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Such an experiment would have no practical utility. I don't have your boundless ability to read books of fiction and fantasy like most of those in the Bible with my eyes shut. Do you think that prayer and devotion will inevitably result in the Holy Spirit guiding me to the truth? There is an...

I would characterize it as a clarification on a minor point of no significance to the big picture of what the Old Testament is about. The point of my original posting on this thread was to show that the Old and New Testament authors had two very different and mutually exclusive conceptions of...

Those resurrections were not in the context of all the dead being resurrected to stand trial at the last judgment.

This is the Non-Christian section of the forum.

There is no evidence in the cited passage that the person of whom the author wrote was Jesus. The author spoke only of a prophet.

You left out the most important part of that quotation: The reason the high priest asked the question was because he wanted to entrap Jesus into committing blasphemy. The priest believed that it was obvious that Jesus could not possibly have been the Messiah-- that's why he thought Jesus had...

And should I also focus my thoughts on how the Egyptian Book of the Dead might be right? Or the Koran? Or the Book of Mormon? Or the writings of Baháʼu'lláh? Or the Mahabharata? Or is it ONLY the Bible that must be treated that way? If so, why?

The passage you cited is an excerpt from a longer passage in which the author, Zechariah, calls on the exiles of the kingdom of Judah to return from Babylon to their homeland and to reclaim Jerusalem. When he says "Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me," the "me" of that sentence...

The story-- the fairy tale-- of the garden of Eden is key to understanding the Old Testament. In that story the reason God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden is stated in Genesis 3:22: The consequence is that Adam and Eve blew the one chance humanity had for eternal life by disobeying God’s...

I cite the Pope because he represents the largest single bloc of Christians on the planet and because the Catholic Catechism is the most extensive defense of Christianity. It's lame, but at least it's extensive. Your views represent a minority opinion in the global world of Christianity. Here's...

If by "well established" you mean "without error," that's an assumption you can't prove. With an assumption like that one can "prove" most anything. Allow me to illustrate: 1. Muslim tradition says that Mohammed recited the words of the Koran while enraptured by the Holy Spirit. 2. Mohammed is...

OR-- one could take note of the fact that the Gospels were all written several decades after the events they describe: So these different stories are not eyewitness accounts. They represent different traditions that separately evolved and migrated apart over time, and the discrepancies noted...

You: Okay, so here's something you said in your first post: Well that's pretty interesting. According to the Catholic Pope, justice is a Christian virtue, but forgiveness is not. So the Pope seems focused on justice; why aren't you? You appear to believe that forgiveness is a virtue of some...

Don't worry, I plan to address that very question in a forthcoming posting.

A synonym for the word "forgive" is "pardon." That's what the quotation from the Miriam-Webster dictionary showed. Here it is again: To pardon someone means to not prosecute. You said "Of course, a criminal will be penalized under our criminal justice system." If the perpetrator has been...

You: I was simply quoting Matthew 6:14-15. What's YOUR interpretation of that passage? Here it is again, just as a reminder: There is no mention of faith in that passage. None. Maybe you think that all of the passages of the Bible are self-consistent. That's not true. If you haven't already...

In Matthew 6:14-15 Jesus is reported to have said the following: That’s very clear. The only way to earn the forgiveness of God is by forgiving the sins of other people. Faith is not required, just forgiveness. Which sins must be forgiven? Jesus answered that question too: Every sin except...

In 2022 my wife and I fulfilled a lifelong dream by traveling to France. While there we saw a number of beautiful cathedrals, several of the High Gothic period. One such cathedral in the city of Bourges has a massive statue of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus inside the church. There were...

Jim B: Mosquito bites usually hurt. But I know from my own personal experience that sometimes I don't notice them until hours later. Maybe the mosquitoes where I live are much more stealthy than those near you. "There is something wrong if you didn't notice the bite until later." Perhaps. There...

I'm sorry, I must have missed something. I thought we were talking about perception. Perception implies awareness. I've certainly experienced many occasions when I was bitten by a mosquito but had no awareness of it until hours later when I discovered a welt on my arm and an itching sensation...