Christian Discussion Thread III

[Distruzio]

Ah, so Jesus is the lie? Well, as I said, I can't really discuss that with you as it would derail the thread. Moreover, I didn't claim that His existence wasn't important, just that the revelation of a lie about His existence was, to me, irrelevant. I also said that the Church, being the authority on what faith in Christ means for the Christian, would likely perpetuate despite the revelation you hypothesize.

That isn't the same thing as saying "Jesus existence isn't important."

Clarification: Existence of Jesus is highly unlikely possibility but since so many depends on his presumed existence as solid unbreakable part of human culture, it actually doesn't matter if it's lie, so when I am saying story about him are lies, it's not important, so you shouldn't be so touchy feely about it.

Yup, it's the same thing. You mistakes semantics with cosmetics there.

"Touchy-Feely"? Me?

That's a new one. *shrug* I mean, is that really the term you use when confronted with a Christian who responds to your line of questioning about the pillar of his faith being a phantom with, "meh"? If it is, then.... okay?

[Jumalariik]

Is this not basic Christian doctrine?

-Biblical inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture as a result of this
-Virgin birth of Jesus
-Belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin
-Bodily resurrection of Jesus
-Historical reality of the miracles of Jesus

No. Not at all.

How can you be Christian and not believe in the resurrection?

[Constantinopolis]

Is this not basic Christian doctrine?

-Biblical inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture as a result of this
-Virgin birth of Jesus
-Belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin
-Bodily resurrection of Jesus
-Historical reality of the miracles of Jesus

No. Not at all.

How can you be Christian and not believe in the resurrection?

Yeah, I'm with Jumalariik on this one. Belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is an absolutely essential basic tenet of Christianity.

However, inerrancy of scripture is by no means a universal belief among Christians or a basic pillar of Christianity. Neither is the belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin ("atonement soteriology").

[Constantinopolis]

Also, this is something that needs to be said over and over again until people get it, so I'm quoting it here for truth:

This is most pointedly not true and shows a very Western Anti-theist bias. While some oppression occurred in the West, other cultures continued to advance.

There is no real evidence to support this argument. When Christian Europe was in the so called "dark ages" China was the most advanced civilization in the world and now some scholars believed even sailed to America. The Muslims created the camera obscura, and the number zero, which by themselves paved the way for not only modern technology, but Modern physics. Hell they Mayans were working with modern Calculus while Isaac Newton was still swimming in his fathers testicles. The Catholic Church made great contributions to Science, and even created the theory of the Big Bang.

The Catholic church actually bankrolled Galileo.

They didn't do what they could to stop progress. They did what they could to challenge political undermining of their Authority. Bruno wasn't burned at the stake for saying the universe was infinite, he was burned at the stake for teaching Universalism. Galileo wasn't arrested for his experiments, but for making political attacks on the Pope who had financially supported his experiments in the first place. And he was put in house arrest, in the mansion of one of the most affluent families in all of Italy, where he was allowed to continue his work, just without being able to make anymore public claims. How horrible.

The Catholic Church didn't try to stop the education of their people as Martin Luther argued, they tried to control it, to make sure falsehoods weren't being propagated as truths. The Renaissance, or more importantly the Creation of the Printing Press (another Catholic invention) made such control impossible as ideas were being shared faster than the Catholic Church could control it. The printing press was the middle ages' version of the internet. Hell the first book even printed was the Catholic Bible.

[Distruzio]

No. Not at all.

How can you be Christian and not believe in the resurrection?

Yeah, I'm with Jumalariik on this one. Belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is an absolutely essential basic tenet of Christianity.

However, inerrancy of scripture is by no means a universal belief among Christians or a basic pillar of Christianity. Neither is the belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin ("atonement soteriology").

I took his statement to suggest that only Christs body triumphed over death. We know this isn't true. So I erred on the side of caution and rebuked it.

[Dangelia]

Yeah, I'm with Jumalariik on this one. Belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is an absolutely essential basic tenet of Christianity.

However, inerrancy of scripture is by no means a universal belief among Christians or a basic pillar of Christianity. Neither is the belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin ("atonement soteriology").

I took his statement to suggest that only Christs body triumphed over death. We know this isn't true. So I erred on the side of caution and rebuked it.

Oh Distruzio, confusing since 2011.

[Distruzio]

No. Not at all.

How can you be Christian and not believe in the resurrection?

Didn't disagree with the resurrection. I disagree with the implication that the resurrection was body only. Orthodox would say that we believe in the resurrection of Christ - not the bodily resurrection of Christ. To emphasize the "bodily" resurrection is to imply, not only that both His spirit and mind were not resurrected while His body was but, also, that there is a disconnect between body, mind and soul/spirit - as if the body is a capsule containing the others.

This is hostile to our theology.

[Dangelia]

I found this article which says, that throughout the history of the church (speaking about orthodoxy), the idea of Creationism is incorrect and is a Protestant idea not found within Orthodoxy. It's a really interesting article to read.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/ort_creation.htm

[Distruzio]

I took his statement to suggest that only Christs body triumphed over death. We know this isn't true. So I erred on the side of caution and rebuked it.

Oh Distruzio, confusing since 2011.

That's how I roll, baby. I speak literally and quite explicitly - almost to the point of pedantically.

[Distruzio]

I found this article which says, that throughout the history of the church (speaking about orthodoxy), the idea of Creationism is incorrect and is a Protestant idea not found within Orthodoxy. It's a really interesting article to read.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/ort_creation.htm

Seems correct from my experiences with Orthodoxy.

That's not to suggest Orthodoxy is hostile to creationism - just that it patently misses the point of the creation account. So much so that it creates a heresy.

[Bunkeranlage]

I found this article which says, that throughout the history of the church (speaking about orthodoxy), the idea of Creationism is incorrect and is a Protestant idea not found within Orthodoxy. It's a really interesting article to read.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/ort_creation.htm

Seems correct from my experiences with Orthodoxy.

That's not to suggest Orthodoxy is hostile to creationism - just that it patently misses the point of the creation account. So much so that it creates a heresy.

We also have the extremely liberal Christians who say that Creation in Genesis isn't real, but rather, it's an allegory.

[Distruzio]

Seems correct from my experiences with Orthodoxy.

That's not to suggest Orthodoxy is hostile to creationism - just that it patently misses the point of the creation account. So much so that it creates a heresy.

We also have the extremely liberal Christians who say that Creation in Genesis isn't real, but rather, it's an allegory.

Indeed. An approach from the extreme opposite direction that dances with heresy. It misses the point.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Correct. But notice that now you're saying that the right to life does not completely and absolutely trump bodily autonomy after all. Instead, the right to life trumps bodily autonomy in most cases, but if we're talking about a particularly dangerous or invasive violation of bodily autonomy, then even saving a life is not enough to justify it.
So the issue becomes not a matter of absolute principle but a matter of degree. We must draw a line between the kinds of violations of bodily autonomy that are acceptable in order to save a life and those that are not acceptable.
And people can reasonably disagree about where precisely to draw that line, and whether pregnancy falls on the acceptable or unacceptable side of the line.
This is what I am trying to persuade you of: Not that you should be pro-choice, but that the pro-choice position is a legitimate view that reasonable people can have.

I disagree, I don't think pregnancy is even close to being one of those cases, nor do I think it reasonable to think it is.

Also, take note of this, it is a pro-life argument made by a pro-life atheist:

This is true. And, likewise, under normal circumstances no one should be killed for being too young to care for themselves independently. Unfortunately, pregnancy is completely unlike any normal circumstances or normal human relationship. What happens when both a woman and her developing fetus are regarded as human beings entitled to personhood and bodily rights? Any way you cut it, their rights are always going to conflict (at least until womb transfers become a reality). So what’s the reasonable response? It could start by treating both parties at conflict as if they were equal human beings.



Human society has determined that parents have an obligation to nourish and protect their dependent offspring. The more vulnerable and dependent someone is, the more we are obligated to not abandon them. That a fetus is singularly dependent on one woman for the duration of nine months is not an argument for abortion, but against it. If an unrelated infant were abandoned on your doorstep miles from civilization with no one in a position to reach you and release you of your charge, would you not be obligated to at least provide basic life-sustaining care until such a time as care could be passed on to another person? Would this not be true even though you did not consent to the arrival of the dependent human, who was in fact forced upon you? Would you be any less obligated to try to keep this child alive if doing so was wearisome and taxing on your body, though not life-threateningly so? If this is true of one’s duty to sustain a vulnerable and dependent stranger until care can be passed on to another, how much more obligated is a woman to her own prenatal offspring?

See, all your arguments are fine for personal choices against abortion meaning, between having a baby and not having them, you can convince an individual of having them.

However, in a society, there are many upon many differences of opinion and thus degrees of where my rights begin and where someone else's right ends. Therefore we must have some sensible approach to it by having people choose what they want to do with their own bodies. After all, even though it's our morals, we cannot, and should not, impose said morals on others. Jesus himself said it best when he said we should not judge, because with the same yardstick we measure we will be measured as well.

I prefer to take those words to mean that, under the same standard I judge others, other people will judge me the same way as well, and well, I don't want to tell other people what not to do and then I end up doing exactly the opposite of what I preach. In this case, with abortion, I am sure I could go and tell people right now not to abort a child, but I am sure that if I had a daughter, and she was, say, 14 years old and her boyfriend is 16, and they have sex without me knowing, and she ends up pregnant, I am not entirely sure whether it's my call or not to impose my parental will upon her.

Further, the strongest case I have found for pro-choice has been my own experience in a country where abortion is illegal. Yes, the constitution is codified to say human life begins at conception, and they have criminalized abortions to where women and doctors will face jail time if they perform an abortion. The consequences have been disastrous for women with low-income with an undesired pregnancy: having to use battery acid and clothe hangers on their bodies, at the risk of their health and even life, and even without either one facing life in prison. I do not think women deserve such a reality anywhere. And that just goes against my own belief that suffering must be minimized. Sadly, killing a baby is a result of an abortion, but having women suffer is much worse and goes against my beliefs than to let them choose and have safe abortions.

[The Flood]

I disagree, I don't think pregnancy is even close to being one of those cases, nor do I think it reasonable to think it is.

Also, take note of this, it is a pro-life argument made by a pro-life atheist:

See, all your arguments are fine for personal choices against abortion meaning, between having a baby and not having them, you can convince an individual of having them.

However, in a society, there are many upon many differences of opinion and thus degrees of where my rights begin and where someone else's right ends. Therefore we must have some sensible approach to it by having people choose what they want to do with their own bodies. After all, even though it's our morals, we cannot, and should not, impose said morals on others. Jesus himself said it best when he said we should not judge, because with the same yardstick we measure we will be measured as well.

The mother's rights end as soon as they infringe upon the child's right to live. Fact.

I prefer to take those words to mean that, under the same standard I judge others, other people will judge me the same way as well, and well, I don't want to tell other people what not to do and then I end up doing exactly the opposite of what I preach. In this case, with abortion, I am sure I could go and tell people right now not to abort a child, but I am sure that if I had a daughter, and she was, say, 14 years old and her boyfriend is 16, and they have sex without me knowing, and she ends up pregnant, I am not entirely sure whether it's my call or not to impose my parental will upon her.

I would argue that it would be very much a mortal sin to sit back and do nothing to prevent a murder when you have the power and duty to stop it.

Further, the strongest case I have found for pro-choice has been my own experience in a country where abortion is illegal. Yes, the constitution is codified to say human life begins at conception, and they have criminalized abortions to where women and doctors will face jail time if they perform an abortion. The consequences have been disastrous for women with low-income with an undesired pregnancy: having to use battery acid and clothe hangers on their bodies, at the risk of their health and even life, and even without either one facing life in prison. I do not think women deserve such a reality anywhere. And that just goes against my own belief that suffering must be minimized. Sadly, killing a baby is a result of an abortion, but having women suffer is much worse and goes against my beliefs than to let them choose and have safe abortions.

The solution is education, not the slaughter of millions of innocent children.

[Daenemark]

See, all your arguments are fine for personal choices against abortion meaning, between having a baby and not having them, you can convince an individual of having them.

However, in a society, there are many upon many differences of opinion and thus degrees of where my rights begin and where someone else's right ends. Therefore we must have some sensible approach to it by having people choose what they want to do with their own bodies. After all, even though it's our morals, we cannot, and should not, impose said morals on others. Jesus himself said it best when he said we should not judge, because with the same yardstick we measure we will be measured as well.

The mother's rights end as soon as they infringe upon the child's right to live. Fact.

I prefer to take those words to mean that, under the same standard I judge others, other people will judge me the same way as well, and well, I don't want to tell other people what not to do and then I end up doing exactly the opposite of what I preach. In this case, with abortion, I am sure I could go and tell people right now not to abort a child, but I am sure that if I had a daughter, and she was, say, 14 years old and her boyfriend is 16, and they have sex without me knowing, and she ends up pregnant, I am not entirely sure whether it's my call or not to impose my parental will upon her.

I would argue that it would be very much a mortal sin to sit back and do nothing to prevent a murder when you have the power and duty to stop it.

Further, the strongest case I have found for pro-choice has been my own experience in a country where abortion is illegal. Yes, the constitution is codified to say human life begins at conception, and they have criminalized abortions to where women and doctors will face jail time if they perform an abortion. The consequences have been disastrous for women with low-income with an undesired pregnancy: having to use battery acid and clothe hangers on their bodies, at the risk of their health and even life, and even without either one facing life in prison. I do not think women deserve such a reality anywhere. And that just goes against my own belief that suffering must be minimized. Sadly, killing a baby is a result of an abortion, but having women suffer is much worse and goes against my beliefs than to let them choose and have safe abortions.

The solution is education, not the slaughter of millions of innocent children.

a mass of cells isn't a human being or child, by definition. you can't murder something that's not a human being. abortion isn't wrong, even if you follow the 10 commandments.

[The Flood]

The mother's rights end as soon as they infringe upon the child's right to live. Fact.

I would argue that it would be very much a mortal sin to sit back and do nothing to prevent a murder when you have the power and duty to stop it.

The solution is education, not the slaughter of millions of innocent children.

a mass of cells isn't a human being or child, by definition. you can't murder something that's not a human being. abortion isn't wrong, even if you follow the 10 commandments.

I may be able to accept that a Christian can be pro-choice and still Christian, depending on their reasons, but I cannot accept that a Christian can deny that abortion is at all wrong, or that they can deny that the unborn are human beings. I can't accept that anymore then I can accept someone who denies that black people are human beings.

[Washington Resistance Army]

a mass of cells isn't a human being or child, by definition. you can't murder something that's not a human being. abortion isn't wrong, even if you follow the 10 commandments.

I may be able to accept that a Christian can be pro-choice and still Christian, depending on their reasons, but I cannot accept that a Christian can deny that abortion is at all wrong, or that they can deny that the unborn are human beings. I can't accept that anymore then I can accept someone who denies that black people are human beings.

It isn't that hard to accept, no matter which you try to paint it a small collection of cells is not a human being. If you're trying to say then you have no idea what you're talking about.

[The Archregimancy]

This is not an abortion thread, thank you.

Abortion comes under that class of CDT discussion topics we might describe as "broadly germane to the topic of the present thread, but best taken to a separate thread given the extent to which it tends to dominate and take over discussion".

[Conscentia]

Is this not basic Christian doctrine?

-Biblical inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture as a result of this
-Virgin birth of Jesus
-Belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin
-Bodily resurrection of Jesus
-Historical reality of the miracles of Jesus

No, not necessarily.
Plenty of Christians accept that their are errors in the scripture.
Plenty reject the virgin birth of Jesus. (Because it's non-scriptural. Jesus was not said to be born to a virgin, that's a common misconception that was spread by errors in translation. And the phrase "immaculate conception" refers to the conception of Mary, not Jesus. Her conception was immaculate because according to Church doctrine, she was born without original sin.)
The belief that Jesus' death was atonement for sin is not universal.
Deists reject miracles, and imagine some go as far as to reject the resurrection.

[The Archregimancy]

Is this not basic Christian doctrine?

-Biblical inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture as a result of this
-Virgin birth of Jesus
-Belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin
-Bodily resurrection of Jesus
-Historical reality of the miracles of Jesus

No, not necessarily.
Plenty of Christians accept that their are errors in the scripture.
Plenty reject the virgin birth of Jesus. (Because it's non-scriptural. Jesus was not said to be born to a virgin, that's a common misconception that was spread by errors in translation. And the phrase "immaculate conception" refers to the conception of Mary, not Jesus. Her conception was immaculate because according to Church doctrine, she was born without original sin.)
The belief that Jesus' death was atonement for sin is not universal.
Deists reject miracles, and imagine some go as far as to reject the resurrection.

A couple of quick clarifying thoughts here.

1) On the Virgin Birth and the 'common misconception' based on 'errors of translation'...

The translation reported in the OP is in fact closer to the original Hebrew in the passage, which uses the word 'almah' (let's see if NSG supports Hebrew fonts... עלמה), which originally means an unmarried young woman; while said young unmarried woman would probably have been culturally expected to be a virgin, this is not inherent in the word.

That this is the original Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 has never been seriously disputed by the mainstream established churches. It certainly isn't disputed by the Catholics or the Orthodox, and was openly acknowledged as early as the writings of the influential 2nd century theologian Irenaeus of Lyon. Use of the Greek word 'parthenos', which specifically translates to 'virgin', came in with the Septuagint, a Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek undertaken in the third and second centuries BC in Ptolemaic Alexandria. This insertion of 'virgin' therefore predates Jesus by nearly 150 years, and is a Hellenic insertion rather than a Christian insertion.

It's therefore not so much an "error" of translation, but rather a pre-Christian decision by Hellenistic Alexandrian Jews to equate "unmarried young woman" with "virgin", which would have been the culturally expected norm at the time in question.


2) On the Immaculate Conception... I think most people posting in this thread will likely already be aware that this refers to Mary, not Jesus - but it's an exclusively Catholic doctrine rather than a universal Christian one, and wasn't even formally defined as official Catholic dogma until 1854.

[Bunkeranlage]

No, not necessarily.
Plenty of Christians accept that their are errors in the scripture.
Plenty reject the virgin birth of Jesus. (Because it's non-scriptural. Jesus was not said to be born to a virgin, that's a common misconception that was spread by errors in translation. And the phrase "immaculate conception" refers to the conception of Mary, not Jesus. Her conception was immaculate because according to Church doctrine, she was born without original sin.)
The belief that Jesus' death was atonement for sin is not universal.
Deists reject miracles, and imagine some go as far as to reject the resurrection.

A couple of quick clarifying thoughts here.

1) On the Virgin Birth and the 'common misconception' based on 'errors of translation'...

The translation reported in the OP is in fact closer to the original Hebrew in the passage, which uses the word 'almah' (let's see if NSG supports Hebrew fonts... עלמה), which originally means an unmarried young woman; while said young unmarried woman would probably have been culturally expected to be a virgin, this is not inherent in the word.

That this is the original Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 has never been seriously disputed by the mainstream established churches. It certainly isn't disputed by the Catholics or the Orthodox, and was openly acknowledged as early as the writings of the influential 2nd century theologian Irenaeus of Lyon. Use of the Greek word 'parthenos', which specifically translates to 'virgin', came in with the Septuagint, a Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Greek undertaken in the third and second centuries BC in Ptolemaic Alexandria. This insertion of 'virgin' therefore predates Jesus by nearly 150 years, and is a Hellenic insertion rather than a Christian insertion.

It's therefore not so much an "error" of translation, but rather a pre-Christian decision by Hellenistic Alexandrian Jews to equate "unmarried young woman" with "virgin", which would have been the culturally expected norm at the time in question.


2) On the Immaculate Conception... I think most people posting in this thread will likely already be aware that this refers to Mary, not Jesus - but it's an exclusively Catholic doctrine rather than a universal Christian one, and wasn't even formally defined as official Catholic dogma until 1854.

Even within the Catholic Church, aren't there different groups which reject certain doctrines?

[Socialist Czechia]

This is not an abortion thread, thank you.

Abortion comes under that class of CDT discussion topics we might describe as "broadly germane to the topic of the present thread, but best taken to a separate thread given the extent to which it tends to dominate and take over discussion".

So what about tobacco?

I was quite surprised when I found out, that Church tried to ban tobacco, then regulate it at very least, and tobacco users were often punished, even by penalty of death in some more rigid places like Russia (especially by very conservative 'Old Believers').
It mostly changed in 17th and 18th century when tobacco became too valuable product to try ban it.

[Murkwood]

This is not an abortion thread, thank you.

Abortion comes under that class of CDT discussion topics we might describe as "broadly germane to the topic of the present thread, but best taken to a separate thread given the extent to which it tends to dominate and take over discussion".

Don't you know, Arch? Every thread is an Abortion thread on NSG!

[The Archregimancy]

This is not an abortion thread, thank you.

Abortion comes under that class of CDT discussion topics we might describe as "broadly germane to the topic of the present thread, but best taken to a separate thread given the extent to which it tends to dominate and take over discussion".

So what about tobacco?

I was quite surprised when I found out, that Church tried to ban tobacco, then regulate it at very least, and tobacco users were often punished, even by penalty of death in some more rigid places like Russia (especially by very conservative 'Old Believers').
It mostly changed in 17th and 18th century when tobacco became too valuable product to try ban it.

It might be helpful if you offered specifics and sources.

You do have a habit of making sweeping generalisations about Christian history and Christianity, so actually backing up some of these discussion points with specific citations and quotes could be helpful.

And I'm really not sure as to whether prohibitions on tobacco and smoking are necessarily wholly a religious issue; not unless you think the existing smoking bans in public spaces in much of the industrialised west (and here in Dubai, for that matter) are primarily motivated by theological objections.

[Murkwood]

So what about tobacco?

I was quite surprised when I found out, that Church tried to ban tobacco, then regulate it at very least, and tobacco users were often punished, even by penalty of death in some more rigid places like Russia (especially by very conservative 'Old Believers').
It mostly changed in 17th and 18th century when tobacco became too valuable product to try ban it.

It might be helpful if you offered specifics and sources.

You do have a habit of making sweeping generalisations about Christian history and Christianity, so actually backing up some of these discussion points with specific citations and quotes could be helpful.

And I'm really not sure as to whether prohibitions on tobacco and smoking are necessarily wholly a religious issue; not unless you think the existing smoking bans in public spaces in much of the industrialised west (and here in Dubai, for that matter) are primarily motivated by theological objections.

Many people like to tack religion to secular issues.