Bible

Defending Your Belief

/ Jim / 3 Comments

I have this friend who just happens to be a christian pastor. Yes, he knows I’m an atheist and the one good thing about the both of us is that neither of us hold belief/non-belief against each other. I sometimes send him videos Find on Youtube that I think are compelling arguments for or against something with his belief. some of them delve into very complex ideas and try to make them understandable for we, the hoi-poli. One of the recent videos I emailed him concerns the idea of the Trinity in christianity and where it came from. This caused, how shall I say, a bit of consternation with my friend.

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Debate Any One? No Thanks.

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I almost never debate Christians about their faith or my lack thereof. Why? It’s because when I ask for objective proof of what they say, I receive the same old evidence: The Bible Tells Me So. Of course, some use other sources, but those sources they quote are mostly apologists, people paid to reconcile faith with fact (poorly) and for those that need to justify their faith. Other sources they use, to their benefit are scientific: archeology mainly, but then, non one is arguing that Babylon didn’t exist, or that Nazareth didn’t exist. what we’re discussing is the idea of a god, and in particular, Jesus.

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Holier Than Thou

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I often wonder if people that make certain claims concerning other people have ever stopped to look in the mirror? It’s especially interesting to me when the person(s) making the claims (or accusations) don’t even know the people they are referring to and it doesn’t seem to bother them in the least that their attitude might be a little hypocritical.

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Promises Kept?

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I usually never make promises to others because I’m always afraid that I’ll fail to keep whatever it is or, even worse, forget I made a promise. So that word in either its noun or verb form, is absent from my lexicon. Of course, jokingly,I might use it with another person, but never would I ask someone to commit a future date with me or vice versa. Oh, I know, someone’s going to say, What about marriage? Well, okay, there’s once when making a future promise is okay, but in that case, it’s both people making the promise, not just one. In the bible, god made promises to the Israelites after Moses led them out of Egypt. He told Moses the land they were to inherit would be flowing with milk and honey (Ex 3:8,17 Deut 26:9, 27:3) with the Deuteronomy passages affirming the promise as they were entering the land. did god ever keep that promise?

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Did Paul Preach the Jesus of the Gospels?

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The Apostle Paul is the most prolific writer in the Christian New Testament. He is credited with with thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the canon. Unfortunately, only 7 of those ( I Thessalonians, Galatians, I Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon,  II Corinthians,  Romans) are considered authentic, the remainder are now placed in the category of pseudepigrapha , epistles written in Pauls name, by others. All of the letters considered to be authentic, were written sometime between 50-57 C.E., the remainder in question as to the actually dates is not specifically known, but it’s thought for instance that II Thessalonians may have been penned as late as 115 CE.

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