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You know very little about me. I seek truth and understanding. ... What I do know is your god is evil, inconsistent and manmade.
Typical, you skeptics always want everyone to not misunderstand you and to know about you. Vica versa. You assume all kinds of things about Christians who believe in God.
Its a two way street, isn't it ?
Now let's check your consistency.
Now what was the motive of the person or persons who imagined up the character Jesus Christ ?
Give me your TOP three reasons you believe the character of the Son of God was imagined up fictitiously. We'll check out your explanations to see about the consistency of your logic.
@sonship saidThe last common ancestor of amphibians and amniotes lived at least 312 million years ago [1]. Frogs emerged around 260 mya with the last common ancestor with salamanders living around 290 mya [2]. So humans did not evolve from frogs.They say that fossilised traces of the 540-million-year-old creature are "exquisitely well preserved".
The microscopic sea animal is the earliest known step on the evolutionary path that led to fish and - eventually - to humans.
I'm sorry. I doubt this.
Look, if a frog turns into a human when kissed by a princes, it is a fairy tale.
If a ...[text shortened]... turns into a human being taking 50 million years of lucky mutations, well, that's science.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amniote
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salientia
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@DeepThought
Thankyou for those details.
I was expecting someone to supply something like that.
However, I think you get my general point.
Substitute whatever you'd like besides "frog" and set the years at whatever millions you estimate.
@sonship saidIt matters little to me whether Christians understand me and/or know about me.
@caissad4What I do know is your god is evil, inconsistent and manmade.
Typical, you skeptics always want everyone to not misunderstand you and to know about you. Vica versa. You assume all kinds of things about Christians who believe in God.
Its a two way street, isn't it ?
Now let's check your consistency.
Now what was the motive of the per ...[text shortened]... ned up fictitiously. We'll check out your explanations to see about the consistency of your logic.
I judge all people by their actions and words. You are particularly deliberately deceptive and evasive.
But I could be wrong, you just might be a deluded fool. Time will tell.
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But I could be wrong, you just might be a deluded fool. Time will tell.
Perhaps some progress. You COULD be wrong on more than one level.
Now, this Person Jesus .... WHY did they invent such a man saying He was the Son of God and place fictitious words in His mouth?
The top three motivations were ___________ ?
Take a stab.
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The last common ancestor of amphibians and amniotes lived at least 312 million years ago [1]. Frogs emerged around 260 mya with the last common ancestor with salamanders living around 290 mya [2].
You seem to know something about this.
Can you tell us HOW the researchers estimated that it was 312 million years into the past that frogs emerged ?
Did they do this by figuring on the position in the strata of earth the frog fossils first appeared ?
But if they figured that this level of strata is about 300 millions years into the past because of the animal remains found there, wouldn't that be reasoning in a circle ?
I.E.
1.) The rocks are dated by what animal fossils are found there.
2.) The age of the animals is determined by the strata of rock in which they were located.
Isn't that circular reasoning ?
@sonship said1. To fulfill an OT prophecy.
@caissad4But I could be wrong, you just might be a deluded fool. Time will tell.
Perhaps some progress. You COULD be wrong on more than one level.
Now, this Person Jesus .... WHY did they invent such a man saying He was the Son of God and place fictitious words in His mouth?
The top three motivations were ___________ ?
Take a stab.
2. To claim exclusivity to the divine.
3. As a political tool.
@sonship saidFor expediency sake, those look adequate.
@Ghost-of-a-Duke1. To fulfill an OT prophecy.
2. To claim exclusivity to the divine.
3. As a political tool.
I think we should check with caissad4 to see if these are HER thoughts too.
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For expediency sake, those look adequate.
Hmmm.
Well, I of course cannot make you believe the truth of the Gospels.
All I can do is show you why what is a problem to you and Ghost there is not a problem to me.
So here we go with the first theory - Jesus Christ was invented to fulfill OT prophecy.
To me it is too much to say He was invented solely for that reason.
I can agree that the believers enthusiastically embraced that prophecy was fulfilled by Him.
But how could they engineer that His being born in Bethlehem would take place according to a 500 year previous prophecy of Micah.
Plenty of people were born in Bethlehem
But not plenty of people with the extraordinary attributes and virtues of Jesus were.
The deliberate timing of His execution precisely on the day that the Paschal Lamb was to be slaughtered for the Passover of God's judgement is highly doubtful.
Too many things out of the control of the disciples would have to be orchestrated to make it seem like Jesus was indeed the anti-type of the slaughter lamb. The tempers, outrage, opposition of His enemies would all have to tuned and orchestrated to make His crucifixion fall on just the RIGHT day.
No one expected a Messiah that would be executed on a Roman cross.
All were expecting a Messiah that would be a great military general vanquishing the imperialists empire of occupation - the Romans.
No one was expecting a Messiah who would cry out "My God, my God, Why have You forsaken Me?" That would be the scandel of a apparently failed and forsaken servant of God.
At best they would CONCEAL that that was said by Jesus rather than volunteer to record it.
No one was expecting a Messiah whose family members themselves doubted to believe. And at one point they said he was beside Himself - in other words - mad or mentally unbalanced.
If they invented Jesus as a candidate to fulfill prophecy they would have to secure the cooperation of someone willing to be tortured and killed - hanging nailed to a cross for six hours.
The astronomical phenomenon of a dark day was recorded OUTSIDE of the New Testament. And no solar eclipse occurred on that date.
It is doubtful that the coincidence of the dark day at noon became the central phenomenon around which a fictitious character was invented.
No one expected a Messiah leader whose own disciples abandoned Him.
And again, the Gospels agree that the WOMEN folk were the first to witness His being raised from the dead. The men disciples were hiding away afraid that they might be NEXT to be tortured and executed.
The SHAME of their cowardice would not fit well in the concocted story. Certainly they would rather portray their heroic selves as the first witnesses of His being resurrected.
And His being raised from the dead was NOT clearly understood by His disciples THROUGHOUT the Gospels. Repeatedly they were told by Jesus that He CAME TO DIE. Nothing in them had the capacity to understand this.
Retrofitting their unbelief in a fabled account is more conspiracy theory then I can believe. Its easier just to believe the account of the Gospels.
Let's go on to your SECOND reason they may have invented a legendary fictional Son of God.
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A second supposed motivation to concoct a Son of God -
2. To claim exclusivity to the divine.
Ie. "Let's invent a person who has exclusive claims to the divine."
What would that do for the inventors of such a character ?
They were not claiming for themselves but for Someone ELSE.
What did doing so get them ?
They got intense persecution and eventual death.
They're inventing a fabled person with exclusive claims to the divine became ever after a cause of their own intense suffering and execution.
Did Paul enjoy life as a bed of flowers because he fictitiously traveled around teaching about this fabled invention ? He fasted, he was beaten, he was chased, persecuted, jailed, and eventually lost his head off his shoulders by all accounts at the hand of Nero.
The invention of a exclusively Divine Person as a fakery did nothing to SAVE Paul's skin from the suffering of normal humans.
Then you have latter the Pope. He is announced as Christ's vicar on earth. He is nearly elevated to be just as Jesus. What happened to dedication of Jesus ONLY being divine?
Then latter you have Mary worship. She too is elevated to be Mother of God. You confess your sins to Mary now. What happened to the invention of a unique Jesus who has sole claim to being divine?
And why would they include this ONE claimant as saying "Why do you call Me good? There is none good but God."
At best they would CONCEAL that such a One ever uttered that, IF they were trying to push a Person who ALONE had claim to the divine. Better not tell them that THIS ONE said "There is none good but God".
This doesn't work as a reason to invent a fabled Jesus Christ either.
@caissad4 saidDo you remember when Noah sent out the dove for the second time and it did come back with an olive branch in it's beak? So I doubt that was the only plant now alive on the earth. So whatever insect life that would have lived on the ark either by accident of by Noah making sure there were some of the much needed insects such as bees were in fact there, they would have had plenty of new plant life to do their fantastic jobs with.
Here is a fact for you.
What happened to the bees on the ark when they left the ark and had zero plants to derive food from ???
They must have all died. Right !
Are bees extinct ?
@sonship saidWhy would Jesus have been born in Bethlehem, other than as a deliberate attempt by the gospel writers to fulfill the OT prophecy? (This is clearly evidenced by the weak and historically unsupported reason why Joseph went to Bethlehem).
@caissad4For expediency sake, those look adequate.
Hmmm.
Well, I of course cannot make you believe the truth of the Gospels.
All I can do is show you why what is a problem to you and Ghost there is not a problem to me.
So here we go with the first theory - Jesus Christ was invented to fulfill OT prophecy.
To me it is too much to say He ...[text shortened]... els.
Let's go on to your SECOND reason they may have invented a legendary fictional Son of God.
In short, his birth was not 'engineered' to have been in Bethlehem, but 'placed' there fictitiously to fulfill the prophecy.
@sonship said'Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'
A second supposed motivation to concoct a Son of God -2. To claim exclusivity to the divine.
Ie. "Let's invent a person who has exclusive claims to the divine."
What would that do for the inventors of such a character ?
They were not claiming for themselves but for Someone ELSE.
What did doing so get them ?
They got intense persecution ...[text shortened]... one good but God"[/b].
This doesn't work as a reason to invent a fabled Jesus Christ either.
John 14:6
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Why would Jesus have been born in Bethlehem, other than as a deliberate attempt by the gospel writers to fulfill the OT prophecy? (This is clearly evidenced by the weak and historically unsupported reason why Joseph went to Bethlehem).
In short, his birth was not 'engineered' to have been in Bethlehem, but 'placed' there fictitiously to fulfill the prophecy.
In the first one thousand years of the existence of the Christian church then, can you site a voice of protest that Jesus was actually not born in Bethlehem ?
I'm not saying this is proof of His birthplace.
But other than some recent skeptical voices, who in the former earlier centuries protested that it was known that His birth was elsewhere ?