Nom

Actually, Constantine kicked out those to whom the Unitarians trace their roots. But if you don't agree with that, don't blame me, I'm just the messenger. Take it up with Unitarian Rev. Lisa Ward, whose paper on the subject I linked to on page 3.
Sure.
And my opinion remains, that if posters like you, Mageth, and Tristan are correct, the answer is, "who cares?" If one can believe whatever one wants about Jesus and still remain a Christian, how is Jesus' existence or mythology important? Aren't folks like Lee Strobel and Earl Doherty just wasting their time on a tangential nonissue? If you're right, isn't the question trivial?
While that's true, I contend that your choice of paths is limited if you still want to call yourself Christian. For example, if a person chooses to believe that Jesus was simply a wise teacher but not a divine being, you would say (if I intrepret you correctly) that this belief is compatible with Christianity. However, it's also compatible with virtually any other religion. One can be Christian-Moslem-Jew. If (and this jumps ahead a bit) we do as Mageth suggests and include pre-Nicean Christian sects in the definition, things only get more absurd: now, thanks to the Gnostic Christians (some of whom believed in as many as 365 gods) and the Marcionite Christians (who said there were 2), we have to abandon the description of Christianity as monotheistic! Thus, the most you can say to define a Christian is "someone who believes in a god or gods." That's not a definition of Christian, that's the definition of theism.
Welcome back, Mageth. You're quite right, and if you want a good read on the subject, pick up a copy of Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities.
Also quite true -- but the basic belief in Jesus as divine was not one of the points of dissention. What I'm pointing out here is the least common denominator; an absolute minimal definition of Christian.
I never said the Nicene Creed was a "slam-dunk definition of Christianity." My point is that despite the many changes the creed has undergone, the divinity of Jesus (part of the creed but not the whole creed) has remained consistent. Again, I'm simply proposing a minimum definition of Christian, one which excludes Judiasm, Islam, Hinduism, etc., yet casts the widest possible net across the many denominations of Christianity. And the fundamental point of differentiation (of Christianity v. everything else) is the divinity of Jesus.
Again, I never set the Nicene Creed as the definition of Christian; I said that, as per this and all subsequent creeds, you had to believe Jesus was divine to be a Christian.

But let's consider the Gnostic Christians, and the Marcionite Christians and the Ebionite Christians, too. The argument against calling the Ebionites Christian (because they believed in an earthly, Davidic messiah rather than a divine Christ) has already been made by capnkirk here: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=75235 and I defer to his expertise on that subject. As for the Gnostics and Marcionites, per Ehrman, the Marcionites and some Gnostics believed that Jesus was fully divine -- so fully divine that he'd actually had to fake his suffering on the cross! Other Gnostics saw Jesus as a man possesed by the divine Christ, this possessor leaving briefly so Jesus could die on the cross, and then returning, reinhabiting him, and raising him from the dead. While both these intrepretations were eventually labeled heretical, it's noteworthy that neither denies divinity; the question is just over its precise mechanism.
So an atheist like me, who thinks there are a few good ideas in what Jesus (allegedly) had to say, can be a Christian? What's the difference between atheism and Christianity, then?

Mageth

Perhaps you can ask the Atheists for Jesus. (Note: I am not endorsing the views of this website; actually, I've only read snippets of it, and they don't seem to claim to be "Christians").

From our reference desk (the Logic FAQ) comes this description of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy:

Suppose I assert that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. You counter this by pointing out that your friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge. I then say "Ah, yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

What you are asserting is essentially that no Christian believes that Jesus was not Divine. I (or we) counter this by pointing out that my friend (or someone I know of) who self-identifies as a Christian does not believe Jesus was divine. You then say "Ah, yes, but no True Christian believes Jesus was not divine."

A "No True Scotsman" argument, no matter how you cut it.

godfry n. glad

Seems clear to me.

Angus is not a true Scotsman, assuming that not placing sugar on one's porridge is one of the true definitional boundaries for determining who's a Scotsman and who isn't. (Which I doubt.)

Your friend is not a true Christian.

What else need you know?


godfry

funinspace

<sarcasm>I guess I will need these refrains next time</sarcasm> Yes the Unitarians do seem to agree with the common usage of the term Christianity. I just found it funny to use Unitarians to help defend a term meaning...lol

The re-reading of the post was to jostle us back to who was this man/god named Jesus to you as an individual, not what's in a label. Either way I think both views have been well aired. To me it's simply a word which has gone thru alot of permutations. Who cares? Evidently alot of people that still choose to identify with the label while still denying the divinity of Jesus. People have lots of strange interests, it's not mine to care why. Maybe something like Gnostic Christian will make a comback in the future so people will not confuse terms.

DK

Tristan Scott

Unitarian Universalists may just consider themselves Unitarians, but Biblical Unitarians consider themselves Christians.

Nom

Yup, that's a "no true Scotsman" argument all right. What it isn't is the argument at hand. Let's go through it:

What you are asserting is essentially that no Christian believes that Jesus was not Divine.

No, what I am saying is that Christian doctrine plainly states that Jesus was divine. I'm making no assertions as to what this or that individual Christian believes, I'm simply pointing out what their own rules say they're supposed to believe.

I (or we) counter this by pointing out that my friend (or someone I know of) who self-identifies as a Christian does not believe Jesus was divine.

Then there are 3 possibilities:
1) your friend is ignorant of the tenets of his or her own faith;
2) your friend knows the tenets of his or her own faith, but chooses to disbelieve in Jesus' divinity and still call him/herself a Christian. This is a logical contradiction. Your friend is either 2a) delusional (simultaneously affirming two contradictory beliefs) or 2b) being intellectually dishonest (i.e. lying).
You have a gift for saying what in one sentence what it takes me three paragraphs to spit out.
Arrrggghhh! Sorry, my bad, apparently my irony meter's circuit breaker tripped unnoticed .
Exactly. And I think the reason you get so much interest, discussion and controversy over Jesus' existence/nonexistence and divinity/humanity is precisely because of the basic tension between the two contradictory positions: I'm a Christian but Jesus wasn't God.
You are absolutely right. However, since they also believe in Jesus' divinity, that's not a problem. See:
http://www.biblicalunitarian.com/htm...rticle&sid=113

Mageth

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nom
No, what I am saying is that Christian doctrine plainly states that Jesus was divine. I'm making no assertions as to what this or that individual Christian believes, I'm simply pointing out what their own rules say they're supposed to believe.

That's what orthodox Christian doctrine claims, and I'm a bit puzzled as to why you wish to grant them the benefit of the doubt of excluding those with unorthodox beliefs from self-identifying as "Christians". That's the question to me - does holding the "unorthodox" doctrine that Jesus was not divine preclude one from being called a Christian, or calling yourself a Christian? Perhaps the answer to this is that there are "orthodox" Christians who believe Jesus was divine and "unorthodox" Christians who do not.

Note that even the "orthodox" claim of divinity has had several different interpretations - some believe that Jesus was God, but don't believe in a Trinity; some believe that Jesus was human but given divinity during or after his life (typically somewhat below God's divinity); and some (the most "orthodox") believe that Jesus was the Son of God, one member of the Trinity, and pre-existed his human life; etc. Note that many of these categories will deny that the others are "true Christians" because of their particular belief in regards to divinity.

The three exemplary views on Jesus' divinity I listed above appear to be as contradictory and exclusive as the divine-vs-nondivine split to me.

Then there are 3 possibilities:
1) your friend is ignorant of the tenets of his or her own faith;
2) your friend knows the tenets of his or her own faith, but chooses to disbelieve in Jesus' divinity and still call him/herself a Christian. This is a logical contradiction. Your friend is either 2a) delusional (simultaneously affirming two contradictory beliefs) or 2b) being intellectually dishonest (i.e. lying).

You, of course, leave out the possibility that they are Christians in spite of their lack of belief in the divinity of Jesus, that the "tenets" of their particular faith does not include the divinity of Jesus as a necessary belief.

godfry n. glad

Since this thread is hopelessly off-topic from it OP, I feel justified at making a lame attempt at humor. To whit:

"What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian Universalist?"

Anybody?

godfry

BATERBOY

Yes, the website I gave said that the people of Japha, a town wiped out by the Romans in 67CE, used to bury their dead at the site where Nazareth is today. It also said that Josephus, in his histories of the 60's CE wars, mentions Japha, which was only 1 mile southwest of where Nazareth is today, and 45 other cities and villages throughout Galilee but not Nazareth. He even lived in Japha for a while.
The site also states that some families resettled there in 135 AD, after the Bar Kochbar War and named it Nazareth. It evidently did not last that long because Empress Helena went looking for it in the early 4th century and could only find an ancient well, the only water source for the area, not nearly enough to sustain a city, she named it Mary's Well and built a basilica over it, this was the first church in the area. Why the writers of Mark picked Nazareth for Jesus' hometown, according to the website, is because Nazareth, in Hebrew, means the poor, and cited Matthew 5-3.

Mr. Bird

In "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" Price briefly discusses the "from Nazareth" issue (pgs. 53-54):

Price mentions that there seems to be no record of a town called Nazareth before the 3rd century but does not go into specifics. He then goes on to discuss a Jewish sect known as “Nazoreans� that existed at the time. Reading this part left me with the impression that we are dealing with either a mistranslation or a misinterpretation.

Price’s final sentence in this “Son of Nazareth?� section:

Regarding the previous post on Josephus not mentioning Nazareth in his roster of towns in Galilee, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Roman historian Pliny failed to mention Naz as well in his list (which predates Josephus, no?). Would have to see if I could find the reference.

KD