In Acts 16:16-17 it says "And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation."
Now some people say she was demon possessed but to me that doesnt make sense. Demons dont proclaim Jesus. Being that I’m a part time magician I say it was just a trick and she was just practicing ventriloquism. Very similar to how fakes pretended to be channels for spirits and dead relatives during seances. What do you think?
When I first experienced Gods presence in my life I to went off on full throttle I was even black listed by both the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses. After a few years some one asked me a question. Who was God talking to before Abraham? Looking for an answer posed other questions that led me to understand that todays version of the Old Testament is not entirely accurate and possibly suffers from poor translation from older languages, there is also a strong possibility that the OT has been manipulated to benefit the self-interest of those with political goals. This must have an effect on the New Testament plus the fact that 75% of gospel material has been omitted. One of the other problem is that the largest contributor to the NT is Paul a man who never met Jesus but who’s opinion is valued by many Christians
I believe in the God of Abraham because I have met with him, I believe that Jesus was His messenger, do I believe that Jesus was God made man? The honest answer is I do not know. God has told me to be a watchman and to accept nothing on faith alone.
In the words of the X-Files The truth is out there some where
At that, there’s Exodus 7: Moses and Aaron do the stick-into-a-snake bit, and “the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.”
And then Moses and Aaron do the water-into-blood bit to showcase the power of God. “And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments”.
Exodus 8: God has Moses and Aaron do the bit with the frogs. “And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.”
[Paul Newman]
Who are those guys?
[/Paul Newman]
Seriously, what’s the lesson? As far as I can tell, the obvious conclusion is “if you ever see guys perform seemingly miraculous feats – indeed, even if they’re the exact same feats performed at God’s behest by God’s miracle workers – it may just be folks who are like unto the magicians of Egypt, who could totally do that stuff. So if you see some dude turn water into something else, or turn dead matter into a living creature, remember: (a) that’s no big deal, and (b) it proves nothing.”
I’ve read that at the time of Christ, their was a great falling away from the old Roman religions like worshiping Zeus and Athena so the leaders of those groups came up with tricks to make their gods believable.
Fair enough. So if someone excitedly gushes to me about miracles worked by Jesus, and someone else interrupts to say “I’ve read that, at the time of Christ, leaders of religious groups came up with tricks to make their claims believable,” then I should nod sagely and reply, “So this ‘Jesus’ guy – he could’ve just been some trickster trying to make his claims seem believable? Much like the leaders of Roman groups at the time, and the ‘magicians’ of Egypt centuries earlier? Same playbook? Indistinguishable?”
ScottRP, your certainty fails to be convincing. Lots of people claim certainty about something supernatural, most of which are contradictory to each other – at least 99.9% of them must necessarily be wrong. Why should we accept that your claim is true?
No y’all ain’t, good at slaying the messenger because of the message, but I’ve not seen a credible argument that we should be hating ourselves.
Lo, mine eye doth see-eth Our Lord on High and He doth did decree unto His peoples ‘Verily, it is sin to denounce that which I’ve bestowed upon my children the miraculous miracle of pre-sliced bread’.
The photo you linked to doesn’t look like this painting. It looks like a white spot. There’s no cherubim around it, it’s only one wheel shape, and there’s no other colors besides white. Maybe visions of chariots aren’t always the same, but it seems like basing your faith on orbs is kind of shaky ground.
Let’s pretend these orbs aren’t light tricks, reflections, and other photographic snafus discussed earlier. How do you know these orbs are Heaven sent?
Are you changing scripture to suit your visions? Falsifying the word of God is a big no-no.
Evil spirits too? How do you tell them apart? The first photo could be an evil spirit then. Is there some kind of spiritual litmus test so we don’t unwittingly traffic with them?
My, that picture is grandiose, and I’ll even go ahead and say it’s beautiful. Imagine a universe where things like that are real. Gods, angels, heaven… whew! How cool would that be? It’d be a very different universe from this one, that’s for sure.
This raises the question of why everyone hasn’t had an encounter with Jesus Christ. Jesus must know that a personal direct appearance would be much more persuasive to the average person than a two thousand year old written account. And Jesus presumably has the means to appear to everyone individually.
So why does Jesus choose to only appear to a few people? Is there something special about the people he chose to appear to or are they randomly chosen? And being as people Jesus appears to are much more likely to accept his message and be saved than those he doesn’t appear to, isn’t Jesus showing favoritism?
I’ve heard this theory but it’s been disproven. A more thorough check of first century records show that attendance at traditional pagan temples was increasing and new temples were being built. And besides Christianity there were other new religions that were winning converts.
So the consensus now is that Christianity was not filling a religious void. Instead it was one part of a general religious revival.
Beware the Onion Bagel, for he is the Devil’s pawn.
Alone among God’s bread products, he kills for sport or lust or greed.
Yea, he will murder his pan mates to possess his pan mates’ land.
Let him not bake in great numbers, for he will make a dessert of his home and yours.
Shun him; drive him back into his bakery lair, for he is the harbinger of death.
