Is Christianity Truth? (Page 5)

oh_good_laughs: Hobbit - "Why would the "Messiah's" words need their meaning refurbished anyways? To change the meaning, changes its cause"

Once again, the meaning has never changed, that is just embedded in your mindset.

oh_good_laughs: Hobbit - "So, all that maters is Christ? You truly believe Jesus was the messiah? Then why is it that in places all over the world: People are dying of famine and disease"

God gets blamed for alot of evil in the world, even though it is not his fault.

For instance, say someone gets drunk, goes home, and beats his wife, is that God's fault?, No, it's the guy's fault.

Natural disasters, wars, murders, has never increased death. The death toll of every generation is 100%, as soon as we are born, we start to die. Death is the most democratic thing we do, we all participate in death.

All the more reason to long for our eternal bodies.

oh_good_laughs: Hobbit - "However I argue how you blindly throw out your views, without any sense of real world"

I have stated evidence that support Christianity in my opening post, whether you believe it or not is your own choice, but your 'real world' view is filled with blanks and question marks.

Yorak_Unt: Does the Bible say who would win a fight between a dog and a monkey?

oh_good_laughs: Oolleh - ". In this way, the message changed so much over time that key doctrinal points in Christianity were altered"

What you said has been said for centuries by different critics - That the bible is not true, the words have had to lose their meaning over time, they copied it down differently, etc.

This was said until, the finding of the 'dead sea scolls', which are extremly old manuscripts (couple thousand years old), and when they were compared to modern day scripture, it was noted for their extreme accuracy, thus putting this 'critic-claim' to rest.

Once again, to say the Bible is inaccurate, is either lying, or just being mistaken. Muslims will try to embed this into your mind to keep you away from it.

oh_good_laughs: Duece - "But I want to know your thoughts on hell, if you have any"

I just know what i do about hell from the bible.

I think it will be a horrible place.

But, i don't spend too much thought on hell, because, i have God's promise of heaven, not because of my goodness, but of God's goodness (Christ's death on the cross).. I don't deserve it, but i am going.

Oolleh: Risen, I was refering to the New Testament, while you mention the Old Testamental books (e g Jesiah), which were found near Qumran with few and insignificant changes.

There were, however, no Christian (New Testamental) literature among the Dead Sea Scrolls, because they were written before the Chritian Era and must be considered "pre-Christian".

What I tried to pay attention to, was the many discrepancies between the various early editions of the New Testament, with obvious corrections, alterations and amendments, that cannot be ignored. The Gospel of Matthew, for instance, is quite different in the Pauline and the Gnostic versions. And that is just one example...

oh_good_laughs: Oolleh - I see what you are saying, but let us look un-biasedly on the Bible, as we would with any other text.

The historical reliability of the Bible should be tested by the same criteria that all historical documents are tested. It breaks down to these three factors:

The number of existing manuscripts

The dating of the manuscripts

The proportion of variant readings

If you research any of these three categories, i am sure you will find, that the Bible is more than qualified to be called reliable.

Oolleh: "Reliable" enough for people to dispute the text so strongly that they founded their own churches to such an extent that there were dozens of rival "christianities" from the very beginning.

oh_good_laughs: Oolleh - I addressed a similar question from Hobbit. But to put it simply, the criteria for a Christian is the belief in Christ. One who believes in Christ (as well as his words) is a Christian.

As far as the arguing, and the different denominations, i agree with you, they are kind of silly.. It is Christ, and his atonement for our sins at the cross is all that matters.

Oolleh: But still not all the early denominations believed that Jesus was divine, least of all the Nazareans who were led by his brother James, who - one should presume - knew him better than all the rest.

satangel: Yes, Oolleh, we may rather be talking about "early christianities" than "early Christianity" because of the diversity. With the exception of a few Gnostic and Kabbalistic strains that must be regarded as "more Christian than Jewish", the "other christianities" were virtually stamped out by Constantine's successors.

As good as all the different Christian directions existing today must therefore one way or another have developed from the Protestantic movements of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin.

And Risen, of course all "mainstream" Christians like yourself would like to believe that Christianity is true the way it presents itself. But for those of us who have grown out of it and dare to question it, Christianity soon emerges "far from flawless"...

Road Queen: Christianity, like most religions, tries to protect its image, but like a run-down car, it must eventually yield its shortcomings when a bunch of mechanichs start to examine it with modern tools.

Entropy: The historical reliability HAS been tested by scholars a long time ago, and it came up faulty. You are just too busy stuffing cotton in your ears to take notice.

bahcatcha: Risen You toss BS around so well you should be a politician.

retaardvark: Risen said: "You are mistaken if you think words carry their same meaning over time, you are also mistaken if you think changing a word to keep the same meaning is altering text."

what about words like "almah" which meant "young woman" which was changed to mean "virgin"? Or, how the original definition of sin was "to miss the mark"? Aren't they not only changing the word, but it's very meaning?

What if we changed the definition of "mistaken" to really mean "correct"? What you said up there would be completely different, wouldn't it?

satangel: Regarding Mary the supposed virgin, where the Greek "almah" suddenly had turned into "parthenos", which translates as "virgo intacta" in Latin or a woman who had never had s~& in plain English.

This was a neat cover-up to conseal the fact that Joseph had knocked her up outside of the appropriate season (June versus December), so that Jesus was born in April rather than in September, as was the norm for Davidic dynasts.

Because of this, he would be considered "illegitimate" whenever the high priest was a Pharisee of the Boethus Dynasty and "legitimate" only when this position was held by a Sadducee of the Annas Dynasty.

The whole point of including the genealogies back to David and beyond would fall apart if Joseph wasn't Jesus' real, biological father. In 1894, Margaret Gibson and Agnes Smith found an old, Syriac version of Matthew, where the original text read: "...Joseph, who begat Jesus..." while someone clumsily had tried to correct it into "...Joseph, of whose wife Mary Jesus was born..."

And to demote Jesus' true brothers James, Joses, Judas and Simon to step-brothers or cousins was also a cheap trick. Mary was no virgin, neither before nor after any her five births.

The so-called "holy scripture" is full of similar slip-ups. It's just a matter of taking your time to find them.

Hobbit: "You are stuck in the 'words', all words change their meanings, words mean nothing, it is the meaning behind that word that matters.

30 years ago 'gay' meant happy, today 'gay' doesn't mean happy. You are mistaken if you think words carry their same meaning over time, you are also mistaken if you think changing a word to keep the same meaning is altering text."

Again, the person whom of which I am arguing just proved my point. "You are mistaken if you think words carry their same meaning over time." Do you realize what you just said is that the bible has no meaning?

Spirit One: LEVEL II : Nazzarene means 'Keeper of Secrets' ,the city of Nazzareth was not around until hundreds of yrs after Messiahs death ,Yahoshua the Messiah [ erronously called the pagan title Jesus ] taught the Occult ,Occult means 'Hidden Knowledge' ,such as astrology , numerology ,telekinetics as well as ESP and many other things the religious leaders have hidden from their followers .

bahcatcha: I don't know why people take so much time as to learn all this trivial stuff pertaining to religion. Some people obviously have too much time on their hands. All I had to know was one simple truth, does Christianity have any foundation or fact to substantiate it? Of course it doesn't and that is all that matters, at that point any further investigating or examining makes no sense. When I hear all you people arrogantly debating about the validity of an outdated Myth. I have to ask myself, how does one become so pathetic that all they have to do is study the bible and/or religion such a waste of precious time, there are many more important things to spend your time on. Wake up there is no way to prove that the resurrection or ascension ever happened. Which is the basis of Christianity, a fairytale Thus the whole subject is pointless to argue much less waste time becoming an expert on.

Kalla: I'm always amazed at how many people try and define 'truth' into one aspect of religion. The truth is, in reality, what you feel most comfortable in believing and no one has any right to question or belittle your views on religion or your faith, no matter how justified they could think.

deuce916: So Risen, you believe in a hell.

That means you think the majority of the people alive today will go to hell. What sort of a god does that to people - makes a hell to put them in. Imagine all the children that are going to your hell under your god system.

Correct me if I'm mistaken but I think there will only be 144,000 people going to heaven. If we have over 6,000,000,000 people alive now that means most christians will not be going to heaven. And what about the ones who are dead. I mean, how sure are you that you are going to heaven.

Also, when do you think this will all happen.

Can you really expect me to believe that praising your god for eternity is actually realistic, because apparently that's all you'll be doing in your heaven. Think about it - eternity.

Sounds like a pretty egotistical god if you ask me. You've been brainwashed.

oh_good_laughs: Oolleh - "But still not all the early denominations believed that Jesus was divine"

I am sure this is true, some denominations today may not believe in Christ as God. The Bible allows it to be understood, for anyone to be saved, all we need is belief in Christ's perfect bloodshed at the cross for our sins.

oh_good_laughs: Satangel - "itself. But for those of us who have grown out of it and dare to question it, Christianity soon emerges "far from flawless"

Please, explain what problems you have in Christianity, I may be able to shed some light on certain areas.

oh_good_laughs: Entropy - "The historical reliability HAS been tested by scholars a long time ago, and it came up faulty. You are just too busy stuffing cotton in your ears to take "

I am not sure what you are talking about, but if you bring up certain ordeals, i will be glad to discuss them with you.