Vinnie

You do know that history and theology are not the same thing, correct?

Vinnie

B. H. Manners

I'm from Texas, and a WHOLE lot of folks are aware of what he said. they just don't want to cause "family trouble" by coming out and saying it openly.

Metacrock

Meta =>So to you all religion is a conspiracy? So you got hold of some Fuererbach and you think you have a bold new innovative idea? I was an atheist, I was a Marxist, I was an anti-war protester agains the vietnam war when I was 12 years old. I worked in the central Amreica solidiarty movement for eight years. I've read more Marx, Troski, Furerbach, Gramsci, and Mandel than you will ever read. Obviously I've thought about it.

But there is a subtext to relgious history that you are just ignoring. It's just as elaborate and just as pwerful, and deserves to be thoguht of as the religious legacy of the west as does the other. That one includes Dorothy Day (Catholic worker movment) and Albert Schweitzher, and Shindler and all the other chrisitaians who gave their lives to eliviating suffering and fighting tyranny. So that is groundless and peranoid charge.

To accept Jesus, to accept God's grace through the mediation of Christ's atonement is transformative and offers a power for living which resolves the basic human problematic. The proof of that is in actually doing it, actually receiving it, not in historical arguments.



Meta => the glass is half full!why do you refuse to look at the Christians of Lo Chambo who gave their lives to hide Jews from the Nazis?

It works, and the proof that it works is in the pudding. Because it works we can be fairly sure that the testimony given is accurate



Meta =>When I say it works, I don't mean that it works as a fulfillment of Marx or Stalin or even Degaul. I mean it works on an idividual level as a transformative agent existentially. But you know, the only reason it isn't growing in America is about Americans are 90% identified with it anyway. It's got 2 bil people world wide, larger than any other group or religion except races, and it's growing in developing contries. It's not growing in Eruope because Eruopean notions of civliation have been jaded by two world wars, and the French wont let go of pop art, and the Italians refuse to try and remeber the Renaissance, and the Germans never did understand anything other than theology. Seperated from their theological roots all they offer is us cars and watches.




Not only are the actions of Jesus reflective of the divine in such enstances as forgiving the woman caught in adultery

Meta, you know this is a later invention...




Meta =>The whole point of my post was that this doesn't matter. Stop looking at the minutia and try for the big picture. Besides, I would like to you try and prove that is a latter addition.



That God would be willing to die for the sins of humanity and to die as one of the lowest in the social order demonstrates that God is on our side and is willing to identify with our lot, which is what solidarity is all about. Now never mind the fact that "it didn't hurt cause he was God" and silly arguments like that. The point is that it is a clear expression of God's willingness to identify with us


Meta =>You don't think death is a shared experiece? We all die, how could God ignore death and pretend to be in solidarity? you speak of the brutality and horrors of human history and yet you can't face them. You can't accept the fact that this is a universal aspect of the human conditon. but you ignore the other side of the coin because you are determined not to look at belief in a positive light. There is also resurrection; and is the symbol of hope and future. It's a dialectic. God = thesis; Jesus = anti-thesis (because regjected by God) resurrection (by God) = synthesis, hope and future which we share in.








Meta =>Ah! so it's debasement you fear? you can't worhsip God because your ego is too great. that's an old story. But the part about intolerance is just plain bull. You simpley refuse to look at the great humanitarian things that christitians does and inspires, you prefur the negative. You would rather live in a negative world of hopelessness.









Meta =>total misunderstanding about the nature of the divine, of humanity and of logic and necessity. God is limited by our free will because our abliity to make moral choices outweighs everything else. So we are given that choicce, and that means we choose badly sometimes and need redeeption, which God offers out of pure Grace. Which you reject because you want a world of hopelessness. Stop dwelling on the negative and try looking at the light rather than quibbeling over the color of the glass!

Besies, atonement is the post positive thing God could do. how better to show his love than to actually die as a human in a horrible way? But that's not the end of it, he has victory over death, which we can share in and be risen too.


We screwed up the world. God gave us the choice and we chose to screw it up






Meta =>I'm sorry to insult you after you said you admire my courage, but I dont' admire your shallow, intolerant, narrowminded appraoch to theology. you've clealry never read any real theolgoians. You just snipe at the easy targets instead of taking on the real thinkers. But then it appears you don't even know about them. I dare say you've never heard of liberation theology or read a single major theolgoian, is that right?


that you think this sutff is just empty rhetoric shows how far out of the loop you are thoelgoically speaking. There's a whole world of books out there about which you clearly know noting; a whole tradition you've overlooked, but you prefur intolerance and prejudice to learning, that much is clear.

lpetrich

Metacrock:
All religions aspire to do three things:

1) to deliniate the Human problematic

2) To resolve the problematic with a trnasformative experience

3) To mediate the transformation.

And what makes Metacrock so sure of all that? He seems like he's projecting Metacrockianity on every religion there ever was.

I'd like to see if he can find those three features in Hellenic paganism, for example.

As I have said before, I believe that there is one universal experience of the Divine that stands behind all religions.

That's not saying much about the nature of that alleged divinity, since different religion differ very seriously about details.

lpetrich

Also, Metacrock's celebration of existing forms of Xianity is rather curious, since its most aggressive and obnoxious forms are various fundamentalist sects, which are believers in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible, as he puts it. So why is he so proud of believers in VP inspiration?

I much prefer the attitude of Robert M. Price, who is a practicing Episcopalian who believes that Jesus Christ was mostly mythical -- he likes the ceremony of the church.

Metacrock

Meta =>I didn't say I don't have beliefs, or that I will not speak of what they are. I said I wouldn't argue for them based upon historical data of the NT kind Why do you feel that other people don't have the right to discuss their beliefs?





Meta =>Where did I say I don't believe in the diety of Christ? How did you get that out of my post!?? I said I dont' believe in arguing for it Josh McDowell sytle







Meta =>NOt being able to see the greatness in Jesus teachings is like not being able to see the greatness in Shakespire or Picasso. That's just an index to your mentality that you insist upon reading Bible passages in the worst possible light, and dmeand that a chilidishly litteralistic reading be made for the sole purpose of casting it in that bad light


You keep maintaining that the bible is the word of god which is no longer permissable for you to do.


Meta => Bull! that's only because you haven't the imagination or the theolgoical knowledge to read about any other model of inspiration but verbal plenary. There is a vast tradition. the guy who wrote the book i take my view of inspiration from is a Cardinal under JPII. You don't know what you are talking about.








Meta =>ajhahahahahaha you what? ahahahahahhah O he's a teacher. Well we need some knowledge a bit more speicialzed than wood shop for this job.



Meta =>That does it! put him in the cumphy chiar!

Metacrock

Meta => in theology of St Paulby D.E.H. Whiteley, it is argued that the atonement is not corrolated to the animal sacrafice of OT. It is not a sacrafice in that sense (and it doesnkt' make sense that they woud go backward from animals to people--most anthropologists assume that social evolutin moves from real human sacrafice to substituting animals).

IT's not a sacrafice in that sense but a statement of solidarity, a participation in and with humanity.

Peter Kirby

But, apparently, you do believe in arguing for the historical Jesus "Josh McDowell style." Just look at that post full of collected quotes on how absurd it is to doubt the historical existence of Jesus.

Since the deity of Christ is an article of faith, why can't the humanity of Christ be an article of faith? Why is it important to be able to prove one but not the other?

After all, most Christians throughout history have not had resort to critical methodology or stratification of sources to underpin the historicity of Jesus.

best,
Peter Kirby

Metacrock

well thanks ES. I thought I was pretty concrete about it all in those other threads.

Metacrock

I'm from Texas too. Where are these aware people? I'd like to meet them.