Anonymous wrote:20:42, very interesting post. I'll put it this way, Biblical scholars of every persuasion believe a man named Jesus walked on the face of the earth and was crucified by Pontius Pilate. I also believe there were supernatural happenings that occurred during and following this event. What were they? Can't tell you. I also wonder why the disciples, with nothing to gain spread his teachings and risked hardships.

I refuse to believe this whole story is a fairy tale people have passed on for centuries. Not there with believing in eternal life yet.

Not all stories are "fairy tales" and while Biblical scholars may think there was a real guy named Jesus, they don't opine on"supernatural happenings" because scholars only deal with facts. e.g., they can tell you, based on their research, what people believed, but they can't tell you if the beliefs are accurate.

As for what the disciples did - there's a lot of story-telling there too. But let's say it's all accurate -- after all, Christianity did spread far and wide.

However that does not mean that the beliefs they spread are accurate -- just that they are beliefs.

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Anonymous wrote:I struggle with this concept. Can someone explain in the way that is infallible against any counterargument?

I admit, I’m a lapsed Lutheran and I haven’t taken the Bible or the stories in it literally since I was about 14, so stories about “sin” and “the choices Adam and Eve made” don’t move my needle, nor does the concept of eternal damnation. That’s dumb and if we’re going down that path, let’s go back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin.

Is it wrong for me to point out that "Lapsed Lutherans" would make an excellent band name?

Alliteration is lusciously lovely

20:42, very interesting post. I'll put it this way, Biblical scholars of every persuasion believe a man named Jesus walked on the face of the earth and was crucified by Pontius Pilate. I also believe there were supernatural happenings that occurred during and following this event. What were they? Can't tell you. I also wonder why the disciples, with nothing to gain spread his teachings and risked hardships.

I refuse to believe this whole story is a fairy tale people have passed on for centuries. Not there with believing in eternal life yet.

He showed humanity that any trial could be gone through with love. That no matter how bad or dire anything seems, it is not what matters, and our connection to God/Source is always there and available, surpassing the human sensation of anything else we may go through.

Religion distorts so much of this.

Anonymous wrote:I struggle with this concept. Can someone explain in the way that is infallible against any counterargument?

Nothing about any religion is “infallible against any counterargument.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggle with this concept. Can someone explain in the way that is infallible against any counterargument?

I admit, I’m a lapsed Lutheran and I haven’t taken the Bible or the stories in it literally since I was about 14, so stories about “sin” and “the choices Adam and Eve made” don’t move my needle, nor does the concept of eternal damnation. That’s dumb and if we’re going down that path, let’s go back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin.

Is it wrong for me to point out that "Lapsed Lutherans" would make an excellent band name?

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Anonymous wrote:Anybody else wonder if God, in a second attempt at creation, managed to make a world with perfect people without sin who didn’t end up sinning like Adam and Eve and therefore didn’t need a child of God to be born to die for them?

God would be pretty bored and churches would be out of business

God loves redeemed man more than Adam and Eve. A child who loves you because they choose to is sweeter than a child who can’t choose otherwise.

And children who don't believe in you because they can't see you go to hell for eternity. Their choice.

The children who believe in God don’t see Him, either. But evidence of God is everywhere, and it is our choice to accept God or reject Him.

The kind of evidence that would stand up in court is nowhere. You must have faith to believe in God. And many people never make the choice to accept or reject because they have never been religious.

It doesn't have to stand up in Court.

Correct -- it's all about faith. People who try to prove that belief is real scientifically are wasting their time.

There is no proof of God, or Jesus or heaven. It's what you feel in your heart or what you've been programed to believe as a child, or forced to pretend to believe in order to fit into your community or to avoid punishment or, in olden times, even to avoid death.

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Anonymous wrote:Anybody else wonder if God, in a second attempt at creation, managed to make a world with perfect people without sin who didn’t end up sinning like Adam and Eve and therefore didn’t need a child of God to be born to die for them?

God would be pretty bored and churches would be out of business

God loves redeemed man more than Adam and Eve. A child who loves you because they choose to is sweeter than a child who can’t choose otherwise.

And children who don't believe in you because they can't see you go to hell for eternity. Their choice.

The children who believe in God don’t see Him, either. But evidence of God is everywhere, and it is our choice to accept God or reject Him.

The kind of evidence that would stand up in court is nowhere. You must have faith to believe in God. And many people never make the choice to accept or reject because they have never been religious.

It doesn't have to stand up in Court.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody else wonder if God, in a second attempt at creation, managed to make a world with perfect people without sin who didn’t end up sinning like Adam and Eve and therefore didn’t need a child of God to be born to die for them?

God would be pretty bored and churches would be out of business

God loves redeemed man more than Adam and Eve. A child who loves you because they choose to is sweeter than a child who can’t choose otherwise.

And children who don't believe in you because they can't see you go to hell for eternity. Their choice.

"Going to Hell' is a mash of linguistics, but it means being separated from God's grace by your choice (not ignorance).

I don't know, but it is beginning to feel like maybe He needs to try again.

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Anonymous wrote:Sin is literally absence of God. Where he doesn’t exist. He gives life. Life requires light. Darkness is the absence of light, and hell is that place without a bridge to return to his presence.

That is why there will be weeping and moaning and v asking if teeth. Unbearable emotional pain is something indescribably endless. Imagine being suicidal from emotional pain and not being able to escape it even in death.

Put it in that context.

Put it in the context of someone who reads an ancient book written for ancient, mainly illiterate people who had it read to them, if they knew about it at all -- and believes it! 2,000 years later!

I do.

Do you believe in Greek mythology 6yr bc?

How about how it shaped the study of astronomy and the ability to bet on Elon musk using digital currency to send a Tesla to the moon?

You know that language changes and some things are lost in translation?

The Bible is a respected text that is validated by many others including the Torah and Qur’an
And ... astrology too

Yes, the Bible is a respected text. And it's no more to be believed in than Greek Mythology.

I wouldn’t take it I literally, but there are a lot of old myths in the Bible that probably came from something first. Noah and his ark, for example, are now suspected to be a story of survival of the annual deluges in that part of the Middle East. I can believe there’s a kernel of truth in some of the stories.

There's a kernel of truth in most stories -- that's why they are told and evolve. But it's no reason to believe they are factual and must be believed under pain of hell.

We have Aesop's fables and Greek and Roman mythology that are full of kernels of truth - but no one is told or forced to believe them.

No, I mean there’s a kernel of historic truth in some Bible stories. I’m the lapsed Lutheran at 20:42, so I’m not advocating for anyone to believe that they’re 100% the truth and should be believed under threat of hell.

I've heard people say that they "take the Bible seriously, not literally." I'm not sure what that means, but I think it's a way of saying the Bible is an important book, even though it's a book of stories, not facts.

But I'm afraid that some people hearing that explanation only hear that the Bible is to be taken seriously as a text on which to base your religious beliefs.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sin is literally absence of God. Where he doesn’t exist. He gives life. Life requires light. Darkness is the absence of light, and hell is that place without a bridge to return to his presence.

That is why there will be weeping and moaning and v asking if teeth. Unbearable emotional pain is something indescribably endless. Imagine being suicidal from emotional pain and not being able to escape it even in death.

Put it in that context.

Put it in the context of someone who reads an ancient book written for ancient, mainly illiterate people who had it read to them, if they knew about it at all -- and believes it! 2,000 years later!

I do.

Do you believe in Greek mythology 6yr bc?

How about how it shaped the study of astronomy and the ability to bet on Elon musk using digital currency to send a Tesla to the moon?

You know that language changes and some things are lost in translation?

The Bible is a respected text that is validated by many others including the Torah and Qur’an
And ... astrology too

Yes, the Bible is a respected text. And it's no more to be believed in than Greek Mythology.

I wouldn’t take it I literally, but there are a lot of old myths in the Bible that probably came from something first. Noah and his ark, for example, are now suspected to be a story of survival of the annual deluges in that part of the Middle East. I can believe there’s a kernel of truth in some of the stories.

There's a kernel of truth in most stories -- that's why they are told and evolve. But it's no reason to believe they are factual and must be believed under pain of hell.

We have Aesop's fables and Greek and Roman mythology that are full of kernels of truth - but no one is told or forced to believe them.

No, I mean there’s a kernel of historic truth in some Bible stories. I’m the lapsed Lutheran at 20:42, so I’m not advocating for anyone to believe that they’re 100% the truth and should be believed under threat of hell.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sin is literally absence of God. Where he doesn’t exist. He gives life. Life requires light. Darkness is the absence of light, and hell is that place without a bridge to return to his presence.

That is why there will be weeping and moaning and v asking if teeth. Unbearable emotional pain is something indescribably endless. Imagine being suicidal from emotional pain and not being able to escape it even in death.

Put it in that context.

Put it in the context of someone who reads an ancient book written for ancient, mainly illiterate people who had it read to them, if they knew about it at all -- and believes it! 2,000 years later!

I do.

Do you believe in Greek mythology 6yr bc?

How about how it shaped the study of astronomy and the ability to bet on Elon musk using digital currency to send a Tesla to the moon?

You know that language changes and some things are lost in translation?

The Bible is a respected text that is validated by many others including the Torah and Qur’an
And ... astrology too

Yes, the Bible is a respected text. And it's no more to be believed in than Greek Mythology.

I wouldn’t take it I literally, but there are a lot of old myths in the Bible that probably came from something first. Noah and his ark, for example, are now suspected to be a story of survival of the annual deluges in that part of the Middle East. I can believe there’s a kernel of truth in some of the stories.

There's a kernel of truth in most stories -- that's why they are told and evolve. But it's no reason to believe they are factual and must be believed under pain of hell.

We have Aesop's fables and Greek and Roman mythology that are full of kernels of truth - but no one is told or forced to believe them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sin is literally absence of God. Where he doesn’t exist. He gives life. Life requires light. Darkness is the absence of light, and hell is that place without a bridge to return to his presence.

That is why there will be weeping and moaning and v asking if teeth. Unbearable emotional pain is something indescribably endless. Imagine being suicidal from emotional pain and not being able to escape it even in death.

Put it in that context.

Put it in the context of someone who reads an ancient book written for ancient, mainly illiterate people who had it read to them, if they knew about it at all -- and believes it! 2,000 years later!

I do.

Do you believe in Greek mythology 6yr bc?

How about how it shaped the study of astronomy and the ability to bet on Elon musk using digital currency to send a Tesla to the moon?

You know that language changes and some things are lost in translation?

The Bible is a respected text that is validated by many others including the Torah and Qur’an
And ... astrology too

Yes, the Bible is a respected text. And it's no more to be believed in than Greek Mythology.

I wouldn’t take it I literally, but there are a lot of old myths in the Bible that probably came from something first. Noah and his ark, for example, are now suspected to be a story of survival of the annual deluges in that part of the Middle East. I can believe there’s a kernel of truth in some of the stories.

Anonymous wrote:I struggle with this concept. Can someone explain in the way that is infallible against any counterargument?

I admit, I’m a lapsed Lutheran and I haven’t taken the Bible or the stories in it literally since I was about 14, so stories about “sin” and “the choices Adam and Eve made” don’t move my needle, nor does the concept of eternal damnation. That’s dumb and if we’re going down that path, let’s go back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin.

I also realize that when I say the Apostles Creed, I don’t agree with much of what is said. I don’t believe God is a man, that Mary was a Virgin, or that she was conceived by the Holy Spirit any more than the rest of us. I also don’t believe he died on the cross; my personal belief is that a miracle took place - that he survived five puncture wounds in the Iron Age.

But what Jesus taught - and what dozens if not hundreds of other itinerant “preachers” at the same time and place as Jesus taught - was radical kindness and radical justice. I don’t think he was the first. I don’t even think he “redeemed” humanity; we can’t look at the devastation wrought by the Catholic Church, for example, and say, yes, that’s been a net benefit to the world! But Jesus did have a message that we should be caring for one another, that if we were kind enough, addressed inequalities enough and worked to better the world, the kingdom of heaven would be ours here on earth instead of waiting for death.

There are thousands of counter arguments against what I just said.