re: Texas getting it's own Sharia Law

quote:

---

Yes, vassal state. Their citizens weren't being counted for taxation purposes is what I was getting at.

---

The Bible doesn't say the counting/census was for taxation. I gave a possible option where the census being spoken about was not for taxation.

quote:

---

Herod died in 4BC and there are no historical records of a Roman census happening in Judea prior to the 6AD census.

---

As I mentioned previously, the date of Herod's death is based on Josephus. It's possible that he was simply wrong about when he died, because he was speaking about an eclipse being associated with it, and a more likely eclipse would have been a few years later.

Regarding the lack of records, that's an argument from silence. If the census wasn't for taxation like the 6 AD census, then we shouldn't necessarily expect it to be recorded the same way.

quote:

---

Moreover, there are no records of a census requiring you to travel to your place of birth to be counted. That would be so disruptive for a society during that time its silly to suggest Rome, the super efficient empire it was, to want its taxable subjects displaced/not working for weeks, just so they could be counted. Thats not how censuses work and its clearly the hard of the author trying to make a prophecy fit

---

As I mentioned, the movement could have been a Jewish tradition rather than a strict requirement by the Romans.

Moreover, there are no records of a census requiring you to travel to your place of birth to be counted. That would be so disruptive for a society during that time its silly to suggest Rome, the super efficient empire it was, to want its taxable subjects displaced/not working for weeks, just so they could be counted. Thats not how censuses work and its clearly the hard of the author trying to make a prophecy fit.

quote:

---

If your argument is that the chance there is no contradiction is some number above zero then yeah, maybe Bigfoot created a time machine and hid the evidence of this other census. There's a chance that happened, however small. You can try and hang your hat on that tiny hook if you like.

---

I know you're trying to show this is absurd because you think it's very unlikely that any explanation is what actually happened, but my point is merely to show that there are plausible explanations (and not even speaking to miracles) as to why the narrative is not contradictory. You can reject the narrative because you don't believe it, but you can't claim it's a logical contradiction as long as there are possible explanations that remove the contradiction.

quote:

---

How many copies of the Holy Bible have been located amidst the ruins of ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia or Rome?

---

You mean former empires that no longer exist? Kind of proves the point

quote:

---

Here is the bottom line for both you and Prodigal Son.

The religious views that you subscribe to are dictated by the circumstances of your birth. Particularly for someone like me who was born in 1960. Demographics have shifted somewhat since then, but these are the primary factors that dictate what the religious beliefs of most people will be.

---

There are many Christians who were born into homes, towns/villages, and countries where Christianity is a minority religion because of missions work. That's one of the last commands Jesus gave His disciples before ascending to Heaven: go and make disciples of the nations. Missions work is an important aspect of Christianity and always has been, which is why it has spread all over the world.

You're right that there are many who are born, raised, and died without ever hearing about Christianity, and yet Christians believe they died with lack of knowledge of the truth, not because the truth isn't actually true. Ignorance is not evidence that Christianity isn't true, or that geography determines truth.

quote:

---

I was born into a family that did not attend church and where religion played no part. There was no indoctrination. And yet, my brothers and I all turned out to be productive and law-abiding members of western society. There is no need for a belief in a god in our lives. We know what is right and what is wrong, and are not burdened by the weight of any sense of disappointing a creator or savior.

I know that is a difficult for those of you who were indoctrinated from birth to comprehend.

---

Ironically, you seem to be condemning yourself here. You were not born into a religious family who had little to no value in religion, and now here you are, being non-religious, having ascribed little to no value in religion. You are indoctrinated, as well, but not by formal religion.

In spite of that, you are on a forum where people like myself share the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you still reject it. You are not without excuse. You need to turn away from your rejection of your Creator, and believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, obeyed the requirements of the law of God on our behalf, and died to pay the penalty our sins deserve. He was raised from the dead as a validation that His work was accomplished and satisfactory to the Father, and now sits in judgement from Heaven.

Even though you have been indoctrinated as an atheist or agnostic (which is the same thing), the truth is before you right now: repent and believe.

quote:

---

ronically, you seem to be condemning yourself here. You were not born into a religious family who had little to no value in religion, and now here you are, being non-religious, having ascribed little to no value in religion. You are indoctrinated, as well, but not by formal religion.

In spite of that, you are on a forum where people like myself share the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you still reject it. You are not without excuse. You need to turn away from your rejection of your Creator, and believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, obeyed the requirements of the law of God on our behalf, and died to pay the penalty our sins deserve. He was raised from the dead as a validation that His work was accomplished and satisfactory to the Father, and now sits in judgement from Heaven.

Even though you have been indoctrinated as an atheist or agnostic (which is the same thing), the truth is before you right now: repent and believe.

---

You have a much different definition of "indoctrination" than I do.

Indoctrination, per my understanding, is when people in a position of authority over you force feed you information to the point that you succumb to it.

At what age did your parents begin forcing you to sit next to them in a church pew every Sunday?

I was never subjected to that. I was allowed to develop my religious beliefs without any formal teaching. 10-year-olds have amazing power to discern when they aren't being subjected to the pressure of parental persuasion.

quote:

---

You have a much different definition of "indoctrination" than I do.

Indoctrination, per my understanding, is when people in a position of authority over you force feed you information to the point that you succumb to it.

---

We must have a different definition, because I believe yours is too narrow for the topic at hand.

Many people insist that media indoctrinates children. Disney isn't force-feeding anything to kids that they aren't willingly engaging with. The outcome is the same, though, because indoctrination simply speaks to influence through teaching. That teaching can be more obvious as you are describing, where a parent or teacher requires a child to attend to clear teaching and even to prove they learned it through testing, but it can also be more subtle, such as through constant worldview exposure and learning by example.

You were just as indoctrinated as I was growing up, but you learned different things than I did, and had different examples presented to you than I did.

quote:

---

At what age did your parents begin forcing you to sit next to them in a church pew every Sunday?

---

I actually didn't go to church at all from about the age of 3 or 4 until about 12 or 13. My parents experienced some "church hurt" that kept them away from church for several years, so I honestly have no memory of attending church until I was almost a teenager.

quote:

---

I was never subjected to that. I was allowed to develop my religious beliefs without any formal teaching.

---

It seems from this that you were indoctrinated through omission rather than through direct teaching and catechism, then.

If your parents were not religious, it taught you that religion was not important. If they ever mocked God or religious people, that taught you to discount religion to some degree. If they expressed skepticism about religion, you were taught to be skeptical about religion. Even if all they ever did was never talk about religion in a positive light, you learned that religion wasn't worth discussing in a positive light. You were not devoid of indoctrination, it just looked differently to you. There is no neutrality, as you are subtly trying to smuggle into this discussion, as if you were raised neutral and I wasn't.

quote:

---

10-year-olds have amazing power to discern when they aren't being subjected to the pressure of parental persuasion.

---

10-year-olds are actually quite impressionable and are absorbing the teaching and the examples that are around them.

That said, while I was never raised to distrust the Bible, and I would have said that I believed in the existence of God and that Jesus was my Savior from an early age, I didn't come to truly believe and trust that until I was about 18 years old. All that "pressure" (I wasn't actually pressured very much that I can recall, at least any more than I was pressured to go to school and learn about things like evolution in that context) didn't result in me being anything more than a nominal Christian in my parent's household until I accepted it as truth on my own, by the working of the Spirit in me (I know you don't believe this, but I must testify to it all the same).

quote:

---

The God of the Bible is omnipresent (spaceless), eternal (timeless), and spiritual (immaterial).

---

Just say “doesn’t exist.”

Save your fingers from all of that typing.

quote:

---

Why would I lie about God? Just because you don't want to read what I type doesn't mean I should lie about your Creator for the sake of your laziness.

---

Suppose that you were born and raised in Sanaa Yemen to Muslim parents.

Do you think that you would convert to Christianity before your Earthly death?

quote:

---

They weren't paying taxes

---

You've been asked to provide proof and you've provided absolutely none. You've also been told multiple possibilities as to how they actually were. But feel free to keep repeated already refuted points. It's refreshing.

quote:

---

if they were they wouldn't need a census in 6 AD dummy

---

How do you think taxes were assessed?

quote:

---

They paid Rome a tribute that was not based on a citizen count

---

You say with absolutely zero proof and evidence to the contrary

quote:

---

The Bible is in question here you tard

---

The Bible has been repeatedly vindicated as historically reliable. Perhaps you don't know this.

quote:

---

You're the low IQ version of Foo

---

Because I asked you to prove your stupid, ahistorical assertions?

quote:

---

I really hate how you frickers feel like you have to quote respond to every sentence typed. It's very tiring and details the conversation quite quickly

---

And there it is. "I believe what I want to believe despite the evidence and I don't want you to question me about it." How scholarly

It's amazing how halfwits on the internet read a few popular level ideas from biased people and then start throwing around unproven assertions as if they're fact. And then when you get called out on it, do you step back and reassess what you think you know? No. You double and triple down on stupid

quote:

---

That requires a whole lot more than just "written testimony" to satisfy me

---

But if that written testimony has been historically vindicated as reliable? Reliable as in way more well attested than basically anything else from antiquity that you accept as historically reliable?