Christian Discussion Thread V

[Efraim-Judah]

Isn't INC Arian?

I think it's a cult.

Why so?

[Gim]

I think it's a cult.

Why so?

Again. Deviation from God's words and practices, but I'm not getting into this again.

[Jochistan]

Like with a degree above a bachelors and everything?

Yes.

PhD?

[Tarsonis Survivors]

No, that's entirely untrue. We DO know that zombies didn't roam Jerusalem, that the sun never just decided to hang around for an extra day, and that the world wasn't entirely covered in water up to the mountain tops less than 10,000 years ago.

History directly contradicts a number of Biblical claims.

Zombies.. What an innapropriate name for the holy people who rose back to life. A zombie is merely a mindless, carnivorous walking corpse, while true resurrection puts the soul back to the dead and then probably fully regenerates the body...

It is possible that God didn't flood the WHOLE world;instead, he could have flooded the populated areas.

Oh, and God can do whateve He wants. He could make sun hang around for a hundred years, if He wants to.

Meh...

GnI didn't say God couldn't, he said it didn't happen.

[Korhal IVV]

(Image)

Isn't INC Arian?

The INC believes that Jesus is not Divine, but merely human. Most of the rest of Christendom believes that He is Divine and the Saviour of the world.

[Gim]

Isn't INC Arian?

The INC believes that Jesus is not Divine, but merely human. Most of the rest of Christendom believes that He is Divine and the Saviour of the world.

So, they pretty much don't believe in the miracles He performed?

[Korhal IVV]

The INC believes that Jesus is not Divine, but merely human. Most of the rest of Christendom believes that He is Divine and the Saviour of the world.

So, they pretty much don't believe in the miracles He performed?

The only thing I know about the beliefs of the INC is that Jesus is not divine... So I don't know. Maybe you can ask an INC member yourself in the internet or just look at their writings, or their tv broadcasts (The Dating Daan and the Tamang Daan broadcasts)

[Gim]

So, they pretty much don't believe in the miracles He performed?

The only thing I know about the beliefs of the INC is that Jesus is not divine... So I don't know. Maybe you can ask an INC member yourself in the internet or just look at their writings, or their tv broadcasts (The Dating Daan and the Tamang Daan broadcasts)

I don't know, man. Reading articles related to the cult might be dangerous.

[The Alma Mater]

The INC believes that Jesus is not Divine, but merely human. Most of the rest of Christendom believes that He is Divine and the Saviour of the world.

So, they pretty much don't believe in the miracles He performed?

They could - after all, the Bible acknowledges the existence of magic. It just does not call it divine

[Gim]

So, they pretty much don't believe in the miracles He performed?

They could - after all, the Bible acknowledges the existence of magic. It just does not call it divine

Does that mean they think God did it, instead of Jesus?
Well, it is clear they deviate from the true words of the Bible, since Jesus is God.

[The Alma Mater]

They could - after all, the Bible acknowledges the existence of magic. It just does not call it divine

Does that mean they think God did it, instead of Jesus?
Well, it is clear they deviate from the true words of the Bible, since Jesus is God.

Sidetrack: is there actually any "cult" of christianity who believes Jesus was a challenger of God ? As in, a mere man who challenged God to get rid of original sin and won said challenge through a series of trials ?

[The Alexanderians]

Does that mean they think God did it, instead of Jesus?
Well, it is clear they deviate from the true words of the Bible, since Jesus is God.

Sidetrack: is there actually any "cult" of christianity who believes Jesus was a challenger of God ? As in, a mere man who challenged God to get rid of original sin and won said challenge through a series of trials ?

I would not be surprised in the least...there needs to be a rule 34 for religions or something. "If it's possible someone believes it"

[Gim]

Does that mean they think God did it, instead of Jesus?
Well, it is clear they deviate from the true words of the Bible, since Jesus is God.

Sidetrack: is there actually any "cult" of christianity who believes Jesus was a challenger of God ? As in, a mere man who challenged God to get rid of original sin and won said challenge through a series of trials ?

I don't know, since I don't study cults.

[Idzequitch]

Question on the Flood for someone more qualified to answer than I am:
The great flood happens in Genesis 6. The Tower of Babel does not happen until later, in Genesis 11, so mankind hadn't spread across the Earth yet, according to the Biblical narrative. Is it not possible that the flood only encompassed the entire known world? This would only require severe flooding in the Middle East, perhaps extending a bit toward Europe. This seems more realistic than the more difficult to believe full earth flood. In addition, it solves the problem of how two of all the animals fit on the ark. Only ones indigenous to the Middle East would have been there, because there was no danger of mass extinctions elsewhere.

Thoughts?

[Gim]

Question on the Flood for someone more qualified to answer than I am:
The great flood happens in Genesis 6. The Tower of Babel does not happen until later, in Genesis 11, so mankind hadn't spread across the Earth yet, according to the Biblical narrative. Is it not possible that the flood only encompassed the entire known world? This would only require severe flooding in the Middle East, perhaps extending a bit toward Europe. This seems more realistic than the more difficult to believe full earth flood. In addition, it solves the problem of how two of all the animals fit on the ark. Only ones indigenous to the Middle East would have been there, because there was no danger of mass extinctions elsewhere.

Thoughts?

Although I think there may have been a significant chronological gap between when the flood occurred and when the tower was built, I still think, according to some scientific studies, the Biblical flood was only local, re-inforcing the notion that it occurred in the known world.
http://ncse.com/rncse/29/5/yes-noahs-fl ... hole-earth

[Constantinopolis]

Another multi-reply, coming right up:

I don't see how avoiding premarital sex would be a problem for anyone on NSG, though.

Took down the whole ship with yourself did ya?

Stop right there.

Think about the implications of this joke. Yes, I know it's one of the most common jokes on the internet, and seems utterly innocent. Joking about how people who spend a lot of time online (or playing computer games, or being otherwise "nerdy") don't have sex. It's funny, of course, especially when we use it in a self-deprecating manner like that, but leaving aside the fact that it's funny, think about the implications.

It implies that having sex is an achievement. And therefore being a virgin, or otherwise not having sex, is a personal failure. It's an unfortunate state that some people find themselves in, against their will. Thus, the joke perpetuates the stereotype that everyone wants to have lots of sex, and this is a good thing, and the people who don't do it are at best weird, or at worst losers who can't get laid.

Well, screw that. (pun absolutely intended)

We should not participate in the cultural devaluation of chastity in any way. We should refrain from even making jokes which imply that being a virgin, or otherwise not having sex, is a bad thing or an undesirable thing.

Chastity, not promiscuity, is the real achievement for a Christian. And we should always treat it as such.

It is explicitly prohibited. It is a sexual sin, every bit as serious as adultery or homosexual intercourse or any other sexual sin. Personally, I think Christians should pay special attention to pre-marital sex right now, precisely because we live in a culture which shrugs it off at best or actively encourages it at worst.

This is not to say that we should condemn the people who have done this sin, any more than we should condemn those who have done any other sin. We are all sinners, and we must never forget that. But we should condemn the act of committing this sin in itself, and condemn it very clearly.

Ok, let me play devil's advocate here for a moment (Maybe I should choose different phrasing. This sounds slightly sacrilegious )
The Bible never does explicitly prohibit premarital sex, at least not that I'm aware of.

There are many things the Bible does not explicitly say, but which are implied in various parts of the Bible, and which have been part of the Christian faith since the very beginning. For instance, the Bible actually gives very little explicit information about precisely what happens to souls after death. Pretty much all it says is that some will be in a pleasant place with God and others will be in a distressing or painful place, and that's about it. All Christian doctrines about the afterlife that go beyond a simple "good stuff happens to some, bad stuff happens to others" are based on argumentation and logical deduction which starts from the text of the Bible, but does not limit itself to things explicitly spelled out in the Bible. Also, many of our doctrines are based to a large extent on Church Tradition and extra-biblical writings from the Church Fathers of the first few centuries.

Going back to the topic of premarital sex, what the Bible says is that "fornication" or "sexual immorality" (πορνεία in the original text of the New Testament) is a sin, and therefore prohibited. So what counts as πορνεία, you ask? Good question. The Bible does not get any more specific than that. "Sexual immorality" is a sin.

However, it was the common understanding of the early Christians, as noted by the Church Fathers, that πορνεία included all sexual acts done outside of (monogamous, heterosexual) marriage. Therefore including premarital sex, among many other things.

And all of the apostolic Churches - Catholic, Orthodox and so on - have ruled many centuries ago that premarital sex is indeed a sin. So, for those of us who are members of these Churches, it is a question that was settled a very long time ago.

In fact, at that time, the age of marriage and the age of sexual maturity were so close that they probably had little opportunity to do such a thing, which means there would have been little need to prohibit it. So, on what basis do you base your claim that premarital sex is explicitly prohibited?

It depends on what you mean by "at that time". The Bible was written over a period of approximately a thousand years. It's likely that, during that long span of history, there were periods when the age of marriage and the age of sexual maturity were very close, and other periods when they were not.

The average age of marriage can fluctuate up and down by as much as 5 years in a single century, as we've seen in Western culture in modern times. It's highly unlikely that it remained stable among the Hebrews throughout the entire millennium when the Bible was written.



In general, among ancient peoples, prosperity led to early marriage, and deprivation led to postponing marriage. That's because marriage meant children, so if you couldn't afford to have children, you didn't get married (and, in the absence of reliable contraception, you didn't have sex either, especially if you were a woman, since a pregnancy outside of wedlock would ruin your life at best and end your life at worst).

You do realize that the Mormon addition is a story about Jesus visiting a "13th tribe of Israel" who supposedly lived in America in the first century, right? And that they further tell a story of how these Jews (for whom there is precisely zero archaeological evidence) supposedly converted to Christianity, until some of them apostatized and God turned them into Native Americans as punishment? Oh, and of course black people are the cursed descendants of Cain and all that stuff.

It's not just an issue with a mere lack of archaeological evidence; if that were the case then there are those who could accuse us of applying a double standard. And, as I've noted before, if Jesus Christ is/was the miracle-working Son of God, then there's no particular reason why He can't choose manifest himself in person in the Western Hemisphere.

The issue is that the story outlined in the Book of Mormon is, archaeologically speaking, demonstrably false; that's a completely different issue than a mere lack of evidence.

It's something I've discussed in some detail here over the last six years, but the spoiler in the following post from 2014 seems to collate several of my older substantive posts on the issue: viewtopic.php?p=22415492#p22415492

The second detailed post in the spoiler is the one where I move on in detail from noting a lack of evidence to using the evidence to prove that the totality of the historical account outlined in the BoM is demonstrably false (other than the existence of a populated Western Hemisphere); that's an issue for the mainstream LDS church because they hold that account to be literally true.

Which, as I've noted before, is why I have more time for the Community of Christ, the second-largest church in the broader LDS movement; they don't hold the BoM to be literally true, and treat its account as allegorical. As to an allegory of what, I couldn't say since I don't know any members; but it strikes me as a more honest approach.

Thank you for the correction. When I said "...for whom there is precisely zero archaeological evidence" I meant to make a stronger statement, but it didn't come out right. I should have said something along the lines of "...which directly contradicts all established archaeological evidence".

Of course, the Book of Genesis in the Jewish Torah and in standard Christian Old Testament also contains some claims that, if taken literally, would contradict all established archaeological evidence. However, as most regular participants in this thread already know, the vast majority of Christians throughout history have not considered those claims to be literal statements of historical fact.

The mainstream Mormon Church, however, by upholding the Book of Mormon as historical fact, is in the same boat as creationism.

No one should feel offended or "stung" by statements that basically amount to "you should not have sex". Chastity is a very good thing. For many people (including all who are gay, but probably an ever greater number who are straight), chastity is their calling. There are precisely two Christian approaches to sexuality - chastity and marriage - and although marriage is the right one for the majority of people, the minority who are called to chastity is not tiny. It is, in fact, a sizable minority.

There have been Christian societies in history where 10-20% of the population was engaged in the monastic life (as monks and nuns). I would guess that the proportion of people for whom chastity is the correct approach hovers somewhere in that interval - ten to twenty percent (and note: you don't have to be monastic to live in chastity).

To live in chastity is a great and holy thing. The fact that our culture abjectly devalues the chaste life is a tragedy. Actually, it's more than a tragedy, it's an outrage. Christians should be actively - indeed, aggressively - celebrating chastity as a noble way of life. We should be aggressively pushing back against our hyper-sexualized culture, against the notion that you need to be having sex to be happy, against the idea that having sex is a measure of personal or social success. We need to celebrate - widely and openly - the call to chastity, especially in the form of the monastic life.

As a social theorist, I have to state that a such sexually repressive dogma is precisely why we have a "hyper-sexualized culture" (when it really isn't.)

Is that so? And yet, such a "sexually repressive dogma" was the norm in many human societies for many hundreds of years.

And I don't mean just Christian societies. There have also been Buddhist societies with a similarly large section of the population living in chastity. And others that I'm not aware of, most likely.

The modern idea that all humans "need" sex, in some sense, looks absolutely ridiculous in the face of history. In many parts of the world and at many points in history, there have been long-lasting human societies where the expectation for something like 80-90% of people was that they would get married and have a single sexual partner their entire lives, while the rest lived in chastity (typically religious chastity in some more-or-less-monastic environment). Of course, there were always individuals who did not follow these cultural norms - no culture is ever embraced by all the people born into it - but a few individual exceptions do not disprove the general rule. It is possible to have a stable, long-lasting human society with a culture based around the kind of sexual morality I support.

Meanwhile, it's still an open question whether the present-day sexual culture of the Western world can be stable or long-lasting. No society since the agricultural revolution has been as permissive in regards to sex as Western society is today. You have to go back all the way to hunter-gatherers to find anything close to what we are doing today.

This is not to say that present-day sexual permissiveness is going to cause any kind of social disaster, like some of the more deluded conservatives believe. No, no. That's ridiculous historical idealism. Societies don't rise and fall based on who has sex with whom. I simply think that our high levels of sexual permissiveness are going to fizzle out, and cultural norms will begin to slowly turn again in the other direction in a few decades. After all, there have been periods of sexual permissiveness in history before (although they did not go quite as far as this one). The wheel always keeps turning. All that is old will be new again.

This sexually repressive dogma is dominant in society?

Yes, but not in the way that you think, or the type of sexual repression that Constantopolis is arguing for. The best way to explain is that it is an unconscious sexual repression that exists in private.

Ah. So it's something we can't detect or measure, but you just know it's there. Got it.

And they ask us how we believe in God without proof...

[Tafhan]

Does that mean they think God did it, instead of Jesus?
Well, it is clear they deviate from the true words of the Bible, since Jesus is God.

Sidetrack: is there actually any "cult" of christianity who believes Jesus was a challenger of God ? As in, a mere man who challenged God to get rid of original sin and won said challenge through a series of trials ?

Actually, yes. Well, sort of

The Ophites were a sect of early Christianity, before the Church we know now actually came into being and the new testament we know now was fully compiled and agreed to be the central doctrine of Christianity.

They believed, like some of the other Earlier sects, that the God of the Old Testament was evil. Some early Christian sects held that Jesus, while a divine figure, was separate from that God.

The Ophites took it even further. Not only was Jesus separate with the OT God, he was always in combat with him. Jesus was the Serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to gain knowledge, so they would become independent from the harsh laws of the OT God. And his coming in human form/his teachings was his way of overturning the Laws of OT God.

And his death and ascension into heaven was his ascent to his final stab at God (sort of) . They believed he is seated at the right hand of the Father, but they believed from that seat he drains "The Father" of his power over humanity. Slowly making people free from "God"'s rule.

They still believed Jesus was a divine figure, though. And some other weird Gnostic stuff goes into it. But they're pretty interesting, I think.

[Korhal IVV]

Question on the Flood for someone more qualified to answer than I am:
The great flood happens in Genesis 6. The Tower of Babel does not happen until later, in Genesis 11, so mankind hadn't spread across the Earth yet, according to the Biblical narrative. Is it not possible that the flood only encompassed the entire known world? This would only require severe flooding in the Middle East, perhaps extending a bit toward Europe. This seems more realistic than the more difficult to believe full earth flood. In addition, it solves the problem of how two of all the animals fit on the ark. Only ones indigenous to the Middle East would have been there, because there was no danger of mass extinctions elsewhere.

Thoughts?

That wouldbe possible, and more believable than a global one.

[The Archregimancy]

Question on the Flood for someone more qualified to answer than I am:
The great flood happens in Genesis 6. The Tower of Babel does not happen until later, in Genesis 11, so mankind hadn't spread across the Earth yet, according to the Biblical narrative. Is it not possible that the flood only encompassed the entire known world? This would only require severe flooding in the Middle East, perhaps extending a bit toward Europe. This seems more realistic than the more difficult to believe full earth flood. In addition, it solves the problem of how two of all the animals fit on the ark. Only ones indigenous to the Middle East would have been there, because there was no danger of mass extinctions elsewhere.

Thoughts?

Well, yes; if you define the 'entire known world' as 'Mesopotamia'.

It's hardly a secret that the Biblical flood narrative is closely modelled on - in some cases directly inspired by (or, if you prefer, plagiarised from) - Mesopotamian accounts. Having Enki order his chosen follower to build a large boat in advance of the coming universal deluge that will be used to purge humanity from the face of the earth is common to the Sumerian flood myth of Ziusudra, the Akkadian Atrahasis Epic, and the account of Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh flood story. The Utnapishtim account is particularly close to the later Biblical version, but in many cases the precise same language is (in translation) traceable across multiple versions.

None of that's in any way controversial.


In any case, look at the extent to which the earliest literate Old World civilisations are based on rivers with a known habit of regular flooding; between Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and China [Yellow River], is it in any way surprising that an experience of flooding is common across early literate civilisations? Just Google 'Gan-Yu flood' or 'Manu flood'. The mistake that Bible literalists make is in assuming that this shared experience of flooding in the proto-historical period is somehow evidence of a single universal deluge.

[Nordengrund]

Question on the Flood for someone more qualified to answer than I am:
The great flood happens in Genesis 6. The Tower of Babel does not happen until later, in Genesis 11, so mankind hadn't spread across the Earth yet, according to the Biblical narrative. Is it not possible that the flood only encompassed the entire known world? This would only require severe flooding in the Middle East, perhaps extending a bit toward Europe. This seems more realistic than the more difficult to believe full earth flood. In addition, it solves the problem of how two of all the animals fit on the ark. Only ones indigenous to the Middle East would have been there, because there was no danger of mass extinctions elsewhere.

Thoughts?

I figured that Noah brought one pair of each kind of animal. So instead of putting two horned owls and two arctic owls on the ark. Instead he just put two owls and after the flood they spread out across the world and adapted to their environment, which is where we get diversification between each species.

[Luminesa]

Sidetrack: is there actually any "cult" of christianity who believes Jesus was a challenger of God ? As in, a mere man who challenged God to get rid of original sin and won said challenge through a series of trials ?

Actually, yes. Well, sort of

The Ophites were a sect of early Christianity, before the Church we know now actually came into being and the new testament we know now was fully compiled and agreed to be the central doctrine of Christianity.

They believed, like some of the other Earlier sects, that the God of the Old Testament was evil. Some early Christian sects held that Jesus, while a divine figure, was separate from that God.

The Ophites took it even further. Not only was Jesus separate with the OT God, he was always in combat with him. Jesus was the Serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to gain knowledge, so they would become independent from the harsh laws of the OT God. And his coming in human form/his teachings was his way of overturning the Laws of OT God.

And his death and ascension into heaven was his ascent to his final stab at God (sort of) . They believed he is seated at the right hand of the Father, but they believed from that seat he drains "The Father" of his power over humanity. Slowly making people free from "God"'s rule.

They still believed Jesus was a divine figure, though. And some other weird Gnostic stuff goes into it. But they're pretty interesting, I think.

And this, kids, is what happens when you read your Bible backwards.

[Luminesa]

No one should feel offended or "stung" by statements that basically amount to "you should not have sex". Chastity is a very good thing. For many people (including all who are gay, but probably an ever greater number who are straight), chastity is their calling. There are precisely two Christian approaches to sexuality - chastity and marriage - and although marriage is the right one for the majority of people, the minority who are called to chastity is not tiny. It is, in fact, a sizable minority.

There have been Christian societies in history where 10-20% of the population was engaged in the monastic life (as monks and nuns). I would guess that the proportion of people for whom chastity is the correct approach hovers somewhere in that interval - ten to twenty percent (and note: you don't have to be monastic to live in chastity).

To live in chastity is a great and holy thing. The fact that our culture abjectly devalues the chaste life is a tragedy. Actually, it's more than a tragedy, it's an outrage. Christians should be actively - indeed, aggressively - celebrating chastity as a noble way of life. We should be aggressively pushing back against our hyper-sexualized culture, against the notion that you need to be having sex to be happy, against the idea that having sex is a measure of personal or social success. We need to celebrate - widely and openly - the call to chastity, especially in the form of the monastic life.

As a social theorist, I have to state that a such sexually repressive dogma is precisely why we have a "hyper-sexualized culture" (when it really isn't.)

Just because I'm not having sex doesn't mean I'm "sexually repressing" myself. I'm a virgin. I've never had sex ever. But I still have totally embraced my femininity. I love being a girl, I love who I am as an individual, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and that's how it should be.

That's the difference between sexual repression and...well, Theology of the Body. Understanding
the latter brings one fulfillment and peace in life, knowing that I can totally and happily be a girl-sexual being-and I can express my sexuality in ways besides hopping in bed with people. The former indeed brings pain and confusion, but if we take the time to learn who we are and how beautiful our bodies are, we don't have to live and to be afraid of ourselves.

[Grave_n_idle]

No, that's entirely untrue. We DO know that zombies didn't roam Jerusalem, that the sun never just decided to hang around for an extra day, and that the world wasn't entirely covered in water up to the mountain tops less than 10,000 years ago.

History directly contradicts a number of Biblical claims.

Zombies.. What an innapropriate name for the holy people who rose back to life. A zombie is merely a mindless, carnivorous walking corpse, while true resurrection puts the soul back to the dead and then probably fully regenerates the body...

It is possible that God didn't flood the WHOLE world;instead, he could have flooded the populated areas.

Oh, and God can do whateve He wants. He could make sun hang around for a hundred years, if He wants to.

Meh...

Sure, God can do whatever he likes. That's theology, not history. That's kinda my point.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Zombies.. What an innapropriate name for the holy people who rose back to life. A zombie is merely a mindless, carnivorous walking corpse, while true resurrection puts the soul back to the dead and then probably fully regenerates the body...

It is possible that God didn't flood the WHOLE world;instead, he could have flooded the populated areas.

Oh, and God can do whateve He wants. He could make sun hang around for a hundred years, if He wants to.

Meh...

Sure, God can do whatever he likes. That's theology, not history. That's kinda my point.

i dunno, i think we can point to the leaning tower of pizza as archaeological evidence that the world came screeching to a halt one day thousands of years ago.

[Dyakovo]

Sure, God can do whatever he likes. That's theology, not history. That's kinda my point.

i dunno, i think we can point to the leaning tower of pizza as archaeological evidence that the world came screeching to a halt one day thousands of years ago.

Leaning tower of pizza?