We forgot to add this one to the list of Splenda's intuition threads.

Star Trek transporters = ressurection.

MAKES SENSE TO ME!

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...ottie-1200098/

This is nonsense. Jesus did not save anything. He was just a man. Who just died. Like all other men. He couldn't even save his own ass, much less the world.

The scriptures are not evidence of anything. They are the fallible writings of men and should be taken as such.

I give no evidentiary weight whatsoever to the scriptures.

I doubt you have had the historical proofs (insights) that back them up that I've had and since I consider them revelatory I'll keep them to myself.

You can locate probability proofs quite easily. Louis Lapides explains them in the Case for Christ or google Hugh Ross on them.

Unfortunately all the "important" stuff related to Christianity is based on the miraculous, which cannot be verified by eye witness testimony alone.

There are other things besides miracles. But I think it's "unlucky" to go into them with anyone prematurely in his religious education....though I don't really believe in luck...it's easier to phrase it that way...

I agree there are other things besides miracles, but so much of Christianity is dependent on stuff like the resurrection that if there's no reason to believe the resurrection, then it becomes pointless to be a Christian, except in the philosophical sense.

(Was that really just one sentence? Yikes.)

You tend to believe whatever you read that agrees with your pre-determined outlook. And you pre-select authors whose agendas also are in agreement with what you already believe to be true. None of it is based in reality, but I realize reality and you are not simpatico.

However certain facts remain as true today as they always were, regardless of how many PhDs succumb to mysticism and relativism.

Jesus Christ is not the son of God (self-defining, as there is no God and never has been).
Jesus Christ did not save the world. No one saved the world. The world does not need to be saved.
There are no miracles, nor have there ever been miracles, nor will there ever be miracles.
The Bible is the work of a huge cast of merry men, many of whom are idiots and ******s. It is the Word of Man, written by men, written for men, and written with an agenda to control men. Same as the the other big books of nonsense such as the Korans and Talmuds and Vedas and such.

Some of the moral teachings contained within the Bible and equivalents are accidentally correct, in the sense that anyone with common sense can come up with a rational reason to prohibit your basic crimes against humanity such as murder and theft.

Nonetheless, it is a free country, and I recognize and defend your right to waste your intellectual life on nonsense that makes you feel good.

Since when isn't history the record of past reality?

Here's a a few definitions of history:

1. what has happened: the past events of a period in time or in the life or development of a people, an institution, or a place
2. study of past events: the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events
3. record of events: a chronological account of past events of a period or in the life or development of a people, an institution, or a place
"a history of Byzantium"

Don't forget to consider that the bible is considered a very historical book. Some ancient world history that historians report is only available by consulting the bible.

I think we have a different view of reality. I've never seen evidence for an ark that held all the world's animals, including things like penguins and kangaroos, for instance.

I haven't spent a lot of time researching the ark.

I've been more interested in the history of the Lost Tribes of Israel which requires a bible scholar's help because it deals with migratory patterns and name changes, etc.

It might do you some good to research some of the more outlandish claims of the bible (like the ark story). Of course, what good it does depends on your current interpretation of the bible (what is literal and what is not). I'm not sure where you currently stand so I can't really offer prudent advice.

If there was ever a "one time", being crucified was the time it was needed.

Why consider it a claim?

It could be and God could have concealed the evidence. Far be it from me to call God a liar when he's provided plenty of other proofs of the bible.

Or it could be prophetic allegory.

I don't have to read this passage as literal only:

Genesis 8:

6 After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

It reads like a prophetic allusion of the whole bible account.

"back and forth" ='s who? Why Satan is the one who goes to and fro in the book of Job.

The dove is the holy spirit.

As for the door. Who handles the door of the ark? Isn't it God?

Gen. 7:16:

16 So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

The door is an allegorical reference to Jesus Christ.

So imo you have the whole story of the world and the bible in miniature set out right in Genesis 8 before you even check all the Messianic prophecies.

You're the one who thinks you have to explain everything God does. I don't.

I've never claimed to know everything. I'm not required to to follow God. Isn't that the point? Isn't he waiting to show us certain things....We don't get to write the terms though. The terms were set up far in advance of the contracts (covenants).

God sure is a tricky devil to conceal the evidence. I guess he put the dinosaur fossils in the ground to trick us too, huh?

Yawza, it turns out the bible is wrong...so it must be allegory!

Back and forth from the ark, looking for land.

You're going to have to provide evidence for such a bold statement.

The bible sure has a lot in common with Nostradamus' quatrains. It seems you can take anything in the bible and make it mean anything else, never mind if the actual text makes zero mention of what you're talking about.

Yeah, and more and more of the bible is being attributed to 'allegory' as we learn more and more about the world.

God sure is going out of his way to be a vague as possible...kind of like all the other 'fake' gods.

Sry, but allegorical interpretations have always been around since the early church and before. It's not some new development that arose to refute atheism.

It's just something the people today who over focus on literalism aren't aware of and don't want to address because it weakens their anti-religion arguments.

actually I think the god of the bible is a lot more vague than the other gods. Especially the Greek Gods. Most of them were pretty straightforward with exactly what they did and why.

Zeus was a pimp, so he ****ed as many things as possible. Poseidon was pissed off a lot, so you better praise him before you sail or he would drown your ass.

Don't **** with Hades or you get stuck for eternity rolling a boulder up a hill.

Etc

Etc.

Unfortunately some of these allegorical interpretations don't agree with the biblical authors themselves. It's apparent that Luke of the New Testament thought stuff like the Adam & Eve creation story was literal (read the Jesus genealogy thread). If the authors of the Bible apparently misinterpreted the gospels, what chance do you have? I also find it strange that Jesus did nothing to correct such wildly incorrect claims.

Oh you switched from the ark to the creation.

I commented on the ark not the creation.

I wasn't switching anything. I'm showing that some of the authors of the bible apparently misinterpreted the bible. Either that, or it wasn't considered allegory at the time of Jesus (and Jesus never corrected anyone on this fact).

You seem to think people have to make a public call on what's allegorical and what's literal in the bible.

We don't.

So you think its completely ok if two people from the same following, hell, from the same church have completely differing opinions on whether a story in the bible is literal or allegorical?

For the creation story to make sense scientifically, it must be allegory. Luke, one of authors of the Bible itself, disagreed (and apparently so did Jesus, or he would of clarified such a monumental error, which must of been widespread for Luke to believe as he did).

Yes.

I guess the fact that some of the biblical authors themselves got it wrong doesn't matter either...