Its Good news .

[sayak83]

I don't really think that the Gospel says it, Christianity teaches it, but that is because they go back to Adam and Eve and believe in original sin. Jesus knew nothing of any original sin. That's the good news.

We can discuss this separately. Here I would like to focus on the view of Christians like the OP author for now for clarity.

 

[InChrist]

Interesting thought. If I were god, I imagine there are tons of things I would do differently, that would impact the reward and punishment system. I suppose before I did anything, I would make it 100% clear to every human on earth that I exist and I am the only real god to have ever existed. I'd stop hiding immediately. By being hidden, I look identical to every single god that humans have invented that are not real. Since I am real, I would make it absolutely clear so its never open for discussion. I would reveal myself directly to every human from the time they are born until the time they die. Then, since they know I exist, they can decide if they want to follow my rules or not.

Second, I wouldn't set up the rules to require human sacrifice as scapegoat system to offer people who are completely uninvolved in the happenings of the bronze aged middle east to be forgiven for the crimes of their ancestors that reportedly took place thousands of years before any of us were born.

Third, I'd remove suffering from children. I wouldn't allow a single innocent child to suffer from solvable issues like food and clean drinking water. I'm throwing this in only because it would be so easy to do and obviously should be done.

Thought I’d start with responding to the first three points.

1. I don’t think God is hiding. Creation testifies of the power and ability of the Creator. As stated in Romans 1:20 creation demonstrates there is a Creator so that no one had an excuse for denying God. The Bible is not just a textbook of rules, rather a historical narrative of God’s interactions with people throughout history. A couple things to note are that even when God did interact and made Himself directly known to people, they still disobeyed, rebelled, ignored, or chose to reject God’s wisdom and instructions and do their own foolish, selfish or harmful things. The other thing is that the scriptures reveal that God has to appear to human subtly because in His full Spiritual glory God is a consuming fire and physical human beings would be destroyed instantly looking directly at God. The Person of Jesus Christ was God stepping down to our level in the flesh to relate directly to humanity.

2. The gospel message or the death of Jesus is not about human sacrifice. Rather, it is God Himself paying for the sins of the world; something which no mere created human being could ever do. The scriptures are clear that God considers human sacrifice evil.

3. I can empathize with you about children suffering. It is truly a sad condition of this fallen world and something I think should cause us to desire God’s wats over ours. But the reality is that God created a human family and gave humans stewardship and dominion over this world, so we bear the responsibility and consequences of how we treat each other and children. Everyone is interconnected and God doesn’t just remove individuals or children out of the human family and experience here on earth, which has the purpose of allowing everyone to learn and have the opportunity to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, life and death.
Just some thoughts, maybe I’ll get to the rest later.

 

[InChrist]

Christians tell me that if an SS guard, responsible for killing thousands of Jews, on his death bed asks Jesus into his heart, he will go to heaven. Meanwhile, the thousands of innocent but unbelieving Jews he killed will all go to hell.

How is this good news? It is unjust and monstrous.

I don’t think it’s quite that simple and certainly not monstrous.

For one thing, an SS guard who killed thousands of Jews would certainly have to come to a place of utter repentance for and grief over their crimes before God, if they were truly asking Jesus into their heart and forgiveness for the evil they had committed.
Secondly, no one is innocent before God, Jews or anyone, because all have sinned and are separated from God by their sins. Only God knows where a person’s faith is with the spiritual understanding they have, so you can’t assume to know which Jews are or aren’t in hell.

 

[John1.12]

Christians tell me that if an SS guard, responsible for killing thousands of Jews, on his death bed asks Jesus into his heart, he will go to heaven. Meanwhile, the thousands of innocent but unbelieving Jews he killed will all go to hell.

How is this good news? It is unjust and monstrous.

If God exacted his Justice right now you wouldn't be here either .

 

[joelr]

The word “Gospel” means “good news”

Paul clearly defines the Gospel for us. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4

Vs. 3 Christ died for our sins

Vs. 4 And that he was buried

Vs. 4. He rose again the third day

According to the Scriptures.

They had believed it. Vs. 1

Received it and stand on it

There are many who try to change the Gospel

The gospels are all anonymous and do not claim to be eyewitnesses. Kata Evangelion mens "as told to me by".

Christian scholarship explains the names were added in the 2nd century.
Christian scholarship also now points out that Mark is the first gospel and the others were sourced from Mark. 98% of the original Greek in Mark is in Matthew verbatim.

The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
The conclusion now reached to the Synoptic Problem is that Mark is the source for the other gospels.

Mark itself is a highly fictive, mythic text full of parables and uses OT narratives (among others) line by line in places. He uses a Psalms narrative in the crucifixion story and several others. He also creates earthly versions of things in Paul's letters. Like Paul claiming Jesus came to him and spoke a message to future Christians about breaking bread and so forth and Mark transformed this into an actual event with people eating a supper.

So the idea that any of this isn't just religious fiction same as Islam, Hindu, Mormon and all other religious scripture is incredibly unlikely.
Preaching what you believe doesn't make it real. Neither does claiming you have faith. All religions have both. Do you have any evidence of what you believe is true? Because the evidence that it isn't true is vast.

 

[John1.12]

Christians tell me that if an SS guard, responsible for killing thousands of Jews, on his death bed asks Jesus into his heart, he will go to heaven. Meanwhile, the thousands of innocent but unbelieving Jews he killed will all go to hell.

How is this good news? It is unjust and monstrous.

9¶What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

10¶As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

15Their feet are swift to shed blood:

16Destruction and misery are in their ways:

17And the way of peace have they not known:

18There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19¶Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

 

[John1.12]

The gospels are all anonymous and do not claim to be eyewitnesses. Kata Evangelion mens "as told to me by".

Christian scholarship explains the names were added in the 2nd century.
Christian scholarship also now points out that Mark is the first gospel and the others were sourced from Mark. 98% of the original Greek in Mark is in Matthew verbatim.

The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
The conclusion now reached to the Synoptic Problem is that Mark is the source for the other gospels.

Mark itself is a highly fictive, mythic text full of parables and uses OT narratives (among others) line by line in places. He uses a Psalms narrative in the crucifixion story and several others. He also creates earthly versions of things in Paul's letters. Like Paul claiming Jesus came to him and spoke a message to future Christians about breaking bread and so forth and Mark transformed this into an actual event with people eating a supper.

So the idea that any of this isn't just religious fiction same as Islam, Hindu, Mormon and all other religious scripture is incredibly unlikely.
Preaching what you believe doesn't make it real. Neither does claiming you have faith. All religions have both. Do you have any evidence of what you believe is true? Because the evidence that it isn't true is vast.

I pretty much disagree with all you said there . Especially the way you said it . Especially your 'Christian scholars ' lol . I think everyone has read the same book, quoting verbatim lol.

 

[sayak83]

9¶What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

10¶As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

15Their feet are swift to shed blood:

16Destruction and misery are in their ways:

17And the way of peace have they not known:

18There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19¶Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

All of this is bad news. I think by this time it should be obvious that your OP contention has been shown to be false.

 

[joelr]

I pretty much disagree with all you said there . Especially the way you said it . Especially your 'Christian scholars ' lol . I think everyone has read the same book, quoting verbatim lol.

Except everything I said is standard knowledge in biblical scholarship. You can disagree with whatever you like. I will stick to the consensus of people who actually know the field.

"Percentage-wise, 97% of Mark’s Gospel is duplicated in Matthew; and 88% is found in Luke."

The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org

Just because you read the same book doesn't mean you can study it in the amount of depth needed to notice verbatim copying. You also need to read the Greek version, which biblical scholars do.
You also will not realize the myths were all taken from older cultures without studying religious mythology from the time period. YOu cannot show a book is true by reading and sourcing the book.
I can claim Lord of the Rings is true and my source is Lord of the Rings. All I am doing is hiding behind a made-up reality.



"Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the synoptic gospels because they share many stories (the technical term is pericopes), sometimes even identical wording; finding an explanation for their similarities, and also their differences, is known as the synoptic problem,[58] and most scholars believe that the best solution to the problem is that Mark was the first gospel to be written and served as the source for the other two["



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible

Mark, like all the gospels, is anonymous.
The majority of modern scholars believe it is unlikely that this gospel was written by an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus.[91] Internal evidence suggests that the author was an ethnic Jewish male scribe from a Hellenised city, possibly Antioch in Syria,[92] and that he used a variety of oral traditions and written sources about Jesus, most importantly Mark and the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Q source.[
It's also well known that the gospels all start out with the Greek words for "as told to be by". This is why the article says "anonymous"?

I asked for evidence and your response is to hide your head in the sand and belittle scholarship. Great. Clearly you do not care about what is actually true. I am saying the gospels are likley mythology. Your attitude towards scholars shows you know the evidence is weak.




Gospel - Wikipedia
Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.[

The majority view among critical scholars is that the authors of Matthew and Luke have based their narratives on Mark's gospel, editing him to suit their own ends, and the contradictions and discrepancies between these three and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable.[17] In addition, the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time,


The names were added in the 2nd century.


"All four were anonymous (the modern names were added in the 2nd century), almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses,"

 

[viole]

People go to hell because they refuse to believe the truth so as to be saved. ( according to the bible ) . Creation testifies of the creator.

Great. We are getting closer. I hope you don't do like Paul and sweep the problem under the rug by staying ridiculously vague (I actually think he hoped nobody would ask).

How do I know all these things if I lived and died in a place where Christianity and the Bible never appeared? Say Australia 1000 years ago.

Namely: how do I infer from "creation" that the creator has a Son who took the Passover weekend off for something called sin? Is that obvious by watching the butterflies, or some viruses, or the beautiful sky? Children cancer maybe? Rain, or famine? How do I know? I don't even know, without access to any Bible what sin is. How do I infer that I need salvation from something I cannot possibly know to be a problem, or to even exist? I don't even know that I have to look for a creator, to start with. Is that written in the fabric of spacetime, or inside the trees? Where is it?

Or is acceptance of a creator, no matter which one, say some tribal God looking like a winged elephant, a spiritual eternal turtle, or whatever creators might look like, good enough?

Ciao

- viole

 

[John1.12]

All of this is bad news. I think by this time it should be obvious that your OP contention has been shown to be false.

No . Again the bible says its good news . Your opinion is the opposite . I believe its good news for everone , because every has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God . Rom 3 . There is a choice not to go to hell . It would be bad news if we were just born ,had no way of eternal life , no way of reconciliation to God ,and we simply just went straight to hell.

 

[John1.12]

Except everything I said is standard knowledge in biblical scholarship. You can disagree with whatever you like. I will stick to the consensus of people who actually know the field.

"Percentage-wise, 97% of Mark’s Gospel is duplicated in Matthew; and 88% is found in Luke."

The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org

Just because you read the same book doesn't mean you can study it in the amount of depth needed to notice verbatim copying. You also need to read the Greek version, which biblical scholars do.
You also will not realize the myths were all taken from older cultures without studying religious mythology from the time period. YOu cannot show a book is true by reading and sourcing the book.
I can claim Lord of the Rings is true and my source is Lord of the Rings. All I am doing is hiding behind a made-up reality.



"Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the synoptic gospels because they share many stories (the technical term is pericopes), sometimes even identical wording; finding an explanation for their similarities, and also their differences, is known as the synoptic problem,[58] and most scholars believe that the best solution to the problem is that Mark was the first gospel to be written and served as the source for the other two["



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible

Mark, like all the gospels, is anonymous.
The majority of modern scholars believe it is unlikely that this gospel was written by an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus.[91] Internal evidence suggests that the author was an ethnic Jewish male scribe from a Hellenised city, possibly Antioch in Syria,[92] and that he used a variety of oral traditions and written sources about Jesus, most importantly Mark and the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Q source.[
It's also well known that the gospels all start out with the Greek words for "as told to be by". This is why the article says "anonymous"?

I asked for evidence and your response is to hide your head in the sand and belittle scholarship. Great. Clearly you do not care about what is actually true. I am saying the gospels are likley mythology. Your attitude towards scholars shows you know the evidence is weak.




Gospel - Wikipedia
Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.[

The majority view among critical scholars is that the authors of Matthew and Luke have based their narratives on Mark's gospel, editing him to suit their own ends, and the contradictions and discrepancies between these three and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable.[17] In addition, the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time,


The names were added in the 2nd century.


"All four were anonymous (the modern names were added in the 2nd century), almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses,"

We know who wrote the bible from the narratives .Adding the names , maps , paragraphs , numbers , leather binding, red letters , ect is Helpful .

 

[John1.12]

All of this is bad news. I think by this time it should be obvious that your OP contention has been shown to be false.

By very definition ' Gospel ' means good news . So your wrong. You have an opinion about it.

 

[John1.12]

Great. We are getting closer. I hope you don't do like Paul and sweep the problem under the rug by staying ridiculously vague (I actually think he hoped nobody would ask).

How do I know all these things if I lived and died in a place where Christianity and the Bible never appeared? Say Australia 1000 years ago.

Namely: how do I infer from "creation" that the creator has a Son who took the Passover weekend off for something called sin? Is that obvious by watching the butterflies, or some viruses, or the beautiful sky? Children cancer maybe? Rain, or famine? How do I know? I don't even know, without access to any Bible what sin is. How do I infer that I need salvation from something I cannot possibly know to be a problem, or to even exist? I don't even know that I have to look for a creator, to start with. Is that written in the fabric of spacetime, or inside the trees? Where is it?

Or is acceptance of a creator, no matter which one, say some tribal God looking like a winged elephant, a spiritual eternal turtle, or whatever creators might look like, good enough?

Ciao

- viole

Which one ? There's only one . If a person is seeking God and not winged elephants ,then he will be given more ' light ' . If a person is seeking spiritual turtles , 'enlightenment, transaction gods , themselves , hedonism , religion, then they will not find God in those things. Just confusion .

 

[IndigoChild5559]

If God exacted his Justice right now you wouldn't be here either .

Ah, the old "everyone is evil and deserves to burn in hell" argument. Sorry, but it doesn't wash.

 

[sayak83]

By very definition ' Gospel ' means good news . So your wrong. You have an opinion about it.

Just because the writers (or the compilers) say it is good news does not make it so. The reasons for it not being good news have also been clearly articulated. I also counted them out: 2 bad news and 1 conditional good news are presented in the gospel. You have failed to show why these reasons are incorrect. To still insist that the gospels are good news seems irrational on your part. But what you choose to believe is up to you of course.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Secondly, no one is innocent before God,

And this is exactly the thing which makes the belief set so monstrous. Its sets up a false dichotomy of perfect imperfect. Well, God is a loving father who is set on bringing up his children. His preference is teaching us. He tailors how he responds to where we are. Does he hate sin? Yes. But he loves his children. There is no sense of that love in this "You aren't perfect so I'm condemning you to eternal hell" kind of thing. No love at all.

 

[sayak83]

No . Again the bible says its good news . Your opinion is the opposite . I believe its good news for everone , because every has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God . Rom 3 . There is a choice not to go to hell . It would be bad news if we were just born ,had no way of eternal life , no way of reconciliation to God ,and we simply just went straight to hell.

As I said: The gospel has 2 bad news (we are sinners and that we deserve hell) and 1 conditional good news (that if we believe in Jesus we get saved from hell). To still say that the gospel has entirely or predominantly good news seems irrational when you too agree that these are the three basic points of the gospel.
I also showed what would be considered a true gospel: that God does not consider us sinners at all and everybody will be going to heaven (or be one with God). This alternative gospel will be entirely good news and hence a true gospel in the literal sense of the word.

Before you repeat that you disagree, you need to tell me which part of what I am saying you are disagreeing with. Are you saying that
a) the news that we are sinners is actually good news?
b) Are you saying that the news that we, in the default state are going to hell is a good news?
c) Are you saying that the statements a) and b) are not said in the gospel?
d) Are you saying my counting of the two bad news and one conditional good news is wrong? If so how?
e) Are you saying that the alternative gospel formulated is somehow a less of a good news than your Christian version? If so how?

If you have any other reasons to share, please do. Reasons.
I will be honest. From my point of view, I am suspecting that you are thinking somewhat like this.
"the book is called the gospel, so it must be good news. Hence I believe its good news. Because otherwise I will disbelieve God's word which I believe the gospel to be. I cannot disbelieve God's word as I will then go to hell as the gospel says. So I must believe the gospel is good news so that I can go to heaven."
I would like to be proven wrong in this conjecture. I will await your reply.

 

[viole]

Which one ? There's only one . If a person is seeking God and not winged elephants ,then he will be given more ' light ' . If a person is seeking spiritual turtles , 'enlightenment, transaction gods , themselves , hedonism , religion, then they will not find God in those things. Just confusion .

Ok, should they know then? How does it work?
How do people infer the Christian God just by observing "creation"?

Ciao

- viole

 

[metis]

Christians tell me that if an SS guard, responsible for killing thousands of Jews, on his death bed asks Jesus into his heart, he will go to heaven. Meanwhile, the thousands of innocent but unbelieving Jews he killed will all go to hell.

How is this good news? It is unjust and monstrous.

Some Christians will tell you that, but that doesn't include yours truly and the denomination I belong to, although the latter used to decades and centuries ago [pre-Vatican II].