Oz

I read your article and for my own personal reasons have concluded it’s a load of rubbish. I won’t qualify my conclusions because like Armchair Critic you will revert to your ad hominem attack stance.

I am still amazed someone can gain a PhD based on a book with no basis on fact, another reason university courses should be reduced back to rational subjects like engineering, medicine and biology etc.

OLO should ban the rubbish you write, it embarrassing
Galen

.

Dear Spencer,

.

You wrote in your article (quoting – in part – Luke 18:19 of the New Testament) :

« Jesus said 'no one is good but God alone'. »
.

In fact, the full quotation of Luke 18:19 is :

« Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. »
.

To put it in context, we have to read the preceding sentence (Luke 18:18) as well :

« [18] A certain ruler asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ [19] Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. »
.

Jesus denies that he is “good”. Yet his mother claimed, he was the son of “God”, of virgin birth, and brought him up in that belief.

It’s an odd contradiction, isn’t it ? If he considered he was not “good” what did he think he was – a sinner (despite his baptism) ?

If so, what sins did Jesus, the “son of God”, commit ?

It raises the question as to whether Jesus really did believe he was the “son of God” all his life, or if, at some point of time, he realised that he was not. Could it be that – perhaps to protect his mother – he simply continued to play-out the role she had bestowed on him at birth and, for some reason, dearly wanted everyone to believe.

Whichever way you look at it, it's always difficult to explain how a baby can be born without a father, isn’t it ?

What’s your explanation, Spencer ?

.

Banjo P,

<<Whichever way you look at it, it's always difficult to explain how a baby can be born without a father, isn’t it ? What’s your explanation, Spencer ?
>>

What's my explanation to you, a God-denier and Christophobic?

You are not yet ready to consider matters concerning the Kingdom of God.

Logic and religion don't seem to mix.
Does it follow that the religious then, are not capable of logic?

It's either that; or

I don't like to disparage you this way Spencer, but I have some concerns that your mind is starting to go.

You state that I've attacked you rather than dealt with the argument presented in your article.

It seems that your article asked why God sends natural disasters upon us.
You stated "we could be in the midst of a pandemic created by God to shake up our values to get us on track with the Lord of the universe" - and that somehow it's all Adam and Eve's fault;

What the hell is with that type of thinking anyway?
God takes retribution upon us so that we will run and kiss his butt again?
Do you have Stockholm Syndrome or something?
Have you built a bond with your captor?
Is your god malevolent, benevolent or neutral?
Is he good sometimes and bad at other times?

I stated that you're wrong, that there's evidence of man's hand in this virus.

But you will never accept logic because your mind is tainted with religion.

Somehow in your twisted reality, you'd say that if it WAS the Wuhan Scientists you showed in your link, then this is because of Adam and Eve, not because man himself had the freewill to develop the virus.

I don't like to say it, but I think you religious lot completely lose all sense of reality when you read too much from that book.

Spencer,

As a non-believer, with only a vague understanding of what Christians view as the three-way nature of God/Christ/HolySpirit, this puzzles me:

« Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. »

So ..... Jesus and God are, at least in this report, distinct, different beings ?

Or was the writer struggling to resolve the paradox that, while only God can be perfectly good, anybody else (even including Christ) was - by not being God - not quite as good ? i.e. according to this myth, perhaps since Christ had a human mother, he wasn't completely godly, but was part human, and therefore not perfectly good ?

I'm not trying to be a smart-arse, simply trying to understand how contradictions and paradoxes are to be resolved.

Joe

Dear Joe,

In her book "Jesus The Man" Prof. Barbara Thiering
presents her landmark research
into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.
She provides a radically different history of the life
of Christ which sweeps away the miraculous and superstitious
elements associated with the origins of Christianity.

The Dead Sea Scrolls give us a new definition of scripture -
that it is written on two levels. In her studies of the
Scrolls over a period of 20 years, Thiering became aware
that this approach could be used in understanding the
New Testament. Through detailed research and a process of
scrupulous comparison she has applied this interpretive
key to the New Testament to reveal that the real history
of Jesus is "... in the place where, ironically, he has
been thought to be least likely to be found - in the
Gospels and Acts of the New Testament."

She claims that the gospels were written deliberately
in a form containing two levels of meaning: the surface
level provides a simplified and often symbolic
description designed to satisfy those who needed the
supernatural as an element of their faith; and the second
level, concealed within, depicts the actual events and their
real significance.

The surface stories and parables of the New Testament
provide one account - yet the real history of the life
of Jesus is to be found beneath.

By presenting his life in its historical context (amidst
the social, political and religious agitations of the time),
Thiering removes elements of Christian mythology to show
that Jesus:

-was born out of wedlock to a betrothed and thus, officially,
"virgin" woman;

-was rejected by his strict Jewish religious sect for his
actions in promoting rights for the poor, the sick, women
and gentiles;

- was crucified for his beliefs but did not die on the
cross...

By stripping away the mystery from events and examining
their significance - we can discover a Jesus who is real,
human, fallible figure. His courage, compassion and wisdom
are of timeless relevance and continue to be the
wellspring of our deepest, most powerful values.