Why I Affirm The Virgin Birth

[Mikeenders]

But he read it on de internetz! It must be twue!

Copy and paste for the win!!

[Apologiaphoenix]

For anyone interested, here's the site of Tim O'Neill who makes it a point to argue against the Dark Ages myth.

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2...val-world.html

Of course, we all know he's a fundamentalist evangelical....

Wait. What's that? He's actually an atheist?!

The link is to his review of James Hannam's book on the topic of science in the Middle Ages.

And here's my interview with Hannam.

http://deeperwaters.ddns.net/podcast...amesHannam.mp3

All things Gary will pay no attention to.

[Gary]

If there is a multiverse I am quite certain that the concentration of that quality you possess in this continuum is enough to flow into many worlds.






P.S. there is no one here that even remotely believes you have the slightest grasp of Hebrew or Greek. You are fooling no one.

Here is what you are missing, Mikey: You don't need to speak a lick of Hebrew or Greek to know that:

1. The world was not created in six days.
2. The universe is not six to ten thousand years old.
3. There was no world wide flood.
4. There was no Tower of Babel.
5. There was no Exodus, Forty Years in the Sinai, Conquest of Canaan, or the biblical kingdoms of David and Solomon.
6. Men cannot live for three days in the belly of a fish.
7. Virgins cannot be impregnated by ghosts (even if they are of the "good" type of ghost).
8. Ghosts do not exist.
9. There is no such thing as a virgin birth.
10. There is no such thing as a human being with a human mother and a ghost as his father.
11. Dead men do not walk out of their graves to eat broiled fish sandwiches with their former fishing buddies.
12. Human beings cannot levitate into outer space (or walk on water, or turn water into wine, or cast out imaginary evil spirits, or heal blindness with mud and spit, etc.)
13. Ancient holy books are not good sources of historical and scientific facts.

[Gary]

For anyone interested, here's the site of Tim O'Neill who makes it a point to argue against the Dark Ages myth.

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2...val-world.html

Of course, we all know he's a fundamentalist evangelical....

Wait. What's that? He's actually an atheist?!

The link is to his review of James Hannam's book on the topic of science in the Middle Ages.

And here's my interview with Hannam.

http://deeperwaters.ddns.net/podcast...amesHannam.mp3

All things Gary will pay no attention to.

Don't tell me, Nick, that you are arguing that science thrived during the Dark Ages! My, my, my. The Renaissance occurred only because some brave people dared to defy the Church and began resurrecting the thinking, art, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

Monotheism is very, very bad for science and free thought. How many "witches" did the Greeks or pre-Christian Romans burn at the stake? During the Roman empire, pre-Christianity, the Romans were very tolerant of other religions. Christianity became the religion of the empire by brute force...and a lot of bloodshed.

[Apologiaphoenix]

Don't tell me, Nick, that you are arguing that science thrived during the Dark Ages!

Why yes I am because it did as O'Neill points out. Want to talk about the Merton Calculators? Want to talk about Roger Bacon? Nicholas of Cusa? Those are just the people off the top of my head.

My, my, my. The Renaissance occurred only because some brave people dared to defy the Church and began resurrecting the thinking, art, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

Seriously? The church was going wild over the teaching of Aristotle at the time of Petrarch. Aquinas got him Christianized and Dante referred to him as the master of those who know. The average education included training in that philosophy.

Monotheism is very, very bad for science and free thought.

That's odd because Christian Europe is the place where science thrived. Ancient Greeks didn't give us the scientific method. The Chinese didn't do it. In fact, when our missionaries traveled, they also taught the astronomy we learned.

How many "witches" did the Greeks or pre-Christian Romans burn at the stake?

Good question. How about looking up a scholarly source and telling us.

During the Roman empire, pre-Christianity, the Romans were very tolerant of other religions.

Yeah. Nero and Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian were all out there practicing love and tolerance with the Christians. The Roman Empire tolerated you if you worshipped the emperor and their God's as well. Jews only got an exception since their beliefs were old. The Christians did not conquer Rome in battle. Good night but you are truly ignorant.

Christianity became the religion of the empire by brute force...and a lot of bloodshed.

No. I don't know a single scholarly source that says that. Also, Constantine did not make Christianity the religion of the empire. He only made it legal.

Is there any topic you know anything about?

[Gary]

Why yes I am because it did as O'Neill points out. Want to talk about the Merton Calculators? Want to talk about Roger Bacon? Nicholas of Cusa? Those are just the people off the top of my head.




Seriously? The church was going wild over the teaching of Aristotle at the time of Petrarch. Aquinas got him Christianized and Dante referred to him as the master of those who know. The average education included training in that philosophy.


That's odd because Christian Europe is the place where science thrived. Ancient Greeks didn't give us the scientific method. The Chinese didn't do it. In fact, when our missionaries traveled, they also taught the astronomy we learned.




Good question. How about looking up a scholarly source and telling us.



Yeah. Nero and Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian were all out there practicing love and tolerance with the Christians. The Roman Empire tolerated you if you worshipped the emperor and their God's as well. Jews only got an exception since their beliefs were old. The Christians did not conquer Rome in battle. Good night but you are truly ignorant.



No. I don't know a single scholarly source that says that. Also, Constantine did not make Christianity the religion of the empire. He only made it legal.

Is there any topic you know anything about?

Here is a sample of what your belief system has given the world, Nicky:

[Apologiaphoenix]

In other words, you have no response to the historical claims made.

Gawy! King of wationality!

[tabibito]

Really? Amazing. Oh well - just have to make do with Philippians then:

Philippians 2:5-8

₅ Let the mind be kept in you which ^was in Christ Jesus, ₆ who existing in the form of God considered being equal with God not treasure, ₇ but emptied himself. Having taken the form of a bondsman, having been made in the likeness of men, ₈ and being found in form as a man, he humbled himself, having become obedient to the point of death, even death of the cross.

This is a CLASSIC Trinitarian misinterpretation of the text:

Hardly - that in fact flies in the face of standard trinitarian interpretation.
ROFL - That is by no means a standard trinitarian translation of the text. In fact, standard trinitarian adherents don't like it in the least.

not a thing to be grasped at

Someone doesn't know a thing about Koine Greek - I'll refrain from mentioning the alternative possibility. "Not a thing to be grasped at?" The Koine word in that passage is "booty", something seized, to be grasped. It does not mean "something to be grasped AT."

Nothing hinges on just one verse or just one author. The gospel of John, Revelation, and the epistle to the Hebrews each identify Christ as the creator. The gospel of John, and this passage identify Jesus as existing prior to his conception.

[/B]

Been there, done that. Jesus is not co-equal with the Father. Your author is not stating anything new - it is wholly evident from the Biblical record.

Yes - let this mind be in you ... which mind? That of Jesus.[/quote] Phippians 2:5-8 is about Jesus, not about the believers - it is explication of who Jesus was, underpinning the importance of obedience. Why be of the same mind as Jesus - because even he, being God, exemplifies the mindset that is upheld as worthy.

Just as Jesus was a servant,

No - it explicitly and clearly says that he BECAME a servant.

so earlier Paul had introduced himself with the same word (Phil. 1:1 cp. 2:7). The attitude of Jesus is set up as our example, and we are urged to join Paul in sharing it. We're not asked to change natures; we're asked to have the mind of Jesus- so that we may know the "fellowship of sharing in his [Christ's] sufferings, becoming like him in his death and so to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Phil. 3:10,11).

Piffle. We're being COMMANDED to be obedient to God in all things, even to the point of dying on a cross, if that is necessary.


Wrong again. He emptied himself of the morphe of God and took on the morphe of a man.

The passage I cited is a literal equivalent version, not a dynamic equivalent. It makes no concessions for "easy reading."

AFTER he emptied himself.

The essential nature of a servant is no different to that of any other man. In harmony with the context, we can safely interpret this as meaning that although Jesus was perfect, he had a totally God-like mind, yet he was willing to take on the demeanour of a servant.

Philippians 3:10 makes no mention of morphe.

We are called upon to have fellowship (koinonia) with Christ's sufferings in this passage.

it means nothing of the sort.

Morphe has nothing to do with a mindset ... it is a physical attribute, and does not find metaphorical usage to indicate mindset.

This totally disproves the theory that Jesus was God. Even according to the N.I.V. translation, Jesus did not for a moment entertain the idea of being equal with God; he knew that he was subject to God, and not co-equal with Him.

Not so. He did not for a moment entertain the idea of retaining that equality with God, but the author is conflating "equality with God" and "equality with the Father."

There are many examples in the Greek Old Testament of the Greek word morphe being used to mean 'outward form' rather than 'essential nature'- e.g. Jud. 8:18 [men had the morphe , the outward appearance, of a king's sons]; Job 4:16 ; Is. 44:13 [a carpenter makes an idol in the morphe or outward appearance of a human being- but not in the very nature of a human being!]; Dan 3:19 [the king's morphe or appearance changed because he got angry; his essential nature remained the same]. And likewise in the Apocrypha: Tobit 1:13; Wis. 18:1; 4 Macc. 15:4. If Paul meant nature or essence he would have used the word ousia or physis- as he does in Gal. 2:16 where he speaks of "We who are Jews by nature [physis]...".

Isaiah 44:13 - The carpenter makes it resemble3:19 τότε Ναβουχοδονοσορ ἐπλήσθη θυμοῦ καὶ ἡ ὄψις τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ ἠλλοιώθη ἐπὶ Σεδραχ Μισαχ καὶ Αβδεναγω καὶ εἶπεν ἐκκαῦσαι τὴν κάμινον ἑπταπλασίως ἕως οὗ εἰς τέλος ἐκκαῇ http://www.realchrist.info/a9.html[/edit][/QUOTE] And he quotes Duncan Heaster - who bills himself as a Christadelphian, but will not co-operate with the Christadelphians.

[Gary]

Here is a sample of what your belief system has given the world, Nicky:

Wow! If that video doesn't turn you into an atheist, or at least an agnostic, I don't know what will! Conservative Christians are downright SCARY. Their belief system makes sane, rational people do and say things that normally, only a delusional, psychotic, mental ill person would do and say!

By the way, I counted 132 people in that video whose "healings" are included in Craig Keener's book "Miracles" that Nick is so fond of. Seriously, watch the video. They are in there, Nick. Now, you tell me if those "healings" are miracles or a load of emotional, superstitious nonsense, folks.

[Gary]

resemble3:19 τότε Ναβουχοδονοσορ ἐπλήσθη θυμοῦ καὶ ἡ ὄψις τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ ἠλλοιώθη ἐπὶ Σεδραχ Μισαχ καὶ Αβδεναγω καὶ εἶπεν ἐκκαῦσαι τὴν κάμινον ἑπταπλασίως ἕως οὗ εἰς τέλος ἐκκαῇ http://www.realchrist.info/a9.html[/edit][/QUOTE] And he quotes Duncan Heaster - who bills himself as a Christadelphian, but will not co-operate with the Christadelphians.[/QUOTE]

Listen, Tabster. Trinitarians were latecomers to the Christian religion. But they just so happened to win the Christian Civil War (by eliminating the opposition at the tip of a sword.) Any non-Christian sixth grader who sits down and reads the Synoptics and Paul's true epistles will never for a second pick up that either Jesus or Paul thought that Jesus was Yahweh. It is a later, Gentile Christian, invention.

[Mikeenders]

Here is what you are missing, Mikey: You don't need to speak a lick of Hebrew or Greek to know that:

1. The world was not created in six days.

Meh...depends on the days. literalists here and don't see 24 hours in the text - sorry

2. The universe is not six to ten thousand years old.

Ussher definitely not in the text

3. There was no world wide flood.

THats probably right because the world world is nowhere in the text

4. There was no Tower of Babel .
5. There was no Exodus, Forty Years in the Sinai, Conquest of Canaan, or the biblical kingdoms of David and Solomon.
6. Men cannot live for three days in the belly of a fish.
7. Virgins cannot be impregnated by ghosts (even if they are of the "good" type of ghost).
8. Ghosts do not exist.
9. There is no such thing as a virgin birth.
10. There is no such thing as a human being with a human mother and a ghost as his father.
11. Dead men do not walk out of their graves to eat broiled fish sandwiches with their former fishing buddies.
12. Human beings cannot levitate into outer space (or walk on water, or turn water into wine, or cast out imaginary evil spirits, or heal blindness with mud and spit, etc.)
13. Ancient holy books are not good sources of historical and scientific facts.

Yawn...All fudge Sundaes. You don't know miracles don't happen and claiming to disprove the supernatural by saying the supernatural does not exist is what they call a circular argument. Look it up.

meanwhile all that stuff is light stuff compared to everything , every law and every quanta, everything that makes virgins, minds, broiled fish sandwiches possible just SHAZAAM! comes out of nothing or just magically be the only things that exist without a beginning process

All hail the natural but self existing Fairy.

[One Bad Pig]

Trinitarians were latecomers to the Christian religion. But they just so happened to win the Christian Civil War (by eliminating the opposition at the tip of a sword.)

Even if your allegation was true regarding events inside the Roman empire, there were plenty of Christians outside of it (e.g., in Armenia and Persia). Arianism, however, somehow managed to never take root in those areas.

Any non-Christian sixth grader who sits down and reads the Synoptics and Paul's true epistles will never for a second pick up that either Jesus or Paul thought that Jesus was Yahweh. It is a later, Gentile Christian, invention.

Any non-Christian sixth grader who sits down and reads a Bible is going to read John and all the rest as well. Without any contextual knowledge, however, the sixth grader is likely to miss quite a lot.

[Mikeenders]

By the way Gary by launching again into a multi all over various subject posting spree you are pretty much trying to recreate a locked thread

Relatively new here myself but on almost every forum I have been on Mods don't take kindly to restarting a closed thread in another place.

[Apologiaphoenix]

Gary thinks I really waste time with videos. Sorry. Too busy reading books.

[Apologiaphoenix]

6 minutes into this stupid vid....

Hate to tell you but I know about these kinds of stupid people saying stupid things already. Is that supposed to make me blink?

I deal with the real scholars in the field. You can find loonies anywhere and I argue with them and complain about them more than you do.

The only reason this affects you is that you are an emotional person who does not know how to examine evidence. People being morons in the future does not say anything about what happened in history or philosophical arguments. Let's see how this goes.

Christians say and do stupid things, therefore Jesus did not rise from the dead.

How does that follow?

Christians say and do stupid things, therefore God either does not exist or His existence is questionable.

How does that follow?