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.
"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.
" '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.
"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.
" '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.
" '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.
"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.
"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. 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. Jesus did not only appear to his disciples. He appeared to hundreds of people after his death.
"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. To me, Judaism, and I might be wrong, seems like a set of rules, whereas Christianity is more like a relationship
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.
Thanks for reading.
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