"Why won't God heal amputees?"

Quote from jem:

vhehn, exactly, when i did a study of Jesus teachings on eternal life, I found 3 or 4 to be very difficult for me to follow well enough to think I would attain salvation. I found one to be very interesting because it was based on faith and action, and very difficult for most to believe.

But to say Jesus teachings were dunderheaded is very strange to me.

Now if he were to argue some churches have made a mess of them well that is a different story.
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many found jesus teaching inconvenient. that is why paul changed the message from one of action(work) to one of faith(talk). it is always easier to talk about doing something than actually doing it.
are you sure jesus approved of paul changing the message? are you willing to bet your salvation on what jesus said or what paul said?
 
Quote from jem:


But to say Jesus teachings were dunderheaded is very strange to me.
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Didn't say that.

Although one can wonder about the ascetic stuff (don't worry about food or shelter, give away all you have), the anti-social stuff (hate the world, hate your life, hate your loved ones) and the psychotic stuff (cut off your hand, pluck out your eye)....

Quote from jem:


Now if he were to argue some churches have made a mess of them well that is a different story.
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At some point, problems of extremely poor communication must reflect poorly on the communicator. (Consider ET's own Jack Hershey for example.) If the blatant obfuscation is accidental, then 'dunderheaded' can reasonably apply as a descriptive phrase. If the blatant obfuscation is deliberate, one must consider motives.
 
Quote from vhehn:

many found jesus teaching inconvenient. that is why paul changed the message from one of action(work) to one of faith(talk). it is always easier to talk about doing something than actually doing it.
are you sure jesus approved of paul changing the message? are you willing to bet your salvation on what jesus said or what paul said?
More...

This is one of those rare moments where I have to come out of my face and say that you have no clue what you are talking about. Dude, you have to lay off the propagandist atheist websites and actually read the bible.
 
Quote from ddunbar:

This is one of those rare moments where I have to come out of my face and say that you have no clue what you are talking about. Dude, you have to lay off the propagandist atheist websites and actually read the bible.
More...

really. you need to stop listening to what you are force fed in your church and actually study the history of the bible. i have spent years studying the history of the bible authors.

Paul, the False Apostle

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We have seen that Paul's picture of God's sovereignty doesn't exist in the Scriptures. We might call this the DNA evidence against him (Doctrine Not Accurate). It is an important part of the case against him. But it is by no means all the evidence there is against his supposed authority. There is more than enough evidence to suggest that he was not even a true apostle of Yahshua let alone the greatest apostle who ever lived as he is so often eulogized.

There are a number of historical facts, quotations from Paul, and quotations from Yahshua recorded in the New Testament that leave us with some quite compelling evidence against his apostleship being recognized in heaven.

There are several interesting facts surrounding this case that should be noted and kept in mind. They are:

1. His apostleship was unrecognized by others.

Of the 22 times in the New Testament where Paul is referred to as an apostle, only twice is he referred to as an apostle by someone other than himself. These two instances came from the same person. Not from Yahshua or any of the original apostles, but from Paul's close traveling companion and personal press secretary Luke. Both accounts are found in Luke's record of the Acts of the Apostles, (chapter 14:4,14). Here Paul is referred to as an apostle along with Barnabas. By this time in the record, Luke would have been very familiar with Paul calling himself an apostle and was no doubt in agreement with Paul's assessment of himself. By these statistics alone, it is evident that Paul is by far his own biggest fan... and his side kick Luke was his number two fan. This leaves no one else anywhere in the Bible going on record as recognizing his apostleship!

2. His focus was uniquely self-ward.

No other epistle writer in the New Testament wrote like Paul. This would be true in several ways, but one facet is of particular interest when we are considering how Paul views himself. It is his usage of personal pronouns that is second to none. In fact, when it comes to how often he uses personal pronouns like, "I", "me", "my", or "mine", his overall average in the epistles that are generally unquestioned as his is almost three times that of his next closest rival in the practice. Many if not most scholars today believe for a number of reasons that Paul did not write the book of Hebrews. One obvious fact is that in the other epistles credited to him Paul doesn't hesitate to identify himself along with his supposed credentials. The author of Hebrews is strangely silent on these matters. To date, the best guess as to who the author of Hebrews is would be Apollos, and it's only a guess. But Paul certainly couldn't be in the running as the author of Hebrews when one also considers the statistics on the personal pronoun usage. The author of Hebrews uses approximately 1.3 personal pronouns per thousand words of text. Paul's average comes in at about 18.2 per thousand! That is a 1300% increase.

To help put this in perspective, in the first half of the first chapter of Romans, (16 verses worth), Paul uses twice as many personal pronouns than the author of Hebrews uses in his entire book. It's easy to see that Paul is at least as concerned about communicating what he believes to be the truth about himself, along with what he considers to be the truth about God.

3. His claim of apostleship stands alone.

Other than the twelve apostles who spent three and a half years with Yahshua, no one other than Paul can be identified as having claimed for themselves the title of apostle of Yahshua. Barnabas was referred to as an apostle along with Paul by Luke in Acts 14:14, but there is no record of Barnabas claiming for himself the title.

Our view of early church is polarized.

When we take a general survey of the New Testament, we notice that Paul is the single greatest contributor to it. When we read the book of Acts, we can't help but get the impression that the great bulk of what God was doing in the early church was happening through Paul. But this tends to be very misleading because the book of Acts was written from only one man's point of view... Luke's. Luke traveled with Paul on his many missionary journeys and the bulk of the book of Acts is the account of those travels. But what was going on in Paul's life was by no means the only thing God was doing with the believers of that time period, nor was it the main event from God's point of view. What we have in Acts is only one man's point of view, and from Luke's perspective, Paul's story would no doubt have appeared to be front and center stage. This could likely be why Luke chose to follow Paul and record his story in the first place. Being a Gentile himself, and Paul the supposed apostle to the Gentiles, this no doubt seemed to be where the future was for Luke. When we consider Paul taught that there is no difference in God’s eyes between Jew and Gentile, but all believers in Yahshua now constitute "the true Israel of God", what Gentile who desired to get close to the God of Israel wouldn’t be absolutely thrilled with Paul? But don't misunderstand my position on the book of Acts. The book of Acts is very important in helping us understand at least a part of what was going on at that time. Without it we wouldn't have much of an idea. What was done and said as recorded by Luke is priceless, and we have no good reason to question what he saw and heard. Luke's own personal commentaries though, few as they are, may be legitimately called into question. But I see no reason to accuse Luke of malicious intent. But we can figure on some Paul-induced ignorance of the truth in Luke. The important thing to remember is that the book of Acts was written from a very singular point of view. It is by no means a record of the only thing God was doing at that time nor should it be assumed from the structure of the book that Paul's journeys were the most important thing God was doing at that time.

No doubt, God was doing other things at that same time. We don't have a detailed record of it, but we do have some clues. Without question, God was working through the original apostles, some things of which are touched on in the beginning of Acts. The apostle John was hard at work for his Lord, but we hear very little from him until we get toward the end of the New Testament. There we find three short epistles and the book of the Revelation of Yahshua that John was commanded to write while in exile on the island of Patmos.

Paul's claims of apostleship

Paul was not at all sheepish about calling himself an apostle. In fact, in nine out of thirteen of his books, he introduces himself as an apostle of Yahshua, and in every case he states in one way or another that his apostleship stands by divine sovereign decree.

Here is the question. Should we automatically believe the testimony of a person who makes grandiose claims about themselves when all we have for confirmation of their claim is little more than their word and maybe a statement or two from their best friend? If so, then we should likewise confirm those like Jim Jones and David Koresh. Unless there is obvious corroborative evidence to support such claims made today and in the past, all of them should be taken with a very large helping of salt. Unlike Paul, a true prophet or apostle does not have to go to such extraordinary lengths to convince the world they are who they say they are. Even Yahshua said that if he alone bore witness of himself, his witness was invalid. John 5:31 And of all the people who shouldn't need to have others testify on their behalf, Yahshua was that person. Yet he had Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, John the Baptist, the Fathers voice from heaven declaring to everyone "this is My beloved Son..." and hundreds of those who witnessed his resurrection just to name a few. Paul had none of these. Though in his conceit he considered himself to be God's gift to the Gentiles and tried to claim a prophecy for himself that was given exclusively to Isaiah in Isaiah 49:6.

"For so the Lord has commanded us: 'I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth." Acts 13:47
 
Paul, the greatest apostle!

Paul's view of himself as an apostle didn't stop at just claiming to be an apostle. He did what he could to communicate to his followers that he was the biggest and the best. He even had the nerve to challenge the very apostles Yahshua had called and trained for over three years! Among the many self-admiring quotes are these.

"For I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles". ...."As the truth of Christ is in me, no one shall stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia." 2Cor. 11:5,10 NKJV

Sometimes, almost as though he knew he should be ashamed of such claims, he would tie his claim to a statement of unworthiness. Apparently he thought the gullible would embrace him as the greatest of apostles because he was so humble.

"For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all...". 1Cor. 15:9,10 NKJV

To the Galatians, Paul makes no pretense about how he compares himself to Peter, James, and John:

"But from those who seemed to be something - whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man- for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me. But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, ...and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship..." Gal. 2:6,7,9 NKJV

A couple verses latter Paul takes a cheap shot at Peter. Without Peter around to defend himself, Paul brags to the Galatians how he put Peter in his place before the entire church of Antioch.

"But when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews played the hypocrite with him so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straight forward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, "if you being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?" Galatians 2:11-14 NKJV

Then Paul goes on to describe how hypocritical Peter was being for living a different gospel from the one that he (Paul) preached. It is interesting to note that earlier in the book (Galatians. 1:8,9) Paul commanded his followers to damn, (curse, or doom to destruction), anyone who preaches a different gospel than that which he had preached. According to him then, that would include damning Peter, if not James and John also! It is obvious to the reader of the first two chapters of Galatians, that Paul is demanding that the Galatian church follow no one but him, not even the original apostles back in Jerusalem.

As a side note it should also be noted that Paul himself was being the real hypocrite when he condemned Peter for accommodating Gentiles when he was around Gentiles and acting like a Jew around Jews because in another place Paul said:

"For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without the law as without law... that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." 1Corintians 9:19-22 NKJV

A little later in the same letter Paul said:

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ." 1Corinthians 10:31-33 NKJV

So here we have Paul claiming to be greater than any other apostle. He insulted Peter, James, and John by saying they only "seemed" to be pillars of the church and they were nothing to him. He bragged about how he told off Peter, and he subtly curses the apostles by telling the Galatians to consider accursed anyone who differs with him. All this, while in fact, he was being the greatest hypocrite of all! If anyone else had even begun to do and say the things that Paul did we would have recognized their incredible conceit and rejected them a long time ago. Solomon said it well;

Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips. Proverbs 27:2

The book of Revelation

Back when I still thought Paul the greatest apostle, it always puzzled me why God didn't give him the book of Revelation or at least some prophetic book similar to it if indeed he was as great as he appeared to be.

There are some interesting facts about the book of Revelation and some things said by Yahshua himself that would answer the question as to why Paul was not given the "Revelation". There is a good reason why Yahshua did not give such an obviously high endorsement of Paul to the world, but would much rather have himself identified with the beloved apostle John. Actually, there are two reasons for this. First, as mentioned, Paul wasn't even close to being everything he had made himself out to be. And second, Yahshua had prophesied that John's testimony would remain till he returned. (More on this in the chapter, Yahshua’s prophecy concerning Peter) With an endorsement like this, it only stands to reason that John would be given the testimony of the Revelation to record.

The first thing we notice about the book of the Revelation of Yahshua is that it has been given to the beloved apostle John about whom Yahshua had said his testimony would remain till he returned. The second thing that we are forced to deal with is that the Revelation was most likely given to John during the Neronian persecution around 65 A.D. This was about the same time we hear the last from Paul who was in prison in Rome writing his second epistle to Timothy.

(more) http://www.judaismvschristianity.com/paulthe.htm
 
Paul vs. Jesus

Faith/Works
Paul (originally as Saul of Tarsus) was an admitted persecutor of Christians who might have found a more effective way to undermine the followers of Jesus. Perhaps he infiltrated their ranks and taught a doctrine that opposed teachings attributed to Jesus on several fronts, replacing Jesus' alleged teaching of universal, compassionate, selfless action with a selfish teaching of desire to gain a "free gift" of salvation based only on faith and completely devoid of any behavioral requirement or obedience to law, and distracting us from the selfless teachings attributed to Jesus. (It must be noted that Jesus never wrote anything, and his reported teachings are based on accounts whose authorship cannot be verified with certainty, but we can still cite the body of teachings attributed to Jesus as the Jesus doctrine since that is what has been handed down to us as being his teachings.)

Jesus reportedly teaches that BEHAVIORAL requirements (works/deeds), rooted in an internal change of spiritual growth within the person (not external or apart from the person, though the gift of teaching and techniques to achieve this personal change are a gift of grace not earned or deserved by us, but requiring ACTIONS [deeds] to implement), are integral to salvation. While perhaps it is not possible for us to "earn" the "free gift" that Jesus reportedly provides -- a teaching of the universal compassionate love by which the evil within us CAN be transformed into a more holy kindness of love -- the Jesus account clearly includes a behavioral component to his requirements for "salvation." While he does not say that this satisfies any "debt," he still requires it; perhaps he is demanding merely a small partial "payment" as a gesture of "good faith." (In fact, James suggests this by his comments in James 2:26, that we demonstrate our faith -- if it is genuine -- BY our works or deeds.)

Some will say that puny mortals can never perform enough good behavior to "earn" or "merit" salvation based on the value of their deeds -- that the attempts at human righteousness is as "filthy rags."

Aside from the fact that this simply contradicts Jesus, the point is not whether or not our puny mortal attempts at righteousness have intrinsic value or not. Just as a child may offer its parents or grandparents an awkwardly-drawn piece of art, which likely holds little real artistic merit (perhaps in terms of art critics it might be as "filthy rags"), still the parents sincerely and genuinely cherish such efforts.

It may not "merit" winning an art contest and may be able to "earn" very little, but loving parents find it good enough to represent the qualities THEY deem of real and lasting value.

Why would a loving god, as spiritual father on a more perfect scale, for those who believe him to be that, not be able to give even greater acceptance, even of "filthy rags," if sincerely offered as the best effort ... ESPECIALLY if he has said that he would do so?

To argue against that is to join Paul in contradicting the teachings of Jesus.

In the Sermon on the Mount, near the beginning of his ministry, Jesus is shown as introducing a bold new concept, not only that we should love friends and neighbors, but our enemies as well.

When asked by a lawyer what the most important commandment in the LAW was, Jesus reportedly answered (as reported in Matt 22:36-40 and Luke 10:25-37) with references from the Old Testament, that the GREATEST law was to love god (see Deut 6:5) and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself (see Lev 18:19). In the Luke text, the lawyer specifically asks what is necessary for eternal life (verse 25) and after Jesus references the two GREAT commandments, he says "This DO and you will live" (verse 28) -- showing clearly that salvation is related to works/deeds/actions, however important faith might be to motivating such behavior. Note further, that in the Luke version, this was illustrated by an example, the parable of the Good Samaritan, which was used to define "neighbor" very broadly, to include enemies. The Samaritan (the lowest of the outcasts) is the one who exemplifies this broad definition, and who provides the example of one who is saved by their compassionate actions toward their enemy. Yet the Samaritan is not even a believer, not one having "faith" and not one who has accepted Jesus as savior, yet this is who Jesus chooses as the example of one who gains eternal life, which is what the lawyer specifically asked.

In his last teaching before going to the upper room for the Last Supper and the "beginning of the end," Jesus described in Matt. 25:31-45 the final judgment as being based solely and entirely on behavioral responses to internalized compassion. And Jesus makes it very clear that those who DO express universal compassion in behavioral action WILL BE SAVED, and those who do not will NOT be saved. Period. There is no other qualification.

Mother Teresa juxtaposed these two messages (the "great commandments" and that what we DO to "the least of these" is done to God) to postulate that our actions toward "the least of these" are actually done unto god, which she took very literally, and asserted that we fulfill the first commandment by obedience to the second -- which motivated her to give up a well-to-do life in Albania, and search to find whoever was the ultimate "least of these" in the world, which she found first on the streets of Calcutta, India, and later in missions throughout the world.

Dr. Viktor Frankl, a German Jew who survived the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning of rare but remarkable examples of men who dying of hunger, yet still gave comfort, along with their last crusts of bread, to their fellow sufferers to alleviate their suffering. Even torture and extreme deprivation could not cause them to abandon their deeply-felt compassion. But those prisoners described by Frankl were Jewish. They haven't confessed Jesus as their savior. I'm sure Paul would consign them to hell, while Jesus would embrace them and count them among His sheep.

Another issue must be considered when contemplating a theology of salvation based solely on belief and nothing else. Belief requires exposure. One cannot have belief in something that one has never been exposed to. So what about those who were supposedly created by a God who is both just and merciful, but lived in a time or place when there would be absolutely no possible chance of ever being exposed to Jesus? Imagine an innocent child born in India, China or Africa 800 years before Jesus was born (or even 800 years afterward, for that matter). There would be absolutely no chance this child could ever be exposed to the opportunity of believing in Jesus or accepting him as personal savior. Again, Paul's theology consigns such innocent children to hell, whereas Jesus taught that of such is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:6). Is Paul's doctrine of salvation only by faith, and consigning all others to eternal damnation, from the God of justice or mercy?

Even in John 3, the discourse to Nicodemus on salvation as a gift of grace, Jesus includes specific behavioral requirements (John 3:19-21). In any case, while some writings (other than Paul) may occasionally discuss faith as a separate topic (as with honesty, courage, etc.), no one (except Paul) EVER states that salvation can occur with any of these virtues APART FROM works/deeds actions. This does not mean that, in TEACHING us the BEHAVIOR of salvation that Jesus did not thus give us a free gift far beyond what we could ever earn, a gift of grace, but it does not mean that it was given entirely apart from specified behavioral conditions, as Paul says.

(more) http://www.wordwiz72.com/paul.html
 
Quote from ddunbar:

This is one of those rare moments where I have to come out of my face and say that you have no clue what you are talking about. Dude, you have to lay off the propagandist atheist websites and actually read the bible.
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Theism : Myth - information
Atheism : Myth - understood.
 
Quote from vhehn:

really. you need to stop listening to what you are force fed in your church and actually study the history of the bible. i have spent years studying the history of the bible authors.
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FYI, I don't go to church. I hate to offend those who do, but it's like going to a marriage counselor every week to sure up your arranged marriage.

And I'm very knowledgeable about church history, Judiasm, and Christianity on the whole.

But here's the thing. If you are going to cut and paste, I prefer that you give me the URL to the websites you got your information from so that I can deal/debate direct with the authors. You can't even see where the authors are patently wrong, biased, and speculative. If you could, you would have added commentary that says to ignore these parts but focus on these parts.

I found that discussing matters with parrots requires too many crackers.
 
Quote from stu:

Theism : Myth - information
Atheism : Myth - understood.
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From my POV, it's:

Atheism : Myth - debunked.

That's it, really.

Most atheists are former theists. In fact, most are former Christians. Predominately from the Catholic Chruch. Another large portion of atheists were former Pentacostals. Neither of these sects of Christianity presents a clear understanding of the Bible. Therefore, the atheists born out of these groups, generally fail to have a firm understanding of the theism that sprung from the bible. Other atheists are those who were "hurt" by God. Meaning, some event in their life went sour after having prayed about it or just some "godsmack" hit them out of nowhere and they just couldn't sustain a faith in a god who would allow such a thing to happen. his group has the abosulte least understanding of the bible.

I have met and debated with some highly intelligent atheists from various backgrounds in my walk. The ones I respect most are those who attack the core of theism as it relates to Christianity. They don make the mistake of attacking concepts they can't fully grasp. They use only logic. Of the few core arguments against Christianity, one stands out as paramount. God's sovereignty and omniscience vs. a suppossed man's freewill. It was, is, and will be the most important discussion.
 
I don't really find myself agreeing with your POV ddunbar.

Apart from myth - understood being a little more catchy, you know - misinformation & misunderstood actually being words with their own meaning(not personally come across misdebunked :)), I also think they fit rather well with the message Atheism might convey. On reflection the phrase may seem to encapsulate quite well an intention to portray Theism as doing no more that perpetuating a myth, and nothing at all to offer in the way of supporting important discussion in the way you describe.

I take your point about many Atheists being former Christians etc, but in my view all atheists and all theists actually start out as atheists. Being introduced to a creed or teaching from one religious sect or another, they become religious, they become theists. Atheists, should they become theistic, are then to put it simplistically, only returning back to the first position, after coming to understand there is a myth which has been indoctrinated into them, to be believed as true.
The understanding of the Bible as a Book of Tales and Myths is not something which need be gained from loss, shock or a let down from a "godsmack". Atheism can often be something returned to or arrived at after careful meaningful and thorough consideration.

I do however agree with you there are very specific arguments which stand against Christianity and moreso against religion in general, many of which discussions have already soundly confirmed the view of atheism as being more understanding of myth out of the two.
 
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