Sunday, January 27, 2008

Mark, chapter 15

(note: the resurrection accounts differ in all 4 gospels and contradict each other - but I won't go into that now)

16 "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned."
So much for unconditional love ...
17 "These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

So every believing Christian should be able to cast out demons, speak with new tongues, not get hurt by deadly poison, and heal sick people. My question: Why isn't that the case then? And why do those religious fools that let serpents bite them because they think they won't get hurt need a doctor afterwards?

19 So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
So he flew into space like Superman? And to some physical place where The Father is sitting somewhere on a throne? And he send sat down there too? What for? And is he still sitting there now? Isn't he getting bored?

(another note: the oldest manuscripts do NOT have the verses 9-19 and verse 20, suggesting that they were later additions to change the rather abrupt and kind of scary ending of the Gospel - verse 8: They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol, keep studying it. These are all arguments which scholars have soundly thrashed over and over and over again.

For example your first one... Where in scripture does it even allude to unconditional love? God's love is extremely conditional. It's conditional upon you believing in Christ as you Lord and Savior. Then and only then will you know the love of God.

Daldianus said...

Lol, keep studying it. These are all arguments which scholars have soundly thrashed over and over and over again.

No, they haven't :)

For example your first one... Where in scripture does it even allude to unconditional love? God's love is extremely conditional. It's conditional upon you believing in Christ as you Lord and Savior. Then and only then will you know the love of God.

So your God is not all-good and not all-loving. One more reason not to believe in him :)

Dan said...

What's the point of this post? It's obvious that you believe what you believe and won't be budged. Seems like you just posted to mock Christians and the Bible, which is pretty low.

Daldianus said...

dan:

You can show me where I'm wrong. And it's not my fault that the Bible contains these oddities. I'm just pointing them out.

Christine Vyrnon said...

In reference to v17... many charasmatics take this literally... in that all/most true christians should be able to do this, and if not, then one hasn't been truly baptized in the holy spirit. Most protestants/ catholics take the view that these are gifts that some people have, but not all... and from the fundagelical perspective, many of these miracles/gifts were more common among the early christians when the power of the holy spirit was most powerful, most needed... and in some scenarios where the holy spirit is powerful/ needed today. Yet HS scenarios as described here are much more rare, b/c the HS apparently is being taken out of the world slowly, b/c of hard hearts etc and the imminent 2nd coming...

That is just one half-assed spin on one verse, and rarely do christians believe that ALL christians at ALL times should be able to do these things... yet will counter with that the holy spirit is very powerful... and if he wants to have these miracles take place, he will, especially through the vessel of those with hard-core faith.

how did I get sucked into commenting on this?