... opposes homosexuality because of the Bible...

Where does the Bible condemn slavery?

Alright, thank you.

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*shrugs

I really don't care.

 

I think there is a bit of misunderstanding of the meaning of slave here as compared to the times the Bible was written. Today, we think of slaves as someone that was captured and forced to work under a masters hand... In the time of the Bible, slaves were not always captured and there are scriptures that rebuke that type of slavery. (See Exodus 21:7, or Deuteronomy 24:7)
In the time of the Bible, indentured servitude was common... People that had debts that they didn't want to pay off or couldn't pay off could go to a wealthy person and ask for them to pay their debts which would require them to be "enslaved" for a period of 7 years at which time they would be freed. Sometimes the people chose to stay as slaves to the people they worked for.....
The verses were actually written to tell slaves (indentured or not) to love their master, and continue to treat them as they want to be treated themselves.
Hence, the Bible is all about loving thy neighbor even if they do you wrong.

Kinda funny cause we sort of have indentured servitude even today... If you don't have cash to pay for say a car... you go to a bank and they pay your debt... Then you are "enslaved" to pay them back by working your job in society and after the agreed number of months/years you are free again.... We just have rules that are different than ancient times like the banks can't force you to wash their dirty clothes or whatever, but the return is however in the form of interest instead of labor duties.

 

Loving your slaves too, and beating them kindly.

 

Sorry, but I missed the question here...

 

It's up to each of us to "figure out the rest." Do you think that the Sanhedrin somehow verifies a bunch of contradictory religious accounts about a demigod named Jesus? You'll pardon me if I don't take a leap off the deep end because of a mention of a "Yeshu" who reportedly was "connected with the government
[or royalty, i.e., influential]," had 5 disciples and was tried and ... Well, this text is plum weird. Let me repeat a portion of it for your perusal:

Our Rabbis taught: Yeshu had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Netzer, Buni and Todah.
When Matthai was brought [before the court] he said to them [the judges], Shall
Matthai be executed? Is it not written, Matthai [when] shall I come and appear before
God? [2] Thereupon they retorted: Yes, Matthai shall be executed, since it is written,
Matthai [when] shall [he] die and his name perish. [3] When Nakai was brought in he
said to them: Shall Nakai be executed? It is not written, Naki [the innocent] and the
righteous slay thou not? [4] Yes, was the answer. Nakai shall be executed, since it
written, In secret places does Naki [the innocent] slay. [6] When Netzer was brought
in, he said, Shall Netzer be executed? Is it not written, And Netzer [a twig] shall grow
forth out of his roots. [7] Yes, they said, Netzer shall be executed, since it is written,
But thou art cast forth away from thy grave like Netzer [an abhorrent offshoot]. [8]
When Buni was brought in, he said, Shall Buni be executed? Is it not written, Beni [my
son], my first born? [9] Yes, they said, Buni shall be executed, since it is written,
Behold I will slay Bine-ka [thy son] thy first born. [10] And when Todah was brought
in, he said to them: Shall Todah be executed? Is it not written, A psalm for Todah
[thanksgiving]? [11] Yes, they answered, Todah shall be executed, since it is written,
Whoso offereth the sacrifice of Todah [thanksgiving] honoured me.

That is one of the strangest accounts of a trial I have ever heard.

 

I can't wait til banks start imprisoning people and whipping them for failing to pay their debts. We need a return to the good old days, am I right?

 

I'm pretty sure (100% sure actually) I saw a post on here recently that was a link to a news article about a guy that had the department of education knocking down his door and arresting him because his girlfriend had outstanding student loans.... Notice I said his girlfriend... and they were student loans.... Oh, and yes I said the Department of Education.... Not sure about you, but I've never even heard of them doing something like this, but hey you asked...
I'll see if I can't find the link to the article/video. Stranger things have/do happen.

As for returning to the good old days.... I have no problem with that... I pay my debts and I'm pretty sure more people would do the same if they felt it would cause that much problem for them. I don't feel like anything is free in life... Someone, somewhere is going to pay for it in the end no matter what we are talking about.
Can you admit that this ^^^^ is true?
Of course I did however say in my post that banks have to play by a given set of rules that are different and the only return they get is in the form of interest....

 

I think it proves very well that he existed which is the complete opposite of what you have been saying. I seem to remember you saying that "The only cross Jesus died on was the cross of the zodiac"....
You can choose for yourself what to believe...... I wish for you that you could see that there is truth in faith, but its not me that need worry.

 

And of course every debt, including its compounded interest, is entirely justified..

 

Not really. It mentions someone named Yeshu being tried and executed, yet the details differ so significantly from the religious stories that it's hard to even compare them. At least it's evidence of a real person by that name who may well have inspired the religious figure, but it is far from verifying many of the gospels' claims.

 

Not sure I understand what you are trying to imply here.... If someone borrows money or receives a service for free then there is someone, somewhere, that is paying for that good or service that someone else got for free. It might be a little bit at a time, but rest assured that someone is paying and it usually ends up being people that work for a living instead of living off the system.
What debt are you implying that someone shouldn't have to pay for?

 

Oh, that's interesting. So, which universities offer courses on the historical Heracles?

 

Working people pay for everything, and I mean everything. It all comes back to us, hence taxes, fees, interest. It always comes back to us, and people are working 2+ jobs as a consequence.

 

ARE there any words of Jesus in the bible? He is written to have said many things, of course, but he didn't do the writing. So it's kind of like "elementary, my dear Watson" was never said by Sherlock Holmes, because of course there never WAS a Sherlock Holmes. Those words were Conan Doyle's words.

 

But was there ever a John Frum? That's what I would like to know

 

FINALLY!!! YAAAA we agree on something^^^^... I couldn't agree more about how working people are the ones that end up paying for everything... That is exactly why I disagree with people getting off from paying their OWN debt with a simple slap on the hand.
We both know that if they don't pay them, then in the end the companies just tack it onto what I pay later.

 

I don't think anyone said Jesus wrote the Bible. In addition, anyone that says they completely understand EVERYTHING that comes out of it are full of crap. I feel like so much of the misunderstandings of the Bible come from the things that are lost in translation and the way people take words and twist them to fit what they want. This is done on both sides of the ball and I'll be the first to admit that. What I don't understand is how anyone can say that Jesus didn't exist. I mean did all of the people that saw him simply smoke too much crack for those years????
I could see the argument that Jesus wasn't the messiah and that ancient Jewish law should rule if you are to follow the Christian way (not that I agree with this), but I can't see the argument that he didn't exist.
I could also see the argument that there isn't proof of what he taught being true, maybe even that he wanted to do it for fame.... Any of these arguments, but to say he didn't exist just doesn't make sense.

 

The problem is, the sole source attesting to his existence is a single book. Just one. "All those people who saw him" exist as assertions inside that single book. If the bible were to magically vanish overnight, leaving us to rely on other sources, every bit of what Christians think would vanish with it.

Furthermore, there are good reasons to regard the bible as not historically reliable. Much of it (especially the NT) was written for purposes of persuasion. It's a sales pitch, not a history book.

OK, try an experiment. Build a case for his existence that does not refer to the bible directly or indirectly. After all, if you have a SINGLE source of information, and that source is known to have been written basically for propaganda purposes and then heavily edited, you have nothing solid to go by.

This isn't to say that much of what is attributed to him isn't worthy, or that as a fictional character he's anything other than a great role model. But fiction is full of characters who are good role models.

 

Read back in the posts a bit farther.... There are other documents that prove he DID exist and that he was executed in the fashion consistent with the Bible.
As for your experiment, again read back in the posts here on this thread and you will see that there are other documents that ARE historical documents proving that he did exist. That coupled with the fact that there were a multitude of people that were actually in constant contact with him just doesn't make sense how you can argue that he didn't even exist. It's kind of like proving that my great great great great great great grandfather actually existed. We both know he did or I wouldn't be here, but since there wasn't a lot of written records about him (mostly because a lot of people couldn't write) there might only be one or two places that prove it.
I'd like to see the proof that he DIDN'T exist...

Again I'm not debating your reason for not trusting in his teachings, I'm simply saying that there is more proof than simply the Bible.

 

No, not really. The fact is, there is not one single source outside the bible, written by someone unfamiliar with the accounts in the bible.

No, again, those documents were all written by people familiar FIRST with the biblical accounts.

According to the bible. Which is why you can't use other sources and still make a case.

Because of lack of evidence. The bible, and sources based on the bible, are not evidence.

But you have no idea who he was. All you know is that you have a geneology, an ancestry. Jesus didn't even have THAT - his father wasn't human, and he left no children - according to biblical accounts, of course. Now, I can certainly claim that any number of people lived 2000 years ago - or even 200 years ago, and nobody could prove that they did NOT exist. Positive claims require positive evidence, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Jesus is an extraordinary claim, made in a single source, under circumstances when inventing him met the political needs of the inventors. And at a time when modern notions of historical accuracy were unknown, when writing was done for the purpose of persuasion. Verification is relatively new idea.

But I DO trust the teachings, which by and large are excellent. I think creating a character to present those teachings is very clever and effective. Those teachings combine common sense social rules, recommendations for cooperation, and religious woo into a single seamless construct. Very clever indeed.

But the sources for an actual physical Jesus simply aren't there. And really, do you need them? I would have no difficulty taking on faith the existence of Jesus, Shakespeare, Paul Bunyan and Sherlock Holmes. These characters are archetypes, symbols of some aspect of human enterprise and thought.

 

Tractate Sanhedrin is a book about capital punishment cases that were held in Jewish history. That is a historical document that is not particularly related to the Bible.
It seems that everyone wants pictures and videos as proof that Jesus lived.... If that's what you require then I guess there will never be proof. Why did more people not write of their encounters???? Maybe because the majority of the people couldn't.... This is something that happened before the majority of the people could even think about writing.

Again, I know my ancestors lived, but there isn't proof of it other than what I have heard about them from either writings or word of mouth.
You said this isn't relevant to Jesus because he didn't have a father or children....(He had a mother) So does that mean that say a child that died at birth didn't exist in the past because it didn't have children?
I understand that you are trying to relate it to family lineage but that's the point.... Jesus wasn't OF MAN.... If he was, then he wouldn't have been the Messiah.... If his body was here to dig up then he wouldn't have risen from the dead.... If there was concrete proof of everything there wouldn't be a need for faith which is what most religions are based on.

 

The Jewish scholar Josephus mentions Jesus (though of course that wasn't his name) in the late 1st century. For this reason historians ( including atheists ) except his existence. However the problem with the historic record of his teachings is that around 380 A.D., the Catholic Bishops decided to burn all books except the Bible. The Great Library of Alexandria was burned cutting us off from thousands of years of written history, as well as literature, science, etc. At that time actual writings of the Disciples existed but these also were burned. Historical scholars believe there was a manuscript circulating called the "Q document" which contained the collected teachings of Jesus written down by his Disciples, As this contradicted the Bible and the church teachings, it was burned. No known copy exists, though rumors persist of one hidden away in the Vatican. It is believed that the quotes of Jesus in the Bible were taken from the Q document in order to give the New Testament writings legitimacy. As the Q document was widely available at the time and the quotes could be checked, it is believed they are correct. That does not mean that they are complete. If you look at the Gospel of Thomas, an authentic document discovered a few decades ago, you will note some of Jesus quotes seem to have been truncated in the Bible. Nor can we count on there being put in context. It seems clear to myself and many others that much of what is quoted of Jesus is deliberately misconstrued by the church. Remember that his actual teachings were so different from the teachings of the church that they had to be burned. None the less by going through a great many documents non-church scholars have been able to discern some of his teachings. Such as that he clearly taught reincarnation. A great deal can be understood if one simply sets aside the Church doctrine and ignore all else in the Bible and read what he said with fresh eyes. I do recommend you take the time to read the Gospel of Thomas if you are at all interested in the subject. I believe it is available online.