Author Topic: Seagoon's Replies to Nash (Read 2565 times)

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 22, 2006, 03:53:23 PM »

So ........... they dont believe the Bible is real then? Because it just refutes the Gospels to say Jesus isnt God. Or do they even beleive in God? They sound more like Agnostics to me than Christians. Wait, how can they even be "Christian"??? The root there is "Christ", and Christian implies a believer or follower of Christ. So what exactly are they if they refute Jesus' own words and the teachings of both Him and His disciples??

Besides Confused that is.

Holden McGroin · « **Reply #16 on:** February 22, 2006, 03:57:29 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
So ........... they dont believe the Bible is real then?

I believe the bible is real... I've seen several copies.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 22, 2006, 04:20:22 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
I believe the bible is real... I've seen several copies.

LOL

We can always count on you to keep things in perspective.

nuchpatrick · « **Reply #18 on:** February 22, 2006, 04:20:55 PM »

Very interesting read Seagoon!

Having been forced S. Baptist enviroment by my mother while I was a small child. I've now become atheist towards churchs (in general). I normally deter from reading such news items & posts. But you sucker me into reading; making it interesting to read.

Thank you..

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #19 on:** February 22, 2006, 04:54:28 PM »

Being force fed a S. Baptist diet as a child doesnt mean you have to stop thinking as an adult. I disagree with many things in the direction the association has taken over the last 20 years or so, but I still believe in the core.

rpm · « **Reply #20 on:** February 22, 2006, 04:59:17 PM »

Just out of curiosity, how much of the bible do you think is the true words of Jesus and his teachings and how much has been changed over time?

A. 100% true

B. 75% true

C. 50% ture

D. Less than 50% true

Inquiring minds want to know.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #21 on:** February 22, 2006, 05:12:54 PM »

Forced to answer with a simplistic statement?

100%

However, the reality isnt simplistic. The only things that have changed are the languages. But with change of language comes (sometimes) change of words. The meaning is still there, but where Hebrew is very broad, takes in very large concepts with very few syllables and REQUIRES you to use context to interpret, Greek is less so, Latin even more specific, and then you get to English. In English words are very specific in meaning, but one word can have various meanings depending on context. So its almost like we've come full circle, only its been through several incarnations. To truly understand the modern versions, you have to read it with an understanding of original intent. Again, different Hebrew scholars will interpret the same word different ways. It's imperative that you not focus on just one verse when seeking translation, but on entire passages. Even then it often still requires us to take the modern version and hold it up to the older ones in order to form a proper translation of meaning.

Thats why instead of saying one READS the Bible, we say that one STUDIES the Bible. I think all the original meanings are still there. Sometimes its not as clear as it should be through word choice though.

rpm · « **Reply #22 on:** February 22, 2006, 06:25:28 PM »

So there was no editing done during the King James rewrite?

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #23 on:** February 22, 2006, 09:38:22 PM »

Some things are written differently yes, but I havent seen any passages that are so changed that their meaning is lost. Do you have specific examples you are concerned with?

Of course Seagoon is probably better suited to answer that, he's the scholar. I'm just a dilettante with some interest in history and linguistics.

Seagoon · « **Reply #24 on:** February 23, 2006, 01:48:55 AM »

Hi SOA,

Quote

Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
So ........... they dont believe the Bible is real then? Because it just refutes the Gospels to say Jesus isnt God. Or do they even beleive in God? They sound more like Agnostics to me than Christians. Wait, how can they even be "Christian"??? The root there is "Christ", and Christian implies a believer or follower of Christ. So what exactly are they if they refute Jesus' own words and the teachings of both Him and His disciples??

Besides Confused that is.

To really give you a complete answer to this requires a review of the history of Protestant liberal theology since the early 1800s, so forgive me if I smash a lot of history utterly flat and give you a quick synopsis.

Philosophically, the enlightenment in Europe switched the emphasis from God at the center of the universe, to man ("homo mensura" was the Latin motto - Man is the Measure of All Things) therefore the Bible began to be thought of not as God's revelation to Man, but man writing about God. The age also brought in considerable scepticism regarding the miraculous. By the 19th century, the Protestant theological world had broken basically into three camps:

The first was made up of fideists who believed that preserving Christianity required the moving of faith into a separate realm outside of the reality of sense experience (hence Kant's noumenal/phonomenal distinction). This realm of faith was real but unknowable in the way that we can directly experience the physical universe. The only way this other realm could be known was via faith. The Bible therefore was a product of the forays of faith into the noumenal realm.

The second was made up of people who believed Christianity, and all religions, was a cultural phonomenon that had developed in history. At the heart of it were some genuine historical occurences (i.e. there were twelve tribes of Israel, there was a Rabbi named Jesus who was executed by the Romans) but all of the supernatural and doctrinal elements were glosses and inauthentic additions. They believed that if there was a Creator, he was for the most part unknowable.

The third were the orthodox, whose view of theology was basically the same of that of the Apostles, Church Fathers, and Reformers. They believed the Bible was God's inerrant revelation to Man, that it was an accurate record of God's continuing work of redemption, and that there was no radical disconnect between God and his creation. They believed that the regenerating and illuminating work of God the Holy Spirit was necessary to believe and rightly understand the scriptures, but that the scriptures themselves were authentic.

Group three, won't concern us for the most part, they continued on to become the foundation of the modern bible believing evangelical denoms.

Group two eventually ended up taking over most of the schools of theology in Europe, and their quest became to explain the development of the bible and find "the historical Jesus." They also felt that the primary value of the bible lay in its setting forth a moral system for men to follow. They believed that the kingdom of heaven could be established on earth via the social implementation of Christian ideals. They set to work implementing their moral viewpoints through reform and legislation (Victorian society was to a great extent a result of this viewpoint) and working to "demythologize" (to use Bultmann's phrase) the bible. A Christian in their eyes was simply a modern man who, while thinking the bible was literature rather than history, sought to live by what he felt was the ethical code contained in it. A belief in the deity of Christ or miracles was not necessary to this definition. Christianity became less a faith, than an ethic, and a Christian was someone who was one outwardly. Needless to say, this led to a massive increase in hypocrisy, as men "acted" moral in public, and followed their baser desires whenever they could.

The social outworking of their theology was initially popular but the first world war exploded most of their presuppositions, i.e. that men were basically good, or that Christian values coud build a "heavenly" society on earth. Four years of senseless slogging through mud and carnage as "Christian" kingdoms sought to destroy one other persuaded people of that. Which is one of the reasons the twenties were the "roaring twenties" - many, particularly the young, simply abandoned the hopeless, "lets all act uptight and moral even though we don't believe" formula. Unfortunately the "history of religions" school continued its hold on the religion departments of universities and mainline seminaries.

Eventually, the liberal mainline denominations became a mixture of groups one and two, fideists who believed you "felt" your way through religion and who had no time or patience for doctrine, and rationalists who doubted the veracity of the Bible. This produced a synthesis in which the modern Christians in these denominations mostly read their own presuppositions into a bible they hold to be errant and the combination of man's thoughts and heavenly wisdom (where they divide the two depends on who you ask). They also tend to be universalists in terms of salvation, or believe one goes to heaven by being Good. They also tend to be pluralists accepting all religions, even contradictory ones, and believing God has spoken through all of them in some sense. Therefore they are increasingly willing to mix all religions in with traditional Christianity to form what one liberal theologian called "the diverse and harmonious salad of faith."

In fact Christianity for many liberal Christians is just a religious expression of their own core philosophy. If you were a socialist you read the bible in the light of Marxism and became a "Liberation theologian" if you were a Feminist you read the bible that way and so on, it became more about Man creating God in his own individual image - God as man writ large so to speak, rather than man being saved, shaped, and molded through the witness of scripture by the God of the bible. That's why politics play such a huge part in the modern liberal denoms, Christianity has become a way of expressing your social and political beliefs.

Book on tape to follow...

- SEAGOON

Nash · « **Reply #25 on:** February 23, 2006, 02:18:03 AM »

By cherry picking I mean the choosing of those passages in the Bible that support the views of your particular religion/denomination/whatever over the passages supporting those beliefs held by other religions/denominations/whatever. For when it comes to scripture, it's almost a free-for-all. Like roller derby or mud wrestling.

A cut/drag:

Quote

According to some Christians, both Jesus and Paul forbade all violence, and therefore all war (Mt. 5:39 & Lk. 6:29; Mt. 26:51-53; Rom 12:17-21). One early thinker (Tertullian) goes so far as to say that although God previously allowed some warfare, Jesus "unbelted every soldier". Tertullian therefore demanded the "immediate abandonment" of military service by Christians. But neither John the Baptist, Jesus, nor the early Christians forbade soldiering (Lk. 3:14, 7:1-10; Matt. 8:5-13; Acts 10:1-8,22), and for Jesus, war is just a part of how things are (Mk 13:7; Matt 24:6; Lk 14:31-32, 21:9). Paul, in his letter to the Romans says that God uses rulers to punish evil by use of 'the sword' (Rom. 13:1-4). Elsewhere, God commands rulers to rescue the weak and needy (Ps. 82:2-4). The care of a people is committed to those in authority, and their business is to watch over the common good of the people entrusted to them. In a sinful, fallen world, sometimes they must sadly use force to protect people.

So..... we've got a vast array of people, all coming up with wildly differing interpretations of the very same muse.

What connects them all is not the object of their study, sadly, but the rigorous adherence to their own interpretation of it. It turns out that the Bible doesn't bring people together... it's just an ice breaker.

I don't question the conviction that you have for the interpretation you've landed on, and am woefully under-qualified to judge whether it's the correct one. There are so many; an example being that when I pointed out that the largest gathering of Churches just came out and condemned this war, you said that ABC Group of Churches was unworthy of note, and that XYZ Group of Churches was worthy of note.

So that leaves us with this:

Amongst the many possible interpretations of the Bible, you support but one. That's all fine and good. Because it's sorta required, and a matter of faith that I deeply respect.

But what I can do is question the values that your interpretation represents, and hold those values up to scrutiny.

I don't like seeing our spiritual leaders justifying war.

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they are God’s children." J.C.

Yet somehow, the light of Jesus gets catapulted through an ecclesiastical prism that shatters that light into millions of shards not unlike shrapnel from a grenade. From this, from some, we get "Just War."

Fancy that.... a Christian "Just War" theory.

I don't like the fact that you or any spiritual leader would support it. Instead, I want our politicians to make that call, and make it soberly and objectively and with as much study, advice, consent..... double checking, triple checking, no-fingers-crossed-behind-your-back smashing their face into a WALL I-voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it-before-I-voted-for-it desperation before they ever EVER come to the conclusion that it's necessary to send the best of us into war. That's what I want of them. Not our spiritual leaders.

I don't like seeing our spiritual leaders justifying war.

I don't like seeing our spiritual leaders obfuscating and passively condoning torture.

I don't like that they would seek to eke out some kind of moral equivalency through mirroring an outrage over cartoons, minimalizing it as "human pyramids" or "a few boots" as if that were even close to the extent of it.

For what does it say when..... you know, my dog knows, and even the meth addict down the street knows that folks are getting completely messed the eff up! And that you, a man of God, wants us only to believe that it involves nothing more serious than an innocent game of twister?

With the entire picture that is Abu Gharib and Guantanamo available for everyone to see, along with the help of a dictionary and thesaurus, what in the world would have you attempt to couch the torture in such soft and misleading terms? What would lead a man of the cloth to go out of their way for this?

I don't like that our spiritual leaders say one thing, then do the opposite.

You discredit my pointing out that the largest gathering of churches has come out against this war by saying that they're so-called Liberal. You go on to say that it's wrong for Churches to make political statements. Interesting take, because...

Who the hell has even HEARD of a Liberal Church? I know they probably exist, but man... What about Dobson? What about Justice Sunday? What about Rove crediting Bush's win to the Church? What about Meirs, Frist, abortion, Shiavo, Intelligent Design? If there are Liberal churches with political voices, I'd sure as hell like to hear them. Just for balance's sake, ya know?

Basically.... you shy away from saying that the Church has anything to do with politics, and then say that in such cases that it does, it's a Liberal thing. What? Am I supposed to be in a coma?

War, torture, politics. Not religion's domain.... or at least any religion I want any part of.

Ping · « **Reply #26 on:** February 23, 2006, 03:26:40 AM »

Very brief:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Romans 10:2,3
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God; but not according to accurate knowledge; for, because of not knowing the righteousness of God but seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This pretty much sums up the state of Christian religions.
Discarding or playing down the parts of the bible that disagrees with their viewpoints.

deSelys · « **Reply #27 on:** February 23, 2006, 04:19:56 AM »

It's funny how fundamentalist christians let a book written 2000 years ago dictate their actions while accusing fundamentalists of other religions for doing the same.

In MY book, all fundamentalists don't belong to this millenium and are a shame to the entire human race.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #28 on:** February 23, 2006, 06:48:26 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by deSelys
It's funny how fundamentalist christians let a book written 2000 years ago dictate their actions while accusing fundamentalists of other religions for doing the same.

In MY book, all fundamentalists don't belong to this millenium and are a shame to the entire human race.

How so?

And actually, the Old Testament is far older that 2000 years. It also forms the basis for 3 major religions. "Fundamentalist" has come to be a bad word because some violent wackos choose to focus only on small parts of text as their guiding principles while CLAIMING that they follow strictly to the word. Your implication is that a document written in a prior time is not relevant to OUR time?

Edit

Never mind, you arent American so the rest of my post is irrellevant.

If what you say is true, then we should throw out the documents we base our laws and govornments on because they were all written in a prior age and arent relevant. And they are based on even older ideas. And so on. Nice theory.

deSelys · « **Reply #29 on:** February 23, 2006, 07:14:08 AM »

Answer this question, SOF2.

Who is the wackiest? The imam who says it's ok to blow oneself up in place filled with infidels because the quran says that it is a holy war or the pastor who says it's ok to drop bombs on moslems because the bible says that it is a just war?

IMPORTANT EDIT: the capital 'Q' for quran while bible received only a little 'b' was unvoluntary. As gallons of blood have been spilled thanks to both books, they both deserve the smallest font readable.