The Strange Case of The Temptation in the Wilderness

[Graybeard]

You will note that each time a claim is made that Jesus is the Son of God, it is said by humans. The episodes go along the lines of, Jesus: "Who do you think I am?" A: "I think you're the Son of God.", which, of course, show nothing other than someone’s gullibility and what they think. Therefore, in most cases, it is what they are led to believe, rather than what is stated. - except once.

M't:4:3: And when the tempter [The Devil] came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

Now the Devil is a supernatural being, who knows God on a personal level (Book of Job, etc). The Devil was in Heaven at one time, and the Bible (Jesus Himself) says that Christ (He) was always in Heaven with God. It follows that The Devil knows and is acquainted with the Son of God.

In this case, why is the Devil saying, "If thou be the Son of God,"? This makes no sense at all, unless the Devil does not believe the guy in the wilderness is the Son of God. If the Devil saw Jesus, surely, the Devil would have to say, "As you are the Son of God..."

In fairness, the Devil has little proof that this stranger, standing before him is, in fact, the Son of God. As far as the Devil is concerned, he has seen someone in the Wilderness and calls down on him. The Devil has seen Jesus before and (obviously) this man does not look or behave like Him. Each time the Devil asks for proof, he gets a half-baked evasion and no proof[1].

The strange thing is that Jesus (or whoever is standing in the wilderness) does recognise the Devil - the narrator[2] says so. So again, why did the Devil not recognise him?

The other point about this episode is that if you ignore the Devil's ignorance and assume that he is short-sighted, and we assume that Jesus is the son of god, then the conversation at meeting in the wilderness is even more unlikely.

Imagine you are Jesus: you know and recognise the Devil. The Devil makes no attempt to disguise himself but forthwith starts offering challenges. What are you (as Jesus) going to do?

1. You could destroy him utterly as you will do come Armageddon
2. You could say, "Look! I'm here contemplating the Meaning of Life so piss off!"
3. Or, being peaceable, you could say, "Look, I am the Christ, the Son of God whose arrival on Earth was foretold. I know what you are going to do and say; it is all pointless. It will just make a story for my forthcoming book in which you will be made to look stupid. In any case, as I know who you are, do you seriously think that I'm going to listen to anything you say, or fall in with your ludicrous plans?"

The only conclusion is , “Pics or it never happened.”

1.	To be equally fair to Jesus, this is a typical Christian response.
2.	And here is another thing; who is this narrator? Jesus is supposed to be out there all alone. Who is the mysterious witness to all this? Who is the man who gets it all down verbatim.

[velkyn]

Nicely put, as usual.   


JC has a lot of recognition problems.  Satan can't.  Mary and the Disciples can't after he's dead. 

[curiousgirl]

The only conclusion is , “Pics or it never happened.”

I'm with you there. How convenient was it that Jesus supposedly went into the desert by himself for forty days, ate nothing at all, and talked to the devil? Obviously, there were no eyewitnesses to his supposed encounter with the devil. It's not like Luke was standing there, writing on a scroll, quoting Jesus and the devil verbatim, although some Christians believe the bible is perfect. This was obviously a fairy tale spewed by some superstitious person years later that Luke included in his gospel because there were enough gullible followers to believe that it actually took place.

[gonegolfing]

Well done Graybeard 

It is worth pointing out though, that there is a subtle craftiness that has been applied to this story by the author. The author knows that the story fails if the devil was to try and tempt an all powerful deity that he already knows. And so he must somehow make it clear that if the master jesus is born of flesh then he must look different in that flesh, and would obviously do so, than he looks in the spirit. He makes that possible and clear by the slight changing of the wording, as you have pointed out, which indicates that the devil did not know or recognise this now flesh man deity, and so the devil must tempt this unknown man so as to establish the claims being made about this man's divinity and authority.

It's kind of like the brave kid who goes up to the bully and says: If your so tough prove it!!. He's heard of him, but never met the bully or seen him in action before, so he tempts him to prove himself as worthy of the tough title.

The author was on his toes with this one. ....Other stories though ? Not ! 

[Samuelxcs]

Ain't the son of God a prick

[12 Monkeys]

good luck getting theists to explain this

[Hatter23]

You will note that each time a claim is made that Jesus is the Son of God, it is said by humans. The episodes go along the lines of, Jesus: "Who do you think I am?" A: "I think you're the Son of God.", which, of course, show nothing other than someone’s gullibility and what they think. Therefore, in most cases, it is what they are led to believe, rather than what is stated. - except once.

M't:4:3: And when the tempter [The Devil] came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

Now the Devil is a supernatural being, who knows God on a personal level (Book of Job, etc). The Devil was in Heaven at one time, and the Bible (Jesus Himself) says that Christ (He) was always in Heaven with God. It follows that The Devil knows and is acquainted with the Son of God.

In this case, why is the Devil saying, "If thou be the Son of God,"? This makes no sense at all, unless the Devil does not believe the guy in the wilderness is the Son of God. If the Devil saw Jesus, surely, the Devil would have to say, "As you are the Son of God..."

In fairness, the Devil has little proof that this stranger, standing before him is, in fact, the Son of God. As far as the Devil is concerned, he has seen someone in the Wilderness and calls down on him. The Devil has seen Jesus before and (obviously) this man does not look or behave like Him. Each time the Devil asks for proof, he gets a half-baked evasion and no proof[1].

The strange thing is that Jesus (or whoever is standing in the wilderness) does recognise the Devil - the narrator[2] says so. So again, why did the Devil not recognise him?

The other point about this episode is that if you ignore the Devil's ignorance and assume that he is short-sighted, and we assume that Jesus is the son of god, then the conversation at meeting in the wilderness is even more unlikely.

Imagine you are Jesus: you know and recognise the Devil. The Devil makes no attempt to disguise himself but forthwith starts offering challenges. What are you (as Jesus) going to do?

1. You could destroy him utterly as you will do come Armageddon
2. You could say, "Look! I'm here contemplating the Meaning of Life so piss off!"
3. Or, being peaceable, you could say, "Look, I am the Christ, the Son of God whose arrival on Earth was foretold. I know what you are going to do and say; it is all pointless. It will just make a story for my forthcoming book in which you will be made to look stupid. In any case, as I know who you are, do you seriously think that I'm going to listen to anything you say, or fall in with your ludicrous plans?"

The only conclusion is , “Pics or it never happened.”

1.	To be equally fair to Jesus, this is a typical Christian response.
2.	And here is another thing; who is this narrator? Jesus is supposed to be out there all alone. Who is the mysterious witness to all this? Who is the man who gets it all down verbatim.

I don't quite agree with the idea of hinging an argument on the word "if" The gambit of tricking, taunting, and/or tempting someone, knowing fully well they can do something, by saying "I don't believe you can" is a pretty common human interaction.

That portion never bothered me. The fact that the story is told in the third person, when there were no supposed witnesses, does.

[Avatar Of Belial]

good luck getting theists to explain this

Although, isn't the whole thing supposed to be "divinely inspired"? If "God" told the writer to put it there, then there's no problem. I don't think a Christian would really get shaken by this. :/

[Graybeard]

He makes that possible and clear by the slight changing of the wording, as you have pointed out, which indicates that the devil did not know or recognise this now flesh man deity, and so the devil must tempt this unknown man so as to establish the claims being made about this man's divinity and authority.

Now that is all well and good, but presents more problems than it solves.

M't:4:1: Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. [Edit: so he knows where he is going and why.]
M't:4:2: And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. [Edit: Jesus then prepares for this by fasting for 40 days just to make sure that the delusion will become complete[1].

So not only did God Himself know that the Devil was about to arrive, God must have made a call to the Devil’s cell ‘phone and told him (a) to get his arse over to the Wilderness to tempt Jesus who he would find there. (b) the map coordinates.

The Devil arrives there and without further ado, assumes that the only guy for 100 miles around must be the right one[2], and goes straight in with, “If thou be the Son of God…”

Why would that start the conversation? The Devil already knows he is – God has told him! Jesus already knows the Devil will be tempting Him – God has told Him and so there is no temptation.

The author was on his toes with this one.

I don't think so

1.	See Dorothy of Montau (b. 1347), (http://www.historyfish.net/anchorites/what_are_fasting_girls.html)  who was heavily into fasting to induce delusion and the same site for more hilariously named women and men who starved themselves
2.	There is always the possibility that the Devil had already found 5 or 6 people in the Wilderness and suddenly manifested himself before them and started in with the same line. To which the answer would have been a sudden “WTF!” and dropping dead. However, this would mean that God’s ‘phone call were less than perfect, and we cannot allow this.

[12 Monkeys]

good luck getting theists to explain this

Although, isn't the whole thing supposed to be "divinely inspired"? If "God" told the writer to put it there, then there's no problem. I don't think a Christian would really get shaken by this. :/

I did not say believe it ,I said EXPLAIN it.  Yet another contradiction a theist will dismiss.

[gonegolfing]

He makes that possible and clear by the slight changing of the wording, as you have pointed out, which indicates that the devil did not know or recognise this now flesh man deity, and so the devil must tempt this unknown man so as to establish the claims being made about this man's divinity and authority.

Now that is all well and good, but presents more problems than it solves.

M't:4:1: Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. [Edit: so he knows where he is going and why.]
M't:4:2: And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. [Edit: Jesus then prepares for this by fasting for 40 days just to make sure that the delusion will become complete[1].

So not only did God Himself know that the Devil was about to arrive, God must have made a call to the Devil’s cell ‘phone and told him (a) to get his arse over to the Wilderness to tempt Jesus who he would find there. (b) the map coordinates.

The Devil arrives there and without further ado, assumes that the only guy for 100 miles around must be the right one[2], and goes straight in with, “If thou be the Son of God…”

Why would that start the conversation? The Devil already knows he is – God has told him! Jesus already knows the Devil will be tempting Him – God has told Him and so there is no temptation.

The author was on his toes with this one.

I don't think so

1.	See Dorothy of Montau (b. 1347), (http://www.historyfish.net/anchorites/what_are_fasting_girls.html)  who was heavily into fasting to induce delusion and the same site for more hilariously named women and men who starved themselves
2.	There is always the possibility that the Devil had already found 5 or 6 people in the Wilderness and suddenly manifested himself before them and started in with the same line. To which the answer would have been a sudden “WTF!” and dropping dead. However, this would mean that God’s ‘phone call were less than perfect, and we cannot allow this.

As usual GB, you always present a strong and oft times amusing case 

Understand that I agree with all that you've said, and was merely stating a thought on those few words you indicated about Mat. 4:3 that made the story strange. As well, there are indeed more problems with this story than the one covered--in particular the third person problem and the fact that no witnesses were there to confirm the story.

Theists are rarely challenged with these scriptural problems though, and simply state that jesus most surely told his followers of the events, or, that the word is divinely inspired so the authors got it direct from the holy spirit of truth and so it's a factual event that needed to be shared to enlighten humanity on the power of the word over temptation....blah blah blah fucking blah 

[rbak923]

[In this case, why is the Devil saying, "If thou be the Son of God,"? This makes no sense at all, unless the Devil does not believe the guy in the wilderness is the Son of God. If the Devil saw Jesus, surely, the Devil would have to say, "As you are the Son of God..."

I've heard that Jesus was lead to this temptation by the Holy Spirit. The Devil knows who he is because of the kinds of temptations he throws at Jesus. Jesus probably doesn't have god-like powers at this point and the Devil may be testing his faith in God the Father with all three temptations.

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion - the devil probably won't challenge God when he knows he can't possibly win.

[nogodsforme]

God can limit his power? So, god can choose to not be god? God can choose to not know something? News to me....

Okay, if god can choose to be an ignorant schmuck, how do we know which parts of the bible are from the really real smart god and which parts are from god the ignorant schmuck?

Actually, considering that a lot of the bible is incomprehensible, contradictory, unremarkable and/or wrong, that would explain a lot.

Begs the question, why would god want to be a schmuck sometimes?

[violatedsmurf80]

It was written in Greek
4:3 - ????? ?? ???? ? ????????, ?? ???? ?? ??? ????, ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ??????? ?????.

    ????? -- verb; 3rd person singular aorist of <????> say -- said
    ?? -- particle; <??> and, on the other hand -- and
    ???? -- pronoun; dative singular masculine of <?????> oneself, he -- to him
    ? -- article; nominative singular masculine of <?> the -- the
    ???????? -- noun, masculine; nominative singular of <????????> devil -- devil
    ?? -- conjunction; <??> if -- if
    ???? -- noun, masculine; nominative singular of <????> son -- son
    ?? -- verb; 2nd person singular present of <????> I am -- you are
    ??? -- article; genitive singular masculine of <?> the -- ...
    ???? -- noun, masculine; genitive singular of <????> god -- of God
    ???? -- verb; 2nd person singular imperative aorist of <????> say -- tell
    ?? -- article; dative singular masculine of <?> the -- ...
    ???? -- noun, masculine; dative singular of <?????> stone -- stone
    ????? -- demonstrative pronoun; dative singular masculine of <?????> this -- this
    ??? -- conjunction; <???> so that -- that
    ??????? -- deponent verb; 3rd person singular aorist subjunctive of <????????> happen, become -- it become
    ????? -- noun, masculine; nominative singular of <?????> bread -- bread


these are from my note a while back in a religion class. they had word that did not translate to english, which made it more difficult to understand. 

Edited for it wont put the Greek characters on here

[Historicity]

I have noted them before and I will reiterate my answer.

The confrontation is between the Devil and a divus[1]  The divus is about to do something that will hurt the Devil.  The Devil tempts him with satisfaction of a biological urge, then tempts him with emperorship over the Earth and failing that just drops into direct threat to frighten him.  The divus doesn't flinch, the Devil leaves in despair, and the divus is surrounded by a new blessed more ascended state.

480 BC:  The Devil's name is Mara.  The biological urge is sex.  The divus is Siddartha Gautama who becomes the Buddha later that night. 

Ashoka, the Buddhist emperor of India set up many stone stela declaring where he sent missionaries to enlighten the world including the ones he sent to the Mediterranean area.  One wonders what became of the ones sent west.

30 AD: The Devil's name is Satan.  The biological urge is hunger.  The divus is Jesus of Nazareth who, what?  The other shoe doesn't seem to drop here.

So it is my conjecture that this is a story that drifted in from Buddhism.

1.	A Roman word for someone higher than a human spiritually, an angel or a prophet or a demigod or a god. We only use the feminine form in English for a woman stage performer with a giant ego.

[Graybeard]

Jesus probably doesn't have god-like powers at this point and the Devil may be testing his faith in God the Father with all three temptations.

If Jesus did not have god-like powers, it would be pointless for the Devil to suggest He change the stones to bread.

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion

This is not scriptural, neither can it be possible (even for God). To restrict your understanding, you have to know what it is that you are not going to understand - this is a paradox.

Also, prior to the decision, an all-knowing God would know the answer - how then can God cease to know the answer?

- the devil probably won't challenge God when he knows he can't possibly win.

You would have thought that the Devil would have learned from Job.

[gonegolfing]

[In this case, why is the Devil saying, "If thou be the Son of God,"? This makes no sense at all, unless the Devil does not believe the guy in the wilderness is the Son of God. If the Devil saw Jesus, surely, the Devil would have to say, "As you are the Son of God..."

I've heard that Jesus was lead to this temptation by the Holy Spirit. The Devil knows who he is because of the kinds of temptations he throws at Jesus. Jesus probably doesn't have god-like powers at this point and the Devil may be testing his faith in God the Father with all three temptations.

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion - the devil probably won't challenge God when he knows he can't possibly win.

You've heard ? You've never read the bible then ? And your here giving us a hypothesis of how god, jesus, and the devil could possibly interact ?

If your a theist, is this a joke 

If I were you I would hide your milk and cookies:--there about to be consumed by others.

[velkyn]

I've heard that Jesus was lead to this temptation by the Holy Spirit. The Devil knows who he is because of the kinds of temptations he throws at Jesus. Jesus probably doesn't have god-like powers at this point and the Devil may be testing his faith in God the Father with all three temptations.

again, makes no sense and you make assumption after assumption to keep your myths going.  Probably?  May be?  And the HS doesn't know what JC will do?  So, is the HS part of God or not?  Is JC part of God or not?  Which gospel do you find to be the one with the "right" story? 

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion - the devil probably won't challenge God when he knows he can't possibly win.

  Must suck to be in trouble when God is taking a break.  Was God conveniently depowered on 9/11 here in the US?  How about during oh say 1937 to 1945 in Germany, Poland, etc?  Gee, that explains why God fucks up constantly, he's just made himself an idiot for a while.   

rbak, I'd suggest actually reading your bible and seening how bad it really is.  You seem like you've taken what you've been told as the "truth" when it isn't even remotely. 

[rbak923]

Moderator Edit: fixed quotes.

rbak - please preview your replies, and make sure you are quoting properly, or I will not approve your posts.

Jetson

Must suck to be in trouble when God is taking a break.  Was God conveniently depowered on 9/11 here in the US?  How about during oh say 1937 to 1945 in Germany, Poland, etc?  Gee, that explains why God fucks up constantly, he's just made himself an idiot for a while.   

 
 Which gospel do you find to be the one with the "right" story?  All of them, I tend not to get too hung up on minor inconsistances in these books. Some people saw one thing, anothers saw another - take all the accounts, find others that believe in God, and try to find a truth that makes sense to you.

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion - the devil probably won't challenge God when he knows he can't possibly win.

rbak, I'd suggest actually reading your bible and seening how bad it really is.  You seem like you've taken what you've been told as the "truth" when it isn't even remotely.

Do you think he couldn't have lived each and every life of the human race before he brought it into being? Are you saying he can't understand suffering and doesn't allow it to happen? If you had children, wouldn't you want them to surprise you sometimes? (How boring to constantly know everything that ever was, is and ever will be.....)

[Aaron123]

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion

How does a god-being "chose to limit" his understanding and power?

[velkyn]

Which gospel do you find to be the one with the "right" story?  All of them, I tend not to get too hung up on minor inconsistances in these books. Some people saw one thing, anothers saw another - take all the accounts, find others that believe in God, and try to find a truth that makes sense to you.

  Ah yes, the “minor inconsistencies”.  Funny how they aren’t so minor and Christians go out of their way to ignore them.  We have Mark that ends abruptly and the added verses to make it closer to the others.  We have the “thieves” who either make fun of JC or are all about going to heaven with him (which does cause a problem in whether people who die immediately go to heaven or do they wait until “judgement day”). That’s one big contradiction and no, it can’t be hand-waved away by saying people saw different things.  The event supposedly happened once and we have direct contradictions on what happened during it. We have a variety of who got to the tomb first and what they found there.  We also have JC claming to be God in some and not in others.  All of which caused major problems in defining who were the real true Christians back when the bible was being compiled. 

You want to create your own god and religion just like every other Christian in your “take all of the accounts, find others that believe in God and try to find a truth that makes sense to *you*” (my emphasis).  This is called cherry picking and self-projection as God.  You decide what you want god to be and not surprisingly, your god agrees with you all of the time.  How wonderful for you, you’ve created an imaginary being that supports you in all of your decisions.  Just like every other theist. 

God can chose to limit his understanding and power on occasion - the devil probably won't challenge God when he knows he can't possibly win.

repeating nonsense doesn’t make any more true, rbak.  We see nothing that supports your claims.  You have made them up as excuses for why your god is so incompetent and evidently, imaginary.  Again, was god conveniently depowered when horrible things happened?  I see you can’t answer that at all. 

rbak, I'd suggest actually reading your bible and seening how bad it really is.  You seem like you've taken what you've been told as the "truth" when it isn't even remotely.

Do you think he couldn't have lived each and every life of the human race before he brought it into being? Are you saying he can't understand suffering and doesn't allow it to happen? If you had children, wouldn't you want them to surprise you sometimes? (How boring to constantly know everything that ever was, is and ever will be.....)

Ah, what do these nonsensical questions have to do with my post?   First, no, I don’t think your god can do anything since it’s imaginary.  Please do provide evidence that it isn’t.   Second, what would be the point of “living the life” of everyone before he made it real?  Gee, we have a dress rehersal to show how much your god screws up over and over again, watching it trying to figure out how not to have miss that snake in the garden, the various covenants that fail repeatedly, giving laws that fail and finally supposedly decideing that ah, it really wants people to kill it so it can forgive people for sins that it made them do?   And I do love when Christians try to claim god is just a human and has human needs. Just how does a omnipotent, omniscient being that god claims to be, be surprised by anything?  Congratulations, you’ve just depowered your god for the sole point of your inability to explain just how ridiculous the concept is.  You keep trying to make excuses and you end up destroying your own deity.  Yes, it certainly would be boring but unfortunately for you, your god is defined to be exactly that eternally bored being. 

[rbak923]

[Ah yes, the “minor inconsistencies”.  Funny how they aren’t so minor and Christians go out of their way to ignore them.

You are right, but are the bigger messages of the Bible more important. Although difficult to do, suppose we all tried to live by the rules that God communicated to us - such as "thou shall not kill". Couldn't this alleviate some of the suffering in the world. As to the effects of natural disasters, I don't have a good answer for you, chaos and destruction are part of this universe. Even so, things that can be deemed true miracles do happen from time to time - like a person trapped within the twin towers on 9/11 surviving the disaster.

Do you think he couldn't have lived each and every life of the human race before he brought it into being? Ah, what do these nonsensical questions have to do with my post? 

You are right here, I don't have even scriptual evidence to support this idea. If he is to judge us when our life ends, he must have some way of seeing all the signifcant things we do in our lives - perhaps for instance, being able to recall all of our important memories. In this sense, he is always with us...

As to the idea that Christ was God and man and was at this time limited in power, there are places in the scripture which said an angel came to strengthen him after the temptations. A good question here is why would he need an angel to strengthen him in this situation?

You and I are ultimately trying to solve the same puzzle and it's extremely perplexing. Sometimes I want to go outside my house, look up at the sky and scream for a while. The good news is, you are looking for the truth and are in this forum asking the right questions.

This may not be the right forum for this, but I'm interested in your answer to this question and would be interested in talking to you in the appropriate forum - if you could be God, how would your universe operate? Someone asked me this question once and I made a complete mess of things

quoting fixed GB - rback more practice required!

[Graybeard]

[...]if you could be God, how would your universe operate? Someone asked me this question once and I made a complete mess of things

Just like it does now but with more enquiring minds and without superstition.

[Hatter23]

[...]if you could be God, how would your universe operate? Someone asked me this question once and I made a complete mess of things

Just like it does now but with more enquiring minds and without superstition.

Oh and less suffering that comes from scarce life sustaining resources, parasites, disease organisms, and defective genetics. You know, the type of suffering that does not come from the magic apologist words "free will."

[velkyn]

You are right, but are the bigger messages of the Bible more important.

and how do you know these “bigger messages” are real, worthwile and not a confused mess by humans with no god involved?  The bible claims to be inspired by God.  Why does this god make such ridiculous mistakes?  And I know that these “bigger messages” are ones cherry picked by you.  What do you think the “bigger messages” of the bible are, rbak? 

Although difficult to do, suppose we all tried to live by the rules that God communicated to us - such as "thou shall not kill". Couldn't this alleviate some of the suffering in the world. As to the effects of natural disasters, I don't have a good answer for you, chaos and destruction are part of this universe. Even so, things that can be deemed true miracles do happen from time to time - like a person trapped within the twin towers on 9/11 surviving the disaster.

Sure, it could alleviate some suffering.  However, your god is all about genocide which increases suffering, all about wars to kill those who dare disbelieve in it.  Again, you cherry pick your bible ignoring the nasty parts and wanting to keep only the ones you find acceptable.  You are making up your religion.  Why keep this primitive belief if we already know what the good parts are and we see them in nearly every society because that’s how civilization works?  We also have you waving your hands trying to claim that “chaos and destruction are part of this universe”.  Well, golly, yes they are.  Why would a god require them if it was this omnibenevolent being that Christians claim?  Again, this universe does not need a god nor is the evidence of one.  And no, there are not “things that can be deemed true miracles” that happen.  Calling something a miracle would presuppose that there is a god that is interested in interacting with the world.  If someone surived 9/11 that was luck, not a god. If it were a god, then why did it so randomly pick and choose who survived?   That’s the problem with assigning an intelligent actor to random events, you need to show that it exists and why it would do such things.   

You are right here, I don't have even scriptual evidence to support this idea.

Then why did you claim it? 

If he is to judge us when our life ends, he must have some way of seeing all the signifcant things we do in our lives - perhaps for instance, being able to recall all of our important memories. In this sense, he is always with us...

If, if, if.  Rbak, you seem to be doing a common theist tactic.  You keep making up more excuses for your god in the hopes that someone will agree with any of it.  And it’s gets more and more ridiculous.  Again, evidence tht this god exists at all would be nice.  But all you have is claims of how it does something no one has any evidence of it doing. 

As to the idea that Christ was God and man and was at this time limited in power, there are places in the scripture which said an angel came to strengthen him after the temptations. A good question here is why would he need an angel to strengthen him in this situation?

  That’s not what it says, it says that angels came and attended JC, not strengthened him.  Matthew 4:11 and Mark 1:13 (I looked in the NIV and KJV, perhaps your translation is different).  Christians have wrestled with the problem of JC’s nature for millennia.  It caused major rifts within the churches.  Some believe he was god incarnate, some didn’t.  Some thought he was purely spirit, etc etc.  And again we have no evidence that anything like this even existed. 

You and I are ultimately trying to solve the same puzzle and it's extremely perplexing. Sometimes I want to go outside my house, look up at the sky and scream for a while. The good news is, you are looking for the truth and are in this forum asking the right questions.

I’ve already solved the puzzle and found the truth that gods have very very little probability of existing, certainly not as various religions claim.  You are still desperately trying to make up your own religion that can handle the fact that Christianity does not reflect reality.   

This may not be the right forum for this, but I'm interested in your answer to this question and would be interested in talking to you in the appropriate forum - if you could be God, how would your universe operate? Someone asked me this question once and I made a complete mess of things

  How did you “make a complete mess of things”?   So, if I were a god how would my universe operate?  Pretty much as Graybeard has said. I dont’ get off on being a petty brat like your god is portrayed, harming people for a bet, etc.  I’d remove the eye worms, starvation, etc.  I do like the idea of karma, in that if you are an evil bastard, you get the same back.  However, I ascribe to this view of the universe ““Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe” – Marcus Cole, Babylon 5 tv series.   I am happy enough with a neutral universe and to strive in it to make it better. 

[relativetruth]

In this case, why is the Devil saying, "If thou be the Son of God,"? This makes no sense at all, unless the Devil does not believe the guy in the wilderness is the Son of God. If the Devil saw Jesus, surely, the Devil would have to say, "As you are the Son of God..."

For me I don't see a problem with this.
If you , with a knockout CV, have just started a new job and your new colleagues are afraid of you encroaching on their promotion prospects.
They may well goad you into making a mistake by saying something like 'If your abilities were anything like your CV implies you would have no problem in doing xxxx' where 'xxxx' is some very difficult or impossible task.

Above is an analogy I don't wish to stretch too far (like what were Jesus's claims/CV at the time, or was this a new job for Jesus?). 

[relativetruth]

For me my biggest difficulty is ..

The narrator did not witness the scene. So how did this person know about it?
Presumably the xtian god thought this knowledge was important.

If the xtian god provided this information why did this god not interject more information at other appropriate points in the NT so that it could make sense to us in later eons.

[rbak923]

What do you think the “bigger messages” of the bible are, rbak? 

Let me talk to some friends about this. I personally like the commandments of the Law of Moses and the points Jesus was trying to make in his ministry.

However, your god is all about genocide which increases suffering, all about wars to kill those who dare disbelieve in it. 

If some of the evil in the world comes from men's hearts, then should God interfere to stop it? He gave us free will. What if a devout Jew that died in a concentration camp was able to look down from heaven one day and see a happy Jewish family out on a pinic and then the Lord tells him that some day the number of the children of Israel will outnumber the number of Jews that died during WW II as He promised Abraham. He favored the people of Israel after making a special covenant with them and then punished them when they turned away - I'm okay with this knowing the promise made to Abraham.

If it were a god, then why did it so randomly pick and choose who survived?   That’s the problem with assigning an intelligent actor to random events, you need to show that it exists and why it would do such things.

   
I can't answer you satisfactorily here. As far as "random events" or "miracles" are concerned, to completely explain away God scientifically, don't we have to scientifically disprove each and every "miracle" that occurs in the world?

If, if, if.  Rbak, you seem to be doing a common theist tactic.  You keep making up more excuses for your god in the hopes that someone will agree with any of it.  And it’s gets more and more ridiculous.  Again, evidence tht this god exists at all would be nice.  But all you have is claims of how it does something no one has any evidence of it doing.

God may or may not give us hard scientific evidence to prove his existance soon or in the future. What if we found some evidence that God exists that we could substantiate with some of the scientific instrumentation that exists today - would that be fair to the people in the past who didn't have the technological capability to prove he exists?

As to the idea that Christ was God and man and was at this time limited in power...etc

You are right. Yet a another point of contention between different versions of the Bible. Men have copied and recopied the Bible and have met to determine what should and what should not be in it. Popular culture has changed things as well over the ages - the idea that Lucifer exists for example, and the belief that the apple was the forbidden fruit(what does that say about Apple's logo?). Again, I really believe that the important truths are intact and we can always pray to the One who gave it to us for Guidance.

I like your suggested model of the universe - it's simple and I can understand it - but unfortunately it also doesn't quite explain our universe. Is explaining suffering part of some kind of perspective we don't have? For instance, viewing life and life after death when you look at suffering, given that the human lifespan lasts at most 100 years of life and then we can pass on and then live forever spiritually. Also, when we die we can ask God for the answers to all the questions we ever had - scientific and otherwise. He can complete our knowledge and understanding of this universe and probably provide us with some pleasant surprises.

I'm off to read "The God Delusion" so I can destroy and rebuild the incomplete model of God I'm trying to create. I'm arriving at the conclusion that God and the Universe are so complex, that I can understand only a small portion of both... the rest I'll have to take on faith as is probably the case when trying to understand extremely complex systems that exist everywhere.

[velkyn]

Let me talk to some friends about this. I personally like the commandments of the Law of Moses and the points Jesus was trying to make in his ministry.

Why talk to friends, rbak?  I’m asking you. Not your friends. Not the mouse in your pocket.  And what points do you think JC was trying to make in his ministry?  And how do you see those ask fitting with the laws in the OT?  I’m curious, do you follow those laws? 

However, your god is all about genocide which increases suffering, all about wars to kill those who dare disbelieve in it.

If some of the evil in the world comes from men's hearts, then should God interfere to stop it? He gave us free will.

Per your bible, your god supposedly *did* interfere again and again to stop evil.  You know, those “miracles” the bible goes on about. I find it amazingly funny that you have to ignore those incidents to keep up your story.  Every time God interferes is a demonstration that there is no free will in your religion. You also claim that your god gave us free will.  Where’s the evidence of this, rbak, because it sure isn’t in the bible?  You’ve made it up to excuse your god just like so many other Christians.

Also, nice to ignore that your god is the one all about genocide.  Per your bible it *caused* such things.  Are you okay with your god killing people for daring not to believe in it? Simple question, not so simple answer for you. 

What if a devout Jew that died in a concentration camp was able to look down from heaven one day and see a happy Jewish family out on a pinic and then the Lord tells him that some day the number of the children of Israel will outnumber the number of Jews that died during WW II as He promised Abraham. He favored the people of Israel after making a special covenant with them and then punished them when they turned away - I'm okay with this knowing the promise made to Abraham.

Wow, nice to see that you are now arguing that your god couldn’t’ have just helped the Jews (and the gypsies and the homosexuals and the mentally challenged, etc) and needed to allow genocide rather than just helped people.  How disgusting.  I’m sure you are okay with the promise made to Abraham since you weren’t the one who died of starvation in Dachau.  Awfully convenient to have others pay a price for you. 

I can't answer you satisfactorily here. As far as "random events" or "miracles" are concerned, to completely explain away God scientifically, don't we have to scientifically disprove each and every "miracle" that occurs in the world?

No kidding you can’t answer me satisfactorily.  It’s because your religion fails. You want to assume that miracles happen for people, but that requires that you also admit that your god also would have to intentionally choose not to help people.  And this would indicate that there is a reason for people to have *had* to have chosen between burning to death or jumping to their deaths in the 9/11 attack. 

As for miracles, we have yet to see one single “miracle” that holds up to scrutiny that it occurred and furthermore, that your particular god did anything.  How many more do you want to go over before admitting that miracles are nonsense, rbak? 

God may or may not give us hard scientific evidence to prove his existance soon or in the future. What if we found some evidence that God exists that we could substantiate with some of the scientific instrumentation that exists today - would that be fair to the people in the past who didn't have the technological capability to prove he exists?

Ah, the “real soon now” claims of the Christian.  It’s been over 2000 years, rbak, when will this happen?  And would it be fair if this god would allow itself to be shown to exist? ROFL. Why would it be unfair for people to finally get evidence like Thomas, Gideon, Moses, Abraham, etc supposedly got?  Gee, would it be fair to use modern medical technology to help people now when it was just so unfair that people a thousand years ago didn’t have computer assisted limbs with carbon fiber to replace their amputations?  Do you see how ridiculous your excuses are becoming? 
 

You are right. Yet a another point of contention between different versions of the Bible. Men have copied and recopied the Bible and have met to determine what should and what should not be in it. Popular culture has changed things as well over the ages - the idea that Lucifer exists for example, and the belief that the apple was the forbidden fruit(what does that say about Apple's logo?). Again, I really believe that the important truths are intact and we can always pray to the One who gave it to us for Guidance.

  Funny how your god couldn’t keep errors from his bible and keep people from dying because of them.  Not so much of a good, all-knowing, all-powerful god is it?  And again, we see one more Christian making the same claims as all of the others, that you go directly to the “source” and it tells you what it “really” meant.  Funny how all of you disagree and that there is no supposed “truths” to be found.   

I like your suggested model of the universe - it's simple and I can understand it - but unfortunately it also doesn't quite explain our universe.

Sure it does.  It says that suffering has nothing to do with magic.

Is explaining suffering part of some kind of perspective we don't have? For instance, viewing life and life after death when you look at suffering, given that the human lifespan lasts at most 100 years of life and then we can pass on and then live forever spiritually. Also, when we die we can ask God for the answers to all the questions we ever had - scientific and otherwise. He can complete our knowledge and understanding of this universe and probably provide us with some pleasant surprises.

more attempts to claim that there is something we can’t understand with again no evidence to back that up at all.  No evidence for this magical afterlife.  No evidence that this god even exists much less that we can ask it questions.

I'm off to read "The God Delusion" so I can destroy and rebuild the incomplete model of God I'm trying to create. I'm arriving at the conclusion that God and the Universe are so complex, that I can understand only a small portion of both... the rest I'll have to take on faith as is probably the case when trying to understand extremely complex systems that exist everywhere.

  No, you are arriving at what you want to arrive at with no evidence to support you other than a claim that “we can’t understand so goddidit”.  That’s willful ignorance clung to in your desperation to keep your religion.  There is nothing that you have to take on “faith”.  You can say you simply don’t know something but that does not mean that there is some bogeyman in the sky.