Keep reading, my friend, keep reading…
You are beating a dead horse. This question has been resolved a long time ago, except for you and you inerrantist twins. For one thing Jesus made statements about His Return which pointedly did not have any time limits.
Matthew 24:44 (NIV2011)
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.
So we have two traditions of what Jesus said, one with a time frame and one with no time frame. Some people even today have put a date on His Return despite what He said and of course have been disappointed. Most people have used their God given mind to decide that He was right when He said, “Be ready all the time, because I am coming when you don’t expect Me.” Some people, unlike you, know how to determine the truth when there are two different opinions.
I do not know what you mean by special benefits to being a Christian. I would say knowing God the Father and Jesus the Savior is a “special” benefit. This is not because we are special or better than others, but on the contrary because we know that we are sinners, who trust in God and not in our own righteousness.
We also have a strong sense of right and wrong based on our love for Jesus and His love for humanity. I am bemused by the discussion of morality found on these pages. Jesus taught a relational ethic based on right relationship of love between us and God and humans with each other. It is not absolute, but caring for others, even those who oppose us.
Non-believers seem to think that Science will solve our problems, but our biggest problems are people problems and science does not address these problems. Science is not evil unless it takes the place of love. The answer is the Kingdom of God based on God’s Love, not that this is an easy answer.
The fact is Jesus is risen from the dead. We know this because many people talked to him before He returned to Heaven, and others such as Paul experienced Him after He returned to Heaven. Many of us know Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
The spirit of science is that people should not take the word of others for what is true. Christianity tells us that we can know God for ourselves, and that means you. We know that God keeps Hid promises because we know God’s love and forgiveness. If you have not, that is too bad, but that is only your experience.
You claim that people who believe in God for some reason must accept all claims of the super natural as true. You should know that this is false. It is like saying that people who trust the claims of science must accept all claims of science to be true.
Some people have said that Marxism made a science of history and said that everyone should reject faith and accept scientific socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. So you agree?
I don’t see why both can’t be true. Why must there be a contradiction between Jesus coming within the generation of people listening to him, and yet, noone knowing the day or the hour? It’s like saying, I will die in the next 100 years, but I am not sure about the day or the hour. Both can be true.
I don’t deny that there is a special benefit of being in a special group. I meant, there is no evidence of a benefit of having omni-potent being at your side. Yes, there are benefits to being a part of the group, perhaps you can have a nice feeling thinking about a blissful afterlife. But there is no special knowledge, special help right here on earth.
I don’t think there are good evidence for believing in the resurrection. A good argument can be made that Jesus’ promises were false. And humans can be very creative with the stories we write. There is a high probability the Gospels are just stories also.
Unlike science, God is claimed to have unimaginable power and wisdom. I think if one can posit God raising people from the dead, there is no reason why he can’t raise anyone else from the dead. After all, we are dealing with (allegedly) a very much advanced and powerful being who acts in ways that are beyond our comprehension and understanding. I think one would have to make a case why such a God would only do that one special resurrection and no other resurrections!
But science doesn’t ask you to believe. Science offers an explanations and welcomes a refutation.
No, I do not agree with Marxists. I think people should have a right to whatever faith they wish to follow.
No one is saying that Christians benefit by being members of a special group. Stop fixating on that nonexistent bogus claim.
I am saying that Christians benefit from knowing that they are forgiven when they confess their sins. Christians benefit from knowing that they can take responsibility for their lives and need not fear what people think about them.
Christians benefit from knowing that Love is stronger than Hate, that Life is stronger than Death, that Justice is stronger than Fear, that Truth is stronger than Doubt, that Goodness is stronger than Sin.
Wisdom comes from Truth and Understanding. Wisdom comes from knowing that Jesus Christ is the Logos, Atheism is a lie and lies have consequences. Atheism means that life has no meaning or purpose.
I guess you haven’t heard. God raises everyone who dies from the dead. Some God takes to Himself because they rejoice in love and justice. Others go to live with those who prefer to live by hatred and oppression, like your friend, Joseph V.
Over time, the fossil record has been filled in with more an more detail…but we’re “still looking for transitional forms”?
Everything is a transitional form.
That’s why platypuses (platypi?) are so weird. It’s why manatees have “toenails.” It’s, arguably, why we have appendices. Transitional forms. We always look at “now” and see “lack of transition,” but there has been significant “transition” even in the human race over the incredibly short span (geologically speaking) of just the past few thousand years!
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@fmiddel and @marktwombly,
There was a recent thread on this very topic. I strongly recommend reading at least the first few postings…
and why the phrase “intermediate form” can be a better choice than “transitional form”…
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Well, if majority of the world is in Hell (as interpreted by the mainstream Christians), then I would say Love is not stronger than Hate at the end.
And here is another point where Hate may win over Love. Basically, God will do Joseph V. as Joseph V. would do Christians. But, Joseph V. was not a loving individual (and not my friend). (Joseph V. = Stalin for those who may not be aware)
Of course you can be a christian without believing the resurrection.
There are 100’s of denominations that believe their interpretation is right! Just choose one you agree with, if it doesn’t exist, create a new one!
That’s just silly.
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There may be denominations that believe they have everything right, but I’ve never been in one. It would be difficult, because I have never been in a denomination where any two people agreed with each other 100%, so that would seem mathematically, to eliminate the trope from the onset.
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Words have meaning. I always paraphrase my atheist friend Jason Rosenhaus the math prof from JMU who used to write the well-regarded “Evolution Blog” on the science blogs network. He debunked this kind of argument this way (paraphrasing): If someone claims they are a Christian and Elvis is the Christ–they are not a Christian.
It may be that some argue that you can be a Christian without believing in the resurrection. (I don’t think so, but I think that you could have the argument.) But it is not because you can call any set of beliefs you have “Christianity” just because they might include Jesus. Words. Have. Meaning.
Christianity is all about the resurrection, and a bodily one at that. (Is there any other kind?) The mystery of faith is “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.”
Jesus was bodily lifted into the sky. So was Enoch. And Elijah. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Hebrew discussions of about human interaction with God focus on the physical. There are even fairly “concrete” episodes of a physical God interacting with humans.
But this was not the only view of things amongst the ancients. The Egyptians believed in spiritual dimensions and emanations… both for the divine and for the human.
The whole concept of “ghosts” was a belief in a spirit world that didn’t require bodies. And there is a Gnostic layer of Christianity that seems difficult to dismiss:
We, with all things, are now this one resurrected body. Ephesians 2:6, Ephesians 1:23
“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.” 1Peter 2:5
“There is one body, and one Spirit.” Ephesians 4:4
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” 1Corinthians 15:44
While the Sadducees rejected resurrection… and the Pharisees endorsed bodily resurrection, I think you will find the Greek/Western views on resurrection were surprisingly varied.
The rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Joseph V. punished the innocent and rewarded the guilty. God does not act like Joseph V., so please do not lie about that. God punishes the guilty and rewards the innocent.
If you defend J V and compare him to God, you act as his friend.
Strong accusations, but, as far as I know, Stalin was never suspected of burning people to death. God, again, according to the Christian tradition, will torture people forever in Hell. Without reprieve! I’m not making this up. I’d actually be curious to know how many biologis Christians believe in a literal and eternal Hell. I was brought up in a church that taught this.
Note, if you believe that God will burn people temporarily, before finally killing them off for all eternity, then your theology is kinder vs the mainstream view.
Roger, Vlad’s only weakness on this planet is his admiration of Joseph V.
There’s no point in discussing it with him.
I worship God. That is why I won’t get bent out of shape or call the YEC movement godless or say they distort the Bible or reject a book of the Bible.
I do have a personal belief of EC, but I could be wrong. I am not saying EC is proven, it just has the most evidence from what I can see to make the most logical sense and I can also see how it aligns with much of scripture.
If you think the same of YEC, that is fine. But to think you do know the correct thing, you aren’t wrong, and that anyone who disagrees with you is rejecting a book of the Bible or the truth of God. Putting emphasis on your life to discover how right you are and how everyone must see your truth before they see God and that your YEC truth is what leads people to God… I think is worshiping a YEC narrative and not the Living God.
What if your athiest friend whom you respected, saw a miraculous thing happen in the background of something he was filming with multiple cameras. That fact that it showed up on film would eliminate any psychological bias or hallucination. There were no funny angles or visual illusions that could have occurred. And he is an atheist and has no bias for a deity. He calls you up and tells you he is on his way to you. On his way to show you his tapes, he is killed in an accident and all the evidence is destroyed. Do you believe in his claim? Do you still think he needs to get evalutated by a competent medical professional?
I know, far fetched…Point being, if someone had proof (to themselves), and that proof is no longer accessible to you, and tells you of something, will you ever believe another person? In this case, you having lack of proof, would make you wrong.
This here is the point. They believed in a spiritual resurrection, kind of like a ghost. John, to come back as Jesus or in the form of. This is not new to Jews. What would be completely new to the Jews is a person physically becoming alive again. Jesus being Jesus, with holes in His hands. That was radical for all Jews of that age and time. They also thought their messiah would save them and bring back Jerusalem to it’s glory days in David’s time and make it the greatest kingdom on earth. So when Jesus died, they were pretty doubtful He was the messiah. Their messiah wouldn’t be conquered so easily. The resurrection of Jesus was quite radical to them, this is why Thomas didn’t believe it until he physically touched Him. He was plenty familiar with the Jewish beliefs of ghosts and spirits of that time.
Amen, God is amazing! My name… I began on this forum as a curious YEC, maybe and OEC, but macro evolution was crazy wrong. I have since changed my stance on many debatable topics. But I have never, nor will ever change my stance on the love of God. I am thankful for His foundation of who He is that cannot and will not ever be moved either. A secure foundation that allows me to not fear any alternate understanding.
I agree to that. I would say more than speculation…but yea, it is just a theory based on evidence. If there is a whale bones dates with feet to be older than some whale bones with smaller feet, with more bones dated more recent with remnants of feet, to no feet. One can use that evidence, to come up with a theory that the feet whale turned into the no feet whale over time.
The methods to date the bones are scientifically tested and repeated. Science is used to obtain facts, but a theory is used to come to a logical conclusion of what most likely happened.
Science can also rule out what most likely didn’t happen. When you measure light from a star and it is a few billion years old, we can rule out the fact that the universe is less than a billion years old. This light measurement is repeatable and testable.
So if the universe cannot be a less than a billion years old. That leads us with a few choices. God created the universe in 6 days as a literal interpretation says, and made the universe appear to be billions of years old. Or the interpretation of Genesis was never meant to be literal.
Either way, the message of who God is, and how much He loves us, and how amazing and loving He is, is still a truth, that can’t be taken away by science or anything.
You can’t throw out the baby with the bath water though. If a few individuals believed that proving evolution would turn people away from God and that is what they wanted and that caused them to make stuff up, it doens’t make the truth any different. If someone made up math numbers to show the sun is the center of our solar system, that were later debunked, would that make the sun not the center?
Maybe the theory of evolution is wrong, and will be changed? I don’t think the measurement of light will ever change. The universe will always be measured at billions of years old. That is why I am not saying that evolution is the truth and all must believe. If something else is discovered, I will probably go that that camp. Whatever people smarter than me says happened, I will generally go with what they say. Especially when there are multiple Christians in that field that agree with them. And especially when their theory could be aligned with many themes of the Bible.
But I just see not logic for a micro evolution “stopping” before it could become macro. The cells are “stupid”, they do what they are told. A bone shrink or grow, skin shrinks or grows. It is the concert of all of those individual cells changing over a long time that make it “macro”. Like a book is the macro, and the words are the micro. One cannot know what the Bible is about if they just read “In”. It isn’t until many words have works in coordination and over time that you begin to see what it means. A journey took incremental steps to become something completely different than the original. I don’t believe there is a wall telling the cells to stop changing, you have changed enough.
Apparently @AMWolfe did a MUCH better job explaining this as He is way more educated than I am in this field.
You do have a point there, I have heard many Christians think this. That is why I don’t think that resurrection is important from that stance, that this was a supernatural thing that happened, proves He is the Son of God. It is kind of circular logic. Jesus’s the resurrection proved He is God, and because He is God, He was resurrected. SO any other claim of resurrection is false, because no one else is God.
This is why I try to stay away from that mentality. Jesus was resurrected for many reasons, and it is important, but more so “keep with the theme”. Jesus said He would, so He had to. And Jesus is life, so He had to. It also makes sense to celebrate a life over a death, though the death was the thing that brings us back to God, not the resurrection. Though it wasn’t the death, rather it was the perfect life of Jesus on earth that saved us, the death was just a thing that had to happen to make His life complete, to end the “perfect game”. So when we celebrate the resurrection, it is less morbid than celebrating a death, but His death was based on His life, so we celebrate His life, as death had to happen, but couldn’t hold Him, and that is also why we celebrate the resurrection.
I am fine if others claims were real, I know Satan has some crazy powers, it could be possible? But those original lives of those did nothing for me, and the resurrection was pointless as well. Did they just die again later? Did they live to serve me and all mankind and to be an example of how to live the most fulfilling life? I have to equity in wasting time arguing whether or not others did resurrect from the dead.
What are the other claims of resurrection for? They lived a life, death beat them, then some magical power raised them? Jesus lived as a servant to us, loved many during His life, and allowed death to hold Him down for a bit, then raised back to normal.
A different resurrection claim is like a brick being thrown in the water. Someone had to swim down and retrieve it, and take it out, and the brick hopes upon all hopes, that it doesn’t get thrown back in, because it will always sink.
Jesus is like trying to put a ball full of air or a life vest underwater. He required the heavens to align (because of the will of the Father allowing them to) and for the powers of darkness to use all it’s might to hold Him under for a few days, because that was the will of God, and then bloop, right back to the top. No fear of ever being drown ever again. God doesn’t need, nor will the heaven’s align, nor could the powers of darkness ever have it sink again. The ball rolls on land and over water, never the slightest fear or worry of being near water, it will never drown.
It is also salvation to anyone who clings on to this life vest, they will also never sink and don’t need to fear death. For they might get submerged for a few seconds, but bloop, right back to the top will they plop every time. Drowning/sin/death has been conquered, and there is no need to fear it, for those that believe, we can also hanging onto Jesus, never drown/die/be separated from God!
I see now that it wasn’t that Jesus HAD to be resurrected (because of prophesy or other reasons). I now see that prophesies were written because He WAS going to be resurrected. Death couldn’t hold Him, Jesus is the Way the Truth and the LIFE. Death wasn’t a obstacle that had to be overcome, it was a necessary even that He allowed to occur. The resurrection wasn’t a miracle, anymore than something floating is. The miracle was the fact that Jesus was allowed to die.
The first fruits of the spiritual resurrected. Sin separates us from God, all flesh has sinned, separation from God is spiritual death. Jesus’ flesh took on sin on the cross (the powers of darkness trying to drown Him), and sin/spiritual death kind of occurred…or tried to occur. But Jesus conquered sin and spiritual death, by rising form the dead, and being reunited with God. the first fruits of spiritual resurrection. Which we will all follow if we believe. Sin tried to drown Him, tried to separate Him from God, but failed. Jesus is the first fruit of resurrection!
I think that is what Paul was saying. Jesus had to resurrect, He is the Way the Truth and the LIFE. Just like a person trying to explain a heavy enough object placed on a life vest will yes, take it underwater a bit, but once removed, it has to float up, if it didn’t, then it is not a good life vest.
Well, here is the rub. You admit your hypothetical example is far fetched. Btw, I know Christians who would not change their religion if the had a revelation from God who told them to follow Islam or perish in Hell. They would assume it was Satan trying to masquerade as God, and which proves religious faith is faith, at the end of the day.
There is no reason to believe the Gospels are anything but stories.
2 Peter 1:16 ESV For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Apparently, this was the accusation back in the 1st or 2nd Century (depending on when 2nd Peter was written) also.
But, I think the “resurrection” was just seeing a vision of Jesus. I personally, think it’s highly unlikely that the religious Jews would believe in the re-incarnation of John the Baptist, so the whole thing is made up (a cleverly devised myth). Christianity was founded by people like Paul, who started having visions/hallucinations and the Gospelers euhemerized this Jesus into a historical person
Lets think about this. Paul who lived in the 1st Century received a personal revelation! He was much closer to the supposed events than you or I, so why does he get a revelation but we need to rely on faith?
Well … are you prepared to give your life traveling the known world evangelizing the very thing you so oppose? Apparently Paul was (or God saw to it that he got that way). God had a specific plan for him, and wow … do we now see how that plan unfolded! Who knows? Maybe you’re next. Note: the beneficiaries of Paul’s vision were, in the end, not so much himself as it was all the people he reached. You seem to see Paul as privileged. I suppose he was. Privileged to be doing prison time, getting beatings, working to support himself while traveling (or more than likely fleeing) from place to place. I guess such a thing wouldn’t be for everybody.
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There are so many reasons to believe. The gospels are a narrative of the God who created us who we rejected, allows us to be reconciled back to Him. What is the meaning of life? I fail to see any purpose in life apart from God.
About WLC saying Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrected. I think it needs elaboration.
Is he the first person God brought back to life? No. Is he the first to get a new body after the resurrection, One unlike any we have seen? Yes Did he die again after the resurrection? No. Was his resurrection more important than all the others? Defenitly. So you could defenitly say he was the first fruit.
What do you think the purpose of life was 2100 years ago?