The Blue Board

I pretty much stopped being a Catholic over 10 years ago. The cover ups of child molesting priest was pretty much the icing on the cake. Especially since I found out the the Pastor of my church was previously accused of molesting a child in the 70's, but still allowed to be a pastor. He was my Pastor when I was just a kid too (in the late 80's and early 90's).

I have trouble with believing in the "supernatural" part of all of it.

There isn't any evidence of anything supernatural ever happening at anytime. I mean REAL evidence. Not stories of how praying made a tumor disappear type stuff. Not crediting Jesus for surviving a car accident type stuff. I am fine with people having these beliefs, but it isn't something that I can use as evidence personally.

In today's world, everyone has a camera and there are zero miracles/Jesus/God/Satan/Angels being recorded. Why were all the visual miracles limited to the times in the Bible? That is the type of stuff that makes me have serious doubts.

Mind if I ask what city?

PM sent.

Well I didn't write that, but the person that did is likely suffering eternal torment.

But Jesus started it all with lots of displays of supernatural events and miracles. It doesn't seem fair to make everyone else rely only on faith considering the consequences (hell).

I understood your point, I just wanted to make one of my own. Respectfully, you don't seem to understand how we come to know history and historical figures. Certainly, as is said at the beginning of "Braveheart," winners often redact history to serve their purposes. The Egyptians are a good example of this. But, lots of novice historians think that this is the only way we come by history. When you have a wealth of manuscript evidences, from many different places and times, regarding a person or country, you can come to a reasonable certainty of who that person was. Jesus is the best example of this in all of history. We know exactly who He was and what many, many people claimed that He said and did. He is unique to history to say the least. You couldn't make Him up.

Well, that comes from Shahn Wilburn at Riverviewed Baptist church in Giles County Virgina. Shahn was a very educatad man, but he grew up in Giles county, and to keep people interested in the sermon, he would occassionally throw in that Giles County lingo. Reverend Shahn supported all his messages with the scripture, and even when giving a Giles County translation, he would always read the passage first, and then give the translation. He was interviewed on the news and asked what he thought about the judges recommendation to only display 6 of the commandments. This was immediately following the hearing, so he had no time to prepare an answer, and I thought he gave a good one. He said, as a preacher I don't believe I have the right to edit God's commandments. Of course he was speaking on his own behalf and not for the county.

Novice historian. I take it this is your full time job? Respectfully, I didn't say he didnt exist. I said his deeds and miracles didn't happen as described in the bible. That was made up after the fact to make the religion credible.

Always More,

You are exactly right about GW. You couldn't be more wrong about Jesus. I don't know what your background in this is but you are terribly misinformed. I have researched it some and no one passes the tests of source criticism like Jesus of Nazareth, and not even close. And, to give you another reliable source, Anne Rice (the famous author) decided to write a book a few years ago on Jesus. As any good author she did her research. What she found shocked her. The manuscript evidence for Jesus was so overwhelmingly good, and the scholarship against him was so incredibly bad and dishonest, that she renounced her atheism and started going back to church. I respect your opinion, but please know what you're talking about before jumping to conclusions.

I didn't read the whole thing - but I wanted to address this. There are many passages in the Bible that talk about the multitudes of people who came to watch Jesus speak and perform miracles. Here are but a few:

Five loaves and two fish: Matt 14:13-21; Mark 6:31-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:5-15
Seven loaves and fish: Matt 15:32-39; Mark 8:1-9
Zacchaeus climbs the fig to see Jesus: Luke 19:1-10

Matt 8:18 "Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side."
Mark 5:21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him; and he was beside the sea."

That took me about 3 minutes to find all of that.

the Pauline Epistles give the best evidence about Jesus the man and healer - they were written several decades before the 4 gospels ( 2 of which : Mathew and John which were written by eyewitnesses ) ; roman Tacitus a historian from the ancient world wrote about " the Christ " and followers and their persection by Pontius Pilot and finally Flavius Josephus , famous Jewish historian , wrote about James whose brother was called Christ