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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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I don't know why you keep ignoring every single point i say.
We agree about slavery, it is exactly as you described.
The bible teaches that you are a slave of god and no matter what you do you are guilty of not fulfilling the impossible conditions written in the bible.
Like:
love everybody like yourself, as it such a thing is even possible.
Give everything to the poor, as if such a thing is possible without killing all Christians of hunger and end the religion.
etc...
It sets impossible conditions on purpose to make you feel guilty of not being perfect.
(it originates from the stoic philosophy in Rome)
People who feel guilty do not rebel and accept their punishment, in this case slavery to god.
And since the roman emperor was declaring he was god and messiah at the time, slaves venerated the emperor as the true living Messiah instead of revolting or joining the Jews in their rebellion.
Christianity originates from roman propaganda to counter Jewish propaganda that incited the slaves to revolt.
Then you wonder why Jesus missed to say anything against slavery with all his goodness and perfection.
I just laugh at your feeble attempt to derive reason from something you don't understand at all.
I don't consider myself a historian but my knowledge of history is based in a life time of reading history books, and in all this time I've never hear about a conspiracy between Jews and slaves against the Roman Emperor, there could have been a small group of Jews and slaves that conspired against the Romans but to say that Constantine ( I am guessing your referring to him) used Christianity to consolidate his power because he feared a conspiracy of Jews and slaves is something I've never hear before. You might be mixing Gladiator, Spartacus and Ben Hurt in a single movie.
Tens of Thousands of Jews were crucified, their city destroy, most of them sold as slaves and the survivors scatter all over the world more than 200 years before Constantine embraced Christianity. Of course he did it as a way to secure his power, he was never a Christian himself, but Jews were not as important as you describe them.
If you would share your sources for this claim I would really appreciate it. Maybe there are a group of history scholars that I've never hear before, and of course there must be some ancients letters, books, artifacts, etc that support that claim.
We know that the Jews were never a unified group of people, they were more or less as the Jews we have today, some enjoy bacon in the mornings and others only wear black pants and white shirts. But both consider themselves Jews and are consider Jews by other people.
Slavery in Roman times was nothing like the slavery we had in the last 400 years. If we want to talk about slavery in Roman times we would have first to identify the many kinds of slavery in those times.
Christianity does not intend to change the world, it's purpose is not to create a Christian Nation ruled by God trought the Bible, by the way there is no such thing as a Christian Nation and never will be.
The bible prophecies that Man:
“And he shall speak great words against the most High (intellectual Pride), and shall wear out the saints of the most High (Persecute Christians), and think to change times and laws (family is now consider to be made by two members that have the same sex).”
Daniel 7:25 KJV
http://bible.com/1/dan.7.25
Jesus did not come to this world to end slavery, hunger, wars, illness, etc.
He came so that, once again like in the beginning, we can be with God, be with God in Christ.
applegene, I think that you do have to concede that throughout the bible there is moral instruction. Jesus even gave some. And the bible says of slaves......... be good slaves............... and of slavemasters............... treat your slaves like you would a well mannered dog
Would you honestly propose we go back to that system?
And the bible does have something to say about slavery. It says Jesus would set the captive free (see how that turned out will you?)
Christianity is been here for almost two thousand years, and it's still unknown by so many.
Take away Mohammed from Islam and you still have Islam,
Take the Buddha out of Buddhism and you still have Buddhism.
Because it is their teaching what really matters.
Christianity is Christ, there is no Christianity apart from Christ, he didn't only come to give a new teaching, or a new Law, or to make a mystery known, or the order and character of the just city-state and the just man.
The creator of heaven and earth, made himself man, Why?
Because of Sin.
Sin was the only problem that God could not solve by just saying a word.
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Genesis 1:3 KJV
http://bible.com/1/gen.1.3.kjv
God is Love, yes, but He is also Justice, and Sin must be punish and God said that we will punish Sin.
“And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity;”
Isaiah 13:11 KJV
http://bible.com/1/isa.13.11.kjv
The Beloved came into a this world to die for your Sins and because of that who ever believes in him has eternal life. You have acces to God not because you kept the Law but because Jesus kept the law for you and paid for your sins.
Are your still wondering like Job once did?
“How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.”
Job 13:23 KJV
http://bible.com/1/job.13.23.kjv
What he saw as a promise, today it's a reality:
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:”
Job 19:25-26 KJV
http://bible.com/1/job.19.25-26.kjv
You can't make your self a Christian, no one can.
Remember the story of Lydia, the first person in Europe to be converted, how did that happened:
“And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us:
"whose heart the Lord opened",
that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”
Acts 16:14 KJV
http://bible.com/1/act.16.14.kjv
It is the spirit that opens our hearth, our mind, gives you new life, new understanding.
Jesus didn't show his disciples the pros and cons of following him, he just said:
“And said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.”
Mark 2:14 KJV
http://bible.com/1/mrk.2.14.kjv
It's the spirit that works in you so that when all is revealed you can say together with Paul:
“Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:”
Acts 26:19 KJV
http://bible.com/1/act.26.19.kjv
Applegene - "Sin was the only problem that God could not solve by just saying a word."
Oh so we can scratch omnipotent off the list now?
We created an imperfect legal system that tries to maintain order. The United States society is based in laws.
Imagine a loving judge, a man goes to court for stealing, but the judge can see in his heart that he is truly sorry for it, so he forgives him and lets him go. And the same way he forgives killers, child molesters, drug dealers, etc. as long as they show real repentance. How long will that judge last?
We don't believe that when we died God is going to weight our good actions against our sins, and if we did more good than bad then we will go to heaven, that's not what the bible teaches, that is what some lost souls think.
Every single Sin from the beginning of time will be punish, because He is Love and He is also Just.
The only difference is that Jesus paid for my past, present and future Sins.
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Romans 6:1-3 KJV
http://bible.com/1/rom.6.1-3.kjv
Don't misunderstand me when I say that my future sins will be forgiven, almost 2000 years ago the Apostle Paul answer that question in the epistle to the Church in Rome.
"I've never hear about a conspiracy between Jews and slaves against the Roman Emperor"
Clearly you haven't studied the history of Christianity, or the history of the roman empire or the Jews.
The roman empire basically redesigned the slave system, it was the engine of life for the empire.
The empire was a fascist empire built on conquest and profit on the spoils of victory, mostly slaves.
So around 44 BC the roman empire was ruled by the Julio Claudian dynasty which Julius Caesar himself proclaimed himself a god and his bloodline was considered divine.
Thus every member of the family that became emperor was considered a god and the Caesar cult arose from this.
A cult that venerated the emperor as a god, it was the most influential cult in the roman empire.
Now the problems arose since this family of gods was deteriorating and were driving the empire on the verge of economic collapse.
To make matters worse the emperor Nero Caesar (last of the family) wanted a statue of him in every single temple of the empire so everyone had to acknowledge that he was a god like the rest.
The Jews had a problem with this, the most influential Jews(Pharisee) that usually argued for peace with the Romans and detached themselves from the zealots(like ISIS of today), could not tolerate that their holy temple be desecrated with a statue of a pagan god in it.(later even robbed)
Not only it broke commandment 1 and 3 but also made them lose favor among the Jews that were on the verge of siding with the Zealots(called also Christians by the Romans at the time)
Christians were followers of a messiah,
A messiah was a military leader that proclaimed himself as sent by the god of Abraham to bring Israel back to power and get the promised land.
All messiah were militaristic and violet like ISIS of today towards the Romans.
"We know that the Jews were never a unified group of people"
This is where you are wrong, the Jews were united when the Pharisee sided with the zealots to drive the Romans out and take their promised land.
How did they defeat the Romans?
Each roman city was composed of 40-60% slaves and the Jews were just about 7-15% of some cities all over the empire.
The Jews were everywhere but they numbers weren't enough to take down the Romans so they needed to make the slaves revolt with them.
The experts in Jewish religion (the Pharisee) tried to convert the slaves to Judaism and convince them to revolt against their masters by any means they could find.
The Jews succeed and defeated the Romans not only in most cities in Judea/Palestine but also on the battle field.
For once in history in 66 AD the Jews took their promised land which compromised the land of Iran + Iraq (of today), which was called the province of Palestine by the Romans.
They manged to take an entire province off the Romans right in the middle of the empire.
Established a nation state and made their own coins etc...
The Romans were shocked and humiliated, but most of all they feared that the same would happen in every other city of the roman empire where there was even a small number of Jews.
So they had to act fast and crush this rebellion as soon as possible.
Emperor Nero sent general Vespasian Flavius with his son Titus Flavius(a general with no title) to crush the rebellion.
Even after this rebellion was crushed(70-73 AD) with the usual roman brute force and cruelty, another rebellion rose soon after.
It was clear to the Romans that the power of religious propaganda could not be crushed by torture and Crucifixion alone.
The power of religious influence in warfare was still unknown to the Romans and it proved that if they do not counter this propaganda against Rome the entire empire would collapse.
This propaganda scripture was found in the dead sea scrolls and that is why we know about it.
The Romans made sure to destroy it from history when they finally defeated the Jews after 3!! Roman-Jewish wars ended.
It only survived because it was buried and forgotten.
The counter propaganda against the Jewish propaganda was something like this:
-Give the other cheek if beaten
-keep the Peace
-slaves obey your masters no matter what they do
-give to Caesar what is to Caesar(money), give to god what is of god.
Yeah familiar tune is it?
Christianity started to exist as a religion not before 80 AD because there is no evidence of it before that time.
Paul does not even mention a physical Jesus except in forgeries.
All Jesus prophecies about the son of man that would destroy the Galilean towns, surround Jerusalem with a wall, in a generation(some 40 years) and then destroy the Jewish temple of God leaving not one stone on top of another, refer to a historical event.
They refer to the son of Vespasian, Titus Flavius that indeed comes around 70 AD(40 years after Jesus) and first destroys the Galilean towns, then surrounds Jerusalem with a wall and then destroys the temple of God leaving not one stone on top of another.
Titus fulfills the prophecies of Jesus and thus he becomes the "son of a man".
This of-course was written after the event(after 70 AD) by the Romans as propaganda against the Jewish propaganda.
There never was a historical Jesus of the bible, the Romans made him up because they needed a prophet to declare them as a god.
In fact all Flavian historians declare the Flavians as the Messiah.
(yes even Flavius Josephus the historian so liked by Christians)
Also the Flavians have so many members of the family that are saints.
Flavia Domatilla(Daughter of Titus Flavius) is the first historical Christian saint.
Constantine comes some 200 years later and guess what he promotes his surname as Flavius Constantine and Christianity rises back to power once again.
"If you would share your sources for this claim I would really appreciate it."
You can watch this very hard to find video that explains most of it better:
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/174117/Caesars_Messiah__The_Roma...
Really? Come on? You can't be serious? Your source is an online Video? With a group of "I don't know what to call them really"
Remember that you reject God because His existence cannot be proven. Because you are a man whose believes are based on solid, verifiable truths.
I say this to everybody in this forum you cannot base your believes from an online video or one book.
I've seen the video is full of half truths, misenterpretations, made up stuff, and pure stupidity, Just Like the hundreds of only videos that prove that we are ruled by reptiles, that the Mason's rule the world, etc.
I know it's hard and it takes a long time but pick up real books, begin with the books that are used in real universities like Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, etc.
You can actually hear and see classes given in those universities, they are on iTunes U.
Also if you can afford it, go to http://www.thegreatcourses.com
Greek philosophers taught rhetoric.
Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies. Rhetoric, in Plato's opinion, is merely a form of flattery and functions similarly to cookery, which masks the undesirability of unhealthy food by making it taste good.
I am sorry, but I can't go statement by statement refuting the claims made in that video, I will take me a couple of days, because I can't just say it's not that it's this. I have to prove every single one of them and I am only taking about the history claims an not the religious claims.
But really they don't deserve my time. It's a busy seasons for us Christians and I would have to begin explaining Roman and Jewish history before Christ, and it's there where you can find the real reasons your version of history is a "fairy tale".
What an Irony that rejecting "superstitions and dogma" you have become what you rejected.
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,”
Romans 1:22 KJV
http://bible.com/1/rom.1.22.kjv
Basically you just said that you are too busy to actually address or debate the facts/evidence/claims provided in the video.
You have not even addressed any of the claims, yet you dismiss them with all the nonsense you must have read in your life.(a lot)
You said there was no Jewish inciting slaves to revolt and I showed that not only there was, but they were also successful against the Romans.
3 Roman-Jewish wars documented in history.
"But really they don't deserve my time."
Nope they don't, since you are not looking for the truth but to keep your wishful fairy tale.
Applegene - "Really? Come on? You can't be serious? Your source is an online Video?"
Yeah, Jeff never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like!
Applegene - "Science has the same problem..laws that explain the movements of planets and the laws that explain the movements of electrons contradict each other. Both laws cannot exist at the same time."
Actually no they don't contradict:
Theory 1 makes a prediction in situation A, but theory 2 can't make a prediction in situation A because it is missing a piece (at least one). Therefore they can not be compared, so there can be no contradiction. If you tell me Susan is at the mall right now, but I say I have no idea where she is; that is NOT a contradiction.
Furthermore, a contradiction would be a good thing; when you have a contradiction it is typically easy to make progress. For example the free-will vs omniscience contradiction you were discussing. From that we know that at most only one of those two ideas can be true; at least one of them must be discarded. A rational person must throw one of those out, or at the very least admit they don't know which one to discard. An irrational person tries to maintain both; in essence doublethink:
doublethink - "The power of holding t̲w̲o̲ ̲c̲o̲n̲t̲r̲a̲d̲i̲c̲t̲o̲r̲y̲ ̲b̲e̲l̲i̲e̲f̲s̲ in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... T̲o̲ ̲t̲e̲l̲l̲ ̲d̲e̲l̲i̲b̲e̲r̲a̲t̲e̲ ̲l̲i̲e̲s̲ while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary...." -George Orwell
Of course Orwell was discussing politics---not religion---but I think it is just as applicable; the shoe sure seems to fit.
Nyarlanthotep, the leading physicists in the world admit that general relativity and quantum theory cannot be reconciled, despire being in two realms. To them it is more of an ad hoc thing they do to decide which rules of the universe apply. Why do you disagree with the scientists who have been doing this for decades? Even einstein tried, and failed, to understand the small which keeping his general relativity
Vincent paul tran - "Why do you disagree with the scientists who have been doing this for decades?"
I don't disagree with them. I was just pointing out that they do not form a contradiction.
@Vincent paul tran
They do not contradict each other but they do point out that both theories MUST be wrong or incomplete because we know for a fact that all big things out there are made up of small things.
A theory that does not work for both things is surly wrong or incomplete to fit the facts that we can see.
One could argue that what we are seeing(facts) is not actually what there is, but then good luck with proving that it has any relation to those theories.
Scientist are still researching this topic and none of them claims that one is better then the other(or that both are correct) as the universal theory like religion does with god.
Physics is not complete but it's prertty good. GR works very well on the big stuff (except for the accelerating rate of expansion of the universe), and QM works very well on the small stuff. They need to be unified and the great brains are working on that. In the meantime all your computers and satellites etc etc are working very well....
For me, suffering isn't caused by any god/diety - it's caused by other human beings. I haven't read the Bible or any other religious texts/books but I don't see why that means I don't get to pass judgement.
Agree.
The answer is:: If the god of the bible exists, then it is a a monster. What is my prize for knowing the answer??
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