Christians: if Jesus fed 5,000, why does poverty still exist and are biblical miracles even real?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

I'll tell you why: Because there is not one shred of evidence supporting ANY of the Biblical miracles in either the OT nor NT, in fact, some of them should have been recorded by competing nations if they ever actually happened, but there is no extra-biblical evidence nor record of any of them; Here I have in mind Joshua's supposed "missing day" as well as Isaiah supposedly turning back time by 15 minutes on the Sun Dial at Hezekiah's palace. If either of those events had happened, the entire world should have recorded it in every nation and every language in their historical documents, especially sun-worshipping nations such as ancient China and Egypt and the Mayans should have had detailed records of it. No such records exist. I wonder why? Because nothing like that ever happened, that's why.

I wonder where these myths even come from, because elsewhere the Bible has commandments against bearing false witness and also against Lying in general, and yet the bible is by and large about half fantasy and lies in general.

Another example, in John's Gospel (present-day version of it anyway) appears two alleged stories for Jesus supposedly sparing adulteresses who were about to be stoned to death. The problem is neither of these stories appear in the original versions of John's Gospel, and they were not added to the book until some 400 years after the first versions of John's Gospel. Worse, John's Gospel was probably written by Paul or one of his contemporaries, not the same man "John" that it claims to be written by, and the same goes for his 3 epistles plus Revelation. the supposed disciple "John" would have been long-dead by the time those 4 letters were supposedly written in 90-something AD/CE. It's unlikely ANY of the "Gospels" or "Epistles" were written by real contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth; Evidence strongly suggests they were compiled from myths over a 400 to 600 year time period after the alleged events supposedly happened.

What say you?

Updates

6 d

Please not, christians. I was a christian for the first 36 years of my life, but the more I studied the Bible, the less of it I believed in. There is most certainly something wrong with the claim that Genesis is not "literal" since it claims to be a literal story both in Genesis and elsewhere. The Biblical Jesus believed in a LITERAL Great Flood for example, and he believed God torched Sodom and Gomorrah too.

[purplepoppy]

For a start it doesn't say how big the loafs and fishes were. A roman loaf was around 3lb so times 5 that's 15lb of bread. Now that's not much to feed 5000 so you grate it and use it to make a bread based soup. Say 1:4 ratio that's 15lb bread in 60lb of stock. So 75lb of soup so far.

There's 2 fish but bible only says small so let's assume 5lb total and round it up to 80lb of fish bread soup. Or 1280 ounces. That's 0.26 oz per serving. But given he was Jewish we know he'd water down the soup, so let's say 100lb soup do that's 0.32 ounces each. Remember people were smaller back then say 3ft so that would have been a lot of food.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

You're definitley not familiar with the story. It claims Jesus performed a miracle and mulitiplied the bread and fish, and they took up, I think, 12 baskets of dry crumbs from the left-overs, which each of these "baskets" was about the size of a modern 55 gallon drum.

You definitely need to re-read both stories, because there is no mention of making a soup, and in both cases they supposedly took up several baskets worth of dry crumbs in excess of what was needed to feed the people.

This is supposedly a "Miracle of Multiplication" much like the one Elisha supposedly performed for a widow with her oil in 2 Kings.

I've reach the place where I disbelieve all three fo these stories, because there is no extra-biblical basis for the stories, and the fact there is no evidence of God doing anything similar on-camera in modern times for the ~100 years video cameras have existed.

[Effably]

Surely this is missing the forest for the trees?

A miracle of feeding five thousand is only feeding five thousand. You could reproduce it daily and it would not even be noticed in our world.

The lesson, and while atheist I agree with it, is that when you have plenty you get a bigger dinner table. In Jesus case, even if you have little you make it help as many as you can.

The bible is, while certainly critical of wealth, not fundamentally opposed to it. It is however adamant that if things are going well for, you should feed your neighbour.

If we're figuring out why poverty and famine exists in our world? Well. Obviously because none of us cared to follow the lessons that did not benefit us. Most of us here could give up some basic luxury to save multiple lives. Do we?

[strateguy632]

so silly. LACK of evidence can be either way. before radio is- not a proof no radio waves! you say 'not one shred of evidence supporting ANY of the Biblical miracles' that is a lack. not proof it did not. do you expect to find a big pile of fish bones?

Africans suffer due to bad rulers. people can CHOOSE evil. the 'myths' came from amazed eyewitnesses.

[ChicoFromThe305]

Well if you understood the Bible you'd know hardship is suppose to be a part of life, it will happen and keep happening, the idea that everyone was created to live in harmony with no pain or suffering was God's original intent, that's before sin was created, when people created sin that's when all the pain and suffering started

[SeekerOfTruth007]

No, no. You're quoting a MYTH from Genesis.

Read Jeremiah 1:1-6, where it states that God pre-ordained Jeremiah to be a prophet from before the conception in the womb.

That passage totally refutes the notion of "Original Sin". Original Sin is a myth someone invented, which has nothing to do with the notion for a RATIONAL GOD-MIND-BEING who supposedly can do no wrong and supposedly loves everyone.

In fact, it's physically impossible for an unborn child to be guilty of breaking any of the 10 commandments, so every child is born 100% innocent.

It's unknown to me where the myth of the Garden of Eden comes from, but it bears some resemblance to the myth of Pandora's Box: Allegedly, "God" or (a god in another religion anyway,) had forbidden knowledge sealed in a box, and told people never to open it, but they opened it anyway, etc. It's the same falsehood told with a different "shell" if you will. It never happened.

You and I are only guilty of the wrongs we do personally. In fact, elsewhere in the BIBLE itself, it specifically tells you that the Sons are not guilty of the sins of the fathers, neither are the fathers guilty of the sins of the sons.

Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:20.

So this refutes the entire Christian doctrine of "Original Sin" from at least 3 OT sources.

I'm sorry to inform you of this, but the Book of Genesis is an apostate book, probably originally authored by a Baal worshiper.

[ChicoFromThe305]

So you refuse to believe a part of the Bible because you told yourself it's false, at this point there's nothing I can do for your delusion because you refuse to believe parts of the Bible, Im talking about the parts of the Bible that speak about God making Adam and Eve innocent, also mentions how their disobedience is the reason why we are mortal, death was one of the punishments.

this points to a completely different lifestyle God had planned for us, what you are talking about when you mention sins of the Father is speaking about free will, it has nothing to do with how Adam and eve doomed humanity, we are stained by sin but you still have free will to at least try and not sin, meaning that you still have the final choice to sin or not, weither the core is temptation, addiction, etc, you still have the choice and ability to not do it, so you are never guilty of someone else's doings when it comes to choices, the fact that you and I are alive today is because God didn't make the decision to destroy Adam and eve and start all over, we come from the corrupted seeds that chose to disobey God and that results to death, you are still given the choice to choose between heaven or hell, if anything it all makes sense, the sins of adam and eve don't damn you for hell because you have your own choices to follow the teachings to go to heaven.

Also one can argue that the punishment was just for Adam and eve but because God chose not to destroy Adam and eve, the children of simple mortals are more mortals, perhaps, stained by corruption like their bloodline but not guilty of their sins, not guilty but effected.

A good example would be that if your father murdered someone, you wouldn't be guilty of that sin but you would indeed be affected by it, weither its being treated unfairly by the victims family or being accused of being the same.

[ChicoFromThe305]

This all comes down to classic cause and effect, Adam and eve disobeyed God and being the first humans the effects of that were catastrophic, but God didn't do a "screw these humans and wipe them all out completely, which if you read about the flood, you know God can easily do it, but he let humanity continue and instead of doing the easier route, which is wipe us out and make a new batch, like we do with baked goods, he gave us all an escape from death and the catastrophic results of the first humans.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

There's no evidence that any human has ever lived longer than 122 years, and that was in modern times in a nursing home with the help of vaccines.

Genesis accounts claiming people living from 175 to 969 years are FABLES. Every evidence is our ancestors actually lived about 15 to 40 years on average and then died, and likely in a LOT of pain and misery as they reached that age and died. With no technology, no medicine, and hardly even primitive tools, humans used their bare hands and teeth to do all manner of labor we'd never touch or bite onto, and they lost their teeth mid- way through their 30s on average. Then they died from exposure from the elements by the time they were 40.

That's the real human fossil record. I don't know what to tell you. IN this case, the evolutionists are closer to the truth than any Creationist, and I'm telling you that as a person who believes in an Almighty God.

What you believe is a complete falsehood which has been proven false for several hundred years now. I don't know what else to tell you. You're deceived.

[ChicoFromThe305]

If you are seeking proof on a faith based lifestyle then you are in the wrong boat my friend, the only way to actually see evidence of God is to have faith and it seems you failed the first step already, the truth is that without faith and a connection to God, the Bible is just another book, no matter how many times you read it it won't make sense to you because you are looking for scientific discovery on a book revolving around faith and miracles.

[ChicoFromThe305]

the first thing to this is unfortunate for you because the first step is to accept you won't know everything or understand everything, you walking into this hoping to discover and know exactly how an all knowing and powerful being thinks was your first mistake, there's actually carving about christ that your science has proven to be thousands of years old and I can assure you that there's many findings that is enough to be considered evidence to the minds that are actually seeking for evidence and not just choosing to live in disbelief, the truth is that even if God was standing right in front of you, your closed mind would just try and find a logical explanation to what's right in front of you and realistically you'd probably just blame hallucinations, this is just one example of how seeking proof and evidence can be deceptive if your mind is closed to actual faith and truth, there's a major difference to being "seeker of truth" and a seeker to disproof, complete opposites actually, the facts is that if faith is the actual truth then it would mean you actually lack the mental capabilities to find the truth, this means that if the full truth of humanity and our existence relies on us believing and having faith in a higher power even when God made it difficult to find physical evidence because the purpose of it is faith then you've wired your brain to never find the truth, personally I can think with both, logically and with faith, even with the truth being in the 4th dimension, which I'm convinced it is, I have the open door to find it.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Wrong. Proverbs 4:7 "Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom and with all your getting get UNDERSTANDING."

Any alleged "faith" which is incomprehensible to reason and understanding is a false faith.

You don't know God any more than the Great Pumpkin knows God, and anyone claiming to know an Almighty Being is a liar.

As I pointed out to one supposedly christian pastor the other day who was claiming to "know God", if you know God, what is his morphology? Does he have eyes and hair, and if so what color are they? What is god's real name?

Don't claim that we look like God, that's a genesis myth too. There is no reason for a mortal being to look like God.

No no. A true miracle must be verifiable and obey the Law of Moses in every respect, including Deuteronomy 13, which by the way requires that the sign or miracle comes to pass AND that it doesn't contradict any of the laws Moses originally put forth. If the alleged sign or miracle contradicts Moses, you are not to believe it EVEN IF IT DOES COME TO PASS.

That's precisely why Jews reject Jesus entirely, because Moses and Balaam said, "God is not a man," while Jesus claimed to be a man who was simultaneously "God in the Flesh". You can't have it both ways, guy. Either Moses was a liar, or Jesus was a liar. "The Truth Can't Contradict the Truth."

[ChicoFromThe305]

It seems you are forgetting to remember that the Bible is a guide to living life in the world, is quoting scripture out of context all you atheists know how to do, now read the rest of it 😂

And you personally don't know him, you surely get to know him if you live a life with God's interference, the thing is you know nothing about faith or following spiritual guidance which leaves you in this whole of throwing Scripture without the context of what the chapter was talking about, I said what I said, if faith is the truth, you screwed yourself, if science is the truth, I lose nothing

[ChicoFromThe305]

Hole*

[SeekerOfTruth007]

I'm not an Atheist. I'm a Deist, but you don't even know proper terminology.

The Bible is considered to be of 5th grade reading level, and I've actually read the OT all the way through once as a child and 6 times as an adult, and I read the NT all the way through around 100 times in my life.

I used to be a Christian, but I proved the whole damned thing dead wrong.

I never took anything out of context. You're the one who can't admit contradictions are contradictions.