re: Tom Homan: “As a Catholic, I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church."

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Well they wouldn't be Christian if they did would they?

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Your concept of Christianity is weird given there aren't any denominations of Christianity that I know of that believe Paul's letters in the NT is a no-no



Other Prots (not characterizing this guy as a Prot because I've never met one that has said these things about Paul) yall know of any? Help a brothah out

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Your concept of Christianity is weird given there aren't any denominations of Christianity that I know of that believe Paul's letters in the NT is a no-no

Other Prots (not characterizing this guy as a Prot because I've never met one that has said these things about Paul) yall know of any? Help a brothah out

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I'm not a Christian. The only thing saved by the death of truth is the lie, and the lie will live until the truth returns.

You have to keep the commandments. Jesus shows you how, that is how he saves. You believe it's the death of Jesus that saves, I would say it's his life.

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The Catholic Church is the one true church. All others are doomed to an eternity in hell.

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Without Paul, we wouldn’t have Christianity today.

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Correct, because it is the religion of Paul.

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But he didn’t create it, as he himself writes he was the last apostle Jesus appeared to.

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Ah yes, so he claims. Yet nobody else is good enough to have Jesus visit them in such a manner.

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Paul was the springboard through for the Greek speaking Gentile versions of Christianity like Marcionism and the later Catholics and Orthodox and Valentenians and such.

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Ok?

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“John” is a re-writing of several older gospels such as Mark, Matthew, Luke, and other sources and apocryphal gospels. Of the ones we have today, Mark is the earliest gospel (but it shows signs of being edited and revised) and in Mark 4:10-12 the author gives you the cipher that all this shite is made up and are parables of the “real” celestial Jesus that Paul believed in - the Jesus that died and resurrected in heaven and was never on earth.

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So John isn't valid and what I've quoted is wrong?

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So John isn't valid and what I've quoted is wrong?

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I don’t know what you mean.

John is a parable made of non-historical myths. I’m not sure what you mean by it being valid or not.

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For some reason I always remember that it was probably a Johannian community. Like they were separated from the mainstream at the time.

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That author didn’t like the other gospels and thought he could do better. He may also not have realized the original myths and parables (like the gospel of Mark) were not intended to be taken literally and historically - they were stories used to convey messages that the gentiles could understand. The gentiles didn’t understand Greek theology and their Yahweh who took on a body of flesh manufactured of the seed of David and was killed in heaven by the archons.

The earliest Christians knew that the gospels were all allegorical, were parables, and stories that they could use to convert gentiles but that could also be used to harbor hidden messages and meanings that only the fully educated high ranking members would understand. As part of the cult, a person would be given a little bit of information at a time and eventually if they stick with it they’ll eventually learn all the secrets. Like Scientology today. They called new initiates “babies” and the little information that they could comprehend that they were ready for was “milk”. As a full member they would be given “meat” or “solid food”.

1 Cor 3

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1But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready

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Not a rewriting but an different approach to the other earlier gospels (i agree Mark is first, the Matt, then Luke...im a bit iffy on the Q stuff).

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The author of “John” was a Hellenistic Jew influenced by the Logos theology of Egypt.

I highly recommend you search the web for what Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Paul, believed about God and the Logos. I’ve posted a list on here before so if you search for Philo or Logos on here you can see my list.

In the topic of re-writing gospels you should look up thr Diatessaron. It was a second century mash up and synchronization of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John written in Syriac that fixed all the contradictions and incorporated material from all four gospels into a smooth flowing narrative. I hope a manuscript of it is found in my lifetime. All we have are fragments and ancient writers quoting from it but not the actual document.

It is a great showing of how early Christians would write stories that they knew weren’t historical. Think about how at Christmas we have the Magi and the Shepherds in displays of baby Jesus- that’s about how the Diatessaron would have had it. Only Luke had the shepherds and only Matthew had the magi with their gold, frankincense, and myhrr.

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Can you give me a cite on this sounds like a fun read.

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Ok here’s Mark 4

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10And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”

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“Mark” is telling you right there - wink wink - this whole thing is a parable and not to be taken literally. The early Christians didn’t believe Jesus actually came to earth.

But… somewhere along the way some began to miss the point and started to take it literally. That’s how we get stuff like this:

A generation or two after the gospels were written we have Christians writing polemics against other Christians who didn’t believe Jesus actually came to earth.

1 John 4: the author is writing to his “beloved” who is another Christian who doesn’t believe or is being taught by someone else that Jesus didn’t actually come to earth. Those “mythicist” Christians are called “antichrists” by this author.

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1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

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2 Peter - the author is writing to another Christian who are accusing him of following cleverly devised myths (the gospels). He writes back saying…..

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16For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

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Clearly that wasn’t Peter writing that. Peter would’ve been dead for over 100 years when that was written. It’s pseudepigrapha.

There is historical precedent for followers of a celestial deity to write a historicized myth about their deity to make it easier for converts to understand. Plutarch wrote about how followers of Osiris created a historical myth of Osiris setting him on earth in Egypt as a real Pharoah and that the insiders knew it was myth but that the “babies” would get the “milk” of the historicized Osiris first before getting the “meat” after learning more and becoming full cult members.
Plutarch, on Isis and Osiris

You might also when did Plutarch live… well he was a contemporary of Paul and Peter and James and those guys in the first century CE. And Plutarch didn’t live far from where Paul was from. So we know the ancient Mediterranean mystery religions in the first century CE were making up myths on earth of their celestial deities for the purposes of gaining and teaching converts…

He ain’t wrong ….

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I'd invite you to look at the Catholic answers website, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but I know many never take that recommendation.

I hate getting into Bible fights with Protestants. It's just a verbal sparing match of mix and match Bible verses...and whichever makes the most sense to you is what is believed...even though others may believe things different based on their interpretation.

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Translation: you’re saying the Bible says absolutely nothing about the Catholic Church, because you can’t answer but only deflect


And no, I’m not a Protestant. You’re incredibly simple minded with single tactic attacks.

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I don’t know what you mean.

John is a parable made of non-historical myths. I’m not sure what you mean by it being valid or not.

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Never heard this before.