Bill wrote:
The foundation of Christianity is built on quick sand.
According to church doctrine;
Christ was born by the Virgin Mary in a cold manger.
A manger is the trough in which an animal's feed is placed. Jesus was laid in
the manger but wasn't born in it.
He was born approximately 50,000 or more years after man appeared on the
earth.
You are off by a great deal. It was "officially" determined in the mid 1600s by
Bishop James Usher of Armagh, Ireland, that the date of creation was 4004 BC
(specifically, on Saturday, October 23, about mid morning.)
A little late to save those
millions that had come before he decided to come to earth to save mankind.
Christ was born and grew up as a normal human and became an ordinary
carpenter.
In middle age he took up preaching about God and how to be saved.
If you take the Gospels as an accurate account, you see in Luke that Jesus
began his ministry much earlier, around the age of 12. (See Luke 2:41-52)
Unfortunately he could not afford or create international radio, TV or Jet
travel so his sermons and pronouncements only reached a very small fraction
of the human race.
There are no writings BY Jesus so he apparently was illiterate.
Very likely untrue. Literacy was highly valued, particularly within the
Pharisaic movement which created the concept of synagogue, a place where men
could gather and discuss Scripture. That Jesus was discussing the Torah in a
synagogue at the age of 12 and that most of the parables recorded in the
Gospels were lifted directly from Pharisee teachings strongly implies that
Jesus, if not his family, was involved in the Pharisee movement and was
therefore, most likely, quite literate.
That he left no doctrinal writings shouldn't be surprising, as all internal
evidence is that Jesus started a *political* movement with spiritual backing.
It did not become a religious movement until well after Jesus' martyrdom, when
Paul tried to start a new religion.
In middle age he chose to die by being nailed to a cross to atone for
peoples sins. If he was God why didn't he just forgive them?
He then went to heaven and several centuries later the Gospels were written
as his instructions to the human race.
The earliest Gospel, called Q (from Quelle, German for "source") was most
likely written down soon after the alleged events. It, in turn, became the
primary source for both Matthew and Mark. The earliest known of the existing
Gospels is Matthew, written about 70 AD. The latest of the Gospels was John,
likely written about 140 AD. To say that they were written "centuries" latter
is an exaggeration.
This whole story has less logic and plausibility than the Santa Claus
stories.
Most of the points you raise are among the reasons I am no longer a Christian.
According to Christian teachings, there are millions and millions of people in
Hell right now who were never given the remotest chance of salvation. Either
they lived before the coming of Jesus or they lived afterwards and never had a
chance to hear the Gospel or they hear the Gospel but rejected it because the
missionaries were bent on cultural genocide or exhibited a "convert or die"
approach. I simply can not honor such a Being.
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"If you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you."
-- Benjamin Franklin
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