and why would we want to choose you over Him?

no i'm just curious what you did that makes you greater then Him...

all i've seen you do is bad mouth Christians, provoking flame etc

if you consider those to be good things then we probably have a different defenition of "good"

Winter: Its more that he's doing good things at the moment, whereas God hasn't done anything at all since we started recording history. Kinda makes you wonder.

Oh, so decimus knows whats going on in every corner of the world and can claim for 100% that God hasn't done anything good recently? My bad.

Let's see... Created the universe, planets, life, ... not to mention He gave up his only Son to die for ALL our sins and offering eternal life as a gift to whoever repents for their sins and accepts Christ in their life and follows His teachings.

What more do you want?

only the catholic church does that I think and they just really don't know any better

they probably still think that getting baptized = ticket to eternal life

the thief on the cross didn't get baptized, he knew he was a sinner and deserved his punishment and just asked Jesus for forgiveness and to remember him when He got back to His Kingdom and he got saved then and there

right you are, fokker.

a) bible is not a factbook any more than the prisoner of azakaban.

b) says who?

a)

Caesar wrote his histroy of the Gallic Wars between 100 to 44 BC, earliest copy: 1000 year after his death, 10 copies were made

Plato wrote from 427 to 347 BC, earliest copy: AD 900 (nearly 1200 years after original), 7 copies were made

Aristotle wrote between 384 and 322 BC, earliest copy: AD 1100 (1400+ years after original), 5 copies were made

Tacitus wrote in the first century, earliest copy: AD 1100 (1000+ years after original), only 1 copy

All these were proven authentic and reliable authors by experts by ways of bibliographical, internal and external testing.

The books of the New Testament were written from 40 to 90 AD, earliest copy AD 130 (40-50 years after original), 13000+ copies exist

So I'd rather put my trust in the Bible then the prisoner of azkaban

b) to which part do you redirect your "says who?"

@WFS:

Ok, other religions do it too, but that still doesn't alter the fact that it's useless, even Jesus Himself got baptized when He was mature. Unless someone can quote me a scripture verse saying otherwise offcourse

But did Socrates claim to be the living God? Did Socrates heal the sick? Did Socrates get persecuted, humiliated, chastised and crucified for his beliefs? Did he rise up from the dead after 3 days?

There is no doubt that Jesus' tomb was empty, the only people who had reasons to take Him out of that tomb would be the Jews so they could prove that He was just a human being and not who He said He was. Did they find His body lying there? No, He rose from the dead just as He said He would.

Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. As far as I know, noone else has ever made such a claim and backed it up as well as it's written in the Bible.

Anyway, you guys made your choice, good for you. I made mine aswell.

Oh and Deci: the day you die and you manage to rise from the dead after 3 days, ill put my faith in you, ill even build you your very own church

technically i didn't make the comparison to azkaban, deci did but the point still stays: Jesus and the bible changed the world, prisoner of azkaban not so much

made up 50 years after? they were copies of the original and the fact they were written so close to the originals allows a very small window of errors. I thought it was emperor Constantine that chose which ones to put in the bible and which books not, and as far as I know he was a roman emperor.

Have you read the Gospel of Thomas yet (only discovered like a few years ago), wasn't included in the bible but contains all the important parables and sayings as the other Gospels, only difference is the style of writing. Thomas pretty much only contains things that Jesus said and not what he did. The Gospels included in the bible offer a lot more details to those parables and his life and therefor got recorded in the bible.

Besides do you honestly believe that God would just let men decide which ones to put in or not at random? He can't lie and the bible is His Word, so if someone didn't include some important information or altered something, He would be considered a liar and that would go against all His teachings.

> Winter-een-mas wrote:

> technically i didn't make the comparison to azkaban, deci did but the point still stays: Jesus and the bible changed the world, prisoner of azkaban not so much<

His point was quite clear: Just because it changed the world it doesn't mean it cannot be a work of fiction.

"made up 50 years after? they were copies of the original and the fact they were written so close to the originals allows a very small window of errors. I thought it was emperor Constantine that chose which ones to put in the bible and which books not, and as far as I know he was a roman emperor."

50 years is not a small window of error: Think of 50 years ago. Write it down. Now go research it.
Even with "modern" records anything that happened 50 years ago is almost legend, muddled by the mist of memory and time. Now imagine that there were no records, that all there was was memory, word of mouth... after 50 years? Back then that was two generations, two lifetimes... no room for twisting there? Of course there is, for even the "word of god" is at the mercy of the mouths of men.

"Have you read the Gospel of Thomas yet (only discovered like a few years ago), wasn't included in the bible but contains all the important parables and sayings as the other Gospels, only difference is the style of writing. Thomas pretty much only contains things that Jesus said and not what he did. The Gospels included in the bible offer a lot more details to those parables and his life and therefor got recorded in the bible."

I've read the heretical aramaic document, written in aramaic, by hand, almost 2000 years ago. It is genuine, the church confirmed this, right before they locked it away.
Guess what it says about churches, guess what it says about prayer, guess what it says about where god lives... If I was inclined to follow the "teachings" of a parable over 2000 years old I'd follow the main character.

"Besides do you honestly believe that God would just let men decide which ones to put in or not at random?"

How would he stop them? In case you have not noticed God has been working under a strict non-interference policy since junior got lynched. God gave us FREE WILL, remember?

"He can't lie and the bible is His Word,"
The Bible is man's word, written by man. God only ever wrote one thing, remember? I think that a God should only have to speak once, like ours did, and speak plainly, like ours did, "Live like this and you are good, refuse and my friend Satan will [w00f] you up".

"so if someone didn't include some important information or altered something, He would be considered a liar and that would go against all His teachings."

God only gave us 10 teachings, everything else is the work of men.

@fokker

"His point was quite clear: Just because it changed the world it doesn't mean it cannot be a work of fiction.
"
Strangely enough that piece of "fiction" as you call it, hasn't been surpassed by anything to this date. Tell you what, if you can prove to me that Jesus didn't raise from the dead 3 days after his crucifiction, i'll renounce my faith right then and there and apologise to you for being wrong. Baring in mind that the jews were the only people who would really benefit from finding his body so they could show everyone they were right and He was lying; the apostles were hiding, the roman guards could have cared less and all the eyewitnesses.

"50 years is not a small window of error: Think of 50 years ago. Write it down. Now go research it.
Even with "modern" records anything that happened 50 years ago is almost legend, muddled by the mist of memory and time. Now imagine that there were no records, that all there was was memory, word of mouth... after 50 years? Back then that was two generations, two lifetimes... no room for twisting there? Of course there is, for even the "word of god" is at the mercy of the mouths of men.
"

50 years to write 13000 copies by HAND. I dare you to do the same with a few of your friends and see if you even come close.

"I've read the heretical aramaic document, written in aramaic, by hand, almost 2000 years ago. It is genuine, the church confirmed this, right before they locked it away.
Guess what it says about churches, guess what it says about prayer, guess what it says about where god lives... If I was inclined to follow the "teachings" of a parable over 2000 years old I'd follow the main character.
"

It's not the teachings of a parable. It's the teachings of Jesus who spoke in parables to the non believers and provided an explanation for them to his apostles who included those in their gospels.

"How would he stop them? In case you have not noticed God has been working under a strict non-interference policy since junior got lynched. God gave us FREE WILL, remember?
"

Free will to make the choice of a) accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior and getting eternal life or b) turning your back on him and die in your sins. God uses people just as much as Satan does, only difference is that Satan does it to destroy lives and keep people from getting saved.

"The Bible is man's word, written by man. God only ever wrote one thing, remember? I think that a God should only have to speak once, like ours did, and speak plainly, like ours did, "Live like this and you are good, refuse and my friend Satan will [w00f] you up".
"

No, the Bible is still His word, it was just written down by man.

"God only gave us 10 teachings, everything else is the work of men."

Funny enough one of them is "Thou shalt not lie"...

@WFS

"you're correct, it's a roman emperor, my bad, I had another one in mind. But that doesn't change the point that most texts were written in greek, and meant for a greek audience.
And you have no idea about the errors that might be in it. Practicly all the diplomatic letters in the entire medieval times (500 to 1500), were copied with making mistakes. This gives you an idea how big the chances are that things have changed in the earliest copies. Besides, as I said, it was written down after the actual witnesses had already died. It was when the 2nd generation came to die, that they started to write things down.
"

That's not really a valid point about the greek texts for greek audience. For that same reason Im not writing in my native language on a public forum but have to resort to my knowledge of the English language (basically using the language that's most accessible to as many people as possible). If greek was the most common to write in and most accessible, you wouldn't want to write in latin right? Obviously those diplomatic letters weren