Ben Carson thinks Charles Darwin was encouraged by SATAN?

[sirs]

One more time.....this isn't about trying to microanalyze the bible.  Christianity is about faith, as I already outlined in A) & B)  Everything else is based on an individual's walk with God.  Jesus had no official position about washing hands that would preclude someone from entering the kingdom of God.  A person could be obsessive compulsive and wash their hands after touching every surface they came in contact with, but as long as they believed that Christ died for us, and accepted him as their personal savior.....and made every effort to walk a path pleasing to God, that's all.  No massive memory required.  Very simple concepts in fact.

Christians get it.  Others, obviously not

[Plane]

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
7:1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,

7:2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.


7:14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand:

7:15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

7:21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,

7:22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.

7:23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Excellent example of Jesus telling his followers not to be slaves to the law. Perhaps Jesus was aware of germs , he was certainly aware of poison, which can hurt you when ingested. Are you aware that a load of poison and a shovel full of germs do not defile a person? Getting stabbed to death is not defilement . 

=============================================
Samaritans were (and are: there are still about 800 left) followers of an Abrahamic religion very similar to Judaism that claim that they are the inheritors of the Hebrew faith, while the Jews who were taken away in exile to Assyria,  changed the religion as a result of their exile.

So Samaritans were very similar to Jews. Certainly more so than Greeks, Romans, and Baal worshiping Philistines.

Samaritans were reviled and hated, the similarity and common history were just part of the problem. When Jesus discussed the circumstances of life with a Samaritan woman at a well , she was shocked that he wanted water that she would have touched . She tried to discuss with him the points of the law that made Samaritans stand apart , but Jesus did not discuss these fine points of law with her , he discussed with her the state of her soul, and what he had to offer to her.

    I don't think Jesus really wanted an opportunity to expound on the better understanding of the law that he as a Jew must have had over a Samaritan.

    Jesus had an attitude twards the law , and I don't think you have seen it.

    Paul saw Jesus attitude twards the law and had to change his own.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Jesus obviously had no clue about the germ theory of disease. I agree that one cannot become immoral because of what he eats. but not getting sick and not getting poisoned are very good reasons for washing one's hands. There are thousands of Christian run hospitals today, and not a one of them would tell a patient not to bother washing his hands.

Jesus lived, as you may know, in a time before toilet paper. The right hand is the eating hand, the lefty hands the wiping hand, and what do you do with your hands when you pray? Think about it.

I imagine we are supposed to think that when Paul circumcised Timothy, it was out of what he thought was necessity. I am sure it was not done for, well, amusement.
Then a while after that, Paul hashed a deal with Peter to make circumcision unnecessary for conversion of pagans to Christianity. Again, Paul thought that he was doing the right thing by acting in the opposite manner.

Of course, the problem was that pagan men did not think that Christianity was worth getting circumcised for.Or perhaps they just did not want Paul handling and knifing their tallywhackers. I know I would not have volunteered for either. But to win converts, you had to get the men, because the women and the children and the slaves followed the men into the religion.

One must admit that Paul was not consistent. It appears as though he changed his mind out of expediency.

[Plane]

Paul had visions , and communication from Jesus.

These events do not make any sense at all with these factors left out.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Yeah, sure. Paul communicated with of and Jesus telepathically.

The point is that Jesus said that there was no need for anyone to wash their hands before eating. Keep in mind that Jesus did not have a fork a spoon or chopsticks, either. The custom was to just stick your hand into the couscous and stuff it into your mouth.

It is rather upsetting to think that you are entrusting your soul to someone who would be fired by McDonald's for improper hygiene any way you look at it. Excuses can be made for disobeying some of the silly Kosher laws, but there were certainly germs all over the place in Galilee, and eating them was no more a healthy practice then than it is now.

If Jesus is God and God is omniscient, then Jesus should know about bacteria. Hell, God CREATED bacteria: leprosy, smallpox, TB, cholera, whooping cough diphtheria ebola, syphilis, river blindness, malaria ye;lo fever bubonic plague. They have never been blamed on Satan.

And I agree: if you do not assume that Jesus and Paul were in some manner communicating, then it does not make sense. That is why it makes no sense to me. Other than to conclude that Paul took what he liked about Jesus, merged it into aspects of other popular religions, like Mithraism and focused his efforts on pagans, because they were easier marks than Jews. I am sure Paul THOUGHT  he was sincerely doing the Lord's work, just as Mohammad, Joseph Smith, and the Jehovah's Witness  people that come to my door every so often.

[Plane]

It all makes sense if you are accepting .

If you reject the miraculous , you don't need to explain it otherwise.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15&version=LEB

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ has not been raised either.  14 But if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain.  15 And also we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if after all, then, the dead are not raised.  16 For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised either.  17 But if Christ has not been raised, your faith is empty; you are still in your sins.  18 And as a further result, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  19 If we have put our hope[c] in Christ in this life only, we are of all people most pitiable.

Paul admits as much himself doesn't he?

Did he come up with this logic , and give his life to a ministry he thought pitiable?

I don't see a search for ulterior motives as reasonable, nor crediting the success of Christianity to the ravings of a deluded preacher.

If God coordinated this , it is not hard to explain, without God it is just a good yarn with a long chain of unlikely events.

[sirs]

It all makes sense if you are accepting .

BINGO

[Xavier_Onassis]

So I should believe anything anyone who seems sincere says so long as I can't think of an ulterior motive for his belief?
I find that seriously illogical.

I should also follow Mohammad, Joseph Smith, William Miller, Elijah Mohammad, Sun Myung Moon, maybe even Jim Jones as well. What ulterior motive woudl Louis Farrakhan have? He is always smiling.

Since I can see no reason why Jesus might have an ulterior motive for telling me not to wash my hands before  eating, I should follow that advice. Really???

If I am willing to accept illogical people saying illogical stuff that seems like nonsense toi be, then it all makes sense.
REALLY?

There is no bingo in that. No bingo, no bongo, no go.

I suspect both of you still wash your hands before you eat, by the way. But WHY?

[sirs]

Here's the kicker......you can follow ANYONE you like.  Plane nailed it, as I've also been referencing as well....Christians get it.  And the more you opine how much Plane's point wasn't spot on, demonstrates all the more just how much it was     Thank you for the validation

[Xavier_Onassis]

If God (or Jesus) took such a personal role in communicating with Paul, then where was God when Mohammad came along, claiming that Jesus was just another prophet, and a lesser one than Mohammad, and that the doctrine of the Trinity was nonsense? One would imagine that all it would have taken would have been to have afflicted Mo with a stutter or the voice of a little girl; or something very minor to prevent Islam from coming along and converting much of the territory that Paul spent so much time converting.

If God wanted to spread Christianity c. 70 AD, then why did he allow Mohammad to eradicate it c. 620 AD? ow does that even make sense. Many of those churches Paul wrote to are now in Muslim territory, including Tarsus itself.

This is not ''microanalyzing'' These are clearly valid questions. Just like the Jesus  hand washing remark. Jesus was (a) God and microbes and still said dumb shit for effect, or (b) ignorant of germs and how they spread disease. If Jesus flicked a booger in your burger, would you eat it anyway? Think about it.

I realize that the traditional Christian response is to get all glassy-eyed and saying ''It is all part of the Lord's Divine Plan that we are far too sinful and unworthy to question.''

But any thinking person knows that is just bullshit and really means ''It hurts me to think.''

[sirs]

And one more time....you don't get to set the parameters of how God must act, or who he must talk to         You obviously don't get it, so why burn up what neurons you still have in chasing your predetermined ghost?

[Xavier_Onassis]

The actions that you are attribute to God are those of an insane mental cripple.
If I cannot conceive of God properly, then whose fault is that? My brain was created by God, or so you say.

The fact is that you are incapable of explaining the zillion contradictions in your array of fairy tales and telling me that I cannot imagine the motives of the fairies that told them.

Of course, God did not write the Bible. The description given of God is defective unless God himself is defective.

[sirs]

Lol....you answered your own question.   God created your brain, for you to make up your own mind.  Any extracurricular influence on his part, removes the entire element of faith.  Christians get it.   You obviously have chosen otherwise

[Xavier_Onassis]

You make no sense at all.

Most likely, you are a believer because Mommy and Daddy told you what to believe when you were incapable of reason. Your mind developed with the inability to reason on such matters as God and religion and mine did not.

So do you think that Satan actually caused Charles Darwin to dream up Evolution?  That is what Ben Carson says he suspects.
Not unsurprisingly, it is the Seventh Day Adventist official position. Little Ben was brainwashed before his brain could reason.
There is a reason Jesus said this: But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:14)
I think that Lenin and Mao said the same thing about educating the Young Pioneers, and of course, Hitler Youth also said 'get them while they are young (and incapable of reason).

The inability to reason about everything is a deliberate trait of immaturity.

[sirs]

What I think is irrelevant to you.  The point remains that if someone claims to be a Christian, than the foundation to that belief is that Jesus is both the son of God, and is God.....and that Satan is forever attempting to cast doubt and influence one's ways to be un-Godly.  He has to work overtime on Christians, while folks like yourself make his job a literal vacation