Discussion about Jesus’s death which now encompasses creationism and the second coming. Thread 2

Leading possibly to an Ark full of ducks going in rows of two.....

And lots of mumsnetters telling Eve she should have LTB.

What will we look like in this new life?

Great point. As far as I recall there were a number of councils that met to standardize what was put in the Bible but I have no idea how they decided it and what was the criteria. I have to look into it now. I think Martin Luther took 7 books out of it when he broke from the Catholic Church and published the Bible in German. So yeah you could say that the content Bible itself is on shaky ground if so many people have had an input into it. It might be one of the reasons why us Catholics are taught that scripture (Bible) and tradition (teachings and practice handed down from the time of the apostles)are equally important but that's too deep a point for me to get into to be honest. I'm getting out of my depth here!!

To be fair, the vicars I know are the biggest gossips of them all!!

Plus, what came first, religion or MLMs? Because the latter is heavily dependent on the same sort of elitist mindset of most religions/cults. Manifestation is just secular prayer, IMHO.

It strikes me as ironic that other writings exist that were excluded from the Bible, such as the gospel of Thomas and apparently even a bit of Mary Magdalenes musings have been recovered. What makes the ones included in the New Testament better than the others, or more "authentic" aside from the preference of those who chose them?

Also, all this stuff about men and women that overlooks Lilith in favour of the fallen trad wife? Never mind apples, religious cherry picking is quite dizzying....

The trouble with the synoptic gospels is that they are anonymous. We have literally know idea who wrote them.

Sorry about the above post. The quote is from the wrong person. I was writing regarding child sacrifice in the bible!

Jephthah's daughter. Have you ever read the bible? Judges 11

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2011&version=NIVj

Indeed it's not a document at all as far as I understand it, but a collection of writings, including prayers, poetry and biography, from different ages. I think the historicity of Old Testament may be answered better by a Jewish person as it's essentially their Torah - didn't Moses write a lot of it? Surely a lot of it would have been oral teaching eventually written down? I could be wrong about that. With regards to the New Testament, which is mostly based on the biographies of the four evangelists, I think contemporary non-Christian figures such as Tacitus and Josephus collaborate the events portrayed around the life and death of Jesus, and there has been a huge amount of scholarship on Paul... though I can't remember much of it. I have to look into this again, it's a long time since I've read about it.

Isn’t that also the case for you though? And what if there is a good, but out of all the gods and religions to chose you’ve chosen the wrong one and the true one is one of the others? Because surely you don’t think every believer of every other religion is going to end up in your version of heaven?

Of course it won’t. My life will continue as it is now. The world isn’t going to end. There’s no reason for anything to happen.

What will happen will happen whether you choose to believe it or not.

Something for Christians but not relevant for those of us who are atheists. Nothing is going to happen to us so nothing to be ready for.

More teaching definitely! The creation/evolution issue is a rabbit hole because few people have the scientific knowledge and understanding to make a really meaningful contribution.

End Times teaching is essential. Jesus, the New Testament authors and some prophets made it clear that we need to understand what will come, and to be ready.

Being of a Charismatic persuasion, I think that the lack of teaching on the spiritual gifts and the end times is an extremely serious error and a major hindrance to Bible knowledge and willingness to believe. Nobody has the authority to de-emphasise or ignore parts of Scripture that are necessary for the Christian life just because they're not comfortable with them.

@KeepHopeful

Just FYI surveys show that Muslims give the most money to charity, in the UK anyway.

This is a much more interesting debate than creationism :)

On the charity front I thought Muslims were more generous, in the UK least, and the Christian church goers charitableness is exaggerated by the fact the church itself is a charity so donations to it count as charitable donations, which is a bit self fulfilling and doesn’t necessarily help the wider society. But I could be wrong.

I am of the view that most people, whether they are religious or not, live to similar values and behaviours - helping others, supporting their community (however that is defined) and doing what’s ‘right’ . They are, for the most part, innate behaviours in human dna. But there are always some that don’t follow the rules. So the church has taken that and codified it, with some defined rules, and ‘penalties / threats’ for those that don’t live by the rules. As ever, the rules have to be targeted at the lowest common denominator.

But the problem is that then the men (and it always men) who founded these organisations thought it was a good way to elevate and cement their place in society. So when that still doesn’t get 100% compliance the rules get tighter and the threats more draconian. Soon non believers are threatened with eternal damnation to rot in hell for not conforming. And as time goes by what starts as a well meaning organisation has to go further and harder to maintain power, and starts to rot from the core because its purpose then becomes sustaining itself. In the middle ground life goes on as normal, but at the edges there are factions that get very more extreme. But I think that’s about control and power, not true religion.

Much as most people used to make sure their bit of their street was always clean, swept, weeded and tidy. Then the council came along and took responsibility for that, and taxed us. Soon most people didn’t bother, because ‘that’s someone else’s job’, followed by people deliberately choosing to litter. So then the council introduce fines for littering, and a cycle of ever more draconian controls to maintain what did, by and large, work without intervention at all.

Food for thought anyway :)

Fantastic thread. I'm a Christian, the worst type in fact, a Roman Catholic. I'm not obliged to believe in creationism so I don't. Science is wonderful and I've met the Pope's astronomer Br Guy who is doing amazing work and we had a nice chat about dark matter and all the stuff we don't know about yet. There's a wonderful amount that we don't know and we may never understand it all. That allows me the headspace for belief in God.

I think mainly free will, with encouragement and leadership from churches or ministries.

Because it’s dictated to them by their church as an expectation rather than free will.,

I fully agree that Christians have no monopoly on good works! I'm saying that they tend to do more charity work and give more personal help to others. Surveys also find that they give much more money to charity.

Being a decent human being isn’t the prerogative of those who believe. There are good Christians and bad atheists and vice versa.

Loving others as yourself, absence of hypocrisy, absence of judgement of those who are different, prioritising those who are for any reason weaker than you. I know lots of atheists and agnostics who manage that perfectly well but I believe and my comment is aimed at people who also believe but prioritise other stuff, like whether there were dinosaurs or not (there were) or hypothetical discussion about the end of days.

Teaching us what?