Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Unlike you I can support my claims with evidence. What parts did you not understand?So you keep asserting, with no evidence, quotes, or history. This is just your opinion. You have not supported it.
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Unlike you I can support my claims with evidence. What parts did you not understand?So you keep asserting, with no evidence, quotes, or history. This is just your opinion. You have not supported it.
I have been a student of Christian history and the Bible for over 45 years. My goal here is to offer a simple summary and historical consensus of the Christian faith. I will try to avoid denominational issues or cultural influences, and concentrate on the central elements of historical, biblical Christianity. Many of the terms will be of classical usage, and might carry ambiguity for some. I will try to clarify if there is confusion.
Christianity has been the caretaker of a worldview, concerning the nature of God, man, and the universe.
God
God is infinite, eternal, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He created all things with a word. He is everywhere, and has no constraints of time and space. He is perfect, without flaw, gender, or limitations common to the creation.
Man
Man was created as a perfect being, and enjoyed open communion with God. God created man in His image, and shares traits with the creature. Man was created as an eternal soul, that transcends his material being.
The Universe
The universe was created in purity and perfection, and will be restored to that state when the fallen era ends. The order and majesty of God is reflected in the material universe.
The Fall
Evil and discord entered the universe when an angelic being rebelled against God, and corrupted the perfection of God's creation. Death and suffering became part of the experience of all living creatures. Man joined in that rebellion, where lies, murder, and human corruption ran rampant. Both the material and spiritual realms are in discord, in this cosmos of rebellion and enmity toward God.
Christianity is the hardest Abrahamic religion to reject, because of its peaceful loving nature, in the main, but is has one major issue, the idea of Jesus as the Messiah
This idea alienates Jews and Muslims and for that reason it is divisive and cannot be the true path to God
Once Christianity moves on this idea, then I think it could do wonders to unite humanity.
Your quotes seem to cobble together disparate comments from historic figures, but then those comments get twisted into Reformed Calvinistic nonsense whose flavor has little if anything to do with early Xy. Your statements appear to be “congruent” as they stand alone, but then they become “mush gospel,” like some cobbled-together Frankenstein’s monster and presented as Orthodoxy.Well, since our 'discussion' seems to consist of me posting historical quotes and rational arguments , and you responding with unevidenced dismissal, ad hom, and assertions, i see no point in continuing. My wimpy summary is congruent with most creeds, statements, and summaries throughout xtian history, beginning with the earliest ones. You have not refuted that.
You can believe whatever you want. You can invent your own version of Christianity, and start your own cult. You can revise history, and relabel heresies as orthodoxy. But it does not change the original Message, that Jesus brought to a dying world. It is THAT message, that is the focus of this thread.
Neither have you supported yours.So you keep asserting, with no evidence, quotes, or history. This is just your opinion. You have not supported it.
You’re defining Calvinism.Believe whatever you want..
Im just defining historical Christianity, here
There are 3 possibilities for this idea..Christianity is the hardest Abrahamic religion to reject, because of its peaceful loving nature, in the main, but is has one major issue, the idea of Jesus as the Messiah
This idea alienates Jews and Muslims and for that reason it is divisive and cannot be the true path to God
Once Christianity moves on this idea, then I think it could do wonders to unite humanity.
Conclude what you will. I have presented the evidence.Your quotes seem to cobble together disparate comments from historic figures
I have, of course, you just reject it.Neither have you supported yours.
So you believe and assert, without evidence.You’re defining Calvinism.
the Christian religion has almost 1,700 years of oppression and extremism in their own history
There are 3 possibilities for this idea..
1. Jesus WAS & IS, the Messiah.. the unique Son of God, the Saviour of mankind.
2. He is/was a deceiver.. a false prophet like many before. The Messiah is yet to come, or there is no such person.
3. He is/was a madman, who sincerely thought Himself God, and convinced others of the same.
This is called the 'trilemma', in classical Christian scholarship. Those are the possibilities. IF.. He truly is/was 'The Messiah,' THEN... why or how could mere man 'change!' that idea for some speculative improvement of 'unity!'?
..not according to Jesus Himself, and His disciples.Jesus was a rabbi a very wise one and one that I love, a son of God as we all are
Your post is the evidence. If you had posted, “Women need to be beat down and controlled,” that post would, on its own, be an example of misogyny. No further evidence needed. Someone would say, “That’s misogyny,” and you’d say, “you have no evidence to that effect.” It is what it is.So you believe and assert, without evidence
Jesus allowed himself to be called “Rabbi,” and he acted like a Rabbi. They treated him like a Rabbi...not according to Jesus Himself, and His disciples
Yet, when someone called him “good teacher,” he said, “No one is good but God alone.”He was the 'only begotten Son', of God.. God in the flesh, not merely a man
That’s not what the poster claimed, though. Read it again.You can certainly disbelieve Him. But He never claimed to be just another Rabbi. So that makes Him either a liar, a madman, or the Saviour of humanity. You pick
..not according to Jesus Himself, and His disciples.
He was the 'only begotten Son', of God.. God in the flesh, not merely a man.
You can certainly disbelieve Him. But He never claimed to be just another Rabbi. So that makes Him either a liar, a madman, or the Saviour of humanity. You pick.
More on the trilemma:
Christ either [1] deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or [2] He was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or [3] He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma. It is inexorable. ~ John Duncan (1796-1870)
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.. ~ C. S. Lewis, 1942
One concludes what their spirit/soul/mind compels them. We cannot do otherwise.I cannot say what Jesus was, but he was and is not what he said he was to all of humanity and that concerned me.
None. I presented reasoning, not claims of authority. The trilemma is historical and a rational examination of the possibilities of the man, Jesus.What authority does CS Lewis and John Duncan have on the subject any more than Rabbi Hillel or any of the other great rabbis.
How or why would He return, if he was just a man?Until Jesus returns we can not answer your trilemma with any degree of certainty.
Truth divides, as well. Lies and distortions cannot peacefully coexist with Truth.The point is that which divides cannot be from God
There are more possibilities than that if you think about it. He may never have even have claimed to be the messiah. That could be a myth that grew about him after he was crucified.There are 3 possibilities for this idea..
1. Jesus WAS & IS, the Messiah.. the unique Son of God, the Saviour of mankind.
2. He is/was a deceiver.. a false prophet like many before. The Messiah is yet to come, or there is no such person.
3. He is/was a madman, who sincerely thought Himself God, and convinced others of the same.
This is called the 'trilemma', in classical Christian scholarship. Those are the possibilities. IF.. He truly is/was 'The Messiah,' THEN... why or how could mere man 'change!' that idea for some speculative improvement of 'unity!'?
Nope, you appear to be projecting again. Correcting your false views of Christianity is not "anti-christian". You appear to be rather uneducated about the early history of Christianity. One view won out over the rest. That does not mean that was the "right" view. And your beliefs have their own spin on them.
Fortunately, you have false narratives and anti-christian talking points readily at hand to smear the competition..
That is just an extension of the source. Whether it was Jesus or His followers, this account of the man Jesus is the only comprehensive record of His words and deeds. As presented, He can only be:There are more possibilities than that if you think about it. He may never have even have claimed to be the messiah. That could be a myth that grew about him after he was crucified.