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Author Topic:   The Clergy Project
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3990
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 6.9


Message 61 of 151 (263515)
11-27-2005 2:42 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by jar
11-26-2005 11:48 PM


Re: Definition of Christian
jar writes:
Yes, people can claim anything. They can claim to have the correct interpretation of the Bible. Means nothing in itself.
True. Some of the most hateful people I know claim to be Christians.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by jar, posted 11-26-2005 11:48 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 2:53 PM Omnivorous has replied
 Message 78 by iano, posted 11-28-2005 11:58 AM Omnivorous has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 421 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 62 of 151 (263519)
11-27-2005 2:53 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by Omnivorous
11-27-2005 2:42 PM


Re: Definition of Christian
And I would say that they are Christians. Anyone that professes a belief in Christ as Saviour is a Christian.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Omnivorous, posted 11-27-2005 2:42 PM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by Omnivorous, posted 11-27-2005 4:36 PM jar has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3990
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 6.9


Message 63 of 151 (263534)
11-27-2005 4:36 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by jar
11-27-2005 2:53 PM


Re: Definition of Christian
Sounds fair to me.
However, I am assured by iano and Faith (and many other professed Christians) that this is not the case.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 2:53 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 5:12 PM Omnivorous has not replied

  
purpledawn
Member (Idle past 3484 days)
Posts: 4453
From: Indiana
Joined: 04-25-2004


Message 64 of 151 (263542)
11-27-2005 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by DorfMan
11-27-2005 8:26 AM


Re: Definition of Christian
quote:
'Come let us reason together' - you may be a very bad boy, but I can make it alright........is your limit.
Faith is actually correct in her understanding of that verse.
While I agree that one should not blindly accept what the authors of the Bible wrote, the verse you used does not support your statement below.
quote:
But - 'come let us reason together' is an invitation with infinite possibilities as are God's possibilities infinite.
It was a very specific invitation.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. -Eleanor Roosevelt-

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by DorfMan, posted 11-27-2005 8:26 AM DorfMan has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by DorfMan, posted 11-28-2005 9:16 AM purpledawn has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 421 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 65 of 151 (263549)
11-27-2005 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Omnivorous
11-27-2005 4:36 PM


Re: Definition of Christian
However, I am assured by iano and Faith (and many other professed Christians) that this is not the case.
Yes, the no true scottsman fallacy and willfull ignorance rolled into one package.
People like Faith, buz, iano, WILLOWTREE, almost all of what is described as the Conservative Christian movement, never face reality. Instead, they love to just toss out any evidence that might threaten their beliefs. This is simply another acknolwedgement that their position is so weak, their faith and beliefs so weak, their religion so weak that it cannot withstand any challenge.
This is also the reason that so many of them favor separate schools for their children. They know that unless they shelter their kids from reality, hide them away in a fantasyland were they can keep them ignorant and unexposed to reality, they kids might actually learn to think.
They hope to create a self-defined, self-imposed ghetto.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Omnivorous, posted 11-27-2005 4:36 PM Omnivorous has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by iano, posted 11-28-2005 11:52 AM jar has not replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6723 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 66 of 151 (263551)
11-27-2005 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by jar
11-26-2005 12:24 AM


Falling away
More crap. It's a list of clergy. To say that they are liberal clergy is simply more spin doctoring per your usual posts and tactics. They are clergy, normal, middle of the road, conservative Christian clergy. The difference is that they are not another "The Bible according to Faith' cult.
I agree with you on the numbers who believe in literal creationism. It supports what the Bible fortells of a great falling away by the church. If you can attack the Bible at it's very core and prove or demonstrate that it is incorrect in it's assesment of how we got here, the entire credibility of the Bible is destroyed. Since according to the Bible, the first 5 days of creation were only witnessed by God, then if the account is wrong, then what else could you believe in the book.
So the only other way to preserve any credibility in the Bible is to alogorize these accounts and subscribe to evolution via mainstream science, and then attempt to salvage the rest of the Bible as some kind of grown up bedtime story that is meant to convey God's message to mankind in the form of short stories. But that comes accross as very watered down and something not the product of a supreme creator and so over time all usefullness of the Bible will be extinguished.
I would predict that the same members who signed this letter are moving ever closer to surrendering most of the other positions that the Bible expounds on in view of a broader more liberal open position. These members will likely be pivotal players in the World Ecuminical Church movement which is the logical progression once you break away from the moorings of the Genesis accounts.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by jar, posted 11-26-2005 12:24 AM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 5:22 PM Lizard Breath has replied
 Message 75 by nator, posted 11-28-2005 9:50 AM Lizard Breath has not replied
 Message 87 by Minnemooseus, posted 11-28-2005 3:03 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 421 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 67 of 151 (263554)
11-27-2005 5:22 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Lizard Breath
11-27-2005 5:15 PM


Re: Falling away
But they are not falling away. They are in the church. What makes you think they are the ones falling away and not those who exhibit willfull ignorance like the Young Earth Creationists?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 5:15 PM Lizard Breath has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 6:34 PM jar has replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6723 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 68 of 151 (263570)
11-27-2005 6:34 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by jar
11-27-2005 5:22 PM


Re: Falling away
It has been my experience with those like you have listed that they are the same ones who hold a very loose grip on foundational doctrinal truths of the Bible. Once you are willing to get astray from the literal meaning of the Genesis Account, then all of the other doctinal positions are game for molding and adaptation to the whims of society.
If the 6 day Genesis account is true, then the purpose of the creation of the Earth was a habitat for man. Man is God's central creation according to the Bible. If Evolution is true and the Earth is actually 4.5 billion years old and the product of a first generation star super nova, then man isn't the central creation of God and the rest of the Bible is nonsense. Man would be one of millions of living bi-products that occured via evolution. So to have man as just another bi-product, yet for some reason God take special interest in him and send his son to die for him - sounds like a psychotic creator to me.
Yet even if evolution is the machine that gets us here, it is highly organized in it's movement and is guided by some unseen force. Whatever that force is, for it to take special interest in one very small component of evolution, man, and come down to Earth in the form of man and die a death to redeem him makes no logical sense.
So therefore if evolution is the truth, then logically there is no supreme creator or at least none dumb enough to die a horrible death to redeem something that came about by chance. So why after acknowledging evolution as fact, would you attempt to "Dumb Down God" by saying that the other teachings in the Bible are relevant?
God revealing himself to Man makes no sense. God giving a law to Man makes no sense. God blessing man makes no sense. God taking on the form of man makes no sense. God dying for man is complete absurdity. So what do you have once you accept evolution from the Christian Church prospective. Nothing. And once this plays out and runs it's course with the people, then a world wide ecuminical church that is focused on the benefit of humans instead of the worship of God will take the traditional churches's place - as foretold in the Bible.
The 6 day creation account places the Earth as a specially created habitat, Man as a specially created being in the midst of creation, and the primary purpose of man is to have fellowship with the Creator. Evolution places man at the tail end of a long mutation/adaptation/natural selection train where there is no logical room for a devine Creator to take special interest in.
This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 11-27-2005 06:35 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 5:22 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 6:41 PM Lizard Breath has replied
 Message 72 by mike the wiz, posted 11-27-2005 8:24 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 421 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 69 of 151 (263574)
11-27-2005 6:41 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Lizard Breath
11-27-2005 6:34 PM


Re: Falling away
Lots of words, but no meaning.
What does any of that have to do with the question asked?
How do you tell that those who signed the document are the ones falling away as opposed to those who show willfull ignorance?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 6:34 PM Lizard Breath has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 7:02 PM jar has replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6723 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 70 of 151 (263582)
11-27-2005 7:02 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by jar
11-27-2005 6:41 PM


Re: Falling away
I can't answer it any more clearly. If you accept evolution, then you are wasting your time persueing the God of the Bible. They cannot coexist.
They are opposing messages. One places man at the center. the other places him at the end. One is right, the other is wrong. They cannot both be right or both be wrong.
You can't root for both teams in a game. You can't go to the Fiesta Bowl and hope Notre Dame and Ohio State both win. Same here.
The message of the Bible does not allow enough room for anything other then special creation for the Earth and Man. If you resign these, then you remove the foundation of the Bible. The rest of the message crumbles. So eventually these who subscribe to Evolution will toss away more and more crumbs until they are left with a religion humanistic in nature and ecumenical in flavor.
They have fallen away from the Bible and God's message. The ones who continue to reject modern science's explanation aka evolution are the ones who are holding true to the Bible.
They will continue to fall away in ever greater numbers until there is only a small fraction of people left. The Bible acurately forsees this happening when Jesus said that narrow is the way to eternal life and few ever find it. It's not that there isn't enough room for everyone to find it, but the broad way - evoulution is far eaiser to live with, especially now.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 6:41 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by jar, posted 11-27-2005 7:08 PM Lizard Breath has not replied
 Message 84 by bkelly, posted 11-28-2005 12:23 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 421 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 71 of 151 (263583)
11-27-2005 7:08 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Lizard Breath
11-27-2005 7:02 PM


Re: Falling away
I can't answer it any more clearly. If you accept evolution, then you are wasting your time persueing the God of the Bible. They cannot coexist.
So says Lizard Breath.
But that does not answer the question I asked. All you are doing is expressing the gospel according to Lizard Breath.
From the resolution:
Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible - the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark - convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.
So there is nothing in there that indicates that those who signed do not accept the Bible

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 7:02 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 72 of 151 (263605)
11-27-2005 8:24 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Lizard Breath
11-27-2005 6:34 PM


Re: Falling away
Whatever that force is, for it to take special interest in one very small component of evolution, man, and come down to Earth in the form of man and die a death to redeem him makes no logical sense.
Neither does your post. It's full of appeals to consequences, slippery slope fallacies and the fallacy of composition.
Your stance seems similar to the typical fallacious YEC argument.
Jar contradicts your claim as he has believed for many years, without putting stock in literal and scientific interpretations of text. So he's taking his time to "run the course" you erroneously posited that was being "played out".
What Jesus said about the few, pertains to sin. It has nothing to do with creationism.
You are partaking ot the tired old false dichotomy;
Believe in evolution and be atheist, or believe in creationism and Jesus
This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 11-27-2005 08:25 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 6:34 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
DorfMan
Member (Idle past 6108 days)
Posts: 282
From: New York
Joined: 09-08-2005


Message 73 of 151 (263713)
11-28-2005 9:16 AM
Reply to: Message 64 by purpledawn
11-27-2005 4:56 PM


Re: Definition of Christian
quote:
'Come let us reason together' - you may be a very bad boy, but I can make it alright........is your limit.
Faith is actually correct in her understanding of that verse.
While I agree that one should not blindly accept what the authors of the Bible wrote, the verse you used does not support your statement below.
quote:But - 'come let us reason together' is an invitation with infinite possibilities as are God's possibilities infinite.
It was a very specific invitation.
ROFL

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by purpledawn, posted 11-27-2005 4:56 PM purpledawn has not replied

  
DorfMan
Member (Idle past 6108 days)
Posts: 282
From: New York
Joined: 09-08-2005


Message 74 of 151 (263717)
11-28-2005 9:31 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Funkaloyd
11-27-2005 7:56 AM


Re: Definition of Christian
quote:
A Christian believes at least the basics as described in various creeds and confessions, and is a Bible-believer
But not only is there no consensus among those who call themselves "Christians" as to what the basics are, there isn't even agreement over what constitutes Canon.
But, not only is there no consensus among all who call themselves "Americans" as to what the basics are, there isn't even agreement over how to uniformly interpret the constitution, etc.
It seems no one can figure out that what Christian is, is as defineable as what American is, or Koranist, or - or - or.......

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Funkaloyd, posted 11-27-2005 7:56 AM Funkaloyd has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by nator, posted 11-28-2005 9:55 AM DorfMan has replied
 Message 91 by Funkaloyd, posted 11-28-2005 9:56 PM DorfMan has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2197 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 75 of 151 (263723)
11-28-2005 9:50 AM
Reply to: Message 66 by Lizard Breath
11-27-2005 5:15 PM


Re: Falling away
LB, can you drink any deadly thing without harm, and can you heal disease by laying your hands on a person?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by Lizard Breath, posted 11-27-2005 5:15 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
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