oldstudent

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Yes.
Jim

oldstudent

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The only falacy is your statement.
First, to be a follower of someone means one must follow that person and that person's teachings if applicable.
Second, to claim to be anyting is meaningless. It is by actions that you are shown to be what one claims to be. Example:
If I say I am a African by birth but have no African blood nor been born in Africa or have become a citizen of an African nation, I am not an African.
The Roman Empire "adopted" Christianity but never followed His teachings. So, in other words, the Roman Empire CLAIMED to be Christianized but never followed His teachings. By definition, it was never Christian.
Words mean things.

Jim

oldstudent

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OK.
I would disagree with the "democracy" label though. There are no democracies in the world now.

JIm

oldstudent

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Thank you for your opinion. It is noted.

Jim

oldstudent

[
How can abandoning a religious system that ruled during the Dark Age, and encouraged ignorance, such as threatening to kill Gallileo for daring to say planets orbited around the sun, which contradicted the wondeful bible, cause a return to those same dark ages?


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Too bad the Bible doesn't make that claim.

Jim

Amos

Are you perhaps one of those who would die for your faith in Jesus?

Sven

me:
Perhaps you don't understand what a "no true scotsman" fallacy really is. The inquisition consisted of many men who were sure that they followed the bible and that they were True Christians(TM) - if you think otherwise, that's only because the interpretation of your "Holy Bible" has changed the last few hundred years. Thus it remains false labelling them "no more Christian than an atheist ".

[snipped irrelevant examples]

Doctor X

Actually it does.

--J.D.

Radcliffe Emerson

IMO, this is more of Christians reinterpreting the bible because the claims made based on bible content are increasingly being proven false. It is fact the Catholic Church condemned Gallileo for going against the bible, when his and Copernicus' theories were later proven true.

The rise of Protestantism goes against god too, because Jesus specifically said his church would be built on Peter, and legend has Peter starting the Catholic faith. Peter and the other apostles were given their authority straight from the divine, so noone has the right to start up their own set of beliefs and expect it to be blessed by god.
Hence, the Catholic Church is the only true Christian church, based on these bible 'facts'.


And if this stuff was divinely inspired, it can't be re-interpreted. Any comment that 'god' wants us to reexamine the 'holy' words is just humans trying to hold on to myths.

It's the same thing as the other thread about 'god' talking to people. It's just their minds saying things in their head, not 'god'.

Amos

Except that Gallileo's error was to take the bible literally and to prove that the sun was the centre of the universe conflicts with the concept that God is the centre of the universe and when we become God (each (?) in our own special way), we will be the centre of the universe -- to say that we are in charge of our own destiny and have a free will.

So therefore the sun cannot be the centre of the universe if we potentially are the centre of the universe and to agree with Gallileo would be a heresy -- and now we can considder the apology made later as a slap in the face of the scientific community in effort to appease the masses.

Lets put it another way. If indeed the sun was the centre of the universe the question with regard to freewill and human destiny could never enter our mind, because, once again, free will is our destiny and once we know who we really are can it be said that we are in charge of our own destiny and therefore God. So now, if we potentially are the centre of the universe how can the sun be the permanent centre of the universe (do you not see the theological conflict in this?).

Oh, and Ralph, not Peter but the keen insight of Peter was to be the rock on which the Church would be built. This keen insight is called revelation and that has always been the basis for its tradition and the bible is second to that. It makes it a living religion and not a historically outdated legalistic enterprise.