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>>>He's actually asking quite a good question. How do you (anyone) decide which parts of the Bible you believe are true and which not? What is the thinking process for eliminating the false from the truth that you use? It's a trap, of course, but a good question nonetheless ... :)
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>>I kind covered that in my answer to him. Now I'm waiting for the net of H's mighty intellect to descend on me and fill my heart with the love of Jesus.
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>Yeah but you see if one says, as an example, I don't believe in the resurrection but I do believe Jesus cured people of incurable diseases then you have a problem (you can substitute the choices for any combination). Neither event can be proven or disproven. Hence, one makes a choice to believe the one and not the other - it's a matter of faith ;)

Well, as I hinted, I do lean toward the Spiritualist side, which does come up with some "faith healers" and, although I'm skeptical on that, at least we know of psychosematic symptoms, placebos, et al. Take Arnica for bruises, for example. It's supposed to stop ugly bruises growing at the point of impact but give it to my children and it actually stops them crying, as if it has taken away the pain. I call it my panacea :-)

Can't be doing with raising Lazarus though, unless he had that narcoleptic problem where one appears dead (as in the EA Poe story), or they'd maybe staged the whole thing for pub. for J, and L has holed up with a book for a few days. I mean, in that heat and after that time he would have been pretty rank anyway and quite too far gone even for J tyo do soomething with, had He real powers.

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>In my opinion the answers could be, for example;
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>(a) I believe only those aspects which are demonstrateably possible. The rest is a good story for teaching principles and morals and the like, or;
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>(b) I believe everything as the word of God verbatim, or;
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>(c) I believe everything that I like and the rest I discard because I don't like it, or;
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>(d) I discuss only that which I can directly experience or work / with. The rest is a type of intellectual game.

I guess a) and c) then ( c) the turning the cheek bit :-)