Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: ad_orientem on May 31, 2017, 10:36:03 AM
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This is Protestantism in a nutshell. It is essentially gnostic and iconoclast. It removes anything physical from its so-called praise, including the creation which God himself created. They should just be honest, go all out and start believing in the demiurge.
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Surely given Protestantism's hankering for the rational, it is essentially agnostic (in the classic sense)?
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This is Protestantism in a nutshell. It is essentially gnostic and iconoclast. It removes anything physical from its so-called praise, including the creation which God himself created. They should just be honest, go all out and start believing in the demiurge.
The more moderate protestant churches have done away with a lot of crazy nonsense, that is for sure, and a good thing too.
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The more moderate protestant churches have done away with a lot of crazy nonsense, that is for sure, and a good thing too.
Wasn't your something nasty in the woodshed (See Cold Comfort Farm) time due to a protestant church?
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Interesting to raise this on the 500th aniversary of the Reformation. Protestantism is a dead concept. We prefer 'Reformed' churches. The Reformation would have been unnessecary had the Church not descended into veniality, corruption and heresy and the intolerance of those who committed the ultimate sin of actually wanting to read Scripture for themselves.
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Interesting to raise this on the 500th aniversary of the Reformation. Protestantism is a dead concept. We prefer 'Reformed' churches. The Reformation would have been unnessecary had the Church not descended into veniality, corruption and heresy and the intolerance of those who committed the ultimate sin of actually wanting to read Scripture for themselves.
Some of those who have read the Bible for themselves have come up with some really crazy interpretations, which they have forced down the throats of others, using threats if they don't see it their way.
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Interesting to raise this on the 500th aniversary of the Reformation. Protestantism is a dead concept. We prefer 'Reformed' churches. The Reformation would have been unnessecary had the Church not descended into veniality, corruption and heresy and the intolerance of those who committed the ultimate sin of actually wanting to read Scripture for themselves.
The Church has never stopped people reading the scriptures or those versions approved by the Church through usage. And indeed in our liturgies more of the scriptures are read than in any Protestant church. Nevetheless, the scriptures cannot be properly understood outside the life of the Church.
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Some of those who have read the Bible for themselves have come up with some really crazy interpretations, which they have forced down the throats of others, using threats if they don't see it their way.
At least they have the freedom to do so - the Church tried very hard to suppress Scripyture - going to the extent of imprisoning those who held 'illegal' copies, and executing some for perceived 'heresy' (though I can find nothing in Scripture which justifies their action, showing again the need for Reform)
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The Church has never stopped people reading the scriptures or those versions approved by the Church through usage. And indeed in our liturgies more of the scriptures are read than in any Protestant church. Nevetheless, the scriptures cannot be properly understood outside the life of the Church.
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Have you actually studied the actions of the Church - in both East and West - when it came to dealing with those with whom it dissaproved - who would not toe the party line?
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Have you actually studied the actions of the Church - in both East and West - when it came to dealing with those with whom it dissaproved - who would not toe the party line?
Protestants did that too. Or do you deny it?
Neverthless, the point of this thread was Protestantism's inherent gnostism and iconoclasm, for it seems to neglect the very creation God himself made from its praise.
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Protestants did that too. Or do you deny it?
Neverthless, the point of this thread was Protestantism's inherent gnostism and iconoclasm, for it seems to neglect the very creation God himself made from its praise.
Of course I don't deny it - the Church is the one Body of Christ - and that body is disabled by our actions.
Neither do I deny the urgent need to reform when the church was run by corrupt individuals more interested in advancing their family claims, and self agranidissment than spreading God's word.
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Of course I don't deny it - the Church is the one Body of Christ - and that body is disabled by our actions.
Neither do I deny the urgent need to reform when the church was run by corrupt individuals more interested in advancing their family claims, and self agranidissment than spreading God's word.
Then why do you reject the sacraments and not include the cosmos in your praise?
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Then why do you reject the sacraments and not include the cosmos in your praise?
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We accept two sacrements - Baptism and Communion - both of which are set out in Scripture by Christ.
As for the cosmos? When I conducted worship on Sunday I used Psalm 8 as my focus of prayer in worship.
Does that answer your question?
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We accept two sacrements - Baptism and Communion - both of which are set out in Scripture by Christ.
As for the cosmos? When I conducted worship on Sunday I used Psalm 8 as my focus of prayer in worship.
Does that answer your question?
So in word only.
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How is Protestantism gnostic? I don't get that. I though that it rejected a lot of symbolism, and favoured the word over the Word. Is that gnostic?
Having thought about that for a bit, I suppose that 'born again' sounds rather gnostic, as it seems to be a mental operation of some kind, or an act of will.
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How is Protestantism gnostic? I don't get that. I though that it rejected a lot of symbolism, and favoured the word over the Word. Is that gnostic?
They reject the physical world in their worship. It's seen as something inherently bad. That is why their churches are so bare...like their faith.
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Eh? I'm blissfully unaware of rejecting the physical world in worship - time spent with the Iona Community taught me quite the opposite. Just because we reject icons and statues does not negate our worship. As for buildings? Personally, I don't really rate them that much. They cost too much to maintain, and you can worship as a group together anywhere...."Wherever two or three are gathered in My name...." in fact.
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Eh? I'm blissfully unaware of rejecting the physical world in worship - time spent with the Iona Community taught me quite the opposite. Just because we reject icons and statues does not negate our worship. As for buildings? Personally, I don't really rate them that much. They cost too much to maintain, and you can worship as a group together anywhere...."Wherever two or three are gathered in My name...." in fact.
My middle daughter spent a few days with the Iona Community a month or two back. She enjoyed the experience.
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I like what Anchorman said about 'Reformed' being the accepted word. It's a better word than Protestant, people don't have to protest so much now.
There's good and bad in all. It's what we are and how we live that is important.
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My middle daughter spent a few days with the Iona Community a month or two back. She enjoyed the experience.
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I'm still technically a member of the community, floo - though more an associate member nowadays.
We worked on the island and in the inner cities as well, and, when on the island, I enjoyed the fact that ranks, styles and denominations got the heave.
You could be in the kitchen or refectory, working with a CofE vicar, a priest or an Orthodox bishop, and it was always strictly first name terms.
As Graham Maule said in a memorable open air praise event...
"Seagulls drop bombs on everyone. They don't notice dog collars".
:D
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I'm still technically a member of the community, floo - though more an associate member nowadays.
We worked on the island and in the inner cities as well, and, when on the island, I enjoyed the fact that ranks, styles and denominations got the heave.
You could be in the kitchen or refectory, working with a CofE vicar, a priest or an Orthodox bishop, and it was always strictly first name terms.
As Graham Maule said in a memorable open air praise event...
"Seagulls drop bombs on everyone. They don't notice dog collars".
:D
Very good! ;D
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They reject the physical world in their worship. It's seen as something inherently bad. That is why their churches are so bare...like their faith.
Doesn't Christianity turn away from the physical world? After all, there is an invisible God, and an invisible Christ. I know there are people who say that God (and Christ) is in you and me, or 'split a log, and I am there', but I'm not sure what that means. But there is always a kind of dualism, body and spirit (or soul, with due homage to AB).
I see the whole point of AB's theology as moving away from the physical to something which cannot be seen or tasted.
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That is an aim common to many religions NS. Hindus particularly emphasise gradually becoming less wordly so that, in old age, there is a deeper spirituality, calmness and worldly possessions (tho'maybe not wordly comforts :)), mean little.
Christians too try to be 'in the world but not of the world' but there's less emphasis in mainstream churches& some people are better at & make more of a point of it than others.
We all have to live in the here and now while we're here though.
Religious communities like Iona as mentioned provide valuable time out from the everyday world which can be refreshing.
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That is an aim common to many religions NS. Hindus particularly emphasise gradually becoming less wordly so that, in old age, there is a deeper spirituality, calmness and worldly possessions (tho'maybe not wordly comforts :)), mean little.
Christians too try to be 'in the world but not of the world' but there's less emphasis in mainstream churches& some people are better at & make more of a point of it than others.
We all have to live in the here and now while we're here though.
Religious communities like Iona as mentioned provide valuable time out from the everyday world which can be refreshing.
Is that really addressed to NS? I have followed the opposite trajectory in my life - in my yoof, I was well into all kinds of daft spiritual stuff, but latterly, I see the natural world as my home, and that's good enough.
But the physical dies. Isn't that a big problem for many religious?
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Doesn't Christianity turn away from the physical world? After all, there is an invisible God, and an invisible Christ. I know there are people who say that God (and Christ) is in you and me, or 'split a log, and I am there', but I'm not sure what that means. But there is always a kind of dualism, body and spirit (or soul, with due homage to AB).
I see the whole point of AB's theology as moving away from the physical to something which cannot be seen or tasted.
On the contrary, we believe that in Christ God became flesh. Indeed, that is the main reason why we believe that the OT ban on images no longer applies, hence the use of icons etc. They confirm to us that God became man.
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Is that really addressed to NS? I have followed the opposite trajectory in my life - in my yoof, I was well into all kinds of daft spiritual stuff, but latterly, I see the natural world as my home, and that's good enough.
But the physical dies. Isn't that a big problem for many religious?
We in the Western world don't place that much emphasis on it,many were like you being into all sorts of spiritual stuff & political ideas(me included) and then setted down to a conventional life.
Others always crave something else.
Your last sentence about physical death. I don't see it as a problem& don't know many who do but can't speak for others. I don't see the need for it to be a problem except the natural human fear of the unknown & not wanting to leave what we're used to.Not everyone experiences that but it's understandable some do.
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That is an aim common to many religions NS. Hindus particularly emphasise gradually becoming less wordly so that, in old age, there is a deeper spirituality, calmness and worldly possessions (tho'maybe not wordly comforts :)), mean little.
Christians too try to be 'in the world but not of the world' but there's less emphasis in mainstream churches& some people are better at & make more of a point of it than others.
We all have to live in the here and now while we're here though.
Religious communities like Iona as mentioned provide valuable time out from the everyday world which can be refreshing.
Err what has this to do with me or my post on the thread??
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On the contrary, we believe that in Christ God became flesh. Indeed, that is the main reason why we believe that the OT ban on images no longer applies, hence the use of icons etc. They confirm to us that God became man.
So God, who is invisible, is revealed in Christ, who is invisible.
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That is an aim common to many religions NS. Hindus particularly emphasise gradually becoming less wordly so that, in old age, there is a deeper spirituality, calmness and worldly possessions (tho'maybe not wordly comforts :)), mean little.
Christians too try to be 'in the world but not of the world' but there's less emphasis in mainstream churches& some people are better at & make more of a point of it than others.
We all have to live in the here and now while we're here though.
Religious communities like Iona as mentioned provide valuable time out from the everyday world which can be refreshing.
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Yes, Iona 'does spiritual stuff', Robinson - and our worship accentuates our connection with this created earth - but that goes hand in hand with action as well - drug rehab, work with the homeless, asylum seekers, released prisoners, etc - "the least, the last and the lost".
Just spending time in worship and praise might be OK for a week or so, but the community tries to be a lot more than that!
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So God, who is invisible, is revealed in Christ, who is invisible.
Er, where did you get that from? Christ is not invisible. That is the nature of taking on flesh. I would have thought that was obvious.
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Er, where did you get that from? Christ is not invisible. That is the nature of taking on flesh. I would have thought that was obvious.
So where is he?
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So where is he?
At the righthand of the Father ruling his kingdom, as foretold by the Psalmist and seen by the likes of St. Stephen Protomartyr.
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At the righthand of the Father ruling his kingdom, as foretold by the Psalmist and seen by the likes of St. Stephen Protomartyr.
Pretty well the absolutely perfect definition of invisible after all, then ;) We could have got there a lot sooner without all the St Stephen Proton Palmistry twaddle, but that's always been your bag whichever ugly and obnoxious absolute truth and god's final dispensation you've adhered to this particular month, so hey ho; more of the same old same old, last year, this year, next year, yadda yadda yadda, what the fuck ever.
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Zzzzzz!. You've crawled out of your pit, I see.
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I wish I could say the same of you ... whichever pit of absolute truth and god's immutable doctrine it happens to be this month, last month, next month, whichever pair of socks it is this time round.
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A good demonstration of the complete nonsense of religious belief, discussing things you can't see or produce any evidence that any of its magical, mystical or superstion based parts are worthy of any serious consideration.
Without the magical, mystical or superstition based parts, their's not much left, why bother apart from the social side of the regular reinforcement meetings, in the mildest of terms, it's a bit of an empty collection of ideas, all in the mind.
ippy
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This is Protestantism in a nutshell. It is essentially gnostic and iconoclast. It removes anything physical from its so-called praise, including the creation which God himself created. They should just be honest, go all out and start believing in the demiurge.
You mean it does not worship the creation it worships by thanking the creator?
AO, one day you are going to get an awful shock when Christ tells you, " It was do as I did, not make it up as you go along."
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Zzzzzz!. You've crawled out of your pit, I see.
ad hom, the only recourse of people who cannot put up a reasoned argument.
Says it all.
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You mean it does not worship the creation it worships by thanking the creator?
AO, one day you are going to get an awful shock when Christ tells you, " It was do as I did, not make it up as you go along."
Eh? You're talking gobbledegook again.
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Eh? You're talking gobbledegook again.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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You mean it does not worship the creation it worships by thanking the creator?
AO, one day you are going to get an awful shock when Christ tells you, " It was do as I did, not make it up as you go along."
You will be standing beside ad-o, if that is the case, both being told the same thing! ;D
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Protestants did that too. Or do you deny it?
Neverthless, the point of this thread was Protestantism's inherent gnostism and iconoclasm, for it seems to neglect the very creation God himself made from its praise.
Isn't praising creation worshipping the created and not the creator? What's the correct term for that? Idolatry? Paganism?
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Isn't praising creation worshipping the created and not the creator? What's the correct term for that? Idolatry? Paganism?
Not worshipping creation, rather creation joins in our worship of the creator.
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Not worshipping creation, rather creation joins in our worship of the creator.
Oh, so you're an animist.
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Oh, so you're an animist.
Nice try but it won't work. Rather lame, if you ask me.
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Nice try but it won't work. Rather lame, if you ask me.
So why isn't it animist?
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So why isn't it animist?
Because animism sees all things, even inanimate objects, as spiritually alive. I'm saying that God works through his creation and that creation points to its creator. We therefore incorporate that into our worship.
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Because animism sees all things, even inanimate objects, as spiritually alive. I'm saying that God not only orks through his creation but that creation points to its creator.
But if creation praises the creator, as you claim, then it has to have some kind of animating spirit.
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But if creation praises the creator, as you claim, then it has to have some kind of animating spirit.
No. It points to creatore because the creator made it that way: the seasons, the rising sun which is an icon of the risen Christ etc.
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It sounds very beautiful ad_o & i can see how attractive it is but it;s not necessary for salvation, i dont think any Christian group believes that.
You have committed to the Orthodox church,well and good, but there's nothing wrong with other ways of expressing the Christian faith (except for people who don't believe in it at all& would say it's all bunkum but i'm not addressing them).
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Not worshipping creation, rather creation joins in our worship of the creator.
That isn't 'pointing to' that you've claimed there. You say that creation joins you in your worship.
How? Pointing to symbolism isn't a form of worship. So what does creation do when it joins you?
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No. It points to creatore because the creator made it that way: the seasons, the rising sun which is an icon of the risen Christ etc.
Axial tilt is actually the reason for those ;)
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It sounds very beautiful ad_o & i can see how attractive it is but it;s not necessary for salvation, i dont think any Christian group believes that.
You have committed to the Orthodox church,well and good, but there's nothing wrong with other ways of expressing the Christian faith (except for people who don't believe in it at all& would say it's all bunkum but i'm not addressing them).
I'm very much of the opinion that how we pray affects our belief and vice versa. Lex orandi lex credendi, or in English, the law of prayer is the law of belief. Therefore if you omit something it probably means you don't believe it.
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ad,
I'm saying that God works through his creation and that creation points to its creator.
Doesn't that seem just a tad circular to you?
Only asking.
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ad,
Doesn't that seem just a tad circular to you?
Only asking.
Any more than say ''Hillsides works through his forum posts'' and those posts point to Hillside?
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Eh? You're talking gobbledegook again.
It is a Christ thing...if you don't know him, you can't understand what he teaches.
You have to find him before you can understand.
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It is a Christ thing...if you don't know him, you can't understand what he teaches.
You have to find him before you can understand.
Lol! You really are deluded, but then all heretics are.
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Lol! You really are deluded, but then all heretics are.
You are no different to Sass, your assertions about faith have no more evidence to support them than hers!
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You are no different to Sass, your assertions about faith have no more evidence to support them than hers!
I thought much the same as you Floo, when I read those last few soppy posts, talk about kettle and black.
Floo, how do you spell superiority complex? I'm not referring to you Floo.
ippy
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Lol! You really are deluded, but then all heretics are.
Might help if you said a bit more, your short retorts come over as arrogant. Not saying you're arrogant but your posts are.
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Firstly she's some sort of Arian, therefore she knows nothing of Christ.
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Yep, that's the arrogance previously referred to.
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Yep, that's the arrogance previously referred to.
Really? I would have thought it was obvious that she knows nothing of him if she doesn't even know who he is in the first place. She quite obviously believes in some other "Christ".
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Really?
Yes, really.
I would have thougjt it was obvious that she knows nothung of him if she doesn't even know who he is. She obviously believes in some other "Christ".
I would have thought it obvious that she merely has a different set of beliefs about equally unevidenced and preposterous things.
I'd have thought it even more obvious that you of all people would be more than familiar with that phenomenon.
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Really? I would have thought it was obvious that she knows nothing of him if she doesn't even know who he is in the first place. She quite obviously believes in some other "Christ".
You know it all of course, Hmmmmmmmmmmm! ::)
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Lol! You really are deluded, but then all heretics are.
To the East and in your case North, South and West because all your beliefs never came from the truth Christ taught.
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Really? I would have thought it was obvious that she knows nothing of him if she doesn't even know who he is in the first place. She quite obviously believes in some other "Christ".
I believe in ONLY thee Christ.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
God gave Christ, not God became Christ.
I believe Jesus came in the flesh...
King James Bible
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
Who do you say came in the flesh?
Seems you already know you are wrong.
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Firstly she's some sort of Arian, therefore she knows nothing of Christ.
Your posts are hardly going to help her, they are soooo cold, dismissive and unfriendly even to fellow Christians never mind floo.
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I believe in ONLY thee Christ.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
God gave Christ, not God became Christ.
I believe Jesus came in the flesh...
King James Bible
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
Who do you say came in the flesh?
Seems you already know you are wrong.
See? You're some sort of Arian. You do not have faith of the Apostles.
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I have said it before, but will say it again. If Jesus had been a decent sort of guy, I think he would be horrified by some so called 'Christians', including a few on this forum, who drag the faith through the sewer with their unpleasantness. Far from making the faith appear attractive to non believers, it is just the opposite.
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Firstly she's some sort of Arian, therefore she knows nothing of Christ.
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Wee question, ad_o;
If someone has an experience of Christ in their lives, transforming them from within, and changing their direction;
If they exhibit all the fruits of the Spirit (as per Galatians):
If others are similarly transformed through their message, making them similarly devoted, committed servants of God inChrist, are they also 'heretic' - and, if they are, does it matter?
It might matter to some twit with a dog collar, but not, it seems, to God.
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Wee question, ad_o;
If someone has an experience of Christ in their lives, transforming them from within, and changing their direction;
If they exhibit all the fruits of the Spirit (as per Galatians):
If others are similarly transformed through their message, making them similarly devoted, committed servants of God inChrist, are they also 'heretic' - and, if they are, does it matter?
It might matter to some twit with a dog collar, but not, it seems, to God.
They are not "in Christ" for they believe in some other Christ, not the Christ we believe in who is our Lord and God.
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They are not "in Christ" for they believe in some other Christ, not the Christ we believe in who is our Lord and God.
You have your own imaginery version of Jesus, which does it for you. I wonder what the real Jesus had actually been like? I suspect he may have been nothing like the character depicted in the Bible.
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They are not "in Christ" for they believe in some other Christ, not the Christ we believe in who is our Lord and God.
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Have you read the Gospel, ad-o?
I'll let you look for yourself without quoting chapter and verse.
However, here are a few pointers to get you started.
1. The bit where Jesus tells His followers that there are 'other flocks' - in other words, not part of the Galilee set.
2. The bit where Jesus went out of His way to work with those the religious teachers thought were 'heretic'.
3. When the disciples complained to Jesus that others were doing stuff in His name, what did He say?
Let me envisage a scene.
The Pearly Gates.
A chap comes along and he's let in.
Can you imagine St Wogburger the flatulent grabbing Christ by the collar and saying -
"Hang on; that guy hasn't went through the ritual, had insence stuck up his nose, been half drowned in oil an even worse, he can't be bothered with liturgy stuff! Why should You let him in here?"
"Well", I can hear Christ saying, "I love Him - and Martin Luther King's a good guy who loved Me."
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The other flocks is refering to the Gentiles as opposed to the Jews. Our Lord quite categorically says that only he is way to salvation. We only know of one sure way, which is through the Church and its sacraments.
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Quote from: Sassy on Today at 02:31:21 AM
I believe in ONLY thee Christ.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
God gave Christ, not God became Christ.
I believe Jesus came in the flesh...
King James Bible
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
Who do you say came in the flesh?
Seems you already know you are wrong.
See? You're some sort of Arian. You do not have faith of the Apostles.
Rather than merely dismissing what she says, please explain how and why Sassy is some sort of Arian and does not share the Apostles' faith because I can't see it.
Discussion forums are about explaining things not just making brief rebukes.
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Because she does not believe that Christ is God. That's why Arius and his followers were kicked out of the Church at Nicaea. All you have to do is read the the first few verses of the Gospel according to the Apostle St. John to see her error.
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Rationalism leads to Protestantism leads to atheism
Is this supposed to be some sort of argument in favour of being irrational ?
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Because she does not believe that Christ is God. That's why Arius and his followers were kicked out of the Church at Nicaea. All you have to do is read the the first few verses of the Gospel according to the Apostle St. John to see her error.
Maybe but you were specifically replying to sassy's post of Today at 02:31:21 AM in which there is no hint of that.
In any case on a discussion forum there have to be people of different or opposing views to make it work & to merely dismiss them on the grounds that their beliefs are in opposition to yours isn't what it's all about. We could all do that!
'I'm not bothering to debate with you're wrong and I'm right. Sniff'
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The other flocks is refering to the Gentiles as opposed to the Jews. Our Lord quite categorically says that only he is way to salvation. We only know of one sure way, which is through the Church and its sacraments.
Ah; so you haven't read the Gospel, then? Thanks. If the church - any church dares to try to limit God by slapping tradition onto the Gospel, then heaven, quite literally, help threm.
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Ah; so you haven't read the Gospel, then? Thanks. If the church - any church dares to try to limit God by slapping tradition onto the Gospel, then heaven, quite literally, help threm.
Tradition is merely the scriptures properly understood, you know, the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It seems you're the one who hasn't read the Gospel. That is why Protestantism was in error from the very beginning.
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Tradition is merely the scriptures properly understood, you know, the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It seems you're the one who hasn't read the Gospel. That is why Protestantism was in error from the very beginning.
Which kind of religion isn't in error from the very beginning?
ippy
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Is this supposed to be some sort of argument in favour of being irrational ?
Not at all.
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Tradition is merely the scriptures properly understood, you know, the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. It seems you're the one who hasn't read the Gospel. That is why Protestantism was in error from the very beginning.
Hmmmm:
So if the Reformation is in error, why is God using Reformed Christians whose lives have been transformed by an ancounter with Christ, to spread the Gospel and have other lives transformed?
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Hmmmm:
So if the Reformation is in error, why is God using Reformed Christians whose lives have been transformed by an ancounter with Christ, to spread the Gospel and have other lives transformed?
And has ruined others! >:(
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Hmmmm:
So if the Reformation is in error, why is God using Reformed Christians whose lives have been transformed by an encounter with Christ, to spread the Gospel and have other lives transformed?
Oh dear.
ippy
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Wee question, ad_o;
If someone has an experience of Christ in their lives, transforming them from within, and changing their direction;
If they exhibit all the fruits of the Spirit (as per Galatians):
If others are similarly transformed through their message, making them similarly devoted, committed servants of God inChrist, are they also 'heretic' - and, if they are, does it matter?
It might matter to some twit with a dog collar, but not, it seems, to God.
"If someone has an experience of Christ in their lives", agreeing with them is probably the best tack to take.
ippy
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"If someone has an experience of Christ in their lives", agreeing with them is probably the best tack to take.
ippy
Glad you agree, then.
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Glad you agree, then.
Yes Anch, always best to humour them.
ippy
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See? You're some sort of Arian. You do not have faith of the Apostles.
I have the faith of Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ. Which is a faith that relies on God not man made teachings.
Your faith is man made because you believe in things the above three did not teach nor would they teach.
My faith is purer than yours because it is not about outward representation but inward representation.
They killed the Prophets and even the Son of God. What makes you think you are better informed that the Jews?
As Paul taught 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
There is a reason Jesus is to be called the Son of God.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Christ is God.
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I have said it before, but will say it again. If Jesus had been a decent sort of guy, I think he would be horrified by some so called 'Christians', including a few on this forum, who drag the faith through the sewer with their unpleasantness. Far from making the faith appear attractive to non believers, it is just the opposite.
Double standards Floo,
Like most atheist you insult Christians or make snide remarks about them and expect them not to reply to your baiting them.
The person the atheist who throws the first stone is always still the only person in the wrong. A lot of unpleasant atheists who insult the Christ and his followers. You cannot make black white however you paint your picture.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Christ is God.
Well, at least there's something we can agree on....and it's Scripture, not tradition.......
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Because she does not believe that Christ is God. That's why Arius and his followers were kicked out of the Church at Nicaea. All you have to do is read the the first few verses of the Gospel according to the Apostle St. John to see her error.
Christ isn't God he is the Son of God and like his Father he does what his Father does.
King James Bible
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
King James Bible
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
The fact is that it has to be written and foretold in the Old to be accepted in the New. But the truth is Christs teachings must be accepted over all other teachings.
King James Bible
They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Hence we see the light and wisdom Christ taught. He did the works of his Father WHO is God.
King James Bible
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
Abraham knew before Christ was born that he was to come. He rejoiced and was glad.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Christ is God.
In the beginning was the Word, and in Genesis we see both God and the Spirit there and the Word God spoke created all things.
God foretold and took into his confidence people like Abraham and even Moses. They knew about Christ, as did the Prophets.
Gods spoken word through the Spirit to man promised a saviour. Yeshua was the word God spoke and it became flesh/came to pass when Christ came. God is the Word and Gods Word brings life.
By his words God created all living things. When Christ came then Gods words which he spoke to the Prophets by the power of the Holy Spirit to man became actual flesh. Jesus said: - "My Words are Spirit and they are life." As the Prophets spoke by the Spirit of God, so did Christ for he was come in flesh.
In the times of Christ he referred only to the scriptures in the OT as Scriptures.
Ephesians proves a point...The whole armour of God.
Take the Sword which is the Word of God which the Spirit gives.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
Every man can read a bible.and every man can know what is written. But everyman must have the Spirit of God to belong to God.
John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
So instead of foolish arguments about mans misrepresentation of the truth from God. Why not actually read what the bible teaches OT and then see what it means in the NT. For everyman must be born of the truth about Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
That is where so many religions and men go wrong. They do not love truth enough to seek it through Gods way.
The word from God has always come to man through the Holy Spirit.
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
How does the New Covenant become different? Christ spoke by the words of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
Peter never taught Christ was God but that God was with Christ and had been anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power.
The truth is there. I am not here to convert, I am here to tell the truth. On the day of Christ our Lord we shall all give an account.
But we must all be true to Gods teachings and words through the Spirit.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Zechariah 4:6
6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
You can deny me all you want. The truth is not mine but it is written in the Prophets and the words of the Apostles.
You must be taught by God.
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St. John is clear. Christ is God. You are like Arius.
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Double standards Floo,
Like most atheist you insult Christians or make snide remarks about them and expect them not to reply to your baiting them.
The person the atheist who throws the first stone is always still the only person in the wrong. A lot of unpleasant atheists who insult the Christ and his followers. You cannot make black white however you paint your picture.
I rest my case, your posts don't have people gagging to have your attitude to Christianity!
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St. John is clear. Christ is God. You are like Arius.
Isn't this off-topic?
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Isn't this off-topic?
So what if it is; if the last few posts are an example of religionist thinking, it might be better to go off topic, it looks like they've all had successful reinforcement of the beliefs meetings at some time today
Due respect to Floo, I wasn't referring to you.
ippy
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Is this supposed to be some sort of argument in favour of being irrational ?
It's about Protestantism.
Since you have been unable to link science with any view on religion. The discussion is as valid as anything you care to say about religion......or rationality for that matter.
Anybody wanting evidence of this forum being turned into an antitheist only chat room just has to come to statements like yours.
If you genuinely want to be part of a genuine religion ethics forum....Engage please.
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St. John is clear. Christ is God. You are like Arius.
St John may be clear ad_O but not evleryone is clear.
I share your point of view but it is an opinion & i wouldn't shout anyone down who had a different one.
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Fallacy Boy,
It's about Protestantism.
Yes, but ad’s tagline is “Rationalism leads to Protestantism leads to atheism” so torri was merely asking him what he meant by it. Short of starting new thread on it, that doesn’t seem so unreasonable to me.
I’d be interested in the answer too.
Since you have been unable to link science with any view on religion.
A fallacy two-for-one deal: the straw man and the non sequitur. Neither torri nor anyone else attempts to “link science with any view on religion”, and the “since” is redundant. Science is referenced only when theists attempt to claim scientific validity for their faith beliefs (creationism for example), when it always shows them to be wrong.
The discussion is as valid as anything you care to say about religion......or rationality for that matter.
And another straw man fallacy to follow. The discussion may well be “valid” for those who liked that kind of thing, but torri never suggested otherwise. All he actually did was to ask a question about ad’s tagline.
Anybody wanting evidence of this forum being turned into an antitheist only chat room just has to come to statements like yours.
Asking a question isn’t evidence for anything; it’s just asking a question.
If you genuinely want to be part of a genuine religion ethics forum....Engage please.
Tu quoque time: this from someone who’s never yet managed to engage with the arguments that undo him? Anyways, I suspect that, like me, torri would find it difficult to engage with the frankly weird menagerie of characters and assertions about them that ad seems to find meaningful. That though doesn’t mean that someone can’t ask a question about something else he said, namely his tagline.
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Fallacy Boy,
Yes, but ad’s tagline is “Rationalism leads to Protestantism leads to atheism” so torri was merely asking him what he meant by it. Short of starting new thread on it, that doesn’t seem so unreasonable to me.
I’d be interested in the answer too.
A fallacy two-for-one deal: the straw man and the non sequitur. Neither torri nor anyone else attempts to “link science with any view on religion”, and the “since” is redundant. Science is referenced only when theists attempt to claim scientific validity for their faith beliefs (creationism for example), when it always shows them to be wrong.
And another straw man fallacy to follow. The discussion may well be “valid” for those who liked that kind of thing, but torri never suggested otherwise. All he actually did was to ask a question about ad’s tagline.
Asking a question isn’t evidence for anything; it’s just asking a question.
Tu quoque time: this from someone who’s never yet managed to engage with the arguments that undo him? Anyways, I suspect that, like me, torri would find it difficult to engage with the frankly weird menagerie of characters and assertions about them that ad seems to find meaningful. That though doesn’t mean that someone can’t ask a question about something else he said, namely his tagline.
Thread title ok Torrid Don though is just shutting down any discussion by a form of going nuclear.
Since it seems to be the New Atheist craze of the month I'm joining the chronic migration from this board.
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Fallacy Boy,
Thread title ok Torrid Don though is just shutting down any discussion by a form of going nuclear.
That's not what "going nuclear" means, and no he wasn't: he was just asking what ad's tagline meant. Why is this so difficult for you to grasp?
Since it seems to be the New Atheist craze of the month I'm joining the chronic migration from this board.
There isn't a "chromic migration" and you've announced your retirement more time now that Frank Sinatra.
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Fallacy Boy,
That's not what "going nuclear" means, and no he wasn't: he was just asking what ad's tagline meant. Why is this so difficult for you to grasp?
There isn't a "chromic migration" and you've announced your retirement more time now that Frank Sinatra.
I said it's a form of going nuclear....where you immediately go to a step you hope stops further discussion and that's what Torrid Don seemed to be about. I disagree with you about Chromic migration. Antitheist shenanigans HAVE drained the colour from the boards IMHO, and whose the chief culprit eh,eh,eh,
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Since it seems to be the New Atheist craze of the month I'm joining the chronic migration from this board.
Indefinitely?
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Thread title ok Torrid Don though is just shutting down any discussion by a form of going nuclear.
Eh ?
How is that going nuclear ? Rather than muzzling ad-o I invited him to open up his views on the subject of protestantism which after all is the title of the thread. Seems like he doesn't want to step up to the mark so we will have to remain in the dark.
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Eh?
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Eh ?
How is that going nuclear ? Rather than muzzling ad-o I invited him to open up his views on the subject of protestantism which after all is the title of the thread. Seems like he doesn't want to step up to the mark so we will have to remain in the dark.
I am quite prepared to accept what you said was not a shut down argument because you think all alternatives are irrational . I think you would agree that Empiricisn which is traditionally the opposite of Rationalism is not an irrational position. By the same token theism is not irrational and maintains like Rationalism a logical order to the universe.
Does Rationalism have to get to atheism through Protestantism I think not....has it in the past? Perhaps in certain cases where methodology has been mistaken for philosophy...which is what I keep telling you.
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Fallacy Boy,
I am quite prepared to accept what you said was not a shut down argument because you think all alternatives are irrational .
First, if you’re “prepared to accept” that why did you accuse him of it at all?
Second, yet again it wasn’t an argument at all; it was actually a question. That you replied in standard straw man mode doesn’t change that.
I think you would agree that Empiricisn which is traditionally the opposite of Rationalism is not an irrational position.
No it isn’t. What you’re thinking of is philosophical empiricism, which holds that the only proper knowledge is that validated by the senses, whereas the rationalist holds that knowledge can come from reason alone.
By the same token theism is not irrational and maintains like Rationalism a logical order to the universe.
Theism is precisely irrational when the arguments made for it are themselves irrational. That’s why the range of fallacies on which you depend so unrelentingly undermine your claim of an objectively true “God”. Theists of many stripes might well maintain that there is a “logical order to the universe” but that’s entirely a separate matter from the claims they make about the cause(s) of that order.
Does Rationalism have to get to atheism through Protestantism I think not....has it in the past? Perhaps in certain cases where methodology has been mistaken for philosophy...which is what I keep telling you.
Wrongly of course because you keep getting wrong the terms you attempt. Does rationalism get you to atheism at all though? Pretty much, yes – when rational enquiry invalidates the reasoning made by those who would argue for “God” then finding to no reason to believe in god(s) – ie, atheism – is unavoidable.
How’s the retirement going by the way?
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Fallacy Boy,
First, if you’re “prepared to accept” that why did you accuse him of it at all?
Second, yet again it wasn’t an argument at all; it was actually a question. That you replied in standard straw man mode doesn’t change that.
No it isn’t. What you’re thinking of is philosophical empiricism, which holds that the only proper knowledge is that validated by the senses, whereas the rationalist holds that knowledge can come from reason alone.
Theism is precisely irrational when the arguments made for it are themselves irrational. That’s why the range of fallacies on which you depend so unrelentingly undermine your claim of an objectively true “God”. Theists of many stripes might well maintain that there is a “logical order to the universe” but that’s entirely a separate matter from the claims they make about the cause(s) of that order.
Wrongly of course because you keep getting wrong the terms you attempt. Does rationalism get you to atheism at all though? Pretty much, yes – when rational enquiry invalidates the reasoning made by those who would argue for “God” then finding to no reason to believe in god(s) – ie, atheism – is unavoidable.
How’s the retirement going by the way?
As I said .....peppered with confusion of methodology with philosophy.
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Fallacy Boy,
As I said .....peppered with confusion of methodology with philosophy.
What's weird about this is that, having tried to establish your (mis)understanding of the terms you abuse by quoting Wiki and RationalWiki only to find that those very same quotes blew up in your face, you've returned to your original mistake like a dog returning to its vomit.
Oh well.
How's the retirement going by the way?
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Fallacy Boy,
What's weird about this is that, having tried to establish your (mis)understanding of the terms you abuse by quoting Wiki and RationalWiki only to find that those very same quotes blew up in your face, you've returned to your original mistake like a dog returning to its vomit.
mere assertion... People can read wiki and irrationalwiki for themselves.
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This is Protestantism in a nutshell. It is essentially gnostic and iconoclast. It removes anything physical from its so-called praise, including the creation which God himself created. They should just be honest, go all out and start believing in the demiurge.
What nonsense!
It's just another version of Christianity, probably closer to the early church where people met in people's homes and wasn't cluttered up with tons of " dogma and stuff"
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Fallacy Boy,
mere assertion... People can read wiki and irrationalwiki for themselves.
And BAM!, he's straight in with the fallacy of the non sequitur. People reading these sources for themselves does not make the fact that they blew you out of the water into "mere assertions" (just the opposite in fact), and it's not mere assertion in any case when your own citations have been quoted back to you (see tagline below for example).
Does your fallacy problem affect other areas of your life too? When you leave a note for the milkman, do you for example say: "Two pints please, seeing as milk must be healthy because lots of people think it is", or perhaps would a message on your door to a courier firm say, "I knew I'd miss this delivery because I told myself I'd be out when you came if I had two Weetabix for breakfast and I did have two Weetabix for breakfast, therefore...."?
Or how about when the postman can't deliver a parcel and leaves you a note saying, "No answer when I rang" and you e-mail them in high dudgeon with: "So you think the moon is made of cream cheese and elephants fly south for winter then do you, you polisher of dung" and so on?
Must be exhausting when your only means of communication is with very bad arguments. Maybe though that's why you're so proud of the Titanic-sized mistake you've been peddling here for years – which is a actually a double straw man by the way, a think of beauty indeed. First you have to re-define terms to suit your ends - "materialism" for example suddenly becomes, "the belief that the material is necessarily all there is or ever can be", and then you have to pretend that there are actually people who subscribe to your personal meanings so you can tilt at the windmill you've just built from Scotch mist.
All very odd indeed, but there you go.
So, how's life treating you in the "Bide a Wee While Retirement Home for the Terminally Mendacious" then? Cocoa to your liking I hope?
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Incidentally, I just looked up "Protestantism" on Wiki and it says this:
"Protestantism is a form of Christianity which originated with the Reformation, some movements such as the Hussites or the Lollards are also considered Protestant today, although their origins date back to years before the launch of the Reformation. Others, such as the Waldensians, were later incorporated into another branch of Protestantism; in this case, the Reformed branch a traditions secular have created a monster in Western culture and in western society called Santa Claus have empowered it and exalted with meaning all over the world to date, creating extremism of violence and terrorism in the world, to bring evil in the peoples and not'respect cultures social in our day as the preponderance of Christianity and of the'Islam a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church.[1] It is one of the three major divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy.[2][3] The term derives from the letter of protestation from German Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict of the Diet of Speyer condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical.[4]"
Somebody's having fun I think!
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What nonsense!
It's just another version of Christianity, probably closer to the early church where people met in people's homes and wasn't cluttered up with tons of " dogma and stuff"
And what on Earth do you know about the early Church, eh? Bugger all, I'd bet.
What you display here is exactly what I dislike about Protestantism the most. Reducing everything down to what you believe are bare essentials. Now we get to my signature. The rationalism of Protestantism raises human reason above Scripture and tradition. It accepts them only as far as they come within the limits of human comprehension. It makes rationality or intelligibility the measure of credibility. That has been the problem with western Christianity since the Middle-Ages: scholastic, cerebral even though we have a revealed faith. Eventually everything is so broken down, wittled away until you're left with nothing except atheism.
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ad,
And what on Earth do you know about the early Church, eh? Bugger all, I'd bet.
“I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor’s boots, nor does he give a moment’s consideration to Bellini’s masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor’s Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor’s raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk. Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.”
The Courtier’s reply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_Reply
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The Catholic Church has created it crazy traditions over the centuries, many of them not to the good of their worshippers, like the celibacy of priests and ban on contraception.
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Floo,
We have good friends who are RC, but "RC lite" compared with the likes of ad who seems not only to have drunk the Kool Aid but to be doing underwater lengths in an Olympic-sized pool of the stuff. He tells us apparently sincerely that not only are there living "saints", but that they "sit" on "thrones" on one side or another of "God" or some such, and he seems entirely indifferent to the quiet "Um, isn't all this stuff madder than a monkey on a tricycle?" from the little boy looking askance at this emperor's finery. Naturally therefore for him Protestantism must be in error come what may.
I find people like this intriguing - we have such different life experiences, yet (presumably) we share rationality other areas but religious faith. Ad for example presumably wouldn't jump off a high ladder in the belief that Saint someone-or-other would enable him to float gently to the ground, yet in in one huge area of his life that's not practically investigable anything his church tells him it seems pretty much goes.
For him presumably, "yes but why do you believe any of this stuff?" would be as impossible to process as someone saying, "yes, but why do you think gravity is real?" would be for me. It's just so obviously, axiomatically true that someone else questioning it is just bewildering.
Ah well indeed.
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Firstly, for the impteenth I'm not RC. Secondly, Zzzzzz!
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ad,
Firstly, for the impteenth I'm not RC. Secondly, Zzzzzz!
Fair enough. For the avoidance of doubt, what label would you use?
More to the point though, would I be right in thinking that you belief the "saints", "thrones" and al the rest of it to be literally true?
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Firstly, for the impteenth I'm not RC. Secondly, Zzzzzz!
And the difference between the Orthodox and Catholic Church is what exactly?
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Floo,
And the difference between the Orthodox and Catholic Church is what exactly?
Hats. Definitely hats.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_differences_between_the_Catholic_Church_and_the_Eastern_Orthodox_Church
It is incomprehensible as far as I am concerned.
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And the difference between the Orthodox and Catholic Church is what exactly?
There are many differences (such as the Filioque or Church governance) which I'm sure wouldn't interest you, but if I had to mention one it would be how we approach the faith. One is cerebral, the other mystical. An RC learns the faith by someone telling them We teach this and that, and he says Yes. The Orthodox learns the faith through participation in the Divine Liturgy and the Mysteries, a revealed faith. That is why, for instance, we have a much deeper theology of iconography.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_differences_between_the_Catholic_Church_and_the_Eastern_Orthodox_Church
It is incomprehensible as far as I am concerned.
That doesn't surprise me at all.
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But Orthodox or Catholic it is only mere tradition with absolutely no benefit to human kind, more often than not it is to the detriment of its worshippers, imo.
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Ad,
There are many differences (such as the Filioque or Church governance) which I'm sure wouldn't interest you, but if I had to mention one it would be how we approach the faith. One is cerebral, the other mystical. An RC learns the faith by someone telling them We teach this and that, and he says Yes. The Orthodox learns the faith through participation in the Divine Liturgy and the Mysteries, a revealed faith. That is why, for instance, we have a much deeper theology of iconography.
Essentially doctrinal differences, but as I understand it there are big areas of foundational agreement too – the various Councils for example. I can absolutely see that the narratives of, say, “revelation” make perfect sense to you, but can you see too why someone not steeped in it would find that bewildering?
If, say, I just landed from Mars (as theology-wise I suspect you pretty much think I have) and said, “what’s this revelation stuff, and why do you think "mysticism" is any better a guide to objective truths than just guessing?” what answer would you give me?
Oh, and about those hats by the way…
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Floo,
But Orthodox or Catholic it is only mere tradition with absolutely no benefit to human kind, more often than not it is to the detriment of its worshippers, imo.
That may be true (and I'd go further given the human cost of some religious beliefs) but it has nothing to do with the truth or otherwise of a proposition. Harmful, beneficial or somewhere in between would only be an argumentum ad consequentiam for epistemological purposes.
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It makes rationality or intelligibility the measure of credibility.
Fear not: none of those are things of which you'll ever be accused, whatever God's final dispensation is this week ;)
Eventually everything is so broken down, wittled away until you're left with nothing except atheism.
But then of course, some of us get it right the first time, without all the faff of fifty shades of wrong beforehand :D
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Floo,
Hats. Definitely hats.
New Atheists have hats too. White, pointy and with a D on.
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There are many differences (such as the Filioque or Church governance) which I'm sure wouldn't interest you, but if I had to mention one it would be how we approach the faith. One is cerebral, the other mystical. An RC learns the faith by someone telling them We teach this and that, and he says Yes. The Orthodox learns the faith through participation in the Divine Liturgy and the Mysteries, a revealed faith. That is why, for instance, we have a much deeper theology of iconography.
But do you have a deeper colonoscopy of proctology? Your posts certainly suggest as much.
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::)
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::)
Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, where are you now?
Oh. Dead. Never mind. Comes to us all.
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Eh?
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Eh?
If you have no understanding of intelligent and sophisticated wit (a given, in your case) I wouldn't expect you to understand.
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And the difference between the Orthodox and Catholic Church is what exactly?
One has icons and no Pope, the other a Pope and crucifixes and relics.
They are set up differently
http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/religion-miscellaneous/differences-between-the-roman-catholic-and-greek-orthodox-churches/
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Didn't even mention the Filioque
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Didn't even mention the Filioque
Nobody with more than two brain cells to rub together would.
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Didn't even mention the Filioque
I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it
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And what on Earth do you know about the early Church, eh? Bugger all, I'd bet.
What you display here is exactly what I dislike about Protestantism the most. Reducing everything down to what you believe are bare essentials. Now we get to my signature. The rationalism of Protestantism raises human reason above Scripture and tradition. It accepts them only as far as they come within the limits of human comprehension. It makes rationality or intelligibility the measure of credibility. That has been the problem with western Christianity since the Middle-Ages: scholastic, cerebral even though we have a revealed faith. Eventually everything is so broken down, wittled away until you're left with nothing except atheism.
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If you want a bit of REAL info on early church practice, read the Didache.
A remarkable lack of bells, smells, robes, icons, statues and stuff......
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Yeah? Well, do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays? I thought not.
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The rationalism of Protestantism raises human reason above Scripture and tradition. It accepts them only as far as they come within the limits of human comprehension. It makes rationality or intelligibility the measure of credibility.
Isn't that a good thing ? If something is incomprehensible or logically contradictory that means also that it is not credible, literally.
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Isn't that a good thing ? If something is incomprehensible or logically contradictory that means also that it is not credible, literally.
No. Christianity is a revealed faith.
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Ad o
Wonder what set him off :o
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No. Christianity is a revealed faith.
What does that mean?
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What does that mean?
God revealed Himself in Christ.
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What does that mean?
It means you heard it from someone else 😀
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No. Christianity is a revealed faith.
I don't think we can disentangle reason from experience. All humans are twin-hemispheric, we all integrate experience with abstraction, we cannot shut down our instinct to reason, our instinct to see a broader picture that goes beyond our own personal experience, this is fundamental to the essence of being human. Scripture itself is full of contradictions that requires reason to sort through in order to come to something vaguely coherent surely ?
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I don't think we can disentangle reason from experience. All humans are twin-hemispheric, we all integrate experience with abstraction, we cannot shut down our instinct to reason, our instinct to see a broader picture that goes beyond our own personal experience, this is fundamental to the essence of being human. Scripture itself is full of contradictions that requires reason to sort through in order to come to something vaguely coherent surely ?
I'm not saying that there's no room for reason, just that revelation trumps reason. My gripe with Protestantism is that it places reason above scripture and tradition. It's approach to the faith is speculative, in fact that is the problem with western Christianity as a whole ever since the schoolmen.
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God revealed Himself in Christ.
Hmmmmmmmmm!
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You might not believe it, but the Scriptures you claim to have read point to it!
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You might not believe it, but the Scriptures you claim to have read point to it!
So what? The Harry Potter books point to Voldemort existing and has much credibility as much of the Bible. Just because something is written down, doesn't necessarily mean it has any credence unless there is evidence to support it, for which there is none where the existence of god is concerned.
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ad,
I'm not saying that there's no room for reason, just that revelation trumps reason. My gripe with Protestantism is that it places reason above scripture and tradition. It's approach to the faith is speculative, in fact that is the problem with western Christianity as a whole ever since the schoolmen.
"...revelation trumps reason" eh?
Well...
First, if not by reason then by what means do you establish that something has been "revealed" rather than written down and repeated?
Second, if you expect your claim to have had something revealed to you to be treated seriously, do you extend the same courtesy to anyone else who says that anything else has also been revealed to him - and, if you do, how would you avoid the problem that all such claims should thus be treated as equally (im)probable?
Third, does it not strike you as odd that the only people who have ever had something "revealed" to them are those already enculturated to whatever faith happens to do the revealing? You never for example find a previously undiscovered tribe in the Amazon jungle that also happens to know all about Christ and the resurrection. This is just as you'd expect it to be if your beliefs were actually memetic rather than revealed, but it would seem an odd way for god to behave - i.e., to "reveal" things only to those who happened to have been on contact already with the tenets of their religions.
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I'm not saying that there's no room for reason, just that revelation trumps reason. My gripe with Protestantism is that it places reason above scripture and tradition. It's approach to the faith is speculative, in fact that is the problem with western Christianity as a whole ever since the schoolmen.
As a principle, that leaves you in a quandary when dealing with conflicting revelations. It's not like every Jewish prophet had the same experience of God, just look at the difference between Old and New Testaments. Surely when you have conflicting revelations, reason has to trump revelation otherwise that leaves disparate groups failing to communicate, each valuing their own private revelation grounds over seeking an understanding of others. This misappropriation of priorities gives us conflict and a divided world with Sunnis not talking to Shias, and Protestants not talking to Catholics (or Orthodox).
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As a principle, that leaves you in a quandary when dealing with conflicting revelations. It's not like every Jewish prophet had the same experience of God, just look at the difference between Old and New Testaments. Surely when you have conflicting revelations, reason has to trump revelation otherwise that leaves disparate groups failing to communicate, each valuing their own private revelation grounds over seeking an understanding of others. This misappropriation of priorities gives us conflict and a divided world with Sunnis not talking to Shias, and Protestants not talking to Catholics (or Orthodox).
But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
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But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
Does that not apply to pretty much all denominations ? Catholic priests tell of being called into ministry. That is what all christians do when seeking guidance through prayer. And it seems the Holy Spirit guides half of the Anglican communion in a traditional direction, and the other half in an inclusive direction. A very confusing situation that derives from valuing personal revelation.
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But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
That Holy Spirit is also supposedly leading all the other churches as well.
Not to mention individuals.
https://youtu.be/_wZCifteHtc
Bizarre!
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ad,
But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
Something you believe to be true presumably because this too has been "revealed" to you. So when the African tribesman responds to the same question with, "but we have the indwelt spirit of the baobab tree who guides out beliefs, for instance in the words of the witch doctor" you would dismiss his claim how exactly given that "revelation trumps reason"?
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ad,
Something you believe to be true presumably because this too has been "revealed" to you. So when the African tribesman responds to the same question with, "but we have the indwelt spirit of the baobab tree who guides out beliefs, for instance in the words of the witch doctor" you would dismiss his claim how exactly given that "revelation trumps reason"?
That whatever or whoever revealed something to him it certainly wasn't by the one true God.
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ad,
That whatever or whoever revealed something to him it certainly wasn't by the one true God.
And when the African tribesman says exactly the same thing about your claims of "revelation"? Why then should anyone else take either claim more seriously than the other, especially as you tell us that "revelation trumps reason"?
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But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
The HS is another mythical idea for which there is no evidence. Some of the so called 'spirit filled' Christians I have met in my life made no more sense than if they had drunk a whole bottle of a spirit, which actually exists, like gin, whisky, brandy or vodka at one sitting!
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ad,
And when the African tribesman says exactly the same thing about your claims of "revelation"? Why then should anyone else take either claim more seriously than the other, especially as you tell us that "revelation trumps reason"?
That's for everyone to work out, innit.
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But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
That's barmy A O, that's something you can't possibly know for sure, if you think you can explain this knowledge, you claim to have, why not let us all in with how you've come to acquire this knowledge.
If you can't explain the how, you could make and assert up anything you like and if you did it would be equally as (not) credible.
Why do you people bother with this so obviously man made load of old tosh?
ippy
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ad,
That's for everyone to work out, innit.
No, because – in the absence of any other method – working something out requires reason. And you've already told us that "revelation trumps reason" so all that leaves you is a really strong personal opinion on the matter. Just like the African tribesman has.
And that's your problem if you expect anyone else to treat your and the tribesman's claims as anything other than equally culturally contextualised guessing.
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Yeah? Well, do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays? I thought not.
A poor effort.
I fast every single day - or rather night. Yay me.
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So what? The Harry Potter books point to Voldemort existing and has much credibility as much of the Bible. Just because something is written down, doesn't necessarily mean it has any credence unless there is evidence to support it, for which there is none where the existence of god is concerned.
There is a lot of metaphor in Potter. In Dumbledore's warmth and mature talents I see Lane Craig.....
In Voldemort's vampiric lust for power and aesthetic obscenity I see (well, where to start?).
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That's for everyone to work out, innit.
and 'working out' implies reason.
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I'm not saying that there's no room for reason, just that revelation trumps reason. My gripe with Protestantism is that it places reason above scripture and tradition. It's approach to the faith is speculative, in fact that is the problem with western Christianity as a whole ever since the schoolmen.
I'm not sure that is the problem with Protestantism given the primacy of scripture. The problems are singular intellectual interpretation where a limited positional intellect has primacy. And small scale corporate literalism. Rather than mediation within the larger community and being led by scripture.
In protesting scripture can be used rather than lead.
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My gripe with Protestantism is that it places reason above scripture and tradition. It's approach to the faith is speculative, in fact that is the problem with western Christianity as a whole ever since the schoolmen.
Protestantism, surely, is founded upon the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, the primacy of scripture, as Vlad notes.
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Protestantism, surely, is founded upon the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, the primacy of scripture, as Vlad notes.
The problem is interpretation. Protestantism removes the scriptures outside the context of the Church and subjects it to personal whim. Tradition is merely the scriptures properly understood within its proper context, the life of the Holy Spirit within the Church. This protects the scriptures, it's the guarantee against all arbitrariness.
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The problem is interpretation. Protestantism removes the scriptures outside the context of the Church and subjects it to personal whim. Tradition is merely the scriptures properly understood within its proper context, the life of the Holy Spirit within the Church. This protects the scriptures, it's the guarantee against all arbitrariness.
The Bible can be interpreted in many different ways, hence all the different doctrines, dogmas, sects and cults.
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The Bible can be interpreted in many different ways, hence all the different doctrines, dogmas, sects and cults.
99% of which come from Protestantism.
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The problem is interpretation. Protestantism removes the scriptures outside the context of the Church and subjects it to personal whim. Tradition is merely the scriptures properly understood within its proper context, the life of the Holy Spirit within the Church. This protects the scriptures, it's the guarantee against all arbitrariness.
How do you know that 'tradition' yields up the 'proper' context of scriptures ? Scripture predates Tradition. Scripture transcends tradition. Tradition is derivative, not fundamental.
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How do you know that 'tradition' yields up the 'proper' context of scriptures ? Scripture predates Tradition. Scripture transcends tradition. Tradition is derivative, not fundamental.
Continuity, that golden thread which goes all the way back to the Apostles, and by its fruits
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ad,
Continuity, that golden thread which goes all the way back to the Apostles, and by its fruits
Continuity doesn't tell you much about the accuracy or otherwise of the original sources, but if you want to play continuity top trumps some Australian aborigine stories have been told for 10,000 years:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/
The creation myths of the Kalahari bushmen could be as much as 20,000 years old too:
http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/origins2490-kaangs-people.html
"Golden threads" indeed eh?
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ad,
Continuity doesn't tell you much about the accuracy or otherwise of the original sources, ....
"Golden threads" indeed eh?
Ah, but you are forgetting the 11th Commandment: 'Thou shalt not question.'
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Ah, but you are forgetting the 11th Commandment: 'Thou shalt not question.'
It is very sad that some don't question their faith, and question those telling them what they should believe. It is a great pity the RCC hasn't been subjected to intense scrutiny by its congregations over the centuries. If it had maybe some of its ghastly doctrines, which have caused so many problems, would have bitten the dust. That goes too for the, 'you must be saved', mob, especially those who believe once you get 'saved' your eternal life insurance is guaranteed for all eternity whatever you do thereafter! :o
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Fair enough I suppose. It perhaps would be better to ask religious people where there God is now. Although that's a fruitless task as it will all be down to freewill or punishment or some other equally appalling theory.
TV to answer your question from the tower block fire thread. Maybe god topped itself when it realised what a terrible mess it had created!
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The Bible can be interpreted in many different ways, hence all the different doctrines, dogmas, sects and cults.
That can go for anything though and knowledge of that and fear of any commitment to almost anything is what makes stuff like the BHA and NSS all mimsy wimsy and mealy wheelie.
I supposed I'm saying that all swivel eyed ranting atheist head bangers come as a bit of a breath of fresh air.
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Fair enough I suppose. It perhaps would be better to ask religious people where there God is now. Although that's a fruitless task as it will all be down to freewill or punishment or some other equally appalling theory.
Well that just leaves us with the everyone is really a good bloke theory beloved of atheists.....only there isn't anything real about good or bad...another theory beloved of atheists.
See CS Lewis on being angry at God for not existing.
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That can go for anything though and knowledge of that and fear of any commitment to almost anything is what makes stuff like the BHA and NSS all mimsy wimsy and mealy wheelie.
I supposed I'm saying that all swivel eyed ranting atheist head bangers come as a bit of a breath of fresh air.
How do you classify yourself?
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Well that just leaves us with the everyone is really a good bloke theory beloved of atheists.....only there isn't anything real about good or bad...another theory beloved of atheists.
See CS Lewis on being angry at God for not existing.
Yes, Lewis really was spectacularly dumb about that.
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How do you classify yourself?
Vertebrate.
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Yes, Lewis really was spectacularly dumb about that.
How so?
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But we have the Holy Spirit who guides the Church, for instance in its liturgies, councils etc.
Judging by the number of different versions of the church, the Holy Spirit is somewhat schizophrenic.
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How so?
Thinking that dystheism is atheism. Some of your posts make the same mistake.
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Judging by the number of different versions of the church, the Holy Spirit is somewhat schizophrenic.
On the contrary. The rest simply are not the Church.
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Vertebrate.
Wow you do surprise me! ;D
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Thinking that dystheism is atheism. Some of your posts make the same mistake.
Oh the "no true atheist" defence is it now?
I can't see how an intellectual atheist who found a negative emotion about God in his kit helps your cause.
It just suggests there could be more in that boat.In fact I'm with P Hitchens when he states there is a veritable rage against God..........I think there are a few dystheists around here.
Also Lewis talks of being angry with God for not existing. Does that fit into dystheism? I'm not sure it does.
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Fallacy Boy,
Oh the "no true atheist" defence is it now?
That's not what the no true Scotsman argument entails. Your relentless ad homs about atheists and atheism don't validate your opinions on either.
I can't see how an intellectual atheist who found a negative emotion about God in his kit helps your cause.
"Intellectual atheists" don't find negative arguments "about god" at all. What they actually do is to falsify the arguments some make for god(s).
It just suggests there could be more in that boat.In fact I'm with P Hitchens when he states there is a veritable rage against God..........I think there are a few dystheists around here.
Dystheists believe in the existence of an evil god, and it suggests no such thing. Atheists do not (indeed cannot) "rage" against a god they have no reason to believe exist, though they can rage against (or at least object to) the claims some make about their god beliefs, and against the actions that follow.
Also Lewis talks of being angry with God for not existing. Does that fit into dystheism? I'm not sure it does.
No. To think there's an evil god you must also think that a god exists at all.
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Fallacy Boy,
That's not what the no true Scotsman argument entails. Your relentless ad homs about atheists and atheism don't validate your opinions on either.
"Intellectual atheists" don't find negative arguments "about god" at all. What they actually do is to falsify the arguments some make for god(s).
Dystheists believe in the existence of an evil god, and it suggests no such thing. Atheists do not (indeed cannot) "rage" against a god they have no reason to believe exist, though they can rage against (or at least object to) the claims some make about their god beliefs, and against the actions that follow.
No. To think there's an evil god you must also think that a god exists at all.
Thank you for your opinion which of course skates over any salient points while reaching to shut down any dissent.
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Thank you for your opinion which of course skates over any salient points while reaching to shut down any dissent.
Your lying claim that someone disagreeing with you is trying to shut down dissent is an insult to people who suffer under repressive regimes.
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Fallacy Boy,
Thank you for your opinion which of course skates over any salient points while reaching to shut down any dissent.
Correcting your mistakes and calling you out on your lies neither "skates over salient points" nor "shuts down dissent". It just corrects your mistakes and calls you out on your lies.
If you don't like it, stop doing it. Simple really.
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Your lying claim that someone disagreeing with you is trying to shut down dissent is an insult to people who suffer under repressive regimes.
That's right...find a Ed herring and then fail to address questions about assertions.
Hillside starts with Fallacy boy.
That is an immediate shut down attempt by poisoning the well, ad hominem, and begging the question. On this forum though that sort of thing is lauded as a wankover in the cause of democracy.....do me a favour.
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Thank you for your opinion which of course skates over any salient points while reaching to shut down any dissent.
Come on Vlad even the word atheist assumes there is a god around to not believe in, most of us are non-religious because there is no good reason to think there is a god around in the first place, why would anyone go looking for an Ooslem bird when it's just as likely to be in existence as a unicorn, pixie, god or anything else someone wishes to magic up?
Non-religious is a more accurate description of my stance with regard to theism.
ippy
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That's right...find a Ed herring and then fail to address questions about assertions.
Hillside starts with Fallacy boy.
That is an immediate shut down attempt by poisoning the well, ad hominem, and begging the question. On this forum though that sort of thing is lauded as a wankover in the cause of democracy.....do me a favour.
As opposed to you wanking over the plight of people in repressive regimes by lying.
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Well that just leaves us with the everyone is really a good bloke theory beloved of atheists.....only there isn't anything real about good or bad...another theory beloved of atheists.
See CS Lewis on being angry at God for not existing.
Is that the same C.S. Lewis who apparently managed the interesting feat of claiming to be angry at a god he claimed not to believe existed, or another one?
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Fallacy Boy,
That's right...find a Ed herring and then fail to address questions about assertions.
Hillside starts with Fallacy boy.
That is an immediate shut down attempt by poisoning the well, ad hominem, and begging the question. On this forum though that sort of thing is lauded as a wankover in the cause of democracy.....do me a favour.
That's because your efforts here consist entirely either of fallacious reasoning or of flat out lying. I've falsified the former and called you out on the latter countless times, only for you to ignore both responses. I've even listed the fallacies on which you depend and identified them by number, again only for you to ignore or lie about the falsifications that undo you.
What then should I call you if not for "Fallacy Boy"? That's not an ad hom, it's description of what you do. If you don't like it, either change your behaviour or (finally) try to explain why your arguments aren't fallacious.
As I said: simple really.
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Is that the same C.S. Lewis who apparently managed the interesting feat of claiming to be angry at a god he claimed not to believe existed, or another one?
Are you the same Shaker who apparently managed the interesting feat of claiming to be an atheist who is also a naturalistic pantheist or whatever type of pantheist you were?
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Fallacy Boy,
There you go again.
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As opposed to you wanking over the plight of people in repressive regimes by lying.
You crossed over the total shite event horizon a few posts back.
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You crossed over the total shite event horizon a few posts back.
I think you doth protest too much
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Are you the same Shaker who apparently managed the interesting feat of claiming to be an atheist who is also a naturalistic pantheist or whatever type of pantheist you were?
Actually no - I did start a thread on pantheism once for the benefit of anyone interested without, as far as I can recall, taking any particular stance on the position. Be that as it may: if you think there's some sort of contradiction in any of this (clue: there isn't) feel free to spell it out on another thread.
Otherwise, evasion duly noted.
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Actually no - I did start a thread on pantheism once for the benefit of anyone interested without, as far as I can recall, taking any particular stance on the position. Be that as it may: if you think there's some sort of contradiction in any of this (clue: there isn't) feel free to spell it out on another thread.
Otherwise, evasion duly noted.
It was one of my favourite threads and OPs on here. One person spent a lot of effort trying to misrepresent it though
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=11616.0
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Fallacy Boy,
There you go again.
Yes. If you think the description is inaccurate, tell us why.
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It was one of my favourite threads and OPs on here. One person spent a lot of effort trying to misrepresent it though
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=11616.0
As far as I recall no one could counter my charge that naturalistic pantheism was a contradiction in terms and a deliberate one.
However you seem to not have answered my reservations of the word dystheism in the context of Lewis or the implications of Lewis showing that one can be an atheist and feel a grudge against God for not being there......
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As far as I recall no one could counter my charge that naturalistic pantheism was a contradiction in terms and a deliberate one.
Because your 'charge', based as it is on a misunderstanding of naturalism or pantheism (or more likely, given your record, both) was incoherent.
However you seem to not have answered my reservations of the word dystheism in the context of Lewis or the implications of Lewis showing that one can be an atheist and feel a grudge against God for not being there......
That however actually is a contradiction in terms, you know.
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Continuity, that golden thread which goes all the way back to the Apostles, and by its fruits
Except that much which is 'traditional' has diddly squat to do wirth Scriptures unless you use the 'contortionist' method of interpretation.
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As far as I recall no one could counter my charge that naturalistic pantheism was a contradiction in terms and a deliberate one.
However you seem to not have answered my reservations of the word dystheism in the context of Lewis or the implications of Lewis showing that one can be an atheist and feel a grudge against God for not being there......
You made no coherent charge on the thread.
To object to a god is not atheism, which is precisely why Lewis and you are incoherent on this as well!
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They reject the physical world in their worship. It's seen as something inherently bad. That is why their churches are so bare...like their faith.
I kind of get that. But then we do have Communion and the peace which I must admit are the high points for me so I don't recognise out and out Gnosticism.
How would you say orthodox is more physical in worship.
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Because your 'charge', based as it is on a misunderstanding of naturalism or pantheism (or more likely, given your record, both) was incoherent.
That however actually is a contradiction in terms, you know.
My understanding is written in tablets of Wiki. Your understanding and those of your little wizards comes in as category rogering of an extreme kind.
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Except that much which is 'traditional' has diddly squat to do wirth Scriptures unless you use the 'contortionist' method of interpretation.
What? Because without continuity, without that link to the same people from whom we have received the scriptures, it is impossible to interpret the scriptures properly.
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I kind of get that. But then we do have Communion and the peace which I must admit are the high points for me so I don't recognise out and out Gnosticism.
How would you say orthodox is more physical in worship.
Use of the senses in its worship but also a recognition that although fallen creation is still essentially good and that it points to it creator. Iconography, orientation, liturgical calendar etc.
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Fallacy Boy,
However you seem to not have answered my reservations of the word dystheism in the context of Lewis or the implications of Lewis showing that one can be an atheist and feel a grudge against God for not being there......
Possibly because I had already dismantled those reservations in Reply 191.
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My understanding is written in tablets of Wiki.
Why didn't said tablets furnish you with an accurate understanding of secularism?
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You made no coherent charge on the thread.
To object to a god is not atheism, which is precisely why Lewis and you are incoherent on this as well!
Lewis was talking about discovering analysing feelings and facing up to its implications. A review of your position in small part and others in larger part hints at feelings without analysis of them.
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Fallacy Boy,
My understanding is written in tablets of Wiki.
Except of course that's your misunderstanding. The articles you've attempted from Wiki and from RationalWiki have blown up in your face when you bothered reading them. You'll also find that Wiki has a useful list of logical fallacies, many of which you rely on here.
Your understanding and those of your little wizards comes in as category rogering of an extreme kind.
Only to someone with a badly disordered mind. You've never understood the term "category error", so you're in no position to make the accusation stick.
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Why didn't said tablets furnish you with an accurate understanding of secularism?
I dropped one.
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Lewis was talking about discovering analysing feelings and facing up to its implications. A review of your position in small part and others in larger part hints at feelings without analysis of them.
And the implication of getting annoyed at a god is that you are not an atheist. Pity Lewis was so logically incoherent about that.
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Fallacy Boy,
I dropped one.
On your head?
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And the implication of getting annoyed at a god is that you are not an atheist. Pity Lewis was so logically incoherent about that.
However much one hopes the Biblical god is just an unpleasant fictional character there is always the remote possibility it is for real. We can't prove beyond all reasonable doubt no god exists, anymore than believers can prove it does.
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I don't have any belief in any gods. Consequentially I do not feel anger towards something I do not believe in, never have. I do sometimes, however, have anger towards some of those human beings who seem to me to have damaging values which have a tendency to lead to harmful actions and which they relate to whichever god they happen to believe in.
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ad,
What? Because without continuity, without that link to the same people from whom we have received the scriptures, it is impossible to interpret the scriptures properly.
Much as the Kalahari bushmen think in fact – for them too the continuity with their forefathers is vitally important, although at some 20,000 years old their stories have a much longer lineage than those you find to be persuasive.
Use of the senses in its worship but also a recognition that although fallen creation is still essentially good and that it points to it creator. Iconography, orientation, liturgical calendar etc.
Important cultural artefacts all. The Kalahari bushmen rely on cave paintings for the same purpose.
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What? Because without continuity, without that link to the same people from whom we have received the scriptures, it is impossible to interpret the scriptures properly.
Nope. That's not what I said.
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And the implication of getting annoyed at a god is that you are not an atheist. Pity Lewis was so logically incoherent about that.
And our conclusion from what you say is 1: Feelings = reason and logic?
You have no feelings and are a being of pure logic? Atheists are in denial of feelings?
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And our conclusion from what you say is 1: Feelings = reason and logic?
You have no feelings and are a being of pure logic? Atheists are in denial of feelings?
'our' ? What odd phrasing! And then more straw than any number of wheatfields. Stop lying.
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On the contrary. The rest simply are not the Church.
You mean all churches apart from the C of E are not the Church.
You have no justification for the assumption that your church is the right one.
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Ad_o is not a member of the CofE ???.
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Give it time.
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Sorry but I'm waiting for ad-o's head to explode ay the suggestion he's an Anglican. :D
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Fallacy Boy,
And our conclusion from what you say is 1: Feelings = reason and logic?
You have no feelings and are a being of pure logic? Atheists are in denial of feelings?
Even for you that's a bizarre straw man (fallacy number oooonnnnneeeee!!!!!).
No-one denies "feelings" about anything. What some of us do deny though is that your personal feeling about something take you not one step toward objective truths for anyone else.
But you knew this already didn't you. After all, you don't find the Muslim's feelings about Allah, the Amazonian tribesman's feelings about the tree spirits, or my feelings about leprechauns to be persuasive for you either.
And your problem here is that feelings are all you have.
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Sorry but I'm waiting for ad-o's head to explode ay the suggestion he's an Anglican. :D
Anglican, catholic, orthodox, is any one of them any better or any worse than any of the others.
Other than so many are taken in by these superstitious beliefs, how can they be of any consequence and does it really matter if ad-o's head explodes; if he chooses to take these kinds of belief seriously, well bully for him.
ippy
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Ad-o's head won't explode, he has a thick skin and armour plating around it!
I wish Christian people wouldn't argue amongst themselves about differences instead concentrate on what we have in common in 21st C.
Then extend the courtesy to those of non-Christian faith.
That's my ideal.
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Ad-o's head won't explode, he has a thick skin and armour plating around it!
I wish Christian people wouldn't argue amongst themselves about differences instead concentrate on what we have in common in 21st C.
Then extend the courtesy to those of non-Christian faith.
That's my ideal.
... and that of a great many more besides.
I always find arguments between followers of the one true faith (one of which - there are several - has 30-odd thousand denominations) rather amusing. But that's just me I guess.
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Ad-o's head won't explode, he has a thick skin and armour plating around it!
I wish Christian people wouldn't argue amongst themselves about differences instead concentrate on what we have in common in 21st C.
Then extend the courtesy to those of non-Christian faith.
That's my ideal.
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Yep. There ain't no such animal as the perfect church.
How dare Christians of whatever cloth we're cut limit what God in His Holy Spirit does in His church?
We may not agree 100% doctrinally, but we recognise that, whereever the Gospel is preached, the actions of Christ practised in deed as well as word, and love toward everyone, regardless of race or creed, is shown (hard though that is), that's church, or should be.
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Anchs,
Yep. There ain't no such animal as the perfect church.
Yes, though Jainism for example seems to me to be one of the least bad. Maybe should should give it a look?
Either way though, the danger here is that you conflate the effect of various churches with the truthfulness of their claims - i.e., the argumentum ad consequentiam.
How dare Christians of whatever cloth we're cut limit what God in His Holy Spirit does in His church?
I'm not sure what cloth your faith is cut from, but presumably it too does that doesn't it, or does anything go?
We may not agree 100% doctrinally, but we recognise that, whereever the Gospel is preached, the actions of Christ practised in deed as well as word...
Well, there seem to be lots of references to the (alleged) words of Jesus in the Gospels being pretty unpleasant too - loyalty to your family over loyalty to him being a no-no for example, which seems to me redolent of the David Koresh style of messiah complex but ok...
...and love toward everyone, regardless of race or creed, is shown (hard though that is), that's church, or should be.
Now here we agree more or less (I'd be less loving than you would towards, say, a child abuser perhaps) but I'm not sure that we need a "holy" text to tell us so do we?
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Ad_o is not a member of the CofE ???.
I know. But he has never given any reason why his specific church is the One True Church so I picked a different one to make the point.
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I know. But he has never given any reason why his specific church is the One True Church so I picked a different one to make the point.
I have plenty of times.
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I have plenty of times.
But none that are credible.
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I have plenty of times.
You haven't really explained in any way that gives detail & you explain with no feeling. There is so much beauty in Orthodoxy which I feel you have not conveyed Ad_o, could be because of your own 'no-nonsense' personality but there are sites to which you could link.
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You haven't really explained in any way that gives detail & you explain with no feeling. There is so much beauty in Orthodoxy which I feel you have not conveyed Ad_o, could be because of your own 'no-nonsense' personality but there are sites to which you could link.
Beauty? I can think of a lot of things to describe it, but beauty isn't one of them.
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ad,
I have plenty of times.
I hesitate to say, "no you haven't" in case you have done that and I didn't see it, but I have no idea what those reasons might be.
You've referenced things like the continuity of the narratives, though that would tell you nothing about the accuracy or otherwise of the original stories, and nor would it distinguish your faith from faiths with stories just as continuous - indeed sometimes more ancient than the one you prefer. What then makes your faith either "true" or qualitatively more true than other faiths?
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You haven't really explained in any way that gives detail & you explain with no feeling. There is so much beauty in Orthodoxy which I feel you have not conveyed Ad_o, could be because of your own 'no-nonsense' personality but there are sites to which you could link.
Like its attitude to women. Or gay people. Or Jewish people. Or not.
Unless of course they are just ad-o's personal prejudices dressed up as Orthodoxy.
Still, the iconography is nice. And the music.
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Yep. There ain't no such animal as the perfect church.
How dare Christians of whatever cloth we're cut limit what God in His Holy Spirit does in His church?
We may not agree 100% doctrinally, but we recognise that, whereever the Gospel is preached, the actions of Christ practised in deed as well as word, and love toward everyone, regardless of race or creed, is shown (hard though that is), that's church, or should be.
Yep. There ain't no such animal as the perfect church.
Such as trying to further belief in stuff for which there's supporting evidence, no, until they find some viable evidence, they're inclined to look a little less than perfect, especially in the magical, mystical and superstition based parts thereof.
ippy
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However you seem to not have answered my reservations of the word dystheism in the context of Lewis or the implications of Lewis showing that one can be an atheist and feel a grudge against God for not being there......
All Lewis showed (in a sentence of grammatical nonsense one would not expect from an Oxford professor) is that he was hopelessly confused about his position. He was emotionally honest in stating that he was 'angry', but to state that he was 'angry with God for not existing' shows a boneheadedness that I would have thought was obvious to anyone reading the sentence (and there are plenty more examples of boneheadness in "Surprised by Joy".)
It's quite simple. Had he said "I was angry because I realised that God did not exist", that would have been a meaningful statement. But to be angry with something you've decided does not exist shows a contempt for reason (and the English language) of no common order.
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... and that of a great many more besides.
I always find arguments between followers of the one true faith (one of which - there are several - has 30-odd thousand denominations) rather amusing. But that's just me I guess.
No, not just you. We may not agree on vegetarianism, but I can assure you, I share your sentiments on this :)
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Beauty? I can think of a lot of things to describe it, but beauty isn't one of them.
I'm trying to be objective here. Until recently, you didn't seem to know the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Have you intensively researched Orthodoxy's whole cultural legacy? I'm totally at one with Rhiannon's reservations about its misogyny, antisemitism and homophobia. But she also mentioned its iconography and music. I suppose the music would never mean much to you, since you've admitted to being tone-deaf. But the artistic legacy does something to counterbalance the nastiness of some of Orthodoxy's other manifestations.
I say this, knowing that no amount of 'culture' can totally wipe out the horrors perpetrated by certain regimes. It is well known that some Nazi concentration camp guards went home to listen to Mozart after a hard day policing the gas-chambers.
Over-the-top comparison? Have the Orthodox Church ever revoked their designation of Jews as "Christ-killers"?
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They're still refered to as the "muderers of God" in our Good Friday liturgy.
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They're still refered to as the "muderers of God" in our Good Friday liturgy.
You're happy with that?
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Beauty? I can think of a lot of things to describe it, but beauty isn't one of them.
[/quote
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Have you ever attended an Orthodox service, then?
Because I have - and, yes, there is an etherial beauty to it, even though I find some of the premis flawed.
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You're happy with that?
Why not? Orthodox believers have been fine with it for two thousand years so I see no reason to gainsay it, indeed, both the Apostle St. Peter and St. Stephen Protomartyr both confirm it.
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Like its attitude to women. Or gay people. Or Jewish people. Or not.
Unless of course they are just ad-o's personal prejudices dressed up as Orthodoxy.
Oddly enough - or not - said prejudices were precisely and exactly the same back in the days when the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church was God's final and absolutely bestest and most favouritest absolute truth ever ever ever with jam on top. So you could be on to something.
Still, the iconography is nice. And the music.
Yes, I'll definitely give you the music - belting stuff.
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Why not? Orthodox believers have been fine with it for two thousand years so I see no reason to gainsay it, indeed, both the Apostle St. Peter and St. Stephen Protomartyr both confirm it.
Bugger the Apostle St Peter and St Stephen Protomartyr. A howling mob around Christ's cross does not constitute the whole of the Jewish people at that time or throughout the ages (always supposing that gospel record is correct) - something which even the Catholic Church eventually and very belatedly acknowledged. Nor does their supposed cry "His blood be upon us and upon our children" provide any justification for the vilification of the whole Jewish diaspora down the centuries (again, always supposing that there were any such people in the supposed mob who were shouting that).
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Why not?
Well now; how about because it's vile?
Orthodox believers have been fine with it for two thousand years so I see no reason to gainsay it, indeed, both the Apostle St. Peter and St. Stephen Protomartyr both confirm it.
There's a fallacy ripe for the plucking here; a packet of virtual fruit pastilles for the first one to name it.
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Shakes,
There's a fallacy ripe for the plucking here; a packet of virtual fruit pastilles for the first one to name it.
It's the fallacy of composition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition
Essentially he's saying that, because a relatively tiny number of Jews (allegedly) did something bad a long time ago, so anyone who happens to have been Jewish since is to blame for it too. It really is that contemptible.
The nazis took the same line I believe.
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Well now; how about because it's vile?
There's a fallacy ripe for the plucking here; a packet of virtual fruit pastilles for the first one to name it.
In the post of ad's you quote I'll go for the fallacy double: we have both authority and tradition in evidence here so a I claim not just the virtual fruit pastilles but an additional packet of virtual fruit gums too. There is an implied ad pop too, but I won't claim for that for dental reasons.
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In the post of ad's you quote I'll go for the fallacy double: we have both authority and tradition in evidence here so a I claim not just the virtual fruit pastilles but an additional packet of virtual fruit gums too. There is an implied ad pop too, but I won't claim for that for dental reasons.
Chuck in an ad antiquitatem while you're at it, ring the dentist and to hell with it.
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Why not? Orthodox believers have been fine with it for two thousand years so I see no reason to gainsay it, indeed, both the Apostle St. Peter and St. Stephen Protomartyr both confirm it.
But it's not actually true, is it? Leaving aside the fallacies noted, what about the method of execution used?
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But it's not actually true, is it? Leaving aside the fallacies noted, what about the method of execution used?
It was the Jews who conspired to put their own Messiah and God to death, forcing Pilate's hand who lacked the moral fortitude to do the right thing. By continuing to reject Christ they still fall under that banner.
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It was the Jews who conspired to out their own Messiah and God to death, forcing Pilate's hand who lacked the moral fortitude to do the right thing. By continuing to reject Christ they still fall under that banner.
And this month's prize for Spectacularly Failing to Answer the Question goes to ...
By continuing to reject Christ they still fall under that banner.
Does that also apply to Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, etc.?
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And this month's prize for Spectacularly Failing to Answer the Question goes to ...
It answers Rhiannon's question.
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And this month's prize for Spectacularly Failing to Answer the Question goes to ...
Does that also apply to Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, etc.?
No, because the did not have the Law and the Prophets.
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It answers Rhiannon's question.
Rhiannon's question was "What about the method of execution used?"
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It's quite simple. Had he said "I was angry because I realised that God did not exist", that would have been a meaningful statement. But to be angry with something you've decided does not exist shows a contempt for reason (and the English language) of no common order.
No I think Lewis was saying that his atheism did not effectively police his emotions i.e. he had some. Cue New atheist bravado about coming to terms with the abyss or feeling Joy when they received the atheist epiphany. That I'm sure the great man would write off as ''A put up Job''.
As Augustine before him he explored his feelings and both gave himself to Christ and realised that his previous atheist construct was part of the avoidance of God behaviour.
Underpants here equates Reason with feeling and that from somebody criticising The Great Man is definitely Second Rate...but even that is an improvement on the third rate I come across on this forum.
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Rhiannon's question was "What about the method of execution used?"
Yes it answers that because Rhiannon's implication is clearly that because Christ was crucified the Romans bear the guilt not the Jews.
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Yes it answers that because Rhiannon's implication is clearly that because Christ was crucified the Romans bear the guilt not the Jews.
Whoever may have been responsible then - if anyone - nobody is now.
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It was the Jews who conspired to put their own Messiah and God to death, forcing Pilate's hand who lacked the moral fortitude to do the right thing. By continuing to reject Christ they still fall under that banner.
Even with the understanding we have today, if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’. And that applies equally to you and to all of us. We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins. So we are all equally guilty of being the agents of Jesus’ death and have no moral right to cast all the blame on the Jewish people or their Roman accomplices
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No I think Lewis was saying that his atheism did not effectively police his emotions i.e. he had some.
Was Lewis so unclear that we need the likes of you to tell us what he actually meant, like, really.
Cue New atheist bravado about coming to terms with the abyss or feeling Joy when they received the atheist epiphany. That I'm sure the great man would write off as ''A put up Job''.
Doubtless: but with his, for want of a far better word, thinking shown up as lacking to say the least, what's that worth?
As Augustine before him he explored his feelings and both gave himself to Christ and realised that his previous atheist construct was part of the avoidance of God behaviour.
Which again isn't possible for an actual atheist.
Underpants here equates Reason with feeling and that from somebody criticising The Great Man is definitely Second Rate...but even that is an improvement on the third rate I come across on this forum.
This forum being the one you lied about leaving.
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Even with the understanding we have today, if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’. And that applies equally to you and to all of us.
Doesn't apply to me; but then, I'm not a bloodthirsty twat.
We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins.
As I've never committed any so-called "sins", I don't. Moreover, even if I had, I'd still consider it the acme of nonsense to consider that my wrongdoings can be paid off by another party. Scapegoating is only for those with a minimal or even absent sense of personal responsibility. As Hitch put it, if I commit a minor crime - a low-level traffic offence for instance - someone else may, in a compassionate and altruistic mood, decide to pay my fine for me; nevertheless, I'm still the one who committed the offence.
So we are all equally guilty of being the agents of Jesus’ death and have no moral right to cast all the blame on the Jewish people or their Roman accomplices
Nope. Feel free to hold yourself responsible for an ancient execution if that's how you get your jollies; I'm not involved however.
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Even with the understanding we have today, if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’. And that applies equally to you and to all of us. We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins. So we are all equally guilty of being the agents of Jesus’ death and have no moral right to cast all the blame on the Jewish people or their Roman accomplices
As I said, the Jews has the Law and the Prophets and continue today to reject Christ.
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As I said, the Jews has the Law and the Prophets and continue today to reject Christ.
But they didn't kill him. Did they? Come on, be honest. Which regime executed him?
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As I said, the Jews has the Law and the Prophets and continue today to reject Christ.
In the words of S. J. Fry, so fucking what?
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Even with the understanding we have today, if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’. And that applies equally to you and to all of us. We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins. So we are all equally guilty of being the agents of Jesus’ death and have no moral right to cast all the blame on the Jewish people or their Roman accomplices
Yep.
Theologically sound.
'Nuff said.
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But they didn't kill him. Did they? Come on, be honest. Which regime executed him?
I explained this, but if you wish to be deliberately dense then be my guest.
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Yep.
Theologically sound.
'Nuff said.
Did his blessed mother? Presumably she had a choice too.
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We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins.
I don't.
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I explained this, but if you wish to be deliberately dense then be my guest.
Come on, ad-o. Dare you to say it.
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Whoever may have been responsible then - if anyone - nobody is now.
But Hebrews talks about those who crucify him all over again.
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I'm not falling for it. You presented a leading question designed to produce the answer you would like. I provided a sufficient answer
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But Hebrews talks about those who crucify him all over again.
How ridiculous.
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How ridiculous.
How so?
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How so?
Because - assuming purely for the sake of the present discussion that the broad facts are more or less true - it is absurd to talk of someone executed two thousand years ago as being "crucified all over again." For someone to talk of their great-great-great-great-grandparent "dying all over again" in anything other than a purely figurative sense would be thought madness; this doesn't change when you substitute a minor apocalyptic itinerant from a middle-eastern backwater two millennia ago.
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Did his blessed mother? Presumably she had a choice too.
Mary was human ,and therefore a sinner like the rest of us, theologically speaking. She needed the saving power of Christ as much as I do. After all, I'm pretty sure Romans 3:23 does not say "All have sinned except and fallen short of the Glory of God except for Mary because tradition which has not yet been created says so."
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Mary was human, and therefore a sinner like the rest of us, theologically speaking.
She needed the saving power of Christ as much as I dio.
She too is saved through Christ (though she lived her life without committing any actual sins) but presumably she wasn't calling for his crucifixion, as David said he would have been compelled to do.
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I'm not falling for it. You presented a leading question designed to produce the answer you would like. I provided a sufficient answer
It's not a leading question. I'm asking for a factual answer. Which regime was responsible for executing Jesus?
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Because - assuming purely for the sake of the present discussion that the broad facts are more or less true - it is absurd to talk of someone executed two thousand years ago as being "crucified all over again." For someone to talk of their great-great-great-great-grandparent "dying all over again" in anything other than a purely figurative sense would be thought madness; this doesn't change when you substitute a minor apocalyptic itinerant from a middle-eastern backwater two millennia ago.
Stop trying to be the knuckle dragging literalist for the gallery. You're better than that( aside ''Did I just say that?).
................Minor apocalyptic itinerant from a middle-eastern backwater, Shakey?
That's rich coming from a minor apocalypse from an East Midlands Backwater...................Snork.
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Stop trying to be the knuckle dragging literalist for the gallery. You're better than that( aside ''Did I just say that?).
So when - according to you - Hebrews talks of those crucifying Christ all over again, does it mean it in the purely figurative my-granny-must-be-spinning-in-her-grave sense or not, and how are we supposed to know? With Christianity there's often a lot of fast-and-loose skipping between (held to be) literal fact and (held to be) metaphor, so it'd be tremendously helpful to know what the procedure is for sorting stuff into their respective heaps.
When Evelyn Waugh, about as irredeemably charmless a human being as you could ever be unfortunate enough to meet, told a soon-to-be-divorced friend that her divorce would hammer new nails into the body of Christ, did he regard the "... so to speak" as a given and not worth writing in full?
................Minor apocalyptic itinerant from a middle-eastern backwater, Shakey?
Yes. They were 10p each or ten for a pound back in the day.
That's rich coming from a minor apocalypse from an East Midlands Backwater...................Snork.
As fabulous as I am, I've never claimed to be on a saving mission for all humankind as an earthly emissary of myself to save people from a scenario that I previously either (a) created or (b) allowed to happen.
Yet.
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She too is saved through Christ (though she lived her life without committing any actual sins) but presumably she wasn't calling for his crucifixion, as David said he would have been compelled to do.
Where is the evidence - from Scripture - that Mary never committed any sin, please?
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ad,
It was the Jews who conspired to put their own Messiah and God to death, forcing Pilate's hand who lacked the moral fortitude to do the right thing. By continuing to reject Christ they still fall under that banner.
There’s so much wrong with those few words that it’s genuinely hard to know where to begin.
First, you have no idea whether Jesus even existed at all, let alone that he was a “Messiah and God”. All you actually know is that a book says these things, and that you choose to believe it to be accurate.
Simply assuming that and proceeding accordingly is called the fallacy of reification.
Second, again you use the phrase “the Jews” as if the tiny number who would have been involved even if it did happen were and are somehow representative of the attitudes of all Jews past and present.
This is called the fallacy of composition.
Third, as I understand it this “God” of yours “gave his own son in sacrifice to atone for our sins” or some such. If this god actually did that then it was a put up job all along, and “He” just played "the Jews" (who were supposedly responsible) for patsies.
This is called the fallacy of scapegoating.
Fourth, without "the Jews" following the script "God" had written for them, all that subsequent atonement for Christians wouldn't have happened.
You should be thanking them, not blaming them.
Fifth, according to the story Jesus was only dead for three days in any case, something presumably an omniscient god would have known would be the case. These "conspiring Jews" of yours would have caused horrible pain no doubt, but not death in any permanent sense. If, say, a gang of Chinese people attacked someone who was in a coma for three days and then recovered, would you forever after blame “the Chinese” for putting someone “to death”?
Why not?
Sixth, what lots of people “continue to reject” is a story about Christ that you on the other hand happen to think to be true. So far as I can see moreover, those who do reject it do so for good reason – ie because the evidence is either absent or hopeless. That does not however put someone “under the banner” (whatever that means) of an allegedly violent gang some 2,000 years ago.
Seventh, the god in which you believe is as I understand it supposed to be omnibenevolent. A story that involves a blood sacrifice (albeit only for a few days) for the “sins” (which turn out to be whatever a books says this god says they are) that the rest of us commit to be washed away is a morally contemptible cop out. If I behaved badly, then I like to think that I’d have the decency to take the consequences rather than engage in a tawdry exchange of my self-respect for a free pass.
Moreover, I happen to think that societies would be more humane if everyone thought that rather than some of them cling to the frankly bizarre notion that a deathbed conversion would get them off the hook no matter what they'd done.
Eighth, have you any sense of where blaming whole races and ethnicities for the supposed crimes of a tiny number of them long ago tends to end up? Of the rationale this morally degrading idiocy provides for those with the intention and means of wiping them out en masse?
Anything?
Ninth…
…well, as you’ll presumably ignore this as you do so much else I don’t see much point in continuing. I could though if I thought any of it would impinge on what passes for your consciousness.
Really, I could.
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If, say, a gang of Chinese people attacked someone who was in a coma for three days and then recovered, would you forever after blame “the Chinese” for putting someone “to death”?
Why not?
They didn't have the Law and the Prophets, innit.
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Shakes,
They didn't have the Law and the Prophets, innit.
They'd certainly have "the law" (beating people until they are unconscious is unlawful), and "the Prophets" is just another personal belief ad has with no evidence to support it. My Chinese gang would have reason to take that claim seriously at all.
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Shakes,
They'd certainly have "the law" (beating people until they are unconscious is unlawful), and "the Prophets" is just another personal belief ad has with no evidence to support it. My Chinese gang would have reason to take that claim seriously at all.
Well no, but, like, they're, like, heathens.
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First, you have no idea whether Jesus even existed at all, let alone that he was a “Messiah and God”.
How do you know he doesn't know? what strange power do y'...OK cut through the crap it's just your philosophy isn't it Hillside...Cue Hillside now talking about science, Methodology, Ikea, smoke, mirrors etc.
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Well no, but, like, they're, like, heathens.
Do you think ad-o knows what heathenry is?
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Do you think ad-o knows what heathenry is?
No, it's just one of his little buzzwords that he likes to throw around - like the drunkard and the lamppost, more for support than illumination.
I think that he thinks it means: "Anybody who isn't Catholic Orthodox. Well, basically anyone who isn't me, in a nutshell. And I'm not even sure about me sometimes."
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Fallacy Boy,
How do you know he doesn't know? what strange power do y'...OK cut through the crap it's just your philosophy isn't it Hillside...Cue Hillside now talking about science, Methodology, Ikea, smoke, mirrors etc.
Ooh, a late missive from the Bide a Wee While Retirement Home for the Terminally Mendacious. How thrilling.
Aside from the fact that neither he nor anyone else has a cogent argument for knowing that, I know it of course because such a conjecture would be unknowable. We have no tools or methods to test claims of the supernatural.
Must be your cocoa time now right?
Mind the bugs.
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Fallacy Boy,
Ooh, a late missive from the Bide a Wee While Retirement Home for the Terminally Mendacious. How thrilling.
And there was me thinking he'd been moved from there to Dunpostin.
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Shakes,
And there was me thinking he'd been moved from there to Dunpostin.
There's been a bit of a rush - Dunpostin and Dunlyin were both full.
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Even with the understanding we have today, if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’. And that applies equally to you and to all of us. We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins. ...
Maybe taking responsibility for one's actions would be better than blaming some innocent scapegoat ? Just sayin'
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Dave:- if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’.
You would have had a choice Dave. I'm not a brave person but would rather have stayed away than bayed for anyone's blood.
As a Christian I accept Jesus had to die but don't believe everyone who wanted him dead (at the time) had no choice about the doings of it.
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First, you have no idea whether Jesus even existed at all, let alone that he was a “Messiah and God”. All you actually know is that a book says these things, and that you choose to believe it to be accurate.
Christians know, for they have met him, especially in the Eucharist.
Second, again you use the phrase “the Jews” as if the tiny number who would have been involved even if it did happen were and are somehow representative of the attitudes of all Jews past and present.
All strands of Judaism that exist today come from the Pharisaic tradition, the same which plotted against our Lord.
Third, as I understand it this “God” of yours “gave his own son in sacrifice to atone for our sins” or some such. If this god actually did that then it was a put up job all along, and “He” just played "the Jews" (who were supposedly responsible) for patsies.
That God knows the entire history of his creation doess not relieve anyone of their moral responsibility, for God also gave us freewill.
Fourth, without "the Jews" following the script "God" had written for them, all that subsequent atonement for Christians wouldn't have happened. You should be thanking them, not blaming them.
There would have been another way, that's all, but now the Jews are an example of disobedience. As a nation they are now cut off. The only way back is to have faith in Christ and be baptised into the Church.
Fifth, according to the story Jesus was only dead for three days in any case, something presumably an omniscient god would have known would be the case. These "conspiring Jews" of yours would have caused horrible pain no doubt, but not death in any permanent sense. If, say, a gang of Chinese people attacked someone who was in a coma for three days and then recovered, would you forever after blame “the Chinese” for putting someone “to death”?
That is something entirely different. Read the Old Testament and you will read a history of disobedience, killing of God's prophets and bowing down to idols. In the New, ultimately, murdering their own Messiah and God.
Sixth, what lots of people “continue to reject” is a story about Christ that you on the other hand happen to think to be true. So far as I can see moreover, those who do reject it do so for good reason – ie because the evidence is either absent or hopeless. That does not however put someone “under the banner” (whatever that means) of an allegedly violent gang some 2,000 years ago.
See above.
Seventh, the god in which you believe is as I understand it supposed to be omnibenevolent. A story that involves a blood sacrifice (albeit only for a few days) for the “sins” (which turn out to be whatever a books says this god says they are) that the rest of us commit to be washed away is a morally contemptible cop out. If I behaved badly, then I like to think that I’d have the decency to take the consequences rather than engage in a tawdry exchange of my self-respect for a free pass.
That is because you do not understand the grace of God.
Eighth, have you any sense of where blaming whole races and ethnicities for the supposed crimes of a tiny number of them long ago tends to end up? Of the rationale this morally degrading idiocy provides for those with the intention and means of wiping them out en masse?
We're talking about the Jewish religion. Plenty of Jews believed in Christ, however, they then ceased to be Jews but instead became Christians.
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Robinson,
As a Christian I accept Jesus had to die but don't believe everyone who wanted him dead (at the time) had no choice about the doings of it.
That makes no sense. If "Jesus had to die" the presumably it would have been because "God" engineered it that way. What choice then was there?
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Isn't Judas just another Greek name for Jews?
Propaganda?
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Even with the understanding we have today, if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’. And that applies equally to you and to all of us. We all need a crucified Christ to deal effectively with our own individual sins. So we are all equally guilty of being the agents of Jesus’ death and have no moral right to cast all the blame on the Jewish people or their Roman accomplices
We need to deal with our own wrongdoings, and not the cop out scenario of a long dead guy supposedly fixing them for us. ::)
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Where is the evidence - from Scripture - that Mary never committed any sin, please?
[/quote
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from #288
Bumped for ad_o.
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Where is the evidence - from Scripture - that Mary never committed any sin, please?
[/quote
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from #288
Bumped for ad_o.
Nothing directly from the scriptures but it nevertheless comes from the Apostles. The proof of having not committed any sin was in her Dormition, having acheived theosis in this life.
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Nothing directly from the scriptures but it nevertheless comes from the Apostles. The proof of having not committed any sin was in her Dormition, having acheived theosis in this life.
Ah.....so nothing to do with Scripture, more this unsubstantiated tradition thingy, then.
Thanks.
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Nothing directly from the scriptures but it nevertheless comes from the Apostles. The proof of having not committed any sin was in her Dormition, having acheived theosis in this life.
Mary was just an ordinary girl who got up the duff before a ring was placed on her finger. After that she only has a bit part in the Bible, even her own son didn't seem to give her much credence. Goodness knows why the catholic/orthodox churches make such a fuss about her, even calling her the 'Queen of Heaven'. Do they think she and god are still having it off up there? ::)
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Ah.....so nothing to do with Scripture, more this unsubstantiated tradition thingy, then.
Thanks.
But the Church never was, is not, and never will be sola scriptura. It's a great big whopping heresy. How many Protestant sects are there now?
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But the Church never was, is not, and never will be sola scriptura. It's a great big whopping heresy. How many Protestant sects are there now?
Tradition has been the downfall of the catholic and orthodox dogmas.
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Eh? That doesn't make any sense.
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Eh? That doesn't make any sense.
What good has it done them?
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What good has it done them?
The dogmas are the tradition.
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ad,
Christians know, for they have met him, especially in the Eucharist.
Kalahari bushmen know their spirit gods are real because they have met them, especially in their rituals.
You haven’t made an argument here – just a repetition of the same unqualified assertion. Assert that as you may, you provide no reason to for anyone else to think you’re right about that. Worse perhaps, you have no reason to think you’re right about that rather than that you just have a strong personal opinion on the matter. That’s not to say that you’re necessarily wrong just as a matter of a lucky guess, but circumstantially at least what you describe correlates to a meme rather than to a “revealed” truth.
All strands of Judaism that exist today come from the Pharisaic tradition, the same which plotted against our Lord.
Leaving aside the repeated reification of “our Lord”, even if some Jews were to some degree at least responsible, that still doesn’t mean their descendants were or are guilty of anything.
Are you not part of the same “tradition” responsible for the crusades and the Spanish inquisition? Should I therefore blame you for these events?
That God knows the entire history of his creation doess not relieve anyone of their moral responsibility, for God also gave us freewill.
Doesn’t work.
First, if this “God” created us capable of breaking “His” rules then got upset when we did it that was a design fault.
Second, if this “God” wanted to make a blood sacrifice of his own son then the Jews involved were just patsies in “His” plan. If “He” chose a few Jews to take the fall for the rest of humanity, that was “His” fault, not the fault of the people “He” chose as a plot device.
There would have been another way, that's all, but now the Jews are an example of disobedience. As a nation they are now cut off. The only way back is to have faith in Christ and be baptised into the Church.
No. Lots of people have been “disobedient” if by that you mean something like “broken God’s rules”. Picking on just one group drawn from one ethnicity to take the rap is called scapegoating.
That is something entirely different. Read the Old Testament and you will read a history of disobedience, killing of God's prophets and bowing down to idols. In the New, ultimately, murdering their own Messiah and God.
First, if someone is out of commission for a bit and then walking around again he wasn’t “murdered”. Rendered comatose perhaps, but not murdered.
Second, I can read the collection of tribal folk stories called the OT as much as I want, but that’s all I’d have – stories. You’d have all your work ahead of you if you wanted to demonstrate that there were “prophets”, a “Messiah” etc.
Third, even if we do play along lots of people would have been “disobedient”. Why would a just “God” have scapegoated just some of them to provide his deus ex machina rather than, say, caused their crops to fail for a bit by way of a yellow card?
See above.
See above. You cannot just visit the (supposed) sins of the father on the son. Even if there was an incompetent designer god with a scumbag sense of morality who thought it was fine to blame selectively for his own mistake and then engineered events to make it happen, that still wouldn’t implicate the descendants of the people involved.
That is because you do not understand the grace of God.
That’s not an answer. You may as well have said “it’s magic innit”. There’s no “grace” in expecting me to trade my self-respect for a free pass for my wrongdoing. Personally, I hold myself to a higher moral standard than that – if I do bad things, then I should take responsibility for them.
Would that more Christians did the same.
We're talking about the Jewish religion. Plenty of Jews believed in Christ, however, they then ceased to be Jews but instead became Christians.
The Nazis didn’t distinguish between practicing and non-practicing Jews.
Your justifications here are the morality of the gas chamber guard – you’d rationalise anything, and you make it worse by wrapping up the morally contemptible in a cloak of holier than thou. After all, those Jews only have themselves to blame right?
Disgusting stuff ad, disgusting stuff.
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Floo,
Mary was just an ordinary girl who got up the duff before a ring was placed on her finger.
Worse still, if it was God wot did it presumably she wouldn't have had a say in the matter either.
There's a word for that kind of thing I think...
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But the Church never was, is not, and never will be sola scriptura. It's a great big whopping heresy. How many Protestant sects are there now?
Your sentence seems to indicate that the church is a "great big whopping heresy"
Agreed!
As for how many 'protestant' sects?
Dunno. I belong to a Reformed Church.
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Your justifications here are the morality of the gas chamber guard – you’d rationalise anything, and you make it worse by wrapping up the morally contemptible in a cloak of holier than thou.
Unfortunately that is the nature of orthodoxy. There is no choice other than to obey the teachings established by the particular tradition. To choose otherwise is heresy (coming from the Greek word for choice). I suspect that Jesus was a heretic to the Jewish orthodoxy of the time, the Pharisees. Death is the ultimate silencing of heresy and the controlling agent of orthodoxy.
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Floo,
Worse still, if it was God wot did it presumably she wouldn't have had a say in the matter either.
There's a word for that kind of thing I think...
Yep there is, especially as she would have most likely been a young teenager. :o
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ekim,
Unfortunately that is the nature of orthodoxy. There is no choice other than to obey the teachings established by the particular tradition. To choose otherwise is heresy (coming from the Greek word for choice). I suspect that Jesus was a heretic to the Jewish orthodoxy of the time, the Pharisees. Death is the ultimate silencing of heresy and the controlling agent of orthodoxy.
Quite. Essentially he tries victim blaming, the wife beater's defence: "If only she'd done as she was told, I wouldn't have had to beat her up".
I have no belief in "evil" in the religious sense of a tangible entity, but in the sense of "irredeemably, despicably immoral" I find ad's position to be as close to it as I can think of.
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ekim,
Quite. Essentially he tries victim blaming, the wife beater's defence: "If only she'd done as she was told, I wouldn't have had to beat her up".
I have no belief in "evil" in the religious sense of a tangible entity, but in the sense of "irredeemably, despicably immoral" I find ad's position to be as close to it as I can think of.
Eh? The gosoel accounts are quite clear, especially the gospel according to St. John. I make no apologies for believing in it or St. Peter's speech to the multitude at Pentecost or St. Stephen's speech just before he was stoned to death.
As for evil, we do not believe it is an entity. Even the devil, in as much as he has being, is good. Evil is merely an absence of good, just as darkness is an absence of light.
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ad,
Eh? The gosoel accounts are quite clear, especially the gospel according to St. John. I make no apologies for believing in it or St. Peter's speech to the multitude at Pentecost or St. Stephen's speech just before he was stoned to death.
You can believe whatever you like, however much the evidence for it is entirely absent. What you can't do though is to use your personal convictions about that to rationalise the real world treatment of people who are the baddies in those stories.
That's the morally contemptible bit.
As for evil, we do not believe it is an entity. Even the devil, in as much as he has being, is good. Evil is merely an absence of good, just as darkness is an absence of light.
But you do it seems believe there to be a "devil" at all. Do you really not think that those of us possessed of a functioning intellect who find ludicrous the frankly bizarre menagerie of characters from a fourteenth century sensibility you think real to be are capable of being morally good without sharing your superstitions?
And if you do think moral judgment is achievable by people like that, can you see why some would find your comments about the Jews to be morally despicable?
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Characters from a fourteenth century sensibility? What are you going on about?
I don't care what you or others here think. I wouldn't use anyone here as the mark of what is moral or immoral. What matters to me us what is right according to God.
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Characters from a fourteenth century sensibility? What are you going on about?
I don't care what you or others here think. I wouldn't use anyone here as the mark of what is moral or immoral. What matters to me us what is right according to God.
The Biblical god's idea of what is right, is what many decent people would think was very wrong. >:(
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Characters from a fourteenth century sensibility? What are you going on about?
I don't care what you or others here think. I wouldn't use anyone here as the mark of what is moral or immoral. What matters to me us what is right according to God.
That of course assumes that there is a god and furthermore a god that takes moral positions of human affairs and furthermore that your understanding of said positions is correct. That seems like an awful lot of huge assumptions when the alternative is to simply think things through yourself.
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Robinson,
That makes no sense. If "Jesus had to die" the presumably it would have been because "God" engineered it that way. What choice then was there?
This will mean nothing to you but Christians believe we all had a hand in crucifying Christ.
However what I meant was individuals have choices whether or not to take part in physically killing someone.
Moving on from that i wonder whether all Orthodox churches teach exactly what Ad_o believes about the Jews, i feel there must be more to it than he has explained to us. There's a lot of information on the internet which will take a long time to plough through but am going to make a start. Would be helpful if we had another Orthodox believer on here so if anyone knows one, please invite them over!
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This will mean nothing to you but Christians believe we all had a hand in crucifying Christ.
However what I meant was individuals have choices whether or not to take part in physically killing someone.
Moving on from that i wonder whether all Orthodox churches teach exactly what Ad_o believes about the Jews, i feel there must be more to it than he has explained to us. There's a lot of information on the internet which will take a long time to plough through but am going to make a start. Would be helpful if we had another Orthodox believer on here so if anyone knows one, please invite them over!
The Jesus was responsible for his own death by getting up the noses of the religious leaders of the day, who had the Romans do their dirty work for them.
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This will mean nothing to you but Christians believe we all had a hand in crucifying Christ ...
You can't blame people who were not present and had no knowledge of it. End of Story.
Unless you are treating the whole thing as allegory, an underpinning for ways of thinking about life, in which case the claim of 'truth' has to be dropped.
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We are only responsible for our own screw ups, not those of past generations.
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You can't blame people who were not present and had no knowledge of it. End of Story.
Unless you are treating the whole thing as allegory, an underpinning for ways of thinking about life, in which case the claim of 'truth' has to be dropped.
I understand what you are saying but it is a Christian doctrine that Jesus died because of our sins. As I said that will mean nothing to most people so please let's not get bogged down with it.
My main point was that individuals have choices when it comes to physically killing someone.
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I understand what you are saying but it is a Christian doctrine that Jesus died because of our sins. As I said that will mean nothing to most people so please let's not get bogged down with it.
My main point was that individuals have choices when it comes to physically killing someone.
Hmmmmm, maybe.
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ad,
Characters from a fourteenth century sensibility? What are you going on about?
I'm "on about" someone in this day and age telling us apparently with a straight face that he believes in "God", "Satan", saints of various stripes "sitting on thrones" on one side the other of this God etc. This stuff is straight out of mediaeval iconography, long since discarded by rationalists and to a large extent by the theists who prefer to think of these stories as allegories.
I don't care what you or others here think. I wouldn't use anyone here as the mark of what is moral or immoral.
But you have mounted a rationale - wittingly or not – for the persecution of "the Jews" collectively. What could be ore immoral than that?
What matters to me us what is right according to God.
By which presumably you mean your beliefs about "what is right according to God" – a very different matter.
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Robinson,
This will mean nothing to you but Christians believe we all had a hand in crucifying Christ.
You're right – it doesn't. It does make me grateful that I'm not one of them though - all that pointless and misplaced guilt!
However what I meant was individuals have choices whether or not to take part in physically killing someone.
You may have done, but you seemed to think the killing bit (OK, "killing" just for three days then) was inevitable, which means that someone would have had to have been God's patsy. What choice then would that person have had?
Moving on from that i wonder whether all Orthodox churches teach exactly what Ad_o believes about the Jews, i feel there must be more to it than he has explained to us. There's a lot of information on the internet which will take a long time to plough through but am going to make a start. Would be helpful if we had another Orthodox believer on here so if anyone knows one, please invite them over!
I have no idea I'm afraid but just one of them is bad enough. After all, if you think it's fine to blame the descendants of the gang that allegedly "killed" a Messiah 2,000 years ago, what punishment wouldn't be too harsh for them? That's why it's the morality of the gas chamber guard.
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Blue,
Wait a minute! Who said anything about persecuting anyone, let alone Jews? I certainly never.
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I understand what you are saying but it is a Christian doctrine that Jesus died because of our sins. As I said that will mean nothing to most people so please let's not get bogged down with it.
I think that doctrine should be examined as, on the face of it, to a rational person it seems an odd statement. The word translated as 'sin' in the New Testament, I believe, is 'hamartia'. Hamartia means 'to miss the mark' i.e. deviate from following the Will of God and in the case of Jesus, even if it kills you. If that doctrine means that within his ministry Jesus provided a method, or straight and narrow way, to overcome any such deviation and by his death demonstrated
what it can take to do so, then it is understandable. I suspect, however, that there are many Christians who have alternative interpretations.
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Dave:- if I had been standing amongst that crowd before Pilate on that early Friday morning in April AD30, I would have had no choice but to join in the chorus of cries to ‘Crucify Him’.
You would have had a choice Dave. I'm not a brave person but would rather have stayed away than bayed for anyone's blood.
As a Christian I accept Jesus had to die but don't believe everyone who wanted him dead (at the time) had no choice about the doings of it.
Hi Robinson,
Apologies, I have taken some while to respond to your post.
Yes indeed I would have had the choice and in all probability would have elected to remove myself from the scene. And yes indeed had I been unfortunate enough to get caught up in that crowd on that day, with the understanding I would have had then, I would not have called for His crucifixion. And neither would Mary had she been there (which she almost certainly was not). Not because of the church tradition that she was sinless, which has no basis in Scripture, but for the same reason that I would not have made that call. Neither would the gospel writer John have made such a call (the only one of Jesus followers who might possibly have been there as an observer on the outskirts of the crowd).
I think a key point of my post #268 which has been missed is the opening phrase about ‘the understanding we have today’. Before the Resurrection and indeed before Pentecost, even the closest of Jesus’ followers did not have a full understanding of the consequences of Christ’s finished work on the Cross. Their Messianic hopes were still very much centred on the expected conquering military hero along the lines of King David and for them it represented disaster rather than victory.
But since Pentecost we have the advantage of a fuller understanding of the Cross and the absolute necessity of a crucified and resurrected Christ if we are not to remain ‘dead in our sins’. Which is why with the exactness of hindsight I recognise that I would have needed to call for the crucifixion. And it is also why I recognise that I am as guilty as any in being the cause of Christ’s death and have no right to point to either Jew or Roman as having the greater guilt.
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Blue,
Wait a minute! Who said anything about persecuting anyone, let alone Jews? I certainly never.
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Whoa!
The 'blood guilt' drivel which many -traditional- branches of the Church laid on 'perfidious Jews' led to mass persecution in both East and West - to our shame.
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ad,
Wait a minute! Who said anything about persecuting anyone, let alone Jews? I certainly never.
I said you provided a rationale for it. If you think that somehow millions of descendants of a tiny number of people who supposedly killed someone who was supposedly a "Messiah" were and are to blame for that event, what more rationale would you need for killing them?
Try reading some history for examples of people who used the same rationale for their actions.
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Mary was just an ordinary girl who got up the duff before a ring was placed on her finger. After that she only has a bit part in the Bible, even her own son didn't seem to give her much credence. Goodness knows why the catholic/orthodox churches make such a fuss about her, even calling her the 'Queen of Heaven'. Do they think she and god are still having it off up there? ::)
Quite a lot of the veneration of Mary was included because the Pagans the Church was trying to convert were not at all happy with being told that only the male God existed - the oldest religious artifact ever discivered (so far) - 25 to 23,000 BCE, is a statue of a WOMAN - Pagans were aware that both sexes were required to create life and mistrusted the Christain patriachy.
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Whoa!
The 'blood guilt' drivel which many -traditional- branches of the Church laid on 'perfidious Jews' led to mass persecution in both East and West - to our shame.
I'm not defending persecution but it's not the fault of the prayers and has no bearing on their truthfulness. And btw, perfidious means faithless or unfaithfull.
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Quite a lot of the veneration of Mary was included because the Pagans the Church was trying to convert were not at all happy with being told that only the male God existed - the oldest religious artifact ever discivered (so far) - 25 to 23,000 BCE, is a statue of a WOMAN - Pagans were aware that both sexes were required to create life and mistrusted the Christain patriachy.
Where did you get that from, Dan Brown?
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I'm not defending persecution but it's not the fault of the prayers and has no bearing on their truthfulness. And btw, perfidious means faithless or unfaithfull.
Ad-o, the Church - in too many of her denominations - has prayed against Judaism, encouraged persecution or, at best, stood aside and let her members do the dirty work.
We should have condemned these actions down the centuries - and protected the persecuted.
In too many cases, we did nothing.
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This will mean nothing to you but Christians believe we all had a hand in crucifying Christ.
However what I meant was individuals have choices whether or not to take part in physically killing someone.
Moving on from that i wonder whether all Orthodox churches teach exactly what Ad_o believes about the Jews, i feel there must be more to it than he has explained to us. There's a lot of information on the internet which will take a long time to plough through but am going to make a start. Would be helpful if we had another Orthodox believer on here so if anyone knows one, please invite them over!
That is the problem! He never "explains" anything. He makes "statements" from his religion's perpective.
He keeps banging on about scripture and the Gospels - FFS the four Gospels contradict each other in matters of fact and some things from one Gospel, important things to Christians if this Forum is anything to go by, are not even mentioned in one or more of the others.
These are supposed to be four people who were all with Christ for his whole miniastry and they can't even agree on what actually happened.
I had High Anglican Christianity beaten into me, literally in some cases, and in one sermon it all fell apart for me I'm glad to say!
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Where did you get that from, Dan Brown?
Weeeeeeel.....
No.
The earliest Marian statues showing the lady nursing the infant Christ come from Egypt - dating from around the third century.
Curiously, they mirror exactly the pose of Isis nursing Horus - a Hellenised form of one of the myriad aspects of the convoluted Egyptian religious map.
There's even an example of the so-called 'virgin' offering the Ankh - traditional heiroglyph for 'life' to the Christ child.
Howzat for idolatry?
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Weeeeeeel.....
No.
The earliest Marian statues showing the lady nursing the infant Christ come from Egypt - dating from around the third century.
Curiously, they mirror exactly the pose of Isis nursing Horus - a Hellenised form of one of the myriad aspects of the convoluted Egyptian religious map.
There's even an example of the so-called 'virgin' offering the Ankh - traditional heiroglyph for 'life' to the Christ child.
Howzat for idolatry?
Even if the first was true, then you would still have to prove that that is where they got their inspiration from, which you can't. So up yours!
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ad,
I'm not defending persecution but it's not the fault of the prayers and has no bearing on their truthfulness. And btw, perfidious means faithless or unfaithfull.
But you validate a rationalisation for it when you privilege faith over reason and evidence. However strongly you feel your beliefs to be true, the crucial missing part is doubt. If you just once you said something like, “of course I could be wrong about all this”, or “I realise that I have no objective evidence to support my opinions”, or “albeit that I have nothing to offer that would demonstrate to anyone else that I’m right” then at least you’d allowed for the possibility of error.
That’s the real problem here – not the content of your claims (which can be as bizarre as you like), but rather the absolute certainty with which you assert them. When you’ve convinced yourself utterly that the Jewish diaspora is responsible for the death of a “Messiah” (and when there are people daft enough to agree with you), what treatment of Jews is then beyond the pale?
Certainty in other words is the enemy of humanity, and you’re full of it.
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Ad-o, the Church - in too many of her denominations - has prayed against Judaism, encouraged persecution or, at best, stood aside and let her members do the dirty work.
We should have condemned these actions down the centuries - and protected the persecuted.
In too many cases, we did nothing.
The Church has prayed for the conversion of the Jews, as in the ancient Roman Good Friday prayers, and also for heretics and schismatics and also pagans
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The Church has prayed for the conversion of the Jews, as in the ancient Roman Good Friday prayers, and also for heretics and schismatics and also pagans
No doubt others are praying for you lot to convert to their brand of the faith, LOL!
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ad,
The Church has prayed for the conversion of the Jews, as in the ancient Roman Good Friday prayers, and also for heretics and schismatics and also pagans
A bit presumptuous isn't it? Maybe the Jews have prayed for the conversion of orthodox Christians too.
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So ad, is there in your mind the possibility at least that you could be wrong about all this?
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ad,
A bit presumptuous isn't it? Maybe the Jews have prayed for the conversion of orthodox Christians too.
Maybe they have, I don't know, but neither is it any of my business. We have our own prayers. I'm content with that.
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ad,
Maybe they have, I don't know, but neither is it any of my business. We have our own prayers. I'm content with that.
No doubt you are, but you implied again that if only those pesky Jews would listen to these prayers they'd be off the hook of all being to blame for killing a "Messiah" so when bad things happen to them it's like, you know, their fault.
Stinks doesn't it.
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ad,
Oh, and about that doubt thing?
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The Church has prayed for the conversion of the Jews, as in the ancient Roman Good Friday prayers, and also for heretics and schismatics and also pagans
Listen mate, don't waste your breath. Paganism is so much more fun.
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I understand what you are saying but it is a Christian doctrine that Jesus died because of our sins. As I said that will mean nothing to most people so please let's not get bogged down with it.
My main point was that individuals have choices when it comes to physically killing someone.
'Most people' are perfectly capable of understanding what is meant by it. They also disagree with it. I once believed it and IME it is a nasty and damaging thing for anyone to live by or for an organisation to teach.
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Listen mate, don't waste your breath. Paganism is so much more fun.
This is true. And I'm not even one*. But it's fairly easy to judge people by their demeanour and actions. All the pagans I've met over the years have been thoroughly good eggs; nice folk who have beliefs which, in my experience, tend on the whole to make the world rather nicer than the opposite. I haven't yet met a single one who prays for other people to be converted to paganism, interestingly enough. They don't seem to do two-thousand-year-old collective blame and shame either, for that matter.
I don't know but assume they consider one's spiritual direction (if any) to be a private and personal affair which is nobody else's business. Which is sporting of them.
* Though I'm reliably informed that some may disagree :)
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Has anyone mentioned 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 yet?
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Has anyone mentioned 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 yet?
I did once but I think I got away with it.
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Has anyone mentioned 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 yet?
For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own coutrymen, even as they have from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.
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Fallacy Boy,
Ooh, a late missive from the Bide a Wee While Retirement Home for the Terminally Mendacious. How thrilling.
Aside from the fact that neither he nor anyone else has a cogent argument for knowing that, I know it of course because such a conjecture would be unknowable. We have no tools or methods to test claims of the supernatural.
Must be your cocoa time now right?
Mind the bugs.
Category Rogering person.
The test for supernatural is simple. That which we encounter for which an arseclenching and idiotic commitment to philosophical naturalism doesn't help.
Once we are there we need to learn whose who and what's what.
Unfortunately the universe has Supernatural aspects to it vis how comes to be but carry on ignoring that if you will.
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Even if the first was true, then you would still have to prove that that is where they got their inspiration from, which you can't. So up yours!
What do you mean 'even if the first was true'?
One of the problems with the Egyptians - whether Pharonic, Hellenic or early Coptic was that whenever they saw a statue, they wrote on it - with chisels,
If you don't believe me, the statue of the so-called 'Virgin' holding an ankh to the Christ child is in the foyer of St Mark's Coptic Church, Cairo - just off Tahrir square.
Not a bad example of Hellenic Egyptian cyncretism in art, by the way.
It dates to around c320.
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Hadn't seen 'so up yours' used in theological debate before. Plenty of 'so ners', which usually wins all arguments over the apostolic succession or transubstantiation. "So up yours' takes things to a whole new level.
But then ad-o did once try and win an argument by calling me a cunt to I guess this astonishing level of intellectual cut-and-thrust was only to be expected.
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Category Rogering person.
The test for supernatural is simple. That which we encounter for which an arseclenching and idiotic commitment to philosophical naturalism doesn't help.
Once we are there we need to learn whose who and what's what.
Unfortunately the universe has Supernatural aspects to it vis how comes to be but carry on ignoring that if you will.
That was nearly English.
Entirely gibberish, unfortunately.
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Hadn't seen 'so up yours' used in theological debate before. Plenty of 'so ners', which usually wins all arguments over the apostolic succession or transubstantiation. "So up yours' takes things to a whole new level.
But then ad-o did once try and win an argument by calling me a cunt to I guess this astonishing level of intellectual cut-and-thrust was only to be expected.
Maybe it's a translation from the Greek tradition.
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Maybe they have, I don't know, but neither is it any of my business.
Not your business, yet you consider the conversion of the Jews from their religion to yours to be your business. (That's to say the business of the absolute and final truth of the Almighty as filtered through sundry human beings over millennia as it appears to be to you in the authoritarian, absolutist and dogmatic worldview you happen to favour this trip around the sun - which by the way isn't a symbolic representation of the risen Son of Itself aka an ancient near-eastern workman but a giant sphere of hydrogen-to-helium-producing plasma, mostly through the proton-proton chain but some possibly through the C-N-O cycle, i.e. hydrogen-deuterium-helium, held in hydrostatic equilibrium for another five billion years or so. Which is to say, it's not a long-dead Jewish builder in mufti - that would explain a lot; two thousand years and he still hasn't turned up - but our local star upon which we depend).
Remind me: in terms that don't make you look like an utter, utter twat, exactly how does this almost superhuman lack of self-awareness work again?
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For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.
So how are we supposed to understand this passage?
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Maybe it's a translation from the Greek tradition.
Very good. :D
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Quote from: Owlswing on Today at 17:08:05
Quite a lot of the veneration of Mary was included because the Pagans the Church was trying to convert were not at all happy with being told that only the male God existed - the oldest religious artifact ever discivered (so far) - 25 to 23,000 BCE, is a statue of a WOMAN - Pagans were aware that both sexes were required to create life and mistrusted the Christain patriachy.
Where did you get that from, Dan Brown?
No! I study the history of my beliefs. Paganism, just as you, supposedly study yours.
The difference of course, is that I am prepared to acknowledge that my beliefs are just that, beliefs, a matter of faith, and not of fact as Christians insist that their beliefs are but are incapable of providing any grain of proof of the existence of their God.
I equally cannot prove the existence of mine, but I do NOT as you do, ad nauseam, insist that yours is the one true path without such proof.
The entire Christian religion in all its innumerable versions is, like mine, nothing more than a matter of faith, of belief, for which there is no proof!
Just that my beliefs, in one form or another, pre-date yours by 25,000 years proved by a Goddess figure dated from that age.
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Fallacy Boy,
Category Rogering person.
No so far I’m not. Do I really need to explain to you yet again what “category error” actually means, only for you to fuck it up again?
Really?
The test for supernatural is simple.
Wow! Fallacy Boy has a test for claims of the supernatural. Coolio!
OK, hang on a mo…let me just pop open a fresh family pack of Twiglets and big bottle of Tizer…
Right you are then, all settled in and ready for the big reveal. Go for it!
That which we encounter for which an arseclenching and idiotic commitment to philosophical naturalism doesn't help.
Aw no! Say it ain’t so! This “test” turns out to be just a collapse into total gibberish.
Oh well – I should have known really.
Nurse! It’s his bedtime now I think.
Once we are there we need to learn whose who and what's what.
NURSE! HE’S FROTHING AT THE MOUTH NOW!
Unfortunately the universe has Supernatural aspects to it vis how comes to be but carry on ignoring that if you will.
Aw bless – old Fallacy Boy still seems to think that “absence of an evidence-based explanation” is a synonym for “supernatural”. Rather sweet really, his reliance on the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
Oh well. Maybe ask nurse for an extra garibaldi tonight to help you feel a bit better after having crashed and burned so spectacularly.
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Has anyone mentioned 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 yet?
don't mention the war!
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Fallacy Boy,
No so far I’m not. Do I really need to explain to you yet again what “category error” actually means, only for you to fuck it up again?
Really?
Wow! Fallacy Boy has a test for claims of the supernatural. Coolio!
OK, hang on a mo…let me just pop open a fresh family pack of Twiglets and big bottle of Tizer…
Right you are then, all settled in and ready for the big reveal. Go for it!
Aw no! Say it ain’t so! This “test” turns out to be just a collapse into total gibberish.
Oh well – I should have known really.
Nurse! It’s his bedtime now I think.
NURSE! HE’S FROTHING AT THE MOUTH NOW!
Aw bless – old Fallacy Boy still seems to think that “absence of an evidence-based explanation” is a synonym for “supernatural”. Rather sweet really, his reliance on the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
Oh well. Maybe ask nurse for an extra garibaldi tonight to help you feel a bit better after having crashed and burned so spectacularly.
Either nature popped out of nothing, is eternal, or created itself......which one of those is susceptible to scientific investigation?
Cue handwaving durry that will make the weaker minded antitheist ''Moist''.
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Fallacy Boy,
Either nature popped out of nothing, is eternal, or created itself......which one of those is susceptible to scientific investigation?
Oh dear. You committed the fallacy of the false binary: "Either there's a naturalistic explanation for something, or it's supernatural". This is obviously wrong - if there's no naturalistic explanation for something all that gives you is a "don't know". If you want to assert "supernatural", then first you need to define it and then you need to make an argument for it.
Essentially your "thinking" here is the same as the Viking who, absent an explanation for thunder, insisted that it must therefore be Thor.
Doesn't work does it.
Cue handwaving durry that will make the weaker minded antitheist ''Moist''.
And that fallacy is called poisoning the well.
You're on a fallacy roll today aren't you.
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Fallacy Boy,
Oh dear. You committed the fallacy of the false binary: "Either there's a naturalistic explanation for something, or it's supernatural".
Absolutely incorrect.
Where have I suggested a natural explanation?
If you want to go ahead......... but at this stage in the game it is you who will either be unable to suggest a naturalistic explanation or be forced to offer what you've called a false binary.
Good luck with that.
And with you left well and truly up shit creek sans padelle I will bid you a good day.
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Absolutely incorrect.
Where have I suggested a natural explanation?
If you want to go ahead......... but at this stage in the game it is you who will either be unable to suggest a naturalistic explanation or be forced to offer what you've called a false binary.
Good luck with that.
And with you left well and truly up shit creek sans padelle I will bid you a good day.
Talking to yourself again, dear? ;D
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Fallacy Boy,
Absolutely incorrect.
Where have I suggested a natural explanation?
And WHAMMO! he's straight in with the fallacy of the straw man.
A fine effort to decimate your opponents in Fallacy Top Trumps.
Now try responding to what I actually said though...
If you want to go ahead......... but at this stage in the game it is you who will either be unable to suggest a naturalistic explanation or be forced to offer what you've called a false binary.
Oooh, the fallacy of judgmental language. You haven't tried that one for a while, but it's only three-pointer in FTT I'm afraid.
It's not that I've "called" it a binary choice, but rather that you think it is a binary choice - that's your false binary fallacy. The third option - "don't know" - tells you nothing whatever I'm afraid about conjectures you may have about a supposed "supernatural".
Good luck with that.
With what – falsifying your mistakes? There's no luck required.
And with you left well and truly up shit creek sans padelle I will bid you a good day.
Aw, the delusional cry of the loser through the ages. Gonna be nice today - ask that nice Philippina nurse at the Bide a Wee While Home for the Terminally Mendacious to let you park you bath chair on the west lawn without your rug today. You'll get a nice tan that way.
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I have plenty of times.
"It must be the one true church because otherwise I'd be wrong" doesn't count as a reason.
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Listen mate, don't waste your breath. Paganism is so much more fun.
Apart from the word 'mate', Ad_O being no-ones mate as that would imply an, all-be-it loosest possible, same-sex relationship, you never spoke truer words!
Bring on the mead and the naked dancing and free-for-all-fornication in the woods!
BB
)O(
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Apart from the word 'mate', Ad_O being no-ones mate as that would imply an, all-be-it loosest possible, same-sex relationship, you never spoke truer words!
Bring on the mead and the naked dancing and free-for-all-fornication in the woods!
BB
)O(
I know everything there is to know about paganism I've read several Dennis Wheatley books, what more does one need to know.
ippy
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I know everything there is to know about paganism I've read several Dennis Wheatley books, what more does one need to know.
ippy
That Dennis Wheatley books are about Satanism and not Paganism?
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That Dennis Wheatley books are about Satanism and not Paganism?
Some of them are.
ippy
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Moderator A number of posts which were an off topic personal spat between members have been removed.
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I know everything there is to know about paganism I've read several Dennis Wheatley books, what more does one need to know.
ippy
Dennis Wheatley knew about as much about paganism as my foreskin, continually confusing it (as Owlswing says) with Satanism. Try Prof. Ronald Hutton. You don't need to be a believer (I'm not) to grasp this basic difference. That little I do know.
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Dennis Wheatley knew about as much about paganism as my foreskin........
There's just one big draw back with that idea.
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There's just one big draw back with that idea.
Did you think of that all by yourself or did someone give you a tip off?
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Did you think of that all by yourself or did someone give you a tip off?
You can try to take the edge off a belting joke.......It's no skin off my nose.
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Did you think of that all by yourself or did someone give you a tip off?
Does anger at my razor wit make you turn red....or are you just Pre Puce?
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OK, I'll put this one in before we (try) to get back on topic (some hope) When aforensic examination of Tutankhamun's remains took place in the mid '70's, itt was noted that his penis had been embalmed and now looked very - er - proud. After several x-rays, skin samples, etc, were taken, the remains were returned to KV 62 to be covered by the lid of the outer coffin, leaving the king in situ. However, not all of him was returned....yep.....a rather significant bit was 'misplaced'. Academic journals, in one of their less turgid moments, sported the following headline..... "Who's been silly with King Tut's willy?" OK, back on topic.......
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OK, I'll put this one in before we (try) to get back on topic (some hope) When aforensic examination of Tutankhamun's remains took place in the mid '70's, itt was noted that his penis had been embalmed and now looked very - er - proud. After several x-rays, skin samples, etc, were taken, the remains were returned to KV 62 to be covered by the lid of the outer coffin, leaving the king in situ. However, not all of him was returned....yep.....a rather significant bit was 'misplaced'. Academic journals, in one of their less turgid moments, sported the following headline..... "Who's been silly with King Tut's willy?" OK, back on topic.......
With Vlad posting you got no chance . . . .
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Foolish as this might be, on the subject of the thread ad_orientem posted that he sometimes thought of what he views as protestants as following the idea of a demiurge. I was wondering, ad_o, if this in some way relates to the idea that acts are 'looked down' on in your viewing protestant theology since there is an emphasis on the complete fallen nature of man?
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I don't know how many Orthodox Christians share ad_o's condemnatory attitude - all I can say that the chap who tried to thump NT greek into me at Uni, and later became the Orthodox Archbishop of 'the UK and Thyatira' was a bit less....er....rigid. He seemed to see those of us who professed a faih in Christ as Christian, rather than heretic. (There were two atheists in the class....one of whom is now a Methodist minister in South Sudan)
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Anchs,
(There were two atheists in the class....one of whom is now a Methodist minister in South Sudan)
Obviously not a true atheist then ;)
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Yes, definitely needs to work more on his atheism, that one.