The End Is Near

@Tinkles Well, Moses delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, but he didn't step foot in the promised land. Many will say "Lord!" and he never knew them, much less they knew him.

@Tinkles According to the story, when he returns he kills all life and destroys the planet. But first, he demands that a certain number of believers must be killed. It's been 2,000 years so maybe no one believes in him.

@Diotrephes [quote]According to the story, when he returns he kills all life and destroys the planet. But first, he demands that a certain number of believers must be killed. It's been 2,000 years so maybe no one believes in him.[/quote]

No.

@AkioTsukino You can easily prove your faith but no one has ever passed the test. You can be the first person in history who has ever had faith in Jesus (a name made up around 1630 A.D.) Just walk outside right now and command a tree to uproot itself and to jump into the nearest body of water. If it does as you command without any outside help, you will have been the only person in history who ever had enough faith in the Jesus character to do what he said a person with faith the size of a mustard seed could easily do. Even his Apostles never did that and they were around him all the time. Be sure to document it with independent witnesses.

@AkioTsukino
What part of my comment do you disagree with?

@Diotrephes Most of it. His return, destruction of the planet, and that no one believes him.

@AkioTsukino You can leave the mountains alone but do the tree thing today.

Matthew 21:21-22 (ERV) = "21 Jesus answered, “The truth is, if you have faith and no doubts, you will be able to do the same as I did to this tree. And you will be able to do more. You will be able to say to this mountain, ‘Go, mountain, fall into the sea.’ And if you have faith, it will happen. 22 If you believe, you will get anything you ask for in prayer.”

Luke 17:6 (CEB) = "The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you."

There is no mention of anyone ever doing those things. His apostles didn't do it. No pope or cardinal ha ever done it. The Apostles never did it. But you can be the first. Do it today. Prove you faith or else consider taking up a new hobby.

As far as the death and destruction part, read the book of Revelation. It's full of action.

Revelation 21:1 (NKJV) = "Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea."

Remember what Paul supposedly wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:13-16 (NKJV) = "13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. 14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen."

How many zombies have you seen in your lifetime? Read what it says. If the dead do not rise, the Christ is nor risen. That means that it is normal for the dead to rise. Have you ever witnessed that? I haven't, except in religious zombie movies. You do know that zombie movies are religious movies and not horror movies don't you? They are preaching this biblical passage.

@Diotrephes [quote]You can leave the mountains alone but do the tree thing today.[/quote]

I don't know what you mean. Maybe you will explain further down in the post.

[quote]There is no mention of anyone ever doing those things. His apostles didn't do it. No pope or cardinal ha ever done it. The Apostles never did it. But you can be the first. Do it today. Prove you faith or else consider taking up a new hobby.[/quote]

You use scripture, which is really cool and sort of out of place on these forums. They don't want to hear it, for the most part. They don't acknowledge it, they don't accept that it means anything so it's pointless to use in an argument here. I picked up on that right away. Cool that you do that anyway. Formerly Christian, if I may ask? You don't have to answer. I don't know you. Maybe you are a believer. You may have even told me already but my memory is all but useless these days.

Uh, you're talking about faith like it should be a magical sort of thing. It isn't what Jesus was talking about. I'll try to explain what I mean.

God is a spirit being. That just means he's not a physical being. It means we can't see him. Same with the spirit creatures. He can enable us with certain abilities through his holy spirit. Holy means sacred, belonging to, in this case, God. Through the holy spirit Michael, the first created spirit being, created all other things. Through the same force Some of the prophets of old, Jesus and his disciples healed people and performed remarkable things of this nature. It isn't a super power or magic. Think of it in practical terms. The apostle Paul mentioned these sorts of things as having taken place as they were needed, and that they would end with the disciples because they wouldn't any longer be necessary. They accomplished their purpose. The people that were healed would go on to die like everyone else, but it demonstrated the possibilities and it provided an indication to witnesses or who the aforementioned people were working for, so to speak.

So speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing etc. are no longer expected or needed.

When you read the Bible you have to take some things into account. Who is it talking to is very important. Just because Jesus told his disciples a thing doesn't mean he is telling us that thing. The same applied to them. Just because Jehovah told Adam, Moses, or anyone else something didn't mean it applied to them. For example, the law of Moses doesn't apply to Christians. It's just an example, as Jude said, for us to examine what went on in that specific time to those specific people.

Faith is what he is talking about there and you can put that in very practical terms that can and does apply to us. Not like we can wish a mountain away into the sea like silly magic, but we can literally move mountains with faith. Faith means absolute trust. The Latin word credit means belief, trust. Faith. Same thing.

If I have a mining operation I can use credit with banks who trust or believe that I can fulfill the obligation of an arrangement in which I pay back the loan with interest. With equipment I can literally move the mountain of earth. If faith and trust in money how much more so with faith in God?

An example: atheists often use iron chariots. God couldn't defend Israel against the iron chariots. Typical atheist 1/4 consideration. Jehovah told Israel that they had to have faith in him for him to defend them against their enemies. They didn't. So he didn't. In the case of the chariots they learned this the hard way, they changed and Jehovah did as he had promised.

Now, that pisses atheists off. I see militant atheist (very different than the majority of atheists) as being liked spoiled children pissing and moaning about things they are almost totally unaware of. They don't look for truth. They look for justification of their atheistic position.

God isn't some arrogant bearded magic sky king who is jealous and demanding obedience for no reason. He's jealous and demanding in a sense because it's best for us. So the faith he demanded of Israel had the purpose of instructing them in what capacity he could, for lack of a better term, serve them. To guide and protect them. Them having no faith in him prevented them from seeing the very important bigger picture. His purpose for mankind to live forever in peace on earth.

Their existence, the existence of their enemies, was temporal.

Ughh. Blah, blah, blah . . . I don't mean to preach. That's my understanding based upon years of study. We are having a discussion.

[quote]As far as the death and destruction part, read the book of Revelation. It's full of action.[/quote]

Oh, yes! Believers and unbelievers alike often think of the "old testament" God as being totally different from the "new testament" God. Which is nonsense. They are the same, only the times are different. More destruction takes place in Revelation than the Hebrew scriptures. The term new and old testament is based upon a Latin mistranslation. The word translated into the Latin (Vulgate) testament is actually covenant. The Bible has a brief introduction followed by the first prophecy of the Messiah and the division of the people into those for Jehovah God (his seed) and those who are for Satan (his seed). (Genesis 3:15) The remainder of the Bible is about that.

[quote]How many zombies have you seen in your lifetime? Read what it says. If the dead do not rise, the Christ is nor risen. That means that it is normal for the dead to rise. Have you ever witnessed that? I haven't, except in religious zombie movies. You do know that zombie movies are religious movies and not horror movies don't you? They are preaching this biblical passage.[/quote]

Whoa, whoa, whoa there now! Paul was talking about the resurrection hope. Some people circulating among the congregations were positing that there was going to be no resurrection. He was saying that if there was no resurrection there wouldn't have been any point in Jesus' own resurrection. That was the point. He demonstrated that resurrection was a real possibility, and that Jesus was the only one who had made that possible for everyone else.

The KJV and NKJV aren't really very good translations. https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-15.htm

As a parenthetical aside, Hollyweird's take on Zombies isn't even in itself entirely accurate to say the least. A zombie is actually someone who, in primitive cultures, has been poisoned to appear dead. Their vital signs are almost undetectable. An enemy would poison someone and they would be pronounced dead, and sometimes they would revive and walk around again. The Bible doesn't make reference to zombies.

@AkioTsukino
Regardless of the technical definition of “zombie” it still means a reanimated corpse to everyone .

@DocSavage [quote]Regardless of the technical definition of “zombie” it still means a reanimated corpse to everyone .[/quote]

Hah. Everyone are idiots.

@AkioTsukino I'm an atheist but did attend church when I was a pre-teen.

You do a good job of picking and choosing.

Jesus said that if a person had faith the size of a mustard seed that he could command a tree, or even a mountain. to uproot itself and to jump into the sea and that the tree, or the mountain, would obey. Why hasn't anyone ever had any faith? Maybe Jesus was just a liar.

The story plainly says that countless people saw God. Moses was always talking to him face to face. Others had a picnic with him. He was in their camps.

What about those corpse that popped out of their graves in Matthew 27:51-53 and went to visit their buddies? Don't they classify as zombies?

All of the biblical stories, except for some in the Apocrypha, illustrate one or more of the real Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:11-26) in action. The miracles are based on Exodus 34:10. Read and understand that section and the read any story and you will see the connection. The stories themselves don't have to make logical sense because that is not their real purpose. They are meant to get the listener, or the reader, to reflect on the Ten Commandments.

1 Corinthians 15:15-16 says that since it is normal for dead people to be raised from the dead that means that Jesus was also raised from the dead,

1 Corinthians 15:15-16 (MEV) = "15 Yes, and we would then be found false witnesses of God, because we have testified that God raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up, if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ has not been raised."

How many actual dead people have you seen in your lifetime rise from the dead? TV and movies don't count.

Notice that the passage doesn't say that since Jesus was resurrected from the dead, everyone else will also be resurrected. It says that because dead people are routinely resurrected, it means that Jesus was also resurrected. The passage was included that way to show that the story is just an elaborate hoax. There are countless passages like that scattered throughout the Bible.

edited to added comment