FYI, although slaves were owned by private citizens, the Emancipation Proclamation (I think) stated that each slave would get 10 acres or something, plus a donkey. That's where reparations come from, the promise of land and ass (pun much intended).

PS: I think reparations are dumb too.

  posted by Scott @ 9:19 PM

 
I agree. Get over it, it's in the past.

  posted by Josiah @ 9:16 PM

 
Laser's decent. It could be a heck of a lot better. 93.7 is a great station, but it doesn't come in all the time.

By the way, Scott and I were admiring your deftness in changing the subject.

  posted by Josiah @ 3:32 PM

 
All I gotta say is, Rochester's music stations suck. We need some alternative stations.

  posted by Josiah @ 4:05 PM

 
Yay!!! I have a job!!! I called Christian Book to check up on my interview there. The lady was just getting ready to call people, and wanted to know when I wanted to start! Woo-hoo!!! And it's my birthday too. Happy Birthday from Christian Book, here's a gift-wrapped job all nice and cozy for ya. 15% off Cds..aawwww yeah.

  posted by Josiah @ 12:33 PM

 
"I'm just wishing that you could admit that you don't KNOW for a fact that you're right"

Of course. But I also don't know for a fact that I will wake up tomorrow. I just believe it with a reasonable certainty. Ditto for my faith.

"It doesn't make sense that a God of Love, who is forgiving, would have people raised under other faiths and then punish them for it."

This is one of the misconceptions a ton of people have. Everybody seems to think God controls what we do, how we're born, everything. I disagree. Just to let you know, there are other Christians who would disagree to some extent about what I'm saying, but God is not all-powerful. But, God is all-powerful. It's weird. See, I believe that before God created humans, he WAS all-powerful. But when he created us, he gave us FREE WILL. Now, since we have free will, we can choose what to do and not to do, therefore God loses some of his power in that he can no longer control our thoughts and actions. Well, not really losing it, more of lending it. He lends us some of his power in the form of free will. Now how this all applies is this: God doesn't have people raised under other faiths. People have other people raised under other faiths. So yet again, it's people to blame, not God. God doesn't set people up for a fall. People have the choice to believe what they want to believe. That's obvious. But that's how God wants it. God doesn't want to force us to believe in Him, he wants us to CHOOSE to believe in him. He could have programmed us to only worship Him and never think otherwise, but what good would that do. It's like having a computer tell you, "Josiah, you are the greatest guy in the entire world. You are so incredibly hot, that if I were a girl, I'd marry you." It means nothing (and it's not true...well...maybe the hot part is...jk). God created us to choose to believe in Him or not, and with that, God also knew that some people would choose not to believe in Him. Yet Jesus still died for them, and all of us. There's a verse that says, "Even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He didn't wait for us to believe in Him, He did it with the confident assurance that those who wanted to would come to Him.

Sarah, hey, it's better than the alternative.

Scott, I hope you're not insinuating what I think you're insinuating. There will be no showing of toe between Larissa and me EVER!!!!

  posted by Josiah @ 10:41 PM

 
I think it's funny/ironic that both of you say the other doesn't understand. Maybe you need some time alone to "get to know each other." I'm sure something can be arranged...

  posted by Scott @ 6:56 PM

 
"And I may be totally wrong here, but I thought the Jewish belief was that Jesus IS the Messiah, they just think he hasn't come yet."

Yeah, (tries to think of nice way of putting this) you are wrong. The Jews don't think that Jesus is the Messiah, because Jesus has already come to Earth, so how would they be looking for someone who's already been and gone? The Jews are still looking for the Messiah, they DON'T believe Jesus is the Messiah.

See of all religions I see Christianity as the big bully who lies to make everyone else look bad...the really stubborn bully. It's not Christ that doing the lying though...I think it's the early priests.

Please try to remember that Christians today are nothing like Christians in the Middle Ages and somewhat later. We don't burn witches, we don't have Inquisitions, and we try not to lie, because when we do, it reflects on our God. If you have a problem with the religion of Christianity, I say to you, "Good for you!!" Because Christianity, true Christianity, is not a religion. Religion is a way of working yourself to God, trying to be good. In Christianity, you don't have to work yourself to God, Jesus gave his life so that we have free access to God. It's a gift, not something you have to work for. Any problems you have with the Christian church, feel free to talk to me about and I can try to work them out with you, but yeah. There's been a lot of stupid stuff done in the name of Christianity. You're probably thinking of the Catholic Church, which, trying not to offend any Catholics, has caused a heck of a lot of problems in the past. I think Protestantism has been much kinder to the name of Christianity. There are lies that Christianity has made, but there's also a heck of a lot of misconceptions about the Christian faith. Trust me. I've seen a ton of them even here on this board.

Oh Scott, BTW: Rome fell in like 1679 or something, soooo...whatever we were talking about it was probably no more than 200 years before that.
The fall of Rome was in 476 A.D.

"You don't get it. You absolutely do not get it. If I'm a Christian and there are Jewish missionaries "spreading the good word" am I going to listen to them, even if THEY think they're right?"

I think you misunderstood me. It doesn't matter whether or not you believe what they say, as long as you heard it. My point in saying what I said was to show that God is perfectly justified in not bringing devout people of other religions to heaven. You're actually somewhat making my point. There's a lot of people who have heard the Good News, and refuse to accept it. They, unfortunately, are going to Hell, to be perfectly honest with you. It doesn't matter where they were born or what they believe, if they don't believe that Jesus Christ was God and died on the cross, then rose again, defeating death, they ain't gonna be in heaven.

If anybody has any questions that they'd rather not share on the SoapBox, or if you just wanna say hey, or whatever, I dunno, my email is chocolatecoveredheretic@mail.com.

  posted by Josiah @ 6:39 PM

 
I'm not as naive to think that everybody is out there just doing different religions for the heck of it just cause they don't want to become Christians. I understand they don't think of Christianity as the right religion.

In every country throughout the world, Christianity is there. The Christian church has missionaries throughout the world who are more than willing to teach some Jewish kid that Jesus Christ was really the Messiah. They can find the answers if they look for them. It's just that most people aren't looking for them.

"you think that god would put most of the world in a family where they will grow up learning something opposite of him, just to watch them stay faithful to their beliefs, and then be cast in to the dumping ground of humanity?"

Let me try an example. It's one I've used before, but it'll do. Let's say that I was taught my entire life that 2+2=6. My parents weren't the brightest of folk (yuk, yuk) and soon they were hauled off for sucking up their tax forms. In any case, I can find the right answer if I really look for it, but I decide to just keep on believing in what I believe, even though it may not "fit" with the rest of the world. At some point, I'll head off to school and be in a math class, and I'll fail a test because I stayed on my belief that 2+2=6.

I dunno if this will help, but I'll try: Let's just assume Christianity is right for a moment. The reason God made everything, including the world and humans was to give himself glory, to kind of say, "yep, I'm God. All right, I'm awesome." This is perfectly okay for God, because he IS awesome, so it's not being prideful, he's just stating the fact, like if someone were to say, "I'm blond." God created humans to worship Him. That's our basic purpose here on earth is to live our lives for the glory of God. There's some people out there who aren't doing so. There are Christians who aren't doing so. So we got people who aren't doing what they were created to do. Let's say you hire a guy to do some work for you. But he just kind of sits around and doesn't do anything. You'll tolerate this for a little while, but then you'll fire him. God does the same thing. He tolerates the people who aren't worshipping Him for a while, hoping they'll realize their mistake and get on it, but some people just won't budge, and so, he fires them.

Or, looking at it another way, God laid down a couple of rules for his people, the Jews. Sure, they broke them, but he also gave them a way back, sacrificing animals and such. But it got to the point where the Jews had turned their back on the promise He had always given them, that of the Messiah. They crucified the Savior of their people! So then God opened it up for everybody. But he added a rule. Believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. This rule is the most important one, because it is also the way back from breaking all the other rules, because through Jesus is the forgiveness of sins that before had required sacrifice (it still did require sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus, but yeah). If we break the rule of believing in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, there's no longer a way back. All other religions, or lack thereof, do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. They've broken the rule. God didn't make them break the rule, they chose to. They had Jesus staring them in the face, but they chose to ignore it.

"i dont see how someone is supposed to discard their faith in one area and suddenly pick it up in a new one and be respectable for it."

It makes sense if you come from the position that their faith in the first place was wrong. Nobody will respect me if I keep on believing 2+2=6, but if I turn from that and accept that the answer is really 4, I can finally have respect, and not only that, the IRS will be off my back.

Another way of looking at it is using the child molester issue. Most of the people on this board felt that we should be very very strict with child molesters, maybe not to the point of castration, but still. What if a child molester comes up to us and says, "Oh, but I was raised to believe it was OK to molest children"? We'll still say to him, "Sorry, I don't really care if you believed you were in the right, the point is, you were in the wrong. Therefore, you do the crime, you do the time. It doesn't matter how hard you believe. If you believe in the wrong thing, you're gonna have to deal with the consequences of that. Unfortunately, the consequences are pretty harsh when we're talking about eternity. But hey, that's life, or maybe afterlife...

  posted by Josiah @ 11:28 AM

 
Friday.

  posted by Scott @ 9:26 PM

 
Sorry for such a long post again, it was a complicated question that required a lot of explaining. Please don't skip it just cause it's long.

Hey Scott, when are you coming back? Or have you already?

  posted by Josiah @ 7:07 PM

 
Okay, lots of catching up to do.

First off, Scott.
"A child molester is still human, but a human who made a bad choice, since Josiah knows that all sins are equal in God's eyes."
Yes, sins are all equal in God's eyes, in his eyes, one little white lie is just as bad as molesting a child. I understand this. I, however, am not God. My eyes are human eyes. And to these human eyes, if anyone does that to a little kid, i wouldn't stop at castration. If I had a kid (I don't, really!), and someone molested him/her, he would be losin' a heck of a lot more than just his genitals. Let's think in the terms of, oh, i dunno, say, major organ failure, ripping his genitals off and stuffing them down his freakin' throat. Someone so much as lays a finger on my kids or someone I care about, I would not be gentle. And, I think I could find some scriptural backing for my views. Rick (my youth pastor) and I were talking about this. American men today are, simply put, not very manly anymore. I think it's the guys' duty to protect and care for women and children. Rick was reading a book and in the book the author related a time his kid came home talking about bullies on the playground. The guy sat his kid down and basically told him, "if they come after you, I give you complete permission to punch them as hard as you can." I totally agree. You shouldn't start a fight, but you can most definitely finish it.

Ok, next issue. Hell. First off, any ideas you have about the old "fire and brimstone" Hell, burning and stuff like that, get em out of your head. It's not like that. There are a lot of statements in the Bible about Hell as a lake of fire, but those are metaphors. It's also described as a place of total destruction, not just punishment. Sometimes people are portrayed as being cast down or cast out, sometimes they seem rebellious, sometimes sorrowful. The point of it is, it's BAD!! Hell is basically the opposite of everything God wanted for humanity. It's interesting that Hell in Greek is gehenna, and gehenna was a valley outside Jerusalem that was basically the town's dump. What ends up in hell is basically humanity's refuse. It's the dumping ground of the cosmos. They become "garbage" and are "cast out" or "burned in the fire." See how that fits?
Okay, the original question was, "what happens to a non-christian when they die?" This is probably not the answer most of you expected me to give. In fact, Scott is probably gonna think I'm a heretic for this, but my opinion is that I think some non-christians do not go to hell. Hear me out before you excommunicate me or anything. Jesus is the only way to God, but I think God is a loving God, and he gives some people the benefit of the doubt. Babies who die at a young age, I think, go to heaven. They never had a chance to make the decision of whether or not to accept Christ. Ditto for severely mentally retarded people. I also think that there are some people out there who never had the information to make a choice or not, ex. remote tribes in the jungles of South America. I think God looks at their lives and judges them based on the amount of truth they did have. God sort of "looks ahead" and decides whether or not that if they did have the information about Christ, they would have chosen Him or not. Of course, "chosen" isn't a good word since God has already made the decision when he formed the elect, but we're not getting into that.

I don't think that's what you were asking though. You're asking, if there was some really devout Muslim guy out there, would God send him to hell? Sorry, but the answer is yes. It doesn't matter how hard you believe in something, if you're believing in the wrong thing, there will be consequences, in this case, eternal ones. It's like this. I believe in my heart that I can fly. I know it, I just have this inner certainty that I can fly. Now, if I go and jump off the Sears Tower, I'm still gonna die no matter how hard I believe it.

My second point is this. God does not put people into Hell. People put people into hell. There's a verse that says, "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." God doesn't reject them, they reject God. God doesn't enjoy having people go to Hell, he says in Ezekiel, "I take no delight in the destruction of the wicked." For those people, Hell is where THEY want to be, not where God wants them to be. God doesn't judge people and say you go to hell, you go to heaven, when a person is beyond hope, beyond the point of no return, God pretty much just says, "fine, go your own way." This is actually what those Hell-bound people want. It's like a severe alcoholic who loves the booze more than he loves his family and gets what he wants when they finally "leave him alone." The rest of us look at that guy and pity him. But he's sunk so low that he's happier with his bottle than he is without it and with anything else. Sure, he's in torment and he feels terrible, but he chose his path.

It's the same way with God. God just gives the self-addicted sinner what he wants. Because of this, the sinner misses out on what life was all about. C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian writers of all time said that, "If hell is locked, and I believe it is, it is locked from the inside." It's not the will of God that's keeping people in, but the will of sinners.

You talk about how a loving God would do something like punish people like that. You might be thinking that, "Why does he make them suffer? Why doesn't he just put them out of their misery?" Actually, there's a lot of theologians who think that the Bible actually says God does this! Their theory goes that God will ultimately basically annhilate everyone who's not "in Christ." The punishment is eternal because it has eternal effects, not because it is endured eternally. They claim that this squares up with all of the talk in the Bible of the Hell-bound (for lack of a better term) "perishing," "being destroyed," "burned up like chaff," etc. The wicked "shall be as a dream when one awakens," and "they shall be as though they had not been."

In this view, God's judgment and mercy are basically all combined. God judges the rebellious even as he mercifully puts them out of existence, precisely to endure what the traditional view of Hell says they would endure. Think of it as an eternal euthanasia, like shooting a horse when its legs are broken, or shooting a rabid dog. I think this lines up much better with the view of a loving God.

  posted by Josiah @ 7:03 PM

 
Realistically, yes.

But a god of love wouldn't be very effective without involving justice.

Do you love everyone? Do you think it's possible to love everyone equally? If you do, then what good does that do? It'd be the same as being indifferent to everyone. What makes love special is because it's not something that everyone gets, and it's not something you deserve, but it's something that you get.

So how do you decide whom to love? ...I haven't thought this far ahead, so I don't have some plan for my writing now... but I know, God loves all, but because he loves everyone he has to do what's right. I probably contradicted myself, but I'm not a fan of editing, so "so be it."

God of Love? God of Justice? God?

Oh, and Nick, are you sure you know what you're doing here?

  posted by Scott @ 6:38 PM

 
First off... DANG. This format is kinda hard for reading so many posts... When I set this up I never thought it would be so constantly updated. On that note, hey Jos, how about, like making all your posts at once? You can just edit, I'm sure everyone would figure that out over time, hehe.

Now, in response to Sarah M.'s question, well, I'll give the fun response (I'm pumped for it, woo!): why are we focusing on punishment, when we should be focusing on prevention? And now I'll answer my own question. Well, because the punishment is what can prevent the crime. Some of you may be asking, "Well, uhhh, Scott? That's your name, right?"

"Yes, yes it is."

"Yeah. Well, ummm, how does the punishment, like, prevent the crime?"

"Well, that's easy."

"But punishment comes after, so--"

"Shut up."

"Okay, whatever dude."

Anyways, I KNOW all of you can figure this out, but I wanna explain it anyways. If you give a harsh enough punishment, then that will deter people from committing the crime. If castration was the punishment, well, I can bet that there wouldn't be many people with guts enough (and those who do have the guts, won't have them much longer, har har, boy that was a bad joke) to go through with it. But, some people might not remember that in the midst of temptation. So here's my solution: train children to recite something along the lines of, "If you touch me with that, then I'll be the last thing it touches." However, that might scar the little kiddies, so maybe I shouldn't be a person who makes laws. Anyways!

Sarah K.: Here's what Josiah would say (and I'll say it too, as the puppetteer): Since a "real" Christian believes Jesus is the ONLY way to heaven, then only people who went through Jesus would make it, and everyone else will go to hell. And yes, that is what I believe too, uhuh uhuh. Thaaaat's the way, uhuh uhuh, I liiiiike it, uhuh uhuh. Don't mind the horribly misplaced song reference. Please. Thank you, and good night.

Wait, I'm not done. I disagree with Jos. A child molester is still human, but a human who made a bad choice, since Josiah knows that all sins are equal in God's eyes. Personally, though, I think it is a lapse in judgement, but a VERY bad one that seriously damages others that should NEVER have to go through something like that. I think this is the end. G'nite, folks!

Haha, I almost typed "folds." That would have been funny, ha-- yeah, g'nite.

I forgot to talk about chivalry and stuff, oopsie (and I didn't forget Britney, there's just nothing I have to say about that). I think classes would be fine and cool, but people would probably just treat it like Health. There's a lot to learn, but not everyone cares, and the ones who care, already know about it (in GENERAL). And another similarity is that they'd both be required, supposedly. Teehee, it's easy to amuse yourself at 1 AM. Chivalry is neat, um, yeah, wish I could do it more, but I'm forgetful, uhuh, if you like that, there's a bridge you might be interested in, or perhaps another comma, or not. Bye.

  posted by Scott @ 1:02 AM

 
"cruel and unusual punishment"

I already said this, but this term only applies if the being in question is human.

  posted by Josiah @ 7:12 PM

 
Not all Christians see it as a relationship. I can tell you that right now.

That's why I made the distinction between Christianity and Real Christianity. There's a lot of people out there that wander around calling themselves Christians, and frankly, aren't Christians.

3 days till my B-day!!!! WOO-HOO!!!!

Josiah

  posted by Josiah @ 7:11 PM

 
If you molest kids, you no longer fit under the category of "human." Therefore, you don't have any rights to be broken, now, do you? I'm totally in favor of the death penalty too, which is sort of applicable here. Not saying that molesters should have the death penalty, although, actually, that's not such a bad idea...

Right on about the etiquette classes, it sucks when girls get all pissy when you try to open a door for them. They say stuff like, "I'm perfectly capable of opening a door." I understand you are perfectly capable of opening a door. That's not why I did it. I think girls should be treated with respect. One, not to sound chauvinistic or anything, but I think it's our duty as guys, and generally being physically stronger than girls (that IS generally the case) to protect girls and show them respect.

Yeah, Britney sucks. There's actually an article in the paper about how Britney-style artists aren't as popular anymore. People who can actually write songs are becoming more popular. Good riddance. Just one more step along the path of the Dark Chocolate Brothas and Five Iron Frenzy taking over the world.

  posted by Josiah @ 7:07 PM

 
I now have 5 posts in a row. Yay!!! I should just shut up.

Sorry if I'm frustrating you Larissa. I meant this to be more of a kind of debate/discussion than an argument, so I'm sorry if I came across as argumentative. That wasn't my intention. This was sposed to be happy!

  posted by Josiah @ 5:40 PM

 
One last question for ya though. I think we discussed this earlier, but how can you say that Christians and Muslims worship the same God when one of the basic premises of Christianity is that it is the ONLY way to God? If you say, "well that part's wrong," then you're saying Christianity as a whole is wrong, since its basic premise is that it is the exclusive way to God, right?
Maybe you can clear that up for me.

Like I said earlier, Christianity is completely different from any other religion. The principle of Christianity is not "spiritual betterment," Christianity has nothing to do with spirituality. It's about a relationship. There's no ladder or anything to work up to. It's all about getting to know Jesus, and therefore God, better. That's through talking to Him, not through doing things. It has nothing do with ourselves. Christianity is totally God-focused, well, real Christianity anyway, not man-focused.

  posted by Josiah @ 4:30 PM

 
"Stop judging and let people live their lives and be happy for themselves. Let whatever the hell other friggen deity you believe in judge them, you just love your friggen neighbor."

Yet again, I totally agree with you. If everyone did this, the world would be a heck of a lot better. Well, sorta.

  posted by Josiah @ 3:58 PM

 
The whole gay/straight issue is so messed up, I just don't even wanna go there. By the way, Larissa, I think we're both trying to accomplish the same thing. You're trying to get me to consider your point of view, I'm trying to get you to consider mine. We're both probably just as set in our opinions as each other, and it doesn't look like we're getting anywhere. Oh well, it's been fun, though, so far. Remember, this is fun...

  posted by Josiah @ 3:57 PM

 
"Instead of reading what I've written for ways to make an argument"

Sorry, I have a tendency to do that. I overanalyze waaaay too much.

"What I'm saying doesn't make sense to people that are so set in their ways and who don't CARE to know what else is out there." I thought that this statement was kind of ironic when put with the next statement. "I don't care that you think you're right...I just want you to see where I'm coming from." Isn't that a little hypocritical? Also, you said, "I don't have time to sit there and read all that because it's not going to change what I think." Then you say that you're frustrated cause people don't care to know what you think? I dunno, I just thought that was a little weird. Sorry if that offends you, it just struck me as odd. Again, anything that offends anyone here is not on purpose. I'm simply trying to lay out what I think, and it's pretty likely that I yet again completely misunderstood you. Who knows?

"You may be able to "prove" you're right, but there is no way to prove everyone else is wrong either."

Obviously. If there was a way to prove everyone else is wrong, it would have surfaced by now. But the point is that nobody takes the time and really looks at all the facts. People enjoy making blanket statements like, "you have no proof to back that up" and stuff like that. Hey, I'm guilty of it too, who isn't? My complaint is that nobody looks at the evidence one presents.

"I know what you think and I (sort of) agree with you." What do I think? Where do you agree with me?

"FYI: RELIGIONS DO NOT START WARS! CORRUPT, IGNORANT, PEOPLE DO!" I totally agree with you on that. Completely. People are stupid.

What does everybody else think? All this has been so far is a Larissa/Josiah killing spree. I wanna know what other people here think.

  posted by Josiah @ 3:53 PM

 
I think that same principal is something like "spiritual betterment." Was I close, Larissa?

  posted by Scott @ 1:32 PM

 
That's like... overkill...

  posted by Scott @ 1:27 PM

 
Who gets the award for longest post? Oh, that's me!!! My fingers are falling off!!!!! THE PAIN!!!!

  posted by Josiah @ 1:21 PM

 
"I'm not talking about who thinks Jesus is who...I don't care about that."

That is the principle of Christianity!!! That's the entire premise of Christianity, which is that Jesus Christ is God, who came to earth, settles our debt with God, so that we can spend an eternity getting to know God and worshipping Him. Christianity isn't about God, it's about Jesus Christ, who was God, there's a difference. Jews and Muslims pray to a God who sits up in his throne in Heaven and looks down at us. Christians pray to a God that was actually HERE, praying with us and even taking the bullet for us. The Muslim God is a god of anger, the Jewish God is a god of rules. The Christian God is a God of love.

"but I don't trust anyone to tell me that something written in a book that no living person can prove is true is fact. "

Well, you brought it on yourself. Time to bust out my "The Bible is True argument." Be afraid...be very afraid :) Actually, it's not really mine. All of this is out of a book called More Than A Carpenter. It was written by a guy who was an atheist who set out to prove that the Bible and everything related to Christianity was wrong. He studied all of the material and came to the conclusion that Christianity was actually completely correct.

There are several tests historians use in determining the reliabilty of a document. One is the bibliographic test. Obviously, we don't have the original documents of the New Testament. The ones we make Bibles from are copies of the originals. The bibliographic test tries to determine how reliable the copies are based on the number of copies (known as MSS) and the time interval between the original and copy. In other words, if ya got a lot of copies in a short amount of time, it's more likely to be accurate than if there weren't as many copies in a longer span of time, follow? Okay, now lets talk about this.

The history of Thucydides (460-400 B.C.) comes from 8 MSS that are dated at about 900 AD, 1300 years after the original was written. The MSS of the history of Herodotus are equally late and scarce. But a historian said, "No classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus and Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts...are over 1300 years later than the originals." Aristotle wrote his poetics around 343 BC and yet the earliest copy we have is dated at 1100 AD, an almost 1400 year gap, and only 5 MSS are in existence.

Now let's talk about the New Testament. The New Testament blows the others out of the water. Over 24,000 MSS within 25 YEARS!!!! The closest runner up is Homer's Iliad with 643 MSS in a time span of 500 years.

But the bibliographic test only determined that the New Testament is what was originally recored. We still have to determine whether what was written is credible or not, right? To do that, we look at the document itself and what was actually written. Historians follow Aristotle's dictum: "The benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, and not arrogated by the critic to himself." In other words, one must listen to the claims of the document under analysis and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualified himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies.

Dr. Louis Gottschalk, former professor of history at the U of Chicago, has an outline of his historical method that is used extensively throughout the world. He says that the ability of the writer or witness to tell the truth is helpful to the historian to determine credibility , "even if it is contained in a document obtained by force or fraud, or is otherwise impeachable, or is based on hearsay evidence, or is from an interested witness."

The ability to tell the truth is closely related to the witness's nearness both geographically and chronologically to the events recorded. The New Testament accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus were recorded by men who had either been eyewitnesses themselves or who gave their accounts to someone else to write down (like a scribe).

Luke 1:1-4 - "Most honorable Theophilus: Many people have written accounts about the events that took place among us. They used as their source material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other eyewitnesses of what God has done in fulfillment of his promises. Having carefully investigated all of these accounts from the beginning, I have decided to write a careful summary for you, to reassure you of the truth of all you were taught."

2 Peter 1:16 - "For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again. We have seen his majestic splendor with our own eyes."

1 John 1:3 - "We are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."

John 19:35 - "This report is from an eyewitness giving an accurate account; it is presented so that you also can believe."

Luke 3:1 - "It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pilate was governor over Judea; Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee; his brother Philip was ruler over Iturea and Traconitis; Lysanias was ruler over Abilene. "

This closeness to the recorded accounts is an extremely effective means of certifying the accuracy of what is retained by a witness. The historian, however, also has to deal with the eyewitness who, consciously or unconsciously, tells falsehoods even though he is near to the event and is competent to tell the truth. The New Testament accounts of Christ were being circulated within the lifeties of those alive at the time of his life. These people could certainly confirm or deny the accuracy of the accounts. The apostles had appealed (even when confronting their most severe opponents) to common knowledge concerning Jesus. They not only said, "Look, we saw this" or "we heard that," but they turned the tables around and said, "you also know this, you saw it, you were there." One had better be careful when he says to his opposition, "you know this also," because if he isn't right in the details, it'll be shoved right back down his throat.

Acts 2:22 – “’People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus of Nazareth by doing wonderful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know.’”

Acts 26:24-26 - Suddenly, Festus shouted, "Paul, you are insane. Too much study has made you crazy!" But Paul replied, "I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus. I am speaking the sober truth. And King Agrippa knows about these things. I speak frankly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner!

Concerning the primary-source value of the New Testament records, F.F Bruce professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, says, “And it was not only friendly eyewitnesses that the early preachers had to reckon with; there were other less well disposed who were also conversant with the main facts of the ministry and the death of Jesus. The disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies (not to speak of willful manipulation of the facts), which would at once be exposed by those who would be only to glad to do so. On the contrary, one of the strong points in the original apostolic preaching is the confident appeal to the knowledge of the hearers; they not only said ‘We are witnesses of these things,’ but also, ‘As you yourselves also know.’ Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of material witnesses in the audience would have served as a further corrective.

Laurence J. McGinley of St. Peter’s College comments on the value of hostile witnesses in relationship to recorded events. “First of all, eyewitnesses of the events in question were still alive when the tradition had been completely formed; and among those eyewitnesses were bitter enemies of the new religious movement. Yet the tradition claimed to narrarate a series of well-known deeds and publicly taught doctrines at a time when false statements could, and would, be challenged.”

New Testament scholar Robert Grant of the University of Chicago concludes, “At the time the synoptic gospels were written or may be supposed to have been written, there were eyewitnesses and their testimony was not completely disregarded…This means that the gospels must be regarded as largely reliable witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.”

Will Durant, who was trained in the discipline of historical investigation and spent his life analyzing records of antiquity wrote, “Despite prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed – the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus’ arrest, Peter’s denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the reference of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of life, character, and teaching of Christ remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature in the history of Western man.

There’s another test, called the external evidence test, but since this last one was so long, I’ll only go into it if you want me to. You also have to look at all of the martyrs. Like David said, 11 of the 12 apostles died horrible deaths. Only one died of natural causes, and that’s cause he was exiled to a tiny island. Many people might make up the stuff that’s recorded in the Bible, but how many of them would choose to die for a fiction they made up?? They obviously believed it, so we should too.

Feel free to rip apart any of the stuff I wrote above. I like criticism.

Oh, and David, the point she was trying to make was that all religions have the same principle. She knows that all religions aren't the same. That's obvious. My question is, what does she mean by "the same principle" What's the same principle? That there's one God?

The end...finally.

  posted by Josiah @ 1:13 PM

 
The reason people like SUV's is because they need a big car to compensate for something.


  posted by Josiah @ 4:32 PM

 
"when larissa said everyone's opinion is right to themselves, i think she was referring to things that arent proven."
Right, but even if it's not proven, somebody's still gotta be right? Just because something's not proven doesn't mean it CAN'T be proven.

"A man once gave this illustration. He said, “Suppose you take ten men and blindfold them and lead them over to an elephant. You now let each of them a touch a different part of the elephant — tail, trunk, etc. — without telling them what they are touching.You lead them back inside, take off their blindfolds and tell them to describe what they touched.” The man then asked, “Would their descriptions agree?”

The answer of course is no.

The man then made this observation: Even though these ten men touched the same thing, they did not agree because each touched a different part or, if you please, experienced it from a different angle. He then concluded, “Isn’t it the same in the area of religion? Aren’t all the different religious groups — Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, etc. — experiencing the same God, yet explaining it in different ways? Thus can’t they all be true, but with each giving a different emphasis?”

The problem with this illustration is identifying the elephant with God. You are assuming that all these people are experiencing the same God, when in fact this is not true. Christianity and Islam cannot both be true at the same time. Neither can Mormonism and Buddhism both be correct simultaneously, nor can Christian Science and Hinduism.

All religions cannot be true at the same time, because they teach many things completely opposite from one another. They all may be wrong, but certainly they all cannot be right, for the claims of one will exclude the other. As to matters of salvation and the person of Jesus Christ, only historic Christianity recognizes Him as the eternal God becoming a man who died for the sins of the world and arose again the third day. Salvation is obtained only by putting one’s trust in this Jesus.

The Jesus of Islam is not the Son of God who died for the sins of the world; neither is the Jesus of Mormonism or Christian Science the same Jesus as revealed in the Bible. Salvation is not by grace and through faith in these religions, but it is a matter of works. It can then be observed that we are dealing with different religious ideas that are not compatible with one another.

Even though many religions seem to be the same on the surface, the closer one gets to the central teaching the more apparent the differences become. It is totally incorrect to say that all religions are the same. The God of the Christians is not the same God as that of the Mormons, Muslims, or Christian Scientists. If the God of the Bible is the only true God, then the other Gods are nonexistent and should not be worshipped."

"you cant really prove that jesus is the way to god, now can you?"

Possibly, but even if I did, would you believe it? Or would you try to explain it all away?
Answer me this, "If Jesus wasn't the Son of God, who was he?"

Also, the Bible has been proven to be THE most trustworthy piece of ancient literature we currently have. If the Bible is accurate, then you have to bring in the credibility of the writers of it, which are also impeccable, like David said. If ya really wanna know about this, I can bust it out.

  posted by Josiah @ 4:29 PM

 
As a sidenote, since I'm not educated enough to really handle anyone's issues:
WHY DO PEOPLE LOVE SUVs?! Too much of a bad thing equals MORE bad thing! Ahhh!!

  posted by Scott @ 11:49 PM

 
Hey! What's all this about Mr. Binkles?

  posted by Scott @ 5:52 PM

 
Sorry Scott, my bad, yet again I misunderstood what you were saying. Man, I'm good at being stupid. It's one of my better skills.

  posted by Josiah @ 2:10 PM

 
"To each person their own opinion is the correct one. They may listen to others but they don't have to believe them, your opinion that their opinion is wrong may be right to you, but to them it's a bunch of bullcrap."

Somebody's gotta be right. If the question is 2+2=? and someone says 6, they're wrong. It's the same way with opinions. I believe that I can walk in front of a semi that's doing 85 and not get injured. No matter how much I believe in this, my foot is still going to end up in my nostril. People can believe different things, but sooner or later, the right answer is gonna turn up. Now, obviously we disagree, and I'm positive I have the right answer and that Mr. Binkles doesn't, but sooner or later, one of us is gonna turn out to be wrong. The way to figure out the right answer is to look at the evidence. That's how we, as rational human beings, figure stuff out. And so far, all the evidence I have seen has pointed to the fact that Jesus Christ is the only way to God. If you have evidence otherwise, I'd be glad to take a look at it, because I think that's one way to learn, is to be confronted and have to go through and figure it out.

Anyway, major tangent. As always, I'm not trying to offend anyone, so if I did, sorry. I'm trying to lay out what I believe and have it make sense to you guys.

Larissa, what do you mean by "It's just another interpretation." The way I understand the verse is that Jesus clearly states that he's the only way. Maybe I'm just not following you, cause knowing me, that's quite possible.

I dunno Scott, it's now looking like more of a Josiah takes on Larissa and Scott all at once! kind of a deal. Not-So-Celebrity Boxing!!! Woo-hoo!!!
"Poop, poop, on you." - The Dark Chocolate Brothas, "The Teacher Song" off of their GRADUATES CD

  posted by Josiah @ 2:09 PM