A Christianity Question or 2

[Anonymous]

everyone's asking about weither the biblical god's a bully or not.

Well...we're talking about Christianity so shouldn't we be talking about the trinity as reveled to mankind through Jesus not the old testement God?

Some of the board members are talking specifically about Xtianity, and some of us are talking more generally. But whatever: having your son tortured to death to prove your love for mankind is as shitty an act as destroying Israel for not practicing genocide.

 

[Anonymous]

But whatever: having your son tortured to death to prove your love for mankind is as shitty an act as destroying Israel for not practicing genocide.

surly (unless I'm way off the mark in my interpitations of the bible) Jesus was only the 'son' of god in that he was 'born of woman.' He was no more the idea of a son as we would think of one than a picture of a pipe is a pipe (to use a metaphore from art.)

 

[Anonymous]

Erm... John is pretty unequviocal


John 1:18; 3:16; 3:18; 4:9

 

[lopaka]

Yes, but the Jesus of John's Gospel is presented as been so otherworldy, almost alien to this world and much less a real, actual human being. To me at least.

John is weird. Stories that are prominent in the other three are unmentioned and features other characters and events that the first three lack.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, indeed. John the Apostle is nearly as obscure as John the Divine.

It seems to have a radically different origin to the Q inspired Gospels.

 

[Anonymous]

Erm... John is pretty unequviocal


John 1:18; 3:16; 3:18; 4:9

Yes and it does say in John 3:16 "his only begotten son..." (I admit this is considered an alternative translation, but it is readily accepted)

I wonder at the 4:9 reference though. Are you sure that was the chapter and verse you meant?

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry 1 John 4:9.

9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only [begotten] Son into the world that we might live through him.

NIV state the begotten part as a valid alternative. I didn't mean to include the Epistles, but I mis-read my concordance

General Information
The Epistles of John are three letters in the New Testament of the Bible traditionally ascribed to Saint John the apostle. They are classed with the General, or Catholic, Epistles because they are addressed to a general readership rather than to specified churches or individuals. The first epistle bears no clue to its authorship, but in the other two epistles the author calls himself "the elder." The three letters were probably written in the Roman province of Asia (western Anatolia) toward the end of the 1st century.

The first epistle should probably be understood as a general pamphlet written to churches in Anatolia. Its message is about life, meaning eternal life, life in fellowship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. The book was written to give a series of standards by which people can know that they possess eternal life. Two features stand out in the series of texts. First, the validity of the Incarnation is affirmed against those who claimed special knowledge (see Docetism; Gnosticism) and denied that Christ came in the flesh (1 John 4:2 - 3). The second feature of the test is love. The true follower of Christ is to love as Christ loved (1 John 2:6; 4:7 - 12, 19).

The second epistle, the shortest book of the Bible, is a note to a church addressed as the "elect lady." In this letter the message of 1 John is applied to a local church situation. The people are warned about teachers with special knowledge. They are encouraged to be hospitable toward one another. The third epistle is a personal word to Gaius, a follower of the truth. He is encouraged to show kindness to traveling believers who pass his way.

The content is certainly John inspired, or inspired by the source tradition of John, but I don't see a lot of evidence to support authorship by John the Apostle. Interesting that the author is heavily anti-Gnostic

 

[Anonymous]

(Slight quibble of pedantry, but the bits you quoted were by Zygon (that's me!), not Hugo. But like I said, just a quibble.)

Profound apologies - I have done this on other threads as well - I am just not the mistress of cut and paste technique that I would like to be.

(In response to your own statement, I'd only suggest that you may need to read more history. 'Neolithic farmers' would surprise you: they weren't stupid, and they weren't ignorant. They simply had a less well-developed technical base, cultures that generally didn't differentiate between 'politics' and 'religion' (indeed, the ancient Hebrews apparently didn't have a word for 'religion', even into the iron age) and which were militant, authoritarian and bloody in consequence, and possessed economies that were too heavily dependent on slave labour to function efficiently by modern standards. Often their ingenuity was such as to beggar the imagination if we can but appreciate the context in which they came up with their ideas: sophisticated accounting techniques and writing in Sumer, silk and lacquerware manufacture in China, to cite but 4 examples of neolithic cleverness, all predate the bulk of the OT by 500 to 1000 years.)


I agree with you on your view of the intelligence of neolithic farmers, but I stick to my view that they were driven by sticks, not carrots. If you dumped the people on this thread into an environment in which we had to grow our own food or starve to death, then the resulting narrative would be less Pollyanna, than Lord of the Flies. Subsistence societies are judgemental, impatient with handicap, strictly limiting the sort of skills that they will allow as an alternative to farming. Writing, cities, silk and lacquerwork are post-agrarian developments which only came into existence as a result of neolithic farmers developing the skills to produce substantial reliable surpluses, to support non-agrarian specialisations.....

 

[Anonymous]

surly (unless I'm way off the mark in my interpitations of the bible) Jesus was only the 'son' of god in that he was 'born of woman.' He was no more the idea of a son as we would think of one than a picture of a pipe is a pipe (to use a metaphore from art.)

TVQ, I agree with you, and that's why I pointed out the use of the world "begotten". According my my dictionary, it means "generated by procreation". My take and the take on this I have been taught as a child and again later as an adult is that we are all "God's children" but that Jesus was the only son he created by using part of himself, the Holy Spirit (parallel the process by which man procreates, using part of himself - sperm). Which in turn leads to the trinity.

 

[Anonymous]

Shame we need someone 'special' when really we are all fragments of the divine and therefore 'special'.... at least IMO. It's such a disappointment when we don't realise this and submit to the self deprecating nonsense that has kept us cowed for generations.... Good or Bad we are sparks of the divine. IMO that was the message that Yeshua tried to evince but it got sidelined by the culture of the time and subsequent editing. Reading Mark, that's the only logical interpretation of the given teachings. The rest seem to be more geared to crowd control and the gaining of Temporal power than anything else.

 

[Anonymous]

Shame we need someone 'special' when really we are all fragments of the divine and therefore 'special'....

I couldn't agree more. Who was it....erm German Idealist....anyway he argued that we created God out of all the things we realy liked about ourselfs and then forgot we posesed them and claimed god had them but we didn't.

Hegel.

 

[Yithian]

Pope John XX
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

There has never been a Pope John XX.

Some 11th century historians believed that there had been a pope named John between antipope Pope Boniface VII and the actual Pope John XV; thus, the series of Pope John XV to Pope John XIX was mistakenly numbered John XVI to XX. These popes have been renumbered as John XV to XIX; however, Pope John XXI to Pope John XXIII were numbered based on the confusion of having twenty Pope Johns before them. Hence, Pope John XX doesn't exist, having been skipped over in the enumeration of popes, and as the enumeration is now firmly established, it is unlikely that any attempt at rectification will be made.

Some have used this discontinuity in numbering as "evidence" that there was a Pope Joan: see myths and legends surrounding the Papacy.

In the humorous fantasy novel Jurgen, by James Branch Cabell, the protagonist learns of this omission. He gains admission to Heaven by pretending to be Pope John XX, there being no one to contradict him by claiming the title. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_XX

All very odd. i'll use this as a resurection post,

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myths_and_ ... the_Papacy

for more silliness.

 

[Yithian]

Oh, indeed. John the Apostle is nearly as obscure as John the Divine.

Err, is that a dry joke or am i being dim? I know it's disputed but i thought they were supposed (by the orthodox) to be the same person. Although i've never compared them textually...

More interested in John of the Cross myself.

edit: Too many Johns... It's like when you go out with a big group of people and everyone in the entire pub is called John, Dave, Chris, or Matt and you start praying the next introduction will be a redhead called Bruce... or somesuch.

 

[MrRING]

To resurrect this old thread (which seems to be a good place for this thought), I was just reading through the WIKI article on the Council of Nicene and, rather as is the case in the DaVinci Code, it does seem like they made the first official declaration of Jesus's divinity (which seems to be disputed by DaVinci "debunkers"):

Arian controversy

The Arian controversy was a Christological dispute that began in Alexandria between the followers of Arius, the Arians; the followers of St. Alexander of Alexandria, known as homoousians; and a third group, known as homoiousians. Alexander and his followers believed that the Son was of the same substance as the Father, co-eternal with him. The Arians believed that they were different and that the Son, though he may be the most perfect of creations, was only a creation. Homoiousians tried to make a compromise position, saying that the Father and the Son were of similar substance.

Much of the debate hinged on the difference between being "born" or "created" and being "begotten". Arians saw these as the same; followers of Alexander did not. Indeed, the exact meaning of many of the words used in the debates at Nicaea were still unclear to speakers of other languages; Greek words like "essence" (ousia), "substance" (hypostasis), "nature" (physis), "person" (prosopon) bore a variety of meanings drawn from pre-Christian philosophers, which could not but entail misunderstandings until they were cleared up. The word homoousia, in particular, was initially disliked by many bishops because of its associations with Gnostic heretics (who used it in their theology), and because it had been condemned at the 264-268 Synods of Antioch.

Homoousians believed that to follow the Arian view destroyed the unity of the Godhead, and made the Son unequal to the Father, in contravention of the Scriptures ("The Father and I are one", John 10:30). Arians, on the other hand, believed that since God the Father created the Son, he must have emanated from the Father, and thus be lesser than the Father, in that the Father is eternal, but the Son was created afterward and, thus, is not eternal. The Arians likewise appealed to Scripture, quoting verses such as John 14:28: "the Father is greater than I". Homoousians countered the Arians' argument, saying that the Father's fatherhood, like all of his attributes, is eternal. Thus, the Father was always a father, and that the Son, therefore, always existed with him.

The Council declared that the Father and the Son are of the same substance and are co-eternal, basing the declaration in the claim that this was a formulation of traditional Christian belief handed down from the Apostles. This belief was expressed in the Nicene Creed.

 

[rynner2]

Which just neatly summarises why I have no time for organised religion, Christian or otherwise.

 

[Hieru]

I have always found discussions like this to be very odd.

For most people in this world, they were raised to belong to one faith or another.

As a child I noticed how other children with varying beliefs began to explore their dissimilarities. I have always found the resulting antagonism quite disturbing , and the propagation of isolationist viewpoints extremely alien to me.

I had the fairly unique experience of being raised without any religious indoctrination or bias whatsoever!

One of my earliest memories of school was sitting in an assembly, whilst everyone bowed their heads and spoke to someone who wasn't there. Very, very odd!

If any religion can claim to show the ‘true way’, surely the path to so-called enlightenment should be obvious, logical and instinctive. If there is a God etc, surely a naive child with no guidance would find their way to a life of spirituality instinctively and on their own.

The fact that I did not find God, or ay kind of religious experience, speaks volumes!

 

[monster_magnet]

If any religion can claim to show the ‘true way’, surely the path to so-called enlightenment should be obvious, logical and instinctive. If there is a God etc, surely a naive child with no guidance would find their way to a life of spirituality instinctively and on their own.

The fact that I did not find God, or ay kind of religious experience, speaks volumes!

Perhaps god didn't want you to find him.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

Perhaps god didn't want you to find him.

Certainly wouldn't be God as described in the New Testament, then.

 

[monster_magnet]

Certainly wouldn't be God as described in the New Testament, then.

You mean a set of contradictory books written and interpreted by humans purporting to be the word of god. Which are then randomly edited from time to time by humans for, arguably, their own benefit.

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

The bible is as good for proving God as disproving it.

 

[monster_magnet]

The bible is as good for proving God as disproving it.

The bible can't prove or disprove anything in relation to god or his existence.

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

That is what I have said.

 

[silvercoin]

Hi, I have just glanced over this, so forgive me if I'm going off the point or if I have repeted something.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I do not think that we are all born sinners. I mean look at an innoccent newborn baby. What could they have possibly done wrong.

Also, I believe that moral values are more important than religion. I think it's crazy that some religions say that you have to follow their way to 'be saved' Surely a God with any sense would prefer u just to be a good person. I mean anyone can go to church and take communion and pray, but it means nothing if u r not a good person with good morals

 

[Anonymous]

I have a Christianity question or two;

1) If we are all decended from Adam and Eve - are we all incestious?

2) Why worship? Do God and son really need us to beg for forgiveness and sing their praises every day? Why?

3) Was Jesus white with blue eyes before Christianity gave birth to Catholosism? Or was Jesus black or perhaps brown?

4) If Jesus were here now, what would you ask him or say to him?

5) If God appeared in the form of Charlton Heston or Morgan Freeman before you, what would you ask him or say to him?

6) Is God a vengeful God who smites down those who do not worship him and makes them burn in hell for eternity or is he a compassionate, understanding and forgiving God who will clense you of your sins?

 

[Mythopoeika]

I have a Christianity question or two;

1) If we are all decended from Adam and Eve - are we all incestious?

Yup. That's why we're all sinners!

2) Why worship? Do God and son really need us to beg for forgiveness and sing their praises every day? Why?

Vanity. Yup, they have fragile egos.

3) Was Jesus white with blue eyes before Christianity gave birth to Catholosism? Or was Jesus black or perhaps brown?

Jesus was black, baby! 8)

4) If Jesus were here now, what would you ask him or say to him?

Solve all the problems you started, Jesus!

5) If God appeared in the form of Charlton Heston or Morgan Freeman before you, what would you ask him or say to him?

Solve all the problems you started, God!

6) Is God a vengeful God who smites down those who do not worship him and makes them burn in hell for eternity or is he a compassionate, understanding and forgiving God who will clense you of your sins?

Well, it looks like the first of these options is the most probable.

 

[lemonpie3]

Hi, I have just glanced over this, so forgive me if I'm going off the point or if I have repeted something.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I do not think that we are all born sinners. I mean look at an innoccent newborn baby. What could they have possibly done wrong.

Also, I believe that moral values are more important than religion. I think it's crazy that some religions say that you have to follow their way to 'be saved' Surely a God with any sense would prefer u just to be a good person. I mean anyone can go to church and take communion and pray, but it means nothing if u r not a good person with good morals

Thanks for the theology lesson.

Yes, anyone can go to church and take communion (well depending on the church probably not anyone actually). Communion isn't a way of proving you're a 'good' person. It's communion (the clue is in the title) with God.

So it means as much if you're not a 'good' person (define good) as if you are 'good' person, as fundamentally Christians believe none of us is 'good'. Do you have to be 'good' to take communion? No. Does it prove you're 'good'? No. Does it potentially indicate humility and a willingness to come before God whatever one's 'moral' state? Probably.

 

[silvercoin]

Hi, I have just glanced over this, so forgive me if I'm going off the point or if I have repeted something.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I do not think that we are all born sinners. I mean look at an innoccent newborn baby. What could they have possibly done wrong.

Also, I believe that moral values are more important than religion. I think it's crazy that some religions say that you have to follow their way to 'be saved' Surely a God with any sense would prefer u just to be a good person. I mean anyone can go to church and take communion and pray, but it means nothing if u r not a good person with good morals

Thanks for the theology lesson.

Yes, anyone can go to church and take communion (well depending on the church probably not anyone actually). Communion isn't a way of proving you're a 'good' person. It's communion (the clue is in the title) with God.

So it means as much if you're not a 'good' person (define good) as if you are 'good' person, as fundamentally Christians believe none of us is 'good'. Do you have to be 'good' to take communion? No. Does it prove you're 'good'? No. Does it potentially indicate humility and a willingness to come before God whatever one's 'moral' state? Probably.

Ok, so u have to be comfirmed to take communion but that's not my point. My point is, it's relatively easy to participate in this sort of religious activity, whereas I believe these such religious acts would be less important to God than for example helping an old lady accross the road or saving a life (yes I know these r Christian too)

I know that communion isnt a way of proving u r good. What I am saying is that IMHO it's more important to be good than to follow a religion. (Although goodness of course is part of Christianity). When I say 'Good' I mean simply to love. The world, yourself, others. This includes being caring, considerate, patient etc etc. (Do I recall though that the bible said it's wrong to love the world?). And lemon, it may mean as much in Christian terms if u take communion, whether u r a 'good' person or not but from my perspective it does not. This is one of the many reasons that Christianity (and other religions) are flawed in my eyes.


Incidently, lemonpie, I think you have a new hobby. It's called 'having a pop at silvercoin'

 

[lemonpie3]

I accept that this is not the only thread I have disagreed with you on, and I apologise if it seemed that I am targeting you. It just happens that you sit on the opposite side of the fence on a couple of pet subjects; not knowing anything about you except for a couple of your posts I certainly have no personal beef with you.

I would add that on both occasions that I've taken issue with you, you've posted extremely simplistic views, but once I've prodded you you've then gone on to explain a more considered viewpoint.

To go back to the subject in hand, my main problem with this thread is that it's full of people going on about how you don't have to be religious to be a good person, just look at all the wars started by religions, right and wrong are obvious, don't need god to tell me what to do blah blah blah.

So to return to your response, you think that 1) participating in communion is less important to God that helping an old lady across the road, 2) you think that it's more important to be good than to follow a religion, and I'm afraid i don't really understand your final point but 3) you think only 'good' people should take communion?

And my reply is that 1) and 2) are both based on a false premise. Communion and other religous acts are not valued on a points scale, and neither are 'good' acts in society (helping old lady across road, 3pts; foiling bank robbery, 6pts; going to church every sunday, 12pts). I would suggest that the two things (religious acts and social acts) are almost totally unrelated to each other. Being 'good' and following a religion are independent of each other. On the whole Christians don't believe that they are going to heaven or whatever because they've lived 'good' lives, a prostitute being no 'better' than a priest; it's not a case of your sins being weighed on a pair of scales against a feather like the Ancient Egyptians.

Where does your idea of 'good' come from, anyway? How do you know that your 'good' is any better than anyone else's good? Do you think that 'good' is universal? You think that it's better to be good than to follow a religion, but that's as nonsensical as saying it's better to be happy than be healthy.

 

[silvercoin]

Yes lemon we do differ in our opinions dont we, but I am more than willing to listen to everyones side of things. We seem to have the same pet subjects and sit at entirley different ends of the fence on them!

Okay, so I admit I sometimes oversimplify things , but I work on the assumption that most people on this board are at least fairly intelligent and at most, complete geniuses (such as you and me for example), and I guess I expect people to 'read between the lines', and not need things spelling out. Also, as a typical female, I expect to be mind read!

You havent quite understood my points again. I dont necessarily think that helping an old lady accross the road is more important to God than taking communion. This is just an oversimplified (again!) example. Communion (or any other religious acts such as being baptised, or praying or whatever) would in my opinion be less important to God than, for example, rescuing an injured bird, or helping the homeless etc etc. Also, would a God of love prefer you to build an elaborate place of worship, or to give the money to the poor instead? Lots of money is wasted in the name of religion and so are lots of lives of course. (as in wars)

You have partially understood the second point. Yes I think it is much more important to be good and kind and loving etc than to follow a religion. However, being good and kind and loving etc can be defined as a religion in itself. There is no recognised religion that I am aware of that I think is 'the right one for me' Although I do come from a Christian family, and have been Christened and confirmed, I have decided to go my own way. My religion is no longer God centered. I have my own religion which is people centred, and if God denies me a place in heaven for rejecting his church, yet being as kind and considerate as I can towards others, then so be it.

Okay, and now my 3rd point. No I dont think you have to be 'good' to take communion. I simply mean that (again in my opinion). Does God really care whether you partake of actual (or symbolic) body and blood? You could be out there wrapping blankets around cold people on the street instead (well not in August, but you get the idea!). What I am saying is "do these 'religious' acts actually matter". I dont personally think so (of course they may well matter to the individual, just not to me).

Where does my idea of 'good' come from. All I can say is it comes from the heart and from experiencing various forms of evil in my life. When you have seen evil, you so know what good is. I dont think my 'good' is better than anyone elses. But there surely are fundamental truths to help define it. For example, good is love. Good is the opposite of evil. Surely most humans are built with a guilty conciounse (I havent the faintest idea how u spell it). Surely most humans have some in built idea of what is good.

Oh yes, we differed on conspiracy of drug companies too (I know I should post this in conspiracy, but I'll just briefly say it here while we are disagreeing!). I have had personal and first hand experience of the drug comanies making money at peoples expense. I have even considered pusuing a legal case against one in particular. This is why I am anti - drug company!

 

[lemonpie3]

You havent quite understood my points again. I dont necessarily think that helping an old lady accross the road is more important to God than taking communion. This is just an oversimplified (again!) example.

Well I'm sorry for misunderstanding you and not reading between the lines, being hyper-intelligent and everything, but this is what you actually said in your post.

Anyway, it seems that you misunderstand me.

I said that religious acts and 'good' acts are not related to each other. Being good and kind and loving etc is only very partially related to following (or not) a religion. It's pointless rating 'being good' above 'following a religion' as they are almost totally separate things.

Yes I think it is much more important to be good and kind and loving etc than to follow a religion. However, being good and kind and loving etc can be defined as a religion in itself.

Let me simplify it for you. Let us say a person attends church tomorrow morning. Does that mean they don't have to help the old lady across the road? If i give ten pounds to help build a church, does that prevent me giving ten pounds to a homeless shelter? No. The two acts are (in the terms we are discussing at the moment) unrelated.

The function of an act of worship is to develop or experience a personal relationship with god. This has nothing to do with being a good person or not.

How can you say that one is more important than the other? Being 'good' is important. To some Christians, ceremony and ritual are important. Ceremonies aren't more important than being 'good' and being 'good' is not more important than rituals of worship. You're trying to compare apples and pears.

Your third point. Do religious acts actually matter.

What I am saying is "do these 'religious' acts actually matter". I dont personally think so (of course they may well matter to the individual, just not to me).

Do you get points for stating the obvious? You've already said that you reject Christianity as you've got your own religion (a kind of secular huimanism?). So obviously you'd say they don't matter. And obviously they matter to the individual.

Let's leave the whole idea of objective notions of 'good' and 'evil' for another time.