Well, like I continue to point out. We have no clue what Jesus might have said, assuming he existed at all.

All we have to go by are these hearsay rumors. These scriptures were known to have been written after Jesus had died. The very idea that they could contain verbatim quotes is a ludicrous idea in and of itself.

I see no reason at all to trust the writings of the authors of the New Testament.

This is another BIG RED FLAD

If a truly divine, all-wise being actually visited Earth with the intent of conveying a message to all of mankind, why leave it up to belated hearsay rumors written down after the God leaves?

That, in and of itself, brings much suspicion to the whole thing.

If an all-wise God had a message that he wanted to convey to mankind and he planned on coming to Earth in human form to convey it, then why not just write it down himself?

Leaving it to hearsay gossip would be utterly stupid, IMHO.

Therefore the very idea that these rumors are anything more than gossip is really an idea that no one should even bother to entertain.

Add to this, the absurdities of a God in the Old Testament that commands people not to kill, and then constantly turns around and has them killing other people left and right all through the stories.

That's an absurd God to begin with.

Add to this, the this God dealt with sin once by supposedly flooding out the whole planet, so now he has a change of heart in how he deals with sinning humans?

That's an absurdity.

This God teaches people to kill heathens where a heathen is defined as anyone who disagrees with his "WORD" and his "WORD" is the Old Testament. Then he sends his only begotten son into this same crowd to have his son disagree with his previous teachings?

That's an absurdity.

Now that his son is finally here, he leaves it entirely up to hearsay gossip to get his son's message out to all humanity?

That's an absurdity.

Where do the absurdities end?

How many absurdities do I need to believe in here?

And all for what?

So I can have FAITH that I have fallen from grace from my creator and I am being given an opportunity to be "saved" from a fate worse than death.

To me, all of this is so utterly absurd, that even if it were true, I seriously doubt that I would want to have anything to do with this God. He's far too absurd.

Death sounds like the better option to be perfectly blunt about it.

Cowboy wrote:

Ok then forget all history and or most science. It's all hearsay rumours by your way of thinking. Heck we might not have ever even been to the moon as they proclaim. Nothing in history is factual unless you are willing to take the evidence that points as such. How do we know the earth is round? How do we know there are other planets? How do we know anything except by accepting hearsay rumours scientist try to proclaim?

The gospels clearly have Jesus making this statement as a THREAT, and now you're trying to make it appear that it wouldn't be all that bad after all.

In other words, I've already read the stories of Jesus, as well as the stories of the Old Testament, which IMHO, must be understood and believed before anyone can take anything in the New Testament seriously. After all, Jesus is supposed to be the demigod of the God of Abraham, so to accept Jesus without first believing in the God of Abraham would be a false acceptance. A person can't truly understand who they are supposedly accepting, and why.

The only righteous thing that Jesus could possibly do on any judgment day is apologize to me for allow "His Word" to be written into a book that contains countless legitimate reasons to not believe it.

See, right there. That tells me that you 1) Haven't read the gospels or 2) Are trying to be offensive. Per the Gospels and Jesus himself, he is the only God we have ever known. We only know of God the father through His interactions with Jesus. Jesus isn't a demigod, Jesus is God.



I don't see how "Yes officer, I saw the speed limit sign, but I didn't believe it" is a good defense. The Bible says repeatedly that you must have faith. What would your defense be when Jesus said something like this: "You expect me to believe that you would have accepted me as the creator of the universe, but you couldn't believe in a global flood? You would have believed that I created a billion galaxies with a billion stars each, life and the very laws of physics, but you couldn't believe that I could flood a tiny marble of a planet?"

I'm sorry, but when you are told that faith is required for salvation and you reject Christianity because you can't believe certain events in the Bible really happened, it takes the bottom out of your case. You were already told that faith would be required, so finding something unbelievable wouldn't be a defense.

See, right there. That tells me that you 1) Haven't read the gospels or 2) Are trying to be offensive. Per the Gospels and Jesus himself, he is the only God we have ever known. We only know of God the father through His interactions with Jesus. Jesus isn't a demigod, Jesus is God.

I don't see how "Yes officer, I saw the speed limit sign, but I didn't believe it" is a good defense. The Bible says repeatedly that you must have faith. What would your defense be when Jesus said something like this: "You expect me to believe that you would have accepted me as the creator of the universe, but you couldn't believe in a global flood? You would have believed that I created a billion galaxies with a billion stars each, life and the very laws of physics, but you couldn't believe that I could flood a tiny marble of a planet?"

I'm sorry, but when you are told that faith is required for salvation and you reject Christianity because you can't believe certain events in the Bible really happened, it takes the bottom out of your case. You were already told that faith would be required, so finding something unbelievable wouldn't be a defense.

Spider wrote:

I am responsible to Jesus, not man. I don't have to be right in this life, so long as Jesus thinks I did right. I'm just encouraging Di and you and anyone else reading this to open the Bible and read about Jesus with an open mind and heart. Make up your own mind of if Jesus is real and if so what he expects of you. Maybe you'll agree with me, probably you won't.

Spider wrote:

See, right there. That tells me that you 1) Haven't read the gospels or 2) Are trying to be offensive. Per the Gospels and Jesus himself, he is the only God we have ever known. We only know of God the father through His interactions with Jesus. Jesus isn't a demigod, Jesus is God.

If you believe what Jesus said is true, then it's a warning and not a threat. If you be don't believe what Jesus said is true, then it's fantasy.

I don't see how "Yes officer, I saw the speed limit sign, but I didn't believe it" is a good defense.

The Bible says repeatedly that you must have faith. What would your defense be when Jesus said something like this: "You expect me to believe that you would have accepted me as the creator of the universe, but you couldn't believe in a global flood? You would have believed that I created a billion galaxies with a billion stars each, life and the very laws of physics, but you couldn't believe that I could flood a tiny marble of a planet?"

I'm sorry, but when you are told that faith is required for salvation and you reject Christianity because you can't believe certain events in the Bible really happened, it takes the bottom out of your case. You were already told that faith would be required, so finding something unbelievable wouldn't be a defense.

No defense it needed if the 'officer' claims he is Barney Fife and he threatens to take you to the Mayberry jail and throw you in a cell with a drunk named Otis. All you have to do is change the channel.




Your whole argument fails on the logical fallacy of petitio principii-- the Latin term for the assumption that the very issue under discussion must be true by incorporating the conclusion of the argument into the premise that 'proves it'. It's a form of circular reasoning used constantly to 'prove' things in the Bible.


-Kerry O.

Spider, a moment ago you posted the above. Simply stating that you would like people to read about Jesus and make up their own mind.

However, when people do that, you then respond with the following:



In other words, if I refuse to arrive at the conclusions that you would LIKE, you accuse me of "Not having read the gospels"

That's bull.

I just don't naively believe these authors on blind faith like you apparently do.

I question them. Apparently you have accepted the authors directives to simply believe them on FAITH alone whether they make any sense or not.

Well, sheesh! If that's your mindset then of course you'll believe anything they say whether it makes any sense or not.

ok then why did god feel the need to create a universe?

These fables clearly have Jesus being born of a human woman and conceived by God. That makes Jesus a demigod. It's not meant to be offensive. It's simply a FACT of this particular mythology.

These fables clearly have Jesus being born of a human woman and conceived by God. That makes Jesus a demigod. It's not meant to be offensive. It's simply a FACT of this particular mythology.




This is utterly absurd.

It's not that I don't believe an all-powerful God "could" flood a measly old planet. The FACT is that the geological scientific evidence shows otherwise. No such global flood to that extent could have happened on Planet Earth during the span of human existence without leaving a very profound mark. In fact, the evidence is completely to the contrary. It would be impossible for evidence that does exist, to exist, if such a flood had actually occurred.

Moreover, it's not just the physics of the flood that's at question here. There are two truly profound problems with this story.

First, it doesn't fit in with a God who supposedly has a PLAN. Was his PLAN to drown out sinners? Or was his PLAN to sacrifice himself to pay for the sins of man. It makes no sense to have a God who "experiments" with different approaches to dealing with sinners.

Secondly, you yourself just made the second point. Could an all-powerful God flood a planet? Of course he could. However the FACT remains that he could have dealt with the problem in a myriad of other ways too. Far WISER ways.

Why bother flooding a planet when he could simply make all those sinners just disappear? Or turn them into pillars of salt, like he did to Lot's wife. Or give them fatal heart attacks. Heck they were supposedly having sex like crazy anyway, giving them heart attacks would have been easy.

Instead of having Noah waste his time building an ark, he could have had Noah building nurseries to raise the young children and babies, and then just did away with all the sinning adults.

Or, if he wanted to get rid of that genetic line altogether why not just make them all sterile. God supposedly has infinite patience. Within a single generation they'd all be dead naturally and there wouldn't have been any young children or babies to drown.

The point being Spider, that the FLOOD myth is simply stupid.

So I would have to respond to Jesus by saying, "Why do you expect me to believe that your stupid?" Of course, if he really did the flood as the Bible says then Jesus really is stupid so it would be a moot question.




You don't need to be sorry. The very fact that the authors of the bible demand that we must have FAITH that they speak for God is precisely the best reason to reject them.

All they are basically doing is saying, "Hey look we know that we didn't do very good making up these stories, so we're going to have to ask that you DON'T question them and just simply have FAITH".

I mean, come on, that's all the more reason to reject it as utterly absurd.

If it were from a genuinely intelligent God that God wouldn't need to ASK you to have FAITH, he would simply CONVINCE you of it.

This is the same thing with Jesus. If Jesus truly was God (which I don't believe for one second that he was), then all he would have had to do is write the greatest work of literature ever written, penned in his own hand, that everyone who reads it would just stand in awe at his absolute and complete wisdom.

After all, we're talking about the creator of the universe here, so this would have been a trivial task at best.

But, no, that's not what we have here at all. In fact, Jesus didn't even bother to write down a single solitary jot. Everything we have about Jesus is total gossip hearsay and it's FAR from special or impressive. In fact, it's so unimpressive that the Jews themselves didn't even buy into it.

There isn't a single bit of wisdom that Jesus taught that can't be found in either common sense, or the teachings of Buddha.

In fact it's so mundane, and ambiguous, and filled with such blatant contradictions, that even the Christian can't agree on what it says precisely. The Catholics believe one thing, and the Protestant believe another, and they can't even agree with each other.

This religion is so scatterbrain that no one could be blamed for not believing it.

I have to admit, like others, I’m confused about some Christian views pertaining to free will and how this relates to concepts of salvation.

Many Christians use the term ‘free will’ as a God-given birthright that allows us to analyze situations in our life and ‘freely’ determine the course of our own actions.

According to one Christian view, free-will was given us because it was necessary that humans freely choose to believe in God and Jesus.

That Christian view of free-will seems to hold the belief that individuals can always choose their own course of action, regardless of doctrinal beliefs including ‘divine command’ and moral mandates.

This free-will idea seems necessary in order to prove that their beliefs were of their own choosing and not influenced by the ideologies of others.

Now we introduce the concept of salvation which is a common component in Christian views of Jesus as ‘Christ’ (savior).

Some beliefs associated with Jesus as savior can be best shown through the quotes of one poster from another thread.





The reward of being saved is eternal life without worry, strife, sickness, or any other conflicts.
The way to gain this reward is through faith – ‘choosing’ to believe in God and that salvation only comes through faith in Jesus as the savior

The first element of confusion between free will and the road to salvation has to do with ‘thought, word, & deed’. The individual must FIRST DO SOMETHING before Jesus or God would even consider that individual a possible candidate for eternal salvation.

That something is a free-will choice; to believe in the Christian concepts of God & Jesus as savior.

Now we have to form some connections at this point. If God created humans with the highest order of brain function, AND granted free will to ‘act’ out of choice, then we might assume that our actions should be guided by intellect & logic followed by rational conclusions.

So it seems to me that information is a necessary part of making free-will choices. I don’t find this to be true of Christians who seek to persuade others that their beliefs are the RIGHT choice. In fact the only choice offered, by some Christians, is limited to two things; believe as I do and live eternally or --- suffer some kind of severe consequence.

That action seems to equate to purposely limiting the ‘free-will’ choice of others, especially when there are so many options to choose from. If free will is so important to this decision, I would think that the proper Christian view would be to offer as much information about all options as possible to those who don’t know what other choices are available. In this way, the choice would truly be a free will decision.

The second element of confusion pertains to the idea that thought, word, and deed have nothing to do with salvation which is achieved merely through faith alone.

If this were the case there would be absolutely no need for divine commands, or doctrine that directs behavior toward specific morality. Also in question is the idea that the holy spirit only aids those who believe first, because only those who believe would recognize its influence on behavior. So the FIRST deed is to make some effort to gain information about the available choices for a religious belief system. The second deed is pay attention to the Holy Spirit for guidance. But guidance for what? You already believe at that point.

That leaves only one option available for people to choose belief in God & Jesus - through the testimony of other humans.

Testimony in this case is conflicting and even the bible is silent when it comes to applying moral lessons to current day situations, so all doctrine must be considered suspect of being tainted (in the least) by human influence or at worst being totally contrived. Again, information about all those choices is withheld by those attempting to persuade others to a particular doctrine.

Finally the ideas of “free-will”, combined with “thought, word & deed” seem to conflict with “salvation”.

One of the greatest questions to puzzle Christians has been “What about the salvation of unbelievers?”
The bible is unclear when it comes to this question except to fundamentalists. Fundamentalists believe that every verse in the bible is whole, complete, true, and without error. They have chosen very specific phrases from the bible and determined that NO HUMAN (in human history) is saved without belief. And that only faith is required for salvation.

Surely, throughout human history there have been non-Christians who have attained the moral equivalency of Gods’ standards without holding a belief in the God of Abraham or in Jesus – because not even the torah is old enough for humans to have included some kind of believe in a Christ as a savior.

Again there is conflict in the assumption that salvation is “through faith alone.” Then what is the purpose of the bible and all its stories directed toward actions of thought, word, and deed? What is the purpose of divine command, or any religious doctrine?

It seems to me that the only purpose of Christians to align with any particular doctrine, is to point a finger to themselves as the only true faithful clan of humans worthy of salvation. As if their God would somehow not know who was worthy.

Perhaps it would be better if people did not feel a need to conform to any particular doctrine. In fact it would seem a wiser choice to make simple proclamations of faith and allow ones’ self the opportunity to pursue information through their life-time of experiences. In this way people are more flexible to change, more tolerant of others, and able to determine their own code of ethics.

We have a brain, we have free will, and we have unknown experiences through which to gain undiscovered knowledge. If we commit to extreme beliefs with rigid and illogical doctrinal directives, we create a self-imposed limitation on our own free will in addition to the limitations we accept in order to form civil societies with respect to human rights.

Other views or Christian clarification of the views presented?

I think a better title for this post would be "differences between being spiritual and being Christian.


Christianity isn't as black and white and absolute as you often claim.There are many forms of Christianity with different ways of worshiping.Catholics have a entirely different way of worshiping then do the Mormons.According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (year 2000 version), global Christianity had 33,820 denominations with 3,445,000 congregations.

So if you are looking for a specific way to look at Christianity you have 33,820 different view points on how to worship God and Jesus and what kind of life to live.Of course all these viewpoints all Holy bible based with Jesus Christ as their savior.

Good deeds does not get a person anything in this life or the next no matter what you are doing.Good deeds are good for the community and your neighbors like you but God does not reward a non believer the same as he does one of his believers.Even so called Christians who claim they are a Christians yet do everything the bible tells them not to do are in danger or serious judgment from God and will be punished in many cases worse than a non believer since Christians know they are disobeying Gods word.


Matthew 7:21-23

21 Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?"
23 And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."


I think it is also important to remember for Christians your actions will get you punishment and rewards through your actions.I firmly believe those who live by the bible and follow God's words have a much easier and longer life in general than those who do not.


As far as what happens to the non believers despite how good they are.The bible is pretty clear that non believers will be cast into Hell when they die.People often think this idea is flawed and many believe they are going to heaven anyways but this is a lie and there is only one way out of Hell and that is through the belief in Jesus Christ.

When people have problems with this logic.I tell them,"what if all the Christians were wrong and Islam was the true religion.If you died and went to their heaven would you say you deserved the same eternal life and rewards as Muslims even though you haven't done anything at all including reading a single page from their bible"?Seems pretty stupid doesn't it?It's the same logic with Christianity.Why should a Athiest get the same rewards as a Christian who has spent his or her whole going to church,following the bible,and doing what God has commanded?


Christians will be held accountable for their actions,lies,blasphemies,and many other things when they are judged before God.

1 Corinthians 3 says it best...

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[c] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.


Matthew 16:26-27
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works."

Revelation 22:11-12
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be."

uke 21:1-4
"And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.

And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:

For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had."

I really don't see the point debating with you since you call everything we post wrong,fables,and lies.


Yet when it comes to your side of the issue you post some other bible verse and say "see my side is correct because of what God said".


This is debating at it's very worst.Trying to debate with someone who denies everything as false yet takes the same words later and says it has to be true.

There really is no point debating you anymore.You are only going to hear what you want to hear and pass everything else off as irrelevant.

free will is a very simple concept. why is it so hard for some people to understand it. ex: if you are sick with a fatal disease and are offered a variety of medicine to take, and all but ONE of those medications are a placebo, you have the choice to choose any of them but only ONE will cure you. this is the same with religion. do you get it now.

Surely God is beautiful, not ugly.

So why not choose the most beautiful spirituality?

That seems to me like the best way to honor God.

How could God complain about a child who brings him the most beautiful picture the child can find and asks, "Daddy, is that you?"

What better praise can a child possible give a parent?