Mr7 said:

My sources are many and varied, that's why i had trouble remembering a specific one.I have read The bible in parts,i assume that is what you meant by using 'my own initiative' because short of reading articles, watching the news etc, how else would i learn more than a little.That is how i feel i can express my views on it.Accumalative knowledge on a subject from multiple sources is more beneficiary than just the one i.e. The Bible alone.

i gained no strength from actually reading any of it, though it is entertaining and interesting in places.As far as i'm aware, as stated previously,it isn't a definative piece of work like the Koran is said to be, the Koran is exactly the same as it has always been.No words translated to suit the times we live in.Strange how you lot always brush that aside and get back to the bible.

Just live a good life, follow what ever path you choose by all means, just don't harm anybody in the name of a God.

For all the Christains on the board, can you please explain me why there are many,many different sects and numerous versions of the bible availiable?
99% of my Class is Christain, but only 2 out of the lot are Catholics.one Catholic student's father is part of the Church Of Christ which doesn't belive Jesus was the son of God, while his mother belives him as the son and the messiah.

Also, are there any jewish ppl. on the board or anyone who knows about Judiasm who can tell us what they have been taught.

and don't u think that finding answers or having guidance isn't just in reading a book, but also in its relgious ceremonies and prayers???
[This message was edited Fri Nov 1 20:00:02 PST 2002 by subyduby]

subyduby said:

suby!

I don't know the answers to your questions.

Sensual Melody & others in conversations-
Wow, what an interesting conversation that went on in here.I must say I enjoyed it and loved every minuet of it.My sister Jehovah has blessed you in delivering his message of Truth.Thank-You for all the time you put in here.You put me on a spiritual high as well.
I hope someone has learned something here and if they need to, go back and re-read the information put out - slowly.
Perhaps look at it for awhile and ponder it.(Think about it)

Sadly enough it just looks as though someone wanted to waste time on a debate he knew would last all day long (since he had absolutely nothing else to do) and it did.

I hope you realize Sensual Melody took time to relate these things to you out of Love and not mere time wasting.Maybe since you do have alot of time on your hands you can do some research and studying of your own.

I don't think you showed any sincere intelligent reasoning in your argument cherryloon sorry

Sorry but,to clarify what I mean- I just want you to know that it's not because I don't think your questions are good ones but,it seems you are only asking to be a ridiculer and not because you would appreciate finding the answers to them questions.

Saffireseven said:

How presumptious of you...

Was Jesus a Messiah?

The answer to that question may seeem obvious, for his followers certainly regarded him as THE Messiah. But did Jesus agree with them? The answer is: probably not. When his disciple Peter told him:"They call you the Christ, the Messiah", Jesus advised him to be silent. The claim obviously embarrassed him. Why? Beacause, as we have seen, the Jewish craving for a Messiah arose out of the longing for someone to lead them to victory. After the Assyrian invasion, the Jews became a conquered people, oppressed by a series of more powerful nations: the Seleucids (descendants of Alexander the Great), the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans. For the same reason, the British of a thousand years later came to believe firmly that King Arthur would return to throw off the foreign yoke. Jesus had no desire to be regarded as a military commander, which is what the word Messiah originally implied.
What is difficult for modern Christians to grasp is that Jesus was only one of many Hebrew prophets who were believed to be the Messiah; the historian Josephus mentions several of them. He regarded them all as charlatans and agitators. Christians later changed Josephus's text, in which Jesus is described as a small man with a hunched back and a half-bald head, to read: "six feet tall, well grown, with a venerable face, handsome nose...curly hair the colour of unripe hazelnuts...", and various other details that transform the unpreposessing little man into the early Christian equivalent of a film star. So all the writings about Jesus have to be treated with great caution; the later Christians were quite unscrupulous in changing anything that disagreed with their own image of "the Messiah".
But if Jesus declined to be regarded as a military leader, why did anyone pay any attention to him? The answer is that he announced that the end of the world was about to take place, and that this would happen within the lifetime of people then alive. This is why he told them to take no thought for the morrow, and that God would provide. The world would soon be ending.
It is also important to understand that it was the Jews themselves, not the Roman conqueres, who disliked Jesus. The Sadducees, who loved Greek culture and disbelieved in life after death, thought him an uncultivated fanatic. The Pharisees, who regarded themselves as the guardians of the Law, reacted angrily to Jesus's attacks on them as narrow-minded and old-fashioned. The Zealots wanted to see the Romans conquered and thrown out of Palestine, and had no patience with a Messiah who preached love and peace. While Jesus was wandering around the countryside preaching in the open air, no one worried about him. But when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey (fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah) and was greeted with enthusiasm by the people, the Jewish establishment became alarmed. And when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple, they saw the writing on the wall, and had him arrested. The arrest had to take place in a garden at night to avoid causing trouble.
Of the four Gospels, only one, that of John, claims to be that of an eyewitness. When Jesus is taken before Caiaphas, the high priest asks him about his teachings, and Jesus tells him to ask those who have heard him - to the indignation of the high priest's servant, who slaps his face and tells him not to be impertinent. It is in the other three Gospels - by writers who do not claim to have known him - that Jesus answers the question about whether he is the son of God by replying that he is "Son of Man" who will sit on the right hand of God.
In John's account, Pilate asks him if he is the king of the Jews, and Jesus replies that his kingdom is not of this world - meaning, in effect, that Pilate should not imagine he is claiming any political leadership. "I have come into this world to bear witness to the truth." There is certainly nothing here about claiming to be the Messiah.
To Pilate's disgust, the Jews then demand Jesus's execution, declining to allow him to be pardoned in honour of Passover. And so Jesus died, like many other messiahs and political agitators, by crucifxion.
How,then, did Christianity go on to conquer the world? The answer lies partly in the many stories of miracles that circulated about Jesus - including the story that he had risen from the dead.
A Jewish sect called the Messianists (or Nasoraeans) believed that Jesus would return and lead them against the Romans. At this point, a convert to Christianity named Paul produced a strange and mystical new version of Jesus's teaching that seemed to have very little to do with anything Jesus had actually said. Paul declared that Jesus was the Son of God (which Jesus had denied) who had been sent to redeem Man from the sin of Adam, and that anyone who believed in Jesus was "saved". In fact, Jesus had preached salvation through the efforts of the individual, and insisted that the Kingdom of God is within everybody. But since there was still a widespread belief that the End of the World would occur within a year or so, Paul's version of the Christian message was a powerful incentive to belief. The Messianists regarded such a notion as absurd and blasphemous, and since they were politically stronger than Paul's Christians, it looked as if their version would triumph.
However, as it happened, the Messianists were among those wiped out by Titus, the son of the Roman emporer Vespasian, who was sent to put down the last rebellion. He did more than that; he destroyed the Temple and carried its treasures back to Rome. Paul's "Christians" were so widely scattered that they were relatively immune from masssacre. And so, by a historical accident, Paul's version of Christianity became the official version, and the "vicarious atonement" - the notion that Jesus died on the cross to redeem man from the sin of Adam - became the basis of the religion that went on to conquer the world.
By the year AD 100 it was obvious that the world was not going to end within the lifetime of Jesus's contemporaries, and that Jesus, like so many other messiahs, had quite simply been wrong. But by that time, Christianity was too powerful to die out. It was now a political force, the focus of all the dissatisfaction of the underdogs and victims of Roman brutality. The belief now spread that the end of the world would occur in the year AD 1000. And, as we have seen, there was so much violence, pestilence and bloodshed around that time that the believers had no doubt that the end was just around the corner.

Apparantly it still is!