ComestibleVenom

Modern Christians, at least in Canada, are very confusing to me. You see, I was raised a rather orthodox Roman Catholic, and now I see Ratholics regularly committing deeds that doom them to damnation.

For instance, teachers speaking out against church doctrines. Catholic teachers contradicting the pope on matters of faith and morals.

Nor is it just the Catholics. Protestants of all stripes, even people who disclaim all religion take the bible seriously enough to believe in Jesus, or God, but haven't read even a fraction of the damned thing.

I am still suprised that I can get away with offending Christians by pretending to hold opinions that God suggests in the bible. Has anyone else encountered this peculiar phenomenon?

Tenek

I think it's called "thinking for one's self while keeping the label". The orthodox RC's would probably consider such people as either a) off to Hell instead of Purgatory b) off to a lower level of Hell or c) spending much longer in purgatory. Fundementalists will call these people "lukewarm" or "false" Christians and consign them to Hell with the rest. I rather prefer the heretics myself. I don't see much visible religion around - in high school, I knew of *two* people who would count as right-wing Christians - so they're either small in number or in volume. Or both.

Sufficiently liberal theists are indistinguishable from atheists/agnostics/humanists unless the topic of religion is discussed, which would usually end up with "I believe in God, don't care if you do or not, have a beer."

Rational BAC

This cherry picking Christian agrees with you.

Have a beer.

Actually I don't think this is a new phenomenon ---especially among Catholics. My own father was Catholic---practiced birth control with no guilt at all, made fun of the Catholic church most of his life------But in the end--he still wanted his last rites from a priest before dying.

And that was very hard to accomplish since he had been excommunicated by the Church 50 years before for marrying an Episcopalian. His Episcopalian sons found one for him finally --we determined that if that is what my father wanted--the last rites--he was going to damned well get it---Even if we had to tie up a Catholic priest and drag him kicking and screaming to do it.

Sabine Grant

Actualy it is often because people have studied the Bible closely that they will differ or reject particular church dogmas. for example, I base my faith on the NT which contains IMO the essence of God's character as demonstrated by Christ.
You have christians who are Biblical literalist christians and christians who are christians for following the teachings of Christ.

ComestibleVenom

Funny, I had the same experience. In my case, however, the bible played a less important role than did my readings of various philosophers, scientists and storytellers.

Sabine Grant

I think it is prudent for you to not assume that I have not read or studied other ideologies or scientific works ( actualy my focus in college in France was on Sartre....). However, my choice to follow Christ's teaching rather than a literalist biblical approach is based on how some of Christ's teaching directly contradict some of the Ot laws.

Opera Nut

Yeah, and if you accept the authority of the OT as being final, because it is older than the NT, and sets out the conditions for the coming of the Messiah, then according to the OT, Jesus is not the Messiah because he did not fulfill the five conditions listed in the OT. Like uniting Israel, restoring the temple at Jerusalem, being named Immanuel, etc.

Furthermore, the NT was selected from a bunch of books and they were arbitrarily made canonical or non canonical for political reasons. The church fathers didn't like the gospel of Thomas, James or the Gnostics because they believed in reincarnation, and a Mother Goddess, and were mystical. So they threw them out of the canon for their own selfihs political reasons. These books said you didn't need a preist or intermediary between you adn God, so they thought that was dangerous.

Even many centuries later when the Bible was first translated into English so people could read it for themselves, people like Tyndale were punished and killed for printing it for the masses to read.

The ongoing battle between personal authority and church authority......

I'm reading BEYOND BELIEF by Elaine Pagels which is about the Gospel of Thomas.

ComestibleVenom

That may be. It may also be prudent not to assume too much about what I assumed about your background.


So you choose to ignore certain parts of the NT in order to ignore some of the OT. Of course you can't ignore too much because the Jesus mythology is fundamentally based in the OT.

Fair enough, but I myself doubt the wisdom of ignoring such a dangerous and powerful God.

BadBadBad

Isn't the question do you believe in the Bible or not? For example Sabine, do you believe that we are predestined by God for either salvation or damnation just like it says in all the specific verses you asked me to provide you?

The calvanists and I guess protestants are debating that right now on theologyweb.com. One guy says what you calvinists believe about predestination is unbiblical. The calvinist says no it's not, and spouts off all the clear predestination verses I've given Sabine. Then the protestant says yes it is, and spouts off all the verses that command you to choose faith and salvation. No one admits any biblical reconciliation of the two opposing doctrines, and Sabine, I'm still waiting for you to provide it. Both sides act like the clear opposing doctrine in the Bible just doesn't exist.

Did you ever read 1984? Doublespeak? Believing in two completely opposing views as simultaneously true? A very important concept for Christians. Simple denial is another. How about faith. That's a clincher. Perhaps the simple concept of belief is not the word we're looking for.

Pyrrho

The question you raise in your title, "Do they believe the Bible or not?", presupposes that they are logical and prone to reject contradictions. This is a false presupposition. They believe the Bible when it comes to providing a support for their belief that Christianity is true, but disbelieve everything in it that they don't like. Of course, if it really were the WORD OF GOD and trustworthy, then they should believe it all, and, of course, if it is merely a flawed book written by men, then it provides no real evidence that Christianity is true, but the "liberal" types of Christians do not tend to value consistency.