No, but they may force me to endure the happy clappers on tv, the evangelists in the street, the two-faced bleatings on here, and the hypocrisy and contradictions that they quote from the bible or even the wonderful tales of homosexual abuse from their priests!!!

Christians? Hmm ... more like the heathens that they say they dislike.

Don't be so hard on yourself. I don't see you that way at all!.Well, possibly the bleating....... and a few others, but hey! None of us are perfect eh? Or should I say "oy"?

Oh here we go again. you are not allowed to produce evidence as Spider will "beat you" with his "knowledge and interpretation" of the bible.

So, this post we use the word "shotgun", when are you due to use "strawman"?

so, he was only following orders?

Hmmm .. wonder where we have heard that before?

Notice that the christians are the ones that use "hate" more prevalently than the free thinkers?

... and why am I being hard upon myself?

If being a heathen means being able to think for myself and not follow like a sheep blindly, because the rest of the fan club does, then Im happy to howl at the moon, drink like a fish, indulge myself in the joys of the flesh and swear like a trooper when some idiot happy clapper knocks on my door disturbing my sleep of the innocent.

That's a strawman fallacy, my post does not state, suggest or imply that God was following orders. You asked...it didn't take long, you simply had to post and BAM! Strawman fallacy. Kinda funny how that works.

I failed to mention the OT in your quoted text. If you want a contradiction check the blood lineage of Jesus according the the gospels which contradict one another. Those are both new NT passages written during aproximately the same time. They were both included, both per the blind faith theory the word of God, and only one can be correct. This of course simply answers the contradiction part.

So far as OT vs NT I thought the difference was obvious. Condensing concept in the OT prayer was "purified" and demonstrated by sacrifice and certain figures had personal relationships with God. In the NT sacrifice was abolished or transformed fromt Animals and physical offerings which are external to self sacrifice of effort and intent which is internal and more personal. At the close of the NT the book was "closed" more or less closing man's relationship with God so to speak so that religious law was set without change for the next 1500 years (aproximately). No Versus to quote, no authority to list, this is my understanding of the transformation of the followship of the Hebrew god and I am ignoring the RCC's (or any other demonimations) mucking around with religious law within it's ranks because these are organizational rather than all inclusive.

Man...this is simply going to break your heart, but evidence in a discussion of the Bible...is the Bible. Arguments are interpretations of scripture. You guys will be so shocked when you find out some day that almost every interpretation I have ever offered in these forums are the accepted interpretations by theologians and scholars, Christian and Jewish alike. You should sit down for this part...Words have meanings. GASP!!!! And...well, if you look at words in the context in which they are strung together...well...the interpretation is often quite clear. Here is another shocker...get ready...I hope your heart can take it...You just interpreted everything I wrote. And knowing your track record, I will bet you misinterpreted everything I just posted.

Matthew lists Jesus' geneology on his father's line, while Luke listed Jesus' geneology on his mother's side. We know this for several reasons.

Matthew lists Joseph's father as "Jacob", while Luke lists Joseph's father as "Heli". Birth records show that a "Mary" was born to "Heli" around the time that Mary (Jesus' mother) would have to have been born. It appears that Heli had no male heirs to take on his name, so he adopted Joseph using the Zerubbabel tradition. Joseph's bloodline was cursed, as no son of "Jechoniah" could ever be king of Israel, but Mary's bloodline, while royal also, split away from Joseph's and she was not a decendant of Jechoniah. Notice that in Matthew 1, it does not say "Joseph the father of Jesus"...no, it says "and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." It shows that Jesus' mother was married to Joseph, not that Jesus was a son of Joseph. Now look at Luke 3, "He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph", clearly implying that people thought Jesus was Joseph's son, but he wasn't. In context (the context being reading the geneologies and also knowing the history of Jechoniah and Zerubbabel) there is no contradiction.

No Contradiction when taken in context....So...if two different things are said, and they both can be interpreted as true while stating things in different ways that seem to or may in reality contradict each other then that's ok, because in the magical world of interpreting the bible as divine text even if something is wrong it's right because you said so. Thank you for making that clear!

So I guess the gospels per what you just said couldn't be believed talking about details either, and that the whole word of god thing is blind faith.

Either Jesus had a father or he did not. Either he did not have a father or the text was inaccurate. Either he was a human being with a mother and father, or born of a virgin mother. And BTW there was more than one Joseph in this whole mess in case you didn't know that. Who was the uncle of Herod, who was Mariamne (Mary), and why was Joseph executed? Let's just ignore the question about which Mary was which and what they had to do with the real story, and move on to the reality of what customs were instigated by roman soldiers watching over the Jewish community concerning marriage.

You are welcome to ignore all of this. My point is that there is much more information than that which is actually in the bible available and even what is in the bible is obvious at times flawed, inaccurate, misleading, or misunderstood at times. I've been answering post after post from milesofusa about the nature of the bible that lack any sense or logic from my perspective claiming the bible is the direct word of god and now you are chimming in on yet another subject line trying as hard as you c an to bury the original point with nonsense while not addressing the original point. Overwelm them with nonsense is that the plan?

Shotgun argumentation and some f*cked up history. Joseph was executed? Why isn't that in the Bible? More than one Joseph? Which other one was there? Jews were allowed self rule, marriage customs weren't forced on them.

Jesus had a father, God. Jesus had an earthly father, Joseph, his adoptive father. Jesus was conceived by the holy sprit in the womb of a virgin named Mary. That's what the Bible says. That's what Christians believe. I'm not sure where you are seeing controversy.

I provided very valid and scholarly accepted arguments to prove that that Matthew 1 is the geneology of Joseph, while Luke 3 is the geneology of Mary. At the same time, I showed that neither geneology says "Jesus was the son of Joseph". You response was childish and in fact, a strawman fallacy. I didn't say "Because I said so", I quite clearly offered arguments to support my conclusions. You are actually ignoring valid arguments and instead of trying to refute them, you are suggesting that I never made any arguments.

Now see, this is where the problem lies....The world Jesus lived in was a Jewish community, and subject to the laws of the roman empire (or in some cases the lack of law). If you want to understand what I am talking about speak to an expert on Jewish History it's obvious you don't even know who Joseph was or you would know without asking. Jewish people ruled themselves? So they were afforded more rights and privilages with protection from the roman armies than any other province within the roman empire and the reality of occupied terrirotires ceased to exist because they were exempt?

You like Holy Trinities? There were three Josephs and three Marys in Jesus's life and the source of the information of the bible the Gospels failed to quite specify who was who a lot of the time or exactly who they were.

But the Bible just said per your own statement that Joseph was Jesus's father a gospel said so! I was even kind enough to let you be the one to say it so you could argue with yourself for a change and leave me out of it!

Blackbird,

As a man who values logic and honesty in discussion, your last post was repugnant. I hope that you will think about the mistakes you made and attempt to raise the level of discussion rather than lower it.

Oooooohhhh nooooooo


{{{{{ <<<<< Spider >>>>> }}}}}

sounds like it is the same story


only a different day

Actually my original argument was valid and you started asking for proof, knowing how blind faith worked I had you offer it yourself which you did in true form as someone paying attention but missing my point entirely.

If you are personally interested in all of this feel free to send me a message and I will exchange some info with you but this is just yet another example of the forum being cogged up by nitpicking.

The original Point that YOU ignored was that in spite of some believing the bible is a cornerstone of Christianity in reality outside of blind faith Christianity means one who follows Christ and the bible is simply a tool, and a gift given to the people by men who cataloged the books and put them together in hopes of bringing man closer to god.
GOD is GOD, and GOD speaks for GOD, YOU speak for yourself, and MEN speak for themselves, WOMEN speak for themselves. I'm tired of people claiming by default the men that wrote the bible were GOD which opens a whole new can of theological worms implying he possessed people and robbed them of their personal idenity. GUIDED is different from Controlled please read the Ok-let's try this again subject line and quite your double shotgunning.

I'm dead on accurate based on information available to modern man I've done my research. Now if you wish to actually read everything I am saying without nitpicking I will gladly acknowledge when you make a valid point rather than just argue out of principle.

Your understanding of history is atrocious. When the Jewish leaders took Jesus before Pontius Pilate, he asked them why didn't they just execute Jesus if he had broken their laws. The Jews were under Roman rule, but they were allowed a great deal of autonomy. You are making gratuitous assertions that the Jews had to marry by Roman law...wheres the proof? I have never heard that claim, I believe you made it up or misunderstood another's argument.



Mary, mother of Jesus
Mary Magdelene
Mary of Clopas...beleived to be a close relative to Mary, mother of Jesus.

What does that have to do with disproving the Bible?

Joseph, Mary's husband
Joseph of Aramathea

Who is the third? What does the fact that multiple people were named Mary / Joseph have to do, when there is one Mary/Joseph pair that is clearly described as Jesus' parents?

I can't see the logic in your arguments. If you feel I am missing something, you will need to explain yourself in more detail.



I said "adoptive father", which is made clear in the geneologies and in the story of the conception. It doesn't matter if Joseph thereafter is called "Jesus' father", because it is understood that Jesus was adopted. You are seeing a contradiction in the fact that Joseph wasn't described in every verse as not really being Jesus' father...that's an insanely high standard. Anyone who was reading the account would have already read that Joseph wasn't Jesus' biological father, but that an angel convinced Joseph to marry Mary anyways, thus becoming Jesus' father. There is no contradiction, that dog does not hunt.

I've read this twice. Your arguments and points make no sense. Christians only know Jesus from the Bible, there is no other recording of his teachings. Since "Christian" means "Christ like" and the only source of information about Jesus' life and teachings is the Bible, the Bible is font of Christianity. The teachings in the Bible are the foundations of the Christian faith. Without the Bible, Christianity would be built on shifting sand.

I didn't shotgun, not sure what "double shotgunning" means. What I have done is offer arguments and Biblical evidence to prove that you haven't named a contradiction within the Bible. You haven't, smarter men than you or I have tried without success.

I should can my responses, so that I can copy/paste every time a new person posts the same old tired arguements. I'm trying to give BB the benefit of the doubt, but he's quickly wearing down my patience.