Pick and Choose Fundamentalism

From your perspective it there is no connection. From my perception it is an example of self-sacrificing love. As has been pointed out we are going off topic somewhat so I'll be brief. Jesus was one of many who claimed to be the Messiah, (anointed one) during that period. In the majority of cases the would be messiahs were put to death bringing their movement to an abrupt end. Subsequent to their deaths they were just viewed as failed messiahs.When Jesus was put to death his followers assumed that He was another failed messiah and so they went back to their fishing and other occupations. Only one of them, (John) even showed up for the crucifixion. However, after the crucifixion this very suddenly all changed. Now his followers were prepared to commit their lives to continuing the movement, even to imprisonment and death. Something had to have happened and the most sensible conclusion to come to in my view is that they were relating their actual experience of the resurrected Jesus.Paul is another interesting character. Here was a Pharisee with power, influence, prestige, financial security etc who gives it all up to spread Christianity to the Gentiles no less. Not a great career move. I can't see him doing this on a whim.Here is a list of known messianic wannabes of that period. There is only one we still hear about today.1. Judas, son of Hezekiah (4 BCE)
2. Simon of Peraea (4 BCE)
3. Athronges, the shepherd (4 BCE)
4. Judas, the Galilean (6 CE)
5. John the Baptist (c.28 CE)
6. Jesus of Nazareth (c.30 CE)
7. The Samaritan prophet (36 CE)
8. King Herod Agrippa (44 CE)
9. Theudas (45 CE)
10. The Egyptian prophet (52-58 CE)
11. An anonymous prophet (59 CE)
12. Menahem, the son of Judas the Galilean (66 CE)
13. John of Gischala (67-70 CE)
14. Vespasian (67 CE)
15. Simon bar Giora (69-70 CE)
16. Jonathan, the weaver (73 CE)
17. Lukuas (115 CE)
18. Simon ben Kosiba (132-135)
19. Moses of Crete (448)

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I hadn't meant that to imply that King or Mandela were involved in the abolition of slavery. My point was that Christians were heavily involved in the abolition of slavery and that King and Mandela as Christians had also led civil rights movements. Sorry. It is largely my fault it got off topic.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Because we don't have a deistic God that created us just to leave us on our own. It is evidence of a God that cared enough and loved enough to continue to interact with the creatures he created in his image. Without the resurrection I'd be left with Judaism or Theism. Without the resurrection Jesus would be just another failed messiah.Obviously there was no one around at the time of creation. There were eye witness accounts of the resurrection. Is a metaphor or allegory fiction? I don't see the creation story as having been fictionalized.Most people are not going to devote their lives for something they don't believe in. I don't see that there can be much doubt that the disciples believed that Jesus was resurrected. Certainly you can argue that they were mistaken but there were still many eye-witnesses to the event that could have discredited their testimony if it was false.I wonder why I have a feeling that you aren't going to agree with all this.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

The biblical story begins with creation and ends with new creation. New creation being the new heaven and the new earth combining in a re-created existance. Christ returned to establish the roots of new creation as a part of God's plan for His creation. It is what you might call a necessary part of a long range plan.I realize that if one believes in nothing but our physical universe then all that is nonsense, but just the same we don't seem to have a problem in believing that dark matter exists. Without the resurrection Christianity is nothing but a set of moral values. It ceases to be a faith. It ceases to be Christianity. First off, I buy into the story because I believe it is true. I agree however, that loving your neighbour is still a good plan regardless of the resurrection.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Whether creation happened in six days or in 14 billion years it still happened. If there is no resurrection Jesus is just another would be messiah and all of his followers would just have gone back to thier knitting or fishing.Here is a paper that, if you are prepared to take the time, you might find interesting. It is by the current Anglican Bishop of Durham N.T. Wright. The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Problem

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I see your point, but fundamentalism is a very nebulous term and I think that most here would see it as the part of Christianity that insists on a literal reading of all scripture.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

This is the thing about fundamentalism. (At least by the definition that most would understand it here.) It isn't mainstream Christianity and never has been.If one is raised in a fundamentalist environment, and then decides to look more deeply into it, they are likely to discard all Christianity because they can no longer accept what I believe to be a distortion of it.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

It isn't always just a matter of how well you know your Bible. For example how do you explain to someone that the Genesis story is allegorical. How do you explain to someone that the people who destroyed Jericho and its inhabitants did so because either they needed to justify it, or they heard God wrong. I've tried telling people to read that in the light of the teachings of Jesus and explained how Jesus viewed conflict with the Romans but that thought is just rejected because it isn't consistent with a literal reading of the text.If one insists that the Bible is to be taken absolutely literally then there is no way to explain it to them in any other way.Incidentally I didn't accuse anyone of being wrong, I just said that it is my opinion that they are. (Splitting hairs maybe but it does give a different tone to the discussion.)

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.