Jonathan Davis

The bible says God created the universe through Jesus, that Jesus is the exact imprint of his nature, and then became flesh. He always was, but was given a name that had been prepared for him from the beginning, with hints even recorded in Genesis 1 and 3. Genesis 1, in the beginning God spoke saying, "Let there be light." For the first time in all physical history, God -a transcendent and all powerful being- spoke to a blop of dark potential matter and mass that had a form like water saying, "Let there be Light." God not only made his presence directly known to a super cosmic void, the making of his presence at all brought a type of energy and force that the material blob had never experienced before.. sonoluminescense is cool here because we can use it's principles as a potential analog. Genesis 3, the curse to satan that through the woman's "seed," which later passages expand the meaning of "seed" to include reproductive material like sperm, not just lineage, which means in Genesis 3, seed could be seen as an oocyte by modern understandings. God knew the specific oocyte that he would use for his body way back in the garden. Redemption was his mission not his purpose. His purpose is to reveal the full glory of God; which is done through the redemption and restoration purchased through the cross. It sounds like im just trying to argue a small thing, but the distinction that Jesus's purpose was redemption vs Jesus's purpose is to reveal the full glory of God is important.

Does the kid exist without the parent and grandparents or outside of any nation or people group? Im not dodging anything... you are just refusing to see your own biases. "No" is an answer all the same. God is allowed to tell people, "no, I will not heal that, but I will help you through it," and it doesn't make him evil. Even those who get healed still have to die eventually.

@LogosFunction Soul building an infant with cancer? You are dodging again, and apologising for a God who does not answer prayer... apart from a few lottery winners. If he never answered then the convo would be different. You claimed he did.

A Christian instantly blocked me after telling me: "there are plenty of historical eyewitness accounts other than the Bible that prove Jesus Christ did exist and was crucified". There are not plenty. There is not even one. Not one. The poor guy is building his life on a lie.

Historians who take the 62 ad for Acts also tend to the position that Matthew and Mark were compiled during the late 40s to mid/late 50s... Matthew is Levi who was a direct apostle.. even if the words found in the bible today are from scribes or people writing down the words as Matthew stood in a temple and preached, matthew is still the author and still a direct witness. Mark is the direct teachings of Peter who was an eyewitness. John is from the apostle who was an eyewitness. Paul encountered Jesus after the ascension despite being hostile and a persecutor of the church, even overseeing the death of Stephen.

@LogosFunction @i_am_a_pfhb You already presented the argument for dating acts earlier. It ends in 62 ad with Paul under house arrest and makes no mention of his death. Either way, it doesn’t solve your problem of zero first hand accounts of Jesus’ life.

@EclipseNine @i_am_a_pfhb As were the disciples present during the events of Jesus, but you demand sources from the jews or romans affirming Jesus rose from the dead while remaining neutral and not christian..

@LogosFunction @i_am_a_pfhb Rome’s fight against Carthage: another blatant lie. Polybius covered the Punic wars and was present with Scipio for the fall of Carthage in 146 BC. We have tons of contemporary evidence for these wars from Greek and Roman sources. What we’re missing are Carthaginian sources.

You are arguing against God's management, not his existence. You can't comprehend how humans can suffer while God is good and you reject any idea of soul building, so you reject God as your God, you don't deny his existence on a fundamental level. Jesus, God in the flesh, came down and suffered as a human too while pointing out greater sufferings and hypocrisy from the religious leaders, all the while telling his disciples to expect more suffering when they accept him and believe in him. You would be a fool then to say God doesn't exist just because child suffering exists. You just dont like that child suffering exists, and in your emotions you run away from the only one who gives meaning and restoration from the problem, even if the problem doesn't get resolved or resolves unfavorably.

@LogosFunction ... It took me at least 10 years to do it, after 50 years of faith. Can you?

Thats a fringe position not the historical consensus- that mark and matthew are dated after Acts. This late dating of Matthew and Mark is from people who reject the principle of prophecy and insist that the information in those gospels could have only been known about after the fact. That is dogmatic, not factual. The opening prologue of Luke is that the gospel message had already been circulating in numerous ways before, but that he had witnessed many of the early members and was writing a recounting based on what he had heard. In all this, the apostle John was still alive and lived to the 2nd century.

@LogosFunction @i_am_a_pfhb The author of acts couldn’t have been familiar with Matthew and Mark, since both are dated to a decade after acts. Best you can argue is that they were familiar with the third hand accounts repeated by the anonymous authors of Matt and Mark, knew the authors, or were the authors

@i_am_a_pfhb Or I'm humble to admit that maybe I dont know how the universe works? A judge isnt morally evil for convicting a criminal? And if the consequences of convicting a criminal plays out on the children of the criminal; it is not the judge who is evil for convicting the criminal

@LogosFunction It is a indictment on God's moral character. If he has all power and all love and works everything out according to his plan. You are just admitting to a God who is not worthy of worship.

God is allowed to allow consequences without being evil. God answering some prayers by healing and others by not healing is not an indictment on God's moral character. God is just to allow any of us to die at any moment by any means. It rains on the just and unjust alike. Someone who is evil is just as susceptible to their child getting cancer as a christian is. What does that tell you? Cancer in itself is not always a moral judgement from God, or that there are bigger things at play. Things like child death are a consequence and judgement for generations, not just the individual. We live in a world with increasing entropy. Jesus was the warning that time was almost up on earth and the only way off was through him. The Bible claims that Jesus himself was at the beginning of creation and was the means by which God brought the universe into existence.

@LogosFunction ... You just agreeing that "he does not give it out" and thinking that it is for "morally sufficient reasons" is not good enough. It means we have higher moral standards than your God.

The book of Acts is the first historical writings of the church written by the same author of Luke who had already been exposed to, or was aware of, the teachings and writings of Matthew & Mark. The book of Acts records the martyrdom of Stephen and James, it records the persecution of the early disciples and the house arrest of Paul before trial, but it doesnt record the deaths of Peter or Paul. That would be like a news reporter writing a report of the years 2000-2005 and not writing about the twin towers or the following invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their deaths were significant and are certainly around 64-68 AD. This means the book of Acts was likely written at least before 64 AD; and if Luke was written before Acts, and Matthew + Mark before Luke, and Paul's epistles before even those... Meanwhile evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar writings are about 100-150 years after the event? Rome's fight against the Carthaginian empire was recorded 50 years after the defeat. All this is for more short term events and dont take into account developing stories. There were messianic figures who came before Jesus and after. The difference is none of the others actually rose from the dead and the groups morphed after the death. Christianity grew and retained that Jesus was alive and leading the church through the Holy Spirit. Don't scoff at metaphysical things or entities like the Holy Spirit.

@LogosFunction @i_am_a_pfhb Whoever told you this was lying to you. Our entire understanding of history is contemporaneous accounts. The eraliest letter in the gospel is from Paul when he claims to have met Jesus’s brother. No one who wrote a single word about Jesus ever met the man.

Isnt the main teaching of Christianity though that the literal universe is corrupted (entropy) and that this physical life is not the end-all-be-all of existence, and that even if we should die in this life, we will live on in eternity with God? So why would God be evil because children die?

@LogosFunction ... In the same way, if you had found a cure for cancer, had abundant and cheaply made supplies of the cure, and dished it out by lottery, we would call you a moral monster. Your God is unable, or unwilling, or imaginary.

It's not a lottery. Healing is not always the point. Spreading the gospel and growing faith is the point and sometimes healing would hurt the faith and gospel. It's an uncomfortable truth, but life is full of uncomfortable truths. You are asking for something that if you would've actually read the bible, you would see Jesus himself declaring that these things would stop, and even when the world starts going through the final judgements from God, the world will either blame God or try to hide and protect themselves rather than repent and seek God for forgiveness... You miss the entire point of the bible that all those "biblical miracles" happened and the jews still fell out of faith and rebelled, going after pagan deities or other worldly passions and desires. But you said again yourself, you are already ready to dismiss things like miracle healings or of that nature outright. What about the story from EMS who found a girl in a flipped car thanks to a voice calling for help, only to find that the mother had been long dead and no one else was around? Heard another story about a guy who fell off a grain tower when he was younger and was laying there in a coma for about 2-3 days till he was finally found and put in the ICU where he eventually recovered. He shares about how he used to be a punk kid super anti-jesus until that day, then even though he was in a coma, conciously it felt like he was trapped in the worst sort of hell. You can match a lot of his descriptions with the condition his body was in mixed with traumatic response, but he distinctly recalls that he was suffering and suffering, but then called out to Jesus in forgiveness and to save him, and in that moment he saw a burst of light and a hand pull reach down to pull him out. It was an incredible story. I have my own. You certainly believe in things like electromagnetic fields and extra dimensions dont you?

@LogosFunction And I said "bible grade" miracles, not amazing events we cannot explain like random healings. Seas parting. Sun stopping. Bread magically appearing for 40 years. Humans whisked alive into heaven by a whirlwind. Any of these destroys my worldview. You don't have any.

The jews could have produced a body and said the disciples were lying, but more and more converted and no confession was ever drawn as to where the body went and that it was all a ruse. Personally, Jesus has come to me himself, my prayers have always been answered, and I meet people all the time who likewise say the same. Some of the greatest minds all believed in Jesus too... Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Gödel, Pasteur... Einstein didnt exactly believe in the bible or Jesus, but he wasnt an atheist or agnostic either. He was more pantheistic. I dont believe in the other myths or religions, but I do take them seriously and respectfully and dont just throw out the entire thing. What do all the polytheistic religions seem to have in common? They all center around a grand father like deity who is in charge of all the rest, there is heavy personification of human morals/characteristics and natural forces as deities themselves, and these beings revolt against a primal chaos or other form of monstrosity or spewing of bodily fluids. To me, many of these just parallel as inversions of where the bible talks about angels (son's of God), coming down to take human wives leading to the flood. "Men of renown, heroes of old" is what is described as the offspring of these "sons of God" and humans, but to me, seems pretty inline with figures like Hercules, Gilgamesh, whoever. When you have an entire nation seeing God speak from a mountain though after they just walked through the Red Sea, and even then the bible records that many fell away from belief and were ordered to be executed for worshipping the golden calf; you are moving away from mythology and legends like from the Greeks or Egyptians and you are moving into something more like a cultural memory. The bible uses heavy poetic and phonetic language at many times. Do I understand 100% of everything and do I think everything happened 100% exactly as the bible says? Not in the way you are saying, but I believe the bible is still 100% true as written. God is allowed to not be observed or seen. If he wasnt, he would not be God.

@LogosFunction You need to grow up and stop believing in ancient stories, myths, and pretend that they are historical. You do not do it for any other myths from any other religion, do you?

No, that is factually untrue. Most history is recorded 100+ years after the events. The oral preachings of the apostles was real time, and their preachings and letters got preserved in the new testament as the gospels and epistles. You saying "these people never knew Jesus" is a fringe take, not fact.

@LogosFunction @i_am_a_pfhb We know about history because people wrote about it WHILE IT HAPPENED. Jesus doesn’t clear that bar. Not one friend, not one enemy, wrote a single word about Jesus. It’s all from decades after his death from people who never met him.

Are you not projecting? You are mad because events happened long ago when videos weren't around and they dont happen today, yet even if they did happen today you would say its fake? Astrophysicists and cosmologists have already speculated and answered the day the sun stood still as an atmospheric event or a grand eclipse. There are other mythological legends from other cultures about a day where the sun had an abnormality which lends strength to the seed of truth that the day of Joshua could've happened. You arent reading how biased and circular you are yourself. Just read a story this morning of a 9yr old girl with brain cancer who just had scans that show 0 brain cancer after heavy prayers and requests to God. These things do happen, but you don't believe them all the same because you preclude all supernatural as simply that which science has yet to explain or superstitions.

@LogosFunction ... So, over to you... where is the video of God turning a wooden rod into a snake, eating other snakes, and then turning back into a rod? I cannot continue, it is like arguing with a child about Santa. Or that Harry Potter isn't real.

Why? Because someone told you all that is impossible and you are foolish for believing it did, or just because you don't personally understand how it could have happened and you dont accept any explanations because it would contradict the previous point that someone told you it's silly to believe it? A being brought the entire universe into existence and made life on earth meaningful and significant, but he cant do any of the above because that's too far...

@LogosFunction "religious nature" No, it is the supernatural world, the fantasy stories. I do not believe the sun stopped for Joshua. Or seas parted. Or bread fell from heaven for 40 years. Or that God birthed his Son through a virgin girl. Or that a raised Christ floated up through clouds.

Do you deny the passages where Jesus clearly said he was speaking in parables so that those who were hard of hearts would not understand? Jesus wasn't being unclear, they certainly picked up on what Jesus was saying to a point they try to stone him... but prophecy needs to be fulfilled. Matthew 13:10-11, 13-15 [10] Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” [11] And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. [13] This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. [14] Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “‘“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” [15] For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’

Nobody rejected Jesus because He was unclear.

I had supposed it was oral legends passed down through Noah's kids and their wives onto their children and grandchildren and then finally written down later. Being that the entirety of Enoch has clear parts where writers start to go off the deep end with fantasy and the book of the watchers was revered but not quite considered divine inspired, I've usually left it at that. It is very metal indeed. But as Paul also chimed in through 1 Corinthians, we will even judge angels. Nothing is more metal then Jesus coming down on his white horse to Armageddon

Just at a glance, attributing the book to a guy who suddenly disappeared before the flood doesn't leave me with much confidence that he wrote anything down, much less anything that would have survived for 2800 years. So, that's out. Now we have a different Enoch. But he's not identified as separate from the Enoch, seventh from Adam? Sketchy. Now Jude itself was almost not accepted into the canon, short as it was, written by a brother of Jesus, because he cited Enoch? Highly sus. 🤨 But still, so metal! "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage."

The Book of Enoch is trending again. Every time disclosure files drop, Christians start sharing it like it belongs next to Romans. It does not. Your Bible has 66 books. The men who bled for that canon knew exactly what they were doing when they left Enoch out. Read what is in your Bible before you chase what is not.

People dont realize that Enoch has different parts that are not all equal. The first parts of Enoch, "The book of the Watchers" and I believe a little bit more, were found among the dead sea scrolls even and are very old, as in close to Job and Genesis old. Jude quotes from this first book.

@Biblicalman Only bit that matters to me is the bit Jude quoted, and that just because it's so metal.

@i_am_a_pfhb You dont have testimony for almost all of history then. You just reject the bible because you are biased against the religious nature behind it. You are revealing your own ignorance more then you are accurately dunking on anyone else.

... I guess what has happened is that the few short sentences by Tacitus and Josephus mentioning Christ/Christians 70-80 years later have grown into being "eye witness accounts", in the same way all the rest of the bible's fantasy stories grew with the telling.

@EmagnetTim No not really... Because Adam sinned, sins and death spread to all, but God reduced the lifespans of men because of the evils of human hearts and the ability for us to become corrupted

Because of Adams sin God reduced the life span of man but Adam who ate the apple lived for 930 years🤧

Do you feel that time is speeding up? That things are changing rapidly fast all over the earth and universe, in a way that seems unique to our current times?