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I really would love others opinions on this. I just turned fifty three, and I think I'm really starting to question a lot about Jesus Christ. I do believe in God, or an entity which created us, but what about the people who lived before Jesus, they could never pray to him, or pray to God through him, so don't they matter? What about animals, or people who are retarted, or unable to understand enough to hear about Jesus? I really am doubting what has been preached about him, and wonder if a lot of religion is created to give people a sense of safeness, something to beleive in, I also heard that Jesus was born on April 17, when it was summer, and the shepard could have his sheep outside. In December, it was snowing,,, so how could the manger scene have happend at all?? I look forward to all who wants to respond. Mj
Please do not give up your faith. Moreover in a place like this you will get all sorts answers to your question. You must be careful because the Devil will try to snatch your precious gift away from you.
**what about the people who lived before Jesus, they could never pray to him, or pray to God through him, so don't they matter?
The pre-Jesus time was the Old Testament time. We need to understand that any who has sins in him will not enter heaven. The old testament time had the sacrifices that would be a payment for our. Therefor the old testament people who followed the Laws and offered the necessary sacrifices were saved. There are many examples of old testament people being saved. "They had Moses and the prophets to guide them."
**What about animals,
We need not worry about the animals because according to the Bible animals do not have a spirit. Only man was "Made in His image".
**or people who are retarted, or unable to understand enough to hear about Jesus?
We need not be be worried about them because it is only logical to assume that God will not hold them accountable. For eg: If you were a police and you are trying to keep a crowed away from a road and you announced that anyone who violate the rules and walk into the road will be prosicuted. Then if a retard walks onto the road would you prosicute him?
**and wonder if a lot of religion is created to give people a sense of safeness, something to beleive in,
Many religions were created for such purposes also, but not Christianity. In fact it is not a religion at all. It is the truth.
**I also heard that Jesus was born on April 17, when it was summer, and the shepard could have his sheep outside. In December, it was snowing,,, so how could the manger scene have happend at all??
You may be right on that one. You see many treditions have been added to Christianity by many people. Catholicism has also added a lot of tredition. But Jesus himself has warned us not to mingle tredition with the truth. It is because these treditions that people now say that Christianity is silly, absurd, contredictory etc.
A study of the word of God will get many of your question answered.
Jesus said "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God."
This has all been quite fascinating, to read what you all have written. I thank all of you, I have a very strong faith in God, or whatever we call the entity that created us, and the universe. The more I think about it, and learn about the universe, the stars, the galaxy, and how we are able to more and more explore it, I actually wonder if we came from Mars, and the noahs ark was truly a space ship, I meant truly, why not come from another planet?? I do believe very much in evil as well, and believe that our world exists the constant struggle between good and evil. I so believe that goodness will always prevail, and that evil tempts us, and wants to destroy us I'm not sure about animals not having spirits. I love my dogs and horses, and they seem truly loving and forgiving, many people I know should learn from them. I also wish that I go to heaven with all my animals, not "people heaven" if there is a distinction. My eternity spent with my dogs and horses, and loving creatures that are purely lacking in evil and only give love, I hope is my destiny THey have no clue about the bible, yet they have so much love, and since God is love, than God lives in them as well. I just found this site, and you have all given me thoughts to consider. I did not know that the old testiment was pre Jesus, thank you for sharing that. there is so much I want to learn, Christmas is celebrating Jesus's birth, and I think so much has been created to satisfy the needs in people. Nature is God's creation, and it's all around us. Also, if people wrote the Bible with God speaking through them, then why not have God speak through people today? Why take something that's too old to proove, to take as the truth? If someone said God was speaking to them today, they would most likely be viewed as mentally unstable.. so many questions, but I have always believed in God, and love as God. Mj .
I would like for one person to show me one thing in the Bible that is false. The truth is no one can do it b/c there is nothing false in it to be found. The people before Jesus were under the Mosaic Law, which meant that went to the temple and made blood sacrifices of animals to be cleansed of their sin. Before Jesus's time the dead that believed in God went to a place called Hades which could be seen from hell, for example the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the bible, that was how the rich man could see Lazarus who was not in hell. When Jesus died on the cross he arose on the third day, the bible says that during those three days Jesus went to Hades which was the place of the dead and witnessed to the dead and those who chose to believe could then go to Heaven with him. What does it matter if Jesus was born in April? The bible doesn't say it was snowing or even cold. Animals and barns do exist in the spring also don't they? The bible never says it was cold or gives the date of Christ's birth, December is just the date people choose to celebrate his birth.. As for people who are unable to believe in the lord because of mental retardation or because they are to young, those people will go to heaven but on the new earth the bible clearly says Satan is let loose again after Christ's 1000 year reign to tempt those people and they will have to make a choice either for Christ or against him let we all did. Besides, these are scary times we are living in, read the book of Revelation and all is coming to pass as we speak, these days we are living was foretold in the bible over 2000 years ago. That should be enough to make you believe.
toadaly: I have not delved into the history of Christianity as much as you have; I got interested in the psychology of beliefs when I learned about urban legends. There are stories that spread quickly because they have a psychological hook to them that makes them seem compelling. Everyplace I traveled I heard a story about a $200 Corvette. In the story the owner died in the car and the body wasn't discovered right away and nobody could get rid of the stench so it was sold for $200. Everyone who told this story was a few people removed from it (a friend of a friend...) and every time I talked to the person who told them the story there were a few layers such that you could never get to the original person who witnessed it. The Corvette story spread quickly because the story seems compelling. It occurred to me that people are not good at discerning truth from falsehood. When something reinforces their worldview they accept it easily even when far fetched but when something challenges their worldview they are skeptical regardless of how good the evidence is. We can not escape our prejudices. When I read of Carl Jung's archetypes I realized that religions are based on the same sort of stories as urban myths. Stories that have such a strong psychological hook that they seem like they have to be true. The religions that have the strongest hooks are the most successful and this has nothing to do with the veracity of their claims; people just want to believe them.
I consider atheism to be the null hypothesis to religion.
Christians had to celebrate on the same day as Romans celebration (to keep from having 2 days of no work a year for a similar celebration).
No, the Christians took over the Pagan holidays to get them to convert! It was marked on the 25th so it would not vary from year to year as the winter solstice(it varies from the 22-23).
Look up documents from Qu, it's the oldest documents found in the bible in which Mark & John both drawn inspiration from to write their own. He's called Que because the author is unknown. Or just look in the bible in general, it's not hard to see that it's not an all holy book. It talks about God as being malevolent, spiteful, envious. Ask yourself, is that the God you truly believe in?
“..To Fear the Lord is wisdom”
~*~Job 28:28
“...for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God” ~*!Deut 5:9
"For our God is a consuming fire!" ~~Hebrews 12:29
31:1-18 Basically God commands them to kill the women, men, children, but keep the virgines for themselves.
“The Lord is a man of War!” ~*~Exodus 15:3
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” ~*~ Isaiah 45:7 (also Lam3:38)
Plus there's 2 creation stories that have no relations what so ever, what's up with that?
The bible is a really gory book, it's no where near holy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that 1 out.
Hey better late than never. It took me almost 40 years to figure out it was a bunch of nonsense. But since then, I've grown a fascination with the real history, or rather, trying to uncover it from the clues the church failed to excise.
My current working hypothesis, is that Jesus started as a pure myth with no historical core at all, as a counter reaction to the violent Siccari movement that resulted in the Jewish wars and the fall of the temple. The first gospel writer then retrojected him exactly 40 years prior to that event, to symbolize the 40 years in the desert. The passion was then constructed from Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, with historical characters from the early 1st century intertwined to make it believable (many fictional writers employ such a technique).
After a while, people came to believe these were events that had actually happened, and constructed further details about Jesus, such as the resurrection and the birth narratives (the resurrection is not found in the earliest manuscript we have of Mark, it was a later add-on).
Acts of the apostles is a complete fraud of the same genre as dozens of other knows 'acts' style documents from the period. Most of the letters attributed to Paul have been found to have been written pseudepigraphically (fraudulent).
nharabrabmj It is not advisable to read Eger Cayce or any such books. Read the Bible both the old and the new testament. It is written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Many people ask the question “Why do we have to depend on a very old book? Why is God not speaking today?” You yourself have given a part of the answer. According to the Bible God created this world around six thousand years ago. Out of this the Bible tells the first four thousand years. In fact that itself was is too long. The LORD put out his Law book in the first around two thousand years itself. He should have stopped with that and let us have an even older book to depend on but he kept speaking to us for another two thousand more years till his redemption work was over (I.e. Christ’s death on the cross). For example suppose a man starts a company. He is the boss and he makes some rules to be fallowed in the company. He makes his rules know for sometime. Years goes by and new staff comes in and the old ones retire. After a point we do not expect the boss to go around meeting every new comer teaching him, the rules. The rules are now in place and it is the duty of the new staff to find out what the rules are follows it.
Baldwin, how would I research pre Jusus Christ, and the beliefs they had? I do believe in God, or whatever we choose to call the entity that created life, but I am suprised that people don't question more about Jesus, they just belive what the Bible says. Well, what about before the bible was written, I don't think they are going to hell, because they had no clue about this guy Jesus, or the bible that hadn't even been written yet, right?
The answer I get from Christian friends was that those who lived before Jesus were judged according to Jewish law. Jesus gave believers a new set of easier rules to follow to get salvation.
Christianity doesn't make much sense to me either. In fact it hasn't made sense to me since I was 12. Shortly after I tried to look at it objectively the whole thing seemed wildly unlikely.
daredevil22, she's 53 I doubt she's been a Christian all these years without reading the bible, how ignorant of you to even assume such a thing. & Really, in all honestly, those who know most of the bible usually tend to step out of Christian creed, or any other biblical religion their in. Don't believe me? Try looking around & doing some research, asking people, such like that.
First of all, no one knows exactly when Jesus was born for sure. What is your religion and do you read the Bible? Because lots of answers to the exact wuestions you asked are in there. You should try reading it. I think it might help ensure your faith. I hope this helps you a lot and don't give up! Jesus really does care about YOU and EVERYONE!!
Out of curiosity are you confused with religion in general or just the authenticity of Jesus? Btw Jesus was not born in December, we celebrate it that day because early Christians had to celebrate on the same day as Romans celebration (to keep from having 2 days of no work a year for a similar celebration).
Thank you Filletofspam, I believe that also, and actually have been reading all of Edgar Cayce's books, which I find fascinating, and which I believe in. I will look for that, and will look up the Quakers, for maybe what I believe, is actually some form of what others do, or did. Thank you Mj
Then what should she take literal and what she shouldn't and why? There are serious reasons why the bible doesn't add up. In stead take the bible literal. Every word and ask your self objectively if it makes since. If God is all powerful why wouldn't he flat out say what he means right.
I agree- way too many contradictions, and if you take a look at the different beliefs predating christ- you will see where the inspiration came from.
christianity is a puzzle, with the majority of the pieces taken from other cultures.
Don't give up on your God. People forget that Evil is just as powerful as Good, and is always working against us. Don't loose your fate. I agree with babygirl, go to your church and ask your questions, find what you are looking for.
Thanks everyone, and to Baldwin and Captain, I"ll be looking at the old testament now in a completely different, (and aware) view. I can't believe I"m this old (53) and never knew that, guess it's time I learned.. Mj
Baldwin, how would I research pre Jusus Christ, and the beliefs they had?
Old Testament. Also known as the 'Torah' a.k.a. the 'Hebrew Bible' ...plenty of info about the pre-Christ religious practices there.
nharabrabmj: you should research the Religious Society of Friends (aka Quakers). They believe that each of us has a spark of the holy spirit within us and all of us have the ability to be guided by this light.
Maybe you shouldn't take everything literally, I think that you need to look at the message and not the exact words?
From Lewis.
No prob.
You might also consider which version of the Bible you're researching. This might make research easier.
This is why Christianity bugs me, there are too many flaws, contradictions, and errors in that religion.
I dunno! go to your local church and talk to your preacher!
