Fred Phelps church rides crazy train to Supreme Court

Discussion in 'Your Religion & Spiritual Corner' started by barnyardbird, Oct 8, 2010.

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  1. studio34

    studio34 Guest

    I often wonder if Jesus really did exist. I honestly don't know one way or the other because I haven't studied any of it or the evidence for his existence but when you come across this sort of stuff and realise that the story of Christ is nearly a perfect plagerisation of an Egyptian sun god named Horus and was possibly reused by the Jews who fled Egypt with Moses, well, you have to wonder. The parallels:

    Both born of a virgin
    Both had a "star gazer" who followed the morning star bearing gifts
    Both births were announced by angles
    Herut tried to murder the infant Horus; Herod tried to murder the infant Jesus
    Both baptised at age 30
    Both resist temptation by evil
    Both had 12 followers (disciples)
    Both performed miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water
    Both killed by crucifixtion
    Both accompanied by two thieves at crucifixtion
    Both said to resurrect after 3 days
    Horus and Jesus were given the title "Anointed One"

    and this:

    ALL CLAIMS OF JESUS DERIVE FROM HEARSAY ACCOUNTS

    No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus came well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, all sources about Jesus derive from hearsay accounts.

    Hank, is this true?
     
  2. studio34

    studio34 Guest

    Agreed ... but there sure are a lot of similarities above!
     
  3. barnyardbird

    barnyardbird Guest

    Allegedly 29 savior gods were crucified and resurrected prior to the alleged Jesus existence.
     
  4. Imnoscientist

    Imnoscientist New Member

    Hank,

    Responding here to the issue of seats of power. Not sure that we'll get anywhere on this because I don't agree with the assumptions on which you base your arguments.

    If I'm reading correctly you've said people reject God because they feel that to accept him unseats their own power. For that to be true there would have to be agreement that God exists. There's not. You defer to the Scriptures as the unchallenged source of information that this is true (rather than Hank simply saying it is true). Again, there would have to be agreement that the Scriptures are 'true' and again there's not.

    Hank, prepare yourself for the 'world view' phrase because I'm about to use it again. In YOUR world view all the above is true, because you believe in God and that the Scriptures are the word of God. Other people believe in different gods and different books or no Got at all and so have a different world view. You cannot claim that matters of faith are True for everyone, because they are based in faith, not 'fact'.
     
  5. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    First of all, INS, I appreciate your tone. Thank you for that. Consideration of another's honest viewpoints without having to resort to inflammed rhetoric serves you very well.

    Second of all, realize that we do not have to agree that God exists for God to exist. He either does or does not and that is mutually exclusive to how you or I feel about it. For this reason, I do not see that agreement is necessary for any of this.

    What I am saying is that for the vast majority of people in the history of the world, there is an overwhelming percentage of them who believe or believed in God, or at least something GREATER THAN THEMSELVES that played the role of God in creation and intelligent existence. Now these cultures never talked to one another. Some were in the eastern hemisphere, some in the western and this belief in a creator pervades the overwhelming vast majority of people who have ever been born. So that someone is an atheist simply means that he or she does not see something that is completely apparent to the overwhelming vast majority of individuals who have ever walked the earth. Now if that were me, I would have to look at this thing again, and see if there might be something that I am missing. I mean, how could I be right about this, and be in the overwhelming sliver of a minority? I would say that it is possible that one person out of all the billions and billions of folks who have ever lived could be right on a particular issue. But the odds are, it is not you or anyone you know.

    I say this to establish that evidence of something for folks who are not predisposed to sanction the evidence anyway is no evidence regardless of the evidence. And this is not new. Jesus performed miracles for all to see, healing major deformities in human bodies in plain view. Yet those who were not predisposed to believe did not believe, and they saw it in their own eyes. And then those who would not believe, would attempt to change the subject, for example, claiming that Jesus broke the law by healing on the sabbath. That is a useful tool, even today, for folks who want to deny God exists, changing the subject. I appreciate that you are not doing that, but are instead earnestly pursing this subject until we conclude it.

    Although certain folks who saw the evidence right before them still did not believe, the overwhelming majority DID believe it when they saw it. Throngs of people would follow Jesus around the countryside. And each time Jesus would heal, He would also teach. So the healings confirmed the teachings, which brought even more to witness these events, the overwhelming maority of whom would believe what they saw.

    Now back to the first subject, evidence. To the overwhelming majority of folks who have ever walked the earth, the evidence of a creator is right before them. They see it with their own eyes the first day they are opened. In my case, regardless of what I may have heard in any church I went to, there has never been a day I did not believe in God. God is perfectly apparent to me. This universe could not have been built by chance, no way. That is the way most folks think, regardless of what they believe that may go beyond basic creation.

    But there is the smallest sliver of a percentage of folks who do not believe that. Something is blocking that notion from their consideration. Maybe other legitimate viewpoints have their own ways of explaining this phenomenon, which is what it is, a phenomenon. But Christian teachings center that explanation on the human spirit. Something about the spirit will not allow what is completely apparent to the vast majority to filter through to the mind. And that is what I believe. I am not infallible, so I could be wrong. But I trust that the scriptures are not infallible and this is what they tell me. And from my perspective, it makes perfect sense. It resonates. So I offer that for your consideration.

    Again, thank you for maintaining a gentile spirit through this. It becomes you and I am deighted to have this conversation with one who can participate as a gentle person.

    "One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms." -Abraham Lincoln

    Hank
     
  6. studio34

    studio34 Guest

    I can only guess that some of us are just wired this way and that's it. You, for example, have no doubt whatsoever that a single god exists as described by the bible despite all of this discussion here and history that suggests humans have made up all sorts of different stories and gods to explain the unknown. It has changed hundreds of times over the course of history and branched off into many different beliefs and religions. Then there are people like me, BYB, and INS for whom it is perfectly obvious that there is no biblical god and that the bible is simply a collection of stories that served a purpose a long time ago. I understand that people may read it now for comfort but none of it – the bible, god, Jesus, Zeus, Horus, whoever – resonates with me. There's no anger about it, no denial, nothing has caused me to not believe ... I just know with a great deal of certainty that there is no god.
     
  7. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    I can appreciate that, Scott. And I appreciate the earnest tones in which you have expressed your feelings. And I, myself, am powerless to affect the way that you feel. And the way that you feel is legitimate. After all, we are all born into this world with hardly a clue.

    But I would be remiss in a conversation such as this, one that we all enter into voluntarily, if I did not press the point that, regardless of how various cultures came down in their determinations of the full answer to the mystery of creation, the common thread through all mankind is that there was a supernatural beginning to the natural world. That does not mean that your feelings are not valid, only that they are not in keeping with what is perfectly obvious to mankind notwithstanding a sprinkled handful.

    Lincoln's remark above, I believe, is particularly useful to illustrate what I am saying. It is a useful principle across many fields of discussion. But in this case, the definition is that creation exists. The axiom, which axiom finds validity through analysis of all that is created, is that because all things natural had a cause, or string of causes, outside of their present state, which brought them to their present state, nature itself had to have a cause outside of its present state to bring it to its present state. To be otherwise would be unnatural.

    Lincoln's point is that all this is perfectly obvious and anyone should go in great confidence to convince anyone of it, just as one should be able to convince another that Euclid's mathematical principles are true. Yet even with something as obvious as Euclid's principles, one would fail miserably with that task with someone who denies the definitions and axioms.

    You and others who think similarly, see what was created and deny the definition that it was. With that, you deny the axiom that according to the laws of nature itself, it had to have a creator.

    So there is a real difference in the way that these two camps think. The axioms of Christianity explain this difference as a difference in the nature of the human spirit. But that axiom finds basis in the definition that the human spirit exists, again definitions and axioms the atheist denies.

    And that is where we are.

    Again, I appreciate the peaceful spirit that brought forth your last remarks.

    Sleep well down under, my friend.

    Hank
     
  8. CarrieOakey

    CarrieOakey New Member

    I thought about your hypocrite stance, Henry and it still makes no sense to me so I have to let it go.

    Have some stupid family stuff that needs my attention(sigh) today so will catch you later.
     
  9. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Ok, Carrie. Have a great day.
     
  10. Imnoscientist

    Imnoscientist New Member

    Hank I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this issue.

    I don't think non-believers are a tiny minority. I don't think that lots of people believing in (a) God makes him/her/it true. I don't 'deny' the existence of God I just don't believe in one - he may be perfectly apparant to you but not to me.

    I did enjoy your typo -
     

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