[cdmalgee]

It's actually not even close to being "tantamount". We have moon dust. We have gas cylinders, camps that stand today, and pictures of the crimes against humanity in WWII.

You have a book that was written 100 years after he died and very closely reflects the story told of a leader of the Essene(sp?) tribe a hundred years before Jesus was supposedly born.

[warden]

 

Originally Posted by TheWacoKidd

 

Originally Posted by brsavage

Do you REALLY believe that Jesus Christ was some mythological figure and not a real person?

no, and I NEVER said that, chill... christianity is a hoax, not Jesus as a real person...

 

Originally Posted by brsavage

Stating that Jesus Christ was a Hoax is tantamount to saying the Holocaust and walking on the moon was a hoax.

good thing I NEVER said that... WTF put words in my mouth much?!?

EDIT: my bad on the poor wording... I see how you thought that from my quote... I was talking about christianity/organized religion as a whole, not the life of christ

how about the simple fact that saying jesus didn't exist is NOT like saying the holocaust and walking on the moon were both hoaxes.

it'd be more like saying socrates didn't exist or something like that.

[XBassX]

 

Originally Posted by dxnino

Somebody or something created this all. I do think there is evolution taking place, but in the end something got this ball rolling.

[warden]

 

Originally Posted by XBassX

 

Originally Posted by dxnino

Somebody or something created this all. I do think there is evolution taking place, but in the end something got this ball rolling.

who got the something going?

[mathclub]

 

Originally Posted by dpottz

 

Originally Posted by XBassX

 

Originally Posted by dxnino

Somebody or something created this all. I do think there is evolution taking place, but in the end something got this ball rolling.

what got the something going?

fyp

[AmSlim22]

random evolution questions (just things i have wondered)

if u killed every human on earth, how would life evolve from that point on?

if some force/mythical thing whatever, had killed every organism that had tried to survive out of water, how would life have evolved? merpeople :-)?

was there a time when there was a lot of transitional (i think this is right term) species existed that were some species between an ape and man? like why do apes still exist but caveman don't? (there is prob an easy answer to this, but i havent studied much biology...)

[warden]

 

Originally Posted by mathclub

 

Originally Posted by dpottz

 

Originally Posted by XBassX

 

Originally Posted by dxnino

Somebody or something created this all. I do think there is evolution taking place, but in the end something got this ball rolling.

what got the something going?

fyp

obv

in any case, god works fine as a "final cause," but why does god necessarily have to be that final cause? why can't it just be the universe?

[mathclub]

dude, every one of your questions is retarded, which is standard for you.

 

Originally Posted by AmSlim22

random evolution questions (just things i have wondered)

if u killed every human on earth, how would life evolve from that point on? NO ONE KNOWS HOW LIFE WILL EVOLVE ANYWAY, LEAST OF ALL IF HUMANS WERE EXTINCT

if some force/mythical thing whatever, had killed every organism that had tried to survive out of water, how would life have evolved? merpeople :-)? LIFE DID EVOLVE IN THE WATER, YOU KNOW WHAT A FISH IS?

was there a time when there was a lot of transitional (i think this is right term) species existed that were some species between an ape and man? like why do apes still exist but caveman don't? (there is prob an easy answer to this, but i havent studied much biology...) LOL, CAVEMEN DO EXIST TODAY, THEY JUST HAVE BETTER TECHNOLOGY SO DON'T HAVE TO LIVE IN CAVES ANY MORE

[Lord Supremo actually a tuvalu lord (sigh)]

 

Originally Posted by brsavage

who cars if the Nicean Council "cherry picked" the parts of Christ's life that they wanted to highlight?

I care, because millions of people have lost their lives fighting about whether or not Christ is the Son of God. I care because people who believe he was the Son of God attempt to invoke this "fact" to inject their own brand of morality into my governmental system and control the lives of myself and my countrymen.

I'm arguing about whether or not he was in fact the Son of God.

As you are a Christian, I assume you believe that he was and that he performed all the miracles in the Bible, and that anything from his mouth may as well have been said by The Big Guy Upstairs. I'm arguing about whether there is any reason to suspect that he actually did any of these things, or if the accounts that say he did so may be tainted by exaggeration and post facto manipulation by those who sought to create a religion for the purpose of controlling people.

I would further argue that if he wasn't the Son of God, that there isn't any point to the life of Jesus; at best he should be remembered as an interesting philosopher.

[AmSlim22]

 

Originally Posted by dpottz

why can't it just be the universe?

i agree.

i think God was used because it gave people a personification of an idea they could hardly come close to explaining. also using a God, gives u something that you can worship, that will judge you and will tell you how to act. also, and perhaps most importantly, it puts power in something else besides yourself, which is where i think a lot of people are most comfortable with it being.

[Lord Supremo actually a tuvalu lord (sigh)]

I know, I throw up in my mouth a little bit every time a new poll comes out that shows that number hasn't moved

[MadProfesor]

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[AmSlim22]

 

Originally Posted by Lord Supremo

I would further argue that if he wasn't the Son of God, that there isn't any point to the life of Jesus; at best he should be remembered as an interesting philosopher.

what if Jesus, was not technically the Son of God, but what he could do was so beyond what other people could do that the only way people could make sense of it was to label him as such. I am pretty sure most of what Jesus said was that other people could perform the same "miracles" that he did.

maybe for some reason Jesus was just more in tune with what humans are capable of.

[The Precedent]

[Lord Supremo actually a tuvalu lord (sigh)]

I obviously don't speak for anyone but myself, so I could be way off on this, but I think most atheists don't really think that religious people are neccesarily stupid (although some of them are). I think most atheists believe that being religious isn't the fault of religious people because the vast vast majority of them have been brainwashed since birth. So when atheists call religious people "stupid" its simply an expression of their frustration when their arguments can't/don't get through, and that the religious person is unable to free their mind in the way that the atheist has.

[AmSlim22]

 

Originally Posted by Lord Supremo

I obviously don't speak for anyone but myself, so I could be way off on this, but I think most atheists don't really think that religious people are neccesarily stupid (although some of them are). I think most atheists believe that being religious isn't the fault of religious people because the vast vast majority of them have been brainwashed since birth. So when atheists call religious people "stupid" its simply an expression of their frustration when their arguments can't/don't get through, and that the religious person is unable to free their mind in the way that the atheist has.

i think you are speaking with unwarranted certainty...

[Lord Supremo actually a tuvalu lord (sigh)]

If that was the case, I would say congrats to Jesus, but that still doesn't make him particularly worth remembering. Certainly it would not make him worthy of having a cult created around him, or fighting wars over him, or any of the other things that people do because of Christianity. I would also say the fact that none of the billions of other people who have existed have been so "in tune" as Jesus allegedly was severely decreases the likelihood that he was a normal human that was "in tune" with what people can do.

[AmSlim22]

maybe if people had just listened to what he was saying and not spending their time worshipping what he was doing....

[AmSlim22]

 

Originally Posted by Lord Supremo

I would say congrats to Jesus, but that still doesn't make him particularly worth remembering.

so for people who don't think Jesus did anything worth noting, why is he remembered?

was he just a really good speaker and could manipulate people and was able to convince enough people that a cult was formed around him? and why was he so successful at this when others have not been? of the billions of people that have existed why is Jesus remembered? maybe he just had a really good campaign manager....

i do ask out of curiousity too, even if the history of Jesus was simply that he was able to have huge impact over people and was able to form a religion without any specialness about him, that seems pretty amazing to me and worth studying.

of course to me, it seems as plausible, if not even more so that there was actually something special about him... interesting to think about no matter which side you fall on imo.

[Lord Supremo actually a tuvalu lord (sigh)]

 

Originally Posted by AmSlim22

was he just a really good speaker and could manipulate people and was able to convince enough people that a cult was formed around him?

This

 

Originally Posted by AmSlim22

and why was he so successful at this when others have not been?

Because his followers were able to use force to spread their faith the way no previous religion (and only Islam since) had been able to.

 

Originally Posted by AmSlim22

even if the history of Jesus was simply that he was able to have huge impact over people and was able to form a religion without any specialness about him, that seems pretty amazing to me and worth studying.

Maybe I should have been clearer. I meant that Jesus shouldn't have had a religion formed around him in the first place, not that the phenomenon of Christianity in itself isn't interesting.

[Lord Supremo actually a tuvalu lord (sigh)]

Like bfactor (who sadly isn't contributing anything to this thread besides pictures of attractive asian women), I am 99.9999999999999999999999% confident that there is no God and that the religions of this world are completely human inventions with no higher "Truth." That 0.however many 0's.1% chance that there is a God and that religion is a real thing doesn't give me too much pause

[AmSlim22]

hmmm

i also think there is not a God in the way i have seen him defined by OT, (i also think at some point science will come to understand a force or something that has the "power of God". i also think that religions are human inventions. u say no higher truth, i would say i believe in a higher knowledge or understanding perhaps.

and for someone to experience something does not require science to prove it exists. so it is completely possible for me to believe that things exist that science hasn't proved or does not understand. science is also a human invention and i think it is pretty reasonable to believe that scientific truth is not an all encompassing truth, but instead it must be modified with "from what we can currently test or measure" or "with the information available to us" or "as far as we understand it".

So whatever amount of 0's you use, go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a ****.

btw- dont take any offense to last quote, just came to my mind while replying from my fav movie and seemed somewhat appropriate. i actually don't consider these discussions a waste of time tho. i also have to go to a basketball game, but would cont this discussion at a later time.

[ginwilly]

whether you believe or not it's a fascinating subject, if you read it like a history book with genealogy it's pretty amazing. the whole jesus being a descendant of david and sarah, and mohammed being a descendant of david and hagar (?), and how there would always be jealousy and fighting between their descendants is pretty spot on.

btw, it's hard to argue with Jesus's or The Bhudda's teachings (basically the same) or even Ghandi's. If we tried to live by these words of wisdom life would be so much easier.

[Magnet Steve]

Hai guys!