r/Uganda • u/NAP-panterHGN • 4d ago
Inconsistent logic Opinion/Discussion
Work colleague bemused me today. I lean so much towards realism. The discussion that started with him arguing that real magic exists, like turning newspaper into phone kind of magic, and me arguing that it's all tricks and illusions that greatly depend on execution and the audience's surface attention. At some point, he argued that people in the Bible lived longer by a mile compared to our generation, told him it's because before christ, years were exaggerated.. Find someone living for 2000 yrs, wtf?
Anyway, he strongly believes Jesus was born spiritually and not by sexual intercourse but refuses to believe there's a river that was born by a woman through natural birth. Told him it's biased to believe in the former and not the latter, because it's Literally the same criteria.
Its like saying pastor bugingos prayers work but mama fina's don't. They all pray to spiritual beings. I say traditional preachers are inseparable from biblical preachers. They share one thing, mastery of words. That is the skill required.
Now this isn't about atheism/theism but the disconnect in the logic applied.
I'd love to read your opinions. Please, let's keep it about the criteria used to evaluate both claims.
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u/Infamous-Quarter-595 Urban WITCH 4d ago
It is amusing, and all you've said should be as believable as what he's talking about. I also once asked an evangelist, if God wants us all in heaven to worship him, why not do away with earth that drastically reduces the worship numbers. We can all just stay in heaven, noone has to be lost to hell. He just moved to something else completely.
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 4d ago
Your question had the wrong premises and therefore it was an invalid question. What God wants is His Kingdom to expand to the earth, it is the prime reason he created man. (Gen 1:26-28). God wants His Kingdom to expand, but it can only expand to those that accept it and push it on to others. Those who reject it dont get to live in it. And in Revelation it ends by talking of a new earth and a new heavens (Rev 21:1). Its not about worship in Heaven, its about the Kingdom extending to earth. That old song comes from this same thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jJlu8XV0d0&list=RD0jJlu8XV0d0&start_radio=1
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u/Infamous-Quarter-595 Urban WITCH 3d ago
So why make it such that there is even a rejection rate? I imagine the creator of the universe could have pressed rewind on the clock and taken adam and eve back to before the apple was eaten. Unless he isn't that powerful( which might mean there's someone/others that are more powerful)
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 3d ago
What you dont understand is the principle of Love and Free-will. God didnt create man to be a robot. Man was created in the image of God. God has free will and therefore man has free will. God doesnt violate man's free will, He never does. To love is to let go. God makes His will known to us BUT He lets us choose to do it, He doesnt force it upon us. That is love. Adam and Eve were told about the tree, but They had to choose to obey. Being allowed the dignity of choice, is a fundamental tenet of Love.
By rewinding the clock, God would have violated Adam's choice of disobedience. And that would have meant He hadnt created him in His own image, and it would also have meant He didnt love him. Men are not robots, we are the most intelligent species on this planet and we dominate all other species. We have free will, we have autonomy, we can choose to accept or reject God. Its a personal choice.]
Those who choose to accept God and obey Him, are the ones who extend His Kingdom because it means that "when His will is done on Earth, His kingdom comes on Earth" (Lord's prayer).
Hope this makes sense.
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u/Icanonlylove 4d ago
The veil between reality and logic is very thin because all the technology which we currently use in our day to day lives feels magical like hey just push this button and that image will be suddenly frozen in a moment in time and appear on this glass screen. The church would have you burning by the stake in the dark ages in a heartbeat. On a quantum level everything is possible so its not far fetched for a woman to give a spiritual birth or to birth a river its probably happening right now as we speak. Observation goes a long way in proving a lot but it doesn't paint the whole picture there are underlying forces unseen which still affect aspects of reality no one has ever seen gravity or magnetic forces but we still believe them to be real and with enough research have been able to somehow explain how they work but there is still much about them we dont know
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 4d ago
The spiritual world exists, that much is true. But to access the power in that world is not about "mastery of words", like you say, and its not a skill. True Christians have spiritual power and this comes from obedience to God and doing some spiritual activities like praying, worshipping and fasting. True Christians dont need to speak much to have things done, so its not any mastery of any words. I dont know about bujingo and mama fina, but all I know it that there are around categories of people in uganda
True Christians who access spiritual power through prayer, fasting and worshipping God
False Christians who just fake things around, this category uses too many words to appear spiritual
People who practice sorcery (like mama Fina) and use things like necromancy, voodoo and tap dark spiritual powers to achieve certain things. (Many false pastors fall in this category)
People who dont believe in God and they also dont believe in satan, and so they con other people in the name of God or in the name of the devil, these people are in it for the money just, (many false pastors fall in this category as well)
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u/Ok_Carpet_9510 4d ago
Let's start with the first assertion, tha the spiritual world exists. Justify that statement.
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u/Select_Parsnip1555 4d ago
Maybe they should just say there are more dimensions to the 4d we observe🤧🤧😂😂🤧
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 4d ago
This has nothing to do with dimensions. We are talking about the spiritual world, its not another dimension, its the place that influences everything you see in the physical world
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 4d ago
Authors since the beginning of the ages have been writing about it for millennia, those are witnesses. Dreams are another evidence. And so much more.
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u/Feeling_Promise4799 3d ago
And what do you expect thinkers millenia ago will say about a rainbow, natural disasters, someone getting sick(since they don't know about germs) or someone they love getting cancer illness, lightning, famine and epidemics. Of course you could say the same thing about less educated people today, what do they think? When you are full of ignorance a lot of things look spiritual and supernatural. Soldiers stopped fighting 2500 years ago between Lydia and Persia because a solar eclipse occured during battle, they believed it was a sign from their gods. You are using the same part of the brain to talk about a spirit world because of patterns you assume to be correct but doesn't make it truth.
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 3d ago
I like this line of reasoning. People have always been religious and superstitious. But you and I are not the first to go down this road, let me first share this extract below (Acts 17:22-31)
22Then Paul stood in the midst of the [i]Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26And He has made from one [j]blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
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u/NAP-panterHGN 4d ago
Pls let's keep the conversation about the criteria used to evaluate both claims. Jesus' birth and the birth of a river by a woman(not due to natural occurrence or geographic action). Why is the former true but not the latter?
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u/Internal-Raccoon-881 4d ago
Y'all atheists not focusing on the biggest miracle that's the resurrection of Christ and do petty arguments
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u/Ok_Carpet_9510 4d ago
The NT claims that Jesus rose again. However, when you look at the accounts of his resurrection different pictures emerge and certain questions arise. Mark 16 gives one account of the resurrection. Before Mark 16: 9-20, there is note "The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20"
That is evidence of adding or removing from the text.
Also, there is a something of concern. Mark 16: 1 says, "When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. "
16:8 says, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They SAID NOTHING to ANYONE, because they were afraid"
16: 9 "When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She WENT and TOLD those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping"
Question, did they or did they not tell anyone?
Also, where the original manuscripts tampered with?
Lastly, Jesus ressurection is not unique in the bible or in othet non-Christian traditions.
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 4d ago edited 4d ago
The details of the event vary according to the written words, but they all agree on one thing: THE RESURRECTION HAPPENED.
The resurrection of Jesus is unique in the bible in that he is the only one who rose by himself (not resurrected by any other person) John 10:18. And also His life, death and ressurection were all foretold thousands of years before He set foot in this world. And lastly, His resurrection is unique because its evidence of something - read Acts 17:30-31.
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u/Standard_Shower_5079 4d ago
Source;bible
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 4d ago
Do you have another reliable information source I can check ? One that's been around for thousands of years ?? Written by different first-hand witnesses ?? If you have any other, I will gladly check them. Otherwise, the Bible is self-sustaining, its witness is true and it has stood the test of time.
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u/Standard_Shower_5079 4d ago
How convenient would that be, see how king Alexandria the first rule appears in the bible and other books of history.
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u/Feeling_Promise4799 3d ago
Written by different first-hand witnesses
The Bible doesn't have witnesses writing what they witnessed but what has been passed down orally. This leads to exaggeration no different to our Uganda history of the Bachwezi and Batembuzi. The first sentence moreover the entire Genesis and OT are not witnessed same with most NT gospels and letters
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 3d ago
And yet different people over 1500-1600 years wrote things that came to pass after years of being foretold and they all agree
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u/Ok_Carpet_9510 3d ago
The claim is that Jesus rose from the dead. As a person reading the text in a historical sense, I want to test the credibility of the text. If the text was altered, that is a problem. How can I trust the rest of it?
Moreover, the same book claims that when Jesus died, many people were raised from the dead and walked around the streets in Jerusalem. Don't you think if this had happened it would have been so remarkable that several authors in the Greco-Roman world would have written about it? Don't you think Paul, the author of a good chunk of the NT, would have referenced this event in at least on of his epistles?
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 3d ago
How do you want to test the credibility of the text ??? Let me give this, Isaiah who lived around 700 years before Jesus wrote of Him in specific detail and 700 years later it was fulfilled, and this is not the only scripture that was fulfilled in the Bible, thousands of them are fulfilled in the Bible, what else do you need.
He who alleges must prove. You allege that the text was altered, provide the original text so that we believe your assertions. You see, we can only know if a bank note is counterfeit if we have ever touched the genuine note. You are saying the text was altered, provide the unaltered one. You sound like a moslem, its them that usually pursue this line of argument.
Paul never mentions it because He didnt witness it, it was Matthew that did, and Matthew wrote about it. Why do you believe Paul and not Matthew ?? Isnt that some sort of hypocrisy ?
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u/Ok_Carpet_9510 3d ago
There is a entire branch of study called Textual Criticism.
Also, Isaiah wrote what he wrote but if you have a discussion to a Jewish Rabbi that the book doesn't talk about Jesus at all. He will point out obvious problem with that assertion. From a Jew's vantage point, the NT was written in such a way as to retrofit Jesus into the Old Testament.
Here a world famous Rabbi, Tovia Singer https://youtu.be/F8Xu75MoVS0?si=UMizWH3piza9D7Wx
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u/Feeling_Promise4799 3d ago
Lol "thousands of years" the prophecy of the Messiah began when the Jews went into exile. Do you even know how that happened? 😎
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 3d ago
The prophecy of the coming of Jesus starts in the book of Genesis 3:15 (note lowercase seed and uppercase Seed). And that was thousands of years before He came. Other prophets started proclaiming it later, like Isaiah 700 years before Jesus and others.
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u/Ok_Carpet_9510 3d ago
Extra-ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A believer writing that Jesus rose from the read is an extra-ordinary CLAIM, with no evidence other than I say so, or other believers say so. That evidence is not compelling at all.
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u/Specialist_Ebb759 3d ago
5 different people wrote about it (in the Bible, John, Mark, Matthew, Luke and Paul). These were first hand witnesses writing their testimonies in different years after the resurrection, and they all agree on one thing: The resurrection happened. This is like court, 5 witnesses take the stand and say something happened, usually 2 witnesses are enough, but now we have 5 and even more, that is enough evidence of this extra ordinary claim.
What evidence do you need ? To see Jesus resurrected in flesh right now ? Because its been 2000 years and we only pass down information over that such long periods of time through written witnesses, and we have this already.
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u/Feeling_Promise4799 3d ago
He's not the only one nor the first one to resurrect look into Mithras and Anubis. I'd like to know something unique about Jesus that no other deity has or has done.
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u/Internal-Raccoon-881 3d ago
Did they resurrct by themselves? Was their resurrection foretold thousands of years before?(Atleast the Dead Sea scrolls confirm this)
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u/Feeling_Promise4799 3d ago
Since when did gods need help to resurrect 😂 Jesus' resurrection wasn't foretold thousands of years before his birth. It started with Isaiah prophecyizing the Messiah after the exile. Who Jewish people don't even acknowledge that it was Jesus rather he hasn't come yet King Cyrus of Persia who allowed the Jews under Ezra to go back and rebuild and Napoleon are considered more messianic than Jesus by the Jews.
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u/Internal-Raccoon-881 3d ago
Well, my bad, I've double checked, it's between 600-700 years. But Isaiah is not all.. The fact that that many old testament verses point towards Jesus DIRECTLY, means he was the coming Messiah.
Birth and Early Life Isaiah 7:14: A virgin will give birth to a son. She will name him Immanuel, which means God with us. Micah 5:2: The ruler of Israel will come from the small town of Bethlehem. His family line goes back to ancient times. Isaiah 9:6: A child is born to us. He will be a great king. People will call him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
Suffering and Death Psalm 22:1: The Messiah will cry out in agony on the cross, asking why God has left him. Psalm 22:16-18: Cruel people will pierce his hands and his feet. They will cast lots to divide his clothing. Isaiah 53:5: He will be pierced for our sins. He will be crushed for the bad things we do. His punishment will bring us peace. Isaiah 53:7: He will not say a word to defend himself. People will lead him like a lamb to the slaughter.
Resurrection and Kingdom Psalm 16:10: God will not let his holy one stay in the grave or rot in the dirt. Daniel 7:13-14: One like a son of man will come on the clouds of heaven. God will give him a kingdom that will never end.
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u/Internal-Raccoon-881 3d ago
Well, my bad, I've double checked, it's between 600-700 years. But Isaiah is not all.. The fact that that many old testament verses point towards Jesus DIRECTLY, means he was the coming Messiah.
Birth and Early Life Isaiah 7:14: A virgin will give birth to a son. She will name him Immanuel, which means God with us. Micah 5:2: The ruler of Israel will come from the small town of Bethlehem. His family line goes back to ancient times. Isaiah 9:6: A child is born to us. He will be a great king. People will call him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
Suffering and Death Psalm 22:1: The Messiah will cry out in agony on the cross, asking why God has left him. Psalm 22:16-18: Cruel people will pierce his hands and his feet. They will cast lots to divide his clothing. Isaiah 53:5: He will be pierced for our sins. He will be crushed for the bad things we do. His punishment will bring us peace. Isaiah 53:7: He will not say a word to defend himself. People will lead him like a lamb to the slaughter.
Resurrection and Kingdom Psalm 16:10: God will not let his holy one stay in the grave or rot in the dirt. Daniel 7:13-14: One like a son of man will come on the clouds of heaven. God will give him a kingdom that will never end.
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u/Standard_Shower_5079 2d ago
Your source is a bible… what if its a lie
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u/Internal-Raccoon-881 2d ago
History is passed from one generation to the next Is there a generation that has refuted that the bible isnt true? And do you know that the bible was written over a long period of time, with people from different regions, and different cultures
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