Jesus is real, and that’s a historical fact. Jesus is still alive, His resurrection and ascension was witnessed.
But that’s besides the point; who else who is “alive and real” would you suggest is a better rolemodel? Even if Jesus was fictional, He’s still a pretty good role model by what’s written about Him.
He had some bangers but also some real shit takes like slaves obey your masters, faith healing, and substitutionary atonement. He’s been dead for ages and the multiple times he told his disciples the second coming would be within their lifetime never happened.
If you want better role models look at Fred Rogers, Dolly Parton, Bob Ross, people that are or were generous and charitable without damning anyone who doesn’t agree with their religion or believe they are a divine messiah.
If I steal 20 bucks from you then I need to ask for your forgiveness, if my friend Tom forgives me or takes my punishment it does nothing to apologize to or provide reparations for victims. What is justice if not rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior?
That doesn’t justify the substitution, and if that god exists that’s not justice, that’s just an evil god who decided that eternal torture is an appropriate punishment for being born into inescapable sin with no chance of rehabilitation after a short life.
If the original sin was committed by Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and bad, which they themselves would not know was bad because they hadn’t yet eaten it, then threatening to punish them and all of their descendents with eternal torture forever is evil. There’s also no reason that the atonement of sin to an all powerful god requires a blood sacrifice or any sacrifice except by his rules, there are multiple sin atonements in the Bible accepting flour, money, incense, prayer, etc.
You’ve just contradicted yourself. First you say it’s silly that God is willing to pay and accepts payment for our sins from Himself, then you claim God is evil because He punishes sin to begin with. How could a sinful person expect their sin to be tolerated around a perfect God? Yes, such sin damns us to hell, but God forgives it, and Jesus is the mechanism of God’s forgiveness. If God just let people who were sinful in His sight get into heaven, He wouldn’t be perfectly just. You mentioned that we should be able to atone for sin using flour, money, incense and prayer. That’s like a player trying to bribe a Minecraft server admin to not ban him for rule breaking with diamonds. God can create flour, “money” (something that only has value because we perceive it to. What’s God going to do with it, buy His groceries in Tesco?) and incense. As for prayer, He has a multitude of angels praising Him constantly.
Adam and Eve knew what they were doing. God told them not to. But they did it anyway. If their descendants didn’t sin, their descendants wouldn’t be punished. But their descendants sinned. This “cruelty” is null and void considering God gives us a free way out (compared to your “better” idea where you proposed that you should need to work to get out of Hell)
You’ve just contradicted yourself. First you say it’s silly that God is willing to pay and accepts payment for our sins from Himself, then you claim God is evil because He punishes sin to begin with.
It’s not a contradiction to say if this god exists he makes unnecessary rules and unjust punishments for breaking those rules.
How could a sinful person expect their sin to be tolerated around a perfect God?
If this god exists and was knowing, loving, and powerful I would expect he could forgive them and rehabilitate them, not cast them aside to be tortured forever, that’s not an act of love, that’s an abusive intimidation tactic saying love me or else.
Yes, such sin damns us to hell, but God forgives it, and Jesus is the mechanism of God’s forgiveness. If God just let people who were sinful in His sight get into heaven, He wouldn’t be perfectly just.
Who created the system where sin and hell exist and require forgiveness? If this god exists imperfect creations are exactly what a just creator would want to see so he can forgive and rehabilitate them. Instead he punishes them for actions he knew they would take before he created them, why create them in the first place if he knows they will live an insignificantly short life compared to the length of eternal torture? That is an evil thing to do.
You mentioned that we should be able to atone for sin using flour, money, incense and prayer. That’s like a player trying to bribe a Minecraft server admin to not ban him for rule breaking with diamonds. God can create flour, “money” (something that only has value because we perceive it to. What’s God going to do with it, buy His groceries in Tesco?) and incense. As for prayer, He has a multitude of angels praising Him constantly.
Those aren’t my rules to accept flour, money, etc as atonement for sin, they are the rules of the god of the Christian Bible.
Adam and Eve knew what they were doing. God told them not to. But they did it anyway.
If they didn’t know the difference between good and bad, how would they know that disobeying god was bad? That’s nonsense. If a child is too young to know good and bad and they draw on the walls it’s just as unjust to punish them.
If their descendants didn’t sin, their descendants wouldn’t be punished. But their descendants sinned. This “cruelty” is null and void considering God gives us a free way out (compared to your “better” idea where you proposed that you should need to work to get out of Hell)
The descendants had no choice in the matter to eat the fruit, it’s unjust to punish someone for something they did not choose or their ancestors chose. Collective punishment is a crime against humanity under the Geneva conventions for a reason.
I don’t think there is a god or hell, but if I did believe the Christian god exists there’s no reason to think blood sacrifice is required, and there is no free way out if you are required to worship an apparently evil creator to avoid eternal suffering.
All that said I don’t think we’ll come to an agreement but I do appreciate the discussion, and while I may yet be saved by the holy spirit if god exists I hope you read the Bible with a more critical eye on the actions of the moral actors within.
Even if Jesus was fictional, He’s still a pretty good role model by what’s written about Him.
If Christianity only expected people to think that Jesus was a good role model then maybe I would be more willing to turn up at my local church. But Christianity expects a further belief: that Jesus is the son of God, which is a supernatural claim.
Personally I’m just not sure I believe the supernatural stuff.
The major foundation of Christianity is a belief in God, basically. Without believing in God, there’s no point to being a Christian. It is kinda hard to argue though that Jesus as protrayed in the Bible is not a good role model.
Jesus was nailed to a cross, tortured for days then imprisoned when he didn’t die from it right away. Who did that? Conservatives. Conservatives today believe Jesus’s messages of empathy, accepting others, and helping everyone are weakness that should be stamped out. Yet they all claim “country and God”. So if Jesus exists his message is clearly dead and just used to control masses and get them to fall in line. If you want to cherish the ideology of what Jesus was originally pushed as, that’s wonderful, but just as language evolves so does “Jesus.”. He’s now a curb stomp those you are unsure about, shoot that person that looks different than me, and if you ask me for help you should be deported to a slave labor camp.
Or maybe that’s just what the majority of Christian followers in the U.S believe.
Jesus did die right away. His lungs were collapsed, there was no way a human could survive that.
You’re right about conservatives being wrong about Jesus. I do not care what americans have warped the Gospel into, it doesn’t change what Jesus did for me. I can’t just say “Sorry Jesus, I know you were tortured and died for me, but the people you warned about claim to follow you and do awful things, so I’m going to turn down what you did to me.” That won’t make sense.
Sure, ideology does change and maybe “Christianity” cannot be synonymous with what Jesus taught anymore. Doesn’t change who Jesus is.
Yeah, I think you’re right about the Jesus and Christianity being split. I hope you do find all the joy in the world following the original Jesus’s ideology.
I do. That’s why I said Jesus is a good rolemodel. I’d never say the Church is a good rolemodel or that people should follow what other Christians are doing.
I’m genuinely not trying to be a dick here, but citing the Bible as proof of the existence of Jesus is kind of like citing a comic as proof of the existence of Batman. No non-Christian is going to accept that evidence.
I’m not advocating for @Flax at all here, but I think it’s generally accepted that someone called Jesus (there were a LOT of people named Jesus back in the day) did exist and was something of a teacher.
Hate to break it to you, but that’s not historically honest.
“The Bible” is actually just a library of records gathered by various people which testify God. If there was another record/first-hand account about Jesus, it would be in the Bible. So not really. It’s more like trying to use records of Rome to prove that events happened in Rome, like the assassination of Julius Caesar. Or observations about other historical events to prove that event.
So essentially, these are all separate records, the Bible is just a compilation (except for Luke and Acts, they were originally one record, which I have amended my original comment to show)
The circular reasoning argument you are thinking about is about using the Bible to prove the Bible (eg, saying the Bible says it’s true, therefore it is). I’m not using the Bible to try and prove itself, I’m using the Bible to try and prove Jesus. You claimed there are no written records, yet that’s exactly what the Bible is. You can’t just dismiss it because a few hundred years later, Christians decided to canonise it as one text.
And even then, you can in a way, through textual criticism and supplementary historical evidence, prove things about a text (such as criterion of embarrassment, preservation, other details from the authors) relating to it’s legitimacy.
The texts of the New Testament have been one of the most spread and reproduced documents from the Roman empire period, nevermind the first century
Most historical events don’t have the documentation made about Jesus. They all popped up at the same time saying the same thing yet from different perspectives. Then there’s archaeological evidence carrying on about Christianity and a church existing, all from the first century. Something big must have happened, typically things like that don’t happen.
Lastly, not all of the texts I mentioned were biblical. The others were from other historians which didn’t have enough detail to be included in the Bible. The thing is, if they were more detailed, they would have most likely been included in the Bible, making your standard quite the tautology
It’s kind of like someone saying “use studies from academics showing the legitimacy and arguing in favour of the Bible- by the way, you cannot cite Christian Apologists” when by definition, a Christian apologist is someone who argues in favour of Christianity. If they were to argue in favour of Christianity, they’ll be a Christian apologist. It’ll be a tautology. Like how any detailed contemporary account of Jesus by someone close to Him would have most likely been included in the Bible.
Someone who’s alive and real would be a good start.
Jesus is real, and that’s a historical fact. Jesus is still alive, His resurrection and ascension was witnessed.
But that’s besides the point; who else who is “alive and real” would you suggest is a better rolemodel? Even if Jesus was fictional, He’s still a pretty good role model by what’s written about Him.
He had some bangers but also some real shit takes like slaves obey your masters, faith healing, and substitutionary atonement. He’s been dead for ages and the multiple times he told his disciples the second coming would be within their lifetime never happened.
If you want better role models look at Fred Rogers, Dolly Parton, Bob Ross, people that are or were generous and charitable without damning anyone who doesn’t agree with their religion or believe they are a divine messiah.
Slaves obey your masters wasn’t Jesus. Also, what’s wrong with substitutionary atonement?
If I steal 20 bucks from you then I need to ask for your forgiveness, if my friend Tom forgives me or takes my punishment it does nothing to apologize to or provide reparations for victims. What is justice if not rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior?
Because if we were all to be punished for our sin, everyone will be thrown into hell eternally. That’s the punishment for sin.
That doesn’t justify the substitution, and if that god exists that’s not justice, that’s just an evil god who decided that eternal torture is an appropriate punishment for being born into inescapable sin with no chance of rehabilitation after a short life.
If the original sin was committed by Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and bad, which they themselves would not know was bad because they hadn’t yet eaten it, then threatening to punish them and all of their descendents with eternal torture forever is evil. There’s also no reason that the atonement of sin to an all powerful god requires a blood sacrifice or any sacrifice except by his rules, there are multiple sin atonements in the Bible accepting flour, money, incense, prayer, etc.
You’ve just contradicted yourself. First you say it’s silly that God is willing to pay and accepts payment for our sins from Himself, then you claim God is evil because He punishes sin to begin with. How could a sinful person expect their sin to be tolerated around a perfect God? Yes, such sin damns us to hell, but God forgives it, and Jesus is the mechanism of God’s forgiveness. If God just let people who were sinful in His sight get into heaven, He wouldn’t be perfectly just. You mentioned that we should be able to atone for sin using flour, money, incense and prayer. That’s like a player trying to bribe a Minecraft server admin to not ban him for rule breaking with diamonds. God can create flour, “money” (something that only has value because we perceive it to. What’s God going to do with it, buy His groceries in Tesco?) and incense. As for prayer, He has a multitude of angels praising Him constantly.
Adam and Eve knew what they were doing. God told them not to. But they did it anyway. If their descendants didn’t sin, their descendants wouldn’t be punished. But their descendants sinned. This “cruelty” is null and void considering God gives us a free way out (compared to your “better” idea where you proposed that you should need to work to get out of Hell)
It’s not a contradiction to say if this god exists he makes unnecessary rules and unjust punishments for breaking those rules.
If this god exists and was knowing, loving, and powerful I would expect he could forgive them and rehabilitate them, not cast them aside to be tortured forever, that’s not an act of love, that’s an abusive intimidation tactic saying love me or else.
Who created the system where sin and hell exist and require forgiveness? If this god exists imperfect creations are exactly what a just creator would want to see so he can forgive and rehabilitate them. Instead he punishes them for actions he knew they would take before he created them, why create them in the first place if he knows they will live an insignificantly short life compared to the length of eternal torture? That is an evil thing to do.
Those aren’t my rules to accept flour, money, etc as atonement for sin, they are the rules of the god of the Christian Bible.
If they didn’t know the difference between good and bad, how would they know that disobeying god was bad? That’s nonsense. If a child is too young to know good and bad and they draw on the walls it’s just as unjust to punish them.
The descendants had no choice in the matter to eat the fruit, it’s unjust to punish someone for something they did not choose or their ancestors chose. Collective punishment is a crime against humanity under the Geneva conventions for a reason.
I don’t think there is a god or hell, but if I did believe the Christian god exists there’s no reason to think blood sacrifice is required, and there is no free way out if you are required to worship an apparently evil creator to avoid eternal suffering.
All that said I don’t think we’ll come to an agreement but I do appreciate the discussion, and while I may yet be saved by the holy spirit if god exists I hope you read the Bible with a more critical eye on the actions of the moral actors within.
If Christianity only expected people to think that Jesus was a good role model then maybe I would be more willing to turn up at my local church. But Christianity expects a further belief: that Jesus is the son of God, which is a supernatural claim.
Personally I’m just not sure I believe the supernatural stuff.
The major foundation of Christianity is a belief in God, basically. Without believing in God, there’s no point to being a Christian. It is kinda hard to argue though that Jesus as protrayed in the Bible is not a good role model.
Dude’s been hiding for a while then. Probably out of embarrassment.
The look on your face when He comes back will be hilarious
When’s he due? I might make time to pop along and see him.
Jesus was nailed to a cross, tortured for days then imprisoned when he didn’t die from it right away. Who did that? Conservatives. Conservatives today believe Jesus’s messages of empathy, accepting others, and helping everyone are weakness that should be stamped out. Yet they all claim “country and God”. So if Jesus exists his message is clearly dead and just used to control masses and get them to fall in line. If you want to cherish the ideology of what Jesus was originally pushed as, that’s wonderful, but just as language evolves so does “Jesus.”. He’s now a curb stomp those you are unsure about, shoot that person that looks different than me, and if you ask me for help you should be deported to a slave labor camp.
Or maybe that’s just what the majority of Christian followers in the U.S believe.
Jesus did die right away. His lungs were collapsed, there was no way a human could survive that.
You’re right about conservatives being wrong about Jesus. I do not care what americans have warped the Gospel into, it doesn’t change what Jesus did for me. I can’t just say “Sorry Jesus, I know you were tortured and died for me, but the people you warned about claim to follow you and do awful things, so I’m going to turn down what you did to me.” That won’t make sense.
Sure, ideology does change and maybe “Christianity” cannot be synonymous with what Jesus taught anymore. Doesn’t change who Jesus is.
Yeah, I think you’re right about the Jesus and Christianity being split. I hope you do find all the joy in the world following the original Jesus’s ideology.
I do. That’s why I said Jesus is a good rolemodel. I’d never say the Church is a good rolemodel or that people should follow what other Christians are doing.
Pretty sure Jesus (biblical Jesus) is dead
He rose again
Swell. Do you have a video? Or picture? Or any kind of evidence?
Do you have a video, picture or any kind of evidence that Julius Caesar was murdered?
Please can you answer my question instead of asking a different question.
Also, you’re the one making the claim that Jesus is alive. Do you have any evidence?
Yes. We have eyewitness accounts and archaeological evidence for followers.
Historical fact where?
There is absolutely no evidence of his existence anywhere. No writing about his existence. Nothing.
That’s just flat out wrong.
Antiquities of the Jews - Flavius Josephus Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a, 107b, Sotah 47a)
Annals – Tacitus
Lives of the Caesars – Suetonius
Letters (Book 10, Letter 96) – Pliny the Younger
Letter of Mara bar Serapion
The True Word – Celsus (Referenced in Origen’s Contra Celsum)
The Passing of Peregrinus – Lucian of Samosata
Gospel According to Matthew
Gospel According to Mark
Gospel and Acts of the Apostles According to Luke
Gospel According to John
Epistle to the Romans
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Epistle to the Galatians
Epistle to the Ephesians
Epistle to the Philippians
Epistle to the Colossians
First Epistle to the Thessalonians
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians
First Epistle to Timothy
Second Epistle to Timothy
Epistle to Titus
Epistle to Philemon
Epistle to the Hebrews
Epistle of James
First Epistle of Peter
Second Epistle of Peter
First Epistle of John
Second Epistle of John
Third Epistle of John
Epistle of Jude
I’m genuinely not trying to be a dick here, but citing the Bible as proof of the existence of Jesus is kind of like citing a comic as proof of the existence of Batman. No non-Christian is going to accept that evidence.
I’m not advocating for @Flax at all here, but I think it’s generally accepted that someone called Jesus (there were a LOT of people named Jesus back in the day) did exist and was something of a teacher.
Son of god though?.. no
Hate to break it to you, but that’s not historically honest.
“The Bible” is actually just a library of records gathered by various people which testify God. If there was another record/first-hand account about Jesus, it would be in the Bible. So not really. It’s more like trying to use records of Rome to prove that events happened in Rome, like the assassination of Julius Caesar. Or observations about other historical events to prove that event.
So essentially, these are all separate records, the Bible is just a compilation (except for Luke and Acts, they were originally one record, which I have amended my original comment to show)
The circular reasoning argument you are thinking about is about using the Bible to prove the Bible (eg, saying the Bible says it’s true, therefore it is). I’m not using the Bible to try and prove itself, I’m using the Bible to try and prove Jesus. You claimed there are no written records, yet that’s exactly what the Bible is. You can’t just dismiss it because a few hundred years later, Christians decided to canonise it as one text.
And even then, you can in a way, through textual criticism and supplementary historical evidence, prove things about a text (such as criterion of embarrassment, preservation, other details from the authors) relating to it’s legitimacy.
The texts of the New Testament have been one of the most spread and reproduced documents from the Roman empire period, nevermind the first century
Most historical events don’t have the documentation made about Jesus. They all popped up at the same time saying the same thing yet from different perspectives. Then there’s archaeological evidence carrying on about Christianity and a church existing, all from the first century. Something big must have happened, typically things like that don’t happen.
Lastly, not all of the texts I mentioned were biblical. The others were from other historians which didn’t have enough detail to be included in the Bible. The thing is, if they were more detailed, they would have most likely been included in the Bible, making your standard quite the tautology
It’s kind of like someone saying “use studies from academics showing the legitimacy and arguing in favour of the Bible- by the way, you cannot cite Christian Apologists” when by definition, a Christian apologist is someone who argues in favour of Christianity. If they were to argue in favour of Christianity, they’ll be a Christian apologist. It’ll be a tautology. Like how any detailed contemporary account of Jesus by someone close to Him would have most likely been included in the Bible.