$5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

RESURRECTION QUIZ –Question number 1 answered.

I will look at the other ones depending on whether you understand my first answer through my written explanation. I have a B.A. in Mathematics, and we are taught to only use what is in the statement and not add anything into the statements by accident. For example, there are if-then statement problems such as “If I win the lottery, then I will buy a new car?” The “if” part is called the hypothesis, and the “then” part is called the conclusion. Now, is the statement that ‘I buy a new car so therefore I won the lottery’ true or false based on the previous if-then statement?” The answer is False because the statement does not say that I will buy a car “only” if I win the lottery, it just says “if I win the lottery.” It is telling us what I will do for the case if I win the lottery and that is it. I could have done a lot of things in order to buy a new car since it didn’t say “only” if I win the lottery, then I buy a new car. Does that make sense?

When reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (known in short as the four gospels) we must realize that each of these writers had a different point to make about the life of Jesus and only used the parts of the entire details that they needed for their particular point or they added more details than another writer just because that stuck out in their mind. Every gospel is the same, but together they give us a great account of what happened. It is just like a kid telling a story of what happened on a playground. Each kid is going to say different things, but when you put all the statements together, then you get a pretty good idea of what happened. None of them are lying or contradicting each other. The kids are not saying that these are the “only” things that happened on the playground, they are just giving us an idea of what they saw happen on the playground. Now, I will answer the first question in the quiz you sent.

Who first came to the tomb on Sunday morning?
Answer--Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and some other unnamed women who were with Jesus in Galilee. There are no contradictions in the account of all four gospels. The scriptures used below are the exact one that you had in the question. See explanation of these below:
John 20:1—says Mary Magdalene came to the tomb—It did not say “only” Mary Magdalene came.
Matt 28:1—says Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came—It did not say “only” these two came.
Mark 16:1—says the two before and gave more details on who the other Mary was (Mary the mother of Jesus and added that Salome was also there—Again, it did not say that “only” these three came.
Luke 23:55-56; 24:1, 10—says that the women which came with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb and in verse 24:10, Luke points out that two of the women were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and talks about the other women who were also with them—This works perfectly with the account of the other three gospels. Please, explain to me if you still find a problem with these. Also, you are more than welcome to use this same logic on other supposed contradictions of the Bible.

I have read everything that everyone has written back to me and will respond back to them later. I am trying to word everything the best way and hopefully the easiest to understand way. I enjoyed tackling this first question and look forward to the others if this one is sufficient for you. Thanks.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Dardedar »

RON:
"...each of these writers had a different point to make about the life of Jesus and only used the parts of the entire details that they needed for their particular point...
And what was the "particular point" of each of these writers giving a different number of women participating in this most important story? Other than the effect of making it look like they couldn't get the story straight?
Every gospel is the same, but together they give us a great account of what happened.
If "every gospel is the same," then you should be able to take the verses in the resurrection stories in each of the gospels and put them together in a timeline. But you can't do that because they are hopelessly contradictory (and I am not talking about this little numbering problem). All standard mainstream Christian scholarship acknowledges this and this has been known for hundreds of years.

Let's review:

John's version, just Mary Magdalene.
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene
early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and
seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then
she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter...
John 20:1, 2.

Matthew's version, the two Mary's:
"In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward
the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and
the other Mary to see the sepulchre." Matt. 28:1

Mark's version, the two Mary's and Salome:
"And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had
bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint
him. And very early... they came unto the sepulchre."
Mark 16:1, 2

Luke's version: Mary Magdalene and at least four other women.
It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary
the mother of James, and other women that were
with them, which told these things... Luke 24:10

I am reminded of the words of Gleason Archer:

"...if the Biblical record can be proved fallible in areas of fact that can be verified,
then it is hardly to be trusted in areas where it cannot be tested."
--Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason L. Archer (pg. 23)

This problem number one is the tip of the iceberg, and a rather minor one compared to the ones coming up. It doesn't make sense that inspired writers, writing an inerrant text would give such completely different reports of women, and number of women involved in this most important event. You can suggest that these writers all knew exactly how many were there but it makes no sense that they would write what they did if that was the case. So there are four correct answers to question number one: a, b, c or d, it just depends on which anonymous gospel story you appeal to for your answer.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

Darrel,
All four gospels are needed to get a real good account of what happened entirely. Each writer has a different perspective of the same story. That will be the same answer for all your proposed contradictions. To answer your question about "what point were they trying to make". For what it worth, here is the answer:
The four gospels present a forefold view of the life of Christ. Matthew, the Hebrew tax collector, writes for the Hebrew mind. Mark, the travel companion of Paul and peter, writes for the Roman mind. Luke, Paul's physician-missionary, writes with the Greek mentality in view. John's gospel is different by nature from the other three in that it is an interpretation of the facts of Jesus' life rather than a presentation of its facts in historical sequence. Apply these to all of the gospels and there are no contradictions with the four gospels.
So, here is the explanation for question one:
John 20:1—says Mary Magdalene came to the tomb—John wasn't worried with the details of how many just that someone came to the tomb. He simply mentioned Mary Magdalene.
Matt 28:1—says Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came—Matthew felt like the Hebrews wouldn't be interested in knowing that other women came other than the two named Mary.
Mark 16:1—says the two before and gave more details on who the other Mary was (Mary the mother of James) and added that Salome was also there—Apparently, the Romans would care that Salome came also as well the other Mary was the mother of James.
Luke 23:55-56; 24:1, 10—says that the women which came with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb and in verse 24:10, Luke points out that two of the women were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and talks about the other women who were also with them--Luke felt like the Greeks would want to know as many details as possible.

Does that make sense now? Like I said before, I will explain the other ones as soon as you understand this one. It's very important that you understand this explanation so that you will understand my other explanations.

Take care.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Dardedar »

Ronnie wrote:Darrel,
All four gospels are needed to get a real good account of what happened entirely."
Well then apparently the folks that were distributing these second hand anonymous stories for many decades and even over a century were being greatly misled. You do know that these books weren't stitched together, voted on and "canonized" until centuries later right Ronnie?
Each writer has a different perspective of the same story.
That claim might work for some of the problems, some of the time, but there are problems this little patch work kit will not work for. Get thy apologetic books in order.
That will be the same answer for all your proposed contradictions.
Then you will need to improve your game, because saying where there is four, there is also, three, and two, and one, isn't going to get you out of many of the discrepancies in the gospel stories. You are going to need a lot more "how it could have been" scenarios in your tool bag. And some of them, cannot be solved. This is why my Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard Version plainly states in it's footnotes, regarding the resurrection stories: "the sequence of events cannot be worked out." If they could be worked out, standard mainstream Christian scholarship wouldn't have to admit that they can't be.
The four gospels present a forefold view of the life of Christ.
Here is why you got your "four fold view," one person put it:

"And why have we only four Gospels in the Bible testifying to Jesus instead of a dozen or more? Because Irenaeus, the real founder of the Canon, was explicit in the matter: there are four quarters of the earth, four universal winds, and animals have four legs. This bright boy of the Church should have added one more: a roller skate has four wheels."

Irenaeus lived about 150 years after Jesus. The actual quote:

"But it is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the church has been scattered throughout the world, and since the 'pillar and ground' of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life, it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing incorruption on every side, and vivifying human afresh."

That's why you got your four gospels.
Matthew, the Hebrew tax collector, writes for the Hebrew mind.
The notion that a "Matthew" wrote the book of Matthew hasn't been taken seriously for centuries. The gospels themselves don't claim any authorship and we know the names on the gospels were added decades and centuries later for convenience and to add prestige. We know this because we know church fathers who had "Matthew" in front of them as late as 170, and they didn't know who wrote it. Yet we are to believe that you, 1,900 years late, know?
Imagine if you had a text in front of you that was written 1911, and you didn't know who wrote it, and then 2,000 years from now, some fellow named Ronnie comes along and thinks HE knows who wrote it.
I will explain the other ones as soon as you understand this one.
Ronnie, perhaps these things are new and interesting to you because you recently took your apologetics program, but realize I was dealing with and responding everything you just outlined in your apologetic about 30 years ago. So yes, I understand "this one now."
It's very important that you understand this explanation so that you will understand my other explanations.
Ronnie, your apologetics are very introductory and I knew them like the back of my hand twenty years ago.

Hey Ronnie, try your "different perspectives" solution on this problem:

The Donkey Problem.

In Mark and Luke, in the course of Jesus asking for and receiving the animal in question there are nine references to a single animal.

"And when they came nigh to Jerusalem,... he
sendeth forth two of his disciples, And saith unto
them, Go your way into the village over against you:
and as soon as ye be entered unto it, ye shall find A
COLT tied, whereon never man sat; loose HIM, and
bring HIM. And if any man say unto you, Why do ye
this? say ye that the Lord hath need of HIM; and
straightway he will send HIM hither. And they went
their way, and found THE COLT tied by the door... And
they brought THE COLT to Jesus, and cast their garments
on HIM; and he sat upon HIM. Mark 11:1-4, 7 and Luke 19:28-40

In Matthew we find:

And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem,... then
sent Jesus two disciples, Saying unto them, Go into
the village over against you, and straightway ye shall
find an ass tied, AND A COLT with her: loose THEM, and
bring THEM unto me. And if any man say ought unto
you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of THEM, and
straightway he well send THEM... And the disciples
went, and did as Jesus commanded them, And brought
the ass, AND THE COLT, and put on THEM their clothes,
and they set him thereon. Matt 21:1-3, 5-7

So in the course of Jesus asking for and receiving the animals in question there are seven references to TWO animals.

So, two questions:

1) How many animals did Jesus ask for?

2) How many animals did he receive?

It's not like the information was left out. It wasn't. As is clearly specified seven times in Matthew, the answer is two animals. In Mark and Luke it is clearly specified nine time that Jesus asked for one animal, and received one animal. Since asking for and receiving two animals is not the same, and quite inconsistent with asking for and receiving one animal, we know the reports are inconsistent and one of them is necessarily inaccurate. Jesus either asked for and received two animals, or he asked for and received one animal.

And the reason why "Matthew" fudged and added the extra animal in his story is even more interesting (and damning).

D.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Doug »

Ronnie wrote: The “if” part is called the hypothesis, and the “then” part is called the conclusion.
In philosophy we call those the antecedent and the consequent, respectively.
Ronnie wrote:When reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (known in short as the four gospels) we must realize that each of these writers had a different point to make about the life of Jesus and only used the parts of the entire details that they needed for their particular point or they added more details than another writer just because that stuck out in their mind. Every gospel is the same, but together they give us a great account of what happened. It is just like a kid telling a story of what happened on a playground. Each kid is going to say different things, but when you put all the statements together, then you get a pretty good idea of what happened. None of them are lying or contradicting each other. The kids are not saying that these are the “only” things that happened on the playground, they are just giving us an idea of what they saw happen on the playground.
DOUG
You have made some mere assertions about the motives or the technique of the gospel writers. You have zero evidence to support these statements. You are engaging in the fallacy of begging the question (a.k.a. circular reasoning). I would ask you to prove your claims about what the gospel writers had in mind, but neither you nor any other inerrantist has any way of getting any additional information about the writing of the gospels, so my demand would be pointless: You have no evidence for your claim about why the gospel writers wrote the way they did.

The better explanation of why the gospels differ in details--the explanation supported by literary evidence--is that "Luke" and "Matthew" (the real authors' names are not known) were rewriting the gospel of Mark. They changed some details, hence the contradictions. We can see the changes. We can see that they each had a written copy of Mark before them when they were writing. We know this was a written copy because of verbatim material in Luke and Matthew that is also found in Mark. And we know Mark came first because Luke and Mattew add to Mark and it is unlikely that anyone would remove large amounts of material from a gospel, including resurrection appearances of Jesus, to produce a shorter, resurrection-free gospel. (Mark had no resurrection appearances, although some were added later.)
Ronnie wrote: Who first came to the tomb on Sunday morning?
Answer--Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and some other unnamed women who were with Jesus in Galilee. There are no contradictions in the account of all four gospels. The scriptures used below are the exact one that you had in the question. See explanation of these below:
John 20:1—says Mary Magdalene came to the tomb—It did not say “only” Mary Magdalene came.
DOUG
There are two points here. First, logically speaking, you are correct. If it doesn't say "only," then it is logically possible there were more people.
So on your view, if it doesn't say "only," we have no idea how many things the Bible is talking about.

The second point is that the Bible is not a math text. It is not a logic book. It is literature, and your principle of "Only 'only' rules out others" is absurd. NOWHERE else in literature do you find such an astonishingly ridiculous principle of interpreting a text. NO ONE ELSE would ever use such a principle on any other book because it flies in the face of common sense.

If your principle were legitimate, there could have been two, ten, or a hundred other saviors besides Jesus. It never says he was the only one. John 3:16 says that Jesus was God's only begotten son, but it doesn't say that God couldn't have other begotten sons later, and it never says that only begotten sons can be saviors anyway. So on your view you are not justified in any way in concluding that Jesus is the only savior, even according to the Bible. This is called a reduction to absurdity. This shows how your reasoning leads to a conclusion you would reject as absurd.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (Jn 14:6) But he didn't say "ONLY"! So you may have to go through Jesus and someone else, on your "logic."
And how many times was Jesus crucified? Nowhere does it say only one time! Your reasoning leads us to the conclusion that we have no idea how many times Jesus was crucified. Or how many times he was resurrected.
How did Jesus feed the five thousand?
Matt. 14:17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. 18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. 19 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Nowhere does it say that someone in the back of the crowd didn't bring another 10,000 loaves and 5,000 fish. The disciples only had five loaves and a couple of fish, but nowhere does it say that other people didn't arrive with more food.

How many angels were at the tomb of Jesus? One gospel says two, but you have to admit there could have been tens of thousands because it doesn't say "only two." One apologist, Steve Cowan, used this same silly principle and admitted to me that the angels could have been as thick as flies at the tomb.

This is not how people read literature. And this is not the worst problem in the contradiction-ridden Easter account. Your real problems come when the New Testament accounts start showing the women/woman doing things.
Ronnie wrote:Matt 28:1—says Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came—It did not say “only” these two came.
Mark 16:1—says the two before and gave more details on who the other Mary was (Mary the mother of Jesus and added that Salome was also there—Again, it did not say that “only” these three came.
Luke 23:55-56; 24:1, 10—says that the women which came with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb and in verse 24:10, Luke points out that two of the women were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and talks about the other women who were also with them—This works perfectly with the account of the other three gospels. Please, explain to me if you still find a problem with these.
This makes the gospels completely unreliable as accounts of the life of Jesus because we cannot, on your view, infer that someone was not present or that an event did not happen only in cases in which it is explicitly excluded. (Where does it say that Jesus did not have three gay lovers? Nowhere? Well...) Again, this is not how people interpret literature.
Ronnie wrote:Also, you are more than welcome to use this same logic on other supposed contradictions of the Bible.
The problem is that we can use this logic on things that are not contradictions and generate absurd results. Which shows that your principle is absurd.
Ronnie wrote:I have read everything that everyone has written back to me and will respond back to them later. I am trying to word everything the best way and hopefully the easiest to understand way. I enjoyed tackling this first question and look forward to the others if this one is sufficient for you. Thanks.
Take a look at how Farrell Till handles this when responding to Robert Turkel:

See here.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

Well. I know why I believe what I believe and I know without a shadow of doubt that my reasoning is good. However, as I figured, you are going to always feel like your belief is better than my belief which is not true. You are just wrong, but I am beginning to see that no matter how much I try to show you that you are wrong and give you reasons for why you are wrong, it just seems to be that you always attack another part. At this rate, I don't see an end to this, and this is just on a very small part. We are not even talking about the so called "science" you have for your idea that there is no God and the so called "evidence" you have that Christianity had nothing to do with the founding of America. So, I am beginning to think this is pointless talking to you. I have learned a few things such as about Thomas Jefferson's signature, and I have gotten lots of other quotes from the founders to look at showing that they believed in God and Christian principles even if they may have not been "Christians" in my sense of the word, and you have given me lots of other science articles to look at and interpret from a Biblical perspective. However, I can see that all I can do is take the information and know why I believe what I believe from a Biblical worldview taking in consideration all that you have told me. Thanks for that. However, I can see that no matter what I say, I will always be wrong according to you, and it will never end. I don't have time for that. I appreciate your time and maybe anybody else wanting to try to have a reasonable conversation with you will read this thread of communication first. I may still post my responses to the other areas since I already have the ideas, but I will not have any hopes of it settling anything. Thanks to all for your time.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Savonarola »

Darrel wrote:Hey Ronnie, try your "different perspectives" solution on this problem:

The Donkey Problem.
Hey Darrel, his "solution" just almost works here.
Young's Literal Translation wrote:7 brought the ass and the colt, and did put on them their garments, and set [him] upon them;
What if the "them" in bold refers to the garments? Then, Jesus asked for one because he asked for two, and the "any number means that number and any lower number" approach works, right?
Darrel wrote:Hint: Zach 9:9
(Ronnie, he means Zech 9:9. Go ahead, take a peek.)
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Doug »

Ronnie wrote:Well. I know why I believe what I believe and I know without a shadow of doubt that my reasoning is good. However, as I figured, you are going to always feel like your belief is better than my belief which is not true. You are just wrong, but I am beginning to see that no matter how much I try to show you that you are wrong and give you reasons for why you are wrong, it just seems to be that you always attack another part.
DOUG
No matter how much you show? You have hardly done anything. You've made a number of unfounded assertions and wild speculation about the motives of anonymous, ancient writers, but you've hardly scratched the surface of the sea of contradictions just about the resurrection.

You're running true to form, Ronnie. No inerrantist has been able to harmonize the Easter accounts in the New Testament. No one. If the Easter accounts could be harmonized, that is, combined without contradiction, there would be a harmonization of them online all over the place. It would have all the verses listed in detail and inerrantists would throw this in the faces of skeptics when confronted with the Easter Challenge (the cash reward for doing a harmonization). People would have collected the cash reward.

But there is no such harmonization. No one has collected the reward. And all reputable New Testament scholars know why: the Bible has contradictions. Lots of them. It was only a matter of time before you took a hard look at your Bible, tried to reconcile the Easter accounts, and recoiled in shock a the impossibility of the task.

You could just translate your whole paragraph into the statement: "I know when I've been whipped, but I don't have the guts to admit it. I'll blame your hard hearts and run!"

We've seen this many, many times, Ronnie. Believe that.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Dardedar »

Savonarola wrote: The Donkey Problem.Hey Darrel, his "solution" just almost works here.
Young's Literal Translation wrote:7 brought the ass and the colt, and did put on them their garments, and set [him] upon them;
What if the "them" in bold refers to the garments? Then, Jesus asked for one because he asked for two, and the "any number means that number and any lower number" approach works, right?
DAR
Actually, if I understand you right, you are almost on to one proposed solution. So on errancy, years ago, we had a Greek scholar address this. He gave these observations:
OBSERVATIONS:
1. Of the four accounts (1) Matt. 21:6-7 has two donkeys: a female and
her male foal (colt). Quotes "the prophet" (Zech. 9:9). (2) Luke 19:29-44
is a duplicate of Mark 11:1-7 (making one version) and mentioning only
the male foal, except that Luke says "they put him on the foal." (3) John
12:14-15, quotes "it has been written (Zech. 9:9) and refers to "a young
(small) ass" (actually the word is neuter, as is typical of diminutives).

2. The KJV translates from the Latin, not the Greek. Most other versions
follow the same.

3. The quoted passage in Matt. and John include Zech. 9:9. They include a
second passage that is different. The chapter in Zechariah is considered
poetry and is so arranged in some versions. The Hebrew parallelism is
well-known and the reference is generally considered to refer to one
animal. Our Hebrew expert could comment on that.

4. The writer of Matthew stated that there were two animals: a female ass
and her male foal. The Greek text means "sitting on an ass AND on the
foal of a yoked animal." Even if we accept the interpretation of the
poetic quotation as a reference to one animal, because of the
parallelism, this text definitely states that there are two animals.

5. The Greek word for THEM is the same in verse 3 ("has need of THEM"),
in verse 6 (place the garments "on THEM"), and again in verse 6 ("he sat
upon THEM"). The antecedent is clearly stated as "the ass and the foal."
In order to indicate without question that the word THEM referred to the
garments, a demonstrative pronoun ("the latter") would have been used
instead for same personal pronoun.

6. Nestle's Greek text shows two manuscript variants changing "upon them"
to "upon him (the foal)," but the overwhelming evidence is for a plural
pronoun.

7. KJV's "they set him thereon" (Matt. 21:7 & Luke 19:35) ) is directly
from Latin. The Greek has "he sat upon THEM." Using "thereon" is a sly
way of avoiding "THEM."

8. Is there a discrepancy? There are differences in specifics among the
four versions of the story. And they all differ from the quoted passage
from the OT.
--(E. Otha Wingo) Greek scholar
Interesting eh?

Now back to Ronnie.

The problem of number of women at the tomb was about done I thought. Each author differed in their story and it's unlikely that unbelievers would be swayed by the assertion that the authors did this for some literary reason (and you didn't attempt to provide one). So we are just going to disagree on that one. The gospels are filled with such examples of inconsistencies, and some are far worse than others. I went on to the very simple and straightforward donkey problem, and asked two simple questions, numbered for convenience. Do you have an opinion on these two questions?

1) How many animals did Jesus ask for?
2) How many animals did he receive?
RON
"...you are going to always feel like your belief is better than my belief which is not true."
I suppose you had your hopes up that your apologetics instruction was going to set us skeptics straight rather quickly and now you are finding it is a bit more involved than the Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel material led you to believe. I assure you, it's not you, it's the material. Those fellows wouldn't hold up to skeptical scrutiny any better.
I don't see an end to this, and this is just on a very small part.
Why does there need to be an end to it? Look at the things you have already learned in such a short time.
We are not even talking about the so called "science" you have for your idea that there is no God...
There is no "science" for the idea that there is no God, just as there is no science for the idea that there is no [insert any magical being]. Those who assert the existence of magical beings have the burden of demonstrating them or giving reasons for believing they exist. But if churches or religions had good reasons, then they wouldn't be talking about believing by faith all of the time would they?
I can see that no matter what I say, I will always be wrong according to you, and it will never end.
But that's wrong Ronnie (sorry). If you give good persuasive reasons, then I am confident we will change our minds. I used to believe as you do, and then I changed my mind. I would gladly go back. Having just gone to a funeral last week I think the notion of an afterlife is really nice. But wishing things doesn't make them so. We need good reasons. We seem to be having a polite and productive conversation so don't be discouraged just because we aren't asking to come to church next Sunday. Remember the words in Jude:

“. . . ye should earnestly contend for the faith.” --JUDE 3.

And:

“Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence;” 1 PET. 3:15 (RSV).
I may still post my responses to the other areas since I already have the ideas, but I will not have any hopes of it settling anything.
That is a much more realistic expectation. Folks around here didn't come to their beliefs lightly but rather after years and even decades of scholarly study. And you did say earlier:

"I assure you that I will answer all the “contradictions” to it from a Biblical Worldview or I will be honest and agree with you that scholars don’t know."

And I assure you we will respond to all of your points carefully, substantively and politely.

D.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Savonarola »

Darrel wrote:Actually, if I understand you right, you are almost on to one proposed solution.
Well, not so much me. I've heard this a couple of times from fundamentalists. I objected to the antecedent change, the use of the word "and," and the idea that it is more reasonable for all of (1) "one means two," (2) the garments would be placed on both animals even though Jesus were to ride on only one, and (3) that the parallelism in Zechariah just happened to coincide with the presence of a second animal... than the idea that the author simply screwed up reading (copying) the parallelism.
Darrel wrote:Interesting eh?
Well, not the least bit surprising.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

Well. Here is my answer to your "donkey problem" for what it is worth. I had a few minutes that I didn't mind reading and giving you my explanation since you seemed to really want one. I am very interested in knowing if all of you will start on your tirade of "who knows who authored the books" again and start explaining that you have known these explanations like the back of your hand for twenty years. If that is true, then why don't you just give me the explanation I am about to give you, debunk it in your opinion, give me the next thing I am going to say, debunk it, and on and on until finally you get to the point where I would supposedly give up. Then, I can take it up from there. If you already know my answers, then lets just cut to the chase of what you don't think you have figured out from talking with other people like me. Just a side thought from my late night brain. The basics of my answer is: There were two animals that Jesus sat upon as said in Zechariah 9:9 and in Matthew 21; however, Mark, Luke, and John just mentioned him sitting on the colt. There is no contradiction. They did not say he only sat on a colt, and they did not deny that there were two animals. They just left out the fact that there was two. I am not going to speculate as to why they did that. I just know that they did, and it give an answer to you even though I am sure you have some reason why it doesn't work for you. However, it is very sufficient to me again to show that there are no contradictions in the Bible. I do plan to finish the resurrection quiz, but it will have to be later. Very busy right now. After I formulated my explanation just from reading my King James Bible, I looked online and found this more detailed response in case you needed it. This comes from a website wanting to show that the King James Bible is a great Bible to use. That is a debate for another time, but I did find all the different Bible knowledge interesting. Notice, that Mark makes reference to the Zechariah prophecy exactly while the others leave out the exact words, but I don't see anything "damning" about that. Zechariah was written hundreds of years before this was written and it only makes sense to me that at least one of the desciples would want to point out that this prophecy was fullfilled completely by mentioning both animals while the other three just mentioned the one for whatever reason. You say it was because it is a contradiction I guess. I say that it is because they wanted to, and it still works with the "only" explanation as I used on the last one. I am sure the "only" explanation doesn't work on everything. Context has to be considered, and that is what I would do to disprove your other quelms with the "only" explanation if I ever take enough time to do so. Take care.

Bible skeptics love to point out what they think is a contradiction in the Bible in Matthew 21:1-11 where we read about the triumphal entry of the Lord Jesus into the city of Jerusalem, and the confusion seen in today's Bible Babble Buffet versions gives them additional ammunition to cast doubt upon the absolute truth of Scripture.

The Bible Skeptics ask: "How many donkeys were there and on how many of them did Jesus ride?"

We will examine these questions in two parts. First the Textual Issues involved, and secondly, The Explanation of the apparent contradiction.

Part One - The Textual Issues

The accounts of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem are found in all four gospels, but each varies in the details, some adding information that others do not record . The Biblical references are Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:29-38 and John 12:12-15. Only Matthew contains the complete quote from Zechariah 9:9. Mark and Luke make no reference to it, and John records only part of the prophesy - "behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt." See John 12:15.

In the King James Holy Bible we read: Matthew 21:1-11 - "And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. 3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. 4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying 5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, they King comet unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. 6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, 7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, AND THEY SET HIM THEREON. 8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that comet in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? 11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee."

First of all, what we see here is a clear reference to the prophetic words of the prophet as found in Zechariah 9:9, where we read of the King coming into Jerusalem "riding upon an ass, AND upon a colt the foal of an ass."

This is the reading found in Wycliffe 1395, Coverdale 1535, the Great Bible (Cranmer) 1540 - "he rydeth vpon an asse, & vpon the foale of an asse.", Matthew's Bible 1549, the Bishops' Bible 1568, the Geneva Bible 1587, 1599 - "beholde, they King commeth vnto thee: he is iust and saued himselfe, poore and riding vpon an asse, AND vpon a colt the foale of an asse.", Webster's 1833, the Lesser Bible 1853, Young's literal, the KJV 21st Century version 1994 and the Third Millenium Bible 1998.

That there were TWO animals in Zechariah's prophesy is also shown in Martin Luther's German Bible 1545, the French Martin 1744, and the French Darby 1865 - "et monté sur un âne, et sur un ânon, poulain d'une ânesse.", as well as the 1865 Spanish Reina Valera, Angel de Mora translation - "cabalgando sobre un asno, y sobre un pollino hijo de asna." The so called Greek Septuagint reads the same with: "he is meek and riding on an ass, AND a young foal." and the Modern Greek text also includes the word "AND the foal of an ass.

However many modern versions have changed the text in Zechariah 9:9 to show only ONE ass (or donkey) as the NKJV, NIV, RSV, ESV and Holman Standard. They do this by omitting that little word AND, or by translating it as EVEN. The RSV, ESV, NIV read like the NKJV saying: "Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.

The NASB, ASV have: "mounted on a donkey, EVEN ON a colt, the foal of a donkey. "

Some like the Complete Jewish bible highlight this meaning of only one donkey by saying: "he's riding on a donkey, yes, on a lowly donkey's colt." or Rotherham's 1902 version - "lowly, and riding upon an ass, yea, upon a colt, a young ass."

But when we get to the New Testament where the direct quote is given from Zechariah in Matthew 21:1-11, all the bible versions tell us that there were TWO animals, the ass AND her colt. However there is also a textual variation in the last few words of this verse among the various translations. Those Bibles that use the traditional Greek text or the Textus Receptus tell us "and THEY set him thereon". The noun/verb combination used in the TR is plural. Versions that follow the UBS, Nestle critical text have a singular verb and end up translating it something like "and HE sat thereon" (ASV).

The King James Bible - "And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and THEY SET HIM THEREON." This again is the reading found in the older Bible translations like Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, Bishops' bible, the Geneva bible - "And brought the asse and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and set him thereon.", and other modern versions like the KJV 21st Century version and the Third Millenium Bible 1998.

The NASBs keep changing. From 1963 through 7 different editions, the NASB read "and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments, ON WHICH HE sat", but then in 1995 they changed it again and now it says "and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; AND HE sat ON THE COATS." There is no Greek text that reads "on the coats".

The NIV says: "They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, AND JESUS SAT ON THEM." There is no word for "Jesus" in any Greek text, but the NIV has added the word "Jesus" 336 times to the New Testament (as they admit in their own NIV concordance) when it is not in their underlying Greek texts, so this is nothing new.

The ESV 2001 says: "They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. "

The NKJV has: "They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them." But then it footnotes telling us that the Nestle, UBS texts read "and HE sat".

Part 2 - The Explanation

It is clear from all the Bible translations that Matthew mentions TWO animals, both the ass and her colt. The King James Bible is the only one of the five versions mentioned here (KJB, NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV) that quotes the Zechariah 9:9 passage correctly showing that there were TWO animals on which our Lord the King sat during his entry into the city of Zion - the ass AND the colt.

The accounts found in Mark 11:7, Luke 19:35 and John 12:14 only mention the young colt or foal of a colt on which our Lord sat.

Mark 11:7 - "And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him. "

Luke 19:35 - "And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon."

John 12:14 - 15 "And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion; behold, they King comet, sitting on an ass's colt."

First, notice that all versions tell us in Matthew 21 that there were TWO animals present when Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Mark, Luke, and John do not say that only one ass or donkey was present. They never deny that another donkey (the mother of the colt) was present. The fact that Mark, Luke, and John mention one young donkey does not mean there were not two. If you had two friends named Jake and Steve who came to your house on Saturday night, but the next Monday while at work you mention to a fellow employee that Steve was at your house on Saturday night (and you excluded Jake from the conversation for whatever reason), would you be lying? Of course not. You simply stated the fact that Steve was at your house. In the same way, when Mark, Luke, and John stated that a donkey was present, Matthew merely supplemented what the other writers recorded.

Secondly, the verse criticized by the Bible Skeptics is Matthew 21:7 where it says in the King James Bible "And brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon."

The verse is merely telling us that the disciples draped their clothes over BOTH animals, the mother and her colt, and then set Jesus down upon their clothing that made up a comfortable saddle to ride on.

There are at least two ways of explaining what took place here. As Bible commentator John Gill points out: "And brought the ass and the colt…
to Jesus, as Mark and Luke add, and who only make mention of the colt: both were undoubtedly brought; the colt being unloosed and taken away, the ass, its dam, followed after:and put on them their clothes;their loose upper garments, to be instead of saddles and trappings, and that Christ might sit thereon with ease and decency...
and they sat him thereon, or "on them": meaning either on the ass and colt, that is, on one of them, or both successively, or on the clothes they put upon them."

What we see here is that the Lord Jesus sat on both animals, either one at a time during His entry into Jerusalem - the young colt until it got tired of carrying the load and then He switched to the more mature mother ass, or else the disciples made a saddle out of their garments that were draped over both animals standing side by side and Jesus then sat sideways upon the colt and leaned back upon the mother ass as He rode into the city. There is no contradiction at all.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Dardedar »

Hello Ronnie, good to hear from you.

You typed a lot of words, but that's hardly necessary. These questions are very short and straightforward and simple. A child can understand them. You cut and pasted a huge apologetic from somewhere and then managed to respond to questions I didn't ask (how many he sat on, that's a different problem). I asked two questions, and I numbered them for convenience. Please answer my two simple questions, directly:

1) How many animals did Jesus ask for?

2) How many animals did he receive?


The scriptures provide the direct answers to these questions, in fact the answer can be found nine times in Mark and Luke. Or, you can go with the seven times it was answered, rather differently, in Matthew. Provide scriptural support for YOUR answer to #1, and #2.

thanks,

D.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

1) How many animals did Jesus ask for?
He asked for two animals, a donkey and a colt with her (Matt 21:2)

2) How many animals did he receive?
He recieved two. (Matt 21:7)

Lest you say their is a contradiction, I feel the need to explain why there is no contradiction with the book of Matthew and the others. Matthew is the only apostle which gives all the information. The others leave out the fact that Jesus asked for two animals and received two animals with them only mentioning one of the animals. However, as I have said before, the others did not say he "only" asked for one animal and received "only" one animal. So, no contradiction. Since one of the writers says that Jesus asked for two, then Jesus asked for two and the others just mentioned one. Who knows why, they just chose to do that. This time I am not going to speculate why they did it. I just know they did. The "only" explanation works for this case also because of context which was the same with the women who came to the tomb. If Frank and Steve came to my house last night, and tomorrow morning at church, I tell Bob that Frank came to my house last night and I tell Chris that Steve came to my house last night, then I didn't tell a lie. I just for some reason left out that also the other guy came to my house.

I read another testimony from a guy just now that once argued about every reason for why not to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but now he believes in the ressurrection of Jesus and the saving power of Jesus Christ. I invite you to come to my church in Bentonville any time. Easter tomorrow morning will be great. Our service starts at 11 a.m. It is at 2202 South Walton Blvd. Bentonville First Assembly of God. Have a great Easter weekend. I always hope that the hope I have in Jesus Christ somehow finds lodging in your heart as well. I don't mind arguing about why I believe what I believe, but when it comes down to it. I believe because of my past experiences. I don't know if you would believe in Jesus if you had an experience with Him, but I will always hope that you will. Take care.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

By the way, what is your arguement when people say that all the disciples who were tortured and killed for not denying the fact that Jesus rose from the grave and they would not have died for a lie? After all, people will not die for a lie they know to be a lie, but they will die for a lie that they don't know to be a lie. I am sure that you say that Jesus rising from the dead is a lie, didn't happen, or some version of that. However, I would die saying that Jesus did raise from the dead and is alive right now. However, I didn't see it happen but believe the eye witness accounts of those early Christians who died horrible deaths saying that Jesus rose from the grave like He said He would because they saw Him and talked with Him after His death. The disciples were there along with hundreds of others who saw Jesus after he had been raised from the dead, and consequently they knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was God as He said He was and that he fulfilled all the prophecies of the messiah, so, they told this truth to people until many/most of them were put to death. All they would have had to do was to say that they hadn't seen Jesus alive after His death, and they would have been able to live. I am sure you have a great answer for why you don't believe that this is evidence for Jesus being risen from the grave, but I am wondering what your thinking is.
Thanks.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Ronnie »

By the way, I still plan on answering the other resurrection quiz questions as well as giving a complete Biblical account for the day of Jesus' ressurrection. I will do it because it will strengthen my faith as all the other studies I have done so far. I definitly don't hold out hopes of winning any prize for doing so from the Fayetteville Freethinkers, because, from responses I have been getting, to do so I would also have to "prove" that the Bible is true which all I can do is give evidence for it's truth which does not seem sufficient for the Fayetteville Freethinkers group. Please, correct me if I am wrong or if there really is a way that someone could actually take advantage of the "Easter" story reward. I agree that it is a shame that noone has at least "tried" to claim the reward just to get shot down with your arguements.
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Dardedar »

Ronnie wrote:1) How many animals did Jesus ask for?
He asked for two animals, a donkey and a colt with her (Matt 21:2)
But, as you know, Mark and Luke each took five occasions to have their Jesus ask for one animal. And either Jesus asked for one, or he asked for two. There is a difference.
2) How many animals did he receive?
He recieved two. (Matt 21:7)
But, as you know, Mark and Luke each took four occasions to refer to Jesus receiving one animal, which is consistent with the one he asked for in their accounts. And either he received one animal, or he received two. There is a difference.
I feel the need to explain why there is no contradiction
Well, if asking for and receiving one animal, is the same as asking for and receiving two (or more) animals, then 2=1 and words cease to have meaning. If "2=1" isn't a contradiction, then perhaps you can share with us what you would consider to be a contradiction.
Matthew is the only apostle which gives all the information.
No, Matthew put an extra donkey in his story because he misread his Hebrew Parallelism in Zach 9:9. Who ever wrote "Matthew" didn't know his Hebrew very well. This is just one of his many mistakes revealing this.
The others leave out the fact that Jesus asked for two animals>>
No, they didn't leave it out. They both included nine references referring to how many animals Jesus asked for and received. In the Mark and Luke accounts it is one animal.
This time I am not going to speculate why they did it.
That's good, because those speculations weren't very convincing, or biblical.
what is your arguement when people say that all the disciples who were tortured and killed for not denying the fact that Jesus rose from the grave
a) the martyrdom stories are almost without exception unsupported legends.
b) People die for mistaken beliefs all of the time. See Taliban, 9/11, etc.
and they would not have died for a lie?
Again, the stories of martyrdom are largely legendary, but even if they aren't they have very little to do verifying the truth of the stories they may have believed in. Note:

"As to martyrdom, it is rather easier to die for a false idea
than the apologists argue. Peregrinus, in the account of his
life by Lucian, got arrested as a Christian, and wished to
pay the ultimate penalty. His death wish was frustrated by
the Roman magistrate, who recognized the selfish desire
for attention by Peregrinus, and freed his prisoner instead.
Martyrdom is the ultimate narcissism.
In Lucian's story, Peregrinus finally dies by flinging himself
in a pagan god's fire, seeking immortality, with narration
of his glory supplied by one of his bootlicking followers."
-- Jeff Lowder

"As late as about 240/250 AD, Origen in Contra Celsum Book 3 Chapter 8
admits that the number of Christian marytrs was 'few' and 'easily
numbered'. This is after more than 2 centuries of persecution.
'For in order to remind others, that by seeing a few engaged in a
struggle for their religion, they also might be better fitted to
despise death, some, on special occasions, and these individuals who
can be easily numbered, have endured death for the sake of
Christianity..."

As Schweitzer pointed out: "Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never the correctness, of a belief."
-Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) theologian
After all, people will not die for a lie they know to be a lie,
People were very gullible back then, even more so than now.
I am sure that you say that Jesus rising from the dead is a lie, didn't happen, or some version of that.
Correct. And in saying that I have all mainstream Bible scholarship on my side. Here I quote the highest ranking Episcopal Bishop in the US, in 2000, John Shelby Spong:

"If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable. If that were the requirement of belief as a Christian, then I would sadly leave my house of faith. With me in that exodus from the Christian church, however, would be **every ranking New Testament scholar in the world--Catholic and Protestant alike**: E. C. Hoskyns, C. H. Dodd, Rudolf Bultmann, Reginald Fuller, Joseph Fitzmyer, W. E. Albright, Ray-mond Brown, Paul Minear, R. H. Lightfoot, Herman Hendrickx, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, Phyllis Trible, Jane Schaberg, D. H. Nineham, Maurice Goguel, and countless others.
---Bishop John Shelby Spong, John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? A Bishop's Search for the Origins of Christianity (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), p. 238.

And:

"It is clear that the scriptural stories about this six-week period contradict one another egregiously with regard to the number and places of Jesus' appearances, the people who were on hand for such events, and even the date and the location of the ascension into heaven. Despite our best efforts above, the gospel accounts of Jesus' post mortem activities in fact cannot be harmonized into a consistent "Easter chronology." Nor need we bother to ask if the miraculous events of this Easter period could have been observed or recorded by cameras or tape recorders, had such devices been available. The reasons both for the patent inconsistencies and the physical unrecordability of these miraculous "events" come down to one thing: The gospel stories about Easter are not historical accounts but religious myths.
"I say this not at all out of disrespect for Christian faith or for the doctrines that it holds. Rather, I mean to indicate the general literary form of the Easter accounts. They are myths and legends; and it is absurd to take them literally and to create a chronology of preternatural events that supposedly occurred in Jerusalem and Galilee during the weeks after Jesus had died."
--Thomas Sheehan of the Religious Studies Department at Stanford. “The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity.”
I would die saying that Jesus did raise from the dead and is alive right now.
This just shows the fervency of your belief, not the accuracy of it. This is very common. The world is filled with billions of people with equally strong beliefs regarding extraordinary claims about all sorts of religious claims that you would have no trouble recognizing as absurd. But you can't see your own. Religion is a neat little trick of personal self delusion. But once you know how the magic trick works, and how it fools the person in question, you can't go back to believing the trick anymore. That's me. I know how the religion trick works.
I didn't see it happen but believe the eye witness accounts of those early Christians
You have, no, eye-witness, accounts. Not one.
who died horrible deaths saying that Jesus rose from the grave">>
Let's see you confirm one of these. And for every one you have, I can give you a hundred examples of equally sincere and mistaken people dying for equally false beliefs. In WWII, over 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses stood up to Hitler and died for the Jehovah's Witness beliefs. Does this mean the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses are true Ronnie? No, it means the people held strong beliefs and chose to die for them. Nothing more. But almost without exception, you can't even confirm your martyrdom stories anyway.
they saw Him and talked with Him after His death.
You have no report from anyone who even claims to have done this. You should study your Bible more carefully and stop getting your information from the fundamentalists who are misinforming you.
The disciples were there along with hundreds of others who saw Jesus after he had been raised from the dead,
Then show this. Names, and what you can confirm that wrote. The gospels, are anonymous, the names were added decades and over a century later. And they admit they are passing along stories they heard. Hearsay.
they told this truth to people until many/most of them were put to death.
Show this.
I definitly don't hold out hopes of winning any prize for doing so from the Fayetteville Freethinkers,"
All of our prizes are bone fide, valid, legally binding, public offers. If you would like me to have my lawyer draw up contractual papers detailing this specifically for you, this can be done. Please stop this false insinuation that our offers are not legitimate.
Please, correct me if I am wrong or if there really is a way that someone could actually take advantage of the "Easter" story reward.
The Easter challenge is quite simply stated and straight forward. There aren't even very many verses involved. Again:

***
Tell us exactly what happened at the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and win $1,000! Read:

Matthew 28
Mark 16
Luke 24
John 20 & 21
Acts 1:3-12
1 Corinthians 15:3-8

Then, without omitting a single detail from the accounts, write one consistent narrative - with scriptural citations - of the events from the Resurrection to the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Send your claim for the $1,000 REWARD to: fayfreethinkers@yahoo.com
***

Simply cut, or type out the verses, and put them in order. See if they are consistent or can be put in an order that is consistent, without leaving anything out, or adding anything in. You will quickly learn this exercise is not about the money. It's about you learning something new about your Bible. Something your pastor forgot to tell you.
I agree that it is a shame that noone has at least "tried" to claim the reward just to get shot down with your arguements.
Indeed it is. I don't think anyone has made it past the "learning it can't be done stage." So it's never once been necessary for us to shoot anything down.

D.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by L.Wood »

.
Ronnie:...my counter arguement about Adams signing the treaty saying we are not a Christian nation being because he was refering to the federal government not being any religion but relegated rights to the states to worship the way they choose..."
Please inform us about you ideas of "relegated rights" to the states. Seems I've never encountered this one before wherein religion is relegated to the states.

Totally new concept in all the history I have studied. Is it possible you are confusing the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution with an assumed right of the
States to dictate, prescribe and control religions?

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

As Dar mentioned above the First Amendment took care of any such "relegated rights" regarding religion. By the way, I think the term you should be using is "delegate."

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"Blessed is the Lord for he avoids Evil just like the Godfather, he delegates."
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L.Wood
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by L.Wood »

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While we have you on here Ronnie, I would like to ask one more question regarding the U.S.A. being a Christian nation.

Several places in the Christian bible are prohibitions about usury, the charging of interest on indebtedness. Do any of the Wallbuilders address usury?
Does David Barton address usury? In your numerous studies and readings about U.S.A. being a Christian nation do any of the writers address usury?
Barton has been writing and talking that capitalism is Christian and visa versa.

Please don't confuse the Biblical meaning of usury with the modern day, secular meaning of usury. Today, usury is generally defined to be the charging of
interest above an arbitrary limit allowed by law. In Biblical times usury meant the charging of any interest on indebtedness.
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"Enlisting Jesus in the War on Unions"

Religious Right activist David Barton promotes his version of American exceptionalism (America was created by its divinely inspired founders as a country of, by, and for evangelical Christians) and biblical capitalism (Jesus and the Bible oppose progressive taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and minimum wage laws). Claiming divine backing is a long-standing Religious Right technique with a powerful political edge: if God supports radically limited government, then progressive policies are not only wrong but evil, and liberals are not only political opponents but enemies of God. " --People for the American Way

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"Blessed is the Lord for he avoids Evil just like the Godfather, he delegates."
Betty Bowers
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Re: $5,000 award for demo of supernatural claims

Post by Dardedar »

Maybe Ronnie would like to come by our Springfest booth tomorrow. The theme will be "Christian Nation Myths."

If Ronnie comes by I would be glad to give him a complimentary copy of our new publication: "The Fabulous Fayetteville Freethinker Fact-filled Family Fun Folder."

Regarding Christianity and capitalism, we had nine slots on our Mythbuster Board and ended up sticking one in on this topic:

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8.) Doesn’t Christianity promote or support our American capitalist system?

No. Jesus and his followers behaved as socialists.
In Acts 2:34-45 the apostles did not consider their possessions to be personal property, and
those who had possessions divided them with the others. "...and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts 4:35)
It was Karl Marx who, in 1875, popularized the communist slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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