Theological Opinions , PART II

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Lief, it's hardly my fault you can't read Hebrew. Look up a Hebrew bible at some point, look at the passages in question. As for the LORD our righteousness, it's also not hyphenated (yhvh tzidkenu), and translated by Jews "the LORD is our righteousness" - meaning that people will celebrate the LORD when invoking the wonders he has done, not that he is the LORD himself. Same as you've got lots of Muslims nowadays lying around with names derived from Allahu Akbar, God is Great - doesn't mean they're God.

I suspect your translation is wrong for two reasons. First is that I checked out the major Jewish websites responding to Christianity on these passages, and none of them attempted to use this simple argument you have forwarded, though they used many others. I can't find anything on Google about this, for or against.

Second, my NIV Bible translation translates the scripture the way it does, and it is based upon the early Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts, and the translation was worked out by over a hundred scholars.

These things aren't a powerful refutation of your point, but they do leave me questioning it and with my hands tied as to finding evidence confirming or denying your position. Sometimes people translate in a purposely biased or misleading way, in order to support their theological perspective. I need to examine the validity of your argument more closely before I can accept it, and I don't have access to the information.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Just because two of your books (Matthew and Luke) can't agree on Joseph's lineage doesn't mean they aren't both trying to describe that lineage; there is no grammatical reason to read "being, as it was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Heli" and so on through all the "sons of" as anything but a list going back starting with Joseph, especially as the KJV has "Joseph, WHICH WAS the son of Heli" and so on.

The grammar of the sentence could just as easily refer to Jesus as to Joseph. As an English major, I can assert this, but you can see it for yourself if you look at the sentence in an unbiased way. And the differences between the genealogies would imply that it's the genealogy of Mary, unless you go by the assumption that a genealogy is wrong.

But if you're going to just assume that the Bible is wrong rather than proving it's wrong, then what's the point of a debate?

And I wouldn't go by the King James Version's translation over the more recent translations. The King James Version was based on the Textus Receptus, which was compiled by Erasmus.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Erasmus' first edition of the Greek New Testament was prepared in haste, because his publisher Johann Froben wished to beat into print the Greek New Testament being prepared in Spain as part of the great Complutensian Polyglot Bible project. Typographical errors attributed to the rush to complete the work abounded in the published text. Erasmus also lacked a complete copy of the book of Revelation and was forced to translate the last six verses back into Greek from the Latin in order to finish his edition. Erasmus adjusted the text in many places to correspond with readings found in the Latin Vulgate, or as quoted in the Church Fathers; and consequently, although the Textus Receptus is classified by scholars as a late Byzantine text, it differs in nearly two thousand readings from standard form of that text-type; as represented by the "Majority Text" of Hodges and Farstad (Wallace 1989). The edition was a sell-out commercial success; and was reprinted in 1519, with most - though not all - the typographical errors corrected.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

No school of textual scholarship now continues to defend the superiority of the Textus Receptus; although this position does still find adherents amongst Protestant groups hostile to the whole discipline of text criticism - as appplied to scripture - and suspicious of any departure from Reformation traditions.

I'm not saying that the King James Version is devoid of value. It has beautiful poetic language and certainly is accurate in many, many parts. It's just that there is a large enough error quantity in it that when it contrasts with more recent translations, which have been assembled through the studies and efforts of over a hundred scholars, there's really no comparison.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

I don't have any problem with someone calling the Messiah Abi-Ad, which is Eternal Father. It's a name. It's a highfalutin name. But it's not Avinu-Ad, which is OUR everlasting father, it's just Father in general.

Yeah, I can think of a dozen fathers right off the bat who are eternal .

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

The sentence in which you were completely confused about what I meant with Abraham is only confusing because you chopped my paragraph up. "He" in the 2nd sentence is Jesus, it's a conclusion of the paragraph.

Second sentence of what verse and chapter? Forgive me if you think I'm thick.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

As for right hand, let's start with Exodus 15:6 Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power

Okay, good point.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

David did not necessarily write the psalm in question, nor if he did did he necessarily write it for his own singing. It is a psalm "l'david" which can translate as from David (ie by David) or about David. In the latter case, my sovereign is David.

Psalm 110 was considered to be Messianic by the Jews at the time Jesus showed up, according to my NIV text note.

Which Hebrew Old Testament translation are you using?

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

As for names; I see, so there must be a literal child named the spoil speedeth, the prey hasteneth? Because every interpretation I know of takes that as a metaphor, introduced just to express how destroyed those nations will be; and I see no reason the next chapter can't be a metaphor for just how saved Israel will be. All actions trademark God Inc, YHVH sole proprietor.

Repeatedly in the Old Testament, God makes prophecies with physical people used as symbols for revealed truths. For instance, through Elijah he told a king at one point to slam arrows against the ground. The king did three times, and hence he was allowed to defeat the Arameans three times. Then there's Hosea, where the prophet is told to marry an adulterous wife, and Hosea's life takes on the symbolic role of prophecy involving the unfaithfulness of Israel.

The thing is, these passages are all written of as physical events. They aren't written in poetic form, and in no passage does it say they are visions, dreams or words from the Lord. Hence it would have to be a modern interpretation imposed on the text that says this was a non-historical event, a metaphor. When it's written as historical and interpreted as non-historical, we're getting into people deciding for themselves what their religion is and what their God is saying. They aren't hearing God and listening to him anymore, but rather are making up their own religion on their terms, rather than accepting what the Bible says. That's the major error of religious liberalism. It has no ground to stand on and rely on- only the slush of a swamp.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Oh, that's not true.

The formalities of the Church were considered very important to salvation.

To the protestants? I think you misunderstood me...

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Falagar

Of course, but the earliest complete versions of the gospels are (IIRC) from the second and third century. The fragments from before then show earlier dates for writing, but not consistency.

I've never heard of any manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts surviving from before the second century, but the early texts that do exist from then on show remarkable consistency. Which fragments are you talking about?

Originally Posted by Falagar

Also, even if a text is dated earlier than another, contradicting, text, there is still the chance that the later one may have been copied from a more reliable original thanthe other, etc. The earliest Christian scribes were usually 'amatours', whose writing skills could vary considerably.

Yet there was wide distribution at an early time period of texts with only minute differences. Whether they were amateurs or not, and even though the texts were copied from other texts, the similarities between the content of such an enormous number of manuscripts is amazing.

The more documents you have, over the larger an area of geography, the more you can cross-check them to work out what the original would have said.

I'll give you some sources.

Bruce Metzger got a master's degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, a doctorate from Princeton University, and was awarded honorary doctorates by five colleges universities, including St. Andrews University in Scotland, the University of Munster in Germany, and Potchefstroom University in South Africa. He has authored and edited fifty books, served as resident scholar at Tyndale House, Cambridge, England, as visiting fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, in 1974 and at Wolfson College, Oxford, in 1979. He is professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary after a forty-six-year career teaching the New Testament, was chairman of the New Revised Standard Version Bible Committee, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and serves on the Kuratorium of Vetus Latina Institute at the Monastery of Beuron, Germany. He is the past president of the Society of Biblical Literature, the International Society for New Testament Studies, and the North American Patristic Society.

I cited this background on him from page 57 of "The Case for Christ." In his words, "In addition to Greek manuscripts, we also have translations of the gospels into other languages at a relatively early time-into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. And beyond that, we have what may be called secondary translations made a little later, like Armenian and Gothic. And a lot of others- Georgian, Ethiopic, a great variety.

"[This matters] because even if we had no Greek mansucripts today, by piecing together the information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the contents of the New Testament. In addition to that, even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth of the early church fathers."

According to Metzger, "The quantity of New Testament material is almost embarrassing in comparison with other works of antiquity. Next to the New Testament, the greatest amount of manuscript testimony is of Homer's Iliad, which was the bible of the ancient Greeks. There are fewer than 650 Greek manuscripts of it today. Some are quite fragmentary. They come down to us from the second and third century AD and following. When you consider that Homer composed his epic about 800 BC, you can see that there's a very lengthy gap."

According to FF Bruce, eminent professor at the University of Manchester, England, and author of The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."

And according to Frederic Kenyon, the former director of the British Museum and author of The Palaeography of Greek Papyri, "in no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament." He further said, "The last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed."

Originally Posted by Falagar

Since every text was scribed individually each version does, in a way, constitute a variant. Most of the errors are probably small and inconsequential, but there might be big ones floating around that are hard to uncover (I mentioned a few probably councious changes earlier).

Could you repeat them for me?

The major doctrines of the Christian Church are repeated in many places in the different gospels and epistles, rather than confined to any single passage in any particular book. So if any variation did happen in the passage involving a major doctrine, this would be clarified by the other passages and by other books, including other "variations" of the same book.

Yet in addition to this, even the more significant errors didn't get close to damaging the credibility of the New Testament, because there is such a multiplicity of documents over such a broad area. In Metzger's words, "the more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the church." (The Case for Christ, p. 65)

Originally Posted by Falagar

All the variations don't really vary in meaning, of course, but there are a few that do. Another difficult aspect can often be to decide which differences were errors and which were 'original'.

Yes, and again I'd refer you to the multiplicity of documents.

Originally Posted by Falagar

I'm not sure where they got the 99.5 percent-figure, but I suspect that the figure depends a lot on which translation of the Bible they're talking about. King James's, one of the as far as I have gathered most popular version up until recent times, is based on a translatation of a greek text made in the early 16th century from ca 100 randomly assembled greek texts (well, most of it anyway - some passages in John were simply translated back to greek from the Vulgata - also, most of the time the translator relied on one or two of the greek texts he had available), among which there later was found up to 30 000 - major but of course mostly minor - inconcistensies (that's excluding the differences in word ordering). The start of the Gospel of John is f.ex. not found in any of the earliest greek texts (the only place where the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is explicitly lain out, afaik), but derrived from the Vulgata.

I agree with you that the St. James Version is based upon some pretty questionable material. Erasmus was racing through his compilation of the material, rather than moving in a careful and thorough manner. That's why I like the NIV and Revised Standard Version a lot better- they're based on the original Greek manuscripts, rather than on Erasmus' rather shoddy compilation.

The King James is beautiful, with elegant poetry and word choice. It does have more errors of it than the other translations I know of, though.

Originally Posted by Falagar

This doesn't "disprove" the New Testament of course, and most of it, depending on the translation one uses, probably reflects the original manuscripts (how well they reflect the life of Jesus is a different matter, but one I think we've already been trough ). Much of the "main-stream" doctrine of today is still derrived from earlier times, though, before one had any real text-criticism, and some of it isn't even from the Bible (like most of Satan's 'biography', which has its own history: most protestant denominations accept the Catholic tradition - sola scriptura be damned).

Eh? We don't accept Catholic tradition as necessarily divinely inspired. I bet it has several things right, but that doesn't make it divinely inspired. You'll have to give me a citation on that, if you're going to say most Protestant denominations accept it. Though that whole point is a tangent, as it's unrelated to Biblical reliability.

About your comment regarding real text-criticism, I'd again refer you to the multiplicity of documents and the work of the scholars I've cited. But I'd like to add to that the point that several of the New Testament books were regarded as scripture by the Early Church right from the get-go (In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter refers to the books by Paul as scripture), and so would have been carefully preserved on merit of that as well.

Originally Posted by Falagar

People will thus, IMO, interpret it in the light of what they've already learned is true, even though the early Christians might have thought them to mean something different. Also, since many passages can be interpreted in a lot of different ways depending on the translation of a Greek (or English, for that matter) word or what the word itself means in the relevant context...well, there's no wonder there has been so many different Christian denominations up through the ages.

The denominations differ over matters of interpretation, not translation. I think I don't need to add more to the points I made about translation, above.

Originally Posted by Falagar

A somewhat chaotic post, but I think I got at least some of my points across.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

You have not demonstrated skills in evaluating these sources.

This is how Peter Stoner (who did not have a doctorate) was described, in his professional life, by his friend.

Just because someone doesn't refer to him specifically as a mathematician doesn't mean he isn't one . His friend does refer to him as the Chairman of the Department of Mathematics, Astronomy and Architecture" at Pasadena City College, a position you don't get without knowing more than a little something about mathematics . Lol.

And here you go, if you want someone to refer to him specifically as a mathematician:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Peter Stoner, American mathematician, astronomer and Christian apologist

Type down Peter Stoner Mathematician on Google and you'll hit many other sites that also refer to him as a mathematician.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

And here? I believe you fall into this category and yet you do call yourself a Christian.

Which of my beliefs makes you think I'm not a Christian?

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

And what that tells me is, we differ on the definition of Christian.

I expect that that is true.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I'm not bored, but I'm really having trouble following this. What do you say you and I have a pint in the Teacup until the debate moves on to something we understand?

I sent you a post earlier in this thread about liberalism, number 721, that I'm eager to hear your response to . You responded to part of it, but you didn't finish!

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I don't think that the label "Christian" is important at all. How we live matters. Indeed, in the New Testament, descriptions of justice at the Final Judgment are focused upon people's actions.

That’s a better attitude than many fundamentalists. I hope you carry it over into everyday life.

How do these statements…

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

But it is true that God focuses to a large extent on the purity of his people. He wants to get rid of evil, sin, all dark actions and thoughts. The more people are freed of these things, the more joyful their everyday lives are and the more good they are as people. I've met some Christians like this, who truly live as God does, and they are very unassuming and are the kindest, most loving people I know. With some of them, love just oozes out of them. You can see it in their eyes and faces, can feel it, and it is there in all their actions.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Yet the basic religious viewpoint is this:
God gives grace to people. Then his purity fills them and their lives are transformed. Since their lives are transformed and filled with God, they then behave in kind, loving and pure ways. They sometimes mess up, but God teaches them steadily and purifies them. Thus their actions are right and those of people who don't have God in their hearts, and hence don't have his purity sanctifying and purifying them, often naturally come out wrong. Jesus said, "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." So if one is just living one's own life in one's own way, then what comes out of one's mouth and actions isn't likely to be the same as what comes out of the mouth and actions of one who has God in his or her heart.

Jive with these statements…

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

You've put your finger on one of the problems I have with free will. Free will means that humans decide whether or not they'll be saved. God saves, but people have to choose his salvation, which means God was not in control of their futures but instead left their futures to them, which is equivalent to leaving it to random chance from God's perspective, since his hands are off.

A God who predestines his creatures to be with him forever, and is in control of their futures and lives, is one who clearly cares about them intimately. He cares about them enough to ensure that those he has chosen reach him. Which means he is picking the "rat" up out of the cave and bringing it to his bosom, rather than waiting to see which one finds its way out.

That is another problem I have with free will. The emphasis on personal achievement. If we make our own decisions in our lives, choosing our own actions and fates, then while God calls to us and seeks that we come near to him, we always have the option of refusing. Hence our eternal destinies are in our own hands, and hence our salvation doesn't come only from God but also from us. And we also have the freedom to turn away from God at any time after the initial encounter, which means that our sanctification comes not only from God but also from us. In fact, to rejoice in salvation at all, we must have faith in ourselves, and in our own capability to hold to God to the end as he holds to us.

So humility is, to a pretty significant extent, voided. For it really is human achievement as well as divine intervention by which we are saved. Which, in my view, stinks.

It seems that by voiding free will, and also the ability for humans to be “good” of their own accord, the whole point of god’s creation is to create perfectly subservient beings. The actions of the humans themselves couldn’t be any more meaningless. It’s all about god. Why not just cut to the chase and create subservient beings in the first place?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Minus God, we have the pleasures of this world to immerse ourselves in, but these are potentially transitory. Pain is meaningless. Life is meaningless and without value. Morality comes purely from humans and only exists for the utilitarian ordering of society, but then, the ordering of society in utterly twisted ways is also acceptable, if it is useful for us. If it is useful for us to kill our children (I'm talking about outside of the womb, at the moment), that is perfectly acceptable. There is nothing of value in a child. In fact, if it is of value to us to kill anyone, that might be good (since all that is good is what is good for oneself on a personal level, when it comes down to it). Life as a criminal might make the most sense, if we can be pretty sure we'll get away with the crime and the gain is sufficient. Whatever I feel makes me happiest and I feel most benefits me is fine.

I’ve covered this before, but I’ll try a new angle.

Morality does stem from the “utilitarian ordering of society”, you are just not looking deep enough to see the beauty of it. The point is that it is never useful for us to follow "utterly twisted ways" and, in the long run, those who follow those ways fail ultimately.

I’ve played in bands for years. Whenever you jam with other people, there are moments where everything just kind of clicks together. You get into a groove that, while hard to pin down as any one specific thing, makes the music sound better than ever before, even to the non-musician. It’s the difference between seeing a band and saying, “that was pretty good” or “that was awesome!”

Some musicians almost look on grooving like that as a kind of magical, soulful thing. For some it’s even a “religious experience”. It certainly can be, but what is actually behind it is much more mundane.

When you play an instrument, you have your own talents: your virtuosity, your creativity, your energy. How much of each of these you have determines how entertaining you will be to others. You don’t have to have them all. Someone who is very energetic can make up for a lot, just as someone with a lot of technical talent can have zero stage presence and still entertain.

When you play with a group of people another factor enters that picture: your ability to interact and complement one another. I’ve played with some awesome musicians who are terrible in groups. They only play to themselves and expect the others to follow along. They can be entertaining, but they never really get that groove.

A band that grooves well is one where every musician really listens to and knows the other people he jams with. He knows what kind of fills a drummer is likely to play. He knows when to play hard and when to lay back so another member can take the spotlight. The result is something greater than the sum of the parts. It’s not just a few musicians playing together. It’s a Band.

Human society is the same way. The “magic” comes from the interaction of human beings with one another. The best human term for this ability to interact may be empathy. It comes from thousands of years of human societal interaction and is passed down by our parents and our parent’s parents. It’s the sum of human experience on this planet that has brought us to where we are, and is what will bring us forward.

It also includes religion, but much like the musical term "groove", religion is a just a name for the very complex human interactions that we have a hard time seeing for what they are. Or, if we do see them, we discount them because we can't believe that humans could bring about such a thing. The thing is, any one human can not. Instead, morality stems from humanity as a whole.

Ultimately, it is utilitarian. You don’t kill people indiscriminately because you’d find yourself dead in short order. You raise your children in a responsible manner so they will become positive contributors to society. The society you are also a part of.

It’s empathizing with your fellow human being and acting upon those feelings to better society and thus better yourself along the way. Becoming entwined with the world. Finding that social groove.

That’s a whole lot of meaning in my book, even if we end up as nothing more than a pile of dirt when we are done. Each and every one of us lives on in society for as long as humanity lives on.

And the humility is not before god, but before our own earthly history.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

the ways, you, Leif, depart, in my opinion, from the beliefs essential to Christianity would not be a productive activity.

The world is not a happy enough place, as it is.

*goes to look for a thread about Spring training*

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

To the protestants? I think you misunderstood me...

Read my whole response, hector.

Very important NOT TO FOLLOW. 's a joke...

[Count Comfect]

I think I'm just going to stop bothering with this argument, after this post, Lief, since you seem to ignore that my point is not to say that it is impossible to read the New Testament back into the Old, but that the Old can be perfectly well interpreted without taking Jesus as the Messiah or accepting a Trinity. I've found several translations, just by googling, that read "the Lord is our righteousness" not "the Lord our righteousness" - because Hebrew, like Latin, allows you to drop forms of the verb to be.

You also don't seem to bother to read what I say very carefully. "Second sentence of what verse and chapter?" No verse and chapter. Second sentence of the quote from me you had chopped out of my argument and then gotten confused by earlier.

And the Bible talks of many things as physical events which I doubt are so. I strongly doubt God actually wed Israel in a marriage ceremony, but you'll find that several times described without explicit poetry. I find the children to be just such a metaphor as well.

On the other note of Jesus' ancestry, I've also found non-KJV translations that read "which was [the son] of Heli" following Joseph. The Vulgate, done directly from the Greek, has "qui fuit Heli" (which was of Heli) and the qui quite clearly refers to Ioseph, the most recent nominative form.

[Lief Erikson]

Count Comfect, you have me very thoroughly outflanked on the language issues, as I don't know the Hebrew language. I haven't the resources to research your statements and find out whether you're right or not, or what other factors may be involved, and also I don't have the linguistic background with this that you have. So I'll have to bow out on this one, for now. You've won the first round, for your knowledge is greater than mine.

If I ever learn more about these issues and how the language relates to them, I may come back to you on it. At present, I know that there are many Old Testament translations that clearly state these different passages as "The Lord our Righteousness," and "his name shall be called . . . Mighty God," and from my perspective, maybe they're right! Or maybe your translation is better! I don't even know what the translation you're speaking from is. I can't judge whether or not the Christians are imposing their interpretation on these words or you are using a faulty translation, or are making some other error. So I'll just have to submit you've won our first round of this conversation. You're far more knowledgeable than me on this, at present.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

And the Bible talks of many things as physical events which I doubt are so. I strongly doubt God actually wed Israel in a marriage ceremony, but you'll find that several times described without explicit poetry. I find the children to be just such a metaphor as well.

The Old Testament never described the wedding as a physical event. Occasionally the Lord referred to himself as the husband of Israel, but when the Lord talks, symbols are much more frequent. That is not the same as when the Bible is actually describing physical events as a history.

On the marriage issue, I have a rather different interpretation. In my view, God invented human marriage as the symbol of the divine relationship between himself and humanity. So from my perspective, it would be the other way around . Human marriages are the symbol, and God's marriage with Israel is the real thing .

This view comes primarily from the New Testament, though not solely. The Psalms talk about how all nature reveals God's glory, and I interpret the Song of Songs as talking about God's relationship with mankind as well.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

On the other note of Jesus' ancestry, I've also found non-KJV translations that read "which was [the son] of Heli" following Joseph. The Vulgate, done directly from the Greek, has "which was [the son] of Heli" (which was of Heli) and the qui quite clearly refers to Ioseph, the most recent nominative form.

And the modern texts, including New Standard Version and NIV, are also taken directly from the original ancient texts. And they say differently. By their translation, it could just as easily be Jesus as Joseph that the passage is referring to, and hence it could easily be Mary.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

the ways, you, Leif, depart, in my opinion, from the beliefs essential to Christianity would not be a productive activity.

The world is not a happy enough place, as it is.

*goes to look for a thread about Spring training*

You're right- there is absolutely no point. I was being silly, by asking that.

[Nurvingiel]

This is a continuation of post #724.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Hold it, before I go into the problem, I have one other little comment. There are translations of the New Testament that date from the third and fourth centuries AD. There is a massive number of books of the Bible that date from very close to the time it was written. Those books have only miniscule variations between them. Modern Bible translations can be checked back against these ancient Greek texts. Also, the New Testament is one of the most solidly backed ancient historical records. So there is a lot of evidence that the Bible is handed down to us currently in about its original form. There are going to be a few small translation differences, but no big ones at all.

Like I said before, this is a huge relief for me. This removes a lot of the possibility of humans screwing stuff up.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Now about my problem with religious liberalism:

Your response to Gwaimir's point indicates that you have your own personal standards of morality which for you supersede the Bible's standard of morality. In other words, you trust yourself more than you trust the Bible, and if you and the Bible conflict on something, your views trump the scripture.

All the religious instruction I have had, including teaching Sunday school myself, was at a liberal church. That is the church that I grew up in, a liberal Anglican church, and an absolutely wonderful and loving place. My own moral views are what I learned from my family and from the church, and nothing the church has ever said to me contradicts anything in the scripture. So far, I don't see a problem.

Where my own moral code, the one I learned growing up, will "trump" the scripture is where I feel people have been interfering with the scripture (through misinterpretation or something else). It's not that my moral code is overriding the scripture, it's that what I learned of the scripture is not jiving with what people are telling me the scripture says.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Yet human views of morality are very relative. They change from culture to culture and person to person. How are we to know that we personally are correct? It could just as well be some atheist who says morality is a purely human construct, humans are without intrinsic value, everything is meaningless and there is no good or bad, right or wrong, righteousness or wickedness. So if the values we are to rely on come from humans, anyone might be right-Stalin might have been right in starving millions of his people to death for the sake of getting his economy industrialized-who's to say?

I agree that human morality is quite relative. But even the vagueries of human morality would never condone what Stalin did.

Our (you and I) belief in Scripture does not really anchor human morality. It does for us, but humanity is just as volitile.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

If morality is from humanity, it is purely relative. Amorality is the natural result of this, for if morality is relative, all value systems are equal, and as Rana puts it, equally invalid. A verrry scary and dark world is all that's left as the natural consequence of relativism and liberalism, and in it, the only rational conclusion is despair.

Happily, I don't see any danger of this happening as generally, different cultures are intertwined with a moral code that is passed on to the next generation.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

So think twice before putting faith in your own judgment higher than faith in the Bible . In doing so, you sever the only lifeline that is left to us.

Now that I've explained my belief in scripture more, what do you think?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

We have to rely on God's Word before we believe ourselves, or all is meaningless. And when he can, God makes clear to us what is right when we won't accept it initially because our own beliefs and biases differ. He makes the true interpretation of his Word clear to his followers through the Counselor he gave us, the Holy Spirit, who gives us true interpretation of God's Word. And listening to the Spirit give us interpretation is not about belief, but about a definite and sometimes astoundingly powerful experience that one knows is real. Just as real as things in the physical.

I agree.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

All the religious instruction I have had, including teaching Sunday school myself, was at a liberal church. That is the church that I grew up in, a liberal Anglican church, and an absolutely wonderful and loving place. My own moral views are what I learned from my family and from the church, and nothing the church has ever said to me contradicts anything in the scripture. So far, I don't see a problem.

Where my own moral code, the one I learned growing up, will "trump" the scripture is where I feel people have been interfering with the scripture (through misinterpretation or something else). It's not that my moral code is overriding the scripture, it's that what I learned of the scripture is not jiving with what people are telling me the scripture says.

I'm glad to learn you find the scripture completely true. There's something I don't really understand, though. How do you determine when a scripture is literal and when it is just metaphorical or symbolic, or other?

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I agree that human morality is quite relative. But even the vagueries of human morality would never condone what Stalin did.

Alas, I don't think that that's true at all. The whole Aztec culture was fully accepting of tearing the hearts out of human sacrifices. Hitler had the support of 50% of Germany, with his policies (though I don't think they knew about the Holocaust- at least certainly not about its scale). The fact that humans can condone what Stalin did is evident from the fact that he did it.

I think that our modern culture is doing the same thing with abortion, except on a far larger scale. You know my views on that. It is extraordinary to me how us humans can rationalize mass murder, and it boggles my mind that so many people in the West are accepting of the practice. Sometimes I think about it and try to grasp it in my head, but I always fail. I understand the views and arguments, as I've gone over them so many times on these Entmoot threads. But it just blows my mind that people can believe those things or accept those reasons as good enough, and continue to do what they do.

Many of the greatest crimes of human history have been committed because of some people dehumanizing others.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Our (you and I) belief in Scripture does not really anchor human morality. It does for us, but humanity is just as volitile.

I don't understand what you're saying here, exactly. Are you saying that morality is absolute and the scripture describes it, but that people have varying perceptions of morality that are often not scriptural, and hence are volatile, not anchored, and prone to error?

Or are you saying that we are anchored through scripture, but other humans have different forms of morality and are anchored through them? Are you saying all value systems are equally valid, or that all value systems that correspond with an absolute morality that exists and is revealed through scripture are valid, or that the truth of human morality supersedes scripture . . . or . . .

Plainly I'm not understanding what you're saying .

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Happily, I don't see any danger of this happening as generally, different cultures are intertwined with a moral code that is passed on to the next generation.

And these moral codes vary a lot from culture to culture, and disagree with one another a lot. For instance, many cultures for centuries have been strongly anti-Semitic.

There are parts of the US today, and a much bigger problem in South America, where gangs kill one another and have complete disregard for the value of life. That's a culture with very different moral values.

I believe human moral values are relative. There aren't general principles that everyone adheres to across all civilizations. I believe that there is one absolute morality, which is of God, and whenever anyone anywhere behaves in accordance with that spiritual law, they will benefit from it. Whenever anyone abandons it, they will suffer accordingly.

The reason human values are relative is that humans have rejected God and don't understand his ways. Most humans get some parts of God's moral law right and some parts of it wrong. When our views about morality come from ourselves rather than listening to God, that is relative and maybe we'll get it right and maybe we'll get it wrong. But the chances of hitting it on the button are slim, because humans have darkened understanding and evil in their hearts. And even if they could work out for themselves all that is moral and immoral, they could not follow it perfectly.

The scripture reveals the absolute morality. People cannot follow it of their own will, however. They might succeed in some places and fail in others, but they cannot behave in a sinless fashion required by the Law. For the law of morality is absolute and doesn't find sin of any size acceptable. That's why we need God not only to forgive us, but we need him to save us from our sin, which doesn't mean that he just says it's all right, but rather that we will cease to behave in sinful ways because he is in us.

What do you think? And which parts of this do you disagree with?

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Now that I've explained my belief in scripture more, what do you think?

What you've said helps me. I don't fully understand though, yet.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I'm glad to learn you find the scripture completely true. There's something I don't really understand, though. How do you determine when a scripture is literal and when it is just metaphorical or symbolic, or other?

Careful thought, study, and prayer. Not so much with the studying as I might like, but definitely a lot of thought and prayer.

The alternative to making the literal vs. metaphorical determination would be to take it literally all the time (and we both know how scary that would be) or to take it as a metaphor all the time.

What do you do? (I'm always happy to learn a new way to understand something.)

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Alas, I don't think that that's true at all. The whole Aztec culture was fully accepting of tearing the hearts out of human sacrifices. Hitler had the support of 50% of Germany, with his policies (though I don't think they knew about the Holocaust- at least certainly not about its scale). The fact that humans can condone what Stalin did is evident from the fact that he did it.

My poor, tired brain just can't grapple with this right now.

As a side note, it's illegal to deny the Holocaust in Canada.


More on this later.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Read my whole response, hector.

Very important NOT TO FOLLOW. 's a joke...

Sorry about that Count, I'm too used to laughing at my own jokes

btw, if you don't mind my saying, I imagine you looking like this:

[trolls' bane]

You imagine him looking like a choir of singing pipes on a pipe organ? Wow. *taken aback* *flashes off to somewhere else*

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Sorry about that Count, I'm too used to laughing at my own jokes

btw, if you don't mind my saying, I imagine you looking like this:

Damn, where'd you find that old pic of me...

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The Protestant Church in modern times isn't anywhere remotely close to what it was like back then, in terms of opposition to Catholicism. Now, as I have pointed out through the Ecumenical Organization I linked, reconciliation is developing and has been for a long time. There are still some Protestants who view the Catholics as pagan and the pope as the Anti-Christ, but I disagree with sisterandcousinandaunt that this number is "many." That is certainly not a view you hear expressed in mainstream Protestantism nowadays, and I think it's a rare one.

The basic trend is that the more liberal ones tend to be more Ecumenical, while the more conservative Protestants tend to be less so, fairly often going so far as to say that the Catholic Church is pagan and the Pope is the Anti-Christ. There ARE many conservative Protestants who hold this view; I can tell you from experience. The Wisconsin and Missouri Synod Lutherans, who, as I noted above, hold the Papacy to be Anti-Christ, number some three million adherents when taken together.

More commonly, you'll hear some people say that Catholics aren't Christian, and leave it at that comparatively mild statement.

Mild?

But the number that say that aren't a huge a percentage of the Christian population, I don't think. Else you can be sure that you'd hear the accusations flying on the major news headlines. Whenever something that sounds radical is spoken by a major group or is professed by a major group, it hits major headlines. The media loves to make fun of the church .

The thing is, that it's often the small groups, like nondenominationals, or independent Baptists, who tend to say that, so it isn't 'major groups', but it definitely falls within orthodox Christianity.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Eh? We don't accept Catholic tradition as necessarily divinely inspired. I bet it has several things right, but that doesn't make it divinely inspired. You'll have to give me a citation on that, if you're going to say most Protestant denominations accept it. Though that whole point is a tangent, as it's unrelated to Biblical reliability.

I believe Fal meant the tradition of the Biblical canon (which came from Church Councils), in which case the vast majority of Protestants most definitely accept it as true.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

the ways, you, Leif, depart, in my opinion, from the beliefs essential to Christianity would not be a productive activity.

The world is not a happy enough place, as it is.

*goes to look for a thread about Spring training*

Betcha I fall under many of the same categories!

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Where my own moral code, the one I learned growing up, will "trump" the scripture is where I feel people have been interfering with the scripture (through misinterpretation or something else). It's not that my moral code is overriding the scripture, it's that what I learned of the scripture is not jiving with what people are telling me the scripture says.

Drink of choice at the Teacup says that those times tend to coincide remarkably with where what Scripture says doesn't jive with your own preconceptions.

EDIT: Confusticate and bebother it all! I lost like 2/3rds of the post!

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Betcha I fall under many of the same categories!

I doubt it.

Sorry about the missing stuff. I hate that.

[sun-star]

On a sort-of related note:

Churches back plan to unite under Pope

Any thoughts? I'd love to see it happen one day, though I very much doubt it will be soon.