John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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John 1:14
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth

Oh Spider, calling me delusional is a joke, really it is.
Unlike you, I don't claim to know everything.

I do know which pagan concepts have crept in. Blind faith is dangerous.

You, sir, are a liar. You said that if I provided one scripture wherein Jesus claimed to be God, you would accept it as true. I have provided several and you still deny it. You are a liar and I will have nothing more to do with you.

Accepting Jesus as lord and saviour is a sacrifice in it's own. We sacrifice that actions we take in our lives.

*example* Someone is irritating the heck out of you, calling you all kinds of names maybe even pushing you. You can either beat the crap out of them or you can sacrifice your feelings and just walk away.
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No you can not fool God. But as living the word of Christ, we are to witness to others as well. This doesn't necessarily mean preaching to everyone. We are to be examples of how to live.

No, that's not true at all. This was Carl Lewis' stance too but it's hugely flawed.

First off, the content of the New Testament can only be accepted as the infallible "word of God" if, and only if Jesus was God, and intended for these scriptures to be written.

However, once you recognize that if Jesus wasn't God then these scriptures can no longer be trusted to hold truth, much less any correct verbatim quotes of Jesus.

So we are nowhere close to being limited but only the options you gave.

You gave two options:

1. Jesus was the God of the Old Testament.

or

2. Jesus was a liar.

Well, that's utter nonsense because the following options are also available.

3. Jesus never claimed to be the God of the old Testament.

4. Jesus was merely claiming to be "one with God" in a pantheistic sense.

5. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to hold Jesus to the verbatim quotes given in a bunch of hearsay rumors that have been labeled "The New Testament".

Just because the authors of the New Testament twisted the meaning of the teachings of Jesus and paraphrased him accordingly, does not imply that Jesus himself was a liar. On the contrary the liars may very well have been the authors of the New Testament!

Did you ever think of that?

To push their malice onto Jesus!

There's no need to do that.

Just recognize that they misunderstood the man, and made up a bunch of rumors and then used Jesus as a dead marionette doll to make him SPEAK their twisted version of what they wanted him to be.

No need to call Jesus a liar. I he wasn't an incarnation of the God of the Old Testament, then none of the New Testament has any merit. Just flush that book down the toilet and quit using it to call Jesus a liar.

And look at how these authors of the New Testament are continually being quoted as if their lies should be believed as the "Gospel Truth".

Well, I personally don't believe it's anything more than hearsay rumors from people who grossly misunderstood and most likely highly exaggerated the life and times of the man named Jesus.

Cowboy, Jesus wasn't saying that we are gods. The people were offended that Jesus claimed to be one with God and asked them why if the Tanakh calls earthly judges "Elohim" (mighty), why shouldn't he be able to say he is one with God, while he is doing God's work. They had seen him healing people and working miracles, so they couldn't deny he was doing God's work. Elohim does't exclusively mean "The God of Abraham", it could be applied to any powerful person. Elohim would literally be translated as "Mighty" or "Almighty" when used to talk about God. The meaning of Elohim ("God" or a "powerful person") depended upon the context.

Carl Lewis, the winner of 10 gold metals in the Olympics? Or C.S. Lewis, the highly educated theologian and professor?

Edit: I stopped reading after the quoted text. Brevity is the soul of wit.

LOL, now I'm a liar?
All you have done done is quote verses that say "I am".


Isaiah 43:10-12 (King James Version)

10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.


Just one verse where Jesus says "I am God".


John 7:16
16 Jesus answered them and said, 'My doctrine is not mine, but His Who sent me.

John 14:24
24 He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's Who sent me.

John 12:49
49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father Who sent me gave me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.

Mark 13:32
32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

Matthew 7:21
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.



And since you like insults...

Proverbs 23:9
9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.

If we can't fool God, then it would be utterly foolish to pretend to believe in something you don't believe.

I honestly do not believe that Jesus was any different from Buddha, Confucius, or a myriad of other spiritually minded men. I truly and sincerely believe that the biblical account of God is ignorant and ungodly. I truly and sincerely believe that the New Testament is grossly exaggerated rumors and even contains outright lies at times.

Now would you have me try to FOOL God by pretending otherwise?

The best way to honor God is to follow the purest and most sincere feelings in my heart. Would you not agree?

I have found that Eastern Mysticism paints a truly wonderful picture of God that cannot be surpassed. Thus if there exists such a thing as an all-powerful all-wise creator then Eastern Mysticism would clearly be the closest spiritual philosophy that mankind has yet come up with.

I have also found that the spiritual philosophy and rites of the Wiccan traditions of Witchcraft and Shamanism are the most beautiful way possible to commune and worship our creator.

So it would be foolish of me to reject any of these things in favor of a male-chauvinistic religiously bigoted dogma that takes the most divine concepts of love, life, and humanity, and perverts them into filth. A religion that is clearly obsessed with notions of sin to the point where they have basically become cerebrally sadistic and masochistic about it.

I think the worst thing we can do is support the Bible as the 'Word of God'. That would not be praising God at all, but instead it would be an insult our creator. This is why I can never support such ignorance.

Isaiah 44:6


Two beings (the LORD the King of Israel and his redeemer the LORD of hosts) are speaking as one and say "I [am] the first, and I [am] the last; and beside me [there is] no God.".

There is a reason why Christians believe in a Triune God and it's not from Paganism.

Sorry, my mistake.

Yes, I meant C.S. Lewis, the highly delusional theologian and professor?

He holds out the same rhetoric as you, which is obviously false.

He holds that either Jesus as God, or Jesus was a liar.

But he fails to recognize the very simple fact that if Jesus was not God, then there is no longer any reason to give anything written in the New Testament any merit.

In other words, if Jesus was not God, then it become utterly foolish to continue to hold Jesus responsible for the verbatim quotes of a book that was clearly written by delusional idiots rather than being the 'infallible' divinely inspired word of god.

If C. S. Lewis, like you, could not see this very simple fact then his status as an intelligent man goes right out the window.

Clearly you can see that if Jesus was not God then you can no longer take the New Testaments quotes of him seriously.

That's the major flaw in the thinking of C.S. Lewis. He failed to realize that if Jesus is not God, then he can no longer trust the New Testament to speak for Jesus.

So to use the New Testament at that point to call Jesus a "liar" would be foolish.

I didn't state C.S.Lewis' argument, it was developed for a non-Christian who wanted to adopt Jesus' teachings into his or her own beliefs, like you or Jess.

I presented my own argument that was tailored to someone who already claims to believe in Jesus and accept the Bible.

It's really telling that you don't' know or understand C.S. Lewis' argument, but call him delusional and wrong. Your arrogance, pettiness and jealousy is very unbecoming.

The same could be said about your views of my argument, go figure...

Peter,

You need to let it go. I have heard arguments for and against Jesus' god-hood from Jews, Muslims and others. You haven't presented anything new. You aren't that smart or original that you discovered something new that has somehow been missed over the past 2000 years. I've looked at all sides, watched debates between various religions over the meanings of Christian scriptures. I accept that the Bible declares Jesus God. Only a radical interpretation of Jesus' own words and the words of his disciples could make it seem that Jesus didn't call himself God or that his followers didn't believe he was God. We aren't going to agree. It's not going to happen. These aren't untested waters for me. I've done my due diligence. We have two different opinions. I think I'm right, you think you are right. Stop making nasty replies to every post I make and move one.

I've simply pointed out a major flaw in your claims, and stated the C.S. Lewis makes the same mistake.

It's your claim that either Jesus was God or he was a liar.

I showed where that line of thinking is false.

So now you resort to your usual petty name-calling.

Oh, by the way, if you think that jealousy is a very unbecoming trait then why have you chosen to worship a jealous God?

That seems rather silly to me.

I don't think anyone denies that the gospels have Jesus claiming to be the same as God. It's pretty obvious that they have him sating bluntly "I and the Father are One".

However, in light of the fact that pantheistic philosophies clearly pre-date these rumors it's very reasonable for people to suggest, as I do, that perhaps Jesus was speaking from a pantheistic point of view and that he was merely misunderstood by the authors of the New Testament.

That's a perfectly reasonable and respectable position to take. It's not only respectable for the person taking this position, but this position also gives Jesus respect. The only people it denies are the authors of New Testament.

Spider, I can discuss religion without resorting to insults.

"You aren't that smart or original..." Constant ad-hominems does nothing except show that you have nothing in rebuttal. So far, the only thing I think you've been correct on is the Sabbath.

Just remember, what you say about me (or others) shows more about your character than others'...


"Don't hate me because I'm right, hate me because I'm an azzhole" - Me

No, you didn't. If someone accepts the Bible, but rejects the god-hood of Jesus, then Jesus has to be a liar. So my argument stands. It doens't apply to your theology, but to someone who accepts the Bible as accurate, it does. I've already clarified that once, but you are still beating this dead horse. The argument I presented applied to whom I was speaking, not to you. I can't be any more clear about that.




No, the truth is that you don't understand his argument. Really, it's not hard. If you are going to depend on sloppy thinkers to get your rebuttals from, you are going to repeat their mistakes. C.S. Lewis' argument ONLY APPPLIED to those who accepted the quotations attributed to Jesus and called him "a great teacher", but rejected his claims of divinity. You have to actually read his argument in toto for yourself, rather than depending on others to do your thinking for you.



Oh, this again. We've been over this, if you don't understand it yet, I don't know what I can say to help you.

I'm sorry, that wasn't meant as an insult. My point wasn't to question your intelligence or creativity, but to point out that 2000 years have passed and the greatest minds of every generation have focused on this problem. There are no new logical or scriptural arguments for or against God's existence or the Bible's validity. That's the point I was making. I was explaining why I wasn't spending hours reading your posts and links, because someone else hundreds of years ago already made the same arguments or claims. Sorry for the misunderstanding on that, I could have worded it better.

Well, to accept the Bible whilst simultaneously rejecting the god-hood of Jesus would be an oxymoron in itself would it not?

That's the oxymoron that I'm referring to right there!

What SENSE would it even make to question the god-hood of Jesus whilst simultaneously claiming to accept the Bible?

That makes NO SENSE at all.