1. R
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    29 Dec '20 19:211 edit
    @Zach-Thomas
    For those who follow the bible, please note a few things. It is said that man (meaning all of humanity) is a sinful being, not necessarily in those words.


    To the question of "Who is a sinner?" one verse, Romans 5:19 says all who descended from the first man, Adam, were constituted sinners.
    "For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were CONSTITUTED sinners, so also it was through the obedience of the One the many will be CONSTITUTED righteous."

    What Adam took into himself caused the constitution of all his descendants to be a sinning nature. We are all sinners by birth because of our constitution.


    We are all sinners. That being said, the bible was written by men (meaning males).

    All males are sinners by constitution - according to the Bible. Hardly, does the Bible let males off the hook simply because they are males.


    Education was pretty limited, to mostly the wealthy ruling class.

    It is pretty evident that the Bible is not showing undue favoritism to the materially wealthy. Hundreds of examples could be sited. But just one might demonstrate my point from the mouth of Jesus.

    "Jesus said to His disciples, Truly I say to you, It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. 19:24) . Christ didn't say the rich have an easier time entering into the kingdom of God but a near impossible time doing so.

    Not to mention scores of other passages and the major and minor prophets of the OT. Favoritism for the wealthy? Hardly.


    Documentation of history was something not really well done then, because the means to preserve that documentation wasn't really around. This leads one to wonder how much word of mouth there was in the early days of christianity, and how much any of its stories changed from one person to the next.


    The great wealth of copies of the New Testament (more so then any other ancient document) actually ad rather than hinder textural critics to trace copyist typos. The overwhelming percentage of recorded and catalogued variant versions of New Testament passages DO NOT seriously effect any MAJOR tenet of the Christian faith. Some few exceptions might be arguable. The vaster number of clearly undisputed copyist errors are trivialities or insignificant typos to the overall major themes of the New Testament's teaching.

    See perhaps debate between Bart Erhman and either Dan Wallace or Mike Licona or James White. Ie.

    Bart Ehrman vs James White
    YouTube&ab_channel=BartD.Ehrman

    YouTube&t=2562s&ab_channel=BartD.Ehrman

    Are the Gospels Historically Reliable Two top historians
    Bart Erhman verses Mike Licona
    YouTube&ab_channel=MikeLicona

    Ehrman vs Wallace - Can We Trust the Text of the NT?

    YouTube&ab_channel=BartD.Ehrman
  2. R
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    29 Dec '20 20:332 edits
    @Zach-Thomas
    Here comes a big kicker...christianity has been used as a fear based method of controlling the masses.


    That's a generalization about religious power structures perhaps.
    Then again one could make the case for Christianity as a preservative of culture preventing it from descending into total social anarchy and disintegration.

    At best you have a blanket generalization which you would have difficulty in proving the actual TEXT of the Bible was teaching some kind of mass control of society. The "city on a hill" of Jesus is more of a example of a better way of life as an anti-testimony within a much larger unrighteous society.

    That was His teaching - "a city on a hill" or "the light of the world" as a beacon in the darkness of the larger surrounding masses. A testimony of righteousness amid a much larger mass of corruption. "The salt of the earth" is a preservative preventing the total corruption of the wider society, like salt meant to arrest the degrading of food.

    The church is the "called out" the ecclesia. The assembly of those called OUT of the larger sphere of society rather than God's people controlling the larger masses of society.

    The fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit is "self control" rather than "OTHER control".
  3. R
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    29 Dec '20 20:352 edits

    "What happens when you die? You go to heaven or hell. You'll burn in hell for all eternity if you don't worship christ"


    I can never find the words "go to heaven" in the Bible. And the eternal punishment taught came out of the same mouth - the mouth of Jesus Christ, that spoke to the world the most striking words of love, forgiveness, long-suffering, pardon, atonement, redemption and reconciliation.

    The for the most part you have to blame JESUS for concepts of last judgment and punishment. But then you also have to blame JESUS for teaching that HE Himself was judged by God that substitution would take place for ANYONE no matter how bad, for accepting His offer that He died for them.

    To say this is "worship me or burn" is not really the teaching.
    It is more like God's righteousness is infinitely perfect. And if you have to answer to God for one sin, before such eternal and infinite holiness and perfection, judgment for sins is impartial.

    The bomb shelter God has provided for sinners to save them from His own eternal and infinite righteous being is the work of the Son of God on Calvary.
    He commands that we believe. This is God Himself become a man and supernaturally bearing in Himself the divine punishment on behalf of the sins of the whole world.

    He commands that we believe.
    It just so happens that He is worthy of our worship.

    Christ's redemption on the cross is not a matter of God closing His eyes and overlooking your sins. It is a matter of them being judged. He forgives not because the debt is overlooked but because the debt is PAID in full.

    He commands that we believe into the available realm of Christ as a living Person. To reject Christ is rebellion of disbelief and substitution on the side of the rejecting revolting rebel will not take place. He has gone as far as He can. It is our choice to receive Christ or reject Christ.

    Look at the size of the universe. It is endless and we cannot fathom its expanse.
    That tells us something of the Love of God but also the Righteousness of God.
    The cross of Christ is where both God's love and righteousness are manifested.
    He will not give up His eternal righteousness for anyone or anything.
    Yet He will not give up His divine LOVE for the sinner either.

    The cross is where God furnishes a way that He can maintain both His great love and His unyielding righteousness. He commands us to believe into Christ.

    Two great things are at play here: the love and righteousness of God and the awful weight of our free will with which we can choose His salvation or reject it gambling on our own ability to justify ourselves before Perfect.

    The gift of eternal life is something so greatly astounding, that God would love His saved man or woman that much, that He would want to be together with them for eternity. That is an unimaginable love.

    And to become in us to conform us to the image of His Son is a solution to the problem of the sin nature and even the very meaning of human life.

    "Worship me or burn" is your unthankful and cynical caricature.
    I think it is inexcusable no matter what excesses of some religious people have done to poorly represent the gospel.


    That may actually be the case, but it can also be completely wrong. There is nothing to show what happens to a soul after a body dies. For that matter, do we even have a way of proving a soul exists?


    For certain no one reading this has a CLUE about what it is to be dead.
    We have One who died and rose. And it behooves us to listen to Jesus Christ as an authority on the matter. He has spoken of the now and the death and the resurrection and the judgment and the forgiveness and the sanctification and transformation of the soul. He has spoken of these things with demonstrable authority. God has furnished man with an authoritative voice on these things many of which no one living knows anything about.

    Ignore Christ then at your own risk.
    He certainly cared nothing for Himself and thought it was so important that we be saved from eternal judgment that He bled, died not only under man's persecution but under the divine judgment of God.

    "Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)
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