ikestephen:
how are u sure this your book of univesal history is not also a fantacy made to make people unbelievers, who is even the author. What religion is this.

I just want to know where this mysterious book can be found. As far as I can tell, it doesn't actually exist outside of 0temSapien's posts.

Let me start with the most common problem, the omnipotence paradox;

Can God create something so heavy that he can't lift it?

If God is omnipotent, then he has to be able to create something he can't lift, otherwise his inability to create this would mean that there is at least one thing that God can't do then he can't be omnipotent.

Let us suppose that this question shows that God is not in fact "fully" omnipotent. All that would indicate is that, outside of a few fringe cases that do not actually matter (to what degree does this have any impact on any potential interactions God may have with us?), God can do anything. So even if this is a demonstration that God is not omnipotent, for all practical purposes (and especially from our viewpoint) God effectively is.

But does one even have to admit that? It is interesting that you mention how the traits of God were stated by Augustine and Aquinas, but do not note that they actually gave answers to some of these. For example, according to Aquinas, this "paradox" only occurs if one is not following the right understanding of omnipotence, which is the ability to do all things that are possible. Things that are a contradiction in terms, such as the question you suppose (or for another famous example, whether a square can be a circle), are logically impossible and thus do not fall under the definition of omnipotence. As Aquinas says, "Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them." (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1025.htm#article3)

Alternatively, one can take the opposite route, and argue that omnipotence allows for the suspension of the laws of logic itself, and thus an omnipotent God can simultaneously make a rock too strong for him to lift while still being able to lift it despite the apparent paradox it presents.

The problems of evil - There is at least what we call natural evil.
An omniscient God would know every possible way evil cannot exist
An omnibenovalent God would want to eradicate evil
An omnipotent God can.
How then is evil a thing?
How then is satan, the embodiment of evil a thing?

What about man-made evils?

In the limited forum of a message board, it's hard to do justice to a question that has prompted entire works of philosophy. So I will offer this short, if possibly unfulfilling answer: There could very well be important factors or variables that we non-omniscient humans are unaware of that an omniscient being is aware of that would mean that what we perceive to be as an unwillingness or inability to eradicate what we see as evil is in fact the best choice available.

Free will?
God is omniscient and omnitemporal; he knows every future. How is there freewill if God already knows what will happen and can't be wrong?

The only way we can make predictions such as eclipse of the sun or any other accurately, is that the forces subject to our accurate measurement and predictions do not possess will and therefore are designated to act according to measurable patterns.

Well, some actually would say that free will does not exist as their answer, though I would not. For me, I feel it's a false dissonance to begin with. The ability to know, even with absolute certainty, that someone will make a particular choice does not mean that that person did not themselves make that choice. I simply see no contradiction between omniscience and free will.

But even beyond that, I don't think it's a question that has relevance. There are two possibilities. One is that we do not have free will with an omniscient God. In that case, the question is irrelevant because you lack the free will to do anything about it. The other is that we do have free with an omniscient God. In that case, the question is irrelevant because you do have free will and there's no reason to worry about it. Either way, it ends up being irrelevant, and I do not think it particularly worth pondering about.

Or, the problem of morality.
Can God sin?
If God can't sin, then God possibly can't do everything, therefore not omnipotent.
If God can sin, then God can't possible be all good

Again, this is something Aquinas answered, in fact in the same article I linked above:

"To sin is to fall short of a perfect action; hence to be able to sin is to be able to fall short in action, which is repugnant to omnipotence. Therefore it is that God cannot sin, because of His omnipotence."

But much like the omnipotence paradox, even if inability to sin is a contradiction with omnipotence and thus imposes a limitation, it is a limitation of no practical value from our perspective. Thus, from a practical standpoint, God can be considered omnipotent.

So, why then do you pray?

This is by far the simplest of the questions to answer: The Bible says you should pray. (a Muslim would cite the Qur'an instead of the Bible but the answer remains the same)

But yet again, I should note Aquinas's answer:

"We need to pray to God, not in order to make known to Him our needs or desires but that we ourselves may be reminded of the necessity of having recourse to God's help in these matters."
http://newadvent.org/summa/3083.htm#article2

The cause seems worthwhile, but I don't really know anything about the organization asking for the donations. Is there proof that the organization in question is effective at carrying out these goals?

shekauvsbuhari:
Please that rubbish in print is not from mountain of fire. When idiots want to make money, they produce ryubbish n put church name and logo on it. That nonsence have been on sale in the open market for more than five years before this version with mfm logo came into being. Its not from MFM though the contents have have some things in common with MFM teachings.

Hrm... interesting if true. I wonder if the reason why part of the picture is blurred out was to block out something that could demonstrate it isn't authentic?

These aren't actual letters of Pontius Pilate. They're from the book "Letters of Pontius Pilate", a fictional book published in 1928.

Ubenedictus:
Fr Agabi is the name, I think he has been released.

According to this, yes:
https://dailypost.ng/2019/06/18/isaac-agubi-police-hunters-rescue-kidnapped-edo-catholic-priest/

Although it refers to him as Agubi, not Agabi.

Jozzy4:


Why is it that none of those who died and come to life in the Bible give such stories ?.

Do not " PAY ATTENTION TO FALSE STORIES " 1 Tim 1:4

Well, they might have given such stories, and it simply wasn't recorded. For example, consider Lazarus. Lazarus never gives a report of such a story, but on the other hand Lazarus's words aren't recorded at all. So he might have said something about it, he might not have; we just don't know.

On the other hand, it is notable that in the case of 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, when someone does say they experienced such a vision, they said they were not permitted to speak of it.

The bigger problem I have with these stories of those who claim to have seen heaven or hell is that if you compare their stories with each other, they frequently don't line up, with their descriptions of heaven and hell contradicting each other. One would think that, if these experiences were real, they would all be seeing the same thing... but that isn't the case. Maybe there are some real ones among all of these, but how do you determine which ones they are? See if they line up with Scripture? Assuming your interpretation of Scripture is correct, in that case the experiences are meaningless because the only ones you can trust are the ones you already believe! As John Owen is credited as saying: "If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false."

Nodogragra4me:
Your church practices infant baptism introduced by a pope not the apostles

Exactly which pope did this?

From what I can tell, this change was for the Italian version of the prayer, not the English one. Granted, a number are expecting the change will come to English also, but not I don't think it's happened yet. It is worth pointing out that this new version has been how it's been translated in at least some other languages already.

samuel900:
No one not on Earth can add or remove from the WORD

You're aware that the actual Lord's Prayer is in Greek, right? All that's being "changed" is the translation used in church services. Indeed, any translation inherently adds/removes from the Bible because it's impossible for a translation to perfectly capture the meaning of the original.

Fornication is the act of sexual intercourse outside of marriage. As there was no sexual intercourse involved in the conception of Jesus--as the term "Virgin Birth" implies--there is therefore not any fornication involved.

A few thoughts.

First, we do not know that the original Hebrew name of Jesus was Yeshua because we don't have the original Hebrew name, only the Greek transliteration in the New Testament. "Iesous" could have been Yeshua... but it also could have been Yehoshua (Joshua). The New Testament uses "Iesous" several times to refer to Joshua (from the Old Testament), such as Acts 7:45, which is how the King James Bible goofed up its translation of that verse and incorrectly rendered it as Jesus (or Iesus in the first printing). So "Iesous" in the New Testament could have been Yeshua or Yehoshua. Yeshu is another possibility.

If it were that absolutely critical to refer to Jesus by Jesus's original Hebrew name, why is the New Testament silent on which of the possibilities it was? Again, there are multiple candidates in Hebrew for what "Iesous" was. None of the New Testament writers apparently viewed the issue of what Jesus's name was in Hebrew as of any real concern and saw it as perfectly valid to use the Greek version when writing in Greek. So why is it any problem to use the English version when speaking in English?

Furthermore, if we're going to insist we must use Yeshua instead of Jesus, why do we not apply that logic to the rest of the names? Shouldn't we be consistent and use Yokhanan instead of John, Yaakov instead of James, and Miriam instead of Mary?

If someone wants to use Yeshua in prayer or in general, I have no problem with it. But I can't see how using "Jesus" when writing in English is particularly different from the New Testament writers using "Iesous" when writing in Greek.

Shepherd00:
What do you mean by 'The Christian Pope?', is there a Muslim or a hindu Pope?

Where is the phrase "Christian Pope" used in this post? I don't see it.

This site offers an explanation, but it is a bit lengthy:
http://christianthinktank.com/midian.html

I'm a bit dubious that you can say it has "stood the test of time" while Kumuyi is still alive. After he dies, that will be when the true test happens. I can think of other churches that gained a lot of membership but lost a lot of adherents (either due to schisms or people leaving normally) after their founders left.

I think you have to wait at least 20 years after Kumuyi dies before you can say it's stood the test of time.

Okay, back. I originally meant to post this as my original post here, but wanted to get it out so I made the abbreviated version above. Here we go in a needlessly in-depth examination of the cited quotes.

“We define that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world.” (34)
(34) The Most Holy Councils, Vol. XIII, column 1167.

Searching for this work online only turns up this citation, and a search at Worldcat for "The Most Holy Councils" turns up no such work. It's possible it could refer to "Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio" (which translates to something like "New and larger collection of Sacred Councils" I think), as it has more than 13 volumes and the columns are numbered. But if you look at Volume 13 (available here), you will find there is no column 1167! It stops at 1104. Oh, and for those curious, links to all volumes of this work can be found here:
http://patristica.net/mansi

Maybe it's possible they meant some other work, but if so the vagueness renders it impossible to check further. This is a sign that the person didn't bother to actually look up the source of the quote and simply repeated what they saw someone else cite.

That said, as noted, this phrase, or something extremely similar, can be found in actual ecumenical councils, like the Council of Florence and the First Vatican Council (quoting Florence), possibly others also. In any event, I'm not sure what this quote is supposed to demonstrate. I'm guessing it's trying to say that the Catholic Church and/or Pope believe themselves to be the ruler of the world, but the actual meaning (especially when read in context) is simply to state that the pope is the leader of the Catholic Church (which is worldwide), something I doubt even a non-Catholic would dispute.

“All names which in the Scriptures are applied to Christ, by virtue of which it is established that he is over the church, all the same names are applied to the Pope .” (35)
(35) Robert Bellarmine, On the Authority of Councils, Volume 2: 266.

"On the Authority of Councils" appears to be the translation for "De Conciliorum Auctoritate" which is the name of a section in the second volume of Robert Bellarmine's Controversies, so you'd think it would be written to make that more clear. But if you turn to the page marked 266 (found here), it's not even in the section on councils. Now, when looking up information, I did find a different place that gave this quote and gave as its source "On the Authority of the Councils, book 2, chapter 17". So we can turn our attention to it here. The quote appears to be this part:

"Nam omnia nomina que in Scripturis tribuuntur Christo, unde constat cum esse supra Ecclesiam, eadem omnia tribuintur Pontifici."

I only know a little Latin, so I had to rely on automated translation to get a full English translation, but it translates out to something like the quote says (Google Translate tends to struggle with Latin, but it says 'For all things are attributed to Christ in the Scriptures, the names of which, above the Church, from which it is composed out to be, all the same It is attributed to the Pope.' which seems quite close). Now, there are two considerations. First is the context. It's hard for me to make out exactly what it's saying because even if I do put it into Google Translate (which results in imperfect translations), it's a little hard to even know what to put into it because it has an odd typeface that makes some parts hard to make out. But it looks like the titles it's referring to are more specifically those in regards to church management, not any titles of divinity.

Second, Robert Bellarmine is held in very high regard, but his writings are not official teachings of the church. They certainly are neither a council or a catechism.

Speaking of Councils:

“No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language (such as French, Italian, Spanish, etc.), and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after the promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned.” (36)
(36) Council of Tarragona, the Roman Catholic Church Council of 1234 A.D.

This one is an accurate quote. I was even able to verify it in that church council book I mentioned earlier. However, it is inaccurate to call this a "Vatican Council" because it wasn't held by or at the Vatican; it was a regional council that applied only to that one region. In any event, its purpose appears to have been to curb the usage of inaccurately translated bibles floating around at the time rather than some kind of active suppression of Bible availability. This is further evidenced by the specification that it was only those in the Romance language that were to be disposed of.

“The Pope takes the place of Jesus Christ on earth …by divine right the Pope has supreme and full power in faith, in morals over each and every pastor and his flock. He is the true vicar, the head of the entire church, the father and teacher of all Christians. He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author of and the judge of councils; the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by no one, God himself on earth.” (37)
(37) Quoted in the New York Catechism.

This one appears at first glance to be a catechism. However, if you search for New York Catechism you find one of two things:
1) People citing it as the source for this quote uncritically without information as to date, page number, author, or anything besides the name.
2) People trying to figure out what in the world Boettner (who this quote with the "New York Catechism" citation seems to go back to" was referring to.

Some have suggested the book "The Catholic Catechism" by Pietro Gasparri as the candidate, as it was a catechism and was published in New York. We do find something sort of like that quote in it, but nevertheless quite different. On page 98 of the book, we find:

"The Roman Pontiff is called the visible head of the Church and the Vicar of Christ on earth because, since a visible society needs a visible head, Jesus Christ made Peter, and each successor of his, to the end of the world, the visible head and the viceregent of His own power. By divine right the Roman Pontiff has over the Church a primacy not only of honour but of jurisdiction, and this both in things concerning faiths and morals and in discipline and government. The Roman Pontiff has supreme, full, ordinary, and immediate power both over each and every Church, and over each and every Pastor and his flock. The lawful successors of the Apostles are, by divine institution, the Bishops; they are set over particular churches by the Roman Pontiff, and govern them by their own proper power under his authority."
(intervening questions removed; the format of the book is a question then an answer, I simply combined the answers together; emphases added)

The bolded portions are fairly similar to what is in the alleged quotes, but even those are more a paraphrase than an actual quote. And much of the alleged quote, especially the controversial parts (e.g. the "God himself on earth" quote) isn't there at all. If this was the intended source, it's a misrepresentation of what was actually said.

It is, to be fair, possible this wasn't the work being referred to. Maybe it was some other "New York Catechism". Looking [url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SoUQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA578-IA17&dq=%22Small+Catechism%22+%22New+York%22&hl=en&ei=kxqZTMusHY2WsgPg9dStDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAg#v=snippet&q=%22New%20York%22%20%22Small%20Catechism%22%20&f=false]here[/url] and [url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b-DQAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PP23&lpg=RA5-PP23&dq=%22small+new+york+catechism%22&source=bl&ots=PB53xGkN7F&sig=ACfU3U09deBlhEAG4y3PctzzkiqftlIm0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJ3-LK5bjiAhVKWq0KHacxCwwQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22small%20new%20york%20catechism%22&f=false]here[/url] we can see there was a work being sold called the "Small New York Catechism" in the late 19th century. However, no one has been able to find a copy of this work, and it unclear as to who even made it.

Ultimately, whether it's a blatant misquoting of a known work, or an alleged quote from a work no one has been able to verify even exists, it cannot be in any sense be considered reliable. Certainly, anyone who has quoted it has never bothered to verify it, because if they had they would realize it can't be verified and wouldn't use it.

“We confess that the Pope has power of changing Scripture and of adding to it, and taking from it according to his will.” (38)
(38) Roman Catholic Confessions for Protestants Oath, Article XI.

This one was astoundingly vague (again, a sign that the person who put the article together probably threw some quotes they saw online together without checking them). It appears to come from this work (XI is on the next page), which does translate out to the quote. But this is the "Confessio Romano-Catolica, in Hungaria Evangelicis publice praescripta et proposita" and I'm therefore not sure where "Roman Catholic Confessions for Protestants Oath" comes from, as it's not a translation of the actual name.

The question, however, is whether this is an actual confession by the Catholic Church. The original source for it was a book that was a list of a bunch of Catholic creeds (most of which is just things from the Council of Trent). However, there are some things in this "confession" that seem definite oddities. Some parts seem to be almost parodies of actual Catholic belief. According to V and XVII, Mary and the pope are more worthy of honor than Jesus. Someone might try to use that as proof of the excesses of Catholicism, but even if one believes Catholics give more honor to Mary and/or the pope than they deserve, they certainly don't give more than to Jesus. Furthermore, it suspiciously uses the phrase "Roman Catholic" in the confession itself. This is a term used far more often by Protestants than Catholics, and while not completely absent from official Catholic documents, is relatively rare and even then from my understanding is more of an English thing than in other languages. I can't fully rule out the possibility it was an authentic confession (although if it was, it appears to have been very limited in use), but the evidence casts doubt on its authenticity.

So... one quote from an actual "Vatican Council" (that is the most benign of the quotes and is even more benign in context) though incorrectly cited, one possibly out of context quote from a book that is neither a catechism or a council, one quote from a council but not a "Vatican Council", one quote from an alleged catechism that no one has been able to find, and one quote from a "confession" that may or may not be authentic. Not a high batting average. And all of them, in their citations, show strong evidence the compiler of these quotes put no effort into verifying them.

frosbel2:
Here's a list of bible verses that make one wonder just what sort of God Christians give their lives to in sincere patronage to what they call 'Holy'. If any readers have better examples (and I'm certain there must be) please be sure to add to the list. I know Christians will excuse the worst by saying 'Oh those are Old Testament" so I'll endeavour to try to quote liberally from the New.

Most of those can be found answered here:
http://www.tektoonics.com/test/parody/sab.html

A few additional comments on my part:

And speaking of lying, the bible ends with one. It calls its message 'the good news' and concludes, "I am coming soon." Wrong on the 'soon' bit, and unless we've missed something, no one has come. But I get it, if 2000 years pass, soon after such a length of time must be VERY soon. If 10 000 years pass, soon must be very VERY soon.

Preterism solves this. But even if one rejects preterism, one should note "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 2 Peter 3:8

Honestly, some of these don't even make sense to complain about. #10 bizarrely claims that 2 Samuel 13:8-14 (which it erroneously claims is 2 Kings 13:8-14) indicates "incestuous rape is cool" when it says no such thing; it simply states that it happened. This applies to several other things on the list, where it's simply a description of something that happened rather than any kind of endorsement of it. #11 is especially confusing to me as to what's supposed to be wrong with it, it's simply telling people to not try to pray loudly in order to get attention, what in the world is "abominable" about that? Finally, in regards to #14, murderers and rapists are also included in the list; murderers are explicitly called out, and rapists would fall under the "sexually immoral" (as is translated in the NIV and various other translations; the KJV uses "whoremongers" as its translation).

Ubenedictus:
which council and catechism talk this one?

It's a copy/paste from another site which actually does give the citations, which are:

(34) The Most Holy Councils, Vol. XIII, column 1167.
(35) Robert Bellarmine, On the Authority of Councils, Volume 2: 266.
(36) Council of Tarragona, the Roman Catholic Church Council of 1234 A.D.
(37) Quoted in the New York Catechism.
(38) Roman Catholic Confessions for Protestants Oath, Article XI

You can tell that the person who put those quotes on the site didn't bother to verify the quotes because of how vague the above citations are, and some of them are straight up wrong. For example, if "The Most Holy Councils" is supposed to be "Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio" then I should mention that looking at Volume XIII, there is no column 1167. And why cite it so indirectly rather than say what the council actually was?

Anyway, a quick summary of them (I may come back to do a more detailed explanation)

#34: This one seems legitimate and was used in several councils (first was the Council of Florence, I think, though its wording was slightly different). But all it is really saying, especially if you examine the context, is that the pope is in charge of the Catholic Church, which is worldwide. The pope being in charge of the Catholic Church is not a particularly bold claim.

#35: Not from a council or catechism.

#36: From a Council, but not a "Vatican Council" (which I assume means ecumenical council) because it was a local council and only applied to its specific jurisdiction. Appears to have been passed to try to stop a bunch of bad translations that were floating around.

#37: Appears to be a false quote.

#38: One can find it (originally in Latin) as part of a larger confession of faith, though under a different name. But other parts in this confession are odd or even outright heretical, casting doubt on its authenticity. Even if it was actually used as a confession of faith, it appears to have been an obscure and barely used one considering the scant documentation for it. In any event, not a catechism or council.

I may do a more in-depth explanation on these later as I did have to do a lot of research to figure this all out, but the bottom line is that of these 5 quotes that supposedly are from "Vatican Councils" or catechisms, we find only one that is from an actual Vatican Council or catechism (it is, not coincidentally, the most benign of them all). None of the other 4 are, and at least one is basically made up.

VBCampaign:
At this point in this letter, I am compelled to ask you Daddy Freeze: what do you believe? If you do not have a well-structured and orthodox belief about Christianity, then the possibility of being blown around by every wind of doctrine abounds. You are essentially what you believe. Therefore, what do you believe? As a movement, do you have a list of doctrines you hold as beliefs? Do you have a creed? I understand the evolving nature of the movement and this is why it is important that the movement, and you as its leading figure, come under proper guiding light. And there is no greater guiding light in Christianity than the Holy Bible.

This actually is something I have wondered about. Daddy Freeze has certainly been critical of certain beliefs, tithing being the most obvious one, but seems to have been fairly quiet as to what his own beliefs are. Maybe he has said this and I just haven't seen it, but I have been curious as to what his actual beliefs are.

OtemAtum:
People think that it's only Islam that is violent and breeding terrorist. This is not true, Christianity has been more violent.

According to the book of Common Era 4: 92

92. Then in the second century of the common era, Christianity had become a religion of threat to those who did not practise it. For by it were many people attacked and killed under the guise of heresy.

I do not know what this "Book of Common Era" is, but it demonstrates no grasp of history. In the second century, Christianity was a minority religion and in no position to persecute anyone.

Were they aware it was Jik before drinking or did they just think it was some special mixture the pastor created?

The confusion comes from the fact the term "day and a night" were not used back in the 1st century the same way they are used now. Nowadays, one understands that phrase to be a full 24 hours, but that was not the case back then. To Jews at the time, part of a day counted as a full day, as these quotes from the Talmud show:

Pesachim 4a: "the legal status of part of the day is like that of an entire day."

Shabbat 9.3: "A day and a night constitute a span, and part of a span is equivalent to the whole of it."

Thus according to their measure of time, a burial on Friday and resurrection on Sunday would count as a duration of 3 days and 3 nights.

Godskidk:
Easter is Christendom’s chief religious holiday, said to be held in memory of Christ’s being raised from the dead. But did Christ give a command to celebrate his resurrection? No, he did not. History books tell us that Easter was not celebrated by early Christians and that it is based on ancient pagan practices. The Encyclopœdia Britannica says:
“There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament. . . . The sanctity of special times was an idea absent from the minds of the first Christians.”

I looked at the Easter article in the Encyclopedia Britannica. These quotes are nowhere to be found in it. Perhaps they are from an earlier edition, but they are not present anymore, making the accuracy of this citation suspect.

It is true the New Testament records no explicit observance of the Easter festival, but it could have easily not been mentioned for brevity's sake; there was little reason to remind people of a celebration if they were already having it. Admittedly, that is speculation. However, we do know that within a century of the apostles, (well before the supposed paganization is normally alleged to have occurred), Easter was being widely celebrated, to the point there were even disputes among Christians as when to celebrate it. In a letter remarking on the controversy in his day (late 2nd-century), the early Christian writer Irenaeus mentions an earlier dispute between Anicetus and Polycarp in the mid 2nd-century regarding the date of celebrating Easter and more importantly, each of those two cited the customs of the Christians that came before them, showing it was celebrated even before then. So within a century of Jesus's resurrection, Easter was being celebrated. Still not early enough for you? Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John and pointed to him as the one he learned his customs from, which if true, would show that the celebration of Easter is of direct apostolic origin!

Even if one disregards this information as not being in the Bible itself, the Bible also gives no statement to not celebrate the anniversary of the Resurrection. So the most the absence of an explicit mention of Easter celebrations in the Bible would mean is that one is free to celebrate or not celebrate it as they choose.

Now we move onto the claims of pagan practices.

Dr. Alexander Hislop says of Easter customs:
“The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean [Babylonian] rites just as they do now.”
The word “Easter” that appears once in the King James Bible at Acts 12:4 is a wrong translation for the word “passover.” “Easter” appears nowhere in the Catholic Douay Bible. Christendom’s chief holiday, Easter, therefore finds no support at all in the Bible. It is of pagan origin, and therefore displeasing to God.

Alexander Hislop's works are riddled errors and modern historians do not take it seriously. In fact, a former proponent of it, Ralph Woodrow, realized upon research how faulty Hislop's claims were that he wrote a book ("The Babylon Connection?" attacking them.

Some of Hislop's errors are not necessarily his fault, as he lived in the 19th century and relied on what are now outdated ideas about pagan religions. But whether it was his fault or not, his work is too out of date and too filled with errors to be of real use as proof of anything.

“Taken altogether, the coincidences of [Christmas and Easter] with the heathen festivals are too close and too numerous to be accidental. . . . [Clerics] perceived that if Christianity was to conquer the world it could do so only by relaxing the too rigid principles of its Founder, by widening a little the narrow gate which leads to salvation.”—The Golden Bough.

Much like Hislop, the Golden Bough is not considered particularly reliable; even in its day it received considerable criticism from anthropologists and historians, and things have gotten only worse for it over time. Looking over your quote in fuller context, I notice that many of the "similarities" it cites are downright incorrect or are impossible to verify due to his sources not being given or being too vague to identify.

The fact that old and discredited sources such as Hislop and The Golden Bough must be cited as sources is actually reasonable proof of the invalidity of these claims.

Promoted as a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Easter is actually rooted in false religion. The name Easter itself has been linked to Eostre, or Ostara, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn and of spring.

This one is an especially bad argument. Let's look at some other languages and how they write Easter:
Italian: Pasqua
French: Pâques
Spanish: Pascua
Portuguese: Páscoa
Dutch: Pasen

Do these sound anything like Eostre? No. English (and to a lesser extent German) are the only major languages where Easter sounds anything like Eostre/Ostara. These languages also did not even exist until centuries after Easter was an established holiday. So even if the word Easter comes from Eostre--which is disputed in itself--it would prove absolutely nothing regarding the celebration of Easter.

And how did eggs and rabbits come to be associated with Easter? Eggs “have been prominent as symbols of new life and resurrection,” says the Encyclopædia Britannica, while the hare and the rabbit have long served as symbols of fertility. Easter, therefore, is really a fertility rite thinly disguised as a celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

Like earlier, this quote is not currently found in the article for Easter in the Encyclopedia Britannica, at least not the current edition. Let's see what the Encyclopedia Britannica does say:

"The use of painted and decorated Easter eggs was first recorded in the 13th century. The church prohibited the eating of eggs during Holy Week, but chickens continued to lay eggs during that week, and the notion of specially identifying those as “Holy Week” eggs brought about their decoration. The egg itself became a symbol of the Resurrection. Just as Jesus rose from the tomb, the egg symbolizes new life emerging from the eggshell. In the Orthodox tradition eggs are painted red to symbolize the blood Jesus shed on the cross."

According to the source you provided, Easter eggs developed out of a simple practical matter of wanting to do something with the eggs you couldn't eat. It is true that it does not relate directly to the Resurrection directly, but it nevertheless appears to not be of pagan origin. If someone wishes to argue that the idea still didn't first come from Christianity (pre-Christian societies decorated eggs), I would note that pre-Christian societies also engaged in prayer.

As for the Easter bunny, the Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say:

"The custom of associating a rabbit or bunny with Easter arose in Protestant areas in Europe in the 17th century but did not become common until the 19th century. The Easter rabbit is said to lay the eggs as well as decorate and hide them. In the United States the Easter rabbit also leaves children baskets with toys and candies on Easter morning. In a way, this was a manifestation of the Protestant rejection of Catholic Easter customs. In some European countries, however, other animals—in Switzerland the cuckoo, in Westphalia the fox—brought the Easter eggs."

So according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which you apparently consider reliable, the Easter bunny arose not from anything pagan like fertility rites, but from Christian (specifically, Protestant) areas.

But even if someone has a problem with Easter eggs or the Easter bunny, all one has to do is simply celebrate Easter without them. I do not utilize them at all. In fact, there are many countries in the world that celebrate Easter with essentially no connection to eggs or rabbits, such as the Central and South American countries.

So I do not find your arguments to be particularly persuasive.

gentlezypher:
unlike Christmas,why is it that Easter have no fixed date? who determines Easter dates? If we believe that Christ was crucified on friday, why do we have debate over which day is the Sabbath?

Jesus was resurrected the Sunday after Passover, so Easter's date is set to that date, the Sunday after Passover. This is achieved by setting Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the start of Spring.

Now you might ask, why does Easter sometimes not fall on the Sunday after Passover? In 2016, for example, Passover was April 23 while Easter was March 27. That's a more complicated matter; the quick explanation is that the date Passover is celebrated by Jews some years is actually incorrect.

Here's the less quick, but still simplified, explanation. Passover is to start on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Now, each month of the Hebrew Calendar is 29-30 days, in order to have each of their months start with a new moon, change to a full moon midway through (putting Passover, halfway through Nisan, under a full moon), and then return to a new moon for the start of the next month. The problem is that the 12 months of this that make up the Hebrew year adds up to 354-356 days rather than the full 365 days there are in a solar year (a solar year being the amount of time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun), so every so often they add in a 13th month to the Hebrew calendar to balance it out. This is especially important for Passover, as it's to be celebrated in the Spring, so the extra month was also used to make sure that Passover wouldn't fall before the start of Spring.

So, Easter is the first Sunday after the start of Passover. And as Passover is, as noted above, the first full moon that happens after the start of Spring, therefore Easter ends up being the first Sunday after the first full moon after the start of Spring in order to keep with that timing.

So returning to the question advanced a few paragraphs ago, why does Easter's date sometimes differ considerably from the date of Passover? It's because the current mechanisms that are used to calculate the years in which the Jewish Calendar adds the extra month (which were put in place in the 12th century, I believe) aren't perfectly accurate. Every year on average it drifts about 6 minutes out of sync with the solar year's length. That doesn't seem like much, but it adds up over the centuries. As a result, some years incorrectly push forward Passover an extra month. There's been some discussions as to how to fix up the Hebrew Calendar calculations to stop this, which would also align it with Easter every year, but the proposals haven't been enacted yet.

Barthley:
When accepting a Religion is it a must to accept the tradition with it?

Could you clarify what you mean by "tradition"?

Akin1212:
I'll make this short as possible as I can. It's still the same old story. Where is the evidence for the existence of any god or God?

Generally speaking, a better place to get an answer to that question would be from books or sites specifically dedicated to answering those questions rather than an Internet message board.

Still, if we're talking about evidence for a God of any kind, there's always the classics, like the Kalam Cosmological Argument or Aquinas's Five Ways. More recently there have been arguments concerning irreducible complexity, i.e. that things couldn't have evolved naturally because they're too complex to have done so, but I feel those arguments have a number of flaws. At any rate, I find these sorts of "general" arguments for the existence of a God (or gods) are not particularly useful because they give no characteristics of God.

So proofs for a particular religion are more useful. After all, if the religion is true, then its beliefs concerning God would be true as well, both proving a God (or gods, if the religion in question is polytheistic) and giving characteristics.

In regards to Christianity, there are various things one could offer. The obvious one is to point to Jesus's miracles, particularly the Resurrection. The objection, of course, would be to ask why someone should trust the Bible, particularly the Gospels, on those matters, which is a thoroughly fair question. Unfortunately, it's also an extremely complicated subject (Mike Licona's "The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach" clocks in at over 700 pages and still pares a lot of things down). But some more basic arguments on the subject can be found on these pages:
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/resurrection-evidence.htm
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.php (http://www.tektonics.org/nthub.html has more detail)

The Bible never states Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. This interpretation comes from conflating the sinful woman described in Luke 7:36-50 (her sins are not stated but one interpretation is that she was a prostitute) and Mary Magdalene, who is mentioned shortly afterwards (Luke 8:2) but as a separate individual. Apparently Magdala (her hometown) had a reputation for promiscuity, which no doubt contributed to that.

The man in this video is John Shelby Spong, who was Episcopalian, not Catholic.