re: Mississippi wins right to enforce religious exemptions law

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i was actually being sarcastic by quoting that, because, as previously implied, i can say with absolute certainty that the whole thing is simply a made up story.

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Seemed like you were trying a "gotcha" like many do. Sarcastic or not, I'm glad I had the opportunity to address it in case someone else thought that verse was a real example of Jesus calling His people to take up arms for the faith.

What are you referring to when you say that you can say that the whole thing is simply a made up story? That section of the Bible or the Bible in its entirety? Regardless of what you mean, I understand why you think that but I disagree. I believe it has the "weightiness" of spiritual truth and has enough support to be considered reliable outside of the spiritual issues.

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but this is still interesting to me, because you're obviously a smart person. let me clear about that, despite any sarcasm from me before, from what i can tell you seem to be smart, and probably smarter than most. the vast majority of this board is dumb as a fricking rock but youre clearly not. and on top of that youve seemingly spent a lot of time devoted to learning about this stuff.

so a smart guy has studied something for a long time.

thats where i am on this.

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Thanks for the compliment. I don't consider myself especially smart but I have spent a long time studying the scriptures, theology in general, and arguments against it.

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so how do you not see it? how do you not see that none of this makes any sense? none of it adds up? that the story in the gospels is essentially identical to dozens of stories that came before it, that jesus is nothing but a mash-up of other gods.

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I see what you're saying and I understand your point of view. In fact, I rather expect the incredulity in terms of belief and acceptance where the Bible is concerned. The scriptures, themselves, say that they are foolish to those who are perishing in unbelief, because the truth of it is not something that is discerned or discovered through natural means; it takes a supernatural work of God to make it acceptable as truth to people. In that sense, I don't fault anyone for not believing it because that's the natural reaction.

Addressing the gospel stories of Jesus specifically, I have heard the comparisons to ancient Egyptian mythology and I don't think they hold water. Specific claims of the comparisons are discussed here but there are sites all over the internet that debunk the comparisons to Jesus.

Even if Jesus' life resembled a "mash-up of other gods", that doesn't mean He wasn't God or that the things He did weren't true. A lot of religions started in obscurity but Christianity started in broad sight and in the public eye. The letters written in the New Testament were written to churches full of people who were alive when the claims of Jesus were being done, especially in Jerusalem where most of His miracles took place. It would have been very easy to debunk those claims at the time. It was just as easy to spread false rumors as true ones, so in order for the religion to take off, especially in Jerusalem, there would have had to be convincing eye-witness testimony that was believable even to those who weren't there. Remember that in Jerusalem especially, there were Jews who would have considered the claims of Jesus as blasphemous had they not be true. They didn't see Christianity as a "new religion" but a fulfillment of Judaism, which is what Jesus taught.

As I stated previously, even an orthodox Jewish historian named Josephus (who didn't believe in Jesus as God or the promised messiah) wrote about Jesus' works, so it's not like Jesus was made up out of thin air. People were witnesses to Christ and what He did. While you might not believe it, the New Testament claims are not without some merit. They aren't "completely made up" because they couldn't have been based on the claims it makes (about where and when events took place): they would have been rejected outright by the people who lived during the time and knew what was going on around them. The writings, themselves, speak of witnesses to those events who would have still been around when the letters and gospels were written. It was still a small world back then.

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the census sending them to Bethlehem for his birth never happened, theres no record of it (and there would be), theres no reason for it to happen (leaving where you live to go back where youre from for a census defeats the entire purpose of a census), its only there to fulfill an old testament prophecy about the messiah.

it clearly did not happen.

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There are a lot of assumptions there. There's a difference between us not having outside confirmation that it happened and that it did not happen. What I provided before shows how it could have happened, which is technically all that is required for the text. Like I've said to others, there is a difference between a paradox (seems to contradict but it doesn't) and an actual contradiction (what everyone tries to point out in the Bible to prove its false).

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this is just one of dozens of examples.

how do you just ignore that? and why?

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I've seen most if not all of those examples you're talking about and very few of them offer any real "trouble" with the text that can't be explained in one way or another.

I've read the scriptures and I've heard the arguments and I am still convinced that the Bible is trustworthy and true. The Bible says that the holy spirit testifies to the truth of it, so I suppose I can attribute the work of the Spirit in me for that, which is something else that an unbeliever can't comprehend, much less accept. I get that. It's foolishness, after all.

Perhaps one reason why I still believe the Bible to be true in spite of those claims is because I'm looking for how those claims can be reconciled rather than looking for how the Bible can be dismissed (as most unbelievers do). It's easy to find something (like that verse about Jesus bringing the sword) and use it to justify unbelief without doing any real study or research. It's easier to accept a contradiction than to see why it doesn't contradict.

When it's all boiled down, it's a spiritual and a moral issue, not an intellectual one.