Has anyone tried the Alpha course?

[Mark]

Bizzy Wrote:

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> - It is hard to understand the Bible when you haven?t accepted Jesus as your savior.

Can't argue with that, well you can, but there's just no point really.

[LegalEagle-ish]

The abuses of the Bible by churches and religious leaders, does not mean that what Jesus taught was wrong. He was anti-the-powerful and was always fighting for the disenfrachised and excluded.

If someone uses religion as their power base, that is about their ambitions, not about Jesus.

[snorky]

Bizzy Wrote:

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> Not to put any Atheist?s off but -

>

> # - It is hard to understand the Bible when you

> haven?t accepted Jesus as your savior. Before

> becoming a Christian and truly understanding what

> it meant to be a Christian, I could debate all day

> about different meanings you could glean from the

> Bible. In my youth, my main aim for joining the

> Christian student union was to meet the student

> nurses that ran the weekly sessions. That was my

> first mistake as I wasn't sincere about finding

> out the truth and I was constantly looking for

> counter arguments and *trying* to pull. During my

> time at college, I was amazed at how peaceful and

> controlled some of the people at the union were,

> even with some really nasty experiences they were

> going through in their lives. I saw this and

> thought, I want whatever they?re having?

>

> # - Hillsong - Yes, they seem well off and it

> seems like a big aerobics event but they are

> spreading the word to a younger generation and

> seem to be saving a lot of people by doing

> something different. Like most denominations, you

> can't fault their main intentions.

You can still help you fellow man without subscribing to some variation of Judeao-Christian-Islam-Buddism-Pagan hocus pocus bollocks

Me ? I try to help out where I can, but as I havent accepted Jesus , then Im off to hell - to sit with Elvis, Steve Mcqueen, Jimi hendrix , Bon Scott and Kurt Kobain, doing drugs , drinking and running amok

Im sure you will be happy sitting on a cloud quietly chatting to Mother Theresa and the virgin mary & singing hymns for all eternity

[PeckhamRose]

LegalEagle-ish Wrote:

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> If someone uses religion as their power base, that

> is about their ambitions, not about Jesus.

Of course! But why pray to Jesus? He was a great storyteller probably and a socialist (it would seem).

He had great PR (not me!). But he was just a human being. As are we all. Being good to people for true real genuine reasons is more useful and makes you feel good. Praying to ThirdPartyGodSendMoney for other people to do good things is literally a waste of time. We are all we have that we can be sure about. If there is a God, she'll forgive me for saying it.

[microbite]

PeckhamRose, you're funny >:D<

I am actually going to throw the cat amongst the pigeons and say, I sometimes actually believe that this is hell now, on this earth, and we will be judged as to how we cope with living here and how we treat our fellow human beings....despite all that is going on around us, war, famine, slaughter of the innocents, etc. I sometimes think the book of Revelations is upon us as we speak, but am not about to go to down to Hyde Park with one of those "the end is neigh" placards!

[Mark]

I never understood why Jesus gave up and died rather than continue on his great work. I was the son of God then I would stay alive and continue to do good things and that includes not allowing bad things to happen, like this.

[LegalEagle-ish]

I think you may be right Microbite.

It does say in the bible that the devil was thrown out of heaven to reside on earth and that when Jesus comes back, it will be when it's all gone tits up. Then Jesus seperates out the absolute sinners from the weak nd the good and Jesus with the help of all the angels will have up the devil and chain him up in a big pit for another couple of thousand years. So the weak get a chance to be good with the good people and no devil around.

I think it's then that we get the second chance to repent and follow God's law but the devil gets released for a bit more just to see who follows him, and who follows God. So then you get the final judgement and firey pits and stuff.

[Bizzy]

Snorky,

Don't subscribe to all this old fashioned "you will burn in hell" stuff. God is far more compassionate to people who don't know the truth than to those who know the truth and refuse to believe or share.

PeckhamRose,

Sounds like you have been *brainwashed*. Not all churches are run like a business ;-)

[Mark]

Bizzy Wrote:

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> God is far more compassionate to people who don't know the truth than to those who know the truth and refuse to believe or share.

What is this "truth" of which you talk?

[PeckhamRose]

Me? Brainwashed? Hahahaahahaha

I went to a church school!

The fact that we are all saying what we think is the case is the biggest clue yet. No-one knows for sure and we're all making it up because there's no evidence or one story to show what should be the real case.

Until that happens, I'm just going to try and lead a good life because I have seen that works best, without the stick and carrot of the heaven and hill fiction!

[Jeremy]

Bizzy Wrote:

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> God is far more

> compassionate to people who don't know the truth

> than to those who know the truth and refuse to

> believe or share.

How do you know this? Does it say so in the bible?

[microbite]

Until that happens, I'm just going to try and lead a good life because I have seen that works best, !

Am with you on that one mate >:D<

Although I would go one step further to say I believe there is actually something out there, this can't just be it.

[Bizzy]

Mark,

The truth I talk of is a metaphorical term, used to describe being a Christian and the understanding of being a Christian, not just going to Church on Sundays and quoting scriptures but living day-today by the word of God. In answer to your question about why Jesus gave up: God sent his son as a sacrifice for everyone?s sins, as he loved the world so much God did it in the hope that we may believe and accept him.

PeckhamRose,

You have a typical atheist view, nothing wrong with that of course, stating that nothings been proven for sure, yet you give a lot of your time to accepting that nothing has been proven and never will, even though there *could* be proof to the contrary; which you just haven't seen :)

[Bizzy]

Jeremy,

The Bible does say this although not so much in those words.

[Jeremy]

Awesome.

[Cassius]

Bizzy Wrote:

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>

> # - Hillsong - Yes, they seem well off and it

> seems like a big aerobics event but they are

> spreading the word to a younger generation and

> seem to be saving a lot of people by doing

> something different. Like most denominations, you

> can't fault their main intentions.

Er 'saving' people - what from? Isn't that terribly arrogant - that anyone who does not believe in what they do are in danger and need to be 'saved'?

[Crona]

Who wrote the Bible?

a. Jesus. Sat down, pen and paper, and wrote his memoirs that later became best seller (i.e. New Testament)

b. Any disciple. He followed Jesus with a notepad taking minutes

c. Some people decades (and hundred of years) later claimed they?ve seen the light and decided to write down the ?Truth?

[Mark]

Bizzy Wrote:

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> living day-today by the word of God.

Exodus 21:7 says you can sell you daughter into slavery. Do you accept that it is ok then to do that?

Lev. 21:20 states that you may not approach the altar of God if you have a defect in your sight. Do you have perfect vision?

Do you feel sorry for others who do not know the truth of which you speak?

The word of God that you follow, where do you personally get them from? The bible (which one?)? A vicar?

Thank you for your answers by the way, it's great to hear from someone like you who whole heartedly believes in God.

[microbite]

and just on a lighter and different note:-

Loved the films "The Prophecy" with Christopher Walken together with Constantine (Keanu Reeves) and the Devil's Advocate (Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves)

I know they are fantasy but can sometimes be quite thought provoking.

[LegalEagle-ish]

The New Testament was originally written between ad 40-100 by four of Jesus's diciples. Copies of these manuscripts were made in their thousands between ad 130 and ad 350, so the gap between the original events and their first being written down was between 8 and 60 years. This was in a time of oral history and memorising swathes of the holy books of the Torah, so the historical acuuracy, especially of the eye witness accounts is probably far more accurate than other historical accounts which have a far bigger time lapse between the event and it's written record we rely on.

Also there are other independent records from historical figures who had no affiliation to the early Christians who back up a lot of what is in the bible.

[microbite]

Removed because I have gone completely off topic now, sorry :(

How do you get a message to appear within the edited at **** time please?

[Crona]

?eye witness accounts is probably far more accurate than other historical accounts?

Do you actually believe this?

Memorising something written is different than "spreading the word". If I came to you today and said, "I know exacltly what "Steve" preached in 1932 because generations passed down his word? will you believe me? Or will you claim that nowadays we?ve lost the skill of memorising

[Ted Max]

EDITED because the post to which it refers has been deleted too.

[microbite]

Oops sorry Ted Max, tried to remove it quickly, but no joy, system playing up, it was freaky deaky though

[LegalEagle-ish]

The relevance of the fact they memorised stuff a lot was that the original disciples wrote their accounts a few years after the fact, and they were more likely to have remembered incidents acurately than modern people because they were used to using their memories instead of relying on the written word.

Most people didn't read or write and relied on scribes to write down what they wanted to say, but because they could not rely on the written word as much as we do today, they would have been used to telling their stories from memory, in the oral tradition of the day. The fact that the original scrolls of the disciples accounts are written in Greek and not Aramaic, which was their native tongue, points to the fact that they dictated their accounts to scribes so probably could not read or write. It is interesting to note tho, that they used a common-man version of Greek apparantly, instead of the more difficult to understand Greek used by scientific and philosophical writers.