I'm sorry you feel that way snakespit. Truly, I am.

Clearly, they weren't like me. I'm not a gullible dope.

I won't feel stupid at all, because there is no pit, and there are no feelings after death.
Thank you for confirming your pathetic inability to cease using circular reasoning.

How about something that's ficticious and absurd as shown by the Gospels themselves? How about something that exposes the Gospels for what they are: embellished, tweaked, hacked stories designed not to represent truth but to fake events for political pull?

Mark and Luke have Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a colt:

Quote:

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

Quote:

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

John has Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey (which 4forums will censor):

Quote:

John 12:14 And Jesus, when he had found a young XXX, sat thereon.

But Matthew -- poor, dumb Matthew -- has Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a colt and a donkey, at the same time.

Quote:

Matthew 21:5-7 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an XXX, and a colt the foal of an XXX. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them And brought the XXX, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.

For most people, I'm sure that'd take practice. But Jesus being God and all...

No more than one of these descriptions can be true. What makes the most sense is that, at the very least, Matthew -- poor, dumb Matthew -- misread Zechariah and, in his zeal to make Jesus the fulfillment of prophecy, concocted this ridiculous story.

And this shows what the Gospels are: stories, perhaps with nuggets of truth, that have been either written originally or rewritten to allege that Jesus was the Messiah.

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

I didn't ask you to feel sorry for me, and I don't feel sorry for myself. It would be nice if you and Easy could understand.

__________________
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do too (if they have a gun)". -Eddie Izzard

Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. -Milton

Originally Posted by Easyrider: As for fiction, once again I challenge you to show me one significant person, place, or event in the Gospels that is ficticious. All I want is ONE (1) - just your best ONE.


This was your BEST ONE???

Although most Christians would rather not concern themselves with some of the more minute details of Jesus’ life reported in the New Testament, when challenged to defend the inerrancy of The Book that reports the beautiful story of Jesus, there are times when such details require our attention. Such is the case with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem during the final week of His life. People who wear the name of Christ enjoy reading of the crowd’s cries of “Hosanna!,” and meditating upon the fact that Jesus went to Jerusalem to bring salvation to the world. Skeptics, on the other hand, read of this event and cry, “Contradiction!” Allegedly, Matthew misunderstood Zechariah’s prophecy, and thus contradicted what Mark, Luke, and John wrote regarding Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem (see van den Heuvel, 2003). Matthew recorded the following:

Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ” So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:1-9, emp. added).

Skeptics are quick to point out that the other gospel writers mention only “one colt,” which the disciples acquired, and upon which Jesus rode. Mark recorded that Jesus told the two disciples that they would find “a colt tied, on which no one has sat” (11:2). The disciples then “went their way, and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it…. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and He sat on it” (Mark 11:4,7, emp. added; cf. Luke 19:29-38; John 12:12-16). Purportedly, “[t]he author of Matthew contradicts the author of Mark on the number of animals Jesus is riding into Jerusalem” (“Bible Contradictions,” 2003). Can these accounts be reconciled, or is this a legitimate contradiction?

First, notice that Mark, Luke, and John did not say that only one donkey was obtained for Jesus, or that only one donkey traveled up to Jerusalem with Jesus. The writers simply mentioned one donkey (the colt). They never denied 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 Joe and Bob who came to your house on Thursday night, but the next day while at work you mention to a fellow employee that Joe was at your house Thursday night (and you excluded Bob from the conversation for whatever reason), would you be lying? Of course not. You simply stated the fact that Joe was at your house. Similarly, when Mark, Luke, and John stated that a donkey was present, Matthew merely supplemented what the other writers recorded.

Consider the other parts of the story that have been supplemented by one or more of the synoptic writers.

Matthew was the only gospel writer to include Zechariah’s prophecy.
Mark and Luke included the question that the owners’ of the colt asked the disciples when they went to get the donkey for Jesus. Matthew excluded this information in his account.

As one can see, throughout this story (and the rest of the gospel accounts for that matter), the writers consistently supplemented each other’s accounts. Such supplementation should be expected only from independent sources—some of whom were eyewitnesses. It is very possible that Matthew was specific in his numbering of the donkeys, due to the likelihood that he was an eyewitness of Jesus’ final entrance into Jerusalem. (Bear in mind, Matthew was one of the twelve apostles; Mark and Luke were not.)

Second, regarding the accusation that Matthew wrote of two donkeys, instead of just one, because he allegedly misunderstood Zechariah’s prophecy, it first must be noted that Zechariah’s prophecy actually mentions two donkeys (even though only one is stated as transporting the King to Jerusalem). The prophet wrote: “Behold, your King is coming to you…lowly and riding on a donkey [male], a colt, the foal of a donkey [female]” (Zechariah 9:9). In this verse, Zechariah used Hebrew poetic parallelism (the balancing of thought in successive lines of poetry). The terms male donkey, colt, and foal all designate the same animal—the young donkey upon which the King (Jesus) would ride into Jerusalem (Mark 11:7). Interestingly, even though the colt was the animal of primary importance, Zechariah also mentioned that this donkey was the foal of a female donkey. One might assume that Zechariah merely was stating the obvious when mentioning the mother’s existence. However, when Matthew’s gospel is taken into account, the elusive female donkey of Zechariah 9:9 is brought to light. Both the foal and the female donkey were brought to Christ at Mount Olivet, and both made the trip to Jerusalem. Since the colt never had been ridden, or even sat upon (as stated by Mark and Luke), its dependence upon its mother is very understandable (as implied by Matthew). The journey to Jerusalem, with multitudes of people in front of and behind Jesus and the donkeys (Matthew 21:8-9), obviously would have been much easier for the colt if the mother donkey were led nearby down the same road.

The focal point of the skeptic’s proposed problem to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is how He could have ridden on two donkeys at once. Since Matthew 21:7 states, “They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them” (NKJV), some have concluded that Matthew intended for his reader to understand Jesus as being some kind of stunt rider—proceeding to Jerusalem as more of a clown than a king. Such reasoning is preposterous. Matthew could have meant that Jesus rode the colt while the other donkey walked along with them. Instead of saying, “He rode one donkey and brought the other with Him,” the writer simply wrote that He rode “them” into Jerusalem. If a horse-owner came home to his wife and informed her that he had just ridden the horses home a few minutes ago from a nearby town, no one would accuse him of literally riding both horses at once. He merely was indicating to his wife that he literally rode one horse home, while the other one trotted alongside or behind him.

A second possible solution to this “problem” is that Jesus did ride both donkeys, but He did so at different times. However unlikely this possibility might seem to some, nothing in Zechariah’s prophecy or the gospel accounts forbids such. Perhaps the colt found the triumphant procession that began on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives near the towns of Bethphage and Bethany (about 1¾ miles from Jerusalem—Pfeiffer, 1979, p. 197) too strenuous. Zechariah prophesied that Jesus would ride upon a colt (9:9), which Jesus did. He also easily could have ridden on the colt’s mother part of the way.

Perhaps a more likely answer to the question, “How could Jesus sit ‘on them’ (donkeys) during His march to Jerusalem?,” is that the second “them” of Matthew 21:7 may not be referring to the donkeys at all. Greek scholar A.T. Robertson believed that the second “them” (Greek αυτων) refers to the garments that the disciples laid on the donkeys, and not to the donkeys themselves. In commenting on Matthew 21:7 he stated: “The garments thrown on the animals were the outer garments (himatia), Jesus ‘took his seat’ (epekathisen) upon the garments” (1930, 1:167). Skeptics do not want to allow for such an interpretation. When they read of “them” at the end of Matthew 21:7 (in the New King James Version), skeptics feel that the antecedent of this “them” must be the previous “them” (the donkeys). Critics like John Kesler (2003) also appeal to the other synoptic accounts (where Jesus is said to have sat upon “it”—the colt), and conclude that Matthew, like Mark and Luke, surely meant that Jesus sat upon the donkeys, and not just the disciples’ clothes (which were on the donkeys). What critics like Kesler fail to acknowledge, however, is that in the Greek, Matthew’s word order is different than that of Mark and Luke. Whereas Mark and Luke indicated that the disciples put their clothes on the donkey, Matthew’s word order reads: “they put on the donkeys clothes.” The American Standard Version, among others (KJV, RSV, and NASB) is more literal in its translation of this verse than is the NKJV. It indicates that the disciples “brought the XXX, and the colt, and put on them their garments; and he sat thereon” (Matthew 21:7, ASV; cf. RSV, KJV, NASB). When Matthew wrote that Jesus sat “on them,” he easily could have intended for his readers to understand this “them” to refer to the clothes, and not to the donkeys. If the disciples’ clothes were placed on both donkeys (as Matthew indicated), and then Jesus mounted the colt, one logically could conclude that Jesus sat on the clothes (which were placed upon the colt).

One of the fundamental principles of nearly any study or investigation is that of being “innocent until proven guilty.” Any person or historical document is to be presumed internally consistent until it can be shown conclusively that it is contradictory. This approach has been accepted throughout literary history, and still is accepted today in most venues. The accepted way to critique any ancient writing is to assume innocence, not guilt. If we believe the Bible is innocent until proven guilty, then any possible answer should be good enough to nullify the charge of error. (This principle does not allow for just any answer, but any possible answer.) When a person studies the Bible and comes across passages that may seem contradictory at first glance (like the verses explained in this article—Matthew 21:1-9, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:29-38), he does not necessarily have to pin down the exact solution in order to show their truthfulness. The Bible student need only show the possibility of a harmonization among passages that appear to conflict, in order to negate the force of the charge that a Bible contradiction really exists. We act by this principle in the courtroom, in our treatment of various historical books, as well as in everyday-life situations. It is only fair, then, that we show the Bible the same courtesy by exhausting the search for possible harmony among passages before pronouncing one or more accounts false.

Apologetics Press - A Donkey and Her Colt

There is no contradiction. Certainly nothing that's been proven to be ficticious. And you certainly missed the bigger picture. JESUS DID RIDE INTO JERUSALEM. Just like HE DID RISE FROM THE DEAD. You miss the larger truths when you go hunting for alleged discrepancies.

Just another exposee on how you haven't done your homework in looking into the matter. You probably got this from some other skeptic or their website that is also steeped in folly.

__________________
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." (NASA Astronomer Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p. 116.)

Maybe if they got some sleep (both of them up at 3-4-5 in the morning, sometimes earlier, in addition to posting throughout the day? What's with that???). How about a life??

(Sorry, but I don't consider breaking a record for the sheer number of whacked-out religious, insulting, irrational posts on a forum warrants an accolade, so much as intervention. If there's anyone in these nutcases' lives who would care enough about them to do so, which I doubt.)

__________________
"He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave." -- William Drummond

"Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it." -- Mikhail Bakunin

"I don't go to mythical places with strange men." -- Douglas Adams

Silly electrolyte, it's very clear that Matthew just miswrote. What he MEANT to say was that Jesus sat on HIS A$$ (not AN A$$) and that where he sat his A$$ was on a colt.

__________________
"War is at best barbarism... Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation."
~Gen. William T. Sherman

The problem with you isn't me (or Arch). You just don't recognize the truth when you see it or when we give it to you. Arch and I have been telling you the same thing about Jesus. Pastors will tell you the same things. The Gospels are telling you the correct story of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Epistles back it all up. That is the truth. That's what is written and that's what I've always attested to myself.

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing..." 1 Corinthians 1:18.

Now, there may be two things you haven't done yet.

(1) Repent of your sins and ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior for the remission of your sins.

(2) Surrender your life to Christ and ask him to be the Lord of your life.

Most people don't do # 2, and many don't do # 1. Ask any Pastor worth his salt and he'll tell you the same things. But you won't hear # 2 very often. Unfortunately it's not well understood by novices. You think I'm making that up?

Total Surrender to God – Learning the Peace of True Surrender
By August of that year, I was emotionally out of control and felt I had nothing left inside. I had no clue who I was or where to turn and in the process I was hurting everyone around me. Sometime during the third week of that month, I realized how empty and out of control I was. One night I poured my heart out in true surrender to God, telling Him all that I felt, all the things I had been doing, and how I had messed things up trying to do everything my own way. I asked for forgiveness and promised Him that if I lived another day, every breath I took, every day I lived would belong to Him. I could not do it my way anymore -- God needed to be in charge.

Since that night, my life has been in an almost continuous state of change and growth. I am learning -- step by step -- to truly trust God and allow Him to have control of my life, our home, relationships, finances, etc. I am learning what love, joy, and peace truly mean.

Total Surrender to God

Go ahead. Start calling some pastors. Ask them to tell you about surrendering your life and will to Christ/God/The Holy Spirit.

Do these things and I'll bet you your life will change, and then you can tell me how stupid I supposedly am.

God is ready to come and make your day. I think he's just waiting on you.

__________________
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." (NASA Astronomer Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p. 116.)

I got one! Get the net, it's a big one!

It's just the first one that came to mind. I don't spend ridiculous amounts of time memorizing Bible verses. On the other hand, you had to look up a response, and you took my bait hook, line, and sinker.

Quote:

Interestingly, even though the colt was the animal of primary importance, Zechariah also mentioned that this donkey was the foal of a female donkey. One might assume that Zechariah merely was stating the obvious when mentioning the mother’s existence. However, when Matthew’s gospel is taken into account, the elusive female donkey of Zechariah 9:9 is brought to light. Both the foal and the female donkey were brought to Christ at Mount Olivet, and both made the trip to Jerusalem.

But this is inconsistent with the other accounts. Saying that Zechariah's description of the event makes sense only when the prophecy has been fulfilled is the same argument behind Nostradamus' "prophecies." If they can only be made sense of after the event they allegedly prophesy, then they're not prophecies at all.

But your own source utterly fails in refuting this point:

Quote:

The focal point of the skeptic’s proposed problem to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is how He could have ridden on two donkeys at once. Since Matthew 21:7 states, “They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them” (NKJV), some have concluded that Matthew intended for his reader to understand Jesus as being some kind of stunt rider—proceeding to Jerusalem as more of a clown than a king. Such reasoning is preposterous. [bold added]

No it's not. It's the result of a plain word reading of the literal translation:

Quote:

6And the disciples having gone and having done as Jesus commanded them, 7brought the XXX and the colt, and did put on them their garments, and set [him] upon them;

(Young's Literal Translation)

PLAIN READING. No apologetics. No twisted logic. No desperate attempts to concoct absurdity and contradiction. No attempts to crowbar interpretations into the writing. A PLAIN READING.

Quote:

Matthew could have meant that Jesus rode the colt while the other donkey walked along with them. Instead of saying, “He rode one donkey and brought the other with Him,” the writer simply wrote that He rode “them” into Jerusalem.

No, the writer did not merely do this. The writer stated that the disciples dressed both animals for riding and placed Jesus upon them.

Quote:

If a horse-owner came home to his wife and informed her that he had just ridden the horses home a few minutes ago from a nearby town, no one would accuse him of literally riding both horses at once. He merely was indicating to his wife that he literally rode one horse home, while the other one trotted alongside or behind him.

But he wouldn't say that he rode upon both of them, or that he placed himself upon both of them for the ride.

Quote:

A second possible solution to this “problem” is that Jesus did ride both donkeys, but He did so at different times. However unlikely this possibility might seem to some, nothing in Zechariah’s prophecy or the gospel accounts forbids such.

"So if we stretch the reading beyond what it plainly says and contort enough to avoid contradictions, we can find a solution to this problem." How honest of them to almost admit that this is a problem. How idiotic it is to pretend that Jesus' being placed upon them before going forth means that he switched during the trip.

Quote:

Perhaps a more likely answer to the question, “How could Jesus sit ‘on them’ (donkeys) during His march to Jerusalem?,” is that the second “them” of Matthew 21:7 may not be referring to the donkeys at all. Greek scholar A.T. Robertson believed that the second “them” (Greek αυτων) refers to the garments that the disciples laid on the donkeys, and not to the donkeys themselves.

Your source continues by mocking skeptics as using less-literal translations, but I've quoted Young's Literal, which says what I've said it says. In order to accept this tortured logic, we'd have to recognize that the two animals were dressed for riding, yet only one was allegedly ridden. Why would the disciples dress both at first? Again, this is not consistent with the other Gospel accounts.

And let the standard apologetics roll:

Quote:

One of the fundamental principles of nearly any study or investigation is that of being “innocent until proven guilty.”

Bull****. This isn't a murder trial. The burden isn't "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." The burden is to show which situation is more likely. The fact that Matthew screwed up multiple times, and this is but one example. The conclusion that the book of Matthew is at least in part an embellished fairy tale is more likely than not.

Quote:

Any person or historical document is to be presumed internally consistent until it can be shown conclusively that it is contradictory.

Also bull****. If I give you a book that you haven't read, you have no reason to make a presumption either way. Moreover, the Bible can and has been shown to be internally inconsistent.

Quote:

If we believe the Bible is innocent until proven guilty, then any possible answer should be good enough to nullify the charge of error.

But this is the not the approach taken in any other example (besides, you know, creationism). This approach starts with the answer and strains to find some explanation for it instead of examining the evidence and applying reason. This is standard religious hackery that doesn't pass for reasoned methodology.

Quote:

The Bible student need only show the possibility of a harmonization among passages that appear to conflict, in order to negate the force of the charge that a Bible contradiction really exists. We act by this principle in the courtroom, in our treatment of various historical books, as well as in everyday-life situations.

No, we don't. In criminal trials, the burden of proof is different than in civil trials. This is not a murder trial. In civil trials, in history, and in everyday life, we base our conclusions on the preponderance of the evidence.

Quote:

It is only fair, then, that we show the Bible the same courtesy by exhausting the search for possible harmony among passages before pronouncing one or more accounts false.

Oh, how I wish you would show the Bible the same treatment that sane people give to every other aspect of their lives.

I can't say I'm convinced. It looks like the Gospel writers wrote a story that included portions of Old Testament prophecies in order to make an argument that Jesus was the Messiah. Jewish scholars who understood the prophecies and actually lived at the time didn't think anything of it.

Also not convinced, not even by your yelling. As I stated before, you can't even produce one consistent, non-contradictory narrative of Jesus' death and alleged resurrection that includes all of the details of them as described in the Bible.

You took the bait. You used the first applicable Google rebuttal that switches back and forth between which translations are the best and accuses skeptics of picking and choosing. You support the arguments that ignore what the writer actually said so that you can justify your belief. You use the reasoning of someone who thinks that we can presume that items are perfect even before we know anything about them.

Or I was introduced to years ago it by a former evangelical Christian who realized that he spent his early years steeped in folly, just like you are now.

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Refutation of Electrolyte's argument: Perhaps a more likely answer to the question, “How could Jesus sit ‘on them’ (donkeys) during His march to Jerusalem?,” is that the second “them” of Matthew 21:7 may not be referring to the donkeys at all. Greek scholar A.T. Robertson believed that the second “them” (Greek αυτων) refers to the garments that the disciples laid on the donkeys, and not to the donkeys themselves.

Electrolyte: Your source continues by mocking skeptics as using less-literal translations, but I've quoted Young's Literal, which says what I've said it says. In order to accept this tortured logic, we'd have to recognize that the two animals were dressed for riding, yet only one was allegedly ridden. Why would the disciples dress both at first? Again, this is not consistent with the other Gospel accounts.

That was the highlight of your whole post! And it didn't adequately address the point made. All it showed was that one scholar had one opinion and another had another opinion. YOU DIDN'T PROVE OR DISPROVE ANYTHING!

Sorry, Electrolyte.

You're full of malarkey.

I'm not buying your twisting of what was presented, nor your mind-numbed rejoinders. The original refutation of your folly stands.

When you wind up in the Pit, you'll know it was due to mindless folly like you just presented.

Did he ride into Jerusalem, Einstein?

__________________
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." (NASA Astronomer Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p. 116.)

The minute god makes himself known to me, I will be more than glad to believe. For me to repent my "sins" and surrender to a god I don't even believe exists would be pointless. I can't just take your word, I find your evidence lacking and bordering on the bizarre.

__________________
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do too (if they have a gun)". -Eddie Izzard

Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. -Milton

One needn't ask that I feel compassion for their spiritual condition for my feeling it to be either justified or sincere. Whether or not you appreciate it at all has no impact on the sincere sorrow I feel for all atheists and secularists spiritual condition. And someday you will understand exactly what I mean.

Not only that but you will mourn for your rejection of God on that day as you will clearly see with perfect sight all of the times He reached out to you in your life before giving you over to the hardness of your heart and withdrawing from even trying to reach you anymore.

Actually, it did; you're just having trouble because you have trouble reading.

From Young's Literal Translation:

Luke 16:35
and they brought it unto Jesus, and having cast their garments upon the colt, they did set Jesus upon it.

Mark 11:7
And they brought the colt unto Jesus, and did cast upon it their garments, and he sat upon it,

Matthew 21:6-7
And the disciples having gone and having done as Jesus commanded them,
brought the XXX and the colt, and did put on them their garments, and set [him] upon them;

o/~One of these things is not like the others / one of these things just doesn't belong o/~

This comparison shows how the writing is structured: Luke and Mark both reference the garments but use the colt as the antecedent to the pronoun. The wording of Mark parallels the wording of Matthew, referencing the garmets after referencing the colt but still using the colt as the antecedent. In order to justify Matthew's reading as this "scholar" suggests, we have to accept that Matthew breaks with typical writing of the era (as demonstrated by Mark) in order to switch antecedents mid-sentence with no clarification. We then have to accept that Matthew decides that clarification is necessary in the following verse when he mentions the disciples' laying their garments "in the way"; in other words, we have to accept that Matthew executes a phantom switch of antecedents and then continues as if such a switch never took place. This is laughable at best, and plainly ridiculous: an example of the tortured logic I identified in my previous post.

The highlight of my post is that a plain, non-biased reading produces a clear, absurd contradiction that can more reasonably be explained by "Matthew"'s writing not for recording history accurately but for concocting fulfillment of prophecy.

Ah, there's that loving Christian attitude we've all come to know and cherish.

But it beats the pants off of your rubbish. If mine is mindless and still whips yours, what's the best description for yours? Ah, I've got it: "indicative of what religion often does to intelligence."

There's no telling, not that it matters. I don't presume that an ancient book of allegory and politically motivated embellishments is true by default until someone can prove otherwise beyond the shadow of a doubt (even after such proof has been provided). Only dunces do that.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

But if God is all-knowing, or even just knows me, then God knows exactly what will convince me. Also, he allegedly knows that I'm not lying when I say what snakespit has said about himself, that I look for truth. Why has God failed to convince me of His existence? If -- as many fundies would allege -- it is because I am a stubborn fool, then God made me as a stubborn fool, or at least as someone who would become one at the point I rejected theism. If God truly loves me for who I am and not for the beliefs I profess, then God would not punish me for living as I am as long as it is in way that does not hurt others. My atheism hurts nobody; even fundies would have to admit that my atheism actively hurts nobody. Why, then, is atheism induced by being true to my own God-produced and God-loved self punishable by an eternity of hellfire and torture?

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

God doesn't love your rebellion against him and he doesn't love you mocking Christ. He's offered you eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. For you to mock and deny Christ and his followers no doubt angers God. But there is still time for you to repent of your many sins and be saved.

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"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." (NASA Astronomer Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, p. 116.)

You didn't answer my questions. At all. Be specific.

You also didn't respond to my latest post regarding Bible contradictions.

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.