rhutchin

Here's some protocol.

1. It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
2. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
3. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
4. Those whom he did foreknow, God also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Those whom God did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Deus Ex

Paul would have been a follower of Second-Temple Judaism and thus be strictly monotheistic. I can see Paul as believing Jesus was the divine agent of YHWH, but not YHWH himself.

Paul claims that Christ is subordinate to God:

I Corinthians 3:23
and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God

11:3
Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

Subordination is not equality.

Deus Ex

That seems very credulous to me. What methodology do you use to reject the claims from sacred scriptures that belong to other world religions?

How do you determine true scriptures from man-made false ones?

avi

(and not just within religion!!!)Plus throwing out the 613 commandments, and the circumcision, and the Jewish ancestry...
We can easily substitute Bhagavad Gita or Quran, or ..., etc..., for "Bible", and your sentence is equally valid, yet, unsatisfying, for it neither clarifies why people believe, given that they cannot understand what they read, nor justifies the irrational response of those ultimate true believers: suicide bombers-->those who would prefer to kill all nonbelievers, even at the cost of their own life.
"the Bible"...Hmm. Which one? Surely you don't mean to write THE bible, as though there were only one...

"alleged authors", oh? And who are they? when did they live, where did they write? How did they finance their penmanship?

"sources", gosh, which ones?

"true scriptures" = documents, like the Mormon gold tablets, that everyone must agree, had to have been written by God, else, how to explain their discovery here in North America?

avi

rhutchin

I don't think we should reject anything out of hand. Clearly, science has not found a way for the universe to appear one day where nothing existed before nor has it found a way for life to pop into existence from non-life nor has it shown that a one-celled animal can become a great variety of multi-celled animals. Thus, there is room for a non-natural solution to the existence of the universe and life.

So, we are confronted with a host of supernatural solutions to the existence of life. How do we determine what to "believe" or what to respect enough to think about believing? My first question is, So what? Why should I care? The Bible says that people are accountable to God for their actions and face judgment. That tells me that I should give some attention to the validity of the Bible's claims and do so for all other religions with similar claims. If a religion does not involve similar consequences, then it seems to me that it can be ignored. Once the religions that matter are identified, the second question is, What can I do about it? The Bible provides a solution. Therefore, I ought to give attention to what the Bible says.

Based on what I read in the Bible and from people who write about the Bible, the Bible seems credible to me.

rhutchin

THE Bible as in that collection of original writings corresponding to the copies that have been incorporated into the Bible that we have today. For our purposes, I think we can assume that what we have today is as close to the original as possible and nothing significant would change if we found the originals.

Those authors historically associated with the individual books. Many of those authors identify themselves and the time when they lived. Don't know how they financed their penmanship. If what they write is true, then the God they write about would have financed them in some way.

The manuscripts (texts) that have been found as well as quotes from those manuscripts in other documents.

Sure, you can throw them into the hopper as an addition along with the Koran.

rhutchin

So, your argument is that we should ignore all those passages in which Paul refers to Christ as Lord (which he would not do as one who is strictly monotheistic) and give priority to a couple of verses that you think refer to subordination.

Deus Ex

'Lord' is a title; it does not necessarily mean God. You conflate the two due to cultural conditioning. Guess what? King David was also referred to as the begotten son of God. Maybe David was also God?

Just like the term 'messiah' will mean something different to a Jew versus a Christian.

Lord does not equal God.

show_no_mercy

Philo, who was also a Jew (thus "strictly monotheistic" I suppose), talks about the "Word of God" as though it was a "second power" in heaven; distinct from God the Father.

Neither Paul nor Philo were popular among Jews. Both were gobbled up by apostates and Hellenistic Jews, however, who were a threat to Jewish monotheism since Maccabean times. These Hellenizers were restricted to the Diaspora after the monotheistic victory (celebrated by Hanukkah) of the Maccabees though.

Deus Ex

In other words, you are only concerned with the religions that claim you will be damned if you don't believe in them?

Sounds like you are picking a religion based on perceived self-interest with no regard for actual truth.

Islam claims you will be damned for rejecting the claims of the Quran--why do you disregard their threats? What method do you use to verify the truth of Paul's visions while determining that Muhammad's vision was false?

Why do you reject the claims of Hindus, Sikh's, Zoroastrians, etc.? Is it simply because they don't threaten with eternal punishment?