Atheist Anne Rice’s Surprising Discovery
Bestselling Author Anne Rice:
Noted for the painstaking research behind her historical fiction, an atheist of 36 years makes a surprising discovery when she turns her attention to the mystery of the historical Jesus
Excerpt from Author’s Note in Christ The Lord Out Of Egypt
©2006 Anne O’Brien Rice. Used by permission.
Every novel I’ve ever written since 1974 involved historical research. It’s been my delight that no matter how many supernatural elements were involved in the story, and no matter how imaginative the plot and characters, the background would be thoroughly historically accurate. And over the years, I’ve become known for that accuracy.
If one of my novels is set in Venice in the eighteenth century, one can be certain that the details as to the opera, the dress, the milieu, the values of the people- all of this is correct.
Without ever planning it, I’ve moved slowly backwards in history, from the nineteenth century, where I felt at home in my first two novels, to the first century, where I sought the answers to enormous questions that became an obsession with me that simply couldn’t be ignored.
Ultimately, the figure of Jesus Christ was at the heart of this obsession. More generally, it was the birth of Christianity and the fall of the ancient world. I wanted to know desperately what happened in the first century, and why people in general never talked about it.
Understand, I had experienced an old-fashioned, strict Roman Catholic childhood in the 1940’s and 1950’s, in an Irish American parish that would now be called a Catholic ghetto, where we attended daily Mass and Communion in an enormous and magnificently decorated church, which had been built by our forefathers, some with their own hands.
Classes were segregated, boys from girls. We learned catechism and Bible history, and the lives of the saints. Stained-glass windows, the Latin Mass, the detailed answers to complex questions on good and evil – theses things were imprinted on my soul forever, along with a great deal of church history that existed as a great chain of events triumphing over schism and reformation to culminate in the papacy of Pius XII.
I left this church at age eighteen, because I stopped believing it was “the one true church established by Christ to give grace.” No personal event precipitated this loss of faith. It happened on a secular college campus; there was intense sexual pressure; but more than that there was the world itself, without Catholicism, filled with good people and people who read books that were strictly speaking forbidden to me.
I wanted to read Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus. I wanted to know why so many seemingly good people didn’t believe in any organized religion yet cared passionately about their behavior and the value of their lives. As the rigid Catholic I was, I had no options for exploration. I broke with the Church. And I broke with my belief in God.
When I married two years later, it was to a passionate atheist, Stan Rice, who not only didn’t believe in God, he felt he had had something akin to a vision which had given him a certainty that God didn’t exist. He was one of the most honorable and conscience-driven people I ever knew. For him and for me, our writing was our lives.
In 1974, I became a published writer. The novel reflected my guilt and my misery in being cut off from God and from salvation; my being lost in a world without light. It was set in the nineteenth century, a context I’d researched heavily in trying to answer questions about New Orleans, where I was born and no longer lived.
After that, I wrote many novels without my being aware that they reflected my quest for meaning in a world without God. As I said before, I was working my way backwards in history, answering questions for myself about whole historical developments—why certain revolutions happened, why Queen Elizabeth I was the way she was, who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays (this I never used in a novel), what the Italian Renaissance really was, and what the Black Death had been like before it. And how feudalism had come about.
In the 1990’s, living in New Orleans again, living among adults who were churchgoers and believers, flexible Catholics of some sophistication, I no doubt imbibed some influence from them.
But I also inevitably plunged into researching the first century because I wanted to know about Ancient Rome. I had novels to write with Roman characters. Just maybe, I might discover something I’d wanted to know all my life and never had known:
How did Christianity actually “happen”? Why did Rome actually fall? To me these were the ultimate questions and always had been. They had to do with who we were today.
I remember in the 1960’s, being at a party in a lovely house in San Francisco, given in honor or a famous poet. A European scholar was there, I found myself alone with him, seated on a couch. I asked him, “Why did Rome fall?” For the next two hours he explained it to me.
I couldn’t absorb most of what he said. But I never forgot what I did understand—about all the grain for the city having to come from Egypt, and the land around the city being taken up with villas, and the crowds being fed the dole.
It was a wonderful evening, but I didn’t leave with a feeling that I had the true grasp of what had happened.
Catholic Church history had given me an awareness of our cultural heritage, although it was presented to me early and quite without context. And I wanted to know the context, why things were the way they were.
When I was a little child, maybe eleven or younger, I was lying on my mother’s bed, reading or trying to read one of her books. I read a sentence that said the Protestant Reformation split Europe culturally in half. I thought that was absurd and I asked her, was this true? She said it was. I never forgot that. All my life I wanted to know what that meant.
In 1993, I dug into this early period, and of course went earlier, into the history of Sumer and Babylon and the whole Middle East, and back to Egypt, which I’d studied in college, and I struggled with it all. I read specialized archaeological texts like detective novels searching for patterns, enthralled with the Gilgamesh story, and details such as the masonry tools which the ancient kings (statues) held in their hands.
I stumbled upon a mystery without a solution, a mystery so immense that I gave up trying to find an explanation because the whole mystery defied belief. The mystery was the survival of the Jews.
As I sat on the floor of my office surrounded by books about Sumer, Egypt, Rome, etc., and some skeptical material about Jesus that had come into my hands, I couldn’t understand how these people had endured as the great people who they were.
It was the mystery that drew me back to God. It set into motion the idea that there may in fact be God. And when that happened there grew in me for whatever reason an immense desire to return to the banquet table. In 1998 I went back to the Catholic Church.
But even then I had not closed in on the question of Jesus Christ and Christianity. I did read the Bible in a state of utter amazement at its variety, its poetry, its startling portraits of women, its inclusion of bizarre and often bloody and violent details. When I was depressed, which was often, someone read the Bible to me, often literary translations of the New Testament—that is, translations by Richmond Lattimore that are wondrously literal and beautiful and revealing and that open the text anew.
In 2002 I put aside everything else and decided to focus entirely on answering the questions that had dogged me all my life. The decision came in July of that year. I had been reading the Bible constantly, reading parts of it out loud to my sister, and poring over the Old Testament, and I decided that I would give myself utterly to the task of trying to understand Jesus himself and how Christianity emerged.
I wanted to write the life of Jesus Christ. I had known that years ago. But now I was ready. I was ready to do violence to my career. I wanted to write the book in the first person. Nothing else mattered. I consecrated the book to Christ.
I consecrated myself and my work to Christ. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it.
Even then I did not know what my character of Jesus would be like.
I had taken in a lot of fashionable notions about Jesus—that he’d been oversold, that the Gospels were “late” documents, that we really didn’t know anything about him, that violence and quarreling marked the movement of Christianity from its start. I’d acquired many books on Jesus, and the filled the shelves of my office.
But the true investigation began in July of 2002.
In August, I went to my beach apartment, to write the book. Such naiveté. I had no idea I was entering a field of research where no one agreed on anything—whether we are talking about the size of Nazareth, the economic level of Jesus’ family, the Jewish attitudes of Galileans in general, the reason Jesus rose to fame, the reason he was executed, or why his followers went out into the world.
Vast Landscape of Jesus Scholarship
As to the size of the field, it was virtually without end. New Testament scholarship included books of every conceivable kind from skeptical books that sought to disprove Jesus had any real value to theology or an enduring church, to books that conscientiously met every objection of the skeptics with footnotes halfway up the page.
Bibliographies were endless. Disputes sometimes produced rancor.
And the primary source material for the first century was a matter of continuous controversy in which the Gospels were called secondary sources by some, and primary sources by others, and the history of Josephus and the works of Philo were subject to exhaustive examination and contentions as to their relevance or validity or whether they had any truth.
Then there was the question of the Rabbis. Could the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the Talmuds be trusted to give an accurate picture of the first century? Did they actually mention Jesus? And if not, so what, because they didn’t mention Herod, who built the Temple, either.
Oh, what lay in store.
But let me backtrack. In 1999, I had received in the mail from my editor and longtime mentor a copy of Paula Fredriksen’s Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. I had read a substantial part of this book in which Fredriksen re-created beautifully the Jewish milieu in which the boy Jesus might have lived in Nazareth and in which he might have gone to the Temple for Passover along with his family.
Fredriksen made the point strongly that Jesus was a Jew. And that this had to be addressed when one wrote about him or thought about him, or so it seems to me.
Now six years later, I have produced a book which is obviously inspired by that scene which Fredriksen wrote, and I can only offer my humble thanks to her and acknowledge her influence.
Of course my beliefs are the polar opposite of Fredriksen’s as the book Christ the Lord reveals. But it was Fredriksen who steered me in the right direction as to exploring Jesus as a Jew, and there my serious research of him began.
Health Crisis
But to return to the year 2002. As I began my serious work, a call came from my husband. He was experiencing the first symptoms of a brain tumor from which he died in less than four months.
We had been married for forty-one years. After my return to the Church, he had consented to marry me in the great old church of my childhood with a priest who was my cousin saying the words. This was a marvelous concession coming from a committed atheist. But out of love for me, my husband did it. Forty-one years. And he was gone.
Was I given the gift of purpose before this tragedy so that it would sustain me through it? I don’t know. I do know that during his last weeks, my husband when he was conscious became a saint. He expressed love for those around him, understanding of people he hadn’t understood before. He wanted gifts given to those who helped him in his illness.
Before that he had managed, though half paralyzed, to create three amazing paintings. I must not neglect to say that. Then after that period of love and understanding, he slowly lapsed into a coma, and he was gone.
He left more than three hundred paintings, all done in fifteen years, and many books of poetry, most published during the same period, and thousands of unpublished poems. His memorial gallery will soon move from new Orleans to Dallas, Texas, where he was born.
I went on with my quest right through his illness and his death. My books sustained me. I told him about what I was writing. He thought it was wonderful. He gave me glowing praise.
From that time on, December 2002 when he died, until 2005, I have studied the New Testament period, and I continue to study. I read constantly, night and day.
I have covered an enormous amount of skeptical criticism, violent arguments, and I have read voraciously in the primary sources of Philo and Josephus which I deeply enjoy.
Having started with the skeptical critics, those who take their cue from the earliest skeptical New Testament scholars of the Enlightenment, I expected to discover that their arguments would be frighteningly strong, and that Christianity was, at heart, a kind of fraud. I’d have to end up compartmentalizing my mind with faith in one part of it, and truth in another.
And what would I write about my Jesus? I had no idea. But the prospects were interesting. Surely he was a liberal, married, had children, was a homosexual, and who knew what? But I must do my research before I wrote one word.
These skeptical scholars seemed so very sure of themselves. They built their books on certain assertions without even examining these assertions. How could they be wrong?
The Jewish scholars presented their case with such care. Certainly Jesus was simply and observant Jew or a Hasid who got crucified. End of story.
I read and I read and I read. Sometimes I thought I was walking through the valley of the shadow of Death, as I read. But I went on, ready to risk everything. I had to know who Jesus was—that is, if anyone knew, I had to know what that person knew.
Now, I couldn’t read the ancient languages, but as a scholar I can certainly follow the logic of an argument; I can check the footnotes, and the bibliographical references; I can go to the biblical text in English. I can check all the translations I have and I have every one of which I know from Wycliffe to Lamsa, including the New Annotated Oxford Bible and the old English King James which I love.
I have the old Catholic translation, and every literary translation I can find. I have offbeat translations scholars don’t mention, such as that by Barnstone and Schonfield. I acquired every single translation for the light it might shed on an obscure line.
What gradually came clear to me was that many of the skeptical arguments—arguments that insisted most of the Gospels were suspect, for instance, or written too late to be eyewitness accounts—lacked coherence. They were not elegant. Arguments about Jesus himself were full of conjecture. Some books were no more than assumptions piled upon assumptions. Absurd conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all.
In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified by it if hew knew about it—that the whole picture which has floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years—that case was not made. Not only was it not made. I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I’d ever read.
I saw almost no skeptical scholarship that was convincing, and the Gospels, shredded by critics, lost all intensity when reconstructed by various theorists. They were in no way compelling when treated as composites and records of later ”communities.”
I was unconvinced by the wild postulations of those who claimed to be children of the Enlightenment. And I had also sensed something else. Many of these scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. This emerged in the personality of the texts.
I’d never come across this kind of emotion in any other field of research, at least not to this extent. It was puzzling.
The people who go into Elizabethan studies don’t set out to prove that Queen Elizabeth I was a fool. They don’t personally dislike her. They don’t make snickering remarks about her, or spend their careers trying to pick apart her historical reputation.
They approach her in other ways. They don’t even apply this sort of dislike or suspicion or contempt to other Elizabethan figures. If they do, the person is usually not the focus of the study. Occasionally a scholar studies a villain, yes. But even then, the author generally ends up arguing for the good points of a villain or for his or her place in history, or for some mitigating circumstance, that redeems the study itself.
People studying disasters in history may be highly critical of the rulers or the milieu at the time, yes. But in general scholars don’t spend their lives in the company of historical figures whom they openly despise.
But there are New Testament scholars who detest and despise Jesus Christ. Of course, we all benefit from freedom in the academic community; we benefit from the enormous size of biblical studies today and the great range of contributions that are being made. I’m not arguing for censorship. But maybe I’m arguing for sensitivity—on the part of those who read these books. Maybe I’m arguing for a little wariness when it comes to the field in general. What looks like solid ground might not be solid ground at all.
Another point bothered me a great deal.
All these skeptics insisted that the Gospels were late documents, that the prophecies in them had been written after the Fall of Jerusalem. But the more I read about the Fall of Jerusalem, the more I couldn’t understand this.
The Fall of Jerusalem was horrific, and involved an enormous and cataclysmic war, a war that went on and on for years in Palestine, followed by other revolts and persecutions, and punitive laws. As I read about this in the pages of S.G.F. Brandon, and in Josephus, I found myself amazed by the details of this appalling disaster in which the greatest Temple of the ancient world was forever destroyed.
I had never truly confronted these events before, never tried to comprehend them. And now I found it absolutely impossible that the Gospel writers could not have included the Fall of the Temple in their work had they written after it as critics insist.
It simply didn’t and doesn’t make sense.
These Gospel writers were in a Judeo-Christian cult. That’s what Christianity was. And the core story of Judaism has to do with redemption from Egypt, and redemption from Babylon. And before redemption from Babylon there was a Fall of Jerusalem in which the Jews were taken to Babylon. And here we have this horrible war.
Would Christian writers not have written about it had they seen it? Would they not have seen in the Fall of Jerusalem some echo of the Babylonian conquest? Of course they would have. They were writing for Jews and Gentiles.
The way the skeptics put this issue aside, they simply assumed the Gospels were late documents because of these prophecies in the Gospels. This does not begin to convince.
Before I leave this question of the Jewish War and the Fall of the Temple, let me make this suggestion. When Jewish and Christian scholars begin to take this war seriously, when they begin to really study what happened during the terrible years of the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the revolts that continued in Palestine right up through Bar Kokhba, when they focus upon the persecution of Christians in Palestine by Jews; upon the civil war in Rome in the ‘60s which Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., so well describes in his work Before Jerusalem Fell; as well as the persecution of Jews in the Diaspora during this period—in sum, when all of this dark era is brought into the light of examination—Bible studies will change.
Right now, scholars neglect or ignore the realities of this period. To some it seems a two-thousand-year-old embarrassment and I’m not sure I understand why.
But I am convinced that the key to understanding the Gospels is that they were written before all this ever happened. That’s why they were preserved without question though they contradicted one another. They came from a time that was, for later Christians, catastrophically lost forever.
As I continued my quest, I discovered a scholarship quite different from that of the skeptics—that of John A.T. Robinson, in The Priority of John. In reading his descriptions, which took seriously the words of the Gospel itself, I saw what was happening to Jesus in the text of John.
It was a turning point. I was able to enter the Fourth Gospel, and see Jesus alive and moving. And what eventually emerged for me from the Gospels was their unique coherence, their personalities—the inevitable stamp of individual authorship.
Of course John A.T. Robinson made the case for an early date for the Gospels far better that I ever could. He made it brilliantly in 1975, and he took to task the liberal scholars for their assumptions then in Redating the New Testament, but what he said is as true now as it was when he wrote those words.
After Robinson I made many great discoveries, among them Richard Bauckham who in The Gospels for All Christians soundly refutes the idea that isolated communities produced the Gospels and shows what is obvious, that they were written to be circulated and read by all.
The work of Martin Hengel is brilliant in clearing away assumptions, and his achievements are enormous, I continue to study him.
The scholar who has given me perhaps some of my most important insights and who continues to do so through his enormous output is N. T. Wright. N. T. Wright is one of the most brilliant writers I’ve ever read, and his generosity in embracing the skeptics and commenting on their arguments is an inspiration. His faith is immense, and his knowledge vast.
In his book The Resurrection of the Son of God, he answers solidly the question that has haunted me all my life. Christianity achieved what it did, according to N. T. Wright, because Jesus rose from the dead. It was the fact of the resurrection that sent the apostles out into the world with the force necessary to create Christianity. Nothing else would have done it but that.
Wright does a great deal more to put the entire question into historical perspective. How can I do justice to him here? I can only recommend him without reservation, and go on studying him.
Of course my quest is not over. There are thousands of pages of the above-mentioned scholars to be read and reread.
But I see now a great coherence to the life of Christ and the beginning of Christianity that eluded me before, and I see also the subtle transformation of the ancient world because of its economic stagnation and the assault upon it of the values of monotheism, Jewish values melded with Christian value, for which it was not perhaps prepared.
There are also theologians who must be studied, more of Teilhard de Chardin, and Rahner, and St. Augustine.
It was this. The challenge was to write about the Jesus of the Gospels, of course!
Anybody could write about a liberal Jesus, a married Jesus, a gay Jesus, a Jesus who was a rebel. The “Quest for the Historical Jesus” had become a joke because of all the many definitions it had ascribed to Jesus.
The true challenge was to take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Gospels which were becoming ever more coherent to me, the Gospels which appealed to me as elegant first-person witness, dictated to scribes no doubt, but definitely early, the Gospels produced before Jerusalem fell—to take the Jesus of the Gospels, and try to get inside him and imagine what he felt.
Then there were the legends—the Apocrypha—including the tantalizing tales in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas describing a boy Jesus who could strike a child dead, bring another to life, turn clay birds into living creatures, and perform other miracles. I’d stumbled on them very early in my research, in multiple editions, and never forgotten them. And neither had the world. They were fanciful, some of them humorous, extreme to be sure, but they had lived on into the Middle Ages, and beyond. I couldn’t get these legends out of my mind.
Ultimately I chose to embrace this material, to enclose it within the canonical framework as best I could. I felt there was a deep truth in it, and I wanted to preserve that truth as it spoke to me. Of course that is an assumption. But I made it. And perhaps in assuming that Jesus did manifest supernatural powers at an early age I am somehow being true to the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, that Jesus was God and Man at all times.
I am certainly trying to be true to Paul when he said that Our Lord emptied himself for us, in that my character has emptied himself of his Divine awareness in order to suffer as a human being.
This is a book I offer to all Christian—to the fundamentalists, to the Roman Catholics, to the most liberal Christians in the hope that my embrace of more conservative doctrines will have some coherence for them in the here and now of the book. I offer it to scholars in the hope that they will perhaps enjoy seeing the evidence of the research that’s gone into it, and of course I offer it to those whom I so greatly admire who have been my teachers though I’ve never met them and probably never will.
I offer this book to those who know nothing of Jesus Christ in the hope that you will see him in these pages in some form. I offer this novel with love to my readers who’ve followed me through one strange turn after another in the hope that Jesus will be as real to you as any other character I’ve ever launched into the world we share.
After all, is Christ Our Lord not the ultimate supernatural hero, the ultimate outsider, the ultimate immortal of them all?
As for my son, this novel is dedicated to him. That says it all.
I returned to faith in Christ, and to the Roman Catholic Church on December 6, 1998. It was after a long struggle of many years during which I went from being a committed atheist, grieving for a lost faith which I thought was gone forever, to realizing that I not only believed in Jesus Christ with my whole heart, but that I felt an overwhelming love for Him, and wanted to be united with Him both in private and in public through attendance at church.
The process for me had been gradual and somewhat intellectual. I’d lost faith in atheism. It no longer made sense. I wanted to affirm the presence of God because I felt it. Yet I was tormented by a multitude of theological questions and social issues that I couldn’t resolve. No matter how strongly I believed in God I still considered myself a conscientious humanist.
How, I asked myself, could I express the love for God that I felt by becoming a member of a community of believers when I didn’t know what I thought about the literal truth of Adam or Eve or Original Sin?
How could I join with fellow believers who thought my gay son was going to Hell? How could I become connected with Christians who held that there was no evidence for Darwinian evolution, or that women should not have control over their own bodies? How could I affirm my belief in a faith that was itself so characterized by argument and strife?
Well, what happened to me on that Sunday that I returned to faith was this: I received a glimpse into what I can only call the Infinite Mercy of God. It worked something like this. I realized that none of my theological or social questions really made any difference. I didn’t have to know the answers to these questions precisely because God did.
He was the God who made the Universe in which I existed. That meant he had made the Big Bang, He had made DNA, He had made the Black Holes in space, and the wind and the rains and the individual snowflakes that fall from the sky. He had done all that. So surely He could do virtually anything and He could solve virtually everything.
And how could I possibly know what He knew? And why should I remain apart from Him because I could not grasp all that He could grasp? What came over me then was an infinite trust, trust in His power and His love, I didn’t have to worry about the ultimate fate of my good atheistic friends, gay or straight, because He knew all about them, and He was holding them in His hands.
I didn’t have to quake alone in terror at the thought of those who die untimely deaths from illness, or the countless millions destroyed in the horrors of war. He knew all about them. He had always been holding them in His hands.
He and only He knew the full story of every person who’d ever lived or would live; He and He alone knew what person was given what choice, what chance, what opportunity, what amount of time, to come to Him and by what path.
That I couldn’t possibly know all was as clear to me as my awareness that He did.
Now this was not totally understandable to me in words at that time. I couldn’t have explained it in this way then. But it is essentially what happened: faith became absolutely real to me; and its implications became real. I found myself in a realm in which the beauty I saw around me was intimately connected in every way with the justice, the wisdom, the mercy and the love of God.
Did this mean that I thought doctrine and principles didn’t matter? No. Did it mean I thought everything was relative? Certainly not. Did it mean I did not continue to ponder a multitude of ideas? God forbid. What it did mean was that I put myself in the hands of God entirely and that my faith would light the pages I read in the Book of Life from then on.
Now why did this happen to me? Why did this love and trust fill my heart at that particular moment in time? The honest answer is: I don’t know. Had I prayed for faith? Yes. Had I searched for it? Yes. But faith is a gift, and it was a gift I received on that day.
Over the next few years, my conviction and my awareness of God’s love deepened; and no matter what crisis or dilemma I confronted, that trust in the power of the Lord remained.
In the summer of 2002, as I’ve explained above, I consecrated my work to Christ, but I really didn’t make good on my promise to work only for Him until December of that year. From that time on, I have been committed to writing the life of Our Lord in fictional form.
At the time that I began this work, I had no idea that my life would be transformed by this task, that the anxiety I took for granted as part of life before 2002 would almost entirely disappear. In fact, had anyone told me this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have believed such a thing. But my life has been completely changed.
Now what happened in 2002 was this: I was praying, I was talking to the Lord, I was discussing my writing with Him, and what came over me was the awareness that if I believed in Him as completely as I said I did, I ought to write entirely for Him. Anything I could do ought to be for Him. I told Him so. I set out to put this into practice.
As I said, I didn’t succeed to full commitment until December of that year. But the day when I told the Lord I’d write for Him, and Him only, I now see as the most important single day of my entire life. Truly not the simplest things have been the same since. I am united in mind and body as never before. In fact it seems that every aspect of my life has been brought into a coherence that I’d never expected to see.
My early religious education, my long quest, my many experiences both dramatic and trivial, my losses, my developing writing skills, my research skills—all are united now in one single goal. There is a feeling in me at times that nothing, no matter how small, that I experienced has been lost. And of course I wonder if it isn’t this way with every human being; it’s just that most of us can’t see it most of the time.
There is much more I can say about my journey to conversion but I think this gives the emotional picture which is lacking above.
Finally, allow me to say this about the crafting of a novel about Our Lord.
As Christians, I feel most of us in the creative community must seek to be more than scribes. If Diarmaid MacColloch is right in his immense history, The Reformation, we had plenty of Christian scribes on the eve of that enormous and painful upheaval.
But it was the printing press that enabled the great thinkers of that time, both Reformer and Catholic, to transform our “assumptions about knowledge and originality of thought.” I suggest now that we must seize the revolutionary media of our age in the way that those earlier Christian and Catholics seized the printed book. We must truly use the realistic novel, the television drama, and the motion picture to tell the Christian story anew.
It is our obligation to tell that story over and over and to use the best means that we have.
In that spirit this novel was written—with the hope of exploring and celebrating the mystery of the Hypostatic Union as well as the mystery of the Incarnation—in a wholly fresh way.
But we, O Lord, behold we are Thy little flock; possess us as Thine, stretch thy wings over us, and let us fly under them. Be thou our glory.
-St. Augustine
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July 12, 2006
Go here to learn more about Anne’s book “Christ The Lord Out Of Egypt”
Anne Rice recommends the following books and scholarly works on the question of Jesus:
On the Historical Jesus and the Gospels:
David Alan Black’s simple and straightforward Why Four Gospels
Jean Carmignac’s The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels
The First Edition of the New Testament by David Trobisch
Craig S. Keener’s truly magnificent A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew
Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke by John Wenham
I’m also profoundly grateful for the writings of Fr. Benedict Groeschel CFR, J. Augustine Di Noia OP, Gerald O’Collins SJ, and the works of the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar
Larry Hurtado’s Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
Craig L. Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel
On apocryphal writings and artistic representations of Jesus in the early church:
The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church by J. K. Elliot
Art & the Christian Apocrypha by David R. Cartlidge and J. Keith Elliot
The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England by Mary Clayton
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre
Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary 800-1200 by Rachel Fulton
The Golden Legend, published as Legenda Sanctorum in 1260
1-Page Summary: What We Know About Jesus and the Resurrection
The spiritual world must be another time and space, Einstein’s special law of relativity. A place not affected by the laws that govern out present universe. That answers my question of super natural forces. The Bible even teaches that we war not against flesh and blood but against the prince of the powers of darkness. Angels are spirits not in our visible present time and space.
Mr. Estes, Christianity is not a dying religion, quite the opposite, as Christianity is the fastest growing religion in absolute growth, meaning the fastest growing religion in the annul increaser of new adherents. The largest religion (Christianity) is aprox 68% larger than the second largest religion (Islam) and 264% larger than the third largest religion (Hinduism) (source see fastestgrowing religion.com)
In your blinded ignorance re our Omnipotent Creator, Almighty God of historic divine revelation, can do anything, as He Created Adam out of the dust of the earth, and He omnipotently, beathed His life into Adam, and he became a living soul, (Gen. 2:7) this is beyond the realm of man’s limited, punny science, as it is “NOT by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.” (Zech 4: 6b)
Almighty God, His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, Created the entire Universe, and IT is held in the palm of His hand, like an atom, and IF, He moves His little finger, anthropomorphically speaking, IT trembles; go and try to fathom that Mr. Estes, with your little science knowledge!
This is good news…the media presents Christianity as losing members and other religions growing. This may be deceiving, maybe they aren’t including the new born. The new generation may be going in a different direction other than traditional Christianity.
The problem with all religions is that they promulgate a false belief in something mythical. In so doing they seriously delay human development. Since all religious history is replete with acts of war and destruction of human life, one is left to wonder what would have been the case if there were no religions.
The greatest joke played upon the world is perhaps the manufacture and dissemination of the Christian myth of an immaculate conception and ascension.
Does any sane and logical person really believe that there is some god sitting up in the sky watching what’s happening and judging, rewarding and punishing arbitrarily.
One Indian writer said that the Christian Go9d was so inept and botched his job so badly that he had to send his only son to die. Of course this also begs the question: If Jesus was his only son, who exactly is Lucifer?
Finally, perhaps someone can explain why the most religious countries and nations in the world are the most corrupt and evil?
Amen.
BERT,
Your deserve pity. You and all religion scoffers and atheists are grossly mistaken and deceive.
Religion is man’s search for God, his Maker. Revelation and Salvation is God’s gracious condescension to redeem strayed humanity. Christianity is more about revelation and salvation through Christ than it is of religion. Christ has revealed Himself as Lord over sin, life and death before eye-witnesses. He has also shown commitment to offer this grace and power to all humanity who believe. Especially you.
Wars and corruption are not caused by religion but by irreligion and false religion. The Western civilization freedom and human rights is the product of Christian missiological philosophy and and applied theology as with the founding Fathers of the USA.
As for intellectual advancement, you seem to be ignorant that university education for learning and research in the Liberal and Utilitarian Arts began in Church Cathedrals.
“Science without religion is blind” – Albert Einstein.
On logical thinking, until the godless show logical it is for the automobile, aeroplane, computer and the Large Hadron Collider could result from chance and random selection, then we are left with the only logical thinking that there is the Moral Creator of the universe to Whom we owe some respect and gratitude.
Run for your life and receive saving grace and power form self-destruction and eternal condemnation, which is offered to you through Christ and God will bless you.
Perhaps if you studied history, you will realize that Jesus was no more or less than a man. There was no immaculate conception nor ascension. When people like Einstein and Fromm and other philosophers talk of religion they are are not referring to what the clergy call religion. The term religion relates to a devotion to any concept or belief, e.g the obsession with the accumulation of wealth is correctly classified as a religion.
One must ask what is the reason and the need of god for the constant worship and obligation that he seems to demand. Why did he create sin and make us forever guilty of something he gave us?
the concept of an all powerful God was a beautiful approach to that which we did not understand. It’s a pity after so many years we still can wrap our brains around that fact that there is neither Heaven above nor Hell below and that while the Monks and priests may have originated education, they have certainly betrayed any semblance of trust sane and logical people could have in them in this day and age.
Get your head out of the sand and look around you.
“The term religion relates to a devotion to any concept or belief, e.g the obsession with the accumulation of wealth is correctly classified as a religion.”
In its broadest sense, yes religion can be that.
In a more restricted sense, religion is what man believes and does in relation to God.
“One must ask what is the reason and the need of god for the constant worship and obligation that he seems to demand. ”
God is the Logos, the creative Reason. He is the source of all things and as such is the owner of everything. All good things come from him.
God created a world with inanimate creatures, living creatures, creatures with free will and those without free will.
The creatures without free will are governed entirely by the physical laws of nature. None of these creatures deviate from the path delineated by the physical laws of nature.
The creatures with free will, humans, are governed by the physical laws of nature, the principles of reason and emotions.
Justice is one of the principles of reason. It means giving what is due. Worship is the acknowledgement that everything comes from God. Worship is due to God and men are creatures with reason. It is part of the fulfilment of man to worship God , to give him what is due.
Man’s intellect was designed to recognize goodness. Man’s will is designed to incline towards it. God is on top of the hierarchy of everything that is good. Man fulfills himself by inclining towards God.
Is it possible for God to create not based on reason, on his nature? Is it possible for God to create and lie, pretending that he is not the creator and that worship and justice is not due to him?
I hope that this is able to contribute even a bit in your search for answers. I hope too that you were really searching for answers.
“Why did he create sin and make us forever guilty of something he gave us?”
God did not create sin. What he created were creatures capable of sinning.
The word ‘sin’ has two senses. The first sense is the act of disobedience towards God. The second sense is the state of estrangement from God as a result of disobeying God or not recognizing his Lordship or dominion.
Why did he create creatures that are capable of sinning? Because he wanted to creatures that are like him i.e. creatures with free will or creatures who can exercise a genuine option of going this way or that way.
To sin is to choose a way away from God. To sin is to refuse to recognize God’s Lordship in our actions.
Sin in the second sense is the state where God is still God but the creature is no longer behaving like a creature i.e. subject to God’s dominion.
In either sense, one can see that sin is not a creation of God but is the choice of man. Choice is the power which God gave to man.
Jun Mahusay’
That was a lucid and crisp one. God bless you.
You cannot use logic to suit your personal way of thinking. Logic doesn’t work that way!
You, like all religious faithfuls, believe that god created everything. If that be the case, then he must have created “good” and “bad”. If he didn’t then who did”. So for the sake of the discussion, let say he didn’t create sin. But if man created sin, and god created man in his own image and likeness, then god created sin. You see, sir, things which are equal to the same things are equal to one another!
BERT PURSOO,
Think straight. Use of the creation is not creation nor creature. It is responsibility. Human responsibility, divine commandments, permissions and prohibitions are not creations. They are expectations, responsibilities, choices, actions and behaviours of the responsible human or angelic creatures for which they are answerable to God.
Think straight Bert. Snap out of this illogical fatalistic veil of blindness. Think of your responsibility to please God and do good to humanity; that you are answerable for in the end. Not your irresponsibility that another is answerable for. Think straight and take responsibility. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are equally revealed in the Bible. The first we must KNOW though in PART, the second we must DO in its ENTIRETY. This is clear common sense logic. Get busy not grouchy. Get to rumble not grumble. This is straight logic. Think!
BERT PURSOO,
The love of money, pride of life, selfish ambition driven by greed and lust without godly contentment are the root and cause of all rivalries, violence, wars and evil in human history. None of these has anything to do with Gospel Christianity.
All these are synonymous with godless rebelliousness, sinful wickedness, militant and futile-minded atheism, anti-Christian hatred, ethno-racial conflict, existential philosophies and quest for political domination and economic accumulation.
This has nothing to do with religion nor with Christianity that is about worshipping the Holy God that made all people equal and is willing to save all people from their sins and troubles, if only they admit their shortfalls and choose to let Him save them.
BERT, repent of your futile mindedness, hatred and rebelliousness, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved with all your house.
Bert, What an amazing comment to make under an article of the transformation of a person from staunch atheisim to a belief In Jesus of the Bible. If you had read the article you would see that Anne once believed quite like you do today. The truth is that her transformation was based on an in depth look into the evidence. Something you have never done based on your comments. If you are at all interested in learning the truth check out pleaseconvinceme and look at some of the evidence for yourself. The author of the site was also an atheist for 30 plus years and very experienced in evidence as a cold case homocide detective. At one time I am sure he made all of the deragatory and uninformed assertions that do. Today he will tell you that when he finally took the time to examine the evidence as Anne did it convinced him beyond a reasonable doubt that it was true.
By the way the most murderous countries by far have been the atheistic communist countries. Well over 100 millon killed in the last century alone. If a non-belief in God were the answer they should be paradise on earth. Maybe you should move to communist China and check it out.
Ah, you make for a good discussion.
By the way, I have lived and worked in China and had the opportunity to mingle with some surprisingly intelligent people (using our Western yardstick of intelligence). Our western concept of Communistic China is unfortunately extremely skewed. The country is much freer and more “democratic” than many, if not all, of the other Asian countries that claim to be democratic.
Perhaps if one considers the rate of murder and destruction of human lives vis-a-vis population size, you will find that the most fanatical Roman Catholic countries stand out as being the most nonreligious. If you need an example just look at Mexico, Central and South American Spanish speaking countries. The Middle East, the supposed home of the world’s three major religions is a hotbed of senseless violence all based on religion and the worship and adoration of a mythical god: a situation that is unlikely to ever change. Tell me this: What kind of god allows a man like Jim Jones to persuade thousands of people to commit mass suicide in a desolate forest in Guyana? That Sir, was in 1978, the same year that the USA recognized China.
Do you honestly and seriously believe that there is a Man or Spirit living up in the sky meting out reward and punishment for our actions here on earth?
Bert,
My orginal comment to you was one of initial surprise that anyone would make a comment like you did under the article of a staunch atheist coming to Christ through the evidence. You fail to understand that many of us that firmly believe Christianity is true do so based on the evidence. I and those I associate with have no desire to practice blind faith. I can again tell from your comments that your research of this subject is very lacking. That is fine if you honestly do not care about the truth yourself. But then why even comment on a page like this and waste your time. You have the right to believe what you want but understand that your position that everything we see came from nothing by nothing takes much more faith than mine. Here is some truth for you.
The numbers of those killed by those that professed the Christian faith, while very wrong I agree, are not even remotely close to the numbers killed in athestic countries. Even things like abortion in America that takes over a million lives a year would not exist if the decision were based on the teachings of Jesus.
We have something in common there are many Gods I do not believe in just like you. I do not believe in allah nor the man up in the handing out rewards and punishments. Simply because someone believes in something does not make it true. Scientists at one time told us the earth was flat. I do believe that there is a creator God that is outside of space and time because science tells us that time, space,matter and energy have not always existed. The natural has not always existed. Therefore there must by necessity be an uncaused eternal cause, something supernatural.
With Jim jones the number was 911 not thousands and if you knew anything about the Bible and Jesus teachings you would know this would not be ok with Him. Anyone can claim to know God and unfortunately there are those that are gulliable and will follow them. Jones was worshipped by his followers something the Bible teaches is reserved for God solely. This was not a Christian teaching and as a matter of fact the one thing that was uniquely missing when they found the bodies was Bibles. There were none to be found.
If God were to stop things like this, moral evil. What if He wanted to start with you first. I do not mean the type of evil I mean the source of evil, your free will. All evil is the absence of good and all evil starts with a thought. So if God were to stop moral evil He would need to start with removing our free will. This would also remove our ability to love, something He obviously values more. God is responsible for the fact of our freewill and we are responsible for the acts of our freewill.God will stop evil in His time not yours. God will see that justice is done at a much more exacting scale than mans low standard.
The fact is Bert I know many former atheists that through the evidence have come to the conclusion that the Bible is true and Jesus is God as He claimed.
Again I refer you to pleaseconvinceme.com or reasonablefaith.org. If you ever decide you really want to know the truth it is available.
Micheal,
I am sure if I am an atheist or not, since the definition is simply one who does not believe in the god that you profess. I actually want to believe, but it’s just that it’s impossible to do so in light of what exists in the name of this very God.
I also believe that the human mind must have something to hang on to and in the absence of knowledge to the contrary it can comfortably latch on to a Being so powerful that it is beyond our comprehension, beyond reproof, beyond analysis. Perhaps what continues to baffle me most is the need for constant adoration, praise, worship and begging for mercy. Why do we have be so contrite. If we sin, isn’t it because God made sin and “allowed” us to sin? Isn’t everything done according to His Will and His alone? I hardly need to provide examples of what makes it difficult to believe, despite what Ann Rule may have or have not discovered. By the way, you should read some of her true crime stories, which provide sufficient reason to wonder about God!
So you see my dilemma?
Bert, God is responsible for our fact of our freedom. We are responsible for our acts of freedom. You like every man always has a choice and knows the differance between right and wrong even though we often do not listen. The first man chose to not trust God just like everyone since would have. We have a rebellious nature I see it all the time in my 3 yr old grandaughter. We simply want to dom what we want to do and even more so when someone tells us not to. Put a don’t touch wet paint sign on a wall and what do people want to do?
Your indications seem to lean towards atheisim and itf that is the case you are making a claim to knowledge. You are claiming that God does not exist. If that is the case you to must provide evidence to back up your position.
For example if God does not exist why is there everything instead of nothing?
The vast majority of scientists tell us that the Universe had a beginning. All time space matter and energy and before that nothing existed. How can something that does not exist bring itself into existence? By necessity there must be an uncaused eternal first cause. Many scientists actually have stated that this is a perfect fit to the biggest miracle in the Bible in Gen 1:1. If we have strong scientific evidence to support the biggest miracle in the Bible all the rest are at least believable, yes even Jonah. Hey we keep men underwater for 6 months whats 3 days since the evidence shows God exists.
75% of Biblical scholars, even the most liberal agree that the tomb was empty and that the disciples believe they saw the risen Christ. Ck out garyhabermas.com and review the minimal facts argument. The majority of the disciples went to violent deaths for soemthing they claimed to be eyewitness’s too. So that says if it was a lie they knew it was a lie. How do you get 11 guys to die for a lie they know is a lie when it gets them no worldly goods or greatness but instesad beatings, torture and death. People do not die for soemthing they know for sure is a lie unless they have something to gain here and now. People lie to get out of trouble not in it.
Even the secular writings that have been found written at the time of Jesus conincide with the fact that the disciples worshipped Jesus as God. He claimed to forgive sins, said He was the only way to the Father, accepted worship. The Bible is very clear that Jesus is God and that there is only one God. Some want to say he is a lower god but that is not true Biblical Christianity and that is what I am defending. That is where the trinity comes in and if God exists why is that beyond comprehension? One God in three persons. Its like, it can be water steam or ice but its all H20.
Yes man has done wrong in the name of God but men that claim to be cops and are elected leaders do wrong all of the time. The point is men do wrong. I would not suspect that you would want to be lumped in with atheists in the communist regimes that killed over 100 million people in the last century alone just because you are an atheist. The Bible is very clear that not every person that calls themselves a Chrisitan is one. Man poisons Christianity. As far as the killings in the middle east they are horrible and I am not defending Islam. Islam professes to know the true God but the evidence does not fit it. And as you know believing something does not make it true. If it did everyone would be right but they are not if you want to follow logic reason and evidence.
I agree we should keep an open mind but not an empty mind. When we find truth then we are supposed to close our mind around it. Are you still open as to who the first president of the US was for example?
God deserves praise and worship especially when you come to realize how sinful you actually are. Gods standard is not mans low standard so comparing yourself to others will get you no where. Gods standard is perfection which none of us can meet. He is offering you grace a free gift if you would “pull your head out of the sand as you say” and honestly seek Him.
Many men that have come before you have had the same questions as you but you appear more like a hostile antagonist then a true seeker. Maybe I am wrong but humbleness goes a long way. Reasonable answers are available if you really want them.
God Bless, Mike
Hi Ifey Ibeme,
Actually you misconstrue what I said which is quite normal for people who only see what they want to see. I am not anti-Christian at all. I do wish, however, that people would think before preaching something that is without any foundation. I believe that Christ was a normal man created out of a union between a man and a woman, NOT an immaculate conception. I also believe that Christ was a good teacher, but tn so was Socrates. While I may challenge some of the statements ascribed to him, I believe his intention was good.
And yes, Truth is definitely NOT absolute if you study history. I have no problem with Faith if that would help to make life less cumbersome, but please don’t try to convert people to your way of thinking simply because it fits your style.
Mike,
You and the myriad others continue to make the same mistake of confusing Faith with Truth. But probably what is worse is the fact that you label anyone who dares to actually seek the Truth as ignorant, stupid or atheist. For your information, I am probably more Christian than you and all those who profess too loudly and shout their beliefs to the mountains. You need to understand that Jesus Christ was a Man and I admit a great teacher endowed with great reasoning power, but then so were many other men but we don’t call them divine, do we?
There is no Divine Revelation and if you look around you for the briefest of moments you will understand why God could not be what you so desperately want to believe. Your Faith is fine and I think if it works for you. No one has yet even attempted to explain why your God would create a TREE of KNOWLEDGE but insist that man not eat of that tree. No one can tell who created sin and strife and wars and evil – I am talking about raw evil where man’s inhumanity to man is so gross as to be incredible and unimaginable. YET you and others like you insist that GOD created everything. So unless you have a better definition for “everything”, you simply spinning your wheels.
Bert, Free will as I previously mentioned is responsible for the evil you mention. God allowed free will because without it love would not be able to exist. God is responsible for the fact of freedom and we are responsible for our acts of freedom. When you lie Bert isnt it by choice? No one is forcing you? Especially not God as your conscience tells you its wrong to lie. Where did your conscience come from Bert and why does it only deal with morality?
I apologize if you think I called you ignorant or stupid. I cannot see where I did but maybe thats what you think an atheist is because I believe i mentioned that. Now you tell me you consider yourself a Christian. Maybe you are a Morman or a JW neither of which are Christians and both deny that Jesus is the one and only God in the flesh. New age people do the same and maybe thats who you are, taking a little here and there and making up a god that fits your desires. Maybe you think you are a Christian because you were born in the USA, many do. Maybe you are having an identity crisis. A Christian is a follower of Christ and the revelation of Jesus is found in the Bible. Without it you would have never heard of him.
I responded to you because I noticed your verbal attacks on others on this formum. I simply wanted to point you to some evidence so you could make a reasonable decision.
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For man to have free will he had to have the option to disobey God thus the tree. In hindsight I am sure Adam would agree that Gods recommendation to not eat of it was correct. The main issue was not trusting and disobeying God. One decision to not trust got us in this mess and we all would have done the same. One decision is all it takes to get us out of it but each of us must make by repenting and now believing God. Reversing Adams free will decision if you will. Its so simple but each of us have to make it ourselves. Trust Jesus like you would a parachute if you had to jump out at 10,000 feet. Its not about religion its about truth.
Many people claim Jesus was just a good man but He actually never left that option open. Would a good man lie and say He was the only way to the father? Would He claim to be able to forgive sins? Could he rise from the dead? I believe this and much more and there is sufficent evidence to back it up as I have told you. Secular writings sjhow that the disciples worshipped Jesus as God. Jesus accepted worship as God. In revelations He claims to have been dead and now alive and is called the First and the Last a title for God in the OT. John 1:1 tells us Jesus is the Word and the Word was God. For those that say He was another god that goes against the OT where God says there is only one God.
I hope you will consider laying down your animosity and attacking reteric and humbly seek the truth. As I mentioned before I would not be a Christian if the evidence pointed elsewhere. I encourage to truly seek the truth.
God Bless, Mike
My good Sir,
There is no animosity whatever in my writings.
The sole purpose of my participation in these discussions is to try to understand the working of the human mind. We know that we are not created equal, for although we posses the senses of touch, smell, sight, etc, we do not have the same experience concerning either of those senses. For example the same music that one person finds soothing is totally reprehensible to another. The act of watching two people in a ring beat the crap out of each other is entertaining to some while to others this very act is disgusting and incredible.
This is little wonder then that some people would latch on so firmly to a particular belief though groundless as the belief in a mythical God. What is appalling is that they can use this belief to perform the most horrible act of inhumanity to man all in the name of God. Is this the Stockholm syndrome in a more exaggerated form. You talk glibly about seeking the truth. I ask again the truth about what? If you think you can find the truth in a book of stories compiled by man be it the Bible, the Qu’oran, the Torah or the Uranthia Book then you have yet to understand the true meaning of the very word “truth”.
Anyway, good luck in your search for the truth about whatever it is you hope to find, bearing in mind that there is not one but many truths out there.
Bert, You are so confused on a subject matter, that you simply do NOT understand; Almighty God, and His Historic, Divinely Inspired Word, whose over 6,000 predictive/prophetic statements, have ALL come to past with just a few remaining to be fulfilled.
Only an Omnipotent Creator, could Inspire such recording, thousands of years before fulfillment, confirmed by historic veracity; there IS no other document of antiquity that even comes close, remotely to His Word, the Bible, in its accuracy on history.
Further, Jesus Christ was not just a good and wise man, NO!NO!NO!. He made statements and declarations, that would have EITHER, render HIM, the biggist LIAR, LUNATIC and FRAUD, OR* Incarnate Deity, God of very God, AND, every thing He said, re those who would Repent, and by FAITH, not blind faith, but reasonable faith, surrender their hearts and lives to Him, as their personal Savior and Lord, from the very Apostolic era, right through to this very day, ALL across the nations of the world, from Russia, China, the Middle East, yes, Muslims, Africans, South America, et al as well, MILIONS every year are being liberated from the bondage of ritualistic, formalistic, DEAD religions, to a living, vibrant, meaningful, personal relationship, with the KING OF KINGS, and the LORD OF LORDS, Jesus Christ, miraculuous healings, and, yes, even some dead, are being raised IN* His Majectic Name.
Further, God did NOT create SIN, that came into the human race through Adam’s willful act of disobidience, and we inherited it, for which ONLY the Holy, Righteous Blood of Jesus, can cleanse and restore anyone, into a rightfull relationship, with Almighty God, through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bert, your natural mind, intellect, CANNOT fathom or grasp such things, as while being alive, mentally, intellectually, you are a living DEAD man, spiritually, and Only Jesus Christ, can forgive you your sins, cleanse you, and Justify you, otherwise, you will die in your sin, and be lost in Everlasting torment and misery, forever.
Also, there is NO other religious or secular World View, that has, the following, like the Judeo/Christian World view.
1) Logical Consistency
2) Empirical Adequacy
3) Experiential Relavency
Added to this, unparalleled with any other World View, Christianity, alone, answers to, and deals with the following questions of humanity.
1) Origin
2) Meaning
3) Morality
4) Destiny
The structure of Justification, Warranted, credible TRUTH, in defending any propositional TRUTH Claim, is coherence, coherence IS* our sole creteria for TRUTH.
This Christianity does, coherently, through God’s Divinely Inspired Word, the Bible, as confirmed by History, right up until today, ALL unfolding, exactly as HE said and declared it would.
Are you willing, Bert, to carefully examine the facts and evidence, the substance of which, CANNOT be refuted, by any intellectuall honest seeker of Truth!
Bert, you ask where does wars and evil come from. Let us again hear from God’s Word, the Bible.
Heavenly Versus Demonic Wisdom.
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy, and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the TRUTH. This wisdom does NOT descend from above (with God, NO!) but it is earthly, sensual, DEMONIC.”
“For where envy and self-seeking EXIST, confusion and every EVIL thing are there. BUT the WISDOM that IS* from above (From God) is first PURE, then PEACEABLE, GENTLE, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” (James 3: 13-17 Emphasis added).
Pride Promotes Strife.
God’s word then goes on to ask us, listen carefully.
“Where do WARS and fights come from among you? Do they not COME from your DESIRES for pleasure that WAR (fight) in your members? (Bodies, minds, intents, desires!). You LUST and do not HAVE. You MURDER and COVET and CANNOT OBTAIN. You FIGHT and WAR. Yet you do not HAVE because you do not ASK. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your PLEASURES. Adulterers, and adulteresses. Do you not KNOW that friendship with the world (system) IS* enmity with GOD? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world (system, which is evil!) makes himself an enemy of GOD. Or do you not think that the Scriptures (God’s Word, the Bible) says in vain. The Spirit who dwells in us (believers) yearns jealously. “God resists the PROUD, But gives grace to the humble.”
“Therefore, submit to God, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you SINNERS, and purify your hearts you double minded. Humble yourselves in the sight of the LORD and He will lifht you UP.” (James 4: 1-6, 7,8, 10 Emphasis added)
This discourse was addressed to believers, how much more then, would the implications, of all the SIN that abounds around us in this evil world system, then, also need God’s , Holy Wisdom, His Peace, which comes from above, with Him!
Bert Pursoo,
Stop deceiving yourself! You are not anything near a Christian. If anything, you profess and shout your unbelief and anti-Christian grumblings so loud to the mountains that you cannot be mistaken at all.
You are not interested in any truth whatsoever. If you are, then you are not tuned to finding any by they way you are going.
You seem to lack any critical and analytical disposition! Such a disjointed, antagonistic and self-contradictory objectionist that has not made a single point nor proved anything that seems to be his view.
If I’m mistaken, then prove me wrong by offering a proof that God does not exist. I presume you can’t so you wont. Come with evidence that God DOES NOT EXIST, and prove you are a truth seeker serious enough to be engaged in any discussion.
From all your comments so far, you are a disgruntled anti-God grumbler who blames God for your personal irresponsibility and sinfulness. You are not even qualified to be called an atheist till you provide logical evidence of the non-existence of God.
You keep blaming God for your sins rather than taking responsibility and repenting of them. You’re on a dead end collision course. Be responsible! Take your blame and turn to Christ; He’ll help you with grace of remission and empowerment. Try it and you’ll see it truly works.
I wonder where you got all those claims about religion. Are they founded on facts or merely on the unverified assumptions of other atheists? In which case, you are saying them based on faith.
The problem with all religions is that they promulgate a false belief in something mythical. In so doing they seriously delay human development.
What do you mean by human development? Are you speaking here only of material progress or the fulfilment of man as man in his entirety?
How has the belief in something mythical stunted human development?
How has the belief in something mythical stunted human development?
When a student goes to a special church to pray to a statue to pass an exam, instead of studying, human development is hampered.
When a “priest’ tells students to have their textbooks blessed, human development is hampered.
When cancer patients spend all their financial resources on novenas, special services, special masses, crawling on their knees in a church and kissing the feet of a wooden statue instead of looking at how to find a cure. human development is hampered.
When an entire nation continues to pray for their leaders to be less corrupt and be a little more sympathetic to the needs of the people instead of taking action to oust the corrupt and inefficient leaders, human development is hampered.
When the United Nations in its studies show a particular country to be one of the most corrupt in the WORLD for several years running, but the people throw up their hands in the air and wait to God to take action, human development is hampered.
When 80% of the people in all of the world’s most religious countries main desire is to go a country which is in their opinion un-religious, because god is not answering their prayers, human development is hampered.
When people produce large numbers of children which they cannot care for because these children are gifts of god, human development is hampered.
Shall I go on and on? I think not!
Faith is one thing, but believe me the companies and people that provide us with jobs are not successful on the strength of Faith; for if that were so there would be so many no poor and destitute in the world’s most religious countries.
When atheist governments murder more people in one century than religion killed in 40 centuries, human development is hampered.
Perry,
Your comment as usual is without any strength or substance. Look at the cradle of religions: Look at what’s happening today throughout the world. take to wake up and open your eyes.
How long can you go on saying the same old things that lack rationality. Of course if you don’t think our world is based on rationality then that’s another discussion.
If you can prove the existence of the God that you claim to exist then I will be more inclined to consider your arguments.
Congratulations Bert on your first attempt (at least the first I’ve seen) at justifying your claims. That makes you seem more human and less divine. I hope that from now on there will be no more dogmatic and condescending remarks from you but only pure and strong arguments in reply to arguments given to you.
All the examples you’ve given to exemplify instances of religion stunting human development are actually examples of ignorance stunting human development or maybe even ignorance as a stage in human development.
Ignorance, as is well known, be it in the fields of politics, education, economics, or religion is capable of stunting human development if it is not a stage in human development.It just happened that the examples you gave are examples of ignorance in the area of religion.
Just to illustrate, about 14 years ago, a friend of mine, an anesthesiologist, was preparing for an important examination. When he showed up at the theology class that his spiritual director was teaching, the latter asked him, “Why are you here? You’re supposed to be getting ready for your exam.” He replied that he felt that he was then ready for it. But the spiritual director would hear none of it. So he (the anesthesiologist) didn’t attend the class.
That example involves religion minus the ignorance. That goes to show that religion without ignorance need not stunt human development.
The Nazis (one of the most irreligious groups of people ever to grace human history) taught that the Jews were not human and exterminated them by the millions while waging war against Europe destroying countless properties of great historical, economic, religious, cultural and educational value, thus stunting human development by we don’t know to what proportions.
What can be said of the Nazis can also be said of the communists (from the West to the East).
In fact, its their contempt and disregard for religion that brought them to where they have been. Their ignorance of God’s existence and laws enabled them to commit the worst atrocities that were ever seen in history. In the process, they stunted human development.
“Since all religious history is replete with acts of war and destruction of human life, one is left to wonder what would have been the case if there were no religions.”
Maybe a more accurate statement is this: Since all human history is replete with acts of war and destruction of human life, one is left wonder what would have been the case if there were no humans.
It’s probably a case of non sequitur to think that since many of the wars have been religious in nature (apparently) therefore religion is the root of wars. There have been many other wars of different nature or origin. The only common factor is that humans are involved in all of them.
Maybe, human nature is the root of war and the destruction of human life.
If there were no religions there would be atheism. Which has more blood on its hands than all religions combined.
Hey Jun,
“Maybe a more accurate statement is this: Since all human history is replete with acts of war and destruction of human life, one is left wonder what would have been the case if there were no humans”.
The answer to that one is the simplest yet. If there were no humans, there would have been no wars and no need for a mythical God and of course no need for religion!
“The greatest joke played upon the world is perhaps the manufacture and dissemination of the Christian myth of an immaculate conception and ascension.
Does any sane and logical person really believe that there is some god sitting up in the sky watching what’s happening and judging, rewarding and punishing arbitrarily.”
You claim that the immaculate conception and ascension are manufactured Christian myths. Can you really demonstrate that they never took place?
If you can demonstrate convincingly that there is really no God, I will be sane and logical enough to accept your claim. It’s one thing to claim something and quite another to try prove it.
Jun,
There is no history to actually support the concept of immaculate conception, so if you can prove otherwise I’d be happy to hear it.
You can hardly prove what I cannot disprove so that leaves us with logic – not Faith – wouldn’t you say?
“There is no history to actually support the concept of immaculate conception, so if you can prove otherwise I’d be happy to hear it.
You can hardly prove what I cannot disprove so that leaves us with logic – not Faith – wouldn’t you say?”
I thought you could prove your claims. It seems that they are just based on your atheistic faith.
Christians don’t pretend that their beliefs are ultimately that, faith. We do claim that faith and reason are two inseparable means of attaining the truth.
Atheist on the other hand, act and speak like all their assertions are based on scientific evidence and sound logic.But when given the chance to demonstrate
scientific evidence and logic, they refuse.
“One Indian writer said that the Christian God was so inept and botched his job so badly that he had to send his only son to die. Of course this also begs the question: If Jesus was his only son, who exactly is Lucifer?”
That makes a lot of sense on the surface until one realizes that it is based on an incorrect understanding of Christian Faith.
Jesus is the Son of God which means that he is also God, uncreated. He assumed a human nature which is a creation of God.
Man begets man. Dog begets dog. God begets God.
Lucifer is a pure creature.
Lucifer is a creation of the Father, Son and Spirit.
Hey Jun,
Do you hear yourself? Jesus is the son God which means that he is also God uncreated. I am sure your university professor would like that one!
He assumed a human nature which is a creation of God. Yeah, right! What you are also saying is that God is the Father and God is also the son at the same time.Do you know that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time? Do you know what that means? That God cannot be the father and the sane at the same time, no matter how much convoluted logic you can come up with.It also means that Mary could NOT be the mother of God and the mother of Jesus at the same time. So when you pray: Mary mother of God pray for us sinners …, one must ask exactly to whom are you directing your prayer?
Dear Bert,
Somewhere in the scriptures, it says: The wisdom of man is foolishness to God. University professors will make fools of themselves if they try to explain things of spirit with physical things. That is what unbelievers are doing, explaining God, a Spirit, with physics: matter, time and space. There are two realms of existence. The realm of the spirits which are not bound by time, matter, and space, and the physical realm which is subject to time, matter, and space. It is therefore illogical to explain the spiritual realm with physical realm. That is why you cannot grasp that the Father could be the Son at the same time, nor Mary the Mother of God and of Man at the same time. It takes FAITH to understand those things. If one does not have the FAITH, it is useless to explain.
How can you explain the bread and wine turn into body of blood in the Miracle of Lanciano? How can you explain the incorrupt body of Bernadette in Nevers, France, who died a century ago? How can you explain the images in the eyes of the Image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico? How can you explain a boy whose brains were scattered on the roadside but survived a normal person after the sacrament of the church was administered to him?
Bert, these are mysteries. Our little brains cannot grasp them. Let us leave them at that: Mysteries.
Constantino
Constantino
Hi Constantino,
Our world is based and works on logic whether you want to believe it not. The fact that as you claim your little brain cannot understand something does not automatically make it a mystery. I may not understand the science behind why a plane is able to fly, but that does NOT make it a mystery.
Perhaps if our so called Catholic Universities, especially in third world and poor countries where corruption rules, would focus on real education instead of religious indoctrination, there may be less hopelessness and abject poverty in those countries.
If you can ever admit that God cannot be the Father , the son and the Holy Ghost(whatever the last means)at the same time, no matter how hard you may try to wrap your brain around it, you will come to the conclusion and realization that all the so-called miracles in the Bible are beautiful stories that have told throughout the centuries, including fables. The story of Santa Claus is beautiful but we know that his zipping through the skies to all those countries and climbing down chimneys is not real. But we love Santa Claus and as children we believed until it was time for us to grow up and move on.
So it’s Ok to look to the Bible for inspiration to live if that is what it takes to get you through the blinding realities of real life.
“Do you hear yourself? Jesus is the son God which means that he is also God uncreated. I am sure your university professor would like that one!”
Condescending remarks! Atheists want to portray themselves as intellectually superior, thus the frequent recourse to such remarks. But they don’t achieve their ends. They only betray the lack of readiness to meet logic with logic, reason with reason.In addition, they are a waste of words, time and space. Let’s avoid them altogether in this discussion.
“He assumed a human nature which is a creation of God. Yeah, right!
I didn’t miss that one. You really cannot pass up the chance to be condescending.
“What you are also saying is that God is the Father and God is also the son at the same time.Do you know that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time?”
You’re unfamiliar with the terminology of Christian theology. Technically,the term “God” refers to the NATURE of the Father,the Son and Spirit, or their principle of operation. (Please note that in day to day usage, “God” refers to the name of the Creator and therefore to the PERSON OR SUPPOSITUM of the Creator.)
But in theology, “God” has another usage and as I have already mentioned, it also refers to the NATURE of the Creator.
Father, Son and Spirit share the same principle of operation or nature. The nature of a being defines what that being can and cannot do.
‘God’ refers also to the essence of the Creator, what the Creator is.
Nature is to actual existence as essence is to the mind. They are equivalents. Essence is what a thing is. The relationship between essence and nature is the relationship between what a thing is and what it can and cannot do.
Man (essence) can think and speak (operations. they spring from his humanity or human nature).
I have to admit, Bert, that this is not going to be easy for you. It’s not easy to catch the meaning of what I am saying. How I wish you could interpellate me directly and face to face and not like this. Christian theology borrowed from Aristotelian metaphysics and it is in that light that you should be interpreting what I have been saying.
Also you should watch out for words with multiple senses.
I mean, ‘ George’ can refer to George Washington or to George Bush, Junior or the Third. I have listened to a pointless debate between my professor and a fellow student who were both using the same term but were actually referring to two different things. And so they couldn’t agree. I pointed out to them that they thought they were talking about the same thing because they were using the same term but they were actually not.
A being is THAT (suppositum) which IS (act of being) and is in a SPECIFIC MANNER, as a man , dog, or bird, etc. (essence).
The Father, Son and Spirit (suppositums, persons)are God. They have a common principle of operation.
In all of nature, every being refers to one suppositum, operating or owning one nature.
In the case of God, three suppositums operate and own one nature.
Just for analogy and illustration.But please always bear in mind that any analogy will always be imperfect.
Three sets of LCD display, mouse and keyboard operating on the same CPU so that three users will be performing different tasks as if they were using three different computers.In this example you have one computer with three sets of output devices. Lest you jump to the conclusion that the Father, Son and Spirit are output devices, Father, Son and Spirit are suppositums or persons distinct only in that the Father generates the Son and not vice versa, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and not vice versa.In everything else, they are the same because they operate the same Divine nature. This is far as the human intellect can go. In fact, the concept itself of the Trinity would have been unthinkable if it had not been revealed by God himself.
How about Jesus Christ? Jesus is the Son (God, 2nd person) becoming a man (not ceasing to be a God and turning into a man like when paper burns, it ceases to be paper and turns into charcoal) by uniting himself to a human nature (body and soul) so that in Jesus Christ there is one person operating two natures.
Jesus as God cannot die and suffer and be thirsty but as man, he can die, suffer and be thirsty
Nature is the principle of operation, the suppositum is the subject to whom we attribute the operation.
In a sentence, there is the subject of whom everything is predicated (the action and the properties).
The suppositum is to actual existence as the subject is to a sentence. Nature and essence are the well spring of the action (verbs) and properties (adjectives) of the suppositum.
“Do you know what that means? That God cannot be the father and the sane (Son) at the same time, no matter how much convoluted logic you can come up with.”
That’s only because in your terminology (day to day usage) ‘God’ refers to the suppositum or person. Since in day to day usage ‘God’ refers to one person, it cannot refer to two persons,much less three. You are right in that sense. In this sense, it’s absurd to say The Father is God and the Son is God because it will be tantamount to saying that these two distinct persons are one person. That 2 is 1. We both know that 2 is not 1.
‘God’in theology refers also to the Divine nature. In this sense, it is not absurd to say, The Father is God, the Son is God. Two persons having the same Divine nature.
It also means that Mary could NOT be the mother of God and the mother of Jesus at the same time.
‘God’ has many senses as already mentioned. When explaining the Trinity or the double nature of Jesus Christ, ‘God’ refers to nature.
‘God’ in other contexts usually refers to the suppositum or the person as when we say God is angry. or God is benevolent or God created the world. When we speak of God or predicate anything of God, you can be sure that ‘God’ in that statement is the subject of sentence and therefore is the suppositum.
Mary is the mother of God means Mary is the mother of that person who is man and God.
Note that in the first appearance of the word ‘God’in the preceding sentence, ‘God’ refers to the suppositum/person but in the second, ‘God’ refers to the Divine Essence/Nature.
‘God’ as suppositum/person is the subject of a sentence to whom all the predicates are attributed but ‘God’ as nature/essence is part of the predicate and is attributed to the subject/suppositum/person.
I have already warned you about the multiple senses of words/terms and the preceding confusion is a classic example of that.
I sincerely hope that I have been of some help to clarify confusions. Beyond this, the only cure is for you to keep coming back to this subject matter by consulting somebody and interpellating him until you get it. It took me years before I became comfortable with Aristotelian ideas. I can understand if you will not be able to agree with anything I have said.
“So when you pray: Mary mother of God pray for us sinners …, one must ask exactly to whom are you directing your prayer?”
To Mary, that she may implore God (suppositum), Jesus, to help us now and at the moment of death.
When ‘God’ is used as the subject of a sentence or as a direct object, or follows the preposition ‘of’ you can be almost sure that ‘God’ refers to the suppositum of Father, Son or Spirit or all. But when ‘God’is used as an adjective, as in Jesus is God (Divine), ‘God’ refers to the Divine nature.
“Finally, perhaps someone can explain why the most religious countries and nations in the world are the most corrupt and evil?”
I will do my best to answer this after you have established that that is in fact the case and that it is not a case of hasty generalization.
I concur, Jun. This is the wrong question, since its premise is not true. However the following question does flow from a corrupt premise:
“Finally, perhaps someone can explain why the most atheistic countries and nations in the world are the most corrupt and evil?”
This is a fact. Atheist countries killed 100 million people in the 20th century. That’s 3X more genocide in one century than all the religious wars in all centuries combined.
Perry,
“Atheist countries killed 100 million people in the 20th century. That’s 3X more genocide in one century than all the religious wars in all centuries combined”.
Even if this were so, which I doubt very much, but would not care to debate; at least, there is no justification of doing this in the name and glory of God!
Communism has no religious belief, where are they now?
Hey Bert…Do you want to be exposed to the real truth? Do you want to be enlightened beyond your wildest imaginings; to gain knowledge that relatively few of us Earthlings have ever been exposed to? If you do then check out The Urantia Book @ Wikipedia and see how it came into being. Better first open your mind and put down your guard so that you can get past its origin. Give it a good chance and you’ll find out where God is sitting and that all he really expects from us is our faith in Him and for us to love, respect and help our fellow man for the breif time we are here on earth. Regards, Arnold
Bert talks sense. Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden a few days after he was created; by the talking snake ( Satan in disguise) Why did God introduce sin into his creation?
According to the fundies about 1500 years after creation there was so much sin in the world that God sent the flood to wipe out sin.It didn’t work, so God failed again.
Next he sent Jesus to save man from sin. It did not work, so God failed again.
A God that has failed three times since creation is not a God worth following.
Hey Tony, I can see by your answer and questions it contains that you too have not studied the evidence. Without free will love would not be possible but with free will we have a choice to rebel against God refusing to trust Him. God is responsible for the fact of freedom and we are responsible for our acts of freedom.
God has saved man from the penalty of sin, even you Tony. But now its simply comes down to your act of freedom. You decide – accept or reject, trust or do it your way. Whatever you choose thats your God given right. A Christians job is simply to warn you not to make you believe.
One simple question then: Why did God make man?
“One simple question then: Why did God make man?”
It’s hard for unaided reason to come up with the answer. But Scriptures seem to suggest this: God wants to be in communion with man.
God wants to be in communion with man.
Jun,
Come on, be reasonable! That statement makes no sense whatever. If you and others want to explain religion and God, you will need to avoid a number of things, inter alia,
Convoluted logic
Phrases like, free will free agency, freedom to choose, etc.
Of course, it will be necessary to realize though hard it may be,that the “scriptures’ were written by man NOT god.
And BTW, I am still waiting for someone to explain just Why god made man!
“Come on, be reasonable!”
A rule dictated by an atheist who refuses to show the basis for it.
“That statement makes no sense whatever.”
A judgement coming from an atheist who makes no effort to demonstrate why this judgement is valid.
“If you and others want to explain religion and God, you will need to avoid a number of things, inter alia,
Convoluted logic
Phrases like, free will free agency, freedom to choose, etc.”
A rule dictated by an atheist who refuses to show the basis for the rule.
“Of course, it will be necessary to realize though hard it may be,that the “scriptures’ were written by man NOT god.’
Then how did you come to that conclusion? Faith? Then my suspicion is confirmed. Atheism is another religion hiding behind the cloaks of science and reason, with the atheists themselves as little deities imposing their denuded ideas.
And BTW, I am still waiting for someone to explain just Why god made man!
Bert,
God made man, YOU, because He wants you to be happy with Him in Paradise. Isn’t that fantastic?
All He requires of you is to love Him. He put you on this earth to test your love.
Now, you can accept or refuse His invitation to live with Him for Eternity in Paradise. It is up to you.
Constantino
GOD gave us the ultimate gift – the freedom to choose. Even though that GOD had created us, we have a choice to love HIM or not. In my opinion, to believe that such an intelligent being (human) is the product of evolution from a single cell organism is simply mind blogging. I choose to love what GOD had given me. I choose to love HIM with all my mind, body and soul not out of responsibility, but for the fact that He loves me , remembers me and choose not to forsake me. Then again, it is my opinion. What you choose to believe is your choice, and let no one tells you otherwise.
“Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden a few days after he was created; by the talking snake ( Satan in disguise) Why did God introduce sin into his creation?”
What God introduced was not sin but man with a free will which because it was genuinely free had a real option to go against God’s will. Going against God’s will is what sin is all about.
Why did God create something that could go against him? I don’t really know for sure but my guess is that God was not insecure at all about it and so why not? God is not threatened by evil. He will not run away from it. He can absorb all the blows that evil can come up with and it will not harm him a bit.
“According to the fundies about 1500 years after creation there was so much sin in the world that God sent the flood to wipe out sin.It didn’t work, so God failed again.”
What do you expect? Free will that is in man is a genuine option for sin. Multiply the number of humans on earth and you multiply the possibilities for sin.
Did God send the flood to wipe out sin or the existing sinners? Because the only real way to wipe out sin is to eliminate the possibility of man ever multiplying or to accelerate the end of the world which ushers the new heaven and earth. Without humans in the world, nobody is capable of sinning. With man already in heaven, he can bo, longer sin.
“Next he sent Jesus to save man from sin. It did not work, so God failed again.”
What is your understanding of to save from sin?
If you have a correct understanding of ‘to save from sin’ you will see that God did not fail.
Somewhere in this discussion, I defined two senses of sin.
Consider the second sense and apply it to the human race. The human race was in a state of estrangement from God as a result of man not submitting to the dominion of God as a result in turn of his repeated failure to obey God. No single human could be found who had completely obeyed God in everything, who had given God the worship that is due to him through obedience. God became man in Jesus and that man obeyed God in everything, in both big and small things even at the cost of the most precious thing to a man, his own life.
With Jesus having fulfilled all of God’s will the estrangement of man from God has been repaired. Through Jesus Christ, the dominion of God on man has been recognized by a man and the correct state of God-creature relationship has been restored. Jesus Christ did not fail. He succeeded in repairing the estrangement caused by Adam’s disobedience.
Your conclusion is the result, it seems, of a misunderstanding.
Hi Jun,
I can see you are trying but you have a long way to go still.
First of all, since god made man in his own image and likeness, then man is the equivalent of god. Now this is from the very Bible on which you base most of your arguments so that is not debatable.
Now let’s look at something less complicated.
Judas Iscariot was one of the most beloved of Jesus’s disciples. You admit that Jesus came down into the world to die so that Man may live according to the will of God.
Of course, such an act on the part of God makes no sense whatever (and please don’t say that we are not able to understand or question the ways of God!). However, if Jesus was destined to die, then Judas was in fact merely fulfilling a decision made by God to bring about the death of Jesus in fulfillment of His will.
That being the case, why would Judas be berated instead of revered for having the courage to do what tantamount to be the will of god?
And why did the church refuse to allow the gospel of Judas to be included in the books of the Bible?
To Tony bryant, the problem is that you think God has failed, in your eyes and to the eyes of any natural man it would appear so. But that is because you cannot see the big picture and you can’t see it from God’s perspective. God didn’t fail in sending His Son, He created a bridge to Himself and eternal life. By rejecting it you refuse to cross that bridge therefore you are never able to see clearly what is on the other side. You see from a distance through cynical eyes. You can never see or hope to find the Truth that way.
To Bert Pursoo, you may not realize it but you worship something or someone. Why do you think every nation and people all over the world worships some god? It is because mankind was created by God for God. We were created to worship, when we don’t acknowledge Him we turn elsewhere, where ever our selfish passions lead us. The evils of the world are not a result of religion in and of itself but an enemy who hates us incites us to all manner of evil imaginations and mankind has obliged him from the beginning of time. You can choose to say I don’t believe in God or the devil but that doesn’t mean that your choice makes it so. The greatest gift that God gave us besides His Son Jesus, is the freedom to choose, but with the wrong choice comes serious consequences.
Tina,
“…that is because you cannot see the big picture and you can’t see it from God’s perspective”.
So Tine, are you saying YOU can see see the big picture from God’s perspective?
Are you saying you can see whay the mafia exists and can receive absolution and forgiveness on Sunday if the members go the confession and give a big enough donation for the support of the church. Are you saying you understand the need for the Yakuza and the Red Dragon and the Camere Rouge… etc., etc?
If you really do, maybe you should have a serious word with God!
Bert,
Have you ever seen someone a big splash in the news about someone that just got arrested. For days we might be bombarded with heresay of other offenses the accused has previously done. The accused might even fit the demographics for a person that might commit the crime. Many people then determine that the accused is guilty without ever seeing a piece of evidence. Its called comtempt prior to investigation and it disqualifies people from jurys every day. Many people do the same with God. They hear bits and pieces and make a decision based on feelings. I have found that most of these people simply do not want God to exist so they can do what they want to do and the easy thing is to never really look at the evidence. I suspect that you fall into this catagory. I was that way for many years until I decided I wanted to know which belief had the most support and assurance as being true. I would definitely not be a Christian if it did not best fit the evidence, which most of is outside of the Bible
Your objections that I have viewed all have reasonable answers. All of us have had objections and questions. But the truth is Christianity best fits the evidence from scientific to historical and much more. If you are sincerely seeking pick up the book “I do not have enough faith to be an atheist” by Geisler and Turek. You can also go to pleaseconvinceme.com and check out Jim Warners site. A vocal atheist for 30 plus year Jim eventually examined the evidence and came to the conclusion that it best fits the evidence. The unique thing about Jim is that he is a cold case homocide detective so he deals with evidence daily. Go to Jims atheist questions and then do his free online academy. The site allaboutgod.com has a lot of answers and multiple websites that link to it. Ironically it was started by a former atheist who examined the atheist too. Neither one of theses guys left atheisim because the evidence for Christianity was weak. Like me they are interested in the truth not a fairy tale.
Examing the evidence as impartially as you can will only be for your benefit. It will allow you to weigh the evidence and make a reasonable decision.
I wish you all of the best as hopefully you will look at the full picture in a real attempt to find the truth. If you are not interested I would ask why you are here.
Tina, You are absolutely right, Tony Bryant and Bert Pursoo are in a deadly state of spiritual ignorance; they do not have a clue about Almighty God’s purpose and eternal plans in Christ Jesus, therefore, Bert and Tony, ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” ( Rom.
Carlos,
The word “ignorance” does in fact mean not to know from Latin. And maybe you are correct people like me do suffer from what you call “spiritual ignorance”. But we don’t ever profess to be wise; that would be arrogant. What we do is look for answers that can be substantiated. I have no problem with your Faith, which is your right but do not ever presume to be correct because you believe in a myth that not everyone accepts or condones. I believe in Santa Claus too, but I would consider someone foolish if that someone does not care for Santa Claus.
Carlos & Tina,
I think that there is a seed of faith in Bert and Tony waiting to be soaked in the grace of God and it will sprout and grow like a mustard seed. The reason the are interacting in this forum is that they are searching. I believe they will find the “Ahh”, the light which will open their minds. That “Ahh” may come from you.
Constantino
If Jesus and God are the same – who was it that kept all life sustained when Jesus died on the cross ?
“If Jesus and God are the same – who was it that kept all life sustained when Jesus died on the cross ?”
Jesus is the union of God and man in one person i.e. in one person, there are two principles, the Divine and the human. Only the human principle died on the cross, specifically, the body. The soul which is in union with the Divine principle remained alive, but now separated from the dead body.
So God did not die on the cross, only his human body. I guess that answers your question.
Jun,
It’s possible that English is not your native language and if so one can understand why some of your statement are so strange, like: Jesus is the union of God and man in one person i.e. in one person, there are two principles, the Divine and the human.
You see none of what you said above makes any real sense whatever. No matter how you twist it or bend it and reverse it, a father and a son can never be one and the same. The soul and the spirit and the Divine are mere words that possess no substance up to this point in time. They are nice religious concepts, but no more!
I am looking for a realistic discussion on an interesting issue that can provide food for thought.
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the problem is discovering these truths. Your Faith regarding the existence of a God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost(whatever the last is) just that – FAITH! not Truth!
Open your mind, throw off the yoke of brainwashing you received from your childhood and look for the truth. There is no guaranty that you or I will find such truth, but we can certainly keep looking.
“You see none of what you said above makes any real sense whatever. No matter how you twist it or bend it and reverse it, a father and a son can never be one and the same. The soul and the spirit and the Divine are mere words that possess no substance up to this point in time. They are nice religious concepts, but no more!”
Oops. You’re in your dogmatic ways again, making claims without making any effort to establish their validity.
What more can I say? Christians can’t accept atheistic dogmas coming as they do from human deities. Likewise, atheist don’t accept Christian dogmas, claiming that there are no deities. So how do we proceed?
Just one more comment, God having failed to stop sin by sending Jesus, in about 600AD He sent His word to the prophet Mohammed via the angel Gabriel. Moh’d relayed God’s words to his wife Khadijah who wrote them down, hence the Koran.
But still we have sin. This God is as fallible as his creation.
God has not failed just because sin persists in the world.
The final victory is at the end of the world. Maybe it’s your wish to put an end to sin now. But that’s not God’s wish.
Sin also ends for every individual at the point of death.
The only way you can put an end to sin in this world now is to put an end to all human existence in this world and usher in the new heaven and earth. God has another time for that.
To Bert Pursoo,
Your email impressed me that your observation of God is that of a tyrant creating humans for his playthings. If he was truly the God of love why would He put us in a world where everything living depends on other living things for its food supply. With populations increasing exponentially since human life begin at some point we will run out of food and be forced eat each other. You say that he demands we love Him and live sinless lives – sorry but that is asking something beyond human control. Love is not like a faucet to turn on and off. It is something that circumstances, support, approval, self-esteem, and a myriad of other emotions, thoughts, and feelings bring about in our lives towards individuals important us and it changes across the years.
Anyone who exhibits human faults and gives into temptation where sex, greed, anger, hate, or other evidence of negative human nature, according to some religions, will spend eternity in Hell in untold suffering, should we not follow their advise and repent before dying.
What adolescent boy or girl avoided giving into, what some religions call sins, sexual pleasures brought about by huge increases in Testosterone and Estrogen. An eternity of Hell is the fate that the religions tell us about those who give into such overwhelming demands of pleasure of the body that God put there.
What judge in any court would react like this after an adolescent admitted he masturbated last night, ” You did what? I just can’t believe you would do such a thing, its off to jail for you in solitary confinement for the next 80 years. You are a sinner almost beyond redemption.” Yet some religions expect us to believe that is how God judges us in committing this common place and universal act urged on by God given feelings.
What parent who truly loves his children would send them out into a blizzard without food or clothes? What loving parent will not forgive their son or daughter no matter what they do. If God is made in the image and likeness of man why would he sent his children whom he loves to live on a planet full of disease, animals that kill humans, volcanos, earthquakes, tsunami waves, floods, tornados, and blistering sun or very cold climates.
And that Adam and Eve business. How would you react if the police knocked at your door and arrested you for a crime your great-great-great great Grandmother committed centuries ago. She stole an apple and give it to your umteen great-great Grandfather and he ate it. So, the police have come to arrest you and send you off to prison. Yet you expect me to believe a fair and loving God would condemn people not born yet of that crime and punish them and their descendants? The most modern and salient example of this is the Obama administration borrowing 14 trillion to be re-paid by future generations. Why should they pay a debt that we today originated. I am sure thy will resent it and also notice the public outcry against that as financial suicide for the future of America.
Most of the arguments for the existence and nature of God are based on what our parents told us as youngsters, and was passed on based on what our parents were told and believed as youngsters.
Hitler directed that youths be sent to training camps where they were brainwashed them into believing Hitler was God and the return of the past glory of Germany was the only value to pursue. They believed that was the religion they followed. A well meaning person might say to them, “Hitler is a fool, you should not follow him. Give up your false loyalty and join the Church.” He would condemn your suggestion and even might respond by killing you.
Ask a Muslin who grew up being indoctrinated by the Koran and he will tell you it is God’s will to behead the none-believers. It is not murder in their eyes but only caring out God’s will and they expect to be rewarded.
Tell them the Koran is a false book and Mohammed was insane and they will kill you straight away after screaming about you “Insulting Allah”. Fanatics do strange things and believe they are justified and blameless.
Ask the Spanish Monarchy during the Inquisition why they tortured and killed non-believers of Christianity and they will will tell you it was “to save these fools from Hell for not believing in the Pope and the Catholic Church”.
I think God will have a hard time judging all those people. They responded to what they were told to believe.
How do you judge a multi-personality disorder. You can acuse only one person of crime even though one person with multiply personalities committed the crime.
What is a sin in some religions is a good rewardable deed in other religions even though it is the same act.
An nobody seems to apply religious penalties to the millions of humans who lived and died in the 10,000 years before before any kind of an organized religion with concepts of Heaven and Hell and sin was established . Therefore whatever they did was not sinful no matter what it was. None of them can be in Hell since they were no laws to break and therefore everything we call evil and sinful did not apply to them. They must are in Heaven regardless if they committed the same acts that people committed after religions were established and are in Hell.
I believe that God will punish those people who acknowledge they committed sins in a Hell like place until they have paid for their transgressions and then they will be admitted into Heaven to be with a loving God. That is the only fair way to deal with humans if God is a loving and forgiving God.
Otherwise he is a demanding tyrant who created humans for his entertainment and vanity and there is no hope for any of us in this world or the next.
It would only take some concrete evidence from God to convince us of his presence in no vague or uncertain ways. As it is we are left to wonder and hope we are rightabout Him and his plan for mankind and that is a guess an no more.
Ralph M
Ralph and Bert,
Let us agree with you that God does not exist nor does He deserve any worship because of your argument that He ALLOWS evil despite His demand for good.
If you are serious about this principle of judgement and validation, then you must agree that you guys don’t exist because you ALLOW the things that are contrary to what you demand. You even further COMMIT the things that are contrary to what you demand, and so do all humans.
Conclusion is that no one exists and deserves any respect.
You see how foolishly your mind works? Sorry, Any way I do not really need to apologise because you and I don.t exist.
Atheism is maximum folly!
Ralph,
Very nice but I am clear where you are headed. Are you accepting or rejecting the notion of a Godhead in conformity with the Christian concept?
Ralph,
You wrote: “I believe that God will punish those people who acknowledge they committed sins in a Hell like place until they paid for their transgressions and then they will be admitted to be with a loving God.”
You are absolutely right. God is a loving God and His Dwelling place is Holy and Pure. No sin can enter it. That is why the stain of sin has to be removed by cleansing the soul of its filthiness. That place is, in the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine, the Purgatory.
God is not a tyrant. He took flesh in Jesus and nowhere in the scriptures can you see Jesus as a tyrant. If he were, he would not have died on the cross. God does not send people to hell. People choose hell. Only those people who hate God would prefer to stay in hell.
Constantino
Constantino, Sorry my friend, the Roman Catholic doctrine of ‘Purgatory’ proclaimed as a dogma by the Council of Florence (1414 AD) has no Scriptural basis whatsoever, and, in fact is a terrible perversion of sound NT Biblical theology.
This utterly false ‘dogma’ of purgatory, that those who are not bad enough to go straight to ‘Hell’ but, not quite good enough to enter into Heaven, will have to go to purgatory, to ‘pay’ for their sins, is an affront, and utter contempt for the ‘ABSOLUTE’ atoning sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ paid for our SINS, ONCE, on Calvary, and HE declared on the Cross, “IT IS FINISHED” (John 19:30b), COMPLETE, in that Jesus PAID IN FULL* the redemptive PRICE* for ALL OUR SINS, so that, whoever, sincerely ‘Repents’ and by FAITH in Him, are cleansed totally and completely from ALL SIN.
“Therefore, having been justified* (declared NOT guilty) by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1).
Again, we read: “There is therefore now NO* CONDEMNATION*
(judgement, or purgatory of any kind) to those who are IN* Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has MADE* us FREE* from the law of SIN and death.” ( Rom. 8: 1-2 Emphasis added).
Purgatory is, therefore, a travesty on the justice of God. God justice has been FULLY* satisfied ONCE* and for ALL* by the sacrifice of Christ, and God cannot exact double punishment, once from Jesus, and again from those for whom He died. Therefore, the ‘redeemed’ soul at death, does NOT go to any midway station between earth and Heaven, (e.g., purgatory) NO! NO! NO! but directly to Heaven. Conversely, if one is NOT Saved at death, that soul goes directly to Hell.
This dogma of Purgatory, fabricated by the Roman Catholic church, is a wicked, evil, money raising lie, from the pit of hell. I’ve only scratched the surface of this utterly unscriptural teaching of Catholicism, along with its ‘Priestcraft’ praying to Mary, Confession to a priest, and a host of other false doctrine, that vitiate and invalidate, the absolute, self-authenticating authority of God’s Word, the Bible.
No LIE is of the TRUTH, Jesus said, “If you ABIDE in My Word, (the Bible) you are My disciples indeed. And you shall KNOW* the TRUTH* and the TRUTH* shall make you FREE.” ( John. 8: 31 Emphasis added).
I cannot say it other than what the Word of God declares, precious souls, have been fed so much false doctrine, a bit of truth, mixed and convoluted, with unbiblical, mand-made dogma, can’t work, won’t work, no way!
There is no such place as Hell for God is all loving and all forgiving, remember. Even as a child in Sunday School I could not accept that God could subject his children to such punishment. Those who have faith that God exists and loves and cares for his fellow man are assured ascension toward Paradise. Sometimes the ascension is not immediate and the spirit remains in the grave for hundreds of years. This I suppose could be the waiting period associated with belief in a Purgatory. However, those of us who make a conscience and deliberate choice to push faith in our Creator aside and believe not, simply cease to exist upon death. It is as if they never were. I wish that everyone in these exchanges would make a point of examining The Urantia Book. It was dictated by God-sent messengers and transcribed by intelligent humans who ultimately had it published in 1955. Few have even heard of this book. I assure you that the revelations it contains will provide you enlightenment beyond you wildest imagination. Along the way it points out a few historical errors in the Bible by relating what really transpired. It tells of the entire life of Jesus. It tells of the creation of our universe and our world, of how life was introduced to the planet, how we are in fact willed creatures of the evolutionary process, how man came down out of the tree tops over 900,000 years ago and the actual story of Eden 35,000 years ago. This one is quite different from Bible’s version and very interesting. Go to Wikipedia and read how this book came into being. Don’t allow yourself to get scared off by how really “out there” the beginning was. Google this book or the Truth Book which is a much later publication but based entirely on TUB. Your life will be changed by what you will learn. God Bless.
William, Jesus and God the Father, are not the same Person; they are two distinguishable persons within the Eternal Godhead, of Father, Son, and Holy spirit; yet they are indivisble is essense; co-eternal, co-existent, co-equal in nature, atributes, power and glory. There is but ONE eternal Godhead, who is one undivied and indivisible essence; and in this one essence there are three eternal persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Sorry, correction above, should read “…they are three (not two) distinguishable persons within the Godhead…”
Hi Carlos!
“Jesus and God the Father, are not the same Person; they are two distinguishable persons within the Eternal Godhead, of Father, Son, and Holy spirit; yet they are indivisble is essense; co-eternal, co-existent, co-equal in nature, atributes, power and glory. There is but ONE eternal Godhead, who is one undivied and indivisible essence; and in this one essence there are three eternal persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Carlos, you are playing with words and you have just succeeded in contradicting what the other parties have stated to the effect that God is the Father and the Son and The Holy Spirit. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word godhead has no difference in meaning to the word god as as a religious deity.
In the book of Genesis – who was God talking to when he said: “Let us make man in our Image?”
Mutual agreement between father, son and holy spirit.
Sorry Perry:
Even you must admit that this reply is without any substance whatever.
When we say Let us, the speaker MUST be considering another!
This is going nowhere, fundies have their point of view and non-believers have theirs. The way I see it is this:
1. You can believe if you can make sense of the bible.
2. You can pretend to believe, but this won’t work because if God exists He will see through your pretence.
3. If after careful consideration of the evidence you believe that religion is nothing but myth and superstition, you have to reject it.
Tony,
One more logic:
The Bible has made sense to millions and millions through the ages. So if you can’t make sense out of it then you are foolish along that line at least.
Pretending does not bring you into God’s favour as you have rightly said.
Rejecting it brings you into damning judgement before God.
God is not asking for pretensions, God warns against rejection or unbelief.
What we are left with is faith which helps you make sense out of what seems difficult to understand and guarantees favour and salvation for you.
Even if you think there is nothing to gain by believing, yet you know there is nothing to lose by believing.
BE SMART Tony.
Ifey,
The Bible was written by man (and with a purely political agenda if you’d care to check history).
There has always been god; in fact there were many gods before that astute Roman Emperor decided to replace multitheism with monotheism in an effort to facilitate control over the people!
So please don’t go calling people “foolish” because they decide to reject or question your approach!
Bert you history is dead wrong. The Bible was not written for nor by any one who has anything to do for the Roman Empire. What yo propagate is mere conjecture not based on any facts whatsoever.
If your impression about God and the Bible are influenced by such a blatant lie and fabrication as you propagate, then you need to redo your opinion entirely. You informers are completely mistaken.
Belief IS a necessary condition for knowledge, However, mere belief is not a sufficient condition for knowledge!
There is an obvious difference between a ‘necessary’ condition, and a ‘sufficient’ condition for knowlege.
There is no other ancient document like the Bible, the Divinely inspired Word of God; whose thousands of Prophetic declarations, over the ages, have ALL come to past, bar none!
Those skeptics and unbelievers, quite simply, don’t have the ‘Reason’ that is, the intellectual ability, to examine the facts and evidence, that is ‘necessary’ for revelation, i.e., knowledge, to be coherent, hence, they seek to voice an opinion on the most Epochal, momentous, unmatched, unparalleled, Word of God, the Bible, the only source that gives us, the Origin, Meaning, Moral purpose, and ultimate desting of mankind, and the miraculuous transformation, of multitudes, over thousands of years, from across every nation and ethic group, that Jesus Christ, is a living, ascended, Glorified Saviour and Lord, that He Alone effects that change of heart and nature (Sin!) to one of His Peace, that trancends all other religious ritual; so that we who has literally experienced the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit, KNOW that we KNOW, that He is real, true, and to be trusted. Amen and Amen!
Why is God of the Old Testament a jealous God in relationships
with people ?
Are you jealous of your wife’s relationships with other men? Or are you OK if she sleeps around?
My ex did exactly that and told everyone I was dead!
My thought is; God wants the best for His people, is why
God is jealous.
Hey Perry,
You can’t answer a question with a question of your own!
By avoiding an answer, you are leaving yourself open to the accusation that you don’t have one!
Futhermore if man is jealous, he could have only acquired such a trait from the very god of which he is equal, having been created in God’s own image and likeness!
When you enter into a relationship through Covenant as God did, you must be jealous about it because the relationships is not casual.
When you have to die to enter into a relationship as Christ did it is because you are jealous about it.
A relationship without jealousy is not secure.
Would you want a god that is not jealous about your relationship with Him? Or would you trust any non-jealous relationship? I would’t.
Great reply Perry and Ifey,
Jealousy is the reason Oprah Winfrey gives as to what made her start to think that the God of the Bible cannot be true. It’s a reasonable question but its also a shame people refuse to use their minds and investigate. I did not understand God being jealous for a long time myself. There are two types of jealousy and for a spouse to not be jealous and think it ok for their mate to sleep around is exactly what God is speaking about. It would be crazy to think otherwise. The other type actually lends itself to coveting. Jealous of our friends stuff or their spouse.
For people that have a hard time with God in the Old Testament I recommend Paul Copans “Is God a Moral Monster” It address’s these questions very well. Like slavery that people have a hard time God accepting. We envision it like it was in the south. When in truth it was not like that at all. In most cases it was about working off a debt that a person could not pay for a period of years. Gods law also afforded many protections for the servant like freedom after 7 years, harmed by master and you could leave. Now I am sure that man like he always does abused these things but that does not mean God approved it. This was also something that was utilized when many people made the voyage over to the New America and could not pay their way. They agreed to exchange the cost of their voyage for a period of work as servant/slaves.
Hi Gary.
God is rational.
God is the source of and owner of everything.
Justice flows from reason or is rational. It is giving what is due to anyone.
An injustice such as idolatry (acknowledging another god) arouses God’s jealousy because it does violence to reason, to God’s nature. Figuratively speaking, idolatry introduces a discomfort or instability in God which must be relieved or stabilized. Idolatry introduces a disorder which must be overcome.
God bless you.
I have checked out Judaism and decided I’d rather have the mercy God gives us in Jesus Christ.
Hello Jun Mahusay
Your philosophical connection between jealousy, justice and idolatry is very interesting. But I am not sure it is in line with the divine jealousy referred to in the Bible.
We’re in the same boat. I’m also not sure. I simply offered those views as another perspective to enrich our understanding of God. I always maintain that the truth is richer than what our individual perspectives can give us access to. The Bible makes no definitions the way philosophical manuals do. Instead, the Bible makes references to familiar things for analogy. Yet we know that God although like us is also unlike us. Although God is spoken of as being jealous in Scriptures, we’re not sure what exactly is the nature of his jealousy.
Thanks for your comments.
“The Bible makes no definitions the way philosophical manuals do. ”
No theologian I know would agree with that.
Hi Perry.
In an earlier reply to your comment I have requested for a few examples of definitions made in the Bible much like what can be seen in philosophical manuals. By that I mean definitions that state the genus and the species of the thing being defined.
This is what John says about Jesus:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Perry,
You do realize that what you quoted above is from a book – a compilation of stories some good ones yes, but still stories. Aesop Fables contain stories also with some lessons – but surely we won’t worship him. Do you hear yourself?
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth”.
Really!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
OK. So where did this “Word” come from?
Now you seem bent of further confusing unsuspecting people with unconnected words. the obvious questions would be Since something cannot be made out of nothing, where did the Word come from and where did God come and which one preceded the other?
Do you see how difficult it is for a discussion like this is intended to be to progress beyond trite platitudes?
Bert,
Christians believe in God who is Eternal, meaning He has no beginning and He has no end. Eternity is illogical to an atheists because they measure reason with the material, physical world, with what the human senses can perceive in the universe. Since they do not believe in God, they cannot believe in Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence. They cannot even believe in belief because belief is not material. Therefore, they cannot believe that in an Omnipotent God can create something out of nothing. They cannot believe that the Universe was created trough the Word. This Word, like what Perry says, is an Intelligence. This Word was God’s Intelligence expressed, said, and spoken. And when it was spoken it was created. But God’s Intelligence or His Word was with Him from Eternity. “In the beginning WAS the Word” This means In the beginning the Word already existed in the Being of God. If He were Physical, in His Brains. The beginning referred to in here is the beginning of creation, that point of Eternity when God created time, matter, and space.
Bert, it is futile I think, to explain to non-believers spiritual matters because only the physical matters matter to him. It would be like mixing oil and water. You can stir them together. Ultimately, they separate.
The only antidote to unbelief is humility, humility to accept that we are mere creations, humility to accept that our material brains do not possess the Omniscience of God, humility to accept that, on our deathbed we will asking: Where do I go from here.
Constantino
God’s jealously when offended, issued in just retibution, and it was always in the context of idolatry; but, when stirred by His grace, it resulted in eternal love.
God expects man to return His love. Love is not simply an emotion; it is structured relationship. To love God is to obey Him. So the word is used to denote a passionate consuming “zeal” focused on God that results in doing His will and the maintaing of His honor in the face of the ungodly acts of men and nations.
The noun ‘qanna’ Jealous is used solely of God and always in the context of idolatry. It shows the parallel between adultery and idolatry; as idolatry is ‘spiritual’ adultery.
I wish to the book THE HARD TEACHINGS – EMERGENCE OF PARADISE. This book is a result of over fifteen years of a search for the truth.
Reading it will make you see that NO RELIGION ON EARTH can save man. Man can only be saved by following God’s words and doing the will of God. To be conscious of religion and refuse development is a way to destruction and pulling back the word.
At the end, God’s rewards are only for those who are doing His wills not religious people. God created men to subdue the earth, not to build and nurture all these religious setups we see today. The building of these religions led to the confusions in our world.
Hi Gbenga Adebomi.
I must admit total ignorance of your meaning of religion. But I am reacting here as one who understands ‘religion’ as the set of beliefs and practices of a man concerning God.
On the one hand you’re right in saying that no religion on earth can save man because only God can save man. On the other hand,isn’t following God’s word and doing God’s will an act or acts of religion? So therefore, isn’t that the same as saying that there is a religion on earth that can save man? There is an apparent contradiction here which might prove to be merely apparent if you would deign to explain your meaning of ‘religion.’ God bless you.
Gbenga,
And how do you know about the will of God except from the very religions that you reject?
Hello Gbenga!
You say that: NO RELIGION ON EARTH can save man.
What does man need to be saved from?
How about the evil politicians, the mass murderers, the ruling despots, the criminals, the dictators that engage in murder, etc to stay in power so that they can talk about the grace of god!
No! You are right that no religion can save us from the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Mao’s, the Idi Amin’s, the papa Doc’s, the Cicescus,the Marcos, and on and on of this world that your God so loved that he sent his only begotten son to rectify but which still seems to remain in deep despair!
Religion is man’s traditions. Man’s ways of doing things.
For man to be saved, man must come to his natural self and look for the narrow path that leads to eternal life. He must develop a personal relationship with God, not just because he wants to be seen and accepted like the religious people do but by a clear conscience seeing that he is doing the will of the Father.
The New generation of Christians seem to de-taste the word “RELIGION” and try to derogate it.
But any form of devotion to God or any supra-faith or supra-being or force, whether as relationship, revelation or philosophy in ritual ceremonies or as spiritual lifestyle is religion.
The issue about Christianity is what it offers not the terms in which language refers to it.
“Religion is man’s traditions. Man’s ways of doing things.”
In that sense, I agree that religion cannot save. But your ensuing words does not seem to jive with what came first.
“For man to be saved, man must come to his natural self and look for the narrow path that leads to eternal life. He must develop a personal relationship with God, not just because he wants to be seen and accepted like the religious people do but by a clear conscience seeing that he is doing the will of the Father.”
It seems, by the way everything is said above, that man’s salvation depends on man actions after all.
Man
1. coming to his natural self
2. looking for the narrow path
3. developing a personal relationship with God in a way that is genuine and not just for show.
There must be a better way of stating your doctrine of salvation. A way that is coherent and avoids seeming contradictions. Just an opinion.
God bless you.
I can understand why people have a problem with being saved by Jesus Christ, Jesus is spoken of in the 1st person, I, she, he it in the personal pronoun perfect tense.
God said man would return to the earth as trace elements; carbon , calcium, water, and oxygen. Jesus is a historical character, Yashua. Jesus had an earthly mother and was a zygote, embryo, and fetus, apparently a full term baby. Now the fire works begin, was the mother of Jesus a virgin…that in and of itself is a paradox…she was a virgin in that the father planted his sperm once and only once. How the sperm got into Mary’s vagina is a mystery or ignorance. Jesus and Mary both confound biology and logicical reasoning. The KJV doesn’t elevate Mary to the status she is given in Greek or Catholic churches. That is your strawman. I have no clue why God chose Mary to birth Jesus. God had created Adam, why didn’t He choose to create Jesus. Jesus said if he didn’t go away the comforter would not come, the book of Acts 1:8. He left earth and sent the comforter in Acts chapter 2. Men were filled and began to speak in another language. In Acts I believe there is little symmentry. It speaks of being in Jerusalem, Mount Calvary, Judah we are all over the map in the regional area. Without knowing major themes of the Bible, picking it up and reading without systematic theology…it is very confounding and in no way yields an organized thought process. What we have today, humanity has extracted themes and builds their philosophy upon those themes. Today we have the modern church developed on themes of the Bible, not necessarily in accord with scriptural teaching but if it feels right do it. The book of Jude has a lot to say about false teachers. We have to remember the techniques of writing; smile, alliteration, metaphor, allusion, onomatopoeia, symbol, hyperbole, and alligory when we interpet the Bible. The Bible needs on the cover, “Stop!! This Is A Metaphor”. Doesn’t mean it didn’t actually happen but is an embellishment of miracles.
Christianity herself is a religion. Salvation surpasses religion. There is general salvation on the cross, which Christianity is holding onto today by faith. The salvation on the cross is the salvation of the entire human race not individual salvation. Any person who wants to be saved as an individual must submit himself to the Potter to shape him and bring out the best in him.
Belief or unbelief in Salvation are religions. Submitting or rejecting Salvation are religions.
Gbenga,
Just one question. What do we need to be saved from and why?
“Just one question. What do we need to be saved from and why?”
My answer to this question is based on Genesis’s account of the Fall.
God-man relationship is fundamentally a Creator-creature relationship. God owns man as his creature. That is the correct order of things. That is the correct order between man and God.
Man refused to submit to that order and chose to disobey
God.
The rest of creation obeys God because they are not free to disobey God because the price of disobedience is man’s death.
What would happen if the sun or the earth would stray from their orbits? What would happen it the earth stops rotating on its axis? What would happen if the heart stops beating? The answer to all of them is man’s death, his destruction.
That’s what God also said to Adam and Eve regarding breaking his rule about not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: You will die.
If nature had the power to deviate from God’s plan the result is man’s immediate (physical) destruction. That explains why they don’t have that option.
With man’s disobedience the result is immediate spiritual death and gradual physical destruction.
Salvation then is the restoration of the correct order between God and man. God behaving as the Creator and man behaving as the creature, submitting freely to the dominion of God, trusting him and surrendering everything to him. That’s how man is saved from destruction. No man could do that. Only the God-man, Jesus Christ was able to do this and restore the correct order between man and God.
Religion, per se, is man seeking to find God, whereas, Christianity, in its purest, simplest construct, IS* Almighty God, reaching down, and reaching out, to lost, fallen, sin-stained, mankind, IN* the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, Christianity, IS* a personal, living, relationship, with God, through the only Mediator, Advocate, High Priest, the Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ, and the indwelling presence of the Comforter, guide, the Holy Spirit.
As Christianity is a relationship with God born out God condescending to reveal Himself to man in order to redeem man so then Judaism is also not a religion?
Let us stop playing with words Christianity and Judaism is a religion born out of divine revelation. However, the saving power of Christianity is not the religious devotion of Christians but the saving accomplishments of Christ.
It is possible to have the religion of Christianity without the salvation of Christianity but it is not possible to have the salvation of Christianity and remain irreligious.
Christianity is therefore true religion.