Why Y'all Never Listen To Me

Post Reply New Topic

True, another topic. But very briefly consider 1 John 4:1-3--"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now."

That's just one passage on false teaching, and there are others that are basically a variation or expansion on a theme. Keep in mind Christianity predated the Bible by some nearly 30 years until the gospels and epistles had been penned and distributed individually among various groups and collected in a bound volume beginning in the 2nd century (it already existed long before the 300's, and the decision to adopt those books of the Bible as canon only served the purpose of "making it official"). Having originated as separate independent recollections of events and instructions/encouragement to churches and church leaders, it is the earliest codified account of the teachings of Jesus and His disciples. It is therefore the BEST single authority or authoritative compilation of sources that directly reveal what it was Jesus taught. Anyone claiming to be a Christian who says something contrary to what is written is not professing Christianity according to Jesus. If you WANT Christianity and authentic Christian teaching, you need the Bible because it presents the message of Christ as intended.

Without understanding those teachings, things get really messed up. Two extremes: One person makes the claim that in the NT that, for example, "God Hates F@&z" while another says "God is love and accepts homosexuality." Homosexuality has deep ties with idolatry and is forbidden. But claiming that God wants Christians with torches and pitchforks to round up gays and kill 'em all is a total perversion of the NT message. Convert them if they are willing to convert, but not to kill them, and certainly no forced conversions. God shows mercy, therefore we also are to show mercy. God's mercy does NOT mean, however, that it is Biblically acceptable or that God finds it acceptable. So while the first statement is wrong, so is the second in that the Bible expressly condemns the behavior. I would be right as a Christian to ask someone to show me where the Bible encourages that behavior--at which point I would proceed to explain how their interpretation is altered from a straight reading of the Bible to mean whatever that person wants it to mean. If they said NOWHERE does the Bible condemn homosexuality, I would proceed to look for scriptural passages that DO reveal a prohibition against it.

Just being "spiritual" sounds all well and good. You're at least headed in the right direction as someone who is seeking God (or SOMETHING, I don't know the particulars of what you believe). You haven't closed your mind off to the possibilities. However, the way I see it you are at best guessing or just making it all up. People have been around a long time and have explored "spirituality" in so many different ways. There's no shame in finding a connection with one religion or certain religions more than others. If there is some truth to what they teach on the surface, they are worthy of deeper exploration. Common beliefs help people understand spirituality in a unified way, and codifying the wisdom of a particular discipline helps strengthen that unity. So I think having evidence based on one perspective is preferable to "just making stuff up." Similarly, if I'm critical of Islam, the best plan of attacking Islamic views is through attacking the scriptural basis for that religion--the Koran. Consistency is key to any religion observance, and a codified scriptural basis is the #1 best way to try to support a particular viewpoint as friendly to the religion.

I'm kind of just making it up as I go along. My spiritual thought is a synthesis. I am not a Christian, although Christianity has a place in my framework. I don't think we can really say with any authority that the canonical Bible is what Jesus would have intended. It is what a political organization in the 4th century intended... My understanding of Jesus is that he was anti-establishment. It seems more likely that he wouldn't have appreciated the process of violently suppressing the writings of his followers in order to consolidate political power.

OK, but the problem is that the the "canon" was already widely disseminated well before the 4th century. Show me (here it comes) where it is written in the canon that the purpose of Christ's teachings were to consolidate political power. If His follower's writings were censored or edited to support political gain, then something would have to have been written to encourage total obedience to ruling authority.

You might argue that it is written that Christians are to submit to government authorities. But you also have to understand that the political climate of the 1st century was such that the Romans already had their minds made up that Christians were anti-establishment trouble-makers. Freedom from slavery is a Christian value (it says so in the Bible). So if Christians went on the warpath to abolish an established and accepted institution on which the Roman empire depended, it would have confirmed in the minds of the Romans what they thought they already knew: that Christians were bent towards driving the empire into chaos and disarray, threatening the Romans' very lifestyle and economy. Christians were warned NOT to do this, that living exemplary lives and standing trial under persecution opened the door to witnessing to the very authorities that oppressed them--in order to SAVE them, not to destroy them. Christians, then, are to submit to authority EXCEPT when doing so means paying obeisance to other deities or worshiping a ruler as a god, among other compromises to faith. What the Bible does NOT do is establish one church or one organization as THE church or THE organization, declaring it infallible, and setting it up as a ruling authority over all the world. That this has happened in the past is a work of human activity and has no scriptural basis. Wouldn't you upon a good reading of the NT agree that coercion and twisting scripture in order to support a political cause is not a very Christ-like thing to do?

You might also argue that Jesus taught His followers in regard to the Pharisees to "do as they say and not as they do." The reasoning behind this was that they "stand in the place of Moses." This means they taught and interpreted Torah in a world that at the time was largely illiterate. Nothing they read from the law was untrue, and they did function in their ceremonial capacity. They were a necessary part of religious life, and it was God's will that they serve in that function. What they SAID was true, and Jesus instructed His disciples to learn from them and do what they said. What they DID, however, was observe the law in such a way that the emphasis was on their separation from sinners rather than acting on their behalf and in their interests. They might have THOUGHT they were following the laws of God, but their motivations were their own self-righteousness rather than the love of God and their own people. By separating themselves from the people, they essentially "closed the door of the kingdom of heaven" to the people. At times, the Catholic church has been guilty of the same. After a careful reading of the canonical gospels, would you agree that self-righteous behavior of religious "authorities" is also not Christ-like?

Some general considerations: You asserted that, according to your understanding, that Jesus was anti-establishment. Without some record of Jesus being anti-establishment, there's no reason for us to believe that He was. I'm not saying (yet) that He WASN'T--but I'd like to know on what basis one can make the claims that Jesus was anti-establishment. Do you have any reference at all to indicate such, whether a Biblical reference or extra-Biblical?

I do respect that you're kind of "making it up" as you've admitted. This isn't a personal attack on you. I'm just challenging what you know on the basis of how you know it. It seems to me that the teachings of the Bible are contrary to some of the ideas you have about it. If there is evidence within the document itself that directly supports or justifies such abusive doctrines of religious organizations or governments, I'd love to see it. If you can't or won't make the references, why should I believe you?

One unwritten rule in this forum is the "Evidence, please" statement you'll see from time to time. The burden of proof in an intellectual discourse is always on the one making the claim, though there does seem to be some confusion about this. By that I mean some people believe that the burden of proof is on the person holding ideas they dislike or are unpopular. If someone positively says, "There is no God," they might mistakenly believe they can get away with such a blunder because the burden of proof is on those who believe God exists. On the contrary, by making such a statement, they commit to the idea and should be forthcoming in proving the statement. If I made the statement, "There is a God," then I WOULD be bound to support that statement. If your standard of proof is empirical evidence, you cannot prove either statement, hence why the assertion "There is no God" cannot be bullet-proof. I don't mind taking on the atheists from time to time, but after a certain point we just seem to keep repeating everything we've said before and it gets boring. But stray into matters of doctrine and the words of Jesus, you'll be in MY territory. Put words in Jesus' mouth that don't belong there or that seem a little "off" to me, I'm going to want to know where you got it. Even I have the right to ask for evidence when it is required.

"Making it up" is your business, of course, and that places YOU in the seat of spiritual authority. But even then if we're going to be convinced or convicted of something you hold to be true, we need to understand what your rationale is or what any underlying assumptions are that you may have. Obvious reasons aside, my main concern is being "spiritual" is lacking in consistency, which will make your views difficult to take seriously. You do better in discussions here if the discussion isn't one-sided--meaning you're just dictating to someone else what you think they should believe as true. Just being "spiritual" is a kind of grab bag mentality that says "Yeah, well, you know, I believe x, y, and z, but whatever..." I'm highly suspicious of that approach because it is dangerously close to the incoherent relativistic fallacy.

The backfire effect is utter BS.

ok, maybe it is true in the short term. I think that in the long term discussion and evidence does make people change their minds. The studies dealing with the backfire effect have all been rather short term (30 minutes, even).

I have changed my mind regarding thousands and thousands of things ever since getting in PPR.

Have you carefully weighed the possibility that you are just flat wrong 100% of the time?

statistically improbable to the power of a pink elephant

How about 70% of the time? I mean, even a broken watch tells you the correct time at least twice a day.

No, because even a broken watch tells you the correct time at least twice a day.

I received a lot of flak when I first started here, and honestly I stayed around because I knew I was right the entire time and they were just unpopular views, to say the least. I was not going to run away because I spoke the truth.

I am so pretty sure I am much ignored as well on this forum, especially the PPR, but not so much anywhere else. There are a lot of posts I make that are derailments anyway. Have you tried going other places here?

You should just set up a blog and invite people if you want them to listen. You have only been here a month anyway, so you might want to give it some time.

But a watch that is not set right never tells the correct time at all.

Funny youse guys with blauSamstag should saying that.. We were talking with Herself today - if the watch is inoperative, it is not so much that it is correct as that the hands point to the actual time [assuming nobody resets it] twice a day.

But a watch that runs but is broke enough to be inaccurate may point to the actual time MORE than twice a day or LESS than twice.

And if the hour hand is missing it will never point to the correct time.

In fact, I think you try to stay as far away as possible from reasoning or evidence. Reasoning and evidence is not your style.

Should have said 'stopped'.

But anyway, the hour hand is generally on the bottom, so the minute hand and, unless the seconds are on a subsidiary dial, the second hand as well would generally have fallen off by then.

(yeah, I'm an amateur watchmaker)

Back on topic, it's so hard to agree with dionysian when all he's doing is posting links to websites and quoting them verbose.

Hey, I paid enough attention to deny your existence!

I will just respond fairly briefly. I had written out a much longer post, but Windows decided it was time for an update and rebooted itself.

The political power that I refer to as being consolidated is that wielded by the newly formed church. Early Christianity was quite diverse, and there were many different ideas floating around. There was a concerted effort to narrow the scope of teachings, and limit the message to one which was acceptable to the most powerful Christians.

There is plenty in the bible about Paul's efforts at establishing the Body of Christ. While there isn't necessarily an endorsement of any particular church, one that can claim to be descendant of Paul can claim great authority.

It is interesting you bring up the Pharisees in this context. As you point out, religious leaders are often not very Christlike at all. This includes the early Christians that suppressed competing Christian views, deeming them apocryphal. And it included the imperialistic Catholic church that became the new Pharisees.

It's hard to believe that such un-Christlike people would have managed to stumble on just the interpretation of Jesus that he would have wanted.

Yes, there were the councils and the [of the time] Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

And certain beliefs / teachings were endorsed and others rejdected, all though of course they crop up again and again.

It is, I think, noteworthy that Gnostics do not generate splinter groups compatible with Nicene Christianity, while [think Jehovah's Witnesses] keep again and again spawning mutant spurs.

We are not likely to know if any of the rejected material was more worthy. What we actually HAVE of Gnostic material - not necessarily representative of what was rejected at the time - is certainly much more in tune with the mythic mind [see MY attempt at serious talk] than what got past Nicea.