“One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the Earth except one that is look upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.” – Voltaire, who has been dead for two hundred twenty nine years.

And with a sense of humor only God could act upon, thousands of Bibles per year were printed from the home he lived in at the time of that statement.

James Cameron is no less subject to God’s sense of humor than a man of true intellect like Voltaire.

I’m going to disagree with Lawrence here and argue that what scares people about Jesus is he is a vehicle for otherwise rational people believing preposterous things

Enrique on February 25, 2007 at 11:44 AM

But you are not disagreeing with me, just restating what I said using different words.

- that someone could be born of a virgin, that someone could rise from the dead, that someone could be the son of God. All these things are articles of faith, which is to say they are self-evidently ridiculous.

Virgin birth, and Jesus as God incarnate are Miraculous things. They are not supposed to happen according to the rules of nature, because it is just not special if it isn’t Miraculous.

If we can establish that Jesus was just a guy, then we can take the first step towards leaving this Faith Thing behind,

Like I said suggested before, the first step in denial is denial. Yet, we can’t get away from Faith. Even without faith in God, we have to place our faith in something. And whatever that something is that we place faith in by default becomes our god and religion.

and move forward as human beings without all this ridiculous baggage of trying to figure out what God wants, or who God wants us to vote for, or just when is it okay with God for an adult woman to terminate her pregnancy, or if it’s morally okay to believe in dinosaurs, or which skyscrapers God wants us to fly planes into.

You open the door for may debates here. Rather than get distracted, I offer the following thought. We do ourselves a great disservice by trying to explain or prove Miracles in context of human science, or to deny or disprove Miracles in context of human science. What I find irrational is secular science ruling out a possibility just because it is something we are afraid to face as a possibility.

We don’t need God anymore.

It is very easy to deny a need for something you never had. If one has never truly experienced God, then they can’t really know what they are missing.

Now you lure me into reading one of those stories with your bait and switch headline! I am really PO’d Dude.!

Not at you, you are just ‘doing your job’. I’m PO’d at myself because I fell for it.
Mumble Grumble, scratch and spit.

No sir. I’d never do TV.

Allahpundit on February 25, 2007 at 1:20 PM

Never? Why? Not even something like Red Eye and if they conceiled your identity like they do on 20/20 type shows? What’s the deal, are you famous or something? Are you Karl Rove!? Answer me!!!

Maybe you’re right. But maybe you’re wrong and Jesus was just this guy.

I know from personal experience that He is not.

I think that if people were mostly focused on what’s good for us ultimately good would be accomplished.

Thats true but theres that pesky selfish pursuit thing thats so popular with humanity.

It wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s not perfect with God either.

We are not perfect.

The world would still have problems, but there would be a lot less suicide bombers, and a lot less Iranians pursuing nukes to blow up Zionists, and a lot less women being stoned to death for being raped.

I am christian not muslim.My beliefs do not condone that.

God invariably leads human beings to senseless behavior. Of couse, senseless behavior would persist even without God,

Mens selfishness leads human beings to senseless behavior

but hopefully there would be a net gain of pragmatism.

Pragmatism is a philosophical study on cause and effect.The effect faith and trust in Jesus have provided is peace and hope(you mentioned hope) that I’ve never been able to gain anywhere else.
Disappointment in mankind still has’nt led me to deny God, name my dog or my gun Jesus.Men are sinful and selfish by nature.That nature will always be present til Jesus comes. You have the last word if you want.

1).The Bible clearly says that Jesus was laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimithea, who was an aristocrat during the time of Jesus’ ministry. Much the same way as people by grave plots today while they are still alive, Joseph already owned his tomb. He was a follower of Jesus and let them put Jesus in his tomb.

2) They don’t know their chronology. They date the ossuaries in the tomb to the reign of Herod, who ordered the killing of the babies. That was herod the Great, who ruled when Jesus was born. Jesus was crucified during the reign of Herod Antipas, some 30-33 years later.

Enrique, I have to disagree with you. If humanity were to move forward without God, then the downward spiral we see in our society today will accelrate to darn near the speed of light.

Everyone who discounts the value of faith in favor of humanism is misinformed and naive about human nature. Human nature is to be self-serving and corrupt. It is because of this that we need Jesus in our lives. He alone can change our hearts from serving ourselves to serving others. Don’t be deceived by the violent acts commited by people who claim to be Christians.

If you really examine the motives behind most crimes, throughout history, it is readily apparent that they were commited because they served the desires of the perpetrator.

On the other hand, some of the greatest acheivments of humanity have been made by men and women who at very least, accepted that there is a greater authority than us. Our founding Fathers understood this, which is why they settled on the form of government that is laid out in the Constitution. Their awareness of the corruptability od mankind is borne out by our political system today. So much power has been taken from the states and the people it is little wonder that Washington is the den of corruption that it is.

I’m going to disagree with Lawrence here and argue that what scares people about Jesus is he is a vehicle for otherwise rational people believing preposterous things – that someone could be born of a virgin, that someone could rise from the dead, that someone could be the son of God. All these things are articles of faith, which is to say they are self-evidently ridiculous. It’s only because of our cultural programming that we don’t immediately recognize it.

If we can establish that Jesus was just a guy, then we can take the first step towards leaving this Faith Thing behind, and move forward as human beings without all this ridiculous baggage of trying to figure out what God wants, or who God wants us to vote for, or just when is it okay with God for an adult woman to terminate her pregnancy, or if it’s morally okay to believe in dinosaurs, or which skyscrapers God wants us to fly planes into. Relgious faith is a vehicle for irrational behavior, and the sooner we let it go, the better humanity we will be for it, in my humble opinion.

Would you say you’ve weighed all the evidence that Jesus is God in the flesh?

God invariably leads human beings to senseless behavior. Of couse, senseless behavior would persist even without God, but hopefully there would be a net gain of pragmatism.

Enrique, the excesses of crimes done in the name of religion are well documented. But your “pragmatic” societies have a much worse record in view of human rights. Please read about the pragmatism of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Communist China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. Pragmatism is a road well travelled and littered with every human rights violation imaginable. And God does not lead people to “senseless behavior.” Senseless behavior is done in violation of natural law and usually arises when the elite feel their duty to impose pragmatic solutions on those not worthy of freedom (see China and their “One child” policy).

I bet if I got some hair samples I could prove conclusively that Bob and Carol are human beings. That would only further prove that everything on TV is 100% right.

Before you go on with another banal proof on the non-existence of God, realize that Aristotle, with no Christian or Jewish influence, reasoned his way to the existence of a single, personal God. So when you rail against religion you sound more like Vizzini from Princess Bride than an intellectual.

Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.

(I took this quote from IMDB. If it’s wrong, it at least conveys the meaning and tone that Vizzini delivered).

So AP, was that you of F&F today!?

No sir. I’d never do TV.

Relgious faith is a vehicle for irrational behavior, and the sooner we let it go, the better humanity we will be for it, in my humble opinion.
Enrique on February 25, 2007 at 11:44 AM

Not sure that you are using the word “humble” correctly.
I prefer to wonder about the nature of the intellect that has the ability to create a universe, that is able to command the fires of the sun, the waves and the winds of the earth, the stretching out of the stars across the sky, who formed a planet, a solar system and a galaxy to protect it, then gathered up the elements of that planet and made a creature, breathed life into it and loved him.
He’s God. The Deity – the One who can do that. Anything less and He would be simply, he.

Enrique,Jesus is to some people like an expensive bill is to others.They just dont like to pay the price,dont like to be reminded of a debt and would rather invest in selfish pursuits.

Maybe you’re right. But maybe you’re wrong and Jesus was just this guy. I think that if people were mostly focused on what’s good for us ultimately good would be accomplished. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s not perfect with God either. The world would still have problems, but there would be a lot less suicide bombers, and a lot less Iranians pursuing nukes to blow up Zionists, and a lot less women being stoned to death for being raped.

God invariably leads human beings to senseless behavior. Of couse, senseless behavior would persist even without God, but hopefully there would be a net gain of pragmatism.

. . . claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, . . .

Wow. What a claim. One quick question though: WHAT DID YOU COMPARE THIS DNA TO? Is it just me or is the basis of this claim that they found a body that dates to around 2000 years ago, took some DNA samples, and Voila! IT’S JESUS!!

From the Telegraph:

They claim to have found human material on which they performed DNA testing in a New York laboratory.

“Tests prove the names are genetically of the same family and statistically, there is a one in 10 million chance this is a family other than the Holy Family,” the pre-publication publicity for the book said.(emphais mine)

Wow, again. I was unaware that there were records of names for every family, and members of that family, that lived in and around Jerusalem 2000 years ago.

Enter Church Lady “How Convenient”

Jesus is a greekified name.

Obviously you have never lived in or near a mexican barrio. There is a Jesus on every street.

I wonder what scares people so much about Jesus that they go to so much trouble to try and prove he was a fake.

I’m going to disagree with Lawrence here and argue that what scares people about Jesus is he is a vehicle for otherwise rational people believing preposterous things – that someone could be born of a virgin, that someone could rise from the dead, that someone could be the son of God. All these things are articles of faith, which is to say they are self-evidently ridiculous. It’s only because of our cultural programming that we don’t immediately recognize it.

If we can establish that Jesus was just a guy, then we can take the first step towards leaving this Faith Thing behind, and move forward as human beings without all this ridiculous baggage of trying to figure out what God wants, or who God wants us to vote for, or just when is it okay with God for an adult woman to terminate her pregnancy, or if it’s morally okay to believe in dinosaurs, or which skyscrapers God wants us to fly planes into. Relgious faith is a vehicle for irrational behavior, and the sooner we let it go, the better humanity we will be for it, in my humble opinion.

We don’t need God anymore. The world isn’t better with Him, and it won’t be worse without Him. We hang on to Him like a brokenhearted dude who can’t understand why the girl he went out with a couple of times last month isn’t returning his calls. “But we had such great chemistry!” Just let it go.

“I thought conservatives were vehemently opposed to criticizing U.S. policies or politicians while on “foreign soil.” Yet, it’s apparently okay for Cheney “

Huge difference in what Cheney did in Australia compared to Waffles sittin’ hand in hand with the enemy in Syria.
Please KP, dont go south on us now, you were level headed for quite a while.

Could be the real AP, but I suspect not because the guy who was on with Kirsten didn’t have a New Yauwk accent–not even a Long Giland City one. More importantly, he wasn’t drooling over KP!

Because there is nowhere else to post this…

When, oh when were you going to tell us about

MICHELLE’S NEW SHOW!?

IrishEi on February 25, 2007 at 9:26 AM

I was wondering about this as well… KP and some dude (can’t remember his name… could it be the real AllahPundit?)were on Fox & Friends announcing the new show today. I’ve been seeing commercials, and it’s obviously been in the works for a while but Malkin and everyone involved obviously did a good job of not giving any hints.

Fox has more posted at there site in a piece that actually names Hot Air!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254086,00.html

Anyway, I predict this show will be a big hit. Even as great as the ladies are, it will take a bit of getting used to the “host/co-host” role for both, but I have no question they’ll be great. They already have large audiences that will follow them from the computer to the TV.

So AP, was that you of F&F today!?