Rational BAC

I have nothing against Arianism. Or against the OP's idea which is similar.

I think it takes very little to be a Christian-----a belief that Jesus did live, that He was born of God and the Virgin Mary, that He died and was resurrected.

The rest of it is up for grabs and all can be considered Christian.

It is only the natural and very "human" idea of "there must be an absolute concensus of opinion or all is lost" that has always screwed up Christianity historically and caused such division and bloodshed over the centuries.

mike_decock

Would you consider the Gnostics as Christians? They believed that Jesus lived, considered the Virgin Birth a naive misunderstanding and believed in a spiritual resurrection rather than a physical one.

-Mike...

Rational BAC

Sure ---

I'm pretty easy-going on what it takes to be a Christian.

I do like the idea of Christ being half-God, half human though.

And I like the idea of a resurrection--(not sure if it is important whether a spiritual or physical resurrection)-----------since it means to me that life after death is possible for all of us.

I consider the idea of "original sin" to be probably bogus. Got to be a large stretch to find either that idea or the idea that Jesus died for our sins (original or otherwise) in the Bible.---------at least in the 4 Gospels.

I am a cherry picker so I throw out what I don't accept in the Bible anyway.

Biff the unclean

And how, pray tell, is that rational?

Boy is she pretty, I'll ignore the fact that she's a mass murderer and marry her because she's sooooo good looking. See what a wonderful person I am, I only see beauty, where others see evil. :banghead:

Soul Invictus

From what basis or line of thinking do many Christians come to this conclusion though? In the churches I'd attended it was always taught that he came to die for our sins, so it was a foregone conclusion. As a child then, naturally I believed what I was told.

Rational BAC

Not a foregone conclusion to me at any rate.

I think this idea of Christ's dying to save us from our sins (original or otherwise) was just tacked on to Christianity many centuries later (by committee urged on strongly by the Romans to make a unanimous position about the whole confused idea of Christianity ---and most certainly for political reasons------300 years after the fact---- to make the OT agree somewhat with the NT.

Hey---we are all free thinkers, I hope. We can all read the Bible, especially the words of Jesus and make sense of it how we can.

And we are just as smart as those members of the Council of Nicea and we have the advantage that no one is going to look over our shoulder and tell us "we are wrong and therefore can be fed to the lions"

Hey-------- Read the Bible with a skeptical outlook. (Especially read the 4 Gospels and read them much more seriously than Paul--- and throw Revelations in the trash can where it belongs)

Pitch out what does not make any sense and keep what does. And in doing that will you be a true Christian--unencumbered by centuries on centuries of mayhem and bloodshed and falseness.

Just shows how mankind can screw up a wet dream if given half a chance.

Christianity can be very simple. Jesus wanted it so.

mike_decock

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rational BAC
And I like the idea of a resurrection--(not sure if it is important whether a spiritual or physical resurrection)-----------since it means to me that life after death is possible for all of us.

Would it be fair to say that the possibility of an afterlife is the largest factor which draws you to Christianity?

The teachings of Jesus really aren't all that novel once you strip off all the crap (like self-mutilation). I think one can develop a far more balanced and complete moral code by cherry picking from all religions and non-religious ethical systems equally.

-Mike...

abe smith

Do you like also the concept of "the Square Circle" for example, to lay beside your pleasure in the idea of "the Half-God half-human"?
Doing that/those is certainly your privilege, of course; as playing with (mental & other human) toys always is. Life wd be unspeakably-boring were it not for all those great TOYS available to us; shit, we'd have nothing to do but watch ballgames & sit-coms and pick our fur for lice & salt.
I am troubled by letting such concepts into the discussion-mix tho; because (altho Bright Folks Like Us do not BELIEVE in those) there ARE other human beings who DO BELIEVE in them; and do bad things to one-another based on those beliefs.
*If* the traditional/"orthodox" definitions of "god" and "human" WERE real >>>i.e. if they referred to anything ACTUALLY-extant, then those terms would be mutually-exclusive and hence non-miscible (as you'ld enjoy to have them).
Based on the old-down-home Logical Sentence #One that "A is A" and
"Not-A is not A." THEN, Because of the (standard working) definition of "god", a human being cannot be "god", because of the standard working definition of "human". Sic, "man is mortal".
Might it not be healthier to discard those damned Platonic boxes altogether; rather than trying to graft them into each other, to produce those crazy-making *tertium quids"?
Is all this too-far-gone from topic? Abe

Kenneth

If you had problems with it is because you were using your brain. As far as I know, no religion in the world was born and maintained by raional thinking. In fact, the unwritten rule--actually, it's more subtle than unwritten-- suspend belief.

Religion is quite like Superman. You are asked to suspend belief. You are asked to believe that such things are possible: that man can fly, that man can stop speeding train, that One plus One plus One is One.

It's a leap of faith, man.

And in this leap, there is only one crime: to think.

Or to question. God impregnated Mary with his "seeds." That sounds like abuse of power or--to the extremists--rape. But here again, you are asked not to think. God did not rape Mary because he is Gods. Our standard cannot be used to measure him.

But his standards are used to measure us.

If you think that isn't fair is because you are not listening. I shall repeat it again: in religion, you are not supposed to think.

spacedOut

Yeah, it seems my example does have an Arian feel to it, however I believe if you actually READ the New Testament the scriptures do support the Arian view over the Nicean. If the Arians had won, I guess Catholics wouldn't have need to pray to Mary since Jesus would still be the "intercessor" and not part of the God Blob.