tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post5583010299604922745..comments2023-10-10T09:10:43.247-05:00Comments on Christ's Faithful Witness: Walk by Faith, and Not by Sight: The True Story of Blind Hiker Bill IrwinLawrence and Susan Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-19898471470537785962015-06-14T17:45:21.286-05:002015-06-14T17:45:21.286-05:00Dear Gary, I do admire your desire to share the tr...Dear Gary, I do admire your desire to share the truth with others. Thank for you for taking the time to comment here. I pray you will find the truth so you will no longer lead others astray. <br /><br />I did want to add that your understanding of "faith" is not Christian based. You seem to view faith as believing in fantasy. But faith is actually ascent to verifiable evidence. The many witnesses to the Resurrection were credible witnesses as most of them gave their lives for the Truth. God bless you. Susan Fox Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-4102086999572513232015-06-13T12:33:11.192-05:002015-06-13T12:33:11.192-05:00Thank you for taking the time to respond to my com...Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments. I encourage you to investigate these issues further looking at both Christian and skeptics' research. If you would like to come on my blog and challenge any of my beliefs, I would be honored: Escaping Christian Fundamentalism<br /><br />Take care,<br /><br />GaryGaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-415929823191709032015-06-13T00:50:15.826-05:002015-06-13T00:50:15.826-05:00So that's your excuse not to read the Bible yo...So that's your excuse not to read the Bible yourself? Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-24566399152524761942015-06-13T00:48:34.155-05:002015-06-13T00:48:34.155-05:00Read the entire Old Testament. It's existence ...Read the entire Old Testament. It's existence is not an assumption. Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-16636628907732080462015-06-13T00:48:12.335-05:002015-06-13T00:48:12.335-05:00Read the Gospels. The early witnesses are portraye...Read the Gospels. The early witnesses are portrayed, and their role in the Gospel is clear. Scholars say Matthew wrote down the sayings of Jesus, and Mark relied on Peter to put the sayings in context. Peter is the ghost writer of the Gospel of Mark. Peter witnessed everything. Atheists don't have scholars, just ignorance. Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-32895844227582454192015-06-13T00:45:45.002-05:002015-06-13T00:45:45.002-05:00The writers of the text tell us. Read the Gospels....The writers of the text tell us. Read the Gospels. Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-51450941940444003532015-06-12T19:41:13.158-05:002015-06-12T19:41:13.158-05:00I meant no disrespect to Mr. Irwin or to you, Susa...I meant no disrespect to Mr. Irwin or to you, Susan.<br /><br />I consider myself an evangelist. An evangelist for the real Truth; for reason and science. I am sharing information with you in the hope that you will investigate your beliefs further and not just assume that the supernatural claims of your religion are true. The world would be a much better place without the divisions caused by religious superstitions.<br /><br />Take care.Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-81111283057737828252015-06-12T19:35:30.492-05:002015-06-12T19:35:30.492-05:00My goodness, my dear friends. There are so many a...My goodness, my dear friends. There are so many assumptions in your response. I challenge you to do a google search on these issues. As with any disagreement, listen to both sides. Read the Christian position and that of skeptics. I think you will be shocked by what your learn.Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-40307697612622057452015-06-12T19:33:18.241-05:002015-06-12T19:33:18.241-05:00" Succeeding generations kept the story strai..." Succeeding generations kept the story straight as this was the Jewish culture, and they had a history of keeping their own history accurately, oral and written."<br /><br />This statement is based purely on assumptions. You have no evidence whatsoever that this statement is historical fact.Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-16996323222490440182015-06-12T19:31:57.905-05:002015-06-12T19:31:57.905-05:00"These early Christians were so excited by wh..."These early Christians were so excited by what they saw and heard, and they got the story straight,..."<br /><br />How do you know? Scholars say that Matthew copied 90% of Mark, often word for word, into his gospel, and Luke copied 50% of Mark into his work. Why would eyewitnesses or associates of eyewitnesses need to plagiarize another "eyewitness' " work?Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-19197243956412911582015-06-12T19:29:13.716-05:002015-06-12T19:29:13.716-05:00"It is common for Gospel writers to omit info..."It is common for Gospel writers to omit information that appears in other gospels because each gospel is written for a different purpose and a different audience."<br /><br />Do the writers of these pieces of first century literature tell you this in the body of the text, or are you making an assumption?Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-14267501971926241802015-06-12T02:31:48.552-05:002015-06-12T02:31:48.552-05:00Atheists love to play the telephone game where som...Atheists love to play the telephone game where someone whispers nonsense in someone's ear and the message comes out garbled after 20 people pass the "message." But they always use a meaningless phrase or message, something not important. Now I was news reporter for 12 years, and every time I went out to cover an event with two or three competing reporters we all came back with the same basic facts. Maybe I got a better quote from someone, but no one's facts disagreed. Nowadays we have some wretched reporters that make things up. But in my day the facts were facts, and there was no deviation on a straight news story. These early Christians were so excited by what they saw and heard, and they got the story straight, just like I did for 12 years. Succeeding generations kept the story straight as this was the Jewish culture, and they had a history of keeping their own history accurately, oral and written. <br /><br />We know Thomas said and did what he said in the upper room because 10 of the other apostles of Jesus Christ were present, and three of them were responsible for the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. They were witnesses. There is no doubt. Since you are faced with so much doubt, I beg you to try to talk to God and ask Him to resolve your doubt. Your doubt is unreasonable and it is a spiritual problem. I don't rely on "faith" for believing the things in the Gospel. I don't even rely on "faith" for knowing Christ. I know Christ personally --- just like the woman at the well. Her name was Photina, and we know what happened to her. She became a Christian evangelist and martyr especially well beloved of the Orthodox Church. I met Christ personally when I was four years old. Because I am Catholic He is present in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. My father died suddenly and my mother took me to a Catholic Chapel. She said pray to Jesus for your Daddy. I responded, "I certainly won't!" I was very angry because God took my father. But Jesus and i connected anyway and I have loved Him ever since. Anger is a good prayer. However, recognize at four years old, I didn't know anything. I had no intellectual knowledge of my faith. I wasn't indoctrinated. I simply knew Him, recognized Him and have spoken to Him every since.<br /><br />What I find so amazing about meeting you here Gary, is that this story is about a blind man. Bill Irwin was physically blind. But he could see! You can't. Jesus said the same thing about the Pharisees. <br />"And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains."(John 9:39-41)<br /><br />God bless you. I will pray for you. Susan Fox<br />Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-25376678953103627922015-06-12T02:31:27.712-05:002015-06-12T02:31:27.712-05:00Sorry it doesn't say anything of what you imag...Sorry it doesn't say anything of what you imagine it to say. It is unequivocal. Absolutely unambiguous. "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born."<br /><br />It is common for Gospel writers to omit information that appears in other gospels because each gospel is written for a different purpose and a different audience. Luke may have written both his gospel and Acts before he read Paul's epistles. Why? because he says he wrote the Gospel first, and the Acts came second. Acts ends before Paul dies, and Paul dies about 64 AD. So maybe Paul hadn't written his epistles by the time Luke and Acts were written. Luke may have read them after Paul died. <br /><br />The Apostle John was a witness, present in the upper room when Thomas put his hands in Jesus side. That is not something you forget. John wrote John's gospel. It was written last. John died an old old man. The Church put them in the order written, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. Matthew was a tax collector. He was skilled in keeping records. He kept a complete written record of the sayings of Jesus. John Mark wrote Mark. He was the young man in Mark who ran away in in the Garden of Gethsemane without his clothes. He was a disciple of St. Peter. He took Matthew's document with the sayings of Jesus, and wrote the story from Peter's perspective. Matthew was speaking to the Jews, so he collected everything about Jesus that fulfilled the Old Testament. Luke interviewed the Mother of Jesus, or someone who had interviewed the Mother of Jesus. It's clear from the text. His purpose was to write a clear and orderly account that would confirm the Oral Tradition that Theophilus had already received. There were numerous people present at all the major events of the New Testament, and they were so excited about what they heard and saw they were ready to split a gut. But basically, they are the ones, the apostles who handed down the accounts of what happened with Jesus. The authors of the message are in the gospels. You can recognize them-- Nicodemus who came at night and spoke to Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea, who provided a tomb. John, a young man who laid his head on Jesus shoulder, the beloved, during the Last Supper. He was related to the Pharisees so he got a front seat on all the action when Christ was betrayed and taken away. Peter was there, busy denying Christ, just like Jesus said he would. Simon the Cyrene carried the cross with Jesus. We read in Acts that his sons were early Christians, so Jesus made an impression. Simon would intimately know what happened on the way to Golgotha. There's all those Marys at the foot of the cross with Jesus Mother. There are so many witnesses, if you but read the four gospels, it's unbelievable. <br />Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-57375156831489172972015-06-11T19:01:01.583-05:002015-06-11T19:01:01.583-05:00Sorry I misunderstood.
Paul says in I Corinthians...Sorry I misunderstood.<br /><br />Paul says in I Corinthians 15 that he had received the "500 witnesses" report from other sources. Paul does not assert that he interviewed these 500 witnesses himself to corroborate their testimony. In fact, many NT scholars believe that Paul was simply reciting an early Christian Creed in this passage. He may have assumed the "500 witnesses" was an historical fact just as Christians today assume it is an historical fact. How we would know??<br /><br />It is interesting that the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts never mentions that 500 people saw Jesus at one time in one place. This author states in Luke chapter one that he was not an eyewitness himself to any of the events he wrote down but that he had carefully researched the story from other reliable sources. "Luke" surely had access to Paul's epistle, I Corinthians, but yet Luke does not repeat the claim about 500 witnesses in either Luke or Acts. Why not? Did "Luke" not find this information reliable??<br /><br />As for Thomas statement in the Gospels, how do you know that a man named Thomas said and did these things? Do we know who wrote the Gospels and for what purposes they wrote them? Maybe the Gospels were written as allegories to convey a spiritual message only, using fictional characters, not recording actual history. How do we know otherwise??Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-56904392847382416112015-06-11T18:36:28.576-05:002015-06-11T18:36:28.576-05:00Right here in this piece we have the testimony of ...Right here in this piece we have the testimony of a witness, Thomas, who put his hands into the wounds on Christ after His Resurrection. Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-26144478963533385102015-06-11T18:33:05.436-05:002015-06-11T18:33:05.436-05:00Gary I said the opposite. My faith is based on hi...Gary I said the opposite. My faith is based on historical evidence, the witness of over 500 people. I don't need faith to know that Christ rose from the dead. The expression "walk by faith" has absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You simply injected it into the conversation for some reason. Susan FoxLawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-46233492363005663642015-06-11T00:48:49.831-05:002015-06-11T00:48:49.831-05:00So you are saying that your (Catholic) Christian b...So you are saying that your (Catholic) Christian belief system is not based on the historicity of the Resurrection but on faith? So what exactly are you espousing faith in? Faith itself?<br /><br />Having faith in faith as a valid means of determining reality seems like pretty shaky ground. Can't the Muslim and Hindu make the same claim? Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-47563728334594910212015-06-10T20:11:24.634-05:002015-06-10T20:11:24.634-05:00Christians do have good evidence of the Resurrecti...Christians do have good evidence of the Resurrection, more than 500 witnesses, but by your theory what we read in the newspaper today is false. You don't accept the word of witnesses. No one asks you to believe that Christ came and was resurrected by evidence other than what you have of Alexander the Great or any other historical figure. However, you are confused. There is a passage in Scripture, "Walk by faith and not by sight." It refers to the life of a believing Christian, not to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. For that we have evidence. God bless you. Susan Fox Lawrence and Susan Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11526624376697144718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066465714745281883.post-80993865970599375332015-06-10T17:40:19.812-05:002015-06-10T17:40:19.812-05:00If Christians had good evidence for the Resurrecti...If Christians had good evidence for the Resurrection, they wouldn't ask you to believe by faith.<br /> <br />Think about that.<br /><br /> Historians don't ask you to believe the historicity of any other alleged event in history..."by faith". So why do we need faith to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth if the evidence for this event is as strong as Christian apologists claim?<br /><br /> Christian Americans, Muslim Iranians, Hindu Indians, and atheist Japanese all believe that Alexander the Great captured the city of Tyre; that Caesar crossed the Rubicon; and that Roman general Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. No one is asked to use faith to believe the historicity of these events. So why do we need faith to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus if the evidence for it is good?<br /><br /> Answer: It's not good. In fact, its terrible; nothing but assumptions and second century hearsay.<br /><br /> Christians ask us to believe their ancient, supernatural tall tale based on very weak evidence, and, a jump into the dark (faith). And how do they get us to make this jump into the dark? Not by presenting us with more evidence, but by appeals to our emotions and/or our fears: Either by using, "Our almighty, all-knowing god will protect you and give you eternal life (security and hope)", or, "Our righteous, just, and holy god will torture you for all eternity if you DON'T make the jump (using blind faith)."<br /><br /> It's an ugly, manipulative, sadistic superstition, folks. Unfortunately, it is the superstition used by the largest cult on the planet. <br /><br /> Let's double our efforts to debunk it.Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.com