Simple question?

Quote: FrGamble

something that I think we are missing in focusing on what it costs God to become human, suffer, and die for us

Assuming humans are already suffering eternally in Hell, I'm not impressed. They have been there and will be there for eternity.

Quote: FrGamble

Okay Nareed, I should have been more clear God will always love and care for you no matter what, and nothing you can do or say will ever change that.

So I'm stuck with the absolute worst thing ever devised in the known universe? Fortunately for me, Jehovah is a mythological character.

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However, messing with Mary will challenge my charity for you more than anything else. I respectfully ask you to follow the unwritten rules of the playground and please leave our mothers, and especially the Mother of Jesus out of this.

And therein lies exposed the moral bankruptcy of your faith. How else can I interpret that showing sympathy for a rape victim is considered an insult? You think because Jehovah puts on a show and flatters his victim, it's any less of an act of violence where Mary's will is not a factor? All it tells me is your god knew he was doing wrong, but went and did it anyway.

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They would remember and know that God does not stand by when people are enslaved and mistreated.

In the mythology. In real life Jehovah does nothing, because non-existent entities find it impossible to do anything.

Quote: FrGamble

Bob, something that I think we are missing in focusing on what it costs God to become human, suffer, and die for us is what this means to us.

It costs him nothing.

See, if Jehovah is infinitely powerful, then any effort requiring less than an infinity of power to accomplish leaves him a net infinity of power still available.

If this makes no sense to you, it's because the whole conception of Jehovah makes no logical sense to begin with.

Why worship?

I said before much of religion is begging the deity for favor, and instructing the dim-witted yet superhumanly powerful being on what to do. I stand by this.

But there's another aspect to religion, going back to very ancient times. That's the notion that the general fortunes of everyone are at the mercy of the gods. And I mean everyone, from individuals, to tribes, clans, nations and empires. If any run afoul of the gods, they will suffer. In modern parlance, "God" will punish you for your misdeeds, not in the after life but right now.

Therefore people constantly need to stay in their deity's "good" side. Part of this means the incessant worship. not just in formal services in church, but constant prayers and "thank-yous" for every little thing, like saying "grace" before eating. Which also have become les and less common among many, many, many people as time goes by and religion loses its power to really scare people.

The other thing involved is keeping up a nation's collective morals, as letting these "slip" will cause the deity, whose free will seems like a plot device sometimes, to also punish us all, or at least to look the other way while your enemies try to hurt you.

Why worship?

Fear and superstition.

Quote: FrGamble

He warns the evil doers and then raises up a priest, prophet, or a king to fight against evil and lead people to freedom. Mary and many others could see the time was right for a Messiah.

To quote Victor Hugo "?"

Judea remained a province of Rome for centuries, including the time it was part of the Byzantine Empire. Later it was conquered by one Caliphate or another. Then it served as battleground between the Christians and the Muslims. The next few centuries are not my area of expertise, but it eventually wound up as part of the Ottoman Empire, then a British "mandate" under the League of Nations, and finally gained independence in 1948.

Jesus lived mostly in the reign of Tiberius I, or up around the first third to mid-first century CE. This would mean the messiah it was time for in the First Century CE can be said to have, at best, taken about 1,900 years to achieve freedom for his people.

To quote Obi Wan, had ep ][ of the trilogy existed, "Good job!"

In the meantime, the disciples of the messiah developed a religious ideology that marginalized, despised, mistreated and oppressed the messiah's people. This brought about sporadic persecutions, expulsions, dispossession and a reservoir of hatred which was exploited in WWII in a way we all know about.

Doubleplusgood!

Unfortunately I'm on a trip right now and can only respond using my little cell phone. I wish I could write more. Nareed's staggering ignorance and misunderstanding of the Incarnation and the Virgin Birth deserves a more full response. However in the face of such willful ignorance it is hard to say anything.

God, like His love for you Nareed, is very real. It is the best thing for you and I hope you begin to recognize that true love is about service, sacrifice, and caring enough about someone to tell them truths they may not want to hear.

In regards to the first coming of the Messiah, remember that Christ came to open salvation to all people, not just the Chosen people of the Jews.

Quote: FrGamble

tell them truths they may not want to hear.

Let's go with that. No matter how hard your life on Earth is, FrGamble assures you, that someday, you can receive all the unimaginable goodness of Heaven.

Whereas atheism, you still may have a very hard life, and there no promise of happiness here, or an eternal life of it. Worse than that, your religious counterparts think you will likely suffer in an afterlife.

I guarantee you atheism is the truth you didn't want to hear. But there it is.

If you were a former believer, maybe after you get over feeling sorry for yourself, you'll figure out how to live ONLY WITH THE TRUTHS YOU HAVE, not the ones you hope for. Maybe you'll just blow brains out. I can't say.

But that is the actual truth you don't want to hear.

You know what the opposite of caring for someone is? It would be when you lie to them and pass off the worst possible ideas as facts when everything points in the exact opposite direction. Evidence, logic, reason, common sense, experience, and even if you're honestly your own conscience leads you to a belief in God and the hope of eternal life. Yet you dare to deny it all and call it truth? That is hatred. While shocked and saddened for you, I still love you and need to tell you the truth. You are wrong. There is a God and there is eternal life.

Quote: FrGamble

God, like His love for you Nareed, is very real.

What a horrible world this would be if it were so.

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It is the best thing for you and I hope you begin to recognize that true love is about service, sacrifice, and caring enough about someone to tell them truths they may not want to hear.

Making other people do as you tell them is not love. Requiring their sacrifice to your delusions is as far from love as to exist in a different galaxy.

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In regards to the first coming of the Messiah, remember that Christ came to open salvation to all people, not just the Chosen people of the Jews.

Really? well, not according to you (emphasis added):

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Oh one more brief thing. Mary like all good Jews would indeed know of God's love and protection of the chosen people especially in the face of persecution. They would remember and know that God does not stand by when people are enslaved and mistreated. He warns the evil doers and then raises up a priest, prophet, or a king to fight against evil and lead people to freedom. Mary and many others could see the time was right for a Messiah.

Your previous statement says Jehovah send Jesus as messiah (BTW, what of all the previous messiahs, like the Persian King of Kings??) specifically for the benefit of the Jewish people. Ironically the Jews wound up suffering greatly due to this guy Jesus' followers.

Hmm. maybe we can do a bit of analysis here. It's known that some kings of Israel(*) worshipped pagan gods in addition to their "one" god. Given prior events in the Bible, it would make sense for Jehovah to throw a fit which would make his chosen people suffer greatly. breaking character, though, he opts for a long and contrived type of suffering, rather than mere swift retaliation. So he does the Jesus bit in order to create agents on Earth to punish his chosen people for a very long time to avenge that grave transgression.

At that the Jews got off easy. The dinosaurs so pissed off the high and mighty, he wiped out an entire order, and much of all life, by having an asteroid impact the Earth.


(*) EFFINGLY GLARING OMISSION HERE (citation needed)

Quote: rxwine

But that is the actual truth you don't want to hear.

Brilliant!