No Robots

You certainly do dismiss Spinoza's method of Bible interpretation. You say, "Spinoza was not in a position to know anything about the characteristics of ancient Hebrews," and accuse him of eisegesis. You state, "textual analysis has developed enormously since Spinoza's day and you should probably get an update in the various fields including linguistics and philology," yet you do not provide any examples of recent work in linguistics and philology that might provide insights into the Bible, and certainly no evidence that Spinoza has been superceded. All you say is, "I mean your appeal to authority presupposes that you know something about modern analyses," but you never actually mention any modern analyses. Perhaps you should reflect upon your own dictum: "Closed systems have no quality control."

eheffa

Ha...

Elijah: You're kidding Right? Have you ever read the Apostles' Creed? You don't suppose that might represent some approximation of mainstream Christianity?

Nah...better just hang on to your much more sophisticated cartoon-free version of Christianity.:Cheeky:

-evan

No Robots

You do know that the creeds were formulated precisely to deal with divisions of opinion?

Elijah

And your understanding of the words in the Creed matter somewhat as well.

But keep sticking to rejecting that cartoon version of Christianity.

spin

And I don't.

First you need to understand the notion before you can try to apply it. But thanks for recycling it. As to Spinoza, why don't you give him a rest and stop bashing him long enough to learn something about the languages and customs of the biblical periods in order to make your own analyses?


spin

JES

What did Mark Twain say? ""It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

I've dug quite a bit, made a missionary woman cry in an Adult Sunday class for suggesting that the entire Genesis story was myth based on much older texts. She just couldn't believe that someone would question the literal Garden of Eden.

Was in a church last month that was advertising a week-long program for kids to teach YEC and defend against the public school teaching of evolution. There is a concerted effort in this country to promote YEC and ID, you just have to know where to look. Take a look at the AIG creation museum for example.

Are all people automatically part of this New Day? You speak of judgement, what are we judged on? by what standards?

Is this similiar to the book the Secret? Whatever you focus on will transpire in your life?

I can't discard a talking snake? or a worldwide flood story that seems to be based on stories written a thousand year ealier?

I would agree with you that most Christians have a very shallow understanding of their own beliefs and if you press them and ask probing questions they can't articulate why they believe what they believe. But I would also argue that most Christians seem to have very similiar beliefs and they are quite different from yours.

patcleaver

The purpose of creeds is to divide the faithful from the heretics so we know who to burn alive at the stake.

I think that the earliest evidence for the Apostles Creed is 9th century. Some think its origin is ancient because it does not assert that Jesus was divine or that the Holy ghost is divine. The original Nicene creed of 325 did not claim that Jesus existed at any particular time or place and did not claim that the Holy Ghost was divine, but the Nicene-Constantinople creed of 381 claims that Jesus lived in Judea at the time of Pilot and that both Jesus and the Holy Ghost were divine. However, like all creeds it is a summary of theological points that the author thought were important in his time, so there are lots of things that Christians generally believe that are not in that creed or any other creed. Thus, there is little reason to think that it predated the 9th century.

Original Nicene Creed of 325:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth]; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not;' and 'He was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or 'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable' — they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.

Elijah

Saying it’s a myth based on older texts is much more then saying it isn’t meant to be literal.
It’s a pretty small effort. I live in Kansas and they are trying to do the whole teach ID thing but it’s coming from a small vocal minority. It used to be before 2000 everyone was after the rapture nuts and I never heard mention of the YEC’s but after the rapture nuts had to take a break after the millennium it was time to find a new religious type to ridicule, enter the YEC’s, but maybe they were just under my radar.
As Paul said a resurrection of both the just and unjust.

You are judged by what you did that you shouldn’t have and what you didn’t do that you should have. There is no standard, there is only results. Did you hurt or help those around you? If you hurt them or killed them then the day of resurrection is going to be a bad day for you. But if you were helpful and left loved ones then the day of resurrecting is going to be a rewarding situation. The day of resurrection is going to be very different for someone who sacrificed their lives for loved ones and someone who killed or ruled over people in theirs.
No this is similar to Elijah calling fire down. The faith to move mountains. Mark 11:22 But I only know the “Secret” from second hand conversation so I can’t be for sure what exactly they are teaching.
I wouldn’t. I would try to understand what the snake represents and not imagine a meaningless cartoon scene. The water event did probably happen at the last great melting time. As the ice shelf melted raising the water up it displaced any humans that lived near the sea. This was a major event/changing in our history, you should recognize what it would have done to the cultures but don’t take it literally as animals getting on a boat in twos or water going over mountain tops. Hold it in the context of reality; don’t just throw everything away that couldn’t be real.
Too sweeping of a statement about similar beliefs unless you are just talking about Christians who haven’t thought about it then yes the kid version is pretty similar from one kid to another. But yes my understanding doesn’t line up with many people straight up… usually a piece here and there and off everyplace else.

Toto

This discussion - of what modern Christians believe - is getting a bit far from the subject matter of this forum. Please consider starting a new thread in GRD.

aa5874

Well, let me answer you again. I regard the Jesus stories presented by the NT and church writers as fiction until some other non-apologetic evidence can be found to contradict me.

What you believe or imagine about Jesus is irrelevant to my position unless you can provide a non-apologetic source of antiquity to examine

Now, as I have suggested you need to read sources of antiquity to find out what Jesus believers considered to be plausible.

For example, The Jesus believer called Marcion and his followers, according to the church writers, thought it was plausible and true that Jesus was just [n]only the son of a God greater than the God of the Jews who only seemed real or a phantom.



The Jesus believer called Cerinthus and his followers, according to the church writers, thought it was pausible and true that Jesus was only human, and was not a son of a God.

The Jesus believer called Irenaeus, according to the author, wrote that it was plausible and truethat Jesus was the son of the God of the Jews, born of a virgin, resurrected and ascended through the clouds and witnessed by Mary, his disciples and thousands of followers.

Irenaeus and other church writers claimed it was a lie from the devil that Jesus could have ever been human alone, the church writers claimed it was a lie from the devil that Jesus was only a God not human.

Since Jesus believers for almost 2000 years cannot determine through plausibilty the origin of their Jesus, I will reject yours until some other credible non-apologetic source of antiquity can be found.



But you are using [b]figurative non-literal statements as the basis for your "historical core". You believe that the figurative non-literal Jesus was on earth during the days of Tiberius.

The conception of Jesus was non-literal, yet you believe this non-literal entity lived.

The temptation of Jesus, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the miracles, the transfiguration, the resurrection, the ascension were all figurative and non-literal, the virtual complete history of Jesus is all figurative, yet you still believe Jesus LITERALLY lived.