Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark

[missy]

using the term "all Christians" is akin to saying "all African-Americans" or "all Middle Easterns" or whatever you want to use. There is no such thing as an all encompassing belief or behavior.

Many fundemental Christians would say I'm not Christian because I'm Catholic. Depends on what your definition of a Christian is. Is a Christian someone who believes in Christ?

Someone who believes Christ is God or God's son?

Someone who believes the Bible is the infallible writings of God?

Someone who only believes in Baptism by immersion?

Or, how about Mormons, who believe in Baptism being available after the death of a person?

Or Jehovah's Witnesses (among others) who absolutely are required to prostelitize?

Unitarian Universalist - where just about anything goes?

Honestly, other than the "Lord, your God" part - what is wrong with living by the Ten Commandments? Or the Beatitudes? Wouldn't this would be a better place by far if all did? If you come to a "good" life via God, Allah, Y-hw-h, Budda, or The Big Pink Unicorn - what difference does it make? If it bothers someone because of my beliefs, but I still live a good life, it's no skin off my teeth.

[SteveK]

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all telling the same story, but each of them has a totally different angle.

Have you read the gospels lately? Matthew, Mark and Luke may be telling the same story you will get a jolt when you get to John. There a mammoth differences between the synoptics and John.

As I see it, there's nothing in the two "greatest commandments" (according to Jesus) that forbids people from calling god something else, or claims that Jesus himself is a necessary stepping stone to a virtuous life.

In addition to this the judgement depicted in Matt 25 isn't based on faith in Jesus at all. It's based on feeding the poor, visiting the sick and those in prison, etc. However, in John you will find statements about belief in Jesus. "If a man has faith in me, even though he die, he shall come to life." John 11:25 (NEB)

[Tyler]

My question is, why on earth do you bother studying the bible in such depth if all you want to do is extract ammunition to further your argument against christianity?
Don't you have a hobby?

I choose to educate myself and read lots of things. That's a great way to absorb lots of varied information and learn about the world around you. If you haven't you should try it...Or do you only read about things you agree with?

And since you are concerned about my spare time: Don't worry I have plenty of hobbies

But you seem so bent on tearing down religion, that one must assume that it is you that is reading only what agrees with you.

At any rate, Blackwood, I'm sorry I got mad.
Here in Utah there's a great deal of intolerance, more than most places, and ya can only take so much of people dumpin on eachother for whatever reason...
I gotta go to my other job, no internet access in the garage, so I'll pick this up again, if ya want to carry on a discussion still, on Sunday or so..(no internet at home yet, cancelled mine).

[Doug_Tipple]

By the way, what really did happen to all of the unicorns? I'm guessing that unicorns have about the same level of reality as we find in the creation myths common to all of the world's great religions, including the story of Noah's Ark in the Jewish scriptures. Creation myths represent the human struggle for meaning in a complex world. As we mature in consciousness, we understand that the myths, while meaningful stories, are not literally true.

It goes without saying that this is only my opinion, which also may be untrue. And if you like, it can be easily redacted with just the click of a mouse. No hard feelings on my part.

[Jack]

If i am incorrect let a Christian explain how good and decent atheists/agnostics can enter heaven without believing in Jesus as the Savior.

Simon? Hello? Any ideas?

I will try to explain, from a Friends (Quaker) point of view. I could be completely wrong and a million people may disagree with me. I am not a theologian (yet). With that said, here goes:

When we were created, we were all created by the same God (Genesis 1:26). We all come from the very same source. We are all equal, at least in God's eyes if not in our own.

Jesus is the Light that has always existed and who shines on every single person who enters the world (John 1:9). Since we all have been made by the very same God and we all have that Inner Light of Christ, there is adequate potential for ALL of us to respond accordingly. None of us have an advantage just because we were born Christian. Likewise, none of us have a disadvantage because we were born Muslim.

Whether or not we have been splashed or dipped with water, or confess our sins to a priest or whether or not we go to church and give money does not matter in the end. This may (or may not) be important for now on earth, but what really matters is if we choose to respond to that of God, both in ourselves and in each other. This is how a (hypothetical) professed atheist who has responded to the Light of Christ but never been baptised may enter Heaven but a (hypothetical) Pope who has never responded to it may not.

[Blackwood]

Tyler wrote:

At any rate, Blackwood, I'm sorry I got mad.

Hey no worry, appreciate the comment, I had just read your earlier post and wanted to probably react emotionally as well. This subject can obviosuly be really emotional.

Believe me I am really not trying to tear anyone down personally and or their beliefs, if it came across that way I apologize. I am, however, trying to raise some (what i feel are legitimate) questions about how we as a species are dealing with religion.

I haven't seen anyone argue with me on substance so far, and I understand, this could turn into a forever lasting thread, especially if we get into interpreting Bible quotes and I certainly don't have the time to go there either, although I would appreciate someone enlighten me where i am worng on substance, it's all a learning experience afterall.

As I surmised in earlier comments, anyone can believe what they want, fine with me, I personally think that some of these things are totally silly, but that's my opinion and of course I do not claim to have the answers so i may be wrong. What I am concerned about is, what appears to be, an increasing trend to bring religious belief and conviction into the political arena. And anybody trying legislate should be held accountable as to what their motivations are and what rationale drives their motivation. The ID discussion is a good example, so is Stem Cell research, Abortion, gay rights...and going on a limb here so is the true motivation for going to war with Iraq....

All the best,

Cheers

[Blackwood]

using the term "all Christians" is akin to saying "all African-Americans" or "all Middle Easterns" or whatever you want to use. There is no such thing as an all encompassing belief or behavior.

Many fundemental Christians would say I'm not Christian because I'm Catholic. Depends on what your definition of a Christian is. Is a Christian someone who believes in Christ?

Someone who believes Christ is God or God's son?

Someone who believes the Bible is the infallible writings of God?

Someone who only believes in Baptism by immersion?

Or, how about Mormons, who believe in Baptism being available after the death of a person?

Or Jehovah's Witnesses (among others) who absolutely are required to prostelitize?

Unitarian Universalist - where just about anything goes?

Honestly, other than the "Lord, your God" part - what is wrong with living by the Ten Commandments? Or the Beatitudes? Wouldn't this would be a better place by far if all did? If you come to a "good" life via God, Allah, Y-hw-h, Budda, or The Big Pink Unicorn - what difference does it make? If it bothers someone because of my beliefs, but I still live a good life, it's no skin off my teeth.using the term "all Christians" is akin to saying "all African-Americans" or "all Middle Easterns" or whatever you want to use. There is no such thing as an all encompassing belief or behavior.

Many fundemental Christians would say I'm not Christian because I'm Catholic. Depends on what your definition of a Christian is. Is a Christian someone who believes in Christ?

Someone who believes Christ is God or God's son?

Someone who believes the Bible is the infallible writings of God?

Someone who only believes in Baptism by immersion?

Or, how about Mormons, who believe in Baptism being available after the death of a person?

Or Jehovah's Witnesses (among others) who absolutely are required to prostelitize?

Unitarian Universalist - where just about anything goes?

Honestly, other than the "Lord, your God" part - what is wrong with living by the Ten Commandments? Or the Beatitudes? Wouldn't this would be a better place by far if all did? If you come to a "good" life via God, Allah, Y-hw-h, Budda, or The Big Pink Unicorn - what difference does it make? If it bothers someone because of my beliefs, but I still live a good life, it's no skin off my teeth.

Some fair points although i would point out that the first 4 of the ten commandments have nothing to do with human behavior but are all about worshipping God..my point is you do not have to believe in an invisible deity to apply these other 6 rules.

Your pointing out some examples of the various rules established by PEOPLE in the various christian traditions actually emphasizes one of my earlier points, that there is no absolute truth that anyone has access to, so it's arrogant for church dogma to claim they do. They have no bigger brains than enyone else.

Did you know that the first Vatican council called by Contantine in the 4th century argued for 3 months on the issue whether Jesus was divine or not?
Contantine finally put his foot down and declared Jesus divine, those with the opposing view were executed. Nice.

[NicoMoreno]

...and a stopped clock is still right twice a day.

Or to put it another way: Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

[fiddleronvermouth]

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all telling the same story, but each of them has a totally different angle.

Have you read the gospels lately? Matthew, Mark and Luke may be telling the same story you will get a jolt when you get to John. There a mammoth differences between the synoptics and John.

As I see it, there's nothing in the two "greatest commandments" (according to Jesus) that forbids people from calling god something else, or claims that Jesus himself is a necessary stepping stone to a virtuous life.

In addition to this the judgement depicted in Matt 25 isn't based on faith in Jesus at all. It's based on feeding the poor, visiting the sick and those in prison, etc. However, in John you will find statements about belief in Jesus. "If a man has faith in me, even though he die, he shall come to life." John 11:25 (NEB)

Yeah, but in keeping with what I wrote before about how the bible is a collection of writings by *different individuals*, you can't go peeling something out of John and hold it up as a contradiction of something Matthew said a few hundred years earlier. (or later. I forget...)

Like I said, same story, different narrators. Different *human* narrators, separated by decades and sometimes centuries in time. I think to learn which tenets of Christianity were the most important to early Christians or the most often repeated in Christ's teaching, it's more useful to look at the parts of the gospels that *agree* than it is to look for contradictions.

Like, if you were interviewing 5 eye witnesses to a murder with 5 different descriptions of the killer, you'd catch him quicker by focusing on anything the witnesses agreed on.

(Here I'm not saying that any of the gospel writers were "eye witnesses", but you can see what I'm getting at, surely).

All of which is moot if you really don't give a rat's ass about what Jesus said and you're only reading the bible in order to find all the hundreds of thousands of inconsistencies and contradictions that "prove" there's nothing divine about the book about the life of Jesus, and therefore nothing divine about Jesus.

(A logical leap no different from the assumption that the book must be divine if the person it's about is divine.)

[missy]

Did you know that the first Vatican council called by Contantine in the 4th century argued for 3 months on the issue whether Jesus was divine or not?
Contantine finally put his foot down and declared Jesus divine, those with the opposing view were executed. Nice.

I've done just a little bit of reading on the Council of Nicine - but not nearly enough to enter into a totally informed discussion.
But, I've alway thought it interesting how certain gospels (Thomas, for instance) were excluded and others included. It really seems to me that someone must have been "pushing" strong for John, since he seems SO totally different than the other three.
It would be extremely interesting if we ever found the "Q" source (and if we ever found out what it really says).

But - to go back to your concerns.......

I just barely remember, and even then, it's probably remembering after the fact, all the concerns about JFK becoming President. We currently have a candidate for mayor running that in the past has written that only "Christians" should hold office - but is now saying he meant people that do good works, etc.
While there are, of course, some religious overlap in most of life (going on the idea that atheism is still a belief, the belief that there is no god) I don't think, in most cases, religion sets policy. I know you brought up stem cell research opposition as religious - I counter that there are those that are opposed to it on belief which may or may not be religious. Same with abortion and right to die. People may come to their beliefs via religion, or science, or whatever.
And I know that I would not like to see this country (or any other) run by ANY "fundimental" religious belief - fundimental being defined as intolerance for any but those that believe exactly as you do.

[s1m0n]

If four of my friends sat down next month--let alone at various times over the next century--and tried to come up with coherent accounts of my life, There's no chance they'd agree to any great extend.

If they were trying to develop a coherent philosophy--my philosophy of life--by writing down the things they remember me saying, there'd still be almost no chance of them agreeing.

Hell, my roommate and best friend has a running series in her blog called "conversations with my roommate" in which she writes down the, uh, bizarre things I say.*

I don't read her blog in order to give her some privacy, but we have mutual friends who do. And I rarely recognise myself when they ask me "did you really say "X"? The topic will be familiar but the emphasis will be on entirely the wrong part of the story, IMO. The funny thing is that my roommate has a near-perfect memory.

*OK, here's one. I was in the bathroom shaving or something and I yelled out through the door:

Me: "When I start my own religion..."
Her: What?
m: When I start my own religion there's going to be a time during the service..
h: yeah?
m: It'll be the holiest time or whatever. When the holy spirit is present..
h: what about it?
m: the lights are going to come down, and the organ is going to start playing spooky chords.
h: yeah.
m: and right at the magic moment, we're going to have a disco ball.
h: cool!
m: It's got to be a hammond organ, too.
h: Uh-huh
m: Yeah. We're going to have some theological reason for it, like the one holy light of God casting a million different reflections or something, but the real reason is that it's going to be cool.
h: uh-huh
m: yeah. And it'll set the magic mood.

[jsluder]

[s1m0n]

I've done just a little bit of reading on the Council of Nicine - but not nearly enough to enter into a totally informed discussion.
But, I've alway thought it interesting how certain gospels (Thomas, for instance) were excluded and others included. It really seems to me that someone must have been "pushing" strong for John, since he seems SO totally different than the other three.

Elaine Pagels' book The Gnostic Gospels is about exactly this subject. She'll tell you exactly how the canon came to be set and by whom, and speculates about which theological axes were being ground, and why.

[SteveK]

Yeah, but in keeping with what I wrote before about how the bible is a collection of writings by *different individuals*, you can't go peeling something out of John and hold it up as a contradiction of something Matthew said a few hundred years earlier. (or later. I forget...)

If you see John as telling the same story as the synoptics, then that's that. I don't and it's not because I've peeled something out of John that contradicts the synoptics. There are contradictions but that's not the major point. It's that Jesus is a different person in John. He gives long speeches; he stresses belief in himself; he tells no parables and he does not talk about the Kingdom of Heaven (or Kingdom of God). He is also anti-Semetic, telling "the Jews" that their father is the devil. However, he is crucified in all four gospels.

Conventional dating has the gospels composed between about 70 CE (or maybe earlier) and 90-100 CE. There are not several hundred years between the synoptics.

[Jack]

John's Gospel is my favourite.