A lot of the bible is bullshit IMO, but it gives people something to believe in, gives their life meaning

Science may seem like it all makes sense, a lot of it doesn, but when you look outside the box you realise its just scientists giving meaning to things

Well the idea of a God itself is a contradiction. But you don't even need to go as far as that. Religion does a good job of making itself look stupid.

So what if it does? Theres nothing wrong with it (before you say it causes wars....Science created the Atomic bomb, science created the gun, science created a whole load of bad ****)

Science and faith do not have to be mutually exclusive, however the subject of this thread is about Christians, so debates in general about Science and Faith should be on a separate thread.

People don't kill in the name of Science though do they?

Obviously sometimes the topic is going to go off track now and then, it happens.

No, but more bad things have been caused by science, anyway, I agree with Sticks

Lets just agree to disagree

Fine.

sticks the peacemaker
he is the messiah

Hello.

Christianity and Democracy cant go together.
Just saying.
Totally unrelated but it's true.

:)

InOne, **** of my thread.

I created this topic for a mature discussion on Christianity.

If the only thing that you are capable of posting is "lol" and other nonsense like that, this is clearly not the thread for you.

Someone should write a book about this very moment.

Maybe then Sticks may be seen as some form of god in a few thousand years :D

Sorry, but I dont think you can level that at my posts. There is nothing unconstructive or personal in them. To gather me up with inone is incorrect. If you reread what I replied they do not correspond to your purple summary.

My only personal comment was that the poster had a poor grasp of Christianity and that was self evident from his posts.

I can post wherever I want. There is nothing mature about Christianity so why should we maturely discuss it? People who follow Christianity see themselves better than us, enlightened almost. I call it a delusion. :)

I have read the Bible, I have studied Christianity. Christians know it does not make sense, but they go on faith. You can't argue with faith, therefore you can never get through to a Christian

What part to you does not make sense, please can you be specific.

A man coming back from the dead. The contradictions in all the gospals when they tell of the birth of Jesus. The fact that the idea, of the son of god and ressurection is ridiculously similar to the Egyptian religions. Also the NT was written about 50 years after Jesus's death, and longer in some cases. What is in the bible today is what the Catholic chuch decided, why choose some gospals and not others?

At the risk of a minor thread hijack

I am assuming you are referring to the resurrection of Christ. According to 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 this is key to the Christian faith. The Bible teaches that Christ took all the sins of the world upon him when he died, and his resurrection was so there could be forgiveness of sins so people could be saved from their sins if they came to Christ.

Ideally a study of the system of sacrifices the Jews had in the Old Testament might give an idea of how this work, as it was a shadow of what was to come.

A good summary can be found sort of in Hebrews 9, particularly Hebrews 9:22.

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Unfortunately this may be hard for some to understand here, and the Bible does recognise that fact.

Actually there are only two gospels which detail Jesus Birth. Matthew and Luke. Matthew was aimed at Jewish Christians and Luke at gentiles. They come at this story from different angles and at different times. The common nativity play some may have had to perform at school bear little relationship to the actual gospel account. My favourite bug bear is the portrayal of three kings visiting a baby Jesus along with the shepherds while he is in the stable.

WRONG!

That is not what the Bible actually said. The number of magi or wise men is not stated. Only three different gifts. When they came to him, he was in a house, not the stable and Herod slew male infants of two years and under, giving some indication of time. Jesus was two when the magi visited. This is not the fault of the Bible, but of people's misconception of events. Luke takes place around his birth. Matthew starts at the beginning, but jumps forward in time, so you can see both gospels not only are aimed at different groups but also recount events in two different time frames.


I am assuming you are referring to the legend of Osiris. If you compare the two stories of the resurrection of Osiris and that of Christ. You will find a wide gulf between them.

Osiris after being murdered by Set was bought back from the dead so Isis could get pregnant and give birth to Horus, and then Osiris died again.

In Christian theology, Christ laid down his life and died on a cross, executed by the Roman authorities. He then rises from the dead and continues to live at the right hand of the father.

Totally different from the Egyptian mythologies

Compare that to other historical documents from antiquity. The times between the event and the first time it is written down is considerably longer. In historical terms the time between the events of the New Testament and it being written down is quite short. Also we are not limited to the New Testament as we also have the writings of Flavious Josephus and Tacitus

The Cannon of scripture at this point should be split into two parts the Old Testament and the New Testament.

By the time of Jesus, the cannon of the Old Testament had been fixed by Jewish scholars. It was decided long before the existence of the Roman Catholic Church.

As for the New Testament, a cannon had emerged and the Conference of Nicea in 325CE merely just ratified what already known.

There is of course the argument that there are other books not included. First with regard to the apocrypha. None of those books were ever quoted by Jesus and were always considered to be uninspired.

The other texts like the Pseudopycrypha and the gnostic gospels were written by known heretics.

If you study them, they had some really odd passages which are at total variance with the rest of the New Testament.

Interesting. But still you don't really put up any arguments against it. Maybe just explain it and look at it from a different angle. Still I don't think Christianity is any more or less true that the two other monotheistic religions. They all depend of faith. Blind faith, and as I have said, you can't debate with someone who cannot see the otherside.

CS Lewis said that 99% of Christians who drift away from Christianity do so through laziness rather than any specific counter argument on theology they have heard or read. I find that it also is applicable, in an obviously reverse when debating with Atheists. I also find that a common theme is that they claim to have read the Bible but then show a scant knowledge of it.

Most Christians have not read more than 25% of the Bible so one can make up their own minds about claims to have read it from confessed non-believers.

If Christians actually read the Bible, they would not be Christian.

Christinaity, IMO = Shame.
It places shame upon things that we, as humans, just cannot help.
I.e. Women, Sex, and Gay people to name but a few.

Someone said on here that it's just a way of conrtroling people.
I think that's the perfect way to describe christianity.
The control of thought, idea and action.

I think that if Jesus was real and if he came back, he'd be very unhappy with how things ended up.

Just my two cents.
:)

There is a difference between what the Bible actually says and how certain institutions insisted it said while denying people the right to read it for themselves.

Simply put you are just referring to what you have heard and not what you have read and understood. You mainly refer to some individual Old Testament Scripture but ignore what the New testament says and is about.



How anyone thinks that going to Church once a week for 90 minutes = control is beyond me. Most Christians spend more time per week in Tescos and Asda!

Does not make sense, perhaps you can expand?:conf:

Didnt bother to read through all the threads, but that cycle thing is stupid. ITs not like the bible is some book they found on the floor, and just believed everything it says.
JUst like anything, it needs credibility, ad the credibility comes from the Prophet who brought it to people. Jesus was a good man, everyone loved him before he started preaching, and he was selfless, and caring. Someone like that, who basically has nothing to gain in making it all up, someone who has never given you a reason to doubt him, or mistrust him, thats why people believe in the Bible, thats why people in the Tora (Moses), and the Kuran (Mohamed). Plus these books all have one thing in common, they preach goodness, and love in general.

ANd the kicker, is FAITH!!! Imo, you either have it, or you dont. IF you dont believe in any of them books, when you read it, then its just not in you. Or maybe something will happen in your life in the future, that will change you, and make you believe.
Bottom line is, there is no need to force it. As ar a I know, it should come very naturally.

Well this i the argument some people have to kick the church down (amd I am not christian). BUt you have to forget about the church for a moment, and think about the original message, where it came from! It didnt come from some big powerful institution trying to control you, the church came after all that. They definitely have their fault and became involved in politics rather than just god. BUt the Prophet didnt have thoe ambitions, he was a humble man, who lived a humble life, barely above poverty, even though he had thousands of followers. SO that point doesnt work for me.

Do you believe the Bible is 100% the word of God?

Oh god, not this again.

This image just proves that Christianity is a farce. "Do this because the bible tells you to do it". **** RIGHT OFF!

Go on Enid, get em told!!!!!!

The irony in your opening statement....

The answer to your question would very much depend on what your idea of God is. By what you have said so far I think i will pass and get the next one.

The God of the Bible, that is what i'm asking...

precisley

:/

Chewy hit the nail on the head with science. It is useless as an end unto itself. It's just applying names to things and explaining how they work. It does not make said things less amazing.

Hardcore Christianity and hardcore Atheism are both as bad as the other.

Question for Sticks : Do you believe in the theory of evolution? And more to the point, would you consider yourself creationist? Because Jesus was. The original sin of Adam & Eve was the entire reason for God being made flesh to redeem us, and Jesus believes in both Adam & Eve, and the flood/Noah's ark as being factual.

One thing I don't like is people trying to have there cake and eat it. From where I stand, the fact that the earth is more than a few thousand years old [fact] and the Bible utterly cannot co-exist. I once too tried to accept Jesus, and that lovely, peaceful New Testament vibe, but it fulfills and exists with the Old Testament. One cannot exist without the other.

Here is another theory of mine : What if Jesus WAS an incredible miracle worker, but was NOT the son of the God of the abrahamic religions?

After all, he was raised as a Jew. If you or I were raised as a Jew back then, and if you or I discovered we had incredible healing powers, obviously we would attribute them to our believed religion.

There Is No God.

There is something, that's for sure.

Unless your suggesting nothing came from nothing, and nothing then merged with a few more nothings to create more nothings ... which eventually some whacky ****ing way down the line splurted out a civilization capable of constructing nuclear bombs and cheese pizzas.