B
bingbang
Guest
How many of these martyrs actually knew Jesus? Not many. And we don’t really know if Jesus being God was actually an early Christian belief or if it evolved into that.
- Status
N
NHInsider
Guest
Bingbang-
You’ve already established that you’re a skeptic, perhaps a confirmed non-believer. You’ve put a great deal of effort into this thread, trying to convince us that the Bible is not reliable. Why?
You’ve indicated elsewhere that your Mom is a devout Catholic. You’ve obviously read quite widely and explored other traditions. I have the impression that you’re pretty young, at least compared with a lot of us that you’re debating.
I’m being curious, and you can just say “none of your business” if you want to. But if you’re so comfortable in your agnosticism, what are you doing here? Or is that whistling I hear in the darkness?
You’ve already established that you’re a skeptic, perhaps a confirmed non-believer. You’ve put a great deal of effort into this thread, trying to convince us that the Bible is not reliable. Why?
You’ve indicated elsewhere that your Mom is a devout Catholic. You’ve obviously read quite widely and explored other traditions. I have the impression that you’re pretty young, at least compared with a lot of us that you’re debating.
I’m being curious, and you can just say “none of your business” if you want to. But if you’re so comfortable in your agnosticism, what are you doing here? Or is that whistling I hear in the darkness?
S
StTommyMore
Guest
Jesus as god is quite clear in the Gospels, all coposed in the first Century. It wassn’t called into question until Arius.
N
NotWorthy
Guest
I could name 10 of them! How many do you need?
B
bingbang
Guest
I’m not really trying to convince you guys of anything. No one on this board is going to be swayed by what I have to say. I’m not that young, as I just turned 24. I have a Bachelors in religious studies.
I’m on these forums because I am addicted to the internet and I like debating people. That is pretty much it.
B
buffalo
Guest
Ahhhh - the all religions are equal and nonsense “religious studies program”. No wonder.
B
bingbang
Guest
I think its better than the alternative: Catholicism is the end all be all of religions and all other religions just get in your way.
To be honest though it wasn’t really taught like this at all. It is supposed to be an unbiased observation of the religions. I don’t really think that any of my teachers were really trying to make judgments like “all religions are equal.”
B
buffalo
Guest
If one were set the truth claims and overall “goodness” proposition of each religion side by side, in your mind which would be tops?
B
bingbang
Guest
As for truth claims I don’t know. I don’t know the nature of God so I can’t really check that. As for overall goodness I like the morality of Mahayana Buddhism. I like its focus on compassion. I like that you have to understand things yourself and your teacher is just a guide. I like that it isn’t focused on legal issues like gay marriage or abortion. You aren’t likely to find a buddhist boycotting an abortion clinic. I think that Christianity and Catholicism seems to perpetuate an “us vs. them” type of attitude. I just think that Mahayana Buddhism seems to be the best moral philosphy.
P
patrick457
Guest
I just had to ask this
: which school/sect of Mahayana Buddhism do you prefer? (Pure Land, Zen, the Nichiren schools, Tiantai/Tendai, etc.) I basically live in an area where virtually all the temples belong to Nichiren-shu (I think) and in certain street corners you can see stone monuments (quite old ones, too) with the daimoku inscribed on them.
B
buffalo
Guest
So buddhism could look true but not be true.
Why don’t you know the nature of God?
No one is born in a vacuum so you cannot understand.find everything yourself. We are dependent on what we are handed down.
Are you happy with the way buddhists treat woman?
J
jmcrae
Guest
Make it 11, if you add Stephen, the very first martyr.I could name 10 of them! How many do you need?
B
bingbang
Guest
You live in Japan I guess? Japanese Buddhism doesn’t seem as appealing to me…at least from what I have read of it.I just had to ask this
Anyway, I’m not a Buddhist. I don’t know too much about Buddhism, but I like what I do know. It is more of an internal religion that is up to the individual. I have never been to a Buddhist temple though.
Really though any religion can lead you to a life is moral and right and any religion can be perverted to support horrible things. I just think that Buddhism seems to be the least likely religion to be used to do evil.
P
pnewton
Guest
This thread has gone completely off the rails. From the theory of Q, we now into the legitimacy of the Bible. No offense to bingbang, but I do not think anyone here values the opinion of higher biblical criticism from nonchristians. There simply is no grounding in truth. He has a basic error in the begining that colors all. Like many other liberal nonchristians who look at religious holy books, there is a bias against the miraculous. When the Synoptics have to be dated after 70 AD because Jesus couldn’t* possibly* have known before hand about the destruciton of the temple, then other arguments become meaningless.
B
bingbang
Guest
Buddhists where? I haven’t heard of any Buddhists in America treating women badly. There are probably Catholics in different places that treat women horribly as well.
I understand that teachings are important and this is true in Buddhism. There are a HUGE amount of holy texts in Buddhism…libraries full. But there are some things you can’t learn in a book. For instance, I would imagine that you have a personal bond with God that gives you great pleasure. Its not like you could teach that bond to someone. It is something that they have to figure out for themselves, something they must develop.
N
NotWorthy
Guest
Well, yeah, but I was referencing the 11 that new Jesus, then (according to… who was it, BingBang?) made up many of the miracles of Jesus, and then went out and died for those beliefs.Make it 11, if you add Stephen, the very first martyr.
Stephen would have been, according to this reasoning, one of the suckers that was drawn into this lie.
B
bingbang
Guest
You know what, after reading what is in this thread and thinking about it, it seems likely that Jesus did rise from the dead.
As is evidenced by Paul’s letters, the resurrection was well known before many of the apostles were martyred. This was being spread to various Christian communities and they undoubtedly would have been corrected if the apostles didn’t actually rise from the dead. If the apostles made up this fact, they wouldn’t willingly die for the cause. It would just be stupid to die for something you KNOW is a lie.
So really there are three options: Either Jesus rose from the dead (and is God), Someone somehow tricked the apostles into thinking that Jesus rose from the dead (unlikely), or the whole story of the apostles being martyred was fabricated (even more unlikely).
I can’t really think of a legitimate argument against this. I still don’t really think that this proves that what is in the Gospels is complete truth, but in my eyes it does seem to prove that Jesus is God (or something of the sort).
J
jmcrae
Guest
I don’t see how Stephen could not have known Jesus, since he was martyred within the first year of the Church. I have always thought that he was one of the 72, although I could certainly be wrong about that. But I don’t think he was a new convert, at the time of his martyrdom.
J
jmcrae
Guest
If Jesus has the power to raise Himself up from the dead, then surely He has the power to keep His promises, and protect the organization that He started - the Catholic Church - from error.
B
bingbang
Guest
I see what you are saying, but I don’t know if it really works like that.If Jesus has the power to raise Himself up from the dead, then surely He has the power to keep His promises, and protect the organization that He started - the Catholic Church - from error.
- Status