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Author | Topic: What is Christianity? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
John 10:10 writes:
In John 3, when Jesus talked about being "born again" He implied that Nicodemus ought to know what He meant since he was a "master of Israel". So being born again must be something related to Judaism, not what you claim it is.
Reject this and you cannot be "born again" or a Christian.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
But there's plenty of reason for them to be mistaken. You don't need to turn every mistake into a deliberate lie. You cannot read through the NT without seeing that the writers firmly believed in Jesus' bodily resurrection. There is no motivation for them to lie.... The resurrection was also a convenient fiction for spreading the word. (In The Last Temptation of Christ, Paul is aware of the fiction but deliberately uses it for the greater good.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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GDR writes:
So are the gospels.
To use the "Last Temptation of Christ" as an argument against it is just a tad peculiar. It is a work of fiction based on nothing but the writer's imagination.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. You posed a false dichotomy: truth or lies. I pointed out a third option: fiction, which is less "true" than yesterday's news but more useful.
You can claim that they are wrong but there is no evidence for the idea that they believed they were writing fiction.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Sure there's a difference - but you don't know which it is. How would you tell the difference?
There is a difference between an author who creates characters,stories, and plots based entirely upon the authors imagination and a report on what an author actually sees or hears form those directly at the scene.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
What may seem obvious to you is not obvious because of its content but because of your beliefs. The clear distinction between fact and fiction is a fairly modern concept.
My point is though that they are written in a manner that is obviously not to be understood as fiction. GDR writes:
I don't doubt that the gospel writers believed the gist of what they wrote. However, they were also liable to embellish, such as claiming to be eyewitnesses to events that they only heard about second-hand. (There's a joke about a carpet-layer who noticed a bump in the carpet and pounded it out flat - only to find that the homeowner's parakeet was missing. I met a guy who knew that carpet-layer.)
I also contend that they believed it themselves. GDR writes:
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
I suggest that the question is not truth or lies but right or wrong....
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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CS Lewis writes:
CS was no stranger to false dichotomies.
Of this text there are only two possible views.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
Like the doctor who never gets sick?
ringo writes:
This was his specific area of expertise. CS was no stranger to false dichotomies.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Who has more personal experience with Long John Silver? You or me?
Would you be able to say that you have as much personal experience with Jesus Christ as CS Lewis did?
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
"Alive" is a fairly well-defined state. "Existing" is not.
So with regard to 'exist' you are spouting the same (I quote) "word salad" incoherence that you are accusing others of doing with respect to their description of God as being 'alive'.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
And you're just repeating yourself instead of addressing what I said: A well-defined concept is easier to "imagine or describe" than an ambivague one.
Well ambivaguety is as ever jar's only real defence.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Straggler writes:
You're missing the rather obvious point that belief has nothing to do with logic. A belief doesn't require logical consistency.
Blah blah blah... logical inconsistency... blah blah blah....
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Then why aren't believers more mindful than unbelievers?
Is it possible that God wants us to worship for our benefit rather than Hers? Sort of like an exercise in mindfulness?
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