Why we must be born again and why Jesus is the only way to Salvation

[Believer]

since the other thread was hijacked by Julia Child and her friends:

Matthew 21:
21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

"many will say to me".....so who was Lord?

Matthew 8:1-3

1When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2A man with leprosy[a] came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

3Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy

Who was he calling Lord?

Matthew 8:8
8The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed

Who was he calling Lord?

Mark 8:38
38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

It is always the right time and place to speak of the Lord.

Mark 9:42
42"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck

Be careful not to teach your children its ok to choose the sins of the world over holiness. Christians shouldnt defend anti-Christian posts over someone declaring his Lordship.

Mark 14:61-62
Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ,[f] the Son of the Blessed One?"

62"I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Luke 7:50
50Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

It is our faith that saves us.

John 3

Jesus Teaches Nicodemus
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

3In reply Jesus declared, [B]"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.[a]"

4"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You[c] must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

9"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

10"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? [B]13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[d] 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.[e]

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.[g] 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."[h]


We must be Born Again. And we must believe in Jesus.

John 5:21-27
21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

24"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. 25I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 27And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.


John 6:28-29
28Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

29Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."


John 10:1-10
1"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." 6Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

7Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.


Thats probably enough for now.

Jesus owns words from the Bible. And all versions of the Bible are consistant in character.

Christians believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He is Lord and He is the way to Salvation.

[milkman]

Originally Posted by Groves

I have a feeling that if people came in and hijacked other threads that the *hijackers* would be catching the flack instead of the legitimate thread starter. Is the topic legit? It sure isn't any more zany than other threads this time of year.

Make no mistake. The poster Believer, even if he has good intentions, does not honor Christ with his posts.

And yet, there's a certain decency in starting the thread so at least people know what is trying to be discussed in it.

Cliff Notes: If the situation were reversed, there'd be no end to the whining going on.

Hijacking threads is a planet pasttime, and Believer's isn't the only one to be subjected to this.

We do it with threads on football as well as off topic.

A big reason for the existence of this forum is that many of us didn't like the Naziesque censorship of the old Star board.

This forum allows us to just have a good time talking about whatever we want to discuss.

Cliff Notes: Shut the hell up.

[Dave Lane]

Do you really think it all began with a sanctimonious Jewish wonder-worker, strolling about 1st century Palestine? Prepare to be enlightened.

Jesus – The Imaginary Friend

Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs. Following a star would lead you in circles. The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimise the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin. That idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses.

Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road. "Jesus better documented than any other ancient figure" ? Don't believe a word of it. Unlike the mythical Jesus, a real historical figure like Julius Caesar has a mass of mutually supporting evidence.

[Fairplay]

The Mexican food thrad and the beliver thread are the keys to our salavation!!

Sit back and think about it. When you eat a lot of Mexucan food what happens. Yes, not only do you drink a lot of cheap beer but you kneel down and prey brfore the porcelian god!! Get it??

The god is always there. At your work place, in you home.

Your toilet!!

I have a bad stomach flu, i think im going to heave!!

I shall go to my silent white god who is so ever patient with me as i open my throat and heave out all the evil which has attacked me.

It sounds like another laungage....BBBLLLLEEEECCCCH!!! (they will speak in eveil tounges)

There, i made a huge contribution to my shrine.

[Groves]

Like I said, I have no problem with the hijacking. That's why I still watch the threads. There's a lot of funny stuff in those threads, and I can't just pass it up.

Heck, I love to see the hijacking so much that I can't understand why we're trying to shut down the easy-pickins posts, that's all.

PS Those are some mean hombres backin you up. I'll shut the hell up.

[Dave Lane]

Et tu Jesus?

There is nothing intrinsically improbable in a radical 1st century rabbi called Jesus. And any figure who emerged as a sage or soothsayer in ancient Palestine is unlikely to have left much evidence of his existence.

But whilst we might entertain, perhaps, a few epithets of reported wisdom from such a guru, it would remain extremely doubtful that any attributed words were actually spoken by him, whatever the claims made today for "oral transmission."

Thus, for example, we can accept the report from Josephus (our only source) that a Jesus ben Ananias caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of ‘woe to the city’ but suspect that Josephus is using poetic licence when he reports this particular Jesus as saying, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people." (Josephus, Wars 6:3).

Bearing in mind that ancient languages had no symbol for quotation marks and made no distinction between a verbatim account of someone's speech and an accurate paraphrase, Josephus may well be providing a close paraphrase. He was present in Jerusalem at the time (62AD) and wrote his history within about a decade of the event.

Not only was Josephus an eyewitness to much of the drama he described but also had access to Roman imperial archives and military commentaries, the hupomnemata. Josephus can also be checked against archaeological data, and, notwithstanding the occasional exaggeration, what he writes is generally confirmed.


A Fake Witness

As it happens, we have an inordinate amount of Jesus dialogue. Nothing particularly novel or unique is put into his mouth, though much of it is contradictory or obscure. None of it comes from a reliable source.

The Gospel of Thomas (found in a Coptic translation at Nag Hammadi and in Greek fragments at Oxyrhynchus), for example, presents 114 "secret" sayings of Jesus, many of which are rephrased quotations from Jewish scripture and over half resemble dialogue which turns up in the New Testament. Others are simply silly:

"Saying 7: Jesus says: 'Blessed is the lion which a man eats so that the lion becomes a man. But cursed is the man whom a lion eats so that the man becomes a lion!'"
"Saying 114: Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."



Regular Christians, of course, are not very happy with the "5th Gospel" and cast doubt on its "reliability." The sayings are not (yet?) embedded in narrative stories to give them a semblance of historical reality and no miracles are mentioned. "Fake teachings, invented by the Gnostics" is the cry.

But does wrapping epithets of folk wisdom into a series of "incidents" and "encounters" – even with a miracle thrown in for good measure – make a fraud any less a fraud? Jesus supposedly spoke in Aramaic but the gospels were written in Greek. Literal translation from one language to another inevitably breaks down at numerous points. Not surprisingly the scholars of the Jesus Seminar dismissed more than eighty per cent of the godman's words as invention.


Who Says?

Who would have noted anything "Jesus of Nazareth" said before he emerged as a bona fide spiritual leader? Yet Luke (2.48,49) quotes the godman at the age of 12 in the "temple incident".

Ok, so let's grant that after her son made the big time Mary becomes the proud mum, full of anecdotes about her illustrious offspring ... Maybe she even reminisced about traipsing off to Bethlehem, even Egypt.

But Mary isn't everywhere. Matthew 3 reports dialogue between the godman and John the Baptist (let alone a voice from heaven!) in the wilderness of Judaea. Only when the Baptist gets imprisoned does JC choose his disciples so they wouldn't have been present either. So where does this little story originate, other than in the fertile mind of the gospel writer?

Ok, let's concede "unknown and unstated bystanders" run off to tell the tale ... In fact, we have to rely on such hearsay again and again: JC's night time chat with Nicodemus, his conversation with a Samaritan woman, when his disciples are off shopping, etc., etc.

But we're still not out of the woods. On several occasions the gospel writers quite specifically report Jesus’ conversations when neither they nor any other humans were present.

Who would have had the faintest idea of what Jesus said when he was on his own? For example, chapter 17 of the Gospel of John is entirely taken up with a monologue addressed by a solitary Jesus to God himself.

Matthew (4.3,10) tells of JC in the wilderness and having conversations with Satan.

Now how would Matthew know what was said? Are we to imagine Jesus reminisced, "Hey guys, one time I was in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights and guess who showed up ... ?"

If we take this step we may as well dream up the whole nine yards ...


Write your own Jesus Lore!

The gospels provide detailed "Jesus action" for the last year or so of his life but are deafeningly silent about the other 30-odd years. 90% of the godman's biography is missing.

No problem! Taking a lead from Holy Mother Church, creative religious fraudsters have had a grand time colouring in the missing years.

If you like, Jesus travelled with Joseph of Arimathea to Britain to learn druidic lore at Glastonbury. He even built a hut with his own hands.

Or if you prefer, our hero went off to India to spend 17 years as both a student and teacher of Buddhist and Hindu holy men. They affectionately called him Issa.

Other options involve Tibet, Japan and, if you're a Mormon, America.

Why not have Jesus visit your own home town?

In days of lore, a man who never existed can not only be anything, he can be anywhere!

[Simplex3]

What I don't get is why anyone responds to this crap. If its next thread went 0 views, 0 replies it'd go the f**k away.

[Logical]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Do you really think it all began with a sanctimonious Jewish wonder-worker, strolling about 1st century Palestine? Prepare to be enlightened.

Jesus – The Imaginary Friend

Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs. Following a star would lead you in circles. The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimise the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin. That idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses.

Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road. "Jesus better documented than any other ancient figure" ? Don't believe a word of it. Unlike the mythical Jesus, a real historical figure like Julius Caesar has a mass of mutually supporting evidence.

Dave please don't legitimize this "Believer" jackass in his spamming. You are just encouraging him. Funny how in the past religious threads were shuffled off ot DC but they let this guy continue to do this, I know it is the offseason but WTF?

[Simplex3]

Originally Posted by Logical

Dave please don't legitimize this "Believer" jackass in his spamming. You are just encouraging him. Funny how in the past religious threads were shuffled off ot DC but they let this guy continue to do this, I know it is the offseason but WTF?

^-- What he said.

[stumppy]

My two cents:

[Believer]

Originally Posted by Ultra Peanut

I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed's church. Every night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting, and some very hardened sinners had been brought to Christ, and the membership of the church had grown by leaps and bounds. Then just before the revival ended, they held a special meeting for children, "to bring the young to the fold." My aunt spoke of it for days ahead. That night I was escorted to the front row and placed on the mourners' bench with all the other young sinners, who had not yet been brought to Jesus.

My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her. I had heard a great many old people say the same thing and it seemed to me they ought to know. So I sat there calmly in the hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.

The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, all moans and shouts and lonely cries and dire pictures of hell, and then he sang a song about the ninety and nine safe in the fold, but one little lamb was left out in the cold. Then he said: "Won't you come? Won't you come to Jesus? Young , won't you come?" And he held out his arms to all us young sinners there on the mourners' bench. And the little girls cried. And some of them jumped up and went to Jesus right away. But most of us just sat there.

A great many old people came and knelt around us and prayed, old women with jet-black faces and braided hair, old men with work-gnarled hands. And the church sang a song about the lower lights are burning, some poor sinners to be saved. And the whole building rocked with prayer and song.

Still I kept waiting to see Jesus.

Finally all the young people had gone to the altar and were saved, but one boy and me. He was a rounder's son named Westley. Westley and I were surrounded by sisters and deacons praying. It was very hot in the church, and getting late now. Finally Westley said to me in a whisper: "God damn! I'm tired o' sitting here. Let's get up and be saved." So he got up and was saved.

Then I was left all alone on the mourners' bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees and cried, while prayers and song swirled all around me in the little church. The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans and voices. And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting - but he didn't come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to me. Nothing! I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened.

I heard the songs and the minister saying: "Why don't you come? My dear child, why don't you come to Jesus? Jesus is waiting for you. He wants you. Why don't you come? Sister Reed, what is this child's name?"

"Langston," my aunt sobbed.

"Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?"

Now it was really getting late. I began to be ashamed of myself, holding everything up so long. I began to wonder what God thought about Westley, who certainly hadn't seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging his knickerbockered legs and grinning down at me, surrounded by deacons and old women on their knees praying. God had not struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple. So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved.

So I got up.

Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw her arms around me. The minister took me by the hand and led me to the platform.

When things quieted down, in a hushed silence, punctuated by a few ecstatic "Amens," all the new young were blessed in the name of God. Then joyous singing filled the room.

That night, for the first time in my life but one for I was a big boy twelve years old - I cried. I cried, in bed alone, and couldn't stop. I buried my head under the quilts, but my aunt heard me. She woke up and told my uncle I was crying because the Holy Ghost had come into my life, and because I had seen Jesus. But I was really crying because I couldn't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn't seen Jesus, and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn't come to help me.

Thats very sad that the alter call was done in that way, it almost encouraged you as young person to do what wasnt in your heart at the time just to please everybody else. An outside acceptance, if you will.

That doesnt mean it wasnt real for many others, it just wasnt your time.

For many years people had witnessed to me. I believed in an almighty God, but I couldnt wrap myself around this Jesus concept. People asked me if I ever asked Jesus through prayer if he was there. I had and at the time He never responded to my heart.

Finally, it came to me, and it changed everything. But I had to keep hearing it. I needed to read the scripture, to read the Old Testament prophesies, to know why I believed, not just that I did.

There is a song that goes "What if it takes 15 times to hear about Jesus.......Maybe im the third or maybe the seventh, but what if Im 15?"

I dont expect everybody to suddenly accept Jesus. But by putting the scripture out there, by speaking of the real story behind this man, God on earth, maybe someone will pick up a Bible and read for themself.

Or when they hear someone at Church talk about Justification by Faith, not by works, they'll remember something.

Not the messenger, but the message.

That Jesus loves you, not for what you've done, not because of who you are, but because of who He is, and because of what He's done.

Im a very flawed messenger. But that is irrelevant.

Because the message is valid. And it is real. And relevant.

And it doesnt change if you dont accept it.

It'll still be there tomorrow.

The problem is, none of us are assured we'll have tomorrow.

Open your hearts. Open the Bible.

[Dave Lane]

Fraud of Ages


Does anyone stand to gain by maintaining a myth?

But of course, a vast global industry of religion. Was this always the case? Why YES, unquestionably after Constantine made Christianity the State religion, but no less so in the preceding centuries. Indeed, priests, shamans, witchdoctors have lived on the backs of others since people started living in groups. Given this venal motive of the "religiously inclined", we would be wise to exercise caution before buying its product and accepting its claims.


In those 2000 years did the Church ever fabricate legends and relics?

The vast Medieval forgery industry is a matter of historical record – a contributory cause of the Reformation. Before the canon of holy books was finalized in the 5th century hundreds of fanciful Jesus stories existed. Rancorous Church Councils decided which were 'sacred' and which were 'pious romances.'


Do the claims for Jesus include the suspension of the laws of physics?

Absolutely. We are not talking of a mere carpenter but a worker of miracles. Setting aside the miasma of "Faith" we require rather more evidence for a miracle than a normal activity, not less.



Yet every purported evidence for Jesus turns out to be dubious or non-existent. This includes no contemporary record of Jesus; no evidence for Nazareth in the 1st century; tampered works of non-Christian writers to insert 'evidence'; testimony of early Christians who didn't believe in a human Jesus anyway; gospels which flatly contradict each other; myriad instances of 'Jesus stories' copied from earlier legends and other cultures; and so on and so on.


We have both a motive for Christian fabrication of a myth and the evidence of centuries of myth creation. In other words, what we find "in the beginning" is the same venality and charlatanism that followed, century after century, in each becoming more vicious and ruthless.

http://jesusneverexisted.com

There thats my contribution. Any further believer threads will garner the same consequence.

Dave

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Logical

Dave please don't legitimize this "Believer" jackass in his spamming. You are just encouraging him. Funny how in the past religious threads were shuffled off ot DC but they let this guy continue to do this, I know it is the offseason but WTF?

Its hard to help myself. I do believe in equal time after all . But you are right. I think this stuff should go to DC and I really think he needs to be banned unless he has some football threads to start or add to this site in some way other than just stuff like this over and over...

Dave

[Simplex3]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Its hard to help myself. I do believe in equal time after all . But you are right. I think this stuff should go to DC and I really think he needs to be banned unless he has some football threads to start or add to this site in some way other than just stuff like this over and over...

Dave

Two words: Romper Room. Even DC is better than this crap.

[Thig Lyfe]

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by Believer

Blah blah blah

Most of us don't give a rats ass. Do you have a good fried chicken recipe Sparky?