Was Jesus the god that Christians say he said he was?

[AronRa]

Here lately it seems people feel perfectly safe in calling me a liar anytime they don't want to believe that I might be right. I was raised by folks who considered them fightin' words, best not said unless you knew for sure you could prove your allegations. But I get called out and otherwise insulted with childish names anytime some impudent kid doesn't understand what I (or their own sources) actually said. For example, a couple nights ago, ThePuppyTurtle sent me a Skype message:

Matthew 15:9 Jesus claimed to be God
Nope. There Jesus says that the people who worship him do so in vain, and a moment later he gives the credit of creation to his father again.
Compare that to what Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita:
Understand just as the mighty wind blowing everywhere is always situated within space, similarly all created beings are situated in Me. O Arjuna, all created beings enter into My nature at the end of a four billion, 320 million year cycle; and after another four billion, 320 million year cycle, I regenerate them all again. Presiding over My external potency the material energy, I generate again and again all these innumerable living entities; in accordance to the implications of their material natures.
Fools deride Me in My divine human form, unable to comprehend My supreme nature as the Ultimate Controller of all living entities. These bewildered fools of futile desires, futile endeavours, futile knowledge and futile understanding certainly assume the nature of the atheistic and demoniac. But the great souls having taken refuge of the divine nature, O Arjuna, render devotional service unto Me with undeviated mind knowing Me as the Imperishable origin of all creation.
Confidential Knowledge of the Ultimate Truth, verses 6-13
The most Jesus ever said was that he was God's right-hand man, the gateway to God, or the son of God. Krishna said he was God-in-the-flesh. Jesus never even hinted at that.
No, He's addressing the PHARASEES, who are JEWS. So he's claiming that those who worship the God of The OT worship him, Making him the God of the OT.
How is this implied?
And why does he immediately credit 'my father' for planting everything? Why not take the credit for that himself, like Krishna does?
He does take that credit, (Though I just noticed 15:9 was a quote from isaiah)
I think
Hold on
Yeah
The killing blow to the idea that Jesus ever claimed to be God is that (1) he never did (2) he always only ever gave credit to 'my father' whom he always described as someone else somewhere else, (3) he says that YHWH can do things Jesus can't do, and that he knows things Jesus doesn't know. God speaks to the Jews after Jesus' baptism, introducing them to his son. Then the holy ghost leads Jesus to somewhere he does not already know. Worst of all (4) Jesus prays to God to 'take this cup away from me, not because I will it, but because YOU will it". That could not even be possible if Jesus believed himself to be an avatar of YHWH.
He didn't believe himslef to be one
He believed he was the second part of the trinity
not the first on
that's the patraption heresy
That still leaves YHWH as a separate individual superior to Jesus.
Whereas Krishna claimed to be the supreme personality of the trimurty.
Jesus also never ever claimed to have created anything, where Krishna bragged about that constantly.
He is the Son, Functionally Subbhordinate to the father, I'm in a call on this, want to join?
I can't. I have to head to bed. I get up before 5:00am.
But I just want to toss this out there. Why does Jesus acknowledge YHWH, but Christians don't?
UMMMM, We do
The OUR FATHER is the most important Christian prayer
Trinitarian Christians never mention YHWH by name, never.
I do all the time
OK. I'll have to give you benefit of the doubt then. I have never heard that from a Christian. I have never heard any comment from a Trinitarian to distinguish Jesus from YHWH, nor to mention YHWH by name.
Goodnight.
His name is considdered Holy
The Jews use it lest
*Less
That's because the Jews and Muslims don't have thier god-head divided like the Christians and Hindus do.

Then today, I am alerted to this video which thePuppyTurtle apparently made immediately after our conversation.



My summary response would be to point out that arguments for Christianity generally tend to fail outright, which is no different than arguments for other religions. They all make the same sorts of claims that your religion does, and no religious claims can withstand scrutiny.

I do not 'pretend' that creationists refuse to acknowledge their own potential error. I do not pretend that every creationist organization proudly displays thier doctrinal obligations to that effect. Nor should you pretend that it is even possible to tell which religious belief is more or less wrong than any other.

I will continue to look at faith as being a belief without evidence because that is what EVERY authoritive source on the matter says that it is.

You make silly voices pretending to mock me, trying to jeer me for things I don't even say. At the same time, you try to conceal the fact that an omniscient being should have been able to compose a better presentation than any religious scripture ever turned out to be, which is why your allegedly infallible author could only get the 'gist' of conversations that were never dictated or related to anyone. You also have no excuse for why so many admittedly fallible human authors were allowed to portray so many erroneous depictions of the shape of earth, the state of the universe, or that stars or meteors have human personalities, If this were a divinely inspired authoritive 'truth', then these things would not be included.

No matter how many witnesses there supposedly were, or how many historians should have known about it, the only source for any of the fables in the Bible is the Bible itself.

You're a lying snake. Oh wait, I forgot, we're in Aaron-Ra world where I have to prove he knew before-hand before accusing him of lying, but if I ever say something that he even believes to be wrong -even if I can prove that it's actually true then I'm lying.

First you have to show that what I said was wrong. You can't because its not. There is no contemporary historical or archaeological evidence of Jesus, and after so many debates of this point over your entire lifetime, I feel perfectly safe in making that statement without any fear of correction. Otherwise it is true that when you accuse someone of lying, you are of course expected to show (1) that the statement they made was false, and (2) that the claimant knew it was false before-hand. Your statement is false because (1) I have never accused you of lying before today, (2) I have never accused anyone of lying who wasn't actually lying. And of course (3) if you could prove you were right, then I would concede my error. Of course if there was any chance you could be right, then I wouldn't have accused you in the first place. So you're lying about whether I would lie about you lying.

But it gets worse, because I have yet another prepubescent apologist shamelessly insulting me and offering another challenge on this same topic.



Now, on July 2nd 2011, I argued this very point with Matt Dillahunty on an episode of the Non-Prophets radio show. That was a mature discussion where we each presented rational arguments without any name-calling. This is how adults discuss academic matters, just so these boys know how men should act. However Dillahunty's position seemed to depend on a particular perspective at the onset, one which I do not share as I was raised by Mormons. In retrospect, it is also possible that Dillahunty did not understand where I was even coming from. Consequently the matter was never sufficiently settled, so I decided to turn to the most knowledgeable scholar I could readily contact, and someone producing the best researched and presented scriptural analyses I've ever seen on YouTube, TaylorX04.

Apparently I am a "lying snake", although my accuser didn't specify what I supposedly lied about. He also said I am as "dumb as a potato sack" when it comes to religion, so maybe I should turn to someone better versed in these things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6WWrfa6pI&feature=g-u&context=G24f1d54FUAAAAAAAAAA

Apparently it doesn't matter that the contributors to the Bible present scientific errors -even though the Bible is promoted as inerrant, and yet it paints a completely false picture of the universe. The part I would like some help with are his many exceedingly rude allegations in the first half of the video.

And of course if I actually am mistaken on any significant point, I would expect you to point that out too.

Here's another one bitching about the same thing.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/134cd53e09b49023

Ironically PuppyTurtle admitted I was right -without realizing it, when I said that Jesus never claimed to be an avatar of YHWH the way Krishna said he was an avatar of Vishnu. Why does no one understand this?

I never said Jesus claimed to be a mere prophet. I said that he claimed to be the son-of-God, and he claimed credit as being God's right-hand man and all of that. Obviously he is claiming to be more than a mere human. He created the trinity and included himself in it. But he never claimed to be the same person as YHWH creator of the world. I was raised by Mormons, so it is easy to distinguish Jesus from YHWH and to imagine them standing together. But tinitiarians say that is impossible because they are both the same person. Thus Jesus could not have asked of God, "Take this cup away from me, not because I will it, but because THOU will it". Jesus is obviously not talking to himself. Yet he still did what many other cult leaders do in promoting himself as being very much 'like' God and very close to God, even to the point of being lesser deities. Why don't they understand this?

He replied: Well, his first point is reasonable - the fact that there's a variety of religions doesn't disprove religion in itself. It does, however, raise the problem of what kind of evidence each religion proposes for its own claims, and this is something you tend to point out in your videos. The evidence introduced for Christianity is very often also workable for Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc (such as the cosmological argument). I never take religious variety as a proof against religion, but simply as a problem for theists: their task is not merely to demonstrate that A god exists, but that THEIR god exists.

Now, the first thing that blows me away in his video is the claim that "given the fact that the Christian god doesn't like being worshiped via any kind of idol or statue, we wouldn't expect him leaving any trace of his existence behind in archaeology before we had written records." What kind of archaeological evidence does he think would support his god's existence? Why does he interpret the commandment against idolatry in this way? It prohibits idolatry, not veneration. Hell, the Israelites carried around the ten commandments and the ark of the covenant as symbols of their god's power, and both of those could be archaeological relics, so it's not as if god forbade anything material from being venerated before written texts became the norm. In Christianity, idolatry is often considered a problem of the mind/heart - it's not the statue or idol itself that's evil, but the attention that it draws away from the Christian god. There's just no evidence from that scripture that god hated archaeology before scripture was invented.

Regarding the reason for the diversity of sects, he's not quite right. Even outside Protestantism, we find divergence among the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic Church, and even though, as the videomaker claims, they each recognize church authority, that authority has fragmented over issues like apostolic succession - which is not new data, but an argument over centuries old data. "Sola scriptura" is not an excuse for the multitude of Protestant denominations either, because it still raises the far more problematic question of why god would allegedly inspire a text that is so easily interpreted in a multitude of different ways. Even if Christians are "spiritually enlightened", as this guy claims, some are more enlightened than others depending on what denomination they belong to. Of course, there's no verifiable evidence for any of this, but it makes you wonder: if god's "revelation" is so confusing that it has produced so many different believers, then how can anyone possibly think non-believers should find the bible persuasive?

At least he has the honesty to admit that his beliefs could be wrong, but I remember when I was a Christian that I felt the same way. There was a 1% chance I could be wrong - so insignificant that it was laughable. There's a big difference between saying you're flexible on something and actually being flexible. I can't say what the case is with this guy, but I can take a guess, based on his statements.

His comment about faith being supportable by evidence is one that I argue a lot with believers. It does look like Paul considered faith a kind of evidence or proof, but this doesn't at all mean faith is based on true evidence or proof. We can see this fact from 2 Corinthians 5:7, where Paul says he walks by faith and not by sight. In Hebrews 11:1 we are told that faith is "the assurance of what we hope for" and "the evidence of things unseen". Both of these verses indicate that faith is something contrary to empirical evidence. If this believer's interpretation of faith were correct, why would Paul not say "we guide our sight by faith, not by sight alone"? The ancient Christians were not mocked by the Romans and Greeks because of their belief in faith accompanied by reason/evidence. That was what the Romans and Greeks already accepted. The Christians were mocked for encouraging people to believe in spite of reason and evidence, to walk by faith, NOT by sight, and all this for a belief in one exclusive deity. If someone wants to temper their faith with evidence, that's up to them, but there's nothing in scripture to support it.

The 1 Corinthians 15 creed... ah, I hate that one. Apologists love bringing it up, but there is sparsely little evidence that it's actually an early creed of any kind. It's not identified as a creed in any early Christian writings, and it contains several inconsistencies with the rest of scripture, like separating Peter (Cephas) from the twelve, and even having Jesus appear to the twelve when Judas was dead and Matthias had not yet replaced him. I've dissected one apologist's arguments for the creed in my critique of Chapter 13 from "The Case for Christ", if you want or need specifics: http://www.godlesshaven.com/books-dvds/case-for-christ_pg4.html#CH13

The only other thing I find worth touching on is his dismissal of Genesis as symbolic. Francis Shaeffer and other apologists have argued for decades that a metaphorical interpretation of Genesis spells trouble for Jesus' sacrifice. If Adam and Eve never existed to sin in the garden, then what did Jesus die for? Some might say humanity has an in-built sin problem, but this still begs the question of where that sin came from, and especially how a perfect being could create something that even has the potential for imperfection in it. Such a potential could only be rightly regarded as imperfect. So, yes, how you interpret Genesis absolutely does matter theologically. In one way or another, you're forced to reimagine certain elements of scripture. This Christian doesn't seem to have an issue with that, but he's as presumptuous as he accuses you of being when he tries to speak for all Christians, as if there aren't those out there who do believe they know the absolute truth, who interpret the majority of scripture literally, etc.

Watching this video again, I would say that you appear to be criticizing Christianity more than just creationism, but there is some understandable overlap between the literalist Christianity that you cover and creationism. I would be more careful in the future about making broad general statements about Christians, though, especially since their diversity is part of what makes their beliefs so questionable. Anytime I discuss Christianity, I try to keep it to a few core doctrines, i.e. Jesus was a divine figure, he died on the cross to save us from sin, he rose from the dead, and belief in him is the way to be saved. These doctrines are universal to practically all forms of what can reasonably be called Christianity. The videomaker seems to have a very loosely defined Christianity, I noted, and many of his objections seem to center around the fact that there are multiple religions and multiple denominations of his own religion. As far as I know, you've never claimed that that fact alone disproves religion, but maybe he's just mad because you've pointed out all the work he has to do to justify his particular beliefs.

I'm unable to view that link, since it looks like it goes to your inbox, lol.

I've been asking myself the same question about a lot of religious claims lately. I find it likely that Jesus never claimed to be god in reality, but there is the sticky issue of the forgiveness of sins in Mark 2:1-12. Jesus never directly claims to be god in there, but he does speak as though he has the authority to forgive sins, which the Jews certainly believed that only god could do. Of course, it's still debatable whether Jesus ever did such a thing, and the vague comments he makes in the passage don't help settle the issue one way or the other.

Not all Christians are trinitarians, but if you're speaking to some that are, then I'd say either they don't understand their own doctrine, or you've misunderstood them. Trinitarians believe that god exists in three persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Jesus is identified as the son, who IS separate from the father, and yet both are equally god. So they can say that Jesus was god, but they would not call him the father, which is what you are meaning to say, I think, when you point out that he was not the same person as YHWH. This is probably the difference between Mormons and Christians, though, because Christians DO believe Jesus is YHWH, since they identify YHWH simply as god. So YHWH is the trinity.

I know it's confusing, which may be why few Christians even seem to understand it, lol.

Trinitarians depict Jesus as though he were an avatar of YHWH. They don't use that word of course, but that's what "God-in-the-flesh" means; it means that Jesus is the character-icon that God plays when he is our virtually reality-game, so that the father and the son are somehow still the same person. That would also mean that Jesus *is* YHWH in every other sense too, and that he has all the same knowledge and abilities. That would mean that he himself did everything everything that the Jews had previously attributed to YHWH. It has to be that way, because -if Jesus is 'the word-made-flesh', (as Christians say) then Jesus is just the sock-puppet on YHWH's hand.

If I compare Jesus to Krishna, or any number of pagan gods, I hear that Jesus was the only one who said he was God. No, I say, Jesus is the only one who did not say he was God. If other people call him that, he may cop to it, because he's a cult leader, and that's what they do, but he never says it himself.

Krishna on the other hand clearly and unambiguously declared himself to be an avatar of God, [god-in-the-flesh] the self-same creator of the universe, and the supreme personality of the god-head, all the things Christians pretend that Jesus said too. I always hear the argument that "Either Jesus was a crazy liar, or he was who he said he was". To which I ask, "Who did he say he was?" When they say that Jesus said he was God, they're unable to show me where he said that. The best they can come up with are interpretations such as "When Jesus said this, he really meant that", or "that's what these people all thought he meant", (which still doesn't seem to be the case). The point is that Jesus never actually claimed that himself.

I argued this point with Matt Dillahunty on the Non-Prophets radio show. Dillahunty's argument required certain background presumptions and contextual interpretations to be made. I remain unconvinced, though I understand why he still holds to that position.

It appears to me that Jesus claimed himself to "like unto God" in the same sense that Akenaten did, or even Kim Jong Il. They're either treated like a god, or they position themselves as the gateway to God, and even accept worship, but do not ever claim to actually BE a god. In this case, Jesus never claimed to be YHWH, god of creation. Yet Trinitarians commonly worship Jesus exclusively without higher reverence for YHWH. They depict Jesus as the creator of the world as if he is an avatar with the same mind and personality as YHWH. God [in Isaiah] said "No one sits beside me, and Thou shalt have no other gods before me". Then Jesus steps in claiming to sit beside god, and even placed himself before God, but never said that he actually was God.

Ironically the PuppyTurtle messaged me about this a couple nights ago, and even admitted to me that Jesus did not believe himself to be YHWH, that he was NOT "God-in-the-flesh" and so on. Then he turns around and makes a video wherein he calls me a lying snake for saying the same thing.

Maybe PuppyTurtle doesn't understand the binatarian concept? There is God the father, El/Abba/Allah/YHWH, the creator of the universe, who said "no one sits beside me", and then there is Jesus claiming to sit on his right-hand side. Mind you -again- Jesus never says he *is* the "power", only that he sits on the right-hand of the power. This almost exactly what Akenaten did with the sun-god when he said "no one comes to Aten but through me".

Jesus never said that he and YHWH were the same person. Nor did he ever imply that anyone should worship Jesus instead of God. Yet what trinitarian worships YHWH over Jesus? Or even bothers to distinguish YHWH from Jesus? They all worship Jesus as God or INSTEAD of God. How does that figure when you consider Pasqual's wager and the first commandment from the Hebrew god?

I largely agree with all you're saying, except that it's still going to be debatable to a trinitarian, and in the long run, I consider it a pretty insignificant argument next to the fact that Jesus doesn't qualify for a god even by the bible's standards, regardless of what he did or did not say.

Also, there's some confusion in a phrase like "the word made flesh", because many Christians believe Jesus has always existed, due to passages like John 1:1. In their view, Jesus has always been around as one of the members of the trinity, but was only "made flesh" when god impregnated poor Mary.

Thank you very much for offering your (I think) expert opinion.

So come on boys.

PuppyTurtle, show me contemporary extra-biblical historical records of Jesus' actual life that haven't already been dismissed as fraudulent. You might also try to explain why I would even want to lie about something like that. Here's a hint: The religious position is inflexible on these matters. So they will lie to defend their faith, but freethinkers have no reason or desire to be dishonest in our pursuit. That would defeat our whole purpose.

And aaronk1994, being the son of a god would obviously make you a god too. At that time, there were a plethora of polytheist pantheons all making similar claims. And we have a long history of cult leaders seeking fame and glory by positioning themselves as a 'gateway' to God, but who do not claim to be the creator. if you said you were there with the creator, then you obviously would have existed before Abraham. Declaring yourself to be "like unto God" (like Akenaten did) or simply copping to it (like Kim Jong Il did) would still qualify as blasphemy, even if you do not claim to be the actual creator. So show me where Jesus didn't just present himself as the son-of-God, a lesser god, or God's eternal right-hand man, but YHWH himself, an avatar and physical manifestation of the Hebrew god of creation 'made-flesh'. Because I maintain that he never said that, and could not have believed that himself -given the speech attributed to him at gethsemane.

 

[Inferno]

Excellent argument there, both from you, Aron, and from Taylor. I especially loved the argument about the literal interpretation of Genesis.

Except for the obvious nit-picks here and there, might I ask you for the e-mail? As Taylor says, we can't access it.

 

[AronRa]

Excellent argument there, both from you, Aron, and from Taylor. I especially loved the argument about the literal interpretation of Genesis.

Except for the obvious nit-picks here and there, might I ask you for the e-mail? As Taylor says, we can't access it.

Taylor said he couldn't view one of the videos, but I have both of them linked here.

 

[Laurens]

There is no reason to believe that the Bible is a reliable text. I think this talk exposes that quite nicely:

 

[Inferno]

Excellent argument there, both from you, Aron, and from Taylor. I especially loved the argument about the literal interpretation of Genesis.

Except for the obvious nit-picks here and there, might I ask you for the e-mail? As Taylor says, we can't access it.

Taylor said he couldn't view one of the videos, but I have both of them linked here.

No, I'm talking about this section:

I'm unable to view that link, since it looks like it goes to your inbox, lol.

Here's another one bitching about the same thing.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#in ... 3e09b49023

 

[AronRa]

might I ask you for the e-mail? As Taylor says, we can't access it.

Taylor said he couldn't view one of the videos. He was talking about the link to the second video which I have included in my opening post here.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Apparently I am a "lying snake", although my accuser didn't specify what I supposedly lied about. He also said I am as "dumb as a potato sack" when it comes to religion, so maybe I should turn to someone better versed in these things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6WWrfa6pI&feature=g-u&context=G24f1d54FUAAAAAAAAAA

Apparently it doesn't matter that the contributors to the Bible present scientific errors -even though the Bible is promoted as inerrant, and yet it paints a completely false picture of the universe. The part I would like some help with are his many exceedingly rude allegations in the first half of the video.

And of course if I actually am mistaken on any significant point, I would expect you to point that out too.

Here's another one bitching about the same thing.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/134cd53e09b49023

Ironically PuppyTurtle admitted I was right -without realizing it, when I said that Jesus never claimed to be an avatar of YHWH the way Krishna said he was an avatar of Vishnu. Why does no one understand this?

I never said Jesus claimed to be a mere prophet. I said that he claimed to be the son-of-God, and he claimed credit as being God's right-hand man and all of that. Obviously he is claiming to be more than a mere human. He created the trinity and included himself in it. But he never claimed to be the same person as YHWH creator of the world. I was raised by Mormons, so it is easy to distinguish Jesus from YHWH and to imagine them standing together. But tinitiarians say that is impossible because they are both the same person. Thus Jesus could not have asked of God, "Take this cup away from me, not because I will it, but because THOU will it". Jesus is obviously not talking to himself. Yet he still did what many other cult leaders do in promoting himself as being very much 'like' God and very close to God, even to the point of being lesser deities. Why don't they understand this?

He replied: Well, his first point is reasonable - the fact that there's a variety of religions doesn't disprove religion in itself. It does, however, raise the problem of what kind of evidence each religion proposes for its own claims, and this is something you tend to point out in your videos. The evidence introduced for Christianity is very often also workable for Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc (such as the cosmological argument). I never take religious variety as a proof against religion, but simply as a problem for theists: their task is not merely to demonstrate that A god exists, but that THEIR god exists.

Now, the first thing that blows me away in his video is the claim that "given the fact that the Christian god doesn't like being worshiped via any kind of idol or statue, we wouldn't expect him leaving any trace of his existence behind in archaeology before we had written records." What kind of archaeological evidence does he think would support his god's existence? Why does he interpret the commandment against idolatry in this way? It prohibits idolatry, not veneration. Hell, the Israelites carried around the ten commandments and the ark of the covenant as symbols of their god's power, and both of those could be archaeological relics, so it's not as if god forbade anything material from being venerated before written texts became the norm. In Christianity, idolatry is often considered a problem of the mind/heart - it's not the statue or idol itself that's evil, but the attention that it draws away from the Christian god. There's just no evidence from that scripture that god hated archaeology before scripture was invented.

Regarding the reason for the diversity of sects, he's not quite right. Even outside Protestantism, we find divergence among the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic Church, and even though, as the videomaker claims, they each recognize church authority, that authority has fragmented over issues like apostolic succession - which is not new data, but an argument over centuries old data. "Sola scriptura" is not an excuse for the multitude of Protestant denominations either, because it still raises the far more problematic question of why god would allegedly inspire a text that is so easily interpreted in a multitude of different ways. Even if Christians are "spiritually enlightened", as this guy claims, some are more enlightened than others depending on what denomination they belong to. Of course, there's no verifiable evidence for any of this, but it makes you wonder: if god's "revelation" is so confusing that it has produced so many different believers, then how can anyone possibly think non-believers should find the bible persuasive?

At least he has the honesty to admit that his beliefs could be wrong, but I remember when I was a Christian that I felt the same way. There was a 1% chance I could be wrong - so insignificant that it was laughable. There's a big difference between saying you're flexible on something and actually being flexible. I can't say what the case is with this guy, but I can take a guess, based on his statements.

His comment about faith being supportable by evidence is one that I argue a lot with believers. It does look like Paul considered faith a kind of evidence or proof, but this doesn't at all mean faith is based on true evidence or proof. We can see this fact from 2 Corinthians 5:7, where Paul says he walks by faith and not by sight. In Hebrews 11:1 we are told that faith is "the assurance of what we hope for" and "the evidence of things unseen". Both of these verses indicate that faith is something contrary to empirical evidence. If this believer's interpretation of faith were correct, why would Paul not say "we guide our sight by faith, not by sight alone"? The ancient Christians were not mocked by the Romans and Greeks because of their belief in faith accompanied by reason/evidence. That was what the Romans and Greeks already accepted. The Christians were mocked for encouraging people to believe in spite of reason and evidence, to walk by faith, NOT by sight, and all this for a belief in one exclusive deity. If someone wants to temper their faith with evidence, that's up to them, but there's nothing in scripture to support it.

The 1 Corinthians 15 creed... ah, I hate that one. Apologists love bringing it up, but there is sparsely little evidence that it's actually an early creed of any kind. It's not identified as a creed in any early Christian writings, and it contains several inconsistencies with the rest of scripture, like separating Peter (Cephas) from the twelve, and even having Jesus appear to the twelve when Judas was dead and Matthias had not yet replaced him. I've dissected one apologist's arguments for the creed in my critique of Chapter 13 from "The Case for Christ", if you want or need specifics: http://www.godlesshaven.com/books-dvds/case-for-christ_pg4.html#CH13

The only other thing I find worth touching on is his dismissal of Genesis as symbolic. Francis Shaeffer and other apologists have argued for decades that a metaphorical interpretation of Genesis spells trouble for Jesus' sacrifice. If Adam and Eve never existed to sin in the garden, then what did Jesus die for? Some might say humanity has an in-built sin problem, but this still begs the question of where that sin came from, and especially how a perfect being could create something that even has the potential for imperfection in it. Such a potential could only be rightly regarded as imperfect. So, yes, how you interpret Genesis absolutely does matter theologically. In one way or another, you're forced to reimagine certain elements of scripture. This Christian doesn't seem to have an issue with that, but he's as presumptuous as he accuses you of being when he tries to speak for all Christians, as if there aren't those out there who do believe they know the absolute truth, who interpret the majority of scripture literally, etc.

Watching this video again, I would say that you appear to be criticizing Christianity more than just creationism, but there is some understandable overlap between the literalist Christianity that you cover and creationism. I would be more careful in the future about making broad general statements about Christians, though, especially since their diversity is part of what makes their beliefs so questionable. Anytime I discuss Christianity, I try to keep it to a few core doctrines, i.e. Jesus was a divine figure, he died on the cross to save us from sin, he rose from the dead, and belief in him is the way to be saved. These doctrines are universal to practically all forms of what can reasonably be called Christianity. The videomaker seems to have a very loosely defined Christianity, I noted, and many of his objections seem to center around the fact that there are multiple religions and multiple denominations of his own religion. As far as I know, you've never claimed that that fact alone disproves religion, but maybe he's just mad because you've pointed out all the work he has to do to justify his particular beliefs.

I'm unable to view that link, since it looks like it goes to your inbox, lol.

I've been asking myself the same question about a lot of religious claims lately. I find it likely that Jesus never claimed to be god in reality, but there is the sticky issue of the forgiveness of sins in Mark 2:1-12. Jesus never directly claims to be god in there, but he does speak as though he has the authority to forgive sins, which the Jews certainly believed that only god could do. Of course, it's still debatable whether Jesus ever did such a thing, and the vague comments he makes in the passage don't help settle the issue one way or the other.

Not all Christians are trinitarians, but if you're speaking to some that are, then I'd say either they don't understand their own doctrine, or you've misunderstood them. Trinitarians believe that god exists in three persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Jesus is identified as the son, who IS separate from the father, and yet both are equally god. So they can say that Jesus was god, but they would not call him the father, which is what you are meaning to say, I think, when you point out that he was not the same person as YHWH. This is probably the difference between Mormons and Christians, though, because Christians DO believe Jesus is YHWH, since they identify YHWH simply as god. So YHWH is the trinity.

I know it's confusing, which may be why few Christians even seem to understand it, lol.

Trinitarians depict Jesus as though he were an avatar of YHWH. They don't use that word of course, but that's what "God-in-the-flesh" means; it means that Jesus is the character-icon that God plays when he is our virtually reality-game, so that the father and the son are somehow still the same person. That would also mean that Jesus *is* YHWH in every other sense too, and that he has all the same knowledge and abilities. That would mean that he himself did everything everything that the Jews had previously attributed to YHWH. It has to be that way, because -if Jesus is 'the word-made-flesh', (as Christians say) then Jesus is just the sock-puppet on YHWH's hand.

If I compare Jesus to Krishna, or any number of pagan gods, I hear that Jesus was the only one who said he was God. No, I say, Jesus is the only one who did not say he was God. If other people call him that, he may cop to it, because he's a cult leader, and that's what they do, but he never says it himself.

Krishna on the other hand clearly and unambiguously declared himself to be an avatar of God, [god-in-the-flesh] the self-same creator of the universe, and the supreme personality of the god-head, all the things Christians pretend that Jesus said too. I always hear the argument that "Either Jesus was a crazy liar, or he was who he said he was". To which I ask, "Who did he say he was?" When they say that Jesus said he was God, they're unable to show me where he said that. The best they can come up with are interpretations such as "When Jesus said this, he really meant that", or "that's what these people all thought he meant", (which still doesn't seem to be the case). The point is that Jesus never actually claimed that himself.

I argued this point with Matt Dillahunty on the Non-Prophets radio show. Dillahunty's argument required certain background presumptions and contextual interpretations to be made. I remain unconvinced, though I understand why he still holds to that position.

It appears to me that Jesus claimed himself to "like unto God" in the same sense that Akenaten did, or even Kim Jong Il. They're either treated like a god, or they position themselves as the gateway to God, and even accept worship, but do not ever claim to actually BE a god. In this case, Jesus never claimed to be YHWH, god of creation. Yet Trinitarians commonly worship Jesus exclusively without higher reverence for YHWH. They depict Jesus as the creator of the world as if he is an avatar with the same mind and personality as YHWH. God [in Isaiah] said "No one sits beside me, and Thou shalt have no other gods before me". Then Jesus steps in claiming to sit beside god, and even placed himself before God, but never said that he actually was God.

Ironically the PuppyTurtle messaged me about this a couple nights ago, and even admitted to me that Jesus did not believe himself to be YHWH, that he was NOT "God-in-the-flesh" and so on. Then he turns around and makes a video wherein he calls me a lying snake for saying the same thing.

Maybe PuppyTurtle doesn't understand the binatarian concept? There is God the father, El/Abba/Allah/YHWH, the creator of the universe, who said "no one sits beside me", and then there is Jesus claiming to sit on his right-hand side. Mind you -again- Jesus never says he *is* the "power", only that he sits on the right-hand of the power. This almost exactly what Akenaten did with the sun-god when he said "no one comes to Aten but through me".

Jesus never said that he and YHWH were the same person. Nor did he ever imply that anyone should worship Jesus instead of God. Yet what trinitarian worships YHWH over Jesus? Or even bothers to distinguish YHWH from Jesus? They all worship Jesus as God or INSTEAD of God. How does that figure when you consider Pasqual's wager and the first commandment from the Hebrew god?

I largely agree with all you're saying, except that it's still going to be debatable to a trinitarian, and in the long run, I consider it a pretty insignificant argument next to the fact that Jesus doesn't qualify for a god even by the bible's standards, regardless of what he did or did not say.

Also, there's some confusion in a phrase like "the word made flesh", because many Christians believe Jesus has always existed, due to passages like John 1:1. In their view, Jesus has always been around as one of the members of the trinity, but was only "made flesh" when god impregnated poor Mary.

Thank you very much for offering your (I think) expert opinion.

My partial color blindness made this section of your post difficult to read. Not because I could not see it, but because I can barely distinguish between the two colors used. At first, I thought everything after "He replied:" was from TaylorX04, however, I noticed that the writing style and argument changed part of the way through it which made me take a closer look at the colors. Seeing as color blindness in males is not that rare, perhaps your method of quoting is not the best.

 

[Laurens]

Apparently I am a "lying snake", although my accuser didn't specify what I supposedly lied about. He also said I am as "dumb as a potato sack" when it comes to religion, so maybe I should turn to someone better versed in these things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6WWrfa6pI&feature=g-u&context=G24f1d54FUAAAAAAAAAA

Apparently it doesn't matter that the contributors to the Bible present scientific errors -even though the Bible is promoted as inerrant, and yet it paints a completely false picture of the universe. The part I would like some help with are his many exceedingly rude allegations in the first half of the video.

And of course if I actually am mistaken on any significant point, I would expect you to point that out too.

Here's another one bitching about the same thing.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/134cd53e09b49023

Ironically PuppyTurtle admitted I was right -without realizing it, when I said that Jesus never claimed to be an avatar of YHWH the way Krishna said he was an avatar of Vishnu. Why does no one understand this?</COLOR>

<COLOR color="#40FF00">I never said Jesus claimed to be a mere prophet. I said that he claimed to be the son-of-God, and he claimed credit as being God's right-hand man and all of that. Obviously he is claiming to be more than a mere human. He created the trinity and included himself in it. But he never claimed to be the same person as YHWH creator of the world. I was raised by Mormons, so it is easy to distinguish Jesus from YHWH and to imagine them standing together. But tinitiarians say that is impossible because they are both the same person. Thus Jesus could not have asked of God, "Take this cup away from me, not because I will it, but because THOU will it". Jesus is obviously not talking to himself. Yet he still did what many other cult leaders do in promoting himself as being very much 'like' God and very close to God, even to the point of being lesser deities. Why don't they understand this?

He replied: Well, his first point is reasonable - the fact that there's a variety of religions doesn't disprove religion in itself. It does, however, raise the problem of what kind of evidence each religion proposes for its own claims, and this is something you tend to point out in your videos. The evidence introduced for Christianity is very often also workable for Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc (such as the cosmological argument). I never take religious variety as a proof against religion, but simply as a problem for theists: their task is not merely to demonstrate that A god exists, but that THEIR god exists.

Now, the first thing that blows me away in his video is the claim that "given the fact that the Christian god doesn't like being worshiped via any kind of idol or statue, we wouldn't expect him leaving any trace of his existence behind in archaeology before we had written records." What kind of archaeological evidence does he think would support his god's existence? Why does he interpret the commandment against idolatry in this way? It prohibits idolatry, not veneration. Hell, the Israelites carried around the ten commandments and the ark of the covenant as symbols of their god's power, and both of those could be archaeological relics, so it's not as if god forbade anything material from being venerated before written texts became the norm. In Christianity, idolatry is often considered a problem of the mind/heart - it's not the statue or idol itself that's evil, but the attention that it draws away from the Christian god. There's just no evidence from that scripture that god hated archaeology before scripture was invented.

Regarding the reason for the diversity of sects, he's not quite right. Even outside Protestantism, we find divergence among the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic Church, and even though, as the videomaker claims, they each recognize church authority, that authority has fragmented over issues like apostolic succession - which is not new data, but an argument over centuries old data. "Sola scriptura" is not an excuse for the multitude of Protestant denominations either, because it still raises the far more problematic question of why god would allegedly inspire a text that is so easily interpreted in a multitude of different ways. Even if Christians are "spiritually enlightened", as this guy claims, some are more enlightened than others depending on what denomination they belong to. Of course, there's no verifiable evidence for any of this, but it makes you wonder: if god's "revelation" is so confusing that it has produced so many different believers, then how can anyone possibly think non-believers should find the bible persuasive?

At least he has the honesty to admit that his beliefs could be wrong, but I remember when I was a Christian that I felt the same way. There was a 1% chance I could be wrong - so insignificant that it was laughable. There's a big difference between saying you're flexible on something and actually being flexible. I can't say what the case is with this guy, but I can take a guess, based on his statements.

His comment about faith being supportable by evidence is one that I argue a lot with believers. It does look like Paul considered faith a kind of evidence or proof, but this doesn't at all mean faith is based on true evidence or proof. We can see this fact from 2 Corinthians 5:7, where Paul says he walks by faith and not by sight. In Hebrews 11:1 we are told that faith is "the assurance of what we hope for" and "the evidence of things unseen". Both of these verses indicate that faith is something contrary to empirical evidence. If this believer's interpretation of faith were correct, why would Paul not say "we guide our sight by faith, not by sight alone"? The ancient Christians were not mocked by the Romans and Greeks because of their belief in faith accompanied by reason/evidence. That was what the Romans and Greeks already accepted. The Christians were mocked for encouraging people to believe in spite of reason and evidence, to walk by faith, NOT by sight, and all this for a belief in one exclusive deity. If someone wants to temper their faith with evidence, that's up to them, but there's nothing in scripture to support it.

The 1 Corinthians 15 creed... ah, I hate that one. Apologists love bringing it up, but there is sparsely little evidence that it's actually an early creed of any kind. It's not identified as a creed in any early Christian writings, and it contains several inconsistencies with the rest of scripture, like separating Peter (Cephas) from the twelve, and even having Jesus appear to the twelve when Judas was dead and Matthias had not yet replaced him. I've dissected one apologist's arguments for the creed in my critique of Chapter 13 from "The Case for Christ", if you want or need specifics: http://www.godlesshaven.com/books-dvds/case-for-christ_pg4.html#CH13

The only other thing I find worth touching on is his dismissal of Genesis as symbolic. Francis Shaeffer and other apologists have argued for decades that a metaphorical interpretation of Genesis spells trouble for Jesus' sacrifice. If Adam and Eve never existed to sin in the garden, then what did Jesus die for? Some might say humanity has an in-built sin problem, but this still begs the question of where that sin came from, and especially how a perfect being could create something that even has the potential for imperfection in it. Such a potential could only be rightly regarded as imperfect. So, yes, how you interpret Genesis absolutely does matter theologically. In one way or another, you're forced to reimagine certain elements of scripture. This Christian doesn't seem to have an issue with that, but he's as presumptuous as he accuses you of being when he tries to speak for all Christians, as if there aren't those out there who do believe they know the absolute truth, who interpret the majority of scripture literally, etc.

Watching this video again, I would say that you appear to be criticizing Christianity more than just creationism, but there is some understandable overlap between the literalist Christianity that you cover and creationism. I would be more careful in the future about making broad general statements about Christians, though, especially since their diversity is part of what makes their beliefs so questionable. Anytime I discuss Christianity, I try to keep it to a few core doctrines, i.e. Jesus was a divine figure, he died on the cross to save us from sin, he rose from the dead, and belief in him is the way to be saved. These doctrines are universal to practically all forms of what can reasonably be called Christianity. The videomaker seems to have a very loosely defined Christianity, I noted, and many of his objections seem to center around the fact that there are multiple religions and multiple denominations of his own religion. As far as I know, you've never claimed that that fact alone disproves religion, but maybe he's just mad because you've pointed out all the work he has to do to justify his particular beliefs.

I'm unable to view that link, since it looks like it goes to your inbox, lol.

I've been asking myself the same question about a lot of religious claims lately. I find it likely that Jesus never claimed to be god in reality, but there is the sticky issue of the forgiveness of sins in Mark 2:1-12. Jesus never directly claims to be god in there, but he does speak as though he has the authority to forgive sins, which the Jews certainly believed that only god could do. Of course, it's still debatable whether Jesus ever did such a thing, and the vague comments he makes in the passage don't help settle the issue one way or the other.

Not all Christians are trinitarians, but if you're speaking to some that are, then I'd say either they don't understand their own doctrine, or you've misunderstood them. Trinitarians believe that god exists in three persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Jesus is identified as the son, who IS separate from the father, and yet both are equally god. So they can say that Jesus was god, but they would not call him the father, which is what you are meaning to say, I think, when you point out that he was not the same person as YHWH. This is probably the difference between Mormons and Christians, though, because Christians DO believe Jesus is YHWH, since they identify YHWH simply as god. So YHWH is the trinity.

I know it's confusing, which may be why few Christians even seem to understand it, lol.

Trinitarians depict Jesus as though he were an avatar of YHWH. They don't use that word of course, but that's what "God-in-the-flesh" means; it means that Jesus is the character-icon that God plays when he is our virtually reality-game, so that the father and the son are somehow still the same person. That would also mean that Jesus *is* YHWH in every other sense too, and that he has all the same knowledge and abilities. That would mean that he himself did everything everything that the Jews had previously attributed to YHWH. It has to be that way, because -if Jesus is 'the word-made-flesh', (as Christians say) then Jesus is just the sock-puppet on YHWH's hand.

If I compare Jesus to Krishna, or any number of pagan gods, I hear that Jesus was the only one who said he was God. No, I say, Jesus is the only one who did not say he was God. If other people call him that, he may cop to it, because he's a cult leader, and that's what they do, but he never says it himself.

Krishna on the other hand clearly and unambiguously declared himself to be an avatar of God, [god-in-the-flesh] the self-same creator of the universe, and the supreme personality of the god-head, all the things Christians pretend that Jesus said too. I always hear the argument that "Either Jesus was a crazy liar, or he was who he said he was". To which I ask, "Who did he say he was?" When they say that Jesus said he was God, they're unable to show me where he said that. The best they can come up with are interpretations such as "When Jesus said this, he really meant that", or "that's what these people all thought he meant", (which still doesn't seem to be the case). The point is that Jesus never actually claimed that himself.

I argued this point with Matt Dillahunty on the Non-Prophets radio show. Dillahunty's argument required certain background presumptions and contextual interpretations to be made. I remain unconvinced, though I understand why he still holds to that position.

It appears to me that Jesus claimed himself to "like unto God" in the same sense that Akenaten did, or even Kim Jong Il. They're either treated like a god, or they position themselves as the gateway to God, and even accept worship, but do not ever claim to actually BE a god. In this case, Jesus never claimed to be YHWH, god of creation. Yet Trinitarians commonly worship Jesus exclusively without higher reverence for YHWH. They depict Jesus as the creator of the world as if he is an avatar with the same mind and personality as YHWH. God [in Isaiah] said "No one sits beside me, and Thou shalt have no other gods before me". Then Jesus steps in claiming to sit beside god, and even placed himself before God, but never said that he actually was God.

Ironically the PuppyTurtle messaged me about this a couple nights ago, and even admitted to me that Jesus did not believe himself to be YHWH, that he was NOT "God-in-the-flesh" and so on. Then he turns around and makes a video wherein he calls me a lying snake for saying the same thing.

Maybe PuppyTurtle doesn't understand the binatarian concept? There is God the father, El/Abba/Allah/YHWH, the creator of the universe, who said "no one sits beside me", and then there is Jesus claiming to sit on his right-hand side. Mind you -again- Jesus never says he *is* the "power", only that he sits on the right-hand of the power. This almost exactly what Akenaten did with the sun-god when he said "no one comes to Aten but through me".

Jesus never said that he and YHWH were the same person. Nor did he ever imply that anyone should worship Jesus instead of God. Yet what trinitarian worships YHWH over Jesus? Or even bothers to distinguish YHWH from Jesus? They all worship Jesus as God or INSTEAD of God. How does that figure when you consider Pasqual's wager and the first commandment from the Hebrew god?

I largely agree with all you're saying, except that it's still going to be debatable to a trinitarian, and in the long run, I consider it a pretty insignificant argument next to the fact that Jesus doesn't qualify for a god even by the bible's standards, regardless of what he did or did not say.

Also, there's some confusion in a phrase like "the word made flesh", because many Christians believe Jesus has always existed, due to passages like John 1:1. In their view, Jesus has always been around as one of the members of the trinity, but was only "made flesh" when god impregnated poor Mary.

Thank you very much for offering your (I think) expert opinion.

Does that help you he_who_is_nobody?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Does that help you he_who_is_nobody?

Yes. Thank you.

That is how I thought the conversation was broken up after careful examination.

 

[Inferno]

might I ask you for the e-mail? As Taylor says, we can't access it.

Taylor said he couldn't view one of the videos. He was talking about the link to the second video which I have included in my opening post here.

Be that as it may, I'm still curious about this link you posted:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/134cd53e09b49023

It takes us to your inbox, which we can't access. So what I want to know is: Can we, yes or no, have the e-mail you were talking about?

 

[AronRa]

So what I want to know is: Can we, yes or no, have the e-mail you were talking about?

Once again, I already included that email in my first post to this thread. TaylorX04 was talking about not being able to see the video posted therein from the second pseudo-superior playground theologian trying to poke at me.

 

[Inferno]

So what I want to know is: Can we, yes or no, have the e-mail you were talking about?

Once again, I already included that email in my first post to this thread. TaylorX04 was talking about not being able to see the video posted therein from the second pseudo-superior playground theologian trying to poke at me.

Oh, the e-mail was "ThePuppyTurtle's" message? Now I get it, how daft of me. :lol:

 

[Laurens]

ThePuppyTurtle is a member here is he not? Perhaps someone could contact him and see whether he'd like to respond to AronRa?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

ThePuppyTurtle is a member here is he not? Perhaps someone could contact him and see whether he'd like to respond to AronRa?

I already did that.

 

[Laurens]

ThePuppyTurtle is a member here is he not? Perhaps someone could contact him and see whether he'd like to respond to AronRa?

I already did that.

Cool.

I shall eagerly wait to see whether he responds

 

[australopithecus]

So PuppyTurtle dropped creationism but still hasn't dropped the rest of the irrational assorted baggage? Shame.

 

[Vanlavak]

When I was a christian, I believed that Jesus was just a man who was a cool guy in many respects. I still hold this view, though now I realize that I am an agnostic believer in Theravada Buddhism. I don't understand why there is so much ignorance.

 

[ThePuppyTurtle]

Before I respond, What is Contemporary? Is it while Jesus was alive? Does it allow for some number of years after? If so How Many?

 

[Anachronous Rex]

When I was a christian, I believed that Jesus was just a man who was a cool guy in many respects. I still hold this view, though now I realize that I am an agnostic believer in Theravada Buddhism. I don't understand why there is so much ignorance.

Right about 3:13

 

[Laurens]

Before I respond, What is Contemporary? Is it while Jesus was alive? Does it allow for some number of years after? If so How Many?

Contemporary means:

Living or occurring at the same time.

So someone who lived at the same time as Jesus I guess.