Jesus Christ, was the son of God, God himself, who came as a normal human being, humble, gracious, and kind, to show all the sinners, prostitutes, beggars, gentiles, and the dirty a way to achieve salvation through the love and grace of God. The lamb of God sacrificed on the cross for our sins, this gospel of faith, and his teachings, would carve the way our morals are viewed today.
or
could he be a fake
I believe in the first, but hey, thats my opionion, hehe, dont flame me now, I am not one of them Jehovah's witness, just an old regular of sysopt that happend to stumble across an article on msn.com.
An ousary, known as a stone coffin, has been found in Israel by the Mount of Olives, and on the coffin in ancient aramic, which has only been spoken through 0 to 70 bc or something like that, there is an inscription that says,
James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus....James was a disciple of Jesus, and relative, and for this to be written on stone is very rare, for more complete listing and coverage go to these links.
I understand. We take Jesus Christ on 'blind' belief..kinda like Noahs Ark...no one will ever find and prove it. If we could find unrefutable proof of Jesus, Noah...Able and Cain, then why not Adam and Eve?...if we can eventually "prove" all of that, then Christianity has lost its power.
We are Christians because we believe.
Besides, the name Jesus may have been about like John, or William today...how will this "Jesus" ever be confirmed to be the Son of God?..
dodsimz
10-21-2002, 11:37 PM
like you said, but also seeing and believing is for the less faithful, and in terms of religious faith, believe and recieve...
but good point there bovan ;)
Giblet Plus!
10-22-2002, 12:05 AM
I think faith is shown more through actions towards others than just through belief in Christ.
While believing in Christ is important, actually acting like anybody could be the next Jesus is a truer sign of faith than showing up at church every Sunday.
This seems to be something lost to the radical fringes of all religions. (esp. Islam currently) If they stopped focusing on the "true" way to believe, and started focusing on acting like anybody could be the next messiah, the world would be a better place.
Bovon
10-22-2002, 01:39 PM
As always, I enjoy a good non heated discussion concerning peoples general religious thoughts and beliefs.
I will not parcipate in any religious debate, having learned long ago that such cannot be controlled by the average untrained individual. People of any faith who are versant with their religious beliefs can (and do) debate other beliefs in the interest of clairity, not to change anyone elses faith.
And faith is where any religion comes from.
If we could see, hear...touch a known GOD, then there would only be one religion!!
Sence September 11th, there has been much written concerning different religious beliefs. Several of which reported a world flooding and a large ship or boat with humans and animals onboard. Think about that for a minute...wouldn't it be absolutely unreal if Muhammad and Jesus Christ were one and the same?
AllGamer
10-22-2002, 03:17 PM
as far as i'm concerned Jesus is just another person like just about everybody you see around you.
that guy just had a very large fan club and he definitely had a lot of influence power to influence people
that's how people regarded him as jesus
God and Jesus are 2 separate thing, yeah you can call it father and son, but still it's 2 things
:t
Bovon
10-22-2002, 05:03 PM
AG, by any chance you are Jewish?..(not knocking the Jewish belief by any stretch of the imagination!) I worked with a guy who was Jewish, born and bred into that faith...and that is precisely the answer he gave when asked about his faith and the man called Jesus.
Monster1
10-22-2002, 05:48 PM
Jesus rocks..
Ill dabate other topics but " who was jesus" or " proof of Jesus" is not one of them. there is more written about the appostles than Jesus..
Boven, many peaple take AG stance, I once met a satenist who said the same.
Hey, you changed you pic.. I liked your old pic better:)
wallie_x
10-25-2002, 12:58 AM
Its not necessarily the historical reality of Jesus, its the universality of his message. It has appealed to the hearts of humans in all centuries, and continues to do so. People who speak in the spirit of God have that universal appeal. Just look at MLK's 'I have a dream' speech? The appeal is in the spirit. Their historical reality pales with the transcendence of the words they spoke. Boths men's messages were ahead of their time. Jesus' message was extremely radical for its concepts altered completely the accepted norms about who God was suppose to be.
I don't care if they never find any empirical evidence that Jesus existed. Jesus' words are enough for me to know this was no ordinary man.
Monster1
10-25-2002, 05:41 PM
Agreed!!!!!
:)
Optimus Prime
10-25-2002, 05:47 PM
Tomorrow i will embark on a plan, with my great speech skills to bring a huge fan club of mine, i will call myself...
JESUS JR!
No, seriously guys, i believe that Jesus was "just a guy" i also believe Wallie's post about, "no matter if he IS just a guy, he was a cool guy that changed the future".
dodsimz
10-26-2002, 01:03 AM
noooo! this post must not die! <bump>
Thanks for all the "non-flaming" replies, i guess it is ok to take off the flame retardant suit :0
Yes, You all have perfect and reasonable points, I believe that one of the greatest things that Jesus Ever taught, which makes Christianity (something that shouldn't even be called a religion) unique from any other religions.
AND this mysterious word is: ****Grace****the highest form of love.
From, "What's so Amazing about Grace" by Phillip Yancey
A life changing book ;)
"Smedes goes on to say...blah blah blah...Secular culture tells us a person must look good, feel good, and make good. Graceless religion tells us we must follow the letterof the rules, and failure will bring eternal rejection. Unaccepting parents--"Aren't you ashamed of yourself!"--convince us we will never meet their approval. A sports franchise rewards those who complete passes, throw strikes, or make baskets, and has no place for those who fail. The world runs by ungrace. Everything depends on what I do. I have to make the shot. Jesus' kingdom calls us to another way, one that depends not on our performance but his own. We do not have to achieve but merely follow. He has already earned for use the costly victory of God's acceptance.
If you have ever read the parable of the lost son, you can see that what Jesus was saying 2000 years ago, was unheard of. Everyone was dazzled by his preachings, who would teach of a God who shows grace? They all had misconceptions of who God was. The pharisees disproved of this very much. The lost son took all half his father's fortune and went out to waste it all on his own desires, pretty soon he became filthy as pigs, the parable even says he ate worse than the pigs. But when he returned home, trying to think of a way to say sorry, for ex: Father,,"sry for what I did, umm is it ever possible for you to forgive me?" The father wrapped him in his arms, crying and weeping, saying, "my son was dead but he is now alive." God gives grace to those who are open to it, but most people close their sights off from this area. They think they are worseless, that they are too bad to be forgived. But remember Jesus who was God manifested as a human forgives even prostitutes, and anyone basically, as long as they mean it. We own money, if we lose 10 dollars and find it, we are happy. The money we earned and made is now found. God is the same, if one of his loving creations fell away from him completly as if he were gone forever and came back, do you think God would say, get away from me you worthless pile of @##$. Naaa. I think he'd rather have his posession back, than to lose it completely.
There is so many things that I can not express in one paragraph of how unique and true Jesus' teachings are. Over 400 prophicies from the Old testament were fulfilled! The first bible was found to be dated 100 AD. From Jesus, to the apostles, to the Christian martrys who died brutally for centuries by the Romans, to a Rome that was changed by Jesus' teachings and the steadfast faith of the Christians to what is now the most profound faith of all time. Jesus is no false man
Billforce
10-26-2002, 02:04 AM
Dodsimz,
I have a question? If everything we have been taught since birth is in FACT a giant religious fable and we DIE! When the lights go out and there is no hereafter, HOW WILL WE EVER KNOW? If what we have been taught is of course correct, then of course we will know we have been on the right path, BUT if the opposite is true, we will never know!!!!!! Perhaps heaven and hell is only in the minds of men to perpetuate there desire for eternal life. Actually there are no scientific facts to support any religion, catholic, protestant or pagan, only scripture and faith. It would be very reassuring to have some concrete evidence other than faith to base your entire society on. I am not an aethiest or a non-christian but have considered the posibility that we are being scammed.
billforce
ĻIn the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is king!
dodsimz
10-26-2002, 04:03 PM
This is where belief comes in, do you believe or not? if you do, then you can *think* that you will get to heaven and if you don't, you probably think there is nothing after you die.
Life is a mystery, specifically a giant vortex or blackhole. Science is just theory and religion is belief. Science is tangible in a concrete sense, since evidence can point out to make a theory correct. Religion is true that it is spiritually achieved, one has to believe and be openminded. Who can explain all those millions of near death expieriences of people, for example, a guy on the operating table was found dead, then woke up 2 minutes later screaming, "dont send me back!!!!nooo!" Or how can one explain all the prophicies made by Nostradomus and many more like Edgar Cayce. There is so much that can prove that God exists, most people expierience it, they don't read evidence then believe. Even if you did read evidence that made God authentic, im sure you would have a harder time believing the evidence itself. You are still in that norm b/w athiesm, pathiesm, still trying to figure which side is right. This is my opinion though.
Jesus said that it is easier for a cammel to enter through the eye of an needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Same can be said for people who are open/simple minded or deep thinking minded.
There is so much that does not make sense in this world, so much to think about. People are creating ideas to replace these questions. Perhaps you think they did the same with Jesus?
There is nothing I can really do to make you believe in Jesus, but for you to believe is your own decision. Jesus I believe, is who he says he is, everything just fits together,the old and the new.
Its really hard to explain, but again I m not God, I can't answer questions out of my knowledge.
Have you expierienced the Holy Spirit? My mother has, she has spoken in tongues when full of spirit, though she did not know, i did. Only some people are graced like this. This can be evidented in the new testament, it's called talking in tongues. She has had the Holy Spirit talk to her in her most hard times. She is no voodoo doll worshiper, just a believer of God. She is not a liar.
How do you think people could believe Jesus 2000 years ago, I think it was still hard for those people to believe in some guy that claimed to be God, even with all those miracles. We are already familiar of who God and Jesus is. Even when Jesus pulled off all these miracles, even when God showed his awesome power over 5 times in front of the Egyptians and Israelites, his own desciples, who were his good old friends had doubts or did not believe and the Israelites had doubts too. God doesn't show his mighty power like he did thousands of years ago, he already did his work through Jesus and now we have the bible.
The Bible was not created in just one sitting. People did not *create* it they wrote it down. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they are recordings of events. But this is my opinion. Jesus *was* an actual person. I forgot who it was, but i think it was C.S Lewis, who was a good friend of J.R.R Tolkien. This person spent most of his life writing books, trying to figure out ways to show that God did not exist and this person was extremely intellectual. Anways.. one day, while writing, he fell on his knees and started weeping repenting to God. St. Augustine crawled up 1000 stairs, he believed he had to work and climb those stairs to achieve salvation. When he reached the top, God talked to him in a mighty voice, and from there St.Augistine was changed. (corect me if iam wrong about augistine)
One word: God is mysterious.
those are my two cents.. gtg
$1500-P4 gamer
10-26-2002, 06:30 PM
"This is where belief comes in, do you believe or not? if you do, then you can *think* that you will get to heaven and if you don't, you probably think there is nothing after you die."
Not true at all. Some religions believe in the neither world. A place btween places of heaven and earth. Also some believe in reincarnation. Hence no heaven or hell but faith in God, usually not jesus though. Me, I believe in a realm that all souls are =. No heaven no hell no jesus (he was just another good man like we all should be living up to)no satan BUT all revolves around that one single entity the creator itself GOD! God him/her or itself in the bible says he cant hate or not forgive his children! That he is all forgiving and kind soul. To be punished to eternal damnation due to your sins goes against gods own word in the christian bible. Thats not double talk!? Thats like saying that if you make me mad I'll never hurt ya, no matter how mad I get. Then you take my beer and I beat you near to death for hours and hours. This is a good comparison to what is being said.
:rolleyes:
fancyf
10-26-2002, 07:20 PM
Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer
God him/her or itself in the bible says he cant hate or not forgive his children! That he is all forgiving and kind soul. To be punished to eternal damnation due to your sins goes against gods own word in the christian bible.
You're right HE forgives everyone. I don't beleive in a punishing GOD.
But then HE made all men free. Someone can decide not to let HIM in
in his life therefore keeping him from GOD's love.
HE forces no one.
It's a matter of choice, like everything else is in this life.
You have the choice to do good or bad
You also have the choice to ask for forgiveness and receive it... or not
Freedom of choice...
dodsimz
10-26-2002, 08:03 PM
uhh, obviously you do not know the difference b/w the two...but hey, ill just explain it a litte :) and i was referring to Christianity, sry for the misconeception ;)
Jesus said that the philosophy in those days was, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, right? same thing as today, i punch you, you punch me back, i kick you you kick me back, I do something bad to you, you give me revenge. Jesus was against this, but just because God sends people to hell because they deserve it* does not mean he backfires against his word. Going to hell and getting punched are two totally different things. God gave us a free choice, to be good, or be bad. Throughout*** our whole life we have the decision to choose, we have this 90 years just to decide. Now God has this thing called judgement. If your name is not written in the book of life (Metaphorical, dunno if it is an actual book), you are subjected to judgement. Now let me emphasize this again ;) they are* two totally different things. We deserve what we get, but getting punched and not punching back, and God not sending cerial killers into hell is different. Jesus was reffering to everyday things, not the afterlife.
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