Bible verse by verse

[_LittleNipper]

What errors? That the earth was not created in 6 literal days? That the Flood never happened? That bats are not birds? That insects have six and not four legs? You're being manipulated to accept men's view of science according to man's parameters, and not from the Lord's perspective. Paul's writings give evidence that he was exposed to the Savior. I was christened Roman Catholic, however, my dad found the Savior in a Bible Study. I became saved at age 12 one Friday night at a youth group. I've been in a fistfight with God ever since ---- thank God, He always wins. The Old Testament is what Christ came to fulfill. It is His story --- Creation to His promise of His incarnation. The New Testament is Christ's birth through His fulfillment accomplished. It is FINISHED. What will be is absolute.

...and you've been placing your trust in hearsay ever since.

Say Jenn Kamp Rowling lost part of one of the original manuscripts to a Harry Potter book.
It lies undiscovered for a few thousand years, during which humanity changes.
When one day this manuscript is discovered by archeologists and translated in New American, a few people postulate that wizards roamed the earth during the early part of the second AD Millennium. When challenged about their belief they point to the fact that God has witnessed to them that it is true and after all, historical documentation shows that Kings Cross Station was an actual place.

How does the belief of the future Potterites differ in validity from your Christian belief of today?

The Lord Jesus Christ is a real being surrounded by real humans and Harry Potter is a fictional character surrounded by fictional beings.

[_Bazooka]

How does the belief of the future Potterites differ in validity from your Christian belief of today?

The Lord Jesus Christ is a real being surrounded by real humans and Harry Potter is a fictional character surrounded by fictional beings.

Your answer amounts to "Because I said so".

So that's a fail.

As far as anyone today is concerned, the Lord Jesus Christ is a character in a book that you choose to believe was real and you choose to pray to.
That's no different to people in a few thousand years choosing to believe the Lord Harry Potter was real and choosing to pray to him.

Just because you believe Christ is real, doesn't make him real except to you.
That's exactly the same validity as for the future Potterites.

[_ludwigm]

There are people beyond recovery.

Regretfully, hell is full of them.

Do You have a dread of getting to hell?

Why --- or why not?

[_LittleNipper]

Regretfully, hell is full of them.

Do You have a dread of getting to hell?

Why --- or why not?

Well, hell is certainly not a place I would want to go. I'm depending on the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ to gain entrance to heaven. I certainly do not merit heaven. However, the Bible clearly states that anyone who places his faith in Jesus the same will go to be with him.

[_LittleNipper]

Your answer amounts to "Because I said so".

So that's a fail.

As far as anyone today is concerned, the Lord Jesus Christ is a character in a book that you choose to believe was real and you choose to pray to.
That's no different to people in a few thousand years choosing to believe the Lord Harry Potter was real and choosing to pray to him.

Just because you believe Christ is real, doesn't make him real except to you.
That's exactly the same validity as for the future Potterites.

Not really. The Bible says so. And there is enough historical evidence to support the fact that Jesus actually existed. Harry Potter is a fairy tale. And a person would have to have a real issue not to see the difference between the two.

[_ludwigm]

Do You have a dread of getting to hell?

Why --- or why not?

Well, hell is certainly not a place I would want to go. I'm depending on the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ to gain entrance to heaven. I certainly do not merit heaven. However, the Bible clearly states that anyone who places his faith in Jesus the same will go to be with him.

Do You have a dread of getting to hell?
Simple yesno question.
1. YES --- why?
2. NO --- why not?


... certainly ... depending ... however ... other sidestepping ...

When and if You would ask me the same, I would answer:
"No, I haven't any fear, because no hell."
Hell is only an empty threat from loving, caring, forgiving 'christians'.

OK, then again
Do You have a dread of getting to hell?

[_Bazooka]

Not really. The Bible says so.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" says so.

And there is enough historical evidence to support the fact that Jesus actually existed. Harry Potter is a fairy tale. And a person would have to have a real issue not to see the difference between the two.

Kings Cross Station is a real place. I pass through there most days. I've even seen the actual place where Harry Potter catches his train, although I lack the faith to be able to penetrate the gateway through to the station nine and three quarters.

Of course people today could differentiate, but what about those Potterites in a few thousand years who don't have the knowledge that Harry Potter was a fictional character? You are making assumptions that people in two or three thousand years time will view the Harry Potter series in the same way we view it today, as a way of justifying how you view the Jesus Christ series from a few thousand years ago.

For instance, on wether or not Christ was a real or fictions person, and if real are the claims about him valid:

--the Apostle Paul, by his own admission, never knew the person Jesus but, instead, based his entire faith on a vision he claimed came to him about Jesus’ resurrection;

--the Gospels do not provide any physical description of Jesus;

--the year of Jesus’ birth is unknown and, based on available evidence, indeterminable;

--there is no historical validation of King Herod’s supposed slaughter of Jewish children at the time of Jesus’s alleged birth;

--Jesus’ ancestry is illogically tied back to King David through Jesus’ father Joseph;

--the author of Matthew was clearly not Jewish, as evidenced by his mistranslation of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah’s virgin birth;

--the overall credibility of the Matthew and Luke nativity stories are seriously in doubt;

--there is no reliable evidence for the alleged crucifixion of Jesus;

--the writings of Roman historian Tacitus concerning the alleged historicity of Jesus are neither clear or specific;

--the observations of the Roman governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger, do not provide reliable evidence of Jesus’ actual existence; and even

--the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus on the allegedly historic Jesus have undeniably been adulterated by others with a pro-Christian spin. (Wilson, pp. 51, 54-56, 58-60)

Nipper, have you got any substance (beyond a gooey feeling inside) that Jesus was more of a real person than Harry Potter is?

A blow-by-blow summary of the evidence against historicity claims for Jesus is offered by Canadian historian and classical scholar Earl Doherty in his work, "Why I Am Not A Christian":

“1. Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel story cannot be found in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark) was composed only in the late first century.

2. There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the second century. References in Flavius Josephus (end of the first century) can be dismissed as later Christian insertions.

3. The early apostles, such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ Jesus as a spiritual, heavenly being revealed by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man. Paul is part of a new ‘salvation’ movement acting on revelation from the Spirit.

4. Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ, from scripture.

5. The ancients viewed the universe as multi-layered: matter below, spirit above. The higher world was regarded as the superior, genuine reality, containing spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to earthly things. Paul’s Christ operates within this system.

6. The pagan ‘mystery cults’ of the period worshiped savior deities who had performed salvific acts which took place in the supernatural/mythical world, not
on earth or in history. Paul’s Christ shares many features with these deities.

7. The prominent philosophical-religious concept of the age was the intermediary Son, a spiritual channel between the ultimate transcendent God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish Wisdom were models for Paul’s heavenly Christ.

8. All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark. The Acts of the Apostles, as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement, is a second century piece of myth-making.

9. The Gospels are not historical events, but constructed through a process of ‘midrash,’ a Jewish method of reworking old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture.

10. ‘Q,’ a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke, made no reference to a death and resurrection and can be shown to have had no Jesus at its roots: roots which were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the kingdom of God, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an invented founder who was linked to the heavenly Jesus of Paul in the Gospel of Mark.

11. The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual Christ shows that the movement began as a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the religious trends and philosophy of the time, not as a response to a single individual.

12. Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a human man as an element of their faith. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical.” (Doherty, pp. vii-viii)

I'm guessing........NOT.

[_LittleNipper]

Do You have a dread of getting to hell?

Why --- or why not?

Well, hell is certainly not a place I would want to go. I'm depending on the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ to gain entrance to heaven. I certainly do not merit heaven. However, the Bible clearly states that anyone who places his faith in Jesus the same will go to be with him.

Do You have a dread of getting to hell?
Simple yes/no question.
1. YES --- why?
2. NO --- why not?


... certainly ... depending ... however ... other sidestepping ...

When and if You would ask me the same, I would answer:
"No, I haven't any fear, because no hell."
Hell is only an empty threat from loving, caring, forgiving 'christians'.

OK, then again
Do You have a dread of getting to hell?

No! Absolutely not! Jesus Christ is my Savior. How do you know there is no hell? The Bible speaks more of hell than of heaven. The pagans all believed in a place called hades. What is your proof that there is no place for those who reject God? Even scientists say that there are Black Holes where even light cannot escape. Scientists say that there is every possibility of other dimensions. Most people do not like the dark............ So, what exactly is your proof that Hell doesn't exist? I might just suggest that caring Christians do not want anyone to go to Hell. If they didn't care, they might just not say anything at all.

[Guest]

Not really. The Bible says so.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" says so.

And there is enough historical evidence to support the fact that Jesus actually existed. Harry Potter is a fairy tale. And a person would have to have a real issue not to see the difference between the two.

Kings Cross Station is a real place. I pass through there most days. I've even seen the actual place where Harry Potter catches his train, although I lack the faith to be able to penetrate the gateway through to the station nine and three quarters.

Of course people today could differentiate, but what about those Potterites in a few thousand years who don't have the knowledge that Harry Potter was a fictional character? You are making assumptions that people in two or three thousand years time will view the Harry Potter series in the same way we view it today, as a way of justifying how you view the Jesus Christ series from a few thousand years ago.

For instance, on wether or not Christ was a real or fictions person, and if real are the claims about him valid:

--the Apostle Paul, by his own admission, never knew the person Jesus but, instead, based his entire faith on a vision he claimed came to him about Jesus’ resurrection;

--the Gospels do not provide any physical description of Jesus;

--the year of Jesus’ birth is unknown and, based on available evidence, indeterminable;

--there is no historical validation of King Herod’s supposed slaughter of Jewish children at the time of Jesus’s alleged birth;

--Jesus’ ancestry is illogically tied back to King David through Jesus’ father Joseph;

--the author of Matthew was clearly not Jewish, as evidenced by his mistranslation of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah’s virgin birth;

--the overall credibility of the Matthew and Luke nativity stories are seriously in doubt;

--there is no reliable evidence for the alleged crucifixion of Jesus;

--the writings of Roman historian Tacitus concerning the alleged historicity of Jesus are neither clear or specific;

--the observations of the Roman governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger, do not provide reliable evidence of Jesus’ actual existence; and even

--the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus on the allegedly historic Jesus have undeniably been adulterated by others with a pro-Christian spin. (Wilson, pp. 51, 54-56, 58-60)

Nipper, have you got any substance (beyond a gooey feeling inside) that Jesus was more of a real person than Harry Potter is?

A blow-by-blow summary of the evidence against historicity claims for Jesus is offered by Canadian historian and classical scholar Earl Doherty in his work, "Why I Am Not A Christian":

“1. Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel story cannot be found in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first of which (Mark) was composed only in the late first century.

2. There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the second century. References in Flavius Josephus (end of the first century) can be dismissed as later Christian insertions.

3. The early apostles, such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of their Christ Jesus as a spiritual, heavenly being revealed by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent historical man. Paul is part of a new ‘salvation’ movement acting on revelation from the Spirit.

4. Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world, and derive their information about these events, as well as other features of their heavenly Christ, from scripture.

5. The ancients viewed the universe as multi-layered: matter below, spirit above. The higher world was regarded as the superior, genuine reality, containing spiritual processes and heavenly counterparts to earthly things. Paul’s Christ operates within this system.

6. The pagan ‘mystery cults’ of the period worshiped savior deities who had performed salvific acts which took place in the supernatural/mythical world, not
on earth or in history. Paul’s Christ shares many features with these deities.

7. The prominent philosophical-religious concept of the age was the intermediary Son, a spiritual channel between the ultimate transcendent God and humanity. Such intermediary concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish Wisdom were models for Paul’s heavenly Christ.

8. All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth from one source: whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark. The Acts of the Apostles, as an account of the beginnings of the Christian apostolic movement, is a second century piece of myth-making.

9. The Gospels are not historical events, but constructed through a process of ‘midrash,’ a Jewish method of reworking old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The story of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses from scripture.

10. ‘Q,’ a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew and Luke, made no reference to a death and resurrection and can be shown to have had no Jesus at its roots: roots which were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the kingdom of God, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an invented founder who was linked to the heavenly Jesus of Paul in the Gospel of Mark.

11. The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual Christ shows that the movement began as a multiplicity of largely independent and spontaneous developments based on the religious trends and philosophy of the time, not as a response to a single individual.

12. Well into the second century, many Christian documents lack or reject the notion of a human man as an element of their faith. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical.” (Doherty, pp. vii-viii)

I'm guessing........NOT.

This is rather interesting. You may wish to read it. http://y-jesus.com/wp-content/tcpdf-pdf/1848.pdf

It would seem likely that the Gospel of Mark was written around A.D. 55-59. The likelihood is that Jesus was crucified in April of A.D. 30. That means that the book of Mark came to be well before 30 years had passed from that event.



Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/Gospel-of-M ... z2rzNYaD5v

[_Bazooka]

Nipper, here is where your linked reference fails.

Likewise, to determine if Jesus was a real person, we need to seek evidence for his existence in the following areas:
1. Archaeology
2. Early non-Christian accounts
3. Early Christian accounts
4. Early New Testament manuscripts
5. Historical impact

2,3, and 4 are the equivalent of people writing about Harry Potter.
Archeology will prove Harry potter a real person, Kings Cross will be found as part of future 'digs' thereby, using your references required standards, establishing him as a real person.
Historical impact.....so you're saying that you believe 'Thetans' really existed because they have had historical impact?

Archaeology
The sands of time have buried many mysteries about Jesus that only recently have been brought to light.
Perhaps the most significant discoveries are several ancient manuscripts unearthed between the 18th and 20th centuries. We will look closer at these manuscripts in a later section.
Archaeologists have also discovered numerous places and relics that agree with the New Testament accounts of Jesus. Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist who considered Jesus a myth until he saw such evidence during a BBC television assignment to Israel.
After reporting on the very places written about in the New Testament account of Jesus, Muggeridge wrote, “A certainty seized me about Jesus’ birth, ministry and Crucifixion...I became aware that there really had been a man, Jesus....”[5]

So, in terms of 'Archeology', the proof of Jesus is some manuscripts and places that match the New Testament....and a warm feeling from a TV pundit.
Your standards of 'proof' are a lot lower than I thought.