Originally Posted by slipknot

God has always been and will always be. Dont even try to understand because you cant. And are you actualy saying that Jesus paid hundreds (maybe thousands I dont really know) to pretend to be blind or crippelled etc?
And im not denying that everybody sins (except for Jesus). And on the subject of Jesus paying people to pretend to be whatever, there were many witnesses who would have known that the people had died because you cant stop your pulse or turn yourself pale. And theres things like jesus healing munted up hands and stuff. How could you fake having a munted up hand and then it being perfectly fine afew seconds later?

Originally Posted by Foxie

I never said anything of starting or ending. I spoke of omnipotency, but since you brought it up, who made this god? What made this god? Because every single thing has a source that it sprouts from. Things do not randomly appear and disappear, and nothing is constant, even time.

Healing people and bringing them back from the death i can do too. Any volunteers? I'll pay you a few bucks if you potray to be blind, cripple or dead. Lying, creating ruses and exploiting others are basic parts of human nature. No matter how you try to deny them. Oh, and everyone belongs to the sinners club. Every single one. :P

Originally Posted by Foxie

Yes, you could. There have been ''sanguine'' poisons like that for millenia upon millenia. I believe voodoopriests were one of the first to use those. It paralyzes the victim and places them in a shock like state, makes them very pale and suffering from rigor mortis for a few hours. It is damaging upon the brain however, and can be survived for periods up to 30 hours without death. In this condition the heart beats barely 2-6 times per minute, the brain is truly not functional and breathing is extremely slow.

Everyone around 2000 years ago may have not been dumb, but they certainly were gullible, and very easy to believe in magic tricks, like panaceas and all that.
And yes, storytellers tend to color things quite a little, like CMon mentioned.

Originally Posted by Chronos

Wrong. Every single thing that has been created has a source that it sprouts from. A thing or person/deity that has not been created, but has existed for all eternity does not need a creator or a source. As slipknot stated before, God didn't just randomly appear, I believe he's existed for an eternity already.

Also, most of the people Jesus healed had been blind and cripple a long time. The people in the vicinity all knew that those person actually had those problems and were not faking it. Also, regarding the dead, people that lived in the same time as Jesus or before him had a much better understanding of what the term dead was then us. Saying that they could easily be fooled by such simple tricks is a very absurd statement in my opinion.

Originally Posted by slipknot

You make it sound like everybody in Jesus's time was a complete dumbass. And nothing like that would get into the bible since the men who wrote it were inspired by the holy spirit. I guess thatd sound a little crazy to someone who is an athiest :P.

Originally Posted by Chronos

Wrong again, people that time were no more gullible than you or me. Also, are you stating that the texts in the new testament is just a bunch of legends? If that's what you think then consider this. For a story to become a legend it usually needs hundreds of years to be twisted enough for it to be untrue. However the texts that makes up the New Testament were all written so early after Jesus death/departure that there was no time for them to be twisted in any way. I don't think the writers delibaterily(sp?) wrote stuff that were untrue, why would they risk losing their lives just because of that? They could have been fooled, yes, but I highly doubt one person could fool thousands of people to believe that they will get eternal life and a place in heaven just because they follow him.

Originally Posted by CMon

Well, those who weren't particularly supersticious were the ones that wanted Jesus dead because they claimed him to be a fake. I know it sounds very bad but I depict it could have been this way.

Originally Posted by SkazzK

I'm mostly interested in how all this should translate to earthly politics.

Though not a believer, I'm well-read in the Bible, and I know that implementing its rules literally and without question would bring hell on earth. (Like putting to the torch every city where another faith than Christianity is preached, killing all their inhabitants etc. for the greater glory of the Lord our God. Most western cities have a mosque in them by now, so prepare... Just an example)

Considering the fact that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven, I believe it to be folly that his divine laws should mingle with our earthly laws. For example, no state has the right to force shops to be closed on sundays for christian reasons. Nor is it allowable that every woman should, by law, cover her head because of islamic values.

In my opinion, everyone is entitled to his own beliefs. But laws of god must NEVER encroach upon the laws of man. In our modern society, laws should be based on provable facts only. In absence of provable facts, we must rely on probability. The supposed word of god can NEVER be allowed to take precedence over solid, measurable fact*. This is because we live in a multicultural and multireligious society, where such a way of doing things would be grossly unfair to every other religion.

* i.e. not scriptural knowledge. "The bible is the word of god because the bible says so" does NOT cut the mustard. Note that this basically goes for every law, rule and commandment in any kind of holy scripture. As long as its inspiration by god is not proven beyond any reasonable scientific doubt (fat chance), its rules are not permissible as fact or basis for earthly law.

Now before you get offended, as an agnostic child of the free western world, it is my right and my duty to my fellow man to demand freedom from religion. No man or woman, no matter how strong their belief, has the right to encroach upon my freedom.

Your thoughts?

Originally Posted by slipknot

No...please read the parts of the bible about this before stating bullcrap about it. They wanted him dead because they were jealous and he was making them look like idiots. Theres a bunch of reasons but im too tired to go into them all.

Originally Posted by CMon

I'm finding it difficult discussing with someone that has blind faith in a book that supposedly knows the exact feelings and reactions of people over 2000 years ago!

I doubt we will get somewhere with this.