For me, OT prophecies that were realized in the person of Jesus Christ were very, very convincing.
This is just so stupid. The minute you understand that the Old Testament was written BEFORE the New Testament, a third grader could see that all they had to do was WRITE IT IN that Jesus was the fulfilled all the prophecies. When you couple that with the fact that the NT writers wrote 30 to 70 years AFTER he died, it is a no brainer that they made it up. Nobody was there to counter the claims! And when you also combine it with the fact that the bible has some completely outrageous claims that are not supported by any outside sources AT ALL, can you not see why we disregard the "evidence" you all present as completely worthless? I just don't see how a thinking human being can believe what you claim to believe. It's so dumb!
Your threshold of proof is beyond any reasonable measure or standard for what would be acceptable as proof for that day and time.
Do you want to know what would be acceptable as evidence worthy of consideration? Ok let me give a few things you could provide that would help validate the claims a bit.
A. 2 or 3 independent, contemporary sources indicating that Jesus existed as a historical figure.
B. Written reports by eyewitnesses who claimed to see the actual resurrection take place, and not just "an empty tomb" for which we could have a million natural explanations.
C. Something akin to a non-fake Shroud of Turin that could be accurately dated to within a few years of Jesus supposed death.
D. Evidence of detailed fulfilled prophecy from the NT.
E. Multiple eyewitness reports from people who saw all the dead people get up out of the ground and walk around Jerusalem.
This is not asking a lot. I am not asking for videotape of his entire life. I am not asking for DNA testing. These are basic things that you would expect to find in order to validate any historical claims being made. Do you really think of this stuff as beyond any reasonable measure? Really?
Also, the one that got me was the ritual of circumcision to be performed on the 8Th day as commanded by God. That particular procedure has been proven to be best performed on the 8Th day as a child's ability to clot blood are actually the highest is his whole life. Abraham couldn't have known that.
This? This is your evidence? The most powerful being in the universe wants foreskins on the 8th day because we CLOT best on the 8th day, and thus we run a smaller risk of DYING from the procedure? Well, if this is the case, don't you think it would have been a lot easier to make people NOT have to circumcise in the first place? What kind of sick cosmic plan has a diety saying "Hey, give me your foreskins. I love them! But don't cut 'till the 8th day because I don't want anyone to bleed out from it!" If you had a single shred of intelligence in you, you would understand that it would be far safer not to cut off the foreskins and cause any bleeding in the first place, regardless of the timing you mention.
On digging a bit, the only person I can find that makes this claim at all is named S.I. McMillan, who, of course, is a religious nut job who happens to have medical training. He seems to have written a few books and they all revolve around living via the biblical teachings. Every site that mentioned him was a Christian site, and I could not find one single peer reviewed research article to back up what he claims about the 8th day prothrombin levels being highest. Could you please post any peer reviewed documentation that backs up this "research"?
But even if was proven to be true, let's look at the risks involved with circumcision vs. just leaving it alone... Here is an entire page of them, listed in alphabetical order...
http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/This was written in big, bright red letters in the middle of the page and I thought it was worth quoting here.
[CIRP Comment: No one knows if a newborn baby has a bleeding disorder. Although circumcision cuts through arteries and veins that provide blood to the foreskin, it is not customary to do a clotting factor test prior to circumcision. If a bleeding disorder exists it will be discovered only during the course of the operation.
Post-circumcision bleeding is an extremely serious matter. Substantial bleeding cannot be tolerated, because the quantity of blood is an infant's body is quite small. Bleeding can lead to exsanguination, followed by hypovolemic shock, followed by death. Post-circumcision bleeding requires immediate medical attention.]So God, in his infinite wisdom, chose the 8th day to chop at baby peckers because it was the best day to avoid clotting issues, but he didn't think that maybe it was a better idea NOT to go hacking at it until they were much older, because compared to an adult, a baby has very little blood in their body to start with, and the risk of death is much less? The average adult has around 10 pints of blood in their body. A newborn under 1 month has around 10 ounces. Yeah, God sure is smart! Did you know, on average, 117 children a year die from botched circumcisions? (Journal of Boyhood Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 2010, 78-90) Do you have the guts to say the truth? That all 117 of those children died because their parents were stupid?
I just don't get it. It's completely moronic. All of it. Circumcision is genital mutilation and it should be a criminal offense to perform it to children who have no say in it at all. If someone is willing to have it done to them later in life, then fine, let them choose it themselves. But doing it to a defenseless child is an abomination.
No, tbright, God is completely fake. Top to bottom fake. Nothing about it is true. There is no such thing as the Christian God. Circumcision is stupid and dangerous at any age, the prophecies are easily understood for what they are once you understand the timing of the writings, and all the so called "evidence" that all of you produce amounts to zero. I have little hope for you ever getting out of your delusional state, but I wish you luck with it nonetheless.
