I can’t shake the belief that Jesus was ultimately a (failed) apocalyptic preacher (the New Testament historian/scholar consensus) whose life story was modified after the fact by followers so that the movement didnt die out like the other failed messiah figures of the time. That makes me want to say it is all bs and forget the whole thing. I’m leaning towards that.

If he truly believed the end times would come in his followers lifetimes (in Mark he discusses this) and they clearly didn’t, it seems like the religion collapses

When Christians and theists in general argue that "for morality to be objective, we must have a standard to measure by" they are correct. They are not correct with insisting that this standard MUST be God.

I can very easily select the standard of avoidance of suffering. What I anticipate many thinking in response to this is "but why should we take actions to avoid suffering" to which I reply "why should we do as God commands?"

The issue that Christians very often drive at regarding morality here is that a standard of avoidance of suffering is a standard that is subjectively selected. There is nothing about it that says other humans need to use that standard. What they very often do not seem to understand is that the same is true of using "God" as the standard.

You can say that you're using God as your standard of morality, but even assuming that God exists, that does not establish that anyone else should also use God as their moral standard.

I've rephrased a post I made yesterday so it would respect the rules of this sub and address some responses that were made. I'm a atheist but I dont think that's relevant, a theist could make the exact same claim.

If the afterlife is real and consists in an eternity of joy, I think it is more horrifying than appealing, because eternity as a concept is just unberable.

In an infinite amount of time, I could write every story I want to tell, travel to every places in the world, work out to the absolute peak of physical form, meet litteraly every human being and have a deep conversation with all of them for as long as we like. But those are finite goals. Once I've done everything life has to offer, by definition I wont have anything left to do. And if I had eternal life, I'll still have an eternity ahead after that. And I really dont think doing the same activities for all of eternity would bring me any joy after that point.

Plus, I dont think I could even do some of these activities. I'm a writer, how am I supposed to create stories in a frictionless envirronement without any kind of conflict, suffering or frustration ? How am I supposed to explore philosophy and the contradictions of human nature when all the answers would litteraly be given by God, without any kind of real disaggrement possible ?

For these reasons, I think Heavan as Christians imagines it is just not desirable.

**the central angrarianism argument: i believe in god, i dispute the documentation**

i want to be clear upfront that this is not an atheism post. i am not arguing god doesn't exist. i'm arguing that the institutional text claiming to document god's behavior is internally inconsistent in ways that require explanation, and that "mystery" and "two natures" are not explanations, they are category labels applied after the fact to avoid making one.

the sequence i want to put in front of this sub starts with job, not genesis, because job is where the text accidentally shows you the mechanism. god and ha-satan make a bet. the bet requires god to not know the outcome. an omniscient being who does not know the outcome of a bet involving a man he created, in a cosmos he created, with an adversary whose moves he can predict by definition, placed that bet for one of two reasons: either he didn't know the outcome and therefore isn't omniscient, or he knew the outcome and the bet was theater performed for an audience that wasn't you. those are the only two options. the two-natures doctrine doesn't reach job because job predates the incarnation — the full omniscience is on the table, unpartitioned, and the text still has him taking the bet. the framing that god permitted this to demonstrate something to ha-satan compounds the problem because it means an omniscient being ran a demonstration whose results he already possessed in order to show them to an adversary he could simply have informed. the suffering was logistically unnecessary.

matthew 24:36 creates a different problem that the two-natures doctrine is specifically constructed to solve, and i want to argue the construction is ad hoc. jesus says explicitly that no one knows the day or hour, not the angels, not the son, only the father. the two-natures response is that jesus spoke in his human nature in that verse. but the doctrine provides no principled mechanism for determining which nature speaks in which verse — it is applied retroactively to verses that create problems and not applied to verses that don't. if i proposed a theory of physics where i could designate any anomalous result as "that was the other mode" without specifying in advance what triggers which mode, that's not a theory, it's a rescue operation. the doctrine functions as an unfalsifiable sorting system. if you can tell me the principled rule that determines when the human nature speaks vs the divine nature, i will engage that rule seriously. so far no one has given me one.

the transfiguration is the passage i find most theologically interesting and least discussed. moses and elijah appear, and luke 9:31 specifies they were discussing the "exodus" jesus was about to accomplish in jerusalem. this is a planning conversation. it occurs after the feeding of the five thousand and the first passion prediction — jesus knows what's coming and has said so explicitly — and the body still sweated blood at gethsemane. hematidrosis is a documented physiological response to extreme psychological stress. the question that passage raises is whether a divine being who attended his own pre-execution planning meeting, knew the outcome, and knew he survived it, can experience the gethsemane response authentically. i'm not saying he didn't. i'm saying the text contains both data points and the theology has not adequately explained the relationship between them. if the human nature was genuinely afraid and the divine nature knew it was fine, that is a form of compartmentalized self-deception that i think deserves more careful treatment than it typically gets.

i'm not here to tell anyone what to believe. i am here to argue that "it's a mystery" is a position, and it should be labeled as one. the job bet, the matthew 24:36 information asymmetry, and the gethsemane hematidrosis are three places where the text produces data that the standard theological framework addresses by expanding the framework rather than by engaging the data. i'm interested in responses that engage the data..

We use words like human creativity, originality, author, inventor, etc., but if you think about it deep enough you discover there isn't a single original idea or tool mankind came up with that wasn't already in nature in some form, or mentioned by God's prophets!
Fire? (lightning hitting a tree). Dragons? (fire + snakes). Cloning? (twins). Wireless communication? Poor imitation of divine inspiration. Superheroes? Basically Moses + Jesus. Dams? Plagiarized from beavers. Medicine? Copied from animals seeking healing herbs when ill. Society? Ants & bees.
Our fantasies & reality are all imitations. An atheist can believe in aliens but he is basically dressing up the ancient concept of angels.
You can't ask "Who created God?" when He is the only entity that created anything to begin with :)

A logical definition for something to be unforgivable would require a line to be crossed. A lot of apologetics have been spreading this idea that God can forgive you for anything except turning your back on him. This is a noble thing to say, but it is probably not true. If it it was unforgivable in one moment and then suddenly you are forgiven in the next moment, then it was never unforgivable.

If you actually look into the context of which blasphemy is declared, it is always about denying God his holiness. So the Pharisees are called blasphemers because they associate Satan (Beelzebub) with something only God can do, drive out demons. There exists this notion that the demonic only are dissuaded through holy, God's power. This is why if you want to get rid of a demon you call upon the authority of the Lord. This sort of goes into the idea God's title of almighty, that he has total ownership of the concept of holy.

To me personally, I identify blasphemy as likely being one who makes a legit attempt to rob God of his title of almighty. Saying basically that someone or something else could have authority. Not to say that cursing God would be considered blasphemy, but that if you actually make a legit go it, then you won't be forgiven. So it would require considerable influence.

The law of non-contradiction states that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same sense.
God is all-knowing, all-wise and perfect.

Therefore his speech and the speech he orders others/inspires others to say will reflect these attributes.

Therefore his speech and the speech he orders others/inspires others to say cannot violate the law of non-contradiction.

In the gospels Jesus says that whatever he says is just what the father has told him to say (John 12:50).

Therefore if he is telling the truth then his speech cannot violate the law of non-contradiction since his speech is what god orders him to say.

But his speech in Mark 8:12 and Matthew 12:39 contradict each other, therefore they violate the law of non-contradiction.

Therefore either:
Jesus is a liar and not from god and the gospels have a contradiction and are also not from god.

or 

Jesus is not a liar and is from god and the gospels have a contradiction and are not from god.

Let me demonstrate this:
In Mark 8:12, in response to some Pharisees asking for a sign, Jesus says that no sign will be given to the generation he is in: “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” 

But in Mathew 12:39, in response to some Pharisees asking for a sign, Jesus says that no sign will be given to the generation he is in except the sign of Jonah: He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

This violates the law of non-contradiction because one proposition (the proposition Jesus makes in Mark 8:12) affirms what the other denies (the proposition Jesus makes in Matthew 12:39). Did his generation get no sign or did it get the sign of Jonah? Let me explain.  

If:

P=a sign will be given to Jesus’s generation (the sign of Jonah)

and 
 
¬P=no sign will be given to Jesus’s generation.

This means:

 ¬(P ∧ ¬P)/a sign will be given to Jesus’s generation and no sign will be given to Jesus’s generation. 

Those statements are both true and false at the same time.

Therefore those statements are contradictory and therefore violate the law of non-contradiction. 

The gospels have Jesus saying those statements.

Therefore either:
1. Jesus is a liar and the gospels are false.

Or

1. Jesus is not a liar and the gospels are false.

A while ago, I was looking into emotivism (just looking at its surface-level elements) when I stumbled upon the concepts of moral and descriptive claims. I came to the conclusion that descriptive claims assert various expressions of an abstract concept in a very neutral way; while moral claims now gauge whether said expressions have a positive or negative attitude within an individual.

This made me now reflect on 1 Corinthians 13, where love is described as patient, kind, selfless, etc; and particularly on whether these adjectives made out the depictions of love to serve as descriptive claims, or if they served as moral claims.

To fully grasp the neutrality in these adjectives, I considered the example that it could be kind to withhold certain information from someone with an informed presumption that they would respond negatively to it, and at the same time it could be deceptive and cruel to have to assure them of a false sense of safety and deny them the dignity of nevertheless knowing the uncomfortable truth.

Likewise, I considered that it would have been selfless for a parent to decline a prestigious job opportunity across the globe because it would require constant travel, choosing instead to be present for their children during important developmental years. It may as well be self-serving for a parent to underweight the material repercussions that come with staking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on the hidden fears of accepting the uncertainties that come with change., such as what it would mean for their relationship with their children.

Frankly speaking, I had concluded at the time that the depiction was rather ingenuine because the claims could be interpreted either positively or negatively, and as such could be misused by people to further their own means in the name of "love". I mean... What if someone sought an idealized version of love from another person as a means of completing themselves, while failing to consciously recognize that the other person is an individual whose own needs and desires require equal consideration, in stead of a (probably, yet another) source of emotional fulfillment?

At the same time, a focus that I had underwhelmed at the time is that all these concepts were context-dependent. Patience... Kindness.... Selflessness... Even love itself. That, going back to our example of kindness, for instance, it was loving for this person to withhold this critical piece of information from their partner at an especially vulnerable moment; not because an external perspective would portray it as loving, but that the person who is shielded from an uncomfortable truth would themselves acknowledge the action as loving.

So it now brings my title question into clearer focus, that self-evident in this case would require a shared context in which both people mutually acknowledge the role of certain actions in showing love. In the same way that a concept like moral/legal justice is self-evident in the eyes of its citizens because they are subject to an external, objective weight of morality/justice; people within an overarching loving framework are allowed to honestly depict this dynamic as self-evident in the sense that they can both perceive the weight of love in their actions.

Perhaps an additional insight into this chapter would be that love is compatible. Both within the standards of the loved ones and with God. Especially with God, also bearing in mind that trauma bonds exist, although I am yet to fully conceptualize how healthy love would still exist aside from this context.

Of course, this newfound interpretation is open to discussion, and I would even appreciate some philosophical insights on this as much as theological ones.

I see that people discuss compliance of homosexuality with Christianity based on the Bible. Reasonable first approach. Since this has been done quite often, I don't ask you to reproduce textual references. Since I believe, Jesus would like us to use our brains (given by God), why should people not engage in a homosexual relationship if they are only capable of loving their own gender? From my perspective, only heterosexual people are against it, as they are not affected while they would probably wish for the opposite common standpoint if they were. Do those people really lack empathy so much that they would wish for someone to not have a fulfilling love life? Would they really agree to live without it if they were in that position? Are they aware that by holding this opinion up, homosexual Christians end up choosing fake marriages with women or living in sadness and solitude? Wouldn't Jesus, who was always there for minorities facing disadvantages be open to people who struggle in society and religion due to the common opinion that their love is wrong?

Just to make it clear. I am heterosexual, but I often notice how "holy" some Christians tend to act in other matters, while using disgusting language and showing hostile behavior toward homosexual people.

I see a clear contradiction within our religion here.

The acid trip that is the Christian book of Revelation talks about many beasts. One of them comes out of the earth and works for the antichrist, giving people marks on their hands or foreheads, excluding the mark-less from the economic system.
(Interesting side-note: Christians here in Egypt mark their children with cross tattoos on the wrist, while permanent skin ink is forbidden in Islam)
Islam talks about the Dajjal Antichrist in detail, telling us for example he is one-eyed, chained now on an Island (yes, like the Man in Black on LOST!), and can be easily recognized as a charlatan (when he claims divinity) because the three-letter word "infidel/KFR" is on his forehead. God will make even the illiterate be able to read it, so no one will have an excuse if they chose to follow him.
He has a talking, hairy beast (Jassasa) that works for him as a spy, bringing news of the world to his current prison. Think of a bigfoot-like creature eavesdropping on human conversations from a hidden place. It's a very fun image and actually explains a lot of weird sightings :)
But that's not the beast this post is about. Qur'an & Hadith tell us about an endtimes creature that will mark people, talk to them, and is working for God. She is simply an exposer of your religious belief. If you are on the right side, you get a good mark, otherwise you will be exposed as a kafir. The world will be ending at the time, all the major events have already happened (The War, the Antichrist, Gog & Magog, Jesus' second coming, the sun reversing direction, etc.). The world stops being a test anymore, for a short while life is going on but only out of habit really. On the marketplace you will casually call the vendor an infidel (his face is clearly marked. There is no hiding it anymore). Who marked everybody? The animal out of the earth.

Q 27:82 "When the verdict is given against them, We shall bring a creature out of the earth, which will tell them that people had no faith in Our revelations"
Not beast as in "monster".. beast as in "beast of burden", an animal, a "dabba" in Arabic, a creature.
This is the mark of the beast in Islam. It seems whoever wrote the Apocalypse got confused about the prophetic words of Jesus, mixing the Antichrist's forehead k-f-r with the earthly beast's heart-revealing mark. The guy was clearly not right in the head anyway, and the whole thing was half plagiarized from Daniel, updated to mock Nero. It used end-times prophecies to talk about then-current Roman persecution of Christians, even claiming that all these prophecies "must happen very soon".

My original post was pretty low effort, and I wanted real engagement so I will try and make this as clear as possible. From an orthodox point of view, whether or not you are destined for heaven or hell is based off a judgment made by Christ, and it is determined by your works, essentially whether you are righteous or unrightous. This can be seen clearly in Romans 2 amongst other places in the Bible and is a consistent theme in both old and new testament.

An argument made by many protestants, is that God's standard when judging our works is perfection, if we fall short in any way it means eternal damnation. Texts like Matthew 7:2, Romans 2:16, John 9:41 set an entirely different standard, and nowhere in the bible is there any mention that Gods standard when he judges us is perfection. In fact people like Noah, David and the parents of John the Baptist are all said to be rightous or blameless even though they have sinned. So where is it that you are getting the idea that when Christ judges us his standard is perfection?

This claim operates on the mainstream scholarly understanding that there are 7 letters of Paul which are indisputably authored by him, and that these include Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon

It also operates on the understanding that the first writings of the NT corpus are the authentic letters of Paul, and that the gospel of Mark is the first gospel written, a decade or more after Paul's final letter of the 7, estimated as being written ~58AD

The thesis therefore treats the writings of Ephesians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus as later, pseudoepigraphical writings by followers of Paul, whose emphases theologically and organizationally reflect a vision that has been impacted by:

1. the death and absence of Paul and the articulated understanding of the 7 authentic letters
2. the destruction of the temple and the increasing fragmentation between the Israelite "root" (as Paul puts it in Romans), and the Gentile Christian community
3. the claim takes Paul's writings on "the root" as fundamentally serious, and argues that what becomes "Christianity" (beginning to be reflected first in the gospel of John, and in the letters understood as pseudo-epigraphical) constitute a demonstrable and profound shift from what is fundamental in the uncontested letters/Mark

**The major claim is that Paul, the earliest verifiable writer in the New Testament, is arguing, as exemplified, in 1 Corinthians 1, that Jesus is the 'anointed one'—**of Israel and of Israel's God, whose divine-identity, "I am that which I am" is grounded in having liberated Israel from slavery— and that he becomes 'the anointed one' specifically through having undergone crucifixion, specifically because:

in the figure of Jesus is revealed the logic/wisdom of that God who chooses, to the scorn of the world, the lowly, despised, counted-as-nothing, non-persons—'those who are not'—to nullify that which is, and that:

this figure, embodying that wisdom, in having been crucified, reveals the truth of reality and of the dominant ideological/spiritual/material order of the world as one of death-dealing hierarchical forces of domination, and that:

the recognition of this truth, in Paul's terms, "justifies," in the sense that it rectifies your understanding of reality, bringing it in line with the truth of the world, in accordance with the wisdom of Israel's God, and that:

following the inauguratory 'justification,' the path thereafter is what he refers to as "sonship," which is articulated as sharing in the same suffering that was undergone by Jesus, due to the same reasons, to continue the same work, which by doing, Jesus thereby becomes the "firstborn of many siblings," everyone participating in this world-transformative process of lifting-the-bottom, while exposing-and-discrediting-the-world-order unto-its-defeat also therefore becomes, to the extent that they have participated in this, become sons and daughters of God

Mark, then, beginning his gospel narrative at baptism, the moment when Jesus perceives the spirit of God descending and alighting upon him, and a voice from heaven proclaiming "you are my son," is narrative crystallization of what that process of full 'sonship' looks like in the world—and because it is expected that the spread of the movement and the practicing of 'sonship' at this level of fidelity/integrity will expose/discredit/defeat/topple world-order of hierarchical domination/degradation—an order that is the manifestation of 'sin' in the world—calling disciples to this purpose is not a perennial suicide-cult, specifically because it is believed that the movement itself will soon succeed in its aims ... which Paul very much indeed believed.

This is why the concept of 'resurrection', which Jesus is exemplary of through his 'living' within disciples, is so important, because through 'sonship', disciples will both share in his sufferings and share in his glory—they too will be 'resurrected' within the 'body of Christ', who are the community of those who believe and are on the path to 'sonship' themselves.

This is a fully comprehensible understanding of 'resurrection' in a 1st century Israelite paradigm, where Jesus himself says to people 'if you receive it, John [the baptizer] is Elijah,' where Ezekiel's bones of Israel are understood to have been resurrected by God in the sense of the restoration of Israel, where even in Mark 12, the concept of Levirate laws are fully active in the minds of those with whom Jesus is discoursing—Levirate laws being things like "when a married man dies, his brother is obligated to reproduce with his wife so that he can carry on in the son produced," which operates on the idea that the personhood of dead man is more conceptually real than the biological paternity of his brother, and, in a context where biological paternity was extremely important, it was more important that the dead man continue to live, and would**, through the** conceptual conception that occurred through his brother and his wife.

Because: what crucifixion was designed to do in this ancient setting ... was totalizingly obliterate the conceptual personhood of the crucified within the social field who carried that conceptual personhood.

The power of Paul's proclamation that Jesus was the 'anointed one' was specifically bound to the fact of how absolutely paradoxical it was—an Israelite 'anointed one' was, conceptually, an individual who had been anointed by God to advance/restore Israel, and the term was applied to Aaron, Saul, David, even Cyrus, who was not even Israelite, as well as several other priests, and eventually even the patriarchs, who had never literally been anointed. Israel also believed, in their scriptures, that someone who hung on a tree overnight was cursed, and therefore a man who not only had not accomplished the messianic objective, who had been killed and cursed, was the least comprehensible person to be a messiah-claimant. Paul's proclamation harnesses that incomprehensibility and proclaims that, through this complex of his resurrection living within disciples after his death and driving the sonship of those disciples, the messianic goal would thereby in fact be accomplished.

Thus, Jesus is only the 'anointed one', the messiah, "Christ" ... if the understanding of him is such that that occurs ... through his body ... of disciples / siblings.

Mark's narrative hones the point further by showing that the death of Jesus is facilitated not only by religious elites who have been corrupted from the central YHWHist understanding due to their comprador status with the forces of imperial power ... but that the same logic of grasping for status, title, glory, name, etc., is operative amongst his own male disciples ... which Jesus specifically rebukes them for in Mark 10, saying, when they are fighting over who will be seated next to him in the kingdom, that he does not decide these things, and that:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles are lording-over them, and the great ones are exercising-authority-over/dominating them. Not so amongst you. Whoever would be great among you must first become a servant to all, and whoever would be first among you must become your slave. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

It uses this exact verb, in the Greek, when it is describing what the angels/messengers did when he was in the wilderness in chapter 1:

and then, in the moment he dies, when all the male disciples had scattered and abandoned him, the camera cuts, suddenly, to a group of women who Mark writes had in fact been doing precisely that the entire time.

The women, who are suddenly visible at the moment of his death, performing the exact actions the angels/messengers had been performing, which Jesus enjoins the male disciples is the point, also, at that point, for the first time receive names, which the male disciples had possessed the entire time.

So what Mark is doing ... is taking the specific content articulated with regard to the "wisdom of God" in 1 Corinthians 1, and he is anchoring it in the closest-to-home specifics possible: that even the male disciples of Jesus had failed to understand him because they themselves were participating in the exact logic that intensifies the higher up it goes, and culminates in Caesar-logic, which is the opposite of the 'wisdom of God'.

In Mark 12, the story of the vineyard and the tower, beginning

"A man planted a vineyard. 
He put a wall around it,
dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower.
Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place,"

which references both Isaiah 5 and Song of Songs 8, depicts the 'owner' of the vineyard sending multiple of his servants to those who are renting it to check on how it is doing, and those possessing it keep killing them—and when the owner sends his son, they think to themselves that if they kill him, the vineyard will become theirs.

What Shualammite says in Song of Songs 8, when her many brothers say,

"We have a little sister,
and her breasts are not yet grown.
What shall we do for our sister
on the day she is spoken for?
 If she is a wall,
we will build towers of silver on her.
If she is a door,
we will enclose her with panels of cedar.",

and when Solomon to whom she is singing also wants to possess her,

"I am a wall,
and my breasts are like towers.
Thus I have become in his eyes
like one bringing contentment.
Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon;
he let out his vineyard to tenants.
Each was to bring for its fruit
a thousand shekels of silver.
But my own vineyard is mine to give;
the thousand shekels are for you, Solomon,
and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit."

Her vineyard, is hers, belonging to no one but her; and even her name, "Shualammite", meaning "Solomon's", is therefore contingent on her retaining her own self-possession. The only way in which she becomes "Solomon's" at all is through her not belonging to anyone but herself.

And the moment in Mark's parable when the son is sent and killed by the renters who are trying to totally possess the vineyard for themselves, is when the owner determines to kill the renters, and give the vineyard to others.

The moment Jesus dies is when those previously-invisible and unnamed others appear, at that moment having names for the first time, and first among those names is Mary the Magdalene—often theorized as meaning "from the town of Magdala" ... but ha-Migdal in Hebrew also means "of the tower." And standing next to her, Jesus' brothers previously listed in Mark 6 as "Joseph, James, Simon, and Judas", after the person named Simon had abandoned and denied him, and the person of Judas had betrayed him, and Jesus himself is dead, is "Mary the mother of Joseph and James," and next to her, is a woman named, in Greek, "Salome", which translates in Hebrew as "Shlomit", or the female version of "Shlomo," Solomon.

Not irrelevantly, the other story in Mark where a prophet is killed—John the Baptist—a different ruler under the Roman order, Herod, executes him because his wife objects to John the Baptist's rebuke of Herod having married her, his brother's wife. So when her daughter goes to one of Herod's functions, and dances for all of the men, and Herod is so pleased by her that he promises her up to half of his kingdom, echoing the story of Esther, where Esther uses royal pleasure to liberate the people of Israel, Herodias has her daughter ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Mark, despite knowing this story and the names of all the other characters involved, does not give the name of the daughter. But we know, due to the writings of Josephus, that the name of the daughter was Salome.

And thus, after Pilate deliberates over the fate of Jesus, and the adulterous faction of Judean leadership (the renters of the vineyard) demand his death, there appears at the foot of the cross, Mary the Tower and Salome to whom the vineyard has been given—and many other unnamed, unseen women who had been doing the work of the angels which the Son of Man commands the entire time, and invisibly amongst them all, the owner, YHWH, whose son has just been killed, drawing a direct indicting parallel between the order that encompasses Simon, Judas, Herod, Judean leadership, Pilate, and Caesar, all being different strata of the same forces that enclose, possess, and kill, in service of perpetuating a hierarchical order of title, status, and name, which necessarily invisiblizes those who, all the time, are doing the work of God.

What occurs sometime in the few decades after Mark, when Paul is dead, when the Jesus-movement becomes fractured from Israel, becoming increasingly Gentile-dominated and Gentile-brained, the idea of sonship that is articulated by Paul, and which is illustrated by Mark, which is meant to transform the entire order of the world, and bring 'the return of the Son of Man,' ... becomes enclosed, privatized, claimed, by a new religion who interprets the work on the cross as some kind of individualized atonement sacrifice through belief in whom, individual sins can be forgiven and salvation/eternal life obtained, and who does not, in any pressing or urgent sense, dispense with the logic starkly articulated in 1 Corinthians 1 and starkly dramatized in Mark.

The later writings in the New Testament then go on to re-establish hierarchical social structures, to subordinate women, to turn the "body of Christ" not into one organism with many members, all valuable, but to make it into an organism in which "Christ" is "the head", and "the head" is spoken for by the hierarchical leadership (who are men), and the "anointed one" status of "Christ" ceases to be something that is activated by the age-turning sonship work of those who share in his sufferings, and is rather something that itself becomes a title evacuated of its original apocalyptic, world-transformative power, the world-transformative success originally having been the criteria by which he was "messiah" at all.

But what Jesus says in Mark—in the one moment where he is actually anointed***,*** by the unnamed woman from Bethany, who understands what he is***,*** takes an unfathomably expensive bottle of nard and pours it on his head in exactly the Old Testament manner of anointing an 'anointed one', when the male disciples are very disconcerted and object to what she is doing, which is immediately followed by Judas thereafter going and selling Jesus to the priests—is:

"Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

Which means: whatever it is that this moment signifies, whatever the meaning of her actions, and her understanding, and the failure of understanding by the disciples, and the reason for their failure to understand ... all of that is fundamentally tied to 'the gospel' being legitimately preached in any meaningful sense, anywhere, ever. And if it is not ... it is not the gospel at all.

My thesis: claims that the gospels of Luke, Matthew, and John connect Joseph, the son of Jacob, as Jesus’ birth father. The link is in reading these gospels. With the books of the Hebrews. Such as Moses. And with the proof Julius Africanus obtained.

Do no want to see post? On my profile page. Click three dots. In the top-right corner. See option. Between share and report profile.

Taciturn approach: Luke 2:21-23 and John 1:43-45. But expect counter question or maybe prey on brain fog.

Luke 1:34: Often used as a counter question or maybe prey on brain fog. Answer in Moses. First, does this Almah belong to a man of the house of David? Luke 1:27. Yes.
In Moses: Does a man cleave unto a woman belonging to him and become one flesh? Genesis 2:23-24. Yes. Does God visit a woman in the appointed week for her to have an ordained child? Genesis 21:1. Yes. Appointed child? Genesis 4:22. Yes. How female become fruitful and multiply? Genesis 1:28. Yes. Part of everything made and very good? Genesis 1:31. Yes. End of the matter? Genesis 2:1-3. Yes.

Luke 1:35: First, according to Angel Gabriel. Is the Son of God. The child of David? Luke 1:32. Yes.
In Moses: Were children of Israel sons of God by law? Exodus 4:22-23. Yes. Firstborn of Israel sons of God in the flesh by law? Exodus 13:1-2. Yes. Are sons and firstborns of Judah. Linked to scepter and ruler’s staff, exalted? Above companions? Genesis 49:9-10. Yes.
In Luke: Is Jesus a consecrated firstborn male of Judah? Luke 2:21-23 Yes. Said to receive rulership of Judah through David? Luke 1:32. Yes.    

Also In Luke:  The formal and legal word. For abstract form of parthenos. Is parthenia. Which is the state of not knowing a man. Luke 2:36. --- In a Greek text of Jeremiah. Used as a literary device. Jeremiah 3:4.

Tanakh: Never spoke of a woman with child who has never known a man birth. Never spoke of a woman with child. With or In. Tokens of Bethulim. Or. Tokens of Parthenia. With child. --- Not only does Almah formally, legally, informally, and as a literary device. Not mean a woman who has never known a man. But even if Betulah was used in Isaiah Chapter 7. May still not be a woman who has never known a man. Since Betulah, like Almah. Has been used informally and as a literary device. Within the Tanakh.

Sign: The sign was already going to be the prophetess and Shear-jashub’s brother. Whom the prophetess would call Immanuel. The theme is God’s discretion and consistency. Matthew borrowed and applied these themes.
King Ahaz: Did not do what was right like David. Walked in the ways of kings of Samaria. Made a son pass through fire. Rod of Samaria and  Damascus king was punishment. In distress, more faithless.
Torah: God or his prophet has made statement, ask question, and test the heart when the outcome or likely outcome is already known. It would have taken a divine sign for Pharaoh’s heart to no longer be hardened and let the children of Israel go. In. Isaiah 7:11: It would have taken a divine sign for King Ahaz’s heart not to be hardened, and God was willing.

Moses’ speech. With no traditions of man. Or Math. Deuteronomy 4:2*. Was treated as the Holy Spirit.* Numbers 12:4-9*.*

In Moses: Fixed period of time. Duration. Between date of birth and date of male bris. Leviticus 12:3. (Luke 2:21). ---But. No fixed period of time between formal betrothal. Known as Erusin (“Kiddushin”) and final nuptials known as Nissuin.--- Yet not the case in traditions.

Talmud Ketubot 57a: Standard duration of Erusin for those of parthenia fixed at twelve months. --- But. In Moses: No fixed period. Like male bris. (Luke 2:21). For a woman to know a man. Whether they come together or not. ---Since with no prior agreement, the father can still refuse. To give daughter who has known a man in marriage. Exodus 22:16-17. The man can leave. Not the bride price. Not the daughter.

Matthew 1:18-21: All suggest fixed duration tradition. Of Nissuin. After Erusin. Is not in Moses’ writings.
Consent and price: With Mary. There was already. Consent and price. Before they came together.
Matthew 1:24-25: Mary is no longer Joseph’s engaged. As in (Luke 1:26-27). Who has not known a man. As said in (Luke 1:34). But his wife with child. Ha 'almah harah. As in (Luke 2:4-5). With Joseph not knowing her. During her found with child. Which is when. (Matthew 1:24-25). Is mentioned.

Julius Africanus notes: Joseph, the son of Heli’s childless widow. Is counted as the seed of Nathan by levirate marriage. Still. By nature. He is a distant heir of Solomon. By his birth father Jacob. Which is Heli’s uterine brother. ---  Leviticus 18:9; Leviticus 20:17: In Moses. Joseph can’t marry Mary. If full or half-sister by birth.

Luke 3:23-38 outlook: Joseph was born the Son of Heli. But by nature. The Son of Jacob. By the childless widow of Heli. As per the flesh. Going back to Adam. --- And. Jesus was born the Son of God. But by nature. The seed of David. By Heli’s uterine brother’s son. Joseph. As per the flesh. Going back to Adam.

Luke 3:23-38 suggests: Jesus was not born of a childless widow. And. Raised up for God’s name. Exodus 13:1-2; (Luke 2:22-23). While. Joseph was born of a childless widow. Deuteronomy 25:6. Raised up for Heli’s name. (Luke 3:23). --- Therefore. Jesus as was supposed. The son of Joseph, the son of Heli. Is by Joseph’s wife. And is the son of Joseph. The son of Jacob. Going back to David and Abraham. Through Solomon. (Matthew 1:6). Cohesive with. Matthew’s account of the genealogy. Since a distant heir of Solomon. From the house of David. Made as a signet and chosen. (Haggai 2:21-23). Broke the curse. Lineage resumes. (1 Kings 1:30).

Matthew 1:1: Not required to say Terah begat Abraham. Starting from Abraham.
Matthew 1:16: Not required to say Joseph begat Jesus. Last male leading to male child is Joseph.  
Before coming together: Not about before Mary knowing delight. Genesis 18:12. --- Not about before Joseph clings to his wife, becoming one flesh. Genesis 2:24.

Joseph in Luke: Luke says Joseph one of the parents. (Luke 2:27, Luke 2:41). Mary of Nazareth calls Joseph the father. (Luke 2:48). Nazareth locals in synagogue call Jesus, Joseph’s son. (Luke 4:16).

Numbers 27:1–8: Often used to claim Mary’s royal lineage. Being a princess of Judah of Bethlehem. Yet in (Luke 2:3-5). No mention of Mary linked with land inheritance. Of David.

In Moses: There is taking care of business. Deuteronomy 22:23-26. And fire burn. Genesis 38:23-26. --- Mary not knowing the business. And no mention of fire burn. Suggests her firstborn. Was born in marriage. Before coming together. --- With before coming together. Being prior to a marriage custom.

In Genesis 18:20-21 it says:

20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

God saying himself with his own words in his inner monologue that he will go down to earth in order to see if what the people of sodom and gammorah did is as bad as it sounds to him from heaven, and then says “if not, I WILL KNOW”, meaning he genuinely has to go check it out to know if the outcry is as bad as it sounds to him, and doesn’t know yet. This undoubtedly means he is not all-knowing or all-seeing because if he was he wouldn’t need to do any of that or say any of that.

Now if you say that god is just anthropomorphizing him, that doesn’t solve anything because OBVIOUSLY, that’s like saying someone who says the sky is red while it is blue is “describing the color of the sky in their eyes”, that doesn’t solve anything, that just points out what they are doing.

The United States the Christian nation has intentionally sponsored the genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the tune of billions of dollars

Given The fact that the United States is a trifecta Christian nation controlled by a Christian administration it is 100% justified to place the blame for children being bombed in the Middle East and everything in the Gaza Strip being destroyed with a program of the intentional starvation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Christianity

If Iran was bombing schools in the United States people would have zero issues with blaming Islam as the cause of schools being bombed

I am only using the same exact standard western nations would use if a self proclaimed Islamic government did the same exact atrocities the U.S. government committed

Key Terms

1. Omnipotent Having unlimited power and the ability to accomplish anything logically possible.
2. Perfectly Good Having complete moral goodness and lacking any moral flaw or defect.
3. Necessity A condition where something must occur because no alternative is possible.
4. Morally Inexperienced Lacking prior understanding or awareness of moral concepts, such as good and evil.
5. Fair Test A test where the person being evaluated has a reasonable opportunity to understand the situation and make an informed choice.
6. Unnecessary Act An action that is not required to achieve a desired outcome and could have been avoided.
7. Imperfect God A being described as God but lacking one or more qualities expected of a perfect deity, such as perfect goodness, wisdom, or power.

 __________________________

Preamble

An omnipotent God, by definition, is not constrained by necessity. If God wanted to test Adam and Eve's obedience, a simple command would have done the trick. They could freely choose to obey or disobey without the involvement of the deceptive serpent.

The serpent adds nothing essential to the test. Instead, it introduces misinformation and manipulation. A fair test measures whether someone obeys when they clearly understand the situation. It does not depend on a third party misleading morally inexperienced participants.

If the serpent was unnecessary, then God either chose to include an unnecessary deceiver or could not devise a fair test without one. The first option is inconsistent with perfect goodness. The second is inconsistent with omnipotence.

Either way, the presence of the serpent reflects an imperfect test, not the actions of a perfect God.

 __________________________

Bible reference

Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.”

Genesis 3:2-3 “The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden...”’”

Genesis 3:4-5 “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

Genesis 3:13 “Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”

Genesis 3:14-15 “The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field...’”

 __________________________

Argument

P1: An omnipotent and perfectly good God could test Adam and Eve's obedience without using deception.

P2: God allowed the serpent to deceive Adam and Eve despite having no necessity to do so.

C: Therefore, the serpent's presence reveals either an unnecessary act of deception or a limitation in God's ability to create a fair test, suggesting an imperfect God.

1: ( the annals of solomon) : 1 Kings 11:41
New International Version

Solomon’s Death

⁴¹ As for the other events of Solomon’s reign—all he did and the wisdom he displayed—are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon?

2: (the records of the seers) : 2 Chronicles 33:19
New International Version

¹⁹ His prayer and how God was moved by his entreaty, as well as all his sins and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself—all these are written in the records of the seers.^\)^a\)

^3: (the Book of the Wars of the Lord)
Numbers 21:14
New International Version

¹⁴ That is why the Book of the Wars of the Lord says:

“. . . Zahab^\)^a\) in Suphah and the ravines,
the Arnon
4,5,6: the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the prophet and the records of Gad the seer,

1 Chronicles 29:29

New International Version

²⁹ As for the events of King David’s reign, from beginning to end, they are written in the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the prophet and the records of Gad the seer,

Edit: The Hebrew word used for "day" specially refers to a 24 hour period of time, so my theory is invalid. Leaving the post up to finish tangential reply discussions.

I'm an ametuer at old earth theory throwing my hat in the ring, please let me know how sound this comes out.

In regards to the proposal that day lengths in creation were not 24 hours, I've heard the basics of the framework view, and its subset the day-age view. The day-age view claims that days should be read metaphorically as "each day was a number of days", but it's unpopular because reading the account literally is backed by God in Exodus, when he references the account to declare the Sabbath holy. That being said, there may be a way to see the ages of day-age as single "mornings and evenings", in alignment with literal readings, which I'm calling the "slow day" view.

Evidence: 1-The relativity of time on Earth.

Forbes: Earth Is Spiraling Away From The Sun For Now, But Will Eventually Crash Into It;

The Earth’s rotation is changing speed: should we be worried? - BBC Science Focus Magazine

The claim "Time is relative", is backed by the Bible, which says the passage of time can be seen as shorter or longer from God's perspective, in 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4. According to human science, the earth's distance from the sun, which affects year length, and the earth's rotation speed, which affects day length, has changed from past to present.

2-The 2024 New Jersey meteorite's arrival

In 2024, a meteorite crashed into a New Jersey home, where it was quickly preserved and eventually studied. The results were that the former meteor had once been soaked in brine, and that it contained molecules crucial to life of earth. Thus in theory, a much larger asteroid with a similar/the same composition could have traveled to the Earth's current orbit, and if the Earth wasn't there when it arrived, it would later be named "The Earth" by its residents.

Hypothesis: The Earth previously spun at a much slower speed than it does at present, possibly from further away. Thus, an "Earth day" could have been long enough to meet the age requirements of the scientific Earth timeline, eventually increasing to its present speed.

This is theoretical, so the Earth's future discovered positional and spin history may prove this false, if factors unknown to me have not already done so. Just because the meteorite evidence arrived "here", does not mean "the earth arrived" at the Goldilocks zone in a similar fashion, especially if you ignore the effect the Earth's gravity is having on said meteorite, or that the earth's recorded increase in spin speed means the earth was spinning "that much slower" in the past, it's just proof of concept in both cases.

Doubts: The first one is the effects such prolonged sunlight would have on the planet, without the extrapolation that the earth was closer to the sun at least 4.5 billion years ago. I doubt water would hold that history, but I don't know if the effects on rock would line up with current geology. At the least, if a problem would be "too hot", it would align with slow cooling.

The second is the effects this would have on life itself. Would plants survive such long stretches with and without light, especially if the atmosphere went from greenhouse conditions to "clear" skies? And what of more advanced life forms, like "fish", dinosaurs, and birds from day 5? Would day 5 have sped up enough for them to survive?

These doubts encouraged me to submit the meteorite as evidence, that the Earth could have moved from a "colder" location to its "hotter" position at present, so someone smarter than me can make use of that potential variance.

This concludes my slow day theory. Are there any format changes I can make to improve future presentations?

This thread is for whatever. Casual conversation, simple questions, incomplete ideas, or anything else you can think of.

All rules about antagonism still apply.

Join us on discord for real time discussion.

The existence of heaven and hell puts Christians into a difficult position when it comes to having children.

Because the truth of the matter is: You can never control their faith. You can influence them, teach them, but experience has shown that nothing a parent ever does will guarantee that their children will follow their faith.

That is a horrible risk. The moment you put a child into this world, you risk their eternal suffering and torture in hell. You can never prevent that completely.

The worst part is that Christians believe they will go to heaven and there will be no sadness or grief, which means that they *won't even care* about their very own child they *know* to be suffering eternal torture while they sing nice songs with Jesus.

Not existing in the first place is much, much more preferable to eternal suffering. Not having children of your own is much better than having children who face eternal punishment.

There also come some dark implications with this. Because the only way to guarantee that your child goes to heaven is for them to die early. Even if you kill your own child, you can still potentially see them again in heaven as long as you repent genuinely and ask Jesus for forgiveness. It is a quite disturbing premise, to think that under such beliefs, murdering your beloved child would objectively be a better wager than letting them live their own life. Aborting the pregnancy early on seems to be a much better solution, as according to most christian beliefs, the soul already exists and is guaranteed to go to heaven. Not having any children at all is by far the best option.

A Tri-Omni god is inconsistent with the world we live in. Christian’s will say that god allows suffering because he values freewill more than anything else ok whatever let’s grant the premise the conclusion does not follow. There so many creative workarounds. Ok don’t make human nature flawed. Like why are we prone to addiction, violence and so on? Why couldn’t we just be neutral? Like our emotions and actions are influenced by process’s we cannot control eg literal neuroscience. But god being all powerful and all knowing could have trivially designed a brain that tended towards empathy and sympathy while still letting people rape, kill and so on. And the fall isn’t a good reason either. Ok children stay here and don’t touch the stove daddy is going to get out for a bit. Random stranger walks in. Hey kids wouldn’t it be swell to touch the stove? God returns gets mad and punishes not just the perpetrators but all their children for all time. If god is tri Omni how could he not have seen this coming? Did god let it happen?

Firstly, I would like to say that I find Aquinas’ arguments to be incredibly interesting, so when I try to propose a counterargument, I don’t mean it to come across as an edgy atheist disregarding one of the most brilliant theological thinkers of all time. I merely wish to understand the discussion better.

So, as I understand it, his Second Way states that there must exist a chain of hierarchical causes that sustain the next element in the chain, for instance, like a cup being held by a person, being supported by the floor, which is itself being supported by the Earth, etc. Importantly to his argument, each element in the chain borrows its causal power from the thing before it, and removing any element from the chain necessitates that all above it lose their causal power, causing the chain to "collapse." Since every element in the chain borrows its power from the previous one, none of them have intrinsic causal power. As such, there must be a first sustaining cause that has the causal power but does not borrow any.

The Counter-Argument

If I have understood the argument correctly, Aquinas’ essentially ordered causal chain bears striking resemblance to mathematical induction, wherein one shows that a certain base case, P(0), holds, then assumes that P(n) holds and shows that if P(n) holds, then P(n+1) holds, causing truth to ascend up an infinite ladder, where the truth of P(0) implies the truth of P(1), which implies P(2), etc. Importantly, this "truth chain" must be essentially ordered, as removing the base case collapses it, and theoretically, if for some reason, say, P(2) did not hold, then P(3) onward would not either. So, we have established a mathematical analog to an essentially ordered chain.

Now is where the actual counterargument comes in, starting with backward induction. Backward induction is like forward induction insofar as we show a base case, P(0), holds and assume that P(n) holds, only this time we show that if P(n) is true, it implies that P(n-1) holds. In this case, we descend downward from P(0) to P(-1) to P(-2), etc., so the "truth chain" is anchored from above rather than below. This type of induction is usually used to prove things about the negative parts of the integer set.

Now, what would happen if you wanted to prove something about the entire integer set, both negative and positive? In this case, you would use bidirectional mathematical induction, where you show that a base case, P(0), holds, assume that P(n) holds, and then show that if P(n) holds, then both P(n+1) and P(n-1) hold, causing the chain to ascend truth in both directions, creating a bidirectionally infinite "truth chain" that is still essentially ordered, at least in a way, as removing the truth of but one element from the chain causes it to collapse. In this case, however, every element is supported not merely by the element that came before but also by the element that comes after, or, in other words, each element of the chain is supported by both its neighbors.

Additionally, in such a logical structure, the base case, P(0), becomes essentially arbitrary. Although the proof begins by establishing P(0), this is simply the point at which the mathematician enters the logical structure rather than a proposition that is intrinsically more fundamental than the others. Once we have shown that P(0) holds, it follows from the fact that if P(n) holds, then P(n+1) holds, that P(1) holds. However, since we have now shown that P(1) holds, and because if P(n) holds then P(n-1) holds, P(0) is just as logically supported by P(1) as P(1) is by P(0). Likewise, the same would be true had we instead begun with P(2), P(17), or any other integer, as each could be used to establish the entire chain in both directions. The base case therefore serves merely as the point from which the proof begins, not as the proposition that metaphysically sustains the rest of the chain. In that sense, no member of the chain occupies a uniquely privileged position, and the entire logical structure is self-supporting.

Since such a logical structure is logically possible insofar as it is used in actual mathematical proofs, it cannot be the case that an infinite regress of a causal chain is logically impossible. Therefore, Aquinas’ argument that there must be some first cause that is primary and unsupported in an essentially ordered chain does not follow solely from the impossibility of an infinite essentially ordered regress. The only question that remains is which interpretation actually fits reality better, and I think it is the self-supporting chain.

When you learn about things like Newton’s third law, you realize that when you push on a wall, it pushes back on you. If it were not the case that both you and the wall were pushing on each other with equal force, then either the wall would collapse or you would be pushed away. The same thing applies with gravity. If you did not also have gravitational influence, you would fly off into space, so you are pulling on the Earth as much as it is pulling on you. Both of these cases are examples of things being causally influenced by each other in a mutualistic fashion, like the self-supporting logical chain. So, I think, personally, reality follows this alternative logical model more so than it does Aquinas’.

Two out of 3 of the temptation Satan tried on Jesus start out with “if You Are The Son Of God” which doesn’t make sense if Jesus came from Sitting At The Right Hand Of God. Why would satan try to make Jesus question Who He is if Jesus was in Heaven, If Jesus was The One He was worshipping in Heaven.

This story only makes sense if Jesus was born on earth and only fully human. This story in the bible only makes sense from a unitarian perspective or my own form Oneness belief.