"the good news , jesus chrst has risen and that whoever believes in him wont die but have eternal life (john 3:16)" /////  ________________________________

  Umm ,  is there any way to derive wisdom or anything positive from this ancient translation ???

   Let me try. First, "Life / Death / Risen" are subjective words that are connected in the "Eternal" principal,  philosophy.

   "Believes in" the message, of a jesus of the "christ" message, of "perfect" oneness.

    This seems a big intuitive leap from the superstitious non scientific times, of our thinking ancients, our family ancestors.

     Buddha - Reincarnation , all energy/matter is recycled, zero loss.

     John on Jesus , we are god "eternal", doing our temporal time "life" thing here ...

    ~ Temporal: of or relating to time as opposed to eternity. ~

    John seems not as crazy as so many today. I would rather pick on self appointed "apostle" Jesus visionary murderer prosecutor Saul/Paul. The dogmist greedy gifted uniter of Jews and Gentiles .... who wrote elegantly on "what is love" .....  

     Many say Paul was a main spoiler of the dirt simple simple Jesus philosophy of the real "brights", the "gnotics" some call them, the "Awake" , the "saved" I would say, "christ like" is another popular wording .....

  Atheism is the on going oppressed "resurrection", of the "saving jesus christ message" .... as "Ye are GOD(S)" !!!   .... Just as all Buddhas did say ....

                                                    "ONE"

          Jesus Atheist / Paul Xain   -  Atheist Jesus / Tyranny Paul 

      I AM GOD, and atheist "Jesus told me so!" .... neener neener neener

                        ahhh christ , make that 40 days, 140 .... ALONE ....

                 I am tired of being serious, when will the real party begin?  

1) deadliest sure, better technology and better Weapons of mass destruction, however that doesn't mean there were more wars or more RUMORS of war, there has always been conflict in human history, I would like to see a century which didn't have conflict. There was more conflict in the 19th century, in just terms of actual WARS, there was 15 major wars in the 19th century, with only 14 Major wars in the 20th, that doesn't include minor conflicts. World  war 2 had the most amount of deaths between 60 to 72 million, the next largest amount of death.....is in the 13th century between 30 million to 60 million people during the mongol conquest, then the manchu conquest of ming china at 25 million during the 17th century, world war 1 at roughly 20 million although there is a higher number of about 70 million due to deaths during the spanish flu at the time.

2) We have only been keeping records of weather patterns since the 1880's.....that's just over 100 years, well 128 years so far, so yeah we broken records sure in only last 128 years, however we don't have it for the past 2000 years. Pollution can be caused by various factors not including human, such as volcanic activity is one major one. Do some more research as well before talking about this one please.

3) people claiming to be the messiah? or Christos? Umm there where many during the time that jesus supposedly lived, he wasn't the only one and since then there have been many more. So again some more research, many before and many after.

Call me crazy.

I already gave you the evidence and reason for not accepting the tainted Josephus quote on Jesus.

Even your Bible is factual here and there. Rome, Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon  existed for example.

See previous post by latincanuck. There have always been wars and they are not increasing in intensity.

Didn't I already ask you to bring your data forward for the last 100,000 years to prove this statement?

Just in the 1st century before and after Yahshua there were many. One of the best was bar Kosiba who even fooled most of the Rabbis.

Ezekiel was in need of Zoloft or a confine and treat order in a psychiatric ward. Ezekiel was a very inaccurate prophet who wrote bad Sci-Fi. The people of his time thought he was a false prophet or inaccurate, Ezekiel 33:30-33. Ezekiel claimed Nebuchadnezzar would conquer Tyre and Egypt and neither happened. So if he was inaccurate on that why do you give him any consideration for a non-existent country and leader of Magog and Gog?

Dude, Islam began in Saudi Arabia and spread by war for 800 years until it was pushed back. If your Christian idiots hadn't invaded Constantinople in the 4th Crusade Turkey might not be Islamic today and maybe even Egypt. Blame your Christian ancestors for Islam being spread as far as it did.

The Bible has nada laid out. The Israel of today is not what your mentally challenged prophet predicted.

The nitty gritty is ... How do YOU reconcile your AWE ? 

                               "YOUAWE"

                    I like inventing new words

                               "YESYEAH"

                                "GAWED"

                              <   E N O  <

                                      *

Well, a)not all of Josephus's writings are forgeries. Some of it was actually Josephus. The Christ passage, by comparison, appears to have been inserted, and clumsily. Thus, any passages not considered to be of the same author as the Christ passage cannot be used as evidence for or against the accuracy of the Christ passage.

b)Tacitus wrote not as someone with direct knowledge of the events, but as someone who had gleaned his information from believers. If the believers believed it, then how is he going to write anything but what they conveyed to him about their beliefs?

I'll grant you that warfare has been increasing in its efficiency at killing large numbers, but not its intensity.

In fact, the intensity of warfare has been on the decline for thousands of years. Increasingly, mankind codifies 'rules of war', expressly to limit the intensity of warfare. Warfare in ancient days was far more intense. Let's look at your primary source, for example: the Bible. For the moment, we won't question the accuracy of these events, though some do.

Joshua is commanded to make war upon the people living in Canaan. He is commanded to kill entire cities: men, women, children, and even livestock are all to be destroyed. Nothing is to be spared. Nothing is to be left to pollute the purity of God's People.

Let's compare that to warfare in the 21st century:

While universal military service does exist in some countries, by and large warfare is the province of professional soldiers. These soldiers choose this vocation, and are extremely well-trained in it, in those countries where they possess the ability to provide an appropriate level of training. In addition, there exist a set of Laws of Armed Conflict known as the Geneva Conventions. They provide:

1st Convention: Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, 1864

Article 1: Ambulance and Hospitals are neutral, and should be protected by all parties, unless held by a military force (Hospital units that are part of a military organization, btw, are technically supposed to be held as neutral unless suspected to be a cover for an armed operation)

Article 2: Personnel of above fall under these same protections.

Article 3: Personnel of above shall not be prevented from discharging their duties, or returning to their units. When they have fully discharged their duties, if the hospital's under enemy control, they're to be delivered safely to their own people.

Article 4: Personnel leaving a military hospital take only their own possessions. Ambulances leaving a military hospital are to retain their stores.

Article 5: Civilians who bring wounded in, regardless of affiliation, are to be left free and unmolested. Military leaders have an obligation to make sure all civilians in the area know this, and are asked to bring in any wounded, from any side, that they can.

Article 6: Wounded or sick combatants will be cared for, regardless of affiliation. Those too sick to bear arms are to be repatriated ASAP. Others can either be returned to their military organization, or if they agree not to bear arms for the remainder of the conflict, repatriated.

Article 7: Medical Personnel are to wear a Red Cross at all times to identify themselves.

The second Convention provides for similar measures to those at sea. The third, for Prisoners of War.  The fourth, with over 180 separate Articles between the original and the three Annexes to the Protocols to spell out the specifics, deals with the protections of civilians. The fifth, also over 100 articles longs, deals with protecting the Victims of Armed Conflict.

In fact, society recognizes, all over the world, that warfare's increasing efficiency demands that its intensity be limited. The entire concept of an International War Crimes Court is testament to that. The 19th and 20th Centuries can be looked at a pivotal moment in warfare: Before the 19th Century, organized military action largely consisted of two stages. First, there was ranged combat. This was done via massed volley fire, as accuracy of individual shots was negligible. (The Kentucky Rifle of the late 18th century can be seen as aberrant to the time, and a harbinger, largely unappreciated, of things to come.) Then, when lines closed, warfare shifted to the ages-old grand melee. In fact, modern service knives are a holdover from the time when the bayonet was relied upon to allow the volley-firing ranks of musket-wielders to reconfigure themselves into short-ranged, but serviceable pikemen.

This was warfare as it was understood from the time of Rome and beyond: Ranged volleys that served largely to inflict scattered damage and weaken morale, followed by intense melee combat. Massed formations were required for this. Not only did they provide simple and direct means to maintain order, but a)massed formations allowed for effective ranged fire, by putting up large amounts of sling stones, javelins, arrows, or lead balls at once, and b)massed formations allowed for effective close-quarters combat by allowing the sheer weight of numbers to propel the battle line forward.

At the end of the 18th Century, rifling changes this, though as I said, it's not immediately recognized. In 1815, at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, the rifle has not yet replaced the venerable Brown Bess musket in the British Army. In fact, the rifle doesn't demonstrate its brutal efficiency en masse until the American Civil War (the Crimean War in the 1850s is largely composed of naval besiegements and bombardments), which, again, is largely ignored by the 'military powers' of Europe. After all, it's Americans killing Americans, and most of the carnage is of the sort to be expected: Up close and personal, from charging fortified positions capable of returning massed fire. That's been suicidal since the first time people threw rocks down from a ledge at something running at them.

In addition, the Regimental System of Europe's armies largely segregates and shelters leaders from the real potential for slaughter, and by the 1890s, the Concert of Europe has begun, by which skilled politicians and horse-traders manage to limit the outbreaks of warfare remarkably (Bismark is usually under-credited for the degree to which he convinces the Kaiser to not go to war).

Until 1914, when all hell breaks loose.

Not only has the rifle been fully incorporated into Europe's armies, but it's been improved upon. Fixed emplacement weapons of tremendous firepower are available, mocking the 'high' rate of fire of Gatling's hand-cranked multi-barrel gun. Cannon have embraced rifling as well, creating the modern artillery piece, and the military application of petroleum is making the first flamethrowers since ancient China feasible.

Military and National leaders, used to the Concert of Europe, are more or less sure their counterparts aren't willing to commit the massive popular resources needed to win the war, so of course... they do, believing it's the best way to overwhelm the enemy.

This results in horrific events like the Battle of the Somme, 5 months of continuous fighting that leaves 1.5 million dead. On the first day, the British Army suffers 57,470 casualties, of which some 19,240 are dead. This is the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, and the Somme is one of the bloodiest military operations in all of recorded history.

And yet... those are soldiers. Not women, and not children, though of course some doubtless are killed during the war. The militaries of both sides recognize that war is fought between armies. War is a matter of professionals, not a question of extermination.

The Final Solution and the Holocaust under the Nazis, thirty years later? Acts of madness, of genocide... but not warfare. They occured during a period of warfare, but like Stalin's purges and the 20,000,000 dead Stalin left in the Ukraine, not part of the warfare.

In World War II, the most uncontrolled aspects of warfare are the newest: aerial bombardment, which grows more controlled as greater accuracy becomes possible, and the atom bomb, used twice, and for all its horror, perhaps in the long run for the good: The world has seen the evils of nuclear weapons, and only the very smallest of them was enough to make even the greatest military powers of the age decide the risk too great to ever allow them to be used again.

That's the history of warfare: new methods to kill more efficiently arise, and in response, new rules arise to restrict their use. As societies grow more sophisticated and prosperous, more and more limitations are placed on the acceptibility of warfare.

Look, by comparison, at the current U.S. occupation of Iraq: For the size of the country, the force is frighteningly small, and the Rules of Engagement pretty much require the soldier to adhere to the principles behind the Geneva Conventions, even if they're playing a bit fast and loose with the particulars.

Comparatively, the genocidal bloodshed in the Sudan is just that: a genocide. It's not a war. It's murder, en masse. The tribal warfare in central Africa is far closer to 'war' as Joshua practiced it... and yet, it's the exception in modern warfare, not the rule.

Terrorism, by the way? Not warfare. Murder. Asymmetrical or 'unconventional' warfare, which is what some claim terrorism to be, still follows the rules of war: war is to be conducted between identifiable members of military organizations. As an example: If someone blows up a bus to kill a bunch of Americans, that's murder. The closest you can get to that and still be a legitimate form of 'war' is a man with a gun who puts on a predetermined armband and steps onto a bus, announces his affiliations, and asks that all American military personnel please exit the bus. When they do, he takes them prisoner (or, if they are armed and resist, shoots them). That's as close as 'guerilla' warfare comes to terrorism. Any farther, and it's crossed the line to murder.

So no, war isn't more intense these days, or more common. It's more efficiently executed, and gets wider press coverage, but that's it.

Their data has been examined and peer reviewed in scientific journals. Do you really think this shit just gets decided on and then anyone saying otherwise is ridiculed? Think about this for a moment:

Science itself is a peer-review process. Scientists check up on one another. If they can prove one another wrong, they want to. So that data is going to be examined. A lot. And debunked if possible... which it has been. In fact, global warming can be shown to have already pretty much averted one trough in the weather patterns that should have hit a few thousand years ago, but agriculture reduced forestation levels and increased methane production (cuz it's a lot easier to keep livestock if you can provide 'em with steady fodder). And that probably let us skip an ice age that would've pretty well prevented us from getting the ball rolling on 'civilization' much.

What, like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young didn't claim to be new messiahs, leading their people out into the wilderness? There are always going to be messianic cults. People have, since time immemorial, looked to have someone else take care of their problems. Every now and again, one of these cults gets some traction. Let's see where the Mormons are in another 1900 years, hm?

You mean besides biblical literalist apocalypse-junkie Christians in the late 40s deciding to use the plight of the European Jews in order to purposefully try to fulfill biblical prophecy and foment the end-times?

First off, lemme just point out that Christ himself, according to the Bible, said that nobody knows when it's going to happen. That all attempts to say 'here it comes!' are wasted, and that the only true protection is not to see it coming, but to be prepared at all times for it to sneak up on you and happen.

Second, really, when you've got a book full of prophecy, and a bunch in lunatics who want to bring about the end of the world using that prophecy, is it SO surprising that they manage to match some of it? I'm more surprised that they didn't convince the British to name Lebanon 'Magog' and Jordan 'Gog' when they divvied the area up.

And third, and finally... prophecy should be looked at by the believer as bullshit.

I know, that sounds kinda off, but really, if you believe in God, you have even more reason to be skeptical and critical of prophecy than my agnostic-atheist self. After all, I admit I don't know. So accurate prophecy might be taken as proof by someone like me.

You, though... prophecy, like some Christian prayer beliefs (ask Jesus to come into your heart and you *will* be saved!), should be anathema to you. They're not glorifying God... they're limiting Him. They're not faith... they're sorcery. "Say these words with this intent, and God will do X."... like a set of VCR instructions.

As a believer, how can you tolerate the position that a human being saying certain words compels God to react in a specific, inescapable way? How can you tolerate the position that if a human being does X, God is powerless to not produce the effect the human being is seeking to invoke? I'll say it again: That's not faith. That's magic. That's spellcraft: 'Do X to produce Y effect! God is helpless to refuse your incantation!'.

And what is prophecy, but the same thing, writ vaguely over more time?

"I am the prophet Bob-ikiah, and I say that when X and Y, things entirely within the power of man, occur, then A, B, and C will happen by God's hand! God is powerless to not obey my decree!"

How can you stomach that? How can you, as a believer in the God described by John, put up with this wizardry that lies and claims to be faith?

I Bring the Good News!

I just saved a bundle on my car insurance!

For the same reason Harry Potter doesn't IN REALITY, fly around on a broomstick. For the same reason Thor does not make lighting. If you really believe that Gabriel told Mary God was in the mood, or that claimed son of claimed deity magically survived rigor mortis, you might as well blindly believe that I have an invisible Lamborginni I can fart out of my butt.

Arguing that a person existed is unrelated to the separate issue to the claims of magic. I can prove that George Washington existed, but how many sane people claim that he could fly around on a broomstick?

There is no doubt that belief in Jesus is popular, but so is belief in Allah. Yet, you don't believe that Muhammed was an oracle of the one true god of Allah.

Did it ever occur to you that life is not magical. Good things happen, bad things happen and that myths are the product of humans filling the gap with the simplistic utopia of "good vs evil", rather that saying, "shit happens".

No one likes bad things happening to them. But rather than creating a super hero and villain, like a scared child fearing coal in their stocking at Christmas, why not THINK ahead and study all without inserting magical gaps.

There certainly was someone or some group that inspired the story of the Jesus claim. But there is absolutelty NO emperical evidence that spirits knock up girls or that dead flesh can survive rigor mortis.

im not meaning to show weakness , some of the other athiest say that im giving drive by gospel and that im not hanging around to debate. i have to work long hours several days a week , ok

wars and rumors of wars , if you can see the intensity and the horrors that we have seen in the past leading up till now war has developed more and with a larger death toll , some may argue that its just stats, i disagree. warfare has increased , and how we kill others in new and devious ways has gotten worse. as for a major war breaking out check the headlines, isreal is about to lay a spanking on iran, im sure it will be a blood after that , isnt it odd that iran might lead a coalition of countries against israel with russia in the background exactly as its spelled out in ezekiel 38-39????

the weather patterns , i read an article that states  several german scientist say we are heading in to a global cooling period , it seems to me that science is confused on the weather , and how does global warming explain all the earthquakes that have been increasing in intensity since 1949?? the same year israel was born??

you have to be blind to look around the world and see something is going on.

So do I.

You're speaking in quantifiable terms, but failing to quantify them. You say warfare is "increasing" and "getting worse". Please provide some data.

Israel declared independence in 1948, which I think is what you're referring to, not 1949. Though Israel has existed for roughly 4,000 years, give or take.

And how exactly are you connecting earthquakes to global warming?

There have been HUNDREDS of folks claiming the earth was nearing its end. Why are your claims any more true than thiers were (we all note: the world is stubbornly still here.)

For instance:

• Charles Taze Russell in 1914
• Joseph Rutherford in 1925
• Jim Jones in 1978
• David Koresh in 1993
• Luc Jouret in 1994

They all had identical arguments to yours. They were all wrong.

Some of them tried to make it true, and ended up killing thier gullible followers. You're not planning that, are you?