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Originally Posted by Atreides88
I believe all humans are sinners, no matter their age. All of our hearts are black and dead with sin, that is why we need Jesus in order for us to be saved. Without Jesus we would be eternally trapped in our own sorrow and misery.
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Newborn babies . . . sinners. . . Even when I was a devoted Christian, the question of why a loving God would allow babies to be born with deformities and suffering was always present. The answers: it is God’s will, or who are we to question the choices of God never set with me. The way I looked at is if God gave us such a developed brain to think and apply logic then it should only be natural to be inquisitive. But such a process brings the reader straight back to the first story- why we are looked upon as “sinners” in the first place- because of knowledge. Therefore the quest for knowledge is what dammed us all in the first place, right? Control. Take elements such as logic, reason, and “the bible tells me so and set them aside; can you really look at the babies below or any baby for that matter and in your heart really believe they are sinners? Beings that have absolutely no experience in life, have not done anything to anyone, and have only taken their first breaths of life.
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Originally Posted by Atreides88
I think that the it's both. I think that it's a well calculated statistic that there are other intelligent forms of life out there, but since we can't yet prove it, I take it on faith that the calculations are correct.
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For me it is not even a faith issue. The size of the universe we can visually see is so immense that IMO other life is a certainty. The universe is also a chaotic place. We see gamma bursts happening every night. If one of those happened anywhere near our solar system it would destroy all the life on this planet. Do you think a gamma burst that takes out a civilization is evil? Or is it how chaos ran its course?
At least we can be comforted that God will never destroy the life on Earth by WATER again. Although no promise is ever made about fire breathing harpies raining down upon is. Although I don’t think people living in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand gave much faith to that promise. I wonder how many Christians spent Christmas in that part of the world in 2004.
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Originally Posted by Atreides88
What do you expect to be left in the tomb? It's been over 1500 years since Jesus was alive. It's been visited by crusaders, ancient Christians, and millions of tourists. Did you expect there to be any relics left? Did you expect to find Jesus waiting there to tell you "I told you so?" Jesus died, Jesus descended into Hell, and then Jesus rose again and left the tomb. You may disagree and just say that he was an ordinary man, and that's your own faith or lack thereof.
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Napoleon died and is longer here, Henry the VIII died and is longer among us, Einstein died and isn’t around anymore. I have no doubt they existed, neither is there controversy as to whether or not they walked the Earth. You obviously didn’t watch the third clip so Ill post it again. While I disagree with some of the writings of Fleming; he presents honest and fair questions. You didn’t watch the third clip perhaps you can provide some insight to what is being asked here.
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Originally Posted by Atreides88
What about the Books of Esther and Ruth?
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I said edited. The literary work people read in the present is the result of generations of stories and accounts of gospels that have been edited, chopped, deleted according to what they saw as being important. Let’s assume the Bible had more to it than Homer’s Odyssey; it seems in the course of all of the decision making to create philosophies people are going to live by, no one was paying attention to Revelation 22:18. Followers of Joseph Smith’s writings better hope John was only talking about his project and not the whole collection huh?
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Originally Posted by Atreides88
I've never read them, so I have no thoughts on the matter.
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If you value the Bible especially the New Testament, then it is a safe bet you value what you perceive as the preaching’s of Jesus Christ. Then you should find great importance in the Apocryphon. The reason you haven’t read them is because the editors that were doing the picking and choosing didn’t want you to read them. They were lost for a very long time for a reason. But they’re here now. The issue is they have as much foundation for being the philosophies of Yeshua as the edited works known as the New Testament. The real problem is if you do read them you are going to find the message differs from what is taught from King James.
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Originally Posted by Atreides88
The important message is that in order to be saved, one must believe in God and Jesus Christ, and accept Him as his or her savior.
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Then the Jews have it worse over everyone huh? This is where the Church really did an effective number on millions. Athanasius and others like him have provided the dictations under which God’s influence will reign. The Apocalypse of Peter states everyone will be saved. Everyone. This kind of philosophy would drastically change the way people would have lived their lives. The concept of being forgiven and saved even if you go to hell for a few hundred years would have meant the sinful living did not carry a permanent sentence with it. Hell is eventually going to be empty according to this Gospel. Such information would have taken control away from the early church. What does being saved really mean anyway?
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Originally Posted by Atreides88
The secondary message to live your life the best you can and love your neighbor as yourself is also important.
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Kind of like the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland? The Crusades? The Inquisition? I agree that it is an important message: Lau Tzu was saying it 600 years before the speculated time Yeshua was even born, and he wasn’t even doing miracles.