modcat5

Some things are better said than argued. Let the reader decide. Well argued, friends. Feel free to continue. Raf

Can only be one person. Damned if I know his name, though.

ok, what was the occasion? It wasn't the Super Bowl. What were the other guesses? The singer is mostly known as a comic actor. He is not known as an X-man. X-man's performances were of different songs in different years [though it was the same occasion]. At one point they did a duet satirizing the fact they held the sane job in different years.

please elaborate

Merlin Macbeth Sir Simon of Canterville

Ah. Ryan was not nominated. Tatum won.

An oddly specific law you just KNOW was crafted by someone who was on the receiving end of a "get off my husband or I will cut these off" threat.

There are two? On Golden Pond is correct.

That's why I said Eminem is incorrect. You ok, bro?

ok, so Josephus was a first century historian who wrote about Palestine. He verifies the existence of some characters mentioned in the Bible. Both Herods, John the Baptist, Pilate and some others. He does not verify Jesus [one reference is an obvious forgery and the other does not match the Jesus of the Bible]. He does not verify the slaughter of the innocents or Pilate's bizarre custom of releasing condemned men on the whims of a crowd. This article [from no less a disinterested source than Bible.org -- that was sarcasm] does not address any point I raised.

Josephus also verifies the existence of John the Baptist and his execution on the orders of the next Herod [not the same as the one discussed earlier]. Again, not in dispute. Josephus says nothing about Jesus being related to John, about John baptizing Jesus, or about John calling Jesus the Next Big Thing. But silence on a topic is not contradiction. Continuing...

Ok, so Josephus can tell us Herod was a terrible person. Not disputed. The kind of person who could order the slaughter of the innocents as recorded in Matthew? Absolutely. But does Josephus record the slaughter of the innocents? No, he does not. And neither does anyone else. Only "Matthew," whose ID we do not have. So the best we can say here is that Josephus presents Herod as a character who could have done the things attributed to him in the Bible. Not that he DID them, mind you. Continuing...

What does Josephus say that's relevant to what I said? Let's explore.

Not at all!

Yeah all those teenage tax collectors

Yeah, that had to be like day one or two. I embraced "atheist" very quickly.

Amy Irving played Carrie's friend. Amy Irving's mother played Amy Irving's mother. Amy Irving was Steven Spielberg's first wife. Brian De Palma introduced them. Amy Irving tried out for the role of Proncess Leia. Piper Laurie played Carrie's mother. Nancy Allen playedc the mean girl whovtormented Carrie at school. Both actresses thpught their characters were so over the top evil that this had to be some kind of dark comedy. William Katt, Carrie's prom date, had tried out for Luke Skywalker. He later went on to play the Greatest Smerican Hero. Hence the "lost instructions" hint. And Stephen King really did get just $2,500 for the movie rights. I hear he's done ok since then.

Uh, yeah.

To be clear, I use the belly buttons as a tongue in cheek example of the things over which Christians disagree. I do not think it is much of an exaggeration to say that no matter what issue you choose, there are Christians on both sides of it. Baptism, the Trinity, immediate life after death, the reality of hell, the shape of the Earth, the necessity of works, the permanence of salvation, the need to keep kosher, military service and the pledge of allegiance, drinking, smoking, marriage, divorce, the sabbath... name the issue, serious or petty, and there are Christians who have killed each other over it. What resolves disagreements when two followers of Christ, each claiming to walk by the spirit, contradict each other on a matter of doctrine or practice? Someone has to be wrong! Who judges? It has to be something outside the populace. The Word? Hypothetically, yeah. If it serves no other purpose shouldn't the Bible define Christianity? Etc

Only Costello was a ghost. Great movie.

"Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All this time... YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! AWW DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!" Or something like that. Landon, one of Taylor's crewmen, got an involuntary lobotomy. Human, you're up.

Returning to topic: I believe the Bible teaches an absent Christ [more accurately, an absent Jesus] in ways that are consistent with what Wierwille taught. That Wierwille exploited the concept for his selfish gain no more negates what the Bible teaches than does the fact that I think it's all fabricated superstitious snake oil.

I think you're overanalyzing what I wrote. The Bible teaches that Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. The Bible teaches that, whether I believe all three are historical figures or all three are mythological archetypes [take a wild guess]. That does not mean the Bible interprets itself. That's a believer's position. My position is that the Bible is completely unaware of itself as a collection of books. The gospels weren't written to complement each other like a rhetorical jigsaw puzzle you could piece together to suddenly find two entries into Jerusalem four cricified with Jesus, six denials of Peter, etc. The gospels were written to replace the inadequate gospels that came before. Mark was written by someone in desperate need of a Palestinian atlas. Matthew and Luke each told a virgin birth story, but the tales are utterly incompatible. And none of them found the raising of Lazarus worth mentioning. If the Bible interprets itself, and if it is inerrant, those observations require explanation. Drop those presuppositions and the explanations are easy: the earlier gospel writers don't mention the raising of Lazarus because the story hadn't been made up yet. But the stories are all there. The Bible teaches what it teaches. Unbelief relieves me of any compelling reason to reconcile its narratives with each other or with reality. How many times did Peter deny Jesus? Matthew says 3. Mark says 3. Luke says 3. John says 3. Clearly the answer is 6! No it's not. Assuming this bs story actually took place, and the likelihood of it is miniscule, there were three denials, not six. "But the accounts are contradictory!" They are?!? The vapors! [faints]. Seriously. The scriptures teach what they teach, whether I accept it as gospel or reject it as fantasy. I can discuss it as easily as I discuss Marvel movies, Greek mythology, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Doesn't mean I accept any of them as gospel, nor does it mean I reject every lesson taught by any of those works of fiction.

No. "Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All this time..."

Nope.