Is Christ Myth Theory Credible?

[Subduction Zone]

That does not mean that they communicated. The Bible does support that Peter and Paul communicated, why not Paul and John? Are you trying to say that John was not an important Christian at that time? Perhaps they disagreed with each other too much.

What?
Are you saying that because the Bible does record any communication between Paul and John they must have been unaware of each other?
Are you saying that John, a bishop in the area where Paul had established congregations may have been unaware of Paul's teachings?
It seems it is you who is unaware of the excellent communications through out the Roman Empire of the first century.

As a Christian you should try to avoid breaking the Ninth Commandment. You love to use strawman arguments, that is technically a breaking of that Commandment. I said that there did not appear to be any evidence that they were aware of each other. They may have been aware of each other and disagreed. They may have been aware of each other and agreed. There is simply no way to know without some sort of source so one cannot make a claim either way. You tried to unjustly claim that they had to know of each other and had to agree. That is an unjustified conclusions.

..................................
By the way, you never answered if you were aware of the books that were rejected from the Bible/ They showed that there was a huge range of belief of who and what Jesus was.
Yep fully aware of the pseudo apocrypha and the Gnostic writings. Have read most of it actually. The Gospel of Thomas, Mary, The Infancy gospel and all that CRAP.
i also know what criteria was used to sort them and i am fully in line with the method used. Apostolic Authority.

Why do you assume that it is all "CRAP"? And much of it you will never have read since it was lost or destroyed. "Apostolic Authority" were simply old men deciding which books of the Bible to include and which ones not to. Revelation was very close to being what you called CRAP. If that happened at best you would probably see only fragments of the most outrageous claims of the book and you would have laughed at them as well. Like it or not the existence of those writing refute your claim that there was only one story out there. That was why I brought them up. Just alike any other man made myth when it was born there would have been wildly varying tales. Early church fathers homogenized it by getting rid of the versions that they did not like.

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Just as you predicted would be the case if he were mythical
So now were back to Jesus being mythical. But no one lied when creating the myth they were rmisremembering a ptsd invoked vision. Yep airtight case there.
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Your innuendo of a fractured and waring christianity based on the disagreement between Peter and Paul is drawing a very long bow.

I am not saying that the whole story is mythical. Try to drop the all or nothing attitude. Since life is usually a series of grays at best and very very rarely black and white you make yourself apt to be wrong most of the time if you insist on your black and white fallacies. Much of the Jesus story was mythical. Tell me, did you see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? I watched a lot of it when it was on the background on a free TV channel (I would not pay for that) . It is an excellent example of myths. Lincoln was a real man. Almost everything in that movie was mythical. In fact many "historical movies" have quite a bit of myth in them to make the story more watchable. It does not mean that the people it was based upon never existed. And who knows how the myths started. There very well could be some that "lied" for a greater good. I have seen creationists do that all of the time. They can't all be idiots. Many of them think that their cause is just so they will repeatedly and obviously break the Ninth Commandment. When it comes to defending religious beliefs people will go to great lengths at times. They can often even fool themselves.

 

[Spartan]

There are enough contradictions about and from Jesus to make a sane person question.

Cite your best ONE (1 - Just ONE) example. Your BEST ONE. Then let's see if that bad boy has wings to fly.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Cite your best ONE (1 - Just ONE) example. Your BEST ONE. Then let's see if that bad boy has wings to fly.

I like where he says that anyone who calls someone else fool is bound for hell, then later he calls someone a fool.

 

[Spartan]

I like where he says that anyone who calls someone else fool is bound for hell, then later he calls someone a fool.

Fail. He said in Matthew 5 that anyone who calls someone a fool is in danger of Judgment. He doesn't say they are automatically going to Hell.

Second, the warning is for humans who have no divine awareness. Jesus is God incarnate so his judgment is true. Nice try.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Fail. He said in Matthew 5 that anyone who calls someone a fool is in danger of Judgment. He doesn't say they are automatically going to Hell.

Second, the warning is for humans who have no divine awareness. Jesus is God incarnate so his judgment is true. Nice try.

Always finding justification. Sad.

 

[Spartan]

Always finding justification. Sad.

You're always going down a dead end rabbit trail, seeking to legitimize an antichrist theology. Pathetic.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Fail. He said in Matthew 5 that anyone who calls someone a fool is in danger of Judgment. He doesn't say they are automatically going to Hell.

Second, the warning is for humans who have no divine awareness. Jesus is God incarnate so his judgment is true. Nice try.

So Jesus was not "fully man" as so many Christians seem to think. That is troublesome for his crucifixion. It makes the so called sacrifice a sham. If he was God then there was no so called "price" paid in the crucifixion. But that may be a good thing. That is poor theology at best.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You're always going down a dead end rabbit trail, seeking to legitimize an antichrist theology. Pathetic.

Pointing out the many and obvious errors in the Bible is not "antichirst". In fact treating the Bible as an idol breaks one of the Commandments.

 

[Sand Dancer]

You're always going down a dead end rabbit trail, seeking to legitimize an antichrist theology. Pathetic.

It's sillier seeking to legitimize a belief.

 

[Spartan]

It's sillier seeking to legitimize a belief.

The bogus belief is yours.

 

[Sand Dancer]

The bogus belief is yours.

Please prove your belief without using the Bible. Mine jives with science.

 

[Spartan]

Please prove your belief without using the Bible. Mine jives with science.

Show me the replicated scientific studies that prove God and the supernatural do not and cannot exist?

p.s. I have a science degree, do you? Plus I have formal theological training with two degrees. Do you? And you want to play the Einstein?

 

[Spartan]

Please prove your belief without using the Bible. Mine jives with science.

Is the following in your science books?

Scientific confirmation that prayer works!

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown, who earned her doctorate degree at Harvard University, is a professor of religious studies at Indiana University. She has a neutral outlook on religion, having said, “I do not assume the existence or nonexistence of a deity or other suprahuman forces.”

Brown cites two scientific, peer-reviewed studies that confirmed the efficacy of prayer on patients. She noted, “One of the first publicized studies was by Dr. Randolph Byrd, published in 1988, in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal. It was a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled study of four hundred subjects.” The results: “Patients in the prayer group had less congestive heart failure, fewer cardiac arrests, fewer episodes of pneumonia, were less often intubated and ventilated, and needed less diuretic and antibiotic therapy.” The editor of the Journal noted that the study had been peer-reviewed and was judged to be a properly designed and executed scientific investigation.

THEN, a decade or so later, a REPLICATION STUDY by Dr. William S. Harris and colleagues was published in the “Archives of Internal medicine.” Dr. Brown noted of this study, “This was a ‘gold standard’ study of the effects of intercessory prayer on almost a thousand consecutively admitted coronary patients. Half received prayer, the other half didn’t. And again, the group that received prayer had better outcomes than the control group. These studies affirmed that the recipients of prayer had better outcomes than those who didn’t receive prayer.” - "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel, pages 123-128

 

[lukethethird]

Is the following in your science books?

Scientific confirmation that prayer works!

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown, who earned her doctorate degree at Harvard University, is a professor of religious studies at Indiana University. She has a neutral outlook on religion, having said, “I do not assume the existence or nonexistence of a deity or other suprahuman forces.”

Brown cites two scientific, peer-reviewed studies that confirmed the efficacy of prayer on patients. She noted, “One of the first publicized studies was by Dr. Randolph Byrd, published in 1988, in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal. It was a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled study of four hundred subjects.” The results: “Patients in the prayer group had less congestive heart failure, fewer cardiac arrests, fewer episodes of pneumonia, were less often intubated and ventilated, and needed less diuretic and antibiotic therapy.” The editor of the Journal noted that the study had been peer-reviewed and was judged to be a properly designed and executed scientific investigation.

THEN, a decade or so later, a REPLICATION STUDY by Dr. William S. Harris and colleagues was published in the “Archives of Internal medicine.” Dr. Brown noted of this study, “This was a ‘gold standard’ study of the effects of intercessory prayer on almost a thousand consecutively admitted coronary patients. Half received prayer, the other half didn’t. And again, the group that received prayer had better outcomes than the control group. These studies affirmed that the recipients of prayer had better outcomes than those who didn’t receive prayer.” - "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel, pages 123-128

Theses studies have been done with conflicting results for years, it's a matter of choosing the study that one wants to believe, for some it's the same with choosing Christ myth theories or historical Jesus theories.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Is the following in your science books?

Scientific confirmation that prayer works!

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown, who earned her doctorate degree at Harvard University, is a professor of religious studies at Indiana University. She has a neutral outlook on religion, having said, “I do not assume the existence or nonexistence of a deity or other suprahuman forces.”

Brown cites two scientific, peer-reviewed studies that confirmed the efficacy of prayer on patients. She noted, “One of the first publicized studies was by Dr. Randolph Byrd, published in 1988, in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal. It was a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled study of four hundred subjects.” The results: “Patients in the prayer group had less congestive heart failure, fewer cardiac arrests, fewer episodes of pneumonia, were less often intubated and ventilated, and needed less diuretic and antibiotic therapy.” The editor of the Journal noted that the study had been peer-reviewed and was judged to be a properly designed and executed scientific investigation.

THEN, a decade or so later, a REPLICATION STUDY by Dr. William S. Harris and colleagues was published in the “Archives of Internal medicine.” Dr. Brown noted of this study, “This was a ‘gold standard’ study of the effects of intercessory prayer on almost a thousand consecutively admitted coronary patients. Half received prayer, the other half didn’t. And again, the group that received prayer had better outcomes than the control group. These studies affirmed that the recipients of prayer had better outcomes than those who didn’t receive prayer.” - "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel, pages 123-128

There are also studies that say that patients do worse when they know they are prayed for. They think their situation is worse because people are praying. Please don't insult my intelligence by pretending that prayer changes a deity's mind.

 

[Spartan]

Theses studies have been done with conflicting results for years, it's a matter of choosing the study that one wants to believe, for some it's the same with choosing Christ myth theories or historical Jesus theories.

Let me help you out with why a lot of those other studies are suspect.

One such study cited was on "distant intercessory prayer." Dr. Brown (mentioned previously) noted in her review of one such progressive study on patients with rheumatoid arthritis, published in the Southern Medical Journal" in 2000, that "They found no effects for distant intercessory prayer; however, they did find that patients experienced statistically significant improvement with direct-contact prayers, compared with patients who only received medical treatment." Jesus often laid hands on those he healed (i.e. Luke 4:40, etc.).

There are other factors in play. Healings by prayer are often clustered in certain geographical areas where there are movements of God (the Azuza Street Revival in Los Angeles is one such example), and more significantly in third world countries where the Gospel is making new inroads and where the Holy Spirit is moving with healings, etc., to reinforce Gospel teachings. You see that not only in the Gospels but also in the Book of Acts. Dr. Brown conducted studies in Mozambique where there had been many miracles reported, and in one study she conducted there, there were "significant visual improvements across the group." "In fact, Brown reported, "the average improvement in visual acuity was more than tenfold." - The Case for Miracles, pages 133-134.

Finally, it's important that the intercessory prayer group have anointed Christians who believe in the healing power of God, as opposed to other groups of individuals who do not have a particular unction for healing prayer. The two studies I cited had Christians in the intercessory prayer group. One major contrary study (The "Step" Study) had a "prayer group" that didn't believe in intercessory prayer. That group ("The Unity School of Christianity") was a cult and had a Christian sounding name but it was anything but Christian.

Ron Rhodes, who has a doctorate in systematic theology and who has authored some sixty theological books, noted, "The Unity School of Christianity is definitely not Christian." Probe, a respected Christian journal, calls Unity "a classic new age cult that is not Christian in any aspect of its doctrines or teachings." Even the co-founder of the cult, Charles Fillmore, once wrote, "God never performs miracles."

So, as Dr. Brown (see the OP) noted, the studies are different because (the STEP study) "has a different inclusion” criteria. She also stated, the STEP study "is instructional on how NOT to conduct a study of Christian prayer."

 

[Spartan]

There are also studies that say that patients do worse when they know they are prayed for. They think their situation is worse because people are praying. Please don't insult my intelligence by pretending that prayer changes a deity's mind.

Have you ever considered there are people who are sick from sin and God won't heal them up until they repent? Of course you've never considered it because of your lack of Biblical knowledge about how God works. And don't confuse what you think is intelligence with Godly knowledge and wisdom, because you're a full quart low on the latter.

"but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." - Luke 13:3

So please update your sophomoric theology.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Have you ever considered there are people who are sick from sin and God won't heal them up until they repent? Of course you've never considered it because of your lack of Biblical knowledge about how God works. And don't confuse what you think is intelligence with Godly knowledge and wisdom, because you're a full quart low on the latter.

"but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." - Luke 13:3

So please update your sophomoric theology.

That's nasty, and if your god is that nasty, I want nothing to do with it. My god is love, not hateful and jealous. Dude, I was a Christian for 28 years, 22 of it as a fundamentalist. Grow up, your religion makes people spiritually and emotionally immature.

 

[Spartan]

That's nasty, and if your god is that nasty, I want nothing to do with it. My god is love, not hateful and jealous. Dude, I was a Christian for 28 years, 22 of it as a fundamentalist. Grow up, your religion makes people spiritually and emotionally immature.

I seriously doubt you were ever born again. The Holy Spirit would have educated you to the point you wouldn't believe the nonsense you do now. In addition, I know by your poor understanding of Biblical Theology that you didn't spend any significant time learning the intricacies of how God operates. You obviously didn't know that failure to repent can cause significant problems in a person's life, and can even cancel or delay their healing. And to call Jesus' teachings "nasty" for calling people to repent so they might be saved is more in tune with how Satan thinks than what God desires. So wise up yourself because you haven't the first clue what you're talking about.

22 years as a fundamentalist? What denomination was that? How many people did you lead to Christ? My guess is you were a liberal all the way, and there's no question about how they screw up the Bible.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I seriously doubt you were ever born again. The Holy Spirit would have educated you to the point you wouldn't believe the nonsense you do now. In addition, I know by your poor understanding of Biblical Theology that you didn't spend any significant time learning the intricacies of how God operates. You obviously didn't know that failure to repent can cause significant problems in a person's life, and can even cancel or delay their healing. And to call Jesus' teachings "nasty" for calling people to repent so they might be saved is more in tune with how Satan thinks than what God desires. So wise up yourself because you haven't the first clue what you're talking about.

22 years as a fundamentalist? Sure (facepalm). How many people did you lead to Christ?

This is pure BS. Most "born agains" have a rather poor understanding of the Bible. There religious views do not allow them to understand their holy book.

Of course that is why Spartan put me on ignore. I continually demonstrated that I understood his book of myths better than he did. He could not use the Bible to defend his beliefs while I could show that the Bible disagreed with him quite often. When one drops the self inflicted blindfold of literal belief one can see the endless flaws in the Bible.