A slightly edited quote from Loone (spelling errors corrected), I’ll summarize this. 1. Jesus is God (from “They are one in the same God”). 2. Jesus was sacrificed. 3. Jesus was raised from the dead. If these things were true then the claim that God sacrificed his son is a fraud, it is quite meaningless. Sacrifice. Permanent loss of something of immense value. If I sacrificed my daughter, whom I love dearly, so that many others could live, and with no hope and with a belief that I would never see my daughter again, then that would be a true and tragic sacrifice. Christianity makes a massive issue out of God sacrificing his son to save mankind. In fact it is the essential basis for Christianity, the alleged atonement. And as Loone says, a supreme sacrifice. But did God really make a sacrifice; was the claim at least equal to that of me sacrificing my daughter? It is not difficult to see that God made no such sacrifice, and certainly nothing that could come remotely close to what I would see as a true sacrifice. Proof 1 1. God is immortal; he cannot die. 2. Jesus is God (from assumptions already acknowledged). 3. Therefore Jesus cannot die; i.e. he cannot die through sacrifice. Proof 2 1. Sacrifice means a permanent loss. 2. Jesus was raised from the dead. 3. Therefore if Jesus came back then he wasn’t permanently lost. 4. If he wasn’t permanently lost then there was no sacrifice. Proof 3 1. For a sacrifice to have meaning then the entity making the sacrifice must experience suffering at the loss, as a human would suffer if they sacrificed their loved child. 2. God is omniscient; has perfect knowledge of all future events. 3. If Jesus died then God would know that Jesus would be back 3 days later. 4. If God knew that Jesus would be back very shortly then he would not have experienced any meaningful degree of suffering. 5. If God did not suffer then the emotionalism and alleged sadness of his loss is a fraud, it simply could not happen. Conclusion. From these simple syllogisms we can see very clearly that the crucifixion and the alleged suffering of God’s loss is a fraud and completely meaningless. And if the crucifixion is meaningless then the whole of Christianity is meaningless. Does everyone agree? Cris
Revisiting Karen Armstrong; btw it's a nice proof & excellent point.... Cris This, actually, is the reason I harp on the tale of Athanasius at Nicaea. To revisit Karen Armstrong, A History of God: Apologies for the long quote, but I wanted to point out that the question of the legitimacy of the crucifixion has so plagued the Church for so long that the Nicene Creed was built around it. Furthermore, we see from Armstrong's summary of events, that the Creed is a political outcome, and most curious of all is Athanasius' position in light of what would become the heresy of Docetism. Docetism is a condition whereby one beleives that Christ was not fully human, thus invoking the very issues you've presented, Cris. What strikes me about this particular controversy is that it relies none on the historical validity of Jesus the person. That is, it really doesn't matter if there was ever a single person called Jesus around whom the Gospel events revolve. The reason for this is the significance of the alleged sacrifice. We might point out Jesus' words concerning the tearing down and rebuilding of the temple; indeed, convention advises that Jesus was referring to himself; clairvoyance, perhaps? Or just an embittered boast atop a knowledge that history says Martin Luther King, Jr. also expressed only days before his own murder? Did Jesus know by divine foresight of his impending doom? Did he, then, know that he would be raised? Here we see the docetist bite, and the problems forever codified by Athanasius' distrust of his own chosen savior. (Something about a ram in the desert, sacrificing one's son, and other such ideas should go here.) Is anyone at all surprised that I agree with the proof, that the sacrifice of the crucifixion is a fraud? And this is accepting, for the moment, that it happened at all. Within the Christian framework, I hold with Arius insofar as I understand the arguments. In order for Christ's sacrifice to be genuine, sure he may have thought he was the Son of God, but this was only on faith; he could not know, lest the sacrifice be snake oil. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Tiassa, Don’t apologize; the quote was quite appropriate. I think we have been here before, but somehow the issues seem so much clearer for me this time around. I do admit I tend to rely very little on reference material and more on pure reason. This particular issue is especially appealing because it stands almost entirely on pure logic. Like so much of Christianity the sheer beauty of the paradoxes make the argument so powerful and enormous fun. I also find it very satisfying that I can reach a reasoned conclusion on my own only to find that it has already been well established long ago. I used to believe I was capable of original thought but after so many times of being proved otherwise I eventually realized that humility is also enjoyable. Although I’m not sure I am expressing humility here by apparently equating myself with a previous established philosopher. But I see this issue as really the inevitability of critical thought that anyone should be able to discover; greatness is not being claimed, only a recognition that I can at times think things through satisfactorily. Cris
"If God knew that Jesus would be back very shortly then he would not have experienced any meaningful degree of suffering." 3 days of God's full out wrath is meaningless to you? Couple that with the fact that all will rise from the dead. 3 days wasn't enough is just your opinion and since it's the crux of your argument, you're argument falls flat. "If God did not suffer then the emotionalism and alleged sadness of his loss is a fraud, it simply could not happen." He was SWEATING BLOOD in the garden. What kind of argument is this? Have you read the Bible and the emotions he went through? Do you know how much strain is required for blood to start comming out of your pores? He knew he was going to face the wrath of his father. Geez. You think facing the full wrath of God for 3 days is something to be scoffed at? Jesus absolutly loved his father more than any son has before and for 3 days that same father disowned him and punished him for the sins of world. None of which he commited. You have a very poor grasp of what Christ went through. Ben
On the other hand, if that stuff ever really happened, many thousands of other people went through the same damn thing. It wasn't a one-off execution, ya know. They did it to quite a few people.
Erratum .... Correction: Since its original posting, this response has been wrongly attributed. With apologies to Blonde Cupid and KalvinB for the error .... So what you're telling me about, then, is the sacrifice the parent makes, the suffering the parent feels, when they send their kid to summer camp? Consider this: John Q Human: My son is dead, and I shall never see him again. My heart is broken. God: My son is dead, as I wanted it, and I'll be seeing him this weekend. Oh, my heart is broken. I think back to a friend that died at 15. Yeah, her parents must have worried. But would they have suffered so perversely had she come home safe instead of being hauled out of the woods for the coroner to identify by dental records? Kym wasn't my child; she was my friend. It still hurts to this day. I remember that a few months after she was laid to earth, I had a dream in which she told me everything was alright, and thank you for trying, but she was just playing Elvis. I awoke with one of the lightest hearts of my life; the crash and burn that came moments later affected me for weeks. Would it have hurt so bad if I knew I'd be seeing her in a few days? Might I point to Nicaea? The Jesus of the Trinity is more than human, is of the substance of God. Did you ever happen to see the film Soul Man? C Thomas Howell's character was not black; at any moment he could escape his experience by ceasing to pose as an African-American. Being of God, such as Jesus is, the suffering of Christ is reduced; his presence in a suffering situation might be, but whether or not he actually suffers is another question. For a God who is outside time, what is three days on the cross? What is three days in Hell? Being of God, the experience is known of in advance, being of God, one is not wholly human, and therefore the suffering is not human suffering. The flip side, however, is that even if Jesus is merely a man, the crucifixion is still a fraud. It means that Jesus was a man endowed by God; God did not lose a son that day, but rather a vehicle for His machinations. In which case God did not send his son, per se. Of course, and undermining Arius and the later declaration of Docetism as heresy, God did endow Jesus, recognizing him as a Son. Which points back toward the notion that Christ didn't really suffer. Put it this way: are you equal to Christ or is Christ greater than you? Some creatures suffer in heat that I tolerate or even enjoy. Same with the cold. Does the neighbor's chihuahua look outside and think I'm suffering? It almost seems like simulated suffering. Check this out: I don't own guns. I don't like violence. But damn, do I play first-person shooters. Did I really die in a hail of 5.62 mm gunfire? No. Jesus, I'm sure, didn't enjoy having spikes driven through him, but did he, as God, really suffer? Imagine yourself on the cross. You're in pain; you never get to see your children again, and you don't know when your suffering will cease. Now, imagine Jesus: You're in pain because you decided you must be, you know when the suffering will cease, and you get to see your family when it's done. Descending to Hell was a little like being caught in SFO on a layover during the holidays: Yeah, it's rough, but you'll live. And that's a tool against despair--an aspect of suffering--that humans don't have the luxury of. Of sweating blood: One of the questions I've never heard addressed is, Who wrote down Jesus' words when he was praying alone in the garden? Aside from that, we see that Jesus is annoyed that his only potential audience, apostles stationed to a watch, falls asleep. Could it be that the tale of Jesus' prayer at Gethsemane is a detail included for show? And even though we're technically considering Loone's assertion that God and Jesus are One, we still might consider the aspects of the conclusion--e.g. that the crucifixion is a fraud--in terms of God and Jesus being separate--e.g. Jesus being only human. In this case, yeah, I'd be sweating bullets centuries before the Western world had them to shoot. It's only on faith that he's letting himself die. Yet, as Cris notes: Christianity makes a massive issue out of God sacrificing his son to save mankind. Whether adopting Jesus in Luke 3:22, or endowing him at conception, God knows that Jesus will suffer (by His Will), knows that Jesus will die (by His Will) and knows what no other parent can, that He will see His Son again after this is over. How long did Kym suffer? We will never know. How long did Polly Klass or Danielle van Dam suffer? And while one might say that God agonized over His Son's suffering, can we say that either the Klass or van Dam families willed their childrens' suffering? And when the uniformed men come to the door and say, "It is with my sincerest condolences that I must inform you ...," did they at least have the comfort of knowing that, despite being dead the children would be home with them in a few days? When they cried over the repugnant terrors visited upon their children, could they at least say, "She'll be home Sunday as pure and innocent and unblemished by the world as ever"? Did God, in choosing to "sacrifice" His Son, ever face that loss? Did Jesus, in choosing to "suffer", truly feel despair? In fact, the more I go through this--God being well-pleased with His Son; miracles invested through Jesus' person; the power to someday destroy the Devil--the more it seems like there's just no way that suffering was genuine. Even if, by the immaculate conception, God created an entire human being without a hint of divinity, by the end it was quite apparent that something was afoot. Is the abandonment by God of His Son on the Cross merely an abandonment of that endowment by the Holy Spirit to control the natural environment? Did, then, the body suffer? Yet did Jesus ever doubt that he would rise and conquer death? After all, it was part of the plan. The prophets said so, and Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. I'm sorry, KalvinB, but the more sympathy I try to give to the notion of Jesus' suffering being genuine (the less unlikely of the two) and God's sense of sacrifice, the more reasons I find to call the crucifixion an unnecessary and meaningless demonstration. Indeed, if Jesus earned any redemptive credit with his suffering, it was by design. It seems God said, Look, just tell me you hate me enough to torture and murder my child. Just get it the f--k off your chests and let's all move on. The Second Coming may not happen; it could be that God knew there's no point to it, and decided to lie to Himself anyway until the last moment. Like a thief in the night ... that's kind of like saying that you don't know when you're going to die. On that note, I'll close by wishing for reincarnation on the grounds that I can be conscious during the last generation of the Universe's existence. Assuming that the Universe would end, that is. But to be conscious that yes, this is the end of the show, and to experience life at its most ludicrously perilous. I'll note Lennon on that one: imagine .... Such vitality, such love, such spirit. To face God, to know the truth ... and, truly, to be destroyed by it. Yeah, I admit, the coming of God would be worth being around for. But I just don't think it's going to go that way. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Cris, ***Sacrifice. Permanent loss of something of immense value. If I sacrificed my daughter, whom I love dearly, so that many others could live, and with no hope and with a belief that I would never see my daughter again, then that would be a true and tragic sacrifice. Christianity makes a massive issue out of God sacrificing his son to save mankind. In fact it is the essential basis for Christianity, the alleged atonement. And as Loone says, a supreme sacrifice. But did God really make a sacrifice; was the claim at least equal to that of me sacrificing my daughter? It is not difficult to see that God made no such sacrifice, and certainly nothing that could come remotely close to what I would see as a true sacrifice.*** O.K. Try this - Reverse the sacrifice of your daughter's physical body-turned-spirit so that many others could continue to live in the physical body (which is what I think you are alluding to) and compare it to the sacrifice of a spirit-turned-physical body so that many others could continue to live in the spirit and I think you might begin to see the sacrifice.
Cris, ***Blonde Cupid .... quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 days of God's full out wrath is meaningless to you? Couple that with the fact that all will rise from the dead. 3 days wasn't enough is just your opinion and since it's the crux of your argument, you're argument falls flat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what you're telling me about, then, is the sacrifice the parent makes, the suffering the parent feels, when they send their kid to summer camp?*** I believe you meant to address KalvinB.
Two more cents .... This is turning out to be a great thread .... Blonde Cupid I think the a priori notion of the transformation of the physical into the spiritual might possibly hit some snags; while atheists are prone to have their share of superstitions and phenomenal beliefs (e.g. ghosts, Ufos, even astrology), the transformation of body to spirit is quite low on that list. And here we touch on the notion of the psychological comfort offered by religion. The faith of the spirit transformation lessens the impact of loss; one can always derive comfort from the idea that she is in a better place or that she is with God now. And the consequent comfort that it is all part of God's plan, which helps deflect the empathetic or sympathetic anguish one might experience under the stress of a loved one being subject to abominations. Don't ask me, for instance, what part of God's plan involves binding, raping, and cutting a child, for instance, but the world demands that those who lose loved ones must still rise and face life and its myriad challenges tomorrow. If making such unnecessary suffering part of God's plan helps you get through ... I don't really want to argue. But, to the subject at hand, if one truly believes that the soul of the departed is comfortable and well-attended, then there is some reduction of loss compared to the finality of human death in the non-redemptive, non-reincarnative mode. And there might even be the transformation of mourning into greed. For one would weep for the gains of their loved ones? Or do they weep for their own needs, their own wants? Speaking of suffering, I suffered through a George Clooney would-be thriller once. I think it was called Peacemaker, or some such. Anyway, at the end of the film, their only choice was to detonate the detonator and hope that it didn't set off the nuclear warhead in the process. (Note on the Spoiler: No, I don't care; it was a horrible film and I still wonder how stoned I had to be to even pay to see it in the first place; I can't imagine why I would have wanted to see the flick anyway ....) So let's use that as a hypothetical. Yeah. My kid just saved New York City. My kid went down with the blast, though, working 'til the last second. Scotty, in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan--"He stayed at his post, Admiral, when everyone else ran." F--k, that would hurt. I only want to outlive everyone I know so nobody has to mourn me. If I knew, however, that my kid was in a better place ... yeah, I'll miss him, but, well, I'm not going to complain because my child is having a better experience now. So to bring the psychological comfort of religion back to it .... What sacrifice? And, yes, I get your point, Blonde Cupid. On the one hand, I'm trying to keep certain issues out of it. Such as my constant harping on the blackmail aspect. To keep this one simple: What sacrifice to descend to the flesh? This is God's mess to begin with. We only needed the Spirit to descend to the flesh because that's the way God wanted it to be. And here let's keep the perverse edge going. Get a woman really, really drunk. Tie her wrists and blindfold her. Do your bidding; force her how you want; burn her, cut her, torture her. My God, it's horrible, and I agree. Now ... what if she actually enjoys it? I seriously advise anyone to hang out with the sex industry for a while. It seriously changes your perspective on things. Well, so does Catholic school, but the point is that to a person who does not expect it, who does not desire it, and so forth, to be tied, forced, and scarred is an indescribably negative experience. Meanwhile, yes, I have been acquainted with women for whom this kind of sexual experience was an art form. You know, I once had drinks with a woman whose name now escapes me; she was billed as a world-record holder for the world's largest gang-bang. (Getting drunk with strippers was a ... three-year... occupation of mine--it's amazing who you meet.) But back to the gang-bang ... (how many times does one get to say that? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) The number of men was in the hundreds. I've actually seen part of the video of it. By the end of it you can tell she just doesn't want to be there. Not for the shame or the hostility of it, but she's just tired after two-hundred thirty men f--king her, and her body hurts. (That question came up ... When was your last orgasm? She had to ask her manager which number that guy was ... 232.) She knew it was going to hurt. She knew she wouldn't want to finish out. But she didn't suffer; this is how she wanted it. And I'm going to stand on that analogy. And, yes, I have known people to be more directly self-destructive in sex; it's why my criteria includes "no open wounds" among others. It's a great line in Weird Science, but I'm one who believes that sex shouldn't leave scars. Call it a personal weakness Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Cris Believe me, sir ... I'm ecstatic when someone else in the world sees it. That last paragraph of your second post, though ... (find it very satisfying) ... downright scares me with its familiarity. And as to this issue of pure logic; isn't it just a bit uncanny where you find logic in the illogical? You have hold of the "What's this do?" bolt. Twist it, pull it out. See what comes falling down. It might just be God in Heaven. Modern religion is just a pseudo-logical Erection Set ... I mean Erector Set. Well, what does it matter? It's all just a boner competition these days, anyway: My God's gotta bigger schlong than your God! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What the hell happened? How did my mind land in the gutter? Oh, yeah ... celibate priests, whacking off, and bunnies. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What's really bad about the metaphor is that while the redemptive religions are out clobbering each other with their schlongs in a machismo contest, the new age is trying to get everyone to just make their schlongs feel good and get on with it. Release your inner schlong, play with it .... Worse yet, get to know your inner schlong's feminine side. I'll stop now. Sleep might well be in order at this pont. After all, I may have just given the phrase channeling Ramtha a whole new meaning. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Cris, In order to address your proofs I'm asking you to accept (temporarily of course) certain givens that stem from my beliefs as a catholic. In other words I will try to demonstrate that given my beliefs the crucifiction is not necessarily a fraud. Given 1: Sacrifice does not neccessarily imply death. - It's a common catholic pratice to offer instances of suffering as a sacrifice to God in order to recieve grace from God and thereby turn a negative into a possitive. (note that by suffering I mean suffering inflicted upon one's self not necessarily by ones self.) Given 2: Jesus is both fully human and fully devine. As this implies, Jesus as well as God did have full knowledge of the coming crucifixion. Given 3: Jesus, in being fully human, allowed for God to relate and communicate with humans in a very special way: from a fully human perspective. In other words Jesus went through same type of BS and experienced the same type of emotions that we do as humans. Given 4: Durring the crucifixion Jesus not only experienced all the physical pain associated with the crucifixion but also experienced all the emotional, spiritual, and physical pain that any human past, present, and future had, has, and will ever have. In that relativly short period of time. (note I'll admit that I don't know for sure that this is an official teaching but I learned it from a religion teacher who was in the process of becoming a priest at the time and therefore I feel it's safe to assume that it it) Given 5. Jesus is the one and only messiah and will not return until the end of time at which time everyone will be resurrected. 1. therefore since suffering is viewed as a sacrifice and a parent suffers in some way when his or her child suffers. The crucifixion is a sacrifice on both Jesus's and God's part. 2. The sacrifice resulting from death is really a sacrifice resulting from loss, and in Jesus's death resulted in the loss of God's special method of relating and comunicating with human's. Therefore Jesus's death equates to sacrifice. 3. Since Jesus will not be returning for the rest of time and everyone else will be reunited then (assuming of course we're all good little boys and girlsPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) The permanence of our loss through death is similar to similar to God's loss and therefore so is the sacrifice. 4. Given the amount of suffering and the uniqueness involved in the loss it's rational to believe that the sacrifice of the crucifixion is greater than any sacrifice a normal human can experience. I hope I made my point clearly and logically. -Matt P.S. You may now resume whatever skeptisim about my beliefs that you may have. Thankyou.
LOL Cris, irregardless of the logic, I'm more concerned with what really happened. Just prove to me that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and I will no longer have faith in Christ. Too easy, right? Two days and I'm leaving Bosnia back to good ol' Ft. Drum!!! -armyboyjay
Interesting indeed.......... Well, it is the greatest hoax in history. It is the question very few people bother to ask. Most christians are either brainwashed or programmed to beleive it. I guess if you tell something to a little kid from age 7-8, agian and again at one point he will be start believing it. IF you read the bible with little bit more detail, you can find many hints that it really was a lie and never heppened, it may happened that Jesus was on cross but for very short period. According to scriptures i.e bible old and new testaments and history of jews and jesus, there are many books availble, there is one by Josh Gilchrist also, I can dig up some more but it has been a while. Anyways , You know, when we read the Scriptures, they tell us that when they wanted to crucify Jesus, they were in a hurry. And they were in such a hurry that Josh tells us in his book, The Resurrection Factor, that within some 12 hours, there were six separate trials. Six trials He went through. Six trials in 12 hours from midnight to the next morning and on, I don't know where that sort of tirals happens?. So the Jews were in a hurry to put Him up on the cross. Do you know why? Because of the general public. Jesus was a Jew. The general public loved Him. The man had healed the blind and the lepers and the sick and had raised the dead. He had fed so many thousands of people with bread and fish. He was a hero, and if they discovered - the general public - that their hero's life was in danger, there would have been a riot. So, they had a midnight trial. Early in the morning they took Him to Pilate. Pilate says, "He is not my kettle of fish - take Him to Herod." Herod says, "I'm not interested - take Him back to Pilate. And hurry, hurry, hurry." And they held six trials within 12 hours. Six. As if they had nothing else to do. They succeeded in putting Him up on the cross, according to your witnesses. According to your witnesses. But as much as they were in a hurry to put Him up, they were in a hurry to bring Him down. You know why? Because at sunset on Friday, at six o'clock, the Sabbath starts. You see, the Jews count the days, night and day, night and day. We Muslims count our days, night and day, night and day. Not day and night. We count night and day. Six o'clock, our day begins in the evening. So, before sunset, the body must come down because they were told in the book of Deuteronomy that they must see to it that nobody is hanging on the tree on the Sabbath day. "That thy land be not defiled which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." So quickly, quickly, they brought the body down and they gave Him a burial bath, and they put a hundred pounds of medicine around Him. And they put Him into the sepulchre. Not a grave - a sepulchre. A big, roomy chamber above ground. So it's already evening. From three o'clock in the afternoon, for whatever you do, the details are given in Josh's book. Burial baths normally take more than an hour. You read the details about how the Jews give a burial bath to the dead. That takes more than an hour itself. But let's say they succeeded in doing all these things in a hurry, hurry. You know they were in a hurry. Six trials in 12 hours. Now they put Him into the sepulchre. Now, how did he die on the cross in that short time period?? Now was he dead when they put him in or was he alive?? Also another important thing is, we need to remember what jesus said to a goup of jews regarding the Sign of Jonah, I am not sure how many people knows the details about it, I can give more details if any one interested. Well all what I am trying to say that Jesus was well alive when they put him in sepulchre, Why?? Because he prophesied it in the sign of Jonah. Three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. Just like Jonah. Jesus didn't die on the cross neither ressurected. He simply full fill the prophecy. Quick correction, he tried to full fill the prophecy. I will give more details later. Peace
WE all have our own personal beliefs on the debate of God. Then if you take the side of God there is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many more deabtes on what God says. To be honest I have my own religion but this isn't the thread to discuss it but I will say "any religion based on the Bible ignores the parts of the Bible they don't like and only accepts the part of the Bible they do like"
No 3 days are not enough. if looking at the christian beliefs, then we all should face the "wrath of god" for all enternity. what is 3 days compared to it?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! tht is one of the reasons I find christianity so unlifelike and cruel. barbaric (barbars were better) Tht thingie about sacrifacing for our "sins" (hell, I have no sins and nobody except me tells me what is wrong) is grasped from thin air. Human fantasyes and tales. Yeshua was a phylosopher, a brilliant phylosopher, ahead of his time and thus nobody understood him and made a god out of him......... !!!!!!!!!!!IDEA!!!!!!!!!!! I'll make Nietzsche a god. he was a phylosopher, he was ahead of his time, he said tht we all can become gods. He's a way better thn christianityPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
from where did you take tht humankind had to be saved. it lived good for some millions of years and then at the instant comes one guy and dies to save them all- be realPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (I think tht it was only later made up tht he died for "our sins") They are brainwashed indeedPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! but I didn't start to beleive in christianity, yes I was tried to brainwash (4 years in christian school), but in the process I studied bible only to find christianity "greatest hoax in history" as you perfectly stated. I think if a erson is brainwashed or not, is a matter of ones logical thinking and strenght of will
more.......... Little background on Sign of Jonah since it was prophesied and important to the topic of crucifixion. It was ordained. And all the stories about what happened afterward. Jesus Christ had given every one a clear cut indication of what was going to happen. And that's also preserved in black and white in the testimony of Gospel of St. Matthew, another of so called witnesses, chapter 12. verses 38. 39 and 40. The Jews come again to Jesus. with a new request. Now they say. "Master, we would have a sign of Thee." We want You to show a miracle to convince us that You are the Messiah we are waiting for. I think they were asking for something supernatural like not possible for humans, like flying in the air or something like that. Then we will be convinced that You are a man of God, the Messiah we are waiting for. So Jesus answers them. He says, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. But there shall be no sign given unto it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth." The only sign He was prepared to give them was the sign of Jonah. He has put all his eggs in one basket. He didn't say, "You know blind Bartimaeus, I healed him. You know that woman who had been bleeding for years. She touched Me and she was healed. You know, I fed five thousand people with a few pieces of fish and a few pieces of bread. Nothing of the kind. "This is the only sign I will give you, the sign of Jonah." what was that sign? We will see in following. The book of Jonah. It is only one page in the whole Bible. This is the book of Jonah. Four chapters only. Jonah was sent to the Ninevites. God Almighty told him, "Go to Nineveh," a city of 100,000 people. He was to warn them that they must repent in sackcloth and ashes; they must humble themselves before the Lord. Jonah was despondent because these materialistic people -worldly people - "They will not listen to me. They will make a mockery of what I have to tell them." So instead of going to Nineveh, he goes to Joppa. That's what this one-page book tells us. He went to Joppa and was taken aboard a ship - he was going to Tarshish. On the way, there's a storm. And according to the superstitions of these people, anyone who runs away from his master's command, who fails to do his duty, creates a turmoil at sea. So, they begin to question in the boat, who could be responsible for this storm. Jonah realizes that as a prophet of God, he is a soldier of God. And as a soldier of God, he has no right to do things presumptuously on his own. So he says, "Look, I am the guilty one. God Almighty is after my blood. He wants to kill me, so in the process He's sinking the boat, and you innocent people will die. It will be better for you if you take me and you throw me overboard. Because God is really after my blood." They say, "No, you are such a good man. Perhaps you want to commit suicide. We won't help you to do that. We have a system of our own of discovering right from wrong," and that is what they call casting lots. Like heads or tails. So, according to the system of casting lots, Jonah was found to be the guilty man. And so they took him, and they threw him overboard. Now I like to ask you a question to all champions of christianity. When they threw him overboard. was he dead or was he alive? Now, before you answer. I want you to bear in mind that Jonah had volunteered. He said, "Throw me." And when a man volunteers, you don't have to strangle him before throwing, you don't have to spear him before throwing, you don't have to break his arm or before throwing. The man had volunteered. So when they threw him overboard, what does your common sense say? Was he dead or was he alive? Please,help me out here. Was he dead or was he alive? "Alive". You get no prize for that - it was too simple a question. And - astonishingly the Jews say that he was alive, the Christians say he was alive and the Muslims say he was alive. How much nicer it would be if we would agree on every other thing. We all agree that he was alive when he was thrown into that sea. And the storm subsided. Perhaps it was a coincidence. A fish comes and gobbles him. Dead or alive? Was he dead or was he alive? Alive? RIGHT?. From the fish's belly, according to the book of Jonah, he cries to God for help. Do dead people pray? Dead people, do they pray? No! So he was alive. Three days and three nights the fish takes him around the ocean. Dead or alive? Alive. On the third day, walking on the seashore, dead or alive? Alive. What does Jesus say? He said, "For as Jonah was." Just like Jonah. "For as Jonah was, so shall the Son of Man be," referring to Himself. How was Jonah - dead or alive? Alive. How was Jesus for three days and three nights in the tomb according to the Christian belief? How was He? Dead or alive? "Dead". He was dead according to christian belief. In other words, He's unlike Jonah. What don't we understand here? He says, I shall be like Jonah and more then billion of christians telling us, that He was unlike Jonah. He said, I will be like Jonah, you say He was unlike Jonah. If I was a Jew, I would not accept Him as my Messiah. if I was a Jew, according to the sign that He has given, He failed. Jonah is alive - Jesus is dead. They are not alike. I don't know in what language you can make them alike - that they are like one another. Some religious scholars says that people don't understand bible. Muslims,Jews or any one who raises this issue don't understand Bible. Why don't they understand the Bible? They says, Jesus Christ is emphasizing the time factor." Note, He uses the word "three" four times. For Jonah was three days and three nights. so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights. He uses the word "three" four times. In other words, He's emphasizing the time factor - not whether He was dead or alive. Butt there is nothing miraculous in a time factor, Whether the man was dead for three minutes or three hours or three weeks, that's not a miracle. The miracle, if there is one at all, is that you expect a man to be dead and he's not dead. When Jonah was thrown into the sea, we expect him to die. He didn't die, so it's a miracle. A fish comes and gobbles him - he ought to die. He didn't die, so it's a miracle. Three days and three nights of suffocation and heat in the whale's belly, He ought to die: he didn't die. It's a miracle, it's a miracle because you expect a man to die and he didn't die. When you expect a man to die, and if he dies, what's so miraculous about that? shot him into the heart of a man and he dies, I don't see any miracle there?. But if he laughs at me and I keep shooting and he is still alive and wakling and talking like normal person, then yes it is a miracle ( well just assume that miracles do exists ). Can't we see? The miracle is when we expect a man to die and he doesn't die. When the man who is expected to die, dies, it's no miracle. We expect Jesus also to die. For what He had been through, if He died, there is no miracle. There's no sign. If He didn't die, it's a miracle - can't you see? So He says, But those scholars insists that "No. it's the time factor." But, did He fulfill that? they says, "Of course, He fulfilled that." but, how did He fulfill it? Look, it's very easy to make statements. HOW did He fulfill it? When was He crucified, when we ask? All Christians says on Good Friday. what makes Good Friday good? So the Christian says, "Christ died for our sins" So He was crucified on the Good Friday. when was He crucified - morning or afternoon? So the Christians says in the afternoon. How long was He on the cross? Some say three hours, some say six hours, different responses from different sect and people. By the time they put Him in, it's already evening. So Friday night He's supposed to be in the grave. Saturday day, He still is supposed to be in the grave. right? Saturday night, He still is supposed to be in the grave. But Sunday morning, the first day of the week, when Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb, the tomb was empty. Right? That's what witnesses say. The question now is, how many days and how many nights? Remember, we need to , supposed now, Because the Bible doesn't say actually when He came out. He could have come out Friday night. The Bible doesn't say how He cameout. So, Friday night, Saturday day, Saturday night. and now, how many days and how many nights? Please, if one can see, and tell how many? ! Two nights and a day. Look at this. Is it the same as He said, for as Jonah was three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights? Three and three. Look at this: two and one. Please explain me now it means the same thing. I really like to know what are we reading?. I want to know what we are reading in our own book! The man is telling us that what is going to happen will be like Jonah. And the sign of Jonah is a miracle. And the only miracle you can attribute to this man, Jonah, is that we expected him to die and he didn't die. Jesus - we expect Him also to die. If He died, it is not a sign. If He didn't die, it is a sign. Now I wonder who is lying? Jesus or Christians. He said he will be like JOnah and christans are saying NO he is unlike Jonah?. Here time factor is not the only thing, but beeing alive is also important. But christians beleive that Jesus was dead for that time period. : I wish I could post the book about jonah by dedat, However I did try to add as much as I can translate from Kapakiti and urdu. PeacePlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Avatar: You forget that the earth is only 6000 years old...... Cris: Yeah, what else is new? Of course not. You forget that athiests will agree with you on X-tianity's meaninglessness simply because, well, there isn't a God. (And suffering disproves the existance of the Christian God, but that's another story) Christians will ignore you because they don't want to lose thier sense of security, and in any case you are a bloody evil athiest and should be ignored (I believe Jan has a thread for that...) or burned. And the rest of the thiests don't believe in Christianity anyway.
