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Skye2468
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Topic
#950

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is God

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The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

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1
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1

After 1 vote and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

Barney
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Religion
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5
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Three days
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30,000
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One month
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Barney's avatar
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Barney
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Description

I believe the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is God. He coexisted eternally with the Father, but at the same time Jesus and His father are both the same God. They both are the same God, but yet two different persons with two different roles in the Godhead. They are the same in nature, essence, and being.

Please stay on topic. This is not a debate about whether or not God exists, or about how God can be two seperate persons and still one God. This is a debate about what the Bible teaches. Although I will explain the doctrine of the Trinity and how it could be logically possible if necessary.

Round 1
Skye2468's avatar
Skye2468
Pro
#1
Alright so I will begin with just a couple of arguments. Instead of using my own arguments I would rather try and let the Bible do the talking.

The Word became flesh
John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:14 - And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
1 Timothy 3:16 - And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.

So the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and God was manifested in the flesh.

Jesus being worshipped
Matthew 2:2 - saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
Matthew 2:11 - And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Matthew 14:33 - Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.”
Matthew 28:9 - And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.
John 9:35-38 - Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God? He answered and said, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him? And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him.
Hebrews 1:6 - But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says:
“Let all the angels of God worship Him.”

Jesus specifically said that God is only to be worshipped.
Luke 4:8 - And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

Yet He never rebukes worship. Why didn't Jesus rebuke everyone like the angel did to John in Revelation 22:8-9?
 Revelation 22:8-9 - Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he said to me, “See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
Not only is Jesus accepting worship from people. Angels are even worshipping Him in Hebrews 1:6.

Since Jesus didn't rebuke none of them that would mean He sinned, but the Bible is really clear that Jesus died on the cross sinless.
2 Corinthians 5:21 - For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
1 John 3:5 - And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22 - “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
Hebrews 4:15 - For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

So how could He accept worship and still be sinless? The only logical explanation is He is God.
Barney's avatar
Barney
Con
#2
I. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted
People interpret the bible, but it does not actually teach. This is why hate groups such as Westboro Baptist Church can read the same bible as U2, but decide on polar opposite morals are contained within. Some even interpret the bible as predicting the messiah Donald Trump.
 
Using Math books as an example, they teach that 2+2=4, and learning that lesson from them is not one of many interpretations of the information, it is what is taught.
 
In fact, no other group has studied the bible for as long as the Jews. Increased time with any potential lessons within, lead to the conclusion that Jesus is not God nor even messiah.
 
Early Christians did not even believe Jesus was God, they started that line basically to mock Romans who insisted their emperor was God.


II. Different Behaviors
To my understanding of the description of this debate, the holy trinity itself is off limits. This removes any time they/he talked to themselves/himself to negate, but likewise removes the directly contradictory behaviors as distinct aspects of a singular entity as a defense.
 
To use an analogy, even were they in the bible, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer are not God because they behaved differently than God. If Jesus likewise behaved differently than God, the bible has shown him to be a different entity from God.
 
This is a Modus Tollens refutation of pro's case:
P1: If the bible teaches that Jesus is God (X), THEN it must teach that Jesus and God exhibit matching behavior (Y).
P2: The bible does NOT teach that Jesus and God exhibit matching behavior (Y).
C1: Therefore, the bible does NOT teach that Jesus is God.
 
So quick Q&A (I could name a dozen, but that would be a Gish Gallop):
1.       How many times does Jesus mind control someone into an action, to use an excuse to murder innocent children? God did this (Exodus 9:12).
2.       How many times does Jesus set innocent people on fire over nothing related to any of their actions? God did this (Job 1:16).
3.       How many times does Jesus prank his followers by ordering any of them to kill all their children?  God did this (Genesis 22:2).
 
If the bible fails to show Jesus doing these atrocities (or like behaviors), Jesus is clearly depicted as not being (to quote pro) of “the same in nature, essence, and being” as God.
 
 
III. Refutations
While my above arguments should be enough, I’ll also address pro’s points.
 
“The Word became flesh”
Obviously this makes no mention of Jesus, and is so open to interpretation that some believe it indicates Donald Trump (repeated source).
 
“Jesus being worshipped”
People give gifts to children all the time, it does not indicate that the children are God. It does not even indicate that the people think the children are God. Even by definition worship (Merriam-Webster: “to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion”) does not imply godliness, God could even worship people without them being so much as godly.
 
Sadly, I need to give a quick grammar lesson here. “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” Jesus commanded people to worship God, comma, and that they shall also serve God. Worship and service are clearly separate ideas. Further were Jesus also God, why would he speak of himself as a third person? Clearly the bible does not teach that they are the same entity, or else this and others would have been corrected in one of the many edits.

Round 2
Skye2468's avatar
Skye2468
Pro
#3
1. The Bible teaches nothing, it is interpreted.

This statement seems to imply that you can’t be taught anything from the method of interpretation. Then you used two bad interpretations to back up what you are saying. This seems to me like a strawman. Explain why a book can’t teach anything by an interpretation? Also explain why a interpretation can’t ever match what the author of the book intended for it to teach?

If I had a book about the ocean and the book said stuff like,
“The name of this magnificent animal starts with an F.”
“The Mother of this beauty had gills.”
“Humans cannot survive where they can without special equipment, and vice versa.”
“Humans have given it a four letter name.”

After awhile of seeing these descriptions we can safely conclude that the book is talking about a fish. It’s the same with the Bible. Verse after verse eventually you must conclude that the Bible teaches Jesus is God.

Also what you said about the Jews. You seem to be implying that the amount of time of study determines the accuracy of your interpretation. Though lots of study does help. It is not necessarily true that more study time equals a better interpretation.

Here is an interesting verse. This verse shows that study isn’t all you need to understand the Bible.
2 Corinthians 3:13-16 - unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.  But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.  Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

2. Different behaviors

To reject Jesus as God you must reject the Trinity, because the doctrine of the Trinity teaches that Jesus is God. Me on the other hand I am in support of the Trinity.

You really used links to the TV show South Park to show and teach me what God did? That doesn’t really seem trustworthy at all.
Since this is a debate about if Jesus is God or not. I will stick to the subject and not get into why you are wrong for using words and phrases such as, “murder” “mind control” “prank” “using excuses.” I will also not get into how you are completely missing the points of these stories and not using, and ignoring context.

As for your argument about Jesus and God not being the same because they didn’t do the same things. It seems to me as valid as me saying “David rescued and saved 20 children, but Michael murdered 100’s of children. Therefore, one of them isn’t human.”
If you murdered someone and the next day saved someone’s life. Does that mean you are not a human anymore?

3. Refutations

The Word became flesh
For you to interpret that “the Word” is Donald Trump you would have to completely ignore the entire Bible. Ignore the context of the New Testament and take the whole thing out of context, and completely change verses and definitions and use no Hebrew or Greek manuscripts to back up what you are even saying. Please use a better interpretation example.

Since you want a little more interpretation. Here,

John 1:1-18 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ” And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Clearly it is talking about Jesus.

Jesus being worshipped
I want to point out that you used the second definition on the website Merriam-Webster. The first definition is “to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power.”
Also I want to point out that normally you don’t want to look up modern English definitions when interpreting the New Testament. You want to use a Greek Lexicon.
By the way, the word “serve” is the Greek word latreuō, which means in the New Testament, to render religious service or homage, to worship.

To answer your question about why He would speak of himself in third person. You have to understand his role at the moment,
Philippians 2:5-11 - Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

While Jesus was here on the earth He lowered himself to a mere servant, and a mere man. He served the Father and prayed to the Father, being obedient and submitting to Him.

4. More arguments

Equal with God.

John 5:18 - Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
John 10:30-33 - I and My Father are one.” Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me? The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
Philippians 2:5-6 - Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,

I AM.
Exodus 3:14(Old Testament) - And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
John 8:24 - Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”)
By the way, in the Greek that "He" isn't there. He just says "I am," but if you don't believe me this next verse says that.
John 8:58 - Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

First and the last.

Isaiah 44:6(Old Testament) - “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.
Revelation 1:8 - “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,’’  says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”Revelation 1:17-18 - And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

Everything was created through Jesus.

Isaiah 44:24(Old Testament) - Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, And He who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;John 1:3 - All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Colossians 1:16 - For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

He who has seen Me has seen the Father.

John 14:9-11 - Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

God buying the church with his own blood.

Acts 20:28 - Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
1 Peter 1:18-19 - knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

Jesus being called God.

 Isaiah 9:6(Old Testament) - For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
John 20:28 - And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Colossians 2:9 - For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
Matthew 1:23 - “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
2 Peter 1:1 - Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
Romans 9:5 - of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

God calling Jesus God.

Hebrews 1:8-9 -   But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

Barney's avatar
Barney
Con
#4
This round my opponent has chosen to bring up various times God and Jesus were referred to as separate individuals related to each other to try to prove they are the same person. To not drop arguments, I am having to address these points even while they touch on the trinity... The trinity being outside of this debate by pro’s request, means pro should not be using that interpretation to try to make his case when reason and the bible itself failed.
 
 
I. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted
That early Christians did not believe Jesus was God has been wholly dropped, so extend. (repeated source)
 
“imply that you can’t be taught anything from the method of interpretation”
Quite the contrary, people teach others what they want it to say all the time. That’s why we have groups like Westboro Baptist Church proclaiming that the bible teaches that the Sandy Hook School Shooting was not the work of man but rather God’s divine intervention.
 
“Explain why a book can’t teach anything by an interpretation? Also explain...”
Because the book in question is not doing the teaching, people with agendas are. As written in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: There are “clear patterns of transmission of parental religious characteristics to children.” Pretty much all children in the world have access to the bible, yet the mode of transmission for Christianity is religious people instead of the book by itself.
 
“If I had a book about the ocean...”
Your ocean book gives criteria, and as I showed last round Jesus fails the behavioral criteria to be God.
 
“implying that the amount of time of study”
You’re trying to make fallacious appeals to tradition, so I pointed out a more traditional tradition disagrees, and now you’re flipping around and make an equally fallacious appeal to novelty. If novelty is the better standard, the interpretations you call bad would win.
 
“This verse shows that study isn’t all you need to understand the Bible.”
This is a near concession, since if the bible was doing the teaching, it would not require outside intervention. (I admit to not understanding the quote)
 
 
II. Different Behaviors
My Modus Tollens refutation has been dropped without real contest. Pro wishing us to remove the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Job from consideration, affirms that the bible itself contradicts the interpretation of Jesus and God being one. As for the reenactments featured on South Park, no inaccuracy was shown, just that pro doesn’t like the bible when it disagrees with what he wants it to say.
 
“doctrine of the Trinity teaches that Jesus is God.”
This is mostly the Begging the Question fallacy, but worse he brings up doctrine of interpretation as a hard rule against the word of the bible itself. If we followed this standard, we would not mock Westboro since their doctrine tells them that the bible teaches God shoots up elementary schools.
 
“David rescued and saved 20 children, but Michael murdered 100’s of children. Therefore, one of them isn’t human...”
This analogy fails to make sense. One is a hero, and the other is a monster; two very district people. For pro’s analogy to make sense, one would have to first believe all humans are secretly one singular being.
 
 
III. Refutations
“The Word became flesh”
One of my earlier sources already addressed the book of John, namely that superior books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke contradict it. This leaves it as satire rather than something to be believed; were it meant to teach Jesus is God, the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke would be removed or edited to have Jesus say things people who lived closer to his life never recorded him saying.
 
“Jesus being worshipped” [sic]
No fault has been shown with my definition choice, and the alternative does not prove showing reverence for a supernatural force to make that force singular. If it did, we would have to discount all books of the bible which mention various other supernatural forces such as angels and saints.
 
“He served the Father and prayed to the Father, being obedient and submitting to Him.”
I have refrained from bringing this up, but with my opponent using Jesus as a separate individual from God to try to prove a point is off-putting; given that it outright concedes Jesus was a separate individual from God thus not God. I suppose it goes back to his all humans are secretly just one human point he made in his earlier analogy...
 
 
IV. Gish Gallop
Note that pro has given no analysis within his “More Arguments,” is merely copy/pasted spam lines of the bible without context from a website (one to which he did not even give credit). This is a classic Gish Gallop, to be dismissed as such. Worse he accidentally chose ones which outright concede the debate; as such I’ll show the folly of the first couple.
 
“Equal with God.”
Men and women are equal, it does not make them the same. Also see my previous points against the entire book of John as being something the bible gave instruction against believing. Plus, Jesus directly referring to himself as NOT God “said that God was His Father” again goes against the interpreting that they are the same guy.
 
“I AM.”
Earlier dismissed the book of Exodus because he dislikes what it says about God, and is now trying to use it as evidence in his case...  Plus it’s part of the Old testament, to which the number of times “Jesus” shows up is precisely zero! (Incidentally due to edits there’s a variance of 290 within the New Testament).

Round 3
Skye2468's avatar
Skye2468
Pro
#5

I am confused as to what my opponent is talking about. Either my opponent doesn't understand what the Trinity is, or there is a miss understanding between us.
 
I want to clarify my rules. In my rules I wrote, "This is not a debate about whether or not God exists, or about how God can be two separate persons and still one God." The reason I wrote this is because I didn't want us to go off topic. I didn't want us to argue about how God could be multiple persons yet one God. Rather the debate is about that the Bible teaches Jesus is God. Since this is a debate about what the Bible teaches, and I believe the Bible teaches the Trinity. That means I can use the Trinity because the Trinity teaches that Jesus is God. My opponent on the other hand has to exclude the Trinity in this debate because the Trinity teaches Jesus is God. So I am not understanding my opponent when he says things like, "I am having to address these points even while they touch on the trinity... The trinity being outside of this debate by pro’s request." If Jesus is not God then the Trinity is false, since the Trinity teaches that Jesus is God, and I believe the Bible teaches the Trinity. The Trinity is the position I am taking in this debate. My opponent has to deny the Trinity to be able to argue in this debate.

If my opponent does not understand the Trinity and that's the problem. I will explain a little more.
The Trinity teaches that God eternally co exists as three separate persons.
The Father
The Son
The Holy Spirit
Each are different persons in the Godhead, but they are the same God.
There is only one God that exists as three separate persons.
The Trinity is hard to wrap our heads around, but just because we cannot comprehend it does not mean we cannot apprehend it.

1. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted

early Christians did not believe Jesus was God has been wholly dropped
Even if this was true I feel like it's irrelevant, but I guess I will address it. The fact Paul specifically called Jesus God in Romans 9:5 should refute that.
Romans 9:5 - Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
There is other proof early Christians believed Jesus was God as well.

Quite the contrary, people teach others what they want it to say all the time.
Are you implying that no matter what interpretation someone has it will never match the authors original thoughts, intent, or purpose? If so, How could you possibly know this?

Because the book in question is not doing the teaching, people with agendas are.
Assuming you are not being bias when using the phrase "people with agendas." This logic makes no sense because the people that is doing the teaching learned it from the book itself. By this logic no one is taught anything from a book and whenever someone reads a book, if they speak about what it says it's just a interpretation and we can't actually know what the author originally intended for it to mean.
So when you go on to say "Pretty much all children in the world have access to the bible, yet the mode of transmission for Christianity is religious people instead of the book by itself." It wouldn't matter anyway because they couldn't get taught anything from reading the Bible anyway.
You are assuming that no ones interpretation can be correct. There is no possible way you can know that for a fact.

Your ocean book gives criteria, and as I showed last round Jesus fails the behavioral criteria to be God.
I refuted your criteria argument last round by asking this question, "If you murdered someone and the next day saved someone’s life. Does that mean you are not a human anymore?" Just because God does something oneday and does something different the next day doesent mean He is not God anymore.
There will be more about this later as you keep reading.

You’re trying to make fallacious
All I did was use straight Bible verses with some explanation.

This is a near concession, since if the bible was doing the teaching, it would not require outside intervention.That is not necessarily true. Since God is above us in everyway it is only logical we would need His help to understand it. Since the book is about Him. That doesn't mean the book doesn't teach something. It just means we need help from God to understand what it is teaching.
 
2. Different Behaviors
Pro wishing us to remove the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Job from consideration. 
just that pro doesn’t like the bible when it disagrees with what he wants it to say.
My opponent is making stuff up, and putting words in my mouth. I never said any of that.

One again I refuted your argument by asking, "If you murdered someone and the next day saved someone’s life. Does that mean you are not a human anymore?"

You say the God of the Old Testament and Jesus are different. Have you even read revelations? You said you went to a catholic university but by some of your arguments it doesn't seem like they read the Bible to you any.

I want to add this to the argument.

Jesus possesses the attributes of God

John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Don't say this isn't referring to Jesus because I clearly showed you context in the last round.)
Hebrews 1:8-11 - But to the Son He says:“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”And:
“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;

Jesus is eternal just like God.
Jesus is self existent just like God.

Matthew 18:20 - For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Matthew 28:20 - teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen

Jesus is Omnipresent just like God.

Colossians 1:16 - For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:17 - And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Luke 8:25 - But He said to them, “Where is your faith?”And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”
Mark 1:29-31 - Now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. So He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her. And she served them.
Mark 1:32-34 - At evening, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. Then He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him.
John 11:43-44 - Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

Jesus is all powerful like God.
Jesus created everything like God.
Jesus sustains the universe like God.
Jesus has power over nature like God.
Jesus as power over diseases like God.
Jesus has power over demonic spirits like God.
Jesus has power over the dead and can raise the dead to life like God. 
2 Corinthians 5:21 - For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
1 John 3:5 - And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22 - “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;Hebrews 4:15 - For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Jesus is sinless just like God. 
There is more than this, but for now this seems like enough. Does Jesus have the criteria to be God now? 
 
we would not mock Westboro since their doctrine tells them that the bible teaches God shoots up elementary schools.
It wouldn't if they read context. The practice of hermeneutics would come in handy for this. people need to practice exegesis and not eisegesis.

one would have to first believe all humans are secretly one singular being.

I see what you mean here. I accept this refute, but take note that Jesus and the Father are both one God. Also you didn't refute my second argument after this. 
3. Refutations

No fault has been shown with my definition choice
Like I said in the last round, "Also I want to point out that normally you don’t want to look up modern English definitions when interpreting the New Testament. You want to use a Greek Lexicon."
The word “serve” is the Greek word latreuō, which means in the New Testament, to render religious service or homage, to worship.

with my opponent using Jesus as a separate individual from God to try to prove a point is off-putting
This makes me think once again that my opponent doesn't understand the Trinity.

4. Gish Gallop

Note that pro has given no analysis within his “More Arguments,”
Did you want me to copy and paste the entire chapters or something so I could show you the context that it is talking about Jesus? I already showed the context of John 1:1 is talking about Jesus. That alone should prove it. Instead of saying that I am not giving analysis or not using context, tell me why they are out of context?
To me it sounds like you can't, and you are ignoring the obvious.

is merely copy/pasted spam lines of the bible without context from a website (one to which he did not even give credit).
What? I used Bible verses. All I did was use Bible verses and put a title over them. I guess I give credit to the Bible?

as such I’ll show the folly of the first couple.
Men and women are equal, it does not make them the same.
I guess I am going to have to point out the context again.

John 5:18 - Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
John 10:30-33 - I and My Father are one.” Then the Jews took up stones again tre equal o stone Him. Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me? The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
Philippians 2:5-6 - Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,

It's one thing to say men and woman are equal. It's different to claim that you are equal with God the creator of everything that isn't human and higher in everyway than us. Also the Jews knew exactly what he was talking about because they said, "The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.” He was claiming to be God. They knew exactly what He was claiming.

Also see my previous points against the entire book of John as being something the bible gave instruction against believing.
I have said so much already in these rounds that it refutes what it says already.

Jesus directly referring to himself as NOT God “said that God was His Father”
Once again you don't seem to understand the Trinity.

Earlier dismissed the book of Exodus because he dislikes what it says about God
Once again putting words in my mouth that I never said. I didn't dismiss the books, and I never said I disliked the books. All I said was you are completely missing the point of those stories and were actually misleading about what God did. You were using words such as "murder" "mind control." when it wasn't that. So I didn't address those because it was irrelevant to the debate.
You act like if God was doing something a certain way in the Old Testament that he can't do something different in the New Testament.
What about when God does an act of kindness in the Old Testament? You were only focusing on in your opinion bad things God did. What about good things?
Also read the book of revelation if you really think the Old Testament God and New Testament Jesus are so different.

Plus it’s part of the Old testament, to which the number of times “Jesus” shows up is precisely zero!
Actually you are wrong. The Trinity is all over the Old Testament as well.
Also Jesus has many Divine names.

"Jesus Christ possesses divine names—names that can only be used of God. For example:
Jesus is Yahweh. Yahweh is a very common Hebrew name for God in the Old Testament, occurring over 5,300 times. It is translated Lord (all capitals) in many English translations of the Bible.
We first learn of this name in Exodus 3, where Moses asked God by what name He should be called. God replied to him, “I AM WHO I AM. . . .Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’ ” (verse 14). Yahweh is basically a shortened form of “I AM WHO I AM” (verse 15). The name conveys the idea of eternal self-existence. Yahweh never came into being at a point in time for He has always existed.
Jesus implicitly ascribed this divine name to himself during a confrontation He had with a group of hostile Jews. He said, “I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Jesus deliberately contrasted the created origin of Abraham—whom the Jews venerated—with His own eternal, uncreated nature as God.
Jesus is Kurios. The New Testament Greek equivalent of the Old Testament Hebrew name Yahweh is Kurios. Used of God, Kurios carries the idea of a sovereign being who exercises absolute authority. The word is translated Lord in English translations of the Bible.
To an early Christian accustomed to reading the Old Testament, the word Lord, when used of Jesus, would point to His identification with the God of the Old Testament (Yahweh). Hence, the affirmation that “Jesus is Lord” (Kurios) in the New Testament constitutes a clear affirmation that Jesus is Yahweh, as is the case in passages like Romans 10:9, 1 Corinthians 12:3, and Philippians 2:5-11.
Jesus is Elohim. Elohim is a Hebrew name that is used of God 2,570 times in the Old Testament. The name literally means “strong one,” and its plural ending (im in Hebrew) indicates fullness of power. Elohim is portrayed in the Old Testament as the powerful and sovereign governor of the universe, ruling over the affairs of humankind.
Jesus is recognized as both Yahweh and Elohim in the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3: “Prepare the way of the Lord [Yahweh]; make straight in the desert a highway for our God [Elohim].” This verse was written in reference to John the Baptist preparing for the coming of Christ (as confirmed in John 1:23) and represents one of the strongest affirmations of Christ’s deity in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 9:6, we likewise read a prophecy of Christ with a singular variant (El) of Elohim: “And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God [El], Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Jesus is Theos. The New Testament Greek word for God, Theos, is the corresponding parallel to the Old Testament Hebrew term Elohim. A well-known example of Christ being addressed as God (Theos) is found in the story of “doubting Thomas” in John 20. In this passage, Thomas witnesses the resurrected Christ and worshipfully responds: “My Lord and my God [Theos]” (John 20:28).
Jesus is called Theos throughout the rest of the New Testament. For example, when a jailer asked Paul and Silas how to be saved, they responded: “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). After the jailer believed and became saved, he “rejoiced, having believed in God [Theos] with all his household” (verse 34). Believing in Christ and believing in God are seen as identical acts." Source, https://answersingenesis.org/jesus-christ/jesus-is-god/is-jesus-god/

Also you probably didn't know this but the entire Old Testament is about Jesus.
John 5:39 - You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
John 5:46 - For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.
Luke 24:44 - And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

There is a guy named Mike Winger who has a YouTube channel. He has an entire videos series about how Jesus is all over the Old Testament. So far he has like 22 videos and each are like 1 hour apiece because there is so much of Jesus in the Old Testament.

Contradictions
There are no contradictions in the gospels.
Barney's avatar
Barney
Con
#6
Plagiarism and Editing The Bible:
Last round I attempted to politely correct my opponent on this issue of plagiarizing material, but he has chosen not only to continue it, but to make it worse...
 
First, note how my opponent refuses to even use quotation marks around material he has copied from other authors.
 
Second, by refusing to give any credit to those who transcribed the pages of the bible, my opponent is claiming to have done it himself, right down to translating it from the original languages (note he insists “You want to use a Greek Lexicon”). If this is not true, what edition of the bible is each passage he’s used from? … If this sin was intended or not, it has been committed.
 
Third, my opponent claims that the John 1:1 ends with “(Don't say this isn't referring to Jesus because I clearly showed you context in the last round.)” I do expect a defense along the lines of him not intending to try to sneak whatever in with biblical quotations, but that still proves that nothing he’s said the bible says can be trusted. According to 28 separate translations, not only does it not end that way, but “Jesus” is not in it. The proper verse is as follows:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – John 1:1, NIV
 
Forth, he has stolen parts he claimed to write himself from Dr. Ron Rhodes.


I. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted
 early Christians
First, as neither my source nor I have not used Dan Brown, I’m at a complete loss why my opponent has used a source obsessed with Dan Brown instead of anything relevant to this debate.
Second, the sensationalist in the YouTube video says zero about the bible, and fails to in any way contradict my source on Jesus not being taught as part of the godhead within source material.
 
people with agendas
My opponent has not challenged the evidence from the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, merely complained that he does not like that it refutes him.
All he would have needed is to show samples of people learning Jesus Christ is God from the bible, in the absence of Christians. He could not do this, because the bible itself does not teach that.
 
behavioral criteria to be God
Someone not killing people fails to prove they are the same person as a murderer, in fact them saving lives suggests contradictory behavior. This is not God once killed someone by accident, this is God habitually killing innocent people. My opponent is attempting to prove “they are the same in nature, essence, and being”; which means if God sends fire from the heavens to kill innocents, while he pals around with Satan, and Jesus would never commit such atrocities even on a smaller scale, he is of a distinctly different nature and essence from God.
 
“implying that the amount of time of study”
Extend. My opponent offers no disagreement that were his fallacious standards followed, the old testament would be predicting Trump is the promised Messiah (I am not saying this, nor is my opponent, but we seem in agreement on where his logic leads).
 
Concession
My opponent has doubled down on this concession, explaining that God reaches down from heaven to decide what someone learns. To use an analogy: in a classroom we do not say the desk or chair or even chalkboard taught advanced calculus, rather we credit the teacher. In this case a book which Christians have usually not read is the furniture, and God in all his glory is the teacher.
 
Note: From the above link we know how rare proper reading of the bible is among Americans, but to make it more meaningful it should be noted that over 70% of Americans identify as Christian. This also shows that the bible does not get a chance to teach that message.
 
 
II. Different Behaviors
“I never said any of that.”
In R2 under this heading, note my opponent’s dismissal without consideration of God’s divine actions in the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Job. Were Jesus of one nature and essence with God, they would behave of one nature and essence. … And they could be, but the bible is clearly failing to teach that.
 
 “You said you went to a catholic university…”
This is purely an off-topic Ad Hominem attack.
 
“Jesus possesses the attributes of God”
This was pre-refuted in R1..
So quick Q&A (I could name a dozen, but that would be a Gish Gallop):
1.       How many times does Jesus mind control someone into an action, to use an excuse to murder innocent children? God did this (Exodus 9:12).
2.       How many times does Jesus set innocent people on fire over nothing related to any of their actions? God did this (Job 1:16).
3.       How many times does Jesus prank his followers by ordering any of them to kill all their children?  God did this (Genesis 22:2).
 
If the bible fails to show Jesus doing these atrocities (or like behaviors), Jesus is clearly depicted as not being (to quote pro) of “the same in nature, essence, and being” as God.

As for the book of John, I’ve also pre-refuted that. The bible teaches that the book of John is not to be believed. If my opponent wants to use John, first he needs to prove why we should reject Matthew, Mark, and Luke:
“One of my earlier sources already addressed the book of John, namely that superior books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke contradict it.” -R2, calling back to R1, now used again in R3.
 
“Jesus is sinless just like God.”
This directly contradicts common knowledge about Jesus. For time and to sample how to give proper credit where it's due, I am going to quote another debater Virtuoso:
Sin in this context means violation of the Torah Law. According to Christianity, Jesus was born under the Torah Law and thus must have kept that perfectly. With that, let’s begin by listing the sins of Jesus. 

Sin 1: Causing Damages

The Gospel of Matthew records this interesting passage:

"Not far away there was a large herd of pigs feeding. 31 So the demons begged Jesus, "If you are going to drive us out, send us into that herd of pigs." 32 "Go," Jesus told them; so they left and went off into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the side of the cliff into the lake and was drowned. 33 The men who had been taking care of the pigs ran away and went into the town, where they told the whole story and what had happened to the men with the demons." Matthew 8:30-33.

The pigs were the livelihood of the person who owned them. This certainly caused extreme emotional and financial damage to them. 

Sh'mot / Exodus 21:37 "If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.”

Jesus left town and failed to repay the damage done to the property owner. If Jesus is an all-powerful deity, surely he can cast out demons without causing financial loss. 

Sin 2: Lying 

Jesus lied to the Jewish court. Here’s the text in question:

John 18:20, "I spoke openly to the world, I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing.”

But this statement is false. Jesus purposefully veiled his teachings and taught in parables to prevent people from repenting from their sins:

Mark 4:11-12 “He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.”

This text is especially problematic. The entire goal for Jesus is to “save the sins of the world,” yet he did this to prevent people from being forgiven! 
Thus Jesus was a sinner.


III. Refutations
“my opponent doesn't understand the Trinity”
Another Ad Hominem attack, mixed with some superb Circular Reasoning. My opponent wishes to use prior belief in the trinity to prove the trinity, to support one piece of the trinity, in a debate where he specifically wants to exclude the trinity.
 
 
IV. Gish Gallop
This is pretty well taken care of at the top of this round with my pointing out pro’s active choice to plagiarize the work of others.
 
The Gish Gallop gets worse with him insisting what he wants the bible to teach, cannot be understood without being indoctrinated by such things as 22 hours of binge watching YouTube videos from a biblical literalist.
 
“There are no contradictions...”
His defense against contradictions is that contradictions are the proof that the bible is literally a historical document (at least that’s what his YouTube video insisted). This does not make sense. The video in question even pointed to different parts witness accounts might point to different details to make a complete picture, such as one the clothing, another the food…. This does not prove that witnesses are to be believed because they disagree on what generally happened; rather we hold them in contempt of court.
Round 4
Skye2468's avatar
Skye2468
Pro
#7

Plagiarism and Editing The Bible
Alright, I think I am starting to understand my opponent. I didn't realize he wanted to know my source where I got my Bible verses. The reason I didn't source them is because I didn't realize not sourcing them would be a problem. Since Biblegateway didn't write the Bible I didn't feel like it was necessary to specifically say what website I got the verses from.The verses I spammed in "4. More arguments" in round 2. All those verses I used were from the NKJV of the Bible. I copied and pasted the verses themselves, but I didn't copy someone else's interpretation of them. The titles I put above the verses were my doing, and the bolding to use emphasis was my doing as well.
 
First, note how my opponent refuses to even use quotation marks around material he has copied from other authors.
I actually don't know which part you are referring too. Could you point out where I refused to use quotation marks and copied the material from other authors?
 
Second, by refusing to give any credit to those who transcribed the pages of the bible
"Also I want to point out that normally you don’t want to look up modern English definitions when interpreting the New Testament. You want to use a Greek Lexicon.
By the way, the word “serve” is the Greek word latreuō, which means in the New Testament, to render religious service or homage, to worship."
 
When I first wrote this I should have sourced where I got the definition of "serve". This was my mistake and I apologize.

not only does it not end that way, but“Jesus” is not in it.
The reason I said that I clearly showed the context in the last round. Is because I believe I did. I will show why again.

"John 1:1-18 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ” And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A1-18&version=NKJV "Bold Emphasis added"

I think it's clear it's talking about Jesus here.It is saying "the Word was God" Then "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"
Then it says the Word is the "only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
Then it says "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"
Then it says the Jesus Christ is "The only begotten Son" of the Father.
 
Forth, he has stolen parts he claimed to write himself from Dr. Ron Rhodes.
If you talking about the part about Jesus possessing divine names. I actually did put the source right after because I directly copied and pasted that. If it's the part about Jesus possessing the same attributes as God. I admit I used answers in Genesis for help with that as well. I didn't source that time and that was my fault. Sometimes I didn't feel like it was necessary to source, but I understand now you want me to source everything. Even including the Bible itself. 
 
I. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted
 
In your source titled "If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become One?" it says a few things I want to address.
 
"because we have earlier gospels and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things."

I disagree with this quote, because I think the other gospels and Paul make it clear that Jesus was God. Here is some writings from Paul for example.

Philippians 2:5-6 - Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
Colossians 2:9 - For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
Romans 9:5 - of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
Bible verse Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philipians+2%3A5-6%2C+Colossians+2%3A9%2C+Romans+9%3A5&version=NKJV "Bold Emphasis added"

Paul is saying Jesus didn't consider it robbery to be equal with God, and in Him dwells all the  fullness of the Godhead bodily. Paul even literally called Him God in Romans 9:5.

"Christians had a dilemma as soon as they declared that Christ was God. If Christ is God and God the Father is God, doesn't that make two gods? And when you throw the Holy Spirit into the mix, doesn't that make three gods?"

I want to use a repeated source to answer this quote, "The Trinity Explained" Then to further backup that the Bible actually teaches the Trinity and I am not just using the Trinity. I will add three more sources, "Why the Trinity is necessary" "The Trinity in the New Testament" "The Trinity in the Old Testament"


As for the resurrection of Jesus and the empty tomb here is a very good video about it. It is kind of long, but please watch it. It is well worth it.

Here is one of the problems with Bart Ehrman and listening to his interpretation of the Bible.

merely complained that he does not like that it refutes him.
Could you please point out where I complained that it refuted me, because I don't ever remember complaining that it refuted me.

He could not do this, because the bible itself does not teach that.
I actually learned Jesus was God from the Bible. You make it seem like no one who teaches Jesus is God has even read the Bible. All my verses that I have already pointed out I think makes it clear that it is teaching Jesus is God.

When I gave my fish book analogy back in round 2. You have seemed to fail to understand the resemblance between it and the Bible teaches Jesus being God.

To me it seems you are ignoring the obvious. Your argument is "God did this in the old testament. Jesus never did this in the New Testament, and therefore Jesus isn't God" Ignoring completely everything else that resembles they are the same. Then if something does refute you like the book of John for example you try and rip it out of the Bible saying it can't be trust worthy. Then anything else you want to argue I am not using context or I am plagiarizing without even telling me how it is out of context.

explaining that God reaches down from heaven to decide what someone learns.
I didn't say God reaches down and decides what someone learns. I said you cannot understand his book properly without his help. If this is true then anyone other than a Christian is untrustworthy to teach the Bible.

I will agree that most supposed Christians don't read the Bible. I also agree that seventy percent of Americans identify as Christians, but I want to point out that the Bible teaches most people are not Christians, and many are wolfs in sheep clothing. Hence the path to destruction is wide and the path to heaven is narrow.

This also shows that the bible does not get a chance to teach that message.
You are making an assumption that just because most claim to be Christian and few actually read there Bible that none can get taught from the Bible that Jesus is God. What about the few actual Christians that do read there Bibles all the time and study them and believe Jesus is God from what they read?

II. Different Behaviors

This is purely an off-topic Ad Hominem attack.
I wasn't trying to use an Ad Hominem attack. It's just somethings you were saying confuses me since you went to a Catholic University. Sorry if you thought I was using that against you.

If the bible fails to show Jesus doing these atrocities
To me this argument still doesn't make any sense. Even if they didn't do the exact same things that does not disprove He is God. It could possibly disprove He was God if there was nothing else showing Him to be God in the Bible, but there is so much other context, prophesy, foreshadows, christophanies, and verses. That show Him to be God. Which I have pointed out a lot so far.
Also the premise of the Modus Tollens argument is incorrect in it's assertions and therefore false in it's assumptions. Jesus is 100 percent God, but you have to realize He is a different person within the Godhead. So therefore, He can exhibit different behavior. Especially since Jesus is also 100 percent human and the Father is not. The premise also misunderstands the nature of the Godhead, and the Economic Trinity. You also need to understand the difference between that and the Ontological Trinity.
 
 
The bible teaches that the book of John is not to be believed.
I am going to use a source that I have already used in this same round because I think it is so important. "Why You Don't Let Bart Ehrman Interpret the Bible for You" Also I don't know of any of the other gospels that contradict Jesus being God. Please give me some verses and reasons why they contradict that Jesus is God in John.

Before you answer this, I want to point out exactly what a contradiction is,

"The Law of non-contradiction is one of the basic laws in classical logic. It states that something cannot be both true and not true at the same time when dealing with the same context. For example, the chair in my living room, right now, cannot be made of wood and not made of wood at the same time. In the law of non-contradiction, where we have a set of statements about a subject, we cannot have any of the statements in that set negate the truth of any other statement in that same set. For example, we have a set of two statements about Judas. 1) Judas hanged himself. 2) Judas fell down, and his bowels spilled out. Neither statement about Judas contradicts the other. That is, neither statement makes the other impossible because neither excludes the possibility of the other. The statements can be harmonized by stating: Judas hanged himself, then his body fell down, and his bowels spilled out." Source, https://carm.org/dictionary-law-of-non-contradiction

Jesus sinned
Causing Damages
""The pigs were the livelihood of the person who owned them. This certainly caused extreme emotional and financial damage to them. 
Sh'mot / Exodus 21:37 "If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.”
Jesus left town and failed to repay the damage done to the property owner. If Jesus is an all-powerful deity, surely he can cast out demons without causing financial loss.""

Ok first thing, where in the text does it say Jesus left town without paying for the pigs? It doesn't say that. This argument is an assumption.
Just because I didn't say "I went to work on Monday" doesn't mean I didn't go to work on Monday. 

Lying

""Jesus lied to the Jewish court. Here’s the text in question:
John 18:20, "I spoke openly to the world, I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing.”
But this statement is false. Jesus purposefully veiled his teachings and taught in parables to prevent people from repenting from their sins:
Mark 4:11-12 “He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven."
This text is especially problematic. The entire goal for Jesus is to “save the sins of the world,” yet he did this to prevent people from being forgiven!""

The person who said this about Mark 4:11-12 is not understanding that the people on the "outside" are those who wouldn't turn from there ways and to Jesus in the first place. At the end of Jesus' parables He says "he who has ears to hear, let him hear." The reason for this is because those who are actually wanting to hear will hear. The ones who have hardened hearts and do not care about the truth will not understand, and do not actually want to understand. It's not that Jesus is not letting them hear. It's just they don't want to hear. Here is a video that explains a little further. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hH4iEAdBDw

"John 18:19-24 - The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and His doctrine. Jesus answered him, “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing. Why do you ask Me? Ask those who have heard Me what I said to them. Indeed they know what I said.” And when He had said these things, one of the officers who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, “Do You answer the high priest like that?” Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?” Then Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest." Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+13%3A10-14%2C+Mark+4%3A9-12%2C+John+18%3A19-24&version=NKJV

Jesus knew they didn't actually want to know. Notice Jesus asks them why do you ask me? Because He said nothing in secret. They were not listening. Then He tells them to go ask someone who knows what He said. Then they slap Him instead. Then Jesus asks if He has spoken evil or wrong what was it? But if not why did they slap Him?
They had no refutation for what He said. They couldn't give a reason to why He was evil or wrong, because He was innocent.

Jesus is sinless just like God.

III. Refutations

Another Ad Hominem attack
I can't defend my position for the Trinity if you are not understanding the Trinity, because if you don't have an understanding of the Trinity. That will affect how you understand my responses, and it will affect the responses you give me.

This is going to be a bad example, but just hear me out.
If you only understand how an old TV works and only know about older TV's, and I am talking to you about newer flat screen TV's and how that kind of TV works. You are going to be a little off with your refutations, and my responses are not going to make sense to you.
Please see my Economic Trinity, and Ontological Trinity links. Also watch the Trinity explained video.

cannot be understood without being indoctrinated by such things as 22 hours of binge watching YouTube videos from a biblical literalist.
I want the audience to notice that my opponent is warping what I am saying. He is basically putting words in my mouth and trying to make it sound worse than what I actually said. Throughout this debate he has done this. Please pay attention to that. Regardless of if you agree with me or not, please don't let him warping my words and putting words in my mouth affect how you vote against me.

I never said you cannot understand without being indoctrinated by binge watching YouTube videos. I want my audience to notice that instead of testing to see if the Bible really does teach what those videos are teaching. He seems to be disregarding them completely and assuming that those videos can't possibly be teaching what the Bible is teaching.

His defense against contradictions is that contradictions are the proof that the bible is literally a historical document
They don't disagree on what generally happened. They just have different perspectives. It would be less convincing if they all said exactly the same thing. As much as you hate plagiarizing you would never believe it. Please read what a contradiction really is.


Bible verses
Now I want to use some of the Bible verses I have already used since you did not refute them.
In the NKJV copyright rules it says,

"providing the verses quoted do not amount to a complete book of the Bible, nor do verses quoted account for 25% or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted" Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-King-James-Version-NKJV-Bible/#copy

So since I don't know how close to 25 percent I have quoted. I will now be using the NASB version of the Bible from here on in this round.

"Isaiah 44:6 - Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:
‘I am the first and I am the last,
And there is no God besides Me."
"Revelation 1:4-8 - John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood— and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”"
"Revelation 1:17-18 - When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+44%3A6%2C+revelation+1%3A4-8%2C+Revelations+1%3A17-18&version=NASB "Bold emphasis added"

In the Old testament God says He is the first and the last. In revelation Jesus says He is the Alpha and the Omega, and the first and the last. I bolded for emphasis some context that clearly show it is referring to Jesus.

"Acts 20:28 -Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."
"Revelation 1:5 - and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—"
"1 Peter 1:18-19 - knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+20%3A28%2C+1+peter+1%3A18-19%2C+revelation+1%3A5&version=NASB "Bold Emphasis added"

In Acts 20:28 it says God purchased the Church with His own blood. Revelation 1:5 says we are released from our sins by Jesus' blood.
Then in 1 Peter 1:18-19 it says "knowing that you were redeemed" the word "redeemed" actually means "to ransom" Source, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=kjv&strongs=g3084
So a purchase was made to release us from our sins so that way we don't have to be punished and have everlasting life. Jesus paid for our sins with His blood, and Acts 20:28 says He was God.

Last thing before round 4
I want to remind my audience that this is a debate about whether or not the Bible teaches Jesus Christ is God. So I want to point out that the reason my opponent has to resort to trying to find contradictions in the Bible, or trying to prove certain books are not trust worthy is because the Bible is so clear that Jesus Christ is God. The only way to deny Jesus Christ is God in the Bible is to either completely change what it says, or to try and rip verses and books out of the Bible. So in my opinion my opponent is near, or borderline conceding.

Barney's avatar
Barney
Con
#8
Plagiarism and Editing The Bible
That he has been editing the bible to say whatever he wants it to, has been wholly dropped.

“I didn't copy someone else's interpretation of them.”
This is verifiably untrue, as my opponent is confirmed to have copy/pasted no less than 28 lines from Dr. Rhodes (and more from another author I did not identify but he admitted), but only gave credit for the “Jesus is Theos” paragraph. Unless Dr. Rhodes is yet another name for God (which are not to be confused with names for Jesus), this is literally “someone else’s interpretation of them.”

“Could you point out where I refused to use quotation marks”?
R1, R2, and R3, roughly half the content. I have already given multiple samples of how to give credit, surround text with quotation marks, and/or use indents where warranted. I am not going to feed this latest Gish Gallop tactic by subjecting the audience to re-reading every line of pro’s spam.


I. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted
“In your source...”
My opponent has chosen to wait literally three rounds to respond to a source (beyond his earlier mistaking it for Dan Brown, of whom it makes zero mention), likely in hopes that the audience will forget the context of the source. To quote myself:
“Early Christians did not even believe Jesus was God, they started that line basically to mock Romans who insisted their emperor was God.”
Thus when he pulls bits like the book of Romans mocking the Roman belief that Caesar is God (calling Jesus equal with Caesar, and speaking of his Caesar-like authority over all), it is not the bible trying to teach Jesus is the true God of the Jews from the old testament.

“very good video”
Another 1 hour 43 minutes, to add to the 22+ hours he previously asked the audience to watch to be able to understand his case. Without these outside videos, people would not be able to understand what those guys want us to think the bible teaches, because the bible does not teach those things in and of itself. Ironically, one of those videos is even against letting people interpret the bible for you!

“Could you please point out where I complained that it refuted me”?
R3 under the heading “Because the book in question is not doing the teaching, people with agendas are.” This paragraph was complaining about the scientific information without refuting it; unless pro was serious when he claimed Christianity sprang into existence only last generation (“the people that is doing the teaching learned it from the book itself.”), which I took to be a simple typo to be forgiven without comment.

“I actually learned Jesus was God from the Bible.”
News stories for verification of this claim? It’s a pretty big one; someone spontaneously becoming Christian in isolation, having not been told Jesus is God (at least not by any figure of authority) before opening the bible. If true, you’re probably in at least a couple scientific journals.

“You make it seem like no one who teaches Jesus is God has even read the Bible”
More complaining about scientific information, without refuting it… To be clear, they form that belief before they read the bible, thus are not taught it by the bible.

I’ve plainly pointed out how other scientific data could be used to counter this were it not true.

"God did this in the old testament. Jesus never did this in the New Testament, and therefore Jesus isn't God"
Voters, please forgive him this typo in misattributed quotes. Those are his own words not mine, even if that simplification touches on part of my case.

I do stand by my biblical evidence of them being of different natures and essences (pretty sure we all agree they were of different body...). Pro on the other hand, without evidence keeps accusing Jesus of being the type of person who burns innocent people to death to impress his buddy Satan. He begs the question by saying various names for God are names for Jesus, but this is fallacious circular reasoning and moving the goalpost fallacies. Calling Jesus by the names of God would only make sense if first he is proven to be God, it does not make sense to try to prove he is God based on just calling him that.

Further, the bible teaches that Jesus tells people to reject God’s law.
The law as seen in Exodus:
“...take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” -Exodus 21:23-25, NIV
And Jesus telling us to reject it:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” -Matthew 5:38-40, NIV
Thus Jesus outright opposes God and his spiteful ways.

God reaches down from heaven to decide what someone learns
My opponent again concedes: “I said you cannot understand his book properly without his help.” This means the book fails to teach. Were the debate that God teaches, he would have a great point, as I explained last round.


II. Different Behaviors
If the bible fails to show Jesus doing these atrocities
Pro asserts some terrible math (1+1=1) in an attempt to dismiss how blatantly their natures and essences differ. It is not about if “they didn't do the exact same things,” it’s about like-behavioral trends. Pro is accusing Jesus of being guilty of every crime committed by God, but cannot find any fault committed by Jesus to suggest he’s the type to execute such horrible misdeeds.

As for the Carn.org links to try to disprove the validity of the Modus Tollens, I have already pre-refuted that: “Jesus would never commit such atrocities even on a smaller scale, he is of a distinctly different nature and essence from God.” Pro is of course welcome to cite times Jesus did lesser forms of those crimes, such as burning an innocent woman to death with oil, whereas God at his full power rains fire from the heavens to kill many innocent people at once. Innocent in this context refers to them having not committed the crime for which they are being punished; something God does countless times throughout the bible.

Math
Using math as additional support: We know God is addicted to killing large numbers of people. Looking at only the wholesale slaughters, the estimated total from just the old testament is 20.3 million (20,329,070, again this is excluding various individual killings). At least according to biblical literalists, the bible apparently says the earth is roughly 6,000 years old. To be charitable, we’ll leave that figure alone instead of subtracting years after the old testament.

20.3M/6000=3,383 kills per year (or 3,388.17833 if you want increased precision).

Jesus is known to have lived about 28 years. At God’s usual rate, he should have killed about 94,724 people in that time; especially if he was 100% God. If he was even a tiny fractional 0.01% God, that’s still 9 fatalities. Of course none of these occur, because Jesus was not a monster.

“Please give me some verses”
Their specific exclusion from saying something that would have been so fundamentally important is the evidence, it'd be about like if Columbus refused to mention land in his reports about the Americas. But for an example, Matthew specifically says that Jesus is the genetic son of Joseph (being of that paternal line was required for him to be eligible to be the messiah):
“This is the genealogy a of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham… [39 lines omitted] ...and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.” -Matthew 1:1-16, NIV
And from Genesis, note the absence of Joseph fathering God:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” -Genesis 1:1, NIV

Jesus Sinned
Regarding the pigs: The act of destroying someone else's property is a sin, even if later made right, the sin has still been committed. That we have have a record of him incurring the massive debt but and none of him paying, marks an additional sin. If the bible wanted to teach that he was without sin, it could have had him pre-pay for the pigs, but it did not.

Regarding the lying: My opponent decides to try the tactic of victim blaming, which in no way changes Jesus’ choice to become a liar. Further, Jesus not wanting to face the punishment for his actions here, supports that he would have fled the debt for the pigs. Pro then repeats Jesus committing the sin, to try to prove Jesus did not commit the sin; which makes no sense if trying to prove he did not do it.

“Jesus is sinless just like God.”
They sinners of different categories and magnitudes. The most well known biblical rule is to not murder people, of which need I remind the audience what God did to the Egyption children? For Jesus to be God, Jesus would need to at least be a sinner of the same category.


III. Refutations
“warping what I am saying”
This was his defense to criticism for trying to get the audience to watch 22+ hours of videos… To be a broken record, if the bible was teaching these things, the videos trying to teach that the bible teaches these things would not be necessary. Again, his burden is to prove that the bible teaches those things, not that some people interpret it as teaching those things.

Extend the rest (things like him complaining that it’s not fair to be called out for Ad Hominems and Plagiarism, should be too weak to require further analysis).


IV. Gish Gallop
As for the biblical quotes pro Gish Galloped…

The Old Testament was before the birth of Jesus. Jesus is generally not known for being an immortal time traveler. If pro wishes to submit evidence to the contrary, I'll then consider the evidence from the old testament such as the book of Isaiah.

As for the New Testament: First of all, we have already covered that John is a questionable author. That the bible says John said something, does not mean the bible says John is infallible God to be believed. Worshiping John is to worship a false idol, which the old testament forbids. But even assuming we could trust John’s Revelation…
  1. Revelation 1:4-8
    This specifically refers to God and Jesus as separate, even speaking separately, implying Jesus is a servant and not the same as God whom speaks.
    “even those who pierced Him” marks a time limit if Jesus Christ from the rest of the bible is the one in question, because these events must happen before the last Roman from his execution has died; or else wait for a different messiah to be pierced fatally.
    Plus it calls Jesus Christ “who is the faithful witness,” which as we know the Jesus seen earlier is a liar, so on multiple accounts it is a different person being called Jesus; possibly due to a translation error and/or the commonality of the name Jesus (Christ was not his last name, it was a title which can be bestowed).
  2. Revelation 1:5
    Proof of pro intentionally making his Gish Galloping worse, is that he then repeats what is already contained within 1:4-8. So see my above response.
  3. Revelation 1:17-18
    This removes the context that the author was hallucinating (something John openly admits), taken from Revelation 1:16, “In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” If Jesus looked like that, Matthew or another would have said something about it, like that time he got slapped instead of the guy running away in fear at the sword sticking out his mouth. His appearance was actually specified in Hebrews 7:14 as being quite normal and human.
  4. Acts 20:28
    First this is talking about blood offerings to God. It even speaks of animal sacrifices (lambs), which does not mean the bible is teaching that God is a Lamb… The passage goes on to explain the danger of wolves, and the need to use violence to pay in blood for safety. This does not mean Jesus is God and will come kill the wolves, it never even calls Jesus one with God.
  5. 1 Peter 1:18-19
    Jesus having blood does not make him God, any more than animal cruelty make the animals God.
Pro goes on to again repeat several of them, pulling them further out of the context of their books. This is an extreme example of the fallacy known as cherry picking. I could for example take three parts of the bible, one that says “Jesus is” and other that says “not” and finally one that says “God” and pretend the bible teaches that; this is a slightly more extreme version of what pro is doing.

“Acts 20:28 says He was God.”
Pro is again editing the words of the bible, claiming Acts says “He was God” which is fundamentally untrue, he even showed a translation of it that is absent that phrase. The actual wording can be verified as:
“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, a which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.” -Acts 20:28-29, NIV

“Last thing before round [5]”
“My opponent is near, or borderline conceding.”
My opponent does not understand the difference between disagreeing with him, and conceding...

“Completely change what it said”
My opponent has been caught multiple times directly editing the biblical passages, and now he employs Gaslighting techniques by saying it was really me who did that...
Round 5
Skye2468's avatar
Skye2468
Pro
#9

Self refuting
I want to point out to the voters, that throughout this debate my opponent has argued that "The Bible doesn't teach, it is interpreted" But then to try and refute my Bible verses he tries to use context in the Bible to show that the Bible does not teach Jesus is God. This is self refuting. If no one can know exactly what the Bible teaches by an interpretation. Then that also means my opponent cannot know the context teaches Jesus is not God by his interpretation.

People interpret each others words in everyday communication to figure out what they mean, and what they are talking about. Interpretation is necessary to understand what someone has said. To argue that no one can be taught something by interpretation is ridiculous. Just as we interpret what our teachers are saying at school and taught by it. We also interpret what a book is saying and we are taught by it.

Irrelevant
I also want the voters to notice that this is a debate about "what the Bible teaches." Yet when I clearly showed the context of John 1:1 was referring to Jesus being God. By using John 1:1-18 in rounds 2 and 4. The argument then was "Johns books are not trust worthy." So since I proved that that the book of John does say Jesus is God. He decided he would rip Johns books completely out of the Bible.

Regardless of if you believe the book of John is reliable or not. It is still part of the Bible. Therefore your belief of it being unreliable is irrelevant to this debate. This is not a reliability debate. It is a "What does the Bible teach debate." Since the book of John is part of the Bible that means the Bible does show Jesus is God.

Modus Tollens
I want to resay something I said in round 4.

the premise of the Modus Tollens argument is incorrect in it's assertions and therefore false in it's assumptions. Jesus is 100 percent God, but you have to realize He is a different person within the Godhead. So therefore, He can exhibit different behavior. Especially since Jesus is also 100 percent human and the Father is not. The premise also misunderstands the nature of the Godhead, and the Economic Trinity. You also need to understand the difference between that and the Ontological Trinity.

My opponent doesn't understand that the Trinity is one God, and three different persons. Since Jesus is a different person in the Godhead he can exhibit different behavior. Jesus has a different role than the Father does and therefore can exhibit different behavior. Also when Jesus became human, He now was also a human and therefore can exhibit different behavior.

Misrepresenting
My opponent was misrepresenting God and the Bible throughout this debate.

For example, in his Modus Tollens argument he accused God of murdering innocent children, set innocent people on fire, and pranking his followers in the Old testament.

Murder is unlawful killing. Source, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder
God does not kill unlawfully. Everyone deserves to die because we all have sinned, and therefore deserve the death penalty by God. Therefore no one is innocent.
Also either my opponent is ignoring or is ignorant of the fact that anytime God takes a child's life, he or she goes straight to heaven. Meaning that God actually killing children and taking them out of this cruel world is an act of grace and mercy.

Job 3:16-17 says that babies who die at birth are at rest. Hell is never described as rest, but heaven is.
2 Samuel 12:15-23 also suggests that babies go to heaven. When it says "But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+samuel+12%3A15-23&version=NKJV
The new testament talks about kids in the kingdom of heaven as well. Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A14%2C+Matthew+18%3A3-6&version=NKJV

Also in Genesis 22:2 when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. My opponent fails to explain and show that God didn't let him actually go through with it in Genesis 22:9-13. Source, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+22%3A9-13&version=NKJV
The Irony of this is that my opponent fails to realize this is a picture of Jesus. Just as God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son. The Father gave up his only Son as a sacrifice to free humanity from sin and death.

It's ironic because this is one of the many pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament further verifying that the Old Testament is also about Jesus. Which is what I was arguing at the end of round 3. Since the Bible is a book about God, and even the Old Testament is about Jesus. That further verifies that Jesus is actually the God of the Bible.

Also my opponent has no standard to claim what is right or wrong. Just his own opinion. How is he going to tell God what is right or wrong? God decides whats right and wrong.

I just wanted to point out my opponents misrepresentation. Regardless if you agree with me on this topic of morals or not. It is irrelevant to this debate. Please don't let your feelings be the guide when voting.

Jesus Sinning
To say Jesus sinned you will have to make assumptions, add to the text, and twist the text around and make it say that. There is nothing straightforward that says Jesus to be a sinner. Matter of fact it's the opposite. Like I pointed out in round 1 and 3.

2 Corinthians 5:21 - For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
1 John 3:5 - And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22 - “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
Hebrews 4:15 - For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

You don't have to believe it, and you can try to twist that he did sin in there, but you can't deny the writers of these books are saying Jesus was sinless. Therefore the Bible is teaching that Jesus is sinless just like God.

This was his defense to criticism for trying to get the audience to watch 22+ hours of videos
At the end of round 3. I never asked the audience to watch 22 hours worth of videos. I was just simply including them just in case someone was interested in watching them. This is what I said.

"There is a guy named Mike Winger who has a YouTube channel. He has an entire videos series about how Jesus is all over the Old Testament. So far he has like 22 videos and each are like 1 hour apiece because there is so much of Jesus in the Old Testament."

I never asked anyone to watch them. I was just including them just in case someone wanted to watch them, and to make a point.

if the bible was teaching these things, the videos trying to teach that the bible teaches these things would not be necessary.
I guess I can agree with this. The only problem is that a video actually showing you would be more convenient, and it would take less time and effort to learn.

Again, his burden is to prove that the bible teaches those things, not that some people interpret it as teaching those things.
This is putting me in an unfair no-win or lose-lose situation.

If I show my opponent someone else teaching that the Bible teaches something. He will just say "The Bible doesn't teach that it's just their interpretation."
If I show straight from the Bible it teaches something he will say "It doesn't teach that it's just your own interpretation."

No matter who it is, or what the Bible says. It will always be a interpretation and therefore it does not teach anything.
Just like I said at the beginning of this final round though. 

"People interpret each others words in everyday communication to figure out what they mean, and what they are talking about. Interpretation is necessary to understand what someone has said. To argue that no one can be taught something by interpretation is ridiculous. Just as we interpret what our teachers are saying at school and taught by it. We also interpret what a book is saying and we are taught by it."

If we are going to assume every interpretation from the Bible is false. We also must assume every interpretation from any teacher who learns from a book is also false as well. Which is almost every single teacher. Unless they just had first hand experience themselves.

Also if the Bible is true. That would mean it actually can be interpreted correctly because it says it can be.
According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, and 2 Peter 1:20-22.
I want to show the voters what a Gish Gallop is.

The Gish Gallop is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming an opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments. Source, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

For the most part throughout this debate my opponent has dismissed most of my bible verse arguments. Many of the times I used verses, he would call me out for Gish Gallop. I really doubt my opponent looked into every one of them verses in round 2 to make sure that they were "without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments." Just as this definition states.

Sometimes the Bible is a lot more simple then some make it out to be. Yes there are some debatable topics, but the Deity of Christ is not one of them. You would have to change what the Bible says, ignore parts of the Bible, or rip books out of the Bible just as my opponent has done to deny that the Bible teaches Jesus is God.

I am going to resay some of my arguments that I have already given. Please read over these carefully and ask yourself. Has Con really shown that the Bible does not teach Jesus is God? These verses are really obvious.

John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (If you have doubt that this is talking about Jesus. Relook at the context I provided in round 2 and 4)
Hebrews 1:8-11 - But to the Son He says:“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”And:
“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;
Matthew 18:20 - For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Matthew 28:20 - teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Colossians 1:16 - For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:17 - And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Luke 8:25 - But He said to them, “Where is your faith?”And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”
Mark 1:29-31 - Now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. So He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her. And she served them.
Mark 1:32-34 - At evening, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. Then He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him.
John 11:43-44 - Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

If the Bible didn't teach Jesus was God, why would it make Him out to be God. Jesus is the only character in the Bible who possesses attributes like God. It shows Him to be eternal, and self existent. It shows Him to be omnipresent. It says He created everything the earth and heavens. He had power over diseases, demonic spirits, and nature. He even raised someone from the dead.

Also Jesus is the only character in the Bible that speaks with authority. All the other prophets said things like "Thus says the Lord" Jesus instead speaks like "I say to you" "Verily verily I say to you" Because Jesus is God.
Please voters it's obvious the Bible teaches Jesus is God.

Isaiah 43:11 -  “I, even I, am the Lord, And there is no savior besides Me.
Titus 2:13 - looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

In the Old Testament God says there is no savior besides Him, but yet in the new Testament Jesus is the savior. In Titus 2:13 not only is He the savior, but it even calls Him God.
Hebrews 1:8-9 - But of the Son He says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.
“You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness above Your companions.”

God the Father even calls Jesus God.

John 5:18 - For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.
John 10:30-33 - I and the Father are one.”  The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

The Jews knew exactly what He was talking about. When they were going to stone Him for blasphemy. Because He was claiming to be God. As they clearly said.
The stuff Jesus was saying would of been blasphemy. So how and why was He sinless? Because He was God.

Jesus said there was none good but God alone.

So if there is none good but God alone. How could Jesus be sinless? Because He was God. Jesus was saying He is God.

Why did Jesus say He was Lord of the sabbath?

He said this because He is the God of the Old Testament that put the sabbath in the Law.

Why was He called Son of man? Because He was 100 percent human. So why was He called Son of God? It is because He is 100 percent God.

What about all the times Jesus was worshipped and served? The type of worship and service that only should happen to God.

Or all the times Jesus was literally called God.
Isaiah 9:6 - For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
John 20:28 - Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Colossians 2:9 - For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,
Matthew 1:23 - Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
Romans 9:5 - whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Sources, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+9%3A6%2C+John+20%3A28%2C+Colossians+2%3A9%2C+Matthew+1%3A23%2C+2+peter+11%2C+Romans+9%3A5&version=NASB


There is so much more I could say I could keep going, and keep going, and keep going. The entire Bible is loaded with this stuff. It's obvious what the Bible teaches about Jesus, and I think Con has not refuted that the Bible teaches Jesus is God. All he has done is rip books out, and called me out for supposed fallacies, and told me it's impossible to interpret the Bible correctly basically in other words.

Remember my Fish analogy in round 2.

""If I had a book about the ocean and the book said stuff like,
“The name of this magnificent animal starts with an F.”
“The Mother of this beauty had gills.”
“Humans cannot survive where they can without special equipment, and vice versa.”
“Humans have given it a four letter name.”

After awhile of seeing these descriptions we can safely conclude that the book is talking about a fish. It’s the same with the Bible. Verse after verse eventually you must conclude that the Bible teaches Jesus is God.""

Those verses I gave that my opponent is trying to refute at the end of round 4. He is making it much more complicated than it needs to be. Like I said it's obvious. Not to be mean or anything, but my opponent doesn't understand who Jesus is. He doesn't understand the blood sacrifice and atonement of Jesus. He doesn't understand the purchase Christ made on the cross. He doesn't understand Jesus took our punishment. He doesn't understand Jesus is the Lamb of God. He doesn't understand Jesus will come and separate the sheep from the wolves. He doesn't understand Jesus would need to be God to save humanity. He doesn't understand that God is a jealous God and would not give Glory of saving humanity to someone other than Himself, because He rightfully deserves it. Which Jesus saved humanity. What does that tell you?

If my opponent actually does understand these things he has not shown it.

It's obvious the Bible is saying Jesus Christ is God. People are just blinded to it just as the Bible teaches. So please before everyone votes. Please really meditate on these verses I have shown throughout this debate and decide for yourself who the Bible says Jesus Christ is.

Last words
I want to thank my opponent for debating with me. I really enjoyed it, and maybe sometime we will have another debate about something. He gave me an interesting challenge and some new things to study and think of, and I really appreciate it.


If anyone is interested I will leave a video here if anyone wants to watch it. I already left it somewhere in this debate, but I will leave it here just in case anyone would like to watch. It's about historical evidence of Jesus' resurrection.

Barney's avatar
Barney
Con
#10
Thank you anyone who has gotten this far.

The order for this round is as follows:
  1. A review of the Resolution (written before reading pro’s closing arguments)
  2. My Education (a skippable review of the Ad Hominem attacks)
  3. Plagiarism (continued from previous rounds)
  4. Interpretations (continued from previous rounds)
  5. Different Behaviors (continued from previous rounds)
  6. Refutations (continued from previous rounds)
  7. Gish Gallop (continued from previous rounds)
  8. Voting Suggestions
  9. Source List

Meaning of Resolution:
To go back to the resolution, “The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is God” with is being defined threefold as “the same in nature, essence, and being.” I focused my efforts on disproving the first two, whereas my opponent focused on disproving the third.

Two things are needed for this resolution to be true: First, the bible must contain that clear, convincing, and non-contradictory message that they are those three things; Second, it must successfully teach those things, not merely reinforce them after someone has already been taught elsewhere. If it taught those things, the continued existence of the Jews who actually read the bible has not been explained by my opponent.


My Education (skippable):
Due to continued Ad Hominem attacks, I might as well address this for anyone curious.

I never used my education as an appeal to authority within the debate. I mentioned it in the comment section a couple weeks ago. I am one of the rare people who has read the majority of the bible, to include re-reading key parts in several translations; in addition to multiple biblical commentaries by professional theologians. I’ve even written theology papers which had to be approved by an actual nun.

I understand the full hierarchy within the Abrahamic pantheon, and the reasoning used to deny that a whole pantheon means more than one (if in doubt, notice the various powerful angels…). I could have taken either side of this debate and won. My opponent by issuing the challenge requested I poke holes in his case. I could have coddled him instead, but that would be disrespectful of him as an intelligent human being in full possession of the Imago Dei.


Plagiarism and Editing The Bible
Extend. I began last round with a reminder to my opponent to defend himself on editing the word of the bible, and instead he edited it some more. While I do not claim to have caught each infraction during his spamming, what I have caught proves that what he claims the bible says cannot be trusted. I on the other hand have been a faithful witness, with the only challenge to my biblical passages was that my opponent dislikes that God did those things.

My opponent has continued plagiarism into even his final round. One example of this I caught, was his definition of Gish Gallop which was copy/pasted without quotation marks from Wikipedia.

This round I’ve caught yet another example of him editing the bible, claiming that  Job 3:16-17 says: “babies who die at birth are at rest. Hell is never described as rest, but heaven is.” When the actual passage mentions neither heaven nor hell. From his own source it reads:
“Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,
Like infants who never saw light?
There the wicked cease from troubling,
And there the weary are at rest.”
This may seem unfair of me to call out his errors, but I am not the one who intentionally concealed where quotations end and what is and isn’t a quotation.
Near the end of the round he insists “really meditate on these verses I have shown,” when it can clearly be seen he has not been showing the real verses with any consistency.

To showcase how little of my opponent's case he wrote himself: Within the first round he offered 34 lines, of which he wrote only 7 (assuming those were not also plagiarized), which gives only 20.6% of his submitted argument that can be attributed to him (admittedly, he is not as bad in other rounds).


I. The Bible Teaches Nothing, It Is Interpreted
My opponent insists it is self-refuting to use something as evidence against cherry picked interpretations of it. This logic does not hold up for him attaining BoP, as as only works to dismiss if admitting the bible cannot teach. I even showed that pro’s appeal to novelty of recent interpretations concludes that the bible does not teach Jesus is God, rather it teaches Donald Trump is God; a point he has dropped and I am now extending.

That Jesus directly and intentionally teaches opposition to God has also been dropped.

Key point to extend here, Christians have only rarely read the bible, necessitating that they learned Jesus is God elsewhere. This point has never been refuted, merely complained about. Even when asked with an implied concession awaiting from me, Pro could not find even one Christian on the entire planet who learned Jesus God from the bible (if any voters believe they have been, pro failed to cite them as evidence for that to impact voting).


II. Different Behaviors
Extend. My opponent has asserted against reason they are the same, but failed to provide evidence.

“Misrepresenting”
As for the accusation that I am misrepresenting God by referencing God’s actions from the bible: no error with my interpretation has yet been shown. That pro insists premeditated killing of children of children is not a crime because they apparently all “deserves to die.” Knowing he is a supporter of the Westboro Baptist Church’s interpretation is interesting, but not relevant to the debate. … I will note however that pro is again lying about the content of the bible, both changing stillborn babies to every random child killed (see above Plagiarism section), and more.

Jesus still failed to behave like God even on a smaller scale, having not killed even one person, when as “100 percent God” (the math section pro extended) he would have killed 94,724. He further preached against God as seen in Matthew 5:38-40. These facts leave their natures and essences clearly distinct.

Were were the same person anyway, no answer to why they would behave as if with schizophrenia has not been suggested.

“my opponent fails to realize this is a picture of Jesus.”
Another attempt at moving the goalpost. This time my opponent wants to redefine the bible as a picture book. Any judge is welcome to check any of the biblical links for drawings instead of words.

As for Abraham: My opponent claims Abraham’s attempted human sacrifice turned us into sinless immortals… Even taking this new and interesting interpretation seriously, this would not connect to Jesus; rather it would actually prevent Jesus from later being killed, thus creating yet another contradiction. Were someone to connect it to Jesus’ death anyway, we had not yet become sinless immortals when the bible was written long after his death, reducing him to at best a cautionary tale about us killing the wrong person and still needing to find and kill the actual messiah to attain such awesome power.

Jesus Sinned
My opponent tries to refute the fact that the bible explicitly shows Jesus sinning, by pointing out passages of the bible which make no mention of Jesus (Ctrl+F for a quick search); they further set a requirement which the bible intentionally shows Jesus not living up to.


III. Refutations
Videos
My opponent admits “I was just including them just in case ... and to make a point.” To make a point is admitting they were an intentional source.
He then concedes to my point that “if the bible was teaching these things, the videos trying to teach that the bible teaches these things would not be necessary.”

“no-win or lose-lose situation”
Correct.


IV. Gish Gallop
Four rounds later my opponent has tried to change the definition, while failing to show that he did not intentionally engage in a Gish Gallop even under his proposed new one.

He then begins Gish Galloping more biblical passages, while selectively editing them to include the word Jesus where it is absent, and further trying to conceal this by resuming his old plagiarism tactic to take credit for the translations (no quotation marks around it, no links to his sources, etc.). Worse he does this so lazily, he begins with one I have previously caught him editing.

Pro in R3 claimed John 1:1 says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Don't say this isn't referring to Jesus because I clearly showed you context in the last round.)”

Pro in R5 claimed John 1:1 says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (If you have doubt that this is talking about Jesus. Relook at the context I provided in round 2 and 4)”

And what John 1:1-2 (added part 2 to show the different ending) says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
As a reminder, pro dropped that the logic in his appeal to novelty leads to this being about Donald Trump, not Jesus.
With it proven that his Gish Gallop isn’t even accurate biblical quotes, it can be dismissed for the pure fallacy it is.

“possesses attributes like God”
I should first point out that my opponent has plagiarized part of this this section from the Prophetic Ministries Australia. While edited slightly, the order and key phrasings are unquestionably the same.
Plus, having some of the same attributes as someone else, does not make you the same person. Multiple different people live in the USA for example… But responding to the plagiarized claims:
  • “Eternal” I have previously covered the 28 year lifespan of Jesus, and with this unchallenged he is not eternal.
  • “self existent” I have previously shown that Jesus is the genetic son of Joseph and Mary, and with this unchallenged he cannot be said to exist without another cause, as he was directly caused by his parents having sex.
  • “Omnipresent” nonsense, he never could have escaped the pig debt if he was stuck always there; nor would he have needed to travel and arrive by boat and other means.
  • “He created everything the earth and heavens” I’ve already covered that God did that in Genesis, thousands of years before Jesus’ father Joseph was born.
  • “He had power over diseases, demonic spirits, and nature.” This is actually true, but fails to prove the conclusion intended. Antibiotics cure more diseases than Jesus ever did, yet the church has replaced statues of Jesus with statues of pill bottles. Plus this again opposes God who inflicts diseases, as was seen with Job and the innocent Egyptians.
  • “He even raised someone from the dead.” An action God has not been shown to do once. God kills, Jesus unkills; a case could be made that they are competing divine beings opposing each other, but such has not been done by pro, he is trying to use how different they are as proof they’re the same.

“speaks with authority”
The examples are actually the definition of making an appeal to reason instead of a fallacies appeal to authority, which the opposite of what my opponent claims Jesus is doing.

“Isaiah 43:11”
Old testament, thus Jesus was not born yet. As I previously said: “Calling Jesus by the names of God would only make sense if first he is proven to be God, it does not make sense to try to prove he is God based on just calling him that.”

More Gish Galloping
When my opponent asked for lines that disproved him (“Please give me some verses”), I gave a neat and clean 2 passages. He has dropped those, leaving it unquestioned that Jesus was the genetic son of Joseph (who is not father of God). For Jesus to still be in the running, pro would need to prove that Joseph created God before God created the earth. This is only compounded by Jesus telling people to disobey God’s law. Between this and my opponent repeatedly and intentionally editing the bible, I see no need to keep responding to every random line he says is from the bible. If any judges are in doubt, do a word search through his case for “Joseph”. (Ctrl+F)

“Jesus is the Lamb of God”
Another concession from pro, that Jesus is apparently God’s pet lamb, not to be confused with his equal. My response to Acts 20:28 last round already covered that God is not a lamb. Thus trying to say they’re a pair of divine lambs, fails to support the resolution

“Those verses I gave that my opponent is trying to refute at the end of round 4...”
This is my opponent engaging in yet another Ad Hominem attack, rather than defending his case.


Voting Suggestions:
This debate is not about the religious preferences of the voters, it is about the strength of proofs presented.
So a few things I humbly ask judges to consider while voting…

I. Arguments
My key points were (I.) that the bible is interpreted to mean what the presenter wants it to say, rather than being given the chance to teach, and (II.) that Jesus and God behaved vastly different due to their conflicting natures and essences, even outright opposing each other. That Christians do not even read the bible to give it the chance to teach has been dropped, and my opponent increased the number of differences without showing why God would be so conflicted.

My opponent's key points were… To avoid being accused of straw-personing his case, I will leave the audience to scan for his most important headings.

My opponent based part of his case (not calling it a key point, but important) on the idea that Jesus was without sin, then failed to prove that Jesus lying and destroying people's livelihoods were not sins. He threw credibility under the bus on this by insisting that the premeditated killing of children cannot be said to be a bad thing (God, not Jesus).

Even pro agreed that people believing the bible teaches things, does not make the bible have taught those things (see Westboro, and the bible being prophecies about Donald Trump). So why believe something equally unlikely as Joseph's son Jesus (whom it is uncontested was not even the messiah) is somehow the creator of the universe?

II. Sources
We of course both used the bible. Otherwise my sources ran the gambit, ranging from entertaining biblical reenactments, to scientific journals. My opponent on the other hand tended to use sources I predicted and pre-refuted, plus he attempted to coerce the audience into watching roughly 24 hours of videos (was 22, then he added another 103 minutes, and then some more… I gave up keeping track).

Two particularly strong sources of mine were of course the South Park videos and accompanying biblical passages, which by proving how sinful God was, made pro trying to prove Jesus as sinless counterproductive to proving them as the same; and of course the journal article  “Generations of Decline: Religious Change in 20th-Century Britain” which proved belief that Jesus is God is transmitted by families lines rather than by the bible (other scientific sources deepened this proof, such as them not reading the bible).

III. S&G
Neither of us had any excessive errors.

IV. Conduct
My opponent has been caught repeatedly plagiarizing, committing Ad Hominem attacks, falsifying quotes from the bible and other lies. In contrast I engaged in the debate (I’m pointing this out, because he repeatedly complained about it).

Sources:
My sources in this debate were as follow (this excludes the current round, as I am a believer in ones from the final round not counting)…
  1. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/one-bible-many-interpretations/
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church
  3. https://www.u2.com/news/article/1060/
  4. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-christ-billboard-st-louis/
  5. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-do-jews-believe-about-jesus/
  6. https://www.npr.org/2014/04/07/300246095/if-jesus-never-called-himself-god-how-did-he-become-one
  7. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
  8. http://southpark.cc.com/clips/411550/its-raining-frogs
  9. http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104224/the-book-of-job
  10. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship
    Pro did challenge this one, that it meant the same thing...
  11. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248892/Connecticut-shooting-Westboro-Baptist-Church-plans-praise-gathering-outside-Sandy-Hook-Elementary-school.html
  12. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4621936?seq=1&socuuid=effeaf08-0600-4089-b0c4-f4db275626c7&socplat=email#page_scan_tab_contents
  13. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition
  14. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty
  15. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning
  16. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
  17. https://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_WordCount.htm
  18. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Plagiarism
  19. https://biblehub.com/john/1-1.htm
  20. https://biblehub.com/niv/john/1.htm
  21. https://answersingenesis.org/jesus-christ/jesus-is-god/is-jesus-god/
    One of pro’s plagiarized sources (he admitted there were more).
  22. https://lifewayresearch.com/2017/04/25/lifeway-research-americans-are-fond-of-the-bible-dont-actually-read-it/
  23. https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
  24. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_hominem
  25. https://www.debateart.com/debates/842
  26. https://www.debateart.com/participants/Virtuoso
  27. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/in-and-of-itself
    Apologies for switching dictionaries, the phrase was not in Merriam-Webster.
  28. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts
  29. https://biblehub.com/niv/exodus/21.htm
  30. https://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/5.htm
  31. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_killing_people#Perspectives
  32. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism
  33. https://www.biblicalfoundations.org/when-was-jesus-born-and-when-did-he-die/
  34. https://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/1.htm
  35. https://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/1.htm
  36. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Blaming_the_victim
  37. http://southpark.cc.com/clips/411551/our-love-grows
  38. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hero-doctor-not-like-jesus/
  39. https://biblehub.com/hebrews/7-14.htm
  40. https://biblehub.com/niv/acts/20.htm
  41. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cherry_picking
  42. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting