Christian Discussion II: We are an Advent people

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And I think it would be better. Most people would be down with the moral teachings of Jesus. But when it turns into “My religion is the only path to heaven, if you don’t believe it then you can’t be a moral person, and oh by the way, you’re going to burn in hell forever” you lose so many people and you make your religion and your god small. Now I’m aware that isn’t how you view Christianity, but so many people do and it’s belittling if not bigoted towards those who don’t believe in it. And sadly that world view is still probably more socially acceptable than mine, which is to argue that we really don’t if there is or isn’t a god or gods, so don’t get so worked up over it.

I've never told anyone "my faith is the only path to heaven".  I do not know the mind of God.  It bothers me enormously when people say "my faith is the only path to heaven".  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I've never told anyone "my faith is the only path to heaven".  I do not know the mind of God.  It bothers me enormously when people say "my faith is the only path to heaven".  

And I said as much, but you can’t deny that it’s a common thing to hear.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And I said as much, but you can’t deny that it’s a common thing to hear.

It's not common among the people I go to church with.  In fact we are cautioned against saying that.

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

That’s because I take politics very seriously while finding religion to be kind of silly (note that I’m not singling out Christianity). It troubles me that people take it so seriously. That said, I’m being dismissive because you were, and it should be rather obvious why my Telephone analogy is apt. Many of the stories in the Bible are word of mouth, and much like a fish story they change with time. Many of these stories also predate the Bible by a significant amount of time, and you can trace how they changed over time. I would think you’d know this given that your area of expertise is history.

Speaking specifically about Christianity, I would have a lot more respect for it if Jesus was treated more like Confucius. If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage you to check out the Jefferson Bible. It’s a much more rational interpretation of Christ’s message.  

You may point me to which changes, spesifically, you refer to. And how they changed. 

Also, if you don’t mind, I did ask you a question earlier regarding historians and the historical Jesus. 

And I find your sweeping assertions towards doctrine rather disturbing. After all, you know very little about what people believe here, but you do enter still in a brash manner, throwing assertions around and generally behave a know-it-all. 

Basically, if you would like to parttake in a discussion outside your expertise, don’t go full frontal. 

[Astromech]

@Lany Freelove Cassandra

I think you generally have it right. Your first point is where many Christian denominations vary. And that variation would center on your use of "literal" Some of the early Christian heresies we discussed a few pages back (Nestorianism, Arianism) centered around the relation of God and Jesus. Catholics, believing in the Trinity, hold God and Jesus are one and the same. Protestant denominations disagree, generally speaking. Another point on which denominations disagree is the character of the Eucharist: i.e., is it the literal body and blood of Christ or just symbolic. Just another example of differences among denominations.

Your second point is correct as is your third. I wouldn't say the third is what primarily makes one Christian because the Easter story and God's Kingdom are a large part of Christ's teachings. However, it is how we emulate Christ and follow those teachings. All three are important to Christianity and your first point, as stated above,  is where you get many of the divisions in Christianity(in addition to the characteristics of the Eucharist).

 

 

[sainttriple7]

2 hours ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

 

       1)      Jesus Christ is the literal son of God                                                                                                                                                                          2)      That Jesus died for our sins, and made it possible for man to enter heaven (Easter story)

3)      The followers of Jesus should live their lives as he did

 

Point 1: I take Jesus at his word when he says: in John 14:28 "The father is greater than I." Also Jesus came to do his Father's will not his own in Luke 22:42. 

Point 2: He died for our sins so we may have everlasting life. Jesus says in Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Pslams 37:29 also talks about inheriting the land and dwelling forever upon it. Revelation 21:1 talks about a new heaven and earth. So God has a purpose for both the heavens and the earth.

Point 3: Agree. A scripture to ponder: John 15: 18.19.

 

 

[Rorshach]

Others have already answered @Lany Freelove Cassandra, but I’ll give a short answer as well. 

1) Yes. And no. The essence of Trinity is not easy to define. In one way, they are all aspects of God, that is they are all God. In another way, they are separate. What is taugth in Lutheran seminars is that Jesus was God and man - fully. Confused? So, I think, are everyone.

2) Yes. 

3) Yes. The simple form, I believe, is the two major commandments: Love God, and love your neighbour like yourself. 

[Ormond]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And I said as much, but you can’t deny that it’s a common thing to hear.

It's not common among people I go to church with either, and I'm a mainline Presbyterian, not a member of an Orthodox church like Scot.

You seem to be stereotyping Christianity by just listening to the loudest and most "conservative" voices. 

As for Lany Cassandra's third point -- I would modify that one to say Christians should TRY to emulate Jesus. I think most Christians realize that is an impossible standard to live up to and one shouldn't condemn oneself for failing, but it should be the standard by which one measures one's actions. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

51 minutes ago, Ormond said:

It's not common among people I go to church with either, and I'm a mainline Presbyterian, not a member of an Orthodox church like Scot.

You seem to be stereotyping Christianity by just listening to the loudest and most "conservative" voices. 

As for Lany Cassandra's third point -- I would modify that one to say Christians should TRY to emulate Jesus. I think most Christians realize that is an impossible standard to live up to and one shouldn't condemn oneself for failing, but it should be the standard by which one measures one's actions. 

Ormond,

Interestingly within Orthodox there is a doctrine called "Theosis" wherein it is postulated that, essentially, "sin" is that which is not "of God" and what we attempt to do as Christians in living without sin is become "of God".  That the "fire" spoken of in scripture is literally the fact that when we have passed that which is not "of God" cannot survive being in the presence of God.  That means that if you are mostly sin when you pass away most of what you have become will be destroyed by being in God's presence, not because God is turning God's burning eyebeams on you but because it cannot exist in God's presence.  Thus, our goal is to become as much like God as possible.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

You may point me to which changes, spesifically, you refer to. And how they changed. 

There are so many changes, both in text and practice, that it seems rather unnecessary for me to list them because it would take forever and more exist than I know of. But if you'll allow me to zig a little when you want me to zag I'll provide an example that I've always found bizarre. There was a change made during the early days of the LDS church that moved to ban African American males from the priesthood. This ban was in effect for over 135 years until there was a revelation by President Kimball and after speaking with God, as he claims, he decided to remove all restrictions relating to race restrictions in the church. That is the church's official story. Many people outside of the church who followed the issue believed it was because BYU's football team was being boycotted, and the latter's claims appear to be true. I know that's not exactly what you were looking for, but it's an example of how religious teachings and practices can change over time for a great many reasons. 

5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Also, if you don’t mind, I did ask you a question earlier regarding historians and the historical Jesus. 

Haven't had time to go back and look. I'll fix that in time.

5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

And I find your sweeping assertions towards doctrine rather disturbing. After all, you know very little about what people believe here, but you do enter still in a brash manner, throwing assertions around and generally behave a know-it-all. 

I stated my beliefs, not yours. And if you find them disturbing it might be because you don't like to get of your comfort zone on this issue, which is all well and fine. 

5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Basically, if you would like to parttake in a discussion outside your expertise, don’t go full frontal. 

Quote

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.

http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Ormond said:

It's not common among people I go to church with either, and I'm a mainline Presbyterian, not a member of an Orthodox church like Scot.

You seem to be stereotyping Christianity by just listening to the loudest and most "conservative" voices. 

I wouldn't expect it to be common at church, and the only person I'd expect to hear it from would be the pastor/priest/etc. I'm not going to BS you and say that I've attended a ton of church services because I was raised in a Jewish household, but in the handful of experiences I've had going to church (maybe 40-50 times)  I've seen it happen a number of times, albeit in a less ham-fisted way (such as saying various forms of Jesus is the only path to heaven). I can only go off of what I've experienced, but yes I have seen it before on numerous occasions. However, you're right in that my perception, especially from what I've seen on T.V., has been skewed by the loudest voices, including multiple conservative presidential candidates.

I do have to push back though on the notion that I'm attempting to stereotype Christians or Christianity. All I said was that I think there are more people who take a fundamentalist approach than there are people who are agnostic. Per Pew, 70% of U.S. citizens are Christians of various denominations while only 23% are nonbelievers (and only 4% are agnostic). I've looked unsuccessfully for some hard data to identify the percentages of Christians who believe that people will experience eternal damnation if they don't believe in Jesus, so I can't say for sure, but I absolutely suspect that it's more than 4% (and I certainly hope it's not higher than 23%). 

I feel like it was a week or so ago where we were talking about the dynamics of being an in verse out member of a group. I'm curious if you think that affects an individual's perception, at least in the sense that it might be more noticeable to someone who is in the out group? 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

36 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I wouldn't expect it to be common at church, and the only person I'd expect to hear it from would be the pastor/priest/etc. I'm not going to BS you and say that I've attended a ton of church services because I was raised in a Jewish household, but in the handful of experiences I've had going to church (maybe 40-50 times)  I've seen it happen a number of times, albeit in a less ham-fisted way (such as saying various forms of Jesus is the only path to heaven). I can only go off of what I've experienced, but yes I have seen it before on numerous occasions. However, you're right in that my perception, especially from what I've seen on T.V., has been skewed by the loudest voices, including multiple conservative presidential candidates.

I do have to push back though on the notion that I'm attempting to stereotype Christians or Christianity. All I said was that I think there are more people who take a fundamentalist approach than there are people who are agnostic. Per Pew, 70% of U.S. citizens are Christians of various denominations while only 23% are nonbelievers (and only 4% are agnostic). I've looked unsuccessfully for some hard data to identify the percentages of Christians who believe that people will experience eternal damnation if they don't believe in Jesus, so I can't say for sure, but I absolutely suspect that it's more than 4% (and I certainly hope it's not higher than 23%). 

I feel like it was a week or so ago where we were talking about the dynamics of being an in verse out member of a group. I'm curious if you think that affects an individual's perception, at least in the sense that it might be more noticeable to someone who is in the out group? 

Are you sweeping Ormond and me into the sterotype because we happen to be Christians?  If so you're stereotyping.

[Rorshach]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

There are so many changes, both in text and practice, that it seems rather unnecessary for me to list them because it would take forever and more exist than I know of. But if you'll allow me to zig a little when you want me to zag I'll provide an example that I've always found bizarre. There was a change made during the early days of the LDS church that moved to ban African American males from the priesthood. This ban was in effect for over 135 years until there was a revelation by President Kimball and after speaking with God, as he claims, he decided to remove all restrictions relating to race restrictions in the church. That is the church's official story. Many people outside of the church who followed the issue believed it was because BYU's football team was being boycotted, and the latter's claims appear to be true. I know that's not exactly what you were looking for, but it's an example of how religious teachings and practices can change over time for a great many reasons. 

Not quite what I was looking for, no

Now, if I may: I believe we’re arguing a bit at cross purpouses here. The reason I first reacted to your analogy is because the Telephone game (we don’t call it that here in Norway, but Google tells me I correctly surmised what you were refering to) leads to completely garbled messages instantly. In other words, an implication - at least to me - is that we cannot trust anything transmitted orally, because it loses its meaning more or less instantly.

And, if you stop to think about it, that really isn’t what has happened historically. If that was true, we would have no way to trace the mythical history of Genesis 1-12 back to the older myths of the Middle East. They would be unrecognizable, separated as they are by millenia, and with very little in the form of written records.

And, yet, they are recognizable. Which suggests that, while something changes a bit over time, the story holds up remarkably well when passed on orally. And, of course, thinking a bit more, this makes sense: we’re talking about a mostly oral culture where people were trained (not everyone, of course, but those chosen to be storytellers) to remeber the important stories, and to pass them on to the next generation - including the next generation storyteller. 

This has, to my mind, very little in common with the children’s game, other than people speaking to each other. And, as such, I think the analogy fails when going past the superficial similarity. 

Feel free to disagree.

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I stated my beliefs, not yours. And if you find them disturbing it might be because you don't like to get of your comfort zone on this issue, which is all well and fine. 

Disturbing might be the wrong word, English not being my first language. Still, I do think you should reconsider your second sentence. It is an attempt to read my mind, which you are not able to do  

As such, it again suggests that you know who you’re dealing with - and you most certainly don’t. You should expect pushbacks at that, and, frankly, you should take that pushback seriously and stop trying to diagnose people you don’t know. 

You know Ormond as a professional here, and he doesn’t do it online. You should follow his example.

[Isalie]

Oral tradition being able to carry the gist of the story over millenia, impressive as that is, seems like a pretty bad argument against the story being corrupted over time, seeing how the devil is in the details and all that.

Also, the idea that original sin and leaving the hunter gatherer stage should coincide is kind of conceited isnt it? 

[Rorshach]

13 minutes ago, Mikael said:

Oral tradition being able to carry the gist of the story over millenia, impressive as that is, seems like a pretty bad argument against the story being corrupted over time, seeing how the devil is in the details and all that.

Also, the idea that original sin and leaving the hunter gatherer stage should coincide is kind of conceited isnt it? 

Which is why I asked for the details. And, recall, the argument I made wasn’t that the story hadn’t changed, but that «Telephone» was a bad analogy. 

As for your second paragraph, I am not sure I understand your question. May I ask you to expand on it a bit?

[Isalie]

Sure, as its been used in the thread, spiritualism has both been the step in human evolution that has separated us from the animals and it was suggested that original sin, farming and spiritualism was connected. However, that both ignores every spiritual aspect of hunter gatherer cultures from pre history, and it suggests that we are superior not only in an agricultural sense, but as human beings, and though i dont really subscribe to the idea that our biggest mistake was to pick up the plow, i think that there are plenty of areas where you could argue that we are the inferior ones.

[Rorshach]

I haven’t looked closely into any of that at all. Sorry.

As far as I know, the doctrine of Original Sin is a fifth century doctrine. Sure, the basis of it comes from interpretation of the Bible, but since not every church subscribe to it (nor did they back then, IIRC, but I may certainly be mistaken there), I don’t think it is clearly spelled out in the material.

[Ormond]

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I feel like it was a week or so ago where we were talking about the dynamics of being an in verse out member of a group. I'm curious if you think that affects an individual's perception, at least in the sense that it might be more noticeable to someone who is in the out group? 

It is completely normal for those who are members of a minority group to know more about the majority than the majority knows about them, not matter what sort of minority one is talking about.

Note that in the Pew religious knowledge survey Mormons are among the most knowledgeable.

You shouldn't call all the religiously non-affiliated "nonbelievers" because the majority of them in the USA will claim to believe in God and spirituality; they just don't want to identify with a particular religion. The box one is actually checking on the Pew survey that gets you into that status is "Nothing In Particular". Note that the "nothing in particular" people do much worse on Pew's religious knowledge test than those who label themselves Atheists or Agnostics. Actually, I wonder if even half of Americans could correctly define the word "agnostic". 

Most of the questions on this test also have to do with religious history or demography rather than knowledge of religious doctrines or practices. One should also note that:

People with the highest levels of religious commitment – those who say that they attend worship services at least once a week and that religion is very important in their lives – generally demonstrate higher levels of religious knowledge than those with medium or low religious commitment.³ Having regularly attended religious education classes or participated in a youth group as a child adds more than two questions to the average number answered correctly, compared with those who seldom or never participated in such activities. 

Many people who will label themselves Protestant or Catholic on a poll (even many who label themselves "Evangelical") actually do not attend religious services and are really no more religiously involved that the "nothing in particular" people -- they just identify with a label.

I took the quiz that was linked to on the Pew site -- it only had 15 questions, a little less than half of the full number on their "religious knowledge" test. After you take it, though, it gives you the % of those in various groups who got the answer correct on the 15 questions in your quiz. I was surprised to see that on the question:

Which Bible figure is most closely associated with remaining obedient to God despite suffering?

that Mormons (70%) and mainline Protestants (58%) were more likely to correctly choose "Job" as the answer than Jews (47%) were. I would have thought even a lot of secular Jews would know about Job.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 11/17/2017 at 5:54 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are you sweeping Ormond and me into the sterotype because we happen to be Christians?  If so you're stereotyping.

Really dude? Go reread the quote at the top of the page…..

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 11/18/2017 at 11:37 AM, Ormond said:

I took the quiz that was linked to on the Pew site -- it only had 15 questions, a little less than half of the full number on their "religious knowledge" test. After you take it, though, it gives you the % of those in various groups who got the answer correct on the 15 questions in your quiz. I was surprised to see that on the question:

Which Bible figure is most closely associated with remaining obedient to God despite suffering?

that Mormons (70%) and mainline Protestants (58%) were more likely to correctly choose "Job" as the answer than Jews (47%) were. I would have thought even a lot of secular Jews would know about Job.

They probably do, but I suspect they chose Joseph if that was an option.