Happy birthday Jesus

Hugh Freaking Dillon

JimmyV wrote:

Again, I don't have a horse in this race. Maybe Jesus existed and maybe he didn't. But I am rather amazed that the anti-Jesus crowd in this thread is as zealous in their belief as you would expect a religious zealot to be .

I'm agnostic. I have no steak in it either. I don't know if he existed, I don't know either way. But I personally don't believe any evidence exists. that's why they call it faith.

bootlegger10

Byrnzie wrote:

Maybe people should spend less time indulging the belief system of a 2000 year old Middle Eastern cult, and pay more attention to the World around them, and to the Earth under their feet, instead.

By World, do you mean discrediting anything pro-American or Christianity?

Jesus was said to only live to his mid-30's, and it is recorded in scripture that he only spent a couple years before his death evangelizing or being the guy we've all read about. He spent a lot of his time with the sick and the poor. He was put to death like any common criminal. It may not be surprising that not a lot was written about him. A king or emporor had their faces put on money or had statues built in their likeness. There will be more recorded of them.

It may not be surprising that Christianity needed time to grow before it became mainstream.

Timothy 3:
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

When it comes down to it, there is faith that God breathed the words of the New Testament to the writers after Jesus' death. You will say that people 100 years after the fact wrote the Bible. Fine, you believe it is bunk. Christians believe in an all powerfull God, so it seems silly to Christians to believe that God couldn't have inspired a few writers.

A lot of people believe we all came from a single atom or ion (or whatever) after billions of years. I think that is laughable too. If it is true, then all of this existance is pointless.

Anyway, I don't have any links to websites, so please disregard the above.

pandora

Happy Happy Birthday Jesus ... again and many many more

markin ball

bootlegger10 wrote:

Jesus was said to only live to his mid-30's, and it is recorded in scripture that he only spent a couple years before his death evangelizing or being the guy we've all read about. He spent a lot of his time with the sick and the poor. He was put to death like any common criminal. It may not be surprising that not a lot was written about him. A king or emporor had their faces put on money or had statues built in their likeness. There will be more recorded of them.

That is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the lack of evidence regarding the physical existence of Jesus, however it remains that there is a lack of evidence for the existence of Jesus.

Byrnzie

JimmyV wrote:

There are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide who DO presume it to be true.

And 70% of Americans believe that the Iraqi's were responsible for 9/11.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/was ... iraq_x.htm

Byrnzie

bootlegger10 wrote:

By World, do you mean discrediting anything pro-American or Christianity?

No, that has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.

bootlegger10 wrote:

Jesus was said to only live to his mid-30's, and it is recorded in scripture that he only spent a couple years before his death evangelizing or being the guy we've all read about. He spent a lot of his time with the sick and the poor. He was put to death like any common criminal. It may not be surprising that not a lot was written about him. A king or emporor had their faces put on money or had statues built in their likeness. There will be more recorded of them.

Buddha also spent a lot of his time with the sick and the poor, and had only a few followers during his lifetime, but there is concrete evidence of his existence, and he was born in 563 BC.

bootlegger10 wrote:

It may not be surprising that Christianity needed time to grow before it became mainstream.

Timothy 3:
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

When it comes down to it, there is faith that God breathed the words of the New Testament to the writers after Jesus' death. You will say that people 100 years after the fact wrote the Bible. Fine, you believe it is bunk. Christians believe in an all powerfull God, so it seems silly to Christians to believe that God couldn't have inspired a few writers.

A lot of people believe we all came from a single atom or ion (or whatever) after billions of years. I think that is laughable too. If it is true, then all of this existance is pointless.

Anyway, I don't have any links to websites, so please disregard the above.

Yep, they have faith, not evidence. Big difference.

bootlegger10

Byrnzie wrote:

Yep, they have faith, not evidence. Big difference.

I didn't mean faith equaled evidence. I just meant physical proof is not the cornerstone of the religion and arguing that the New Testament was written long after Jesus died should not concern a Christian who has faith that the Bible was written through people by God.

I don't know much about the proof of existance of Buddha, so I can't really comment on that part of your post. Is it writings? If so, by whom? Statues?

DS1119

BTW...Joe Biden Democratic Vice President of the United States was holding onto one of these during the Osama assassination.



It's a Rosary ring.


http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/bi ... sary-beads


Joe Biden – "If You Do Harm to America, We Will Track You to the Gates of Hell"

http://video.foxnews.com/v/189523681500 ... s-of-hell/

JimmyV

Byrnzie wrote:

JimmyV wrote:

There are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide who DO presume it to be true.

And 70% of Americans believe that the Iraqi's were responsible for 9/11.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/was ... iraq_x.htm

Even if that poll is correct - and I strongly doubt the number was ever that high - it is from 2003. Pretending it is current is rather disingenuous.

Moving on...so what? You don't believe in Christ. 2.1 billion Christians do. I don't know what I believe. I still don't understand the passion of the anti-Jesus crowd. It is almost a religion to some it seems.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

Jesus built my hot rod.

JimmyV

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

JimmyV wrote:

Again, I don't have a horse in this race. Maybe Jesus existed and maybe he didn't. But I am rather amazed that the anti-Jesus crowd in this thread is as zealous in their belief as you would expect a religious zealot to be .

I'm agnostic. I have no steak in it either. I don't know if he existed, I don't know either way. But I personally don't believe any evidence exists. that's why they call it faith.

Fair enough.

Byrnzie

JimmyV wrote:

Even if that poll is correct - and I strongly doubt the number was ever that high - it is from 2003. Pretending it is current is rather disingenuous.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... nniversary
Fri Sep. 9, 2011
—By David Corn

This week, the University of Maryland released a 9/11-related poll showing that many Americans remain ignorant about the link between 9/11 and the war Bush and Dick Cheney launched in Iraq. Nearly half of the respondents noted that Iraq was "directly involved" in the 9/11 assaults (15 percent) or gave "substantial support" to Al Qaeda without participating in those attacks (31 percent.). Neither is true. Iraq, as the 9/11 Commission reported, had not been in league with Al Qaeda. It had not provided "substantial" assistance—or any aid of note, for that matter—to Osama bin Laden and his mass-murderers.

The same poll also found that about half of Americans (47 percent) believe that prior to the Iraq war, the regime possessed actual weapons of mass destruction or had a major WMD program under way. Again, not true.

http://themoderatevoice.com/121921/ten- ... -persists/
Sep 9, 2011
by NICK RIVERA

On Thursday, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland released the results of a survey, The American Public on the 9/11 Decade: A Study of American Opinion, that sought to address Americans’ attitudes regarding the domestic and foreign policies that were initiated as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks...

Among those surveyed:

- 38% believe that the US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda.
- 31% believe that Iraq gave substantial support to Al Qaeda but was not involved with the September attacks while an additional 15% believe that Iraq was directly involved in carrying out the September 11 attacks.
- 26% believe that Iraq had WMDs just before the Iraq War.
- 16% believe that WMDs were found in Iraq.

catefrances

markin ball wrote:

JC29856 wrote:

So, did Jesus really exist? With his new book, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, Bart Ehrman, historian and professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, wanted to provide solid historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.

"I wanted to approach this question as an historian to see whether that's right or not," Ehrman tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.

The answer is straightforward and widely accepted among scholars of all faiths, but Ehrman says there is a large contingent of people claiming that Jesus never did exist. These people are also known as mythicists.

"It was a surprise to me to see how influential these mythicists are," Ehrman says. "Historically, they've been significant and in the Soviet Union, in fact, the mythicist view was the dominant view, and even today, in some parts of the West – in parts of Scandinavia — it is a dominant view that Jesus never existed," he says.

Mythicists' arguments are fairly plausible, Ehrman says. According to them, Jesus was never mentioned in any Roman sources and there is no archeological evidence that Jesus ever existed. Even Christian sources are problematic – the Gospels come long after Jesus' death, written by people who never saw the man.

"Most importantly," he explains, "these mythicists point out that there are Pagan gods who were said to die and rise again and so the idea is that Jesus was made up as a Jewish god who died and rose again."

In his book, Ehrman marshals all of the evidence proving the existence of Jesus, including the writings of the apostle Paul.

"Paul knew Jesus' brother, James, and he knew his closest disciple, Peter, and he tells us that he did," Ehrman says. "If Jesus didn't exist, you would think his brother would know about it, so I think Paul is probably pretty good evidence that Jesus at least existed," he says.

In Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman builds a technical argument and shows that one of the reasons for knowing that Jesus existed is that if someone invented Jesus, they would not have created a messiah who was so easily overcome.

"The Messiah was supposed to overthrow the enemies – and so if you're going to make up a messiah, you'd make up a powerful messiah," he says. "You wouldn't make up somebody who was humiliated, tortured and the killed by the enemies."

So Jesus did exist, but who was he? Ehrman says when historians focus on the life of Jesus, they discover a Jesus who is completely different from the one portrayed by popular culture or by religious texts.

"The mythicists have some right things to say," Ehrman says. "The Gospels do portray Jesus in ways that are non-historical."

When Raz asks Ehrman about his relationship to Jesus, Ehrman says that most of it is very historical but that Jesus teaches us valuable lessons.

"Jesus' teachings of love, and mercy and forgiveness, I think, really should dominate our lives," he says. "On the personal level, I agree with many of the ethical teachings of Jesus and I try to model my life on them, even though I don't agree with the apocalyptic framework in which they were put."

Really? This is what they are going with? "Jesus must have been a real guy because the made up story doesn't make sense, and some guy who wrote some stuff down 100 years later knew the brother of a guy that knew a guy." Really?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS6f1MKpLGM

Byrnzie

bootlegger10 wrote:

Jesus was said to only live to his mid-30's, and it is recorded in scripture that he only spent a couple years before his death evangelizing or being the guy we've all read about. He spent a lot of his time with the sick and the poor. He was put to death like any common criminal. It may not be surprising that not a lot was written about him. A king or emporor had their faces put on money or had statues built in their likeness. There will be more recorded of them.

So you're going to try and pretend that Jesus was just a small figure who would have attracted little attention at the time of his 'life'? On the one hand the OP claims he was the most amazing person that's ever lived, and on the other hand, you're trying to claim that he was just a minor character, like any other common criminal, or just another ordinary Joe.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

'The fact of the matter is that not a single historian, follower or scribe during the time when Jesus was alleged to have lived, performing miracles and generally upsetting the powers that be with the authority of God, makes any mention of him whatsoever. Given that he is alleged to have attracted great multitudes, argued and debated with the religious and political leaders of his time and healed the sick in great numbers it is utterly staggering that not a single reference can be found of this allegedly divine prophet who not only acted with the authority of God but was alleged to be God.'

rollings

A poem--"My Niece's Jesus Belt"

peculiar but not unusual your style
and that you would accessorize
raising divinity that way

with innocent intent you
gently reflect the way
a twelve-panel of Jesuses would
in full Sunday color

adorning not the usual beltway
but through hallowed loops ascending
teenage conformity my foot
and probably less than three

probably seven holes
probably seven holy poses
probably seven blessings
all of them mighty

holy holy holy
my niece's Jesus belt

click for belt

JimmyV

Byrnzie wrote:

JimmyV wrote:

Even if that poll is correct - and I strongly doubt the number was ever that high - it is from 2003. Pretending it is current is rather disingenuous.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... nniversary
Fri Sep. 9, 2011
—By David Corn

This week, the University of Maryland released a 9/11-related poll showing that many Americans remain ignorant about the link between 9/11 and the war Bush and Dick Cheney launched in Iraq. Nearly half of the respondents noted that Iraq was "directly involved" in the 9/11 assaults (15 percent) or gave "substantial support" to Al Qaeda without participating in those attacks (31 percent.). Neither is true. Iraq, as the 9/11 Commission reported, had not been in league with Al Qaeda. It had not provided "substantial" assistance—or any aid of note, for that matter—to Osama bin Laden and his mass-murderers.

The same poll also found that about half of Americans (47 percent) believe that prior to the Iraq war, the regime possessed actual weapons of mass destruction or had a major WMD program under way. Again, not true.

http://themoderatevoice.com/121921/ten- ... -persists/
Sep 9, 2011
by NICK RIVERA

On Thursday, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland released the results of a survey, The American Public on the 9/11 Decade: A Study of American Opinion, that sought to address Americans’ attitudes regarding the domestic and foreign policies that were initiated as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks...

Among those surveyed:

- 38% believe that the US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda.
- 31% believe that Iraq gave substantial support to Al Qaeda but was not involved with the September attacks while an additional 15% believe that Iraq was directly involved in carrying out the September 11 attacks.
- 26% believe that Iraq had WMDs just before the Iraq War.
- 16% believe that WMDs were found in Iraq.

So we went from the 70% you tossed around to the numbers above? Seems like a pretty significant decrease to me. I wonder how closely the 16%-38% referenced above mirrors the percentage of far right wingers in this country?

And this of course has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Byrnzie

JimmyV wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

JimmyV wrote:

Even if that poll is correct - and I strongly doubt the number was ever that high - it is from 2003. Pretending it is current is rather disingenuous.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... nniversary
Fri Sep. 9, 2011
—By David Corn

This week, the University of Maryland released a 9/11-related poll showing that many Americans remain ignorant about the link between 9/11 and the war Bush and Dick Cheney launched in Iraq. Nearly half of the respondents noted that Iraq was "directly involved" in the 9/11 assaults (15 percent) or gave "substantial support" to Al Qaeda without participating in those attacks (31 percent.). Neither is true. Iraq, as the 9/11 Commission reported, had not been in league with Al Qaeda. It had not provided "substantial" assistance—or any aid of note, for that matter—to Osama bin Laden and his mass-murderers.

The same poll also found that about half of Americans (47 percent) believe that prior to the Iraq war, the regime possessed actual weapons of mass destruction or had a major WMD program under way. Again, not true.

http://themoderatevoice.com/121921/ten- ... -persists/
Sep 9, 2011
by NICK RIVERA

On Thursday, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland released the results of a survey, The American Public on the 9/11 Decade: A Study of American Opinion, that sought to address Americans’ attitudes regarding the domestic and foreign policies that were initiated as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks...

Among those surveyed:

- 38% believe that the US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda.
- 31% believe that Iraq gave substantial support to Al Qaeda but was not involved with the September attacks while an additional 15% believe that Iraq was directly involved in carrying out the September 11 attacks.
- 26% believe that Iraq had WMDs just before the Iraq War.
- 16% believe that WMDs were found in Iraq.

So we went from the 70% you tossed around to the numbers above? Seems like a pretty significant decrease to me. I wonder how closely the 16%-38% referenced above mirrors the percentage of far right wingers in this country?

And this of course has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

It had everything to do with this topic as soon as you trumpeted the following in support of your case:

JimmyV wrote:

There are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide who DO presume it to be true.

And the fact remains that in 2003 70% of Americans believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. 70% believed in a fantasy. Yet you don't think people are capable of believing in fantasies when those fantasies relate to a belief in 'God', and/or someone called Jesus?

JimmyV

Byrnzie wrote:

JimmyV wrote:

So we went from the 70% you tossed around to the numbers above? Seems like a pretty significant decrease to me. I wonder how closely the 16%-38% referenced above mirrors the percentage of far right wingers in this country?

And this of course has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

It had everything to do with this topic as soon as you trumpeted the following in support of your case:

JimmyV wrote:

There are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide who DO presume it to be true.

And the fact remains that in 2003 70% of Americans believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. 70% believed in a fantasy. Yet you don't think people are capable of believing in fantasies when those fantasies relate to a belief in 'God', and/or someone called Jesus?

No. The fact is not that 70% of Americans believed that in 2003. The fact is that you dug up a poll that claimed that to be true. With minimal effort we could both point to many polls that are inaccurate. Simply because a poll says something it does not make it a fact.

Remember, my point is that it is wrong to say there is zero evidence that Jesus existed. This is not to say that he did exist, only that there is at least minimal evidence that he did. The standard of evidence submitted earlier stated that something needed to be widely believed to be true in order to be considered evidence. 2.1 billion Christians is a pretty wide sample in my estimation.

dimitrispearljam

JimmyV wrote:

T 2.1 billion Christians is a pretty wide sample in my estimation.

this is THE huge number...and even some need evidence,that no one will ever find,..

after 2013 years...2.1 billions believe it.....only this number after all this year..make it real...

Byrnzie

JimmyV wrote:

The standard of evidence submitted earlier stated that something needed to be widely believed to be true in order to be considered evidence. 2.1 billion Christians is a pretty wide sample in my estimation.

That's not evidence, just as if 2.1 billion people believed the World to be flat wouldn't make it so.