I can see the other two but, Dionysus?, anyway someone ripped off the greeks, they should have copyrighted the whole thing

Well it depends. The whole reason to be baptized is to show physically that you have washed your sins away. And if you really mean it that's when you are saved.
If you were baptized just to be baptized then all your doing is putting water over your head, that's all. You're not going to heaven.

Edited by user 07 December 2009 09:23:02(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Huh.. forgot Zeus was a horny bastard

And there are so many times it doesn't even stay consistent within the same book. That historians agree that some elements of the bible are perfectly realistic, that's hardly cast-iron proof, is it? Because guess what. If I write a "holy book" tomorrow, there'll be loads of it that match-up with history too. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Historians have also cast doubt on lots of elements in your holy book. That's not conclusive proof either way.

Historians also point to things like the Dead Sea Scrolls to show that Jesus was hardly the first man to lead a Jewish endtimes cult.

You STILL can't explain why Christianity over Islam for example. They both share many, many traits and ideas.

Edited by user 07 December 2009 09:37:01(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

How did the wanking thread ended on yet another religion flamewar?

Actually I would believe, if God came down and actually flat out told everyone in the world that he exists, instead of hiding. Point is, he doesn't. All it is is a bunch of people saying "Look! It says so in this book here!" The evidence is not there, and faith is a substitute for evidence. God does not show himself, yet you have faith that he is there. And some Christians claim "oh, if he did show himself it wouldn't be faith," which brings up the question why is faith important? And the reason faith is important is because it means believing in something that can never be proved, and therefore can never be disproved. Faith is important because it means people don't have to question things. Faith is important because it is a wishy-washy cover-all answer to everything ever. Faith is by definition a delusion.

Edited by user 07 December 2009 10:49:12(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

This made me LMAO.

It's a fair point. I mean Tony Blair said that, regarding the build up to Iraq War, he consulted with God to make sure that what he was doing was the right thing. Now if somebody says that they have a personal relationship with, and actually talk to a vibrating, luminous whale wearing a top hat and a monocle, editor of a series of Victorian pornographic books, people are going to assume that person's insane. But if someone says that they have a personal relationship with, and actually talk to God, the creator of the entire Universe, at least half the world's population think that's absolutely normal.

Even if you believe in God, nobody actually has a conversation with God, where God actually speaks words or otherwise communicates ideas, and yet I have heard more than one person claim that they literally have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, in which they literally see him every day and literally talk to him every day. Either they're unaware that literally is not the same thing as figuratively, or they believe that Jesus is actually literally physically, corporally in the room with them. How can that be anything but a delusion?

i have, its a facinating book...
mine also had the missing first page....
"this is a work of fiction, and resemblence to real people or occurences is by pure chance" etc etc

Well then where do you get off telling people "If you do not read the bible then what is the point of you posting, when you have absolute no knowledge of what we're talking about."

All these things I've posted directly from the Bible, that you've largely dismissed or ignored, these are the questions I would ask a pastor. If you ask a banal question like "my friend is jealous of me what should I do" then obviously he's going to have a simple easy answer and it seems like he knows what he's talking about. If you ask "I heard God thinks women should not be allowed to be teachers, and must be subservient to men at all times," then what's his answer? If you ask "do you ever eat shellfish?" what's his answer? If you ask "why does prayer only work when there is already a chance that the situation would get better on its own?" or "how come if I pray my sister gets better from the flu, but my brother's paralysis from when he got hit by a drunk driver never goes away?" Sure these questions aren't going to come up, but unless you yourself read the whole Bible, how can you believe what he says is even from the Bible? And then how can you come out that we don't know anything about the Bible even though we're literally quoting it?