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

[Inferno]

Apparently, Christians aren't allowed to define their own terms.

You do not define Christianity with an American English dictionary. You define it with the Bible, and the Bible doesn't support Dawkins' definition.

Theologians reject his definition, as I mentioned before.

What is this new idea of "defining ones own terms"? That's not how it works. No matter how much I'd like to re-define the name "Benedikt" as "the legen... wait for it... dary one", it will always mean "the blessed".

I've already explained what it would take for that new definition to be accepted, so why not just provide it? You say you have evidence, so show it.

 

[brettpalmer]

Apparently, Christians aren't allowed to define their own terms.

You do not define Christianity with an American English dictionary. You define it with the Bible, and the Bible doesn't support Dawkins' definition.

Theologians reject his definition, as I mentioned before.

But you defined "faith" from Strongs. It is, as you state, "belief, trust, [and] confidence." Based on what? You can certainly have "belief, trust, [and] confidence" in something without any evidence of it. But you are claiming that Christian faith is NOT this sort of faith. It is NOT a "belief, trust, [and] confidence" without evidence, right? So, upon what evidence is the Christian faith you speak of based?

But, I'll admit, this is rather a silly question that could get wildly out of control. Because I already know the answer. Such faith is built upon belief in the reliability of the Scriptures, perhaps so-called scientific evidence of God (e.g. the anthropic principle), "logical" proofs ala William Lane Craig and maybe even a personal "witness" of the Holy Spirit. Am I any where near the right neighborhood?

 

[Noth]

Apparently, Christians aren't allowed to define their own terms.

Oh assuredly they would be... IF it was a field unaccessable to anyone else. I am sure we do not need to debate that this is not the case?

Moreover, how exactly does 'faith' feature only as a Christian term? It is what you seem to imply.

And what's more, objectively looking at 'faith' the way you feel it should be explained - as a 'trust' of some sort - does that not leave room for ample doubt and, as a consequence, insinuates a lack of evidence?

You do not define Christianity with an American English dictionary. You define it with the Bible, and the Bible doesn't support Dawkins' definition.

Why is it, when Christians hear the definition of faith as e.g. Dawkins presents it, you raise your objections, when it is your very bible that supports it? If not in literal text, then certainly in what it suggests and how it suggests you read and believe.

Theologians reject his definition, as I mentioned before.

1) The theologians you mean have a personal stake in this. You can deduce what that means, I'm sure.

2) I urge you to read an old blog post made my PZ Meyers (I'm sure that puts you off, but give it a go if you're of an open mind) that sums up the criticism of those theologians and others like them and puts it in its rightful place: a box for the attic.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php

 

[brettpalmer]

"In aaronk's search for what the "early" Christians believed about Jesus's divinity (or lack thereof), what does Paul, in his authentic epistles, say? How is Jesus defined there? Is his Christology as developed as John's?"

Yes.

"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form." - Colossians 2:9

But what of the very next verse?

"and in Christ you have been brought to fullness." Isn't that implying that, "in Christ," or "through Christ" believers too have the fullness of the Deity living in them? In other words, this isn't a statement that Jesus was divine, but that divine favor and salvation (i.e. "fullness of the Deity") came through Christ. Here's a diagram:

God ----> Christ -----> Believers // Believers---->Christ----->God

I just don't see 2 Colossians as arguing for Jesus's divinity.

"So, if I'm following correctly, there is one "essence" (whatever that means; aka "God") of which three persons (whatever that means, too; aka "Yahweh," "Jesus," and the "Holy Spirit") which "partake" (again, whatever that means) of this single "essence." And that is why Jesus doesn't claim to be "Yahweh" because "Yahweh" is a separate "person" of this single divine "essence" from which he and the other two "partake." Jesus could no more say "I am Yahweh" than aaronk can say "I am thepuppyturtle." But both aaronk and TPT breath the same air. Do I have that right?"

Not quite. Yahweh is the essence or being of God. He is not a single person. Jesus IS Yahweh. You may have misunderstood my video.

And I'm still confused. I thought (and I may be wrong) that you said Jesus CANNOT say he is Yahweh because Yahweh is one of the three "persons" of the Trinity which is, itself, a single essence. Please explain further.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Apparently, Christians aren't allowed to define their own terms.

You do not define Christianity with an American English dictionary. You define it with the Bible, and the Bible doesn't support Dawkins' definition.

Theologians reject his definition, as I mentioned before.

I hate to dogpile, but as I have pointed out many times in many different threads, the problem with defining your terms in ways that differ wildly with usage is that it no longer becomes clear what the argument is even about. I've had lengthy debates with individuals only to discover - after much effort - that we agree on absolutely everything save for the meaning of a single word, which my opponent defined peculiarly.

If I were to say "I have faith that god will see me through my current dire financial troubles," what am I saying? Clearly this statement implies belief, trust, and confidence (as in your definition), but does that make the statement logically justified? Does it make it rational?

Now you could argue that this modern usage is inaccurate, and that the term has drifted in its meaning from the first century. But I have to say, having read the New Testament, as well as just about every hagiographic text in existence from before the fall of the Roman Empire, I don't see it. The only Early Christians who come to mind as having put this kind of stock in factual certainty were the Gnostics. The Cult of the Martyrs certainly didn't.

*EDIT: I should say some Gnostics, not the Gnostics. It's hard to make generalizations about such a diverse group.

 

[brettpalmer]

I should say some Gnostics, not the Gnostics. It's hard to make generalizations about such a diverse group.

Which is why I have a suspicion aaronk doesn't quite know what he's talking about when he says "early Christians." Which early Christians? The earliest? The apostles? If so, just how does he expect to know what they believed seeing as how anything they might have believed comes to us through a variety of filters?

 

[AronRa]

I am complaining to both of you. Arguing over mythology seems as pointless as arguing over comic book heroes. It really does not matter if you are right or AronRa is right. Just like it does not matter if The Hulk could beat the Juggernaut or not. Fantasy is fantasy, and being right over how many angels can fit on a needle's head is pointless.

The point I am trying to make is that Christians often 'read between the lines' and ignore the actual lines. For example, it is commonly believed that a vague insult against Satan in Revelations means that he was the secret identity of the serpent in the garden from Genesis, but we know from throughout the text -as well as associated text, and the artwork of Christian antiquity that this is not the case. Likewise it is commonly misunderstood that Isaiah 14:12 is referring to some variant of "the devil" when in fact it is a criticism of Babylonian mythology, focused on a rebellious prince and his failed koo against his father. The trinity is similar in that it is something that is 'interpreted' but not actually stated. The mere fact that there are so many Unitarian Christian denominations proves this -especially in comparison to similar claims made by other god-men of other religions with great similarity.

Hey everyone. I would post the transcript of my video, but I didn't make one.

Yeah, one of the reasons I wanted this to be in text is so that I wouldn't have to listen to the whiny voices of arrogant kids who actually think that I didn't already know, or hadn't already considered everything they might yet bring up.

Just so you know, I took history of world religions in college. It was taught by a Methodist minister with a doctorate in the subject. He said I was the only student to get a perfect score in his class. I began my FFoC series shortly afterward. Of course you'll just accuse me of lying again, which is an insult you have shamelessly repeated -while feigning innocence and ignorance of the first offense. I thought I was clear enough about that at the start of this thread. I'll have to remember to be more explicit for your sake.

Anyway, the reason I brought that up is that one of the lessons there was that each of the gospels was an attempt to characterize Jesus in a way that would appeal to the Jews, whom they hoped to convert. Matthew paints Jesus as the new Moses, (even ripping off Exodus to do it). Mark makes him out to be the long-awaited king of the Jews, Luke tries to link him to David, and the alleged gospel of John sought to portray Jesus as a god. Of course the biggest exaggeration has to come at the end.

My instructor also challenged the class to define what a religion is. He believed it could not be done, but conceded that I had met his challenge. In order to define any collective, you must find the common factors of all subjects that are already universally accepted as one of that group. All religions are faith-based beliefs in supernatural revelation or intuition which posit a posthumous continuation of some aspect of 'self'. I have discovered through personal interaction in the Theravada temple that even Buddhists adhere to this, although they would rather deny it, and tried to at first.

Just for amusement, I would like to see you define what a 'god' is.

Again I will reveal my ignorance in repeating that there is no evidence of the man, Jesus, neither in archaeology nor contemporary history. I see quite a lot of debate against the historicity of Yeshua bar Yossef even without the incredible legends. So rather than tell me how people who share you bias disagree with me, (what a surprise) simply show me what that evidence is, and force me to shut up about it. I'm confident you can't do it because no one else ever has either.

As I proved in an earlier video, faith is a confident assertion of conviction that is independent of evidence. That means it may be assumed without reason and meant to be defended against all reason. This is according to dictionaries of course, but also hymns, sermons of theologians past and present, and even scripture; not just Abrahamic scripture, but also Hindu, Zoroastrian, and so on. William Jennings Bryan demonstrated this beautifully: "If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it." Of course I have MANY other examples to further prove the point.

The problem you have in this situation is that your assumption of the trinity is not actually claimed in your sacred fables. What you describe is similar to the Hindu trimurty, where Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu are all "equally god" but are simultaneously a divided god-head, even as you yourself described the trinitarian view of the god-head of YHWH, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. It is not a completely different context; it's almost identical. The principle difference is that Hindus may be Shivites, Vishnuvites, or Brahmin. They may also be Bhakti if they worship Krishna as the supreme personality of the god-head. However Christians always have to worship Jesus first and foremost. Not only is this in conflict with the very first of the Jewish commandments, but it is also a contradiction with Isaiah 45:5-7.

"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else."
Then Jesus comes along and seems to say "there is no other god...except me". Obviously a contradiction of that magnitude cannot be overlooked the way all the other contradictions in the Bible are, so some Christians conjured the notion of the trinity to account for it.

You say that Jesus and YHWH are different 'persons' of God, and so is the Holy Ghost. Hindus hold the same view with regard to the deities of their Trimurty. But if what you say is true, then knowing that the Jews did not believe in Jesus, then you must accept that the character speaking is YHWH, right? Which means that this passage also contradicts your citation of God encouraging the worship of Jesus. If Jesus issues from God [YHWH] then he is the other god placing himself before God, just as Akenaten did. Remember that what Akenaten did broke taboos in Egyptian religion too, and the reactions in his time were not significantly different than the reactions we see from the pharisees in your story.

Understand that many trinitarian Christians have described Jesus as being the human manifestation of God, "God-in-the-flesh", such that Jesus is an avatar of YHWH. Even PuppyTurtle thought that Jesus was telling the Pharasees that he was the god they already worshiped from the Old Testament. That of course would mean that Jesus was the creator of the world. PuppyTurtle even said that Jesus had claimed credit for creation personally, though he didn't say where; he only said it was not in Matthew 15:9. This would mean that Jesus was the bringer of the flood too, and the source of the Egyptian plagues, and so on. If PuppyTurtle was right, then how else could the Pharisees have interpreted that?

Just for clarity, let me quiz you on this, answering independently for each of the citations below:

Genesis 1:26, 3:8, 32:1-32
Exodus 33:20-23
Numbers 12:5-9
Acts 1:9-11
Isaiah 6:1
Jeremiah 1:4-9
Ezekiel 1:26
Luke 24:39
John 20:26-29

Is the character depicted in each scene Jesus? YHWH? Both? Or neither?

See, I was never required to interpret anything in the approved way. So I was free to read the lines without having to read between the lines and thus glean meaning that isn't actually there.

One last note which I thought would have been obvious enough even for you, (my mistake); I am quite confident in my own understanding. So when I called on TaylorX04, I only wanted a better explanation of Dillahunty's stance, since that is your position too, and Matt didn't clarify it himself. He told me simply to take his word for it. Obviously I need more than that at this point. Any former Christian from a similar background adequately fluent in scripture could have helped me there. TaylorX04 surprised me by actually agreeing with me. I honestly did not expect that.

 

[brettpalmer]

The point I am trying to make is that Christians often 'read between the lines' and ignore the actual lines.

Ah! Discussing what the Bible actually says vs what Christians believe it to say is certainly something I can endorse! :mrgreen:

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Seeing as how this is now five against one, I think I will remove myself from this discussion. Several other people already asked the same question I had anyways, so it should not go unanswered. Perhaps once ThePuppyTurtle chimes in; it will not seem so one-sided.

 

[WarK]

The problem you have in this situation is that your assumption of the trinity is not actually claimed in your sacred fables. What you describe is similar to the Hindu trimurty, where Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu are all "equally god" (...)

There's another example of similar "trinity" in slavic mythology. The god Triglav is a fusion of 3 other gods. The "lineup" varies from place to place, it usually consists of the gods Perun, Svarog, Veles.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

The problem you have in this situation is that your assumption of the trinity is not actually claimed in your sacred fables. What you describe is similar to the Hindu trimurty, where Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu are all "equally god" (...)

There's another example of similar "trinity" in slavic mythology. The god Triglav is a fusion of 3 other gods. The "lineup" varies from place to place, it usually consists of the gods Perun, Svarog, Veles.

I also know of something similar to this in Japanese Mythology.

 

[Prolescum]

Ahem...

[showmore=The only trinity worth its salt][centre]Father (from whence they all came)

Son (the mortal, human aspect)

Holy Spirit (floaty not-quite-dead; a bit cryptic)

[/centre][/showmore]

 

[aaronk1994]

Thanks everyone for your words.

AronRa, I have enjoyed this conversation immensely. I, unfortunately, have other things to attend to on my channel.

I am sorry if I came across as arrogant or condescending in any of my responses. I honestly did not intend to.


Again, thanks for the argument. It was fun.

God Bless

 

[WarK]

Smooth exit, be careful not to drop any of the evidence

Cheers.

 

[TaylorX04]

Apparently, Christians aren't allowed to define their own terms.

You do not define Christianity with an American English dictionary. You define it with the Bible, and the Bible doesn't support Dawkins' definition.

Theologians reject his definition, as I mentioned before.

I addressed this in my reply to Aron, but since it got buried in all that colorful text, I'll post it again:

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.

Many theologians have rejected your definition too, such as Martin Luther, who wrote very scathing condemnations of reason. The earliest Christian sources (the New Testament) do not lend any credence to "reasonable faith", as some call it. To Paul, at least, faith was a different kind of evidence in itself, not something to be accompanied by "worldly" standards of evidence. In Romans 1:20, he claims that god's invisible qualities have somehow been so self-evident that "men are without excuse." This is not just an encouragement to blind faith, but discouragement of being skeptical. Of course, faith is a personal experience and such experiences do not qualify as particularly reliable evidence unless they are verified to a sufficient degree.

So there, faith is defined by even the bible as belief without evidence. But more than that, I'd argue that it's defined as belief in spite of evidence.

 

[Avatra1]

Thanks everyone for your words.

AronRa, I have enjoyed this conversation immensely. I, unfortunately, have other things to attend to on my channel.

I am sorry if I came across as arrogant or condescending in any of my responses. I honestly did not intend to.

Again, thanks for the argument. It was fun.

God Bless

:lol:

 

[AronRa]

I am sorry if I came across as arrogant or condescending in any of my responses. I honestly did not intend to.

I'm confused. Were you "honestly" unaware of how arrogant you sound when you criticized one of your peers for being a YouTuber, when you are a YouTuber yourself? Isn't that hypocrisy? We're talking about two YouTubers here, you and TaylorX04, one of them appears to be a seminary scholar, and the other appears to be a impudent and pretentious high school kid. Yet you honestly didn't intend to come off as arrogant when you declared yourself to be superior compared to him?! Nor did you consider it condescending to accuse me of "making up" arguments which are apparently correct, but which you called "horrible" simply because they didn't agree with the interpretation approved by your denomination?

It turns out that you, PuppyTurtle, and your anonymous historian were all wrong about there being any evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It also turns that you and PuppyTurtle and your unnamed theologian were wrong about the definition of faith too,even according to your Bible. You can't even explain your own inconsistent and contradictory nonsense with regard to your discordant belief in the trinity or it's lack of support outside of Vedic scriptures. Yet you now pretend that you "honestly did not intend" to sound arrogant or condescending when you both called me an ignorant liar?

AronRa, I have enjoyed this conversation immensely.

Yeah, I'll bet you did. But be warned. Next time I won't use so much lubricant.

.

 

[Dustnite]

I shot his "A Response to AronRa" video through my AI I've been working on to transcribe the audio feed. I think its about 95% accurate. I needed to test the speech to text function anyways...

This will be a response to an article on the League of Reason by AronRa. In response to me and Puppy Turtle, the article will be linked down there. AronRa, you are a brilliant scientist, you really are. You are no doubt an expert on evolution and related topics. But you are nothing more than a creationist at theology. I was appalled at your article, I mean, it depressed me. I...I could not believe what I was reading. Your points against the deity of Christ in response to my points were simply pitiful. They were some of the worst things ever read in my entire life, they were far worse than anything the Muslims have offered, So let's get on with this response.

First, here some general comments on the article before I actually get to responding to his responses to my points. Responses, if you can even call them that. Um, demonstrating that AronRa really shouldn't be taken seriously at all. One, he apparently denies the existence of Jesus because he demanded contemporary extra biblical evidence that he existed from puppyturtle so that's sort of an implication. I'm just going to give a quote from a historian: To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars. In recent years, no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus or at any rate was very few and that have not succeeded in deposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant evidence to the contrary. Michael Grant.

He also makes the claim that faith is belief without evidence, you know, the thing that everyone has heard a lot. And he also makes the massively amusing statement that all authoritative sources agree with him. Let's quote an actual theologian, not a dabbler of one who has a PHD in biology who tries to dabble in theology *cough* Richard Dawkins. Um, this is from Alistair McGrath. Referring to Dawkins definition of faith: But why anyone should take this ludicrous definition, accept his ludicrous definition, where is the evidence that this is how religious people define faith. Dawkins is coy at this point and induces no religious writer to substantiate this highly implausible definition which appears to have been conceived with a deliberate intention of making religious faith seem like a piece of intellectual buffoonery. I don't accept this idea of faith and I have yet to meet a theologian who takes it seriously. It cannot be defended from any official declaration of faith from any Christian denomination. It is Dawkins own definition constructed with his own agenda in mind, being represented as if it was characteristic of those he wishes to criticize. No, theologians do not agree with your authoritative people on the matter if the theologians do not agree with your definition. You are simply wrong.

He claims that I shamelessly insulted him. Now, I recently rewatched my video. Where did I insult you in it? I never said, oh AronRa is an idiot. He's stupid. I never said anything like that. I might have said that your points are stupid, but that is not an insult to you. I also sent him a message that basically just said I made a video in response to you please watch it. So where is he getting this shamelessly insulting business. I have an idea. He got it the exact same place where he got most of his points regarding history and theology. He made it up. At least he is consistent. He has absolutely no idea what the trinity is. No idea whatsoever. So let me explain the trinity to you AronRa and anyone who is watching. The orthodox definition of the trinity that there is one being or essence that is God or Yahweh and there are three persons or centers of consciousness that eternally partake of the divine being or essence. Namely the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.

Father and the Son is not the same person as we will discuss later. This is a complete straw man and it's a modelist heresy. He claims that, (still going on the trinity, I'm going on the trinity for a while); he claims that Christians have a divided God head. No that would be the heresy of monism. The three persons are not part of God. The Holy Spirit is not 1/3 of God. The son is not 1/3. They are all God. They all eternally partake of the divine essence. We do not have a divided God head. You are so big making this up. The son is begotten of the father eternally and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father. The son is begotten of the father is important because the verses that AronRa cites, some of the verses, were how Jesus um only gives credit to his father and always is subordinate to his father. This is because he is eternally begotten of the father. Do you think Jesus is some rebel deity that does whatever he wants? No, he accredits all his works to his father because he is eternally begotten of the father. This is a key point in the relationship between the persons of the trinity, which you have no idea what they are. The son is functionally subordinate to the father, but the two are ontologically equal. For example, when Jesus says my father is greater than I, he is referring to his function. One must assume Unitarianism for this point to make sense, but in Trinitarians it is not impossible for persons to be functionally inferior and superior to each other. Yahweh is not a person, but he is a being or essence that has three centers of consciousness. Aronra repeatedly challenges me to give a statement from Jesus saying he is Yahweh. If you think Yahweh is the person of the father then you are right, then Jesus is not Yahweh. But that's not who Yahweh is. Yahweh is the essence. That is how Christians have defined it. Yahweh is an essence, Jesus is a person of Yahweh, and Jesus is Yahweh.
Um, deals with most of his objections to the deity of Christ. Now on to his, there's still a bit more. Further, uh, he claims he says, he challenges me to give a verse in which Jesus says he is the same person as the father. You have no idea what you are talking about, no idea at all. They are not the same person. The trinity says this. They say they are not the same person. Christian doesn't claim they are the same person. They claim they all partake of the same divine essence. Essence. Person. There is a distinction. You should learn it.

He makes the usual claim that we are used to dealing with. He says Jesus never claimed to be god and he means explicitly says say the words I am God or I am Yahweh. Now, he says the analogy Krishna said many times that that he was Yahweh. Not Yahweh. He is a Hindu deity. He said many times that he was God. But Jesus doesn't, so therefore Jesus can't be god because he has not claimed to god like Christians claim to be god. This is absolutely ridiculous. They are two completely different contexts. There are many ways in which Jesus unequivocally claims to be god in ancient Jewish context which is no longer recognized in our modern western culture. Where (?) spoon-fed everything explicitly word for word. They are completely different cultures; you have no idea what you are talking. You are piling all theistic beliefs all into one little pile and slapping the name religion on it and applying standards from one religion to another. You can't do that. I'll be commenting on that point further. He is completely inconsistent on his evidence that Jesus is god. For example, he demands unequivocal statements from Jesus. I assume he would reject John 1:1 and the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god. Why? Because that's john not Jesus. Well how do we know Jesus said these things? John or the other gospel authors. So if you are going to take Jesus' word as accurate you also have to accept the other stuff the Gospel authors say because you are assuming they are reliable in order to make your case that Jesus wasn't god. So in the beginning was the word and the word with god and the word was god. John 1:1

You have lost this argument, because you have to assume they are reliable. If you are going to accept that they quote Jesus reliably you have to accept the other stuff they say. That's how it works. He is completely ignorant about biblical scholarship. He says in the article I needed help because I do not understand this or something like that and I needed an extremely knowledgeable first rate scholar. So who doe she go to? A you tuber. Ya. TaylorX04 a youtuber. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

On to his responses quote unquote. Firstly, he lies in the article or at least forgets what he said. He claimed he says he never claimed Jesus to be only a prophet. I am going to directly quote his video. Jesus only did what Ahkinotin (sp?) did. Promote himself as the sole prophet of the sun god. Yes, translation. Jesus only claimed to be prophet of God. Yes you did say he only claimed to be a prophet.

Most of his responses stem from ignorance of the Jewish monarchiastic context in which Jesus existed. For example, his response to John 17:5: Jesus demanded glory in the father claiming to have existed before creation with the father. A prophet, a monotheistic Jew prophet could not say that he existed with the father before creation and demand glory from him. Jewish prophets were not sons of gods. They were not demigods. They were simply ordinary men who God chose to deliver messages to the people. They had no deistic qualities to them at all. No Jewish prophet could claim this. They could not. The context wouldn't allow this.

As I mentioned, he piles all religion into one pile and then applies standards to religions that, already discussed it. It's like reading a Midsummers Night Dream and making statements about it using statements about Sophocles' Edifice the King. It just doesn't work. Jewish monotheism. You have to get this down. This is pretty much all of your objections.
He uses John 17:5 to dismiss Jesus' I am statement in John 8. As previously noted Jesus could not have claimed to have existed before creation with God. In light of this, you are only reaffirming his claim to divinity. This pays no attention to Jesus claiming the divine title I am as mentioned in Exodus. He claims the title I am, that is a divine title given only to Yahweh and the Jews knew this and that's why the Jews stoned him.

When responding to my next point, he completely ignores Daniel 7 in which god the father encourages the worship of the son of man. Encourages the worship. Worship is given to only to god, the one god in monotheistic Judaism. God the father encourages the worship of the son of man; the son of man must be God. Jesus claims to be the son of man therefore Jesus claims to be God. He simply ignores Daniel 7 at all.

In the other passage he claims to be son of man and the seer at the right hand of power. He just dismisses the claim to be seer at the right hand of power or claim to deity because he just says well Jesus claims to be God's eternal right hand man. In ancient Jewish theology, this point was brought up by Cubain (sp?) the Christian in a debate. The right hand of God is considered to be where the very power of God emanates from. The prophets and messengers of old are allowed to sit in Gods left hand or stand at his right hand, but they are never allowed to sit at the right hand of God. Note that the person of God the father sits on the throne, so not sitting on the throne doesn't mean they aren't God that is the person of the father. Sitting at the right hand of power is the claim to share in the divinity of God. The Jews understood this which is why the high priest tore his robes and declared Judas a blasphemer. In response to the Jews proclaiming Judas a blasphemer, this applies to both passages, Aronra asserts that they only thought Jesus was only godlike, but not god himself. He simply makes this up.

Literally he made it up. Gave absolutely no evidence for it. John 10:33: We are not stoning you for any good work but for blasphemy because you a mere man claim to be God. To be God. Not godlike. Claimed to be God. You are wrong. You made this point up.

Please Please stop talking about theology. An indirect response to the doubt and toma (sp? Story he didn't explicitly mention it. I'm saying this is a response. He says that accepting worship is not a claim to be god. Yes it is. Accepting worship is a claim to be god in a monotheistic Jewish context. According to the Jews, only God is worthy of worship according to this context. Only god is to be worshipped. If Jesus was a prophet if you content, No! Do not worship me. Worship the only one god. He did not say he accepted his worship.

I am barely getting through this video you in time. AronRa you are a creationist in theology. Please stop talking about it. You have just been shown for the amateur that you are. You have no idea what you are talking about. Thank you very much.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I shot his "A Response to AronRa" video through my AI I've been working on to transcribe the audio feed. I think its about 95% accurate. I needed to test the speech to text function anyways...

This will be a response to an article on the League of Reason by AronRa. In response to me and Puppy Turtle, the article will be linked down there. AronRa, you are a brilliant scientist, you really are. You are no doubt an expert on evolution and related topics. But you are nothing more than a creationist at theology. I was appalled at your article, I mean, it depressed me. I...I could not believe what I was reading. Your points against the deity of Christ in response to my points were simply pitiful. They were some of the worst things ever read in my entire life, they were far worse than anything the Muslims have offered, So let's get on with this response.

First, here some general comments on the article before I actually get to responding to his responses to my points. Responses, if you can even call them that. Um, demonstrating that AronRa really shouldn't be taken seriously at all. One, he apparently denies the existence of Jesus because he demanded contemporary extra biblical evidence that he existed from puppyturtle so that's sort of an implication. I'm just going to give a quote from a historian: To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars. In recent years, no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus or at any rate was very few and that have not succeeded in deposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant evidence to the contrary. Michael Grant.

He also makes the claim that faith is belief without evidence, you know, the thing that everyone has heard a lot. And he also makes the massively amusing statement that all authoritative sources agree with him. Let's quote an actual theologian, not a dabbler of one who has a PHD in biology who tries to dabble in theology *cough* Richard Dawkins. Um, this is from Alistair McGrath. Referring to Dawkins definition of faith: But why anyone should take this ludicrous definition, accept his ludicrous definition, where is the evidence that this is how religious people define faith. Dawkins is coy at this point and induces no religious writer to substantiate this highly implausible definition which appears to have been conceived with a deliberate intention of making religious faith seem like a piece of intellectual buffoonery. I don't accept this idea of faith and I have yet to meet a theologian who takes it seriously. It cannot be defended from any official declaration of faith from any Christian denomination. It is Dawkins own definition constructed with his own agenda in mind, being represented as if it was characteristic of those he wishes to criticize. No, theologians do not agree with your authoritative people on the matter if the theologians do not agree with your definition. You are simply wrong.

He claims that I shamelessly insulted him. Now, I recently rewatched my video. Where did I insult you in it? I never said, oh AronRa is an idiot. He's stupid. I never said anything like that. I might have said that your points are stupid, but that is not an insult to you. I also sent him a message that basically just said I made a video in response to you please watch it. So where is he getting this shamelessly insulting business. I have an idea. He got it the exact same place where he got most of his points regarding history and theology. He made it up. At least he is consistent. He has absolutely no idea what the trinity is. No idea whatsoever. So let me explain the trinity to you AronRa and anyone who is watching. The orthodox definition of the trinity that there is one being or essence that is God or Yahweh and there are three persons or centers of consciousness that eternally partake of the divine being or essence. Namely the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.

Father and the Son is not the same person as we will discuss later. This is a complete straw man and it's a modelist heresy. He claims that, (still going on the trinity, I'm going on the trinity for a while); he claims that Christians have a divided God head. No that would be the heresy of monism. The three persons are not part of God. The Holy Spirit is not 1/3 of God. The son is not 1/3. They are all God. They all eternally partake of the divine essence. We do not have a divided God head. You are so big making this up. The son is begotten of the father eternally and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father. The son is begotten of the father is important because the verses that AronRa cites, some of the verses, were how Jesus um only gives credit to his father and always is subordinate to his father. This is because he is eternally begotten of the father. Do you think Jesus is some rebel deity that does whatever he wants? No, he accredits all his works to his father because he is eternally begotten of the father. This is a key point in the relationship between the persons of the trinity, which you have no idea what they are. The son is functionally subordinate to the father, but the two are ontologically equal. For example, when Jesus says my father is greater than I, he is referring to his function. One must assume Unitarianism for this point to make sense, but in Trinitarians it is not impossible for persons to be functionally inferior and superior to each other. Yahweh is not a person, but he is a being or essence that has three centers of consciousness. Aronra repeatedly challenges me to give a statement from Jesus saying he is Yahweh. If you think Yahweh is the person of the father then you are right, then Jesus is not Yahweh. But that's not who Yahweh is. Yahweh is the essence. That is how Christians have defined it. Yahweh is an essence, Jesus is a person of Yahweh, and Jesus is Yahweh.
Um, deals with most of his objections to the deity of Christ. Now on to his, there's still a bit more. Further, uh, he claims he says, he challenges me to give a verse in which Jesus says he is the same person as the father. You have no idea what you are talking about, no idea at all. They are not the same person. The trinity says this. They say they are not the same person. Christian doesn't claim they are the same person. They claim they all partake of the same divine essence. Essence. Person. There is a distinction. You should learn it.

He makes the usual claim that we are used to dealing with. He says Jesus never claimed to be god and he means explicitly says say the words I am God or I am Yahweh. Now, he says the analogy Krishna said many times that that he was Yahweh. Not Yahweh. He is a Hindu deity. He said many times that he was God. But Jesus doesn't, so therefore Jesus can't be god because he has not claimed to god like Christians claim to be god. This is absolutely ridiculous. They are two completely different contexts. There are many ways in which Jesus unequivocally claims to be god in ancient Jewish context which is no longer recognized in our modern western culture. Where (?) spoon-fed everything explicitly word for word. They are completely different cultures; you have no idea what you are talking. You are piling all theistic beliefs all into one little pile and slapping the name religion on it and applying standards from one religion to another. You can't do that. I'll be commenting on that point further. He is completely inconsistent on his evidence that Jesus is god. For example, he demands unequivocal statements from Jesus. I assume he would reject John 1:1 and the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god. Why? Because that's john not Jesus. Well how do we know Jesus said these things? John or the other gospel authors. So if you are going to take Jesus' word as accurate you also have to accept the other stuff the Gospel authors say because you are assuming they are reliable in order to make your case that Jesus wasn't god. So in the beginning was the word and the word with god and the word was god. John 1:1

You have lost this argument, because you have to assume they are reliable. If you are going to accept that they quote Jesus reliably you have to accept the other stuff they say. That's how it works. He is completely ignorant about biblical scholarship. He says in the article I needed help because I do not understand this or something like that and I needed an extremely knowledgeable first rate scholar. So who doe she go to? A you tuber. Ya. TaylorX04 a youtuber. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

On to his responses quote unquote. Firstly, he lies in the article or at least forgets what he said. He claimed he says he never claimed Jesus to be only a prophet. I am going to directly quote his video. Jesus only did what Ahkinotin (sp?) did. Promote himself as the sole prophet of the sun god. Yes, translation. Jesus only claimed to be prophet of God. Yes you did say he only claimed to be a prophet.

Most of his responses stem from ignorance of the Jewish monarchiastic context in which Jesus existed. For example, his response to John 17:5: Jesus demanded glory in the father claiming to have existed before creation with the father. A prophet, a monotheistic Jew prophet could not say that he existed with the father before creation and demand glory from him. Jewish prophets were not sons of gods. They were not demigods. They were simply ordinary men who God chose to deliver messages to the people. They had no deistic qualities to them at all. No Jewish prophet could claim this. They could not. The context wouldn't allow this.

As I mentioned, he piles all religion into one pile and then applies standards to religions that, already discussed it. It's like reading a Midsummers Night Dream and making statements about it using statements about Sophocles' Edifice the King. It just doesn't work. Jewish monotheism. You have to get this down. This is pretty much all of your objections.
He uses John 17:5 to dismiss Jesus' I am statement in John 8. As previously noted Jesus could not have claimed to have existed before creation with God. In light of this, you are only reaffirming his claim to divinity. This pays no attention to Jesus claiming the divine title I am as mentioned in Exodus. He claims the title I am, that is a divine title given only to Yahweh and the Jews knew this and that's why the Jews stoned him.

When responding to my next point, he completely ignores Daniel 7 in which god the father encourages the worship of the son of man. Encourages the worship. Worship is given to only to god, the one god in monotheistic Judaism. God the father encourages the worship of the son of man; the son of man must be God. Jesus claims to be the son of man therefore Jesus claims to be God. He simply ignores Daniel 7 at all.

In the other passage he claims to be son of man and the seer at the right hand of power. He just dismisses the claim to be seer at the right hand of power or claim to deity because he just says well Jesus claims to be God's eternal right hand man. In ancient Jewish theology, this point was brought up by Cubain (sp?) the Christian in a debate. The right hand of God is considered to be where the very power of God emanates from. The prophets and messengers of old are allowed to sit in Gods left hand or stand at his right hand, but they are never allowed to sit at the right hand of God. Note that the person of God the father sits on the throne, so not sitting on the throne doesn't mean they aren't God that is the person of the father. Sitting at the right hand of power is the claim to share in the divinity of God. The Jews understood this which is why the high priest tore his robes and declared Judas a blasphemer. In response to the Jews proclaiming Judas a blasphemer, this applies to both passages, Aronra asserts that they only thought Jesus was only godlike, but not god himself. He simply makes this up.

Literally he made it up. Gave absolutely no evidence for it. John 10:33: We are not stoning you for any good work but for blasphemy because you a mere man claim to be God. To be God. Not godlike. Claimed to be God. You are wrong. You made this point up.

Please Please stop talking about theology. An indirect response to the doubt and toma (sp? Story he didn't explicitly mention it. I'm saying this is a response. He says that accepting worship is not a claim to be god. Yes it is. Accepting worship is a claim to be god in a monotheistic Jewish context. According to the Jews, only God is worthy of worship according to this context. Only god is to be worshipped. If Jesus was a prophet if you content, No! Do not worship me. Worship the only one god. He did not say he accepted his worship.

I am barely getting through this video you in time. AronRa you are a creationist in theology. Please stop talking about it. You have just been shown for the amateur that you are. You have no idea what you are talking about. Thank you very much.

I am glad to finally have a transcript of this. Thank you Dustnite.

 

[brettpalmer]

I am glad to finally have a transcript of this. Thank you Dustnite.

Yes, thank you, Dust. Although, I must say, it STILL doesn't make any sense.