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A train is on a long trip when suddenly a small group of passengers announce themselves as terrorists who will kill anyone on the train who doesn't pay one billion dollars in cash within the hour. Of course none of them has such an amount. There is no one on earth who can come up with one billion dollars in cash in an hour, much less carries it on a train.

As the hour draws to a close the passengers prepare to die. Then one of the passengers breaks away from the rest and goes to talk to the terrorists alone. He then announces to everyone that he has enough cash in his suitcases to exactly cover the ransom of every passenger, even though it is all the money he has in the world. He is willing to give it all up to the terrorists because he can't bear to see everyone murdered. He gets the cash and gives it to the terrorists. They stop the train and get off.

All the passengers are very grateful to the unknown man. They offer to give up everything they have to him, but of course it can't begin to replace what he gave up for them.

Some time later one of those passengers is on another train trip when she realizes that everyone on this train was with her on that previous ride. She walks up to first class car and sees that the mysterious passenger who paid the unpayable ransom is there, wearing rich clothes, eating rich food, and being tended hand and foot by the grateful passengers of the previous trip.

She is happy to see that the man is doing so well, but is confused at his riches. "I thought you said that you gave up everything you had in order to save us from death on the last trip", she asked.

"Yes, I did" he replies. "But when I talked to the terrorists I knew that they were actually employees of my father who were going to give the ransom to him in the end. 3 days later, after I returned to my father's home, I had all my riches back and much more."

"Well, I'm very thankful to you for saving our lives" she answered, "but I don't understand why all these people are serving you now. Maybe you did do us a great favor, but in the end it didn't cost you anything. Not only did you get all your riches back, but you knew even before you gave it up that you would have it returned."

She talked to each of the other passengers, and found out that they had all devoted their lives in service to this man for what he did for them. When she asked them why they would devote their entire lives to him when he had not really given up anything for them, none had a good explanation.

A passenger train is on a long trip across the country when suddenly a group of passengers announce themselves as terrorists who will kill anyone on the train who doesn't pay one million dollars in cash within the hour. Everyone is shocked because of course none of them has that much on the train, much less anywhere else. It is an impossible amount to ever get.

As the hour draws closer the passengers prepare to die. Then one passenger goes and talks to the terrorists alone. He announces to everyone that he has enough cash in his suitcase to exactly cover the ransom of every passenger, but it is all the money he has in the world. He is willing to give it up to the terrorists because he can't bear to see everyone murdered. He get the cash and gives it to the terrorists. They stop the train and get off. Everyone is very grateful. They offer to give up what money they have to him, but of course it is nowhere near what he gave up for them.

A year later one passenger is on a train trip again, and realizes that everyone on the train was with her on that previous ride. She walks up to first class car and sees that the mysterious passenger is there, wearing rich clothes, eating rich food, and being tended hand and foot by the grateful passengers of the previous trip.

She is happy to see the man, but confused at his riches. "I thought you said that you gave up everything you had in order to save us from death on the last trip", she asked.

"Yes, I did" he replies. "But when I talked to the terrorists I realized they were actually employees of my father who were going to give the money to him in the end. 3 days later, after I returned to my father's home, I had all my money back."

"Well, I'm very grateful to you for saving our lives" she answered, "but I don't understand why all these people are serving you now. You did us a great favor, I guess, but in the end it didn't cost you anything. You got back everything you gave up for us."

She talked to each of the other passengers, and found out that they had all devoted their lives in service to this man. When she asked them why they would devote their entire lives to him when he had not really given up anything for them, none had a good explanation.

God did NOT "give his only begotten son". Jesus is alive; just ask any Christian.

Granted, Jesus did go through a pretty bad few days, but he must have been greatly comforted by the foreknowledge that he would be back spending the rest of eternity as the king of all creation.

I am frequently told "but his torture was SO terrible". Well, I wouldn't want to go through what he did, but there are MUCH, MUCH worse things in the history of the world.

Here is an interesting one: "Staking involved the executioner hammering a stake through the victim's lubricated anus. The goal was to place the rounded, wooden stake so carefully that it only just pushed the internal organs aside. Many victims lived for days skewered like this." One wonders why they would bother lubricating the anus, considering...

More like that here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,15...

A lot of religious "explanations" of the logical inconsistencies inherent when one supposes an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent god hinge on that god's desire to allow us to exercise our free will. But what could possibly be the point?

An omniscient being KNOWS what decisions we will make in the end by definition of the word omniscient. What purpose is served in actually creating us and letting this forgone conclusion play out? Why not just create souls and send them straight to heaven or hell based on the actions that they WOULD take, had they been allowed to live out their lives?

I've read that in all of Paul's writings, you can find no evidence that he knew anything about Jesus except that he was killed, rose again, and then ascended to heaven.

No virgin birth, no miracles, none of the stuff in the gospels but death, resurrection, and ascension. In fact, it might appear that Paul didn't know Jesus was a literal human being.

Can anyone point out any scriptures attributed to Paul that say otherwise?

The gist of it is that, since all observable evidence points to the fact that the universe, and the earth, are very, very old, then if the universe and earth were created fairly recently by God then he must have purposefully made the earth to look like it was very old.

The logical extension of the idea is that God could have made the earth a week, a day, or even a second ago, and just made everything look like it had been around for billions of years. All our memories of events that happened before "creation" would have also been inserted by Him into our heads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=An...

For a long time I thought I was an agnostic because, although I believed Christianity/Judaism/Islam and other revealed religions were ridiculous, I couldn't rule out that there might be truth in, for example, Buddhism or Deism.

As an example of this logic, say I believe that there is NO animal in my closet but can't conclusively prove there is not a microscopic bacteria clinging to the sleeve of one of my shirts. Does that mean that I have to accept that there might possibly be a dinosaur in there?

Note: for anyone checking I already asked this question the other day, but got next to no response. I'm doing a little experiment in re-wording and asking at a different time of day.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son..." seems to imply that god gave something up, doesn't it?

Isn't Jesus alive, according to Christians? Doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice when the thing "sacrificed" comes back good as new only three days later.

If I believe that there is NO animal in my closet but can't conclusively prove there is not an insect or a mouse in there, does that mean that I have to accept that there might possibly be an elephant or a whale in there?

Interning thousands of Japanese in prison camps after Pearl Harbor?

Denying women the right to vote?

Denying slaves their freedom?

All of those things were supported by the majority of Americans (and the religious leaders) of their time, yet now we believe those 3 cases to be morally wrong. Does anyone here believe that in 50 or 100 years we won't look back in shame on the mosque and gay marriage debates?

If you don't believe Jesus is dead, then I'm curious how exactly do you define the concept of "sacrifice"?

If Jesus is NOT dead, then John 3:16 doesn't seem to make any sense... So what exactly is this good news that you all keep claiming to have for me?

Did Jesus say somewhere that they should switch over from Saturday to Sunday? Which verse is that in?

I found a quote that claims of the first 7 Presidents of the USA [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] "...not a one had professed a belief in Christianity".

Can anyone find a quote from any of those 7 that contradicts that claim?

References to "the Creator" or other deistic language does not count. It has to be words to the effect that they recognize Jesus (and/or Christ, I'll give a point for either) as their lord and savior.

Am I way out to lunch on this?

It's been out for over a decade but I really listened to the lyrics (apparently for the first time) the other day and was surprised to hear not the song about a broken hearted lover that I always thought it was but a song about losing faith! (And before the Ednaswap fans get too mad, I do realize the Imbruglia version is a cover of their song.)

I thought I saw a man brought to life

He was warm

He came around

And he was dignified

He showed me what it was to cry

Well you couldn't be that man I adored

You don't seem to know

Or seem to care

What your heart is for

I don't know him anymore

There's nothin' where he used to lie

My conversation has run dry

That's what's going on

Nothings right

I'm torn

I'm all out of faith

This is how I feel

I'm cold and I am shamed

Lying naked on the floor

Illusion never changed

Into something real

I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn

You're a little late

I'm already torn

So I guess the fortune tellers right

I should have seen just what was there and not some holy light

But you crawled beneath my veins

And now, I don't care

I have no luck

I don't miss it all that much

There's just so many things

That I can't touch

I'm torn

This is inspired by the responses to my question about Jesus' failure to answer prayers:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ahve8...

Besides the frequently brought up comparison that both are imaginary beings, it occurred to me that their means of communication have a lot in common too.

Kids write letters to Santa and very often do not get what they asked for (like the classic ponies for girls and guns for boys). Sometimes, though, they do get what they asked for albeit indirectly because the process of sending the message enabled an alternate agent, in this case the family, to know what they wanted.

Even though Jesus said MANY times in the NT that ANY prayer will be answered, they often don't. (Mat 17:20 is one example. If you don't believe prayers go unanswered, just try praying for something worthy but physically impossible like the amputated leg of a heroic soldier or fireman to grow back.) Still, in some cases prayers do SEEM to be answered but I propose that this is due to alternate agents and not divine intervention.

That alternate agent is the subconscious and the manner in which it operates. I can imagine several ways whereby this might work. The very process of praying might have positive benefits (e.g. peace of mind) similar to meditation. Similarly, the belief that responsibility is now out of the hands of the one doing the praying (i.e. in the hands of God) could bring a sense of relief. In parallel with these two, it is human nature for anxiety/worry to fade over time. A lot of "answered prayers" are probably the result of the anxiety fading away naturally during the period of time that a believer is praying for it to go away. Another natural process is for the brain to come up with solutions to problems IF allowed a few moments to chug through the issue. Prayer could be serving as a sort of "count to 10" time.

(All this prayer discussion applies equally to any religion. I mention Jesus specifically only because putting Him in the question line seems to get a better response around here ;)

Obama said "we are no longer a Christian nation", and he MEANT to say it as opposed to some out of context "my Muslim faith" gaffe that we got bombarded with repeatedly within seconds of it slipping out. Yet, to my knowledge I never once heard this statement mentioned during the campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odsDYodanxQ&eurl=ht...

Old news I know, but I just can't believe we didn't hear this sound bite repeated endlessly on Fox News and CBN. Or maybe I just missed that news cycle?

I'm curious whether evangelicals ever heard of this speech, and if they did (or care to take a look at it now) whether they find it upsetting or uplifting?

The essence of Jesus' message is "love thy neighbor and love God". The essence of Paul's message is "the only important thing is faith (in the Trinity, in the resurrection, etc)".

Paul's doctrine fundamentally changed the preachings of Jesus so much so that modern Christianity has more to do with his teachings than Jesus Christ's.

The only justification for Paul's influence on the Church was his claim to have been visited by Jesus on the road to Damascus. (In one version of the story there were witnesses to this event, in another version no one else saw what he did.)

I understand that Catholics follow Church dogma in this matter. How do modern day Protestant Christians justify following Paul's teachings over Jesus' based on such a flimsy claim to authority on Paul's part?

What I am talking about is "victimless" crime; e.g. same sex marriage, homosexuality in general, plural marriage (amongst consenting adults of course), working (or drinking) on the holy day, etc. In cases where law breakers are hurting other people (e.g. "thou shalt not kill") it's obvious that the society needs to take action to prevent its citizens from being harmed (since God obviously doesn't).

Doesn't it seem strange to all you believers out there that your god NEVER punishes anyone for breaking divine laws him/herself? It's always the believers who are doing the punishing... Not picking on any specific religion because they all do it to a greater or lesser extent.

If your god REALLY cares enough to enforce the divine laws by smiting transgressors then so be it. (We couldn't do anything to stop it anyway.) Why do YOU have to pass laws and enforce punishments against them? Don't YOU believe that YOUR god will punish the non-believers in the after-life? Do you really think anything you can do to a person here on earth will even remotely compare to the eternity of agony that you believe your god will inflict upon them after they are dead?

Some good discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_A...