[Misc] Christians seem to be really good people

[Guinness Boy]

I don't know, but let's put it this way: I wouldn't rule out the possibility of there being some dogs in heaven. I don't see why not, if someone has a pet that they love, I'm sure God could organise something.

All of them? What about a pit bull that’s murdered a small child? Does God judge him? Is there a full eco system in heaven or is it just well loved pets?

 

[kuzushi]

Not true. You pick and choose what Ehrman says. He says there is no god.

We agree about everything else to do with the facts pertaining to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It's funny how people get upset if I miss their question. I've asked plenty of questions here and got no answer to many of them.


Such a person would be no more wrong than someone like you, who has been brought up in the secular west not to believe in God. At least Muslims know that God exists, even if the Quran says that Jesus was never crucified (Surah 4).



It's the same process as everyone goes through who ends up believing in Jesus. You start from one point, not believing, and then as you find out more and start to understand, you reach a point where you decide that it's actually true, and you repent and get baptised. It is the job of Christians to spread the message, but also there are many cases of Muslims seeing Jesus in dreams and renouncing Islam to follow him. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Dreams+and+Visions:+Is+Jesus+Awakening+the+Muslim+World?&crid=2LFBLNZ3ZT5TO&sprefix=dreams+and+visions+is+jesus+awakening+the+muslim+world+,aps,282&ref=nb_sb_noss


Do you mean how do I know that Christianity is true and Islam is false? One reason is the one I've just mentioned in this post, the fact that the Quran denies that Jesus was crucified, that's how I know Islam is false.



Many scientists put the age of the earth at 4.5 billion years old. This is based on geology and cosmology. I have no problem with this. I think scientists are sincere people who simply want to understand the truth about the world around us. There is the idea that the earth has to be much younger because of stuff in the Bible, but I'm not sure that the creation stories are supposed to be taken literally. St Augustine of Hippo said as much over a thousand years before Darwin. God doesn't require us to believe in Adam and Eve or the global flood to be saved. The only thing he requires us to believe in is the resurrection of Jesus, and that happens to be the part of the Bible that is easiest to find supporting evidence for. Bart Ehrman agrees that Jesus's disciples believed he had risen from the dead, but can't bring himself to believe in the resurrection, so he chooses to believe in a group hallucination. But St Paul couldn't have been part of a group hallucination.

It must be great 'believing' in a doctrine that doesn't require you to believe anything other than what suits you.

A mate of mine is orthodox Catholic. He is also a hospital physician and did some research with me. I got on to the topic of radio-isotopes, and the knowledge framework that shows that the isotope came into being millions of years ago. His reply was a masterpiece.

The Earth was created in 7 days, a few thousand years ago, buy God. He believes that.

But when he's operating in the material world he knows that the existence of many substances and processess shows the earth is far, far older.

He is quite happy to believe one thing and know something contradictory, and happily dismisses this all as a test of his faith.

I call it having your cake and eating it. As a cheerful believer, I see that you are comfortable to do the same.

You may be surprised to know I have no problem with this. Believing in the impossible is how human beings have overcome seemingly insurmountable problems. It happens often in football, for example.

However, as is my right, I don't have to engage with what seems to me to be self delusion and, in some cases, manipulation and abuse (the tools of religions). And it is also my right to declare that you are wrong about some critical bits - the existence of god being the most egregious error.

Not sure there is anything else to discuss.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Sure, but you can't prove that they are not forgeries.

Oh, please help for the love of Satan…
unless this is an elaborate scam, where you trick me in to posting photos on the WWW, then you are an idiot.

I am done, with this thread, it’s going nowhere slowly.
have a lovely sunday.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

All of them? What about a pit bull that’s murdered a small child? Does God judge him? Is there a full eco system in heaven or is it just well loved pets?

Here are some other questions that I'd like answered.

1. When you go to Heaven, do you go at the 'age' you die? If so Heaven will be mostly filled with old people. A but dull.
2. When you go to heaven, are all your ailments cured? If not, if you died by falling into a meat grinder, you'd have to live in Heaven as a human sausage.
3. So, assuming from the above, you are given a god-rebuild before emerging for the cameras, what version? For me, my peak was probably around 22, when I was like a dog with two cocks. But would that really be compatible with Heavenly decorum?
4. Also, if you died as a child, would you go to Heaven as a child, or would God fast-forward you a bit? If so, he'd either have to fill your head with false wisdom, or you'd be a child in an adult's body, which would be weird.
5. If you had been someone who put up with mountains of misery, stoically, in life, (the fate of 95% of humans throughout history) with the belief in an afterlife keeping you going, how would you feel when you arrived in Heaven? And what would prevent you now from 'letting rip' a bit?
6. In general, what would you do in Heaven? If you are a fairly simply sort who does a simply job, feeds the kids, watches a bit of Corrie, then gets an early night, would your aspirations be transformed with (presumably) limitless opportunity?
7. Or would we just be beams of light, contentedly drifting in mist, singing OM, and feeling really nice. For ever. ?
8. And what happened to all the humans who died before they had invented god and the afterlife? I bet they were a bit surprised when, seconds after a sabre toothed tiger bit their head off, they suddenly found themselves in eternal delight.
9. The alternative would have to be that you can only get in if you truly believe. If so I am bit surprised anyone thinks that dogs will be let in. I you let dogs in, then what about seagulls, and slugs, and ants, and bacteria, and the coronavirus? It's wrong to be life-ist, isn't it?

I guess that wondering about this, while knowing that whatever it turns out to be will be fantastic, is all part of keeping the faith.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Oh, unless this an elaborate scam, and you trick me in to post photos on the WWW then you are an idiot.

I am done, with this thread, it’s going nowhere slowly.
have a lovely sunday.

You have tested his faith, and he still has a beautificent smile on his face, so your work here is done, my son.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Here are some other questions that I'd like answered.

1. When you go to Heaven, do you go at the 'age' you die? If so Heaven will be mostly filled with old people. A but dull.
2. When you go to heaven, are all your ailments cured? If not, if you died by falling into a meat grinder, you'd have to live in Heaven as a human sausage.
3. So, assuming from the above, you are given a god-rebuild before emerging for the cameras, what version? For me, my peak was probably around 22, when I was like a dog with two cocks. But would that really be compatible with Heavenly decorum?
4. Also, if you died as a child, would you go to Heaven as a child, or would God fast-forward you a bit? If so, he'd either have to fill your head with false wisdom, or you'd be a child in an adult's body, which would be weird.
5. If you had been someone who put up with mountains of misery, stoically, in life, (the fate of 95% of humans throughout history) with the belief in an afterlife keeping you going, how would you feel when you arrived in Heaven? And what would prevent you now from 'letting rip' a bit?
6. In general, what would you do in Heaven? If you are a fairly simply sort who does a simply job, feeds the kids, watches a bit of Corrie, then gets an early night, would your aspirations be transformed with (presumably) limitless opportunity?
7. Or would we just be beams of light, contentedly drifting in mist, singing OM, and feeling really nice. For ever. ?
8. And what happened to all the humans who died before they had invented god and the afterlife? I bet they were a bit surprised when, seconds after a sabre toothed tiger bit their head off, they suddenly found themselves in eternal delight.
9. The alternative would have to be that you can only get in if you truly believe. If so I am bit surprised anyone thinks that dogs will be let in. I you let dogs in, then what about seagulls, and slugs, and ants, and bacteria, and the coronavirus? It's wrong to be life-ist, isn't it?

I guess that wondering about this, while knowing that whatever it turns out to be will be fantastic, is all part of keeping the faith.

I like the Bkackadder idea on this. Heaven is basically full of churchy types singing and going to mass while Hell is full of people doing lines of coke off a hooker’s breasts and listening to rock music.

 

[Hugo Rune]

I'm already convinced.
The evidence points to the resurrection.

A day back at school is obviously needed to understand the correct definition of ‘evidence’. The ‘evidence’ clearly points in the opposite direction. I recommend you join this class.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

This whole Shroud topic has led me to watching something about it on YouTube, and this video came up, and there was a point made 15 minutes in which is relevant to this post of yours. As you point out, the results depend on the temperature at which the cloth being tested has been kept at. Basically it appears that one thing is for certain, the shroud has to be considerably more than 700 years old according to the WAXS test. For it to be only 700 years old, it would have to have been kept in conditions of the highest temperatures on earth day and night 24/7 for all those 700 years.


There are quite a few other interesting things mentioned by Fr. Spitzer:

• The heights of the scourgers: apparently from the lacerations on the body, it is possible to ascertain that he was flogged by two men of different heights, one flogging him from one side and one from the other. That is quite a specific detail for a forger to have put into his work.
• The Sudarium of Oviedo has 120 points of congruence with the face of the image on the Shroud. Normally facial recognition software requires just 40 points of congruence for a positive ID. The known provenance of the Sudarium dates back to at least 616AD. It's been kept in Oviedo since 700AD, so if it is indeed the same person, the shroud must also date back that far.
• The image on the shroud is a snapshot of the moment of the resurrection
• The image on the cloth is a photographic negative image.
• It shows Jesus as he actually looked in 3D.
• It has x-ray properties.
• It's the most extraordinary image in the world.
• It's the most scientifically studied object in the world.
• Jesus's crucifixion was unusual in that there was the crown of thorns and spear in his side, and these are depicted in the image on the shroud.
• It's a photographic negative done before anyone knew about photographic negatives
• The 1988 radiocarbon dating test has been debunked by four different tests
• The 1988 test was supposed to be done on 7 different sample patches, but it was done on just one patch taken from one spot
• There was cotton in the sample patch and dye
• Mass spectrometry, sample not from the original cloth
• There is no image on the shroud under the blood. The image exists only on the areas where there is no blood.
• The ultraviolet light hypothesis would require 6 billion to 8 billion Watts of power for 2.5e-11 seconds (ie. a tiny amount of time) to account for the image on the shroud.
• There are 372 blood stains on the shroud.
• It is blood-type AB positive (universal recipient)
• He was whipped with a Roman flagrum
• The heights of the scourgers: apparently from the lacerations on the body, it is possible to ascertain that he was flogged by two men of different heights, one flogging him from one side and one from the other.
• There's evidence of blood and water, from the spear wound as described in the gospels
• Evidence of the man on the shroud having carried his own cross because shoulder dislocated
• Knee wounds visible from falling on knees, as described in the gospel

Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If the sample tested by carbon dating was a repair patch, then shouldn't other tests from the same portion also show it to be from the middle ages?

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I like the Bkackadder idea on this. Heaven is basically full of churchy types singing and going to mass while Hell is full of people doing lines of coke off a hooker’s breasts and listening to rock music.

Is purgatory full of people watching test cricket?

 

[Guinness Boy]

Is purgatory full of people watching test cricket?

FFS Sid, now I’m torn between hell and purgatory

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

FFS Sid, now I’m torn between hell and purgatory

Thinking about it, if "Hell is other people", as Sartre suggested, then heaven presumably involves being sat at a County Championship match in Derby in late April.

 

[BadFish]

You have tested his faith, and he still has a beautificent smile on his face, so your work here is done, my son.

I don't think his faith has been tested one bit.

Rock solid this one and he keeps ignoring the contrary and adding evidence to support his narrative.

 

[Questions]

My sister - a devout Christian- looks down her nose at religious people.

 

[Triggaaar]

I know, if you don’t agree don’t open the thread. But….

This is full of shit and you people need to stop. Keep it in your churches/mosques/shithouses.

We're having a fairly sensible discussion. People who are either atheist or religious and don't want to get involved can, as you say, leave it, but those who want to discuss it can. I don't see the problem. The 'full of shit' bits you refer to are being challenged.

 

[Triggaaar]

You disagree with people discussing faith and religion outside a place of worship?

I would argue in our modern western society it is easier than ever before for your children to avoid “brainwashing”. Schools are far more accommodating to individual wishes than ever before.

Religious Education these days is far from what I and I suspect you, were taught at school.

My kids go to a C of E school, and they respect all faiths and even atheists are allowed, but it really annoyed my daughter that as she was about to sit her GCSE exams a teacher would often say a prayer for them. Not what she wanted before trying to concentrate on her exams.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

Yes, it does. That's why Bart Ehrman agree about everything except the explanation. He chooses to believe that it was a group hallucination that made the disciples think that Jesus rose from the dead, whereas I believe it was the resurrection, which is a better explanation in my opinion because it also explains why Jesus's body disappeared while Ehrman's group hallucination explanation does not.

Group hallucination or some rising from the dead. Which is the most reasoned explanation? How about some having a medical episode and who wakes from it a couple of days later.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

Sure, but you can't prove that they are not forgeries.

Now that would be funny if not so sad. For birth certificate to be forged takes a great deal of effort and the assistance of a number of people. then you have parents, family etc.

 

[Triggaaar]

In general, nothing in life, even in science, can be proven

Ok, that's just a basic misunderstanding of science, language and facts.

but we can have evidence, and the Lord's supper aka Holy Communion is evidence pointing to the fact that Jesus knew that he was about to die, since he instituted the practice of breaking bread and wine the evening before his crucifixion, saying "this is my body, broken for you", and "this is my blood of the New Covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." The fact is that this goes right back to the start of Christianity. It was not added later, nor did it creep in over time. So it appears Jesus instituted it the evening before he was crucified, in which case he knew he was about to die.

When something suits your narative, you will cling to it as if it's fact. If he knew he was going to die, so what? And so what if he said 'hey, this bread is my body and this wine is my blood' - that means nothing. And where is the proof that the last supper happened as you say it did?

 

[Triggaaar]

I'm not saying it can be proven. Can you prove where you were born? No, you can't.

You're just being silly now, like someone's just explained to you what philiosophy means.