Mr. Logic

Hi Spitfire, btw, if you spit on fire, won't that put it out? So, maybe I am not that crazy about your name either! <s> Kidding, but I can tell you that Religionists are usually the ones complaining about my Handle while trying to defend their beliefs based on "Everybody says" as if that if proof.
I appreciate your admitting that "forced" was not a good word to use, but It is the Spirit that I see out there, and it doesn't matter if it is coming from "Believers" or those like yourself. I love for others to express their opinions, except Celebs. They say whatever they want and there is no rebuttal heard from the other side.
God Bless America right?
I believe that your "forced" was a Freudian slip. The Scriptures dealt with this centuries ago, and called it "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks"!

Just had to point that out, but I do respect that you admitted that you were wrong, about that word. Thanks!
Admitting to error and growing is important. I don't get a lot of that from Religionists so I was kind of shocked to hear you admit it. Refreshing really!

I don't have a problem admitting error, because if I don't then I will stay wrong, and what is the point of trying to correct someone else if I won't take correction myself.

Anywho! Going back a thousand years would mean talking to most "Christians" (who would be under the totalitarian RCC System) would be little diff. than talking to Christians today, except for the being burned at the stake thingy! <s>
Today, as back then, they still think that the "Bible" (a word never used in scripture) IS the Word of God (per say) and that Jesus commanded what is obviously a Pagan incantation (Dip and chant with 3 names). With all of the freedom that we have to seek the truth and all of the tools on software and concordances, and lexicons, etc. they still believe this handed down dogma that is just the opposite of what scripture teaches.

BTW, I always find it interesting when People say that such and such doctrine wasn't taught until many centuries after the Church began. Do you think that a Catholic Political system might have had something to do with this?
That dispensational ism wasn't taught during the RCC reign of Nonsense is proof of what? Grace by faith is clearly taught all over the scriptures by the man that established most of the churches, yet that wasn't taught for centuries. So am I say that I am not reading what I am clearly reading so that I can believe centuries of RCC control, by force using Armed Soldiers who would make you wish that you had never opened your mouth?

Still think that I should give up my handle of Mr. Logic? Who is being logical on this issue! By the way, is it logical to praise James who goes on and on about works when he didn't establish churches or Paul who down played our works while establishing one after another?

Spitfire

Are you one of those crazy people who insists that atheism is a religion, but then says that Christianity is not a religion? That you call me a "religionist" as though religion is a bad thing makes me think that we aren't going to be able to have much of a discussion if we can't even agree on the definition of certain words which are central to the issue here.

For your information, however, the Catholic Church does and always has taught that we are justified by our faith in Jesus Christ and that no amount of good works apart from that can avail one to salvation.

"If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema." - Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Canon I

"If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema." - Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Canon X

James did not deny the necessity of faith, he expanded the definition of faith for those who had a flawed understanding of what it meant to have faith in Christ. Considering how Paul's epistles exhort us to abhor sin, work good to all men, and put away anger, malice and indecency. It is very clear to me that he agrees with James that claiming to have faith does not mean anything unless one also demonstrates that one has faith. James was also the patriarch of the church in Jerusalem. Why did the Jews have churches if the Jews weren't supposed to be part of the Church? Why do we care anymore about who is Jewish and who is not and what was written to whom when we owe our loyalty to Christ "Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all, and in all?" (Colossians 3:11)

"And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15,16)

Chili

Would they not be called Catholic if they were burning the self proclaimed Christians at the stake?

Exactly, churches are for believers until they become Christians while James was busy as a prowling wolf wearing the cloak of a Christian. And yes, he obviously got you where he wants you to be. (no sarcasm here).

Mr. Logic

Well, illogical as you say I am, I did prove that you used a word already that wasn't a true assessment, correct?
I wasn't calling You a Religionist, btw. I was trying to say that I talk more "Religionists" than anyone and they rarely admit to error on anything!
It was a compliment! Sorry if I didn't make that clear!

I don't use the word "Religionists" for Atheists, although if it walks like a Duck! <s>
"Christianity" says "We are under grace by faith", but then they add "But the law is there too" which doesn't fit and it an absolute contradiction. When a Person can't be trusted they need the law. When they later turn their life around (repent) and can be trusted, why would they still need a tether around their ankle just because they needed one before?

Now, are Atheists any different? "There are NO absolutes" and "There is no God"! Hmm! That is a profession of faith! Do you honestly think that this is logical?
Isn't "There is no God" an absolute statement?
One of the Men that discovered the DNA molecule researched how possible it was and it was unthinkable according to his own scientific data. He then stated that if he came down to believing in the impossible or a Creator, he would believe the impossible. So how is believing the impossible over scientific data, science and not religion? Religion by definition is superstition and blind faith.
The word "Religion/Religious, etc." is only seen 7 times in the N.T.
Is it a coincidence that James uses it 3 times out of the 7 times used, in his short 5 chapter book, and in the possitive sense, which Paul uses it in the neg. the other 4? Yet, another problem with James! They don't end!

The RCC has said a lot of things, many of them contradictory! Not all Catholics believe the same things, and that is why some are Liberal and some Conservative, so the statement that THEY have always taught the same is pretty much impossible. In fact, the reason that so many People don't have a prob. with James is that he wasn't out to get Paul. The facts show that he was a Moderate Judaizer, but a Segregationalist just the same.

If you bail on this debate don't feel bad. You won't be the first! They Greek Speaking Guys didn't hang around long after I proved them in error. If you don't think that the DNA Guy was promoting his Religion, then maybe we won't have much to discuss, but that would be because you are unwilling to admit that you might have more in common with Religionists than you want to admit! It would scare me! <s>
Anyway thanks for the dialog! Gotta Run, I am helping my Psychiatrist Buddy (An Atheist) out with a home project.

Chris Weimer

As a fellow atheist, I profess both the following statements: "There are no absolutes" and "There are no gods".

The latter, of course, depends on the definition of god, and is subject to the first statement, while the first statement itself is subject to itself.

Have fun with that logic, Mr. Logic.

Chili

I agree with that because truth has no absolute while beauty does as the continuity of truth.

Hmmm, let me see if I can say that better. If man is not absolute it is because the image of man can improve man, as in "you will do greater things."

Chili

. . . while yet Mary is the perfect image of mortal beauty.

Spitfire

Honestly, I don't see where you proved me wrong about anything. I had to clarify that I don't and never did oppose your right to say whatever you want (however nonsensical though I may consider it to be,) I was just expressing my exasperation at what qualifies as "logic" in the minds of some people (dispensationlists in particular.) Though if your position is that James was out of line to write what he did, and not that what he wrote is true but doesn't apply to us, then maybe you aren't a dispensationalist after all though a lot of what you have been saying sounds very similar. Though that would leave you with the whole book of Matthew to contend with.

When James wrote that faith without works is dead, he meant all faith, the kind Paul wrote of. He did not mean that it is not enough to have faith because one must have works too. He meant that faith without works is no faith at all. Why assume that James and Paul had different definitions of faith? Certainly Christ, in whom there is neither Jew nor gentile, did not intend for faith to mean one thing to Jews and something else to gentiles. I, like many, many generations of Christians before me, see no contradiction.

According to whose definition? Personally, I find Merriam Webster's definition of the word to be fairly well in alignment with how I think of it. Why is your definition different from theirs? If you actually mean superstition, why don't you call it superstition? I also have always understood "religionism" to mean something a bit different than what you interpret it to mean - I learned that a religionist is a person who tries to give the outward appearance of being religious but does not actually believe in any of it or try to live up to his or her own religion's standards, not a person who is (wrongly) religious.

Why do you consider James a segregationalist? Because his one epistle in the Bible was written to Jews? That doesn't mean he held gentiles to different standards. That doesn't even imply that he did.


Okay, before you pat yourself on the back for "winning" another "debate," let me clarify why I consider debates with people like you to be completely and utterly pointless, even if this were a more appropriate place for it. As I said before, I don't think there is much chance of a meaningful discussion (much less a debate) unless some premises can first be established which everyone agrees on. That is not possible when we can't even agree on the definition of certain key words. Like "Christian," for example. That is always the problem. I hear all the time about who isn't Christian and why but then when I ask what precisely does make one a Christian, I get some vague, evasive non-answer, which often rambles on over many paragraphs as though to trick anyone who reads it into assuming that he or she must have answered the question somewhere in all that even if one can't pinpoint exactly where. And, if by those scare-quotes you mean to imply that one ought not seek to consider oneself a Christian in the first place, I would still need some clear definition of what the word means to you and why it means that to you before we could proceed. When we're old and grey, bickering over semantics will have availed us absolutely nothing.


I am a religious person. I practice religion. I believe that Christianity is a religion, and that religious belief is salutary and even necessary. If that makes me a religionist according to you, then I do not deny it. Though, once again, it seems to me that you invent your own ad hoc definitions for a lot of words.

Chili

Spitfire, you make a good point on the definition of Christian. In the comfort of the "argument from opposites" I hold that a Christian has the mind of Christ and therefore is in heaven where there are no temples to be found.

Let me add here that Jesus was not [fully] Christ until after his crucifixion and was never addressed as Christ in any of the four Gospels until he was raised. Accordingly, it was the keen insight of Peter who recognized Jesus as the messiah that made him worthy to be the rock of faith on which the new religion would be built for Catholics who do not yet have the mind of Christ but have the precious gift of faith that is built upon the insight of Peter.

This insight was gathered on the right side of his mind where the fish were easy to catch and large enough to feed a multitude of believers because it speaks on behalf of truth-without-end.

Mr. Logic

O.K. so there are NO absolutes, and NO means NO, unless you are dealing with belief in a God or God's then there ABSOLUTELY ARE NONE of them! Humm!
Very logical, I must admit, NOT!!! <s>
While on the subject, why don't you explain how 2 plus 2 could also be 5!

If you give a math problem to someone in China, with huge numbers, and they take their time and be careful, they will get the same EXACT/ABSOLUTE answer! If you can't agree with this then don't wonder why others think that your belief is akin to blind faith religion.

Thanks, and btw, I'm having a blast! An ABSOLUTE blast! <s>