Dark Legacy MUD Forum

lets start out with Hindu because I know the least about it.

Well it is the one I know the least about amoung living religions also. But I will share what little I know about this complex and interesting religon. First I believe that we get our gaming concept of an Avatar from them. Their Deities could manifest lesser versions of themselves in the world, and each act independant of the others.

That part of the world produced the Hindu and Vedic religions. To an outsider like myself, the differances may not be apparent. Movies have no doubt also blured these two. So if I were to mention Kali and Shiva, I would not know which group to put which one with. I think Kali is Vedic and Shive is Hindu, but I would not bet on it. It has been about 25 years since I did any reading on this subject. And as everyone one DL knows, I tend to be absent-minded about recent things, much less long term.

Even more interesting is that some of their Gods have more than one aspect or form. In one form they could be a God of creation, in another form a God of destruction. Each God and Aspect or Avatar seems to have a unique physical form. If memory serves me, Kali had black skin, what looks like a set of large fangs, four arms, and I can not remember any more details. This is a great help to followers of that faith though. Any statue or painting will be easy to identify at a glance for the beliver. Whole stories can be painted and understood by all, no reading required. And wonderful art it is, even to us outsiders who do not know its meaning.

I know little else, and with luck I did not get any thing wrong, but I hope there are some who do know more about this interesting religion.

Has anyone read or heard of the book Misquoting Jesus. In it Bart D. Ehrman Examines how the text of the New Testament has changed over time from copying and translation errors, to deliberate changes based on theological, political, cultural agendas. I have not gotten to read it yet, and may buy it. I have noticed many of these changes to the texts in my own research. This area has always been of interest to me.

If anyone has read this book, or know of such mistakes in the Bible, let's hear from you.

Source : National Geographic
"The Gospel of Judas gives a different view of the relationship between Jesus and Judas, offering new insights into the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Unlike the accounts in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in which Judas is portrayed as a reviled traitor, this newly discovered Gospel portrays Judas as acting at Jesus' request when he hands Jesus over to the authorities."

Jesus requested Judas to turn him over to the authority???!!! What does this say about "Jesus died for our sin?"

Duh. The Gospel of Judas is fake.

And how can we be so sure that the Gospel of Judas is fake while all the canonical books aren't? Are we relying on the fallible, and often times lying, will of men?

how do you know it is fake? do you have evidence that is is fake in your pocket or something?

how do you know it is real?

Occams Razor.

If you would like to call on Occam's Razor to explain that the Gospel of Judas is false while the others are true, I would like to call on it to say that there is no god so that we do not need to assume that the whole of religion is true and so we will not have to argue on the point of Jesus because, since it is based on less assumptions, god does not exist so Jesus could not possibly be god, meaning that the "eternal salvation" promised through him does not matter and the Gospel of Judas has no relevance.

Fair enough.

we dont know if it is real or not. I certainly dont know especially since i have never even seen it. I was just curious how some people on the forum know that it is fake.

The age of the Gospel of Judas is not in doubt, it is old enough to be around at the same time as the other gospels, and was mentioned by writers of that time. The other gospel accounts give various ends to Judas life, so it could be a true account of Judas.

As we do not know for sure if Judas died for betraying Jesus, this gospel does not affect how "Jesus died for our sin?" as Lingolas asked. If Judas died for this before Jesus died on the cross, then that might give the experts something to discuss. Edited part " It still would not affect that Jesus died for our sins as the scrifice had to be of the desent of King David."

So the only real problem is that Judas willingly betrayed Jesus at his request, to fullfill the scriptures. The Bible say "These things must come to pass, but woe unto him by whom it comes to pass." The High Priest also knew the scriptures, was he aware that by putting Jesus to the cross he was fullfilling scripture? We don't know, does it matter? It sounds like Judas has paid a heavy price for what he did, wether he knew or not, and that too fullfilled the scriptures, so whats the problem with it?

self-fullfilling prophecy?

In a broad sense, most prophecy is self-fullfilling. God gave us free will, so any person that is in a key role in prophecy could make a decision that would stop the prophecy from being fullfilled, in which case the prophecy would be reset and begin at another time. Most End of the World prophecy follows this line with events leading up to the big event, but stopping somewhere along the line, and starting again at a latter date. This is why so many generations have believed that they would be the last generation before the end.

Indeed, Christens in their role as "salt of the earth" is to keep End of the World prophecy from being fullfilled, using free will.

As God exists outside of space and time, God would know ahead of time what choices people will make So even though free will is in effect, the end result is still the same. Takeing free will into account, does it matter that prophecy was brought about or stopped by people in key roles who were aware of the effects of their choices. In fact a study of prophecy from all over the world suggests that knowledge of a prophecy often bringes it about, even when those involved are trying to stop it from being fullfilled.

You touch on an interesting point in your last post, Arureal. If we have free will, but god is omnipotent and already knows what will happen, do we really have free will or is it simply an illusion? If we truly have free will, then our futures would not be certain until we exercised this ability. If the future is not certain, then it is unknowable even by those who know the future (think the Oracle from the Matrix), which is an integral piece of omnipotence.

A.) If we truly have free will, the future is not certain and there cannot be an omnipotent being like god is said to be.

B.) If we do not have free will, or only have an illusion of free will in which our futures are known, this church teaching is not true.

C.) Any input, Arureal?

You sound like the philosophy major nerds. but yes, interesting question.

Here's a really outdated one that i still really like: riddle of Epicurus

If God is willing to prevent evil but not able then he is not omnipotent
If God is able but not willing then he is malevolent
If God is is able and willing then why do we have evil?
If God is not able and unwilling then why call him God?

I diagree with the second premise in that riddle. Seems pretty clearly debatable. Since God clearly hsa to decide which is more important... Our free will or him to invoke his will on us (prevention of evil).

If I'm not mistaken isn't it thought that Judas hung himself thinking (mistakenly) that God could never forgive him for his sins.

Quintos,
Your post is hard to answer as I do not understand your path of logic, or its premiss, but I will try. Gods ability to travel through time and see what choice someone makes does not in any way affect that persons free will in making that choice when the time comes, unless God was to come back to that persons past and tries to make them make the choice they were going to make anyway. Perhaps you do not have the correct understanding of time travel.

Now ( think the Oracle from the Matrix ) she had to use such tactics as she was not omnipotent and so could not accuretly foresee the future, but only the mathamatical probabilities of various futures, as she was in fact no more than a computer program trying to shift the odds. If the ability to see the future takes away free will, then you raise every seer, soothsayer, shaman, oracle, and crystal ball user in history to level of a god stealing free will from mankind.

Thus as Gods ability to foresee the future does not effect free will in the present, then there can be both free will and an omnipotent God.

So church teaching is true. We have free will, and our choices in the present will affect our future. The fact that God could, if he/she wanted to for some reason, know what choice you made by his?her presence in the future, has no effect on the choices you make today. Basic physics and basic bible.

Lingolas,
I have never heard of the riddle of Epicurus, but I am glad you posted it as it will help explain something I was trying to point out to Quintos.
This riddle is a classic example of a Greek logicial argument. The first line is the premiss, and is the base for all that follow. Everything that follows is a logical deduction based on the premiss. The process is sound most of the time so long as the first premiss is true, if the premiss is false then the whole line of resoning will be flawed. So the best premiss is one that is very basic and accounts for all the base factors in an either/or, if/then format, just like the example. If the premiss is true, then the results it draws can be used as the premiss of a new argument. Every deduction used in the process must also stand up to the test that no other deduction can be drawn conflicting it from the same argument, its a yes or no, true or false deal. Epicurus's Riddle is a perfect example of how to do every thing wrong, and look good doing it.

If God is willing to prevent evil but not able then he is not omnipotent (True)(Must be as premiss)
At first glance this seems to be a good premiss, but it is flawed. It is not basic enough and sould be supported by a line of reasoning. It bases the power of God on two factors, willingness to prevent evil and the ability to do so. It also links willingness with ability. Reword the premiss like you would an algebra equation.
If God is unwilling to prevent evil but not able then he is not omnipotent(True) Which means willingness has nothing to do with Gods power, we would need a (False) here
If God is willing to prevent evil and able than he is omnipotent(True) As it should be.
If God is unwilling to prevent evil and able than he is omnipotent(True) Again willingness is not a factor, Should be (False) Only the ability to prevent evil may be linked to Gods power, but then again maybe not. Put Man in place of God and check.
If Man is willing to prevent evil and able than he is omnipotent(False) Well that blow the whole thing to pieces, the ability to prevent evil does not make one all powerful. None of the parts of the premiss are related in any way.

In short the premiss is asking a question, but instead of answering it, the author builds the entire argument around the key words he convently put in a statement that would appear true at first glance. An early con man trying to dupe others into his viewpoint, or just trying to prove how smart he was.

Just for fun I could assume it was a valid premiss, than pick apart the rest of it, but that would run several more paragraphs, and I am pooped out.
However if you all insist, I could do so at a latter date.

sorry i couldnt follow your line of reasoning, but yah, the riddle is flawed. It is still nice to go around saying it to everyone because those that are too lazy to think critically will think you're smart :p

I was falling asleep while writting the post, I was having trouble following my line of reasoning by that point.

Here is an interesting concept from the Bible that many believers are not aware of.

Why did God create man in the first place?
God was lonely and wanted someone he could walk and talk with, to share thoughts and feelings, a companion and friend.

What is his end goal for doing so, and what does it mean for us?
The bible states that we are the childern of God. Childern grow up to be like their parents, do they not? Does this imply that we will be like God at some time?
After the resurection and judement the Bible says we will be like Jesus and minister to the multitudes. But if we all are in heaven, who then are the multitudes we will minister to, aliens, other races not yet created or evolved? Or will we, like God, make our own universe and guide it?

What are your thoughts on this?

sounds fantastic. i would really love to be a God of my own universe. I think i would make everyone beautiful and COMPLETELY NAKED!

It will be something like "thou shall not be ugly and covered!"

with the jokes aside. I dont think all children grow up to be like their parents. I know i'm no where near my parents.