Take an extra second to reflect on 2005

[sasguru]

Interesting reading Mr. Owl.
Of course Chico wouldn't know (or want to know) any of this. It would take away from his comfortable certainties.

[Chico]

Owl well considering Martin Luther changed his mind on Revelation your post is misleading. As most scholars conclude Revelation is the most difficult Book in the Bible as it deal entirely with the end times and it spells how satan and his followers will be destroyed.

Where did put the Book of Revelation in his Bible?

When Martin Luther first translated and published the New Testament, he thought that Revelation should not have the same status or authority as the gospels or the letters of Paul or Peter. And so he put it at the end, but he didn't number it. He didn't put a "saint" in front of [John's] name. He thought it was an edifying book, but not of the same status. But what's interesting, even though he felt that way, it's the one book that he illustrated, where he put woodcuts, because Revelation allowed him to make one of his central points, which was that the papacy was the Antichrist, and the end of the world was coming. And so there you see the only woodcuts in the New Testament. You see the whore of Babylon wearing a papal crown. You see the seven-headed beast wearing a papal crown. The message was clear. You didn't have to read (as most people didn't). You got the message. The papacy, the papal office--not the individual popes but the papal Church--was where Satan was working to undermine Christendom. And the fact that Satan was there meant the world was coming to an end soon. ...

Was Luther conflicted about Revelation? Was he uncomfortable with the book?

When Luther began, he was uncomfortable with the Book of Revelation. But as the Reformation went on and more and more opponents sprang up, he had difficulty, he became more and more interested in Revelation. And later in his life, he took it with the utmost seriousness, and even tried to figure out all the symbolism in it, to determine when the end of the world was going to come. ...

PBS.org

[ALM]

Chico,

Excellent. We seem to have made some progress. Given that you've finally realised that Paul never met Jesus face to face and only suffered visions of him, does it not seem strange to you that most of Christian worship is composed of ideas spawned by Paul? .. ideas which often directly contradict the teachings of Jesus?

I put it to you that Paul is no more an authoritative figure on Jesus than the likes of me or you. At best he was misguided and at worst he was an out and out charlatan and fake. Similarly, you in your endless calls for war, are attemtpting to hijack a once noble and sincere religion and inject it with your vile fundamentalism.

[Chico]

Chico,

Excellent. We seem to have made some progress. Given that you've finally realised that Paul never met Jesus face to face and only suffered visions of him, does it not seem strange to you that most of Christian worship is composed of ideas spawned by Paul? .. ideas which often directly contradict the teachings of Jesus?

I put it to you that Paul is no more an authoritative figure on Jesus than the likes of me or you. At best he was misguided and at worst he was an out and out charlatan and fake. Similarly, you in your endless calls for war, are attemtpting to hijack a once noble and sincere religion and inject it with your vile fundamentalism.

What a load of twaddle!!! Tell me what ideas of Paul contradict the teachings of Jesus. Over to you. And Paul did meet Jesus face to face read Acts 9 again.

[ALM]

What a load of twaddle!!! Tell me what ideas of Paul contradict the teachings of Jesus. Over to you. And Paul did meet Jesus face to face read Acts 9 again.

Why don't you read Acts 9 again yourself. Here's the quote again:

3As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.

"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. 6"Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."

7The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.

Even a moderately intelligent person can deduce from the above that Paul was experiecing a vision of Chirst here. Jesus had been crucified some 37 years earlier! Are you suggesting he was resurrected twice?! I really don't understand which part of the above you object to. This isn't even an area of debate ... even Christian scholars describe the above as a vision and you are the first allegedly learned Christian I've met that has failed to grasp this simple truth. Perhaps you would like to view the following links to Chirtian websites which describe Paul's 'vision' of Christ:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache...damascus&hl=en
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache...damascus&hl=en

Paul's teachings do contradict the teachings of Jesus. You should look into how, when and by whom the concept of 'atonement' was introduced into Christianity. I'm at a loose end today so feel free to continue this debate.

[expat]

Well actually there is a test you can apply to anyone who claims to be God or the Messiah and surprise surprise Jesus Christ was who he said he is.

Statistics and Probability

The test being, according to that page, that some chap called Peter W Stoner gives the probability of a series of events happening by chance as very small.

If you believe that, I've got a nice bridge you might be interested in.

BTW the chance of me, out of all the people in the world, popping up right now to dispute your assertion, is 6580755882 to 1 against. I rest my case.

[Chico]

ALM you have rightly given up on this debate as you have run out of ideas - and now want to play the semantic game. Lets recap, you came on here stating how you were an authority on Christianity, Judaism and Islam based on the fact that you went to Catholic school. Okay to each their own. Then you said Paul never met Jesus when in fact he had. You then claimed he had a dream or was it a vision so that did not count. Well it would not have counted if Jesus Christ was an ordinary guy who had been dead many years before. That I suggest is the issue you struggle with. Jesus is not an ordinary man he is The Messiah, God with us. Jesus never gave us that option to conclude that he was a just a morally good teacher, he was either a lunatic or the Son of God. He lived, he died and was resurrected. And he appeared to Saul of Tarsus who after that meeting instantly changed from a persecutor of Christians to its greatest evangelist. What does Paul teach us - salvation comes from Jesus Christ alone and is open to the entire world. He reaffirms the message of Christ not detract from it as you suggest.

[ALM]

ALM you have rightly given up on this debate as you have run out of ideas - and now want to play the semantic game. Lets recap, you came on here stating how you were an authority on Christianity, Judaism and Islam based on the fact that you went to Catholic school. Okay to each their own. Then you said Paul never met Jesus when in fact he had. You then claimed he had a dream or was it a vision so that did not count. Well it would not have counted if Jesus Christ was an ordinary guy who had been dead many years before. That I suggest is the issue you struggle with. Jesus is not an ordinary man he is The Messiah, God with us. Jesus never gave us that option to conclude that he was a just a morally good teacher, he was either a lunatic or the Son of God. He lived, he died and was resurrected. And he appeared to Saul of Tarsus who after that meeting instantly changed from a persecutor of Christians to its greatest evangelist. What does Paul teach us - salvation comes from Jesus Christ alone and is open to the entire world. He reaffirms the message of Christ not detract from it as you suggest.

I have not given up on any debate. Quite the opposite. I challenged you to provide evidence from the bible that Paul ever met Jesus. The only evidence you have been able to put forward is Acts 9. Acts 9 describes an experience of Paul in which he claims to have had a vision of Jesus. This vision occured no less than 37 years after the crucifiction of Jesus and is widely accepted, even by Christian Scholars, as being exactly a 'vision'. If you read 2 Corinthians 12:1-5 his visons also contained "unspeakable words that it is unlawful to utter.". This man sounds like a nutcase to me!

Despite the fact that the only connection Paul ever had with Jesus was these dubious 'visions', he went onto fall out with the real apostles of Jesus and claimed that he received his teachings of 'Christianity' during these visions and from no one else, not even the apostles (Galatians 1:12). In other words, he has no need of learning from the apostles. The question is, why should Christian worship be based on the techings of Paul at all? Remember this is a man who Jesus had no connection with whatsoever. He spent exactly 0 seconds in his company. Surely, anyone interested in the teachings of christ should turn to the apostles themsleves.

The apostles, according to Paul, did not walk "uprightly" according to the "truth of the Gospel" and were lazy, misguided, hypocrites (1 Corinthians 15:10, Galatians 2:14, Galatians 2:13). The ideas paul harps on about such as atonement and 'original sin' were never monetioned by Jesus himself. No sooner does Jesus depart this earth than Paul uses his claimed visions to completely nullify everything Jesus ever taught and practiced!

[ladymuck]

Who'd have thought that a fairly innocuous post about a leap second would devolve into such an interesting theological debate?

[AlfredJPruffock]

Who'd have thought that a fairly innocuous post about a leap second would devolve into such an interesting theological debate?

Aye Me Lady

Back on the thread, HAPPY NEW YEAR to my friends and detractors !