Thread: Christmas poll

Originally Posted by Seraphim

However, as is brought up over and over again, about how religion has been the cause of so many wars, killings, etc, etc. I do not think that the evidence backs that up as religion being the number one cause of conflict and death. But it does make a useful whipping boy in that regard.

Let's make it again. i do not believe Hitler, Stalin, Mao or bad guys as such, ever did what they did for the reasons that were directly based on religion. They had their own ideologies and moral standards and they tought they knew the One and Only Truth. Or even worse: they thought they knew.

If i were to tell something about cruelties directly linked in religion, i would mention: feeding Christians to Lions, Crusades, Colonisation of Africa, starting a Jihad, Inquisition, burning witches, etc etc. Religion might be not the direct reason, but it for sure does make a fine engine in giving people a justification for their actions. All these dudes believed, or worse: thought they knew they had a God/Gods on their side. (Luckily people nowadays are more civilised: they don't try to claim they know what God wants, or how it is?)

That is not my point either. This is my point:
In the questions of belief i have my opinions about people who keep telling they absolutely know what is the One and Only Truth. Get the point?
I have same feelings with the questions of politics, or any other -ism as well, but that is not the question here.
Some of the texts, in this thread, are good exaples for such arrogant thinking. At least so it looks to me.
I have a suspicious feelings about such texts, because, as i tried to point out, there's always a change for an unhappy conclusion (for those do not share their truth). Not in some Internet forum, but in the real life of course.
if someone says to me: If you do not believe that my daddy is stronger than your daddy, he'll burn you, then my honest answer is: bullshit, or who cares?
I hope i could point my toughts little better.

Originally Posted by Sailor

Let's make it again. i do not believe Hitler, Stalin, Mao or bad guys as such, ever did what they did for the reasons that were directly based on religion. They had their own ideologies and moral standards and they tought they knew the One and Only Truth. Or even worse: they thought they knew.

If i were to tell something about cruelties directly linked in religion, i would mention: feeding Christians to Lions, Crusades, Colonisation of Africa, starting a Jihad, Inquisition, burning witches, etc etc. Religion might be not the direct reason, but it for sure does make a fine engine in giving people a justification for their actions. All these dudes believed, or worse: thought they knew they had a God/Gods on their side. (Luckily people nowadays are more civilised: they don't try to claim they know what God wants, or how it is?)

That is not my point either. This is my point:
In the questions of belief i have my opinions about people who keep telling they absolutely know what is the One and Only Truth. Get the point?
I have same feelings with the questions of politics, or any other -ism as well, but that is not the question here.
Some of the texts, in this thread, are good exaples for such arrogant thinking. At least so it looks to me.
I have a suspicious feelings about such texts, because, as i tried to point out, there's always a change for an unhappy conclusion (for those do not share their truth). Not in some Internet forum, but in the real life of course.
if someone says to me: If you do not believe that my daddy is stronger than your daddy, he'll burn you, then my honest answer is: bullshit, or who cares?
I hope i could point my toughts little better.

So, for the sake of discussion, perhaps there is no Truth? One and Only, or otherwise.

There may not be any such thing as evil then either.

We are simply human beings, which are simply another animal life form, and as such, the rules of "survival of the fittest" are paramount, and so what does it matter if Stalin, or anyone else had thousands of people killed, as long as we were not one of them?

Without any universal Truth we are all on our own, just trying to make it from birth to death, while getting what we can while we are here.

Or is it reasonable to have a philosophical "meaning" for our being, as long as it isn't religious?

I voted yes only because I am sure there was someone with that name born back then (maybe not spelled that way, but still.)

I won't go into my beliefs in detail, so I'll just leave it at that

I am short of time today so I stopped reading on page 9 so please don't think that I am picking and choosing. I'm sure there are many other post that I could include.

Originally Posted by Deryan

(Nurtured) yes, I've been lead to believe there was, are we celebrating "his" birth on the right day? not sure.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

I do not believe that the date of December 25th was meant to be set as the day He actually was born, but rather chosen to be the day that His birth is to be celebrated.

Good points. As was earlier stated, livestock requires care 12 mos. of the year. It is possible that the Shepperd's were tending their flock in the dead of winter, but I recently saw a program hosted by one of the foremost scholars on Egyptology (I can't remember his name at the present, but if you have watched his shows on Egypt you will undoubtedly know that he always wears a long sleeved, light blue button down and kaky pants in every episode), anyway, he did a show specifically on the date of the birth of Christ. All of the evidence pointed to a birth date of April 7th. This is based on the location of stars and astrological data that would have converged on this date. The early Roman church chose a December date to make it more acceptable to pagans at the time and to take the place of those pagan festivals.

Originally Posted by Sailor

Just got home from the local pub with the lady of my life, so maybe i shouldn't write this at all, but here we go. I'll propably delete this later.

Some facts. The archives of Roman census have been stored in several places. Most of them have remained 100% intact and not single one of them state that there ever was a census in certain time and certain place. Was there a conspiracy to take away these records? Why?

The earlist remaining copies of the evidence (NT) have been written hundreds of years later. They were propably modified, banned, twisted, and some of them got totally banned, and those who did it were the early Christians. Why? And even if they were modified we have no way to know for sure. The earliest copies of Josephus are from the year 1000 AD or so.

Some of people here told that there is a scripts from non-Christian, Roman wittnesses about this man doing his miracle deeds. I (and the world) would like to know some more.

So here we have the facts as far as i know. I might be wrong, and it sure wouldn't be the first time.

I have no bad feelings about those who are Christians. The message of the NT is important and human. I just don't want to put my own belief on something that is just a rumour or second or third hand testemonies. In such case there would be lot of bullshit in this world to worship.

Latsly this is not so important. If i hear someone walking on a water, the it must be waterskiing or then it was winter when the lake was on ice.

There is a lot here to take issue with here as a Christian. Why would the census at the time of Christ's birth be relevant to the Romans other that to collect taxes. At the time of His birth, Jesus was not a significant individual in Rome. The fact that he was born would be just another body to be taxed and no more important to them than any other person alive at the time of the census. I don't remember the exact source, but there was in fact a call for a census.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

I don't like how the poll question deals with certainties. "Yes, definitely"? No one can be 100% sure as we were not there, nor do we have any har evidence. Then by the same logic you might ask how a person could respond "Definitely not"? Therefore I would say it is possible the MAN could have existed (even though there is no historical proof to back this up, as the bible doesn't count) at that time, albeit possibly a fraud artist or schizophrenic rather than a messiah.

Anyone of Faith is 100% sure that he definitely existed and still does today. One thing to contemplate: Only Christianity is called into question, no other world religion is put into doubt. What about Buddhism? What about Islam? What about Hinduism? No one questions these, only Christianity. Why? There are a couple of reasons. The most significant is that Satan wants to distract and divert those without Faith. The other religions are not Christ centered so they are already lost to him. Only Christianity saves souls from Satan. None of the others pose a threat to Satan. The Bible tells us that Satan's realm is the earth. Therefore, he wants to confuse as many as he can through whatever means he needs to. The second, IMHO, is that non-believing scientist think that man is the pinnacle of existence and there is no higher power to deal with. They also believe that man is continually evolving and to think that there is a higher being disrupts their belief in man's superiority. In the purest sense of the definition of religion proves that their faith in evolution is their religion.

Yes there should have been. Why do we find no corroborating evidence for it whatsoever anywhere in the region or in Rome?

... Your agenda to support your belief appears obvious to me. I'm not saying it is intentionally insidious, just that your personal bias is getting in your way of seeing this clearly. ... Outside this very argument there is no reason to consider that the gospels are based on any real person at all again because there is no corroborating evidence whatsoever.

It has been clearly stated here that there were no "historians" alive at the time of Christ. The Gospels corroborate each other. They are the only eyewitness accounts we have. Perhaps Josephus and Herodotus (SP?) didn't include what they believed an insignificant person, or perhaps they didn't include the miracles because they didn't see them first hand and didn't believe in them. True, there are discrepancies from one Gospel to the other. This is normal and natural as each is told from his individual perspective. The fact that they are so close in detail to each other is somewhat of a miracle in itself. I'm sure everyone has seen the demonstrations where a group of people are in a room and someone comes in and commits a petty crime (usually a theft of some kind) and each person is asked to describe the same event and seeing each person's "testimony" you begin to wonder if they all saw the same thing. This is why each gospel tells the same story a little differently. Also, as has been pointed out, these Gospels were put down on paper years, and in some cases decades, after the Crucification. This alone could account for discrepancies in the fine details.

Originally Posted by xman

Not if you're xtian. Actually, no testimony counts as hard evidence and the bible suffers from too many inconsistencies to be considered. That's just as it is.


PS Your bias is showing.

As was stated, so is yours.

The testimony of the believer is counts as hard evidence among those that have accepted Christ. The fact that it doesn't with you merely means that you chose not to believe them. Also, see above comments.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

So, for the sake of discussion, perhaps there is no Truth? One and Only, or otherwise.

There may not be any such thing as evil then either.

We are simply human beings, which are simply another animal life form, and as such, the rules of "survival of the fittest" are paramount, and so what does it matter if Stalin, or anyone else had thousands of people killed, as long as we were not one of them?

Without any universal Truth we are all on our own, just trying to make it from birth to death, while getting what we can while we are here.

Or is it reasonable to have a philosophical "meaning" for our being, as long as it isn't religious?

To me, or in my opinion, the answer is the same as with the original question.
I do not believe such thing as the Only Truth, or Evil.
Do i know if they exist: No i do not know, and i have no way to find out.

I do not also believe in 'the survival of the fittest', nor social Darwinism either. It is my opinion that we, as a thinking human beings, should try to help those who are not capable of helping themselves. Give hungry man a hook and line, like Chinese said.

What it comes to Uncle Joe Stalin, as well as all the dictators of this world, i think that maybe people should try to think more and worship less. Not to externalize too easily our thinking into someone else. Take response for our own actions and not get behind the back of someone else; be it religion, leader or ___ism.
Consider that people make mistakes. So do i as well.

While some religions state that the time we live here is only a fastline to the better place, i have no way to say is this a fact or not. I do not believe in it. I think that we should try to keep this place worth living for not only ourselves but the rest of the folks as well. Treat others like we like to be treated etc stuff. Respect opinions and beliefs of others even if it differs from the one we have.

Some people think they need to believe God to be capable of doing things we now think are 'good' or human. Some people think they have a permission from God of doing things we now think are 'bad' or inhuman. Or then it is the Devil that is talking there.
Some people think they that human is capable of doing both good and bad things by itself. It is up to him/herself to decide. Free will and so.

This is how i like to think (that doesn't happen too often ). Just my 2c no more.

Question????

So if Jesus is real????, then God is real???

And if God is real, then all religions that believe in a God, are real so that makes all religions truth??? RIGHT???

So the Muslims, are right, the Jews, are right, the Christians are right, the Pagans the Wiccans, the Hindu's the Buddhists???? all of these religions are truth right???

We can have prayer in schools/sports/government because all religions are truth and light correct???

Monday will be Christian day
Tuesday will be Muslim day
Wednesday will be Jewish day
Thursday will be Pagan Deity day
Friday can be Satanist day
Then we start with more on the following Monday with Buddhist day etc: etc: Right????

Equal time for all religions....

That sounds like fun

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Question????

So if Jesus is real????, then God is real???

And if God is real, then all religions that believe in a God, are real so that makes all religions truth??? RIGHT???

So the Muslims, are right, the Jews, are right, the Christians are right, the Pagans the Wiccans, the Hindu's the Buddhists???? all of these religions are truth right???

We can have prayer in schools/sports/government because all religions are truth and light correct???

Monday will be Christian day
Tuesday will be Muslim day
Wednesday will be Jewish day
Thursday will be Pagan Deity day
Friday can be Satanist day
Then we start with more on the following Monday with Buddhist day etc: etc: Right????

Equal time for all religions....

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Question????

So if Jesus is real????, then God is real???

And if God is real, then all religions that believe in a God, are real so that makes all religions truth??? RIGHT???

So the Muslims, are right, the Jews, are right, the Christians are right, the Pagans the Wiccans, the Hindu's the Buddhists???? all of these religions are truth right???

We can have prayer in schools/sports/government because all religions are truth and light correct???

Monday will be Christian day
Tuesday will be Muslim day
Wednesday will be Jewish day
Thursday will be Pagan Deity day
Friday can be Satanist day
Then we start with more on the following Monday with Buddhist day etc: etc: Right????

Equal time for all religions....

The flaw in your argument is in the highlighted part. If Jesus is real, and is really God incarnate then that renders all of the other religions false.

Your second sentence also points out a difference. Many believe in a god, not necessarily in the one, true God.

Originally Posted by ENUF2

You may not like his book but when you place it along side Simon Greenleaf, CS Lewis, Lee Strobel, Grant R Jefferies, St. Augustine and many many more it has weight, point and direction. Not to mention the countless lives who by following Christ have moved from the underside of humanity into productive lives. Works religions are about what "I" can do for my god, Christians understand our "best is filthy rags" to God and there is nothing we could do on our own without Christ to merit His favor. He Finished the sacrifice for us because of His love for us.

Christianity is also responsible for some of the most horrible crimes in history.
It doesn't necessarily take a belief in Jesus to turn your life around.

Originally Posted by ZMKA

Christianity is also responsible for some of the most horrible crimes in history.
It doesn't necessarily take a belief in Jesus to turn your life around.

Please cite the incidents you are refering to?