Did Jesus say he was God???

[AmbiguousGuy]

God speaks through me.

Yeah, God speaks through everyone.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

BTW what the bible describes is not necessarily a voluntary action. That rebellion and a preference for darkness is not even noticeable to those that have that inclination many times. A person born sick in many cases does not realize he is. Especially if like the bible says we are all born sick and the cure is invisible. I only realize how sick I was and how empty my heart was once I was well and it was full. Again this may or may not apply to you but is generally true.

I think our "hell" and our "heaven" is what we make it out to be. What I like on a personal level I feel has nothing to do with the good and evil we invent. I like a good horror flick with all the lights out...but I cherish the moments I have with my grand daughter watching a cartoon and we both getting a good laugh...or the time I spend in my community volunteering.

Anyway do not take of that personally. It was just a general observation.

Both. That's the way I view it. Personally it's what I think. On the flip side it is a general observation. The kid that goes to bed at night scared of something under the bed or in the closet, his imagination now has control over him. He believes there's something there when there isn't This is an irrational thought process. This is how I see it with believers in (pick a faith).....

 

[1robin]

Huh?

If we grant man the right to choose his destiny? Huh? Who?

The right to believe anything that isn't shown to be false? Yikes.

Your writings seem really, really seem confused to me, robin. Even incoherent. For one quick example, I've shown virtually all of your beliefs to be false, over and over again, and yet you seem to think that you have justification for believing them.

If I am growing incoherent the you ought to by in hog heaven. The less certainty the happier you are. Far easier to avoid inconvenient truths that way. Let me see if I can make this clear enough for you.

1. Does man have the right to chose his faith. I believe he does if my God exists and should even if he does not.
2. We have established man has the right to choose his own faith.
3. A right is not in it's self a justification. What justifies a faith?
4. A faith is officially justified if nothing known defeats it. "The absence of a defeater).
5. So far we have the right to hold any faith, we are only justified in holding it if no defeater exists. That is the burdens of faith.
6. I have no additional burdens but self apply some anyway. My burden is that my faith provide the best explanation for the evidence for it's claims and that it's claims are best fit compared to other explanations. I do not have this burden but adopt it anyway because I believe I can justify it and it makes for a more persuasive discussion.

Not to complicated, read slower, I can't type any slower.

Sure. But you're mistaken. My revelation is obviously superior to any other which has ever been claimed in the history of humanity. Mine actually makes sense, after all, in a way which none of the others can even touch. Certainly the Abrahamic faiths have no chance of keeping up with me in the matter of sensibility.

You cannot assert reality into being. You must do what has been done with the bible and other holy works accepted by millions for every person that has accepted yours. It must be scrutinized for years by theologians, textual critics, historians, and be vetted by significant personal experience. That is just a fraction of what you must provide to even have something worth personally evaluating. My guess is you do not even have anything that can be subject to these evaluations. True or not it is not persuasive at all.

Oh, my. That might have made me cry a little if I thought you had the slightest familiarity with my philosophy.

I dot need to know much about your philosophy to state what I did.

Well, not really. Even if you knew something about what I believe, you still couldn't make me cry by insulting it. Not at your current level of debate performance.

So you mean my debate performance has improved by the act of making you cry. Since that is not my goal and I simply do not care I will use far more established means to determine my competence.

See what I mean? You say such weird stuff which no rational person can follow. So even if you understood a little about my philosophy, you'd still have a heck of a time trying to express its weaknesses in a way which people could understand.

I don't mean to offend. I really don't. Just saying.

What you said here is simply wrong. You could have said I was mistaken and had the possibility of being right. Of course you mangled that all up and made a claim that is perfectly wrong. It is a universally accepted tactic to associate someone's views using terminology with another's views that have wide acceptance in order to gain acceptance by proxy. It is rational, it is logical, and it is an everyday occurrence. So not only are you wrong, you could not have possibly been right.

 

[Sand Dancer]

John's gospel, the last written, seems to have added many supernatural events that were not in the other gospels, especially Mark's, which was written first. Stuff was added through the years.

 

[1robin]

Yeah, God speaks through everyone.

So God spoke through Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the mute guy on the corner, and babies aborted before birth and even the ambiguous guy. Exactly what is he saying.

 

[1robin]

I think our "hell" and our "heaven" is what we make it out to be. What I like on a personal level I feel has nothing to do with the good and evil we invent. I like a good horror flick with all the lights out...but I cherish the moments I have with my grand daughter watching a cartoon and we both getting a good laugh...or the time I spend in my community volunteering.

This is a very common tactic in modern secularism. You take where morality, norms, good, evil, even truth its self are supposed to be tethered to (the objective reality of God) and pull them loose from that foundation. Now you have truth, morality, good, evil, and everything else simply floating around tethered to nothing. That means it can be reattached to any point of reference that is preferred. The only point that it should be tethered to is truth and that is the one place it will not ever be grounded again. To tether truth back to it's actual foundation results in inescapable personal accountability and that is just something a rebellious race of fallible people will not tolerate.

Heaven, hell, good, evil, morality, ...etc once uncoupled from truth will be (regardless of what flowery language is used) recoupled to and by preference and opinion, independent of truth.

Let me ask a favorite question of mine. If God does not exist prove killing every human on earth is actually wrong.

Both. That's the way I view it. Personally it's what I think. On the flip side it is a general observation. The kid that goes to bed at night scared of something under the bed or in the closet, his imagination now has control over him. He believes there's something there when there isn't This is an irrational thought process. This is how I see it with believers in (pick a faith).....

1. Religious texts are written by men who left the monster under the bed long in the past.
2. Even if they had not I have never seen a child write a religious text (some of them more sophisticated that any other type of book in existence) that actually said there were monsters and that they were destined to meet them if they did not repent.
3. A child would also not bother with 25000 historical corroborations, 2000 prophecies accurate in every detail, unknown scientific information, philosophic truths that changed the world, nor create a hero who dies without killing the monster.
4. That child's text would also not be considered reliable history by the greatest experts in legal testimony and evidence in human history.
5. The child would also not be willing to give his life for the story he knew he made up. The apostles did and their followers have ever since.

No offense meant but your child's nightmare theory seems to be a child's story it's self. Children rewrite reality to remove the unwanted or gain the desired, and they do this without subjecting their narrative to significant analysis. The same is true about your theory IMO. Wishful thinking does not include a Hell that the writers claimed they were doomed to unless they changed. Now if the Bible had a fluffy rabbit that flew us to candy mountain where we could eat the trees and drink streams made of chocolate while riding a talking pony, I might have to change my mind.

 

[idav]

Let me ask a favorite question of mine. If God does not exist prove killing every human on earth is actually wrong.

Yeah try telling humans that and you will have yourself a fight. Besides didnt god already kill everyone a few times? Seems that if god exists that god killing humans must be moral. Every form of life strives for survival and to cause intentional harm is considered evil, and thats proof without a morally superior deity.

 

[1robin]

John's gospel, the last written, seems to have added many supernatural events that were not in the other gospels, especially Mark's, which was written first. Stuff was added through the years.

Each Gospel had a distinct mission and an audience. That is the dream of any ancient document historian.

1. You want a common core in all document about a single issue.
2. You do not want completely independent accounts exclusive from one another.
3. You want unique aspects in each and even unique language use.
4. You do not want carbon copies. That produces the idea of one source and several copies.
5. You want stories told from unique perspectives. Like a game viewed from all angles.
6. The Gospels are exactly that. It is the same event but different aspects are stressed and even different purposes supply different meaning and implications.

Some were written as an ancient biography. One was written as a historical narrative. Johns was written to expand on Christ majesty and the divine and other worldly implication of these worldly events.

It is by far the best possible world here. As a comparison, a text I had to read as reliable history in college was Caesar's Gallic wars. Later I learned it was written by him for one purpose. He had no military experience in a time when all emperors had many military credits to their names. It was pure propaganda. I am sure it contained truth but very little of it can be relied upon. Not only that but we know of it from two extant sources. Both written almost a thousands years after the events.

The Bible records things that meant danger to their authors. They did not glorify themselves, but admitted the worst failure possible (this is the principle of embarrassment), there were at least four for the Gospels and over 40 for the whole narrative. We have fragments from with the first few decades and manuscripts from within a century. We have several thousand extant copies. Even better we have recently found documents that predate many others that proves accuracy for the bible of over 99% over about 2500 years. No other document of any type has the textual accuracy of the bible in ancient history, not even close.

 

[1robin]

Yeah try telling humans that and you will have yourself a fight. Besides didnt god already kill everyone a few times? Seems that if god exists that god killing humans must be moral. Every form of life strives for survival and to cause intentional harm is considered evil, and thats proof without a morally superior deity.

What would cause a fight exactly? I did not get it.

1. We cause intentional harm to any species of animal we eat. IOW we maximize our happiness at the expense of theirs. That is not morally justifiable without God. It is pure speciation no less morally unjustifiable than racism. Even racism can easily find justification if evolution is true. Evolution has never produce two equal things in history. Only with God can all men be equal. You simply redefined morality to be equal to what ever idav thinks it is. Which is exactly hat I said you would do. No mater what language you attempt to camouflage it in morality without God is arbitrary preference and is not true.

2. AS far as God's killing people goes. Divine command theory states that whatever a maximal being would do is right because he is the locus of all moral truth. You can reject him for his doing x but you could never show that he was actually wrong. Divine command theory is logical but too convenient so I will pick it up a bit.

3. To kill is not immoral even for us. To murder without sufficient more justification is wrong. First let me state the obvious we as a species are killing human life in the womb on an industrial scale that has no justification even in theory. We have had 300 years of peace in the past 5000. We have enough weapons pointed at each other to wipe out all life known, and the moral insanity to have almost done so at least twice. Are we really capable of rightly judging morality of any kind?

4. God created all life and owns all life. God has complete sovereignty over all life. God knows all the information in existence and can make perfectly informed decisions, even if his act required taking innocent life (like a child for example) he has the capacity and has promised to place that child in heaven for eternity. God has also rightly condemned us all as rebellious and ungodly, he could kill us all this second and remain perfectly just because it is his standard that is true and our that are self contradictory contrivances.

5. As for him actually killing. I will take the two most commonly used examples the Canaanites and the flood. BTW if you added up all those God is said to have killed it would not even add up to a few years of abortion and he punished wickedness where we are punishing the most innocent life there is for our own actions. That is like Attila the Hun calling mother Theresa and tyrant.

Canaanites- The Bible record God had been trying to get them to repent for years. They had flat refused. They walled up love children in foundation for luck and made them walk through fire for false God's. They raided their neighbors every year at harvest time until mass starvation was rampant, etc...... God said only after their CUP OF INQUITY WAS FULL did he give up and order Israel to destroy them. Now what we do know is archeology has confirmed the walling up children in walls and the raids at harvest time and that no total genocide ever took place. Many suggest God used a common language type called apocalyptic for effect. All did not mean all in all kinds of instances. Regardless they were not all killed. However to make things simpler you can assume they did kill them all and that is what God wanted because it will not make any difference.

The Flood - Many claim it was an analogy but we can go with literal for convenience. Now what was going on: The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

Now what is more deserving of judgment than that. IT even states he had spent a long time as with the Canaanites trying to turn these people back from their evil. I used to doubt entire culture could be wicked until I joined the military. There are large groups of people and many of them that every evil or every kind is the norm. Look at Germany in 1941, Japan in 1939, Stalin's USSR for decades, many radical Muslim groups, Rome at times, etc.... These are all very very corrupt societies top to bottom with a few exceptions here and there. Now imagine the same in a world without a UN, without treatise, without a US to put a stop to it and it is easily conceivable that the whole thing could have gone terribly wrong. Now God had to act or the whole purpose of creation was null and void. Speculating about what he could have done to far is pointless. I will cover the two most obvious choices and the ones most constint with him and revelation. He could have allowed this to go on unchecked. This would have produced a thousand generation of suffering, misery, slavery, violence, and every vagary of the human capacity for evil. Let me add a middle road, he could have forced people to do what he wanted. That would have violated freewill which was necessary for his purpose. Those two are out. Third he could have saved those that would listen and kill the rest. That he did. There were three classes of people here. A few that were faithful and were saved, I am sure even a few more were not that bad (like kids or some exceptions), these were wiped out but were allowed into heaven for eternity, even the kids that would have been corrupted by their evil parents were spared that and saved. The rest were all more than deserving of their judgment. They had chosen to rebel against God, truth, and goodness. They got exactly what they chose. The absence of all of them.

Now as shocking and tragic as this may be from a human perspective I see no injustice and much mercy it in.

People like the lamb of God but forget about him also being the lion of Judah. That is just how serious sin is.

In summary:
1. You lack any capacity (unless God given) to show that God is evil or that even evil exists.
2. Our track record is so abysmal and utterly bankrupt as to not justify our being a moral judge of anything.
3. We have only the tiniest fraction (if that) of the information necessary to rightly judge a flood or a Cannan and God has it all. We are unqualified except for personal judgments that are our right but still almost always wrong by necessity. Those that kill millions of lives in the womb on an industrial scale are not reliable moral judges but do have the right to make them.
4. You cannot show God had no morally justifiable reasons to act as he did.

 

[idav]

Right so god can do whatever and he is all good and just and correct even if he is causing intentional harm. Humans have empathy and compassion and can follow the golden rule yet humans are morally bankrupt? God sounds like a tyrant.

 

[Contemplative Cat]

This reasoning somehow allows Christians to deny the Gospels Mary, Philip, thomas
, the Gospel of truth (alt. Named the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I guess gospels are only right if Christians like what they say first.
Who needs revelation, along as they all agree?

Each Gospel had a distinct mission and an audience. That is the dream of any ancient document historian.

1. You want a common core in all document about a single issue.
2. You do not want completely independent accounts exclusive from one another.
3. You want unique aspects in each and even unique language use.
4. You do not want carbon copies. That produces the idea of one source and several copies.
5. You want stories told from unique perspectives. Like a game viewed from all angles.
6. The Gospels are exactly that. It is the same event but different aspects are stressed and even different purposes supply different meaning and implications.

Some were written as an ancient biography. One was written as a historical narrative. Johns was written to expand on Christ majesty and the divine and other worldly implication of these worldly events.

It is by far the best possible world here. As a comparison, a text I had to read as reliable history in college was Caesar's Gallic wars. Later I learned it was written by him for one purpose. He had no military experience in a time when all emperors had many military credits to their names. It was pure propaganda. I am sure it contained truth but very little of it can be relied upon. Not only that but we know of it from two extant sources. Both written almost a thousands years after the events.

The Bible records things that meant danger to their authors. They did not glorify themselves, but admitted the worst failure possible (this is the principle of embarrassment), there were at least four for the Gospels and over 40 for the whole narrative. We have fragments from with the first few decades and manuscripts from within a century. We have several thousand extant copies. Even better we have recently found documents that predate many others that proves accuracy for the bible of over 99% over about 2500 years. No other document of any type has the textual accuracy of the bible in ancient history, not even close.

 

[Contemplative Cat]

As well as the
vision of Isaiah, acts of john, acts of Thomas, they secret Gospels of mark, and john.
So many texts providing information on Christ.
They called themselves Christians. Or Catholic(universal)
Other terms were coined later on.

 

[Contemplative Cat]

As well as the
vision of Isaiah, acts of john, acts of Thomas, they secret Gospels of mark, and john.
So many texts providing information on Christ.
They called themselves Christians. Or Catholic(universal)
Other terms were coined later on.

how can "God inspired" be judged not good enough. Who has such authority.
You?, king james?, the Pope?
Who sir can people judge the word of any Gospel unless they were created by men and thus faulty. Otherwise it would be a sin to deny the lost gospels.

 

[1robin]

Right so god can do whatever and he is all good and just and correct even if he is causing intentional harm. Humans have empathy and compassion and can follow the golden rule yet humans are morally bankrupt? God sounds like a tyrant.

That is what divine command theory suggests must be the case. I do not like command theory, I avoided adopting it for years. I still do not like it. It however is so true I can no longer dismiss it. If God is a moral agent then whatever he did would be morally right because he is the standard. BY what standard could you use to show him wrong, Yours, mine, popular opinion, what?

Anyway that is a side not. I prefer to discuss it this way. God's moral seem to line up with the general moral core values human have on average.

Me, you, and almost anyone could sit around and agree:

1. To kill without justification is wrong.
2. To torture without justification is wrong.
3. To steal is wrong.
4. To condemn based on race is wrong.
5. We should treat others as we would desire.

We could all agree on these but only those with faith in God could found or justify them as being true. Those without faith can only either prefer them or guess they are true. This gets very very important when applied to societies. I have a firm fixed foundation for what is right and wring. You do not.

No mater what language you dress it up in it is opinion, preference, speciesm, or might makes right. With God is it right or wrong absolutely.

Led me head off the appeal to sympathy before it shows up. I am not saying an atheist is potentially any less moral than anyone with faith. I am saying he can be very moral but he cannot justify it or found it in truth. He cannot even apply his moral codes across societies without self contradiction his own methodology. He can be as right as anyone he just cannot defend or explain it with any certainty. He must guess, sometimes he may be right, but as with Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and others he also gets it dreadfully wrong and lacks any methods to determine which group is right.

 

[1robin]

This reasoning somehow allows Christians to deny the Gospels Mary, Philip, thomas
, the Gospel of truth (alt. Named the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I guess gospels are only right if Christians like what they say first.
Who needs revelation, along as they all agree?

Those Gospels are considered non-canonical for literary and historical reasons not by what they contain. What is in the bible had to be apostolic, in use by all early churches, and several other criteria. Not one of which was content. They are denied for practical reasons not reasons of undesirability. Which in my view is the correct methodology. Works were scrutinized for decades and centuries. Only the most reliable were included. I would want less more reliable revelation that more that included a lot of false claims of revelation.

BTW divine command theory was not even around during the canonical process.

 

[1robin]

As well as the
vision of Isaiah, acts of john, acts of Thomas, they secret Gospels of mark, and john.
So many texts providing information on Christ.
They called themselves Christians. Or Catholic(universal)
Other terms were coined later on.

I can write a book that includes Christ, Is that the criteria for what you should believe. Hitler wrote on Christ, dozens of first century people who never met Christ wrote on him, Stalin wrote on Christ. What does your criteria exclude?

 

[cindy_love]

God = Jesus = us

 

[dantech]

God = Jesus = us

Now there's an interesting equation...

 

[richard50]

Jesus was the son of God and not God the son. He was tempted in all points like we are yet he never gave in to temptations. He had a beginning at His birth( although he was always in the mind of God) and like all men he died.God can never die yet Jesus did.God though raised him from the dead because he never gave in to sin. God we know cannot be tempted yet Jesus was. He was one with the Father in terms of purpose and mind set. He said "Mt 19:17 , Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: Why did he say this? It was because he was born into a state of sin and death and he came under the curse of the law,"cursed is he that hangeth on a tree" God can't look upon sin and yet Jesus was surrounded by sinners.

 

[nsantori]

It is amazing that you claim proof from translations. Reading 4 different Bibles you can come to 4 different and disagreeing translations. How can you claim proof?