That fable is an old one, and taught to many schoolchildren. I am familiar with it. But how can it apply here? Does God not reveal all in the Bible? The Bible is complete, is it not? How many denominations focus on one part to the exclusion of other parts? I've always liked that fable. It teaches us to look at all the information available before drawing conclusions, but I don't really think it applies here.

Yes and no.

You have a choice to sin or not. Please don't confuse that with being tempted to sin. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you won't be tempted to sin. Jesus was even tempted by Satan.

Christians do not have free will. We were bought for a price. Free will & freedom of choice are entirely different things. If you tell your kids to clean their room or else because you said so, does that give them a choice to obey or not in your eyes? Yeah, they can disobey but at what cost?

All the passages you quoted in the OT have to do with the bondage of the Mosaic Law and Covenant which ended with the coming of Messiah (Jesus).

I understand and respect that, and yet given precept that the Bible is the Word of God, I would expect more common interpretation. Surely God does not intend to for the Bible to communicate a different message to different groups of acolytes.

But how is that relevant? Yes, the Bible was written over hundreds of years and by numerous authors over the centuries. I get that. But if that's relevant, how do you know that the particular translation you follow is accurate? It's been filtered through so many fallible persons; how can you be assured of its infallibility?

Exactly! I was going to comment on this earlier. To me the message is that they are all wrong because they did not seek out all available evidence and reconcile their conclusions with all the evidence. Oddly enough, that's what I thought the point of the fable was when I first heard in when I was very young. I took the message to be to always make judgments based on all the available evidence and always be willing to change your belief when new evidence becomes available.

Free will to resist temptation.
Free will to accept Jesus Christ as Savior.


I agree with Tightwad to a certain extent. Particularly on the choice to sin or not to sin. All people are tempted to sin and God does not tempt people. (James 1:13-14) But only those who are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ are able to resist temptation with God’s help. (Heb. 2:18) God makes a way for Christians to overcome temptations. (1 Cor. 10:13) And it important to note that while Jesus was tempted by Satan Jesus didn’t fall into temptation.

Tightwad’s statement “Christians do not have free will.” comes from Reformation theology. However, the Bible does make a case for humans having a free will to choose.

I particularly believe there are valid arguments for both predestination and free will in the Bible.

All the passages you quoted in the OT have to do with the bondage of the Mosaic Law and Covenant which ended with the coming of Messiah (Jesus). The sin is still detestable to God but Jesus Christ paid the death penalty and the sin can be forgiven because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Ultimately the end result of sin is death – both physical and spiritual in form.

What about homosexuality. It seems that a lot of Christians and a lot of clergy in particular are very outspoken against gays and lesbians. Are they basing these opinions on obsolete laws? And, you know what, I bet you can't find a single passage in the old or new testament that says there is anything wrong with lesbians.

I notice you forgot to address the part about the bible, including the new testament, condoning slavery.

But again, I actually don't really care what the bible says or what you believe.

... Jesus was a raging, lying lunatic....

But again, I actually don't really care what the bible says or what you believe. The point is that it takes a lengthy explanation to get around the obvious errors. It's embarrassing to say that a book the advocates death for minor offenses is dear to you so you make up some artificial distinction about different types of laws to say that the embarrassing parts no longer apply. Then you still apply those laws to justify opposing homosexuality, sexual freedom for women, and a host of other things. Its strains credulity to say the least.

The origin of the Christian religion has been a subject steeped in mystery for nearly 2,000 years. Who was Jesus? Is he a historical character? Who wrote the Gospels? Why are they written in Greek? Why did they have a pro-Roman and anti-Semitic perspective? Why was the religion headquartered in Rome? “The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus: Caesar’s Messiah” is a documentary based on the best-selling religious studies book by Joseph Atwill. Atwill is one of a number of scholars today from all around the world, who are questioning the historic facts behind these mysterious origins of Christianity. When examining the actual history of this era, many of the answers provided by the Church do not hold up to rigorous scrutiny. No doubt, Christianity has done a lot of good for the world, but a lot of bad has come from its most dogmatic believers, who create wars, hatred, and other harm under the disguise of religion. In studying how Christianity emerged, the seven controversial Bible scholars featured in this film agree that it was used as a political tool to control the masses of the day, and is still being used this way today. For example, support for the wars in the Middle East is preached to Evangelical Christians as a way to speed up the coming of the End of Days. Maybe we need to expand the possible answers about how Christianity originated, and deeper questions need to be asked. Maybe we need to examine what political motives were behind the formation of the Christian religion?

The documentary begins with a brief history of the political and religious climate of Judea in the first century CE – the era during which Christianity emerged. Judea was occupied by the Roman Empire, which required them to worship Caesar as a god. The Jews found this blasphemous, and they waged constant rebellions against the Empire. Their religious scriptures prophesied that a militaristic warrior Messiah would defeat the Romans and lead the Jews to liberation. A string of numerous Messiahs presented themselves to lead the people in war against Rome, only to be defeated and crucified – a customary Roman punishment for insurgents of the day. However, the Roman government was growing weaker from over a century of increasingly corrupt rule by the Julio-Claudian dynasty - the last emperor of this lineage being Nero, who was bankrupting the Empire with his self-indulgence. In their greatest victory, the messianic Jews finally succeeded in burning Rome and driving the Romans out of Judea. This caused Nero to call upon his best military men, the Flavians – Vespasian and his son Titus - to crush the rebellion for good. The Flavians succeeded not only in destroying the Jewish towns of Galilee and their temple in Jerusalem, but after Nero was deposed and committed suicide, they seized the throne through a military coup and took over reign of the Roman Empire itself. Under the Flavians, the Empire flourished, and many great monuments were built including the famous Coliseum. In order to pacify the Jewish rebellion, they captured and burned all the Jews’ scriptures. It is around this time that a new literature emerged with the story of a very different Jewish Messiah – one who preached “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, “turn the other cheek”, and “love your enemy”.

The second half of the documentary focuses on the documents the Flavians left behind which prove their authorship of the Gospels. The Bible scholars deconstruct the Gospels and the character Jesus, showing that they are based on archetypes found in the ancient pagan mystery schools and in earlier Jewish literature. Much of the teachings of Christianity are traced back to the writings of Philo of Alexandria - who was combining Jewish scripture with Greek pagan beliefs – and Stoicism, a philosophy promoted by the Flavians. When the Flavians seized control of the Roman Empire, they needed to legitimize their rule, so they had their Jewish court historian Josephus create a large body of work which became the only official history we have of the Roman-Jewish war. Bible scholar Joseph Atwill noticed many parallels between this historic account of the war and the events in the life of Jesus in the Gospels. Through his study of the ancient Greek texts and his discovery of an antiquated Hebrew literary genre, he found dozens of parallels between the Jesus story and the war history that occurred in the exact same sequence. This shows that the events of Jesus’ life which supposedly took place 40 years earlier, were actually all dependent on the events in the military campaign of the Roman Caesar Titus Flavius. Ancient texts were much more allegorical, multi-layered and complex than today’s writing, and when you read the Gospels and the histories of Josephus side by side, a new meaning arises which reveals the authors of the Gospels to be the Roman Flavian Caesars, their co-conspirators, and their literary team.

Along the way, the Bible scholars show how the Roman Imperial Cult - set up to worship Caesar as a god - formed the basis for the Roman Catholic Church, and that some of the Church’s first saints were members of the Flavian court. Atwill also shows how the “second coming of the Christ” referred to a historical event that already occurred. Featuring scholars Joseph Atwill, Robert Eisenman, John Hudson, Kenneth Humphreys, Rod Blackhirst, Acharya S / D.M. Murdock, and Timothy Freke, this ground-breaking documentary not only gives us a revolutionary new understanding of the origins of Christianity, but shows how the political use of religion is still affecting our personal lives today. We currently live on the brink of an immense paradigm shift, and this modern time is very parallel to the era in which Christianity emerged. Studying this ancient era can give us the much-needed perspective for coming up with solutions to today’s problems, so we can create the better world that we envision.

Vinny (Vintek), I think you just stepped in it with both feet. Though in the end I doubt anyone will be bothered by facts.

In fact, it does not require a lengthy explanation.

1) Either there is a god or there is not.
2) Either this god designed and created the Universe or did not.
3) Either there is a purpose to existence or there is not.
4) Either this god intends to interact with its creation or it does not
5) Either we agree on these issues or we do not.

Now these are only the most basic of questions to answer, and really must answer these questions before we can move further.