Swearing an Oath

[Jim Tressel]

good Lord.

[Nightstalker]

lmao

[Unnormal]

Alright man I'll drop some science on you. What you say is correct about the council of Nicaea, and we could discuss all day how Constantine the birth of the modern Catholic Church, uses pagan rituals, practices pagan holidays and uses pagan symbols and how the "church" was used to unite for political purposes and from that point forward persecute all who would go up against it, including Christians! But that is not Christianity.
   Where you wrong is how that pertained to Jesus. The council of Nicaea first meeting was in 325AD. That is hundreds of years after Christ, and hundreds of years after the books of the bible were written, and after Christianity and the message of Christ was spreading throughout the world. There first meeting was to discuss what we call today the trinity. Not if he was the son of God, but if Jesus and God the father and holy spirit were parts of the same person.
     If you look into the documentary evidence for the Bible it far outweighs any other text of the time/all time making it the most reliable, most accurate, and most corroborated book in history. AT the time of course a medium in which to write anything on was extremely rare and made by hand. Yet we have 5,664 (which is unpresidented) manuscripts from the Greek alone. In addition there are thousands of other ancient New Testament manuscriptsin all about 24,000.
   The quantity of New Testament material is embarrassing in comparison to any other manuscript work. The closest Homer's Iliad which was the ancient Greek "Bible" that has less than 650 manuscripts. Yet when you read it in school no one would dare call its authenticity into question.
    The theory that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure is dead as a serious academic position.

[Nightstalker]

   Where you wrong is how that pertained to Jesus.

Uh, that has everything to do with Jesus.

Clearly even only a few hundred years after the writings on "Jesus" (just 175 years for some estimates), there was already controversy on the figure. Thus the Council of Nicaea was convened and men decided what was the word of God, and what was not. That must be nice to have that authority.

Bishops voted on the total sum of works on the matter, and the emperor used his position to push political leanings into the process. Of that which was discarded, was the stance that "Jesus" was not eternal, and that the father was greater than he.

If that has nothing to do with Jesus I dont know what does.

The result being with the practice of Arianism at the time, this could have meant that people would not have been "saved" by Jesus, but rather they would have honored thy father. Arianism was very popular in the area around Egypt and Judea, which were the foundation of such teachings, and really a case can be made that this stance was not adopted as canon, is because it was not the stance, nor in benefit of the emperor.

And after this council was convened, the practicioners of Arianism were then branded as heretics.

So as a result of this council, which is one among many, Jesus, essentially a messenger of God which would have told the people "Not me, it's all about God", Had subsequently turned into super Jesus. Now he had extra powers and was eternal, and was one with God, as opposed to being of God.

Yeah, i'm pretty sure this council was about Jesus. If it had leaned the other way, we wouldn't have "Jesus freaks" we do today.

If you look into the documentary evidence for the Bible it far outweighs any other text of the time/all time making it the most reliable, most accurate, and most corroborated book in history.

Seriously, dont make me go there.

AT the time of course a medium in which to write anything on was extremely rare and made by hand. Yet we have 5,664 (which is unpresidented) manuscripts from the Greek alone.

What? Which time are you referring? You do realize Papyrus was in use prior to 300 B.C. and after 300 B.C. parchment codices were used, and it wasnt hard at all.

I dunno what exactly you are trying to suggest, that folks didnt write stuff down then, or they chisled it into stone or something.

Alexander captured Egypt among other places in the region, and the successor to that region Ptolemy, set to put work into building the grandest, most comprehensive learning center in the world, the Great Library centuries before Jesus. Conservative estimates for just individual works alone are numbered in the tens of thousands, with estimates of 400,000 - 1 million scrolls hosted there in it's prime. The Ptolemaic empire had the monopoly on Papyrus, which made it easy for them to scribe a great number of works.

The quantity of New Testament material is embarrassing in comparison to any other manuscript work

I really don't know what this is supposed to contribute the argument. It goes back to affirmation on my prior point about Alexander's successor's having the monopoly on Papyrus and other materials used in writing. When the Romans took ownership of Egypt, which would have been during the scribing of works of Jesus, they didnt just decide to stop monopolizing the trade, or discontinue learning and writing.

The closest Homer's Iliad which was the ancient Greek "Bible" that has less than 650 manuscripts. Yet when you read it in school no one would dare call its authenticity into question.

Unno I love you man, but now you are just talking out of your ass 

The Iliad was never revered as canon or fictional work. It was only recently that after the discovery of what most proclaim as actual Troy, did anyone consider to take any of it as serious. Even the historical figure "Homer" is seen as dubious by scholars today.

C'mon

[Unnormal]

"Had subsequently turned into super Jesus. Now he had extra powers and was eternal, and was one with God, as opposed to being of God."

Arianism that I'm only slightly familiar with, believed in Jesus. Believed in his miracles and his testimony. Once again they had doubts about the "trinity". They even quote scripture (that they believed in) as some of there proof. That Jesus and God were two separate entities. Arianism was not an argument against Jesus or his existence just about his relationship with the father.


"Seriously, dont make me go there."

Why not Night? Take the New testament, find me a passage that doesn't correspond with what, archeology, history, geography,  rulers of the times, the location and size of cities. Archeologist use it in a text book format for excavating ancient middle eastern cities. 

"What? Which time are you referring? You do realize Papyrus was in use prior to 300 B.C. and after 300 B.C. parchment codices were used, and it wasnt hard at all."

parchment/papyrus were rare in that they were kept by governments and temples for important information. We don't find scrolls that were letters from commoners or journals of individuals because, the written word was rare and repetition of it was even more rare.  A temple of the time might have one scroll with a copy of a few books of the New Testament. Hand copied. You will not find anything that matches it. Period. That goes along with the library of Alexandria. Which was a catastrophic historical loss. Your acting as if these documents were handed down form generation to generation and thats why we have so many. Thats just not true were discovering them constantly through out the ancient world. I'll say it again the Bible then and the Bible now are the most, accurate, corroborated and reliable pieces of ancient history we have.

My point with the Iliad, was that we know the Greeks were polytheist, that worshiped many of the God's written about in the Iliad and the Odyssey. That is historical fact confermined by archeology. Yet we have so few found wittings of the stories, where with scripture we have ten's of thousands that confirm each other.

[Jim Tressel]

Christ almighty...

[Unnormal]

Christ almighty...

Preach

[Segnam]

So, Segnam have we told you the answer you've been looking for yet? 

Yes, and then some. Lol.

[thrun]

.....This means that no matter how far you trace back the universe within a universe theory, all systems are homogenous, and time/space considering, would lead to an eventual point.

God.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but the question remains then what started God?  And what Started the starter of God?


And this question goes to anyone who wants to answer

If you believe in God, which one and why not the others?

[ch0wdah]

Swear on this:

http://zogg.ytmnd.com/

DO NOT FAIL YOUR SPECIES

[Unnormal]

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but the question remains then what started God?  And what Started the starter of God?


And this question goes to anyone who wants to answer

If you believe in God, which one and why not the others?




God is Eternal he has no beginning and no end. Our inability to comprehend eternity as finite beings is not an argument against God. To say we have a beginning and an end, so everything else in the universe must have also would be the height of arrogance. That stems from the thinking that we are the best the cosmos has to offer. The concept of eternity or infinity is even applicable to mathematics and perhaps the best way to comprehend it.

I personally believe in the one true God. Truth- That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence. Absolute truth is in essence the bases for morality, that basis always has been an always will be the truth of God. You will find no such truth the world over. A belief system that answers every big question in life in a way that corresponds to reality. Muslims are hoping to ravage twelve virgins when they die. Hindu's say not to be angry at anyone karma will pay them back in the next life, which is impossible knowing that the universe is finite. Buddhists the idea of Nirvana, to in essence free yourself from consciousness and suffering. Then you have the Jews/Christians who's idea of religion is to have a relationship with God who created and loves us, and our ultimate destination is to be with God.  
Now just for fun Thrun pretend there is a God who created all things, All powerful, all knowing. Which of those or any other belief system that exist now or ever has existed sounds like truth to you. It si a simplistic description, and I'm not demining there faiths but none of them ring true to me or correspond with reality IMO.

I'm not sure if you noticed but I haven't always been a Jesus Freak as Night so eloquently put it. But I have always been on a search for truth, and I found it. I submit to you that there is not one question of morality, spirituality, or applicable sociology that can't be answered with scripture.  

[Ellanorah]

...

the God of islam, judeaism and christianity are all the same god.

[Unnormal]

That is true of Judaism and Christianity. Islam however is very very different. They claim to believe in the God of the Bible and Jesus to some extent. But, they claim that all scripture is tainted and ruined and so they can only believe the writings of  muhammed and what scripture he said is true. The beginnings of Islam, and it's personal/political purpose in the person of Muhammed is pretty interesting. But don't mistake the the teachings of the Koran to coincide with the Bible because the simply don't. And their idea of Allah is very different from the God of the Bible.

[Nightstalker]

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but the question remains then what started God?  And what Started the starter of God?

Our isolated system, the universe, consisting of time and space, had to have been created by a being or event, or within a space to which time and space do not apply.

To go contrary to that, is to go against fundamental and logical mainstream science, the law of conservation of energy. The universe cannot appear from nothingness, or it's just as saying that a car appeared from nothingness on your driveway, or a concrete block just appeared on your floor. That's all crazy talk.

And this question goes to anyone who wants to answer

If you believe in God, which one and why not the others?

Why any of them?

Who tells you that God is an interventionalist? Man does

If all powerful God wanted you to know of his existence, why tell one, or a handful of humans, instead of everyone throughout time?

One should not let the idea of God be tainted by the corroding hands of man, through the exploitation of organized belief - religion.

[thrun]

1.  You keep talking about thermodynamics in a fashion that most creationist literature does, and I read a shit ton of it.   Talk origions gives a refutation and discusion of the argument in how I normally come crossed it.  We also have to remember the big bang is a discussion of what our universe has been doing since the beginning of time, not where the hell it came from.

With the car example, as the block I can go to the factories where both are made and see the process.  Where does this god keep it's universe factory?  From my understanding the concept of entropy doesn't apply to the concept of order in this fashion anyways.  

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html  

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html#firstlaw

The problem I have with you applying such laws in this case, is that prior to the big bang there's not a way to be sure (that I know, educate me otherwise if you do) that any of the forces or laws that govern this universe existed. And from my understanding we are fairly certain the 4 fundamental forces didn’t exist for the first few moments of the big bang.

Now if you are saying that they did, and that something had to cause this ordered universe we enjoy then that means that something had to cause the cause as well.  We can stretch that out to infinity, so it doesn’t seem to ad anything productive towards understanding existence.  


2.  Then what is the point of acknowledging or worshiping a god?