of Y'shua, has produced a life here that is extraordinary by almost everyone's description. He created it--whoever "he" is. Our God did this, and it's amazing. It's great even to watch people's reactions as they try to compute how a village like ours could exist in America.And we met our God through the name of Christ.So, I'm sort of stuck. My doubts, today, are completely gone, because my focus is on the Spirit we live by.On the other hand, I have to admit I've asked all those questions you put in your post, struggled with the answers, and some of them I am sure I will never be able to answer.But, on the other hand , I know something, from experience, about how humans can live the life Y'shua spoke of.

He must have meant the Christian Research Institute, because he acts just like them: lots of assertions, refuses to answer the questions that matter.They're at Christian Research Institute | EQUIP, Christian Research Institute, The Bible Answer Man, Equip App, but you don't need to ask them any questions. You've already gotten an example of their answers.

I don't need to ask any questions. They asked you questions. The question was whether you could give any Bible prophecies that were cleary fulfilled, using some evidence for that fulfillment other than the Bible. They also asked you if you had any proof for God speaking to people other than the Bible says so. Not lying. They asked you the above questions, and you told them to go ask CRI instead. Gosh, and here I was hoping I had something to do with her being led to Christ. You better warn Sarde, because she's emailing me, and I'm under the impression I'm encouraging her to follow Christ. Why would I want to do that? If Christ, God and Creation aren't true, then I'm making some stupid choices for how I live my life.Error 404 (Not Found)!!1That's where I live.Now, on the other hand, if you want me to disprove CRI as representatives of Christ, God, and creation, then I might be willing to take that up!