I may live to regret this, but I’ve decided to extend this never-ending conversation once again.
Kathy, this time, it would be a nice change of pace if you would actually address what William has repeatedly been saying to you:
I have. Not saying i’m perfect at it or that I’m right, but the “evidences” you listed arent real evidences. And since you refuse to look at things that are counter to your current beliefs, how can you honestly speak to me about evidences?
here’s all I’ve seen you provide:
1) martyrs, even though every religion and many non-religions have them.
2) our very existence – which no one knows how that started, but even if you must land on god(s), you must go back to that book of claims to get to jesus.
3) there were miracles, but as it turns out, those dont happen today, and end up being more claims by the same men who claim they speak for god.
4) the fulfilled prophecies we’ve discussed weren’t really prophecies at all, or had to be viewed so figuratively that it’s difficult to show anything precise about them other than location (maybe) in order to claim they’re actually fulfilled.
5) 40 authors taking 1500 years to write the bible. But there’s nothing miraculous about men writing books, editing books, and being inspired to write a book or letter after reading an older book.
About that last point, if the Bible had been written by 1500 people scattered across the globe, who didn’t know one another, and they did it in 40 days, then you’d really have something incredible. But 40-ish people, all familiar with the Jewish god, and writing over a long period of time with the previous writings as reference, is not that impressive.
Finding Truth 
Yeah, Arch. The wordpress.org websites are different than the freebies (.com). Many more options to customize.
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@Howie,
Yes, but only if you’re doing your own hosting. So if you picked up truthiselusive.com, instead of doing free hosting through WordPress, then you could take control of all those settings.
WordPress is actually used for a ton of websites that you wouldn’t expect. A number of businesses use it for their backend — I do with my own website. It’s much more than just blog software. And when you’re running it in your own hosting environment, you can create your own custom theme, or customize one of the free themes. You can add it tons of plugins to do all kinds of things.
But again, you need to have your own environment to do this. WordPress development is actually one of the main things I do in my job.
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not just .org
http://bincsearch.com
That’s a WP site, for instance.
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Nate, I didn’t mean “.org websites” — I meant when you host your own site, you are using the wordpress platform from wordpress.org. WordPress.com offers free hosting, thus the option to customize are very limited.
Does that make sense?
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Ah, my bad. I misunderstood — thanks 🙂
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“Yeah, but if you host your own site again, you could still use the WP engine and just customize the things you want, like a wysiwyg editor for comments.”
GoDaddy holds my domain, WebsitePalace was my host.
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Everybody has their favorites, but suggest you look into ASmallOrange.com for hosting. Very reasonable, very dependable and great support.
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Nate, why did I just now get this in my email?
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Ruth,
“Kathy,
Fear is not a good motivator for love. It might get you [some] respect, but it won’t get you love. And the respect part would only be out of fear – not because the person or god is truly worthy of it.”
So, what makes you believe that God isn’t worthy of your respect and love?
And I want to ask.. are our laws “blackmail”? Is our govt. “blackmailing” us?
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Howie,
” So is my description of your view in my last paragraph correct?”
Yes.
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Arch,
““I still would like to debate and find out what the truth is.. that’s the whole point of debating.” – Actually, it isn’t Kathy – the point of a debate is saying, “I have the truth and you don’t, and I can support my contention better than you!”
Please cite your reference for this “definition”.. which I’m pretty sure is your biased, objectivity lacking mind.
“The point of a DISCUSSION, which I initially believed this was going to be, is to search for the truth of a given subject, where everyone has the opportunity to present their viewpoints. How can you call it debate and still say, “you don’t have to provide evidence, if everybody knows it’s true”? Or, “I know all I NEED to know”?” ”
A debate IS a discussion in which the truth is being sought. It’s you all who don’t understand that concept.. it’s all about “winning” with you.
And those 2 examples came with explanations.. aka context. it was discussed in a debate format, that you failed to address. You instead misrepresent my words to push your biased narrative.
sigh.
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And I want to ask.. are our laws “blackmail”? Is our govt. “blackmailing” us?
Are they requiring worship, adoration, love? Sure, they require obedience and respect, but you’d never fall in love with the government because they instill fear, now, would you?
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Ruth, cont.
Before I answer your new questions.. I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.. if Paul is
a false prophet, then what IS the explanation for why Jesus came and died on the cross??
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“And I want to ask.. are our laws “blackmail”? Is our govt. “blackmailing” us?” – yes, to both. Call it “blackmail,” call it coercion, anytime you say, “Do this, or fail to do that, and I will do something bad to you,” it’s a threat, whether it’s your government, your god, or your neighbor. Some of this, we tolerate, in an effort to promote peace among us, but no one can threaten us to love them, adore them, praise them, and expect sincerity.
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“Please cite your reference for this “definition”.. which I’m pretty sure is your biased, objectivity lacking mind.”
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Before I answer your new questions.. I’m still waiting for an answer to my question..
You haven’t answered my old questions. *sigh*
if Paul is
a false prophet, then what IS the explanation for why Jesus came and died on the cross??
Kathy, I don’t even believe any of this is true, but if you want an explanation it is simply this, in my opinion:
The sin sacrifice of the law is what Jesus supposedly fulfilled the requirement for by being the spotless lamb. But that does not negate the law. That does not abolish the law. That does not excuse anyone from the law. Just like the sin offering didn’t excuse anyone from the law – it only provided atonement for their transgressions. What fulfillment can there be of ‘thou shall nots? There is none.
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“I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.. if Paul is a false prophet, then what IS the explanation for why Jesus came and died on the cross??”
First of all, that’s obfuscation, pure and simple – whether or not Paul is a false prophet has noting to do with your question. Secondly, re: “what IS the explanation for why Jesus came and died on the cross??” – there is no evidence that he did.
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Do you need evidence that gravity exists Arch?
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“And I want to ask.. are our laws “blackmail”? Is our govt. “blackmailing” us?” – yes, to both.
Arch, that’s what I wanted to say but feared it would sound too anti-government.
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Before I answer your new questions.. I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.. if Paul is
a false prophet, then what IS the explanation for why Jesus came and died on the cross??
Paul had nothing to do with Yahusha’s death on the cross, so this question really doesn’t make any sense.
I know I have told you this before, but again…
The death on the cross was fulfillment of Passover. If you want to understand the symbolism of that event you need to study it out. I have already tried to explain this.
Here are some questions that might help you find your answer
Why did they kill the lamb
What did they do with its blood
What did the blood do for them
There are 7 feasts and you can read about it in leviticus 23 for starters.
The feast that removes your sins, and makes them white as snow, is Yom Kippur. Although all the feasts are related, they are not the same. The plan of redemption requires all of these feasts to be fulfilled by messiah, which is why he must come again. I gave you tons of scripture to support this, and you didn’t read it. If you would read what is given,you wouldn’t have to ask the same questions over and over
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Do you need evidence that gravity exists Arch?
Ooh, me, me, me! I got this one. Yeah, Kathy, he does. The evidence is in the fact that we don’t float around, that when something falls off of a table it hits the floor. Gravity can be measured.
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I know, I know — I said I was done, but I have to answer Kathy’s question (which she has asked not only of me, but also Ruth … and Laurie, if I remember correctly).
Why did Jesus come and die on the cross?
PLEASE, Kathy, read the article at this link. It provides a far better answer than I can. It is a very lengthy article, but it addresses all the reasons why Jesus had to die — from the Roman, early Christians, and even Jesus’ perspective.
And it is NOT written by an atheist, liberal, or Mormon.
OK, that’s it. For sure, this time. No more Kathy responses. (You believe me, don’t you?)
P.S. As for Paul, I say again, read my book where I go into considerable detail about the role he played in Christianity.
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The feast that removes your sins, and makes them white as snow, is Yom Kippur. Although all the feasts are related, they are not the same. The plan of redemption requires all of these feasts to be fulfilled by messiah, which is why he must come again.
Thank you for that explanation. I’ve read/heard a number of different explanations but not this particular one.
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@Kathy,
Ok, so I think this relates then to what others have been talking about. We don’t have to call them “Laws” if you don’t like that word, but given your belief that you expressed about James it seems that there are things that people should not do (call them sins). And if they sin then they could actually be in jeopardy of getting into heaven, because that would indicate that they are probably not truly saved.
The point I am trying to make is that even if works have no part in the process of granting you salvation, practically speaking “works” still have to be considered in order to make sure that you are saved.
So if your belief is correct, then it is important to make sure that we would have the proper understanding of what is sin and what is not sin so that we can have assurance that we truly are saved. Does that make sense?
What follows from this ends up being quite difficult because there is much honest controversy among different conservative branches of Christianity over what is truly sin and what is not, and much of that even digs deep into Greek and Hebrew (and not just current Greek and Hebrew, but ancient Greek and Hebrew which is even much more time consuming and elusive to make sure we are getting it right).
So it’s not true that just knowing that Jesus died for your sins is the only information that you need to be assured of salvation. Do you agree with that?
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@Ruth – I think I just realized I may have misunderstood your question before so my answer to you may have seemed odd. It’s no big deal though.
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