I agree with you whole-heartedly, but I prefer to try to come from the perspective as unbiased as i personally can manage.

also about what Israfel said: I believe that Jesus was the son of God and God in a very complicated sort of union that I would have more difficulty explaining then I am willing to get into. The reason I am firm in this is because many of his miracles had many witnesses. Especially in that he was murdered by one of the most thorough executioners the world has ever known and how later he was said to be seen by upwards of hundreds of people. I can understand a myth of something like that being able to be formed but when you get right down to it those accounts were written by eye-witnesses or by people interviewing eye-witnesses. Also before you try to get into the dating of the biblical scripture may I remind you that there are no known surviving manuscripts (so you couldn't date them if you wanted to) and because of the accuracy of the surviving second hand manuscripts with each other and with the sheer number of them with such accuracy you can statistically say with reasonably decent certainty that nothing major could have been changed.

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"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

i can definitely see the points which you two are coming from.

however, just being the son of god is not the only qualification to a murdering of this caliber. If you take a look at the massacring of the last tsar family and how thoroughly they were killed, to the point where their ashes can’t even be found anymore (if I remember correctly, they were shot, melted in sulfuric acid, the remainings of which were burned 3 times over, and the few ashes left were buried in a secluded mine). And we know how such miracle events seen several thousand years can be distorted, just as jesus’s face depicted in modern day is a huge distortion from his real face (more on that later if you wish).

While we can all try to place him as the son of god, we know from text that jesus himself did not wish to be celebrated to such status. Also, the fact that jesus could have been a great man of great deeds is not entirely unfeasible.

Btw, please realize that I’m just trying to throw ideas out here. I’m not trying to say that yours are wrong, jus want to put different perspective out ^^


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"Rule No. 1 is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it's all small stuff." - Robert Eliot, Writer

"Oh boy, here we go...again." - Israfel

I'm getting too old....

well we are all naturally biased so i don't try to escape that i do remain open minded but im sure i got my religion right so... lol
anyway the only bi tof dating that should be gotten into if only to understand the bible better is that Jesus was not born in the year 0
he was actually born more closer to 4 or 5 B.C.
but this does not detract from the bible
also more historical evidence can be found in the histories written down by Josephus

on what israfel said
Jesus refered to himself as the son of man but that does not mean he did not say he was the son of God
for when he was asked "are you the son of God" it was because he affirmed it that he was crucified ( atleast partially)

and of course only the son of God could rise from the dead

Last edited by loser6789 at 8:18 pm, Oct 4 2007

First of all, I understand you do not mean to be offensive in any way and I do not take it offensively so no problem, but thank you for the consideration.

Secondly, I was only mentioning that his death was thorough to make the point that if Jesus was running about after his crucifixion it would mean something was definitely not right (totally worthy of a double take).

Also, Jesus claimed quite often that he only did the will of his heavenly father. Sure he never sought to be celebrated but at every turn he did point out the fact that he was not only on a mission from god but that very god was his father.

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"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

could his reference of "father" be the same of modern day reference to god? since i see most people pray to god as father anyways, and in a logical sense if god did create adam and eve then he is the father of every single person.

also, just another point to throw out here. i'm not that familiar with the entire theory behind this, but it seems that jesus could have had a wife and a child. and his decendants could be among us. i don't know if jesus having a child have much to do with his holyness, but people seem to connect that with it and saying that if he had a child, he would only be a man

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"Rule No. 1 is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it's all small stuff." - Robert Eliot, Writer

"Oh boy, here we go...again." - Israfel

I'm getting too old....

actually that topic was what caused so much controversy over the book the da vinci code.
also Jesus was a jew he lived in a stricter society than you or i live in
therefore God's name would never be said out loud or even written down fully to give it the proper respect and to avoid it being misused.
he would not casually refer to god as father unless he really meant it
like at his death when he calls God Abba which is an endearing term used by a child to refer to his father

Most of what you mentioned in your second paragraph comes from assumption as to what a missing chunk in a non-official document said (and a bit of hocus-pocus from the Da vinci code (written as far as I can tell as entertaining fiction)).

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"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

I see…I didn’t know about the jewish customs XD. But the idea of jesus having a child and a wife dates way before the da vinci code. There was even a famous painting (I forgot which) during the renaissance that shows a woman holding a child on a statue with citizens praying. The child was jesus’s child and the woman being the mother. The title of which is something like “flight to Egypt.”

Also, jesus, being in a jewish society in which marriage is an essential and almost a must, and also having a child, I find it hard to believe that he would go against such strong customs and be a celibate, a low low status in the jewish society (I know this from somewhere >_>)

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"Rule No. 1 is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it's all small stuff." - Robert Eliot, Writer

"Oh boy, here we go...again." - Israfel

I'm getting too old....

about the flight to Egypt wouldn't that be Mary's flight to Egypt when Jesus was young?
also it is true Rabbis especially were supposed to marry but it never says in the Bible that he was married or had kids
i mean it would be a big deal wouldn't it to mention that his mom and followers were there when he was crucified but his wife and kids just happened to be missing at the time?

Is it just as hard to believe that he came with the desire to save mankind and was beaten, stripped naked, and crucified by the people he wanted to save? Jesus although he was full man, was also full God. He loved us so much, that he was willing to die for each and every person that trusts him to save. Man it just blows my mind how much God loves us.

lol, they had to run. if he was getting killed, they won't be let go either. they kill by the family back then

but anyways, since this sub topic seems complete ^^ with everyone sharing their ideas, i'm putting out a much more debatable one, and a rather not mattering much one. you know how jesus is depicted as a decent (not being gay here lol) looking man with beard and mustache. However, if jesus’s depictions were traced back in history, we can see that after the rise of justinian and his empire, and his establishment of Christianity, that was the look of jesus in arts. However, before that, jesus’s depictions, often on mosaics and wall paintings of the ancient technique, was that of a young man without a beard, often draped in purple, and…well, not that appealing in looks. And in the bible, I forgot which part, jesus was described as, to be blunt, sorta ugly, on several accounts. Jesus did not have a beard in any depictions before the arrival of justanian much later. What do you think?

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"Rule No. 1 is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it's all small stuff." - Robert Eliot, Writer

"Oh boy, here we go...again." - Israfel

I'm getting too old....

Being celibate in jewish society was lowly regarded but often men wouldn't marry until they were quite a bit older than the women that they married. It wouldn't be out of ordinary for a 35ish man to marry because he was expected to be able to completely be able to provide not only for himself and his wife but also about a dozen children.

Also the flight into Egypt was well publicized in scripture as when Joseph was warned to flee into egypt (by an angel when there was still opportunity to leave) that Herod was seeking to kill Jesus because jesus was actually in the correct line to be king whereas Herod was set in power from outside the kingly line.

Last edited by TwilightDrgn at 8:59 pm, Oct 4 2007

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"Don't worry about the fine print. The soul consumption clause is never exorcised

The scripture you're referring to is mentioned in Isaiah 53:2 (it's one of the mentions anyway), "He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly pomp], that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him." Amplified Bible

In other words, just an ordinary looking guy, who drew people by the beauty of His Spirit rather than by His dashing good looks. Art is most often a reflection of the commonly held ideal of beauty for the time, and of course that ideal changes. Good thing that how He looked isn't anywhere near as important as what He did, and continues to do. For a non-believer you sure have done your research and contemplation Israfel.

Again...please recognize the different between believe in god & the existence of God.

These two things make this thread confusing (the topic is "Believe in God", the poll is ask about "the existence of God")

First of all you can believe in EVERYTHING you want & in strictly way, science DO NOT deal with believing stuff since they are SUBJECTIVE.

As I learn in school (there may have more steps between that i forgot), science is about a hypothesis + lots data backup + lots of data backup + lots of data backup +..+...+.-> theories. Hypothesis may have some subjectivities in it, but those will be filter through long steps of backing data. Therefore when it reaches to theory, there
will be almost no subjectivities in it

Done with the "believe" part...

However, when you start asking about the existence of something (in this case, God), then that's not a believing kind of question anymore, it's now a science question. And to fully answer a science question, you require data to back it up if you choose "Yes" OR "No" answer.

What make it interesting, as pp already posted, there's no way to prove the existence of God AND there's no way to disprove it also. (*)

So to answer the question:

"Do you believe in God ?" NO

"Does God exist ?" I DON'T KNOW (refer to (*))

============================================

(I think it's really funny as people keep throw out statement about the existence of God. Just as an example, please read)

A: "There's a super/mega/hyper/ultra/deluxe power out there (AKA God)"

B: "How do you know ?"

A: "Open your mind, when you believe in God, then God exists in you...blah blah blah..."

B: "Can you prove it, yes or no ?"

A: "No"

B: "Then your statement is useless"

A: "Moron, then disprove it (the existence of God) !"

B: "There's no way to do that"

A: "Haha, you loser, so God does exist !"

B: "No, you are WRONG. You forget that you can't prove your statement either. You throw out your statement and you can't back it up. AT THAT POINT, it's mean your statement about the existence of God is INVALID / WRONG statement. Since it ("God does exist") is INVALID / WRONG statement, I don't need to disprove it".

B: "See, I just show you that even when I can't disprove your statement DO NOT automatically make it right (or it still can be wrong). And you can apply this kind of analogy for the opposite way for this case (like someone states that "God doesnt exist", which is ALSO a WRONG statement).

B: "People just throw out lots of statement, which they can't prove it themselves but keep asking to disprove it ! When you make a statement but that you know you can't prove it, then you should not throw it out from the beginning


Last edited by Rain1 at 6:24 pm, Oct 5 2007

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"As long as we're seeing the same kind of musical vision, yeah, sure. But sometimes when things get hard, you balance out the pros and cons and say, am I being a wimp if I stay or am I being a wimp if I leave?" - D'arcy Wretzky

I do not believe in God. There's no proof he exists and, since the idea is more ridiculous than plausible, I see no case for blind faith. But, I also have a rather unusual backup opinion, in case I'm ever proven wrong:

If there IS a god, an all-powerful being who allowed the world to fall into this miserable state, then fuck him. I'd sooner side with Lucifer.

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"War is not about going off to die. It's about going off to kill other people!"
-SaiKano