Legitimate reasons not to believe in God

[Trailblazer]

URAVIP2ME is 'the majority of Christians'? Don't be silly!!

No, one Christian cannot be the "majority of Christians."
He is just an example of one Christian "within the majority" who cherry pick.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Satan is an OT agent of Yahweh

That doesn’t even sound reasonable. Do you know of anybody who hires someone to work against him?
That’s illogical.
Adam willfully disobeyed Jehovah, aka Yahweh. The Devil couldn’t do the same thing? Or could it be he has free will, as humans do?

In fact, Jesus indicated that, at one time, the Devil was *in* the truth; but he didn’t “stand fast” in it. John 8:44.

To say someone “didn’t stand fast in” something, means that before, they were in it.

Satan was an angel of Yahweh and agent of Yahweh

See above.

Is a child born a thief? Of course not! And I’m almost positive most thieves weren’t raised as such.
But they make themselves thieves/rapists/murderers
by the choices they make, due to free will.

So [God’s] too weak to control an agent he made evil

Again, see above.

Oh, He’s controlled & controlling Satan & his demons more than most realize!
Genesis 6:1-4, and the Scriptures that reference the account, namely Jude 1:6-7 & 2 Peter 2:4, reveal just how much!

They were / are still nymphos - “all whom they chose.”

If they had their way, we would be enslaved, just to produce women for them to defile which Genesis 6:1-4 outlines they did.

Such events were the source material for the common thread of gods having sex with women and producing offspring we read of in the many diverse, unrelated myths we’ve discovered from the post-Flood ancient world.

This world is being influenced by them today (Revelation 12:9)…but not to the extent they would like.

Didn’t I already give you the reason why Jehovah God has allowed these wicked conditions to exist? It’s related to the issues (sovereignty , etc.) raised in Eden, which Adam gave validity to by rebelling, and in other Bible books.

Now please debunk the fossil record for hominids rather than just saying its opinion?

It is….it is nothing but conjecture. They can’t extract DNA from fossils, you know that.

These were species of creatures that went extinct.

And artists’ conceptions of how they looked, are simply that: conceptions, ie, fanciful guesses.

 

[samtonga43]

No, one Christian cannot be the "majority of Christians."
He is just an example of one Christian "within the majority" who cherry pick.

You believe that the majority of Christians cherry-pick? Do you have evidence?

 

[joelr]

That is your perception..

No they actually are more recent claims? All supernatural claims have to be proven to be true. They are all equally unlikely. These are facts.
so demonstrate it's true if you can. I don't know why you even bother to respond with endless Captain Obvious answers?

..your opinion .. not the opinion of billions of Muslims.

Again, not an argument. I can state that millions of people believe Mormonism is true and billions of Christians think the Quran is a fake. Doesn't mean anything except a fallacy. Which you just did. It seems to be one word obvious answers that don't forward anything or a fallacy?

I do care .. but reach a different conclusion to "your scholars", because I don't think it is possible to make definitive conclusions about the existence of God from study of ancient history.

You don't know that because you haven't reviewed ANY of the information. It's a statement from ignorance. Scholars explain what the best evidence is. In that they are correct. But you don't even know that. You are so ingrained in a belief system you no longer care about what historical truths are out there.
You don't know if it's possible to make definite conclusions because you have no idea of the level of evidence being dealt with.
You are just talking to talk. No meaning here at all.

Original? How do you know it is "original" ?
It is "ancient", and likely revised many times over.

The Torah was transmitted to father and son and teacher to student. It was taken very serious in Israel. No different than Quran verses you claim were transmitted orally.
In fact there are a sect of Jews in Israel today who are supported by their women and all the men do is memorize the Torah. It's the same tradition continued to present day.

That's not true .. I interpret earlier scriptures in light of the Qur'an. The Qur'an is a major revelation .. Christianity and Islam are the world's most populous beliefs.

You just admitted it? What I said, you just said in another way. Same thing.
The Quran isn't anymore "major" than any other revelation. It's likely a myth. Go ahead provide evidence that it's actually a revelation. But first provide evidence for a theistic God?

 

[joelr]

Angels aren't part of G-d, they are created beings.
Muslims do not worship angels or satan etc..

That is the same thing? Brahman created everything including lesser divinities?

..for you, yes. That is because you have decided that they are all equally untrue.
Every claim is different, and needs to be investigated on its own merit.
If you wish to talk about the claim of 'John Doe' or anybody else, why don't you start a thread about it?.

I have studies both. They are both mythologies. If a thread about Mormonism comes up I will talk about it. It's easier to debunk the early part of the religion. If someone is going to believe a known con-man from the 1800s actually got revelations despite the clear inconsistencies with the story I don't think reason is going to work.
It generally doesn't anyways when people believe in a religious mythology.

False. I treat all claims as potential truth until I have reason to believe otherwise..

You do not. Are you investigating the Jesus in Australia? You haven't investigated any Hinduism and clearly haven't looked into any historical information or the Bahai religion.
You seem to assume on religion is true and your mind is closed to anything else.

You have already made this false analogy previously.
I do not see Christians as "wrong" .. they believe in G-d as I do.
The "details" differ .. that is about being human..

Yes believing in legends and myths as literal facts is something humans tend to do. Provide evidence of any God. It looks like complete fiction.

It is understandable that people would want to live forever in "a paradise", but not all denominations teach that a believer will automatically go to paradise.
In fact, it would be much easier to believe that everything finishes at death, as one would no longer need to concern themselves .. and could terminate their lives if they suffer continually..

No it's far easier to believe one has a soul and will not die and you have a special magic friend in the sky. Recognizing these are made up stories and the universe is random and probabilistic is not easy. But it's true.

I do care. I am fully aware of "scholars of ancient history" who say that there is no evidence to support early monotheistic belief or that Moses actually existed, or Noah's flood is impossible, and that YHWH was just one of many gods da da..
I just happen to think that ancient historians cannot prove it, and don't happen to think they are right.
..and even if I spent hours and hours dredging through their claims, it wouldn't change a thing .. you would still say that it is all false myth. .

And interestingly you cannot explain why, where, when or how they were wrong. You have never read them, cannot debunk them, don't actually know any evidence. Many historians were fundamentalist believers at first and changed after seeing the evidence and studying it for years.
Also they face the fact that there is no evidence supporting any claims of the supernatural.

Myth and legend in the Persian period

In 539 BCE the Jews came under Persian domination and consequently absorbed a good deal of Iranian folklore about spirits and demons, the eventual dissolution of the world in a fiery ordeal, and its subsequent renewal. This introduced new elements into Jewish popular mythology: hierarchies of angels; archangels such as Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel (modeled loosely upon the six Iranian spiritual entities, the amesha spentas); and the demonic figures of Satan, Belial, and Asmodeus (corresponding to the Iranian Angra Mainyu [Ahriman], Druj, and Aēshma Daeva). There was also a preoccupation with apocalyptic visions of heaven and hell and of the Last Days. Unfortunately, no Jewish texts of this genre from the Persian period are extant, so these new elements can be recognized only inferentially from their survival in later times—notably in products of the ensuing Hellenistic Age, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So you say .. anybody that believes in God has been fooled, according to you.
You can't remove faith from Muslims with a few so-called "facts" about ancient history .. maybe "the evidence" is incomplete, and more than likely is..

Actually there are hundreds of thousands of facts about ancient history. We don't know everything but we know the basics of their religious beliefs and what influenced Judaism.
I also cannot remove faith from Mormons and J Witnesses with some historical information. I don't care what people believe. I stand for rational thought. People are in charge of their own beliefs. If someone wants to believe a mythical piece of fiction is real go ahead. Why would I care? I am interested in what is true for my beliefs. So I look at the evidence without bias.

Orthodox Jews also believe in a life hereafter .. check it out, if you don't believe me..

Sigh. Heaven is a myth added to Christianity from the sources mentioned in the quote.
Judaism adopted the Persian myth about a final battle where God beats Satan and all followers get resurrected into an eternal body and live forever in paradise on earth.

Your argument is no different than the one about vitamin D.
Scientists have noticed that high vitamin D levels are associated with better health.
Some scientists assume that supplementing with vitamin D is always a good thing, whilst others conclude that it might not be a "causal relationship", and might not always be a case of "more is better". It could just be that a person has a healthy lifestyle ..gets out more etc..

First you have no argument. Just repeating claims.

Second this is a perfect analogy of your terrible deductive skills.
This "bro-science" assessment of doctors and vitamin D is hilarious and not at all representative of scholarship. You couldn't have demonstrated your ignorance of historical scholarship better, this is perfect.
No science says to always supplement with vitamin D. No science says anything in conclusion like you say.
First they recognize the 50% vitamin D deficiency in populations worldwide.
They recognize the sources, sun, foods, supplements.
They recognize why deficiencies occur - lack of sun, obesity, fat malabsorption syndromes, bariatric patients, patients with nephritic syndrome, Patients on a wide variety of medications, Patients with chronic granuloma-forming disorders, some lymphomas, and primary hyperparathyroidism , etc....
Then they look at groups at high risk, physiological actions, drug interactions, dosing, benefits, and more.

Then a test is needed to evaluate actual blood concentrations, - Serum circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH) D] level should be measured to evaluate vitamin D status in patients who are at risk for VDD. VDD is defined as a 25(OH) D below 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L).

Then get into treatment options and strategies.

Likewise the historical information is from many sources in the ancient Mediterranean culture. There is little doubt Judaism was syncretic and the cultures they took from were literally occupying them.
Meanwhile your idea has NO evidence and is a tap-dance you have to do to make the myth you believe in true.
Exactly what fundamentalists have to do with evolution, the big bang and so on.
Not interested. Provide evidence please.

The same with your conclusions about Hebrews "beginning to adopt" as opposed to being taught by "sons of God" .. which you deny exist, along with God.
It is based on assumption, and conclusions will differ depending on "who" you ask. It depends on more than "historical scholarship".

Yes all historians will agree.
The other option is invoking supernatural agents which have never had evidence. People in Judaism will say God told the Jewish religious leaders and Muslims will say prophets told them. No evidence for that. There are vast amounts of scriptural and historical information in those times. Pliny, and other historians knew of everything happening.

The irony here is massive. You accuse me of "assumption" when we have many lines of direct evidence meanwhile you are making ridiculous assumptions and conclusions based on NO DATA. Just another myth that forces you to have to disagree with historical knowledge.
I don't care. I am interested in what is true. Not fantasy.

If the Jewish people were taught by a prophet he would have been as famous as Muhammad. The conclusions do not differ depending on who you ask?
Religious people will make up apologetics and scholars will go by evidence.

 

[joelr]

That is your belief.

First saying ridiculous captain obvious statements like this over and over show you are done. You have no argument left (you haven't really had one) and are just wasting time.
But this is so wrong and your own theologians talk about this so now you don't even know Islamic history which is just absurd.
Al-Ma'mun was one of the most famous scholars who brought Greek knowledge to Islamic scripture and culture.

"
During the Middle Ages, there was frequently an exchange of works between Byzantine and Islamic science. The Byzantine Empire initially provided the medieval Islamic world with Ancient and early Medieval Greek texts on astronomy, mathematics and philosophy for translation into Arabic as the Byzantine Empire was the leading center of scientific scholarship in the region at the beginning of the Middle Ages. Later as the Caliphate and other medieval Islamic cultures became the leading centers of scientific knowledge, Byzantine scientists such as Gregory Choniades, who had visited the famous Maragheh observatory, translated books on Islamic astronomy, mathematics and science into Medieval Greek, including for example the works of Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, Ibn Yunus, Al-Khazini (who was of Byzantine Greek descent but raised in a Persian culture),[23] Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[24] and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (such as the Zij-i Ilkhani and other Zij treatises) among others.[25]

There were also some Byzantine scientists who used Arabic transliterations to describe certain scientific concepts instead of the equivalent Ancient Greek terms (such as the use of the Arabic talei instead of the Ancient Greek horoscopus). Byzantine science thus played an important role in not only transmitting ancient Greek knowledge to Western Europe and the Islamic world, but in also transmitting Arabic knowledge to Western Europe, such as the transmission of the Tusi-couple, which later appeared in the work of Nicolaus Copernicus.[1] Byzantine scientists also became acquainted with Sassanid and Indian astronomy through citations in some Arabic works.[23]"

Greek contributions to the Islamic world - Wikipedia

It is not a random statement.
If somebody decides that God exists [nevermind why, for a moment], then it is reasonable to assume that God is able to guide them towards truth, if that is what they sincerely want.

Your statement is incorrect. People ask God for truth and guidence and are led to Mormonism, JW, Hinduism, and led to believe the Quran is false. You are talking about instances where people are led to Islam. This demonstrates that people find whatever is closest of catches their eye.
Also people who leave religion still ask for guidance but never get it because they realize the only guidance is from our own mind.

Why would you ask somebody to prove it?
You either believe the scriptures, or you don't.
God knows best [ I believe in God ], why one person believes and another doesn't.
Of course, you assume that all claims about God are false, and that all believers are being fooled.
I most certainly feel fooled .. but not by my religion or God.

The demonstrate a God exists. If you cannot then how do you demonstrate it's not just a concept in your mind? Besides confirmation bias there is no evidence.

Nobody knows for sure .. all we have is imaginative idea, and belief in God [or not]

NAture is real. God is not. Demonstrate God if it's real.

I know .. you can't see it can you.
It's amazing what positive thinking can do, rather than "it's all a load of twaddle"

There is no evidence people are guided. Unless you admit some are guided into all other religions. All Christians believe the Quran is false. Yet all billions of them feel God guided them into it.
Clearly it's all cognitive bias. I was religious. I had positive thinking. I realized it was myself who was guiding me.
I now am positive it's all a fiction. People use this positive thinking and end up in all sorts of cults. Clear evidence that it's not real.

..testing God?
eg. I will only believe if you prove it to me

..rather silly really..

You act like God is some angry king figure in the sky. I have read the quran and that is the impression I also get. Scary and made up.

Prayer has been tested in many scientific studies, not real.

Efficacy of prayer - Wikipedia


The efficacy of prayer has been studied since at least 1872, generally through experiments to determine whether prayer or intercessory prayer has a measurable effect on the health of the person for whom prayer is offered. A study in 2006 indicates that intercessory prayer in cardiac bypass patients had no discernible effects.[1]

Waste? What are you on about?
There are millions of believers who are suffering severely .. whether it be because of war, famine, flood etc.
If we were all dead, and knew nothing about it, there is nothing to "waste" .. one would only consider it a "waste" if they were having a good time etc.
Millions of people do not have the opportunity to enjoy life .. they have a miserable existence.
..and it can be demonstrated that those people, despite their predicament, are more likely to be believers.
..but that is another topic, and complex in nature.

Yes waste, thinking you are going to live forever. Instead of realizing what you have now is all you have. So appreciate family and whatever moments you get, even if in war.
Yes many people have a miserable existence, this is a problem but not related to mythologies and religion.

People being believers in time of great stress is not representative of that being true? People stressed out and under fear of death are not making choices that are rational?

 

[joelr]

Most educated Muslims do .. I have already mentioned that Muslim doctors make up a large percentage of Medical Doctors in UK .. and many of them worship 5 times a day.

Right but the Drs who are historians are getting no respect. In fact you hand wave the consensus on several things with zero knowledge of their work. I'm not talking about Muslims and doctors.

Well, perhaps you can tell me of someone you know who has "seen God"..

I don't believe God is real and no one has seem him. However in the OT God is very detectable. He wrestles Jacob. Flys in a chariot. Has hundreds of physical appearances in the Hebrew OT. Jesus has magic powers as well. Angels make appearances. An angel embraced Muhammad.


Hmmm, you haven't mentioned that yet? You said it was nonsense that Muhammad embraced an angel. Yet his bio said he did.


You said angels are undetectable. Yet one was heard and touched by Muhammad in your belief system?

Yes "interactions" or manifestations that "the chosen messengers" experience.

It is difficult to prove that God is behind an unexplained event. Skeptics will assume that there is a "rational" explanation for practically anything.

Becuse there usually is? With stories they are usually made up. They never have good evidence.

Ridiculous .. crack everybody's heads open and look for God in our neurons???

If Yahweh is real he can appear in human form. Angels can be embraced. They can be heard. Yahweh has hundreds of physical appearances. Temples were built for him to live in in Israel.

Belief in God is a spiritual thing.

Skeptics and people who make jokes about religion cannot believe. It is the way we are wired. God is closer to us than our jugular vein, yet denial brings spiritual blindness.

I did believe. I realized I believed something not real. The Bible tells Yahweh can do anything including appear as a man and so can angels. Muhammad embraced one.

Call one down and have it embrace everyone who doesn't believe.

No, it isn't .. the NT is not claimed to be a direct revelation from God. It is claimed to be chosen texts by an ecumenical council, of anonymous authors, who are believed to be "inspired by God", but not prophets.

Yes it is. The Epistles are direct revelations from Jesus to Paul.

You tell me what has been changed by scribes and why.

..and how did they manage to do that without being detected, as it has been memorised in its entirety from very early on.

So has the Torah yet you say it's not trustworthy.

You are mistaken. Ask Jewish scholars what "son of God" means, and you will see. The idea of "son of God" translating into one of three of a trinity is not a Jewish idea.

The Quran is also not a Jewish idea. Neither are Jinns. Neither are the parts where it says Jews are mistaken and lie.



..a

nd yes .. Jesus was addressing a Jewish audience .. the conversion of gentiles came later.

face palm.

Most of the public ministry of Jesus was conducted in Jewish territory. Under the circumstances, the number of personal contacts with Gentiles recorded in the Gospels is surprising. He healed a Gadarene (Gentile) demoniac (Matthew 8:28-34). Another time, among 10 lepers healed, one was a Samaritan (a mixed race, half-Jew), and Jesus remarked upon the fact that only the foreigner returned to thank Him (Luke 17:12-19).


A Samaritan woman was the sole audience for one of Jesus’ greatest dialogues. She received the assurance that the time was near when God would be worshipped, not just in Jerusalem (where the Jews worshipped) or at Mt. Gerizim (where the Samaritans worshipped), but all over the world “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:5-42).


A Canaanite (Gentile) woman’s faith was rewarded when her daughter was healed. Much has been made of Jesus’ challenging remark at the beginning of the encounter: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24, ESV). He declined to heal her because His mission was first to the Jews. The woman understood and didn’t challenge this. Even so, she humbly submitted herself to Jesus, asking for His mercy. The significant point is that Jesus did minister to this Gentile woman and praised her faith in the presence of His disciples and the Jewish onlookers (Matthew 15:28). This incident echoed forward to Romans 15:8-9 that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.


“I tell you, many such foreigners shall come from the east and the west to join Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But many others who thought they were ‘sons of the kingdom’ (the chosen people of Israel) shall be shut out” (Matthew 8: 11-12, author’s paraphrase).

I know you don't.

provide evidence and I'll care.

 

[joelr]

Let me start here. God is something people believe in without proof. Nevertheless people believe in God. It is optional for you to believe it or not, but proof is not the reason to believe in God. It would be prize winning to come up with something, but in the end such a proof would not be proving God but some other thing.

Racial superiority, alien abductions, simulation theory, Brahaman, Vishnu, Zeus, Inana, and devil possessions and some things people also believe without proof.
Doesn't make them true. God is a fictional concept, people believe many fictional concepts. A theistic God has no proof and likely does not exist. To fail at prayer (many studies have been done), allow many religions, to allow religions to look exactly like syncretic creations, and to hide is sadistic.
Believing in something without proof is the quickest way to believe false things.

A random no-religion God is even more vague and more fictive.

Yahweh


The meaning of the name `Yahweh' has been interpreted as “He Who Makes That Which Has Been Made” or “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists”, though other interpretations have been offered by many scholars. In the late middle ages, `Yahweh' came to be changed to `Jehovah' by Christian monks, a name commonly in use today.

The character and power of Yahweh were codified following the Babylonian Captivity of the 6th century BCE and the Hebrew scriptures were canonized during the Second Temple Period (c. 515 BCE-70 CE) to include the concept of a messiah whom Yahweh would send to the Jewish people to lead and redeem them. Yahweh as the all-powerful creator, preserver, and redeemer of the universe was then later developed by the early Christians as their god who had sent his son Jesus as the promised messiah and Islam interpreted this same deity as Allah in their belief system.


Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El. Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that “the Most High, El, gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.

I do respect PhD's, however this doesn't require a PhD. Jesus is Israel in a story about a man who dies but is resurrected for his sinless life. This story is written in a time where it has a poignant message of courage for the Jews who have been overrun and destroyed by Rome.

Again, you are making this worse. You don't need a PhD? Would you say that with a heart surgeon or plane designer?
You read the original Hebrew or Greek for start. Then compare it to the source material. As I demonstrated the NT is a Hellenistic document and Jesus is written in that light. He is not a metaphor for Israel.

As David Litwa points out in his latest work, Jesus is a Greek deity:
"
The topic of this study is how early Christians imagined, constructed, and promoted Jesus as a deity in their literature from the first to the third centuries CE. My line of inquiry focuses on how Greco-Roman conceptions of divinity informed this construction. It is my contention that early Christians creatively applied to Jesus traits of divinity that were prevalent and commonly recognized in ancient Mediterranean culture. Historically speaking, I will refer to the Christian application of such traits to Jesus as the “deification” of Jesus Christ."

No PhD is necessary. Each gospel mentions fulfillment and how Jesus fulfills a prophecy about Israel. This happens more than twenty times, and each time it is a prophecy about Israel that Jesus fulfills. There is no need for a complex theory or extensive data collection or genius. Anyone can check this by finding in software the word 'fulfil' in the gospels and then checking to see what the fulfilled prophecies were about. It takes twenty minutes to a couple of hours.

Yes it's known Mark took the OT and had Jesus fulfill prophecies about a messianic deity
Concerning M. David Litwas work, it's generally known but he has added to the scholarship. Jesus is a savior deity who gets followers into the afterlife.


Stanley Stowers: “M. David Litwa’s Iesus Deus marks a major breakthrough in scholarship on early Christianity. The book manages to overcome the scholarly apologetic segregation of early Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ from Greek and Roman dominated Mediterranean culture and to demonstrate the fit of these beliefs in that Hellenistic context. A great deal of writing about the ‘purely Jewish’ Christ crumbles with this book.”

David Aune: “In Iesus Deus, M. David Litwa surveys six of the more significant ways in which early Christians from the first through the third centuries CE drew on common reservoir of ancient Mediterranean conceptions of deity as models for expressing the ultimate significance of Jesus, namely his divine origin and deity. These six themes include divine conception (focusing on Luke 1), punitive protection of honor (Jesus as the enfant terrible of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas), superhuman moral benefaction (Origen’s argumentation in the Contra Celsum), epiphanic or theophanic manifestation (the Gospel transfiguration narratives), corporeal immortalization (the Gospel resurrection accounts), and the reception of a proper divine name (Phil 2:9-11 in the light of Roman imperial practice). This is an extraordinarily well-written, nuanced, convincingly argued and methodologically sophisticated comparative study which breaks new ground in understanding a centrally important aspect of the formation of early Christology. The author rightly criticizes the continued tendency to bifurcate “Judaism” and “Hellenism,” and in his use of comparative method rejects superficial conceptions of “borrowing” by appealing to the shared existence of an “embedded Hellenization” that pervaded ancient Mediterranean cultures. The author makes use of an impressive array of primary and secondary sources over which he has enviable control. This book gets four stars and should be required reading for all serious students of early Christian thought.”



But, you can always write a paper and submit it for peer-review. You need to read the Greek however.

I respect PhD's and think they are important, and their research matters.

That is a sentence equating opposites. Immortality is not the goal of Jesus and his disciples. They borrow the Greek story format but repurpose it.

Hellenism is not the opposite of the NT?
whttps://www.worldhistory.org/article/94/the-hellenistic-world-the-world-of-alexander-the-g/

Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.



What Jesus is in this hard time for Israel is a messiah. The Jewish people expected a militant messiah. Mark used the Romulus founder of Rome narrative, also fiction, and transfigured it by making Jesus a peaceful messiah. He used Hillelite Judaism which is more peace loving and gave Israel an updated Moses and a dying/rising demigod who brings salvation. Just like all the previous savior deities.

By all means, reinterpret all the original Greek, show why the specific Greek words really mean a metaphor for Israel and submit it for review.
The English version cannot be used to something like that. Greek words are subtle and often have very specific versions of each word. So you will be going against decades of close study. And without training. Yet somehow you think you are correct? Absurd.

So go ahead, give me the reinterpreted Greek of Mark and explain where they mean Israel instead of salvation for followers.

 

[joelr]

That doesn’t even sound reasonable. Do you know of anybody who hires someone to work against him?
That’s illogical.
Adam willfully disobeyed Jehovah, aka Yahweh. The Devil couldn’t do the same thing? Or could it be he has free will, as humans do?

In fact, Jesus indicated that, at one time, the Devil was *in* the truth; but he didn’t “stand fast” in it. John 8:44.

To say someone “didn’t stand fast in” something, means that before, they were in it.

Not reasonable? It's in scripture? Why would someone hires someone to work against him? They wouldn't. Which is another obvious reason why the Bible is a myth. You are coming to a realization I see.

First Satan is literally the angel of YAhweh.
Yahweh sends this angel to deliver a plague. Later he does it again and calls him Satan.

The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22,[7] which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey:[6] "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him."[7] In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval.[16] 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story,[16] but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".[16]


Then in Kings Satan is sitting around with Yahweh as part of a heavenly host:

In 1 Kings 22:19–25, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven.[18] Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray.[18] A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets".[18]

LAter Satan is listed as one of the sons of God and asks permission to bother Job

Job 1:6–8 describes the "sons of God" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) presenting themselves before Yahweh.[20] Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been roaming around the earth.[20] Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?"[20] The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation.[21] Yahweh consents; the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh.

Satan and Yahweh work together in a trial

Zechariah 3:1–7 contains a description of a vision dated to the middle of February of 519 BC,[24] in which an angel shows Zechariah a scene of Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins,[25] on trial with Yahweh as the judge and the satan standing as the prosecutor.

And then during the 2nd temple period the Persian devil has an influence on the myths. This devil is at eternal war with the God and humanity

During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[26][8][27] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,


Your quotes from John are far later after the Persian influence.

Is a child born a thief? Of course not! And I’m almost positive most thieves weren’t raised as such.
But they make themselves thieves/rapists/murderers
by the choices they make, due to free will.

Well in this case Yahweh sent Satan to do terrible things. Delivering plagues that kill 70,000 over a census might drive anyone insane.

And Yahweh now is apparently too weak to control this new Satan who he used to work with???

Oh, He’s controlled & controlling Satan & his demons more than most realize!
Genesis 6:1-4, and the Scriptures that reference the account, namely Jude 1:6-7 & 2 Peter 2:4, reveal just how much!

They were / are still nymphos - “all whom they chose.”

If they had their way, we would be enslaved, just to produce women for them to defile which Genesis 6:1-4 outlines they did.

Such events were the source material for the common thread of gods having sex with women and producing offspring we read of in the many diverse, unrelated myths we’ve discovered from the post-Flood ancient world.

This world is being influenced by them today (Revelation 12:9)…but not to the extent they would like.

So you post scripture but when I post scripture you don't seem to agree. I guess you pick and choose. BTW Revelation was another Persian myth from at least 1600 BCE.
It was borrowed for the NT.

Revelations


but Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.

Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise. So the time of Separation is a renewal of the time of Creation, except that no return is prophesied to the original uniqueness of living things. Mountain and valley will give place once more to level plain; but whereas in the beginning there was one plant, one animal, one man, the rich variety and number that have since issued from these will remain forever. Similarly the many divinities who were brought into being by Ahura Mazda will continue to have their separate existences. There is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead. As a Pahlavi text puts it, after Frashegird 'Ohrmaid and the Amahraspands and all Yazads and men will be together. .. ; every place will resemble a garden in spring, in which

there are all kinds of trees and flowers ... and it will be entirely the creation of Ohrrnazd' (Pahl.Riv.Dd. XLVIII, 99, lOO, l07).

Mary Boyce PhD , book on Persian religion

 

[joelr]

Didn’t I already give you the reason why Jehovah God has allowed these wicked conditions to exist? It’s related to the issues (sovereignty , etc.) raised in Eden, which Adam gave validity to by rebelling, and in other Bible books.

Doesn't explain Satan. Also Eden is a Babylonian myth. Not real.

Relationship to the Bible[edit]

Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Hebrew Bible correlate with the Epic of Gilgamesh – notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative.

Garden of Eden[edit]

The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars.[64][65] In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity. However, a major difference between the two stories is that while Enkidu experiences regret regarding his seduction away from nature, this is only temporary: After being confronted by the god Shamash for being ungrateful, Enkidu recants and decides to give the woman who seduced him his final blessing before he dies. This is in contrast to Adam, whose fall from grace is largely portrayed purely as a punishment for disobeying God.

The Hebrew Bible also contains a few examples of fables (didactic tales in which animals or plants play human roles). Thus, the serpent in Eden talks to Eve, and Balaam’s *** not only speaks but also seeks to avoid an angel, unseen by Balaam, that is blocking the road, while trees compete for kingship in the celebrated parable of Jotham in Judges. Finally, in the Book of Job (38:31) there are allusions to star myths concerning the binding of Orion (called “the Fool”) and the “chaining” of the Pleiades.


Contemporary interpretations

The tendency to interpret biblical tales and legends as authentic historical records or as allegories or as the relics of solar, lunar, and astral myths is now a thing of the past. The modern folklorist is interested in the legends because they push back to remote antiquity several tales and motifs long known from later literature. For the theologian, however, they pose the deeper problem of distinguishing clearly between the permanent message of Scripture and the form in which it is conveyed.

Judaism - Myths

It is….it is nothing but conjecture. They can’t extract DNA from fossils, you know that.


These were species of creatures that went extinct.


And artists’ conceptions of how they looked, are simply that: conceptions, ie, fanciful guesses.

Oh wow, is that what the church is telling people? Wow the apologetics are just straight lies now.


First we have fossils.

But yes, we have all the hominid DNA. I have read many papers on it.


SORRY HUMAN UNIQUENESS, but we need to talk about our distinctively not-unique genome. According to a fresh dive into the human genetic fabric, we share some 98 percent of our genome with other ancient hominins.


THE DISCOVERY — As little as 1.5 percent of the modern human genome may be distinct from two other, more ancient, human species, according to a paper published earlier this year in the journal Science Advances.



https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abc0776


Archaic hominin admixture

We used our ARG to find regions of each phased human genome that derived from admixture with archaic hominins (see Supplementary Methods and fig. S24). If humans and the archaic hominins in our panel were in populations that had sorted their lineages, then this exercise would be simple with a complete and correct ARG. However, since human genome regions are often within a clade that includes hominin haplotypes due to ILS, finding admixed segments requires analysis beyond simply finding clades that unite some human and archaic hominin haplotypes.

We started by selecting clades from ARG trees that united some modern humans with archaic hominins to the exclusion of some other modern humans. We then assigned each human genome haplotype in each such clade as putative Neanderthal, Denisovan, or ambiguous ancestry, depending on whether the clade contained Neanderthal, Denisovan, or both types of haplotypes. We then performed several filtering steps to remove these clades likely to result from ILS. First, we removed any clades that included more than 10% of the Africa-MBK haplotypes from the most basal human lineages, which are unlikely to be admixed. We then discarded clades that persisted for a short distance along the chromosome (which likely represent older haplotypes broken down over time by recombination) or in which the TMRCA between modern humans and archaic hominins was high (see Supplementary Methods and fig. S24). This ascertainment strategy was designed to identify haplotype blocks that we could confidently identify as archaic-introgressed and therefore likely underestimated the true extent of admixture across the genome. Because our method relies on both the haplotype block length and the TMRCA between admixed and introgressor haplotypes to identify admixed segments, we were able to identify some haplotypes that resemble archaic admixture in modern humans but that have relatively high sequence divergence to published archaic genomes (manifesting as high TMRCAs between archaic and modern genomes within these segments).

Using the resulting maps, we calculated genome-wide percent admixture estimates across populations and compared them to f̂" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">ˆestimates based on the population-wide D statistic (18, 19) using basal Africa-MBK lineages as an outgroup. Since our alleles were polarized relative to the chimpanzee genome and only sites with derived alleles present in hominins were considered, our calculations were of the form D(Africa-MBK, Test, Introgressor, Chimpanzee) / D(Africa-MBK, Introgressor1, Introgressor2, Chimpanzee), where Introgressor1 and Introgressor2 were randomly chosen subsets of half of the introgressor (Neanderthal or Denisovan) haplotypes and the derived allele frequency in chimpanzee was set to 0 at all sites in our dataset. ARG-based estimates are similar to, but lower than, D statistic–based estimates in all non-African genomes, which we expected because of our aggressive filtering strategy for eliminating ILS (see Supplementary Methods). We detected slightly more admixture in sub-Saharan Africans (excluding Africa-MBK) than using the D statistic (Fig. 3A), even when considering the lower end of 95% confidence weighted block jackknife intervals (table S2). We note that a recent study that used an outgroup-free method to detect Neanderthal ancestry blocks in human genomes also found a higher average amount of Neanderthal ancestry in African genomes than has been previously reported (20). As another quality check, we compared our maps of Neanderthal ancestry to those published in prior studies (20–23). We found that maps produced by SARGE are about as concordant with

 

[muhammad_isa]

Adam willfully disobeyed Jehovah, aka Yahweh. The Devil couldn’t do the same thing? Or could it be he has free will, as humans do?

That is right .. satan has a free-will as we do.
..he became spiteful and envious of mankind.

 

[rational experiences]

A human.
A theist.

No science first.

What is science?

Urrmmmm it's my human belief that something first changed to become everything.

Oh. So once something was higher than all things to create everything from its body.

So all things are it?

Errrrrmmmm...no I don't believe so...otherwise all things would be exact the same.

The human.
The theist.
The scientist.

Are you employed for a reason?

Yes.

To find an answer an answer I'll never find. So I'm eternally employed then.

 

[muhammad_isa]

You don't know that because you haven't reviewed ANY of the information. It's a statement from ignorance..

No it isn't.
I'm using my intelligence that God gave me.
The further we go back in time, the more difficult it is to "know" whether certain events happened or not.
You saying that we can know conclusively that something didn't actually happen a few thousand years ago, does not impress me.

The Torah was transmitted to father and son and teacher to student. It was taken very serious in Israel. No different than Quran verses you claim were transmitted orally.
In fact there are a sect of Jews in Israel today who are supported by their women and all the men do is memorize the Torah. It's the same tradition continued to present day..

There is a difference..

This leaves the question of when these works were created. Scholars in the first half of the 20th century concluded that the Yahwist source was a product of the monarchic period, specifically at the court of Solomon, 10th century BC, and the Priestly work a product of the middle of the 5th century BC (with claims that the author was Ezra). However, more recent thinking is that the Yahwist source dates to from either just before or during the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC, and that the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.
Book of Genesis - Wikipedia

..but there is no such confusion with the Qur'an .. it is relatively recent.

The Quran isn't anymore "major" than any other revelatation.

Yes it is.
The Bible and Qur'an are the major books as regards to Abrahamic belief.
Billions of people believe them to be truthful accounts, but not necessarily inerrant.
They are not "major revelations" because they are considered "fact", but because they are regarded as such by the majority of the world's population.

Yes, Christians don't believe the Qur'an is authentic [or maybe know little about it, in many cases], but most would not consider it to be "minor" .. it is accepted by billions.

 

[muhammad_isa]

That is the same thing? Brahman created everything including lesser divinities?

Devas, the expansions of Brahman/God into various forms, each with a certain quality. In the Vedic religion, there were 33 devas, which later became exaggerated to 330 million devas.
Brahman - Wikipedia

You do not. Are you investigating the Jesus in Australia?

Perhaps you'd like to enlighten me..
I have briefly investigated FSM, and conclude it to be satire.

You haven't investigated any Hinduism..

I don't need to .. the above quote from wiki leads me to believe that it is in error, and I do not live in India, so why would I?
I have a more recent revelation that I find coherent.

No it's far easier to believe one has a soul and will not die and you have a special magic friend in the sky..

Oh, really?
Do you think that it is "comforting", the thought of going to hell?
I sincerely wish that I could die, and no longer suffer.
What a coward I am .. eh?

And interestingly you cannot explain why, where, when or how they were wrong..

I haven't got any "book" containing every event in history.
I'll leave these sorts of conclusions to you, who think that you can deduce something meaningful from ancient history about God.

You want to talk about ancient history, and persuade people that more recent history is garbage.

Actually there are hundreds of thousands of facts about ancient history. We don't know everything but we know the basics of their religious beliefs and what influenced Judaism..

Yes, you deduce what you deduce .. confirmation bias is part of the "equation" .. if you could absolutely prove that Judaism is based on false premise, the whole lot comes tumbling down.
..but you can't !!
If you could absolutely prove it, no intelligent person could be a Christian or Muslim.

First they recognize the 50% vitamin D deficiency in populations worldwide..

Yes, and that's my point. They don't know that .. it's based on a hypothesis. Who gets to decide what level of vitamin D is low?
Clearly, a person who develops rickets has a "serious" deficiency [calcium?], but that is not the level that argues 50% are deficient.
It would not be expected that people in a sunny country to have the same level as somebody in a cloudy country..

The jury is still out..

Serum circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH) D] level should be measured to evaluate vitamin D status in patients who are at risk for VDD. VDD is defined as a 25(OH) D below 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L).

Then get into treatment options and strategies..

A 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report set the sufficiency level at 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L), while in the same year The Endocrine Society defined sufficient serum levels at 30 ng/mL and others have set the level as high as 60 ng/mL. As of 2011 most reference labs used the 30 ng/mL standard.

Applying the IOM standard to NHANES data on serum levels, for the period from 1988 to 1994 22% of the US population was deficient, and 36% were deficient for the period between 2001 and 2004; applying the Endocrine Society standard, 55% of the US population was deficient between 1988 and 1994, and 77% were deficient for the period between 2001 and 2004.
Vitamin D deficiency - Wikipedia

It might be that less than 20ng is sufficient for many people .. how long is a piece of string?

Likewise the historical information is from many sources in the ancient Mediterranean culture..

..but the conclusions are not.

Pliny, and other historians knew of everything happening..

Are they your gods?

If the Jewish people were taught by a prophet he would have been as famous as Muhammad..

Once upon a time..

 

[muhammad_isa]

First saying ridiculous captain obvious statements like this over and over show you are done..

You say that "the Qur'an got it from the Greeks", implying that Muhammad was the author, and he wrote it through knowledge that he possessed.
That is your belief !

Al-Ma'mun was one of the most famous scholars who brought Greek knowledge to Islamic scripture and culture.

Scripture?
Did he have something to do with what is in the Qur'an as well?

Byzantine science thus played an important role in not only transmitting ancient Greek knowledge to Western Europe and the Islamic world, but in also transmitting Arabic knowledge to Western Europe, such as the transmission of the Tusi-couple, which later appeared in the work of Nicolaus Copernicus.[1] Byzantine scientists also became acquainted with Sassanid and Indian astronomy through citations in some Arabic works.[23]"

Nobody is claiming otherwise..

Your statement is incorrect. People ask God for truth and guidence and are led to Mormonism, JW, Hinduism, and led to believe the Quran is false. You are talking about instances where people are led to Islam..

I'm not, actually.
This life is a spiritual journey .. it has many phases.
Our beliefs in early adulthood might not be identical to when we die.

God is Wise .. He can inspire people to become a pious believer of any denomination.
However, we cannot deduce that God has actually guided any particular person to a particular belief.
Only God knows the sincerity and capabilities of a person, and their environment and relevance.

I do not assume that a non-Muslim is not being guided by God.
Similarly, I do not assume that all Muslims are guided by God.

Also people who leave religion still ask for guidance but never get it because they realize the only guidance is from our own mind..

That is contradictory. One cannot "ask" anything of something that does not exist.

The demonstrate a God exists. If you cannot then how do you demonstrate it's not just a concept in your mind?

One cannot prove the existence of God to another .. unless they are somebody special .. which I am certainly not.

NAture is real..

Indeed, nature is real .. part of the creation, if you believe in God.

People use this positive thinking and end up in all sorts of cults..

You are an intelligent person.
I wouldn't expect you to follow something without investigating it first.
Neither do I.

You act like God is some angry king figure in the sky. I have read the quran and that is the impression I also get. Scary and made up..

Yes .. I felt exactly the same when I first read it. Its descriptions of violence and hell caused me to reject it.
It took me a while before I got to understand it, and realise that we all live in different environments, with preconceived ideas.

A study in 2006 indicates that intercessory prayer in cardiac bypass patients had no discernible effects..

God is not just there to answer our supplications .. particularly of those that doubt.
I wish that I could practice what I preach, and have a more positive outlook on life.
Have hope [faith] that "everything will be alright".

..appreciate family and whatever moments you get, even if in war.

Islam does not teach otherwise.

God tells us to be thankful, and He will give you more.
..but those that are suffering are often plagued by negative thoughts .. complaining of ailments and difficulties .. human weakness.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Right but the Drs who are historians are getting no respect..

I'm more of a scientist and mathematician than an historian.
I have always observed that history of an event can dramatically change, depending on which party is narrating it.

As I've got older, I am more interested in history, but in regards to "evidence", I do not rate it .. particularly ancient history.
How can that be deemed conclusive? Not for me, and my 'scientific' mind.

However in the OT God is very detectable..

You'll have to ask the Jews about that .. it's their book.
I believe it is based on truth, but is unreliable .. its age..

Do Jews believe that God takes physical forms?
I didn't think so .. God cannot be a man? [Jesus]

Hmmm, you haven't mentioned that yet? You said it was nonsense that Muhammad embraced an angel. Yet his bio said he did.

I do not know details, but I believe that Muhammad had interaction with Angel Gabriel, yes.

You said angels are undetectable..

I've never seen one .. but I have felt their presence.
I do not say that other people have not seen them.
I believe in the Nativity narrative, for example.

If Yahweh is real he can appear in human form..

..but what does that mean?
It almost sounds like sci-fi, in which a phenomena that we can't precisely define, that is responsible for creating all we see, becomes one of His creatures.
I do not believe in "a god" like that. "made in God's own image" I understand in a spiritual sense, in that we recognise our soul's attributes to be similar to God but impure..
Love, Mercy, Wise, Fair etc.

I did believe. I realized I believed something not real. The Bible tells Yahweh can do anything including appear as a man..

..back to that again.
Some people suggest that if God appeared in the sky with a loud-hailer telling everybody to believe Him, everybody would.
That is not what I believe.
I see that many people believe without all of that nonsense.
We all believe what seems good to us.

If God exists, and you find that life after death is true, then God knows better than you why you do not believe. He is aware of each and every one of our innermost thoughts.

I do not know about others .. I just know that I believe, and cannot imagine a universe without cosmic significance .. it is the way my brain is wired.

Yes it is. The Epistles are direct revelations from Jesus to Paul.

Well, that is interesting .. can you show me in 'wiki', where Paul is claimed to be a prophet?

Most scholars believe that Paul actually wrote seven of the Pauline epistles (Galatians, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians)
Pauline epistles - Wikipedia

and you are saying that they weren't written by Paul but they are a revelation from Jesus "word-for-word" ??

So has the Torah yet you say it's not trustworthy.

.."too much water under the bridge" .. John the Baptist .. Jesus
[ peace be with them ] .. less likely to be accurate due to age of text .. already quoted wiki about that.

A Samaritan woman was the sole audience for one of Jesus’ greatest dialogues. She received the assurance that the time was near when God would be worshipped, not just in Jerusalem (where the Jews worshipped) or at Mt. Gerizim (where the Samaritans worshipped), but all over the world “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:5-42).

Yes, yes .. but who was Jesus conversing with in the verse that quotes "Nobody comes to the Father except through me"?

“I tell you, many such foreigners shall come from the east and the west to join Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But many others who thought they were ‘sons of the kingdom’ (the chosen people of Israel) shall be shut out” (Matthew 8: 11-12, author’s paraphrase).

Well, there you go..

 

[Trailblazer]

You believe that the majority of Christians cherry-pick?

Yes.

Do you have evidence?

I gave you evidence of one Christian.
I cannot give you evidence of "the majority of Christians" since that would not fit in a post.

 

[Brickjectivity]

God is a fictional concept

Philosophical. The difference is that fiction is something you don't believe. Assumptions are beliefs. Theology begins with the assumption of God and then uses reason to try to determine what God's properties must be, so it is philosophical not fictional. I think of fiction as something made to entertain and educate. Philosophy is an attempt to use reason and axioms to come to conclusions.

The meaning of the name `Yahweh' has been interpreted as “He Who Makes That Which Has Been Made” or “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists”, though other interpretations have been offered by many scholars. In the late middle ages, `Yahweh' came to be changed to...

I don't worry about the sound of a word. I realize that mysticism is very important in the modern world, and many people place special emphasis upon letters, sounds and phrases. I don't think it is central to a conversation about God, except that it shows God doesn't seem to correct anyone about it or give aid to the one trying put God under a camera. One says 'Jehovah' and another does not, and God doesn't try to correct either one. There are no lightning strikes over it.

You read the original Hebrew or Greek for start. Then compare it to the source material. As I demonstrated the NT is a Hellenistic document and Jesus is written in that light. He is not a metaphor for Israel.

My challenge to you is to be familiar with all of the Tanach and understand the laws, the concerns of the prophets and the contexts of the stories. Translation is a weakness, but its nowhere near as bad as ignorance of these other things. Hellenists have brains, can understand metaphors and symbols and tongue in cheek statements, jokes, parodies and all kinds of writing devices. They go to theater, read things. They are also trained in memorization.

As David Litwa points out in his latest work, Jesus is a Greek deity:

A scholar must be willing to read the works and proposals of other scholars, too; including ones they disagree with. That is how scholarship proceeds. Since he is a scholar it is likely David Litwa proposes a model in which Jesus is a Greek deity. I'd be surprised if he were to simply point out something or declare all objections to be wrong.

But, you can always write a paper and submit it for peer-review. You need to read the Greek however.

I wouldn't presume to write a paper without having read up enough to matter; but anybody can look in scripture software for the word fulfill and check to see that its plainly always about Israel. For this I rely heavily upon those who have provided translations. They did this so that I could make such comparisons.

Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE)...

Many people would like for that to be so, however gospel narratives show an awareness of Titus destruction of the temple which only happens as late as 70CE. Are you trying to tell me that the NT predicted this would happen before 70CE? No, of course you aren't. Therefore your dates seem ludicrous. These gospels are either supernaturally written, or they are written after 70CE. Now this ought to change the perspective for you, because we are talking about something written after the recent destruction of the temple, after 30,000 crucifixions have lined the streets of Jerusalem and a people's peaceful prerogatives have been punished with torture. These gospels are written in a time of pain and resolution to commit to peace. They are amazing because of that commitment. But you think its just hellenistic thought? I can't be persuaded.

 

[samtonga43]

Yes.

I gave you evidence of one Christian.
I cannot give you evidence of "the majority of Christians" since that would not fit in a post.

So you do have evidence that the majority of Christians cherry-pick. From where did this evidence come?

 

[muhammad_isa]

So you do have evidence that the majority of Christians cherry-pick. From where did this evidence come?

The Bible canon itself .