Classical

Please, I was not referring to you. There is one very pesky person in the EOG forum that makes a meaningful discourse almost possible. I would like to hear more from you. :wave:

Ahab

Sorry, Classical, but it seems that you are still follwoing the propaganda fundies hand out about being the only true believers.

Follwoing that kind of logic all real christians should flock back to the catholic church. After all Luther, Calvin, etc. were just follwoing a new watered down version and rebelling against the original version. Just like Peter and others accused Paul of rebelling against the original version to preach his watered down version.

Classical

But wait, Ahab. Did I not just examine a non-fundie definition of being a christian? It still appears to me that there are certain items which need to be believed in order to qualify as a christian.

Luther and Calvin, etc. didn't water down much. They kept all the basics as far as I can tell. They kept the doctrine of original sin, god sending his son to redeem mankind, etc. What they rejected were the abuses of the catholic church and the "extra-scriptural" practices going on, like praying to the saints, etc.

newtype_alpha

Luther and Calvin did a hell of alot more than that, Classical. An entire divergent line of theology arrose in Luther, which gradually evolved to an inreasingly more divergant branch of Christianity that today only resembles Catholicism in some of the basics. At this point in history, Protestants are as different from Catholics as Mormons are from Protestants. Such is the nature of religious evolution; every new innovation can be considered unorthodox, perhaps even heretical. Some groups of early Christians even believed that Jesus did not exist as a physical being, but as a spiritual manifestation of a particular deity. Some (the gnostics and Marcionists for instance) even believed that the god of the Old Testemant was a malevolent, innept god to whom Jesus had absolutely no relation whatsoever. Despite these odd sects of Christianity (some of which survive even to this day) they are still generally considered Christians, since the central figure of their religion is the man called Christ.

You see this kind of variation in all religions. Alawite Muslims beleive the Prophet Muhammed and Imam Ali are part of a repeating cycle of a Holy Trinity (Jesus, Peter and Paul were also a manifestation of the trinity). Some Jews believe that the coming Messiah is immanent, others beleive that there is no actual "messiah" and that what is expected is actually a "messianic age," and that the messiah is not a singular person but a universal spirit of good will and peace and harmony that will spread to all mankind. Some Jews even believe that Jesus was the Messiah although his first coming was not the one prophecied in the Tanakh. I've met Christians who believe Muhammed was a true prophet and Muslims who believe Joe Smith was a true prophet. No matter how rigid one's religious beliefs are supposed to be, the variations therein will always be massive within the group.

Only fundies--and I emphasize, ONLY FUNDIES--will/have ever attempted to descriminate to the point that, "thse people, while similar to <insert religion here> are not actually <insert religion here> because they have a false doctrnie." That is why they are called "fundamentalists." They emphasize the "fundamentals" of the religion, and any deviation from what they see as the fundamentals is considered apostasy.

Ahab

Correct me if I am wrong, but you are characterizing that liberal version as being watered down. Implying that somehow it is not authentic christianity. That's the same BS fundies keep spouting off without being able to substantiate it either historically or even by reference to the supposed word of God. You seem (unfortuantely) to be surrounded by fundies where you live, so it should be easy for you to ask them to substantiate with scripture their literalistic interpretation of that scripture. They can't do it.
What I'm trying to get at here is that it is all human interpretation. So if a liberal christian believes that Jesus' death was meant to be taken as a sign of God's love and not some kind of literal erasure of original sin they are no more 'watering down' christianity than the fundy. It is all just interpretation done by humans.


No, they may have kept many of the same words but they came to a different interpretation of what those words meant. Do you realize how differently present day christians interpret the meaning of something like 'original sin'?

I'm not trying to argue for or against one type of Christianity. Personally I think the fundie interpretation is just as valid or authentic a form of christianity as the liberal or mystical interpretations. I just think it a mistake for a non-bleliever to accept that one of those types really is the true christianity and the other types are watered down or inauthentic.

Ahab

Good point. Most of the more traditional believers will recognize that there can be some disagreement over many importatnt church doctrines. But when you ge to the fundies, they not only insist on adhering to those doctrines but also that they have to be interpreted in a very literalistic fashiion with the 'correct' understanding or one cannot be a true believer.

Wiploc

Unless Christianity is true, there can't be a right way to do it. In other words, one opinion of what it takes to be Christian is just as good as another.

crc

Rational BAC

Edited out for wrong place inserted.

Sometimes this forum goes too fast.

Rational BAC

[QUOTE=Ahab]Correct me if I am wrong, but you are characterizing that liberal version as being watered down. Implying that somehow it is not authentic christianity. That's the same BS fundies keep spouting off without being able to substantiate it either historically or even by reference to the supposed word of God. You seem (unfortuantely) to be surrounded by fundies where you live, so it should be easy for you to ask them to substantiate with scripture their literalistic interpretation of that scripture. They can't do it.
What I'm trying to get at here is that it is all human interpretation. So if a liberal christian believes that Jesus' death was meant to be taken as a sign of God's love and not some kind of literal erasure of original sin they are no more 'watering down' christianity than the fundy. It is all just interpretation done by humans.

Bingo--- Very good post.

Classical

We need to back up just a bit, so you can see where I am coming from. Your responses are very substantial and knowledgable and I desire to keep going in this discussion.

A little background: I was recruited by the fundies at age 10, dedicated my life to the mission field at 12, was a religious fanatic until 22, realized I was gay at age 24 and stopped and said "wait a second, here." Started really questioning my religion by age 26, turned deist at age 29 after much reading, especially Thomas Paine, then later agnostic and now atheist and have written a book about my deconversion.

As I was deconverting, I was struggling to stay a christian and I explored other ways of being a christian than they way I was taught by the fundies to understand it. In the end, after an enormous amount of reading centuries worth of writings from many different christians, all of it seemed the same to me, whether it was baptist, methodist, catholic, or you name it. All I could see were DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES, some very major, some minor, some in between, but it still appeared to me that there had to be some core beliefs in order to qualify as "christian" and no matter who was saying it, I didn't believe it any more.

We are in total agreement here.

Every christian of every denomination I've ever had contact with believes that Jesus death was a sign of god's love and herein lies the problem for me. How could a brutal slaughter of god turning himself into a human being and dying and then being resurrected very soon afterwards to float right back up to heaven have a thing to do with love? This is utter nonsense to me and it seems to me that all christians AT LEAST believe this much.

The version that gets rid of the "doubt and be damned" part seems pretty watered down to me. What is the rationale for jesus dying in the first place if it had no purpose? :huh:

I asked the friend I keep mentioning about this. He is going to sell his business and go into the episcopal priesthood, that's how serious he is. At easter he said he believed in the resurrection whole-heartedly, and said jesus willingly laid down his life for us - it was NOT a sacrifice. I said: "well, why? why did he have to do that?" His response: "I'm getting a headache and I really don't want to talk about this anymore." True story.

This leaves me to believe that all christians, no matter how much they dispute the specifics with each other, all come up very short.