Nope, he’s the specialist. What does he specialize in? I don’t know, I just know that I had to get my doctor to refer me to see him, and he was the only one who handled my neck injury. As for amutees, that is false, as I have heard stories, just recently. But to say that’s more of a miracle than what happened to my neck to me is a load, but whatever. But how many chiropractors does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, you just have to come back on tuesdays and thurdays for the next three months.
gobear- x-rays of my whiplash injury? Well, I can’t really say that my neck movement could be seen on an x-ray. But my friends know it’s true, and I know it’s true, so what proof do I need? If it’s medical proof, then study John Lake, as it is documented. I use him because he was close to where I live. But then people will show documents, and others will find things wrong with it. I guess I could get the records from the meeting with Dr. Sweeting, but I never went back to him again, so do you want me to prove I had limited movement of my neck?
[quote] Originally posted by Svt4Him Nope, he’s the specialist. What does he specialize in? I don’t know, I just know that I had to get my doctor to refer me to see him, and he was the only one who handled my neck injury.
[quote]
Did Dr. Sweeting deem this as a miracle? Did any other? I fail to see what good it’s going to do to call him unless you’ve released your records and it’s no longer considered privileged information. If you haven’t what are we supposed to gain by calling him? You mention to gobear to seek out John Lake for medical proof. Did he specifically deem your case a miracle? And is this John G. Lake as in John G. Lake and his healing ministries? If not, what cite are we to look for?
Cite please? And the key word we are looking for is authentication.
BTW, I tell ya what, Svt4Him, a broken neck and paralysis such as what Christopher Reeve went though would qualify as something on par with an amputee in my humble book of medical miracles. What was yours? “Well, I couldn‘t rotate my neck like I normally could, but some specialist suggested putting me to sleep so he could crack it [whatever that means], and low and behold, I was able to rotate it normally again before the doctor’s procedure.” So it is a load on someone’s behalf. Yep, another miracle, folks, on par with the rest of ‘em, if I’d ever heard one. I’m surprised you’re still walking to this day there Svt4Him. Think you‘ll continue to show progress or have you fully recovered now?
I graduated high school in Springfield, MO. That’s the homebase of the large pentacostal church known as the Assemblies of God. I had a friend who was an AofG’er, and she once offered to me as “proof” of heaven an article in some tabloid about hearing the voices of angels from a black hole. Not only did she believe this, but the minister believed it and had mentioned it in his sermon.
Now, that’s looney. You don’t even have to bring in the speaking in tongues and other such voodoo that supposedly goes on in pentacostal churches. Needless to say, though I’ve been willing to attend a church with a friend or two over the years, I’ve stayed miles away from the pentacostals. They seem to be completely out of touch with reality. There’s clearly nothing valuable to be learned there.
As for Moses, if there was such a person at all, I guess he might have been a little looney (though it’s far more likely that if there was such a person, he merely pronounced the laws he is known for today and the miraculous elements of the story were later injected into the tale…or used his own wise judgment to form the law and added god’s stamp of approval in a way that would convince the masses.) But of course, talking to god isn’t any more looney than worshipping a golden bull, so I guess the whole lot of them were nuts.
I read recently that historians had discovered different “slang terms” in the language spoken during Jesus days. Some of the slang terms such as, “walk on water” actually meant: to walk along the shore or river bed. Another, “to part the sea” meant: to cross a body of water in a boat. Interesting huh? Still take the bible litterally? If I can’t find a cite maby I dig up the magazine and give you that information.
Also, recently a friend told me that the king James version of the bible is total crap because it was put together out of 27 books and chopped up original scripts. And that in the original books, Jesus died and now they are waiting on another “messiah” (politician) to free them. Never mentioned that he came back to life or that he was comming back, only that he was dead and now they hope someone else will lead them to victory. I sure do wish we all had access to those 27 original history books. Perhaps there wouldn’t be so much confusion about who and what Jesus really was if we could read them. But sigh they are locked up tight, I wonder what the church doesn’t want us to know.
Again sorry I don’t have the cite on hand just now. Hopefully I can find them…
Oh, and as far as god not talking to people anymore…I watched an interview some guy did with George Bush. Bush said that he talks to god a lot. Wonder if that means that he is the long awaited messiah?
I think its meant to convey that God was happy with the results of his creation. He may have intended light to be good before he created it, but at that point light did not exist separately from God, so you couldn’t really say much about it. Of course since God is all-powerful and all-knowing (if you like) it follows that if he wanted to create something good, it would turn out good. So it is stating the obvious, but its not really a contradiction.
I’m fairly certain religious people can and do talk to God, but they probably don’t talk it about as much as they did back then.
I also think that (some, but not all) of the stories in the bible have some kind of symbolic meaning, but i’m not too sure about this. I mean I think its supposed to be read that Moses did part the red sea, but other stories (don’t ask me what ones) are not meant to be read as literally.
cbm77, don’t waste too much of your time finding a cite that isn’t going to exist, unless it be found on urban legends. Your friend is seriously mistaken about the church having 27 original books locked up tight some where. The oldest surviving pieces we have of anything NT related are only a some scattered fragments of papyrus. Scholars would have known about this by now had it existed. Often they just have a sentence or two of fragments of papyrus that be made out, sometimes they don’t even get that. Papyrus is a very fragile material.
While plausible, but since a great deal of credible scholars state the miracle stories were added much later to Jesus’, not sure it matters.
In LIFE magazine titled “Holy Lands - One Place Three Faiths” segment “The books endure…” page 124.
Everyone knows this…The Christians still believed and follwed in the Jewish bible after Christ was crucified. But eventually they decided to change a few things. And this slowely became a practice.
How many times has this happened to the bible? I’ve heard 7 times.
How do we know what is truth and not truth if the original text has been basically re-written and chopped to suit christianity as time goes on. History is ment to be written not chopped up and rearranged to suit our fancy. But maby that is why “God” doesn’t “talk” anymore as the current versions of the bible describe. Maby because nobody has the story straight.
I don’t know. This is comming from a guy who was asked to leave three churches because my father taught evolution.
I just got home and am tired. I’ll prolly come up with some links on these and more interesting topics about “where god went and why?”.
John, John, John…There are prolly thousands of original (meaning before King James) scripts and books locked up tight in the Vatican, Nazareth’s Grotto, within the Mosque in Mecca, and even here in the states.
Gutenberg’s book is still around. There is a picture of it in the magazine I spoke of above.
I’ve also read that “walking on water” can be an Aramaic idiom for walking along the shore. I’ve never seen anything about “parting” waters but the most recent archaeology in Israel strongly suggests that the entire Exodus story is pure myth anyway (the archaeology shows that the Israelites were indigeonous to Palestine. There was no influx of Israelite immigrants from the desert and no ensuing conquest) so the Red Sea Story does not require any lingusitic explication to give it historical plausibility. It’s an ahistorical story.
There are some emendations in the Gospels (notably in Mark and John) but those were added by early Christian copyists not by the compilers of the KJV.
The KJV does contain a great number of translational errors and biased interpretations, though. Because of its unreliability as to accuracy it’s generally not used for serious scholarly study.
If you had gone to the link I provided, you’d see that the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are fourth century, and also still around too, and are a thousand years older than the Gutenberg. So why do I need a picture of the Gutenberg? This is what you call original? You’ve re-defined, “original” from some common usage of that word to using this one to suit your own purposes. There actually isn’t any originals, barring your definition. We just have some manuscripts older than others to go to. These bibles like the Gutenberg are very valuable. Of course, they are locked up, and under tight security, and aren’t going to be accessible to the layman. This doesn’t mean that many competent scholars–some who are very critical of a great deal of it-- haven’t had access to them and know what they say. There is also much of this in the public domain and translated in English versions including the “Dead Sea Scrolls”, I believe. I’m more than aware of a great deal of times that scriptures get changed though, and many times throughout history of it getting suppressed.
A few things? Just 7 times? That’s an understatement!
You misunderstand. Your source gives a plausible explanation, although I think a doubtful one, of how the miracles were really figures of speech all along. I don’t think there can be any mistaking that the miracle stories were conveyed as actually occurring though; not some figure of speech. There would have been no point in believing or having faith if it was just a figure of speech. Why have faith in someone just walking along the shore of the river bed, or crossing a water of body in a boat? The context of these stories doesn’t fit if that is all that was meant.
So in other words John, you admit that the Bible is indeed crap, faith in christianity is based on false hope/belief you cannot prove otherwise; and that you are a distributor of an ancient craft that spreads lies, and decete in order to obtain favor, money and support.
Reword and read into it anyway you can John…Just as long as it wins in your world of false idol worship…
That’s an understatement!