Question Indisputable Proof

[The_Chameleon]

Hi cham...Can you please rephrase your question so I can understand it better?

Why do you consider one ancient scripture on the subject of God more credible than those that have come before or after? Why do you believe for example that Christ is the son of God and not Horus or Dionysus or any of the others that have made the same claims as Christ and have been regarded in their day in virtually the same way. Many believe that the Apocrypha itself is ripped off from pagan stories going way back. The pagan stories are almost identical to the stories of the Bible, so why do you give the Bible more credibility? You say you believe because "it is written", but there are earlier writings that you choose to not accept as divine. By what criteria to you discern that one messiah is the true messiah, and the others, written of long before, are not?


- Cham

 

[CaptainObvious]

I'll answer that real quick. I believe Jesus is the Son of God because after his crucifixion, at a time when all of his disciples were afraid of being next to be killed, claimed they saw him alive three days later. Not a single one recanted, not a single one said "ok, I was just kidding, I haven't seen Jesus alive" even when threatened and actually put to death. The Jews and the Romans had reasons to find His body and prove they early Christians were wrong and/or lying, and no body was found. How a small group of poor people with no power under the authority of Ceaphus and Pilate and Caesar really were able to hide a body and not recant their story is unreasonable to me. There were many who claimed to be the messiah before and after Jesus, and not a single one had the same result. Bar Koba claimed to be the Son of God also. He was killed and his followers scattered. That's the difference between the story of Jesus, and any other example you pointe out, to me.

 

[The_Chameleon]

I'll answer that real quick. I believe Jesus is the Son of God because after his crucifixion, at a time when all of his disciples were afraid of being next to be killed, claimed they saw him alive three days later. Not a single one recanted, not a single one said "ok, I was just kidding, I haven't seen Jesus alive" even when threatened and actually put to death. The Jews and the Romans had reasons to find His body and prove they early Christians were wrong and/or lying, and no body was found. How a small group of poor people with no power under the authority of Ceaphus and Pilate and Caesar really were able to hide a body and not recant their story is unreasonable to me. There were many who claimed to be the messiah before and after Jesus, and not a single one had the same result. Bar Koba claimed to be the Son of God also. He was killed and his followers scattered. That's the difference between the story of Jesus, and any other example you pointe out, to me.

Well I was directing the question to RTB, but since you're wanting to jump in I'll ask you the same question. According to pagan scriptures Horus had 12 desciples, died on a tree and rose 3 days later... So did Dionysis as memory serves. Mythras and others have similar stories. I'm not sure about Bar Koba (that's a new one on me) but if he was killed and his followers scattered then he doesn't fit the profile of reportedly resurrected "messiahs", so what about all these others. Crucifixion and resurrection... Sounds pretty familiar. You may be more aware of the details of these other stories than I am, so feel free to educate me on the differences.


- Cham

 

[CaptainObvious]

Well I was directing the question to RTB, but since you're wanting to jump in I'll ask you the same question. According to pagan scriptures Horus had 12 desciples, died on a tree and rose 3 days later... So did Dionysis as memory serves. Mythras and others have similar stories. I'm not sure about Bar Koba (that's a new one on me) but if he was killed and his followers scattered then he doesn't fit the profile of reportedly resurrected "messiahs", so what about all these others. Crucifixion and resurrection... Sounds pretty familiar. You may be more aware of the details of these other stories than I am, so feel free to educate me on the differences.


- Cham

No he didn't, that's a myth perpetuated by Bill Maher. He did not have 12 disciples and he wasn't killed. There was also the claim that his mother gave birth to him as a virgin, which isn't true. His father's penis was cut off and his mother made him one made out of gold that he used to impregnate her.

This lays it out pretty well

Horus Manure: Debunking the Jesus/Horus Connection - jonsorensen.net

 

[The_Chameleon]

I see upon further investigation that the pagan myth similarities are mostly misinformation. Very abundant I might add. But to the more underlying question, regardless of any similarities or differences, why believe in one religious scripture over another? You have Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and all those other "ism"s to choose from, each with their own scriptures. It is written alright. Christianity is still a late comer to the list of world religions, you would think if God has something important to say he would have said it sooner, no? Why not pick an earlier deity?


Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go sacrifice a goat (I'm plumb outta virgins). Ba'al is gonna be pissed.


- Cham

 

[ReasontoBelieve]

I have briefly read of Mythras, Horace, and Dionysus. I once briefly skimmed over this. There were similarities, but even their claims was not as solid as Jesus in the Bible. Are people talking about Mythras and Horace much today? You're the only one who presented these pagan stories or wherever these stories or testimonies derived. .

The issues of Jesus Christ is true today as it was back then. A crowd of people shouted crucify Him. Pilate asked why? What has this man done to you? I don't find any wrong in him. The crowd chanted crucify Him. He is blasphemous. He claims to be the Son of God. So according to Roman Law Jesus was sentenced to death.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+15:13-15&version=NKJV

What was Jesus reaction? Was Jesus saying, Hey all of you I am Innocent. Please let me go. I want to live. Why didn't Jesus fight for His life? Why did He tell His disciples that He would be handed over.? Jesus told them this even before He was arrested and even before He was betrayed by Judas.

How could Jesus already know of his own Death? Jesus sat down with his Disciples to have bread. Each of them had bread. Jesus said that is my body. Then Jesus said have a sip of wine. They all had a sip. Jesus said that is my blood poured out for you.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+22:18-20&version=NKJV
I mean Jesus was certain He would be crucified.
However there was no way to arrest Jesus when Jesus told them of this. Jesus did not steal. He did not kill anyone. He did not make threats. So how can Jesus make a claim being handed over put to death when that legally He had not committed a crime?

Well a number of Jews tried to turn Jesus in to their own authorities they would not take him. So they had to go to the Roman officials instead. In those days the Roman empire governed much of the land that Jesus occupied. Had the Romans not been in place, it would have been next to impossible to have Jesus put to death for a crime He did not commit.

Yet Jesus told them this must happen. Well the Disciples did not understand. According to scripture He was supposed to set up a kingdom. But what they did not realize this prophecy happens when the Messiah returns a second time. Jesus on His first appearance was not planning to set up His kingdom.

After Jesus was crucified there was a quake and the curtains ripped in half. .Jesus said I will raise the temple in 3 days fearing that someone would steal his body. They hired a guard and placed a giant stone on the tomb. Okay Jesus let's see what you can do now.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27&version=NKJV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 28&version=NKJV
You were beaten black and blue, whipped, kicked, punched, thorns in your head and nails marks in your hands and feet. You're dead Jesus, you won't live anymore. And to make sure no one will make false claims let this guard watch. Yet Jesus got out anyway. How was this possible? That is physically impossible to raise a man 3 days dead. Who raised Jesus? God the Father. The Lord sent an Angel to roll the stone away from the door of the tomb. The guard was frightened of what he saw.
Why didn't the guard tell the authority Jesus was gone? Had he done so this guard would have been in great trouble. So better he make himself unknown. Jesus body was not found. Look in the tomb. Nothing is found. .

Jesus said I give you the sign of Jonah. Jonah was in the great fish for 3 days. So even also the Son of Man be in the belly of the Earth for 3 Days. Yet Jesus claimed His temple would be raided on the 3rd day. The disciples thought Jesus was dead. It was impossible for Jesus to come back. But said For unto man all things are not possible. But unto God all things are possible.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19:25-27&version=NKJV

Mary Magdalene was the first one to see Jesus after she went to his tomb and did not see him there. Then Jesus met with 2 disciples on the road. They did not know him at first. As they were eating Jesus began to tell them how the Son of Man had to be handed over. Immediately their eyes were opened. They recognized Jesus.

Jesus was seen by at least 500 witnesses. He was raised in his body that he had when living on Earth. Had Jesus left and not to be witnessed then there would be no proof of Jesus claims that he was raised from the dead.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the testimonies including Apostle Paul who was blinded by God on His way to Damascus and Peter and James. As Captain everyone one of them agree and believed who Jesus is and all the things Jesus said and what He done.

Did Mythras, Horace walk on water? Did they stop a storm in a matter of seconds? Did they feed five thousand people with a couple loaves of bread and a couple fish? Did they raise anyone like Lazarus from the dead after being in the tomb for 4 days?

I am sure they did not do all these things..Not Buddha and Mohammed have such claims.
But what does it take us to believe this? It is called Faith. There are those who believe and those who don't believe.

I conclude this with John 3:16-17

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

 

[ReasontoBelieve]

Hi to cham.. there's nothing wrong with asking God questions.. Everyone does it all the time.
We need to understand that God is God and he is not human. Our ways and thoughts and God's way and his thoughts are in a number of cases entirely different. God is all knowing..he is omniscience..We ask God things b/c as humans we are imperfect. We ask God for understanding and reasoning. We ask him to guide us and move us into the right direction.

There will be lots of things in this life for which we will not have answers for. These are probably things that are not in our hands. So for things we do not understand we place it in the trust of God who knows all things.

You argue that God the Messiah and Christianitity came out to late on the scene. That it should have happened much earlier in history. Why do you say this? Are you God yourself? That you should know how to plan these events. Did you create the world? Do you understand the heart of mankind? Can you answer peoples prayers? No I'm sure you can't. But God is able to do these things. There's an interesting way about God it is the way he times things. As people we can often become impatient. We demand that things happen now. So we pout and say to God how come this isn't happening now? But if God is a loving God if he simply gives into our demands then we are neither learning patience or not going the right way about it.

The first thing is that we want our child to have a college education but it is going to take work and planning. Maybe we just don't have all the money. So you pray to God that you want to help your child go to college. You're trying to get the right work but you're being led to other companies. Ok it seems that God is not answering the prayer here. As time goes on however that man is promoted and now they want to relocate him. This was in a matter of 5 years. Because the job had paid more money he was able to save faster and able to send the child to college. Even though he said he wanted the job now and if God would have answered his prayer the man would have been struggling harder to get his child into college. And why did God wait 5 years to relocate this man? So that first he would get the training so that he would be qualified to do the other job. As the man prayed God had mapped out his life.

So you don't understand why Christianity or the Messiah had happened later in events. But however if Jesus had appeared right after Moses had died for example there wouldn't have been many prophets before him. Who is going to prophecy the coming Messiah? And then it would have not been such a great endeavor as it would later in history. The prophets who lived after Moses told us not only about a coming Messiah they described the life of Jesus in a great many details. This means that centuries before Jesus was born the words were being written out who Jesus would be. So it is not simply just to say there will be a future Messiah but this Messiah must fulfill every one of these prophecies. If he doesn't then he is not the true Messiah. Then these other men that claim to be the future Messiah didn't fulfill these prophecies.

Sure in some ways Horace and other pagans resemble a Jesus like character. While they made a attempt to convince us so they didn't fulfill the prophecies as Jesus did. The scriptures told exactly what city Jesus would be born, it said he would live in Nazareth, that he would teach in parables, and told us how he would die. Even that how he would die and be betrayed.. If Jesus had shown up earlier in history then these things could not be fulfilled. So you know that the earlier ones that had arrived were not the true Messiah only unless they could fulfill all these things that were written.

Jesus is not one of just words. He is action. He says what he does and does what he says. He doesn't go back on his promises. We fully do not understand God because God is very complexing. None of us can comprehend Gods ways or his thinking. Here I will leave this at this scripture about things that take a long time..

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us,[a] not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

 

[The_Chameleon]

I am fully aware of the Biblical accounts of who Jesus was and what he did. There are other ancient accounts of people/gods/demi-gods doing miraculous things. Even among the more popular active religions, such as Islam, there is tell of miracles and there are many witnesses. Given enough time, it may come to be believed by many that there was a divine being in a red suit that flies around in a reindeer pulled sleigh once a year delivering presents to children, or that there's a god in blue tights able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Some folks may even get so wrapped up in it that they swear to it. Ultimately you are choosing one ancient miraculous account over others. Are you familiar with the term "Straw man"? Do you really believe in the Bible because the Bible says it's the telling the truth? The Quran says it's telling the truth, so what's the difference? How do you know that any of these stories aren't ancient comic books or cult propaganda?


Getting back to the OP for a moment, are you able to set aside faith for long enough to imagine how you might react to it being shattered and how that would change your life and view of the world? It's not an easy challenge.



- Chameleon

P.S. Faith in there being no god is still faith.

 

[ReasontoBelieve]

If the Bible was only the comparison of ancient text then you would be right. Do you think that I and other believers read the Bible and by blind faith would take this text over another text? That would be plain nonsense.

So then what do we actually have to work off of? Where's the actaul proof? Let's see the claims that Jesus has made. Here let me share this verse..
Rev. 1:18

18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen.

So these are the words of Jesus Christ himself. He says he is alive..Oh is that so? Yeah and where is he? I don't see him. So then this must be false? By simply reading the Bible doesn't actually mean that you know God. God is a real being and is to be known on a personal level. Yes I mean personal. Ok for example you say I have Beatle records. I have Beatle videos. I have been to their concerts. Does that person therefore know the Beatles? Not unless you have had interaction with one of the members.

The same holds true with God. You've read about Jesus but do you know about Jesus? Even in Jesus days people saw Jesus walking by but it doesn't mean they knew him. When you know someone personally then you call them by name. It works just like that with God. But if you say to that person I don't believe your nonsense. You've got everything all wrong. Then you say hey do you want to be friends? No that person isn't going to want to know you. If you approach God in the way you do..like you said I'm going to sacrifice a goat then you compare God to Santa and Superman..then you think you can know God by making those statements? No cham but even in Jesus days there were some that wanted to stone him to death.

We sincerely call upon God's name. This is called knocking on the door.
Matt. 7

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

This is what usually happens in a believers life. This happened to me. Before I believed I did not believe. Before I knew God I didn't know God. All I really thought was that God just sits there. He sits on the throne and watches us like we were a spectator sport. I didn't believe that God answered prayers and I didn't believe that the Bible was all true. So I am not a hypocrite to say that I had skepticism. But there's a difference between my approach and yours. In my case I was curious. I knew I didn't have all the answers. In your case you seem to be sure in proving that God and the Bible are wrong. By doing so you will not come to the right answers. If you want to try to keep trying to prove the Bible and God wrong then he will let you keep digging in all the books you want. But God will not change otherwise. He will remain in his place.

Years ago I walked off a job. I just wanted to give up on everything. As I was walking I just happen to see a church. I talked to a pastor named Ed. I told him all about my life and troubles and how I couldn't solve anything. He told me the only one that could help was Jesus and that he helped his life and that Jesus was the only way to heaven. Yes I still had doubt. But it was the kind of doubt that God wasn't wrong. It was more like ok if Jesus is the way and has the answers how am I to get these answers and how is God supposed to help me? So even though I was still having doubt I was asking God how is this to be? I went back to work and started talking to God in the back of the warehouse. And I felt the presence of God. It's really hard to describe. But he is real.

My life began to change and I began to read the Bible. Within my lifetime Jesus has answered a lot of my prayers. Before then my life wasn't working. I now know that the scriptures in the Bible are true. I'm a witness. God was true to every word that was written. I was always amazed to what I read and see how my life would change.

BTW I want to share this one last prayer that was answered.. I was on dating sites and nothing was working. I said I give up. I am just not meant to be with anyone. God knew that I was lost. But a miraculous event happened months later. I met Chuzzles online. No you don't know her but she has posted here in the past. I can only say that God was the only one to know that we had met in the right place and the right time. God also helped me to get out of the Anaheim area. And now I am much better off. God is kind and full of compassion. But if you scoff at him then don't expect him to be there. He is not Mythras or Horace. God is the real deal, Amen.

In regards to the subject of the opening post now..I will not have to ever worry about believing that God is not real when I already know that he is.

 

[The_Chameleon]

I appreciate the strength of your faith RTB, and I can see that the simple answer to my latter question would be "No.", and I can respect that also. I can however can step outside of myself and imagine what it might be like to have my faith shattered, and I can say that what I imagine would be a sudden and overwhelming sense of hollowness and purposelessness. My reaction would likely be one of resentment and self pity, depression and hopelessness. I don't think I would be a very nice person at all. But that all assumes that my faith in a creator could be shaken, and the reality of the situation is that it cannot. Certainly, I would look at whatever evidence was uncovered regarding origin, but as I opened the door to peek beyond, I would already confidently anticipate confirmation of my core belief and if the answer contrasted that belief, I would in reject the answer, or at least the interpretation of it that rejects God. Denial? Perhaps. I prefer rebellion. For just as Satan rebelled against Heaven, I can rebel against Hell.


I should note that my underlying belief in a creator god fell upon me at the age of 11, not because of anything spoken to me during my few, intermittent visits to church or Sunday school over the years, nor from any religious TV program left running, nor any attempts at indoctrination. My first religious experience came when, as a child, I was watching a detailed computer animation modeling the function of DNA. I was awestruck by the sophistication of this incredible machine operating with such pure efficiency at the nanoscopic level at the very heart of every cell in my body. I knew then that no chance collision of particles or events could ever account for such a true marvel of engineering.


When I was even much younger, I had the passing thought, when people spoke of "random" things that there really was no such thing. That there was some kind of universal order and logical causality to everything. I didn't recognize then how profound that passing thought was until I saw that video years later. In fact, I had, in the time in between, become like everyone around me in my acceptance of chance and randomness, having forgotten entirely that passing, seemingly unimportant understanding. Upon seeing that video however, something inside me changed. I wanted to know more about this magnificent engineer and all of his incredible inventions.


I had quite a spiritual journey and no doubt drove quite a number of religious folk to the very brink of madness with my skeptical questions relating to their religion, particularly Christianity. I needed to understand the logic of their beliefs, not just the faith. Without one, I could not possibly adopt the other. During this long process, I was also fitting together pieces to form a conceptual model of the universe, or what was more commonly known as a unified field theory. Imagine my surprise when much of what I was reading in scripture overlapped what I had worked out from evidence provided by science. But of course science could not itself provide tangible evidence of a soul, or of divine laws thereto relating. However, my theories suggested that the physical universe was only the tip of the reality iceberg and this did open the door to logical conjecture bridging the gap between science and religion. The story of Christ's death and resurrection, and the divine reason for it, was something that I eventually saw the logic of. In fact, it completed a big picture idea that had began it's formation long before I ever seriously considered exploring religion.



- Chameleon