Summations Only

You're still preaching.What you need to do is find evidence to support the points you're trying to make. The main point you should be trying to support in this thread is that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. The intermediate point you're trying to make right now is that Christianity is "the only true religion."You not only haven't given "some good reasons," you haven't provided even a single good reason. Someone with good reasons and good evidence could easily carry the day in any discussion. That you continually abandon lines of argument is evidence of how poor they are. The only remaining defense for them that you can seem to muster is to claim, "I've given you some good reasons," often followed by, "I proved that already." This act was already old a long time ago.--Percy

We're quite aware that you're not trying to prove anything. That you're unwilling to continue with your failed arguments says that at least at some level you're aware of how bad they are.If you were to say something like, "Thunder means the gods are angry," to the right group of people, say a prehistoric tribe from the stone age, you'll get a bunch of knowing nods because they all think they know this to be true. If you were to say something like, "Christianity is the only true religion," to the right group of people, say a fundamentalist congregation, you'll also get a bunch of knowing nods because they also all think they know this to be true.Both groups have no evidence for their beliefs and are very unlikely to be correct.--Percy

I believe Paul was human.--Percy

You offered some absolutely horrible arguments that were naturally challenged, and you've been running away from them ever since. Ah, yes, Isaac, the only son of Abraham and therefore a prophecy of Jesus the only son of God, except Isaac had a brother and was not an only son, and his father was human. Then there's the larger problem that any actual prophetic content must be highly suspect because the writers of the Jesus story had all read the much older Abraham/Isaac story. The accusation that people are throwing at you is that you have abandoned your arguments and aren't actually debating anything, the very thing you're doing right now. This is what I've been saying all along, that you're preaching, not proving. This thread is about proof, meaning proof in the sense of supporting your claims with objective evidence.--Percy

The Bible is the word of men.If the Bible was the Word of God, it would impart some extra detail, some trail-of-Godliness that would be differentiable from the placebo effect.We don't see this.
After thousands of years, and billions of Bible followers.
After millions of different possibilities on translations and how they should be interpreted.Not a single trail-of-Godliness is left on any Bible believer from any time.
Not a single piece of Godly knowledge has ever been found.All meaningful knowledge gleamed from the Bible can be equally obtained from non-Biblical sources.
All human improvements and life aspirations that can come from the Bible can be equally obtained through other non-Biblical motivations or even just placebo effects.Even the intangibles... the hope of things to come, the fear of evil, the unconditional love... all can be obtained without the Bible and without God in equal (and sometimes higher) levels.The Bible can be helpful, and beneficial, as are many other man-made things.
The Bible can help one gain confidence and the strength to carry on in life.
Just like friends and family can for others.
Both are man made.All you have to do to show that the Bible is the word of God is to show a difference that the Bible made that is not possible to be done with non-Biblical means.Show a group of Bible-believing people that is healthier and personally glorified in a way that is unattainable by non Bible-believers.
Show how they have more "good luck" and less "bad luck" or how they deal with situations better than non Bible-believers.Of course, such a task is impossible because such a group does not exist.
If such a group actually did exist, other people would notice. Then they would try it, then they too would see the results and stick with it.But, this isn't ever what we see.
What we see is people claiming to have such things. Then other people notice the claims and they give it a shot anyway. However, things don't work as they were claimed. And then everyone realizes that it's just another group of people living the best way they know how... by the words of men. They claim that their "words of men" are actually "words of God" but when push comes to shove, their claims all fall down. Real claims of God would not fall down. Real claims of God would always be successful, and attract more and more and more people forever as they would be stronger than words of men.The Bible has been given it's chance (thousands of years). Just as the old Roman and Greek Gods were given their chance.
They have been measured, and found wanting. After all this time of millions of people trying their best... there are no detectable differences that actually make them "better". Some certainly are good. But only as good as other words of men. Nothing that separates them to being "better" than the words of men or even a placebo effect.There is, however, something they carry that can be shown to make them much, much worse than the words of men.
We know that the words of men can be wrong. That's why we test and verify and are hesitant with the words of men all the time.
When you claim that something is the Word of God... many people remove that testing and verification. They follow the words without hesitation... even though they really are words of men, just the belief that they are the Words of God is enough to remove any doubts.
Now we have groups of people thinking they have the Word of God when they really have only words of men. And you know the consequences. They can be as dire as mass cult deaths and ongoing abuse (including children). Nothing good comes from believing you have the Word of God when you actually only have the word of men.The Bible had it's chance. Billions of people have spent a long time dedicating their lives to the words on those papers. None of them have produced anything that can be identified as different from the words of men or the placebo effect.It's over. The Bible will fade away as all other words of men have as it's stubborn members grow old and die off.Hopefully, this time, we will stick with the words of men and identify them as the words of men.
As long as we know we're dealing with the words of men, we will continue to test them and verify them and make sure we're not going off the deep end. Such checks and balances simply do not exist with any claimed "Words of God."

Oh brother. Paul was human but Paul didn't invent a religion

That's an amazingly long post saying nothing that I can decipher. You seem to have some complaint that Christians aren't what YOU think they should be without regard to any other standard, but even your complaint isn't decipherable.

The argument is still there and still makes sense. I don't see any point in arguing with people who refuse to think about it.

Of course I'm preaching. That's what I do on this thread now. As I said. Oldies but goodies: I did give some good reasons to regard the Bible as God's word. It's really rather amazing that you could dismiss all those similarities and make up stuff about them not being anything unusual. Meanwhile Christianity IS absolutely unique in offering salvation from sin and Hell through the Son of God who took our punishment for us. And that is REALLY quite amazing.

Yes indeed, I stopped debating and started preaching. Preaching is how Christianity is conveyed to people, debating is not.No I did not say other religions didn't mention calamities, what I said was that they have no concept of God's judgments for sin. The Bible spends a lot of time defining sins and the sort of punishment they get, also showing how God's own people brought judgment on themselves, very specific judgments for very specific sins, not just willy-nilly disasters, volcanoes and things that you throw a human sacrifice into to shut it up.King David for instance was punished severely for his seduction of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, by the chaos in his family as a result. First the death of the baby born to Bathsheba, then the rape of his daughter by her half brother, then the murder of that brother by another brother, Absalom, then the usurpation of David's throne by Absalom and then finally Absalom's death.And I just heard a sermon on this that explains why David was so emotionally wrought up about Absalom: the baby that died he expected to see in heaven, but not Absalom. Absalom apparently died unrepentant and without salvation. Terrible judgment. And you want to compare a hungry volcano with such specifics? Since we are judged by the same principles we really could and should learn from these things.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That was a superb post. And of course it's not decipherable from your perspective. You have a deep delusion, like any other religious fanatic of any discipline.
It makes sense to only people who haven't walled off logic in their brain in order to keep a myth intact.

Another ad hominem. How about addressing the post rather than heaping invective on the messenger?

Preaching is what fanatics do because they don't have any evidence to debate with. Rather than continually assume your right, while demonstrating your wrong, why don't you say read the Quran and disprove what you just said. Another one. Why don't you prove how this proves your god and the bible isn't men's word.Why do you continually babble but don't convey anything that approaches evidence?

I'm just pointing out that Faith has been wrong on virtually every point about Christianity's uniqueness. What seems unique from her point of view is not really unique in the big picture. By analogy, your wife might be perfectly unique from your point of view but to the rest of us she isn't easily distinguishable from a thousand other wives.

Why don't you QUOTE the Koran if you think it disproves something I said?