Suing over Buddha

Debate Room
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“Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew; and James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who also betrayed Him. These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, “Do not go on a road to Gentiles, and do not enter a city of Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is deserving of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, see that your blessing of peace comes upon it. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. And whoever does not receive you nor listen to your words, as you leave that house or city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment, than for that city. “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be as wary as serpents, and as innocent as doves. But be on guard against people, for they will hand you over to the courts and flog you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings on My account, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who are speaking, but it is the Spirit of your Father who is speaking in you. “Now brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. “But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he may become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they insult the members of his household! “So do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are two sparrows not sold for an assarion? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not fear; you are more valuable than a great number of sparrows. “Therefore, everyone who confesses Me before people, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before people, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a person’s enemies will be the members of his household. “The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And the one who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. The one who has found his life will lose it, and the one who has lost his life on My account will find it. “The one who receives you receives Me, and the one who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. The one who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and the one who receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person shall receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭10‬:‭1‬-‭42‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Needs the context.

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The context being it is all unevidenced hearsay, the earliest copies of which are dated to decades after the events they purport to describe.

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This is under the old covenant before Christ. Within its time and context if/when Israel left God and served other gods other nations would come and defeat them and enslave them, etc.
God exists and is the creator but if Israel decided to go and do what they wanted how is that not a slap on God’s face? He brought them out of Egypt out of slavery after they pleaded with God. He gave them water out of a rock and bread and meat to their satisfaction, their clothes didn’t wear out neither did their sandals. He guided and covered them with a cloud how is it okay to just turn your face on someone you love?

The law was given to show how we are sinners.

Christ came to do what we could not do, (now that its to not only the Jew but also to the gentile) because we were slaves to sin so Christ humbled himself to the cross for what we all deserve. If we live in Christ we are longer under sin but under grace. Christ did what no man could do and died for the sins of his enemies.

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Do you not see how poorly reasoned it is to imply a deity exists that is infallible, yet needed to change it’s persona?

I don’t believe you, please demonstrate a shred of objective evidence to support this claim?

Nope, Exodus is a myth, the story has been thoroughly debunked by archaeologists, who ironically enough were hoping to find evidence to support the myth. Also this deity is depicted as endorsing slavery in the bible Exodus 21, so for an infallible deity it seems to have all the flaws of evolved human apes from the epoch in which these myths were created.

I don’t believe in the myth of an unevidenced supernatural curse called sin, and I find the notion that bad deeds can be passed onto to future generation morally repugnant.

All of the claims in the gospels of what Jesus said or did are unevidenced hearsay, quoting it to us is therefore utterly meaningless.

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@WhoAreYou, why do you keep using your bible book as proof of what is in your bible book?

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How is this not spam?

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He whole “Human life begins at Conception” that is present today began with a change in Roman Catholic dogma. Roman Catholics and other theistic religions believe that human life is a duality of a physical body and a non-tangible entity referred to as a soul. In the past, the church dogma was that a human life began with “ensoulment” when the soul entered the physical body of the fetus a the time of quickening. This is when the woman first feels fetal movement, usually around 16-18 weeks gestation. If a fetus was aborted before “ensoulment” this was not considered killing a human. In fact, in the past the church lauded “spiritual abortionists” who who could supposedly terminate unwanted pregnancies. (These were probably just ordinary spontaneous miscarriages).In 1869, Pope Pius IX, after studying Greek philosophy and under pressure by the French government that needed cannon fodder, he changed the church dogma and declared that human life began at conception. This meant that all intentional abortions were killing a human, that abortion was equivalent to murder. Thus, with the stroke of a pen, intentional abortion became a mortal sin that could not be forgiven and could result in excommunication. Many persons don’t know this church history. From an atheist point of view the ability of a man to determine what a deity (God) considers moral is evidence that that the deity is not a reality but is a mental projection. From the Buddhist point of view there is no such thing as a permanent spiritual entity such as a soul. “Sabbe Dhamma anatta”, the third mark of existence, means that everything that exists in reality is just present in and of itself. The absolute (Dhamma) is not determined by a personality. divine or otherwise. As Carl Jung said “God is a metaphysical assertion”. This is somewhat along the line of Kant. There are phenomena, things that we can sense. They are real. There a noumena, things we cannot sense. They are real. Dhamma includes both phenomena an noumena. Dhamma can be discovered. For example gamma rays travel though the earth all the time. This has been going on since the beginning of the earth, way before humans existed. Humans cannot personally sense gamma rays. Using technology, these rays can be detected, they become phenomena. They are fact, not mental projections. Biblical texts, allegedly divinely inspired and “true”, clearly espouse the ancient and incorrect Ptolemaic geocentric universe. When Galileo said that Ptolemy was wrong according to his observations with a telescope he was threatened and persecuted by the Church. After 600 years he was “rehabilitated” however the false astronomy is still found in the Bible, the alleged inerrant word lf a deity. The same thing happened with evolution and genetics. Evolution is a fact. (and I’m not referring to theories of evolution because there are several)…A divine catastrophic creation theory that happened 6000 years ago is not supported by data and scientific observation. In the past human reproduction was thought to occur when a tiny preformed fetus, the homunculus, in the male semen (literally a seed) was implanted in the female uterus. The female was regarded as a passive incubator who contributed nothing to the formation of the human child. Today, we know that the female contributes half the DNA in a child. Genetics discredit the Biblical teachings on human reproduction. We know that women only produce ova that have X. Males produce sperm that are either X or Y. The Y causes the male phenotype when is paired with the X from the woman. This is a fact. The homunculus theory is simply wrong. Jesus was a biological and phenotypical male. He wasn’t a preformed XY homunculus that was mysteriously implanted in the womb of his mother for an alleged “virgin” birth. He got a Y from a human male and and X from Mary. That is genetics. It is ironic that the discovery of genetic reproduction was made by Mendel, a Roman Catholic monk. The dogma of a virgin birth and apotheosis is common in many pre-Christian religions. They are psychological and anthropological entities, products of mental projection.

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I agree with your points, except that I wasn’t just referring to the Catholic Church when I made my points about elective abortion services being advertised on church community bulletin boards.

It was almost every church (although the language was euphemistic), and the prevailing (and sensible) view was that abortion and birth control are private matters that are between a woman and her doctor.

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@WhoAreYou have you noticed that Jesus is saying things completely opposite of what Paul said many years later in order to jumpstart christianity?

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Writing out long lists and rewriting the crap in the Bible in long paragraphs on this forum isn’t going to do anything but annoy almost everyone here.
Just because you believe it doesn’t mean it’s true.

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You do know that archeologists have found zero evidence for the exodus out of Egypt, right?

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Oh fuck me!

Am I actually getting post hoc rationalizations? Both Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8 declare that God is the same always and never ever changes. He is always good, always loving, …

And what about God’s Plan? Give me a fucking break. 4. Psalm 33:11
The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.

Ephesians 1:11 In-Context

11 All things are done according to God’s plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning. 12 Let us, then, who were the first to hope in Christ, praise God’s glory!

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Not to mention Matthew 5:17.

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Sheldon,

Do you think it may not be God being infallible but God having that covenant under the law to show us who we are? How else would we know? We would be tempted to say we haven’t done anything wrong if it weren’t demonstrated to us with such clarity.

What’s more the second covenant shows us who He is in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection and gift of His Holy Spirit.

He did not change His persona. His name in the Old Testament is יהוה means letter by letter “behold the tent peg behold the hand”

see my hands and my feet, that I am he; handle me and see, because a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having. Luke 24:39

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Hey Sheldon? Did you do something wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong. Hey Cyber, did you do something wrong? Did any of you need a god to point out to you anything at all you did wrong? If you did something wrong? Now think about this one, how would the wrong you did stack up against the millions of dead babies, butchered livestock, and wasted lives caused by the God thing in the bible? What possible wrong could a human being do that would even near the atrocious butchery presented to us by the God of the Bible? By what insanity are we to measure wrongness when using a bible and the murdering god within it as our measuring tool.

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No obviously, as I am an atheist because there is no objective evidence that any deity exists outside of the imagination of the humans who created them. I was simply drawing a rational inference from your unevidenced claim, an inference you failed to address with any real candour by the way, since “what ifs” are not rational arguments?

As usual you’re putting your wheezy clapped out pony behind your cart, you need to demonstrate objective evidence for a claim, since nothing has been demonstrated with any clarity, only claimed without any objective evidence whatsoever.

FYI I find the superstitious notion that babies are born cursed with a supernatural sin not just unevidenced nonsense, but morally repugnant. Hypothetically if a deity like that existed, I’d want nothing to do with it, let alone the sadistic barbaric genocidal baby killer depicted in the bible, luckily there isn’t a shred of objective evidence any such monster is real. You should be doing cartwheels about that as well.

Another string of unevidenced assertions, you might as well be quoting Harry Potter at me as evidence of magic. FYI again, I find the idea of vicarious redemption morally indefensible, and the notion of torturing anyone to death morally repugnant. You belong to a cult, that worships an act of barbaric murder, I wonder at this point are you even capable of rationally and critically examining the indoctrinated beliefs you hold? Only I get the impression you don’t want to debate them at all, and simply want to preach to the heathens. That’s why I am laying my cards on the table early on, so we both understand each other.

Well there is no objective evidence either deity depicted is real obviously, but you need to read your bible again if you really believe that claim, as that statement is asinine. Unless you think the same persona can produce an emphatic and glowing endorsement of slavery, a genocidal global flood, torture a newborn baby to death over 7 days out of anger at adultery, encourage its human pets to commit acts of ethnic cleansing that would make Hitler or Stalin puke, and then traffic the girls who were virgins as sex slave spoils, but then go on to lecture humans to love their enemies as themselves.

That last bible quote doesn’t appear to have any relevance at all that I can see, either to your claim or my post? Theists seem to love cryptic appeals to mystery, as if they represent profundity, rather than just being vapid nonsense.

Sorry if you find my posts blunt to the point of rudeness, but I have several times asked you not to preach at me, and you don’t have the good manners to stop, so I don’t feel obliged to spare the sensibilities of your indoctrinated unevidenced superstition.

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Not before I was born that’s for sure, if a deity wants to lecture me on the mistakes I’ve made or the bad things it thinks I’ve done, then that deity better not be the genocidal baby killing slave endorsing monster from the bible, or I will laugh my way right into hell, flipping it the finger.

You beat me to it, kudos. it’d be like a paedophile lecturing people who work with children. Oh wait this hypocrisy is endemic among the priests of the largest Christian church in the world.

Er, um, er, shuffling of feet, navel gazing, er…something mumbled about a new covenant, and some more stuff. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Wait, what? YHWH is Jesus?

What you call “tent peg” is actually a “tent pole” (central supporting structure of ancient Jewish tents) and that letter means father.
Furthermore, what you translate as hands is more accurately described as deeds or doings.

So speculative interpretation is “fatherly doings” or “father’s deeds” and in response to this interpretation comes Elohim’s answer “I am”

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Basically, God is playing a shell game with himself so you can’t hold him accountable for the shit he has done. Look over here! It wasn’t the new me! I’m a nice god now! We have a new covenant. You don’t mention my past and I will forgive you yours. Everyone is happy!

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I think that WhoAreYou seems to be forgetting that God has his origins in Canaan . . . and used to be a bearded god (one of many) whom was named El, although there is scholarship that suggests El was the chief god . . . and Yahweh sat on his council, and later took over (perhaps there was a coup).

In any case, if I worshipped El now and founded a church based on him and worshipped him like the Canaanites, then it would be called a cult and I would be considered dangerous.

Please see below:

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=http://contradictionsinthebible.com/are-yahweh-and-el-the-same-god/&ved=2ahUKEwjrtOun_P7_AhV_TTABHVkVChEQFnoECC8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2sX8rb2uDHADcbV6Zp_dQL

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