J-D

To me, it seems as if that conclusion is based on the assumption that a movement 'belongs' to its leaders rather than to its followers. Specifically, in this case, that the 'pillars', as the established leaders of the movement, were entitled to define membership of the movement regardless of what anyone else thought. I think that assumption is an oversimplification.

(If your conclusion isn't based on that assumption, how do you arrive at it?)Sorry, you've lost me now. What's the point still at issue here?

Amaleq13

A movement "belongs" to the teachings and teachers who define it. You either join their movement by accepting those teachings or you do not.

Established leaders define a movement. Membership is defined by acceptance of the definition as referring to one's self.

I don't have time to indulge indolence. Review the thread and discover how you stated something that cannot be supported by a full reading of the text.

:wave:

No Robots

REG:
Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.:
Yeah...
JUDITH:
Splitters.
P.F.J.:
Splitters...
FRANCIS:
And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
LORETTA:
And the People's Front of Judea.
P.F.J.:
Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
REG:
What?
LORETTA:
The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG:
We're the People's Front of Judea!
LORETTA:
Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
REG:
People's Front! C-huh.
FRANCIS:
Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
REG:
He's over there.
P.F.J.:
Splitter!

--Life of Brian

J-D

I have to disagree with this. If the members of a democratically organised political party, for example, vote to change the leadership and to reject the policies of the existing leadership in favour of new ones, that doesn't mean the party has ceased to exist, or become a new one. The party has changed its leaders and its policies, but it's still the same party. The same can be true of other human organisations, including religious movements.

It looks to me that this disagreement may be the source of much of our confusion.Ah. Abuse.I thought you were saying that I had made the statement that 'Paul succeeded in establishing a link', while I was saying that I had never made such a statement. And if that was the point at issue, I was right and you were wrong. If you though there was some other point at issue, I still don't know what it was, not because I was unfamiliar with the content of the thread, but because of the cryptic structure of your most recent pronouncement.

spin

Never? This one isn't a hidden assumption of a question:

Hey, the word "succeeded" wasn't used. Whaddayaknow? He established a link, but he didn't "succeed"? Doh!

Too much ducking and weaving.

That appears what it's all about: keeping score.


spin

Amaleq13

Except you didn't. When the members voted to "change the leadership and to reject the policies of the existing leadership in favour of new ones", they have, contrary to your denial, established a new movement regardless of whether they retain the same name.

Only at the most superficial level of its name.

Hitting a couple keys to review a thread of which you've admittedly lost track is too much to ask?

Amen

J-D

OK, I'll put my hands up to that one. You're right.

I guess I started doing that in frustration with the difficulty I was experiencing in trying to induce you to define your position. Like I said, I'm interested in understanding your position, but you seem only to be interested in finding reasons to reject mine ...... you started it.

J-D

Like I said, I have to disagree with you.

Tell me this: do you think the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in your country are the same as the parties which originally used those names? If so, why? If not, when do you think the existing parties were founded?That wasn't the problem: I'd followed you up to that point, and then you took off in some new direction (or at least that's how it looked to me) that I didn't understand.

spin

I gave a clear position: linguistic sophistry that necessarily derives christianity from a real Jesus is facile and uninterested in evidence.

Because some people won't abandon errors unless something else is offered as a replacement, I provided one way for a convincing start to christianity without a real Jesus from a reading of Galatians, a reading based on Paul's claim to derive his theological knowledge not from anyone who came before, but from a vision. This is a plain indication of a christianity without the necessity of a real Jesus.

You came into this by restating the position which I found untenable:

the simplest explanation of Christianity is that it goes back to somebody, and any suppositious version of that somebody who is not Jesus is even less attested by evidence than Jesus and even less plausible.

You haven't made it any more tenable.

You have a track record of not remembering what you're on about, then accusing others of not understanding you. If you don't remember, how would you know that you are misunderstood?

Another case of your faulty memory.

Make your response your best parting shot.


spin

J-D

That's not a position on the subject at issue. It's simply an attempt to reject what you imagine (incorrectly, as it happens) my position to be.If that's an attempt to answer the question of the origin of Christianity, then it presupposes that that question is about the derivation of 'theological knowledge'. And that may legitimately be what you're interested in. But I'm talking about something else. It would be totally legitimate for you to say: 'the question you're interested in is not the question I'm interested in, and I have no interest in discussing it'. But it's not legitimate for you to try to straitjacket the question I'm interested in into the form of the question you're interested in.Unlike you, I discovered partway through that what you mean by 'Christianity' and 'the origin of Christianity' is something different from what I meant. I tried to rephrase my views to avoid this problem and achieve greater clarity, but you have chosen to regard this simply as evasion. In any case ...... supposing, for the sake of argument, I have modified my position. So what? Why shouldn't I? And what does it say if you are more interested in detecting supposed inconsistencies in my statements than in finding out how, on reflection and after the discussion, I would define my position now?Why? You get to decide how and when you finish posting to this thread; I get to decide how and when I finish posting to this thread.