An Atheist meets god.

[Kosmo kards]

Philemon
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians

Paul also wrote these.

[shrewsbury]

I am severely armed with historical fact

well the "historical facts" I have heard you mention, were not facts at all.

example? sure; Mary was raped by a roman, lets see some facts on that.

atheism is based on the assumption that without empirical evidence something must be false.

[mrveggieman]

My question is too vague. What I mean is if Paul doesn't really understand what Jesus was really about and his teachings ended up having such a negative impact, why does Paul have so many works in the bible? I believe he has 12 or 13 books in the New Testimate. Paul wrote Romans, Hebrews, first and second Timothy, first and second Thessalonians, first and second Corinthians, Titus, and Colossians. I can't remember the rest off the top of my head.

My problem with Paul is how can man who never saw Jesus in the flesh and his only interaction with him was him claiming to have a vison of him asking why was he persecuting him, have so much credibility within the bible and the christian world? It's kind of like if two of you were in new york and got in a fight in brooklyn and I told the police I saw it but I was in dc at the time the fight happened.

[centrehice]

Then why is it in the bible?

Just because something is in the Bible, does not ensure it's accuracy. It's like a cop without a radar gun, "I just happen to know that you were speeding"

Paul's interpretation differs greatly from Mark, the first Gospel writer. Matthew the 2nd Gospel writer, takes political biblical license and sensationalizes what Mark DID NOT write and expands upon it. Paul does the very same thing. Paul created many biblical outcomes that don't agree with historcial evidence, or character behaviour of others who were involved at the time

I will explain the reason why Paul has so many passages in the Bible. Once Jesus had died, the last thing he actually did utter from his lips is that he left the new movement in the hands of "James the Just" his Brother, not James the Fisherman, another Apostle by the same name.

Now, because all the Apostles were Jews including Paul, who was not an Apostle and was converted later than they, the 11 remaining Apostles all approached the new Jesus movement by speaking only to Jews, not to Gentiles. The firm belief was that you could still live as a Jew, yet retain the teachings and the lessons of Jesus.

Paul on the other hand initially met with James, Peter and other and determined that they were not going to approach the Gentile. Paul being a seasoned Traveller and coming from Tarsus in Asia Minor (Turkey) took it upon himself to approach Gentiles, he simply had a different agenda from the others in Jerusalem, who continued to live and die as Jews.

Pauls message is conversion for all, the Apostle's message was lessons learned and practiced, but still under Judaism and most appropriately very regional.

It was not until Peter met with Paul, that the agreement of Universal Teaching of Jesus must be put forth, hence he is given much more space for his letters and revelation than the others.

[centrehice]

Veggie is correct. Paul perceives to know more about Jesus, having never met the man. He claimed his revelations from God were predestined before he was born, and that he has been righteously given more information about God's plan, and given more latitude, so he takes it upon himself to be the Salesman of the movement.

[Kosmo kards]

Does Paul having so many works end up being a good thing, bad thing or a mix of the two for Christianity? Thanks for a detailed answer BTW veggie and centre.

[mrveggieman]

Does Paul having so many works end up being a good thing, bad thing or a mix of the two for Christianity? Thanks for a detailed answer BTW veggie and centre.

IMO it hurts the credibility of Christanity because the main proponent of the religion was a guy who never saw Jesus in the flesh.

[shrewsbury]

Perhaps understanding how the Bible was compiled is more important than anything else. When you refer to Christians, they are the followers of the Christ, the Bible is a tool, and not our God.

Christians refer to the Bible for it is all we had for over a thousand years, the NT compilers made sure of this by wiping out all other texts, which only a few survived and not all have been found yet.

the issue is people are faulting Christians for the NT when the NT was established by the church for various reasons, it is not the work of God. the church was splitting up and the Romans were in charge, thus they needed to keep people together and the Romans happy. So the texts chosen met these needs, and is why it contains many aspects of sexism, because men were in charge and very sexist in those times. We all know Jesus had women apostles and followers, and Jesus Himself was all for equality among the sexes, but the Romans were not and neither was the church.
so if any apostle is to blame, it would be Peter, who the church was built upon. Paul did not write the NT nor have any say so of what when in it, in fact he was dead for a few centuries before it came about.

The other issue here is we are judging people based on their own personal understanding and experience, Paul lived a life that required fear (Hell) and reward (Heaven) to make him succumb to Christianity, he knew how bad people were (for he was one of the bad) and their need for fear. He had to be blinded and left helpless to believe, and what better way to make someone to succumb to you, leaving them blind and helpless.
Also Paul hung around the apostles so could have gathered much information in this manner, also Jesus said He would teach via the Holy Spirit, which is what happened to Paul.

In nearly all religions we are taught to shed our human self to understand the "true reality", so why would it be any different in Christianity? would we still not need to shed the human labels and ideas away to reveal the inner truth?

This is no different than racist who assume all from a single race are the same, we know this is not even close to being true.

So if we strip away the human ideas from the texts, we may reveal the real teachings of Jesus. Paul is not at fault, it is the people who are caught up in his ideas. Paul and the rest of the gang were humans, we cannot expect their experiences to reflect otherwise.

Jesus taught in different ways to different people, and this is a sign of a great teacher, for certain people learn better in certain ways, some need to read it, some need to hear it in simple terms, some by stories and comparisons, some need to experience it, some need to love it, and some need to fear it.

[JustAlex]

Alex loved the non conversion that he converted and now seeks to convert others.
Neat.

I will give you $100 paypal right now, if you can show any post in my 2000+ comments which I directly show that I am trying to convert people to atheism.

He's made his point. Now he says he still believes in God, just not religion? Then he is not an Atheist.

No. I said I deconverted from christianity but I still believed in god.

However, 2 years ago, I finally conceded that position because I didn't have any evidence to back up my belief in god.

So I took the "default position" of not believing in god....however, I don't claim to know if god exists or not.

In other words, I'm an "Agnostic-Atheist".


@Wickabee....I'm still waiting for you to tell me what part of the Christian RELIGION do you consider "crap"?

[Wickabee]

Ahh, back to the invention of the agnostic atheist.
Alex, answer me this, if not trying to convert, what do you get out of degrading everyday people by stereotyping all Christians? If you're not trying to convert, you're just a bully-type, trying to draw attention to yourself.
Keep your money.

As for what's crap? A lot of things, the concept of hell, to begin with. The trinity is another. There's more evidence to suggest Jesus died on a stake, as was the custom of his time, not on a cross as they did about 200 years later.
There's lots that's crap.