The Tension of Faith

Sounds like something il Donald might say.You keep making such claims Faith yet just as in every other area you never produce any evidence or simply repeat dogma.What are those HUGE differences?FInstead, what we get are repetitions of totally unsupported assertions like the following.

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The apparition I saw was an impersonation of a mentally disturbed homeless man who had threatened me on the street one day. My best guess is that the man was demon possessed and it was a demonic impersonation that appeared in my room threatening me again. He disappeared in a flash when I invoked Jesus Christ. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end.

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That is not evidence of anything but that you are telling a story. It is not evidence it ever happened or it being possible or of demons or of the Power of invoking Jesus or anything else.The Bible stories are the same.They are evidence of people repeating stories, they are anonymous regardless of your Clubs dogma, at best hearsay and most often contradictory and evolving just like folk tales.A great example is the Great Commission and the tale of Paul's encounter which both show ever sign of classic folk tales and legends.

Again, that is simply another unsupported assertion and quite frankly, utterly misrepresents and perverts what is actually written in the Bible stories. And you continue making silly unsupported and quite frankly, false assertions. There is not a single so called miracle in the Bible that is any different than the miracles found in every other religion despite your claims. There you go spotting dogma yet again. Frankly the common sales pitch of Jesus dying to save me from my sins just makes God look stupid and Jesus' life a total waste. And yet you have never been able to actually support even a single prophesy as being fulfilled. Sorry but Biblical Prophecy in Christianity seems simply a con game or fantasy; pretty worthless.Faith, what you are presenting are just dogma, misrepresentation, perversions of Jesus message and not a single example of how Christianity is different than any other religion.Where are the HUGE differences?

Again Faith, reality shows that is simply an absurdity as well as being totally false. Every religion has it dogma and so you are saying that Muslim Dogma is codified truth.Do you ever think about what you post?Or maybe you mean Faith's dogma is codified truth?So where are these HUGE differences?

I think you are most likely wrong there Percy. It seems that if anything could represent the antichrist it is Conservative Evangelical Calvinist Christianity as marketed by Faith (not faith).Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

While at one time that was true later Protestant Reformers pointed out that the Pope was NOT the anti-Christ. One of the main purposes of the Authorized King James version of the Bible was to purge such utter nonsense from Protestant Christianity.

I gotta ask... demons and spiritual manifestations are not supernatural things? Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

Yes, it is near impossible to follow. It is simply another example of you making up new definitions instead of either excepted nomenclature, what reality shows or what has ever been supported by evidence.Demons are not natural critters. The natural order is not simply anything created. And if if that were the case there is no evidence that either demons or spirits or ghoolies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night exist either. Again, have you ever actually read the Bible?In it there are stories of the God character using miracles to show off but also references to other Gods also using miracles to show off. But it is not to demonstrate that he is the one and only God but rather that he is one bad ass God and the God of the Hebrews. In addition, in most such cases the God character in the story comes of as an evil, despicable, irrational bully at best.But in the stories it is the author of John that makes the claim that Jesus performed miracles to demonstrate deity while Jesus is actually quoted as performing miracles mostly because something needed doing or in one story more as a joke than anything else.But that is still not any stronger evidence that any miracles happened then any other such account including the cobra providing shade for the Buddha or the iron ring embedded in the elephants leg breaking apart when touched by the child Buddha.In both cases, Natural Laws were suspended. The cobra did not behave naturally and iron rings that are on an elephants leg so long they became embedded in the flesh do not naturally shatter when touched by a child.

A major problem with so many of the Old Testament miracles is that if they actually happened then the God responsible for the miracle must be totally dishonest and untrustworthy as well.Change leaves evidence. Yet for all of the really big miracles all the evidence that must be there is simply missing. If the God really did cause the miracle then the God also destroyed all the evidence that the miracle ever happened.One big time miracle is the claim of making the sun stand still in the sky. Since the sun doesn't really move the only way to make it appear to stand still is to stop the earth from rotating. But if you do that then folk wouldn't have to worry about some silly battle cause every single person, horse, chariot, cow, rock, pebble, piece of wood, house, body of water would simply streak off at about a thousand miles an hour until they met some solid object like a mountain.Yet there is absolutely no evidence that happened and the story goes on as though no body noticed that everyone got not just killed but destroyed. Had that actually happened there would not be a single human left living anywhere on the planet. Yet there are people alive today.Then there are the two flood myths but again, absolutely no evidence of any worldwide flood and positive evidence of societies living through the period of the imaginary flood and never even noticing.Or the miracles in the Exodus fable. Again, if a Pharaoh and his army got killed there has to be evidence. Lost supplies and horses and armor and chariots and weaponry all need to be replaced and the nation would be left undefended while that goes on. Yet none of the other nations, most in conflict or alliance with Egypt, seemed to notice.Of course the God character in the Exodus fable is also portrayed as a really nasty dishonest character anyway.If the miracles really happened then the God also destroyed all the evidence of the miracles including wiping out the memory that the event even happened from the minds of almost every person on Earth except the author that recorded the story.Such a God simply can not be trusted and so should be ignored.

Faith, no one has said that the author of John as well as other New Testament authors do not make such claims. That is not the issue.The issue is that in the accounts of Jesus supposedly preforming miracles he does not take credit or make the claim it is to show his divinity.Yes, the author of John, whoever that was as well as other unknown folk marketing Christianity do make such claims.

LOLFirst, I did not mention the split moon.Second, the two miracles I mentioned was the cobra shading the Buddha and the Buddha as a child freeing the elephant from his shackle. No, you claim that it means his miracles but that is just another unsupported claim that runs counter to the vast body of stories attributed to Jesus.In the changing water to wine he never tells anyone he did it and in fact they all assume the host just kept the best for last.In the loaves and fishes again he takes no credit for the miracle and in fact those being fed don't have a clue anything wondrous happened.The same pattern can be seen in other miracles where he cures someone then tells them not to tell anyone, when he sends the plaintiff home to find all is well.AbE: Yet the truth is that the author of the Gospel of John is unknown.Sorry Faith but once again, reality says you are wrong.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

That is an invention made after Jesus death. What he did do is try to teach and just as with the Buddha it is that teaching that is important. It is Jesus life that shows he was holy just as with the Buddha. It was that holiness, that sanctity that even the cobra noticed and the reason the cobra changed its nature, shading the Buddha rather than striking him. Jesus life and attempted teaching is the message.AbE:Remember faith, Jesus was certainly not the only person in the Bible that performed miracles and Jesus miracles were pretty much the same as others. Miracles might show that God is working through someone but cannot show deity.Edited by jar, : see AbE

Sorry Faith but those prophe4sies are als made up after the fact and totally unsupportable.And the Jesus you market is pretty much worthless and led a meaningless life. Except that is NOT what the Bible stories say. In the stories Jesus is not perfect, using communal funds for himself, losing his temper, having to he chided into doing miracles by his mothers...Have you ever actually read the Bible Faith? And yes, those trying to sell Christianity made that claim but have never offered any evidence to support that claim.

Sorry but I do not denigrate either the Bible or Jesus but only those like the Christian Cult of Ignorance that pervert the Bible and market a version of Jesus that makes his whole life and message a waste of time. I simply point out that the Christianity you market is a vile, worthless theology based only on pieces parts instead of the whole and frankly is the greatest threat humanity faces.

And once again, reality shows you are simply and completely wrong. You seem to have difficulty understand that far from thinking the entire history of Bible based Christianity belongs in the trash and in particular, I suppose, everything since the Protestant Reformation I am in fact a Bible based Cradle Creedal Protestant Christian myself. What I oppose is the perversion of the Bible that seems common among those who claim to be "Biblical Christians".And of course, Christianity was certainly NOT the foundation for all the freedoms of the west or really the foundation of much other than genocide, bigotry and dishonesty. The foundation of the freedoms found in the west were the Age of Enlightenment and of course much of Christianity, particularly Evangelical Calvinist Christianity and the Great Awakening were central in opposition to all the movements towards freedom. It is still Christians like you that are the threat to both freedom and enlightenment so little has changed.The pagans were always far more like Jesus than any Calvinist. Edited by jar, : appalin grammur

Ah yes, thinking we are charged to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, heal the sick, comfort the sorrowful and protect the weak does sound evil in your mind. And thinking gays and lesbians should have the same protections under marriage as mixed sex couples and that Islam is a religion of peace and that we need to provide liberty to all and that even illegal immigrants in the US have the same right to due process does seem perverted in your eyes.