Was Jesus a great teacher?

[McCulloch]

Christianity's biggest strength is the teachings of Jesus. They're the very foundation of Christianity. Jesus was a great teacher and being a Christian myself, I see no one who has ever topped Him, nor have I found any of His teachings too difficult to defend.

Questions for debate:
Was Jesus a great teacher? Are all of his teachings easy to defend? Is there anything that he could have made clearer? Did he make mistakes? Did he leave out anything important? How could he have improved as a teacher?

[Goat]

Cannot support there activity with scripture? Are you serious? 40,000 christian denominations support their activities with scripture and each and everyone believes all the others are apostate or heretical.

I'm afraid many of them don't bother to use the bible to structure their constitution. Show me one verse in the bible that supports gay marriage yet many protestant churches promote the practice. Just one verse. I will show you many that condemn it. So I'm afraid your just plain wrong.

I'm waiting for the verses that condemn same sex marriage, Esp from jesus.

Jesus gave the apostles the power to establish rules for the church. He told them to babysit the sheep while he was away. Is that difficult for you?

Romans 1: 27 While the men, disregarding that for which women were intended by nature, were consumed with passion for one another. Men indulged in vile practices with men, and incurred in their own persons the inevitable penalty for their perverseness.

Do you have difficulty interpreting this?

That looks suspiciously like something written by paul. But perhaps you can point out to me where it condemns same sex marriage, I'm still waiting for a statement from jesus.
Oh and the verse before is interesting apparently god made them act in this way.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

I think it would be proper to look at the entire Chapter in context. It was Paul who was writing, so that is strike one. The second thing is that Paul was taking about the pagan practices that were still being carried on.. and he was warning against using those pagan practices in the Church, .. and those 'vile effections' and that such were a PUNISHMENT from God. So, it has nothing to do with gay marriage or marriage what so ever.

[Zetesis Apistia]

4) Literal truth of the bible.

Does your church teach how to treat your slaves?

Yes. Were supposed to be nice to em.

And rape victims does it teach that the rapist must buy the victim from her father and marry her?

Yes. I think two camels, a sheep, one bic razor, a snickers bar, and a pair of used socks was the last request I am aware of. My thing is...what is it with the used socks.

[Zetesis Apistia]

Nah that one missed the target. Wanna try again?

I doubt that I could hit your target with a bucket of paint.

[Nickman]

They ALL can legitimize their faith by the Bible because of its ambiguity. That is why we have 30,000 denomination in Christianity alone. This shows that someone was not a great teacher, because he left the Bible completely ambiguous.

Yes, David Koresh and Jim Jones were Christians and they used the Bible to legitimize their faith. They used the Bible in their sermons to prove to people that their message came from the Bible.

Our own U.S. constitution cannot be agreed upon by very educated supreme court justices when it comes to interpretation. Why do you suppose that is?

The Bible can and will be used in anyway people want it to be, because it is ambiguous, and so much so that you can legitimize any belief you want. I can start a church of slavery if I wanted to and use the Bible as my "authority."

The problem is that people allow this ancient book, written by primitive minds, to be their "AUTHORITY."

You cannot keep a spin doctor with an agenda from spinning things in a way that will support his agenda. That is true with any writing. I will give you an example: I was once asked to sit on a committee that was formed for the sole purpose of revising a particular churches constitution. They felt the need to make some revisions in order to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits. Background checks for childcare workers and that sort of thing. Just extra precautionary measures. The way it worked was we would sate the desired changes and then we would give it to the lawyer for final screening. He told us that proper wording was imperative because ambiguous wording could be interpreted a number of ways in a court of law. Through that process I was amazed at how difficult it was to word something in a way that could make the statement tamper proof. The fact is, much of the bible was written in a way which made it a sitting duck for spin doctors. There will always be dishonest men with an agenda who are experts at spinning what others say.

However, your God is omniscient and omnipotent, therefore he could have found a way to make it concise without ambiguity. If he couldn't then we cannot call him omniscient or omnipotent can we?

[Zetesis Apistia]

They ALL can legitimize their faith by the Bible because of its ambiguity. That is why we have 30,000 denomination in Christianity alone. This shows that someone was not a great teacher, because he left the Bible completely ambiguous.

Yes, David Koresh and Jim Jones were Christians and they used the Bible to legitimize their faith. They used the Bible in their sermons to prove to people that their message came from the Bible.

Our own U.S. constitution cannot be agreed upon by very educated supreme court justices when it comes to interpretation. Why do you suppose that is?

The Bible can and will be used in anyway people want it to be, because it is ambiguous, and so much so that you can legitimize any belief you want. I can start a church of slavery if I wanted to and use the Bible as my "authority."

The problem is that people allow this ancient book, written by primitive minds, to be their "AUTHORITY."

You cannot keep a spin doctor with an agenda from spinning things in a way that will support his agenda. That is true with any writing. I will give you an example: I was once asked to sit on a committee that was formed for the sole purpose of revising a particular churches constitution. They felt the need to make some revisions in order to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits. Background checks for childcare workers and that sort of thing. Just extra precautionary measures. The way it worked was we would sate the desired changes and then we would give it to the lawyer for final screening. He told us that proper wording was imperative because ambiguous wording could be interpreted a number of ways in a court of law. Through that process I was amazed at how difficult it was to word something in a way that could make the statement tamper proof. The fact is, much of the bible was written in a way which made it a sitting duck for spin doctors. There will always be dishonest men with an agenda who are experts at spinning what others say.

However, your God is omniscient and omnipotent, therefore he could have found a way to make it concise without ambiguity. If he couldn't then we cannot call him omniscient or omnipotent can we?

The thing is, he made it ambiguous on purpose. The enemies of the gospel would spin things like, "and Jesus drank water because he was thirsty". So making everything simple wouldn't matter.

[Divine Insight]

The thing is, he made it ambiguous on purpose. The enemies of the gospel would spin things like, "and Jesus drank water because he was thirsty". So making everything simple wouldn't matter.

Any God who would have allowed his own religion (his message to humanity) to have become so convoluted and cut-throat against it's very own self could neither be intelligent nor righteous.

The God of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, and all other protesting forms of Christianity necessarily has to be totally false man-made myths.

The God of Abraham would need to be the stupidest entity that ever existed. Either that, or he would need to be extremely evil and untrustworthy.

Neither of these facts make any sense. Therefore these religions are clearly false.

These are nothing more than man made hate cults, and they do indeed hate each other as well as hating everyone else who doesn't cower down to their extreme ignorance and immoral bigotries.

This Abrahamic religion is a cancer on humanity and an embarrassment to the human species.

[10CC]

Nah that one missed the target. Wanna try again?

I doubt that I could hit your target with a bucket of paint.

Do I need to ask easier questions of you? You seem to be struggling with the ones I do ask.

[A Troubled Man]

The thing is, he made it ambiguous on purpose. The enemies of the gospel would spin things like, "and Jesus drank water because he was thirsty". So making everything simple wouldn't matter.

That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, God deliberately makes His word ambiguous on purpose, not to get a clear and concise message to the people, but instead because He doesn't want His enemies to spin the message.

Where the hell is the logic in that?

[pokeegeorge]

[Replying to A Troubled Man]

Ambiguity is not the purpose of God. But our lack of understanding understandably makes most important things ambiguous.

All parables point to this truth or that, but only the discerner or the one told outright what the parable means will find it.

All spiritual mysteries are called such, and the Mystery of Christian Salvation offered is said to be one. To be 'reborn' is a mystery, to eat Jesus' flesh and blood is a mystery. Many fell away at hearing the latter, and many like thee will pervert the meaning to suit their taste.

If you don't like the taste, just say so. Any more expounding is just subjective opinion. A true investigator will investigate. Most will just go with what they already think they know.

[pokeegeorge]

[Replying to post 168 by 10CC]



n/t repeat.