I will answer in the appropriate topic thread:

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I hope I’ve now answered your points in the Rev 13 topic thread, if not please post there.

godspell, I’m very hppy for you to re-state your points and I will attempt to give you a coherent answer to each

Can you do this on the Revelation 13 Topic thread if that is OK – I am sure everyone from this Markain Messianic Secret… thread now knows where to follow our enthralling exchange, should they wish to do so

Bless you, Judith

Although I’m quite ‘orthodox’ in my Christian views (in the protestant sense of the word LOL) – though godspell doen’t think so! – I, like you I think, have never been one to shy away from tough questions, hence I joined this skeptical blog, which is full of very skpetical, clever and critical (in both senses!) dudes, not least inspired by their very scholarly acomplished leader, Bart. 

I’ve always considered that if the Christian faith is ‘true’ in any sense of the word (and thus worth following), then it should be able to stand up to critical analysis.  However, submitting onself to skeptical critique often knocks off bits that one originally thought of as part of the foundations of the faith and can be quite shaking.  For example, I once believed in the inerrancy of the ‘Word of God’.  I later realized that there is nothing of course in the Bible that says that it is inerrant and nothing that says the whole Bible is the ‘Word of God’ (some bits say they are, like the 10 commandments and the ‘thus sayeth the Lord’ statements of Isaiah etc), but not the whole package.   Paul even states very clearly that some of his teaching is not ‘from the Lord’. 

Rather, our faith is in a living faith in God and in the person of Jesus, and not just in a human compillation of humanly written old books.  Nevertheless, I believe these scriptures are inspired and profitable for teaching etc and of course, are the only useful sources of information that we currently have about Jesus of Nazereth.  I accept many of the Bart’s views about, NT contradictions, textual errors, historical errors, exagerations, pseudo-epigraphy, varying Christologies etc etc, and his book ‘How Jesus Became God’ is a brilliant piece of scholarship, explaining the edevelopment of these Christologies, which, for what my opinion is worth, I highly recommend.   However none of these issues has ended up destroying my faith in God and his lamb-Messiah.   Best wishes

You do realize, godspell, that if you keep posting such ‘tittle-tattle’ on this thread, you might take the views from 963 to the 1000 barrier!  Surely, you wouldn’t want to promote this topic with my ‘non-arguments’ any more than you have already.. LOL

godspell said
I have no idea what any of that means.  But this much I know–if Steefen can post what he wants here, so can I–and so can you, and you do, and I’m not trying to stop you.  I have no authority to do so, nor do I aspire to such authority. 

I am simply serving notice that I’m going to start ignoring you. You have nothing to contribute to the discussion.  Even Steefen, crazed though he may be, is interested in the actual topic of this forum, which is early Christianity, its influences, and how it influenced the world today.  Your interest is in proving people can have superpowers.  I’m not interested in that.  And if I was, I still wouldn’t find your posts worth the time it takes to read them.  I suspect this is not the first forum you have inflicted yourself upon, and I doubt it’ll be the last.  Well, let me get back to the log in my own eye, but seriously–yours is bigger.  But the eye didn’t work that well to start with, seems like.  😉  

Tittle-tattle is gossipy / slanderous conversation.  godspell, if you move to ad hominem attacks, I am sure that I don’t need to remind you as a well-read philospher, that you will tend to loose your intellectual credibility and it will start to make it look as if you’ve lost the argument(s), even if you haven’t lost them.  It also turns the discussion into more of a soap opera, which might temporarily up the viewing figures, but stiffles good deabte and eventually turns people off.

As for large ophthalmic foreign bodies, I also ought to point out that if you do have a log in your own eye (which you have graciously admitted), then it becomes quite difficult to judge the relative size of logs in others’ eyes. 

godspell, viewing figures for this topic thread now stand at 978.  That’s 22 views away from 1000 (not that I care in any way at all :).  We could have a wager as to whether it hits the 1000 mark, or I could just wire you some money for a beer if it does – after all, you’re my number one fan