ppp
Well-Known Member
Unless, of course the victims are not Christians. In which case they will be with their assailants and Satan. But only those of their assailants who do not say sorry ...to God...will be in severed from their victims.
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"Christian Nationalism is Not Christianity"
- Thread starter Windwalker
- Start date
I am not one of those Christians who believe atheists aren't saved. They can.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Being a universalist assuming that is what you mean, does clear out some of those issues. But not all. For instance:
- Unless perpetrators are unable to repent (to God, not their victims) and receive heaven, those victims in heaven are still stuck with their assailants. Being forced to spend all eternity with someone who tortured me to convert to their religion would be Hell in Heaven. Let alone with the god that my torturer is in service of.
- The there are no incarnations of the god of Christianity that rise to meet my minimum standards for morality. How would being saved be functionally different from being damned? Just a matter of degree,
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Yes, and the official level and it is recorded as such in the U.N. We do not-- let me repeat-- do not have that designation.
Which basically disenfranchises those in other religions.
When I was Jewish, I very much experienced this at times with words and actions, such as having a swastika painted on the wall next to my main classroom. He got fired, btw, as he said other anti-Semitic statements to two other Jews.
See, I knew you would have trouble with this. But let me just say that Jesus certainly didn't:A
VERY
DEFINITE..
....
....
....
Maybe.
John 8:7 ESV / 3 helpful votes
And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Your choice: right wing politics or Jesus' teachings, and you can't have both. With jails and prisons in all countries today, there is no moral excuse to execute someone and think one is still being pro life.
So, choose one, and I hope & pray it's the right one, my friend.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
And I was talking about pilate, who was a regular human.
It's not an analogy... It's an explanation of how sins work.
ppp
Well-Known Member
We were talking about the difference between coercion by an institution of normal humans against normal humans in contrast with coercion by a single normal human against normal humans.
We were talking about the interaction of normal humans.
When you talk about Pilate, you are talking about the interaction of a normal human, two other groups of normal humans and a guy that you consider to be a god, who is perfect and without fault.
Can you make your point with normal everyday people from the last 100 years? If not, then you are not talking about the difference between coercion by an institution of normal humans against normal humans in contrast with coercion by a single normal human against normal humans.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Obviously you totally missed the point.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
It was founded as a secular republic, by largely Christian or deist founders, who went to great length to separate church and state. In order that its citizens be protected from persecution, and are free to hold whatever religious beliefs they wish, or none at all, and say so, without any fear of consequences.
ppp
Well-Known Member
I doubt that. I think that it is evident that you are not sticking to the point, but rather attempting to make subtle shifts in focus to topics having lines of exposition with which you are more comfortable.
As I said before, and as you so very carefully ignored:
Can you make your point with normal everyday people from the last 100 years? If not, then you are not talking about the difference between coercion by an institution of normal humans against normal humans in contrast with coercion by a single normal human against normal humans.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Why would it be any different with modern humans?
Sin is still the same. If I sin, which we all do, it's strictly my guilt. If a conglomeration of people plot to force others into their beliefs that's vastly different.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
I guess you don't know how much scripture was quoted from the Holy book of Christianity by the founding fathers?
ppp
Well-Known Member
I don't know. If you think it should work with modern everyday humans, then you should be able to make your case using only the modern everyday humans that are around us. Right?
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
I have no idea what you mean. I already made my case.
ppp
Well-Known Member
I think you confuse asserting your case with making your case. But that's okay. I'll let you off the hook.
Fly. Be free.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Carrier was neutral. When he did the research for the Jesus historicity study he fully expected to confirm the consensus that there was a historical Jesus.
That is the first 2 I thought of so I don't think this is a justified complaint. A historian is compelled to have only a bias by the evidence. Which is exactly why apologists deny, avoid and stay far away from those issues.
All over the place. Virtually all historical scholars believe the Bible is the mythology of those people. Granted Ehrman is one historian who will not venture into other religions. He is only interested in where did it start in Judaism or Christianity. He doesn't want to talk about religious syncretism.
Scholars are largely in agreement. Gospel dates, anonymous, order, OT is Mesopotamian and some Egyptain, NT is Hellenism/Persian, that lecture about Platonic philosophy and theology, I hear this from scholars ALL the time.
Meanwhile religious beliefs are vastly different and even in Christianity there are hundreds of sects. One sect from the UK has gay ministers and interprets scripture as supporting these choices. Interpretation gives regular Islam and Jihad.
I don't know what you mean history says otherwise?
"Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy; however, modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived.[3][4] Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, most scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical."
"However, more recent thinking is that the Yahwist source dates to from either just before or during the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC, and that the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.[4] The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in Primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BC.[13]"
That isn't the translation. It's "we don't know for sure but we have EVIDENCE that points to this". Scholars here are just being humble, somehow you are picking this apart like it's a fault yet you are asserting that this Jewish/Greek/Persian myth is actually true and speak as if it is?
But there actually is good evidence for what he is saying. Yes he says it's "LIKELY" because scholars are always cautious, yet the evidence is that before Ezra and fragments of manuscripts do not ever mention Biblical stories and after Ezra it's very common that fragments of all types of writings have references to Genesis. The Dead Sea Scrolls being one example.
He doesn't assert that it's "his truth", he actually says - "but what we CAN SAY is that after Ezra people frequently allude to Genesis".
Sounds like he's being honest.
Again, no, you are only hearing what you want. He says the earliest prophets like Isaiah don't seem to know Genesis. But then he has evidence. Isaiah is very interested in David and is interested in ancestors of the royal house of Juda but has no mention about Adam, Noah, Cain and Able, and......... he even says it's negative evidence meaning it doesn't PROVE anything (yeah, he says it?) but NONE OF THE EARLY PROPHETS MENTION GENESIS so that adds to the theory.
Completely honest. Welcome to real scholarship.
First, no evidence of any God. Definitely no evidence of a theistic God.
Massive evidence for mythology and religious syncretism.
This Daniel Boone analogy doesn't work. On many levels.
The Mesopotamians had multiple Gods. Genesis is a reaction to both Mesopotamian creation stories, similar story but reducing it to one God because by 6BC after being invaded several times the Israelites decided worshipping Ashera was making Yahweh angry and became strictly Yahweh centric. I can source this.
The Sumerian Goddess Inana is much more like Yahweh, supreme, created, uncreated, ultimate being who made good, bad, male, female.
So the theory is Yahweh is going to all these cultures but the prophets can't get the name right, (notice all the Daniel Boone books would get it right) add multiple Gods, one flood story Atra-Hasis has a God destroy humans because they are too noisy doing the work they were created for, which the God clearly said they were created for, and for centuries people are getting it all wrong and then Israel forms and suddenly they get it exactly right? That is terrible apologetics.
Also Daniel Boone is a human. Humans are actually real. Gods are not.
The alternative - all these nations has myths and the Israelites used some of them and made their own versions. They even had Yahweh pair up with Ashera a Canaanite Goddess until multiple invasions had them re-think that. That is clearly what is happening.
Also the God in the OT is horrible. But that is because that's how Gods were written to act in those days.
Now another problem here is if we look at ALL of the religions of the time, none of the far Asian, African, American Indian, South Americas, Iceland, none of these mythologies are at all similar in the way Sumer, Babylon, Mesopotamia and Israel are. None. So the real God just hung around the Mediterranean Sea? No, this is not at all possible. What is extremely possible is these stories carried through the Mediterranean. There were no savior resurrecting deities anywhere else except in places close to Greek culture.
Right, Greek Hellenism came to Israel in 327 BC. Before that it was the Persian messianic influence from 500BC. The OT was continually revised right up through the 2nd Temple Period. Hellenism was effecting Christianity not the OT. The Persian occupation brought the modern Satan and a general resurrection at the end of the world as well as a world savior.
joelr
Well-Known Member
In the later centuries Greek was not available. Provide a source.
This sounds like pure denial? It's simply well known that the NT is Hellenistic? Provide a historical source. I'm going to repost some things because this is like crazy denial? Where is your evidence? I'm interested in new facts but when you give a valid historical lecture and you get "I disagree...." ?????
First, the lecture which explains much, where is he wrong and why?
Plato and Christianity
38:30 Origen a Neo-Platonist uses Plato’s One. A perfect unity, indivisible, incorporeal, transcending all things material. The Logos (Christ) is the creative principle that permeates the created universe
41:10
Agustine 354-430 AD taught scripture should be interpreted symbolically instead of literally after Plotinus explained Christianity was just Platonic ideas.
Thought scripture was silly if taken literally.
45:55 the ability to read Greek/Platonic ideas was lost for most Western scholars during Middle Ages. Boethius was going to translate all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin which would have altered Western history.
Theologians all based on Plato - Jesus, Agustine, Boethius Anslem, Aquinas
59:30
In some sense Christianity is taking Greco-Roman moral philosophy and theology and delivering it to the masses, even though they are unaware
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
At 20:26 Carrier explains Hellenistic savior deities, then Greek "pagan" elements added to Christianity, then explains how Hellenism swept through the region changing all religions in a similar way.
Here is a peer-reviewed paper on a few Hellenistic trends that are known to have entered into Christianity
The Relationship between Hellenistic Mystery Religions and Early Christianity: A Case Study using Baptism and Eucharist
The Relationship between Hellenistic Mystery Religions and Early Christianity: A Case Study using Baptism and Eucharist
Briticannica, which you claimed to use as a source https://wwwc.com/topic/Hellenistic-religion/Beliefs-practices-and-institutions
Christianity is a combination of Hellenism (pagan) and Judaism
-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.
-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)
-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
which is wrong, why, which scholar disagrees?
joelr
Well-Known Member
Uh, no not me. The 4 Gospels were assembled in 387 ish. 312AD was the Council of Nicea and 38?AD was the actual assembling by Constantine and his Bishops.
In 170 AD Christianity was a complete mess, 1/2 Gnostic. Which is one reason why saying you trust "early sources" is a position that doesn't make sense? Bishop Iraneous was writing letters explaining he wanted a church with a power structure where only the bloodline could read and interpret scripture. This did win out and is more about people being hungry for power and control. Gnostics were more carefree, allowed women teachers, less discriminatory. Probably closer to what Jesus was saying. You can read his letters yourself.
Elaine Pagels shows some of them in the Lost Gospels.
These various interpretations were called heresies by the leaders of the proto-orthodox church, but many were very popular and had large followings. Part of the unifying trend in proto-orthodoxy was an increasingly harsh anti-Judaism and rejection of Judaizers. Some of the major movements were:
- Gnosticism – second to fourth centuries – reliance on revealed knowledge from an unknowable God, a distinct divinity from the Demiurge who created and oversees the material world. The Gnostics claimed to have received secret teachings (gnosis) from Jesus via other apostles which were not publicly known, or in the case of Valentinius from Paul the Apostle. Gnosticism is predicated on the existence of such hidden knowledge, but brief references to private teachings of Jesus have also survived in the canonic scripture (Mark 4:11) as did warning by the Christ that there would be false prophets or false teachers. Irenaeus' opponents also claimed that the wellsprings of divine inspiration were not dried up, which is the doctrine of continuing revelation.[citation needed]
- Marcionism – second century – the God of Jesus was a different God from the God of the Old Testament.
- Montanism – second century – a pentecostal movement initiated by Montanus and his female disciples, featuring prophetic continuing revelations from the Holy Spirit.
- Adoptionism – second century – Jesus was not born the Son of God, but was adopted at his baptism, resurrection or ascension.
- Docetism – second to third century – Jesus was pure spirit and his physical form an illusion.
- Sabellianism – third century – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of the one God and not the three separate persons of the Trinity.
- Arianism – third to fourth century – Jesus, while not merely mortal, was not eternally divine and was of some lesser status than God the Father.[note 1]
Bias? "Until he took an honest look"? So, translated, you agree with Bart and any other scholar that disagrees are not honest? As you can see, you are showing your bias.
Even among scholars that deny Jesus or certain aspects of Jesus disagree, however:
According to scholar Marcus Borg, the following facts are agreed upon by most New Testament scholars:
- Jesus was born sometime just before 4 B.C. He grew up in Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, as part of the peasant class. Jesus’ father was a carpenter and he became one, too, meaning that they had likely lost their agricultural land at some point.
- Jesus was raised Jewish and he remained deeply Jewish all of his life. His intention was not to create a new religion. Rather, he saw himself as doing something within Judaism.
- He left Nazareth as an adult, met the prophet John and was baptized by John. During his baptism, Jesus likely experienced some sort of divine vision.
- Shortly afterwards, Jesus began his public preaching with the message that the world could be transformed into a “Kingdom of God.”
- He became a noted healer, teacher and prophet. More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition.
- He was executed by Roman imperial authority.
- His followers experienced him after his death. It is clear that they had visions of Jesus as they had known him during his historical life.
Bias.... "Virtually all historical scholars believe the Bible is the mythology" - correctly said would be "I have a list that supports my beliefs that...."
So? That is interpretation of what is read not what was written.
So you just corrected yourself. What you just said was that "some scholars believe this and others believe that"
What you have to read are dissenting views to your position.
Again, you just corrected yourself "More recent thinking" - means "other people believe differently"
Bias.
You missed the point completely. You said the gospels were not used until the fourth century. Whether you agree with the Moratorian Council or not, it shows that the 4 gospels were in use way before the 4th century.