Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

Apologists, by definition, are NOT trying to do this. They're choosing a position and mangling the text in an attempt to support their choice.

I can't watch videos at the library.

And What Jesus told you was not necessarily what Yahweh said either. It was another opinion. Nonsense. You can't decide a priori that Jesus was right about everything and everything else must be warped to fit. You have to take what Jesus taught in the context of what He learned.

The evidence shows that belief does not improve behaviour. I wish you would stop even mentioning evidence and belief in the same sentence. It is not an either-or proposition. If you have evidence, there's no excuse for belief. Since there's no evidence of such a transformation, the hypothesis seems to be confirmed. It shouldn't. Evidence first; if no evidence, then believe if you must. Validation by God may never happen either. You might be a goat. Or He might be Zeus.

I haven't hardly met any unbelievers and I've never discussed belief or religion with anybody in real life.

Wrong. I don't need evidence "against" anything. If I am going to accept that something exists, I need evidence FOR it. No, it isn't beyond you. You understand it very well. I don't believe in your God for the same reason that you don't believe in Zeus.

I don't know what that has to do with it. I don't believe in an inerrantist reading either. I do believe in taking the words for what they say, not cherry-picking like you do the parts that you like. I didn't start from an atheistic position. I was driven there by nonsensical theology.

Think. I was a believer when I didn't have a requirement for evidence. Other believers claimed that they had evidence but when I checked it out, I discovered that it was false. That's why I now have a requirement for real evidence.Why are you so desperate to believe I was never a believer? Nonsense. Anybody who suspends objective evidence in favour of subjective experience is an idiot. Exactly. You contradict yourself. You become a believer because you want to believe.Of course, you can lose your belief against your will. Why would I see Jesus any differently? Why are you surprised that people don't see Jesus differently?

Because when the Bible was written, our modern scientific idea of evidence didn't exist. The New King James Version says, "faith is the (a)substance of things hoped for, the (b)evidence of things not seen," with the notes: So, ""faith is the realization of things hoped for, the confidence of things not seen."

Neither the Jews of the 1st century nor the Jews of any century up to the 21st have believed in a resurrected Jesus.

I doubt it. Even today, you and Phat don't know what evidence means. In other words, it isn't evidence. Such as unicorns, leprechauns, etc. If you "simply believe" without any real evidence, your "reality" is open to any kind of made-up nonsense.

The point is that the 1st century Jew would not have agreed with your interpretation.

You don't have to go back to Isaiah. You can ask your Jewish neighbour. Judaism has never taken your idea of a Messiah seriously.

The subject is your cherry-picking of the text. I'm telling you the same thing as Tangle.

"Twist" is the word. That's a pretty convoluted "plan". Oh, come on. People have all kinds of motivations. Ian Fleming couldn't possibly have had any conceivable motivation to just make up James Bond, could he? So James Bond must be real. Remember why the cherries are tasty. The tree markets them to spread its seeds.