Re: My religion is better than yours?

Your post is, um, blue. And in italics.

T.k.

The bible, which is riddled with inaccuracies, cannot be considered a viable source on history. Yes, it contains bits and pieces of truth, but it was penned, ultimately, by man. Man is imperfect, in your mind, and thus is capable of making mistakes.

Jesus' appearence to his other disciples was not because they were invited to, and did, touch Jesus' hands, where the nails had gone in, and his side, where the spear pierced him. Jesus did not only appear to his disciples. He appeared to hundreds of people after his death.

How do you know hundreds of people aren't just stupid and gullible? How do you know that all these people saw Jesus and didn't just claim they did?

Nick
RAmen

I am going to address some responses from my previous blog:

"So is that a YES? Are we going to HELL for not believing in God? You didn't even answer the question you asked?"

The answer is yes. It is sad, but true. People will be eternally separated from God. It will be a very painful experience, and I don't want anyone to experience that, but it is going to happen because people have a choice, and some choose to reject God.

You are still being intentionally vague and not answering the question. What does separation from God mean? The bible does talk about the fires of hell. Does "be[ing] eternally separated from God" mean eternally feeling like you are being burned by fires? If not, then why will it be painful.

"Really? And what price was that? Impregnating a virgin so that he could be his own father for the purpose of conning people into tacking him up to a piece of wood until he dies because this allows him to forgive sins for those who believe it? Yeah sure, that makes a lot of sense....
You guys are great at claiming that Jesus' suffering was atonement for our sins. In other words, Jesus is supposed to be paying OUR price for having sinned. Well, our price for having sinned was supposed to have been an eternity in HELL. Now if Jesus was spending an eternity in HELL then perhaps you would have something in your claim that Jesus paid the ULTIMATE PRICE for us. But Jesus isn't paying THAT price is he? Isn't he in Heaven at the right hand of himself? Doesn't that sound pretty good? So how can that be the ultimate price?"

The price was the separation from God that Jesus went through, not only the physical suffering, but also the spiritual separation. Jesus and God are two different people. He is the same person in the sense that I am a student, a daughter and a sibling, but He is also three separate people, Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit. It is not really understandable. I see it as something that I will understand when I get to Heaven.

OK, so let's get this straight ... Jesus who IS God is NOT God. The ULTIMATE PRICE was not only the physical suffering, but the real baddy was being separated spiritually from himself who was not really himself. Which of course lasted for 3 whole days, and he is now at the right hand of himself who is not himself along with another thing (the Holy Spirit) which is himself but not himself as well. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

But compared to spending ETERNITY in the fires of hell, that doesn't sound too much like an ULTIMATE PRICE to me.

Perhaps the reason it is not understandable is because it patently doesn't make any sense. That is what I have been trying to tell you.

" 'He died and rose again.'

And you know this how?"

The Bible says so and Jesus has claimed it. This isn't really something you can accept unless you think the Bible has historic value. If you don't beleive that, then you are not going to agree with me, and I would prefer not to have any comments about that.

Sorry, but when you make claims like that on a forum like this, your preferences cannot always be accommodated.

The bible DOES claim that. But whether or not an historical Jesus ever claimed it is not so straight-forward.

Why are there no people being raised from the dead now? If God could do that then why not do it now where it could be thoroughly documented?

The bible makes a number of incredible claims. Go to my blog and look at the 12 posts I did on Daniel for substantiation.

The Gospels make claims concerning Jesus that are irreconcilable -- The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are two totally different stories; the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are different; the whole Gospel of John is different than the other 3; etc. Not all of that can be true.

So we have known instances of the bible being wrong; we have no known instances in which people have actually come back from being dead. Which is more likely? The bible is wrong on its claim or after 3 days in which every cell of his body would have lysozymes released from internal stores that would have irreversibly degrading a plethora of vital biochemical pathways causing every vital organ to be non-functional God magically reversed the process and brought Jesus bodily back to life?

"Oh yeah? And what other religions have you studied? And by "studied" what do you mean? "

When I say I have studied I mean that I have done research and talked to people of other religions.

You still didn't answer the question ... what other religions have you studied? What "research" did you do? What people did you talk to?

In your original post you made the statement:

Although I believe that my religion is the true religion, I do have to say, after studying other religions, and going through some hard things, that there are other religions that are much easier to live by, and to believe is true

This suggests that you have some type of expertise in these other religions. But conclusions you express about other religions seems suspect to me. I would like to know exactly what you base those claims on.

" 'Religions that give false hope, and tell half-truths that are much more pleasant than the truth that Christianity presents.'

Just blew Diet Pepsi out my nose on that one."

I am sure this is meant as a statement of disbelief. I am not sure how to respond, but I do want to say that some pseudo-Christain religions are a lot more palatable, and if I didn't think that they weren't true, based on reading their religious material, I would consider converting. But I think that their logic, and the statements they are based on don't make sense.

I guess you missed the point ... the point was to us, YOUR RELIGION PROMISES FALSE HOPES AND HALF TRUTHS, but you can't seem to recognize it.

" 'If not historical proof, then an absence of denial.'

What does that even mean?"

It means that people in Jesus' time never denied that his body disappeared. Pilate, the high ranking Roman who was in charge if trying Jesus and making sure his body stayed in the tomb, never denied that the body was missing.

Of course not ... Pilate never said the body was in a grave in the first place. The bible says it.

"Never has there been a major movement to prove that Jesus ever was in the grave in the first place.."

Christianty is the movement.

"But if as the bible suggests, that Christianity began in Jerusalem immediately after his death by his disciples wouldn't they have known where the real site was? Why did this site not become a shrine for the religion? Why don't we know where it is?"

The disciples did know where the site was. They visited it after Jesus rose. The reason it didn't become a shrine is because it is not the location that was important. It was the action. The location is not the miracle. The miracle is the fact that he rose.

Who says the discipes visited the grave? Oh yeah, the bible. And why should we believe the bible? Do you believe the Qur'an when it says that Mohammed was magically flown from Arabia to Jerusalem in the middle of the night? Do you believe the book of Mormon when it says that there was a long-lost tribe of Israel in South America that Jesus went to visit after his crucifixion? Millions of people believe those things. If you don't find them credible then why do you find the biblical claim credible?

If the location is not important then why were six Crusades fought to try to free the Holy Lands? Why do millions of Christians make pilgrimages to Israel? Surely the place where Jesus came back to life, and the place that you base almost your entire justification of the Christian faith on an important place. How come it didn't become as well known as .... say, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the site in Jerusalem where Mohammed was taken on his night journey?

"The earliest Christian writings are the letters of Paul. Why doesn't he ever mention the empty tomb? Paul bases his belief on the ressurection not on an empty tomb but on post-death appearances by Jesus, including one to himself. But if we believe ACTS Jesus' appearance to Paul was not a bodily one, it was a vision. So too perhaps were the other appearances."

Paul was not one of the original disciples, in fact he persecuted early Christians. He didn't care about the tomb.

Not even after he became an apostle ... equal to the super apostles ... whom you would think of as some of the original disciples?? Why wouldn't he have cared then?

... Jesus' appearance to Paul may have been a vision, but Jesus' appearence to his other disciples was not because they were invited to, and did, touch Jesus' hands, where the nails had gone in, and his side, where the spear pierced him.

That is only found in the Gospel of John. Why isn't that pericope found in Mark, Matthew, or Luke? Why did they leave it out? Could it be ... they never heard of it, and the author of John just made it up?

Jesus did not only appear to his disciples. He appeared to hundreds of people after his death.

That comes from ... PAUL. and Paul could have been talking about a vision, nothing more.

The Gospels do claim that Jesus appeared to a number of people (but not hundreds). That is certainly an extraordinary claim, and as Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". The word of a book that is full of contradictions in which nothing else verifies that claim is certanly NOT extraordinary evidence. Which is more likely ... the bible like other books of its day (the Iliad, the Oddesey, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, numerous non-canonical Gospels used by sects as variant as the Ebionites, the Nazarenes, the Gnostics, Adoptionists, Montanist, Marcionites, Valentians, Caprocrateans, etc.) exaggerated its claims or a person who was dead for 3 days suddenly walks around visiting with old friends before he disappears again never to be heard from?

"Judaism has been around a whole lot longer than Christianity. Therefore, it does have the historical basis Christianity does."

I agree, Judaism does have the historical basis. Christianity is a continuation of Judaism. It fulfills all the prophecies that were made in the Old Testament.

Except Jesus fulfills no Old Testament prophecy. I have made this challenge to Christians several times and no one has yet taken me up on it ... Pick the one Old Testament prophecy that you think most convincing as to Jesus being the fulfillment of it, give the evidence that it is an actually fulfilled prophecy and I will respond to tell you why I think it isn't. And we will see who makes the better case.

To me, Judaism, and I might be wrong, seems like a set of rules, whereas Christianity is more like a relationship

I will let others address this if they want.

I also just want to say that I am only human, and although Jesus was perfect, I am not. I make mistakes, I forget things, and my knowledge is lacking. I appreciate corrections if they are in a nice tone, but I don't appreicate sarcast comments, or being called rude. For the record, I asked the author of the other blog if I could link their blog to mine, and they have not gotten back to me, so I assumed that they didn't want to be associated with it.

I don't remember calling you rude, so I don't think that refers to me. But I have made sarcastic responses. I have ridiculed some of the things you have said. But I do that for a purpose.

In your original blog you implied that your purpose was make people understand your point of view. You then made a number of statements that further implied that your view was based on logic. Atheists like me DO UNDERSTAND your point of view. We just don't agree with any of it. You don't seem to understand that we think your point of view is ridiculous. I am trying to tell you WHY we think it is ridiculous. I do not know how to convey the idea of ridiculousness any better than by using sarcastic ridicule.

I know you are sincere in your beliefs. I also believe you have every right to believe whatever you want. But if you are going to claim " historical[], or logical[]" justification of those beliefs, I have every right to call you on it. I have every right to ridicule it so long as I also point out exactly WHERE it is ridiculous.

Thanks for reading.

No problems, thanks for writing.

Cheers,

DB
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France

First of all, you should not be making new blogs to address comments in blogs you've already made, unless you're bringing something new to the table (that has nothing to do with the original post). It's unfair, and if you do it again, I will be very very tempted to delete your blog, regardless of the comments on it.

To me, Judaism, and I might be wrong, seems like a set of rules, whereas Christianity is more like a relationship

I will let others address this if they want.

Thanks, DB... I'll take this one.

Have you ever actually studied Judaism? I mean, beyond reading the Old Testament? If you have, I'd like to know where. If you have not, I advise you to.

Judaism does have a number of laws (613, to be exact). But the idea is that by incorporating God into every day activities, you build a relationship, even if at times you do not understand it. By being required to pray certain prayers at the beginning and various parts of each meal, you give thanks for all that you have been given. So to say that Christianity is about building a relationship with whoever, and Judaism is not, is a bit of an insult, in my personal opinion.

A number of the laws are also beneficial, such as sitting shiva (if, in fact, someone has died... not so much if you're just disowning them). Seven days of heavy mourning allow you to fully appreciate the life that was lost, and it's far better than going to a funeral, and going back to work the next day, without any sort of additional mourning. But I'm working on a blog that will go into this more in depth.

~C
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