Features

Protoclown · #26

I don't believe that god is exclusively good OR evil. I believe he is both at once. I believe he is everything. The good, the bad...reality.

Cosmo Electrolux · #27

actually, Jesus is a myth..based on the Dionesian/Orsirus mystery cults. Or, maybe it's coincidence that all of these cults feature godmen that were hung on a cross, died and resurrected the third day....healed the sick, turned water into wine at a wedding.....most of the evidence that gets presented to prove the existance of a historical Jesus, has proven to be false...just like Jimmy Christs coffin.....

Cosmo Electrolux · #28

oh yeah...they did it a couple of thousand years before JC and the boys made the scene. There are, however historical records indicating that there were several dozen "messiahs" riding donkeys into Jerusalem waiving palm leaves that day....

ScruU2wice · #29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cosmo Electrolux

actually, Jesus is a myth..based on the Dionesian/Orsirus mystery cults. Or, maybe it's coincidence that all of these cults feature godmen that were hung on a cross, died and resurrected the third day....healed the sick, turned water into wine at a wedding.....most of the evidence that gets presented to prove the existance of a historical Jesus, has proven to be false...just like Jimmy Christs coffin.....

So your saying that jesus never existed? and that the majority of the world is wrong, because scientists have nothing better to do then find fallacies in biblical stories? further more your saying that people who actually witnessed jesus' existence were all liars and that there was no distinctive impact on history by jesus because he never existed? and there is no way you can be wrong because you believe that for piece of evidence that prove the existence of jesus can be scientifically proven wrong?

O71394658 · #30

Jesus didn't have a coffin...

Cosmo Electrolux · #31

Jimmy Christ ( James, Jesus brother)

O71394658 · #32

Cosmo Electrolux · #33

thing is, you can't prove Jesus was an actual living breathing person...the Romans, who were meticulous record keepers, have no record of a Jesus wandering around jerusalem at that period in time. Christian theologians had a habit of mixing their myth in with local history to make the whole story more plausable...like any decent fiction writer. If you'd bother to check the history of your own religion, you'd find that most scholors (yes, even the christians) agree that the gospels (your "proof" for the existance of christ) have been "doctored"...actually written and re-written several times over. Hell, the gospels don't even agree on the lineage of Jesus....(he was supposed to be a direct desendant of King David)...

O71394658 · #34

Tacitus (AD 55-120), a renowned historical of ancient Rome, wrote in the latter half of the first century that ‘Christus ... was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.’ (Annals 15: 44).

Suetonius writing around AD 120 tells of disturbances of the Jews at the ‘instigation of Chrestus’, during the time of the emperor Claudius. This could refer to Jesus, and appears to relate to the events of Acts 18:2, which took place in AD 49.

Thallus, a secular historian writing perhaps around AD 52 refers to the death of Jesus in a discussion of the darkness over the land after his death. The original is lost, but Thallus’ arguments — explaining what happened as a solar eclipse — are referred to by Julius Africanus in the early 3rd century.

Mara Bar-Serapion, a Syrian writing after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, mentions the earlier execution of Jesus, whom he calls a ‘King’.

The Babylonian Talmud refers to the crucifixion (calling it a hanging) of Jesus the Nazarene on the eve of the Passover. In the Talmud Jesus is also called the illegitimate son of Mary.

The Jewish historian Josephus describes Jesus’ crucifixion under Pilate in his Antiquities, written about AD 93/94. Josephus also refers to James the brother of Jesus and his execution during the time of Ananus (or Annas) the high priest.

ranxer · #35

cosmo yer whacking at the root, as i've discovered its mighty hard to do regarding almost anything in america. personally ive given up on attacking jesus.. what's wrong with the idea of jesus existing as a historical figure anyway?

jesus had a lot of strong positions that place him as a liberal green party member, what's wrong with that? i dont place any faith in him being a messaih but a person with progressive views.. speaking for the voiceless etc.. most christian religions cant even come close to living up to what jesus has reportedly said, isnt that enough for you?

why bother attacking his existence rather than the religions that have spun off of him?

from waht ive heard jesus was a gnostic and the gnostics weren't allowed to get anything into the bible.. they even had manhunts for the gnostics around the time jesus was crucified.. i'm much more interested in what the gnostics stood for than why jesus was called the messaih or why anyone would say jesus existed when he didnt. personally i believe he did but i'm talking from an athiest point of view that believes in humanity and solutions to our problems that don't have anything to do with shutting anyone up.

The_Rorschach · #36

"How can 'God' be both all good and all powerful?"

Read Isaiah if you ascribe to Christian or Jewish theology, if you do not, be more precise in which god you are speaking of.

God said to have created both good and evil, taking responsibility for both. Life, without free will, would be meaningless. Essentially, he is Good because he chooses to be responsible in the use of his omnipotence.

Sethomas · #37

This is what I had to say in the other thread:

According to Aquinas, evil can't exist in and of itself, so evil is just an inadequacy of good. Furthermore, free will can't over power God's will, so God's will entails all evil.

But what I would have to say is that God's will, regarding the passage of time on Earth, is for the world to reflect the collective nature of our immortal souls. Likewise, the nature of our lives reflects the nature of our souls as individuals. In the tangible world, the notion of free will is simply impossible both theologically and scientifically. But I believe that our souls were endowed with a personal nature, and in crafting a hyperdimensional universe God based his design on our souls.

In orthodox thought, the soul is given free will and control over a mortal body. In my theory, the soul is merely reflected by a mortal body without free will. So if you lead an evil life, it's because your soul was innately evil, not because your soul directed you to do evil things. Such is my theory of Metaphysical Consequence. I'll write a book about it after I get my Ph.D.

AChimp · #38

Yeah. Like I said, there are records of Jesus's existence, but no objective records of his miracles.

The_voice_of_reason · #39

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even he could not eat it?

-Homer

Big Papa Goat · #40

What is good and what is evil? Our notion of them is mere human morality. God has the entire Universe to weigh in his hands; our notions of good and evil, suffering and happiness, may not be very important to him.

kellychaos · #41

Quote:

Originally Posted by AChimp

I think what Cosmo is trying to get at is that there is no historical reference to miracles that Jesus was supposed to have performed OTHER than the Bible.

Cuz, you know, if there was a dude who could make the blind see and cure lepers with a glance, other people at the time might have taken notice and written about it.

I don't know if I exactly agree with this logic, chimpy one. Socrates taught many people and we know him to exist, yet if memory serves me correctly, Plato is one of few (perhaps only) people to have written down his teachings. Did his teachings (dialectic dialogues really) not take place?

AChimp · #42

There's a difference between a guy who is just talked to a few people and a guy who reputedly addressed thousands of people on many occassions and performed divine miracles in front of them.

There were a couple of people around the time who mentioned Socrates in their works, though, and offereed additional views on him as opposed to Plato, who was his student. Xenophon, for instance. The fact that similar accounts of Socrates exist by different authors who weren't in cohoots with each other is evidence enough for his teachings.

I don't believe that there are books by other authors at the time that considered Jesus worth writing about. He gets a mention here and there in the various historical chronicles of the time ("cult leader talked to people, soldiers dispersed mob"), but there's no Life and Times of Jesus Christ, written by a contemporary, other than the what's in Bible, and that can hardly be considered an objective account to his miracles, especially after 2000 years or building an entire religion around him.

O71394658 · #43

Who says there wasn't historical evidence?

But you have to remember, most people (if not all except for a very few) couldn't read or write back then. "Paper" was also scarce, as they had to use expensive sheep and cattle skins to write on and stuff. (remember books had to be hand copied too, which could take months or years...) But besides all this, I wouldn't be surprised if there was historical evidence of his miracles. Hell, there was a miracle witnessed by thousands of people a decade or two ago, and most people don't even believe that.

kellychaos · #44

Quote:

Originally Posted by O71394658

Who says there wasn't historical evidence?

But you have to remember, most people (if not all except for a very few) couldn't read or write back then. "Paper" was also scarce, as they had to use expensive sheep and cattle skins to write on and stuff. (remember books had to be hand copied too, which could take months or years...) But besides all this, I wouldn't be surprised if there was historical evidence of his miracles. Hell, there was a miracle witnessed by thousands of people a decade or two ago, and most people don't even believe that.

I hate to flip-flop around but ... I guess, taking AChimp's side ... at least a few things were written about Socrates and his teaching and that was about 400 years B.C. and they seemed to have enough paper for that. Just sayin'