CX

Perhaps, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate it if gameplaying was not a part of this forum. There are other forums suitable for screwing around. I'm here to think and learn.

King Arthur

Have you?

Tercel

King Arthur,
Bede's point of view on this issue (which happens to be the same as mine) is in agreement with the Eastern Orthodox church (and hence with a rather large number of theologians).

<a href="http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm" target="_blank">Have a link</a>
The speaker's pretty biased and I can't of course agree with his generalisations about Western Christianity (me being one such) or atheism: However I do agree with his theology. Orthodoxy likes its mysteries and most Orthodox writers won't go as far at explaining things as this speaker does, prefering to stay within the bounds of tradition. But they all seem to agree that salvation is unrelated to belief.

Perhaps. What about wanting to be right for truth's sake?
Also, consider the effect that such a fundamental belief as God would have on actions. The way we live our lives, our priorities, our goals: everything changes with this one belief.

I can't say I follow there, how can it be not logical? I mean, it's leagues ahead of the conservative protestant ideas in terms of logical soundness: If we say belief in God is necessary for salvation, then we have the question of what happens to those who never hear about God. If we answer that these are not saved, then we have a supposedly loving God sending people to hell without a chance. If we answer that these are saved then the absurd conclusion that missionary work is bad follows.
Clearly belief in Jesus during this life cannot sensibly be a necessity for salvation. The bible is quite clear that works do not earn salvation. That leaves one option: Nature. Does salvation depend on what we believe, what we do, or what we are? The first is logically unsound, the second unbiblical, hence the third must be true. And of course anyone whos even given the NT a cursory read will know that the authors spend quite a lot of time exhorting the readers to put off their earthly natures and have the nature of Christ and focus on the love, compassion etc. And if you understand "faith in" and "belief in" as sometimes referring to being "in" Christ, ie a union with Christ, growing in his nature of love (Check out 1 John for support of this for example), you can then proceed to gather Biblical support by the truckload.
Having come to this conclusion myself, (and being rather uncomfortable in the thought that I differed from all other Christians) I was quite shocked to discover recently (when I investigated their beliefs) that the Eastern Orthodox church already holds my position. That was a pleasant suprise indeed.

So I suppose, I'm an orthodox liberal semi-Orthodox semi-Protestant Christian!
Tercel

Vinnie

Its all Greek to me

Throwing in my support for Tercel and Bede's stance. I generally agree with them.

I think Marcus Borg had some good thoughts in Reading the Bible Again For The First Time. I reviewed it briefly on my website:
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/ilgwamh/" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/ilgwamh/</a>

Fundamentalists advocate the self-proclaimed “traditional” view of the Bible. The Fundamentalist view is certainly very similar to the traditional view. That cannot be denied. But it is actually a recent invention of the church and scholars such as Marcus Borg have delineated the chief and mitigating difference between these two views. Until recent times there was no reason for Christians to deny the historicity of Biblical accounts. The conventional wisdom of the time entailed Genesis through Revelation. The obvious difference here is that Fundamentalism employs conscious literalism while older Christians embraced natural literalism. A citation from Borg’s Reading the Bible Again For the First Time (pp.16-17) will help clarify:

""""""It seems to me that by your reasoning, it means nothing to be a Christian other than to share comfortable traditions with a group of people who happen to have like-minds.""""""""""

I think Tercel responded to this well. Just want to add to that that Christianity does not have the moral market cornered. But yes, the living and tranforming Jesus is powerful. As Tercel said, "The way we live our lives, our priorities, our goals: everything changes with this one belief." The Christian life, when lived properly, is a life of service to others patterned off of its founder. I don't see how such a life implies the Christian faith is "meaningless" or watered-down. Sure, it doesn't mean "believe the facts like me or burn in hell" but what kind of god would hold such a standard? Not one I would devote myself to. It probably seems like "Christianity-lite" because the general opposite is soo intense, ridiculous and exclusive: "believe like me or go to hell". I think our general understanding of the "basics" of Christianity colours our understanding of the liberal perspective. But as far as I know, this "Christianity-lite", when understood on its own terms, is the best paradigm out there for human behavior

Vinnie

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: ilgwamh ]</p>