Current Events > black science man is going full ham

(+) Yeah! (+)

Bump.

@ForestLogic, I'm genuinely curious. I'm not trying to fight you, I just don't understand what you are saying.

Dash_Harber posted...

Bump.

@ForestLogic, I'm genuinely curious. I'm not trying to fight you, I just don't understand what you are saying.

Look. I tried explaining this and we can't seem to get on the same terms for whatever reason, but I studied theology during my undergrad, so I can respect your desire to pick someone's brain on the subject die to studying Christianity yourself. (And again I apologise if I'm getting hostile but like I already said, it's incredibly frustrating to have your religion be accused of being too archaic because it's conservative, but then also hypocritical because it's progressive.) I'll try to organize this best as I can on a phone.

The Bible is not without err, we've established that. It says many things, much of which is contradictory.
So it's fair to say that not everything in it can be taken at face value.

The teaching that Jesus Christ is the Messiah does come from the Bible, yes, but of all the takeaways Bible, that story's pretty concrete. That's not up for debate. The Bible aside, Jesus existed as a historical person and is a pretty revered figure to many spiritual/religious groups outside Christianity. So it's fair to say Jesus was pretty damn special, though YMMV regarding how special depending on your religion or lack of.

Additionally what is not up for debate is the most important core belief of Christianity: the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and the significance of believing He's the Messiah. Once again, this isn't arguable, if you're a Christian. There's a million random scriptures and rules you can try and follow, but the big recurring theme is the concept that God let Jesus be crucified, and decreed that so long as you believe in Jesus and His sacrifice, you'll be saved/granted eternal life/however your want to interpret it.
So it's fair to say that regardless of anything else in the Bible, the belief in Jesus Christ's death and Resurrection is the basis and entire point of Christianity.

Believing in Jesus does not require you to take everything in the Bible at face value since we've established the Bible isn't perfect. I'm assuming your counterargument is "Then why take the story of Jesus as fact but not everything else." Well that's the issue you run into when trying to logicize religion. This is where religious faith comes into the picture, it can't be explained it quantified necessarily.
At very least, to try and put it into words, you can say the story of Jesus is probably the most consistent and most repeated theme in the Bible, and thus being more deserving of emphasis than 2 or 3 random out of context quotes about homosexuality or other controversial issues.
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Okay, but you are still ignoring my main question. You state that the reason for your particular faith is because of the Bible account, but then you say that you it's okay to ignore parts of the Bible.

The Bible is pretty clear several times that it's not to be divided or changed, but then you say that part isn't important, because even though the Bible explains that you are not supposed to ignore it, you ignore that part of it.

More importantly, I'm not asking for the importance of Jesus, I'm asking where your specific faith comes from if not the Bible. You state that Jesus is an important historical figure (no one is questioning this) and that multiple other figures put an importance on him (that's not entirely true, it's just the Abrahamic faiths, and even then, the degree of his importance varies from 'interesting guy' to 'savior').

The entirety of the messianic covenant is contained in the Bible. All of Jesus' sayings that you follow (I assume) are in the Bible. And as far as Jesus' story is the most repeated story, I don't know about that. The end of the world comes up a lot. The messianic covenant covers pretty much the entirety of the Old Testament.

Dash_Harber posted...

that's not entirely true, it's just the Abrahamic faiths, and even then, the degree of his importance varies from 'interesting guy' to 'savior

Nah. It's not just Abrahamic ones. Many Buddhists revere him as a bodhisattva and Hinduism dictates it was possible he was an avatar of Vishnu (or maybe Krishna, I forget). I actually casually practice Buddhism, after I studied theology in college. It's really cool how many major religions have a lot of parallels in them

Dash_Harber posted...

The Bible is pretty clear several times that it's not to be divided or changed, but then you say that part isn't important, because even though the Bible explains that you are not supposed to ignore it, you ignore that part of it.

You keep bringing this up over and over again despite the fact I keep reiterating that most Christians don't subscribe to biblical inerrancy. What else am I supposed to say?
I already addressed all your points in my last post and you keep asking the same questions, I assume because you just really want to have this AHA GOTCHA moment and are frustrated it's not happening, hence the necro-bump. I don't know what else to tell you, dude. Sorry I'm not a conservative Christian fundamentalist?

If you really want some insight on my personal point of view towards Christianity, look up some of Martin Luther's shit. Specifically 'simul justus et peccator' (which I have tattooed to my arm ) and 'grace through faith alone'.
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ForestLogic posted...

Nah. It's not just Abrahamic ones. Many Buddhists revere him as a bodhisattva and Hinduism dictates it was possible he was an avatar of Vishnu (or maybe Krishna, I forget).

Those are incredibly modern ideas that only come from modern mixing and exist mostly as fringe theories. Hindu (and Buddhism, for that matter) predate Christianity by some time (Hindu is actually one of the oldest known religions). Also, it would be Vishnu. Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu.

To say that it's a common belief is incredibly wrong.

ForestLogic posted...

I actually casually practice Buddhism, after I studied theology in college. It's really cool how many major religions have a lot of parallels in them

Seems like it'd be a difficult concept to mix with Christianity given that Buddhism is explicitly polytheistic and Christianity is explicitly monotheistic. They all do have some things in common. It's a broad statement, though, since their differences are remarkable, too.

ForestLogic posted...

You keep bringing this up over and over again despite the fact I keep reiterating that most Christians don't subscribe to biblical inerrancy. What else am I supposed to say?
I already addressed all your points in my last post and you keep asking the same questions, I assume because you just really want to have this AHA GOTCHA moment and are frustrated it's not happening, hence the necro-bump. I don't know what else to tell you, dude. Sorry I'm not a conservative Christian fundamentalist?

Okay, let me put it this way; all the concepts you have brought up are rooted in the Bible. They didn't just come out of thin air, nor where they passed down to you through some oral tradition. I'm not looking for a 'GOTCHA' moment, and frankly, I feel you are trying to undercut my arguments by making it seem like I'm some angry, snide, angstheist or something. Your constant reliance on talking down to me is grating, quite honestly.

Also, it wasn't a 'necro-bump'. I came back a few days later, noticed you hadn't answered my question and I was curious and didn't want it to purge. In fact, you still haven't really answered my question. I asked specifically where your personal beliefs come from if not the Bible, especially about Jesus and his role as the messiah. Evidently, you are unwilling to answer that so I guess I'll stop asking.

My problem is straight up that literally everything you've told me about 'your faith' so far is straight from the Bible. You then turn around and say, "the Bible isn't infallible or perfect". Why follow Christianity at all, then? You seem to hinge on the fact that Jesus is world renowned as some sort of messianic figure, but that isn't true, either. He's important in the Abrahamic faiths, with his importance ranging from being a cool guy to being the savior of mankind. As I mentioned above, the melding of Jesus into other religions is a very, very modern phenomenon and frankly requires you to contradict a lot of doctrine on both sides.

ForestLogic posted...

If you really want some insight on my personal point of view towards Christianity, look up some of Martin Luther's shit. Specifically 'simul justus et peccator' (which I have tattooed to my arm ) and 'grace through faith alone'.

Personally, I don't care for Martin Luther as anything other than a historical figure. His rabid anti-semitism is a real black stain on his role as a philosopher, in my books. More importantly, though, Martin Luther put a huge emphasis on people reading the Bible themselves (it was sort of a major point of contention with the Catholic church), so that sort of contradicts with what you were saying as well.