Has Your life been better since becoming a Christian?

[Floatingaxe]

Well you can check around at websites dedicated to Christian apologetics. You did not merely ask for info. I gave you info. You asked to see a 125 A.D. copy. What I said is common knowledge in the theological community. Here is a website that has pictures of some fragments of said manuscripts, it is a start I suppose>>>Ancient NT Manuscripts

Interesting site. I compared it to a secular site, and found that they have different conclusions on many of the same documents. And these earliest copies are fragments. We can gain no information on how alike they are with the copies we have now from a few sentences.

Why would they have turned him into a legend, given that the "legend" was costing them their lives. If they consciously turned Jesus into a legend, human nature being what it is, would not have caused them to die for something/someone they had ficitionalized or embellished. No one would willingly undergo, torture and imprisonment and a slow, agonizing death for something they don't really believe in, or know is not true. As for Paul, he claims not only to have seen and spoken to Jesus on the road to Damascus, but to have been taken up into heaven, at one point, in 2 Corinthians 12.

I sometimes wonder if Paul is just a mere liar. Alot of literary scholars believe he is, without a doubt. He no doubt invented Christianity as we know it. Please point to me some non Pauline scripture that has Jesus telling us to throw away the old testament laws. I'm begging at this point.

Sorry, but apparently you don't understand Gnosticism, or you are not willing to be completely honest Gnosticism and its relationship to the claims of the New Testament

Gnosticism basically teaches that:

• The Material universe is flawed and evil
  
• The Material universe was created by a Demiurge, a lesser god created by the true God who exists in another realm
  
• The human soul, a divine spark, is fallen captive to matter, in the realm of the senses. One must develop spiritually by ridding one's self from being entangled with the material universe and return ones' self to the true source of light, God.
  
• Only the elite can accomplish the task of removing one's self from being enmeshed and entangled with the material universe. This option for spiritual development is not available for all persons.
  

That is not, by any means, an exhaustive list of their beliefs and there are different kinds of Gnosticism and variations exist depending on what part of the world you live in.

If you are going to claim that the book of John is "gnostic," then the onus is on you to qualify and present objective evidence to support that assertion. Gnostics who accepted Christ rejected Jesus as having come in a Physical body, which means they would have rejected the Gospel of John with the synoptics. My basis for accepting the validity of John's account has nothing to do with John being a "good guy." In John chapter 21, Jesus eats with the disciples near the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He does this to prove that it is really Him, and not an apparition. An apparition would not eat fish and bread. In doing this, and in many other ways, John's gospel can be demonstrated to not have been gnostic in origin or in doctrine.

Gnosticism is not a specific religion or practise. I don't know where you got this information, but this is a few of many DIFFERENT beliefs. Some gnostic cults merely believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. Some (such as the Jewish Christianity) merely practise Jewish Law, but still believe everything else about Jesus. And yes, the church named this "cult" heretical and gnostic. There isn't a gnostic bible, or a gnostic set of rules that you have to follow to join the gnostic club. In all reality, gnosticism is just a set of beliefs that vary or add on to the norm.

Nothing you have said lends in credence to your assertion. I am Jewish. I forgotten more about anti-Semitism than people like you know. I know anti-Semitism when I read it, and see it. I have been the victim of it. John's gospel presents a Jewish Jesus who was Torah observant, and any claim of anti-Semitism is just blowing smoke. John focuses more on Jesus outright claims to being God than do the synoptic writers, but so what? The synoptic writers demonstrate and reveal a Jesus who had the power to forgive sins, who had personal power over death, and who even received worship from men. Jesus demonstrates Himself to be God just as much in the synoptics.

I'm not going to argue about the anti-semitism in John. If you can please find an article or essay written by a literary critic, you will find that they come to the same conclusion. I suggest you read "Jesus and Yahweh; The Divine Names" by Harold Bloom. He is probably the best literary critic to ever walk the face of the earth and he takes an unbiased view into the bible.

As I said, none of the "evidence" you provide speaks to the issue of Gnosticism. All you are doing is blowing smoke and parroting what you have heard other critics say. I doubt you really know what you are talking about.

I'll put it this way. After I became a Christian, I decided to start reading the bible. Well, after I had read the New Testament in its entirety, I could not believe that this was divinely inspired. I wish I could believe that the bible is infallible. But my common sense begs me otherwise.

The article you present with is too large to comment on here, is full of factual errors. It claims that Paul was a hellenized Jew, but the Bible says that Paul was a Pharisee, who rigorously opposed Hellenism, and according to Paul in Acts 26, he considered himself a Pharisee even after becoming a Christian. Secondly it says that the book of John was written by Greek convert named John, even though the book claims the Jewish apostle John as its author in John 21:24-25 (I can provide a more thorough demonstration of the Jewish John's authorship of the gospel, if you like). The author makes up fake contradictions between Paul and Jesus and claims that Paul's teachings are borrowed from mystery religions, yet fails to explain how this can be when Paul's teachings stand in direct opposition to every other mystery religious system of the day. Paul constantly draws from the Torah, he employs Rabbinic midrashim literary forms as as well as the "light to heavy" hebrew construct in is reasonings. Frankly the author of your article is tragically mistaken in his analysis of Paul.

The synoptic Gospels are in complete agreement with Paul when the two are allowed to speak for themselves, and are not interpreted through the lens of some second rate, half-baked, wannabe "scholar" like the guy you presented.

Let us all resort to name calling. Please continue.

It's not that they aren't in agreement, its the fact that Paul has decided to record no information of the LIFE of Jesus. He says nothing about his miracles or walking on water or virgin birth or flight to egypt. Nothing. It would seem that Paul only believes in a Jesus that died, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. Of course he draws from the Torah!! But you have to remember that Paul got all of his information from a vision! He didn't read it, or learn it, he just somehow had a divine revelation. When someone is giving me infallible doctrine, i get a bit shaky when the doctrine comes from an hallucination. Acts has Paul meeting with the disciples directly after the conversion on the road to damascus. Well, Paul says they met three years after the event. Why the contradiction? Did the author of Acts not want the people to think that Paul was independtly preaching his own message of salvation without the help of the disciples? Well Paul has no problem with this. He often boasts about his vision. Apparently, he doesn't need the disciples. I would have to argue that the synoptic gospels were written around Paul's teachings. The synoptics, and especially John, were written on the basis of John's teachings, and then used oral tradition to fill in the gap. We all now how mixed up oral tradition can get. Have you ever played that game where you stand in a circle and someone whispers some story to their neighbor? You then proceed to tell the person next to you and you keep going until it makes the full circle back to the originator. Well, it never fails that the story get horribly messed up, and this is in a period of maybe 10 minutes!! Think about a decade! Or a half century!

If you think Paul is a liar and Christianity is built on lies, then why , oh why, do you bother with this refutation? Your egghead approach is so very infantile, really.

[Floatingaxe]

Puzzle, puzzle!

If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck......

Then it could be me.....acting like a duck.

I don't quite understand the intention of your post.

Were you just trying to tell me that I am not a Christian?

Well you can go ahead and label me whatever you please. I will keep my relationship with God, no matter what you say.

So keep quackin'........

"there always seems to be enough religion to incite war, but never enough to instill tolerance"

Christians are not called to tolerance. So there you have it.

[systemstrike_7]

Well you can check around at websites dedicated to Christian apologetics. You did not merely ask for info. I gave you info. You asked to see a 125 A.D. copy. What I said is common knowledge in the theological community. Here is a website that has pictures of some fragments of said manuscripts, it is a start I suppose>>>Ancient NT Manuscripts

Interesting site. I compared it to a secular site, and found that they have different conclusions on many of the same documents. And these earliest copies are fragments. We can gain no information on how alike they are with the copies we have now from a few sentences.

Why would they have turned him into a legend, given that the "legend" was costing them their lives. If they consciously turned Jesus into a legend, human nature being what it is, would not have caused them to die for something/someone they had ficitionalized or embellished. No one would willingly undergo, torture and imprisonment and a slow, agonizing death for something they don't really believe in, or know is not true. As for Paul, he claims not only to have seen and spoken to Jesus on the road to Damascus, but to have been taken up into heaven, at one point, in 2 Corinthians 12.

I sometimes wonder if Paul is just a mere liar. Alot of literary scholars believe he is, without a doubt. He no doubt invented Christianity as we know it. Please point to me some non Pauline scripture that has Jesus telling us to throw away the old testament laws. I'm begging at this point.

Sorry, but apparently you don't understand Gnosticism, or you are not willing to be completely honest Gnosticism and its relationship to the claims of the New Testament

Gnosticism basically teaches that:

• The Material universe is flawed and evil
  
• The Material universe was created by a Demiurge, a lesser god created by the true God who exists in another realm
  
• The human soul, a divine spark, is fallen captive to matter, in the realm of the senses. One must develop spiritually by ridding one's self from being entangled with the material universe and return ones' self to the true source of light, God.
  
• Only the elite can accomplish the task of removing one's self from being enmeshed and entangled with the material universe. This option for spiritual development is not available for all persons.
  

That is not, by any means, an exhaustive list of their beliefs and there are different kinds of Gnosticism and variations exist depending on what part of the world you live in.

If you are going to claim that the book of John is "gnostic," then the onus is on you to qualify and present objective evidence to support that assertion. Gnostics who accepted Christ rejected Jesus as having come in a Physical body, which means they would have rejected the Gospel of John with the synoptics. My basis for accepting the validity of John's account has nothing to do with John being a "good guy." In John chapter 21, Jesus eats with the disciples near the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He does this to prove that it is really Him, and not an apparition. An apparition would not eat fish and bread. In doing this, and in many other ways, John's gospel can be demonstrated to not have been gnostic in origin or in doctrine.

Gnosticism is not a specific religion or practise. I don't know where you got this information, but this is a few of many DIFFERENT beliefs. Some gnostic cults merely believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. Some (such as the Jewish Christianity) merely practise Jewish Law, but still believe everything else about Jesus. And yes, the church named this "cult" heretical and gnostic. There isn't a gnostic bible, or a gnostic set of rules that you have to follow to join the gnostic club. In all reality, gnosticism is just a set of beliefs that vary or add on to the norm.

Nothing you have said lends in credence to your assertion. I am Jewish. I forgotten more about anti-Semitism than people like you know. I know anti-Semitism when I read it, and see it. I have been the victim of it. John's gospel presents a Jewish Jesus who was Torah observant, and any claim of anti-Semitism is just blowing smoke. John focuses more on Jesus outright claims to being God than do the synoptic writers, but so what? The synoptic writers demonstrate and reveal a Jesus who had the power to forgive sins, who had personal power over death, and who even received worship from men. Jesus demonstrates Himself to be God just as much in the synoptics.

I'm not going to argue about the anti-semitism in John. If you can please find an article or essay written by a literary critic, you will find that they come to the same conclusion. I suggest you read "Jesus and Yahweh; The Divine Names" by Harold Bloom. He is probably the best literary critic to ever walk the face of the earth and he takes an unbiased view into the bible.

As I said, none of the "evidence" you provide speaks to the issue of Gnosticism. All you are doing is blowing smoke and parroting what you have heard other critics say. I doubt you really know what you are talking about.

I'll put it this way. After I became a Christian, I decided to start reading the bible. Well, after I had read the New Testament in its entirety, I could not believe that this was divinely inspired. I wish I could believe that the bible is infallible. But my common sense begs me otherwise.

The article you present with is too large to comment on here, is full of factual errors. It claims that Paul was a hellenized Jew, but the Bible says that Paul was a Pharisee, who rigorously opposed Hellenism, and according to Paul in Acts 26, he considered himself a Pharisee even after becoming a Christian. Secondly it says that the book of John was written by Greek convert named John, even though the book claims the Jewish apostle John as its author in John 21:24-25 (I can provide a more thorough demonstration of the Jewish John's authorship of the gospel, if you like). The author makes up fake contradictions between Paul and Jesus and claims that Paul's teachings are borrowed from mystery religions, yet fails to explain how this can be when Paul's teachings stand in direct opposition to every other mystery religious system of the day. Paul constantly draws from the Torah, he employs Rabbinic midrashim literary forms as as well as the "light to heavy" hebrew construct in is reasonings. Frankly the author of your article is tragically mistaken in his analysis of Paul.

The synoptic Gospels are in complete agreement with Paul when the two are allowed to speak for themselves, and are not interpreted through the lens of some second rate, half-baked, wannabe "scholar" like the guy you presented.

Let us all resort to name calling. Please continue.

It's not that they aren't in agreement, its the fact that Paul has decided to record no information of the LIFE of Jesus. He says nothing about his miracles or walking on water or virgin birth or flight to egypt. Nothing. It would seem that Paul only believes in a Jesus that died, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. Of course he draws from the Torah!! But you have to remember that Paul got all of his information from a vision! He didn't read it, or learn it, he just somehow had a divine revelation. When someone is giving me infallible doctrine, i get a bit shaky when the doctrine comes from an hallucination. Acts has Paul meeting with the disciples directly after the conversion on the road to damascus. Well, Paul says they met three years after the event. Why the contradiction? Did the author of Acts not want the people to think that Paul was independtly preaching his own message of salvation without the help of the disciples? Well Paul has no problem with this. He often boasts about his vision. Apparently, he doesn't need the disciples. I would have to argue that the synoptic gospels were written around Paul's teachings. The synoptics, and especially John, were written on the basis of John's teachings, and then used oral tradition to fill in the gap. We all now how mixed up oral tradition can get. Have you ever played that game where you stand in a circle and someone whispers some story to their neighbor? You then proceed to tell the person next to you and you keep going until it makes the full circle back to the originator. Well, it never fails that the story get horribly messed up, and this is in a period of maybe 10 minutes!! Think about a decade! Or a half century!

If you think Paul is a liar and Christianity is built on lies, then why , oh why, do you bother with this refutation? Your egghead approach is so very infantile, really.

Ok, you have to understand something. We have to use this information from the synoptics, paul, and quasi-gnostic gospels to try and find the real Jesus. We have to analyze what seems to be truth and what seems to be legend. I never said that I think Paul lies about everything he says. That would be stupid. and that would be even dumber for someone to accuse me of that. I know that Jesus was real, I just want to know who he really was. I need to know if I can trust the New Testament. I grew up thinking the New Testament was just one big book. Well, its not. Its a gathering of different accounts. And I want to know if these accounts are the right ones and if they are trustworthy. Please stop accusing me of stupid crap, and quit putting words into my mouth. Grow up.

[Floatingaxe]

I happen to be grown up. Quite a few of us here are. Just listen. Paul was used by Jesus Christ in a powerful way! He gave his life to Jesus in a way that we can only hope to do. I think his authority is evident. The Lord used him to write much of the New Testament for US! What a love letter God has written! I advise you to believe it all as God's breathed message to our hearts. Nothing but heartache and confusion will come from all this doubt.

[systemstrike_7]

I happen to be grown up. Quite a few of us here are. Just listen. Paul was used by Jesus Christ in a powerful way! He gave his life to Jesus in a way that we can only hope to do. I think his authority is evident. The Lord used him to write much of the New Testament for US! What a love letter God has written! I advise you to believe it all as God's breathed message to our hearts. Nothing but heartache and confusion will come from all this doubt.

But if I blindly believe something I don't think to be true, I will feel guilty for the rest of my life. I tried to just believe, but I coudn't take it. I couldn't live a lie. Some people can, but I'm afraid I am unable to do so.

[Floatingaxe]

It's a choice. If you are right in following after Jesus, then you gain everything. If you are wrong--nothing lost. If you choose against Him and are wrong, then you lose everything---forever! Is it worth it? Make a choice to believe. Jesus the Christ will not let you down! He will prove Himself to you in ways you could never dream of!

[systemstrike_7]

It's a choice. If you are right in following after Jesus, then you gain everything. If you are wrong--nothing lost. If you choose against Him and are wrong, then you lose everything---forever! Is it worth it? Make a choice to believe. Jesus the Christ will not let you down! He will prove Himself to you in ways you could never dream of!

If I choose to follow Jesus. It will not be because I want to save myself.

[Floatingaxe]

It's a choice. If you are right in following after Jesus, then you gain everything. If you are wrong--nothing lost. If you choose against Him and are wrong, then you lose everything---forever! Is it worth it? Make a choice to believe. Jesus the Christ will not let you down! He will prove Himself to you in ways you could never dream of!

If I choose to follow Jesus. It will not be because I want to save myself.

No one can save themselves! What does that mean, system? You can come to Him so He can save your soul from death, and give you the free gift of life. No one wants to taste death!

[systemstrike_7]

It's a choice. If you are right in following after Jesus, then you gain everything. If you are wrong--nothing lost. If you choose against Him and are wrong, then you lose everything---forever! Is it worth it? Make a choice to believe. Jesus the Christ will not let you down! He will prove Himself to you in ways you could never dream of!

If I choose to follow Jesus. It will not be because I want to save myself.

No one can save themselves! What does that mean, system? You can come to Him so He can save your soul from death, and give you the free gift of life. No one wants to taste death!

This makes me wonder why people become Christians. Is it only to save themselves?

[Floatingaxe]

This makes me wonder why people become Christians. Is it only to save themselves?

What did I just say? We cannot save ourselves. But the Spirit of Jesus Christ reveals to us our hopeless, hellbound state. We are nothing! In our unworthiness, we see hope in Jesus! He offers us all hope, eternal life, and abundant earthly life! Why would anyone not want that? His promise is true--ask anyone who has taken Him up on it!

In Christ we are more than conquerors! We can rise above all trials, and have a richness to life that is impossible without Him. We become Christians because we know that Jesus Christ is the answer to life and the giver of it. There is nothing worth giving one's life to than Him.