Warning! Controversial Thread: " Artist defiantly draws Prophet Mohammed"

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thanks mate i just purchased it, gets a good couple of reviews to, one even states that the reporter was a complete non beleiver and even he cant deny the facts, this is the kind of thing iam looking for as i am abit of a sceptic myself. gracias.

 

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A lot of people (Historians included), dont deny that Jesus existed. Its fairly well documented apparently that he did. The other stuff, however, is usually what is contested.

 

The Book of Revelation details the events relative to the Messiah's return and as far as I can tell, while people don't doubt in the Messiah or the Almighty at that point, the book does record that many suffered horribly and still cursed G-d rather than turning to Him.

I think the source Michael has referred to supports not only the existence of Jesus as a person but his identity as the Messiah/Anointed One.

 

Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are not considered to be Christian denominations - their faiths are quite different from Christianity: Mormon differences, JW differences

Sure, they're nice people... my best friend in high school was a Mormon, one of my best friends in the Army was a Mormon, and my first girlfriend was a Jehovah's Witness. But they believe in something that is not Christianity.

Regarding prophets... according to the Bible, many false Christs and false prophets will come in the last days, and Jesus himself warns against them in Matthew 24 (as well as Mark 13) - I've bolded the most relevant passages for quick reading:

We don't have to worry about wondering whether we should believe someone who professes to be a prophet... those who believe the Bible already have all the information we need to know.

 

To be fair, I never said they were Christians, but this thread is about religion in general, not Islam vs Christianity.

And whilst you believe the above to be the case, they do not. Again this comes down to the difference in religion. They believe prophets appear regularly, to guide their followers, and act as spokesperson for their God.

 

You are correct - Lee Strobel was an atheist... he discusses his atheism in a video on his Web site. Pretty interesting!

 

I know. I just wanted to set the record clear before anyone believed or assumed Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses to be Christians.

That's my point - they are not Christians, for Christians believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Should they just "pick and choose" which scripture they want to believe?

 

I've always believed that the bible isnt the word of god (Even when I was christian). Its been too frequently edited, retranslated, altered, etc. Not to mention that it was written by men. So the actual words of the bible are not the word of god. I was always more inclined to believe that it was the sentiment behind the words that were the important part.

 

Can you site your sources for that understanding, Fergal? I think a lot of people assume that the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation...and so on, so that the original material is lost to history.

I did a bit of Googling and came up with some links:

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations

http://www.williamtyndale.com/0biblehistory.htm

As I understand it, the Bibles we have today are generally translated from the oldest existing Greek and Hebrew texts. One of the reasons that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was such a big deal is that it gave Bible scholars the opportunity to compare our modern Bible with source documents much older than were previously available. As I recall, the comparision of our modern Bibles to the oldest texts had an extremely high degree of fidelity (sorry...I read this years ago and can't recall the source).

Yes, of course human beings wrote the various books of the Bible but inspired by the Almighty. In fact, there are several areas in the Torah where the Almighty literally says to Moses, "write down what I say" so in at least some cases, Moses and the other prophets were basically "taking dictation". If you read the Book of Revelation, you'll find that John is commanded to write down what he sees in his vision, so it's not just that these fellows were documenting their theological ideas and understandings.

There are points where Paul says he's rendering his own opinion rather than what he has received from G-d but obviously, those parts are spelled out by him in his letters, so we are able to determine which is his opinion and which is the Word of the Almighty.

Again, it takes a certain amount of faith to accept what Michael, Freddy, and I (and others) accept but as Michael has pointed out, there's also investigative evidence to the existence of Jesus as a person and as the Messiah as well as evidence in the validity of the Bible. It takes a certain amount of digging, but it's worth it.

 

To be honest, maybe you are right. I certainly cant state a specific source for my belief in that. Maybe Im a purist, but as far as I'm concerned, the moment you need to tack on the word 'Edition' or 'Version' to something that is supposed to be the word of God, that material instantly loses credibility with me.

As for taking information from the book itself to corroborate the truth of said book, thats just circular reasoning. You cannot justify the contents of the bible by quoting the contents of the bible. If its in question, then every word of it is in question. So the very fact that they say they were dictating from god is also in question. Unless you can provide me with evidence that exists outside the work under scrutiny that the events took place as indicated within the book, without having to use the contents of the book, I'm just simply not going to buy into it.

I'm not saying its not true, and I'm not saying it is, but it just doesnt work like that. The same goes for Freddy's argument previously about the raising of Lazarus, if the evidence you produce to fuel these arguments backing the validity of the bible come from the bible, then they are not admissable as arguments.

Show me reliable evidence to these acts outside the bible, and I will believe them. Reliable evidence exists to show that Jesus did in fact exist, plenty of people agree on this, if nothing else. I'm happy to believe this. But to this date I havent seen reliable evidence of other things in the bible, and not the least that the very words in the bible are actually the very utterances of God.

 

I'd just like to point something out here, Fergal.

If you have never believed the Bible to be true, and the inspired word of God, then basically you have never been a Christian. That's not slamming you, it's just that a core tenet of Christianity is that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and that thus it is reliable. If you have always rejected that, it's hard to see how you could say you ever accepted Christianity. I mean, everything in Christianity flows from the Bible. If you reject the idea that the main source is true, you are in essence rejecting everything else as you think it's all based on a misconception.

I know if I rejected the idea that the Bible is inspired, I would have knocked out the foundation for what I now believe to be true. If I don't believe that the Biblical prophecies really came from God, how can I believe Jesus is who he said he was? There is no other evidence to prove he was who he said he was. Everything about Christianity is then suspect. The entire foundation of my belief system is gone.

 

As a published author, Trip might disagree with that sentiment!

 

Because I believe(d) that God works through men, and, as you said, inspired the creation of the bible. I believed that he may well have said exactly what he wanted said to these people, or that he worked 'behind the scenes' to pass on the ideas he wanted inscribed. Those writing the book will have added their own slant onto it, or written it in their own style of saying things. The importance of the bible isnt in the words written on the book, its on the meanings behind those words.

Think of the bible like one big parable. The important part of parables isnt whats said in the story, its the meaning behind the words thats important. If you walk away with only the words of the parable in mind, then you havent fully grasped what the teller was trying to convey.

Looking behind the words, at the meanings in there. THATS where the real teachings of God can be found, in my opinion. The distinction is that, at the time, I believed that the Bible was a communication from God, but not that the words in it were.

Of course, my understanding of the Gods has moved on from when I believed Christianity, so I dont lay faith into a single Book and its words.

 

Trips books are not supposed to be the word of God though, are they?

 

If you're interested, you can learn Hebrew and Greek and translate the originals for yourself...

You either believe the Bible is the Word of God, or you do not. You will believe what you will. We are simply saying that we believe, and it's one of the things that makes us 'Christian'.

 

You have something there, but perhaps not as much as you think. I'm not an expert on languages but I know someone who is. Translating text from one language to another isn't just a matter of transposing one word for another. It doesn't work that way. Concepts and ideas in one language may not exist as such in another. That's why Paul had such a tough time in some of his letters including Galatians trying to express the difference between a legalistic obediance of Torah (obeying the Law for the sake of the Law) vs. obeying the Torah as an already redeemed person because of your love for the Almighty (which is why Galatians is often misused as an "anti-Torah" book).

One reason that you have different editions or versions of the Bible has to do with different approaches in translation. This doesn't mean that all translations are out and out wrong, but it does mean that a particular word in ancient Hebrew or Greek might have numerous meanings in English and the true translation must be derived from the context. The best way around this is to learn Biblical Hebrew and Greek fluently (my friend is gifted in this area and so has been a great resource to me and my congregation) and read the oldest existing texts.

That's not practical for most of us, so the next best step is to get Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and a half dozen or so English translations of the Bible and start studying. If you are serious about proving your case about the Bible one way or the other, that is the most straightforward way to go about it.

In terms of the validity of the Bible, a man named Josh McDowell (who was also an atheist when he started his investigation) studied the Bible as he would any other ancient text (such as Homer's Odyssey) to see if the document could be considered internally and contextually valid. After all, we pretty much accept that "The Odyssey" we read today is the same one that Homer wrote way back when. He came to the conclusion that there was more evidence that the Bible was a valid and accurate document than the Odyssey was (that is, today's Bible seems to have more fidelity to the original text than today's Odyssey compared with the oldest existing versions of it).

I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel since the investigation has been completed and published in book form. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Dema...4957735?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193068242&sr=1-1

And no, my books are just written by me. No special claims made there.

 

Thats fair enough, Mike. However, Im saying that in order to be Christian, you do not HAVE to believe that the words in the bible are the utterances of God. That you can believe in the bible and what it stands for, without having to take it at face value. From what I've seen and experienced, those who do more than just read the words, and really try to find the meaning BEHIND those words, tend to have a deeper faith for it. And from what I've heard so far, you Freddy, and Trip all do just this.

I personally think this is doubly important because of the Translation issues, not to mention the corruption inherent in copying back in those days (have you seen hebrew? one squiggle in the wrong place could totally change the meaning of a sentence). I believed that God guided those who wrote the books in the bible, but that doesnt mean every word is the word of god.

See this can be a major problem with people in religion. You say to them, "prove to me the information is valid without using the book in question to justify your claims", and a lot of the time all you get back are "You either believe it or you dont". You've been pretty good so far, but it seems that its a stock answer. Hell, I'd even say Im guilty of it myself. I cant prove to you that what I believe is right any more than you can, but its what causes the barrier between religions in my view. Because we can't, and ultimately end up reverting to the you either believe or you dont line, arguments can never reach a real conclusion when it comes to religion.

 

Ummm.... If someone takes what you say to them, and then puts their own slant to your words, which in my mind says they changed the meaning from your original meaning, then they are not relating your words or ideas.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but there are both literal and figurative passages in the Bible. But, the figurative passages are written in such a way that their message can be discerned by applying the principles taught in the literal portions of the Bible. If all of it is figurative, then it's pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. Why? Because then it's all open to anyone's interpretation, and that cannot be a solid foundation for anyone to place their faith in.

I'm not too sure I understand this. I do agree that not all portions of scripture are understood at a simple reading of them. It's like the phrase, "the wrath of God". To many people it brings up a picture of a very angry person. I don't believe that to be true at all, and think "God's wrath" can only be understood within the context of the principles that express the character of God. Otherwise God becomes some sort of psycho who has a split personality.

That's definitely your prerogative to do. But, I can see why you came to this position. It's a logical progression from your historical view of the Bible.

 

The question of whether the Bible is still the inspired word of God, and is trustworthy, to me hangs on just how much faith a person has in God in Himself. Why? Because if God is omnipotent, and if He really is using the Bible to communicate to humanity who He is, and what He has to say to mankind, then: 1) He has the power to keep His word from being corrupted. 2.) He has a vested interest in keeping His word from being corrupted so that everyone has a chance to learn who He really is.

If I don't believe either of those two things, then I don't believe in the God of the Bible. I know it will be seen as circular reasoning, but the concepts are so closely intertwined that you cannot remove one foundation and keep the other. That's why it's called faith.

 

Then that's your opinion, and we differ, there. But keep in mind that you're not a Christian, trying to tell a Christian what a Christian is supposed to believe.

Just like you can't prove whether there is a God or not, you can't prove whether the Word of God is the inerrant Word of God or not. You either believe it to be true, or you don't. There's no logic to it; it's a faith thing. Thus, it may sound like a "stock answer", but it's the only answer there is.

See, you're trying to reach a conclusion, and there really isn't one. The only possible conclusion is that you:

1) believe, or
2) don't believe

...and we won't figure out who is right until we die or the end comes (or we just cease to exist when we die and nobody figures out anything).

I don't *know* who is right. I *believe* I am right, but only through faith... not by logic. Whether you believe or not is up to you. I can't convince you (or anyone else).