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05-24-2013, 08:43 AM | #31 |
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Generelly, protestants believe the only authority to be Christ, God, directly from Him to the individual believer (for Luther this entails the sola scriptura principle), therefore no church has any authority at all, whatsoever. Only Christ, God. Therefore anyone can be a priest (except unreliable people of course, such as woman and children, he says, unless it's an emergency!)
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05-24-2013, 10:11 AM | #32 | |||||
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It doesn't matter to a non-christian whether Jesus existed or not, especially as there is no way of verifying that existence and there has been a vested interest by those who maintained the literature from the past in the existence of Jesus. Such an interest interferes with any validation of sources on the subject they maintained. This is a grave epistemological problem: we have no way of knowing about the existence of Jesus. This gives the non-believer a push to not enter into making rash judgments. You don't need to choose whether Jesus existed or not. It's nothing to you, even if he did exist (for he may have). |
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05-24-2013, 10:15 AM | #33 | ||||
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The dogma around Clement of Rome is unsubstantiated. What time frame does Pagels work on for the emergence of apostolic succession and are her ideas correct? |
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05-24-2013, 10:19 AM | #34 | |
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05-24-2013, 10:30 AM | #35 | ||||
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In this Christ never was crucified to die, and so, at best, we can be followers of Jesus to die on our own cross be one with Christ as Christian our self. Quote:
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Their reason for this was to remove the historical attachment to the person called Jesus so the believer may encounter the real Jesus in his own life and become a Christian in the same manner as follower of the example he set. |
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05-24-2013, 10:31 AM | #36 | ||
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Second century is Pagel's time frame, Tertullian came up frequently IIRC. As to correctness, I admit it didn't occur to me that it was controversial. |
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05-24-2013, 10:35 AM | #37 | ||
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05-24-2013, 11:28 AM | #38 | |
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But after reading about philosophy and psychology I no longer think so. I think that myths are in a sense living things. I think that our minds are real, and our thoughts are real and collectively the mind and its domain constitutes an alternate(if empirically provisional) reality. There is potential for good here since self examination, reflection, contemplation and so forth are generally good things for people to do. Problems can occur, though, when thoughts are projected into physical realty ie because I can imagine Hippos dancing on point in tutus I start believing they physically do that. By keeping Jesus mythical, he stays in the mind where he belongs, and, though not meaning to proselytize here, where he can do the most good and least harm. It's a paradox, but the most effective way the church marginalizes itself is by insisting on its traditional magical thinking. It's another paradox that mythicism enables Christianity. IMO. |
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05-24-2013, 11:34 AM | #39 |
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Spin, do you know what the point is that I've been trying to make?
If you think my point is undermined because I'm using epistemological categories where they dont apply (the term "historical" to ancient Christians), fair enough, then say so. But I'm not sure at all you understand what I'm trying say. In making my point, it really is quite irrelevant whether we use the modern term "historical" or we say "perceived to have been part of the mundane world"... In this case they both mean the same thing. If a person in the ancient world had eaten a muffin, he would consider that muffin to have been "historical", by which I mean having existed. My point is pretty clear: Christians believe the figure of Jesus Christ to have existed at some point in time. Otherwise they are not Christians, but something else. Whether there de facto was a HJ or not is wholly irrelevant to my point. I'm not assuming here there was or there wasn't. |
05-24-2013, 11:43 AM | #40 | ||
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