His wonderful videos as well as this blog have prompted me to do my OWN research. And come to my OWN conclusion based on facts sustansiated by science and observation. Which is all I believe his videos were intended to do. Stir up the skeptic in all of us to dig deeper at our beliefs and question them. And that’s a good thing indeed. Regardless if you do believe in the God of the Holy Bible (Or the one edited by King James.) You still believe in dogma. And I propose you this riddle, and of course their are more I can think up.

If God so loved the world, and we are all his children…why is their a hell we should even fear, and why would stepping out of his favor lend us to be tortured to death for doing so (If the Bible indeed wasn’t a book created by man in order to endoctrinate a group of people into a way of thinking in order to be controled as a group.) If he loves us…why torture for all eternity. I mean if he’s our FATHER, can you imagine your own flesh and blood father having the patience for that kind of cruelty. If god created all people why is he setting apart a select few to worship him? Torture for all eternity if you I dunno are gay (Not harming another person just gay) seems rather bigoted and harsh. I can think of serial killers with more mercy. If the “Most Evil” scale is correct the loving God of the Holy Bible is at the very top of the list. (And if he exists)

I am an ex-Christian. I guess just saying that invokes hate from you. It’s sad. Is it so hard to believe that people like me simply found themselves unable to continue believing in the existence of the Christian god? Go ahead and dismiss the notion that we can simply find no more reason to believe that there is a god who sacrificed himself for a few days in order to avoid punishing the flawed people that he created. Go ahead and spew your hateful ugly attitude on web sites like this. If we did not know better, because we have already been there, we would think that your bitterness and distian was representative of the hateful attitudes towards atheists projected by every continuing Christian. Thankfully, they are only representative of those who do not know any better.

Remember that the Christian Bible states that the Lord thy God demands that you hate all other gods and religions. To see how despicable you sound, try a few more substitutions.
- – -
I am a Catholic. I guess just saying that invokes hate from you. It’s sad. Is it so hard to believe that we have the one true concept of God?
- – -
I am a Mormon. I guess just sayng that invokes hate from you. It’s sad. Is it so hard to believe that Joseph Smith was given the true picture of God?

I am a Muslim. I guess just saying that invokes hate from you. It’s sad. Is it so hard to believe that Allah is the one true God? …….

I am a Hindu. I guess just saying that invokes hate from you. It’s sad. Is it so hard to believe that there are many gods and that yours is but one among them?

And so on ……

Go ahead and dismiss Him, but he did come and die for you..probably for the same hateful ugly attitude you and all your God hating chums have developed over the years. He saw the bitterness and distain inside. Only dying on the cross could save us from our selves.

God Lover

and on a more serious not the taxonomic software you use in some of the vids

what is that

(and I don’t mean how the @#$#@$ )

I have only one comment: for you Luke. There are times when “argument by authority” is legitimate. However, I also understood you to be asking for the details of how that authority came to the conclusion. That is reasonable – except in those instances where the authority has knowledge that the reader/listener cannot comprehend. For example, without a background in physics I will concede that Stephen Hawking knows more about how the universe began that I do, and I will also note that other authorities have differing opinions.

I am not saying that you, Luke, do not have the background to understand professors of biblical studies, and in this particular case you quite possibly do. I am just sounding a general warning about dismissing an “argument from authority” in all cases. Is the authority is sufficiently authoratative in the particular matter under discussion then it may be quite legitimate to accept that person’s say so. Of course, if you are a legtimate authority in the same area then there is no reason to bow to your colleague’s expert opinion whatsoever. Then you judge things entirely on the basis of the evidence _ _ _ because you can understand this evidence equally well_ _ _

That said, I have the utmost respect for both of you guys. Keep it up!

I also thought the Nag Hamadi library was adequate evidence that Gnostic/Docetic, and Ebionite forms Christianity preceded the Pauline version whjch seems not to have formed until several decades later. I have no desire to argue this point, nor to compare scriptural ‘interpretations’, for the same reasons you would rather not also. I will only say that while Christian doctrine may not have literally been canonized by counting the “ayes” versus the “nays”, that is the impression I got from the way Paul Meier described the actual “process”, in which the council largely followed common practice rather than the other way around. Whether it was democratic or not, the Canon still seems to have formed as an act of Congress.

However, once again, as I said in the video, there is one point where Jesus says that he and the father are “one”. But he also clarifies that he is referring only to their common mission, and that any of us could become “one” with the father just as he is. There are also many times when Jesus repeatedly warns his followers not to confuse him with the Hebrew god whom even Jesus worshipped and pleaded with in prayer. He even tells other Jews that they are gods too, and that they could do even greater miracles than he does, and that they should also do as he does and call no man father but YHWH, whom he describes as someone else, somewhere else, who knows things Jesus doesn’t know, and can do things Jesus can’t do. John and Timothy both seem to disregard what was otherwise a consistent position that Jesus himself maintained. As I said, in other earlier scriptures, Lord Krishna clearly and obviously did claim to be the supreme personality of the god-head, the source of all divinity incarnate, an avatar, and the self-same creator of the universe. But I am confident that no scholar can produce even one citation wherein Jesus says any of these same things. Further I would say that any interpretation to that effect from within the gospels would be directly contradicted by Jesus himself within a few verses both fore and aft.

I appreciate your defenses. Also, please remember how great I think your videos are.

I’m sorry you wish I had contacted you first. I think of blogging itself as a conversation, so posting this WAS my way of contacting you. That’s how I feel about it, but I understand where you’re coming from.

Okay, about the points:

1. I’m not interested in arguments from authority. Show me some evidence for Gnostic Christianity that precedes evidence for Pauline Christianity and I will change my mind. But… there is none.

2. Your error was not in the timeline, but the process. The canon was not chosen by a “show of hands” at various Councils. Paul Meier says nothing about Councils deciding the Canon, or a show of hands. A simple glance at Wikipedia would fix this.

3. I think I misunderstood your claim. If you mean “failed to recognize,” then it is certainly true. Also, some early canons include books that were later rejected by the mainstream consensus. I thought you were claiming that there was a single Biblical canon around 300 C.E., from which certain books were later removed – like what would have happened had Luther succeeded in removing Hebrews and James.

4. I think your interpretations here are massive, unnecessary stretches, but we could argue about interpretation for days…

6. Again, it takes a bit of stretching to interpret “I and the Father are one” as meaning something other than a claim of divinity. For John, Jesus is divine – every scholar knows that.

AronRa, I’m not trying to pick a fight! I loved your videos and I’m surprised there weren’t more mistakes, because they’re quite dense with material.

Point # 3 isn’t an error either, because –while I know that some books have indeed been ‘lost’, I’ve also seen several Biblical scholars commenting on the ways in which various Christians opted to remove, or simply not recognize other books still in the Biblical compilation. 

Point # 4 may be a matter of interpretation.  In the first case for example, Leviticus 14 details a component spell which must include an EARTHenware bowl, running WATER, a WOODen wand, LIFE/BLOOD taken from one bird and the blood carried by another bird through the AIR.  While not universally accepted, these have been described by Wiccans as the five elemental points of the neopagan pentacle.
In the next case, Numbers 5:26 does say the priest must burn the accused wife’s offering on an alter. That is pyrotechnic by definition, and the burnt offering is an ingredient of the potion. 
And in the case for Biblical astrology,  Genesis 1:14 says the stars are to be “signs”.  Job 38:32 further specifies “Mazzaroth” which directly refers to constellations which have no other significance other than zodialogical prophesy.  Luke 21:25 further clarifies this by referring to the stars providing “signs” directly relating to, or heralding the distress of nations upon the earth.  Matthew 12:32 and 28:20 are apparently mistranslated.  The word often taken as “world” seems to have originally “age”, as in the “age of Aquarius” following the “Piscean age”.  And Isaiah 14 is literally a criticism of Babylonian mythology wherein the part of Helel bin Shahar is played by the planet, Venus. 
 
And finally, you presented a link arguing a few places where a strained interpretation might be misconstrued as a subtle indication that Jesus could be hinting that he was an avatar of God and thus the same essence as YHWH manifest in the flesh.  While I admit that human authors of subsequent books certainly share your interpretation, Jesus himself neither said nor even implied that at any time anywhere.  As I said in the video, Lord Krishna did claim to be an avatar of the Hindu Trimurti, and the “supreme personality of the god-head, an incarnation of Vishnu, thus unambiguously “god-in-the-flesh”.  But I maintain that Jesus always only ever described himself as separate from, and subordinate to El/Abbah/Allah/YHWH.  So Krishna definitely did claim to “be” the human form of the the very same god who created the universe, but Jesus not only never ever said anything like that, he actively denied any such association, and even warned his followers not to confuse him with YHWH!  I won’t repeat that whole argument here as I think I had adequately presented my case in the video.  I only wish you had paid more attention to that before declaring your judgement that I am “simply wrong”.