Oops--I posted that twice. I'll try to fix it tomorrow. Meanwhile, enjoy. :-)

Why are you so keen on making a new thread every day?
Just make one thread and use it. Just use this thread for all we care. Your proselytizing is getting rather bothersome.
If you want to share the Word, that's fine, but be considerate and do it in a single thread.

It is extremely hypocritical to ask others be considerate to your needs in regards to language use, but you do not at all spare a second thought about limiting your posting in one thread despite how we have asked politely and reasonably.

It is precisely this kind of hypocrisy that turns so many people away from Christianity because all they see is that your actions are not commensurable with your words. On a personal note, you might want to think about your actions from an adult perspective and from a Christian perspective. I do not think that your "approach" has been matured or Christlike.

While I do think that for the sake of peaceful relations a single thread would be better, I am quite curious as to why this bothers you so...( the same would go for a Christian being upset by multiple atheist threads, btw)

I would be bothered if there were multiple atheist threads being posted every day by one person for no reason at all then to try to "convert" people to their side or whatever. If you look at some of the old threads, there's one where Mujus asked everyone to not curse and he muted people who used "colorful" language. He wanted people to be considerate with their language so that his daughters can't see curse words while he plays on WebDip. Then he goes on to proselytize every single day despite how people have asked him on the forum and privately to stop. I don't mind quotes or religious/philosophical ideas; in fact, I rather like them as I think about them and have discussed them on the forum, but I dislike Mujus spewing quotes every single day without any thought provoking insight or comment that follows.

I thought I saw on another post to he had resolved to use one thread....

I will use just one thread for the Daily Bible Reading, but I wanted to change what I wrote--the part that shows under the title. Unfortunately, I accidentally pasted today's info in that box, and thus the explanation. I'll try again tomorrow--Yes, a new thread, but a replacement for both this one and the previous ones, with a more interesting lead-in.

Zultar, I happened to see your comments flash up before they disappeared, so I unmuted you long enough to see what you are saying. I could engage your accusations and argument, but I'll just ask you this question: Are you satisfied with the explanation I posted (above)? If so, I don't feel the need to rebut.

Yeah, I find it rather irritating too Zultar, but I'll just end up muting him and/or the thread if it gets too bothersome.

"Anyone who believes in me may come and drink!"

So Jesus is compassionate enough to feed the starving and apparently let you drink if you're thirsty...

JUST as long as you believe in him 100% because, hey, if you had your own opinion about the cosmos or didn't believe a 30-year old Jew in Judea was the Savior of all mankind ever and was born via virgin birth, well, then "fuck you! Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, and whoever else doesn't believe in me...you only get to drink and cure your crippling thirst if you swear I'm an all-powerful Messiah and all-loving...otherwise, eat shit!"

[you only get to drink and cure your crippling thirst if you swear I'm an all-powerful Messiah and all-loving...otherwise, eat shit!"]

People in our time, both christians and anti-christians, read the bible up-side-down.

What Jesus was saying, then and there, at his place and time, was somewhat like:
"I know, my beloved compatriots, that you are thirsting for something and I know what this something is. I have the answers you are thirsting for."
There were others present that didn't agree with him. They had another agenda.

Remember that then and there, there was no such thing as "christianity" and "christian church" with all the prejudices that has brought into our modern minds.

+2 Sylence. Jesus was saying, "I'm what you have been looking for, and it's free if you want it. But if you want to reject me, that's your choice too."

I was just going off the quote...

In any case, there were prejudices back then, too.

(And there were different versions of the same story even then, as well...how IS IT that the Bible can be taken by so many as the perfect, divinely-inspired Word of God when 1. It is, by history's own admission, an EDITED book, with plenty of stories and Gospels and such left out, and 2. Has been translated from Hebrew--which has no vowels, at least not in the original Hebrew--and Greek to Latin (so have fun converting a language with no vowels and the vowel sounds more "implied" and known by oral tradition than anything else, so good luck picking the right one and not screwing up the translation) and from Latin into a hundreds of OTHER languages with all THEIR grammatical, structural, and alphabetical differences...CLEARLY this Book is flawless and can never be misunderstood...HOW is that position arrived at??? It just baffles me when folks say that.) XD

@Mujus:

Well, your quote made it seem different, but for what it's worth, I'll accede to that...

Even so--

Well, Jesus sounds rather full of himself...which I don't have a problem with per se (after all, *I* am a rather arrogant person, and I'll take arrogance over false-humility any day) but then, how is it that he's supposed to then be humble as well?

I'm sorry--

Once you out yourself as "the Answer" or "the Messiah" or "what you have been looking for," it's sort of hard to be humble as well after such a lofty declaration as that; again, I don't have a problem, necessarily, with a more brazen Jesus (in fact, I'd argue that's probably a more realistic portrait of the man) but how is it he can say that AND be considered humble? (And if you answer, Mujus, if I may entreat as much--please answer in your own words and NOT by quoting Scripture as truth, just in your OWN line of logic, how does that work...I'm forgoing my Shakespeare and Plato and Nietzsche here and speaking just as me to raise a point--can you do the same sans your Book with me giving up my many books?)

Well if he is the son of God then he's just telling the truth. The presumption of conceit follows from the presumption that he is not the son of God.

Why can't God be conceited?

Indeed...if *I* were the Creator of All Of Everything Ever...I might have a bit of an ego.

What's more, arguably, the Ten Commandments may be seen as evidence of God's Ego:

"I am the Lord Thy God...
Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me...
Thou Shalt Make No Graven Images...
Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain...
Keep the Sabbath Day--God's Special Day--Holy..."

God seems keen on setting up right from Exodus--and arguably earlier--that, hey, he's the big cheese around here, so show a little respect...why ask for that, if not out of ego (I'd like to think an Almighty Creator wouldn't NEED validation from some puny specks he created?)

So I think we can view God as conceited or, at the very least, egotistical (and I'm just scratching the surface of the surface with what I've given for that viewpoint) but, again...hey, if he *is* the Creator, well, yeah, I can justify him having a bit of an ego...

My question is--

Why pass it off as humility in Jesus and, better yet, how can that even be the claim?

I'd say:

1. It can't, really, and
2. This is just another sign of the disconnect between the Old and New Testaments and, again, at just how flawed a book the Bible is, especially when the OT and NT are taken as one book together and attempts are made to reconcile the two--

The Hebrews had VERY different motives and reasons for writing and characterizing the OT as they did from those the early Christians had with the NT...

It's a bit like trying to reconcile, to borrow from literature, Anglo-Saxon/Welsh accounts of the Arthurian Legend with French accounts--

The former versions often have Gawain as a great champion in the Anglo-Saxon/Welsh sense, whereas the French, preferring their more romanticized idea of a hero, write in Lancelot to be the heroic knight Gawain was in the older stories, and Gawain, once polite and honest, is often shown in the French stories as either being bawdy or else jsut completely coarse and worldly and a poor knight through and through.

Different authors, different cultures--different stories...

And they're both good in their own way, but obviously hard to reconcile--how can Gawain at one moment be praised as one of the most honorable knights and then do a 180 and be one of the most uncaring and worldly?

But the Arthurian Legend is just that--a legend, a story...

It doesn't presume to be the perfect word of a perfect being.

The OT and NT do...hence one of the many problems reconciling the Bible with itself.

(Also, not for nothing, but I'd be remiss of I didn't add...

To go back to the Ten Commandments really quickly--"graven images" deserved a whole commandment...but not, say, "Thou Shalt Not Enslave Other People?" Might've come in handy...and surely an all-knowing, loving God would've thought of that? Just saying--and don't argue "free will" here--he gives Commandments, so clearly, he's OK giving some instructions, and he says not to kill/murder--depending on your translation--so...why not ban slavery, then, if He was so compassionate, ESPECIALLY since the Hebrew people had just been liberated FROM slavery in Egypt...? Again, just saying.)

There is a tendency to anthropomorphize God among believers and non believers that causes a lot of confusion. God is by definition completely beyond the comprehension of man so ascribing human traits like ego and conceit is in error. I mean whether or not you believe...how could you possibly know?

"But if you want to reject me, that's your choice too."

Except I'll make you burn for eternity - hey, its YOUR CHOICE.

Except I'll make you burn for eternity for the errors of the now, BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.

Except I'll make you burn for eternity for the crime of using the skepticism I have blessed you with BUT I AM ALL KNOWING.

but God's love and God's wrath are also seen here in human terms....what if they are more a symbol for something beyond ordinary comprehension.

@YJ,
I am not sure how much I like the way you phrased your point, but I don't disagree with the sentiment. It is amusing to me that so many theologically bound Christians argue/defend that God is ultimately unknowable and infinitely complex and thus cannot be completely understand, but they KNOW for a fact that if you are not a Christian or if you do not believe in God, then you will burn in hell.
They fundamentally (pun intended) attributed their own selfishness and pride in God. They put the worst of themselves into what theoretically is the best and purest. This amuses me to no end.

I rather think that God would know and understand the skepticism and the doubts. I rather think He cares more about what we do for one another and not what we SAY we believe. I rather see people love and care for one another, for each other's welfare, than to proclaim the truth of Christianity (or any belief) while arguing for capitalism, essentially a selfish-based motivation economy.

Sinfulness is the same whether God is on your lips or if it is not. The pharisees are a good example of that....Jesus also didn't have a good opinion of people who loved money either. I believe it was in one of Paul's letters that called greed a form of idolatry. This seems to be lost on a great many Christians these days.

Haha Zultar well if there is a God that's how I like to see him too. I just thought I'd rattle off a few of the more glaring reasons why I snicker at the cruelty of the Christian version.

+1 YJ...

And I'm sorry--

If we're going to pull the "God's beyond comprehension" bit, then it cuts both ways...

Then you have to shelve that book and all the self-righteousness it contains and then there is zero justification for making moral or even legal condemnations based on that book because...well...God's "beyond," so, how can you understand the book?

What--

He's beyond "enough" so that an atheist or non-believe can't ask questions, but understandable enough that a book may be touted as "the Infallible Word of God?"

Bit of a double standard there, don't you think?

http://www.nonstampcollector.com/QuizShow/

No, by all means ask questions. I don't agree with those who think questions are out of bounds and I think the self-righteousness comes more from those who call themselves Christians then the Bible itself. I myself differentiate between faith and belief. Faith recognizes its own inadequacies of understanding. In that case how could true faith judge others for a lack of understanding? Or even what the lack was? Faith is humble before the truth it cannot grasp. Belief on the other hand (in this rendering) is egotistical. One believes one already possesses the truth and therefore is not humble at all. It makes one proud and judgmental. Something Jesus spoke out against repeatedly. "Judge not lest ye be judged. Before speaking of the splinter in someone elses eye. Look at the log in your own"

Putin the part where the answer to every question is "death" has absolutely nothing to do with contradiction, therefore the entire post and every other argument you've ever made is invalid.

Christian logic for the win!

"therefore the entire post and every other argument you've ever made is invalid"

- I concur with this scientific analysis.

Also, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghtoPiAE1sA

Greyson, true, and Jesus also said that he didn't come to save the righteous, but sinners, by leading them to repentance. I also find your differentiation of "belief" vs. "faith" very interesting, but the synonym I like best is "trust." Belief in God = Trust in God. Faith = Trust in the Holy, all powerful God who gave up his own self for us. God is much more real in my life than any of you are, because we only relate via online messages, while God relates via his Word, circumstances, and his Spirit--and the reason I trust Him isn't because I have a lot of faith, but because he is so trust-worthy.

And at the risk of being accused of "proselytizing," the first step is to say "God, if you're there, I want to know you exist," and mean it. The next step is to accept his free gift of salvation, paid for by his death on the crossl