A Question For Christians

Post Reply New Topic

I am Christian. I perceive that you follow to school of thought known as Positivism and are governed by a much more objective and concrete approach to the world and people around you. It is true that there are many disparities within my religion. However, rather than bore you with Latin and history I will attempt to describe my own beliefs to you. I am a Christian who also follow some of the principles of Stoicism. To me the question is always what is my nature and the nature of that which surrounds me. If a tree looses a limb do you cut it down because it is imperfect? Likewise if modern Christianity is imperfect why should its noble tenants be discarded? Imperfection is beauty because one must learn to see the beauty. Modern Christians may be judged as hypocrites who sin and debase themselves while claiming superiority. These so called men of religion are as strange and foreign to their faith as if it never existed. I am strengthened by my faith, which guides my philosophy of selflessness, charity, benevolence, and humility, not because I believe I will be rewarded, but because my nature is at peace with it's tennants

Hmmm . . .
I grew up Christian, and have become atheist along the way. I still consider myself something of a christian, as I hold many of the teachings of Jesus as an excellent framework for morality. The biggest message he had was help those around you in any way that you can. There were no real qualifiers ( he didn't ad, "as long as they believe what you believe," or any garbage like that).

That being said, I am probably a lot closer to being something of a Buddhist than to what is considered Christian in today's world.

But above and beyond all of that, my true religion is Physics. The Laws of Physics have been sent down from on high and cannot be broken (no matter how hard you try). You do not know all the Laws, but you will never be able to break them.

You see I feel this is having both ways, either God in his perfection had the the various parts of the NT canon written and then instructed people over the centuries which bits to rewrite, which bits to leave alone, and which bits to leave in as well as rewrite thereby causing contradiction and confusion or he did not. If he did not then resulting confusion has been caused through a non spiritual intervention of his works. But then if you were to take out all the various parts which either go against each other, or are now known to be scientifically false there would not be much left in either the Old or New Testaments

he set his own time limit according to early scripture ""Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." There are a number of early sources quoting jesus and impending apocalypse but this one in matthew is the most direct. Yes I realise that this and other lines of scripture may well have been added or falsely attested or simply changed beyond recognition prior to their writing down, but the weight of evidence points to Jesus being an apocalyptic preacher, who believed the end times were very near.


The CIty of Jerusalem was laid seige to for 2 years during the first Jewish-roman war (CE 66-73) and finally entered and destroyed it in ce 70. Jesus remarked during the week of his death that no stone of the old temple would remain, this was some 38 years prior to its destruction. This lead most scholars to assume that the books which mention this "prophecy" were written after the siege and destruction of the temple. What is more probable Jesus actually foresaw the event or people writing scripture after the event include it. Considering the amount of falsification to be found in the various epistles I think the latter is far more likely.

What is interesting is your telling of the story as it illustrates just how stories get changed with each telling. The Christian scripture was passed down from neighbour to neighbour friend to friend, from small gatherings to large gatherings for decades, no written accounts, no possible way to verify the story. Do you really think what was left by the time these tales were written down had much voracity left?

Ah ha, now I think I understand where you're coming from. You feel that lots of people having their input is shown by there being conflicting points in the NT and so you are asking why do I believe that God directed a hodgepodge of ideas that come over as conflicting if he is perfect? In answer, I find it to be quite harmonious, so I have no problem with it.



I've always taken that to mean that some of his disciples would see the vision where he was depicted in conversation with Moses and Elijah. They got a glimpse of his heavenly glory. Sometimes things in the bible aren't literal, which if I'm honest, is a bit difficult for me to get my head round because I'm a literal thinker. It's flowery and poetic at times rather than straight to the point. I like poetry, so I try and view it from the point of view of being interesting, rather than annoyingly not straight to the point.



I stand by my previous answer. If you look at it from the point of view of just relying on humans to pass on the information then yes I can understand why you would be dubious. Sometimes it's difficult to get a message conveyed accurately when you leave a short message with someone's receptionist just to get them to call you. So I can see how reasonable it is to wonder how accurate a message can be if it's communicated over several years. However, I look at it from the point of view of God wanted to have it communicated so he made sure it was communicated correctly.

So, that leads on to another question. Are there parts that come over as contradictory and are those parts really at odds with each other or is there some other explaination down to maybe our lack of experience of that lifestyle and culture or something else. Because if there are conflicting parts then that does lead to a good question. Why would God do that? Or did he have nothing to do with it and it is an pastiche of ideas gathered together over time?

What do you find contradictory?

[waffle from here on and me mostly thinking out loud]
I'm just editing to add a response to this

What? Why? Am I being really far out or something? Now I'm feeling self-concious... Is it wrong to make sense of something that at face value makes no sense? I mean, the odds of you running into some random stranger (me) and hearing the right version of events is really low. I mean, what do I know.

But if there is a God and if Jesus was a real prophet, then somewhere along the lines one narrative must be right. Like if you learned the history of my family business. Some people could tell you what they know about the business Mr Selfridge set up in London and how it change and modernized over time. Some people would offer certain views on his motives for setting up a business and expanding it. Some would tell you a little about what kind of man he was. Some of them would be wrong. I was thinking about this when I was watching that TV program Mr Selfridge and thinking how embarassed I would be if someone concocted stories about my own family's business to make it more entertaining. But in the case of Mr Selfridge, there is a real story that did actually happen.

What if there is a real story about Jesus and he is a real prophet? What if he did become a King in the afterlife? The fact that is difficult to believe doesn't neccessarily mean that it isn't true. Improbable maybe, but it might just be true. And what if it is? Does it make any difference to our lives? Or does it mean nothing?[end of waffle and thinking out loud]

No not really, what I am saying that much of the NT almost certainly cannot have been written by its claimed authors, yet people still refer to these writings as if they have the authority attributed by the proposed authors. And they live their lives and ask others to live in a like manner based upon false Authority. It is widely regarded within the scholarly community that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by these people, yet many Christians either do not know this or do not care for such revelation, and still continue to believe they are reading eyewitness accounts. I find this to be a very bizarre way of thinking.


In this case you interpret this line in a completely different way from the vast majority of biblical scholars. It simply means that The Resurrection will occur within the lifetimes of some of those present at the meeting. The Resurrection does not refer simply to Jesus, but rather is the time when all the dead are raised and taken to heaven followed by the living. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who thought The Resurrection was at hand.



I could not have framed this better, this is exactly what we do, taking scripture out of its cultural and historical context, classic amongst the many examples are Isaiah 53, and Relevelation. Isaiah has absolutely nothing to do with the crucifixion of the future messiah, but is instead concerned with the suffering of Israel itself and, in particular the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the the exile of its elites. Revelation has been shoehorned into every contemporary culture since its writing to predict the impending apocalypse. Again this was written about a specific time and place in Judeo/Christian history. Judea was being severely punished for insurrection against Rome, 666 is most likely gematria directly naming Nero who many thought had not died but would somehow resurrect, 666 has nothing to do with The Satan and the book is entirely about contemporary events or events very soon to take place. There are so many tales in both testaments which the religious take out of historical and cultural context.

As to contradictions, my goodness where do we start.

Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem, how did he enter Jerusalem, when did he become divine, what did he say during his crucifixion, does May know her son is the son of god or not, joseph's genealogy, was Mary a virgin or not, in whose reign was Jesus born, were the innocents slaughtered or not, when was Jesus tried and killed.

I could go on and on and on with examples. Many Christians will say that it does not matter if the fine detail matches up so long as the fundamental narrative remains consistent. This would be true if the contradictions did not hide an agenda. Many of these contradictions have come about because the authors need to show that Jesus was who they say he was, so they need to invent a reason to be in Bethlehem, they need to invent an line back to David, they need to show that god anointed him. In short they need to shoehorn Jesus into the prophesies, the lack of agreement around these very important aspects of Jesus Birth, life and death show quite clearly that they have be constructed by each author to but the life of Jesus into the correct prophetic narrative



[quote=?DentArthurDent?]What is interesting is your telling of the story as it illustrates just how stories get changed with each telling.[/quote] The first part of your question is you appear to be saying that Jesus predicted the imminent downfall of Jerusalem and his followers got out just in time, the events happened some 30 years later and prior to the writing of the gospels. Your second bit I could not agree more with, and yet this is exactly what you are doing by thinking the Bible accurately tells the story of Jesus. The Gospels were writing down decades after people started running around bumping into random strangers and accepting their version of events.

That Jesus existed is almost beyond doubt that he preached and had followers is almost beyond doubt that he is the son of god sent to save man is in all probability mysticism made up to explain how The Messiah could have been so shamefully killed. The evidence points to this, the changes in the narrative so shoehorn him into the prophesies should have alarm bells ringing, the BS metre should be off the scale.

Right ok. I can give you a definate answer now.

I reject what the scholars say. I think they've got the wrong end of the stick and I guess I am arrogant enough to think that I'm right because i can see something clearly spelled out in the bible as clear as cats eyes down the centre of a road and it just makes sense to me. I think they are wrong and you think that they are right and I know that you think that I am not taking everything into consideration, but I don't care and I admit it because I've done my own reading and looking at historical documents and so on and I've reached my own conclusions on it.

We are on very different wavelengths. I think we could spend several years talking about this and going round in circles. I am willing to admit that you think I'm being niave or stupid and it doesn't bother me.

I don't agree with the Christians who say, "oh it's only minor detail."

The one that jumps out at me in your examples is "was Mary a virgin?"

I know that the Catholic church teaches that she was a virgin her whole life, but the bible mentions Jesus other siblings, so she can't have been a virgin all her life even though they insist that she was. Was she a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. Why not?

If there is no God, then she wasn't because it isn't acutally possible, that's a given. But if there is a God and we as humans have worked out how to do artificial insemination, then I think he would probably have knowledge of how it works. So that doesn't bother me at all. A virgin can be artificially inseminated and have a baby.

I'm trying not to write big long rambling posts so I thought I would come back to this:

In this case you interpret this line in a completely different way from the vast majority of biblical scholars. It simply means that The Resurrection will occur within the lifetimes of some of those present at the meeting. The Resurrection does not refer simply to Jesus, but rather is the time when all the dead are raised and taken to heaven followed by the living. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who thought The Resurrection was at hand.

Ah well, I disagree with what those scholars think then. I went back and re-read those gospels that mention what Jesus said about some not tasting death before they saw him coming in the kingdom and the three gospels that mention it go straight into discussing the transfiguration after Jesus utters these words. So That's probably where that idea comes from. It seems, to me anyway, to tie in to what he was saying. He says something will happen: they will see him in kingly power, and then it happens a few days later: they see him like that in a vision. That seems pretty straighforward and simple and logical to me and I'm sticking with it.

I quiet like Isaac Newton's so-called heretical writing. I don't think he agreed with the general view of what scholars thought about the bible either.

I don't. Not all scholars say that the gospels can't be trusted. I could quote some people, you could quote some people who disagree, I could say what about the Rylands papyrus, you could say, but what about this other papyrus and we'd just go round and round in circles playing with fragments that have been found and trying to work out what they indicate both building our own jigsaw image from the pieces.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. This is working for me. You tasted the pudding and it doesn't work for you.

People view this differently because they are all individuals drawing their own conclusions from what they see, hear and read. Theory of mind.

I'm not sure what the point of this discussion is. If you don't want to understand the perspective of other people, you will never see it.

I'm finished with this thread now, not because you've won and I've nothing to say to you, but because I don't see the point going roundin circles.